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love-sapphirerose · 3 years

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Inuyasha and Kikyo Is the Feudal Romance We Deserved

Inuyasha and Kikyo are well known for their doomed romance in Rumiko Takahashi's iconic Inuyasha series. But what if Kikyo had lived instead?

BY DIANE DARCY

PUBLISHED MAY 16, 2021 With the 2020 debut of Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon, fans of the original Inuyasha series got an opportunity to revisit familiar faces as well as meet the children of their favorite pairings who front the new series. But what if one of these pairings had turned out differently? What if, instead of dying and reincarnating as Kagome Higurashi, Kikyo had actually lived to spend the rest of her life with Inuyasha?

While Kikyo living would’ve resulted in a very different story from the one Inuyasha creator Rumiko Takahashi developed, it also could’ve resulted in a more epic romance story. What is it about Inuyasha and Kikyo as a couple from 50 years ago that makes them so compelling? The characters could have developed very differently, with some fascinating aspects of Japanese history enriching their story even further.

In both the manga and anime, one of the unifying themes of Inuyasha and Kikyo's relationship is the two characters feeling out of touch with their humanity. In Inuyasha's case, he is a hanyou (a being who is half human and half youkai) born to a human mother and a great dog youkai, both of whom had high status in their respective communities. Despite this, however, Inuyasha was rejected by both humans and youkai alike for not being of pure blood. As such, he was forced to fend for himself at a very young age, resulting in feelings of self-loathing and a profound distrust in others.

Kikyo was born into a human village that she later protected as a miko (shrine maiden) after reaching adolescence. Little is known about her childhood apart from the fact she was born with strong spiritual potential (as narrated by her younger sister Kaede), though much of it can also be pieced together based on the history of miko in Japan. As stated by Tsubaki -- a rival of Kikyo -- in Episode 147 of the Inuyasha anime, a miko's spiritual power thrives when she abandons all human feelings. She also warns that as a woman, Kikyo could naturally fall in love, which would cause her powers to weaken.

Though Tsubaki's explanation of a miko's spiritual power is treated as a curse by Kikyo in the anime, it is actually consistent with how young girls trained to become miko in Japan's earlier history, most notably during the Sengoku period (when Inuyasha takes place) and especially in centuries prior. As practitioners of Shinto, young girls who trained to become miko underwent various purification rituals as a way of strengthening their spiritual power. Since purity is central to the Shinto belief system, miko were not permitted to marry as it was believed that compromising their sexual purity would also compromise the strength of their spiritual power. This last part is relevant to Kikyo's storyline.

Inuyasha and Kikyo's storylines converged when the latter was given custody of the Shikon no Tama, a powerful jewel with a reputation to grant any wish to its possessor. Inuyasha desired the jewel as a means of erasing his humanity in exchange for becoming a full youkai, though he had to get through Kikyo to get it. While Kikyo had the skills and power to keep the jewel safe, she also found her new occupation even more isolating than being a miko alone. After meeting Inuyasha, Kikyo became aware of her human desires and emotions, which factored into her decision to rid herself of the jewel and pursue life as an ordinary woman.

The premise of Inuyasha desiring to erase his humanity with Kikyo desiring to reclaim her humanity created strong story potential that deserved further fleshing out. This was done to an extent in the anime story The Tragic Love Song of Destiny (Episodes 147-148) that depicts the budding romance between Inuyasha and Kikyo, leading up to the moment where she proposed Inuyasha use the Shikon no Tama to become human. At the time, Kikyo theorized that if the jewel was used to make Inuyasha fully human, it would be purified and would cease to exist. The original Inuyasha manga and subsequent anime adaptation, of course, established towards the finale that this would not have been the right wish. But realizing this could've been an important part of Kikyo's journey.

Another major development that could've still happened in a universe where Kikyo lived is the shattering of the Shikon no Tama -- this time by a weakened Kikyo, which would've been a huge wakeup call for her. Recalling what Tsubaki said earlier about how falling in love would cause her powers to weaken, being responsible for shattering the very jewel she was entrusted to purify would've shaken Kikyo to the point of rethinking her priorities. This would've placed Kikyo in a position of needing to learn new skills to supplement her miko training, which in turn could've created opportunities for character growth.

A meaningful change that could've come out of this journey was Kikyo realizing that the key to strengthening her spiritual power was embracing all aspects of her identity. Maybe she needed to realize that rejecting any part of herself -- whether it be her human self or miko self -- was why she wasn't being an effective guardian of the jewel. Allowing herself to experience human emotion may have allowed her to channel her powers in a smarter, more effective way.

Related to the plot of shattering the Shikon no Tama, the wounded thief Onigumo (whom Kikyo was nursing in a cave) could've still become the evil hanyou Naraku with the same motivation as before: wanting Kikyo for himself and desiring the Shikon no Tama as a means of getting her love. He still could've sent various youkai after Kikyo to exhaust her as he did in Tragic Love Song, only things didn't go his way. Instead of mortally wounding Kikyo, one of these attempts to exhaust her could've resulted in the aforementioned jewel's shattering, allowing the story to play out as it did originally -- but with some key differences.

Keeping Naraku as a villain would've still been important for Inuyasha's character development as he embodied a much darker version of Inuyasha's own goals. This could've forced Inuyasha to reconsider his own motivations for becoming a full youkai and whether or not he should take up Kikyo's offer to become fully human. Naraku's obsession with Kikyo could've similarly made Inuyasha re-evaluate his own feelings for Kikyo, whether he's similar to Naraku in lusting for her or if he actually loves her as a person. There's also the factor of Kikyo being exposed to Inuyasha's human side during moonless nights and the vulnerabilities that come with such moments. This too could've forced her to re-evaluate her own motivations for wanting Inuyasha to erase half of what he is as a means of purifying the jewel.

By getting to know Inuyasha in both of his forms, Kikyo could've ultimately decided against erasing what makes him unique, effectively changing her plans for purifying the jewel. Her thoughts on this could've been further solidified after experiencing what Naraku was capable of with only shards of the jewel as opposed to the complete jewel. Naraku's dark motivations could've similarly provided Inuyasha and Kikyo with the perspective to realize none of their problems would be resolved by casting a selfish wish on the jewel, regardless of their intent. Instead, they both could've reached the same conclusion that the only way to relieve themselves of the jewel and its destructive power was by wishing it out of existence, effectively allowing the jewel to destroy itself just like it originally did.

While keeping Kikyo alive would've changed significant aspects of the Inuyasha story, it also could've resulted in a more focused romance with more profound character development. Since both Inuyasha and Kikyo have a unifying theme of not feeling in touch with their humanity at the start of their respective narratives, their journey could've focused on them rediscovering their humanity together while not rejecting what makes them unique. By reconciling all aspects of themselves into more mature identities, their relationship would've been stronger for it.

#inukik #inuyasha #kikyo #inuyasha kikyo #inuyasha x kikyo #pro inukik #kikyou #inuyasha the final act

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zarahxan · 3 years

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OCtober Day 2 - Glass

Shirayuki considered himself an avid collector. Old and ancient things like books and records that possessed history and knowledge. Bonus points if they were said to be enchanted or cursed. Now those made it all the more interesting. But most of all, he valued beauty. Tonight, he found himself in a small antique shop with his eye on one thing in particular.

“..S-Sir?” Shirayuki heard a voice stutter.

He turned around to see the elderly shop owner, who gave him—or was attempting to give him—a smile.

He could feel the tense air radiating off of him and smiled back. Was this man scared of him?

He held back a chuckle. The jumpy ones were always amusing.

“You’ve been standing there for a while, is there something that interests you?”

“Why, yes.” Shirayuki beamed and gestured to the golden mirror and the other objects like it. “This is a lovely collection you have here. Judging by the craftsmanship, it’s clear that you consider quality.”

The shop owner stared at him, almost looking stunned. He seemed to calm down a little. “Ah, why thank you! Actually, the mirror you’ve been looking at is one of the latest additions. There’s an interesting tale behind this one.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes! The craftsman told me that before it had been repaired, the mirror was said to have been owned by a priestess who used it to reveal evil.”

Shirayuki gave a laugh. “Reveal evil? Does it work?”

“I cannot say. But it was for that reason that the craftsman gave it away to me.”

“Oh?”

“He told me that he’d seen strange shadows lurking within the mirror. Apparitions that would stare at him and whisper things; all while tapping at the glass.”

Shirayuki chuckled. So he was right to come here.

He walked closer to the mirror and traced his fingers across the gold that laced its once-shattered parts. He marveled at the cracks and shards cleaving into his reflection.

How pretty.

“Kintsugi.” Shirayuki spoke. “The art of mending broken things together with gold. The philosophy behind it is to embrace and celebrate all of one’s imperfections.”

The shop owner only nodded. Then his gaze had wandered elsewhere and he blinked. Then he seemed to have frozen.

Shirayuki only continued to smile.

“I suppose that there are many who resonate with such an idea. For to be repaired after being broken is beautiful…”

He watched as bits of his reflection clawed its way back at him. Shadows swirled about and peeked through different fragments. Somehow in some parts of the mirror, his kimono was covered in dark red stains. Shadows enveloped him as he stared back with an eye glowing and empty.

