Maki | 23 | Philippines | he/they | message me i need friends // cries | new art blog @waywardinfinite | old art blog: @likamakil (used to be fcxccisfineshutup)
It's been a long hot while but gotta do what you gotta do.
This month we're tight on funds. Every bill is accounted for, but our food budget is pretty scarce. Currently we have comms open for chibis and sketches in our VGen. Please check 'em out if any of y'all are interested!
Slots:
Chibi- 2 slots available
Sketch- 2 slots available
The past two weeks Maki has faced off against Sukuna. While it seems that Maki and Sukuna's face-off has followed the traditional formula of every individual Sukuna has squared up against so far. That being Sukuna fights them trying to bring out their best, praises them before swiftly defeating them. It's followed the formula so far, with Gojo, Kashimo, Higuruma, and Yuta. Yuta surveys their "taste" as unique sorcerers, and then quickly consumes them.
However, I am going to argue that there's a reason Sukuna takes a special interest in Maki that differs from Gojo Kashimo, Higuruma and Yuta and it's because the two of them foil each other.
1. Skin and Blood, Bone and Marrow
To badly quote Kant, and Johane Fichte thesis and anti-thesis are both necessary in order to make a statement.
Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (1781) created the thesis / antithesis dyad, within two statements.
Thesis: "The world had a beginning in time, and is limited in regars to space."
Antithesis: "The world has no beginning and no limits in space, but is infinite, in respect to both time and space."
Fichte turned this dyad into a triad. A set of two contradictory ideas that is resolved with a third statement, synthesis. In order to make of synthesize a new idea, thesis and anti-thesis must meet first.
Are synthetic judgements a priori (before / precending) possible?
No synthesis is possible without a preceding anti-thesis . As little as antithesis without synthesis, or synthesis without anti-thesis, is possible; just as both cannot be born without thesis.
In other words no idea cannot exist without the opposite idea, and no new statements / judgement can be made without exploring these two ideas in opposition to one another.
I spent so much time explaining this philosophical concept because fights in Jujutsu Kaisen aren't just excuses for Akutami Gege to add more elaborate rules to the power system, and give the power-scaling bros more material to argue about. They are a clash of ideals between the two characters fighting, oftentimes with both characters embodying opposite philosophies. At this point it's not subtext, but literally text, Sukuna calls fights a clash of ideals.
Sukuna is not just fighting to physically conquer Yuji, at this point he wants to win in a clash of ideas to, he wants to disprove the ideals Yuji carries in his heart and all that he represents.
Mahito too, all the way back in Shibuya, called his fight with Yuji a clash of truths, rather than the fight between good and evil that Yuji imagined it to be.
Thesis and Anti-thesis are both necessary to make a statement. Yuji cannot prove his ideals to be true, without clashing with Sukuna first, and the same for Sukuna, Sukuna can no longer disprove Yuji's ideals as false without recognizing his ideals and fighting them head on.
There's a statement on twitter I want to steal that summarizes the matchup of every mini-arc in the Sukuna fighting arc so far.
To summarize Lmfalolawholebunchanumbers point, Mahito and Sukuna acting as antagonists challenge the ideals of the protagonists, but while Mahito represents the reverse of humanity's ideals, Sukuna is against the concept of hodling onto any consistent ideology himself. Sukuna in fact believes that all the ideals of the sorcerers that challenged him in the past were false and flimsy, and is troubled by the fact that Yuji holds onto his ideals no matter what.
I already somewhat explored this in this meta, Sukuna's Anti-Enlightement. Where I argue that Sukuna's ideals resemble nihilism, but even then I wouldn't label Sukuna a nihilist because Nihilism is still a set of beliefs and Sukuna doesn't seem to hold onto any consistent ideology or belief system at all. Trying to assign any human branch of thought or motivation to Sukuna doesn't quite work, because Sukuna's point of view isn't one of a human, but more like an inhuman curse, or even a deity. In other words a calamity.
"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
Beyond Good and Evil Part IV Frederick Nietzsche
Nietzsche used the abyss as a metaphor to summarize the unknowable psychological complexity of human beings. You stare at the abyss trying to comprehend it. Which means when facing the abyss, the abyss forms in your mind. Anyone who tries to understand humans must face the fact they are incomprehensible. Anyone who tries to create some meaning to life must confront the fact that the world is so ridiculously overcomplicated and random it's impossible for the human mind to fully comprehend.
The abyss as it exists is a place of danger where it's easy to lose sight of your search for meaning, or even yourself, but in order to grow you have to confront the deepest, darkest part
Anyone who tries searching for the truth, risks confronting the idea that they may be wrong, risks questioning their values, risks confronting the fact that what they believed meaningful might have no meaning at all - and therefore the abyss widens inside of them, they might abandon idealism all together.
