Need an in-universe term for a Superpowered Evil Side/Enemy Within

Yep, it's me again, still generating Ideas for that Japanese Demonhunter thing. So, the working title for this thing so far is 'something-something: ENEMY WITHIN.' No, the 'something-something' bit is not what I'm really calling it, I just haven't thought of anything but the subtitle yet. Anyway, the main focus of the second half of the story is how the main character struggles against her Superpowered Evil Side, which has been gradually growing stronger over the course of the story and is now threatening to take over permanently. So it's pretty important to have an in-universe term for it that doesn't sound clunky as all fuck. I've been using 'Enemy Within' as the default term while writing up my notes, but it just doesn't work and sounds odd to my ears. It works great as a subtitle and is very thematic, but as an in-universe term that characters say over and over again it just isn't working. So I need a workable alternative. I cant use 'Shadow', as my character will draw enough comparisons to Yukiko Amagi as is without stealing terms from Persona as well. I toyed with 'Nemesis' for a bit and that almost works, but most people think of a Nemesis as the Big Bad or similar role, even though it literally means someone's antithesis or destined enemy, and so it sounds a bit odd. 'Adversary' doesn't work as every time someone mentions 'The Adversary' they're talking about Satan. I've been trying to come up with something for over a week and can't seem to find anything that works.

So that everyone knows what kind of thing this is, the main character and every woman of her bloodline has a demonic alter-ego living in her soul that is all her negative emotions and impulses made manifest. It isn't a case of Demonic Possession, it's more like an evil split-personality that is the character's antithesis and also is the source of her demonic powers. And it wants to take over, and one day it will win unless she dies first or is able to pull off a Split-Personality Merge which will result in her becoming evil herself and will drive her insane if she rejects her dark half at any point during the merger. So it very much fits the concept of the Shadow Archetype, but like I said, Shadow is off-limits as a term because of the Persona series. So far the best name I have is 'Nemesis' but that doesn't quite work for reasons outlined above. 'Antithesis' also sounds like it would almost work, but is a bit long-winded and generic sounding. Any actual terms from other languages might be helpful. But not 'Doppelganger'. That's a type of ghost.

edited 31st Mar '16 5:18:54 PM by OmegaKross

I'd start with "Cast". Its typical use as a noun implies a limitation of some sort, yeah? Well, what's the inner self doing here exactly, if not allowing the character to do what is most expedient?

And anyway, the word you want would need to be something neutral, I think - not just good or evil - as it's something to give in to, and even the best/worst person in the world must have some temptation they refuse to cross. Eastern duality and dichotomy (which exist separately), not Western singularity and agreement (from which one can fall from/into).

Hmm, that just... doesn't sound right. To me, 'Cast' would imply something artificial. I don't really follow when you say that it implies 'limitation' either. If I were to imply that I'd probably go with something like 'Yoke' or 'Stone'. It's really not the kind of thing I'm going for here.

As for the good/evil thing, the Enemy Within is explicitly Always Chaotic Evil. Well, it's not always chaotic, but it is always evil. The dichotomy aspect of it being the other side to the main character's coin so to speak, and the fact that she isn't exactly a saint herself is the central theme of the story, so I get what you mean about not making it just a straight up 'good side versus evil side' thing. But it's not like in the Persona series where the Shadows are repressed negativity but not necessarily evil. This thing is repressed negativity plus malevolence. It comes from literal demonic blood after all, not just emotional baggage. And It's not interested in being friends, and will take over and consume the main character the instant she loses focus or starts thinking Evil Feels Good. Neutral isn't what I'm going for, especially seeing as how the subtitle of this story is Enemy Within. The main danger in the story is going to be the character losing grip on herself and being taken over by her dark side, just like everyone of her bloodline who didn't die or merge with their other side did before her. So the word I use has to imply darkness and/or inevitable fate.

