#tsukiyomi theory

[avidvampirehunter]

Some key takeaways from this moment:

1. We have confirmed the existence of two brushes.

2. The first one is an "ancient" brush. But how ancient? And what was it used for that so greatly removed it of it's power that the Crafter felt he needed another one?

3. Amateresu acknowledges that the true Calamity was never Yato, but the Crafter. Yato is not a god of Calamity, he is a god that slays Calamity.

4. Even though "Hakki" was made in a fashion that would be abominable in the eyes of the heavens, Amateresu commends her actions as well as Yukine, a bonafide Hafuri vessel, which says alot about Amateresu's opinion of her.

4.5. She talks about "Yato-gami" like the concept of him is dead, but is the person of him dead, or just the nickname he went by?

5. Back to point 2—what was the ancient brush used for, and why would the Crafter hold onto it? Could it be that its power was used up doing something MAJOR, and to not hold onto it and risk destruction be risking breaking whatever curse it was sustaining? Was the Tsukiyomi theory right all along, and the Crafter used the brush in ancient times to "overwrite" his true name? Does that give greater meaning to these two scenes?

From this:

And this?

6. After the Crafter is destroyed and his false reality is broken, BOTH Koto-no-has began to fade away. Yato was only beginning to disappear while IN that false reality, so even if he really was Tsukiyomi all along, it makes sense that he would start to disappear in the world in the same way Hiyori became a shinki—temporarily and illegitimately.

7. AND if Yato is a facsimile of Tsukiyomi (Amateresu's brother) then it makes sense why she would seem so confused about his name "Yato" when he has an audience with her. After all, if she knows his true name, then why ask here? (She later goes on to prove to the Heavens that they are innocent with the trial in Chapters 70-71).

What are your thoughts? Amateresu knows a lot more than what she has said. Now that the ancient Koto no Ha is broken, what does that mean for Yato?

[poyorii]

I have to ask the fandom what thing about that, because I get the feeling that it went unnoticed. Who do you think the silhouette is?

At first I thought it could be Niya, but after the last chapter, I saw that his silhouette is a little different and looks more like the silhouette of Ikuto and Black Lynx on the cover of the first chapter.

Also, that glow reminds me of the Humpty Lock. I wonder if Ikuto is still in contact with Yoru using the power of the Dumpty Key (or as Tadase in the Future with Kiseki) and can travel among the star as Amu did. If so, I wonder what they will do with that and what the hell is doing here.

[bubblegumroyal]

I have more theories on sanao original God name due to some fans on Twitter. So a jp fan I talk to said that some researchers say that susanoo and tsukiyomi are sometimes referred to as the same god. So I had a theory that sanao gets his destructive power for his susanoo side while his bad luck is due to tsukiyomi (they think the theory is interesting). A Chinese fan also liked the sanao is tsukiyomi theory.

[philosophicalparadox]

I have no idea how exactly to make my HC into fic canon, so imma plop it here so the brain worms stop eating me:

Taking into consideration that the Infinite Tsukiyomi is a dream world, and Itachi’s Tsukiyomi is called the Nightmare World, I think it is reasonable to assume that they both work basically the same way, I.e. reflecting the subconscious of whomever they’re cast upon.

(This is reinforced for me I suppose by the old fandom theories about how Itachi’s Tsukiyomi worked, and I’ll own that bias lol.)

Anyway, something that came up way back then was an idea I liked, which is that Itachi’s Tsukiyomi works by blending the user’s influence (because Itachi can, sort of, manipulate the content consciously) and the victims deepest (subconscious or unconscious) fears or desires.

How much of each takes precedence I think is something Itachi can control — unless their fear/desire is so overwhelming that he can’t actually impress anything upon it, or if they lack the notion of either entirely.

Anyway, point is, this makes his scene with Kakashi in pt 1 very interesting. 🧐

As we know Itachi crucified him and stabbed him relentlessly in deliberately non-lethal spots for 3 full days.

Except…I’m not actually convinced, from a watsonian perspective, that Itachi was the one making up this hellscape, not on his own.

