#and this fic is ABSOLUTELY one of those like….. this gojo is Canon to me. i’m so serious abt it like that’s HIM !!!

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

:((((((((( i ran out of tags . tumblr hates to see me thrive!!!!!!!

ok niku just . read the tags first and then come back here ok 🙏🙏 i have a lot i still need to say this is so important to me . this fic changed my life .

(WARNING this got long ….. really long ….. mysteriously. i got carried away 💔 PLS don’t feel the need to respond to any of this btw i mean that sincerely i know this is kind of a Lot i just need you to know much i adored this fic <3333)

BACK TO GOJO ok so his talk w reader…… it was just so satisfying to see them finally get to tell someone about their experience. it must’ve been such a great feeling for them !!!! to get some of it off their chest :((( … and to have Gojo Fucking Satoru our safe harbour of a man there to believe them and listen to them and reassure them. he’s so mature when it comes down to it and you captured that so well…… like as much as he acts childish and teasing this is exactly how i picture him interacting w someone he doesn’t know in a situation like this!! he’s flirty and unserious but he tells you he’ll protect you and means it. (i’m so down bad it physically hurts)

sorry i’m abt to go on a tangent i think BUT I JUST 😔😔 really… REALLY love their dynamic…. how it evolves so much even though he doesn’t even know reader exists for most loops!! and to them he’s just this beautiful Something that they can’t help but look at…… ”inhumanly attractive” is a great way to put it like he’s just….. this magnetic force……….. and i feel like even before they speak to him for the first time they probably find some kind of hope in him.

AND that’s so important bc to me that’s like . the main Theme of the fic? hope. reader has to find some kind of hope to make it through shibuya and more often than not they find it in gojo!!! in just seeing a familiar handsome face, in learning how to navigate the timeline through his actions, in talking to him and finally having him on their side. their choice to trust him fully at the end just made me soooo insane. and obv the hope theme continues even after that because gojo believes in them!!! believes that they’ll be okay in the prison realm….. more on that later actually bc i Still. have a lot to talk abt 😔👉👈 i’m just wildly flipping through my notes at this point i’m sorry to throw this at u when we’ve barely interacted but in my defense this fic reached into my actual skull and started rewiring my brain so!!!! yeah.

i got completely sidetracked there but . yes!! the conversation between them when gojo gets sent back in time is. so good!!!!! so wonderfully written!!!!! i haven’t mentioned it that much yet i think but i love your writing i devoured every line…… i struggle w the flow of my own writing SO much but this just flows so incredibly well??? it was sm fun to read????? and the rhythm of the paragraphs (that sounds. Insane but i hope u know what i mean 😭😭) is so distinct!!! and ofc there are SO many banger lines in this in general…. the gore descriptions and the lines abt reader and their fixation on hope. on gojo!! ”He's a terrifying sort of beauty and you can't help but be captivated by him.” <- this is just one example but!! idk i’m just so enamored by ur writing style.

and the dialogue!!!!!!!! i cried!!!!!! it’s so consistently gojo…. him going all ”oh?” ”interesting…” but not explaining anything … the ”ding ding ding!” after making reader guess what he should just be telling them (it’s the teacher in him <33) AND AND AND these too!!!! :3

“Just think of it like having a lot of MP.”

“You know, your technique kind of reminds me of save scumming.” 

THEY JUST FEEL SO CANON that’s our gojo…… that’s exactly what he would say…… he’s so unserious and so funny and so charming 😔😔 sigh.

ANDDDDD reader telling him good luck!!!! gojo beaming and squeezing their shoulder!!!!! the lil wave!!!!! 🥺🥺 that made me smile so wide niku he’s so infuriatingly cute . it felt so genuine!!!! pls know that this gojo will probably live in my brain forever like genuinely . i’ve been brainrotting over him all week and this was the final nail in the coffin. i’ll never be free.

ok but also !!!! extremely important !!!!!!! before i get to the ending i just need to tell u . how much i loved kenjaku in this ……….. kenjaku nation (me & six others) will never forget these crumbs of content like he just feels so real!!!!! and he’s so interesting!!!!! made me realize how truly down bad i am for him bc these lines made me so fucking happy 😭😭 brain started releasing serotonin like CRAZY i’m so ashamed.

“You can come out, you know.”

”How interesting.”

"I'll be nice, though. I'll make it painless."

…….. he’s just ….. yeah. yeahhhhh. 😔😔 i’ll never be normal abt him. i think it’s SUCH an interesting detail that he always makes reader’s death painless in every single loop…. he never lies about it. that feels so in character to me too!!! he’s kinda fascinated at first and when that interest disappears he kills them. but he doesn’t make it unecessarily cruel because there’s just. no need. kenjaku is a sicko but he’s oddly polite at times and i’m just……. yeah. gonna need you to take over for gege akutami actually 🙏🙏 get in the writer’s chair!!! the fandom needs u!!!!!

wait while we’re on this topic pls just know the entire confrontation between reader and kenjaku was one of my favorite moments in the entire fic <333 not JUST because i’m a kenny stan ok……… reader’s resignation and ”I appreciate it.” made my brain spin because it’s just . kinda chilling? kinda sick? that they aren’t even really afraid of death anymore… or more like they’re just so frighteningly used to it.

AND AND ANDDDD niku your writing in this scene 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫 gutted me like a fish.

Time doesn't flow in the box. He didn't lie. You die again.

i exploded btw . ackkk i wish i could explain it better i just!!! :< adore your writing. these lines made me go completely batshit they’re just so good. and the ”time doesn’t flow in the box” line … how that ties in with the ending and reader’s choice. whewww.

segway time <3333 this is the final rant i promise!!! i just need to talk about the ending bc it was so perfect and like many other things in this fic it made me insane …. have i said that already …. probably at least a couple times 😔👉👈 it’s true ok!! it’s just sooo interesting to me and obviously so wellwritten and fitting and just. thematically ties everything together so well? i was FLOORED

hhhhh i don’t know where to begin so i’ll just start w the final convo between reader and gojo :> he asks for their name !!!!!!! i cried !!!!!!!!!! calling someone by their name or knowing their name as a form of like . Closeness or Affection is one of my greatest weaknesses and i also think it’s soooo telling that GOJO wants to know Your Name. he wants to know you. to hear that from someone who seems so inhumanly beautiful and violent….. for him to kind of extend a final olive branch and attempt to connect w you :((((( it just says so much without spelling it out and i. started chewing at my desk. it’s so good!!!!!!! such a genius way to tie everything together!!!! and reader’s final words to him…

“Thank you, Satoru Gojo.” You burn the glittering glow of his brilliant bright blue eyes into your mind.  And then, everything is engulfed in an unending black. 

first of all!!! so so sooooo pretty. wowow. second of all THE THANK YOU ☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️ that’s also such a perfect conclusion…….. reader finally put their trust in someone and had that faith returned. and they thank him!!!! i like to think it means something to gojo too…. likeeee how often do people really thank him for what he does? how often is his hard work to protect people acknowledged and appreciated? sorry to bring gojo back into the discussion all the time sadly i AM in love w him….. 😔😔 and this fic made it worse so technically it’s your fault. kind of.

okay so my brain is kinda spinning away again so i’ll get to the final final thing!!!! for real this time!!!!! reader’s decision to be imprisoned in gojo’s stead… that’s so . genius? i’m so in awe??????? it makes so much sense from a character perspective based on what they’ve been through — after being at the mercy of time for so long, wouldn’t it be nice to be free of it? completely? it’s almost kind of chilling and just the idea of it scares me LMAO but it makes sm sense that reader would be drawn to it.

AND like i mentioned before!!! how it leads to a deeper connection between them and gojo, and how at the very end of the fic he’s the one who has faith in them. faith that they’ll be alright, of sound mind.

…… and that brings me to the final final final thing because. it’s just like the opening poem!! reader is the cat in the box. nobody can say for sure if they’re alright, not to mention alive, until the box is opened. and we don’t get to know!!! you leave us on a cliffhanger and that’s so good bc it really is like the cat in the box…. we can only wonder but it also gives us the freedom to decide for ourselves if we think they come out okay or not and i’m just………….. in love. with this fic. and the ending and the reader and gojo and you.

hopefully you’ve noticed atp but i really did go completely insane reading this 😭😭 i said it at the beginning but just to reiterate!!: for SURE one of my all time favorite gojo fics . AND loopfics in general…. thank you sm for your hard work :’3 aaaa i can’t tell u how much i admire the time you spent working on this??? your storytelling and writing and characterization skills????? i genuinely feel sooo giddy and excited and happy rn bc. i just adored this fic!!!! i’m so lucky i got to read it!!!!! :33 pls pat your gojo on the head from me and let him know i love him…. it’ll boost his ego but that’s a risk i’m willing to take 😔😔 i hope you have theeeee loveliest day or night a human being can have bc you made mine <3333333

beyond the unending night (reader + satoru gojo)

notes: it's finally here. the long awaited halloween fic. yes, i know it's march, but i did start working on it in september. haha. there's so much i could say, but i will leave it at that this fic is, in every sense, a fic that i would not normally write. and yet here we are.

contains: f!reader (no physical description or gendered language is used), no explicit romantic pairing (though you don't have to look hard to find the reader x gojo implications), major character death (played with), semi-graphic depictions of death, blood and violence, minor suicide ideation, canon retelling (lines of dialogue are pulled from the jjk english dub because i'm a dirty dub watcher). opening poem is from higurashi no naku koro ni (minagoroshi-hen). fic title is from giga's beyond the way.

please note that this is a time loop fic and, by nature contains repeating scenes (particularly from canon). please do not read this fic if you do not like that sort of thing.

wc: 21,883 read on ao3 (account required)

Please tell me what happened in this night. It's like the cat inside the box.

Please tell me what happened in this night. You don't know if the cat in the box is dead or alive. Please tell me what happened in this night. The cat in the box was dead.

The first time, it is instant— you don’t even know what’s happening.

The second, it is by flame, but you barely realize it, barely feel it— a second of mind numbing heat before nothing.

The third time, it is something slicing across your throat; you see the blood spilling everywhere, then the pain follows— a moment of pure agony before nothing.

The fourth time you realize what’s going on; what’s really going on.

You realize you’ve been dying.

You think your head is going to explode.

At first, you think it’s because the subway platform is crowded, insanely so— there are hundreds of people shoved into this space alongside you, packed like sardines in a can. You’ve never been one for crowds, but it’s the reality of things when you live in Tokyo. For the most part, you’ve learned to accept it, but even this crowd is a little much and you wish you hadn’t listened to your friends when they said you should go party in Shibuya for Halloween; you don’t even like partying.

There’s a sharp pain in your temple followed by a thought so loud that it feels like someone is screaming it at you through a megaphone positioned right next to your ear.

It’s the night of October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

For the eighth time.

Before you can even question the thought, images flash in your mind’s eye, blurry at first before they come into focus. The platform gates open. Chaos ensues. People dropping onto the subway tracks— spontaneously bursting into flame— their heads, necks sliced off, stomachs cut open—

Bile rapidly builds up in your throat, and you clamp your jaw shut, trying to force it down. Not here. Not now. You try to focus on something else, anything else happening outside of your brain. There’s a pair next to you musing about the people standing on the subway tracks, wondering what the two (the four?) of them are talking about. You blink back tears as you look. You can only see two: a freakishly tall man with white hair dressed in all black, and another man, dressed in strange, yet more traditional looking garb. Are those costumes too? You don’t have a lot of time to think about it as another image forces its way into your brain.

Your corpse— lifeless on the ground.

Your corpse— burning to ash.

Your corpse— bleeding out.

You can’t hold it in any more. Every fiber in your being screams at you to get away from the subway tracks, but instead you rush toward them, shoving people left and right as your hands desperately reach the stability of the gate. You grip it like a lifeline as you retch over the side of it, the contents of your stomach spilling all over the subway tracks.

There’s a quiet murmur of disgust behind you but you can’t be bothered to respond. You need to get out of here. You need to leave. You need to do it before—

The gates open and the crowd starts to move like a tidal wave, pushing and shoving their way through the gate. You’re swept away, vomit long forgotten as you and a few dozen others tumble onto the railway.

Alarm bells go off in your brain, loud and deafening. A voice in the back of your head screams for you to get off the track! Get off the track now before—

The platform erupts into a cacophony of screams, drenched in horror, saturated in fear. You are surrounded by people, by corpses— beheaded, sliced open, bursting into flames.

Your terror roots you to the ground as the carnage ensues around you. It’s only when another person, another corpse, dressed in a magical girl costume collides with your body that you can finally move. But it’s too late, you realize, despaired and helpless, as your bodies fall to the ground.

It’s too late.

You die an eighth time.

You think your chest is going to explode.

At first, you think it’s because it’s so hard to breathe, frustratingly so— there are hundreds of people squeezed into this space alongside you, packed like cattle for slaughter. You've never been one for crowds, but it’s the reality of things when you’re in Shibuya. For the most part, you’ve come to accept it, but this crowd is way too much and you wish you had just stayed home and ordered a pizza; though honestly, the thought of pizza kind of makes you sick.

There’s a dull throbbing in your forehead, followed by a thought so loud that it feels like someone’s hollering at you from a loudspeaker that’s been installed in your brain.

It’s the night of October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

You think it's the ninth time now.

Behind you, you hear a woman screaming, her voice crazed and terrified. You turn your head automatically to look at her and when you see her you realize you recognize her yellow and white magical girl costume. You can say with certainty that you’ve never seen her before and yet—

Before you can ruminate more on it, images— memories assault your mind’s eye with a clarity that is absolutely sickening. That woman colliding into you, your bodies slamming into the subway tracks before you both— Your stomach churns violently,

and you feel like you’re going to puke, but you force it down— can't afford to right now. Instead, you make your way over to the woman.

Her head is in her hands as she mutters over and over again about how everyone is going to die. People around her figure that being stuck in here with the crowd has probably gotten to her. You, however, know better.

“...hey,” you say softly.

Her muttering comes to an abrupt halt and slowly she raises her head to look at you. There’s a flash of recognition in her eyes and she grabs you violently by the shoulders. “You! You know, don’t you? That we’re going to die?”

If it weren’t for the fact that you have indeed experienced death here eight times already, then you would have thought she’s lost her mind. Slowly, you nod and she seems relieved by it, her grip on you loosening.

You can’t help but feel a little relieved too— glad to know that you’re not the only one experiencing this nightmare. There’s a voice in the back of your mind that’s confused though. Why is she only remembering now? But then again, it took you a few times before you realized yourself.

Around you people start to gasp, and you glance back toward the railway to see an abnormally tall man with white hair and dressed in all black jump down from the atrium onto the railway. He lands rather gracefully for someone who jumped at least one floor and starts to converse with the other three people (you think they're people— two of them are in some pretty wild costumes) on the track.

Wait. Isn’t it supposed to be just two people: the tall man and the one in the traditional clothes? Where did the other two come from?

“We have to get out of here,” the woman says. “Before they kill us.”

Her grip shifts from your shoulders to your arms and she starts to shove at everyone around you, trying to force her way through. She seems to know, just as well as you do, that any second now the gates will open and the crowd will start spilling onto the railway, littering the tracks with bodies and ash. Neither of you can let yourselves get swept up with the rest. If you do and you end up on those tracks, you’re as good as dead.

People move aside at a snail's pace, many of them too focused on trying to see what is going on on the subway tracks. This isn't good. You need to move faster or else—

The collective sound of the gates opening echoes in your head, a metallic hiss that makes your stomach fold into itself. Before either of you can stop yourselves, you both whip your heads back to look, to confirm, but it’s a mistake.

The briefest lapse in attention is enough to pull you both into the current of people, and try as you might to fight against it, the crowd splits you and the woman apart as it swallows you both whole. You’re both spat onto the tracks at the edge of the platform and your head collides with the metal rails of the track. It feels like your skull is about to crack in two, and it takes every fiber in your being to scramble to your feet. You're close enough to the platform that if you can just climb up it, then you'll be—

“Help! Help!”

It’s the woman’s voice. You turn to see that she ended up a couple meters away from you. She’s staring at you, eyes brimming with fear filled tears as she extends her hand in your direction. You take a step toward her, reaching out.

And then, her entire body is engulfed in flames, the skirt of her magical girl costume a ring of fiery death around her.

Her blood curdling scream is the only thing you can hear, her burning flesh, the only thing you can see. You don’t know what to do.

You can’t save her.

There's something touching your back. You can barely feel the pressure, but it's hot, scorching hot, mind numbingly hot, painfully hothothot.

You know this sensation. You have felt it before. The scent of burning cloth, burning hair, burning flesh clogs your nostrils. It's too late, you realize, helpless, despaired as the flames eat at your body— your soon to be corpse.

It's too late.

You die a ninth time.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

This is the tenth time.

Your head hurts, but you ignore it. There’s something more important that you need to attend to. You immediately make your way to the woman you met during your last round, the one you watched burn to death. Her costume is still pristine, unmarred by fire and death.

For now.

She’s not screaming this time and while there’s a little voice in the back of your mind that’s concerned by this, you try to ignore it.

“Um, excuse me?” you say when she doesn’t acknowledge you as you approach.

The woman turns to look at you. You’re taken aback by the distinct lack of recognition and it feels almost as if the woman you encountered previously and the one before you now are two separate people. In a way, they technically are.

“Do I… know you?” she finally asks when you don’t say anything.

Your mouth is dry. How do you even answer that? You don’t know her. You just watched her die twice. You know her. She begged you for help. You couldn’t save her.

If you explain all of this you know she’s just going to think you’ve lost your mind. Maybe you already have— you’ve died nine times after all.

You give her a weak smile. “I… just wanted to tell you that you think your costume looks great.”

She blinks, taken aback by your words. There’s no doubt that she wasn’t expecting you to say that. It’s the truth though, her costume is nice; she’s dressed up as a character from a magical girl anime that was popular a couple years ago.

“Thank you! I made it myself!” The woman breaks out into a genuine smile and your heart hurts. In a few moments she’ll die and the costume she worked so hard to make will be nothing but ash on the subway tracks.

“Sorry,” you blurt out before you can stop yourself.

“For?”

For watching her die. For not being able to save her.“...I just kind of came up to you all of a sudden…”

She laughs. “It’s okay.”

It’s not.

You consider telling her that she should try to move. That if she stays here she will die. You don’t want her to die. Again. You can still hear her screaming in your ears as she burned to death. You want to tell her.

You don’t.

“Stay safe, okay?” you say. It almost sounds like you’re begging.

She gives you another smile, kind and gentle and you think you’re far too undeserving of it for not telling her what fate will soon befall her. “You too.”

“I’ll try,” you say and move away from the woman just as the gates open and the crowd surges toward the railway. You do not fight it as you are swept up into the crowd and despite what you said, you do not try, this time, to stay safe.

You die for the tenth time.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

This is the fourteenth time.

There’s a slight ache in your head, but it’s subtle enough that you can ignore it. The pain you feel lessens with each round and you think it’s a sign that your body no longer feels the need to remind you of the precarious situation that you’re in.

Or maybe you are just becoming numb to everything: your death, the death of the people around you, the death of the woman in the magical girl costume—

You try not to think about it too much as you reach into your bag to check the time on your phone: 8:37PM. There’s not a lot of time: you need to move.

At the very end of your last attempt to escape this nightmare you realized something. You need to know exactly what is going on around you so you can plan accordingly: where to not stand, where to not go. Up until now, you’ve relied almost solely on the knowledge gained from your previous failures to try and survive, but obviously it’s not enough to keep you alive. You’re not sure why you didn’t realize this earlier. The panic, maybe? The fear?

Maybe you really are becoming numb to all this.

Unlike previous iterations, this time you elect to move closer to the gate, positioning yourself somewhere against it where you’re unlikely to be pushed off the platform in a couple minutes when they open. You take great care to place yourself where you can see the ones responsible for the slaughter very clearly. At the beginning, you could only see one, the one who looks the most human, but with each repetition, the other two have become more and more clear. You wonder why. You don’t have time to think about it.

Murmurs nearby alert you to the arrival of the fourth major player involved in the night’s events. You look up and see the white haired man dressed in all black descending upon the platform like an angel from the heavens. This is your first time really looking at him and you realize there’s something almost inhumanly attractive about him. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but it occurs to you that you shouldn’t even try; you don’t have the time to be drooling over some handsome stranger.

You’ve naturally never taken the time to try and listen to whatever the conversation the man and his opponents have before all hell breaks loose on the platform, but you try and lean closer to listen. It’s hard to hear over the dozens of conversations going on behind you, but you try anyway. There might be a clue to what’s actually going on— or better yet, a clue on how to get out of it.

It’s obvious that you’re missing context from what bits of the conversation you do manage to hear, but honestly it all sounds like stuff out of a shounen battle manga. There is one part of the exchange that you manage to hear with a startling sort of clarity. It feels almost as if your heart stops beating as your blood turns ice cold in your veins.

“If I run away, you’re just gonna kill everyone here, right?” the man in black asks.

There’s a pause, and if your heart was still beating it’d be long enough for just four heartbeats.

“If you run away?” The monster with cane repeats, the sadistic grin spreading wide across its features, displaying its charcoal black teeth. The gravelly sound of its voice sets fire to the blood in your veins, your stilled heart thumping wildly, in fear, in anticipation. Soon. It’s happening soon. You brace yourself. “We’re going to do that even if you don’t!”

You die a fourteenth time.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

This is the seventeenth time now.

Things are going surprisingly well, even as the people around you tumble onto the tracks. You manage to hold on, desperation keeping you from falling into the abyss. This is good, you tell yourself, despite the fact that it’s not the first time you’ve achieved this. Every little victory is worth celebrating, but you have to remain vigilant. This is yet another information gathering loop, and while you know that maybe this time you’ll be lucky and live, there’s still a chance, a big one, at that, that you will die again.

You have to make the most of each and every death.

It’s such a morbid thought, but the ends justify the means, or so you tell yourself. If you have to die a few times to make it out of this unending nightmare, then so be it.

