#maintainance phase

[bean-in-space]

"MEAN hot people. Which makes them un-hot to me"

"It makes them hotter to me, unfortunately"

"Oh no mike!"

"But thats my own personal stuff"

[milfygerard]

i cant lie the concept of "taylor and travis have spent so little time together while dating that he doesnt know taylors friend group well enough to invite them to his surprise party for her" is kind of darkly funny

[skrunksthatwunk]

actually i'm still thinking about the moral orel finale.

he has a cross on his wall. do you know how much i think about that bc it's a lot.

a lot of stories ((auto)biographical or fictional) centering escape from abusive/fundamentalist christianity result in the lead characters leaving behind christianity entirely. and that makes complete sense! people often grow disillusioned with the associated systems and beliefs, and when it was something used to hurt them or something so inseparable from their abuse that they can't engage with it without hurting, it makes total sense that they would disengage entirely. and sometimes they just figure out that they don't really believe in god/a christian god/etc. a healthy deconstruction process can sometimes look like becoming an atheist or converting to another religion. it's all case by case. (note: i'm sure this happens with other religions as well, i'm just most familiar with christian versions of this phenomenon).

but in orel's case, his faith was one of the few things that actually brought him comfort and joy. he loved god, y'know? genuinely. and he felt loved by god and supported by him when he had no one else. and the abuses he faced were in how the people in his life twisted religion to control others, to run away from themselves, to shield them from others, etc. and often, orel's conflicts with how they acted out christianity come as a direct result of his purer understanding of god/jesus/whatever ("aren't we supposed to be like this/do that?" met with an adult's excuse for their own behavior or the fastest way they could think of to get orel to leave them alone (i.e. orel saying i thought we weren't supposed to lie? and clay saying uhhh it doesn't count if you're lying to yourself)). the little guy played catch with god instead of his dad, like.. his faith was real, and his love was real. and i think it's a good choice to have orel maintain something that was so important to him and such a grounding, comforting force in the midst of. All That Stuff Moralton Was Up To/Put Him Through. being all about jesus was not the problem, in orel's case.

and i know i'm mostly assuming that orel ended up in a healthier, less rigid version of christianity, but i feel like that's something that was hinted at a lot through the series, that that's the direction he'd go. when he meditates during the prayer bee and accepts stephanie's different way to communicate, incorporating elements of buddhism into his faith; when he has his I AM A CHURCH breakdown (removing himself from the institution and realizing he can be like,, the center of his own faith? taking a more individualistic approach? but Truly Going Through It at the same time), his acceptance (...sometimes) of those who are different from him and condemned by the adults of moralton (stephanie (lesbian icon stephanie my beloved), christina (who's like. just a slightly different form of fundie protestant from him), dr chosenberg (the jewish doctor from otherton in holy visage)). his track record on this isn't perfect, but it gets better as orel starts maturing and picking up on what an absolute shitfest moralton is. it's all ways of questioning the things he's been taught, and it makes sense that it would lead to a bigger questioning as he puts those pieces together more. anyway i think part of his growth is weeding out all the lost commandments of his upbringing and focusing on what faith means to him, and what he thinks it should mean. how he wants to see the world and how he wants to treat people and what he thinks is okay and right, and looking to religion for guidance in that, not as like. a way to justify hurting those he's afraid or resentful of, as his role models did.

he's coming to his own conclusions rather than obediently, unquestioningly taking in what others say. but he's still listening to pick out the parts that make sense to him. (edit/note: and it's his compassion and his faith that are the primary motivations for this questioning and revisal process, both of individual cases and, eventually, the final boss that is christianity.) it makes perfect sense as the conclusion to his character arc and it fits the overall approach of the show far better. it's good is what i'm saying.

and i think it's important to show that kind of ending, because that's a pretty common and equally valid result of deconstruction. and i think it cements the show's treatment of christianity as something that's often (and maybe even easily) exploited, but not something inherently bad. something that can be very positive, even. guys he even has a dog he's not afraid of loving anymore. he's not afraid of loving anyone more than jesus and i don't think it's because he loves this dog less than bartholomew (though he was probably far more desperate for healthy affection and companionship when he was younger). i think it's because he figures god would want him to love that dog. he's choosing to believe that god would want him to love and to be happy and to be kind. he's not afraid of loving in the wrong way do you know how cool that is he's taking back control he's taking back something he loves from his abusers im so normal

[tokiro07]

Undead Unluck ch.231 thoughts

[Do You Remember~ The 17th Night of November~]

(Topics: criticism - pacing/narrative focus, character analysis - Gina/Feng/Julia/Billy, speculation - Soul/Ruin)

Juggling Glass and Rubber

Damn, Tozuka, you weren't lyin', that Unjustice can sweep the Master Rules!

