How it feels to listen to music on the train
Naomi Apajok wearing IRIS VAN HERPEN
– Haute Couture Fall 2025 Show
The Handmaiden (2016) dir. Park Chan-wook / Revolutionary Girl Utena (1997) ep. 38 "End of the World"
this is a message to all babytrans. you may come across a subreddit or maybe even a 4chan board that is made up entirely of the most miserable trans people you’ve ever met. they have their own lingo borrowed straight from incel communities. but instead of being an incel where cishet men tell each other that women will never want to fuck them because of 2 mm of browbone, it’s trans women telling each other that they will never be a woman because of 2 mm of browbone. it’s trans men calling other trans men pooners for having a round face instead of a chiseled gigachad jawline. but they swear it’s not a toxic community because they’re all hiding under several layers of irony, so you can never really tell if someone is being serious. and it’s very important that you never visit these forums, even out of morbid curiosity
since this post is making rounds i feel like resharing this for no reason in particular
ALT
ALT
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ALT"You went around, proud to wear that huge bell around your neck, without even knowing what a cowbell is!"
16 - The Cowbell of Happiness / 35 - The Love that Blossomed in Winter / 37 - The One Who Will Revolutionize the World
thinking about this again. see, utena is the one to tell nanami that her situation is wrong. nanami cant see it. this concept - of being a cow destined for slaughter and consumption - has been taught to her so thoroughly and for so long that even though other can see it for how weird it is, nanami can only see it as something natural and true. i feel like you should already be able to guess how this relates to her relationship to touga.
the same is true for utena: though she does eschew femininity, she does unconsciously consider it to be natural and true. and when akio sets his sights on her, this only amplifies the feeling. however, unlike nanami, utenas situation is not just 'real' to her; its real to everybody else, too. nobody is telling her that this is wrong. even wakaba, who tried so hard to 'tell her what a cowbell is' when it came to touga, doesnt do the same when it comes to akio. no - deeper than that, deeper: utena is wary about the earrings, and wakaba pushes her to try them on.
the only one telling utena that this isnt natural, stop it, stop, stop feeling proud, its a cowbell and dont you know what happens to cows: anthy, smiling at her in the grass. anthy knits her the red sweater. anthy names her cow nanami. anthy finds her asleep still holding the earring. utena glances over and sees the witch stabbed through.
do you know there are things worse than duels?