The spot you’re in is a good vantage point; it’s easier to see everything happening below you. It’s so good that it’s actually sickening. You watch as the monster with the cane and one with what looks like branches for eyes slaughter the people on the track, mowing them down, setting them aflame. In another life, in another many lives, that was you down there, and for what feels like the first time in forever, you feel like you’re going to be sick. You feel like, at some point, you likened the scene before you to some kind of shounen battle manga, but you think that was wrong.

This is borderline horror.

Everything plays out before you like a scene out of an action horror flick. If you didn’t know better, you’d think you were just an extra on set, but you know the reality is that you’re just an extra to whatever phantasmal battle is taking place in front of you. The monsters and the strangely dressed man all try to attack the man in black, but he manages to block every hit effortlessly, as if he is protected by some sort of invisible barrier. When it seems the two monsters are about to hit him, he merely jumps out of the way and the two monsters seem to collide, the force of their combined strength sending a gust of air throughout the crowd. The man in black neatly lands on a nearby platform half wall and says something about curse users, whatever those are, to the monsters, before he starts to mock them, pulling down his strange blindfold in the process.

And this, you’ve found, is where you start to get in trouble.

You clearly remember thinking, at some point, previously, that there was something attractive about this man. You still don’t know what it is. You haven’t had the time to try and figure it out, but there is one thing that you do know: you can’t keep your eyes off of him.

He drops back down onto the tracks, antagonizing his opponents in an arrogant tone as he approaches. When he comes to a stop between the two monsters, the second round of their fight begins. They try to hit him, but he dodges still, gracefully, fluidly, like the three of them are embroiled in some sort of passionate, yet violent dance.

You cannot turn your eyes away as he cruelly rips off one of the arms of the one-eyed monster.

You cannot turn your eyes away as he brutally kicks the branch-eyed monster in the abdomen, sending them flying to the other side of the platform.

You cannot turn your eyes away as he effortlessly hurls the one-eyed, now one-armed monster in the same direction, sending them smashing into the wall.

Only when the man in black seems to fly to the other side is the spell over you seemingly broken. Still, your eyes give chase, and your body too, rushing from one side of the platform to the other. You can’t lose sight of this fight, you tell yourself, settling in a spot you recall being safe during your last round. Doing so could mean another death, another loop, another October 31.

You watch as the man in black acrobatically dodges what looks to be vines or roots that the monster with branches for eyes seems to have summoned from the depths of the Tokyo metro. He lands on the monster’s shoulders, balancing on them as he uses its branch-eyes for leverage. The look in the man’s eyes is so crazed that you can see it from where you’re standing. He says something to it and then—

With a feral and sadistic smile, he rips their eyes straight out of their skull.

Your heart is pounding wildly in your chest as you watch the fight unfold. It is horrifyingly, disgustingly violent, yet still you watch as people on the track are killed by the human-like person, blood raining down as their freshly beheaded skulls go flying into the air. He and the one-eyed monster launch their counter attacks against the man in black and the blowback is so intense the power goes out causing everyone to scream.

There’s a faint glow where the man in black is standing that starts to grow brighter and brighter. You can make out his form turning to face the wall, and it seems almost like he’s slammed the monster that had branches for eyes against it with some sort of telekinetic power. Despite the panic from the people around you, you manage to hear him, chuckling like a mad man as he draws closer and closer to the monster.

The one-eyed monster yells out a name, a name you think must belong to the man, but he doesn’t hear it. He doesn’t hear the one-eyed monster as he extends his hands out toward the eyeless monster, exerting some kind of force that you can’t really see. He doesn’t hear the one-eyed monster as the eyeless monster’s entire body is vaporized in a flash of blue light. He doesn’t hear the one-eyed monster, as the lights flicker back on revealing a smoking crater stained with purple blood where the eyeless monster once stood.

But you do.

Satoru Gojo.

You make sure to remember that.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

And this is the eighteenth time.

You watch as the man called Satoru Gojo stalks through the crowd of people on the subway tracks, chasing after the one-eyed fire monster. It throws people at him, in a clear attempt to slow him down.

It does not work.

Satoru Gojo climbs back onto the platform in a way that you can only describe as inhuman, and the people nearby shriek and move away from him, out of terror, out of fear. You, on the other hand, draw closer, refusing to lose sight of him.

He is relentless in his pursuit of the one-eyed monster. It continues to throw person after person at him, but he does not stop and the people float there, suspended in midair before they are gently lowered to the ground by some unseen force and scramble away.

No one dares get close to Satoru Gojo, everyone on the platform seems to know that doing so means certain death, yourself included. But you still feel the need to keep an eye on him. The monster and the strangely dressed man are focusing more on him than the crowd— anyone in between is just collateral damage.

But not you.

Especially since you’ve made it this far— you’ve never made it this far before.

A voice echoes throughout the platform; you realize it’s the automated announcement.

An eight car train is pulling in. Please wait behind the yellow line.

You can hear everyone’s relief coming from all sides. The train is coming! The train is coming! A ripple of hope makes its way throughout the crowd. With the train comes the chance to get off the platform and the senseless violence that’s been happening here. Some of the people around you are talking excitedly and others are running toward the gates, toeing the yellow line they’ve been instructed to wait behind. And you, you should be excited, you should be hopeful.

All you feel is dread.

It eats at your stomach, at your chest, at your mind. Clawing and gnawing at you in a way that leaves you paralyzed on the platform. There’s something wrong here. You can’t be sure because you’ve never made it this far, never survived long enough for the train to come, but something is just not right.

No.

You must be paranoid. The train coming is a good thing. It has to be a good thing. You are just paranoid. It’s normal. It’s natural. Dying seventeen times would do that to anyone— rob them of hope, condemn them to an existence full of fear.

It is not lost on you that the thought of dying more than once, much less, dying seventeen times is not normal or natural in the very slightest.

But you need hope, you crave it, wildly, desperately. The hope of freedom, of escape is the only thing getting you through this unending nightmare. Every time you die, every time you wake, it is with the hope that maybe, just maybe this iteration will be different, maybe this one will be the one where you make it out, make it back to your friends who must be waiting for you, make it back home where you can be safe and sound. You need the hope to keep going. Because without hope, what will you have left?

The train screeches as it pulls into the station and the people around you laugh in both disbelief and relief. They start to push and shove toward it, fighting to be able to board because there’s no way everyone here will be able to get on an eight car train and being left behind at this point is practically synonymous with death. Unable to decide if you believe in the train as a symbol of hope or a new layer of fear, you are pushed along with the crowd toward it.

The doors of the train cars slide open and the current passengers all rush off as they disembark. You as well as everyone else on the platform can see with a horrifying clarity that the train is filled to the brim with monsters. Monsters that reach out and grab anyone their hands can reach. The woman to your left. The person to your right.

You.

Hope is gone.

What do you have left?

You die for the eighteenth time.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

This is probably the twenty-sixth time now.

If there is anything this entire ordeal has taught you, it is that you are resilient. Whether it is some innate trait that you never had any reason to uncover before or just a byproduct of being trapped in an unending cycle of being dead and not dead, you don't know. What you do know, though, is that even if you no longer have hope, you at least have your resilience.

Whether you want it or not.

You check the time. It’s 8:35PM. Something flickers in your chest, like a faint light in a sea of darkness, but you ignore it. You don’t have time right now.

With a nimbleness born from your previous failures, you weave your way through the crowd. You’ve done this enough times to know where the gaps are— who will yield and who won’t. Your destination is the escalator that leads off the platform and up to a higher part of the station. You’d noticed previously that the escalator along with every other entrance onto the platform will eventually be blocked by vines or roots of some sort (the work of the branch-eyed monster probably). It’s not a perfect plan because you don’t know what happens on the other side, but whatever it is has to be better than whatever is happening on the side that you’ve been on.

You’d tried to get to the stairs during your last two rounds, but you’d just missed it. You hadn’t been fast enough and had gotten caged and slaughtered along with the rest. But this time, this time you have more time. It’s just one minute, but it’s enough. You know it is.

The flickering in your heart grows stronger. Hope. You try not to pay attention to it— you don’t want to be disappointed yet again. But you want to so badly. A voice in the back of your mind tells you to focus on the good, tells you that if there was truly no way out of this endless nightmare, then why would you get more and more time with each round to escape your fate?

With that thought in mind, you break out into a run, recklessly rushing through the crowd, shoving anyone who will not yield to the side. Out of the corner of your eye you can see the stark white of Satoru Gojo’s hair as he descends upon the platform.

You need to get up those stairs.

Now.

If you remember correctly, the roots and vines don’t close off the area the moment he touches down, but a little after they start talking, so you think there is probably some time, but you can’t leave it to chance.

The stairs are packed, and for some reason no one is moving. The escalator right next to it is just as full and the power doesn’t seem to be working. You don’t have time for this. You clamber onto the escalator’s rubber handrail, ignoring the weird feeling that passes through your body as you do so. You don’t have the time to worry about whatever that is. The people around you start exclaiming around you, but you don’t care, you don’t listen. You wobble as you try to balance yourself and when you think you’re steady you try to run.

But you trip.

And you die for the twenty-sixth time.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

This marks the thirtieth time.

And you have, finally, finally made it up the escalator, up the stairs with barely a second to spare. You pause, glancing back as the roots or vines or whatever the hell they are seal off the entrance to the platform. You notice that the area where the plants come down is actually fairly clear, despite the crowd. It seems weird, but you don’t dwell on it.

A strange feeling envelops your entire body and your legs turn into jelly. As you sink to the floor, you realize what you’re feeling is relief as all the tension, maybe thirty iterations of Halloween 2018 worth, seeps from your being. You don't remember the last time you felt anything other than fear and dread; it’s weird, but not unwelcome.

That voice in the back of your mind tells you that you can't relax just yet: October 31st isn’t over. Even though you have repeated this night again and again, burning the events that play out on the platform into your memory, you do not know a single thing that happens over here. It would be smart to scope everything out.

Legs still shaky, you rise to your feet and start walking. You think it’s probably for the best to try and head up to the surface and you make your way up to the next floor.

It’s packed with people here too, but relatively peaceful, especially when you compare it to the pandemonium taking place beneath your feet. Still, you can make out the undeniable hum of displeasure resonating throughout the crowd. People complaining about how uncomfortable their costumes are, people complaining about how much they want to go home, people complaining about how much their nights have been ruined because they couldn’t meet up with their friends and—

A thought hits you like an eight car train.

You were supposed to meet up with your friends.

That’s why you were on the platform in the first place— you were waiting for them to arrive, but then the trains stopped working, and people just started pouring into the station out of seemingly nowhere (you think you heard some people say they’d come from the crossing?). Soon after that is when everything went to shit.

You check your phone, though, for once it’s not to look at the time (8:56PM). Instead, you open LINE to check your friends’ group chat. There’s no signal here, for whatever reason, so if there are any new messages, you haven’t received them. The last one was from Kei, mentioning he was enroute, but as far as you know, you’re the only one who made it to Shibuya before the trains stopped.

Did one of them maybe make it here though? Surely, you would have run into them if—

The image of a woman in a magical girl costume fills your vision, burning to death before your very eyes as her screams echo in your ears. It is the first time in what feels like forever that you’ve thought about her and your stomach churns violently. You couldn’t help her, you can’t even help yourself, so how could you even expect to do the same for your friends if they were here? The mere thought of having to watch them die over and over is almost enough to send you over the edge. You don’t know if you could do it.

Would you even have a choice?

No. You can't think like that. You have choices. You've had choices. If you didn’t then, you would still be down below, among the fire and brimstone. Dying, if not dead already. However, instead, you are up here, where, for the moment, it is quiet and peaceful.

That thought, in of itself, is enough to give you a shred of solace, a glimmer of hope.

You take a deep breath and fiddle with your phone a little more, changing your lock screen to a picture you and your friends took at a photo booth not too long ago. The four of you are huddled together, faces squished as if you're all struggling to fit in the frame, despite there being plenty of room. You're mid-laugh because it's the first time you've been in a photo booth in years, Mio and Shin are grinning mischievously and finally, Kei is smiling, but only just slightly, the embarrassment clear on his face. It's probably only been a few months since you all took this picture, but the fact that it feels like it's been years makes your heart ache.

You press your forehead to the screen, like a prayer, like a promise.

You will make it out of this nightmare.

No matter what.

A shrill scream yanks you from your thoughts and you are instantly on your feet, alert as your eyes flit around frantically to identify the source. It doesn't take long for you to find it and when you do, you think you might have stumbled upon a new layer of horror to this nightmare.

It’s not the corpse, dangling by a noose, that terrifies you— by now you’ve seen dozens upon dozens of dead bodies that the sight of just one more doesn’t faze you in the slightest. The thing that’s the most mortifying, that’s the most disturbing is that right next to where the body is tied are two girls, two teenage girls still dressed in their school uniforms.

You can accept monsters and weirdly dressed men being responsible for the carnage tonight, but children too? Both girls look like they’re barely in high school and try as you might to rationalize things, to chalk it up to coincidence, you cannot ignore the ominous energy radiating from them.

The very notion that these two children could have killed someone here is a hard pill to swallow, but so is the fact that you’ve died.

And you’ve had to swallow that pill thirty times now, so what’s once more?

“Listen up!” one of the girls yells over the crowd, but she is mostly ignored; you don’t think everyone here has noticed her and the corpse dangling from the rafters. She scowls and turns to the other girl and says something quietly to her. The other girl nods and almost instantly she’s stringing up another person, another example. You want to look away so badly, and yet you cannot bring yourself to and you watch the poor soul choke to death.

“I said listen, you dumb monkeys!” the girl shouts, and this time she’s caught most of the crowd’s attention. “If you don’t want to end up like these two, you’ll listen to what we have to say!”

There is clear dissent among the crowd, people dismissive as they utter their disbelief. Some seem to think it’s a prank, but you know better. It takes two more examples before the crowd goes silent before the two high schoolers.

“About damn time!” The girl roars and then points toward the atrium, which is currently covered by roots and branches. “All of you move over there!”

You have a bad feeling about this.

Still, you comply; the girls have made it abundantly clear that failure to do so will result in death, though, at this point, you're almost certain this iteration is a bust and death is all but imminent. You try to keep positive— thinking you can at least gather information or, who knows, maybe there's a chance that this one is the one.

Yet when you step onto the mound of vines and branches that cover the atrium it feels as if you've crossed the threshold into hell. Your footing is stable… but for how long?

An eight car train is pulling in. Please wait behind the yellow line.

It's faint, but you can hear the announcement from below. The liquid in your stomach curdles at the sound as you recall the train and, in particular, what is on board. Soon enough, those monsters will be swarming the platform, massacring everyone in reach, guzzling down their blood, feasting on their flesh—

It dawns on you that the people on the platform are the monsters' first course.

And you, and those around you here in the shrubbery, are the second.

As you realize this, the branches and vines disintegrate beneath your very feet and suddenly you are mid air— falling, falling into the abyss below.

You die for the thirtieth time.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

You've done this nearly sixty times now.

After countless failures, you've decided that you're just not going to go upstairs any more. No matter where you try to go, you still end up herded onto the death trap above the platform where you ultimately fall to your death. You've tried positioning yourself in the same spot, tried bracing yourself for the drop— but nothing seems to work: upon landing, assuming you manage to land without hurting yourself or dying in midair (which has happened a couple times) you get grabbed and killed by one of the monsters from the train. It's probably not impossible, you just don't have the physical prowess or reflexes for it.

If anything, you can try again later, but you sincerely hope you don't have to.

It's 8:32PM, and you have plenty of time to get to your chosen spot for this loop— it's close to the stairs, in the very center of the platform. Here, there's little risk of getting pushed off onto the tracks when the gates open. You'll probably have to move when the train comes, or even before (assuming you survive) to avoid the monsters, but you'll get to that when it's time.

You can't really see the fight once it breaks out after Satoru Gojo arrives, but you still try to keep track of it as best as you can. You see when he hurls both monsters across the platform and you're not sure if it's muscle memory or what but you have to fight the urge to move to the side and watch. It's been a while, yes, but you've seen the fight countless times before— it doesn't change. Satoru Gojo will give chase. He will rip the branches from the branch eyed monster's skull. He will use some kind of power to eviscerate them.

You don't need to watch, but there's something in you that wants to.

It doesn't make sense, you've seen it all before; if you're unlucky you'll see it all again.

The lights go out and people start screaming; Satoru Gojo is ending the life of that one monster. Soon enough he'll be back on the platform, in pursuit of the other. You think at that point it would be good to move, reposition yourself as far from the incoming train as possible.

When he rises from the tracks like a demon straight from hell, you realize it's the first time this loop that you've actually gotten a good look at him. You remind yourself, again, that this isn't the first time you've seen this man, this scene. You can't help but watch, but stare at Satoru Gojo as he stalks through the crowd in pursuit of his prey. His expression is an eerie sort of calm that's at odds with the acts of violence you've seen him commit— his eyes an unnaturally bright blue.

He's a terrifying sort of beauty and you can't help but be captivated by him.

An eight car train is pulling in. Please wait behind the yellow line.

The sound of the announcement sends your heartbeat into a frenzy, snapping you out of your little trance. The train is coming and you need to get moving. As you dart to the edge of the platform, the thought occurs to you that even if you avoid the initial wave of monsters, it's likely you will inevitably be caught by them and killed. It wouldn't be impossible for Satoru Gojo to turn his attention to them instead of the two he's currently facing, but he's just one man— can he truly defeat all those monsters?

You can see the train pulling in and you brace yourself, praying that it'll work out somehow.

The doors hiss open and the screaming starts again as the monsters come bursting out of the train, biting and mauling anyone they can get their hands on. Those who were lucky enough to not be at the front start to scramble away and the monsters give chase. Your body is taut, ready to try and dodge any that come your way.

Out of the corner of your eye you notice something moving through the air. A person? With blue hair? You take the risk to look— they're attacking Satoru Gojo. He tries to punch them but they fly away from him to dodge— disappearing into the crowd.

You hear a loud cracking sound over the cacophony of the crowd and your stomach twists; you know what that sound is. The roots above the atrium disintegrate and bodies from above start to rain down onto the platform.

And then, you're not sure what happens— it's so quick that you only manage to see what looks like an explosion of blood surrounding Satoru Gojo. Corpses litter the ground around him and even from here you can tell he is shaken by the carnage.

The monsters have finally reached where you're standing, and you duck under one as it lunges at you. Although it's big and scary, you realize it's moving kind of slow. Right after it another one comes at you and you take a side step to avoid it; this monster is kind of slow too.

Maybe you can do this.

As soon as you think that a strange feeling courses through you. Every hair on your body feels like it's standing on edge and the voice in your head is telling you to look at Satoru Gojo. You don't understand why because you think he's the least of your worries right now, but you do it anyway.

He's in some sort of stance, one hand raised to his face, fingers bent in some kind of gesture. There's some sort of aura, oppressive and frightening emanating from his form.

Satoru Gojo is doing something.

You just can't tell what.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

And you are utterly confused.

Barring your first few loops when you weren't fully aware of what was happening, you have very distinct memories of how each of your previous iterations of this night have gone— of each and every one of your deaths. But for your last round, the last thing you remember was feeling the immense power radiating from Satoru Gojo's body, but that's it.

You do not remember dying.

In fact, you don't think you did.

And yet, here you are again, back at the start: it's 8:32PM and the monsters and strangely dressed man are standing on the subway tracks waiting for the arrival of Satoru Gojo.

You don't understand what's going on; you didn't die but you're still stuck in this damn loop. Up until now, your death has served as the trigger to restart the loop. It's not impossible that maybe you suffered a quick and painless death but you're almost certain that isn't the case.

Something else must have happened.

Something having to do with Satoru Gojo.

You have to find out what. If you don't, you won't know how to avoid it, and if you can't do that, then you really might spend an eternity stuck in this nightmare. And so you take great care to repeat the steps of your last round. You need to make sure to survive to the same point you made it to last time.

Miraculously, you do.

The moment you feel that sensation again, a prickling sort of feeling that envelops your entire body, your eyes are on Satoru Gojo— trying to figure out what the hell he's doing. His eyes are crazed with a desperate kind of focus. You see his mouth move— he's saying something. A spell? A prayer? A curse?

You don't know.

You do know.

Your brain feels like it's going to explode.

Again.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

Again.

You do not know how many times it's been the night of Halloween in Shibuya: you stopped counting around the hundredth loop. It feels like it's been a while since then. Or maybe it hasn't? You don't know any more.

What you do know is that this night ends up going one of two ways before you are forced to repeat it. Either you die, in some way, shape or form or something happens just after nine that forces you to reset. You still don't know what it is exactly; you only know that Satoru Gojo is responsible for it.

You do prefer it to dying— it's far less painful.

But if anything, you wish you could just die permanently and never have to repeat this night ever again.

Unfortunately, you know better.

The only good thing you’ve noticed about all of this is that you really do seem to keep waking up earlier and earlier. The last time you checked, it was at around 8:30. It might take hundreds of thousands of loops, but eventually you’ll certainly wake up early enough to avoid this damn entire mess.

But by the time that happens… will your sanity still be intact? Will you really be able to go back to a normal day to day life after living the equivalent of hundreds of years, repeating the same night over and over again? You don’t even know how you’ve managed to stay sane all this time and as much as you want to believe you could do it…

There has to be a breaking point.

For both your mind and this time loop.

If you’re lucky, you’ll reach the latter first.

There’s a dull ache in your head that feels foreign yet familiar. Your mind is foggy, all your thoughts hazy as you try to recall what the word for this feeling is.

Groggy.

It feels as if you’ve woken up from a nap and you blink the sleepiness away from your eyes. When was the last time you took a nap? It’s been a while… You think you maybe tried once or twice, but you were too nervous, too on edge. Awake or asleep, it didn’t matter because, either way, you were doomed to repeat this nightmare.

As you think this, you realize that something is different.

You’re used to how the start of each loop feels like waking up suddenly and abruptly and it becomes clear to you that you haven’t looped. This is completely uncharted territory.

You need to find out what’s going on.

