#cc-cowboy

[yellow-faerie]

can I hear more about post canon situationship hell stsk. gears are turning

OMG YES I have so many thoughts but the BASIC premise is that like...pre the actual planned fic (which would be post-canon), Satoru comes out the prison realm and Nanami is dead and it's just him and Shoko and Ijichi left, and Satoshoko get a liiiittle bit clingy because I think they are both aware that Satoru doesn't have much intention of living past the Sukuna fight

But they will NOT talk about it and so they have sex, cuddle and then don't talk to each other for two days while they prepare for the fight and it's messy and terrible and like - Shoko doesn't want to lose him? Like I think she feels horribly, terribly selfish about it (I could talk for days about why she goes along with the body swap plan so easily and I think a bit of it is guilt about not feeling like she has the RIGHT to object?) because sure they are FRIENDS and they sort of have some benefits going on, but they aren't BEST FRIENDS like they were at school, and Satoru loves Shoko but also like...he's Satoru, you know how he is lol

Regardless, THIS Shoko gets Satoru's body back and is like. Actually, Fuck that. I am choosing to have my breakdown NOW and I AM saving Satoru's life...and everyone is like. Ieiri-sensei. Ieiri-sensei the PLAN. And she pretty much is like "figure something else the fuck out" and revives Satoru (somewhat - he's definitely comatose for a while because the brain damage is real but he's ALIVE and she SAVED HIM)

But like uhhh this doesn't fix them REMOTELY - there's loads going on, like Shoko trying to keep it together even though she's probably experiencing something akin to genuine mania and the high of using so much RCT and also she hasn't slept in two weeks because she's been keeping half a dozen sorcerers from death, and then when Satoru DOES wake up, his brain is kinda fucked from the fight generally and he's got to adjust to a world where he can't BE the strongest, because he's disabled and has to somewhat rely on other people

AND THEN TO TOP IT OFF there's the pregnancy they're both ignoring - Shoko, because she like kinda twigged it but then was immediately like "nah Satoru's trans that's probably nothing" and Satoru, because he's like...fuck I guess Shoko slept with someone else which makes me feel Sad but I will not be addressing that (the real thing is like...sort of a joke, because me and a friend were talking and like Shoko accidentally gets super invested in doing Gojo's bottom surgery and gets it a little too good which is sort of a shellshock for them both ngl)

This fic is features like Several Other People playing major roles - so far, I've only really written from Shoko's perspective but I think the plot and characters are running away from me and I'm going to need to branch out with my POVs...like I have ideas for Yuuta and I have made Hana into my own personal character, and Nanako is here (which in hindsight sorta makes her the point of divergence for this au....) and I need ALL Gojo's students to care about him and also Megumi to be there and-

ANYWAY, satoshoko have never defined their relationship ever. I think they're going to get married before their first date (and Satoru will take Shoko's name because a) it's a fuck you to the clan b) it's the name their baby had and c) he thinks it's funny there'll be two Ieiri-senseis running around the school now). Will they ever have a first date?? Ehhhhhh

[yellow-faerie]

im back with the dolls (voat satoru & cwcb gojo) and first of all im OBSESSED with all the lore drops. genuinely if you have any more bits you want to share like just anything at all please please do, I love all of it (also maybe trans satoru???? MY DARLING BOY).

this question is probably going to be just as vague as my first one lol sorry about that but I keep thinking about them from like a cwcb lens. as in like, adult gojo who Grew Up The Way He Did and knows his parents names but has never actually met them and wasn't raised by them meets a version of himself who is just. so different from him at that age and the more they keep talking the more the thought starts to manifest that that difference might be because this boy has a relatively normal home and a mother who loves him. which is like, so cool to think about. he's so chill about that.

but im so curious about what that entire thing would look like from voat satorus perspective (once we make it through the general distress of Being Somewhere Else with what appears to be an alternate version of you as an adult). like once he feels safe enough to ask questions he gets genuinely curious and he has All the questions and adult him just keeps dodging them and with every question that gets dodged he's like, putting together that he's hitting some nerves there but obviously he doesn't know *what* he's hitting exactly? like as u said, he realises he's doing it. a bit. idk just. thoughts.

