The purpose of these discussion threads is to get people talking about touhou characters but also stories that they have appeared in. In other words, it’s less about presenting a summary that can be found in a wiki page or profile and more about discussion with your peers here. You should[ ideally be engaging in back and forth about not only the characters but what other people have said. The barrier to entry is low and you don’t need to write a wall of text to participate! Just what you think and feel is good and interesting enough.

Below are few things that you might want to consider or talk about when it comes to a character. The intent isn’t just to cover the basics but also how these characters may fit into fiction and any interesting portrayals in stories.

- What the character is like: their personality, values, mindset, worldview, interests, and how they approach their existence, generally.
- How they fit into Gensokyo or Touhou: the relationships they might have, how they present themselves, how they interact with youkai or humans, and where they spend their time.
- The types of scenarios or situations that might be typical or interesting to see them in: it might be something that they don’t want to do and are forced to do regardless or it might be something routine, but it’s still something of an opportunity to see alluring aspects of them.
- The ways the characters have changed over time or in their appearances in canon or how depictions in stories on THP have maybe given you a better appreciation for them.
- Aspects of the characters that you think haven’t been explored properly or might be worth seeing in a story some time. Or different takes in stories, drawings, comics or other fanart that seem worth highlighting.

There’s much more that can be said and I’ll repeat that the general idea is to foster discussion. You can go on about your headcanon and all the cool ideas you may have on a character and post them—and it’s appreciated!—but it’d be nice if most of the time we’re not talking past one another but engaging and having a discussion. So make sure to check back and talk to other posters too!

As a final note, I’ve gone through the trouble of mostly automating the character selection process. It should randomly pick a character when I tell it to and it’s weighted to mostly avoid another character from the same game for the subsequent roll as well as any character that has been chosen in the last six months. If you think that the minimum time before a character should be eligible again should be increased, let me know, but I think it’s a reasonable gap.

The protagonist of the still ongoing manga, Lotus Eaters, Miyoi is a zashiki-warashi who works at the Geidontei pub in the human village. Adorned with her distinctive whale-shaped hat, she seems like an affable waitress and typically passes as human. Miyoi has possessed the Ibuki Gourd in order to be able to see the world beyond the pub. She is able to manipulate memories and cause recurring dreams in people who have imbibed alcohol and that has helped her keep her true nature hidden for the most part. Still, several persistent youkai have begun to regularly visit Geidontei at night for a drink.

https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Strange_Creators_of_Outer_World/Who%27s_Who_of_Humans_%26_Youkai_in_Gensokyo/Miyoi_Okunoda

Most recent thread-meister here. Thanks for taking over. In all honesty, I had kind of resigned myself to leaving the thread dormant for a whole load of reasons that are off-topic to really get into here. Frankly, I felt as if I probably wouldn't participate even on the off-chance the thread were revived. Yet, here I am, willing to give it a try.

So, Miyoi. Perhaps it's befitting her whole 'thing' towards the start of Lotus Eaters, but I often forget about her. Even within that manga, she's not the biggest feature, a lot of the chapters focusing on Reimu, Marisa, Suika, Mamizou, Aya, or any number of characters besides Geidontei's poster girl. On one hand, it's a little unfortunate, but I suppose, on the other, it's hard to say much about fundamental aspects of her character without addressing the elephant in the room: her relationship with Suika. As I suppose some part of that is a Big Plot Point — inasmuch as Touhou manga have those — who knows how much of that we'll get until the sudden (likely rushed) Big Crisis at the end of the manga.

Personally, I kind of want to know more about Miyoi as a zashiki-warashi. It is, of course, her nominal 'type' of being, but what does it really mean as far as her existence, particularly in relation to others? Why does she want Geidontei's master to remain ignorant of her? Why did she, unlike so many of her kind, want to leave her home? Why does she fiddle with peoples' memories in the first place? Why does she give them nightmares? Is some of that part of the nature of a zashiki-warashi, or is she somehow special in that respect?

I don't have too many answers, myself, but maybe those sorts of things can spur discussion? Beyond that, all I can really say is: Miyoi a cute.

