Watch Your Step To Hell, Its A Long Fall!

Thinking about how we never saw Tiger Funeral, the only Ten Shadows Shikigami that's never been shown, and how it was only mentioned when Sukuna created Agito using Nue, Tiger, Serpent, and Deer.

There's:

Divine Dogs

Nue

Toad

Great Serpent

Max Elephant

Rabbit Escape

Round Deer

Piercing Ox

[Tiger Funeral]

Mahoraga

Hope it makes an appearance some day in the future 🥲

That’s What Makes Us Heroes and Villains

All the way back in the aftermath of the Stain Arc, Dabi and Himiko were the first new recruits introduced for the League of Villains. The three of them together, Shigaraki, Dabi, and Himiko are a trio. Effectively the three main characters of the villain side of the story. They are all three of them, traumatized children who were thrown out by society, and are now fighting back against it. They’ve been pushed out further and further until all three of them came to the same conclusion: Heroes are in the way. 

Dabi: “There are no true Heroes.” 

Shigaraki: “You heroes hurt your own families just to help complete strangers.” 

Toga: “You heroes mess everything up.” 

All three of them are children screaming the same thing at the heroes, trying to get somebody to listen only to be ignored. Shigaraki, Dabi, Himiko were all driven to become villains because of hero society. They became villains because heroes existed in the first place. 

A meta on the villain trio under the cut. 

Keep reading

Just wanted to say, I just saw your post about Chuuya's loyalty again, and when I read the tag on it mentionning your theory about Mori's involvement in Chuuya's past... I was confused for a minute and then I scrambled for my notes to know when did Yosano join the War when did Mori write his theory on abilities' as weapons

You sent me in a spiral with that one comment I'm still reeling. Is that where you were going with it???

hehehe

Tbh I need to reread the manga because I totally forgot about Mori's theory on weponizing abilities until you reminded me but it sure as hell is adding fuel to my theory, huh?

Basically I read a post about how real life Nakahara Chuuya had ties to Mori Ougai through his family, to the point where the poet spread rumors that he was named "Chuuya" because of Mori (he wasn't). Here's the post if you're interested.

But basically it points out that "N" could be referring to "Nakamura", instead of "Nakahara" like N claimed in Stormbringer. N lied about Chuuya being a copy instead of the original, so why would he not lie about this, too?

Real life Nakamura and Chuuya's father served in the military under RL Mori Ougai's command. In the Light Novel, it's mentioned that Chuuya's father had a high military rank, and not only that, he was also a doctor.

My theory is this.

In the world of BSD, N, Mori, and the man we learn to be Chuuya's father all served together during the War(tm) and became close. Both N and Mori were interested in harnessing abilities for military warfare. They learn about Nakaraha's son, a kid who just so happens to have an ability that could be manipulated into a singularity and conspire to take him away (the video and N's speech in the LN implies Chuuya's original ability might have been? Amplifying other abilities?? Which is super interesting, considering, y'know, Dazai's nullification ability).

N implies that the original ability user died in the creation of the singularity, but we know that's not the case. Also, here's an interesting tidbit from N's monologue: "The Arahabaki Project was, more or less, a highly classified state secret after all. Only one person was granted insight authorization."

He couldn't be referring to himself, he was one of the researchers. So why is this an important tidbit to mention?

What if Mori is the person who was offered insight authorization. This makes sense timeline-wise, considering that by the end of the project Mori would have still been in the military and Yosano would have still been under his command.

Mori knew the whole time who Chuuya was. He also knew Chuuya was human the entire time, hence why he so easily pointed out the graphite scar at the end, how he knew who Chuuya's parents were. And at some point in the future, this is gonna be revealed, and Chuuya is gonna find out.

Aaand that's my theory. I could go on about how this might tie in to that "storm on the horizon" sequel the novel was hinting at, but- idk. I might be completely off to be honest XD.

Hi! I loved your web weaves, would you mind doing another one for isagi? I’m having shrimp emotions about him rn

ISAGI YOICHI - “Me, As The First Grave”.

Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Grey” / Catherynne M Valente, “The Orphan’s Tales: In The Night Garden” / Jennifer Willoughby, “Beautiful Zero: Poems” / Virginia Woolf, “Orlando” / Cameron Awkward-Rich, “The Child Formerly Known As” / Sylvia Plath, “The Bell Jar”.

KaisaRinSagiSae on vacation.

I am amazed

That the Todoroki family is as functional and well put together as it is, I really am. This isn't me going, 'they shouldn't want him back!', btw... though I do still think that, for the record. It's more that they go through all that, and at the end of the day only Dabi goes on to not be a productive citizen.