I'll admit I am a little disappointed by this turn of events because, like I was saying the last several weeks, I expected there to be an extra wrinkle that kept Unjustice from trivializing all of the MR fights, especially the ones that hadn't actually happened yet!

Yusai I was always pretty shaky on, and since she never got much characterization going in, I'm not exactly surprised, but the rest were definitely bummers

I've said before that I'm fine with skipping the Sick fight since Rip and Latla's climax already happened, but it's not like there was nothing to be done with it, like focusing on Sick's desire for revenge or having Rip look back on the mistakes he made in L100

Same thing with Billy and Tatiana's reunion - technically the climax of their joint arc was at the end of L100 when they promised to stay by each other's side until death, but I always thought of that as the setup to an upcoming payoff, not the payoff itself. It's definitely still salvageable here, but I think having Tatiana come in to save Billy when he's having trouble would have felt a lot more cathartic if it was focused on and analyzed rather than just...happening. Some insight as to why Billy was having trouble using Unjustice, like perhaps being overloaded with too many new Rules or reconciling with the choices he'd made, would have given Tatiana something internal to save him from as well as something external

I guess my issue here is that we're not really getting to see the effects that Remember is having on the cast as a whole, which I think would have better served as the focus here. I don't know if it's that Tozuka has been given a set number of chapters to work with by Jump or what, but it seems likely that Tozuka had ideas for how he wanted to execute everyone's arcs and fights but had to prioritize who to give the lion's share of the focus to for the sake of maximizing narrative impact

Case in point, the characters who he did manage to analyze here each had a pretty unique interaction with Remember

Remember Who You Are

Despite how brief their scenes are here, I do think that Gina and Feng's moments illustrate Remember's value remarkably well

Gina starts referring to everyone by the old nicknames she used for them in L100, only to amend "L'il Lucky" back to just "Fuuko," directly demonstrating the mental gap between the present and past. Gina naturally picks up her old habit, but isn't restricted by it. The respect and love she has for Fuuko goes beyond what can be expressed by a cute nickname, and those feelings were forged through L101 Gina's relationship with Fuuko. It's subtle, but it's a nice little cherry on top of Gina's arc

Feng, meanwhile, is noted to be getting stronger as Time ages him. This could be taken two ways: either he's stronger because of Remember and Time misread the situation, OR because Feng knows that he would have spent his time training and improving, his body, mind and soul are developing proportionally rather than being aged in a vacuum. The latter is thematically appropriate to countering Time's philosophy that age's function is to weed out those who have outlived their usefulness, while the former is a direct result of all of Feng's accumulated years across loops compounding simultaneously. Could be a little of both, honestly

What's even better about Feng's moment, though, is what he says in response to Julia's help: "I'm not deserving of your charity." In the past, Feng definitely would have been mad about getting help, resenting the idea that anyone thought he couldn't hack it on his own, but that's not what he said here. He believes he's done nothing to earn Julia's aid, that whatever Time was going to do to him, he had coming, and this is certainly because he remembers what he did. All of the people that he's ever killed, the lives that he ruined, especially his own son's, he now knows and can look back on from the perspective of having just abandoned the mentality he had back then

If Feng still believed in individual strength before receiving Remember, he probably would have looked back on the failures of his past as the results of his own physical weakness, not because of a flawed philosophy. Instead, Feng has already proven that he's stronger now after learning the true value of his age and legacy, so while he can still improve thanks to the lessons he can learn from his past self, the current Feng is able to retain his new outlook because he has an objective point of comparison that this was the farthest he ever made it

These are the sorts of subtle advancements I wanted to see from the whole cast, and again, while we still can see them, I think having a chapter dedicated to showing each little vignette would have been more effective than either breaking them up like this or showing such a notable imbalance between them

At the very least, though, even without being the primary focus of the chapter, Julia's interaction with Remember is far and away the most interesting one

Welcome Back, Juiz

Julia's behavior just before and after Fuuko actives Remember easily provides the most contrast of everyone and best demonstrates the tremendous growth rate that Remember allows

