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Megumi stans....we won, I guess? maybe just for now..
JJK 266 THOUGHTS AND SPOILERS AHEAD!
Aight megumi enjoyers, at least one of us has been in the trenches when Megumi was getting SHOVELED PILES OF SHIT ON for losing his will to live when he's a traumatized 15 years old boy having a valid reaction to a death of a loved one (aka who may I repeat, HEAVILY REITERATED in the manga is someone whose his entire desire to live hinges on). As of from the currents chap, I'm considering Yuuji's acknowledgement/understanding to Megumi's actions a W for us or idk maybe that's just me because he gives Megumi the empathy and understanding he needs in his crazy ass suicidal life, and it raises the question of whether this is gonna fully push Megumi for his comeback moment?
More yapping under the cut
In order to explain why the magnitude of this chapter is such an important development for Megumi, his trauma needs to be discuss first and, there's four people we need to go through to reflect his stages of life. Toji, Tsumiki, Gojo, aaaannd Yuuji! :D
TOJI, the dad who left for milk.
Although we barely see any interaction with these two (only one fight scene from them), Toji no doubt kickstarted the trauma of Megumi the moment he decided to left for milk and never return again. He's traumatized by the Zenin's which explains why he acted out in that way and abandoned his child. All he's life he's treated as the outsider for being the odd one out. He lashed out from it as he got stronger, calmed down when meet Meg's mom who then died, and went back to lashing out again, forgetting that he has a tiny son waiting for him at home. Big L for Toji.
I know that Gege reiterated in his interview that he wants to craft a story where there's no right and wrong people, but I'm gonna proceed to be harsher towards Toji here because he's the ADULT situation. Yes, a traumatized adult who's fucked up and not perfect, but I still hold him accountable in perpetuating Megumi's trauma because Toji proceeded to repeat the cycle of trauma that moment he decided to leave, thinking that turning over Megumi to the Zenin is the best option cuz he got The Ten Shadows Technique. From Toji's perspective, it seemed the better option because he was raised knowing his no cursed energy made him an outcast in his family. It's drilled to him that cursed technique was everything for Zenins, so of course, he thought that his son with a valued technique will make the Zenins, olympic gold medal holder of abuse, treat him better. But, heck no! Just look what happened to that Naoya, who despite being raised differently as Toji or Maki and Mai, ended up as a piece of shit. In the end though, I gotta give him the bareeeessst minimum because he kinda pushed Gojo to interfere with Megumi being sold off to the Zenins(which has another set of problems discussed for the later part of discussion).
I try to stay true in including Gege's intention in writing here, and also other nuanced perspective cuz that's the type of series JJK is that yes, Toji DID care for his son in the barest minimum and in his most emotionally stunted way.
However, the damage is done, and Megumi is left with no prime adult caretaker to protect/guide him with only an older sis to have any resemblance of it .
2. TSUMIKI, the manic pixie dream girl sister.
To define the term (as I've stolen from Google) , manic pixie dream girl (MPDG) means "a type of female character depicted as vivacious and appealingly quirky, whose main purpose within the narrative is to inspire a greater appreciation for life in a male protagonist." They are often associated as love interest in movies, BUT I AM NO WAY SHAPE IN FORM ENDORSING MEGUMI SEES HER THAT WAY. Instead, I am using MPDG as a loose term to describe Tsumiki because like most MPDG, we barely know ANYTHING about her actually and we only saw her through the eyes of Megumi which is being pretty and dead.
Not essentially dead and not essentially just pretty because Megumi described her to be the model of a kind person and someone that Megumi wishes to protect, aka his greater purpose of life, which is yah, great, but we are stuck with this perception of Tsumiki. We don't know her, and I think the closest thing we got an unbiased perception of her is when she chucked a cartoon of milk to Megumi (she will call out his BS). This connects back with Megumi's trauma because who else are you gonna hinge your will to live on when the prime adults in your life failed you? He sees her in a brighter light in order to survive. A way of coping mechanism even.
AND YET, despite all his talk appreciating her kind traits and killing people in the culling game to get back to her, you would be surprised that instead of apologizing to her that he was all emo about, he was a dick to her when they reunited. 💀💀
And in fact, the narrative punishes him for this flaw.
To the point that when Sukuna took over his body, he "killed: Tsumiki in his hands which didn't just left Megumi the guilt and shame of being a dick to his sister before she dies but also the impression that Megumi was the one who "killed her." This makes Megumi an active participant to his own tragedy, and it serves a big slap on his face that he's also at fault here.
3. GOJO, the traumatized bro who tried his best.
This is definitely the raging hot debate of the fandom which is their dynamic, and my take breaks this perception of the uwufied Gojo a lot of the fandom seems to like. Yes, I do see Gojo as another perpetrator to Megumi’s trauma, another adult that failed him but not in such of a black and white way thinking of Gojo’s the wholly bad guy here. Believe it or not, he’s still a part of the chain of generational trauma, being a "chain" as in he's a victim AND perpetrator of the system. I called him the traumatized bro who tried his best here because as much as Gojo knows how cruel the jujutsu system is for the kids, he still unintentionally passes over the core mindset of such cruel system to Megumi since Gojo still did grew up in this system normalized in his eyes.
"Jujutsu Sorcerer is an individual sport."
I say "unintentionally passes" because no, Gojo doesn't have the same intention as Zenins/majority of the system who drills "strength is everything" in the most fucked up way possible. Yes, he enjoys Megumi’s company and treats him nicely. Yes, he sticks his neck out for him. Yes, he wants them to be strong so they can change the system. But this isn't about Gojo. It's about Megumi who still undeniably suffered from the accumulation of the few adults in his life failing him which includes Gojo. Gojo offers protection to Megumi. KEYWORD: Offers. It’s in exchange for Megumi working under Gojo as a jujutsu sorcerer. Now, for smol Megumi here, who truly going through the horror show of abandonment from his dad, agrees to it because apparently, according to Gojo, it’s the only way to protect his sister.
"I'll take care of things! But you're gonna have to work extra hard. I'm countin' on ya."
Annnd thus the cycle repeats! Although it wasn’t as bad as Zenin’s abusive environment Toji was raised, Megumi is still pushed in the same cutthroat environment of the jjk world that Gojo believed he can survive just because Megs has a valued powerful technique if only he himself fullfills his potential, like Gojo’s Six Eyes. BUT Gojo, who delights in his power, forgets a crucial part that…..Megumi isn’t like him!
Check out what Megumi has to say. (aka bud doesn't want any of that sorcerers shit and just wants a domestic life)
So the thing is, was Megumi ever asked his input in choosing to be a jujutsu sorcerer? Well, yah….and all it circles back to just protecting his sister and people like her. There’s a set of problems that comes with this mindset though that Gojo was valid to point out and that is Megumi doesn’t think about himself enough. “It’s ok to be selfish!” Gojo said in the context of being a stronger sorcerer.
But at the same time, he also gave Megumi the idea to that if he doesn’t work as sorcerer, then he won’t be able to protect his sister when he was a mere 6-7y/o boy.
You know that circulating meme of Megumi pulling Mahogora for minor inconvenience? Well, guess what that tells his suicidal tendencies in protecting anyone but himself. Kid got no sense of self-preservation because his self esteemed has completely tanked itself due to his abandonment issues, and now that he’s expressing how it emotionally and physically paralyzes him, he has every valid reason to do so.
