mortemappetens

[mortemappetens]

From the recent Gojo Q&A with Gege:

If bro wasn’t a Jujutsu Sorcerer he’d be a Toji?

Both Gege and Satoru are such Toji glazers it’s not even funny anymore. It’s just…

[mortemappetens]

I wish I knew how to shade.

[mortemappetens]

Do you know why out of all the disaster curses, Satoru was the most unhinged with Hanami and destroyed it in the most disrespectful way?

[mortemappetens]

I theorise that either of two things are potentially happening in chapter 265 right now (Spoilers):

1. Yuuji's DE has "consumed" Sukuna and they are currently within Yuuji's Innate Domain (hence Sukuna in Yuuji's form). Therefore, when Yuuji says that he can "definitely defeat Sukuna", he means it. Because as Sukuna has been consumed, all Yuuji needs to do is kill himself in order to off Sukuna and forcefully free Megumi. The whole sequence of Yuuji taking Sukuna on a "bonding" experience, and then his little monologue about the meaning of life, is Yuuji quite literally walking down memory lane, looking back at his life, and saying a fond farewell to it.

2. In chapter 264, Yuuji and Sukuna are at a train station where its name can be translated to "Go North". Additionally, he is on the platform where the trains are typically headed for the north. As per 236, "go north" essentially means "becoming someone new". Chapter 265 is not Yuuji saying goodbye to his life (all the while trying his best to reach/relate to Sukuna) but actually him saying goodbye to his humanity. Everyone's had to turn into a monster. It's only fair that it is his turn to do the same in order to defeat Sukuna. After all:

Yuuji is going north, becoming someone new, becoming a monster.

[mortemappetens]

Fam, did anyone else see Satoru Gojo and Kento Nanami in Deadpool and Wolverine?

Lord, please give me the time and patience to make fanart.

[mortemappetens]

In next week's chapter:

Yuuji begins to explain to Sukuna what his Domain Expansion is to increase its effectiveness, when from the shadows beyond the end of the platform approaches a lumbering figure.

Both Yuuji and Sukuna turn, eyes widening at the white hair that gently sways in the breeze.

Dumbledore smiles, and then explains how for Sukuna to die once and for all, Yuuji has to die since he is a horcrux.

Wait, no.

Wait.

Finger-bearer, Yuuji is a finger-bearer, wherein the finger he was imbued with at birth contains a fragment of... Sukuna's... soul...

I see, you Gege, flexing your millennial nostalgia.

[mortemappetens]

Scaring myself thinking about quantum superposition and the EPR Paradox, and how maybe I see what I see because this is the limitation of my perception; but beyond what I see there are all the “infinite” possibilities of what is that exist concurrently, and I am just unable to perceive it.

So there exists the reality where I did not eat my snickers bar simultaneous to this reality where I have. And there is the reality where I chose to eat two snickers bars yesterday so I have none today.

And if all these different me’s exist, then… I don’t really exist. I am simply a mathematical probability.

ADDING TO THIS EXISTENTIAL CONUNDRUM is the Einstein-Rosen Bridge, which implicates - at least mathematically - that it is possible to traverse from one reality to the next provided that they are “entangled” in some way.

And the thing is, I don’t even need to fly out to space or whatever it is contemporary SciFi suggests in order to travel through a wormhole; because a wormhole is that theoretical bridge, i.e. the entanglement, between quantum systems.

I can do this from my bed.

And what if I am?!

What if I am always doing it and I’m just not aware because I cannot perceive the “infinite” probabilities, so I am assuming that I am only in my current one when really I have been jumping from one probabilistic reality to the next?!

AND THEN

WHAT IF THE MATHS ONLY EXIST BECAUSE I EXIST, AND IF I DO NOT REALLY EXIST THEN THE MATHS DOESN’T EITHER?!

AND NEITHER DOES THE UNIVERSE?!

AND IF THE UNIVERSE OR THE MATHS OR THE ME DON’T EXIST, WHY AM I EXPERIENCING IT AS IF IT DOES?!

[mortemappetens]

Completely forgot that I’ve had this sitting in my gallery for weeks now.

A boy and his boy.

[mortemappetens]

Unfriendly reminder:

Yondu’s death.

[mortemappetens]

A long time ago Gege suggested that Sukuna is going to eat an MC.

Family, when I say all these one-eyed Satoru Gojo art is making me nervous!

My boy Yuuta’s already eating dirt, and Satoru’s body is literally just lying around. And with Jacob’s Ladder right there, Sukuna is hungry for a win.

[mortemappetens]

Every Sorcerer is a Little Mad

As early as *chapter 3 of the manga, it has been repeatedly suggested that in order to be a (good) sorcerer, one would have to be a little bit mad. In fact, it sort of became a recurring theme, at least in the earlier section of the manga, having been mentioned at least twice that I can remember (**once by Satoru in chapter 4, ***and again by Kento Nanami in chapter 19).

Thereafter, it is less said and more shown to have some truth to it (Megumi when deploying his incomplete Domain Expansion, Satoru with Toji and Hanami, Sukuna and Mahoraga, Yuki and Kenjaku, to name a few).

