ULTRAVIOLENCEISM

[ultraviolenceism]

Democratic Erosion and Radical Joy in Lana Del Rey’s Lust for Life (P1)

The traditional promise of the American Dream has long relied on the myth of stability, a cinematic narrative of endless frontiers and guaranteed liberty. However, periods of intense sociopolitical polarization frequently shatter this idealized veneer, forcing artists to reevaluate their relationship with the state. In her early career, Lana Del Rey served as a primary archivist of classic, uncritical Americana, romanticizing a mid-century landscape of fast cars, Hollywood glamour, and the American flag. Yet, the turbulent political landscape of 2017 prompted a drastic ideological shift in her music. In the track “When the World Was at War We Kept Dancing,” released on her studio album Lust for Life, Del Rey moves away from passive nostalgia to confront a nation in crisis. Utilizing cinematic gender metaphors and vivid cultural imagery, she critiques the collapse of American Exceptionalism, exposes modern political communication as a manufactured spectacle, and ultimately advocates for a theory of "radical joy" and youth-led resistance as the only viable defiance against democratic erosion.

The Shattering of American Exceptionalism

At the heart of the track lies a profound interrogation of American Exceptionalism, the classical political theory, popularized by figures like Alexis de Tocqueville, which posits that the United States is inherently unique, superior, and destined to expand liberty globally. Del Rey directly challenges this foundational myth during the song's climax, asking the haunting question: "Is this the end of an era? Is this the end of America?" By positioning the United States not as an immortal superpower but as a fragile project capable of failing, the song shifts into the realm of political declinism.This disillusionment is vividly illustrated through a reversal of historical migration patterns. Del Rey instructs women, “girls don’t forget your pearls, and all of your horses as you make your way across the pond.” Historically, European travelers journeyed west across the Atlantic Ocean to seek refuge, wealth, or a new beginning in America. By demanding that American citizens pack up their belongings and head east back to Europe, Del Rey suggests that the United States has inverted its historical role. It is no longer a sanctuary from global chaos; it has become the site of political instability itself. The surreal inclusion of "horses" a symbol of raw power, endurance, and pioneer survival, implies that this migration is not a casual vacation, but a historical evacuation. Lana frames the modern American citizen as a refugee, forced to carry their intrinsic strength outward because the homeland no longer offers protection.

"Choreo" and the Critique of Political Spectacle

Beyond mourning a dying empire(America), the song offers a critique of how modern states maintain power through the manipulation of truth. This is achieved through a brilliant linguistic turn in the chorus: “Memorize them in a little song / Shake it up, throw your hands and get loose / Cut a rug, lean into the fucking youth / Choreo, we just want the fucking truth.” By shortening the word choreography to the slang “Choreo,”Lana is using a dance term into a political metaphor. In the performing arts, choreography represents a series of highly controlled, rehearsed, and engineered movements designed to project an illusion of effortless perfection. Applied to the state, "choreo" becomes a symbol for the manufactured spectacles of political public relations, state propaganda, and media spin.This critique aligns closely with Guy Debord’s sociological framework in The Society of the Spectacle, which argues that authentic social life has been replaced by a superficial media representation. Del Rey implies that politicians and institutional leaders are merely performers executing a carefully scripted routine to mask systemic decay. The phrase “memorize them in a little song” functions as a cynical commentary on how the state distorts reality. Complex geopolitical crises, domestic warfare, and civil rights violations are systematically reduced by the media into digestible, catchy soundbites—"little songs"—designed for the public to repeat without critical thought. By breaking her signature dreamy demeanor to demand the "fucking truth," Del Rey establishes a dichotomy: the ruling elite move in rigid, deceptive scripts, while the public starves for empirical reality.

Hegemonic Masculinity and the Capitalist Safety Net

While the "girls" are granted a cinematic, resilient escape plan powered by horses, Del Rey treats the male elite with biting cynicism, showcasing a structural critique of American capitalism and hegemonic masculinity. She addresses the ruling class directly: “boys, don’t forget your toys, and take all your money / if you find yourself in a foreign land, boys don’t make too much noise / and don’t try to be funny / other people may not understand.” Within a song centered on global conflict, the term "toys" carries a dark double meaning, representing both literal instruments of state violence (military weaponry) and the expensive, distracting commodities of wealthy men. I interpret this as her critiquing the superficiality of patriarchal power by showing that its authority is entirely dependent on material accumulation ("money") and dominance ("toys"). However, she warns that this power is strictly bound to American borders. By cautioning these men to "not make too much noise" in a "foreign land," she invokes and lampoons the international archetype of the "Ugly American"—the entitled, arrogant westerner who assumes global spaces will inherently bow to his wealth and behavior. Lana is basically saying that American exceptionalism has expired on the global stage. Outside the protection of their crumbling empire, the loud bravado and economic entitlement of these men are no longer viewed as charming or powerful; instead, they are met with alienation and international disdain.

Patriotism as a Toxic Affective Bond

The emotional core of the entire song for me is the track's brief but vital bridge. Lana strips away the grand metaphors of global travel to reveal the psychological toll of citizenship during a democratic crisis, singing: “Oh my God, dizzy from loving you / (And we'll do it again).” In political theory, patriotism is traditionally framed as a rational, civic duty or a proud allegiance to institutional ideals. She entirely reframes national identity as an affective, highly toxic romance.The sensation of being "dizzy" captures a state of political vertigo, the profound exhaustion and disorientation an individual experiences when watching their country's democratic norms fracture in real-time. Loving America is presented as an agonizing burden that induces sickness and instability. Yet, the immediate, parenthetical response —“and we'll do it again”—introduces a paradox. It serves as an illustration of what cultural theorist Lauren Berlant terms "cruel optimism": the stubborn condition of desiring something that actively threatens your well-being. She’s essentially acknowledges that despite the corruption of the state and the dizziness of the political landscape, the citizen remains fundamentally tethered to the nation. The cycle of loving, hurting, and returning to the American ideal is inescapable. The battle for the country's future does not stem from cold political calculation, but from a maddening, relentless devotion to what the country could be.

Radical Joy and Youth-Led Renewal

Within state deception and the exhaustion of patriotism, political nihilism or total paralysis would seem the logical conclusion. However, Lana rejects defeatism by positioning the human body and the collective youth as the ultimate sites of political resistance. The mandate to “cut a rug, lean into the fucking youth” (second most thematic lyric in my personal opinion) essentially elevates dance from a trivial act of escapism to a profound strategy of survival. This is conveyed from the famous anarchist philosophy often attributed to Emma Goldman: "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution."When formal political systems are entirely corrupted by the "choreo" of the ruling class, reclaiming joy, community, and personal autonomy on the dance floor becomes a radical act. Dance is free, spontaneous, and unscripted—the exact polar opposite of state control. Furthermore, Del Rey’s insistence on "leaning into" the younger generation reflects a well-established sociopolitical reality: genuine systemic renewal rarely originates from within established institutions. Instead, it relies on the uncorrupted passion of the youth, who refuse to accept the scripted compromises of their elders. The youth do not dance to comply with the state's tune; they dance to shake off its weight and demand accountability.