The first thing you notice is that it’s quiet. Almost eerily so, especially when the last thing you remember was screaming and chaos. You glance around you and find that it looks like all the monsters from the train are dead, the ground littered in their bloodstains and corpses. There were so many of them, you don’t know how someone could have wiped them out so quickly… Could it possibly have been Satoru Gojo’s doing?

More concerning than the complete eradication of the monsters is the fact that nearly everyone else on the platform is standing stock still, their mouths ajar with blank expressions on their faces. It’s almost as if their souls have completely vacated their bodies…

Were you like that too before you woke up?

You hear voices, and your body immediately goes tense as you turn your head in their direction. A little ways ahead of you, you see a man dressed as a monk conversing with the blue haired person from earlier and before them is—

Your heart nearly stops: it’s Satoru Gojo, restrained and on his knees.

Honestly, you can’t make heads or tails of the conversation they’re having; it’s more shounen battle manga nonsense. Satoru Gojo doesn’t seem to be enjoying their conversation either, and he interrupts them, clearly annoyed.

“Are we gonna do this or what?” he asks. “The view sucks and I’m just kinda bored.”

“I wanted to enjoy this sight for a little bit longer, but you are right,” the monk says. “I wouldn’t want anything to happen— gate, close.”

When he says that, Satoru Gojo’s restraints move, the weirdly shaped cubes at the ends of them closing in around him, trapping him in a giant red cube. It starts to shrink until it’s small enough to fit in the monk’s hand.

You gulp and hope they don’t notice that you’re awake. The fact that they haven’t slaughtered the rest of the people standing around you is a good sign, but you don’t want to find out what happens if they know you’re cognizant.

It’s not hard to play the part of a living statue, especially when you compare it to everything else you’ve had to suffer through on this night. You watch as the monk’s allies, the ones who had attacked everyone on the platform, wake up, but before they can do or say anything, the box holding Satoru Gojo slips through the monk’s fingers and makes a dent in the concrete. The look on the monk’s face makes it clear that it’s a problem he wasn’t expecting.

You don’t know a damn thing about Satoru Gojo, but you feel like this kind of thing is the norm for him.

The blue haired person suddenly looks in your direction and you nearly stop breathing. Have they noticed you? It takes everything in you to keep perfectly still, in hopes that maybe they didn't, that maybe they’re looking at something else. They raise their arm and it extends, their hand acting like some kind of projectile. You almost shut your eyes and brace yourself for impact, but their hand flies upwards and hits something on the ceiling, destroying it.

Inwardly, you breathe a sigh of relief— you’re still safe.

For now.

You listen to their following conversation and while you still don’t fully understand everything, it’s clear they’re talking about what to do next since they’ve taken care of Satoru Gojo. Something having to do with someone named Yuji Itadori? The group seems split on what to do about him but it’s clear he’s their next target.

Eventually, everyone but the monk (you heard the blue haired person, who is apparently named Mahito, call him Geto?) runs off, probably to find this Yuji Itadori person. Once they’re gone, Geto speaks and, at first, you think he’s talking to you, but it becomes clear he’s addressing someone else. “Those cursed spirits are actually smarter than the two of you.”

“Give him back!” a voice hidden among the crowd hisses. Your blood runs cold at the sound. You recognize it; it’s one of the high school girls from the upper floor.

“We cooperated with you fully and kept dropping monkeys for you,” says another voice; it must be the other girl that was with her, the one who hung all those people.

“Now give us back Master Geto’s body like you promised!”

“Don’t toy with Master Geto any further than you have!”

You blink in confusion. Isn’t the monk named Geto? The way the girls are talking it sounds like they’re talking about someone else… Is it possible that the body is ‘Geto’ but the person they’re talking to is someone else possessing it? It sounds kind of crazy, but then again, so is every single thing you’ve experienced tonight.

Your suspicions concerning this ‘Geto’ are confirmed only seconds later as he says, “Now begone, or is it your desire to be killed by this body?”

One of the girls vows her revenge and you hear shuffling somewhere else in the crowd as they scurry away. Now you think it’s just you and whoever it is that’s puppeting Geto’s body. You see him plop down in front of the box (the prison realm, you think he’d called it) that’s holding Satoru Gojo.

“You can come out, you know,” he says after a while.

You freeze. The rest of the platform is completely silent. This time you think he might actually be talking to you.

“I know you’re there,” ‘Geto’ adds, his voice casual. “If you’re insistent on hiding, you should know that I’m not afraid of using whatever means necessary to smoke you out.”

Given everything his allies have done, there’s no doubt in your mind that he’s serious. You were hoping to hide out among the crowd until he decided to leave, but it looks like you won’t be able to now.

Looks like this loop is a bust after all.

Your heart starts to race as you weave your way through the crowd. In every single one of your loops, you were always treated like a bit character, never noticed or singled out by any of the major players of the night. Although this is your first time encountering this ‘Geto’ it’s clear to you that he’s involved with everything that’s happened here and honestly, you get the feeling he might actually be the mastermind behind the massacre.

That makes you even more nervous.

You come to a stop in the place where Satoru Gojo was once kneeling before he was put in that box. Now that you’re out in the open, ‘Geto’ looks you over with some sort of nonchalant curiosity.

“You’re…” he starts, sounding thoughtful, "not a sorcerer, are you?”

Sorcerer. You heard that term thrown around by him and his group a few times. It’s what they’ve been referring to their enemies as. It probably wouldn’t be smart to lie and say you are one; you get the feeling he’d see through your lie anyway. “I’m not.”

He hums. “How interesting.”

“...what do you mean?” you ask before you can help yourself.

“It’s just you have an abnormally large amount of cursed energy for a non-sorcerer,” he explains. “Though, I suppose that all just sounds like gibberish to you."

You nod and look down at the box lodged in the floor. It has eyes, big creepy looking eyes. "...are you going to do the same thing to me as you did to that man?"

He laughs, "...fortunately for you, the prison realm only holds one person at a time and I need him sealed away more than you."

"...does that mean you're going to leave him in there forever?"

"If I'm feeling nice, I might unseal him in a hundred years or so."

One hundred years? At this point, you've probably lived roughly that amount of time through your loops alone, but for Satoru Gojo… "Won't he die first?"

"Only if he decides to," 'Geto' says, looking completely and wholly unbothered. "Time doesn't doesn't flow in the box, so when I unseal him, he'll be the same as he was just now. Physically anyway. Who knows how deteriorated his mind will be after all that."

Time doesn't flow in the box.

The words echo in your mind over and over. Time doesn't flow in the box. In other words, that means time has stopped in the box, and if that's the case then—

"Anyway, rather than worry about him, shouldn't you be more worried about yourself?"

You look at 'Geto' and he's smiling at you, it's friendly, but ominous. There's no doubt what is going to happen next, though you had already resigned yourself to this iteration being a bust; it was only a matter of time.

Time doesn't flow in the box.

"I was thinking I might keep you around, even if you aren’t a sorcerer, your wealth of cursed energy would serve my plans well," he muses. "But… it would be too much trouble trying to teach you how to use it in time."

As he talks, you realize this is probably the first time your death is intentional— every other death you've suffered has just been a byproduct of the ongoing slaughter. You were just another casualty, a victim, never a target.

You're scared.

Even though you know that once he kills you, once you die, you'll just loop back to around 8:30 again. You'll be on the platform again. And you'll play out some sequence of events before you eventually die again. And again and again.

Time doesn't flow in the box.

"I'll be nice, though," 'Geto' says, raising a hand and another monster appears out of nowhere. You don’t even bother trying to figure out from where. It doesn’t matter, especially since this monster will surely be the one to end your life. "I'll make it painless."

"...I appreciate it," you say and close your eyes hoping that he's not lying about it.

Time doesn't flow in the box.

He didn't lie.

You die again.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

And you're trapped.

You don't know how and you don't know why, but you are stuck in a time loop— forced to suffer through the horrific events of the night before you die and begin it all again. It's been a long time since you stopped counting how many loops you've gone through, but if you had to guess, it's probably somewhere in the hundreds now.

You are so very tired.

But it doesn't stop. It won't stop no matter what you seem to do. You are stuck. You are trapped. You are doomed.

“Time doesn't flow in the box.”

Ever since that first loop where you heard whoever is possessing Geto's body say that, the words have been stuck in your head, playing on loop.

You finally realize why.

“Time doesn't flow in the box.”

It's 8:25PM when you wake up; that should be plenty of time.

You need to find Satoru Gojo.

After hundreds of loops you've come to a singular conclusion: you need to prevent him being sealed in the prison realm. You've witnessed it enough to know that you won't be able to do it alone; you'll need his cooperation.

You rush upstairs as fast as you can, ignoring the shiver that runs down your spine as you step onto the stairwell. According to your previous loops, Satoru Gojo arrives on the subway tracks at 8:40PM. With how crowded the upper floor is, you don’t know if you’ll have the time to intercept him and talk to him, but if you can at least figure out where to find him, then you can try and talk to him during a subsequent loop.

When you reach the fourth basement floor, however, you don’t know where you should even start. He’s pretty tall so you think you could spot him in the crowd, but… there are still so many people. It occurs to you that maybe it would be better to try and look from a higher vantage point so you head to the stairs that lead up to the third basement floor. You check your phone again. It’s 8:35PM; you need to hurry.

Luckily for you, you find him very easily on the third basement floor.

The only problem is that he’s in a hard to reach spot— squatting above a sign hanging over the crowd.

You check your phone again. It’s 8:38PM and he’s starting to move, presumably to meet with those waiting for him on the subway tracks. It’s good that you found him, but there’s no doubt about it.

You’re going to need more time.

The moment you wake up, you immediately bolt toward the stairs. It's taken many, many more loops, but you've finally brought the time you wake down to around 8:15. You're still not sure if it's enough time, but there's only one way to find out.

You barrel your way up to the next floor and zig zag through the crowd to get to the next flight of stairs. By the time you get to your destination, you're completely out of breath, your chest heaving as your lungs clamor for air. You’ve done this so many times, yet your body acts like it’s always the first. It sucks, but there’s nothing you can do about it. You slow to a brisk pace to catch your breath and check the time. It’s 8:27— a new record. Hopefully it’ll be enough.

The goal is to catch Satoru Gojo before he moves to his lookout point above the crowd. While not impossible, it would be difficult for you to follow him there. You eye the safety barricade that blocks off the area where he’ll be moving in just a few minutes warily.

Yes, getting over there would be extremely difficult.

You don’t want to think about it right now; you’ll deal with it when the time comes.

Especially since Satoru Gojo has now entered your field of vision.

Your heart starts to race at the sight of him and it feels like it’s beating a million times a second. There isn’t a lot of time. You need to talk to him, but your legs only wobble, your feet planted firmly to the ground. This is not good. You need to move. You need to move.

Finally, after what feels like both an instant and an eternity, your feet finally budge, propelling you in Satoru Gojo’s direction. The beating of your heart only grows louder as you make your way toward him, mingling with the single thought that’s echoing throughout your mind right now: will he even hear you out?

You need to make him.

“Excuse me!” The words nearly come out in a stutter as you realize that you are actually talking to Satoru Gojo. You have watched this man at a distance for so long that it almost felt like he wasn’t real, like he was just another fixture in this nightmare that you’ve been living for far too long. And yet, here he is, right in front of you, in the flesh.

And his attention is on you.

All sound stops: the crowd around you, the thoughts in your head, the beat of your heart. Even though you cannot see them through that blindfold of his, you know that Satoru Gojo’s eyes are on you and the thought of that, the knowledge of it is actually a little overwhelming. Your mouth is dry and suddenly you don’t know what to say, but you need to say something. You need to say something before he thinks maybe you bumped into him by accident and just walks away without a word.

“I need to talk to you!” The words just burst out from your mouth and something about it is just absolutely embarrassing. You’re not sure if it's desperation or the fact that you haven’t really talked to anyone other than the existence occupying Suguru Geto’s body in nearly forever.

Satoru Gojo’s lips slowly start to form a smile, “Oh, yeah?”

The sound of his voice makes your mind go blank. There’s something different about it right now; more playful, amused even. Maybe it’s because he’s talking to you, a harmless human being and not a monster trying to kill him. It’s almost kind of jarring, but you know, with certainty, what Satoru Gojo’s voice sounds like. And the fact that he’s actually talking to you right now has you kind of excited. You nod, doing your best to not show how thrilled you are that he’s not ignoring you.

He hums thoughtfully, “Sorry… but unfortunately I kind of have some business to attend to right now.”

“I—” You start to say that you know that he’s headed down to the platform below to fight with…Choso and Jogo, you think their names are— you don’t know the name of the monster with the branches for eyes. “It’s— it’s really important!”

Gojo tilts his head a little, clearly thinking. You should probably say something else, something to try and convince him to stay a little longer and hear you out, but your mind is both full and blank. Where do you start? From the beginning? Or do you start with what is most important? Maybe you should say what you think will get his attention. You’re not sure, and you realize you really should have thought about this earlier because you’re running out of time right now.

“...mind handing me your phone?”

You stare at Gojo, completely and wholly confused, but he just holds out his hand expectantly. When you don’t move, he wiggles his fingers a little, a silent gesture telling you to hurry it up. Without thinking, you reach into your bag and unlock your phone before handing it to him.

“Kind of sucks that cell service isn’t working right now,” he remarks as he types something into your phone before handing it back. “But! Here's my number.”

You look down at your phone and, sure enough, Satoru Gojo has added himself as one of your contacts. He’s even added a little star to the end of his name. That’s… a little unexpected. Why his number though?

“Are you… hitting on me?” you mutter in your confusion.

He laughs, “Well, you said you had something really important to talk to me about, right? So just give me a call when you get home or some time tomorrow and we can talk then!”

You’re not going to make it home, or even to tomorrow, and neither will Satoru Gojo. As you start to tell him this, he steps past you. Desperate, you try to grab him, but somehow, for some reason, you can’t. You remember he did this with Jogo and the other monster, made himself untouchable.

This is not good.

He gives you a little wave, cheery as he says, “I’ll talk to you later!”

You watch, helpless as he hops over the barricade beyond your reach.

Gripping your phone tightly, you take a deep breath. It's fine, it's not like you didn’t expect things to go well anyway.

You'll just have to try again.

Every time you’ve tried to solicit help from Satoru Gojo, it has gone the same way. He just won’t give you the time of day, and in some ways you can’t blame him; he’s clearly here to deal with the monsters down on the platform. You’re fairly certain that he probably thinks that whatever is going on with you is a much lesser issue in comparison.

Plus, it probably doesn’t help that in the times that you’ve approached him, you haven’t been able to articulate yourself particularly well. Once you start talking to him, you just get hit with something akin to stage fright and the connection between your mind and your mouth just stops working. It’s gotten better with each attempt, but…

It’s just so frustrating.

It is interesting that Gojo has given you his number every time, star symbol and all. You’re not sure what kind of person you were expecting him to be, but after witnessing him literally and viciously rip monsters apart, you’d figured he’d be a little more somber. However, in the fragmented conversations you’ve had with him he’s come off as far more friendly and playful than you would have thought. Is he the type of person to get more serious when the situation calls for it? You can’t help but wonder, but ultimately, it doesn’t really matter.

What really matters is that you’re able to convince him to help you.

You have to convince him.

“Excuse me!” you say, stepping in Satoru Gojo’s path. You don’t stutter this time, and your voice is more sure. This is good.

“Yes?”

His head turns in your direction and you gulp. Gojo’s gaze, despite that blindfold of his, still feels just as overwhelming as it did the very first time you approached him. You have no doubt that he’s sizing you up, but there’s just something about it that makes you feel like you’re being picked apart.

You take a deep breath and step closer to him, hoping your voice sounds firm enough as you say, “I need your help. I’m trapped.”

He chuckles a little, “I know, but yours truly is on his way to go beat up the bad guys keeping you all trapped here, so soon enough you’ll be all free to go on your merry little way.”

Right. You were so caught up in your own plight that you nearly forgot that technically you’re not the only one ‘trapped.’ Satoru Gojo obviously knows that everyone else is confined to this station, but you doubt he knows that you’re confined to this night alone.

“That’s not what I mean!” you sputter.

“Then what do you mean?” Gojo asks. Should you tell him that you mean that you’re trapped in a time loop? You’re honestly not sure— in the movies and manga you’ve read about time travel, revealing that sort of thing risks creating a time paradox which seems to be a bad thing. If you have to tell him, you will, but— “Oh, I get it.”

You stare, bewildered. Did you maybe just spew all of that aloud?

Gojo gives you a mischievous smile. “You’re hitting on me, aren’t you?”

“No!” The word comes flying out of your mouth. You can’t deny he’s attractive— you’ve thought it all this time, but that is not what’s happening here.

“No need to be embarrassed,” he continues, ignoring you. “I totally get it, so if you want, I’d be happy to give you my number!”

Again? You’ve received Satoru Gojo’s contact details in every loop you’ve talked to him, star symbol and all— you even have his number memorized. There’s something kind of odd about how he keeps giving you his number. Part of you wonders if he’s got some sort of ulterior motive, but you haven’t thought too deeply about it. There are way more important things going on.

“I don’t need your phone number,” you say. “I need to talk.”

Your response seems to give Gojo pause. Did you somehow manage to get through to him? No way. Your suspicions are all but confirmed when he gives you that familiar apologetic smile.

“Like, I said, I’m sort of in the middle of something, but…” Gojo reaches into his pockets and rummages around until one hand fishes out a folded up piece of paper. The other hand keeps digging around in his pocket and when Gojo seems to give up on whatever he’s looking for, he turns his attention back to you. “Got a pen?”

What?

Gojo tilts his head. “Well?”

“I do, but…” You trail off, unsure why he’s asking.

He holds out his hand waiting for you to just hand him the pen. You still don’t get it, but you reach into your bag’s front pocket and pull out the pen and hand it to him. Gojo looks almost like an excited child when he takes it from you, quickly scribbling something onto his paper before shoving it and your pen back into your hand.

You look at the paper; it looks like a receipt. For a disturbing amount of mochi that Gojo bought earlier today. The amount of money he spent is almost sickening; way too much to be paying for mochi. More importantly, you notice something juxtaposed over the receipt’s print.

It’s Satoru Gojo’s name and number.

He even drew a little star next to his name.

“If you change your mind later, just give me a call!” he tells you cheerily. “I promise I’ll make it worth your while!”

You gawk at him. He cannot be serious. You literally just told him that you didn’t need it and yet he still gave it to you. He must want you to contact him later, but you can’t even begin to understand why. It can’t have been something you said or did, right? Unless, he’s actually—

“Later!” Gojo’s voice cuts through your thoughts and you notice him walking off with a wave.

You can’t let him get away.

Again.

You crush the receipt in your hand and rush after him. Despite the crowd, Gojo seems to move through the people with ease and it almost seems like they are yielding to him naturally. It’s good for you. Makes him easier to chase.

“Wait!” you yell, but Gojo doesn’t even look back. Bastard. Your muscles strain as you try to run faster. You know you won’t be able to grab him if you get to him, but there has to still be something you can do to stop him. Circle around him? Cut him off before he—

Satoru Gojo reaches the barricade.

“Wait!” you yell again. “Satoru Gojo, wait!”

He does not even acknowledge you.

You’re almost there though. Almost. If you reach out your hand, then maybe, maybe you can grab him. Something in your head tells you that it’s useless; you’ve never been able to touch him. But, you don’t care, you don’t care because you have to try. You stretch out your hand, desperate and hoping, but just as you do, Gojo effortlessly jumps over the barricade, moving to survey the crowd.

Due to your momentum, you almost collide into the barricade, but you manage to stop yourself. You stare at Satoru Gojo through the glass. He watches the crowd for at most three minutes. Is this just another bust? Is there really nothing you can do? There must be a way you can get his attention. Is it possible to climb over the barricade? No, it’s too high. There’s nothing you can grasp onto or use as footing either.

This fucking sucks.

Another minute or two and Gojo will be on the move again, and there will be no way you can follow, no way you can get his attention. You press your hands against the glass, pushing against it. Naturally, it doesn’t budge. Why would it? If only you could get it out of the way. If only you could break it. This stupid barricade is the only thing between you and Satoru Gojo and there’s no way you can climb it, but if only you could break it.

If only you could fucking break it.

Suddenly, the glass feels warm. Satoru Gojo’s image starts to look a little distorted as the warmth beneath your fingers grows. Something is happening. The glass starts to vibrate and shake. Violently. The tremors grow stronger and stronger. You should stop. You should back away.

You don’t.

The barricade starts to crack and fracture and soon the sound of shattering glass resounds throughout the entire room. Everyone starts screaming. No one knows what’s going on— not even you. But you don’t care. It’s gone. The barricade is gone.

You take a step forward, toward Satoru Gojo. He’s on a beam that’s about a two meter drop from where you’re standing. That’s fine. That’s okay. You can make it. You have to. Without a second thought, you jump—

And you land on the beam. You look up and Satoru Gojo’s attention is back on you. He’s finally, finally turned toward you, face twisted into an expression you can’t decipher or even comprehend, but—

Something’s wrong; your world is turning on its axis, but—

Satoru Gojo is looking at you, and—

Up is very quickly becoming down, and—

Satoru Gojo is coming closer, but—

You’re slipping—

But he’s right there, and—

You’re falling, but—

He’s trying to catch you, but—

It’s too late. It’s too late.

The last thing you think you feel—

—is Satoru Gojo’s arms around you.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

And you are causing a commotion.

“Shit! Fuck!” you curse loudly. The people near you start to shift away but you barely notice; you don’t really care.

You were so close, so fucking close and yet… yet here you are again. It’s quarter past eight and you are back on the goddamn platform. You don’t know what happened; you remember falling and thinking you were going to die, but you are absolutely certain that, once again, this time, you didn’t die.

Is Satoru Gojo at fault again? Did he do something? Like he did all those other times you looped without dying? When you think about it more, you don’t think so. You don’t know what happened; all you know is that you tried to get to him, but you slipped.

And he caught you, you definitely remember that.

You still don’t understand why you looped, but there’s not much you can do about it now; it’s not like you can go back anymore. It just sucks, because you think he might have actually listened if you’d talked to him.

