Gutter Trash Yukkuris

Yukkuri Gutter Trash Yukkuris
Nickname(s)
Based on	Depends from the main species
Accessories	Depends from the main species
Filling	Depends from the main species
Bodied?	Depends from the main species
Special Abilities	Depends from the main species
Rarity	Depends from the main species

A "Gutter-Trash" Reimu with koyukkuri. Not all yukkuri that are in cities get sucked into bad lives.

A type of yukkuri, generally the end result of Pet Yukkuris’ abandonment, an urban environment expanding over forest and rural areas formerly occupied by Yukkuris, or simple overpopulation of wild yukkuri populations causing them to spill over into urban areas.

Featured prominently in Dosu and the City and several illustrations, gutter trash yukkuris are of many different species that, by chance or choice, abandoned or lost their original lifestyle to scrape a meager existence as strays.

Very much like the human homeless population, a gutter trash yukkuri brand of “taking it easy” would be considered a pitiful attempt at scraping a living by forest and pet yukkuris. Pet yukkuri are advised to stay away from strays and in several stories they’re shown looking down at them with contempt and disgust.

Physical Characteristics

Despite having the same base characteristics of their main species, strays are easily recognizable by the byproduct of their pitiful existence.

Where forest and pet yukkuris are obsessed with keeping themselves clean, by doing lick lick with each other or letting their owners take care of them, stray yukkuris, always busy with trying to scrap a meager existence, lacking a steady source of water and routinely scavenging in garbage bags and landfills, are almost always covered in filth and poo poo, always stinking, mostly obviously injured by animals such as birds and dogs and getting bullied by humans and shitheads. Some even lack one eye or their accessories.

Even if they attempt to clean themselves, for example using dust in lieu of water, strays still reek of the garbage they’re forced to eat, which has adverse effects on their overall health. As detailed in Dosu and the City, where forest yukkuris and pet yukkuris, by eating acorns, grass or specific pellets, are able to regulate the growth and clean their sugary teeth, garbage makes them grow warped and spotted.

Where other yukkuris are able to hop around on soft ground, grass and soft carpets and tissues, strays are injured by hopping on the hard concrete of walkways or asphalt of roads, and their bottoms grow callous and scarred. Furthermore, while a forest yukkuri keeps itself in shape by doing its hunt hunt, and a pet yukkuri eats healthy and plays with its friend yukkuris and its human owner, gutter trash yukkuris, while not busy scavenging, feel no motivation to pursue a more active life, thus growing up in a constant state of starvation or, for the lucky ones able to take residence in a landfill, wallowing in the garbage that’s both their home and their “munch munch.”

Because of the lack of food, many strays live in constant malnutrition, while others are on the verge of obesity but still reeking of garbage. Rarely will a gutter trash yukkuri be found that is remotely healthy. Their lack of hygiene increases the risk of developing mold, which, for a stray yukkuri, is one of the most common causes of death alongside altercations with humans and other yukkuris. Especially among orphan koyukkuris, a moldy juvenile yukkuri, unable to leave its makeshift nest and being ineffectively cared for by its older siblings until its death is a very common sight in the gutters.

While stray yukkuris are unable to heal the most grievous injuries they suffer, or even to attend properly to the inevitable scrapes and cuts they receive daily, they react to accessory abuse in more creative way than their forest or pet counterparts. Yukkuri Marisas and komarisas, when faced with the loss of their precious hats, simply replace them with items they feel “similar,” such as small boxes for the adult Marisas, dumpling boxes, ice cream cones and bottle caps for koyukkuris. In nature, losing their accessories would end in a death sentence, but stray yukkuris are able to live avoiding the hatred of their kin. Instead, a yukkuri with an alternate, “artificial” accessory ends up ridiculed and looked down by the rest of its peers but rarely driven away. The fan-favourite “Canrisa,” a Komarisa living in a small can, is one of those strays. Despite still having its little witch hat, it also spends its whole time in the can originally used by its mother to beg, rolling around instead of moving.

In the wild, accessory theft is a serious crime, frowned upon by most yukkuris, but strays are not above bullying their kin to get their accessories as a replacement for a lost or badly damaged one. It may be inferred that the harsher life they lead raised their tolerance for shoddy and stolen accessories.