CONCLUSION

Lana Del Rey’s “When the World Was at War We Kept Dancing” functions as a vital sonic text that documents a distinct crisis in the American democratic identity. Through her lyrical construction, she shows the decline of a national myth, exposing how a fracturing empire utilizes political spectacle to pacify its populace while its old power dynamics fail abroad. Yet, by framing patriotism as a complex labor of love and championing the somatic rebellion of dance, the track ultimately avoids despair. Lana offers a resilient political framework for surviving an era of democratic erosion. She reminds the listener that a nation’s true sovereignty and enduring strength do not reside in the hands of its choreographed politicians, its economic wealth, or its “military toys.” Rather, it lives within the unyielding, vital spirit of its youth, who, even when trapped in a burning world, maintain the radical freedom to keep moving forward.

[pheophoi]

Gojo, Geto, and the prohibition against looking

A while back, I found this little article written by a Japanese psychoanalyst that I couldn't help but link back to Satosugu (normal behavior, I know). It's about a psychological phenomenon that occurs in infants / small children that the author could see reflected within Japanese mythologies and folklores such as The Crane Wife and the myth of Izanagi and Izanami, where the child learns about the biological processes that give it nourishment (such as milk production) and the toll they take on the mother's body, thereby developing a more complete view on her.

So I thought, why not write something about it. More under the cut:

This article revolves around a concept called the "prohibition against looking" which according to the author, Osamu Kitayama, is a taboo in the pre-Oedipal stage of the mother-child relationship (when the child was still an infant). This taboo is reflected in several Japanese myths which follows the formula of:

A male protagonist marries a beautiful woman, who warns him against looking at her when she performs certain activities.

He does it anyway and discovers that she is in fact an animal, such as a crane, a snake, or a crocodile capable of turning into a human. The myths would end with the humiliated wife leaving the husband heartbroken and guilty.

It also doesn’t have to be the husband looking at the wife in her true, animalistic form, only that he looks at something forbidden by her, such as the box Otohime forbid Urashima to open, or Izanami’s fetid corpse.

Examples of the myths used by Kitayama are: The crane wife, The legend of Urashima-taro, The snake wife, the myth of Izanagi-Izanami.

According to Kitayama, these myths symbolize the infant’s transition from the idealized image of a nurturing, loving mother upon whom it can depend entirely, to the realization that her provisions come at a cost (namely, the bodily functions that are necessary to produce it - symbolized by the wife’s body parts or a certain object, such as the crane wife’s feathers, the snake wife’s lactating eyeball, or Otohime’s box) and the guilt of having “wounded” its mother for demanding/needing such provisions. Here the wife is split into two images, that of the loving, idealized and beautified woman and the impure and disgusting animal. Notably, the male protagonists of these stories are often kind and innocent, but demanding and passive in his receiving of affection, like a child. Conversely, the heroines are devoted, self-sacrificial and forward like a mother.  

When the male protagonists break the prohibition, he sees the heroines as an animal, as he struggles to reconcile the reality of her bodily functions / “animalistic” side and his idealized image of her. This disillusionment causes the separation. Later on, the shame and guilt comes as he realizes the animal and the woman are one in the same, and that he has “wounded” his wife/mother. 

I can see some parallels between this and Gojo and Geto’s relationship in HI/PD. According to Gojo’s VA, Geto was Gojo’s emotional support and with him, Gojo was free to act like a spoiled child. Geto would indulge Gojo, putting his needs second to Gojo’s, like when Haibara asked Geto what he should give him as souvenirs, Geto based his answer on what Gojo would like.

Gojo also viewed Geto as his moral compass and depended on him to make moral decisions, such as when Gojo asks Geto if he should kill the cultists. This points to a level of idealization.

Their separation came when Geto snapped and massacred an entire village. Though notice how the core of the conflict and Gojo’s anger at Geto is not because what Geto did was wrong according to some abstract idea of good and evil, but rather that Geto went against his pre-established morals (by killing meaninglessly) and thus shattering his idealized image of him. In this scene we also see Gojo without his glasses, which (aside from when he’s in battle) means that he’s being able to perceive Geto for what he truly is - he’s looking at a side of Geto he has never seen before, and he struggles to reconcile it with his idealized version. He views it, at least on some level, as a personal offense/betrayal (“Explain yourself.”). He reacts to the revelation with anger and violence, though like the male protagonists of the myths he ultimately resigns to Geto’s abandonment.

It should be noted that according to Kitayama, the prohibition against looking, unlike certain taboos such as incest, is to be broken as the child learns to view its mother as a full human being and mature, kind of like how Gojo only starts to mature after Geto left him. 

Kitayama also relates the personality and lifestyle of the heroines in the stories to the “masochistic caretaker”, which he defines as the type of person who “takes extremely good care of people who request help” who “tend to take on work beyond their capacity, have no time to rest themselves, and repeatedly find themselves in a state of exhaustion, both physically and psychologically. When they fail to take good care of others, they feel ashamed;...it is hard for them to receive proper assistance from others, even when they are physically ill and psychologically hurt…” who has a “self-tormenting nature.” I think all of this describes Geto quite nicely. 

---

Obviously it isn’t a one-on-one parallel. For example, in the myths, the revelation that the male protagonists have is usually tied in some kind of bodily functions of the heroine, such as childbirth or lactation, thus exposing him to the crude reality of his source of sustenance and inflicting him with the guilt of having wounded his wife/mother by demanding from her, while for Gojo he was only being exposed to an non-idealized aspect of Geto that he struggled to accept and reconcile with his existing image of him, and this non-idealized aspect only coincidentally has something to do with having children (miminana) and impurity (murder or blood or whatever). Though the disillusionment and ensuing guilt is the same. Their dynamics are also quite similar, so while i was reading through this i can’t help but think haha isn’t this kinda like satosugu

[akuji05]

Thinking about the Blue-Red symbolism surrounding SatoSugu

I've been thinking about this shot for a while. At first it didn't make sense to me, why Gojo was in the red and Geto was in the blue, I thought it should've been the opposite but after seeing some others talk about it, I think it makes a lot of sense.

Because of Gojo's powers and how it directly relates into this. At the near end of Hidden Inventory, Gojo and Geto are spending less time together, Gojo is going out on missions alone, he is training and refining his techniques multiple times over and is leaving little to no room for friends. He's essentially isolating himself from others to be able to become strong enough to go on as many missions as possible. He's pushing people away, like how his ability Red repels. Thus, Gojo is in red, like his ability, pushing away those around him.

Geto on the other hand is in the blue, by the near end of Hidden Inventory, he is depressed and consistently consuming curses. I think Gege was great at showing his depression, Geto’s got heavy eye bags, like he either can’t sleep or sleeps too much. He hunches over, resting on his knees like sitting up straight is just too much work. When someone talks to him, he blinks slowly and takes a beat too long to respond, like even that takes more energy than he has. And like Gojo said, he was losing weight, meaning he was eating less. Like Gojo's ability blue, which attracts, he is absorbing curses, wallowing in his negative thoughts and feelings to the point he developed a hatred for most of humanity. He's pulling in all the negativity into himself just as how blue attracts.

