#reading or interpretation

[pope-mayward]

[astroismypassion]

Astrology observations 🌜🌜🌜

Credit goes to @astroismypassion

🌜🌜If you are looking for improvement in your self love: invest into activities that fulfil your Moon sign and house.

🌜🌜Beware of Lilith and any major big 6 planet connections! If you know a Virgo Sun and you are Virgo Lilith, you might really “expect” somethings from them. Such as maybe them buying you coffee or treating you to a meal. Lilith will take it almost for granted and won’t really be grateful or will forget about Virgo Sun’s good deeds. Be careful also because the sign of your Lilith in your natal chart indicates the sign that might steal from you. For example if it’s in an Air sign, might steal your ideas, opinions, music taste. If it’s Earth sign, money and food. If it’s Fire they take away your confidence etc. Lilith overlays in synastry are really important, don’t underestimate it.

🌜🌜Aquarius Venus/Mars are confused in love. They can be flighty more when they don’t really know what they want out a partnership. I see that having shared hopes and dreams helps them. But often times they just don’t know what they want and that’s why they appear inconsistent.

🌜🌜 For all Scorpio Risings that struggle with romantic partnerships: I hate to be the messenger, but you guys need to hear it. Because I’ve seen too many Scorpio Risings being energized by partner’s attention and obsession over them. But when your partner is not every single moment with you or is texting you, you almost don’t know what to do with your full Scorpio energy. You will have the most troublesome relationships when you are not taking care of yourself appearance wise and lack self care/self love and when you are out of tune with your achievements. This means your relationships have better chance of blossoming when you incorporate physical exercise, balance eating weekly and really invest your time mindfully into your daily work duties and responsibilities. Stop trying to control your partner’s actions and get offended by them not “obsessing” over you, but invest that inner need for control into own daily activities. You will gain more stability in yourself, because of new confidence you gained because of your achievements. AND you will be more stable in dealings with your partner. Which equals for a harmonious, balanced relationship that every Scorpio Rising is striving for secretly.

🌜🌜Neptune in the 2nd house: people see you more confident than you even feel about yourself.

🌜🌜 Check Sidereal astrology you guys! It might make help you build a bigger picture. Like you might not understand why you are struggling with finding a profession or a career path? Look at Sidereal MC and Mars more in-depth. It will tell you a bigger story and if you combine those interpretations it will make sense.

🌜🌜Scorpio Juno just circle between the same exes they have. They just keep going back and forth with them. Scorpio Juno is the type of person they might not even date that many new people, but keeps going back to previous lovers.

🌜🌜 This is my one of the most far out theories I’ve made, but it’s true. Check your Venus sign and house. You attract people that are born on dates of your Venus sign and house. Look for aspects as well. For example: you have Taurus Venus in the 6th house: you attract people born on the 2nd, 20th, 6th, 11th, 29th, 15th, 24th. Then you also have a Venus trine Mars aspect: so you also attract people born on the 1st, 10th and 28th.

If you have Venus in the sign of or in the house you attract people born on the DAY of any month

Aries/1st house/Venus Mars: 1st of the month, but also 10th, 28th

Taurus/2nd house: 2nd, 11th, 20th, 29th

Gemini/3rd house/Venus Mercury aspect: 3rd, 21st, 30th

Cancer/4th house/Moon Venus aspect: 4th, 22nd

Leo/5th house/Sun Venus: 5th, 23rd

Virgo/6th house/Mercury Venus: 6th, 15th, 24th

Libra/7th house: 7th, 16th, 25th

Scorpio/8th house/Venus Pluto: 8th, 17th, 26th

Sagittarius/9th house/Venus Jupiter: 9th, 18th, 27th

Capricorn/10th house/Venus Saturn: 1st, 10th, 28th

Aquarius/11th house/Venus Uranus: 11th

Pisces/12th house/Venus Pisces: 12th

🌜🌜To me Aries Juno is the ultimate “I don’t need a partner, I have myself and I’m in it for life” placement. They are just SO confident, self-assured and full of dreams and ideas for improving their own life.

🌜🌜Scorpio North Nodes care about their reputation A LOT. Even if it something really small, such as if you don’t know how to behave in public politely and be more reserved, they might actually try to control that attitude of yours. They will openly say to you that you need to be less loud in public spaces. They really care about the public’s perception of those around them and how it makes THEM look.

🌜🌜I noticed Earth Lilith is kinda dominating the whole chart. If you are a Cancer Sun, but Capricorn Lilith. You will most likely be even more hard-working, stingy with money and more success oriented than a regular Cancer Sun. Same if you have Taurus Lilith, you might be more of a materialistic Cancer, but at the same time stingy and love to indulge.

🌜🌜Taurus Mars: you can only work out if there’s a treat at the end. And you cannot workout on an empty something (for example in the morning).