Since the badge system ensures that whoever finds a silver, gold or platinum badged yukkuri has to bring it back to its owner for a reward, owners willing to abandon their yukkuris usually trick them by “getting a brand new type of badge.” Thus it’s not uncommon seeing a stray with a poorly made fake badge bragging to be a pet and loudly pestering humans to be brought to its owner at once or given food and sweets.

Since being a pet yukkuri is seen as an enjoyable position, as it allows a yukkuri to take it easy with a human to take care of its needs, the craftiest strays often resort to stealing badges and accessories with badges still affixed to try selling themselves as pet yukkuri. However, aside from the obvious telltale lack of hygiene and poor physical shape, some stories mention that stolen badges are rigged to stain themselves and the accessory if improperly removed, thus marking the stray as a thief.

Behavior

Gutter trash yukkuris tend to build a society that’s a cross between human shanty towns and their former forest life. Where a forest yukkuri lives in underground dens or fallen tree-stumps, a stray usually takes its residence in a landfill, a garbage container or a box. A common sight, wherever there are stray yukkuris, are large cardboard boxes with a linoleum oilcloth draped over, affixed with some stones, to avoid rain.

While there are nicehead strays actively building their temporary nests (and truly saddened when humans destroy them), it's not uncommon for shithead families to do a “home declaration” towards their kin and stealing their painstakingly crafted homes. As for strict wild clans, the other stray Yukkuris won't usually do anything to help the robbed nicehead, as they're all painfully aware that, in their meager condition, even a slight mistake as leaving its temporary nest unguarded for a small while, can be a matter of life and death, and thus, adding misery to the injury, feel that the victimized nicehead is simply paying for its carelessness.

However, a gutter trash “easy place” may take the strangest forms, according to the scarce materials available. Orphan strays may even end up using the accessory (especially a hat) or even the hollowed corpse of a dead parent to keep warm.

While wild Yukkuris value the act of refreshing and Having Little Ones as a huge part of “taking it easy", a stray family is rarely as numerous as it would be in nature. Where wild yukkuris, by continuing breeding, may amass a big number of offspring and continue breeding to provide their “little ones” with “widdle shisters chu play with,” strays (at least the more intelligent of them) are painfully aware of the scarcity of food and resources and thus resorting to “culling.” Upon giving birth by stalk reproduction, the parent yukkuri squashes all the yukkuri fruits on the stalk save for the two (seemingly) healthiest koyukkuris in the bunch (one of the same species of the father, one of the same species of the mother). This act causes them lots of suffering and distress. However, due to the short memory of yukkuris, the birth of the chosen kos may instantly return their easiness. Even so, most families lack a parent, usually the one that used to forage for its family, dead because of the harsh city life, or both, leaving lots of koyukkuri orphans. It has been noted that not every yukkuri is intelligent enough to abstain from refreshing or culling its siblings, thus it’s still possible to see large families of strays (often including severely premature koyukkuris, due of their mother being starved during pregnancy), leading a life even less easy than their kin.

As for shithead Wild Yukkuris, under duress a widowed Yukkuri may decide to stop providing for the koyukkuri or the koyukkuris of the same type of their dead parent, caring only for the koyukkuris of its own type. However, it's not uncommon seeing a widowed Yukkuri with a single koyukkuri of the type of its lost companion, striving hard to uphold and honor its memory by grooming their offspring to be like the lost one.

Still, stray yukkuris still cling to their basic instinct as social beings and even in the harshest gutter, they staunchly refuse to live alone, falling in a deep depression wherever they’re separated from their little ones. Furthermore, while many strays are not above culling, abandoning or leaving behind their offspring whenever they're unable to support them, many others may engage in shows of true paternal love, albeit of a dangerous kind, such as carrying around a moldy ko, injuring themselves in attempting to comfort their terminally ill sibling, or pestering and begging humans for the fabled "Orange Juice" whenever one of their little ones is grievously injured.