Prior to Remember, Julia was only able to use Unjustice involuntarily. To great effect, mind you, but still by accident: first when she stopped Soul's attack, and (seemingly) second, when she used it to reduce the damage of Soul's attack and ride it back to the surface. It's not explicitly stated that that's what happened here, but if Soul's intention was to kill Julia with that, he really dropped the ball, so I choose to believe that his bloodlust was negated by Unjustice

Afterwards, Julia was using Unjustice like a pro. She dropped War down a phase, got Time to bring Feng back to his prime, and even got Death to take out Luck, a feat that Fuuko objectively wouldn't have been able to accomplish with Unluck alone since Luck would have been able to avert Death's inadvertent attack with his good fortune. The most impressive part to me, though, is that she was able to channel Unjustice into her soul!

By putting Unjustice in her saber, Julia effectively injected Unjustice directly into Change's body, ensuring that she couldn't live by her own philosophy of constant change, even if Julia wasn't physically there to make visual contact. Juiz never learned soul manipulation, and Julia only just now mastered Unjustice thanks to her memories, so the fact that Julia was able to integrate those two abilities into such a high level technique is proof that her current self has in no way been overtaken by Juiz's memories, the most major worry that everyone had for Remember's use

That's not to say that none of Juiz's experiences made it to Julia, she still did remember Juiz's entire life after all. Beyond just Juiz's techniques and physical abilities, Julia went from panicking over Soul's attacks and Victor's injuries to calmly and confidently taking out the MRs one by one. She knows now what she's capable of and the weight that she carries, and she remembers what kind of relationships she had with everyone else. This is likely why she went to Billy first - both to give him access to Unjustice to make him stronger and to remind him that, despite their pasts, they aren't enemies anymore

The look of shock on Billy's face suggests that he was paralyzed by the realization of his past actions, and it's Julia's words that snap him back into the present and bring a smile back to his face. That's really what I was talking about earlier; giving Billy an internal conflict with his memories would have provided an angle that no one else really had while also allowing him a stronger character moment with both Julia and Tatiana

Still, even if it's a weaker moment than it could have been, I do appreciate Julia's direct acknowledgment of Billy as an ally, as it at least subtly harkens back to their previous encounter. Where previously Billy stole Unjustice and lost the ability to use it after Juiz had some time to think about his motivations as an enemy, this time Julia is willingly entrusting Unjustice to Billy as an ally

Actually, I wonder if perhaps that's why Tozuka had Billy fail to use Unjustice on Sick, because he is still fighting that internal conflict...for now, I'll choose to believe that Tozuka has that in his back pocket, but I won't be redacting any of my criticisms until he makes good on that, as this review is based on my immediate interpretations and I don't want to erase all of this and redo it...

Along the same lines, not only does Tozuka still have a backdoor for analyzing Billy, he also still has one for giving us some more cool moments for the rest of the Master Rules as well

Put Me Back in, Coach!

Despite one-shotting seven MRs all at once, Julia didn't actually manage to clear the field. The Union's gearing up to face Sun, but they seem to be forgetting: they didn't actually beat Soul. He's still in the Roundtable Room, and he's undoubtedly more pissed than ever

I'm not sure if I would have caught this on my own before seeing their post on this, but Webmantis on twitter pointed out that the MRs' souls must all have been sent to Subspace, the cosmic waiting room that all souls go too between loops. They note that, since Soul hasn't entered Phase 3 yet, he'll most likely be able to bring everyone back

However, they also note that doing so would be an odd narrative choice, as it would make Julia's steamrolling seem kinda pointless. Why bother killing off a bunch of characters just to revive them in the next chapter?

Fortunately, I think I've come up with the perfect answer to that very question!

Firstly, it's to show off Julia's post-Remember Unjustice; we were promised a sweep, and Tozuka made good on it in spectacular fashion. Second, and more importantly, their deaths are necessary for Soul to reach Phase 3

Fuel for the Fire

You may recall from a few weeks ago that I described the mechanism that the MRs use to reach Phase 3 is absorbing their Rule directly: Change absorbed the change in her shape when she was cut in half, Time absorbed Shen's lifespan, War absorbed Billy and Tella's violence, Justice absorbed Yusai's resolve, etc. This is why Death only just now reached Phase 3, because no one was dying the entire battle until she was forced to personally kill Luck, and Luck was likely being prevented from absorbing any fortune by Unluck

