#I tend to use Japanese names and culture

[muffinlance]

I'm sorry, this was bothering me enough to send in an ask.

The stupid question is: how strict is Earth-Kingdom-is-China vs Fire-Kingdom-is-Japan generally? I mostly ask because although none of the canon characters use real Japanese names, but it feels like everyone uses Japanese names for Fire Kingdom and Chinese for Earth, which makes Chinese Wanyi for Zuko's ship not fit in.

I mean, the waters are muddied from China's historical domination over the area, and it's a really great pun, but I woke up and my brain wouldn't let go of the entirely petty issue.

Ugh. Sorry for the stupid ask, especially since I don't come bearing any like funny trivia with to mitigate with. Please feel free to disregard as well, especially since I'm too cowardly to link to my actual tumblr account.

There's absolutely no strictness, because that's a fanon division anyway, and not one I adhere to. Fanon is fake and we can make of it what we want, and I want the pretty ship name!

#I tend to use Japanese names and culture #because I minored in Japanese and lived in Japan for awhile #I use Chinese and other Asian-country concepts as I become aware of them #the show itself deliberately mixes cultures across the board #probably because they realized making the Fire Nation == Japan would be #Uh #Rather on the nose #Historically speaking

[bancaishi]

didn't want to put this rant in the tags of that last post but honestly i feel like a lot of people hate toshiro disproportionately compared to what he actually did in-story. and if we're being real it's most likely because of racism

#xyx.txt #because so much of his misunderstanding of laios comes from a cultural angle #and because his mannerisms are strongly coded as japanese especially relative to the other characters in the story #i think a lot of people's implicit biases have them reading this as an inherent and unchangeable aspect of his being #rather than being just one aspect of him that originates from a particular context and is fully changeable #like any other trait on anyone else. #part of this is just because of the fact that the story is told from laios and his party's perspective #but i think a lot of people's perspectives on him are probably informed by racism #not all east asians are quiet and polite. i know this myself as a kind of loud and awkward and easily excited east asian person myself #but generally cultural mannerisms from east asia tend to be more subdued overall than western ones #so it's. not uncommon. for western people to read east asians as being rude or cold or aloof just for behaving like this #the 'oriental inscrutability' moment... #like he doesn't need to 'get rid of the stick up his ass'. he just needs to not put such heavy expectations on other people #but yeah i think a lot of people are way more unsympathetic to him than they would have been if he were not so distinctly asian-coded #which is ironic! a lot of people being really mad at him for ableism specifically in the social expectations he holds of others #while applying the same kind of judgment to him but through the perspective of race instead of neurodivergence. suspicious. #blah blah blah it's because he's 'neurotypical' or whatever #predicting how some of you people would behave toward neurodivergent asian people and the outlook isn't good #also if we're on the subject of microaggressions. #laios repeatedly and insistently calling him 'shuro' to the point that everyone else calls him that too #that's not 'funny autism bad with names' moment that's a racist microaggression #someone misnaming me because of my distinctly ethnic/foreign-sounding name doesn't automatically become funny and relatable #just because you're neurodivergent lol #can we maybe have more empathy toward characters and people of color in fandom #instead of always using them as punching bag side character trope #thanks.

[reitziluz]

"oh huh, usually getting my official business and chores done for the day energizes me to work on my projects. i wonder why my brain is all scrambled up and i feel both unmotivated and anxious like should be doing something?"

turns out migraine prevention meds have been working so well that i managed to forget how auras for big nasty ones feel lol

wanted to transfer the stuff i worked on during my trip from docs to the working file and start neatening things up but oop

fingers crossed it'll fully clear out before bedtime so i can at least start looking into how i want my tenses to work in the flashback

#yea fic talk #i don't want the entire thing to be in past perfect (i think it's called!) #gotta figure out how to cleanly transition from telling about a past thing #into diving into the moment and then back to present #im also once again thinking about some stylistic choices #like how to refer to characters and what to translate or include as is #like japanese honorifics #prolly just going to go with what's most fun for me and comes naturally #like i don't get how others can do third person pov and use arataka instead of reigen #feels like you're calling your pov character babygirl as if it's a neutral term #then again i tend to have single name ocs and feel strongly about this mostly when im writing other ppl's characters #im not close enough to him to call him arataka when that's not what he's mostly called in the narrative nor what his spinoff is called #okay maybe i saw a post about needing to research cultures and how that affects name use #and like. it was weirdly aggressive but mostly seemed confused on its own points #what narrator calls characters and what characters call themselves and others. don't necessarily follow same rules #and yeah this tangent got too long #point is how the pov character is called is how i or the narrator construct of me calls them #other characters are loosely called what the pov character would call them #in my usual style of writing anyway

[menhera-info-archieve]

in case you haven't seen it yet, here's the menhera 101 article by HoshiCandy from Kei Club Issue 3. not sure if i'll post the other menhera related articles from this issue or not, so consider checking the link in source if you're interested.

i'm also leaving a text transcription under the cut for anyone that may benefit from that

Menhera 101

Menhera fashion has quickly been gaining popularity worldwide! This fast growth has come with its fair share of misunderstandings about the community and style. Menhera artist and designer HoshiCandy is here with a lesson on menhera’s origins, history, and basics. Find more of her work on the pages before and after this article!

What is Menhera? 

“Menhera” can be thought of as “a person who seeks mental wellbeing”. 

The word “Menhera” was born in Japan in 2001, on the “Mental Health” board of anonymous forum 2ch, where users discussed their wellbeing. The users of this board were named “Mental Healthers” which was shortened to “Menhera”. 

The Menhera community covers anything that might cause one mental suffering, such as: physical illness or disability, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, bullying, hyper-sexuality, sexism, homophobia, etc. Importantly, there is no need for a formal diagnosis, as the focus is on how you feel, and that you want to feel better. 

It is difficult to talk about these topics in Japanese society without being heavily stigmatized. Menhera is a community to speak safely without that stigma. Of course, this stigma and need for community when it comes to one’s mental wellbeing is not limited to Japan, and that is why menhera has grown in the west as well. 

Since the creation of the word in 2001, there have been several manga published with “Menhera” in the title, many Visual Kei songs about it, Menhera idol groups, and several menhera fashion brands. 

However, an unfortunate addition to all this has been the discovery of the word in mainstream media...

Just as the topic of illness is heavily stigmatized in Japanese society, the word “Menhera” itself became quickly stigmatized and stereotyped as “an attention seeking, troublesome person” or “an overly attached girlfriend” (aka “yandere”). If you were to speak to a Japanese person about “Menhera”, this would most likely be what they would think you meant. This stereotype tends to be referred to as “Menhera Kei” in Japanese which is why we avoid the use of “kei” for Menhera in particular. 

Despite all this, the true menhera community has continued to grow. 

Menhera Motifs

Artists in the Menhera community created many works of “Vent Art” art that expresses their feelings and suffering. When this art was printed onto clothing, Menhera fashion was born. 

These are some themes you will commonly see in Menhera: 

Medication

Suicide 

Self-harm 

Hospitals

Sex and BDSM

Social Media Addiction

Heartbreak 

Wearing Menhera art printed on clothing serves as a way of literally wearing one’s feelings on one’s sleeves. It turns invisible suffering visible, and fights against the stigma driven silence. This means that Menhera fashion is highly confrontational, with graphic depictions of illness symptoms. Although the onlooker may feel discomfort, the Menhera style says “this is my true reality, don’t pretend it doesn’t exist!”

Depending on the feelings of the wearer, Menhera fashion also says “although I am sick, I can still be ‘kawaii’” or “although I appear ‘kawaii’, on the inside I am suffering”. 

Turning the invisible visible, forcing the silence to be broken, and challenging kawaii culture, these are the goals of Menhera fashion.

The Menhera Silhouette

Carefully avoiding a highly theatrical or OTT (over-the-top) look is important for maintaining the integrity of the goals of menhera. Menhera is a very casual style, with few accessories and light makeup. The key is for a coord to centre on Menhera imagery, whether vent art or text-focused designs, printed onto clothing. 

Be careful not to dress up as the characters depicted in vent art, who are often costumey, gory, and OTT. 

Menhera Coord checklist: 

Printed Menhera art

Byojaku/Minimal makeup

Not OTT/Few accessories

Flat Shoes 

[optional] Oversized top

[optional] Hime bangs 

[optional] twintails

Colors can vary: a pastel yume look, or a gothic yami look, both are fine!

The makeup style is called “Byojaku” meaning “sickly/weak”. Reddish colors are applied to areas around the eyes to give the impression of crying or illness. The rest of the face is kept plain without much color. 

A Note of Caution

The Menhera community is about healing, and seeking recovery and wellbeing. It advocates getting help, medication, therapy, and receiving support through your recovery journey. 

True Menhera never encourages or enables harmful behaviors, and never glorifies them. Menhera fashion is an alternative way of expressing your suffering without self-harm. Menhera fashion empowers the individual through their recovery, but does not empower harmful behaviors. 

There are some, sometimes labeled by the community as “Wannabe Menhera”, who mistook the meaning of “menhera” after seeing its rise in popularity, as it being trendy to fake mental illness. They engage in behaviors such as posting self-harm photos (real or faked) to social media with the tag #menhera, and other attention-seeking behaviors. 

While this is the opposite of what the Menhera community stands for, is harmful to the unfortunate viewers of these photos, and creates further stigma against the community...it cannot be ignored that these “Wannabe Menhera”, too, need help and healing. 

The Menhera fashion movement is to help you feel comfortable, unashamed, and kawaii in your skin, scars and all. It is NOT for encouraging people to create new scars “for the aesthetic”. 

If you are struggling with mental or physical suffering, thoughts, or behaviors that cause harm to yourself or others, please seek help. If you do not believe you deserve help, you do, please seek help. If you believe you are faking it, you likely are not, your feelings are valid, please seek help.

Don’t have access to therapy? 

We found a comprehensive list of suicide prevention hotlines at https://ibpf.org/resource/list-international-suicide-hotlines [link no longer working]

There are also free and affordable counseling services online like Better Help and Pride Counseling! Look online to find what option could work for you! 

Alternatives to Menhera

After reading all this you may be thinking “the Menhera community sounds good but all the fashion is too restrictive for me” and if so, you’re not alone! But the good news is that you don’t have to wear Menhera fashion to be in the Menhera community. 

Look up any of these alternative styles online for examples and more information:

Yamikawaii (“Sickly-cute”) is essentially the aesthetic of Menhera without the activism, a corrupted dark kawaii. Unfortunately the word was trademarked and now suffers from copyright takedowns. 

Yumekawaii (“Dreamy-cute”) an aesthetic evolved from Fairy kei to describe everything pastel and kawaii, but with a slight edge, described as “fairytales with poison”. 

Marekawaii (“Nightmare-cute”) created as an alternative to Yamikawaii to avoid the copyright issues, and as a counterpart to Yumekawaii. Marekawaii is specifically defined as being open to your own interpretation and style. 

Medikawaii (“Medical-cute”) a pastel kawaii aesthetic focusing only on medical motifs, such as medicine and hospitals. 

Gurokawaii (“Grotesque-cute”) mixes frightening and disturbing imagery with kawaii. Kyary Pamyu Pamyu helped popularize it. 

Iryouu Kei (“Medical Kei”) a Visual Kei substyle with lots of gore and hospital theming, very OTT and theatrical, such as dressing like a nightmare nurse. 

Living Doll artists see themselves and their bodies as a canvas to create art and express themselves, often with intricate makeup and body painting. This is a good one to look at if you’re into heavy artistic makeup.

#menhera #info #op #menhera.txt

[lactoseintolerentswag]

Rise Characterizations Pt. 5!!!!!

Okay I promised I'd share my Splinter reference notes, so here I am! Also wanna take a moment to thank everyone reblogging the prev. parts. All the tags/notes are so sweet!!! Anyway, here's our one and only Rat Man,

Splinter Character Notes

Language Habits:

Catchphrase: "HOOOOOT SOUP!!!"

Will yell "whoa/oh nelly!" when in a tight spot or stumbling around

Makes puns/dad jokes, and laughs at said jokes to himself

A poor liar, will skirt around the truth until you drop it

Penchant for interrupting people if he's not interested, devout user of "yada, yada", "ah, bup, bup, bup"

Verbalizes his attacks/moves, something his sons pick up on. Could be a habit picked up from his action star days, such moves include: lights off jitsu, and slow motion jitsu

Uses 2010's slang, (i.e. "totes", "chillaxed"), could see him incorrectly using up to date slang to embarrass his boys

In a group refers to his sons as "boys"

One by one will refer to his sons by their designated colors, but will pull out the full name (not nickname) if the situation is serious

Also refers to Donnie as "the funny one"

Personality:

A performer, well he is an actor after all. He knows how to captivate an audience. Splinter likes attention--something that may be connected to his strict childhood with high expectations--but he also performs for his boys. To keep them happy, but most importantly safe. This also means he keeps his true emotions tucked closely to his chest

Jovial. Despite his dark past and heavy responsibility thrust upon him at a young age, Splinter is always laughing. He finds the fun in everything

Secretive. As mentioned before, Splinter tends to keep things close to his chest. Despite this, he's a terrible liar. He'll just avoid the truth until it comes back to bite him in the ass. This makes him sometimes a little emotionally unavailable

Lazy. He always finds the easiest way to do something, and procrastinate on his responsibilities as long as possible

Vain. He's glory seeking for all the proper attention he lost in his youth. So the Lou Jitsu aspect of his life boosted his ego in irreparable ways. He also uses the identity of Lou Jitsu to escape from the idea of being stuck as a rat. Glorifying the past is way to find comfort for him

Adrenaline junkie. Part of that glory-seeking and glorification of the past manifests into him needing adrenaline to feel alive. (i.e. when he steals the tank)

Attentive and empathetic. He can be a little hare-brained when it comes to remembering the details, but he's always very attentive to his sons needs. In flashbacks he's shown to supply them with items needed for their interests (i.e. little Mikey gets art supplies), and always apologizes when he messes up (i.e. the conversation he had with Donnie). This empathy also extends to other people and animals, as he was sympathetic with Cassandra when she was lamenting about the foot clan and was immediately worried about the turtles Draxum had in his lab

Protective. He would sacrifice everything to save his sons, and he does

Miscellaneous:

His tail is Very expressive, and one of the most active parts of his body, so if you want to subtley show emotion I'd focus on that

Has a Lou Jitsu body pillow

Remembers all his stunt double's names

Snores loudly

Talented singer, can sing opera and lived next to a karaoke bar in Japan

The show he watches the most is called "Soapy Treadmill", a Japanese game show where they throw things like scorpions at people who are soapy on treadmills

Has a "do not touch!" cabinet, full of trophies, mystic artifacts, and mementos of his past

I have a List of all the mentioned Lou Jitsu movie names mentioned in S1, but I'm probably gonna wait till the end of my S2 rewatch and post it separately (it's also long too). Will link here!

I'm also gonna add a recommendation here at the end.

This is for the white and non East Asian folks. I'm not as well-versed in East Asian or Japanese culture, but Splinter is a first generation immigrant! He keeps a distance from his heritage because of the trauma of his youth, and the role Lou Jitsu probably also forced him to westernize his identity to make it more palpable to Hollywood. But it would be a disservice to sever parts of his identity, because one is uncomfortable or not knowledgeable in writing it.

For my white folks intimidated by writing a person of color because they want to get it right, research always helps. Research helps with everything!!! writingwithcolor here on tumblr actually has a lot of useful resources, here's their guideline, and a research chart one of their moderators created, which I personally found to be very helpful. I believe their ask box is closed right now, but if you ask questions in the future be nice!!!!

Anyway I'm gonna do April next :)

#rottmnt #rise of the tmnt #rise of the teenage mutant turtles #tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt splinter #rottmnt hamato yoshi #character analysis #writing #fanfic #long post #critter talks #rottmnt lou jitsu

[thelingodingo]

Haikyuu Characters' Informal & Formal Speech

Something I find interesting about different languages and cultures regarding sociolinguistics is the entire idea of formality. Of course, there are ways to sound more formal/polite in English and ways to sound more informal/rude depending on word choice (synonyms). But with a language such as Japanese, it's the grammatical structure itself (verb endings, vocab) that changes to convey varying levels of formality.

An example would be:

大丈夫? (informal) vs 大丈夫ですか？(formal) = Are you ok?

daijoubu vs daijoubudesuka

これは本だ (informal) vs これは本です (formal) = This is a book.

korewahonda vs korewahondesu

In a school setting, the younger grades (kohai) will use formal speech with the older grades (senpai) as well as teachers: meaning 1st years will be formal to 2nd and 3rd years, 2nd years will be informal to 1st years but formal to 3rd years, and 3rd years can be informal to both 1st and 2nd years.

This is easily shown in basically any anime but this post will focus on Haikyuu since it's the one I'm most familiar with.

