#Shirime

[shellhawk]

My next ex-husband is looking fiiiiiiiine!

Burbank photo op. He's looking at a Shirime, loose translation, "butt-eye," a Japanese monster that wanders around naked and shows its butthole-eye to everyone to scare them...

[kosmicpowers]

Considering how much YW loves it's toilet/butt humor, I'm surprised we haven't gotten a Yo-kai based off the actual Japanese yokai Shirime. Which is faceless and scares people by bending over to show the eye in its butt. Yeah really.

Although we do have one that's just a butt and another that's full of piss so maybe it's enough.

[5ecardaday]

Yokaitober, Days 9-12

Helping to shorten the gap between the current date and how many yokai I've actually posted, here's Days 9-12 of my Yokaitober project. This set includes the kamakiri, a goblin cosplaying Edward Scissorhands who's obsessed with cutting hair; the shirime, a spooky faceless ghost that's desperate to flash you its eye; the tenjoname, a naked monster covered in paper strips who licks the grim off your ceilings; and the maikubi, the severed heads of three samurai who just couldn't stop fighting.

If you're unfamiliar with Japanese folklore, this assemblage of creatures probably reads like a demonic fever-dream. If you have even a passing knowledge of yokai, then you know these are really just par for the course. Okay, so maybe the shirime is pretty out there, but it's also not the strangest example of Japanese humor.

Regardless of whether you find these yokai creepy, funny, or unexplainably cute, they're all here for you to use in your own games of 5e. If you're interested in more yokai like these, as well as other 5th edition homebrew including subclasses, magic items, other monsters, and more, be sure to check out my Patreon. You can choose to support me there for as little as $2/month, or even just sign up to follow me and get alerts about when I release new stuff.

[nekulines]

Day 13 - Shirime

I'm sorry

[darkiisstuff]

Look at this mischievous boi

[manycrows]

It’s all fun and games when you get a yokai gf with a hime-cut that’s a lil long in the bangs until you decide to try butt stuff and she hits you with the 👁️

[daemonya]

chatbot sharing: Iriya

👁️ all eyes on you… especially the unexpected one

c.ai 🍓 janitor 🍰 charhub 🌸 sakura

[letzoespoilyoucreates]

[rocksanddeadflowers]

I don't know my way around Japanese folklore much but just found out about Shirime and immediately got Jonny D'Ville vibes from it if that's anything. A better but cursed concept is TMA Eye Avatars getting cursed to have a Shirime eye/ Shirime are totally an Eye aligned creature. But I immediately thought of Jonny and need to go bleach my brain :)

[kosmicpowers]

I'm getting Japanese Yokai vibes.

the infamous man-assed muscle beast of ohio spotted again

[ludtak]

ŠIRIM

[onenakedfarmer]

Currently Playing

Ellen Kushner and The Shirim Klezmer Orchestra THE GOLDEN DREYDL

[unsleepingtales]

The Bad Kids go to Shabbat Dinner

Ok so @justawizardwithafrog is working on a fic where the Bad Kids go to Shabbat dinner at Riz and Sklonda's house and I have Thoughts. So here is how I think all of the Bad Kids would feel about going to Shabbat Dinner at Riz's home in Freshman Year.

Kristen: Kristen is Helio’s chosen. Coming into a religious custom centered around family and being together and welcoming all. I think she will be quiet and contemplative the whole time until shirim come around, and then she��ll be struck the similarity to church songs while also the difference in attitude (solemn and important vs casual and fun and more about singing and being together than the actual prayer), and then she’ll have so many questions about the whole thing. Also @vivitalks said "putting kristen "helio's chosen" applebees into a jewish home so she can see what it's like. to be raised in a religion that loves you and cares about you. that's about so much more than the god you believe in, it's about the people who are in the community with you, and taking care of each other and taking care of the world" and that made me insane!

Fig: The family of it all oh god the family. Especially Riz and Sklonda hosting?? Our girl’s gonna be feeling her separation from her mother so hard. Especially if they actually get into and explain the femininity and matrilineal traditions involved in Shabbat I honestly think it could make Fig have her whole reconnecting with her mom moment months earlier than in canon.

