#a canon event as it were | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thepersonperson · 4 months

Text

Sukuna's Loneliness Part 2 (Sukuna is a fraud and it's funny.)

Part 1 Part 3

Before we start...

1) I will be mainly using the TCB scans because of their accessibility.

2) This was written as of JJK 262.

(Click pictures for captions/citations.)

Fraudkuna

You’ve probably heard JJK dudebros call The King of Curses a fraud. Fraudkuna to be exact. I want to say that they’re 100% right, but that doesn’t make Sukuna a bad fighter. Sukuna is a fraud in the way Saul Goodman is a fraud. He’s so good at being fraudulent that it’s his very way of life.

This person puts it succinctly.

And remember Reggie’s Star’s words of wisdom.

The best sorcerers are masters of deception.

Mimicry

Sukuna constantly steals from people—he takes something that isn’t his, and then morphs it into something for his purposes whether it’s bodies, Cursed Techniques (CTs), or strategies. This guy barely has original ideas of his own, using someone else’s work as the base and then building himself on top of that. This is fraud behavior.

Puppeting Megumi

In a 2 for 1 special, Sukuna steals Kenjaku’s original idea to turn body parts into cursed objects and Megumi’s 10 Shadows along with his body.

Naturally he steals the hand signs for Megumi's CT too.

What’s interesting about this copying is that the hand signs are inversed for every Shikigami except Mahoraga.

I think the inversion for Sukuna is an act of disrespect or a form of acknowledgement for a lesser since the hand sign for Mahoraga, who Sukuna respects greatly, is identical to the original form. Sukuna’s Mahoraga is virtually unchanged in design as well. It might be slightly bigger, unlike the other Shikigami whose forms are distorted compared to Megumi’s.

I lean towards distortion being an act of disrespect since Sukuna despises Choso almost as much as Yuji and steals his Piercing Blood while tweaking the hand sign.

They say imitation is the highest form of flattery. And just about everyone has picked up on Sukuna’s Megumi obsession. However, what most don’t realize is that this obsession wasn’t for Megumi the person, but his potential. Mahoraga to be exact.

And though Sukuna adores Mahoraga, his obsession with this Shikigami is in service to someone else…

Professional Gojo Satoru Simp

When I was writing this section, I was greatly surprised. I went back and scanned through everything post-Gojo Death (JJK 236-262) to see how often Sukuna copies Gojo as evidence of fraud. What I found fundamentally changed the direction of this analysis. I will tie it all into how Sukuna is a fraud don't get me wrong, but there's something else at play here...

Post-Gojo's demise, Sukuna thinks of Gojo whether directly from himself or implied by the narrator. 15 TIMES.

Sukuna, for no discernable reason, keeps copying everything Gojo did. It's not a one-off thing like Megumi for a long-term goal, it's a consistent non-stop mimicry after their fight. Here's all of them so far:

1. Using Reverse Cursed Energy (RCE) to heal a burnt-out CT.

2. The hand sign for Unlimited Void. (Aside: Yuta inverts the hand sign as Yujo, but in his case I think it's an act of respect since he doesn't see himself as Gojo's equal.)

3. The hand sign for Red.

4. Shrine based Infinity barrier.

5. Using Blue's gravity to fast travel.

6. Black flashing to restore Cursed Energy (CE) output.

7. The chanting and Honored One Pose at the same time. (And there’s even more layers to the chants themselves check out this post.)

8. Detonating his own technique on himself.

9. Even the way in which he smiles as he beats teenagers up.

By the way this face punch he did to Yugo is a replica Gojo's very first punch he landed on Sukuna.

They say imitation is the highest form of flattery but got dang. This is a bit obsessive to put it lightly.

But it didn’t start here. Sukuna’s Gojo obsession started from this panel. As Sukuna himself confirms.

No. Let’s go back further. This is when it began. Chapter 2 of the manga and Episode 1 of the anime in early June of 2018.

This motherfudger has been planning on how to slaughter Gojo for 200+ chapters. In canon time that is about 6 months.

I want to point out that his promise to kill Gojo first wound up being a lie on multiple fronts (more fraudulent behavior). He admits that it's the wrong brat's body while leaving out the fact that Gojo wasn't his first kill.

