At 03:08 PM 7/21/00 -0400, DB Sommer wrote:
Alan Harnum wrote:
Post-series story. Full knowledge of the TV series necessary to
understand,
What, you mean you *understand* the TV series? ^_^
Yes.
He'd noted her in class, she'd noted him as well--both noted
one another with the casual, meaningless recognition of someone
as a momentary intruder into some sphere of the self's world, one
that will pass away soon enough into nothingness once again.
They only ended up meeting in the way that means anything because
they chanced to be seated beside each other (perhaps, given what
happened later, "chanced" was the wrong word, perhaps they could
no more have avoided truly meeting then they could have broken
the law of gravity,
It all depended on the author's perogative. :)
Shh. You're breaking the fourth wall again.
"Mind if I look over your shoulder when we discuss specific
passages?" she asked quietly.
"I'll nibble on your ear if you'll let me," she quickly added, knowing
that's all men really thought about.
Wow. I haven't posted a chapter of Mortal Engines in so long that I'd
forgotten what a DB Sommer commentary was like. How did it go again? Oh
yeah; bad DB, no biscuit.
the ceiling fan
blurred overhead.
For some reason 'blurred' just doesn't seem to be the right word there. Not
sure why, but I think something to describe the sound rather than the
appearance might be better. Very minor nit.
If I'd wanted to describe the sound rather than the appearance, I would
have done that. :)
"All of
these brave and noble warriors, and all they're really fighting
over in the end is a woman. A terrible waste."
Heh. Interesting comparison. But I wonder how many of them truly fought for
the woman, and how many truly fought for the glory, whether personal or for
country, and how many fought simply because they liked it.
Actually, most of them probably fought because their kings would've had
them slaughtered if they didn't. The heroes really just needed an excuse
for glorious battle; Utena's taking a rather simplistic view here.
Neither of them was a virgin, but neither of them was very
experienced, either.
With members of the opposite sex. Now as to same sex partners, well, that
was another story.
Random vaguely-related quote from last night's Utena discussion:
"Hey, do you think the Black Rose Duellists dress themselves in their new
uniforms, or does Mikage help them?"
--they learned the
ways of one another's bodies by a scientific method of hypothesis
and experiment, which seemed to work out quite well.
For example, spanking was right out with the first slap, but the sheep
costume turned out to be a definite yes.
Bad. No biscuit.
"Anything," she prompted, "so long as no one else knows it."
"Hmm." He thought for a moment. "When I was seven, I spent
the entire summer killing ants. I waged a kind of one-boy war
against them, with cheerful childish sadism. Water, fire, a
magnifying glass, a hammer... I had many different methods."
"Eventually I moved on to people. You know how women have been disappearing
>from campus? That's my work. Want to see their remains?"
I'm resisting the urge to make a cannibalism joke.
"No one," he replied. He shifted a little, and brought an
arm down to embrace her around the midsection, right below her
breasts. "No one."
"Want to ask me something?"
"Want more sex?"
"Yes, please."
"I dreamt that you were my enemy," she explained. Tear-
tracks shone in the moonlight upon her cheeks. "And that I
pierced you with a million swords, until your body becase mist
and disappeared altogether."
This, folks, is what is known as the classic time to be calling quits to
your relationship. :)
Yes, but if they did that, things wouldn't be nearly as interesting.
"You wore a black rose at your breast,"
You know, it now occurs to me that were I given a choice of rose to wear
upon my breast for duelling purposes, it would be black. No doubt about it.
Odd how the question suddenly struck me there.
You see a red rose, and you want it painted black?
After she had passed, her whisper reached back like an echo
>from somewhere out of their time. "If the chick does not break
its shell," it said, old and tired and faded as a funereal rose,
"it will die without being born..."
Oh dear. This should be interesting.
In the Chinese curse sense.
After he finally fell asleep, he dreamt of the dark woman.
She made love to both of them, and her breasts were as a field
of fragrant jasmine flowers, and her neck was as a tall tower
of black onyx, and her hair was as a hanging garden, and her lips
were as a ripe red fruit, and her sweet thighs were the gates of
paradise.
nice imagery
Biblically inspired, too. (Song of Songs : The book they don't teach you
in Sunday School).
"She's in two of my classes. Sits beside me in Twentieth-
Century Japanese Lit. Talked to her today a few minutes before
class started. She's really nice."