Within, he swore he could hear familiar voices screaming for help and cursing at him. Different faces fading in and out of view; men and women, young and old. All white, torn, and ridden with agony.

What a truly peculiar mirror, daring to show all pieces of him. It only made him love it all the more.

“Philosophies like this have grown my liking for all broken things.”

Shirayuki turned to look at the shop owner again, who seemed to be shivering.

“Tell me, Tanaka.” He watched as the other man flinched in horror.

Ah, did he say someone else’s name without them telling him again? He really needed to watch himself better.

“How would you look like if you were broken?”

The man did not answer. Instead, he dropped to his knees and started mumbling a Shinto prayer under his breath.

“Oh dear! Whatever’s the matter?” Shirayuki knelt down to inspect the shop owner. He looked pale.

“You poor thing. You look as if you’re about to have a heart attack. Did you perhaps overwork yourself today? Or… did you see something you didn’t want to?”

“P-please! I have family!”

“Now, now, you look at me as if I’m holding a knife to your throat. Fear not, I’m only here for the mirror.”

“Then take it! Take it and please leave!”

Shirayuki put a hand to his heart. “You would allow me to take this for free? My, that would be too much! Not to mention, a business decision that I wouldn’t recommend on your part.”

But it was too late. The shop owner seemed to have keeled over. Shirayuki still sensed some life in the man.

The poor thing probably fainted.

A shame.

—

By the time Tanaka came to, he was lying on the floor of his shop, with morning light seeping through the windows. The scary gentleman and mirror were gone.

On his counter lay a handsome sum of yen and a note saying that they would come by again soon.

He immediately thought of retiring.

——

AKA local shop owner is scared senseless by trolly, curious kitsune man.

And that’s day 2! Forgive me for being slow, as I haven’t been feeling well lately. ^^’ I will do my best to catch up soon!

Prompt belongs to @oc-growth-and-development.

Edit: Ah, juuust gonna keep a less violent(?) version for the top? Here’s the true version under the cut for those who can tolerate the blood.

#oc tober #Shirayuki the Imposter #day 2 #Tanaka!s probably going to use that money for his retirement #and his therapy bill #poor Tanaka #tw: blood #tw: blood mention

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everythingnerdyxoxo · 3 years

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{30 Day Anime Challenge [Day 3/30 - Favourite Shounen series] }

Inuyasha

In modern-day Tokyo, Kagome Higurashi lives on the grounds of her family's Shinto shrine with her mother, grandfather, and younger brother. On her fifteenth birthday, while searching for her cat, Kagome is dragged into the enshrined Bone Eater's Well (骨喰いの井戸, Honekui no Ido) by a centipede demon that emerges from it. But rather than hit the bottom, Kagome finds herself in another universe which is parallel to her universe - but in the past, during Japan's Sengoku period. The demon was originally defeated fifty years prior by Kikyo, a warrior priestess who was the previous keeper of the Shikon Jewel (四魂の玉, Shikon no Tama, lit. "The Jewel of Four Souls"), a powerfully magical artifact created from the sacrifice of the priestess Midoriko, which grants its holder any wish their heart desires. Kagome is revealed to be the reincarnation of the now-dead Kikyo. The Shikon Jewel was burned along with Kikyo's body to cast it out of this world entirely, in order to keep it safe from the hands of those who would use its power for evil. Kagome comes across a sleeping boy pinned by a sacred arrow to a tree, learning he is Inuyasha, a half-demon, half-human (yōkai) whom Kikyo pinned to the tree as her final act when he attempted to steal the jewel. Kagome frees Inuyasha to kill the centipede demon, but when he turns on her and tries to steal the jewel again, he is subdued with a magical beaded necklace to keep him in line with Kagome saying "sit" or "sit boy", which causes him to violently fall to the ground. The Shikon Jewel is extracted from Kagome's body and taken by a crow demon, which Kagome destroys with an arrow, but in doing so, inadvertently shatters the jewel into many shards that scatter across Japan and into the possession of various demons and humans.

#30 day anime challenge #inuyasha #shounen series

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ick25 · 4 years

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What I think about Inuyasha’s writing.

I used to be a huge Inuyasha fan because I watched it in my teen years (The Latin Spanish dub, not the English dub where I find their voices to be pretty annoying). I would stay awake until eleven o’ clock just to watch a new episode on Cartoon Network and sing along with the translated versions of the intros. My early submissions on Deviantart were fanarts of Inuyasha, I used to draw him like crazy, and the show is even one of my original comic’s main inspirations. So what happened?

I love Inuyasha’s character, but as I grew older, I started hating or not caring about the other characters of the show (Except for Sesshomaru, of course) and grew tired of the story because I felt it wasn’t going anywhere. Inuyasha has good writing, but the pacing and how sometimes you can’t really take it seriously ruins it for me.

I want to talk about this now since I just heard about the sequel that is gonna happen soon with Inuyasha’s Lina Inverse of a daughter and Sesshomaru’s very confused twin daughters, and I’m thinking to myself: “How is Rumiko gonna ruin this story even more”. Don’t get me wrong, the creator, Rumiko Takahashii, is a very talented manga artist and writer, and I respect her, at one point I even saw her as my heroine, but now I want to surpass her.

How can Inuyasha, a story about a half demon, who falls in love with the reincarnation of his ex-girlfriend who can travel through time whenever she feels like it, has a hot demon brother that tried to kill him several times, wields a powerful magical sword forged from the fang of his deceased yet very famous demon father who I want to know more about, a dead human mother who may or may not have been a princess... Where was I going with this? o_o

As an aspiring storyteller/ animator, I want to talk about the problems with Inuyasha’s story, the things I love about it, as well as the bad things in it, and see why Inuyasha isn’t the writing masterpiece everyone likes to believe it is. And by the end, talking about what I would do to improve the story.

This is how I analyze Inuyasha. I never read the manga, so I’m gonna focus on the anime.

1. Inuyasha is a romantic comedy?

Rumiko Takashii is a successful manga artist and considered “The queen of anime”, because her art Style and humor have inspired many of the anime cliches we know today such as the nose bleeds shots, the beach episodes with fan service, and good o’l scenes where the girl calls a boy a pervert before comically sending them flying. She is the creator of another famous work called Ranma 1/2, an anime I used to love as a kid, but now...

I studied how to draw and create mangas and I have learned how to make a good story. After returning to Ranma recently, I have figured out the problem with Inuyasha, Rumiko Takahashii’s style is repetitive. Rumiko is capable of writing a good plot and creating very good characters from time to time, but now many of her main characters feel very cliche. In her stories there is always gonna be a pervert, there is always gonna be a bad parent, a rivalry, crazy and or exaggerated situations, goofy looking characters, wise old men or women, beautiful female characters, Japanese or Chinese folklore, fighting, but most importantly, a girl with a love/hate relationship with a dumb, rowdy tsundere boy, where they argue so much that the girl ends up physically abusing the boy and the show passes it for something funny; and those are the ingredients for making a Rumiko Takahashii styled manga/anime.

Rumiko’s forte is in Romantic comedy, sometimes mixing different genres makes a story good and very realistic... If done right, which brings me to my next point.

2. Time travel just for fun.

What is Inuyasha about? It is about a half-demon teenage boy that has to partner with a teenage girl from the modern times, who accidentally travels through time via a magical well that has been in her family’s shinto shrine for generations, to find the shards of a powerful magical jewel that said girl accidentally shatters and scatters all over feudal Japan. This idea alone makes it a very interesting series, either for a book or a TV show.

What went wrong then? I believe the problem started around the third episode were it was shown that Kagome can easily go back to the present, have dinner with her family, take a bath, gather provisions, and even take her god damn bike with her to the past every time she wants without caring about creating a time paradox.

This is played for laughs because of the romantic comedy element, but if you do this in an show with action, deaths, and evil spirits wanting to take over the world, then that fact alone makes the entire story lose credibility, I mean, what is stopping Naraku or any other demon from finding a way to travel to the future through the well to take over a world where demons and magical powers are basically extinct? The fact that only Kagome AND Inuyasha are the only ones who can go through the well? How convenient!

If the time travel well was taken more seriously it could’ve lead to a much more interesting story, but apparently nobody cares about time travel and the effects it could have in the history of Japan. I think there were two instances that I recall from the anime (Before Inuyasha Second Act, because I already stopped caring about the show when it came out) where time travel was or could’ve been relevant; the episode about the man eating mask that had a Shikon shard for hundreds of years, and the second movie of Inuyasha where the whole group was immune to a time stopping spell because Kagome’s medical kit and necklace from the future created some kind of time barrier around them.

And nobody cared about any of those things afterwards! Not the fact that there could’ve been one extra shard, or that Naraku was present during the time barrier incident and never wondered about it. Both the episode and movie scene were just ways to have Inuyasha being the only one who can come to Kagome’s rescue because their love is the main focus. Speaking of love...