🌜🌜Neptune in the 2nd and 4th house is actually about self empowerment. When you procrastinate, your parents/partners/family members do too. If you don’t want to earn money, they might be passive about it as well. But as soon you show effort and start working towards a project for example, you will notice they will start becoming hard working too. So if you doubt yourself, they will doubt themselves too. And this is how generational family patterns theme comes into place since it’s Neptune/12th house and undoing.

🌜🌜 I’ve noticed Scorpio Mars has this almost “kink” or a liking for people putting them in their place. They might constantly procrastinate on studying for an exam, because they want someone to “force” them basically. Only then they will be convinced and wanting to study. Also, they really remember well people that talked back to them and put them in their place. It’s almost like that person gains some sort of respect in their eyes.

🌜🌜The person that you didn’t date, but have always seen as a “special friend”, your “sacred” friend probably has the sign of your Vesta.

Credit goes to @astroismypassion

[7greentears]

*sigh* Back on my Phantom of the Opera bullshit.

I love and hate him, just a pathetic corpse man. 

[misseffie]

The Green Knight is a movie about being in your late 20s/early 30s as you struggle to grow up and find meaning in life, in a world that’s crumbling around you. Also your mother is using dark magic to kick you out of the house.

[pinkiepiebones]

This summer’s hottest movie is THE GREEN KNIGHT. This movie has EVERYTHING- sleepy Dev Patel, drunken Dev Patel, Confused Dev Patel, EXCALIBUR?! Christmas beheadings, witchcraft, MERLIN?!, local celebrity Dev Patel, amazing hairstyles, arts and crafts, horses, roadtrips, muggings, tied up Dev Patel, muddy Dev Patel, ghosts, foxes, skeletons, mushrooms, JOEL EDGERTON?!, bewildered Dev Patel, premature ejaculation, creepy grandmas, beard kissing, the ancestors of the guy from Queen’s “News of the World” album, sad Dev Patel, damp Dev Patel, scared Dev Patel, running Dev Patel, arranged marriages, bells, kids, letters, giant axes, enchanted accessories, ominous chanting, and a boat. Go see it!!

[evercelle]

beloved of the anemo archon

[edorazzi]

Hi! Just consumed what i believe was all of your mlb content and i must say, i love it all. Your art is gorgeous your poses organic your dialogue hilarious and just, everything is great (want to especially mention that my favorites are the mentor au and your felix×nino comic, they simply pull at my heartstrings so beatifully and i must say itd be awesome if you felt up for some more felix×nino dynamic) i revel in your work and hope you are proud of all the awesomenes youve created

Truly hoping youll have joyious times ahead of you!

This is the sweetest message ever, omg! Thank you so much!!! 🥰

I kinda fell out of Miraculous for a little while (when S3 ended so badly that I nearly didn’t bother with S4), but now I’m back on the wagon and so pleased people still enjoy my silly art!! 💕

And YEAH, it’s about time for more Nino/Felix! Here’s some Twin AU content based on S4′s Rocketear; Adrien failed as Aspik so a Carapace identity reveal would be kinda rubbing it in. What if Nino went to Felix about his Alya/Chat conspiracy theories instead? 👀🔍

You got dumped, dude, just accept it! Don’t pin this on Chat Noir!

[teacupsandcyanide]

I would JUST like to say that Tolkien did not put weed in his books. Its actually tobacco that he renamed because he HATED that word, and most “new” words. So he just renamed it. Tolkien loved old words and old languages, and HATED new words (for some reason). And to him, tobacco was new. A lot of people think tolkien was Down To Get High but REALLY he was not.

hi cons-and-constellations, thank you for ur recent letter and addition to the post itself. i assume this is about me joking that gandalf was hitting up a joint?  i’m genuinely confused about whether you’re 1) very mad at me, 2) this is just a pet peeve for you, 3) you sincerely want to save me from thinking Tolkien was super into weed. i tried to compose a suitable tongue-in-cheek reply but now i can’t decide which is the most appropriate, so I organised them into an alignment chart for your perusal. love you and hope you’re well

[fuckyeahisawthat]

