InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Spring fertility festival ❯ new scenes, author's notes, story ideas ( Chapter 12 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: jeffs 
New scenes, Author's notes and spin-off story ideas
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Supernatural / Romance / Occult / Horror / Hentai | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 10.02.2003 | Pages: 5 | Words: 5.4K | Visits: 1.5K | Status: Completed
New scenes, Author's notes and spin-off story ideas
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Supernatural / Romance / Occult / Horror / Hentai | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 10.02.2003 | Pages: 5 | Words: 5.4K | Visits: 1.5K | Status: Completed
Spring authors’ notes.
Missing scenes:
This scene sequence is to be spliced at the beginning of the chapter 1. I had a couple of reviewers that wanted more explanation/set-ups. So . . .
Day one
It’s raining . . .
“God Damned rain!” Inu-yasha yells as the party trug into the village. He has Kagome’s bike across his shoulders. The wheels are caked with mud. Mud is spattered all over the bike. The rest of the party slowly follows Inu-yasha. All of them are also mud covered and soaking wet. All of them look like something Kirara would drag into the campfire . . .
“The rain just came up and started. No warning.” Sango mumbles to Kagome.
“Yes, I felt some magic. But.” Miroku shrugs. “Perhaps there is someone where we were going that knows weather magic.”
“Hey! Monk! I just had a thought. You know magic. You can work some weather magic and change the weather!” Inu-yasha says excitedly!
“Inu-yasha, I am sorry, but weather magic is not my speciality. Keade might be able to do something, but I cannot.” Miroku says.
Day two
It’s raining . . .
“Keade. Do something.” Inu-yasha gestures at the rain. “Stop it.”
“I am sorry, Inu-yasha. But the weather gods will not allow any change.” Keade patiently says.
‘Of course, they’re not going to change. I’m the person that caused them to make the rain. The spring festival is coming. And I want the girls here to participate.’ She thinks.
Inu-yasha snarls and turns to Miroku. “Monk! Since the old bag is useless, you do it.”
“Inu-yasha,” Miroku says with expiration in his voice. “If Keade can’t do it. I surely cannot.” He pauses, “weather spells are very special, Inu-yasha and I’m just not trained in them.”
Day three
It raining . . .
“Monk! You damned idiot! You’ve got to something about this damned rain!” Inu-yasha yells!
“Inu-yasha.” Miroku begins to speak. Sango and Kagome can hear the stress in his voice. Inu-yasha has been bugging him for three days now and Miroku’s patience is beginning to reach its breaking point.
“I wish I could go home and go to school.” Kagome whispers to Sango.
Sango whispers, “And get away from this.” Kagome nods. “They’re going to attack each other soon.” Sango observes. She raises an eyebrow and asks, “Why are you still here? We’re not going anywhere soon . . . ”
“Sigh, I told Inu-yasha that if he didn’t call me a bitch, I’d stay longer.” Kagome whispers. “He kept his promise last week.” She sighs, “So, this week I’m keeping mine.”
Day four
It’s raining . . .
The start of the chapter 1 starts here.
******************
Sango scene.
I had reviewers mention that Sango seemed off. This scene takes place before the festival begins. I did not put this in the story, since I wanted to preserve the surprise of the dances. This monolog should help set up her later actions.
Sango is on a hillside. Next to her is her huge boomerang. There are obvious bumps and dings on it. She is sitting on a large pile of gravel. An hour ago there was a house-sized boulder where the gravel is now . . .
“Damn . . . Damn . . . IT’s a fertility festival. What do I do?” she sighs.
“I cannot leave. I promised Keade. Stupid . . . stupid. Ask her next time . . . ” She picks up an acorn sized rock and throws it away.
“And, If I leave, there is no way I could look Kagome in the face again.” She looks around, trying to see if anybody is watching her.
“Miroku. It’s a fertility festival. I’m going to get pregnant. I know it. His child. I... I do want to have his child. But . . . “
She slumps down, “what about my honor, the honor of my family, if I turn away from vengeance on Nararku? My father, my village, all my friends . . . How could I look at myself in the mirror, if I stopped trying to kill Naraku. I can’t. I must continue to fight Naraku.” She picks up a fist sized rock and squeezes it. Blood starts to drip from her hand, as the sharp edges of the freshly broken rock digs into her palm.
“There is no way I can stop. Vengeance for my father, my village, my friends. All of them come before me. IF I had died, would my father stop trying to get vengeance for me? No. Can I do any less . . . ” She grimaces and convulsively throws the rock away.
Sango licks her lips and says, “If the village was still alive? Then I could leave the child with one of my aunts or my friends. But they are dead. Could I leave the child with someone in this village?” A long pause. “No. I am the last of my family and my village. My children must be raised in the ways of my village, not Keade’s.”
She grimaces, “My brother. NO. I cannot assume he will live. But . . . the next time Sesshomaru . . . I must think about that . . . but that is for later. Whither or not I can save him, doesn’t change this decision.”
She shivers. “To raise my child properly, that means I stop fighting demons and just raise my child,” her face twitches into a smile, “children.”
She takes a deep breath, “You can’t drag children around on a quest like this.” She shakes her head, “Kagome and Shippo. No. Not really. He’s old enough to survive on his own. Plus he’s a kitsune, not a human baby.”
“If I’m to bring honor to my family, I cannot stop trying to kill Nararku.” Tears form in her eyes. “I cannot raise a child while on a quest like this.” Tears begin to fall down her checks.
“That means . . . I cannot have a child. Not now. Not while Naraku breathes . . . ”
Sango takes a deep breath. Her hands close into fists. She squeezes her fists so hard that her hands are white. “Another reason to hate Naraku.” She growls.
“He is causing me to kill my child.”
Sango bends down and picks up her boomerang. She eyes another house size boulder. “DIE!”
Authors’ notes: There is a larger note about Sango later in this post.
**************************
New scene is post epilog. The next day after Kagome returns from the present.
Sango and Kagome are talking while sitting down on the river bank.
“Sango, I’ve got some birth control devices . . . ”
“Stop there, Kagome. I have no desire for something like that.”
