you are me, and I am you.

this is an automated ao3 feed for the Zenin twins from jujutsu kaisen. @ or message this blog if you want a post to be reblogged.

[makimai-ao3feed]

new ao3 feed: zenin twins

this blog will post each new story from Archive of Our Own that is tagged Zenin Maki/Zenin Mai or Zenin Maki & Zenin Mai.

[mitrakats]

rupture of our innocence, if you are guilty i am in

[the-marsh-hare]

Sisterhood

[inaevil]

her last gift

[coughingroses]

just slaughtered my entire clan feeling good

[inaevil]

she was born to die

[ose10251112]

[meikuree]

I love zenin mai because she was one of the most unforgivable things a person borne from abuse can apparently dare to be, which is being unsympathetic, a bit of a bitch, and so-called uninterested in "improving" her lot in life. she did begrudge her sister for not keeping a promise they made at 6 despite the fact that nobody can really stay who they were as a child. she talked down to and insulted said sister who deep down cares a lot about her in what was likely one of the few bulwarks against pervasive misery she had. and what about it

[meikuree]

#thinking about her awareness of being looked down upon and societal hierarchies in her interactions wit maki #during the sister school arc #in light of how naoya has the same quirk. (tags via original post)

I’ve been stewing on this small detail from s3 ep4 since a few people echoed these tags (thank you for making me feel less like i was imagining it!). it unnerves me but it does seem like there’s something there. on reflection mai's ease with mocking/insulting people up to get a rise out of them -- eg. the moment during the sister school arc when she meets maki's schoolmates and sneers, "did you all come out to meet us? disgusting." -- can indicate a few things:

it’s a kind of bravado & defense that allows her to disguise how vulnerable or inferior she may feel, à la “I always feel like I’m the worst, so I always act like I’m the best” (to quote marina and the diamonds. lol). consider how badly ‘weak’ jujutsu sorcerers are looked down upon!

it’s one way that mai, like maki, internalises and re-enacts her abuse in a way that lets her control her experiences

I was chatting with ao3 user tangled_tangent about no. 2; the same way maki has victim-blaming tendencies at the start of jjk, because she’s constantly belittled as a clan burden who should quit and then responds by attempting to be at the top (+ emulating her father’s hairstyle as a sign of strength) so she won’t be lumped in with the ‘burdens’ rather than imagining a world where ‘burdens’ don’t exist, mai likes to be a troublemaker & rile up people because it lets her control how and when people lash out at her. she can dictate the field; she can beat people to the social punch before they hurt her. and if you subscribe to the idea that naoya bullied & abused her sexually/socially, you can see why she might act like that.

[salvatoreren]

maki and mai's position resembles them in a fetal position, yes, that's very obvious and telling of how this will be maki's rebirth. but think about the fact in which mai is what babies are typically positioned, the head goes first then the feet, whereas maki's represent a breech, the feet goes first then the head, this labor is difficult and causes complications, it's practically fatal. in this instance, the baby cannot safely exit the womb, and maki's wounds are considerably more fatal than mai's and she was going to die if not for mai who is better positioned. it's just something worth noting and correlating.

[lumen---sky]

AU where Mai survives instead of Maki, and after the clan massacre, she sits by her sister's body playing Russian roulette with her revolver, deciding whether to keep living

[pbjsandwich246]

I’m you and you’re me.

Maki slayed this episode aughhh

[artystay]

Despite everything … it’s still you.

[space-fishy]

“Why am I supposed to care that Mai died? We didn’t even see a lot of her and Maki.”

Feel free to add any thoughts, but I feel like that was intentional. We didn’t really see them grow up or even be together, aside from a few interactions/scenes here and there. I feel it’s because we didn’t have to.

We didn’t have to see all the times they were beaten and abused in the Zenin clan, or hear all the awful things they were called.

Sisters in a house full of aggressive misogynist can turn on each other, or cling to one another. I don’t think they hated each other, just their situation.

I don’t feel that Mai’s death was just a plot device to make Maki strong. It was a long overdue middle finger to the Zenin clan, and Mai’s “I love you, take it from here” to Maki.

Maki awakened through the love and protectiveness of her sister, despite what they had been through- whereas Toji awakened through anger, alone, in spite of what he’d been through.

In the end, they only had them. I think they beat the worst curse of all, generational trauma.

[nibeul]

perfect preparation

[id: It’s a drawing of Maki lying on the beach. Her skin is tan and covered in burn scars from Shibuya and her hair black is in the short, messy stage of growing out. She is wearing her usual black turtle neck and pants and a brown belt. One hand is held above her head, locked in a half pinky promise with Mai’s rigid, paler hand, while the other grips the split soul katana at her side. A goose with a reed in its beak envelops her with its wings while the waves crash into them on the shore. The composition is a mix of both Lena and the Swan by Gail Potocki and Gege Akutami's Maki cover for volume 22 of JJK. /end id]

[boo-cool-robot]

Adding Potocki's Leda here because it is a very interesting reference to pull on in this context.

In JJK, the goose is Mai (or Maki, the conflation is the point here), and the reed the Split Soul Katana (or Mai's love for Maki preparing her for what's to come). Potocki's painting, in contrast, clearly depicts a rape. Interestingly, Potocki adds Zeus-as-swan breaking the egg that in the myth Leda will lay and bear twins from. The goose in this art now evokes how Naoya was on top of Maki in Sakurajima when he boasted about raping Mai, and the broken egg evokes how the Zenin twins were severed from each other by sexual abuse. But by moving the Split Soul Katana from where it was in Maki's right hand in Akutami's original composition to her left, the broken egg is in place of a weapon, the weapon made from Mai's love for her that Maki will use to penetrate and destroy curse Naoya's womb form and domain--this art creates an echo of canon's rape-revenge imagery and destruction of a family lineage.

[opalsoap]

you gotta pretend you hear Twin Size Mattress bc I can't put music on posts here like on insta </3

[aeinzalot]

EPISODE 4

[artbymeow]

"Don't you have a human heart?" "No, it was taken from me."