Why, yes, Gojo was 19/20 at the time he first met Megs, still a kid, doesn't know shit, and has unaddressed issues being treated as The Strongest Weapon(here’s a dedicated gojo-centric meta I wrote previously about Gojo and his issues cuz he's one complicated fool). I describe this whole situation as an unaware traumatized kid taking in another traumatized kid which is not a fun mix to have, and I understand that Gojo ain’t exactly prepared for that kind of job.
HOWEVER, I’m way harsher to point out Gojo’s failure as an adult in Megumi in the later part of the series because at this point, Gojo's a grown adult, he waxes poetry in being responsible for the next gen , and we get to see his priorities throughout the series especially with the Sukuna’s fight, like seriously he had one legitimate fun fighting someone on par with him.
Gojo DELIGHTS in power no doubt, he chooses kids with most potential, he gets excited finding those kids, and this is the type of the closest dependable adult Megumi has in his life.
Yes, financially supported but Gojo isn't around much when he's working and on demand sorcerer almost 24/7. That's why growing up sure do sucked ass for Megumi especially when no one’s really there to guide and to keep an eye on your development AS A PERSON AND NOT JUST A SORCERER which the latter part is what unfortunately Gojo’s more eager to do.
4. YUUJI, the guy who just wants Megumi to know he matters to him as a person.
Yuuji and Megumi were definitely the highlight of this chapter because in the bleak world of JJK where everyone seemed to be succumbing to the repeated fuck ups of the previous gen (like that Yuta-Gojo situation), this chapter actually offers that THERE IS HOPE that the new gen can do better like what Yuuji just did that the adults in Megumi's life are too emotionally stunted to do. Yuuji take the time to listen to Megumi's emotional thoughts, what he feels as a person, and not just listen, but to understand and empathize. It even took lots of attempts for Yuuji to make Megumi open up.
He responds to Megumi's vulnerability with care and love, and Yuuji understands the pain Megumi is going through from losing his sister. With someone in pain like that, Yuuji knows he can't just go around saying "just live" to someone who's practically suicidal.
The treat of this all is when this scene comes next. Yuuji also shows his vulnerability and expresses that Megumi matters to him!
"It's lonely without you..Fushiguro."
This scene clearly parallels Gojo and Megumi's first meeting, so I'm gonna try to throw my two cents here and explain why Gege choose this direction. Remember what I said about Yuuji giving us the hope of the new gen escaping from the shackles of generational trauma? Well, I think this parallel is a way in saying that what Megumi needed when he was so young was someone to see him and his pain who's just a kid abandoned and forced to fend for themselves because the prime adults decided to to dip out. This is Megumi we are talking about here who's unaddressed issues stays hidden beneath all the pressure of him being The Ten Shadows Technique. He's valued for his technique. That's why Gojo showed up to meet him in the first place. That's also what the jujutsu system looked after for their child soldiers. Yuuji tries to break this chain of trauma their mentor unknowingly repeats. He'll show up for Megumi again and again because he's his dear friend even if Megumi's being difficult to be pulled out of Sukuna. And the beautiful thing is Yuuji didn't had some grand inspiring speech or grand offer to convince Megumi, he wasn't even sure Megumi will be up for it. Yuuji simply want to say that he matters to him. That understands him. That he's important to him so much he'll be sad when he dies, and it mattered.
"This is...Fushiguro Megumi's...!!"
And now that Megumi is showing signs in taking his body back, it's now his turn to save himself. Yuuji did his part, and for someone whose future has been controlled by everyone but himself, this time Megumi gets to decide what comes next.
#jjk 266#jjk manga#megumi fushiguro#fushiguro megumi#yuuji itadori#itadori yuuji#gojo satoru#satoru gojo#fushiguro toji#toji fushiguro#tsumiki fushiguro#fushiguro tsumiki#jjk meta#jjk spoilers#yall this is the fastest i pulled words out of my ass and provided evidence for it#my uni paper would never see such treatment kdngjksd#it's very messy but gah i gotta type this shit out or it will be forever be stuck in my head and messes with my daily routine lol#meta attempt
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Hua Cheng wearing wedding colours, Xie Lian wearing funeral colours
Hua Cheng's spiritual weapon being forged in a last desperate attempt to stay alive, Xie Lian's spiritual weapon being forged in a futile attempt to die
Hua Cheng who is dead and has died three times clinging to life with everything he has to the point where he became one of the most powerful ghosts in the world, Xie Lian who is immortal and literally can not die trying to kill himself and being self-sacrificing
Hua Cheng who loves life choosing to die for Xie Lian, Xie Lian who wants to die choosing to live for Hua Cheng (live as in actually enjoy living as opposed to being idle and suffering)
#hualian#hua cheng#xie lian#tgcf spoilers#tgcf#mxtx tgcf#heavens official blessing spoilers#heavens official blessing#y'all will call this meta but it's honestly just a sorry attempt at a literary analysis of the symbolism in this novel
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TRUMP PIC BEING BANNED BY GOOGLE & META!!!
This one image has done more to shift people to support Trump than anything else every has.. that is why they are banning it.. Facebook and Instagram now join Google in banning this image.
Follow @renegademedia
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We all should consider cancelling our FB, Instagram, Whatsapp and Google accounts as well as anything else they own! This is blatant censorship for no good reason!
#the great awakening#government corruption#wef#fjb#world economic forum#democrats#joe biden#illegal immigration#bill gates#donald trump#trump assassination attempt#2024 election#facebook#instagram#meta#google censorship#meta censorship#the truth is not misinformation
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Sacred Sword Galaxia
Also, another speedpaint below! :
#kirby fanart#meta knight#sorry about the inconsistency with the video format!#I was trying new things with the way I record and it did not go well so u are stuck with meta knight being real small lmao#still trying to work that out haha#also no we are not going to talk about how many attempts it took for me to get that hand right#speedpaint#glazed art
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As many people have pointed out already in chapter 106, the Forgers—a fake family—act more authentic than the Desmonds—the actual family.
But really…the Desmonds aren’t a “real” family, not to me. Not in a way that matters...
SxF is really good at showing relationship dynamics and how blood doesn’t always make a family. This is so true now that you read chapter 106 and compare the Desmonds and their interactions to the Forgers and how they act with one another.
With the Desmonds, there is no warmth shown in how they interact. I'd say there's barely any love either (we know Melinda does care for Damian despite the conflicting thoughts, but it seems she's not allowed to show it). Damian tries to form connections but no one in the family is receptive of it. The parents have a hands-off parenting style. The older brother keeps to himself and doesn’t open himself up. Damian literally finds more affection in his dog and butler than his actual family and that’s so heartbreaking!
The Desmonds may be a family in all sense and purposes, but they don't present in a way that all families are meant to.
On the other side are the Forgers. Loid and Yor married for convenience. Anya is adopted. They’re only together because of Anya due to her mind reading abilities. It’s all a sham for WISE’s mission and to lower suspicion from the secret police.
But despite the intentions behind forming this persona of a perfect family unit…you can tell that there is a genuity to their relationship with one another. You see love, care, emotion, respect, and protectiveness. The family may be fake but the feelings they exhibit are so real despite the motives not exactly being pure. Loid, Yor, and Anya experiencing life together led to them forming bonds that they cherish. They Forgers managed to create a warm place they can comfortably call home.
idk I just find it so fascinating to see how a family brought together for convenience and ulterior motives can develop true familial bonds compared to an “official” and “real” family. I want to write a thesis paper about it lmao
I do wonder what the future holds for the Desmonds. In Damian's case, I hope he and Anya can grow more together so she can show him what a real loving family is. If Donovan really is as evil as the narrative is making him out to be, my hope is that he can be taken out of the picture so the rest of the family can heal from their respective traumas, then grow back together on what little familial love is left over. But we'll just have to wait and see when it comes to that...