“But, Sango?”
“I made a mistake, Kagome. I had only a short amount of time to think about it. Now I’ve had time.” Sango says with determination. “I’m not going to use any of your modern things.”
“What if?” Kagome whispers.
“No. It’s not going to happen again. Or, at least, the next time it happens will be after Naraku is dead.” She pauses, “Since I’m not going to do it again, until then, I do not need any birth control.”
‘Besides, Miroku has been soo down. Once he finds out that I’m not using any of the birth control devices, he’ll be happy. Moreover, that will give me a reason to say no to Miroku. Knowing I could get pregnant, and I still do not want to get pregnant. At least not now, once Naraku . . . ’ Sango thinks.
Sango clears her throat, “You know, Kagome, if you are going to be more forward with Inu-yasha.” Kagome blushes. “That will cause Miroku to increase his desires. If he sees Inu-yasha . . . ”
“Oh, I hadn’t thought about that, Sango.” Kagome slumps. “I had thought about it. But, I won’t. I thought with the birth control. I solved the problem. But. I understand.” She sighs.
“Once Naraku is dead.”
“Of course. I’m sure that night...”
The two girls smile at each other . . .
Inu-yasha and Miroku, who have been listening, smile at each other as well . . .
***********************
Now to the author’s notes:
Hmmmm . . . In this post I have the following goals:
1. To tell the readers what sources I used and what is real/what is not real
2. Some personal notes
3 list of spring spinoffs.
**************************
The sources used:
Primary source: Pink Samurai: love, marriage & sex in Contemporary japan. By Nicholas Bornoff. Published by pocket books in 1991. Hardcover edition. (While it covers modern Japan, it also has extensive sections on historical japan.) Parts of the first 150 pages where used in this story.
Secondary source: Recreating Japanese Women, 1600-1945 edited by Gail lee Bernstein. Published by university of California press in 1991. Softcover. Chapter 2 mainly. (Although the first 6 chapters are useful. One of the chapters is about the philosophy that a wife’s duty is to make her husband happy. Part of her duties, therefore, is to locate a concubine for her husband to make him sexually happy . . . )
(I bought both of these years ago. Part of my love of history, but also reflecting my desire to look at history from an odd point of view.)
I also own a few more conventional histories, but all they mainly do is reinforce the concept that before 1850 japan had a different view about sex than the west.
Given the limited sources, I could easily be taking something and twisting it into a shape that is very different from it was . . .
To paraphrase an observation that I told a reviewer . . . What I did with this story is similar to studying the sex industry of Las Vegas and assuming that it also applies everywhere in the USA. So, what I’ve done is true, but . . . you need to be aware that I’m taking it out of context and modifying as necessary for story reasons.
some general notes on Fertility gods
If you are worshiping a fertility god/goddess then somewhere/somehow sex will be involved. It might be a minor part or a huge public orgy. Which depends on the god/goddess and culture. The sex rites are part of the worship. (Along with other ways to worship that god/goddess.).
But finding them can be difficult. Most publishers assume that sex and religion do not mix . . . and so, you’re not going to see it.
Also, most of the legends of Japan were translated into English by British sources in 1870 to 1890. This was at the height of the Victorian era and Japan was viewed as an up and coming state, so the sexual aspects of Japanese culture would have been downplayed. (I wonder if you translated those legends today, and did it with an eye toward increasing the sexual aspects of the stories . . . I wonder what they would look like.)
A thought about comparing sex in pre-modern japan and the western world.
In the west sex is the original sin.
In Japan sex is not the original sin.
If anything in Japan is the original sin, it’s dirt. Shinto stresses cleanliness. (Which does help. One of my earlier notes stated that in Japan the death rate for children was about 20%. In the west, at the same time, it was about 30%. I assume that the emphasis on being clean accounts for some, if not most, of the 10% difference)
It should be noted, I’m not a professor or something like that. (I did attend college, but that was years ago. My money ran out, and I was too proud to beg for a loan.) However, the last few paragraphs . . . I wonder how many readers would use them as subjects of theses’ or something similar . . .
Now to the specific parts of the story. The festival activities during the day are from Shinto festivals that are or were performed in Japan.
The dances . . . They would have occurred. I made two changes for the story.
1. I changed the timing of the dances. In the 8th cent The Emperor forbade orgies as part of Shinto rites. The temples changed the timing and completed the Shinto part in the afternoon. So the orgies at night were not, technically, part of the festival . . . (It worked. Japan has a habit of following the letter of the law, but ignoring the spirit. Witness, continuing the sex aspect of this story, showing a penis is forbidden, but showing tentacles that acts, in all manners, as a penis is Ok.)
2. The dances would have been done in private for the high priest and selected guests. (Exactly how many guests? Unknown . . . It depended on the size of the temple and how much money the guests were paying to the temple. It could be a few guests to a hundred or more.) Only the major temples at Kyoto, Edo, Ise are really studied. So what would have happened in a village in the middle of nowhere is unknown . . .
A note about Kagome’s dance, or rather Inu-yasha’s part in it:
The dead horse scene and the dying woman: some versions of this legend use terms, which are very similar to terms used in other stories. In those other stories, those terms imply a rape & death scene. (I thought about having him rape the girl, but, Inu-yasha didn’t know what was happening, so I left the story as is.)
Other notes: lifted from the Pink Samurai book.
While the couples frolicked in the fields, it was widely believed that when the male semen ejaculated into the female, the gods auguring human fertility would be simultaneously moved to cause germination of the crops.
The family and tribe were virtually synonymous, which meant that individuals belonging to neither were doomed or at best outcasts. IT took a whole family to cultivate crops: the individual without the one was deprived of the other and consequently was bound to starve.
Two true festivals, both held and performed by nobles, not peasants.
Heian festivals, held in the city of Kyoto at about 1000ad. The festival of the holy light. Held in the third month of the lunar calender, or April, this great vernal celebration was of primordial importance; “to protect the country and avoid calamities, his majesty dedicates a light to the deity of the north star. At night tapers are lit in honour of the great bear and a feast is held during which young men and women dance and disport themselves. (Exactly what dance & disport themselves means... well that depends on your imagination.)