Karasuno: Kageyama and Tsukishima definitely hold a very high level of politeness towards their senpai as they always speak formally towards them and also always call them "full surname-san" (Azumane-san instead of Asahi-san, Sugawara-san instead of Suga-san, Sawamura-san instead of Daichi-san, Nishinoya-san instead of Noya-san). It makes sense for them since in general their personalities are quite strict and rigid. Hinata also speaks formally to his senpai but calls them by their more usual names (Daichi-san, Suga-san, etc) and he tends to forget to speak formally out of sheer excitement (not because he's trying to be rude) so he ends up adding on the formal desu copula to quickly change his informal sentence to be formal at the last second. You might think that Tanaka and Nishinoya are pretty relaxed when it comes to formalities due to their crasser personalities but I would actually say it's more the opposite. They're both characters that really like upholding the entire senpai-kohai relationship and it shows in that they are always respectful to the 3rd years and use formal speech (it's also shown in how they both loveee being called senpai and specifically Nishinoya's relationship with Asahi). They still call the 3rd years by their more common names so they aren't as rigid as Tsukki and Kageyama when it comes to names though. The scenes in season 1 when Noya and Asahi were fighting (specifically the storage room fight) were surprising in particular due to Noya changing to informal speech while arguing with Asahi (his senpai).

some other random formalities I've noticed in the other characters: as mentioned in the anime, Kenma doesn't like any of that hierarchy stuff which is why Hinata is able to continue comfortably speaking informally to him even though Kenma is a senpai. The shock and immediate apology of Hinata when he finds out Kenma is older than him is sensible in the cultural context since there are many people who would get quite offended and angry if a kohai were to be speaking informally towards them. Although Kenma is never shown directly talking to any 3rd years (other than Kuroo, which he speaks informally to since they're childhood friends), I assume he would still speak formally since even though he doesn't find formal speech necessary he would still be aware that others would care about it. When it comes to Mad Dog, a small part of me expected him to be completely informal to everyone since those kind of characters are usually like that in anime but he still keeps a pretty formal tone when talking to his senpais which pleasantly surprised me. As far as I remember watching season 4, I don't think the Miya twins use formal speech when talking to Aran. They don't call him Aran-san or anything either, just Aran-kun, which could be another example of childhood friends not needing formalities even with the age gap.

EDIT: i just remembered that Kageyama is so damn polite that he doesn't even differentiate between the Miya twins by their first names, he calls them both "Miya-san"!

If anybody wants a particular character/school to be discussed in detail then just send me an ask and I'll try!

side note: this post isn't proofread so if theres any mistakes or corrections in the info please tell me (✿◠‿◠)

#haikyuu #karasuno #tsukishima kei #kageyama tobio #hinata shoyo #kozume kenma #kenma #kuroo tetsurou #miya twins #miya osamu #miya atsumu #nishinoya yuu #noya #sawamura daichi #sugawara koushi #asahi azumane #tanaka ryuunosuke #japanese linguistics #japaneselanguage #anime #anime and manga

[superlinguo]

New gesture Emoji in Unicode 15.1: Head Shaking Horizontally and Head Shaking Vertically (aka shake and nod!), and (finally) right facing emoji

Unicode 15.1 will be rolling out to phones and computers across this year. It will include lots of new CJK (Chinese Japanese Korean) ideographs, some new line-breaking rules for syllabic scripts, and a handfull of new emoji! There's a phoenix, a breaking chain, a lime and a brown mushroom, as well as new family silhouettes and a handful of existing emoji, but now facing rightward!

Below are illustrations of the set from a recent Emojipedia summary of the 15.1 update.

The two emoji I'm most excited about are Head Shaking Horizontally and Head Shaking Vertically. That's head shaking and head nodding to you! I wrote these proposals with Jennifer Daniel and the Unicode emoji subcomittee team.

Why the more elaborate names? Well, Unicode tend to describe emoji by form, not function. That's for very good reason, because a head nod might be agreement for you, but in other cultures a vertical movement of the head can mean disagreement. This has provided a double challenge for emoji designers, who have to both show movement and also facial features that aren't too positive or negative. Below are the Emojipedia pair. They've done a great job.

These two emoji are actually made by combining a classic emoji face wtih the horizontal (🙂‍↔️) or vertical arrows (🙂‍↕️ ) using a special Unicode character called a Zero Width Joiner (ZWJ, 'zwidge' to it's friends), which means that even though they're two characters they smoosh together to create one emoji. It's the same process that makes all the different flags, as well as the gender and skin tones.

In fact, all of the emoji in 15.1 are combinations using the ZWJ mechanism; including the phoenix (🐦‍🔥), lime (🍋‍🟩) and brown mushroom (🍄‍🟫 ). Those new right-facing emoji are a combination of the usual left-facing emoji and a rightward arrow🚶‍➡️ .

It's exciting that Unicode have decided to try this set of right-facing characters. Many emoji are left-facing, which is a legacy of their Japanese origins (the word order in Japan means that right-facing makes sense). I've been complaining about emoji directionality since 2015, and I'm glad that this update will mean that lil emoji dude can finally escape a burning building for those of us with a left-to-right writing system and Subject Verb Object word order. They've started with a bunch of people in motion. It will be interesting to see if this set is where it stops or not.

(no no buddy!! To the exit!!)

The use of the ZWJ is an elegant solution because it means that you don't have to make a whole new codepoint for the emoji, it just uses the old one. If someone doesn't have their phone or computer update to 15.1 then it should fall back to just showing 🚶‍➡️, which somewhat conveys the intent. That's the magic of a good ZWJ combination.

Earlier posts on emoji gesture

Gesture emoji: contributing to the Unicode standard

New Publication: The Past and Future of Hand Emoji

Gender Variations for Person in Suit Levitating Emoji - Emoji Proposal

New draft emoji include 3 proposals I co-wrote!

Emoji as Digital Gestures in Language@Internet [Open Access]

Earlier posts on emoji directionality

Emoji Deixis: When emoji don’t face the way you want them to

Don’t run towards the fire (the on-going problem with emoji directions)

#emoji #language #linguistics #unicode #directions #gestures #emblems

[stargloom]

hey. i dont like doing this. and i dont want to be a tumblr bitch who's wrote a callout before. but i cannot in good faith continue posting in the same community as this guy and allow him to pretend to not be genuinely a sicko. but @/bloomingduskk (who im sure will change urls after i post this is. a prosh.ipper radq.eer trans.d alongside a plethora of unfavorable unethical things. most of which being too personal to share, but enough left for me to be uncomfortable with my own silence. tw for like fucking everything lol

I never wanted to be in this position, or ever have to be the author of something like this. I am not a confrontational person or someone who enjoys drama, i’m entirely someone who goes out of his way not to get involved in such things, but due to my past public friendships with this person, and his tendencies of covering his tracks and lying about me and my friends, i feel as if it would be cowardly of me not to at least issue a warning about this user, and hope my message is conveyed well. If this was solely a personal gripe, I would not come out with a doc publically, I have no intentions of being petty, and am purposely leaving out a lot of petty issues and things that have been done to harm me personally. I only intend to talk about the actual dangers he promotes, and provide counterclaims to the narratives he tends to enjoy putting out. 

Before going further, i will be addressing him by his url, or nothing at all, as i will not be calling him by the japanese name he chooses to go by as a white person. It is against my morals. I hope that my decision doesn’t make this document more confusing than it needs to be. 

--- bloomingduskk uses Japanese names as a white person, and has done so for a while. He currently uses the name “maki” , and for the last half of 2023, went by Kaede, despite the fact that i firmly told him not to due to it being cultural appropriation multiple times, and each time he gave me an excuse, before continuing to do it. This is not a targeted attack against him, as he has said before in regard to being told not to use a japanese name, but something that i would condemn no matter who the person was. He identify(s)d as transracial. No matter the mental health issues you may have, the entire concept of “transitioning” into an ethnic minority is racist and entirely unacceptable. Here was his response to that.

And here is him self describing as transracial, and his pinned post on his old radqueer blog

^^ his discord at the time, which i and many others have personal dms with, matched exactly with his radq.ueer blogs. he cannot fucking say this isnt him i will go insane if he tries to deny this shit. He has spoken about me under the guise that I am stalking him, despite never having me blocked on anything but an old art account, and also the fact that I have gone out of my way, due to having severe morality ocd, not to scroll through or look at his content. All screenshots were provided to me secondhand, and not from my own devices, due to how severe this situation was for me, a person with ocd who he knew has ocd. At the time of these screenshots, i specifically requested my friends to block out his usernames so i didn't obsessively compulsively make myself feel sick scrolling through his blogs. (the screenshots in question here are not mine, i own a samsung galaxy, this ui does not match. I added my own annotations to the second image though.) VV his self identification as a proshipper + some stuff he had on his propara blogs (heavy tw)

^^ the first image here is in repsonse to an extremely long and thought out message my friend sent him during this period to this specific blog of his when it still existed.

his response to this was full of lies and empty promises and excuses, and plenty of vapid words he has taken back. i dont see a point in including what he had to say about this purely because he was lying through his teeth.

his twt account was probably the worst thing of his that was shown to me. i do not want to include screenshots of the things he would retweet as they were all sexually explicit imagery and posting of pedophilia, rape, beastiality, severe abuse, loli/shota content, and general dangerous and exploitative philias. i do not want to make that content more reachable to anyone than it already is . this account has been deleted. but i have been given screenshots of him posting his art there. along with the most tame thing i think he posted there. yeah

a lot of the harm he has done to my friends and i is extremely personal, far more personal than i feel comfortable airing out on a public blog that i've worked hard to distance a public personality from. so, i am not willing to spend time slowly outlining every single lie and harmful action he has done. that would make this post impossibly long, and i dont have the stomach to retrigger myself in this way. this has taken me two months to write, as i am deeply bothered by it and this entire event with him made me the sickest i'd been in a long while. do not fucking harass him. block him. im certain he's going to send himself anon asks pretending to be stargloom rabid fans or pretend to be my friends or whatever but all i want is for him to stay the fuck away from me and my friends and spaces where he pretends he isn't into vile shit. block him. dont interact. dont send him anything. just be careful of this cunt . i refuse to let him walk around as if he hasn't happily and enthusiastically promoted the most vile content one can enjoy.

im sure he's gonna scramble after this and probably start spewing revolting shit abt me which hes done at every single turn after me being upset. but he cannot pretend like nothing happened forever. thanks.

#long post #starspeak #jesus christ. now i gotta fucking trigger tag this shit #tw inc*st #tw pedophila mention #tw sh #tw zoophile mention #tw unsanitary #i already said this but DO NOT harass him please just dont interact w this sicko or engage w his work #i know he will send himself anon asks its his favourite game but genuinely. dont do that. thanks #this is rebloggable please do if u can i dont like how he slinks around in the dgr fandom all innocent #tw r4p3 #bruh i cannot keep up w these censored tags #i will probs rb this throughout the week bc i want . this to be known #i am leaving this up because i dont want this to be ignored or forgotten about .

[canmom]

Music theory notes (for science bitches) - part 2: pentatonics and friends

or, the West ain't all that.

Hello again everyone! I'm grateful for the warm reception to the first music theory notes post (aka 'what is music? from first principles'). If you haven't read it, take a look~

In that stab at a first step towards 'what is music', I tried to distinguish between what's a relatively universal mathematical structure (nearly all musical systems have the octave) and what's an arbitrary convention. But in the end I did consciously limit myself, and make a beeline for the widely used 12TET tuning system and the diatonic scales used in Western music. I wanted to avoid overwhelming myself, and... 👻 it's all around us...👻

But! But but but. This is a series on music theory. Not just one music theory. The whole damn thing. I think I'm doing a huge disservice to everyone, not least me, if that's where we stop.

Today, then! For our second installation: 'Music theory notes (for science bitches)' will take a quick look through some examples that diverge from the diatonic scale: the erhu, Japanese pentatonic scales, gamelan, klezmer, and blues.

Also since the first part was quite abstract, we'll also having a go at using the tools we've built so far on a specific piece, the Edo-period folk song Sakura, Sakura.

Sound fun? Let's fucking gooooo

The story so far

To recap: in the first post we started by saying we're gonna be looking at tonal music, which isn't the only type of music. We introduced the idea of notes and frequencies by invoking the magic name of Fourier.

We said music can be approximated (for now) as an idealised pressure wave, which we can divide into brief windows called 'notes', and these notes are usually made of a strong sine wave at the 'fundamental frequency', plus a stack of further sine waves at integer multiples of that frequency called 'overtones'.

Then, we started constructing a culturally specific but extremely widespread system of creating structure between notes, known as '12 Tone Equal Temperament' or 12TET. The main character of this story is the interval, which is the ratio between the fundamental frequencies of two notes; we talked about how small-integer ratios of frequencies tend to be especially 'consonant' or nice-sounding.

We introduced the idea of the 'octave', which is when two notes have a frequency ratio of 2. We established the convention treating notes an octave apart as deeply related, to the point that we give them the same name. We also brought in the 'fifth', the ratio of 1.5, and talked about the idea of constructing a scale using small-integer ratios.

But we argued that if you try and build everything with those small-integer ratios you can dig yourself into a hole where moving around the musical space is rife with complications.

As a solution to this, I pulled out 'equal temperament' as an approximation with a lot of mathematical simplicity. Using a special irrational ratio called the "semitone" as a building block, we could construct the Western system of scales and modes and chords and such, where

a 'scale' is kind of like a palette for a piece of music, defined by a set of frequency ratios relative to a 'root' or 'tonic' note. this can be abstract, as in 'the major scale', or concrete, as in 'C major'.

a 'mode' is a cyclic permutation of an abstract scale. although it may contain the same notes, moving them around can change the feeling a lot!

a 'chord' is playing multiple notes at the same time. 'Triad' chords can be constructed from scales. There are other types which add or remove stuff from the triads. We'll come back to this.

I also summarised how sheet music works and the rather arbitrary choices in its construction, and at the end, I very briefly talked about chord notation.

There's a lot of ways to do this...

I recently watched a video by jazz musician and music theory youtuber Adam Neely, in which he and Philip Ewell discuss how much "music theory" is treated as synonymous with a very specific music theory which Neely glosses as "the harmonic style of 18th-century European composers". He argues, pretty convincingly imo, that 'music theory' pedagogy is seriously weakened by not taking non-white/Western models, such as Indian classical music theories, as a foil - citing Anuja Kamat's channel on Indian classical music as a great example of how to do things differently. Here's her introductory playlist on Indian classical music concepts, which I will hopefully be able to lean on in future posts:

There's two big pitfalls I wanna avoid as I teach myself music theory. I like maths a lot, and if I can fit something into a mathematical structure it's much easier for me to remember it - but I gotta be really careful not to mathwash some very arbitrary conventions and present them as more universal than they are. Music involves a lot of mathematics, but you can't reduce it to maths. It's a language for expressing emotion, not a predicate to prove.

One of the big goals of this series is to get straight in my head what has a good answer to 'why this way?', and what is just 'idk it's the convention we use'. And if something is an arbitrary convention, we gotta ask, what other conventions exist? Humans are inventive little buggers after all.

I also don't want to limit my analytical toolbox to a single 'hammer' of Western music theory, and try and force everything else into that frame. The reasons I'm learning music theory are... 1. to make my playing and singing better, and be more comfortable improvising; 2. to learn to compose stuff, which is currently a great mystery. How do they do it? I do like Western classical music, but honestly? Most of the music I enjoy is actually not Western. I want to be able to approach that music on its own terms.

For example, the erhu... for erhuample???

The instrument family I'm learning, erhu/zhonghu, is remarkably versatile - there are no frets (or even a soundboard!) to guide you, which is both a challenge and a huge freedom. You can absolutely play 12TET music on it, and it has a very beautiful sound - here is an erhu harmonising with a 12TET-tuned piano to play a song from the Princess Mononoke soundtrack, originally composed by Joe Hisaishi as an orchestral piece for the usual Western instruments...

This performance already makes heavy use of a technique called (in English) 'vibrato', where you oscillate the pitch around as you play the note (which means the whole construction that 'a note has a fixed pitch defined by a ratio' is actually an abstraction - now a note's 'frequency' represents the middle point a small range of pitches!). Vibrato is very common in Western music too, though the way you do it on an erhu and the way you do it on a violin or flute are of course a little different. (We could do an aside on Fourier analysis of vibrato here but I think that's another day's subject).

But if you listen to Chinese compositions specifically for Erhu, they take advantage of the lack of fixed pitch to zip up and down like crazy. Take the popular song Horse Racing for example, composed in the 1960s, which seems to be the closest thing to the 'iconic' erhu piece...

This can be notated in 12TET sheet music. But it's also taking full advantage of some of the unique qualities of the erhu's long string and lack of frets, like its ability to glide up and down notes, playing the full range of 'in between' frequencies on one string. The sheet music I linked there also has a notation style called 简谱 jiǎnpǔ which assigns numbers to notes. It's not so very different from Western sheet music, since it's still based on the diatonic major scale, but it's adjusted relative to the scale you're currently playing instead of always using C major. Erhu music very often includes very fast trills and a really skilled erhu/zhonghu player can jump between octaves with a level of confidence I find hard to comprehend.

I could spend this whole post putting erhu videos but let me just put one of the zhonghu specifically, which is a slightly deeper instrument; in Western terms the zhonghu (tuned to G and D) is the viola to the erhu's violin (tuned to D and A)...

To a certain degree, Chinese music is relatively easy to map across to the Western 12-tone chromatic scale. For example, the 十二律 shí'èr lǜ system uses essentially the same frequency ratios as the Pythagorean system. However, Chinese music generally makes much heavier use of pentatonic scales than Western music, and does not by default use equal temperament, instead using its own system of rational frequency ratios. correction: with the advent of Chinese orchestras in the mid-20thC, it seems that Chinese instruments now usually are tuned in equal temperament.

I would like my understanding of music theory to have a 'first class' understanding of Chinese compositions like Horse Racing (and also to have a larger reference pool lmao). I'm going to be starting formal erhu lessons next month, with a curriculum mostly focused on Chinese music. If I have interesting things to report back I'll be sure to share them!

