I post mainly Tolkien-related things, with an emphasis on the Silmarillion. You may also see some other stuff I'm currently obsessed with. Many thanks to @gandalfwho for letting me use this amazing drawing of the Witch King as an icon!
genuinely i donât think itâs possible to easily explain the explicit part of online friendships to people who donât Understand. i donât mean like, explicit in the sense of âoh youâre sextingâ or whatever. no. i mean when you and your friend start gleefully making up explicit sexual scenarios for your shared blorbos and you get giddier and giddier as you add more detail and youâll be grinning at your screen as you type away at mach speeds. and itâs entirely nonsexual in an interpersonal sense, youâre not really getting Into it, but ohhhhh itâs soooooo fun and satisfying. and you can NEVER tell someone who doesnât also do this that your mood is actively improved like fivefold because you and your friend played Sexual Tuoys together because theyâll go âwhat the FUCK.â
speaking of the 1st ep, insane that when gojo beats sukunas ass and sits on him, sukuna has his eyes on megumi. i dont rlly see this brought up anywhere but i winced when i 1st saw it like whaaat is going on here. and then nothing happened till fearsome womb arc. it was like a foreshadowing of foreshadowing
i think about it all the time. let me find the shot
first time they look at each other properly.
its haunting me. they did it to haunt me, specifically.
the strongest sorcerer in history. kneeling. in front of megumi.
a while back i did a little pseudo-comic with meg and this screencap i just redrew. because its That insane.
Suguru's leg twitches against his, and he lowers his can of Sprite from his lips. His head turns sharply so he can look directly at Satoru. Satoru had already been staring at the side of Suguruâs face, watching the way his bangs tickled his cheek in the breeze, watching his slow, cat-like blinks, watching the long line of his neck as he drank his soda, watching him lick his lips after each swallow. Their eyes meet.
Suguru's eyes narrow. âWhat do I think?â
Satoru nods. âAbout boobs.â His own can of soda is sitting next to his hip on the bench, empty. His hands are gripping his knees, holding tight over the fabric of his uniform pants. His palms are sweating. He can feel the prickle of it in his skin and the dampness through his pants. He peers over his glasses, looking right into Suguru's eyes.
âI thinkâŚthey're boobsâŚâ Suguru says haltingly, starting to frown.
Satoru wrinkles his nose slightly.
âCâmon, Suguru. There are small boobs, large boobs, round boobs, teardrop shaped boobs, hanging boobs, boobs with pink nipââ
âOkay.â Suguru's nostrils flare the way they always do when he finds Satoru to be ridiculous. At least, that's what Satoru thinks. He's never actually asked Suguru what he's feeling when his nostrils start to twitch. Heâs worried that if he asks, Suguru will stop doing it.
Suguru looks away from him now, looking down at his soda in his lap, and he fiddles with the canâs tab.
âDon't you thinkâŚthat's pretty personal?â Suguru asks carefully.
âEveryone has boobs, Suguru,â Satoru points out. He barely blinks, watching the furrow of Suguruâs brow fade as his frown unfurls bit by bit.
Those words seem to relax something in Suguru, and he smiles, lifting his head to look back at Satoru again.
âYeah? Everyone?â The sunlight catches in the violet of Suguruâs gaze.
Satoru nods, rubbing his palms against his knees for a moment. Then he reaches out and grabs a handful of Suguru's pecs over his jacket, giving a light squeeze.
âYeah. You've got big boobs and brown nipples.â
Suguru laughs, and Satoru can feel it under his hand, deep in Suguruâs chest. At least he can until Suguru stands up, moving out from under Satoru's touch.
âAlright. Let's head back to campus, Mr. Pink Nipples,â Suguru says.
Satoru jumps up, flinging his empty soda into the trash can without looking, and throws his arm over Suguru's shoulders.
âYou been looking?â Satoru grins, a quivering warmth in his belly. He adjusts his shades, pushing them higher up on the bridge of his nose with his knuckles. He always wishes he could ask Suguru to touch that quiver inside of him. He imagines it'd feel really nice. He only ever feels it around Suguru after all. He just doesn't know how to reach it since heâs not sure where it comes from.
Suguru's smile is easy as they walk. His shoulders broad under Satoru's arm. His body warm and solid against Satoruâs side.
