parafictual?

[fwcu]

as it says. famously, amazingly, paratext can exist without a text. but a text cannot exist without paratext. working based off that: paratext for a fic that is likely not getting written but at least I can procrastinate my life/academic prospects/etc away by writing this post about it Instead... so, here is my outline/concepting/etc of a:  sukugego anna karenina x the tale of genji heian era au


so I'm reading anna karenina rn because lin and I agreed that it would be a good december/winter book to bookclub, and i am finding SO!!! romantic and SO!!! delightful that obviously I'm immediately trying to figure out how to recreate the transparent psychological style that tolstoy does soooo well and also apply it TO MY Favourite non-triangulated love triangle atm, SUKUGEGO!!! gojo is obviously anna. sukuna is alexei. geto is vronksy. yep yepppp yep. this was like already an au I had cooked up and was in my docs, wherein i did want sukugo arranged marriage and geto playing mistress because gojo is obviously the sensibility stricken young mistress who is soooooo starved for romance and wants it so badly while geto is the moral rigid ethical_life_chooser of it all... and obviously sukuna is uncaring but possessive master in this situation... yes we are recreating diary_of_a_seducer but imagine op was the ethical life guy? i don't know... teeks litr just described [us] as 'well-versed but not well-read' and yep... yepppp.... I can't be making references like this when I'm always complaining about rfk doing it... anyway, I had been rotating cuckholding and cheating in my head for a while and then anna karenina is like [Tolstoy vc] Im going to show you a Masterclass in the Cheating Love Triangle-ism of it All... and i was OKAY. I AM SO READY TO APPLY THIS NEWLY LEARNT KNOWLEDGE... 

ANYWAY. so the au constraints are as follows: heian era, because that's genuinely the only time period/frame within jjk universe wherein I imagine sukuna being anything like a person andor him and gojo having any interaction that is not a Fight To The Death... it's abo bc i want easily explained in-universe arranged marriage and contrived sex pollenisms/mating cycles/fuck or torturously suffer for a while, [[*though upon doing some of my cursory heian era research, I really do think I will be utilising the cn ver of these terms [ie qianyuan/zhongyong/kunze] bc they really were copying china's homework Every Step of the way back then... like just a lot of cultural drift/sinofication all around]  ... so that seemed like a pretty simple fix  ... and also I did want Fear of babytrapping, not that that will be a plot point but I just wanted it. like I think it's quite scary or extremely scary not only to be married off to the scary grabber but then the scary grabber is threatening to impregnate you as punishment for daring to cheat on him. 

so obviously, anna karenina is in the bag. it's in the bag. but this is heian era japan, so we have to incorporate the other extremely famous novel about cheating. like The One, The Novel, the First Psychological Novel [as they say], The Tale of Genji.

• which I have read part of, I stopped when he started grooming that 12 year old girl for real I was actually not able to stomach that despite Knowing... I was like uhhhh  please no premodern era lolicon ... it's so interesting because this happens to young genji too basically at the start of the text? but that's fine idk shotacon OK ... but I might get back into it. isn't that surprising guys? can you believe I actually have taken a stab at the tale of genji before?
• unsurprisingly, literally every second search result about the heian era is someone doing a genji analysis/reading/citing it as evidence of/for ... which is fine by me bro, like yayyy I don't have to read uh the diaries of fujiwara or his mom or the other well known novels from the time, we can just GENJI our way through... 
• genji is obviously intensely and surprisingly relevant in that it deals with both aristocracy and power and also Cheating. like quite a lot of, >How am I sneaking into this woman's house to fuck her about it while neither my wife or husband   knows. also buddhism. i actually think the hardest thing and the element i will least be able to [re]create is the waka usage in conveying romance/sentiment like uh not only is gojo satoru illiterate [he is not] but you know his ass does not care and it will fly over his head. though sukuna 100% does. as does geto. 
• anyway, genji is also a Lot about buddhism. which will become relevant sort of because ofc Just Like In Genji, people are going to be trying to escape society via Becoming a monk. they're [geto] are going to be like Uhhh.. let me enter my monastic era... and im not going to say no.

was there going to be a 3rd influence? no it's just an anna karenina x tale of genji [except not really] crossover jjk fic... i would like it to be in tolstoy's omniscient narrator form, where you know what's happening in everyone's head but also in every moment in time To Come?    but also just about what society is doing/looks like/etc generally... so you get both the psychological closeness and the wider narrative mise-en-scene, which I usually can never figure out how to convey because I'm so locked into a quasi-stream-of-consciousness esque form... the genji read was going to be so i could steal environmental/cultural/etc details as well as some of the common poetry... I Would Never Have An Original Idea... 

