#intended parallels

[un-intended-parallels]

The Veiled Virgin by Giovanni Strazza, 1850s

THIS MAN by J x W (Seventeen) promotional posters, 2024

[technically-human]

St. Hilarion's ghost story

[theejael]

am i makin' you feel sick?

—

yeah, okay, the ghoul's kinda cool.

[saryasy]

And I'm sure you don't want to hear it. I do want to hear it. All right, you're living it, and I want, I want you to talk to me.

[haliaiii]

The modern prometheus

[cabinette]

What have I become? I'm the face of God, I'm my Father's son

[sabertoothwalrus]

sometimes I think the trans kabru headcanon is more “there’s nothing in canon disproving it” (+ a bit of “it compliments his character arc well”) than people looking for intentional subtext but. wow Kui sure did put these pages back to back huh

[daily-portgas-d-ace]

day 20

brothers hug

(I DIDN'T MEAN FOR YESTERDAYS TO HURT PEOPLE I promise I'm not going to kill the bugs 🙏 they will thrive together ok I prommy)

[midweastindigo]

AND NØW I JUST SIT IN SILENCE

[fairyroses]

— SMALLVILLE, "Tempest" (1.21) & "Fragile" (5.18)

[group-dynamic]

*SCREECHING*

I was watching this lovely, bittersweet edit highlighting the short, tragic friendship between Celebrimbor and Elrond as they're portrayed in the Rings of Power, and it got me reflecting (as many of us have) on the prophesy, "My father foresaw that one day Celebrimbor's life would be in my hands" and how it's too bad there wasn't anything that felt like a weighty resolution to that thread. Like, to have a prophesy directly from the foresight of Eärendil that's first mentioned in season one and invented for the show feels so significant to be used merely as a device to compound Elrond's failure, you know? The prophesy works well as foreshadowing and elevates the tragic impact of Elrond's role as commander and his inability to defend Eregion, but that feels so distant to the idiom "life in his hands." Especially since Elrond isn't even in sight of Celebrimbor's death, so how could his life really be so directly in his hands--

IT'S THE RING.

THE RINGS.

Elrond's only direct acts related to "saving" Celebrimbor on screen is trying to save his records and his city, aka the lore and legacy around him. And that fails. The records are burned, the city is reduced to rubble, the smith's greatest achievements are corrupted and certainly going to be twisted further to some evil purpose in Sauron's hands.

And Elrond's been so certain that those rings are corrupted, including the elven rings (which for a while are the only rings the Lindon elves know of in the show). But then suddenly those elven rings are all that's left of Celebrimbor's legacy and in the first and last episode of the season they're LITERALLY in Elrond's hands. When he jumps from the cliff trying to keep them from his friends, and when he finally picks one up and uses it for good--for its intended, healing purpose. I mean, Elrond future lore master has Celebrimbro's life story in his hands. He has Celebrimbor's life's work in his hands, and all the parts of himself and his craft he poured into those rings.

And one day Elrond will literally be one of the bearers and wielders of Celebrimbor's life work and legacy. Yeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaahhh==

"His life in his hands" indeed.

[un-intended-parallels]

어젯밤 by JxW (Seventeen), 2024

Take on Me, A-HA, 1984

[suzalulusource]

1x01 | 1x25 | 2x25

[justatoast]

MIRROR BOYS 🌊|🔥

I made this drawing several months ago, I didn't publish it bc I'd lost motivation to draw... But now I want to start sketching again :)

Anyway enjoy the boys ✨

[arscorpii]

utena and anthy were the only characters in the series shown to be in a coffin. the first time we saw both characters in the coffin was in episode 9 (shots above), with the flashback to utena's story and anthy being trapped in a coffin in the duelling arena.

i was looking at the shots of anthy in the coffin above; some people here had pointed out before that the characters in the coffin were in a fetal position, not in the typical manner that a deceased person would be positioned in a coffin/casket (supine with hands clasped together over the middle of the chest, and legs are positioned straight and close together). i pondered a little about the shots and the positioning. this may be a (highly?) sparse correlation, but the fetal positions of utena and anthy here reminded me specifically of a human fetus in the breech presentation.

(i have read analyses/commentaries about how being in the coffin correlated to touga's speech about breaking the world's shell with the student council members as the chicks and the world as an egg. i agree with the points. the ideas i present here are just humble suggestions based on what i know; an additional perspective. i understand all of this could be entirely wrong.)

