seriously✮lily

im in at least ONE of ur fandoms (threat)

[funnythingsidk]

yayy intro post

i dont have any idea how to make this aesthetic sooo….

blogs: @ocs-and-stuff, @character-essays, @stormsandstuff

tags: #lilyrambles (personal), #lilyanswers (ask posts), #lilywrites (my fics), #lilylovesweather (storm posts)

no dni list. just expecting basic respect for all.

credit to @tsukinoki for the image

[sixeyesonathiel]

the quiet strength of satoru gojo: why parts of the fandom underestimate the strongest

time for a deep dive into one of the most misunderstood characters in jujutsu kaisen—satoru gojo—and why the fandom's persistent framing of him in comparison to suguru geto reveals something deeply uncomfortable about how many people process strength, trauma, healing, and emotional resilience. this isn’t just about two characters. it’s about the narratives people choose to uplift, the pain they validate, and the quiet courage they ignore.

the empathy gap that drives me insane

here’s the thing that’s been gnawing at me for months: this fandom will go to wild, mental-acrobatic extremes to empathize with suguru geto. people say things like: “he was traumatized by watching his friends die,” “he was exhausted by the expectations of protecting non-sorcerers,” “he was too young to handle the burden of being powerful,” or “the system failed him and pushed him to that point.”

and listen—none of that is untrue. trauma is real. the curse of empathy is real. grief and pain can twist even the most grounded person. suguru’s fall is tragic. the world he inhabited was cruel and unrelenting. he was pushed to a breaking point. his descent into villainy wasn’t born out of malice, but anguish.

but here’s what boggles the mind: the same people who empathize with suguru’s unraveling turn around and paint satoru gojo—who endured every single one of those agonies and then some—as emotionally shallow, arrogant, naive, or even emotionally dependent on suguru to keep him human. as if satoru only had worth when filtered through suguru’s emotional lens.

the double standard is staggering. the math isn’t mathing. the logic unravels when you actually sit with it.

the uncomfortable truth about relatability

here's what i think is really happening: people empathize with suguru because his response to trauma is relatably human. giving up when things get too hard? most people have been there. choosing cruelty when the world feels endlessly cruel? they can imagine that spiral. breaking under pressure and lashing out at the world that hurt you? that's a very human-sized reaction to human-sized pain.

suguru's villain arc follows a pattern people recognize: good person faces trauma → trauma overwhelms their coping mechanisms → they break → they choose a path that hurts others. it's tragic, it's understandable, and most importantly, it's something many can see themselves potentially doing under the right (wrong) circumstances.

but satoru represents something that makes people fundamentally uncomfortable: incomprehensible resilience in the face of circumstances that should have broken him.

he had every single reason to become exactly what suguru became—isolated, bitter, convinced that non-sorcerers were beneath him, willing to burn down the system that failed him. the fact that he didn't isn't just impressive; it's almost alien in its strength.

and because many can't relate to that kind of resilience, they diminish it. they rewrite his story to make it more palatable, more human-sized. they make him dependent on suguru for his moral compass. they act like his principles came from somewhere outside himself rather than from an internal strength most people can't even comprehend.

a personal perspective: why suguru's actions are inexcusable

as someone who tends toward pessimism about the world and human nature, i find it fascinating that i can't muster even a shred of empathy for suguru's choices. i understand being disillusioned. i understand seeing the worst in people and systems. i understand feeling like everything is fucked and meaningless.

but genocide? murdering innocent people, including children? deciding that an entire group of humans deserves to die because some of them are awful? that's not a trauma response—that's a moral failing. that's choosing to become the exact kind of monster that makes the world darker.

pessimistic people often have the clearest view of how broken systems and circumstances can be, but recognizing that the world is cruel doesn't make cruelty acceptable. if anything, it should make you more determined not to add to the suffering. the fact that people can empathize with "i'm hurt so i'll hurt others" while struggling to understand "i'm hurt but i'll try to heal others" says everything about what kind of strength they can imagine themselves capable of.

satoru saw the same darkness suguru did—saw it even more clearly because of his isolation—and his response was "i'm going to try to make this better." that's not naivety. that's choosing hope as an act of defiance against despair.