Heian festivals, held in the city of Kyoto at about 1000ad: the full moon gruel. The rice gruel specially served to mark the occasion was stirred with sticks of elder, which women used afterwards to whack each other around the lions in the belief that it would augur the birth of male progeny. (Since the women are trying for male children, one assumes they are young women. And exactly, where the sticks are placed one the body, is also somewhat vague..)
The village orgy?
They happened.
The peasants’ orgies which invariably followed rice-planting festivals were banned in the 8th century. During Shinto festivals held at night, man and women become inebriated and commit licentious acts harmful to public morals. Henceforth Shinto festivals shall be preformed during the daytime and not a night. They still are. The trick among fertility cults was to get the Shinto ceremony over and done with early in the afternoon so that when the real festivities took off afterwards and things really warmed up the sun just happened to be setting.
The union between youths and girls on auspicious days is of primordial importance in human law. Agricultural sowing and reaping constitutes the very basis on the state. (The context of this was just after a law regulating sex. But then there is this statement which basically says on religious holidays boys & girls will have sex, by law.)
The rice-planting orgies, mentioned above, died out after WWII (say 1950). This is probably true. The pressures of Industrialization had been destroying the traditional Japanese village since 1870. The stresses of WWII and the occupation afterward. (I’m sure if someone mentioned village orgies to the US occupiers, the US would have at least tried to stop them.) But. On the other hand. It’s very easy to answer “Oh, yes, they happened, but my father (or grandfather) was the last. I never had participated in one.” Saving face is far more important then the truth.
Although . . . the US occupiers . . . go to these links for another look at the US occupation of Japan . . .
http://www.jiyuu-shikan.org/e/db2a.html
And the parts I’m referring to are toward the end of this article.
http://www.hmdresponse.org.uk/articles/MEN_WOMEN_WAR_SOME_QUESTIONS.htm< br />
********************
A selection of web sites that some readers might find interesting. They are offensive sites. So read with caution.
Very useful site:
http://www.thelema.net/hml/00Shinto/chap_11.html
useful site; Even have some statements about some early Christian rites & the fact that brothels were owned and operated by the catholic church. (You don’t find this often.) A lot of interesting facts
http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/lewis/lewten72.htm
A lot of useful details . . .
http://www.bhood.co.uk/japan/interview6.htm
Another look.
http://kspark.kaist.ac.kr/Old%20Testament/Phallic%20Elements%20in%20Reli gion.htm
Hmmm . . . For a look specifically at catholic popes’ doing wrong things, among other things.
http://www.pdean.fsbusiness.co.uk/christianity.html
I’m not anti-religion, OK. Most of these refer to times when the morality of the time was very different. I’m not going to condemn the past by using today’s standards. If you grew up in a village in feudal japan NOT having an orgy after the rice-planting would be wrong . . .
hmm . . . If you think I spent a lot of time looking up those sites, I didn’t. It took about an hour of time. None of them were exactly what I was looking for. I was looking for sex and religion and some rites, but. Oh well. But they’ll do.
Something to think about. Fertility festivals with sex related activities (a general enough term, I think), happened all over the world. I’m pretty sure that there are places, where a sex related fertility rite, similar to what happened in the past, occurs today. To give an idea about my thinking... In the middle ages in the west there were saints that were honored to promote fertility. But, I couldn’t find anything that described, in detail, the festivals, especially for peasants . . . (Getting drunk and dancing, yes. But... that’s a pretty broad description.)
************************
Some thoughts about why I wrote the story:
1. I wanted to see if I could write a story where the characters had sex, but it did not change the relationships. I think I succeeded.
2. I loved the sources and wanted to include them in stories. An earlier draft of this story, was the group, after saving a random village, gets invited to the festival. They accept, then realize that’s it’s a sex-based festival . . . But I never really could come up with a plot after the pretty young village girl disrobes in front of the group . . . so, I combined this idea with the idea above.
3. When I’m reading various lemons, some of the facts would be wrong. But, instead of telling a writer, your facts are wrong. I decided to show the facts instead. (Btw. The same applies to grammar. I know my grammar needs improvement. But . . . unless it’s shown to me . . . how can I fix it?)
4. I like to write stories where I twist the characters in ways you don’t read about all that often. I mean, you can read, stories after stories of Kagome/Inu-yasha have sex, mark each other and live happily ever after. So, I tried to write a story where that did not happen . . .
It should be noted: In a lot of stories, the Japanese wife endures her husband and his many mistakes . . . Western type love stories, does happen, but they’re not as common as in the west. Families chose a man & wife, and when a person goes against the wishes of the family, especially for personal pleasure . . . bad things happen . . .
5 I did want to see how far I could push the envelope about sex & sex ed. Early drafts had the day after be only a very small part of the story. But, readers wanted something about pregnancy and I did not want them to have children. (Remember the story was not supposed to change the relationships, and children would change them). So . . . I explored birth control and options.
*********************
other notes:
Characterizations: hmmm . . . Two characters were mentioned as O.O.C., so I’ll go into detail about my thoughts about them.
1 Kirara: Yes, I am aware that Kirara is supposed to be a female demon cat. Sigh . . . However, especially, if you’re just using the manga Kirara’s sex is not mentioned. (The anime has mentioned Kirara’s sex)
My problem: I’ve got a Kirara & Shampoo romance storyline I might do sometime in the future . . . Which, would be easier if Kirara is male. I suppose I could modify it into a lesbian relationship, but it complicates an already complex storyline. A lot.
2. Sango: additional notes:
Several reviewers mentioned that Sango was too revenge focused.
This is my fault. I wanted to keep the surprise about the dances. So, I did not go into detail about Sango’s thoughts before the dances. (See above for a new scene) I only had a chance to show her thoughts after the dances. And, as I mentioned when I did Sango’s sub-chapter, I was not proud of that sub-chapter. I knew I didn’t do it as well as I should have.
First: A general observation, ok. In the story, I tried to put things in a black/white, with no middle ground. Japan has very black/white rules. But . . . when you start to look at the daily life. Those rules are broken all the time.
