'Sup *waves casually and accidentally knocks over my water cup*
I'm MossterUndertheBed, here and on Ao3, avid writer and devourer of worlds. Lover of poetry, nature photography, art of all kinds, and anything I can eat with my eyeballs: ie. a good story.
My primary fandom is Jujutsu Kaisen right now, with a sprinkling of Naruto, MXTX, and a few other odds and ends. My primary ship is Goyuu, but I dabble in others, especially Okkoita.
Also, we tolerate zero non-con in this house, fictional, fandom, or otherwise. Not my cup of tea, so keep that Over There, please. Thanks.
If you also love writing or wanna make dying whale noises about brilliant works of art in the form of writing, drawing, food, or anything else that can feasibly convey A Meaning, come say hi!
I know this sounds super serious and depressing because of all the periods and proper formatting but I'm actually chill, I promise.
Jujutsu Kaisen should have taken longer in-universe if only to take advantage of the four year setup of their school. That way we could see Yuji be a senpai, which he would have loved, and then during the Shibuya incident have Sukuna kill his cute kouhai and pass Yuji back control so he comes to with his fist through his lower classmen's torso chidori style as said kouhai looks at Yuji in despair and crying as they die horribly in Yuji's arms.
reading a historical romance novel and reflecting on the way these stories often present woke nobility for the contemporary reader. a big thing is servants. you can’t not have servants in those times but many modern readers think “but I would never have servants. it would be so weird to have servants” and in order to make the protagonists of the story more relatable they are actually friends with the servants. but flip your perspective and think of it from the side of the servants. wouldn’t it be so awful if your boss was always trying to be friends with you. a really common thing you’ll see is the woke baronet having tea in the kitchen with the servants bc he’s not like other baronets. but what if your boss wanted to hang out and talk during your lunch break every day. not so charming when you think about it that way
#okay but now what is the optimal way to be a good boss in this situation i genuinely wanna know#its easy to guess what makes a bad boss or a mid boss. but what is a good boss#specifically in such a highly structured hierarchal situation (via @rainbowroach)
HELLO you are asking questions that literature and poetry THROUGHOUT the middle ages has asked, and it is from this questioning that we derive things like the Codes of Chivalry (which is not "how to treat a noble lady really nice" but is actually "how to be an ethical person when you're rich and you own a horse" and includes such things as "don't run people over with your horse")
In fact I daresay you already know instinctively just from cultural osmosis what a good boss -- a good liege lord -- is and does based on the tropes that have survived to the current day and the kinds of things that get Hugely Praised in things like legends of King Arthur.
A good boss (liege lord) is:
Merciful. He is not having his peasants killed for things like poaching rabbits during a famine. In fact, he is working to mitigate famine. During times of individual hardship, he might negotiate with a peasant for a payment plan on their annual rent.
Patient. He is not impulsive, he does not lose his temper.
Prudent. He makes choices that are thoughtful, considered, conservative (in the sense of not needlessly risky--he's not investing his entire fortune in having everyone plant an unproven crop). He is making sure local infrastructure like roads and public buildings are maintained and kept in good nick.
Gentle. He doesn't haul off and slap a servant or a tenant for breaking a dish or making a mistake. He doesn't abuse animals, his wife or children, or his employees. He doesn't rape the servants.
Generous (both in money and in spirit). He is not extorting the peasants for an amount of rent that is beyond their means, he is not raising taxes every year to cover his own lavish lifestyle. He is paying his servants a living wage (or, if wages are low, he's giving them room/board/clothing to make up the difference). If someone in a tenant's family dies, the lord is sending a gift of condolence, or helping to pay for the funeral, or possibly even ATTENDING the funeral and speaking a few kind words about the deceased, ESPECIALLY if they were a really upstanding and important member of the community. If one of his tenants is gravely sick, the lord is sending a basket of food or paying for a doctor. He is giving charitably (generally this will be, like, a bequest to the church so that they can run a hospital or an orphanage or a school for the local village children).
Pious. This classically means "goes to church, submits with humility to God" but to me this quality is subtextually standing in for "maintaining an ongoing sense of Perspective that HE'S not god, that there are higher powers he is Accountable to, that he too can be Judged, etc, so that he doesn't end up going on a weird fucked up power trip"
Humble. One of the most admiring things you hear about a lord doing in literature and epic poetry is, "He ate off of wooden plates while his followers ate off of gold and silver." Humility isn't about being meek, it's just about not thinking so much of yourself that you turn your nose up and sneer at what "lesser" people do. In other words: Don't be a fucking diva. If your carriage gets stuck in the mud, climb out and help everybody else push, you're not gonna die from getting mud on your shoes.
