Gojo’s eyes opens, but it’s not Gojo looking back at her. Shoko swallows down a sob.
Years ago, after Haibara died and before Geto deflected, Shoko learned that she can “heal” herself of sadness with her reverse curse technique. Sadness after all was just a chemical reaction in her brain. That way no matter who she lost in her life, it would never hurt her. Because all she knew was how to lose, and how to lose bad.
Knowing and accepting that Gojo lost and that he was gone, Shoko’s reverse technique wasn’t strong enough for this.
She blinks the tears away. The world is ending and Gojo isn’t there. What was the point of being the strongest if he wasn’t going to be there? He was the one person she thought she could trust to always be there. What a fucking joke, the most fucking heart shattering, world tilting joke. Her heart seizes, her reverse curse technique at its limit after all she’s done to keep Gojo’s body viable, still trying to keep her feelings at bay.
Okkotsu sits up, sees her glassy eyes and asks her, “Are you okay sensei?”
Shoko shakes her head, both an answer and a deflection. “There’s no time. You have to go. We’ll talk later.”
He nods, in acceptance of her request for him not to push her to breaking, and in acceptance of his fate.
They’ve created a monster, the monster Gojo always thought he was, deprived of humanity, the monster Okkotsu and Shoko knew he never was. And now was the time for reckoning.
Neither really believe that they’ll be able to talk together later.
At some point Shoko decides that she needs to freshen up her social life and starts to go on dates and trying out relationships to see how it goes and to try to live life NORMALLY with no curses and with non sorcerers
And so Gojo is trying his hardest to be supportive and chill with her choices but he’s really REALLY jealous and “accidentally” possessive
He keeps “finding” ways to “accidentally” mess up whoever that Shoko’s starting to go out with and to try and break them up
Shoko meanwhile is trying her hardest for Gojo to not meet the person she’s currently dating because Gojo is just Gojo, he’s tall, handsome, rich, athletic, and WAY too intimidating
Gojo wishes he could just pull up and Hollow Purple whoever is trying to keep Shoko away from him (possessive much…?)
😂 imagine one partner manages to fly under his radar because he was overseas for a few weeks, and she says nothing about it because it's new and she wants to keep it to herself.
until he sees hints that she has a new partner on social media. no face, so he can't stalk them, just an arm or a hand holding hers, or a shot of them sitting across from her at lunch about to eat, or her asleep on their lap
im sure he wouldnt do anything drastic, but it definitely is funny to imagine him frothing at the mouth unable to act
I did a thing, and obviously had to make it part delusional, part angst. Let's call it Losing Game
--
Losing Game Pt1
Satoru knocked on Shoko’s door, holding a cup of coffee from her favorite cafe in his other hand.
When a shirtless man with a large dragon tattoo on his left arm and long black hair pulled back in a low bun opened the door, Satoru almost killed him. He looked strikingly like Suguru.
“Can I help you?” the man asked, as if he had any business being at Shoko’s apartment.
“Why are you in Shoko’s apartment?” Satoru asked.
“Shoko? Oh, she’s in the shower. Let me go get her.”
Satoru’s left eye twitched; he was barely holding back to the need to murder the man. Satoru grabbed onto the man before he could turn around and walk in on Shoko in the shower.
“I think we can just wait until she gets out of the shower, no?” Satoru said with a smile that was certainly not joyful.
“Suit yourself.” The man shrugged and let Satoru enter Shoko’s apartment. The man ungracefully plopped himself down on Shoko’s couch and put his feet up on the coffee table before pulling up his phone.
Satoru had never been a nosy person, had never cared enough to be a nosy person before. But he couldn’t stop himself from peeking at the man’s text messages, only to see him texting dick pics to women that were definitely not Shoko.
Maybe Suguru had a point about non-sorcerers.
Before Satoru could act on it, Shoko stepped out of her shower in a towel.
“Babe, did you want to get coffee?” Shoko asked before realizing that Satoru was indeed in her living room.
Babe? Satoru was going to have an aneurysm.
When Shoko realized that Satoru was just awkwardly standing there, she blushed all the way down to her chest, not that Satoru was looking. This was certainly not the way that he had hoped to get this kind of reaction from her.