3. Frustrating love drama.

Part of Inuyasha’s tsundere personality comes from the fact that he had his heart broken by everyone’s favorite b***, Kikyo.

Kikyo was the young priestess who sealed Inuyasha in a tree for 50 years, at first it looked like the typical holy person trying to protect her village from a dangerous demon, but in reality, she was in a relationship with him and thought that Inuyasha tricked her so he could steal the Shikon jewel from her. This was because everyone’s favorite a**h*** , Naraku, shape-shifted into both of them to trick them into killing each other.

It’s easy to blame Naraku for this, but that actually shows how they didn’t really “love” each other because of how quickly they turned against the other.

I take this as a cautionary tale for first love. Inuyasha was just infatuated with Kikyo because of her beauty and kindness towards him, and when someone falls in love for the first time they don’t think straight, they don’t know what a real relationship entails, and not knowing that is exactly what happened to these two.

There was a special episode in the anime where we see how Inuyasha and Kikyo met and fell in love, in it we get a scene where Kikyo told Inuyasha that she was gonna give him a gift, which was gonna be the subduing necklace that Kagome tends to abuse a lot, however, Inuyasha decided to give her a gift as well, his mother’s lip balm she left him after dying. A very sweet gesture, right? How does Kikyo react to this?

That’s not a look of love, that’s a look of pity. RECIPROCATE, WOMAN! HE OPENED HIS HEART TO YOU AND YOU JUST FEEL SORRY FOR HIM?!

She does end up changing her mind about the subduing charm, but before this, she didn’t saw him as a person, and she was considered a saint by everyone in the village, but I guess that feeding the poor, nursing people, and playing with children is alright as long as they are humans, that’s almost racist. I hate Shippo, but I bet she wouldn’t be so caring about him or his dad if she saw them.

Kikyo absolutely sucks as a romantic partner! She doesn’t express anything, she doesn’t talk about her feelings, she doesn’t show any emotion apart from anger and slight contentment, and based on what we saw after Naraku set them up, I believe she never told him ANYTHING about herself. Unlike Kagome who he got to know very well as a person, Inuyasha didn’t even questioned her motives for attacking him, he automatically assumed that she manipulated him the whole time, and ran to the village to get the Shikon Jewel.

Rumiko wanted to make Kikyo more relatable so we could feel sorry for her and pass Naraku as an evil monster who destroyed what could’ve been a beautiful relationship, by having Kikyo wanting to live life as a normal girl, but can’t because she is the only one who can keep the Shikon jewel from being corrupted, and ultimately falling in love with Inuyasha because he saw her as a normal person (Unlike her with him). Well, it didn’t work, at least not for me.

I did feel sympathy for Kikyo... When she was alive! The series had a witch bring her back to life in a body made out of clay and using part of Kagome’s soul because she is the reincarnation of Kikyo. Why do this? To create drama by adding a love triangle into this romantic comedy of a show.

Feels like Rumiko doesn’t understand how reincarnation works because I think Kagome would’ve died during that ritual, and I really doubt Kikyo would’ve become such a B just out of jealousy; she wanted to take Inuyasha to hell with her, and he was not even dead yet! If this Kikyo really loved him, she would’ve let him go on with his life instead of roaming Japan feeling sorry for herself, taking advantage of a situation to keep Kagome away from Inuyasha, and barely doing anything to stop Naraku which was supposed to be her main goal. All of this made Kikyo unlikable instead of a relatable character trying to fix her past mistakes before going back to the grave.

4. Inuyasha’s background.

Something I absolutely love from Inuyasha’s story is the fact that it is set during a historical time period in Japan but with magical elements incorporated since many of the Japanese myths and folklore originated during those dark times. I love the fact that since everything was so dark back then, people would often see things that weren’t really there and made up stories to explain certain phenomena or just to keep children from misbehaving.

Inuyasha is full of Japanese folktales and magical creatures, and it clearly took inspiration from “Journey to the west”, a classic Chinese novel that’s one of the best adventure/ fantasy stories of all time, and that’s also been the main inspiration for many mangas and animes; it’s one of my favorites too.

Inuyasha’s background is one of the most interesting ones I’ve ever seen, it’s something common in fairy tales and myths where a human falls in love with a being from a magical race, like fairies, mermaids, gods, or in Asian folklore’s case, spirits or demons. In Inuyasha’s case, his mother was a human named Izayoi who fell in love with a powerful dog demon named Toga who was known as Inu no taisho (Dog general), animal spirits or demons can take human form, and the dog spirits are very common in Japanese folklore.

The third movie of Inuyasha shows us what Toga looked like before and how he died, and I’m actually more interested in how Inuyasha’s parents met more than his love triangle drama. In fact, Toga’s story sounds much more interesting because he was built up as this great demon lord who fought countless enemies, he was a gigantic dog monster that stopped a demon invasion from China, he could destroy multiple armies with one swing of a sword he forged from one of his fangs, he had disciples and loyal subjects, but he ultimately lost his status, he let his reputation be destroyed because he fell in love with a woman from a race that was considered inferior, and had a half demon child with her.

One of Inuyasha’s motivation’s (the main one being killing Naraku) is proving that he is stronger than his father who was a full demon, while Inuyasha himself is considered a weak half human who is unworthy of the tittle of being a descendant of Inu no taisho. Every time Inuyasha hears about a demon that his father couldn’t defeat in the past, he gets excited because, with the powerful sword his dad left him, he now has a chance to prove to everyone that he is not weak and that he is stronger than his father was.

Inuyasha never met his father because Toga died the very day he was born, so he was raised by his mother who died when he was still a child. His older brother, Sesshomaru, is a full demon that never really forgave his father for throwing his reputation away because of a human woman, and leaving him a magical sword that can also resurrect the dead instead of the one that can destroy numerous souls in one blow.

I’m not really sure, but I think the Sesshomaru from the beginning of the third movie looked like he was around Inuyasha’s age when Toga died.

Before:

After:

I like to think that’s the case.

Inuyasha’s background alone can hold up the entire series, as well as his tense relationship with his only living relative, however, the main focus is something else, something that I personally find very repetitive, boring, and even lame.

5. Is Naraku really worth it?

Note that I am not defending Naraku, he is unlikable, mainly because of all the bad things he’s done to the main characters, but the truth is that I don’t really hate him as much as I should, granted, he is a manipulative b*st**d and I don’t like him, but he is just evil for the sake of being evil in the story. If anything, I see him as pathetic.

Let’s see his main crimes: He cursed Miroku’s family, for some reason, killed Sango’s entire family by using her inexperience demon slayer little brother as a puppet, he basically conned Sesshomaru in hopes of killing Inuyasha, but most importantly, he is the reason Inuyasha and Kikyo broke up! :0

To me, Naraku is just a coward that likes to manipulate others for his own personal gain, he was born from a bandit named Onigumo who was burned in a fire after betraying the leader of his group of thieves so he could take his place, and allowed his bodied to be consumed by demons in order to get... Kikyo! The gross part is that Kikyo was like 15 at the time while he could easily be in his 20′s or 30′s. Kikyo, being a “saint”, found Onigumo’s burned body and nursed him in a cave, this ultimately made the bandit fall in love with her and allowed his body to be devoured by evil spirits in exchange for power, he was then reborn as Naraku who is basically a half demon like Inuyasha.

I heard that the manga didn’t really mentioned Naraku’s past life, but I think that’s for the best. Naraku became Inuyasha’s group’s ( and other characters’s) main target, but every single time they find him and think they got him cornered, he manages to escape in some way because of how much of a coward he really is. Because this happens over and over and over and over again in every season, it get’s tiresome and frustrating, to the point where I even ask myself: “Is this MF even worth it?!” Anyone would’ve just given up a long time ago. I liked it when they focused on fighting other demons and enemies with different motives, but after a while it was just Naraku, Naraku, Naraku!

At some point I even forgot what started this adventure in the first place, the Shikon Jewel shards that were accidentally shattered and scattered through out Japan! One shard alone can power up a demon, this idea alone makes it an interesting story, collect the shards before Japan is destroyed by overpowered demons and evil spirits, but no, turns out Naraku is collecting the shards too to the point that he already has a nearly complete jewel, well, that saves a lot of time!

I know, killing Naraku will get rid of Miroku’s wind tunnel curse, free Sango’s undead brother from his control, and Sesshomaru and other demons wanting revenge because he tried to use them, but what’s really Inuyasha’s beef with Naraku? Is he just mad because Naraku showed him just how totally incompatible he was with Kikyo? That’s what pisses me the most, to be honest.

As for Kagome, she definitely has no reason to be there, Naraku is the main antagonist and yet, he is kinda indifferent to Kagome. I don’t remember seeing Naraku doing anything bad to her or her family living in modern times that can be accessed through a magical well where he could easily... You know what? I’m done here.

Conclusion.

Inuyasha’s story has so much potential and yet it doesn’t take itself too serious. As I mentioned before, Inuyasha is treated more as a romantic comedy than a fantastical adventure kind of story. there is so much dept to the world building, but when focusing only on Inuyasha and Kagome falling in love, nothing else seem to matter. This could’ve worked if it had better writing. A simple or silly premise for a story can work if it has clever writing, something that Inuyasha really needed at times.

