The Parallels Between The Thunder Siblings And The Tsugikuni Twins Run Deep. Starting With Kaigaku And

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Mermaid Nami for @namiartcollab

i understand why people are upset about gojo's ending, but it definitely aligns to what gege planned for him as a character. not many people (if more than one: suguru) really cared about gojo satoru beyond the facet of being the strongest sorcerer alive, their main weapon, the six eyes.

from beginning to end, from birth to death, gojo satoru was made to serve jujutsu society.

you can count on one hand how many times the other characters are shown to really care about his mental, emotional and physical status beyond the fact that he can actually fight to protect them and the world. this is just how his relationship with others was. he was more an entity than anything else.

the few who got close (suguru and arguably sukuna) and tried to get close (shoko, yuji, yuta...) were still met with a barried he put between himself and other people, mostly because gojo himself recognized his role as the strongest, and to a point even enjoyed it. he didn't care for his family, had a few friends and wasn't even the typical mentor figure you usually see in anime. even the way megumi talks about the years they spent together is proof of that.

the people in this world mourning him as the strongest is something they need to do. but people mourning him as gojo satoru, the man, don't really exist in it anymore.

gojo only cultivated superficial relationships with every and anyone that came his way because he actually acknowledged his importance to the world. that doesn't mean, somewhere, somehow, deep within himself he didn't long for it. unfortunately, he didn't achieve that in his lifetime.

gojo wasn't written to be a happy character. he was written to show what the pinnacle of jujutsu society has to offer: tragedy, loneliness and war. however, that doesn't mean he was unfulfilled with it: he liked being the strongest, he liked fighting, he liked being gojo satoru.

people who cared about him, he acknowledged them. helping his students, his friends and colleagues. people who didn't, he dismissed. that's who he was.

so no. i don't think people "moving on" from his death is out of character. i think it's pretty much spot on to his character setting. he had his own version of a happy ending: dying in battle against his greatest enemy, meeting a loved one in the after life, and helping build a better society/world to the youth he fiercely fought to protect.

i think that, for him, in a sense, it was enough. for the fans... that's another story.

Yeah we should’ve known something was wrong with Akutagawa after he said “I bare no grudge.”

Single most pettiest man in this entire series if he bares no ill will to the people who fucked with him.

Somethings amiss.

Hello everyone.🥹

Did you know that here in Gaza, between 600 and 500 people die every day, including children, women, and men, and no one sees me or knows about us? Did you know that the crossings are closed and there is no food or drink? Did you know that the doctor told me that my fetus is in danger and that I must eat healthy food and take injections until my pregnancy is complete?

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hey bsd fans! who else jumping off a cliff with me in january 2025

I’ve always wondered if Kyouka and Chuuya ever interacted during her PM days bc she’s literally Kouyou and Verlaine’s mentee

Anyway, I would love your thoughts on a family dinner of those four it would be insane

oh, I have lots of thoughts about Verlaine's les enfants

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Lucy: an Emphasis on Vulnerability 🫧

(Note: this is a write-up from eight months ago that I very recently edited, so... not new, but certainly improved lol)

If I had to settle on just one thing, my favorite aspect of Lucy’s character would definitely be how her emphasis on vulnerability shapes her relationship with Atsushi. It’s something I appreciate more and more every time I comb through her appearances…

… which I do because I’m starved for Lucy content, rip. ༎ຶ‿༎ຶ

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No, but seriously. If you ask me, Lucy doesn't entirely avoid the pitfall of the archetypal tsundere who’s bad at being vulnerable, sporting her fair share of arbitrary hot-and-cold moments. But while she isn’t a full-on deconstruction, it wouldn’t be fair to call her played straight, either.

For one, her criticisms of Atsushi are, more often than not, genuine criticisms, not simply deflections, and “being vulnerable” encompasses considerably more than just “admitting her crush.” Furthermore, being bad at vulnerability is, by itself, not the crux of her conflict; it's being bad at vulnerability while at the same time valuing vulnerability above all else. Let me explain.

