#old jujutsu society is so compelling..

[lavenderjewels]

trying to act like I’m normal and not interested in tengen and/or kenjaku backstory at all

[cinnamonsikwate]

jjk 149 salt post

hate the implication that mai was holding maki back, that she's more useful to her twin dead than alive, that her existence as an individual was basically useless!

the reference to equivalent exchange had me rolling my eyes bc - as my sib pointed out after i explained last night's chapter to them - in fma, ed & al were able to circumvent it; the usual formula would have ed giving up his life for al's, but ed, having experienced the pain & grief of being alone, refuses to let al go through the same. it's always "we'll get our bodies back," never just one or the other. for ed, death is the equivalent of giving up, & that is simply not an option. (not even god could stop him lmao!)

148 makes it clear that maki's goal of becoming zenin clan head has everything to do with mai. basically maki left - maki hurt - mai to protect her, but it was gonna be okay bc she was always going to come back. and that was a trajectory i was interested in seeing play out - would maki's return immediately earn mai's forgiveness? or would there be a more drawn-out confrontation to reopen old wounds (i.e., mai's abandonment issues, maki's low sense of self-worth)? guess we'll never know now lol!!!

anyway my point: for the twins' arc to end like this feels incredibly unsatisfying. for all that the other characters are about dismantling/revolutionizing the system, this just had to be the one instance where they couldn't go against higher powers. maki's goal has now changed from simply becoming head to destroying the three-clan system - which is good, but couldn't this have been something they could have accomplished together as a much more compelling fuck-you to jujutsu society??

why couldn't the twins' arc have been to find a way to circumvent the "law" that neither one of them could reach their full potential while the other is still alive? is that too main character-y??? if so then i wish they'd been the main characters instead lol???

and one more thing - i hate that this happened at a point where a lot of ppl still don't like mai. i've yet to see any particularly bad takes but i know somewhere out there some mf is thinking "good riddance!" and they would be WRONG!