HI HI THE DOLLSSSS YESSS (this is sliiiightly late because I wasn't feeling great yesterday)

Omg yeah like I'm not sure what angle you want to come at it from (whether CWCB gojo and voat Satoru have different parents entirely, or if it's some merger of both "canons" so to say) but either way I think that could be so fun...like whether they're the same parents or not, Satoru's parents have him up to be raised by someone who loved him and Gojo's parents gave him up for...what? He doesn't actually know because he doesn't know his parents and he can only assume that it was for personal gain somehow

And I'm imagining Satoru having his phone on him and it's not connected to any network but it DOES have shitty, grainy photos on it of like...the neighbour's cat that likes to beg for food from him on the way home, and of his mother, and of Itaru (these photos make him slightly sniffly), and just of Satoru getting to live life? And be a kid?

And I'm considering the idea that voat Satoru trusting Gojo pretty quick and latching onto him miiiight make Gojo face the fact that while he does look after his kids and raise them etc because he cares about the next generation and wants them not to be treated like HIS friends were treated, I think that it could make him face the fact that this is what he wanted his baby self to be treated like. To have an adult who he trusted and who cared for him and who he could cry on, if you catch my drift??

Anyway, baby Satoru is naturally A Little More Concerned about the current situation and despite the fact he trusts Older Him, i think the more Gojo dodges around questions about the future and his own past, the more suspicious Satoru gets and he's like a dog with a bone and will NOT let it go, which leads to Gojo having to talk about his past because the more he tries to keep things secret, the more this volatile baby him tries to squeeze the answers out of him

I just also like him realising that Gojo comes from a world where he was never kidnap-adopted by his aunt and so starts asking about their PARENTS (who may, ofc, be different characters entirely from each other - but I am also very happy if you twist voat Satoru's backstory slightly to fit whatever narrative works best in your mind) because he just assumes that Gojo must have been raised by them instead and Gojo has no answers

Also possibly I'm amused by the idea of Satoru introducing himself as Fushiguro (there are plot reasons he has this surname btw) and Gojo is like...having feelings because like his relationship with the Fushiguros that he doesn't really touch

Oh gosh idk if I've like answered your questions lol I have a lot of feelings

ALSO yeah trans Satoru! My thoughts being that it's something Satoru thinks about very little after going to his mother and being like "I am a boy" because Kiyoko was like "I do not understand really but honestly this will help me keep him protected from the clan" and also I like the idea of Satoru very innocently asked Kiyoko her opinion about X name because obviously she must have given him his first name and Kiyoko has to go lie down afterwards because that's her SON and also she has feelings about usurping Hina as his mother but also-

(Kiyoko is complicated and I love her, i could talk about her a lot)

Also it adds an extra level of confusion when he turns up at the school because he claims the gojo name and he has the six eyes, but they weren't expecting a boy?? And they don't know who this is?? Which is enough time for Satoru to slip in under the higher ups' protection

ALSO bonus little scene that i wanted to add at the end of the fic when Satoru is on his way to the school but that didn't quite fit in but that I love and kept in my notes just in case I could make it work out (I couldn't):

He has a dream that night, when he falls asleep on the train.

He's back in the apartment and the soft lights of night are coming in through the window. He's lying on the kitchen floor, except it's not just him and his mother.

There's a little boy there too, face too blurry to make out. He's giggling, kicking his little legs up next to Satoru's, and when they talk, his mother calls the boy mouse in that same fond way she always called Satoru bug.

It's a bitter dream to wake up from alone, in that almost empty. He wonders if that little brother is awake now, wherever he was taken; he wonders if his mother is awake too, and thinking of him as he's thinking of her.

He spends the rest of the train ride thinking, about the brother he never knew, and his mother standing on the platform as the train pulled away; and he thinks about the Gojo clan - a strange entity that sits in Kyoto, ready to swallow him whole if he lets it - and of the Jujutsu Council, who will protect him from that beast so long as he gives his whole life to them.