The thing that makes Izzy and Ed so fun to analyze--and what I think makes their relationship the subject of such wildly different interpretations across the fandom--is that, like many things in OFMD, they are running on multiple layers of text and subtext, symbolism and metaphor at once. So textually they are first mate and captain which suggests one possible range of power dynamics, and certainly to hear Izzy tell it he is the long-suffering assistant to an increasingly erratic and distracted boss. But they are also (metaphorically) agent/manager and aging rockstar, which is a different power dynamic. AND Izzy is the metaphorical spouse that Ed is uncomfortable in a married state with and the metaphorical toxic ex that he goes back to after Stede breaks his heart. AND they are a white man and a Māori man with (probably?) similar class experiences but distinctly different racial experiences. Izzy calls Ed boss and Blackbeard and Edward and even Ed. He stands at almost-military attention in front of Ed’s desk and lies to his face about whether Stede knows who Ed is, and he seeks Ed out in private and offers to kill Stede for him, as an act of service and an offer to protect Ed’s reputation, because he knows Ed doesn’t kill people, and he flat-out ignores Ed’s no and tries to kill Stede later anyway and is completely confident that Ed won’t stop him even though by their official power dynamic Ed should be able to halt his sword hand with a word. They have a scene together that ends with Ed’s hand around Izzy’s throat and Izzy is in control of that scene the entire time. And it’s all happening at once! And I think which layer you focus on and which lens you see them through changes how you read their dynamic a lot! It’s just really rich and complex and layered writing and acting aaaaaaaaaaaaa!

[noknowshame]

I just finished reading The Odyssey and in other news my life is over forever

[ultimategirldad]

so I wanted to give pre-gasterfication jevil a shot but I accidentally made him a teeeeeny bit pretentious ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ woops! also ball

he's got to be pretty intelligent to be a good court jester, so. this guy most definitely recites shakespearan tragic villain soliloquys and I'm not sorry about it

[astroismypassion]

Astrology observations 🎢🎢🎢

Credit @astroismypassion

🎢🎢 Sagittarius Venus and Mars are not jealous, because they are always seeing the BIGGER PICTURE. They get to spend everyday with you and therefore are not threatened by someone spontaneously flirting with their partner.

🎢🎢 Mercurial (Gemini/Virgo) Venus and Mars are typically not really jealous. Because they are too focused on their own self-improvement to worry too much about what their partner is doing.

🎢🎢 Every excellent detective for social media accounts I know is Taurus/Scorpio/Libra woman. You know how to find someone’s cousin from 2 family generations ago. 😂

🎢🎢 Cancer over the 8th house/Scorpio Moon/Moon in the 8th house don’t fight for people, for example for their partner. If you the partner had the slightest desire to break off the connection, Cancer over the 8th/Scorpio Moon/Moon in the 8th house would just let them. They are used to people tuning into them emotionally and figure out what THEY are feeling from a young age (usually they were very dependent on a mother or a big sister to cater to them emotionally). So in their adult relationships they don’t communicate their feelings well. Instead they just hold it in for too long and then let it all out at once leaving everyone around them thinking they had “mental breakdown”. Which is not the case. They just let out their emotions like every other human being. But instead they get “judged” for it, because of how stoic they usually are. 🤷🏼‍♀️

🎢🎢 Being a Moon square/opposition/ conjunction Saturn is so frustrating. Your family randomly reminds you to pay attention to your diet and body. Or sometimes even people on social media or someone from the general public with their remark. These are also the people that might need to lose weight for their job (for example if they model), because a boss asked them to. Or your job require you to look a certain way. You might also be an athlete that needs to put on more weight or lose it for the chosen sport.

🎢🎢 Gemini Sun/Mercury/Moon/Venus will often treat you for coffee or buy you something small. Such as buy your favourite snack as a love language or buy a small amount of your groceries.

🎢🎢 Taurus North Node, Taurus MC, North Node at a Taurus degree or Saturn over the 2nd house: mum still buys you clothes for birthday as a gift or just like randomly.

🎢🎢 Capricorns when underdeveloped project a lot of family trauma and issues they faced with their family members onto their children. They were likely controlled by their own parents, so they impose that upbringing on their children. A think a prime example for this is Yolanda Hadid. 👀😬

🎢🎢 If you have Uranus in the 12th house or Neptune in the 11th house, you likely have your friend list on facebook hidden.

🎢🎢 A lot of Libra Sun women and even Libra MC make earrings?? What’s up with that? Does Libra rule ears?🤔

🎢🎢Scorpio Risings/Pluto in the 1st house/Pluto Ascendant aspects would procrastinate on homework, studying for a test just so that they can give themselves a biggest challenge than the current one. You create chaos for yourself just so that you can actually make a change and start for healing era.

Credit @astroismypassion

[thegraininessofitall]

[trackingthehuntress]

batfam batfans, if your man

protects and prioritizes the wellbeing of children

goes after rapists/pedophiles

has a complicated relationship with lethal force but ultimately thinks that in some specific cases it can be justified

that’s not your man. that’s helena bertinelli

[hawnks]

the eightfold path: 2

r18

suguru getou x reader

[soulmate identifying marks, canon divergence, reader is not a sorcerer, canon-typical violence, olympic level pining, gojo is still a bastard in this send part, protective getou suguru, maybe a little too protective..., mention of food, everyone's really going through it, MAJOR spoilers for hidden inventory arc]

He lost you, somehow. He is going to get you back. Somehow.

