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shit-enmu-says · 3 days

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Hihi, quick question, I have absolutely no idea if anyone has asked this before or if you have already cleared this out, but I'm not trying to seem weird by digging through your account so I'll ask anyway.

What made you start shipping EnDouma?

Very sorry. This ask was submitted mid February, but I have been chipping at an explanation as time has gone on. I wanted to give something worth reading since this is actually the first time someone has asked me that question. Also, I don't mind if people dig through my account. It exists to be witnessed and to archive my thoughts. But thank you for your consideration! Anyway, Manga Spoilers Ahead.

The short answer is I feel like they are incompatible by design, but their abilities and personalities make them the only people capable of dissecting each other mentally where they guard it the strongest. Enmu is not a considerate character, but he is intelligent and driven. He's not waiting on permission to dig into Douma psychologically if it suits his gains. I don't see a version of canon compliant Enmu that wouldn't be bitterly jealous of Douma for his power and not try to usurp him or otherwise benefit from shadowing him. This, however, fans the flames of his inferiority. His desire to be more, to be powerful, to be respected.

More under the cut. This shit is LONG.

Douma, with his flippancy towards rank, makes a good character to harbor someone like Enmu. He's easy going and takes things as bonding gestures rather than threats. But this isn't because Douma is stupid. He's playing his own games. As the fanbooks state, he took on countless partners to play pretend with emotion and love. He wants genuine bonds, but these are impossible while he's in his Temple. Douma was born into a position of power, forced to save face until he broke, and his entire identity is tied to one place and one purpose.

Enmu is jealous of a thing Douma never even asked for, and something Douma is resentful of in some capacity. In Douma's recollection of his parents he calls the Eternal Paradise Faith "stupid" and his parents "dim-witted" for having ever created it. Douma also uses the very charged word "lecher" when describing his father who "dallied with the female cult members" and acknowledges this as the reason his mother murdered his father. Douma is very judgmental and harsh when describing his parents, the cult, and its followers. He never founded the faith. He was forced into the role after the murder-suicide of his parents.

I don't think Douma is truly emotionless because of this. I think he has a very suppressed and limited scope because he had a shutdown in his early childhood. He doesn't miss his parents, he doesn't believe he has feelings, and he has placed himself in a class outside of humanity, which are all trauma associated traits. But where his foil, Kanao, had respect and love to nurture her sense of humanity, Douma was groomed into an authoritative position and never left it. He was put in charge, but no one was truly in charge of him.

I have a personal headcanon that he became a demon to achieve the closest thing to a godlike status as possible. So that his entire life wasn't a waste. So that he could pretend like he was actually doing what his mother told him he was capable of doing. Though I do not believe Douma thinks he is a god. Douma is atheistic because of his harsh judgements of the world not being answered by fabled gods. Douma believes he is the afterlife. Which is evidenced by how he talks about those he eats becoming part of him and being happy when he is, which further incentivizes his search for emotion.

Though Douma also holds contempt for the faithful who cried to him as a child. On a fundamental level, he understands what happened to him is wrong. But then there's the dissonance. He's still here doing exactly what it is he was told he had to. He never left where he was born.

Enmu is not that sort of character. And while it's not confirmed officially what kind of way he lived as a demon, the fanbooks do touch on his human life. Enmu was never able to separate dreams from reality as a child and this continued into his adult life. He forged his certifications for hypnotherapy and convinced the sick and dying they were healthy. Even in his human life we see elements of dreams and a desire for escapism. Enmu was caught a few times but he never stopped what he did either, since he didn't understand why people who were going to die anyway weren't appreciating their final moments in a fantasy.

Enmu, in another fanbook entry, is also confirmed not to have felt pain while Muzan disemboweled him, and this is why he was turned into a demon. Enmu admired Muzan's power and was jealous of it. So he became fixated on him in an effort to achieve said power. I don't imagine Enmu led an easy life as a human being, and it's clear he struggled but was never treated for his lifetime of mental instability. As a demon his form reflects this and he manipulates the dreams of others, giving them an escape so they do his bidding. The physical body of a demon and their powers usually reflects their mental states and human lives, so it's important to note that Enmu is not naturally gifted, even if he is resourceful.

