flemmings | Uncooperative: does not play well with others

So in My Own Private Yuletide here where I endeavour to write a 100 Demons fic, sort of for

mikeneko featuring one of those certified squick pairings she mentioned a ways back, I'm being tripped up by the fact that Aoarashi is essentially, stubbornly and akumademo a comic character. He will not angst properly. He will not seek the pale reflection of Kagyuu in a living descendant of his blood. I mean, he will, but he won't say that's what he's doing because he doesn't know himself and I don't think under the circs that Ritsu will be able to figure it out. 'Ah! If only I had been master of this body when Kagyuu was alive, if only I had realized the possibilities of corporality then, how much I could have done!' is a nice line but not one Aoarashi will ever say. This story is turning into humour because I can't make it do anything else. (morose) I'm sure it would work fine if I could draw it but I can't draw. So I may have to resign myself to writing 100 Demons yaoi as the Chinese fen do: out of character.

But *why* need it be OOC? Ima's viewpoint is comic but it's only a viewpoint. One should be able to look at the same circumstances from a serious pov without losing the essence of the character.

What I think is at the heart of this, and what's not said clearly anywhere, is what making a contract with a shikigami does to either the shikigami or onmyouji involved. Sure, it looks like pure compulsion in most cases, but I think there's more involved in this particular one. We know from the first grandfather story that Aoarashi- a disembodied and formless spirit then, perhaps only a primitive intelligence- is drawn to Kagyuu. We know that humans who see youkai thereby attract the youkai's attention and interest: but with Aoarashi there's nothing to see at that point. Something about Kagyuu himself drew this amorphous spirit. The pot story suggests that there's some kind of basic and fundamental connection between spirit and onmyouji, so that when Aoarashi hears Kaggyuu's voice his reflex and unthinking response is to obey it. That looks like something much more visceral than slavery and servitude to me. And then there's the little Ritsu visits the youkai story, where the old lady youkai says that humans and youkai used to make contracts but the humans always broke their side of the bargain. 'And the youkai broke theirs' Ritsu retorts, and she agrees. What do we have here? A mutual and natural attraction that never works to either side's good: a kind of love (maybe closer to sexual attraction than emotional) that simply can't work.

The only problem being that I have no idea what might attract humans to youkai. (Youkai to humans is simple: they live on spirit strength. Humans have a certain kind and youkai want it.) The parallel to western fairies won't do, because the fairies in those tales are always beautiful, while the general run of youkai are merely bizarre. Kai's bald horned demons come to mind: who'd want that in their lives? What do youkai give humans? Power? But it always seems a pretty limited and unreliable power, one that usually has to be compelled in the first place and that carries great risks. Onmyouji are looking more and more like those incomprehensible males who need to risk their necks for the fun of... risking their necks, basically. Racers and mountain climbers and such-like. The notion that an onmyouji becomes an onmyouji from a bad case of testosterone poisoning is unpleasing. It's not aesthetic, and I want my onmyouji to be aesthetic. The sad truth is that maybe they aren't.

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Maybe it's not so much the physical thrill of risking their neck, as the temptation of the unknown. I may be reading this wrongly, but in a highly ordered society where proper tatemae is proper tatemae, is there any sort of thrill in a contract with a being who doesn't obey the rules? Who has his own set of rules and who you can't predict?

Hm, not sure I'm putting this well. I'm half remembering a line from somewhere, where someone says "What do you want me to say?" and the other person replies, "I want you to tell me something that I do not know."

Except that these are doomed anyhow, because the closer the youkai draws to humanity, the more comprehensible by humanity it becomes, and that frisson, that sheer thrill of discovery and uncertainty, that walking in the darkness and exploring, is lost. So you do it again.

I may have got this quite wrong, in which case, apologies.

You may have something there. Youkai as yakuza, basically, though most people keep their yakuza fascination purely theoretical. Well, but youkai are indeed everywhere in popular folk culture, much like yakuza films. Shivery tales for hot nights: but the occasional person can see the youkai, and at that point the youkai start noticing him, and the temptation of the Other opens up. 'Well, since I seem to find myself living in a yakuza part of town, maybe I should get a tattoo too.' (The odd thing is that IIRC Ima never does a story about someone who can see youkai and who then sensibly runs a mile from them. Even Ritsu who was terrified of them as a child turns around and acquires his own shikigami. Oh. No, wait. Ritsu's mother may very well be someone who sees things and sensibly pretends she doesn't: and pretends so well that no one really knows if she does or not, though Ritsu has said a couple of times that he's sure she sees more than she lets on.)

