and ye, said the sun, we shall drink ginger beer

i think it's funny when a character is almost exclusively referred to by their last name by other people and this carries over into their internal monologue when someone writes from their pov. not even on a first name basis with herself

oh and so back to interesting readings, when anthy and akio are about to be lynched by their neighbours in service of divinity it is very much like everyday scenes of caste violence in india. its resolution is also via the dedication of a woman to the temple who performs constantly which is very akin to slave dancers or devadasis in service to the temple.

devadasis go through a ceremony at puberty where they are marked as "temple property" held in common by the community by marrying them to god. they acquire some financial and social power that is denied to other women through the gifts of their patrons and were freed from the dangers of being widowed even if they tended to live much shorter lives. upper castes often mandated that dalit families give up atleast one female child to the temple. by the late 19th century devadasi was indistinguishable in colonial writing from prostitute. in many ways the 20th century creation of bharathnatyam was an attempt to make temple dance respectable by excising it of its eroticism and an attempted transformation of the social status of nautch girls from lower caste prostitutes to upper caste artists.

I do feel like theres a lot to be said about how utena is constantly told she doesn't know anthy and when she finally opens her coffin she says "at last, we meet." Especially combined with how Anthy literally disappears out of the rose bride dress and version of her Utenas grown used to. And don't get me wrong, they had plenty of intimacy and so much love for each other and moments of seeing each other more than anyone else knew how to or often even tried to. But they still couldn't fully connect. Anthy can't just quit being the rose bride, and Utena is still trying to be a prince. They can't fully know each other like that. They can't be Equals like that. How could they meet when they hadn't even been born yet, yknow. I came all this way to save you becomes I came all this way to meet you. The princess stabs the prince and then the princess disappears. The prince is dead, the prince never existed, the prince is very alive and is just a warped ideal that has never been good to save people at all. Utena gets back up. They cannot possibly save or help or have a Good relationship as prince and princess. They have to meet each other as people. They have to let this end even if it could, potentially, be eternal, because theyve seen what happens to eternal things. Theres this fucking. Window. Where if Utena had lied still, she wouldve probably just been another student again, just another prince, and Anthy wouldve been a princess again. But they met. Despite everything they MET and I want to SCREAM!!

This is stupid! Were you born yesterday? (the mayfly’s big limpid eyes fill with tears as it looks at me) oh god I’m so sorry oh no oh god

one of us always eat hot chip and the other one always lies

much like a beautiful horse i like salt and roaming freely