Nothing has ever been able to inspire the same level of heart-wrenching emotion in me as the arc that an obscure side character was given in an ao3 fanfiction series by an author who I can only assume is a batshit insane literary genius (in the best way possible)
1. Never tell anyone what you're planning to do until you do it (you will get a premature dopamine hit and sense of accomplishment from telling them and lose motivation to actually do it)
synopsis: for most of suguru’s life, the foul bitterness of cursed spirits was something no one else could truly understand. but now, his greatest fear isn't being alone with it — but someone else sharing it.
tags: 2k words, slight angst, fluff, suguru is a teacher in jujutsu high, your husband and a father. brief mention of what happened in 2007, fem!reader, you're briefly described to have long hair, you have twins, the depressing reality of being a jujutsu sorcerer.
The living room was lit only by a small lamp tucked into the corner, its glow stretching long shadows across the walls. The couch dipped beneath Suguru’s weight as he sank deeper into it, the cushions swallowing him whole. His throat felt tight — bitter, as if the taste lingered there again. His shoulders were drawn up, stiff with tension, one knee bouncing restlessly against the coffee table.
His eyes drifted to the clock above the television. 2:03 a.m. and sleep refused to come.
He had tried everything — chamomile tea steeped too long, melatonin tablets dissolving uselessly on his tongue, a late-night walk beneath the quiet hum of streetlights. Nothing slowed his thoughts, nothing quieted the noise in his head.
A soft creak brings him back to the present. Suguru’s head turns slowly toward the staircase, shadows dancing as you descend in your sleep dress, hair loose, eyes heavy with sleep.
“Suguru,” your voice is soft as you call out his name, worry laced in your tone. He already knows what your face looks like before even looking at you — furrowed eyebrows, a frown etched so deep on your features that he wants to wipe it away. Suguru sighs as he throws his head back, running his fingers through his hair. “Baby, what’s wrong?”
But Suguru doesn’t respond. Not at first, not for a good minute. You walk down the stairs, round the couch before sitting across from your husband — you squeeze your thighs together, pulling at the hem of your sleep dress as you place a hand on Suguru’s moving knee. He stops momentarily, raising his head to glance at you, then his gaze moves forward again.
“Hey, talk to me.”
“She’s got my technique.” There’s a rasp to his voice when he finally speaks up, but it’s still measured. Controlled. Like he’s fighting whatever’s holding him down.
She was one of your twins — the softer one, the more sensitive of the two. But both of his girls were his entire world, his light in the dark.
Becoming a father had never been part of the plan. Hell, after what happened in 2007, he never thought he’d marry at all. But time passed. Satoru found him again — reached into the dark and pulled him out. Neither of them would ever say it out loud, but Suguru knows he owes his life to him. And Satoru made one thing painfully clear: no one was coming to save him. If Suguru wanted to live, to return — he had to choose it for himself. So he did.
When Suguru walked back into Jujutsu High, he felt the weight of it immediately — the countless eyes tracking his every step. The higher-ups, the students who only knew the rumors. The ones who remembered what happened. Each stare carried something different. Hatred. Resentment. Curiosity. None of it was unfamiliar to him.
Then you came along — bright-eyed, hopeful. You graduated a few years after he left, and you chose to return after witnessing the relentless cruelty of the world. You were taught what most people would never see: where cursed energy comes from, how it is born from human emotion. Fear, grief, hatred and regret — all of it pooled together until it took shape. Left to decay, those emotions become cursed-spirits. Where tragedy is heavy, where crowded stations are thick with anxiety, cursed spirits gather there. Your first mission with Suguru was at an abandoned hospital, Yaga had paired up the two of you for reasons he chose not to disclose to the raven-haired male. But as Suguru watched you exorcise the cursed-spirits, the understanding in your voice as you faced what would be the byproduct of someone’s despair, he realized just how relentless you were.
Even after particularly brutal missions, when the air still tasted bitter with residual cursed energy and your uniform was stiff with dried blood, you found yourself offering explanations — for the victims, for the broken systems that created them.
You wanted to save people. You insisted on seeing the good in them, even when it was buried deep beneath layers of resentment and despair. Where others would have turned away, angry and bitter, you stayed. When the missions were brutal, when the cursed energy lingered in the air like smoke, when the weight of the world pressed down too heavily for anyone to bear alone.
And whenever things became too much — too suffocating for Suguru to breathe — you were there. First as a co-worker, dependable and present when needed. Then as a friend, someone he could sometimes lean on without fear. Then, eventually, as a lover, the one who could reach the parts of him he had thought no one would ever find. And now, as the mother of his twin daughters, Shizue and Miru, you are the light that anchors him.
