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Description
"My, my, young one, your propensity towards expressing your joy... While I understand it's pleasant to be around me... Now, it's something that has to be curbed. It's not wise, you know, to smile so freely. Everything has a price."

Before Murase was a kabuki actor, he was a servant to the brothel, a bright, if not a rather stubborn and unruly child. His interested was first peaked by his mentor, who played onnagata. Entranced, he dogged him, until he was finally accepted. It was two years that he spent apprenticed to his mentor, whose most celebrated title was that of the 'Black-Toothed Snake of Yoshiwara'. He was named so for he always appeared with black teeth, and his movements carried the fluidity of his namesake. Though human, his mentor stood on equal repute and ground as the older youkai of the district. He would have been a tayuu in his own right, if not for his penchance for theatre. He had a proclivity for the Heian-era fashion favored by court ladies, an anomaly among his peers, given the fast-paced turnover of trends in their lifestyle. Widely known and popular in his peak, it is strange that few remember him, his last few years spent in relative quiet.

(But perhaps the title has another reason to its rhyme, and rumors towards the circumstances for his disappearance gather rumors as smoke is gathered from damp wood set alight.)

i wanted to draw a younger version of murase smiling but somehow it became a pic to draft the design of his mentor, who until now was a featureless blob despite playing such a big role in his history... LAUGHS he was definitely murase's first puppy crush. and also the reason he no longer smiles or says much of anything, has a renewed and amplified hatred towards working in the brothel, can't find pleasure whatsoever in sex, and owns deep prejudices towards youkai clients who proposition him (and maybe even youkai in general). despite this he's still managed to maintain a certain naivety and innocence. which is honestly impressive considering his mentor is kinda always the runner-up in the resident Trashbag Pageant,, Well. Let's Just Say: the dude was involved in quite the number of shady affairs, which murase was inevitably exposed to. but i guess if murase has followed in his mentor's footsteps, it's a story that has to be told another day... ahaha he was supposed to have less delicate features but you know i reasoned that if he's that much of a vulture he'd take care of himself enough that he'd still look fairly effeminate despite having a larger build, solely from years of effort.

though the official story is that he disappeared, everybody secretly knows that actually he is dead as a doornail now and the most popular rumor is that murase killed him to get the position of the onnagata in the theatre at chiasa's. though that's knowledge that's mostly in-house. but you know as they say there are always many sides to a story, even if they might be true.

when asked, murase speaks of his mentor with polite admiration, but you know... when you have deeply and unconditionally loved someone for a long time, there's a lot of reasons to hate them too. (especially when you place your trust in them and they continually betray it, and manipulate you into thinking it wasn't that bad at all.) murase kind of has a complex about it, and it's not wise to touch the topic, let alone unravel it. there's a lot of unhealed wounds here.

give me liberty on the yoshiwara name i know that its in tokyo not kuroyuri country but let me live...

ended up rambling a lot and even though murase is just an expy of ukyo ive grown strangely attached to him in tny-verse.. who has been infinitely exposed to more tragedy solely from the virtue of his native species.. but still retains the purity and kindness and disposition of his past life... writing this has also helped me flesh out more details about his past, which i'm grateful about, since idk if anyone is interested enough to hear me talk about it so much. lol. so i'll just. talk to myself about this. :'^)

also laughs because this has nothing to do with the ongoing event,

thanks vila lawl and fawn for ur inputs on this piece you helped a lot!! especially since i had to change the lighting during post-editing because i remembered that there's no sun in tny, and when i speedpainted this i'd conceptualized it as a sunny day..

Description
"My, my, young one, your propensity towards expressing your joy... While I understand it's pleasant to be around me... Now, it's something that has to be curbed. It's not wise, you know, to smile so freely. Everything has a price."

Before Murase was a kabuki actor, he was a servant to the brothel, a bright, if not a rather stubborn and unruly child. His interested was first peaked by his mentor, who played onnagata. Entranced, he dogged him, until he was finally accepted. It was two years that he spent apprenticed to his mentor, whose most celebrated title was that of the 'Black-Toothed Snake of Yoshiwara'. He was named so for he always appeared with black teeth, and his movements carried the fluidity of his namesake. Though human, his mentor stood on equal repute and ground as the older youkai of the district. He would have been a tayuu in his own right, if not for his penchance for theatre. He had a proclivity for the Heian-era fashion favored by court ladies, an anomaly among his peers, given the fast-paced turnover of trends in their lifestyle. Widely known and popular in his peak, it is strange that few remember him, his last few years spent in relative quiet.

(But perhaps the title has another reason to its rhyme, and rumors towards the circumstances for his disappearance gather rumors as smoke is gathered from damp wood set alight.)

i wanted to draw a younger version of murase smiling but somehow it became a pic to draft the design of his mentor, who until now was a featureless blob despite playing such a big role in his history... LAUGHS he was definitely murase's first puppy crush. and also the reason he no longer smiles or says much of anything, has a renewed and amplified hatred towards working in the brothel, can't find pleasure whatsoever in sex, and owns deep prejudices towards youkai clients who proposition him (and maybe even youkai in general). despite this he's still managed to maintain a certain naivety and innocence. which is honestly impressive considering his mentor is kinda always the runner-up in the resident Trashbag Pageant,, Well. Let's Just Say: the dude was involved in quite the number of shady affairs, which murase was inevitably exposed to. but i guess if murase has followed in his mentor's footsteps, it's a story that has to be told another day... ahaha he was supposed to have less delicate features but you know i reasoned that if he's that much of a vulture he'd take care of himself enough that he'd still look fairly effeminate despite having a larger build, solely from years of effort.

though the official story is that he disappeared, everybody secretly knows that actually he is dead as a doornail now and the most popular rumor is that murase killed him to get the position of the onnagata in the theatre at chiasa's. though that's knowledge that's mostly in-house. but you know as they say there are always many sides to a story, even if they might be true.

when asked, murase speaks of his mentor with polite admiration, but you know... when you have deeply and unconditionally loved someone for a long time, there's a lot of reasons to hate them too. (especially when you place your trust in them and they continually betray it, and manipulate you into thinking it wasn't that bad at all.) murase kind of has a complex about it, and it's not wise to touch the topic, let alone unravel it. there's a lot of unhealed wounds here.

give me liberty on the yoshiwara name i know that its in tokyo not kuroyuri country but let me live...

ended up rambling a lot and even though murase is just an expy of ukyo ive grown strangely attached to him in tny-verse.. who has been infinitely exposed to more tragedy solely from the virtue of his native species.. but still retains the purity and kindness and disposition of his past life... writing this has also helped me flesh out more details about his past, which i'm grateful about, since idk if anyone is interested enough to hear me talk about it so much. lol. so i'll just. talk to myself about this. :'^)

also laughs because this has nothing to do with the ongoing event,

thanks vila lawl and fawn for ur inputs on this piece you helped a lot!! especially since i had to change the lighting during post-editing because i remembered that there's no sun in tny, and when i speedpainted this i'd conceptualized it as a sunny day..