A couple of women oriented examples. Men were head of family. End of the story. By law. However . . . women occupied town councils, ran businesses, etc. how? The head of family was “sick” and his wife, because of his “sickness” the wife had to preform his duties in public.
Divorce was only started by men. (And it was very easy, only three lines of dialog were needed. Of course, disentangling the former wife’s dowry could get complex, and children, of course, was also a problem . . . ) Women could start divorce proceeding. There were Buddhist monks that acted as divorce agents. Divorce rates were up to 15% (and it was probably more, most villages only recorded marriages after they lasted a year . . . )
Some of my mistake, may be, the focus I put upon the lack of individual rights and options that were common during this time in Japan. Please remember that the “self” was very low on the list of priorities. The family was all important. (Oh, yes, there are people that ignored those rules. But, that’s not what Sango would have been taught.)
Ok, Let’s see. Kagome has vague plans for the future (that’s one of the reasons she goes to school), and has vague future dreams of life with Inu-yasha.
Inu-yasha has dreams of a future life in hell with Kikyo or future life with Kagome (depends on his mood.)
Miroku has dreams of a future with his child. (Male child, of course.)
Exactly, what dream does Sango have.
She dreams of killing Naraku and perhaps, saving her brother. She has a vague dream of life with Miroku, but that’s very secondary. She’s done nothing to advance that dream. All the other characters have tried to advance their post-naraku dream, but not Sango.
So, when faced with a decision that will change her life. Does she throw away her dream of revenge or keep it?
Sango’s family was destroyed by Naraku. How could she look at her family’s graves if she should stop trying to get vengeance for her family? Ancestor worshiping/honoring is the key. Sango must try to get revenge for her family or lose her identity. Modern western thoughts about the “self” don’t exist, the family is everything . . . (Miroku has had 10+ years to adjust to the death of his father, so his dreams of doing other thing will be larger, he’s simply had time to adjust. Sango’s loss of her family is very recent compared to Miroku’s)
Now . . . Could she have the child and still try to get revenge. Yes. But she would have been taught that men and women have very different lives. She’s been raised and taught as a man. To have the child means becoming a woman/wife and all that means. (The weapon training she received means she’s not be taught women work. Oh, she’s knows some, more than a man, but by training, she’s effectively a man.)
To her, it was an either/or choice. A combination choice is a modern invention. Yes, if she’d talked with Kagome more, Kagome would have brought it up and Sango would have been overjoyed at the option. But, in the limited amount of time that this story occupies, that conversation never happened. Kagome was also occupied . . .
Sango thought she had only a very limited amount of time. She made a choice based on that. IF she’d had a couple of weeks, Miroku and Kagome would have changed her mind.
************************
Oh yes, a note about Individual rights . . .
Historical Japanese point of view: The emperor is a god. He is, by definition, perfect. The government is by his appointment. Since, the emperor is perfect, his appointments are always correct. The government, by definition, is always correct. (If it is not, than that means the emperor made a mistake in his appointments . . . ) So, if the government accuses you of a crime. The government must be correct. You must be guilty of the crime. End of story. (This is very simplified, btw. There were ways to get the government to realize it made a mistake. A common dodge, the initial reports were wrong, so the government choice was correct, with the info it had. And with new info, the decision can be changed. But, well . . . You had better be willing to risk your life . . . )
***********************
Am I planning more stories based on this storyline?
Yes, to a degree. Remember one of my goals with this story was that you could insert this into any storyline and it would work.
I am not planning a direct sequel, but on the other hand, all my stories more than 3000 words are interconnected. This storyline happens before my story, “When friends find out,” for instance.
However . . .
I do have story ideas based off this storyline or the references given above.
First storylines implied in Spring.
1 Miroku and the demon. A story of a young Miroku (13/14 years old). One of his early adventures. The origin of his classic question. (It worked!) And what happened afterward . . .
2. Inu-yasha, his first time: the story of Inu-yasha first sexual encounter. Judging by his character, even before he met Kikyo, someone hurt him emotionally. Badly. Something happened to him to make him so resistant to love . . .
3. Sango & Kagome: Fast Friends/Best Friends: Sango and Kagome talk about sex. (Oddly enough, while male homosexuality is not that strange in Japanese history/society. Female homosexuality . . . is historically unknown. It always has been, for some odd reason . . . )
4. Sango and her family: I hinted at this, but, I’ll let you read the source.
This is a very offensive article. The parts about Japan and Japanese families/culture are about 3/4 of the way down the article.
http://www.psychohistory.com/htm/06a1_incest.html
She is the character with the most normal of a family life. (Although Shippo also qualifies) plus there are parts about temples that might apply to Miroku.
Storylines based on additional info given in the sources above. (Mainly Pink Samurai)
1 Keade’s sex ed talk: The condom bit in the last chapter was all that survived. The full story.
2. Kagome and the village girls: Marriage advice given by girls of the feudal age.
3. The Inn: The group, after saving the day, is invited to stay in the house of a newlywed couple. (From recreating Japanese women)
4. Mrs. Sesshomaru: Why is Sesshomaru always wandering away from his home? Normally in feudal Japan, a person with as high a title as Sess, is married. (Sometimes the marriage occurs soon after birth, say age one or two.) Two, or three or more wives/concubines are standard. If a man of Sess’s social level was NOT married and did NOT have at least one concubine . . . that is a very, very strange person. (Even out and out homosexuals had wives and concubines. They were for show, of course. But they were there. The paternity of the children in such a marriage could be complex...) Of course, being married, especially an arranged marriage, was not a guarantee of happiness.
While I fully intend to do these stories... but . . . It will take time. If someone wishes to help me, please e-mail me. My notes are still handwritten on these, but, I’ve got no real problem sharing.
*************************
I do have a list of story ideas/plots on my profile page on fanfiction and mediaminner. If anybody wants to comment on any of those ideas/plots, please feel free to do so.
Finally . . . A plea to the readers of this story. Please, read my other stories. I had hoped, with the plea in the last chapter that more readers would read my other stories, but . . . it looks like my plea was ignored.