Despite their harsh and sad life, very few strays actually try to reach forest areas or even think about doing so. Various explanations have been offered so far. For a gutter trash yukkuri, a forest is little more than a yukkuri myth, while human households and the fabled condition of “pet yukkuris” are real and easy to confirm, and even if they knew about a nearby forest, traversing a whole city is more than their pitiful, weakened bodies could allow. Furthermore, even if most strays live in despair and “uneasiness,” yukkuris’ low intelligence forces them to believe that they’re living the easiest life possible, second only to the easy life of pet yukkuris, because, by scavenging trash and begging, they can afford several artificial, processed foods unavailable in the wild, like candies, baked sweets (“mister tasties”), donuts and the fabled “orange juice,” able to instantly heal all their wounds and restore their physical condition. Thus, they staunchly refuse to move away.

Another variable to be taken in account is the rising number of abandoned Pet Yukkuris. If a Pet Yukkuri manages to survive and adapt from its earlier, pampered life to the harsh life in the gutters, it may show an above average intelligence (still much lower than human-level, but far more than the other Strays), coupled with a genuine nicehead behavior. However, a Pet abandoned for its shithead behavior, even if a badged one, will remain a shithead, despite being able to use the giving teachings to live a slightly better life, whereas a nicehead abandoned Yukkuri could still give in its darker impulses, especially under duress, and become a shithead out to its survival instincts. If that doesn't happen, there's still a chance to re-domesticate an abandoned stray, with the additional advantage to gain a badge-level pet staunchly loyal to its "savior".

Survival strategies

While Yukkuri race as a whole acts following a crude caricature of human behavior and customs, city life forces Stray Yukkuris into warping their whole existence to accommodate a man-made environment, in the end taking on several characteristics seen in homeless humans, only warped to their extreme extents.

Some strays are still able to do their hunt hunt; however, lacking the rich flower beds and berries usually seen in a forest environment, they scavenge trashbags and landfills, going so far to consider them their "hunting ground". Organized clans of Stray Yukkuris will violently expel lonely Yukkuris or unrelated families, going so far to kill or maim them if they enter these grounds.

The few fortunate Yukkuris able to nest in a public park however can briefly enjoy and benefit from their original diet, obtained by ripping flowers and decorative grass, with the occasional "mister tasty" dropped by a careless human: while in the short term this strategy allows entire family to reach "happyness" and take it easy, in the long term will draw the unwanted attention of humans and "Community Service Yukkuris", thus leading to a mass extermination of the clans responsible for damaging the flower beds and pestering humans and pet yukkuris roaming in the park.

It should be noted that the same lack of the concept of personal property plaguing their wild brethren carries over the stray communities; for them, trash is just a kind of "munch munch" that "grows up easy from the ground", as flowers and grass in public parks, thus they lack any compunctions in scavenging from trash, ripping open every trashbag they come across in the process, and damaging flower cultivation as a part of their daily routine, going so far to "predict" when food, Mister Treasures and building materials are going to grow up, taking great pride into doing their hunt with the right timing, and acting dismayed and depressed when, by collecting trash, humans hoard the fruits of their hunts.

The same lack of compunction about personal property may push single families, or entire groups, into roaming around restaurants and delis, fighting around scraps of food or actively pestering the human patrons and customers for food, seeing no reason to be excluded from what they see as a free distribution of tasty food.

However, with time a growing number of Yukkuris have been exposed to the concept of "mister money" and commerce. Some more organized Yukkuri may beg in a manner similar to the ones employed by humans, "performing" in public for money and sweets, planning to use the money for acquiring food.

As such, a Reimu may sing its “easy song” in public for a donation, or a Marisa may show off its offspring while doing the average “easy things” such as singing, goofing off or poo pooing in public for a fee. According to the inherent nature of the yukkuri, it may be painfully aware of living out of human charity, thus acting grateful for food and money it earns and organizing its exhibitions as a way to “make people easy” in return for the easiness its family is getting, or believe itself entitled to be fed and cared, as it gave humans the “gift” of sharing its easiness.

Some Yukkuris may also develop the delusion that, since humans with money look to them as able to command enough respect to be given easier food and and an easier life, by hoarding money they may become more easy, thus above being bullied, driven away or even having to scavenge for food. However, Yukkuris still suffer of dyscalculia, and lack a true concept of money and commerce; as such, is not uncommon seeing Strays entering in human shops and stealing away food and toys for their koyukkuris by loudly claiming to be entitled because they've got money, but refusing to pay, or paying a ridiculous amount of money for a disproportionate quantity of sweets, taking offense upon being denied. On the other spectrum, it's not uncommon seeing unscrupulous shopkeepers charging Strays with all the money they drag with them for a small amount of food, or taking away their money before disposing of them: a badge-less Yukkuri lacks rights, thus it's perfectly lawful stealing from them.

