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Subject: "(teaser 2) S5M4 Try, Try Again"     Previous Topic | Next Topic
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Gryphonadmin
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Jul-16-13, 00:59 AM (EDT)
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"(teaser 2) S5M4 Try, Try Again"
 
   Probably the last of these; there's just not that much in this one that lends itself to the format.

        "You know," Utena mused to Corwin as the three stood on the
balcony, "I'm starting to wonder about you."
Corwin blinked. "... I beg your pardon?" he said.
"Well, look," said Utena, her tone of voice - slightly at odds
with her opening remark - easy and equable. "You remember the first
time we went to Asgard?" Corwin knew this question was too preposterous
to be anything but rhetorical, so he just nodded and let her get on with
her point. "I asked you if all the women you knew were as beautiful as
the Valkyrie I'd seen. Who were, at that point, let's see... your mom,
Vigdis, Kijana, and Lenneth. And you said something like, 'Uh, yeah, I
guess.' Closer to home you had Achika, Reiyna, Dorothy, the Utonium
girls - at least one of whom has a -huge- crush on you, by the way, you
probably never noticed... "
"She told me," Corwin put in. "Last spring."
"Oh. Well, good for her. That kind of thing takes guts,
believe me. Did you at least kiss her?"
Corwin went a little red, recalling that in fact he hadn't, but
it had been a near thing. "Uh... well, no."
Utena shook her head with a patient sigh. "Typical," she said.
She leaned back to look at Anthy across his back. "Hopeless. He's
hopeless."
Anthy nodded sagely. "Entirely," she agreed, then sipped her
tea and added, "Nearly as much so as you, my love. You're very well-
matched."
Corwin chuckled. "Zap," he murmured cheerfully, offering a fist
for her to bump without looking.
"ANYway," Utena plowed on, ignoring the point scored, "then
there's your 'cousin' - "
"Mirai?!" Corwin blurted. "When you and I met, and don't think
I don't know where you're going with this, she was -eleven.-"
"Yeah, you didn't hear the quotation marks," Utena went on
breezily, "as I was saying, your 'cousin' Kaname. She's a lot like me,
you know. Enough so that I'm shocked she didn't have you walking into
doors long before I ever came along."
Corwin turned to face Utena, leaving his right elbow on the
railing and putting his left hand on her shoulder. "Wait, where -are-
you going with this?" he wondered, sounding a little concerned now.
She smiled. "I'm not jealous and I'm not feeling inadequate,"
she assured him. "It's just a thing I'm trying to -explain- to myself.
You've grown up around all these incredible girls and women. A lot of
your -best friends- are girls and women. And yet -I'm- the first one
who ever made you realize why there's a difference? Without trying to,
or even realizing I -had- for a while?" She shrugged. "Having a hard
time getting my head around that lately."
"Is it really so difficult?" Anthy wondered mildly. She crossed
behind Corwin, putting her teacup down on the table as she passed it,
and went around to the far side of Utena, then took her arm and leaned
against her shoulder. "You revolutionize people's lives, Utena. It's
what you -do.-"
"Y'know, she's got a point," said Corwin, facing front again and
doing his best to get his left arm around both of them.

--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.


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  Subject     Author     Message Date     ID  
  RE: (teaser 2) S5M4 Try, Try Again Mercutio Jul-16-13 1
     RE: (teaser 2) S5M4 Try, Try Again Gryphonadmin Jul-16-13 2
         RE: (teaser 2) S5M4 Try, Try Again Mercutio Jul-16-13 3
     RE: (teaser 2) S5M4 Try, Try Again Peter Eng Jul-16-13 4

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Mercutio
Member since May-25-13
74 posts
Jul-16-13, 03:37 AM (EDT)
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1. "RE: (teaser 2) S5M4 Try, Try Again"
In response to message #0
 
   LAST EDITED ON Jul-16-13 AT 03:39 AM (EDT)
 
>
 "ANYway," Utena plowed on, ignoring the point scored, "then 
>there's your 'cousin' - "
>
>"Mirai?!" Corwin blurted. "When you and I met, and don't
>think I don't know where you're going with this, she was -eleven.-"
>
>"Yeah, you didn't hear the quotation marks," Utena went on
>breezily, "as I was saying, your 'cousin' Kaname. She's a lot like
>me, you know. Enough so that I'm shocked she didn't have you walking into
>doors long before I ever came along."

"You know, you could have used air quotes. That's what they're -for-."

"It's not as much fun that way. Also, air quotes make you look like a tool."

* * *

(Seriously, they're an incredibly useful signalling device, but has anyone ever used air quotes and NOT come off as faintly ridiculous? Councillor Sparatus, I'm looking in your direction!)

Anyway.

The entire sequence is a bit self-congratulatory without context, but that one exchange with Utena messin' with Corwin about his 'cousins' is totes adorable.

I've been doing a lot of trawling through the old and crusty parts of UF due to arguments elsewhere on the boards, and Corwin's romantical escapades are an interesting contrast to the ones of the generation prior to his. I feel like Gryphon sort of accidentally backed up into the first couple of big relationships in his life (and his one with Kei was rather dysfunctional for a long time, to boot) and didn't end up with his truly huge grand passions occurring until after he'd been around for a long time and had gotten the whole 'understanding himself' thing more or less locked down.

Corwin has been doing more classic teenaged romance stuff, just with more, you know... demons. All the classic tropes were represented, starting with the whole 'no, we're NOT interested in each other, really' thing and rolling from there.