Please, I would like more readers for my stories. Especially “A Shard in Kyoto” this is my current major project. I would really like to have more than 100 to 125 readers for that story . . .
Please read “A Shard in Kyoto.”
http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=1441392
Thank you for reading.
jeff shelton
Missing scenes:
This scene sequence is to be spliced at the beginning of the chapter 1. I had a couple of reviewers that wanted more explanation/set-ups. So . . .
Day one
It’s raining . . .
“God Damned rain!” Inu-yasha yells as the party trug into the village. He has Kagome’s bike across his shoulders. The wheels are caked with mud. Mud is spattered all over the bike. The rest of the party slowly follows Inu-yasha. All of them are also mud covered and soaking wet. All of them look like something Kirara would drag into the campfire . . .
“The rain just came up and started. No warning.” Sango mumbles to Kagome.
“Yes, I felt some magic. But.” Miroku shrugs. “Perhaps there is someone where we were going that knows weather magic.”
“Hey! Monk! I just had a thought. You know magic. You can work some weather magic and change the weather!” Inu-yasha says excitedly!
“Inu-yasha, I am sorry, but weather magic is not my speciality. Keade might be able to do something, but I cannot.” Miroku says.
Day two
It’s raining . . .
“Keade. Do something.” Inu-yasha gestures at the rain. “Stop it.”
“I am sorry, Inu-yasha. But the weather gods will not allow any change.” Keade patiently says.
‘Of course, they’re not going to change. I’m the person that caused them to make the rain. The spring festival is coming. And I want the girls here to participate.’ She thinks.
Inu-yasha snarls and turns to Miroku. “Monk! Since the old bag is useless, you do it.”
“Inu-yasha,” Miroku says with expiration in his voice. “If Keade can’t do it. I surely cannot.” He pauses, “weather spells are very special, Inu-yasha and I’m just not trained in them.”
Day three
It raining . . .
“Monk! You damned idiot! You’ve got to something about this damned rain!” Inu-yasha yells!
“Inu-yasha.” Miroku begins to speak. Sango and Kagome can hear the stress in his voice. Inu-yasha has been bugging him for three days now and Miroku’s patience is beginning to reach its breaking point.
“I wish I could go home and go to school.” Kagome whispers to Sango.
Sango whispers, “And get away from this.” Kagome nods. “They’re going to attack each other soon.” Sango observes. She raises an eyebrow and asks, “Why are you still here? We’re not going anywhere soon . . . ”
“Sigh, I told Inu-yasha that if he didn’t call me a bitch, I’d stay longer.” Kagome whispers. “He kept his promise last week.” She sighs, “So, this week I’m keeping mine.”
Day four
It’s raining . . .
The start of the chapter 1 starts here.
******************
Sango scene.
I had reviewers mention that Sango seemed off. This scene takes place before the festival begins. I did not put this in the story, since I wanted to preserve the surprise of the dances. This monolog should help set up her later actions.
Sango is on a hillside. Next to her is her huge boomerang. There are obvious bumps and dings on it. She is sitting on a large pile of gravel. An hour ago there was a house-sized boulder where the gravel is now . . .
“Damn . . . Damn . . . IT’s a fertility festival. What do I do?” she sighs.
“I cannot leave. I promised Keade. Stupid . . . stupid. Ask her next time . . . ” She picks up an acorn sized rock and throws it away.
“And, If I leave, there is no way I could look Kagome in the face again.” She looks around, trying to see if anybody is watching her.
“Miroku. It’s a fertility festival. I’m going to get pregnant. I know it. His child. I... I do want to have his child. But . . . “
She slumps down, “what about my honor, the honor of my family, if I turn away from vengeance on Nararku? My father, my village, all my friends . . . How could I look at myself in the mirror, if I stopped trying to kill Naraku. I can’t. I must continue to fight Naraku.” She picks up a fist sized rock and squeezes it. Blood starts to drip from her hand, as the sharp edges of the freshly broken rock digs into her palm.
“There is no way I can stop. Vengeance for my father, my village, my friends. All of them come before me. IF I had died, would my father stop trying to get vengeance for me? No. Can I do any less . . . ” She grimaces and convulsively throws the rock away.
Sango licks her lips and says, “If the village was still alive? Then I could leave the child with one of my aunts or my friends. But they are dead. Could I leave the child with someone in this village?” A long pause. “No. I am the last of my family and my village. My children must be raised in the ways of my village, not Keade’s.”
She grimaces, “My brother. NO. I cannot assume he will live. But . . . the next time Sesshomaru . . . I must think about that . . . but that is for later. Whither or not I can save him, doesn’t change this decision.”
She shivers. “To raise my child properly, that means I stop fighting demons and just raise my child,” her face twitches into a smile, “children.”
She takes a deep breath, “You can’t drag children around on a quest like this.” She shakes her head, “Kagome and Shippo. No. Not really. He’s old enough to survive on his own. Plus he’s a kitsune, not a human baby.”
“If I’m to bring honor to my family, I cannot stop trying to kill Nararku.” Tears form in her eyes. “I cannot raise a child while on a quest like this.” Tears begin to fall down her checks.
“That means . . . I cannot have a child. Not now. Not while Naraku breathes . . . ”
Sango takes a deep breath. Her hands close into fists. She squeezes her fists so hard that her hands are white. “Another reason to hate Naraku.” She growls.
“He is causing me to kill my child.”
Sango bends down and picks up her boomerang. She eyes another house size boulder. “DIE!”
Authors’ notes: There is a larger note about Sango later in this post.
**************************
New scene is post epilog. The next day after Kagome returns from the present.
Sango and Kagome are talking while sitting down on the river bank.
“Sango, I’ve got some birth control devices . . . ”
“Stop there, Kagome. I have no desire for something like that.”
“But, Sango?”
“I made a mistake, Kagome. I had only a short amount of time to think about it. Now I’ve had time.” Sango says with determination. “I’m not going to use any of your modern things.”
“What if?” Kagome whispers.
