#so many of the best people from that era aren’t on here anymore…….

[boag]

I think tumblr peaked for me personally in the late 2010s that’s when this app was at its most enjoyable and had the best vibe

[mermaidlighthouse]

Ok, I’m sure it's been said somewhere else but I haven’t seen it and I’m just so mad at myself for missing the parallel here…

So, in this post I was talking about how Ed used to love pirating but had moved beyond it and then had tried going back (the Kraken era)…and I was just like FUCK…that’s just Stede’s entire plot in s1. Stede was able to reconcile that he didn’t “fit” in his old life anymore in s1 whereas we needed to give Ed more time. As the post says, this is mostly because he had Izzy being the devil on his shoulder and the voice in his head and Izzy was a constant presence in his life. Stede was able to be outside the toxic environment and frankly, his issues had more to do with his situation and less to do with actively toxic people constantly undermining his growth - a lot of his issues are more internalized.

Ed’s arc is recognizing and dealing with the fact that he doesn’t “fit there (pirating) anymore”.

Stede did love at least some parts of being landed gentry: his clothes, his books, his children, he didn’t love Mary but he didn’t hate her either. (I do recognize the order I have put these in and that was on purpose…). He loved them “best he could”. He tried going back when he was told he would never be more than what he was always perceived as, that he was a cancer, he was weak, he was poison. Take into consideration the fact that one of the Badminton twins was also literally the voice in Stede’s head telling him he was worthless and the Izzy parallels become apparent. 

Stede’s conversation with Mary about love is a parallel to Mary (Read)’s conversation with Ed. Both Marys function to tell them or allow them to realize they are joined together, they are wrapped up in each other. Stede needed to understand what it meant to be in love and Ed needed to understand love wouldn’t be stolen from him, it wouldn’t slip through his fingers like so much silk…

They each have a scene in which they are told what they aspire to be is out of their reach. That they aren’t good enough for what they desire. They then both run back to what was comfortable, not because it was healthy or good but because it's what they’ve known for so long. They each come to realize they have been changed by having met the other. And we get to watch them acknowledge that to themselves AND each other.

The fact that we are allowed to see them come to this realization individually and on their own timelines is SO vital because while there are parallels and while they may be in a relationship; they are each allowed their own path of self-discovery and each allowed to take as many steps as they need to get there. The fact that they are also allowed to have backpedaled because change is scary and sometimes you make a misstep is just so important. Trauma is not one size fits all and neither is healing.

[theprologues]

Happy New Year all!! 🥳

If I’m being honest, and I feel that I should, I’m completely disillusioned by Kaylor. I don’t have the wherewithal to pick up the pieces anymore. I’m not sure what game they are playing and if it’s something I can even watch anymore. I’m tired yes. I didn’t have a countdown to something happening ie with the end of 2023 comes my abandonment. No it’s not like that because I’ve been watching the ship leave port for a long time and I can only be so patient. The truth is things haven’t been the same since the pandemic. This year we did get something big we got Karlie at the eras tour!! But like everything that surrounds their PR and like everything that relates to Kaylor it’s wrapped in a new beard and a weird seating arrangement that ignites the haters. I use to think the girls are playing the long game but now I’m not sure they are playing at all and maybe have chosen that the closet is what’s best for their family. It’s not my place to accept this even if it’s hard. There’s only so much information I have to what’s going on. But I’m tired of the money grabbing greed. Even though their wealth isn’t personal it feels it when they both are choosing this path for whatever reason I’m not privy to. It feels personal, this could be because I’ve had the worst financial year of my life…it’s hard to watch all the greed and I don’t want to be a part of it anymore. The greed. If it’s not about greed and it’s about protection from my point of view and I’m sure others this is what it looks like. Thousand dollar tickets to the concert, three different albums with different songs on them but the songs you want, limited time vinyls which aren’t limited. Stunting on Christmas at the football game why because she wants those fans to buy movie tickets? $20 to rent concert movie at home. She is already a billionaire. We are about to be in a recession. The girls are not a princess’s trapped in a castle they are grown adults who can make their own decisions even if we don’t understand the decisions they make.

I don’t know where to go from here. It’s no secret I’ve stepped back as many others have. It makes me sad to watch things go this way. I miss the 2018 2019 Kaylor world we had. Maybe this if for my own good to focus on my wedding and my own 2024 instead of watching and waiting for something to happen in other peoples lives. I love Kaylor very much and I’m still rooting for them. The celebrity circus I’m taking a step back from. The real love music muse I’ll always have a place for. 🖤

[sylvienerevarine]

Sophrine Aulette's Skyrim Encyclopedia (Part 2)

ok i guess i'm not done with this series yet. it may take a while. i keep thinking of new jokes.

Part 1 is here.

--

Blades

If you’ve ever met a Blade, no you haven’t (that was a joke, because they’re secretive). The Blades were originally founded as a dragon-slaying organization, but eventually expanded into other areas like bodyguarding and espionage. They got their name from using swords, which generally have blades.

Some notable Blades include:

Caius Cosades, who according to my Nana Sylvie’s memoirs never wore a shirt and drank a lot of skooma

Baurus, a fellow from the end of the 3rd Era who impressively survived the entire Oblivion Crisis

My distant great-aunt Sacha Llervu, Martin Septim’s best friend, who had a knack for closing Oblivion Gates and committing petty crimes

Delphine Fitzhubert, who is sort of my friend, except she’s still cross with me for being polite to some dragons. She’ll come around eventually.

Draugr

A draugr is a person who was alive at some point, but is now an undead sort of thing with a terrible complexion. There are a few different stories about how draugr came to be–many of them worked for dragon priests and became undead so they could keep doing their old jobs forever, and apparently some on Solstheim were cursed because they ate other people. Nasty stuff. Unless you’re Bosmer, I guess.

The good news about draugr is that they’re not terribly bright, as is proven by the fact that they can’t solve the puzzles in Nordic ruins. If you know the voice-projecting Shout like I do, you can just call “Who wants free mead?” from somewhere else in the room, and then sneak by while they’re trying to find the free mead.

Palace of Kings

I’m not allowed in here anymore (see Stormcloaks).

Stormcloaks

The Stormcloaks are a political movement based out of Windhelm, and are led by Ulfric Stormcloak (which is how they got their name). They have some pretty good ideas (make Skyrim independent, stop religious persecution, annoy the Thalmor) and some very bad ones (being horrible to Dunmer and Argonians and anyone who isn’t a Nord, really).

I once met Jarl Ulfric and pointed out some of these bad ideas to him, and he banned me from his palace. There’s gratitude for you.

Talos

You probably know about Talos from the park in Whiterun, where that fellow Heimskr is always shouting about what a good lad he was. There are two main theories about where Talos came from: either he was born in Atmora and moved to Skyrim as a young man to take Dragonborn lessons, or he was born in High Rock and did a lot of complicated political things. My grandparents favor the second explanation, since they’re very patriotic.

Wherever he came from, we know that Talos later went around conquering and uniting any piece of land he came across, and set up what we now know as the Third Empire. Somewhere along the way he changed his name to Tiber Septim, in order to match what the money was called.

Many people believe that after Talos died, he was promoted to a member of the Divines. Just in case any of the Thalmor are reading this, I’m legally required to state that this did not happen and humans can’t become gods, because we simply don’t have the intelligence for it. Unlike the average Thalmor officer.

The Throat of the World

The Throat of the World is the tallest mountain in Skyrim and by extension Tamriel. They might have higher mountains in places like Akavir or Atmora, but no one really bothers about those places. It’s unclear how the TotW got its name, since people’s throats aren’t typically very pointy or covered in snow. My guess is that someone from the Bards’ College thought it up. The only place on the Throat to get a bite to eat is High Hrothgar, the home of the Greybeards. While the monks don’t offer much in the way of conversation, they’re very kindly old men, and won’t shout at you for accidentally falling asleep in their library and drooling on their copy of Songs of the Return.

[edienotsedgwick]

Introduction again

It’s been a while since my last pinned post and a lot has changed. I deleted it cause I decided I wanted a new one.

The basics

My name is Edie

I’m from Aotearoa/New Zealand.

I’m 20

She/her

I’m autistic (likely autHD actually but the ADHD hasn’t been diagnosed yet)

I’m a lesbian

I’m an animation student on the weekdays, a musician and a essay writer on the weekends.

Aquarius sun, Capricorn moon, Aries rising

INFJ

A witch who’s extremely lazy with her craft.

I’ve been on Tumblr since 2014! You may have known me from…

Many cartoon fandoms. Too many to count. (Spanning from 2014-16)

Emo bandom tumblr circa 2017-18. Particularly the Fueled By Ramen/Decaydance bandom.

Early Scenecore tumblr in 2018. (I still have a few selfies and hit posts from then gaining notes).

Britpop/early alternative music bandom 2019-2021

And since then I’ve just kind of been doing my own thing and mainly using this blog as a personal moodboard and an outlet to post ideas I don’t want to share anywhere else. I do post about a lot of things I like, but I’m not tied heavily to fandoms anymore - I mostly just lurk. That being said though, don’t be afraid to talk if you share a particular interest with me. I always need to infodump!

What I post

Stuff I find pretty. This blog is mainly a moodboard. I keep wanting to expand out of it but I always give up at some point.

Stuff that makes my brain go brrrrr! Mainly bands + shows.

Music stuff! I mainly like to post lyrics from songs I’m writing that are a work in progress, and sloppy covers/demos that I feel aren’t polished enough for my other socials. I also do cheeky self promo of my songs that you can already listen to. You guys should stream my E.P ‘Thing Is Me’.

I’ve been aspiring to write long form essays about things I’ve been passionate about for ages. I don’t think I’ll directly post them here, but once I get my Substack up and running you’ll be able to see them getting crossposted here.

Stuff I like

Feel free to talk to me about any of these things cause they’re my main special interests!

Music history from the 60s-2000s. In terms of what specific period I’ve jumped to at the moment, I’m fixated on mid-late 2000s indie music, twee pop of any era (mid 80s-present tbh), + some of my old favourite scene bands lmao. I’ve been nostalgic for them lately.

Skins UK (yes I know how 2014 and sad of me). I’m a Cassie apologist so leave me alone if you think she sucks lmao. That’s my Blorbina and my adopted little sister who’s currently got a song + a Substack essay series being written about her. In all seriousness though, I find this show to be very misunderstood in general.

Sighthounds! I love all dogs in general but the pointy ones are my favourites. I have a Greyhound, he’s my best friend :,) When I move into my own home one day I want to have another Greyhound + a Borzoi!

This is a very casual one of mine but (in case you can’t tell from what I mostly reblog here) I love fashion! My fashion tastes span the same general group of decades that my music history knowledge does. Much like my current music fixations I’ve been inspired by the late 2000s, but what I actually wear on a day to day basis is never one particular style. I mix and match a lot.

bla bla bla DNI time

Don’t follow if…

You meet the typical DNI criteria (no ists or phobes of any kind please! Just basic bare minimum human decency)

No pro ana (one of my special interests being skins + me seeing myself in a disordered character you made the face of your little circle does not give you a pro ana free pass around me. I’m not disordered myself + I ask you don’t follow me because I don’t want to accidentally trigger anyone by letting people of your group in my space.)

Same goes for general S/H blogs!

That being said, if you are already vulnerable seeing me potentially reference any of these sensitive topics in anything I post/talk about don’t follow me for the sake of your own well-being if you know it will be triggering to you. Stay safe ILY. I do try and tag though and you can always ask me to do that if you wish.

No creeps of any kind! Please do not send me anything sexual, or talk to me about anything sexual unsolicited you will be blocked immediately.

Okay that’s everything! If you’re cool I hope you enjoy following me. Please listen to my music. ‘Edie VC’ on every platform if you want to. You’ll like it if you like twee/folk/dream pop Xx

All the tags below are for my interests, aesthetics that people could say match my vibe, as well as my face tag (if you want to know what I look like) and my text tag. Hopefully I can make some cool new mutuals.

[anxiety-thyme]

Me talking to my spouse: I kind of just want to write fanfiction for my new pathfinder character.

My spouse: …..that’s just fiction????

Me: lies.

The campaign is a post-apocalyptic fantasy setting in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest. Characters are small mountain animals surviving in the aftermath of a massive forest fire. The campaign starts in a small village called Riverwatch that is nestled at the top of a waterfall - it is only the hard work of the inhabitants and proximity to water that saved Riverwatch from destruction during the Burning Era (forest fire).

She’s a Bat (goblin) Alchemist named Modest Danger, Mo for short. I would die for her.

Mo is extremely intelligent. She is. She’s probably one of the most intelligent bats you will ever meet despite what the Cauldron she grew up in thinks. They are wrong. What she is is maybe oblivious, a little socially inept, and completely lacking in any common sense. What she is is maybe a bit fucked up from testing one too many Mutagens on herself. And it’s not that she doesn’t know how society is ‘supposed’ to work or how to interact with others, but society is fucked and she can’t be bothered with making herself ‘less batty’ (derogatory) when there are more important things to do.

“Your parents should have named you after your Uncle with how you behave.” Ethyl said, “It’s bad enough that your parents left to protect other villages from the burning when they should have stayed safe here,” mentioning her parents was wholly unnecessary. Even though she’s proud of the work her parents are doing, she’s lonely without them. “they should have never let you apprentice with him when you were younger. Just because he was your mother’s favorite brother doesn’t mean they should have let you anywhere near him. He was always odd and they knew it. And the poisons! Of all of the things for him to study, it had to be poisons! Then letting you run amok in his lab with no care that you were testing Mutagens. Leaving was the best thing he ever did for you. No common sense, that one, and you are just like him.” She meant it as a dig, but Mo thought it was the highest compliment anyone could pay her. Her Uncle Major was one of the best bats she had ever known. Doesn’t change the fact that his absence hurt. She’d always hoped he would take her with him if he ever left. But when her parents followed after him to fight against the burning, they decided that it would be too dangerous for her to go along.

“Thank you.” Mo interjected rubbing under her familiar’s chin and effectively cutting off Ethyl’s tirade. When She got on the topic of Uncle Major, Ethyl could go on for hours. You’d think he’d personally offended her at some point rather than just being a brilliant, if reclusive, alchemist.

.oO0Oo.

Everyone has their limits and Mo is no different. You can only tell someone so many times that keeping their heads stuck in the cave is not going to keep the fire from coming. And you can only hear so many times that spending time on your experiments instead of ‘contributing to society’ before mayyyybeee you set off some explosions. She just needed to let off some steam. Nothing of any importance was hurt.

Anyway, Mo’s Cauldron—no that’s not right they aren’t hers anymore—the Collective decided that she should focus on healing elixirs, something ‘useful’. So she did what any self-respecting Mutagenist would do. She gathered her familiar, drank a Cheetah’s elixir and booked it. She’d go to Riverwatch where people were doing something about the fire and would appreciate how useful her elixirs really are and who aren’t going to ignore the danger headed their way. Maybe she’d find Uncle Major there.

.oO0Oo.

Riverwatch was bleak when Mo arrived. It still is but at least the burning has ended. She spent her first days searching for her uncle but it seemed he and her parents had been deployed somewhere else to fight the fire by the time she got there.

What she did find was a town that had no idea that they could fight the fire so much better than they were. You would think they would know that the firefighters needed better protection than soaking their clothes in the river. Why no one could manage the simplest of tasks she would never understand. So she pushed aside whoever was in charge (she can’t be bothered to remember who it was ) and set to work distilling elixirs. Salamander Elixirs for fire resistance, Darkvision Elixirs for seeing through the smoke, and on and on it goes. In no time at all Mo had completely lost track of everything but mixing new elixirs and convincing townspeople to let her test her new recipes on them. Her only focus became proving that studying Mutagens is a good use of time, that her elixirs can prevent injuries before they happen, that she is useful.

[chocmarss]

I’ve said this on twitter before but I’ll say it again here: it would be EXTREMELY funny if Rex, Ahsoka, and Bo-Katan meet again post episode IV, specifically in the Mandalorian era.

Ahsoka: You lost the Darksaber again?

Bo-Katan: [has been hiding the fact she did lose the Darksaber the 2nd time but by the gods has she been trying her best to keep that from Ahsoka] How—

Ahsoka: Rex told me. Sabine gave it to you and you lost it. How’d that happened, Bo? There were no evil ex-Sith Lords to steal it from you again, and you lost it?

Bo-Katan: I didn’t lose it—

Ahsoka: Then, how did Din get it?

Rex: Who’s he?

Ahsoka: The new Manda’lor

Bo-Katan: He is not the new Manda’lor—

This is the day Bo-Katan was reminded that these two might be dangerous on their own but together —Clone War vets who have been working together for almost 30 years and are basically each other’s persons— they’re a bunch of lethally dangerous assholes.

Okay, yeah, so maybe Bo-Katan did lose the Darksaber, but they didn’t have to be insufferable about it. They’re so annoying, honestly. They’re beginning to sound like Boba, and it doesn’t help that Rex shares the same genetic gnome with the dude, like ugh.

Rex: Oh yeah, I know he rules Tatooine. I visit him sometimes to make his life a mess, like he did when he was little and decided to be a little brat to us on Kamino.

I didn’t think much of this other than Bo-Katan drops over to Rex’s house before that because she knows Ahsoka’s there but walks in on them being like. old people sappy.

Bo-Katan: [watches them] I see you two have gotten… close

Ahsoka: [slow dancing with Rex around his garden] What of it?

Rex isn’t exactly young anymore, but he has his own house to retire and all, so Ahsoka drops by once in a while to spend some time with him and do all the nice things they wouldn’t imagine doing since they’ve been in too many wars one went through a lifetime, so forgive her if she’s enjoying herself, Bo.

Maybe you should join them, listen to the music coming out from the clanky old radio, breathe in the fresh air. Take a nap maybe, since you look like the last time they’re about to take over a whole planet.

Wha— you’re going to Mandalore again? Why?

To help Din? That’s a first. No, we’re not making fun of you, it’s just that you hate the guy’s guts, and usually, you’d die for that Darksaber if it means getting it from him.

You want our help to get him around the sewages? But you’re going to be there though, why won’t you do it?

You’re going there first. To wait for him. While the Manda’lor himself is somewhere around the galaxy doing. Whatever. Can’t you just look for him and then you go together?

Bo-Katan: [feeling a headache coming along] I have other business to look into, will you help me or not?

Rex: [taking a tray of freshly baked bread out of the oven] Nope. Permanently retired, remember?

Ahsoka finally agrees to follow Bo-Katan to Mandalore and Rex gives her a little kiss goodbye and saying things like, “Make sure there aren’t any old ghosts trying to kill you.” and “If you need help, just tell me, and I’ll go.”

Bo-Katan: What happened to retiring?

Rex: [gives Ahsoka a Keldabe kiss]

Bo-Katan: [full of heavy judgement] Forget I asked.

[captnjacksparrow]

The thing is, because they (Konoha ninjas) are a part of the protagonists, the good guys, the village as a whole is portrayed as being better or not as cruel as other villages (though the shinobi world is cruel so it’s not like it’s gonna be sunshine and rainbows no matter what) but it still has it’s darkness, represented in Danzo and Root and the biggest stain on the village is of course the Uchiha massacre. I think a big part of why so many people end up hating Konoha is because of this: we are told Konoha is the good guys then they do something like this, and with the UM being such a prominent plot point, it’s easy to feel cheated in a way if that makes sense (I remember when I first watched the anime I was feeling sort of lost after this revelation because what would Sasuke do now? No matter what he did he wouldn’t have anything, he wouldn’t have the village anymore…(before I realized he would always have Naruto no matter what lol)) And also it can be provoking to have someone tell you over and over that they’re good and then be “hiding” something so dark. And I’m not saying the UM was ridiculous because in the situational context it makes sense because they were planning to overthrow the leadership of the village but that same leadership is the reason they got to that point to begin with so there aren’t any innocents in this. But if we look at this will of fire that the Uchiha never really adopted but that the Hokages starting with Hashirama put so much weight on, which is something a lot of anti-konoha like to call fascist propaganda (which it might be, I don’t have the knowledge to say either or in this) it’s actually not hard to understand why they put so much weight on it. Especially from Hashirama and Tobirama who lived in the era of warring clans. Because the village system would only work if everyone involved was willing to put the needs and wants of their clan aside and be part of a whole. Which the Uchiha never did fully.

I hope there is something in this that makes sense hahaha. I just needed to write down my thoughts on it.

I am so glad to answer this Ask... seriously!!! And very excited to find that there is someone out there who is being very realistic by acknowledging the mistakes of the Uchiha Clan which is a super rarity here in Tumblr. Thanks again!!!!

[[Disclaimer: Lengthy and Panel-Heavy post.... Read at your best time...

