#but HOW do I relate to that? WHAT exactly am I representing on the grander stage?

[lampadions-pickle]

Father has informed me that -rubs temples- We can no longer see ourselves as binary participants; that is, that we cannot hide behind simply being of the World- that we are beginning to break into the broader network of.... whatever level of politics that this is beyond simply the stage of the Collective.

[psychewritesbs]

Chapter 159: Justice is blind + Foreshadowing from chapter 6 and JJK0?

This chapter we’re introduced to Higuruma, one of the players in the Culling Game with 100 points who Yuji and Megumi will most likely target in an attempt to add new rules to the game. 

As I mentioned before, JJK is the equivalent of Murphy’s Law on steroids and we are guaranteed for Gege to pull the rug from under our feet. For all you know, the odds that Higuruma agrees to help them without a problem are 50/50.

Onto this week’s theories... This is a long one so brace yourself.

Higuruma’s Shikigami is the stuff of nightmares

Higuruma’s Shikigami, if that’s what it is, is loaded with symbolism. Perfect for my Cursed Technique of reading between the lines and over-thinking every single detail.

What I love about Higuruma is that he is a man on a mission--sort of like a Shonen Protagonist. He is single-minded in his pursuit of saving those he sees as victims to the monster that is the Japanese legal court system.

Despite continuing to put himself on the line for the people he is trying to “save,” the oppressive system that they are part of makes it impossible for him to achieve his goals. And yet, he keeps trying to fight the beast that is the legal system even when the odds of him ever winning are .1%.

In the end, it isn’t the legal system itself that breaks him, but rather his own unwavering conviction combined with his frustration and the anger from those he promised a victory he was not able to deliver despite his greatest efforts.

The only thing granted to all is an unfair reality

Lady Justice has been depicted as blind since the 16th century. Her blindfold is meant to represent her objectivity and impartiality before the law.

But Higuruma knows that a 99.9% conviction rate is anything but objective and impartial. Keeping his “eyes open” is his desire to bring awareness to a system that is broken.

What I found interesting, however, is that while Higuruma is intent on keeping his eyes open, his Shikigami’s eyes are sewn shut, as though they are being forced shut by thread.

If there is anyone who is closest to embodying the ideal of blind justice, it is Higuruma.

This makes me wonder how we’re going to see Higuruma’s character evolve, especially as he comes across Yuji and friends.

Higuruma vs. Megumi/Yuji?

Remember I said Higuruma might be willing to help Yuji and Megumi add a rule? I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen, but it is still a possibility. He does seem like a fair (pun intended) person after all.

What’s being set up, I feel like (and I could be wrong), is a showdown between two opposing belief systems: 

Higuruma’s blind trust in serving and facilitating justice vs Megumi’s self-serving justice.

Ironically, they both 

want to save good people, 

neither considers himself to be a hero, and 

their sense of justice is self-serving... they just have different criteria for what that means

Higuruma wants to facilitate justice for people who are innocent but are victims of the Japanese Law system. He’s done the research and he believes these people to be innocent and as having done nothing wrong. 

On the other hand, Megumi wants to facilitate justice for people he cares about no matter how potentially dangerous they are (and this last bit is really important). 

I realized recently that despite Sukuna having killed a lot of people during Shibuya, Megumi has not attempted to kill him since the Cursed Womb Arc. 

Remember, Megumi has said he’s responsible for those deaths since he was the one who saved Yuji.

In addition, not only does Megumi need Yuji’s strength to save Tsumiki, but I am going to go as far as saying that Megumi cares deeply for Yuji to the point he still doesn’t want him to die even after everything that has happened up to this point.

Which begs the question, how is Higuruma going to react to Yuji’s existence?

This brings me to the possible foreshadowing from all the way back in the Cursed Womb Arc and possibly even JJK0.

Foreshadowing from chapter 6 or Crack Theory?

When I first read the new chapter I was intrigued that one of the characters Higuruma is defending as an attorney has a similar backstory to Tadashi from back in chapter 6.

Although their face structure looks similar...

The circumstances are slightly different in that Tadashi’s case involved driving without a license and Higuruma’s client was drunk driving.

But if we’re willing to suspend judgement for a minute, this is important because, if it is, in fact, Tadashi he is referring to here, then this panel just goes to show that Gege foreshadows like a boss. 