Or he would have come after you for… whatever happened with the barricade. It could have been taken as an attack on the crowd… But if he thought you were doing that, then why would he catch you?

You don’t know.

All you know is that you have to try again.

The only problem is that you don’t know how you managed to shatter the barricade. You think about it as you make your way up to where you’ll find Satoru Gojo. There is the possibility that it wasn’t you and something else happened to it instead, but that feels way too coincidental. It had to be you. That’s the only thing that makes sense. You just can’t figure out how you did it outside of wanting, wishing, praying for the barricade to break. It’s not like you have supernatural powers like Satoru Gojo and his enemies.

Despite your mind being completely and wholly occupied by trying to figure out how in the world you managed to break through that barricade, you still manage to make it to the second basement floor of Shibuya Hikarie by 8:25PM— a brand new record. Satoru Gojo doesn’t show up until around 8:34PM, so that gives you almost ten minutes to try and figure out what you need to do to try and replicate shattering the glass barricade again.

Except—

Except Satoru Gojo is already here.

The thought that maybe you’re mistaken flashes in your mind before it’s quickly dismissed; there’s no way you’d mistake anyone else for him. There is absolutely no denying it: that is Satoru Gojo. Bewildered, you double check the time on your phone. Maybe you misread it and you’re actually late but sure enough you read it right— Satoru Gojo is here early.

What the hell is going on?

Of the thousands of times you have experienced this night, this hell, this sort of thing has never happened before. Everything happens at a specific time, as if adhering to an unseen schedule. It’s likely that what happened in your last iteration did delay Satoru Gojo’s arrival onto the platform, but other than that there has never been a deviation to the time table.

And yet, here Satoru Gojo is, nine minutes early now.

You realize that that’s not the only thing that’s strange: he’s not moving. In previous rounds, when you encounter Gojo here, he’s walking to the lookout spot beyond the barricade. But, right now, he’s just standing there, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket. It almost looks like he's waiting for something.

Or someone.

This unexpected turn of events has you rooted to the spot. You’re not sure what you should do. No. This shouldn’t change anything. You need to talk to him. As concerning as a change like this is, the extra time it gives you should be a good thing. Despite knowing that, your feet are still firmly planted to the ground.

The crowd shifts and you see Satoru Gojo start to move. Toward the barricade? No. He’s not heading in his usual direction, rather he’s—

You stop breathing.

He’s headed toward you.

All sound stops: the crowd around you, the thoughts in your head, the beat of your heart. Even though you cannot see them through that blindfold of his, you know that Satoru Gojo’s eyes are on you and the thought of that, the knowledge of it is absolutely mind numbing.

He comes to a stop before you, lips curled up to form an amused sort of smile as he says, “Soooo, you needed to talk to me?”

You try to answer but no words come out of your mouth. Are you dreaming? You have to be, right? There's no way that this is actually happening. Could it be that, after thousands of loops, you’ve finally lost it? Your mind shattering along with the glass of the barricade at the end of the last one?

Gojo tilts his head, indicating that he's still waiting for an answer. When you open your mouth, at first, nothing comes out, the words stuck in your throat. You force them out, your voice cracking, “...how did you know?”

He smiles, looking almost mischievous as he reaches up and lightly taps the side of his head. “I remembered, of course!”

All you can do is stare at Satoru Gojo. He remembered? How is that possible? From his perspective, this is the first time you’ve met and while it shouldn’t be possible for him to remember there’s something in your mind that’s keeping you from completely dismissing the possibility.

Gojo laughs, “I take it from the look on your face that you’re not used to this sort of thing happening. Is this the first time?”

“No.” The fact that the word is out of your mouth before you can even really think about it surprises you and you really have to think. Your face scrunches together as you try to remember. Is this really not the first time? Then, the memories assault you, overlapping as they replay simultaneously in your head— a woman in a yellow and white magical girl costume— begging you for help as she burns to death— smiling as she tells you she made her costume herself. “...it happened just once a long time ago.”

“‘A long time ago,’ huh. Sounds like you've been at this for a while now.”

“...unfortunately.”

Gojo hums. “So when you said you didn’t need my phone number…”

“You’d already given it to me a few times,” you say, figuring that’s where this conversation is going.

“Really now?”

Does he not believe you? Or is he just being an ass? You’re not sure, but since you had taken the liberty of memorizing Satoru Gojo’s phone number you recite it back to him to prove your point.

Just when you think you may have stunned Gojo into silence he starts to laugh, obviously finding something funny about the fact that you know his cell phone number. “Seems like you've got quite the fascinating technique there.”

Technique? What is he talking about? Your confusion must be plain on your face because he adds, elaborating, “The time travel.”

You continue to stare at him. You don't think you'd consider what you've been going through time travel, because traveling implies moving from point A to point B, but you've been stuck walking in circles at point A for a long time. What really gets you is… “What do you mean by ‘technique?’”

“You mean you don’t— oh. I get it; no wonder you’re trapped.”

That does not answer your question in the slightest. “Can you please explain what you're talking about? What do you mean by ‘technique?’”

“Right, right… So basically, a technique is like a special sort of power,” he finally explains. “Like I said, your technique seems to be a kind of time travel. Whenever you activate it, your mind is sent back in time.”

What he's saying makes sense, but… “How come you were sent back too?”

He laughs again. “Isn't it obvious? Think back to before— do you remember that I caught you as you were falling?”

You nod slowly. The memory of his arms around you is almost embarrassingly vivid. “...is it because we were touching?”

“Ding, ding, ding! That's correct! Anyone you happen to be touching when you activate your technique gets affected by it too!”

Something about his tone annoys you, but you try to ignore it. He could have just told you rather than make you guess. “How do you know that for sure?”

“Well,” he continues. “You’ve done your little time loop a bunch of times, right? If your technique affected everyone, or even a few people in a select range you would have noticed for sure. And if it affected only just you then we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now, now would we?”

When you think about it, you do think that the woman in the magical girl costume might have bumped into you before the loop where she remembered.

“That’s honestly just conjecture, but I've got pretty good eyes, so I’m hardly ever wrong.”

Gojo gives you a grin and while you do think that his reasoning is sound enough his confidence is a little grating. More than that, though, you’re glad that this conversation is actually going really well.

“Either way,” he says thoughtfully. “It doesn’t look like you can control your technique. Usually a person’s technique manifests when they’re a kid, but you seem to be a special case… in fact, I bet your technique activated for the very first time tonight— probably under some pretty extreme circumstances, too.”

“...dying counts as an ‘extreme circumstance,’ right?”

“Oh, absolutely. Or legitimately thinking that you’re gonna die, but it seems like your body has been unconsciously activating your technique as a sort of defense mechanism. Which is why you’re trapped.”

“So, if I could control it I’d be able to make it out of this time loop.”

“Yeah, but in this case it probably wouldn’t end very well for you,” he points out with a chuckle. “It’s not like you actually want to die, right? I mean, if you did, then your technique wouldn’t even activate in the first place.”

You don’t; what you want is for this night to finally end. To be free from the endless cycle of dying over and over again and again. You don’t think death is quite the answer; even if you were to learn how to control this supposed technique of yours, there’s no guarantee that you would just unconsciously activate it when the grim reaper comes knocking on your door. No, the answer is…

“Anyway!” Gojo’s cheery voice cuts through your thoughts. “I highly doubt that you’re the type that makes a habit of jumping off ledges for the funsies, so the fact that you’ve been dying tells me that some pretty gruesome stuff is about to go down, so, tell me what happens tonight.”

The sudden drop of his voice sends a shiver running down your spine. If it weren’t for the fact that you’ve seen how serious Gojo can get, the sudden shift in demeanor would probably freak you out a bit, but it doesn’t. This is the Satoru Gojo you’re familiar with.

You do have one concern though. “That… won’t create a time paradox or anything, will it?”

“Nah,” Gojo shrugs. “You wouldn’t cause one with the way your technique works, besides, if you’ve only been going back at most an hour or two in time it’s hard to believe you’d be making a really big impact… unless you really believe in the butterfly effect.”

You’re still not quite sure.

“Trust me, it’ll be fine.”

His voice sounds strange. Gentle. Kind. It's the most soothing thing you've heard in a long time and it makes you want to believe him.

“...okay.”

Anxiety is still gripping at you, but you try to dispel it, taking a deep breath before beginning your explanation. For the sake of brevity, it’s probably best that you’re as concise as possible. There isn’t much need to really get into the nitty gritty of things unless he asks specifically.

Naturally, you begin with his arrival onto the platform and how soon after a fight breaks out and how the crowd is unfortunate enough to be involved. Gojo’s expression is passive for the most part, but he does crack the faintest hint of a smile when you mention how he manages to eviscerate one of the monsters.

It disappears once you tell him about the arrival of the train. Between the dozens upon dozens of people being dropped onto the platform by those two high school girls and the hoard of monsters disembarking from the train, everything devolves into pandemonium.

“Wait,” Gojo holds a hand up and you pause. This is his first interruption since you started recounting the night’s events for him. “Everyone is able to see the monsters?”

You stare at him. What a weird question. “...yeah?”

His mouth twists and it looks like he’s thinking about something. You can’t even begin to imagine what. Finally, he comments, “Makes sense.”

It does not, but you don’t ask him to elaborate. Surely if it was important he would have just done so.

“Anyway, in the middle of all that, you… you do something.” Your brows bunch together as you remember the stance Gojo took, the crazed and desperate look in his eyes, the feeling of your head about to explode. “I don’t know how to describe it. At first, it would just force me to… activate my technique, I guess. But now, it just knocks me out for a few minutes.”

Gojo frowns and he rubs at his chin, obviously thinking about what you’ve said. Eventually, he raises a hand and bends his fingers into a familiar gesture. It’s the one that preludes whatever he does on the platform. “Do I do this?”

“Yeah.”

He hums. “Interesting.”

You wait to see if he’ll explain. He doesn’t. Great. Even if he doesn’t think you need to know, it certainly would be nice to. It’s annoying otherwise, but you ignore the feeling and continue. “I can’t tell you what happens when I’m knocked out, but when I come to everyone is basically a zombie and all the monsters from the train are gone. I think you kill them.”

“I probably do,” he says casually. “But what about Volcano Head?”

“...you don't…get a chance to kill him,” you say slowly. Gojo tilts his head, waiting for you to elaborate, but you hesitate. You have to tell him, you know you do, but…

You have seen the interaction so many times and though you don't know the exact nature of the relationship between them, you can tell that seeing Suguru Geto (or rather seeing his body) shook Satoru Gojo to his very core.

There's no doubt in your mind that he will not take this news well.

“Come on now,” Gojo's tone is light-hearted, unaware. “Don't keep me in suspense here.”

It's as if you're withholding the punchline to a joke. In a way, you suppose you are, but you don't think he's going to find it funny.

You take a deep breath. You need to tell him. The worst thing that could happen is that he doesn't believe you, but if that's the case… you'll probably just end up repeating this all again until you find a loop where he does.

Having made it this far, you'd like to avoid all that.

“Before you can get Volcano Head you get restrained by something called the prison realm,” you say slowly, “by someone calling themselves… Suguru Geto.”

The second the name leaves your mouth, there is a clear and obvious shift in the air. Gone is Gojo’s laid-back and frivolous demeanor, replaced with something more somber and almost frightening. The tension grows more and more palpable to the point that you think it might almost choke you.

You almost wish that it would.

“You can’t be serious,” Gojo finally says, once your words have fully sunk in.

“I—” You start to speak, but come to an abrupt stop when you see him shove his hand into his pocket to yank out his phone of all things.

The both of you know full well that there’s no reception here, but you don’t think that he’s planning on making any calls. Gojo scrolls and scrolls on his phone before he stops and shoves the screen in your face. It shows a picture of three people— a teenage girl with a cigarette in her mouth, a younger, happier version of Gojo sporting a pair of round sunglasses and—

“When you say ‘Geto’ is this who you’re referring to?” Gojo demands, using his other hand to point at the third person in the frame— a handsome young man with long dark hair pulled up into a bun.

“Yes, but—”

“That’s impossible. It can’t be him,” Gojo interrupts, his voice firm, cold even. “He’s dead.”

There’s a note of finality in his words that is definitely meant to leave no room for argument. It doesn’t stop you, though. Instead, you glare at Gojo’s stupid blindfold and say, “...being dead doesn’t mean a damn thing! I’ve died hundreds of times and yet I’m still fucking here, but—”

“Your situation is different,” he interjects, the temperature of his tone hiking up, his words like heated hissing. “I killed him almost a year ago. There's no way—”

“You didn't get rid of the body properly!” You cut him off, raising your voice in hopes that he'll take even just a second to stop and listen. It seems to work and you add something you remember ‘Geto’ saying. “You should have had Shoko Ieiri get rid of it, but you didn’t and now some… some kind of gross brain thing is possessing the corpse!”

The air between you both is silent as the grave. Though you can't see it, you can feel the weight of his gaze pressing down on you. He’s definitely having second thoughts about everything you’ve said so far. There’s a chance he might even think you’re his enemy now. You stare him down though, refusing to look away. You’ve made it this far, you can’t— you won’t back down.

“...you’re not lying, are you.” Gojo’s words are more of a statement than a question. There’s no doubt in your mind that he knows the answer, and yet he’s still asking. You wonder if maybe he’s clinging onto some vain hope that maybe, just maybe this all a sick, cruel joke that’s gone way too far.

“I’m not.”

Gojo holds your gaze for a second longer before he lets out a curse. “Fuck!”

“...I’m sorry,” you say quietly, mostly because it feels like the most correct thing to say at this moment. You don’t know the whole story, but it seems like they were close. If so, then it must have hurt Gojo a lot to have killed him, and must hurt even more to know that someone is desecrating the body. You hate that you, a complete and utter stranger, happened to be the person to tell him, but…

It had to be done, for the sake of getting past this unending night, it had to be done.

Gojo runs a hand through his hair and lets out a ragged sigh. “Okay. What happens after that?”

You give him a rundown of what follows; he gets sealed, the monsters wake up and all but ‘Geto’ leave in search of their next target. When you mention the high school girls demanding the brain give Geto’s body back, Gojo snorts loudly.

“Fat chance of that,” he says derisively.

You nod in agreement. It was clear to you that the brain parasite has no intent on giving it up any time soon. “After they leave, he… talks to me.”

“Probably couldn't ignore all that cursed energy you have,” Gojo remarks offhandedly.

You stare at him, expression twisted in a way that shows that you have absolutely no clue what that means. It should be fine for you to ask this one question; it actually concerns you after all. “What does that even mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like, though… probably doesn't make much sense to you, does it?”

You give him a pointed glare and all Gojo does is laugh.

“Just think of it like having a lot of MP.”

“...Like in a video game?”

“Exactly!” Then, Gojo tilts his head, clearly thinking. You don't bother asking; you don't feel like he'll explain.

“He does ask me if I'm a sorcerer, whatever that is. Is that why?”

“Probably. Ordinary people don't have even a fraction of the energy you're packing.”

‘Ordinary people’ he says as if you’re not an ordinary person who got caught up in all this supernatural sorcery bullshit. Or at least you were, but if the time loops are really a product of your own doing…

“Does he kill you when you answer?” Gojo asks to get the conversation back on track.

“Not right away. What happens next kind of varies,” you answer. “He usually lets me have a question or two before he kills me; I've asked him a couple different things.”

“Really taking advantage, aren’t you?” Gojo says and you're not sure what to make of his tone. Is he mocking you or is he easing back into that laid-back persona of his?

“If I’m doomed to repeat the same situation over and over, I might as well make the most of it,” you respond flatly.

“You know, your technique kind of reminds me of save scumming.”

He’s definitely gone back to acting almost completely unserious— all signs of his earlier agitation are nearly gone.

“So what did you learn?”

“Well, the prison realm only holds one occupant. Once they’re sealed, time stops for them and the only way out is if the bearer unseals them or if they choose to kill themselves.”

“I see… And what about our body jacker?”

“He didn’t go into detail but he said something about… striving toward the evolution of mankind?” You frown a little at the memory. He didn’t explain further because he said that you wouldn’t understand.

“Huh. Interesting. Wonder how he was gonna go about doing that.”

“I don't know, but I can't imagine you'd like it since he goes out of his way to seal you into that box,” you say. “Said you’d get in the way because you’re too strong.”

Gojo shrugs his shoulders and grins a little. Cocky. “Well, I am the strongest sorcerer around, you know.”

You would think him overconfident if you hadn't seen the magnitude of his strength first hand.

“Anyway, that's as far as I ever go. When he's decided he’s done talking to me, he kills me and I loop back.”

“So, in short, what you want help with is getting past that point, right?”

“More or less.”

“And all I have to do is avoid getting caught by the prison realm?”

You nod.

“What’s it look like?” he asks. “A big cage with a bunch of metal bars?”

Now that you think about it, you haven’t woken up early enough to see it before it traps him, but you can’t imagine it looks that much different. “No.. It’s a small box with eyes… It gets big enough to fit you in it, though.”

“Huh.” He stretches his arms out above his head as if he’s trying to emphasize how large he actually is and shoots you a grin. “Should be easy enough then. I bet our body snatcher used the shock of seeing Suguru to trap me but since I'll see it coming, avoiding it'll be a piece of cake.”

Gojo makes it sound so easy, and maybe it really is as simple as that, but you can't help but be worried still.

“Don't tell me you don't think I can do it,” he says, tilting his head.

“It's not that,” you admit. “I'm just concerned I might die before we can get to that point.”

Truthfully, since you know that will just result in another loop you're less concerned with dying itself and more worried about losing the progress you've made in convincing Gojo to help you. Even though it's been clearly proven you can loop him as well, there's no guarantee you'll be able to make the physical contact needed to do it upon death.

“You've made it pretty far on your own, though, right?”

“Yeah, but… I’ve messed up plenty of times.” More than you can even count. “There's also the possibility that taking the time to talk to you might have thrown things out of whack.”

Speaking of time, you check your phone. It's 8:39PM. You curse.

Gojo leans over to check your phone. “Let me guess, I'm supposed to be somewhere right now.”

“Yeah, this is when you’re descending down onto the platform.”

“You know where I am down to the exact minute?” He asks and you tilt your head back and forth a little. It’s not exact per se, but it’s close enough. Gojo chuckles a little. “Man, I didn’t realize that you were actually that into me.”

That earns Gojo a glare from you, but he just laughs it off. “I doubt being a few minutes late is going to make a big difference.”

You certainly hope so.

“Don't worry,” Gojo says and you notice he's using that tone from earlier. “You won't die.”

It’s hard to argue with him when he uses such a reassuring sounding voice and yet, you still open your mouth to try— to voice your doubts, but what he says next silences you before you even can.

“I'll protect you.”

You think your heart stops beating in your chest and your words dissolve in your throat.

He grins at you. “Did you fall in love with me just now?”

That catches you a little off guard. You're willing to admit he's hot, but surely he must be joking. “How could you even think of something like that at a time like this?”

Gojo laughs again. “Well, since someone is so worried about their time table being all messed up, I better head down there; can’t keep Volcano Head and friends waiting, right?”

You blink. Is that it? “Wait, shouldn’t we make a plan or something?”

“Isn’t the plan for me to not get caught in the prison realm?”

Yes, but… “But what about me? Is there anything I can do?”

Gojo stares at you, or at least you think he does. “...I don’t know, is there?”

You’ve seen the encounter between Satoru Gojo and those monsters so many times and you try to picture a version of it where you intervene and… all you can see is yourself getting in his way. You’re no fighter, no… sorcerer, or whatever he is, you’re just some ordinary person that was unfortunate enough to get all caught up in this mess. The most you can probably do is kick the prison realm out of the way when the time comes, but otherwise… “...no, I guess not.”

His expression turns sympathetic. “You’ve done plenty by telling me everything that happens. So just wait up here, and let me handle the monsters.”

You almost nod. Almost. But then you remember what transpires up here above the platform. You know it sounds safer up here where you’re less likely to get involved in the carnage, but… “Wait, no, if I stay up here then I’ll fall to my death when those girls—”

Gojo laughs, interrupting you. “Don’t worry about that. It’ll be fine.”

“How?”

“Just trust me.”

“I…” It’s hard to. After everything you’ve gone through it’s hard to trust in anything, to believe in anything. Even though you’ve made it this far this time, the worry that something will go wrong and that you’ll have to do it all again still lurks in the back of your mind.

Despite all that, you want to believe.

You want to believe that you can make it past this unending night, that one day you’ll wake up and it’ll no longer be October 31, 2018. And the first step towards that is trusting in Satoru Gojo.

“...okay,” you say quietly. “Okay.”

Gojo chuckles then asks, “Anything else before I head off?”

You start to ask if there’s anything you should say, in case things don’t work out, but you stop yourself. You’re choosing to trust him, to believe in him— you can figure out that stuff later if things end up going south after all. So, instead you give him a smile and it feels a little weird because you don’t remember the last time you did. “Good luck!”

For a split second, Gojo looks almost surprised, but then he laughs again, beaming widely at you. He starts to move past you and reaches out to give you what you think is meant to be a reassuring squeeze of the shoulder and then he’s off. You turn to watch him go, the crowd, once again, parting almost naturally for him.

When he reaches the barricade, he pauses, raising his hand as if he’s giving you one last wave. Then he jumps over it onto his little perch and then less than a minute later he’s gone, descending to the platform below.

Now, all you can do is wait.

You check your phone again and it’s 8:44PM. If you remember correctly, the high school girls start threatening everyone right before 9PM. With Gojo’s arrival being shifted back almost five minutes, does that mean that they’ll be shifted back too? It would make sense, but you’re not too sure.

Out of habit, you keep checking your phone and at nearly 9PM, you hear the shrill voice of one of the girls over the crowd, commanding everyone to do what she says, her partner stringing up bodies until everyone listens. Everything plays out just as you remember it, which is mildly comforting, though you know that the events that happen up here are more or less independent from what happens below.

Surely, just as Gojo said, a few minutes aren’t going to change anything, but—

No.

You agreed to trust him. To trust that everything would be fine.