the myth of suguru as satoru's moral anchor

this might be one of the most persistent misreadings in the entire fandom: the idea that suguru was responsible for satoru’s humanity. that he grounded him. saved him. kept him kind. that without him, satoru would’ve become something monstrous.

but let’s actually look at what canon—and context—shows us.

suguru's background: he had a loving family, recognition, camaraderie, a sense of purpose. people looked up to him. his morality was affirmed and echoed back.

satoru's background: born into isolation. groomed for a title, not a life. dehumanized from the moment he displayed power. forced into leadership before he was ready. no one taught him how to care—he just did, anyway.

and here’s the key difference: satoru didn’t learn restraint from suguru. he didn’t need a moral compass handed to him. this is someone who, as a literal child with godlike power, never misused it—not even out of spite. he had every reason to lash out, to fall, to become everything the world feared he would—but he didn’t. he made the choice not to. over and over. alone.

people point to lines like “should we kill them?” and treat them as some crisis of ethics, as if he was one breath away from becoming a villain. but that was a teenager processing grief and asking for a second opinion—not a boy on the edge of darkness. the fact that he even asked proves he already had the conscience people think he lacked. and when suguru fell, when he committed atrocities, when word reached satoru that his best friend had massacred an entire village—he didn’t believe it. he couldn’t. not because he was blind, but because he didn’t want to believe it was true.

that denial wasn’t proof of emotional dependence. it was grief. real, raw, deeply human grief. but grief doesn’t erase autonomy.

because here’s the truth: if satoru had truly needed suguru to stay good, then he would’ve broken right alongside him. but he didn’t. he chose to keep going. he didn’t become bitter. he didn’t turn cruel. he became a teacher. he started reforming a system everyone else accepted as immutable. he chose the future.

their bond mattered—but it wasn’t his foundation. people reduce satoru to “the boy who lost his best friend” as if that’s the most interesting thing about him, as if that one rupture defines every action after. but that flattens him. suguru was significant, yes. but significance isn’t destiny. and grief isn’t identity.

satoru's emotional arc isn’t about trying to rewrite the past. it’s about refusing to let that past define him. his love doesn’t rot into vengeance—it turns into action. he protects kids who could end up like suguru. he shoulders responsibility others run from. he teaches. he reforms. and he does it despite the pain, not because someone pulled him back from it.

he’s not a weapon on a leash, held back from destruction by a single lost friendship. he’s the one who disarms himself. every time. not because anyone taught him how—but because he wants to do better. because he knows what he’s capable of. because he cares, even when the world doesn’t care back.

so no, suguru wasn’t his moral anchor. he was a companion, once. someone who could relate to the burden. someone he loved. but satoru’s principles were never borrowed. they were born in silence, held together through loneliness, and reaffirmed with every act of kindness he chose after he lost suguru.

and that’s the kind of strength people keep refusing to see—because it's the kind they can’t imagine themselves having.

the empathy that never arrives

and that’s maybe the most frustrating part: that satoru—despite carrying more weight than anyone else in the story—rarely receives the empathy people so freely extend to others. the fandom will analyze every angle of suguru’s pain, dissect his fall, explain his choices, mourn what he became. but when it comes to satoru? the same kindness isn’t offered. people praise his power, his technique, his fights—but they rarely sit with how hard it must have been to stay soft. to keep choosing others. to keep choosing hope.

it’s like he’s too strong to be seen as vulnerable, too capable to be comforted. even fans fall into the same trap the jujutsu world did: they assume he’ll always endure, so they don’t bother asking if he’s okay. and they certainly don’t pause to understand how lonely that endurance must feel.

he never asked to be the strongest. and yet he lives every day carrying the cost of that title, quietly making the right choices when the wrong ones would be so much easier. he shows up. he gives. he believes. and still—he gets picked apart more for what he didn’t do than he gets recognized for everything he chooses to hold back.

