A jubokko is a tree yokai that was once a normal tree… but was fed blood at some point. It then decided it liked the taste, and became a blood-drinking monster.
Let’s talk about Shiromori’s relationship with Mystery.
Mystery happened upon a small flower in an otherwise dead forest… and, in true trickster fashion, decided to use his own blood to feed the flower, allowing it to blossom and grow strong…
…to the point where the flower overtook the entire forest, and the resulting “white forest” (literally Shiromori’s name) once again thrived. Judging by the size of this forest, it had to be drinking MUCH more blood than Mystery could offer – and judging by the discarded helmet and katana beneath the tree on which he’s perched, as well as the fact that our mysterious blue warrior (Vivi’s ancestor, it looks like) seems determined to fight him, we can assume that Mystery has been killing the warriors come to slay the Fiendish Fox in the White Forest and allowing the forest to drink their blood.
The result: a very proud fox demon, lording over his own vast and impenetrable territory, and a very fruitful forest who seems to love her caretaker dearly.
Enough to feel utterly betrayed and embarrased when her caretaker chooses to be with somebody else.
The descendant of the one who slew him, no less.
And speaking of which, let’s touch on that.
We can see in this flashback sequence that Mystery has all nine tails. However, in Ghost, he has six… and in Freaking Out, he has seven.
A kitsune, a Japanese nine-tailed fox demon, can gain tails through experience, wisdom, honor… but can also lose a tail by breaking kitsune law, or occasionally, by dying.
The fact that Mystery still had nine tails when confronted by mystery-warrior-woman implies that what he was doing with the forest didn’t break any kitsune laws, so that’s not how he lost his tails. We can see in this image that Mystery was having quite the fearsome battle with the warrior… I suspect she managed to actually slay him, and when he came back, it was as a defenseless one-tailed kitsune once more.
Eventually, Mystery found his way back to Vivi’s family…
…the Yukinos. (art by @mysterybensmysteryblog and @artsyfeathersartsyblog, respectively) Judging by the blue, we can probably assume that Vivi gets her Japanese heritage from her father’s side… but while her grandmother looks very traditional, her father is wearing modern clothes. He probably doesn’t believe in any superstitious Japanese yokai stuff. Gramma Yukino? Another story entirely.
Mystery has probably been in disguise the WHOLE TIME, and has never properly revealed himself ot Vivi’s family… though Gramma Yukino doesn’t seem to trust this strange white puppydog. After all, the Yukino family has a story about a white canine from long in the past.
ANYWAY. THE MORAL OF THE STORY: DON’T FEED BLOOD TO PLANTS. WE’VE TALKED ABOUT THIS, SEYMOUR KRELBORN
After someone failed their 3rd death saving throw, maybe don’t have them die immediately. But make clear they are gonna die. Healing magic stops working on them. But they still live on a few minutes, hours or even days. This can create a lot of of drama.
1. Tumblr Idiots don’t know that Bryan Singer got fired from the movie. He was replaced with Dexter Fletcher, and his involvement with the film is (rightly) either being ignored outright by the power at be or dismissed as unimportant. Fletcher said he doesn’t know if Singer will be even given a credit for the film. Boycotting because of his partial involvement is beyond stupid.
2. Tumblr Idiots don’t know Freddie was officially diagnosed with AIDS in 1986/87 (depending on who you believe), but are mad that it won’t be a central narrative even though its a movie about THE BAND, not just Freddie, and the movie only goes up to the Live Aid concert in ‘85. What do you want, for them to just rearrange the events of his life to make no sense? “Facing a life-threatening illness, Freddie leads the band in one of the greatest performances in the history of rock music” is literally part of the movie’s description, it hasn’t been erased, its going to be looked at in what I can only assume will be a sobering last act.
3. Tumblr idiots don’t know who Mary Austin is, and are bitching about Freddie being shown involved with “a woman” as “homophobic” and “erasure”. Mary Austin was his girlfriend for 6 years, his beloved friend, his muse, one of his greatest supports after his diagnosis, and the person he left everything he had to when he died. Y’all are some seriously ignorant jerks if you think Mary shouldn’t be in the movie, whether or not you agree with her choices in the years after he died has no bearing on her influential role in his life. Also Freddie’s boyfriend Jim Hutton is literally in the film, but cursory research is apparently beyond some of these people. He was who he was, he loved several men, he loved one woman, he was a queer icon and you can relate to that how you like but stop putting him in an exclusionary box when he himself refused to be labelled.
Regarding the last part: Freddie was a nortious bisexual. People tend to forget that
^^literally this bugs me SO MUCH. Everyone paints Freddie like he’s a gay icon and that’s fine but he was a confirmed bisexual and not acknowledging that is just another example of erasure
amusedAnarchist 