radio414

Who’s your current profile pic? And if it’s from Borderlands 3 (and that’s why the style looks familiar even if I don’t recognize them), how is that game?

Your introduction thread said you would like to write fanfiction, but what about?

Favorite RP character you’ve played? What about favorite you didn’t play?

Your rates music thread caps off at seven minutes, but what’s the longest song you’ve ever (willingly?) listened to?

What’s the weirdest name you’ve heard a pet called?

What do (or did) you want to be when you grow up?

What’s your favorite (or Top X) April Fools gags?

Would you rather fight one hundred duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck?

Trying not to think too much about what comes after this one while I'm still this early in the series lol. I imagine there'd be a poll of some kind involved, though. How I chose this specific anime to talk about was something I was going to cover this coming Saturday but basically I wanted to talk about it and, well, this seemed like a good outlet for that. And I wanted to watch it again.

Online classes, mostly. Other than that I've been writing more and trying to find new ways to keep up with friends and family.

Next Post→ Next Topic ("Someday, My Revolution Will Come" Let's Play)→→ Duel 01 -- The Rose Bride or: I'm Not Going To Be Able To Explain Everything But I'm Sure Going To Try And Explain Something Once upon a time, years and years ago, there was a little princess, and she was very sad, for her mother and father had died. Before the princess appeared a traveling prince, riding upon a white horse. He had a regal bearing and a kind smile. The prince wrapped the princess in a rose-scented embrace and gently wiped the tears from her eyes. “Little one,” he said, “who bears up alone in such deep sorrow, never lose that strength or nobility, even when you grow up. I give you this to remember this day. We will meet again. This ring will lead you to me, one day.” Perhaps the ring the prince gave her was an engagement ring. This was all well and good, but so impressed was she by him that the princess vowed to become a prince herself one day. …but was that really such a good idea? So begins Revolutionary Girl Utena, a school-set coming-of-age anime. But here’s the thing, the fantastic elements of the prolog never really go away, so on top of the relationship drama that will inevitably stem from, like, seven different dysfunctional relationships, there’s also, to borrow from The Princess Bride, fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, true love, and miracles. To put it another way, imagine if Scott Pilgrim was written by this guy: “This guy” is Kunihiko Ikuhara, someone who people more into anime than I might recognize as the director of the first four seasons of the original Sailor Moon. And one can definitely see some of the inspirations Sailor Moon brought to Utena, especially with regards to some of the “magical girl” tropes common in that particular genre such as transformation sequences and an overarching theme of love conquering all obstacles. But Revolutionary Girl Utena is also really weird. Perhaps the most famous example of this is from the movie adaptation where the climax involves Utena turning into a car. Much of the series is like that too, largely involving non-sequitur cuts (a stopwatch is particularly prominent), or a plot involving an escaped kangaroo. This has caused Utena to be deemed “pretentious” by some, but I’m not entirely sure that’s a fair label. When you strip away everything else, Revolutionary Girl Utena’s plot, while not always straightforward, still exists and can be followed episode to episode. So that’s what I’m going to do here. There are forty Saturdays (including today (at orignal time of posting)) left in the year, thirty-nine anime episodes, and a handful of other versions (such as the aforementioned movie) to talk about, so hopefully, we can ring in the new year with the end of Utena. A couple final notes before we get into the meat of things. I’m going to try and avoid explicit spoilers, but talking about themes will inevitably lead to giving things away on some level, accidentally or not. Speaking of themes, a pretty major theme of the show involves not just the dysfunctional relationships I mentioned earlier, but actual depictions of abuse. More specific content warnings will likely preface later posts (I imagine a couple flashing light warnings will be needed at the very least), but I did want to get that out of the way now. (Edit: A more complete list of content warnings can be found here, I'll still reference the major ones in posts involving them but this is a good place to start for anyone worried about getting into this show. It's okay if you would rather not!) Also, the Youtube playlist provided by the distributor only seems to work in America. If you want to follow along outside of the US, you’re going to have to look elsewhere for these episodes, or at least find a VPN that works for you. The first scenes set in the present day lay the groundwork for Revolutionary Girl Utena’s thesis regarding gender roles. Utena Tenjou is a tomboy by every definition, not only in the activities she prefers, but in the way she dresses as well. The societal disconnect between the image of a girl with pink hair and blue eyes and said girl’s desire to become a prince is very apparent. But we’ll have to go into what exactly Utena the show and Utena the character mean when they say “prince” later. In the meantime, the first episode is largely devoted to establishing the majority of the other main characters and the plot of the first arc: Members who bear the Rose Crest may challenge each other for possession and therefore engagement to Anthy Himemiya, The Rose Bride, under duels outlined by an enigmatic being known only as End of the World. Utena herself is drawn to this tournament after the current champion, Kendo captain Saionji offends Wakaba, Utena’s best friend who crushes on Saionji despite (or perhaps because of) his acerbic nature. Other elements introduced are the rest of the Student Council, though only President Touga Kiryuu is referred to by name, the element of music present in Utena’s duels, and the first appearance of the shadow play girls who represent the show’s Greek Chorus, commenting on the events of each episode, though in the future these will largely be through symbols and metaphor. We’ll get into these elements in more detail later. The only really big image to talk about is the castle in the sky, almost akin to the Sword of Damocles in how it looms over the dueling arena. Saionji dismisses it as a trick of the light, but its presence is going to be felt in a majority of these episodes. To ascend to the castle, the duelists believe, is to gain the power to revolutionize the world, and every episode a duel takes place is an opportunity for the challenger to present their case as to why they deserve that power. It’s important, then, that the classic naivete that anime protagonists tend to have works in Utena’s favor here. Utena had no knowledge of any of this when she challenged Saionji, she only knew that she had to fight for her best friend. And when Saionji attacks Himemiya, Utena resolves to fight for her as well. To reiterate, Utena doesn’t display that same desire for power, and, in fact, the anime might argue that that is why she wins. All in all, this is one of the more straightforward episodes of the show. What you see is what you get, really, and the threads left open are things that can largely be answered with “It’s Episode One. It’s supposed to start intrigue, not answer it.” But I’ll leave the comments section open if there are any questions about things I might have missed, and I’ll see you all in a week. -r Next time: Rematch! Roommates! A monkey! Link to Episode -- Next Post→

