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number1villainstan · 4 months ago

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Making a JJK/RGU Crossover for Fun and Profit

Assumes working (but not in-depth) knowledge of both RGU and JJk.

Content warnings for anything that applies to either RGU or JJK (so discussions of abuse in general, sexual abuse specifically, rape, incest, death, gore, body horror, unreality, w/e). Ohtori Akio and Ryomen Sukuna are their own warnings.

Warnings for major JJK manga spoilers up to chapter 263 and for major RGU spoilers if you haven't watched the show.

Disclaimer for RGU fans: This isn't gonna be an in-depth analysis of either work. Or at least that's not the focus. There may be some of that in the body of the work, but if you're here for insightful commentary, this is not the post for you. However, if you're here for taking a dumbass idea way too seriously (for fun), then this is exactly the post for you.

And with those out of the way, let's get started, shall we?

What kind of crossover?

There are several different ways you can combine elements from two or more different stories, but you often end up having to throw away or twist certain elements to fit the other world/story, because lore (or magic system or a character's backstory) from one story may conflict with lore from the other story. You end up getting setups like characters from one story acting out the events of the other story, or characters living out a version of their own stories but in the other story's setting, or characters from both stories interacting in a setting separate from both stories.

However. Every once in a while, there's a combination of stories that allows you to preserve both settings, while having them be in contact with each other, and RGU and JJK is one such combination.

This lies in the enclosed nature of Ohtori (the setting of RGU) and the nature of cursed energy and techniques (part of the setting of JJK). When you combine these aspects of both stories, you end up with the crack crossover theory that Akio is a cursed spirit, and Ohtori is his domain expansion. It's a shockingly tight explanation for why Ohtori is Like That, especially coming from a work in a different genre and that is not in conversation with RGU at all (so far as I know). It explains how the world of Ohtori can be so unconcerned with physical laws, such as "there's no way for the pillar and stairs to support the dueling arena's weight" or "there's no topologically valid way to get from the forest to Akio's living room on those stairs" or "Ohtori's not by the ocean, so Ruka can't be both on campus and overlooking the ocean on a bench"; how illusions and tricks of the mind are so prevalent; why the dead can cheat death, if not forever; how Akio can be aware of nearly anything that happens at Ohtori; why time is so incredibly fucking weird (implying temporal/spacial manipulation cursed techniques on Akio's part); why Ohtori is practically fine-tuned to maximize misery in the long term.

Ohtori being a domain meant to capture teenagers and feed off their cursed energy not only provides another explanation for what Ohtori is, it fits very neatly into RGU's themes of abuse and how to break away from it, adding an extra layer onto Akio's ability to control everything about Ohtori. Akio being a cursed spirit also fits his backstory--if we take the flashbacks as indications of what happened, although not True Narratives, we can imagine Dios as a jujustu sorcerer who played the hero too much and ended up dying from exhaustion, with Akio being the cursed spirit that was his resurrection (much like how Sukuna is canonically a resurrected sorcerer). This also implies that Anthy herself may be a sorcerer, one who was likely thrown to the wolves (the cursed spirit that was Akio) upon his death, and who Akio has been imprisoning inside his domain since said death.

Unfortunately, this explanation isn't quite as tight as I would like it to be. There are several wrinkles to consider. Number one is that multiple characters leave and return to Ohtori over the course of the story, while domains are meant to be incredibly difficult to break out of given the barriers necessary to uphold them. Ryomen Sukuna and Fushiguro Megumi both demonstrate barrier-less domain expansions, but Megumi uses natural barriers (such as the inside of a warehouse), and Sukuna's usage of a barrierless domain expansion is seen as "divine". However, if we expand the boundaries of the hypothetical Ohtori domain expansion to include the town surrounding campus, and posit that there must be a second school there, we solve this problem by providing a place to go for Saionji when he's expelled, for Wakaba to go grocery shopping off-campus, for Ruka to be in the hospital, and for Shiori to attend school before transferring back to Ohtori, without them actually exiting Akio's sphere of influence, and furthermore