Anyway, enough boring philosophy more or less every single person who fights Sukuna risks having their ideas feel false. Or to paraphrase the twitter user I quoted above, most of the characters that try projecting their own human ideals onto Sukuna, find not only do they misunderstand Sukuna entirely, but Sukuna doesn't care about their ideals and disproves them.
Gojo and Kashimo (and before them Yorozu) all try to fight Sukuna, believing they could make Sukuna understand them and understand Sukuna in turn only to find they were misreading Sukuna entirely.
Gojo makes a big deal of trying to bring out Sukuna's best to prove that Sukuna is not alone standing on the top, only to be met with Sukuna basically going "I don't really care."
When you confront the abyss, the abyss opens up inside of yourself and your ideas may prove to be false. No one who's faced Sukuna so far, has been able to conquer that abyss, in fact Sukuna keeps rendering their ideals to be false. Perhaps because they are just projecting ideas onto the abyss, looking at Sukuna instead of looking at the abyss inside of themselves.
They want something from Sukuna that Sukuna can't give them, they're looking externally for Sukuna to give them easy answers instead of looking internally. Not one of them is able to form a new idea or make a statement because they're not willing to confront anti-thesis.
The exception to this pattern so far is Maki. There's a reason I've been hammering on about the abyss so much, it's because in this most recent chapter Sukuna calls Maki "a true void."
In one sense, there's the technical power system reason why he calls Maki a void. Maki is someone who gave up all cursed energy in order to strengthen her physical body, whereas in comparison Yuji who also mainly fights with his body and super strength, but unlike Maki, Yuji hasn't broken away from cursed energy and is instead soaked in Sukuna's cursed energy.
However, not only has Maki cast off cursed energy, unlike Yuji who has suppressed his own identity to become a cog in favor of his ideal of having a role and supporting other people, Maki has let go of the idea of protecting others and instead focused entirely on the idea of improving her own strength.
Though, not entirely by choice as Mai sacrificed herself, but Maki's awakening and becoming of herself happened when she let go of Mai, and protecting Mai or reforming the Zen'in for Mai's sake. Not only did Mai take cursed energy with her when she died allowing Maki to break free of cursed energy, but she also let go of her ideal of protecting Mai. Losing her cursed energy went hand in hand with losing her "goal" and almost immediately afterwards she loses her goal of trying to prove herself to the Zen'in or become clan head and just exterminates them entirely.
Everything Maki lived for is gone, so what does Maki live for now? Herself mainly, and the concept of total freedom that comes with no longer tying yourself to others.
In that way, I'd say that Maki almost resembles Sukuna the most, because if Sukuna represents the void that others must confront Maki is the only character that has opened up the void inside of herself. As Sukuna said unlike Yuji who's half-assed in his idealism, Maki's shaved away everything and is contemplatng the void. Almost to reflect this, Gege's done away with most of Maki's internal narration and most of her internal dialogue is focused on either how to win, and how to bring out the fullest of her abilities.
Maki's opened up and contemplated the void inside herself, and in that way she's done away with self-doubt like most of the characters are facing, she's not projecting her anxieties onto Sukuna or wishing for him to answer or resolve her identity crisis like Gojo and Kashimo. She doesn't even have an identity crisis.
In fact, Maki and Sukuna resemble each other so much by both having a void inside of them it makes me wonder if Twin Theory is true that Sukuna also achieved his perfection in Jujutsu by either fusing with his twin in Uterus or cannibalizing his twin somehow.
Even in the fight itself, Maki's the one who's most laser focused on winning, whereas Yuji and Yuta's strategies fail because they're too concerned with saving Megumi who himself at the moment does not wish to be saved. (Saving Megumi is a good thing though, I'm just making a point that Maki much like Sukuna only sees herself winning the fight and prioritizes that above everything else. It's not like she's against saving Megumi either she didn't argue against Yuta and Yuji taking a shot at it). It's just she's the only one who like Sukuna only sees the fight in front of her and doesn't worry about other people. She's laser focused on the win is what I'm saying).
I don't think it's just the fact that Maki has cast away cursed energy that's drawn Sukuna's attention, but the fact that while she represents his anti-thesis focusing on only strengthening the human body, they also share many similarities between them.
They're both the void.
Sukuna even says that Maki's existence denies Jujutsu itself.
Sukuna says that Maki is the only person who's forced him to have a role, and in a way that's true, because by denying Jujutsu, she represents the void that Sukuna has to contemplate now. In a way she's played an uno-reverse card to Sukuna's philosophy of revolving his entire life around strengthening Jujutsu and being the height of Jujutsu.
Sukuna now has to prove Jujutsu's superiority and contemplate the fact that is ideal might in fact be wrong.
Sukuna and Maki both represent the ideal of what one can achieve in the pursuit of strengthening the body, versus strengthening Jujutsu, Hajime even comments that Sukuna's body is absolute perfection.