I think that Miyoi is uniquely positioned in terms of relationships and situations. She lives in the human village and her trade means that she’s always interacting with all sorts of people. Regular humans, goddesses in disguise, pushy youkai after dark … she’s the sort of nexus that I don’t think you otherwise see in Touhou (Reimu and Marisa also move between those worlds as well but aren’t really part of the fabric of society). As shown in the manga, Miyoi does hear a lot about rumors or otherwise is aware of situations that are going on in Gensokyo. Unlike the normal heroines, she’s not typically personally involved in solving the bigger issues but her role as a supporting character or a link between other characters who are doing things is something valuable in storytelling.

I don’t want to be too reductive but some of what >>17623 is asking can be explained by youkai and their nature. She is pleasant, generally, but has a mischievous or darker side, which I think keeps in line with the general way youkai tales are presented. Suika doesn’t seem surprised by Miyoi giving people nightmares and amusing herself and so it seems like a normal enough thing for a youkai to do to me. Zashiki-warashi are known for playing pranks and given that she’s not permanently hurting anyone it seems in line with what one might do given the chance. The explanation of her wanting to see the world is something that probably can also be taken at face value because it’s not like zashiki-warashi can just spent their time wandering about; even the remote work thing in the chapters with Okina doesn’t sever them from being bound to residences; Miyoi saw an opportunity in the oni gourd and took it.

The relationship with Suika, in particular, is interesting with me, and the license she gives to Miyoi (while taking advantage of the opportunity to find a drinking spot) with her gourd and abilities is an interesting angle. We’ll have to wait to see if it gets expanded upon (I won’t hold my breath) but it’s at least been interesting to see things like how the sake generation works, how Suika indulges Miyoi and how she’s built up a spot for her and other select youkai in the village.

Do wish Miyoi would pop up in more stories. She’s made brief appearances here and there but nothing too substantial. I’ve had some ideas for some of the stuff I’ve worked on but for one reason or another I’ve had to cut out her role or work on other stuff first. Still, there’s plenty of potential for a short stories involving her and her customers, youkai, Reimu et al, or whomever else. As Lotus Eater has shown she’s a useful vehicle to look into the various goings-on in Gensokyo.

And yeah, she's pretty cute.

>>17624
You know, it's funny, now that you mention it: Miyoi, a youkai, being arguably more part of the fabric of society in the village than Reimu or Marisa can claim to be. Given that the whole 'nobody remembering who she is' thing has fallen aside a bit, I wonder if she isn't a presence in the neighbourhood. She probably can't move far from Geidontei, but she's clearly able to go outside, so it's not outside the realm of possibility that she could interact with people outside of the bar. What would the neighbours say about her, I wonder?

>Miyoi saw an opportunity in the oni gourd and took it
Sure, but why? A zashiki-warashi is generally focused on her 'home', so what would make her turn outward? I don't suspect it's as simple as 'because she could'.

>As Lotus Eater has shown she’s a useful vehicle to look into the various goings-on in Gensokyo.
Riding a whale....

...I wonder if that whale motif is ever going to get any kind of explanation. How does a hikkikomori house goast know what a whale is?

I've not read Lotus Eaters yet so I can't speak too much about her, but I can say that I love her design.

>>17626
I know, right? I remember being a little iffy on it when they first revealed Lotus Eaters, but it grew on me quickly. Part of it might be a slight affinity with pink-haired characters, of course. Still, the skirt with the Ibuki Gourd-like motif is pretty sweet. And, obviously, the whale hat.

>>17626
I want to buy her hat. It's so... it's such a... hat.

Kind of a dumb thing, but it is an interesting thing to note that douji (what Miyoi is to Suika; see >>17316 for more) and warashi sort of share a meaning of 'child'. I don't think that in itself is indicative of anything, but it is an interesting coincidence.

I guess Miyoi is kind of child-like in many ways. As >>17624 notes, her nightmare shenanigans and such are more like pranks than anything. Plus, she just kind of comes across that way, y'know? I want to pinch her cheeks and pat her head.

As to her relationship with Suika, I didn't quite realise it until it was pointed out, but Suika does give Miyoi a lot of leeway in spite of the latter being technically a servant/follower. Really, she doesn't ask that much of Miyoi beyond use of Geidontei at night. Though it does beg the question of why she went and had the poor girl scared witless before springing that idea. Do the two of them know each other particularly well? I can't remember too clearly, but I remember getting the sense that Suika had only sort of noticed Miyoi and let her go on living in the gourd out of whimsy, but had otherwise maybe not gone out of her way to interact before?