(That's not a criticism. Those things are tropes for a reason; they work.)

It's good to see the Triumvirate getting things locked down. Polyamory is super hard work.

-Merc
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Gryphonadmin
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Jul-16-13, 04:09 AM (EDT)
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2. "RE: (teaser 2) S5M4 Try, Try Again"
In response to message #1
 
   >The entire sequence is a bit self-congratulatory without context, but
>that one exchange with Utena messin' with Corwin about his 'cousins'
>is totes adorable.

There is indeed a bit of missing context (there are specific reasons why Utena's having that particular reflection at that particular moment), and there's a second part of the conversation later in the story. That's the trouble with picking out these teaser fragments.

>I feel like Gryphon sort of accidentally backed up into
>the first couple of big relationships in his life (and his one with
>Kei was rather dysfunctional for a long time, to boot) and didn't end
>up with his truly huge grand passions occurring until after he'd been
>around for a long time and had gotten the whole 'understanding
>himself' thing more or less locked down.

He's just a soul whose intentions are good. :)

There's an element of truth to that, though. Part of it is because G's policy, which I'm sure was informed largely by the way he blundered into his thing with Kei, has long been to just... see what happens. (He wouldn't really understand until he studied kenjutsu that this is essentially a Zen approach to romantical adventure. :)

By and large this has worked for him, though it does mean that the bulk of his relationships have been with markedly... proactive women. Even in his 400s, I'm not sure he really knows how to "pursue" a relationship in the traditional sense. (Probably, by that age, if he did he wouldn't consciously attempt it anyway, because it would make him feel predatory.) The downside to that, of course, is that those women who are expecting to be, how to say it, come after a bit tend to find him frustrating. I think that's probably why his on-and-off thing with Sara never quite happened. [N.B. It's four in the morning and the preceding may not actually make any damn sense. It doesn't have to, though. Sense is not the boss of me.]

Mind you, Corwin doesn't really know what he's doing in that regard either. He just managed to Be In The Moment for a series of moments that added up to a courtship. It's a neat trick if you can manage it. :)

--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.


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Mercutio
Member since May-25-13
74 posts
Jul-16-13, 05:10 AM (EDT)
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3. "RE: (teaser 2) S5M4 Try, Try Again"
In response to message #2
 
  
>There's an element of truth to that, though. Part of it is because
>G's policy, which I'm sure was informed largely by the way he
>blundered into his thing with Kei, has long been to just... see what
>happens. (He wouldn't really understand until he studied kenjutsu
>that this is essentially a Zen approach to romantical adventure. :)

There's a pleasing symmetry at work there, I feel; Gryphon is very active, very forceful, aggressive even, in his professional life. It kind of makes sense that in his personal life he'd be a lot more Zen. Kind of a ying-yang thing.

>By and large this has worked for him, though it does mean that the
>bulk of his relationships have been with markedly... proactive
>women. Even in his 400s, I'm not sure he really knows how to
>"pursue" a relationship in the traditional sense. (Probably, by that
>age, if he did he wouldn't consciously attempt it anyway, because it
>would make him feel predatory.)

Probably wise. Gryphon is very old, powerful, wealthy, and just absolutely soaked in what modern class (as in social class) analysis would refer to as 'privilege.' Nothing wrong with any of that. But it does mean caution is indicated before trying to draw people into your romantic and/or sexual orbit, if you were inclined to do so at all.

Which he's not.

Yeah, I don't know where I was going with that either.

>The downside to that, of course, is
>that those women who are expecting to be, how to say it, come
>after
a bit tend to find him frustrating. I think that's probably
>why his on-and-off thing with Sara never quite happened.

The first name that popped into my head upon reading that was not Sara, but rather, "Sumire Kanzaki." Sumire is definitely what you'd call proactive, but she's also the sort of lady who expects someone to, as you say, come after her. Because she's Sumire Kanzaki, dammit, and even if she ALREADY likes you, if you like HER you had best be prepared to prove it. Conspicuously. To her complete satisfaction. And she's RARELY satisfied.

>[N.B. It's four in the morning and the preceding may
>not actually make any damn sense. It doesn't have to, though. Sense
>is not the boss of me.]

No, no, it makes perfect sense. Well, at least to me. But four in the morning (well, technically "an hour before I go to bed, regardless of time of day") is just about the only time I feel fully alert and focused, so...

>Mind you, Corwin doesn't really know what he's doing in that
>regard either.

Corwin is twenty. At that point most people are super lucky if they've managed to figure out for certain their precise romantic and sexual preferences, let alone how best to find someone who they can be mutually fulfilled with. So he's kind of ahead of the game.

It also helps out that Corwin is a super-genius God with a robust extended family and support network. He and his spouses will never have to worry about making tough choices a lot of other people getting married and having children at that age would, like "can we have a kid, or can one of us go to college" or "which one of us is going to have to give up their career for the other one."

Of course, they do have to worry about the fact that the Devil knows their names. So, y'know.

-Merc
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Peter Eng
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Jul-16-13, 09:03 PM (EDT)
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4. "RE: (teaser 2) S5M4 Try, Try Again"
In response to message #1
 
   >(Seriously, they're an incredibly useful signalling device, but has
>anyone ever used air quotes and NOT come off as faintly ridiculous?)

Only by ending up in a far worse place.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.


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