#for the love of everything read this manga

[oshinohoshi]

Kana's breakdown

I've been thinking more about Kana slapping Aqua's dead body (why am I even typing those words jfc) last chapter. Lots of folks are using this as a reason to call Kana immature, selfish, etc. which I don't agree with even though I do understand some of that thinking.

Was it disrespectful to his family? Absolutely. Imagine you're standing there mourning your dead son and his friend comes up and slaps him lol. And while it would not be OK to do this in any circumstance, in the eyes of everyone but Akane he was murdered. So while they are probably upset that he went looking for trouble by chasing after Hikaru, this is just a tragic murder in their eyes. Although to be clear, I don't condone slapping suicidal people whether dead or alive.

But grief can really screw you up. Your emotions are running high and you may not be fully in control of your actions. Everything is terrible and you just want that person to miraculously come back because you can't live with this.

Of course that doesn't trump Miyako's grief. Still, I can't imagine reading this and not having empathy for Kana. Also, even though at this point I hardly care what Akasaka's intensions are given how much I dislike this ending, it should be clear to everyone that this scene is not meant to show us that Kana is awful.

And then there's Miyako's reaction after the slap fest:

Is this the face of a woman who is angry? No. She looks shocked. She just realized how much Kana loves Aqua and how much she's hurting. If anything, this goes to show just how loved Aqua was.

If this manga wasn't in a full on sprint to the finish line with no room to breathe, I can easily imagine a scene where Miyako goes up to Kana, who is remorseful and blaming herself, and lets her know with words or actions (she really needs a hug) that she forgives her and she understands. There's just no way that Miyako would hold any kind of resentment over this.

But man this scene really is such a soap opera. It's just tragedy porn at this point. Still, it made me emotional despite feeling kinda contrived.

[osunism]

Daughter of Disgrace

"Is there any place where Heaven's bastard daughters are welcome?"

🔞 Rating: Explicit [MDNI] ❤️‍🔥 Pairing[s]: Satoru + Sundari || Nadja + Sukuna ⚠️ Warning[s]: Explicit sexual situations, graphic depictions of violence, major character death[s], as well as some toxic relationship elements. Spoilers for the manga. Sukuna is his own warning but there is cannibalism, abuse, body horror, and mild torture in this fic. So canon-typical violence. 🪧 Summary: In the aftermath of Satoru Gojo's sealing, Sundari must choose rebellion in order to free him. Lucky for them both, rebellion has always been her preferred modus operandi. 🎧 [ godslayer principle ] -- Sundari's Playlist

⚠️ Be Advised: This is the sequel to Beast of No Nation. It's recommended that you read that fic first to get the context of this one.

⛩️ AO3 𑁍 FFN 𑁍 Fic Masterlist 𑁍 Parallax OCs 𑁍 Sonder OCs 𑁍 HCs & Meta ⛩️

𓃰 Chapter 12: In Every Lifetime

"An ending, a beginning, an ending, and a beginning. And so it goes; round and round; the great Wheel ever-spinning. The harmony of death and rebirth; sin and salvation; sacred and profane; poison and cure; disgrace and redemption; curse and blessing.The universe is a series of cycles; the most perfect math there is.

Who says our story must end here, my love?"

We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes, and our ravages. But our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to fight them in ourselves and in others. —Albert Camus

     Yuji cups Sukuna’s remnants in his palm. A miasma of crimson smoke swirls above them. Two crimson eyes glare back at him, and half the remains of a mouth sneer in hatred. Yuji seems unbothered by even this last vestige of vitriol his uncle bears for him. In Sundari’s inverted domain, what they have come to understand is not divine mandate, but a Heavenly Summons, their souls are briefly connected, their memories bleeding into one another’s. For a brief instant, they are alive and dead all at once, and Sukuna sees the simplicity of Yuji’s life unfold before his mind’s eye, painful and warm and filled with all the things his own life lacked.

     He sees his daughter’s ancient origins, from her birth amidst a clan of strong warrior women, to her ascension as a deified sorceress, protector of women and children, to her sealing after the terrible curse—his curse—finally found its fangs at the throats of the innocent; the painful fracturing of everything she was, the loss of all she knew. He sees too, the life she created for herself, a new version of her, still capable of strong, and ignorant of the cursed markings that give everyone pause. He sees memories of her dying her pink hair to jet black, a cloud of curls just like her damnable, beautiful, self-sacrificing mother. But, Sukuna notes with pride, Sundari’s face is all his: pride, insolence, and confidence in unfathomable spades.

     Sundari and Yuji see Sukuna’s soul, fractured and made whole repeatedly over centuries, and the whole cursed story of him unravels itself in their minds, including Kenjaku’s scheme that led to Yuji’s conception. They see all his deeds laid bare, and they see his story with Nadja unravel: love and loss, over and over again, and his determination to find her across the centuries. They feel the terrible emptiness of his unanswered question: why did you leave me? Worst of all, they see Sukuna before he became the force of reckoning he is now. They see the coiled, frightened child with too many arms, eyes, and mouths, and too much power to be controlled. For all of his life, others have sought to control him, and Sukuna has never accepted anyone’s yoke.

     At the core, they understand the hunger in him. Ravenous and all-consuming. Insatiable.

     This is what happens when two domains do not clash…but overlap, two souls vying not for dominance, but harmony.

     Yuji and Sundari’s souls hum on a similar frequency, a sustained note across time and space, heard and felt throughout Heaven and Earth.

     “Sukuna,” Yuji’s voice sounds the way a gentle summer breeze feels, and two crimson eyes glare up at him, glittering with malice…and fear. Mortality has never pressed so closely to the King of Curses in all his days.

     “Let’s try this again,” Yuji says, and there is a compassion in his tone that cuts deeper than any slash Sukuna has thrown.

     “Let’s try living with each other, not to curse one another…”

     Sukuna feels the curse in his guts, squirming and wriggling and burning.

     “Even if no one accepts you…”

     Stop it, brat. Stop it.

     “I can live with you.”

     Sundari is poised for the kill, but Yuji’s words give her pause and she regards him curiously. Even after all her father has done, all he has sought to do, Yuji still seeks to offer him the benediction of mercy? Sundari knows she should be angry—at the very least, offended—but she cannot find it in her heart to care. She feels scraped and raw and exhausted. She wants to end this cycle, to strip away her father’s curse and free the world of the burden that is him.

     But she’s seen his memories, she’s seen what he was, and what he was forced to become.

     “Don’t you dare try and play the compassionate card now, brat,” Sukuna sneers. “I am a curse, and you’d do well not to underestimate me.”

     “You aren’t a curse, dad,” Sundari says, weariness coloring her voice, blood dripping from her nose. She doesn’t know how much longer she and Yuji can sustain this connection. “Just…you can literally try again. Maybe Yuji’s right: maybe there’s another way. Another path. Anything but more of…this.”

     Sukuna’s gaze roils towards his daughter, taking in her appearance. The markings that once limned black into her brown skin are faded, almost more like birthmarks than tattoos. No matter what boon she has won from Heaven, she will bear his markings for all her days. That is how powerful his curse is.

     You aren’t a curse.

     I’m not a curse. I am cursed.

The realization reverberates through their shared connection, and all at once he gasps.

     Sundari and Yuji are suddenly gone, as is the divine presence that had united them. He stands alone in the darkness, but the presence in the void is familiar. He’s been here before.

     “Well, well, well,” a voice drawls, drawing his gaze downward. “Didn’t expect to ever see you here, of all people.”

Gojo Estate, Kyoto, December 30, 2018

     In the aftermath, Sundari dreams. For once, she is uncertain if what she sees is memory or fabrication, but she pays attention. The visions are disjointed, always in media res as dreams are prone to being, but the recurring symbols and themes are there, and she does recognize some bits of her own memories in the patchwork film reel.

     Sundari dreams, and Megumi stands in the darkness Sukuna has left behind, overcome by the sudden silence. He is once again alone with his own thoughts.

     But everything is so fuzzy around the edges. His thoughts move with the ponderous, amorphous pace of a lava lamp’s contents, and somehow always just out of his reach. It takes him hours to figure out how to formulate his thoughts into the obvious conclusion: Unlimited Void. This is the ill effect of surviving five waves of Unlimited Void. His thoughts are disjointed and fractured, out of sync and hard to catch.

     Ironically, he understands Gojo now more than ever.

     His eyes open, and he hears himself gasp, fills his lungs with air, breathes of his own volition for the first time in weeks.

     Sukuna is really gone, but Megumi can feel something knotted in his soul; furrows, like a claw marks. The separation should have killed him, but Sundari had a barrier active to protect him from sharing Sukuna’s fate.

     Megumi hears himself panting as his thoughts come in a sudden rush, then stretch out again at that damnable pace.

     “Fushiguro!” Yuji’s voice shatters the silence, and he sits up suddenly, startled all the way back into his body. His eyes take in the sight of Yuji, clad in his uniform, posing with a box.

     Out of the box springs Nobara Kugisaki. Megumi’s eyes go wide. His mouth works but no words come. Kugisaki, sporting a black eyepatch embroidered with a hammer, nails, and rose crest, grins in triumph.

     “Sorry I missed the party!” She boasts. “I was getting some much-needed beauty sleep! I heard it was a woman who saved the day!”

     Yuji rolls his eyes. “Well, she’s my cousin…technically. Kind of.”

     “Okay…are you ever…gonna explain that?” Megumi asks, frustrated with how slow his thought-to-speech reflexes have become. He imagines Gojo is having a good laugh at his expense about this. Megumi gets annoyed at the very thought.

     “Look who finally decided to join the land of the living!” Gojo’s voice shatters the quiet, and Megumi becomes annoyed for real. But he’s also relieved to see his sensei alive and well. Gojo is grinning, sporting new scars to match Yuji’s own. Megumi touches his face, is relieved to not feel Sukuna’s features swimming under his skin like a parasite. He can feel the rugged scar tissue where Sukuna’s face had overlain his own. It will be some time before he can look in a mirror comfortably again. He catches Yuji’s gaze, and the boy’s brown eyes are soft with sympathy. If no one else understands, Yuji understands what it is like to be ridden by the curse that is—was—Sukuna.

     Over the next few hours, Gojo and Yuji piece together the entire tale of mounting his rescue, from the moment he was taken, to when Sundari freed Gojo, to the final battle. Megumi remembers Nadja’s unexpected sacrifice in more ways than the others, and he looks away at the mention of her name. He had been present for Sukuna’s reunion with her, had born witness to their…relationship. He isn’t sure if Sukuna knew he was aware or if he simply did not care. He isn’t sure how he feels about it, only that he cannot find it in himself to hate Nadja for it. Whatever else there was, love had existed between those two, twisted as it was. And in the end, she’d chosen to save the person who could stop him.

     Megumi wonders if Gojo was right about love being the most twisted curse. In the end, it had claimed Nadja and Sukuna both. He looks at Yuji again, wonders if…

     “Where is Hikmat-san?” He asks. At the mention of Sundari, Yuji and Gojo exchange glances.

     “She’s not awake yet,” Yuji says sadly. “After she dismissed her domain, she collapsed. Gojo-sensei brought her back here with you.”

     Megumi looks down at his hands. He remembers being present when Sundari came back for Nadja’s remains. He remembers feeling Sukuna’s uncertainty. His fear. He was afraid of losing everything, including his life. But seeing his own daughter vowing to kill him had broken something in him. Megumi owes her a debt he can never hope to repay, but Sukuna has taken someone he loves as well.

     “She’s going to be in recovery a while,” Gojo says in that easy way of his, as if he doesn’t doubt Sundari will be up and about in no time. “But she’ll bounce back. I know my girl.”

     “Your girl, sensei?” Nobara asks, waggling her eyebrows. Gojo spreads his hands and sticks out his tongue.

     “Yeah, and if I can convince her, she’ll be your sensei too when you bunch officially become third years.”

     Yuji and Nobara look excited, their eyes sparkling. Megumi looks somewhat suspicious. He has a feeling there’s more to it than Gojo lets on, but he withholds his suspicions if only because his mind is still fuzzy, like moss has grown over the parts of his brain that are normally so quick to connect the dots. How long will this go on for, he wonders. He supposes he should count himself lucky this is the worst of the side effects.

     He should be dead, after all.

     Megumi is strong enough to walk on his own, and he dresses while Yuji and Nobara fill the emptiness with mindless chatter and Gojo looks on with a secretive smile, his eyes blindfolded once more. For a moment, it feels like old times. Megumi looks around for a calendar or clock. His phone’s been lost since Sukuna stole his body.

     “How long has it been? Since everything happened?” Megumi asks. Gojo grins in a way that makes Megumi regret asking the question just as Nobara answers: “You missed Christmas!”

     Yuji frowns and glares at Nobara. “So did you!”

     Immediately, she and Yuji break into an argument about whether or not missing Christmas was more important than saving the world. Gojo’s grin softens into a fond smile, and whatever mischief he had planned for his own response is withheld for now.

     Megumi does not get an answer to his question either way, and sighs.

     By now, he has deduced that they are on the ancestral Gojo Estate, a place he hasn’t been to since he was a small boy still learning to harness his technique. Being trained by Gojo Satoru’s own tutors before matriculating to Jujutsu Tech had made him intimately familiar with the grounds.

     He knows where to go, following Sundari’s cursed energy to another room. His classmates trail after him, still bickering, and Gojo walks behind them at a leisurely, long-legged pace.

     It’s just like old times, it’s nothing like old times.

     Megumi resists the urge to roll his eyes because of course Gojo put Sundari up in his old bedroom. She looked so exhausted, even in her comatose state. Megumi can’t help the stab of guilt that twists in his guts. Yuji places a hand on his shoulder.

     “It’s not your fault,” he says, understanding as always. Megumi’s jaw tenses but he can’t ignore how comforting it is to have Yuji touch him again after having Sukuna put them at odds. “She’s gonna wake up soon.”

     “Yeah,” Nobara says. “She can’t miss New Year’s!”

     “What is it with you and holidays?” Yuji asks irritably. Nobara places her hands on her hips, fixing him with a stare.

     “These are important milestones, and it makes sense that the woman who saved your sorry asses would be there to celebrate with us.”

     Yuji wants to retort that none of that makes any sense and that it was a team effort that took down Sukuna, but Gojo is brushing past them because Sundari is waking up. They hear her groan tiredly—irritably—before she’s moving.

     “Fuck me,” are the first words of the woman who saved the day. Nobara suppresses a snort of laughter, Megumi’s brows go up, and Yuji’s eyes go wide. Only Gojo seems unphased by Sundari’s choice of words.

     “Morning, beautiful,” he says to her, and she squints up at him with all four of her eyes. Her pink curls are disheveled, sticking up in all directions, her skin is dry and a little sallow, and there are shadows under her eyes Megumi’s shikigami could hide in.