(i never intend to perpetuate or enforce cisheteronormativity or cissexism or terf or transmisogynistic rhetorics/beliefs in this discussion. this is just a revision of medical knowledge based on what is commonly taught and practiced. i tried my best to word this writeup properly. it could be very esoteric, but i tried writing everything as simple as i could.)

both types of coffins shown above loosely reminded me of the structure of a uterus and cervix without the attached structures of the fallopian tubes and ovaries (diagrams for clarity).

the image on the left shows fetal presentations (referring to the part of the fetus that enters the pelvis first). breech presentation occurs when the baby’s buttocks lie over the maternal pelvis. the image on the right shows three types of breech presentations (transverse lie is not a breech presentation). breech presentation can lead to complications during labour. in this case, caesarean section, or c-section, is usually performed.

these are the types of uterine incisions used in a caesarean section. lower segment incision is the most common incision nowadays. however, caesarean section was historically performed with a vertical incision (classical incision). commonly, after an incision is made all the way into the amniotic sac, the baby is pulled out.

all of this information in a way reminds me of utena and anthy; after losing her parents, utena decided to stay in a coffin and gave up on living. touga opened her coffin, but seeing and learning of anthy's suffering convinced utena to leave it and keep on living, in order to save her one day. with regard to anthy, after utena passed the rose gate in episode 39, she strained with all her might to open anthy's coffin in order to reach her and help her escape it. in both circumstances, both utena and anthy were in a coffin and unable to leave it by themselves. they required a little push, some help to leave. to me, these details were reminiscent of a baby being delivered. during normal labour, contractions of the uterine muscle and maternal efforts (pushing) are two vital factors for the baby to be delivered while during a caesarean section, the surgeons pull the baby out. in both cases, the baby requires help to be born. i contemplated the view of a chick cracking its shell to be born; chicks have to crack their own shells without any external help. this is also true for all other animals that are born in nature, both via eggs and via delivery. the fact that utena opened anthy's coffin and reached out to her to get her out in episode 39 made me consider the idea of a human fetus being born via caesarean section.

to put it simply, in utena's case, touga made the incision (opened the coffin) but anthy pulled her out of the womb (helped her to leave the coffin) while in anthy's case, utena made the incision (pried open the coffin) and tried pulling her out of the womb (reached out to anthy in the coffin).

these shots are intriguing because while the cracks in the walls shaped like rose petals behind the coffin could be very much likened to veins on flower petals, they also somewhat reminded me of blood vessels surrounding a uterus (diagrams for clarity). the red colour also added to the visual resemblance of the organ and the blood vessels. i see the coffin as a visual representation of the uterus and its lid's opening was akin to a classical incision, because utena didn't open it all the way through, only a small opening (diagrams below for clarity).

anthy was found in the coffin in the fetal position without clothes which could signify anthy being in her truest form. (amniotic sac, a sac that holds a fetus in the uterus throughout pregnancy, contains clear to pale yellow amniotic fluid. the colour of the light reminded me of the fluid.)

utena reached her hand out to anthy resolutely despite anthy urging her to leave. eventually, anthy reached out to her and grasped her hand. alas, they couldn't hold onto each other and anthy slipped from utena's hold. i don't interpret this scene to be similar to a stillbirth/fetal death. i think it's more toward utena and anthy respectively confronting their own ideals and beliefs, which leads to them finally being able to leave ohtori on their own terms, akin to a rebirth.

watching through adolescence of utena, the imageries related to birth seemed more prominent to me. a standout visual would be this version of utena car, which transformed right before anthy entered the underside of the castle mobile. it was quite similar to the structure of a typical uterus.

as anthy escaped the underside of the castle mobile, she was faced with compressing tracks from both her right and left. this pair of tracks reminds me of the birth canal. Normally, labour involves uterine contractions, and cervix effacement and dilatation. from what i know, there aren't any major processes that occur in the birth canal such as described to occur in the uterus and cervix during labour.

the castle mobile's structure did not resemble a uterus. nevertheless, if the fallopian tubes and ovaries are disregarded, the castle mobile could roughly be likened to the structures of uterus and cervix.

i watched how anthy struggled through the compression and came out of the structure head-first with utena, and i was reminded of a normal delivery, which does not necessitate surgery but the two aforementioned factors above, as well as favourable characteristics of the fetus itself in terms of its size, presentation, and position. anthy's position of leaning head-first towards akio as she drove through the pair of tracks and emerging in the same pose with utena was quite a clear parallel to the typical cephalic/vertex presentation of fetus. to be even more specific (and esoteric), it reminded me of the face presentation, which is considered a malpresentation similar to the breech presentation (breech is the most common malpresentation). normal birth is still possible for a face presentation, but the progress in labour may be slow.

i thought about the fetal positions of utena and anthy in respective coffins. i wondered if, within the deepest parts of their hearts, they longed to be free from their coffins. baby utena said that she had given up on living, yet i pondered if she was yearning for a great enough reason/purpose/aim to rise from her hopelessness. anthy was utterly despondent in episode 39, yet i mulled over whether she sought freedom from her suffering; both may have held onto hope without realising.

addendum: @rei-does-stuff pointed out how the first duel song in adolescence of utena, "revive! infinite history of the (middle ages)" could be tied in with the ending of rgu with regard to anthy and utena being reborn by leaving ohtori.

also, ideal births (not premature birth or stillbirth) usually occur within 39 to 40 weeks. these values remind me of rgu, which has 39 episodes overall and a movie.

[obibail]

bruce “ethnically jewish because of martha but culturally catholic because of thomas” wayne 🤝 jason “baptized catholic because of willis but raised with jewish traditions because of catherine” todd