#and that Gojo risked and sacrificed a lot for them and that Gojo was doing this in great part because of his own past

[longagoitwastuesday]

ngl it sort of pisses me off the way adults regard Gojo in Jujutsu Kaisen at times. Which could be a very interesting and poignant point in a good way if well written, but as it is it becomes mainly just frustrating and sad in a negative way.

Nanami saying Gojo never cared about anything or anyone other than himself crashes interestingly with Kusakabe saying the whole situation was just all his fault because he refused to kill Itadori. The students are very aware of those aspects of Gojo's personality, but overall they seem to regard him with way more kindness and fondness even when at their rudest, not truly coinciding with either Nanami's or Kusakabe's views.

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

the higher-ups (and Yaga) immediately trying to leverage Gojo & Ieri's absence to put Yuuta on the roster??? God that's such a stark moment. Thank god Nanami and Gojo saw through that one immediately, because Yuuta wants to justify his own survival so badly he would've fallen straight into it.

That whole scene, with Yuuta immediately jumping on the opportunity to help people even though something is Extremely Wrong with him and he's on the brink of physical collapse--this boy is selfless to the point of self destruction and I am chewing the drywall about it. I love him so much.

If only he was able to summon his newly found homicidal rage in defense of himself, the higher-ups would no longer be a problem. Alas, this boy is Extremely Unwell.

(Sea Glass Gardens is absolutely incredible and i am obsessed with it in a way that is totally and 100% normal. I'm so normal about it, trust me <3 )

The thing about Yuuta is that he really is prime to be taken advantage of right now and the higher ups know it. They had him try to kill himself for them--they know that there's a window of opportunity that they can use to get him under their thumb and avoid The Problem of Gojo, which is, namely, having a human weapon who you cannot fully control. Gojo nailed it from the beginning: they want a magic gatling gun with no personality or free will. They learned their lesson with Gojo and are trying to rob Yuuta of his agency before he learns how to protect himself.

And Yaga's part in that scene really was meant to kind of emphasize how, even with the best intention's, he just doesn't work to protect the kids. Like. everything he said was technically true, and he meant it with the best of intentions. He's the guy who has to think of everyone's needs. he has to manage this crisis. he's got a lot of people hurt badly who just came out of a war, and a lot of people going into fights with some very aggravated curses spawning without sufficient manpower to address the danger and no healer to save them if they cut it a little too close. He didn't have the intention of manipulating or sacrificing Yuuta, but he was aware that it would come to his detriment and risk.

The issue is the higher ups. They don't give a shit about the people in their workforce. They should be the ones doing whatever it takes to solve this crisis and save their people--and if that means giving up on their machinations? They should have already done it. It's their responsibility.

They just don't care. They want Okkotsu Yuuta under their thumb, and their society hemorrhaging is treated like an opportunity, not a dire problem to be solved. They don't care if half a dozen of their own people need to die to do it. Hell, it's better if they do die--they can put it straight on Okkotsu for not being willing to sacrifice himself, when they should have been making whatever promises they had to in order to make this work.

Gojo's done this before, is the thing. He was Yuuta, a long time ago. Nanami was right there watching it happen. They both know what the higher ups do: They let society get to a crisis level and put all the responsibility on you to save it. they let you maneuver yourself into a vulnerable position as a result, and then they use it as leverage to put their goddamn boot on your neck.

The thing is that Gojo adopting megumi all those years ago really did put them into a crisis state. the zenin pitched the mother of all bitch fits trying to secure his unconditional return, and they were a huge percentage of jujutsu society's labor force and resource pools. instead of the higher ups managing the problem at all, they took advantage of the situation and shoved more and more of its weight and responsibility onto gojo, until he was dropping off his own kid at his abusers' compound thinking it was the only compromise that could resolve things. megumi paid the price for gojo not calling bullshit, and right now, with him in a hospital bed? gojo's less willing to repeat mistakes than ever.

he knows that they're going to use the safety and suffering of everyone else as the leverage against him, and he knows that as terrible as it is, he cannot blink first. He's played this game before, and he knows that the only way to get the higher ups to back off on something like this is to dig in your heels.

I think what happened to Megumi all those years ago and how bad it got before they put a stop to it is something that haunts all three of them. When they first started raising him, they were very young, and they were very broken, and they loved him very, very much. He was their little boy, and he was never the same after the Zenin. They were supposed to protect him, and they didn't, and not a single one of them has forgiven themselves for that.

Megumi was sort of sacrificed for the greater good when he was a kid. None of them thought that that was what they were doing when it happened, but that's what happened. His happiness, safety, and wellbeing were sacrificed to pacify the Zenin and make it easier on everyone else.