—
When Miru fell, Shizue was always there to pick her up. The contrast between the two girls was subtle but striking, and both you and Suguru couldn’t help but laugh at it. When Miru cried, Shizue would hand her a pacifier, a doll — anything to chase the tears away. And when it was Shizue who was upset, Miru would wrap her tiny arms around her sister, crying along with her, completely oblivious to the reason behind the outburst. They were two peas in a pod, born with built-in best friends in each other.
Suguru remembered the first time his daughters learned to ride their bikes as if it were yesterday.
“Look at me!” Shizue had picked it up quickly — a few scrapes on her knees and elbows, teary eyes, flushed cheeks, but she would get up every time, running to her father and asking for help again.
“Papa, band-aid!” she insisted, pointing at her tiny wounds. Suguru chuckled as he carefully tended to her.
“Of course,” he said, smiling.
By the seventh attempt, Shizue was riding around the neighborhood like a pro.
Miru, on the other hand — not so much. Suguru was aware of his daughter’s crybaby tendencies — the instant her knee scraped the pavement, tears poured down like a waterfall, and she would leap straight into his arms.
“I don’t wanna!” she wailed. Suguru softened at the sight, cradling her gently.
“But baby, look at your sister — she’s doing so well!”
But Miru shook her head stubbornly, clinging to her father. She wouldn’t learn to ride properly until a year later. She was more fragile, more sensitive — so much so that her own sister remarked on it in the car on the way to visit relatives. Miru had dozed off, her tears dried after Suguru had refused to adopt a second cat she spotted on the road. Shizue glanced at her, then blurted out:
“She cries a lot.”
Suguru snorted, but he couldn’t disagree. You turned to Shizue with a playful smile.
“Doesn’t she?” you said softly, caressing Miru’s knee before cupping Shizue’s face.
“I don’t like it when she cries,” Shizue admitted.
Suguru raised an eyebrow. “It annoys you?”
Shizue shrugged, eyes on her sister. “No… is it normal?”
“To cry a lot?” you clarified.
Shizue nodded. You smiled warmly. “Some of us are more sensitive than others. And that’s okay.”
“Sensitive…” Shizue repeated the word thoughtfully, filing it away. Her sister was sensitive. “Okay,” she said, finally satisfied.
—
No matter how tightly he closed his eyes or how firmly he covered his ears, Suguru couldn’t erase the image of his daughter’s face the first time she swallowed a curse. The way she sobbed afterward, the broken, desperate look she turned toward him with — it was seared into his memory. He had always feared the day he would discover which of his daughters had inherited his cursed technique, yet a quiet, hopeful part of him had prayed it would be Shizue.
He truly believed that the signs were there: Shizue was always the first to notice cursed spirits in a room, the one who asked him endlessly what it felt like to absorb them, curious and fearless in ways her sister wasn’t.
Shizue had inherited your cursed technique, while Miru carried his.
The realization should not have hit him so hard — watching smaller, weaker cursed spirits gravitate toward her, he could have pretended to be fine. At first, he did, even joking that she would surpass him one day. But he had never been able to prepare for the moment he would have to watch her swallow a curse, the raw fear and pain etched across her face, and the helpless ache that engulfed him in that instant.
The taste of a cursed spirit — something he had once believed no one else could ever know — now belonged to her too. Like swallowing a cloth used to wipe up vomit, Suguru couldn’t help but feel guilty. He had passed on this burden to his daughter.
—
The clock kept ticking in the living room, each second hammering against Suguru’s chest like a drum he couldn’t escape.
“I did that to her.” He breaks the suffocating silence, guilt brimming in his brown eyes. “Fuck, you should’ve seen her face.”
“Suguru,” you said softly, pushing yourself to sit beside him and resting a hand on his back. “Don’t say that.”
He shook his head, leaning forward, burying his face in his hands. “I can’t, I—” He raises his head, wiping his face. “She hated it.”
Not once do you interrupt. You stay silent as he pours out the horror of swallowing cursed spirits, describing the way the taste overwhelms the senses, foul, clinging to every nerve. You don’t tell him that you know what it feels like — it would be cruel, almost mocking, to claim understanding when both of you know the truth. He hates that his daughter has to go through the same thing.
You were there when Miru swallowed yet another cursed spirit. Standing near an abandoned building, you watched as tears prickled at the corner of her eyes, her lips trembling as she parts them a couple of times.
“It tastes like a used up rug.” She muttered under her breath, you don’t miss the way Suguru’s body stiffened. You walk away, and Suguru’s eyebrows draw together, confused. He slowly approaches Miru to comfort her.
