#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!

[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

[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

[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.

[haru-dipthong]

Fansub Release + Translation Notes on Utena Ep 16

I’ve been dreading this episode since the beginning of this project. Most translations of the cowbell episode have two major problems that I knew were going to be really hard to overcome in my translation.

How on earth does Nanami not know that a COWbell is something that a COW wears?

Why does Nanami keep saying moo in regular conversation?

When I actually got into the translation though, it was so much more difficult than I had even anticipated! Not only were there two very large episode-spanning translation problems to solve, but there were also TONS of difficult individual lines. And on top of it all, a song to translate!

I was not happy at all with my first draft. I sent it to @dontbe-lasanya and went to bed. When I woke up and saw their edit, it was like magic. They had transformed my extremely rough script into a work of art! I’m so so happy with this episode now, and the majority of the credit for that has to go to Anya.

So anyway, how did we fix those two big problems?

How on earth does Nanami not know that a COWbell is something that a COW wears?

Obviously the Japanese word for cow is not “cow”. It’s 牛 (ushi). However, the Japanese word for cowbell is カウベル (kauberu) — it’s a loanword; it’s just “cowbell” turned into katakana. There’s no obvious connection between the words for “cowbell” and “cow” in Japanese, unlike English. Also, カウベル is not a very familiar word for most Japanese kids and teens (the target audience of Utena) and sounds foreign and therefore fancy (given the right context). On the other hand “cowbell” is a very familiar word in English, or even if it isn’t, “cow” and “bell” are. It also doesn’t sound fancy or foreign.

In Japanese, Nanami falls into some cringeworthy teenage social pitfalls in this episode. 1. The classic japanese kid thing of assuming katakana loanwords are cool or fancy. 2. The universal kid thing of pretending to know a word she doesn’t know to seem smart/cool. These things are like, a HUGE part of the conceit of the episode. IMO, it’s crucially important to get these ideas across in the translation. To fail to do so (i.e. by translating カウベル as “cowbell”) would be akin to cutting out the first 8 minutes of the episode.

Translators will often translate katakana loanwords directly back into the original word, but that clearly doesn’t work here. Anya decided to go with almglocken as the translation for カウベル because Miki is the first person to give the cowbell its name, and almglocken doubles as the orchestral term for a musical cowbell (plus the yodelling in the cutaway scenes really sells the German choice, which we only discovered after we had committed to it!). I love how that scene feels where Miki names the bell - it really feels like he and Juri call it an “almglocken” and Nanami just goes along with it, not wanting to admit that she doesn’t know what almglocken means. She totally reads as a stupid kid who wants to be a part of European high fashion without actually knowing anything, which is exactly how she reads in the original Japanese script!

Why does Nanami keep saying moo in regular conversation?

First things first — the sound a cow makes in Japanese is not “moo”. It’s モー (mō/mou) which is prounounced almost exactly like the English word “more” in non-rhotic accents like my Australian accent. In an American accent it probably sounds like “mall” without the ending L sound.

So, cows say “mou”. But もう (mou) is also a dictionary word in Japanese. It can mean “already” as in “I already did that”, but it can also be used as an interjection (similar, but not exactly the same, to how “already” can also be used as an interjection as in “enough already!”). もう (mou) carries other nuances with it as well — there is a cultural image that teenage mean-girl types (like gyaru) tend to use it a lot. I like translating it as “ugh”, which I did several times in this episode.

The writers are getting a lot out of the cow metaphor in this episode. There’s the whole thing with Touga selling Nanami away as a metaphor for his manipulation of her (and women in general) in order for him to gain patriarchal power (he even eats her meat!!). But there’s also this equating of cow mooing with the word もう which is associated with young girls. Whenever Nanami moos this episode, even right up until the end when she physically transforms into a cow, you could translate it as “ugh” if you didn’t want to preserve the cow sound meaning. Every moo fits into her sentences as a bitchy interjection.

This is a hard thing to get across in translation, so I used a combined approach. Sometimes I directly translated もう as “ugh”, which morphed into “mm-ugh” and then “muuoo”. Other times I compensated by using words with “ooo” sounds in them and drawing out the sound (like “moOOove”.

Dona, dona, dona, donaaaa

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, while translating the song, I made particular pains to match the meter of the Japanese lyrics with the English lyrics.