when people say satoru gojo is emotionally shallow, or arrogant, or only human because of someone else—they’re echoing the same erasure the jujutsu higher-ups inflicted on him. they saw a weapon. fandom sees a trope. both refuse to look deeper. and maybe that’s what makes his quiet strength all the more tragic: that even now, after everything, so many still can’t find it in themselves to treat his endurance with the same empathy they give to someone who gave up.

the strength nobody wants to acknowledge

everyone talks about satoru being the strongest in terms of raw power. six eyes, infinity, hollow purple—yeah, he's op as hell. but his real strength, the one that actually defines him as a character, is something entirely different.

satoru gojo looked at a world that:

isolated him from birth

treated him as a weapon rather than a person

gave him godlike power with no guidance on how to use it responsibly

failed to protect his best friend

constantly demanded everything from him while giving nothing back

would have been perfectly fine with him becoming a tyrant as long as he protected their interests

and he said “no, i'm going to be better than this.”

not because someone taught him to be better. not because he had a strong support system. not because the world gave him reasons to hope. he chose to be better because that's who he decided to be, in the face of every circumstance that should have made him worse.

he chose to:

become a teacher who genuinely cares about his students' wellbeing and growth

work within a corrupt system to change it rather than tear it down

use his power to protect rather than dominate

maintain his sense of humor and humanity despite carrying unimaginable burdens

believe in the next generation enough to literally bet his life on them

never stop trying to save people, even people who've given up on themselves

the mischaracterization that reveals others' limitations

the way parts of this fandom consistently underestimate satoru's internal strength reveals something uncomfortable about how many people process exceptional resilience. they're so used to stories where good people are broken by bad circumstances that they don't know what to do with a character who endures and remains good anyway.

so they rewrite his story. they make him naive instead of recognizing that he chooses to see the world's potential for good despite evidence to the contrary. they make him emotionally dependent instead of acknowledging that he formed deep bonds despite having no model for healthy relationships. they make his strength into a weakness, his principles into privilege, his resilience into denial.

but here's the thing: satoru gojo spent his entire life surrounded by people who would have been perfectly fine with him becoming a monster. the zenin clan would have loved a satoru who believed in might makes right. the higher-ups would have been thrilled with a satoru who saw non-sorcerers as expendable. a corrupt system would have welcomed a corrupted strongest sorcerer with open arms.

the fact that he looked at all of that and said “i choose to be kind anyway” isn't naivety. it's not privilege. it's not emotional dependence.

it's moral strength on a level that most people can't even conceptualize, let alone replicate.

why suguru's fall makes satoru's resilience more impressive, not less

suguru had advantages satoru never did: a loving family, natural social connections, validation from others, a clear sense of purpose. and when the pressure became too much, he broke. that's human. that's understandable. that's tragic.

but it also makes satoru's resilience even more remarkable. he had fewer resources, less support, more pressure, and greater isolation. by every logical measure, he should have broken first and broken harder.

the fact that he didn't isn't a failure of the writing or a sign that his trauma wasn't “real enough.” it's evidence of a kind of internal strength that's so rare it seems almost fictional—which, ironically, is probably why it appears in fiction.

the flower quote and understanding without reciprocity

satoru once said something about being able to admire a flower without expecting it to understand you in return. it was about his relationship with regular people—how he could protect and care for them without needing them to comprehend his experience or validate his choices.

that quote encapsulates everything about his character that people miss. he didn't need others to understand his burden to make it worth carrying. he didn't need validation to know his principles were right. he didn't need reciprocity to keep giving.

most people in his world either feared him, used him, or put him on a pedestal. very few actually saw him as a complete person with his own struggles and growth. and yet he kept protecting them anyway. that's not emotional detachment—that's love so profound it doesn't require understanding to exist.

the love that bears the unbearable

satoru himself said that “love is the most twisted curse of all,” but his entire character arc is proof that love—not romantic love, but love for humanity, for the future, for people who will never know his name—is also the only force strong enough to bear the unbearable.

he loved his students enough to die for the possibility of their future. he loved the world enough to keep protecting it even when it gave him nothing but pain in return. he loved the idea of change enough to work within a system he could have easily destroyed.

that kind of love doesn't come from external validation or support systems. it comes from a depth of character that's almost incomprehensible in its strength.