ANYWAY. um so, the character [role?] sketches are kinda like

• INATTENTIVE/UNINTERESTED MASTER OF THE HOUSE SUKUNA: does not care for romance or love or otherwise outside of power/jujutsu/'meals' (will not share food/authority)
• HEADSTRONG BORED PASSIONATE HEROINE GOJO SATORU: unfortunately fell immediately and intensely in love with 1 geto suguru... 
• SLY PERFORMATIVE EVER-CAREFUL CONSCIENTIOUS GETO SUGURU: will die if he ever touches gojo [known fact]

I know everyone, me sometimes included, hates omegaverse as like gender 2 electric bogaloo... but we are going to play omegas=women really really straight a la heian era gender roles/expectations + jjk pre-established gender roles...

• which is to say, in the end everything always goes back to how much I want to recreate just how much gojo has his hands tied/is constrained by the role he has in jjk, wherein like even as the most blessed strongest he is really is so powerless  when it actually comes to things he wants. but that's also the quite fun thing about gojo is that he's so dismissive and disregards so much formality and propriety but that is sort of the only form of rebellion tolerated by the narrative...
• anyway so he would basically just act normal bc sukuna, litr the no name poor villager clanless guy in general, would also not care to respect formalities or expect someone to if they have the power to back up their disregard... BUT THE ONLY TIME HE CANT . IS WHEN HE LITERALLY CANT CHEAT BECAUSE THAT WILL ACTUALLY CURSE THEM FOREVER!!! so you know, the typical...
• also so excited to refer to him as wife/lady/etc like not even a case of egregious/indulgent feminisation to me In My Mind because gojo's canon trait is that he does want to be geto's annoying af super clingy girlfriend so bad... like ik i keep calling him such, but he literally is the impertinent teenage girl [heroine] he is... that is his categorical classifier. TO ME.
• so that's kind of as far as I'm going with omegaverse gender [along with mating cycles/heats thing] though yeah betas will exist and they will function the way auxiliary classes do.... neither suffering from any of the constraints of being an omega nor receiving the commendations that being an alpha would grant... idk... idk man... obviously betas are obviously dual-sex like it just wouldn't make sense otherwise... also it has to be 33:33:33 split or else like idk ... IDK MAN... 

the dynamics would be kinda like 

• SUKUNA > GOJO: His Most Delicious Meal. possession he is both fond and annoyed by. 
• GOJO > SUKUNA: like that's his Equal. that's his Divinely Ordained Guy. they are compatible on every level except the Romantic, in that litr everything else about them is so perfectly matched and crafted for total congruence except for the actual Feeling of. which y'know is a fault of          the     total dismissal that Sukuna has about such sentimentality ... really the not that gojo wouldn't accept love/this sort of rs with him just that that's never going to be on the table ... oh okay here is my written note: "unbaked? pre-maturely baked understanding that this is the only guy in the world who will truly understand him/be able to/like sukuna is in many ways *It* for him. that is just totally worthless when love exists"

• GOJO > GETO: selfish/selfless Total Unconditional True Romantic Love. it's the regular flavour. it's the thing that defines gojo as a character imo. like i do think the way and the how of how he loves geto is part of the foundation of his character despite the way people will try to convince you otherwise, they will say things like 'no his students matter more!!!' like brother the reason his students matter is because GETO matters... 
• GETO > GOJO: a similar-but-more-tempered selflessness... he is the Rational Ethical Moral One... the sense one ... #yasss they're sense and sensibility yep yep yeppp... 

• SUKUNA > GETO: vague amusement AND vague annoyance, like it's fun to dangle the food in front of the fox's mouth... but it's annoying that the food wants the fox and the fox is    in all ways but physical, in ownership of the food already? 
• GETO > SUKUNA: respect for the Total Authority he has [as demanded] but otherwise total derision and distaste for the guy emotionally/affectively/personally both because of and outside of gojo_reasons... 

so that's the triangle. because I am a sensible person and I understand that sukugego is not about #polylivesmatter like that is An Angle. and there is nothing happening with sukuna and geto, they're both fixated on gojo, ARGUE WITH A WALL. YOU'RE LITERALLY WRONG IF U THINK OTHERWISE. sorry that was quite aggressive it just litr is  like two guys who have nothing to do with one another... 

anyway that's all the basic concept/conceit/premise stuff... OH and before we start anything, I think the epigraph i would use for this fic is what has been, so far, the most affecting line from AK: 

['This only proves you have no heart.'] "But her eyes said that she knew he did have a heart, and because of it she was afraid of him." 

