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@bhrame
THE WORLD (THE STAGE) IS FREE AND WIDE. dual muse featuring anthy himemiya and utena tenjou of revolutionary girl utena (1997). written by meira (21+, they/them), with an emphasis on genderqueer identities, deconstructing colonized narratives, an examination of the gender binary as presented by eurocentric fairy tales, and understanding double patriarchy. low activity due to grad school. blog roll under the cut. rules and disclaimers.
one-liner starter call. hopefully they are one-liners, at any rate. specify muses etc.
an only slightly belated happy pride on this blog as well. here's to a world with no roads and the two frames that make me cry on sight
from Anne Carson’s H of H Playbook
[Text ID: "I think there is no such thing as an innocent landscape," / said Anselm Kiefer, painter of forests grown tall / on bones.]
anthy as a madoka style witch
being a lesbian is so dumb. this girl once sent me a photo of a rat she found in a dumpster and i imagined kissing her in a botanical garden
always will emphasize that anthy has been 14 for a very long time as opposed to insisting that she is ontologically older than she is. she is not. akio frames it to make it seem as though she is, that she is older, that she is much more aware of what her fate entails, that by virtue of her being 'older' than her peers-- and therefore knowing the full weight of the deception they are led into-- she deserves the pain she is subjected to. and she doesn't. she's 14, she's been through horrific extents of abuse, it's a cycle that never seems to end-- she's distant from others her own age, but she's been othered and dehumanized and she's alone and she's tired and she's 14.
Blessedly the trip to the guest house is short, even in the advent of growing winds that lick at the back of Kanon's head. Kind of like a cat demanding to be fed--and it'd be almost cute if it weren't such a dreadful reminder of what is to truly come. By the time they make it to the small secondary home, small fat rain drops begin to pepper the trails, darkening the environment. Kanon clicks his tongue and mutters something that barely passes for an apology as he searches his key ring for the guest house key.
Why the guest house? At least that's easy to answer...he doesn't want to answer Natsuhi's questions or deal with her irritable mannerisms in the advent of a surprise guest. Like this he can ask Genji or Shannon for advice and broach the subject more carefully.
The door clicks open and Kanon steps to the side to let Utena enter first when they suddenly ask for his name. For a moment he hesitates before answering, but Furniture isn't supposed to disobey, so it's only another moment before he answers. "...Kanon." He shuts the door behind the two of them. He can practically hear Shannon reminding him to be polite and inquire about the 'esteemed guest's' name in his mind but pushes it to the side--being a good servant isn't his role to play. Shannon can suck up to Utena later. She's the one who always wanted a prince. Kanon was never so stupid to hope for anything like that.
"You can stay here for now...I have to talk to some of the other servants and figure out what to do with you." He speaks only again when they approach one of the rooms in the guest house; pointedly on the other end of the hallway from what will eventually serve as the cousins' room. "Natsuhi-sama doesn't like surprises." Hopefully that gets the point across. Then he unlocks and opens the door for Utena, once again stepping aside sullenly to grant them entrance to the room--and to Rokkenjima's mystery.
one could think of this as a giant wound, or a blot of ink that will not be removed. a place like this invites a tale, invents its characters, and weaves a more than threadbare plot around it. good bones, plain flesh, simple problems– this land seems to be on the brink of disaster but it would take its own while, arriving at the pace of walking, even as the rain seeps through their clothes. ( do you know what kind of story this is? really. ) they would tell kanon their name in exchange, but –they nearly smile at the thought– they doubt it would mean anything for him. he is not the one who needs to hear it. or remember.
here is a room with all the sensibilities of the wealthy, but it is peculiarly crowded: carpet stretched across marble and patterns carved into plaster and its emptiness do not out-do the feeling of suffocation. utena thinks, they will be swept under water. their first steps in are cautious, water trailing down to the carpet, leaving small pools of a much darker red in their wake. the message is clear: stay put, don’t wander. their gaze tilts up, to the pale ceiling. for how long? they look at him, properly, and wonder if he is that much older than them. well, he is, but his weariness indicates something different.
