Hi Ashnod:

I'm not judging your story either way, mind you, I just think that's what OITL was cautioning of when she suggested getting input from trans persons.

I do kind of understand what OITL was cautioning of, thus why I ask her if she could review my fic, or find some other  knowing person who knows this topic (trans, or otherwise) to review the fic to see if it is good/safe to put out as it is.  The discussion of whether my fic is safe to put out or not goes no where unless someone who knows what they're talking about actually read and review it.

Seinen Kakumei Utena is already out to part 4 (24000 + words) on this forum, on fanfiction.net, on my own blogspot and on my livejournal.  There are already a number of reviewers following the story and c&c-ing; if I just have it altered/pulled, then it has to have a valid reason that I can tell my existing readers.  So far none of the reviewers mentioned the Trans sensitivity issue as of yet even though it showed in the story already (I know this may be because I haven't yet heard from any trans reader, or may not have trans readers at all).  So if OITL or yourself knows of mature, knowing people on this issue, please let me get in touch with them so I can ask them to review and see if something actually needs to be changed.

Or, as I've requested OITL before, may I request you to kindly review my fic, Ashnod?  Or maybe find someone who knows about trans sensitivity to do so?  As it is now, I don't even know if I should put out part 5 just yet . . .


.

Thaaaak yoooouuuuuuu!!! 

What questions might you have? Or were you just looking for a general review?

P.S. - I am a...ruthless...and opinionated critic.

Give it to me, baby!  all the good, the bad, the ugly things you may say about this fic (which is a rushed, working-around-work effort so there may be gramma mistakes in parts)!

Most importantly, this thread got me worried about the Utena Trans man parts, which starts at end of part 2, with the swords showing up in part 3, relevance explained in part 4. Please tell me if you find something that definitely out of line so I may change it while I still can before future parts come out?

I'm not North American, I'm Asian; and I now see that I may have somewhat low sensitivity levels towards what is considered offensive/inappropriate to North American readers.  If there's something that needs censoring, please alert me about them?

Thanks again!

I can give it a read and review, but since I've not been keeping up much on SKU fanfiction I would not be the best for critiquing your characterization with the same finesse as Ashnod or others, or at spotting fandom cliches.   My concrit would be more in the way of the actual prose and writing itself -i.e spotting redundancies, error in flow and the quality of the writing itself.  I've taken my fair share of writing courses and shined in them as an editor (not for grammar though, oh lawd). I understand if this isn't the kind of concrit you want.  This isn't talking about your views on a character in a show you like or your personal canon, its your ability and potential as a writer.

Utena:  Forgive me  (for not being a boy)

This proves you missed the entire point of the show, which is "princes are not only male". The entire meaning of the show is that "princehood" is an active and empowered role, one of heroism, mercy, self-sacrifice and nobility, and that that role belongs just as much to women as to men.

There is almost no positive female-mannered role model in SKU.  Tokiko was the one who comes the closest to being one, with her bringing Mikage out of his robotic shell and being a loving sister; however, she soon fall into Akio's clutches and thus was used as catalyst to drive Mikage into despair.

Eventually, I discovered how it was Anthy in her final scene of leaving Ohtori in a strong but LADY-LIKE manner, that showed the first and only POSITVE female-mannered role model of the show - one that could not be born without Tomboy Utena befriending/loving her till the very end.

This proves you are just as mired in stereotypical ideas of gender roles as any of the males in Utena. The entire point was that even though everyone in the show did everything they could do stomp on and depower Utena as a woman, she proved them wrong. She did become the female hero, the female savior. Yes, FEMALE. Utena never identified as a male and never wanted to be one. She clearly and proudly identified herself as female. Her strength, her nobility, her mercy and self-sacrifice are human characteristics that are just as much within the purview of womankind, and she proved that. That is the revolution.

Utena is the "female-mannered" role model you're looking for, becuase the whole point of the show is that being a prince is "female-mannered".

For wanting to take all that away from her by saying that it was actually nascent maleness...you are every bit as bad as they are. I see nothing in your posts but an obsessive need to appropriate Utena for the side of "maleness" because you can't seem to fathom that she could pass through the ordeal that she did and remain a healthy and happy woman.

Your desire is to twist her into something she is not - male - for no other reason than that, in your heart of hearts, you can't accept that a person could be like Utena and still think of herself as "properly" female. The very fact you even think she could've been so wounded and defeated as to take such a step shows clearly how weak and fragile you think women are.

Frankly, I can't think of of much that's more misogynist than that.

