#but I just love the imagery of the carousel and wanted to discuss it

[colossalsquidz]

I think my favourite piece of symbolism in rgu will always and forever be the carousel in episode 39. In the intro, you get this awesome shot of Utena and Anthy riding on horses through the sky, and throughout the whole show you’re waiting for that moment to come to fruition.

Horses, of course, are heavily linked to the idea of the prince. Dios is described as a “prince on a white horse,” Touga explicitly states that horses are part of the “prince” persona, Akio and Touga both ride with Utena on a horse when they’re trying to be her prince. And as the protagonist, most viewers will be rooting for Utena to get her own moment of heroism. To break away from Akio’s abuse and become the gallant prince she’s always dreamed of being.

However, when Anthy stabs Utena, this dream is shattered. She says, “You remind me so much of Dios when I loved him. But you can never be my prince, because you’re a girl.” An intentionally cruel jab, rubbing salt in the wound. But also showing Anthy’s mindset, fear of being abused again by someone who wants to trap her in a power dynamic. She loves Utena and believes she is genuinely trying to help her, but still can’t trust her.

This is when the carousel appears. The same motif of the white horse, but this time a crude plastic simulacrum, going around and around in circles. Utena has been sold the idea of the prince as a way to claim autonomy in a patriarchal society, but in the end the “prince” in power only wants to keep everything in eternal stasis. The flying horses in the sky were always a pipe dream, because that’s not what it means to claim power within the framework of this system. A carousel can never advance. A prince can never truly smash the world’s shell, just accumulate power within it.

The nature of the carnival ride and the children’s laughter in the background are also important here, almost mocking Utena in her lowest moment. It reminds me of Akio’s statement that she was merely “playing” at the duelling game, like all this was some childish power fantasy. But we know that’s not true. That’s why Utena is able to pull herself up and make her way to Anthy’s coffin. Dios is the one riding the carousel here, offering Utena false platitudes and beckoning her to accept the way things are, join him in going around and around for eternity. However, Utena’s desire to help her friend trumps her desire to be a hero. To help Anthy has always been her main driving force, and Akio is so cynical that he can’t understand that someone might want to help for purely selfless reasons. Ultimately, this is his downfall.

When the curtain falls and the prince is revealed to be a child on a plastic horse, Utena is disgusted by the farce and accepts the painful reality of her identity being ripped from her and discarded. Because being the prince was never Utena’s goal, it was a means to an end to help Anthy from the very beginning.

[crechi]

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additional system notes

for reference: redacted, amalgam, and placebo - the three alters in our head kymaera - a previous alter who split into amalgam and redacted; existed at the same time as placebo in a two-alter system karrion [yes, as in an animal carcass] - our name for our physical body, as all of us view it as separate 【:text】 - amalgamの備考 〘:text〙 - redactedの備考 ❴ :text ❵ - placeboの備考 [:text] - general note. could've been written by any of us, not important to specify who word.word - a typing quirk of ours. not purposely meant to emphasize anything, and has no meaning

☣＿content warning for: a suicide joke, sexual content, violent and/or disturbing imagery, body horror, sadist/masochist dynamic[s], semi-graphic description of fracturing, in-depth discussion of osdd system dynamics + mentions of a mischaracterized sense of self, dissociation/derealization, psychotic hallucinations, manic episodes, in public mental breakdowns and panic attacks, anxiety disorder, emotional unresponsivity, emotional amnesia, maladaptive coping strategies, osdd system based duress, arguing within osdd system, autism masking, menstruation, and age regression

✧quot; 'spinning the wheel' [our carousel]

when we're under extreme emotional duress, our individual control begins to weaken. this causes all three of us to have full control at the same time, turning karrion into a kind of conglomerate of our personalities. [the inspiration for amalgam's name] 【kind of like eclipse :D】〘yes, mal-mal. like eclipse.〙

one of two things will happen;

1 .we'll be noticeably unresponsive, because with all of our different mentalities piled on top of and contradicting each other, we wouldn't know how to feel, let alone react. [the inspiration for redacted's name]

2 .karrion will rapidly flicker between our individual personality traits, never quite being stable in which one.of us they are. [basically, a quiet manic episode] hence, 'the carousel' of rapidly spinning over and over. ❴ round and round and round we go~ where will we stop? nobody knows! ❵

✧we can make projections to each other. basically just weaponized psychosis; used to be involuntary, and sometimes still is, but we can create them on purpose now. [the inspiration for placebo's name]

the projections feel incredibly real to us, and can:

―touch us [squeezing, tapping, caressing, rubbing, etc.]