And what if that girl who got ran over happens to be Rika from JJK0? 

There isn’t necessarily concrete evidence that Tadashi is the one who ran Rika over AND I would need to look at the timeline of events more closely, but if it IS the case... talk about butterfly effect in action.

But the foreshadowing doesn’t end there. Someone pointed out that in chapter 143, Megumi tells Yuji they aren’t heroes fighting for justice and that no one can truly ever judge JJS.

So... no one can judge sorcerers, unless judging is exactly what Higuruma has been doing to rack up points...

The fact that Higuruma has 100 points tells us he’s been on a killing rampage, and from everything we see him go through in the chapter and from that look on his face in the last panel, we should not be surprised that he’s gone off the deep end.

Honestly, characters who loose their shit (hello Feral Megumi) are one of my favorite things about JJK.

I am writing all of this because it goes to show that Gege does not show you anything in his story that doesn’t have meaning in the grander scheme of things. Which leaves room for interpretation about whether Saori and Yuko will have roles moving forward.

Right along these lines, in looking for a specific line from chapter 9, I ran into this little gem:

Is this foreshadowing about Tsumiki too? 

Maybe, maybe not.

As I said before, half the fun is in going through the journey of JJK unfolding before our very own eyes, while putting the pieces together from all of the breadcrumbs Gege dropped along the way.

But the fun doesn’t end there. I am fascinated at how as a fandom we willingly get traumatized when Gege kills off everybody and their mom that you cared about, while simultaneously loving every single minute of it.

We know it’s coming, and we’re there for it.

That’s Gege’s Cursed Technique for you... he gives you what you didn’t know you wanted.

Gege setting up the stage for madness

All in all, Gege has been painstakingly setting the stage for the madness that is to come during the Culling Game and the hype just keeps on escalating. If the Culling Game arc is anything like Shibuya, we can expect, again, Murphy’s Law in full effect. 

I was chatting with @darthdutton​ about how I started reading the Shibuya Arc only a few months ago and therefore I did not get to experience it as it was unfolding. 

It makes me so happy that I now get to experience the Culling Game as it happens and I am both so distraught and excited for whatever comes our way.

And when I say “whatever comes our way” I mean that I trust Gege to continue to surprise me.

I am here for the hype but I stay for the story

I loved this chapter! 

I thought it was the f*cking bomb.com because you can see Gege starting to tie loose ends from possible foreshadowing he shared at the beginning of the story. 

Plus, we got to see his story-telling skills in action as he creates yet another relatable character.

I truly admire Gege as a writer--the fact that he can come up with a story on a week-to-week basis, execute on it, create very human and relatable characters, set up foreshadowing all the way back at the beginning, and drop breadcrumbs along the way is just mind-blowing to me.

God, I love Jujutsu Kaisen.

Anyways... this was a bit long but I just felt like I had a lot to say about this seemingly insignificant chapter. Hope you enjoyed it, and as always, I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts on it! 

[atsinnermonologue]

The Ball & The Box: a response

I read a post recently by Lauren Herschel on Twitter that makes a wonderful analogy to the process of grieving. In this analogy, there is a large ball that takes up almost the entirety of a box. This ball represents grief, and the box represents daily life. On the side of the box is a pain button. When you first experience grief in its rawest, newest form, the ball is so large that it has no room in the box to move around, and it hits the pain button on the side of the box at any given time, representing the ways that grief can hit in profound, unexpected ways, sometimes catching you completely off-guard.

The good news in this analogy is that the further a person gets from their grief--that is, as time passes--the ball gradually gets smaller. For every individual, this process is unique to their experience. Some people’s grief ball shrinks quicker or slower than others. Eventually, the ball gets so small that it may hardly hit the pain button at all, or it becomes more manageable when it does hit that button. Regardless, it symbolizes the healing process and epitomizes the common cliche that “time heals all wounds.” While this pain almost never dissipates completely, it becomes a hurdle that we eventually overcome and learn to accept.

This analogy is something I have to remember, because I find myself getting sentimental from time to time about people and events that have not crossed my mind in months or even years. We are living in such a difficult moment right now in the United States, from COVID-19 to protests for basic human rights, and it is easy for one’s mental health to deteriorate with these circumstances. I am not immune to it myself (far from it), and despite the fact that these events might not always affect me directly, I battle my own demons as a result of increased stress, anger, and disappointment with humanity in general.