recognizing true strength when you see it

as someone who naturally tends toward cynicism about human nature and the world's capacity for good, i find satoru's character deeply moving precisely because his hope isn't naive—it's defiant. he sees the darkness clearly and chooses light anyway. he understands how cruel people can be and decides to be kind anyway. he knows the system is broken and works to fix it anyway.

that's not the behavior of someone who doesn't understand pain or hasn't experienced trauma. that's the behavior of someone who has looked directly into the abyss and decided not to become it.

people who truly understand satoru gojo recognize that his greatest power was never his cursed technique—it was his refusal to let the world's darkness consume his capacity for love. that's a strength so rare and so valuable that it deserves to be seen and celebrated, not diminished or rewritten to fit more comfortable narratives about how people respond to pain.

the real tragedy

the real tragedy isn't that suguru fell—though that is tragic. the real tragedy is that satoru spent his entire life being misunderstood, even by people who claimed to care about him. he was seen as a weapon by his enemies, a tool by the system, and apparently, according to large portions of this fandom, as incomplete without the person who ultimately chose to become everything he stood against.

satoru gojo deserved to be seen for what he actually was: not just the strongest sorcerer, but one of the strongest people to ever exist in any story. his power was never his most impressive trait. his most impressive trait was that he had every reason to become a monster and chose to be a protector instead.

conclusion: putting respect on his name

satoru gojo might be overrated in powerscaling discussions, but he's criminally underrated in character analysis. large portions of this fandom will write thesis-length posts about why various morally gray characters deserve sympathy and understanding, but somehow can't extend that same analytical energy to recognizing the almost supernatural level of moral fortitude it took for satoru to become who he was.

his greatest strength was never infinity or six eyes. his greatest strength was looking at a world designed to corrupt him and choosing love anyway. choosing hope anyway. choosing to believe in others anyway.

if that's not the most powerful character writing in the series, then people are reading different stories.

it's time for more people to stop underestimating satoru gojo's heart and start recognizing it as the most impressive thing about him. because in a world full of characters who break under pressure, he stands as proof that sometimes—rarely, miraculously—people can endure the unendurable and come out kinder instead of crueler.

and that's a kind of strength that deserves more respect than certain parts of this fandom have ever given it.

[kurzler]

i saw a post about how modern tv suffers from the death of filler and it got me thinking about how it's exactly one of the problems i have with jjk: we didn't spend enough time with the characters.

and don't get me wrong, i love them all, but i would have just liked to see more of them interacting besides when they're fighting for their lives, because there ARE tidbits of it and they're so good and they also enhance the story because you get more attached to the characters and the emotional stakes are higher.

the flashback to where yuuji, nobara and megumi mess up gojo's shirt? hilarious, and it makes the scene of nobara's death even more heartbreaking. the part after yuuji is presumed dead, and the room goes dead silent when megumi mentions yuuji taught him how to cook the food they were eating? imagine how much harder that would have hit if we actually saw it.

i want more! i want to see megumi being forced to give nobara and yuuji a tour of tokyo, i want to see them making a mess in the kitchen while attempting to cook something, i want to see hakari and kirara being bad influences on their underclassmen, i want to see choso and yuuji bonding via usual siblings shanenigans, i want to see gojo convincing inumaki to use his cursed technique to pull a stupid prank on nanami, i! want! more!

[cosmically-incompatible]

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.

[lxmelle]

Gojo’s letter to Megumi.

Guess I had more thoughts on the subject matter... this is part 3!

Since we don’t know what he said to Nobara, but it is implied it isn’t dissimilar to what he wrote for Megumi.

Like many things related to Gojo, the way he showed his feelings for his students has divided some readers.

I think some people struggled with how it was so light-hearted, treating it as if it was dismissive (as part of Gojo’s farewell). Or what it didn’t carry any weight of emotion (to his students, and/or even as a character).

But I kind of disagree that it depicts anything dismissive… I understand it is somewhat disappointing for some who see him as a very emotional & caring sensei. From the POV of what’s characteristic of Gojo, however, it is extremely fitting. It’s very consistent with Gege’s portrayal & what we have seen of Gojo. This is Gege’s character after all. It’s foolish to fight him over his own creation.

