#so mappa left the ending ambiguous so

[enobariasteeth]

Oh God they’ve got banana fish on Prime video

[sleeptowns]

stream give it back cö shu nie 🚗💨

alternatively: rambling about complex shades of grief, post-canon ambiguity & leaving here and where you are alone

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i'm on record saying that i started conceptualizing the premise to here and where you are after i tweeted — in my efforts to squirm away from ✨ sad & sad-adjacent emotions ✨ — that the new jjk ending had the same energy as one of those angsty hollywood romances featuring a dead girlfriend. but that’s not fair, because a) the ending is much more beautifully animated than a nicholas sparks movie could maybe hope to be and b) i’m doing it a great disservice by trying to downplay the complete tragedy of yuuji filming his friends from a distance, whether or not i even believe the memories featured here are real or not. 

and i made the tik tok joke in that tweet precisely because i wasn’t immune to the devastation that this new ending left in its wake. i’ve seen enough sad yuuji-centric art to last me for the rest of the year, and even my tik tok fyp in the past week has been nothing but people reacting to it — but even with all the saturation and exposure, it hasn’t stopped making me so sad every single time i remember or revisit it. at some point, i reached a level where i was physically ill just listening to “give it back” — and so, true to enneagram type 5 form, i thought this was the perfect mood to be productive about something i can’t help and tackle one of my writing resolutions this year. mappa said, “here. be sad.” and i said, “thank you. i will. after all, i resolved a few weeks ago to write more non-happy endings.” then i proceeded to word-v*mit into a doc for 17k words over a day and a half. 

i wish now that i waited a bit longer to write it. or spent more time on it, just because i wasn’t expecting it to pull so much of the canon universe into it and to require so much brain power in properly doing so. but i have a college au i miss like hell and wanna get back to asap, and when i opened the doc for here and where you are, all i really wanted to do was write one (1) scene. not even anything yuuji-related, because i have nothing left to contribute on that front save for my broken heart and all that fun stuff, but a scene between megumi & nobara. part of it is that i’ve always adored the little exchange they have after yuuji dies in the cursed womb arc: how they’re sitting a step apart on the stairs, the overpowering noise of the cicadas in the anime, the way that nobara takes charge of the conversation even though she’s one wrong exhale away from crying, the little sideways glances megumi keeps giving her without saying a single word. it says so much in the silence, that entire scene; even now, so many arcs later, i find myself thinking sometimes about how grief might have informed the dynamic that megumi & nobara developed with each other in yuuji’s absence, how they were able to find trust in each other through that. 

(i also like that in the jujusanpo where megumi talks about yuuji teaching him how to make meatballs, it’s nobara who breaks the silence first — delivering a joke that doesn’t sound like a joke, or like she’s trying to make megumi feel better. that, to me, sounds like they’ve cemented a way to talk about yuuji’s death. it doesn’t sound like they’re grieving with each other; it sounds like they’ve reached a stable level of understanding about each other’s grief, an understanding how best to navigate that around each other without doing it together. and that’s very them, i think. their relationship is so quiet, so steady and firm and full of unspoken understanding.)

so when episode 14 made me realize a detail i completely passed over in the manga — that nobara full on tears up at seeing yuuji again, and that megumi looks weirdly surprised by this — i knew i wanted to dig my teeth into what’s going on there. but then the episode ended with “give it back,” and these lyrics were stuck in my head, in the shower, washing dishes, trying to sleep:

どこにあるの 寂しいよ

Please give it back

いつになれば 楽になれる

i’d sit up in bed and think, at 4am, where is who ??? why are you lonely? give what back? when will what get easier? and it’s one thing to entertain those questions through yuuji and his loneliness, to attach that sadness and loneliness to him — but i was still stuck on nobara’s tears and megumi’s reaction to them, still stuck on their shared moment at the end of the cursed womb arc, and at some point i remembered the part in the ending where nobara goes up to megumi to ask where yuuji was — and something clicked. kind of. 

i thought i could purge the feelings out by exploring megumi & nobara’s different manifestations of grief over yuuji in one scene where they go through yuuji’s phone together post-execution or whatever it would have been. i want to believe that — if the photos / videos are real — the two of them will get to see it at some point. there’s a lot of love nestled in the act of yuuji filming them, even in the distance he places on himself by being the one behind the camera, and my only initial intention, truly, truly, truly, was for megumi & nobara to find some closure in knowing how much yuuji loved them all to the very end. 

but that’s very martyr-y, i thought. not that there’s no martyrdom in what i ended up writing. but it just felt overall a yoi era me thing to write if i settled for a scene like that. which is where the nicholas sparks-esque tik tok joke came in: what if it was a the vow (2012) situation? what if yuuji does lose his memories? how about a situation where yuuji’s still alive, except he doesn’t remember them? what if we reverse the tragedy everyone thinks will happen where yuuji’s gonna be the forgotten one? on that vein, where does grief go when loss is not cemented? how do you juggle your grief in a situation like that? in what kind of position does that place the people that love him? and, going back to the questions in those “give it back” lyrics stuck in my head: what if the thing that causes the loneliness, the thing that doesn’t get easier, is this twisted, complicated sort of grief? 