“Can’t even drink water, it makes it worse.”
Suguru’s heart sinks to his stomach. It had been the same for him, water does make the taste worse. It intensifies the bitter aftertaste, and makes you all too aware of what you had just swallowed. Suguru sighs as he pulls his daughter towards him, her head resting on his chest — a huge part of him was grateful that his daughter had remained affectionate through her teenage years.
“What’s in Mama’s hand?” Miru asked, lifting her head from Suguru’s chest.
Suguru followed her gaze, brow furrowed, watching as you held something out to your daughter.
“Here,” you said gently, offering the small object. “This should help.”
Chocolate milk. Miru’s favorite drink since she could hold a cup on her own.
The pout that had tugged at her lips moments ago vanished instantly. Her hands shot out to grab the bottle, twisting the cap open with practiced ease. The shift in her mood was immediate — her eyes sparkled as she glanced between the two of you, bright and alive once more.
“I don’t taste it anymore!” she exclaimed, holding the bottle out proudly before turning her full attention to you. Without hesitation, she threw her arms around your waist, pressing her face against your chest.
“Thank you!” she murmured, muffled but sincere.
“You’re welcome, baby,” you whispered, your hand resting on her back, gentle and reassuring.
Suguru didn’t move. His eyes stayed on you the entire time, watching as you kissed and caressed Miru’s head. You tell your daughter to head to the car since she was done, before turning to face your husband. The small, intimate moment between you and your daughter — his wife and the mother of the children, and the one person who knew how he felt. Something in Suguru’s chest tightened, a mixture of awe and the faintest twinge of longing which didn’t make sense — how could he long for something that was already his?
Suguru doesn’t have the answer, but he doesn’t think it’s so necessary to find one right now. You approach him carefully, reaching to wrap your warm hand around his. It brings him back to his senses and he blinks. The smile on your face is immediate once you feel the coil in his shoulders melting away.
“Are you okay?”
“Mmm,” Suguru’s chest aches, and he hopes that pure adoration is pouring from his eyes as he holds your gaze. Despite years of marriage, you find yourself looking away as he pulls you against him. You brace yourself with a hand on his chest.
“I don’t know what it feels like to swallow cursed spirits,” you finally speak up, patting his chest. “But I’ll do anything to make it even a little less horrible.”
A thick lump forms in Suguru’s throat, and he finds himself inhaling deeply as he looks down at you. He feels you soften beneath his touch as he presses his lips to your forehead — protective, loving. His heart threatens to leap out of his chest, something warm and overwhelming swelling inside him.
He had told you, once — in bits and pieces at first — about how horrible it was to consume cursed spirits. About the taste that clawed at his tongue and refused to fade, about the way it lingered in the back of his throat no matter how much he rinsed his mouth, how it felt less like swallowing something and more like forcing down something that had rotted. He had expected pity, disgust perhaps — but you never pretended to understand.
You never claimed you knew what it felt like, never offered hollow reassurances. From the very day you met him, you simply stayed. You handed him water when the bitterness wouldn’t leave, and when he had told you that water makes it worse, you would search for anything that would help wash down the taste. You pressed something sweet into his palm without comment, rubbed his back when the nausea set in. And now you were doing the same for his daughter.
Suguru swallows hard, his hand lingering at the back of your head as if grounding himself. He had always believed the burden of that taste was his alone to bear. But somehow, you had found a way to lighten it — without ever claiming it as your own.
The doubling of tribute numbers. The miscarried Abernathy twins. The Donner sisters who Haymitch carries a fascination for as consequence. Louella being replaced by Lou Lou, a name that only mimics the first half of her name, and a girl who matches her in appearance only. The Appalachia legends of mimics. Tam Amber’s set of pins, one dropped down a well, the other discarded. The two versions of the games: the one that Haymitch remembers and the edited, falsified version of them without the real content. The two bags of gumdrops. The fraternal affection he feels for Louella and Lou Lou, the artificial twins, and Maysilee’s offer to be his sister—the second one she gives in the book. A bond with a real twin, both pairs healing the sisters he never did know. The split between what is natural and what is manufactured or forged, bonds that that grow on their own, or are forced into existance. And if the distinction makes any difference to the person it impacts.
luigi mangione, the SUSPECTED (innocent until proven guilty) united healthcare shooter, has been charged with terrorism. that’s right. a man who supposedly shot ONE SINGLE PERSON is being charged with terrorism. because in america, billionaires lives matter enough that a SINGLE rich man’s death is considered a terrorist act against this country. think about that.