And it also fits in nicely with the openings of season 2. Ao no Sumika (Where Our Blue is) is imo showing that they were together and happy. Where Our Blue is, in this case would also translate to Where Our Attraction is because Gojo's blue is pulling and attracting. The title to me means "Where we're together" for them. The rest of the opening is mostly blue as well, emphasizing it further. The second opening of season 2, is mostly red, and akin to reversal red presents a push. Gojo and Geto are no longer united anymore, they stand against each other.

Also these two frames put that nicely.

[pheophoi]

Gojo, Geto, and the prohibition against looking

A while back, I found this little article written by a Japanese psychoanalyst that I couldn't help but link back to Satosugu (normal behavior, I know). It's about a psychological phenomenon that occurs in infants / small children that the author could see reflected within Japanese mythologies and folklores such as The Crane Wife and the myth of Izanagi and Izanami, where the child learns about the biological processes that give it nourishment (such as milk production) and the toll they take on the mother's body, thereby developing a more complete view on her.

So I thought, why not write something about it. More under the cut:

This article revolves around a concept called the "prohibition against looking" which according to the author, Osamu Kitayama, is a taboo in the pre-Oedipal stage of the mother-child relationship (when the child was still an infant). This taboo is reflected in several Japanese myths which follows the formula of:

A male protagonist marries a beautiful woman, who warns him against looking at her when she performs certain activities.

He does it anyway and discovers that she is in fact an animal, such as a crane, a snake, or a crocodile capable of turning into a human. The myths would end with the humiliated wife leaving the husband heartbroken and guilty.

It also doesn’t have to be the husband looking at the wife in her true, animalistic form, only that he looks at something forbidden by her, such as the box Otohime forbid Urashima to open, or Izanami’s fetid corpse.

Examples of the myths used by Kitayama are: The crane wife, The legend of Urashima-taro, The snake wife, the myth of Izanagi-Izanami.

According to Kitayama, these myths symbolize the infant’s transition from the idealized image of a nurturing, loving mother upon whom it can depend entirely, to the realization that her provisions come at a cost (namely, the bodily functions that are necessary to produce it - symbolized by the wife’s body parts or a certain object, such as the crane wife’s feathers, the snake wife’s lactating eyeball, or Otohime’s box) and the guilt of having “wounded” its mother for demanding/needing such provisions. Here the wife is split into two images, that of the loving, idealized and beautified woman and the impure and disgusting animal. Notably, the male protagonists of these stories are often kind and innocent, but demanding and passive in his receiving of affection, like a child. Conversely, the heroines are devoted, self-sacrificial and forward like a mother.  

When the male protagonists break the prohibition, he sees the heroines as an animal, as he struggles to reconcile the reality of her bodily functions / “animalistic” side and his idealized image of her. This disillusionment causes the separation. Later on, the shame and guilt comes as he realizes the animal and the woman are one in the same, and that he has “wounded” his wife/mother. 

I can see some parallels between this and Gojo and Geto’s relationship in HI/PD. According to Gojo’s VA, Geto was Gojo’s emotional support and with him, Gojo was free to act like a spoiled child. Geto would indulge Gojo, putting his needs second to Gojo’s, like when Haibara asked Geto what he should give him as souvenirs, Geto based his answer on what Gojo would like.

Gojo also viewed Geto as his moral compass and depended on him to make moral decisions, such as when Gojo asks Geto if he should kill the cultists. This points to a level of idealization.

Their separation came when Geto snapped and massacred an entire village. Though notice how the core of the conflict and Gojo’s anger at Geto is not because what Geto did was wrong according to some abstract idea of good and evil, but rather that Geto went against his pre-established morals (by killing meaninglessly) and thus shattering his idealized image of him. In this scene we also see Gojo without his glasses, which (aside from when he’s in battle) means that he’s being able to perceive Geto for what he truly is - he’s looking at a side of Geto he has never seen before, and he struggles to reconcile it with his idealized version. He views it, at least on some level, as a personal offense/betrayal (“Explain yourself.”). He reacts to the revelation with anger and violence, though like the male protagonists of the myths he ultimately resigns to Geto’s abandonment.

It should be noted that according to Kitayama, the prohibition against looking, unlike certain taboos such as incest, is to be broken as the child learns to view its mother as a full human being and mature, kind of like how Gojo only starts to mature after Geto left him. 

Kitayama also relates the personality and lifestyle of the heroines in the stories to the “masochistic caretaker”, which he defines as the type of person who “takes extremely good care of people who request help” who “tend to take on work beyond their capacity, have no time to rest themselves, and repeatedly find themselves in a state of exhaustion, both physically and psychologically. When they fail to take good care of others, they feel ashamed;...it is hard for them to receive proper assistance from others, even when they are physically ill and psychologically hurt…” who has a “self-tormenting nature.” I think all of this describes Geto quite nicely. 

---

Obviously it isn’t a one-on-one parallel. For example, in the myths, the revelation that the male protagonists have is usually tied in some kind of bodily functions of the heroine, such as childbirth or lactation, thus exposing him to the crude reality of his source of sustenance and inflicting him with the guilt of having wounded his wife/mother by demanding from her, while for Gojo he was only being exposed to an non-idealized aspect of Geto that he struggled to accept and reconcile with his existing image of him, and this non-idealized aspect only coincidentally has something to do with having children (miminana) and impurity (murder or blood or whatever). Though the disillusionment and ensuing guilt is the same. Their dynamics are also quite similar, so while i was reading through this i can’t help but think haha isn’t this kinda like satosugu

[pheophoi]

I have yet to meet a JJK fan who has also read Umineko, so here's my attempt at finding my people.

Mostly because I've been having brainworms over the Satosugu - Beabato parallels for a loooong while now. I can't be the only one who sees it, right?

Yapping under the cut. Please, if you have read both Umineko and JJK, please listening to me!!

Oh, and spoilers for both JJK and Umineko. You have been warned!

This may just be my personal opinion, but I read Gojo and Geto's story as essentially them coming to understand each other and reuniting in death, especially on Gojo's part. It's about him understanding and chasing after Geto, even when he's already gone.

Originally, Gojo failed to understand Geto and why he has changed, responding to him with hostility and violence.

He failed to save him.

Before that, he failed to help Geto as he's declining (though not necessarily to his own fault).

Geto's decline is also in part due to Gojo's absence. Or, he was declining while Gojo's absent, not there to help him shoulder the burden.

Geto himself is shocked that Gojo still cares for him.

Gojo's censored last word to Geto is described in the vol 0 light novel as something sincere and embarrassing. To which Geto replies: "You should at least curse me at the end.", meaning he expects Gojo to hate him for what he's done.

He gets jealous when Gojo talks about fighting with Sukuna, seeing himself as not belonging to the world of the "Strongest", where Gojo and Sukuna is, and therefore cannot satisfy Gojo.

