Ginko (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
iattractmushi) wrote2020-02-20 08:28 pm
iattractmushi) wrote2020-02-20 08:28 pm
Known Mushi
This post is a WIP. Please don't mind my dust as I slowly work on it... I have finished up to where the links on this post end, and I will be trying to add more pictures and the rest of the mushi soon.
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Ginko is a mushishi, or mushi Master, meaning he knows how to recognize, control, use, and exterminate mushi.
Mushi - they aren’t quite insects as their name would have the casual reader believe, but rather something far more basic and ancient.
The way that Ginko describes them is like this: "if the four fingers on my hand represent all of the animals and my thumb represents present-day plants, then people would be at the tip of my middle finger, the farthest place from the heart. The inside of my hand represents all the other levels of living things below us. As you follow the veins downward, it all winds into one large artery. About there are the fungi and the microorganisms. As you go farther down, it becomes harder to tell the difference between animals and plants. But there are things even below that. You can trace all the way down the arm and past the shoulder. And when you reach your heart, that’s where the mushi are. Some call them ‘the Green Things’; they’re very close to the original forms of life."
They can look like nearly anything, from people to snakes to rainbows to floating, glowing jellyfish, or even simpler forms like a chain of rings or a segmented line floating through the air. They do equally as many things, some useful to humans, some harmful, but most all of the things they do are utterly bizarre and meant for the mushi’s survival. They exist anywhere and everywhere, especially where life thrives. Not everyone can see them; in fact it seems that most people can't. The pattern of who can and can't see them seems to be almost entirely random, though sometimes people start seeing them after being affected by mushi.
I did these in the same order as the manga chapters, which differs from the anime order.
Kouki ('Light Wine') - Possibly an eye-squicky image.
Weakened Mushi
Gods/Masters/Guardians
Fuki, pseudo-Kouki
Rule of Nature/mushi banquet
Un and Ah
Imenonoawai ('within the field of dreams')
Manakonoyamimushi ('darkness of the eyes mushi') - Content warning for possible eyesquick.
Suiko ('mushi water')
Mugura ('creeping vines')
Kuchinawa
Shimi ('paper fish')
Forbidden Mushi
Bikuu ('mushi' and 'body cavity')
Nagaremono ('flowing things')
Watahaki (and hitotake) ('cotton breathed out' and 'person mushroom') - Warning for child death, born and unborn.
Yasabi ('wild rust')
Dragon mushi
Narazu seed ('mustn't happen' seed)
Kumohami ('cloud eater') - mentions of people freezing to death.
Tokoyami and Ginko ('endless darkness' and 'silver mushi')
Uro ('empty' or 'hollow')
Nisekazura ('false vines') - warning for animated (though quiescent) dead people.
Usobuki ('false bud')
Magaridake and Oniko ('false bamboo' and human/mushi hybrid)
Dragon Shrine - Warning for mention of drowning.
Ganpuku - Warning for eyesquick.
Ubusuna (roughly, 'to cultivate the earth')
Kagebi and Hidane ('false fire' and 'fire seed' or coal) - Warning for freezing to death? Idk.
Kagedama ('shadow soul')
Anything past this point in the comments is to be edited later, adding pictures when I manage to get some and prettying it up in general.
The different mushi will slowly be added as comments to this post, including mushi and other creatures from the manga-only chapters. Warning for spoilers, of course.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ginko is a mushishi, or mushi Master, meaning he knows how to recognize, control, use, and exterminate mushi.
Mushi - they aren’t quite insects as their name would have the casual reader believe, but rather something far more basic and ancient.
The way that Ginko describes them is like this: "if the four fingers on my hand represent all of the animals and my thumb represents present-day plants, then people would be at the tip of my middle finger, the farthest place from the heart. The inside of my hand represents all the other levels of living things below us. As you follow the veins downward, it all winds into one large artery. About there are the fungi and the microorganisms. As you go farther down, it becomes harder to tell the difference between animals and plants. But there are things even below that. You can trace all the way down the arm and past the shoulder. And when you reach your heart, that’s where the mushi are. Some call them ‘the Green Things’; they’re very close to the original forms of life."
They can look like nearly anything, from people to snakes to rainbows to floating, glowing jellyfish, or even simpler forms like a chain of rings or a segmented line floating through the air. They do equally as many things, some useful to humans, some harmful, but most all of the things they do are utterly bizarre and meant for the mushi’s survival. They exist anywhere and everywhere, especially where life thrives. Not everyone can see them; in fact it seems that most people can't. The pattern of who can and can't see them seems to be almost entirely random, though sometimes people start seeing them after being affected by mushi.
I did these in the same order as the manga chapters, which differs from the anime order.
Kouki ('Light Wine') - Possibly an eye-squicky image.
Weakened Mushi
Gods/Masters/Guardians
Fuki, pseudo-Kouki
Rule of Nature/mushi banquet
Un and Ah
Imenonoawai ('within the field of dreams')
Manakonoyamimushi ('darkness of the eyes mushi') - Content warning for possible eyesquick.
Suiko ('mushi water')
Mugura ('creeping vines')
Kuchinawa
Shimi ('paper fish')
Forbidden Mushi
Bikuu ('mushi' and 'body cavity')
Nagaremono ('flowing things')
Watahaki (and hitotake) ('cotton breathed out' and 'person mushroom') - Warning for child death, born and unborn.
Yasabi ('wild rust')
Dragon mushi
Narazu seed ('mustn't happen' seed)
Kumohami ('cloud eater') - mentions of people freezing to death.
Tokoyami and Ginko ('endless darkness' and 'silver mushi')
Uro ('empty' or 'hollow')
Nisekazura ('false vines') - warning for animated (though quiescent) dead people.
Usobuki ('false bud')
Magaridake and Oniko ('false bamboo' and human/mushi hybrid)
Dragon Shrine - Warning for mention of drowning.
Ganpuku - Warning for eyesquick.
Ubusuna (roughly, 'to cultivate the earth')
Kagebi and Hidane ('false fire' and 'fire seed' or coal) - Warning for freezing to death? Idk.
Kagedama ('shadow soul')
Anything past this point in the comments is to be edited later, adding pictures when I manage to get some and prettying it up in general.
The different mushi will slowly be added as comments to this post, including mushi and other creatures from the manga-only chapters. Warning for spoilers, of course.
Tokoyami and Ginko
Tokoyami (meaning 'endless' or 'eternal darkness') and ginko (silver mushi) are two different mushi living as one. Tokoyami seem to be on the rare side; ginko seem to be even rarer than that. It could be that no one lived near a tokoyami long enough to see the ginko before Nui; it could be that that particular tokoyami was different for some reason.
Ginko's main purpose seems to be turning creatures--fish, humans, mushi--into tokoyami. It appears to be a rather gradual process, however; a creature needs to be exposed to the ginko over a long period of time, or all at once but in an intense way, before they gain the distinctive white hair, pale skin, and green eyes. The missing eye appears to be universal as well, though which eye it is tends to change from creature to creature.
A person exposed to the ginko/tokoyami enough to change.
The tokoyami emerging at night.
A pond shining with ginko's light.
A fish being turned into tokoyami
Once the change has started, it seems that it's inevitable that the complete change to tokoyami is only a matter of time; however, there is some evidence that if a person is removed from exposure to the ginko quickly enough, they can live a long life even if they've already experienced the first stage of the process.
However, getting away from the tokoyami is no simple feat. It is a mushi that eats memories; if you can't remember your name, it won't let you go. But if you manage to remember a name, any name at all, it will release you... without any memory of your life before it caught you.
The ginko mushi (with Yoki kneeling beside it).