goyuu thought of the day is that they would be so funny in an isekai situation a la bingqiu. Yuuji is a perfectly normal guy who has a Gojo Satoru anime body pillow and watches a compilation of the best Gojo scenes at the gym (rewinds the panting scene on a loop) while his gym buddy asks if they can pretty please just put on something else this time. he gets isekaied while trying to help someone and lands in the body of Itadori Sukuna, who is Gojo Satoru's least favorite student (won most likely to take over the world one day at the goodwill event awards ceremony). now he has to convince his teacher that no, this personality change is totally normal and not another evil plan, I promise! alongside frantically trying to cram Sukuna's various evil plots back into the closet while Kenjaku is hitting him up for the ETA on the prison realm plot
Satoru meanwhile is confused and amused, but he's been very strict about not developing feelings for any more villains after all that previous unpleasantness and he's pretty sure Sukuna's tried to kill him like three times already, so he's trying hard not to appreciate his student's change of focus from his throat to his ass
Nobara and Megumi clock the isekai immediately but they're so relieved that their classmate is no longer evil that they just get the truth out of Yuuji only to make sure that there's no possibility of Sukuna coming back
Yuuji is having trouble sleeping without his body pillow, but the great thing about this new world is that Gojo Satoru is real! surely he can get his pillow back in human form. all he has to do is figure out how to seduce him, throw Kenjaku in the prison realm that's burning a hole in his pocket, and figure out how to discreetly record his teacher so that he can get his gym compilation video back. it's really boring to do push-ups without watching Gojo take down villains
Plotting out loud, because I can. Glimmerglanger/Star Wars edition.
I read a fun smut Padmé/Obi-Wan piece from @glimmerglanger (another author I will read basically anything they write) that had a an interesting author end note:
....and the galaxy is saved because when Anakin tries to flirt with Padmé she goes, "Sorry, kiddo, not interested," because she's busy trying to arrange a time and place when she, Obi-Wan, and anyone else who wants to get down can all meet up.
And being me, I decided to plot out how this AU changes the timeline/plot. Because I can. And maybe if I do, it’ll stop knocking around my head.
So, relevant ‘plot’ points to this exercise for those who don’t want to read smut:
In Attack of the Clones, Anakin took a minor injury chasing Zam Wesell and went back to the Temple for treatment.
Padmé and the handmaids had crushes on Obi-Wan in The Phantom Menace.
Most of Padmé’s sexual experience up to this point has been with her handmaids (and they with each other).
Padmé initiates; the sex is very good; Padmé’s reaction is “I should see if he’s up for an orgy with the handmaids, they deserve something this nice.”
So! How I would plot out what comes next:
1) Anakin still tries to flirt with Padmé. It’s just as embarrassing as in the movies. Padmé decides to bring one of her handmaids with her to Naboo, hoping she’ll act as a buffer with Anakin. Let’s pick Dormé.
Dormé tells R2 to hang around Padmé when Anakin is there & don’t be afraid to use his arc welder/taser if he gets too pushy
2) The sojourn on Naboo is going to include fewer picnics and more Anakin bugging Padmé while she’s working with Dormé on Senatorial work. I see this leading to at least one argument about political structures.
Dormé totally yells at Anakin that he’s proposing fascism
How can a former slave think the scaled up version of what he suffered is a good idea?!?
Well the Chancellor could get so much more done if—
Dormé slaps massive history tome down on table
3) Padmé has good memories of Shmi, so they still go to Tatooine once Anakin shares he’s having nightmares.
4) Anakin does a Mass Murder™️ out of Revenge™️
5) When Anakin has his little ranting confession to Padmé (because he’s thinks they’re closer than Padmé feels), R2 starts pretending to be shutdown in the corner and gets a recording of his confession. Because Padmé is not interested in Anakin romantically, her little “anger is human” part of the speech also includes a “and I’m going to be very careful not to trigger the anger of this person who can throw things with his mind and has a sword that can bisect people easily.” mental clause. It’s a textual medium instead of a visual one. I get to include internal thoughts.