However, Gojo refutes him by saying, he'll only be satisfied if Geto was there, a straightforward profession of love, dare I say.

So to sum it all up!

Geto, in Gojo's absence, mentally declines until he commits mass murder.

Gojo fails to understand Geto and to save him.

Geto thinks Gojo hates him, views himself as irredeemable.

They reunite in death, where Gojo expresses straightforwardly how much he treasures/love Geto, even as Geto withdraws himself.

This sounds like Beabato to me! Obviously, it isn't absolutely the same, but the major beats are there, and both ships have themes of misunderstanding and grief.

Sayo also declines while waiting for Battler. Battler didn't notice her pain and even added onto it, unknowingly, by being naive and ignorant.

Eventually, Sayo commits the Rokkenjima incident, and in the world of witches, have killed the Ushiromiya family many times over.

Battler during the Questions Arc, ignorant of Beatrice's true identity and heart, is hostile to her

(I want to add that screenshot where Battler's crying and insulting Beatrice and the text fills the entire screen, but I couldn't find it ): )

Beatrice believes herself to be irredeemable, not belonging to the same world as Battler.

Which causes her to drown herself, running away from Battler, but he still chases after her (and professes his love!)

Even if it means his death.

Both ships are united in death, where they both understand each other and the love they have for one another fully.

It's a union that came a little too late, since they never got to be together in life.

There's also a theme of "lateness"... In the ED for Hidden Inventory/Premature Death, Gojo walks in the rain with an umbrella, which we eventually learns is for Geto since he doesn't have one. But when Gojo arrives, the rain has already stopped. He was late to shield Geto from the rain.

There's also this in vol 0:

I think this sentence has double meaning... It also means Gojo is late to save Geto when they were young.

Just like how Battler is late to realize Beatrice's true nature, only does so once she's gone/beyond saving.

There are also some individual parallels.

For Gojo and Battler, they're both sons of a powerful Japanese clan. They both have a crass personality. They're both a bit ignorant and naive (when they're young, at least).

(Though Gojo isn't incompetent. He's only incompetent when it comes to Geto's feelings, I think.)

For Geto and Beatrice, they both have serious mental issues stemmed from a life of hardship, that eventually pushes them to commit horrible crimes. They both have a grandiose, villainous persona that is in contrast to their more kind-hearted, sincere nature (Geto - Cult leader and Sayo - Golden Witch). They both have a low opinion of themselves despite this persona. They're both represented by yellow/golden color.

Battler and Beatrice are respectively the white & black side of chess, hence their design's color palette.

Just like...

So yeah! The Beabato - Satosugu parallels are very real in my head.

If you've read this far, thank you very much.

[pheophoi]

Geto, Kenjaku, and the monstrous-feminine

While reading through JJK, I couldn’t help but notice that Geto and Kenjaku both fit pretty well into the monstrous-feminine trope— think the Queen Xenomorph in Aliens, the ghost mother in Dark Water, or the wife in The Brood. This post will be an attempt to argue that they are, in fact, examples of the monstrous-feminine, and to talk a tiny bit about what that means for the story overall.

Before going into the actual meta, I want to point out that (Source: interview in 2024 JJK exhibition) Gege didn’t decide on Kenjaku’s true identity until the Shibuya arc, even though it was always going to be fake Geto. I take this to mean that Kenjaku and Geto as characters are more intertwined than we previously or usually thought, with Kenjaku for at least the first arcs existing as “Geto that is a bit strange”— someone that resembles Geto in appearance and mannerism but is not quite him, whose true identity is blank (for now). This is why I’ve decided it’s best to analyze them together, especially in terms of monstrous-feminine symbolism (as to me in this regard they are even more so extensions of one another). 

This analysis will be based on Barbara Creed’s “The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis”. In this book, Creed defined the concept of the monstrous-feminine and discussed how its representations speak to deep patriarchal fears about (what has historically been regarded as) female bodies and reproductive processes. The book draws heavily from Julia Kristeva’s theory on the abject, which is defined as what does not “respect borders, positions, rules”, what “disturbs identity, system, order” and thus elicit within us the feeling of disgust and horror. The abject is what used to belong to or were us, that we must continually throw away and draw borders against in order to form and keep stable our identity. Excrements, bodily fluids, and corpses are all examples of inherently abject things. 

The archaic mother:

According to Kristeva, a huge example of the abject is the maternal figure as all individuals experience abjection when they attempt to break away from their mothers in order to form their own identities. As such, many horror films feature mothers as the female monster (Psycho, Carrie). Kenjaku through possessing Itadori Kaori and giving birth to Itadori Yuuji is quite literally a mother.

Geto can also be viewed as a maternal figure within JJK. His curse technique - Cursed Spirit Manipulation - functions like a womb. It takes in cursed spirits who remain separate entities from Geto with their own curse energy, and because CTs all cost CE it’s as if through CSM Geto is feeding these spirits CE and nurturing them in exchange for their obedience, making Geto into somewhat of a mother figure to his curses. Geto is also written with an emphasis on his protective, nurturing side— he is often seen caring for other people (checking up on Gojo, telling him to go easy on Riko, taking MimiNana to the crepe shop), his entire ideology is based on protecting the weak (even after he becomes a villain he still holds this idea, it’s just that who he considers weak and in need of protection changes), he’s family-oriented and in his cult family he is the heart, the emotional center that binds everyone together so that after he died they all splintered off.

This is not to say that these traits are inherently feminine, but rather in culture they are usually given to female, maternal characters, yet we are seeing them in Geto. There may be a reason why Toji’s worm called him “Mommy” (lol). 

The maternal figure within horror can be represented in a number of ways, one of which is through the archaic mother, who is “the parthenogenetic mother, the mother as primordial abyss, the point of origin and of end”. She can be seen within mythologies of several cultures around the world as the Mother-Goddess who alone created Heaven and Earth (Nu Kwa in China, Gaia in Greece, Nammu in Sumer). As the monstrous-feminine, however, she is reconstructed in a negative light as “the abyss, the all-incorporating black hole that threatens to reabsorb what is once birthed”, “the blackness of extinction - death”. She is a force that threatens to reincorporate what is once distinct into the original oneness, to the mother’s womb. She represents the fear of (and desire for) dissolution, non-differentiation, and death. 

Cursed Spirit Manipulation absorbs once-autonomous beings and submits them to the user’s authority. Its Maximum Technique is the dissolution of these beings into a single, non-identifying black mass (Uzumaki). Kenjaku's master plan is to merge the Japanese population into one entity. Both Kenjaku and Geto can be seen as maternal figures within JJK whose powers are destructive in their ability to absorb and dissolute. 

The monstrous womb: 

From fear of the mother’s generative power comes fear of the womb. In horror films, the connection between the womb and the monstrous is often invoked through womb-like spaces and objects or female characters capable of giving birth to monsters. Creed gave an example with the film “The Brood”, in which the central figure is a woman who through her rage manifests strange and dangerous creatures that resemble disfigured infants— the climax of the film is her revealing under her dress bulbous sacs hanging from her side from which she took out a fetus. Here, the womb is taken outside of the body, the birthing process made apparent. It is horrifying because we are confronted with the nature of reproduction and the maternal body— the alterations and even disfigurements caused by housing a life form.  

