Yellow Flowers

I will never be over the absolute irony of how this movie has been treated in the award shows. The golden globes, the critic choice awards...all we need is one more moment from the Oscars and we'll have a perfect trifecta of fuckass blindness.

Like seriously? "I'm Just Ken" was a song quite literally made to be an ironic incel anthem, and they gave that the spotlight? Don't get me wrong, Ryan Gosling gave an excellent performance but even the man himself was baffled.

Like look at his face. That is the look of a man who just realized he is quite literally living the reality of the movie he made and somehow everyone runs face first into the point, and right past it. He wants someone to say "You just got punked!" so bad.

RYAN GOSLING "I'm Just Ken" wins Best Original Song at the 29th Annual Critics' Choice Awards (January 14, 2024)

Do you ever think about how poetic the scene of Gojo being sealed in Shibuya is? I'm not just talking in terms of the love of his life being his downfall and the utter tragedy of their story. I'm talking about how poetic it was for Gojo himself, for the "honored one" who was basically considered a mortal god and treated as such, to be defeated in the most human of ways.

Let me explain. Again, this isn't just about the Gojo's love for Geto being his Achilles heel. Something that Jujutsu Kaisen encapsulates time and time again through various characters is the juxtaposition of power in humanity- infinitely capable in some ways and still tragically helpless in others. It's why the idea of "Sorcerers die alone and with many regrets" is such a recurring thing brought. Many of them are considerably powerful and have done almost miraculous things, but in the face of their own death or the loss of their friends or the regrets that pile up in their lives, they are powerless. In a lot of ways, that is what it means to be human, powerful and powerless all at once.

And that is what Gojo demonstrates at Shibuya. He truly proved he was, inarguably, the strongest sorcerer in centuries as he took on three special grade curses and a death painting, fought two of them hand to hand, and killed one of them by crushing it to a wall. He then demonstrated immense control and strategism by holding a domain for 0.2 seconds and then wiping out more than a thousand curses in under five minutes. He single-handedly prevented a complete massacre of humans in the area. It feels like he's proven, shown us, that he is the god everyone thinks of him as.

And then he sees the only man who didn't treat him like a god. The only one who had seen him as human and, in some ways, made him human. The one he thought he'd killed a year ago. He sees him and he freezes. At the site of his greatest demonstration of power, his Achilles heel stands exposed.

And in that minute of shock, guilt, memory, horror, and longing, he falls. So powerful he seemed invincible, yet rendered powerless in that moment. Gojo Satoru, the honored one, the mortal god, the strongest sorcerer, creates the deepest truest representation of humanity in that moment. Not just in our vulnerability to love, but in how we are, within ourselves, both the indestructible and the defeated.

"Gojo should've gotten to live as a person-" THAT’S THE POINT. That is the ENTIRE point of JJK. Every single character who died was someone who "should've gotten to" do a lot of things. Riko should've gotten to live for herself, Geto should've had the chance to be a teenage boy given support and safety, Junpei should've gotten to live without fear, Nobara should've had the chance to let people in without fear, Nanami, Yuki, Mai, Higurama, EVERYONE.

Here's the thing, Gojo is on this list. Gojo isn't the exception because JJK at its core is a story about how overarching systems destroy people; bullying, capitalism, sexism, etc. And this system does not need people to run it. Which is why killing Kenjaku didn't stop shit because yeah he started this mess but its grown beyond him. Fuck, it was there before him.

This is also why despite Sukuna & Uraume being the only ones who are actual threats, nothing is better. The cast got rid of the higher-ups, jujutsu tech as it is, is no more. The major families are dismantled. This should be a victory. This is what the Sashisu gen pointed out as the problem but things have never looked more bleak.

Why? Because the problem isn't Kenjaku, Sukuna, curses, sorcerers or curse users. It's the existence of Cursed Energy itself. This has been pointed out multiple times by Yuki. Its the system and Gojo has been complicit to the system for a long, long time. He's also it's victim. Gojo says he's the exception a lot, but as everyone has rightfully pointed out, he was nothing more than a weapon to jujutsu society.