When the girls start to demand that as many people as possible climb onto the roots and vines covering the atrium your heart starts to hammer in your chest. In just a few minutes, all the foliage will disintegrate beneath you, and you and everyone else here will fall into the abyss below.

You are afraid.

There isn’t a single loop where you’ve really survived this fall. If you don’t die in midair, you die right after landing. It’s a death trap, and that’s why you’ve stopped coming up here. There’s a part of you, the part that knows what’s about to happen, that wants to try and run back onto stable footing. But you can’t, because you know if you do then the girls will kill you for sure; you have to stay.

It’ll be fine, you tell yourself, it’ll be okay.

You just have to trust Gojo.

An eight car train is pulling in. Please wait behind the yellow line.

You hear the announcement faintly below you. It’s almost time. You brace yourself and try to stay calm. Gojo said he would protect you, that you wouldn’t die. You don’t know how he intends to keep that promise, but all you can do is believe in his words.

It’ll be fine. It’ll be okay.

The vines and roots start to crack and the ground beneath you starts to give out. You squeeze your eyes shut as that sickening weightless feeling overtakes you. It occurs to you that this is actually quite literally a trust fall— will Satoru Gojo really be able to catch you?

As you fall, you realize almost instantly that something is different.

You’ve experienced this fall dozens of times and so, even though it has been a while since you’ve gone this route, you are very familiar with what it feels like. Something is different. You’re falling faster. The trajectory is changing. It’s like some force, other than gravity, is pulling at you.

Is this Gojo’s doing?

Just as your body collides with the ground you hear the sounds of mutilating flesh meld with the screams surrounding you. Blood and severed limbs litter the ground, but you try to ignore it. You need to focus on your own survival right now. Quickly, you scramble to your feet scan the area around you; you’re on the platform right now and right in front of you is—

Right in front of you is Satoru Gojo.

His back is turned to you, his focus currently elsewhere. Looking at him you realize you recognize this scene, though it’s much closer and at a different angle. He’s about to do that thing, that thing that knocks you out.

Something in you tells you to move closer to him, after all, he used his mysterious powers to deliberately bring you closer to him, right? You rush toward him and as you do something he said earlier pops up in your mind.

Anyone you happen to be touching when you activate your technique gets affected by it too!

Whatever he’s about to do… Is that his ‘technique?’ And if it is, would it work the same way as yours? If so, there’s only one way to find out: you need to touch him. You dodge monsters and other people as you run toward Satoru Gojo and—

A monster still manages to grab you, its large hands wrapping around your wrist. You try and yank it free, but it's much stronger than you are.

“Shit!” you hiss as the monster starts to pull you toward it and away from Gojo. What do you do? Your other hand is still free, should you try to punch it in the face? Or—

Before you can do anything, something blasts the monster’s head clean off. Shocked, you stare as the monster’s body slumps onto the ground, its grip loosening on you instantly. You whip your head around to find that while Gojo still has his back to you, his arm is bent back in your direction, his palm open as if he fired some invisible blast from it.

Then you feel it again, something pulling at you, but this time it's more forceful. Your body is yanked toward Gojo and the second you feel his hand press against you, you see him make that gesture with his other hand.

“Domain Expansion,” he whispers in a strained voice. “Infinite Void!”

Something happens and your vision flashes for a fraction of a second. And then—

The room is enveloped in an eerie stillness; all the violence and bloodshed coming to an abrupt stop. Monsters and humans alike stand like the living dead, unconscious with their eyes wide open as if they are staring into an infinite abyss. You recognize this scene, you’re familiar with it because it’s similar to the one you wake up to after being hit by Gojo’s ‘domain expansion.’ The only difference is the presence of the monsters, who are all but gone when you regain consciousness.

The pressure from Gojo’s hand is gone and he says to you, his voice still low. “If you’re squeamish when it comes to blood and gore, it might be best for you to close your eyes.”

And then he’s gone.

You do not take his advice. You do not close your eyes. How many loops were you unable to witness what’s about to unfold? A few hundred? A few thousand? And if all goes to plan, then you will never get another chance again: there’s no way you could possibly look away.

And what you see unfold before you is that Satoru Gojo was right.

He is the one to kill all the monsters.

It’s not as if you really had any doubt, after all, it seemed like the most logical conclusion to come to and yet…

There’s a difference between knowing and seeing.

All the violence resumes and the platform is engulfed in the sounds of carnage and slaughter once more. The lack of terrified screams makes everything more disconcerting— without them, all you can hear is the squelching echo of mangled flesh and blood splattering all over the place. You can’t really see him, but you can tell where Satoru Gojo is in the crowd as he leaves dozens upon dozens of decapitated heads soaring in his wake. Once or twice, he leaps out of the crowd and even from where you stand you can see the crazed glow of his inhumanly blue eyes as he massacres monster after monster.

Even though you don’t think you have anything to be scared of, you are still terrified: Satoru Gojo is no longer a man, but violence incarnate. You want to move closer to where Gojo gets trapped, but you’re afraid to. What if you get in his way? What if he kills you by accident?

Dying again when you’ve made it this far is definitely not ideal, but isn’t being killed by Gojo the best case scenario? Because then the two of you would probably loop together again and—

No.

Gojo said you wouldn’t die.

He said he’d protect you.

It’s hard to believe when he’s in the middle of a massacre, slaughtering monsters left and right, but you remind yourself yet again that you have to believe in him.

You take a deep breath and start moving, taking care to keep an eye on where Gojo is. You don’t know how long this is supposed to take, but you do know where he ends up when he’s just about done. The closer he gets to that spot, the sooner the prison realm will be unleashed upon him.

There’s a small group of zombified people nearby and you settle yourself among them. It’s not super close, but you think it's close enough that you'd be able to run over and kick the box away from Gojo if you have to. You do a quick survey to see if you can spot the body snatcher, but he's nowhere to be found. Hopefully, he hasn't noticed you moving around, or, if he has, he's more concerned with Gojo than he is with you. Given that you always seem to be the last thing he acknowledges, you'd like to think that he doesn't consider you a threat.

Which you're not, not really anyway.

The sounds of slaughter start to die down and you look to see Gojo approaching the spot where he gets caught. He looks beat, his eyes unfocused and his breathing heavy. You do another quick scan around him and notice a small box a few meters away from him, wrapped in what looks like paper charms or seals or whatever they're called. That has to be the prison realm— though it looks different than what you saw before. Gojo seems to notice it right after you do, his gaze honing in on it, examining it with some measure of bewilderment. Then, some invisible force slices through all the paper seals covering the box and it expands, the corners of the box floating up in midair to reveal what looks like a large sheet of dark red flesh with a large bloodshot eye stapled to the middle.

Disgusting.

If Gojo didn’t realize before, he seems to now, because he takes a step back, away from the grotesque thing. Good, good—

“Hey! Satoru!” Your blood runs cold at the sound of the body snatcher’s voice. He emerges from the crowd, smiling widely as he gives Gojo a wave. “Long time no see!”

Satoru Gojo’s entire body goes rigid. Shit. You told him, you warned him about what was going to happen, who he was going to see, but was that not enough? It’s possible that no amount of warning would have been enough to mentally prepare Satoru Gojo for the sight of the man he said he killed a year ago. After all, you know that there’s a stark difference between knowing and seeing. Even then, if Gojo doesn’t gather his wits and move now then he’s going to get caught and you can’t let that happen.

Your body moves before you can even think about it.

You scramble out from your hiding spot in the crowd and throw yourself in between Satoru Gojo and the prison realm. There’s no way you can kick it away from him now, not when it’s in this form, but maybe, if you get between them you can at least keep it from capturing him.

The eye quivers erratically, as it flits from Gojo to you. Every hair on your body stands on end as it watches you, the pupil dilating and contracting uncontrollably. You can’t look away from it, your own gaze fixed to your image reflected in the black abyss of the pupil. Something in the back of your mind tells you to stop, to get away, it’s dangerous, but you keep your feet firmly planted to the ground.

A second, or maybe even a minute passes and the prison realm shifts, its fleshy form morphing to restrain you.

The body jacker looks at you, his frown tinged with disgust. “Don’t you think you’re being rather rude by butting into what could have been a touching reunion?”

You scowl. Is he still trying to play the role of Suguru Geto?

He sighs and looks past you at Gojo. “Satoru, I thought bringing lesser sorcerers to fight alongside you was more trouble than it was worth?”

You hear Gojo snort from behind you, “It is… but this person here isn’t a sorcerer… Just like you aren’t Suguru Geto.”

The faker almost pouts and presses his hand to his chest as if Gojo's words have wounded him. “Satoru, I’m hurt, how could you say such a thing to your best friend?”

“Cut the bullshit,” Gojo snarls. “You can’t fucking fool me. You might be in Suguru’s body but I know with all my heart and soul that you’re not him.”

The corpse snatcher stares at Gojo, expression blank before he sighs once more. Then, his gaze shifts back to you, his eyes narrowed as he looks at you with sheer disdain. It feels as if you’ve been drenched in ice cold water. There's no smile this time but you already know what's going to happen.

He’s going to kill you.

“I intended to deal with you later since you seemed harmless enough,” he says, raising a hand to summon a monster— the same one he always uses to end your life. “But you’re in the way. So, I think it’s for the best if I just get rid of you right now.”

Instinctively, you try to take a step back but the prison realm’s restraints keep you in place. Not that it would have mattered much, even in the loops where you’ve tried to escape the faker’s monster, it still kills you, too fast and too agile for an ordinary human like you to avoid. All you can do is squeeze your eyes shut and wait for the monster to kill you. At least, it’s always painless.

Something touches your back.

Your eyes shoot open.

Before you is the monster, wiggling and writhing only mere centimeters from your face. It gurgles and snarls at you, desperate to fulfill its master’s wishes and kill you but it doesn’t move any closer. You stare at it with wide eyes, unsure of what to do.

Someone behind you clicks their tongue— Gojo. You try to turn your head to look at him, but your movements are too limited, the most you can do is turn your head to the side. The sounds the monster is making start to change, sounding more frenzied, almost as if it’s in pain, and you flit your eyes in its direction just in time to see its entire body explode. The monster's guts and bright purple blood fly off in every direction, getting on the floor, the ceiling, the zombified bodies of the people unfortunate enough to be nearby, but not on you.

This is Satoru Gojo’s doing.

He steps in front of you, half turned towards you as he moves in between you and the body snatcher. His hands are shoved in his pockets as he loudly says, “Did you really forget about me?”

You’re not sure if he’s talking to you or the body snatcher.

Past him, the imposter scowls, raising his hand once more, probably to summon even more monsters, but Gojo’s quicker, and it almost looks like his eyes are glowing even brighter, the blue looking almost white as he whips his head in the faker’s direction. The sound of mangling flesh and breaking bones echoes throughout the room as Gojo, using that mysterious power of his, seems to break the faker’s arm.

The body snatcher hisses loudly and despite the fact that his face is twisted in very obvious pain, he tries to shoot Gojo a mocking smile. “Do you really think you can kill your best friend again?”

“I already told you,” Gojo turns to fully face the monster inhabiting Geto’s corpse. He tilts his head a little to the side and some force starts to squeeze at the faker’s neck. “You’re not Suguru.”

You hear a loud crack as Gojo telekinetically snaps his neck.

The head rolls onto the ground and you almost look away, but then you notice his eyes still moving, looking around. Is he still alive? Then you remember: the thing possessing Suguru Geto’s body was some kind of parasite. “Gojo! Wait! The brain!”

He reacts almost instantly, head turning and in an instant the skull is crushed and all that remains is red splotch on the ground.

You almost relax. Almost.

But the body is still standing.

Horrified, you watch as it quivers violently before falling to the ground. Then what looks like dozens of black spirits start to erupt from the corpse and the entire room is engulfed with a shrill howling.

What the hell is going on?

“Those must be all the cursed spirits he consumed,” Gojo explains uselessly, voice barely audible over the screaming. “Guess he was empty before.”

You don’t bother asking what he means. There are bigger problems right now. “What do we do?”

“No choice to exorcise them,” he answers plainly.

For him to exorcise them, he means. You both know that there’s not much that you can do. You still can’t move and honestly, you don’t even know if it’s possible to get out of the prison realm’s restraints. Not without dying. And if you die now…

Everything will have been for naught.

You’ll reset time and have to do this all over again— assuming you can even get to this point again.

There has to be something, you just have to think outside the box.

Or rather—

“Gojo!”

He glances back at you.

“You need to seal me in the prison realm!” you exclaim. He turns to face you fully, looking bewildered and you start to explain as fast as you can. “Those things are going to attack any minute right? I can’t move or try to hide and I can’t expect you to protect me the entire time and if I die then I’ll end up looping time again, but— but, if you seal me in the prison realm then that won’t happen.”

Gojo frowns, looking conflicted. “You don’t think I can do it?”

“Wouldn't it be easier if you didn’t have to?”

He tilts head and you think he’s conceding your point.

“Please,” you beg, staring at him desperately. “We don’t have much time. The other… cursed spirits will wake up soon too!”

You don’t have to explain that you mean Volcano Head and friends.

It takes only a second for Gojo to consider the very few options you have. “...how do you seal it? Do you know?”

“I think so,” you answer. “There’s no guarantee it’ll work but I think that if you say ‘prison realm, gate close’ it should seal me inside.”

If anything, it’s worth a shot.

Gojo nods. “Do you know how to break the seal?”

“I… don’t,” you confess. You never asked, and you don’t think the body snatcher would have told you even if you did. He only told you that it holds one and that…

That time doesn’t flow in the box.

“...you don’t have to break the seal.”

Gojo frowns, “Wait a sec—”

“Even if I make it past tonight… What if this all happens again? What if I inadvertently trap myself in another time loop?” you ask. “I… I don’t want to have to go through all of this again. It’s better for me in a place where time doesn’t pass.”

You don’t know for sure if it’ll be better, but right here, right now, it seems like the best option.

It feels like an eternity passes before Gojo says anything.

“...fine,” he agrees and you don’t quite know how to feel about it. The howling around you all grows louder. You wonder why the cursed spirits haven’t attacked yet. Maybe Gojo’s power is holding them at bay… for now anyway. You both know that he can’t ignore them forever.

“...before I do, though, mind if I ask you just one thing?”

You blink. “Not sure what I can do for you in this state…”

He laughs. “I just want to know your name.”

What an odd request. Though, now that you think about it, you don’t think that during this loop or any other loop really, you’ve ever told him your name. It only seems fair to tell him, since you’ve known his for longer than he’s known of your existence.

You tell him your name.

He nods, looking as if he’s committing to memory. Probably easier to remember than his phone number. “Any last words?”

You try to think of something. Nothing comes to mind and you just shake your head.

Gojo takes a deep breath, “Alrighty then… Prison realm, gate close.”

Just as it did the many times you’ve seen Satoru Gojo sealed away, the boxes and restraints around you vibrate a little before they start to close around you, growing large enough to fit your body as they approach.

You won’t see it, but once you’re inside the box will shrink and become small enough to fit in the palm of someone’s hand.

Will it be quiet inside?

In your final seconds, some words, some last words come to mind, and you say them, hoping that he hears them in time. “Thank you, Satoru Gojo.”

You burn the glittering glow of his brilliant bright blue eyes into your mind.

And then, everything is engulfed in an unending black.

It’s November 30, 2018— morning on the campus of Tokyo Prefectural Jujutsu High School.

Satoru Gojo strides through the school grounds, casually tossing a small silver box with eerie blue eyes known as the prison realm up and down in his grasp. Walking at his side is Shoko Ieiri, a pretty woman who’s been unfortunate enough to have been Satoru’s friend since high school.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Shoko asks, twirling a few strands of her long brown hair.

“What do you mean?” Satoru responds nonchalantly. “All my ideas are good ideas.”

Shoko hums in clear dissent, but doesn’t say anything more. Even she knows better than to try and waste her time trying to argue with Satoru. “I’m just worried about their mental state. Didn’t you say that time doesn’t flow in the box?”

“I’d be worried if it was some normal person,” Satoru says. “But after what they’ve gone through I think they’ll be fine.”

“...well, if you say so.”

The two arrive at their destination: the largest training area on the Jujutsu High grounds. Satoru places the prison realm at the center and takes a few steps back with Shoko standing behind him, in case anything happens.

He doesn’t think it will, but it’s always good to take at least a few precautions.

“Gojo, are you sure we should be doing this?” Shoko asks again. “Didn’t they want to remain in the box?”

“Of course I am,” Satoru says with his usual air of confidence before looking back at the prison realm nestled in the grass. He grins and then—

“Prison realm, gate open.”

if you made it this far. thank you. it's my sincerest hope that you enjoyed the ride. 3

[tojiscrack]

hey tojiscrack! (can’t get over ur user lolll!) just wanted to drop by again to say that your fic is absolutely divine—truly everything i could ever want and more. i had a quick observation to share, though i’m not entirely sure if it holds up. ♡⸜(˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶)⸝♡

so, from what i recall, megumi doesn’t like change (or am i tripping? i think it was mentioned in the earlier chapters). he seems very at ease with the current dynamic he shares with our little mermaid—so accustomed to her being by his side that the idea of anyone else being interested in her feels almost bizzare to him. ｢( • ﾍ •)

so far, there hasn’t been a strong, viable love interest for y/n other than megumi. even the flyer guy, who showed some interest, was quickly brushed aside. megumi seemed relieved by that, since it meant his status quo remained intact, with no real threat to disrupt the life he’s so familiar with as y/n wasn’t interested/didn’t even realize flyer guy had a crush on her. nothing changed and life could continue as normal for them hehe. (๑˃́ꇴ˂̀๑)

now we have kamo expressing interest in someone, and while it could be anyone, my hunch is that it’s y/n (big surprise, right?). if y/n and kamo end up together, as you hinted at with the love triangle, it seems inevitable that megumi will *hate* it—much like he hated change in earlier chapters. even if it turns out to be the flyer guy, the result would be the same: megumi would despise the shift because it upends his sense of stability and changes the way things already are.

it feels like megumi’s aversion to change runs so deep that he’d rather remain friends with y/n and preserve the life he knows than risk complicating things by acting on his feelings. we’ve seen hints of his internal struggle, from how he reacted to her in elementary school, the airport hug scene, the dance scene, and more recently, when he claimed no one could have a crush on her, tweaking at the thought when she brought it up, how cute!! ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝

i hope this makes sense, but essentially, my point is that megumi likely views anyone interested in y/n as a threat to his normalcy. he’s so resistant to change that it will undoubtedly be a major theme in the story, especially as y/n’s potential new relationship forces him to confront the reality that change is an inevitable part of life, especially as they grow older and navigate adolescence. 

or maybe i’m just yapping and everything i’ve said is just me doing obstacles to prove a point that doesn’t exist? idk, i saw the foreshadowing tag and now all i’ve been doing is actively looking for it hehe.

stay safe and omggg study for those exams girl, you’re in college!

liar, liar masterlist here:

WAIT…

IS THIS BIG BRAIN ANON? 🧠 😫

OMG IT MUST BEEEE, HELLOOO, I THOUGHT I’D NEVER HEAR FROM YOU AGAIN <333

okay let’s address this juicy thought 😋💓

my user is indeed stupid. i once again let everyone know that i am not a toji girly (like, at all). i am an AVID gojo girly through and through, he and i go way back and we’re going strong 💪❤️‍🔥 ‘tojiscrack’ is simply cuz it sounds funny LMAO, taster of what u’ll expect from my works. i’m also very, very, VERY flattered with all ur compliments. writing this story and reading ur comments and thoughts and amazing predictions, all of that is definitely the highlight of writing and publishing this altogether, so thank you sm for sharing! <3

no, you are most certainly not tripping. i think it was elementary school or smth, it was not only mentioned but vaguely implied that megumi the porcupine doesn’t like change. like, at all. he’s comfortable with the way things are: i wanted to parallel it to canon (EVERYTHING INSIDE THIS BRACKET IN BOLD INCLUDES MANGA SPOILERS FROM JJK266!!! — it was mentioned, tho i can’t remember the exact wording, that megumi just wants to be able to do the simple things with his family, the example being laundry. the change he experienced with sukuna and jujutsu society in general after gojo’s sealing was something he didn’t like, at all. albeit, it was very extreme, ANYONE would hate it, but his stance on doing something as simple as laundry inspired this stance megumi has in ‘liar, liar’, where he wants to remain comfortable with his friends and family as he is, a parallel to canon).

‘our little mermaid’ finished me, sorry 😭 don’t let her hear u saying that HAHA

i like this build up you’ve come up with (megumi seeing someone crush on y/n as ‘bizarre’) from just that (his discomfort with change). it’s accurate, scarily accurate. i can’t even try and sugar coat this one, but yeah. i was lowkey waiting for someone to realise that, i felt as if it was kinda in ur face but ig not 😭 well done!

here comes the debate tho! some of my readers have completely forgotten about jeremiah (the flyer guy), whereas others acknowledge him and believe him to be important in terms of the second love interest for the love triangle, and then you, who believes that he was important for the sole purpose of proving that point you’ve just made: that megumi was relieved by him being shrugged off, ‘cause it meant, in ur words, that ‘his status quo remained intact’.

because of the fact that everyone’s kinda torn on this, i am not gonna tell you whether you’re right or not 😋 i would have if there was just one collective stance on jeremiah, but there isn’t, and it’s fun reading all these theories, debates and predictions :) but i’m gonna say this: out of the three predictions for jeremiah, only one is completely right. now it’s time for everyone to guess which one it is (muahahahaha)!!!