Condescending. This word has changed wildly in meaning/tone over the last couple centuries -- it's now a rude thing to do (because we've done away with legal social hierarchies, so someone acting like they're lowering themselves to your level IS insulting), but in older times, a high-ranking person "condescending" to a servant was worthy of praise and admiration: it means they were setting aside rank and privilege to speak to them with the easygoing, friendly respect and compassion they'd give a peer. This is things like... Treats those beneath him with courtesy and respect (ie: listens soberly and attentively when one of his servants or tenants comes to complain about a problem). Having a sense of humor and kindness about it when the lord and a servant both come around a corner at the same time and run into each other and the servant gets knocked to the ground and starts babbling apologies--the condescending (positive) lord helps them to their feet with his own hands and cracks a joke to show them that it's ok (as opposed to just walking off without a word or insulting/scolding them). This is also things like trusting a farmer, woodcutter, or artisan to speak with expertise about their own livelihood and taking their advice into consideration if they tell the lord that one of his ideas won't work.
Good boundaries. The ethical liege lord knows that it's normal for the staff to probably be softly bitching about him in private (even with a really good boss, we all grumble from time to time). He's not eavesdropping on them, he's not going into the staff areas where they should reasonably expect to have a degree of privacy, etc.
Righteous and protective of "the weak". The "weak" here doesn't necessarily mean physically weak, this is often used in the sense of someone politically or socially weak, aka The Marginalized -- the poor, the disabled, women, children, the elderly, etc. If a lord sees someone like this being mistreated or abused, he's supposed to step in and put a stop to that.
Committed to reciprocity. In a highly hierarchical system like feudalism, every person (from the lowest peasant all the way up to the crown prince) legally OWES their liege lord certain things (taxes, labor, service, loyalty, etc). A good liege remembers and takes very seriously the idea that this should be a balanced and reciprocal relationship -- in other words, he owes something BACK. Feudalism is modeled very strongly on the family system: If children owe their parents obedience and service, then parents owe their children care and protection. This still applies when the "child" is a farmer and the "parent" is a local baron. Or when the "child" is a duke and the "parent" is the king.
Basically, we get so caught up in the aesthetics of nobility that we forget that it literally is a managerial position that comes with responsibilities that were... very similar back in the day to the same ones we have now. Humans have not changed all that much. At the end of the day, a really good boss in the 1400s versus in one from the 2020s displays most of the same qualities of personality, even if the details of execution are different.
The next question is, of course, "well, but this theoretical liege lord is HIGHLY idealized -- how often did that actually HAPPEN? Wasn't it more likely that everyone was exploited all the time?" and to that I say: Well, maybe. But again, I don't think humans have changed all that much. Just like the bosses of today, there's a SPECTRUM: A really really good boss is rare and precious and one that you tell stories about for years after you've left that job, but a truly, genuinely, homicidally nightmarish boss is also pretty rare. Most bosses are sort of meh -- they have their good moments, they have their shitty moments, but they're tolerable and you can get along with them well enough to do your job, and then you roll your eyes at them behind their back. Generally, humans don't take outright exploitation lying down. Being a bad boss in the historical period is how you get peasant uprisings and revolts, and you know that to be true because your parents raised you with that knowledge, so unless you are very stupid or inbred or an egomaniac, there is literal personal incentive to at minimum be a Tolerable liege lord. And that means hitting at least SOME of the above bullet points.
TL;DR: In the words of Honore de Balzac, "Everything I have just told you can be summarized by an old word: noblesse oblige!"
(for more discussions of the ethics of fealty and what it means to be a good boss when you are an exquisitely beautiful twink of a prince with a hot beefy bodyguard.... [fingerguns] read A Taste of Gold and Iron)
I do and this is a threat. Or a promise, I guess, since you literally asked for it. Anyone else can wish this upon themselves by clicking on the read more!!
First of all: Sorry, @wynnefic, for taking so long!! I hope you enjoyed the recs from last time, if you've managed to read them. If so/not, here's more!!
Now. The Recs
(Disclaimer: I will not be reccing @voxofthevoid-furious' fics, because if you haven't already found and devoured them all, I have no idea how to help you.)
Yuuji-centric
jujutsu kaisen
Frankenstein by catharsixii, which I already recced in this post (and the post and its replies have some good recs in them as well!!), but since then it's been updated and gained a relationship tag, though the ship isn't overt yet. It's canon divergent, taking place during the events of JJK 0 but before the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons, and the first chapter already had me hooked so you can imagine how excited I was to see the second.