“Er, Satoru, I didn’t expect you,” she said. Obviously not. “Can I help you with something?”
“I think you should get changed first,” Satoru responded.
With a quick nod, Shoko ran into her bedroom. Satoru heard the loud banging of her dresser for a couple of moments, before she was back in the living room wearing an oversized shirt and shorts.
That was not her shirt.
“Oh, hey, I was looking for that shirt,” the man said. “I’d ask for you to give it to me, but too bad you have a friend over right now.”
The man had the audacity to wink at Shoko. And Shoko had the audacity to blush again.
“Anyways, I think I should introduce the two of you,” Shoko said, a feeble attempt to change the topic.
“No need. I’m sure we’ll meet each other again,” Satoru retorted sarcastically. “But in the meantime, do you mind if I talk with my dear Shoko privately? Work matters, you know.”
“Oh, you’re from work? Kind of weird that you know where her apartment is and saw her practically naked then,” the man said.
“Yes, it is kind of weird,” Shoko hissed at Satoru. She then turned around and melodiously spoke directly to the man. “Sorry to kick you out, but it looks like it’s important. I’ll call you?”
The man huffed. “Whatever.” He grabbed his wallet and keys and kissed Shoko fully on the lips, tongue and all, before heading out the door. Satoru wanted to gag. “See ya babe.”
After the man slammed Shoko’s apartment door shut, Satoru turned his full attention to Shoko who had grabbed the coffee out of his hand and sat herself down on the couch.
“Who the fuck was that?” Satoru demanded.
“Obviously the guy I’m seeing.”
Satoru crossed his arms. “Why?”
“Why what?” Shoko asked innocently.
He rolled his eyes. Satoru had an innate way of annoying everyone around him, but only Shoko could annoy him like this. “You know what I’m asking.”
“Why I’m fucking him? He’s hot.”
“He looks like Suguru.”
“I know, isn’t it absolutely mental?”
“So you think Suguru is attractive.”
“Of course he is. Also I think this guy’s tattoos make him look dangerous. It’s totally attractive.”
Dangerous? She was saying that to the strongest sorcerer, who could crush that man’s heart in a less than a heartbeat. She was kidding right?
“You’re insane.”
Shoko giggled. Actually giggled at the insanity of it all. No matter how much Satoru joked around with Shoko, she rarely giggled like that. He felt his fury melting and his heart softening.
He sat down next to her. “You know his dick is like all over town right?’
Shoko snorted. “We’re just messing around. It’s nothing serious.”
Satoru pulled Shoko’s arm, forcing her to lean her head onto his shoulder. “I just want you to meet someone good and fully emotionally available.”
“Yeah well, we can’t all get what we want,” Shoko said softly, but the words rang loud in his head.
They’ve played this game before, and Satoru never knew who lost more.
Whew! Nothing like writing a gap-filler that winds up being twice as long as the original fic.
I owe this story to @mikasaessucasaa, who commented on my vampire!Asami fic where she turns General Iroh, "What an interesting concept! I would love to see a continuation diving deeper on the guilt and resentment they likely had to get over between them, whether insignificant or not." The idea never left me, and eventually I realized that I, too, wanted to know how that went. I couldn't imagine that Iroh, with his lifetime of service, took well to the notion that he now had to eat people. What's a firebender without sunlight? How did he treat Asami? And Asami herself in canon has one of the strongest moral compasses of LoK. How did she handle vampirism to begin with? How much control does she have?
When @avatar-hauntober rolled around with the fantastic prompt "Eatamies to Lovers" I decided to find out. Just goes to show, fic authors absolutely read comments. Who knows, you might just have the next great idea.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
I haven’t been on Tumblr in a while (though I read almost everything @orangepanic writes), but I’m so honored that my comment inspired this! I didn’t even realize and I love this fic so much!!!
Hello friends, it's been a minute. Have been working on a new story, just posted Chapter 4 –
Put your arms around me
Summary: After a disastrous first year of college, Michelle’s happy to get away from Boston and take an internship in New York City with her best friend Ned. She never thought it would include dealing with her moody mentor Peter Parker, her attraction to Johnny Storm, and a number of impossible spidey things.