―push and/or pull us

―make us feel pleasure enough to cum

―obstruct our ability to see

―obstruct our ability to move

basically anything that an actual, tangible object could do and feel like.

the form of the projection is determined by the person who created it, but common ones are:

.vessels of 'ourselves'

.placebo's projections

.detached appendages

.sun and moon from security breach【i don't want to hear it. you should've figured we were freaks by now】

visual projections are easy for us, because we're a visual learner, but auditory projections are considerably more difficult because we are, decidedly, shit at recalling and identifying audio sounds[we love vocaloid, but i swear that it's, like, the worst genre for us]

the one and only exception to this is the voices of people; any other audio we are completely blind to. likely something we learned because it was useful for autism masking;being able to analyze different intonations and inflections[also probably why we have such a strong emotional reaction to voice actors]

✧we are able to identify the point of kymaera's fracture into amalgam and redacted, because it happened recently. for a couple of weeks, we had:

—rapidly developing dyslexia that dissapeared after the split was complete.

—photosensitivity, in which flashing black and white images, intense eye-searing colors, and excessive glitch effects would trigger our split to worsen quickly, or just make.us consciously aware of it [either way, it felt like our mind was splitting, and.it was ♢not good.png♢]

―sensitivity to static, garbled noises, and high-pitched.noises[< specifically the sound a computer makes when it turns on/is charging][atp low-key convinced that i'm an android]. hearing these would cause the same worsening splitting that our photosensitivity did.

―increased audio.sensitivity; technically two people, but still sharing sensation since we weren't fully split, so on top of already being audio sensitive, it would ring in our head twice over! how fun~

―a complete lack of our prior pan/omni desires, being romance averse entirely and having no sexual attraction at all

[my guess, is we didn't want to remember or feel. so we stopped anything that might contribute to that]

*the fracture between placebo and kymaera happened too long ago for us to remember, and we actively erased everything that happened during that fracture via intentional.emotional amnesia.

✧if one of us tries to move karrion while another is fronting, the movements will be delayed, uncoordinated, off balance, and/or.lethargic. 〘there was a time placebo was making us food, so it had primary control, and amalgam was zoning out and.making karrion sing; he tried to dance a bit, and we almost fell several times〙

this disparity is flexible, as it is possible for us to have a near 50／50 split with control, or a different ratio, but it depends on how much energy we have, how much emotion we're feeling compared to apathy, and how.focused we are.

✧as mentioned in the last bullet point, the severity of our emotion determines how.much control we have. if we feel strong enough emotions, it's entirely impossible for someone else to take control, or for us to give.up control to someone else.either.

unrelated /j:

1 .amalgam and redacted are prone to panic attacks.

2 .placebo doesn't share emotions with us, unless extremely potent.

so, in conclusion, it would be nice, and probably was intended based on how our system is structured, if placebo could take over while we are panicking and allow us to decompress/ride it out.in our headspace, but it can't, because in the moment of panicking, our emotions are too strong.

instead, it resorts to projections:

―things[usually hands, sometimes tentacles] surrounding us and putting pressure on us, as a form of hug [sort of]

―our body being ripped apart by clawed hands.

―our head being pealed open [common one]

―[this one's more recent] collars/cuffs with chains adorning our neck, wrists, waist, thighs, and [maybe] ankles, but that last one makes it a challenge to walk/makes.us trip

―gagging our mouth with an unknown object [can't see it, can.only feel it.]

―skin peeling and melting off

―placey's tail constricting around us and [depending on how severe] tearing us apart

surprisingly effective; a lot of these involve us being torn apart because amalgam is extremely more vulnerable to panic attacks than redacted [and his are.worse on average], & he's an extreme masochist. pain calms him.down.

