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http://wapsisquare.com/comic/no-pressure/

Hello, Ring Girl . . .

She's climbed out of the well, brushed her hair and signed up for college.

Hiroshi's ex?

. . . So now they're in a horror anime?

. . .

Whatever you do, don't split up!

--FreeFlier

I'm calling a Kitsune here. Quiet, studious and slightly mysterious.

Being up all day can be a drain, so she brings some of the night with her.

Atsali: "You remind me of my sister's mentor’s daughter. I should introduce you, sometime."

Opus the Poet wrote:I'm calling a Kitsune here. Quiet, studious and slightly mysterious.

that was my first thought as well, just the energy thing ... no idea there

IIRC Kitsune are like sirens and vampires in that they feed off humans (although Atsali seems not to need that) and I'm thinking Ruri hasn't had a "snack" in ages.

Why do Atsali and Skylar seem surprised? You'd think they'd be aware of the various sorts of paras out there.

Unless Ruri is a rare type that most wouldn't expect to encounter.

I said left field but is she even from the same universe?

AnotherFairportfan wrote:Hiroshi's ex?

I'd bet money on it.

jwhouk wrote:

AnotherFairportfan wrote:Hiroshi's ex?

I'd bet money on it.

According to Daylla, that girl was taken into custody... Besides, to be an "ex", you have to have "been", first... (I.e. they never went out, since he spurned her advances, and she turned him into a butterfly...)

Drakkenmensch wrote:She's climbed out of the well, brushed her hair and signed up for college.

The Ringu girl''s name was Sadako, though, wasn't it?

AnotherFairportfan wrote:Hiroshi's ex?

She was supposed to be a Fae. This doesn't look like any Fae we've seen.

Opus the Poet wrote:IIRC Kitsune are like sirens and vampires in that they feed off humans (although Atsali seems not to need that) and I'm thinking Ruri hasn't had a "snack" in ages.

In my reading Kitsune are fox spirits. The wild ones can be malevolent, but the tame ones are safe enough, although prone to pranks. Then there are the ones dedicated to the gods, usually as messengers, particularly to the Shinto god Inari.
As for the term Yokai, this is a general term for any spirit/monster. Another like term is Ayakashi for Yokai that appear above water. There is even a special term for common objects that achieve a soul by being lovingly cared for or lasting in excess of 100 years, which some Kitsune qualify for by gaining an extra tail for each 100 years, with the nine tailed ones becoming so powerful that they've been worshiped as gods themselves.

sheik wrote: In my reading Kitsune are fox spirits. The wild ones can be malevolent, but the tame ones are safe enough, although prone to pranks. Then there are the ones dedicated to the gods, usually as messengers, particularly to the Shinto god Inari.

Astra, the "flying brick" superheroine* of Marion Harmon's "Capes" series, about a world that diverged from ours around the turn of the century, gets involved with a character she first (in Villains, Inc.) thinks is a shape-shifting "breakthrough"; he calls himself "Kitsune".

In Small Town Heroes, she has further encounters with Kitsune, which seem to indicate that he might be more.

Then, in Ronin Games, she and two {or, maybe, sort of, three} friends** engage in a highly-illegal personal mission to Japan, to find Kitsune, who seems to be involved with a series of dreams she's been having, which seem to be gradually physically pulling her out of the Real World.

Inari is involved, as well.

{Astra's latest adventures, in Team-Ups and Crossovers, involve trips to a number of alternate worlds and/or "extra-reality" worlds - one of which is the world of the Grrl Power comic, in a chapter co-written by Grrl Power's author, Dave Barrack...}

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* Astr is what her world calls an "Atlas-type", after the first known breakthrough of the type - basically, Superman/Supergirl without X-Ray/Heat Vision powers. She is one of the five most powerful supers in her world - but she's more-or-less stuck at the stage she was at when her breakthrough occurred - she was nineteen, not particularly curvy, five-foot-nothing, and about a hundred pounds. Due to the way Atlas powers work, she may live a hundred or more years, looking like somebody's pixie-cute kid sister; always being carded in bars.

When she goes into battle, she wears a costume with some strategic padding enhancements, and carries a titanium maul that weighs more than she does...

** One of those friends is Ozma. Yes, that Ozma - with all of the magical powers ascribed to her in the Oz books. In a possible future that Astra and her friends are aware of, Ozma steals literally the entire state of Kansas...

Looking at the art more carefully after an archive binge I noticed Ruri has an aura very similar to what Devyn had right before she went "Silent Hill" on everybody. The hypothesis then becomes that she has a similar condition that preventing it drains her physically, unlike Devyn who just needs to get the right meds and herbs. I wonder if this might be the para version of depression, only instead of all "just in your head" it's actually in everybody else's heads, with the milder "chronic" version showing in Ruri and Devyn having the more serious for others version that sends them to "Silent Hill". And what drains Ruri is the constant struggle to keep from going "Silent Hill". Knowing that Pablo is (also) working (with? against?) depression I think Ruri might be an important character in future plot development.

Amusingly, today I discovered that there is an employee named Skyler at work . . .

This is in addition to the Acacia who works at my preferred grocery store.

--FreeFlier

sheik wrote:There is even a special term for common objects that achieve a soul by being lovingly cared for or lasting in excess of 100 years....

I remember reading about that somewhere, just today.

Opus the Poet wrote:IIRC Kitsune are like sirens and vampires in that they feed off humans (although Atsali seems not to need that) and I'm thinking Ruri hasn't had a "snack" in ages.

Kitsune are Japanese fox spirits and mostly range from benevolent tricksters to neutral tricksters; some are nasty but rarely vicious without cause (as THEY see it). Some are messengers of gods - and those with seven or more tails might as well be minor gods. I don't recommend dishonoring or insulting any of them, even the (relatively weak) one-tail ones.

The Koreans have nine-tailed fox demons, kumiho, that are invariably evil and often bloodthirsty.

Chinese fox spirits, huli jing, cover the entire range of good and evil.