あるはれた　ひるさがり　いちば　へつづくみち

One day on a clear lazy afternoon, on the road to the marketplace

A literal translation of the line would be something like this

One clear afternoon, on the road to the market

But I’m sure you can see how this doesn’t have nearly enough syllables, much less stress on the correct syllables. Because Japanese has less consecutive consonants, it tends to have words with more syllables, but shorter syllables than English. They don’t have words like “cramp” where 4 consonant sounds exist in one syllable — usually there’s only 1 consonant per syllable. This means that if we’re matching beat-for-beat, English can fit more words in per bar, which means when translating literally, we end up with lyrics that are too short! That’s why I’ve added “One day on a” and “lazy” and extended “market” to “marketplace”. This came up constantly during the translation of the song, where I was consistently needing to create words that didn’t exist in the original to keep the meter similar.

A few little notes to finish

This scene where the girls in PE class are chanting ファイト！(faito) while they run is hilarious to me because both other translations I have access to translated it as “Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!” which is just… not what they’re saying. Obviously in English chanting “fight!” makes it sound like you’re encouraging two people to physically fight. In Japanese, ファイト is a loanword and does come from the English word “fight”, but it only means “fight” in the sense of like, metaphorically fighting: overcoming mental barriers, pushing through, doing your best. They’re just chanting to get their motivation up. I translated it as “Move those feet! Move those feet!” so that when Nanami brings up the rear I could switch it to “MoOOove those feet!”

Translating it as “Fight! Fight!” is just completely unacceptable no matter what your translation goals are tbh. If you care about “preserving aspects of Japanese culture” in the translation, you should translate it as “Faito! Faito!” or “Fighto! Fighto!”.

I want to note that I’m so happy with how the characters talk about fashion. They really sound like they know what they’re talking about (thanks to Anya). So much of the time translations sound like they were written by someone who doesn’t have any knowledge about the field the characters are talking about, which makes the dialogue sound super forced even when the characters ARE supposed to know what they’re talking about. To give another example, Anya flagged this before with how Touga talks about Miki’s piano playing. The standards are so low for this kind of thing that my limited knowledge of music helped me write a translation that sounded knowledgeable enough to be worth commenting on!

Also, I’m REALLY glad we went with “dyke” as the translation for 男女 (otoko-onna) a few episodes ago. Nanami uses that word again this episode and Utena’s reaction really works with the slur.

Thank you so much again to @dontbe-lasanya. This episode wouldn’t have been possible without you!

Be sure to follow the blog to stay updated with new episode releases! See below for all episodes released so far.

[82mitsu]

Previously translated pair names that had been posted to Twitter. However corrections had to be made (misinterpretations & an instance of mistranslation), so this is version 2.

Note: This is the only translated thing I will be posting, I am not off hiatus. I had been meaning to archive this before my hiatus, but I also had to fix some things, which is why there was a delay.

Please consult to this post only regarding pair name translations done by me (82mitsu), any other posts or reposts you might see of this chart is the older version. (Previous version has been deleted, but I'm unaware how far the information had spread.)

If any other corrections need to be made, feel free to contact me and I'll make them as soon as possible.

Below follows an extreme lengthy TL note breaking down some pair names, it's a lot of text, so be warned once you unfold the read more.

A lot of research went into these due to 18TRIPs tendency to mix up words, use Gen-Z slang that hasn’t been picked up by everyone yet (or limited to TikTok) and make up their own words (“Omotenashisto” -> “Hospitalister”). I used dictionaries, searched forum results, looked up how people use these words on social media, went TikTok digging, etc.

