夏五/五夏/夏五/五夏/夏五/五夏/夏五/五夏ZONE.DO.NOT.ENTER.3

[fwcu]

"Every morning the same big / and little words all spelling out desire, all spelling out / You will be alone always and then you will die. / So maybe I wanted to give you something more than a catalog / of non-definitive acts, / something other than the desperation."

some quotes from Litany (Siken, retrieved from here) that I will use to further my 夏五 collections and cause myself. deep. horrific. horror filled ... I won't intersperse with manga screenshots this time (I am Not Strong Enough) but I will annotate. I seriously am not strong enough.

And the part where I push you / flush against the wall and every part of your body rubs against the bricks, / shut up / I’m getting to it."

• isn't this seriously horrible. mostly because this could be referring to a sexy moment in the poem, but twisted to the context of 夏五 it is referring to When He Dies Against The Wall. which I also think is really good because < shut up / I'm getting to it > the way you cannot divorce any of the good, any of what it was, to how it ended. how you killed him. You Know? You know? it could've meant a million things, it could've gone a million ways, you could've been a shiny, untarnished memory for each other for however long. but that all ends when you choose to kill him. god the way that really was The End.

"For a while I thought I was the dragon. / I guess I can tell you that now. And, for a while, I thought I was / the princess, / cotton candy pink, sitting there in my room, in the tower of the castle, / young and beautiful and in love and waiting for you with / confidence / but the princess looks into her mirror and only sees the princess, / while I’m out here, slogging through the mud, breathing fire, / and getting stabbed to death. / Okay, so I’m the dragon. Big deal. / You still get to be the hero."

• well honestly, I think the best thing about 夏五 is that you can interchange them within the same few lines. the princess line is definitely gojo. because, the expectation that he can run ahead and geto will be behind him, will eventually catch up, will want to. < young and beautiful and waiting for you with confidence > It really is Like That. jury's still out on love, but everything else can mean just as much. a tower is a tower and I'm stuck at the very top [read: the only choice I have is sorcery, the only thing I am is The Strongest Sorcerer] but it's fine because you'll be here, you'll come meet me [(...) besides, you're here too.]. You Know?
• re/ dragon/hero wow, isn't it that they both have to be the antagonists of each other's heroes? [It's possible for you.] / [That's as meaningless as it gets!] you want to be the strongest duo in the world, you had a beautiful dream, you had something you wanted, and suddenly he didn't want it anymore.
• I think there's also like the layer of ... < For a while I thought I was the dragon. I guess I can tell you that now. > where you're struggling to see which part you play, or struggling to embody the part you play. like gojo being unable to kill geto, and had he done so he would've been The Hero sure, but had he done so, to himself he would've been the Dragon. No? it's like You're Both. you can't win. You have to be both. and then you find that you can't be either.

"Hello darling, sorry about that. / Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we / lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell / and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud. / Especially that, but I should have known."

• < Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we lived here, > I think the fun in this poem is the ambiguity of who's saying what. but Gojo's bony elbows, gojo's long, lanky body always interrupting others, always taking up space. what's worse? that it had to end or that it's something of regret now?
• < how I ruined everything by saying it out loud / Especially that, but I should have known. > I love to apply this to the unheard line Gojo says to Geto, that Geto can only reply with [at least curse me a little at the very end]. it's apparently [you are my best friend, the only one I ever had] ... it's one thing to die thinking that you became enemies, that you never had a chance, that he never wanted you back. it's another thing to die knowing that you turned yourself into a monster and still it wasn't enough to ruin you. not to him. in a similar vein, geto being the only person gojo could say this to. and him immediately dying. saying it out loud makes it true. you had one confession, one secret and the only person who knows is a dead man. something something...saying the words out loud made them a curse.

"You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together / to make a creature that will do what I say / or love me back. / I’m not really sure why I do it, but in this version you are not / feeding yourself to a bad man / against a black sky prickled with small lights."

• oh. oh
• so it's like < I take the parts that I remember / to make a creature that will / love me back > because the heart of it is that he didn't love you enough. he loved you but it wasn't enough. you loved him and it wasn't enough
• < in this version you are not feeding yourself to a bad man > easy enough. feeding yourself to the worst version of what you could become [geto obviously], but also like feeding on curses as the literal connection... my brain is many thoughts scattered but it's like that. Geto hated feeding on curses because at a point he saw it as meaningless....kenjaku taking over him could also be seen as that ... Geto being consumed by the curses [the negative energy] to the point where he becomes a curse user.... everything together to hurt everyone in this room

"I take it back. / The wooden halls like caskets. These terms from the lower depths. / I take them back. / Here is the repeated image of the lover destroyed. / Crossed out. / Clumsy hands in a dark room. Crossed out. There is something / underneath the floorboards."

• this is the part where I go like....so you know my queen @y2ySrJIU8CaTA3a? jjks-dodo on tumblr? and all they do is hurt me very bad by drawing The Way It Was. What It Was. just so many scenes of them being idiots back in school so < Clumsy hands in a dark room > is literally canonified to me, By Them. they were just teenagers, just stupid and idiotic and he thought he was king of the world and you thought he'd need you around to keep him in check and. just the way it was. it seemed so simple.
• < wooden halls like caskets > jjk tech literally being a place that endangers it's students. just saying. it's like.... all in canon. itadori gets beaten up the first time he goes, haibara dies, well you know what happened to 夏五, wooden halls like caskets literally the Perfect Descriptor. < There is something underneath the floorboards > again the obvious implications of jjk tech not being as accepting and good of a school as it seems on the surface, that even when they could ignore geto's burgeoning breakdown, that even as they stall it out, it's still budding, it's still building. the ending will still be -
• < Here is the repeated image of the lover destroyed > the stairs where he says 'are you really asking me that?' the conversation before they meet, the conversation after they meet. incidentally might be the same stairs maki finds nobamegu thinking about itadori's death. huh.