#spy x family#sxf spoilers#super reads spy x family#my attempt at a meta#mostly rambling though especially at the end#i just want to put the desmonds under a microscope and study them okay?#and them being foils to the forgers is SO GOOD TO ME
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Something's missing.
#rain world#rain world downpour#rw art month#rw saint#egg art#eggmoon creations#that one room in chimney canopy...hehe#i think it's fun how there's an audio stinger and everything#there's no reason for saint to understand the feeling of emptiness#but the player does#I think it's fun to imagine Saint having somewhat of a meta element#it doesn't feel like saint is meant to be here#saint feels like some kind of outsider#it's incapable of achieveing ascension it seems#i wonder if saint can ever be freed from its cycle#perhaps saint is merely the vessel we're dragging along with us in an attempt to fulfill our own desires#lunart
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thoughts
also wasn't sure what to do with the lan simp brothers so i guess they can sit on the side
#mdzs#wei wuxian#jin guangyao#jiang cheng#nie mingjue#sorry if someone made this post already / this is already obvious to the fandom. im new :'3#mdzs meta#anyways ig herein lies the reason why jiggy's chengxian hot takes are not quite correct#he's projecting the nieyao dynamic onto them but it's not quite the same!!!#anyways this is also why im both a jc stan and a jiggy apologist. i prefer pragmatic characters who recognize the limits of their abilities#do not attempt the impossible. u will fail and die. no main character halo for u after all#anyways i wasnt sure what to do with the lan simp brothers. whether to add a third axis/category for them or not.#lan xichen mediates between jiggy and nmj and i guess tries to see both sides? or try to get them to understand each other? idk tbh#lan wangji is just a hater though. he is 100% on wwx's side. wei ying is right about everything actually. jiang wanyin you loser bitch#yanyan speaks
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what's fun about shipping Tim with Dick, Jason, or Damian is he has, at some point, hallucinated all of them to comfort himself. even when he doesn't like them or particularly get along with them, he has to imagine/hallucinate them just so he has the power to go on. Tim's concepts of the Robin mantle and what it should be is so fun, because he respects the others through the Robin mantle. Tim worships Dick because he was the first Robin. he wouldn't be Robin if Jason hadn't died in the mantle. and a lot of his frustration with Damian is he feels Damian isn't honoring the mantle correctly. when you ship Tim with the other Robins you can't divorce their identities as Robin from it because Tim will always see them as a Robin first and that's so fun and fucked up. like.
batman (1940) #456
Tim perceiving Dick as *Robin* cheering him on, not Nightwing, which is the version of Dick that Tim actually knows? that's just. wild of him. he will always view Dick as Robin first, his personal hero but also the original of the legacy. his love for Dick is shaped by that.
and then of course, even when he's hallucinating/imagining Jason cheering him on, it's *still* through the lense of being reminded how Jason failed? subconsciously believing that Jason got himself killed because of his actions, and that being a lesson for Tim to learn from? Jason isn't a person to Tim, he's a moral lesson about how to be Robin. any potential idolization he could have of Jason isn't because he loves Jason, it's because of the lessons Jason's death taught him.
and then, even though him hallucinating TIm is from the New-52, which makes characterization all kinds of questionable, i do think it makes sense for TIm to hallucinate/imagine Damian after Damian's death in an attempt to cope with it.
teen titans (2011) #18
to an extend, he sees Damian's death as in part his own fault. and even hating Damian, Tim needs the comfort from this to cope with Damian being gone. he's angry that Damian even was Robin, and has to learn something from Damian's death and how it impacts the Robin mantle, and teenage heroes as a whole. like, Tim can pretend he hates Damian all he wants, even getting taunted by the image of Damian, but there's still an underlying love to their relationship.
i think that's just the fun of shipping Tim with any of them. you will never divorce Tim's views of them from the Robin mantle and how fucking Unwell he is about anyone else who's been Robin before or after him, to the point he has to hallucinate them comforting him when he's at his lowest. it's always going to be a little unhealthy, a little toxic, and driven by Tim's relationship with being Robin as well. i need more Tim being weird about Robin in these ships.
#necrotic festerings#batcest#jaytim#dicktim#damitim#this post was first going to just be about tim hallucinating damian but i got carried away thinking about the identity crisis arc#have whatever this is.#idk if there's much of a thesis other than “tim's fucking weird about the robin mantle and that should extend to shipping too”#been meaning to post this for forever#finally got around to it though so yay me.#now i need to go work on my jaytim in the new-52 thoughts bc. i have a whole post planned.#a stack of comics next to me for research and everything. god help me.#ALSO while rereading to grab panels#why is it that everyone talks about how jason says “robin is magic” in an attempt to mischaracterize him as sunshine boy#and not the fact that tim *also* says robin is magic?#like it's not a jason thing. it's a robin mantle thing.#that's just what robin *is*. it doesn't say much about jason's character for him to say that when he's robin. it just means he's robin.#the robin mantle is magic. that's the point.#and you could argue that's more of a meta thing that exists on the wavelength of how children where supposed to project onto robin#moreso than an in-universe commentary on what the robin mantle is#(honestly the same argument applies to tim hallucinating here for like. meta intent vs in-universe meaning.)#i hesitate to even call it hallucination it's more like. daydreaming coping.#giving a face to his internal monologue type thing and this is just how the medium depicts it#also it was just sexy and cool for characters to hallucinate loved ones in the 90s in comics. it was a convention of the genre.#but still my point stands. tim pictures all of these ppl as robin first internally#and he self soothes using their image in his head. that's wild of him like what#tim you are weird about the robin mantle more than anyone else i give you that.
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Thinking about Mass Effect, as you do, and how I'm kind of sad that the way it's been engraved in pop culture has more to do with the way internet reacted to it at the time than what the actual game is about. Yes sure, it's about romance (and not that much all things considered) and it's pulpy (but not solely because of hot lady aliens), but it's also intricate worldbuilding that touches on a lot of sharp ideas, and a complicated tug-of-war between a genuine and vulnerable belief in reconciliation and community VS post 9-11 US military propaganda and steadfast belief in heroic exceptionalism, and the melancholic yet energizing mood, and the daring narrative systems, and so so much more than the 'We'll Bang OKs" and the "There's No Shepard Without Vakarian" and the whole ME3 ending situation
It's all there, but I'm sad the impact of the series is often reduced to (what I think is) the least interesting parts of its sum
#mass effect#mass effect meta#and what I'm the MOST sad about#is how bioware internalized a lot of that I think#I think Mass Effect 3 and especially the Citadel DLC suffered from trying to pull itself in the shape of what the fandom expected#it's why I'm so ambivalent about Mordin's seashell bit --which I do find kinda cheap in its attempt at being an obvious crowdpleaser#and it's why a lot of the Citadel DLC jokes don't land as well as they could have for me#AND why I didn't react that well to Andromeda either#which to me forgot a lot of its strong worldbuilding foundations and sincerity#and ended up feeling so very... “liberal” to me --if you can forgive my semi-judgmental wording#as in: gestures at inclusion and would do pronoun rounds probably but will never lift a finger to criticize actual systems of power#it's “nicer” and people are more fun but the colonialist project is never sincerely questioned by the narrative#elon musk-like “genuises” are given a god-like aura#species become mostly tired and watered-down versions of their archetypes...#I don't know. I'm sure a lot of people will disagree but yeah I was thinking about this today
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I know that Dark Meta is supposed to be the bad guy, but there is something so endearing about how he's trying to muster his sense of compassion and suppress his feelings of pride. He's trying to make this WORK.
it's a team effort
#post's rambles#kirby right back at ya#mir falspar#dark meta knight#galaxy soldier army#post's art gallery#mirror madness#there's an attempt happening here
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Gojo Satoru, a sad case of “pookie peaked in high school” and what it tells us about the dangers of nostalgia
(chap 236 and 261 major manga spoilers ahead please be warned!!)
