*mischievous laugh* mueheheh
hypothetically, what if reader dies? 😈 what will poor megumi and tsumiki do now? what would gojo do too? 🥸
um… hello??? what is wrong with—
okay, so let’s start off with the simplest reaction. megumi is out for vengeance.
it’s clear that he’s got a bit of a… sadistic nature to him (undefined by whatever morals normal people have, yeah whatever). but why is he strong if not to protect the world from evil things? why does he have power if he’s not supposed to use it?
so, you being a jujutsu sorcerer, it’s likely that you died fighting a curse. if that’s the case, megumi is hunting that curse down and eliminating it in an instant. and then he keeps going. he’s going to kill every curse he can find, because you shouldn’t have died.
if anyone doesn’t deserve to die, it’s you.
and while megumi can hear your words in his head, telling him to protect others, to take care of people, to stay with his family… if you’re gone, what does it matter?
megumi will live in his anger. he doesn’t need depression or acceptance. what he needs is you, and if he can’t have you anymore…
and then there’s tsumiki. she wouldn’t feel angry, like megumi, but lost.
it’s obvious that she believes there’s a sort of destiny within the world. she thinks that all bad things happen so that the good things, the truly good things, can come next. she believes that you have to feel pain to feel pleasure. she trusts this idea.
before you die, tsumiki isn’t afraid of anything.
but after you die, she loses her purpose. her ideals, her faith in the world.
she goes from the trusting little girl who would believe satoru if he told her that he was really a robot with a human heart inside of him, from the girl who took everything at face value, believed that all people should protect each other, help each other—
she goes from your little girl to something entirely different.
what’s the point of this? she wonders. if her mom had to die to bring her to you and satoru, she understands. if she and megumi had to take care of themselves for a year—living in some apartment that didn’t have running water—just to find a real family, then it was worth it.
but what’s worth it if you’re dead? what’s the point to losing another mom, another person that tsumiki was supposed to help take care of?
she can’t do anything, though. she’s always been the most powerless of her family members. and after you die, she’s not your little girl anymore.
she’s just lost.
and, of course, satoru.
i think he shares the same grief that both megumi and tsumiki feel—anger, denial—but he’s older than them. he loves you differently than they ever could.
there was a time when satoru had pushed you away just to get back to that place where he was nothing but strong. where his feelings had no bearing in his power, where emotions didn’t matter as long as he was the honored one.
but, really, if it takes you dying to get back to that place—then satoru never wants to be strong again.
when suguru died, satoru was committed to carrying out his plans. to protecting sorcerers from a world forged against them. he wanted to train a generation of sorcerers who didn’t have to worry about dying with regrets, who could take care of themselves along with all of the non-sorcerers in the world.
to eradicate cursed energy, in whatever capacity.
but when you die, satoru loses all that purpose. why should he care about the world when he no longer has to protect you from it?
why should he care at all?
so, just like after riko died, satoru is back to being nothing but a vessel for power. he doesn’t care who he kills, what he kills, as long as it has some meaning, some pointless purpose that doesn’t matter to him.
but, it only takes one memory of you to snap him out of it. he can almost feel you clawing at his chest, your voice begging him to take care of them.
so, eventually, satoru finds his way home. he’s got two other people to protect.
and he’ll be damned if anything happens to them.
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not sure why people don't seem to understand that shiv being the victim of misogyny and vitriol from all the men in her life can and does coexist with the fact that she is not a feminist liberal hero fighting to save democracy. why is it that we never afford her any nuance? she's either the only good person on the show and deserves to kill every man in a ten foot radius (twitter) or a uniquely evil cruel sociopath with no heart fueled entirely by spite (reddit). is it not just so much more interesting for her to be a fascism aiding and abetting character like the rest of them who also views herself as more progressive in spite of everything else about her and who undergoes horrific treatment at the hands of the men around her yet has no interest in undoing the system that allows them to do so, only in ruling it herself? shiv is not any better than the others nor is she any worse than them. there's no Evil Olympics here guys, nor should there be. snook said it herself in the after credits sequence -- shiv was just lucky that her interests aligned with her sympathies. who knows what she would've done had mencken been her best personal option? yes she cares infinitely more about politics than roman, yes she is still very much interested in maintaining the capitalist, fascist structure and even strengthening it, so long as it ends with her on top (which either way would be a win for liberal causes bc Woman). fascism isn't one-size-fits-all. it's not just mencken and trump. it's also mattson. it's also logan. it's also roman and shiv and kendall. that's... kind of one of the main points of succession? but even so, that does not negate the fact that as a woman it is so hard to watch some of the scenes with her and tom/roman/kendall -- of course that misogyny will resonate with female viewers, as it should!!! but that resonance needs to coexist with a deeper understanding of her character -- if you want to root for a bad bitch fighting against misogyny go watch, i don't know, captain marvel or whatever. what makes shiv interesting is that she's so so so much more than that -- she is the product, victim, and perpetrator of misogyny and fascism, two concepts so heavily intertwined they're virtually inextricable from each other. tl;dr it's one thing to be like my god someone give shiv a gun and it's another entirely to say, entirely seriously, that shiv is the Good Liberal Feminist One and the rest are all evil. like i absolutely adore shiv but i would honest to god find her so fucking boring if she were actually the person these tweets make her out to be i'm sorry
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Actually I'm still thinking about it. Another interesting way in which RvB is anti-war is the way that the Director fills the role of a villain and antagonist (especially in the Recollections trilogy, where he's a faceless villain we never see but is responsible for everything that happens).
