LAST EDITED ON Aug-05-14 AT 11:58 PM (EDT)
 
>Thus, while his crush on her is something I can
>totally buy, her developing feelings for him never felt like a
>natural, organic part of her character growth, but something that
>happened for meta reasons.

Well, I can't help you there, I guess, because you're wrong about that, full stop.

Oddly enough, I just recently wrote a scene (not that you'll be seeing it, but) in which she muses on that very matter to someone else - the fact that the year-and-a-half between them was a really significant year-and-a-half when they first met, and how it required some... adjustment... on her part when she began to realize that he was catching her up and her view of him was changing. Because, you see...

>Even given the time it takes for these
>things to unfold, and the experiences they go through, it just doesn't
>feel like it fits the dynamic they establish early on, in my opinion.

... "the dynamic they establish early on" wasn't permanent - these things aren't, you know - and it's not as if the characters themselves didn't take a while to recognize that and bring it on board, either.

So, like I say, your take on what is and isn't "natural, organic" is just... not right. It happens, and the thing I've had to adjust to over the years is that when it does, it's not my problem.

>- Related to the above: around the time that he and Utena first meet,
>as I recall, he gets in trouble at school for fighting.

This is... not true either. You may be thinking of the fight scene in Sophomore Slump, which happens two years later and for which, if I may say, he has a bloody good reason.

>- Corwin goes through a lot of maturation between when he meets Utena
>and when they become an item, but ... in getting into a relationship
>with his boyhood crush, it feels like all of that growth was
>short-circuited. He grows up, goes on with his life, maintaining a
>deep friendship and unique bond with Utena, sure, but in that bond
>becoming romantic, it just feels like it veers back into adolescent
>wish fulfillment.

Or, conversely, arrives at last where it was supposed to all along, after a long and complicated diversion to some outlying stations. You say potato...

>- Corwin/Anthy feels downright contrived to me.

I congratulate you on your perspicacity, madam! It was contrived, completely and absolutely.

... It's just that the one contriving it was Anthy.

She's a witch, you know. They're all a little bit evil. They can't help it; it's part of the RFC.

>Understand I'm not condemning you or your work because there are
>things in it which reflect on the many unexamined assumptions and
>ideas you may hold as a cisgender, heterosexual, white male in your
>late 30s/early 40s (I know you're a few years older than me, but I
>don't recall exactly how much).

Oh, here we go. I was wondering how long it would take someone to play the "Of course you don't know you're Completely Wrong because of the innate bias of your Privileged Sociosexual Position. Patpat, there there, it's not your fault." Champion.

>>>I'm not sure I'll be partaking of that particular
>>>corner of the EPU output in any event.
>>
>>... thus. (sigh)
>
>Oh, it's not because of the social issues -- it's more that I was so
>disappointed with where Symphony went that I can't really even reread
>the bits I used to love.

I gotta say that's pretty tragic-hipster of you. It's like the guy I knew at WPI who used to not only drop bands he liked if they Sold Out and Went Mainstream, but stop listening to their poorly produced indie EPs from before then, too.

>There's lots and lots of EPU output I still
>read (I'm digging the Korra stuff so far

... which is an interesting trick, since most of her UF screen time so far has been part and parcel of the Corwin-Utena arc of the Symphony. I'm so confused.

>Honestly? There's not another word that'd take the place of
>"heteronormative" in the way I'd be using it.

Maybe not in one word, but there must be a set of simpler words that convey the same idea, or the word wouldn't be definable in the first place. That goes for any sesquipedalianism, whether it's gender-politics jargon or a description of an electronic component.

Regardless, you're right in assuming that I have zero interest in debating whether Utena's relationship of Corwin is intended as some kind of authorial refutation of her bisexuality (NOTE: it isn't), which is where context implies you were probably going with that.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.