âEveryone has eyes, Satoru.â
âAnd yours have been looking at my nipples?â Satoru pushes.
Suguru grabs him suddenly, throwing his arms around his waist and yanking him down and sideways. They grapple, turning in toward each other to try to grab the other in a headlock. But Suguru always seems to best him when it comes to wrestling. He manages to get Satoru in front of him, twisted sideways, with Satoruâs lower back pressed to his belly. Satoruâs left hand smacks at the outside of Suguruâs thigh while his right reaches up and back to scrabble at his shoulder. He can hear Suguru laugh behind him, breathy and hot in the afternoon heat. Satoru squirms, feet starting to lift off the ground as Suguru leans back and pulls him.
He wonders if he could convince Suguru to slide his hand up from his waist. To reach up and touch his chest instead.
That brief thought is all it takes for Suguru to finish him off. He picks Satoru up completely, carrying him bodily like heâs a toddler whoâs throwing a temper tantrum and needs to be carried out of the park. Satoru laughs too, his glasses jostling on his face.
âYou should not be able to pick me up this easily!â Satoru howls. âIâm bigger than you!â
Suguru grunts as Satoru tries to jerk himself free.
âYeah? Maybe itâs because Iâve got bigger boobs than you, Satoru,â Suguru pants.
Satoru sucks in a sharp breath, his dick surging to sudden attention in his pants. He tenses, eyes wide with shock. But before he can even consider what to do about his sudden boner, Suguru yanks him upright and shoves him to his feet, releasing him. Satoru stumbles on the ground, disoriented, heart pounding, mouth dry like he swallowed cotton, and glancesâŚ
Suguru is bowing politely to an elderly couple. Theyâre walking along the path in the park, and Suguru and Satoru have just been blocking the way as they wrestled. The old woman is smiling faintly, but the old man is staring at them as if heâs never been so scandalized in his life. Satoru opens his mouth to snark, foolishly about to ask the geezer, What? Youâve never popped a chub for your bro before?
But, thankfully, Suguru viciously elbows him in the side, and they both scuttle out of the way, so the couple can pass. Satoruâs dick starts to flag in the face of his realization that he almost gave himself away. He would've admitted to getting hard for Suguru in front of Suguru if Suguru hadnât stopped him. He eyes Suguru, and Suguru blinks at him, reaching up a hand to flick Satoru in the middle of his forehead.
âYeah, I could tell you were about to say something stupid,â Suguru says, starting to walk towards the parkâs exit again. âYou always get this particular look on your face, Satoru. Iâve seen it for the past 4 years, so I know what it means.â
Satoru gapes and chases after him, rubbing at the spot where Suguru flicked.
âWhat look?â he demands.
Suguru raises his brows and starts to tick each thing he says off on his fingers.
âYou frown quite intensely. I can see the way your eyebrows bunch together right over the bridge of your glasses. Then your mouth gets all pinched. And then your lips poke out a little. Kind of like you just ate a Shigekix.â
âHeh! As if I would even make a face when eating sour candy! Iâve got a cast-iron mouth, Suguru.â
Suguru abruptly looks at him. Satoru stares back. They both start to grin and take off running towards the exit of the park so they can find a convenience store and buy the candy.
âWe have to get the Level 5 ones! Those are the most sour.â
âOh, so you definitely want to lose?â
âI bet I can stick five Level 5âs in my mouth at the same time!â
âI want to write a fic about this but I donât think anybody will be interested in itâ ummm hello excuse me maâam what do you mean you donât think anybody will be interested in it??? YOU. YOU ARE INTERESTED IN IT???? write it because YOU are interested in it and YOU want to write about it. fanfic writing should always be first and foremost about YOUR enjoyment, not other peopleâs.
i cannot stop thinking about megumi's absolutely NANOSCOPIC little smile in this scene oh my god. how did the animators even do that. the end of his mouth moved like 2 pixels upward and yet it conveyed SO much? this has got to be the first time he's genuinely had the urge to smile in god knows how long, but he probably can't afford to do that in front of his enemies without potentially arousing more suspicion, and yet he's just so damn happy he can't stop himself from letting it slip, just the tiniest fraction of a fraction, anyway? my sweet, sweet boy???