I'm... not really going anywhere with this, it's just... their dad is an abusive asshole, yeah, that's the baseline. He's rich, sure whatever. The important bit is, I think, is that he's a hero, and you have to remember that in that MHA context: a hero, in MHA, is more than just a celebrity, more than just a public servant. The only way I can really put it is like this; in MHA, a hero is expected to hold up the sky, and so is treated as such.

In a society fracturing under the weight of overreaching government restrictions, escalating societal pressures, civil rights movements that are starting to bloom into terrorist organizations for the sheer lack of progress being made, heroes are the glue holding it all together. They are that big, that important, that beloved.

And the Todorokis were raised by, and abused by, one such hero. But he's not just a hero, oh no: he's not some down on his luck no-name barely scraping by, or struggling to manage his job, he's Endeavor, the Number Two Hero. He's second only to All Might, which might as well mean he's first among all humans. His face and image is on toys and posters, his name known to every man, woman and child in Japan, and probably by substantial amounts on other continents as well. In short, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that he, and the other top heroes, are pillars of society.

That is the man that abused them, that is the man that ruined their lives: a man who symbolizes the very society they live in.

I'll say it again: the fact that only Dabi snapped, and went on to reject their father and everything he stands for, astounds me. After driving their mother into a psychotic break, to the point she spends the rest of her life locked away, after driving their brother into suicide, everything he does to them and they just... go onto being normal people.

In my imagination, Fuyumi is... the leader of a motorcycle gang. Why? I don't know; I don't even think one could possibly exist in a society where law enforcement can come down out of the sky and casually flip an eighteen wheeler, but... still, that's my mental image for her. I think it's the sheer level of repression she has going on being released in cathartic violence and wild rampage.

Natsuo, meanwhile, I picture having a normal job, a normal life, but being just... super subversive under the surface. Maybe he hacks hero's bank accounts, maybe he joins some crazed revolutionary organization (MHA has enough of them), or is some guerilla reporter devoted to exposing heroic corruption or something; I'm not sure which, but him having that level of secrecy in his rebellion when he's outwardly the most straightforward about his anger amuses me.

For Rei? At some point, Endeavour comes to visit her, and she's the one to give him that scar on his eye.

As a treat.

And as for Shoto? In a timeline without Midoriya correction... well. I always imagined he'd go to school and become a hero, as expected. Endeavour tries to force him into his agency, but he refuses, goes his own way, does everything he can to avoid the man, even if it damages his career prospects, but above all else he refuses to bow, refuses to bend even an inch to his father.

But Endeavour refuses to leave his prized creation alone.

And then, one day, he just... snaps. Goes full Sephiroth, in fact. He snaps, kills his father before he even knows what's happening, and just kinda... wanders off, to accidently his way into becoming a feared villain, either still not emoting at all, or again like Sephiroth (or his brother), just going full in on the crazy.

And for bonus points? The last straw that drives him over the edge? Endeavour's eye getting scarred, Endeavour looking more like him, both of them marked by Rei's hand; that last, unwanted, connection to the man he hates most, laced with some of his deepest, most unresolved trauma.

Did this a couple months back and never posted it cause I wasn’t a huge fan of the anatomy. 

Just a reminder that Riko and Kevin grew up as brothers. And Riko was Kevin’s only family for the majority of his life. Take from that what you will.

idk i just think their relationship is one of the most interesting in the entire series

what would megumi’s life have been if he was actually raised by the zenin from day one? like either gojo lost the custody battle or they were able to scoop him up before gojo ever reached them. i doubt they would want to keep tsumiki with them so she’s not there for little baby megs.

i think it would be really cool to see a zenin raised megumi interacting with his fellow classmates when he attends the school, not to mention the contrast between him and gojo. like on paper they both should have gotten the same treatment-being pampered and spoiled rotten but we also know that the zenin think that hurting little kids makes them stronger so it would be super interesting to see megumi realise that the stuff that happened to him wasn’t normal and for gojo to have a guilt trip bc he wasn’t able to help megumi when he needed someone to help him the most.

So I have a fanfic that I’ve half written (no idea if I’ll ever finish it—I’d love to, it’s just hard to find the time) about EXACTLY THAT that I talked about in this post for an ask game.

That being said, that entire thing happens from Tsumiki’s perspective, and I agree with you—I don’t think the Zenin would have ever actually taken her too. They don’t want her. She’s not Zenin. She’s not a sorcerer. They only bought Megumi. For the most part, Megumi is absent from that post, and you asked about Megumi. So this is what I think would happen on Megumi's side of that post I linked.