What exactly do I mean by “pookie peaked in high school”? In general definition, it’s someone who often recalls their glory days and achievements back in high school. Well, Gojo Satoru isn’t exactly the type to brag about his achievements in high school because he just generally brags about being “the strongest” all the time. Instead, I’ll be focusing more on the “recalling glory days” or the nostalgia aspect of this phrase because this is so apparent to how the few times we got to hear Gojo’s thoughts from the past chaps, and it is always longing Geto presence and Geto represents a lot of the youthful days Gojo had. Heck, even in his death, Gojo reverts back to his highschool self, preferring he’d stay in there because that goes to show he’s very much stuck up to his past and heavily longs for it.
Geto is one of Gojo’s biggest symbols of his youth because in that era of high school with him, Gojo gets to be much of a kid when ever since day one of his birth he was built up this perfected weapon of jujutsu. Gojo has someone even in his messed up thinking that only “strong people” will be able to understand him and luckily, he had a “strong person” he could connect with to “understand” the burdens of shouldering such responsibility. Gojo obviously feels nostalgic for his youth because it was that time in his life where he kinda remotely let it someone (aka a friend). I mean, sure, nostalgia is fine and dandy because Gojo was able to be a teacher with the aim for a better generation. However, there’s a crucial amount of nostalgia that makes someone at least in the healthy realm of thinking and use it to move forward with life. As for Gojo’s case, he is trapped by it.
He’s so stuck by it that it bleeds into his present goals as teacher and that’s his whole schtick with “raising a “stronger” generation that's gonna change the system.” It’s not entirely bad right? He seems like he’s using his past experience to try to change the future. He’s moving forward? He’s seen how badly the system messed up his best friend, so now he doesn't have any of that happening to the kids? But then his intentions are further put into test when he becomes Megumi’s mentor.
We can’t deny that Gojo is a pretty inattentive teacher except for the times he actually wants to be an attentive one (aka with Yuuji’s case). Megumi literally asked Gojo’s time if he wants to spar but it’s kinda understandable because Gojo the Strongest has a tight schedule being always on demand with his job.
He chooses kids with potential already and kinda leaves them on their own to figure out stuff. If we put him with a student like normal girl Miwa, there’s no doubt he’d say no to teaching her. Now, we’ll be focusing more on Megumi because this guy gets more time under Gojo’s mentorship. This sparring says a lot about their dynamic. To recap, Megumi asks Gojo how he can improve → baseball scene flashback → Gojo points out that he isn't selfish enough and it’s ok to be selfish. However, there’s one thing Gojo forgets about why Megumi, who despite having the gifts, isn’t really pulling his own weight to fulfil potential.
Gojo forgets Megumi’s not like him who delights in power. Megumi’s just some guy who got stuck working as a sorcerer cuz Gojo says that’s the only way he’ll be able to protect his sister. Gojo ain’t too wrong about the selfish part to be fair though, and he has a point. Megumi needs to think about himself too! Gojo kinda acknowledges the problem but doesn’t really dig into the root of it. It makes sense Megumi depends on his will to live with his sister especially when he grows up where the supposed “nurturing” adults in his life kinda just toss them aside and leaving Megumi to be unequipped with the perils of growing with just his sister around there for any semblance of being “nurtured.” Thus, overall, this trauma being unaddressed leaves Megumi walking around with repressed issues, and yes, that ridiculous meme of Megumi always pulling out Mahagora due to some inconvenience actually says alot about his self sacrificial issues and suicidal tendencies.
This issue with Gojo also kinda reflects his falling out with Geto. Gojo sees how the system messed up Geto with what happened to someone innocent like Amanai. Gojo, post star vessel plasma, continues to be himself and getting stronger while of course, Geto spirals down. Gojo was able to pick up signs of Spiralling Geto. However, at the same time, Gojo fails to understand why Geto spiralled so much because this guy is frustrated with the system he thinks is supposed to protect the weak(“non-sorcerers”) and yet those non sorcerers can also still kill someone innocent like Amanai. On top of that, fellow sorcerers also just keep on dying in the process to protect such people. Is there an ending to this madness? Again, Gojo acknowledges the cruelty of an innocent death due to spending time with Amanai, but he doesn’t dig deep into it especially how it affected Geto's psyche because Geto is someone who deeply feels/ connects with people the same way he was able to be friends with a big brat like high school Gojo.
Wait, so how does this entire thing again connect to nostalgia? Gojo’s whole past with Geto is filled with nostalgia that in some sense he kinda doesn’t stop to think and reflect about the bad parts about it like how Geto spiralled and how their friendship is tested. That’s the whole thing about nostalgia, how it gives us an idealized and romanticized version of the past. That nostalgia is Gojo being filled with a sense of comradery with Geto, someone as strong as him, he rarely experienced in his “it’s lonely to be the top” life. In some sense, it looks like Gojo just tryna recapture that nostalgic feeling/romanticized past with his whole “I will raise people stronger than me so they can change the system.” As if he’s whole solution to that fallout with Geto is that if maybe Geto’s only “stronger” maybe he could have power through his trauma and that whole spiralling thing never gets to happen.
SOURCE (for the sake of more accurate translation)
It’s like if his kids are raised strong, stronger than him, then they will push through ANYTHING and kick out the old grumpy higher ups with no problem. The highlight here is strength alone. However, as we see in Megumi (and even Yuta), he isn’t that case, and it ended up him being in a vulnerable position. Megumi was able to get back to his sister after some killing spree but still ends up getting his body snatched away from him due to failure to communicate with his sister, stemming from his unaddressed issues. Yuuji can only think of himself as a cog of the system, another child soldier they can use. Yuta, also one of the students that Gojo is seen to also mentor, ends up being HEAVILY affected, but I will dedicate another meta post about him because he’s the star of jjk 261 afterall.
Gojo’s type of thinking probably come from being raised in a system where they refused to see these kids as individual humans with feelings and emotions but just weapons. Also, his whole trauma with the Toji fight made him build literally and figuratively walls towards people, and he pigeonholed himself deeper into that “The Strongest” position. Gojo then says a lot of “no one can take away their youth..” but then forgets that these kids are already put into the ringer because they are CHILD soldiers. It’s the same way he doesn’t understand about Geto, who despite being the strongest with him, can still lash out from his trauma. Like sure yes, Gojo probably meant despite living with this shitty system, he wants that there’s still a “speck” of youth in his kids. It’s like back when he was in high school again when being the strongest duo leaves them untouchable for a moment that they can throw around their weight and be still the kids they are, but then life has to happen and they have their falling out. It goes to show how nostalgia lenses are pretty heavy on Gojo’s eyes that especially now where we are seeing Geto panels when we get to hear his thoughts. He never gets to move on, and it’s dangerous because it self-destructs him.