I liked to be surprised with clever writing in movies and shows, but if it was up to me, I’d definitely change a few things.

1. If you want a serious story, make Kagome be stuck in feudal Japan until the shards of the Shikon Jewel are recovered, or if this has to stay, don’t make the the stakes in the adventure so dire, either its a fantastical journey with two teenagers falling in love as the main focus, or a very serious adventure where their love is the only thing that can save the day.

2. Make Inuyasha and kikyo just friends, the love drama is unnecessary, specially since kikyo has almost no personality what so ever, unless you re-write her entire character. Or make Inuyasha fall in love with Kikyo, but Kikyo doesn’t feel the same and just sees him as a good friend, that at least would create some drama instead of the jealous ex-girlfriend that wants to kill everyone because she lost her chance in life.

3. Get rid of Naraku, the ultimate villain troupe gets tired very quickly, specially in a very long show that takes like 8 seasons to end. Or at least write him better and not turn the show into an endless chase for just one guy, specially since the main goal is to collect the shards of the Shikon jewel to destroy it once and for all.

This is just my opinion of course, and if you like the show just the way it is, then that’s alright, but seeing things you like with a critical eye, makes you appreciate them even more.

#Inuyasha #anime #my review #ick25

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somegirlsnerdywords2 · 4 years

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Anime i’ve Watched

Inuyasha:

Synopsis: Based on the Shogakukan award-winning manga of the same name, InuYasha follows Kagome Higurashi, a fifteen-year-old girl whose normal life ends when a demon drags her into a cursed well on the grounds of her family's Shinto shrine. Instead of hitting the bottom of the well, Kagome ends up 500 years in the past during Japan's violent Sengoku period with the demon's true target, a wish-granting jewel called the Shikon Jewel, reborn inside of her. After a battle with a revived demon accidentally causes the sacred jewel to shatter, Kagome enlists the help of a young hybrid dog-demon/human named Inuyasha to help her collect the shards and prevent them from falling into the wrong hands. Joining Kagome and Inuyasha on their quest are the orphan fox-demon Shippo, the intelligent monk Miroku, and the lethal demon slayer Sango. Together, they must set aside their differences and work together to find the power granting shards spread across feudal Japan and deal with the threats that arise. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

Status: Completed

My Rating: 7.5/10

Finished airing in 2001 with a total of 27 episodes.

Characters: The characters aren’t bad especially Kagome and Inuyasha, plenty of character growth in just 27 episodes which isn’t bad and i’m sure (or hopeful) that there’s plenty more to go. I like the other three in the main gang as well but I could really do without Miroku’s groping... that’s just nope... more to the point Kagome is only 15! 15 for christs sake. I’m not sure how old Sango is but that really isn’t the point. 15 or not it’s nasty and just a real low point of the anime. He could still be a womanizing sleez without the groping and peeping and such. Just not needed. In other news Sesshoumaru and Kikyou can go eat toads. Naraku can go rot.

Art/ Animation/ Character design: I don’t know if my internet connection was just a bit s**t but sometimes scenes where they pan over an area would move awkwardly slow. Did not enjoy that, was a bit jarring. Other then that the animation/ character design is pretty meh. Not bad but not amazingly breathtaking or anything. That being said...

Can I just get one thing out that drives me absolutely nuts about Kagome’s character design?! If you were going to be trekking across Feudal Japan fighting demons and such, would a school uniform with a freaking mini skirt really be your choice of outfit?! Like seriously wtf is up with that. We’ve seen her in other outfits (gif above for reference) so it’s not one of those shows where the characters never change their clothes so there is no conceivable reasoning for this in my opinion and it’s a fact that annoys me greatly.

Sound: It’s fine. Neither the opening or ending themes really stood out to me and I have nothing noteworthy to say about the rest of the sound aspects.

Story: Revenge, a hint of romance and a seemingly never ending quest to acquire all the pieces of an important magical item. You know the usual stuff.

Overall: Clearly i’m breaking this up into seasons like they do on the Wikipedia so this only covers those first 27 episodes. Which, by the way, the episode it ended on would have made a rather s**t season ender if you actually had to wait a long time to see the next one. I mean cool, Sango kind of accepts her place in the group and the water god was a a cool lady but very anti-climatic for a season ender.

Anywho enough of that. I originally caught a few episodes of Inuyasha when I was much younger, a fact that caused me to re-examine my entire life once I learned how surprisingly violent and kind of spooky many of the episodes were. I mean those things don’t much bother me now but I was simply shocked to know I watched at least some of this at such a young age.

What to say... overall the “first season” was alright I suppose. Some episodes were great, others I had to talk myself out of skipping or fast forwarding through. The nostalgia factor may be a large part of my score, though I honestly can’t be sure. Anywho... wish me luck as I attempt to watch the next bit... I fear many a filler episode is on its way. Exhausting.

#inuyasha #anime #action #adventure #comedy #historical #demons #supernatural #magic #romance #fantasy #shounen

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fae-fire · 5 years

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Qesh-Rae, Mystel Seer and Druid

basics ––––

NAME: Qesh-Rae AGE: 24 RACE: Mystel on the First Shard GENDER: Non-binary, they/them, androgynous presenting SEXUALITY: Pansexual MARITAL STATUS: Single, not looking SERVER: Balmung

physical appearance ––––

HAIR: Dark red, like fire. There are hints of lighter shades of red and gold in their hair too. Their hair extends past their shoulders and is usually adorned with gems and feathers. Some chunks are longer than others as Qesh cuts their own hair with a knife, so it’s not the neatest. EYES: Light grey-blue, almost white. Missing one. They cut it out to feed to a bird. HEIGHT: 5’3” BUILD: Small frame, lanky with more of a lean cut to them. They are by no means frail but they don’t doesn’t look like they’d do well in a fight…but they are built for speed and agility, not a fistfight. DISTINGUISHING MARKS: Tattoos across their body and face. Almost clan-like, but the lines intersect around gems inlayed in their skin. The tattoos are magic in nature, mimicking the leylines of their body. When they learn a new spell, a new tattoo is added. COMMON ACCESSORIES: Jewelry on their wrists and ankles, bits of feathers hang from their hair and clothes and ears. Sometimes they may wear so much jewelry that it clanks together when they walk. They carry a ceremonial sword. It’s purely just that. It has never seen battle.

personal –––-

PROFESSION: Tribal Mystel. Seer of prophetic visions and divinations of the past through people and objects. Village odd-ball and prophet, though rarely they are visited and have taken to wandering and poacher murdering. Druid. HOBBIES: Playing a wooden flute, charcoal painting, talking to birds, annoying people, studying magic and the land, herbs. Bird worship LANGUAGES: Common, their tribe’s language RESIDENCE: Rak’tika Greatwood, originally from the east on the First Shard but their tribe along with the council of tribes relocated to the Rak’Tika during the great flood. FEARS: A new moon, not dreaming at night, their power disappearing, snakes, shoes (wearing them), eating meat

relationships –––-

SPOUSE: None. CHILDREN: None. PARENTS: Birth parents are alive, but not of consequence SIBLINGS: None. OTHERS: Traveling with Tatch-Koa

traits –––-

extroverted / introverted / in between

disorganized / organized / in between

close minded /open-minded / in between

calm / anxious / in between

disagreeable / agreeable / in between

cautious / reckless / in between

patient / impatient / in between

outspoken / reserved / in between

leader / follower / in between

empathetic / unemphatic / in between

optimistic / pessimistic / in between

traditional / modern / in between

hard-working / lazy / in between

cultured / un-cultured / in between

loyal / disloyal / in between

faithful / unfaithful / in between

additional information –––-

SMOKING HABIT:

never / sometimes / frequently / to excess.

DRUGS:

never / sometimes / frequently / to excess.

ALCOHOL:

never / sometimes / frequently / to excess

In-Depth Details –––-

Aesthetically, I will be pulling from fire, etherial scenes, birds like hawks and owls, some gaelic druidism with some shinto and buddhist inspiration (thanks, dad >.>). Additionally, I will pull from nature, witchcraft, autumn colors, and other things of the like.

Qesh is a seer and druid. They have visions of the past and present and can divine from objects. They have no name for this ability or why it occurs but because of it, they have a specific, special place in their tribe. They’ve always had this divination ability, as long as they can remember. Their tribe is very magic and mystic based, and a lot of their druid-like magic comes from the markings on their body. Each symbol can invoke a specific element. Some can even summon small weapons made from their own aether. They have a small gem set into their forearm as a channel for such magic.

Qesh’s tribe reveres animals as gods, each one serving a different purpose in the world. Qesh in particular has a specific affinity for birds.

With their seer abilities and affinity for birds, Qesh–in a quest for more power–cut out their own eye and fed it to either a hawk or an owl (haven’t decided which yet). With that, they can transfer some of their own aether to that bird. They can use the bird to scout or spy ahead and see through its eyes.