Let me put it this way: it had to be light-hearted.

This was always, always Gojo’s way of putting people at ease. Whether it is appropriate or not, this was his way. And some conclude, is also why, Megumi chuckled like that.

Think even in HI, when Gojo got ambushed within the barriers at Jujutsu Tech, he reassured/told Geto: “I’m good, really.” But this really threw him off. The poor kid was sweating profusely against the anomaly that was Toji with no cursed energy, so even with his six eyes, he couldn’t track him well.

Think about this scene where he hides & masks his actual feelings/instincts telling him that something was wrong.

Think about after having to take the life of his best friend that he had wanted to save for years & whom he felt left behind by, but having to be a sensei whom they could all rely on:

I definitely feel that him being goofy was his way of being considerate to his students. So my view doesn’t change from what I wrote about in pt1 & 2.

As an adult who does care, would do for those important to him.

He wanted to reassure everyone. Out of responsibility, as the strongest, retaining his humanity, you know? Love? This was exactly what he learned through his dynamic duo with Geto. This is what you’d expect of your sensei.

Also: How could anyone say farewell, as if they wanted those they leave behind, to hurt? It speaks volumes about Gojo’s character. Geto “joked” albeit cynically at his end. Nobara tried to leave a message that she was ok with it before she thought she was going to die (even if she didn’t). Choso imparted his gratitude for having been able to be a good brother.

Gojo was trying to protect their feelings and youth until the very end. Gojo never talked about how he felt to anyone else besides Geto; this was the entire issue that Shoko had with both Gojo & Geto. This is just fact; demonstrated by the entire convo between him & Geto in ch236.

To Gojo, no more words needed to be said in the letter. It would make his students cry, it would make them more attached to him, etc. Gojo never wanted that. He was never even the kind to be sentimental about things (besides his 青春 / memories of his blue spring of youth).

He was even this way with himself:

“Yeah - it’ll be fine!”

“I’ll win.”

“I can’t feel my cursed energy… this is checkmate…” (but nevermind me) “my six eyes tell me…. …. Who are you?!?”

You get my drift, right? Gojo was very much the kind of person who just keeps marching on. He doesn’t have lingering attachment to anything, including himself, besides his one and only complex <- we know what that is.

But it DOES NOT MEAN HE DID NOT CARE. He just recognised that they needed to let go of him to carry on living. It’s rather selfless and loving if you ask me.

The letter was written as if to say, with a cheerful tone:

It’s okay to let me go.

Because, I am okay to go too.

めんご!

[hinamie]

this guy is so shaped it makes me angry

[thetorturedgojodepartment]

Teenage Gojo and the Difference in Perception

Another Gojo analysis/rant because his legacy lives on and I’ll never stop decoding him🫶🏻

Ok, so….I got into JJK right as season two was airing. So as I was watching season 1 and the movie (in that order), episodes of season 2 were dropping. I say all of this because my perception of Gojo was honestly what I still think of him now. This air-of-mystery guy who’s the strongest but is also misunderstood in universe but he’s lowkey pretty chill. Now, this post is going to be solely my opinion (as a lot of analysis posts are) so I want to warn everyone that this was how I saw the fandoms perception of Gojo changed after season 2.

(Also didn’t read the manga or anything then)

It seemed like once we got a glimpse on teenage Gojo, it seemed like people started to get this warped idea about him. That he doesn’t care, he just wants to ball lol, etc. And to what I say to that is….he was a teenager😭 Like ofc he’s going to be like that, but it seemed like people ignored his actions as a character. Sure, he might talk his shit and act like he doesn’t care, but he clearly does!

This also was happening during the Shibuya arc as well! People thought he was just having fun fighting curses (again from my perspective cause there are people who also took it the way I did) when in reality he was clearly angry, upset, and disgusted by what these curses were doing to these poor innocent people and his students and colleagues. Then when I was getting into the manga, there was a certain panel that stuck out to me and I wish they kept it into the anime.

Like idk he looks pretty horrified here.