Technically Sukuna made Yuji's body his temporarily in Shibuya and killed thousands, but that wasn't deliberate. Sukuna didn't target those civilians specifically, they just got caught up as collateral in his fights with Jogo and Mahoraga. The first person Sukuna went out of his way to kill was Yorozu/Tsumiki (killing Ryu along the way). And he didn't tell Gojo that for a reason.

Much like Gojo, Sukuna is a 2 birds and 1 stone person as in he has multiple reasons for doing a single action. This can make his motives appear dubious or have plausible deniability. Sukuna on the surface went after Yorozu/Tsumiki to subjugate Megumi's soul. But that too was still in service of killing Gojo. Yorozu’s Perfect Sphere, if you remember, acts just like Infinity. And Sukuna trained Mahoraga on it deliberately to get past it.

This also means that retroactively, his Megumi and Mahoraga obsession is a part of his Gojo obsession. He saw his personally trained student’s potential, found out about Mahoraga’s adaptation, and used it specifically to upgrade his CT for the sole purpose of killing Gojo. Sukuna admits to this himself.

Not with his own technique by itself, but with Megumi’s because deep down he realized Gojo’s CT was better than his and he’d lose to him in a fair fight. A fraudulent way to victory.

By the way, when Mahoraga finally adapts to Infinity in a way Sukuna can copy, he's observing the adaptation from the shadows, fully bumming the fight, as Gojo 1v2s Agito and Mahoraga.

What’s so fascinating about this planning is that it was made up on the fly. Sukuna has been obsessing over how to kill Gojo Satoru since their first 10 seconds interaction. (Toji behavior much?) Megumi and Mahoraga being a part of his plans occurred by chance. There’s a certain level of adaptability and skill needed to think on the fly like this. It truly makes Sukuna the Best Fraud in verse.

Lies and Hypocrisy

Simply copying those you admire is base level fraudulent behavior. What makes Sukuna the King of Frauds are the contradictions in his words and actions. This isn’t like Gojo Satoru who is actively hiding his true feelings as a trauma response. Sukuna betrays his own inner logic on convenience. Uraume even notes this as his “capricious nature”.

These are excuses made by a Professional Sukuna Understander who also acknowledges just how much he was into Gojo despite Sukuna actively denying it himself. (He’s just a fish? What kind of fish engages in 6 months of psychological mind games and preparation to catch outside of Moby Dick? Yes I know he’s a whale but the obsessiveness bordering something else is there.)

We'll get back to this eventually. For now we will focus on how Sukuna picks on children.

Hating Ideals and Roles

Sukuna hates ideals. Everyone knows this because he tells Yuji constantly how much he hates them. He spits on Yuji for having ideals and goals. And then turns around and gets hyped when he finally has his own goal to chase. The hypocrisy speaks for itself.

But that’s not the end of it. He also berates Yuji for seeking a role in life, outwardly teasing him when he finds one besides cog. And then gets this excited when Maki “forces” one on him.

He’s not just being a hypocrite here. I think it’s envy. Yuji gets all the things he was denied—a society that does not exclude him for the circumstances of his birth, clear cut goals and purposes alongside others, and fulfilling connections with equals. In the worst case of Sour Grapes I’ve ever seen, he derides the things he believes he’s incapable of having. But the second he gets a taste, he starts salivating.

Hating Love

Sukuna's hatred of ideals and roles in society is but a microcosm of his one true hate—love and connections. Anything soft like bonds makes people weak. Sukuna seeks only strength so he believes the following:

Not only does Sukuna admit here that connections with other people are a weakness, he believes Gojo to be the modern pinnacle of casting them away to obtain strength. In a very roundabout way this is him praising Gojo for being a monster like himself.

And that's where the next contradiction lies. Despite Sukuna preaching the benefits of isolation, he still craves that monster to monster connection. He adores anyone just like him. Monsters who throw all their humanity away just like him. He wants that connection so badly. Look at how often Sukuna gets excited when he thinks others might be like him. (Notice the half-assed Brat is Sukuna calling Yuji out for not committing to monsterhood.)

Uraume of all people should fulfill a bit of that social want Sukuna has, but they put him on a pedestal. They are his servant and he is their master. Even though they can intuit his needs, they can’t fulfill all his emotional ones since their relationship is one with inherent distance between them. That being said, Uraume still understands exactly what Sukuna is looking for—other monsters.

