A to Z Challenge 2017 -- Lin Koujo, L, Light Yagami, Loke #atozchallenge

What can I say about my first L listing? He is an onmyōji with five shiki (spirits or demons that are linked to him by magic and are his servants). He works for a seventeen-year-old as both guardian and assistant. He is Chinese.  His name is Lin Koujo from the Anime Ghost Hunt.

Quiet and taciturn, he is the one who stays up at night to monitor the computers and cameras when out on a ghost hunting case.  He doesn't like the Japanese because of personal reasons.

He is a powerful Onmyōdō practitioner who can summon a spirit to answer questions or protect using his shiki.

🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁

Loke is a member of Fairy Tail. He is the ladies man, but he has a problem with Lucy at first, which is strange to the other members since she is beautiful. His past is mysterious and he's an enigma.

  He suddenly leaves the guild and says goodbye to Lucy, she at first thinks it's a line, but then realizes that he was telling the truth.  When she finds out what he is and his punishment for it, her determination saves his life.

  Loke is Leo one of the Zodiac Celestial Beings.  He stopped his wizard from summoning her other celestial beings because she mistreated them.  She died as a result. He forms a contract with Lucy.

🔖🔖🔖🔖🔖🔖

Light Yagami and L are the Yin and Yang of Death Note.  Light becomes Kira, one who brings justice to the world with his Death Note. L is the genius detective wanting to stop him.

Light and L dance around each other in this dark death match. One a high school student the other an eccentric who eats sweets and constantly looks like he's been on a three day bender.

This duel between them goes on back and forth for much of the show and manga. It ends as one could expect, one dies and the other continues on with his mission.

(And y'all were thinking I was going to actually say who wins. Nope. For those who have seen it know, and for those who haven't, well, I left that as a surprise.)

A TO Z CHALLENGE 2016 -- XIÈ ZHÌ

You know he is guilty.  You see it as clear a the purest water.

You care not for the speech of the humans.  Your instincts call for you to punish the man before you.

You cannot resist any longer.  You stand and stalk over to the sweating man.

He knows you know.  He stinks of terror.  His eyes are wide as you get even closer.  You raise a paw and strike.



Xiè Zhì or Xièzhì is also known as Xiè Cai or Xiè Chai.  It is described as having one horn, but its body shape has many forms akin to a dog, goat, or (as in the case of the Korean version) a lion.

One scholar called it a "righteous beast" since it has the ability to see right and wrong, good and evil.  In some stories, they were used in courts of law.  The wrongdoer would either be bitten, clawed up, or rammed by the creature as a sign of guilt.

The Korean version is called a Haetae.  It had a bell around its neck and scales on its body.  Statues of it were used to protect Hanyang (Seoul).  

Mention of the it goes back to the Han Dynasty (around 206 BCE).  

In modern times, the Xièzhì is used as a symbol for law and justice in China as well as the Haichi as the official symbol of Seoul.

A TO Z CHALLENGE 2016 -- BUS 302 OR THE MIDNIGHT BUS, BOROBOROTON

It's late at night, you're on the bus minding your own business.  The bus let's on some passengers, but you don't pay attention. Suddenly, an elderly man gets up from his seat and starts yelling at you for no reason.
He gets physically violent.

The bus driver kicks you both off the bus, leaving you stranded with the old man. Angry now, you confront the old man, and he has the audacity to say that he saved your life.  How? you ask.

This is the urban legend Bus 302 from China.  Also called the Midnight Bus.

It has various versions, but in all of them the bus is doomed.

The young man learns from the old  man that the passengers that got on the bus had no feet.  They were spirits. The young man then learns that the bus had disappeared just after midnight and was never found again.

In a similar version, it was drunk man and an old man with all the other passengers being spirits.  The last version I found, had a female bus driver, three nasty robbers, and a poor guy who couldn't fight to save the woman's virtue.  The bus on this one is driven off a cliff.

Chinese ghosts are believed to flow when they walk, and that their heels don't touch the ground.  So, they have 'no feet'.

gh

 A slight movement wakes you.  The small shift of bedding closer to your face.  You think that it was only whimsy and you close your eyes to go back to sleep.  Then you feel it again.  The bedding is moving on its own.

You try to escape but it's no use. You are thrown out of bed and crash to the floor. Then, the blanket wraps around your neck to strangle you.

This, my friends, is the Boroboro-ton, which basically translates  to tattered futon from the Japanese.

It appeared in 1781 in the Hyakki Tsurezure Bukuro, which was one of the books in the Gazu Hyakki Yagyō. This set of books featured spirits, ghosts, monsters, and beasts in folklore, art, and literature.

It is a Tsukumogami (artifact spirit).  Usually these yokai are objects that have been possessed by ghosts or spirits, or have been in use for 100 years.  It is believed by many that the object will then receive a soul. They then will look pristine despite its age.

If they feel ignored or neglected, that's when they will come alive and become monsters.

So, next time you wake up with the blankets wrapped tightly around you suffocatingly  . . . Beware! It might not be your imagination.  They really might be out to kill you!