I tried my best to localize in a way that should make sense even without added context. I only explained the ones that I thought might needed some more back-up in a cultural sense or because it was a specific JPN thing. Thus, not everything has been explained. However, I hope things are clearer compared to the first version that was posted. For Renga & Yukikaze: For ぽゆぽゆ (poyupoyu) there is no definition or anything for this word, but from context clues and digging through how people used it, I deduced that it means something soft and squishy like a plushie or cheeks, so to say. For Renga & Liguang: かりそめの宿縁 (karisome no shukuen) is a Japanese saying about a fated connection of bond that only lasts for a brief moment, but leaves a deep impact on your life. For Renga & Raito: Party is mispelled in the katakana as “paachii” and not the usual “paatii”. Renga has a tendecy to say English words wrong. While “friends” is spelled the correct way, both words have been “mispelled” to drive the point home. For Renga & Kinari: なぁぜなぁぜ (naaze, naaze) is JPN Gen-Z slang from Tiktok. It’s a statement made as an act for complaining, with a bit of sarcasm and irony thrown in at times. Like, “I said I wanna diet but I ate a big meal anyway! なぁぜなぁぜ” or “I’m an idol but I get more anxious doing improv than performances! なぁぜなぁぜ”. Best way I can describe the usage in this context is Renga is throwing a bit of a self-aware tantrum as to why Kinari would correct him. (As mentioned earlier, he isn’t good at English). I guessed a close equivalent would be “nuh-uh”, since that is a dismissal of someone else’s opinion without actual good reason, even if the other person has a point. For Renga & Netaro: まんまん (manman) means “a lot” but I also believe it’s a reference to meatbuns (nikuman). For Kafka & Yodaka: Hanbei is Takenaka Shigeharu, a Japanese samurai from the Sengoku era. He was known for being Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s strategist. For Liguang & Yodaka: 闘牌伝 (touhaiden) is related to Mahjong stuff. 闘牌伝 seems to be an old timey Mahjong video game with RPG elements. Rekka is a fighting game term, and I will quote the website The Fighting Game Glossary by Infil on this: “A type of special move that has multiple stages, as long as you input more commands to continue the sequence. Not all multi-part specials can be called rekkas though; a rekka tends to have exactly three distinct parts and will move your character forward along the ground with each new input.”  For Akuta & Nanaki: They went to the same kindergarten and were grouped together in the “Oden Class”. Japanese kindergartens, from my understanding from researching, tend to have a name for their class, rather than a number. To give an idea what such names could be, in 2019 the website hyenasclubs hosted a poll of most commonly used names for classes, and the top 3 were “baby chick” (hiyoko), “peach” (momo) and “dandelion” (tanpopo). For Akuta & Muneuji: My take on はっけよい輝矢部屋 (hakkeyoi kaguya heya) is a bit of an elaborate bit joking with Princess Kaguya of the Moon (from Tale of the Bamboo Cutter) because I was wondering why they suddenly opted for Muneuji’s last name instead of first. (I might’ve also just overestimated Kaguya Heya being some joke on Kaguya Hime). Hakkeyoi is what a referee shouts at the start of a sumo wrestling match. For Akuta & Ushio: I think ポジティブに腕押し (positive ni ude oshi) is a take on 暖簾に腕押し (noren ni ude oshi) that means something has no effect or is pointless. Lit. it means “pushing a curtain with one's arm”.    For Akuta & Tao: Akuta Nine is a joke on the baseball movie Gyakkyo Nine which is an adaptation of the manga of the same series, I believe. The movie is referred to as GK9, hence I made it AKT9.  For Akuta & Ryui: The original is OYAxKOBU which comes from 親分子分 (oyabunkobun) meaning “boss and his underlings”. Akuta also calls Ryui by “Oyabun”.

For Kiroku & Nanaki: Weebs who watch highschool anime should be familiar with this, but emergency staircase refers to the hallway stairs in a JPN highschool that are sometimes used as chilling out spots by students. For Kiroku & Chihiro: TuRyStA is the clothing brand they wear. 18TRIP has a various selection of clothing brands, which each character having a preference for one or another. For Kiroku & Yodaka: Zhao Yun, as quoted by Wikipedia, “was a military general who lived during the late Eastern Han dynasty and early Three Kingdoms period of China.” For Ushio & Raito: Some heavy freedom was taken with バスボムしゅわリスト (basubamu shuwaristo). After considering how to approach it in the most sensical way, I decided to translate it as “bubblist” due the other options being “hand sign list” or “bubble list”. I thought リスト might function as in -ist, like dentist, artist, guitarist. しゅわ comes from しゅわしゅわ which means bubbly. Although bubblist isn’t not that common, it is sometimes referred to entertainers that do bubble performances (in English). And I think it made more sense than “hand sign list” or “bubble list” to say the least. This was also taking in consideration how 18TRIP, as explained in the intro, gets very creative with its language usage. For Raito & Nagi: Mandarin ducks symbolize “soulmates” of some kind in China. In other words, Mandarin Duck Touring is more along the lines of “Motorcycle touring soulmates”. However, I find the mandarin duck reference and interesting pull compared to just “soulmates”, so it was kept as is. For Kinari & Ryui: “Super Darling Gap Inspection” is more along the original lines. “Gap” in Japanese is usually used in the context of when someone acts one way, but unexpectedly, can act a different way. Ex. A very shy person shows they can be super vulgar, that can be considered a “gap” of some kind. In English, people are more familiar with “gap moe”, thus gap moe was used. For Tao & Nagi: Might be a reference to Yokohama’s Zo-no-hana (Elephant Nose) Park. For Toi & Yodaka: The original is more along the lines of, in the most literal sense, “going around raisins circle (of friends).” Toi likes raisins, but Yodaka doesn’t, so Yodaka passes them onto Toi. I’ve turned into on a play on “sharing is caring” since that’s a common concept in English.