6) MEANWHILE, Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan got a nice dose of happy brain chemicals before starting his hunt and has gotten a decent amount of sleep while bouncing around the galaxy chasing down this attempted assassin. Obi-Wan digs in a little further at Kamino compared to the movies canon. He gets a copy of the contract from the Kaminoans. He ducks meeting Jango until after talking to some of the Alpha class (who introduce him to a couple of their proteges). Jango cannot hurry luring Obi-Wan to Genosis because he cannot find Obi for a couple days.
When Obi-Wan does talk with Jango there’s a lot more “why are you building an army for the Republic” and more paying attention in the Force to his answers.
Obi-Wan has concerns™️
Obi-Wan sends his concerns to the Council and Anakin with instructions to boost his signal to the Council and make sure it gets there. Also DO NOT COME.
7) Genosis. Obi-Wan sneaks around Genosis for a little bit longer before getting caught. He gets a little more information back to the Council. When Dooku says “there’s a Sith in the Senate”, Obi-Wan says “evidence or I think you’re lying to sow discord and ignore you.”
8) Padmé and Anakin get caught on Genosis just as fast as in the movie. Dormé and R2 do not get caught. They feed technical info about the droids and on the ground tactical information to the arriving Jedi and clone rescue force. The rescue force tries a more diversionary attack expecting Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Padmé to get themselves out of the arena. Fewer clones and Jedi die. It’s still a shitshow with terrible numbers of casualties. Just fewer than in the movie.
9) Anakin still goes after Dooku. He still looses his arm. Dooku still gets away. Padmé and Anakin do not kiss, and do not sneak off to Naboo to get married.
10) Anakin is brought back to the Temple to start healing and doing PT for his new space-future prosthetic arm (see recent writing advice re:arm amputations and why they’re portrayed unrealistically). Obi-Wan is sent off on a mission with Alpha-17. Padmé, Dormé, and R2 speak with the council about Tatooine — the council diverts a Shadow to Tatooine for more evidence to back up the decision they know they’ll have to justify to the Senate.
11) Obi-Wan’s mission goes badly. He and Alpha-17 are captured and tortured by Ventress. Word of this reaches the Council and Anakin...
12) After his mother’s death, Anakin has slotted Obi-Wan into the ‘must not die, will burn down the Galaxy’ slot that Padmé occupied in movie canon. Padmé has made herself unavailable for the role since they’re not in a romantic relationship (although Anakin would like to and plans to continue pursuing her). So Anakin subconsciously choose the other parental figure in his life, instead of the female person he cares most about.
13) Anakin freaks the fuck out, runs off to Kamino, grabs the 212th being assembled for Obi-Wan’s return from this mission (which includes Rex and Cody), says he’s the General’s Padawan/Commander, and they’re going to go rescue Obi-Wan.
14) Anakin did not have an assignment to do this. Anakin is disobeying direct orders to come the fuck back to the Temple. Anakin takes the 212th and runs silently. No one in the 212th knows that they’re not in communication with the rest of the GAR and are in danger of being declared AWOL.
15) Obi-Wan or Alpha escape long enough to send a transmission to the GAR before getting recaptured. The 212th pick up the signal and rescue Obi-Wan and Alpha. Obi-Wan contacts his superiors (the Council and GAR military) and gets informed of the situation with Anakin. Obi-Wan orders them all back to Coruscant.
16) The dressing down of Anakin is a) in the medbay before Obi-Wan is dunked in a bacta tank and b) EPIC. Phrases used include “My life is not worth all of these men!” and “Do you have any idea what happens to AWOL clones?!” Obi-Wan has to arrest Anakin for fear the boy will accidentally start a mutiny by ordering the ship NOT to go to Coruscant.
17) The Jedi Council. Anakin and Obi-Wan think they’re there for Anakin’s punishment for absconding with the 212th and disobeying order. Nope. Surprise. You done did a mass murder. Into Jedi jail you got to go Anakin.
“It’s not fair! You need me in this war!” excuse me?
“They’re just animals” excuse me?
“The chancellor didn’t think I did anything wrong?” ex-fucking-cuse me? say that one again.