“No. It’s not going to happen again. Or, at least, the next time it happens will be after Naraku is dead.” She pauses, “Since I’m not going to do it again, until then, I do not need any birth control.”
‘Besides, Miroku has been soo down. Once he finds out that I’m not using any of the birth control devices, he’ll be happy. Moreover, that will give me a reason to say no to Miroku. Knowing I could get pregnant, and I still do not want to get pregnant. At least not now, once Naraku . . . ’ Sango thinks.
Sango clears her throat, “You know, Kagome, if you are going to be more forward with Inu-yasha.” Kagome blushes. “That will cause Miroku to increase his desires. If he sees Inu-yasha . . . ”
“Oh, I hadn’t thought about that, Sango.” Kagome slumps. “I had thought about it. But, I won’t. I thought with the birth control. I solved the problem. But. I understand.” She sighs.
“Once Naraku is dead.”
“Of course. I’m sure that night...”
The two girls smile at each other . . .
Inu-yasha and Miroku, who have been listening, smile at each other as well . . .
***********************
Now to the author’s notes:
Hmmmm . . . In this post I have the following goals:
1. To tell the readers what sources I used and what is real/what is not real
2. Some personal notes
3 list of spring spinoffs.
**************************
The sources used:
Primary source: Pink Samurai: love, marriage & sex in Contemporary japan. By Nicholas Bornoff. Published by pocket books in 1991. Hardcover edition. (While it covers modern Japan, it also has extensive sections on historical japan.) Parts of the first 150 pages where used in this story.
Secondary source: Recreating Japanese Women, 1600-1945 edited by Gail lee Bernstein. Published by university of California press in 1991. Softcover. Chapter 2 mainly. (Although the first 6 chapters are useful. One of the chapters is about the philosophy that a wife’s duty is to make her husband happy. Part of her duties, therefore, is to locate a concubine for her husband to make him sexually happy . . . )
(I bought both of these years ago. Part of my love of history, but also reflecting my desire to look at history from an odd point of view.)
I also own a few more conventional histories, but all they mainly do is reinforce the concept that before 1850 japan had a different view about sex than the west.
Given the limited sources, I could easily be taking something and twisting it into a shape that is very different from it was . . .
To paraphrase an observation that I told a reviewer . . . What I did with this story is similar to studying the sex industry of Las Vegas and assuming that it also applies everywhere in the USA. So, what I’ve done is true, but . . . you need to be aware that I’m taking it out of context and modifying as necessary for story reasons.
some general notes on Fertility gods
If you are worshiping a fertility god/goddess then somewhere/somehow sex will be involved. It might be a minor part or a huge public orgy. Which depends on the god/goddess and culture. The sex rites are part of the worship. (Along with other ways to worship that god/goddess.).
But finding them can be difficult. Most publishers assume that sex and religion do not mix . . . and so, you’re not going to see it.
Also, most of the legends of Japan were translated into English by British sources in 1870 to 1890. This was at the height of the Victorian era and Japan was viewed as an up and coming state, so the sexual aspects of Japanese culture would have been downplayed. (I wonder if you translated those legends today, and did it with an eye toward increasing the sexual aspects of the stories . . . I wonder what they would look like.)
A thought about comparing sex in pre-modern japan and the western world.
In the west sex is the original sin.
In Japan sex is not the original sin.
If anything in Japan is the original sin, it’s dirt. Shinto stresses cleanliness. (Which does help. One of my earlier notes stated that in Japan the death rate for children was about 20%. In the west, at the same time, it was about 30%. I assume that the emphasis on being clean accounts for some, if not most, of the 10% difference)
It should be noted, I’m not a professor or something like that. (I did attend college, but that was years ago. My money ran out, and I was too proud to beg for a loan.) However, the last few paragraphs . . . I wonder how many readers would use them as subjects of theses’ or something similar . . .
Now to the specific parts of the story. The festival activities during the day are from Shinto festivals that are or were performed in Japan.
The dances . . . They would have occurred. I made two changes for the story.
1. I changed the timing of the dances. In the 8th cent The Emperor forbade orgies as part of Shinto rites. The temples changed the timing and completed the Shinto part in the afternoon. So the orgies at night were not, technically, part of the festival . . . (It worked. Japan has a habit of following the letter of the law, but ignoring the spirit. Witness, continuing the sex aspect of this story, showing a penis is forbidden, but showing tentacles that acts, in all manners, as a penis is Ok.)
2. The dances would have been done in private for the high priest and selected guests. (Exactly how many guests? Unknown . . . It depended on the size of the temple and how much money the guests were paying to the temple. It could be a few guests to a hundred or more.) Only the major temples at Kyoto, Edo, Ise are really studied. So what would have happened in a village in the middle of nowhere is unknown . . .
A note about Kagome’s dance, or rather Inu-yasha’s part in it:
The dead horse scene and the dying woman: some versions of this legend use terms, which are very similar to terms used in other stories. In those other stories, those terms imply a rape & death scene. (I thought about having him rape the girl, but, Inu-yasha didn’t know what was happening, so I left the story as is.)
Other notes: lifted from the Pink Samurai book.
While the couples frolicked in the fields, it was widely believed that when the male semen ejaculated into the female, the gods auguring human fertility would be simultaneously moved to cause germination of the crops.
The family and tribe were virtually synonymous, which meant that individuals belonging to neither were doomed or at best outcasts. IT took a whole family to cultivate crops: the individual without the one was deprived of the other and consequently was bound to starve.
Two true festivals, both held and performed by nobles, not peasants.
Heian festivals, held in the city of Kyoto at about 1000ad. The festival of the holy light. Held in the third month of the lunar calender, or April, this great vernal celebration was of primordial importance; “to protect the country and avoid calamities, his majesty dedicates a light to the deity of the north star. At night tapers are lit in honour of the great bear and a feast is held during which young men and women dance and disport themselves. (Exactly what dance & disport themselves means... well that depends on your imagination.)
Heian festivals, held in the city of Kyoto at about 1000ad: the full moon gruel. The rice gruel specially served to mark the occasion was stirred with sticks of elder, which women used afterwards to whack each other around the lions in the belief that it would augur the birth of male progeny. (Since the women are trying for male children, one assumes they are young women. And exactly, where the sticks are placed one the body, is also somewhat vague..)