EDIT: Oh wait, I just re-read your post and got what you meant. You're basically saying I shouldn't use a word that sounds like 'THE SATAN' because it would seem like I'm implying a straight Good/Evil split, when its actually more like a Neutral/Evil split. 'Nemesis' and words like it might actually work then, as they get across that it's a Shadow Archetype without sounding completely on-the-nose like say, 'SOUL-CANCER' would. But 'Nemesis' still sounds wrong.

edited 1st Apr '16 6:01:02 PM by OmegaKross

Choler. I'm not sure how good of a fit it would be, because I'd need to know more about the characterization of the Superpowered Evil Side, but it represents anger and irritability in the Four Humors, and because of that connection there would be other avenues open to exploration if you so desired.

Well, Tsukiko (the main character) is The Stoic, a Lawful Neutral Combat Pragmatist, who has a boatload of repressed resentment towards her Grandmother, and has difficulty getting close to people. Tsukiyomi (the Superpowered Evil Side) is an extroverted Psycho for Hire, is Chaotic Evil, is cruel, vindictive and, sadistic, completely unconcerned with any semblance of morality, and is prone to laughing like a complete nutjob while executing her foes. Oh, and she wants to jump on her love interest the first chance she gets (and then most likely kill him afterwards.) So Choleric would fit her personality pretty well, however I'm not sure Choler would work as a term, seeing as it's a type of characterisation, and multiple characters of the same bloodline all have their own Superpowered Evil Side which may not fit the Choleric humor. (EDIT: For what it's worth, Tsukiko fits the Melancholic humor almost perfectly.)

Think of Tsukiyomi as Tsukiko's repressed Id, and also bear in mind that because she literally has demonic ancestry and demons are Always Chaotic Evil (except when they're neutral or lawful instead), Tsukiyomi is canonically evil, as are all the Superpowered Evil Sides of her entire bloodline.

I've thought of using 'Other' or 'Alter' as terms, but they still don't sound quite right (in this case they're too generic.) Any word I use has to make clear that this thing is inner darkness personified, and has to be able to be used multiple times in a paragraph without sounding clunky or overly long, preferably one word (unless there's an actual term for 'evil split-personality' in some language that fits the criteria and doesn't sound too weird for a family with Japanese/European ancestry to use as a term.) 'Other' almost sounds right, as it implies that you're deliberately using the word as a euphemism to avoid calling the thing by its true name, and I'll probably use it for that purpose, but there needs to be an actual name this family has given to their evil alter-egos that live in their souls. 'Shadow' would be perfect, but again, Persona did it first and everyone knows it.

edited 3rd Apr '16 10:03:15 AM by OmegaKross

Id was taken by Xenogears, sadly.

If it's Always Chaotic Evil, no need to reinvent the wheel:

• Darkness
• Shade
• Beast

I'm not calling it the Id. That's just the part of Tsukikio's psyche Tsukiyomi represents.

Can't believe I hadn't actually thought of Shade. That said, it's still... lacking something. And it's pretty close to Shadow... hmmm... does Darkshade sound okay? Seems a bit clunky still. Maybe I could throw a bunch of words together and see what I end up with.

EDIT: Okay, may have found something. One of the effects of the Enemy Within is that the 'host' will see it standing behind them whenever they look into a mirror. And seeing as how the main character is Japanese, I typed 'Mirror Image' into google translate and it came back with 'Kyozo' (which normally has accents above the 'o's' but I don't know how to do those, so whatever.) Now, this sounds perfect. But does it sound right to people who actually speak Japanese? Hell, is it even the correct term, seeing as how I got it from google translate?

edited 3rd Apr '16 5:38:37 PM by OmegaKross

EVERY

VILLAIN

IS

LEMONS!

Otherwise known as E.V.I.L.!