It comes to the point that his students were literally offering to help him, asking him to open up that Gojo just immediately shuts them down because again, he’s stuck with the thinking that only Geto alone can be the Strongest with him, the only one who can bare the burden of being the strongest with him. Isn’t Gojo’s whole point to raise a whole generation who can become pillars of support with him? Then why, why are you still thinking of “catching up” to Geto?
All in all, It’s constantly one step forward and backward with Gojo’s case like yes okay you acknowledge the problem and you’re trying to learn from it, but his actions doesn’t echo in actively changing it, and you know what? It makes him such a real and compelling character! He uses his past experience as a learning experience but his nostalgia surrounding it kinda bars him from fully learning from it. He himself fails to think that he’s also raised a child soldier, and there’s trauma comes with being wielded as The strongest ever since a child, thus emotionally stunting him. This mindset now gets unintentionally passed to his student who just ends up repeating the cycle.
#gojo satoru#satoru gojo#suguru geto#geto suguru#fushiguro megumi#megumi fushiguro#jjk meta#jjk 261#jjk 236#jjk#jujutsu kaisen#this was so hard to articulate omg gojo why u so complicated#jjk manga spoilers#meta attempt
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Had to make gifs of the quartet dying and dying and cryin
#gif#krtdldx#krtdl spoilers#just in case#kirby#king dedede#meta knight#bandana waddle dee#I JUST LOVE HOW SAD THEY GET#my attempt at gifs don't mind me
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patterns of abuse with jaehaerys
this post made me deeply depressed and i reread f&b which was my first mistake.
tldr i’m making the argument that jaehaerys definitely sexually abused saera and alysanne, and likely viserra and gael, and also i hate this man. if you disagree and want to say so *nicely* that’s cool but if you hardcore love jae and don’t want to hear criticism, maybe just scroll past bc i’m not nice to him at all (obviously, i’m accusing him of csa lol).
breaking this down by each woman, so there’s 6 sections: saera, viserra, daella, gael, alysanne, and alicent.
saera targaryen
If she were the king’s firstborn, or better still his only child, she would be well content. Instead she finds herself the ninthborn, with six living siblings who are older than her and even more adored. Aemon is to be king, Baelon most like will be his Hand, Alyssa may be all her mother is and more, Vaegon is more learned than she is, Maegelle is holier, and Daella…when does a day go by when Daella is not in need of comfort? And whilst she is being soothed, Saera is being ignored. Such a fierce little thing she is, they say, she has no need of comfort. They are wrong in that, I fear. All men need comfort.
that’s septon barth’s opinion on her and barth is always right. simply put, she’s a deeply neglected child who acts like a brat to get her parents attention because she’s learned the only way they’ll pay attention to her is if she’s causing a problem.
Before she was eleven, she was stealing wine and ale instead. By twelve, she was like as not to arrive drunk when summoned to the sept for prayer.
The king’s half-witted fool, Tom Turnip, was the victim of many of her japes, and her unwitting catspaw for others. Once, before a great feast where many lords and ladies were to be in attendance, she persuaded Tom that it would be much funnier if he performed naked. It was not well received.
stealing alcohol at 10 and being a committed alcoholic at 12 is not normal behavior. it is a sign of something deeply at wrong at home. also, the way she kind of, sexually humiliated tom, someone who is too “innocent” to even realize she’s sexually humiliating him…gives me the ick re: how she views sex.
Saera had learned the art of getting anything she wanted from her father: a kitten, a hound, a pony, a hawk, a horse (Jaehaerys did draw a firm line at the elephant). Queen Alysanne was far less gullible, however, and Septon Barth tells us that Saera’s sisters all misliked her to various degrees.
i don’t like this. nothing wrong with giving your child gifts (see ned going above and beyond to get arya not just instruction on how to fight but also a specific style that would gel with being smaller than your average opponent) but in conjunction with “jaehaerys ignores saera unless she’s pressing him for an expensive gift which he immediately gives her and alysanne doesn’t get why he caved so quickly” its an alarming dynamic.
also speaks to how isolated saera specifically was, that the only siblings that like her (aemon and baelon) are usually out and about, and there’s a clear wedge between saera and her sisters, even viserra.
The screams were coming from Tom Turnip, who was lurching helplessly in circles trying to escape from half a dozen naked whores, whilst the patrons of the house laughed uproariously and shouted on the harlots. Jonah Mooton, Red Roy Connington, and Stinger Beesbury were amongst those patrons, each one drunker than the last. They had thought it would be funny to see old Turnip do the deed, Red Roy admitted. Then Jonah Mooton laughed and said the jape had all been Saera’s notion, and what a funny girl she was.
again with sexually humiliating tom.
it continues with her friends. it’s not unusual for a 15 year old girl to want to fool around with other 15 year olds but alys and perri are all guilt ridden and upset and alys is with child. it reminds me a lot of cersei sexually abusing taena in affc. when she’s caught (now, mind you, she’s been marched in front of her parents sitting on the throne and not brought to them in their private rooms. she’s being treated right off the bat as if she’s guilty of a crime and not guilty of being a shitty teenager):
“She went from denial to dismissal to quibbling to contrition to accusation to justification to defiance in the space of an hour, with stops at giggling and weeping along the way,” Septon Barth would write. “She never did it, they were lying, it never happened, how could they believe that, it was just a game, it was just a jape, who said that, that was not how it happened, everyone likes kissing, she was sorry, Peri started it, it was such fun, no one was hurt, no one ever told her kissing was bad, Sweetberry had dared her, she was so ashamed, Baelon used to kiss Alyssa all the time, once she started she did not know how to stop, she was afraid of Stinger, the Mother Above had forgiven her, all the girls were doing it, the first time she was drunk, she had never wanted to, it was what men wanted, Maegelle said the gods forgave all sins, Jonah said he loved her, the gods had made her pretty, it was not her fault, she would be good from now on, it will be as if it never happened, she would marry Red Roy Connington, they had to forgive her, she would never kiss a man again or do any of those other things, it wasn’t her who was with child, she was their daughter, she was their little girl, she was a princess, if she were queen she would do as she liked, why wouldn’t they believe her, they never loved her, she hated them, they could whip her if they wanted but she would never be their slave. She took my breath away, this girl. There was never a mummer in all the land who gave such a performance, but by the end she was exhausted and afraid, and her mask slipped.”
What does Jaehaerys ask after all of this? “Have you given any of these boys your maidenhead?” Her response:
“True?” said Saera. It was in that moment, with that word, that the contempt came out. “No. I gave it to all three. They all think they were the first. Boys are such silly fools.”
Now mind you, Alyssa and Daella have both died of childbirth recently and her parents are mad she had sex as a 16 year old bordering on 17 year old, and not the fact that she like, at best peer pressured her besties into having sex and now one of them is pregnant. jaehaerys has only asked if she’s still a virgin.