Prior to her epiphany on the Moby Dick, Lucy resented Atsushi for having found people who – in her mind anyway – valued him unconditionally, considering him privileged on this front. Meanwhile, the man she worked for was a literal power tycoon, and at no point did she express the same envy toward him. This wasn’t hypocrisy on her part – not necessarily. If anything, it was a subtle hint at the way she thinks. She doesn't measure “privilege” by how rich or well-off someone is, rather, by whether or not they've found a place to belong.

This checks out in more ways than one. After all, Lucy’s only real goal while in the Guild was belonging, and she went above and beyond to achieve said goal. Hell, she crafted an entire persona around the villainous role she'd been assigned, all in the hopes that she’d win Fitzgerald’s favor and be kept around. And when that went awry, she allowed herself to become a maid – a source of menial labor, not too far a cry from her orphanage roots – just to avoid being alone.

She didn't care about the money or the benefits (in stark contrast to why most of the other members were there), and though she was eager to engage in villainy if it meant painting over her victimhood, she just barely tolerated being a villain, viewing it more as a means to an end than anything worthwhile.

It’s no coincidence, then, that she turned seemingly on a dime when Atsushi prompted her to re-evaluate her victimhood. She was receptive to his appeal not to abandon her past self, not just because he’d made himself “credible” in her eyes by revealing his scars, but also because – ultimately – a change of heart for her was as simple as lowering a mask.

Presently, Lucy is Atsushi's caring critic first and foremost.

She frequently calls into question his reckless heroism, i.e., his tendency to dive headfirst into danger for the sake of being a hero, thereby validating his existence. It’s a habit born of the Headmaster’s abuse – one he continues to cling to, and one she consistently challenges.

Hell, Lucy’s very introduction posed a challenge to Atsushi’s reckless heroism in the sense that, try as he might, he couldn't save her, only defeat her. Conventional heroism – the kind he used to save Kyōka, for example – was simply not enough...

... and lo and behold, it wasn't his strength that got through to Lucy, rather, his vulnerability.

But while Lucy is a blatant reversal of the way Atsushi often views his relationships (that is, through a lens of heroism) – and though she already understands Atsushi on a level most don’t, simply by virtue of perceiving his victimhood (as he does hers) – she also expects more from him than just salvation. Including just by existing, she presents a conflict that demands Atsushi be more of a person than a hero.

Their farewell “promise” is a prime example of this.

Bottom line is, it was never a real promise; Lucy knew full well that neither of them would be able to follow through. It was a last-ditch effort on her part to ensure Atsushi's well-being, knowing he was hellbent on jumping either way.

She appealed to Atsushi’s narrative by presenting an incentive for heroism, with the implicit condition that, in order to come back for her, he'd first have to… y’know, survive. Unbeknownst to Atsushi, though, salvation was never truly on Lucy’s agenda.

So in other words, the one time she did feed into his reckless heroism, it wasn’t to be saved, rather, to make him promise to live another day without his even realizing it. 

Post-Guild arc, this trend continues, albeit in different ways.

When Atsushi performs his aforementioned hero-dives in Lucy's presence, she tells him off for it.

In chapter 43, Cherrirs!, her upbraiding Atsushi for almost drowning is, notably, the first mention of his victory against the Guild that isn't an accolade. His fellow detectives have praised him left and right for it, and the Yokohama newspaper hails him (rightly) as the city’s savior. But Lucy’s reaction is another thing entirely. Is she in awe of his achievement? Absolutely. That's not what she focuses on, though. She focuses on him, insisting that he show a little self-preservation, like a person would. 

When he tries to insert himself into others’ plights uninvited, she intercepts him.

She doesn't appreciate his repeated attempts to be the hero in situations that aren't his to be the hero in, and urges him instead to let people fight their own battles – again, like a person would.

When he fumbles in his relationships, she confronts him. In contrast to Kyōka, who earlier in Cherrirs! indicates that she doesn't really require anything from Atsushi – just being around him is enough – Lucy requires him to talk things out with her. After the Moby Dick goes down and they don't see each other for a while, Atsushi more or less forgets about her. In his mind, Lucy asked him to save her, he wasn’t able to, she got off the ship by herself... and that might as well be the end of it. He doesn’t consider the possibility that their interaction meant more to her than a failed promise of heroism; that she might expect him to remember her as a person, not just forget her as someone he couldn't save.