The village orgy?
They happened.
The peasants’ orgies which invariably followed rice-planting festivals were banned in the 8th century. During Shinto festivals held at night, man and women become inebriated and commit licentious acts harmful to public morals. Henceforth Shinto festivals shall be preformed during the daytime and not a night. They still are. The trick among fertility cults was to get the Shinto ceremony over and done with early in the afternoon so that when the real festivities took off afterwards and things really warmed up the sun just happened to be setting.
The union between youths and girls on auspicious days is of primordial importance in human law. Agricultural sowing and reaping constitutes the very basis on the state. (The context of this was just after a law regulating sex. But then there is this statement which basically says on religious holidays boys & girls will have sex, by law.)
The rice-planting orgies, mentioned above, died out after WWII (say 1950). This is probably true. The pressures of Industrialization had been destroying the traditional Japanese village since 1870. The stresses of WWII and the occupation afterward. (I’m sure if someone mentioned village orgies to the US occupiers, the US would have at least tried to stop them.) But. On the other hand. It’s very easy to answer “Oh, yes, they happened, but my father (or grandfather) was the last. I never had participated in one.” Saving face is far more important then the truth.
Although . . . the US occupiers . . . go to these links for another look at the US occupation of Japan . . .
http://www.jiyuu-shikan.org/e/db2a.html
And the parts I’m referring to are toward the end of this article.
http://www.hmdresponse.org.uk/articles/MEN_WOMEN_WAR_SOME_QUESTIONS.htm< br />
********************
A selection of web sites that some readers might find interesting. They are offensive sites. So read with caution.
Very useful site:
http://www.thelema.net/hml/00Shinto/chap_11.html
useful site; Even have some statements about some early Christian rites & the fact that brothels were owned and operated by the catholic church. (You don’t find this often.) A lot of interesting facts
http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/lewis/lewten72.htm
A lot of useful details . . .
http://www.bhood.co.uk/japan/interview6.htm
Another look.
http://kspark.kaist.ac.kr/Old%20Testament/Phallic%20Elements%20in%20Reli gion.htm
Hmmm . . . For a look specifically at catholic popes’ doing wrong things, among other things.
http://www.pdean.fsbusiness.co.uk/christianity.html
I’m not anti-religion, OK. Most of these refer to times when the morality of the time was very different. I’m not going to condemn the past by using today’s standards. If you grew up in a village in feudal japan NOT having an orgy after the rice-planting would be wrong . . .
hmm . . . If you think I spent a lot of time looking up those sites, I didn’t. It took about an hour of time. None of them were exactly what I was looking for. I was looking for sex and religion and some rites, but. Oh well. But they’ll do.
Something to think about. Fertility festivals with sex related activities (a general enough term, I think), happened all over the world. I’m pretty sure that there are places, where a sex related fertility rite, similar to what happened in the past, occurs today. To give an idea about my thinking... In the middle ages in the west there were saints that were honored to promote fertility. But, I couldn’t find anything that described, in detail, the festivals, especially for peasants . . . (Getting drunk and dancing, yes. But... that’s a pretty broad description.)
************************
Some thoughts about why I wrote the story:
1. I wanted to see if I could write a story where the characters had sex, but it did not change the relationships. I think I succeeded.
2. I loved the sources and wanted to include them in stories. An earlier draft of this story, was the group, after saving a random village, gets invited to the festival. They accept, then realize that’s it’s a sex-based festival . . . But I never really could come up with a plot after the pretty young village girl disrobes in front of the group . . . so, I combined this idea with the idea above.
3. When I’m reading various lemons, some of the facts would be wrong. But, instead of telling a writer, your facts are wrong. I decided to show the facts instead. (Btw. The same applies to grammar. I know my grammar needs improvement. But . . . unless it’s shown to me . . . how can I fix it?)
4. I like to write stories where I twist the characters in ways you don’t read about all that often. I mean, you can read, stories after stories of Kagome/Inu-yasha have sex, mark each other and live happily ever after. So, I tried to write a story where that did not happen . . .
It should be noted: In a lot of stories, the Japanese wife endures her husband and his many mistakes . . . Western type love stories, does happen, but they’re not as common as in the west. Families chose a man & wife, and when a person goes against the wishes of the family, especially for personal pleasure . . . bad things happen . . .
5 I did want to see how far I could push the envelope about sex & sex ed. Early drafts had the day after be only a very small part of the story. But, readers wanted something about pregnancy and I did not want them to have children. (Remember the story was not supposed to change the relationships, and children would change them). So . . . I explored birth control and options.
*********************
other notes:
Characterizations: hmmm . . . Two characters were mentioned as O.O.C., so I’ll go into detail about my thoughts about them.
1 Kirara: Yes, I am aware that Kirara is supposed to be a female demon cat. Sigh . . . However, especially, if you’re just using the manga Kirara’s sex is not mentioned. (The anime has mentioned Kirara’s sex)
My problem: I’ve got a Kirara & Shampoo romance storyline I might do sometime in the future . . . Which, would be easier if Kirara is male. I suppose I could modify it into a lesbian relationship, but it complicates an already complex storyline. A lot.
2. Sango: additional notes:
Several reviewers mentioned that Sango was too revenge focused.
This is my fault. I wanted to keep the surprise about the dances. So, I did not go into detail about Sango’s thoughts before the dances. (See above for a new scene) I only had a chance to show her thoughts after the dances. And, as I mentioned when I did Sango’s sub-chapter, I was not proud of that sub-chapter. I knew I didn’t do it as well as I should have.
First: A general observation, ok. In the story, I tried to put things in a black/white, with no middle ground. Japan has very black/white rules. But . . . when you start to look at the daily life. Those rules are broken all the time.
A couple of women oriented examples. Men were head of family. End of the story. By law. However . . . women occupied town councils, ran businesses, etc. how? The head of family was “sick” and his wife, because of his “sickness” the wife had to preform his duties in public.