This post is intended for people who are Open-minded and want to know about a rare perspective that strictly adheres to Canon... Not based on Head-Canon or self-Projection.

 Anti-Konoha, Extremist Sasuke fans, Uchiha Apologists... Don’t interact]]

Again, for the Millionth time, neither me nor this Anon supports this Massacre in any way. With that being said,

UCM REVELATION AND IT’S CONSEQUENCES

First off,

Will of Fire is something a lot of anti-konoha like to call fascist propaganda (which it might be, I don’t have the knowledge to say either or in this)

I too wanted to know about this so-called “Fascist Propaganda”.... And I sent an Ask to this amazing Blogger @dinainwater... back when I was a newcomer to this Fandom and I got a sharp and precise response. PLEASE READ IT... [Link]

And also it can be provoking to have someone tell you over and over that they’re good and then be “hiding” something so dark.

Hiding means Hiding the Uchiha Clan Massacre (UCM) from revealing it to the public, Right???? I think this panel gave rise to this idea???

"I doubt they'll ever speak a word of their sickening knowledge to anyone"

Like you said, I agree that this UM is a big stain on Konoha... But what people are failing to understand is that it's even more of an unremovable stain on Uchiha Clan as well. Somehow, people just don't understand this part.

And this panel adds even more fuel to the burning fire....

And added to that... This,

Naruto really wanted to say this to his friends to defend Sasuke’s behaviour. But Kakashi stops him.... [[Because of this there is lot of Kakashi hate here...Sigh!!!]]

All the panels I've attached above gives this feeling that Konoha hides this incident from the public because of the possibility of loss of Reputation about the Hokage or Higher-Ups or both. Sasuke stans hates Naruto for keeping quiet about this matter and some SNS fans thinks that Naruto was brainwashed to keep quiet... 

They always go this way, "Well, Sasuke lost his family and his clan for this village. But somehow, Konoha Higher-Ups don't reveal it to the Public because people would lose trust on the Leadership and it will cause a Civil Unrest. So, they conveniently hide everything for their benefit and made Sasuke to "Endure" in the end (in chapter 699) by brainwashing him about Will of Fire Fascist propaganda"

And somehow they all believe that by revealing this, Magically all the Villagers will gang up together and overthrow their Leadership and hail Sasuke as their Hokage...

This is how they always go about, Right???? Right???

But that's not how it will go.... That's for sure. This Manga has lots of panels and patterns to prove it.

It's been repeated over and over again that the Uchiha clan is a celebrated clan among the Konoha Villagers. We have Zabuza, Kakashi, Lee, Neji, Orochimaru and many more who acknowledge this fact. And I am not going to attach all those panels here. Instead I'll just attach one.

This one is enough. No explanation needed. People were so excited to watch the Match of Sasuke than any other contenders there... 

And we all know how loyal Konoha Villagers are.... towards their own comrades & their Hokage & ESPECIALLY THEIR VILLAGE ....

The following panel is from the Konoha Crush Arc from Part 1.

The moment Hiruzen was attacked, every Jounin had started to gather and wanted to protect their Hokage & also their Village. [[They started to attack Orochimaru even though he is from this very Village]]

This is another instance where Konoha Shinobis were talking about Itachi from their own point of view. They couldn't tolerate him because he killed his own clan members from their Village.... And added to it, he even attacked Konoha by joining Akatsuki. They term Itachi as the Biggest Villain in their History. [[Even though Itachi was from their very own Village]].... 

[[It’s funny... In this scene, none of the villagers were demonizing Uchiha Clan or Sasuke.... Some people claim, Uchiha Clan people were ostracized by the Villagers as well... How come people sympathize an Ostracized Clan and a member from that clan??? I really wonder]]

We know that Jiraiya and Tsunade are very good friends. But still he went on to warn her that, "If you ever do anything to betray Konoha.. I'll Kill You.."

Remember at this point, Hiruzen was already dead. It's not like Jiraiya was acting like a Loyal Dog to his own Sensei or Hokage or something.... No... He don’t even have any relatives in that village..... He is talking about the Village as a Whole. It’s also funny that Jiraiya didn’t give 2 fucks about the fact that Tsunade was the grandchild of 1st Hokage [[Even though Tsunade is from this very own Village]]

Here Shikamaru is openly claiming that he don't like Sasuke... And he is not obligated to... But still he went to claim that, "But like us, Sasuke is a Shinobi of Konoha. He is our Comrade!!! Therefore I'll stake my life to rescue him... That's the Konoha Way..."

Even though, Sasuke has joined Orochimaru who attempted to destroy their village few chapters before.... Even though he personally don't like him.... Somehow he is willing to put his life on line to rescue Sasuke. Not only him... Chouji, Neji almost went to the Edge of Death... And we've never seen these boys had any friendly interaction with Sasuke so far. So, why are they helping him???? Naruto trying to retrieve Sasuke is reasonable and understandable. But why them??? That's because Sasuke also belong to the same Village as them.

Even after 3 years, they never demonized Sasuke...

And there is a separate arc, where 2 teams from Konoha (Team 7 & Kiba's Team) were sent out to save Sasuke....

It's only after they heard about Sasuke joining Akatsuki, the organization who reduced Konoha into Smithereens.... Konoha 12 decided to kill Sasuke.

They were all okay and accepted Sasuke as their comrade even though he joined Orochimaru. But the moment they heard about him joining Akatsuki... They came to the conclusion of killing him. [[Even though Sasuke is from their own Village]]

The pattern here is that Every Villagers care about their comrades & their Hokage.... But most importantly, they prioritize their Village more than anything else. Jiraiya cares about Tsunade... Heck!!! He even loved her.... But If he ever found out that she betrayed that Village, he would kill her. Same with Konoha 12 in Sasuke’s case. 

In the above panel, When Konoha 12 decides to kill Sasuke, Tsunade was under coma and the village has no official Hokage..... This is not some loyalty to their current Hokage or their Councilors. It’s all about protecting their Home. That’s all. And every villagers has this same spirit. 

This is the very same spirit that made Itachi to prioritize the Village over his own family.... even if it means his own death. 

[[That’s precisely why Sasuke (as a voice for the audience) asking the Hokages... What is this Village??? Why everyone is going so far to protect this place even though they don’t get anything from it???]]

Now where I am getting at????

“They call it revolution, but if their real intention is to take back political power, we’ll have to treat them as Rebels”

Considering all the above incidents & patterns.....

How do you think the Villagers of Konoha will take this news about Uchiha Massacre????? 

It will go like this, And I am not going to hide any facts here...

“Dear Villagers, 

Some years ago, Uchiha Clan was massacred by Uchiha Itachi on the Orders of Konoha Higher-Ups especially Danzo. They did this because Uchiha Clan wanted to take over the Village and was planning to abduct the Hokage for their Political Revolution....They decided to take over the village because they were asked to move to the Outskirts of the Village and the clan members felt they were being discriminated by the Higher Ups... This decision was taken as the result from the suspicion that arise from the Kyuubi Incident that took place 16 years ago because Kyuubi can be controlled only by the Visual Prowess of Uchiha... As it happens, Kyuubi was indeed released by our seemingly Fallen Hero of Kannabi Bridge, Uchiha Obito and it was successfully stopped by Our Fourth Hokage at the expense of his own life. Itachi murdered his own clan members to stop the Coup and worked for the Akatsuki to protect our Village from inside” 

[[Yes, the mastermind behind the Kyuubi incident should also be revealed,,, because that’s when all the problems started]]

If this news was revealed to the Public..... How do you think the villagers will react??????

They will ask a series of Questions.... But Before that.... I would love to throw in few facts.....

Every Hokages were revered and adored by the Villagers.... Especially Hiruzen. It was even mentioned in the Data book... “In the History of Konoha, no Hokage is as beloved by the people as Hiruzen”

Well.... You and I may hate Hiruzen.... But everyone loved him in that Village... Naruto loved him.... Kakashi loved him... Sasuke’s Father included...

Why would Fugaku name his Son after Third Hokage’s Father’s name???? Before the Kyuubi incident, Hiruzen was unanimously beloved by everyone.... Uchiha Members included. 

Now back to the Topic.... 

If UCM incident was revealed to the Public..... The Villagers will pose a series of Questions!!!! And their questions would go like this:

1. We all respected and considered Uchihas as the Prestigious clan of Konoha.. But Just to take over the Village, they decided to abduct our Sandaime and subjugate all of us..... Have they ever considered us as their Comrades????? Is this how they respect us, for all the respect we have shown to them???

2. I belong to Nara Clan....  We specialize in making Medicine... I belong to Yamanaka Clan.... We specialize in selling Flowers and handling Sensory system of Konoha.... I belong to Akimichi Clan.... We specialize in selling Food Products... I belong to Hyuga, another Prestigious Clan of Konoha.... We don’t hold any special position in this village....And Yet Uchiha Clan was given the Military Police Force.... A Military Power inside a Military Village... And yet they try to take over the Village with that very power they have Given??? None of our clan members were in The Hokage Council or none of our Clan members became an Hokage.... And yet we never tried to kidnap our Hokage or plan to perform Coup detat... Why should Uchiha Clan be superior for all of us???? Aren’t we all equal??? Or How are we lesser than Uchiha clan in any way???

3. They even decided to kidnap our Sandaime Hokage???????

4. So Kyuubi was released by another Uchiha???? 

5. And during that Kyuubi incident, I lost my Husband..... I lost my Child.... I lost my Wife.... So, behind all of this.... there is an Uchiha???

6. And in that Kyuubi incident, We all lost our Beloved Yondaime Hokage!!!

7. So Danzo and Itachi decided to protect our Village from this Coup Detat????

8. Itachi must be a Great Hero. Danzo must be a benevolent man... (Fuck!!)

9. So Sasuke killed both Danzo and Itachi, who tried to protect this village.... And decided to join Akatsuki along with Madara who released Kyuubi 16 years ago.... Sasuke must be planning to revive the Uchiha Clan by taking over the Village. 

10. What was Sasuke planning to do with Obito, a guy who released Kyuubi and also started this World war???

So..... This is how the conversation will go.... 

There is no valid proof that Konoha or Sasuke can provide to prove that Kyuubi incident has nothing to do with the Uchiha Clan..... Because years later, Uchiha Clan planned to do what Obito wanted to do... That is to create a chaos in the Village... And after many years Sasuke joined Akatsuki which was started by that very Obito.... 

And in the End.... Sasuke would be branded as the Traitor of the Village, even though he had a change of heart and Uchiha Clan will be resented by the Villagers forever. 

Is this what Anti-Konoha Stans want???? To make Sasuke’s life even more unbearable????

I have showed you from above panels, how the Villagers are very possessive about their Home .... No matter what, the Villagers would resent anyone who betray their Village. 

Just like how they 

How will the UCM revelation alone would bring justice to that clan???? It would instead muddy their name and Sasuke would be resented like a piece of Shit... How will the Villagers perceive a Clan who once decided to perform Coup Detat by subjugating all the other clans????? Especially those villagers treated that Clan with utmost respect!!!! This Political Discrimination sob story would only be laughed out by everyone alike because of the Point 2, I mentioned above. They would simply ask, “You guys are so powerful by holding the Law Enforcement Position and yet you want more power by abducting our Hokage???”

Let me repeat the panel which I mentioned above.... 

If only Naruto said the truth here..... Do you know what Kiba will ask him??? 

-

-

-

-

“So the Uchiha Clan was planning a coup......”

This is the first question that Kiba will ask him, “So they were planning to take over the village???”.... Even Naruto himself knows that Coup detat was wrong and that’s why Itachi shuts him off just like how Kakashi shuts Naruto off in the previous panel ....

Kiba and others won’t be sympathizing with Uchiha Clan or Sasuke. Plus they will ask all the questions I’ve mentioned above which will create another big mess...

If you want another perspective,

Let me put it this way.... 

Just because Naruto housed Kyuubi inside him, the villagers mistreated him a lot because they also suffered from the monster he carried inside him.... 

If only the real mastermind behind the Kyuubi incident was revealed, What do the villagers think about the Uchiha Clan as a whole??? Are they going to say, “Just because one Uchiha did it, it’s pointless to blame the entire clan” thingy and daintily wipe Sasuke’s tears????.... Well, it may look pointless to blame the entire clan..... for the people who sip cold coffee and watch this series from their Couch... But the characters inside the series will never think in that way. 

This following panel proves the entire point... This scene happens right before the Gaara speech about re-uniting and fighting together for the 4th shinobi world war.

“Hell yeah.... I do.... You sand bastards killed my father, I got no problem taking one of you out!”

This dude is angry because some Sand shinobi killed his father. But Instead of pointing the one who killed his dad, he is starting to blame the entire village for his pain. And this is how people will be like everywhere, Konoha people included. Sasuke also.

Even Sasuke knew that the Elders were the only culprits behind that thing.... But still he blamed the ENTIRE VILLAGE and wanted to destroy it as a whole. 

Why couldn’t those apologists ask the same question to Sasuke, “Oii, Sasuke.... Just because 3 Old crows did a mistake how could you blame the entire village full of innocents?”

Oh!!! They clearly won’t ask this kind of logical question when it comes to their favourite character. All their logics are applicable only to Konoha.

Well, I have one more example....

This is Nagato’s flashback where he talked about how they met Jiraiya.

The very first remark Nagato makes here is, “I couldn’t get past the fact that they were Konoha Ninjas”... 

And it’s totally understandable.... Because some random Konoha Ninjas actually killed his parents and hence Nagato has a prejudice towards them and he couldn’t trust Jiraiya easily. 

And very later, he lost Yahiko because of the betrayal from Hanzo and Danzo... (this limpdick!!).... Now Nagato totally hates Konoha and that’s why he destroyed it to get justice for his loss even though he knew Naruto was not in the Village. 

Why couldn’t Nagato understand that not all Konoha Ninjas are bad???

If Nagato could meet a person like Jiraiya from Konoha.... Why couldn’t he rationalize his thought that just because of few bad people, it’s pointless to blame the Entire Konoha for it????

If Nagato and Sasuke both wanted to direct their Hatred & Vengeance towards an Entire Village for the mistake done by 2 or 3 people..... Then how would the Villagers alone would take this UCM revelation where Obito and Uchiha Clan wanted to harm the Village and Sasuke (an Uchiha) being the accomplice to Obito????? Will the Villagers really separate each and every incident to say, “Just because Obito did wrong, it’s a crime to blame the entire clan.... Our Hokage was wrong and the Uchiha clan were right to Subjugate us and Sasuke somehow, magically has no connection with Obito”????

Won’t they show their Entire Hatred & Vengeance towards Uchiha Clan & Sasuke???

Even if the villagers could forgive the Kyuubi incident.... How could they forgive Sasuke for joining Akatsuki, an organization started by Obito, the Uchiha who was responsible for starting the World War which killed thousands and thousands of lives??? Added to that, Uchiha Clan indeed planned to perform Coup detat by subjugating the village!!!! Add Madara, another Uchiha into the mix who pulled this Infinite Tsukuyomi bullshit...

I seriously wonder, how could this revelation brings Justice to the Uchiha Clan or to Sasuke???

It’s precisely for this reason...

Itachi asked Naruto to keep quiet about this matter... 

“Then make sure you keep it that way!!! At least that way, the Uchiha Name’s reputation can be preserved.”

Everything was very clear here.... And Here’s the Closure about Uchiha Clan Massacre Revelation.

Yes, By revealing this tragedy, Itachi’s name will be cleared.... But Danzo, that fucking Asshole will be seen as some Benevolent Man... I am damn sure, Itachi would gladly live 1000 miserable lives by eating ashes than making that piece of shit into a Hero. Plus, The Reputation of the Uchiha Clan will be unanimously thrown into the drain. 

Thanks to this Revelation!!!

Even in Gaiden, A material written by Kishimoto, has this Uchiha Reputation. Because the Villagers don’t know anything about this Coup Detat and stuffs... Otherwise no one would treat this Girl or Sasuke with any respect.

It’s precisely for these reasons UCM cannot be revealed to the Villagers because it would only hurt back Sasuke in the worst way possible. He & Itachi had already suffered a lot because of the Selfish Ambitions of their Own Clan.

Sasuke had nothing to do with Kyuubi Incident...

Sasuke had nothing to do with Uchiha Clan’s Coup detat....

Sasuke had nothing to do with Obito or Madara’s Moon Plan...

Do they really want Sasuke to suffer so much for something he has nothing to do with in the first place, by opening this can of worms again????

I definitely don’t. 

My Point is, no matter what, Uchiha Clan contributed a lot for Konoha from the time the village was formed. People loved them and respected them. Instead of dirtying their name by revealing their wrong-doings after their eventual death, I want their respect to be preserved atleast. 

This Anti-Konoha/Sasuke stans’ version of ‘Uchiha Clan Massacre Justice’ would only bring more harm and pain to the Last Survivor which nobody wants to. 

Well, those Anti-Konoha/Sasuke stans can claim that Revealing this Tragedy would bring them justice. But if you ask them to provide panels & patterns that were previously established inside the Storytelling of Narutoverse (like I did above) which could support their Narrative.... You won’t be finding anything.... Because there is none and all you could find was some angry lengthy post with some big words like Oppression, Fascism, Racism, Genocide but without any panel evidence.

Talking and spouting some angry bull shit without providing any evidence is so easier, isn’t it????

I was feeling sort of lost after this revelation because what would Sasuke do now? No matter what he did he wouldn’t have anything, he wouldn’t have the village anymore

When I was binge-watching this series obsessively for the first time.... I pretty much knew this UCM is going to hurt Sasuke a lot.... I mean right after I finished watching the Part 1, 81st Episode. And When it was revealed.... I simply couldn’t handle it.... I took a week worth of break to get over it and then I started again. Such heart wrenching revelation it was!!!

But when you look at it carefully... Sasuke deep down knew that his clan was wrong (atleast a little bit) after the revelation by Obito and his entire vengeance & hatred was all about Itachi and his pain ... 

Otherwise why would he join the very person who helped Itachi slaughter his own clan??? Especially Sasuke vowed to kill him after his battle with Itachi???

“Once I’m through with you... I will kill him (Obito) next...”

The thing is, if Sasuke was really trying to take revenge to bring justice to his Clan, then the very first person he should’ve killed is Obito. Because Obito himself agreed that, he wanted to rekindle the War and wanted to take revenge on Uchiha Clan.

[[Surprisingly, those Sasuke stans would never question this behaviour of Sasuke... Like, “Why the hell Sasuke is lounging around with Obito, even though he admitted that he slaughtered Uchiha Clan for his own revenge unlike Itachi who had no option to?”.... 

Oh, they won’t.... because talking with Canon Logic only applies to Konoha.... But not for their fav character]] 

Apparently, his stans will never ask these kind of questions.... But Sasuke did.... Otherwise he wouldn’t have asked these...

“Madara was behind the Kyuubi’s attack on Konoha 16 years ago... Sadly, he was stopped again, this time by the Fourth Hokage...” Itachi to Sasuke.

Itachi dropped this information to Sasuke because he hoped that Sasuke would kill him and bring justice to his Clan...

So, Sasuke knew that Obito was the one who released Kyuubi and framed Uchiha... 

But the moment Obito started to talk in detail about Itachi’s sacrifice.... Sasuke just conveniently ignored these facts. Because by ignoring the truth it gives him more reasons to completely hate the Village by conveniently lying to himself that whatever he was doing was right. 

This “lying to oneself” is the very thing Itachi taught Sasuke & Kabuto after he came back from the Edo Tensei.

“First... You should have acknowledged your real self... That way you wouldn’t have had to tell lies... Not even to yourself...”

This is a self-reflected thought about Itachi.... Back then he thought that he successfully stopped the war by massacring the clan, lying to Sasuke and joining Akatsuki.... He did all these to protect the village... He believed he was powerful enough and he could do it alone. 

But at the end of the day, Itachi’s actions drove Sasuke into a hate filled person who kidnapped Killer Bee... and that started the Kage Summit.... and in turn Sasuke’s actions officially started the Shinobi World War.... All the while Sasuke decided to destroy the Village. Itachi stopped a war and protected the village by lying to Sasuke.... And that very lie created another World War and a threat to the Village in the form of Sasuke. So, Itachi failed ultimately.... 

Similarly, Sasuke also knew that somewhere his clan went wrong... He knew that Obito released the Kyuubi which was the reason behind every misfortune that had happened to him later.... And he was completely aware that killing innocent people was also wrong... Because he was a person who couldn’t kill 1000 Ninjas for training purpose when Orochimaru asked him to.... He even got repulsed when Orochimaru was experimenting on people for fun.... Sasuke is just that kind of person.