Incident Log

March 6, 2006

Jujutsu Technical College (Tokyo Branch) has lost contact with The Anomaly. Second Year Grade 1 Sorcerer Satoru Gojo is suspected of having aided in the escape.

When asked to confirm these allegations, Gojo had this to say, quote, “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

It is not believed at this time that The Anomaly has defected, though current motivations are unclear. Further investigation will be conducted at a later date.

Addendum: This situation has been marked as Non-Critical as of April 2006.

…

Suguru sleeps for seven days.

It’s a magically induced coma, and Shoko sends you a blurry picture of his face each morning, always with some unhelpful caption. Nothing new. Maybe he won’t wake up?

You know she’s just fucking with you, trying to prove some point in the cruelest way possible. It just reaffirms your decision to cut ties. He’ll never be able to defend himself, when he’s always looking after you.

He’s shirtless in the pictures Shoko sends, laying flat on his dorm bed. You can see the shadow of his mass of soulmarks leeching out onto his shoulders like an augue. In the massive tangle of words, yours is unidentifiable.

He must have found some of the others, already. There’s only so many days in a lifetime, only so many chances to meet someone. Did he give them the same promises? Did he sacrifice himself for all of them like he did for you?

How unfair is that, you think. So much to do.

But he only has two hands.

Sometimes you would watch him interacting with others at Jujutsu Tech, trying to figure out which of them belonged to him. Out of masochism, or genuine interest, you weren’t sure. You were never able to tell, anyway.

He treats everyone with the same temperate kindness. Wry smile, cards close to his chest. He’s something benevolent, and powerful. A peacekeeper among the sorcerers. He tries to be that for you, too. But there’s no peace to be had in your life, not with what you are. And so there is no peace for Suguru, either.

Ironically, it’s Gojo who helps you run. You’re not sure how a seventeen year old has so much reach or authority, but suddenly you have your highschool diploma in your hands, three months early, and a passport delivered to your door by an unhappy looking man in a charcoal gray suit.

“Pack everything you need,” he tells you cryptically. “It’s a one way ticket.”

He leaves you a twenty-page itinerary, every part of your journey covered in the bullet points. Your Visa is a special work permit. You’d be there under the jurisdiction of another sorcerer, off the record. You don’t recognize the name.

Details about the job you’d be doing are vague, and slightly daunting. Research. You guess that couldn’t be too bad, whatever it is. And if it’s untenable – you have nothing keeping you tethered.

Suguru sleeps for seven days. That’s exactly how long it takes you to get away.

Your plane takes off from Narita International Airport. It’s a red-eye flight, and hardly anyone is loitering around your gate beforehand. You get there severely early, giving yourself enough time to eat or catch a few winks of sleep, but you’re too amped up to do either of those things. Instead you just sit in front of the big, picture window, watching the planes scroll up and down the runway, feeling vaguely nauseous.

Your hands are cold. You miss your soulmate, already.

You’re half asleep when Gojo plops down in the seat next to yours. The chair is too small for him, and his legs are folded up at an uncomfortable angle. His lean body curls in like a crescent moon. He’s holding single serve cup of lucky charms, which he rips open unceremoniously. He picks out only the marshmallows.

You can’t remember ever seeing Gojo in a place he seemed to fit. Too large, or loud, or modern. He always stands out, a foriegn entity. It was the exact opposite of your soulmate, who seems like a fly on the wall even when he’s fighting.

For a second, you think you might be hallucinating, this boy glowing in the almost-light. But then he speaks.

“Will you die?” You can’t tell if he’s serious. He’s not smiling, but he rarely does in your presence.

“I don’t think so,” you return, honestly.

It’s never a sure thing, with soulbonds. In some cases, soulmates parting for any amount of time causes severe distress, be it bodily or mentally. You knew one unlucky girl who would vomit if she didn’t have physical contact with her soulmate everyday.

But you don’t feel anything, without Suguru here. Just… unhappy. Terrible but not unbearable, a sunburnt kind of discomfort.

You’ll get through this; it’s just going to hurt a little, first.

Gojo tilts his cup toward you, in offering. You scoop out a few pieces (there’s hardly any marshmallows left), chewing as you turn back to the window. The taste isn’t like you remember, from childhood. Sweeter, maybe. Drier. A bit harder to swallow.

Gojo asks, “Are you making the right decision?”

“Are you?” you counter.

He lets out a short breath through his nose. Almost a laugh.

A silence falls between you that would have been awkward, if not for the clear animosity he holds toward you. Instead it’s almost comfortable, the two of you inspecting each other, passing judgment that will ultimately hold no bearing on anything. The two of you are so out of each other’s hands at this point it may as well be trainspotting. He can’t hurt you because Suguru would never forgive him; you can’t hurt him because no one can.