     Satoru has never found her more beautiful because she’s still here. Alive.

     “What fuckin’ year is it?” Sundari asks, rubbing her face with both hands and yawning. It’s only when she uncovers her face that she notices the trio of students crowding the doorway.

     “Oh,” she says. “Sorry. Uh…come on in, kids!” She glares at Satoru, who is grinning. “What the fuck, man?” She mouths and he blows a kiss in response. Sundari does her best to fix her face as Yuji and Megumi join her. She takes a look at Megumi’s face, notes the scars in the places where her father’s face once was. He’ll bear those scars for all his days. She looks down at her hands, notes the scars of innumerable slash marks, like macabre tiger stripes. Also a mark from her father.

     The tattoos are still there, black again, no longer faded. Whatever else she got from the boon she demanded, Heaven still sees fit to remind her of her origins. No matter, she will carry the scars and the ink with pride. Let the world see how Sukuna’s daughter treats with sorcerers.

     You can prove them wrong.

Sundari looks at Yuji, who smiles at her, but there’s a blush in his cheeks that wasn’t there before.

     Cousins. She wants to laugh. What the fuck was Kenjaku’s problem? Ah well, at least she can say she’s got some semblance of family left to her. Yuji isn’t so bad, after all.

     “So,” she says. “I’d like to formally apologize for my dad being such a dick. Uh…Yuji, you’re still gross for just eating his Finger like that, but sorry for everything that came after. On the plus side, I got my memories and powers back. On the other plus side, my dad’s dead! Satoru, I’m starving…is there pizza?”

     Satoru laughs despite himself. “Whatever you want, babe. I think Shoko’s going to be by later for a physical.”

     Sundari swings her legs out of the bed and stands. She feels a slight rush that makes her momentarily lightheaded, and feels Satoru’s strong grip on her arm, steadying her. She meets his gaze, and they share a smile.

     Nobara gags.

     “I cannot believe Gojo-sensei got a girlfriend before I got a boyfriend,” she grouses. Yuji glares at her.

     “How is that hard to believe? I had to watch you get your literal brains blown out!”

     Nobara grins, her remaining eye glimmering. “I know. Wasn’t it fucking cool?”

     Yuji makes a face. “It was horrifying! I thought you were dead!”

     “As if some punk ass cursed spirit could drop me! I’m the Girl of Steel!”

     The bickering begins anew, and Megumi lets out a long-suffering sigh. Sundari decides she likes Nobara immediately. Maybe she’ll consider Satoru’s not-so-subtle requests that she look into teaching.

     “Gojo-sensei,” Megumi says. “Can I talk to you alone for a minute?”

     Satoru presses a kiss to Sundari’s temple, giving her a gentle squeeze before excusing himself to the hall with Megumi. Satoru knows there’s a few things he owes to Megumi, but he’s surprised when the door shuts and Megumi immediately throws his arms around Satoru.

     It startles both of them.

     Satoru’s arms come up and he places them around Megumi with a gentle smile. Neither one of them question the moisture soaking his jacket as Megumi simply clings to him.

     “I’m sorry, Megumi,” Satoru says, and means it. “When I took you in all those years ago, this wasn’t what I envisioned for you. I should have prepared you better, but none of us could have—”

     “It’s fine,” Megumi mumbles, taking a deep, shuddering breath. It’s not fine. Not right now. It probably won’t be for some time. “I just…I thought I was going to lose everything I ever cared about. When he…”

     There’s a lot.

     Satoru pulls Megumi back to look at him.

     “Do you want to talk about it right now? Are you ready to?” He asks, none of the usual playfulness in his voice. Megumi swallows, wipes his face hastily.

     “No,” he says softly. “Not right now. It’s too…fresh. My thoughts are still jumbled. I just needed to see that you’re real is all. I thought…when Sukuna figured out how to bypass infinity…”

     Satoru’s brows go up in surprise, a piece of the puzzle clicking into place. So that was why Nadja had intervened. She knew what Sukuna was using the Ten Shadows for. Satoru frowns. Why hadn’t she warned him ahead of time? Likely she counted on Sukuna wanting to counter her in the event of her betrayal. She had been playing against him, and Satoru had just been another piece on the board. No one had counted on her sacrificing her life to save Satoru. He remembers Sukuna’s shocked expression as Nadja countered his World Cutting Slash with her Executioner Blade. He remembers it shattering in her hands and seeing Sukuna’s technique broken in two. He’ll never forget that as long as he lives.

     He wishes he could commend her. He decided he will tell Sundari where Sukuna’s half of Nadja’s ashes are kept, since her own urn was destroyed in the final battle.

     “I’m the Strongest, remember?” He assures Megumi with a grin. Megumi doesn’t look convinced, and Satoru is worried about the state of his ward’s mind. He makes a note to hold Megumi back from missions until he’s been fully evaluated. And to ask if he still wants to be a sorcerer at all given all that has happened to him.

     “Why did you take me in…all those years ago?” Megumi asks. “Was it because of my technique?”

     Satoru hesitates. He’s been bracing himself for this conversation for a long time, but he hadn’t expected to survive his encounter with Sukuna. He’d had a letter prepared in case anything happened to him! Now he has to actually tell the whole gory story.

     Damnit, Nadja.

     “Well,” Satoru says. “It was your father’s dying wish, actually.”

     Megumi’s eyes go wide. “What?”

     Satoru chuckles, rubbing the back of his head. “It’s a funny story, in retrospect. A little ironic, really. Like I didn’t even know he had a kid, and then when I saw you it was like—well of course his kid would have fucking Ten Shadows, right?”

     “Gojo! You’re rambling. What do you mean it was my father’s dying wish? You knew him?”

     Satoru sighs. “Briefly, and it wasn’t a happy acquaintance. He tried to kill me, actually. Almost succeeded too. Look, one of these days I’m gonna sit you down and tell you the whole ugly story, and then you can summon Mahoraga or something and we can have it out, if you want.”

     “You killed him, didn’t you?”

     The words are like a guillotine blade, cutting all the life out of the small space between them. Satoru blinks, takes a deep breath, and slowly reanimates on his next exhale.

     “Yeah,” he says quietly. “I did. His final words were for me to keep you from being sold to the Zenins. From my understanding your dad was a gambling man, and his final bet was on you, Megumi.”

     Megumi stares at Satoru, his expression caught in a crossroads of too many things to name. For much of his life, he assumed his father had simply sold him off and had been living a charmed life off the money these last few years. For much of his life, Gojo Satoru allowed him to believe this.

     “I tried to tell you when we met,” Satoru says, as if reading his thoughts. “But you said you didn’t care to know what your dad was up to; I can respect that, and you’ve always known your own mind. I figured if you ever changed your mind, you’d ask. I admit my delivery of the news wasn’t the best. This isn’t much better. But the bottom line is he believed in you, Megumi. It’s the one thing he and I have in common.”

     Megumi’s throat bobs in a heavy swallow, and he looks away.

     “And then I got my entire body hijacked by Sukuna, killed my sister—”

     “You didn’t kill her,” Satoru says sternly, eyes flashing like blue fire. “Sukuna killed her, and he did it deliberately to hurt you. That death is not on you.”

     “You don’t know that!” Megumi says. “How could anyone know that?”

     Satoru snorts. “Actually, there’s one guy I can say who does know that. His whole technique revolves around shit like this, actually.”

     Megumi’s brow furrows and he makes the connection in his mind.

     “Higuruma-sama? Yeah…he trapped Yuji in his domain once. Put him on trial.”

     Satoru grins. “That’s him! He agreed to work as a sorcerer without question. He’s absolutely batshit, perfect for the job. Anyway, if you ever wanna know what you’re actually guilty of, just ask him to pull you into his domain. But be careful, if you’re guilty of something really bad, he’ll be obligated to kill you.”

     “What? Why would you tell me that?”

     Satoru rolls his eyes. “Because you’re blaming yourself for shit that wasn’t your fault, Megumi. And since you won’t believe me—your gorgeous, twice-blessed sensei—when I tell you you’re good, then I guess we can see if Higuruma has to, you know…” Satoru makes a quick slicing motion across his neck. Megumi stares at him impassively.

     “Never mind,” Satoru says. “You aren’t…you’re taking this remarkably well.”

     Megumi’s gaze is distant, as if he’s looking into the past and a soft smile crosses his face.

     Hey kid…what’s your name?

     Fushiguro.

     Not Zenin? I’m so glad.

     “What?” Satoru asks. “Don’t keep me in suspense, kid.”

     Megumi blinks like a waking dreamer and meets Satoru’s gaze.

     “Nothing, just remembering something from Shibuya, is all.” he says with a secretive smile. Satoru smiles back. He knows all about nothing. Satoru’s smile fades in the next instant, however.

     “Wait, why Shibuya? Megumi, I can’t even mention Shibuya without three sorcerers cowering in a corner in tears over it. Why are you smiling about that?”

     Over the next several weeks, they piece together the massive puzzle of chaos left in the wake of Sukuna’s devastation, and Kenjaku’s schemes. Sundari learns from the memories she and Yuji shared with Sukuna that Sukuna devoured Tengen whole and absorbed her into himself. As a result, his remains must be preserved in order to maintain the barriers Tengen has been strengthening and maintaining for countless centuries.

     Sundari also knows that Tengen is partially responsible for what Sukuna became. She and Yuji discuss it in private, agreeing to only share the knowledge they’ve gleaned from Sukuna’s memories with Satoru. It means a major power imbalance in favor of the Gojo Clan, but better them than Kamo. There’s also the dilemma of Choso, who bears the Kamo clan’s hereditary technique, but being what he is, will never ever be formally recognized by the clan. Yuji and Sundari take Choso in without question. The Kamo Clan raises no fuss about it, so long as the abomination of their clan’s shame makes no claims for power. Choso himself has no interest in clan politics, preferring to remain with his younger brother, Yuji, who continues his training in the art of Blood Manipulation in earnest.

     Sundari decides she will unpack the strangeness of their family tree at a later date. That Yuji hasn’t freaked out about a single reveal is a testament to his steely nerves, but Sundari thinks it’s because Yuji prefers a more simplistic view on his life and doesn’t overthink the minutiae. Sundari, however, has a millennium of experience under her belt and still nothing has floored her quite like the revelation of her father’s side of the family. Yeah, Sundari tucks that away for later…maybe they’ll recruit a jujutsu therapist they can all talk to one day.

     Aside, there is still the matter of the higher ups being decimated. No one knows who is responsible, and yet there can be no other answer. But who will dare come forward to accuse the Honored One, who is responsible for Sukuna’s defeat and helping return balance back to jujutsu society?

     Sundari has to commend Satoru for his political cunning. He’s consolidated enough power to execute his dream bloodlessly, but that still leaves the problem of jujutsu sorcerers being short staffed year-round.

     There are still curse users out there, and a missing armory from the Zenin Estate that no doubt is finding its way to the black market for exorbitant prices. The work of a sorcerer is unending, and Sundari joins Satoru on his investigations and missions, acclimating to life as a modern-day powerhouse, feared, scorned, and respected all at once.

     So it goes, round and round.

     Time seemed to slip through their fingers like water. The work of fixing Tokyo, of chasing curses new and old, of rebuilding the parts of Tokyo ruined by Sukuna alone…it is exhausting, and it is bitter. But it must get done. Even Nanami, injured as he is, finds a way to contribute in other ways, lending his expertise to the less experienced sorcerers, ensuring they have what it takes to survive in a field as chaotic as this one.

     Little by little, jujutsu society finds a way to limp back to life.

     And Satoru finally does the one thing he has been wanting to do since before this whole mess began: he buries Suguru.

     Once, he might have seen to this task alone, but he calls Shoko, tells her his intentions, and she meets him at the chosen location without any questions asked.

     Watching Suguru’s pyre burn feels like he is burning an old version of himself. Satoru cannot quantify what this moment will mean when he looks back on it later on in his life, when the grievous wounds have finally been balmed to oily scar tissue. He just knows that the version of him that loved a version of Suguru that died long before his body, no longer exists. As Suguru’s remains burn, and he and Shoko pick the bones from the ashes and place the ashes in an urn, Satoru lets himself weep for the first time.

     Shoko watches the strongest sorcerer alive curl up and weep, and she takes him in her arms and lets him. Satoru weeps for all that he has lost, all that was denied him, and all that Suguru could never become because his Six Eyes couldn’t tell him what was wrong before it was too late. He weeps and mourns at last—at long last—and purges his heart of everything. Suguru should have been here. This dream was because of him, and he should have been here. But Satoru knows he must let that regret go too, if he wants to succeed at all, he has to let it go. And after a while, the tears run dry, and his body feels soft and pliant in Shoko’s embrace. He sees the silent trail of tears down her cheeks and knows that they both needed to be here for this.

     It feels like a chapter being closed for both of them, and an unspoken apology for their own culpability in the wounds both of them bear from it.

     But there is no more room for guilt and self-flagellation.

     Satoru gives himself three days of quiet reflection in the aftermath, running the gamut of grief in all its ugliness and beauty and catharsis, and then he returns to the searing present. He returns to the realization of his dream.

     He finds his phone, sends a text to Sundari.

   Satoru resists the urge to point out the joke about too many appendages and organs, considering Sundari’s appearance. If he intends to get any affection tonight, he must behave. He still laughs, though.

     Satoru smiles to himself at her reply. It’s sweet of her, really, to give him space to grieve. Still, funnel cake sounds good, and he misses her. With everything returning to some semblance of normalcy, Sundari returned to her apartment, which didn’t surprise him in the least that it’s in Ginza. He makes a note to tease her about it later. Apparently, Nadja left everything to Sundari in her living will should anything happen to her. Satoru finds that ironic, as well. Still, it’s left Sundari nearly as wealthy—if not wealthier—than he is.

     Satoru considers it. He likes her apartment. It’s a quaint, earthy place with a vibe that reminds him of a rainforest in the middle of the city. Sundari keeps so much green, growing stuff in her home that the very air feels different.

     Satoru can already hear Sundari’s laughter in his head.

     Satoru is glad no one is around to hear his veritable squeal of glee. He needs to tell Nanami to get a girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever he’s into. Having one is actually amazing. He wastes no time, packing a bag and taking a cab to Sundari’s mid-rise apartment building. It’s an older building in a more solid style, and far more spacious than newer buildings tend to be. Satoru can make out her balcony, crawling with pothos and wisteria. Smirking and glancing around, he teleports into the air, floating over her balcony railing. Sundari just happens to be walking by when she spots him. Satoru grins when he sees her four eyes go wide, and she lets out a startled shriek before calming down to let him in.