The following is entirely speculative, so to each their own opinion, but it suits my little fic-bearing heart just fine to presume that:

1. Itachi was trying to go easy on him. His objective was to capture Kakashi alive (…to what end we can only guess; I’ll write an alternate fic for that scenario someday :0) and he clearly holds Kakashi in high esteem, not even mentioning the whole former colleague thing. It’s very possible that Itachi’s actual objective, had he managed to successfully capture Kakashi, was to share intel rather than collect it, and to that end he needed to ensure that he disarmed his senpai without killing OR severely traumatizing him, because he did need Kakashi to have some hope of trusting him if that plan was to succeed.

2. However, Itachi was still figuring out the details of how his power worked; he knew it’d make him go blind eventually, so he tried to minimise how often he used it, at the expense of taking forever and a day to work out the kinks. One of which is the likelihood that, particularly in the absence of other conscious influences from him, the other persons fears/desires would manifest more vividly.

Thus we get a crucified Kakashi…because of how his father died.

Now, from a doylist perspective, obviously, the entire thing is just about the aesthetic aspect of Scarecrow vs Crow.

But the watsonian believer in me says that being crucified literally like that is a reflection of a deep, somewhat neglected fear by Kakashi of becoming just like his dad. After all, he spent so much of his young life trying so hard to be the opposite of him, all rules and no play, until Obito convinced him otherwise.

But trauma like that doesn’t just vanish. Kakashi might be very mature about it, or we can presume so, but the fear never fully left him — he’s just more aware of it and capable of acknowledging it without letting it totally consume him like he did when he was tiny.

Which contributes probably to the utter lack of long term consequences for that Tsukiyomi nightmare; first, physical torture is the easiest to psychologically resist, and second, he was at least subconsciously already aware of that fear, so while seeing it manifested certainly had an effect, it wasn’t enough to really re-traumatize him or anything.

What’s more interesting to me, in the name of catharsis, is how Itachi interpreted all that.

Sadly we don’t get to see that, but I reckon it did answer a few questions he might’ve had and probably gave him a greater sense of grace or respect towards Kakashi; or at least that’s what we are working with for A Fawn in the Grass purposes lol.

Ah the fic bunnies will surely nuzzle me to death about this concept until I actually write something down, but I am determined to finish one fic at a time right now. Otherwise I just spam 6 at a time and none of them ever get done lol.

But I will come back to it some day. Because so much could have changed if Itachi had actually captured Kakashi on that day.

I leave you with that while I go contemplate alternate timelines 🤣

[kidcapes]

The new SMT5 Vengeance trailer showed this new form for Nahobino and I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be some sort of fusion with Tsukiyomi.

His new weapon is an arm-scythe similar to Tsukiyomi's weapon and one of his new skills is called "Paraselene Blur", selene referring to the moon, which Tsukiyomi is the god of.

In base SMTV, Tsukiyomi also made this comment that Aogami was based on him, so I'm thinking that the explanation is going to be that the new form is utilizing his latent Knowledge from Aogami's data banks. Possibly some sort of fusion?

I'm also wondering if this is going to be related to how the MC Nahobino is more human than Susano'O. Maybe there's something like the Protofiend technology has been set up somehow that it can't fully utilize a god's power/Knowledge and that's why Susano'O's characteristics were more downplayed in the original. Also there's an NPC who mentions that Protofiends have existed in Japan for as long as anyone can remember, so I'm thinking it might be possible that they can theoretically utilize any god's Knowledge? If that's the case that also might tie into the new form. Let me know if you have any thoughts or something to add, I'd be interesting in hearing more opinions or if you'd like to see more of my theory ramblings.

[hottest-persona-bracket]

Round 1 Poll 3

Odin The father of all gods in Norse legend. He willingly sacrificed one eye to gain wisdom. In preparation for Ragnarok, he gathers the souls of fallen warriors to his hall, Valhalla.

Tsukiyomi A Persona of another story. An important god born from the Japanese god Izanagi, he governs over the moon and the night. There are many theories behind this mysterious god.

[lemmon-grove]

in regards to Tao being tied to Amaterasu, think Yoko is too, both their Panagia forms share things tied to the missing SunGoddess while Nahobino examplifies both Susanno-o and Tsukiyomi. Tao has the sun crown while Yoko has the sacred mirror.

