The New Jjk Illustration Inspired Me ;D

some loser: humans are innately selfish creatures

my psych book:

it is cute to watch USAmericans celebrate Brian Thompson’s assassination (CEO of United Healthcare) but I think it also highlights a certain ignorance and false class consciousness among the country. I’m specifically referencing this smug fixation on the fact that the investors had their meeting without him anyway and that they posted his job online already, and how there is this sort of smug “hahaha they don’t care about you either!” ouroboros-esque consumed-by-your-own-labyrinth attitude of righteous self-satisfaction and I feel like the point is going over people’s head.

No CEO of a publicly traded company really thinks they are that important, and it is extremely obvious to them how replaceable and at the mercy of the shareholders and board of directors they are. actually, it is this structure and system that guarantees the most ruthless profiteers to become CEOs, because the owner class of the company has made being a ruthless profiteer part of the job description because CEOs have a fiduciary obligation to the owners to solely prioritize profit. it’s literally the law that the only thing they are to do is create profit for shareholders.

The CEO is a tool which the owner class uses to facilitate company operations, no more. Literally they are a mask to hold up in front of themselves. A prop.

Understand that the CEO dying is the point. He took the bullet, the blame, the conflagration. His purpose is fulfilled in the eyes of the faceless diffusions of power within the company. Now, get another. And seemingly the actual controllers - the owners - remain anonymous and safe.

These people are not the ruling class - they are the lowest possible rung of it. They are the vanguard for the ruling class. These are celebrities, CEOs, the public faces of the ruling class which direct resentment toward themselves and save their bosses from the fire. They exist to absorb the impact. And this is how nothing changes, because as people joke about Brian Thompson online they participate within the very safety-valve that the owner class has put in place to preserve itself. Yet seemingly it feels radical and fun and transgressive to make fun of it. Another example of how co-opting dissent is one of the primary and greatest tools the ruling class has to maintain itself.

General Pretty boy and the ponytail that Almost Was

Duolingo Sucks, Now What?: A Guide

Now that the quality of Duolingo has fallen (even more) due to AI and people are more willing to make the jump here are just some alternative apps and what languages they have:

"I just want an identical experience to DL"

Busuu (Languages: Spanish, Japanese, French, English, German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Polish, Turkish, Russian, Arabic, Korean)

"I want a good audio-based app"

Language Transfer (Languages: French, Swahili, Italian, Greek, German, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, English for Spanish Speakers)

"I want a good audio-based app and money's no object"

Pimsleur (Literally so many languages)

Glossika (Also a lot of languages, but minority languages are free)

*anecdote: I borrowed my brother's Japanese Pimsleur CD as a kid and I still remember how to say the weather is nice over a decade later. You can find the CDs at libraries and "other" places I'm sure.

"I have a pretty neat library card"

Mango (Languages: So many and the endangered/Indigenous courses are free even if you don't have a library that has a partnership with Mango)

Transparent Language: (Languages: THE MOST! Also the one that has the widest variety of African languages! Perhaps the most diverse in ESL and learning a foreign language not in English)

"I want SRS flashcards and have an android"

AnkiDroid: (Theoretically all languages, pre-made decks can be found easily)

"I want SRS flashcards and I have an iphone"

AnkiApp: It's almost as good as AnkiDroid and free compared to the official Anki app for iphone

"I don't mind ads and just want to learn Korean"

lingory

"I want an app made for Mandarin that's BETTER than DL and has multiple languages to learn Mandarin in"

ChineseSkill (You can use their older version of the course for free)

"I don't like any of these apps you mentioned already, give me one more"

Bunpo: (Languages: Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Korean, and Mandarin)

big feelings

it's really weird having a first dog be blind and then getting a second who can see...like how was I supposed to be prepared for this.

this creature can perceive when I put the treats up on the high shelf. or when I hide stuff behind my back. I can't fool her!! she's always watching me and she shouldn't have this much knowledge!!!

I walk around at night and I shine my flash light directly into her eyes and I'll just be standing there staring at her weird blue orbs for like 5 seconds until I realize it's probably extremely annoying to her, because she has eyes!! I'll turn on the light in the room and she gruffs and grumbles like ?? oh right!! light wakes you up!! the fuck??

