like a star, like a firefly

This is from around eight months ago and adapted from a tag "essay" I did when I reblogged a piece of fanart based on the mastermind's last scene.

( Needless to say that there's huge endgame spoilers )

The room visit scene from episode 29 of Utena is one of my favourites when it come to Shiori and the Juri/Shiori relationship, so when I saw a gifset based on it around 2 years ago, I couldn't help but have feelings about it.

Rather than put my rambling into a direct comment on the gifset, though, I ended up splurging my feelings in a series of tags, as was my habit sometimes when I didn't want to bother graphics OPs with my rambling stuck onto their work. Here's the "tag essay" in question, which I'm not going to bother putting under a cut for a change because it basically only amounts to a single paragraph:

this scene hurts me, friendly reminder that juri contributed to shiori's pain here, because she walked away from shiori being publicly dumped by ruka as if it had nothing to do with her, because she's only come to talk to her long after the fact, because she's only come to talk to her AT ALL because utena called her out on ignoring her, so is it really so shocking that shiori would lash out like this? especially when she's feeling worse about herself than ever?, it doesn't make her behaviour RIGHT by any means but it's at least understandable how she feels, her hand on the doorknob still gives me a lot of feelings too, that's shiori's hand holding the door open, she's the one who wants to reach out to juri, (see also: ep 17), but she can't because she put the chain on the door herself, it's amazing how one frame can say so much about shiori as a character, brb having utena feels, tag essays ftw

Around 4 years ago, I got an ask wondering how I saw Shiori's and Juri's future. Here's the response I gave that person at the time.

( In which I'm optimistic for my trainwreck OTP )

I've have some positive feedback for my Shiori defences and analysis posts on Tumblr, which always makes me happy because it shows I'm not alone in wanting to stick up for her. This included an ask I got around 4 years ago from an anon who thought Shiori was right up there with Anthy for being the most sympathetic character and that she's a little like Wakaba in some respects.

Here's my response to the ask, in which I basically agreed with the anon.

( Another three-paragraph wonder )

Around 5 years ago, someone made a submission to Revolutionary Confessions on Tumblr wondering what might have happened to Shiori to make her have such an awful image of herself. Here's the speculation I added at the time.

( Not particularly long, but has mentions of bullying (naturally) and internalised homophobia )

At one point around two years ago, I suddenly got incredibly emotional about movie!Touga. Here's the thoughts I had at the time.

( Not a long post, but does have movie spoilers and mentions of CSA and suicide )

Might start bringing over non-Utena pieces next, for variety's sake.

It's not exactly a secret that Shiori is my favourite Utena character, and since 2012 I've written a lot about her on Tumblr -- whether it's defending her and establishing why she's not the scum of the universe most of the fandom thinks she is (that was even literally my tag for such posts: shiori is not the scum of the universe) or examining certain scenes and seeing how they reflect on her character.

Unsurprisingly, I've had a few people send me asks about why I love this incredibly unpopular character so much, so I thought this particular response I wrote around 4 years ago would be a good place to start as far as porting my Shiori-related posts over to here goes.

( Cut just for length this time )

I won't be bringing over every single one of my old Shiori posts -- there's way too many of them, I tend to say the same things several times, and some of them don't quite reflect my current feelings, among other reasons -- but I do want to get my favourite pieces over here. :3

I call this meta, but really, it's more like a several-hundred-word splurge of feelings on these characters. Anyway, I originally wrote this nearly five years ago on Tumblr, but with that site being what it is right now, I thought I'd rescue it over to here. It's pasted over completely as-is; I wouldn't mind polishing it up eventually, because at one point I liked the idea of submitting a tidier version to Empty Movement as an essay, but for now I just want to preserve the original thing.

Without further ado...

( Cut both for length and for potentially disturbing subject matter (namely CSA and incest) )

I may-or-may-not repost more of my old meta from Tumblr here, depending on if I find anything else I want to rescue while going through my old posts.