Besides that, it’s hard to muster any real ire toward him. He irritates you to the point of insanity on the best days, but you’ve never really wanted to see harm come to him. Even when everyone on campus was muttering about how they’d like to see him taken down a peg, you didn’t feel the same.

Suguru certainly has something to do with it — how could you hate your soulmate’s best friend? But it runs deeper. You’ve gotten to know him, these past few months. Seen first hand what he’s capable of, and not.

Gojo is a brat, sure. But you believe, really and truly, that he has the capacity to be better.

Maybe that’s why you trusted him, with all this.

“You’re not gonna find redemption out there,” Gojo says. “I’ve seen better people try, and fail.”

You flick his arm, half-hearted scolding. “Good thing I’m not looking for it.”

He looks at the place you’ve touched him, the sleeve of his shirt. He’s not in his uniform, and his clothes are less flashy than you thought they’d be. He looks like just a boy, right now.

“This is gonna make him miserable,” Gojo sighs. “I can already imagine it. Wet cat type of damage.”

You hum, not ready to consider that. You reach for another handful of cereal, and he meets you halfway, letting you take your fill, watching as you eat.

He smirks. “Can’t believe you’re dumping your soulmate.”

“I won’t stand between him and his life,” you murmur. “That’s just not fair.”

You peek at him. You’ve gotten used to him hiding his eyes, but at this moment you’d be curious what’s behind the sunglasses. Revelations or regrets. Or nothing at all. It could very well be that his concern for you only extends to Suguru-related territory.

“Life’s not fair.” Gojo stands, the conversation evidendently over. He kicks the heel of your boot, lightly, his own form of a farewell. Then he’s stalking away.

It’s quiet, the small hours of the morning still hushing everything. Even the ambient sounds of bustling passengers seem to float above it all. You may as well be alone in the world.

“Gojo,” you call, but he doesn’t stop, just slows his pace slightly. You don’t know where the desire to ask comes from. Maybe because this is the last time you’ll ever get the chance. Maybe because this, your escape, has formed some terrible sort of kinship between you two. But the words slip out, unbidden. “Are you one of his, too?”

“Who knows,” he says dryly. He doesn’t even turn around.

…

Are you okay? sent 18:06

I’m sorry for not contacting you sooner; I’ve been asleep for the past few days, or I would have reached out. Can we talk? It doesn’t have to be on campus, if you don’t want. Wherever you’re comfortable. sent 18:20

I’m sorry about what happened. I know you must have been scared, and that’s on me. I’ll talk to Yaga in the morning. You won’t have to go on anymore missions, I promise. sent 19:15

missed call

missed call

Can you please just let me know you’re okay? sent 21:32

missed call

We don’t even have to talk. sent 02:03

No one will tell me what’s happening with you and i’m worried. sent 03:45

you can yell at me if you want sent 03:56

or anything sent 03:57

im sorry sent 05:34

missed call

missed call

missed call

…

Please don’t worry, because I’m alright. opened 08:07

Miss you, love you. opened 08:08

Take care of yourself okay? opened 08:08

…

please sent 14:02

…

Message Error: The number you are trying to contact is no longer in service, or message blocking is enabled.

…

They’re Shoko’s cigarettes. He knows where she keeps her spare pack, in her bottom dresser drawer, tucked into an old pair of knitted socks. They have little pink stars on them, and they smell well worn, like a quilt, or a winter jacket.

No one comments when he skips class, or practice. Yaga hardly spares him a disapproving glance when he catches him halfway through the pack of Camels. He’s sitting on the balcony walkway of one of the spare temple buildings, feet dangling over the edge. The railing is reed-thin, and about a foot too short to catch anyone. He’d worried, insanely, when the two of you were up here. Always put himself between you and the fall.

He’s only been awake for a day, but already he’s exhausted. Not quite ready to talk to anyone, let alone Gojo.

The other man doesn’t sit, cautious, for any number of reasons. Suguru can’t parse his body language at the moment, pointedly lax. Trying too hard to seem casual as he props a hip against that too-short railing, arms folded across his chest.

Suguru offers his lit cigarette, which Gojo takes but doesn’t smoke. He holds it, pinched between two fingers like the stem of a flower, peering down at the red hot tip as it burns.

“Where is she?” Suguru asks.

It was the first thing he’d done upon waking, ask for you. He’d believed, foolishly, that you’d been waiting for this. For him. But it was Shoko at his bedside, shoving him back down before he rose too quickly, fainted again. Gone, he was told. Been gone.

He’d been denied information about you, told that this was all above his station. After an hour of trying to keep a level head, he snapped, tossing around threats he can’t even remember. They were grievous enough to make the higher ups blanche, though.

But it turns out, no one knows where you are. They admitted to him, sheepishly, that you’d slipped away, and the search for you was ongoing, but non-critical. They wouldn’t be devoting resources to this. Their connections outside of Japan are limited, and the chances of finding you if you’d fled the country are slim.