It’s just that he simply couldn’t acknowledge it. Because if he accept the Truth about his own clan’s wrong doings, that will never make him hate Konoha entirely. But the true thing is that he couldn’t completely hate Konoha which is why he verified his resolve to destroy that Village many times... as I’ve explained in this post... [Link]

It’s very clear that Obito was making use of Sasuke’s hatred to his own benefit. And Sasuke couldn’t handle the reality which was shown by Obito and he couldn’t tolerate the pain Itachi went through to preserve the peace and he simply wanted to inflict the pain on Konoha for making his Beloved Brother to die suffering a lot by bearing the name of a Traitor. Sasuke was neither doing it for his clan nor for his parents. If he was doing it for his Clan or his dead parents, he must have Killed Obito and then tried to have his vengeance on Konoha.

You may slander me for saying this but that’s the truth. And these following panels are the evident for it. 

First of all, Sasuke never had any big attachment to his own Clan... He didn’t have any friends from his clan or any happy memories or anything. It was entirely about Itachi.... and his parents also played a very minimal role in his life.

Tell me, After the revelation, Did Sasuke ever thought about any fond memories he had with his Mom and Dad???? Yeah, You may’ve found them in 1 or 2 panels in the background. But he had Chapters and Chapters of Good Memories he shared with Itachi.

Itachi says, “We’ll both be really busy from now on...”

To which Sasuke says, “That’s Okay.... Just as long as we can be together sometimes....”

If Sasuke was really doing this for his Clan, why did he only think about the happy memories he shared with Itachi???? 

Added to that,

There were only two times, Sasuke mentioned that he was doing this for his Clan and his Parents..... 

The above one is from when he was in Madara Hideout.

This one was from Under the Bridge. There is another panel in the same scene where he maniacally laugh about how he was going to kill every last person in Konoha and by doing that he will revive his clan... I didn’t add it because he really turned mad while saying it. 

And can I say..... THAT’S ALLL!!!!!?????

Whereas he mentioned Itachi’s life many times...

“I have no intention of protecting the “peaceful” world that sacrificed him (Itachi).”

So he knew that his clan massacre brought the Peace.... And yet he wants to destroy it???

“His life meant more to me than the village”

“They are all laughing it up.... At the cost of Itachi’s life!”

Well... Why is he mentioning Itachi’s life rather than his parents’ or 100′s of clan members who were slaughtered????

“The more I’m able to understand you.... the more I’m able to hate Konoha for the suffering they put you through... In fact, it’s becoming even stronger than it was before”

It’s totally funny that Sasuke is acknowledging the fact that, “It’s probably because you’re my older brother that you feel the need to put me on the right path...”.... So, Sasuke clearly knew that he is traversing on the wrong path....

“He did it.... For these people.... For people that just labeled him a traitor....”

This line screams Sasuke was more worried about people slandering Itachi without knowing the price he paid for it.... rather than worrying about the justice for his clan.

Not only Sasuke.... Other people like Naruto and Kabuto, also acknowledge the same thing.... That Sasuke was doing all of this for Itachi.... 

And finally this,

“I was supposed to die!! You were supposed to kill me along with our parents”

Tell me, instead of asking, “Why did you kill our parents or why did you betray our clan?”.... Why is Sasuke asking the reason for letting him alive?... So, he did knew that his clan’s coup detat was wrong and that Sasuke should have died....

And this is the last....

“He’s different from you!!!! You were perfect!!!”

How can Sasuke call Itachi as Perfect after massacring his own clan & killing his own parents????

In 5 instances, Sasuke talked about Itachi’s pain and sufferings.... Other characters like Kabuto and Naruto also acknowledges this fact.... Plus, Sasuke willingly joined Obito, the man who slaughtered his Clan and was responsible for his clan’s eventual downfall...... And Sasuke referenced his parents and his Clan just twice...... 

And do you really think Sasuke was doing all these for the justice for his Clan???? 

I’ll be blunt here, Sasuke was using his Clan’s name as the excuse but in reality he was doing this for Itachi..... 

Just like how Sasuke left Naruto alive in VoTE1 and convinced himself that he left him alive because he didn’t want to follow Itachi’s path.... 

When in reality, Sasuke really couldn’t kill him. 

In Short, Sasuke’s feelings were all about him being fuming inside and engulfed with Hatred and Pain whereas people in Konoha were laughing and enjoying the Peace at the cost of Itachi’s life. 

Am not saying, Sasuke completely accepted that his clan was wrong.... But atleast he was not a fool enough to justify at any point that Uchiha clan was Right about organizing the Coup detat. And rather than for the sake of his own clan or his parents, he mostly wanted to take Revenge on Konoha for Itachi’s pain and sufferings.

This is very clear from all the above panels.

And after seeing Itachi’s memories, He clearly understood something was definitely wrong with his clan. Because, he saw Shisui and came to an understanding that...

Itachi didn’t kill his own friend as he claimed.... 

Shisui committed suicide to protect the village as well as the UCHIHA’S NAME.... 

This shows that not only Itachi but there was another Uchiha who was also willing to give their life for the Village as well as for preserving the Clan’s name. And this is precisely why he went to the Hokages to know about Konoha.

“The feelings of a person who, even after getting his name sullied and dying, continue to think about his Village... and wanted to protect it...”

And after meeting the Hokages, he was very clear who was wrong, he understood Itachi’s feelings and that’s why he stopped wearing his clan colours in the end. 

What was Itachi’s feelings, by the way????

“Obsessing over worthless things like the Clan.... You lose sight of what’s truly important...”

Itachi always wanted to be the part of a whole rather than restraining himself to a Clan. And that’s why he was lashing out at his clan members to stop obsessing over worthless things like the clan. 

“They could transcend the framework of clan and devote themselves to the village...”

And when he find that Itachi’s words and ideals were very similar to the Hokages.... Sasuke accepting Konoha is not something strange. 

He even used the same words of those Hokages in VoTE2 and acknowledges that he understood Itachi’s feelings....

“Village is a Framework created to stop the slaughter of many clans and children....A Framework that was lead to peace.... Itachi was trying to sustain that peace all by himself... That’s what I came to understand....”

Since Sasuke realized the meaning behind the Creation of Konoha, the extent Itachi went so far to protect this Village, the wrong doings of his own Clan and his eventual acceptance of Itachi’s Will & Konoha, Sasuke decided to not wear his Clan Colours anymore.... 

That’s because every time Itachi talks about Uchiha Clan’s arrogance and their history, Sasuke was there and listened to him!!! 

“The Clan!! The Clan!!.... You all fail to measure your own capacity.... And to see the depth of my capacity... And because of that you lie beaten here..... 

You hold onto the organization, your clan, your name.... These things limit us and our capacities.... These things deserve to be shunned... It is foolish to fear what we’ve yet to see and know!!”

“Of my capacity.... I’ve lost all hope for this pathetic clan...”

“Uchiha is just a name, it just refers to our roots and clan.... It doesn’t mean anything by itself...“

Just like every other characters in Narutoverse, Kabuto was also feeling jealous about Itachi’s belonging to the Uchiha Clan... But Itachi immediately shuts him off by saying, “We are not that special or anything that you imagine us to be.... It’s after all a name and we are just a clan...”

This is called Being Humble and Modest despite having enormous power. This is what Itachi always wanted and expected from his Clan Members... But Instead of being Humble, they got Arrogant because they thought they are better than everyone because of their Superior powers and ended up getting destroyed ultimately. 

You might have noticed Sasuke, for the most part of the series, took pride in pronouncing his Clan’s name before Lee, Orochimaru and Naruto... even though it’s a burden and he had to work hard to keep that Name. But in the end, he just became humble by keeping his Clan’s name in his Memory, a symbolic representation of removing that Burden that comes with his Clan’s name and truly became a part of the Whole. Just like how Itachi had always wanted to be. 

Konoha is a village which is Good for the most part and it has it’s darker, rotten and ugly side in the name of ROOT. And the problems inside the Village is something that exists in every village. 

The Author’s intention is to show Konoha with some realistic flaws pertaining to the Ninja World.... And the Characters inside the world want to change it into an even Better Place to live even though they suffered a lot just like Naruto and Kakashi... 

People actually ignored, feared and discriminated Naruto for a reason.... Naruto had every reason to throw his hatred at them.... And those Villagers had every reason to be afraid of Naruto.... But Naruto instead of lashing out at the Villagers, he remained patient.... He found people who can love him.... Slowly and Steadily, Naruto showed that he is capable, harmless and made all the villagers to acknowledge him... 

Similarly, Kakashi’s father was slandered for prioritizing his comrades rather than blindly following the rules. That made his father to commit suicide. Instead of Kakashi going crazy on the villagers, he endured, remained patient, he became a sensei and passed on his Father’s Ideals, that is... TO PRIORITIZE THE COMRADES.... to the Next Generation (Team 7) and he became an Hokage. 

But contrary to Naruto and Kakashi.... Uchiha Clan was praised and celebrated unanimously by every villagers... They were given the Law Enforcement Position which is a Superior Shinobi position the village could offer... Due to the Kyuubi Incident, Uchiha Clan was marginalized by the Government.... Not the Villagers. But unlike Naruto and Kakashi, Uchiha Clan.....Instead of being patient and then find the culprit behind the Kyuubi incident... and show the Government that they have no ill-will...  They let the People’s Reverence get into their head, they thought they were better than everyone, went arrogant and decided to subjugate everyone with their superior powers.

If Naruto, a single person could fight all the Hatred thrown at him by 1000′s of Villagers, by himself.... Why not Uchiha Clan, a group of few 100 people, who was just hated by 3 officials???? If Naruto can do it alone then Uchiha Clan could’ve easily did something... But they didn’t.... [[This doesn’t mean I am supporting those Higher-Ups... Especially Danzo... Because he was such an opportunistic Bastard]]

If Only Uchiha Clan were little bit humble and faced this Hatred with some patience, they would’ve remained true to their Name, that is, The Prestigious Clan of Konoha. They might have produced a best Hokage in the form of Itachi or Sasuke. Instead they tried to lash out their Arrogance towards the people and ended up getting destroyed.

This series is not justifying the Massacre in any way.

It’s only pointing out the futility of the Prestigious Uchiha Clan’s Arrogant, Vengeful and Selfish ambition which led them to their own destruction... If only they had a little bit of patience... Sasuke would’ve had a happy childhood in Konoha just like he was in his Flashbacks. 

Instead of being Arrogant, Selfish and full of Hatred.... Try to be Humble, Understanding, Forgiving and face Hatred with Love... This is the message, this series tells us.

So, to finish off this post....

Konoha people might or might not know about the mastermind behind Kyuubi Incident. But Revealing the UCM will definitely won’t end well for the Reputation of Uchiha Clan... 

It would only hurt Sasuke in the worst way possible... Especially he has nothing to do with any of his Clan Member’s mistakes. 

At the end of the day, the Survivor of the Clan has the only right to decide what to do.... Itachi conveyed his wish to Naruto.... If Sasuke really wanted this to be revealed, he would’ve asked Naruto or Kakashi... 

From the beginning, Sasuke never had any attachment to his Clan... His entire world revolved around Itachi and his wish to destroy Konoha was mostly for the pain his Brother was forced to suffer...  All the while, Sasuke was really fighting his feelings to destroy Konoha in many places.

And when the Same brother, even after his death wanted to protect the Village that hurt him a lot.... Sasuke did the right thing to make an effort to understand his brother’s feelings. 

He finally understood Itachi’s feelings and stopped wearing his clan colours.

To me, Sasuke is the truest Shinobi than Naruto ever was.... by transcending the framework of a clan... The shinobi who understood the true meaning behind Konoha was an Uchiha... 

And Can I say Sasuke is more of an Hokage than Naruto in this aspect??? Just like how every other Hokages stopped wearing their Clan Colours while Naruto was seen wearing it.

[nctsjiho]

Your Fault

warnings: strong language, consumption of alchol, mention of death without actual death, very much angst

era: July 7th 2021

❀ NCT 127's 5th anniversary isn't a day to celebrate and be happy for everyone

To Doyoung:

“Happy 5th anniversary oppa!”

“I hope you and the boys are having a great time <3”

JiHo stared at her phone intently waiting for the “sent” at the bottom of her screen to turn into “read”. She had been staring at her phone like that for nearly an hour, yet nothing changed. The girl knew that the boys were busy, but somewhere she hoped that she’d hear from them. Besides the short “wished you could be with us” message she had received the evening before from Taeyong she hadn’t heard from anyone else. Of course JiHo was aware that the boys were busy, but was it a crime to feel left out and maybe want a phone call or something more than a “wished you could be with us” from anyone?

And so JiHo continued to stare at her phone, everything on the small screen getting progressively more blurry as time went on. Her eyes were straining, one almost pressed shut, the other slowly going cross-side. Her right hand, which wasn’t holding the phone, reached out to the glass bottle on her desk. A quick shake letting her know it was empty. So she reached for the other one, opening it skilfully with one hand – like she did with the other two bottles now empty on her desk – and bringing it up to her lips. “Must be nice hm~ Being an idol or whatever…”

“I’m glad you came over.” Sihyun, JiHo’s Esteem manager that lives with her, said as she grabbed the boy’s coat off his shoulders. The piece of clothing, along with his hair, slightly damp caused by the light drizzle outside. “JiHo’s been a bit sensitive and doesn’t let me in her room. She doesn’t want to talk to me at all.” Jaemin watched the woman’s face full of worry. He gave her a small reassuring smile and then glanced at the door leading to JiHo’s room. “I’ll try to talk to her.” Thanking Jaemin, Sihyun then excused herself, telling him she had to run some late night errands.

Not knowing what was happening behind the closed door of the bedroom, Jaemin knocked a few times. “Unnie~ Just leave me- leave me alone.” JiHo hiccupped between her words, her speech sounding a bit slurred. She had been drinking? JiHo?

Without a second thought Jaemin pushed the door open. A jumbled mess of protests escaped JiHo’s lips, but she froze in her chair as soon as her eyes locked with Jaemin. “What… are you doing here?” She muttered to the best of her abilities. “Coming to check up on you.” He neared the girl and poked at the bottles and the mess on her desk. “Clearly you need it.” His tone sounded very much disappointed and for a split second JiHo felt her heart ache, but she quickly turned defensive. “I do not!”

A sigh escaped deep from Jaemin’s chest and he pulled JiHo to sit on the edge of her bed next to him. “Since when do you drink?” It was quiet for a bit. JiHo looked at the bottle of the alcoholic beverage in her hand, swirling it around by circling her wrist and then started to giggle to herself. “A new hobby?” She turned to Jaemin, a big smile on her lips – however Jaemin could see the sadness behind it easily. “It’s fun. Feeling… Nothing! I can barely feel my… my lips.” Her body swayed from side to side prompting Jaemin to grab her by her shoulders and hold her in place. “It’s fun until you wake up with a hangover tomorrow.” He scoffed. “Can’t get a hangover if I don’t sleep.” She said, before turning to her desk. She then pointed at the box of another 9 bottles of alcohol next to it on the floor. “Or if I don’t stop drinking.” She grinned.

“Yah! What’s wrong with you?” Jaemin’s patience ran dry quickly. He just felt so furious seeing how badly JiHo was treating her own body. She never drank and now she was planning to drink 12 bottles of alcohol? Drinking herself straight into the hospital, and if it weren’t for Jaemin being here, maybe straight into her own grave. “This is strong alcohol! For all I know you can’t even handle it, so what made you decide to drink now huh?” He yelled, anger only rising watching the girl just stare at him with wide, innocent eyes.

Those same eyes turned to look at her laptop, located on the desk she sat at earlier. The NCT 127 online fanmeeting being streamed, muted.

Of course Jaemin knew it was NCT 127’s 5th anniversary, he knew it must’ve affected JiHo in some way, even if she kept insisting she was going to be fine and was happy for the boys. She even said that she wasn’t “part of the group since debut, so it wouldn’t even be my 5th anniversary” and everyone just had to nod and smile.

“Is that a reason to potentially drink yourself to death?” Jaemin poked her side – maybe a bit too harsh – to gain her attention again; she seemed to be zoning out every few seconds. “What else was I supposed to do? I’m tired of keeping things in.” She sneered at him and it was almost as if she didn’t drink anything. She sounded much more coherent than just a minute earlier. “Aren’t you doing just that though? Drinking on your own. Not letting Sihyun noona in? We keep telling you to talk to us, yet all you do is keep things in. The hyungs even took you out to do stuff and get your mind off things yet you get home and do the thing you always do.”

JiHo felt every drop of alcohol leave her system as she heard the somewhat condescending tone in her friend’s voice. “What the fuck? So this is my fault-“ “Kinda, yes! You just sit here feeling sorry for yourself while everyone is worried over you! We’re your friends for a reason JiHo. There are so many people who care for you, just start fucking talking when you feel down like this.”

The blood inside of JiHo’s veins started to boil and at the same time she felt tears pricking behind her eyes. “You think it’s that easy? What am I supposed to say? That I feel upset that I can’t be with 127 now? Okay. Then what about it? Me telling you this won’t change shit!” “At least you should stop lying and stop telling everyone you’re fine when you’re not! Why do you continue keeping things a secret from everyone?” Both JiHo and Jaemin’s chest rose and fell at a rapid pace. “But I guess you’re good at that anyway.” He added in a mumble.

Once the words registered in JiHo’s mind, the bottle that started to hover towards her lips was quickly forgotten. “What do you mean by that?” Jaemin just shrugged his shoulders and turned his gaze away from JiHo. “Jaemin? What do-“ “You were supposed to debut in 2016 with NCT U?” JiHo’s eyes widened and she pushed herself to stand up. “How’d you know-“ “Then they asked you to debut in 127? Also with us… In Dream?” “How do you know?” Was the only thing JiHo could say.

“Does it matter?” Jaemin yelled, standing up as well. “Why do you continue to keep secrets from us? Do you not trust us? Is that why you sit here alone? Drinking and crying alone.” The boy watched as JiHo stood in front of him wordlessly. He could see how his words were affecting her, but he wanted to be selfish for once. He wanted to let JiHo know how frustrating things were for him and his friends. He was well aware of how JiHo had her own worries and hardships, but if she never wanted to confide in anyone, then he was allowed to be mad right?

The only sound filling the room was both of their ragged breathing and the occasional shift from one foot to the other. The silence was almost deafening, a ringing shooting up JiHo’s clouded mind making her feel like she was going to lose it any second now. Her friend sending hurtful glares her way didn’t help ease the growing pain either.

“You’re right. I could’ve debuted in 2016, what about it?” JiHo whispered, afraid that her talking too loud would send surges of pain into her brain. “Why did you hide it from us? Why didn’t you say yes back then?” Jaemin interrogated her. “There was no reason to tell you if it didn’t happen. I didn’t debut so telling you I could’ve wouldn’t change a thing. I’m not in Dream, I didn’t debut in U and clearly now, I’m not in 127 either. Jaemin… It doesn’t matter anymore…” JiHo’s voice stayed as calm as possible.

“How long have you known Jaemin?” JiHo spoke up again as Jaemin didn’t say anything. She felt the tension grow exponentially, the pressure on her body and more noticeably her head increasing and bothering her more as well. “I heard it during that last meeting you had with Yebin noona and Mister Lee Soo Man…” JiHo let out a small chuckle, shaking her head in disbelief. “I guess we’re eavesdropping and keeping secrets from me as well.”

She brought the glass bottle still in her hands to her lips, throwing her head back, to down as much of the liquid as possible. Before she could finish it all in one go, Jaemin gripped the bottle and pulled it away from her. “It’s not the same, JiHo!”

The liquid rushed from between JiHo’s lips, making a wet patch on her grey sweatpants. She could feel her throat and lungs burning as she coughed, caused by the alcohol going down her windpipe instead.

Jaemin watched her with concern painting his features, his hand slowly caressing her back hoping it would ease her violent coughs. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?” He whispered and JiHo gave him a small nod as her body calmed down.

The two 00 liners stayed like that for a while, with Jaemin’s eyes burning at the back of JiHo’s downturned head. Even after JiHo’s body stopped shaking violently, Jaemin’s concern continued to grow. It was only when he noticed the drops, which only could be tears, fall onto her sweatpants and create even more wet spots, that he decided to step in.

Jaemin’s hand securely gripped JiHo’s shoulder and he pulled her up to face him. A gasp left the boy’s mouth as he watched large tears spill from his friend’s eyes. “Ji…” It proved incredibly difficult to speak when he was faced with a situation he wasn’t ready to deal with. Maybe Jaemin shouldn’t have confronted her the way he did. Maybe acting like everything was fine wouldn’t have caused him to witness JiHo at possibly the worst she has felt.

It became a full minute of Jaemin staring into JiHo’s pain- and tear-filled eyes, feeling like he could drown in them himself, before a loud pained sob brought him to reality. The sudden jolt of JiHo’s body forward made Jaemin act quickly and pulled the girl into his chest. His hand, just as quickly, found its way into JiHo’s slightly tangled hair.