Something I kind of wonder about with Miyoi and the whole zashiki-warashi thing is: what happens to her when the old man dies? There's no sense that the old man ever had a family, so it seems likely that Geidontei just sort of dies off after he's gone. Even though she can move off on the gourd, she does seem attached to the bar. It makes me wonder if she isn't thinking about a future where she moves homes, or if she would rather disappear with Geidontei.

I find there's a couple of question marks that emerge about Miyoi especially regarding her being a Zashiki-Warashi.

there is one of the chapters about the Zashiki-Warashi's disappearing from the village (again) but Miyoi wasn't one of them, and in fact she did not know about where they went at all? why was she excluded from Okina's remote work scheme?

Also she is markedly different from the other Zashiki-warashi since they are pretty much all much smaller than her. I don't know if it is explicitly said in the manga's themselves or elsewhere in touhou and thus can't confirm if this is actually canon, but the touhou wiki describes them as "Child-like"... which Miyoi isn't.

I do enjoy the Lotus Eater manga, especially how Miyoi kinda acts for her regular night customers (Suika, Aya, and Mamizou) in a similar manner to how Kosuzu did for Reimu and Marisa in her own manga. even if they all have to strut their scary reputations before inviting themselves into her night shift. (which gives us her various scared faces so... at least we get some amusement from it! XD)

>>17625
>I wonder if she isn't a presence in the neighbourhood
We see her talking to random humans outside Geitondei in some panels. An example off the top of my head when it was raining and she was trying to get them to leave the village (and was ultimately ignored). Given the very large and lively village depicted in LE (and to a lesser extent, FS), I don't think that random people really think much about her as they go one with their lives—she's just another villager to them. To her immediate neighbors maybe she's just the cheery granddaughter of Geidontei's master.

> How does a hikkikomori house goast know what a whale is?
Could be something as banal as the master read about them one time and thought they were neat and ordered a sign made with one. Miyoi has simply copied that motif.

>A zashiki-warashi is generally focused on her 'home', so what would make her turn outward?
I feel like this can be bundled with what >>17630 brings up. The other zashiki-warashi didn't necessarily want to stay in their same old environment either, hence the "remote work". They all, voluntarily, decided to go away from their homes and to stay elsewhere. Having the Ibuiki gourd, Miyoi had an outlet that wasn't available to her peers.

>>17629
>douji and warashi
They have a laugh about that early on in the manga, when Suika starts dropping in at nights.

I don't think they have much of a relationship prior and Suika generally comes off to me as whimsical and fairly kind-hearted while playing up the oni aspect of herself when it's convenient (like to banter with Mamizou or Aya, or save Reimu from being a dummy and giving her visitors food poisoning). I'm not sure how much time had passed between Miyoi inhabiting the gourd and the beginning of the manga, but I got the impression it had been a very recent development; Suika's first interaction with Miyoi is as a patron when she's undercover as a human. I'm assuming that they are getting to know each other better as the time passes, with Suika (and others) often sharing with her knowledge about drinks and practices. The closest thing we've gotten to more serious "plot" was when the taoists popped up and the relationship between Miyoi/the Ibuiki gourd/Suika became important again. So it's maybe their relationship isn't just about having a drinking spot in the village but one of mutual utility.

It's hard to speculate what Miyoi's long-term plans are. My take is that she's helping out the bar because it's fun. She's very much a people person and takes clear satisfaction from cooking properly, serving new drinks, and otherwise pleasing the customers. So, if the old man dies ... maybe she'd try to keep running things herself? She's probably get support from her (now) acquaintances, both human and youkai. The point is made that zashiki-warashi need to move, yes, but that chapter is also called "Change is the Way of Youkai" and I think that the events of LE, generally, show how resourceful youkai can be in finding new ways to thrive.

>>17630
They're basically children in most traditional depictions (some theories of their origin say that they're an outgrowth of the high child mortality that happened during years of famine). But I wouldn't read too much into their appearance in Touhou as artists and their assistants have a lot of latitude in depicting what to draw and how to draw it (ZUN is more involved in the general story and dialogue) . They're consistent with their depiction in WaHH more than anything and I think that Miyoi's marked differences with them has more to do with practical concern with making her character visually stand out. I'm not sure if LE tankobon have been released yet but, if they're anything like FS' releases, they may have a little extra bit of stuff from ZUN and/or the artist where they talk about stuff like that. Of course, you're free to disagree and speculate otherwise but I haven't seen anything else in the manga that sets up some sort of large reveal about Miyoi (unlike the obvious stuff in WaHH).