Geto and Kenjaku have the ability to store and “give birth” to monsters (given that CSM functions like pregnancy). Geto’s domain expansion is called “All-enveloping Garbhadhatu”, officially translated into English as “Womb Profusion” (because Yuuta in Gojo’s body has Unlimited Void as his domain, we can conclude that Womb Profusion is Geto’s even if we’ve only seen Kenjaku use it). In Esoteric Buddhism, Garbhadhatu (Womb Realm) is where compassion leading to salvation is born and sustained like a fetus being nurtured by the womb. The domain itself features headless pregnant women. 

In the Vol. 0 movie we can see images of pregnant bodies and babies in Geto’s Uzumaki while he’s summoning it. 

The manner in which Curses are summoned by CSM is also reminiscent of birth, through either a portal or an incision into space, accompanied by dark liquid pouring out (at least in the manga). 

When Kenjaku died and the cursed spirits were about to burst out of Geto’s body, we can see that his belly became swollen or convulsed. Afterwards, it was seemingly transformed into a womb-like structure carrying the Tengen fetus, which Kenjaku had absorbed and incubated prior to their death. In a way, Geto’s entire body after death has become a monstrous womb.

Fear of the womb is also tied to fear of a loss of boundaries, between the clean, proper body and the natural world, the abject. “…the act of birth is grotesque because the body’s surface is no longer closed,…rather the body looks as if it may tear apart, open out, reveal its innermost depth.” In the birthing process, new life forms travel from inside the womb to the outside, carrying with it blood, afterbirth, feces,…what is meant to be banished from the human domain in order to establish and preserve its identity, system, order. 

Within JJK, Geto or Cursed Spirit Manipulation exists with a similar ambivalence. In order for Geto to add a cursed spirit into his ranks, he must first ingest them. Cursed spirits are hyper-condensed negative emotions/curse energy that spilled out of humans— they’re basically human waste (and so naturally they taste like “rags used to wipe up vomit and excrement”). Yet, they reside within Geto, their curse energy adding to his own. With Geto, the border between the clean, proper body and the abject - cursed spirits in this case - was blurred. This makes Geto’s body uniquely abject within the narrative. He knows “the taste that no one knows”.

So what does this all mean?

The monstrous-feminine threatens the integrity of patriarchal order. In JJK, both Geto and Kenjaku aim to disrupt the patriarchal Jujutsu world: Geto, scorned by how the system treats him and people like him, tried to violently dismantle it (however flawed his plan and ideology was) while Kenjaku’s plan plunged the Jujutsu world into complete chaos. In a way, Kenjaku is an escalation of Geto’s monstrous-feminine, from Geto’s vengeful, misguided acts of violence in an attempt to disrupt the system, to Kenjaku’s meaningless, blanket chaos. In Kenjaku and their possession of Geto’s body, Geto’s righteous motives (his will, his autonomy) are gone - there remains only the monstrosity, destruction for its own sake. 

Still, Geto’s actions, misguided as they were, did eventually create real change. Gojo’s goal of raising strong allies and creating a better Jujutsu world was inspired by Geto. Although at first he opposed violent actions as he believed they wouldn’t be able to change anything, eventually, he came to the conclusion that violence was necessary, and in the moment where he massacred the higher-ups, he thought of Geto. 

[pheophoi]

Geto, Kenjaku, and the monstrous-feminine

While reading through JJK, I couldn’t help but notice that Geto and Kenjaku both fit pretty well into the monstrous-feminine trope— think the Queen Xenomorph in Aliens, the ghost mother in Dark Water, or the wife in The Brood. This post will be an attempt to argue that they are, in fact, examples of the monstrous-feminine, and to talk a tiny bit about what that means for the story overall.

Before going into the actual meta, I want to point out that (Source: interview in 2024 JJK exhibition) Gege didn’t decide on Kenjaku’s true identity until the Shibuya arc, even though it was always going to be fake Geto. I take this to mean that Kenjaku and Geto as characters are more intertwined than we previously or usually thought, with Kenjaku for at least the first arcs existing as “Geto that is a bit strange”— someone that resembles Geto in appearance and mannerism but is not quite him, whose true identity is blank (for now). This is why I’ve decided it’s best to analyze them together, especially in terms of monstrous-feminine symbolism (as to me in this regard they are even more so extensions of one another). 

This analysis will be based on Barbara Creed’s “The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis”. In this book, Creed defined the concept of the monstrous-feminine and discussed how its representations speak to deep patriarchal fears about (what has historically been regarded as) female bodies and reproductive processes. The book draws heavily from Julia Kristeva’s theory on the abject, which is defined as what does not “respect borders, positions, rules”, what “disturbs identity, system, order” and thus elicit within us the feeling of disgust and horror. The abject is what used to belong to or were us, that we must continually throw away and draw borders against in order to form and keep stable our identity. Excrements, bodily fluids, and corpses are all examples of inherently abject things. 

The archaic mother:

According to Kristeva, a huge example of the abject is the maternal figure as all individuals experience abjection when they attempt to break away from their mothers in order to form their own identities. As such, many horror films feature mothers as the female monster (Psycho, Carrie). Kenjaku through possessing Itadori Kaori and giving birth to Itadori Yuuji is quite literally a mother.

Geto can also be viewed as a maternal figure within JJK. His curse technique - Cursed Spirit Manipulation - functions like a womb. It takes in cursed spirits who remain separate entities from Geto with their own curse energy, and because CTs all cost CE it’s as if through CSM Geto is feeding these spirits CE and nurturing them in exchange for their obedience, making Geto into somewhat of a mother figure to his curses. Geto is also written with an emphasis on his protective, nurturing side— he is often seen caring for other people (checking up on Gojo, telling him to go easy on Riko, taking MimiNana to the crepe shop), his entire ideology is based on protecting the weak (even after he becomes a villain he still holds this idea, it’s just that who he considers weak and in need of protection changes), he’s family-oriented and in his cult family he is the heart, the emotional center that binds everyone together so that after he died they all splintered off.

This is not to say that these traits are inherently feminine, but rather in culture they are usually given to female, maternal characters, yet we are seeing them in Geto. There may be a reason why Toji’s worm called him “Mommy” (lol). 

The maternal figure within horror can be represented in a number of ways, one of which is through the archaic mother, who is “the parthenogenetic mother, the mother as primordial abyss, the point of origin and of end”. She can be seen within mythologies of several cultures around the world as the Mother-Goddess who alone created Heaven and Earth (Nu Kwa in China, Gaia in Greece, Nammu in Sumer). As the monstrous-feminine, however, she is reconstructed in a negative light as “the abyss, the all-incorporating black hole that threatens to reabsorb what is once birthed”, “the blackness of extinction - death”. She is a force that threatens to reincorporate what is once distinct into the original oneness, to the mother’s womb. She represents the fear of (and desire for) dissolution, non-differentiation, and death. 

