I finished it. Jsjejfucjeklslhxyy sobbing
(I was in the middle of answering this and all my words were deleted so I'm actually this 🤏 close to blowing tf up but I'll try to recapture some sentiment... this is a feat of pure frustration bc my brain is trying to pick up where I left off im so fkn mad my words are gone HELP)
the bitter end..... it hurts so fucking bad but also healed me a little bit bc bc bc !!! SHHHHHHIIIITTTTTT FUCJCKKNSNKS I love toji and tojikuna so fucking much I wish I could express the extent and ferocity somehow, but I have to settle for an unsatisfactory approximation through my words and doodles in hopes that the quantity starts positively affecting the quality. So I love blag. I think about it WAY too often. I spend so much time thinking about that fucking motel room and how lost and hopeless and somehow determined they both left it after the horrors. Thinking about what came after and how they might've changed or stayed the same. What they would think of their time together. Who they become and how the parts of them left within the other affects that. Etc^∞
I will always praise godcomplexanakin for their phenomenal open endings that have you questioning the narrative and the paths the characters take afterwards, the trains of thought that we construct to justify or explain or soothe our own understanding of the story. I want to SCREAM on and on about the infinite realms in which things are worse or better or just taken and reacted to slightly differently god fucking DAMN. With BLAG specifically, I am still in awe of how seamlessly the pensive state of helplessness carried by the characters is reflected onto the reader at the end of the epilogue; leaving your insides itchy with the doubt and the possibility and the ache of unmitigated fear and concern for someone so dear to you.
Toji staying silent in the sequel when Sukuna said he didn't know what it felt like... pointblank shotgun blast to the fucking cranium. Eleven years of dealing with the Guilt. Shame. Fear. Hate. Of leaving the only thing keeping him afloat behind - of course he didn't know what it felt like because Toji and Sukuna may have had each other, but Sukuna still had his father, his brother, friends - even if Toji is what he wanted. Toji only had Sukuna. He only ever had Sukuna and leaving meant stripping himself of everything he'd ever known. It would never be the same as losing a lover because Toji abandoned a life and a dream while trying to survive. Just as in the sequel where he succumbs to the guilt and shame to taste that reprieve once more and momentarily escape his present fears; helpless to the call to scratch at old wounds, he is still surviving as best as he can with the instincts ingrained in him.
Sukuna's pain and ire; losing something you've wanted for longer than you've had a name for after working harder than you've worked for anything, is a type of suffering that can taste more and more bitter the further you get. Especially when so many other opportunities approach you, but that one thing you put your all into just. Doesn't fucking work out? There is a longing chock-full of resentment for someone who betrayed you when all you ever wanted was to be the person they turned to, but you still understand why. And all those years later you understand why they keep hurting themselves, but you won't - can't - let them forget that some things were good. For their sake, but for your sake too because those moments where nothing else mattered mattered the most to the both of you.
But. (And I love this specific characterization for Sukuna among tjkn authors to death) He is a bastard. A selfish lover - not despite all of his care and love and nurturing, but because of and in addition to it. He wants Toji entirely. Irrevocably. In a way that pries and rattles at the cage noisily, provoking the type of fight Toji is conditioned to expect, but not sure how to react to when it stings like an antiseptic. He wants everything that Toji holds to his chest. He just like me fr.
And the idea if losing it all to someone else OUGH!!! Tojis memories floating back. His fantasy of being released from responsibility. From the shame and guilt and overwhelming fear of something as foreign as familial love - once again aided by Sukuna. The pull is strong, but it isn't enough when he knows Sukuna could read him and his self-sabotage just as well as before.
I could talk about this forever. BLAG. Tojikuna. Toji. I am fucking crazy about this. And I'm crashing out because I can't say the things I want to say in the ways I had already said the first time because my head is so full of garbage GRRRRRRRRR
The point - and im sorry for rambling for so long about it - is!!!! I'm so fucking glad Bark Like a God exists. I'm so fucking happy to read and feel and imagine all of these things and I just wish I could smear my brain juices onto my screen so all tojikuners could soak up the thoughts with me through osmosis or something because I have no clue how to make my passions translate otherwise.