Anyway, in a similar spirit, this post we're gonna try and do a brief survey of various musical constructs relevant to e.g. Japanese music, Klezmer, Blues, Indian classical music... I have to emphasise I am not an expert in any of these systems, so I can't promise to have the most elegant form of presentation for them, just the handles I've been able to get. I will be using Western music theory terms quite a bit still, to try and draw out the parallels and connections. But I hope it's going to be interesting all the same.

Let's start with... pentatonic scales!

Pentatonic scales

In the previous post we focused most of our attention on the diatonic scale. Confusingly, a "diatonic" scale is actually a type of heptatonic scale, meaning there are 7 notes inside an octave. As we've seen, the diatonic scale is constructed on top of the 12-semitone system.

Strictly defined, a 'diatonic' scale has five intervals of two semitones and two intervals of one semitone, and the one-semitone intervals are spread out as much as possible. So 'diatonic scales' includes the major scale and all its cyclic permutations (aka 'modes'), including the natural minor scale, but not the other two minor scales we talked about last time!

However, whoever said we should pick exactly 7 notes in the octave? That's rather arbitrary, isn't it?

After all, in illustration, a more restricted palette can often lead to a much more visually striking image. The same is perhaps even more true in music!

A pentatonic scale is, as the name suggests, a scale which has five notes in an octave. Due to all that stuff we discussed with small-number ratios, the pentatonic scales we are about to discuss can generally be mapped quite easily onto the 12-tone system. There's some reason for this - 12TET is designed to closely approximate the appealing small-number frequency ratios, so if another system uses the same frequency ratios, we can probably find a subset of 12TET that's a good match.

Of course, fitting 12TET doesn't mean it matches the diatonic scale, necessarily. Still, once you're on the 12 tone system, there's enough diatonic scales out there that you can often define a pentatonic scale in terms of a delta relative to one of the diatonic scale modes. Like, 'shift this degree down, delete that degree'.

Final caveat: I'm not sure if it's strictly correct to use equal temperament in all these examples, but all the sources I find define these scales using Western music notation, so we'll have to go with that.

Sakura, sakura and the yonanuki scale

Let's start with Japanese music. Here's the Edo-period folk song Sakura, Sakura, which is one of the most iconic pieces of Japanese music¸ especially abroad:

This uses the in scale, also known as the sakura pentatonic scale, one of a few widely used pentatonic scales in Japanese folk music, along with the yo scale, insen scale and iwato scale... according to English-language sources.

Finding the actual Japanese was a bit difficult - so far as I can tell the Japanese wiki page for Sakura, Sakura never mentions the scale named after it! - but eventually I found a page for pentatonic scales, or 五音音階 goon onkai. So we can finally determine the kanji for this scale is 陰音階 in onkai or 陰旋法 in senpou. [Amusingly, the JP wiki article on pentatonic scales actually leads with... Scottish folk songs and gamelan before it goes into Japanese music.]

However, perhaps more pertinent is this page: ヨナ抜き音階 which introduces the terms yonanuki onkai and ニロ抜き音階 nironuki onkai. This can be glossed as 'leave out the fourth (yo) and seventh (na) scale' and 'leave out the second (ni) and sixth (ro) scale', describing two procedures to construct pentatonic scales from a diatonic scale.

Let's recap major and minor. Last time we defined them using semitone intervals from a root note (the one in brackets is the next octave):

position: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, (8) major: 0, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, (12) minor: 0, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, (12)

From here we can construct some pentatonic scales. Firstly, here are your yonanuki scales - the ones that delete the fourth and seventh:

major: 0, 2, 4, 7, 9, (12) minor: 0, 2, 3, 7, 8, (12)

Starting on C for the major and A for the minor (the ones with the blank key signature), this is how you notate that in Western sheet music. As you can see, we have just deleted a couple of steps.

The first one is the 'standard' major pentatonic scale in Western music theory; it's also called the ryo scale in traditional Japanese music (呂旋法 ryosenpou). The second one is a mode (cyclic permutation) of a scale called 都節音階 miyakobushi, which is apparently equivalent to the in scale.

In terms of gaps between successive notes, these go:

major: 2, 2, 3, 2, 3 - very even minor: 2, 1, 4, 1, 4 - whoah, huge intervals!

The miyakobushi scale, for comparison, goes...

miyakobushi (absolute): 0, 1, 5, 7, 8, (12) miyakobushi (deltas): 1, 4, 2, 1, 4

JP wikipedia lists two different versions of the 陰旋法 (in scale), for ascending and descending. Starting on C, one goes C, D, Eb, G, A; the other goes C, D, Eb, G, Ab. Let's convert that into my preferred semitone interval notation:

in scale (absolute, asc): 0, 2, 3, 7, 9, (12) in scale (relative, asc): 2, 1, 4, 2, 3 in scale (absolute, desc): 0, 2, 3, 7, 8, (12) in scale (relative, desc): 2, 1, 4, 1, 4

So we see that the 'descending form' of the in scale matches the minor yonanuki scale, and it's a mode (cyclic permutation) of the miyakobushi scale.

We've talked a great deal about the names and construction of the different type of scales, but beyond the vague gesture to the standard associations of 'major upbeat, minor sad/mysterious' I don't think we've really looked at how a scale actually affects a piece of music.

So let's have a look at the semitone intervals in Sakura, Sakura in absolute terms from to the first note...

sakura, sakura, ya yoi no so ra-a wa 0, 0, 2; 0, 0, 2; 0, 2, 3, 2, 0, 2-0, -4

and in relative terms between successive notes:

sa ku ra, sa ku ra, ya yo i no so ra-a wa 0, 0, +2; -2, 0, +2; -2, +2, +1, -1, -2, +2, -2, -4

If you listen to Sakura, Sakura, pay attention to the end of the first line - that wa suddenly drops down a huge distance (a major second - for some reason I miscalculated this and thought it was a tritone) and that's where it feels like damn, OK, this song is really cooking! It catches you by surprise. We can identify these intervals as belonging to the in/yoyanuki minor scale, and even starting on its root note.

Although its subject matter is actually pretty positive (hey, check it out guys, the cherry blossoms are falling!), Sakura, Sakura sounds mournful and mysterious. What makes it sound 'minor'? The first phrase doesn't actually tell you what key we're in, that jump of 2 semitones could happen in major or minor. But the second phrase, introduces the pattern of going up 2, then up 1, from the root note - that's the minor scale pattern. What takes it beyond just 'we're in minor'? That surprise tritone move down. According to the rough working model that 'dissonant notes create tension, consonant notes resolve it', this creates a ton of tension. This analysis is bunk, there isn't a tritone. It's a big jump but it's not that big a jump.

How does it eventually wrap up? The final phrase of Sakura, Sakura goes...

i za ya, i za ya, mi ni yu - u ka nn 0, 0, 2; 0, 0, 2; -5, -4, 2, 0, -4, -5 0, 0, +2; -2, 0, +2; -5, +1, +4, -2, -4, -1

Here's my attempt to try and do a very basic tonal/interval analysis. We start out this phrase with the same notes as the opening bars, but abruptly diverge in bar 3, slowing down at the same time, which provides a hint that things are about to come to a close. The move of -5 down is a perfect fourth; in contrast to the tritone major second we had before, this is considered a very consonant interval. (A perfect fourth down is also equivalent to going up a fifth and then down an octave. So we're 'ending on the fifth'.) We move up a little and down insteps of 4, 2, and 1, which are less dramatic. Then we come back down and end on the fifth. We still have those 4-steps next to 1 steps which is the big flag that says 'whoah we're in the sakura pentatonic scale', but we're bleeding off some of the tension here.

Linguistically, the song also ends on the mora ん, the only mora that is only a consonant (rather than a vowel or consonant-vowel), and that long drawn-out voiced consonant gives a feeling of gradually trailing away. So you could call it a very 'soft' ending.

Is this 'tension + resolution' model how a Japanese music theorist would analyse this song? It seems to be a reasonably effective model when applied to Japanese music by... various music theorist youtubers, but I don't really know! That's something I want to find out more about.

Something raised on the English wiki is the idea that the miyakobushi scale is divided into two groups, spanning a fourth each, which is apparently summarised by someone called Koizumi Fumio in a book written in 1974:

Each group goes up 1 (a semitone or minor second), then 4 (major third), for a total of 5 (perfect fourth). The edges of these little blocks are considered 'nucleus' notes, and they're of special importance.

Can we see this in action if we look at Sakura, Sakura? ...ehhhh. I admit, the way I think of the song is shaped by the way I play it on the zhonghu; I think of the first two two-bar phrases as the 'upper part' and the third phrase as the 'lower part', and neither lines up neatly with these little groups. Still. I suspect Koizumi Fumio, author of Nihon no ongaku, knows a little more about this than I do, so I figure it's worth a mention.

Aside: on absorbing a song

Sakura, Sakura is kinda special to me because it's like the second piece I learned to play on zhonghu (after Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star lmao). I can't play it well, but I am proud that I have learned to play it at least recognisably.

The process of learning to play it involved writing out tabs and trying out different ways of moving my hand. I transcribed Sakura Sakura down to start on F, since that way the open G string of the zhonghu could be the lowest note of the piece, and worked out a tab for it using a tab system I cooked up with my friend. Here's what it looks like. The system counts semitones up from the open string, and it uses an underline to mark the lower string.

(Also, credit where it's due - I would never have made any progress learning about music if not for my friend Maki Yamazaki, a prodigiously multitalented self-taught musician who can play dozens of instruments, and also the person who sold me her old zhonghu for dirt cheap, if you're wondering why a white British girl might be learning such an unusual instrument. You can and should check our her music here! Maki has done more than absolutely anyone to make music comprehensible to me, and a lot of this post is inspired by discussing the previous post with her.)

When you want to make a song playable on an instrument, you have to perform some interpretation. Which fingers should play which notes? When should you move your hand? How do you make sure you hit the right notes? At some point this kind of movement becomes second nature, but I'm at the stage, just like a player encountering a new genre of videogame, where I still don't have the muscle memory or habituation to how things work, and each of these little details has to be worked out one by one. But this is great, because this process makes me way more intimately familiar with the contours of the song. Trying to analyse the moves it makes like the above even more so.

More Japanese scales

So, to sum up what we've observed, the beautiful minor sounds of Sakura Sakura come from a pentatonic scale which can be constructed by taking the diatonic scale and blasting certain notes into the sea, namely the fourth and the seventh of the scale. But what about the nironuki scale? Well, this time we delete the second and the sixth. So we get, in absolute terms:

major nironuki (abs): 0, 4, 5, 7, 11, (12) major nironuki (rel): 4, 1, 2, 4, 1 minor nironuki (abs): 0, 3, 5, 7, 10, (12) minor nironuki (rel): 3, 2, 2, 3, 2

Hold on a minute, doesn't that look rather familiar? The major nironuki scale is a permutation, though not a cyclic permutation, of the minor yonanuki scale. And the minor nironuki scale is a cyclic permutation (mode) of the major one.

Nevertheless, these scales have names and significance of their own. The major one is known as the 琉球音階 ryūkyū onkai or Okinawan scale. The minor one is what Western music would call a 'minor pentatonic scale'. It also mentions a couple of other names for it, like the 民謡音階 minyou onkai (folk scale).

We also have the yō scale, which like the in scale, comes in ascending and descending forms. You want these too? Yeah? Ok, here we go.

yō scale (asc, abs): 0, 2, 5, 7, 10, (12) yō scale (asc, rel): 2, 3, 2, 3, 2 yō scale (desc, abs): 0, 2, 5, 7, 9, (12) yō scale (desc, rel): 2, 3, 2, 2, 3

The yō scale is what's called an anhemitonic pentatonic scale, which is just a fancy way of saying it doesn't have semitones. (The in scale in turn is hemitonic). The ascending form is also called the 律戦法 ritsusenpou. Here's the complete table of all the variants I've found so far.

So, in summary: Japanese music uses a lot of pentatonic scales. (In a future post we can hopefully see how that applies in modern Japanese music). These pentatonic scales can be constructed by deleting two notes from the diatonic scales. In general, you land in one of two zones: the anhemitonic side, where all the intervals between successive notes, are 2 and 3, and the hemitonic side, where the intervals are spicier 1s and 4s and a lone 2. From there, you can move between other pentatonic scales by cyclic permutations and reversal.

If you analyse Japanese music from a Western lens, you might well end up interpreting it according to one of the modes of the major scale. In fact, the 8-bit music theory video I posted last time takes this approach. This isn't wrong per se, it's a viable way to getting insight into how the tune works if you want to ask the question 'how does this conjure emotions and how do I get the same effects', but it's worthwhile to know what analytical frame the composers are likely to be using.

Gamelan - when 12TET won't cut it

Gamelan is a form of Indonesian ensemble music. I do not at this time know a ton about it, but here's a performance:

However, if you're reading my blog then it's likely that if know gamelan from anywhere, it's most likely the soundtrack to Akira composed by Shōji Yamashiro.

This blends traditional gamelan instrumentation and voices with modern synths to create an incredibly bold and (for most viewers outside Indonesia!) unfamiliar sound to accompany the film's themes of psychic awakening and evolution. It was an inspired choice, adding a lot to an already great film.

'A gamelan' is the ensemble; 'gamelan' is also the style of music. There are many different types of gamelan associated with different occasions - some gamelans are only allowed to form for special ceremonies. Gamelan is also used as a soundtrack in accompaniment to other art forms, such as wayang kulit and wayang wong (respectively, shadow puppetry and dance).

Since gamelan music evidently uses quite a bit of percussion, and so far we've been focused on the type of music played on strings and wind instruments - a brief comment on the limitations of our abstractions. Many types of drums don't fit the 'tonal music' frame we've outlined so far, creating a broad frequency spectrum that's close to an enveloped burst of white noise rather than a sharply peaked fundamental + overtones. There's a ton to study in drumming, and if this series continues you bet I'll try to understand it.

But there are tonal percussion instruments, and a lot of them are to be found in gamelan, particularly in the metalophone family (e.g. the ugal or jegogan). The Western 'xylophone' and 'glockenspiel' also belong to this family. Besides metalophones, you've got bells, steel drums, tuning forks etc. Tuning a percussion instrument is a matter of adjusting the shape of the metal to adjust the resonant frequency of its normal modes. I imagine it's really fiddly.

In any case, the profile of a percussion note is quite different from the continual impulse provided by e.g. a violin bow. You get a big burst across all frequencies and then everything but the resonant mode dies out, leaving the ringing with a much simpler spectrum.

Anyway, let's get on to scales and shit. While I have the Japanese wikipedia page on pentatonic scales open, that it mentions a gamelan scale called pelog (written ᮕᮦᮜᮧᮌ᮪, ꦥꦺꦭꦺꦴꦒ꧀ or ᬧᬾᬮᭀᬕ᭄ in different languages) meaning 'beautiful'. Pelog is not strictly one scale, but a family of tunings which vary across Indonesia. Depending on who you ask, it might in some cases be reasonably close to a 9-tone equal temperament (9TET), which means a number of notes can't be represented in 12TET - you have that 4 12TET semitones would be equivalent to 3 9TET semitones. From this is drawn a heptatonic scale, but not one that can be mapped exactly to any 12TET heptatonic scale. Isn't that fun!

To represent scales that don't exactly fit the tuning of 12TET, there's a logarithmic unit of measure called the 'cent'. Each 12TET semitone contains 100 cents, so in terms of ratios, a cent is the the 1200th root of 2. In this system, a 9TET semitone is 133 cents. Some steps in the pelog heptatonic scale would then be two 9TET semitones, and others one 9TET semitone. However, this system of 'semitones' does not seem to be how gamelan music is actually notated - it's assumed you already have an established pelog tuning and can play within that. So it's a little difficult for me to give you a decent representation of a gamelan scale that isn't approximated by 12TET.

From the 7-tone pelog scale, whatever it happens to be where you live, you can further derive pentatonic scales. These have various names, like the pelog selisir used in the gamelan gong kebyar. I'm not going to itemise them here both because I haven't actually been able to find the basic pelog tunings (at least by their 9TET approximation).

Another scale used in gamelan is called slendro, a five tone scale of 'very roughly' equal intervals. Five is coprime with 12, so there's no straightforward mapping of any part of this scale to the 12-tone system. But more than that, fully even scales are quite rare in the places we've looked so far. (Though apparently within slendro, you can play a note that's deliberately 'out of place', called 'miring'. This transforms the mood from 'light, cheerful and busy' to one appropriate to scenes of 'homesickness, love missing, sadness, death, languishing'.)

The Western musical notation system is plainly unsuited for gamelan, and naturally it has its own system - or rather several systems. In one method, the seven tones of the pelog are numbered 1 through 7, and a subset of those numbers are used to enumerate slendro tuning. You can write it on a grid similar to a musical staff.

But we could wonder with this research - is the attempt to map pélog to 'equal temperament' an external imposition? Presented with a tuning system with seven intervals that are not consistently equal temperament, averaging them to construct an equal temperament hypothesis on that basis, and finally attempting to prove that gamelan players 'prefer' equal temperament... well, they do at least bother to ask, but I'm not entirely convinced that 9TET or 5TET is the right model. Unfortunately, most of the literature I'm able to find on gamelan music theory with a cursory search is by Western researchers.

