Every Time I Listen To We Dont Talk About Bruno And Remember That Camilos VA Played Alex In Marvels Runaways

Every time I listen to We Don’t Talk About Bruno and remember that Camilo’s VA played Alex in Marvel’s Runaways I’m reminded of how absolutely ROBBED we were that we didn’t get a karaoke night episode in that show.

Nico and Karolina doing a romantic duet?

Gert and Alex doing a song together?

Chase singing a love ballad for Gert?

Molly rapping in Spanish?

We. Were. Robbed.

The Recloseted Lesbian. Lesbian Awakening 1

I feel that, for me, the most confusing scene in Revolutionary Girl Utena (which is really saying something) is the scene where Touga burns Saionji and Anthy’s exchange diary. For the life of me, I do not understand why he does this.

To start, as a side note, it’s interesting that in the sub version of episode 10 Touga says he’ll “take care of it” while in the dub version he says “I’ll keep it safe for you” which may be a mistranslation and take care of it meant to get rid of it, but I don’t speak Japanese so I’m not going to get into that.

So assuming that Saionji meant to keep it safe for him, why does Touga do this?

How I see it, there are three possible people Touga could be doing this for: Utena, Anthy, and Saionji. Utena is Touga’s “perfect girl” who he wants to control and manipulate. But she also cares deeply for Anthy. Is it possible Touga does this to “free” Anthy from Saionji in order to gain favor with Utena? Frankly, I don’t think so. For one, Utena doesn’t see him do this and the whole point is that Touga wants Utena to focus on him so he can control her and Anthy. So this doesn’t make much sense. Plus, at this point in the series is just after Touga saves Utena from Saionji. She sees him (more or less) as a chivalrous prince, or at least this is the point where he is seen as most princely in her eyes. After episode 12 that goes downhill fairly quickly.

Second, Anthy. The exchange diary does belong to Anthy and Saionji, and he wants to control the Rose Bride as much as the rest of the student council. Could this be meant to gain favor with her so she’ll be more likely to support him? Again, doubtful. Touga doesn’t see Anthy as a person. He sees her as an object to be owned, not to mention that considering how he treats her, saying that “birds should stay in their cages” she knows what he’s really like. He has made no effort to hide who he really is from her. Later on it could be argued he does this to gain favor with Akio, Anthy’s brother, but considering Akio hasn’t even been introduced at this point that doesn’t line up either.

So that leaves Saionji. To me, everything Saionji does clearly reads as Saionji being in love with Touga but being unable to compare to him. In a weird way, he’s a mirror of Shiori, but that’s a post for another day. Saionji is also the one who most clearly knows exactly what kind of person Touga is. He is under no misunderstanding that Touga is a prince or any bing, he knows how manipulative and cruel Touga can be. They’ve known each other for a long time. The exchange diary is clearly important to Saionji, not because he actually cares for Anthy, but because it’s proof that for a time he had the Rose Bride. He had something Touga didn’t. Did Touga want to destroy the evidence of the one thing that Saionji had that he didn’t (considering this is before Touga beats Utena)? That doesn’t really line up either. Touga is manipulative. He holds onto cards until he can use them.

That leaves the following question. When Touga is being logical and manipulative, he is very careful with every variable to make sure things turn out the way he wants. So was burning the exchange diary a logical choice, or was it an emotional choice?

This leaves my person dilemma. For the life of me, I do not see how this could have been a logical choice to manipulate someone. But if it was an emotional choice, why? Specifically towards the end, it seems like Touga may have feelings for Saionji when he’s being more honest with the people around him, and after Utena beats him he doesn’t seem to be trying to manipulate Saionji.

So is it possible he was jealous of Anthy’s relationship with Saionji? That is the best conclusion I can come up with but that still doesn’t sit right. Given where it comes in the timeline, Touga is still being an incredibly manipulative bastard. He isn’t leading with emotion until much later on.

Idk. Maybe I’m overthinking this. Sorry for the incredibly rambling post but I’m curious if anyone else has thoughts on this moment in the series.

There should be a word for the feeling of comfort from hearing a language from when you were a child but that you don’t understand any of.

For the Black Rose arc, other than Wakaba’s duel (because the entire thing is pure pain, from Utena trying to save her totally not girlfriend without hurting her best friend, to how Wakaba is so clearly not in love with Saionji but is angry because Anthy stole both the girl she seems to be madly in love with and her vague below the belt crush), Shiori’s is always the hardest for me to watch because it’s so obvious she’s in love with Juri. Heck, she’s arguably more in love than Juri is. But her inferiority complex means that, unless she does some serious work on herself, she is only able to hurt Juri because she wants so badly for Juri to look at her and pay attention to her but she doesn’t know how to show her feelings in any other way.

She is so in love with Juri, but Juri has become like a god to her. For some people, when they idolize someone and view them like a god, they become unable to see their faults and lose touch with the reality of the person (we can see this with both Nanami & Touga and Miki & Kozue). This is not what Shiori does. The other characters view their idols as so far above them and they try to protect them and keep them in the sky. But Shiori’s inferiority complex means that she is desperate to catch up to Juri. Juri is this almost godlike being, so of course Shiori is going to think that Juri’s feelings are pity.

We especially see this in the elevator. Juri is beautiful, popular, smart, kind, athletic, she’s perfect. And of course Shiori can’t possible imagine herself by Juri’s side. But that doesn’t stop her from wishing to be there. Shiori is problematic, no doubt, but she’s also tragic. She’s a girl in love with a girl who is so far out of her league as they exist in a world where women can only love men.

This morning while talking with @oneanxiousace I forgot the word “husband” and said “male wife” so now there are no husbands or spouses only wives, nb wives, and male wives.