Megumi and Tsumiki had to become their non-negotiables after. They had to become the things they refused to compromise on. The Zenin would take miles and miles if you gave them a millimeter, let alone an inch.

Gojo didn't think he was compromising them when he left them on their own to deal with Geto's war. They were disgustingly self-sufficient kids. They had been alone for longer stretches of time when they were practically toddlers--they should have been fine on their own for a couple of weeks.

But they were still his kids, and he still left them alone for everyone else's sake, and now his kid is blind and half dead in a hospital bed. It's like being punched in the face by old mistakes.

So they're off the roster completely, all of them. And they're not compromising an inch on what their focus is, and they're not letting anything happen to any of the other kids in their care.

It's terrible that their coworkers are suffering, but it wouldn't be happening if the Zenin hadn't fucked with Gojo Satoru's kid, of all the goddamn people. It wouldn't be happening if the higher ups would actually do their job and start managing shit.

And if they use Yuuta as an anxiety riddled bandaid on the bullet hole in their society? Then they'd be sacrificing him the way they sacrificed Megumi all those years ago. And they have never been less willing to do that.

I'm so so glad you like the story! Thank you for talking with me!

[ikemenomegas]

Now MYY oc needs to die during the shibuya incident 😭 because seeing Shoko go with the flow in letting her friend's body get used (i know that its the most practical and necessary thing to do in the situation but it still hurts) and how Gojo remarked in the flashback that he was annoyed that Shoko didn't object to the idea of using his body as a weapon. Now I want MYY oc to die and have them reunite with gojo in death because shits too sad :((

Okay okay, I think you actually make a good argument for myy oc dying. Mostly because the whole point of myy oc is that it seemed impossible that there was no one else besides Suguru who treated Satoru as human (an equal, not a god or monster).

A tight story works really well with the characters it has, and despite all our complaining, jujutsu kaisen trends towards be a pretty tight story (for a weekly release) with some really distinct themes. Probably one of the reasons the reaction to ch261 has been so visceral was because there were all kinds of threats against the catharsis achieved earlier on, because we're not just seeing the end of a character, we get to see all these little hints of the ways Gojo could have continued to grow as a person, but now never will. There's rightfully a lot of complex emotions from the audience there! In a way, Gojo's perennial childish presentation and his subsequent death still places him within the group of those sacrificed young for the sake of the sorcerer mission (and he's really only 29? so he IS still young, just no longer a socially recognized child)

Therefore, in this au which adds a romantic interest character, the only way things make sense is if Gojo actually did have an attachment to myy oc, if he felt connected and understood in some way. This is very different to canon Gojo whose primary constant tether is to a past that is impossible to retrieve.

The "canon compliant" way I been playing around has Gojo intentionally severing his connection to myy oc in order to undertake his run at Sukuna. He has grown enough to realize there is a vital attachment there, and feels bad about hurting myy oc's feelings, but not enough to risk more selfishness and try and preserve it, to be more (and somewhat less) than just the peak of sorcery. He's trapped in this self fulfilling prophecy that he himself has played into in just about every au that has to do with curses though. (In this au, it's actually myy oc who gets to survive and learn to become something more than a sorcery. I even have a very poor draft of myy oc meeting gojo and geto in the afterlife /sigh)

What you're talking about makes sense and is almost "canon compliant" in a different way, it just plays into this passive l'appel du vide we see from Gojo a few times. A technique is tied up in one's personality some way, and there is this urge Gojo has to just dive off the edge, seeking the void, only he's never met a peak that's actually higher than the place he's standing on, he's never met something more than the "everything" he experiences with his Six Eyes. Until Suguru who opened his eyes to the importance of other people, Yaga who dared to really try and teach him, Shoko who could do something he couldn't and would never be able to explain, and in this au, myy oc, who refused to ever want him as something more or less than human (even if framing him in that context took work).

Shoko lets others make their own beds. She was never going to stop Yuuta or Gojo because she doesn't believe in that kind of meddling, but she also doesn't believe in making useless displays of emotion when something is going to happen/needs to happen anyway. She will bury her own hurt until it is a soft place to lie in. Gojo is someone who can and may take and take and take if given the chance, Shoko is not going to get through to him by letting him move around her, but unfortunately, that's what the less nice part of their friendship is like.

Losing myy oc in Shibuya (when he's not even there to try and stop it) would push Gojo further into this disconnect which sorcery often demands a lot faster. He won't blame himself, just like he sees how Suguru needed to make his own choices (cannot save someone who does not want to be saved), but it makes it that much easier to let go and love only the fight, to try and reach that peak, to finally take that step to destroy the structure he's been part of for so long, and want to go back and do it all over the right way when he's given the chance...