With the Culling Arc confirming that Cursed Techniques (CT) originate in the Right Prefrontal Cortex of the brain (RPTC), it got me wondering if the “madness” is a product of neural enhancement or neural damage.

So, just for fun, I decided to dissect the character of Satoru Gojo, arguably the maddest of the bunch, from a neuropsychologist perspective.

As mentioned, in the world of JJK the RPTC is where CTs originate. In the case of Satoru, his CT is the Gojo clan’s Limitless. In 2007, Satoru had figured out how to essentially keep his technique perpetually active (and some, having placed conditions on his Infinity to automatically distinguish between threat and non-threat, with the goal to add poisons to the list of threats). Shoko, at the time, commented how doing this would essentially fry his brain (that is, it would obliterate his RPTC), a comment that acts as a premonition as he does just that during his fight with Sukuna (chapter 230). At the time, his counter to Shoko was that he was simultaneously running Reverse Cursed Technique (RCT) in order to mitigate any brain damage; however, in chapter 144, Yuki Tsukumo had also suggested that even RCT cannot heal scars.

Was Satoru really mitigating brain damage, or simply delaying an inevitability?

In the real world, the RPTC is implicated in emotional regulation (in particular, it is more responsible for negative, inhibiting feelings, including risk assessment and consequences), visuospatial processing, and social cognition (i.e. the ability to understand and interpret the thoughts, feelings, and intentions of others, contributing towards social behaviour and interpersonal interactions).

Satoru is essentially perpetually running his CT as well as RCT in the background, thereby damaging, healing, and scarring his RPTC over and over again, for the duration of 10+ years. That area of the brain must be so heavily lesioned and scarred due to prolonged abuse. And, of course, it has completely altered his ability to appropriately regulate his emotions, has inhibited his risk assessment, and has all but destroyed his social cognition (how can bro not see that Utahime hates him?). Is Satoru mad because he is Satoru, or is he mad because his CT/RCT has essentially given him sustained brain damage?

There’s another character I’d like to point out that has not mentioned that madness is indicative of a good sorcerer, nor has displayed any madness. If anything, given the circumstances, they have probably displayed the most realistic emotional reactions to everything that has been going on.

Atsuya Kusakabe.

That guy has no CT (****chapter 254), and instead is a student/alumni(?) of the New Shadow Style School.

Is his notable lack of madness due to the fact that he isn’t continuously damaging his RPTC? I think the accounts of the other adult sorcerers answer this: “He’s a kind man”.

Ultimately, in order to be a good sorcerer, a great sorcerer, you need to be a little brain damaged.

And Satoru Gojo? He is the most brain damaged of them all.

Well, was.

I think Megumi Fushiguro’s got the crown now.

*Yaga Masamichi when interviewing Yuji Itadori for enrollment

**Satoru Gojo when testing Nobara to confirm her madness

***Insinuated by Kento Nanami when describing the world of sorcery

****Mei Mei on Atsuya having no CT with the brain, and instead “reacts” with the spine

[mortemappetens]

Gege, what are you suggesting with these one-eyed Satorus? That he is a projection of you (your avatar), or that the fan theory of a Six-Eye-Binding-Vow-Sacrifice has some truth to it?

[mortemappetens]

Megumi knows exactly who Suguru is and gets a real kick out of triggering Satoru’s cPTSD. And for Satoru, it’s a double whammy because his kid looks exactly like Toji, too.

Man can’t get a break. He’s confronted by the face of his killer wearing the fit of his ex - on the day he was dumped, no less - on the daily.

I bet Satoru was a normal and healthy individual, but Megumi drove him to insanity.

[mortemappetens]

Gege’s dropped some new illustrations and bredda please, you cannot tell me that Satoru isn’t at least a little bit batty…

The other boys are looking far less amused:

[mortemappetens]

“yuta barely being able to manage the limitless and the six eyes means gojo was the strongest because he was satoru gojo, not satoru gojo bc he was the strongest. the tragedy in the end is that it was him as a person that made him strong, not his technique, but no one will remember him that way.”

I don’t think that’s true.

Satoru is a 29 year old man who was born with the Six Eyes and so has had 29 years of experience with it. He achieved domain expansion in probably his third year or later. Satoru Gojo was the strongest because of his technique, imo. His arrogance and comfortable complacency granted by his title of the “strongest” kept him from truly being the strongest independent of his technique.

Yuuta is a 17 year old boy who has had the Six Eyes for less than five minutes and managed to dish out both Hollow Purple and Unlimited Void - two techniques that rely heavily on the appropriate utilisation of the Six Eyes. He achieved domain expansion presumably in his second year.

[mortemappetens]

SO I GUESS IT ISN’T COMING HOME.

FUCK.

[mortemappetens]

It’s upsetting me how well I did in all of my other exams but for the last one, I blanked so badly I punched in 8008135 just to pretend like I’m doing real calculations.

I know I didn’t fail. But I also know I didn’t do good.