Failing all those ways to earn food, a parent Yukkuri may resort to puncturing its skin and feed its own paste filling to its little ones, or even committing Eat up easy, sacrificing itself for its koyukkuris. Although the Eat up Easy ritual gives koyukkuris part of the memories of the parent, stray koyukkuris are still unlikely to reach maturity. According to their nature as shitheads or niceheads, stray yukkuris may end up hating humans, blaming them for the uneasy life they’re forced to live, and still seeking to be taken as pets and to earn a “mister slave,” or painfully aware of their condition, still hoping to be cared for and not bullied, but shy and scared.

Whereas a wild shithead may resort to puff puff and bullying to attempt to extort sweets from humans, a beggar stray Yukkuri Reimu, in an emulation of the stereotypical human beggar telling sad stories to ask for food or money, may describe itself as a “pitiful single mother” or a “tragic heroine.” Like puffing, this tactic almost never works, especially for a deibu yukkuri, while proclaiming loudly that it needs sweets for its offspring, may still act abusive and brash and, if it really has progeny, keep bullying them in front of humans, thus calling off its bluff.

While bullying and threatening a human is an almost certain death sentence for strays, these yukkaris are not above fighting between themselves in the attempt to secure resources. Organized clans of Strays, upon acquiring "deadly" weapons, such as broken cutter blades, sharp sticks and such, may attack other strays, killing them and taking away their resources, accessories and even koyukkuris. While the food is later eaten, accessories and koyukkuris are sold to pet yukkuris and humans for sweets and money.

Relationship to Pet Yukkuris and non-Yukkuris

Living very close to humans, strays mostly suffer because they’re perceived as even more annoying than their wild and pet counterparts, perpetuating an endless cycle of abuse.

While humans still see homeless people as human beings and help them, they likely see stray yukkuris as vermin, some times seeing them as more dangerous than packs of stray dogs and cats. Most stray yukkuris seem to do anything possible to reinforce that negative prejudice, such as gleefully invading delis and restaurants, pestering the customers for food (thus driving them away), increasing the number of their “home declarations” (that is entering a human house, often by smashing the front windows, eating all edible stuff they can reach, dirtying and fouling the rest and trying to drive the humans and their pets out) or even attack humans to “force” them into handing sweets.

So humans see strays as annoyances then anything else. While there are laws protecting pet yukkuris and some wild ones from abuse in several cities and human settlements in Gensokyo, human authorities have the right to kill any stray deemed dangerous, or even abusive, on sight, and abusing strays goes mostly unpunished and even encouraged against shitheads.

Begging Yukkuris, both niceheads and shitheads, are often targeted by bullies, because of their ability to make money, and thus robbed, killed or enslaved. As such, it should be avoid giving into the demands of nicehead begging strays for money; while the human may believe they're doing a nice thing for a well-deserving family of yukkuris, they may be just making the Yukkuris a target for abusers and unscrupulous shopkeepers that may sell the Yukkuri family overpriced goods or just take their money and summarily kill them.

Instead, a merciful Anon is encourage to spare with the Yukkuris some nutritious food in exchange for their simple services or acknowledging their sufferings; the Yukkuris will be able to be fed and be thankful the same. Furthermore, avoiding sweets would let the adult members of the family teach the baby yukkuris and the koyukkuris in the small clan to appreciate bitter but healthy food, making them less picky and able to thrive in the harsh life of the gutter.

As a reaction to their hard life and the hatred of a vast number of people, some yukkuris have started to openly resent humans, even attacking them with splinters of wood and glass shards. While they’re still to weak to be a serious threat, they’re still deemed dangerous to children and the elderly, thus leading to mass yukkuri exterminations in which entire cities are blanketed by professional exterminator squads, or employ trained Yukkuri Flandres and Yukkuri Remilias to hunt and kill strays.

