#was I so afraid of defeat that I became a monster: KOKUSHIBO

[linkspooky]

What was your inspirations for Michi-tonkastsu Michikatsu?

And will he show up again in your future JJK fics?

Art by @oakyvii

Michikatsudon has a lot of inspirations. The first is the character who gave him his name, Michikatsu Tsugukuni, otherwise known as Kokushibo from Kimetsu no Yaiba. 

I just copied the Kanji exactly for that, so it would mean: 

While his first name also contains the Kun'yomi/reading of the kanji for "sterness, severity" (巌みち michi?) and "to prevail, victory" (勝かつ katsu?). His father was the one who named him, as he believed Michikatsu would be strong and successful.

His backstory and name are based heavily off of Kokushibo because what originally captivated me about the Tsukiguni twins backstory was the strong emotions of jealousy, mixing in with love for his brother that he can’t give a voice or a name too. Basically Kokushibo can’t understand that beyond his jealousy at his brother for being more talented than him, the reason he is obsessed with his brother is because he loves him genuinely and it is the only emotional connection he has ever had in his life. For instance, he carries the flute his brother gave him years after the fact of their parting. 

I think there is a lot of powerful emotions in Kokubishibo’s backstory, however Kimetsu no Yaiba tends to be a little bit too black and white at times (like in any other manga a character like Akaza would have gotten a chance at a redemption arc) and so rather than exploring the emotions of both characters, Kokushibo is just one dimmensionally evil and his younger twin brother is practically a saint. 

Nietzsche recognized that envy is a big part of life, and yet we are generally taught to feel ashamed of our envious feelings. They seem to be an indication of evil so we hide them from ourselves and others. Yet, there is nothing wrong with envy, maintained Nietzsche, so long as we use it as a guide to what we really want. Every person who makes us envious should be seen as an indication of what we could one day become. 

I wanted to write a similar character conflict between two people growing up in the same household, with an interplay of both love and envy defining their relationship. 

There were a couple of lines especially for Kokushibo that weren’t even particularly evil, they were just natural jealsouy that anyone would feel. 

“How wonderful it would be if talent was given to those who wanted it.” 

“People who feel no jealousy towards others simply have good luck. They’ve never met someone like him. Someone who lives with the favor of the gods lavished upon them.” 

“The ugliness of not admitting defeat even though they took my head, chopped me up and crushed me. Living in disgrace. Have I lived hundreds of years for this? Was I so afraid of defeat that I became a monster? Did I want to be strong even if it meant eating people? Did I become this miserable creature because I didn't want to die? No. Yoriichi... I just wanted to be you. “

Basically, I wanted to write a backstory where it would be natural for Michi to be jealous of his clansmen Satoru, because basically the Gojo clan is a one man show, they only care about someone who can use the Unlimited Curse technique. The moment Gojo was born, Michi’s existence no longer mattered, so even if they grew close in the same household, the clear favor for Gojo would always taint their relationship. 

Michi is also designed around Gojo to foil him in a lot of ways. He was basically created to be Gojo in different circumstances. Gojo is albino with near all-seeing eyes. Michi is dark skinned with dark hair, and he goes blind after his youth. However, I wanted to avoid “darkness = bad” and “light = good” binary, so Michi has a lot of redeeming character traits that Gojo doesn’t have, essentially Michi has more empathy for people and regard for their interiority than Gojo ever will. Michi and Gojo both interact with children, but Gojo treats them as mini-adults whereas Michi knows that they are children and is desperate to be a good mother to them. Gojo is someone who was denied his homosexual relationship because Jujutsu Society drove his friendship with Gojo apart. Michi is pretty openly a bigender dudewife and is more comfortable being feminine then masucline. Basically the queer elements of Michi’s character is at the forefront, while it’s suppressed in Gojo, because his role in society will come first. 

Gojo and Michi are both extremely rude, they both talk at people rather than to people but it’s harder to catch on with Michi because Michi pretends to be polite and humble. They’re both very genuinely weird. They’re both really cerebral. The thing about Michi is he is smart, he’s just not a genius. Michi is like if he studied every day for the exam, and Gojo showed up drunk five minutes late to the test gojo would still score better. They are both really out of touch with their emotions. Gojo’s entire personality is built around the fact that he’s “Strong” however, and Michi believes that true strength lies in enduring weakness rather than having the strength to overcome every obstacle. 

They also both center their ideals around how children are treated, they are both very aware that Jujutsu Society is a bad place for children to be. Michi’s one and only rule he would never cross is he’d never hurt a kid or intentionally put them at risk. 

One more element of Michi’s backstory is his relationship with his mother, where he is an illegitimate child brought into the family from a prostitute mother because at the time they had no heirs. Of course, a year later Gojo was born which meant his mother’s value to the family became essentially worthless. 

This idea came from Ogata in Golden Kamuy, more or less I had a friend who once said that Ogata’s mom is actually a rare instance of positive sex worker representation because it depicts a man using a sex worker and then throwing away her child as a tragedy, and her subsequent mental decline in a sympathetic life. Wheras most of society treats sex workers as disposable, and they are not like given a lot of humanizing depictions. Basically that left me with a desire to write Michi’s prostitute mother as a strong character, who after being tossed aside and harassed by the clan is able to maintain her pride and dignity and continue loving her son. 

Michi’s entire idea of strength is based off of his love for his mother, which is why his pride comes from the idea of motherhood, and his values revolve around protecting children. He is also more comfortable with feminity then masculinity and wears feminiity as a sheidl, once again as admiration for his mother. Basically I wanted to write a positive sex worker even if just as a backstory character. Michi is who he is in part because his mother shielded him. 

This was also slightly borrowed from Noritoshi Kamo’s circusmtances too, he is also a bastard son forced to live with the clan and endure the harassment of his mother. 

Michi also has inspiration from the story “The Setting Sun” by Osamu Dazai. If you read the book, the main character’s admiration and relationship with their mother who is slowly dying over the course of the story serves as inspiration for most of Michi’s feelings regarding his mother. 

“This I want to believe implicitly: Man was born for love and revolution.'

Is also a quote I modeled his character around. 

As for if he is going to show up in future fics, yes! The plan is to let Michi have a cameo or at least a small role in every fic. The first three fics were basically centered around Michi at three stages of development in his life. Werewolf, Michi is going to show up in the epilogue I always intended that from the beginning. 

I basically have two fics planned as of now, and that is a fic about the Zenin Massacre Arc, and also a fic where Mimiko, Nanako, and Nanami all survive post shibuya. The second fic will detail Mimiko and Nanako’s journey in the Shibuya arc and how they survive, with Junpei there to round out the trio and will be mainly written from the perspective of Nanami who finds out that Junpei is still alive. The sequence of events are slightly different, they have to be because Nanami doesn’t die, but at the end Nanami chooses to stay outside of Jujutsu Society rather than return home, kind of like how the original plan for his character was going to be he was an office worker who snapped and became a curse user. 

Those are the future appearances of Michi that I have planned currently. He will probably cameo in the Zenin massacre fic too, but he’s less relevant to that plot thread. 

[purpurapoena]

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