Those are really good points, both of you. I'd never really verbalized my feelings about those two, but you put them perfectly.

My pet peeve is that everyone shits on Touga in fanfic. The ones who hate him shit on him by making him go bald, or making him an ineffectual middle management type of guy, or basically neutering him. The ones who do like him shit on him by making him into a guy who's really chivalrious and wonderful and sexy and everything you could possibly ever want in a guy... or by making him an Angsty Yaoi Guy who tortures someone, mainly Saionji, because it's fun.

Not to say he wouldn't do that... but that's not all there is to him! He's not just a sexbot or a Prince Charming, and he's not a punching bag either!  He's a complex character, guys!

BlackBeforeRed wrote:

This is just a headcanon, but I think after the final duel Utena would be too lost and broken to even find her family.

What does bother me though, is when people show her doing just fine living a normal-ish life on her own. It's not normal, or even legal for a fourteen year old to live alone. Nobody will hire a fourteen year old dropout full time, and she'd never be able to sign a lease for herself. If she's on her own, she's struggling immensely, both emotionally and just the day to day survival. I can suspend my disbelief somewhat, but having her live alone and acting like everything is fine and she's just living life doesn't make sense.

Great post.  Can't say it any better myself.

....I don't like post-series Utena dark fic. Its just the show has such a beautiful positive message and being like LOL NOPE is just grrrrrrr. *buzzes angrily*
Also mischaracterization also makes me buzz with anger.

I think people find it often very challenging to relate to Touga on a fundamental enough level to see what issues would evolve from the man we're left with at the show's end. Especially since yes, he probably would still be womanizing.

My pet peeve is when people who write post series fic feel obligated to smash everyone into the story, even characters that have no place in the story they're telling and are clearly not the ones the author cares about.

That goes for you, too, Ikuhara.

MikoGalatea wrote:

Kita-Ysabell wrote:

I'm getting pretty tired of all the otherwise excellent post-series fics that have Touga acting like a horny 12-year-old.  Come on, it's like the last season never even happened!  I get the concept of plot-convenient regression, hell, I'm pretty sure I've dappled in it myself, but could you at least give him legitimate issues?  Or at the very least, new ones?

This. I know I sort of ranted about it already on the previous page, but it does annoy me when ficcers completely erase Touga's character development -- and he did get development! -- so they can more easily write him as a convenient villain. He never exactly became Prince Charming in the end, but that's still no excuse; hell, ep 35 even implied that he was starting to lose interest in being a playboy! (Though Gio is right, he would still be a womaniser for a good while yet. Old habits die hard, and all that.)

Another of my peeves is when people keep sticking Juri on a sky-high pedestal, to the point where they erase all her flaws (if they even acknowledge them in the first place) in order to make her into this perfect tragic goddess who can do no wrong. I've seen someone put it this way in another thread, but it really is like a lot of writers would rather compliment her than actually pick apart her character. Also, the fact that deifying Juri nearly always goes hand-in-hand with Shiori-bashing. =/

All of this. ALL OF IT.

Shutin, that was very well put. I've often felt that way myself. I really, really don't like it when a story is pushing an agenda, and it's even worse if it's my favorite character that's getting shit on because of it.

Ugh, I know! Back then, there wasn't so much of an attempt to make the show fit into a message the author wanted to send-- the authors took the canon and tried to extrapolate from it without worrying about sending a message.

I dunno, I don't want to be all 'you kids today' about it, but we really did get more character- and story-oriented fics way back when. I don't even look anymore, for the most part...

gorgeousshutin wrote:

Miko, I think this has to do with how some writers write SKU fics more for the sake of broadcasting female-empowering + male-belittling messages, and less out of appreciation of the canon story.  By having dweeb Touga or saint Juri or the both of them featured in a fic, the story will be one with slimy male character(s) contrasted dramatically against awesome female character(s) - a set up that makes it easy for these writers to get their own personal agendas across.

I've already seen people accuse the show itself of misandry. I don't agree with that though. While it's true that the show is focused most on the female characters and their empowerment (being a shoujo), I still think the male characters can be interesting in their own right, and it's sad when fics make everything so black and white. Don't they realize it's less interesting that way?

Lurv wrote:

gorgeousshutin wrote:

Miko, I think this has to do with how some writers write SKU fics more for the sake of broadcasting female-empowering + male-belittling messages, and less out of appreciation of the canon story.  By having dweeb Touga or saint Juri or the both of them featured in a fic, the story will be one with slimy male character(s) contrasted dramatically against awesome female character(s) - a set up that makes it easy for these writers to get their own personal agendas across.

I've already seen people accuse the show itself of misandry. I don't agree with that though. While it's true that the show is focused most on the female characters and their empowerment (being a shoujo), I still think the male characters can be interesting in their own right, and it's sad when fics make everything so black and white. Don't they realize it's less interesting that way?

Is "accuse" the right word for it? If you're talking about the same fandom circles I'm thinking of, then I could've sworn most of those types were actually celebrating SKU's supposed misandry. Either way, I disagree with it, too; just because the blokes are much bigger douchebags on the whole doesn't mean they aren't still three-dimensional characters, and I don't like it when they're flattened into being cardboard monsters just to serve as fuel for fannish propaganda. Besides, feminism =/= misandry.

Hell, I'd even argue that some people are doing the show's feminist themes (and even overall quality!) a disservice by making out that the male characters only exist to be strawmen.

Yasha wrote:

Same thing with analysis and interpretation of the show itself. Don't people realize that when you make it black and white, you're doing a disservice to the characters by reducing their complexity?

Absolutely! I like SKU's many grey areas, thank you very much, fandom!

Well-written fics with much potential going dead after like two chapters (usually due to low review #s)

Frau Eva You know, I think I agree that they might do better in Vegas. I mean, Vegas is basically all illusion and fantasy with no substance. Akio would own the most outrageous casino on the strip: Dios's Castle, where all the workers dress up as princes and princesses and take your money.

I suggested Vegas for one our rose-cons!

Someone needs to write this!

Gaston wrote:

I like Juri/Shiori but not when they get too easily together. I even remember one story like this where the author said how much she likes  Juri and wanted make her happy by gives her Shiori and by her comment on Shiori she doesn't seems having a good opinion of her. I don't really like  when an author like one character, said character like another character the author doesn't really like but pairing the two together just to make the character the author is a fan happy. Often the second character (in this case Shiori) just look like a trophy without right to have own feeling(at least in my eye).

Tell me about it! I love Shiori and I love the Juri/Shiori pairing, but I really don't like how a lot of fanwork portrays them. From what I've seen (which is admittedly not that much on the fic front, though I've seen enough fanart of the ship to have noticed my own picky standards for it) many fanfics either make it all about Juri while painting Shiori as an irredeemable superbitch who literally does nothing but make poor widdle Juri-sama miserable, or act like Shiori is some prize vagina that Juri inherently deserves to have handed to her without having to make any real effort on her own part. Actually, I think I've only seen a couple of fics that really accounted for Shiori's point of view at all; the rest really flatten the relationship and take out so much of what I love about it in canon.

Gaston wrote:

What you said make me thinking and I realized my two favorites Juri/Shiori stories are tell entirely from Shiori's point of view and that probably not a coincidence.

Dear Gaston, could this be a reason why you 'Favorite-ed' a certain lengthy, obscure UtenaXPenguindrum fic over at FFML?  Because the story opens with a Shiori POV scene?  Either way, its author thirst for feedback in all forms, and is thankful for your kind encouragement