Fabian: Just seeing a family be that close, and connecting about an external thing rather than the accomplishments or attributes of themselves. I have personally had discussions with people where they expressed that the only things they ever talked about with their parents were their parents or themselves and there was never a third thing (Donald Hall talked about third things) and I think Fabian would come away from Shabbat dinner really feeling his lack of a deeper connection and understanding with his parents.

Adaine: Similar to Fabian, except she’s already hyper aware of her separation from her family. I think she’s the one who does research into Shabbat before coming over because she wants to do it Right, and when Sklonda realizes how seriously and intensely she’s approaching it they have a little moment to themselves about how it’s meant to be warm and welcoming, and she doesn’t need to know everything or even understand everything to be welcome at their table. Also Adaine casts comprehend languages to understand the brachot.

Gorgug: Seems to have the best relationship with his parents and would be the least likely to be affected by Shabbat dinner, right? Wrong!! Gorgug goes to Shabbat dinner and gets so frustrated with his own struggle to Get It. I think because Digby and Wilma gave him a kid’s book equivalent of Kristen’s world religions textbook he feels prepared, he feels like he actually knows what he's getting into, and then the idiosyncrasies and family traditions and small differences that happen at every family’s shabbat dinner take him by surprise. He stays kind of quiet, not wanting to ask questions until Riz ruefully mentions always having to do the four questions at Passover and Sklonda mentions that asking questions is a very honorable and important thing in Judaism! Then he gets to ask and I think he and Sklonda have more conversations about it later because he really wants to understand this thing that’s so important to his friend.

Bonus Riz: So fucking nervous!! He didn’t even tell them his dad’s grave was right there and now they’re coming to Shabbat at his house?? But once Fig starts getting emotional and trying to hide it he comes around to comfort her and relaxes a bit through that, and he becomes his mom’s helper in explaining what everything is and trying to make it as open and welcoming as possible.

[girlactionfigure]

How a Kabbalist Accidentally Became an Arsonist: A True Tale of the Rabbi who Burned Down the Jewish Ghetto of Frankfurt in 1711 🔥🧵

By 1704, when he was invited to become Chief Rabbi of Frankfurt, Rabbi Naphtali Katz had gained renown throughout Ashkenaz as a Ba'al Shem—a shamanic healer, amulet writer, and kabbalist.

His tenure in Frankfurt was brief. It ended on Jan. 14th, 1711, when a fire spread from his home & reduced the Judengasse—then the largest Jewish community in Germany—to ashes.

He was arrested by German authorities on claims of arson & witchcraft and was held for five months before being exiled from Frankfurt. 

Soon after the fire, this poster was hung by Christians throughout the Judengasse. The left side depicts the Jews fleeing the flames.

The right side reads (in part):  "Alas! The happiest [and] most unhappy day On which at Frankfurt am Main The Jewish quarter having been set ablaze With Rabbi Naphtali the Pole being the cause Within the space of 24 hours burned to the foundations." 

How exactly did Rabbi Naphtali cause this urban wildfire? Johann Jacob Schudt, in his "Jewish Oddities"(1714, Frankfurt) records several rumors. One popular account blamed his kabbalistic malpractice...

"The Rabbi, who was a great kabbalist, had himself set the fire to show his students how he could extinguish the fire...(but) in his haste to put it out he had summoned the Prince of Fire instead of the Prince of Water & that is why the fire grew." Oops! 

This is a painting made by the German Jewish artist Johann Nothnagel entitled, "Rabbi Naphtali Cohen with two Schoolchildren" (1772). It portrays this scene of angelic conjuring & accidental arson. 

The Magen David image before him was part of a popular kabbalistic recipe for extinguishing fires. The radiant and hovering disk = the angelic Prince of Fire. Smoke emerges from the top right & the student's faces flash concern. 

Nothnagel made a copy of this painting a few years later with one significant change: The abstract disk is replaced with a more concrete angelic figure.