“I’m… sor- so sorry.” JiHo sobbed into his chest, tears soaking through even the thicker material of the boy’s jumper. Jaemin could feel his sweater start to stick against his chest, yet what felt more uncomfortable than the damp piece of clothing was the feeling of JiHo’s body shaking in his hold.

As best as he could, Jaemin tried to soothe JiHo. Almost like taking care of a crying toddler, he swayed the girl from side to side. His lips were pressed against the shell of JiHo’s ear as Jaemin whispered affirmations into her skin. “Don’t apologise... Stop apologising.”

“I’m only bringing the team down-” “Shh JiHo. Stop that.” He told her, as his fingers continued to comb through her hair, slowly and carefully detangling it along the way. JiHo pressed her eyes tighter as even more tears spilled from her cheeks and pushed herself closer into Jaemin’s grasp.

Mouth agape, a sob that was building up in his own chest was threatening to fall from Jaemin’s own lips. “You don’t deserve any of this JiHo, you only deserve the best.” JiHo only shook her head, but didn’t dare to speak again. “You do... You really do.”

The night in the capital of South-Korea was never really that dark. Lights always seemed to find their way past the pulled back blinds of any building that wasn’t directly blocked by another one due to bad city planning. So even during the darkest time of day, even when all the lights inside have been dimmed, somehow, it was still light enough to see inside.

So when Jaemin pulled back to look at JiHo’s face, her eyes still tightly pressed shut - which pained him immensely - Jaemin could see the light reflecting off of her wet cheeks.

Feeling two hands being placed on her burning cheeks, JiHo finally decided to open her eyes again. A few more tears rolled over her cheeks onto Jaemin’s thumbs, but luckily no new ones seemed to form. “I’m sorry for everything, all this drama. It’s my fault.” Jaemin shook his head and pulled the girl back, this time to hide his own tears that were starting to form. “Please stop apologising, it’s not your fault.”

“But-” JiHo sighed, her arms found their way around Jaemin’s small waist. “I hate that it’s always about me. I don’t want to be this cliche ‘emotional girl with so many problems and everyone has to pay attention to her problems’. I don’t want that. I don’t want to burden you guys with that, but I also don’t want that kind of attention. I know people already hate me for being in a boy’s group. I don’t want my stupid problems to be the only thing that people assiociate me with NCT.”

“Your problems are not stupid JiHo. And though I understand what you’re saying, I think it’s worse to keep it in. If anything, keeping it in just makes us worry about you more and may get you more attention. JiHo I know things suck right now, and I can’t imagine how you’re feeling with everything going on right now, but… Please just talk to us when things are bothering you. We all love you.”

At those last words JiHo loudly sniffled back some stray tears. She pressed herself into Jaemin’s warm embrace and softly nodded her head. “From now on I will. I promise. And…” JiHo looked up at Jaemin, sending him a small smile that he gratefully reciprocated. “I love you guys too. You’re all I have here and that’s enough to make me stay.”

Jaemin’s hand resumed with his previous ministrations. A deep sigh left his lips as he rested his head atop of JiHo’s. “Everything will be just fine.” Jaemin pressed a kiss against JiHo’s hair. “As long as we stay together everything will be just fine.”

[formula-what]

Brocedes time line for a very patient anon

Lewis quotes in orange, Nico quotes in pink, everyone else is blue.

okay first some background knowledge:

Nico is rich as fuck. only child, born in Germany, brought up in Monaco. son of world champion Keke Rosberg

Lewis was born on a council estate in Stevenage and his dad had to work multiple jobs for him to start karting

Honestly I think the difference in their backgrounds is one of the things that pushed them together, they were both isolated from the rest of the kids, but I’m keeping this purely facts rather than speculation.

2000

They’re both 15 years old and are karting teammates for MBB (Mercedes Benz McLaren) in Formula A

Robert Kubica: “there was always competition. But they didn’t fight. It was friendly competition. There was always laughing afterwards.” // “they would even have races to eat pizza”

They often shared hotel rooms at the races which was a “scene of many wrestling matches between them”

Dino Chiesa (their karting boss) – “many times I was called by reception about some problem in the room. It might be noise, or they might have broken something. They would never sleep so they were always tired the next morning”

“they both liked ice cream so much, particularly vanilla. During the night they wanted to eat ice cream always, so I had to go out everywhere to find some and keep them happy”

Lewis would often persuade Nico to buy him sweets

They would have competitions over LITERALLY EVERYTHING

Lewis: “we always had great competition whether on the racetrack or computer games or playing football”

“probably the first bit of competition we had was when Nico used to ride a unicycle everywhere so I thought, ‘I’ve got to learn how to ride this unicycle. Ive got to be better than him.’ I spent all my time outside the go-kart learning to ride this unicycle”

Apparently it only took Lewis 2 hours to teach himself how to do it

In maybe 2013 ish (when they were still friends) Lewis reflected with– “I have never laughed so much than when we were racing together. Nico was kicking everyone’s butt at that time. We had so great races together and built a great relationship”

“we were just arriving and enjoying go-karts and eating pizzas every weekend, fighting all the time and just having fun, whereas now it’s all business.”

many times they would talk about what they would do when they got to f1, made plans hoping to be teammates and become world champions together.

“Nico would say ‘when I’m in formula one’ and for me it was always ‘if I ever get to formula one’. Because obviously Nico’s dad was a formula 1 driver- he knew he was going to make it.”

F1

Nico joined f1 in 2006 with williams, Lewis 2007 with McLaren. And man I WISH I knew what went down with this two when Lewis nearly one his rookie season (missing out by one point to mr fernando alonso) and then WON THE CHAMPIONSHIP in his SECOND SEASON (again by one point thank you mr alonso)

2008 Australia

Nicos gets his first podium, and ofc Lewis is there (he won it) and they are jumping around in the cool down room. Just, two kids who are literally living the one thing they have spent their whole lives dreaming about together. Lewis won the championship that year and oh wow I can only imagine their celebrations together.

2013

They’re teammates in Mercedes!!!

Nico: “every other day there are moments or things that pop up and I can smirk and thing, ‘that’s exactly the same as it was 15 years ago’”

2013 Malaysian Grand Prix gets an honourable mention. This is the race with red bulls good old multi 21 but merc also had their own team orders, stopping nico from fighting for his first merc podium, but Lewis disagreed with it so it didn’t really spark that much tension between them- more the team.

2014

the start of the turbo-hybrid era so y’all know this was good in terms of performance.

2014 Bahrain Grand Prix

They were both fighting for the win and had a collision which prompted a “mock fight” in parc ferme after the race (which I really hope there’s a video of).

Turns out, Nico won because he had used engine modes banned by Mercedes to get a power advantage in the closing laps. which kinda pissed Lewis off

2014 Spanish Grand Prix

Lewis’ fourth win in a row and took lead in the championship. They were fighting till literally the last second and Lewis crossed the line 0.6 seconds ahead of Nico, who says he could have passed him with one more lap.

Lewis defended using the same banned engine modes that Nico had used in Bahrain. Yeah.

2014 Monaco Grand Prix

This is IT. This is peak petty bitch. This is the one people still cry about.

It’s the end of Q3, both of them are out on a lap, Nico ahead of lewis. Nico’s already on provisional pole but Lewis is pretty close.

And then,, Nico just,, parks his car?? He says he made a mistake but the guy doesn’t even crash he straight up just,, rolls to a stop into a slip road. So the yellow flags come out forcing Lewis to abort a lap that was in the makings of pole.

The stewards say it was a-okay but Lewis was convinced it was intentional (and let’s be honest, yeah it probably was) and he even claimed that merc’s data proved it. (low key surprised he didn’t just tweet out the telemetry but I guess he got a stern telling off from mclaren last time)

But *this* is when Lewis tells the world that they aren’t friends anymore. An iconic interview.

Nico then wins the race too, ending Lewis’s four win streak and putting Nico in the lead of the championship.

2014 Hungarian Grand Prix

Lewis has an engine failure in quali meaning he starts from the pit lane, but he does good to make his way up the pack but THEN there’s a safety car which puts him ahead of Nico but on a different strategy.

Nico asks if Lewis can let him past as he needs to pit again before the end of the race, which will give him the place back anyways. Lewis straight up refuses, he’s on a role here. He started from last, and Nico started from pole, why should he slow down to let his title rival through.

Mercedes strongly suggest that his blocking fucked up Nicos race but Niki Lauda is on Lewis’ side so he doesn’t get punished (We stan a supportive father figure) even though he did blatantly refuse to be a team player.

And guys, this is the last race before the summer break so you know Nico was left seething for four weeks.

2014 Belgian Grand Prix

Second lap, Nico attempts a clumsy move and there’s contact, giving Hamilton a puncture and knocking him out of the race.

There’s a lot of controversy but basically it turns out he crashed with him intentionally, not backing out of the corner to “prove a point”. Nico ended up finishing second but was punished by the team, forced to apologise, and even booed on the podium.

2014 Abu Dhabi

For some reason it ran for double points?? The first time in History??? But idk???

Lewis had a perfect start and went on to win it and take the title, Nico had a problem and was told to retire the car but he kept going anyway and finished 14th. Nico went into the cool down room to congratulate Lewis on the championship win, which. cute.

Lewis claimed his second championship. Which not only was huge because of the inter team rivalry, but also because of the large gap between his first win. This guy had lost out on winning the championship in his ROOKIE season by ONE POINT, and then WON it in his SECOND season, and then there was like a FIVE YEAR gap before he won it again.

2015

Damnnn this car was fiiiinneeeeeee.

They do more laps in testing than any other car AND do it on a single power unit. And then. Australia. They take a one-two THIRTY FOUR seconds ahead of the third place Ferrari.

2015 Chinese Grand Prix

Nico is second in a one-two but claims that Lewis kept backing him up into Seb, trying to compromise his race (and help out his boyfriend).

Lewis gave zero shits: "It's not my job to look after Nico's race, it's my job to manage the car and bring the car home as healthy and as fast as possible. That's what I did."

2015 U.S. Grand Prix

If Lewis wins here he could also claim the title with three races to spare (you have to remember back then the title fight often went up to the last race so this was pretty cool)

Lewis very aggressively forced Rosberg wide at Turn 1 to claim the lead, and then there was some sexy fighting between the Mercs and Redbull all race. Nico led in the closing stages but made a mistake, running deep into a corner and letting Lewis past with only a handful of laps to go.

Nico finished P2 and had not only lost the race but the championship title. Nico was fuming, saying Lewis’ move at the start was “one step too far”.

This is the infamous cap throw in the cool down room. Lewis throws Nico his P2 hat, Nico straight up yeets it back at him. I tear up just thinking about it. They grow up so fast.

2016

Nico had came so close to winning and I guess this was just, the last straw. All or nothing. This year he literally gave it everything he had. Lewis and him stopped speaking, Nico gave up literally the rest of his life and even stopped sleeping in the same bed as his wife and taking care of his kids, instead spending every moment trying to get into Lewis’ head. Honestly, I think he might be the only one that could beat Lewis. Just because he knew him *so well*. He literally threw away like 16 years of friendship. But also it’s like, he had to be world champion. He *had to*. His dad was champion and his whole life he’s been preparing to win it too. Tough luck that he raced in the same era as Mr. Best Driver The Sport Has Ever Seen.

Nico won the last few races of 2015, and the first four races of 2016. Lewis had a couple car problems and Nico had a good lead on him in the championship.

2016 Spanish Grand Prix

Gentlemen. A short view back to the past. Nico had made a switch error on the formation lap causing the car to go into the wrong engine mode. So he was running a lot slower than Lewis, who was fighting to claim back the lead.

Nico closed the door to keep him back, and Lewis lost control on the grass, and spins into Nico and taking them both out of the race in the first lap. This is probably one of the most iconic crashes. I’m pretty sure there’s a clip of this somewhere in black and white with the titanic music over the top.

Niki Lauda blamed this one on Lewis (I guess even a supportive dad has to be critical sometimes) "Lewis is too aggressive. It is stupid, we could've won this race".

2016 Austrian Grand Prix

Nico had been struggling with a brake issue all race but was still on the way to win it. But in the last lap Lewis had caught him up and gone in for the overtake.

Typical Nico not taking any shit, refusing to be the guy that backs out and they collide. Lewis took the win and a damaged Nico dropped to fourth. From first. In the last lap.

Both of them blamed each other and tired dad team boss Toto Wolff threatened team orders in future races.

The stewards blamed Nico for the incident, issuing him two penalty points for failing to allow "racing room" and causing a collision.

2016 Abu Dhabi

In the final laps of the race, Lewis ignored team-orders from his race engineer and the technical director.

He deliberately slowed and backed Nico into the pack hoping they overtake him, and there would be enough of a points difference to win the title.

Nico finished second and won the title by five points.

And then,,, Nico announced a surprise retirement during the FIA prize giving ceremony.

Lewis’ response:

"This is the first time he's won in 18 years, hence why it was not a surprise that he decided to stop.” (We stan a petty king)

“But he's also got a family to focus on and probably wants to have more children. Formula One takes up so much of your time."

“In terms of missing the rivalry, of course because we started karting when we were 13 and we would always talk about being champions. When I joined this team, Nico was there, which was something we spoke about when we were kids. So it's going to be very, very strange, and, for sure, it will be sad to not have him in the team next year."

And now they are kind of on speaking terms but not really, they are both pretty private but I think they are at the ‘awkward small talk when we run into each other at the supermarket’ stage of the break up.

[deltas-writing-corner]

No regrets

Fandom: Jujutsu Kaisen

Pairing: Sukuna x reader (reader is referred to with gender neutral pronouns, but there are slight implications of them being AFAB)

Author note: At a whooping 11.5k words, it’s finally here! Thank you all for your patience as well as those who gave feedback during the initial interest check! I hope the wait was worth it and you enjoy this long piece! A bit of forewarning, this piece is rather dark, so please read the content warnings carefully and only proceed if you are comfortable doing so.

Revisions made on 3/30/2021

Warnings: Implications of noncon | abusive behavior | unhealthy obsession | death | slight gore | Please ask to tag additional content warnings that I have failed to disclose

Minors do not read/interact with this post!

Heian era

It was only a matter of time before the king of curses came to your village and slaughtered you all. It was inevitable, but the village elders were determined to hand over every last scrap of fabric and goods if it satiated the cursed being for a short while, knowing the all powerful curse was an indulgent one. Your village was a well known trading settlement, so gathering and setting aside the best of the best on the market was rather easy with all the merchants coming in and out of the town nearly every day.

Your family specialized in sword crafting, often forging or repairing swords for soldiers or aristocratic families who merely collected them as works of art. Your father taught you a bit of the craft and a few seasoned samurai humoured you and taught you some forms while they awaited repairs, but you mostly spent time helping your mother around your quaint home. Your days with them were peaceful, even with the ever looming and expected arrival of Ryomen Sukuna blanketing your people with constant fear.

The day finally came, yet all the preparations you and your people took to secure a better chance of survival still didn’t feel like it was enough as the four-armed monster of a man easily destroyed several houses with a mere flick of his hand and cut down several innocent individuals who fled last minute due to their anxiety getting the better of them. He was at least willing to see all that was being offered to him when it was made clear your people were not going down without trying their luck, but that sadistic smile of his was all the proof everyone needed to know that their careful efforts meant nothing.

Your village elders remained determined, and to the shock of you and your parents, they grabbed you and offered you up as one final offering. You were young, the youngest in the village in fact, and unmarried too. A perfect candidate for Sukuna’s harem and they knew this when they turned and grabbed you without a second thought. You still remember the way your mother began to smack your elders with her shoe when they yanked you away from her and your father’s side. Bless her heart.

Perhaps a part of you knew that your status as the youngest would be taken advantage of if things weren’t working out. Sukuna’s harem was only a rumor, scary gossip whispered amongst the housewives. Yet the idea of a monster like him having a harem didn’t seem so farfetched. You knew better than to question the validity of the lucky few who got away and were displaced because of Sukuna’s village razing and massacring.

Whether he accepted the last second addition to the offer pile or killed every single one of you right then and there, you accepted that your life would never return to how it once was before he came. You didn’t make so much as a peep of discomfort when the brute began to manhandle you, pulling back parts of your clothes away from your body to inspect you in front of the entire village, in front of your distraught parents. You didn’t wince in pain when he roughly grabbed your cheek between two of his meaty fingers and examined your face like you were merely a piece of art, an object. You just went completely numb.

Everyone, including yourself, was shocked when he agreed to take you along with all the goods your village offered, but not without ordering them to prepare another pile for his followers to collect every following month from now on. He made it clear that if they held back a single grain of rice or gave him anything else but the best, he’d send your body back to them in a bloody sack before reuniting them with you in the afterlife shortly after.

As the king of curses hauled you away like a sack of potatoes, your emotions came flooding back in. You kicked, scream, cried and begged like a moody toddler for your mom and dad to help you, to not let this monster take you away and do know who knows what to you. The last you see of them before you’re forcefully knocked out is your mother suddenly collapsing on the ground like all the energy she had just left her body instantaneously. Your brawny father seemed equally at a loss as well.

When you were brought back to Sukuna’s temple, you were hauled away by servants after he unceremoniously dropped you on the ground and retreated to his chambers. You were thoroughly bathed, skin rubbed raw of outside filth and dressed into a fresh new robe before being whisked away to Sukuna’s quarters by his demand. 

That first week under his roof was meant to break you, but for some reason you kept fighting back because of something a bit stupid. You wanted to keep your old clothes the maids forced you out of and you wouldn’t shut up or keep still under him no matter how much he harmed or degraded you. You don’t know why you kept pushing back against him over something so meager. The fabric wasn’t anything that fancy. The color was faded and you were even beginning to outgrow them. It’s the only memento you have of your home, so maybe that’s why your mind zeroed in on it and refused to yield to his torturous ministrations until you made certain it wouldn’t be taken away from you.

“Again with those rags you call a kimono?” he clicked his tongue with annoyance. “You want to keep them so badly? Fine, but don’t think I’ll be so accommodating next time.”

Living in a merchant town, you know how to tell when someone is trying to swindle you. As much as you hate the man who has been violating your body for literal days now, you can tell that he means what he has stated.

When you finally relax your body, he lets out a disgustingly child-like cackle, but before you can express any sort of rage that bubbled up within yourself, your mind goes numb once more if only to alleviate the pain you’re in just a bit.

There are two types of fates for those in Sukuna’s harem. There are the favoured concubines, who live relatively better than the disfavoured, who are made into servants. Of course, this is all a meticulous set up by the king of curses himself. Those he shows higher favoritism towards are desperate to remain in his good graces if only to make their way of living that bit easier to bear. Those he turns into lowly servants and brushes aside are desperate to rise above their rank and gain the privilege and spoils he grants to the selected few. It’s all an elaborate plan to instill discord between members of his harem so he can sit back and watch them tear each other apart without lifting a finger.

Your fighting back was what earned you an automatic spot amongst his favoured. He thought he had broken you, but just as soon as you yielded to him you flared up and began to fight back once more. It was invigorating, seeing the rage and desperation in your eyes when you were quiet and had a distant, blank look just moments before. How long had it been since a human raised their fist against him? Far too long for him to remember.

You were an outlier. Where all would refuse to meet his gaze whenever he passed through, you would always meet and hold his gaze without fail or hesitation. You talked back, cursing him a thousand ways into the next phase of the moon. You never bowed when others did. Never.

Your disobedience gave him plenty of reasons to drag you to his chambers and attempt to break you once more, only for you to shut your mind down as soon as you were thrown into his bed. Perhaps it's a defense mechanism? A way of trying to disassociate from all the rough treatment you endure under him? A part of him is grateful you aren’t like the others, that you’ve come up with a way of protecting yourself while the others around you, who give into the despair and hopelessness he brings them or lie to themselves that he holds some sort of affection towards them, if only to find some sort of hope through this hell even if it means lying to yourself. Both of which bore him immensely as well as annoy him greatly.

It’s sudden and neither of you can recall when it began, but after he was done having his way with you and you regained your sense of reality and would devolve into the usual episode of flailing rage and crying, he began to hold you against him and whisper soothing phrases like “good job” or “It’s over, you did well”. He kept his many arms wrapped around your shaking figure, waiting for you to eventually exhaust yourself and pass out before doing so himself. When the sun rises you are always gone from his chambers. How you manage to escape right from under him is a mystery, but he doesn’t have much of a desire to ask you about it. He likes waking up surprised. Hardly anything surprises him anymore.