Currently I am dealing with a resurgence of internalized trauma, resulting from a decade-long friendship with someone who hurt me deeply. I recently unblocked a former friend of mine on Instagram (mistake number one) because in all honesty, I wanted to see what she had to say about the Black Lives Matter movement. Long story short, I spent too much time on her page as well as her personal website. The tiny pain button in the corner of my heart has been triggered, not dissimilar to the bouncing “DVD” logo on ‘90s screensavers when, on rare occasion, it hits the corner of the screen perfectly. That screen corner is my button, and the DVD logo is Ashley. Ashley may or may not be a real name or a pseudonym--it’s beside the point--but this is a moment when I am hit with the unexpected return of negative feelings towards her.

While it does not serve me to turn to particular examples (I could spend a lifetime overanalyzing her online presence to look for some reference to her years with me, because I’ve come to realize that she will truly never acknowledge it), I want to acknowledge this pain and admit to myself that even though she hurt me, she is probably not a bad person, and even if she is, that is no longer relevant to me. She made me the person I am today, whether she realizes it or not, but I have to take that in stride. I am worthy of love, value, and affection, despite the fact that she did not grant those things to me. I cannot view my experience with her in a vacuum--there are a multitude of factors that led me to be the person I am today. In fact, I would argue that the 2020 version of myself is largely derived from my current relationship of six years. The man I am devoted to is, in fact, my best friend, and if losing Ashley meant that I would have this man as my best friend instead, so much the better. My friendship with Ashley was unhealthy--toxic, even, at times--and like a first relationship, just because it’s the first real, organic bond I had with another human being, does not mean that it was the best one.

Ashley has agency. She is her own person, with her own career and her own talents. I doubt she thinks of me on a regular basis, but I do not doubt that I cross her mind from time to time. If I’m a betting woman, I would wager that from her perspective, *I* was the toxic one, and perhaps I treated her badly at times, as well. It is not so easy to see or admit that from my own perspective, but I will lay it out here, to the ether, to get it off my chest. Ashley is, and has always been, a social-climber. It’s plain truth. She has always cared deeply about what other people think of her, and it is extremely important for her to be accepted and liked by as many people as possible. I can't exactly fault her for it, either, because in my own way, I am also desperate for attention and acceptance by other people. Ashley has not reached out to me in several years; from my recollection, I have not spoken to her since she announced that she was making a surprise visit to the town that I am currently in, which is a large city, and the reason for her visit was not related to me in any way. As such, I gave her a canned response about enjoying her time and to let me know if she wanted any restaurant or tour recommendations, and that was that. 

I see two possibilities for our lack of communication: she has truly moved on from having me in her life, and she truly does not think of me anymore, in which case, perhaps the falling-out was not so much a conflict as it was a slow drift, which is probably the most common reason for the death of youthful friendships. The second possibility is that, in my response to her treatment of me, I was not good to her towards the end of our communication, and she decided I was not worth her time or effort. This is probably not likely, however, because I would expect her to have me blocked on all social media, and I would not expect her mother to maintain a good friendship with my mother to this day. From what I understand, I was the one to cut her off, not so much because of her current actions but because I needed to cut her out of my life for my own mental health. Perhaps it is really not that deep, after all.

The truth of the matter is that when I peeked at her social media, I saw a different person from the person I once knew. The Ashley I knew was, first of all, NEVER serious, and when she was serious, she was selfish. The Ashley of 2020, from what it appears, seems more charitable, more caring--or at the very least, portrays the image of caring, which is still better than not doing anything at all (I am referring lightly to activism in this instance). The Ashley of 2020 is apparently charitable enough to get praise through Instagram comments from none other than my own sister, which is probably why I felt the resurgence of pain--I told my family how hurt and betrayed that Ashley made me feel, and their response was to keep in touch with her and her family, anyway, which feels  like a separate betrayal by people who are SUPPOSED to care about my wellbeing--but I cannot control other people’s friendships and relationships. It is better that I keep Ashley out of my life until I am able to make my peace with our experience together. Unless something changes in the future that requires communication or admittance of fault (on either side, frankly), her presence in my life will only hold me back from living the way I want to live.