"Here is the part where everyone was happy all the time and we were all / forgiven, / even though we didn’t deserve it."

• it really is like that.

"The entire history of human desire takes about seventy minutes to tell. / Unfortunately, we don’t have that kind of time."

• It's one minute worth of time inside Gojo's brain.
• [Three years of his youth.]
• the um. sunk-cost of Gojo reliving his youth. well we know.

"Forget the dragon, / leave the gun on the table, this has nothing to do with happiness. / Let’s jump ahead to the moment of epiphany, / in gold light, as the camera pans to where / the action is, / lakeside and backlit, and it all falls into frame, close enough to see / the blue rings of my eyes as I say / something ugly. / I never liked that ending either. More love streaming out the wrong way, / and I don’t want to be the kind that says the wrong way. / But it doesn’t work, these erasures, this constant refolding of the pleats. / There were some nice parts, sure, / all lemondrop and mellonball, laughing in silk pajamas / and the grains of sugar / on the toast, love love or whatever, take a number."

• I feel like this encompasses a lot that I have nothing to say to. it's like. the long hazy summer that ended so abruptly. the 'something sweet, I'll probably share with Satoru' / < Let's jump ahead to the moment of epiphany > which was it? which was it? realizing how to use reverse curse technique? when yuki told you how to get rid of curses? realizing he's thrown in his cards? [Kill me if you want, there's a meaning to that.]? [Apparently, it's not enough for me to be strong enough alone.]? the strongest duo. what I'm saying, is that it's a litany. where certain things are crossed out. huh.
• when he says 'it doesn't work!' is that the wrong step. is that where it goes wrong? because it works for him, and that's the arrogance in it. he's the strongest, and you've been left in the shadows. he's ascended to the highest light, and in the dark you've been thinking. more love streaming out the wrong way — it's not supposed to be like this it was never supposed to be like this. the strongest duo. the world can go to shit but he can't leave your side. and still. and still.
• I... < There were some nice parts, sure, / love love or whatever, take a number. > what I'm saying, is that it was love love, it was that you were best friends, that you were untouchable, and all to the end that It Wasn't Enough. that, whatever, take a number. That this all Really happened. in 2008. but you lived through it. you survived. you were hurt your were scathed but you were just a kid. and despite it all, you're still you.


I’m sorry
it’s such a lousy story.

 

Comments

WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY

[linedrove]

i wish i couldn't read. i'm gonna scream.

you making that second quote about Geto Dying Against A Wall.....fuck youuuuuuu!!! your evil genius. i hate it here.

the expectation that he can run ahead and geto will be behind him, will eventually catch up

this hurts so so bad. because i was already thinking about that scene where gojo tells megu "you better get strong. don't get left behind" this morning. and like. it really is about both of them being each other's antagonists. each other's dragons. while trying to save each other too (even if the way that geto tried to do it was so twisted and irredeemable. what he wanted was a world where sorcerers didn't have to suffer. a world where he didn't have to swallow curses day after day. a world where gojo could live for himself.)

Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we lived here

even without being applied to 夏五-ology, this part of the poem makes me want to d1eeeee. it's so unambiguously about Boyhood and Knowing you can't turn back time to do things differently, and that's what makes it hurt. but that's what made it worth it too. there's gonna be a part in The Thing i'm writing about how "sorcerers don't die with regrets" and gojo contemplating what's worse. knowing that geto died without regrets (wouldn't have written this story any other way), or knowing that he died regretting it all (if he'd had the chance, he would've made different choices. so you could've had more time. or maybe this version of the story is one in which he never met you at all.)

in this version you are not feeding yourself to a bad man

obsessed with this wrt geto's powers. the idea of geto becoming cursed by feeding on negative energy, and so. not to bring up these kind of gross lines from ch76 but "eating curses. the taste no one else knows. exorcised, ingested. like swallowing whole a cloth used to wipe up vomit." like.....something something. the vomit is yours now. you're feeding yourself to a bad man.

wooden halls like caskets

yeah. yeah. nothing to add but i just wanted to say that you get it. and this is why gojo becomes a teacher. he doesn't want this responsibility and he never did, but who is going to think about the children otherwise? he doesn't want to add any more caskets to the walls.

it's not supposed to be like this it was never supposed to be like this. the strongest duo. the world can go to shit but he can't leave your side. and still. and still.

YOUUUUUUU!!!!! it really is like this. 3 years of his youth. and the memories are a litany in which certain things are crossed out. a litany is a prayer. it's a petition. it's an appeal. for what? more time. the opportunity to do things right. but you can't take it back. because a litany is also a tedious recital, a repetitive series. and you know that no matter how much you wish for it to be someone else's, this is your story and it's already been written. in blood. his blood. your blood. whatever. you can't put back what's already been spilled. so what can you do but stitch yourself up and keep going, and try to give other kids a chance to do what you couldn't, and do it right this time