When the people close to him don't consider how their being hurt or killed might affect him, she reminds them. When Kyōka recklessly tries to leave Anne's Room in chapter 118, Mystifying Being, Lucy stops her, pointing out how devastated Atsushi would be if anything were to happen to her. In doing so, she applies her philosophy of person > hero to Atsushi and Kyōka both at the same time. She encourages Kyōka to be more than just a hero by telling her to think of how it would impact Atsushi as a person if she died.

Atsushi doesn’t want the Headmaster's words haunting him forever. His ultimate goal, albeit unconscious, is to grow into his own person – a person who believes in themselves and doesn’t base their entire worth off of one attribute. Lucy is someone who pushes him toward that goal, if also unconsciously. Like Akutagawa, she doesn't think Atsushi's trauma defines him. She may not be informed of the specifics – of the Headmaster’s role in it all – but she continues to see Atsushi as more than just a hero, and treats him accordingly.

It’s worth noting, too, that – by the Guild Aftermath arc – Lucy has already gotten what she was after all along, and so it’s no wonder she hasn’t expressed any desire to join the Agency. In her Guild days, she never truly wanted to be a villain. It makes perfect sense, then, that – upon being dissuaded from villainy – she wouldn’t simply “default” to heroism. Unlike Kyōka, her watershed realization wasn't that she wanted to save people, rather that, through "imagination" (read: empathy), loneliness could be vanquished. Belonging is Lucy’s ultimate goal, and she’s nothing if not consistent.

As it often goes with tsunderes, being vulnerable isn't Lucy’s strong suit. That's why her go-to method of conveying her care for Atsushi is yelling at him to stop being so thoughtless. That's why her comforting skills could use some serious work.

And that's why, at one point, she absentmindedly reveals to Atsushi how much his Moby Dick display meant to her, only to backpedal.

But for all she dances around the subject of her crush on Atsushi, feigning indifference or even hostility, their shared vulnerability is like a precious gem to her. So naturally, her feelings of debt toward him, as implied in the above interaction, stand regardless of his many failures to save her in the conventional hero way. After all, he saved her in the way she values most: as a person.

For a time, all Lucy was capable of giving in return for Atsushi’s “ultimate favor” was conventional heroism – or in other words, many a close call and many a trip to Anne’s Room. That, of course, brought up a whole new dilemma: if conventional heroism was a worthless currency, but vulnerability was just out of reach, how could Lucy ever come close to repaying her debt? She didn't know. All she did know was that she had to pay him back one way or another, and that’s where her most glaring flaw – her quid-pro-quo mindset – came into play.

Lucy's quid-pro-quo mindset, seen mostly (though not exclusively) in her relationship with Atsushi, is her most glaring flaw because it undermines the values and priorities that make her, well… her. It’s a relic of her time in the Guild – a time defined by a strict (and frankly damaging) principle of transaction: usefulness in exchange for not being alone. It makes it so she's driven to help Atsushi out of a sense of indebtedness, rather than out of the same genuine care – the same emphasis on personhood and vulnerability – by which she would be driven otherwise. Furthermore, it inspires recklessness and self-sacrifice, two qualities she openly discourages in Atsushi.

It goes without saying, then, that the events of the Sky Casino arc were a major leap forward (no pun intended) for her. When Atsushi saved her from Nathaniel, thereby repaying her for her acts of service as he’d promised so many times he would, she realized that – just as her care for Atsushi doesn’t depend on his being a hero, Atsushi's care for her doesn’t depend on her being vulnerable. The illusion was shattered.

Ah, the wonders of character development. ✨

Thanks for reading!

for atsushi to comment on akutagawa’s eyes here makes me crazy because of how much it means

in a manga where the artist visually portrays character mood and morality in their eyes, especially during key moments, this means a lot

atsushi recognizes those eyes… he recognizes akutagawa’s true character and his virtue, he’s no longer holding a morality bias over him

he understands him, finally…

akutagawa might not recognize him but atsushi remembers

and he understands now.

Boy is making himself so dizzy