#this started as kindof a jokey post but surprise surprise i have a lot of thoughts on how ohtori corrupts the concept of family

[transmascutena]

something i find a little bit funny but mostly just really tragic is that utena is fully convinced she's in a found family show for so much of it. and in the most fucked up way imaginable she's kind of right? we all know what being akio's family means.

i do think she sees akio as an older brother figure for a lot of the show, much more so than she ever has genuine romantic feelings for him. this is clearest to me in the black rose arc, where all he is to her is her best friend's older brother who gives her advice and respects her more than any other adult ever does. it makes sense that she'd want to see herself as a part of their family too. there's nothing to imply that her feelings are at all romantic in nature. it's only when he starts getting closer to her and intiating physical contact that she starts blushing around him and might be developing a crush -- although personally, i read it more as confused uncomfortable embarrassment most of the time, combined with the expectation that romance is what she should want, and so that must be what she's feeling, right? (this gets kind of naively reenforced by wakaba telling her how cool and handsome akio is and how lucky utena is to be close to him.)

and i don't think it's a coincidence that akio starts calling utena "part of the family" after he's planted this idea of romance in her. reenforcing her previous feelings towards him only after he has started to make them change into something different. he is deliberately trying to cofuse her idea of a familial/sibling relationship with that of a romantic/sexual one, because to him there really isn't a difference, and so that when she inevitably learns about him and anthy, utena will see her not as a fellow victim to find solidarity in, but as competition for his affection. and it works, at least at first.

all this is why i vehemently disagree when people call utena stupid for not noticing that something is wrong about anthy and akio's relationship while she's living with them. not only is it deliberately being hidden from her by both of them for a long time, she also literally has no idea what a sibling relationship is supposed to look like. she has no healthy example to compare anything to. even if she did notice something off about how anthy and akio interact, why would she assume she knows better than them how to be a family? she doesn't have one, after all. and when akio tells her that she is his family, he very much does not treat her like it, but she doesn't really have much choice in believing that it's normal, because isn't that how he treats anthy as well?