Rose Bride
This short piece of writing is dedicated to the anime Revolutionary Girl Utena, that it heavily references notably in ways that are spoilers and meaningful only if you watched the series. These words burst out of me as I finished my viewing of it, and they felt important to write. Though they make me vulnerable in many ways, they feel important to post, too.
This piece talks about control, abuse, and nonsexual grooming - with a focus more on their lasting effects on the self, than on specific events or details.
Take care.
Rose Bride.
It is a term you have come to know only recently, but it is a feeling you know by heart.
It is not being your own person. It is being an essential yet replaceable part of a bigger system, witness to each and every move of a charismatic and manipulative figure, to each new person caught in their snare.
It is being enabler and victim at the same time.
It is the impossibility to escape. It is thinking you can leave anytime still.
It is the belief you chose this, of your own volition, except you were fourteen, and they were of age.
It is feeling you are never good enough for a game you know is rigged, but that you play either way.
You must acknowledge that your situation never really mirrored Anthy's, here. For you, this was never directly about patriarchy, or heteronormativity, or physical or sexual abuse. And it is obvious that these themes are, in the most horrifying way, important to the metaphor of the Rose Bride.
You do not want to reclaim what Anthy went through - and yet you cannot help but use some of her traits as a mirror for introspection.
Because it was about control. And it was about power. And it was, still, about abuse.
It was about the suppression of empathy and of the self in order to serve someone else.
It was, you say it as if it's no big deal by now, not wanting to dwell on it, unable to dwell on it, "just some kind of cult-like group in an online video game".
But it was about grooming, and you remember vividly when you finally crystallized that word to describe Anthy's situation, and realized that somehow, it had applied to you - though in other ways.
It struck you. Stuck with you.
(You look at Otherside Picnic's Satsuki Uruma in a different light, now, too. Frankly, it should have dawned on you earlier.)
It's almost funny. To have been, somehow, a Rose Bride, before you even knew you were a woman.
At the best of times, you consider it like a slightly-scary-but-it-ends-well tidbit of backstory. Because there's not much to tell, really. You know some people had it much worse.
And you escaped.
This is probably why you talk about it so little.
Probably.
So why is your sense of self so scarred now, anyway? Why are you so afraid of charismatic people, of admiring anyone? Why are you so easy to influence still?
You escaped.
You are safe.
Are you not?
Sometimes, you still feel--
Sometimes, I still feel like I could slip back into that role at any moment
Discard my self entirely
Hold the fort for someone else
And sing their praises
Knowing fully
In the deepest parts
That I should not
That I really should not
But too used to being
In the shadow of someone
"greater".
I remember his surprise and his rage when I finally told him I was leaving.
And his attempts at guilt-tripping me, too.
I left.
I left, and it may be my most important action in this life.
I ceased to be his doll, his dog, his shadow.
But
But it is hard to learn to be a person
It is hard to learn not to be a Rose Bride.
Still, I am sure
I didn't know it yet then, but I am sure
The day I left
Somewhere, ringing,
I could hear Rose & Release.