‘we have kamo expressing interest in someone, and while it could be anyone, my hunch is that it's y/n’ — another thing my readers are lowkey torn on. this will be addressed in the next chapter as well as the chapter after that, so i’m not gonna say much on this just so that you can read those chapters with no spoilers 🌝 i can, however, say that you’re right with the whole megumi hating the love triangle thing again, and ur reasoning is half on point too (half, only ‘cause there’s another reason as well, but i wouldn’t expect you to know that ‘cause i haven’t touched upon this at all haha). but it won’t just be megumi hating this triangle — a lot of characters won’t be fans of it, including our mains, so no surprise there.

can i just add that you are so articulate as you’re explaining this? like your prediction is so extremely well thought out, and parts of it i’m only not revealing ‘cause it’s already gonna be shown in the next two chapters, so pls consider yourself SMART 😫👀

‘it feels like megumi's aversion to change runs so deep that he'd rather remain friends with y/n and preserve the life he knows than risk complicating things by acting on his feelings’

…

maybe. maybe not. interesting take. i’m patting myself on the back btw, u’ll find out why CHAPTERSSS away

‘we've seen hints of his internal struggle, from how he reacted to her in elementary school, the airport hug scene, the dance scene, and more’ — just curious, which scene in elementary school did you think this from? 🤔 i’m thinking you meant to write middle school, because there was an obvious change there that i wanted everyone to pick up on (and they have, thankfully 🤗) but maybe i’m just a lousy author who can’t remember wth happened in the earlier chapters 💀

‘i hope this makes sense’ — GIRL YOU DID NOT HAVE TO ADD THIS CUZ IT MAKES PERFECT SENSE <3 you’re so on point (and maybe not as well, but i shall not reveal this until later) about so many things here that i even considered just letting this rot in my inbox 😭 jk, i’d never do that ‘cause i want my readers picking this stuff up, so keep doing it! and i’ll eat it up every damn time 😤

but the whole ‘change is inevitable’ theme is kinda hinted at a lot, especially ‘cause… i was gonna reveal something i shouldn’t 😳 anyway, it’s a coming-of-age kinda story, and we all know change is inevitable there. megumi, despite being reluctant about it, knows it too.

‘or maybe i'm just yapping and everything i've said is just me doing obstacles to prove a point that doesn't exist?’ — three words: maybe you are. and that’s all you’re getting outta me 🌝🎀

the sole purpose of that foreshadowing tag is to force you to keep ur eyes open, and you’ve done just that, so pat ur back for me why don’t u? 🫣

[ao3feed-itafushi]

Concussion Induced Homosexuality

by YearnWorm “Oh god, don’t tell me I’ve forgotten my own girlfriend or something.” Yuji grabs his own head in distress. “Please, please tell me she’s tall with a big butt.” “More like boyfriend.” Kugisaki scoffs before she can think better. Gojo scratches his chin. “At least he’s got one of those traits.” “Boyfriend?” Yuji drops his hands off his head and blinks helplessly at them all. “I have a boyfriend?” The answer is no. It would be a very easy thing to clear up. Kugisaki knows that’s what any decent person would do. But then she looks at Gojo. One corner of his mouth keeps twitching, ghosting the most conspiratorially wicked smile she’s ever seen. She presses her lips together, hiding her own evil grin. There was something in Yuji’s voice that caught her off guard. Something… hopeful. Yuji hits his head and while most of his memory remains intact, he's forgotten someone very important. A certain Fushiguro Megumi who he was definitely not dating before the concussion. Though, that small detail would never stop Kugisaki from spreading a little bit of false information in the pursuit off an incredible prank. Or it would have been an incredible prank if only things didn't get soo... out of hand.  Words: 3498, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English Fandoms: 呪術廻戦 | Jujutsu Kaisen (Manga), 呪術廻戦 | Jujutsu Kaisen (Anime) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: M/M Characters: Kugisaki Nobara, Gojo Satoru, Itadori Yuuji, Fushiguro Megumi Relationships: Fushiguro Megumi/Itadori Yuuji Additional Tags: Memory Loss, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Itadori Yuuji Loves Fushiguro Megumi, Friends to Lovers, Prompt Fic, Pre-Relationship, Temporary Amnesia, Falling In Love, Canon Universe, The Shibuya Incident Never Happened (Jujutsu Kaisen), ItaFushi Week 2024 (Jujutsu Kaisen), yes yuji is enamored at first sight, inspired by videos of ppl coming off of anesthesia and forgetting their partner, and then being absolutely stunned by how hot they are from AO3 works tagged 'Fushiguro Megumi/Itadori Yuuji' https://ift.tt/s0tBOMA

[chronicalpal]

stsg fic rec list (2023 edition)

I’ve skimmed through every single stsg fic published on AO3 in English in 2023 and here’s my humble rec list.

disclaimer: I strongly prefer goge dynamic in fics (top Gojo/bottom Geto), so in explicit fics this dynamic is implied. all works are completed

something you can hold on to. by saffrontea 

this fic was accidentally the first one I really enjoyed when I started going through the tag and the one that left the most lasting impression. simultaneously it is a good example of what to expect from this list: our tastes in fiction probably align if you find this fic as beautiful as I do. it’s one of the better stsg fic out there and hands down the best Geto character study I’ve had a pleasure to read. very thoughtful and heartfelt piece about acceptance in its many forms, that is also beautifully written.

the eater, my birthmother, was speaking by No_Ir

this author have a very distinct style of writing which is just not my cup of tea, but I really liked this reflection on Gojo’s relationship with his mother.

i steal a glance, you steal my heart by fromthefarshore

a heartwarming canon compliant getting-together story, I loved that one for the banter that felt very natural and endearing characterisation. I also love fics where author portrays them as best friends that really enjoy each other's company (a feat not as simple as it might seem).

one solitary day by chuuyasoup

I feel like you must know this author if you ever read stsg fics before, they are very good. this fic is an exploration of mourning, there’s nothing bombastic going one, just a boy slowly coming to accept that his best friend is gone.

empty spaces by HamsterQinghua

I’m a sucker for fics with outsider POV, this one has absolutely delivered on it. fun and easy read (until it isn’t).

Heartstrung Ghosts by CharmPoint

another outsider POV, but this time reflecting on Geto’s death. I loved how author portrayed Gojo, Geto and Shoko relationship (none of this “trio” dynamic that is very much prevalent in the fandom). Yaga’s part was also extremely satisfying to read.

now & forever, time will tell by valisse

this fic is soft. the best kind of soft. it’s so very delicate with a touch of angst. I feel like the author also did an immense work with the text itself, the mood of the story and the style of writing are meshing together perfectly.

Paradise Calling by PreseaMoon

sensuality captured in a text like a lightning, I love how it’s not explicit, but it reads very much so. the fic is a real treat.

light a match by fromthefarshore

a rare AU fic, but I loved it a lot. again, the author did a lot of work to make a fic set in modern Japan read authentic. characters are easily recognizable, the romance is sweet and the plot is captivating, despite being just a description of day to day life basically. Geto is a monk in this one (not really), that was the premise I couldn’t resist. author also touched upon the subject of homophobia very delicately and tastefully, which left me pleasantly surprised.

The Spider's Bride by Anonymous

another AU, Geto is a chosen sacrifice for a Spider deity. tags say all you need to know about this fic, I can just add that it’s extremely well written. highly recommended if you are not put off by extremely dubious consent warning (and, well, everything else it has to offer).

symphony, coda by medicinal

one-shot about Gojo accidentally meeting Geto some years after his defection. I loved characterisation a lot, can easily picture it happening exactly like this in canon.

compulsion by aloera

multiverse kind of fic, with stsg being the doomed yaoi couple in all those different universes, it was a fun read (if your definition of fun is suffering).

catch it like lightning by pennydaniels

I feel like you must know this author if you ever read stsg fics before [2]. though they have a very peculiar characterisation, it’s really a hit or miss. but since in this fic Geto loses his memories, I wasn’t too distracted by it. it's one of those fics you simply can't put down until you finish it. and the next thing you know is you pulled an all-nighter and it's time to get up for work.

on the subject of misfortune by haysel

sentinels AU, which I didn’t really see before in English (basically it’s a soulmate AU, but edgy). this fic, however, is everything but. It’s subtle and clever in how it implements this particular AU in the canon setting. I’m a sucker for exploration of their codependency and all its implications, for these purposes this AU is just perfect.

[fushiglow]

if you don't mind me asking, who are your favorite romantic relationship's couples in books/ manga/ anime/movies/tv series (can be canon or non-canon)? Why you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before......Thanks....

When I'm hyperfixating on a special interest, I find it really hard to remember anything that previously held my attention lol — so I'm struggling to answer this question, anon! I'm not a huge shipper usually, and I'm incredibly unenthusiastic about ship wars so I generally don't get involved.

That said, there are tons of ships I like in Jujutsu Kaisen. SatoSugu and Megumi are pretty much all I post about on here, but I've gained a few followers recently so it's probably worth saying because I've seen a lot of ship discourse elsewhere in the fandom recently:

If you're reading this and you really hate any of the ships I mention in this post, feel free to unfollow if it's that big a deal to you.

I'm really not interested in arguing about ships — because it just isn't that deep, I have limited free time to give to fandom and I'd rather spend it on things I love — so please don't get into that with me. However, if it's not a big deal to you, great to have you around! ♥

So, Jujutsu Kaisen ships I like below the cut:

Obviously, SatoSugu* has really captured my imagination. I don't think I've ever shipped anything as hard as I ship those two, but I talk about them all the time so I won't go into any more detail.

Other than that, I like GojoHime which I know is blasphemy for a SatoSugu shipper (I'm kidding, there's a bunch of us who ship both) but I don't think one has to preclude the other (after all, Gojo has two hands 👀). I've written two canonverse fics for GojoHime, and I've gently implied a former romantic relationship between SatoSugu in both.

I think lots of people read too deeply into the "she hates him" thing. Is he a bit of a dick to her? Absolutely, but treating Utahime like she's just a victim of the terrible Gojo Satoru takes away from her character — because she gives as good as she gets! I adore the contradiction in how she presents herself as this prim and proper miko, but she's actually a little firecracker who loses her temper easily and throws things at people and drinks heavily. Don't take that away from her, it's what makes her fun!

To me, it's obvious that their dynamic is designed to provide comic relief, but they trust each other when it comes down to it. In fact, I'd argue their bickering is evidence of that — if you're a polite person, you don't bicker with people you're not comfortable with. More than that, I like how Utahime is set up as a bit of a foil to Gojo. It's been said before, but there's a poetry in her technique making the 'strongest' stronger, especially considering that he goes to this character he's historically called weak to ask for help in the biggest fight of his life. Delicious!

Beyond that, I casually enjoy a bunch of other JJK ships. I don't actively seek out or create content for them, but I enjoy some of the art and fic when I come across it. Namely:

SaShiSu, in any configuration. SatoShoko is appealing to me for reasons I touched on in response to a question about Gojo's relationship with Shoko. SuguShoko is hot, simply because I think both characters are hot and they look hot together lol. I can even get behind poly SaShiSu!

OkkoFushi, because of Megumi's ~one line~ about respecting his senpai. It's essentially a crack ship, but I have the silliest little headcanon that Gojo brought Megumi to meet the first years sometime during JJK 0 and Megumi developed his first crush — see this adorable art for reference.

ItaFushi, ItaJun, and YutaMaki because they're all harmless and adorable.

GojoKen, because I love the potential for toxic angst.

KenTen, because "goodbye, old friend" — I'm sorry, what??? 👀

ShokoHime and ChosoYuki because they're all sexy as hell.

NobaMai, because they have sizzling chemistry.

KiraKari and MechaMiwa, because they're both canon as far as I'm concerned.

ShiuToji, because they're "business partners" — sure, guys!!

NanaGo, purely for the cute single dads art.

SukuGo, but only in a non-canon setting. They should have been besties in canon though 😔

Finally, the controversial one. Sukuna can stay the hell away from Megumi in canon (🥲) but I quite like SukuFushi in a specific AU setting — especially if Yuji and Sukuna are brothers in it! I have a soft spot for the Itadori twins, and I'm into the idea of big bully Sukuna meeting his match in his brat of a brother's quiet best friend with the deceptively sharp tongue (and knuckles).

However, I personally find that a lot of people mischaracterise Megumi in his ships and take away the aspects of his character that I really love (come on, he beat people the hell up at school!) so I'm not super into Megumi ships in general, despite the fact that he's my best boy.

As you can see, I'm really not that fussy about ships. In the past, I've definitely read fic featuring a side pairing that I'm not super into, but it won't stop me reading a good fic if there's a pairing I don't like in it. Sometimes, if it's well-written, I might even end up a fan!

Outside of JJK, there really isn't much. I don't follow many other animanga, but I think AkiAngel is a gorgeous ship and EreMika is cute although a bit bland. I think that's it though... Sorry this wasn't really what you asked for, but thank you for the question! ♥

*I just use the popular ship name, but I don't have any strong preferences when it comes to sexual dynamics so the name order isn't important to me — that goes for all the ships I like!

[epickiya722]

Haha right? It's so normalized while it's actually so inappropriate to go to a stranger and talk about their sexual preferences.

I hate how "x fans" is called "x fuckers" now. Yeah I like Sukuna. No I don't want to fuck him. But all there is in his tags.

I'd go as far as to say that people don't care about characters. They just want to put them into tropes box to imagine them as their vampire/alpha male/ceo lover.

And I find it ironic how the same will trash talk about fanboys while they do the exact same thing. '"let women be horny" they will say, because reducing a story to you being horny is ok.

I still want to publish my stories because some fandom gave me hope. But I don't hold my breath anymore.

It is very inappropriate. Like, damn, I can't just like the character? I can't be entertained by their antics?

There are just so many things that shouldn't be normalized across fandoms and going into someone's inbox to be like "*insert character* fucker" is one.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind people having their fantasies about their faves, let alone am I gonna police anybody on or care to. Waste of my time, I got fics to write! Posts to post! 😭

But sometimes I do think "does this person actually care about the character's story"?

Because some of those same people will have so many takes on their faves that don't even be that character. That is a whole OC you created!!

I actually wasn't aware of this until only recently that people accepted for Sukuna to become some absolute horndog when Yorozu was up all over him. Maybe I missed something, but Sukuna only ever expressed being interested in fighting and killing people and personally, he never really came across as some sexual deviant to me.

I feel like sometimes if you have this fanon version of your fave, that is not your favorite. In no way, should you feel the need to like this whole other version of your "fave" in order to like him. Then why have them as your favorite in the first place?

I like Sukuna because he entertains me. He's this evil ass menace who wants all the smoke and the biggest beef he has is with a 15 year old (who is my all time favorite of JJK). Sukuna also this mysterious air about him because we still don't know much about his backstory, let alone everything he can do. (I had this recent thought about a technique that I should probably get to writing.) I have theories about his character, like how he may really be as a person, true. But at the same time, I'm not gonna believe my theories about him are canon because "I know him better than Gege". Anything I say isn't canon unless said so explicitly. I didn't create Sukuna. I am just another fan just vibing along with the story.

And it really is insane to me that people will do that. People were saying "female fans of JJK are ruining the fandom, they're all so horny" as if all us are horny, let alone engage in the anime for said reasons.

The same people *cough cough* misogynists *cough* who say that be the same people who will have a wallpaper of someone like Nami as their header and she'll have boobs bigger than what she has in canon.

Oooh, y'all don't like folks be objectifying the JJK men, huh? Even though for years female characters have gotten the treatment in Shonen. You cannot be dragging Gojo fans when you want to be Makima's dog. Stop that now.

Also, its not just the men! Uh, Yuki Tsukumo exists! She has a lot of fans who find her attractive. There's Shoko, Utahime, Takako, Mei Mei...

I'm waiting for the day 143 gets animated because I just know people are gonna go 👀.

Like, either way, if you're a person who gets constantly horny over your faves, why are you upset with someone doing the same?

I saw this meme post about how people tend to overlook the story and its details and only focus on the attractive cast and fights. And some people were like "but people are only focusing on the fights and attractive cast".

No, they're not. You're missing the point.

For one, you can find the characters attractive and enjoy the fights. That is fine. But at the same time, don't miss the story. Pay attention to it because it's just as important, if not more.

Second, not everyone is focused on just the fights and cast. If that was the cast, why do we have theories and meta posts? Why do we have people writing fics that study the character they're writing about? If no one is focusing on the story and only like the fights and attractiveness of the characters, then those kind of posts from fans wouldn't exist.

[majycka]

Hello op! I am one of those people who actually like Utahime as characters, my initial reason was her character design and name (I still think she has the best design among the female cast in jjk, maki and yuki aside). Her CT made me love her more, cause that differentiates her from other jujutsu sorcerers, where selfishness and greed is required to become ones absolute best self, Utahime’s CT does the opposite though, she as a human and also by the virtue of her CT can never really be selfish in a way. She literally powers up others (and herself), and her major strength lies in connections (again completely different from what is expected of sorcerers). If we break down her CT, she is the strongest version of herself (since her CT also powers herself) when she is with others helping them to be even stronger, almost exactly opposite of what gojo, the pinnacle of what jujutsu society represents.

I am also someone whose perception of her don't align with that of her majority fandom, I think you are one of those people, too. I would love to know your thoughts on how you personally perceive her and why your point of view is different. Cause there are times I wanna discuss something about her with my irl mutual, but then again, it never goes well. They are too deep in fanon stuff. I am someone who generally likes to keep my headcanon toned down and mostly stick to canon. I really wanted a pov of someone who actually likes her but also respects canon quite equally.

I honestly would have loved to see her more. This is not even something i am saying a fan, but even as a minor character, what she represents is just so different from everything we have been told (even her students defy that).

I hope I didn't bother you a lot with my ramblings 🙏

Nah you're all good anon! I love it when I get to ramble with other ppl about my faves and I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiments of Utahime! I'll proceed to just dump all my thoughts about her as well and discuss what fandom thinks of her from what I've seen.

One thing that I've picked up from fanon of view of Utahime (in some of the fics I've read) is she's SOLELY this strict teacher all about respecting tradition/authority when it's not and it reduces her to that "respect your seniors!" dialogue. In fact, I can even argue that Gojo represents more of JJK traditional view in valuing individual strength even how much he says he's being progressive. His view of dividing people between strength vs weak screams kinda the same as those traditional clans valuing cursed techniques above anything else. Meanwhile, Utahime's value of teamwork challenges this traditional view of individual strength when like Gojo said, the pinnacle of jujutsu, all sorcerers die alone even how much allies you have 'cause the jjk world is an individual sport.

But let's break down this a bit and see what Gojo mean by jjk being an individual sport. We have seen so far that people who usually ascend the ranks are pretty selfish. Mei Mei who cites herself having a pretty weak technique, optimized her CT by using her brother. Kusakabe who doesn't have a proper CT was able to be a grade one rank because he, at the beginning of the Shibuya arc, wants to save his own skin and would rather stay behind in fighting (but dude later on helped in pulling out the kyoto kids from the Kenjaku attack, still dude can be selfish). The big clan families will kill each other over cursed techniques. Gojo himself advised Megumi to be more selfish and greedy in power when they were training together. Of course, there are outliers such as a strong sorcerers like Nanami, who cares for children, but boom ended up getting killed right at the very end while Mei Mei was able to go to her Malaysia trip. It paints this image that selfishness is a needed trait to survive the jujutsu world and rise to power.

However by Utahime promoting teamwork shown through her kids, teamwork can give up the idea of selfishness because we learn when to trust others and work together for a common goal. It can save people especially in a world where being "weak" is a disadvantage. An excellent example of teamwork from Kyoto Tech is shown through that one scene in jjk 0 how each kid has a role in their group attacks which optimizes their cursed technique no matter how VARIED their ranks/skills are. Momo usually surveys the area, communicates to others, and is like the oversees everything in a big picture. Kamo acts as the leader, looks out for everyone and keeps them in task. Mai is the long range shooter and can back people up. Mechamaru constantly backs others up like Miwa. Meanwhile, of course, there's our fun outlier, Todo.

But the funny thing is despite Todo usually going off his own, breaking the "yay teamwork!" streak of Kyoto tech, his character brings up another essential point about teamwork: connecting with others. If it weren't for Todo showing up in helping Yuuji against Mahito, then Yuuji wouldn't be able to defeat him right after seeing Nobara blown up. Todo works best/fights best with his besto friendo. Todo is the same dude who said being sorcerers means always honoring their allies/friends because they keep us going. It's still very much in line in the spirit of Kyoto kids' teamwork and also their connection with others. Muta and Miwa. Mai and Maki. Momo and her bond with Mai and Miwa. Kamo and his mom. There's also their teacher Utahime who is close friends with Shoko, and she probably influenced these kids to get along with each other and foster that teamwork skills (you know like the MANY MAANNNYYY times Uta keeps on saying that the kyoto-tokyo kids should get along during the goodwill event). I'm not saying Tokyo kids can't get along, but it's not as the same degree as Kyoto's. I think what Kyoto's dynamic different is how they can be vulnerable with others and open about their problems/feelings which helps in these kids growing closer. For example, Momo is well aware of Mai's situation and will defend her. Miwa, who's well aware that growing closer will only end up hurting them because of the inevitable death in jjk, still chose to connect with her peers, and that lead to Muta even falling in love with her. For Tokyo, let's take an example of how the first years reacted to Yuuji's "death." Both Megumi and Nobara definitely tried hard to keep that stoic front. Nobara said how she can't cry on some guy she just knew for a few months when in fact Nobara is clearly affected. In the earlier arcs, Megumi and Yuuji were keeping secrets from each other about the whole "eating the Sukuna finger actually made things worse by awakening other fingers and kills more people everyday." The second years became close because of Yuta's nature who constantly reach out to everyone and not under Gojo's influence.

Moreover, I don't think I've seen this much group cohesion like Kyoto’s compared to Tokyo because it stuck to me how in Shibuya arc, the Tokyo kids are just constantly going off their own to prove their strength like Maki and Nobara which yes is a bit understandable cuz these kids are strong, but would it be so much stronger if they work together? But Gojo, their teacher, has established that he does not really advocate teamwork (even if he did for other’s help like Nanami and Utahime, he still ended up doing things alone). If Gojo's students are all strong individually because he's very particular in choosing his kids(aka choosing them for their potential/strength), then Utahime's student's are weak individually HOWEVER more stronger as a group. No wonder she is adored by everyone. No wonder that when Miwa was at her lowest during Muta's death, Kyoto tech was there for her.