• which to me just gets at the thing I want to get at with this fic is that IT IS SO SCARY TO LOVE SOMEONE. AND HAVE SOMEONE LOVE YOU. !!! like very scary for geto to be loved by gojo and gojo to be loved by sukuna and for geto to love gojo back etc etc etc we'll have to marinate on whether or not gojo loves sukuna but i imagine it would be scary bc there is/has always been the possibility of such a thing and that's why everything is also so scary...  the fine delicate balance of it all... that will be crushed and ruined endlessly numerously

here is the vague outline/plan:

1. OPENING: sukugo marriage scene/sequence. this is a child marriage situation bc. of course it is? 1) heian era/tale of genji'isms, but also because kind of hard to imagine 6eyes/limitless user gojo satoru agreeing/being forced to marry at any other point in the timeline ... like the lack of agency and immature ability is allowing him to be successfully coerced/forced ... i think he's either 12 or 13... 
2. [time skip] 15-17: 3 YEARS OF HIS YOUTH... it's a classic... you have to... uh literally Teenage Summer of (First) Love and the first point/time in his life where he is being treated like a normal person and has an equal/friend of sorts ... etc etc etc... 
3. [time skip 2] 28-30: :D anna karenina era!!! the REAL [non]-affair extramarital relations era... they all have 'kids' now in that [suku]go took in megumi [and tsumiki?] and gojo lowkey loves to collect strays [or at least has collected 1 Stray in form of cursed child yuta] and geto takes in nanamimi and also is roaming around traveling monk/doctor style with shokoooo... obviously we are making an apparent comparison between how really non-paternal [maternal] gojo is vs how parental geto is... #gender_roles-ism kinda sorta not really but not not really... 

I was thinking of a [1] [3] [6] scene structure with maybe 1 sukugo interlude scene between [3] and [6] ... but obviously I wouldn't know... have not written or outlined it... but here is a vague of what each scene should look like/establish + what it might draw on given my extremely cursory heian era lit review... 

OPENING: 

1. [sukugo arranged/forced marriage/selling off ceremony where gojo is silent and has his neck lowered also pretty clear as ceremony progresses he is in heat?] > [at the end of the ceremony sukuna actually does Not mark him as is custom, which is obviously a small to big humiliation that has the gojo clan guys up in arms about Bc the Agreement but sukuna is like 'we got married didnt we] > [he throws gojo into the torture pit. with all the cursed spirits bc he wants to see if the six eyes/limitless user that he payed for [LOL] [bc yk, dowrys] [LMAO] is actually all that] > [i think presumably people begin to leave assume gojo is dead and they will Also Die?] > [toji shows up bc he was paid by one clan or another to kill the bride before they consummate[?], and sukuna recongising he's CE-less and that will make him more of a nightmare for the already sense-addled gojo to deal with, is like yeah go in there. kill him if he's not already dead just bc he thinks it'll be interesting] > [at this point? after a while? IT'S SPECIFICALLY AFTER MIDNIGHT [cinderella style] when sukuna assumes they're both dead or at least gojo is because he can't smell him anymore and he's like 'disappointing' but then gojo crawls out of there bloody and fucked up and the usual cut up from neck to stomach, but notable his neck is Still Bleeding because he ripped out his own scent gland to stop his heat so he could think clearly to deal with the curses and toji. the curses i imagine were easy, the toji was hard] > [swears at sukuna, calls him a bitch and an old man and says he wasted his own bride bc thanks to limitless+propriety culture litr no man [beta/alpha?] had Ever touched ['pierced'] him before ... anyway THE IMPERTINENCE OF HIM is what matters here, reveals that his own clan had him placed under a binding vow so he wouldn't talk or lift his head the entire first night of his marriage so things would go smoothly (ie comes off as a proper/submissive/etc bride)]

