michaelslight ... a revolutionary girl utena (1996) dual blog featuring juri arisugawa & miki kaoru. largely canon compliant to both the anime and adolescence, but study - driven. cherished by sinna / sidonie.
a study in: the madonna & the whore, athenian misogyny, being inside the masterโs house / the dream house / that big castle, your hands are grasping the masterโs tools, can you really free yourself this way?, brechtian alienation, the prince must die, bluest eyes, wild animalsโ they need no parents, only each other.
mobileย friendlyย rulesย underย cut.
๐๐๐๐๐.
i. this blog is permanently low - activity and mutuals - only. i have an office job and a busy life outside of that; this is just a hobby for me! please donโt assume that i will immediately respond to threads or asks, or that i work on a first - come, first - serve basis. i will respond to things as i find the time and energy to do so.
i am always open to having asks be turned into threads! i do try to put a lot of effort into them, so if you see potential in something becoming a longer thread, please feel free to continue the scene in a new post.
ii. please read the information i provide for my muses and keep it all in mind when interacting with them. do not make assumptions on how you think they ought to behave based either on canon or the popular fandom conception of their characters.ย know that misgendering of miki is grounds for an immediate block.
iii. 21+ only, please. iโm old, this blog has mature themes โ i just donโt want to be hanging out with kids. thanks.
iv. i have no tolerance for racism / transphobia / misogyny / lesbophobia / zionism / etc.
v. this blog will contain triggering / sensitive themes due to the content of rgu. while i will tag content as needed (using ___ /), if you are squeamish or particularly sensitive to these things, this might not be the best place for you.ย many of my posts will either directly address or make reference to: suicidal ideation, child neglect / sexual abuse,ย incest, etc. i understand these are very triggering topics, so please follow at your own discretion.
vi. i am open to shipping, although that is not my main concern on this blog.ย if something romantic does occur between our muses, please know that iโmย semi - ship exclusive:ย i will only ship with up to two iterations of a character.
i, for the most part, do not have any ships that are off - limits (within reason, obviously), but i never want to see sefikura on my dash. this goes for any ship where one party was underage upon meeting and the other was already an adult, but for whatever reason, this one seems to get a pass from most people. i will block you if you rb / post anything sfkr. i just do not want to see this on my dash.
while both miki and juri are slightly aged up (to 17 and 18, respectively), this is just for my own comfort as an older person and the heavy subject matter with both of these characters, miki especially, and not at all because i want to write smut with the latter.
vii. i do block somewhat liberally; it is never personal, and has more to do with wanting to curate my space. this does include duplicates. i sb to break mutuals if i think that we will not interact, or if i have made repeated attempts to initiate interactions that have not been reciprocated. i am here to write! i have no desire to collect mutuals as numbers.
viii. on who i will follow / write with: i am unlikely to follow / follow back muses from comics or television, particularly non - animated ones. i donโt much care for marvel or dc, or the rpcs associated with them. i also am very selective when it comes to muses from overwatch, hoyoverse, aot, you know, the usual culprits.
i love female muses and ocs! i may show some preference for them, because i know that the rpc at large ignores these characters. the most important thing to me in interactions is if i think my muses would work well with yours in any form, and if our personal writing styles are compatible. i put a lot of work into creating the versions of characters that i have on this blog, and i just want to see other people doing the same for their own characters, regardless of their source.
on writing styleโ i do not much care for purple prose ever, or 1st person perspective in rp. i read a great deal outside of rp, mostly literary fiction, and so i know that i'm maybe unfairly picky when it comes to style ... but i want to be up - front with potential partners. if you do either of these things, i probably do not want to write with you. this is just my preference!
my blacklisted media list is, again, the usual: hp, hazbin, mcu/dcu, marvel comics, stranger things (really any american tv .. lol.). zero exceptions.
ix. all of my graphics were made by myself, using a psd createdย by velvetinedits. icon/header art used is by a999ain and riwqeye.
thinking about how kozue says in reference to miki that she โacts fine nowโ, that she hates the music teacher because she cannot forgive anyone who hurts miki. how she hates their father, more than miki seems to.
this, to me, reads as miki repressing all memories of having been likely groomed / sexually assaulted by their father, and the ongoing abuse from the music teacher ... in kozueโs sword pull, she is framed by cabbage whites. the cabbage whites appear in tougaโs childhood memories in adolescence, with his โnewโ father. they sit on the lemonade pitchers while miki and kozue play together in the garden. kozueโs hypersexuality implies that she was sexually abused, but miki, too, went through the same thingโ she has just forced herself to forget it in order to stay pure. but kozue saying that she is fine "now" makes me think that, for a while, she could still remember everything, and it was tearing her apart. the only way to survive was to take on a new persona, someone who cannot remember being hurt, who is untouched as virgin snow.
mikiโs theme, spira mirabillis theater, is all references to theater, to acting, to assuming roles that are not truly you, deep time. things entombed in sediment. illusory mind, illusory people ... death and rebirth. i think of miki acting chivalrous, pretending to be this princely figure when she is really so effeminate (not unlike saionji, who i believe also has references to theater in his theme) and consistently shows interest in fashion, in girlish things, while simultaneously punishing women who she thinks are not performing femininity the way they ought to (kozue) and idolizing those she has deemed as virginal and perfect (anthy). and how i think she does this all unconsciously in order to save herself. but she, too, seeks positive male attention, just like kozue. she too is hypersexual. she likes her music teacher. she does not flinch away from him when he touches her inappropriately. she imagines touga naked, knowing that he has had sex with kozue, and what that must have felt like. (and when nanami asks her if it hurt when she had the sword removed from her, it reads as two girls asking about sex, and miki, embarrassed, seems to understand the encounter this way. it is worth noting, too, i think, that miki seems to be the only one not in pain during her sword pull. like she has gone catatonic. like this has happened too many times before.) she is ashamed of these things, and compartmentalizes them, refuses to let them come to define her as she believes they have for kozue.
but at the end of the day, it is kozue who must protect her because sheโ her old, tainted self deadโ is reborn, now pure, and her teacher, and all men who give her attention, simply recognize that. she is being rewarded for her goodness. if other women simply behaved as she does, they would be, too. she doesnโt realize this behavior is hurting her and the other girls around her. maybe she never will.
i did put this in my rules but before i get proper dossiers up; i will be writing juri and miki as slightly aged up for my own comfort. my default verse will have juri as 18 (a senior at ohtori) and miki as 17 (a junior). akio's abuse of them aside, with miki in particular, this is because of how heavy her background is with her parents and kozue and the music teacher ... i really would not feel comfortable approaching this as a writer if she's only 13. this change doesn't affect much else about her character, because unlike nanami, i do not believe her naรฏvetรฉ / childishness has as much to do with her age so much as being a trauma response, especially when compared to kozue.