Professional Sukuna Understander once again gives insight onto how this fraud thinks. Sukuna is strong enough to endure solitude. He is fearless and alone by embracing power.

And yet Sukuna cannot abide by his own principles against love.

December 24th is the most romantic day in Japan. This information is in part how we infer Gojo Satoru is in love Geto Suguru time and time again. Kenjaku calls Gojo out for this. Setting a battle date to December 24th is romantic in nature. And Sukuna, of his own volition starts seeing Gojo as the one who will teach him love.

No. That's not right either...

Gojo has never been the one trying to teach Sukuna love. He never heard those words from Yorozu. Not once. It's the other way around. Sukuna is the one trying to teach Gojo about love. Every single time "The one who will teach you about love is..." appears, Sukuna is in the final frame. It's never Gojo. It's always Sukuna.

The loneliness that comes with unrivaled strength. The one who will teach you about love is...Sukuna.

Kashimo takes Sukuna up on the offer. He has Sukuna teach him about love. When Sukuna first starts his speech about love, he speaks of Yorozu as someone who could've taught Gojo of love—as in Gojo was the one who needed teaching. He also spells out for Kashimo that the strong love with their violence. Sukuna himself admits that he loves by slaughtering. All while saying it's worthless in the end, because the only thing that matters to him is strength.

Wanting love and strength is greedy. You can't have both. Sukuna killing Gojo was not only an act of love, but an act of denial in pursuit of self-preservation. Sukuna found someone he could possibly love and he did everything in his power to kill him for the sake of maintaining his strength.

This could be proof he's not a fraud when it comes to hating love. But he still engaged with it and became stronger as a result of it—contradicting the very principles on which he decries love as weakness.

In retrospect, this makes this particular Gojo glazing Sukuna sequence from the infamous JJK 236 ironically hilarious.

Gojo never realized that Sukuna obsessed over him for 6 months nonstop after meeting him for 10 seconds. He never realized that Sukuna's cruelty and cuts were trying to reach him. The most Gojo knew was that Sukuna bagged Mahoraga to kill him. He didn't know about the planning that went into it or the heart behind it all. Gojo has always been iffy about understanding other people's feelings towards him mind you, but...

In the same way Geto did not understand Gojo's love for him until both of them were dead, Gojo did not understand Sukuna's love for him even in death. Because Gojo and Sukuna are the same person.

Umineko no Naku Koro ni (When the Seagulls Cry) is a visual novel about a person who is fundamentally misunderstood by those around them. They desperately want to be loved without being perceived, believing themself to be unworthy due to trauma and immutable characteristics given to them at birth. Instead of telling anyone these feelings directly, they play games akin to torture. They torment the ones they love over and over in hopes they'll see through their actions and understand them.

The Consequences of Fraudulent Behavior

The tragedy of Sukuna is his inability to fully realize his desires. He wants an equal in strength to play with or be killed by, but he crushes anyone with the potential to do that. Gojo was the closest thing Sukuna ever got to realizing that desire. Hence the “You cleared my skies. I shall remember you for as long as I live.” and subsequent "Where's Gojo Satoru?" ad nauseum.

Instead of allowing these potential companions to realize their abilities fully, he kills them and then gets upset about it. There's honestly no difference between him and a dog impulsively tearing his favorite chewtoys to pieces and getting confused by the outcome. (And in the case of Gojo Satoru, that's the dog catching the car but if the dog had spent half a year studying the exact speed and timing down to the stud before ripping the bumper off.)

I genuinely cannot tell if Sukuna is aware of this problem himself. Seriously, I don’t think anyone has told him that if he wants a matured fighter, he needs to let them…mature in the first place. I know he was treated like animal since birth, but he’s smart enough to know better.

He’ll never reach satisfaction like this and it’s as funny as it is pathetic. Even Megumi, the first person he saw with the potential to entertain him, was chewed up with ease. Not just him, but the very reason he took interest—Mahoraga. Instead of having a Shikigami that will always evolve with him and therefore always be a source of everchanging entertainment, he tamed it and added it to his arsenal.

Sure all of that was to kill Gojo via masterclass frauding, but that too cucks him in the long run. Gojo is still the only person in Sukuna’s entire existence to keep up with him and nearly kill him on his own. If Sukuna were smarter, he could’ve developed a lifelong rivalry that fueled both of their growths. But Gojo beats him fair and square, so he binding vow frauds his way out in a way that permanently destroys this source of fun.

