I didn’t think Ninjas were real, just spy’s and sometimes assassins but no one you’d specifically call “ninja”
Ninja is something of an affectation from later eras being backwards projected onto history. However, there were a number of groups that specialized in infiltration, sabotage, assassination, espionage and other “irregular warfare” tactics, often passed down in familial lines. The Iga clan of the Tokugawa period is a notable example.
The general distinction for the historical ninja groups as opposed to someone who just performed irregular warfare (like a guerrilla or a spy), was that the ninja in question had to be a mercenary, operating outside of the feudal hierarchy, and had to be a professional, so no slitting throats as a side-hobby.
Hey, wanna know why the modern idea of ninja is “wears black clothes”?
These are “Kuroko”.
Kuroko are men and women fully dressed in black and that wear tabi on their feet. They are Kabuki theater stagehands. When they are on stage, the audience is supposed to ignore them, pretend they aren’t there, as they are “special effects”, not people per se on the stage.
Well, see, some Kabuki plays liked to play with this idea.
In certain plays, a notorious character will suddenly get stabbed by a Kuroko and die. This is shocking to the audience because Kuroko are just straight up not supposed to exist as people or characters in the play, but suddenly, one of these special effects just murdered someone. Then, they’d remove the face covering veil and reveal they were one of the characters all along.
It was a meta manner of narrative, basically. A plot twist, if you will.
That’s why the modern image of Ninja was derived from Kuroko: Unexpected Assassins, striking when no one is supposed to strike, and gone like the wind, just like that.
“Ninja” actually looked like this:
Just your regular run of the mill peasant.
That was the entire point.
To not be noticed. To be one with the crowd.
Espionage history !
As both a ninja AND a theater kid- this pleases me
I love the picture from the stage up there – your eyes do sort of just slide right over the Kuroko helping the actress stand and show off.
it’s been 3 months, so i’m legally allowed to sharemy first officially published storyfor free. previously published in Massacre Magazine, under the Gorey Skelton pen name
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I’m… shaken. Disturbed? Holy shit.
That is
Holy shit
Read it
my one real goal as a writer is to create content people regret reading
JFC WHAT IS GOING ON IN YOUR MAGENTA GOURD-BRAIN
I have passive aggressive tendencies related to childhood neglect
i was completely submerged into this story
i. am so profoundly disappointed in you
i brought this on myself
Wow you guys really kraken me up here
one could say it’s gorgeous
i’m, going to beat you to death with your own phone
This comment chain really drifted away from what you wanted, huh?
Gaud’s fans have sunk this low…
Yeah, they cant even keep with the current conversation
I’m drowning in emotions after reading that
I was ready to cave in with the weight of them
There was a lot of pressure to read this
I’m ready to take a deep dive into Guads writing.
water
wanted to sea what the buzz was all abt and wow- was not at all prepared for the waves of emotion
This story left me em-ocean-al.
not gonna lie it was pretty fishy to read something from by “Gorey Skelton”
I’m shore I’ve never read such and ominous story
Deep.
What levels of sorrow I found deep inside when I read it
Goddammit guys, are you shore the puns are okay?
we’re drowning in them
ok, before i even read it. i think it involves the ocean, probably somewhere very deep, maybe pitch black deep? also a cave. maybe an underwater cave that ends up collapsing on someone? there was mention of a kraken, but i don’t know if it’s because it’s in the story or because it’s ocean related. some sort of monster. i mean, this is you were talking about. ok. what about: deep sea diving, finding an underwater cave, but there is something lying dormant in there that the character wakes up. they die by the end of it, possibly due to the creature, or maybe the cave collapses on them.
this is my official hypothesis before i read the story. if i am right, yay me. if i am wrong, the puns led me astray. let’s sea how this goes.
ok, i was wrong, but that fine. that was intense. felt like i was shot in the chest by it. left me feeling pretty hollow inside. but it’s good, really good.
my one real goal is to create content people regret reading
Just got done reading an interesting article about how language affects the way we think and perceive the world. There were some interesting examples. Like how in Spanish, the word bridge is masculine, while in German, it is feminine. So native speakers of these languages describe the same thing differently. Spanish speakers will comment on how strong or sturdy a bridge is, while German speakers will comment on how elegant or beautiful it is. Another example that blew my mind was the Guugu Yimithirr language. So, most languages, including English, use an egocentric type of directional language (turn right, left, behind, in front.) these directions are relative to you as a person. Well, the Guugu Yimithirr language uses fixed geographical directions (North, East, South, and West) no matter the context. If you were to put an English speaker and a Guugu Yimithirr speaker in the same hotel, and put them in rooms opposite sides of the hallway from each other, the English speaker will see the exact same room (that person will see the desk to the right of blah and the closet in front of blah) but the Guugu Yimithirr speaker will see a COMPLETELY different room because the bed will be facing south instead of north, and all of that jazz. And the article went on to state how speakers of this language might even have a lower sense of egotism, because directions do not revolve around them, they’re just another part of the picture. Really fascinating. It made me think really long about language imperialism and how rapidly we’re moving towards a world that deals almost exclusively in English. It makes me sad to know that we’re losing completely different ways of thinking. Completely different perspectives, just gone. I guess that’s why I always get upset when people say that language imperialism isn’t so bad, and that English as a language is connecting people together. The world is a great big place, with completely different perspectives, and I think the fastest way to kill a culture is to take away the language, because not only are you taking away a method of communication, but a way of thinking.
artherra 