It becomes clear to everyone that Sukuna acts differently towards you, treats you differently than the rest of his concubines. There are even periods of time where the rest of his harem is given little to no attention because he’s completely focused on you. The time he spends with you isn’t anything kind or relieving. He purposely says things that offend you and have you screaming at him. Should anyone else say what you say to him in return, he’d rip their tongues out and swallow it before their very eyes without any remorse. But you? He’s smiling down at you, as if you were an actor entertaining him with an elaborate and well-rehearsed performance.

“Damn you! Damn this temple! Damn your ancestors for existing and bringing you into this world!”

“Yes, that’s the spirit!” he gives you a toothy grin, his sharp canines glinting under the light of the sun. “Damn me and damn the rest of the world for that matter!”

His encouragement only infuriates you more. Without a second thought you began to throw whatever it is you can get your hands on at him. Your comb, your shoes, your untouched makeup products, anything in sight is hauled at the deranged man who dodges everything with ease. Just as you throw a jar of ink at his head and it shatters against the way, bathing the wood with dark ink, he grabs you and you both tumble back into your unmade futon.

As usual, you thrash and voice your disdain as he presses his lips against your neck and aggressively undresses you. He’s high off the adrenaline from earlier, making his ministrations much more excruciating than they normally are. 

To him, it feels like a passionate session of lovemaking and he’s left light headed when he finishes.

For you, it’s just another day under his reign and body, your mind going numb as soon as he puts you on your hands and knees.

Just as quickly as he gave you most of his attention, he turned away and left you in the dust.

You have been his concubine for over a year when it happens. Your village continues to uphold their end of their deal and provide him with all the luxurious goods they can get their hands on each month. You’re not sure if he’s trying to torture you more or genuinely thinks he’s bringing you some sense of comfort and calm, but he personally brings you a small bunch of fabrics and trinkets that your father specifically went out of his way to get for you, hoping you would receive them somehow as a reminder that he still thinks of you. It’s during these small moments of Sukuna passing on these items that you learn that your mother passed after you were taken.

You didn’t shed even one tear when this information was given to you, as a part of you knew that was the case after you saw her collapse. Sukuna expected you to fly into another fit of rage. That was the only reason he told you if he’s being honest. He’s caught between feeling disappointed or worried when you just hummed in acknowledgement as you rolled up the soft, intricate rolls of fabric and stored them away. You never did anything with them, so they were sure to collect a layer of dust like the rest in due time

No one, not even Sukuna or even yourself, expected your village to take up arms and fight back against the followers he sent out to collect his offerings. When word came back of what transpired, Sukuna was tempted to take you with him and force you to watch as he slaughtered your village in retaliation for breaking the accord. He didn’t, nor did he send back your disfigured corpse like he promised he would back then. He simply went out, killed them, and then came right back to wash off all their spilled blood. All within the same day. 

After he killed all the villagers, he attempted to locate your father amongst the scattered corpses, but they were too mutilated and disfigured to discern who was who. Even if they weren’t, it’s not like he remembered what your father looked like. Did you even bear any resemblance to him? He overheard you speaking with one of the other concubines that your father was an armorer and was tempted to grab one of the expertly crafted swords the villagers were carrying and bring it back to you, blood and all staining the scabbard. He decided against it.

He’s demoted many concubines, all with the purpose of watching them try to regain the meager luxury and privilege they grew accustomed to. He did the same for you, eager to see you break character and come crawling back to him with pitiful desperation. 

A part of him knew that it wouldn’t take much effort on your part to have him changing his mind. He’d easily forgive you for the betrayal of your village. All you had to do was put on a show and give him the entertainment he wanted from you. You can kick and scream and deny him all you want, but he’s broken many people like you before. He’s had you under his spell since day one.

Except, you didn’t do anything. When he sent you to live within the overcrowded servants chambers near the far end of his temple, you never put up any sort of fight or caused a scene. Not even when he gave away all the fabrics your father sent you to the other favoured concubines, going as far as to force them to wear the garments whenever and wherever your presence is at. He waited with giddy for someone to inform him of how you lashed out at another girl and attempted to rip the cloth off of her body because they were wearing the fabrics meant for you. But there was nothing from you.

When he dragged you to his quarter and began to violate you like normal, he forced himself to brag and even fabricate details of the day he slaughtered the people from your village. He even lied about how your father asked about you before he was killed, falsely stating that the man had a smile on his face when Sukuna told him that you received all the goods he selected just for you.

Like always, your mind went blank until he finished. There were no twisted words of comfort afterwards like before. He simply ordered you out once he was done, one final attempt to invoke something out of you. You merely redressed and left in silence. He nearly got up and dragged you back, but once again, he decided against it.

One day he ordered a few men to build a crude looking home out back, detached from the main temple, and have you moved in it upon completion. If his normal efforts won’t elicit the usual reaction out of you, then he’ll take a different approach. He’ll deprive you of everything, social interaction, decent and consistent meals, and a stable shelter. He’ll have you isolated for a short while, after which he will visit you out of pity and revel in the sight of you crawling back into his arms. If the time he forces you alone is not enough to break you, he’ll simply extend your stay until you either give him what he wants or die because of your own stubbornness.

It hasn’t even been a day since you’ve been moved from the servant's chamber to your new quarters, and already he’s come to visit you. Within the same breath that tells you that your only other option besides begging for his forgiveness is to rot away in this poorly made shack, he gives you one final chance to change his mind, to beg him to take you back into his good graces.

The tatami is poorly crafted and discolored. The rafters used to construct the frame of the house already show signs of rotting and water damage. Before he allowed himself in, the tiles on the roof appeared to be hastily made and were not properly laid out. It was lightly raining outside, yet you already have a wooden bucket set up to collect leaking water.

“Can I help you?” you ask without glancing over your shoulder. He smirks at the thought of you knowing who he is by presence alone.

“No,” he smugly answers. “But maybe I can help you?”

You look back over to him with a mean glare. “You’re the one that put me here in the first place.”

“No, I didn’t,” he shakes his head to further cement his point. “You’re in here because your people thought they stood a chance against me and broke our agreement. Killing you would be an act of mercy to them. So long as I keep you alive and slowly torture you in both mind and body, they will never know peace.”

“You’re lying,” you say with certainty, with no fear. “I’ve never lied to you once. I would appreciate it if I can at least be given the same courtesy in return.”

He hates when people demand things from. Most importantly, he hates that you’re right. Your neck is always so small within his grasp, his fingers able to meet and fold over one another without strain. He keeps you suspended in the air just enough to where you can balance yourself on the balls of your feet. Whether you were tall or short, it mattered not. He always towered over you like the predator that he is.

“You want to know why you’re in this shitty home?” he sneers down. “You’re in here because you’ve begun to bore me. You amused me so much before, but the moment you started depriving me of my source of entertainment on purpose is the moment I decide to deprive you of your basic needs in return. I take what I want, when I want it, in whichever quantity I desire.

“You want out of here?” He makes a sweeping gesture around the room. “Then you better press your forehead all the way to the floor and beg for me to take you back. I’ll even tell you the exact words you need to say. ‘Please Sukuna-sama. Please allow me the privilege of sleeping under the same roof as you. Please let me breathe the same air as you.’”

He lets you go and grins when you prostrate after regaining your breathe.

“Please Sukuna-sama,” you beg.

“Please what?” he mocks. “Use your words.”

He feels a vein pop out on his forehead when you dare to look up and look at him with yet another angry grin. Without an ounce of hesitation, you say, “Please get out and leave me be.”

He nearly breaks the door from how hard he slams it shut. He abruptly turns around when he hears a roof tile fall over and splat into the muddy dirt. Those followers of his really built you a shitty home, exactly like he ordered them to do.

He feels the urge to gather them and wring their necks one by one, but he doesn’t know why.

Sukuna can’t sleep during those weeks apart. Not because of you, but because right as he drifts off into slumber he’s abruptly woken up by an intense source of cursed energy flaring up out of nowhere. But just as quickly as he feels it and wakes with a startle, it vanishes without a trace. He’ll go out onto his balcony and try to locate where the energy is coming from, but for some reason he can never pinpoint it despite his superior senses. He tries to suppress his own energy in the hopes of tricking the source into thinking he’s asleep and unsuspecting, but it would seem that they’re smart enough not to fall for the bait.

He doesn’t need sleep in the first place, so he’s tempted to just stay up and catch whoever is trying to scare him red handed and be done with them. The idea of someone getting the upper hand at him and forcing him into a position of defensiveness doesn’t sit well with him, so he decides to just let the unknown person have their fun for now and continue this little back and forth with them. Eventually they’ll grow cocky and slip up and he’ll confront them when it happens.

Because your little shack is located near the back of the temple, completely out of sight from Sukuna’s view from his balcony, Neither he nor the others notice the plumes of smoke that rise during the dead of night. No one also takes notice of the bits of metal that go missing throughout the temple.

The rise of the next full moon indicates the end of the month. Sukuna sends for someone to go retrieve you, but they never return and he’s left waiting long enough for the moon to reach its highest peak in the sky. When he orders someone else into his quarters he’s met with more silence that only further enrages him.

Just as he’s about to call for Uraume to figure out what the hell was wrong with his servants, he feels it. The cursed energy that he’s been trying to catch off guard the last few weeks. It’s willingly making itself known, practically begging him to follow its trail and meet with him. Just as quickly as he is able to identify and figure out which direction it’s originating, he notices that it strangely leads him in the direction of your poorly built home.

It’s impossible that it’s you. Cursed energy is born from negative emotions. He’s sure you still have an abundance of negative feelings towards him. Yet never did he feel even a speck of cursed energy resonate off of you. His mind immediately wonders if the individual knows of his strange obsession over you and is using you as bait. It’s foolish on their part, thinking the king of curses would yield for a mere human. 

His pace quickens despite his internal dismissal, failing to notice that everyone is hiding and waiting in anticipation. 

When he discovers that the cursed energy is indeed from you, he can’t help but to laugh like a crazed hyena. The sword by your side further amuses him and he’s genuinely curious as to how you got the proper materials to craft it.

“It took a bit of convincing,” you willingly answer his question. “I made everyone believe I could stand a chance against you and they gave me all the materials and tools I needed and looked the other way. I guess watching all those traveling merchants try to hype up their goods came in handy after all,” you look out in the distance as you briefly reminisce on the bygone days of your former life.

He begins to slowly clap with one pair of hands, the other crossed over his chest in amusement. “This is by far the most entertaining performance I’ve ever witnessed. Bravo. You’ve really outdone yourself this time.”

“I’d gladly accept the compliment, except this isn’t a show,” you stand to your full height and get a better grip of the hilt of your sword. “It’s the real deal.”

He erupts into yet another cacophony of wild laughter. “Do you seriously think you can kill me?”

“No,” you answer, truly throwing him off guard by the way he goes still so suddenly. “But that’s alright. I’m fine with never being strong enough to put a permanent end to you. Only one of us will be walking away from this fight, and I assure you that it’s going to be me.”

You draw your blade out and get into a low, defensive stance. Even under the lackluster light of the moon, he can see how well crafted your weapon is. He’s reminded of the craftsmanship the weapons your people carried when he slaughtered them, no better than a bunch of wooden sticks against him either way. Immediately, he regrets not bringing back one of their weapons and forcing you to expose to him your knowledge of swordsmanship and blacksmithing. Perhaps then he could have had you brandishing your blade under his command rather than against him.

Oh well, it’s better this way. It’s just as exhilarating and head swirling as those instances where you damned him with all of your being and threw things at his head. No, it’s more than exhilarating. It’s downright intoxicating seeing you readying yourself for his first move. How sweet of you to allow him the honor to make the first strike.

“You truly are something else entirely, beloved,” he dreamily sighs. “Did you honestly think you’d have the upperhand against me just because I gave you a little bit more of my attention?”

“Never,” you reply. You press your eyelids shut for a moment, and the moment you open them up the layer of dissociative numbness vanishes into a look of total focus and emotions he cannot discern. “But whether I live or die, I have no regrets about tonight.”

You really didn’t have enough strength to kill him. However, you did have enough to dismember all twenty of his fingers and seal him away. For the first time in years, the sun rises and bestows its warmth to a world in which two-faced Sukuna does not instill fear upon humanity or stain the earth in their blood. You and those who were under his servitude walk out of his temple as free people, hopeful people. As an act of gratitude for becoming their savior, nineteen others take one of Sukuna’s fingers each and swear to scatter them as far as they can so he cannot be brought back into the world.

As for yourself, you set out to rebuild your destroyed village and take up your father’s legacy as a maker of swords. Eventually you meet and settle down with a loving partner and raise children together. You pass on the family trade, your self developed cursed technique, as well as the memories of your time as Sukuna’s concubine. Those who come after you continue to carry on your will, to ensure that Sukuna can never be reborn into the world. Your sword and the old robes you kept after you were taken away are passed down as family heirlooms, but they are never used by any of your descendants.

That is until the year 2018, when Sukuna is resurrected within a compatible vessel.

Modern era

You bear not only a striking resemblance to your ancestor, but many of their memories as well. The family sword that was used against the king of curses is bestowed upon you, now dubbed the next in line to claim the title of clan leader, their preserved kimono now fashioned into a sageo that wraps around the scabbard.

Your family stays out of most affairs within the jujutsu world, but your birth and the strong connection to your ancestor eventually reaches the ears of many prominent figures within this hidden society. They think your birth a bad omen, a sign that the king of curses may return to the world one day. Most are scared, but your family pays them no attention. Even if the damnable curse did find a way to revive into the world, you and most of your family members who have inherited your ancestor’s technique will oppose him just as they did a thousand years ago.

“You don’t look too concerned,” Gojo makes his observation known to you as soon as the two of you settle in the small private room you ushered him to when he came to your family estate. He wanted to confirm the news of Sukuna’s resurrection to you himself. “None of you do, actually.”

“We all knew this day would come,” you calmly tell him as you poured him a cup of tea. “This is the risk our ancestor took when they developed their technique. In exchange for the strength and ability to seal Sukuna away, they willingly gave up the ability to deliver him a fatal and final blow against him.”

“I’m not well-versed when it comes to binding vows and heavenly restrictions,” he takes a moment of pause to sip his now cooled tea, visibly showing his disdain over it’s bitterness. “But is giving up the satisfaction of killing him really a fair exchange for a specific technique and a bit of cursed energy?”

Your lips pressed together in a grimace. “You have no idea what it was like living underneath that monster’s reign. Even if the binding vow had odd conditions skewed against their favor, every bit of what was given up was worth it if it meant regaining their freedom.”

Gojo isn’t moved or even impressed by your admittance. He simply shrugs before taking another sip of his tea, face contorting in displeasure once again as he forces himself to swallow the green liquid. You’re tempted to ask him why he keeps sipping if he hates the flavor, but he begins speaking again before you can voice your thoughts.

“So, about the vessel,” he leans against his closed fist, propped up by the low table underneath him. “The higher ups are willing to postpone the kid’s execution in favor of the opportunity to kill Sukuna, but they want someone from your family, preferably you, to be his second shadow so to speak. You’re the failsafe in case the plan doesn’t play out like I promised and the curse needs to be sealed again.”

“Sukuna’s vessel...is a child?” you ask incredulously.

“He’s about your age,” Gojo admits with a displaced smile, but it soon falls once you suddenly erupt into a fit of uncontrollable giggles.

“That’s priceless!” you say while wiping away a stray tear. “The king of curses, Ryomen Sukuna, stuck inside some teenager’s body? I bet he’s pissed off and swearing up a storm inside the kid!”

You’re not sure who exactly is getting the most amusement at the turn of events, you or your ancestor from beyond the grave. After your laughing fit subsides and you straighten yourself out, you turn back to Gojo to ask him the burning question.

“So when do I get to meet him?”

Itadori Yuuji is the polar opposite of Sukuna. While Sukuna had a smile that both angered and scared your ancestor and those around him, Yuuji’s was like a literal ray of sunshine. He’s nice, energetic, strong willed and even humorous. You’re honestly surprised he can act so hopeful despite all that’s happened to him and has been forced upon his shoulders.

You’re not going to lie, but you honestly expected a timid and somewhat gloomy kid. Someone easy to manipulate to put it bluntly. Yuuji’s friendly personality is welcomed in your book. Though you admit that now that you’ve exchanged a few words with him, you feel bad and pitiful that he’s been marked for death and likely has to deal with Sukuna on a somewhat regular basis.

As Yuuji rambles to you about some childhood incident, the slits underneath his eyes open up and a familiar pair of red eyes meets your gaze. “It’s you,” the manifested mouth on the side of his cheek morphs into a deranged, toothy grin that is so painstakingly recognizable. 

Your heartbeat picks up and your palms are coated with an instantaneous layer of nervous sweat. You contemplate saying something or simply ignoring the curse, not wanting to give him any satisfaction of hearing the voice of your ancestor acknowledge him in any way. Before you can come to any consensus, you’re amazed at how Yuuji easily slaps his hand over his cheek and tells the curse to buzz off.

Itadori further cements that he is Sukuna’s antithesis as he goes out of his way to apologize to you for the inconvenience the curse caused you (How could he tell you became nervous when Sukuna spoke only two words at you?) He even brings you a can of soda as a sort of peace offering/token of forgiveness! You’re grateful for the gesture, but you feel bad for letting him think that he’s at fault for something that wasn’t even that big of a deal to begin with.

“Still, I made you upset,” he looks down to his empty can and pouts. “If you don’t want to be around me-”

“Yuuji,” you interrupt him. “I’m fine, really. My ancestor stood their ground against him once. Surely I can do it again a millennium later.”

“Gojo-sensei was telling me about that!” his eyes sparkle with recollection. “That’s so cool! You’re basically his arch nemesis!”

You awkwardly laugh at his enthusiasm. “That’s one way of putting it.”

“So, Senpai,” he looks at your with a hopeful gaze. “Gojo-sensei seems pretty certain this plan of his will work, but what do you think?”

“Well,” you take a quick sip of your drink before continuing. “Before I tell you what I think about this whole debacle, I need to make a few things thing clear regarding the two of us.”

He obediently nods, face now serious, though it takes you a considerable amount of effort not to laugh from how innocent he still looks. It’s hard to believe he’s housing the king of curses within himself.

“First and foremost, don’t call me Senpai! ” you firmly say. Don’t call me by my family name either. We’re about the same age, so just call me by my first name from now on. Understood?”

“First name, got it!”

“Second,” you put up two fingers. “This is the most important point, so pay attention,” you look at him to make sure he’s ready to commit your words into memory. “Whether the plan works out or not, you must never forget one important fact of the matter. You are not Sukuna.”

He flinches, clearly not expecting such words to be directed towards him.

“I’m sure Gojo whipped up some epic tale about my ancestor’s grudge against that two-faced monster. I not only inherited their technique, but also many of their memories during their initial life. In a way, I suppose I hate Sukuna as well, and based on my reaction from earlier when he popped out, I’m not exactly going to handle moments where he gains control with as much poise as I should.

But remember Yuuji. My discomfort will never be towards you, but the curse you are now bound to,” you reach out and pat his head in assurance. “As the saying goes ‘the enemy of my enemy is a friend.’ Which brings me to my final point!” You excitedly profess. “I want us to be friends!”

“Wait, really?” he sounds almost unsure over your insistence. “I mean, I don’t mind, but I don’t want you to feel like you have to put up with me for my sake.”

“I’m not saying we have to be the best of friends” you explain. “Since we’re going to be around each other so often, I at least want us to be on friendly terms. I want your time left in this world to be as enjoyable and carefree as possible.”

“I guess we can be friends,” he crosses his arms and stares off in deep thought. “I’m just trying to think of a good starting point to get to know you.”

“You can always keep it simple and ask me what I like,” you say, laughing at the way he suddenly has an “ah hah!’ moment and looks at you like an excited puppy.

“Do you like Jennifer Lawrence?” 

Yuuji is almost offended that you didn’t know who Jennifer Lawrence is. He was utterly flabbergasted that you haven’t watched any of her movies either (“I don’t even know who she is Yuuji how the hell am I supposed to know she was in movies?”). He went on and on about every single film, but if you’re being honest his 2 minute summaries (infodumping, really) of the plots didn’t really do them justice. Out of nowhere he proposes that you and him have a movie night so he can show you exactly what you’re missing! Of course, it’ll have to be after the two of you settle into your dorm rooms.

It’s true that you were offered immediate admission into Tokyo Technical college due to your lineage, but no one but you and your family knew about this. Gojo also knew. He was the one that brought up the idea in the first place… 

Oh, Gojo told him. Well now you just feel stupid.

That’s how you found yourself in the dormitory’s common area with Yuuji and your other classmates, Nobara and Megumi. Meeting them wasn’t that bad. Just kidding, it was terrifying! Megumi looks exactly the way your family often describes members of the Zen’in clan to look like, blank and unnerving. You honestly thought Nobara would beat you up just from the way she was looking at you with such an observing glare, completely forgetting the fact that you’re a descendant of the person who single handedly sealed Sukuna away.