As for that question above, I couldn't tell ya since I don't speak Japanese. One thing you could do is look up a bunch of Sentai/Kamen Rider/Anime Shows and look at any super villain org. names they use in their original language and compare it to what you've got in mind.

edited 4th Apr '16 1:15:57 PM by HydraGem

Yeah, that rarely works in my experience. Japanese seems to be one of those languages that can have half a dozen different words that all mean the same thing but with different nuances, and which one is used is dependant on context and a billion other things. Like with Kamen Rider, you'd think the 'Kamen' bit means 'Mask', and it actually does... along with a half dozen other words that also mean 'Mask', and exactly why 'Kamen' is the appropriate word is completely lost on me. My Japanese is limited to maybe 50 odd single words and some simple phrases that I've heard repeated a lot in various anime and visual novels.

As for why I decided to write a Japanese story with my limited knowledge of Japanese language and culture? No reason other than I wanted to, which should always be the single most important factor when writing something, logic and knowledge be damned.

'Kamen' basically works out to "replacement face" in a really, really direct translation, if that helps.

How about 'layer'? 'Imaginate'?

Err... no, neither of those is really what I'm going for, the reason being they seem more...functional terms. As in, 'Layer' would be the kind of word I'd use to describe a hologram or virtual personality, and 'Imaginate', aside from just sounding plain weird, is maybe the sort of word I'd use to mean a fantasy existence? So neither of them will really work. How about the translation of 'Kyozo' (accents above both o's)? With two accents, translate tells me it means 'Mirror Image' and with one accent it's 'Virtual Image'. Is that accurate? If not, I'm gonna just decide to call them 'Daemons.' Which would basically lock the mythology squarely in 'Western Mode', but I've already got a sword with the soul of Belphegor sealed in it, so it's heading that way regardless.

Also, can you translate the following terms: Akuma no Chi Hanran, Gyakusatsu no Tenshi, and Kurai Tamashi no Mokushiroku. I know what they're meant to say, but having to trust google translate is a bit dodgy. Don't worry, I'm not thinking of inserting random Japanese into the story for no reason. But I thought that having the names of certain forbidden techniques and things like that be in Japanese would fit better. I'm going for English dub of Bleach levels of English to Japanese here.

EDIT: Actually, if 'Kyozo' turns out to not mean what google translate tells me it means, what is the Japanese for 'Double', as in 'Doppelganger' or 'Duplicate'?

edited 5th Apr '16 2:15:47 PM by OmegaKross

Functional is easier to translate, though. I think I got Imaginate from a webcomic, too.

Kyozou is 'ghost image', with more emphasis on 'ghost' than is immediately obvious in a translation; 'Kyouzou' is a bust. Japanese is irritatingly reliant on being able to tell when a consonant-vowel phoneme is being followed by an identical or near-identical second vowel, and that confusion is the bane of many a beginner.

The first two are Rebellion of Devil's Blood (there may be a 'the' in there - Japanese is really imprecise about definitives sometimes) and Angel of Atrocity ('atrocity' in the sense of a war crime or mass murder). If you meant 'tamashii' with an 'i' after the 'shi', then the third one is "(The) Soul's Book of Revelations" or "apocalypse", and that's because the roku there makes is explicitly Biblical. 'Of' is in there because 'no' keeps being in there, and that is the vague difference between 'Angel of Atrocity(s)' and 'Atrocity Angel'.

You're looking for "bunshin" - lit. 'split body' - as a translation for that one, I think. Hilarious thing is, the 'multiple image/after-image' usage of the word (as opposed to merely being twins or the spitting image of a parent or another literal body) is fairly modern. The actual translation for Doppelganger is... "Dopperugyangaa", because the concept is German and therefore imported! Or it's "fukutai", which is fairly recent and something of a neologism in that particular usage. "My Doppelganger" feels like it'd translate better into "Wate no bunshin", if you absolutely have to use Japanese there.

Right, I thought this one up as I was falling asleep last night. Y'know how a duel is between two dudes? It actually involves a couple other dudes, the Seconds, who A) try to act as intermediaries to keep the duel from getting to the point of "forty paces at dawn" and B) either take you out drinkin' or clean up your corpse and/or entrails after the fact. I figure, if the whole 'superpowered other self' thing is a consciousness of its own, there's no good reason to piss it off by calling it something rude like a Shade or The Devil or whatnot. So: Second. "My Second disagrees, and demands satisfaction."

