#yyh things

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impromptu collage of botan. do it for her.

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Bby yukina not really having the words for how she feels abt Rui as a mother, feeling like she is in the maw of a big beast and she's one little fish, big scary teeth in perfect view, and yet this feels perfectly safe to her in fact big beast maw is perfect for little baby yukinas atually! Fast forward to Yukina learning abt mama crocodiles carrying their babies in their mouths and going "Oh that's me and my mom!"

to the extreme bewilderment to everyone else, including Rui if present, Yukina is good at hiding her thoughts even when she's not even trying and she genuinely had never expressed the earlier feeling until then

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From the guy - Sakamoto's - mouth, something moves.

Yusuke thinks it's his tongue at first, gross. It's not as if he's convulsing either so if it was, it'd just be the tongue rolling out with no other effect to it. Gross. And then there's a small, - clawed - hand coming out of there, and Yusuke's mind shuts off everything else he could've possibly thought.

The owner of the small hand joins it, crawling out of Sakamoto like a man from a car wreck would. He grumbles to himself, too, and Yusuke can only think He talks, as he continues to rumble, giving Yusuke time to finally process that this motherfucker is a huge reason why Sakamoto behaved the way he did. It's not really a long operation of brainpower use, more like a gut feeling he decides Yup, that sounds right, and not thinking twice, he grabs the little guy.

Actually, he's got horns too now that Yusuke's looking at him closer. The expression, while shocked, is also angry in a way that is really close to what Sakamoto's was when he told Kuwabara off.

"H-how are you grabbing me?!"

"How are you real," Yusuke's asking, because he feels like he should, even though he doesn't actually wonder about that. Or maybe he does? It's a really weird feeling. "You're not a toy, are you?"

"As if!!" the guy yells and struggles out of Yusuke's grip. Quick reflex captures him again. "UGH!!! Nonono, how did you do that?! Humans shouldn't be able to do that!"

"Well I am one, so deal with it," Yusuke says, now weirdly annoyed for much more familiar reasons.

"HOW CAN YOU UNDERSTAND ME TOO," the guy yells and honestly, maybe Yusuke should just let go of this mosquito.

"Well done. This little demon has been a nasty thing with five convictions prior to this one," a voice says.

From a small distance away from under the bridge, there's a caped and hooded figure approaching them. They sound like a woman, neither authoratative in the "Great job, now hand it over to me," or hostile. Commands respect while also really patient.

It's the alley fortune teller from earlier. "The demon, Jaki, prefers to take advantage of another and more powerful person's malicious intentions and use them as a vehicle to their path of evil. He favors souls that are especially inclined to his influence. I was on my way to assign you this mission, Yusuke, but it seems you've already taken care of him. Like I said, good job!"

Now she's pointing at him, with a twirl. She's kinda really tall, so what could be a tiny twirl ends up being a much bigger motion.

"You have the natural instinct and the talent to seek and apprehend supernatural threats! I can tell, you're going to make a great Spirit Detective!"

"The fucking. Who are you?" Yusuke asks, clutching the little guy like a stress ball without meaning to and getting mad about that too.

"You mean you've forgotten me?" She asks, way too ominously. With flourish and another twirl, she pulls off the cowl to reveal a large ponytail falling like a cloud behind her, with bright eyes and a big, confident smile. Like she's doing this theatrically, but also like she's happy to see him. "I'm Botan, your favorite ferrygirl, and I'll be your assistant from now on with duties like these!"

"Yeah, no," Yusuke decides, and lets go of the guy in his hand.

The woman screams like a folding chair being thrown into the floor and breaking apart or a TV being batted to death mid-movie, and then startles Yusuke badly by being quick as lightning, because one moment she's several meters away, the next she's passed him and clutching the guy like an insect she means to bring out of the house. "What were you thinking?!! Don't just let go, he's your assignment!! Have you fully lost your mind??" Gone is the happiness, she's full-stress now.

"How should I know?!" Yusuke yells, catching her stress.

"How shouldn't you know, you should by this point!!" She lifts her arms and face up as if speaking to the sky. Not thinking about it, Yusuke looks in the same direction until she speaks to him again less than 2 seconds after. "Whatever you catch that you're supposed to catch, keep hold of it and don't let go until I say so! We covered this, didn't we??"