Qesh’s tribe was originally not from the main continent, but further out where the Far East on the map would be in the woods their. Their tribe’s religious beliefs mirror a bit of shinto and buddhist beliefs. However, with the great flood Qesh’s tribe fled to the area around the Rak'tika Greatwood closer to where Tatch’s tribe.

Due to their tribal belief and their own connection with animals, Qesh doesn’t take lightly to poaching or killing of animals. They eat entirely plant-based (they’re vegan haha), and if they come into possession of animal remains, they will deal with them as one might deal with human remains with proper burial. Despite their own beliefs, if traveling with someone outside their tribe, while they won’t eat meat they will make sure that all the parts of the animal see use. Qesh won’t hesitate to hunt down poachers and those that defile and tread on sacred land and will kill them.

Qesh does have a bit of a morally superior, “I’m better than thou” attitude about their view of their world. Their visions, natural gift for magic and “connection to the world” make them believe that they are always right. That they can do no wrong and that they have the answer to any problem–or will be able to come up with the right answer if they can get a moment to think of one.

Due to Qesh’s attitude, they don’t deal with failure well and have been known to be driven to do some….pretty insane things to either stop their bad visions, make sure better visions come true and keep things on or off the path they foresaw.

Despite their prophet-like nature, I don’t see Qesh being very well liked in their tribe. They would be someone who people would go to for an emergency but not because they want to interact with them. They would be seen as very strange. And they are.

Qesh would be the type to randomly wander around, fall asleep in random places. Not wear shoes ever. Their movements would be eerily graceful, almost haunted.

In regards to their tattoos. Since it’s all magic, they’d add tattoos as new spells came to their mind. One spell I want is one that can shift their form to small/medium-sized animals like wolves, dogs, birds, etc. it’d be a difficult spell and one for extreme circumstances.

They cannot travel to the source.

what I’m looking for ––––

Anything really, though this is more of a profile post than actually LOOKING for new RP since I am busy IRL. I’d like to delve in to some plot based rp a bit more, make some connections, friends, enemies, contacts. Not looking for ships. I am open to other mystel RPers reaching out for headcanons and plotting, but I am not open for RP at the moment.

oocly, I am ––––

A nerd who Rps? Mostly darker RP that gets in on mature themes, etc.

I have a 9-5 job, pacific time and I run and exercise regularly. Replies from me won’t be instant.

I am a multi-paragraph RPer. I will usually match who I am RPing with, but I DO type a lot. You have been warned!! I don’t do one-line RP. If that is your style and you are annoyed by multiple paragraphs, I may not be the right partner for you.

I do a lot of darker RP with a lot of questionable themes. I am not the person to go to for tavern RP and constant casual RP. While Qesh can be social, I do have an FC for lighter RP and that’s not what I am looking for.

My rules for RP are still being made, but you can call me Rae. Pronouns are they/them.

you can contact me via ––

Tumblr DM. Discord upon request. Contacting me in game is not a good idea probably since I’m either afk or offline a lot.

@crystalxivrp @balmungrp @@mooglemeet

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romanceanimehaven · 4 years

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InuYasha

Title: InuYasha

English Translation: InuYasha

Genre: Romance, Historical, Supernatural, Comedy, Adventure

Synopsis:

“Based on the Shogakukan award-winning manga of the same name, InuYasha follows Kagome Higurashi, a fifteen-year-old girl whose normal life ends when a demon drags her into a cursed well on the grounds of her family's Shinto shrine. Instead of hitting the bottom of the well, Kagome ends up 500 years in the past during Japan's violent Sengoku period with the demon's true target, a wish-granting jewel called the Shikon Jewel, reborn inside of her. After a battle with a revived demon accidentally causes the sacred jewel to shatter, Kagome enlists the help of a young hybrid dog-demon/human named Inuyasha to help her collect the shards and prevent them from falling into the wrong hands. Joining Kagome and Inuyasha on their quest are the orphan fox-demon Shippo, the intelligent monk Miroku, and the lethal demon slayer Sango. Together, they must set aside their differences and work together to find the power granting shards spread across feudal Japan and deal with the threats that arise.”

Source - https://myanimelist.net/anime/249/InuYasha_TV?q=inuya

Number of Episodes:

Season 1 ~ 167 episodes

Season 2 (InuYasha: Kanketsu-hen) ~ 26 episodes

Season Premiered:

Season 1 - Fall 2000

Season 2 - Fall 2009

Movies:

InuYasha Movie 1: Toki wo Koeru Omoi (2001)

InuYasha Movie 2: Kagami no Naka no Mugenjo (2002)

InuYasha Movie 3: Tenka Hadou no Ken (2003)

InuYasha Movie 4: Guren no Houraijima (2004)

* note ; the watch order between the episodes and the movies are a bit complicated so I found a recommended order which I’ve put below *

1. Episodes 1 - 54

2. Movie 1

3. Episodes 55 - 95

4. Movie 2

5. Episodes 96 - 136

6. Movie 3

7. Episodes 137 - 167

8. Movie 4

Status:

Completed Airing

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inukag-4ever · 6 years

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Fanon Theory - Souls in InuYasha

AKA @inukag-4ever thinks that Midoriko, Kikyou, and Kagome all contain the same soul and are trapped in a karmic cycle and this is my evidence based essay thing on this.

soooooooo I’ve been seeing a theory floating around that Kagome isn’t Kikyou’s reincarnation. As much as I love fan theories, I just HAD to say something about reincarnation and the nature of souls in InuYasha, & add my 2 cents about how souls are viewed in InuYasha. I’m not going to be arguing that Kagome is Kikyou’s reincarnation - that’s something that’s confirmed without a doubt (just read chapter 47 + 48 in the manga). But is Midoriko the original soul of these two women? That’s unconfirmed.

🏹 Midoriko → Kikyou → Kagome 🏹

And for those of you who don’t know (so, like, everyone) I was actually a World Religions major with a specialty in Japanese Buddhism and Shintoism. So I have some background on this topic!

I will be arguing that not only is Kagome the reincarnation of Kikyou, but Kikyou is also the reincarnation of Midoriko. Here are my points:

I will be dividing this post into 3 sections: First, I will discuss the nature of souls in Eastern thought and InuYasha; my second point will be on inheriting skills from past lives; and lastly I will discuss karmic patterns.

First of all, @mustardyellowsunshine asked me a great question that I’d never considered: In the Japanese Buddhist/Shinto traditions, how is the soul viewed? I don’t have a comprehensive answer to this question since it’s not something that’s brought up too much in Buddhist texts. What I can confirm is that souls are considered eternal or “unkillable,” shall we say. After death, it is believed that the soul is either reincarnated or lingers on as a spirit for a while. There aren’t really any instances I’ve found in texts where a soul can be completely destroyed. That’s the simplified answer.

However, we see something interesting in InuYasha - the soul seems to be able to exist in 2 places at once. The easiest example of this would be when Kagome’s soul is sucked into Kanna’s mirror but is unable to be contained. Though Kagome is missing part of her soul, she is still able to move.

It also seems like the same happens when Kikyou is resurrected. Kagome is called a “shell” after her soul is sucked out of her and put into Kikyou’s body, but it seems that she’s still able to call her soul back to her (meaning she is not a shell, there must still be some part of her soul left inside).

But, after she calls her soul back, Kikyou is still able to move.

Urasue claims it’s because Kikyou’s filled with anger towards InuYasha. I’d like to argue that Urasue isn’t correct. We see throughout the series that Kikyou’s malice towards InuYasha disappears. Malice is not the only emotion she feels. In the end, she fills a Shikon shard with light so she can destroy Naraku. This doesn’t really read to me as someone who’s only able to remain alive because of anger. Since we know the soul can be split (and it cannot be destroyed) I would argue that part of Kagome’s soul, the part that was Kikyou perhaps, remained in her clay body.

Plus, I can argue that Kikyou’s soul returns to Kagome’s body after her death (while Kikyou’s borrowed souls are able to pass on). That’s what it looked like to me in the anime and manga!

We also know that Midorko’s soul existed within the Shikon Jewel (eternally battling youkai until Kagome broke the cycle), yet was also able to be one of Kikyou’s souls to sustain her body at the same time.

Here we see Kikyou’s shikigami deadass stealing Midoriko’s soul from her corpse somehow? Anyway.

Basically, it’s complicated. It looks like one soul can exist in many different places in InuYasha.

Next point: Inheriting Skills

In reincarnation thought, it is believed that one life builds upon the next. When one dies, her slate would not be erased. If someone commits a crime in one lifetime, there will be retribution in the next one. The same goes for positive actions! Plus, it’s believed the soul has a memory. (also this is a super simplified way of explaining it FYI karma is super complicated)

This brings me into Kagome’s spiritual powers. Kagome is BORN with very incredible ability. She easily accomplishes things Miroku won’t even attempt. See this panel, for example:

Bear in mind that Mirkoku was born into a family of of monks and has likely been in spiritual training his entire life. Plus, he is considered a high level monk. This is evidenced through his shakujo, aka gold staff thingy. Miroku has six rings (or khakkhara) on his staff, which would indicate that he is advanced in skills. Only the Buddha himself can carry a staff with more than 6 rings.