     “What is your fucking problem?” She demands, but there’s no heat in her tone. Satoru closes the distance between them, wrapping her in his embrace and kissing her soundly.

     Sundari forgets his unorthodox entrance in favor of the kissing. By the time Satoru pulls away, his cheeks and hers are flushed, both of them heavy-lidded and half-drunk from the contact.

     “Oh,” Sundari sighs, a drunken smile slipping onto her face before she lets out an involuntary giggle. Satoru grins. It pleases him that he can fluster her and make her soft when the rest of the world must experience her so harshly.

     “You hungry?” Sundari asks. “I can order something or cook.”

     “I came here to eat you,” Satoru says easily as he removes his shoes before entering the apartment proper. Sundari glances at him with a smirk over her shoulder. She doesn’t fluster from his declaration, not after everything they’ve been through, and she doesn’t take his desire for granted.

     “Is that why you’re here, pretty boy?” She asks in that tone that makes Satoru shiver and smile. Yes, he’s her pretty boy. He wants to be her pretty boy. Hers and hers alone.

     “Yeah,” he says and without warning, he activates his technique. Sundari yelps as she’s suddenly drawn to him by an unseen force. Satoru catches her in his arms, and then he’s kissing her again, this time leaving his marks on her jawline and neck, breathing in deeply to imprint her scent on his very soul. Sundari makes small noises of pleasure, letting out a whimper when she feels the soft, wet muscle of his tongue trace patterns on her neck, tasting the salt of her skin.

     “I missed you,” Satoru murmurs into her skin. “I’m so happy I found you.”

     Sundari doesn’t know why her eyes suddenly sting with the threat of tears, and she has to catch her breath and blink several times.

     “I missed you too, Toru,” she whispers, and then lifts his head to look at him, staring into the pieces of Heaven he calls his eyes. “And I’m happy you found me too. More than.”

     It’s simple physics after that.

     Satoru and Sundari make their way to the bedroom, stripping as they go. She loves getting him out of his teacher’s uniform at the end of the day, and Satoru loves undressing her in general. Sometimes what she wears leaves little to the imagination [which he appreciates], but tonight she’s clad in clothes for lounging: a pair of pajama shorts and a tank top that has clearly seen too many wash cycles. Satoru helps her out of all of it, until she’s bare and laying back against the pillows on her bed, looking like some goddess out of a myth.

     As far as Satoru’s concerned, she might as well be. His goddess, at any rate. And he will pray to her in a way that only he can.

     For a moment, they take one another in, blissfully naked. There’s no skylight above Sundari’s bed, but there is a lantern that throws mandala patterns against the walls, dancing through the leaves of her massive monstera that crawls across her ceiling, making everything look wild and erotic and dreamlike. Satoru reaches out, traces the cursed markings on her body: the concentric rings on her strong shoulders; the black bands on her arms, wrists, thighs, and ankles; the ones on her face; the ones on her chest, following the swell of her high and proud breasts. He grins when she gasps as his thumb and forefinger capture and roll a nipple between them. He watches her legs part a little, eager. His eyes drift down, catch the sight of the mandala pattern illuminating the slick on her inner thighs, dripping from her cunt.

     His eyes travel back up to her face, framed by blush-pink curls. Four ruby eyes gaze back, guileless and expectant.

     “You are so fucking beautiful, Sundari,” Satoru whispers reverently. “I could look at you forever.”

     Sundari’s cheeks bloom with heat and she bites her lip, suddenly feeling bashful. She knows she is beautiful, but it makes her stomach go into freefall whenever Satoru tells her. Her heart flutters in her chest.

     “You’re beautiful too,” she whispers, holding out a hand and beckoning him closer. Satoru goes to her, crawling between her spread legs, his cock hard and heavy between his thighs. Sundari’s hand lowers, her fingers wrapping around it and making Satoru hiss in surprise and then pleasure as she swipes her thumb over the head, smearing the droplets of his seed forming at the tip.

     “My pretty boy,” she whispers, her voice husky with desire. Satoru leans in, makes a whining sound as she squeezes his cock and nips his glossy, pink lips. “Mine.”

     “Yours,” Satoru says in a rush of breath as she strokes his cock with the tender firmness of one who knows he’s hers. It’s true, and his fingers curl into the sheets as he fights the pressure building in the base of his spine.

     “Sundari…” Her name comes out as a strained and hoarse gasp. Sundari smiles at him knowingly, and he sees the tender cruelty in it.

     “Yes, baby?” She asks, slowing her stroking. Satoru’s hips thrust involuntarily, seeking more of it. He wants to be inside of her—needs it, actually. He wants to envelop himself in the tight, wet confines of her cunt and never leave. He wants to fuck her until she dissolves like spun sugar in his mouth.

     “Oh?” Sundari’s smile becomes a grin. “Is that what you want, pretty boy?”

     Fuck. Had he said all that shit out loud?

     Satoru is silent for a moment, his cock hard as stone in her hand. He’s not the strongest sorcerer for nothing.

     “Yeah,” he says, his tone suddenly harder than before. “I do.”

     The equation between them shifts as Sundari’s eyes light up in excitement and Satoru pounces on her before she can react to the shift in the air between them. They struggle for dominance, of course, mindful of their strength for the sake of the bed itself rather than one another. Satoru still thinks fondly of the crater left by their coupling in his yard.

     This is different, though. There is no adrenaline from battle to fuel them: only the need and want for one another.

     And love too.

     Satoru is so sure this is love because he has tried being without her and he can’t.

     Don’t leave me baby, I just found you.

Eventually, Satoru pins Sundari, grasping her legs to place over his shoulders. He pushes her legs back, exposing her cunt, which opens like a beautiful flower, petals glistening and dripping with dew for his mouth.

     Satoru grins, his eyes glowing in the dim light, and spits directly into her pussy.

     Sundari moans and writhes in response at the obscenity of it all, and then Satoru leans down and meets her dripping cunt in an open-mouthed kiss. He does as he said he would: he eats her. Satoru’s jaw will ache, his tongue will ache, but Sundari will be thoroughly and unerringly sated. He makes sure of it.

     His lips wrap around her clit, sucking hard, moaning as if she is the best meal he’s had in ages. Sundari reaches for him, legs spread, and his hands find hers, linking their fingers while he gets lost in the slippery, wet heat of her, eyes closed in private bliss.

     “Ngh…Satoru…” She moans and he makes an inquisitive sound, looking up at her through heavy-lidded cerulean eyes, glowing brighter than a galaxy’s heart. Sundari keeps moaning his name, dragging out the vowels and hissing out the consonants as he works her clit until tears spring to her eyes and she’s panting and flushed and quivering with the desperate need for release.

     He pulls away just before she can come, and she lets out a frustrated sound.

     “No,” he says, his voice hoarse; chin, cheeks, and lips glistening with her juices. “No, baby. I want you to come on my cock. I want to feel this pretty pussy squeezing me when you lose your mind.”

     Sundari, so desperate to climax, nods and agrees. Satoru leans up, sitting back on his heels and dragging her by the hips into his lap, keeping her comfortably laying on the bed. His cock seems eager too, straining and hot against her went cunt. Satoru bites his lip before reaching down to grasp his cock in one fist, stroking himself before pushing the head inside of her. Just the tip.

     “Satoru!” Sundari hisses, and her eyes flash dangerously even as he rewards her with a smug smirk, teasing her by sliding the head of his cock up and down her slit.

     “Yeah?” He breathes. “Just testing the waters, baby, don’t worry.”

     And then he slips inside of her, relishing the guttural moan that spirals up from her as he sinks down to the hilt inside of her. For a moment he holds her hips, and it very still. He looks down at where they’re joined, the soft white hairs of his pubes rubbing against her clit and making her shiver. He bites his lip again when he feels her walls constrict around him. He’d almost forgotten about her conscious muscle control. But he’s ready, this time.

     “Mmm,” Satoru groans, tightening his grip on her thighs. “Ask nicely, Sundari.”

     Four crimson eyes narrow at him, and he rewards her with a blade-ready smirk, eyes flashing like stars in the dusky twilight of her bedroom.

     “You come into my home to make me beg?” She demands, moaning in frustration and indignation and pleasure alike as Satoru moves his hips just so, giving her just enough friction to make her pulse leap in her veins, but stopping just short of satisfaction. He can do this all damn night. He can do this until the world crumbles to dust.

     “No,” Satoru says. “I came into your home to make you come, but I want you to ask me, Sundari. I want you to ask me to make you come.”

     Sundari glares up at him and Satoru can’t help it: he laughs. She looks so much like Sukuna, down to the way her nose wrinkles to show her displeasure. Sundari bares her fangs.

     “Something funny, Six Eyes?” She growls, and Satoru feels her strength returning, legs pushing against his grip as her ankles lock behind his back. He’s still buried nine inches inside of her, but the way she’s focused you wouldn’t know it. Satoru reaches down, makes her watch as he swipes a thumb against her swollen clit.

     Sundari lets out a choked sound, her control momentarily slipping. Satoru teases her clit with light, tight circles, and her eyelids flutter. The lower ones even close.

     “That’s it,” Satoru purrs, watching her as he feels her pussy grow wetter around him with each stroke against her clit. He contemplates making her come without having to move his hips, but he craves movement as much as she does. It’s a contest of wills at this point, and unlike battles involving jujutsu, the flesh is far less durable during sex. He can only stem the tide of his own climax for so long.

     “S-Satoru…” Sundari’s voice comes out as a stammering whimper, and she pulls with her crossed legs, trying to force him to start moving. He sits there, stroking her clit idly, and there’s an almost cold wintery expression on his face, as if he’s the god and she’s the supplicant.

     The Honored One grins as his goddess opens her mouth and begins to beg him.

     The words come first as a stammering trickle, then a sultry, moaning torrent. She begs him and as she does, he increases the pace of his stroking thumb, spreading her slick over her clit, noting with pleasure when he sees his cock glistening with her fluids in the soft, golden light.

     “Come for me,” he murmurs and Sundari does. Satoru hisses as her walls flutter around him, and he holds her steady, stroking her clit through the orgasm that has her writhing and calling his name. It’s only when she’s about to settle down that Satoru gives in and begins to move his hips. He has been nice enough, and his goddess is strong. He fucks her.

     Sundari’s hands claw for purchase, one fisted in the sheets, the other going to her headboard to grip it tightly or risk getting her head knocked through the wall. Satoru doesn’t give her time to adjust because he’s indulged her pleasure. It’s his turn to chase that glittering edge, and he wants her to take it. God, she has done so much in the short time since her unsealing, he just needs her to take his cock right now.

     For a long stretch of time there is only the sound of Sundari’s short staccato gasps, Satoru’s labored groans, and the heavy, wet sound of skin meeting skin as Satoru attempts to nail her to the mattress. Sundari can’t think straight, and she knows that’s exactly how he likes it, gripping her hips and lifting her halfway off the bed to pull her along his cock. She throws her head back, screaming his name, begging him not to stop, begging him to come inside of her.

     Satoru plans to grant all of these requests in due time, but right now he wants her in every way he can have her. He stops his rhythm to pull her up. Without needing to be told, Sundari tangles her limbs around him: four arms pull him close and together they situate themselves into the Lotus position, face to face, heart to heart, body to body.

     “Hey you,” Satoru murmurs, nipping her lower lip with a smile. Sundari meets his gaze with heavy-lidded eyes, the concentric circles within them swirling. The curse she carries is gone, but the brand of her lineage remains. She is terrifying and beautiful and wild and he lovesherlovesherlovesher.

     “Hey you,” she replies, her voice sultry and husky.

     This time, they move as one, surging with one another’s breaths, cresting and falling into the troughs of one another’s respective rhythm, and finding harmony. Somehow the pleasure is insurmountable this way, and both of them become exceedingly aware that this is different.

     “Satoru…” Sundari breathes, and she can’t seem to fill her lungs fast enough as she clings tightly to him, nails scraping his back as she moves. “Satoru…I…”

     “I know, baby, I know,” Satoru murmurs, kissing her tenderly, open-mouthed and saturated, wanting to share her very breath in this moment. “I feel it too.”

     That bright and terrible presence from her domain inversion is watching them. The universe itself is sanctioning this union, and by doing so, redressing an imbalance for which their stars were written.

     The pleasure is beyond flesh, now. Sundari moves her body without thought and Satoru maps the contours of her back with his hands, sliding them up and up against her. He chants her name, kissing her temple, her cheeks, her neck, and taking her earlobe between his teeth just to feel her shiver in delight.

     In this space there are no demands made of the other, no commands, and no roles. There’s only the frequency of pleasure they have found, reverberating through both their souls like some primordial note sung long ago, and sustained through every cosmic union so heavily soaked in fate and destiny.

     When Satoru comes, he realizes that this is exactly how he felt when he was on the edge of death twelve years prior. And Sundari tumbles after him, clinging to him tightly as their thoughts and their very souls seem to touch like two exposed wires, sending sparks to spangling in their blood.

     The bright presence recedes like an ancient wave, and as they return to the skin and bone of their bodies, sweat-slick and panting, they realize that the only presence in the room now is their own.

     “Holy shit…” Satoru breathes, burying his face in Sundari’s neck. “That was…I think that’s the best sex I’ve ever had in my fucking life.”

     Sundari smirks, turning her head to nuzzle him with an almost feral purr.

     “Yeah,” Sundari agrees, her voice quiet and mystified. “Same. Do you think…what did it mean?”

     Satoru raises his head, his eyes swirling with a steady rotation of what Sundari swears are clouds this close. She blinks before the side-effects can start setting in: dizziness, vertigo, and dissociation. Satoru explained it like microdosing Unlimited Void.

     “I have a theory, but let’s talk about it in the morning. Tonight is for fucking.”

     Sundari’s laughter rings in the air like temple bells.

     Winter gives way to the tentative thaw of early spring. Most of the curses have been cleaned up, and Tokyo is almost back to her old self: hustling, bustling, busy, busy, busy. The rhythm of the city returns, and sorcerers resume their work of managing the cursed energy of an entire people. There are changes, however.

     The pay is better, for one. Satoru consulted with Mei Mei for that particular bit, and called a meeting of the clan heads, large and small, as well as elders in the community, and representatives of independent factions in order to oversee the drawing up of a new charter. It took several months, and there was dissent, but the basis of the new charter was laid, and Satoru sees part of his dream brought into reality. Just like infinity.

     Satoru’s snide remarks to Gakuganji the previous summer turned out to not be in jest or even in spite: his birth did herald a shift in the jujutsu world, and the biggest change is the number of sorcerers being born and those recently awakened to their abilities. Satoru helps delegate the task of assessing these new sorcerers and offering them a chance to study at Jujutsu Tech. He has been consulting with his colleagues and they came to the agreement that they can no longer feasibly pull only from high school aged students, especially since Kenjaku’s awakened sorcerers need guidance.