[yellow-faerie]

I love when people talk abt new interests they have so !! I dont rlly have a specific question I guess but pls tell me whatever u want about witch hat atelier in general or anything u have in mind, really. it's one of those things that seem really sweet and fun and like they would be For Me, but the stars have to align for me to get into something new atm so. I will admire it from afar, for now.

but id love to hear about it from u !! whatever u have to say about it, im all ears.

YES omg ok yeah I have never been so glad that the stars aligned just perfectly (had a free morning, and my good friend Petra recommended wha after the first two episodes came out so that I was like...I got time to check this out. I then proceeded to MAKE time to read 93 chapters of the manga and then the five cooking books/spin off manga that came with it)...gonna try and keep this relatively spoiler free because like if you ever get around to reading it, you should read it as spoiler free as possible

OK yes so like - I love witch hat atelier, I am literally insane about all of them and I have never trusted a manga author more to like follow through on the things she is setting out...I don't get obsessed with every minor female character because I trust that every character who appears will have the appropriate amount of relevance to the plot and the story

Also it's beautiful. It's so SO beautiful, the art style is beautiful and the story is beautiful and the anime is managing to translate it to screen SO well and is adding bits really tastefully to just deepen what the manga already had going on, and I love that everything that happens in the plot and character almost always revolves around the question of - are the laws just? And should we stick rigidly to following the law if it isn't just? And it's so good. It's SO good.

And out main character is coco whom I adore and she's the daughter of a seamstress and to tell you that I am about to write SO much fic where Coco does sewing you don't even know - the manga is already sort of about hte beauty of art and it's importance in society, and so just. Make her Sew. gonna make her sew so much and angst about her mother. She's MY character of all time

Also we have sunshine x grumpy but lesbians this time, and also the teacher is SO fucked but at least he actually got a teaching qualification (Satoru has one, to my mind, but only because the higher ups tried to get him to Not be a teacher by making him take a course and somehow Satoru fit it into his schedule but also like. He barely focused. He does not use that course productively)

BUT I WAS TALKING ABOUT WHA

There's also two other students under the teacher whom I adore, one of whom has a tragic backstory that's been revealed (I love her SO much, very slightly a bit autistic) and one who has Not and this is cause for concern. Either she has no tragic backstory (press x to doubt, all the other apprentices do) or it's REALLY bad.

Anyway, this manga managed to hit my love for proper found family where dynamics aren't defined and no-one's telling anyone they're their dad even though it's pretty clear the atelier is their home and they care about each other a lot and just. ehfuirgbjrengbhj

I love it. I am rotating so many thoughts but mostly I am trying SO hard to be patient because I very rarely get into media that is Actively Coming Out and I want to know Everything Now about All The Characters and now I have to wait a month in between releases and this is GOOD because the mangaka deserves to have time and space to write! And art isn't owed to anyone! But also I want to Know. I crave knowledge.

[yellow-faerie]

feeling very nanago today so ☕️nanago (also get well soon !! :)

HI HI!! Yes ok I do actually have thoughts about Nanago and firstly those thought are - your take is SO based, Nanami would be The Most Disappointed in himself for falling for The Most Annoying Man in the entire world...as for me, your Nanami in cwcb lives like. Rent free in my head so some of these takes may be things you're familiar with

OK so, first of all, I love that Nanami calls Gojo first? Like he makes the decision to come back to jujutsu and he calls Gojo - not Yaga, who would probably be one of the first people to call, or even going to find like one of the higher ups, which brings me to this vague headcanon I had that Satoru kinda...bothered him for most of his time outside of jujutsu

Not loads, but it was the closest thing that Gojo could get to expressing genuine concern for the wellbeing of his kohai (and also he's very very busy), and outside of him being the strongest or the most likely to still be alive after several years of no contact (also both probably factors in why Nanami calls him), it's the fact that he's been the most present in his life?