“I will be married,” the princess said. “Why shouldn’t I be? You were married at my age. I shall be wedded and bedded, but to whom? Jonah and Roy both love me, I could take one of them, but they are both such boys. Stinger does not love me, but he makes me laugh and sometimes makes me scream. I could marry all three of them, why not? Why should I have just one husband? The Conqueror had two wives, and Maegor had six or eight.”
i keep trying not to give my opinion and just lay it all out but the thing is i’d just be reposting the whole scene because it’s just filled with so much weird sex stuff. if you don’t remember it, go reread it. it doesn’t feel (to me) like regular “george is bad at writing sex” vibes but “george is purposefully trying to skeeve you out” vibes but i am willing to admit i could be wrong and he really just doesn’t understand what he wrote.
anyways remember how i said saera acts out to get attention from her parents? all she’s done here is act out, her “crimes” are basically nonexistent; beyond how alys feels about being pregnant, saera consensually had sex with boys around her age who aren’t married, and then blithely compared herself to some asshole relatives. if your teenager idolizes dick cheney that’s probably worrying but not a crime! this is not how jae treats it however.
When the princess heard his words, she rushed toward him, crying, “Father, Father!” but Jaehaerys turned his back on her, and Gyles Morrigen caught her by the arm and wrenched her away. She would not go of her own accord, so the guards were forced to drag her from the hall, wailing and sobbing and calling for her father.
The king was angry and unyielding, for his shame was deeply felt, and he could not forget Saera’s taunting words about his uncle’s wives. “She is no longer my daughter,” he said more than once. Queen Alysanne could not find it in her heart to be so harsh, however. “
saera tries to escape.
This time the princess was not allowed to return to her own chambers. She was confined to a tower cell instead, with Jonquil Darke guarding her day and night, even in the privy.
Princess Saera watched from the window of her cell. Jonquil Darke, her gaoler, made certain that she did not turn away.
that’s as her dad is murdering stinger btw. is he a creepy 19 year old? yeah. but like, making your 15 year old watch you murder her 19 year old trust fund baby stoner boyfriend sure is something.
so then they sent her to the silent sisters where she’s beaten all the time and has to pray all the time and she runs away, becomes a sex worker and literally never looks back.
The truth did not come out until a year later, when the former princess was seen in a Lysene pleasure garden, still clad as a novice. Queen Alysanne wept to hear it. “They have made our daughter into a whore,” she said. “She always was,” the king replied.
“You need her as a Dornishman needs a pit viper,” Jaehaerys said. “I am sorry. King’s Landing has sufficient whores. I do not wish to hear her name again.”
but before we move on, let’s look at one more related ick, when saera’s sons show up to the great council:
From Essos came three rival competitors, grandsons of King Jaehaerys through his daughter Saera, each sired by a different father. One was said to be the very image of his grandsire in his youth.
after her drinking, acting out, and jaehaerys’ focus on calling her a whore, explicitly pointing out that one of her grandsons looks just like jae is a choice. i know they’re super inbred. it’s still uncomfortable in context.
viserra targaryen
alysanne makes no sense here but i’m just gonna quickly explain instead of lay it out or we will be here all day bc viserra’s engagement is completely nonsensical. theomore manderly is old, ugly, has a shitton of heirs, and viserra clearly doesn’t want to marry him. also if she wanted to be queen, why is she going after baelon, aemon is still alive. anyways jaehaerys is no help here, then she goes to baelon for help, but she’s also super drunk.
Frustrated, Viserra next turned to her brother Baelon in hopes of rescue, if court gossip can be believed. Slipping past his guards into his bedchamber one night, she disrobed and waited for him, making free with the prince’s wine whilst she lingered. When Prince Baelon finally appeared, he found her drunk and naked in his bed and sent her on her way. The princess was so unsteady that she required the help of two maids and a knight of the Kingsguard to get her safely back to her own apartments.
she gets drunk with some friends again, goes riding, breaks her neck. i wanted to point out this pattern of drinking and acting out at a young age. as well as this pattern of targaryen daughters who aren’t “meant” for a brother and are promised to men who are old and with heirs
daella targaryen
i wanted to add daella because her getting married at 15 makes as little sense as viserra, and her match to a old man with several heirs is equally nonsensical. but also this:
“I would never marry her,” the boy said, in front of half the court. “She can barely read. She should find some lord in need of stupid children, for that’s the only sort he will ever have of her.”
where did vaegon get that mouth.
Daella was not clever, even her septa had to admit. She learned to read after a fashion, but haltingly, and without full comprehension. She could not seem to commit even the simplest prayers to memory. She had a sweet voice, but was afraid to sing; she always got the words wrong. She loved flowers, but was frightened of gardens; a bee had almost stung her once.
Jaehaerys, even more than Alysanne, despaired of her. “She will not even speak to a boy. How is she to marry? We could entrust her to the Faith, but she does not know her prayers, and her septa says that she cries when asked to read aloud from The Seven-Pointed Star.”
The queen always rose to her defense. “Daella is sweet and kind and gentle. She has such a tender heart. Give me time, and I will find a lord to cherish her. Not every Targaryen needs to wield a sword and ride a dragon.”
so daella is 12 at this point.
Her sixteenth nameday was fast approaching, and with it her womanhood. Queen Alysanne was at her wit’s end, and the king had lost his patience. On the first day of the 80th year since Aegon’s Conquest, he told the queen he wanted Daella wed before the year’s end. “If she wants I can find a hundred men and line them up before her naked, and she can pick the one she likes,” he said. “I would sooner she wed a lord, but if she prefers a hedge knight or a merchant or Pate the Pig Boy, I am past the point of caring, so long as she picks someone.”
i just don’t like this. other “simple” targs are not required to marry, like vaella and aelora, two of daeron ii’s grandfaughters so i don’t get why daella is pressured into marrying before she’s even of age. at least jae 2 forced rhaella and aerys because of a prophecy? what is jae’s reasoning for so sexualizing his daughter?
gael targaryen
this one is definitely a reach but i’d like to point out that this is basically all we know about gael:
Princess Gael, a sweet, shy child of seven, became the queen’s constant shadow and support, even sharing her bed at night.
and our information on how she dies is so shady:
A sweet-natured girl, but frail and somewhat simpleminded, she remained with the queen long after her other children had grown and gone, but in 99 AC she vanished from court, and soon afterward it was announced that she had died of a summer fever. Only after both her parents were gone did the true tale come out. Seduced and abandoned by a traveling singer, the princess had given birth to a stillborn son, then, overwhelmed by grief, walked into the waters of Blackwater Bay and drowned.
how does gael get pregnant by a traveling singer when she never leaves her mother’s side? why doesn’t anyone in court know gael got pregnant and killed herself until after aly and jae both die and how was this even found out?
am i implying that jaehaerys sexually abused all four of his daughters? yes because he literally sexually abuses his own wife.
alysanne targaryen
“I am forty-two years old,” she told the king. “You must be content with the children I have given you. I am more suited to be a grandmother than a mother now, I fear.”
King Jaehaerys did not share her certainty. “Our mother, Queen Alyssa, was forty-six when she gave birth to Jocelyn,” he pointed out to Grand Maester Elysar. “The gods may not be done with us.” He was not wrong. The very next year, the Grand Maester informed Queen Alysanne that she was once more with child, to her surprise and dismay.
he uses the birth that killed their mother and that is condemned by rhaena and alysanne as reckless and cruel of rogar to force on her. that birth.
at this point as well, he had abused saera and daella, then they’re gone, then viserra starts drinking and dies, then jae marital rapes aly into having gael, giving him access to another young girl to abuse…i’m aware this is a very uncharitable reading of him but…
alicent hightower (and kind of alyssa targaryen)
Ser Otto’s precocious fifteen-year-old daughter, Alicent, became his constant companion, fetching His Grace his meals, reading to him, helping him to bathe and dress himself. The Old King sometimes mistook her for one of his daughters, calling her by their names; near the end, he grew certain she was his daughter Saera, returned to him from beyond the narrow sea.
saera is the one he fixated on yet again but notable that he’s fixated on his daughters as he dies and not his sons, despite jaehaerys turning to drink after aemon died bc he was so upset.