There's a fairly long history of Western composers taking inspiration from gamelan, notably Debussy and Saty. And of course, modern Indonesian composers such as I Nyoman Windha have also been finding ways to combine gamelan with Western styles. Here's a piece composed by him (unfortunately not a splendid recording):

Klezmer - layer 'em up

If you've known me for long enough you might remember the time I had a huge Daniel Kahn and the Painted Bird phase. (I still think he's great, I just did that thing where I obsessively listen to one small set of things for a period). And I'd also listen to old revolutionary songs in Yiddish all the time. Because of course I did lmao. Anyway, here's a song that combines both: Kahn's modern arrangement of Arbetlose Marsch in English and Yiddish:

That's a style of music called klezmer, developed by Ashkenazi Jews in Central/Eastern Europe starting in the late 1500s and 1600s. It's a blend of a whole bunch of different traditions, combining elements from Jewish religious music with other neighbouring folk music traditions and European music at large. When things really kicked off at the end of the 19th century, klezmer musicians were often a part of the Jewish socialist movement (and came up with some real bangers - the Tsar may have been shot by the Bolsheviks but tbh, Daloy Politsey already killed him). But equally there's a reason it sounds insanely danceable: it was very often used for dances.

The rest of the 20th century happened, but klezmer survived all the genocides and there are lots of different modern klezmer bands.

The defining characteristics of klezmer per Wikipedia are... ok, this is quite long...

Klezmer musicians apply the overall style to available specific techniques on each melodic instrument. They incorporate and elaborate the vocal melodies of Jewish religious practice, including khazones, davenen, and paraliturgical song, extending the range of human voice into the musical expression possible on instruments.[21] Among those stylistic elements that are considered typically "Jewish" in Klezmer music are those which are shared with cantorial or Hasidic vocal ornaments, including dreydlekh ("tear in the voice"; plural of dreidel)[22][23] and imitations of sighing or laughing ("laughter through tears").[24] Various Yiddish terms were used for these vocal-like ornaments such as קרעכץ (Krekhts, "groan" or "moan"), קנײטש (kneytsh, "wrinkle" or "fold"), and קװעטש (kvetsh, "pressure" or "stress").[10] Other ornaments such as trills, grace notes, appoggiaturas, glitshn (glissandos), tshoks (a kind of bent notes of cackle-like sound), flageolets (string harmonics),[22][25]pedal notes, mordents, slides and typical Klezmer cadences are also important to the style.[18]

So evidently klezmer will be relevant throughout this series, but for now, since we're trying to flesh out the picture of 'how is tuning formed', let's take a look at the notes.

So it's absolutely possible to fit klezmer into the 12TET system. But we're going to need to crack open a few new scales. Though the Wikipedia editors enumerating this list caution us: "Another problem in listing these terms as simple eight-note (octatonic) scales is that it makes it harder to see how Klezmer melodic structures can work as five-note pentachords, how parts of different modes typically interact, and what the cultural significance of a given mode might be in a traditional Klezmer context."

With that caution in mind, let's at least see what we're given. First of all we have the Freygish or Ahavoh Rabboh scale, one of the most common pieces, good friend of the Western phrygian but with an extra semitone. Then there's Mi Sbererakh or Av HaRachamim which is a mode of it, that's popular around Ukraine. Adonoy Molokh or Adoyshem Molokh is the major scale but you drop the seventh a semitone. Mogen Ovos is the same as the natural minor at least on the interval level.

Which means, without the jargon, here are the semitones (wow wouldn't it be nice if you had tables on here?):

position: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, (8) freygish: 0, 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, (12) deltas: 1, 3, 1, 2, 1, 2, 2 mi sberakh: 0, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 10, (12) deltas: 2, 1, 3, 2, 2, 1, 2 adonoy m.: 0, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, (12) deltas: 2, 2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 2 mogen o.: 0, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, (12) deltas: 2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 2, 2

...that's a big block of numbers to make your eyes glaze over huh. Maybe this 'convert everything to semitone deltas' thing isn't all it's cracked up to be... or maybe what I need to do is actually visualise it somehow? Some kinda big old graph showing all the different scales we've worked out so far and how they relate to each other? ...hold your horses...

[It seems like what I've done is reinvent something called 'musical set theory', incidentally.]

OK, having enumerated these, let's return to the Wikipedian's caution. What is a pentachord? Pretty simple, it's a chord of five notes. Mind you, some people define it as five successive notes of a diatonic scale.

In klezmer, you've got a bunch of different instruments playing at once creating a really dense sound texture. Presumably one of the things you do when you play klezmer is try and get the different instruments in your ensemble to hit the different levels of that pentachord. How does that work? Well, if we consult the sources, we find this scan of a half-handwritten PDF presenting considerably more detail on the modes and how they're played. The scales above are combined with a 'motivic scheme' presenting different patterns that notes tend to follow, and a 'typical cadence'. Moreover, these modes can have 'sub-modes' which tend to follow when the main mode gets established.

To me reading this, I can kind of imagine the process of composing/improvisation within this system almost like a state machine. It's not just that you have a scale, you have a certain state you're in in the music (e.g. main mode or sub-mode), and a set of transitional moves you can potentially make for the next segment. That's probably too rigid a model though. There's also a more specific aspect discussed in the book that a klezmer musician needs to know how to move between their repertoire of klezmer pieces - what pieces can sensibly follow from what.

Ultimately, I don't want to give you a long list of stuff to memorise. (Sure, if you want to play klezmer, you probably need to get familiar with how to use these modes, but that's between you and your klezmer group). Rather I want to make sure we don't have any illusion that the Western church modes are the only correct way to compose music.

Blues - can anyone agree?

Blues is a style of music developed by Black musicians in the American south in the late 1800s, directly or indirectly massively influential on just about every genre to follow, but especially jazz. It's got a very characteristic style defined by among other elements use of 'blue notes' that don't fit the standard diatonic scale. According to various theorists, you can add the blue notes to a scale to construct something called the 'blues scale'. According to certain other theorists, this exercise is futile, and Blues techniques can't be reduced to a scale.

So for the last part of today's whirlwind tour of scales, let's take a brief look at the blues...

There are a few different blues scales. The most popular definition seems to be a hexatonic scale. We'll start with the minor pentatonic scale, or in Japanese, the minor nironuki scale - which is to say we take the minor diatonic scale and delete positions 2 and 6. That gives:

minor nironuki (abs): 0, 3, 5, 7, 10, (12) minor nironuki (rel): 3, 2, 2, 3, 2

Now we need to add a new note, the 'flat fifth degree' of the original scale. In other words, 6 semitones above the root - the dreaded tritone!

hexatonic blues (abs): 0, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, (12) hexatonic blues (rel): 3, 2, 1, 1, 3, 2

Easy enough right? Listen to that, it does sound kinda blues-y. But hold your horses! Moments after defining this scale, we read...

A major feature of the blues scale is the use of blue notes—notes that are played or sung microtonally, at a slightly higher or lower pitch than standard.[5] However, since blue notes are considered alternative inflections, a blues scale may be considered to not fit the traditional definition of a scale.

So, if you want to play blues, it's not enough to mechanically play a specific scale in 12TET. You also gotta break the palette a little bit.

There's also a 'major blues' heptatonic scale which goes 0, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, according to one guy called Dan Greenblatt.

But that's not the only attempt to enumerate the 'blues scale'. Other authors will give you slightly longer scales. For example, if you ask Smallwood:

heptatonic blues (abs): 0, 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, (12) heptatonic blues (rel): 2, 1, 2, 1, 3, 1, 2

which isn't quite a mode of any of those klezmer scales we saw previously, but nearly!

If you ask Benward and Saker, meanwhile, a Blues scale could actually be nonatonic scale, where you add flattened versions of a couple of notes to the major scale.

nonatonic blues (abs): 0, 2, 3/4, 5, 7, 9, 10/11, (12)

There's also an idea that you should play notes in between the semitones, i.e. quarter tones, which would be a freq ratio of the 24th root of 2 if you're keeping score at home.

The upshot of all this is probably that going too far formalise the blues is probably not in the spirit of the blues, but if you want to go in a blues-y direction it will probably mean insert an extra, flattened version of a note to one of your scales. Muck around and see what works, I guess!

Of course, there's a lot more to Blues than just tweaking a scale. For example, 'twelve bar blues' is a specific formalised chord progression that is especially universal in Jazz. What it means for chords to 'progress' is a whole subject, and I think that's the next thing I'll try to understand for post 3. Hopefully we'll be furnished with a slightly broader model of how music works as we go there though.

To wrap up, here's the spreadsheet showing all the 12TET scales encountered so far in this series in a visual way. There's obviously plenty more out there, but this is not ultimately a series about scales. It's all well and good to have a list of what exists, but it's pointless if we don't know how to use it.

Phew

Mind you even with all this, we haven't covered at all some of the most complex systems of tonal music - I've only made the vaguest gesture towards Indian classical music, Chinese music, Jazz... That's way beyond me at the moment. But maybe not forever.

Next up: I'm going to try and finally wrap my head around chords and make sense of what it means for them to 'progress', have 'movement' etc. And maybe render a bit more concrete the vague stuff I said about 'tension' and 'resolution'.

(Also: I definitely know I have friends on here who are very widely knowledgeable about music theory. If I've made any major mistakes, please let me know! At some point I hope to republish this series with nicer formatting on canmom.art, and it would be great to fix the bugs by then!)

#Youtube #music theory #music notes #music #notes #japanese music #gamelan #chinese music #klezmer #blues #i took my new adhd meds and hyperfocused on this all day instead of working ><

[theanimeview]

[Trope Interest] Twin Bodyguards and Their Hunter Sister in Supernatural Works

Source: Promotional/Cover Art for Kyousougiga, Jiu Jiu, and Trese

By: Peggy Sue Wood | @pswediting

For some time, I’ve been fascinated by the trope of twin bodyguards who can shapeshift from humans to dog forms and their accompanying female “hunter” character. I find it interesting that this trope appears with enough frequency to be noticeable, yet it lacks a specific name, unlike “Single-Mind Twins” or “Tag Team Twins.” There are several examples of this trope. To name a few examples, Kyousougiga (Japanese) features the character Koto being followed around by her “brothers,” A and Un; Jiu Jiu (Japanese) has Takamichi followed by her shape-shifting, half-demon wolf-dog familiars, Snow and Night; and Trese (Filipino) has Alexandra with her adopted brothers, Crispin and Basilio.

Upon further review, I think that the trope of twin sidekicks/bodyguards and female hunters in supernatural comics and animation likely draws from various sources of inspiration and cultural mythology. One possible influence is the traditional Japanese folklore of “Inugami,” or “dog spirit.” Inugami were said to be the spirits of dogs that were killed by humans and were often summoned and used for various purposes, including protection, curses, and revenge. In some stories, Inugami could take on human form and even possess humans and other animals. Interestingly, these spirits could become attached to bloodlines, following a family through their descendants.

Another possible influence is the Japanese mythology of Komainu, lion-dogs that guard the entrances of Shinto temples/shrines, or the Shisa, which serve a similar purpose. Both of these seem to have derived from the Chinese (or Imperial) guardian lions, which symbolize protection (one physical and one metaphysical). Either way, around the world and over time, dog spirits have often been portrayed as both guardians and harbingers.

While I’ve come to understand, at least in part, the dog-twins potential origins, I still struggle to understand or find a related myth to a singular female hunter-type character. There is Artemis, the famous greek/roman myth character who is goddess of the hunt, but her image and story rarely overlap with the hunter characters seen in works that have this two+one combination. Moreover, the close emotional bond that the three tend to share in the stories–often portrayed with familial-nature (adopted siblings with no romantic interests)–seems to be a significant factor in the continued use of this trope. Continuing in our prior examples, Koto is searching for the black rabbit/her mother; Takamichi is hunting demons, and Alexandra is after monsters.

The twin sidekicks are always depicted as “protectors” or “guardians” to a female lead, often with her occupying an adopted sister role rather than existing as a love interest. They are portrayed as loyal, fierce, and powerful, with the ability to transform into large, intimidating dog-like creatures to defend their master. Overall, the dog servants are depicted as essential members of the hunting team and play a significant role in the story.

Of course, the influences behind Kyousougiga, Jiu Jiu, and Trese may have come from other supernatural comics and anime that have used similar tropes in the past. They may also have combined these cultural sources with their own stories to create a unique take. Regardless, it is an interesting trope to examine, and I continue to wonder about its specific origins.

If you have any ideas about the specific source(s) for this trope, I hope you will share them with me in a comment or message as I really do not know and am very interested to learn about this idea. Thank you for reading!

#anaylsis #hunter #jiu jiu #jiujiu #kyousougiga #mythology #theory #trese #twin #twins

[tachiguin]

Analysis of BSD Tanizaki (Character and Theories) in Reference to Real Life Tanizaki Jun’ichirou

By popular demand of (1) person in the comments of a post I’ve made briefly touching on this subject, I have compiled all of my thoughts on the portrayal of Tanizaki Jun’ichirou—and by extension, Naomi—in Bungou Stray Dogs in reference to the works of the real life Tanizaki Jun’ichirou-sensei (who I’ll be calling Tanizaki-sensei to differentiate from his fictional counterpart). Disclaimer that I don’t have the academic background to write as an expert on this subject. I will be citing all of my sources in the text.

Tanizaki-sensei (1886-1965) was an author who was well known for writing about sexual obsession and fetishes, and the exploration of Japanese versus Western culture in his works. His female characters were particularly reputable for having strong personalities (drawing upon the dofuku - “poisonous woman” or femme fatale troupe), and frequently fulfilled the domineering role in sadomasochistic relationships with men. This recurring theme is most likely the basis for Tanizaki and Naomi’s relationship in Bungou Stray Dogs.

In a similar vein, motifs such as dreaming, delusions, and fantasies (oftentimes of the erotic nature) frequently appear in Tanizaki-sensei’s works. This could be the basis for Tanizaki’s illusion projection ability, “Light Snow”, which is named after Tanizaki-sensei’s great novel, Sasameyuki (1948), also known as The Makioka Sisters, the title of the English translation, which was changed due to the nuance of the original title being difficult to convey in English. 

Going on a slight tangent here, Tanizaki-sensei also wrote a handful of works depicting blindness, such as A Portrait of Shunkin (1933) and A Blind Man’s Tale (1931). In these works, blindness can be interpreted as a metaphor for blind devotion and obsessive worship of one’s love interest, even to the point of martyrdom. For example, in A Portrait of Shunkin (1933), the character Sasuke destroys his own eyesight for his vain mistress, who did not want to be seen after an incident destroys her beauty. Tanizaki and Naomi’s deep affection for each other is reminiscent of these themes (Tanizaki’s willingness to throw away his morals for Naomi, Naomi taking gunfire in Tanizaki’s place).

Unfortunately, we aren’t given any other concrete pieces of information about Tanizaki or Naomi that can be reliably connected to something in regards to the real life author...

The Unreliable Narrator

Which brings me to my first point in regards to fan theories surrounding Tanizaki and Naomi. I have mentioned in previous posts that Tanizaki’s descriptions of himself oftentimes contradict what we are actually shown (not good for combat, cowardly and average, etc), which means that Tanizaki is an unreliable narrator of his own backstory. To what extent he is unreliable, we can only speculate.

However, the theory that Tanizaki cannot be trusted to tell the truth about himself is supported by the real life counterparts’ use of this narrative device in his works. A journal article by The Columbia Companion to Modern East Asian Literature explains that “[Tanizaki-sensei’s stories] are often told by a personified and thus not necessarily reliable narrator,” which is especially evident in both Naomi (1925), a post-hoc account of the protagonist’s marriage, and The Key (1956), two juxtaposed diaries of a married couple.

Since Tanizaki-sensei tended to employ biased narrators in his stories, Tanizaki being an unreliable narrator of his own story would be a clever nod to his real life counterpart.

Moving on, the theory that Tanizaki may be lying about himself opens a world of possibilities regarding what the truth actually is. One popular fan theory is that Naomi is actually an illusory ability construct created by Tanizaki’s ability “Light Snow”.

Sculpting the Ideal Woman

Another recurring theme in Tanizaki-sensei’s works is a character’s desire to “shape” a woman into their vision for what that woman should be. This takes a variety of forms: in The Tattooer (1910), the protagonist “[desires] to create a masterpiece on the skin of a beautiful woman”, thus transforming her into a “real beauty”. In Aguri (1922) the protagonist dreams that “he would adorn [her] with jewels and silks. He would strip off that shapeless, unbecoming kimono... and then dress her in Western clothes”. The desire to make a woman more “Western” is also apparent with the protagonist Joji’s intent in Naomi (1925), the book that BSD Naomi is named after.

However, I must caution that BSD Naomi is actually quite different from how the character of Naomi is in the original novel; BSD Naomi is kinder to the people around her, and isn’t portrayed as selfish or manipulative. The two Naomis’ do share their penchant for mischief, and their bold, tomboyish personalities, as well as their surprising intelligence and aptitude for planning.

Back to the main topic: other BSD fans have pointed out that this theme of “making Naomi” in the novel supports the theory that BSD Naomi was created by Tanizaki’s ability. Considering that this pygmalion-like desire also appears in many other stories written by Tanizaki-sensei, the connection makes sense. Notably a role reversal between the “sculptor” and the “sculpture” always takes place in such stories.