However, there are times too when Utahime is carried away by the system and her students fell victims to it too(like the time she didn't know her student were targeting Yuuji, how Mai and Muta died in cruel way) because as the opposite of Gojo, she isn't traditionally strong who has the power to defy authority. She's more subtle about it because she works around the system (shown in investigating that haunted mansion from gojo's past arc and working to find the mole within the ranks and students) and doesn't easily power through them like how Gojo destroyed the mansion and can do whatever he wants cuz of his "strongest" title. That's why Gojo asked her help because she could investigate within the system and he couldn't do something like that when he's all about being loud and throwing around his weight. There are pros/con to her subtle nature, but since the JJK world favors the strong, then she gets stuff unchecked. So, NO, I don't think she's all that "strictly respect traditions/authority" type of person. She just knows how to play politics especially in a world where they will hammer down who is weak against the system, and yet, despite that, she's able to influence her kids to do something that sorcerers struggle with.

This is why her CT is beautiful too because literally and thematically anyone who gets into her "zone" will be strengthened by her. I've seen complaints about Utahime's CT in being merely a support/buffer type. Some people had been expecting that it could be something powerful and not just buffing people up. I’m guessing that its the girlboss belief that fans can latch onto. I mean most of the jjk girls are tough as nails that the fans like which yes is understandable! But I’ve seen this happen way too many time in shonen spaces where at times the considered “weak” or "support-type" fem characters are easily non favorable for fans. I think such thing doesn’t help people actually analyze the text and for me, if such character is written well then I’m 100% in (like c’mon, Miwa’s a “weak” character and yet she’s compelling not just her fun personality, but how she struggles with grief and a world where she gets her ass kicked for being weak). As for Utahime’s case, I love it! Because the whole point of the cursed techniques is it reflects a lot like of its user’s psyche and the series establishes that Utahime values teamwork and her connections with others which is anomaly in the jjk world, and it makes her CT badass in that way. That’s why it’s no wonder she’s a natural in supporting others! It 👏makes 👏sense👏!

My next fanon and canon comparison is more within the gjhm fandom which will be a bit controversial. Like I'm a gjhm shipper myself but there are times I have some issues in how they deal with Utahime. I think at times Utahime's spunk gets taken away just so she could coddle Gojo and easily ship them together fast. Like yall Utahime actually has some genuine reasons why she hates him not just 'cause of his annoying ass but cuz of his "weak" mockery to her. And I find it very much so amazing that Utahime's doesn't take his shit and will retaliate. I think it's Utahime wanting Gojo to be accountable on shit he does (like dang man this dude been getting away from shit) 'cause Gojo does perceive people in the traditional fashion of strong vs weak lenses. I keep on saying strong vs weak lenses because how Gojo nitpicks people he wants to "save" and that's usually people with "potential." Is it altogether bad wanting kids/students that have the drive to be stronger? Well, not exactly, no but when he started spouting how he wants to raise a generation way better than the higher ups, then why doesn't he include ALL of generation whether the kids start of strong or weak. Why didn't he pull out both Maki AND Mai from their Zenin situation? Don't give me the bullshit of "I can't save everyone who doesn't want to be saved" because especially if this is kids put in a dangerous environment, then it would be the job of adults to be responsible for them.

This is where the comparison of Utahime can show up again. Even how much different her kids are, personality and sorcery skill wise (llike Mai, Momo's fiery personalities way different from Miwa's, Kyoto being quite annoyed by Kamo's leader attitude), they obviously still make their group attacks work whether one is disadvantage in some skill or not. Utahime again and again is shown to care for her students whether not they're strong or weak. She prioritize their safety when that attack from goodwill arc showed up, and she went to the frontlines during the Kyoto-Kenjaku attack back in Shibuya.

I think, just personally, the fanon of Utahime coddling Gojo is ain't it for me when in many ways, Utahime can point out the flaws of Gojo's teaching that he needs. I'm not saying Utahime doesn't have her flaws either because she's weak to a whole system against her and there are times she couldn't be there for her students.

But yeah, that's about it for my Utahime thoughts and fanon discussion. Anon, if you have any fanon interpretation that you've encounter or more Utahime thoughts and wanna share then please feel free to drop an ask! ;)

[celestie0]

I’m so sorry that you have to deal with that. It genuinely is a gap in maturity because he’s a person with a life before reader (I know Gojo is fictional but for the sake of this topic I’m going to ask yall to be realistic since IHM touches on a lot of reality). People aren’t just side characters to your story, they’ve existed and will continue to exist whether or not you’re around. That doesn’t devalue anyone or make them gross, that’s just life 😭

You are absolutely right that it is a red flag if someone (that’s interested in relationships and stuff) has not had any prior experience bc that means there’s a reason for it 😭

We still don’t even know WHY they split, people break up over things all the time and sometimes nobody is the villain in the story. We don’t really know all that much about Gojo yet so let’s be patient PLS

Yes we’ve seen that his ex is going to try and get him back but we literally know nothing about where Gojo and Y/N stand at that point. Right now, we know they’re (at least physically) attracted to each other but they’re not at the point where exclusivity is expected. Maybe the ex is trying to wait out their marriage, maybe she actually does just suck but we DONT KNOW ANYTHING YET PLS WAIT 😭

I’m so sorry you’re getting those asks. I get that people are super excited but damn, these are the things that discourage writers from sharing their works or leaving platforms. The worst thing we can do is pressure someone (unless it’s gege) to change their story so that it’ll please you. LET AUTHORS COOK (unless it’s gege) 😤

ILYSM and I’m so sorry about the essay 😞 I got your back and will support any and all decisions you make as an author 🥰 now get behind me 🤺🤺🤺

hiiii makimais bb thx sm for ur sweet words ahhhh i adore u. n you’re one of my readers who understands ihm so much n so it really means a lot 😭💕

thank u sm. yes i think i have always try to write my gojos as their own ppl. i want to develop them outside of just the reader. this is partially bc i adore canon gojo n it’s fun to picture how he would think/feel/act in these alternate universes im putting him in based on what we know of his personality per gege, but also i think that it makes a story more interesting? i have high standards for media i consume, esp when it comes to character devlopment, so there is high chance i will include things in fics that ppl may not like if it means it matches my vision for the character’s growth

and yeahh i think that’s the thing. i understand being antsy over learning things ab the story, but like…we don’t know anything ab ihm gojo (well i know everything ab him actually but yall stay safe tho 😂😂😂) n so the pre emptive hate was kinda shocking

yes pls lemme cook i promise i’m makin a meal over here. truuussstttt. and if it’s not to ur liking, simply leave the restaurant hahah

thanks bb <3 love u tooooo n yes ellie has been feeling a lil fragile lately so i shall get behind u ty

[cruyuu]

Last chapter leaked and is so, so bad

Hi anon.

I've actually skipped looking at leaks this time (and would do so in the future) because I've wanted to experience one chapter in its entirety and not just have it vaguely translated. Besides, I started to really hate how popularized leak culture is in this fandom. It's gotten so bad to the point that some people don't even read chapters, they just read leaks and that's it.

I understand why you might think it's bad. I also think so. There's two chapters left and, as a fan of the story, I dislike the direction of everything. It feels rushed and forced... it isn't fulfilling at all. I'm happy for those who do think it's good but for me it's a hard miss. Landings in shonen usually aren't pretty though so I'm used to it. (and even though there are two chapters left it still wouldn't change much really.)

As a Yuuji fan though, oh am I having fun lol.

I'm going to put the rest behind the cut (which is my opinion on this chapter).

We get explanations because of course we do. There were many fans who disapproved and called bs on the way the entire Sukuna fight was handled. I have to admit that even though I do think what Gege wrote makes sense, it still feels overtly complicated and just a tad plot convenient how everything played out perfectly. It's all just... I don't know. Too much explanation and little to do with imagination. I'm not a child so I don't need a chapter dedicated to spelling out little things that could've easily been mentioned at an according time (like during the battle).

Still... the way the powers work here in this story does require you to really sit and think and do require block after block of text. This is the one part that I never liked about jjk because explanations like these make character-oriented moments feel less alive and make all of them behave like a bunch of dolls because one moment you'll see them talking but the next panel you're met with a whole class on jujutsu. It was always bizarre to me how little interaction there was between characters... hell if you take away the class sessions, they rarely have moments where they talk amongst themselves for themselves instead of giving a lesson on jujutsu or strategizing. It's admittedly a bit strange but oh well... it is what it is ig.

There's a reason (aside from certain characters being hot) why jjk's tag on ao3 has a lot of works. Some people take what we know and expand on it in a far less Gege-way by having characters interact with each other. I have grown to like more characters in fics way more so than in canon. In canon, only a handful of characters get my love and I'm sad to admit that those that do (such as Maki and Higuruma), quickly slip out of that loving spot and now I can't really feel as happy as I did about them before.

On that note, I haven't felt anything when Higuruma showed up alive. Yep lmfao. I used to feel for this man a lot and he is one of my top 3 (aside from Yuuji and Sukuna) but... I can't say I am happy that he's back. Now his sword disappearing in Yuuji's hand is for nothing and him clearly dying in front of Yuuji was for nothing. I still do love him and can't really dislike him (absolutely not) but canon... man the story really is kicking me in the butt when it comes to execution because ever since 265, the story had been a literal mindfuck. When I think I have a sense of where it is going to go, it goes a total opposite direction (and usually the one that doesn't really fit the vibes of the previous chapter). To me... the story's now all over the place which is contradictory because everything is being spoonfed to the readers and everything is "fine and dandy".

I still will complain because Shibuya arc had me thinking that I'd be reading something different (like CSM did) but then... here we are. There are practically no real consequences (aside from Gojo) in the Sukuna battle but at this point I wouldn't be surprised if he, too, gets a pass and gets resurrected. I would love nothing more than to read a shonen where the dead don't come back and where there's actual troubling consequences but then that wouldn't really be a shonen but would be a different genre all together (a seinen) so... yeah. I'm not going to count in Megumi's sister (because she's barely even a character) nor reincarnated cursed spirits (because we couldn't really even invest ourselves in them before they were gone) so you could say the only real casualty of the whole vs. Sukuna (aside from the Merger which wasn't even a real threat since Kenjaku wasn't even that intent on that plan in the end) is my time.

I'm just joking ofc, but I hope you get my point. It's not rewarding, not fulfilling and definitely not a good conclusion for someone who could barely even invest themselves into other characters. I still can't give a fuck about Yuta, or Kusakabe, or Panda. I feel just as stone-faced as Nobara and Yuuji did during the latter half of 268 when Megumi joined them. It's all so... whatever. (and it's kinda hilarious to me because the fandom is losing their minds and meanwhile the characters are lowkey behaving like dolls lol)

Still for those who did enjoy this and do love how everything is unraveling and so on and so forth, good for them. I'm just stating my opinion. Some might get the impression that I would love for jjk to be a tragedy, and tbh, I would not but I really would've loved if Gege, as an author, made me care about the side characters more. Instead the side characters to me feel like empty husks and I attached myself to Yuuji because his development seemed interesting only for it all to amount to weird ass interaction with the entire cast and back to being benched. He's literally playing spectator now in this chapter and yeah... it's really disappointing.

Again, two chapters left and this is where we're at. Lol.

I don't want to be a killjoy but yeah. It's not all so bad really but it is frustrating how little there is about the world and in general how many things have been shelved in favor of what we got now. Instead of seeing these interactions (which was just recycled "ok so this happened which wasn't explained") we could've gotten explanations regarding Yuuji's linage, his talk with Gojo, or for that matter, had character behave a little less like npc's in a video game that repeat the same dialogue when you come up to talk with them.

What this chapter did reveal which was also funny (said with anger btw) to me is this:

So Yuuji's "gloves" weren't really a cool feature that came from swallowing his half-brothers but by mr. Chosen One himself. Le big sigh.

Okay so... the Yuta glaze. No offense to people that like him but since when did he develop this much that he overshadowed everyone (even the King of Curses) in the end? Not only is his plan this successful but turns out that without him, everything would've failed.

I'm just straight up baffled at the amount of attention he's getting because last time I checked he wasn't the one who brought back the literal threat of the series and had absolutely no connections with the secondary antagonist (Kenjaku). Instead of the supposed main character who never had gotten the spotlight in his own fucking story (which is just proving those haters right atp because truly what the actual hell is jjk about? Everyone but Yuuji.) to get something that belongs to him... Nope. None of that.

If you thought this was an actual serious story then well... jokes on you. This panel is actually lowkey hilarious but because I really had grown fond of the story I just find it frustrating.

Yeah I... I don't know what to say really but Gege really disappointed me with this. I'm not much hopeful for the future (because the writing does feel quite cheap) and therefore will stop treating jjk like I did before. Does this mean that I hate it? No. I'm just disappointed.

I will keep my head up for like two chapters more since I'm curious what else can happen but then will definitely move on. Not from the characters tho who (luckily) can exist outside of canon. Yuuji and Sukuna will always be my babies and others are still there in my heart even though I'm very much so frustrated with the story.

So yeah... there you go. I probably might skip answering asks regarding the chapters in the future bc I really don't care anymore. If Yuuji's linage get addressed (which is the only thing I care about atp bc everything else is starting to annoy me) I might be okayish with whatever the hell we get as the ending.

[voxofthevoid]

Hello! Hope you're doing well. I just found your tumblr after reading your fics for a while and I just wanted to let you know I absolutely adore your writing. Frankly I'm obsessed. I started with your JJK stuff, but then I saw you also wrote for YOI ( when I tell you I died). The way you write Viktor is fantastic to me.

Okay back to JJK and this is gonna be long. Honestly I'm just gushing. The way that you write Yuji and Gojo individually as characters drives me insane. Yuji is such this terrible mix of innocent boyishness and eagerness. It's as if you took what's underlying in canon and then ramped it up. Obviously he's not fucking Gojo and other characters in canon lol, but you captured this sense of horror to an extent. I have no idea if that was your intent, but to me, it's this perfect precipice of a kid balancing between selfishness and selflessness. He feels innocent in a way that makes you distinctly aware of how screwed the world he exists in is. Plus, I love the way he's a biter. honestly, if there's blood I'm sold 100% of the time.

Ahh and Gojo. Gojo, man. A masochist, of course, but there's so much depth to it in your writing (even in just short smut scenes). Sure the painful sex is attractive etc, but it feels like there is so much more there. Like an inherit need to self-punish or to feel something or idk idk. Just absolutely fantastic.

You just balance, intimacy, eroticism, and horror in a way that scratches an itch and drives me insane.

Notable mentions that I loved. The choso/yuji fic is so good so far, and Im super excited to see where it goes! The Yuji/Higuruma fic was one of my favourites. I loved Higuruma's slight disgust at both himself and also at Yuji and Gojo's relationship. Both extremely sexy but also mildly unsettling. And Yuji's thought process and characterization was top tier.

Anyways, love your writing, man. Please continue forever and forever. Some of the best stuff I've ever read. I was wondering if you have any recommendations for stuff that you enjoy or get inspiration from? Either fics or literature recs?

Excuse me while I just…melt.

So, zero exaggeration: I saw/read this message while in bed, and I got to the end, put my phone down, and quite literally rolled around like a dog. Noises Were Made.

Seriously, I can’t tell you how happy I am 💖

I’m very glad that my stories are bringing you joy. My YoI days in particular were a while back—and between the pandemic and some drastic life changes on my end, it feels even longer than it is—so it’s always a treat to hear that those stories are still being enjoyed. I had a lot of fun with Viktor and Yuuri back in the day.

It’s even more delightful to read your thoughts on my JJK writing, especially because yes, that’s exactly what I’m going for with Yuuji and Gojou both! The “perfect precipice of a kid balancing between selfishness and selflessness” and the "need to self-punish or to feel something” are significant parts of the core of my characterization for them, for the sex and also outside of it.

Yuuji’s duality—his equal capacity for compassion and violence; the selfishness and selflessness inherent in his self-sacrificial tendencies; his naivete and innocence as well as startling insights about himself and others’ hearts—is my favorite trait of his, and trying to synthesize all that into coherent characterization has been a challenge and a joy from the start. And the biting! And blood. Can’t go wrong with biting and blood 🤝

Gojou honestly had me going “masochist masochist masochiiiiiiiiiiist” from his first proper scene, and the more I read, the more solid that impression became. A character with perfect control over what will touch him, what he’ll feel, is inherently ripe for explorations of touch—whether it’s touch deprivation or extremities of sensation—and Gojou further kicks that up a notch with how damnably lonely he is.

It’s incredibly gratifying to hear that’s what you like about how I write both of them.

And I’ll just be hugging this to my chest for the rest of eternity: You just balance, intimacy, eroticism, and horror in a way that scratches an itch and drives me insane.

Cool? Cool.

I’m also glad you like those fics in particular; I have soft spot for the hiita tbh, and I hope you’ll enjoy the rest of the chosoita as well!

As for recs, this is going to be a mix of stuff. I don’t often clock specific stories or authors, within or outside fandom, as an influence; it’s more that some things leave an impression, in a variety of ways. I also forget a lot! So a very incomplete list—

Hannibal, directed by Bryan Fuller (it was a formative influence)

The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir (everything here is gold)

Crush and War of the Foxes by Richard Siken (fucks me up, in a good way)

Anita Blake series by Laurel K. Hamilton (not a rec because these books go downhill fast, but the sex in this series unlocked...many a thing in my teen self)

I've also got a fic rec tag that's got specific fics as well as general recs for JJK, femlash, and a couple of themed recs. Toward the end, it's mainly MCU/stucky. For copy-pasting to a browser because the app will break that link:

https://voxofthevoid.tumblr.com/tagged/fic+rec

[ultfreakme]

do you plan to write an itajun fic some day?

I do! I can feel myself building towards it(though it is probably ill-advised ahaha i have so many WIPs).

I have a couple of ideas but I don't have a concrete direction yet and am hesitant because I only just got back into JJK and I don't really feel like I get them as characters just yet. BUT, if it feels like too much to wait for, I'll list my 3 main ideas!

Junpei transfers to Sendai and Yuuji & Junpei know each other before the Sukuna Finger eating: I have a few scenes in my head for this one! Yuuji going to visit the hospital with his grandpa and Junpei's there to get checked for the burns on his forehead. Junpei's teacher telling him its mandatory that he joins a club, Yuuji overhearing it and inviting him to the occult club. Yuuji and his senpais with Junpei watching horror movies together. Them under a cherry blossom tree because this is high school romance baby and those things are MANDATORY.

Junpei lives through Mahito transfiguring him and Mahito takes him: The idea is that Junpei survives the transfiguration, Mahito gets curious and takes him with him when he escapes and realizes Junpei's got like one more try left before he does die. But Kenjaku interferes and tells Mahito that they should keep Junpei alive and test out just how far Junpei's technique can go. Kenjaku is curios to see just how far he can evolve a human, and how much farther this evolution can go during the Culling Games. So, Junpei threatens to just kill himself BUT Kenjaku takes him alone and promises him that he'll get a chance to avenge his mom by killing Mahito if he allows Mahito to experiment on him now. Make Mahito give him the power to kill him. Win-win!(He's lying just to get Junpei complicit and put him in a headspace where he'll care about power). Flash-forward to Culling Games, Yuuji is scrolling through the competitors and sees Junpei's name on it and on confrontation, I have scene in my head: Multiple small jellyfish the size of a palm floating down around the rubble like bubbles, Junpei standing at a distance watching the jellyfish shikigami float, as if he's waiting for something. Yuuji calls his name, Junpei looks at him with a small smile and calls his name back. I like the idea because Junpei is the CLASSIC trope for 'dead girlfriend' and character who's romanticized and remembered wrong after death. Yuuji doesn't know him and he was definitely looking at him through rose-tinted glasses. So Yuuji confronting this boy he romanticized and treasured in his mind in some untouchable corner and finally truly getting to know him was very fun for me. Also because in a way, Yuuji and Junpei are the first official candidates for the Culling Games (Kenjaku made Yuuji and orchestrated Junpei getting powers).

Junpei lives canon rewrite! BUT! Junpei has a million restrictions. Headcanoning that Mahito made it so that Junpei's technique when first made was taught to be most effective against humans and sorcerers, so in order to keep Junpei alive, Gojo sorta negotiates to the Jujutsu Tech higher-ups that Junpei can act as a curse user assassin and more of an undercover operative who will face humans more than curses. Which means.....killing humans. But lucky for Junpei, he needs to be trained before being sent on real missions and if in this time period, he can prove that he can defeat a Grade 3 curse and higher consistently for a certain amount of missions, alone, he should be accepted as a regular sorcerer. So it's sort of a race against the clock for Junpei to figure out how to make his technique more useful against curses than humans. Yuuji's involved in helping him channel his cursed energy in a more physical hand-to-hand combat manner and is finally faced with the absolute nightmare that is the jujutsu tech bureaucracy and is confronted with his own mortality and how they don't care about his individual life. Junpei and Yuuji basically bonding over their takes on what it means to value human life, navigating being newbies to the life of a Jujutsu Sorcerer, and dealing with the grief of losing family while trying to prove to the world that they deserve to exist. Now.....I don't want to write this....because I want to see these two have a happy ending and if I write this I'll have to rewrite the entire series or give them a sad ending by having Junpei die in Shibuya(imagine how tragic it'd be if Sukuna saved killing Junpei while he was destroying Shibuya to the final moment, slashing Junpei and THEN giving control back to Yuuji). They're both alive ending means I have to understand who's doing what in Shibuya Arc, where they are, wtf is going on in Culling Games, etc. So another reason I hesitate is because Cursed Techniques are very confusing to me. I don't have enough of a grasp on any of the JJK systems to write a convincing fic and I'm unfortunately, a sucker for detail. I think I might write the first idea, before I get around to the rest. Hopefully I can write something good but until then I hope the ideas are something entertaining to think about!

(Also, I have fic song vibes for them! The song is 'Sunset and Whale by Zhang Yuan and Vicky'. It has exactly one mid tier to terrible translation but from what I can gather, it shows the fleeting moment of meeting between two lovers through how a whale surfaces to see the sun, and how the sunlight shines on a whale, only for the sun to dip into the night and for the whale to sink back into the ocean only having the brief moments where they intersected. which hey! ItaJun vibes!).