[101suouexpressions]

Graffiti on Fuurin High School ground

This is a continuation of Part 1 (it was too long I feel like I should halve it). You don't have to read it in order to understand this post, but you are more than welcome to!

Let's continue!

Tiger and Dragon (Sakura and Sugishita)

The drawing of a tiger and a dragon on class 1-1's black board refers to the idiom (龙争虎斗) from eastern culture, meaning the clash between dragon and tiger, which are two of the most powerful creatures. The idiom is used when two opponents who (often) hold grudges and are equally powerful face each other. Tone wise, it is a positive phrase, leaning towards amazement and admiration from an outsider's point of view.

I'd say Sakura is the tiger and Sugishita is the dragon here based on their physiques (Sakura is small but flexible and resilient, while Sugishita has long limbs and tends to strike his opponent heads-on with force).

Graffiti on the wall in chapter 3 as a foreshadow for Shishitouren Arc

As the section name suggested, this is definitely a reference/foreshadow for Shishitouren Arc. On the wall, we can see a rabbit chasing down a man with a (rather dangerous, oopsie) baseball bat while other animals (foxes to the left and I'd say bears to the right?) look on and laugh.

This is the expected scene in the run-down theatre Ori. The rabbit is their leader - Tomiyama Chouji, as his name has the word rabbit (兎) in it. Moreover, having animals in them is the common Shishitouren name theme (I might make a separate post on this haha surely). E.g. Togame Jo is a turtle (亀), Sako Kouta is a fox (狐), Teruomi Inugami is a dog/wolf (犬) (note: I can't access the original Japanese publication since it's paid only so I'm only guessing based on the "inu" in his name. For anyone interested, he appears in chapter 127).

Skulls/Skeletons

Skeletons and skulls are easily seen throughout Fuurin. Most of the time I believe it's just because it's a common thing to graffiti. It's also interesting to think about how they represent violence and death, while Boufuurin are just little babies running around protecting the town haha.

Little blobs accompanying the skeletons <3

It is clear that the large skeletons are looming over the little blobs, but the skeletons don't look hostile and the blobs aren't scared of them. This makes me think that the skeletons are Boufuurin students and the blobs are the people of Makochi who are under Boufuurin's protection.

Overall I just think they're adorable. They are literally you and me :3 :3 :3

[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 :)

[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 (✿◠‿◠)

[captainuranium543]

Ik im like head in charge of bitching and moaning when it comes to Hiro mashima but one thing I will always appreciate is how he names his characters. A lot of anime, even stuff that's set in fantastical locations, tends to stick to Japanese names which makes sense but I fr love the diversity of culture in the fairy tail characters names it really does help to make Fiore feel like a different world but still adjacent to our earth. I never realized how much that would add until I watch other shows and realize that even though they aren't supposed to be set in Japan I still am kinda surprised that it isn't because all of the characters have Japanese names.

In fairy tail the location is a kind of earth adjacent alternate reality where people have magic. It really feels like a modern day fairy tale, the speaking, clothing, and style feel more modern while the technology is all much farther behind because in this universe magic is used instead. It's a fantastical world but still one rooted in reality. the names all being so diverse in origin but still many being names somone could reasonably have in the real world rather than just made up words makes that idea stick so much more then you might think at first.

[tieflingkisser]

Stop Trying To Defeat Racism With Logic

There's a black samurai in the new Assassin's Creed game, and it has made some people mad. You simply don't have to argue about it.