JJK has followed a very clear pattern to every character right from Geto to Junpei to Riko; characters are representatives of systems of suppression, and they will not escape it. I can't recall a single character that's escaped unscathed, much less alive.

Is it disrespectful? Yes. Is it demeaning? YES. There has not been a single character death that's been dignified in JJK. It's all on a scale of bearable to absolutely horrifying. It is genuinely wild seeing people resort to threatening the author AGAIN. Calm the fuck down. You are entitled to feeling upset about how Gojo has been treated but Yuta stans are being calm despite Yuta arguably suffering the "he is a weapon" thing WORSE. It's still a fictional character and JJK's narratives never treated Gojo with any exceptions despite the character saying otherwise.

Hunger Games fanfic blurb:

I sipped the last of my water, slow as I could, hoping it would tide me awhile through the heat of the Hobb. Business was slow today. Not that we make much on other days, selling trinkets and scraps of metal and cloth in a district where most people could barely buy bread. But we scrape by.

But today, I hadn't a single body come by to look at the wares. Although, I s'pose, when you've got a Reaping tomorrow, you're probably not in a buying sorta mood. Even Greasy Sae is selling her stew for half price today for the youngins that usually come around to her corner.

Speaking of the youngins, one of them walks my way. The one with stern eyes who brings fresh game from the woods. The butcher's wife says she hunts 'em with a bow and her arrows never miss the mark. Must be nice to have a useful trade like that. Sometimes, she trades me berries for balls of yarn. That's probably what she's making her way over for.

Never got her name. I call her "Stern Eyes" and word around the Seam is she sings like a songbird. My Gammy Maude would've liked that. She gives me berries wrapped in cloth, and I give her the yarn. But she doesn't walk away.

She reaches her hand into one of the boxes, the one with old pins for hair and clothes that might've been pretty once but had gotten rusty and dusty since. Then she pulls out that pin. Gammy Maude's pin that used to belong to her friend. The friend with bad luck in love and even worse in life. Some say she ran away, and some say got shot in the woods by her lover. Gammy said her friend used to sing too. Like a songbird.

Gammy never liked that pin much. Said it never brought nothing but bad luck. I think it just reminded her too much of her friend and the lover who might've shot her. But she still kept the pin till she died. Guess reminders are still reminders.

It's a mockingjay pin. Might be gold, but it's too old and grimy to tell. Could've sold it for scrap metal, but after hearing Gammy's stories, I could never bring myself to melt the damn thing down. And it's not like I could just walk up to the fancy parts of town with a mockingjay pin to sell. The peacekeepers would have cuffed me before I could quote a price. Probably really is bad luck anyway.

Stern Eyes is holding the pin and askin how much. I think of asking for a couple of coins, and then I remember the Reaping. She's probably young enough to have her name in the bowl. More than a couple of times, like every Seam kid. I wonder if it'd bring bad luck to her too. Or maybe it'd bring her good luck. If I'm being honest, I just want the pin gone. Can't keep holding on to a thing like that.

I tell her she can take it. No charge. Can't ask people to pay you for what could be bad luck. Don't know why she picked that one, but I wonder if she knows anything about the last songbird who had it.

I really hope it brings her better luck than Gammy's friend.

Writer's note: I know this isn't accurate to the books where Katniss gets the pin from Madge and the pin isn't really mentioned in TBOSAS. But I remember she gets it in the Hobb in the movie and it does make an appearance in the prequel movie as well. Soooo, that's where this idea came from!

As far as book-to-movie adaptations go, The Hunger Games does a pretty good job. But one thing I will never be able to forgive is how dirty they did Finnick.

If you've read the books and watched the movies, you know exactly what I'm talking about. For those of you who don't know, I'll explain. Remember how the District 13 soldiers infiltrate the Capitol to rescue Peeta (and Johanna)? In order to create a distraction for this operation to take this place, the rebels take this opportunity to hack all the Capitol channels. But they need something with sufficient shock factor to capture the Capitol's attention. This is when Finnick steps up and spills some MAJOR TEA in front of the camera. Now, in the books, Finnick's speech is the main focus with the infiltration happening in the background, but the movie does the OPPOSITE (for reasons I will never understand).