So now that all of the MRs other than Soul are dead, their souls are free of their vessels. I don't know if their vessels were actually preventing Soul from accessing their souls, but since he seems to consider the others his friends, he probably didn't want to resort to absorbing them either way, but now? It doesn't matter if he could or couldn't before, now he has to, otherwise it's all for nothing

Now, the question may be how he'll be able to reach them. Webmantis' proposition was that reaching Phase 3 would give Soul access to Subspace, but I'm saying that he won't be able to reach Phase 3 without the souls that are there - that's a pretty clear logical paradox

Well, not to speculate too much, but I think we already have our answer to that one too: Soul's finally going to change

Another topic I've been going on and on about lately is the stagnation and inflexibility of the Rules, the most notable being Soul's rejection that souls are connected. However, Soul saw that new facet of his Rule be added in real time, by Negators that aren't even his vessel. The only one who should have control over his Rule is himself, and yet he's seen others interact with their souls through reinterpretation time and again (Andy vs. Ghost, Gina vs. Change, etc.). In other words, he should know full well by now that his Rule isn't as set in stone as he once thought, and if everyone else can control their souls through their perspective, then why couldn't Soul himself?

With the lesson that Julia just taught him about souls, Soul can connect himself to his fallen comrades and drag them back from Subspace (or prevent them from reaching it in the first place), and achieve Phase 3 by adding their souls to his own. Whether this would mean gaining power over their Rules or reviving them is another question, but at the very least it would show tremendous growth in his character

I'll go into more detail on this if it comes to pass, but Soul learning to change his perspective on his Rule would make him more like the Negators, more like a human. This would also make him the most well-rounded and developed UMA to date, which I think would more than make up for any loss of characterization among the rest of them

Now, I would definitely prefer that he brings back the MRs, if only so we can see Luck's Phase 3 (c'mon, he's Fuuko's foil for cryin' out loud!!!), but even if he just integrates them into himself, I think that would create the perfect parallel to give the final member of the Union a chance to demonstrate his growth

The Man Who Would be King

While fighting Soul, Sun and Luna are all clearly the most important boxes to check off right now, there's still one more that Tozuka alluded to in this chapter: Ruin's return

How Remember will affect him exactly, I won't speculate on, but I think it will give him the final push he needs to join the Union and help fight God. If my previous speculation about Soul comes to pass, then that would make Soul the ideal matchup for Ruin

Not only would they have the parallels of being "multiple souls in one body," it would also be the ultimate payoff to Ruin's designation as The King of Negators. If Soul is Master Rule #1, then it's Ruin's destiny as the Negator King to negate all of the Master Rules in his reformation and rebellion against the God he so thanklessly devoted his life to

This would also present the opportunity for Ruin to reform the MRs too and unify both Negator and UMA as I've speculated on before, but again, I don't want to go too far into it here. As it stands, this is just me making things up, and I don't want to either raise my hopes too high OR preemptively run out of things to say, but the parallel is so interesting that I can't help but get excited by the possibility

Conclusion

As always, it's entirely possible that I'm wrong about all of this. Maybe Soul's gonna try to go Phase 3 and self-destruct because of Unjustice; maybe Soul is gonna fuse with Sun in Phase 3 and they'll become "SOL;" maybe Kururu's going to use Unchaste to aggro Sun into shooting Soul dead. I don't know. There's always a chance that what we get isn't as interesting as what we envision; the best we can do is be open to what we do get rather than insisting it has to be the way we want

If there's one thing I hope I've gotten across with this review, it's that I don't want to get hung up on the negatives, but I also don't want to just ignore them either. I am disappointed that certain plot points are being glossed over, and that's a valid response for any of us to have, but I'm not going to go so far as to say this was a bad chapter because of it. Good things definitely still happened within this chapter, and there's plenty of chance that good things will come out of what this chapter set up

As I said, all there is to do now is be patient and open-minded. If this ends up just being a lull in an otherwise fantastic finale, so be it. If it ends up being the start of a rushed mess, so be it. The only way to know is to be there to see it

Until then, let's enjoy life!

[toxooz]

Hi! I was curious how old is everyone especially ponti!

~ cause im in love with him~

What who said that 👀

But speaking of ! What's his favorite pick up line hehe

OK SO

Ponti: 22

Ollie:25

Abio: 21

Oscar: 19

Remy: 20

Kari: 21

Vinny: 10

i think thats FINALLY the ages theyre locked into at least for the official series bc as i age they kinda age with me in a way??? which is cool but also can be confusing AHA like i feel like when im 30 or something im gunna draw Ollie as if he were 30 idk thats just how its gunna progress or i'll just make new older OCs i rlly dont know 🤔 only time will tell!

