Bloody Petals Musings Part 5
Sep. 20th, 2022 10:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madimpossibledreamerbtw judgment and lost judgment are just randomly on pc now which might mean yagami's actor's agency might let 3 be a thing
You probably can’t even invoke with only an outline. It’s the color that gives power. So there are some weird law/civilian related stuff to that. Outlines are allowed, but you probably get put on some sort of watchlist so you can’t just skirt around the edges by getting an outline, registering that, and filling it in later. They might actually check in with you over a period of time. Technically colored irezumi are illegal for everyone, except for foreigners because it’s pretty obvious for the most part a foreigner is not going to be yakuza. But there’s also some in, say, the police force that know in addition to all the laws they’re breaking and all the people yakuza hurt, the Clans also serve a very valuable role in keeping the supernatural at bay. Not all the cops, of course, which is why you get accusations of corruption, and newer cops are much less on board with this ‘let them do what they want’ plan.
Of course, there’s the show of it. The occasional arrest or fine when the yakuza step out too far. The occasional assassination of a cop who’d found some excuse to shoot some high-ranking official. You know. Honor things. Both sides understand that, even if they don’t like it. Mostly it’s bribery. A mutual understanding. The clans will keep their members in line, stop them from causing too much damage. In return, the police will leave the power of the irezumi no youkai largely in the hands of the yakuza and out of the hands of anyone who won’t at least follow the organized part of organized crime.
It’s generally understood that the ‘saving people’ part of the job description is left out, even after one of the officials or ‘civilians’ is saved. Some of it goes around in rumors anyway, especially on the internet boards, but most of it goes unconfirmed, particularly when a) the yakuza can clean up their tracks using magic and b) most civilians tend to clear out when a fight is coming on, wisely, because as much as the yakuza might attempt to avoid collateral damage (depending on their personality, of course), things get out of hand. Often.
There’s a decent amount of speculation about how the Horishi work, particularly among the chinpira, who have time for that sort of thing. The biggest debate is how they know what to make—are they reading the yakuza’s soul? Are they literally seeing the future? Not that she’d explain if asked, but the old, wizened Horishi, Horichisa, would explain it as seeing the yakuza’s destiny. While the actual events are not as clear as, say, drawn fortunes, they get an idea who the yakuza is and who she will become. It’s personal preference as to whether you lean into it, giving an irezumi and irezumi no youkai that will allow them to become exactly what they will be or whether you give them the tools to try to prevent them from causing their own destruction. In Kuroba’s case, this would be giving her the prayer beads and lotus and warnings near the gates to protect and strengthen her and remind her of the correct path to follow.
There’s also speculation that others, such as Ikemoto, could have been prevented from going down the wrong path with such precautions. Certainly any Horishi would consider such an outcome as a personal failure, whether or not they knew about what would happen.
There’s also a secondary shamanic aspect to all this. A Horishi serves as a medium between the world of the spirits and the yakuza, as they need to be able to do that in order to attach an irezumi no youkai to a yakuza. It’s probably ritualistic, though, and can’t be done freestyle. A Horishi can only do this within the confines of their own work.
You probably can’t even invoke with only an outline. It’s the color that gives power. So there are some weird law/civilian related stuff to that. Outlines are allowed, but you probably get put on some sort of watchlist so you can’t just skirt around the edges by getting an outline, registering that, and filling it in later. They might actually check in with you over a period of time. Technically colored irezumi are illegal for everyone, except for foreigners because it’s pretty obvious for the most part a foreigner is not going to be yakuza. But there’s also some in, say, the police force that know in addition to all the laws they’re breaking and all the people yakuza hurt, the Clans also serve a very valuable role in keeping the supernatural at bay. Not all the cops, of course, which is why you get accusations of corruption, and newer cops are much less on board with this ‘let them do what they want’ plan.
Of course, there’s the show of it. The occasional arrest or fine when the yakuza step out too far. The occasional assassination of a cop who’d found some excuse to shoot some high-ranking official. You know. Honor things. Both sides understand that, even if they don’t like it. Mostly it’s bribery. A mutual understanding. The clans will keep their members in line, stop them from causing too much damage. In return, the police will leave the power of the irezumi no youkai largely in the hands of the yakuza and out of the hands of anyone who won’t at least follow the organized part of organized crime.
It’s generally understood that the ‘saving people’ part of the job description is left out, even after one of the officials or ‘civilians’ is saved. Some of it goes around in rumors anyway, especially on the internet boards, but most of it goes unconfirmed, particularly when a) the yakuza can clean up their tracks using magic and b) most civilians tend to clear out when a fight is coming on, wisely, because as much as the yakuza might attempt to avoid collateral damage (depending on their personality, of course), things get out of hand. Often.
There’s a decent amount of speculation about how the Horishi work, particularly among the chinpira, who have time for that sort of thing. The biggest debate is how they know what to make—are they reading the yakuza’s soul? Are they literally seeing the future? Not that she’d explain if asked, but the old, wizened Horishi, Horichisa, would explain it as seeing the yakuza’s destiny. While the actual events are not as clear as, say, drawn fortunes, they get an idea who the yakuza is and who she will become. It’s personal preference as to whether you lean into it, giving an irezumi and irezumi no youkai that will allow them to become exactly what they will be or whether you give them the tools to try to prevent them from causing their own destruction. In Kuroba’s case, this would be giving her the prayer beads and lotus and warnings near the gates to protect and strengthen her and remind her of the correct path to follow.
There’s also speculation that others, such as Ikemoto, could have been prevented from going down the wrong path with such precautions. Certainly any Horishi would consider such an outcome as a personal failure, whether or not they knew about what would happen.
There’s also a secondary shamanic aspect to all this. A Horishi serves as a medium between the world of the spirits and the yakuza, as they need to be able to do that in order to attach an irezumi no youkai to a yakuza. It’s probably ritualistic, though, and can’t be done freestyle. A Horishi can only do this within the confines of their own work.