>>17631
>I don't think that random people really think much about her as they go one with their lives—she's just another villager to them. To her immediate neighbors maybe she's just the cheery granddaughter of Geidontei's master.
Hmm, a very incognito Miyoi, huh? Makes me wonder what she could possibly see that others can't if she could blend in that well. Maybe there's no need for a monke detective...

>They all, voluntarily, decided to go away from their homes and to stay elsewhere.
That chapter felt poorly-done in terms of conveying why they'd done anything; it ended up feeling a bit like they'd just run off "just because lol". See also: Miyoi's lack of relevance through much of it despite it being about zashiki-warashi.

>I got the impression it had been a very recent development
Same, and I kind of wish there was more indication as to how recently. Then again, ambiguity is grounds for people to explore. I'd read something with Suika and Miyoi becoming better friends or whatever as long as it's cozy.

>>17630
She's pretty child-like personality-wise.

>>17632
>She's pretty child-like personality-wise.

I'm not too sure I agree mostly off of her being a... waitress isn't the right word I'm pretty sure, but still.

on a different not further on the question of her being a Zashiki-Warashi aside from what I ahve already mentioned, it is interesting that despite her constant corrections on the subject that most people that talk to her long enough to take a guess at what she is, most, if not all do not peg her as a Zashiki-Warashi, but rather something else. though that might be tied to her personal power over dreams.

something else that occours to me is that from the first couple of chapters it seems that they were implying that Miyoi has in fact been present at quite a few of the after incident parties at the Hakurei Shrine (they remember her after some reminder in chapter 1) meaning that she could have been going for a long while and just recent circumstances are... weakening(?) her ability to make others forget (Reimu seems to consistently remember her at this point, and Marisa is getting there herself.) it perhaps helps that they now have knowledge about her from a source aside from just directly interacting with her.

>>17623
>who knows how much of that we'll get until the sudden (likely rushed) Big Crisis at the end of the manga.

I think this big crisis might not end up being as rushed as it might seem right now. there seems to be some sort of set up going on hinting at a possible confrontation by the Taoists after Miyoi left behind a Geidontei bowl after rescuing Suika from them.

though I do get the feeling that that confrontation might be happening soon.

I think it's pretty safe to say that Miyoi is just pretending to be a Zashiki-Warashi, or at the very least only fits into the definition on a very technical basis. More likely than not she's some sort of Alp which falls in line with how Remilia thought hobgoblins would be a good replacement for the zashiki.

Thinking about pink-haired characters makes me wonder what would happen if Miyoi encountered Kasen. Given both her connection to the resident Japanese goblin and her frequent dealings with Reimu, it'd be a little weird if they didn't cross paths. I bet it'd be pretty tense, especially with how Kasen generally likes to avoid Suika. Then again, maybe Geidontei's poster girl's sunniness and simplistic diligence could win over a horny hermit.

>>17634
I don't think it's safe to say that at all. There may well be other things going on with her but she does seem to be unambiguously a zashiki-warashi. Otherwise she would not need Suika's gourd to wander around (and hadn't before), nor would she have been worried about Suika disappearing with the gourd in the chapters where the latter is underground dealing with the aftermath of Yuuma. Yuugi taking her in for a while saved her from disappearing.

>>17636
Oh shit, I forgot about the big drunk underground bear letting her crash at her pad.

Can you imagine a story with Miyoi being roomies with Yuugi? Miyoi would try to be the voice of reason, but she's just too adorable (and bulliable) to take seriously. Suika would be watching the chaos from afar and laughing her ass off, occasionally drifting in and out like an absentee dad when she wants to stir up some shit.

>>17635

its rather interesting how the main characters of the characters introduced in the mangas don't really interact with each other much, if at all ( the three fairies seem to be the exception.) this especially noticeable between Miyoi and the other village resident manga protagonist Kosuzu. especially considering LE ch. 49&50 which Kosuzu could have solved pretty instantly.