(outside of maaaybe Shoko, I go back and forth on Nanami and Shoko staying in touch...that is for ANOTHER post tho lol)

And like (in very simple terms)...I think Nanami initially sees this as Gojo being unable to see a world outside of jujutsu and that's why he wants Nanami back, and then after he's returned, he gets the slightly more charitable read on Gojo's actions which are that he was able to see, in some way, that Nanami really would be happier as a sorcerer

There's a bit of the latter? But I mostly think that Gojo's reasoning was that he didn't want to lose another of his kohai or friend, and having him as a sorcerer puts him more directly under Gojo's like, area of protection, and also that this is the only excuse he has to visit Nanami that isn't admitting to either of the (potentially unrealised) feelings of care/affection/concern for his wellbeing that Satoru has

I am a BIG fan of how you wrote their post-Getou defection/post-Haibara fight, that is like...*mwah* just brilliant, but I also do love a Nanami-Gojo hookup where they're both grieving losses in their life and are trying to fill the hole with each other and it being messy and not really working but they try anyway, until they start seeing the other person beneath their respective griefs and fall in love with each other

(And Nanami stares in the mirror and wonders. How the FUCK did I end up here. What is my brain DOING. GOJO SATORU? *REALLY*?)

OK, slightly self-indulgent (and I'm not suuuuper keen on the Nanami characterisation as this is from a fic from ages and ages ago) but this is like....some of that Nanami and Gojo interact vibes after Nanami leaves that I was talking about:

.

"D'ya have a crush on that girl or something?"

Kento's walk falters. His fingers curl up around the paper bag and he resists the urge to stop and turn around.

Maybe, he thinks futilely, if I pretend I didn't hear him, he'll go away.

He'd known, the moment he had that thought, that it was a fruitless one. There were very few ways to get rid of Gojō Satoru and ignoring him had never proved to be one of them. Kento had had a lot of practise while at school in the hope that it would work one day.

"I mean, you do go there every day to buy a ham and cheese sandwich. I know you don't like ham and cheese."

Gojō's walking beside him now, in the middle of the pavement, and it's annoying pedestrians coming the other direction as he gets in their way and doesn't make much of an effort to move.

"Do you," Kento asks flatly, choosing to ignore the fact that Gojō somehow knows his shopping habits. He's probably used his disgusting amount of wealth to hire some sort of private detective or something, he can't imagine that Gojō Satoru, the self-proclaimed strongest sorcerer, had the time to stalk his old underclassman himself.

"I do. I distinctly recall you complaining that it was the only thing Haibara-" Kento feels his teeth clicking together, "-would ever get when you went for lunch together. Can't say I don't agree, it's a terrible sandwich filling."

Kento has to make quite the effort to get his jaw to loosen again. Gojō is still talking animatedly, as if he doesn't know that Kento has already zoned out of the conversation, and so Kento decides to cut this in the bud.

"If you are here to ask me to reconsider your offer," he says, coming to a stop outside his office, "then the answer remains the same."

"Aw, you think so poorly of me! Perhaps I just wanted to visit an old classmate."

"You always have an alternative reason for doing things. You do this every month, I know the spiel by now."

There is something about the line of Gojō's mouth, the slightest tick in his smile, that leaves Kento faltering just a moment at the door. It was something ever so slightly more earnest on his face than usual, and maybe-

"Well, at least give me a call sometime Nanamin," Gojō says, the smile firmly in place again, as he slides his glasses down his nose to wink suggestively. "Maybe we could go get a bite to eat."

"Ugh."

Kento doesn't know what he was expecting. Gojō to be serious for once in his life? To open up about something?

To ask if Kento was OK?

A hope like that was about as futile as trying to get Gojō off your back about something. He was like a tick and had about the intelligence of one too.

He settles back in his chair. It's a familiar chair at a familiar desk, and he lets his brain drift from thoughts of Gojō Satoru, and sorcery, to the only thing that really mattered to him anymore.

Money.

[yellow-faerie]

satoshoko canon au ohhhhhh i will be there i will BEEE there my god. can't wait to read it when it goes up !!!