• I actually Forgor to look up marriage ceremony/customs So I Will Be Doing That... I understand that there are feasts involved presumably but ummm.... i lowkey only know the chinese and the greek ones my bad my bad....     cups? i don't know....  perhaps in jujutsu society it would involve a certain kind of binding vow so we'll think about that as well...    
• obviously this scene is to establish a couple of things: [lack of marking!!!] which is part of utilising the abo_world conceit bc i think it's sooo callous and disrespectful and so sukuna to Not do that, and therefore not only is gojo like lowkey a free bird and #winning #benefitting in a sense bc of the lack of bondage about it, but also like the really arrogant assumption + innate challenge of 'Who would Dare to touch his food' ?  
• >buddy you're doing a Lot of gojo objectification no... me >Is that not canon though? is that not kind like ... his role... he is famously Trapped In A Box That Is In Possession of an evil guy for a lot of it. he is known as jujutsu society's Weapon. the famous >Should we kill them/I wouldn't feel anything  similarly can be read as him offering himself up for geto to use as a weapon... 
• LAST THING. gojo ripping out his scent gland scent gland which then, ig just to drop the reference, lady macbethly de-sexes him, which is also a thing that makes him monstrous [/dehumanises him re: gender expectations In Heian Era] ... i actually think I was thinking about gender bc ever since i read juuchan apsis which is her abo au, her being like 'gojo would never want a kid'[/want to get pregnant] and 'gojo would abort that thing' really have been resonating in my mind so much and uh so obviously at the first chance of, gojo would rend himself of the ability of being constrained/defined by omega_sex ...
• anyway this is a decision/choice that will have implications far into the future of this fic bc it affects his desirability to characters who are more traditional[-ly minded] and the things he can offer him and also the things he's denied because of this transgressive act. also it's just to highlight how similarly crazy and callous and arrogant and disrespectful he is. literally the day he gets married/sold off he completely destroys half of his market value [not that sukuna was interested in procreating but the assumption of...] + is important to note he is Only valuable to sukuna because he is Maybe the strongest sorcerer with six eyes/limitless ... 
• biologically, or functionally in this fic it makes him scentless [dr ally louks vc... the olfactory politics and the libidinal economy in omegaverse...] and i think it should fuck with his pheromones/heat/mating cycles/fertility... yeah i know we take the Implications Of #mpreg seriously here... 

TIME SKIP to AGE 15-17:

1. [sukuna invites kenjaku and his disciple to train at his estate] > [getogojo first meeting Love At First Sight [for gojo]/Something Happens that irreversibly changes the course of fate and his life forever] 

• point of contention/explanation is that I think sukuna, in searching for worthy opponents, would literally be Hosting Hella Jujutsu sorcery school/training grounds/et al because i think he's always looking for guys to fight and eat and kill... + i want early on kenjaku / sukuna / tengen triangulation as their own alliance On The Fringe of jujutsu society? to oppose the heian-kyo aristrocratic clan triangulation ... #yasss it's a little bit of a metropole v province situation ... something something spatial metaphor .... though there's some really interesting text about how feasts/food was a means of control over the country that i do want to use that... esp since sukuna is sooo associated with Consumption in jjk...
• EARLY SET UP OF KENJAKU<>GETO connection/fucked up mentorship,etc... i don't think this parallels anything [yet] but kenjaku recruits geto and saves him from poverty/serfdom/famine/etc under the condition that he'll possess geto's body when he dies [presuming he will die early bc these kids do] and geto is like going all over the country with him to eat curses and do the vast majority of the Menial Disgusting Work of Ingesting Curses so kenjaku does not have to > kenjaku also immediately takes geto to get operated on so he loses his sense of taste+smell so it's easier for him ... which has the implication that it doesn't matter that gojo smells like nothing because geto can't smell him anyway so they've evened out like this... 

1. [montage of getting to know each other, geto observing the condition/situation of sukuna household wrt to sukugo dynamic] > [gojo describing his marriage bed as barren trying to amateurishly seduce geto, whats the point in acting so honourable and being so upstanding, geto glancing at him in a way that holds too much warmth, its for your sake that I can’t do anything] > [sukuna dgaf that he's in the cuck chair bc he's correctly assessed that it's unserious but catches himself alone with geto once anyway, and geto says it's obvious that gojo does half-like him [sukuna] or at least begrudgingly respects him, more than most people... which is a pretty big thing] > [more getogojo maybe??? idk] 