Cursed Spirit Manipulation absorbs once-autonomous beings and submits them to the user’s authority. Its Maximum Technique is the dissolution of these beings into a single, non-identifying black mass (Uzumaki). Kenjaku's master plan is to merge the Japanese population into one entity. Both Kenjaku and Geto can be seen as maternal figures within JJK whose powers are destructive in their ability to absorb and dissolute. 

The monstrous womb: 

From fear of the mother’s generative power comes fear of the womb. In horror films, the connection between the womb and the monstrous is often invoked through womb-like spaces and objects or female characters capable of giving birth to monsters. Creed gave an example with the film “The Brood”, in which the central figure is a woman who through her rage manifests strange and dangerous creatures that resemble disfigured infants— the climax of the film is her revealing under her dress bulbous sacs hanging from her side from which she took out a fetus. Here, the womb is taken outside of the body, the birthing process made apparent. It is horrifying because we are confronted with the nature of reproduction and the maternal body— the alterations and even disfigurements caused by housing a life form.  

Geto and Kenjaku have the ability to store and “give birth” to monsters (given that CSM functions like pregnancy). Geto’s domain expansion is called “All-enveloping Garbhadhatu”, officially translated into English as “Womb Profusion” (because Yuuta in Gojo’s body has Unlimited Void as his domain, we can conclude that Womb Profusion is Geto’s even if we’ve only seen Kenjaku use it). In Esoteric Buddhism, Garbhadhatu (Womb Realm) is where compassion leading to salvation is born and sustained like a fetus being nurtured by the womb. The domain itself features headless pregnant women. 

In the Vol. 0 movie we can see images of pregnant bodies and babies in Geto’s Uzumaki while he’s summoning it. 

The manner in which Curses are summoned by CSM is also reminiscent of birth, through either a portal or an incision into space, accompanied by dark liquid pouring out (at least in the manga). 

When Kenjaku died and the cursed spirits were about to burst out of Geto’s body, we can see that his belly became swollen or convulsed. Afterwards, it was seemingly transformed into a womb-like structure carrying the Tengen fetus, which Kenjaku had absorbed and incubated prior to their death. In a way, Geto’s entire body after death has become a monstrous womb.

Fear of the womb is also tied to fear of a loss of boundaries, between the clean, proper body and the natural world, the abject. “…the act of birth is grotesque because the body’s surface is no longer closed,…rather the body looks as if it may tear apart, open out, reveal its innermost depth.” In the birthing process, new life forms travel from inside the womb to the outside, carrying with it blood, afterbirth, feces,…what is meant to be banished from the human domain in order to establish and preserve its identity, system, order. 

Within JJK, Geto or Cursed Spirit Manipulation exists with a similar ambivalence. In order for Geto to add a cursed spirit into his ranks, he must first ingest them. Cursed spirits are hyper-condensed negative emotions/curse energy that spilled out of humans— they’re basically human waste (and so naturally they taste like “rags used to wipe up vomit and excrement”). Yet, they reside within Geto, their curse energy adding to his own. With Geto, the border between the clean, proper body and the abject - cursed spirits in this case - was blurred. This makes Geto’s body uniquely abject within the narrative. He knows “the taste that no one knows”.

So what does this all mean?

The monstrous-feminine threatens the integrity of patriarchal order. In JJK, both Geto and Kenjaku aim to disrupt the patriarchal Jujutsu world: Geto, scorned by how the system treats him and people like him, tried to violently dismantle it (however flawed his plan and ideology was) while Kenjaku’s plan plunged the Jujutsu world into complete chaos. In a way, Kenjaku is an escalation of Geto’s monstrous-feminine, from Geto’s vengeful, misguided acts of violence in an attempt to disrupt the system, to Kenjaku’s meaningless, blanket chaos. In Kenjaku and their possession of Geto’s body, Geto’s righteous motives (his will, his autonomy) are gone - there remains only the monstrosity, destruction for its own sake. 

Still, Geto’s actions, misguided as they were, did eventually create real change. Gojo’s goal of raising strong allies and creating a better Jujutsu world was inspired by Geto. Although at first he opposed violent actions as he believed they wouldn’t be able to change anything, eventually, he came to the conclusion that violence was necessary, and in the moment where he massacred the higher-ups, he thought of Geto. 

[reticent-vampire]

Assad Zaman as Armand The Vampire Lestat 3.03

[usaginoir]

Louis turning and consent pt. 1

To start this discussion we first need to discuss consent. Let’s lay down 3 terms I’m going to be using in this analysis.

Informed consent - Individuals must have the capacity to decide, understand the risks, benefits, and alternatives, and voluntarily agree to an action.

Dubious consent - consent is unclear, compromised, or exists in a gray area.

Violated consent - A violated consent occurs when a person's boundaries, agreement, or bodily autonomy are crossed or ignored.

Lestat is a vampire, and vampires by nature exist to explore these themes because they defy consent and coerce it. You cannot kill and eat someone with their consent. Reading someone’s mind is violating their consent. Stalking and watching someone without them knowing is violating consent. Lestat does all of this to Louis.

Lestat violated Louis consent before the turning itself, during the night with Miss Lily. Louis participates willingly and gives consent to a sexual encounter. While no verbal consent is given Louis has time to process this encounter as a sexual one and chooses to consent to it.

However the nature of the encounter changes suddenly from a sexual one to a vampiric one, with no time or enough information for Louis to consent to it. Louis doesn’t know vampires are real and that Lestat is one, he doesn’t know that a biting and blood drinking is about to occur.

Lestat doesn’t give Louis the time to react and no opportunity to leave the situation - Louis can’t give informed consent, it’s dubious consent at best, or a total violation of consent.

After this night we see how Louis decides to cut ties with Lestat. He no longer consents to any type of relationship with Lestat.

Louis does this by avoiding him, and when Lestat confronts him, he clearly states the boundary several times to Lestat, in many ways. All which Lestat violates.

Louis is grieving that night, mentally unstable and incredibly intoxicated. He is so drunk he’s stumbling, and unable to walk straight. He is not in at any capacity to give informed consent to anything.

Lestat stalks Louis to the church and kills the priests. Louis fights back against Lestat’s interference, and disagrees with Lestat’s notion that Louis is humiliating himself by seeking comfort in the church and fights back against Lestat killing the priests.

Then we have an incredibly beautiful love confession by Lestat. And he asks Louis to be his companion. A lot of this speech is not mentioned by Louis, but we know it ends with Louis nodding and giving a kiss of acceptance.

Is saying yes or nodding your head yes enough in this instance to be informed consent? Nope! It can’t be. It’s dubious consent at best.

There has been speculation and been said outside the show that Louis intended to kill himself that night. Was killing the priests Louis were confiding in a great suicide prevention? Or was it an act that isolated Louis to others to turn to?

We don’t know what might have happened that night. What actions father Mathias might have taken, that would perhaps given Louis the care he needed.