Not only that, but they both represent the opposing philosophies established by Kenjaku and Yuki, Kenjaku sees the future evolution of humanity as optimizing cursed energy, and Yuki envisions a future of breaking away from cursed energy entirely and even namedropped Toji and Maki both as examples of those ideals.
There's a reason that Gojo is troubled by Toji and remembers his loss to Toji years after the fact, Toji deeply troubles Gojo not because he beat him in a fight and caught him off guard but also because his existence challenged everything Gojo believed to be true.
Gojo is the first inheritor of the six-eyes, and Limitless in hundreds of years, he exists solely for Jujutsu as Nanami said, he was also someone who was arrogant at seventeen and was handed everything at birth, who has always been held up on a pedestal by Jujutsu Society. Yet the only person who seriously challenged Gojo and forced him to evolve before Sukuna rolled around was Toji, someone who is the scapegoat of Jujutsu Society, and who is looked down upon by the the three clans. Suddenly, the inherent superiority that Gojo believed in, all the things he thought made him great b/c he was the peak of the Jujutsu world was called into question if a mere monkey could challenge him.
Toji too, stuck around and fought Gojo because he felt a pressing need to disprove the philosophies and ideals that Gojo represented. However, Toji in this fight lost because he succumbed to the void.
He deviated away from his set of ideals and fell prey to his inferiority complex rather than staying true to himself in face of the void.
Gojo's enlightenment itself comes from facing the void that is Toji Zen'in, and then conquering that void by conquering his own biases against Toji that made him let his guard down. Yet, his defeat against Sukuna comes from the fact that he couldn't conquer the void, he couldn't find his own answers instead relying on Sukuna for an answer and because of that Sukuna reduced him back to a human being again with the world cutting slash that cut through the infinity.
In other words in just two chapters Maki vs. Sukuna have embodied a philosophical battle that has been raging in Jujutsu Kaisen since basically Hidden Inventory, and maybe even the beginning of the manga itself and it is what do your ideals, the ideas you live for mean in face of the void / death. Are they worth holding onto, can you create a synthesis from confronting and overcoming your antithesis, or will you too succumb to the meaninglessness that Sukuna represents?
How do you find meaning in a world where death is random, where anyone can die at any moment, a world that is inherently unfair where good things happen to bad people, and selfish monsters like Sukuna get whatever they want who win because they are selfish and step all over people and take what they want.
Confronting Sukuna means confronting the fact that the world may be empty, and we may all be just killing time until we die.
The lines skin and blood, bone and marrow which is what Sukuna uses to refer to the source of is strength (Jujutsu) and the source of Maki's strength (the physical body) are a reference to Bodirahma asking his disciples to understand his teachings.
"You have attained my skin. You have attained my flesh. You have attained my bones. You have attained my marrow."
In other words neither Sukuna and Maki are entirely right, the true understanding comes not from Jujutsu, or the Body, but from both, from skin, flesh, bones and marrow.
In other words, a statement requires thesis and anti-thesis. It's not Maki and Sukuna that are right, and something can be learned from the clash of their ideals.
What I'm saying is basically that JUJUTSU KAISEN is a story with THEMES and I love it.
this group distributes food, vegetables, and other cooking supplies as well as everyday essentials (clothes, water, medicine) to families in North, Central, and South Gaza!
The goal has been raised to help more people and they're currently on a mission to provide 10 million litres of drinking water to people in need. As of the time of this reblog the fundraiser is at
Hi, I’m Hadeel Adnan Abu Nasser from northern Gaza. We went through this war in very difficult conditions of starvation, destruction, bombing, and displacement.
First, I lost my father due to the barbaric bombing, then my family, which consists of 12 members, became without a father. 💔😭
Then I lost my brother, who died due to malnutrition. And the lack of food in northern Gaza. 🍉😔
Then the occupation carried out violent bombardment in our area, which led to our house being severely damaged. Thus, my family became homeless, without a father, and without any source of income🙏🏼
Do you think my family deserves your help? Spread my campaign to your family and friends. Perhaps your small donation may contribute to saving my life and my brothers’ support for ourselves..!🥹🍉
My name is Hadeel Adnan abu nasser from northern Gaza , my da… Hadeel Adnan Abu Nasser needs your support for Help Hadeel and her family sur
Opening slots for emergency comms! We desperately need money for bills, and food, our due dates being extremely close now;;; Here’s our sheet! 3 slots for all styles (can extend slots for chibi icon and chibi baby comms). Just DM me if any y'all are interested!
HIya! We’re opening up 5 slots for chibi icon commissions!
Zero and I (Maki) want to rack up some money to pay off the usual (bills, debt, all that) and also be able to save up for an event we’ve been waiting for months now.
$20 for 1 icon.
[0 slots taken]
Can do characters from any fandom, ocs, etc.! Will also do furry ocs ^^
titsay
discoholicmusic
pixelskylines
annaxmalina
snowghoul
theartofmadeline
blakekathryn