The few surviving strays, due to their high birthrate, would then soon have offspring and perpetuate the mutual cycle of hatred and abuse.

Other animals, such as birds and rats, are potential predators to yukkuris. Even dogs and cats are a danger to yukkuris. However, as already noted, some strays may still forge an almost symbiotic relationship with humans, for example spending the money they got by begging in human stores to buy food for themselves or even resorting to selling their offspring to human and yukkuris alike. In the latter case, the sold koyukkuri will mostly end up routinely abused by older yukkuris as peddlers and thieves, spending their short lives for making their yukkuri owner easy by stealing and begging. The few koyukkuri fortunate enough to be bought by humans may end up as pets or being bullied by uncaring humans because of their poor origins and their low cost (only a few candies at most).

Pet yukkuris are instructed since birth to avoid strays at every cost. However, it’s not uncommon for pets and strays to forge strong bonds, with pets escaping their homes to live with their new families. Some shithead strays may end up romancing, if not outright raping, pet yukkuris to push their owners into caring for them and their shared offspring, but this tactic usually ends with the owner not falling for the deception and sometimes even punishing and abandoning the pet for taking part in it. Many other Stray Yukkuris tend to openly antagonize Pet Yukkuris, extending to them the same resentment they carry towards humans, going so far to violently assault a Pet Yukkuri left home as a part of their home declaration towards a human household. According to the stray's logic, a Pet Yukkuri is guilty of hoarding all the "easiness" for itself, being "spoiled" and pampered by the same humans who make Strays' lives "uneasy". So it's unwise leaving alone a weak or common type like a Yukkuri Patchouli, a Reimu or a Marisa alone in an area populated by large communities of strays, or where Home Declarations happens routinely, but a strong-type guardian Yukkuri, like a Remilia or a Flandre will take care of the issue.

It has to be noted that such a divide is more a matter of nurture than of nature, a byproduct of the environment and the natural, individualistic tendencies of the average Yukkuri, coupled with a self-perpetuating cycle of abuse. A pet Yukkuri, since it's able to be trained, is told that strays are dangerous, ill and spiteful, showing them as an example the effects of home declarations towards human settlements, thus coming to resent the strays, and gain a sense of superiority towards them. On the other hand, stray koyukkuris are often taught by their parents to avoid Pet Yukkuris, described as being as "uneasy" and warped than the "Mister Humans" who destroy their meager homes and cull almost daily their numbers. So, wherever a still naive stray koyukkuri attempts to "take it easy" with some playing pets, it gets often bullied, beaten and driven away, thus reinforcing the faint sense of animosity its parents taught it and building up hatred and resentment, culminating in acts of aggression towards pet koyukkuris, that, in turn, will nurture fear and wryness towards their stay brethren, in self-perpetuating circle of abuse.

Some Strays may however forge a relationship between ownership and simple friendship with humans. Much like a well behaved stray dog cared for by an entire house block, a family of well-mannered strays may be given a daily meal from a restaurant or deli owner or “allowed” to nest in an abandoned shed. While they’ll be still left on their own devices, that makes their lives slightly easier. Particularly helpful Strays may even be awarded special badges, the Community Service Badges; despite not being part of the official badge system, a Stray that proves itself able to care for the public space its occupying (for example a family of Strays leaving in a park that refrain from eating the flowers and fouling the place, but limit themselves to weeds and actively strive to keep the park clean and avoid pestering the human visitors) and willing to drive away its quarrelsome Yukkuri will be awarded a badge, signaling its usefulness and thus granting it limited protection from scum Yukkuris and abusers. While Community Yukkuris are often seen these Yukkuris as "turncoats", "Slaves to the shitty human slaves", a well behaved Community Yukkuri is more likely to get adopted and thus ensure its survival, by the rest of their brethren.

Strays lack the concept of urbanization and ownership. Entire clans may build the equivalent of a shanty town in abandoned or condemned buildings or temporary landfills, believing that, since humans had forsaken these places, they have no right to drive yukkuris away. Squatter yukkuris rarely accept being driven away or are even aware of the need to do so, thus dying whenever humans reclaim the building for use or renovation. However, they’re still a common fixture in public parks, hand fed much like ducks and pigeons.