*you could imagine how confusing this was before we knew we were seperate people: having hallucinations of being eaten alive during a mental breakdown; the.horrifying visions calm me down, but i also feel a slight sadistic satisfaction at knowing i enjoy being torn apart. like wtf?? bro, what are you on?

✧placebo's tail: [since we realized forgot to explain]

a consistent projection, appears when placey's mad

―a long, thin, black.demon's tail

―typical club-shaped tip

―spikes protruding from everywhere down the length of it. they increase in length, sharpness, and frequency depending on how badly it wants to rip someone's throat out

＿＿＿＿＿

even before we knew we were a system, we'd do things in effect of our system. as.an undiscovered system, we thought we were just wildly unstable and volatile.

examples:

―placebo would intentionally make itself livid to keep control, because the alternative was karrion beaking down in the middle of the street.

―there.was always a period after a breakdown or panic attack where i was uncharacteristically calm, and i.just figured i'd overexerted my emotions and couldn't feel for a while; it was actually placebo taking control to give me a break

―the times kymaera'd feel more "in control" of ourself because we had faster reaction time, said things without second guessing ourself [because we didn't even hear the thought before karrion said.it], and.were more coordinated because we had less anxiety, were, ironically, the times.placebo was fronting and kymaera wasn't in control.

―kymaera called placey "Mr. Voice" and would have screaming matches with essentially what he thought was.himself

―one of our favorite songs was chonny jash's cover of 'the bidding' by tally hall, cuz it made us feel seen

―we'd talk to each other, only half the conversation aloud depending on who was in control; we'd use differientiators: 'you' v. 'me' v. 'us' as if we weren't actually monolouging. because we weren't. and it didn't feel that way to us. we still somehow convinced ourselves that we were one person, and it was just easy for us to create a faux dialouge because we have adhd.

it'd confuse.us when there.was a disparity in knowledge or understanding; the frequency of the phrase ｢[but] you're me.｣ made us question things several times.

we'd talk between us before and after kymaera split, though the feeling.of disconnect was even.more.pronounced when there were three of.us.

*in the same vein; before we found out we were an age regressor:

―｢i'm too big.｣

―｢i'm small right.now.｣

―｢he doesn't wanna be big!｣

―｢i'm too small [for this]..｣

―｢a nice place. where i can be warm and small.｣

―｢xe make me feel small. like xem.｣

〘he'd say things like this and not.bat a braincell. like bro−〙

【just thought i was being 'tistic.】

✧we can control a lot of things about karrion; placebo, in particular, is really good at this. [second inspiration for placebo's name, since this is basically just intentional placebo effect]

perception; we can:

―alter karrion's sense of smell and taste

we can make meat taste like candy or root bear soda like strawberries

for some reason, subconsciously? i think?? we changed the taste of chicken eggs. they still taste like eggs, but now come pre-seasoned with spinach and cilantro

―turn off our reception to pain

makes fist fights easy

painless periods babeyy

―dissociate incredibly easily

can turn it on and off like a lightswitch

works better if we use an ｢activation phrase｣; 'it's fine', 'whatever', 'bye-bye'【goofy ahh―】, 'anyway'

―turn off our motion sickness

is sometimes difficult because we'll forget we can, or it won't register to us that we're motion sick until it's more severe

we've been trying to comepletely turn off/alter our hearing and sight, too, [basically trying to make an extremely real daydream]【escapism yippee】 with mixed results so far. i think.the projections are as far as we can go with hearing and sight.

physically; we can;

―slow down our heartrate

a necessity chronic anxiety created

if we really wanted, we can hold it long enough to pass out [insomnia cure]

can't stop it completely, unfortunately

―extendedly hold our breath without triggering asphyxia heaving

mainly used to keep singing even after our lungs are empty 〘will stetson, spare us please〙

✧we have seperate cognitive function. meaning, we can multitask, and do entirely seperate activities at the same time.

currently, the most impressive example of this would be the instance where amalgam was writing down our story ideas while redacted was listening to instructions; amalgam did not pause to listen once, and redacted recieved the full instructions with no misconceptions

we've heard of a case where someone was able to have a full conversation while copying information from a board, and we've been trying to get to that level, though that would require at least two of us to both have 100% motor control over different parts of karrion, which we haven't mastered yet.【been kicking our ass ；−；still trying, tho】