So how did Kagome get so powerful without any spiritual training whatsoever? Well, she did technically train quite a lot, just not in her lifetime as Kagome. Same goes for Kagome’s archery ability - this was a skill she mastered quickly in her lifetime as Kagome because of all the training that occurred during her lifetime as Kikyou.

It is well-known that Kikyou was a prodigy. Her sister Kaede, who trained as a miko for many more years than Kikyou, could never hold a candle to her older sibling’s abilities. And how did Kikyou become such a powerful priestess at such a young age? Well, because she’s the reincarnation of Midoriko! I’ll be arguing this in my last point on karmic patterns.

One last thing I’ll throw in though, is a point from one of my favourite and lesser known arcs. When Tsubaki is battling the inu-tachi, KIkyou is positive Kagome will defeat her.

This would be because Kikyou already defeated Tsubaki while she was alive, and Kagome has inherited Kikyou’s spiritual powers and then some.

Karmic Patterns/Cycles

Before I get into the meat of this argument, first I will discuss something very important that was left out of the anime!!! And it’s a damn shame too, because this is a very interesting point.

Uuuh, yup. The exact same thing happened to Midoriko that happened to Kikyou. Gross dude falls for hot miko, he gives his soul to a bunch of youkai so he can tap dat, it all goes wrong and it ends in the hot miko’s demise.

It’s not a coincidence. When one makes a mistake in a past life, she is given the opportunity again and again to learn from it, or fail and remain trapped in the cycle of birth and death. FYI, one of the main goals in Buddhism is to release oneself from the pattern of being reborn because life is suffering.

So Kikyou attempted to fix the mistakes she made in her previous lifetime as Midoriko. When she died, she tried to destroy the jewel by burning it with her body. But since its the Jewel of Four Souls, and MADE UP of souls, it’s not something that can be destroyed by fire. In order to destroy the jewel, the karmic cycle needed to be broken.

Kagome is the one tasked to destroy the jewel; she was born with the jewel in her body, after all!! Her life task was to fix the mistakes she made in her lifetimes as Midoriko and Kikyou, and break the karmic pattern.

For the record, here are the past indiscretions Kagome made as her lifetimes as Midoriko and Kikyou (from an Eastern/Buddhist perspective):

Midoriko was too attached to her life in her earthly body. So instead of dying when she should have, she cast out her soul and formed the Shikon Jewel (inevitably causing chaos and death)

Kikyou was going to make the wrong wish (a selfish wish) on the Shikon Jewel (turning InuYasha into a human would’ve been super selfish ultimately and it would’ve continued the pattern of the jewel)

Kikyou resisted her fate as a priestess and longed to be an ordinary woman (this wish was actually fulfilled in her lifetime as Kagome)

LASTLY, Kikyou almost flat out says that Midoriko and her have the same soul when she uses it to live for just a little while longer:

I don’t really know what the original Japanese is or how this was translated. I’d be curious to know, since in the anime Kikyou actually does say that Midoriko and she have the same soul (again, I don’t know if this is a translation thing or an anime adaptation thing so I can’t rely on this point as my main piece of evidence).

This is a theory I consider quite easy to argue since I’ve always assumed it was Rumiko Takahashi’s intention that Midoriko ↝ Kikyou ↝ Kagome and just from the sheer volume of textual evidence, but I’ve been wanting to lay this all out!

That’s it!! I’ve been sitting on this post for a while and damn, I’ve been meaning to post it. Please feel free to send me questions about any of this if you’re interested!!! imma tag some people who may be interested in this too: @gypsin@inuyashasforest @adorableears7 and some chicas who idk if they’ll find this interesting but i think they might so i’ll tag em @lacyjaybird @inukag @kags09 @inunanna (& as always sorry if I missed someone, I’ve been out of this fandom sphere for a hot minute thanks to my life being so hectic)

Thanks to those who read!! <3

#inuyasha #inuyasha fan theory #inuyasha fanon #fanon #fan theory #kagome #reincarnation #kikyo #kikyou #midoriko

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ruffsficstuffplace · 7 years

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The Keeper of the Grove (Part 85)

After Winter and Weiss smothered their sadness in delicious frozen dairy product, Taiyang left to go cook dinner ready for everyone, while Winter laid down in her nest, cuddling Eluna while Penny pulled out and placed as many of her plushies as she could around and top of her.

“Are you going to be alright, Winter?” Weiss asked as she sat next to her.

“No, not for a long, long time...” Winter replied as she stared up at the ceiling, eyes still red. “I just need to lie down for a while. Feel free to join me! … Actually, please do...”

Weiss frowned. “Sorry, sis, I think I need to get rid of my excess magic first...” she muttered as she looked at her gloved hand. “It’s starting to hurt.”

“Then can we have a sleepover later like we did last time?”

Weiss smiled. “I was already planning to.”

Winter smiled back. “I’ll see you later, Weiss.”

“See you later, Winter.”

“Would you like me to join you in case another incident occurs with your powers?” Penny asked as she opened a new crate of plushies.

Weiss shook her head. “I’ll just take a few soul stones and anti-magic grenades, thanks...”

Penny opened a compartment in her chest and handed them to Weiss, then back to her and Ruby’s room she went to collect Myrtenaster and the rest of her weaver’s armour.

It was strange how it could the room was almost exactly as she’d left it—warmly lit from the sun pouring in through the windows, her and Ruby’s piles of belongings scattered about everywhere in semi-organized chaos, that familiar smell of earth, mud, animals, and chocolate chip cookies—yet feel so different even if she was only gone for a day-and-a-half.

(Though be fair, it was a very long, eventful day-and-a-half.)

It used to be that just coming in through the door made Weiss relaxed and happy, as it was usually the end of another day of learning, training, and working; getting some much needed sleep and respite from whatever was going wrong in her life at the time; and time alone with Ruby, be they their more intimate moments, or just hanging out and relaxing.

But now it just made her feel… afraid? Sad? Angry? Regretful? Confused? She didn’t know what exactly, but she it caused than same aching feeling in her chest back in Abner’s holding cell.

As she left the room, she saw the Summer plushie sitting in Ruby’s nest.

Her words echoed in her head: “… Can I borrow her when I’m sad?”

How did Ruby react, after she left Weiss’ cell and went out of Abner’s lab, back to Keeper’s Hollow? Weiss knew from experience how good you could get at maintaining a facade, never letting other people know what it was you were feeling, holding them back and acting like nothing was wrong until you could let go in private, if the emotions hadn’t faded in the meanwhile.

She was interrupted by her hand aching—the feeling was starting to go from “muzzled snout” to “choke-chain being pulled far too hard.”

Weiss closed the door behind her, massaged her hand as she headed to the training grounds.

Weiss stood in front of the Punching Rock, its surface scarred by fresh blade marks and new, fist-sized dents since the last time she had trained there.

She flicked her gauntlet’s safety switch off, cried out and clutched her wrist as thick clouds of frost burst out from her hand. It didn’t freeze her skin thanks to her equipment, but her whole arm still ached and throbbed, like she had been sleeping on it wrong the whole night.

She thrust her gloved hand out to the Rock, a tiny blizzard erupting from her fingers and forming a several feet-thick sheet of ice over it. Once the magical pins and needles sensation started to fade, Weiss pulled out Myrtenaster, and set to work hacking and tearing it apart with barrages of icicles, beams of high pressure water, or slashes with her sword, magic flying out of the blade and lashing and slicing the ice like whips.

It started to cracked and break apart, in clouds of frost, rains of sharp shards, or giant chunks falling off and landing to the ground with heavy thuds. And when she could almost see the bedrock underneath once more, she summoned a new blizzard, and did it all over again.

The estimated cost of her spells hadn’t changed in the slightest, but her mana bar had doubled in size, and every spell was exponentially more powerful than it ever was before—as if all this time, something had been holding her back, and it only chose to break now.

Weiss wasn’t too bothered—it wasn’t as if the problems in her life had ever decided to be courteous and come one-at-a-time, waiting for one issue to be solved before the next arrived. “When it rains, it pours...” she muttered as she raised Myrtenaster up, magic spiraling out of the tip and turning into a giant, localized storm.

Boom!

It began to rain all over the training grounds, drops crashing on the frozen face of the Rock, the dirt turning into mud, and Weiss feet sinking into the ever growing muck. She stood there for a while, watching the ice rapidly crack and melt, feeling the rain pelt her body, drops pouring over her mask’s optics and the mist rising up from the ground clouding her vision.

Then she raised Myrtenaster up, and whirled it around in the air once more.

The clouds swirled around as they should have, but none of them broke apart, or rushed back into her sword.

Weiss scowled. “Okay, that’s enough! You can stop now!”

It kept on raining.

Weiss cast a dispel “bubble” at the clouds. It exploded, and the storm weakened for a moment, before it resumed pouring.

Weiss groaned. “I’m your weaver! I made you! You can’t just turn on me like this!”

Splash!