This is where we run into problem 2: keeping a domain expansion as big and as complex as Ohtori active for at least several months, for likely decades or centuries, requires an insane amount of cursed energy, and that we've never seen a domain expansion that large in JJK canon. Even Sukuna's 'divine' domain expansion in Shibuya, although he covered several city blocks, was a very simple domain, and wasn't as large as both Ohtori and its surrounding area. Furthermore, making Akio extremely powerful is a thematic sacrifice I don't want to make--part of what makes the finale so powerful is that Akio ends up posing less of a threat to Utena and more of an annoyance, although he's more powerful in Adolescence. (Some fans may say that I've already made a thematic sacrifice in making Akio not human, because part of the message of RGU is that normal, well-liked human beings can abuse other people without not being human, and their abuse may even be enabled by being well-liked and socially cushioned. To that I say: you are correct, but unless you have a smoother way to integrate the settings of RGU and JJK it was a necessary thematic sacrifice for this thought experiment. Also that I'm not all that interested in stories about humanity, being only technically human myself.) This is why I've made references to Akio siphoning off the cursed energy of those attending Ohtori, because it works both practically and thematically--this way Akio gains the cursed energy necessary for maintaining such a complex domain expansion by sucking it out of the students he's trapped inside, and it's a commentary on the soul-sucking (hah) nature of school and abuse and on how cultural systems of oppression and abuse need people to uphold them because they have no power on their own. But I doubt that Akio would get enough cursed energy from simply a bunch of non-sorcerers, which implies that there must be at least several sorcerers (or just people with abnormally high amounts of cursed energy) attending Ohtori; it would also make sense to say that Akio would keep these deeper energy reserves (so to speak) closer at hand than the rest of the student body. Yes, I'm going there: the Student Council + Utena are likely sorcerers themselves who haven't realized it yet, and Anthy is likely the most powerful sorcerer of anyone there, which would be part of the reason why Akio keeps her so close (and why she's implied to be able to do things like influence the arena and set all of those animals loose on Kiryuu Nanami). However, they would likely be unable to access any cursed techniques of their own, because Akio's influence would siphon away so much of their cursed energy.

So, to recap: Akio is a vampiric curse and Ohtori + the surrounding area is his domain expansion, and he feeds off the misery of the students he has trapped inside his domain; in addition, Anthy, Utena, and the Student Council all have sorcerer levels of cursed energy, along with potentially a good portion of the "unspecial" population, but in most of their cases have functionally the same power levels as normal people due to Akio's vampiric nature.

Okay, but so what?

Having a setting like this is very fun, but it can't reach the level of story as it is; currently it's just a crack crossover theory/headcanon. In order for this to become a story of its own, we need characters and we need a plot. Given how character-driven RGU is, and how the world of Ohtori responds to its characters' emotions, most of the plot can be extrapolated from our choice in characters and from how the world of Ohtori is set up. The main thing we need, besides choosing which characters, is an inciting incident. I have a simple one ready: whoever monitors these things in the jujutsu world has received reports/evidence of high levels of cursed energy where Ohtori is, and sends in our characters to investigate, thinking it would be a normal mission, and they end up entering the domain expansion and becoming students at Ohtori.

But who are the characters?

We've got several options for characters or character groups to send in to Ohtori, and we can safely assume that the RGU characters will start fundamentally the same as they are in canon, only changing in response to the actions of the JJK characters introduced to their environment. I also strongly doubt that any of the JJK characters we would introduce would have a rose crest ring, or come in with Akio's approval--in other words, they broke in, and they start as "unspecial". It would also make the most sense storywise to send in teenagers (or those who look like them); adults would likely be stonewalled out of getting close to Ohtori campus. That being said, let's go over some options and their consequences/implications:

The First Year Trio

The protagonists of the show: Fushiguro Megumi, Itadori Yuuji, and Kugisaki Nobara, with Ryomen Sukuna tagging along with them. You could do a Junpei Lives AU and include him as well, but I won't, since I'm focusing on bringing together both canons, which means Junpei is fucking dead. Let's go over each of the characters:

Kugisaki Nobara:

potential for Weird Sibling Shit: none, unless she has a sibling we never hear about in canon.

potential for Sunlit Garden Shit: low to medium. It's implied that she doesn't miss her country upbringing, and she talks about a girl she admired being bullied away by unsympathetic folk in her neighborhood, but nostalgia has a way of twisting the truth, so it's not impossible.

potential for Shining Thing Shit: low to medium. If Maki enters with her, then she may end up having her as a shining thing; however, there's not any one specific person or ideal that she tends to fixate on.

is she Stuck In Her Coffin: I'd say no. She's very assertive and seems not to care about what others think, and she's unafraid of interacting with the world.

