Hii !! This isn't at all meant to come across as rude, but I genuinely would like to know what you see in sukugo as a ship?
I ask this because I think your art is so beautiful and cute and amazing, but I personally don't know much about the ship. I just wanna know more from sukugo shippers on why they see love between the two characters? Unless it's like a "just for fun" thing, which is also totally cool lol
Sorry if this comes across as rude I just genuinely love your art and you seem to love the ship a lot so I figured you may be interested in explaining why you like the ship
the shortest answer i could give is i see love between sukugo because gege puts it there. as in they are the two characters that has "love" being a main theme spelled out by the narrator in a whole arc centering around them .
(it's also 愛 ai, not even the 恋 koi one. gege used the kanji for unconditional, selfless, true love in that "the one to teach you about love" line)
but if you're interested in a longer explanation this has lore that traces all the way back to mid-2022 when elden ring came out, i had a post where i said i wished gojo had a redhead love interest to make a Rebis symbol with him. never in a million years i expected gege to actually make that real with shinjuku showdown 😭
Rebis, also known as Red king & White queen marriage, symbolises the intermingling of red sulphur with white mercury to create perfect gold. It's the unification of opposing qualities in alchemy. this is reflected not just in sukuna and gojo's character design, but their whole character arc and thematic relevance to each other.
yap session ahead
their domains: domain expansion is a sorcerer’s manifestation of their inner mental landscape and Sukuna and Gojo's meld together perfectly. For a while the omniscient cosmos acts as the cradle for an uncaring shrine, blue starry sky meeting the red blood sea.
Thousands of years and the only domain that is compatible with Malevolent Shrine is Unlimited Void, to the point that when Gojo died, Sukuna couldn't deploy his domain for a whole while and when he got it back, Yuta- the patron saint of mutual love in the verse, wore Gojo skin to run in back again.
Sukuna could deploy his domain without barrier which is unimaginable to other sorcerers cuz it’s like painting without a canvas. A king that conquers all just like the all-consuming purifying fire that he wields. Meanwhile Gojo could make the barrier of his domain so tiny it’s also unimaginable to others because they couldn’t imagine being trapped in such a small space. Gojo did because he has also folded into himself for the sake of those he loves his entire life.
They are both doing such advanced techniques to the power system that’s out of reach for everyone else, but they are also doing it in the opposite direction of each other, in a way that’s reflective of their life philosophy. Two equals standing at two polar axis.
their approach to becoming strong: they are both jujutsu nerds, but Sukuna's thirst for knowledge & self-improvement is in service to himself, while Satoru seeks to give knowledge & encourages growth in his students. If his community is strong, he is strong. Therefore in that month of preparation before the big fight, Gojo was shown training Yuta & Yuuji rather than digging more on Sukuna.
How they approach life and make their choices is a mirror to their own personal stories & struggle. It's these little push & pull of meanings that makes them so compelling as a pair.
There's a meta commentary here about how since Sukuna kept possessing Gojo’s students & gaining their memories, whether he knew he was doing it or not, he reacts to/ follow the lessons Gojo gave out. Him using Gojo’s hand sign & techniques later on is also a part of this larger theme that Gojo had unwittingly been like a teacher to him too. It makes the “the one to teach you about love” “I want him to understand” lines hit even harder.
I elaborate more here on why Sukuna's upbringing and curse is its own can of worm that makes his interaction with Gojo so poweful. Gojo who kept rescuing cursed children and protecting them is the kind of protective figure Sukuna never had, and I always felt like a part of Sukuna's resentment to the students and Yuuji in particular does stem from that (i do understand if ppl say this is a reach, but !! i'd like to show you guys the character that i believe is one of the main inspiration Gege took to develop Sukuna:
yes, the main character from the BL Gege once recommend The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window. when his love interest chose to protect innocent civillains instead of him (because he's already strong), he literally asked "why protect them, and not me?")
fish metaphor: the fish imagery in the sukugo fight is always so peak since ningyo flesh in japanese mythology is said to grant immortality + the "scale of the dragons" incantation in sukuna's world slash is a throwback to the fish scales lines. there are layers to this:
according to the myth of Four Divine Beasts in Sinosphere culture, control over dragon grants one's control over aquatic life, specifically fish
there's also the myth of a determined koi fish that swims upstream and is rewarded by the God to become a dragon. it's one way to show how Satoru transforms from a nameless fish to a dragon in Sukuna's eyes throughout the fight. which, again, runs another parallel to the alchemy imagery where the royal beast lion transforms into its true form after a dragon’s death, like Sukuna did after Gojo died.