In your opinion, what happened recently for readers to go from "wow, Snape has been on the light side this whole time, he's an amazing character and I really admire him" to hating him with all their might and supporting the Marauders ?
Could the recent culture of canceling people who aren't absolutely perfect have something to do with it?
Or perhaps the rise of incel/redpill rants, which some people strangely try to force on Snape? Along with hatred for all men?
I've seen more and more Marauders fans grow in number, while Snape haters have grown in number. And I can't help but be scared and try to draw parallels with the discussions happening today on the internet
It makes me really sad that people apparently can't tell the difference between an asexual man and an incel. As if hating men has made people blind to any other possibilities of gender and sexualities they may have
It also saddens me that there is no more understanding about those who attack to oppress and those who attack to survive
Probably something to do with the decline in reading comprehension. Because even though it's basically spelled out to you that Snape is a good guy and that the bullying was awful (it's directly told to us that Harry didn't give a fuck that Snape threw a jar above him, he just felt horrible because he knew exactly what Snape had gone through, and he realised Snape had always been telling the truth about James), there's still that extra bit of reading comprehension required to look back with the new context and realise "oh my god, wait that actually is a thing".
Also this may also be due to the fact that we are less likely to excuse someone being mean to children now because it's seen as complete ammoral, rather than just someone being a lil mean. In the time the books were published and after, someone reading the books would see Snape as just a regular, extra strict teacher, someone they've probably faced as a child but had since grown up to realise they were just doing their job as best as they could when it's a geniunely exhausting job. And while it's great that childhood trauma is much more normalised and accepted, I feel like people start to view everything as traumatic/accuse people of seeing everything as traumatic. Snape isn't actually a traumatic teacher. I've had teachers that were strict, and while I hated them as much as Harry hated Snape, I was hardly traumatised by them (mind you, I was no Neville, but even he is sheepish of the fact that he fears Snape a little). And in the context of when the books were published, there would have been more of a "get over it" attitude to this sort of thing.
I also feel like there's some sense of being morally superior. From the Snaters I've debated (which is exaggerating their abilities really), they all seem to be operating on this high moral ground of "Oh, I'd NEVER do that to a child!" Shut up. Anyone who says they wouldn't be exactly what Snape was is an absolute liar. Snape's the most realistic person in the book when it comes to being a product of his trauma- and he was truly traumatised- and anyone who thinks they'll be oh so good and calm and nice afterwards is either deluded or a liar. In every situation, if you really put yourself in Snape's shoes, if you actually think of everything he's been through to reach that point where he acts in a harsh way, you'd realise you'd be no different to him. The way he treats Neville? That's the human way someone would react to someone who doesn't learn! It's not nice but it's human! And a lot of people would still act like this if it was still socially acceptable because guess what, just because it isn't acceptable to call a child an idiot and get mad at them for continuously fucking up simple things doesn't mean you aren't gonna want to do it!
As for the incel thing, honestly I think it's because EVERYTHING is seen as stalkerish and creepy in a way these days. Of course there's reason for it, but at the same time again people seem to lack the ability to truly empathise with his character and just realise they'd be no different than Snape when it came to Lily. That scene where he hugged lily's body in the movie? That's NOT creepy! Dear god, that's not creepy, that's a young man who's living through his worst nightmare! Of course he's gonna do that! And if anyone gives that crap of Oh He Should Have Gone To Baby Harry, shut up. He was in no state to handle a baby! He was breaking down! The baby was perfectly fine. Crying, but unharmed. Scared, but unharmed.
I truly believe it's a combination of a decline in reading comprehension, and this current culture of never seeing the good in people if they've done something wrong, instead of realising all people are good and bad, we're all the villains in one person's story (I know for a fact that my ex best friend probably hates me now, and honestly we're Snape and Lily in our own way). Of course when the bad is full on child abuse it's hard to forgive them, but we've now got too loose a definition of abuse and people who don't understand the meaning throw it around. It isn't abusive of Snape to get mad when Neville isn't learning and promptly use his toad to try make him understand to do it correctly. It is on the edge of abuse for Neville's grandmother to constantly berate him because unlike Snape she's his parent. Snape's only job is to teach a subject and make sure kids don't die. It isn't to be kind and nurturing. That job belongs to Neville's grandmother.
So why, then, are the marauders excused from these morals? Because they're charming. They're outwardly nice. They're the ideal: clever, cheeky, a tight knit group, and would be perfect characters if it wasn't for the fact they were also sadistic little shits who tortured their fellow students. Unlike Snape, whose bark is worse, their bite is. And I feel like because they behave in an attractive, outwardly nice manners, people decide that Snape must have done something wrong to deserve their wrath.