     Thus, Jujutsu Tech becomes open to all sorcerers for study, regardless of background or nationality. Satoru knows the biggest blind spot they had with regards to Kenjaku’s scheme was their obsession with secrecy, even from one another. He vows not to make such a mistake again.

     The changes are met with varying degrees of excitement and disdain. The students currently enrolled are thrilled to welcome more classmates, and sorcerers working for Jujutsu Headquarters begrudgingly welcome the extra hands.

     Despite all this, it is Sundari’s presence that polarizes jujutsu society. Sundari herself has known that it would be this way, but when she receives the first, crisp press of her new Jujutsu Tech instructor uniform, she knows that Satoru has fought a hard battle to approve her for training.

     The uniform itself is splendid: all black, of course, a tailor-cut jacket, with the gold swirl buttons representing Jujutsu Tech, a black mock-neck sleeveless top, and a black form-fitting mid-length skirt, slit up both sides for ease of movement. Her choice of footwear is a pair of black, platform boots. Sundari notes that the jacket itself has the trishula symbol embroidered in red on the back, to match the marking that adorn her and Sukuna’s brow. She smirks, knowing that it was Satoru who likely had a hand in that particular design choice.

     These don’t have to be a curse.

Sundari observes herself in the mirror with a hint of pride. Her pink curls are styled into two puffs atop her head, and she blinks all four of her eyes and for a moment she thinks she sees her father’s reflection instead of her own. She traces her face markings, and then smiles.

     “Well dad,” she murmurs to herself. “Here’s to a better way.”

Sugisawa Municipal High School, Sendai City, April 4, 2019

     The sun is shining when the car winds through the hills toward Yuji’s former high school. Ijichi is silent but occasionally glances at Yuji and Sundari, who sit in the back seat, each peering out their respective windows. The radio is turned to a news station, and they listen with half an ear as reports of Tokyo’s continued recovery from the Culling Games. Of all the barriers that had trapped players inside, Sendai’s region had been the most violent, and the scars of that war—invisible to non-sorcerers—are clear as day as they pull up to the high school.

     “Are you sure about this?” Ijichi asks as they step out of the car. Yuji and Sundari share a look, and Yuji nods.

     “It’ll be fine, Ijichi-san,” Yuji says brightly with his characteristic grin. The scars of Sukuna’s domain are faded, leaving only the slash he received from Mahito, and the scar at the corner of his mouth. Sundari’s own scars from Malevolent Shrine are faint, looking more like tiger stripes than anything else, and nothing can compete with the stark black lines of cursed ink.

     “Alright, I’ll defer to your judgement, Itadori-kun, Hikmat-san,” Ijichi executes a perfunctory and crisp bow. “I’ll be here when you’re ready to go.”

     Yuji and Sundari head toward the school. Since the Culling Games Sendai has been quieter, mostly because the residents are still frightened of the curses that sprung up over the winter like mold. Sundari’s cursed presence alone is enough to send any lesser curses scattering. They are like shy animals, crowding up against the borders of humanity, eager to taste the very people who feed their existence.

     They cross onto the football field and Sundari’s brows furrow.

     “Is there a dead body buried out here or something?” She asks. Yuji glances at her, eyes wide.

     “Wait, so the rumors were true?!” He asks back. Sundari blinks several times, staring at him. She decides not to press the matter further as Yuji leads her to the Stevenson screen further outside of the football field’s endzone. Yuji fishes an ornate, silk-wrapped box from his pocket. The inside is lined with red silk, and sitting there is a mummified finger belonging to Sundari’s father…and Yuji’s uncle.

     “And we’re sure this is the last one?” Sundari asks. Yuji gives her a knowing look.

     “Yeah!” He says. “Since he can’t come back through the Fingers anymore, the energy can ward off evil. A good talisman, don’t you think?”

     Sundari looks down at the box, and it’s not lost on her that both her parents have been reduced to such small talismans. Her mother’s ashes sit on her dresser, and her father’s remaining Finger will now ward off evil. She makes a mental note to come back and see about purifying the energy of this place because she is pretty sure there’s a dead body buried around here.

     Yuji places the box within the screen and shuts the door. Both he and Sundari press their palms together in prayer. For a moment the air is charged with the scent of burnt ozone or burnt sugar. Their cursed energy blooms like a lotus in tandem, the power of their jujutsu sealing the deal, as it were.

     When it is done, the air seems to return to normal, and the sun shines a little brighter. Sundari feels as if her heart is lighter, and there’s a warm feeling in her chest. She bites her lip as tears prick her vision. She never thought she’d feel a modicum of anything for her father. He’d been nothing short of horrible to her in the brief time she knew him.

     And yet…

     He’d loved her mother once. Loved her enough to beg for Sundari’s existence. Loved her enough to stay his hand from killing her. Loved her enough to call Sundari’s existence a miracle.

     Maybe he’d loved Sundari a little bit too.

     “Hey,” Yuji says, glancing at her. “You okay?”

     Sundari blinks away the tears and nods.

     “Yeah…just…taking in the moment. Thanks for doing this, Yuji. It was a brilliant suggestion.” She smiles at him, and he beams with pride, and for a moment he doesn’t look like a war-scarred sorcerer. Just a boy of sixteen with a strange family tree and a new lease on life. Sundari turns away from the Stevenson screen, away from the last vestige of her father.

     “Let’s go,” she says. “I promised Satoru I’d grab some kikufuku for him on our way back. And I’ve apparently got more teacher training.”

     Yuji and Sundari walk back across the football field, back toward Ijichi and the car, chatting about what kind of kikufuku to get, and Yuji offers to show Sundari around Sendai, claiming he’d already given Sukuna a tour, but he wasn’t as excited about it. Their voices fade across the field as the sun crawls across the sky, its light shifting the shadows in the trees.

Unnamed Shore, Unnamed Time

     “Well, well. What’s this, our second conversation?”

     Sukuna stares down at the cursed spirit, who leers up at him with that oil-slick grin and mismatched eyes.

     “Something like that,” Mahito says, recalling that none of the so-called “conversations” had been pleasant ones. He stands to his full height, but even that is nothing compared to the overwhelming height of the King of Curses. “My ability has to do with reshaping the soul, so I guess it makes sense that I wound up in this place.” But something about Sukuna is different…

     “Hey,” he says. Fuck it, there’s not much the King of Curses can do to him in this place. Sukuna raises his brow in response. “Something I meant to ask you. You were lying before, weren’t you? About living according to your nature. You weren’t acting in accordance with your nature at all, were you? You were taking vengeance for what was done to you.”

     Sukuna stares at the cursed spirit and for a moment Mahito thinks he’s fucked up again.

     Instead, Sukuna lets out a laugh that sounds almost amused and self-assured.

     “What difference does it make?” He asks. “I lived how I knew how to go on. I…” He thinks, shuts his eyes a moment, remembering. “Well, not entirely true. I was afraid my own curse would burn me up, so I could only spit out the curses writhing in my guts. I had two paths open to me, and I chose.”

     He doesn’t need to look to feel the familiar chill of Uraume by his side. They are quiet, eyes downcast, but Sukuna can see the tears glimmering on their cheeks. He places an arm around them, giving their slight shoulders an affectionate squeeze. The shiver that runs through them is one of relief and despair. Sukuna looks away from them, his eyes searching.

     “Looking for her?” Mahito asks, his tone taunting. Sukuna’s crimson gaze cuts to the cursed spirit sharply for a moment, questioning without a word. Mahito wonders how far he can press his luck before Sukuna makes good to kill him once and for all.

     “She passed through here not too long ago, we chatted for a bit,” Mahito places a finger on his lips. “Unfortunately, I don’t think her bosses took kindly to her loitering. She’s mortal now, after all. Can’t be caught holding up the cycle!”

     Sukuna’s expression hardens, and the wheels of his mind turn quickly. Where was she, then? If she passed through this place, then her soul must already be on its way to rebirth.

     Two choices.

     In every lifetime, I will probably love you.

     Sukuna shuts his eyes.

     “I see,” he says quietly. “Then if there is a next time, I think it would be nice to walk a different path.”

     “Do you think you’ll find her?” Mahito asks, grinning his malicious grin. Sukuna does not spare the curse a second glance as he takes Uraume’s hand and begins to walk, toward the darkness, toward the light.

     “You’ve gone soft, old bastard!” Mahito grouses. “Chasing after love! Blegh!”

     Sukuna laughs. “Of course I have,” he says. “I lost, after all.”

     Uraume looks up at Sukuna, a rare breach of their unspoken decorum, a question writ in their lilac gaze.

     “We’ll find her,” Sukuna says. “No matter how many times the Wheel spins, she was made for me. We’ll find her.”

Fin. Masterpost 𑁍 Previous Chapter

Author's Final Note: So, here we are at the end of a journey. I don't know if anyone is out there, silently reading my words and bobbing their head to the playlists, but to everyone putting eyes on this story and ears on the soundtrack: thank you! And to the folks who have been commenting on the chapters, or sharing my stories in the fandom: thank you! What initially began as a thought experiment of "what if Sukuna had a daughter with an immortal" became so much more, and I'd like to thank Gege Akutami for giving us Jujutsu Kaisen. I really haven't been this inspired to write for fandom for almost a decade, and I decided to check out this manga/anime and I've been obsessed ever since. It makes me so happy to write stories in such a fascinating world with such intriguing and fun characters.

Even though the manga is over, I'm holding out for an amazing anime adaptation going forward, and JJK is honestly a classic for me that I know I'll love revisiting it for years to come. I have other fanfic for JJK for those of you who are down to hangout at the Parallax Afterparty where I'll be posting stray stories, scenes that didn't leave the cutting room floor, character studies, and other cool lore that doesn't fit into the fics! Or, if you're really fucking with my galaxy-brain OC x Canon agenda, head on over to Lost Worlds & Endless Nights for the Parallax AUs. Or if you want different leads in other universes, head over to my series Sonder! I don't intend to leave the fandom, so for any holdouts: come get ya fanfic, here, hot off the presses! I'll be churning out these puppies for at least another six months to a year.

Again: thanks for reading. Talk to me in the comments or come holler at me on my other socials [if you got 'em] if you've got questions or wanna yell or whatever.

𑁍𑁍𑁍𑁍𑁍 Muse 𑁍𑁍𑁍𑁍𑁍

© 2024 Hajara Asiri. Do NOT copy, translate, plagiarize, repost anywhere without permission [reblogging posts is okay]. This includes copying my masterlist format or feeding ANY of my writing to the uninspired AI garbage machines. I only upload on Tumblr, AO3, and FFN. Title and footer banners by me. Dividers and support by @cafekitsune.

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[ao3feed-nanago]

on the intimacy of knowing someone's coffee order

by moonlightsonata (mintedcaffeine) “Are you having an espresso?” He asks Kento. And despite everything, he huffs in annoyance at the prospect of small talk, not having planned to engage anyone in conversation, and appalled that he cannot follow through with his usual reading session. “An americano, actually.” “Yuck,” Gojo says. “That’s so bitter already, but it being watered down is what kills me.”   (Or; Kento changes his usual routine, and gets tangled up in someone else's.) Words: 7709, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Fandoms: 呪術廻戦 | Jujutsu Kaisen (Anime), 呪術廻戦 | Jujutsu Kaisen (Manga) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Categories: M/M Characters: Gojo Satoru, Nanami Kento Relationships: Gojo Satoru/Nanami Kento Additional Tags: Love at First Sight, Bakery and Coffee Shop, Food as a Metaphor for Love, POV Nanami Kento, Soft Nanami Kento, Fluff, Attempt at Humor, Gojo Satoru is a Little Shit, Blind Gojo Satoru, Nanami Kento is So Done, Gojo Satoru Being an Idiot, First Dates, Accidental Relationship, Meet-Cute, Domestic via https://ift.tt/nlW5A62

[grassbreads]

I feel hysterical

[hinamie]

"I'll show you every day that choosing to live was worth it"

some of my favourite scenes from @hijinks-n-lowjinks' fic things i would miss from the other side . this fic tore my heart out fr but like in a good way and i wanted to pay it homage the only way i know how <3

[fumifooms]

Falin who cares too much and too little - analysis

Been stewing on Falin thoughts for a while, I know I have an interpetation on her that differs from many but I’m jumping into the fray. I think there’s a lot to be said about what we do see of Falin. This shorter Falin analysis I made is heavily encouraged prior reading. This analysis mainly explores her complex relationship with caring and so it’s sort of structured in two halves, with Faligon at the crux of it all.

Falin cares too little :

A lot of people assign Falin a people pleasing mindset and I… Don’t agree. We never see her care at all about people in her town or at the academy not liking her.

We do see her worrying about what people think of her… ONCE. And Laios comforted her, told her they didn’t matter and she should be proud of herself. She latched onto that hard. That’s why this scene was so important to be included during the dragon fight, relationship-defining; it’s always been them against the world. She grew to not care what others thought, to only focus on her close loved ones. No one else matters.

Laios’ words were her world. Her older brother who taught her how to feel comfortable with herself, who told her, you’re great, others are the ones in the wrong to not see that, I’ll always be with you, always be there for you. Older brother who always made great plans, who always knew more, who was better at wrestling to name the dogs, who she has always idolized. Laios who always spoke of traveling the world, to which she always said she wanted to follow. And she would, she’d follow him even if it meant leaving the academy and all she knew behind, she’d follow him to the ends of the world, and that’s what she did.

She didn’t care about showing to her classes or keeping up such appearances, she doesn’t even think of toning down her jumping into bushes when Marcille recoils, etc. She acts like an obedient pawn often, to her parent’s directives and then following Laios around no matter what he decides to do, but I don’t think the motivation is people pleasing, rather it’s being with & caring for her loved ones, and her go-with-the-flow attitude enhances the impression. Not that it’s as simple as that, mind you, but let’s talk about this for now.

Falin is perceived as selfless because we, the audience, have our perspectives revolving around the main people in her life (Laios, Marcille). They’re the ones she’s devoted to and people who care about her back a lot too, but to people like her classmates or the towspeople she probably must have seemed like someone who didn’t care about the people around her or her surroundings a lot, who just went on alone and did her own thing.

What matters to Falin? From what place does her kindness come from? Is a part of her keeping up appearances? And I think that’s the point, the horror of Faligon as well, that we can’t tell just how in control Falin the person is as the chimera (because we are shown that she’s in there, we just don’t know at what degree), that we don’t know her enough to be able to tell when she’s at her most genuine, her most raw. That even if you do settle on none of her being present as Faligon, we have to at least consider it, consider that she may be able to do something like this and have a part in it, brutal and uncaring. That even the lenses we see her through, the people who love her, may be unreliable.