And on top of that, his killing of Gojo may have also been Sukuna trying to trick himself into believing he doesn't need anyone to satisfy him ever. He probably believes this from the bottom of his heart. Kashimo calls him out for it. "Then why mince your soul into cursed objects and watch all those years go by?" Why get so excited when Uraume shows up too?

I'm not saying that Sukuna has been secretly craving romantic or sexual love for the past 1,000 years. He has had plenty of opportunities to engage with this kind of love and has chosen not to. (Though I do think Sukuna saw his fight with Gojo as a some warped version of a date at this point.) The kind of love Sukuna seems to crave is one between friends, peers, and equals. What I'm saying is that Gojo shattered his world view in the same way Gojo also shattered Toji's world view. But unlike Toji who was able to admit his way of thinking was flawed, Sukuna is actively in denial.

He denies his own feelings and desires for companionship while running around looking for another Gojo Satoru that will never exist. All that Sukuna is left with are disappointments and ghosts to chase. The only person who keeps getting up stronger every time he knocks them down is Yuji. And he hates Yuji.

I’m not sure what this all means in the grand scheme of this story, but I am fascinated by how this absolute menace sabotages his own chances at happiness because his power and fraudulent behavior has stripped him of his ability to socialize.

#cactus yaps #Gojo’s pussy is haunting the narrative for real.#Gojo has always been a Sukuna fan don’t get me wrong. Sukuna is just a bigger fan of Gojo.#This accidentally turned into a Sukugo manifesto because gathering manga panel citations for the other parts made everything click for me.#All the events in JJK are the result of queer men being driven mad by Jujutsu Society.#We all know about the Gojo-Geto breakup being responsible for this current mess.#But we need to talk just as much about Sukuna blowing up his life by obsessing over a guy.#All while pretending it’s no biggie because he’s in constant denial of his own feelings..#Gojo’s ability to make men absolutely insane over him needs to be studied.#Geto and Toji were obsessive in their own ways towards Gojo…#But it’s the sheer amount of pre-planning and perverse dedication on Sukuna’s end that terrifies me.#Gojo canonically living rent free in Sukuna's head for 6 months after meeting him for 10 seconds is madness. GEGE WHAT DID YOU MEAN BY THIS #It’s Toxic Doomed Yaoi all the way down.#ryomen sukuna #sukugo #gojo satoru #jjk spoilers #jujutsu kaisen #jjk 262

233 notes · View notes

kahluah · 14 days

Note

*puts hand up* sorry I’m very new here what’s the context with what’s happening with the tag war??

Alright, I will give my run down, but I will not be naming any blog names on either side even if I have the info and the action was net positive. I just like to use my blog to scroll and reblog for the most part and refuse to embroil myself in the drama more than just giving my view on it as a bystander. One that definitely has an opinion on the events, but also as someone who would rather curate my own experience than fight.

So all this fighting that is going on, it used to just happen in the normal "Jiang Cheng" tag because back then there was no "canon Jiang Cheng" tag; it had not been created yet. (By that I mean it was not a tag used as a tag, Tumblr's shitty search algorithm might still show posts if one typed it in to the search bar because those posts had the words 'canon', 'Jiang', and 'Cheng' in the tags separately, but there would not be posts with "#canon Jiang Cheng" because nobody normally creates a post with a tag like that when "#Jiang Cheng" was suffice. Sometimes I see irrelevant posts in the canon Jiang Cheng tag, but the actual tag isn't on the post, the tags just happen to have all three words in them. Those I ignore because that is Tumblr's fault, not the poster.)

The fighting was between people that like the character and prefer to see the good in him and the interpretation of his character, and those that may or may not like the character (just because you like a character does not mean you need to defend their every action after all) but do not share that opinion of his character and have a more neutral or negative portrayal by contrast. The former also tended to favor or have only read the novel as it is the source material for all other adaptations.

