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Like, no, he’s not saying he’s not Ranpo’s friend he’s saying he’s not Ranpo’s fanboy. The appropriate response when someone assumes you are a fanboy of the man who’s both your rival and friend is that you are his rival, because rival is more contradictory to fanboy. You can be someone’s fanboy and friend very easily, but not fanboy and rival. Of course it’s possible but being a fanboy also implies a particular power dynamic(? Not sure if that’s the right word) where you are somewhat lesser in that specific field, which Poe refuses to imply because the man has an ego either the same size or somewhat lesser than Ranpo himself.

Poe himself has an ego the size of the moon, it’s just not as evident because he despises social interaction, not because he’s shy but because everyone is utterly insufferable and refuses to be on their level. That’s also the reason why he was so insulted by Ranpo winning in the battle of wits, it’s because he was just humiliated in front of a bunch of people he viewed as lesser than himself.

He gets along so well with Ranpo because Ranpo doesn’t crush those beliefs, if anything he endorses them with his own belief that he is better than everyone making Poe feel special by being special to Ranpo.

Ranpo and Poe are in a perpetual state of constantly making each others ego bigger, because with the better Ranpo is, the better Poe is, and Poe is constantly trying to challenge Ranpo making Ranpo better.

Don’t take this as me saying the irl Edgar Allan Poe was egotistical, he just tended to mainly write through the lens of an incredibly egocentric and hypocritical person.

Ranpo is under the responsibility of knowing something that he should not know. Yokomizo wanted his death to be unsolvable, it was his dying wish, and Ranpo solved it. I’m quite sure that Ranpo does feel guilty about this and it’s why he is so sympathetic with Mushitarō. He ruined the dying wish of the most important person to his new friend.

Poe is where most similarities are obvious. They’re both mystery authors with a blatant fascination with the murder method and the goal of an unsolvable mystery. It can also be seen in how they interact with Mushitarō, they both really annoy Mushitarō with simply enjoying their passion and find it endearing when he gets mad at them. It can and sometimes does come across as outwardly teasing him.

A fun little tidbit is also the fact that no one knows how the irl Edgar Allan Poe died! Most believe it to be alcohol poisoning but that was proven false, others think it was suicide. There are many different ways people speculate his death, but so far no one knows.He was simply found one day in another persons clothing out in the street. No injuries or anything to prove the truth of his death, similar to Yokomizo in bsd.

I really don’t think I need to get into Yokomizo and Mushitarō’s relationship, I’m sure you get the point.

We have the lack of choices

Itadori and his lack of choice in his execution, Gojo being the strongest and how it allows more autonomy than others but still not being able to completely control his situations, the entire misogyny situation in the clans, Fushiguro being sold to the clan and not being allowed to live a normal life with his sister, the entire concept of reincarnated sorcerers taking over normal peoples bodies, Yaga literally dying for creating autonomy, plus more.

We have choices

Fushiguro’s choices between who to save and being firm in his own moral decisions, Kugisaki refusing to let people control her, Yaga’s cursed corpses and the freedom he creates in his students, Kamo’s first choice of cutting his hair, Mai sacrificing herself, etc

Not to mention the main antagonists; Sukuna who does what he wants when he wants to do them and Kenjaku’s experiments due to his curiosity which turns around their autonomy to them removing the autonomy of others(Fushiguro + Choso’s mom)

Wasuke being Itadori’s role model literally saved everyone in this dang show, even with how he treated his son. Warning him about how something has happened to Kaori and that is no longer her, but allowing him to stay cause it’s Jin’s choice. Wasuke taught Itadori the concept of autonomy during his death and likely beforehand by staying true to himself and his choices.

That’s why it was so important for Itadori to be raised outside of sorcery where choices are nearly non-existent and how Itadori allowing other people choices no matter what overall saves everyone.

The literal move that saves everyone is Itadori’s decision to give Fushiguro the choice to continue living, no matter the consequences if he decides not to. Quite frankly the first time another person in Fushiguro’s entire life that another person allowed him to make a choice.

Everything in this dang series eventually comes down to autonomy.