The new Assassin’s Creed game is set in feudal Japan, which is cool. It stars what appears to be a female ninja and a black samurai based on the historical figure Yasuke, which is also cool. Anyone who tries to argue about whether or not that’s cool is just not worth your time. In case you haven’t been paying attention for the last ten or twenty years, video game culture tends to be a repository for the most tedious people on Earth. You know the type—these are the kinds of people who don’t consider mobile games to be “real games,” or who harass women who use their mics in online multiplayer games, or who argue about “historical accuracy” in a video game that has dragons or elves in it. These kinds of people show up in a lot of nerdy hobbies, like tabletop gaming or whatever it is people do on Letterboxd or even enjoying Greek and Roman history. From the moment that the key art for Assassin’s Creed Shadows depicted a black man in samurai garb, I knew that this particular brand of person was going to get ripshit mad. Just look at the replies to this tweet. It’s absolute nonsense in there.  The most amusing replies are the ones that take into question the, of course, historical accuracy of this character. It may be tempting to try to argue with these people, for a lot of reasons, most of all that history and facts are on your side. This character appears to be based on Yasuke, a real guy who actually existed in the historical record. He was an African retainer for warlord Oda Nobunaga, meaning that he was indeed a samurai. Yasuke is a well known enough figure that he’s the subject of a Netflix anime that is named after him. He’s also a character in Nioh, which was developed by the Japanese studio Team Ninja. You can repeat those facts until you’re blue in the face to people who are determined to be angry about a black man having a leading role in this game, but it won’t matter. You should just save your breath and look forward to seeing whether or not Ubisoft fumbles this very easy layup. Racism isn’t a logical position, so you cannot defeat it with logic. Facts just don’t matter to a racist, especially not the tedious kind of racist who makes their home in video game culture. There will always be a new hair to split, a new way for this kind of person to object to a black man being in this video game. You can bring up the other fantabulous aspects of the Assassin’s Creed franchise that clash with history: the existence of the titular Creed and the Knights Templar; whatever the fuck was going on with the Apples of Eden; the series’ depiction of Karl Marx as a devotee of democracy rather than advocating for an armed revolution of the proletariat. It does not matter because the people who are mad about this have already made up their mind.  To them, Japan is a place that does not and has never had black people live there or make their homes there at any point in time—especially in history. The anger about “historical accuracy” is just a slightly more reasonable smokescreen for their real objection: having to see a black person at all. Unfortunately, blackness and black people have always been inescapable, both now and in the past. I’m not going anywhere, and I won’t be dragged into an argument about the value of my very existence.

[ame-in-the-rain]

What we know about the girlies!

All the canonical information we know from their introductions, comics, and music videos!

Vampire

16 years old (only member with confirmed age)

Seems to be an actual vampire judging by her manga

Her favorite food/drink is tomato juice, she's also implied to use it as a substitute for actual blood

Used to be a lot less confident in herself, uses cute stuff and life as an idol to make herself better!

Slow to get going, tends to be more active at night

Gamer.

Animal

Shortest member

Has the ability to fall asleep anytime, anywhere

Often asks the other members for bites of their food, also eats most of the leftovers

Collects cat-related trinkets, and wears them as a part of her outfit on stage

Fights with Vampire a ton

Status

Tallest member

Attended Otoiro High School at some point (depending on age)

Cries over fairly arbitrary things

Likes to thrift and works at a second-hand store in her free time

U

Originally from America, specifically the west coast

Left America to become an idol in Japan (from the note from her partner in the Mannequin music video)

Interested in Japanese street culture and also breakdancing apparently

This is absent in translations of the anthology, but she always ends her sentences in katakana to insinuate an accent or non-native pronunciation; (eg. やっぱりUFOとかもいるのカナ？)

Her favorite food is shirako ponzu

Cinderella

Her real name is Satsuki(?)

Wears glasses doesn't really need them since she has 15/15 vision

Admires Vampire to the point of potential romantic interest

Reads a lot of shoujo manga

Was a part of her school's production of Cinderella as a stagehand

Auditioned for Mannequin

AngelHair

Fans call her Kesa (hence why i call her that!!)

Small animals follow her around (and Animal)

She likes to make perfumes in her spare time

Member of her school's environmental committee, where she is one of two members

High spice tolerance, likes to slather takoyaki in wasabi and her favorite food is spicy tanmen

Terrible cook (somehow manages to explode an oven)

Often shown to be (potentially) stimming (fidgeting with her hair or has her hands clasped together/touching her face)

Gift

Looooveeess to watch movies

Good at reading the room and notices even the smallest changes in the other member's behavior

Deco*27's favorite

Parasite

Likes to just stand in dark rooms, the other members get mad at her because she turns off all the lights in the dressing room

Hates being alone

Associated with anemones, which symbolize forsaken love, sickness and withered hopes

Besties (..?) with Animal, she feeds her oranges

Canonically shows romantic interest in women

Dilemma

Has "more life experience" than anyone else in the group, so is most likely the oldest

Won a world ranked FPS competition at some point

Strict, but tries to support the other members as best she can

Potentially the only "real" member, the rest are just made up as a coping mechanism

Trauma dumps so much it's not even funny

[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)

[yuriskies]

Fishing Yuri vs Reproductive Fascism

Issui Ogawa's Twinstar Cyclone Runaway novel series caught my attention the moment I learned about it. A gay marriage allegory in a weird sci-fi setting? Sign me right the fuck up. I've always found explicitly political sci-fi interesting, and well, Ogawa is not exactly a small name in Japanese sci-fi. However, a Japanese hard sci-fi novel is not going to have an easy time finding a good translation to English, much less a fanbase. So I was really excited to see that it was getting a manga adaptation, and from what it has adapted so far (~half of the first of three novels in an ongoing series), it's really living up to my feeling of hype.