i mean, all at once he'd simultaneously learned three things: 1) yuuji was alive, 2) yuuji was safe, and 3) yuuji had won. in fact, this was the first time he'd heard anything about yuuji at all since getting separated. and after unexpectedly losing him, promptly getting lured into a trap, ambushed, having literal bombs detonated on him, escaping with severe burns on his skin, and having to put up with remi on top of it all? this was a sorely-needed win for megumi â and a significant one at that. i can only begin to imagine the sheer amount of relief he felt in that moment, however brief. it's wild how you can practically feel the anxiety evaporate from his body in a matter of seconds, despite how fantastically minute the difference is in reality.
i find this animation decision especially striking on the studio's part considering even the very manga panels this scene was adapted from portray megumi with a more visible smile in comparison:
don't get me wrong, there's absolutely nothing wrong with gege's own depiction of the scene; however, i can't help but feel like there's something singularly gorgeous about the particular subtlety they're able to tap into here through the medium of animation. it's blink-and-you-miss-it moments like these that can tell you the most about a character sometimes; jjk season 3 has been positively chock-full of them (i seriously owe these animators my life), but this one might very well be my favorite. it's a 1-second-long masterclass in effectively communicating extremely subtle emotions through facial expressions in animation â a feat that is nowhere near as easy as it may seem. as always, the ridiculous quality of animation this season has been delivering episode after episode continues to floor me.
at this point, i would be remiss not to mention how the smile is also a lovely little visual reminder of just how much megumi cares about yuuji. like, i don't know if this is just me, but there seems to be a certain nuance to this restrained smile that perhaps a wider one may not have so accurately related. the subtlety of it seems to almost convey this sense of secrecy between them â this special knowledge that only he and yuuji share, an exclusive understanding that keeps them tethered to each other even when they're colonies apart. it's honestly a really touching way to represent just how much these two characters have come to trust and depend on each other over time without ever saying so explicitly. and coupled with the intensity of that look in his eyes, it really does feel less like a "oh sweet, we added the rule we wanted to the game" smile and more like a "oh, yuuji did it. he's alive and he did it. he's out there somewhere, and he's fighting, and he hasn't given up, and he did it, and maybe we're gonna be okay" one.
ultimately, though, perhaps what's most enjoyable about this scene is not necessarily the smile itself, but how us viewers get to watch in real time as a switch seems to flip in megumi's brain â taking him from cautious, primarily defensive combatant to full-blown, unapologetic killer. it literally takes him all of two seconds from hearing kogane's message to start swinging on his enemy like the guy owes him money, and from then on that unfortunate soul proceeds to receive an ass-beating from a fifteen year old so vicious, thorough, and one-sided it's borderline insulting. it's the epitome of megumi saying "fuck it" in visual form, and by god, did it give us one of his best and most memorable fight scenes to date.
i don't think it's a coincidence that it was only after that point that megumi was able to succeed in taking his first life, either. it was as though the overwhelming relief of yuuji's victory had signaled to his brain the following: if yuuji was safe, and negotiation of points with his enemies was no longer a priority, then that meant there was nothing left to stop him from discarding all inhibition and simply doing to his enemies whatever he felt the situation warranted â even if that included slightly more imaginative strategies such as... straddling them in midair, grabbing them by the ponytail, and bludgeoning their face in repeatedly with the blunt end of his sword. (but what do i know?)
and, perhaps most importantly: without yuuji there to see him do it, without him there to remind megumi of his humanity â he could finally follow through with his real intentions for the first time without holding back.
but to be fair, after the day that boy had had, who could blame him?
Gojo Satoru visiting Kugisaki nobara while she is in coma, sitting next to her, and talking to her. Gojo Satoru swapping souls with Yuta okkotsu, teaching him everything he knows about his cursed technique. Gojo Satoru hiding Sukuna's last finger to indefinitely postpone Yuji's execution. Gojo Satoru who bore the burden of being a monster, killed all the higher ups alone because he refused to let his students watch such gruesome sights. Gojo Satoru who believed he would win right til the end. Gojo Satoru who died knowing his students had got it from there, that they would be able to save Fushiguro Megumi. Gojo Satoru who let his body be used as puppet after his death. Gojo Satoru who died knowing all his students would be saved.
