#my writeups

[funjoushi]

to no one’s surprise, irl Takeda was a gay disaster

so i was poking around the JP Shinsengumi wikipedia article, as I do, and I was looking at one of the more fascinating sections which is the /checks notes

“the five beauties of the Shinsengumi“

this always interested me for obvious reasons. Mostly the fact that all other sections are things like “commanding officers” and “accounting” and then suddenly there’s a group of men sectioned out for being hot.

This obviously relates to how homosexuality was common at the time. Not necessarily “accepted” as far as long-term partnerships, but it was understood that sometimes  a guy is just that hot and it’s no big deal.

That much is obvious by the fact that Shinsengumi memoirs have pointed out how hot these particular guys are. There are a lot of interesting tidbits in here, but for the moment I’m gonna focus on the third one down, Magoshi Saburou.

According to the author Shimozawa Kan, Magoshi was, “Troubled by the incessant affections of known homosexual, Takeda Kanryuusai”, which immediately stopped my in my tracks once I read it since, so far, I still find scarcely any mention of said casual homosexuality in the Shinsengumi sources I’ve read so far, so it’s refreshing. However, this particular point may have in fact been Shimozawa’s creation, unfortunately.

However, what appears to be more solid is that Magoshi was allowed to have an easy retirement, after he was involved in the assassination of one former troop member...Takeda Kanryuusai.

Magoshi was said to have been the one that gave intel on Takeda which lead to him finally being assassinated after he left the troop on bad terms. Takeda was seen at the Satsuma manor by Magoshi, who immediately reported this to Kondou. They assumed that Takeda was leaking information about the Shinsengumi to Satsuma and arranged to have him taken out(by Saitou probably).

Afterwhich, Magoshi was regarded as a traitor, and someone who sold out their brethren. Which is said to have prompted Hijikata to give Magoshi severance and allow him to leave the Shinsengumi.

Other fun details include that, when he didn’t have patrol duty, he often walked around in a purple Kimono, with a bright smile that was “just like that of a beautiful young woman”. 

but honestly the thing that entertains me the most is that absolutely none of this surprises me with what I know about Takeda from the game(i’m in the middle of Iba’s route)

Takeda is overall pretty interesting to I might do more posts about him since I suspect that he will go the way of Sannan which is, not actually touch on his interesting historical stuff and instead replace it with vampire demon nonsense.

but in the end this is just me venting my frustrations about how hakuouki insists on sidestepping all the gay stuff, despite Miki finally actually mentioning it in this game. But who knows, maybe this delicious saga of Takeda being in love with Magoshi so hard that it gets him killed will find adaptation some day! We can only hope

[umbrawyrm]

2. shadow people

hi, i tried to write up a fairly comprehensive beginner post to shadow people since they're one of the main inhabitants of the umbra and probably the one that people are most acquainted with as well as one of the entities that people may want to work with. if anyone wants to know anything more in depth feel free to just ask since i'm an incarnated shadow person and a lot of this info is just coming directly from my own experiences and knowledge, i just didn't want to get too technical or long winded on this post lol. maybe another time

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shadow people are one of the primary inhabitants of the umbra. as a whole they're 7-8 feet tall, thin, pitch black humanoids with bright red eyes. a lot of "demons" etc. that people see are actually just shadow people since umbra energy can be very visible even to people who don't generally see energy and also feels very uncomfortable to people who aren't also umbra. likewise, a lot of "shadow people" are just entities that people interpreted as a dark shadowy figure. on top of this the umbra plane intersects and anchors to this plane a lot which causes a lot of shadow people just walking around on their plane to be seen unintentionally. a lot of the time a shadow person walking through your house is just doing their own thing on the umbra and your house is just in the way at the time lol. they’re just as surprised to see you as you are them.

anyway, shadow people are pretty much the energy equivalent of facultative carnivores. this is similar to energy vampirism and i guess would count as some kind of vampirism? but honestly i feel like labeling it as such would be like labeling every animal that eats meat as a vampire so it... ehhh doesn’t really fit. when i say that they’re carnivores i mean that shadow people require specifically the life force energy of an entity, dead or alive, and in the umbra, farming livestock and hunting animals is how everyone is kept fed. they also have sharp carnivore teeth and claws instead of fingernails and although they do still eat plant matter for the taste, it's just not the most nutritionally filling.

related to the “dead or alive” part above, the part i would actually call similar to energy vampirism is the fact that shadow people can also survive by feeding off of the life force energy of animals. this is found most often in emotional energy including “negative energy” (which tastes a little gross but it’s still going to keep a shadow person alive) but pretty much any energy that gets created by a living being is fair game. shadow people living on this plane tend to resort to passively crowd-feeding for energy. attempting to feed off of plant life just doesn’t really do anything for shadow people also despite plants also being alive.

shadow people actually have four eyes (one pair on top of the other) although usually they'll just use one pair in day to day life, the bottom pair. the top pair sees nothing but pure energy and the bottom pair sees everything normally. opening both pairs of eyes allows them to see both the plane they're on and the energy of it at the same time which can be useful but also fairly disorientating. some shadow people use both pairs at once all the time but it’s not very common tbh.

communication-wise shadow people speak mostly in imprints (mental images and emotions etc) and out loud conversations are generally short, very vague, and almost incomprehensible to anyone who can’t read the imprints being used at the same time. they can definitely speak full sentences and do often with other species, they just don’t on the umbra between each other since it saves time. written communication on the umbra is similar, it’s short and heavily imprinted.