And this is what’s very interesting about her too, she truly is so idealized by people around her as a saint. She’s so good and kind and caring to everyone etc etc etc. Laios, Toshiro and Marcille all see her as the paragon of goodness in the world. More cynical characters like Namari and Chilchuck have more layered opinions on her, the latter finding her somewhat unnerving because he can’t read her well. But then with that one flashback scene we see that… Her priorities are intensely focused on Laios and Marcille, she doesn’t care all that deeply about anyone other than them (+ maybe her parents). The rest of the party is in the same danger here but only Laios and Marcille who she’s speaking to get the special ,ention, and if they don’t cross her mind then of course she’d be ready to sacrifice strangers through a risky teleportation. That doesn’t make her not kind or caring!! Just that greater good isn’t exactly her priority. Any means is alright if the end result is her loved ones safe, it usually takes the form of healing and caring, but we see she’s ready to fight and make dangerous calls too. To me there’s this aspect to her that she isn’t as pure and magnanimous as everyone thinks she is, both in-world and interestingly enough meta wise as well, and there’s something interesting to that.

People pleasing implies a need to be liked, needs for the motivation to be that. A yes-man, etc. But if we analyze Falin, her general kind, smiling demeanor is more a matter of passivity I yhonk. Conflict avoidance is easier, so she’s friendly and hopefully things’ll be smooth sailing. It’s easy to be kind to classmates even if they act wary and rude if you don’t care about what they think either way. Of course she prefers good things happening to people over bad things, she is genuinely kind, but I think people tend to assign her a very grand altruistic way of life when to her the motivation is pretty self-centered. She doesn’t do what she does because she loves them, but because she loves them.

One situation that’s interesting to dig into for her way of thinking, and what I’m trying to get at, is Shuro’s proposal to her. I’ve seen people saying she hesitated because she didn’t feel comfortable saying no even though she wanted to, "I can’t say no, I don’t want to hurt him", something that sounds sensible and familiar, but it’s actually canon in the Adventurer’s Bible that the reverse was the case, that she didn’t feel comfortable saying yes. Because the offer was tempting, but it’d have been a loveless agreement on her end. And it makes sense she’d want to say yes too, like we see with the Toudens, marriage is very much a political strategical economical thing in their village, there’s even a bit on it on Laios’ Adventurer’s Bible profile about dowries, and both siblings were engaged very early. They lived poorly for a long time, it’s an enticing idea to marry rich, to have not only yours but your brother’s needs met forevermore easily, which at one point in their careers was their main worry and goal. Why shouldn’t she accept a life of leisure and wealth handed to her by a lovely friend?

So her hesitance was "yeah that’s convenient for me, but where it’s everything to him and heartfelt I’m able to be detached because I don’t care about it that much… Can I do that? I’m not reciprocating, not saying yes in the way that matters. Can I do that to him?" Very caring even though it’s not what you’d expect, isn’t it?

And central to my analysis, where I’m going with this is, I feel like that’s the thing with her character, that she doesn’t feel as strongly as she "should" sometimes, or feels a different way than she "should", or at least that she feels that way and others say she does. She didn’t mind suddenly leaving the academy, leaving Marcille behind and not seeing her for 4 years. She acted like it was no big deal that she sacrificed herself after getting resurrected after the red dragon fight. And in both those cases it upset the people around her greatly that she didn’t seem to get why it was such a big deal, didn’t seem to care about how they’d experienced her choices.

So it’s a tendency… And it’s not that she doesn’t care, it’s just that the way she measures what’s good for the ones she loves isn’t the same as what they themselves think it is (like Laios and Marcille not wanting to be apart from her). It’s an overt but quiet kind of care, it’s doing things like following them around and making sure they bathe and have a meal, even if that means she has to be dragged into misery too.

So yes she probably would know "not caring enough/the right way" is one of her perceived flaws, and that informs how she tries to handle her response to Shuro’s proposal. Her not wanting to accept like her first gut instinct, is because she’s thinking about reciprocity, about if it’d be right to go into this knowing that they have different priorities and she might not be able to keep up with the type and amount of emotions he wants/expects from her. And that’s a big part of her character isn’t it, having expectations pushed onto her. Her trying her best, but in her own way that may seem odd or even unfeeling. Not unlike when she exorcised the ghost as a kid too, unblinking and matter-of-factly, and not seeming to understand why people stared the way they did.

Even though she answered his proposal only post-canon, she’d been pondering it for a while even pre-canon and the Adventurer’s Bible explanation was released midstory, so I’m hesitant to assign her much growth about her hesitation and what I went on above, since she still didn’t react "right" with Laios after the red dragon fight (even if she apparently doesn’t remember sacrificing herself) and put herself in that situation in the first place. She hasn’t finished her arc on that flaw of hers is what I’m saying, she for sure still has it, but I certainly think her thoughts on Shuro’s proposal shows awareness, both of herself and social.

And awareness is a big analysis key word with Falin, especially here it can be hard not to conflate not caring with not knowing. How socially aware is she? It’s rather layered, because canonically she wasn’t aware of her ostracization in her hometown at all, and we’re not sure if she knew Shuro was interested in her before he proposed, but she generally seems more socially aware than Laios. She tags along on his caravan job to make sure he isn’t being mistreated (though doesn’t ask he get a salary), she catches social faux-pas more easily like in the genderbend magic mirror omake with Shuro, and interestingly enough she’s very good at empathizing with her parents and understanding their perspective. We see when she’s worried about Marcille coming that she does know about propriety and how appearances shape impressions. Being a chief’s daughter must at least have taught her a thing or two on that front.

She never stands up for herself, but when it comes to defending others she worries, strategizes and explains.

And this sort of understanding is part of why I think she’d notice the expectations pushed onto her like I was saying earlier, notice how she makes people feel when she’s careless. But if she changes anything about herself in response to noticing is for her to choose, and generally I think it’s a sort of inbetween of yes and no: that she becomes more complacent but also more reserved, complying but by hiding more of herself passively. She’s not sure wether to accept or reject Shuro’s proposal, doesn’t want to lead him on? She’ll just be taking a while to silently consider it, try to keep things as they are for the time being. The third, less conflicting option. She doesn’t feel heard by Marcille who keeps infantilizing her? Just bear with it. Retract yourself emotionally. Settle for it.

We see that when she was young she had a tendency to not read a room, and I think that’s here too. She doesn’t get why her nonchalance upset others but that doesn’t change that she doesn’t want them upset or hurt, so she tries, albeit in maybe a roundabout way. She always had a hard time deeply connecting with people, often keeping herself some amount of emotionally distant: erasing herself from the equation, from the two-way trade that relationships are and making it a onesided thing instead, where all their needs and emotions are directed towards her but she only lets out a bit of her own show. She takes everything upon her and deals with it and tries not to give others this same burden, though not on a conscious level, it’s just that she’s learned growing up that she doesn’t have much agency.

Like I went into with my analysis linked at the beginning, I think Falin is used to just taking what she can get and not asking for more, when it comes to social bonds. She’ll take spending time with her mother no matter what it is they do, she’ll follow Laios to the graveyards and stick by him even when he’s pushing her away (because he doesn’t want her borrowing his book or "No copying!" or such). Her father was always distant, cold and uncommunicative, her mother was considered sick from anxiety and the exorcism attempts were the main way they spent time together, at dinner tables there were only her and Laios. The dogs picked on her too even if she loved them— And so did the townspeople, maybe that being normal to her at home is why she didn’t notice the ostracization she suffered.

She’s always been the last to be asked about decisions or what she wants, never asked to play with at recess, neither her father or Laios asked before sending her to the academy or leaving the village. At home, in the hierarchy she was considered to be below the dogs by the dogs themselves, as someone they can disrespect. Dogs learn from example and behavior, so this means Falin must have been pushed around a lot, and that the family didn’t try hard to rectify the dogs’ misconception, likely worsened by Laios regularly wrestling with her as a competition.

So for example when Falin showed Marcille food, it was her way to implicitly ask to have lunch with her without voicing that question, without daring to take up space. Someone’s presence isn’t something you ask for, it’s something that’s bestowed upon you, you can follow them around but you can’t ask them to stay or to come with.

She’s used to her needs and wants not being listened to, so she’s learned to have less wants. Caring less about herself, caring less about other people beyond her safe zone, was a defense mechanism in part. She has a sense of learned helplessness too, like how when Marcille came to take her away from Laios, even though she didn’t want to leave with Marcille it felt so determined and unshakable to her that whatever Marcille decided Falin would have to comply with.

And still, it’s the "marrying you would be awfully convenient if it wasn’t that I’d feel guilty for not loving you back, the way you wanted me to when you proposed to me" and the "I don’t regret leaving the academy and leaving you behind without goodbyes but I’m sorry that you’re so much more upset about it than me". It’s the guilt of not loving people back the way they want to be, with the same intensity or fervor.

It’s the autism it’s the aroace of it all, it’s the emotional stunting and confusion but the pit in your stomach telling you you did something wrong again. The no object permanence even for people you love even for 4 years, it’s the feeling like you’re somehow at fault for someone having fallen for you and not knowing what to do with any of it. I’m not joking btw it isn’t uncommon for autistic people to not see their close friends for a long while, not having missed them all that much and for that to be really hurtful for the other if they notice/ask about it. "Hiii bestie! Oh umm you’re uh more emotional about this than I expected, hopefully you won’t feel alienated by me not feeling as intensely about it…"

So… Yeah. I think she thinks of things and relationships in a different way than most people, and beyond "good things happening to people is good" I don’t think she actually cares about people all that much. I’d argue that Laios shows more desire to connect with others and make relationships. And just like with Laios and his own issues with humans, that doesn’t mean her kindness is a lie or ungenuine or worthless! It just means that like, well it’s pretty straightforward really, she’s not all that social and doesn’t see casual bonds as meaning all that much and whatnot. She does want to see people happy, but it’s not as much like… A conviction or goal. She’s too laser focused on a select few people. "It’s not that they’re bad people, they just aren’t interested in humans."

And sometimes it feels like people get defensive about Falin in a meta way too, like if you ever so much as imply Marcille isn’t her whole world or that she isn’t the kindest soul out there then you’re saying she doesn’t care at all or she’s evil. And that’s actualy exactly the sort of vibe I wanted to get through with my analysis above here actually haha, that she does care and she is kind but it’s not in a way that’s quantified or understood in a way that makes people feel comfortable. In a way, that makes people feel insecure because they don’t have the same logic as her, don’t show love the same. And I think this is another stellar depiction of autism, of parts of it that feels unpalatable to many, if I’m making sense. The fandom idealizes her as well, which isn’t uncommon or surprising for the character embodying the trope of the perfect beloved to rescue.

And disclaimer, as I said in the tags I feel like the details of Falin are pretty vibe based when it comes to analysis, there’s absolutely a valid angle where she does super care about everyone always, feel free to disagree with me on the overarching angle of my analysis. There’s enough supporting evidence to tip the balance either way I think, and the reason I’ve chosen this angle is I feel it’s more compelling for the themes in Dunmeshi of idealization and being different, of desires vs wants, and because I think it neatly ties up Falin’s character arc as I’ll go over throughout the next section…

So.

Not feeling as much as she should. And……. Is this not Faligon pushed to the max?

You can’t tie down a dragon. As the chimera, she gets to just not care about everyone else and be on her merry way.

Part of it I think is finding comfort and freedom in the mindlessness, in not having the burden of feelings and connections and a consciousness (despite still ending up seeking those in a stranger, Thistle). Like when she’s dead in the purgatory as well, she gets to just… Hang around and do whatever. Similarly to when she played in the forest instead of going to class in her academy days. That’s what freedom and peace of mind looks like to her. Why she decides to roam post-canon, if only now with the goal to find herself instead, with her mind in tow and somewhere to go back home to.

There’s excellent analytic framing out there about how of course, Dungeon Meshi has a big theme of grief and letting go, and… Falin was always a symbol narratively, idealized by characters and often underconsidered by them despite their love. It was Falin’s choice to sacrifice herself for Laios, she thought it was worth it, knowing that it would be her end. Her resurrection and the process of it intertwining her soul with a dragon’s wasn’t done with her consent, and the subsequent opening it gave her to become a chimera puppet. She’s stripped of her agency consistently, and so… It’s very noteworthy that the final choice, of wether to go back to life or to stay dead, in that purgatory scene, was up to her. And she chooses life, but I do think about her in those fields and how at home she seemed there. Peaceful, by herself in a vast calm expanse she could explore, free.

Personally, I think freedom is Falin’s own subconscious selfish desire. And though to us becoming the chimera is obviously a shackle, I think it felt like freedom to her somewhat, too.

And if you think I’m going wildly off the rails here I want to talk about Laios’ wish of becoming a monster. And to be clear before getting into it, being mentally a monster is absolutely a big part of the appeal for Laios, it’s something that’s consistently referred to, something especially pointed out in the werewolf monster tidbit with Lycion. Right panel is from that, but left panel is from the extra with Izutsumi where Lycion talks about suppressing souls in a beastkin body, the human or the beast soul.

Finding comfort and freedom in being mindless, less sentient, less aware? While being unaware in her hometown might have saved Falin a lot of heartache although perhaps stunted her emotional growth, it’s always been Laios’ curse.

Actively, through his choices, he seeks to grow closer to people, to form deeper bonds, to understand and be undertood, but… On a deep seated level, what he desires is to leave humanity and civilization behind. He has an irrational hatred for humans, born from the trauma of ostracization, being different, being beaten up and rejected consistently through his life. Running away from problems is easier. He wants to be free from being a social animal from a social species who has deemed him the black sheep, he thinks it’d be simpler to just leave it all behind, people and his own humanity. At its core, to Laios becoming a monster is a power fantasy, a coping daydream of "if only I could be strong enough to never be hurt again, the power to destroy anything I want, the power to go somewhere better, if only it was possible for me to never feel hurt again. If only I could be someone, something, that can never be hurt". "If there’s someone you don’t like, you can gobble ‘em up in one bite. If you could fly, you’d be able to leave this village right now." It’s a childhood fantasy, from a deep sense of being misplaced and a desire to be able to stand fearless, thinly covering up resentment that Laios represses.