Heavy is the Crown by Ezallamir, a role reversal fic that takes place after the Shibuya Incident where Yuuji takes the place of Yuuta and vice versa, except they each keep their canon abilities. Author sticks to that fact faithfully, not just in terms of what the characters can do but how the world handles them, and it made for an amazing read, not just because of what we see happen but because of the background world-building the author implies so well.
I Just Sighed, the Universe Replied by Saturnniidae and Location Not Found. Rerouting. by srvipers are both crossover fics, both set in Boku no Hero Academia, but happening to different Yuujis--first Yuuji is fresh off the Shinjuku showdown, second mid-Shibuya Incident. Both of them do my favourite thing about crossover fics, which is digging into how goddamn buckwild both the crossover character and world look to each other. Neither of them are far in yet, but what's there is unique to each fic and very interesting!!
two six eight by siqwithaQ. Remember when I recced vessel of greatness and said it was pivotal to my understanding of sukuita (platonic and not)? Yeah, this is more of that. It Gets Them, both of them, and it's written in Sukuna's PoV which only makes it more insane. It's less than five hundred words. This fic is not a rec but a threat. I am holding a gun to your head. Read This Or Else.
Tyger, Tyger by Messier_47 is going here because it was posted before Modulo was, but it does feature post-canon Yuuji who's travelled back in time to unfuck the timeline. It's an absolute blast to read, fun and interesting both in premise and execution.
modulo
Ancient bonds hold strong, even when strings are frayed by miyaboozzzen, which is exactly what the summary promises. Very lighthearted and almost comedic.
Does It Matter? by TheCongo, which is a crossover fic set in the Frieren universe. Markedly different tone from the previous rec as well--Yuuji is not having a great time here. Neither are any of the demons he comes across. Fun look at this Yuuji's morals and experiences and strength running up against this world, and how the world and its people react to it.
Sanctuary of Future is by three different authors and falls into a strange category. If you look at the summary, you'll see why. The canon cast of Jujutsu Kaisen watch Modulo canon with Yuuji, except it's Modulo Yuuji they're watching it with. Very fun, though!! Amazing grasp on its ensemble cast and how they react to what they see, which is only more impressive to read because the fic is written in multiple PoVs.
Shallow Ends by SinningSaint is being tentatively recced in this category, because I straight up don't know for sure which Yuuji is in it, but it haunts me. Its first chapter is such a perfect hook I have not stopped checking on this fic since I found it. It's another crossover fic, set in the Naruto universe, so far told in the PoV of a Naruto character I wasn't even aware existed, but it's written so well and features such a compelling premise that I don't care. It currently only has one chapter and this fact haunts me, because I am so curious to see how the tags will show themselves in the fic.
The Father of Quirks by TheHonouredLarper is another crossover fic, set in Boku no Hero Academia like a couple of the others are, but unlike the others, it's Modulo Yuuji. It also fascinates me. I love the Yuuji, the plot, the tonal difference depending on whose PoV the story is being told by. Last update ended on a cliffhanger, but everything that's come before is intriguing.
The Weight Of Infinity by ZuviNat is another haunter. Modulo Yuuji appears in the middle of the Gojo vs Sukuna showdown, and, well. Modulo Yuuji is a very different beast from Shinjuku Showdown Yuuji. Its first and as of this post final chapter ends on a cliffhanger, but it's marked as a multichap so I have hope, because I'm so curious as to what will happen next.
goyuu
A place for the damned by Hyoushin, which is amongst my favourite of Hyoushin's fics. A lot of this list will feature their works. This one is post-Shibuya, posted before Gojo was unsealed, and it is fun. I think about a particular scene in it Often. Fic is low-stakes and painless and delivers on the promise of the tags so evocatively that I come back to it whenever I crave the specific tone it sets.
All You See Are Sympathetic Eyes by blue_jack haunts me a normal amount. It's post-canon, everything is beautiful style setting, but people are hurting, I am hurting. This premise packs such a punch and pulls absolutely nothing but it's written so well that I do not care. I suffer happily. I walk into the fire again and again, because I have reread this fic, and I will keep doing so. Anyway. Actual plot details. Yuuji has a crush on Gojo that is not reciprocated till it is, but with incredible smut that also makes me want to howl at the sky.
attack, decay, sustain, release by aosc, which I have reblogged all the fic posts of but its last chapter was posted years ago. Regardless, it is worth it. Genuinely one of the most amazing portrayals of Gojo's character voice I have ever read. Digs into the aftermath of everything to do with the Shibuya Incident and what came after, which sounds boring on paper but made for a fascinating read with how well the author keeps up with both the events themselves and the reactions to those events, both from sorcerers and not. Also, there is a road trip in it, and I'm unreasonably fond of those.