It comes down to two things:

1. He is never, ever happy with the Zenin.

2. He never lets go of his sister.

Megumi’s old enough to remember Tsumiki when the Zenin take him away. He's old enough to love her. And I think that Megumi loves very quietly, but he also loves very violently. He wouldn't let his sister hold his hand on the walk to school, but he would sacrifice himself for her future.

I think the Zenin took him from his sister, and I think he kicked and screamed and wasn't strong enough. I think they thought he would forget her eventually.

And then I think he bit most of the Zenin Clan.

At the end of the day, what Megumi wanted was the one thing the Zenin were not willing to give him. They were never like the Gojo clan, they were never going to pamper him, but there are a great many things in this world that they would give the Ten Shadows finally returned to them. But they would not give him a non-sorcerer, non-Zenin sister who would only be a weakness to him. They refused to let him have any contact with his sister, and that was the source of a lot of what soured.

Any Megumi that was taken in by the Zenin would have been taken in to Naobito's household directly. He would be announced as the one who finally inherited their most cherished technique, and he would be declared heir, and the Zenin would call him beloved for it.

They would keep him in a room that was large and empty and almost always dark, and he wouldn't be allowed to decide when he slept or woke, and the door would always be locked from the outside. They would give him a wardrobe of expensive clothes that he hated, and he would never get to pick which of them he wore.

Megumi would hate them. He would hate all of them.

He's just not the type to be comfortable with or enjoy the adoration of others--especially when it's not backed up by genuine love. Megumi is someone who very much values sincerity and depth to emotion--it's one of the reasons why he seems to respect Yuuji so much. Yuuji is a good person who follows through with what he says. He's not just going to talk about wanting to save people--he's there making the sacrifices as he does it.

The Zenin do not actually love him. And he knows it. He's experienced love before, and this isn't it.

They love the idea of him. The fantasy of him that lives in their heads. He has no interest in being their little god prince to contend with the Gojo's own. He knows who he is, and it's not this. He wants to go home. He wants to find his sister again. He doesn't want to do this anymore.

And I think that's a feeling Megumi never escape: he just didn't want to do this anymore.

Megumi would feel like a bug pinned beneath glass in the Zenin compound. He would constantly have people managing him--when he ate, what he ate, what he wore, when he slept, when he woke, when he trained, what he did. Having to become a jujutsu sorcerer signified an inherent loss of control, but it's nothing compared to the sheer objectification that he goes through when the Zenin have exclusive control over him.

He has no power of what clothes he wears. How his hair is styled. His schedule, his diet, the people he speaks too--he's suffocating and the Zenin are just increasing pressure on him.

I don't think Gojo ever thought that would be Megumi's life.

We’re gonna just have this imagining exist in the same world as the Tsumiki centric fic described in the linked post, and in that, the reason why Gojo never took him in was because he didn’t know Megumi had a sister. He showed up, saw the divine dogs, realized Megumi had the Ten Shadows, and decided he couldn’t do this. He was a mess. He was grieving Suguru and Haibara. Megumi looked just like the man who killed Riko, and apparently inherited the fucking Ten Shadows of all the goddamn things. The Zenin would lose their shit, and Gojo didn’t have the energy to fight and told himself he didn’t need to, because if Megumi was the Ten Shadows he’d be cared for like a prince with the Zenin. He turned around and left and spent the rest of his life with Megumi in the back of his mind, always nagging him with whether he made the right decision. It wasn’t until Maki got there and made a few worrisome references to Megumi's standard of living that he started to really worry that he had made the wrong one, and it wasn't until he found out about Tsumiki that he knew it was the wrong decision.

It's like this: The Zenin hurt Megumi in every world.

It would be bad no matter what, but it really gets bad because Megumi refuses to stop trying to get back to Tsumiki. She's his sister. They didn't have anyone or anything in this world, but they had each other, and he couldn't let these people just take her away. He’s feral about it. He refuses to fit the mold they keep trying to cram him in. He’s trying to scale the walls to escape. He’s increasingly desperate and angry and the Zenin are getting more and more frustrated the longer he fights them. He’s the heir to the clan, and he can’t stop trying to leave it to get back to some random girl who isn’t his real sister and isn’t someone they’ll ever allow him to have.

It gets bad.