“is natsuhi-sa- er, are they–” the name is awkward, the title even more so (do as romans do, but that isn’t entirely in their nature) “the master of the household?” likely not. and if they are left to their own devices for too long, they are sure to not stay. stillness does not become them, but as any story goes, you could never be too sure of an odd trespasser. “if the consensus is that i will impose, i won’t mind leaving as soon as this rain subsides,” and if they had stopped there, it would have been a polite enough conclusion. instead, they conitnue, “but i have a feeling that won’t be the case.”
what does your soul look like?
the broken mirror. you are the rebel. you are the one who refused to fit into the box. they broke you because you refused to conform, but they never expected you to turn your shattered pieces into sharp edges aimed for their throats. they will face your pointed fragments and see their own reflection in your ruin. you are a reckoning. you are the threat of a future unsuited for weak minds. how unfortunate it is that your existence is solitary. that you cut everyone who comes close. maybe one day someone will show you how to be something besides a weapon. maybe one day they will help you put your pieces back together to see yourself as a person instead of a cause for once.
tagging. @shiranken, @1risout, @yeonban, @openness, @virtuese, @fabala, @achroanimus, @effigist, @heartinhands, and you!
that's what i like about you. you're tough to handle. / from homura to ur utena
@knight1ies, fire walk with me.
this is an image they have seen enough times to make it real, but they are past the point of expecting easy and painless falls. it should be odd, that there isn’t even a tear in their skin that lasts for as long as it should, but at least the dull pain in their shoulders is proof enough. “and you’re hard to read.” well, not entirely. but this has never been their exact forte.
UTENA DID NOT SAVE ANTHY. THEY ONLY MADE IT POSSIBLE FOR HER TO LEAVE. THEY SHOWED HER A GLIMMER OF A BETTER WORLD. anthy himemiya & utena tenjou of revolutionary girl utena (1997) as written by meira (21+, they / them).
you know some of my secrets, i know some of your secrets. / from homura to anthy
@knight1ies, mabel.
in other words: they are alike in some ways, and not in others. she smooths the front of her dress, wholly unbothered by the blank nothing she is confronted with. homura has means and ways both known and unknown yet to anthy, but here is the familiar, steely taste pain leaves in its wake. “i might,” she concedes. so do you. she states the obvious– guesses, rather: “you don’t seem comfortable with that. are you?”
you have to follow the rules, you invented the rules. you have to follow them. / from my utena to ur anthy
@knight1ies, mabel.
she does not miss the grit of annoyance running under the remark. there is no rhythm or reason to be found, though the cards they use have formed a senseless pattern she could follow well enough. it is summer ( it always is ) and they have left the windows open. across, chu-chu manages to subvert the expected outcome of the hand he no doubt has, and anthy offers a small, pleasant applause. ( this is a ritual– if you wished it, anything could be a ritual. ) “ i suppose so, utena-sama. ”
“ because it is just a feeling, i am powerless to stop it. ” from haru, to utena!
@openness, fire walk with me.
it comes in waves and leaves them exhausted. they fiddle with the ring, twisting it, and feel the metal burn against their skin in the evening sun. ( odd, but they had thought it was silver– but it must be an alloy, or some other metal that wouldn’t blacken or tarnish with ease. ) when the largest wave yet arrives, they are washed ashore, lost and empty and unsure. what had been certain ground, firm like concrete and steel, collapses like sand. wakaba has pulled at their arm and pried and pried for answers. she looks kind of upset. distracted? she’s never been nearly this bad at volleyball.
i don’t know what to do. i don’t …
haru seems impossibly far, and it leaves utena with residual irritation. powerless is a word that slaughters every perception they have built up in their head to impossible heights– but being told your work meant nothing was never pleasant. ( and with himemiya, wasn’t that the thing? her passivity snags and tears at them like a million tiny barbs and thorns. sometimes, their frustration knows no end. )
“and when it doesn’t stop on its own?” they are tired, tired, puzzled. their jaw tenses. it’s odd, but it occurs to them that haru will not have answers for everything. not a remotely comforting realization to stomach. “you don’t have to live with it forever. you shouldn't have to.”
"Himemiya-chan, I made something for you in home ec!" Their hands gently offer out the plush: it's...Chu-Chu, but made of felt and buttons. This is what a kind senpai would do, right? Offer something to someone in a lower grade level, with a smile they can only hope reads as "I'm listening, and seeing what I can". Ohtori is a garden with barbed walls, but strangely, they find they're safer in it than outside of it.