There is a general setting summary after the break, and then a section where I talk a bit about the most recent chapter (8), and how it really makes a cogent argument extractive economic systems are reinforced by patriarchal norms.

The plot centers around Terra Intercontinental Endeavor, a woman who has inherited her family's fishing boat. The fishing boat requires two people to operate, a job which is performed by straight couples as a form of marriage contract. The use of married couples is understandable, given that the fishing boat transformable rocket plane that descends from orbit to operate in the skies of a gas giant, an operating environment which requires almost preternatural communication skills between the pilot and the person transforming the ship. The fish that swim around in the gas giant's skies are special: they're made of a kind of clay that can be molded by thought. The catch forms the backbone of the planetary economy; otherwise, the planetary system is so resource-starved that humanity cannot sustain itself without something to offer through galactic trade networks. Terra is highly gifted at producing complex transformations of the ship, but cannot communicate well with the male pilots she is interviewing for marriage. Part of this is because her way of describing things is a little kooky, but the majority is because the patriarchal culture she lives in has produced a lot of condescending, sexist guys who Obviously Know Better.

Fresh off a round of failed marriage interviews, Terra is desperate to find anyone who can pilot the boat. In steps a mysterious girl named Diode, who proves herself to be an exceptionally talented pilot whose skills mesh well with Terra's. So far, the story has alternated between Terra's experiences within the stifling cultural life of her home, and the moments of dizzying freedom and connection that Terra and Diode find when they're out fishing.

(Spoilers from here on out, so stop here if you would prefer to read more on your own. )

As far as the broader world of Twinstar Cyclone Runaway is concerned, the first seven manga chapters have largely focused on how badly Terra fits in with the surrounding culture. She has a reputation around the port, mostly as a person who creates absurdly complicated fishing gear and makes up weird stories. Her aunt and uncle both want to see her happily married so she can fulfill her dream of fishing, but tend to push their preferences onto her. She works as a video distributor in the clan's dilapidated cultural archives, and appears to be one of the few people interested in the world of her clan's space station. In part, this is due to the conservatism of the culture - most people are strictly utilitarian and seem happy to accept the world as it is. There's also sexism. Woo boy is there sexism.

The first few chapters alternate between life on the station, where Terra is exposed to a constant stream of sexism. The chapters dealing with station culture are almost an exercise in masochism, but provided the set dressing for a chapter which does a really decent job at describing the organizing thought processes behind anti-LGBTQ lawmaking. In it, Terra and Diode's activities have drawn the attention of the authorities, who are none too happy that they're fishing together (and effectively presenting themselves as common law wives in the process).

They're both summoned to the clan council, where the clan chief immediately begins lecturing Terra (and belittling her with backhanded complements) before ordering her to surrender her family's fishing boat to someone else. During his lecture, he highlights the 'freedom' enjoyed by their clan compared to the even more stifling culture of the clan Diode hails from. He attributes that freedom to the strong sense of "culture and tradition" of the clan, and the work of those with "superior bloodlines" who support and perpetuate it by passing that sense of identity on to the next generation while countering the clan's slowly shrinking population. Under this logic, allowing Terra to participate in a same-sex marriage is considered tantamount to enabling a cultural collapse.

It is, from just about any perspective, a fascist perspective on gender roles. Women are valued not for their ability to contribute to the culture but for their service as reproductive cogs in the economic machine. Culture and tradition are interpreted as something transmitted through blood, not community. Terra's work in maintaining the cultural archives are viewed as useless make-work, as to the leadership, a woman who does not reproduce is preventing the transmission of culture. The stability and economic productivity of the clan is the organizing principle of society, highlighted by the fact that the roles of clan chief (political leader) and head fisherman (economic leader) are held by the same person. In this framework, the backbone of society is understood to be its captains of industry, those working in economically-prestigious jobs, and their social role is to maintain the economic prestige and exclusivity of the fishing class.

The chapter ends with Diode (having initially been begrudgingly convinced to allow Terra to do the talking) exploding at how the clan chief has been talking down to the both of them. She points out the hollowness of the underlying rhetoric - although it portrays culture as something shaped by struggle and ability to assert one's will, it systematically denies most people from the attempt. While pointing this out, she also mocks the clan chief's skills, clearly relying on the offense to his masculinity to provide the opening for herself and Terra to prove themselves. While the gambit works, the clan chief is clearly setting the terms of a challenge to make them prove themselves exceptional, a task which carries a high likelihood of death.