..."No, don't play Jumpin' Jack Flash; Satisfaction! Or whatever it's called!"

There is a minor tradition of treating possibly hostile spirits with some respect in quite a few cultures, after all, and the "superpowered" bit suggests an intermediary that attempts to solve problems differently, I think.

I had 'Demon Blood Revolt', 'Angel of Slaughter' and 'Dark Soul Apocalypse' as my translations, so I'm quite satisfied that I got in the ball park. I know Japanese words can have many different meanings and interpretations though, so If what I have doesn't quite line up with what I intended, could you provide the correct translations?

Also, I got another one: 'Akuma no Gekido', which is the closest I could get to 'Demon Outrage' (google translate kept giving me 'Ikari' for outrage, which was hilarious when I reversed the languages in order to check the translation and got 'Anchor of the Demon'. I couldn't find anything that seemed to translate to 'outrage' 100%, so I may have to settle for ball-park.

'Bunshin' doesn't seem right either. I'm pretty close to going with 'Daemon' at this point. Uurrgh, this is getting annoying. Tsukiko's Grandmother may be half European, but that isn't a good enough reason for the entire bloodline to refer to their demonic half with a western term. Even if I got lazy and said that she introduced the term recently, I'd still have to come up with the word everyone used before then. Hmm... unless I don't. The rest of the family could have just used a neutral term, like 'Bunshin'.

This is going to require a few more days I fear.

On the subject of Tsukiko's Grandmother, her name is Aoi. Is that an appropriate name for a woman who was born in 1876 to have? It's a fairly popular modern name from what I can gather. And is Aoko an actual name, or something Kinoko Nasu made up? I can't find it in any of my name searches. I was going to give it to Tsukiko's mother.

Regarding the subject of neutrality with the Enemy Within, the central focus of the story is Tsukiko's internal struggle with an explicitly hostile entity which lives inside her and is part of her psyche. Its default state is hostile anyway. And since it's evil to begin with, I don't think it minds being called a demon, or devil or whatnot. It knows what it is after all. It's kinda like how in Bleach Ichigo has his inner Hollow. The Hollow side doesn't care at all that it's being referred to as such, so I figure that a demonic alter-ego would be just as uncaring. And it is made up of all Tsukiko's repressed negativity and dark thoughts, so a euphemism would seem pretty pointless since both of them know what Tsukiyomi is. That said, they are explicitly two sides of the same coin, and as the story goes on, Tsukiyomi undergoes some character development and they both end up deciding that they're stronger as a team than they are as enemies. Tsukiko avoids doing a Split-Personality Merge though, as that always results in whoever attempts it turning evil and possibly insane. Neutral + Evil = Evil after all.

...Y'know, I could have it that the more western angle on the Demonology stuff is all Tsukiko's Grandmother's doing. She is the reason Tsukiko uses a western longsword as her weapon and lives in a western style mansion after all. Or I could say that the family adopted a more western style of Demonology at an even earlier point in their past.

(btw, the Yamikawa's are goddamn rich and Aoi and Tsukiko are the last women of their lineage due to declining fertility rates and the fact that all of them either die, or turn evil and then die. Tsukiko's mother committed suicide right before she was born because she lost control of her Enemy Within and didn't want to endanger her daughter's life in a mad demonic rampage or something. Yes, before Tsukiko was born. Her Grandmother had to deliver her by caesarian post-mortem. So Tsukiko has been entirely raised by her Grandmother, and only knows what she has been told about the family. Also her Grandmother is evil and wants to pull a Grand Theft Me on her because she's really fucking old and her body is starting to crap out on her.)

Sorry for the random exposition break there btw, I just thought it might be necessary to explain how Tsukiko's Grandmother has such influence over her.