Losing Control

In Tanizaki-sensei’s stories, female characters who are transformed to fit a man’s ideal are rarely subservient by the end of the narrative. Instead, the change oftentimes pushes them into a more dominant role, where they are the ones doing the controlling, rather than being controlled. In Naomi (1925), the protagonist narrates that “I forgot my innocent notion of "training" her: I was the one being dragged along, and by the time I realized what was happening, there was nothing I could do about it.” As the alternate title, A Fool’s Love, may suggest, by the end of the book Naomi has made a fool out of the protagonist, having “made careful plans and lured [him] on”, ultimately ending up in a position of power.

This could be indicative of Naomi’s own autonomy as an ability construct: we see her arguing with Tanizaki and defying his instruction, possessing talent and knowledge that Tanizaki does not have, and making decisions independent of Tanizaki’s will. For all intents and purposes, Naomi is no different than a human being.

Of course, whether or not this theory will prove correct is a different matter. It should be noted that one variation of this theory speculates that Naomi did exist as a real person, but died in middle school. Unable to cope with the loss, Tanizaki unconsciously created an illusion in her image. This idea is reminiscent of A Portrait of Shunkin (1933), where it is said that in the years after Sasuke’s mistress and lover passed away, “he created a Shunkin quite remote from the actual woman, yet more and more vivid in his mind.” The character Sasuke was said to exaggerate his mistress’ talents to the point that his accounts of her were unreliable, and her passing contributed to his over imagination of her likeliness.

Secret Relationships

Another theory I have seen circulating the fandom is that Naomi and Tanizaki lied about their relationship, telling others that they are siblings in order to cover up their romance. In Naomi (1925), a similar ruse is hatched by the character Naomi, who goes behind her husband Joji’s back and sleeps with other men. Joji discovers this subterfuge from the character Hamada, who confesses, “I didn't know about you at all. Miss Naomi...said you were her cousin.” As such, Tanizaki and Naomi may similarly be lying about the nature of their relationship, which would be a nod to the original novel.

Of course, though I am partial to this theory, since I would be sad if Naomi turned out to be an illusion, I cannot with any confidence claim that it is more likely than the other theory I mentioned regarding her, or any other theories that might be circulating.

Return from the West

Moving on from theories involving Naomi, evidence that supports the theory that Tanizaki will change allegiances from the Armed Detective Agency to the Port Mafia can also be found with his real life counterpart. As I touched on a bit before, Tanizaki-sensei wrote about and was influenced by Western culture and traditions. However, after Tanizaki-sensei moved from Yokohama to the Kansai region in 1926, his fascination dwindled, and he completed works such as Some Prefer Nettles (1929), which “[presented] subtly and effectively the great transformation in Tanizaki's life from a worshiper of the West to a believer in the value of the Japanese heritage” as explained by Donald Keene in “Five Modern Japanese Novelists”.

One such work that compared Western and Japanese culture is “In Praise of Shadows” (1933), which associated shadows with traditional Japanese aesthetics, and light with the West. In the essay, he writes “If light is scarce then light is scarce; we will immerse ourselves in the darkness and there discover its own particular beauty.” In Bungou Stray Dogs, darkness and shadows are associated with the Port Mafia, while the light is associated with living morally upright. As such, Tanizaki-sensei’s shift from his fascination with the West (the light) to finding beauty in the darkness (Japanese traditions) could be paralleled in his fictional counterpart switching sides as well.

Moreover, although I am far from informed enough to speak confidently on this subject, I’d be amiss not to mention this meta written by bsd-bibliophile, which explains how the Port Mafia authors were faithful to the styles of traditional Japanese literature, whereas Armed Detective Agency authors were influenced by Western writing. Coincidentally, or perhaps intentionally, the comparison of Japanese versus Western traditions is the subject matter of “In Praise of Shadows” (1933), as I explained above; it would be a very clever reference to Tanizaki-sensei’s shifting interest if the theory that Tanizaki will switch sides ends up being correct. 

In Conclusion

Despite knowing very little of Tanizaki’s backstory, and having limited on screen appearances of him in the story, much of what is established about Tanizaki can be traced back to his real life counterpart. We can also attempt to reverse engineer the character Tanizaki by making conjectures about his backstory and future character development based on what we know about Tanizaki-sensei. The theories that Naomi is an illusion, Tanizaki and Naomi are not real siblings, and that Tanizaki will switch sides are all supported by themes, motifs, and narratives that frequently appeared in Tanizaki-sensei’s writing. As such, I am very excited to see which theories will prove true, and how Asagiri-sensei will execute them in Bungou Stray Dogs going forward. 

credits: bsd-bibliophile is a great resource for PDFs and ePubs of the works mentioned here, manga caps were scanned and translated by Easy Going Scans or Dazai Scans, highlighted passage in second visual is from the official Light Novel 3, left image in third visual is the first edition cover of Naomi novel

#bsd #bungou stray dogs #bsd naomi #bsd tanizaki #tanizaki junichirou #tanizaki naomi #bsd theory #bsd meta #bsd analysis #min i'll never write an essay of my own free will lu #clown emoji #i think i should get an extra lit credit just for writing this

[kimyoonmiauthor]

Worldbuilding: !@#$ the terfs, be more creative with gender and bio sex than a binary system.

9.5 times out of ten the majority of gender systems I read in US books are really, really uncreative, and I do mean that because manga, has more creative gender systems than a lot of US books. I love you Melanie Rawn, but still, the inversion as good as it was in the uncompleted Ruins of Ambrai, still was largely a European system because it was largely a commentary on the European system. (Yes, I did understand that.)

And the US tends to, very much accuse other countries of having uncreative gender systems that are absolutely rigid, say the US to Japan. (Though the usually [white] understanding of Japanese gender is usually abysmal... but that's a whole paper and a half there.)

When building a gender system, be more creative! You have this other fake culture. You can do whatever the heck you feel like. Say, the Barbie Movie, which hilariously the alt-right USian detested, though it still was a commentary on mostly US gender norms.

Can't we loosen this up a little? You have literal aliens and you can't imagine a more creative sex and gender system than the binary? Oh really? Humans aren't even binary on either. I'm going to give cultural examples.

Introduction

Bugis have 5 genders.

BTW, someone got so mad when I pointed out the page they cited said that Bugis recognized 5 genders, they went on a youtube rant about it. lol Deal. BTW, people put a lot of emphasis on Bissu like how people hyperfocus on trans women in the US because masculinity is that fragile. Albanian is complicated.

Some countries/ethnicities have 3.

India has a 3 gender system in Northern India. Women, men, Hijra

I mean this list:

Some countries don’t even define the two gender system the same way (Europeans are sooo uptight. Loosen up.)

For example, a Korean man wearing pink--no problem. No one flips the hell out when a man in Korea wears a hanbok with a chima and a jeogori. They are like cool. He can do as he likes. Even baksu wear chima in religious ceremonies. They believe it gives them extra powers.

The whole pants. are. for. men. and. women. only. wear. skirts.

Oh c'mon...

Pants were invented for horseback riding--like the heel.

So let's get this mind-numbingly straight (pun somewhat intended here) Men, are men because of horses. (haha, yes, Barbie reference), thus have to wear pants. But are absolutely effing forbidden from wearing heels, which are also associated with what? Horseback riding. Hmmm...

And men still wear dresses and skirts, but they call it by other names.

Judicial robes for sale, and look, a man is wearing them.

But--But that's soo different from a dress...

https://www.net-a-porter.com/en-jp/shop/product/la-doublej/clothing/maxi-dresses/muumuu-printed-silk-twill-maxi-dress/38063312420399795

This is a dress because as Webster's Dictionary says:

: an outer garment (as for a woman or girl) usually consisting of a one-piece bodice and skirt

Yes, it's worn by a woman. I couldn't find another definition.

But men also wear sarongs. And bath towels, and kilts all of which look suspiciously like skirts. And togas. Which shows how fragile the definition is that you need to narrow the definition that much.

And freaking for those religious, God on the Sistine Chapel, by suspected maybe gay Michelangelo, has a vaccuum sealed butt on the Sistine chapel wearing a pink dress.

C'mon, we can be more creative than this, surely. I mean, if you look at this super rigid gender system, does it make any sense at all? OK, I'm NB and all, but seriously, I look at it and go, WTF happened to you?

You get so uptight about men wearing lace, stocking, high heels, dresses, pink but forget so quickly that less than 200 years ago, no one gave a damn, and if a man didn't wear those things, he couldn't make it in high society.

I mean...

Lafayette, wearing pink, heels, stockings, lace (his collar), and a wig. Give me a break here.

And gender definitions change over time...

Just about 100 years back, in order to be out and gay, it was thought your entire gender was different. There was nothing like a butch gay man. You were considered part female, in fact. And no one in the 19th century would have taken exception to that. It didn't change until much later in Europe.

But also Europe imperialized the world with gender expectations, leading to a rise of violence against third gender communities.

What was one of the first three rules of culture I posted? Culture changes. Koreans like to say, even in ten years the Mountains and rivers change. So gender can and will also change in definitions becoming more rigid, more fluid, recategorized, etc over time.

So given all of these things... let's rethink gender.

Gender doesn't have to be Defined by Sex Assigned at Birth

A lot of Human cultures assign gender this way. Born one way, raise them that way, hope it works out.

But you have a whole FANTASY WORLD and you can see, humans don't make a lot of logical sense when it comes to gender. I mean heels are for women, and men should never wear them, except when they are attached to boots, but the boots better not be too high , or you're *gasp* gay is the European "logic" system. And only what? 50 or so years ago, women were finally allowed to wear pants.

So you don't have to do it by genitals. You could do it by hair color. Gender affirming care would be changing your hair color, or horns, or whatever tickles your fancy. You could, say have a cephlapod species with smaller males that can present female part of the time, and based on their texture of their skin, that's their gender.

You could do it by color--the species has actually blue, dark blue, green, yellow, etc skin colors and they can change them at any moment and the one they tend towards, well, that's their gender.

You could also make it so you automatically need a polycule for the species to work out and reproduce. And thus there might be, say a 6 gender system. 2 possible genders for the three adults there.

C'mon. Nature is creative and sometimes has an all female species. Look at Mourning geckos. There are so few males, and they are sometimes called a lesbian species of gecko.

Even then, you have intersex, and not all intersex people are infertile.

Terfs only think it's wrong to "go against nature" when it has to do with gender presentation. Nothing else. But they have no, no problem with assigning a sex to an intersex child without their consent. That's culture taking over for nature. And how that is shaped, or not shaped, absolutely belongs in world building.

If your men aren't horseback riding, and your women aren't either, then dresses for all are fine. Deal with it.

I think it would be entertaining to see an alien species determine the gender of the child by holding up paint swatches to the child's say eyes and then saying, "Yep, a girl."

Or even well, the birther stayed in # temp rooms, for # amount of days, Oh, this is the expected sex of the child. But the gender, well, we will determine that by these [arbitrary] factors.

But seriously, you can define gender and sex however, you want. Is medical/magic intervention necessary or not? Who gets to determine it?

Next step is to find the rules for how gender is expressed in an idealized world.

Do you constantly call all of your girls and tell them they can grow up to be a princess? But tell all your boys they are going to grow up to be doctors and lawyers?

This is what Social Scientists would call socialization.

For this, I would suggest you make a spreadsheet and then put down arbitrary lists of things the "ideal" gender would wear. So for the US, Pink is for girls. Blue is for boys. How they should act. And finally, how they are taught.

It's so ubiquitous that even feminists often trip up and see a baby in a pink dress with lace and automatically pick up a doll. (I'm just saying, maybe think that one over a bit.)

Make a list for each column. And then for the individual characters figure out how they DON'T fit those norms and then terrorize them with it...

What do you threaten the privileged group with if they come out of line?

For men in the US, for example, you go with homophobia. "That's gay."

Because the threat of being gay is sooo outlandish. *eyeroll* It's an threat to everything masculine.

I'll go over this in more detail later in the series, but you need things to discipline the privileged group and the disadvantage group(s). What's the threat if you become this other group? Death? Social ridicule? Financial loss? Being outcast?

Or, do you get rewarded and become a shaman, a healer, or a celebrated hero for being able to not fit in? (This also is possible).

Cultural justifications

Cultural justifications for this are different from the actual historical reasons or the facts.

The historical reason that pink and blue switched was because dyes became more readily available for both and they felt like it.

Blue used to be more rare, and thus considered "virginal" because blue is rare in nature, but under industrialization as people became more and more disconnected from nature, and blue dyes became available, the idea of this became more diluted, and the switch was from blue to pink.

That's not what the cultural justifications were for this thought originally. The thought was that blue was a more "delicate" color, clearly more suited to women.

Because, if you have forgotten (yes a joke coming), humans constantly get amnesia on where things come from. Constantly. We've lost information in your own lifetime. You were born 2 seconds ago? Well, I hate to tell you, we've lost information in that 2 seconds.

So, when they can't remember the reason, Humans make up a reason to go with it, that's often frivolous and silly. Something that feels, what? Natural to them. Though remember the rule, Nature gives no fucks. So find and make up a logical reason for the cultural item and then find a stupid reason that people are willing to double down on it and there you go, that's culture. So say your species of aliens, the ones that are temperature linked to sex, link Iunno, gender to horn size. Bigger horns mean a certain class of gender. The original reason might be that bigger horned females are better at digging nests back when they were a pastoral society, thus better able to have larger clutches of children. But they've now reached the stars, so they completely forgot why and now just say that bigger horns are simply sexier because reasons. Or it could have flipped that smaller horns are in more demand, because big horns get in the way of industrial tasks, but no one says that. And now the bigger horned females, are considered a lower gender than the smaller horned females, who then raise all of the eggs.

See, the justification doesn't even have to follow any sort of logic. It's what they tell everyone to make them feel better.

And truthfully, a lot of culture is built this way. The reason you tell everyone isn't really the actual truth. I mean I did a whole series on Story Structure, and the justifications versus the reasons why it was made that way don't even close to match. People blindly parrot what other people tell them if it will help them succeed. (BTW, not saying I'm not guilty of this, I absolutely am.)

So I think this gives you a good basis to free yourself up for a larger system and be more creative with your gender definitions. Because absolutely both gender and sex are defined by culture, but in different ways.

You have effing demons, and you can come up with a more creative gender categories? You have unicorns and you don't have more creative gender categories. And you have kracken climbing buildings, but you can't imagine a third sex category for them when it absolutely exists in nature. C'mon. Hit me with your most creative and free yourself of your own culture's definitions of gender.

What if you nuked the entire Male/female/NB system. What would that look like? How would you justify it on two fronts? Blow that system out of the water and rework it. What would the Sexual orientation work like with a 3 sexes, 2 gender for each each system?

What stupid prohibitions would you put in for such a system?

#writing advice #worldbuilding #gender #be more creative with gender please

[usetheeauthor]

⚠️DARK FIC WARNING⚠️

When A Stranger Knocks At Your Door… (MDNI +18)

“Doctor”Emnu x Virgin!NurseNun!Reader

Summary: It’s the night of halloween in your little town and everyone is aware of the rule to stay indoors during demon hours. But when a mysterious doctor arrives to your nunnery looking to assist you with the ill patients, how could you possibly refuse?

DISCLAIMER: THE IMAGES HERE ARE NOT MINE! I DO NOT OWN ANY OF THE IMAGES AND IF YOU KNOW THE ARTIST PLS PROVIDE TO ME SO I CAN CREDIT. credits: (above) bottom left image, (below first within story) image

Word Count: 8.0k+

A/N: this is a work of fiction and purely fantasy. real non con is absolutely pure evil. Anyway, i think Enmu is pretty and so underrated. I wish he had more screen time. Ah well, I love writing for underrated characters so here it is. This is a PWP fic with a twist and it will be based in a made up modern town named Wakimashi where it is multiracial with mostly Japanese cultural influence to somewhat remain true to the lore. Some lines for Enmu come directly from the show with some renditions. The images i use are a mix of screen caps from the show and artwork created by some really talented artists who’s work motivated me into creating this. I had some images to pair with the story but tumblr wont show my story in the tags so i guess i’ll make a separate posts with the lines in the story along with the images. I love the dynamic of demon x religious!reader so i did it here. It’s loosely based knowledge on nurse nuns. Please enjoy and thank you for reading!

TW Warnings/Tags: NON CON, DUB CON, violence, blasphemy, some hinted!Rengoku x Reader, religious imagery and undertones, Master kink, reader is called ‘pet’, mentions of murders and death, graphic language, blood kink, blood drinking, somnophilia, (dream) self harm, loss of virginity, tentacle sex, face fucking, oral (m & f receiving), dacryphilia, p in v (unprotected), anal play/anal sex, scratching, biting, creampie, cumflation, hairpulling, sub/dom dynamics, delayed orgasm/orgasm denial, squirting, nipple play, enmu’s BIG dick, monsterfucking, yandere!enmu, enmu’s hand, sex positions (the lazy doggystyle, spooning position, riding), somewhat fluffy towards the end, dilemma/cliffhanger ending

Halloween, it was once called. A holiday all in good fun. Back then, no one felt the need to worry in a town where everyone knows everyone.

But things have since changed.

But things have since changed.

One night, some years ago, completely changed the meaning of this holiday for future generations to come when a mass of demons passing themselves as humans in costumes would then massacre a total of 50 townsfolk in just under an hour. The only reason there had not been more victims was because an emergency alarm sounded all over town.

The day is now known as “The Devil’s Purge” stemming from the idea that the town of Wakimashi is cursed by God or the Devil himself.

