IFD is both of them, since with their scenes, the viewer literally catches them in flagrante.

Matching forums to characters seems a little off, somehow, so instead I'll match forums to locations.

The key feature of IFD is that it welcomes you when none of the other forums will.  Sex, anger, vulnerability -- you can feel comfortable in IFD.  There is virtually nowhere like that in Utena.  People rarely let down their guard.  The only three systematic exceptions are Mikage's elevator, Akio's planetarium, and Akio's car.  The elevator is too negative an image for our mostly lighthearted IFD, and the planetarium connotes taboos and secrecies that IFD rejects, so I'd have to say that IFD is the Akio car.

The roleplaying forum is for make-believe; you can wear anyone's face but your own.  It's also unpopular.  It has to be the Kashira Theater.*

The SKU forum is for talking shop.  It's a place of arcane mystery, fraught with symbolism and jargon incomprehensible to the uninitiated.  It seems appropriate to assign it a similarly mysterious location from Utena: the Student Council loft.

General Discussion is like a cocktail lounge for mostly-innocent chit-chat.  There are no cocktail lounges in Utena (well, not for that kind of cocktail), but the quad serves a similar purpose.  Friends get together there, or bump into each other, and have lunch while shooting the breeze.  GD is the Ohtori quad.

* Fittingly, I stole this name from the Faceless Masses thread on the RP forum.

Last edited by satyreyes (07-16-2007 05:15:45 PM)

Also chiming in with late computer analogies.

My old computer was Nemuro Memorial Hall, because it caught fire and broke down.

But it made way for a newer, better, shinier computer, which I unofficially dubbed 'The Computer Where Eternity Dwells' upon purchase.

Computer... humdidumdidum...

I think that it symbolises both Mikage's intellegence and the fact that he has forgotten about the TRUE past and mechanically marches forward to his goal.

Wow.  That was pretty insightful for me.

satyreyes wrote:

Matching forums to characters seems a little off, somehow, so instead I'll match forums to locations.

The key feature of IFD is that it welcomes you when none of the other forums will.  Sex, anger, vulnerability -- you can feel comfortable in IFD.  There is virtually nowhere like that in Utena.  People rarely let down their guard.  The only three systematic exceptions are Mikage's elevator, Akio's planetarium, and Akio's car.  The elevator is too negative an image for our mostly lighthearted IFD, and the planetarium connotes taboos and secrecies that IFD rejects, so I'd have to say that IFD is the Akio car.

The roleplaying forum is for make-believe; you can wear anyone's face but your own.  It's also unpopular.  It has to be the Kashira Theater.*

The SKU forum is for talking shop.  It's a place of arcane mystery, fraught with symbolism and jargon incomprehensible to the uninitiated.  It seems appropriate to assign it a similarly mysterious location from Utena: the Student Council loft.

General Discussion is like a cocktail lounge for mostly-innocent chit-chat.  There are no cocktail lounges in Utena (well, not for that kind of cocktail), but the quad serves a similar purpose.  Friends get together there, or bump into each other, and have lunch while shooting the breeze.  GD is the Ohtori quad.

* Fittingly, I stole this name from the Faceless Masses thread on the RP forum.

I really like these. They're so fitting. And now I'll forever think of the IRG forums as those parts of Ohtori.

I still don't know what my laptop is.

I believe the ocean is Kozue.
It's blue, it's deep, everyone plays in it, but you never know what nasty little creatures you'll find deep inside. Perhaps some crabs?

Kozue is who I had in mind for the ocean, as well. My views on the ocean is something that I've asked myself before, especially the stuff about corruption. Originally, I was wondering about that because of something it said in Miki and Kozue's duel song.

dollface wrote:

I also believed it was Kozue, but because I get wet when I'm in it.

I think that I mentioned that for my friend and I, regular water symbolizes Shiori. All summer, whenever we're swimming together in a pool or a lake, we always joke around about it by saying , "I'm in Shiori!" or, "Shiori makes me wet!" Jokes like that are what the Symbolism Game is really all about.

The Ocean is Touga.

Because he smells like fish.

The ocean represents Akio's sex life, why else do you think its so damn salty?

Hiraku wrote:

Tamago wrote:

The ocean represents Akio's sex life, why else do you think its so damn salty?

I would've thought the ocean represents Mikage and Mamiya as they exist yet they don't... They are, after all, existence without existence...
Shinai sonzai, Shinai sonzai, Shinai sonzai, Shinai sonzai, Shinai sonzai, Shinai sonzai...

(Reference to J.A. Seazer's "Death by Oceanic Moon Indigo")

I was thinking of that song while I was thinking of the ocean, too. The mention of the moon also makes me think of Kozue, because she is symbolized by the moon during the series, and the moon is what creates the waves in the ocean.

Hiraku wrote:

Your interpretation would very well link to Tamago's... the salty goodness of Akio and the rest of Kozue's male-harem

If I was to pick the ocean to represent this, I would not choose an ocean but the Dead Sea, now that salt content is HIGH!

Archambeau wrote:

Razara wrote:

The mention of the moon also makes me think of Kozue, because she is symbolized by the moon during the series,

wat

"It's not something you normally think about, and it doesn't serve much of a purpose, but from time to time, you look up at it, and it makes you feel better." Actually, it might be more accurate to say that it describes sibling relationships. Either way, I think she can be related to the moon in more than one way. It's hard to ignore the similarities between Miki and Apollo, and Kozue and Artemis. Artemis is the Goddess of the moon.