#but others like yuuji or megumi are a bit more convoluted

[m3ntal-hiatus]

the one thing that gege has served us well with is knowing that they’re very aware of how old these kids are

their actions and thoughts can be mature, sure, given their circumstances, but they’re still kids. in every other way.

yuuji is naively optimistic about his delicate situation. never fully understanding what exactly he was up against. he had no perspective or even a clue to what dying by his rash decision (to eat sukuna’s finger) meant in the slightest, because he’s just a kid.

he took it in stride and that’s what kids do — “okay, what now?”

asking questions, overly excited about menial things, overprotective, rash towards anything that threatens his friends, pouty, a need to find his purpose, feeling responsible for everything… the list goes on and on, but these things all describe yuuji in the sense that they also describe a teen.

gege is so deliberate with rehashing this point so thoroughly, without fail, and without making it overly obvious.

take how they made yuuji react to his first near-death experience with the cursed womb in season one, for example. beforehand, he was confidently and calmly assuring gojo he was prepared to die when his time came. and he was.

he thought he was.

but as soon as he at death’s door, ready to step inside, he started to chicken out. yuuji felt scared, because he was too young to realize he wasn’t ready to accept his own mortality. and, like a kid, he rejected it as soon as he was forced to come to terms with it.

sukuna was there to inadvertently “help” yuuji keep on going with his running up to death’s doorstep, ding-dong-ditching it, and getting away with it each time. yuuji was learning to be scared of death — of both himself and others near and dear to him — and sukuna was accidentally lending him his hand by using his reversed curse technique.

what’s more, is nanami’s own hand in it all. he’s the first one to directly point out; “you’re just a child. let an adult handle this.”

it wasn’t meant to be mean nor cruel, but rather just a factual statement — yuuji is a child, and shouldn’t be treated as anything more. nanami took preserving yuuji’s young, impressionable mind to heart. by god, did he follow through, too.

gojo also played his part, as well. his spiel was protecting one’s youth: “no one’s youth should ever be stripped from them.”

whether from nanami or gojo, gege uses their motives of protecting yuuji to showcase and remind their audience of just how young our main character is; of how spoiling someone’s innocence can just about be the worst crime someone can commit.

[hinamie]

@friendlyneighbourhoodorgandonor first of all thank u for the lovely comments on the art, I'm so glad I was able to convey the right emotion! You pretty much nailed it, I wanted to depict how Megumi is occupying kind of a liminal timeless space between past and present versions of himself. The train interior is meant 2 convey that liminal/transitional symbolism, but also throws in themes of death and rebirth as well as be a little nod to yuuji's domain. his past self and tsumiki are there as shadows (hah) of a time he can't go back to, and in choosing to keep living he is simultaneously grieving the past (younger self facing tsumiki) and looking towards the future (present self facing yuuji). I struggled with the colours a lot but I knew I wanted it warm yet somber. in a word, I wanted it Wistful. Megumi's character and circumstances are terribly bittersweet and he's got a long road ahead of him but above all the message of this piece is one about the beginnings of self-acceptance and first steps towards healing

re: your questions abt the caption, i completely agree the pronoun "them" is a bit tricky here but unfortunately it's lyrics and there's only so much I can do as I am not porter robinson. admittedly i had thought about editing it slightly to make the caption a bit more straightforward but I have too much love in my heart for Shelter and I think that changing the lyrics wld b doing it a disservice.

even with the slightly confusing "them", originally when i realized that the song ws very megumi to me, "giving [blank] shelter" made me think of a few different interactions:

tsumiki offering (young) megumi a sense of comfort growing up and giving (present) megumi something to fight for

(young) megumi wanting above all else to protect tsumiki and becoming a jujutsu sorcerer in the hopes that she could live peacefully

"start by saving me, itadori"

yuuji reaching out to (young) megumi and fighting to rescue (present) megumi

(present) megumi wanting to save people as a general philosophy

I thought that the caption could refer to any and all of those things! but honestly your comment made me realize how the use of "them" actually ties in really nicely with the timelessness aspect of the art itself, because we can't know which version of megumi it's referring to, or who between yuuji/tsumiki sheltered him and who he wants to shelter in return.

I also think that the shelterer/sheltered relationship could refer to both versions of megumi in an introspective interaction with each other. I drew (present) megumi with his arm around his younger self as a way to show that he is coming to acknowledge how much he has suffered in the past, yet resolving to find the strength to keep living and guide that child forward regardless. In this interaction, present megumi is the shelterer. In response, young megumi looks (metaphorically, not pictured in the art) to his future self and makes his own resolution to keep living, to grow up live a long life, in turn sheltering the people he will come to care about along the way. I like the idea of younger megumi as the one being sheltered becoming the shelterer in a show of gratitude for the strength that (present) megumi was able to find. In a way, he is both living for himself And for others. i know this interpretation is kind of convoluted and throws a bit of weird timeline stuff into the mix but thematically the idea of a cycle of hurt turning into a cycle of healing is very powerful to me.