After all, the specter of outside follows them around like a smiling face in a news report -- (local part-timer arrested in connection with acts of local terrorism, possible connections to murders being investigated) -- like someone they half expect to be waiting to pick them up for dinner on the weekends. But that person won't be there, and even if people usually avoid them in here, it's better than dealing with the news people. (Is it really, though? Is dying in here alright.)
They wait for her to take the plush: like an offering to a small god, in a way, a step over their own usual boundaries. "Let me know if he's too itchy, I can make a do-over with nicer fabric."
@miraculpa
when the gates of the night open, anthy slips into forms other than her own. there are the dead, and there are fates worse than death, and she forms the imagined juxtaposition of both. if you live for long enough, the world ceases to have much meaning. the lawn is conveniently deserted, overgrown with jagged grass and quiet. it looks soft at a glance. until it snaps at your bare arms and legs and clings to your clean socks.
this is a garden ripe for eating, in theory: there are apples produced from somewhere in the school grounds, an unseen orchard full of them– so full, that some of the produce would have to be left on the ground to rot. on days without a breeze or some similar pulse of life, you could smell it, cloying like honey and syrup. she peels one with precision, less intent on eating it herself than sharing half with chu-chu and carving something meaningless with the rest.
chu-chu –the real one– is amiss, however.
what she receives in place is a plush look-alike with a staticy fuzz that snaps at the pads of her thumbs. and aren’t they so kind, so thoughtful. don’t mistake the lack of visible surprise over the gesture for uncaring– when she reaches for what they give her, it is after a long moment’s wait. they must be smiling, must be watching or waiting or observing, but this is something she does not register for much more than needed. from the way he feels, she wonders if it isn’t cotton, but polyfill, and it’s one that makes him appear deceptively heavier than he is.
itchy, too.
“my, how wonderful.” her gratitude is no different from a remark about the weather. though, she punctuates her private mirth with a pointed look up at tatli. surprising that anyone would be able to commit such detail to memory– let alone remember dear old chu-chu. anthy runs a finger over his rather rough, felted ears. “ i like him as he is. i am sure chu-chu would, too. ”
"I'm Furniture." He doesn't consider Utena might not know what this means; it's such an obvious fact to Kanon. He simply assumes everyone can look at him and see him for what he is. Stated bluntly as ever; Kanon's expression is still fixedly sullen as he clip clip clips at the softly shaped greenery. "Furniture shouldn't think about 'reasons.' That's something Humans do. As for who I serve, I serve the Ushiromiya head, but only until Beatrice-sama comes back to collect everything. Then I'll probably serve her, at least until we're all revived in the Golden Land."
"...What reason could possibly bring you down here. I'm telling you, whoever you're looking for isn't here." He sighs, shoulders slumping very very slightly. Another guest...if Natsuhi catches him out here just talking to Utena, she'll berate him for not bringing them inside and offering them tea or something... if they aren't going to leave, Kanon might as well do his job. But she told me I was supposed to trim the hedges and if I leave it undone I'll get yelled at too. And anyway Shannon's better at talking to people. It's a zero sum game. But Shannon's probably off getting all excited over seeing that asshole George later... why does it have to be me... I'm not good with people. I'm Furniture.
"There's a typhoon coming. You better come with me before it starts raining."
like all stories, familiarity serves the purpose of driving the nail of truth further into the wall of obscurity. they set their jaw, as though preparing to physically chew upon what he tells them. and like all stories, the prince is meant to hide in plain sight, if he is true enough, honest enough. (noble enough.) but the only prince is a useless prince, and where would that leave him? (what an odd thought.)
“you look human enough to me.” they state, reflexively. they look away, hard at the low grass and strain to hear past the roaring horizon ahead. they are nowhere near the mainland, it would seem. “but it isn’t as simple as that, is it.”
they are inclined to agree with him: nearly. but if experience is an unfailing teacher, they know too well that [she] will not need to be here. absence has a way of making its presence known. and should they feel so bad for him, feel bad about this land-not-land swept away into a body of blue and the smell of salt and the way the air gets heavy before a storm, think twice before intruding upon this faceless family’s nameless affairs— they incline their head instead, and follow him.
whoever the true host is, seems to be absent. should it matter? would she mind? from what they have been told, utena is assured that it would indeed matter, that she would indeed mind.
“your name,” they say aloud, sweeping back strands of hair that had gotten into their eyes, “i never asked for your name.”
an angel