and so i got out of bed at 6am without even having fallen asleep yet, and started writing.

this, however, meant constructing a fake premise that will explain for a couple of sentences what happened to yuuji. and because i tweeted this on priv last december —

— and it started kind of making actual sense to me as i progressively got loopier farther into the night —

— so i figured i might as well do something with that before akutami inevitably turns it on its head. which led to: what can happen to this yuuji that won’t kill him but take his memories? any kind of authority left in the aftermath won’t be so generous to just let him stay alive. then i thought about nanami carefully choosing his dying words for yuuji, how he was worried, even in those few remaining moments, that he’ll curse yuuji — and i thought about this slightly unhinged 3am new year’s day priv tweet, too: 

i know. i know. i really thought i mic-dropped for a moment there. which — let me be straight up here. i am definitely too stupid to theorize about jjk canon. and that’s okay. i acknowledge that. i accept it. that’s not me being self-deprecating or anything. i’m one hundred percent happy to not have a single working theory about where we’re going. if i’d known how canon-dependent this fic would turn out to be, i wouldn’t have attempted it. or at least not let it pass the 3k mark. or — i don’t know. i’d have attempted some kind of damage control. but it was too late by the time i realized how much i was rambling, and by that point, i was just picking and choosing from vague canon events and conjectures as if i’m getting a footlong sub and the person behind the counter is asking me what i want on it. like: anything can be a curse if said with enough emotion? sure, let’s go with that. megumi was for sure going through it in the goodwill event arc when he said that. like, my boy was having a mini flashback to yuuji saying please at the juvenile detention center while bleeding out. akutami saying at jump festa that — of gojo and the three first years — it’s either three will live and one will die or three will die and one will live? fine. let’s kill gojo off because i don’t think he’s going to survive the series anyway + use that as self-justification for why yuuji will still be alive in this hypothetical post-canon. 

and all this staccato picking and choosing left me with: curse-human hybrid yuuji staying alive without his memories intact because megumi cursed him to not die. and that fit right in line with the grief themes i wanted to poke around with. so it was settled.

all that’s remaining was to flesh out megumi & nobara’s differences in this scenario, and i ended up zeroing in on how nobara seems to have this certainty that megumi & yuuji are just a little bit closer. she refers to megumi in the ozawa chapter as “a guy who knows itadori much better than me” — and it’s a very matter-of-fact statement to make, nothing she holds against anyone. i imagine, reading it, that it’s the same tone she uses to make that “itadori’s legacy” comment about the meatballs. and in my head, in this hypothetical future where megumi kills yuuji, there’s a fair amount of imbalance there in the way they grieve. just as there was imbalance there the first time: megumi got a few more days with yuuji, got the whole saving him act going for both of them, was the person who had to struggle to get sukuna to save him only to watch him die. on the other hand, nobara knew him for a small pocket of time that she doesn’t think is enough to grieve over. she makes the distinction for both of them post-cursed womb: she asks megumi if it’s his first time watching a 仲間 die, but makes sure to say there’s no way she’ll be crying about someone she only knew for a couple of weeks. i know it’s not that deep, more a reflection of her personality than anything deep-seated, but i sorta just internalized how difficult it is to mourn with someone who has a separate set of memories and emotions to grieve than you do. and if i wanted to write a scene with megumi & nobara going through yuuji’s phone, i cannot, in good conscience, do that without also addressing the differences that can and will converge in this one shared moment. since i set out to write this thing for megumi & nobara and not yuuji / megumi, i needed the real catharsis here to be this realization that for all that megumi has all this guilt and unarticulated romantic love while nobara has nothing concrete to serve as foundation for a proper goodbye, yuuji loved them both the same, and so, so much at that. they were everything to him, no matter what he left behind for each of them, and that doesn’t stop the grief, doesn’t give them less to mourn, but it places them at the exact same level. no matter what they have, no matter how differently they loved the person they lost — they were loved right back by that person, and in the phone scene, that matters a hell lot more than anything else. 

still, i wanted megumi to be the one to bring them to that point. i wanted him to acknowledge that as painful as the guilt is, the lack of closure over someone he’s deeply in love with, nobara feels just as — if not more — lost than he does with her own grief. when yuuji died the first time, they both got to channel that into training for the goodwill event. this time, megumi has his nightmares, his regrets, all the memories he’ll have to just live with. nobara has — well. nothing, really. not even the opportunity to deny her grief the way she did before. she did know yuuji well this time. he was one of her best friends. she cried when she lost him. she cried when she got him back. she would have wanted to cry again, on march 20th. but there’s no release here for her. yuuji is alive. yuuji is safe. there’s nothing to grieve, not really. no death, whether by her hands or not. at least not until megumi recognizes that and gives her the phone. gives her something to call her own. gives her something to properly, guiltlessly release her grief over. 