blessed are the peacemakers by kadal is a fun, short, lighthearted fic taking place during the basement era, and it nails the vibe so well that I love it. I just. Love it. Gojo put his student in his basement and his student does not think this is strange and it shows. It's great.
clutched is by an anonymous author, and it haunts me. It has haunted me for years. It will continue to haunt me. If the second-person PoV puts you off, I'm sorry, but this author does the most amazing, incredible things with it. I have no words for this fic other than that it takes every advantage of the PoV and writes the most devastating thing I have ever read.
cat owner, also by kadal, is more of the first, except it's post-Goodwill Event. Yuuji has a cat and it's his six-three, weird as hell sensei, and Yuuji's only concerns with this are not the correct ones. No one is surprised.
cradle by prindec is set during the basement era, and it's soft-adjacent. It gets as close to soft as a sorcerer's world can get, especially when that sorcerer is Yuuji, cage of the King of Curses. It sets the scene so well and so clearly and it never sacrifices character voice to do it, and every time, the ending feels like getting gutted. Does the same thing as blessed are the peacemakers for me, which is provide a perfect understanding of why I ship these two.
Days like these by Hyoushin is multiple snippets in one oneshot, all taking place during different periods and settings, some in alternate universes, and I love them all. Fic feels like a slice of something for everyone regardless of preference.
Enough (A Cinderella Story) by athena_crikey is set in an alternate universe in which Gojo is the frontman of a band and Yuuji is a genuinely good person, so of course Gojo falls in love with him in one night. It's a sweet story, and it made me laugh more than once. It's almost exactly what it says on the tin, except I don't think Cinderella got in-advisably drunk.
Entombed by JoWithTheFlow is one of my favourite time travel JJK fics, fullstop. Seventeen year old Yuuji goes back in time to the Hidden Inventory era, and it's exactly as tragic and funny and amazing as that sounds. I have so, so many scenes from it saved, and I love them all. The fic also deals with my favourite thing about time travel, which is the loneliness of it, and it does it so well.
Familiar Crossroads by Hyoushin has 14 year old, pre-canon Yuuji meeting 27 year old, mid-JJK 0 Gojo, and it just. Nails it. I want to live and breathe in this world. It's such a fascinating version of goyuu to meet and interact and fall in like, and the ending omake in the author's note has made me laugh like hell without fail every time I read it. I adore this fic.
Kaleidoscope is yet another fic written by Hyoushin, and like all the others, I love it. This one is outsider PoVs, but all people who know goyuu, reacting to their relationship, and it handles it so well. The character voices, the scenes, the writing, the way goyuu change each other, how their personalities and morals shift or adapt to their affection for each other--it's just a good fic.
Like melting, falling by Dehawny is The goyuu kissing fic To Me. The writing, the characterization, the interactions between goyuu, the kissing itself, it's all amazing and I love it. Gives me the same feeling cradle does, that renewed realisation of why I've spent three years so far so insane about these two.
Pawprint Problems by mossterunderthebed is a fic I have reblogged and praised before, but I'm doing it again because this is my blog and this fic is adorable. I said it best in my tags, but again, this fic is so soft. It's so fluffy. It's like if the cure for heartbreak was real, because this fic is it. Goyuu get turned into cats, and despite that, they are still so very goyuu.
sometimes you burn by moondrew is another fic I have reblogged and praised before, but, again. This is my blog, and I fucking love this fic. I love all this author's fics. Her writing is gorgeous, and this fic makes me genuinely insane. It's basement era, set around the time of the Vs Mahito arc but before the emotional trauma, featuring a Yuuji who's just been woken out of a dead sleep by his teacher appearing at his bedside like a blood soaked specter, except the specter would be way less eerie.
the before by Cassia_Bea takes one of the most mundane premises I have ever come across, and executes it to perfection. It is Gojo and Yuuji driving to places together, sharing snacks and talking, and that description feels like such a disservice because it is also an excellent, nearly-8k words long glimpse of goyuu and why they just...click. It's them, existing, and it is so clear they want to do that together.
The Blue Omen by blueberrykeki is a time travel fic, in which a post-Shinjuku Yuuji travels back in time to when Gojo was a student, except 2018 Gojo comes with Yuuji--in a way. Does things and goes places I've never seen before, alongside factoring in the way the world would change with what happened at Shibuya and Shinjuku and etc compared to the more peaceful past.
The view from above by Hyoushin is a time travel fix-it fic, in which post-canon Yuuji goes back to the Shibuya Incident to unseal and save Gojo. Excellent Yuuji porn, if your idea of porn is Yuuji being powerful and competent, which it should be. Gojo is so very himself (derogatory) in it as well.