That’s a solid theory and sense is being made here but something bugs me abt both those theories. For one it’s was never stated that it was possible to more than one human to house the knowledge of one god. It’s actually explicitly stated in many situations by various gods that they were looking for a human, singular, with their knowledge.

If it was possible for them to have more than one human with their knowledge they wouldn’t be so bummed about their knowledge being killed by angels and having to wait for them to reincarnate. Why do that when you have more than one knowledge bearer? Just move on to the next.

And two, in v-kun and Tsukuyomi’s case, I think that because the Aogami models as a whole were made using Tsukuyomi as a baseline for the dwindling amount of data left of Susano-o it was possible for them fuse at all. It certainly helped that Tsukuyomi himself was a proto-fiend too, a being who was essentially created to be “easy to use” as stated by offhand dialogues from some researcher npc’s throughout the game.

Because of that connection v-kun in a way already acclimated to fusing to Tsukuyomi through Aogami, though I imagine that there is still friction between the two during thier fusion that wouldn’t happen between their proper other half’s, differing knowledge and life after all.

As for Yoko… she’s weird. She has something close to the sacred mirror at her back that visually ties her into Ameterasu in a way, but it clearly shouldn’t be possible for her to also house Ameterasu’s knowledge like Tao does. Maybe she’s from another world like the Qadištu? But thats wouldn’t make sense as her power was sealed away in this one so she has to be from this world as well.

My theory is that she actually houses Lilith’s knowledge—and no, not necessarily that Lilith, but the kaneko design Lilith in base game, she housed that version of Lilith’s knowledge and because she’s wasn’t around in base game that Lilith continued to exist. But because of us freeing Yoko, that Lilith got absorbed like Ameterasu did because of the power imbalance between life and knowledge.

Another thing that supports my train of thought is how she has a snake headband representory of Lilith in a way in her hair and horns coming out of the back of her head.(also thier color pallets balance each other out)

Like i agree, the mirror feels like it should be important but it’s a red herring. It might actually only be there to balance both her and Tao’s designs together. Or Doi was just getting creative with her outward design to set her apart from Tao, visually speaking.

Thanks for coming to my Ted talk~💕 and sorry for taking so long to answer, tumblr was being uncooperative😭

[kamimammy]

Lately an idea have been living rent free in my head so I decided to share in hopes someone more talented in fanfic writing likes it.

First I do have more ideas related to this one but I will share the one more basic.

I know everyone likes the Tsukiyomi theory but what if we kinda swap it?

Like instead of yato is Hiyori the one Tuskiyomi chooses to be his descent,something like Kamisama hajimemashita(kamisama kiss)like he sees her save Yato and decides she is a good choice

So now Hiyori starts the canon story half goddess instead of half ayakashi,since she is half human she can still kinda work as a worshiper but she is kinda also learning all this God stuff...

The find Yukine and Yato originally want her to get him as shinki but Hiyori refuses cause she now knows Yato really needs a shining,maybe she sees him with nora and ask artound and finds the nora taboo stuff or something like that.

In my headcanon I had a oc for her to be her shinki(it's supposed to transform into a flying horse,think like a Rapidash or Entei in Inuyasha and I was hoping to name them maybe Seiya? Cause also the family name of Hiyori shinki will end with "YA")

I have some more small head canons if someone ends interested.

Non related,related I have also had a very good idea for the typical isekai "oh no I died in modern life and I was reborn as a princess/vilanness in a novel" trope but with Hiyori dying or like just telporting to the time Yato was about to exterminate the "MA" clan,so after Sakura event and basically what would happen if Yato had a worshipers back then but more like in a serious tone.

There is actually some fanfics with Hiyori in that timeline but usually she doesn't know the story,obviously.

