Madonna, Medusa, an utena fanfic

Title: Madonna; Medusa
Fandom: Revolutionary Girl Utena
Pairing: Akio Himemiya/Anthy Himemiya, Utena Tenjou/Anthy Himemiya
Rating: M
Prompt: Folktale #4) The Girl in the Tower—She's trapped out of reach and far away, and might be longing for rescue or escape.
Language: English
Word Count: 900
Content Notes: WARNING! Implied Rape/Non-con Incest, Abuse, Misogyny, and Racism.
Author Notes: I always liked how this anime played with the concept of how someone can be treated with misogyny via being seen as a fragile damsel and misogyny via being treated like a manipulative witch at the same time.
Summary: She is a figure of polarization—a proclaimed Madonna bestowed and accused of wielding the snakes of the infamous Medusa, bestowed upon men and women as a princess yet a witch. (Or, a drabble on Anthy's feelings about how she is both a blessing and a curse.)
Disclaimer: I do not own Revolutionary Girl Utena, nor am I or will I ever profit from this work.

Madonna; Medusa

By Lumiere de Venise

SHE IS BORN CURSED and lives like a juxtaposition of both a Madonna and a Medusa, a dark-skinned lightning rod for the sins of men and a substitute for the internalized misogyny of women—a rare rose to seek and yet a deadly weed to dispose of.

Own her own body does she not—she is the property of the masculine hands who grip without assent on her flesh, whether they are pale and with foreign black hair or of the same tone as hers and belonging to a body with pale purple locks and an identical bindi mark, and she is the property owned by feminine lips to scream, screech at her to stay away from their fiances and husbands.

She spends her days whipped and sneered at, pitchforks waved in her face, and spends her nights on makeshift beds with unknown forearms pressing her against cracked walls and creaking floors—

Aaie ham sab ek shaheed kee maut marane ke lie paryaapt bahaadur hon, lekin kisee ko bhee shahaadat kee laalasa na hone den.

(This quote rings in her ears decades later when a political figure of her country rises, but she does nothing with it, because the End of the World does not tell her to.)

II.

When Utena enrolls into Ohtori Academy, Anthy is intrigued, and when Utena vows to fight for Anthy's honor, she is amused.

The way people view Anthy has always interested her, though—some write her off as a toy to throw all problems at, and others portray her as a princess who needs a knight to shield her from that which wishes to see her downfall, while a few think it's a mixture of both.

Utena clashes swords with the playboy Touga, the violent Saionji, the stoic Juri, the naive Miki, and the immature Nanami, and even against her own friend Wakaba at one point, and it amazes Anthy how Utena is still so, so clueless as to how she, like her opponents, fights for an ideal image that doesn't exist, and with an honor code that still presents Anthy as a manipulator yet manipulated.

Of course, Tenjou—and the rest of them—know not of Himemiya's past. They only know of the rose bride who, once owned, can grant any person the greatest sense of purity, femininity, and submission, without a mouth that rejects as long as they still possess her.

III.

The couch creaks as she is driven into it; her eyes face the night sky as he comes closer to her. She daydreams of long pink hair and sky blue eyes, with obsidian clinging to a rose and shorts clinging to defiance against gender, a sword striking and Anthy's hands grabbed, and then running—running as far away from the academy and the systems and the slapping hands and grimaced mouths and cold stares as possible—

That, of course, is a falsehood. What will touch her at this time of night will be simply fingers the same colors as hers, tresses the same color but of a lighter shade, and what looks at her will be eyes as emerald as her own. She is pierced, but not of a weapon against all, but instead with something euphoric towards the willing and excruciation towards the unwilling. Her hands are grabbed to have more access, slapping nonexistent because there are no attempts of defiance from her to begin with, and her mouth is never in a grimace because the period for sheets and cushions and tissues to be stained with cruor and sounds of ripping to occur has long since passed.

The systems and stares, however, are real. She is a madonna bestowed with snakes, and stared at with contempt as much as fervor.

(She is still when Utena walks in on them.)

IV.

She threw him away.

Utena pushed aside Akio and threw him away. Her legs trembled and her voice staggered—heaved—but she got him out of her vision, and continued on the slim, linear path to Anthy's coffin.

She screamed, begged for Anthy to realize that it was not the end, and that Anthy was not to just stay a cursed demon or a coddled doll, and Anthy grabbed unto her soft, warm hands that would not strike at her or unwarrantedly touch at her or point mockingly at her—and then Anthy fell.

…

That, however, was the past, and this is the present, where she is in front of Akio. Her brother continues typing away on his black laptop, his blood-red top halfway open and his demeanor without the consideration of Anthy's feelings. He claims there was no revolution to occur, and Anthy, as always, smiles and nods at everything he says, the male no doubt ready to tell her to not stay over tonight because his fiancee will be visiting.

As a rose bride for the End of the World, Anthy is to nod when needed, do when needed, and leave when needed.

She does dismiss herself—but it is not to wait for him to finish a monthly session with Kanae to continue a daily session with Anthy.

"By all means, stay in this cozy coffin of yours"—Anthy flicks at her glasses on his table—"but I have to go now."

(She does not look back as he screams her name, and she thinks not of him when she's far away from the school, dressed in pink and with her hair down, only wondering where Utena is.)

[ENDING AN:] One thing about fanfics for Utena that is really good is that all the fanfic writers have Anthy written ambiguous in characterization and motives rather than have her a flimsy princess in need of rescuing or a secret antagonist that plays a submissive role to do rather witchy crimes. I feel like some people who watch the series only see her in a black or white fashion, which is pretty ironic considering that one of the major points of the series is how the characters constantly fail to keep Anthy under their control because they either see her as a Yamato Nadeshiko like damsel needing masculinity either literally or metaphorically to save her (Miki, Utena herself) or a faulty vixen that needs to be put down a peg and exposed for "her evilness" (Saionji, Nanami). This is definitely thus one of my favorite works I've recently written, because Anthy is a very interesting and complex character much like the anime itself.