He announced his intention to wed Lady Alicent of House Hightower, the clever and lovely eighteen-year-old daughter of the King’s Hand, the girl who had read to King Jaehaerys as he lay dying.
The Hightowers of Oldtown were an ancient and noble family, of impeccable lineage; there could be no possible objection to the king’s choice of bride. Even so, there were those who murmured that the Hand had risen above himself, that he had brought his daughter to court with this in mind. A few even cast doubt on Lady Alicent’s virtue, suggesting she had welcomed King Viserys into her bed even before Queen Aemma’s death. (These calumnies were never proved, though Mushroom repeats them in his Testimony and goes so far as to claim that reading was not the only service Lady Alicent performed for the Old King in his bedchamber.)
i know it’s just mushroom being a perv but a rumor that 15 year old alicent “serviced” jaehaerys existing besides rumors that he mistook 15 year old alicent for the daughter he last saw when she was 17 - and viserra was 15, gael 19, and daella 15, all around alicent’s age and all died before age 20. all the targaryen girls that weren’t born “for” a brother exit the narrative after some sort of sexual abuse that centers around jae, as teenagers; daenerys was born for aemon, alyssa for baelon, and maegelle for vaegon before they both fucked off and maegelle was too pious (and too old). this idea of being “for” a brother leads directly to alyssa’s death before 30:
“You were made for battles, and I was made for this. Viserys and Daemon and Aegon, that’s three. As soon as I am well, let’s make another. I want to give you twenty sons. An army of your own!” It was not to be. Alyssa Targaryen had a warrior’s heart in a woman’s body, and her strength failed her. She never fully recovered from Aegon’s birth, and died within the year at only four-and-twenty.
and alysanne being “for” jaehaerys is how he excusing sexually abusing her into a risky pregnancy. essentially what i fear is that because saera, daella, viserra, and gael aren’t “for” someone, jaehaerys gets it into his mind that that are for him. even without him raping them tho, that subtext is there! he is entitled to saera’s virginity and calls her a whore multiple times, even decades after she’s left, and murders her boyfriend in front of her. he claims a weird sexual ownership over his neurodivergent daughter daella and his alcoholic, depressed daughter viserra, and we get zero information on gael’s pregnancy or his reaction to it. but jaehaerys deciding his daughters are “for” him certainly has a basis in canon just judging from the erratic and worrying behavior of his younger daughters.
jaehaerys is a creep and i hate him and i don’t know how much of this is on purpose (like, will aegon vi or dany find out jaehaerys was a shady pedo and it shatters their world? will dunk and egg find it out and it affects their plot somehow? did george just put it in there to make a comment on power and monarchy and misogyny, similar to aegon iv raping the bracken women? or is just there for window dressing creepiness, like “i will pepper in the fact that jaehaerys is sexually obsessed with his daughters” thing?) or if george just made jaehaerys sexually obsessed with his daughters on accident?
on the one hand, it seems out of character for george. he romanticizes drogo thru dany’s eyes but it’s clear he’s meant to be seen as a creep (dany talking about being pregnant followed by “she had just turned 14” is sickeningly jarring for a reason) and also, drogo dies bc of his own pride. sansa doesn’t like any of the old dudes touching her; she is at least marginally freaked out by her wedding night, the unkiss, and lf & dontos taking liberties with her, and rightly. the story that’s told about the mountain raping a girl and making the father pay him is meant to disgust us. the walk of shame is a harrowing chapter to read, because whatever cersei’s crimes, this sexual humiliation is not something she deserves. on and on. yes, we all hate the way arya is sexualized in the mercy chapter, but crucially, she’s not blithely and happily seducing these pervs, she’s going hard candy on their asses. is this just messy set up for something like that?? i think, given how little dany knows about her family’s crimes that somehow learning jae sexually abused (and maybe even impregnated) his own daughters after she herself experiences sexual abuse would be huge. the same goes for aegon vi learning that sexual abuse runs rampant in his family tree; would he empathize with saera hiding out in essos to escape the sexual abuse of her father, see some of elia and his own plight in her? in gael?
or did george really just. not realize how sexually obsessed jaehaerys was with his daughters?
idk how to end this. where’s the winds of winter george i need answers.
#anti jaehaerys targaryen#anti fire and blood#valyrianscrolls#saera targaryen#viserra targaryen#gael targaryen#debated the vs tag bc i know it’s probably gonna annoy some people but. i do actually wonder if this will be a plot point in the books#or if it was an accident#rani attempts meta#gael and the bard#saerhaerys#jaehaerys the cruel
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Remembering stuff like Alfred having Bruce and cutting his hair and and dressing him. Which could mean anything but really reinforce the upstairs/downstairs servile relationship. The lack of modesty or shame a rich person has around their staff is something else. And it’s just a like. Almost a Caste system where Alfred is second class and can never BE on Bruce’s level as an equal let alone authority figure. And Alfred is happy with that! Because that’s the story and he is, after all, the butler
[laufire's cool post on Alfred & Bruce]
Yeah, Alfred is not Bruce's father. Bruce is the pater familias of his household like his father before him, and Alfred is his very cherished manservant. Alfred can be a caretaker and a confidant, he can even be parental (-ish), but he's not a parent. (Note to self: rant about the awkward and aggressively enforced line between "parental" and "parent" in Batman mythos.)
IMO one of the most compact arguments on Alfred's role is in Batman: Year One (IIRC the very comic that established Alfred as an old servant of the Wayne family, instead of his original story of being hired by Bruce). Grant Morrison was on some podcast (I think either Kevin Smith's podcast or "Hypertime to Podcast"?) talking about the significance of how Bruce's first act as Batman is to ring a bell to ask for Alfred to help him. We see Morrison emphasize this moment in The Return of Bruce Wayne, where The Bell is a relic on the same level as The Pearls and The Gun.
I can agree it's a defining moment. To some extent I'm willing to accept Morrison's suggestion that Bruce ringing the bell symbolizes the value of asking for help, teamwork, comradery, family, humility, etc—and most fans would be happy to sprint with that interpretation. But I can also juggle a separate interpretation that branches off and veers to the left...
You do not ring a bell to ask for help from your parent or friends or family—you ring a bell to summon a servant.
Bruce becoming Batman in Year One is the story of a prince reclaiming his kingdom. (The Return of Bruce Wayne is a renewal of that story.) Summoning the family manservant is the act of Bruce finally accepting his royal inheritance, after his foolish attempt to slum it with the rabble. A good king is kind and attentive to his subjects, and considers the opinions of his advisors—but they're never his equals or his superiors, no matter how much he cherishes them. They're his subordinates. Nobody is on Bruce's level as an equal, nobody can win a case against his authority, in Gotham. Bruce is the rightful heir of his kingdom. The king and queen are dead, long live the king.
—I know some vocal fans are very critical of Miller, but there's no disputing that Miller's Batman: Year One is the definitive Post-Crisis story of Bruce's invention of Batman, and pretty much every modern comic writer and fan recognizes it. It's likely no comic writer or story has had as much enduring influence on the Batman mythos since Miller wrote Year One and The Dark Knight Returns. Case in point: Alfred.