Okay, so I'm gonna say that unless I can come up with a suitable alternative by the end of the week, I'm going with 'Daemon' and messing with the backstory until it makes sense.

EDIT: Japanese for 'second', in the way you meant it? Anything that could approximate to something like 'other self', 'dark half', something along those lines? Or something that describes the concept of antithesis or antinomy?

EDIT EDIT: GIGANTIC WALL OF TEXT WILL CONSUME US ALL!!!

edited 5th Apr '16 8:53:59 PM by OmegaKross

What about "Id-Warp?"

Or perhaps "Dread-Ego?"

Everyone contributes their wall of text, and I'm just here with a little sidethough :P.

edited 7th Apr '16 12:44:34 AM by OmegaShadowcry

Hmmm... little too death metal. And yes I do recognise the irony in calling my main character "Darknessriver Moonchild" and then refusing those names on the grounds that they're too OTT. How can I explain the kind of tone I'm going for... maybe on the same level as Fate/Stay Night and Umineko No Naku Koro Ni? So I'm allowed the odd weird name here and there and some overly long attack names, but other than that the tone is pretty serious. Honestly, at this point I'm about 70% of the way to calling them Daemons and using Bunshin as the more neutral term they were referred to in the old days before the family converted to western Demonology. It's the only word I've been able to come up with that doesn't sound overlong when said multiple times in a paragraph, and also carries the right sort of connotation that I'm after.

Hmmm...

_-assumes the Gendo Pose-_

Let's see here...
Starting from the top down, the concept is that one side of a coin is much more dangerous (and powerful) than the other. A coin can Tarnish or Rust sometimes, yes? The character undergoes a Shift from their normal self to their darker, dangerous half... I'm getting memories of The Prince Of Persia (the one where the prince gets an Enemy Within), about the part early on when he gets Scarred (or you could say Marked, or Rended, or even Branded).

See what I did there?

Hold on a second. Let's look at this whole "halves" thing. What's famous for having two opposite halves? Magnets! The biggest magnet on Earth is the Earth's nickel-iron core, and the north and south poles are also its magnetic poles. The term used to describe one of these poles relative to the other is "antipole".

In retrospect, I could have easily proposed the name "antipole" without bringing up magnets, but then I wouldn't have been able to bring up magnets.

I like the idea of the family literally being branded with some kind of weird birthmark to symbolise their demonic lineage, so I'm gong to adapt the name into that idea and call the mark their 'Brand'. 'Shift' would be better used to describe the actual act of changing from one persona to the other I think. Prince of Persia the Two Thrones literally called that character the Dark Prince, which sums the idea up very neatly, but two-word phrases just feel overly long when repeated frequently, which is why 'Enemy Within' works as a subtitle but not as a term. Well, it's not just that, 'Enemy Within' feels kind of... stuffy? Archaic? Something like that.

Antipole.... that does have a nice ring to it. It sounds like 'Darkside' without actually being Darkside, with a little nod to 'Antithesis' in there as well. Hmmm.... only problem I can see is that it's a little scientific. 'Anti-something' sounds like the right way to go though. I'm gonna need to think on it for a bit.

EDIT: So, I looked up the actual definition of 'Antinomy'. According to dictionary.com, Antinomy means:

noun, plural antinomies. 1. opposition between one law, principle, rule, etc., and another. 2. Philosophy. a contradiction between two statements, both apparently obtained by correct reasoning.

So, 1): it means conflicting opposition, 2): contradiction between two correct statements (or in this case, two personalities who are both valid), 3): it sounds cool, and 4): I get to use this as Tsukiyomi's theme tune in my head. Gentlemen, I think I've found my in-universe term.