18) So yeah, Anakin goes to Jedi jail, the Jedi Council decides to hide that fact to figure out the Chancellor’s involvement in that and prevent him from ordering the Jedi to release Anakin, Shadows start investigating the Chancellor (plus keep an eye on the Coruscant guard who have to interact with him), and sad Obi-Wan goes back to war while trying to investigate his concerns™️ about the Kaminoans and the clones (which is where I want the discovery of the chips to come in, but like, later. In a different story in the series. One where Ahsoka is Obi-Wan’s Padawan.
And yes, Padmé and crew do occasionally meet up with Obi-Wan during the war for some mutually fun sex.)
goyuu thought of the day is that they would be so fun in a messy soulmate AU situation. in a world where only sorcerers have soulmarks, yuuji is born without a soulmate like most of the population. when he consumes sukuna's finger and sukuna's marks briefly appear on his body, so does sukuna's soulmark, which is a match for gojo's.
no one (living) is pleased about this. sukuna is darkly intrigued and keeps a constant stream of nonsense in the back of yuuji's head about stealing gojo once he's free of this prison. yuuji is affronted on his teacher's behalf when he's not too busy being blindingly jealous.
except as time goes on, as sukuna's soul imprints its techniques on yuuji's body, so goes with it the soulmark. first recorded case of soulmate theft. yuuji is delighted with the situation. he finds a way to hurry the process along, grasping as much from sukuna as he is able. gojo is in no way displeased about the soulmate swap. anyone would be so lucky as to have someone so into you that they eat your actual soulmate and take over the bond. normal soulmate bonds are for suckers.
The idea of goyuu with Yuuji as part of Suguru’s cult tickles me.
I like to imagine this as part of an AU where Wasuke dies earlier than in canon and a younger Yuuji gets placed with Kaorijaku. Surely the kid’s mom will help him through his grief! (Wasuke is rolling in his urn.) Kenjaku now regrets not changing bodies and very quickly gets tired of having to go “not now, darling, Mommy is doing soul experimentation in the next room.” Also Yuuji is a terrible Frankenstein’s assistant, keeps yelling about the bodies. Children these days, honestly.
And so Kenjaku stuffs a Sukuna finger into Yuuji’s sandwich and sends him off to the House of the Children of the Star with a note for Geto about how Yuuji can be used in Geto’s plans one day. Geto has some conflicting feelings about this monkey turned vessel for the king of curses that his creepy frenemy is sending his way, but ends up taking Yuuji in. Who knows, maybe having another kid around will be good for the girls.
Alas, the kids don’t get along. Everyone’s traumatized, no one’s had any therapy except for cult-style confessionals. The situation is not helped by Kenjaku dropping by every few months with a finger for Yuuji to eat. Set menu, no going to your room without finishing your plate.
The girls can’t accept that non-sorcerers can be good, while Yuuji has enough memories of happy times with his grandfather and at school to know that all this about monkeys is crap. The arguments are ear-splitting, but over time they learn to get along as long as it’s not on certain subjects. Being around Yuuji still ends up softening their opinions, with Yuuji happily claiming the monkey insult because there’s nothing wrong with being one, and the girls benefiting from having a brother to chat with when they’re not arguing.
When Geto dies during the JJK0 plot and returns as Kenjaku, Yuuji and the girls are familiar enough with the forehead stitches to know what happened. After a hopeless fight where they get their asses kicked by Kenjaku, the three of them flee to Jujutsu High, hoping to become stronger as jujutsu sorcerers in order to take down Kenjaku.
And so you have Yuuji, Mimiko, and Nanako arriving to the place Geto scorned but also referred to as some of the best years of his life. They meet Gojo, finally learning more about the man Geto referred to as his former best friend without ever providing enough detail, as well as the current first year class and Gojo’s ward. Megumi’s around on campus a lot, training and preparing for his future as a jujutsu sorcerer, and he’s a lot less volatile than the current first years, who’ve met Geto and are unimpressed with the quest to save his body.
Good thing Gojo’s on board! Not only does he stave off Yuuji’s execution when the vessel thing gets out, but he joins the kids on their red string corkboard nights of connecting Kenjaku’s various plans to try to track their location.