A concentrated burst of water hit Weiss in the face, she growled as she wiped it off with her gloved hand. She grabbed one of the anti-magic grenades on her belt, pulled the pin, and tossed it straight into the heart of the storm.

Whoom.

A wave of purple energy erupted from the grenade, the clouds shriveling up and rapidly dissipating back into the air as pure magic. The sky over the training grounds was still foggy and grim, and it had done nothing for the mud or the mist, but at least it wasn’t raining any more.

Weiss flicked the safety of her gauntlet back on, slogged through the mud and to the fountain on the side. She washed off the worst of the muck, before she pulled her mask and hood off, and sat down to meditate.

“Attune yourself to how you feel at that very moment,” Glynda had said, and right now, she was pretty sure she was feeling pissed, angry, and frustrated. But the longer she spent sitting under the waterfall, she felt those feelings drain away, new ones pouring in and making her feel depressed, lonely, and hurt.

Weiss sighed, feeling her eyes sting as her body tried to shed tears she didn’t have, not after earlier.

“Excuse me, Weiss?”

Weiss opened her eyes and mouth, flailed and sputtered as water poured right into them. She leaned out of the waterfall, blinked her vision clear and spat until her mouth was empty. She looked up, and saw Pyrrha standing a polite distance in front of her, wearing a simple red dress that had the sleeves cut off, her skirt and ankles covered in mud.

“Yes…?” Weiss asked.

“Your form is off,” Pyrrha said. “Your shoulders are tensed, and you should really be trying to keep them relaxed.”

Weiss blinked. “How do you know how water weaver’s meditate?”

“It’s almost exactly like Misogi, from the Old World,” Pyrrha explained. “And before you ask: I learned that on a trip to Solaris, where I lived in a Shinto monastery in the mountains for a few months.”

“I, uh… thank you.”

Pyrrha smiled. “You’re welcome.”

Weiss paused for a moment. “Do you mind if I ask what you’re doing here?”

“I was planning on doing some training then meditation myself,” Pyrrha replied. “It’s how I relax, seeing as praying, reading Piper’s Logs, or seeking guidance from a custodian or a steward never really did it for me.”

Weiss blinked. “That’s, ah...”

“Surprising?” Pyrrha offered. “Ironic? Not at all what you expected from the direct descendant of the original Holy Shepherd, and one of the highest leaders of the Church itself?”

Weiss paused. “… Yes, that.”

“I can hold it off if you need me to help make sure your form is correct,” Pyrrha said. “Or if you need my help for anything else—it’s also what I’m doing here.”

Weiss smiled. “As the Holy Shepherd, swooping in to protect and comfort those in need?”

Pyrrha frowned. “As just Pyrrha, who would like to be your friend, if you don’t mind...” she smiled. “I can still offer counseling and advice, though.”

Weiss offered her bare hand. “Then I’ll take the second.”

Pyrrha took it, and effortlessly pulled Weiss up in spite of the deep mud she was standing in. Weiss paused as she found herself standing right in front of Pyrrha, feeling the strength and firmness of her grip, seeing how defined the muscles were all over her arms, the hints at much the same for the rest of her body.

She wasn’t exactly on Ruby’s level, but it was like the difference between 3rd and 1st placers at the Summit Games—a difference of just a few seconds, repetitions, or pounds.

Pyrrha smiled. “Like I said: training and meditation,” she said as she let go of her hand.

Weiss blushed and nodded as she turned around and picked her mask up from the side of the fountain, and clipped it to her belt. “Right...”

For all the mud, the two of them ended up perching on one of the giant roots of a tree deeper in the swamp.

Pyrrha climbed on first, then helped pull Weiss up; they stopped and enjoyed the scenery for a while, watching and listen to all the wildlife rushing back to their homes, or fitting in as much activity as they could before the day ended and night began.

“Would you like to tell me what’s eating at you?” Pyrrha asked. “Or would you like to just chat for a while?”

“The first,” Weiss replied.

Pyrrha placed her hands in her lap and smiled. “Then I’m ready to listen.”

“Have you learned about the big secret of the Keepers and their mates already?”

Pyrrha nodded. “Qrow explained it to the rest of us, after he got out of Winter’s cell.”

Weiss looked out to the water. “Then you know what’s my problem right now...”

“How do you feel about it?”

“That it’s fucked up, and it’s even more fucked up that no one ever bothered to tell me earlier—not even Ruby…” Weiss frowned, her voice began trembling. “I thought after all we’d been through, how much she knows I hate the Council keeping all their secrets, her commitment to being honest, she’d tell me something like this before we got together, before everything that just happened, before circumstances were forcing her to spill it...”

“I mean, isn’t this the most messed up thing you’ve ever heard?! Who would willingly start a family with someone knowing full well that their children are going to have the fate of the realm thrust on their shoulders from birth, and they wouldn’t have a choice in the matter?!”

Pyrrha smiled. “It’s not, actually considering it’s almost exactly the same as what happened with me and my parents—though I suppose ‘Head of State of Avalon’s Oldest and Largest Religion/Government,’ isn’t as impressive as ‘Slayer of Soul Eaters and Other Realm-Threatening Horrors.’

Weiss blinked. “Oh… right.” She paused. “… Sorry...”

Pyrrha chuckled. “It’s fine.”

It was quiet for a while, just the sounds of birds singing, frogs croaking, and the rustling of bushes and branches.

“… How do you deal with it…?” Weiss asked. “Having all this responsibility thrust on you just because of who your parents were, what you are because of them?”

“The only thing I could do: figure out what I can and want to do about it.

“I could have chosen to go along with the Stewards’ plan, played along with their grooming me from day one to be the perfect spokesperson and figurehead, do everything they asked me to do:

“Endorse candidates I know will stop being ‘for the people’ as soon as they get the position and start being ‘for themselves’; using my pardoning powers to save a very generous tither from going to jail for corruption, preferably before the investigators discover how many Church officials were in on it; smile and tell right to the faces of people who don’t know any better that everything the Stewards do is for the greater good, that the funding for their food bank is getting cut for some much more pressing need that has even more dire consequences for all of us.

“… Or I could go with what my conscience was saying, follow the standards my mother, her father, and our ancestor Piorina Nikos stood by:

“Refuse to give my blessing to any candidate, tell people to vote for who they think should lead them, not who their Church official of choice says; not sign the pardon, let the Peacekeepers find out just where those misled funds were going and who were getting cuts to keep it undercover; smile, and tell those same people that no, your funding will not be cut, and I will fight for your right to eat proper food—especially if the money that would have gone to them would put more in the pockets of people who’ve already lined the inside of their clothes with 1,000 Uroch bills with pure etherite thread for the stitching.

Pyrrha looked at Weiss and smiled. “Destiny isn’t inherently a bad thing.

“It’s good to have something to live up to, motivation to aim high and fly higher, something that can help give you direction, as Piper knows a LOT of us would really like someone to tell us exactly what we should be doing with our lives!

“But you should always remember that it isn’t inevitable, that you don’t have to follow it, and that you can always break away and forge your own path.”

She looked out to the water, got a far-off look in her eyes. “Especially when that legacy turns from something to keep a ragtag fleet of outcasts, refugees, and ex-convicts from killing each other, improve everyone’s lives, and become their guide for a better life in the New World, into something that drives them apart all over again, that ruins entire generations of their descendants for the benefit of a select few, that becomes the very thing they fled the Old World for in the first place...”

All was silent for a while once more as Pyrrha hung her head, eyes turned to the water.

“Are the problems in the Church really that bad…?” Weiss aksed.

Pyrrha sighed as she looked up. “Worse. As it was from the time when Valentino was its head, the Sacred Stewards are VERY good at keeping awful secrets secrets, and putting a positive spin on anything that leaks out, no matter how terrible.

“The Holy Shepherd had its time, but it is long past. It’s why I’m not planning on going back to the Nexus any time soon—preferably, forever.”

Weiss frowned. “Are you sure this is a good idea? Your defection’s already causing a LOT of chaos all over Avalon.”

Pyrrha shrugged. “Only time will tell! But what I do know is that I may still be supporting something I don’t fully agree with, but at least here, I can be just Pyrrha Nikos—no forced appearances at public events and major holidays, no PR teams drilling me on exactly how to act and talk, no one forcing me to keep a giant charade alive, even if it kills me inside to gives so many people so much false hope.

“Sure, the Council is still a manipulative and secretive government who’s morally questionable at best, but at least they’re honest about it, and try to be constructive about how they shape the world around them to their benefit—after all, where would we all be, if it weren’t for the ‘groundbreaking innovations’ of ‘our’ great scientists during the Neo-Renaissance…?” she said, pulling out her Fae-made comm-crystal before idly turning it in her hands..

“The Fae still aren’t the company I’d keep if I had the choice, but it wasn’t as if Piper didn’t do great things in spite of who she had for her crew, the people she had to rely on when it was all hands on deck.

“But at the very least, the Council is offering me an out, and unlike the Stewards, I feel I can trust their word on that.” She paused and blushed. “… That I can be with Penny without people judging me is also nice.”

“Do you really think you two could work out?” Weiss asked. “I’m asking honestly here, to be clear.”