• i sort of want a reference to class/luxury ... that immediate super contrast of like [geto is the one who upholds all the social and moral values of Society] re/how he dresses/speaks/holds himself/manners vs like gojo who is obviously not dressing like a young noblewoman everyday nor ever partitioning himself off and always speaking impolitely and has rough mannerisms ... but He is obviously always dressed in much finer clothes/material ... so heian-kyo was the eastern terminus of the silk road, so I would looooveeee love loveeee to reference like ancient muslin/dhaka muslin/indigo dye, which would be quite anachronistic but I CANT HELP IT!!!! ... anyway the gojo the far less refined/far more improper one with all of these luxuries that signify his status but are contrary to his mode of behaviour, and geto as the opposite ... 
• this is probably the section where they learn about each other's jujutsu techniques, and I would love for there to be a capital/city banquet/feast episode where we get the play by play, ROUND 2 of grumpy_baby_gojo from ch70 ['no more!' 'no more babysitting!' SOOOOO CUUUUTEEEE] ... litr just geto watches gojo get overstimulated in real time bc of six eyes bc instead of being in the mountains in the middle of nowhere they are surrounded by People in a City ... does he bring out the blindfold? idk i would also imagine yoruzu has may be been called in to create some kind of eye-tech for gojo [again, anachronistic bc glasses weren't invented until like 83024803 years later] ... Would be Cute, would be nice To Me... sort of another class/skill/ability divide between them... 
• i use term 'amateurishly seduce' bc there is an element i want of gojo to be playing at being an older/more adult character ... both in the sense of #Child_Marriage but also bc geto is Mature? but also because he is doing the stuff that he sees people do in plays and books and poems !!! he doesn't know how he's actually supposed to act in order to flirt with someone or play this game HE IS 0 DAYS OLD AND HAS NEVER HAD NORMAL HUMAN SOCIAL CONTACT BEFORE... :( yeah we're playing the >isolated abnormal upbringing gojo card straight

1. [O Fuck It's Serious and Real Now]: [gift exchange scene where gojo gifts geto a certain kind of buddhist robe [not the kesa but more casual but also of infinitely higher quality]] > [the minute gojo breaks character and stops with the caricature/joke and is honest is the moment they both understand that everything is now irreversibly changed and infinitely more complicated and fucked up] > [Everyone Knows. Everyone Knows. Everyone Can Tell. kenjaku to protect his much coveted curse-eater disciple is like getting him the fuck out of there before sukuna kills him, sukuna is threatening gojo in ways gojo has never been threatened before, these two teenagers are desperately trying to hold onto and reassure each other but :| ] > [kfc break-up scene equivalent where it's geto saying he is leaving to go join a monastery / live the monstaic life a la mt koya situation, gojo is like i don't want you to!, geto is like 'there is no end to your greed / what more could you possibly want! [re/married to the most powerful guy in the country, having unimaginable freedom re conduct + influence due to the lack of concubines] / you probably need to be denied something/should practice abjection once in your life' and then he fucks off to live that monastic life...] 

• okay now EVERYBODYYY is unhappy... 
• so, from the article Buddhist Robes That Are and Are Not: "This symbolic significance of clothing becomes even more apparent when we consider that, in the Heian period, various forms of gift exchange occurred among members of the imperial and aristocratic classes. This was largely due to the fact that, in a society where a monetary economy was underdeveloped, clothing and textiles served as important substitutes for currency." +  "This duality is further illuminated when considering that in the Heian period, the act of gifting clothing carried profound symbolic significance, as garments were often regarded as extensions or substitutes for the giver’s own body. From this perspective, the garments Genji sought to bestow upon Naishi‑no‑Kami were imbued with his own emotions. In other words, the robes he intended to give were not merely expressions of her new religious status but were laden with his lingering desire for her to remain connected to him. Through this ambiguous form of clothing, it becomes vividly clear how garments can simultaneously symbolize human desire while artfully concealing it."
• so this is a 1:1 rip from genji.... <3 i would never be original. also [gifts as] 'extensions/substitutes for the giver's own body' Watch This Space. we're coming back to this.
• there are two quite interesting dissertations re/monasticism in the heian era and how that collides with shinto practices, re: "Pilgrimage to the sacred traces of Kōyasan: Place and devotion in late Heian Japan", and  "The other mountain: The Mt. Kōya temple complex in the Heian era" ... the main thing to note here is that women were not allowed in, despite how ardently they believed or did not; women=omegas + add in jujutsu, and you have the barrier condition of s1 'a place gojo satoru cannot enter' which yk, in this au does not apply to Just him, but that's the parallel i was thinking of [like probably Possible for him to get in but also Way too much of a hassle] + i wanted an episode or reference to at some point during the next section of like, jjk society self-sabotage(?)... wherein by arbitrarily banning 1/3-2/3 of your society from this place, you are literally preventing them from being able to help ... like gojo could've saved an entire compound from dying from a special grade curse or whatever but they would not let him innnn... this is just a [playing it really straight] misogyny moment but i guess if you really want read into it [can't save people who won't let themselves be saved] but it is just very much Get going somewhere gojo cannot follow and severing their connection forever... for now