Kugisaki Nobara would hate Ohtori. Loudly. And violently. Despite being mostly gender-conforming appearance-wise, her personality directly contradicts Ohtori's 'ideal woman', and she'd likely draw scorn from the general population. She'd probably make a fascinating parallel with Saionji; her violence is usually played for laughs at the other person's expense, or for making herself look badass, while Saionji's violence usually makes him look like a dick or earns him a trip to Clown Town. (Some of this difference is in what they direct their violence at, of course, but not all of it.) They're also both incredibly stubborn, unlikely to go along uncritically with tradition, extremely direct, and often eager to throw the first punch, so to speak. She'd also probably outright refuse to talk to Akio on the basis that he has "bad vibes", and if she ever hears about the shit he pulls with other teenagers she'd (attempt to) put a nail through his skull.

Fushiguro Megumi:

potential for Weird Sibling Shit: medium to high. We likely wouldn't see his older stepsister Tsumiki come back to life like Ruka, but healing Tsumiki is a main motivator of Megumi's actions in canon, and she was the one who took care of him after both his dad (her stepdad) and her mom (his stepmom) abandoned them (or died, in Toji's case, but Megumi doesn't know that). Strong case for Weird Sibling Shit even if Tsumiki doesn't show up.

potential for Sunlit Garden Shit: low to medium. He did NOT have a happy childhood, and he hates his dad. The only thing he would want to go back to the past for would be to see Tsumiki awake again (which would tie into Weird Sibling Shit). But, like I said with Kugisaki, the memory-warping effects of nostalgia cannot be underestimated.

potential for Shining Thing Shit: low to medium. Probably his 'shining thing' would be Tsumiki.

is he Stuck In His Coffin: Honestly, probably. At the beginning of canon he has hangups about his own power and self-worth, and struggles with expressing himself openly and honestly. (Actually, I don't think he gets better at expressing himself over the course of canon aside from whaling on curses.)

Fushiguro Megumi is probably the character who's most susceptible to Ohtori's emotional manipulations out of the whole JJK cast. His personality is most similar to Juri's, I think, in the way he's emotionally constipated and finds it difficult to express his feelings to other people. Thankfully he doesn't have a Shiori, both in the sense of being hurt and of hurting someone else from stonewalling them (unless you count Sukuna, but we all know Sukuna can take it and also deserves it). Given his relationship with Gojo (his main parental figure), he may be somewhat more vulnerable to Akio's manipulations, or he may be much less vulnerable given how much he rags on Gojo.

Itadori Yuuji:

potential for Weird Sibling Shit: none. He's canonically an orphan and an only child (iirc).

potential for Sunlit Garden Shit: high. He is not doing well--he's been possessed by a demon, slated for execution, his grandpa is dead, and his pre-canon friends are in the hospital. There's no way he doesn't wish to turn back the clock in some ways, to go back to when life was simple and safe.

potential for Shining Thing Shit: low. He doesn't have anything specific he obsesses over, although you could argue that he could obsess over the goal of beating Sukuna, especially in the late stages of the manga.

is he Stuck In His Coffin: No. He's much better at making connections and expressing emotion and vulnerability than someone like Megumi, and he's shown in canon to be respectful of others (aside from like. Sukuna and Mahito, who both deserve the disrepsect) no matter their gender.

Yuuji isn't as vulnerable as Megumi to Ohtori's emotional manipulations, but that isn't to say that he isn't vulnerable at all. He's a lot like Utena herself personality-wise, and I think he's vulnerable in similar ways as well, especially in a desire to go back to a time when life was simple and safe and guaranteed. His attachment to Gojo may also make him especially vulnerable to Akio's carefully-cultivated aura of "coolness".