“Scales” and the related puns were good, but they weren’t really the same as anything related to gears, was it? Like, having cards with the word in your deck certainly made the puns pop a whole lot more, Peter thought. People had to “get it,” after all. They had to do a double-take or otherwise react in some way, and with a phrase like “tip the scales” that was already established, the fewer jumps the better. “Feeling blue” was good, though, Peter thought. He could probably use that. And when he thought about it more, the word “clawesome” came to mind as a good eye-roller. He didn’t tell Makoto about it, though. He was going to save that one for later. That one was for actual dueling. “I’ll think about it,” he said. Speaking of actual dueling, the actual duel between Hana and Terry had finished rather quickly. Peter hadn’t been paying too much attention, but what he had seen made it seem like there were at least a few more turns left? Wait, had Hana just given up? Well, now Peter could see why Coach Clara was mad. “Don’t surrender next time,” she said. Yeah, you tell ‘em! How would his parents have reacted if he’d given up at any point in his short dueling career? But Coach Clara’s attention soon went elsewhere, specifically at all the people dueling everywhere else. “How’re your duels going?” It occurred to Peter that she might not appreciate what Makoto and he were doing in their in-between time. He couldn’t bring himself to lie, though a half-truth was what slipped out. “Makoto beat me,” he called out. “We’re just, uh, going over some notes before we go again.” Peter paused and looked at Makoto. “Unless you wanted to duel someone else?”

Little upset I didn't think about the last one more but not too upset

I'm happy with the ones I got right tho

i'm doing surprisingly well on these

i'll take it