gogurt

Megumi: sorry I didn’t get you a present 😔

Yuji: you’re my present 🥰😏

i have been obsessed with the way mappa has been portraying how yuuji and megumi are walking down the same path but divided during the culling game. and i am especially obsessed with this frame. not only with how yuuji is walking in the light, while megumi is walking in the shadows, but also the way yuuji’s side has so much shadow seeping into it. and not to bring up chapter 266 for the millionth time, but it really did remind me of when yuuji said ever since coming to jujutsu high, i’ve been floded with all these awful thoughts. yuuji carries so much. he blames himself for so much. yet he still tries to walk his path in the light. megumi doesn’t. he doesn’t care how much he stains himself if it means he can save those he sees as good. his selfishness to choose who he saves makes him selfless when it comes to giving away too much of himself.

when yuuji is clearly worried and disheartened that he will have to kill people again, megumi tells him that he won’t have to because he has a few ideas. and while, yes, the main reason megumi wants to add the rule is so tsumiki won’t have to participate in the killing. it is also for yuuji’s sake. because megumi is aware that yuuji ate that finger because of him. and because megumi is aware that yuuji now has to play by those rules because megumi asked for his help, asked for yuuji to start by saving him. he is aware that the dark depths of his shadows are spilling over yuuji, that he's dragging him further into the darkness with him. so he at least wants for yuuji to be able to keep is humanity. even if megumi's willing to shed away his own. because megumi isn’t like yuuji. he will kill if the situation forces his hand.

and it does, so megumi kills. and he’s brutal. bashing a player’s head with his sword and then slicing through it. it isn’t a kind kill. it's ugly. it’s desperate. but would you expect anything else from a boy who has been shaped by the jujutsu society into someone who’s been walking with death since he was just a kid? someone who’s lost so much and doesn’t want to lose anything else. someone who doesn’t want to loose his sister too. megumi kills because of his selfish selflessness. but there is a point to it. right?

except, when the rationalising falls away, what is waiting in the shadows but the awful feeling? the heavy scent of blood. the crushing realisation. and it hits especially hard when you think about what higuruma asked yuuji. have you ever killed anyone of your own will? didn’t it feel awful? because of yuuji’s admitting to a crime he didn’t commit, because of yuuji’s overflowing guilt, higuruma was able to take a step back and reflect on his own actions. that’s why he said that if he were to stay by yuuji’s side, he would end up hating himself even more. yuuji forced him into a moment of reflection.

there is a moment of stillness after megumi kills the player that servers a similar purpose as yuuji does for higuruma. the closeup to megumi’s bloodied sword. the slow dripping of blood. the drip drip, spilling on the ground, shattering the quiet. and also shattering megumi’s firm belief that he was fine with killing because there was a point to it. because in that moment he asks himself what am i doing?

Linked footnotes

Customized page dividers

Sticky notes

Lined paper

Paper that looks stacked on top of each other

Old looking paper

Newspaper articles

Tumblr posts

iOS text messages

Emails

Fake ao3 authors notes and kudos button

Freaking discord chats

Its fucking amazing. Ao3 is fucking amazing. Can I legally marry a website?