Ryomen Sukuna:

potential for Weird Sibling Shit: none, unless he has a sibling that survived the Heian Era as a curse (highly unlikely) AND he's actually attached to that sibling (even more unlikely). The only time Sukuna mentions anything like having siblings it's to say that he ate his twin in the womb, I don't think he puts much emphasis on family of any kind

potential for Sunlit Garden Shit: none. Man's out here living his best hedonistic curse life all day every day; anything that might trigger Sunlit Garden-type nostalgia in someone else (like being stuck in Itadori's body or having to deal with Akio's siphoning his cursed energy away) he views as an annoyance or a threat, but not as evidence that the Past Was Better.

potential for Shining Thing Shit: none. He's practically his own shining thing.

is he Stuck In His Coffin: lmao no he got out a long time ago just cuz he decided it wasn't comfy in there

Sukuna is, hilariously, the JJK character with the most comedic potential in this situation. There's two ways he could go, with him either being stuck in Yuuji's body the whole time (which confines him to being a menace to Yuuji) or, my own preference, him getting his own body at Ohtori, which allows him to go off on his own and do weird shit, which I like too much to not do. Watch as he makes all the right logical steps as to why Ohtori Bullshit is Wrong Actually and then his conclusion veers so hard to the side that we end up in territory that is maybe actually Even Worse. "This whole Dueling Game thing is bullshit" yes "Anthy should have way more agency" yes "the kids should be fighting proper death battles cuz they value the thrill of the fight" nO. His reaction to Akio would literally just be "you need to learn how to respect your betters". He's utterly impervious to Akio's and Ohtori's emotional manipulation and yet he keeps Missing The Point. Everyone else is Suffering(TM) and he's just off doing hot girl shit with Nobara or trying to figure out how to get his cursed energy back. Ohtori may be Hell but Sukuna is literally a demon.

Bonus Characters

My original plan was to go through a lot of different JJK characters/character groups, but it's late and I want to be done with this so those will have to wait until a reblog. But to wrap up quickly, I'll do Maki&Mai and Uraume.

Zen'in Maki and Zen'in Mai:

potential for Weird Sibling Shit: very high. Not only are they twins who have been split apart by jujustu society, Mai ends up dying to 'free' Maki, and there's one panel where it looks like one of them is kissing the other one (who's unconscious) on the mouth. Yeah. They're up there with Miki and Kozue for Weird Twin Sibling Shit.

potential for Sunlit Garden Shit: medium to high. Some of the flashbacks for them heavily imply that there were some very high-nostalgia-potential moments in their childhood, before they realized their inequality.

potential for Shining Thing Shit: low for Maki (who doesn't care anymore), high for Mai (who would idolize Maki in some sense, or at least desire that Maki come back).

are they Stuck In Their Coffins: Mai yes, Maki no. Maki's already decided to leave the Zen'ins behind when canon starts, but Mai is still trapped in her own desire to go back to the way it was ('won't you stay at the bottom with me?' iirc).

Maki and Mai would be hard-pressed to survive in Ohtori's environment. Mai's something like Shiori, methinks, while Maki's just trying to get out again. They already have a deeply fucked up relationship, and Ohtori would probably just warp it further and drive them apart even more.

Uraume:

(This entry is formatted a little differently.) Uraume is an interesting character, especially with the implication that they and Sukuna genuinely enjoy each other's company. Their gender, or lack thereof, would also become much more important in RGU's story, despite being mostly just a side note in JJK's. It would be more difficult to get them in, because they don't have anyone around to order them inside, but if they got word that Sukuna was potentially lost inside a rogue curse's domain expansion they'd have a personal motivation to enter the story.

Pros of having Uraume in this story:

A straightman (straightperson) for Sukuna's bullshit to play off of, like in a comedy duo

Interesting parallels and contrasts between Uraume's serving Sukuna because they genuinely like him and Anthy's whole Rose Bride stuff, especially in the third(?) episode when she claims she wants to be the Rose Bride

Would force interesting questions and developments in the narrative of the crossover story, in the world of Ohtori (how do they deal with someone who isn't gendered if they have no information on which box to put them in?), and in certain RGU characters (Saionji: "are you a boy or a girl?" Uraume: "I'm neither" Saionji: "oh i see" Uraume internally: three. two. one. Saionji: "WAIT YOU CAN DO THAT?").

Cons of having Uraume in this story:

their no-gender swag is too powerful, if they stepped foot on Ohtori campus the whole school would spontaneously combust

#rgu #jjk #sku #revolutionary girl utena #jujustu kaisen #shoujo kakumei utena #it's funny how seriously i'm treating a fundamentally unserious premise tbh #like. in what serious world would chu-chu be a shikigami #the epitome of crack treated seriously #(this sounds like self-degradation but it's not. i'm genuinely having so much fun)#not tagging all the characters cuz there are way too many #lack of a conclusion cuz i am tired af rn #probably there are so many typos i didn't catch #crossover #shitpost #effortful shitpost #fanfic #writing inspiration

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