Let me know what you guys think

[starryoak]

Is there any reason that people sometimes headcanon Minazuki as Sho’s Shadow self? I saw TV Tropes say that it’s implied that he is, but from the text itself I can’t really find any evidence of that, and the only real reason to think that would be that Tsukiyomi remains after Minazuki ‘disappears’, or if you were excessively literal about how Yu refers to Minazuki as the ‘other self’ inside Sho, when that doesn’t actually imply anything about him being Sho’s Shadow when he is literally another person inside Sho’s body. It doesn’t actually make that much sense to me as a theory to explain Tsukiyomi’s presence either; Minazuki has knowledge of the world that Sho doesn’t, as well as the idea of him being made of traits that Sho doesn’t accept about himself doesn’t fit with the personality he has; he’d have a lot more love for Ikutsuki, let alone a desire for friendship with others if that were the case. I’m fairly certain Minazuki is literally just the Plume of Dusk that was shoved into Sho’s brainstem, and there’s no evidence whatsoever to suggest that isn’t the case.

[zaruba-needslove]

what if your twins au had more of a precedent than initially thought? I mean so far, there have been two people who have subverted normal expectations of the DGP, Mitsume, for being able to refuse the wish to erase Ace out of existence... when her petrification made it so that she's unable to refuse granting any wish at all.

and...

Keiwa, for even remembering the DGP he witnessed that killed Shirowe.

Hehe...

Well, considering how Geats lore in general did draw a lot of lore from the Japanese creation myths (Izanagi, Izanami, Amaterasu, Tsukiyomi), the various other Japanese folk stories/mythology (Tanuki-Kitsune lores - I'm not including the other two since the show don't really pull much references on their lores APART from their motives) - I'm willing to accept that my twins au might actually have more weight than just a fond fan theory.

[avidvampirehunter]

Breaking the "Yaboku" curse

Yo I'm still clinging on to the Tsukiyomi theory this late in the game so hear me out

1. According to the mythos, Tsukiyomi was banished from heaven and his sister Amateresu for murdering someone over a petty disagreement.

2. Yato is often associated with moon imagery, culling/ cutting, water, and other adjacent images like snow and the color white. Even the Sakura is symbolic of the dual-sided nature of beauty and violence. He follows his loved ones around (like how Tsukiyomi followed Amateresu around in the mythos) and embraces different phases of his life in the form of embracing certain (albeit strange) fashion trends. Even the name Yaboku means "Night Child."

3. Yato is an unknown god but has lived longer than most other dieties we see in the series. Knowing now that the Crafter was undead all this time, it's growing less and less likely that he was Yato's true lifeline that entire time, as well as more likely that dieties younger than him wouldn't recognize him, because they are younger than him or have reincarnated since then. Besides, we know that the "banishment" of Tsukiyomi likely means Yato got killed (like Ebisu).

4. We see the Crafter stole the Koto No Ha when he left the underworld, and the Koto No Ha gave new names that couldn't be undone by heaven, but abided by the underworld's rules, meaning that the Crafter could have used it to "name" Yaboku, causing that name to get him out of the underworld even if his true identity was Tsukiyomi all along.

5. Since the Koto no Ha is broken, it could also mean that the name "Yaboku" is gone.

6. But we aren't done yet! Perhaps to reclaim his position as Tsukiyomi, he is now being tested. Throughout the story Yato has matured through his friendships and love. He went from selfish and preserving his own life to being willing to risk his life. But the one thing he never did was: Cut ties with Hiyori.

7. Perhaps, if Yato cuts ties with Hiyori, it could save her life and return her to the near shore. But he would have to make a sacrifice out of love, not selfish desire to be seen as a god of fortune, or take vengeance on his maker.

8. I therefore think that this will be resolved as Amateresu returns, as Yato cuts ties to save Hiyori, that something will happen to restore him to what he used to be. After all, isn't it strange that Amateresu showed up outside the underworld, telling them to call Yato by "his true name" with a soft smile on her face, while later on when we see her she is absolutely unhinged and angry? She is involved in this deeper than i think they realize.

So yeah, I'm holding out. Yato must cut ties with the person he cherishes the most as a true act of selflessness to redeem himself from the crime he committed as Tsukiyomi.

[autisticmysticsarah]

Zelda theory:

The Zonai are descended from a Tsukiyomi analogue. It's highly likely that they are based on the moon civilization and rabbits from Japanese folklore. Rauru and Sonia are similar to Princess Kaguya and the Emperor from the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, which was one of the first Science Fiction stories.