Yuuji gets mailed Kaori’s urn and he has some big feelings about it, sparring them out with Gojo. He’s a little darker than he is in canon, having seen a lot already, but he has a good heart and a strong sense of purpose. He’s happy to share memories of the good times at the cult with Gojo, reminiscing on the meals and the jokes, the times Geto would play video games with them. Sometimes the girls join in too. The affection between Gojo and Yuuji starts off because of the fond and complicated feelings they have about Geto, but it doesn't end there.
Kenjaku goes to ground, but now that Gojo is determined to find them, it’s not too long before they’re located. By now, Yuuji and the rest have started their first year, and their mission ends up as bait for Kenjaku to resurface. Success!
After Kenjaku is taken care of, they're able to have a proper funeral for Geto and grieve properly. Meanwhile, the girls inherit the cult and start in on some reforms, having been worn down by everyone's insufferable morality. Yuuji convinces Mimiko and Nanako to stay with him at Jujutsu High despite them teasing him mercilessly about his crush on their teacher, but also they don't have anywhere to go, and also they want to make sure that this teacher treats their brother well.
"We're not getting together!" Yuuji tells them, but Mimiko and Nanako are very familiar with what it feels like to be drawn into Yuuji's orbit, albeit in a sibling fashion. They're already planning the wedding. It'll be great.
It takes a few years, but Mimiko and Nanako do get to walk Yuuji down the aisle, even if they don't manage to get him in a dress. Gojo's exactly as smitten as they thought he would be.
goyuu thought of the day is an AU where Choso is goyuu’s child 🥺 in this ‘verse, Kenjaku doesn’t bother providing the death paintings with bodies because their loyalties could be suspect and he’s not sure if he can deal with “you human experimented on us and threw us away” drama in quadruplicate. Yuuji is enough, thanks. years later, long after the canon plot is dealt with, Yuuji learns from cleaning up Kenjaku’s various crimes (there are many) that he has half-curse embryo brothers and discovers a way to continue their growth. he starts with Choso first, keeping him with him at all times on a sling and feeding him a steady stream of cursed energy like he once did with Yaga’s doll. to Yuuji’s delight, it works. Choso starts to grow into the form of a baby. meanwhile, you have Gojo, who is mildly displeased to no longer be the baby in the relationship and likes to tap at Choso in the sling like a zoo exhibit, but who can’t help but love him anyway after Choso is “born,” outgrowing the sling and opening his eyes for the very first time. Kechizu and Eso come along a few years later. by that point, Gojo figures they may as well just go for it and have a baseball team of half-curse kids. Yuuji is only too easily convinced by Choso’s pleading expression and babble about how he misses his other brothers
with the horrors fic wrapping up, I have been contemplating a goyuu kinktober fic. the idea haunts me. it would be a fic of loosely connected sex scenes set in the same 'verse, where post-canon future fic yuuji and gojo have started having Very Casual Sex That Involves No Feelings Surely (many feelings). it would largely be remedial sex scene writing practice for me, since this isn't something that I'm great at and would like to improve. the ambitious part of me would love to have 30 very short chapters for every day of kinktober, but I'd be happy to get half of that done, so I'll just see how well it goes. I'm using the official kinktober list for inspiration but not completely sticking to it. if there's any kinks that you think would be fun to see, let me know!
Plotting out loud, because I can. astolat/GoT fanfic edition.
So I’m going to do some plotting here, because if I can’t build a sequel plot to an AO3 fanfic on Tumblr, where else am I going to build it? My head? I’ll never finish it that way!
Right so, Winter’s Crown by Astolat, which is fanfiction of Game of Thrones. This thing consumed me for the 4 or 5 days it was being released. It’s a damn good thing Astolat posted two chapters a day because I was refreshing my email waiting for those chapter notifications two or three times an hour and then injecting several thousand words into my veins the second that notification hit.
Just as a programming note. I’ve read the first third of the first book in Game of Thrones. Most of my knowledge of the series has been absorbed by osmosis from my partner and general pop culture saturation. Moving on.
I loved Winter’s Crown.
I also took one look at the ending and said “well, they’re going to be in a civil war within the year.”
Again, to be clear, the ending was perfect for the story. I’m just also sure that if the story continued we’d be into a war for the Iron Throne, like the main series is actually about.