Divorce was only started by men. (And it was very easy, only three lines of dialog were needed. Of course, disentangling the former wife’s dowry could get complex, and children, of course, was also a problem . . . ) Women could start divorce proceeding. There were Buddhist monks that acted as divorce agents. Divorce rates were up to 15% (and it was probably more, most villages only recorded marriages after they lasted a year . . . )
Some of my mistake, may be, the focus I put upon the lack of individual rights and options that were common during this time in Japan. Please remember that the “self” was very low on the list of priorities. The family was all important. (Oh, yes, there are people that ignored those rules. But, that’s not what Sango would have been taught.)
Ok, Let’s see. Kagome has vague plans for the future (that’s one of the reasons she goes to school), and has vague future dreams of life with Inu-yasha.
Inu-yasha has dreams of a future life in hell with Kikyo or future life with Kagome (depends on his mood.)
Miroku has dreams of a future with his child. (Male child, of course.)
Exactly, what dream does Sango have.
She dreams of killing Naraku and perhaps, saving her brother. She has a vague dream of life with Miroku, but that’s very secondary. She’s done nothing to advance that dream. All the other characters have tried to advance their post-naraku dream, but not Sango.
So, when faced with a decision that will change her life. Does she throw away her dream of revenge or keep it?
Sango’s family was destroyed by Naraku. How could she look at her family’s graves if she should stop trying to get vengeance for her family? Ancestor worshiping/honoring is the key. Sango must try to get revenge for her family or lose her identity. Modern western thoughts about the “self” don’t exist, the family is everything . . . (Miroku has had 10+ years to adjust to the death of his father, so his dreams of doing other thing will be larger, he’s simply had time to adjust. Sango’s loss of her family is very recent compared to Miroku’s)
Now . . . Could she have the child and still try to get revenge. Yes. But she would have been taught that men and women have very different lives. She’s been raised and taught as a man. To have the child means becoming a woman/wife and all that means. (The weapon training she received means she’s not be taught women work. Oh, she’s knows some, more than a man, but by training, she’s effectively a man.)
To her, it was an either/or choice. A combination choice is a modern invention. Yes, if she’d talked with Kagome more, Kagome would have brought it up and Sango would have been overjoyed at the option. But, in the limited amount of time that this story occupies, that conversation never happened. Kagome was also occupied . . .
Sango thought she had only a very limited amount of time. She made a choice based on that. IF she’d had a couple of weeks, Miroku and Kagome would have changed her mind.
************************
Oh yes, a note about Individual rights . . .
Historical Japanese point of view: The emperor is a god. He is, by definition, perfect. The government is by his appointment. Since, the emperor is perfect, his appointments are always correct. The government, by definition, is always correct. (If it is not, than that means the emperor made a mistake in his appointments . . . ) So, if the government accuses you of a crime. The government must be correct. You must be guilty of the crime. End of story. (This is very simplified, btw. There were ways to get the government to realize it made a mistake. A common dodge, the initial reports were wrong, so the government choice was correct, with the info it had. And with new info, the decision can be changed. But, well . . . You had better be willing to risk your life . . . )
***********************
Am I planning more stories based on this storyline?
Yes, to a degree. Remember one of my goals with this story was that you could insert this into any storyline and it would work.
I am not planning a direct sequel, but on the other hand, all my stories more than 3000 words are interconnected. This storyline happens before my story, “When friends find out,” for instance.
However . . .
I do have story ideas based off this storyline or the references given above.
First storylines implied in Spring.
1 Miroku and the demon. A story of a young Miroku (13/14 years old). One of his early adventures. The origin of his classic question. (It worked!) And what happened afterward . . .
2. Inu-yasha, his first time: the story of Inu-yasha first sexual encounter. Judging by his character, even before he met Kikyo, someone hurt him emotionally. Badly. Something happened to him to make him so resistant to love . . .
3. Sango & Kagome: Fast Friends/Best Friends: Sango and Kagome talk about sex. (Oddly enough, while male homosexuality is not that strange in Japanese history/society. Female homosexuality . . . is historically unknown. It always has been, for some odd reason . . . )
4. Sango and her family: I hinted at this, but, I’ll let you read the source.
This is a very offensive article. The parts about Japan and Japanese families/culture are about 3/4 of the way down the article.
http://www.psychohistory.com/htm/06a1_incest.html
She is the character with the most normal of a family life. (Although Shippo also qualifies) plus there are parts about temples that might apply to Miroku.
Storylines based on additional info given in the sources above. (Mainly Pink Samurai)
1 Keade’s sex ed talk: The condom bit in the last chapter was all that survived. The full story.
2. Kagome and the village girls: Marriage advice given by girls of the feudal age.
3. The Inn: The group, after saving the day, is invited to stay in the house of a newlywed couple. (From recreating Japanese women)
4. Mrs. Sesshomaru: Why is Sesshomaru always wandering away from his home? Normally in feudal Japan, a person with as high a title as Sess, is married. (Sometimes the marriage occurs soon after birth, say age one or two.) Two, or three or more wives/concubines are standard. If a man of Sess’s social level was NOT married and did NOT have at least one concubine . . . that is a very, very strange person. (Even out and out homosexuals had wives and concubines. They were for show, of course. But they were there. The paternity of the children in such a marriage could be complex...) Of course, being married, especially an arranged marriage, was not a guarantee of happiness.
While I fully intend to do these stories... but . . . It will take time. If someone wishes to help me, please e-mail me. My notes are still handwritten on these, but, I’ve got no real problem sharing.
*************************
I do have a list of story ideas/plots on my profile page on fanfiction and mediaminner. If anybody wants to comment on any of those ideas/plots, please feel free to do so.
Finally . . . A plea to the readers of this story. Please, read my other stories. I had hoped, with the plea in the last chapter that more readers would read my other stories, but . . . it looks like my plea was ignored.
Please, I would like more readers for my stories. Especially “A Shard in Kyoto” this is my current major project. I would really like to have more than 100 to 125 readers for that story . . .
Please read “A Shard in Kyoto.”
http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=1441392
Thank you for reading.
jeff shelton