Ironically, I used to like the marauders as characters. They are fun little guys! You've got a group of four idiots who only exist to cause chaos, with two ringleaders who are so obviously soulmates (Sirius was in love with James you can't convince me otherwise), you have a lil guy who likes to cheer them on and is easily comedic relief, and you have the Straight Man (having the role of being the dry, calm one), of course people are gonna love them! The trouble is, they don't want to like characters who are supposed to be good but are clearly really awful people (and yes these four have no excuse; three were from loving families, and the one should have been reigned in) so how do you fix that? By making the victim seem like they deserved it.
It's how real life is. Always believe the victim unless they're the victim of someone you like.
Ultimately, Snape's character requires just a bit more than the bare minimum to be understood, and the marauders only need you to ignore the red flags to be liked. Snape's personality is one that could make people like or dislike him, it's not one of those universally attractive or entertaining ones. The marauders on the other hand do have surface level attractive personalities. And it seems people just need to justify liking or disliking a character by demonising or babifying them. It's not good enough to simply like or dislike, there must be a moral reason for it! You can simply not like Snape while also acknowledging that Lupin who you do like was gaslighting Snape throughout POA. But no, there has to be this moral high ground.
That's my two cents anyway. I am not even gonna talk about what the marauders fandom has done to the characters either-
Snape is definitely that one person who just drops the most unhinged traumatic lore randomly in conversations as if they were normal things
Like one time he and Rolanda Hooch ended up making face ice baths to see who'd last longer and he won (no small feat because a picture Rolanda Hooch is under the dictionary definitions of competitive and stubborn) and he casually went "yeah, it was easy, my old man sometimes held me under water if there was enough rain in the buckets under the holes in the ceiling when he was mad at me" and everyone else was like "wait what the fuck did you just say??!" and he just. continued to ask what was for lunch
Or the time poppy Pomfrey got mad because he had burns on his hand and didn't bother telling her and he was like "it's nothing, my old man would sometimes stub his cigarettes out on me" and she just stared at him because what do you even say to that?!
Or when he refuses to go out if the others are planning to drink because "I've had my fill of dealing with pissed adults, I'm not risking a broken rib because one of you decided to throw a bottle at me" and they're like "h-how do you even think that, what the fuck happened to you?"
I think about the fact that JJ's hair was mostly straight in the first five seasons and season 6 onwards, she sports curly and wavy hair more often
God yes!!! I gathered pictures of some of my favorite hairstyles she sported on the show, including a couple from CME below, just to show our appreciation for Jennifer Jareau.
You know what is the most fucked up thing about the last part of the show?
Spencer would have died in his apartment alone if it wasn't for the fact they needed him for a case.
It could had been days (however much it took to finish this case) before someone noticed it was weird for him to no contact them and found his dead body.
At the end of the day, the fact he made his job his whole identity (his own words not mine) saved him from dying without anyone knowing he was even hurt and that is...really sad.
because i'm watching s9 and there are so many references to him wanting kids that i'm mad he didn't get them
gets up every time your baby wakes up because 1) he wants to be a part of each moment 2) he wants you to get enough sleep and 3) he can't sleep if a baby is crying
amazed by how little the baby is, like, he can hold their whole body in his palm and it's crazy to him
and he's randomly obsessed with how the baby smells and how soft their hair is
your first kid's first word is 'love' because both of you say it so often to each other
laughs so hard when they say fire fuck instead of fire truck
spoils them as much as Penelope does because he's never really had anything to spend his money on
but there are so many cute outfits and toys in your house that you have words with him
he is so obsessed with that baby and even though he gets leave from the BAU, he brings them into the office in the cute stroller as much as he can
museum, zoo, and aquarium trips as often as possible
more concerned than he needs to be when they're sick and even though he hates germs he'll sleep right next to them while they sneeze and cough
he refuses to let morgan help set up any kids' furniture, but when he spends all night trying to assemble a toddler's bed, he finally makes the call
cuts their sandwiches into the specific shape they like
actually, he's like one of those TikTok moms with the bento box lunches he makes his kids
blows on their food to cool it down until they're, like, 12
full-time crier at all milestones
gets them a little desk in his home office so they can sit and color pictures for him
he just melts when they fall asleep on him while watching a movie and he gets to scoop them up, put them to bed, and kiss them on the forehead
takes his own PhDs off the wall to put their certificate for Pre-K helper of the week
he's not an iPhone camera person but he takes pictures on a digital camera, gets them printed, and sends them to his mom so she can make scrapbooks
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