you've been hiding, and you look half dead half the time
i. sleep talking - indigo de souza | ii. closer - fka twigs | iii. gilded lily - cults | iv. i'd hate me too - susannah joffe | v. vampire empire - big thief | vi. bite the hand - boygenius | vii. the fog - moonface | viii. silver car crash - majical cloudz | ix. i'm your man - mitski | x. headlock - imogen heap | xi. minotaur forgiving knossos - moonface
(spotify / youtube)
i. sleep talking - indigo de souza
I'll break your bones
With all the love I carry
Keep you close
And one day, we'll get married
ii. closer - fka twigs
All those years in
Isolation
Helped me water you
Lead me to a
Place I'm free from
All the wrongs I do
iii. gilded lily - cults
Haven't I given enough, given enough?
Always the fool with the slowest heart
But I know you'll take me with you
We'll live in spaces between walls
iv. i'd hate me too - susannah joffe
Broke my own limb and blamed you for the limp
And like a spoiled only child, I thought l'd be forgiven
I lied through my canines and I pulled at your hair
I wanted you to hate me so you'd know l was still there
v. vampire empire - big thief
Where you can't seem to hold me, can't seem to let me go
So I can't find surrender and I can't keep control
You turn me inside out, and then you want me outside in
You spin me all around, and then you ask me not to spin
vi. bite the hand - boygenius
Who do you think you are?
Who do you think you I am?
What do you wanna say?
What do you think will change?
Maybe I'm afraid of you
vii. the fog - moonface
She says, "Don't tie the blindfold quite so tight this time"
He says, "Don't love me to death and I won't love you to death"
She says, "I won't love you to death if you don't love me to death"
He says, "I won't tie the blindfold quite so tight this time"
viii. silver car crash - majical cloudz
My head splits open
For all the camera's flashing
But I am dead already
And I am bleeding onto you
I hope you won't forget me
I am so hopelessly for you
ix. i'm your man - mitski
People always gave me love
Others were never to blame after all
You believe me like a god
I'll betray you like a man
x. headlock - imogen heap
You've been walking, you've been hiding
And you look half dead half the time
Monitoring you like machines do
You've still got it, I'm just keeping an eye
xi. minotaur forgiving knossos - moonface
I have accepted it
And I forgive you
I am this monster in this maze and in a way I'll live forever
You'll never know me
None of you will ever see my face
We all know how the male hierarchy works in the Zenin Clan: male sorcerers with powerful ct rank highest> followed by those with weaker techniques>men who only have CE>men with no CE at all.But how does the female hierarchy work within the clan?
From what I’ve observed, even Maki's mom, despite being a high-ranking noblewoman, does not have enough authority to openly disagree with Naoya when he insults her daughter. In contrast, her husband is able to threaten Naoya with a sword over something much less serious. She is also shown being treated almost like Naoya’s personal butler despite her status, which would normally be considered highly disrespectful for a woman of noble lineage.
Although the Zenin clan is one of the major families, it appears to have only one♀️ member in its militia,& even she eventually left the clan for better opportunities. This suggests that the clan systematically prevents women from taking on military roles & it was also implied that women are not even allowed to enter the cursed tool warehouse,(not even Maki while male members of the same unit face no such restrictions).It seems like to me that female hierarchy does not function like the male one. Instead of CT determining political or military power, they determine a woman’s value in terms of marriage.
This raises another question in my mind: did Maki’s status as the only female member of the militia give her any privilege over other women who were born with CT? Or was it different?It is possible that Maki’s multifaceted social identity in the clan maybe even made her ineligible for marriage within the clan, which is why she may have been allowed to join the military in the first place.
The life of women who aren't Maki, Mai, or their mother in the Zen'in clan is really such a glaring hole in JJK! It is a general weakness of JJK that despite Akutami having some clear degree of interest in depicting patriarchy, that the relevant women characters are far outnumbered by the men. When I have talked about women in the Zen'in clan, it's basically all supposition, and I think that's the limitations basically everyone is working under unless Akutami suddenly reveals more information.
"What is up with Maki's mom and Naoya?" is SUCH a good question! Genuinely, I don't know. I touch on it a little bit in this post. I think that Naoya as (ostensible) clan heir has more power than Mama Zen'in, but I also think that it's possible she's kind of...playing along with him? The thing is that Naoya is just incredibly stupid when it comes to jujutsu and clan politics. She may think that the sexualization and abuse of her daughters is an acceptable price to pay in exchange for being able to influence Naoya. And there's a bonus page that says the Hei men think Mama Zen'in is scary. That does not necessarily correspond to actual power, but it's interesting because I wouldn't have guessed that from the manga.
I do think that guessing cursed energy and cursed techniques are valuable in Zen'in women for marriage/reproduction purposes is a reasonable supposition, and one I have made myself. (I am curious if Mama Zen'in is a sorcerer at all! It's mentioned that both Gojo's parents are sorcerers, but weak ones.) I don't think that Maki not having a CT made her privileged in any formal sense--after all, Mai puts her down for not acting in accordance with the expected gender role of servant. And in general, women who are incapable of or seen as unworthy of reproduction are not treated better under patriarchy. We can see that Naoya feels free to sexually harass and physically abuse Maki, perhaps even because she is not valued for reproduction.
