GREAT MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR UTENA BELOW. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.






Quote of the journal:
"This chapter of Acts tells us that god says its okay to eat hot dogs. Yay deliciousness!"

The Bible, Edited by Allegoriest ([link])





I actually wrote this bit up as a script for a specualted (but never worked on) dojinshi/fan comic-I did finish the script, though on editing it, I floundered. I decided it was too good to pass up and began editing it into prose. There's a whole bit about how the hotel Akio is staying at is a sort of reality nexus/wierdness magnet and he gets to meet four fans (and have a strange sort of rhetorical conversation with Vlad, who remains a glorified cameo) and leaves, showing a glimmer of the Prince he once was and a bit of hope for his personal future, yet his ultimate fate left uncertain.

Writing in Akio's voice was both fun and frustrating. Him being an Unreliable Narrator made it fun to insert all sorts of continuity/myth gags. This has commentary. The funniest line you don't get to see:

[In unison]
Vlad & Akio: Young lady, that's no gentleman.


"Not all who wander are lost."
-J. R. R. Tolkein

This is the link that was lost

"...a girl cannot be a prince."
[This refers to Utena's missing memories and the sheer amount of possible backstory that must surely exist between the time Anthy first encountered the swords and when Utena meets him in Ohtori.]


And she was a child still, yet she preserved. The girl had been run through and even then, not a thought for her own pain. "Himemiya... save Himemiya..." She moaned, gasping, pleading. Begging me.
[A bit of reflexive, ironic gloating here and the first sign that it's a first person, which I had to use.]


"I am..." Intoned the Rose Bride.
[This actually refers to the "Next Episode" segment for Gracefully Cruel, where Anthy tries to get Utena's attention, only to state "...but I am the Rose Bride!"]

The bells began to chime, the sound echoing over the screaming of the swords. It was always the same. Witch. Bleed. Hate you. Be pierced. Suddenly, she spoke, the hidden one, the undying one, the true one. "Who are you?" She asked.

Lo, I have vanished, yet now I am laughing

The child wept. "...I was too busy pretending to see your pain. Finally we..."
[Though it's not obvious here, Utena's words are supposed to bleed into Anthy's. The words are confirming both what the narrator thinks and yet mocking it in favor of what's really going on.]
Such futility

Then I was at a desk, going through files when she approached me for the first time with pity in her eyes. She stood before me, laying aside her glasses. She was speaking, but I can't hear her at first. "....am going to find her. Goodbye, brother."

I call after her until I am hoarse with screaming.

Missing link, missing link...

I bolt upright. "Anthy..." I am in a cabin suite, comfortable, luxurious and I remember who-and what-I am: Ohtori Akio, wanderer.

I am no longer a prince. I am no longer End of the World; I have not been those roles in years. My dreams, her glasses, they are remnants of those days-my solace and my gadfly. I will never again see her outside my mind.

The clock by my bed ticks away meaninglessly. It was early yet. Thoughts and reflections sifting themselves in my mind, growing more chaotic as I drifted back to sleep. I had saved one last princess-or was it Anthy? -and that princess saved her-or was it betray? Or the other way around...? I did not dream again that night.
[Again with the continuity/mythology gag-the fact that the clock is indeed ticking shows that Akio is in the "Real World"-or something like it. He's still not clear himself on what happened with Utena exactly-he is, in a very real sense, blind.

Further events:

* Akio flirts shamelessly with (but does not bed) an unimpressed maid
* Three fans with a convention run into Vlad, thinking he might be someone else-one recognizing him as End of the World. That one, an expy of Giovanna of Empty Movement ( [link] } and a real life Akio fan, ends up at his hotel room. Cue Nemuro Ironic Echo.

...I should really finish this someday, but I may have lost my (handwritten) hard copy.

I'm taking a nap now...