He could threaten and fight all he wants – it would get him nowhere.

Gojo shrugs. Loyalty is an odd handicap of his. He’s fickle at the best of times, but that never gets in the way of knowing exactly who’s side he’s on.

“Is she… okay?” Suguru tries.

Another shrug. “Probably pretty jet-lagged, right about now.”

“So it’s true, then,” he says. “She left the country altogether.”

Gojo smiles, slightly crooked. It sits uncomfortably on his face, like the skin isn’t meant to stretch that way. “How would I know?”

Suguru bites back the urge to toss him over the railing. He taps out another cigarette, places it between his teeth. Gojo presses the stub of the lit one against it, until it begins to glow.

“They say those will kill you,” he notes, flicking the other one onto the brick path beneath.

Suguru just chuckles, takes a long drag.

The sun has begun to set, and the dregs of daylight smolder on the horizon, all of the buildings on campus shimmering with it.

He’s never been anywhere so beautiful as the sacred grounds of Jujutsu Tech. His life before this was simple, mundane. Not terrifying or awing. And he’d seen lovely places before, places that took his breath away, but this was the only one that he felt down to his core. Peace eclipsing any other. A bone deep belonging.

The future wasn’t something he’d had to worry about. Destiny had made promises, the web of soulmarks on his back was proof of that. All he had to do was be patient, and the world unfolded before him with the surety of breaking dawn. Everything falling into place, in perfect synchronicity.

He hadn't bothered keeping track of the soulmates he’d met. The number seemed irrelevant. Each one of them was vital, and important. He’d give his life for any of them, gladly.

Yet you’d deny him the privilege. A perfect wrench in his perfect life path.

“She’s gonna be alright, you know,” Gojo says. “She’s in good hands.”

Suguru’s knuckles squeeze around the cigarette so hard the tobacco starts to fray, spilling out of the paper and onto the ground. “Why did –”

He can’t finish the question. Doesn’t want to know. Already does, deep down.

“Something had to give,” Gojo answers anyway.

“Yes,” Suguru sighs, rubbing at his swollen eyes. The ash on his fingers just makes them sting even more. “But did it have to be this?”

Gojo leans down to take the busted cigarette. He rolls it between his fingers, touching the burning end with a pinky, testing its heat.

“What will you do, Suguru Getou?” Gojo asks. As if the future were so simple. As if everything he thought himself to be hadn’t disappeared like smoke in a single afternoon.

“What else?” he returns, mildly. He closes his eyes, tipping his face up toward the sky. The sun has fully set, leaving a chill to settle over everything. It feels nice. “What I have to.”

…

The motions of his life are mostly the same, after you’re gone.

Wake up. Train. Try to keep Gojo out of trouble. Try to keep himself out of trouble. Swallow down curses that taste like curdled milk and tar and raw meat. Go to bed. Sleep for ages—or not at all.

He dreams of you, often.

Your face and your hands. The curve of your knee. The peach fuzz on your cheeks.

He dreams about you and candy, pressing morsels onto your tongue, watching your lips curl around them. You smile and laugh. You touch his arm, or tuck his hair behind his ear.

He wants it so bad he wakes up with hands fisted in the sheets, every muscle in his body tensed, as if to chase.

He spends his free days scouring the country for you, or convincing himself that if you want to be gone, he owes that to you.

But it weighs on him, always. Your absence is like another body in the room.

The missions become more perilous, but there’s no glory in them. Just the threat of loss, always. Suguru and Gojo are the strongest, and they are forced to prove that over and over again.

Every hit seems more lethal, now. Every potential injury grave and brutal.

Zenin clan begins to fracture. Too many of their ranks had been born lesser, weak. Non-sorcerers, devoid of cursed energy. It throws their place in this ongoing fight into question, leaves people scrambling for footholds while everything shifts around them.

Surguru and Gojo are sent to into the field more, as the reorganization takes place. Big, important things are asked of them, because big, important things are expected of them. The strongest of all the students. Bound to be the strongest of all time, soon.

But Gojo’s technique is still unsound. It leaves him vulnerable, always with a contingency plan whenever his power misfires, or comes out wrong. He breaks a femur, and cracks his skull, on two consecutive, unlucky missions.

Suguru is less careful, without the anchor of your presence. He loses his left pinky and ring finger while saving a kid from a rogue curse, and Shoko informs him that if he keeps falling to pieces eventually he’d become inured to her healing. His body would simply reject the energy like a bad blood transfusion.

Suguru just smiles at her. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

They’re in the morgue. Shoko’s always down there these days, swamped with the constant toil of it. Death is a demanding mistress, she’d told him once. But Suguru has a way of making life seem just as laborious.