Odd. Utena doesn't remember her, or is just feigning ignorance to her man?
Doesn't remember her.
Dark Parvati rose from her chair without a word, and her red
dress slipped to the floor. Beneath, she wore nothing at all,
and her skin seemed to glow in the moonlight. She spread her
hands wide at her sides, in a gesture of all-encompassing
beckoning.
Wow. fast mover. :)
Runs in the family. :)
They came to her both as wayward lambs to their long-lost
mother, and her body was as a field of young green grass beneath
their mouths, and her breasts were as soft heather upon dark
mountain slopes, and her eyes were as two moonlit pools deep
within an ancient forest, and her voice was as a master-player's
harp, and her sweet thighs were the gates of paradise.
And her breath was that of onions, just having eaten three beforehand. It
made their eyes tear and completely ruined the effect.
Hush.
"But even after the chick is born," she continued, voice
rising and resounding and echoing, until the walls of the small
bedroom shook and plaster cracked, until the glass of water on
the nightstand shattered and splashed upon the floor, "it is weak
and helpless. It cannot fly. It must be cared for by its
mother. It must be taught to fly, even after it has broken its
shell. If the chick never flies, it would have been better for
it never to have been born at all."
A bit of an extreme viewpoint.
She's a goddess. Extremism is what she's all about.
"Who are you?" he whispered again.
She rose, legs unfolding smoothly as the unfolding petals of
a lily. Her hair hung down to her ankles, and she shone like a
new-born star. "I am Parvati," she began, "I am Durga and Kali.
I am Diana and Hecate and Circe. I am Tiamat. I am the salt
waters. I am the great sow that births and devours her young."
"Ah, so you're really Canadian," he said.
No, that would be the great seal that births and devours her young.
"You must learn to fly in a different way," she murmured,
and moved off the bed, stood staring out the window with her back
to him. "The time will come, soon or late, that I must face him.
It cannot be any other way. He has grown strong, and I have
grown weak. As I shall have my servants, so too shall he have
his. Things are not as they were."
Hmm. Interesting.
Yeah! It'll be just like the first Pokemon movie, and Akio is Mewtwo, and
Anthy is Mew, and...
Suddenly, she spun back towards him. "But they shall be,"
she hissed through her white teeth. "As it was in the beginning,
so shall it be again in the end, and my brother shall learn once
and for all time what his role must be."
"Ah, but those that aspire to be nothing more than princes can never
triumph over those who would be kings."
"Yes, but those who would be kings still can't win against emperors! Nyah
hah hah!"
Sorry about that. Mind's been playing around with a post Utena fic too (but
doesn't everyone's after seeing the end?). Figured out the basics and
title, but I got too much else on my plate and cannot consider starting on
'Ozymandias.'
So? Just do what I did, and stop working on everything else. The world
needs Utena fanfic. :)
Needless to say, ultimately this is all your fault, Alan. :)
Hey, you didn't have to watch those tapes. :)
"If you would fly," she said, without kindness or pity or
cruelty or scorn, "then you must be reborn. I require both a
priestess and a consort, and I shall love you both in ways you
cannot imagine."
Ah, how very forbodeing.
"Will you love me as a loser, but be worried that I just might win?"
"Sure."
"To spread your wings, you must be reborn, consort," she
murmured. "And to be born again, first you have to die."
"Are you sure we can't skip that last part?" he asked.
"No. It says so right here, in the script."
I had the idea for a post-series Mikage/Utena story some weeks
ago, but didn't actually have a plot to go with it that
sufficiently interested me enough to write it.
Ah ha. So it's Mikage. There were enough clues I should have picked up on
it. I always liked him. Probably because he managed to be a survivor and
actually 'graduated'.
Although it's ambiguous about just what the nature of his "graduation" was.
Only Ruka really achieved that sort of level of
interest for me (Though Wakaba is still my fave^_^) , and that was largely
because he seemed to make himself outside of Akio's interests to me.
I've always assumed he had some kind of deal running with Akio, even if
only because he felt it was the only way to "free" Juri; how would he have
become a Duellist otherwise?
Excellent work. Very nice imagery and development on the relationship
between the two, and it is one I approve of wholeheartedly.
I'd like to see it done in a more developed way myself; one that doesn't
end quite like this. :)
Ciao,
-Alan Harnum