I’ve seen people think they wouldn’t because of their takes on morality arguing that Fushiguro wouldn’t like him because of his willingness to kill hurt those who hurt him. Junpei on the other hand being uncomfortable with Fushiguro’s bluntness and intimidating nature, but I personally disagree,

Fushiguro’s mentality is heavily dependent on his comparison to good vs bad people, where the scale itself is incredibly flawed due to Tsumiki’s influence and his idolization of her, which in turn caused an effect where he idolizes anyone who is her level of good. However he still views those type of people as annoying for their—in his opinion—willingness to let people who hurt them hurt them again(his view of forgiveness). This thought process leaves him in a position where he feels a sort-of obligation to protect them because they won’t protect themselves.

This mentality lead him down a spiral where he has no self-worth as he himself is not on a Tsumiki’s level of good, in fact in comparison he is down in the pits.

Of course that means there is layers, there is an in-between, not between good & bad, but between bad & bad and good & good.

There are bad people who will hurt others for no good reason, and bad people who will hurt others based on their own beliefs(Fushiguro).

This might seem to go against my earlier idea of Fushiguro and Junpei getting along, but Fushiguro himself is heavily hypocritical and holds himself to a higher standard, where even if someone scales to his level or even just a smidgen lower, he will still view them as better than himself. Only a smidgen though.

Junpei fits into this scale slightly(VERY slightly) lower, though with Fushiguro’s hypocrisy he would be higher… likely due to Junpei’s mentality being made based on his own victim hood and lack of interference by others.

Junpei’s mentality is a lot more self-centred. He doesn’t really care much about people around him unless they get involved with him. The only important people in Junpei’s life(prior to Itadori and Mahito) were his Mother and his bullies(somewhat his teachers too). His mother sort of being his Tsumiki, not in a morality way but instead his good person. The one person who treats him nicely. But Junpei doesn’t put things on a scale, there is no overall morality, it’s simply self-defence. He hates those who hurt him(in contrast to Fushiguro’s hate to those who hurt others) and likes those who are nice to him. A very simple mentality.

Now! Onto the actual fun part!

Fushiguro finds absolutely nothing wrong with self-defence. In fact he gets annoyed with people who don’t utilize it(good people who forgive). Junpei’s mentality does not counter that, Fushiguro’s more likely to justify it in his own head as Junpei finally fighting back, which he likes people doing.

Junpei’s self-centred mentality quite literally means should Fushiguro just treat him with respect he will have no problems with him. Junpei would probably get a comfort in knowing that Fushiguro does not disagree with his mentality, and even likes it to an extent.

I am disappointed in how short this part was in comparison to the rest.

Fushiguro and Nanami are two different takes on the same perspective towards the same subject, what I mean by this is their approach and their choices.

Firstly, we need to take a look at what Yaga introduces sorcery as. This is not some fun fighting event, this is not a game, it is a fight for your life that will never end, and the likeliness of surviving past thirty is rare and highly unlikely. That is what the series introduced sorcery as. Not something positive, something dangerous and decaying. You will be cursed or you will curse others. Unless you are already crazy, you will die.

What’s highly important when thinking of this is what it means to have a cursed technique. You will be a sorcerer. The second you gain a cursed technique there is an expectation for you to be a sorcerer, it is not a noble job, you will be forgotten. Once you have a cursed technique you are expected to die.

Where we see how deteriorating sorcery is best is Fushiguro and Nanami. The expectation is set on them both, you will die before 30 and they learn this from young ages. Jujutsu high is a high school and the survival rates for that are still low.

Nanami becomes a sorcerer and sees first hand that survival rate. His friend dies and he becomes another part of the statistic that is stated, and he realizes he won’t survive this, and he becomes the only character in the series who we see put their life above their expectations.

With Fushiguro he is forced into that life. Forced into a life where people make sure to tell you that you will die before being an adult. What that tells people is their worth, and that their worth is low and not expected to be high.

Fushiguro is forced into a life where he is certain he will die, because everyone says so, and he knows that he has no worth.

Sorcerers are expected to die, you will not retire, you will not leave, you will not go against it, you will die what is considered by everyone else a premature death but to those who know will be considered living long.