In the words of Claudia,

Was turning Louis in this moment when he couldn’t give consent the only available option to Lestat if he was afraid Louis would kill himself?

NOPE! There’s so many other alternative routes than offering eternal marriage to the guy that keeps rejecting you. Lestat could have given the offer and waited to turn Louis when he was in a state to give informed consent, watched over him if he was afraid he’d commit suicide, or inform others who could help Louis. Or anything else. But that would not be a very interesting choice to make in a show about vampires.

Loustat relationship up to and including the turning was muddied with issues of consent that is to be expected when a human deals with a vampire - how does their relationship and consent evolve when they are both vampires?

We will continue this in part 2.

[simoneashley]

#IT'S NEVER DEVIL'SMINIONOVERRRRRRR The Vampire Lestat After Dark 1.04

[avatraang]

thinking abt the parallels between “the avatar returns” and “the waterbending master.” in TAR, sokka bans “the foreigner” (aang) from the SWT. katara, without hesitating, responds with, “fine! then i’m banished too.” and moves to leave with aang. along the same vein, when pakku tells katara that it’s forbidden in the NWT for women to learn waterbending as a martial art, aang exclaims, “if you won’t teach katara, then i won’t learn from you!”

these two characters, even early on, have such deep respect and adoration for each other. it truly is a soul bond. katara is so outraged by sokka’s claim of aang being a fire nation spy that she chooses aang (“the foreigner”), over her own homeland. she chooses to go with him and be banished from her village, something that i’m sure most of us would never dream of doing. in a similar manner, aang’s anger at pakku’s blatant dismissal of katara has him in a heartbeat choosing to dismiss pakku as his teacher. he cannot just stand by and let katara be disrespected. aang knows he must learn waterbending, knows it is his duty, but cannot reconcile having katara be disrespected in order to learn the art. again, like with katara, the choice he makes is one many of us would struggle to make. but aang does so unthinkingly.

the parallels don’t stop there. as both scenes progress, we see both characters plead to the other to not make rash decisions based on them. in TAR, aang tells katara, “i don’t want to come between you and your family.” in TWM, katara tells aang, “you can’t risk your training for me.” from them not hesitating to defend the other —even if it means losing something they love or need— to them talking the other into being a little more rational, the love, respect, and confidence they have in each other is almost boundless. say what you will about kataang, but, imo, these two parallels say pretty much everything for them.

[lesbiananidalas]

a key thing to understand about padmé is that by revenge of the sith she was tired of politics— it simply wasn’t the kind of life she wanted for herself anymore. her ambitions had shifted away from the roles of queen and senator to wife and mother. the same is true for anakin— he didn’t actually care about being the chosen one or ‘the hero with no fear’ or even a jedi master, what he really, truly wanted was to be padmé's husband and father to her children.

the tragedy of it all is that they were two people who had spent their entire lives sacrificing for the good of others, and when they were finally so close to having the life they wanted— a life they had actually chosen for themselves— it was cruelly snatched away.

[padmeamidela]

padmé amidala + pacifism 

bonus: 

[certifiedlurker]

I think what is frustrating with the whole "pimp" thing is that Louis is never allowed to be more than one thing in this fandom. He is not allowed to be dynamic, even when he is one of the vampires who is often excited and curious about the ever changing world around him; think about how he took up photography and was excited to dip his fingers into the new age art that was springing up in Paris ( and how Santiago mocked him for that at the table). Like Louis is a businessman, of course he would be excited by new things- he is good at picking out lucrative markets and turning it into profits. You want to have a discussion on themes of exploitation, capitalism and how this show over the seasons may have tried to make a commentary on it? Sure, you are welcome to it, but why is it that it is Louis who is always cast in the light of the exploiter? There's no one else to be talked about? This season came into being with the book as its backdrop- am I to believe there's no intelligent discussion to be had about exploitation at the hands of those who have considerable sway in the field of mass media? We live in a world where companies like Amazon are veering into media production, where micro trends dominate social media, influencers peddle fast fashion, and celebrities tout starvation as chic-> (grown women are to look like children), and journalists seem to be constantly pushing the goalpost on what constitutes as a genocide. So you live in this kind of world and watch a show where a hodgepodge of a book based on a lynching is central to the conflict-whose vampiric author, is riding the high of commercial success and has now gotten a new opportunity to further cash in on the craze, and the most intelligent thought you all can come up with "is Louis pimping out Lestat by owning 45% of his merch?". In fact forget even that, you all don't even see Lestat being petty by having both Daniel and Fareed in his entourage! You all aren't even mad at the Talamasca!

Louis is never allowed to trace and retrace his steps at his own leisure. Everything has to be to the T, Louis can't falter because faltering would mean lying, would mean malevolence. It's crazy how it always ends up being a version of "was it raining Louis?" Because if Louis can't even remember if he tracked in mud that evening, then how can he ever be believed when he says exactly how he had his bones broken by his husband? Cause let's be real that's what all this is about. Louis is never allowed to be more than one thing, he is never allowed to change his mind, cause that would mean he was lying. He can't ever revoke his consent- to do so would be cruel and unfair. Basically you all will never allow Louis to leave that church, you all will never allow him to leave that confessional box- he is to forever be the pimp and confess his sins; back then to a pastor and now apparently to Lestat, his so called "unknowning whore".

[professional-rat-eater]

There’s a certain subset of the fandom who really don’t like when you use the A word (abuse) to discuss Anne Rice’s characters.

But they are abusive. Abuse is pretty much an entry level requirement for the gothic genre. It’s all about exploring taboo subjects but not necessarily imposing judgement on them and that’s precisely what she did. It doesn’t mean she’s a bad person. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person if you like her characters. I actually wish passive exploration of abuse was more common than it is because it is fascinating.

In Anne’s work, there is constant abuse, and that is what it is. That is the word we’ve coined for dynamics like the ones she writes about. She just writes about them as if she were a passive observer, which is where half the appeal of the books comes from imo. It’s far more interesting to read about how characters respond to toxic dynamics rather than for author to hold your hand and tell you they’re bad. Labelling it abuse isn’t passing judgment on the books or the characters. It’s just a clearer word for what’s going on.

We know Armand is being abused by Marius because his emotional outbursts (amongst other examples) are the most obvious kinds you’d witness in a real child being abused as he was.

We know Gabrielle is abusing Lestat (neglect is abuse) because Lestat desperately fawns over her whenever she’s around to try and prevent her from leaving again. We also know because Anne had a real issue with how neglectful Gabi was and said so directly.

The characters give real life responses that abused people exhibit and the story only benefits from this. Anne’s vampires are so heightened yet they’re still so terribly human which is why they’re so powerful. She doesn’t need to tell you it’s bad because it’s horror. That’s sort of a given.

And there are obviously a thousand other examples. You can pick any character and analyse their actions and intentions and you’ll find abuse. Louis and Claudia is in an underrated example. That’s what the series is about. Ironically, the readers who insist this isn’t the case could probably benefit from Anne being a little more direct in her framing of it, but I don’t think she needed to be necessarily. I actually love when a book or other piece of media doesn’t directly call out whatever issues it’s dealing with. It’s far more elegant to explore the impact this behaviour has on the characters rather than to just say it.