Whenever the fateful night arrives, police stations and hospitals would shut down and people would be encouraged to stay home.

Yet as a nurse, you couldn’t bring yourself to abide by those standards. Especially when there are people out there with no homes and or people in dire need of first aid. So every year, the nunnery where you reside secretly opens to the residents during these times. Food and shelter are provided to anyone who hears of the shelter discreetly through word of mouth since the authorities would shut it down if exposed.

The nunnery would work with the Hashiras, providing first aid in exchange for protection and other assistance.

This year, however, the police were adamant on people staying indoors. So with the prospective thought that the nunnery wouldn’t be expecting many patients or people seeking shelter for the night, a majority of your fellow Sisters decided to board the Mugen Train this morning to do some charity work out of town only leaving you and 1 sister to tend to the 14 refugees.

A certain blonde-headed Hashira with red flamed tips greets you at the door. His smile is big and bright as always, something you’ve always admired about him. Despite facing gruesome situations, the man remained positive. “Y/n! Happy Devil’s Purge! Are you well and prepared?”

“I’m very much so, Mr.Rengoku. I’ve prepared as much as I could. I was just in the process of shutting all the windows in the home.”

“Will you be needing my services for tonight? I can check around the property for you before I go. Or if you’d like I can send a friend of mine over here for your protection. Wouldn’t want you to be all alone in here.”

“No, no. I’ll be okay. Sister Agatha is here as well.”

“Word of advice, do not answer the door for anyone after 6 pm. You are aware that once the sun goes down, the night belongs to them.”

“Then maybe you should stay,” You blurt out, slightly blushing and embarrassed. “I don’t mean to frighten you. But…I experienced a terrible nightmare the night before. I have a scary feeling that there is a reason why the authorities are enforcing stricter lockdowns. It’s as if they’re aware of what the demons plan to do.”

“I’ve got that same feeling.” He says solemnly.

“Please stay,” You take his hands in yours, seeing him blink in surprise at your bold contact. You quickly attempt to pull them away but he holds them in place. Exhaling, you continue to plead. “I get the worrying feeling that…I won’t get to see you again. You don’t have to slay demons all night, every night. Especially not on a day like this. Please…Kyojuro.”

You really worry for him. He is the only man who you have ever known this close in familiarity as the life path you lead expresses limited contact with those of the opposite sex.

Rengoku squeezes your hand. “I can’t stay,” He whispers, leaning in enough for you to feel his breath tickling your nose. “I wish I could. But I’ve made a promise to someone in my life that I will use my strength to protect those that need to be protected. I promise I’ll be fine. So don’t you worry. We’ll meet again. Okay?”

You stare up into his eyes, nodding. “Okay.”

The two of you part and Rengoku gains his happy-go-lucky composure. “I’ve come bearing gifts before I depart,” He whistles and a young boy enters with heavy baggage. “You can set those in the kitchen, friend.”

“What’s that?” You question.

“Bentos! I purchased them from a kind older woman and her granddaughter. You have plenty in case you experience a surplus of residents before sundown.”

“Thank you so much, Mr. Rengoku!” You beam.

“Please, you know to call me Kyojuro. And I’d do anything for you, Y/n.” He quickly catches himself, blushing and rubbing the back of his neck. “Well, I should be heading off now. My colleague and I will be boarding the Mugen Train.”

“Is it still in service? I was told that my sisters would be boarding the last train.”

“Yes, the train’s been delayed for hours but it seems that it’s running up again. I’ll be on a train with your sisters and protect them to the best of my abilities. I’m sure there will be some demon activity during the ride so it’s good to be one step ahead of them.” He says in a boisterous, rich tone.

“I will keep you in prayer.” You smile.

“Thank you. Well, off we go then! Enjoy the Bentos! They’re delicious!” He grins, waving out. The young Hashira bows his exit then soon follows after.

Locking the door behind you and adding the chain, you continued your preparation shutting the blinds and lighting the various candles throughout the home. You made a note to yourself that once you tended to the residents, that you would go into prayer to calm your nerves.

You spot Sister Nurse, Agatha, fixing some tea and cookies on a tray in the kitchen and you quickly go in to assist.

“The guests will love your cookies, Sister. They’ve always been a fan of your baking. I am, too, of course,” You smile.

“Would you like one? They’re fresh out of the oven.” She says excitedly, handing you a chocolate chip cookie.

You take a bite, moaning at the gooey softness of the confectionery. “Perfect as always. You’ve got to give that recipe,” You noticed her carrying trays on either hand, rushing over to take one. “I’ll carry the tea tray. It looks much too heavy for you to carry this all on your own.”

“Thank you, dear Sister,” She smiles. The two of you silently head up the stairs until she breaks into the empty air. “By the way, you and Rengoku have been spending an awfully close amount of time together…has anything become of it?”

You gasp at her, nearly dropping the tray. “Certainly not, Sister. Whatever you insinuate, I want to clarify that Rengoku is a man of honor as I am a woman of Mother Mary’s holy ward. I shall remain true to my vows of purity.”

“That’s what I was worried you’d say.” She mutters to herself almost as if she’s pitying you.

“Whatever do you mean, Sister?”

“It is nothing, Sister Y/n.”

“Are you saying that you are not…a virgin?” You whisper the last part like a bad word.

“I am a born again virgin. That counts where it matters.” She says, turning up her nose.

“Why, of course. My intentions are never to judge you. I’m simply curious as you are about my status. H-have there been rumors spreading about Rengoku and I? Do the other sisters know of this?”

The two of you reach the large room for the residents. “Nevermind that now, dear Sister. We wouldn’t want our guests to hear you speak such crass things. You take one side of the room, and I, the other.”

You offer the treats, carefully adjust pillows, and give a small blessing prayer to each guest. “Shall I lead tonight's prayer, Sister Agatha?” You question.

Then, you hear a knock on the door downstairs, you, glancing at the sky through the bedroom window. It’s sundown.

“I will lead the prayer, Sister,” Agatha says. “You can go on downstairs and greet the guest in need.”

“B-but Rengoku…he said I shouldn’t answer after sundown.”

“This isn’t our first year doing this, Sister. There’s no need to be afraid. What are the odds of coming in contact with a demon here? I’ve created a ring of salt on our porch for protection. There’s no possible way a demon could set foot past it. Go on, dear child. You don’t want to keep them waiting in the dark.”

“Yes, Sister,” You bow your head before rushing down the stairs. There is another knock again as you take cautious steps towards the door. Unlocking it, you leave the chain on and open it just enough for you to peer through the small crack. “Good evening.”

“Good evening, Sister,” A man says in a syrupy smooth voice that could melt butter. “I am Dr. Enmu. A sister of yours spoke with me earlier on my way home about needing my services here. I believe you possess some sickly patients. I can assure you I’ll do all I can to help them.”

There’s a presence about him that shakes you to the core. Could he be a demon? You’ve never actually seen a demon in person but you were given details from those who’ve encountered them. He’s a little pale, sure, but he seemed human. He’s eerily beautiful as well which didn’t help his case in terms separating him from the otherworldliness.

He has the bluest eyes you’ve ever seen, his black hair was shoulder length aside from the two hanging strips that go past it, and his face was so prettily structured that his beauty was comparable to that of a woman. He looked the part of a doctor, too. A white coat, stethoscope, dress pants and all.

But there was just something about him. This whole situation is suspicious.

“I apologize…but I—“

“Sister Y/n,” Agatha scowls as she approaches you. “I asked for this man to join us this evening. He is a fine doctor and willing to provide his services with no charge. Now, would you please let him in? The storm could be approaching any minute.”

“My apologies.” You say, giving in and stepping aside to let him through.

Maybe if he were a demon, he would have attacked by now. But this man was calm, a small smile never leaving his face. And he didn’t have those distinct markings that the demons usually are said to bear.

“I’m so sorry Dr. Enmu. It appears my dear Sister here is not of sound mind tonight.” She turns her attention to you.

“It is fine, Sister Agatha,” The man says. “Please do not be so hard on the poor girl. She is just being cautious. As we should, in times like these.”

You’re left surprised in his defense of you. There’s clear amusement in the way he looks at you. Like you were some prized collectible item.

“Sister Y/n, I’ll be showing the doctor to our patients.“Why don’t you stay down here and get a quick moment’s rest. I’ll be right with you.” Agatha says to you then turns her attention to the man. “Follow me right this way, Doctor.”

Enmu looks at you one last time and you swear you saw a sinister spark in his eyes before the ascent upstairs. You tremble, wanting to shake this darkened feeling. Getting onto your knees on the carpeted living room floor, you clasp your hands together and pray. “O, Mother. I pray to thee today for your guidance and protection. The enemy is at work and—“

Another knock at the door. You don’t think you could handle another strange encounter. But this was your duty and no matter how hard your heart pounds, you needed to bring yourself out of shock to help others. You pull the door open, revealing a rain-drenched Rengoku.

“Kyojuro…what are you doing here? What happened to boarding the train?”

“I just had to see you once more. Ever since you told me that you were worried you might not see me again…it stuck with me,” His hand cups your cheek. “I want us to be together and safe.”

“R-really? But people are talking about us in town.”

“It doesn’t matter,” He smiles. “I just want you.”

He pulls you into a hug and, at first, you were shocked but you soon melt into his embrace.

“But what about my vows? Your duties? It simply would not allow us to be together.” You whisper.

He lifts your chin. “We can be together as long as we relinquish those parts of us. We could leave town and find our new home.”

You look up at him confused. Earlier, Rengoku stated he made a promise to someone he deeply cared for about protecting others as a Hashira. This is so opposite of him. “Y-you’re cold. Um, would you like some tea? We also have cookies and bentos in abundance.”

“Sounds great!”

The two of you head into the kitchen where you set two tea cups for the two of you. You pour his fill then your own, trying to breath and calm your nerves.

The two of you clasp your hands in prayer and simultaneously bless the food. “Thank you for the meal.”

You raise the teacup to your lips, spotting a reflection of yourself distressed and screaming underwater. Everything clicks.

This isn’t your reality.

In a state of shock, the tea cup slips from your fingers and the glass shatters to the ground. Dream Rengoku raises his eyes from the meal to you.

“Everything alright, Y/n?”

You hyperventilate, smacking your head on each side. “Wake up! Wake up!”

“Y/n, what are you doing?!” Dream Rengoku yells in concern.

You squeeze your eyes shut, trying to drown out your surroundings. “Wake up!”

—————

In real time, your body is in a sitting position on the living room couch. Everyone in the home was now currently under a deep sleep. All except Sister Agatha who now crawled and begged on her knees, pleading for mercy from the demon.

She whimpers, tears flowing down her cheeks and her face lying down on the ground in submission. “I have fed everyone the cookies baked in your blood. And the Virgin girl is still pure. The Hashira has not bedded her. I’ve confirmed. There are no signs of corruption. Please…I’ve done all you’ve asked of me. I just want to see my baby girl again. I want to hold her in my arms. Please….”

“Certainly,” Enmu smiles, crouching over her bowing frame. “You’ve done a fine job. Now sleep forever and dream of a life with your newborn child.”

Sister Agatha collapses going into a deep slumber. Enmu could just chuckle with joy. This was a lot easier than he expected. But he doesn’t expect much from humans. To him, they are all so pitiful.

Tonight Enmu plans to devour every single human in the home. Although he wishes for a taste of you, he knows he’d be better rewarded if you were given to Muzan instead. He longed to impress his master in hopes of receiving more blood and becoming stronger. Then he’d get to terrorize even more humans.

He looks down at you. You look like a sleeping beauty incarnate. It wouldn’t hurt if he played with you just a little.

Lowering himself in front of you, he circles a sharp nail around your aroused bud, poking through your thin collared top. He twists and rolls it, watching your lips part as you mumble something again and again.

He kisses your neck, feeling your heart beating in it and he all but claims you there. Remembering that his mission was to gift you to Master Munzan, he quickly lurches away from you and presses down on his growing member.

Enmu retreats upstairs to his potential victims. He’ll be dining well tonight.

—————

You rack your head over and over. Dream Rengoku tackles you to the ground, pinning your hands to your chest. “What is wrong with you, Y/n?”

You needed a way out but Dream Rengoku was just as strong. There was no way you could free yourself. Then, you notice the giant glass shards from the tea cup you dropped previously beside your neck.

Were you really going to go through something so dangerously foolish? Well, it is like you had a choice.

You look up at the man above you who seemed genuinely concerned. It felt so real and you could easily get lost in this mimicry.

“I’m sorry.” You whisper before grazing your neck against the sharp edges. It cuts deep, severing an artery. He watches in horror as you begin to choke on your blood and eventually succumb to the wound.

Everything fades to black.

————-

You gasp loudly, eyes shot open as you frantically grip at your neck and check your surroundings. You can hear the roaring of the storm outside. The setting around you no longer had the dreamy filter lenses over your eyes. Everything was cold and gloomy.

This is reality.

Standing on your feet slowly, you spot a body on the floor, nearly screaming until you slap a hand over your mouth. The demon couldn’t know you’re awake just yet. Inspecting the body, you recognized it to be your sister who’d also been slumbering away. Trying to shove her awake, you recognized that she wouldn’t budge awake this way, too far gone.

Searching for a knife in the kitchen to equip yourself, you go up the stairs. Trying to go up as quietly as possible, you remove your shoes and your nylon-covered feet muffles the creaking against the floorboards.

When you reach the top of the stairs, you notice the door to the patients’ room opened half-way. Mustering up the courage, you jump in with your knife raised only to be met with the horror before you. He was drinking the blood of one victim’s arm, straddling their body as they began to turn pale but they’re too deep in their sleep to sense any danger.

You can see that some patrons were still alive, cringing and tossing as if they’re experiencing the worst of nightmares.

You drop the knife, mouth agape as you back away. Enmu hears this, turning to you. He was in full demon form. Greenish-yellow markings lined down his cheeks, veins protruding through his near translucent skin, the lower rank one eye, as well as the black hair highlighted with red and blue tips.

“What’s this? You’re awake?” He asks, baffled but impressed. “Did I not give you a dream tailored to your desires?”

He stalks towards you and you begin to feel for the door. “W-why?”

“That look of anguish and horror on your face is exquisite,” He moans. “Maybe I do prefer that you’re awake for this. I’d love to dine on your fears.”

You let out a shuddery breath, squeezing your eyes like somehow it would rid you of him in your presence.“Mother Mary, if you hear my prayer like you’ve done before. I ask for your protection,” You gasp through tears. “Protect us, dear mother. For there is a demon before me who wishes to take the souls of your people.”

You’re just so intriguing to him that he simply lets you continue in your prayer. Most humans would run by this point but you were standing your ground, praying to a being that would not answer you.

“This being that you pray to…are they all knowing?” He covers a fist over his mouth to stifle his laughter. “Could they tell you of all the things I plan to do to you?”

“I’m not afraid.” You hiss.

“Oh, is that so? The sound of your heart pounding in your chest says otherwise.”

“I am divinely protected. Mother Mary has saved me from your magic and she will save me again. I have nothing to fear. But you do. Free everyone from the spell or you will be facing God’s wrath.”

“But why would I free them…when they are right where they want to be. Everyone wants sweet dreams, my dear pet. Your sister practically sold you to me with no resistance just for a glimpse of a good life.”

You shake your head. “I don’t believe you.”

“How do you think you ended up asleep in the first place? Those cookies weren’t just made out of bitter truths. You humans are so easily swayed by your desires. I recognized this truth when I practiced as a doctor many years ago. Humans don't care for truths. They want to hear things that will make them happy. Blissfully unaware. I’ve had chronically ill patients believing they’ll heal from their ailments. I'd encourage them that they’re cured of their illness even though it was all lies.”

“How could you do something like that?”

“Because believing in fantasy is more powerful and so exciting that it’s easy to see it as reality. They may have died thinking they were healed but they died happily! I give hope as quickly as I can take it away,” He walks over to the bedside of one patient. “This man wishes that he married the one who got away instead of who he’s married to currently. And that woman wants to be young and beautiful again. All of these people, in this room and out, have their own dreams. Dreams that can reveal all your hopes and your fears. It is the central core of all humans. And now I’ve been gifted a power bestowed upon me by my Master to manipulate those cores as I please. To have the delight of watching people as they dream peacefully before their minds shatter into the descent of darkness…it’s like a sweet nectar to me.” He in a dreamy tone, his cheeks a crimson shade of blush.

Your breathing quickens as his tongue circles around his lips to collect the blood on them. “That look of pure agony and anguish on one’s face whenever there’s that sense of danger they have no way of escaping…mmm. It’s like that look on your face now,” He’s closer than ever but as much as your body tells you to run, you knew that his inhuman speed would only give him the advantage. He presses himself against your body. “You excite me, my dear.”

You try to push him, only for him to pin your hands above your head. “Let me go.” You bite.

“Why should I? Hmm? You’ve interrupted my meal,” His teasing, soft voice morphs into a dark growl. “I should punish you for that.”

You feel an unmistakable hardness against your tummy. Your fears aroused him. Enmu could smell it on you the second he arrived. He’d left his mission for the Mugen Train figuring you were a much better catch. Indeed, you were. So much so that Enmu wanted to taste you. The pure blood of a young virgin nun. He wishes he could corrupt you for himself. Make you belong to him instead.

He brings his lips to your tear-stained cheeks, ghosting them over your skin before flicking a tongue up to lick away the salty liquid. Even your tears taste incredible!