This is damaging on mental health, and you will feel unmotivated to try and survive because at every point in your life you are preparing to die. You will die with regrets because you will die and your preparations will not be enough.

Fushiguro’s self-esteem issues, lack of care for his life, idolatry towards his sister, and morals all stem at least partially from Gojo. To say he was a good figure in his life would be to ignore all this.

The reason why ward and mentor suit their relationship so well is because Gojo doesn’t take Fushiguro’s actual issues into account. The whole speech he had with Fushiguro about how dying to win and risking death to win are different? He didn’t bother actually trying to find the cause of why he’s so willing to die to win, which is what a good parental figure would do.

He looks at Fushiguro’s potential and the things that are blocking it first and doesn’t bother with why Fushiguro has those things blocking it.

Gojo looks at what and how but doesn’t look at the why.

So many of Fushiguro’s actual mental issues could have been fixed if someone in his life actually tried.

Fushiguro wouldn’t idolise his sister as the pinnacle of goodness if someone in his life actually showed they were worried about him too.

Fushiguro wouldn’t try to summon Makora so often if someone looked at why he was so willing to die and took it into account.

Fushiguro wouldn’t want to die if someone bothered to look at him and tell him he doesn’t have to be a sorcerer.

What being a sorcerer overall means is you will die an early death. Fushiguro being forced by other people to be a sorcerer sends a message that he is not needed alive.

What game would you erase from your memory just to experience it for the first time again?

Feed your dashboard by answering my question, blogger.

I’m a little unsure if this counts as analysis but we ball(also just couldn’t come up with a better title)

To clarify what I actually mean when I say the incredibly long title I just came up with, I’m talking about what shows us who to trust more simply based on what they’ve already said, so there won’t be much talking of demeanour or anything else, mainly dialogue.

I’m gonna try mainly covering the new sorcerer vs old sorcerer argument, because Fushiguro was right with what he said about how they should trust new sorcerers over the old ones, and honestly just the fact that Remi tried to make him dismiss the idea is already suspicious.

Amai is pretty obviously a new sorcerer with the fact that he immediately gave proof of it, no old sorcerer should know Itadori’s nickname from middle school, also the fact that he even recognized Itadori in the first place. Also, his fashion sense. That’s a high schooler.

Remi, on the other hand, has given literally no proof at all that she’s a new sorcerer despite her claims. The closest we get to evidence is the fact that she even knows a city name—which is a city name that would be fast to learn— which isn’t much considering should one of them be lying, they’re leading them to something, and at this point the most common thing to lead someone to would be another person, a person who might actually know stuff about the city.

To also breach on her fashion sense cause I did the same for Amai, that outfit consists of things that were more popular back in older times, as well as fighting a death game in a dress which makes hardly any sense unless she’s just used to looser clothing(similar to older times).

Of course this still leaves the possibility that Amai is still up to something even if Remi is obviously the one lying. I don’t have much to argue against that, this is about who to trust more not who to trust.

I don’t think people who assume Dragon Boy(might use Liang Long just cause it’s easier to type) joined Yan Mo and is happily going along with him understand his character, even saying he wasn’t manipulated and groomed.

Liang Long is a victim who grew comfortable in his abuse. He’s not going to argue or be upset like many other victims portrayed in media, and that sets the idea that he’s doing this of his will and enjoyment, but that’s not what’s happening.

I think we have to start with what Yan Mo promised Liang Long and Liang Long’s description of what he means by trash.

I’ve seen some people think he means ALL people or bad people, and while bad people isn’t inherently wrong it’s still too ambiguous.

We are told upright just by his character sheet that all people aren’t trash to him, he helps children cross the road and participates in volunteer work, it’s clear just by that that Liang Long is someone who cares, about people—and since it’s not clarified what volunteer work—it can be assumed he does all sorts of different community service, so someone who cares for the environment as well.

Bad people, as I said, is too ambiguous in my opinion, not giving a good view of who he thinks as bad people, we don’t know the criteria, but there is something I would think of as a better descriptor:

Dangerous people.

We’ve seen Liang Long call quite a few people trash, in every scenario being in a fight(I say as though we’ve seen him out of a fight before) with the only one exception—the first he ever saw as trash—his parents as they leave him to drown.