As a demon he is primarily evasive, worked months for his plan against a Hashira and even had a backup plan in case Tanjiro was there (something even Enmu acknowledges was such a slim chance it wasn't worth preparing for but he did it anyway. This detail was lost in the movie.), and further compensated for his own blind spots. Enmu is exactly aware of where he is weak, and he covers himself deftly. He doesn't have offensive powers like other demons. He never fights with claws, he's too dignified to bite, and he makes tools from his own body. The manga is way more detailed about this, but anime onlys won't know. Enmu made the awls he gave to his pawns out of his bones, the ink of the tickets with his sleep spell is from his blood, and the ropes were woven out of his very own flesh and sinews. Enmu is resourceful, and he's constantly working harder than other demons, which he himself is bitter about.

Enmu also acknowledges the ranks and how lowers are looked down on, which he finds unfair. As he dies he has a similar anger towards Muzan for having not done more to prevent a traitor demon (Nezuko) and for not giving him a stronger demonic body to exist in.

Douma, unlike Enmu, is naturally gifted on top of being strategic. Muzan canonically doesn't like Douma. So the only reason to keep him around is because he would suffer a significant loss for him not to be there. Douma and Enmu are very interesting because they want something the other has. Douma wants an escapist fantasy and Enmu wants power. Both miss the mark on what the other actually has.

In a situation where they interact, Enmu would offer his respect because Douma is higher than him socially, but I don't think he would actually like him. The nature of demons makes for lonely people. No bonds, no friendships. Douma desperately wants those things, and Enmu is appealing in a way his followers are not. Enmu doesn't actually like him. Enmu won't follow him blindly. Enmu refuses to be controlled beyond what he believes serves him. Enmu is here to use his recourses and fuck off as soon as it's not convenient. Nobody is making Enmu talk to him, so naturally he wants his attention.

Douma would be curious about him, especially since Enmu is so guarded. Unlike his followers, Enmu chooses his words carefully and won't just serve his heart to him on a platter. Whatever Enmu's life and pains were are a total secret. In a situation where they interact, it's hard for me to place them before the Mugen Train, so I usually envision Enmu after a near death failure that further makes him desperate to prove himself. A near death experience would also likely give him some shred of his human memories, however dilute. My point is, Douma would like a challenge in dissecting Enmu's psyche because he's always seeking anything that will make him feel something.

Enmu is intelligent enough to try and abuse this. At first he would think this is an in, spending time with him and even faking a friendship. This is what he needs to be able to overthrow Douma and take his rank, but Douma, while not sadistic, is still very blunt which comes off as antagonism. He figures Enmu out quickly and lets him know he does too. But he wouldn’t be hostile. Douma wants company. And even company that wanted to overthrow him is welcome.

Douma doesn't canonically care about rank anyway. This is evident when Kokushibo challenges Akaza's behavior in the Upper Moon meeting. Douma says he's not offended that Akaza struck him, but Kokushibo has to clarify he's upset about the challenge to the hierarchy since Douma is above Akaza, not that he actually cares about Douma or his feelings. To which Douma spends a second or two processing before he responds "Ah! I see." And then proceeds to defend Akaza anyway. Going as far as saying to Kokushibo that he thinks the upper ranks should be kinder to the lower ones.

An interaction that is possible with Enmu.

While Douma is not a sadistic character and goes out of his way to limit suffering in the manga, Enmu is. These details are also lost in the movie, but the narration in the manga details how Enmu has no value on human lives beyond food or turning them into tools. This is partly why I think people make him "too nice" is fanon is because they were introduced to him in the movie rather than the manga. Enmu purposefully doesn't tell any of his pawns the risks of going into a dream, and only recruits them so he doesn't have to do it himself. He acknowledges that he will be vulnerable if he tries.