EDIT EDIT: Ignore the wrong spelling of the track title in that link, it's supposed to be Antinomy: Mutually Exclusive Dichotomy, not Antimony. Thought I'd be picky in case anyone was going to say the title doesn't mean what I think it means.

edited 7th Apr '16 5:05:25 PM by OmegaKross

And since I said I needed a Japanese term as well, I'll officially go with 'Bunshin' and 'Wate no Bunshin' as the term the family used in olden times. I sometimes kind of have a weird aversion to using words that begin with 'B', as I think that sometimes makes a word sound... inelegant is the word I'm going for I think. Or something like that, which is why I was initially reluctant to use it, but It's grown on me and is about as close as I'm going to get for a Japanese translation of 'Double' anyways.

Why yes, my internal logic is sometimes extremely weird and I do tend to contradict myself a fair bit before arriving at a conclusion I already dismissed beforehand. I am a rather strange guy at times.

Not sure if you've found your words yet but here are some suggestions:

Hyde - Obviously based on the Hyde persona from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Of note, in the book it's said that Hyde is no more evil than Jekyll is, it's just that he lacks any redeeming qualities. Jekyll is a mix of good and evil, while Hyde is pure evil. He has all the dark and disgusting thoughts of a normal person, but lacks all the normal inhibitions and sense of guilt that a normal person has to keep them under control.

Amanojaku - A demon-like creature from Japanese folklore who provokes a person's darkest desires and makes them do wicked deeds. Not 100% sure on what they are like, just found this during a search on japanese folklore on Wikipedia.

Aku - Literally the work "evil" in Japanese (or "bad" or 'unpleasant"). Aku is also the main villain in the series Samurai Jack.

Akuma - Japanese for 'demon'. My guess is it means "evil spirit" or the like. The series Miraculous Ladybug features beings called Akuma that can possess people to turn them into evil villains for the protagonist to defeat (though in the show, they take on the form of black butterflies which makes them a bit less scary than most demons would be).

You could always got the Sigmund Freud/Forbidden Planet route and call it the Id, or something derived from that (Monster from the Id, a Thing Named Id, etc). Or, alternately, go back to Jung's original term upon which Shadow Archetype is based and call it the Shadow Aspect (that second word really gives it some extra oomph). Or go way back to Plato and call it the Epithymetikon (ain't that a mouthful?), which is the part of the soul that roughly corresponds to what we now think of as the id or the "reptile brain".

edited 14th Apr '16 4:27:56 AM by BrokenEye

Are you familiar with Karl Popper? He made the very interesting point that perhaps the ultimate super-powered evil side is a mundane little concept we call "certainty."

http://www.partiallyexaminedlife.com/2013/09/24/ep82-popper/

All very interesting ideas. 'Antinomy' turned out to be too unwieldy, plus it doesn't exactly mean what I'm trying to make it mean. Tried 'Shade', too cliche and overdone. 'Shadow Aspect' sounds promising though.

I did see that 'Monster from the Id' episode. From what I remember, an alien race purged all their negative qualities, which then took the form of a rampaging psychic monstrosity. Or I may be confusing it with 'Skin of Evil', that episode of Star Trek Next Gen where Tasha Yar dies.

What's ironic is that I've since come up with two other Demonblood families for the story, one of which just calls the Superpowered Evil Side their 'Turn Side', or just 'Turn', which works pretty much perfectly. Though with them it's not really an Enemy Within, as they are more accepting of their demonic nature. They pretty much have to be, since they all die in their 30's from explosive Power Incontinence and have to eat demons to avoid dying even sooner. And the third family are 100% Always Neutral Evil so they don't even have a darker half to worry about.

Btw, Yaksini are demons in Buddhist mythology too right? The third family are called the Yaksini and I really don't want to change the name because it sounds perfect. I could change it to 'Yagami', but then I'd get accusations of ripping off King of Fighters (perhaps justifiably, as I've ripped off one or two ideas from it) or Death Note.

Also, I'm probably going to end up starting a couple of new threads soon, as I've run into some fairly major Plot Holes as the story has gotten more complex. Though I'll see if I can work them out on my own first.

"Monster from the Id episode"? Episode of what? Forbidden Planet is a movie