A huge part of his character is his nonchalance and taking other people’s worries and carrying those worries for them. Another example is (also in the manga but I’m too lazy to pull up another pic LMAO) that teenage Gojo was always reassuring Geto to not worry and that he’ll take care of it.

This is really just an excuse to tell everyone Gojo is just a lad who hides his care through teasing and being an ass. This was like 10 times worse when he was a teenager. 

[thetorturedgojodepartment]

Something that I find attractive about Gojo, if not THE most attractive thing, is that he is a very competent and intelligent man.

What I don’t like (and it’s starting to die down which I love) (also this is just my opinion!!) is the fact that people sometimes portray him as a genuine idiot or like a little boy. I understand when he’s a teenager, but even then, he was and IS really smart and so so so so responsible. Yes he is goofy and funny and silly, but you can be all those things AND be serious and responsible. This part isn’t really my opinion, he literally is written to be that way. This manga panel below literally shows it:

I couldn’t find the whole thing lol, but right after this his voice gets serious and he gives and meeaaannnn mog gargantuas side eye LMAO. Like he KNOWS that this situation is serious and he is obviously being goofy and saying “all good!” so people can stay calm.

I will also put myself on the spot here, I love to joke around and keep things light and playful, but deep down I’m pretty serious and I take things seriously, even if I tell a joke or two. I just never want people to worry and I’m aware how that can come across as me maybe not caring or not taking the situation seriously, as seen with Gojos students and peers. I like to analyse a character’s personality based on when they are alone and whenever Gojo is alone or has no eyes on him, we the readers/viewers get a glimpse at the Gojo underneath.

If he was truly dumb and an idiot and unserious, he would not be the strongest.

People obviously have said what I said before but I lowkey wanted an excuse to post a lil mini analysis LOL.

[justrustandstardust]

the op of jjk season 2 is rife with symbolism. there's one particular motif, however, that foreshadows the trajectory (and tragedy) of gojo and geto's love story.

almost immediately, we see geto running through the rain. the stylistic choice to portray him holding his bag over his head is deliberate, because it emphasizes what he conspicuously doesn’t have but so clearly needs: an umbrella.

gojo, on the other hand, is not operating with the same sense of urgency, seen through him taking his time looking at a cat. gojo has what geto needs, but he's not rushing. their behaviour is incongruous; geto is hurrying to get out of the rain, and gojo remains still, because he’s absolutely not hurrying at all.

the sense of urgency is compounding, seen through geto bouncing his leg. he’s waiting impatiently in the rain, and he's not using his bag to cover up his head anymore. geto knows gojo is coming; that's why he's impatient— because he's waiting for someone who has what he needs that hasn’t shown up yet.

geto needs him, yet gojo doesn’t pick up the pace. this is despite the fact that he needs to because it’s raining and geto doesn’t have an umbrella. we, as the audience, feel geto's impatience and we're urging gojo on, yet he still doesn't go any faster.

sharing an umbrella is an established trope in japan. it’s widely recognized and practiced enough to have its own designated terminology.

gojo is bringing an umbrella for them to share. that's why it’s repeatedly reinforced to the audience that geto doesn't have one. that’s also why the shots cut between them; it highlights what gojo has that geto doesn’t, and in doing so, ties the narrative together through the umbrella.

by the time gojo finally shows up, the sun has come out. gojo lowers the umbrella and smiles sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. contrarily, geto almost seems resigned, like he’s accepted the fact that gojo took too long. they can’t share the umbrella anymore because they missed their chance to use it.

we can see that geto is saying something to gojo when he finally shows up with the umbrella. you know what i would bet actual money it probably was?

“you’re late, satoru.”

[levitonin]

Wanted to draw Gojo version

[levitonin]

Another gojo sketch

[sp1ritb0x]

Happy bday gojo <3

[minloafie]

Solo Mission

[darlingminjin]

I introduce you... Matching! <3

Original artists: @fool_rith and @Ickyeddie (twt/x)

[darlingminjin]

I introduce you... Matching! <3

Original artists: @fool_rith and @Ickyeddie (twt/x)

[sp1ritb0x]

Shoko’s fans

[light-ripples]

stsg