you see how many parallels and analysis we can have of the sukugo fight with just one line here? it's how gege crafted this fight with such concise and powerful imagery that makes it go so hard.
gege has always been building up to sukuna vs gojo since the beginning: probably a hot take, but to me sukugo chemistry is what JJK0, the very first 3 chapters & HI arc built up to 😭 (their fight is literally a constant throwback to their first meeting)
“love to the strong” “a curse must be exorcised using another curse” “love is the most twisted curse of all” being centered around Gojo means the biggest fight of his life, the one he’d put his everything into would ofc be him facing off someone he wants to convey such a thing to.
The line Geto said about being jealous in that airport was there for a reason. The recognition & affirmation of “love to the strong” that Gojo showed Sukuna was what he wanted. But then he got blindsided right after when Gojo said if he’d been there with the students cheering him on, Gojo would have been satisfied too, cuz once again Geto got a reminder that Gojo’s love wasn’t just about strength, but community & support of all the “flowers” in his life as well.
THAT is the type of love Gojo was trying to show Sukuna. The understanding & sympathy, never stop seeing humanity even in the “monstrous”. The type of kindess Sukuna wasn’t graced with as a child, leading to the cursed existence he was trapped in now. Hell, the first line we got about how Sukuna used to be a human was from Gojo himself!
When everyone thought of Sukuna in fear and hatred, the Sukuna in Gojo's eyes to the bitter end is never a malicous grinning calamity, but someone calm and dignified with his gaze forwards. And despite thinking Sukuna could not reciprocate his feelings in kind, he gave Sukuna everything.
meanwhile mr yearnatron3000 Sukuna over here already sees Gojo as a goal to reach since the beginning:
after Gojo died he legit started comparing everyone else to him and thinking in terms of "me and gojo satoru vs anyone else"
(if i write about the meaning behind the incantations of World-Bisecting Slash, this would become a real manifesto, so please see this here. basically, Sukuna made Gojo's whole existence a part of his technique. if that's not the most romantic thing in the world idk what is)
side note from character design perspective: the spelling of Six Eyes is "Rikugan" and sometimes it's used as a title to refer to Gojo (the same way Ryomen is for Sukuna). so we have: Ryomen (Two Faces) - Rikugan (Six Eyes) / Sukuna - Satoru.
what i mean is in a roundabout way sukugo do have matching initials
marketing from JUMP and song lyrics be like: in the the JUMP promo video for vol 25 (which they have private now for some reasons... but i think it's because they are fr going to make the sukugo fight anime rollout the biggest blast ever), they have a banner that coins Sukuna and Gojo as "the existence of an equal"
be it a demon god or a child prodigy, ultimate strength comes with solitude. the only thing they have yet to obtain is an existence equal to themselves. so, how long will you entertain me now?
they also have some crazy contrasting wordplay to introduce them:
鬼神 (demon god) / 神童 (child prodigy) -> share the same 神 (divine)
堕天 (fallen one) / 天才 (genius) -> share the same 天 (sky)
In the soundtrack of the JJK Phantom Parade game (Avant by Eve - came out a few months after the sukugo fight), the lyrics “my yearning towards you alone cuts through space like a heartfelt wish” is always accompanied by Sukuna and Gojo imagery:
for the “like a wish” phase, the word is 希う which has a very beseeching and imploring connotation, so it reads like being able to cut through space and reach that unique person is all he’s ever wanted. Eve cooked like crazy with this ngl
and in JJK Modulo, Gege made "wish" an actual manifestation of a technique possessed by Maru and Cross - the alien twins that everyone jokes that they look like Sukuna and Gojo's lovechild.
talking about lyrics, here are the character songs gege picked out for sukuna and gojo... idk what to even comment on this 😭
that concludes my presentation on why sukugo changes my brain chemistry (i think). there are more obvious ones like "cut me open and see my love buried in this flesh", the legendary "you were magnificent/ cleared my sky", etc... but i want to touch more on the less discussed imagery here.
i hope this could offer you a great look in the very normal brain of a sukugo-pilled person !! thank you for liking my art and giving the ship a chance ! ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡
Like, every day I see someone say “I love [specific Jedi] because they’re such a free-thinking person who rebels against the stuffy rules of the Order” and people use that phrase to describe like. Literally every Jedi except Mace Windu and Yoda.