CW: animal death

People have asked for more interactions between Life and Death. Life is bringing so much color into my comics haha <3

there is such a trauma to daughterhood. it comes from the lack of agency - not only from being born as a woman but existing in the world as a child. an oppression on top of an oppression. people make jokes about girls with daddy issues but nothing compares to the kind of trauma you recieve from having a complicated relationship with your mother. people talk about it so often. and it's one thing to have a mother who hates you which is always awful, but often it feels worse to have a mother who doesn't. to have a mother who is simply exhausted by the fact you were born. a mother who doesn't hate you, but loves her men more. a mother who maybe wanted to be a mom, once, and then came to realize what a thankless job it was. and she didn't want to hate you, but it was hard to love you and even harder to like you. a mother who doesn't hate you exactly, but never outgrows her desire to be attractive and beautiful and makes you her enemy in that way. or a mother who has nothing more to her than being a mother and clings to coddling you in a way thats suffocating. so many daughters develop deep empathy for the mothers because they were women, daughters, girls once. everyone deals with it differently. but at the end of it, you still need a mother and that is the most horrible and wretched part of all. the trauma of being alive, of being a woman, and of having a mother but still needing one. such a uniquely miserable feeling

Sukuna: Hedonism and Short-Lived Pleasure

I’m going to start this off by saying Sukuna, at least from what I’ve seen, is possibly one of the most misunderstood JJK characters, alongside Yuji. Because of how he’s treated narratively, and the position he holds within the story, it’s very easy to take everything he says as the truth and nothing more, even moreso when he’s commonly rewarded for his mindset, it being praised as the correct one to have.

He is the pinnacle of Jujutsu society in both body and in mind. At least, that’s what we’re made to think, up until 248 that is, where the cracks in his mind become apparent.

These cracks didn’t come out of nowhere either. Once you examine both his words and actions closely, especially in recent chapters, the weak points in Sukuna’s mentality are almost always on display. These weak points are most obvious within Sukuna’s fundamental ideology: Hedonism.

To give a brief summary, hedonism is a philosophical theory about human behaviour and our motivations, regarding the avoidance of pain and longing for pleasure as the most important factors in the decisions we make and how we choose to behave. Pleasure, in the concept of hedonism, is typically a broad term that encompasses any good experience that gives a person a sense of happiness or fulfilment - the opposite of pain.

There are a lot of different branches of the hedonistic theory, all with their own interpretations, but this is about the gist of it. Hedonism is a philosophy in which we live life based on the search for pleasure, whatever that means to each individual. Pleasure is a priority, and pain and displeasure is something to be avoided at all costs.

In Sukuna’s case, his hedonistic mentality is a highly self destructive one, baring similarities to the concept of folk hedonism - stereotypical hedonism - wherein the individual will seek pleasure at any cost, without regard for others. So long as pleasure is achieved, the means towards it don’t matter, and in such an extreme case like Sukuna, this has major flaws. Sukuna seems to always be chasing after a new high, a fact that becomes evident after the death of Gojo, as he tries to find someone, anyone, who can rival Gojo, and thus satisfy his need for pleasure. This falls into the Paradox of Hedonism, a counter-theory where the search for pleasure and defining happiness and pleasure as the same thing actually interferes with one’s pursuit of it, leading to dissatisfaction, and, in turn, pain.

Sukuna actively trying to derive some feeling from his battle with Higuruma, pressuring Higuruma to evolve in that moment, displays this flaw perfectly.

And then there’s this:

The way he talks about other people really places emphasis on the fact he relies on them for his source of satisfaction in life. If it entertains me, I’ll throw it a bone.’ ‘The perfect thing to slurp up to pass time until I die’. It’s interesting that he speaks of his main source of pleasure in this way, like they are dogs, or food, something lesser than him or something that won’t last as long as him, an acknowledgment of their fleeting nature, which he also directly acknowledges. In that sense, Sukuna is very self aware - to an extent. He’s a poet, a philosopher, an artist in every sense of the world. In 248, we see he’s capable of deconstructing his own behaviours and understanding them deeply, but he will always come to a biased conclusion due to his refusal to change.

If Sukuna is a seeker of pleasure, then Yuji is a seeker of pain, and if Sukuna is refusal to change, then Yuji is change.

Sukuna’s hedonistic mentality cannot survive because it relies upon remaining unchanged, and thus repeating the same journey to pleasure over and over, whether as Yuji, someone who often seeks pain - the opposite of hedonism - is able to get back up again and again, because he accepts change, accepts pain as a part of life, and grows from it, becoming unbreakable.

Sukuna’s pleasure is also not a long-lasting kind, which again links with the Paradox of Hedonism. You cannot equate a happy life with a pleasurable one. Sukuna will simply never be content with the life he has, always searching for something better than the last, something that will satiate him longer, and that is another reason as to why he will lose to Yuji, who once lived by similar principles, and tried to avoid pain, but was punished for it. If Yuji paralleling Sukuna in that way doesn’t say anything about Sukuna’s inevitable downfall, I don’t know what does.

That’s about all I have to say for now, but if you find this interesting, I’d recommend looking into the different theories of hedonism and the counterpoints to it. I have my own personal beliefs on it, but it’s always interesting to see other takes on philosophical theories!