Last edited by Aelanie (05-31-2012 03:04:42 AM)

Sorry for the double post, but being that I don't want to edit anything in the previous post, I'm posting here again while I can have Net Access for a short while

First off, can a mod (hi Satyreyes) or other older members of the forum clue me in as to how I can apply SPOILER TEXT (I've seen it used so often in the Penguindrum thread).  It would be easier to discuss the story with my reviewers in this thread if I use them)? I will be so grateful for this.

Edited to add: have just been taught how to use SPOILER TEXT, will post again about left out points soon!

Hi Ashnod:

Let me preface everything by saying that I'm currently in the middle of my own "10 years later" style fiction

If it's a story you make public, and it's Utena, then I want to read it!

2) You definitely have me curious where the metaplot is going: the slow spread of influence from Ohtori to the real world, the human fuel plot, etc. I hope that part isn't rushed, emot-wink since the metaplot of Utena is one of my favorite parts of the series.

The ENTIRE story's main point/convolutions is planned out in draft, I'll go into more detail with you once someone can tell me how to use SPOILER TEXT here in this forum.

3) Juri & Shiori - I'm not a fan of the very long narrative conversation up front that is used to explain their situation as is. It doesn't feel to me like a conversation two people would actually be having in that situation - walking us step by step through their lives for the past ten years. I understand why you chose this method to bring the audience up to speed on them, but it felt forced to me.

Yes, I was in ecstasy as I write those parts (emotionally, not drug wise, of course) "channeling" the long narrative style often seen in a famous Utena epic fic from years ago, but the result does come across a little chunky to myself upon reread.  When I have time, I'd maybe go over part 1 again and move more of the story telling into the thoughts of the characters instead of the conversations.

4) Amnesia & the Duelists - I'm not certain that everyone would have willingly forgotten about Utena had some force not been involved. I'm even less convinced they wouldn't have looked for had their memories of the duels been intact in the weeks following the final duel.

I got this idea at seeing how in ep 39, we were shown Utena getting rushed by the swords (which I interpret as her moment of exit from ohtori) then followed by scene of Wakaba looking for her (clearly still remembers), all the while the swords are destroying the arena and such.  The shadow-talk that followed went as if (in my interpretation) the shadows represented the general students of Ohtori 2 months post utena's disappearance: it went like the students remember who Utena was, that they once clamored her, but no longer cares about her now that she is gone from their surroundings; I took that as the students showing the apathy we so often seen in real life people (its so easy to lose touch with people), especially teens; thus how this story comes about. 

Nanami, in the final "student council" scene, took off the ring first and say she just want to forget the whole thing, note how Miki said he wondered "if this is something they can forget", not "if this is something they should forget".  Then Juri went on with her recalling (how she forget an unforgettable self-sacrifice-er), thus to me mean that the Council members, no matter how persistent-minded they thought they might be, too will “forget” Utena out of the apathetic inclination - towards those thought to no longer have anything to do with the present - that is part of human nature.

Even if the Duelists had some inkling that she was alive and still within the real world, none of them are detectives and feasibly none of them would have thought the answer was as simple as calling all the hospitals in the neighboring cities.

But the Student Council kids were shown as wealthy, resourceful people; Juri, in particular, was mentioned to have an "intelligence network" in Ep 22

Nanam:  But, if your intelligence network is good enough to find that out,
Nanami:  ...then I want you to find out who these people are, and now!

and even Kozue commented on this in ep 15

Juri:  However, just last night, he got a phone call saying that next time, it wouldn't be just a slight accident.
Kozue:  How brilliant, Arisugawa-sempai. You seem to know everything.

Having seen Nanami wealthy enough to travel around looking for curry, I took Juri's intelligence network literally as well.

And most importantly, apathy between people and the ruinous results it brings is MAJOR in my story, so the part about Duelists forgetting their Victor is an interpretation I can not change (again, I’ll show the plot once I know how to use that SPOILER TEXT)

5) Juri remembering Mikage - Is there a reason she remembers him? She is never shown personally interacting with Mikage in the Black Rose arc, and the Duelists never seemed to connect the mysteries of the Black Rose storyline to him.

But the student council (saionji knows Mikage) and even Utena (pre meeting Mikage) knows about the Mikage seminar , and there's this:

The pink van bore a plate with the letters “MIKAGE”, headed by a black rose motif.

I figured Juri is sharped-minded enough to make the connection immediately.  Oh, and the only reason she "remembers before Shiori" is because she is sharp-eyed enough to  spot the car plate prior to Shiori.