In his memos to the Chairman, the Director emphasizes his sense of duty and obligation to the military- he becomes irate for the first time when he feels that it's being implied that he was derelict in his duty... or that the work he did out of that duty is being criticized for being against the military's interests. He also talks about Allison's death in a way I find... interesting.
"You see; I never had the chance to serve in battle. Nor did fate provide me the opportunity to sacrifice myself for humanity as it did for so many others in the Great War. Someone extremely dear to me was lost very early in my life. My mind has always plagued me with the question: If the choice had been placed in my hands, could I have saved her? [...] But, given the events of these past few weeks, I feel confident that had I been given the chance, I would have made those sacrifices myself... Had I only the chance."
The idea of sacrifice is central to the way he talks about his wife's loss, to the way he talks about the war in general. He talks of sacrifice with a sense of veneration- that it's something he aspires to do, that he longs for. There's a few ways we can interpret "I would have made those sacrifices myself"...
-That in Allison's place, he thinks he would have laid down his life too.
-That if given the chance, he would have given his life to save hers.
But most interestingly...
-That he would have sacrificed Allison's life for the continued survival of humanity, if that was what duty called for.
...And personally, I think all 3 are true.
In most war media, the Director's perspective on sacrifice is very common. Sacrifice is glorious and heroic- to die in battle is an honour- and it's the only way to ensure the group you serve survives. This is a tool of propaganda- nobody wants to go to war just for the sake of it, you have to give them a reason that the risk of dying or being permanently disabled isn't just acceptable, but desirable. Beyond that, most people don't want to do things they think are immoral- you have to convince them it's important, a necessary lesser evil. You teach them to sacrifice their morals, too.
The way they train soldiers to follow orders and to kill, is to convince them that they, and the people around them, and the people they care about, will all die if they don't. It's drilled into your head from day one. It's the way they ensure their commanding officers won't shy away from sending their men off to die. The message is constant- sacrifice is your duty, and duty ensures your people's survival.
In the Director's eyes, the damage Project Freelancer caused was his sacrifice. He never got the opportunity to sacrifice himself during the war- so he sacrificed others, as military brass do. The Freelancers- including his daughter. The countless sim troopers. Any people he considered "collateral damage" on missions. And when the opportunity to do so presented itself, he sacrificed a copy of himself- Alpha- and he sacrificed a copy of Allison- Tex.
The very thing that derailed his life- the loss of his wife- he made it happen again. He put her copy in dangerous situations, let her exist in the position of constant repeated failure, created the circumstances that would eventually lead to her death. He put their daughter in deadly situations that nearly killed her repeatedly, provided her with impossible expectations leading to self-destructive behaviours in the name of duty, implanted her with two AI knowing they could cause her permanent harm. He was confident he "would have made those sacrifices himself" because he did.
The Director is the embodiment of the military war machine. As an antagonist, he is a warning against buying into the glorification of sacrifice. He's a condemnation of the idea that one should be willing to do anything to win a war- that duty to the military is the thing that ensures survival... All the messages that are pushed to ensure recruitment and obedience of soldiers.
He's a reminder that swallowing the propaganda leads to you doing terrible things... and in the end, you're a broken man left mourning the losses that you suffered even as you repeated them, convinced that it was all necessary.
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I really like your nejisasuneji fanart!I think the similarity between Neji and Sasuke in Naruto is worth exploring. Both of them come from the pupil aristocracy, and their strength is about the same (the early Byakugan and Sharingan are both very strong), and both of them are rebels. Regardless of whether it was fate or the system, both people failed in the end. Neji still failed to escape fate and became a scapegoat. Sasuke finally compromised to the old system and ran around in order to maintain the status quo. It is very appropriate to use one sentence to evaluate the two people: "Those who try to control their destiny end up being controlled by destiny."It will be interesting for the sasuneji two to help each other: Sasuke helps Neji reform the Hyuga clan and break the curse seal of the caged bird. At the same time, the reform of the Hyuga clan becomes the beginning of the reform of the old system of the ninja world. Neji, who is no longer controlled by the caged bird, becomes Sasuke's right-hand man.
yesssss this is what drew me to them! i find it very interesting they are both clan prodigies with Baggage and both come from prestigious clans no less. remember when the sharingan and byakugan were compared to each other and it meant anything ever that was FUN.
i particularly enjoy the idea of contrasting them because If I Wrote Naruto (said every naruto fan ever) this conflict of like. sasuke goes on to be the one who could Not bear to stay in konoha and then later turns against it, vs neji who stayed in konoha after being promised that things would change (and they didn't. funny that) would be something to be explored! especially after Both having been seen as Shitty, Angry Prodigies. but neji "calmed down" after being made promises that weren't kept and sasuke didn't let himself even consider falling for stuff like that (until the ending of naruto lmfao)
i'm a big fan of characters who contrast like that lol and i think the whole sharingan vs byakugan thing is a very fun backdrop to that. like dreams/illusions vs reality/truth? come on now.
people joke about it a lot i've seen, but literally if neji as a character were allowed to 1. exist in a meaningful way at all in shippuden lmfao 2. interact with sasuke, i do think it'd be an easy path for interesting interactions, because like. having to defend the village who's literally never helped you, against the guy who was also Never given any assistance or support growing up, AFTER the village made you countless promises that your life would get better when it literally did not? lol. lmao even
them teaming up is sincerely on the like top 5 best things that would happen If Naruto Made Any Sense to me to be honest i do think about it a lot.
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