#This is probably shit and weirdly phrased because I'm exhausted

[weirdoaroundtheblock]

My favorite interpretation of the quote "Are you Satoru Gojo because you're the strongest, or are you the strongest because you're Satoru Gojo?", is the one that says that by that, Suguru meant "Are you nothing more than your strength? Was Satoru Gojo only meant to be powerful?".

Because of course Satoru is more than that, and of course Suguru believes it. He merely asked a rethorical question to Satoru, in hopes that he would finally see himself as more than a weapon. In hopes that he would see the absurdity of such statement and therefore realize that yes, he is more than his curse technique, despite being reduced to it for his entire childhood.

Because an important thing is that we can't really blame people for considering him only through the scope of his technique, of him being the strongest, when Satoru himself tends to only see himself this way.

[invinciblerodent]

btw since I'm Verbenaposting, nice as your LI's smile is at the end as it is, and how I like how it kind of echoes the way they gaze up at the Inquisitor and their advisors after the final fight of that game (which, really nice, here they're beside you and in no way below, driving home the way Rook in the story is part of the group while the Inquisitor is always above in some way), I kinda wanna rewrite it for myself the same way I did then, and hc that the immediate aftermath of the final fight is far less dignified.

Like you can't give me sweet, passionate men like Davrin and Dorian, and just have them SMILE at their beloved after they return from what, to everyone reasonable, looks like absolute mortal peril.

It's not just a nice, fond smile, but a fucking bone-squeezing, leg-swinging, drunk on victory kind of hug that's still dripping all sorts of grime and blood, but nobody really cares because (to live with Davrin's turn of phrase) bleeding thorns, you're here, we won, you're alive, you're here, you're mine, I love you.

... So I think that following the endgame, Ver holds it together just until they manage to descend from the Thing (the one that I keep wanting to call the brainstem even though it's not), and Davrin was left down there to help defend the people so he's there to catch her as she basically leaps into his arms and crumples- just like he's always been there to catch her, to lend his strength, and wherever you are, that's where I am, god bless

in my mind, the bottom of that thing being just. a big heap. a cuddlepile.

Ver first crumples into Davrin's arms from like a foot up that thing still. then Taash and Bellara, who came up with her, silently embrace the both of them (Bel on shaky fawn-legs and looking like she's unsure of whether she's about to burst out laughing or into tears; Taash with their head dropped and stock still save for the tremble in their hands- processing still but about five minutes from a "WHOOOO!!!! YEAAAAAHHHH!!!!!"), all three (now four) covered in Elgar'nan's weirdly sticky, tarlike blood that smells like death and clings like a shadow (but it no longer sings with Blight, so Davrin honestly doesn't give half a shit).

Assan is circling their legs like they're slalom poles, overjoyed that his other favorite person is back again. There's all the couples embracing (with most of Neve's weight probably being supported by Lucanis tbqh, poor woman must be so terminally exhausted), but honestly, few people really care whose hand they're shaking or whose arms are circling around their waist, because they fucking won and survived, and there's the fucking Sun, and the overwhelming joy ripples out from the epicenter of it all until the soldiers and citizens in Minrathous are all crying and laughing and embracing one another.

(Dorian is off to the side fussing over his amatus for climbing down a fucking Blight-wall with essentially one hand because for some reason he didn't think that he shouldn't wear his everyday, carved wood prosthetic hand this morning instead of one that moves in any way, and honestly, what is he to do with this man, Maker he's going to be the death of him, they'll have to find another Archon, and then he'll be sorry.)