But you’ll notice, when the Winged Lion is enticing him in the last page, even now with his lifelong wish of becoming a monster on a silver plate, he still cares about his friends. He still has that sense of responsibility to his friends, doesn’t want to leave knowing they’ll be in danger and alone. The offer that his friends may be left unharmed is already good, but Laios also visibly flinches when the Winged Lion offers to specifically care after Marcille and rid her of her biggest fear. Laios’ care runs that deep. Not unlike with the succubus, he resists temptation until he gets reassured that everyone will be okay. But see, what he desires isn’t to stand alongside Marcille until her last days, it isn’t to stay and see how well his friends will live, it’s to go. It’s to leave. It’s to fly away, a monster both in body and mind. He wants to be free from caring here, wants to not have to worry about his friends, wants to just go do his own thing, but for that he needs to feel safe in the belief that said friends will be safe even without him being there to see it, because despite everything else he cares, he does. It’s again that dichotomy about caring and wishing you didn’t, or not caring and wishing you did.

In the end, it’s Falin who achieves that wish. Both by becoming a chimera during canon, and by going traveling post-canon. In the latter, being both free of human relationships as something chaining you while still being uplifted by them, by the knowledge that there are people out there you love and that love you. It’s a theme that can also be connected with Marcille, because she gets anxious over people she loves getting out of her sight, worrying they’ll get themselves killed, that time is passing while they’re away from her. But before she can get to the point where she can both have her freedom and being uplifted by her social bonds, regaining both her individuality and her connections, she has to get a taste of just one at a time. Before they can find balance in her life, she has to see what it’s like to have what she’s never had on its own. Unapologetic freedom, and power.

No one can blame you for not caring enough or caring right if you’re a fricking dragon!!!! You make the rules when you’re a beast and you can just… Fly away. From anywhere, from anything. And if a dog bites you you can just crush it. Instead of being pushed around by the dogs because you’re at the bottom of the hierarchy, you’re now at the top, the one with the power to be heard and do what you want without consequences.

I think she’s on autopilot. I think she’s on autopilot a lot of the time, even before being a chimera, and it’s partly why her will is so weak compared to regular dragons. (Again, read my shorter analysis.) It’s familiar to slip back into the role of following someone around unquestioningly. And that’s what is weaponized when she’s a chimera, that instinct she’s been nursing all her life to unconditionally support, defend and follow someone. Only now, that someone doesn’t matter in itself, only the symbol of it. She doesn’t mind, either way is fine. Her will is weak after all, because she’s trained it to take as little place as it could.

Falin cares too much

She spends all her time caring for Laios and Marcille alternating that none of her care and emotional energy is left for others, including herself. So she had to get relieved of all of that for a bit, becoming the chimera so she could reset and recenter and remember that she, too, indeed, is there and an important part of her own life.

So you’re probably seeing the duality I’m talking about here, Falin is very self-sacrificial but for specific people in ways that they often don’t recognize or appreciate. She cares but selectively, both in people, putting all her eggs in the same baskets, and in the ways she cares after them. She doesn’t care a lot, but when she does she cares a lot. Falin doesn't have a lot of earthly attachments, but when she does, they're her world.

In canon her arc, especially post-canon, is to grow beyond Marcille and Laios. Her caring for her close loved ones held her back from looking after her own self-fulfillment needs. And this is what I mean when I say she cares too much; she could gain from caring more about the world besides Laios and Marcille, both lands wise and people wise. She cares too little, but her arc centers her flaw around caring too much instead. Her pitfalls that Kui highlight over the course of the story, while of course her selflessness is appreciated for how she saved Laios and everyone, on a personal level is shown to be self-effacing and damaging. She’s undermined by Marcille, without the courage to voice her thoughts and wants, she would dedicate her whole life to Laios. And I mean, it’s text, in the response to Shuro’s proposal extra no less. And she’s so laser focused on her most loved people that she’s fine with being callous and risking others’ lives, even.

Post-canon, she needs to leave to find herself, away from them.

Herself. What if she wants to just be with herself for a while.

And this is me reaching but I feel like, not unlike Izutsumi who learns to feel this sense of never being alone, always having someone on your side what with having two souls, the dragon in her would make her consider herself more. She finds it easier to care after other people after all, and in the purgatory fields sequence she takes care to bring the bit of dragon left with her… Not unlike with Izutsumi, having two souls forces you to think about your identity and figure yourself out. Besides being this sort of duo now, where if she wants to care after herself she can channel it to that other side of her too… In meta dragons are symbols of greed, and I think the bit of dragon would push her to want more and listen more to her desires, primal and self-serving as they might be. The dragon soul which warped her human body with feathers and draconic features, her image of perfection marred, her weirdness externalized in a way that’s not palatable. But she doesn’t care, about if her appearance is palatable for most people, she hasn’t for a while now, and that’s great.

Notes & nuance

I’m struggling with the structure of this post, making my points organized, concise and strong at once. It’s difficult to make any statement without going "things are generally like this, but there’s this time that this contradicting thing happened too" or "it’s ambiguous enough that you should just follow my interpretation for the time of this analysis" haha, so this is the pit where I put all the stuff that wouldn’t fit well in other places but are interesting for Falin’s character. This section is pretty separate from the main thesis of the post, it’s just more Falin observations. The post has reached the 30 pics limit so I can’t just pull it up whenever it’s relevant but I really encourage scrolling up to read the stuff I highlighted in her Adventurer’s Bible profile if you haven’t already.

I think with the shy-looking loner type autistic kid archetype, and knowing she didn’t seem to mind others ostracizing her, it’s easy to lose sight of how she was by no means an unemotional child. In all the bits we see of her as a kid she’s bursting with energy and emotions. Canon confirms Laios leaving the village did affect her and make her lonely and she cried a lot, too. She may not be social in the traditional sense, but she was clingy with her brother, and she also never was all that shy about who she was, wearing her heart on her sleeve.And okay. Okay okay okay. Speaking of appearances. About what I said of her not caring about what people think of her, even seeming defiant with the caravan leader… There’s one istanxe of her caring actually, and it’s about how her face blushes easily. I remembered it as being because Laios’ said it and as I rambled Laios’ words are her world, but actually it’s ambiguous. It’s only Marcille imagining up this scenario where Laios says Falin looks weird because of it, there’s no evidence Laios said or thought that at any point. And on the other hand…

Her Adventurer’s Bible says: "5, Lovely Skin. She isn't particularly careful with it, but Falin's skin is fair and beautiful. Possibly as a result, her cheeks seem to flush easily. Marcille's always saying she's cute, and she secretly has a sizable complex about it." The phrasing makes me think the complex she has over her blushing might have developed because of Marcille more than Laios. "Marcille's always saying she's cute, and she secretly has a sizable complex about it." It could be related to how Marcille gets swept away and infantilizes her, calling her cute wanting her to wear cute feminine outfits etc. Again this feels like it relates to Falin’s struggle to be seen for who she is and what she wants to be seen as, her struggle to be recognized, having ideals and perspectives pushed onto her. Here Falin is insecure over her blushing implicitly because she doesn’t like being called cute over it, but that’s not how she wants people to see her. She doesn’t want Marcille to always see her as her 10 years old adorable friend. Like if your friend said you had puppy energy, it can be flattering, but it can also make you insecure.

Here’s a link to what I mentioned about her being uncomfortable wearing feminine outfits. It does seem to be more about comfort than the aesthetic perse, to me. Interestingly the shirt & shorts don’t seem like they show much more skin than her beach outfit, so maybe it’s more about the shirt and shorts being tight-fitting. Like the skirts and heels they feel stifling. Again a bit with themes of freedom and not wanting an aesthetic pushed onto her. So yes just to reiterate, I think this is more about self-affirmation and how her identity and self-image gets shown to others, rather than wishing to hide parts of her body like her blushing etc for people pleasing reasons. Makeup was a way for her to appear how she wants to and feel more confident. It was a way to take control over her own image. She didn’t keep doing it, the narrator stating the process to be ‘troublesome’. Ultimately she still prioritizes her comfort, and it was a lot of recurring efforts to go through.

And on the topic of appearances… A friend once asked me: "Does she really hide herself or not? I keep thinking about "falin is herself first and foremost" (in her Adventurer’s Bible profile) it’s just so. Hmmmmmmmm... I just keep seeing people say she hides her real self from people when I feel like the issue is more about her charitable traits straying too far into becoming flaws but people around her dont realize that..."

Imo the thing is, I don’t think she hides her identity, but I do think she suppresses her individuality for others’ sakes if that makes sense. In the way that only post-canon does she allows herself to go see what the world is like, but that’s not personality wise it’s needs and wants wise. And I do feel like that’s the closest interpretation of canon, she says it herself she doesn’t know what she wants because everything she’s done was always about Laios or Marcille, but she doesn’t change her demeanor or personality for others. But she *will*, like, not ask for things she wants directly, like sharing lunches with Marcille at the academy, she suppresses her wants, doesn’t ask things from people and doesn’t hope for more, hope for better. I don’t think we ever see her actively repress her personality, except like what, being more laidback than enthusiastic but I do feel like unlike Laios with her it’s less ‘appearing stoic to fit in more’ and more ‘yeah i’ll just chill until I’m needed or something activates my enthusiasm’. To which said friend quoted: "to feel like you belong you need to be useful. when you can’t be useful the next best thing is being convenient."

And speaking of passivity… I want to speculate about Shuro’s proposal some more. Shuro and her got along well though we don’t know how much, or how often they hung out, she even saved him from a nightmare. Why did she take so long answering Shuro’s proposal? Was it an effort to preserve or was she really just that conflicted? Procrastination probably yes, but what is the core motivation of itl Considering she ended up saying no to travel the world instead, I don’t think it was as simple as ‘she wanted to say yes for convenience’. Logically it’s what would have been best, but it’s not what she wanted for herself, but it was and still is hard for her to even know what she wants. Probably, since like she states it was a great offer and she doesn’t think she’ll get proposed to again, it’s that self-effacing tendency that yes it’d be convenient and logical, and that makes her want to say yes even if her spirit isn’t in it, because if it’s convenient then that’s more important than her feelings on the matter. Man also… Obviously Marcille is very vocal about how she shouldn’t get with Shuro, but imagine how Falin’s whole perspective on marriage must have felt when her only friend ever is a Romantic with a capital R who gushes about idealized romances and grand gestures and True Love and doing things with fully pure feelings all the time.

AND speaking of passivity!!! How much Falin is "there" as the chimera, just how much she’s master of her actions, is left ambiguous and intentionally so imo, but she’s for sure there & influencing the dragon’s action to some degree. Having a dragon’s foot on her in purgatory that keeps her from moving for sure visualizes how it must have been like, but there’s Falin calling out to her brother Laios, there’s the kind attentions towards Thistle that are so Falin-like, and most explicitly there’s the Adventurer’s Bible stating "Even after becoming a chimera, she has a soul that's as kind as ever", which I honestly dislike, a fantranslation puts it as "Even as the chimera, her caring nature remains" and either way to me it feels like confirmation that it’s her giving those berries to Thistle. Now, wether or not she has the mental capacity of a chicken or something closer to human Falin, no clue, there has to at least be some kind of mind bond between monsters and the dungeon lord, compelling or forcing them to go along with orders, or calling her to him in distress like with the fight on the first floor. But yes, it’s interesting to wonder what it is that a Falin, with her kind soul but without her human mind, would willingly do. On her profile, she’s described as Thistle’s guardian and servant. The power dynamic between the two are very interesting, I already went into how it might have felt like freedom to her while being fake so I’ll reign myself in and just mention it again. She’s still at the heel of someone, only now it’s someone who doesn’t care about her back. Going from being cared for so strongly that it’s suffocating and they would defy death and the world for you, to being devoted to someone who has not one feeling about you besides your utility as a paw . She has all this care to give and to focus onto others and he has none to send back to her and I think that’s part of it. In a way, being left with only her own feelings and a void, without expectations or feelings or ideals pushed onto her, it might have been soothing in itself, and eye opening. But yes the way I think of it, her care for Thistle isn’t unlike the care she gives the ghosts.

Interestingly, the care she extends for the ghosts is sending their soul to a peaceful death, freeing them, of life and any earthly attachment. Take that as you will with the themes of freedom and burden of life and mind, immortality and becoming a warped version of who you were, and such and such.

But going back on the topic of connections and bonds for a bit, I think academy days Falin & Marcille is super interesting bc we’ve never really see Falin form a connection besides with Marcille and even that is kept pretty ambiguous. When was the point that Falin started seeing Marcille as a friend and seeking her out? When was the "I’ll lay down my life for you" point? I’m so fascinated by how she wanted to share lunches with Marcille but never truly asked, only made little "hey want this? I found it isn’t it cool?" gestures of showing things to her… It’s the only way she knows to ask, or maybe it’s the only way she feels comfortable to. In all the scenes of young Falin and Marcille Falin seems comfortable in her friendship with Marcille, but at the same time… I think we see Falin at her most insecure around Marcille, because she really does care about Marcille and what she thinks of her so much, and while Marcille is a bit of an unstoppable force tornado style (affectionate) Falin is something of a doormat. I’d usually say showing her berries was her earnest way to connect and be like "Hey bestie look at this! :]" , but there’s a real possibility that she was self-conscious and holding herself back.

Friendship and Marcille! Involving Laios into this too but, again with the autism thing of not showing you care in ways that others understand, Marcille being very overtly affectionate and clingy was so so soo important… Marcille keeping on hanging out with Falin and caring after her, and being undeterred/unbothered by Falin not always seeming like she cares all that much back in the conventional way, as in Falin acts nonchalant and a bit like she didn’t mind wether she was there with her or not during her outings to the cave dungeon. Caring and being clingy and so affectionate despite that in such a classic Marcille way is soo needed, because so often people will get discouraged by say, their friend not keeping in contact regularly/well, seeming disaffected or as happy-go-lucky as ever even if you haven’t seen each other in a while or when they’re alone, and yes there’s potential for a strong friendship there but someone like Falin won’t be committed enough to reciprocating attention the same way… I hope I’m making sense but yes this angle in particular strongly correlates to autism. And the way Marcille always initiates physical affection, both Toudens being awkward about initiating touch because they don’t know if that’s allowed, if they’re going about the social interaction the right way, if they’re allowed to ask that out of someone…

Another fun observation to make is about the 4 years Falin and Marcille spent apart. Marcille despite being of a long-lived race treated these 4 years of separation with more gravity than Falin did. Falin brushed it off very dismissively to say the least. But then you remember that the amount of time Falin and Laios didn’t see each other after he left the village was 8 years. Double the years, double the time. And that reminder makes Falin’s actions so starkingly understandable. Of course she wouldn’t see 4 years of separation as a long time if 8 years of separation with her beloved brother is her point of comparison. Of course she’d see it as worth it to leave Marcille for 4 years if it meant ending those 8 years instead, especially if she was worried about him (the reason why she followed him into his caravan job).

A friend always says that while Falin is the center of Marcille’s world, Laios’ is at the center of Falin’s, and I tend to agree.