internally, shadow people have 5 main energy points: the crown point, the mind point, a point in the mouth, the core in the chest, and the sacral. there's smaller points directly in their palms and something similar to but isn't a throat point, kind of like the partial point attached to the core. a smaller less developed point attached to the bottom of the core exists, most likely it used to be a stomach core, which they lack. there’s technically a functioning root point but it’s not really necessary especially if you live on the umbra since you’re constantly connected and having your umbra recycled through your feet passively. like there’s a tiny partial point there and it’s more fully formed than the throat and stomach points but it’s barely if at all used and usually becomes tiny and completely nonfunctional over time. it’s probably only gonna be used by shadow people who live in planes that are very incompatible with umbra which is a very small minority as most planes have the umbra anchored to them.

their energy body is made up of a mix of primarily base umbra (the stuff you find everywhere in shadows) and red/blood umbra which is basically just their version of blood underneath the surface of their body. usually the energy of the points in their palms is blood umbra. i’ll go more into the different strains of umbra in a different post, this is already getting kinda long.

finally since this seems important to note, some shadow people will have thin, long wings. angels of nyx (one of the larger deities on the umbra), including fallen angels, will have these as an essentially useless status marker as they're too thin to actually allow flight, although in small communities of mostly angels (fallen or not) they’re used pretty extensively with body language and occasionally fighting. some fallen angels will continuously trim their wings off but they grow back with time.

[umbrawyrm]

1. base umbra energy

well here we go again

hey all, figured i would revive this blog and start fresh with a new up to date umbra write up because i looked through this blog and cringed physically at how old the info was and how often it was getting reblogged still. this is going to just focus on the base umbra energy (the black energy you find in shadows) and there are definitely different strains and elements found in the umbra but i'll get into them in separate posts as well as the plane itself, its inhabitants, politics etc.

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to start off with umbra energy is a rich, thick, dense black energy found in the shadows. it cannot survive in direct light and quickly disappears back to the umbra plane. many people will find the energy uncomfortable however people with umbra energy bodies will (generally) find the energy comfortable. i've heard it described as cold and slimy by people who aren't umbra and warm and like a blanket by other shadow people. obviously there's outliers but this is the most common thing i've noticed.

i've also noticed that people with umbra energy bodies tend to have clearer clairvoyance, hearing spirits, Knowing Things, that sort of thing. i've personally changed my energy many times and when i'm not umbra i find it much harder to divine and hear spirits, i've also given several people umbra mind points and they've almost immediately began to hear spirits and picked up imprints easier. the language used in the umbra is very heavily imprint based so this may have something to do with it but i'll get into that on another post, probably when i write about shadow people.

important note, if you're void you'll struggle with umbra. void energy destroys umbra as a whole very quickly. i've heard several void practitioners over the years call umbra light (as in weight), airy, hard to contain, and otherwise very uncharacteristic of umbra. if you're void and you've tried to work with umbra and this sounds familiar you're most likely just working with your own void or something like the air energy in this plane and not realising it tbh. you'll need to shield the umbra heavily from you or it'll just evaporate. void is very very efficient at clearing umbra out of a room except instead of just returning to the umbra plane, the energy just gets destroyed. likewise if you're umbra it may be best to shield yourself from void. i live with someone who's void and if i don't shield 24/7 they just destroy my energy body, i also have a few void friends and any accidental imprints will literally wreck my mind point.

with all the above in mind umbra can eventually get used to void when forced to. it doesn't attune but it just feels more like a mild sunburn. i've been into the void for a few reasons and while most strains will still destroy my energy body, the spaces that i've spent the most time in have eventually stopped harming me for the most part. it still feels incredibly uncomfortable but it's bearable without needing to shield.

working with umbra is fairly simple and easily available since even in the middle of the day everybody casts a shadow! it's quite literally everywhere and since it's so dense it's easily scooped up and can be felt even by beginners to energy work. it also isn't a dangerous energy so imo it's a good introduction into different energy types if you're only acquainted with the main four on this plane. like everything else i'll probably write up some meditation techniques i use to work with umbra.

umbra also tends to attract a lot of entities heads up, whether that’s good or bad is up to you. mostly curious shadow people and other various umbra entities, you'll also probably find long tendrils snaking around but those are fine, i just call them umbra worms. they're kind of a cleanup crew and return excess energy back to the umbra, sometimes they accidentally latch onto you instead if you’re umbra (they have no eyes or anything) but you can just gently move them, they're harmless. but since umbra is dense and rich many entities will feed off of it so it definitely will attract them to you.

speaking of feeding, if you're a vampire and you're able to feed off of energy types and not specifically psi energy, maybe give umbra a try! if you're a shadow person, heads up, we're essentially energy carnivores. you'll need to feed off of living energy such as emotional energy and other energies coming from the mind point/other points on an entity. i just eat any parasites that come along and it keeps me going (their actual energy body doesn’t feed me at all but the life force does) but i need to feed off of a living person at least once a week, ideally every day or two. keep yourself fed!

i think i'll stop here for now to keep the post from getting too long but i do have several other topics planned, the next one i'll get into will probably either be about shadow people as a species, the umbra plane itself, and/or the elements/different strains of umbra found on the plane. i'll also try and rewrite anything i wrote about on this blog before like umbra hounds but that's a bit further down on the list.