Y'all Think Anthy And Utena Shit Like This

What do you think of Docholligay’s take on Ruka, that being that he’s a projection of Juri’s dark side and that, in shattering the locket, she overcomes?

Man, it is a good-ass take that I love a lot.

It really fixes the one big issue with the otherwise amazing two-parter of episodes 28 and 29 wrapping up Juri’s issues. Which is of interloper Ruka. Personal feelings about Ruka as a character aside (which is really kind of tied up in the ‘men of Utena’ as a whole, that he seemingly gets to waltz in, fuck shit up, and leave with relatively little consequence to himself), it is profoundly weird that this issue of Juri and Shiori’s relationship is only ‘solved’ when this random guy who we have never heard of before and never will again shows up. But that ends up only SUPPORTING Doc’s read.

I had previously read the whole thing of Ruka not being spoken of before and after his time to be more of a function of the insular space-time weirdness of Ohtori where anything that isn’t there might as well not exist to those within it. But that’s just the thing - space and time does weird things in Ohtori and that manifests in odd ways - SEE MIKAGE. Which only grows more relevant as both Mikage’s final episodes and Ruka’s episodes are some of the most blatant foreshadowing of the ending of the show (where Utena ‘leaves’ the school and Anthy frees herself). If Mikage is a ghost, then why isn’t Ruka as well?

I don’t think that Juri necessarily invented Ruka wholecloth. With Doc’s reading in mind I do read him as a combination of Juri’s dark side manifest AND a ghost (that at some point in Juri’s past there was a ‘Ruka’ who mentored her but he’s long dead, hence why everyone else is so confused when the ‘old’ fencing captain shows up). Much like most of the cast, Juri has trapped herself in a toxic pattern regarding her inability to move on from her feelings for Shiori and imagine a happy future for herself (something she thinks would take ‘a miracle’ so mired she is in self-loathing). We see her try to break the cycle before and fail miserably - in episode 17 she throws away the locket, a good and healthy thing, but the moment it reappears in front of her she cannot reject it again. Juri must be aware on a subconscious level that she needs SOMETHING to break through this, but she isn’t prepared to do it on a conscious level - she is tied up in the idea that she can only be happy if Shiori returns her feelings, so to reject Shiori would to be giving up any hope, thus she chases her tail over and over for ‘a miracle’. So the idea of an influential man in her life (and that it is a MAN who is able to, briefly, have a ‘normal’ heterosexual relationship with Shiori is a big part of that) becoming the avatar of all the things she feels she can’t surpass or are holding her back - that sounds like just the kind of thing that can manifest as a ghost in Ohtori’s weird space-time-ness.

Which really only makes the foreshadowing of the end of the series only more potent. I used to bristle at this idea of Ruka being ‘a prince who saved Juri because of his man-love bleh’ since he ‘dies’ after Juri is freed, comparable to the young man in her story about her sister nearly drowning (and comparable to Utena disappearing after opening the coffin). BUT this changes it significantly - much like how Anthy cannot be pulled out of the coffin and must choose to reach back to Utena, Juri ultimately frees herself. Ruka is her manifestation and he ‘dies’ like a prince because ‘princes’ are fuck-all useless - at the end of the day the true ideal of ‘the prince’ never existed, and pursuing that ideal only leads to failure. We are supposed to read Akio and Dios as denigrating Utena in the final episodes when they say she’s ‘just a girl’ - but a nonexistent prince can’t help anyone. Only by reaching out to Anthy as a human being, as a GIRL, can Utena help break this cycle of abuse and loathing that Anthy has mired herself in. By giving herself someone to struggle against, Juri can throw away the rose and forfeit the duel, finally abandoning the endless and futile search for ‘a miracle.’ So really when you read Ruka not as an actual dude who suddenly dies after inserting himself into the drama of these two girls, but as the ghost-simulacrum of who Juri both wants and fears to become, Ruka suddenly makes much more sense in regards to not only Juri’s arc but to the overall themes of RGU.

This post by @recycledraccoon made me laugh real hard so i drew it

tazmuir could simply rerelease gideon the ninth over and over again but from the perspective of all of the different characters at canaan house and i would be tuned the fuck in. like the drama of all of their different expectations and relationships…. coronabeth living her hot girl summer… judith experiencing Sapphic Hell…. isaac and jeannemary on the world’s weirdest family vacation…. palamedes living out a deeply repressed regency era romance…. silas filled with loathing for every single person there…. delightful. canaan house drives me crazy. it’s like if love island was survivor

“You can’t cure this,” said the Prince. “It’s spirit shit … possession. You can ward people so they don’t get grabbed—if you’re really good—but otherwise, chop them up and burn the bits. That’s the cure. Civilian or Edenite or House, it makes no difference.”

idk what it is about the mighty nein but the cast plays them so strategically.

like maybe it was the sandbox nature of c2 and the fact that they weren't getting legendary items as much as vox machina.