Oh yeah, Yuuji told them that! Was he not supposed to?

“Hah?” Nobara scowls at Yuuji, who puts his hands up in defense. “You mean their old ass grandparent turned that ugly ass curse into bite sized pieces?”

“I did,” you answer, but you quickly catch your mistake and correct yourself. “They did. Along with the sword they used to cut Sukuna down I also inherited most of their memories which is...It’s not as pleasant as you would think.”

Her expression softens up a bit and she steps in front of you. She holds out her palm and makes a beckoning gesture. “The sword,” she clarifies when you look at her with confusion. “Let me hold it.”

You make a quick trip back to your room to retrieve it. She nearly doubles over into you once you pass it over to her.

“Damn! How much does this thing weigh?!” she looks at you with disbelief

“It weighs next to nothing whenever I hold it,” you explain, taking it into your hold and tossing it in the air and twirling it around to further drive your point.

“Bullshit! It’s like 50 pounds!” 

“It can’t be that bad,” Megumi comments.

“Oh yeah? Here!” Nobara grabs and tosses it at him, much to your dismay. “See?” she shrills when he nearly doubles over himself. “It’s heavy!”

“Yeah, ok. This is definitely the sword that took down Sukuna,” Megumi gasps.

“My turn! My turn!” Yuuji makes grabby hands, but you push yourself between him and Megumi who’s still holding onto it before he can get too close.

“It’s probably best if you don’t touch it. Y’know?” you point back and forth between him and you.

“Oh, right,” he sheepishly remembers. “Crap, the popcorns gonna get cold!”

You sigh in relief when his attention goes elsewhere before quickly heading back to your room to put the weapon away. When you reenter the lounge, Yuuji greets you with a cheery smile before patting the empty space next to him. He wants you to sit beside him, but Nobara seems to have other plans as she sits right in your intended spot and tells you to sit next to her instead. You were honestly scared and a bit reluctant, but your fears subside once you sat down and she locked her arm with yours and leaned her head on your shoulder for the rest of the night. 

She and Megumi eventually retreated back to their rooms before they could fall asleep on the couch after the second movie concludes.

“Do you want to keep going?” Yuuji asked, hands fidgeting with the next DVD case he had at the ready.

“Sure,” you nod, not tired in the slightest just yet.

“Sweet!” he gave you a toothy smile before standing up to head towards the dvd player. However, the moment he stood to his full height he went deathly still. His body contorts before swiftly relaxing. He rolls his neck a few times and lets out a relieved sigh. Before you can ask him what’s wrong, that’s when you feel that disgusting familiar aura and your heart starts beating like you just did a triathlon in a few short minutes.

“Finally, some fresh air,” he sighs in relief as he arches his back and his spine lets out a few crisp pops. His voice hasn’t changed in a thousand years and neither has your fear and disdain for it. When he turns and looks at you with those familiar blood colored irises, you involuntarily reach out to grab your weapon, but you only grab at empty air.

“Hey,” you flinch when he addresses you. No, it’s not you he’s talking to. Given your identical appearance and even your cursed energy that you manifested out of habit, in his mind he must think of you as your ancestor themself, not a distant descendant. “It’s been a while.”

“What do you want?” you somehow manage to stutter out.

“Nothing,” he admits. “’Just want a good look at you.”

If your ancestor or even your family were to see you now, you’re certain they’d be disappointed in you for going still before your greatest enemy. All those years of hating and experiencing all those horrible memories feel like a complete waste when you can’t even muster the strength to bat his hand away when it takes hold of your chin and turns your head over for him to thoroughly inspect you.

“Did you miss me?” he strangely inquires.

Finally. You feel some control over your body come back and answer with an affirmative, “No.”

“That’s too bad,” he clicks his tongue with mocking dissatisfaction. “Because I missed you.”

His face begins to lean into you, lips slightly parted, and you know that he’s going in to press them against yours. Just as you’re about to gather all the strength you can muster and push him away, his body seizes once more and the black markings cross his face and wrists begin to fade and crumble away. An in-control-again Yuuji blinks a few times before checking his surroundings to regain his bearings.

“What happened?” he looks down at you and asks, not registering the fact that he was kneeling over you and firmly pushing you back against the couch with a painful grip.

A part of you wanted to punch Yuuji and run back to your room so you can wait out the slight panic attack that overcame you once Sukuna vanished, but you had to remind yourself that you would be hurting Yuuji if you went through with your action. In all honesty, that second point you told him of remembering to never think of himself as Sukuna was more for you than for him. While your ancestor would willingingly strike down any and all who have the slightest bit of affiliation with their tormentor, you are not them. Therefore, you will not stoop down to their discriminating level, no matter how justified it may be.

The night ended on an expected awkward note. Yuuji, bless his heart, went out of his way again to make it up to you. How? He bought a bunch of snacks from a convenience store in the city and gave them to you in a pretty, gift wrapped box. Nobara and Megumi, who helped him put together the forgiveness present, thought the gift itself was dumb and lackluster, but he reasons with them by stating how you also come from a countryside town as well and how you’d definitely like to try some of the Tokyo-exclusive goodies.

Well, the way towards another’s forgiveness is through the stomach, or something like that. The exact quote is a bit lost to you since you’re too busy savoring all the odd flavored chips and candies you’ve never had the chance to taste back home. Nobara and Megumi feel the immense urge to punch you in the back of your head over how easy you are to win over, but you look so happy eating your second bag of potato chips and Yuuji looks very relieved that he’s earned your forgiveness- 

Oh wow you’re offering to share your snacks with them? Don't mind if they do!

While all of you try each and every snack Yuuji gifted to you and rate them like you’re all a bunch of snack experts all of a sudden, Sukuna is brewing in his own satisfaction as he watches you through the eyes of his vessel. Nevermind the fact that you sealed him away all those years ago. He’s back now by a stroke of luck that only seemed to strike again when he saw your familiar figure through Yuuji’s vision. The cursed energy that radiated off of you, the sword you carried by your side, even your face, there was no doubt in his mind that it was the work of fate that you and him were reunited in this new era.

He made the mistake of letting you out of his sight back then, and he isn’t going to let it happen again. He wants to take control over his vessel's body each and every time he’s anywhere within your vicinity, but not only does the brat have the convenient ability to suppress him, you’re a rather cautious one. Just when he thinks Yuuji to be alone and susceptible, you appear out of thin air and keep him at a standstill from within. It’s annoying, but at the same time impressive as well.

While you may be oblivious to his vessel’s budding feelings towards you, he sees this growing fondness Yuuji is beginning to garner towards you as an opportunity, a weakness he can exploit to force a small rematch between you and him. He won’t kill you. He just wants to know if your technique that surprised and caught him off guard back then still elicits the same thrill it did then. 

You are his favorite source of entertainment after all, and it’s been far too long since he’s been amused.

Sloppy and desperate. Those are the best descriptors of your cursed energy the first time he detected it. Your sword still remains as beautiful and deadly as it was, cutting through rows of trees with ease with just the slightest bit of cursed energy embedded into your attack. It makes the phantom sensation of his vessel’s freshly ripped out heart, beat faster and his grin widens to the point of his cheeks hurting from the uncontrollable strain.

Precise and brutal. That is how he would describe your energy now. He easily feels the hatred and sudden rage that began to fuel and flare up your aura oozing out of you that only further accentuates its new characteristics. Normally, you would be swearing at him with a mouth so foul that it would make the average curse blush in embarrassment. He can’t say he likes the way you silently assault him. Where is that crude vocabulary of yours?

“Senpai!” Megumi shouts for your attention as he tries to keep up with your fast paced exchange with Sukuna. “You need to call down-”

“Megumi, don’t call me your damn Senpai!” You shout in response, eyes never daring to look away from Sukuna even as you address your classmate.

“That’s more like it!” he cheers with satisfaction. “Oh, how I’ve missed your damning words beloved.”

“Don’t call me that!” you shout as you swing your right arm and impulsively punch him. He easily blocks your melee, though you send him skidding back a few feet. 

With the much needed space set between the two of you, you correct your stance to a more defensive one. Your innate technique has been actively running ever since Sukuna took over Yuuji’s body and activated his domain expansion. Your sudden bout of rage overwhelmed you after witnessing Sukuna rip Yuuji’s heart out, nearly forgetting that you’ve been barred from the ability to inflict any lasting damage against him in your frenzied state.

Your inherited technique allows you to perfectly parry his ‘Dismantle’ and ‘Cleave’, but no damage will be inflicted if you purposely strike with the intention of dealing a lethal blow as you have been for the past few minutes. Your sword is blunt upon contact, evident by the lack of any lacerations upon his skin.

He may have offered the chance to heal Yuuji if you agreed to spar with him, but you know better than anyone that it’s all a bunch of lies coming out of his stolen lips. Yuuji was lost the moment Sukuna came out and set his sight on you, or rather, who he believes you to be. You’d easily blame yourself for being the cause of his demise, but you also know that Yuuji wouldn’t like it if you blame yourself over this from the afterlife.

The least you can do to make it up to him is bring his body back so it can be properly cremated. He at least deserves a proper funeral.

“All tuckered out already?” Sukuna mockingly coos at you. “I suppose that’s to be expected. How long has it been since our last battle? I doubt there was any curse who could live up to my strength this past millennium.” He cackles when you don’t reply. He’s right. He knows he is.

You finally break your silence with an odd comment. “You really think I’m them, do you?”

Though obviously rhetoric, Sukuna gives you a questioning look. “Elaborate,” he commands.

“I’m not who you think I am,” you simply state. “I have the same technique as them, but I am not the one who sealed you away that fateful night. That person is my predecessor, while I am their descendant.”

You state your family name, then your first name, and wait. He willingly takes in this information, cupping his chin and looking up at the sky as he mulls it over before coming to his own conclusion. Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t seem to accept it as the truth, evident by the way he slips his hands back in his pockets and cocks his head at you with a playful attitude.

“Whatever the punchline was, I’m afraid it fell flat,” he lets out a sympathetic laugh. “You mean to tell me that after I was sealed away, you found yourself a spouse willing to take you, a washed up whore, into their bosom and bear children with you?”

The way he shakes his head and clicks his tongue in a dismissive manner pisses you off more than watching him crush Yuuji’s heart in his bare hand. Most of the memories of your ancestor revolve around their time as one of Sukuna’s concubines. The memories you have of their life afterwards are foggy at best, but you do remember the feeling of peace as well an overwhelming amount of bliss and mutual love their spouse gave them despite their history. It was one of the happiest moments of their life and it never once faltered even after they retold their darkest memories to their children and handed down their initial will, to always oppose the king of curses, no matter the era.

People may think it cruel, selfish even, that they did not strive to develop a better technique and pass down such a heavy responsibility to their children and their children’s children. But if there’s anything those hazy memories taught you, is that they do not regret the efforts that they did make to set themselves, and the others under his servitude, free from his tyranny. Had they submitted and gave into his whims, they would have never been blessed with their children and loving spouse.

Had they not done what they did, acted the way they did, you would not be here, opposing the king of curses within this new era of curses.

“I have never lied to you,” you repeat those now ancient words. “The least you can do is give me the benefit of the doubt before dubbing me a liar.”

It happened so fast that you question if it even happened or not. His eyebrows furrowed, the exact same manner when your ancestor severed the first of his twenty fingers on that fateful night.

When he began to approach you, you sheath your blade and returned to a neutral stance, feeling safe to do so as the previous hostile energy he exuded calms. Megumi stumbles in just in time to see Sukuna and you standing nearly chest to chest. He presses his palms together in preparation to summon one of his shikigami to provide support, but he stops his incantation when he notices that neither of you are exchanging blows anymore, though the two of you do exchange unfaltering glares towards each other that puts Megumi on edge even though he is merely a spectator in this situation.

“I am not them,” you firmly state. “This is the truth.”

Sukuna hums, dissatisfaction clear as you repeat your claim from earlier.

“It seems you weren’t lying,” he finally concedes. “Such a shame.”

With one final shrug, the black markings all over Yuuji’s chest and limbs begin to crumble until there's nothing but his unblemished skin. The sharper features his face takes on when Sukuna takes control and taints with his sigils turn back into those belonging to the typically boisterous boy.

“Hey,” his slightly raspy and confused voice greets you so genuinely. 

“Hey,” you greet him back with a relieved, yet sad smile. His eyes follow yours that seemed focused on his chest and that’s when he finally notices the gaping hole as well as the lack of a beating heart and blood trail.

The grey clouds that have been gathering before you all were dropped off at the school finally begin to shed droplets of cold rain down on you. A drop lands perfectly on his face that looks indistinguishable to a shed tear. You instinctively reach out and wipe it away.

“I’m sorry you had to see me like this,” he pouts. 

“It’s alright,” you withdraw your hand away from his cold and sickeningly pale cheek. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you from him.”

He took a deep breath as if he was about to say something else, but his eyes finally go blank and his upright body gives out and falls forward. You catch him with ease and carefully set him down on the damp soil. He’s officially gone to you, yet you take extra care to cup the back of his head and gently set him down with shaking hands. As you kneel beside his stiff body, another drop falls on his face and trickles down. 

You’re not sure if it’s another raindrop or the first of many teardrops that begin to spill from your tear ducts once your brain finally registers that your best friend is lying dead before you.

A week later

Yuuji is dead, yet it is as clear as the large hole in his chest that Sukuna is still living on within the body, if only barely. Ieiri, Gojo and Ijichi can’t tell, but you can. Call it yet another inherited skill or instinct, but no amount of pitiful words or comforting pats on your back from either of them are going to make you second guess yourself on this matter.

Sukuna is alive, yet for some reason he isn’t staking his claim on the body. You know he can at any moment, but it seems he’s not entirely stupid and is trying to play his cards right.

Perhaps he’s waiting for something? Maybe a certain someone instead? It wouldn’t surprise you if he has allies that are still alive and are well aware of his resurrection. It wouldn’t surprise you either if they were gathering his other fingers in his stead. Those damn things are blinking beacons for other curses, so gathering them shouldn’t be hard even for the most mediocre of cursed beings. Even when he’s made into a bunch of inanimate objects, he can still cause some amount of chaos and grief.

Damn him.

Your claim that Sukuna still lives goes from outlandish and desperate to undoubtedly true when a faint pulse of his energy brings everyone’s attention to Yuuji’s corpse and puts you all on the defensive. It was a signal, specifically for you. He wants you to come to him, within his own playing field and without the prying eyes of your superiors or the chance for any outside interference from your teacher.

Speaking of Gojo, he’s been trying to pull you away from Yuuji’s corpse and usher you out of the room for your own protection.

“He wants to talk to me,” you state the obvious to him.

“Yeah, that’s not happening,” he says with finality. It’s almost adorable how he’s trying to play the role of the stern authority figure when he’s normally such an eccentric man 99% of the time. “C’mon, you need to leave.”

“Gojo-sensei,” you reach up to your shoulder that he’s tightly gripping and gently pry his hand off. “I mean no disrespect to you, or anyone at this school for that matter. But when it comes to matters regarding Ryomen Sukuna, you and the higher ups don’t know a damn thing about that monster.”

Your hand hastily reaches out and your fingertips merely graze against Yuuji’s cold and rigid skin. Just that slight contact is enough to have your surroundings shift from a stagnant and grey autopsy room to a dark and brooding domain. You blink away the dizziness from your sudden shift of reality and the first thing you notice is the pile of ox skulls. You also notice the endless rows of ribs high up in the air that further add towards the domain’s ominousness.

“I’m here!” you cup your hands around your mouth as you yell out. “The hell do you want from me you two-faced bastard?!”

“Quit screaming,” his annoyed yet strangely soft voice startles you. You abruptly turn around to meet him face to face.

“Where’s Yuuji?” you ask with command behind your infliction.

“There’s no one else but us,” he says in a poor attempt to make you drop your defensive body posture. When he notices that you aren’t relaxing, he points behind you with an annoyed glare. You turn to see nothing but the collection of dirtied animal skulls, but at the last second you see an unconscious Yuuji planted face down into the ankle deep water (blood?) at the bottom of the mountainous pile. Upon seeing the familiar tuft of pink hair, you sprint towards his unmoving body. You flip him upwards once he’s in reach, fearing he was drowning or at the very least injured in some way.

As you try to gently coax or check for any sign of life within your friend, you ignore or even fail to notice the way Sukuna observes you from behind. The boy is unconscious only due to Sukuna easily decapitating him earlier as they fought over the conditions of the binding vow he was enforcing in exchange for healing his vessel’s body and bringing him back to life. Just as he was about to uphold his end of the vow, he felt as you entered the room his vessel’s lifeless body was most definitely being stored to be later cremated. 

His reaching out to you was an impulsive action on his part. He now knows that the one who stands before him is truly not you. Your energy and your descendants are near indistinguishable, so his sudden call of you was a mere force of habit and his prevailing desire to chase after you. It’s not his brightest moment, but you tend to make him act beyond what is usually his typical behavior. 

As he watches your descendant talk to a half awake and delirious Yuuji, he can’t help but to examine them with a bit of awe. The one before him is your descendant of a thousand years, perhaps even more. They are your flesh and blood, and yet they retain not only your image, but even some of your memories as well. He doesn’t know what to think of this revelation, truly he doesn’t.

The only thing that’s rubbing him the wrong way is the fact that they are not a product between you and him. It’s not that he has or had any sort of unfulfilled paternal desire locked deep within him. Even if he did contemplate producing a few offspring before his temporary demise, he only wanted children for the same reason he wanted a harem, as a source of amusement that he can freely manipulate however he sees fit. Perhaps he did consider impregnating a few dozen of his concubines to see if any could birth him an heir worthy of his legacy, but the entire process was too much of a hassle that he wasn’t willing to deal with at the time. He had no pure intentions when it comes to spreading his seed into the world.

So why is he angry that you went ahead and did so without him?

“Your ancestor’s spouse,” he idly mentions in an attempt to garner their careful attention. From the way they stiffen up and look at him with that familiar glare of yours, he has it. “What were they like?”

“As if I’d tell you,” they say.

“I see you inherited their stubbornness,” he huffs with annoyance, but deep down in the deepest and most hidden parts of his mind, he feels somewhat glad that your stubbornness continues to live on in the world. “Tell me, and I’ll let you return with Yuuji-”

“Their spouse was just as stubborn as they were,” they cut him off with an immediate answer. “No matter how many times they tried to ignore or downplay their advances, they continued to chase after my predecessor until it was as obvious as the sun that they truly wanted to be together with them and make them happy.”

As he expected, their recollection of your life after him is too disgustingly domestic and romanticized for his liking. What does come at a surprise is that they completely went against their earlier proclamation of remaining silent and divulged him on the information he initially asked of you rather readily. Something must have switched in their mind. Are they trying to get back at him on your behalf by proudly stating that you lived a happy life without him?

“That’s exactly what I’m doing,” they say with a smug voice. “They hated you beyond comprehension, and even if they are long gone from this world, I assure you that their hatred remains just as intense as it was when they lived.”

“Don’t be mistaken, you pathetic human,” he growls, much more angrily than normal. “I could care less who they fornicated with and how many children they produced.”

“For the self proclaimed king of curses, you sure are a terrible liar,” they say, almost pitifully. “You regret the way you treated them, don’t you? Deny it all you want, I know I’m right.”

Your last comment is the final straw. With the flick of his wrist he casts you and Yuuji out of his inner domain and back into the living world. He heals Yuuji to maintain his side of the binding vow before settling back atop his rigid throne of horned skulls. He watches through Yuuji’s eyes how the two of you squeeze each other into a firm embrace after he reawakens. When Gojo makes a comment about how Yuuji is stark naked on the metal table, he feels the immense urge to grab one of the skulls and crush it into a fine dust in his bare fist as the two of you devolve into a fit of awkward but good natured laughter at the realization.

He can’t remember a time when you ever laughed or smiled like your descendant is doing now.

Does he regret never once seeing or hearing you in such a way? Maybe.

But you’re gone, so there is no point lingering on it too much.

There’s no point in having regrets now.

Bonus

Sukuna knew it was only a matter of time before you and Yuuji solidified your relationship as a romantic one. Back in his prime, he behaved no differently than Yuuji did after he brought him back to life, straightforward and without a second thought. Ever since he stole you away from your family and home, every chance you took at defying him and damning his name into the fiery pits of hell invoked something within him. Something no other man or woman can or ever will be able to. And yet, each time he reached out to indulge himself further of you, you retreated into yourself and tried to cast him out of every corner of your mind while he tried to engrave your everything into his very being. Your behavior to his advances differ greatly from your descendant, who accepts Yuuji’s advances with an honest and willing smile.