I get the sense that gege was either not given the editorial or creative latitude to go deeper into the State of women in the clan, or omitted it in favour of more ~relevant~ story things… although the idea that the lives of women in the three great clans is irrelevant to a battle shounen manga is itself telling. gege is more than capable of bringing in historical referents (and thus referents for how women in Japanese clans were treated?) or developing social systems when he wants to, like with the Heian period & sorcerers. so it does end up a Weird omission.
the manga would have you think that Mama Zenin is the only adult woman who exists in the Zenin clan, for instance. this is obviously spurious, but it’s the natural conclusion if you take the chapters at face value. when Naobito dies nowhere is his widow (Naoya’s mother) mentioned; diegetically speaking either she’s dead too or the wishes of his widow aren’t important for discharging his will. (realistically, gege simply didn’t want to introduce a throwaway character.)
the sheer negative space that the lives of the women & Mai & Maki are drawn in creates this image of the zenin clan as the land of Uber Gender Subjugation and patriarchal power at its most extreme, where women are barred from any sort of influence or power full stop, even indirect ones. that is obviously not incorrect, but it also makes the hints of unevenly enforced or slightly fluid power structures that gege provides pretty interesting. see: maki getting dispensation (?) to join the Kukuru squad; Mama Zenin’s scenes with Naoya showing that she advises him and gets to steer him when he gets things about Politics wrong. (and she is MUCH more perceptive than him!) is it possible that within the constraints of the tightly drawn social roles for women that some of them can still nudge their ways into positions of influence or string-pulling? or be taught strategy/tactics? yes, but we can only speculate; there isn’t enough in the manga to confirm it one way or another.
realistically, the rough hierarchy among women could have looked like: mothers of next-in-line heirs or the wives of current clan leaders > sokushitsu/concubines (??? again, no idea if the clans practised this, or if their Theory of Eugenics or Genetic Reproduction would facilitate this*) = wives of other influential men in the clan (eg. the head of the different squads) > sorcerer women > normie women with a learned/“educated” skill that’s useful for running the clan’s day-to-day books > normie women with no CT = servants.
but as you can see this hypothetical hierarchy of mine is already falling apart; apparently Mai and Maki’s prospects as sorcerers were poor enough to ruin their parents’ standing and send Mai & Maki straight down to the servant rung, if you believe Ogi, and from what we see of the clan it’s more likely women were primarily intended to be broodmares or useful marriage prospects, no such thing as getting a substantive education of any sort… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ what I gather from this exercise tbh is that a lot of the zenin clan, once you peer closely, is vibes-based rather than a systematic vision of how gendered subjugation is enforced and institutionalised within jujutsu society. which, fair……… I guess………. it’s my fault for confusing the Sorcery Battle manga with the Treatise on Patriarchy and Gendered Violence manga.
there is a Pixiv comic which touches on what the lives of servant women could have looked like, from the POV of a servant who was kind to and helped look after Mai & Maki in the clan. (no English translation sadly!) and imo the absence of Naoya’s mother in particular is a huge gap, given historical conceptions of mother-son dyads in Japanese court/clan settings — who is she, does she assert influence over clan proceedings via Naoya, does she also have influence over him? as it is now it’s like she has never existed and Naoya was born from an asexual spore or something.
* I suspect the sorcerer clans anyway are not meant to be 1:1 parallels to, say, clans that did practise the concubine system like the Tokugawa clan or wtv
yuta is uniquely positioned to be hyper aware of gojo and geto's whole siutation and he does manage to correctly intuit that gojo is still holding onto grief around geto's defection/death but his reaction to this being "dw sensei!!! 🥺 i'll kill your best friend. again. but better this time 🫡" is so........
he's not even a little bit mad that gojo didn't get rid of geto's body properly. or that gojo let geto roam around collecting thousands of curses unchecked for 10 years. or that gojo teleported inumaki and panda into geto's rampaging war path to give yuta a rage-induced powerup. personally i'd be furious
yuta is uniquely positioned to be hyper aware of gojo and geto's whole siutation and he does manage to correctly intuit that gojo is still holding onto grief around geto's defection/death but his reaction to this being "dw sensei!!! 🥺 i'll kill your best friend. again. but better this time 🫡" is so........
[Yuta, cognitive behavioral therapy sufferer who just got blown off by Gojo] Think positively. He is probably being reckless for a reason. Maybe he's feeling monstrous because he has to be The Strongest alone. Maybe he's grieving his best friend.
okkk okkotsu so i know we're in a meeting to decide whether we let you kill itadori for us but if you could just look into the camera for a sec so we can update your student id 🙂📷 thanks 🙂👍
Not afflicted with Main Character Syndrome but a different, worse condition called Prequel Main Character Syndrome in which I disappear from the story for several months, leave behind only occasional name-drops from other characters as traces of my existence & foreshadowed future relevance to the plot, then return at the highest critical turning point in the narrative, announce to everyone I’m going to kill the new main character, and do it.