at level 20, they have:

higher hp (collectively. caleb is still squishy)

less combat indecision

more battlefield movement and ways of not grouping up.

a well planned collection of buffs. plus paladin aura for saves.

a good split of ranged and melee attacks, both martial and magic.

ways of incapacitation (beau)

movement/terrain control through spells and sentinel

ways of mitigating damage

better action economy

a collection of twos: 2 casters with counterspell, 2 martials with sentinel, 2 clerics that cover healing, 2 (technically 3) people with evasion, 2 hp tanks, etc.

the ability to come back from bad saves/good adversary saves.

like even when they didn't make the most optimal decisions, they still were at a point that their prior planning prevented a lot of damage and potential issues. the heroes' feast and mind blank carried.

more thoughts under the cut

on the ranged thing: vox machina has more martial range, but less magic range. percy and vex are optimized for that, but if anyone whacks on vex she's squishy.

bells hells has magic range, but not martial range. i think chet has a shortbow now, but other than that it's melee (and orym's air blades) or bust. if they're out of range they're dashing in (or using boots).

maybe its a me thing. but i find mighty nein combat the easiest to watch of the three groups, followed by vox machina and then bells hells. and i'm a noted combat enjoyer.

little more of a rant:

it feels like they get stuck in indecision so much in c3. i think it's the caster split between parties; as i see it, travis and liam process and plan out their turns the quickest, then taliesin and laura, then sam, marisha, and ashley.

sidenote: the clerics in any given campaign flip back and forth between fast turns of mostly healing and slower turns of other stuff. i would say in terms of speed as clerics it goes: taliesin, laura, ashley, sam.

with the mighty nein, the process is optimized:

liam, taliesin, and laura as the primary casters, with liam for utility, buffs, and dps, taliesin covering healing and buffs/debuffs, and laura doing secondary healing, dps, and general battlefield chaos.

travis and sam in the mixed martial area, with veth covering big damage ranged hits as well as utility magic, and fjord covering quick teleports, disparate hits with eldritch blast, and some melee with smites & hexblade, also tanking with hp.

marisha and ashley as full martial, with marisha getting info, inflicting stun to grant advantage, and serving as a dex/ac tank, while ashley covers big damage, and serves as a con/hp tank.

their turns generally proceed at similar paces, unless there's a significant misunderstanding in play, and they have time for strategy and unconventional solutions in the mix. the faster players are playing longer turns as casters, but generally come in with their spells planned. liam fired off a time stop with 5 rounds and got through it in a little longer than a normal turn.

with vox machina, it's a mix.

travis and taliesin are full martial, but have action surges and thus sometimes take longer. percy also takes longer for gun reasons.

liam and laura fill the mixed martial area, but they're pretty efficient as a rogue duo.

ashley, marisha, and sam fill out the casters, but as they are with vm, they have higher efficiency.

pike is focused on healing, buffing, and tanking

keyleth has spells but spends a lot of time in wildshape. her spells also tend to run over rounds, so there's progressive damage.

scanlan has a standard progression as a lore bard, with a leveled spell per turn, bardic inspiration bonuses, and his reactions are his clutch moves. also his longer turns get filled up with improv singing, so it doesn't feel like combat indecision.

whereas with bells hells, it's not as optimized.

liam and travis are full martial, so even given shenanigans and descriptions, their turns go quicker. they're tanks, but the enemies move away from them after getting hit 6 times a turn/by blood curses unless there's maneuvering in place.

robbie is in the mixed martials as a swords bard, but as a full caster and one of the healers now, he's been more on the casting side in recent memory

taliesin takes longer in c3 due to the path of fundamental chaos and the adjustments he has to make with each rage. he tanks, but ashton has so much nonsense going on that you never know what's going to happen with them.

sam is now in the mixed martial area and has faster turns, but started the campaign as a full caster and thus had longer turns. fcg also had action economy issues as part of their subclass and by virtue of sam not wanting to play a cleric like the other clerics, so it took awhile.

the witches all have long turns, but in order as far as i recall it usually goes laura, marisha, ashley, in terms of the amount of time. with two sorcerers and a damage focused druid/rogue, they hit a lot of combat indecision. they specialized so much that if they hit a point where they run out of the standard options, it just drags on. lots of spell attacks and saving throws, and quicken spells, and familiars (gun monkey, bone rat, and shadow dog) and form changes, and on and on.

it means that combat runs long because they take awhile to decide on what they're doing and then longer to adapt to changes on the battlefield. they also have limited options for range, standard movement for the most part, the witches are all pretty squishy, and when they're up against enemies with easy transport around the field, they get hit hard, because the tanks can't be everywhere.

bell's hells just gets beat up more.

what if the vengeful soul of the earth remembered the people who cared about her and braided her hair every morning. what then

(bonus because I know this is what you guys wanted and I'd hate to disappoint)

Chenga redraw

twilight girlies