Dad Plo Koon and Mom Shaak Ti are a free-thinkers who love and care about the clones and are gentle and kind, unlike those OTHER cold unfeeling Jedi.
Hot Kit Fisto and Hot Aayla Secura are sexy and aren’t afraid to show it, unlike those OTHER prude celibate Jedi.
Quinlan Vos is rebellious and sassy and Does What He Wants, and the Council probably hates him for it but he doesn’t care because he’s such a badass who breaks the Code all the time.
Qui-Gon Jinn is a maverick who disobeys the Council and breaks the Code all the time to do the Right Thing instead of what the Council wanted, and is better than all those OTHER Jedi.
Depa Billaba is wise and loving, unlike those OTHER unloving Jedi.
Obi-Wan Kenobi is sassy and dramatic and flirty, unlike those OTHER stoic fun-hating Jedi.
Like, come on. At some point, if almost every Jedi we see on screen is applauded by fandom for “not being like the other Jedi” then maybe, just maybe they ARE like other Jedi, and all that stuff about Jedi being cold and unfeeling is actually just stuff fans made up.
DELTARUNE THEORY: The True Purpose of the Weird Route
(MASSIVE SPOILERS for all of Deltarune + Chapter 5)
(Content warning: mentions of assault, suicide, and grooming)
@honmshi
Why is the Weird Route written like this?
That’s a very different question from “why are we doing this”, I’m speaking more in terms of the motivations behind the writing itself and why the game presents this option in the way it has.
The Weird Route expands on the core theme of Undertale’s Genocide route, it is a social examination on the willingness of players to mine content out of a story, even when the contents are displeasing. And it appears that Deltarune is giving us a stronger case of that by presenting an evil route that is far more disturbing with intentional triggers of grooming and the violations of one’s agency.
Deltarune is also a story about examining the artificiality of stories. That once characters and ideas are written down, they have become blocks of limited text for a world that can only go one way.
The Weird Route has us grant one of these characters with the knowledge and tools to escape their bindings as a mere character in a Prophecy (or at least give the illusion of it) and possibly find and confront their world’s god who designed their image, Gaster.
Noelle is cursed or blessed to find secrets in video games, Gaster is cursed or blessed to be that secret. - Andrew Cunningham
But these are very big picture elements of the Weird Route. I’d even say maybe too obvious. These themes would basically just be the same reiterated lesson from the previous game. What would be so novel about that? Besides, we also have two blatant confirmations that we’ve broken the Prophecy, with Ralsei telling us we’re on the path to “an even worse ending” and skipping through several key events of the written story.
What I really question is, why did Toby choose to make a route about players forcefully defying fate at any cost, specifically focus on this fucked up double abusive dynamic between two childhood friends?
Why is this route going for such taboo topics to communicate this point?
It’s not an entirely original thought but it’s a guess I feel even more strongly about after Chapter 5:
The Weird Route allows us to break the Prophecy, but not to subvert the Final Tragedy. Instead it’s to have your player character, using Kris as a self-insert, to get a new paired ending with Noelle.
Think Persona’s Social Link endings.
Fire Emblem’s S support endings.
Visual Novel dating sims endings.
A side ending where you can select the character you like the most and have two people get together in the end through just a couple of drinks and less than a dozen conversations.
The core story does not change. The only thing that does, is who is paired by the end of it.
It doesn't matter how shallow the dialogue leading to the ship is, how disrespectful it is of the character's own interests or crushes, how strange your choice is, or how objectifying the idea of picking the prettiest, the coolest, or the nicest is.
The characters are just toys for you to play with. And once you've decided on that, til death do they part.
I’m not trying to say that Dating Sim elements are inherently bad, when they’re done well they can actually communicate a lot about the boundaries of love and the deeper parts of the characters involved.
But there is a weird side to dating sims. A level of projection inserted into a game from both its creator and their players that can border on some creepy territory. Some of them ride off of sexist stereotypes and reward players with coercive behavior. Some let you romance… some very interesting options.
This is honestly one of the least problematic examples you can pull from.
The ability to choose between a roster of attractive characters and accomplish a true love specific to your tastes with them is a power fantasy. And all of these games set an expectation that the character you control is aligned with your romantic taste and that you get to decide who they end up with.