TIME SKIP 2: 28-30

1. prescene? interlude scene?: [sukuna is on a rampage that gojo comes to stop] > [they can't kill each other (yet?) and they just do the shinjuku showdown domain off where gojo's domain outlasts sukuna's thanks to his crazy spatial manipulation, so he's like all cut-up from the cleaves, but sukuna has no choice but to be back to back with him to stop from getting brain_blasted, to which gojo just straight up back hugs him and nuzzles into his neck (threatening to bite/mark him) and sukuna is like Okay Yeah Fine Let's pack this up bc he literally cannot remain in this situation] > [gojo ends up keeping the scars? can't/won't/doesn't fully heal the scars left by this face-off by he fucked up his reaction timing, and sukuna is Unimpressed by the reminder of] > [they leave this situation lowkey extremely couple-like in that gojo is holding one of his arms while the other is wrapped around gojo's waist and it's a picture of Marital Harmony and Romance (which... LOL)] > [atp they have taken in both megumi (sukuna for zenin clan hostage reasons and 10 Shadows Mahoraga user POG) and yuta (gojo's super special charity case), so as revenge for the IV trick and general Foiling of his Violent Delights (the mutual leash-ship has begun now that gojo's actually developed into a his 80/90% potential) he's like 'these two curse summoners need an Experienced Teacher to train them' and well everyone knows who that implies] 

• the [more] equalised relationship of it all and the og gojo clan gander coming into fruition like YAYYYY finally sukuna can be Dealt With/Stopped ... but also uh [domestically/psychologically torturing your fucking wife by dangling the food he can't have in front of him in form of his first love who Chose to leave him] ... scars on face as more proof of ownership... something something sukuna can do physical damage/leave physical marks but what about geto?
• KILLING EACH OTHER IS ON THE TABLE NOWWW because gojo is a basically finished meal... so that's a little scary... that changes a lot... 

1. [re-encounter/first [re]-meeting scene geto pov] > [immediately notes the scars and finds sukuna even more distasteful as ever bc bro what are you doing to your wife... dv is uncouth as ever] > [geto comes hand in hand with shoko bc they're the traveling doctor-monk duo, with their two strays (nanamimi) and obviously gojo notes This, unpleasantly, while geto notes the megumi and yuta presence but also notes that they're Just About the wrong age...]  > [unfortunately everything between them is still the same despite how different the situation is now] 
2. [CLASSIC genji-esque everyone is sneaking into rooms/courtyards at night and flirting via the partition screen] > [geto thinking that he's snuck into yuki/shoko/etc room for a midnight rendezvous/information exchange session and has his breath catch when he realises it's gojo... be #romanze] > [just a lot of Sleeping Together, like Physical Sleeping Together, sharing the same bed and waking before dawn to sneak out, a moment where geto is awake and gojo isn't and he twitches Consciously minutely, and gojo's limitless immediately comes on/reacts as he wakes [without giving a sign of it] indicating just how On-edge and Over-prepared and On-Defense he is in his evil torture marriage of Evil Torture with the Scary Cannibal Murder Guy Who Could Kill Him At Any Time] 

• this really is where the Monkhood_the Monastic Life_Buddhism stuff kicks the fuck in because it's all like gojo: please please please Let's just Cheat, I can kill him now, I can protect you now Nothing will happen pleaseee, and Geto's like No... that's not ethical... We have to live with propriety. like yes. i have made his moral dilemma from canon go from [Murder everyone?] [Don't Murder Everyone?] to [Cheat?] [Don't Cheat?] ... bc his thing boils down to how One Should Live Properly and what does one do about lack of agency/credit ... and so now it's like.. transposed onto like... you can get back at the most evil man in the country by fucking his wife, but you're a Bad Monk for doing so/ you can abstain from the thing that's being dangled in front of you and that makes you a Good Monk but now you are just damning the single most blameless victim you know [as in gojo had no choice in being trapped in this marriage] ...
• gojo is in diary of the seducer rn while geto is litr frantically sending letters and signals re/The Ethical Life...  and it can only get worse from here...

1. [sukuna<>geto<>&co dinner/meal scene where geto is like ?where is gojo, and then it's revealed he gets like pseudo-heats now, and geto is like, Looking at the Man who should be fucking that out of him. and remembering that gojo is literally left unmarked still. and is like 'so why you here' and sukuna's 'where should i be?/he won't die/that's none of my business' and then geto litr stands and Leaves the Meal to Not Have Sex with gojo] > [I do think it's really funny if they STILL don't fuck bc that's the hardline that geto will die on as the #Ethical_Monastic_man, even tho gojo is like neither of us will leave traces i don't even have a scent + probably infertile [since sukuna did almost kill him via waist chop bisection that he survived in this au during one of their offscreen episodes] but also i think gojo litr is having fucked up-heat medical condition where having sex would not help...bc there are lifelong consequences to your actions at 12?] > [idk i just want gojo having his hair stroked and being pet like wet pathetic cat and everyone in situation (getogojo) in this room rn is so miserable because they still can't do anything about anything... ... so they don't have sex but do tenderly touch and comfort one another and geto is like becoming more and more murderised by every inch of this situation he sees] 