After fixing his hand, Shoko instructs him to stay seated in the little plastic chair. She stands before him, looming, knuckles tracing over the little cuts scattered across his face. He’d taken a fall badly, landed in a patch of gravel and nicked his forehead and cheeks. Those would heal on their own, in time.

She tilts his head forward, so his crown is resting against her belly, and begins searching his skull for any perforations, or signs of trauma, tapping gently along his scalp.

“You don’t look so good, Suguru,” she murmurs, suddenly pressing hard enough that he winces. She holds on for a moment more, before relaxing the pressure. Then her hands are moving over his head in a way that hardly feels investigative at all. It just seems like she’s petting him.

“It’s been a long year,” he murmurs.

“I know.”

They pass a few minutes in silence, Shoko doing whatever she wants with him, moving him this way and that, scratching behind his ears, detangling knots of hair, and Suguru allows it all to happen, passive.

It’s been a long time since anyone has touched him like this. Steady but benevolent. Maybe you were the last one, your hands on him like the wholesome touch of sunlight. Maybe you were the only one.

“Where did she go?” he asks eventually. The morgue is always eerily quiet. The underground location and the thick cement walls muffling all outside noises, isolating the space. Even still, she barely catches the words.

They rarely speak of you, these days. Suguru never initiates the conversations. The investigation into your whereabouts is still technically ongoing, and sometimes the higher ups grouse and complain that certain missions would be easier if you were still around, at their beck and call. The other second years simply know better than to mention you.

“What difference would knowing make?” Finally, sick of trying to work around it, Shoko pulls his hairband out, letting it all fall around his face in a dark curtain. He doesn’t flinch.

“I just need to know she’s safe,” he returns, looking up through his bangs.

“Do you want to protect?” She brushes the stray hair away from his face. Her touch lingers at his temple. “Or control?”

Suguru tips his face down, inspects his restitched hand. New scars criss-cross over his knuckles, like rings. He cracks them, testing the durability of them, but it feels as if he’d never lost them. Same as always.

When he speaks his voice is quiet, but clear. “I want my soulmate, Shoko.”

She taps one of his cuts, the biggest, tracing over his right brow. The blood clotted hours ago, leaving behind a soft scab. The attention irritates the skin, fresh blood welling beneath the surface, trapped.

“Some things are simply out of your hands,” she tells him, pulling away. She stalks toward the other end of the room, where frigid body cabinets line the wall. “The sooner you realize it, the sooner you can move on.”

His expression is almost a smile. His tone is dry. “From what?”

Shoko touches the stainless steel handle of one of the cabinets. The corpse inside is fresh, brought in just this morning. It’s just waiting for the mortician's inspection, and then it will be her job to cremate it. “You have such a romantic idea of the world. You think everything will come to pass just because you believe it’s right, and you’re strong enough to make it that way.” She glances at him over her shoulder. She shrugs. “But life is random and cruel. It doesn’t matter how hard you can throw a punch.”

Suguru lets out a breath, halfway between a laugh and a scoff. “Spoken like someone who’s never had to throw a punch.”

Shoko turns to face him again, arms crossed. She says, “I don’t know where she is. But I sure as hell wouldn’t tell you if I did.”

He rises without another word, leaving her behind in the shadow and chill of the basement. Another mission is waiting for him, when he emerges. He accepts it, graciously. He accepts everything that way.

…

Then everything comes crashing down, like dominoes. A perfect chain of catastrophe.

Just how many people is he going to lose?

…

Incident Log

April 6, 2006

A plot on the Star Plasma Vessel’s life has been discovered. Second Years, Grade 1 Gojo Satoru and Suguru Getou have been dispatched to escort and erase the girl.

…

Incident Log,

April 9, 2006

The Star Plasma Vessel has been eradicated by Toji Fushiguru. Secondary measures have been taken to secure a new body for Master Tengen.

…

Sorcerer: Satoru Gojo

Status: Special Grade

Card Distribution Date: 12/01/2007

…

Incident Log,

February 20, 2007

Second years, Grade 3 Yuu Haibara and Grade 2 Nanami Kento dispatched this morning for a routine exorcism. Haibara was maimed by a rogue curse. Healing was attempted, but he has since succumbed to his injuries.

…

Paris is nothing like Tokyo, and Yuki Tsukumo is nothing like any sorcerer you’ve met before.

Of course, she’s brash and loud, just like everyone else. But there’s a distinct caution to the way she approaches the world. As if everything around her is as fragile as a butterfly wing.

As one of three special grade sorcerers, it may as well be. The few times you’ve seen her fight had been brutally one-sided. No curse stands a chance against her, and she lives her life with the confidence of someone who’s already proved herself. The kind of confidence only the strongest could wield.

She asks very little of you, and you do what you can. Sometimes you accompany her during exorcisms, but she seems just as content to leave you be. The majority of the time you’re left to while away the hours, taking online courses in the top floor apartment you share, or wandering the city.