By the way, the art does a lot of the heavy lifting here. Despite Ahiru Tanaka's slightly cartoony style, he is incredibly skilled at getting the point across through composition. Terra's workplace in the cultural archives is dingy, cramped, and literally disintegrating, and Tanaka's line work reflects this - dense, imprecise, and messy. It really sells the apparent lack of maintenance since the archives were constructed. By contrast, the clan council's chambers is airy, bright, and characterized by cleaner, more precise line work. The difference is night and day, and I think it really helps sell the Endeavor Clan's underlying thinking of exactly where "culture and tradition" are transmitted.

Anyway, I just had to gush a little bit about this chapter, in what is quickly becoming one of the manga releases I most anticipate reading every month.

[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

[mayimkjs]

Japanese Language, Culture and Concepts in MILGRAM

This is a sorta part 2 to a previous post I've made. These are more Mikoto centered because that's what I've been looking into.

Taken from the FOOL's MATE research doc.

CW: Suicide

Wordplay

Wordplay in Japanese is very different then in English. Japanese has a Consonant-Vowel syllable structure. This allows a lot of room for word play and double meanings. Wordplay can use any combination of the different reading sets available.

Reading Sets

Kun'yomi (訓読み): Reading based on the pronunciation of a native Japanese word that closely approximated the meaning of the corresponding Chinese character when it was introduced.

On'yomi (音読み): Reading of a Sino-Japanese kanji based directly on the Chinese pronunciation of the character. A single kanji might have multiple on'yomi pronunciations reflecting the Chinese pronunciations of different periods or regions.

Nanori (名乗り): Non-standard kanji readings found almost exclusively in names. 

English-origin: Based on transliterations and katana spellings of English words. 

Goroawase (語呂合わせ)

Goroawase is a Japanese wordplay technique that uses the first kana character of each word to create a new word or phrase. 

The new words can be used to express a superstition about certain letters or numbers. An example of this would be “shi” 四 (4) being turned into 死 (death).

Pronouns

Japanese, unlike English, allows all pronouns to be omitted from sentences when they can be inferred with context. Generally speaking, it is more likely to speak without pronouns than with them. There are more than three dozen words that can be translated as "I" and even more as "you". Each makes a different statement about the speaker's gender, age, social status, relationship with the addressee and how the speaker wants to present themselves. 

Common First Person Pronouns

Atai (あたい) / Atashi (あたし)

I, Me, My (*の)

Feminine

Informal 

Boku (僕)

I, Me, My (僕の)

Masculine or tomboyish

Informal

Ore (俺)

I, Me, My (俺の)

Masculine 

Assertive

Jibun (自分)

Myself , Yourself, Oneself, Himself, Herself

Gender-neutral 

Impersonal

Ware (我)

I, Me, My (我の)

Masculine 

Uncommon

Extremely formal and polite

Watashi (私)

I, Me, My (私の)

Gender-neutral 

Polite

Standard

Anata (あなた)

You, Your (あなたの)

Polite

Standard

Kimi (君/キミ)

You, Your (君の/キミの)

Informal but still polite

Masculine 

Omae (お前)

You, Your (お前の)

Informal

Masculine 

Swearing in Japanese

Japanese swears don’t exist how they exist in English. The most common “swear”, 糞 (Kuso), is used in kids shows. There also is no positive swearing like “fuck yeah!”. Tone also matters a lot here. 

You still shouldn't use these words a lot in professional settings. 

Honne (本音) & Tatemae (建前)

Honne refers to a person's true feelings and desires. A person's Honne may be contrary to what is expected by society or what is required of them. They are often kept hidden, except with one's closest friends or family.

Tatemae refers to the behavior and opinions one displays in public. Tatemae is what is expected by society and required of them. These may or may not match one's Honne. In many cases, Tatemae leads to telling white lies in order to avoid exposing the true inward feelings. 

In Japanese culture, public failure and the disapproval of others are seen as particular sources of shame, so it is common to avoid direct confrontation or disagreement in most social contexts. Traditionally, social norms dictate that one should attempt to minimize discord. The Japanese tend to go to great lengths to avoid conflict, especially within the context of large groups because of this. By upholding this,  one is socially protected. 

Giri (義理) & Ninjō (人情)

Giri roughly translates to "duty", "obligation" or "burden of obligation”. It means "to serve one's superiors with a self-sacrificing devotion". This also has a tendency to conflict with Honne. 