So yeah. Alfred isn't Bruce's dad. The Gotham TV series probably makes the strongest case for Alfred as Bruce's dad, and even then I personally think there is wiggle room to say eh they're family and they love each other but they're not quite parent & child. Everything else—Batman '66, BTAS, the Nolan movies, Lego Batman, Battinson—ultimately doesn't Alfred cast as Bruce's dad, for the best. Recent comics and the later Arkhamverse games try to force the father-son thing, but it's cheap and unearned.
#Me using big words and making grand sweeping claims for flavor? More likely than you think.#''The lack of modesty or shame a rich person has around their staff is something else.'' <- 🔥🔥 Love that.#alfred pennyworth#bruce wayne#batman meta#essay#Finally throwing my hat in the ring on Alfred Pennyworth meta.#I'm really sorry about my other way more important meta. Those posts have [shudders] citations and embedded images. 😖#Saint Vyvanse‚ pray for me...#Duke's Robin movement has a lot of good bits and one of the big misses was putting Alfred into the role that he had.#Big disservice that will be corrected when my school of thinkers are in charge of Duke's big-screen adaptation. ☝️#BTW the reason why Miller haters adore BTAS is because it's heavily based in the O'Neil-Englehart-Schwarz-ish era.#That's probably what Dini and Timm read growing up. Dini's Tec run ❤️❤️ is very BTAS-flavored but obvi overshadowed by Morrison's run.#Also. As a Jason fan.#(You knew this was coming.)#I say even Jason never made a heartfelt attempt to usurp the king. He is petitioning his king through terrorism.#I'm tired. Does this thing even make sense? Where was I going with this? What is the central claim?
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Recent old school pieces I got in the mail ! I'm so happy with my growing lolita wardrobe, and I'm so happy I finally decided to invest in lolita. I am living the dream middle school me could only fantasize about 🎉
Left : Lace up velveteen JSK by Metamorphose ( 2003 )
Right : Sapphire Yale JSK by Baby, the stars shine bright ( 2005 )
#have got some work to do on these babies#baby jsk is quite faded#the lace on the meta dress has yellowed also#gonna attempt brightening it#egl#old school lolita#egl community#metamorphose temps de fille#baby the stars shine bright#lolita fashion#my wardrobe
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"Stolas shouldn't have portalled out Blitz during Full Moon" this and "Stolas should have stuck around and listened to Blitz in the garden during Apology Tour" that. Do y'all not realize how it sounds to demand that a domestic abuse victim stick around when someone is yelling at and insulting them? And on the flip side of that, do the other half of y'all not realize how it sounds to demand that someone, particularly someone from an oppressed group, never get loud or demonstrably angry just because it might scare someone?
Like Blitz had every right to air his grievances in Full Moon, and being angry when you're treated poorly is a perfectly normal, reasonable response. It's not inherently abusive to yell and stomp when you get mad, and it's completely unreasonable to say that Blitz is just because he did. But at the same time, Stolas does not have to sit there and take being yelled at when he's already had to suffer though someone doing it to him maliciously for at least 17 years. He does not have to take being grabbed, being screamed at, or having his clearly stated boundaries ignored either, like at the beginning of Apology Tour. Him getting upset when someone does that to him, when he's only just gotten away from his abuser and was almost murdered for it, is not some failing on his part or him playing the victim.
Blitz's trauma doesn't care that Stolas wasn't actually going to abandon Blitz, and it doesn't care that that the hurtful things Stolas has said and done have come largely from a place of ignorance rather than a lack of care. He's protecting himself the only way he knows how and is blinded by the sheer intensity and longevity of his self-loathing, but frankly it was a good thing for him to finally speak up about how some of the things Stolas does makes him feel, and it's a very good thing that he's actually trying to fight to keep Stolas rather than just booking it and throwing a grenade behind him on the way out.
Just like Stolas' trauma doesn't care if he knows Blitz is different than Stella and wouldn't actually hurt him, and it doesn't care that Blitz's anger comes from a hurt, scared, and traumatized place as opposed to the pleasure Stella took in hurting and scaring him. Stolas hasn't had any time to even begin to heal from the damage she did to him, and frankly if he's scared and breaking down like in Full Moon it's actually a step up if he's removing himself from whoever is triggering him, even if it wasn't fair to Blitz who was, in his own way, attempting to work things out.
Neither of them is the bad guy here, they're just very reasonably upset and having clashing trauma responses. You can be compassionate and understanding of both sides without saying that either of them should have to just sit there and take it when someone is greatly upsetting them. It's normal to get angry when you're scared and upset, and it's normal to cry and run away when you're scared and upset, and neither are wrong or bad just because in the moment when emotions were running high they each did several things that accidently set the other off, especially when they had no way of knowing it was a trigger beforehand.
None of this is say that the way things shook out was great or productive, and they definitely need to work on healing so that they're not letting their fear and trauma control them. If they're going to get to place of real understanding, then at some point these two need to sit down with the intent to talk things out and have an honest and open conversation with each other, without Blitz yelling or Stolas running or either of them letting their preconceived assumptions and biases get in the way of actually listening. Blitz needs to not self-sabotage and Stolas needs to not shut down, and that's going to be really fucking hard for both of them, because that's how they've been coping with their trauma for literal decades.
And to his major credit, Blitz got it right at the end of Apology Tour, the only thing he got wrong was the timing because Stolas was so drunk that I'll be honestly surprised if he remembers most of it in the morning. He wasn't in any state of mind to listen or pay attention, but at the same time, to his credit he's already been reflecting on what Blitz has been saying to him and trying to figure out where and how he fucked up and hurt Blitz. And also, he kept saying things like "right now", which means he will be ready to talk things out eventually if he's just given a little bit of space to put himself back together and think about things.
And guys, please. Just because some people will start crying to try to manipulate and guilt trip those around them whenever someone gets upset at something they did, doesn't make that what Stolas did. He was trying to get away so Blitz wouldn't see him cry. And just because some people like to fly off the handle and rage at every perceived infraction, doesn't make that what Blitz did. He had justifiable cause to be angry and in Full Moon he didn't think Stolas was listening, so he tried to make himself louder and bigger in an attempt to make himself be heard and his hurt be acknowledged. If one of their reactions made you uncomfortable, that's fine, there's nothing wrong with that. But the story isn't about those kinds of people, it's about two fictional demons who aren't trying to hurt or manipulate each other, they're just struggling to juggle trauma, ignorance, and the desire to be together. They're not able to yet, but that's what character arcs are for.
And just to head off any comments on it: no, the narrative is not villifying Blitz and it's not babying Stolas or trying to sweep any of the shit he's done under the rug. Blitz being angry and self-destructive doesn't make him a villain, and Stolas crying a few times and still being pretty ignorant of how he's come across doesn't mean they're trying to say he's done nothing wrong.
#helluva boss#stolas goetia#blitzo#text post#meta#long post#my post#it's incredibly tone deaf to get mad at Stolas for leaving when Blitz was hurling insults at him#it's so blatantly obvious that Blitz yelling and slamming open the door triggered the fuck out of him in Full Moon#why would he *not* remove himself from the situation when he had no cause to believe Blitz would stop yelling and insulting him?#he probably didn't even hear Blitz's attempt to apologize because he was already halfway out the portal#and you can faintly hear Stolas giving his own apology before the portal closes#no one is the bad guy here
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