You cringe, the scent of blood wafts your nose as he licks away. Then, he suddenly pulls back to stare angrily at you.

“Do you desire that fool?”

You stare up in confusion. “Who?”

“That Hashira,” He spits out as if it were a slur. “Is he who you wish to deflower you?”

“I would never—.”

“Liar,” Enmu hisses. “If he was not who you desired, then you wouldn’t have dreamt of him.” He pinches either side of your cheeks with his thumb and index, forcing you to purse your lips.

He continues in an increasingly dark tone.“I should be the one you lust for. I am the one who could give you all that you ever need,” He’s once again playful in his tone. “If only you’d let the dream continue a little longer, you would’ve gotten to the best part. The part where I force him to watch you take every inch of me. Your poor virgin cunt wouldn’t be able to handle it. He’d watch you stretch and bleed around me. And you’d scream and beg. Both of you, helpless because there’s nothing either of you could do to stop it. Then, I’d kill him and fuck you against his lifeless corpse.”

“No.” You whimper, weakly.

He buries his face in your neck, nuzzling his nose against the thickest vein in your neck. “You don’t have to keep up this charade of yours, Y/n. I know your body. I hear it calling. Every part of you beats for me: from the veins in your neck, the heart in your chest, to the pearl between your legs.” He attempts to cup your pussy but you clamp your thighs together.

“Don’t touch me!”

A red, fleshy entity curls itself around your neck. You begin to claw at, gasping for air. “I can touch you as I please. You’re my pet after all. I tend to make good use of you,” Feeling like you’d had enough, he loosens the grip around your neck. “Would you like to try this again?”

He scans your face and you look at him with fury in your eyes but remain still for him to proceed. His hand cups your pussy and you’re embarrassed to realize that you’re drenched. “I like these games you play, my pet; pretending as if you don’t wish me to be inside you right here, right now. In fact, should I provide you evidence?” A tentacle lift your long white skirt out of the way. Pushing past your pantyhose and panties, his thick fingers rests below your sopping folds. He runs two fingers through them until he makes it to your sticky little nub, tapping on it repeatedly. You bite your lip, feeling your knees buckle under you.

“Just as I thought,” Enmu removes his black polished hands from you, revealing their glistening wet state. You felt humiliated! He hadn’t even gone inside you yet and you’re s puddle. “Your reward, my dear pet.”

He shoves his fingers into your mouth and down your throat, making you gag around them. “Better get used to that. You’ll be taking something a lot bigger. Very soon.” He giggles softly.

Enmu grips the back of your head, forcing you down on his fingers over and over. You were drooling all over yourself, eyes watering from your gag reflex being triggered over and over.

He yanks your mouth away and you end up coughing, slobbering all over your chin as you catch your breath. “Forgive me Father God and Mother Mary,” You whine just before he slams his lips onto yours. His tongue was rather explorative as he swirled it around your mouth. The taste of salty blood on his tongue and lips were enough to make you scream.

You feel his knee apply pressure to your core as he deepens the kiss. Enmu expects you to grind yourself against him which you were adamant on not doing so. He breaks the kiss, a thick line of saliva and blood on your lips. You pray, quietly, against his lips. “Forgive me, Mother Mary, Father God.”

Again, a kiss. And you felt your resistance weaken. “Forgive me…”

Another kiss but this time he pulls away prematurely and you find yourself being the one to lean in, searching for his lips.

“Eager little thing, aren’t we?” He teases, nose rubbing against your own. “Would you like to go further?”

“N-no. I want to keep my vows, my virginity.”

“You and I both know that isn’t going to happen tonight,” He tilts your chin up. “You’ll give yourself to me no matter what your head tells you because your body knows what it craves. Look.” He brings your attention between your bodies, your hips were mindlessly rolling into his for any form of friction.

“I can give you inexplicable pleasure or speechless pain and you’d take it all like the obedient pet you are.” He smirks, pinching your cheeks. The red flesh-like tentacles slither up and coil themselves around your body and between your inner thigh until you feel the pressure of it against your clothed core.

Your eyes look up at him, pleading. “No! It’ll hurt.”

“Don’t fight it or it won’t go in easily,” He cups one breast, kneading it through your shirt while kissing your shoulder. “Your screams are what I sought after anyway. So if you wish to please me, I want to hear you.”

Enmu tears your lacy underwear from your body as if it were made of paper. Your skirt is lifted out of the way once again as the tentacle attempts to squirm its way inside you.

“Please…” You whine and thrash, feeling it trying to force itself in.

“Oh pooh,” He pouts. “I’m not breaking through. You’re simply much too tight. I just might tear you apart if I push any further. We wouldn’t want that, would we? We’ll just have to get you worked up until you're ready.”

You’re forced onto your knees, face inches away from his cock which dares to burst from his pinstriped pants. He frantically makes work of the buckles on them, wanting to feel your frightened little throat close around him.

Enmu frees his freakishly large and veiny member and it springs forward colliding on top of your face. You’d never seen a penis before but you’ve heard stories of women expressing how unappealing most looked.

Enmu’s cock was furthest from that description. Despite being pale, it was girthy and long in length with a bubblegum pink bulbous tip. The thick veins that show through them were enough to make your mouth water for a reason you weren’t sure why.

“That’s going i-inside me?”

“Precisely. But for now, we’ll make use of your pretty mouth. Stick out your tongue,” He orders. You shyly stick out a quarter of it and he huffs. Pinching the tip of your tongue between his fingers, he tugs on it to bring it out further. “There you go.” He smiles.

Tapping the heavy length on your tongue, the tip leaks with his essence and you catch the sticky liquid on your tongue. The taste of him is addicting. He rocks his hips, letting himself slide back and forth on your wet appendage before shoving himself deep into your throat without warning. You gag around him, hands on his thighs to push him off. But the tentacles that kept you pinned down along with his grip in your hair makes you swallow him down and adapt to breathing around the huge length.

The horror of it all was how much you were beginning to enjoy it. The feelings of lust he’s brought upon you are more intense than the guilt you felt. You were sure your juices were currently gushing out of you onto the wooden board.

You should feel terrible that you were doing this in a room of people who came seeking your help from the very being that claims your body and soon virginity tonight. Yet, you suck him earnestly, bobbing your head up and down as you feel your restraint and sanity continue to slip away.

“That’s a good girl,” Enmu moans, petting your head. He also notices your change in behavior. He was right all along. You would eventually give yourself to him and sadly it didn’t take long. “You look like a dream. I could get used to you like this before me.”

One of your hands leaves his thigh to slide between your legs, playing with yourself as you moan around him. The vibrations cause him to whine out.

“For servant of Catholic scripture, you’ve got quite a sinful mouth. Am I turning you into a sexual deviant?” He gets his answer when you wrap a soft hand around his base, stroking him firmly while you continue to swirl your tongue around the tip. You kept your eyes on his bright blue ones the entire time; watching as they would flutter, widen, or bore intensely into yours.

He throws his head back relishing in the way your mouth wants to savor his taste. The blush on his face creeps up and his mouth drops open as he begins to salivate in a state of bliss.

“Master?” You say, ceasing all actions and looking up at him.

His eyes snap to yours, brain short-circuiting for a moment. To think of himself as a master. Like Muzan. It was a tempting fantasy, to say the least. He already has such an obedient pet who’ll serve his needs. “Y-you mean me?”

“Yes, master,” You notice his surprise at your sudden submission, smirking to yourself as you give his tip a kitten lick. “Could you please come in my mouth? I want to taste more of it.”

“How would you like it?” He says, thumb caressing your cheek.

“Fuck my mouth. Please.” You beg, your mouth back around him.

“Such dirty words for a good girl. But I’ll give you what you need,” He growls, fingers gripping the strands of your hair to force you down on him. The sounds of your gagging echo in the room and tears begin to stream down your face. A tentacle presses against your throat, applying pressure to the print of his cock in your throat; feeding then unsheathing over and over.

“Are you ready to receive another reward, my pet?” You stare up at him with starry eyes as an answer. He moans, high-pitched and shaky as you suckle hard to drink him dry. “Oh my, I’m coming!” You dig your nails into his thigh as he does so. He shoots his warm cum into your mouth and you’re swallowing him down joyously.

He cups your face to remove your mouth, lines of saliva break off from his semi-erect cock. You hold out your tongue showing him that you’ve swallowed it all. He smiles down at you through hooded eyes, baring his sharpened teeth. Under the moonlight, shining through the window, Enmu looks absolutely ethereal. Almost God-like himself.

“You’re beautiful.” You whisper to him.

He chuckles. “I can say the same for you, little one. I’m enamored to say the least.”

You kiss his hand, nuzzling your face against it. “I desire you.”

You felt something wet brush your cheek, jolting you enough to inspect his hand which had a sentient mouth. He smirks down at you. “He likes you.”

You place a kiss on its lips lifting your shining eyes to the demon before you. “I desire every part of you.”

He lowers himself to lift you in his arms, carrying you to an empty bed in the room. Once he lays you down so that you’re seated at the edge of the bed, he gets on his knees in front of you. Enmu begins to remove your nylon stockings and skirt and you make haste with your top and bra.

You're fully naked before him and he feasts his eyes all over you. Glistening wet pussy and hardened nipples, you’re like a 5-star meal and he’s a man starved. He groans, hands sliding down your body from your neck to the valley between your breasts then to your mound.

You’re hairy, having never needed to shave because of your faith. Enmu doesn’t mind this. In fact, it turns him on so much more.

He grips the hairs on your mound, pulling them upward to open you up more and expose your swollen clitoris. He just stares at you gushing more of your juices out of you, doing nothing to relieve the ache you felt. You whine, rolling your hips for him to do something.

His free hand comes up to pinch the sensitive nub eliciting a yelp from you. “It’s better than a dream.” He sighs.

He wastes no time, burying his head between your legs. His moans are desperate against your quivering core. His sweet, seductive voice is already enough to make you wet, now added with whininess and you’re flooding tongue.

You tug at his dark hair, grinding yourself against his face. He alternates between sucking and nipping your core with his sharp teeth, looking up at you with those big bright eyes.

“Thank you, master. You make me feel so good,” You mewl. He brings his mouth up to yours, allowing you to taste yourself. You feel yourself already accustomed to the taste of blood, your tongue running along his fangs.

Circling his longest finger around your tight entrance, he forces it causing you to gasp into his mouth at the foreign feeling. “How splendid,” He says. “Could you possibly take another?” You hear the squelch when a second finger enters you, mouth dropping as he begins to pump them slowly.

“Oh, fuuuck.” You whine, capturing his lips in a desperate session of tongues and clashing teeth.

He fucks his fingers into you deeper. “Am I really all you desire? Do you still care for the Hashira?”

“N-no, I only want you.”

“What about your God?” You were getting wetter and wetter by the second, liquids splashing your inner thighs and his fingers.

“I’ve renounced it all. I belong to you.”

“Do you mean this?” He flicks two curved fingers back and forth then swirl them around, thumb toying with your throbbing clit.

“Yes, master! Yes!” You sob. “Please just fuck me. I want your cock.”

Enmu feels a sense of pride at your admittance. He climbs over your body, kissing you roughly and nipping your bottom lip. You could feel his hardening cock sliding through your folds.

“Master…I want to feel your skin on mine.” You whisper, trying to remove his jacket. He watches you, amused by your desperation to feel him against you when moments ago you were pleading for him to stay away.

He figures he should assist you since you were begging to be fucked badly, crying tears of pain from not being filled. So, he quickly discards the reminder of his clothes.

You pull him on top of you, rolling around so that you are the one straddling him. You rest your core over the large tip. “May I please have you this way, master?”

“As you wish.” He says, breathlessly.

You sink down on his length immediately, eyes rolling into the back of your head. You hyperventilate, struggling and wanting to pull away from the intense pressure only for his hands to grip your hips and slam you down fully on his length. Your clitoris, making contact with his pelvis.

“Oh, my god.” Your hand flies up to cover your mouth in shock.

“Mmm, I wish you could see how perfect you look with horror on your face. I could feel the pain coursing through your veins intensifying. Ohh, it feels so good!” He laughs manically, fucking up into your extremely wet pussy. He pounds so deep you can see him poking within your tummy.

“My precious pet. So good. So needy.” He cries. Enmu has no doubt he’s broken the barrier within you. It was like you’d both felt the metaphorical “popping” off your cherry and soon you could smell the faint scent of blood.

You bounce on his cock, fucking him back. Even as the red tendrils slithered up to pin your hands behind your back, your rhythm doesn’t falter. He pulls your head down to look where the two of you neet, his thick trunk of a cock ramming into your swollen pussy which is now coated in a mixture of your arousal and blood.

“This means I own you now.” He beams and it almost appears as if he meant it out of love.

“Thank you, Master Enmu. I’m so grateful you’ve chosen me.” You pant.

He sits up, sucking a hardened nipple into his mouth then spanks your asscheek and you moan out his name. “We make a great pair, dear. I like to inflict pain and you like receiving it like a good little whore. I almost feel terrible ever thinking of offering you.”

“I’m yours. Only yours, Enmu.” You kiss him, sucking on his tongue and bobbing your head the way you would with his cock. You release his hand collides with another of your soft, plush globes.

“You just taste so sweet,” He whispers against the valley between your breasts. “Something I never could’ve imagined.”

His nails dig into your ass, scratching and separating them. Then, you feel something wiggle in the entrance of your puckered hole. “Relax and it shouldn’t hurt too much.”

A tentacle feeds itself into your ass and you cry out, biting into his shoulder which makes him cry out in delight. He just as much liked pain inflicted upon him, too.

Your nails dig into his back as he wriggles even more of it inside of you, stretching you. You felt so full, eyes crossed as he began to fuck you in both holes. His lips purse around your pebbled nipples again and it furthers your arousal as you cream around his cock.

“You’re sooo huge!” You whine, practically drooling on him.

Enmu rams into you over and over, the tip of his cock pistons for the soft trigger within you repeatedly. He alternates the motions so that whenever his cock goes in the tentacle would go out then vice versa and sometimes they’d pound into you at the same time and rhythm.

You’ve never experienced an orgasm but you were sure this one will possibly break your mind. Yet, you still chase it. Your hand slides in between your bodies to rub yourself when another set of tentacles take your hands again and pin them behind you.

“You don’t get to cum yet. Not until I know you’ve surrendered yourself to me fully.” He drives deeper into your cunt in time with the tentacle in your ass.

“Hnnngh.” You groan, only the whites of your eyes are shown.

All movement stops and he’s pulling out of you. You whine but soon find yourself being lifted like a feather and placed on your stomach. Your face is planted into the pillow beneath you. Without much preparation, he’s pounding into you again the sounds of your ass colliding with his pelvis sounding in the room.

“Fuck! Enmu, you’re so fucking good.” You’re crying into the pillow, the squelching and shlucking noises of your pussy around him drives you to madness.

He grunts above you, indulging in your constricting walls. Enmu knew at that moment he couldn’t possibly give you away to him. Especially not after the feelings you are making him feel when he’s never been the type to care for sex this badly.

You dig your nails into his hands, the sentient mouth biting down on your fingers. Enmu’s sweaty hair falls over his face as he fucks you into the mattress with deep, long strokes. The bed creaks under you, headboard banging loudly against the wall in competition with your screams.

A tentacle tugs your hair forcing your face to the side and brings itself to your mouth to suck on. You happily suck on it and the way he’s moaning lets you know that he’s feeling it as if you were sucking his cock.

He turns you both to the side, spooning you from behind and you can tell that he’s close by frantically he’s rutting into your suctioning core. Enmu brings your leg back, hooking it around his waist so that your clit is exposed, allowing the tentacle to suction on your clitioris. The tentacle has a tongue-like appendage that laps away at the sensitive bud as well.

“I’m close. I can feel it, Master. Oh, please can I cum? I’ve been so good!”

“Once, you cum. That means I officially own you, my dear. You’ll do everything I say from now on.”

“Whatever you want, master. I’ll obey,” You bring your hand to cup the back of his neck, forcing his lips onto yours. Your tongues fighting for dominance. “I want your cum, master. Own me. Own my pussy.”

“Ohhh baby…” He moans, feeling the familiar build up.

With your face turned up, you look over your shoulder keeping your face near his face as it hovers. The two of you breathe each other’s air, swallowing down every moan and sob as you stare intensely. His hands play across your stomach then press down on the bulge and your vision goes white.

In a silent scream, you spray your juices on his cock and all over him. At that moment, he bites into your neck and the feeling intensifies. You tighten around him like a vice and he’s cumming deep into you. His essence feels hot as it rages through you, painting as deep as it could and pushing past your cervix and it fills you to the brim. You felt so full inside you were sure that his cum made your stomach bloat a little in the process.

You moan out, feeling yourself lightheaded as he drinks your blood. All you could do is grip his hair for reality and that it’ll be over soon.

You go limp when he finally releases your neck, hitting into you one last time and playing with your clit and you were coming again and hard; despite your low energy. You’re shocked by how it was possible to do so. It felt so sudden yet here you were weeping and gasping on his cock.

You’re screaming again as the tentacle has no mercy, playing with your overly sensitive clit. You can hear horrifying screams outside in the night mixing in with your blissed out ones. Your eyes searching the room as you see the patients writhe in their beds still terrorized by his spell.

“Enmu, please…set them fr—Oh goddd,” You cry out, the pleasure is too intense to even concern yourself with the horrors that surround you.