He watches the relationship through the unsuspecting eyes of his vessel. Sometimes, he gags at how sickeningly affectionate Yuuji can be. Yet despite his behavior, your descendant drinks it all up and returns the hugs and the kisses tenfold. Nobara and Megumi often roll their eyes on the sidelines and comment on how they were practically made for each other. Sukuna can't help but silently roll his eyes as well as agree with their annoyed comments, even if it makes him incredibly irritated. 

Will he ever admit to the latter? Never.

He does not regret the way things turned out between you and him. He cannot regret for the sake of his sanity. Instead, he often ponders about the possibilities. Had he not taken you from your home, could there have been a chance you and him could have been friends despite his reputation at the time? If he courted you properly instead of forcing you into his collection of common whores, could you look at him the same way your descendant looks at Yuuji, with so much love and tenderness that it makes his stomach twist into knots and the back of his throat burn? Despite being a curse who sustains himself on his pure carnal desires, could he have been selfless and put forth the efforts to make you happy?

During nights when they share a bed together, he sneaks control over the body and traces what was once your face with his black painted claws. Could you ever look so peaceful as your descendant does now if you laid beside him? Would you remain in his bed until the sun rises instead of fleeing? Would your body feel just as warm, fit just as perfectly in his embrace as your descendant does?

Sukuna does not regret the path he took. He cannot, for the sake of his sanity. He does wonder about the possibilities.

He wonders, could this descendant of yours have been his as well?

[leossmoonn]

could i please request a stefan fluff where the reader is like spanish or smth, but she speaks ij english with everyone. and her and stefan are dating. so one day she gets upset over smth so she starts ranting in spanish and stefan can't understand a thing. and he's like "oh- ok-" even though he didn't understand anything. if not thats ok! have a nice day!!

have a nice day too <33

masterlist

pairing - stefan salvatore x spanish speaking, fem!reader

type - fluff, angst

note - i put the reader as a spanish speaker and not just spanish, so it could be more inclusive :). and i'm so sorry that this is so bad. i couldn't come up with a better plot like i wanted to, but i hope you enjoy anyways!

warnings / includes - language, kissing, food and alcohol mention, cute couple stuff, you getting upset (duh), kissing, stefan trying to be supportive but also being really confused lol. you all are like in your late 20s for this lol. for those who aren't spanish speakers, i will put translations in little text under each sentence/paragraph

————

"Sí. Bueno, lo retomaré más tarde. Gracias," you hung up the phone, setting it down with a smile on your face.

["Yes. Okay, I will pick it up later. Thank you."]

"Hey, who was that?" Stefan come over to you, wrapping his arm around your waist.

"That was Lucas's friend. He was able to get the cake and the cupcakes made early!" You squealed, jumping up and down in his arms.

"Oh, that's awesome! Looks like Caroline won't be bugging you anymore," Stefan chuckled.

"Oh, I know. Man, am I happy to finally get this party planning over with," you sighed, turning around and leaning against the counter.

You smiled as you came face-to-face with your boyfriend. You hung your arms around his neck lazily, twirling the hair on the nape of his neck with your first fingers.

"Tired?" Stefan raised a brow, settings hands on your hips.

"Exhausted. And to think the actual party is tonight," you chuckled. "Well, that's the easiest part, right?" Stefan asked.

"Yeah, watching over twenty-to-twenty five eleven years olds is easy," you rolled your eyes.

"You'll have help. Caroline, me, Bonnie, Ric, Elena, Matt. Even Damon has volunteered to watch them!"

"Or lure them in a back corner and fed on them," you scoffed. "Hey, Damon's a lot of things, but he is not a child-blood-sucker," Stefan defended.

"Awe, you're defending him. How cute," you booped his nose.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. We are goals. Or whatever the kids are saying these days."

You giggled at his words, turning back around as you heard the front door open. You looked to see Caroline, Bonnie, and Elena carrying the twins, a bunch of presents, and at least five boxes of pizza.

"Damn. I wish you guys bought me this many presents!" You exclaimed.

"Oh, shut up. We give you a bottle of champagne and you're already over the moon," Elena snickered.

"Well, what can I say? I'm a simple gal," you grinned.

"Hey, Stef, can you help, please? Put these next to the window sill," Bonnie ordered as she was carrying most of the presents.

"Yeah, of course," Stefan nodded. He ran over to her with his vampire speed, picking up the presents at lightening speed and laying them out in towers.

"Thank you," Bonnie sighed. "Yeah, no problem. Hey, why didn't you just use your magic to carry them in?" Stefan asked.

"I need to save my energy for the kids," Bonnie explained.

"Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. I didn't know we were letting the world know our secret," you frowned.

"We aren't! They're just a bunch of kids. Plus, we can just compel them to forget. Josie and Lizzie really want to show them tricks, too," Caroline bounced the twins in her arms.

You looked to the two girls who were giggling and smiling. You sighed, "Fine. Anyways, guess who was able to get the cake and the cupcakes."

"Oh, my God! You?" Caroline gasped. "Yep. Call me Santa Claus 'cause I just delivered!" You grinned.

Elena, Bonnie, and Stefan cringed at your joke.

"Not your best work, Y/n," Elena shook her head.

"What! Hey, that was pretty good," you frowned. "You'll get 'em next time, babe," Stefan smiled, going over to you and patting you on the back.

"Okay, you guys are just jealous because you're not as funny as me," you scoffed.

"Oh, yeah, we're jealous all right," Bonnie smirked.

You opened your mouth to retort back, but your phone started ringing. You looked at the Caller ID, seeing that it was your brother, Lucas. You gave them all a death glare, picking up your phone and going into the other room.

"Hey, amigo, what's up?" You asked.

"Uh, bad news, chica," Lucas sighed. "Oh?" You raised a brow.

"Yeah, turns out that Darryl can't make the cake or the cupcakes today."

You opened your mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Your eyes were wide as saucers as you thought of what to say.

"Y/n? Please say something," Luca begged.

You turned your head, your face screwing up in guilt and anger as you saw Lizzie and Josie playing with Bonnie and Stefan. You turned back and focused on the conversation you were having with you very trusting brother.

"¿Qué quiere decir Darryl no puede hacer el pastel o cupcakes?"

[What do you mean darryl can't make the cake or cupcakes?"]

"I mean that he can't make them. Do I need to explain to you what those words mean? And why are you speaking in Spanish? Afraid someone will —"

"En realidad, lo soy, Lucas. Dios, eres tan poco confiable. ¡Y ese amigo tuyo! Espera, ¿podría recuperar mi dinero?"

["Actually, I am, Lucas. God, you are so unreliable. And that friend of yours! Wait, am I going to be able to get my money back?"]

"Um… probably not. But it's okay, I'll pay you back!"

"Ah, ¿cuándo? ¿Después de sacar dinero del fondo universitario de su hijo? ¿O se lo van a pedir a mamá y papá esta vez?"

["Oh, when? After you take out money from your child's college fund? Or are you going to ask mom and dad for it this time?"]

"Hey, don't blame me! Blame Darryl. All I did was hook you up with him!"

"Y probablemente sabías que era un gilipollas mentiroso y que robaba dinero. Llámame de vuelta cuando seas capaz de no mentirme, ¿sí?"

["And you probably knew that he was a lying, money-stealing asshole. Call me back when you're able to not lie to me, yeah?"]

"Wait, Y/n, I-"

You hung up the phone, throwing it on the chair next to you. You groaned quietly, the bridge of your nose burning as tears welled up in your eyes.

"¿Cómo puedes ser tan estúpido, Y/n? Confiando en él después de todo lo demás que ha hecho. Estúpido, estúpido, estúpido!"

["How can you be so stupid, Y/n? Trusting him after everything else he's done. Stupid, stupid, stupid!"]

Stefan, who was throwing up Lizzie and Josie in the air, heard your mutters in the other room. He frowned and put the girls down, promising them that he would be back in a second after checking up on you. He walked into the next room slowly, putting his arm around you lightly.

"Hey, what's wrong?"

You jumped at his voice and touch, sniffling and wiping the tears from your face. "Y-Yeah. Just some um, family stuff."

"Want to talk about it?" Stefan asked.

You sighed, turning around to him. His hand intertwined with yours, squeezing it for support.

"It's just… Lucas. He's just so… jodidamente molesto," you sighed. "Él simplemente no piensa en otras personas y las consecuencias. Quiero decir, trata de ayudar, lo que es agradable, pero siempre termina por pagar dinero a la gente, o termina por tener un ojo negro."

[“He is just so… fucking annoying. He just doesn't think about other people and the consequences. I mean, he tries to help, which is nice, but he always either ends up owing people money, or ends up having a black eye.”]

"O-Oh, yeah," Stefan nodded, his brows furrowed as he tried to understand. But you were speaking so fast and with so much anger, he barely picked up a word.

"Y como su hermana mayor, sé que probablemente se supone que voy fácil con él, pero es un hombre crecido. ¡Debe saber estas cosas! Ugh, sabía que debería haber ordenado a ellos como, Target o algo, pero el amigo de su “aparentemente” es capaz de hacer diseños realmente lindos y hacer arte fondant en tiempo récord, así que tomé mis mis oportunidades. ¿Y adivina dónde estoy ahora?"

[“And as his older sister, I know I'm probably supposed to go easy on him, but he's a grown man. He should know these things! Ugh, I knew I should've just ordered them from like, Target or something, but hsi friend "apparently" is able to do really cute designs and make fondant art in record time, so I took my chances. And guess where I am now?”]

"Right, right. Wow, I'm sorry, babe, I —"

"Ciento cincuenta dólares cortos con dos niñas que van a estar tristes cuando no consiguen su pastel de sirena barbie y cupcakes con temática de Minecraft. ¡Argh!"

["One hundred and fifty dollars short with two little girls who are going to be sad when they don't get their Barbie Mermaid cake and Minecraft-themed cupcakes. Argh!"]

You stopped your rant when you noticed Stefan looked at you with a confused expression on his face. You thought for a moment to yourself, beginning to laugh at yourself as you realised you were speaking in Spanish.

"I'm sorry, Stef. I didn't realise you couldn't understand me."

He smiled and shrugged. "No worries. At least you were able to get it all out, right?"

"A little. When I punch Lucas, I'll be able to get it all out," you grinned.

"That's my girl."

————

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Fade Out Again (Thom Yorke X Reader)

For @shehangsbrightly

prompt: honestly i would be allll over the bends era thom, and i think something angsty is what i’m feeling rn. do your magic 😌

Gender Neutral and SFW

CW: angst, burnout, arguments, swearing, guilt, break up, bad mental health.

“I really don’t know what you want from me! I thought you’d be happy to see me after, I don’t know? Nearly a year? But no, I’m the bad guy as always!”

“You think that you’re the only one this tour has taken a toll on? I haven’t been in the comfort of my own home in a year. I haven’t seen my friends or family in a YEAR! You can’t always expect to be my top priority!”

“Obviously. You know, every tour you do the more of a self-centered asshole you become. Just because your band is ‘making it big’ doesn’t mean you have to treat the people in your life like shit, Thom! It isn’t just me. Ed literally has told me numerous stories from when you got too drunk to even perform! You promised.”

“Oh enough of that promise bullshit Y/N! I’m sick of it!”

“Well, that shows how much you fucking cared about it, huh? Shows what a promise means to you? You’re pathetic. The amount of love and support I have poured into you since fucking college and one hit song throws every promise and hope for our future away.”

“Oh fuck off.”

I let out a dry laugh and walked to our bedroom. I grabbed a suitcase and packed as much as I could shove into it.

“What are you doing now?”

“Fucking off. I’m done, Thom. Absolutely done.”

“Yeah sure. You won’t last more than two days Y/N, and you know it. We’ve been through this before.”

I stormed towards him, his back colliding with the wall. I looked into his eyes, trying to look for any sign of remorse in his cold, blue orbs.

“Not this time Thom. I’m tired of crawling back to you with hopes that things will be how they used to again. I am tired of endlessly longing for you to return the love I give to you. You’ve changed and if this is you now? I want no part of it.”

He scoffed and looked away from me.

“Anything to say? Or are you too good for that, Mr. Big Rockstar?”

“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

I scoffed and grabbed my stuff. I stormed out onto the snowy streets. It was freezing but I didn’t dare look back. It felt like I had been walking for hours before I found a phone booth. I put the change in the slot and dialed the only number I could remember through my rage.

“Hey, Eddie? It’s Y/N..”

“What happened this time?”

“Well, what usually happens when he gets home I suppose. Are you busy?”

“Need somewhere to stay?”

“Ye-ah.” My voice cracked as tears swelled my eyes.

“Where are you, I’ll be there as soon as I can?”

---

It had been nearly two months since we broke up and not a word was spoken between us. Ed had generously let me rent out the spare room in his house until I got my shit together, which did not seem to be happening. All I could seem to do was cry, work, and sleep. Eddie was wonderful and tried to help when he could, but he tended to keep his distance. At some point, I knew Thom would end up stumbling into the house, however, I did not expect to hear his voice breaking downstairs as he talked to Ed.

Thom’s POV

“Ed, it’s driving me mad! Do you know where they are, have you heard from them, anything?”

“If they wanted you to know where they were, they would’ve contacted you. I can’t really help you, man.”

“I just. I can’t do this anymore. I need them, so badly. You don’t fucking understand.” I crumbled to the ground in tears. “It’s my fault. Every time they leave it’s my fault and- and I just expect them to come back. What happened to me, Eddie? What... happened?”

“Thom. You’re the only person who’s gonna be able to fix this and you know it. I’m not helping you anymore. We’ve been through this too many times. I’m not a fucking couples counselor!” He grabbed his hair in frustration.

“You… You too? You’re supposed to be my best friend, and you’re giving up on me too?”

“You know what, Thom? That’s your problem. You can’t take any fucking responsibility for anything, can you? It’s always somebody else’s fault with you!”

I couldn’t even form a response. My thoughts spiraled rapidly as I tried to figure out where everything went to shit.

“I-I’m so-rry. I don’t know what to do, a-and I don’t mean to throw it all on you, Eddie, you… You’re just always so good with this stuff and you know them so well and- and- and..”

“Thom,” He held his head in his hand, “take a breath. There’s no need for all the blubbering.”

“But-”

“Just shut up for a minute okay? I’ll be right back.”

He marched up the stairs and disappeared. A few minutes later he came back down. Followed by Y/N.

Y/N’s POV

His face was tear-stained and puffy. He was in a pile on the floor looking as hopeless as an abandoned puppy.

“Y/N..”

I felt my jaw clench as I looked at him. I wanted to slap him and yell at him for everything he put me through, but my body betrayed me. Instead, I found myself kneeling in front of him, arm reaching out to cup his face in my hand. Tears streamed down his cheeks once again as he rested in my palm. He turned to kiss my fingertips.

“I’m sorry Y/N… I took you for granted. I thought you would always come back, and this time you didn’t, and my ego left with you. I need you, I need you so badly love. I can’t do this without you. Please I will do anything to have you back… Please.” He was barely speaking and as he whispered he looked me in the eyes for the first time in years.

“I... I can’t, Thom.”

His posture snapped to attention and I watched his heart shatter again.

“Why not..?”

“You hurt me.”

Tears of my own now mimicked his.

“Please.”

“Thom, stop.”

“I can’t. I can’t because I love you, and if you ever loved me then you would come back.”

“Don’t you fucking dare with that bullshit Thomas.”

I stood and walked away, but he followed.

“Love doesn’t go away Y/N, you told me that yourself. If you loved me you wouldn’t walk away like this. You’re really willing to throw everything away like that?”

“Stop. Thom, I- I can’t do this, just go.”

“I’m not leaving without you.”

“And I’m not leaving with you.”

He approached me and gently grabbed my hands, giving me the same damn look he did every time he wanted to get his way.

“No, Thom. Stop. Please.”

“One more chance, that’s all I ask. If I fuck it up again I promise you will never hear from me again. I’ll take you on the next tour, I’ll let you get a puppy like you’ve always wanted. Literally, anything you want is yours. You don’t ever have to work again. Just, please?”

“You still don’t get it. I don’t want material things or money. I don’t, well I do want a puppy,” We chuckled, “But that’s not why I left. All I want is your love, some of your time and attention. I want to feel safe with you. I want to feel at home. I don’t feel like that with you anymore. The only feelings that run through me when I look at you are sadness and insecurity. You make me feel like a child being scolded by their mother. I just can’t live like that again.”

“I promise that I will fix what needs to be fixed and will do anything I can to make you feel safe again, just trust me.”

“We both know promises aren’t your thing.”

“I’ll keep this one.”

“I can’t believe that, Thom.”

“I’ll let Ed take over the band if I break this promise and I will never perform with Radiohead again.”

“Oh, shove off you lunatic! I’m not worth that. Your fans would have my head.”

“I’m serious.”

“You make everything so hard on me.”

“Jesus, Y/N would you please just say yes? All you have done the past two months aside from work is cry and sleep. I can barely get you to eat. Just get it over with. If he fucks you over again I will personally skin him alive, just, get it over with you two!”

Thom looked at me hopefully. I sighed.

“Fine.”

“THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!”

He planted kisses all over my face and pulled me into a tight hug.

“Jesus, Thom, you smell! When was your last shower?”

“I... I have no clue,” He scratched his neck and looked at the ground.

“I mean, you are rank! You smell like a secondary boys locker room after P.E.”

“Okay, in my defense, I didn’t think you were going to be here.”

“Yeah, so it’s okay that I suffer in your stench then?”

“Well, we’ve shared a tour bus, I figure that you’re used to it by now.”

“Well, by that logic, if Y/N is coming on tour with us, they better get used to it too, because you’ve smelled worse after a show.”

“Lovely.”

He laughed and engulfed me in a hug again. I gave in and dug my face into his neck, letting him rock us side to side.

“Let’s get you home then, yeah?”

“If anyone needs to get home it’s you so you can shower!”

“We can shower together if you’d like.”

“Okay, yeah, if you could leave the dirty talk for the car ride home it would be appreciated.”

We laughed once again.

“I’ll go pack,” I placed a soft kiss on his cheek before walking up the stairs.

“I love you, Y/N!”

“I love you too Thom.”

[dreamkidddream]

congrats!!! ur writing is so cool hdhshshd

if its still can i request akutagawa with prompt 16?

Thank you 💙💙 I’m an anime only but I heard a little bit about his past and it makes me sad 😞 he just needs love and a good support system also he’s a little soft in this but pretty much the same Akutagawa 🥺 (here’s the same prompt with Fyodor!) reader is gender neutral!

SN: so if you see 2 different versions of this (1 with the bonus and one without) I couldn’t make up my mind if I should keep it or not, sorry about that 😭😭

TW: blood, minor cursing, small spoiler for Season 2/Dark Era (tbh idk if it’s really a spoiler but just to be on the safe side I’ll put it BUT don’t worry no name is mentioned)

Prompt: “Shh, you’re safe. I won’t let you go.” with Akutagawa!

It was suppose to be a simple mission: get the information, and kill anyone that gets in the way. The people you two were going after aren’t even a serious threat, or atleast they weren’t suppose to be.

So why were you bleeding out on the ground?

Akutagawa wasn’t gone for long, and he merely left to get what you both came for. He wasn’t expecting you to be laid out on the ground, barely clinging onto life.

Pissed is an understatement.

And the gnawing feeling of fear in his stomach that’s growing isn’t helping either.

-

You’re starting to feel so cold.

And from what you could see (besides the black spots blurring your vision), someone is carrying you. You hear them cursing underneath their breath, and it looks like they’re running, if you can tell by how fast your surroundings are moving.

“You idiot!”

Akutagawa’s carrying you? Did he complete the mission already?

“Akutagawa, you have to-“

“Shut up.”

“But the mission-“

“I already completed it since you’re so incompetent!”

“Thanks for saving me-“, you coughed up something wet, and you think you got some on his coat and even his jabot. “You didn’t have to come back for me.”

“Of course I did. You deserve some type of punishment for your failure.”

Even when you’re dying, you could tell that he had no real bite to his words.

You could feel your eyes closing. You’re just so exhausted, and being in his arms is so comfortable. He won’t mind if you just rest before you get back-

“Don’t you dare die on me!”

“Sorry Akutagawa”, the voices were starting to sound muffled, like your head is underwater.

“Thank you...for everything-“

You could hear someone- no, him- frantically yelling out your name.

You plan to apologize when you wake up.

If you wake up.

-

You feel like you got hit by a bus and a train at the same time.

You basically feel like shit, and your head feels too heavy to move. Now that your surroundings are starting to come into focus, you recognize that you’re in one of the recovery rooms. You see that you have an IV in your arm, bandages wrapped right above it. You can’t remember everything that’s happened, you just remember being with Akutagawa, you think it was for a mission-

Then it comes back to you.