Notice how this version has been modeled after another scene of angelic conjuring: Rembradnt's "Faust" (1652).

In a sort of full-circle, Rembrandt was likely modeling his portrait on tropes of Kabbalah popular during his time.

Who is the Prince of Fire (Sa'ar Ha-Esh)? Midrashic sources identify him with the archangel Gabriel. "Michael is the angel of snow and Gabriel of fire; this one does not extinguish that one, and that one does not harm this one." (Shir Ha-Shirim Rabbah 3:11) 

Sefer Ha-Razim, a magic text from the time of the Midrash, identifies two other angelic fire-archons: "Yabniel is in charge of all things concerning the igniting & extinguishing of fire... Deleqiel is in charge of flames of fire, to kindle or quench them."

Rashi (1040-1105) already reports that summoning these angels was uniquely difficult.

Interestingly, a very similar story to Rabbi Naphtali's arson is told about another Ashkenazi Ba'al Shem—The Ba'al Shem Tov/Besht. This version is from "In Praise of the Besht" (Kopust, 1814).

A second version of this story is told by a later hassidic master.

This incident would have occurred not long after 1711 (the Besht is born in 1698 & these tales occur in his youth). And, reportedly, the Besht knew of Rabbi Naphtali & mocked his ascetic model of practical Kabbalah.

The upshot? Don't start a fire to prove you can put it out + When Kabbalah is no longer theoretical but also "practical," its relationship to the elements and society is more acute & mistakes have material & historical consequences.

[lowcountry-gothic]

Yokai: Shigeru Mizuki's Supernatural Parade. Published 11/11/2025 by Drawn & Quarterly.

As travelers approach a lush, cedar forest—the soft floor and woodland scent palpable from Shigeru Mizuki’s fecund drawing—something falls from the trees with a thud: a human head, twelve times average size. A dozen more heads follow, peering at the travelers with maniacal laughter, before retreating back into the woods. A hallucination? No, this is Tohoku No Tsurubeotoshi. An earthworm, larger than a human, floats in the air, backlit from window lights ensconced by shadowy darkness. Sontsuru—majestic on the page in Shigeru Mizuki’s delicate ink lines and bold colors—is no worm, but a yokai who haunts families across generations, wriggling between their skin and muscles. And then there is Shirime, a city dwelling trickster who shouts, “A moment, sir!” only to then lift their kimono to reveal their unusual rump—a giant, glowing eyeball where one would otherwise expect a crack. Indeed, not all the yokai in the pages of Yokai: Shigeru Mizuki’s Paranormal Parade are there to cause fright. Like Mizuki himself, yokai often have a playful spirit, which Mizuki explores with joy in this stunning collection, which contains one hundred new, lavish, full page yokai illustrations, with biographies for each. Yokai: Shigeru Mizuki’s Paranormal Parade is the companion book to Yokai: The Art of Shigeru Mizuki, and includes supplementary writing by acclaimed Mizuki scholar and translator Zack Davisson.

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

Jewish Song of the Day #24: Psalm 93

Comments:

Ready to end the week in style? So far this is my favorite of all the Shirim Shel Yom - leave it to Josh Warshawsky to write a beautiful edition of this Psalm!

Thank you all for going on this side quest with me to honor the real 'Jewish Song of the Day' that has existed in our liturgy since perhaps the days of the Levi'im (Levite priests) in the Second Temple. Although we no longer have their original texts or melodies, the idea and the spirit of the song of the day remains; we have preserved it in our davening.

The evidence for this is both in our oral tradition as well as in the epitaph of Psalm 92, which is the Shir Shel Yom for Shabbat: Mizmor Shir, l'Yom Ha-Shabbat - A Psalm, A Song for the Sabbath Day. This implies that there was a daily song the rest of the week as well. I will definitely be posting Psalm 92 as well at some point, but there is another special surprise for tomorrow evening.

I hope that for those of you who daven weekday Shacharit regularly (or even sporadically) that this gives you some good kavana for when you read them.

Shabbat shalom!