They put him under increasingly strict levels of control. He’s constantly being trained, which means he's constantly being hurt. He’s not allowed to speak to anyone without the clan head’s approval. He is under absolutely constant guard after he manages to get over the wall and halfway to his old neighborhood before they catch him again. Tsumiki’s name is not allowed to be said aloud, or his old name. He forgets his name used to be Fushiguro, but he doesn’t forget Tsumiki. He doesn’t let himself.

I think it escalates until it hits a breaking point. Megumi becomes increasingly self-destructive and non-responsive to everything they try. They push him to extremes that start risking permanent damage.

I think Megumi would try to hurt himself, eventually.

He wouldn't be in his right mind. He's in the most shit situation possible. He's undergoing pretty severe abuse. He'd be at the end of his rope from the lack of control over his own life, and he'd be spiteful as hell towards the Zenin. And the only thing he has to hurt them with is himself.

As a character, Megumi has always considered his own sacrifice as an acceptable means to the end of getting back at someone. Mahoraga, intrinsically, requires him killing himself as a way of killing someone else. He'd hurt himself if it was the only way he had of hurting them.

Naobito would cover it up. He'd never, ever want the rest of the clan to find out that it happened. It was already bad enough that Megumi openly hated them--he couldn't have the Zenin seeing any vulnerability in what was meant to be their most powerful member. He'd put Megumi in total lockdown until he could make it all go away.

Then they'd make a deal.

A binding vow. Megumi could never purposefully hurt himself again. He could never again try to leverage his own safety against the clan.

And in exchange, Tsumiki would be taken care of.

The last time Megumi saw his sister, she was on a sinking ship. They were running out of food, money, options--he doesn't know if she even has food anymore. He doesn't know if she lost the apartment or if there's still running water.

They're not letting him see her. But they are letting him take care of her. He can sacrifice another piece of control over himself, and she'll never have to worry about money again. They'll pay for her housing, her food, her education, for her every desire for as long as she lives. The trust the Zenin set up for her will be a generous one, and it will be managed meticulously by a trustee who can make sure she'll be provided for until she's old and grey. And Naobito will vow to never hurt her or send someone else to hurt her. She'll be safe. She'll be taken care of.

Megumi makes the deal.

In the end, the deal's what sort of breaks him.

Because he doesn't promise to stop looking for her, but the Zenin manage to make it a part of the terms anyway. When they approach Tsumiki's mother with the offer to be her family's beneficiary, they include a requirement that Tsumiki be moved to another city entirely with no forwarding address given. She needs to be somewhere that Megumi can never find her again.

The Zenin keep the old apartment. They pay the rent every month. And the next time Megumi manages to make it off compound, they let him make it all the way there before dragging him home. They let him see the empty apartment with all its empty rooms.

Naobito wants him to know that Tsumiki's gone. He wants him to know that he'll never find her again.

He tries to run a few more times after that, but he never makes it very far. He doesn't have anywhere to go.

In the linked post, Megumi finds Tsumiki, just once. She's on a class trip. He's on one of his very few and far between allowed excursions off the compound grounds, and he sees her in the crowd and recognizes her, and he ducks away from his escort before anyone can stop him.

She remembers him. He didn't think she would do that.

She tries to save him. He didn't think she would do that either.

She still loves him. And he was always too afraid to hope she would do that.

It goes the same way it did the first time. There's a car, and the Zenin shove him in it. She's on the outside, and he's trapped within, and he wishes she didn't scream so loudly when it happens. The sound never seems to leave his dreams.

His sister still loves him. Naoya hits him in the back of the head. He wakes up, and it was like she was never there at all.

But they hit him harder, after. Like they're trying to beat the memory of her out of him. He has even less freedom, when he already had next to none at all.

But he still has a sister. He has a place to go that isn't here. He just has to figure out where that is.

He wouldn't really have anyone in the Zenin clan. Most people are just... weird about him. Naoya's violently abusive. Naobito's weird and violently abusive. Everyone wants him to be someone he's not.

Maki would be his favorite.

He doesn't care about whether she's got cursed energy--his sister didn't have any. And she's obviously strong. She doesn't treat him like a divine blessing or try to force him to act a certain way. I think they would have genuinely liked each other, but kept each other at a distance. They're both trapped in an abusive situation and keep themselves safe by keeping everyone else at arm's length.

He would have been happy to see her get out, though. He would have told her that she could have his spot as heir or head or whatever when she came back if she wanted it. She would have told him that if he ever got out... well, fuck it. They could be something then. Family. Whatever the fuck they weren't allowed to be here.

She would have told him she's sorry, and she would have meant it. The only one she she regretted more than Megumi was Maki. He would have told her not to be, that if she dared to be sorry for getting out that he would never forgive her, and he would have meant that too.