–
Think Friends but it's Spidey-Friends with magic, memory loss, and the multiverse, less comedy but more mystery and adventure
For heaven’s sake, will you people never learn? It’s Spider-Man. With a hyphen and a capital M. Superman is all one word. Spider-Man isn’t. You’re embarrassing all of us.
don't like how quick people are to moralise about people through history/in historical fantasy mating for money and status. like a LOT of ~feminist~ romance writers will be like MY protagonist wants love she doesn't care about marriage or status she's not like the shallow social climbing bitches everyone's sick of 😘
I Don't Know How To Tell You That For Hundreds Of Years Marrying Well Was Literally Women's Job. Like not just their duty but their livelihood. your parents weren't going to be able to support you forever you couldn't inherit property directly you were unlikely to be able to find adequate work outside the home. If you wanted to move on from being fully dependent on your parents and start putting money and value back into your family, you needed to marry well.
Men were the only respectable source of income and status for women and marrying up and committing yourself to finding a good match who will improve your family's standing and status in that context is not shallowness or greed as much as it's a good work ethic. because like. it WAS work. often as much of a full time job as middle and upper class men had.
and like that's not to say that marrying for love is Bad or Didn't Happen very clearly it did. but it's not about being more moral than those around you - like having sex outside of marriage or leaving an abusive husband, it's about being potentially put in the difficult position of choosing between your economic and material safety and your emotional needs. you might marry badly because you love someone, just as you might now take an unstable poorly paid job because you're more passionate about it than the high-flying role you're in. but it wouldn't be morally bad for someone to choose a well-paid job they don't enjoy over poverty, nor to try and get well paid jobs they're qualified for instead of going OOH I HOPE I FIND A MINIMUM WAGE JOB THAT I'M PASSIONATE ABOUT.
idk it just. bugs me when people put a modern American moral lens on something which was The Work.
Idk that Cinderella post going around really bugs me. Like it's so dismissive of the Social Climbing Twittering Women Trying To Court The Prince and it's like look at Cinderella she's Not Like Other Girls she has OPINIONS and NO MANNERS
and good for her but you know what those other girls probably have opinions and thoughts and a desire for fun too. but right now they're working, and as anyone who's worked a service job knows that means you have to pin down any negative feelings or frustrations and say and do the right things and smile.
like courtship and these kinds of things, like being presented at balls, is somewhere between customer service and an interview. your job is to market yourself as a good candidate. you've got to be On and performing the whole evening because that's literally the point of you being there and of the ball happening in the first place. A ball is the marriage equivalent of a jobs fair or a series of interviews.
and you know what I'd be pretty frustrated if I went to a job interview and I did my research and prepped a full presentation and kept myself calm and gave a really careful measured performance even though the person interviewing me kept ignoring or being rude to me. and I had a rotten time but it was a really good job opportunity. and then somebody came into the waiting room drank all the coffee stuffed 20 biscuits in their mouth and told the interviewer the company sucked and she didn't even want the job she was just there for the biscuits. and then the interviewer was like THAT'S HER THAT'S THE PERFECT CANDIDATE SHE'S SO FREE.
I don't think it would make me shallow or jealous to find that upsetting
Idk like I'm all for marrying for love but don't fucking disrespect generations of intelligent thoughtful women who worked very hard to survive and build a good life and relative financial and social stability in a time when getting married well was such an important part of that.
read Austen without the romance lenses on and maybe then you will see
hell, even Austen with the romance lenses on makes it very clear that marriage based solely on attraction (rather than also including financial security and similarity in temperament/personality) is not a good idea. marriages based solely on attraction in the austen universe: mr. & mrs. bennet, lydia & wickham, fanny price's parents... yeah.
(to be clear, marrying solely for financial security without consideration for temperament is also a bad idea: consider maria bertram & mr. rushworth. being too mercenary is just as bad as being stupid about your future.)
like the wish fulfillment part of austen is that getting a guy who is well-off financially AND a good person you vibe with AND someone you find physically attractive. a lot of people did not have all three when they married, and it isn't stupid to want to have all three, including the financial considerations!
sometimes I see pictures from when I was younger and it makes me wonder why I spent so much time hating myself. sweet little baby me. I was still growing. I was still learning. I was still getting used to my own skin. I didn’t deserve that
