Nanami

Skills: Adulting. Cooking. Deductive reasoning. Finance. Hand-to-hand combat. Interior decor. Personal Finance. Not working harder than he has to. Swordfighting.
Canon Abilities: Grade 1 jujutsu sorcerer. Particularly known for:
Role: Legend
Role Qualities/Attributes: Blue glowing dragonfly-like wings that disappear onto his back like a tattoo (and go through clothing without harming it). His emotional state will change not only the color of his eyes but also the color of his tie. He'll have a strong sense of when someone is in danger and to a lesser extent the enhanced durability, strength, and pain tolerance.
Role Reasoning: As an outsider to the world of jujutsu sorcery, Nanami sees how fucked up it is and does his best to protect children, such as the high school students, so that they live to see graduation. He disagrees greatly with the system but still follows the rules, as he sees he can do his best working within it and protect people.

Nanami returns from death to Folkmore because of his failure to protect students at Shibuya. He sees it as his task to mentor them here. This instinct applies first and foremost to Jujutsu Kaisen characters, but he will likely also mentor other children (not an age based term entirely) while here. This focus will consume his attention, but his time in Folkmore will also let him reflect and grow as a person. As he put it, he's always looked backwards, and it's only in his final moment he looked forwards. He has more to grow.

What was the most traumatic experience your character endured? How did this change them?

During Nanami's second year at Jujutsu Tech, he and Haibara were sent together on a mission to exorcise a grade 2 cursed spirit. It should have been simple. Easy. However, the research on the situation was faulty, and it quickly went out of control. Haibara died, and Nanami barely got himself and Haibara's body out of there. They were in high school, and now Haibara was dead. The most comforting words he got were from Geto: Gojo was handling it.

Most immediately, Nanami left the world of jujutsu sorcery for four years. Even though he returned in the end, it changed his view of the jujutsu world forever. The elders didn't treat high schoolers like high schoolers but adults—disposable ones at that. Somehow everyone from that world was so used to it that such things were normal. Not to him. Never to him.

Nanami spent most of his life looking backward, never entirely healing from the pain and wanting to go back to life before everything went wrong. It's behind his bad coping habits (drinking), and since jujutsu sorcerers can expect death, he has cut off most social ties and doesn't try to form many new ones. Normal people he wants to keep away from it, and jujutsu sorcerers? Have you met them?

What experience challenged your character's core beliefs? How did they handle this or change from it?

Nanami considered the world without purpose and him a man without purpose within it after he lost Haibara. Life was a meaningless circle of suffering and loss and going through the motions. So he set down the course to make the most money as readily and reliably as possible, so he could get off the terrible ferris wheel at age forty and simply be from that point on. A couple decades of hard work for… the rest of his life.

It was the simplest smallest thing that changed the course of his life. A cursed spirit jujutsu sorcerers usually wouldn't bother dealing with: a flyhead. These spirits are so low level they aren't even grade 4. However, one wrapped itself around the baker at a nearby bakery. It wasn't ruining her life, only making it a bit harder with a threat to grow over time. She did more good for the world than he did, so Nanami exorcised it. That was that. Right?

She said thank you. It made a difference, however slight, and for the first time in his life he was thanked. That never happened in the jujutsu world. But Nanami didn't need to be thanked ever again. Once was enough to know that however thankless and terrible the work was (and it was), it made a difference to people. It was a purpose.

Nanami returned to jujutsu sorcery and led, honestly, as isolated and lonely a life as he had before. Except he knew deep inside that he made a real difference for people, not simply making rich people richer.

Is your character capable of forgiveness or will they hold a grudge until they die? Would anything ever make them change their mind?

Nanami is capable of forgiveness. In the afterlife, he didn't hold a grudge against Geto for all the harm he did and the innocent people he killed. Honestly, Nanami understands turning against the establishment. Yet…

Beyond death, and who holds a grudge against the dead?, Nanami finds most people don't actually change in significant ways that show they've grown from whatever acts of wrongdoing they've committed that therefore warrants forgiving them. He's not about to rollover for someone to do the same bad thing over and over again after all.

As such he's also quite capable of holding a grudge (hello elders) or disrespect (hello Gojo). It's a safety mechanism for managing expectations and planning to prevent future harm. The elders continue to put children in harm's way, so he does what he can to protect them. Gojo… keeps being Gojo, so expecting as much makes it easier to deal with his nonsense. So on and so forth.

What is your character's safespace? When do they feel the most settled and comfortable? When do they feel confident and relaxed?

Nanami has cultivated his apartment to be his safe space. He enjoys settling in for the night by himself. Perhaps he cooks himself dinner. Perhaps he grabs takeout. Either way, he prefers to get off the clock on time and back to his safe haven where he can settle in with a good book and a good drink. Reading, Nanami can forget all about the terrible shit that happens during the day and be taken away to whatever is happening in the book. It's escapism, pure and simple.

As part of this structured safe space, Nanami keeps jujutsu sorcery as far away from it as possible. When he comes back from work, he changes out of his clothes, showers, and leaves it all behind. Jujutsu sorcerers, most especially Gojo, are not welcome. He will go out of his way to meet with them anywhere else so as to preserve that. The lack of cursed spirits and all the terrible shit associated with jujutsu keeps the environment feeling as clean as his decor tastes look. It's inside and out.

It's the only part of the world he truly controls and thus can relax in. He will work to build such a space in Folkmore, but it won't be the same.