It’s fun to think of how her career dreams had always been shaped by Laios, even when they were kids. Of course there’s how traveling the world began as a dream they talked about and shared, but there’s how he reassures her by listing cool jobs she could do like traveling exorcist, etc. And then of course, she gave up on her magic academy and career path to follow him and do odd jobs, etc etc.

I should go into the violence of Faligon more tbh, because I think there’s an interesting parallel to how she has no problem wacking things with a mace, wether a ghost when she was a kid or a walking mushroom as an adult. Something that often surprises fans when they remember, I don’t really want to get into the whole " Falin hates violence and hates seeing people in pain to an intense degree. ‘If you die do it somewhere where I can’t see’ style’ interpretation, it has some weight but on the whole I don’t vibe with the theory she has a particular aversion to violence, she seems to be fine resorting to it as much as any other adventurer as long as it isn’t needlessly against ghosts. And Falin’s sudden mace hits are fun to me too because it’s not her becoming a berserker when the need arises as much as her becoming active because something she cares about is threatened, and that brings her out of her passivity from 99% of the rest of the time. Thistle included. Falin always could be violent, she just dislikes senseless carnage. The Shuro party vs chimera fight is a bit ambiguous on it, because you can argue she only attached after being provoked, presumably offscreen as well while the ninjas went off to fight the harpies. Falin becomes the most active when she needs to protect someone, she has no qualms doing whatever’s needed for that, wether it be leaving the academy & Marcille without notice no matter the consequences or what her parents think, or teleporting the party, etc.

I’m working on a post specifically pointing out all the differences between Falin and Laios, but yes I think both of them selfishly desire freedom in different yet similar ways. Falin’s dark secret is "Ethics and risks are optional if it means I can protect those I love" like the teleportation, and Laios’ is "Ethics and risks are optional if I can be free of all this bullshit" aka humanity aka his wish with the winged lion.

Conclusion

Flighted birds have hollow bones. With freedom and wings there comes risks and sacrifices.

Tldr: Falin doesn’t care all that much, she’s very go with the flow. For example if someone hates her she doesn’t really care because that’d require her caring about what they think of her in the first place, and she only cares about her loved ones. She smiles, but it’s more a state of being rather than out of active goodness: she’s canonically very genuinely kind, but it’s more out of a general want for pleasantness than active care itself. She’s passive, and softspoken because that’s just how she seems, but she has no problem hopping into bushes or getting heated if something calls to her enthusiasm or calls for action and a hit of the ol’ mace. Her loved ones needing tending or protective is what makes her go from passive to active. That familiar autopilot mode of making someone the center of her world and following their every move is what made her so easy to be controlled as the chimera, even ferociously defending him with her life. Faligon is most interesting to me with the theme of freedom. She’s shackled to Thistle and out of her mind, but there’s also a sense of empowerment and freedom from expectations and society. She spends all her time caring for Laios and Marcille alternating that none of her care and emotional energy is left for others, including herself. So she had to get relieved of all of that for a bit, becoming the chimera so she could reset and recenter and remember that she, too, indeed, is there and an important part of her own life. There’s a way of caring after others that can be selfish, not unlike Marcille being overly coddling and not listening to Falin. In Falin’s case, I think it was so selfless that it ended up looping back around to erasing her sense of self. In losing sight of herself, that devotion becoming neither quite selfish or selfless but a fact of life and a state of nature, muddled by its lack of direction.

She’s sooo used to never being able to ask things out of others, you get the crumbs of affection and approval that others offer to you unprompted and that’s it don’t hope for more don’t ask for more. (Also reflected in how she follows her loved ones around without complain or personal opinions and how she’s not willing to rock the boat and affirm herself in her relationships like with Marcille during canon)

Falin cares so much, so much and so laser focused on her few loved ones that it blinds her and she loses sight of everything else, she ends up neglecting herself and the rest of the world. As Kui puts it, Falin is herself first and foremost. She just had to remember the importance of that.

-

I see her as an enneagram 9, which can be surprisingly accurate and fun to research through the lense of Falin. Excerpt below from this book, but like my god, good way to put it

That’s it, ty for reading. Even if it’s a bit of a mess, hopefully you’ll have gained a thing or two from it. Falin is a character hard to pin down, but it is very gratifying when you find the way that the puzzle pieces fit together right for your own understanding of the story. Fantranslation of the shuro proposal comic by @/thatsmimi here.

Here’s my spotify playlist for her if you’d like

Sometimes love is about letting go, a lesson a lot of the cast needed to learn. Self-love’s important too, and just like with diets we need a healthy balance.

[mimimar]

i've been completely charmed by witch hat atelier♡

(art prints)

[benkyoutobentou]

LGBTQ+ Japanese Media for Pride Month

Happy pride month! There's no better time to read and watch queer media than June. I tend to read and watch mostly queer content, so I thought I'd drop some things that I've enjoyed over the years for those looking for something that they maybe haven't picked up before. Since lots of Japanese media tends to have multiple versions and adaptations, I'll be organizing this by representation rather than type of media. The version(s) that I've personally seen or read will be bolded. This will also be a little bit different from my usual Japanese media recommendation posts, as I will also be including media that I've read in English or watched with English subtitles. This is also an invitation for anyone to recommend things to me, especially ones that have LGBT rep outside of just gay and lesbian characters. I'm always looking for more stuff to enjoy!

MLM

同級生/Classmates (manga/anime movie): Two seemingly opposite boys meet during the choir festival at their all boys' school and develop a relationship. How could this not be the very first thing I recommend? This is one of my all time favorite BL series and one of my favorite movies as well. Seriously, I watch this at least three times per year (once being during June!). Nakamura Asumiko is one of my favorite manga artists, and this won't be the last series of hers on this list.

ひだまりが聴こえる/I Hear the Sunspot (manga/movie): This follows a college student who agrees to become the designated note taker for a deaf classmate. I love this series and one of my favorite things about it is how much the romance takes a backseat to other things happening in the characters lives. It also has a large cast of deaf characters! If you're looking for something with representation outside of only LGBT and doesn't focus too much on romance, this is a really great choice.

30歳まで童貞だと魔法使いになれるらしい/Cherry Magic! 30 Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard (manga/drama/anime): After waking up on his thirtieth birthday, a businessman discovers that he has gained the ability to read minds. And with that, he discovers that his male coworker has a crush on him. For such a zany concept, this series is very cute and sweet. It's also always nice to see something that follows older characters (ie. not high school or college).

美しい彼/My Beautiful Man (novel/drama/manga): This follows a social outcast who ends up falling in love with a boy in the friend group of his high school bullies. This isn't a sweet and heartwarming romance at all, but it's also not pure toxicity. The drama is extremely bingeable and the author is a juggernaut in the BL light novel community for a reason.

消えた初恋/My Love Mix Up (manga/drama): Due to an eraser mishap, a boy admits to having feelings for another boy in order to save his actual crush from embarrassment. This series is The Blueprint for me in terms of romcoms. It does everything right for me and the characters especially stand out. It covers topics from discovering your identity and first love to dealing with homophobia and it does it all spectacularly. I also think that the manga does visual humor extremely well.

スリーピングデッド/Sleeping Dead (manga): After being stabbed to death on a routine patrol, a popular high school teacher wakes up on a metal table. I have no words [words]. This is definitely up there in my favorites, I love it so much. If you like queer horror, this is definitely one you need to pick up. I also found it very funny and the characters were extremely charming.

僕らの地球の歩き方/Our Not-So-Lonely Planet Travel Guide (manga): A couple decides to travel the world together, promising that they'll get married upon their return to Japan. Probably my all time favorite manga ever. I love every single thing about this, especially how much this series loves the queer community. This manga is overflowing with love in all ways, and I'm overflowing with love for this manga.

きのう何食べた？/What Did You Eat Yesterday? (manga/drama): This series is basically just snippets of a gay man's daily life. He likes to cook. And you know what? It's all the better for it. This series is award winning and such a great time. The main character is so relatable and it covers some great LGBT+ topics. Honestly, it's a crime that I haven't seen the drama yet.

WLW

独り舞/Solo Dance (novel): After a violent encounter, a Taiwanese woman makes the choice to move to Japan. When reading this, I saw it mention Qiu Miaojin's Notes of a Crocodile, which I had just bought, and now that I've finally read it, I can easily see the influences that Qiu's works had on this one. This is a tough book to get through emotionally, but ultimately a worthwhile read, especially if you're looking for something more on the literary side.

ささやくように恋を唄う/Whisper Me a Love Song (manga/anime): A girl confesses to an upperclassman that she loves her music, but the upperclassman misunderstands it as a true confession of love. I adore this series and the relationships in it. It has a huge cast of female characters and also has a driving plot outside of just the romance. I'm a sucker for series about music and this one is one of my favorites.

あさがおと加瀬さん/Kase San and Morning Glories (manga/anime movie): A shy gardener and a popular track star become friends and begin dating. This series is so cute! It feels like a GL staple to me and is one I've been following for practically as long as I've been reading manga in Japanese. It also has a sequel series called 山田と加瀬さん/Yamada and Kase San which follows the two of them after high school.

メジロバナの咲く/A White Rose in Bloom (manga): After not being able to go home for Christmas, a girl is stuck in her boarding school with one other student, who seems to not like her. This is another one by Nakamura Asumiko and there's something about her writing which always sucks me in. I can't get enough of this series, it has wonderful vibes, impeccable art, and I just want more and more of the characters.

欠けた月とドーナッツ/Donuts Under a Crescent Moon (manga): This series is a slice of life following two coworkers and their growing relationship. It's very slow burn and puts a lot more emphasis on the feelings of coming into and realizing your sexuality as an adult and dealing with compulsory heterosexuality. I really loved this series and how it focused on issues surrounding but not directly related to the central romance.

気になってる人が男じゃなかった/The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy At All (manga): A girl develops a crush on a worker at a music store after bonding over their shared love of music. Little does she know, he's actually the girl who sits next to her in class. This manga has taken the world by storm to the point of having a collaboration with Nirvana, and let me tell you it deserves every bit of hype you've heard about it. The art and characters are both stunning and is absolutely worth the read.

ハロー、メランコリック！/Hello, Melancholic! (manga): A talented trombonist enters a high school without a wind band, but is scouted anyway by a drummer looking for a new member to join her combo band. This is another one where the romance takes a backseat to other stuff in the plot, can you tell that I love that sort of thing? I also really loved the ways they talked about music in here, and I could definitely relate to it as a musician myself. Apparently, all the chapter titles are songs as well.

さよならローズガーデン/Goodbye, My Rose Garden (manga): A young woman moves from Japan to England to find her favorite author and is hired on as a maid. Her boss agrees to help her find this author so long as she agrees to help her with a grisly task. This is another really lovely series with gorgeous art. Set in the Victorian era, this does have some time period appropriate homophobia but overall it didn't strike me as a very dark manga.

Transgender

彼らが本気で編むときは、/Close Knit (movie): A young girl goes to live with her uncle and his transgender girlfriend. This movie is so sweet and cute! I watched it a couple years back now, but I feel like a lot of specific scenes have stuck with me. This is definitely a good heartwarming Pride month movie night candidate.

不可解なぼくのすべてを/Love Me For Who I Am (manga): A nonbinary teen is offered a job at a crossdressing cafe run by a classmate's family. Although this series has a cast with multiple LGBT identities, I chose to include it here because the main theme seems to revolve around gender. I do recommend this series if you're looking for a cute and sweet story about gender issues, but I did have some hesitations about the way lesbians are portrayed in this manga.

ボーイミーツマリア/Boy Meets Maria (manga): A boy who dreams of being an actor falls in love at first sight with a girl he sees dancing in his high school entrance ceremony, only to later find that she is actually a boy in his class. I feel like I always need to preface any recommendation for this manga by saying that a lot of people took issue with the way certain things and tropes are handled in this regarding being transgender. I personally didn't find it transphobic but I'm also just one person and can't speak for every nonbinary person out there. Regardless, I really enjoyed this. Be aware of trigger warnings when going into this one, it gets extremely graphic.

ボーイズ・ラン・ザ・ライオット/Boys Run the Riot (manga): Two high school boys bond over their shared love of fashion and start a brand together. I read this one a while back and never ended up finishing it but I do remember enjoying what I read! It's also by a transgender mangaka!

放浪息子/Wandering Son (manga/anime): This is a slice of life coming of age series that follows a middle school friend group revolving around two transgender friends. It's more of a slow paced series and a little bit on the more depressing side. The anime is also award winning and the manga was nominated!

星合の空/Stars Align (anime): This is a sports anime about a middle school boys' soft tennis team. I always hesitate to recommend this one because it was greenlit for a twenty four episode anime then cut down to twelve episodes during production. Rather than condense the story, the creator chose to animate only the first half of the series, so it's perpetually unfinished. Despite that, I still think it was a really wonderful anime and I would really love to see the rest of it one day because so much good stuff was set up!

Other/Multiple

しまなみ誰そ彼/Our Dreams at Dusk (manga): A gay teen is about to commit suicide after being outed to his classmates but sees a mysterious person jump from a balcony, which then leads him to a drop in center for LGBT people. I cannot say enough good things about this manga, it is phenomenal and is always my go-to for anyone looking for queer manga. It's heartfelt and beautiful and written by another one of my favorite mangaka, Kamatani Yuhki, who also happens to be X gender!

ヒラエスは旅路の果て/Hiraeth: The End of the Journey (manga): After the death of her best friend, a young girl decides to join a forgotten god and an immortal man on their journey to find death. Another Kamatani manga! This manga deals more with grief and mortality rather than queer identities, but if you want something with casually queer characters, this one is worth picking up. Also, this is one of only two manga to ever make me cry, and boy did I ugly cry at this one.

恋せぬふたり/Two People Who Can't Fall in Love (drama): Though I haven't watched this one, it's been on my radar for quite a while and I've heard so many good things. It's also harder to find series that have explicit aroace representation. This is about a woman who feels ostracized by her lack of romantic interest in anyone around her until she finds a blog about asexuality.

わたしは壁になりたい/I Want to Be a Wall (manga): This series is a marriage of convenience plot between an asexual BL fangirl and a gay man who never got over his childhood crush. I loved the relationship between the two characters and the depiction of a nontraditional family that still has love within it, even if it's not romantic.

Bonus- Music

I'm not one to look much in to the person behind the music, so I often don't know much about band members or singers of the music I listen to. However, there are two wonderful transgender artists that I listen to regularly in Japanese and couldn't pass up the opportunity to share their works with the world! Nakamura Ataru is a pop singer who also takes inspiration from traditional Japanese music. I love her enka styled songs such as 廃墟の森! The other artist is a bit more popular, and that's the rock band QUEEN BEE, whose lead singer is the incredibly talented Avu Chan. Avu Chan also voiced Inu Oh in one of my favorite movies, Inu Oh, which isn't (explicitly) queer, but is definitely worth watching anyways, even if just to hear Avu Chan's insane vocal abilities.