Zelda loves the trope of people coming from the sky, which I was recently told is a reference to the Moon civilization from TotBC and is seen in a lot of Japanese media such as Sailor Moon, Final Fantasy, and of course, Okami. I think this Sky Deity is related to Hylia in some way, possibly being from the same tribe of kami.

[semi-imaginary-place]

ffxiv 4.3

yugiri was so concerned yotsuyu was faking it she didn't consider the 3rd option that she might regain her memory. wait no, she left for persimmons for gosetsu. but she's going to namai this isn't going to end well.

stormblood and going pretty strong on the anti kill. all the major antagonists are still alive.

that mirror is bad news. well i did get spoiled on the trial.

if we want her to keep from running away maybe tell the boatman not to let her through.

ah so asahi's scheme did work, she just faked it to ruin his plan. love it.

we're giving the confederacy free recruits. what if they don't want to be pirates.

alphy is hiding something, he's so bad at this. the question is why.

the prisoner exchang is happening inside the castrum???? terrible idea. these usually happen on neutral ground I'd say kugane but kugane would kick us all out. why not just on the beach.

i think i pieced together yotsuyu's story? abused as a kid parents sold her to an abusive husnad basically. husband died or did she kill him? then dad sold her to a brothel.

so the mirror acted as some sort of foci for aether. the sun moon symbolism has been good. hien's been compared to the sun and yostuyu to the moon, its in the patch and quest names and in the dialogue. What's interesting is that a lot of traditional Japanese folk religion dieties are ambiguously gendered like I've seen Tsukiyomi interpreted as male or Ameterasu is often referred to as the mother goddess of Japan. But then you have the heavy Chinese influence on Japanese culture and in Chinese Culture (Daoism) the sun (yang) is masculine and the moon (ying) is feminine. and its the chinese influence that we mostly see in these quests with yotsuyu being emotional and sensitive and feminine and associated with the moon.

really love tsukiyomi's design. might be my favorite boss design so far. lots of good moon imagery. one half of the kimono is a white moon flower the same one yotsuyu had in her hair ornament, the other half i think is another nocturnal blooming flower but im not sure. she had the rabbit ears. the backlighting to the eclipse. i died like 4 times because i did not understand the mechanics but really cool fight

whoever is doing the jp voice acting for asahi has got to be having so much fun. oh damn when asahi breaks he starts using ore.

hey asahi what was that about making sure to finish the job and making sure yotsuyu was actually dead.

localization missed that asahi was specifically the first doman she swore to kill.

so peace talks are back where we started but we got the conscripts back, not terrible all things considered.

wait i said clone theory but what if its an ascian puppetting the corpse.

alphinaud that is profoundly stupid going to the imperial capital alone. you have no escape route. they could jail you on any excuse and that'd be the end.

I'm worried if gosetsu is well enough to travel health wise

elezenos lol. he gets a second chance and of course he's learned absolutely not a goddam thing. yup ascian.

stormblood really is the expansion of can't let anyone die... ew they really brought back gaius... such a bad decision. for one its disrespectful as hell to the arr writers, they clearly meant to wrap up that storyline. gaius's storyline was meant to end there so bringing him back here is a disservice to that story. second as a matter of storytelling if you keep bringing back characters it cheapens death. ffxiv has made a big thematic deal about loss and "foR thOSe we HAve loST and fOR Those wE CAN yet sAve" and this is shooting that in the foot. third is i don't like gaius. i did get spoiled on this but you can't trust twitter spoilers so i was REALLY hoping that with was some delusional wistful thinking cooked up by the gaius fans.

doman restoration! did the writers forget that reverents toll didn't want the domans in 2.x? well i mean i think the writers also forgot that most of them are also shinobi like the made a point of emphasizing that a lot of the domans are combat ready shinobi by deploying them to garlemald or having them involved in 2.5's events but then 4.0 happens and the writers forget to include them in the assault of doma castle or the general ousting of garelans from yanxia? weird. like originally i assumed they were there even if not specifically mentioned. but here in 4.x patches its specifically said that no they've been in eorzea that whole time. weird plot hole. also weren't they from some hidden ninja village with peach trees.

yotsuyu, zenos, foldora (and gaius ug) all got 2nd chances.