The mission, an enemy ambushing you, getting stabbed through the stomach with their ability, blood gushing out, and tossed onto the ground, staring up in the sky, wondering if you’re really going to die without atleast saying goodbye to-

“AKUTAGAWA!”

“I’m right here.”

You jolted up, hissing at the pain, staring at Akutagawa who was standing in the doorway, closing the door to give you two privacy.

As he walked closer to you, you didn’t miss the blood stained on him or the tense look painting his face, but you did miss the way his fists balled up. You’re just beyond grateful that he’s alive, that he’s not the one in the hospital bed. You rather it be you in this position than him-

He jerked you up by the front of your gown.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done? And don’t start with your pitiful excuses either! You always think that you know the best solution, that you always have the right answer for everything and you don’t. You’re weak enough to accept death so easily, ready to give up without even fighting back. How pathetic”, his eyes were blown wide, growling out the words.

“Ak-Akutagawa, I-I’m sorry I didn’t mea-“

“BE QUIET!”

You didn’t notice how much you’re blubbering, your words jumbling over one another until you froze as his shout echoed in the room. A long pause settled across the room, the only sounds being heard is his panting. You felt a pang of guilt and shame because he’s right. Were you really accepting death that easy? Were you really that weak to just give up hope like that? Akutagawa wouldn’t have given up like you did, you know that for sure, so why did you?

You are weak.

He slowly released you, but didn’t back away.

You didn’t realize you were crying until you saw the drops on his hand. You tried to control your tears, to wipe them away, but he just held your wrist to stop you.

The look he gave you wasn’t even of disappointment, it was a look of understanding.

The thought that you were at Death’s door, on the edge of losing him forever, it was finally starting to hit you. And the fact that it was Akutagawa who’s trying to comfort you and shared that same fear of losing someone that he’s actually fond of, showed that he was more sincere than what he let on to begin with.

He knows that you’re not weak, but he felt panic bubbling to the surface seeing you on the ground, laying terrifying still. Your blood seeping on the ground, your slurred apologies, the dread he felt as you closed your eyes for what could have been the final time.

Akutagawa has seen and experience many traumatizing situations, and he hopes to never have to experience something like this ever again.

You lurched forward, straight into his chest before you could process what you were doing. It felt like instinct, and as you sobbed into his chest, you felt him tense underneath your grip. He barely relaxed after it registered what he was doing, but you felt his hand place itself on top of your head as he tried to register this feeling.

“Shh, you’re safe. I won’t let you go.”

If anything his words made you bawl harder.

You would have never thought that the Akutagawa would ever be doing this to you, let alone anyone else. But you embraced this as much as you could. Being vulnerable and working in the Port Mafia don’t go hand in hand, so letting your walls down with someone so close to you are rare and you aren’t going to waste a precious moment like this.

Behind the heated glares, brutal honesty, and snarky comments, Akutagawa is someone that you look up to (minus the rather violent outbursts when it comes to the weretiger). He paved a way in this world, despite being dealt a horrible upbringing. He’s more than a strong person, he’s more than enough, even if he doesn’t fully believe that himself if it’s not in the eyes of his old mentor.

He’s more than enough for you.

Bonus

“Don’t let this happens again. If it does, I plan on killing you myself.”

“U-um yes of course!”

“And if you so much as utter a word of this-“

“D-Don’t worry I won’t!”

Well sweet moment over. Akutagawa’s intimidating again.

“The fact that you think that this was acceptable”, he scoffed. “This world is not made for the weak. Only the strong survive, and the weak perish. Stay by my side, or die with the weak, and I refuse to let you die.”

He stared at you, fierce determination in his gaze. “Expect training to begin once you get cleared. I won’t tolerate anymore failures. Don’t disappoint me.”

So this is way of showing concern. You’re not upset, far from it actually. You know that it’s hard for him to open up, so you appreciated the effort. You accepted the effort. You both didn’t want a repeat of this situation, and you’ll make sure that stays true.

“I won’t let you down Akutagawa!”

And he knows that you won’t. He’s by your side after all, and you’re not as weak as you think.

[47crayons]

THE WICKED WITHIN—A COMIC SANS WIP REINTRO

!!!!! it's here :D the wip that started to consume me and has been continuing to do so since, now with a much better sense of what exactly is Happening

current tww taglist let me know to be +/- !! @a-completely-normal-writer @writing-is-a-martial-art @wannabeauthorzofija @magic-is-something-we-create @croctears @writeblrfantasy @opes-magnas @author-a-holmes @zoya-writes@fuyugomori @ink-fireplace-coffee

transcript is under the cut!!!

[transcript: a powerpoint presentation of black text on white background, written entirely in comic sans.

start slide one the top left corner reads in red, "warnings (most relevant) war, death, drugs (& addiction), poison". in the center, "the wicked within", and underneath it in smaller font, "a comic sans reintro by @47crayons". the comments around the entire slide read "a family that is so found!!!", "gang rivalry :D and gang content in general", "crime found family basically", "childhood friends to STILL FRIENDS", "all queer cast :p", "eat the rich (not quite, but it’s the right sentiment aldskjfls)", "kickass women, yeah bay bee", "nuanced relationships between different groups :D", "morally grey characters!!!", "so many different governments!!!", "a (mostly alsjflksdj) stable relationship!!!" end slide one

start slide two in the beginning of time… there were four gods: eltenjer, he/him, earth; skari, he/him, fire; aenged, they/them, air; thilda, she/her, water. i didn’t /mean/ for them to have genders, but a quiet breeze whispered “psst. i use they/them.” in the beginning? so you mean… they’re not there anymore? kind of! the gods need followers to survive, and after several unfortunate events, they lost the majority of their followers. the aforementioned unfortunate events: the great ruination, in which natural disasters caused several years of famine and other hardship. the restoration era, in which renovation led people to believe they can live without the gods. if the gods are dead, what’s the point? the gods aren’t /really/ dead, closer to dormant. they can’t actively interact with the mortal realm, but IF they had followers, they would come back to life. oh. did i mention that they control the magic. end slide two

start slide three the dormant gods who can't do... anything control the magic??? hey, no one said magic always has to work. foreshadowing alert huge foreshadowing alert. let’s talk about how magic works, shall we :D people use the Spirit to do magic. people have a Vessel (representation of stamina or how much Sprit can be used at once, can be trained!). people also have a Strength (a type of magic that works well with the user, these have varying frequencies which also depends on location). there’s too much i could say here, but the important thing is the main characters’ Strengths. the right depicts an image of a flowchart showing that gods need followers and produce sprit. people need spirit to do magic. end slide three

start slide four okay but where are we??? where could the magic be so fucked? well, here, of course! the left side shows a line art map, split into five parts going clockwise: portingdale, worchester, the hooks, elderwood, unlabeled. the legend shows that there are mountains in portingdale, forests in elderwood, and rivers that run from portingdale to everywhere else. the place where the four labeled regions meet is called the Inner City. the text on the right reads. welcome to Kjer! there are 3 districts. but wait! there are five? sections? and one isn’t even labelled. worchester used to be a district,,, but it left after the war began. the unlabeled section is the disputed region (re: war). let’s talk more about this war. elderwood wanted easier access to water (see: the rivers in the Wetlands) elderwood & portingdale have been fighting there on and off for over half a century. the hooks has three wards: west (hella rich), south (lower income), north (somewhere in between). end slide four

start slide five whomst. skip to the next slide if you want the actual characters. character basics: the unnecessarily-winded-and-cram-a-lot-of-lore-in version. in the North Ward of The Hooks, there are three main gangs. Kaer Styen, meaning “wicked ones”, Ghetfaer Skarnen, meaning “trickster lords”, Ad Knesten, meaning “the grumbles”. that was so many capital letters i don’t like capital letters alskjdflksjd. they have rivalries and conflicts from time to time, but it’s pretty rare. the tww cast is kaer styen !!! their main means of profit is a drug called jezdin. relieves physical and mental pain. lethal in high. quantities/ when tampered with. can also be addictive. they operate out of a dingy tavern-like building, and they live upstairs!!! okay so this is purely for vibes. how did u know. end slide five

start slide six the Gang. literally :3 Kaer Styen, my beloved. the first thing in each of their bios is their Strength (re: the magic slide). artbreeders!!! i fixed quite a few of them, but my artbreeder skills are questionable at best. this slide is split into three columns. the first column shows a white person with short, brown, curly hair and a firm, but not angry, facial expression. len, he/him, pan. Shifter (can manipulate physical properties). cynical, very cynical (because he has killer instincts). “oh people are dying? am i dying? are you dying? why should i care?” in a relationship with cal. the second column shows a person who appears east asian with long, black, wavy hair and fair skin. chloe, she/her, aroace. Chemist (chemistry but magical). literal archery god. also she’s so quiet it’s SCARY. seems welcoming, emphasis on /seems/ she’ll destroy your ass. knows what you’re feeling. she just. knows. the third column shows a white person with dirty blonde hair. they are smiling. cal, they/them, bi. Whisperer (can persuade others through speech/music). so casually funny all your burdens disappear for a hot minute. gets very attached very deeply. grew up in Portingdale which becomes Important later. end slide six

start slide seven cont. also they have piercings!!!! maybe i will make some picrews later (listen, i KNOW i’ve said this before but. maybe i’m for realsies this time, okay?) this slide is also split into three columns. the first a smiling white female with light blonde hair. eden, she/her?, demi lesbian. Healer (healing magic <3). seen hell and doesn’t want others to suffer. still believes in the gods’ existence. we Don’t talk about her awful parents. raised by a lovely woman in the South Ward, known as Nana. this eye (left) is almost PURPLE which i didn’t do on purpose but is honestly such a cool idea. the second column shows a partially smiling black man with short curly hair. jereth, he/him, gay. powerful life magic thing (will be spoilers if i talk any more). joins them at the beginning. honestly kind of scared of them (who wouldn’t be), but wants to live up to expectations. throws himself into stuff to avoid Thoughts. the third column shows a woman with brown skin, black wavy hair, and a small smile. she is NOT a member of Kaer Styen, but i’m talking about her here all the same. adalaide, she/her, bi (i didn’t like the e in adelaide alskdfjlsj). Melder (metals and the like). heir to the Portingdale throne (assuming her dad doesn’t disown her). Cal’s ex from a few~ years ago she’s still a lil’ hung up on them. technically an antagonist but i love her. so all my characters are queer sue me </3 end slide seven

start slide eight some semblance of plot? coming right up!! the four (jereth isn’t there yet!) are attacked in the Inner City. turns out it’s portingdale soldiers. and then they discover that portingdale has been poisoning the southern rivers (affects worchester and the south ward) because worchester doesn’t really contribute to Kjer as a whole. word gets out, and elderwood, naturally, is even angrier at portingdale (remember, they've been at war). so, they try to stop portingdale from being power hungry enough to poison the entirety of a country while learning about why worchester is so isolated while ALSO trying not to get killed by everyone who hates them. end slide eight

start slide nine memes :> the first is the meme of spongebob reading a sheet of paper and burning it. the paper reads, "going into worchester by yourself is going to get you KILLED", and spongebob is labelled "chloe". the second is the levels of brain template labelled "jereth". from the weakest to most powerful: "trying to figure out his magic", "doing it by accident", "saving everyone's lives". the third is the sleeping person and brain meme. brain: "you're going to portingdale". cal: yeah, i know. brain: you'll see adalaide. cal's eyes are wide open in fear. the fourth says "corporate needs you to find the difference between this image and this image". the first image says, "family", and the second one says, "len, chloe, cal, jereth." eden says, "they're the same picture". the fifth is the spiderman copycat meme where jereth is copying len. end slide nine

/end transcript]

[slightlycrunchy]

pre-slash geraskier, angst with happy ending, whump, bodyswap, hc

1800 words

Enjoy!

🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼

“Dammit Jaskier, did you really have to call her that—“

Geralt stops mid-sentence, hand flying up to his own throat to stop the sound that has come from his mouth. He’s panting slightly, the witch having thrown them through a shoddy excuse for a portal into some endless partition of wilderness.

It looks like Velen. He’s sure it’s Velen.

His fingers crawl up his throat to his face, feeling slight stubble instead of the beard Geralt has grown over their weeks on the Path, which blankets a thinner face than Geralt is accustomed to. He looks down, expecting to see leather armor covering black cloth, the straps that cross his chest to hold his swords at his back, only to see silk; red, and gleaming with gold stitching across his torso.

Jaskier’s favorite.

He curses inwardly, kicks himself mentally for bringing the damn bard along. Of course he couldn’t keep his mouth shut, of course just as Geralt had finished his business with her and was accepting payment the foppish dandy had to go run his mouth.

“My dear, I thought witches could keep themselves young forever, and well, I think we can all see that maybe you aren’t as powerful as you try to appear—“

The bard had got no further than that. Witches and mages have notoriously short tempers and Jaskier knows this—and yet, here they are.

Thrown away like refuse and trapped in each others’ bodies.

Geralt can feel the snarl on his lips and it feels entirely wrong, the shape of his mouth pulling where usually it would not. He feels small and light, where usually the bulk of his own muscle would weigh him down at every turn, and as he lifts his hand to marvel at the foreign sensations, he gapes at his long and slender fingers.

Geralt has always felt…something about Jaskier’s hands, something he struggles to name. Sometimes he thinks it admiration—for their ability and their elegance. Where Geralt’s are toughened by hard labor and age, Jaskier’s have always been the complete opposite.

Geralt has held them, a time or two, and the almost feminine quality to them is a novelty. He looks at them now, controlling them as he clenches and spreads them, flipping them over to see unblemished skin and pale knuckles. He’s so engrossed for a moment that the rest isn’t noticed immediately.

Silence.

Pure, blessed silence.

It surrounds him, like a cocoon, like thick wool wrapped up to his ears in softness and calm. Geralt has lost his age—he stopped caring decades ago, after all, the information does him no good—but he knows he’s over a century by now, and yet he can’t remember the last time he felt like this. A time when every snap of a twig or breath of the people around him could be heard and analyzed for danger. Hypervigilance. Always, always Geralt is ready. For his next fight, his next job, the next time he must defend himself from the world that dislikes him for no good reason. His time before the trials is blurry at best, forgotten at worst, and he decides right now that this is the most peace he’s ever felt.

He should have known it wouldn’t last.

“Ger-Geralt,” Jaskier gasps as he falls to his knees inside a witcher’s body.

It’s strange hearing his own voice sound so vulnerable, broken, breathy and quiet as he rushes to Jaskier’s side while the bard’s chest—his own chest—rises and falls rapidly. The comfortable silence inside his mind is restless now; Jaskier’s suffering is loud and insistent in an intangible way. It always has been.

“It burns Geralt—“ Jaskier bites out between clenched teeth, canines long and conspicuous. It’s strange seeing his own body like this, housing Jaskier’s soul, his very being. It clenches something in Geralt’s chest that he has not time to name.

“Jaskier, what is it? Tell me what’s wrong.”

Had the witch done something else to him? In her anger had she cursed the bard, hurt him in some other way? He can’t smell blood—but then again he wouldn’t be able to now, would he?

Jaskier’s body is heaving, on his knees and doubled over like some wounded thing. Geralt can see tears fall and hit the dirt, nails scrabbling for purchase at Geralt’s borrowed forearm, nearly tearing at the thick fabric of Jaskier’s frivolous doublet.

“My head, it’s exploding— It’s too much— How do you…” Jaskier starts and stops and slowly, in horror, the reality washes over Geralt.

While Geralt enjoys his first peace in an era, Jaskier has been dropped into a pit of torture.

Immediately Geralt places slender hands over Jaskier’s ears, attempting to muffle the onslaught of sensation that he must feel. Every sound, every vibration must be pounding at Jaskier’s head, wave after wave of movement, life, the earth shoving its way into Jaskier’s consciousness.

Jaskier’s golden eyes connect with Geralt’s borrowed blue, wide and wet, before he promptly turns and vomits onto the ground.

“Jaskier, I’m sorry, I’m sorry just—hold on.”

He doesn’t know what to do. They’re an unknown distance from the one who caused this—from relief—and yet Jaskier can hardly handle minutes of this. Jaskier chokes and spits, his entire body trembling under Geralt’s palms and the witcher can do nothing but stroke gentle thumbs over wet cheeks. It hurts him when Jaskier rises again, looking with pained eyes at Geralt. He doesn’t speak, Geralt isn’t sure if he really can, yet his eyes plead with Geralt to end it, please I can’t take it.

Geralt doesn’t know how he understands these words without hearing them, but they only drive the stake further into his heart.

Jaskier is suffering, and it’s Geralt’s fault.

He can remember, now especially, how those first weeks had been at Kaer Morhen after the trials were complete. Utter agony and sleepless nights as he withered away with the inability to keep anything down. Sound, feeling, pain overwhelming him constantly until his body could adjust. He remembers the fevers, Vesemir by his bedside with cool cloths and the kindest words he could remember hearing in recent memory.

He thought he would die.

“End it, please I don’t want to do this anymore—“

But he had survived…and somewhere along the way he had forgotten the beginning, the mutagens running through his veins like fire and adding to the never ending harshness of his new life. Now, however, he remembers in startling clarity.

Jaskier won’t survive this.

Geralt brings Jaskier to his smaller chest, forcing one ear against his rabbiting, human heart all while holding his hand closed over the other—acting as a beacon, a point of focus for Jaskier’s hearing that takes in everything around them. It won’t fix anything, but Geralt hopes it will help. Jaskier shivers, his breaths stuttered and sick, gasps taken between chattering teeth. Geralt knows his real body will be fine, it hasn’t stopped being a witcher’s after all, no matter who holds the reins, but Jaskier’s mind…humans were not built for this. They are fragile, temporary things.

Geralt feels panic bubble up within him and it is a sensation he hasn’t felt in a long time.

Geralt feels fear, contrary to popular belief, though not for himself. He has felt fear on behalf of others many times, but it is dull, manageable. He can easily breathe through it and tackle the situation at hand, the slow beat of his heart keeping the adrenaline from flooding his veins. But Jaskier’s body is mortal and weak in this regard, and he feels it slam into him, sharp and all encompassing as his stomach lurches when the bard falters beneath his palm, sagging with exhaustion so quickly that Geralt struggles to hold him up. Geralt’s borrowed muscles strain, but they hold; to be honest, Jaskier’s body is stronger than Geralt would have given him credit for.

He tightens his hold on the bard, and a thought suddenly occurs to him.

“Jaskier, you’re going to be alright, I want you to listen to my voice.”

Jaskier’s voice has always been calming to Geralt, and so he does the only thing he can think of: he talks.

About what, he doesn’t know; he certainly doesn’t have the wherewithal to make a coherent storyline, but he babbles all the same. He speaks of Roach and his contracts, his brothers and his childhood—the good parts that he remembers and his early days on the Path.

All the while he runs hands through white strands, putting a pleasant (he hopes) pressure against Jaskier’s scalp. He remembers Eskel doing this for him in those early days; it helped. He hopes it helps now.

He doesn’t know how long they sit there awkwardly upon the ground, Geralt’s untrained legs falling numb as his knees begin to ache. The time doesn’t matter, only keeping the pain at bay, the war against Jaskier’s fragile mind as it rages and slashes at the door.

Eventually Jaskier’s stamina gives out, and he falls, but only so far. Geralt catches him, and after folding his legs out from beneath him with a grimace, lays his actual body against his borrowed one, Jaskier’s head falling to the side in his unconsciousness. All the while long, slender fingers never stop carding through white strands.

Geralt lets the panic ebb away, having come up with a plan some time ago while holding Jaskier so close they practically felt like one. Jaskier’s bag lays to Geralt’s right, just at arms length and inside he knows the xenovox is cradled between extra pairs of garish clothing. When Geralt had remembered, he had never been so happy that Jaskier tended to keep his things on him rather than tied up with Roach.

Roach. With a sigh Geralt realizes he needs to find her too. Another thing to take care of after the witch.

He won’t forgive her for what she’s done.

With ginger movements so as to not wake the sleeping bard on his lap, he grabs the bag and soon finds what he is looking for. He savors the moment of quiet that has descended in Jaskier’s sleep, letting the panic and fear that tastes bitter on his tongue disappear into a practiced ease.

Yennefer will be annoyed with him, and once Geralt has gotten over what has just happened, he in turn will be annoyed with Jaskier. The bard got them into this mess after all. But as he looks down on Jaskier, his own sleeping form—a shudder going through him at the wrongness of it all—he decides perhaps not.

The bard has gone through enough, after all.

A voice comes over the device, slightly muffled and crackling, “Geralt?”

“Yen.”

“The bard? What are you doing with this, this wasn’t for your use.”

“Yen, it’s Geralt.”

Silence rests between them for a moment, the only sound Geralt hears with his human ears being the rustling of wind through the trees around him. He tries to savor it.

She sighs. “Oh, for fucks sake.”

He smiles.