People who've only watched the movies don't even know what Finnick said and how important it is because of how the movie overshadows his part there and let's it become fucking background music for the most part.

Finnick talks about how, as a victor, the Capitol sold him (his body that is) to the elite. Basically, they sex trafficked their victors. Keep in mind that Finnick won the games when he was 14. All the victors were minors when they won. And in order to assuage their guilt, to pretend like this was somehow not a really fucking messed up transaction, his "buyers" would offer him gifts- money, jewels, clothes etc. But Finnick figured out a much more valuable thing to exchange. He asked them to tell him their secrets. And because he was dealing the Capitol powerful elite, he learned just how rotten the Capitol was at its core. And the best secret he learned was of how Snow came to power- by poisoning his enemies. And it was from that poison (he also probably had to consume it to prevent his enemies from suspecting something) that he had bleeding sores in his mouth that he tried to disguise with the scent of roses.

Apart from exposing Snow's corruption, Finnick's confession exposes another truth - that the games are never truly over. The victors may leave the arena, but they remain the Capitol's pawns. And if not pawns, they become examples. Johanna and Haymitch were the latter. Johanna was also expected to do what Finnick did. But she basically told the Capitol to go fuck itself and so they killed her whole family. Haymitch had played smart in the arena by using the Capitol's own force field to win. And so they had already killed his whole family (and girlfriend) for that. So they had no one to blackmail him with.

Now think back to what Finnick said to Katniss when they first met. He tells her, "You could have made out like a bandit, jewels, money, whatever you wanted." Katniss ribs at his popularity in the Capitol by talking bout people,"paying for the pleasure of his company, " not realizing just how true that statement was. (He replies "secrets" is you recall). Finnick was alluding to a fate Katniss would have also had to face like other victors if she hadn't been reaped again.

The games were never fucking over. The victors would always be the Capitol's pawns for as long as it suited the Capitol. And I will never be over the fact that the movies quite literally drowned out Finnick's story like that.

Idk man....there's no trauma....

...it's not like the idea of there being a pairing where one person has mistreated the other in the past but grows up and genuinely apologizes and tries to atone for it is relatable to my childhood or anything....

...or that the idea of someone who yells at you and is pretty rough around the edges sometimes still loves and cares for you underneath it all even though they don't seem to know how to say it is something I desperately want to believe is true....

...and it's most certainly not that in a lot of ways both of them have been let down or adultified by many of the actual adults in their life and the older generation at large done fucked up with these kids and might be a little too relatable to my generation in general...

...hahaha it's definitely not any of those things...nope...no trauma here

what does bakudeku yaoi have to do with your trauma

Hunger Games fanfic blurb:

I sipped the last of my water, slow as I could, hoping it would tide me awhile through the heat of the Hobb. Business was slow today. Not that we make much on other days, selling trinkets and scraps of metal and cloth in a district where most people could barely buy bread. But we scrape by.

But today, I hadn't a single body come by to look at the wares. Although, I s'pose, when you've got a Reaping tomorrow, you're probably not in a buying sorta mood. Even Greasy Sae is selling her stew for half price today for the youngins that usually come around to her corner.

Speaking of the youngins, one of them walks my way. The one with stern eyes who brings fresh game from the woods. The butcher's wife says she hunts 'em with a bow and her arrows never miss the mark. Must be nice to have a useful trade like that. Sometimes, she trades me berries for balls of yarn. That's probably what she's making her way over for.

Never got her name. I call her "Stern Eyes" and word around the Seam is she sings like a songbird. My Gammy Maude would've liked that. She gives me berries wrapped in cloth, and I give her the yarn. But she doesn't walk away.

She reaches her hand into one of the boxes, the one with old pins for hair and clothes that might've been pretty once but had gotten rusty and dusty since. Then she pulls out that pin. Gammy Maude's pin that used to belong to her friend. The friend with bad luck in love and even worse in life. Some say she ran away, and some say got shot in the woods by her lover. Gammy said her friend used to sing too. Like a songbird.