[vanhelsingapologist]

Strahdposting (with possible spoilers so tread lightly)

One of the worst things about Strahd in our campaign is that he's not overtly forced anyone to do anything. His underlings have, sure, but never him. He just waits for us to eliminate our options all on our own, and then presents us with his way. And of course, his way is the easiest. He'll even make it easier. We keep falling into the pit because he ensures we dig it ourselves.

We're almost past the point where he wants to bargain with us and I'm nervous about what happens when he stops being the devil we know and becomes something else altogether.

The recent reveal that there were other parties before ours has been so shattering for us, I think, because it made us all realize that our party is an amusement until it is an inconvenience, and then we'll be insects in the garden that have overstayed our welcome. And then he'll start with the force.

[demadogs]

just discovered through tiktok that some girls have been shaving their widows peak for years cuz they hate it????? you share a physical trait with a vampire and you DONT LIKE IT????

[the-moogle-of-your-nightmares]

one thing i really deeply wish is that i'd had access as a kid to the plural community and information that are more easily available today, instead of my first experience with plural community which both took it seriously and was nonjudgmental having been 10's era tul/pa.info lmao

[optiwashere]

Ugh, I'm always so annoyed when I write something start-to-finish and leave it alone for a while like usual just to dislike what I wrote later. I happily go on my way to do a simple edit and surprise! What do you know... there's things that need editing.

I need to completely redo all the dialogue. I really pride myself on the flow of my dialogue, so that's a giant mess I've made for myself and I still have a Blades chapter that I'm so close to closing out. Hopefully by next week I'll have both in a place that makes me happy.

Sigh.

[kraniumet]

in funner news for me, the kitties love the fresh frozen raw minced meatball cat/kitten food I've begun starting them on. which is good because good for them 👍

[dirtytransmasc]

grieving with family is so complicated, cause sometimes, no matter how much I love them, I just... can't with them.

each person in my family keeps trying to force their way of grieving, their way of coping onto the people around them.

people keep telling me how I'm supposed to feel, how I'm supposed to react, and that's one thing, I can handle it.

but my aunt (my uncle who passed's wife) keeps having people tell her how she's supposed to move on, and it's driving me bonkers. they keep telling her that finding out more answers about his death is not gonna fix things, that it's gonna not gonna ease her pain, that she just... shouldn't.

and like. yeah. there's a point to be had. but as someone who lost someone very close to me (my papa) very similarly, like, please, please, *please* stop telling her how she's supposed to fucking feel. like. oh my fucking God.

I swear.

it's been a few days, let us grieve how we're gonna grieve for just a minute. wanting answers isn't unhealthy. processing real or imagined guilts and coming to terms with it and clearing it isn't unhealthy. letting people grieve for a minute how they're naturally grieving is so important.

there does come a point where certain forms of grief become unhealthy, but trying to force someone to grieve differently DAYS after the death occurred, is like... such a dick move in my mind, especially when it's just the natural progression of thought and emotion and everything.

I don't know if I make any sense, especially cause I'm trying to leave as much detail out as possible, I just need to vent all this anger and frustration out before I snap.

[coldflasher]

the flash should have ended with barry quitting his job at ccpd to become a stay-at-home husband and that's on that

[sourkitsch]

Ok sorry to talk about my breakup again especially on the eve of my hot traumagirl healing trip but like. Kind of miffed that we broke up as soon as things got hard. Aren’t relationships supposed to be about working through things together. Like I get that we were dating for like 2 months but we’d been friends for a year and maybe we should have been able to fall back on like. That mutual commitment ? Especially if i was routinely called their best friend for months before we got together?

[imageingrunge]

Alistar: I hate morrigan she’s a bitch

To you? Yeah not me tho she taught me how to shape shift last night ;)

[mymlody]

its been so hard to wear lolita recently bc ive been so self conscious due to weight gain and busy with university..........WAUUGHUHH.... (PUNCHING WALL)

[pink-carnelian]

I’m looking for a boyfriend who is exactly like a friend in every way except we kiss on occasion and slow dance together for the bit. I don’t want to have sex more than once a month. I want there to be large gaps where we don’t see each other so that we can reunite by running into each other with a clumsy hug. And then kiss once and go watch tv. I don’t want romance I want to already be married for 12 years