it balances their situation out as much as it possibly can. and i like to think that when megumi leaves at the end of the fic, nobara’s not thinking she’s gonna lose him, too. i want to believe that’s her saying, hey, wherever you go, you’ll have this place to come home to. despite everything. so come back. come back because you can. is that her also believing yuuji will come back to them at some point? i don’t know. i’m trying not to think too much about it. i very nearly cracked and started writing a happy ending where although yuuji doesn’t get his memories back, he does realize there’s something off and allows megumi to take him through everything — but then i checked the word count, looked at the fic as it is, and was just like. nah. we’re trying to do better at writing non-perfect endings this year, folks. we’re doing it. that, and i didn’t want to get into ship of theseus debates with myself about whether a memory-less yuuji is the same yuuji megumi fell in love with. i meant it, when i had megumi point out that nobara & yuuji could still be friends in this universe. i’m not so sure about him & yuuji.

anyway. some writing reflections: i’m still definitely more comfortable writing aus than i am canon anything + i still need to get much, much better at writing shorter things — but overall, this fic was a fun little exercise in something i genuinely feel has no real answer. and that’s very freeing! it’s a bit of a moral conundrum to me, megumi’s situation, knowing the endings i usually write; while it was a struggle to just let myself address the complicatedness of this kind of ordeal without seeking out to solve it, narratively speaking, it was a well-needed little writing experiment. jjk has given me the rare chance to quietly play around with my writing, and i think i really took advantage of that with this fic. which is good! i feel really good about writing here and where you are. the end product not so much, but when do i ever feel great about that. it’s a work in progress etc etc the progress part is what matters yes yes

in any case: “give it back” by co shu nie is out on all music platforms today stream stream stream 🤎

—

p.s. as much as i love an itafushi bonding moment, why was nobara not making the meatballs with them? i had to indulge myself and throw in her developing the habit of making yuuji cook for her after he returns, even though i’m sure she must have some cooking skills.

p.s.s. a lot of credit due to the part in godspeed that’s like “i let go of my claim on you, it's a free world [...] but you'll have this place to call home, always” and and and the part in white ferrari that goes: “i care for you still and i will forever / that was my part of the deal, honest” :) :) :) 

[uminohotaru]

Dororo has ended. The torture continues.

This final episode was everything i ever wanted to the extent it felt like fanfic at times.The focus on brothers, Taho’s deep locked feelings and thoughts, his jealosy of Hyakki being everything for their mother, i wasn’t REALLY expecting all of that to resurface like this. I was preparing myself for a cruel deadly battle full of cut limbs and blood and hate, with maybe regret and some tears shed over the dead brother’s body, but THIS. The way Taho opened up and just started to yell at Hyakki for everything. The way Hyakki actually noticed a huge hole in his little brother’s soul and felt the urge to understand him. The way he couldn’t bring himself to kill him, and Taho just fell on his knees accepting his defeat. The way Hyakki said they’re basically the same. The way Hyakki kneeled before him and called him by his name and SMILED AT HIM and i will never forgive the demon for ruining their moment. (At this point i had to stop and hmmmm, like wait, haven’t i written a fanfic like that???) And then Taho actually defeated the demon in himself and just gave Hyakki his eyes and CALLED HIM ANIUE. Hyakki with his hair down was also a fanfiction material. And mother finally giving some love to Taho. MAPPA this was more than I ever hoped. 👏 MY SHIP SAILS.

But then everything got fucked up because it was too good to be true. Hyakki suddenly stopped caring and just left without his brother, without even checking if he’s alive. Wait, he did see he’s alive because his soul was still glowing as he lied on the floor. Why Hyakki didn’t take him along??? He hadn’t even seen his face. And mamas didn’t even try to save themselves or Taho like it’s ok let’s just all die now, Hyakki is saved and who cares about Taho, he can just die peacefully. I wasn’t so pissed since Jack died because Rose didn’t share the door, I swear. This is such a waste i fucking can’t. And then they tell us that they’re missing, WHY, just say there were burnt bodies found. We should have understood it without telling us explicitly? But I’m bad at subtleties, I need clear facts. No body, no fact. The only logical reason i can find for this kind of ambiguity is that they wanted us to believe they are dead because that’s what Kagemitsu was supposed to believe to end up miserable, losing everything. But at the same time, they left us the opportunity to believe they aren’t really dead to torment us some more, to get us eternally attached and motivate us to produce tons of fanart and fanfiction. And i have mixed emotions about that. I was mentally preparing myself for Taho’s death. Then I was just happy they left it open for interpreting. But now I’m frustrated because they haven’t just let him live. But still, it’s better than killing him on screen. Or not? Dororo has ended, the tormenting continues.