Bibliophiliac-bisexual-disaster - Emo? Nerd? Emo Nerd.

Grover being all sweet innocent cinnamon roll reasurring Percy and Annabeth that he'll be okay staying behind with Ares like he isn't planning 5D chess psychological warfare on the god of war be like

You know how I know that AI will never be able to create like a human? Whether that be painting or writing or film-making?

Because no computer, no algorithm, no matter how good, can tell a story like a human can.

Shakespeare wrote his most famous tragedies from the mire of grief from losing his son to the plague. Oscar Wilde's "A Picture of Dorian Gray" had such overtly homosexual themes that the book was literally used against him when he was on trial. The shock and horror of 9/11 inspired My Chemical Romance to come together and capture the sense of disillusionment of young people at the time. Hozier today writes his songs expressing what it means to be an increasingly fascist world while still holding an enduring love of humanity. Arthur Miller wrote "The Crucible" using the witch hunts as a thinly veiled allegory to criticize McCarthyism in the 50s, a play that did, in fact have him persecuted for "contempt of congress". An entire period of Picasso's art was noticeably influenced by the suicide of his friend, but he also had other works that were inspired by his various love affairs.

If you still think AI could eventually create like that, you're missing the point. You think it's about skill, you think it's just about craft. We're aware that AI can learn any skill, excel at craft. But a story isn't the words you use, or the events that happened; a story is the person that tells it and the beauty they felt that they share with you when you experience the art. Because art itself isnt about the perfection of its presentation, its the messiness of the human experience. Your AI has no life, it has no story, it can make as many esthetically pleasing works as you want, but it cannot make art.

They knew what he was the moment he opened his eyes. Or rather, what he would become. What they would make him.

When the word spread, they called him different things. A sign from above. A savior. The strongest sorcerer this world has seen in centuries. The pride of the Gojo clan. The wielder of the Six Eyes.

The titles were pretty, but they all meant the same thing. From the moment Gojo Satoru opened his eyes, he was a weapon.

A weapon does not need to love or be loved. Love is vulnerability. A weapon cannot be vulnerable.

A weapon does not need to care, only kill. When they tell you to. Whatever (or whoever) they tell you to. A good weapon asks no questions. A weapon does not care.

A weapon does not need to be happy. Happiness is having friends and laughing at stupid things and playing in the sun. Happiness us for children. A weapon is not a child.

Gojo Satoru was a weapon. The best one in centuries.

Until he wasn't.

Until Geto Suguru looked at his eyes like they were beautiful. Like he was beautiful. Weapons are not beautiful. But he looked at him like he was not a weapon. And he made him want to believe it.

And then they gave him the order to execute him. But the weapon was no longer a weapon. Weapons did not have hearts. Suguru may have left it bleeding and broken in the wake of his departure, but it was still the greatest gift he had given Satoru. A weapon did not know love or care or happiness. Satoru was not a weapon.

To anyone who was born in one country and grew up in another,

Does it feel weird to you too when you recite the national anthem of a country that you know will never consider you their own even though they're all you've ever known? Did you also have to force a different accent onto your tongue so people would stop looking at you when you spoke with that face that meant they weren't listening to what you said, only the way you said it? Did you dread bringing a copy of your birth certificate to school and try to slip it onto the teachers desk before anyone noticed or saw as if you were passing confidential information? Did you try to be more of this or less of that so you would look like something that belonged? Have you also been a guest that overstayed your whole life in a country you call home?

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.

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.

Watching the new Percy Jackson episode, and while by no means is the show perfect, I do love how they updated the blending of Greek mythology and the American Gothic for social commentary.

What I mean is Echidna, the mother of monsters, is some respectable-looking vaguely southern white woman who is able to convince the police on the train that three kids shattered a train window and used those institutions to isolate the kids so she can target them and scare them for the chimera's hunt. The way that the police especially treat Annabeth. Now, as a young black girl, she has to know how to ask if they're getting arrested, and gets called out by the police for her tone.

And then, at the St. Louis Arch, we see Grover upset because of the museum, which is basically a monument to Manifest Destiny (literally, there's a shot where the words are in full display in the background). And while they say, "Grover is upset because he doesn't like it when people hurt animals," they explicitly depict America's colonization and destruction of indigenous communities as The Bad Thing. It adds another layer of flavor for the whole "Pan is missing" - it's not just about Climate Change. It's about the extermination of indigenous groups (the centaurs they saw on the train, the reminder that there used to be more of them until humans started killing them). They say "humans" are bad, but they're showing us Western/American colonizers.

Also, a rare yet interesting moment of conflict between Annabeth as a daughter of Athena and Grover as a Satyr. Annabeth insists that the museum's commodifying and glorifying of American colonization is "not what the arch is actually about, it's about architecture and math," but Athena is the goddess who protects social institutions and a patron goddess of the state, law, order, industry, and war. The Industrial Revolution and Western social institutions definitely contributed to colonialism; just saying. We also see in this episode that Athena can be arrogant and cruel - letting a monster go after her own daughter because she was embarrassed.

Anyway, idk. Maybe I'm overthinking this but these were the things that popped out to me on first watch, and now that I think about them more, I would love a continuation of these kinds of themes and tropes in future seasons, if we get them.