Gammy never liked that pin much. Said it never brought nothing but bad luck. I think it just reminded her too much of her friend and the lover who might've shot her. But she still kept the pin till she died. Guess reminders are still reminders.

It's a mockingjay pin. Might be gold, but it's too old and grimy to tell. Could've sold it for scrap metal, but after hearing Gammy's stories, I could never bring myself to melt the damn thing down. And it's not like I could just walk up to the fancy parts of town with a mockingjay pin to sell. The peacekeepers would have cuffed me before I could quote a price. Probably really is bad luck anyway.

Stern Eyes is holding the pin and askin how much. I think of asking for a couple of coins, and then I remember the Reaping. She's probably young enough to have her name in the bowl. More than a couple of times, like every Seam kid. I wonder if it'd bring bad luck to her too. Or maybe it'd bring her good luck. If I'm being honest, I just want the pin gone. Can't keep holding on to a thing like that.

I tell her she can take it. No charge. Can't ask people to pay you for what could be bad luck. Don't know why she picked that one, but I wonder if she knows anything about the last songbird who had it.

I really hope it brings her better luck than Gammy's friend.

Writer's note: I know this isn't accurate to the books where Katniss gets the pin from Madge and the pin isn't really mentioned in TBOSAS. But I remember she gets it in the Hobb in the movie and it does make an appearance in the prequel movie as well. Soooo, that's where this idea came from!

Part of why I dragged my feet on ever checking out JJK was the reputation I heard was that it's a BRUTAL grimdark story where ANYONE can DIE in a snap and the author says FUCK you. And after finally catching up with the anime that just... Isn't the tone at all?? Like, Game of Thrones, Gantz, Attack on Titan, etc other cornerstone grimdark reference points, I think one of their defining hallmarks is not just that characters die suddenly and violently, but that human life is nasty, brutish, and meaningless, and it's your own fault for being stupid enough to get attached.

Jujutsu Kaisen on the other hand, I don't know how you can look at one of the most recent casualties circa S2Ep20 of the anime where that character gets a full entire episode reminiscing about their childhood, and the moments and people that meant most to them, and come away thinking the author's intent was to treat life as meaningless. The amount of screen time devoted to the following character who gets badly maimed, the audience gets enthusiastically shoved neck deep into their insane kaleidoscopic passion that is never once undercut or subverted. Both of these characters, far from being callously snuffed out and dumped in the trash, were shown immense love. What we got was not a statement of their life being disposable, but a celebration of life, a reminder of who they are, what they cared about, what made them special, who they loved and who loved them and will remember them in turn.

This is a story about curses born of misery, hatred, and malice. It is also a story deeply concerned with dualism, especially when it comes to attachment and desire. Misery stems from worldly attachments, but it is not weak or foolish to become attached to things in this world. To love something is to set yourself up for the pain or anger of losing it, or sadness of having it denied. But that love is what makes life worth living anyway, and what makes it worth it to keep fighting. We as the audience are sad because we are attached to these characters who have met terrible fates. We see enough of them to be able to clearly picture the whole rich life they could have lived surrounded by friends and feel the sting of that path cut short. It is a story about how it was worthwhile knowing them well enough to be attached anyway, even if it meant unavoidable heartbreak.

This is true of both the human protagonists as well as the curses! Volcano Man and Mahito are ruthless killers who cruelly take lives without a thought. They also have hopes and dreams that they earnestly try to protect and follow through on, and face heartbreaking despair upon defeat. They feel pain just like we do, but must nevertheless be killed. Humans face pain through the very act of living, but nevertheless must live.

In true grimdark fiction there is rarely anything good in life for characters to return to once the battle is over. In Jujutsu Kaisen, on the contrary, there is enough good in life that we see it even amidst the battle. I can see that no other way than an expression of genuine affection. Truly bleak fiction leaves me wondering why everyone involved doesn't just put a gun in their mouth and be done with it. JJK provides an answer--because you'll get to laugh about ruining an expensive shirt, because you'll meet an acquaintance's hot mom, because the next human earthworm movie is coming out, because your favorite idol is doing a meet and greet this weekend, because maybe someday you'll finally go to Malaysia. There are many answers, and none of them are stupid.