Hehehe it is SO far from complete but this au live RENT FREE in my head - the personal highlights for me are Yuuta being trained to be a doctor, Nanako being alive because I say so as well as like The Background Sashisu that is slightly ambiguous as to whether they were an actual item or not

As for stsk themselves, Satoru's main thing is uhhhh recovering from Shinjuku which did some highly medically inaccurate things to him (i may go back through and try to make the medical inaccuracies make sense, I also may not lol) and now he has to struggle with not being the strongest anymore; Shōko is dealing with twenty-nine years of stress coming to fruition as well as a surprise pregnancy which she was NOT expecting

I can tag you when I one day in the far-flung future actually post this fic lol - also have a small snippet from chapter four which may or may not get edited out lol

She's just contemplating whether she should put on her heels or the pair of slippers she keeps in her office, when Nanako comes bursting in.

"Shōko-ba!" she exclaims, wide-eyed. "Yūta said to come and find you! It's an emergency!"

Shōko forgoes shoes entirely. She's in the infirmary building anyway - having used to infirmary's showers and changed in her office-turned-temporary-bedroom - and it's not like anyone will care, and her priority right now is that Satoru does not die on her again.

The door to Satoru's room is half-open and Shōko can pick up the rapid beeping of several machines. Her ears pick them out individually and settle ultimately on the conclusion that Satoru is either dying or having a very bad panic attack.

When she gets in, she settles her conclusion on panic attack. If he had any more strength than he does, Shōko is sure that he would be thrashing in the sheets, but as it is, he's twitching slightly as his breathing runs too fast and his heartrate threatens to meet 200 bpm. Yūta is standing there, obvious panic in his own face, as his hands hover in that familiar need to fix things; beside him, Satoru's eyes are wide open and staring at nothing in particular as his mouth makes shapes but not words.

"Satoru." Shōko steps up to the bed, on the opposite side to Yūta. "It's alright. You're at Jujutsu High, in the infirmary, and I'm here."

It's almost instantaneous. His heartrate doesn't decrease immediately, but the attempts to move or get away, or whatever it is that Satoru's half-fevered mind was trying to do, fall still and through gasping breaths, he says, "Shōko?"

"That's my name," Shōko agrees, and leans close to tuck a lock of hair that had fallen into his face behind his ear. He leans into the touch at once, hungry for it as his eyes fall shut.

"Are you sure?" he asks, though the words are slightly mumbled. "I can't see Shōko."

Shōko runs a thumb over his gaunt cheekbone, filing away that little tidbit of information for later. "Quite sure."

"If you say so," Satoru mumbles as his body starts to relax again.

"I do. How do you feel Satoru?"

Satoru hums a little noncommittally. "Bad." A pause, and then, "sleepy."

"I bet, your body has plenty of healing still left to do." Her hand is now trapped between the standard issue infirmary pillow and Satoru's cheek. "You can go back to sleep now."

"'kay," Satoru mumbles, barely away anyway, and Shōko watches his breathing even out. When he's finally asleep, she lets out the breath she's been holding.

[yellow-faerie]

HELLO . question. in "glide" when satoru mentions calling shoko he says something (sorry idr what it was exactly and i cant look it up rn) kind of alluding to the fact that shoko has experiences with something similar to what happened to tsumiki. I feel like I worded this incredibly awkwardly but I just wanted to ask if there's a backstory there you'd like to share <3 (loved loved loved that fic btw!)

HELLO HELLO thank you so much for the ask <3

OK yeah I wrote this fic AGES ago it was like one of the first I wrote for June of Doom (found here for anyone who wants to check it out) so I actually cannot remember what the reference was-

WAIT NO IT'S COME BACK TO ME (i think) - this is probably a reference to sashisu's first christmas together where the three of them stay in the dorms together and the roof falls in on the dormitory kitchen - I'm pretty sure that this line must be a reference to that?? I wrote this fic with the christmas eve curse in mind so.....??? MAYBE???