One thing that's emphasized in the last book is the fact that youkai who spend a long time with humans start acting like humans. That's a joke with Aoarashi, whose response in a spiritual emergency is 'Shouldn't we call 911?', but it can have quite serious consequences. Akama's reflex youkai violence to humans has become a deliberate cat and mouse sadism- still amoral but prompted by a very human curiosity at what these creatures will do next. The question is, does the human who lives with youkai take on youkai characteristics? The answer with Kagyuu seems to be no (I think she's reworking Kagyuu towards sainthood myself) but I'm not so certain about other members of his family.

I'm currently also slightly biased by having some Bujold floating around at the back of my head, as I've been rereading The Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls, and the demons in those cosmologies. Creatures that acquire individual complexity from their hosts, working upwards from basic animal motivations/potential to taking things like languages, skills, personality structure, and ultimately consciousness from human hosts. That doesn't really fit here, but I do have the feeling that there's some sort of parallel, if only I could see it.

Oh, now that sounds promising. There is a parallel there, I think, since Aoarashi is given his physical shapes- all of them- by Kagyuu's magic; and the first shape is born from Kagyuu's grief and anger at the tragic results of his own weakness. So he turned his invisible spirit companion into a dragon, and I think we're to understand that Kagyuu's determination decided Aoarashi's basic nature. Then when the dragon form was, for whatever reason, not sufficient, Kagyuu created the human-youkai one. What else Aoarashi might have picked up from being, as he says, always at Kagyuu's side is an interesting subject for speculation.

I must read the Bujolds then.

The Bujolds are worth the read. Paladin of Souls has more on the demons, though Curse of Chalion comes first, and is probably needed to get the full impact of the background.

There's also some interesting discussion in them on the difference between partnering with the demon on a more equal level, as opposed to dominating the demon and then later having it probably dominate you and eat what's left (mentally speaking).

Oo-er. The last one was so good, and there will be another? I can't think of a single thing I've done this past year that was worthy of a reward from anyone (the opposite, if anything), but I'm just going to pat my gift horse and feed it an apple!

Or that nice incest notion with sexy Uncle Kai . . . Huh, I don't know whence this trend I've observed of late where people think of myriad squicks -- then think of me. I can't think where this is coming from. I mean, furry necrophilia slash isn't *that* squicky, 'ticularly not if they're wearing aprons. More apples!

Thank you very much for xmas card. :D Also, you and ttg were super extra chou sympa to encourage (though the ungrateful wretch was too busy flailing and freaking out to respond coherently).

The gift horse is still only half there and it may not be the front half, so don't speak too soon. And, well, you throw out these teasing comments, you know, like 'I'd read it', and then one is inspired to act on them. Quite simple really. (I won't ask about the furry necrophilia slash. Anyway 'furry' and its negative image is a modern construct. Anthropomorphized animals are perfectly respectable where I come from. So is slash. Dead anthropomorphized animals are, well, I'm sure they can be done well in the right hands.)

The pat-pat-there-there-dear response to flailing friends is instinctive. I'm sure you'd do the same were I ever to indulge one of my 'I suck I write like a twelve year old only with bigger words' fits in company.

Feeling completely uneducated here, nevertheless I'll plunge on.

Just to drop you a thank you line, for your card which actually arrived two days ago. My girl loves the card. It is pretty and different.

Has pride of place on *her* side because she *is* the boss. ^__~

Big sisters are like that. Have good holidays, and I hope it's stopped raining.

The gift horse is still only half there and it may not be the front half

So-o that means . . . Where does this apple go?

(The irony here is that once again I turned out the mildest of het-gen. :)

Where does this apple go?

A question not to be asked.

The irony here is that once again I turned out the mildest of het-gen

Mh? the furry necrophilia was possibly you? oh wait (wheels click) animals... known mike fandoms... ohhhhh could it be...?

Ah hahah. No, this year I did het-gen.* However, I tried to persuade She Who Cannot Be Named to do furry-dead-slash. She wouldn't do it.

*Last year, yeah, I did crank out furry!smut for the holidays. (Woof.) One of my requests was for more of same. We'll see what I get! :D

Last year, yeah, I did crank out furry!smut for the holidays.

Gzorks. What fandom?

This one. (http://savefile.com/files/221072)

Uncooperative: does not play well with others

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