Pyrrha shrugged again. “I don’t know, but I’m willing to find out!” She smiled at Weiss. “You know, I’ve always had a problem with people saying they ‘we just knew we were perfect for each other’ as if they could see in the future, like there’s someone out there for whom you will magically, effortlessly click with just you, like those model-specific cables they had for computers in the Old World, before everything went completely wireless.

“But to quote your grandfather: ‘What we should really be saying is “I knew I was willing to take a risk, and make it work.”’”

She looked at Weiss. “I suppose that’s what you should be asking yourself, with you and Ruby: are you willing to take the risk, see if you can make it work? If you can be with her in spite of you and your children being roped into the thick of a millennium-old institution? If, like my parents and all my ancestors before me, being in a relationship and starting a family with that specific person would all be worth it?”

Weiss looked down. “I don’t know...”

Pyrrha patted her on the shoulder. “You’ll figure it out eventually—your meditation should help greatly, as it did with mine.”

“Could you help me do it right, then?” Weiss asked.

Pyrrha smiled. “Of course.”

Pyrrha jumped down, caught Weiss, and the two headed back to the training grounds and to the fountain.

Weiss’ form was still off and she was clearly a long, long way from being able to sit perfectly still like the senior weavers, but it was a lot less unpleasant with Pyrrha helping her out.

#white rose #rwby #fanfic #the keeper of the grove

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legendaryedhplays · 7 years

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Magic Design History - Legendary Creatures

Hello everybody, we’ve finally reached 2017 and I have returned from a night of heavy drinking to dive into an aspect of Magic with you to discuss the history of it’s development. This installment will focus on an aspect near and dear to my heart and the larger purpose of this blog, Legendary Creatures!

This topic has a number of story points, in fact its probably more nuanced than I’m even choosing to outline. That said, this could be a long one!

In the Beginning…

In the beginning, there were no Legendary Creature (Legends for the sack of my fingers). Actually, there were no multicolored cards either. I guess that is kind of important for my story.

Then came Legends in June of 1994 as the third non-Core Set expansion. This set was designed mostly before the official release of Magic and brought about the idea of Legendary Creatures - specific people who existed in the world we were visiting. To highlight these characters - who by the way, many were based on the designers’ D&D campaigns - the choice to flip the script was made and they made as Magic’s first multicolored cards. Every one of them.

As a history lesson, I believe the Legend Rule started out being that if I had Dakkon Blackblade out any new copies of Dakkon Blackblade would immediately go to the graveyard when played, thus marooning all other copies in either players’ hands. Because, like, why bother casting a spell that was just going to the graveyard?

I feel this addition to Magic canon was hugely important. But I am biased as I participate in a format that is driven by the quality of Legendary. It is funny to think though that Gold cards were also introduced here and many players will never know realize that all Legends in Legends were Gold and all Gold cards were Legends.

Continuing Trends

Because Legends was an expansion existing before the official release of Alpha, that means that sets following it were aware of legends during their design. That meant that Legends became apart of every set, by my research. So the trend of kicking out a handful of Legends began and with the Legend Rule in its beginning state, it became a design tool to help control the power level of some cards deemed too powerful in multiples. This would be the design philosophy for Legends for the next three years.

I don’t know that anything remarkable happened in this era, this is a point in design that I often flip through in hopes of finding a creature worth building around for it’s color identity and abilities. I am often disappointed. As the next section’s influences begin to come into focus, some of the Legends designed before Tempest would get retrofitted into the story.

Introducing Story

As I stated before - and is terribly obvious - Legends are fabled people existing in the worlds we visit and some time around 1997 - with the release of Weatherlight and Tempest - the cards started introducing more story elements. This meant the Legends being printed began showcasing the characters of those stories. I think this was a great choice that pulled in or retained many of the community personalities we love that identify as a Vorthos.

The story that started it roots in Weatherlight ran through the next four blocks and culminated in the final set of the Invasion block, Apocalypse. Through out all of this, Legends like Mirri and Gerrard were being featured on cards to help showcase their place in the story. My one complaint during this era was that aside from a few characters like Ertai and Croax, we never saw more than one card appearance of characters, leaving the players with no sense of the character’s arc.

Everyone is Legendary

Around the tail end of 2004 Magic took a trip to the new plane of Kamigawa, a Japanese-Shinto inspired world that made the mistake of putting Creative before Design - making for an ill-received block - and now us Samurai enthusiasts must forever pay the price. This was also where the Legend Rule was retooled to make any copies beyond the first destroy all copies of a Legendary Permanent with the same name.

The giant flag waving over all of the Kamigawa block was that it was featuring Legendary Permanents in mass - 163 by my count. Suddenly everything was legendary, including the enchantments and lands and sort of the spells. I think this is real cool in concept, but in the 13 years since, I can see how it might have lessened the special nature of Legends in one way or another.

I personally loved this influx of Legends as a Commander player, because more than half were not linear to build with. The major set back was that Kamigawa was almost entirely mono colored and meaning we were never given allied/enemy paired Legends for any of the tribes used such as Samurai, Ninja, Foxes or Rats.

Thankfully, the following year - Ravnica block - also featured Legendary Creatures in high numbers - 20 in total - and brought about allied/enemy creatures that would also prove to be relatively open-ended once Commander gained popularity. This was an important block in Magic history, because it gave an identity to each of the two-color pairs, something that wasn’t defined until 2006.

Lastly, from a lore prospective, this era of Legends were a mixed bag of important to the stories being told in the novels and completely unmentioned.

Displaced Heroes

Capping off a prolonged period of Legends, Time Spiral block could be described as a nostalgia block. Occupying the space that I see Commander products slowly embracing more and more, the designers turned their attentions to defining the characters of early Magic in card form, sometimes being as fleeting as appearing in flavor text of one card. Thankfully we were not restricted mono colored creatures this time around.

This was another stage of design that I think had it’s ups and downs. Part of the nostalgia also meant making the creatures feel like cards from their respective ages of design. In some cases this made for really interesting designs, like Ib Halfheart or Jhoira of the Ghitu, but (to me) there was a large batch of confusing designs that were more in-jokes than anything, like Mangara of Corondor, Tivadar of Thorn or Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder.

While I think this was an important time in Magic design, I don’t look as fondly back on this time as I might Kamigawa or Ravnica. And while I would more than love another Time Spiral block, I think it’s more for the wink-nod designs of the cards filling the entire set than the Legends specifically. In my eyes, this was a weak point in design, as the Legends were often confusing, though not yet pandering.

The Rise of Commander

Now we’ve reached Magic circa 2009, and the rise of Commander.

Fun fact: Commander was popularized in the 2008-2010 era, but its roots have been said to go as far back as a 1995 Duelist article, with the format being cultivated in 2001 [x]

As the 100-card singleton format began to take root in the general Magic community - and designers started designing towards it - the use of Legends evolved and their significance began to ramp up. Suddenly, the state of being legendary and the colors that creature occupied were a huge deal. In this era we also saw the Legend Rule change with Theros, now Legendary things only exploded if they occupied the same side of the battlefield.

The reasoning for this explosion in popularity, to me, comes from the release of Shards of Alara and the heavy influx of 3-color Legends, many of which were also well suited for themed decks or archetypes. My one gripe being that many of the Legends in Shards block were very linear. But Wizards heard the community’s love for the format and gave us Magic the Gathering: Commander in 2011, which took the number of wedge colored cards from a handful to double digits.

But that leads up to the final or better yet, most recent, point in the design of Legends…

The Fine Line

So now Wizards is going out of their way to design a product for us, becoming yearly in 2013. And with this attention towards Commander, I think two things began to come into focus:

1) The Commander community started complaining when a Legend didn’t work well in the format.

2) Wizards tried to give us what we asked for, but missed the mark.

Truthfully, both points have merits to both sides of the issue.

With the first point, Commander players got a bit of big head, Dragonlord Kolaghan probably being the best example in recent memory. Yes, Kolaghan is legend, sadly it doesn’t work well or at all in Commander.

We want cool legends, and it sucks when one of a cycle doesn’t fit into the Commander mold. But maybe it wasn’t designed for us. Or maybe just the being a Dragon part was.

The second issue more leans towards my hatred of being pandered to, I liked Kamigawa block because the Legends were never built with Commander in mind and thus, they worked as both build arounds and just unique creatures. With Wizards constructing creatures per our requests, it was nice, but there was a communication error that would occur (see Ulrich or the not-yet-confirmed lack of a UR legend that cares about artifacts in Aether Revolt).

And so, as much as I want to knock on @markrosewater‘s door and request specific things, it takes some of the fun out for me. Though, it does make the game I love feel more approachable.

The End…

Man, are you still here? Wow. Thanks.

So, we’ve just covered a solid 1000+ words on my thoughts about the design of Legendary Creatures across Magic’s history. I hope I educated and not just spouted my shallow thoughts, because this took a lot of research and several attempts on my part. What did I skip over that I could highlight in the future? Where would you like to see the series go in the future?

Either way, thanks for any feedback and I hope to catch you later!

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