I do think that I meant there was an incident where one of them got like frostbite or buried in snow or SOMETHING and got sick though. Not quite sure what tho lol

ALSO fun little tidbit about this fic that me and @summertimelethargy were talking about after rereading this - blackcurrant squash (like what Tsumiki drinks hot in this fic) isn't really a thing in Japan? Like squash as a concept isn't, so we decided that Gojo went to like the UK and got addicted to Ribena and so constantly has a huge stash of it, to the point that Tsumiki forgets that it's not a common experience and her classmates are like "what the FUCK are you on about Fushiguro" when she starts talking about it

Just those weird things your family does that you think are normal and are NOT

[yellow-faerie]

HW LINK BACKSTORY (got so excited at the mention of hyrule warriors i blacked out. this is a question i am asking you to talk to me please)

OH HIII HELLO YES

Ok yeah the vibes are like super vague? But I'm a big fan of the Linkle and Link are siblings headcanon and then I was like. Damn what parent calls their kids basically the same thing. And THEN I was like. Ok time to kill their mum and make their dad an asshole <3 like an asshole who's mostly an asshole out of grief but also that's like no excuse the minute you add kids into the mix

So like Link and Linkle are twins whose mum dies when they're born for Reasons and their dad calls them the same thing because he's grieving; he gets a bit of help raising them when they're little (maybe there's like a knight's daycare or smth at the castle?? Idk either way their dad's a knight) and then they go to school and don't really need supervision anymore

Link's the more reserved, mature one I think, while Linkle is the more outspoken of them - they go live with their grandmother when they're eleven because their father gets fired for drinking on the job and causing An Incident, and then their father fucks off into the distance leaving them with their grandma who kinda struggles to support two kids all but dumped on her lap

Idk the kinda vibes I'm going for are like that Link gets incredibly like sacrificial about his sense of self for his family, which then grows into being like that for His Country (after he joins the army at sixteen to provide for The Family) and kinda struggles a bit with his own identity and then the war FUCKS HIM UP on that front reallll bad because of like the Cia of it all and also Being The Chosen Hero

Also know that all these thoughts are coming out of me running around the map panicking because there are monsters EVERYWHERE and every time I pick up this game I forget how stressful it is...

[yellow-faerie]

me again! more voat questions because that AU is just SO fun to chew on. i'd love to hear more about how you came up with it? if that question isn't too brought lol, i just think writing/braimstorming processes are always so interesting and voat is so wonderfully specific, it just makes me curious about how it came to be :)

HELLO AGAIN - ok yes I love this question because voat is one of my oldest AUs (and actually I've had a lot of help from @summertimelethargy who does a lot of brainstorming with me lol)

It was actually originally going to just be a Gojo-centric one? Like he would be raised by his aunt a la Against The Kitchen Floor and suguru and shoko would have been raised normally, but then I started thinking about how roleswaps are really fun, and if Satoru is being raised like a totally normal kid (much like Suguru was - albeit, his aunt Knows), then what would it look like if I switched Suguru and Shoko as well?

Anyway someone sent me this ask about something unrelated but it sparked a lightbulb moment of - oh, wait, we could totally do something with this, and so Suguru's role became that of an assassin (which changed a LOT - we will return to this lol) and then because I'd mentioned the au, someone ELSE suggested this for Shoko and like...clan raised Shoko? Sign me UP

After this, I started playing around with an idea of the three of them all being connected to one of the clans - Satoru was originally going to return to the Gojo clan just after Itaru died and stay there until he went to school but I ultimately scrapped that because it felt...strange and not right for the story - I'm much, much happier with the ending I actually wrote, where Kiyoko tries to teach Satoru as much as she can with outdated knowledge of the politics, poorly recalled history of their world and a lack of any substantial understanding of his techniques, but with him turning up at the school untethered from the clan's expectations

That's really the only change that ever happened with Against The Kitchen Floor? There were a few background changes to Kiyoko over the years but it's ultimately a fic that's been set in stone since I first conceived of it and then word vomited it onto a page lol - the title, as well, is from a song that doesn't totally fit the ultimate vibe of the fic, but the title does and it was sort of what inspired the whole motif OF lying on the floor and I just...I am very proud of that fic lol

Shoko was actually also quite easy to pin down? She was pretty difficult to come up with a Competing Backstory to her canon backstory, because she has nothing, and technically you could argue that she was raised by a clan in canon! Regardless, that ask I got pretty much solidified that she'd be raised by one of the three major clans and I liked it because whether you could argue it was canon or not, it was going to lead to characterisation that I felt was AU enough for me