Now the racism we could do without. I think we can all agree on that. When I said I had an issue with her framing, I was mostly talking about all the colonial bullshit and how it impacts certain relationships. But there is the intent of the author and then there is the execution. I thought her execution was messy at times, but I wholeheartedly accept her work for what it is. I don’t want it to be different (again, other than the aforementioned colonial bullshit) and I don’t even think many of us disagree on the core ideals of the series. We’re just using different terminology. You don’t have to call it abuse, but it’s also not incorrect to do so.

[murfpersonalblog]

💯💯💯

And what cracks me up is how people will say "B-b-but trauma is different from abuse~!" 😩 and I'm like....? 🤨 As if trauma can't be caused by abuse? 🙄😒

All of these vamps live a long time, so their PTSD comes from a whole cocktail of abuses--physical, verbal, emotional, psychological/mental, neglectful, grooming, sexual, even substance abuse, etc. And like you said, Anne Rice has a way of not really stating the obvious--esp. because so many of her characters ARE traumatized, but trying to not dwell on it. And ofc Armand & Lestat are the best examples.

I was literally *just* talking about Dr Fareed giving Maharet new eyes, and there's a passage in Prince Lestat where you literally SEE Lestat get triggered and try to quickly push past it:

He's trying his hardest to not dwell on what was obviously a trauma-response to the rape (sexual abuse) he suffered under Magnus, when Magnus picked Lestat as his victim strictly because he had "the proper-color eyes" and hair. It's blink and you miss it, but it's there. Lestat is being triggered by things 200+ yrs after they happened; but folks wanna act like vampires have no concept of moral/ethical right & wrongs that they do to others, or are done TO them by others; and that people are crazy for calling out the things they do as abusive? 🙄🤦‍♂️

No, the REAL problem is that there are STANS in this fandom who know good & well what abusive behavior is--they just hate having their favorite characters accused of being abusers--and themselves as abuse apologists for defending them. Even the "professional/objective" journalists in the industry are stans, writing articles & reviews with their fangirl glasses on. And a lot of it is coming from book purists who HATE the changes AMC has made (Louis as a pimp, Lestat and the Ep5 Fight/Drop, GabriellA having explicitly *penetrative* sex with Lestat, Armand mindwiping Louis & torturing Baby Lulu, etc). That is the Ground Zero for the vast majority of the mental gymnastics people make to muddy the waters between what even constitutes as "abuse" between monsters, regurgitating every Santiagoism to justify why this isn't The Abuse Show and making very simple concepts so much more complicated than they need to be. 🤷‍♂️

[ultraviolenceism]

Hot take, but the fandom denying Hinata’s aspect of heroism and tries villainizing her despite the fact that she sympathizes with the marginalized. Which we see in her introduction, but also because she’s innately feminine, the way she shows heroism is rooted in love so they think she’d submit to the standard love interest archetype. And, it’s because they don’t see love as something autonomous within a female character, when in reality Hinata made love for a female character as a THEME. Within a shonen genre that catered to men within her time, so the fact she made love as something non-passive and that catered to the actual narrative, shows that she’s literally THEMATIC, and so is her motive, dialogue, and entire characterization.

[memesunkiss]

I think this point is actually getting close to something real about how Hinata is written, but it needs to be framed more precisely.

What I see when I go back to the original manga is that a huge part of the misunderstanding surrounding Hinata comes from a pre-existing assumption about what "heroism" is supposed to look like in shonen stories. A lot of readers treat heroism as an external action: defeating an enemy, challenging authority, giving a revolutionary speech, or directly changing the world. And when Hinata is measured by that standard alone, she naturally appears less significant than certain other characters.

The problem is that this isn't the standard her character was built around in the first place.

From her very first appearance, Kishimoto does not write Hinata as a character centered on power, political influence, or social ambition. What makes her narratively distinctive is her ability to recognize human value in people whom society rejects or looks down upon.

And this exists before any romantic development.

The first major insight we get into her history with Naruto reveals that she was one of the few people who didn't see him as "the outcast kid," but as someone who kept getting back up after every fall. The important detail here is that her admiration doesn't begin with love. It begins with empathy. And that's a crucial distinction.

In fact, the manga presents Hinata as someone who understands marginalized people because she is one of them.

She isn't a beloved princess within her clan who chooses to sympathize with the weak from a position of privilege. She herself is repeatedly defined as "not good enough," "weak," and "a failure" according to her family's standards.

That's why when she sees Naruto being rejected by the village, she isn't sympathizing with him from the outside. She recognizes a part of herself in him.

What's interesting is that this pattern doesn't stop with Naruto.

Even in her fight with Neji—the person who attacks her psychologically more than anyone else in Part I—she doesn't view him as a monster or an evil person.

The very moment that triggers Neji's anger comes when she points toward his internal pain. A lot of people reduce that scene to "she exposed his hypocrisy," but the text is more complex than that.

Hinata isn't saying Neji is wrong because he's cruel. She's implicitly pointing out that his anger itself proves he hasn't accepted the fate he claims to believe in.

She sees the wound before she sees the aggression. And that's a recurring trait throughout her characterization.

That's why I think describing Hinata as a character centered around "love" isn't wrong, but it's often understood in an extremely superficial way.

Because in Hinata's writing, love isn't merely romantic desire. It's a way of perceiving the world. A way of seeing other people.

She doesn't define people through their social status, success, or strength. She defines them through their humanity.

And that's why her words and actions consistently revolve around encouragement, recognition, and belief in people's ability to rise again after failure.

What's even more notable is that the manga doesn't present this love as passive or submissive. Quite the opposite. Hinata's most important narrative moments happen when love becomes action.

During the Chunin Exams, love becomes courage.

During Pain's invasion, it becomes sacrifice.

During the war, it becomes the ability to keep moving forward despite loss.

In other words, love is not positioned as the opposite of heroism in Hinata’s characterization, but as one of its motivating forces.

And I think part of the misunderstanding comes from a broader cultural assumption: that feminine strength only counts as "real strength" if it resembles traditionally masculine forms of strength.

But the manga itself doesn't apply that logic to Hinata. Kishimoto never tries to turn her into another Naruto or another Sasuke. Nor does he build her narrative value around her ability to defeat people.

Instead, he builds it around her ability to preserve empathy and faith in others even when doing so is painful or costly.

Someone can absolutely criticize the amount of screen time Hinata received, or some of Kishimoto's decisions regarding her development. That's a completely fair discussion.

But reducing her to nothing more than a love interest ignores the fact that love itself is not a secondary function within her character structure. It is One of her central themes.

And when we look at the manga from that perspective, Hinata starts to resemble a traditional love-interest archetype far less, and instead resembles a character built around the idea that empathy itself can be an act of resistance and heroism—even within a shonen world that usually associates heroism with power and combat.

[linklecoded]

sasuhina is classy.