wait a moment. if asahi's meeting with zenos durign the doman uprising was the first time zenos picked up a katana and black smith dude says that the uprising happened a year ago that means that zenos has been beating up everyone with a weapon he's only been using for a year. well that puts him on par with the player character who has only picked up their job in about that amount of time.

edit: update on the doman restoration. you can clearly tell that the writing teams were switched out because the writers forgot that the doman refugees were established as from a mountain ninja village in yanxia during 2.x. whereas the sotrmblood writers think that they were from the city of doma. Like I get them helping out but its weird that they wouldn't return to their ancestral village especially after the emphasis on like how much they missed the scent of the peach trees in flower and such. well i think they removed those quests but my point still stands

[avidvampirehunter]

With the Koto No Ha, she absolutely could! Yukine was mostly an Ayakashi when Father named him 'Hagusa' (expelling all Ayakashi blight on himself and Yato) and Nora was part spirit/ part Ayakashi (much like Tsuyu).

As we have seen in the latest issues, not only can they become ultimate Shinki, but they are also untouchable as not even Amateresu can take their names:

It may be that Hiyori has realized this as well. She is incredibly bright and has come to correct conclusions in the past. Look at these panels:

Hiyori's eyes widen and her expression seems to indicate that she has realized something: "being given a name = being given life." This is her last thought before persuing Yato's scent (as of now, chapter 104 has not come out). To me this means she may have come up with a solution to her problem, and Nora's creation (i.e.: the Koto No Ha) was to thank for it.

As you have demonstrated above, Father tried to get Yato to use the Koto No Ha to name Hiyori and it has always been possible to make her a Shinki while in that form, it would just be considered an abomination by Takamagahara.

Equally among these is the concept of Hiyori becoming a broken Shinki, demonstrated by Bishamon's naming of Mineha:

(Yukine is a far superior "slicer" than Bishamon's Shinki, so even if they had to "cut out" Hiyori's cord (which is already fading so unlikely), they would probably minimize damage on her.)

However the take away is that Mineha AND Yukine kept their memories from being in Spirit Form, meaning that Hiyori doesn't have to forget Yato to become a Shinki. The strongest she could be is by being named under the Koto No Ha. (Also, if you subscribe to the Tsukiyomi Theory, Father and Hiyori's death would not mean the end for Yato).

BONUS: If you are still worried about the ship not becoming canon, remember these frames:

They are literally soulmates and Yato has the capacity to love a human, unlike other deities. ❤️

I hate that I'm saying this but... Is Yatori a doomed ship?? I mean Yato is a God and Hiyori is a human. So Hiyori will age and maybe forget Yato at some point. As of right now, Hiyori can't even go back into her body so she may actually die by the end of this arc???

If she dies she may be able to become Yato's shinki. But she won't be able to remember a thing about him because of "God's greatest secret" where remembering any of your past causes you to become an ayakashi. (Starting to think Hafuri are immune to that though with Kazuma and Yukine being seemingly fine now) So there is no happy ending for these two! I would like to think that because Hiyori spent so much time around those of the Far shore while alive, she won't be effected by such things. But I don't know how likely that is.

Yato actually considered the possibility of making Hiyori his shinki when he first met her and saw her abilities. But obviously he couldn't. But now Hiyori actually wishes to be Yato's shinki. She's realized that she's in love with him and wants to be in the world where he and Yukine are.

But I'm wondering if Hiyori is even able to become a shinki. She's half Ayakashi- a species that is basically an enemy of the shinki and spirits of the far shore- So I'm wondering if she'll even end up in the same place or rather state Yukine did when he died. There's another possibility that Yato may die. Because it doesn't look like Trash Dad is done yet which means he's still Yato's lifeline. So if Yato does defeat him, he may cease to exist.

The preferable option is Yato and Hiyori both live, confess their love, start dating and live happily ever after with their son Yukine. But that's looking to be a pipe dream at this point 🥲

[susanoosama01]

Long time since I last drew these two...

[knightdawnart]

Inktober, Day 17: Swollen. Yato might be getting a little too full of himself in the latest Noragami chapters...

Do not repost or remove credit!