And so, those are (just a few) of my recommendations for Japanese queer reads to celebrate Pride month! If you have any recommendations for me, regardless of whether it's a movie or novel or manga or other, I would love to hear them!

[naarinn]

Old ancient unfinished wips yippe. I didn't have the courage to throw em away SxF x Kgrb crossover AU is slowly consuming my brain I wish I could work faster in digital ToT (I'm so sorry Chihiro)

Btw hater Hakuri is canon now lmaoo Twt socmed AU was so fun, ya'll should read it too. NOW <- (It's never late)

[thepersonperson]

I can’t believe we got an infodump on simple domains AGAIN over a Sukuna backstory.

More complaining under the cut.

Usually I am one to give Gege the benefit of the doubt and will read heavily into what little information we are given. But I can't defend this chapter themes or character wise.

Even if this turns out to be a fakeout, going in painstaking detail over a show-not-tell battle in a way that lacks characterization and heartfelt emotion sucks to read. Even if the new shadow style and simple domain debacle goes somewhere, having it the main focus after an extremely traumatic battle instead of characters processing their emotions sucks to read. Even if Gojo is alive and that's why they're this chipper, everyone ignoring his sacrifice and efforts along with Choso's sucks to read.

I'm happy Yuta and Higuruma are alive but why was their revival off-screened? Yuta was so defensive over Gojo and everyone treating him like an object just 8 chapters ago. What happened to that? Why is everyone treating this battle like it was no big deal? (Also why the fudge did Kusakabe tell Yuji, a 15 year old, to his face he should've been killed while disparaging Gojo for protecting the life of a child???)

After the Shibuya Incident, there was a whole segment dedicated to how this affected the average person. The Culling Games ended and there are still bloodthirsty freaks running around. What happened to them? Is Angel hunting them down and that's why Hana is missing? Infodumping on anything except the battle would've been better.

I doubt we'll get any more info on Sukuna, Kenjaku, and Tengen at this point. We'll be lucky if there's a funeral for even Geto's body. Shoko was absent this entire chapter which makes me thing she's still trying to save Gojo or she's preparing their bodies for a funeral.

Anyways. This is the worst JJK chapter for me hands down. My hopes for the final 2 are mostly dashed. Crunch and poor working conditions really do ruin art my goodness.

[atsu-i]

[olasketches]

so because we have only three chapters left, I’ve decided that I’m going to wait for the official release instead of going through the leaks as I’ve been doing for… almost the past 2 years. I don’t want the leaks and the fandom discourse to ruin my last experience with jjk as a still ongoing manga… plus I thought it would be more fun and enjoyable this way... more special ig (I’m being so sappy ik) wish me luck guys!!

[hibanny]

what i love about Dungeon Meshi is how Ryoko Kui slowly eases you into how fucked up its world and story are, she doesn’t throw all the drama and darkness in your face right away, sure it starts with tragedy but she then walks you through, to, and beyond it in a safer and less overwhelming way by focusing on its comedic and lighthearted parts with sprinles of more serious and darker ones thrown in, slowly making the latter parts be of bigger importance the deeper into the dungeon the characters go, which, in my opinion, makes its dramatic and heartwrenching moments much more impactful because you feel a lot more connected to its world and characters once you get to where everything is going, you start to care about them because of their positivity and beauty so you want to stay through their negativity and ugliness.

[skyefeys]

tiny whip franzy appreciation post

bonus:

[applestorms]

actually. @moonlarked you wanted someone to talk about near & light as parallels? cuz uh...

ok SO, my big hot take on near is something like this: one of the most common criticisms i see about near is that he is simply too apathetic/bored/uncaring/etc, and that because he is not as emotionally invested as L, his win against light doesn't feel nearly (lol) as satisfying as it could've been. this is a view that often frustrates me, but for a very particular reason— namely, while i think it is somewhat accurate in content, i think it misses a lot of important context (and also misses a lot of the importance of light's character arc, but we'll get to that much later).

one of the most important things to remember about the wammy's kids is that, whether they like it or not, each and every one of them is defined almost entirely through their relationship to L. this is perhaps more obvious in the case of characters like BB and mello, who are very Aware of this shadow being cast upon them and react in very overt, emotional ways (e.g. becoming a literal serial killer out of seemingly pure spite & desire to be noticed, idolizing him but in a very emotionally complicated, kinda detached sorta way, etc), but it is true for Every wammy's kid, purely because of how the house itself functions. these kids are being raised to be L's successor— the greatest (and second greatest, and third greatest) detective on the planet. this is the ultimate goal hanging over every one of their heads, and it places a constant pressure on every kid there.

oftentimes, i think (perhaps both out of story and in it, as well?) people get so caught up in comparing near to L that they forget he also falls under this umbrella— only, for near, his position is slightly different because he actually somewhat succeeds at the task? like, yeah, L never gets the chance to officially call near his successor, but between the fact that he's constantly called the #1 kid at wammy's and that he. literally does actually end up becoming the new L after kira, i think it's always been pretty clear what his path was going to be.

going back to my starting point, this is one of the main ways that near makes a really good parallel to light in my mind, specifically the light that we see right at the start of the series. in both cases, near and pre-DN light, we see a kid who has succeeded at everything they've been handed, and more notably, we see a kid who is bored out of his fucking mind looking at the prospects of what he's got.

in the case of light, this is maybe a little more realistic/easy to understand— light does well in academics, he does well in sports, he does well with people. he is likely to follow in his father's footsteps with something criminal justice/police/law related, but even if he diverges from that path it likely won't be too big of a deal, as he has shown himself to be capable in enough areas that he's likely to succeed no matter what. by all measurable standards, light's doing pretty good at the start of the series. and yet— there is something so distinctly and inherently Bland about his life before he gets the DN. i've said before that light wouldn't call the DN a curse even if he wanted to, but i think in that moment when he's telling ryuk he disagrees w/ his father after visiting him in the hospital, when he says, "I've never once considered finding that notebook and gaining this power a misfortune. In fact, it's made me happier than I've ever been." (ch.22) he's still getting at something real and truthful.

again, going back to my equating of boredom with depression in this series— light's life is pretty good by all measurable standards. he has a family who loves him, presumably more than enough money to get by with a pretty cushy lifestyle, and does well, honestly better than well, in every single system he is presented with. but even so, he's still unhappy. there is something in his soul that has not yet been satisfied. he's bored of the world, bored of his place in it, how easy it all is. what the DN really offers him is a challenge, entertainment— just the same as L, and just the same as ryuk.

near similarly suffers from this kind of boredom, though it is perhaps less overtly stated than in the case of light, L, and ryuk, and less easy to catch as it is not as realistic/common. again: near basically ends up the winner of wammy's house. he is the one to take the title of L, he's declared the smartest, bestest kid at wammy's, and he gets all the power and privilege that comes with such a title. but still— he's so. fucking. bored. much to the embarrassment of mello, this shit was never really a challenge to him. it's pretty obvious that near isn't really even all that attached to the title of L— don't forget that his first real introduction to the story involves him explicitly saying that he'd be just fine working with mello as essentially co-L successors. and this is a viewpoint that he holds onto until the very end of the series, actually, claiming that he was only able to best light due to mello's sacrifice. near doesn't really give a fuck about the rat race he's been slotted into, though it's perhaps for that exact reason that he ends up winning it anyway, and getting all the responsibility that comes along.

that being said, i think there are still two main differences between light and near:

light fucks up.

near never gets past his boredom.

in the case of this first point, i do not mean to say that near never ever makes any move/judgement that could be considered a mistake— mello killing the entire SPK is the first thing that comes to mind, which i see as blood on near's hands for the same reason that L takes at least some responsibility for lind l. tailor. rather, i mean that near never makes a such a monumental fuck-up that he has to overturn his entire worldview just to account for it in the same way that light does when he accidentally kills two people w/ the DN the first time.

it's like, if you've ever known (or been) the kind of kid who always got perfect grades in school, straights A's for K-12, only to reach college and suddenly bomb their first test and have an existential crisis as their only real achievement in life is crushed into dust, then you know light yagami. only for light, it's on a whole 'nother scale, because not only does he fucking oopsie daisy kill two people, but he kills in such a context that he can mentally manipulate it back into seeming heroic. i hate to say that suffering causes character development because that's terrible advice (it's how you react to terrible circumstances that matters, imho) but to some degree, yeah, having conflicts/hard times in life is just necessary to figure shit out sometimes. near (and L, oh goddd i need to write about L properly sometime) has so many things smoothed over and handed to him, and on top of that, he's a super genius very rarely fucks anything up, at least according to base logic. he doesn't even really consider the morality of anything he's doing until light straight up asks him in a desperate bid to keep talking at the end, it's all just logic and factors to consider.

this all leads to my second point, which is that near never really gets the chance to overcome his boredom in the same way as the others. ryuk at least gets his entertainment for a couple years, and light and L (and mello) get so invested in each other and their game that it literally kills them, but near just kinda. keeps going. he keeps being L, he keeps solving cases, he does the duty he was given and enjoys his toys... and that's it. he lies around, the only one left to live, never even taking credit for the end of KIRA, never gets another haircut, and keeps the title going. what a life, for a kid who dragged a god back down to earth.

sidenote1: toys

am i reading too into things? maybe. near's toys hold a lot of significance throughout the story in more specific ways, most notably the finger puppets he uses at the very end of the story while tracking different people's/kira's actions, though you could probably read some kind of meaning into every toy he has and the ways in which he plays with them. what i want to look at here though is more the general reasoning behind playing with them in the first place— a desire for a childhood he didn't get to have? a love of games more generally? (could track with him seeing the KIRA case, or really all detective work, as just another game.) you could also read into his toys as another source for near's apathy/detachment from reality, literally breaking every notable person around him down into a doll by the end of the story, speaking a lot to how alienated he is from the world (again, very similar to both L and light, there). i don't have much more of a point to make here, just wanted to add this in somewhere since it's one of his most striking visual character traits.

sidenote2: light's arc

going back to my point at the start of this post... light's character arc.

uhh. near winning is a good thing, actually. and i don't just mean that as a moral claim— DN itself as a story isn't really concerned with trying to answer any moral questions about good or evil or the justice system, so it makes sense & is fair to me that it doesn't try all that hard to answer anything along those lines by the very end of the story. what i mean to say here is that near winning is a good thing on the level of the character arc, specifically as an end to light's arc.

i made a post a while back while mid-manga reread talking through some of the reasons why L's death can feel kind of unsatisfying/paint the second half of the story in a less interesting light (hah) for a lot of viewers, with the main point i ended up on being that L wasn't really able to win because he never really had all that clear of a win state in the first place. i still kiiind of agree with this point, though i think there's a lot more i could add to that post... anyways. point is, i bring up that post because it touches on a similar thing to what i want to talk about here: light's character arc being a tragedy.

this is more speculation on my part, but i think another part of the reason why people get turned off to DN post-L death is not just the fact that L isn't really a playable character in the game anymore, but the fact that light's character arc takes such a dramatic twist after the timeskip. i talked about this a little bit in my little ramble on light & titles (which a lot of you liked, apparently!! ty for all the lovely comments on there, i love reading what you guys have to say ^w^), but light's character arc in DN is a tragedy to me, full-stop.

tragedies to me are cyclical— revolutionary, if you will. since all stories necessitate some kind of something to take place, a tragedy to me is all about a character beginning in one point, then continually getting hit by Event, after Thing, after Event, only to end up in essentially the exact same place that they started. any character changes or development that seem to happen throughout the story are ultimately nullified by the end— the main subject does not truly grow, does not truly reflect on their actions or traumas, does not move on. two steps forward is two steps back. even ending up in a position worse than they started is sometimes better than a true tragedy, in my mind, as at least then there is some chance they may still reflect or change or grow in the future, leaving the hope that they may still overcome this new circumstance later on. a true tragedy ends in nothing meaningful ever getting the chance to truly change, at least in the case of the main subject of the story.

light's character arc in the first half of the story is an upward, underdog kind of story. yes, light has the power of a shinigami, of a supernatural force that the rest of the world doesn't even know exists— but part of the real appeal of his conflict with L is how powerful L feels in comparison, having the wealth and respect and title to command a world's worth of forces against him. fuck, even taking down naomi misora feels like an incredible hurdle overcome, a teenager managing to charm and yap and flutter his eyelashes out of a shitty situation he was only just lucky enough to stumble across in the first place, to stop someone who could've ruined his entire plan with a few words. killing L was always going to be light's greatest accomplishment when it comes to his rise to godhood, not only because of L's great power but the comparative position of light at the time that he did so— not yet an adult, not even really out of school, perhaps barely out of his parents' house.

in contrast, light's arc for the second half of the story is a downward spiral. we see all of the consequences light has been miraculously avoiding smack into him like meteors in this half, his ever-growing ego torn to shreds as he's yanked back down to earth. and in comparison to the anime, the manga really beats this point into you, dedicating the entire second half of the story to light's fall from grace as he loses his mind and loses his humanity. like, while i do kind of prefer the manga ending to the anime, i have to admit that light's death there is fucking brutal. light goes through pages, chapters, purely dedicated to near tearing him a new asshole, only end the story bloody and delirious and crawling on his knees begging a god of death to fix everything— all just to die the exact same death as everyone else he's killed. i mean, look at these fucking pages (ch.107):

(that last fucking picture of him. clawing at the sky. it always fucking gets to me.)

it hurts to read this shit!! we spend the entire first half of the story watching this dude's rise to glory, the entire time stuck inside of his head, emotionally connecting with him even if we don't really mean to or disagree with his actions or question his morality. watching his fall back down, especially after all of that, is fucking painful— an in no way does near make the process any easier. if anything, his blunt, snarky bitchery, saying all the quiet parts out loud, calling light out for being a terrible replacement L and pointing and laughing at his failures to his face, only shoves more salt in the wound, only proves just how human he has been all this time, how meaningless any of his supposed "rise to power" ever really was. light got his fifteen seconds of fame, sure— but near is armed and ready to make sure that's all he'd ever get, that the name Light Yagami would never even be associated with the position he held for so long. six years was all he got— and it was all he was ever going to get, because light yagami did not do this for humanity, he did it for himself. all near did was collect the debt that L prescribed. he fulfilled his duty as told— nothing more, and nothing less.

i just have to wonder... is this why people hate him? because he has no sympathy for the fall? maybe. i don't know.

either way, i don't think i could ever really hate him. it's a big responsibility, being the only one left behind. but near has always been the one to hold such weights on his shoulders.

[dailyfigures]

what's everyone's fav manga(s) ever <3