Ninjō is said to be the feeling that inescapably springs up in conflict with social obligation. Ninjō is roughly translated as "human feeling" or "emotion" and could also be interpreted as generosity or sympathy. 

Giri concerns the outside world of social obligations, whereas Ninjō concerns the inner and intimate realm of the self.

Wa (和)

Wa is usually translated as "harmony". It implies a peaceful unity and conformity within a social group in which members prefer the continuation of a harmonious community over their personal interests. Wa is considered integral to Japanese society and derives from traditional values. Individuals who break Wa to further their own purposes, are brought in line  by reprimands from a superior, their family or colleagues' disapproval. 

Seishinron (精神論)

Seishinron is the Japanese belief that any hardship can be overcome through sheer motivation and willpower. Despite undergoing heavy criticism, this mindset is still prevalent in Japanese workplaces and schools.

Yuno is known to hate this and it seems that Mikoto may believe in this. He constantly is friendly and tries to solve issues with kindness. His main drive is his motivation.

Kotodama (言霊)

Kotodama refers to the Japanese belief that mystical powers dwell in words and names. The notion of Kotodama proposes that sounds can magically affect objects. Hence why Japanese names can have a lot of meaning behind them. 

Yakuwarigo (役割語)

Yakuwarigo is a style of language that is used in fiction that conveys certain traits about its speaker such as age, gender, and class. It’s usually distinct from the real life language typical of the kind of people it is used to represent.

Applying Previously Mentioned Concepts to Work Culture

Japanese corporations have one of the lowest rates of laying off or firing employees of any industrialized nation. Employees reciprocate that loyalty through their personal habits. Employees' sense of obligation may be so strong that they consume only the products produced by their conglomerate's affiliates. Japanese generally value carrying out one's work obligations (Giri) to the best of one's ability.

Japanese businesses encourage Wa in the workplace, with employees typically given a career for life in order to foster a strong association with their colleagues and firm.

Shinsotsu Ikkatsu Saiyō (新卒一括採用)

Simultaneous recruiting of new graduates or periodic recruiting of new graduates is the Japanese business custom in which Japanese companies hire new university graduates in masses. In Japan, most students hunt for jobs before graduation from university or high school, seeking "informal offers of employment" (内定, naitei) one year before graduation, which will hopefully lead to a "formal offer of employment" (正式な内定, seishiki na naitei) six months later, securing them a promise of employment by the time they graduate. 

This is seemingly what happened to Mikoto. 

Work Environment

Employees are expected to work hard and demonstrate loyalty to the firm, in exchange for some degree of job security and benefits, such as housing subsidies, good insurance, the use of recreation facilities, and bonuses and pensions if the company is big enough. This environment rewards behavior demonstrating identification with the team effort and sharing credit for accomplishments with the workgroup. Companies often treat their employees as family. 

Positive Conditions

Japanese working hours have been gradually decreasing over the years. The average Japanese worker is mandated to have ten to twenty days of paid holidays per year, depending on the number of continuous years worked at the company. By law, employees cannot work more than 40 hours per week.

Negative Conditions

In 2012 the average Japanese citizen visited a medical facility twelve times a year. The stress from working over twelve hours a day is a contributing factor to Japanese citizens' frequent medical visits. Workloads are often overwhelming and impossible to finish within one shift, so overtime is bound to happen consequence. In some a lot of companies, if the boss hasn’t gone home yet, junior members are expected to stay late. Often times unpaid. 

Maintaining access to healthcare is greatly tied to their employment security. As a result, the cost of losing a job also includes the cost of losing access to health insurance. Leaving the workforce due to dismissal, family complications or health related issues can potentially diminish access to these benefits as well. 

Despite the long work hours, Japan has consistently ranked last in productivity among the G7 countries since the 1970s. Workers have a tendency to fake looking busy. It’s generally rude to not look like you’re not working hard while everyone else is. 

Karoshi (過労死)

Karoshi can be translated to "overwork death". The most common medical causes of karoshi deaths are heart attacks and strokes due to stress. Mental stress from the workplace can also cause workers to commit suicide. This phenomenon is known as karōjisatsu (過労自殺). The government and companies have started to fight back against this by introducing laws and policies, as well as making an effort to find a better work–life balance for employees. Dozens of large corporations have also implemented "no overtime days".

In 2021, there where approximately 750,000 global deaths due to karoshi.

In 2023, nearly 2.9 thousand people in Japan committed suicide due to karoshi.