6) The use of senpai - Many people are throwing this honorific around when it seems inappropriate to me.

Being Asian - though not Japanese, we have our "sempai-term" equivalent - I can tell you this:
In STRICT traditional term, all upperclassmen in a school should be called sempai by their lowerclassmen.  Thus why Miki call Utena Tenjou-sempai even though he is on the student council and she is not.  To NOT use the word sempai on an upper classman was, in traditional terms (and older times), to think that his/her accomplishment/character do not merit the title thus can be interpreted as a form of antagonism and/or rudeness towards the upperclassman.  Utena came out in the late nineties thus was in a world where the use or unuse of the sempai term became a lot more casual than before thus kids can really do skip the sempai terms with upperclassmen that they feel (without malice) are not accomplished enough to warrant the term, and said upperclassman would likely not take offense - but he has the right to be if he want to go the "traditional" route.  Shiori's char. suffer from inferiority complex, so suppose she and Juri are together and Juri is called sempai while she is just -san, she can feel "pricked" (am I really so inferior, even though I was also on the fencing team post show, and is now Juri's colleague); considering how old Anthy really is, and how she knows the mind's workings of people she deals with, she will only use the -san on Shiori if she is to antagonize her. 

7) Saionji defending Touga

I cannot explain this part  here without SPOILER TEXT, someone please tell me ho to use it please ~

Forgive the comparison, but the method of this feels very anime-esque, such as Noriko from Fushigi Yuugi, where such transformations seem more routine and possibly accepted at face value and where the sanity of the person undergoing it isn't questioned, and that may very well have been your intent.

Being that Utena is an anime, I figure even a mature fic on it should have anime-esque elements, that being said, I thought in part 4

“Himemiya,” spoke Juri, her voice as concerned as it was cautious, “is Utena not well?”
“Utena has not been well for a very long time,” replied Anthy

Shows that the Juri (and other Duelists) can see something is off with Utena mentally, and the sword explanation comes up.
What I'm concerned is whether this part in part 4 is offensive to trans person, and if so what changes should I make in the story's presentation?  I can give you the metaplot concerning UTena but I need to be able to use SPOILER TEXT.

9) The penguins

They are kinda like Utena’s Chu-Chu with much bigger roles, and are even closer to their owner (almost inseparable) than Chu-Chu is to Anthy.  The penguins in Mawaru-Penguindrum are kinda like “witch familiars” (as Tokiko call them in part 4) that took on parts of their owners’ feelings/inclinations, and express them in seeminly random, seemingly non-sense manners that almost resemble SKU’s shadow-girls.  Penguin #1,2 are attuned to (non-blood related) brothers Kanba (k-taro) and Shouma (s-taro), with #3 attuned to Himari (the non-blood-related sister they self-sacrificed “to become nothing” in a fate train transfer to save from death) and the black one is attuned to Kanba’s twin sister Masako (shown almost infatuated with him, thus why black is always after  #1).  The fate trans transfer created a new reality where Himari gets to live on (thus why #3 no longer follows her, and black penguin no long follows Masako, but where Kanba and Shouma (both originally teenagers) are not included in this reality (thus their sisters have difficulty remembering them); not only that, they were shown to have maybe regressed into little kids by MP’s ending (some think they reincarnated as they don’t seem to remember either) and then seemingly walk out of reality and into a galactic surrounding (reflected in the room in parts 3, and 4 of Seinen, which is a surreal cross between Himari’s room and the starry space the post-series brother found themselves in).

10) Given the circumstances you placed Akio and Anthy in post-series, I'm not sure how Anthy managed to locate Utena. If she was to suffer the same pain as he if she so much as thought of details, I'm curious how she did it.

In Seinen part 1, Anthy said: “Had people on the Council – had anyone at all – bothered to look for her then, she would certainly be found; and I, with my senses attuned to each and every one of my engaged, would have found her accordingly.”
I still don’t know how to use spoiler text yet, but I’ll say this: one of the Duelist will be shown ( in a future part/chapter) to have come across Utena 3 years prior to Seinen’s beginning (7 years post revolution) while neither recognize the other (this will be a crucial scene to the plot): Anytway, that was all it took for Anthy (going by painful trial and error wandering all over the world for 7 years), attuned to her duelists, to locate utena immediately.  And Anthy cannot even think of subtly mention the “revolutionary success” without immediately debilitated by the enchantment – if its gonna be this easy, Akio and his alliance would’ve found Utena long ago.