• is gojogeto like not about Stagnation and Separation and the torture of being so close yet so far? it is TO ME ...but i also like am trying to recreate the condition of Society? in AK, where, well in both parts ideally there is a sort of community in the estate ... ts1: uraemia obviously, kenjaku, tengen(?) maybe..., actual historical figures maybe like abeno seimei?, etc etc... ts2 with way more people: the students, shoko, kenjaku, tengen [fr fr], utahime? mei mei and co?, etc...  bc they're older the world is bigger but also it is Safer to hang around/about sukuna now bc Gojo is the safeguard... 
• something something... i also think the problem is transforming or complicating itself via like [they're both being Denied a thing], and for gojo he's like being denied it from all sides bc both of the men he wants to fuck are like We Are Practicing Asexuals... and for geto, it's just self-negation/abjection/etc but out of a sense of like 'i don't want to risk this battle yet' (?) in that the sukugo heian era showdown is a 50/50 rn and he doesn't know that gojo will survive and so they're stalemating like this for who knows how long...  
• BUT ALSO this whole like impulse/sensibility/desire for sex vs the ethical/rational/thoughtful consideration is a whole point in and of itself... like gojo is The Ascended Higher forms/powers/blessed Be guy, who is stubbornly attached to his bodily and worldly desires of like [love/sex/etc] whereas geto who is the gross_curse_eater in general while able to negate those impulses but is still unable to actually ascend/transcend... something like that...

1. [CAPITAL BANQUET 2!!! ELECTRIC BOGALOO] > [heian-kyo seating charts would have people be divided by status and then have what they're served also be decided by that ... so gojogeto seated at different parts of the room, gojo with sukuna beside him obvs... and nearly every dish that gojo gets that is not being served to geto he says to send to geto's seat instead ... and all of this is being done in front of Everyone] > [masterclass of everyone here is being humiliated rn bc sukuna is eating with Manners and without care and would eat gojo's servings if he actually didn't want them, and geto literally cannot touch a single item or he Dies via cleave in 0.0002s. and gojo is literally giving up his own food for the sake of Symbolic Gesture]  

• this is my equivalent of the AK horse-race scene... where it's like alexei offering to leave with Anna THRICE but she refuses because she's so overtaken with concern for vronsky and it's Extremely Obvious and Public .. which that scene is so fucking crazy... idk if sukuna is actually going to say 'i'll take it' 3x when gojo refuses a dish, but maybe... maybe not... 
• uh, so this: "Moreover, sex and food were associated with desire, and feeding the body was a manifestation of desire that in Buddhist discourse inhibited enlightenment. … in Heian literature “a good appetite demonstrates an unhealthy attachment to a vulgar world.… Heian writers shaped their identity by their transcendence over food.” This need to use the discipline of manners to overcome the body’s urges was an aspect of the growing ritualization of court life and dining in the Heian period." which is from the extremely good "The Heian Origins of Japan's High Cuisine" 
• don't even need to explain this one it's the making the [dangling the delicious meal] thing Literal... uhhhh  cuckhold cheating fic that's only about emotional cheating and the guy doing the emotional cheating is the one getting cucked icb this was the best i could come up with TT ... my bad my bad... I'll try again later I'll try again later... 
• i think this is a   [here is all that i can offer you, you just have to ACCEPT] and geto is Not Doing That... + geto's presumed problems with food + ingestion in general are going to do someee narrative lifting here if i can just remember what that is... probably that gojo is as thoughtless as he is in love... 

okay so those were all the ideas of the scenes I actually had planned out... or was rotating in my mind... everything else are accessory details... idk how this fic ends. ideally not with geto going into seclusion [which i think is what happens in genji?] and not with gojo having his head fucking beheaded [anna karenina ending] ...   so we're in the Firmly Spitballing Zone now