This is one segment of my grief ball and box. Though my problems are minor in the grander scheme of things, my experiences make me who I am. My pain is valid even if other people do not see, hear, or understand it. Every day I walk on this Earth, I strive to do things that make me happy. True happiness requires self-reflection and inner peace. I want to continue working on it daily.

[thaumatological]

im gonnaaaa revise and post my very dirk centric analysis of the epilogues here as well

also in case it needs stating, spoilers abound!

i read through both of the epilogues simultaneously yesterday, consuming both at the same time rather than one and then the other, and i feel like while it may not have been the most “satisfying” approach from a character-centric perspective, i have a more complete understanding of the stories than those who read them separately. if you’ve read through both and have the stomach to do it again for some reason, i suggest doing it in parallel, m1 c1 m2 c2 etc.

i will warn you though, i ended up having two nightmares at the same time in my dreams last night. like, simultaneously, two separate threads of terror unraveling in my subconscious. i woke up this morning already knee deep into an analysis of the homestuck epilogues, and it was less like “waking up” and more “becoming aware that i was conscious”

anyway, without further ado!

dirk killing himself in candy 14 is the scene that resonates with us as being “dirk” because it is. that’s all dirk, our dirk, the one from homestuck. he Has to do that in order for candy to continue being candy, and part of me believes that he knew that on a conscious level—hence his death being just. he knew he wouldn’t get a nice fluffy outcome in the candy timeline because him, all of him, not just this one instance, was fated to be meat dirk.

—and speaking of, the concept of Ultimate Selves pretty much squares away meat dirk. he doesn’t read like our dirk, the one from homestuck canon, because the narrative explicitly states he’s Not anymore. he’s become all of him, all of him from across paradox space, including notable players bro, doc scratch, and lord english. dirk’s Ultimate Self is a culmination of every possible him taken to the highest intensity. it reads like one of his personal nightmares because it WAS his personal nightmare—the personal nightmare of our dirk. he’s a prince of heart. the ascension to his Ultimate Self resulted in the complete destruction of the barriers between his splinters. the more i think about it, the more brilliant it is. he seems out of character as the dirk we know and love because he isn’t.

i feel like i finally Get it, but i’m still not looking forward to seeing people who dislike dirk using this to discredit the progress he made on his personal journey (ie “see he was evil the whole time!”) nor am i looking forward to all of the “dirk would never do this! it’s ooc writing!” from people who seem to have missed the part of homestuck where what scared dirk about himself most was the undeniable truth in it. there’s more than one example of “bad dirk and/or dirk byproducts” out there in paradox space. it’s more than feeling like you “might” be bad, it’s… being afraid of what you would be if you weren’t so afraid of being it, it’s seeing things that were a result of You-but-not-you and having to stare down the fact that even if you weren’t bad, even if you didn’t, you could have, would have, did. dirk’s Ultimate Self being a nightmare scenario is ..almost a recursive throwback to his fears about his ultimate self (note capitals)

him taking control of the narrative was epic though. it honestly did not catch me off guard? it makes sense. it is a 100% dirk strider move. if you haven’t read it by now for some reason, go read detective pony. i am diagnosing you with read detective pony by sonnetstuck. it’s terminal.

the only two people aside from hussie to have controlled the narrative in homestuck canon are the cherubs. and i did make the point somewhere up there that dirk absorbed lord english, and by extension, caliborn. that’s WHY he got that ability. not because he’s a prince of heart. dirk controlling the narrative makes sense from the perspective of dirk controlling the external narrative as well, ie, the whole thing is on a piece of paper that he wrote as some form of bizarre cathartic self punishment for his existence, but in the grander scheme of things and truth of homestuck dirk controlling the narrative makes sense as the puppetmaster-turned-puppet we see him become in several of his iterations, because caliborn literally becomes part of him.