I played around with her being taken in by the Gojo clan, who were trying to make up for the loss of the Six Eyes, but I ultimately settled on the Zen'in because there were more canon characters to play around with and I love Maki and Mai SO much (that said, I am struggling with writing her fic rn...I'm sure I'll get into it but I'm still gearing up to being in the thick of things, which means I'm mostly just overwhelmed with thoughts and ideas lol) (also Maki&Mai being important to shoko is sort of another thing from the pink lighter and I regularly turn over the au where she sort of adopts them in canon and completes the trifecta of sashisu taking in two kids)

Also it's an opportunity to try and dig in to what misogyny in the big three clans really looks like? Also Naoya as a parallel to Gojo because Shoko in this is betrothed to Naoya and they have known each other since they were six, and despite being childhood friends of a sort (it's...complicated and I wish the Words would come out so I could publish her fic and show everyone lol), it doesn't magically fix Naoya or anything...

(idk if you've read this fic but coincidentally, Shoko being engaged to Naoya is an idea that Over The Garden Wall by @mockerd3light floats which is a genuine coincidence but also I love that fic and I need everyone I know to read it lol)

Shoko and Satoru were lovely and co-operative (well. Shoko isn't being cooperative because she doesn't want to fucking talk to me right now. SHOKO.) but Suguru was...uhhhh...not

There are 8.5k words of the original fic that I abandoned which was, ultimately, the right choice - the original plan for assassin!Suguru was that he'd be one of Ogami's grandkids and I was going to play with the idea of Suguru being raised in a cult, much like the one he'd go on to run in canon, but then it ended up focusing too much on too many OCs which - I love OCs, really, I am a mod on the Tolkien oc discord server lol and I run an entire prompt week for OCs, but I don't think it worked here...they were all very one note and not very useful except to fill gaps (though I did have Manami as one of them, and also played around with Kaori as well)

I'd been thinking about how Toji may have come across Suguru in his years working for Ogami and then thought about him taking Suguru in, and there was a time when these two ideas tried to be the same fic, which ALSO didn't work because it made the whole thing messy - like Suguru was being bounced between different underworld groups and it didn't make for a satisfying ground from which to build his character

So I put it aside for a bit because it wasn't really working, thought about other AUs and writing before writing The End of Summer and coming to The Realisation on how to fix this

Because my main problem was, I saw no reason for Toji to try and kill Suguru's family and kidnap him, like Ogami's group did in the original plan, because he's not looking for the power gain that they would get out of a special grade sorcerer - even in the draft where he sort of saves him from Ogami, he does it out of a pity for this kid and because he sees himself in him - so what I needed was a way for Suguru to perceive his family as dead/in real danger from him if he returns (because you may notice he only really gets nightmares about his mother's death, even though he does refer to both his parents as dying that night) while also being in a place to be saved by Toji so he has the intense attachment

And I was like...we can put him in a cage

So yeah, that pretty much put the nail in the coffin of the previous idea and I wrote what we have now (albeit with a bit of angsting because I have a LOT of ideas, and trying to streamline them into one fic without getting distracted is HARD) (that said I do have a special sort of love for my own obsession with writing in little details with WAY more detail than technically necessary and repeating descriptors...sure, probably lots of writers do that, but I have FEELINGS about it so...)

The final thing was to think of a good title because I didn't like any of my WIP titles, and I wanted to have them as four words and also song titles - ultimately, the Crane Wives came in clutch here so I recommend (when your migraine is gone...I really hope it clears up soon and you feel better, that sounds like HELL) listening to Never Love An Anchor because I listened to it and was like. Voat Toji. So it became the title lol

(I already have the name picked out for the Shoko fic though! I've settled on Me And My Husband, from the song by Mitski, so...fun fact lol) (I am making a voat playlist and currently debating whether I should give the longfic a name to match the prequel fics or if I should just call it Variation On A Theme....still that is SO minor in the grand scheme of things lol, I still haven't planned the whole longfic out)

So yeah, that's preeetty much the development of voat in it's entirety (at least the backstories) - I've chatted a LOT with Petra about this au though as she knows pretty much the whole plan going forward and regularly has Peak ideas about it, so it'd be remiss of me not to credit her for inspiration and ideas

...lots of feelings lol