Again, thank you for giving such a detailed review of my work in like one-night’s time reading through it.  I owe it to you to explain further more of Seinen’s mysteries.

edited to add coming right up in my next post!

Thanks and talk again soon ~

Edited to add:  Japan is a country notorious for having many underground, unlicensed, uninspected clinics connected to the yakuza; at such clinics, people can even buy human organs illegally for transplant.  A person who desperately wants to go through either sex-change, plastic surgery, or abortion can easily do so without any body/mind evaluations at all when they go to these clinics (which only care if they pay up), but the results of surgeries there are often problematic or out outright botched.

Last edited by gorgeousshutin (05-31-2012 12:40:38 PM)

Thanks, Satyreyes!

(And I~ I will always love you~~)

allegoriest:

I really don't get the whole (good bitch) (slut) you have everywhere

The "everywhere" are the places RIGHT AFTER AKIO OHTORI's DIALOGUES.
I'm making blatant AKIO's thoughts in language that people will hopefully understand, it's for the sake of a plot-related (not personal, as we are both sane) argument with Satyreye I got upthread - those bitch/slut words ARE NOT MY THOUGHTS ON UTENA! THEY ARE AKIO'S THOUGHTS!

Several of us seem to be under the impression that she's turning into a man because her 'womanhood' is making her weak. It... uhh... kinda really seems like you're saying this. That a girl can't TAKE IT LIKE A MAN so she has to become one. And uhh, it's kinda offensive. :/

I'm also kinda on Team Aelanie.

If after reading my many posts and you still think that it is I, instead of AKIO saying/believing that  BAD message, while FACT is all I said was how it was  AKIO blow-beating his (not mine) BAD message into Utena's psyche thus hurting her . . . if this "Team Aelanie" that you say you're "kinda on" somehow equates me into a Fictional Villian created by Chiho Saitou, just from reading about ME writing about a character  . . . then please do not come back reading any post I made, least your "Team" offend yourselves with what's in your heads just from reading me write about something else entirely.

Bottom line, I will not stand to have my person attacked without valid reason.  I do not attack other members on this board on personal levels, and I don't appreciate when such hateful attack is directed against me.

I'm so grateful that I have rational, mature people offering to pre-read my fic and help me make it better - they are sensible and are not jumping to condemn my person baseless-ly as a mysogynist - and that I have  a nice mod showing me how to use spoiler-text, so now I can continue trading sensible ideas with reasonable people in this thread.

Last edited by gorgeousshutin (05-31-2012 01:15:53 PM)

allegoriest

Chill out, I'm just trying to understand whatever it is you're saying. (And I haven't even read my best friend's writing. Ask my teachers about it too.) I'm not here to discuss your fic, I here to discuss the show.

I apologize for jokingly asking you to read my fic many posts up thread.  I shall never do so again. And I wrote about my views on the show (which materialized into my fanfic) in a discussion about the show.

I mentioned my fic in the first post, and the thread went on without getting marked as spam; I'm sorry if the continuation of this thread end up offending anyone.

You've done nothing wrong, shutin.  Aelanie, allegoriest, I do think the two of you could stand to read shutin's posts more closely -- particularly this one, where e makes clear that e thinks the swords (and implicitly the series) do see Utena as a prince.  Shutin's position is that Utena will not see herself that way in light of her failure to save Anthy, what with the "fake prince" line and all.  So it's not correct to say:

Aelanie wrote:

You missed the entire point of the show, which is "princes are not only male".

or

allegoriest wrote:

Several of us seem to be under the impression that she's turning into a man because her 'womanhood' is making her weak. It... uhh... kinda really seems like you're saying this.

No: shutin says that Utena missed Aelanie's entire point of the show, and Utena is under the impression that her "womanhood" makes her weak.  Shutin clearly does not believe this emself.

Now, I think shutin's idea that Utena will be scarred by the misogyny of the finale is implausible, for reasons I discussed above, and I agree with parts of what Aelanie said: there is something problematic, perhaps misogynistic, about the idea that Utena -- a strong woman if there ever was one, and a cis-gendered one -- is weak enough to be driven to change her sex, even under the extreme circumstances of the finale and post-show.  But as for the rest, let's not go accusing shutin of saying things that e has not said and avowedly does not believe.

Shutin, is this post fic-related discussion that should go in the fic thread, or does this belong here?

Well, from a radical feminist viewpoint, Utena abandoning her womanhood would be because of internalized misogyny. Despite Akio's taunts, Utena ended up being the one who saved Anthy as a fellow woman and helped her take that step to leave behind what constrained her.