everything is so skewed by the narrators. yes, both of them, because the whole point of the epilogues is that both of them suck and muse calliope is just as shitty as “impartial” “narrator” as Ultimate Self dirk is. it actually makes the whole thing a lot greyer in morality than it comes across at first. US dirk does a lot of Bad Shit as narrator, yeah, but even as passive as she is, calliope’s narration has its flaws (see: everything relating to trickster mode)

the epilogues are less about the characters themselves and more about a grander conflict between the two cherubs, using dirk and jade as their puppets—and yes, muse calliope is using jade as a puppet LITERALLY, which upsets me on so many levels i can’t even get into it here. let jade be fucking relevant and happy hussie or so help me i will write myself into your narrative and do some renovation of my own. but dirk is equally deprived of his agency in this scenario. i’m not going to debate with anyone about the inherent goodness/badness of dirk strider because that’s an entirely different essay, but in canon, dirk’s entire arc is about NOT becoming exactly what he becomes in the epilogues. the dirk we know didn’t choose to become his “Ultimate Self,” the dirk we know doesn’t get a choice between meat and candy, the dirk we know is at the mercy of the narrative even as he pretends to control it.

and that’s not something new to dirk strider, in any variation of himself. i’m specifically going back to thinking about the term “puppetmaster-turned-puppet” here, because i like it. in canon, we see dirk get out-puppeted by hal. it’s implied that bro is being controlled at least in part by lil cal, who is in turn.. a splinter of dirk indirectly via hal via arquiussprite. i’m getting a little lost in all the splinters. why is dirk’s worst enemy consistently himself? don’t answer that. uhh also it should be mentioned that makes lil cal a puppetmaster-turned-puppet-turned-puppetmaster, both literally and metaphorically. i fucking hate andrew hussie.

anyway, both of the epilogues do all that shit to to drive home the point that both of them (and i mean muse calliope and LE here when i say both, because this has officially stopped being about the dirk we know) are removed from human concepts like “good” and “evil” and represent duality in an alien manner that to a casual observer could be mistaken for some objective statement about morality, but they’re both wrong to us from our perspective as humans with human morals. the choice of candy and meat from the beginning was a cherub one. that’s not a balanced meal! that’s not even a reasonable dichotomy for humans! meat is not more real or “canon” than candy was, both of them are very flawed stories being manned at the helm by omnipotent green aliens.

okay we’re ALMOST done here, i just want to touch on the actual authors of the narrative rather than the ones the narrative insists are its narrators. by which i mean the actual real life human beings who wrote the epilogue. the point i was making above about how dirk doesn’t have any agency? the point of these epilogues were that none of the characters have any agency in their stories. every work is a reflection of its author, even when aforementioned authors are hiding behind pseudoauthors on a narrative level.

the homestuck epilogues feel very meanspirited to me. they punish their readers for not understanding their intentionally heavyhanded meta. homestuck was always very meta, but it was also fun. this, on the other hand, wasn’t fun. i haven’t seen anyone claim that the epilogues were a “fun” read, even those who enjoyed them enjoy them on the basis that “tragedy is a valid form of art,” and,,, ........and their opinions are. valid. and they can have them. sure.

but for those of us who read stories in order to enjoy them, which i am safely assuming makes up the majority of those who read homestuck, the homestuck epilogues are like a final kick in the teeth as a send off to a fandom with barely any teeth left to lose. we’re already having people who refuse to read them, and god i wish that were me, but it’s also.,, you can’t criticize something properly if you haven’t read it. we’re going to see a lot of very bad takes in the coming days about all kinds of things from information proliferating through the grapevine, and personally, i am not looking forward to it. i really hope this is the end, that homestuck is finally fucking over, and the epilogues are done with and we can all live our lives unmarred by strange orange men with typewriters. i’m going to hole up with my cool and new webcomic music albums and all of the good novel-length dirk-centric fic i’ve bookmarked over the years and wait this one out. i invite you to do the same.

cool and new webcomic bandcamp | cool and new greatest hits | my personal favorite album by them

detective pony by sonnetstuck (seriously please read this it watered my crops and cured my lead poisoning)

literally anything by callmearcturus but this is my personal favorite (chamomile, rosewater, and other unlikely intoxicants)

this long winded discworld joke by oxfordroulette that inflicted me with a terminal case of loving jake english despite it being a dirkjohn fic (vanitas vanitatum) also if you finish reading this one and also succumbed to loving jake english, i’m not going to link it but they have another fic that’ll scratch that itch for you. that’s all i’ll say on that matter.

this fic said nonverbal autistic dirk rights and thank god (we were made for another world by princex_n)

thanks for reading