Now things really came to a head when hate and threats were being thrown about on posts that were just quotes from the book showing the negative actions of Jiang Cheng. The people posting the quotes were basically told "if you hate the character why don't you just tag the post as anti-JC?!" but is it really right to call those anti posts when they were posting how the character acts in the source material? That is the character. That is how he acted. Look it is in the book! The character really did that! It is not somebody's negative headcanon that the character may act like that, it is something the character actually did. Personally I can not consider that as an anti character post, and neither did the people who made posts like that.

But things did get heated enough that some people finally took a step back and said "Fine. You want us to make our own space to make these posts so that you do not have to see us talk about JC this way? We will. It will be #canon Jiang Cheng and you can block it if you don't want to see the posts." Was the name picked in the spirit of schadenfreude? Very probable, but it is also not an incorrect name as the people who wanted to use it base their opinion on the novel. But the point was that the tag was created so that people now had their own space to make the posts they wanted and those that did not want to see it could block the tag. Curate your own experience; we can block tags on this site for a reason and advertising tags to block is a courtesy. (Because as said previously, the search here sucks, because the posts contain the character's name they are still likely to show up in the main tag, but block the newly created tag and you will not see those posts either way). Could the other people come into the tag in good faith and make arguments with textual support? Yeah, that was welcomed, but in the spirit of debate they should expect rebuttal. Was that what happened? No.

No instead what happened was basically this meme

They did not like the name chosen for the tag. They read the novel too and still believe that JC is good, so they should be able to use the tag too! Never mind the fact that the tag was made so they could block the posts they didn't want to see. So that they can go on with their days no longer having to deal with the people they constantly fought with. No. Instead of curating the experience of this website, they would get so hung up on the fact that there was now a tag called #canon Jiang Cheng in use that they had to use it too to defend JC from the people that post 'negative' things about him; even if it is novel text!

So while the fighting didn't stop, it did get slightly better because not everyone felt the need to jump into the new tag to defend their fave. Some people actually did curate their experience. Plus there is a block button and people do use it, so things got to a point where I would say it was relatively stable even if there was still fights here and there. (But once again I lurk, I do not participate. Things may not have been the same for more outspoken people).

But then a certain muskrat bought Twitter and a chunk of the fandom there fled here. That's when the main push to "reclaim the tag" and the new influx of people hopping into the tag to argue and defend their fave appeared. These people did not know why the tag was made, they just saw blogs that they liked telling people about the "JC-antis" that made it and how with the new people pouring into the Tumblr fandom from twitter, they had a chance to flood it and reclaim it. And since then the fighting has not really stopped.

As for what has happened in the past few days, you have JC defenders flooding the tag with fan art (not canon), screen caps from CLQ (not canon), and screenshots of a sentence or two from the novel (canon, but usually out of context or lacking additional lines that go on to rebut what was previously said) in the tag and the people who made the tag for a specific purpose getting mad about the spam. (I block so I have no clue how big the influx was or whatever but there was definitely like at least 3 new people I had to block). So when they made posts venting the anger, you got JC defenders coming back to them and going "But I never sent any hate or harassment! I just used the tag to talk about the canon character!" And perhaps they didn't, but these people in their defense always ignore and never respond to the question of why they are in the tag instead of blocking it because that is what the tag was made for. Instead they come back with "Well if you want to talk about JC that way, why don't you post in the anti tag or make your own tag!"... Remember that meme picture I used above. Yup.

The tag war began because people did not like negative posts about JC in the main character tag for JC. When told to use the anti tag or make a new tag, a new tag was made, but instead of curating the experience the stans of JC got so tilted at the name of the tag that they decided that they would come into the tag and continue the fight instead of just blocking it. Twitter fallout made the fighting worse. And now we have come full circle to the JC stans once again telling people to just use the anti tag or make their own tag.

#canon jiang cheng #canon jc #this is my interpretation of the events I saw happen #Humans in a group suck there will always be some bad faith actors on both sides #but being one of the good ones by not personally sending hate does not absolve you from your actions #especially when you are invading a space that was not made for you that you were told to block #personally I laugh at the irony that the stans embody the negative traits of their fave by doing so #they take the same type of actions they excuse and try to use similar arguments to excuse their actions #exactly as i said at the end of my last post #if you come in actual good faith and understand the point of the tag i welcome you #I like the tag because it made it easier to find posts made by people who view JC the same as I do #I only read the novel #But yeah play stupid games win stupid prizes if you tell people to make their own tag dont get mad at the name and just block it

97 notes · View notes