Upturned skies by hyoushin is a role reversal fic in which Yuuji is Gojo and co's teacher. Fic takes place during the Hidden Inventory arc and uses that fact to the fullest, with all the highs and lows that implies.
We're Spinning 'Round the Sun by sempervirentis is everything is beautiful and nothing hurts, and I love it so much. Yuuji is as oblivious as Gojo is obvious, everyone else suffers, and there's many moments in the fic where I wanted to stab Gojo, but only in the most complimentary to the author ways. He's just so himself that I can't help it. But Yuuji is Yuuji, so he doesn't mind and actually loves the guy, which shows.
you think you are possessing me (but i've got my teeth in you) is another fic by moondrew, and it's. God. It makes me descend into howling. She writes Yuuji and Gojo and goyuu so, so well. I have devoured every one of her fics and I will do the same for anything else she posts in future. Anyway. This one features Yuuji gaining Sukuna's cannibalistic urges, and Gojo helping him out, because he is so very noble like that.
Your reverence my cage by Bowredone is Modulo Yuuji going back in time to 2018, and he is so delightfully fucked up from All Of That. Gojo does not help even a little. Canon Yuuji is also there, and he's trying his best, but, well. Gojo is Gojo and Modulo Yuuji is Modulo Yuuji. He was doomed from the start, and the author writes it beautifully.
oh, I know I won't be leaving here by wynnebat fascinates me. I've never seen a Yuuji like it, and I mean that in the best way. It's basement era, and Yuuji's voice is great, I love it, it just blindsided me almost immediately and I say that as a compliment. After three years being insane about JJK, this was the most unique take on Gojo hitting on Yuuji and Yuuji reacting to that I've ever seen, and it's the reason I've stalked this author's profile since. Also enjoyed check me in and check me out and and the moon shines bright as bone by the same author
sukuita
bare your soft parts, i’ll split them open by nerodiseppia Gets It. It's sukuita fucking, nasty, and fucking nasty, all at the same time, and the author writes it so deliciously that I would lick it off a plate if I could.
blame it on a black star by moondrew also gets It, but to be fair, this author always Gets It. I've reblogged this fic and yelled about it in the tags before, and that one time still isn't enough, because this fic is perfect. There are no other words to describe it. It is sex and character study. It takes the concept of sharing your soul and skull with a man who is remembered as a monster a thousand years after his death, and digs into every delicious detail of that fact.
Tying the Knot by MitchMatchedSocks is A/B/O set in a no curses verse. It's also amazing and gross and digs into the incredibly fucked up family dynamics of Jin, Wasuke and Kaorijkau all pitching in to raise Yuuji, and the kind of person and alpha he'd grow up to be, both from nurture and nature, because his insanity is just that singular. Sukuna thinks he will have a great time till he doesn't and then he does again, and the ending of this fic made me laugh so hard I nearly cried.
bonus round: Yuuji/Other
this love which rots and softens by mossterunderthebed is not quite single-handedly responsible for getting me into okkoita, but that's only because mossterunderthebed themselves played a huge part in making me sit up and take notice of this ship. it is over 22 thousand words of okkoita developing alongside the world recovering from all of canon, through the good and bad and traumatic and healing, and I am in love with it.
love, love, love by Cassia_Bea is childhood sweethearts okkoita who aren't quite secretly dating, except no one knows Yuuta's got a boyfriend till they do. Gojo goes on to meet that boyfriend in telepathy, teleportation, television or something the exact same way he meets Yuuji in canon, except for the complication of Yuuta dating him.
End In Sight by anonymous is hard to explain. It's adult Yuuji with teenage Toji, Gojo and Geto are Toji's classmates, and Megumi is Toji's dad. A role reversal is probably the most concise description. It is also hot as fuck. Toji does his best to seduce Yuuji, and Yuuji resists till he doesn't.
And that's all!! Excluding voxofthevoid, but it goes without saying that I rec every single one of his fics. I hope, whoever is reading this, that you enjoy the fics
I think it's cute that Yuji's love is a cage. I think it's absolutely adorable that he thinks there's a chance Sukuna would rather be trapped, a prisoner, helpless, for the rest of Yuji's life, than dead. I think it's heartwarming that he devoured his brothers--six sentient people, trapped in their own half-decayed corpses--in order to both give them a loving grave and gain their power. I think it's fascinating and precious that Yuji isn't afraid of death--he simply has such a knee-jerk rejection of dying alone that he assumes everyone else does, too.