Here be spoilers for Winter’s Crown.
So, our set-up for the sequel is that Robb is still the King in the North, with all the magical power that crown from the Children of the Forest invested in him. He’s promised/engaged to Shireen, Stannis’s daughter and only heir. You know, the niece of Robert Baratheon, the King of the South/Seven Kingdom (except whoops Robb declared the North independent, so I guess it’s Six Kingdoms now?). Robb is also currently fucking Jamie Lannister. Jamie Lannister who was Robert’s Hand before uh... declaring? taking service? with Robb. (There was magic involved.) Who also probably didn’t actually explicitly break up with Cersei before following Robb out of the throne room on Robb’s orders after the declaration of independence.
ALSO, Stannis has already said to Robb that he intends to declare Robert an oathbreaker as the Protector of the Realm. Which from a strict reading of the situation, Robert WAS. Which Robb has already lain on Robert with the force of magic behind it. Here, I’ll quote: “I name you false kind and false friend, oathbreaker and coward, and may you end your days in the shame and misery your treachery deserves.” Which, as far as I can tell the only witnesses who aren’t Robb’s people are Robert, Cersei, the children, Margaery Tyrell, and a small handful of goldcloaks/Kingsguards. So, I doubt that bit of information is getting publicized by anyone in that room. Which Stannis was not.
Basically, I see war coming from two fronts. One, Stannis declaring Robert an Oathbreaker, which is politically tricky because either Stannis has taken himself out of Robb’s service and is making a play to be the king himself? OR he’s calling Robert an Oathbreaker as one of Robb’s sworn liege lords. Which, yikes. Plays right into the narrative that Cersei has built up for herself: that Robb wants power and will march on the South with the Wildlings and/or Stannis’s men at arms and/or the Lannister men (answering to Jamie).
I think if Cersei left the North alone after the Long Night and Stannis was very clear he was not one of Robb’s lords, Robb and the North would be happy to sit out a war and just work on recovering from the Long Night. Because, again, yikes, about half the population that survived the initial rise of the dead froze to death. The North is not in any shape to be going to war.
But I don’t think Cersei can put herself in someone else’s (Robb’s) shoes and believe they won’t act like a politically duplicitous cunt after power and only power. So she’s going to want to go to war to strike first and protect her own power. And also to pay back the “betrayal” of her brother/lover (Jamie) abandoning her. Also Stannis’s betrayal of swearing to the King in the North. But I think she’ll care about Jamie’s more.
And I think Robert isn’t strong enough, morally, emotionally, etc. to stop her.
So... I tend to think that Stannis at least wouldn’t kick off a war until he could secure his supply lines. Supply lines which after the Long Night freezing a significant portion of the country would be in terrible shape. Especially since the largest supply of excess grain is the Tyrell’s and Cersei has that on her side since Margaery Tyrell is married to Joffrey.
End result is that I think Cersei will kick off the war and Stannis will lay the charge of Oathbreaking as a response. To you know, weaken/divide her forces as much as he can.
What Cersei may not have is a competent General. Robb, Jamie, Stannis, and Tyrion are on the side of the North (whether or not Jamie and Tyrion can stomach fighting their sister and niblings/children, those two at least aren’t on Cersei’s side). Tywin is MIA from Winter’s Crown except as a brief aside in the past tense and may or may not be dead in this iteration of the world. The best General we can reasonably project to be on Cersei’s side is her Uncle Kevan. Who did see the dead with his own eyes, so that might change his thinking on if the charges of Oathbreaking are true and who that means he should fight for.
Meanwhile, Robb/the North has six direwolves, at least 3 giants, Brienne of fucking Tarth, Jon Snow, Jamie Lancaster, Tyrion Lancaster, AND, most importantly, every single hero and every foot soldier of the Long Night who survived who’s willing to be called to arms again (they’d probably all like to just go home and recover, but damn, if their king is calling, these are the people proven to show up when called). A significant portion of that army are Wildlings who are now released from their oaths and will most likely head back home over the Wall. But! There will also likely be a significant number who stay (*cough* Tormaund making eyes at Brienne) and can function well as a scouting force.