[whalesforhands]

NUH UH NO ABSOLUTELY NOT. ENDURE YOUR PAIN?!?!? I KNEW. OKAY?? I KNEW IT WAS COMING BUT LIKE NOT THAT SOON. RIP MY HEART OUT WHY DONT YOU???? (I say this as I greedily reread it 5 times angst au’s always get me) I love the way reader was the one keeping Gojo and Geto on balance with their morals and then when she’s not there they don’t know anything anymore. AND THE BASKETBALL SCENE??? WITH THE PROMISE OF MARRYING EACH OTHER AT 20??? I HOWLED IN PAIN AT THAT PART. I’m a sucker for those kinds of promises. OH MY GOD AND SHOKO STILL TRYING TO HEAL HER EVEN THO SHE KNOWS SHES GONE I CANNOT. Honestly this fic gave me such whiplash cause I was all comfortable with your fluff and then BAM you hit us with THIS. The way they mourned her as if she never left also had me holding my head like it’s the refusal to accept that she’s gone for me. I’m just in awe every time you post cause it always ends up being exactly what I need atm. Okokok what’re your thoughts on an au where reader stays dead and doesn’t miraculously come back to life and how Gojo, Geto, and Shoko grow up without her. Like what would be the changes in that future without reader cause I’m so so so curious. ALSO IDEA but I need this au too where she wakes up in a hospital bed and is so confused like where is everyone and walks all the way back to school in her gown and scares the absolute crap out of everyone being all depressed and everyone’s like they’ve seen a ghost but readers just worried if they’re all alright and fretting over them adjkhghg. Sorry if that was a lot reading your fic sent my brain into overdrive and the ideas just started coming? Also how are you? Have you eaten today? Drank water?

- 🍊 anon

i’m glad i gave u whiplash. i love having extremely contrasting sides hahahah

i’ve not been eating well but there’s lots of water LOL

honestly i was abt to not answer this ask since u make me want to give u spoilers for being so nice to me but i’ll sprinkle crumbs

with reader dying in dyf au, gojo experienced extreme loss, enough to the point that it would drive him to his breaking point if suguru had left too

which is why he was able to be there for him unlike in canon

reader staying dead will end up with them growing up with some form of longing for her, whether it be from negligible (buying trinkets that remind them of her, snacks, drinks etc.)

to extreme (SPOILERS IM NOT GONNA SAY SHIT)

re-request me if u want that alternative end where she wakes up in the hospital and escapes from it like a mental asylum patient

i want more interactions and ppl to talk to me i’m lonely ok so i’m making u come into my inbox again

[frankenjoly]

For the ship ask game: fyolai, siglai, inuokko

fyolai: ship it

What made you ship it?

nikolai's gushing about fyodor + the whole murder plan to free himself from those feelings specifically to get closer to his goal... mhmmm... and the hand-holding scene in meursault. cannot be convinced there isn't something going on.

What are your favorite things about the ship?

even me being an absolute pussy can enjoy some angsty stuff (says she, who teared up with that one hurt no comfort fic). i mean, you can have the angsty side and sprinkle it with fluff. and pls, things like the omake where fyodor plays along with nikolai's pun,,,,,,,,,,

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

why the angst when we already have the canon? (kidding) (but not much alksjdf).

siglai: ship it

What made you ship it?

nikolai picking sigma specifically as a partner in crime like... yeah, it may be about his ability but... the whole "you won't be truly free while fyodor's out there" when nikolai has his own freedom thing going on and sigma just wants a place to belong and be in peace, food for thought.

(also i'm not gonna pretend that with both fyolai and siglai you had influence, and i think it's beautiful.)

What are your favorite things about the ship?

it's usually more fluffy (again kidding but not much lakjsd). they get each other at least to a point, and pls,,,, nikolai calling sigma his beautiful assistant and sigma complaining but doing as he asked,,, mhmmm...

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

there's not enough siglai, basically.

inuokko: ship it

What made you ship it?

without knowing yuta yet, i was convinced the whole thing about him wanting to kill yuuji and using toge's arm being cut off as an argument was bcs he was mad and didn't know it had been sukuna. then i read vol 0 and omg,,, cuties,,,

What are your favorite things about the ship?

i like friends to lovers a lot, and even with the setting being what it is, they're just so cute... yuta gushing about how cool toge is and how much he had misunderstood him in the middle of a fucking mission, toge thinking about months about how to help yuta,,, also gojo basically saying "yeah inumaki-kun doesn't need help for this but go with him, watch and learn ;)" he was onto something fr.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

i don't get the takes about yuta being overly possesive/jealous when it comes to toge... i can totally buy him having some insecurities even when he's grown more confident since joining the school, but i think yuta getting jealous would involve more moping than aggression alksjdfl.

[idontknowanametouse]

So... I wrote a fic about Jujutsu Kaisen. Cause I refuse to believe canon. Anyway, here it is. (spoilers for Shibuya arc and a lil bit for the Culling Games arc) (briefly, it will be available in Ao3. probably) (sorry for bad english and probable inaccuracy with canon)

“...a shikigami, huh?” Kami-sama murmurs, right after fixing Hime.

“...fault... Senshi... didn’t saw...”

“No, no, there’s no need to that. You guys know I wouldn’t be mad even if you were just two insignificant transfigured humans, but my two masterpieces? Of course I won’t be mad at you!” he brushes softly Hime’s cheek. Her normally blank face acquires the shadow of a smile. “Specially at you, Hime-chan. I have a different task for you now. Those you attacked will come after me soon, so, you must deffend me. With a special warning for you, Senshi-san, because, as before, you need to protect Hime-chan at all costs. Did you understand?”

The two of them nod.

_

“MAHITO!!!” Yuji screams, entering the building where is the energy of the curse. The fury present in his voice could make the walls tremble. The boy ran away from Jujutsu High and passed the whole night looking for Mahito.

“Well, you arrived earlier than I thought” says the laughing voice that seems to be coming out of the walls.

“WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY SENSEI AND MY SISTER?! YOU FUCKING SON OF A BITCH!”

A laughter full of pure cruelty echoes around the place.

“I thought playing with them and testing a few things would be much, much more interesting than just killing them! I found out that, depending on the way I change the shape of the soul, I can also change the mind! Oh, I got so happy when I discovered that, specially about the girl, as I’ve never seen a sorcerer that could change the shape of the soul like me! Do you want to find the two of them again, Itadori?”

He is able to listen something similar to steps behind himself and immediatly turns around, seeing Nobara right behind him, her arm outstretched towards his hair. Realizing her intention, he grabs her arm before she can do anything. Right behind her, Nanami comes running. For a second, Yuji looks directly into the girl’s single eye.

There’s nothing in them.

He can’t remember exactly what happened later.

When he realizes, he’s fallen into the ground, wounds through his body. His vision is blurry and he can barely distinguish what is more than one meter away from him. He sees two figures and then a lot of movement, and suddenly someone gets close to his face, a pointy and black hair that is very familiar.

Megumi.

“Yuji!” he seems angry and worried. He says, while helping him get up: “Didn’t I told you to not come?! You almost died!! You were lucky we managed to find you!

“Hum... sorry...” he murmurs, blinking as he tries to make his vision less blurry. “And... what about them?”

“The curse is not here, but the sorcerers managed to capture Kugisaki and Nanami-san. We’ll get them to the school and see what we can do for them.”

Megumi looks at Yuji and sighs. He knows the boy well enough to know that the guilt is corroding him from the inside, even though he is innocent in this whole thing.

Nobara is a great friend and, during that week, he could barely walk through the school without feeling his knees tremble when thinking of her. He knew Nanami a long time ago because of Gojo, and, even though they have never been close in the way the adult and Yuji were, he still respected him deeply. Seeing that distorted version of them is absolutely wrong and torturing.

Just as he saw them, he understood the boiling and blind hate Yuji felt for that curse.

_

Shoko is used to see people in terrible estates. After all, she is a doctor that works on Jujutsu High. She saw many people deformed by curses or wounded in brutal ways. Even though she felt sorry for their fate, she got very experienced throughout the years.

So, it’s surprising when she feels about to puke when she sees Kugisaki and Nanami unconscious with their bodies transfigured.

Maybe it’s because she knows them and got shocked by seeing them distorted. Maybe it’s Kugisaki’s such young age. Maybe it’s the protection instinct with her kouhai. She doesn’t know. She just knows that she feels pure hatred for the curse that did this to them.

They are tied at the litters with cursed strings to ensure they won’t run away. While she evaluates them, worried and nervous, Shoko realizes the strings were a good idea when Kugisaki wakes up.

Immediately, when her eye evaluates the place around her, she tries to get up with all her force, but can’t do it. She grunts and emmits all kind of noises, varying from low despair moanings to roars of pure anger. Any tries to make her stop is shown to be in vain, and the girl just calms down when is left alone. In this moment, she just stays there, sitten, staring the nothing and without moving a muscle.

When Nanami wakes up, he looks around, confused, and tries to free himself. When he sees Kugisaki, he says something incomprehensible, but she seems to understand it. He enters the same catatonic state as she, but one of his eyes deviates to the corner, making Kugisaki be inside his sight. Just as this happens, however, the needles behind his neck pierce him and he looks forward again.

Shoko looks at what is in her hands. She managed to get one of the needles that were on Kugisaki’s nape. She needs to discover what is that.

_

This is the first time Megumi sees Maki be shaken by something. She seems happy when finds out Nobara is alive, but, as they hears what happened, her eyes get wide and they staggers when walks. When she goes to the infirmary and sees her unconscious from far away, Maki doesn’t move a centimeter until she finally moves away, without saying a word.

_

Yuji passes most of the night awaken. He can’t sleep because can’t stop thinking he could have stopped that. If he didn’t faint, maybe the two of them could have been saved. But the vision of Nanami’s burned skin and flesh being torn apart alongside Nobara’s eye exploding out of her face, knowing that the two of them would be dead, made that his body couldn’t take it anymore and got prepared to die.

After circa one hour rolling through the bed without being able to close his eyes, he finally gets up and starts wandering around the school. There’s no goal, he just needs to walk around, trying to empty his head from the pain. In some way, his feet take him unconsciously to the infirmary door, and he looks inside.

Just the two of them are there, the lights on. The ones that have been wounded at Shibuya or have been practically healed or are on the graveyard. They look exactly like earlier, however, there’s a slight frown in Nobara’s forehead when she sees him. Nanami, although, just opens his eyes a little bit in his direction.

Yuji runs, opens a bathroom’s door and pukes.

While he walks around the property again with no direction, he sees himself again at the door of his dormitory. He thinks of going back to his room until he hears something, a low sound. It comes from Megumi’s room.

He looks through the door. Even in the dark, his eyes identify Megumi’s body lying down in fetal position while hugging one of his dogs. His back oscilate slightly and the sound comes from him.

Without making any noise, Yuji enters the room and slides to the bed, putting his arms around Megumi and staying there until his breathing calms down and the crying sound stops. Maybe this happened because of the many people he’s lost in such a short time.

The whole night, Yuji tries to ignore Sukuna laughing at the back of his mind.

(this is the part two of a fic of mine. If you want to read the part one, go for the tag "the shape of two souls")

[seiwas-interact]

HI i was gonna tag you at first but i figured it’d be easier to just write here :D i’m sorry in advance if this turns out rly long!! i just really wanna take the time to show my appreciation for everything you said on that satoru piece <33

first of all THANK YOU???? SO MUCH?????? like i literally can’t describe in words how happy it made me to read all you wrote, i was giggling n kicking my feet and everything. no but really tysm!! <3 for being so kind and for taking the time to comment on it so thoughtfully!!! it means so much you have no idea!!!!!!!🥺🥺and pls never apologize for the rambling i got sosososoo happy reading all the lines you liked and all your thoughts, i can’t thank u enough!! <33

i thought you couldn’t top the shoujo anime comment but comparing it to an indie movie scene is. so kind. ”scenes that feel almost stolen if anything” like that’s such a nice thing to say??!!! i was definitely going for that kind of vibe too so i’m so happy it came across well :’3 subtle intimacy is also like. my FAVORITE thing to write ever so i was ecstatic that u enjoyed it!!!!!

oh and the reader too!! i’m so relieved you liked them!! it’s not even intentional atp but every time i write for satoru reader ends up extremely down bad bc my love for him bleeds thru😭😭i’m sick and tired of it tbh but i’m physically incapable of pairing him w anyone who isn’t constantly like ’i love my dumbass bf’….. he deserves to be praised for all he does!! god knows no one else in that series is telling him good job and patting him on the head and giving him treats. smh.

overall i’m just. genuinely so, so happy you liked my take on satoru and love, it’s such a huge part of his character even in canon so i try my best to do it justice!! i feel like satoru would just benefit soooo much from a really sweet, gentle, easygoing love bc like you said he’s just. carrying so much weight on his shoulders, and especially after his love w suguru ended so tragically and was so heavy i just think he’d like something light.

for the record i absolutely adore your take on it too!!! how being loved makes him feel small but not in a bad way, how he feels so safe w you……… how he can just be satoru. like it made me insane when i read it bc you’re so RIGHT. i love your satoru sm, you make him feel so human and capture that vulnerable side of him so well that it kinda hurts to read LMAO… it’s just so…!!!! yeah. it’s so tender and good and achey

aaa and and and…. it makes me so soft that u thought my writing was homey….🥺🥺mine def leans more towards introspective thoughts and feelings too!! it’s just too fun to dig into your fave’s psyche lol.

anyway i feel like i’m just rambling away in your askbox so i’ll leave it there but pls just know how much i love and appreciate you <33 no need to answer this btw i just needed u to know!!!!! i feel like we all need some gojo fluff after those leaks LMAOO (i am in extreme misery) so i hope the fic could be a small comfort…… i’m just here writing sickeningly fluffy gojo content to distract myself from the manga atp…………

hi darlin omg 🥺 help we’re both just apologising for rambling on eachothers pages omg 😭 pls don’t apologise aaah!!! this is so so sweet of you 🥺

OF COURSE i had to comment thoughtfully on your fic omg it’s what you deserve!!! 🥺 it rlly tickled so many parts of my brain when it came to understanding satoru’s perspective!! tugged at my heart just as much too 🥺 i love introspective works a lot 🤧

i’m so happy i was able to get the vibe of it right too omg 🥺 as a reader who writes i think i get a lot more conscious now if what i understabd overlaps with what the writer is trying to portray omg akksnxkd but yes subtle intimacy omg 🥺

and yes to lovesick reader too 😭😭 i enjoy all dynamics but i have an extremely soft spot for when both are whipped for one another and for satoru especially !!!! our baby boy 🥺

& re: satoru and love, i think so too !!! i think that guy needs some luvin in his life and it shouldn’t be any more difficult than all the shit he’s been thru already 😭 that lil scene u added the ‘be careful satoru’ one i think omfg IT ACHED

AND AAAAH how u like my satoru too omg 🥺 thank u thank u 🥺 that’s such a compliment!! tender and achey 🥹 i do try to humanise him as much as i can so i’m glad it came across 🥹 ur satoru 🤝 my satoru 🥹🫶🏻

i hope u’re ok after the leaks!!! i’ve also just been thinking up all the fluffiest, most comforting ideas to cope 🤧 josnxkdn

read ‘i’ll relearn love at our kitchen table’ (super soft n comforting gojo!!! ☹️ tugged at my heart!!!!)

[astrowaffles]

A through Z for the ask game >:]

HI JAMMIE

this is another long one, bear with me!

A - Ships that you currently like a lot. (They don’t have to be OTPs because not everyone has OTPs.) Friendships, pairings, threesomes, etc. are allowed.

Uhhhhh well obviously I'm loving the gojo & megumi father-son shit at the moment, it really heals the depression. ALSO @grungeeuvu (alt. account @grungiiuvu) has gotten me back into MXTX, especially TGCF, so fengqing is top of my romantic ship list at the moment. I keep meaning to write something for them. Whoopsies.

B - A pairing–platonic, romantic or sexual–that you initially didn’t consider, but someone changed your mind.

my jjk moots are going to think i'm insane for this, but itafushi. It did NOT occur to me when I watched the anime, but then someone suggested it to me and then I rewatched with new eyes and ... yeah. itafushi canon.

also kuromikashou. I'm a fan of that now, too.

C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will.

the rats are going to absolutely hate this announcement, but ushioi and oikage. Hate them both. oisuga? sure. iwaoi? love it. oihina? don't see it as a long term thing, but don't care. even atsuoi is passable. But both ushioi and oikage really irriate me for zero reason.

D - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t.

bokuroo. they make total logical sense and they'd be hilarious together, but to me they're besties. sorry guys :(

E - Have you added anything cracky/hilarious to your fandom? If so, what?

i hear lots of good things about my JNT Rulebook, which is a whole load of crack. Also, for AOT i wrote Chaos Theory, which earned comments like "I had no idea funny fics were possible for this fandom". If you are a long-term aot girlie, I am so sorry for your loss.

F - What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom?

Uh, I'm not sure? The first fandom I contributed to was PJO. I was there for maybe two years, and that's probably my record. I'm just over one year on haikyuu now. I'M SORRY I JUST KEEP CHANGING INTERESTS

G - Have you ever had an OTP? If so, do you remember your first one? Who was in it?

My very first OTP was probably Eadric & Emma from The Frog Princess series. It doesn't really have a fandom but god, I loved those books... OR Ash & Serena from Pokemon. They were good too.

H - What is your favorite source text for fandom stuff (e.g., TV shows, movies, books, anime, Western animation, etc.)?

I mainly watch anime at the moment and usually they have more active fandoms, so I'm happy to stay with them. With books, you can never be sure that anyone else has ever read them.

I - Has Tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?

Nope, because I am good at staying away from scary people. #slay

J - Name a fandom you didn’t think about until you saw it all over Tumblr.

Supernatural. No explanation needed.

K - What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?

From Haikyuu, it's got to be Hinata, hasn't it? And he's weirdly underrated, considering he's literally the main character.

From other fandoms, I love Yona from Yona of the Dawn. She goes from literal spoiled princess to some kind of warrior queen, PLUS she gains emotional maturity. May we all grow to be like her.

L - Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves.

You know what, guys? I do think Goshiki's cute. I do understand wanting to put him in your pocket. Personally, I don't, but I totally see it.

M - Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.

Sugawara. He's top tier friend material - chaotic, funny, caring, and would definitely feed into your delulu.

N - Name three things you wish you saw more of in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice).

My main fandom is probably haikyuu, so I wish I saw more of:

Appreciation for the writing!!!

Love for main characters. It sounds weird, but the fandom is full of people who have a pet side character who barely has any lines. This is GOOD, all character deserve appreciation, but can we get some applause for hinata??

Love for rarepairs. This sounds even stranger, considering my last point, but we need to get used to letting people ship whoever the fuck they want. As long as it's legal.

O - Choose a song at random. Which ship or character does it remind you of?

After a good old shuffle of my 94 hour playlist, I got Bad Romance by lady gaga. This is gonna come out of left field because I've never mentioned this fandom before, but it's sherliam from moriarty the patriot.

P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas).

I've mentioned this to friends before, but we totally need a TGCF hosptial au. Mu Qing is a surgeon, Feng Xin is a physiotherapist, Xie Lian is either a GP or an anesthesiologist, and Hua Cheng is some random reception guy. Mu Qing is always bullying Feng Xin for not being a 'real doctor'. Hualian are married. you see where I'm going.

Q - A fandom you’ve abandoned and why.

Harry Potter, for obvious reasons.

R - Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom?

I would die for Nobara & Itadori & Megumi. They deserved to be happy forever.

S - Show us an example of your personal headcanon

I wrote whole sections of fanfiction based off my headcanon that Megumi has flat hair like Toji, but he styles it spiky to be like Gojo. I KNOW the canon disproves it. I don't actually care.

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending? 

Nope, because I am non-confrontational and uncreative.

U - Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.

I'm going niche on this one - well, more like going into fandoms my followers probably aren't into.

Ayame Sohma, Fruits Basket. Loving brother, perfect example of how to make reparations, and also literally fabulous. And gay.

Ooharano, All Out!. Voice by Ian Sinclair, very good at his sport, hilariously sarcastic. Emotional backstory that was just never mentioned again???

Siatrich Wynknight, The Reason Why Raeliana Ended Up At The Duke's Mansion. Very funny, likes to be a bit evil for the giggles, thinks it's funny when his younger brother endangers national relations. Gay.

V - Which character do you relate to most?

GUYS I HAVE NO IDEA. I'm probably closest to Bokuto or Kageyama - and that seems odd, because they're different people, but that's how I am.'

Also Gojo. Don't tell my readers I said that.

W - A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.

Exes to Lovers, my beloathed. Hate it so much, I can't even explain why.

X - A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.

CHILDHOOD FRIENDS CHILDHOOD FRIENDS "I KNOW THE PARTS OF YOU THAT YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW YOURSELF" MY BELOVED

Y - What are your secondhand fandoms (i.e., fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)?

RWBY, ITSV, Demon Slayer.

Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go!

I guess I've always been interested in the idea of a true morally grey character, because sometimes there are characters that are described as morally grey, or even evil, when they're actually Just A Guy (*cough* Oikawa *cough*). The only character I can think of is probably Dazai from BSD. Everyone has an opinion and very few of them are correct. There is no way you can say he is a bad person, because many of his issues come from the fact that he is an orphan, raised by the mafia, and someone who took the opportunity to leave when prompted. Also, in his life after the mafia, he made a genuine effort to make good on his promises and fix his life, including saving Atsushi.

HOWEVER, you can't say he's a totally good person. He lived well in the mafia, because he didn't care about killing people and perhaps even enjoyed it, depending on how you view certain scenes. Many people would say that he's still not on anyone's side, he's only on his own side. This is debatable, but it's still there. PLUS you've got his continuation of the cycle of abuse through Akutagawa, and his willingness to pretend to betray his friends in order to get the outcome he wants. Everyone else is just a pawn to him.

I'm still undecided on him, but I'm proud of every fan that says "he's morally grey" rather than cutting it up into black and white. Remember that BSD was written for the stray dogs, not the ones who have lived happily all this time...

Thanks for the ask!