One of the most important aspects of Undertale and Deltarune is giving the illusion of agency to fictional characters. That’s why there’s so many secret dialogues in the game, why characters react to everything, why there’s so much rich history that is left unsaid about.
We’re supposed to see these characters as real as possible and personally investigate our relationship to them when we alter their lives for the better or worse.
Our control of Kris, aesthetically resembles the silent protagonist who we project our personality and choices onto despite their pre-existing history. But the big twist, the most novel framing device of the game, is that Kris is their own distinct person who is both explicitly genderless and has entirely separate motivations from their pilot.
Chapter 5 makes a great effort to point out that, no matter what ship we subscribe to, Kris has a personal, somewhat ambiguous taste that we are not privy to change.
We can’t choose who we want Kris to take to the Festival, because Kris will only answer Susie.
We can’t choose to support Suselle, because Kris feels jealous about their best friend and potential childhood crush being in a relationship.
And Kris won’t let us confess anything to Susie, perhaps because we misread romantic attraction or Kris just doesn’t want us to influence that relationship any further.
Noelle aesthetically follows the “unrequited childhood love” trope. She’s a very feminine neighbor of the main hero, whom she has a deep longing for but cannot get the words across. The insecurity becomes so prolonged that they’ve drifted into other relationships over time.
The soundtrack even names her main theme, “The Girl Next Door”. It is an undeniably popular trope with some of the most popular characters in many fandoms being this exact archetype.
It’s so popular that, even when these characters don’t end up together, fandoms ship the childhood best friends to stardom. It’s one of the most appealing fantasies that any piece of media can mine for viewership. And it’s not hard to see why.
It’s a relationship built on a pre-existing relationship, it carries so much yearning feelings and emotional insecurity for the characters involved. Most of all, it raises the stakes on how those two will feel about each if their dynamic were to change. And that’s exactly what drives the core drama between Kris and Noelle.
Problem is, we don’t know if Kris “loves” Noelle that way and vice versa (though much more clear on Noelle’s end) or if they want to reciprocate. We can guess, we can theorize, but in this story we can’t force them to.
But what we can do is make Noelle fall in love with “us”.
Because the Weird Route is not about Kriselle, it’s the silly-named but aptly titled SOULelle ship.
Kris doesn’t tell Noelle that she will ride with them, it’s “Noelle will ride with Me”. Kris doesn’t answer that it’s their voice on the couch, the person who’s talking is “Me”. Noelle even says in her deranged state that she’s fallen for the new Kris, the one who’s changed. The one who’s interesting now.
In a series that subverts genre and games themselves with a high respect for the character’s personal interests, this is how it would dissect dating sim elements.
You can date Papyrus and Alphys but they aren’t into you because they have their own tastes. You can flirt with Toriel (and call her mommy) and she’ll make fun of you for that at the end.
You can try to request Kris to go out with someone other than Susie and they’ll just whisper the words or jump into a spa before they let you decide that for them.
Noelle too, has her own tastes and it’s very much likely that Suselle is the endgame. It is even prophesied. “Love finds its way to The Girl”. And this is the part of the Prophecy we are breaking. (or at least reframing)
Only in this case, the purpose is to drag the princess away from the dragon so she can end up with the "hero".
It’s why we require a 6 year long, 4 chapter journey to destroy all of her psychological defenses through verbal and physical abuse to finally get to this point. And on the way, the game will never stop reminding you how personally degrading and awful it is for a player to play matchmaker.
If you want these two characters to fall in love so badly, you’re gonna have to do the work and force the wedding ring onto them, even if it makes them bleed, and even if it makes them force you as well.
But most importantly, this is only possible because you play as the character who Noelle already has a complicated longing for. None of this can work if Noelle isn’t physically looking at Kris, the only vessel that can make this possible on the only character who can be manipulated this way.
Hell, even in Chapter 5, Noelle still cannot wisen up that she’s not speaking to anyone remotely close to Kris anymore despite how many times we’ve made the distinction.
Noelle has wanted Kris to acknowledge her feelings, to finally confirm that they did have something special after all and by forcing that acknowledgement out of them, we’ve accomplished two major goals.
Kris has finally given up, and has become our self-insert and we decide who their ending will be with.
And Noelle has finally chosen “you”.
@annakulak5
Read Part 1 of this analysis on “The Most Disturbing Line in the Game”
origamiaround
snowghoul
germansingergirl