So the North has an army that trained and trauma bonded through the Long Night together. Morale/belief in each other and their leaders is going to be high. The Boltons are all dead due to events in Winter’s Crown and the Freys are possibly all to mostly dead, so Robb is not going to be stabbed in the back by traitorous liege lords this go around (no Red Wedding here!). What the North doesn’t have is food.
So, what they need is to get the intelligence of Cersei attacking quickly and to haul ass South where they can pillage food.
As a side note, I am assuming that Danerys does NOT show up with dragons at any point to turn this into a three-way fight. She is not mentioned at all in Winter’s Crown, not even the aside Twyin got, so I’m working off the assumption she’s dead or busy on her side of the sea and will not be appearing in a relevant time frame to this completely hypothetical sequel fanfiction of fanfiction.
So, questions I would need to answer, for myself, before writing:
1) What does Varys choose to do?
In GoT, he is canonically more loyal to the realm and thus the people living in it than whoever is on the throne. We know he’s still the Master of Whispers in the Winter’s Crown iteration of the world and was able to slip a number of spies/potential assassins into Robb’s camp. Assassins who were routinely thwarted by Brienne and Tyrion, but all it takes is once. And people might be more willing without the magical terror of the oncoming Long Night/Night’s King. Robb still has the magic invested in crown however, so maybe not. Essentially, I think Varys would be a strong asset for Cersei if she utilizes him (she didn’t earlier because he was telling her information that didn’t fit her world view). And therefore what he choses to do would be important. Tyrion at least knows Varys is the spymaster and to work to counter him.
2) Is Joffrey enough of a cruel bastard to still get offed?
3) Does the accurate parentage of the royal children come out?
Well, this is a lot of thinking about the state of the board at the beginning and not much thinking about ‘plot’ isn’t it? Maybe thinking about a theme would help me out here.
The theme(s) in Winter’s Crown is(are) oaths, the costs of them, being a ‘worthy’ person, and when to adhere to an oath. So I would want this hypothetical sequel’s theme(s) to flow naturally from that. Meaning... the consequences of adhering to your oaths when your opponent doesn’t. Good job brain, the theme is the Prisoner’s Dilemma and what shame and misery is the natural consequence of treachery.
Okay, cool, now I have the overall arc of my plot: a sudden swift victory on Cersei’s side (she seizes the first mover advantage) followed by the slow build to victory of Robb’s side. I picture this slow build to be Robb focusing on the smaller battles and alliances that builds a solid alliance to suddenly at the end sweep Cersei off the board. I’d focus on getting smaller lords on their side and peeling away minor but consequential logistical goods from Cersei’s side (armies march on good boots kind of thing) while Robb keeps his army out of direct confrontation with Cersei’s, nibbling away at their numbers in hit-and-run tactics, or swaying the men to withdraw their oaths to their lords and take up service with Robb, or just picking the terrain a battle happens in very carefully.
Too bad I don’t trust my writing chops to write a drawn out war story complete with military campaigns yet... Ah well, into the ideas pile it goes.
Fic title: So, that's the story. No, I'm not taking questions.
I feel like this title would lend itself well to a humor fic. Thus, this is Gojo explaining to Shoko how and why he currently has a much younger boyfriend. Despite his original statement, as quoted in the title, he folds pretty much immediately on the questions. Partly because he's shameless and partly because he just wants an excuse to talk about Yuuji. I feel like this would be a great way to explore Shoko and Gojo's relationship and draw in the ghost of Geto that's always hovering between them. Fun if Shoko doesn't see the appeal even slightly; she puts an expiration date a month out on the whole deal and goes back to ignoring all of it, except a month passes, then two, then three. The boyfriend keeps sticking around. At this point she might actually have to accept that somewhere along the line, Gojo has matured into someone who's able to keep up a steady relationship? Surely it's because they boyfriend is just young and idealistic and has rose-colored glasses.
It especially cracks me up to imagine this in a college AU context. Yuuji is a freshman, Gojo primarily does research while deigning to teach one class and has accrued a lot of fame for his research, Shoko is the administrator who pulled the short straw and has to ask about whether they're violating any university rules.