“That’s right, pet,” Enmu teases, cock wreaking through you. “Let’s compete with those screams! While they’re experiencing their nightmares, you to live out your wildest dreams. It’s exquisitely beautiful.”

“Fuuuc—Ohhhh mmuhg.”You can hardly for words, twitching against him and eyes glossed over. The neverending orgasm finally ends and you now lay boneless, officially corrupted.

He kisses your neck, chest flushed against you. You wanted to cover your ears and block out the screams but you couldn’t move. You couldn’t even bring yourself to remove his cock from inside you. It didn’t seem like he wanted to slip out of you either, curling an arm around your waist.

“You’re mine forever,” He nuzzles against you. “That is our deal until the very end.”

“Yes, Master.” You say squeezing your walls around him and earning a guttural moan from him.

“Good girl. We’ll be getting you cleaned up once you gain your movements. You’re coming back home with me.” He rubs your stomach.

“M-master…is it possible that you could free these people? No more casualties need to happen tonight. You’ve fed on me. Am I not enough? I beg you. Release them.”

He pokes your cheek, playfully. “You’re much too kind for your own good. Tell you what…I’ll free these people… in exchange for the Hashira’s blood.”

You stare up at him in horror. “No! I—“

“This should be an easy choice. Must I remind you that you are the one who said you didn’t care for him anymore? So what’ll it be, my pet?” He smiles down at you wickedly and it was at that point you’re reminded exactly why he’s considered a demon.

@whisperinghallwaysofmirrors

#enmu x reader smut #enmu headcanons #kimetsu no yaiba enmu #kimetsu no yaiba anime #kimetsu no yaiba fanfiction #rengoku x reader #enmu x reader #enmu smut #demon slayer x reader #demon slayer smut #demon slayer fanfic #demon slayer enmu #enmu x y/n #kimetsu no yaiba fanfic #kimetsu no yaiba smut #kimetu no yaiba #anime fanfic #manga fanfic #enmu x you #kny enmu #kny x reader #kny smut #kny headcanons #kny fluff #kny au #demon slayer x you #kimetsu anime #kny rengoku

[thegirlwhorideslikeasamurai]

The role of Japanese dating culture in YOI

Disclaimer: This post is based on my research on Japanese culture. If you are Japanese and note that I missed the point, please enlighten me. I’m always happy to learn.

At first glance, Yuuri’s behaviour is rooted in awkwardness, anxiety, and low self-esteem. Whereas all of this is true, his cultural upbringing engenders some of his demeanours as well. It adds nuance to his character and to his relationship with Viktor.

Let’s break this down chronologically.

Inappropriate physical contact

When Viktor shows up at the onsen, his advances weird Yuuri out. Viktor’s courtship behaviour is totally over the top even beyond the borders of Japan, but it definitely isn’t how things work in Japan. Touching, for instance, is quite an intimate thing. It’s rude to touch a stranger in the ways Viktor touches Yuuri. No wonder Yūri has a flight or freeze response and doesn’t seem comfortable with it at all. That having Viktor’s hands on his body causes a visceral reaction doesn’t help the matter at all.

Hugs are uncommon unless they happen between people close to each other, such as friends or family, and they tend to don’t last long. Long hugs usually happen between people who are in love. Thus, it’s a big deal when Yuuri hugs Viktor before his performance at the Onsen on Ice. Yuuri is very anxious and determined to make Viktor stay in Japan. He is desperate and doesn’t know if he can win against the other Yuri. And he’s super awkward, even more so when interacting with Viktor. This hug is a desperate attempt to show that Viktor means something to him.

Kissing in public is widely frowned upon in Japan, although this view is slowly coming out of fashion. Traditionally, kisses were considered a long-term promise—you don’t kiss if you’re not serious about your relationship. When Yuuri and Viktor kiss at the end of episode 7, this is very serious. The shocked expression on the faces of Yuuri’s friends and family reflects the prevailing reaction of Japanese people to such a public display of intimacy.

Yuuri’s kokuhaku

A kokuhaku (告白) is a love confession, usually phrased along the lines of “I like you. Can we start seeing each other?” However, there are no rules on how a kokuhaku should be carried out. Some Japanese get very creative or explicit in voicing their feelings. If you google kokuhaku, you’ll find many examples of successful kokuhakus and such that backfired. People voice a kokuhaku when they want to date someone. If the other person’s response is positive, they start dating and are in a romantic relationship henceforth. Just hanging out with someone you have feelings for doesn’t qualify as dating until you’ve voiced your kokuhaku. I like this custom because it follows a rule set that minimises confusion and defines what both people can expect of each other. According to my research, many Japanese start relationships this way, although more and more prefer the “Western” way.

Until the end of episode 5, Yuuri struggles with the concept of love and identifying his feelings. I believe realisation strikes him when he crashes into the barrier at the Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu Regional Championship. This finally enables him to act on his feelings.

Yuuri chooses the press conference in which the skaters of the Japanese team present their season’s themes to voice his kokuhaku, and he is very explicit about it. Luckily, he knows Viktor is in love with him, for otherwise, his confession could have easily resulted in losing face as it was broadcasted nationwide.

This line is the most important part of Yuuri’s kokuhaku:

For the first time in my life, there’s a person I want to hold on to. That person is Viktor. I don’t really have a name for that emotion, but I’ve decided to call it ‘love’.

Note the usage of 自分か 繋ぎとめたい. As pointed out here, a more literal translation would be “Viktor being the first person I want to reach out to and bond with, and with those bonds, bind us together so that we will never part.” It’s a reference to Stammi Vicino (Non Te Ne Andare). If this isn’t a textbook kokuhaku, I don’t know what this is!

After this public kokuhaku, Yuuri and Viktor can finally start dating and get into relationship mode. Although we don’t get to see them dating, their interactions reveal a level of intimacy at the Cup of China, that leaves no doubt that they are boyfriends. It’s obvious to everyone around them, too. It’s mostly Viktor who initiates public displays of intimacy because, due to his own cultural upbringing, he’s less reserved, whereas Yuuri expresses his feelings in subtler ways. This turn in their relationship eventually prompts Viktor to instruct Yuuri to skate Eros as himself.

Like so many things in Japanese culture, love language is subtle. “I love you” (愛してる) is not that commonly used in a committed relationship as people prefer to express their affection less directly, although it is gradually gaining popularity. A key aspect of Japanese storytelling is “show don’t tell, but do it subtly and with nuance”. We see a lot of this in YOI, and those scenes say so much more about the love Yuuri and Viktor share than “I love you” ever could.

The (accidental) marriage proposal

Traditional Japanese marriage proposals are a rather formal matter (e.g. “I like to make miso soup for you every day.”), and this is exactly what makes Viktor assume that Yuuri just proposed to him when they reunite at the airport. The actual phrasing is highly ambiguous (and I believe the creators did this on purpose), so when Yuuri says “Please take care of me”, a marriage proposal is a valid assumption for Japanese people. And apparently, that's also the case for Viktor who has been living in this country for almost eight months and familiarised himself with Yuuri's culture.

By now, the thought that Yuuri might need to let Viktor go very soon is in conflict with Yuuri's heart which wants Viktor to stay by his side forever. He has already decided to retire after the GPF (so that Viktor can return to skating) and has successfully convinced himself that his time with Viktor is borrowed.

While we can't know for sure if proposing was Yuuri's true intention, if he was ambiguous on purpose to test waters, or if he blurted out the line because his desire to be with Viktor formed a subconscious wish to marry him - the moment Viktor takes it for a proposal, Yuuri's features soften.

He neither denies it was a proposal nor panics, he just blushes and smiles fondly, which implies to me that he is perfectly fine with the idea. Viktor keeps his response ambiguous as well and, taking the next three episodes into account, it's not a stretch to assume that he refers to both. (Interestingly, marriage would solve Yuuri's conflict: he can give Viktor back to the ice without needing to let him go as his friend and lover.)

However, the next episode verifies the proposal part when the two get officially engaged.

For a deeper dive into the translation and interpretation of the dialogue, I refer to this post.

Engagement party

Traditionally, an engagement must be finalised in a ceremony that the couple’s families attend. It’s like a dinner party with gifts and a presentation of the rings. Only when the rings are presented, the engagement is official.

When Yuuri and Viktor get officially engaged in Barcelona, they actually break with tradition for the sake of giving the rings an additional spiritual meaning, which is deeply rooted in Japanese culture. They create omamori of their rings to bestow good luck on Yuuri for the Grand Prix Final. Since their love for each other and their love for the ice are tightly intertwined, this makes a lot of sense. This post explores in great depth what Yuuri tries to explain very awkwardly about the multiple meanings of the rings.

Even though Mari is the only family member around Yuuri and Viktor celebrate their engagement in Barcelona with her, Minako, and their skater friends.

Final words

The evolution of Yuuri and Viktor’s relationship is driven by Japanese customs. Awkwardness, anxiety and his aversion to being pushed aside, there is little progress until Yuuri figures out his feelings and voices his kokuhaku. Yuuri values and adheres to the traditions of his culture, and he only breaks them when being heavily inebriated.

Speaking of traditions, I picture Yuuri and Viktor having a traditional Japanese wedding, including a Shinto shrine ceremony and kimonos.

2023/06/14: I've edited the proposal section based on a recent post that translates and discusses the airport reunion.

If you enjoy my meta posts, please consider giving my blog a follow or checking out my works on AO3(link in bio). You will find the results of my meta musings in there!

#yuri on ice #yurionice #yoi #katsuki yuuri #victuuri #viktor nikirofov #yoi meta #katsuki yuri #katsudon yuri #anime #viktuuri #japanese culture #I write about this in detail in CYHMH #my yoi meta

[cardentist]

apparently there's discourse (not in the bad way, just the discussion way) surrounding lich and trans headcanons because of how he talks about michaela in the books

so here's my opinion as a trans person (other trans people are allowed to have different opinions but this one is mine):

I believe that mothy himself is well meaning about his trans and gay representation, but is unfamiliar with what We'd consider problematic. I'm not familiar enough with either mothy or the general culture of japan to say if this is the result of mothy himself being out of touch, or japanese queer culture just being different from the US's. but either way this is my read on the situation.

and so I engage with evillious with that in mind. it's a series that means well but has problematic elements. and that doesn't have to be a Bad thing, it's just something that needs some awareness while taking it in.

so when mothy writes lich openly acknowledging and accepting that michaela is his sister but then Also has him refer to her with her dead name I don't see that as mothy intentionally portraying lich as transphobic or unaccepting of her. it is, after all, how mothy chose to reveal that she was a trans woman in the first place (introducing us to "lich's brother michael" and having it revealed that she was michaela all along, and having lich acknowledge her as his sister now).

and I think there are two ways to go about this with this understanding.

we could simply gloss over the issue, because at the end of the day we're not going to be able to sit mothy down and explain why it can be hurtful to trans people. we don't have that direct communication with him. and it's not being written with the intent of being read as malicious on lich's part, so it's simply easier to smooth it over.

Or we could translate mothy being well intentioned but misinformed onto lich as a character trait. this works best within the context of him having to learn what he's doing wrong and grow, but obviously it's up to personal interpretation.

as for trans headcanons, there's nothing wrong with that in the first place. trans people are misinformed sometimes, nobody comes out of the womb socially conscious and fully aware of modern sensibilities.

having lich realize that they aren't a man could be tied into lich gaining a better understanding of transness. having lich be transmasc already and just not knowing any better because He doesn't mind these things and hasn't stopped to think that other people may feel differently. having lich be whatever flavor of trans you want in whatever way you want just because it's fun and you'd like to. it's all fine and doesn't hurt anybody

I would Also like to point out that levia has been making fun of behemo for wearing dresses and make up since she was introduced as a character, and people tend not to call her transphobic or highlight this as transphobia.

yes, there is more ambiguity in behemo's case as mothy has never stated outright what behemo's identity is, but calling someone you interpret as a man disgusting or weird for wearing dresses Is Transphobia (and was specifically highlighted As transphobia/bigotry that behemo has faced during barisol's child) regardless of what that person's gender actually is.

I personally like levia a lot, just like I like lich and behemo and michaela, and Personally I think they're all trans Because I like them. and I'm not saying that we should Start defining levia's character by this trait.

but I Am saying that it's an obvious double standard to hold lich as a character accountable while Not doing the same for levia when arguably levia is intentionally written as being harmful while lich isn't.

anyways, I think it's funny if levia realizes he's a trans man that still likes to wear dresses and make up, and I think lich is seth's boyfriend and banica's girlfriend and eater's -̴̱͔̫̭̎̆͆-̴̠͚͘͜-̶̺̰̙̦͗-̸̡̻̽̅-̴̢̹̰̠͐͑̃̈̑friend, and equally trans no matter what

(also potential lich and carlos dynamic intrigues me but I think it's much funnier if they aren't dating each other. banica's husband and banica's girlfriend silently and awkwardly eating brunch together because they figure they're supposed to hang out but between the two of them there isn't one drop of social intelligence)

(they do this every day, it never gets any better)

#evillious chronicles #evillious #ec #lich arklow #levia barisol #discourse #not really but you know #I haven't actually been looking in the evillious tags but I have a friend who has who's been talking about it with me #so this isn't vagueing anyone in particular and you're allowed to feel differently about it #I've been thinking about the way that I feel about it and why lich's writing doesn't bother me #despite the way that it could in a different context

[shamandrummer]

The Many Lives of Mongolian Shamanism

The following is excerpted from Sky Shamans of Mongolia: Meetings with Remarkable Healers by Kevin Turner.

For thousands of years, Mongolia has been a nexus of Eurasian shamanisms that competed, mixed, and meshed across our planet's largest continent. Shamanism appears to have emerged with the very dawn of human consciousness, but archeologists can probably speak with confidence about only the past 30,000 to 70,000 years.

Archeological discoveries in Eurasia alone indicate that the practice of shamanism reaches back at least to 35,000 BCE, easily making shamanism the oldest spiritual practice known to mankind. Modern religious faiths such as Buddhism and Christianity are toddlers in comparison, and psychology is a mere newborn.

The word shaman originated from the Tungusic tribal language groups (from areas to the north and east of Mongolia), which are related to Mongolic languages. These are both part of the broader Altaic language group, which includes Turkic, Manchurian, and scores of other Inner Asian and Siberian languages, and may include Korean and Japanese at the easternmost reach. The modern term "shaman" has now been adopted by many as a catch-all word to describe those who by spiritual means seek direct access to information and healing power not ordinarily available.

The nomadic northern Siberian shamanic traditions tend to retain the highly individualistic aspects of shamanism; by contrast, a most interesting facet of Mongolian and Inner Asian shamanism is the amalgamation of the shamans' direct experiences of other realities with a religious belief system known as Tengerism (Heaven or Sky God-ism). Tengerism originated in Sumeria, one of humanity's earliest civilizations, and probably derived from the early experiences of the shamans, prophets, and mystics of pre-Mesopotamian eras.

The modern Mongolian term Tenger (or Tengri), meaning both "sky realms" and "sky spirits," almost certainly derives from the Sumerian word Dingir, also meaning both "sky realm(s)" and "deity(-ies)." The concept of divinity in Sumerian was closely associated with the heavens, evident from the shared cuneiform sign for both heaven and sky, and from the fact that its earliest form is a star shape. The name of every deity in Sumerian is prefixed by a star symbol.

Mircea Eliade proposed that Tengrism may be the closest thing we have found to a reconstructed proto-Indo-European religion. It is also evident that Tengrism's three-layered worldview is nearly identical to the tripartite world found in many kinds of shamanism, as well as the Vedic triloka ("three realms") world structure.

In Mongolian, one who travels the realms of the Tengers is called a Tengeri--"sky-dweller; sky-walker." I like to think that Luke Skywalker, the young warrior-shaman Jedi knight of the fictional Star Wars films, may have inherited his name from this tradition. Interestingly, the BBC reports that in censuses taken in 2001 regarding spiritual beliefs, hundreds of thousands of people selected "Jediism" as their faith of choice--such is the power of shamanism even in our modern myths and legends.

The earliest authenticated records of Mongolian shamanism go back to the beginnings of the Hunnu Dynasty, 209-93 CE (also known as the Xiongnu in Chinese records). Mongolian legend tells us that, during this time, a nine-year-old Hunnu boy united with a she-wolf, engendering the modern-day Mongolian people. The headdress of a shaman (circa 300–100 BCE) was found in one of the graves of Noin-Ula (Mongolian: Noyon uulyn bulsh) in northern Mongolia, and is strikingly similar to the Mongol Darkhad headdress of today. The fabric's colors, weaving methods, and embroidery are also similar to those found in fabric produced by Scythians in the Greek colonies on the Black Sea coast, leading scholars to draw links between these ancient cultures. (Scythian tribal areas were just west of Mongolian territories.)

According to historian and researcher Otgony Purev, shamans played an important role in diplomatic efforts and treaties with neighboring nations. The Hunnu emperors even constructed permanent shamanic shrines, and encouraged individual shamans to synthesize their diverse practices into a national religion. "Shamanist religion" then became part of the organizational basis of governmental and military activity.

Shamanism became the main source of education and ideology for the earliest pre-Mongol states. This continued for nearly 400 years, and ties to education remain influential in the Mongolian shamanic revival even today. With the disintegration of the Hunnu Dynasty, institutionalized shamanism returned to its more natural, individualistic and autonomous forms across a series of disparate Inner Asian kingdoms that spanned a millennium.

#mongolian shamanism #Mongolia #shamanism #shamans #book excerpt