Tsukumo travels often, but mostly she stays close, relegating herself to Europe. Only once in your time together is her presence requested back in Japan. She doesn’t tell you this, nor does she offer to take you with her. You don’t know what was discussed between her and Gojo, but there seems to be some taciturn agreement that you remain far, far from Tokyo. Not that you mind.

The only reason you even know she visited your home country is from the information she omits, upon her return. Usually she’s glad to tell you every detail of her travels. But when she arrives home in the early hours of the morning, pulling you from bed and out the door still in your pajamas, all she has to say is, “Long flight. Glad to be back.”

The two of you get coffee at your usual spot, the only place that caters to the unusual hours you both keep. It’s begun to rain, but you grab a table outside under the awning anyway. The air is cool, seeping through the thin material of your sleep shirt. It makes your drink taste better somehow, the errant chill and the soft pattering of rain all around.

Tsukumo is unusually quiet, watching the few pedestrians that pass by as the two of you sip your drinks.

“I met a boy at Jujutsu High,” she says slowly. “Kind of a hunk. In a dark and brooding sort of way. Could use a haircut, but there’s no accounting for taste I suppose.” She peers at you, waiting for a reaction. You sip your coffee, gaze purposefully  trained on the empty street. Desperate for any glimpse into his life, and afraid that knowing will undo all the progress you’ve made toward letting him go. Doubting and praying. Tsukumo continues, “He’s fallen off the wagon a bit. Lost a lot of people – like all of us.”

At that, you can’t hold back your wince. You still check the database from time to time, to see what was happening in the Jujutsu world. Death is frequent, unbiased, and quick. The numbers posted each day only confirmed that.

“He reminded me of you,” Tsukumo says, tapping you on the wrist with one long nail. “Optimistic, to his detriment. It’s always the hardest hit when you believe the world is kinder than it is.”

You try for a sardonic smile, but it comes out wrong, more a pursing of lips than anything. Your hands are shaking as they curl around your cup. “Ignorance is bliss, isn’t that what they say?”

Tsukumo hums, noncommittally. She takes a long moment to nurse her drink, peering at you. Its the strange, wily look sorcerers sometimes get. Like they’re making plans. “Satoru never said why I wanted you, did he?”

You shake your head, and she smiles.

She says, “I believe we can save a whole lot of people.”

“I thought you were already doing that,” you return.

Tsukumo turns away, tapping that single nail against the metal table top. The noise is barely audible over the soft thrush of rain. “Sorcerer society is stagnating. Everyone is so blinded by their own power struggle that they can’t see how far we’ve fallen behind the times – it’s one thing to respect tradition, another to be handicapped by it.”

She gestures sweepingly, to the cityscape all around you. “There are better ways to do things. We have to move on from treating symptoms, and attack the source directly. It’s like we’re swinging around a putty knife when what we really need is a wrecking ball.”

You reach your foot out to tap a puddle with the toe of your sneaker. It lets out a satisfying splash, but soaks you through immediately. Water begins to pool again in the small indentation, filling in around you.

“And I’m the wrecking ball,” you finish.

“No.” She takes your hand. “My friend, you are the blueprint.”

You’ve learned since becoming aware of the darker sides of the world, that sometimes power is the inverse of freedom. This is something you can do, so you must. So you will.

You turn your hand over, beneath hers, slot your fingers together. “Okay,” you say.

[mxtxfanatic]

I don’t read the manhua because I’m particular about art style, but in honor of this update reminding some people (myself included) how much they dislike lan xichen:

It really is funny how he called wei wuxian, who went out of his way to help the cultivators who murdered him (including lxc!) and rescued their children from death on multiple occasions, lan wangji’s biggest “mistake.” Meanwhile, he knowingly let his own mistake go around murdering people indiscriminately and was literally being held hostage by said mistake at the time of this speech, after wasting too much time saying the man couldn’t have possibly killed their sworn brother who he notoriously was on the outs with, despite knowing jin guangyao was a repeat killer. Let us also not forget that this conversation came up because jgy was trying to use wwx to trap lwj, lxc’s “beloved brother,” because lxc told him that lwj would follow wwx anywhere, willingly giving jgy the means by which to harm lwj. (Sidenote: why tf was he even mad his brother wasn’t automatically with wwx when it meant his brother would be safe, other than him being mad that another one of his assumptions about people is being proven wrong, even for just a moment.) He did that, not anyone else, but him, by having casual conversations with the villain post-villain reveal since he refused to take serious the fact that jgy was a threat. Because even in a life or death situation, nothing matters more to lxc than his personal opinions and assumptions, not even fact.

And saying all this when wwx only even got captured because he was trying to figure out how to help lxc, then to save Jin Ling (who the guards were literally about to kill IN FRONT OF HIM)? I have to laugh.