"The hell'd you mean we, I haven't even met you until today!"

Silence.

This, out of everything, has felt the most out of place today. Yusuke can't explain how he knows the person in front of him doesn't do silence.

"... Y-you're not joking, right?"

The fact that she asks this with worry, not as if she is hoping he'll tell her it's a prank, but more as if she knows it's not and she's worried for him, is making him feel nauseous. "No," he says. "No, I don't know you, and I don't know anything of what you just said."

It's, fortunately or unfortunately, the truth.

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Very often I like to headcanon or interpret Hiei as being a lot more koorime than we're led to think bc I think it's very themes but imagine if he's very different from koorime in the sense that bc he's half-koorime that means he doesn't have the same lifespan Yukina does. He's got some accellerated aging going on so at one point they understand Fully that he is going to die bf Yukina, who will live for thousands of years.

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Thinking abt a point luna brought up (I know you're busy this can wait for after the busy busy bee week is over!!) while we we're re-watching a saint beasts yyh episode, abt spirit office ferrygirls being short-staffed, and realised I was so deep in my fanon thought of "there should be more ferrygirls bc I think Botan should be the newest hire second to Yusuke who is the new newest hire" that yeah!! in canon there are really few ferrygirls!

Botan

Ayame

Hinageshi

Rena

All in all, we technically have 4 ferrygirls! Excluding the manga, bc she appears only in a side-panel, and Hinageshi, bc she appears in the movie and is not considered canon by all fans tho, that's 2 ferrygirls. Woah....

Besides Botan, Rena does appear relatively early, but as stated, in a manga side panel (chapter 27). I kinda hope Togashi'd had plans for her and then decided against it and that's why she appears at all, bc he felt a storyline w her didn't fit w the direction he wanted to have. First are the various dead and living in the ghost!yusuke era, so wringing attention on ill-behaved reapers feels distracting bc we have to focus on the human background bf we can get to the demon background. Then comes the detective saga proper, with introduction to demons and fellow humans who are equally as strong or stronger than Yusuke, and whose intentions don't align often with his own. From a technical-narrative standpoint, there isn't really a good place to introduce a storyarc including her or being morally ambigious for finding a source of whimsy in her end of care work u_u A Botan vs Rena ferrygirl showdown could've been so cool too, and could've added context for why Botan is kinda op in the beginning and gets less powerful the rest of the bit, that her preventing Keiko from becoming a demon + fighting all-out with Rena, could've depleted her offensive and healing powers severely.

Ayame is....... Idrw talk abt her, she's the shyest child predator I've ever seen in fiction I guess?

Meanwhile Hinageshi recontectualises Botan a little bit for me bc when tells Yusuke abt how indebted she feels to her, that tells me that she's really used to taking care of other coworkers, especially those who tend to cause trouble whether they mean to or not. In other words, Yusuke is not the first person she's had to or chose to take care of.

With the exception of Rena, ferrygirls carry a flower name motif (peony, iris, and common poppy respectively), suggesting that it was somewhere between Rena's addition and Ayame's that Togashi figured he'd use that motif for them.

The series suggests Botan being the senior ferrygirl for at least Hinageshi and Ayame, hence why she's doing so much bc she's senior ferrygirl. I am very curious still how exactly ferrygirls are recruited, but based on numbers alone, it seems very few can do it, or are allowed to do it.

A rogue ferrygirl oc unaffiliated with the spirit office would be cool....

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me: I think this dramatic thing could've happened in precanoon and that dramatic thing could've happened in precanon and--

Yusuke, in canon somwhere: "FINALLY something exciting happens around here!"

YUSUKE NO DON'T IMPLY IT WAS ONLY DEPRESSION GOING ON W YOU I WANT TANGIBLE EVENTS;;; IM NOT A GOOD ENOUGH WRITER TO WRITE A WHOLE THING WHERE NOTHING EXCEPT FEELINGS ARE HAPPENING;;;;

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Very very important to me that Rui on first meeting w Hina thinks Hina is beautiful beyond compare and is immediately suspicious of that, like they meet when Hina trips over something and Rui is there to catch her and it's in front of other people, while Hina is normal and says "wow thanks" Rui stares at her face then at the people around her, "didmymomorderthis" "Did your--??" "Did my mother-- nvm it's stupid"