Given the kind of person Enmu us, why would Douma bother with him? Douma hears the final words of his victims, regrets having wasted Kanae's body, and when Kotoha dies he justifies himself that she would only be beaten if she ever went home. So the best he could do for her was to "consume her thoughtfully, bones and all." He further states the only reason he believed he had to kill her was because she found out he was eating his followers and she "cursed" him, "accusing" him of being a "cruel liar", which he didn't personally believe about himself. Kotoha's challenge triggered that rift between his obligations and wish to be kind with his nature as a demon. And I think this is ultimately why he killed her above all other reasons.

Circling back to my point, why would he bother with Enmu if he isn't intentionally (in his mind) cruel like him? Cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance caused by being a demon, which leads him to describe people as "fine feasts" as much he describes them as pitiful or something he admires for their human qualities (emotion). As mentioned before, Douma believes he's helping people by being a cult leader. I think he would try to project his help onto Enmu and wouldn't be easily offended by Enmu's cruelty. I think he would be fascinated by it. And to some degree, comforted by the presence of another demon in his Temple who shares the same obligatory cruelty that comes with being a demon. He doesn't have to address it. It just is.

I started shipping EnDouma because the ship itself is an uphill battle. It's easy to say they might be sexually engaged for fun, but without care, they're going to make each other worse. They are not compatible by most metrics, but they're both psychologically equipped to dig into each other's most vulnerable traits. They will come to know each other better than anyone. Their time spent together is a game. And the creepings in of a genuine bond fueled by loneliness and isolation will be what keeps them together.

Douma has never known vulnerability in this way, and Enmu does everything to avoid it too. When you can't hide your inner face from someone, you can't help but feel exposed. In a way, this is its own form of intimacy.

I love EnDouma because Enmu is the only canon character capable of digging out Douma's repressed trauma and giving Douma that chance to witness it himself through a dream. To highlight emotion in a manufactured setting as bargaining chips. Douma in turn has a high drive to understand those around him in hopes of achieving what they have. If Enmu will give him a feeling, he's more inclined to let himself into his games than to reject him.

Enmu is bitter, spiteful, vengeful and weak. Douma is passive, playful, naturally gifted, and trying to be kind even though it serves him no purpose. For an "emotionless" being, it always stuck out to me that the performance he chooses is a friendly, kind one. Even if his vision of kindness is warped by his identity as a demon.

Enmu was born a nobody fighting the world. Douma was born holy, but he doesn't want to be special. He wants to know what emotion is. He wants to know what joy and suffering are really like. This is the piece missing from his time spent alive. Unlike him, Enmu wants to be powerful. He wants to be in a position where no one can ever touch him. In the fanbooks it is even stated that Enmu is jealous of Muzan outright, and this factors into his "Infatuation" with him.

The grass is always greener on the other side, as they say.

I wasn't originally passionate about this ship for the romance until I started getting into the meat of my fanfiction Kizuki Eye. (Please note this is a very heavy fic rooted in a lot of personal traumas. Read the tags carefully before you decide to commit to it.) It's a fic in which I said to myself, "Okay, they are totally fucked, now how do I un-fuck this? By design of their world and their personalities, even if they came to love, Muzan would not condone it."

The answer to these problems? :') Complicated. But it's fun as hell to explore how two people using each other come to value and love one another. I won't say how, but the kind of characters they are when presented to one another are almost guaranteed to change. And change they do. They break each other as much as they try to uplift. And this is what compels to me them. A character like Enmu could so easily destroy Douma's cognitive dissonance if he knew how to play his cards right, and Douma could so easily instill a new sense of importance by giving Enmu some level of control over him.

Is your best enough when you've been so set in your ways? What do you do when you realize what you really wanted is nothing but suffering? Do you come to understand each other? Do you meet in the middle? Are you resentful, wishful, remorseful? What now? EnDouma is a ship where they have to be broken as people before they can ever learn love meaningfully. So break them I do.

Please also note that the fanfiction I wrote for them explores these topics very heavily and in way more depth than I can offer a tumblr post. 🥲

#reblogged #I really love the analysis going on here

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