• ... like obviously we need 1 sex scene in here, which i guess would requisite a mating bite/claiming/bonding segment because that's kind of been a low hanging fixation/issue within this fic... 
• do we need a resolution to Kenjaku Wants To Bodysnatch Geto? like would he kill geto for this? or is there like a world where this is a very problematised situation now because gojo satoru is involved and kenjaku is Dying Immediately if bodysnatches this guy
• i did want the Curses to play a role in this. I did/do want like the natural curses crew/mahito's powers/etc to be a Thing and part of Society in a way... which there is obviously that capital><province high/low society but whatever... i really don't want to have to think this hard about this part
• in the timeskip I imagine they're both lowkey just being jujutsu sorcerers together but separate, ie solving cases, exorcising curses, the like... but i imagine geto hangs out a lot more in more metropolitan areas [temples/pilgrimage sites/cities/docks] while gojo is out in the provinces/boonies/etc Very low density areas bc it's easier on the eyes/senses...   which i think could lead to an interesting subversion in who is well-known/higher status/etc for why/what... but i don't really care idk...  
• i need convo also about like life/death the inevitability of the fight with sukuna and gojogeto arguing about how gojo believes he should at least be able to enjoy what he could have/wants since he’s going to/might as well die anyway, and geto saying he’ll get that [love] anyway because everyone knows sukuna feels love him When they fight and gojo(?) pointing out that it’s always a cruel and violent show and its fine whatever, but what if he wants love that’s not like that at all (essentially what he has with geto) … i havent worked this out yet bc obviously In Canon the masochistic desire for subjugation is unreal but here it’s quite a different situation like    uh bdsm isnt going to satisfy him now bc his problem is not exactly boredom … idkkkk and also Im not trying to or wanting to do evil abusive toxic love vs Nice Healthy Good Love   bc that’s not it … and I will litr always been choosing evul abusive toxic love in that situation… so in the end I have to figure out how to make getogojo evil abusive toxic love as well?
• this is quite gruesome: but I did want gojo saving yuta scene wherein yuta is a kid from his clan who got cursed, and gojo goes out to investigate that curse and finds like a village/hamlet gruesomely murdered and then yuta [omega, obviously] with rika [The Curse] wrapped around him, clearly obviously very bloody but specifically between the legs because rika's been consummating their promised marriage <3 ... anyway is like 11/12/13 and gojo is very much aware this Could Have Been/Should Have/Would Have Been him. and that's a moment. + this also becomes an issue laterrr bc obviously in 5-6 years yuta falls in love with handsome alpha maki and gojo is momentarily quite concerned with how to get their marriage set up since maki's clan fucking hates her and would oppose the marriage on the grounds that yuta is 'ruined'/corrupted/etc... [everyone thinks yuta should become a nun?] but is actually opposing it just to make her life worse and harder bc litr yuta [rich, hella powerful sorcerer, great connections] is way more of a catch than she, pitiful curse energy, cant even see curses, could ever have hoped for...  this was mostly a moral_exercise exposition for gojo in that he wouldn't kill the zenin clan guys just for the sake of something vaguely trivial but it was Annoying that he can't flex his influence bc Society.../Social Propriety... which is very AK isnt it...

• okay here's one last quote from that clothes article that I sort of want geto's character to circle around: "However, in the context of Japan’s Heian period, the symbolic function of such gar‑ ments underwent a fundamental transformation. As Buddhism became increasingly entangled with aristocratic society, monastic robes grew more refined in material, color, and tailoring—at times even acquiring decorative flourishes. More importantly, beyond these external changes, the robes no longer simply functioned as devices to suppress desire; rather, they began to evoke unextinguished longings and unresolved attachments. In The Tale of Genji, for instance, ordination is often depicted not as a manifestation of spiritual devotion, but as an escape from the emotional deadlocks of secular life. In such scenes, the robes worn by those entering religious life do not merely signify piety—they paradoxically render visible the wearerʹs inner turmoil and worldly attachments. Buddhist robes thus serve not merely as institutional markers but as multilayered media mediating between the inner self and social norms—conveying memory, desire, and emotion to both the wearer and the observer. In the end, what these garments reflect is not simply religious or institutional order, but the deep contradictions of human nature: the desire for salvation that coexists with the inability to fully relinquish desire. In the past, as in the present, we continue to waver between the demands of regulation and the pull of longing. Even as we seek the compas‑ sion of the Buddha, we remain bound by the memories of the world we cannot quite leave behind—a truth that still echoes within us today."

I guess I'll finish reading anna karenina, and maybe take a crack at the tale of genji again, and do More literature review to come up with An Ending... honestly maybe this is really good... I can't spoil the end of the fic bc i don't know what happens yet. i just know that i want my ship to be real!!! but they're both my ship!!! AUGH!!! 

Comments

[prizefig]

wow not!fic so vivid and detailed i derived all the satisfaction of reading anyway, your mind is so hugeee