I think his relationship with his own techinque would be very different in a world where the Zenin raised him. In canon, his issue is that he doesn't view himself as someone who could be powerful or win in the long run, but in this world, all he ever hears is how powerful he is. Pride of the fucking Zenin. The most powerful of them in centuries. Meant to rival Gojo fucking Satoru himself.

I think his real issue would be controlling it.

His technique would be a source of negative associations for him. It's the reason why the Zenin took him away. Most of his interactions with it have involved getting beaten and hurt by either his family or a high-level curse they shoved him in front of. I think he'd have a lot more firepower under his belt than at the start of canon, but he'd have less of a fine tuned control over it.

He lost control over his own life because of his shadows. It think that would manifest in struggling to control his own shikigami at times. he's not as in-sync with them as he is in canon.

Eventually, he'd go to Jujutsu High. He would be the only one in the first year class at the beginning, just like in canon. And he'd finally meet Gojo Satoru, the man he's supposed to topple.

He looks at Megumi really goddamn weird.

He's... enthusiastic. About. Teaching. He guesses. And constantly asking prying questions about the Zenin, but not in the sort of way he'd expect from a rival. In the sort of way he'd expect from someone concerned about him. Which is stupid. And annoying. And weird. He keeps a distance from everyone. They've all heard about the Zenin clan heir, and he has no interest in having to fit or break whatever mold they've already cast him in. He's better off on his own.

Maki's there. She's cordial where other people can see it, and in private, she takes care of him in a way that's terrifyingly close to familial. He's not sure if he likes it. He's not Mai, and she's not Tsumiki, and they both want someone they can't have.

She isn't sorry she left. She is sorry she left him. He can hate her for it all he goddamn pleases.

Of course, if this is in the same world as the linked post, Megumi finds Tsumiki again. He finds her in Sendai.

He gets to keep her, this time.

Gojo Satoru, of all the goddamn people, intervenes and becomes his sister's benefactor. It's super fucking weird. He won't stop looking at Megumi strangely. He won't stop insisting that he didn't know he had a sister, like that matters.

That would sort of be the first time in a long time that life actually gets better for Megumi.

I think he would ask to go by Fushiguro again, once he asks Tsumiki what his name used to be. He'd ask her if she minded it, him taking the name again, and he'd ask the rest of the school to call him Fushiguro instead of Zenin.

Predictably enough, Naobito loses his shit when he finds out, but it's not nearly as big of a pain in the ass as he thinks it is? Because Gojo intervenes.

Gojo keeps intervening.

It drives Megumi nuts, because if anyone was supposed to hate him, it was this guy. If anyone was supposed to be against him, it was this guy. This is the guy he was supposed to rival. This is the guy who killed his shitheel bio dad.

Gojo's just... good to him. He keeps him safe. He keeps him safe from his own goddamn family, and that's--no one's ever done that. No one's ever protected him from the Zenin.

The Zenin try to remove him from the Tokyo campus and move him to Kyoto the second they find out Tsumiki's there, and Gojo just... says no. It causes an uproar, and he doesn't fucking budge. It's treading dangerously close to him kidnapping the Zenin clan heir, his refusal to let them remove him from the Tokyo campus, and he doesn't care about whatever problems it causes him.

Megumi's his student. He doesn't want to leave. So Gojo won't let them take him.

He personally goes to Kyoto and collects him, the one time the Zenin force him into a car and move him when Gojo's off on a mission. He tells the higher ups to get fucked. He changes Megumi's student I.D. to read Fushiguro, and he causes problems for Yaga and the assistants until they start calling him Fushiguro as well.

Megumi's different with the other students once his sister is there.

He's more connected with them. He becomes best friends with Kugisaki and Itadori. He gets closer with the second years. He's visibly happier, and it sort of casts in sharp contrast how unhappy he was before this.

And Gojo? Gojo's so goddamn sorry. He didn't know megumi had a sister.

The thing is that now that both Tsumiki and Megumi are on campus, it sort of haunts Gojo with what could have been. They're both fantastic kids--funny, smart, resourceful. And it's painful watching them try to rebuild what was taken from them. And it could have just. never happened. Because he could have saved them both. He could have been their family.

It's sort of painfully obvious the Zenin abused Megumi, and it fucking haunts him. He doesn't even have to read into Megumi's behavior--he sees it happen, right in front of him, with how they try to control him and push him around. He wants to kill them for it. He wants to hate himself for it. He could have saved Megumi and he just. He didn't.

He wishes he did.