Each of these occasions happen when Liang Long is or was in danger, even if we don’t know the context of the PV we know they were criminals, who didn’t seem to be implied as simple robbers. They had weapons and masks and nothing else, it’s very easy to assume they were or were planning to attack someone.

Liang Long views someone who’s willing to hurt someone—including himself—as someone who is trash and needs to be cleaned up. What Yan Mo essentially promised to Liang Long is that he will have the power to get rid of dangerous people if he becomes Zero, if he becomes Zero, he and other people will be safe.

That’s even in his power. Liang Long will get more powerful the more hits he takes, so he always makes sure to start on the defence, never making the first move. He makes sure he stays in a position of self-defence, till he’s able to eliminate the threat.

Yan Mo promised eventual safety to an abuse victim if that abuse victim follows through with what he says. He tells that victim that he will go through more pain and—as long as he can handle it—he will become strong enough to be safe.

In the movie he’s a mechanical rabbit, in the book he’s the white rabbit.

In the movie this is clearly something he’s been thinking about for a while, in his head he is a mechanical white rabbit. He was made with no human sentiment. His only purpose is to make this walk last longer. Entice whoever is winning to keep going, not out of care for life, but for his own gain of his father’s attention, he doesn’t even say if he has a which in the movie, because he has hardly any intentions on winning, just his father’s attention. It’s not something that hits him till the last second that he actually can lose, he can die before his goal, and instead of saying that there’s been a malfunction in the rabbit, he says that the rabbit is flesh. He thinks of himself as a tool, and just now he’s realized that he is not, so he doesn’t blame the malfunction, he blames the body.

On the contrary, book Stebbins doesn’t think of himself as something robotic and he only says he’s a rabbit because of Garraty’s inaccurate comparison. He isnt the caterpillar, he isn’t bothered by the other’s presence, and he’s not here to help them. He’s the white rabbit and Garraty is Alice. Stebbins makes sure Garraty keeps going because he can tell that Garraty will follow this white rabbit till he catches up, even if he doesn’t understand why he needs to catch up. Stebbins was looking for an Alice, because once again, he needs this walk to last. He wants to have tea with his father after all. Stebbins in the book does want to win, he just wants the walk to last a bit longer before he does, so his father can be proud of him when he has his tea.

That’s why he’s second place, he has the goal of winning the walk, he wants his father around long term, while Stebbins in the movies who’s third place is more focused on having the attention for just a second even.

You can look at any of his dialogue pretty much and just see plainly the doubt and anxiety constantly with him. You can see it in his shaking, in him literally hitting himself, everything points to him expecting and thinking the worst.

But that’s only because of his experiences. He’s been taught through other people to expect the worst when it comes to their behaviour towards him, making him expect the worst when meeting someone new and yet, he still tries to make friends.

Despite everything he tells himself continuously that this time can be different, this time they won’t hate him, and he’s still constantly wrong.

He expects the worst from what the world taught him and he despises that, because his need for human connection is so much stronger than his fear of being hurt.

He actively doubts that he’ll ever make friends, that anyone in the world won’t hate him, and instead of listening to that, he tries his best to ignore it, because he desperately wants to be positive.

But the second that he’s shown someone might not like him, he responds with vitriol, because he doesn’t think that people can change. The idea of someone changing their mind eventually on how they feel about him doesn’t exist to him, because it’s never happened.

Yes, I do write character analyses for fun, but I have read a book with the rudest character ever and won’t realize until someone points it out, and then be convinced they weren’t that bad because I didn’t think they were that bad.

I could in fact probably read a book where a character calls someone else a slur and still not think of them as a jerk, I dunno why, it just flies over my head(yes this has happened multiple times)

Movies are a difference scenario because I can hardly hear the characters talking most of the time and I’ll forget scenes(I don’t watch movies often).

This also works with common phrases, someone will say a specific phrase to describe someone and I just won’t catch on to what they mean. Not with metaphors though, I typically catch those.

Nine times out of ten they’ll turn into my favourite character too, so yes. I am convinced that of if I read the long walk I’d still like Barkovitch(his name sounds like the b-word)