I find there are a lot of interesting comparisons between the two, both live in the village, but Miyoi bring a comparative Youkai perspective to contrast to Kosuzu's Human one.

>>17638
Compared to the book-lender, Miyoi's less of a dummy and doesn't have to be bailed out as much for getting herself in trouble. She's more of a victim of others causing trouble that she has no real hand in beyond maybe guilt by association (e.g., being a youkai). And very often, she's not even affected much by things going on beyond being a distant witness at most.

>>17638
Funnily enough, the perspective we get with Miyoi feels more human to me than Kosuzu's. Maybe it's because of the other characters, including the human regulars, but Kosuzu seemed like she's more in her own isolated world and has very little sense of what's normal in the day-to-day. That Kosuzu draws the wrong conclusions from reading stuff like magazines doesn't help things either.

The youkai perspective in LE kind of comes through more from the other youkai characters like Mamizou, Aya, and Suika than Miyoi herself.

>spoiler text
If you mean the postmarks, not sure that she'd be able to know what they were since they're not really writing or a book as such.

>>17640
That makes me wonder what would come of Miyoi reading the same sorts of things. Would she rationalise it as 2deep4her and drop it? Would she try to make sense of it in some quaintly ordinary way? I guess she might come to weird conclusions herself, but perhaps ones less likely to lead to some sort of disastrous action on her part.

But, well, I guess it makes sense that a zashiki-warashi might have a slightly more 'human' perspective, considering they're in an almost symbiotic relationship with them. Even youkai like the ones named, who are reasonably friendly with humans, can only mostly see things from the perspective of how they benefit from humans.

>>17639
heck at this point Miyoi has managed to get someone else (namely Suika) out of trouble herself!
and the main time she was really in trouble that I recall, the association was of the other Geidontei night patrons (because Yukari felt left out XP ...oh boy what sort of face do you think Miyoi would make if Yukari showed up one night? probably a similar one to what she would make if she learned the naggy patron she gave nightmares to was Kanako)

>>17640
Kosuzu's ability is to be able to understand any writing she reads and so while she might lack context she'd be able to tell the writings were taking inventory of the food storage inside rather than any sort of curse for Reimu to cleanse or whatnot. Granted since it was Mamizou that was behind it leads to the headcanon I have to fill in that plothole, but this is Miyoi's discussion and not Kosuzu's. and as for whether her powers would apply in that instance, well, it worked for the fox kid's wall doodlings, so it should work there too?

>>17643
>if she learned the naggy patron she gave nightmares to was Kanako
Maybe an initial shock followed by still feeling justified, I'd think. Kanako was extremely insulting, god or no.

>if Yukari showed up one night
Not sure she even knows who Yukari is unless Suika's told her. It's hard to say if she has that much of a perspective of things that far above her pay-grade, either. If they act relatively normal, I think Miyoi would probably treat anybody the same, youkai sage, god, human, or otherwise.

Actually, somebody remind me, did Kanako return to Geidontei after that? Kanako being a humbled regular at Geidontei would make for... dunno about a good story premise, but it would maybe fit into a story somewhere, I guess.

Kind of unfortunate that the cool fashionable onee-san Kanako was just a vehicle for ZUN having an old man rant about sake production and the overemphasis on 'purity' in modern brewing. We'll probably never get any more.

>>17644

the end of ch.15 mentions (and shows) that Kanako does still show up in her disguise "from time to time" though she still very opinionated during those times according to Miyoi

Vampire, resident of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, and younger sister of Remilia. Flandre isn't typically seen in public or at the many drinking parties in Gensokyo—unlike her sister—and spends most of her days inside her home. With her blonde hair, more brash attitude, and strange bejeweled wings, she does not attempt to put on the same air of refinement and sophistication that her elder sister does. Flandre is capable of immense destructive power and a few interesting spellcards, such as cloning herself. First appearing as the Extra Stage boss in Embodiment of the Scarlet Devil, she has since made mostly minor appearances in other games and print works, and finally debuted as a playable character in Sunken Fossil World.

https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Strange_Creators_of_Outer_World/Who%27s_Who_of_Humans_%26_Youkai_in_Gensokyo/Remilia_and_Flandre_Scarlet
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Perfect_Memento_in_Strict_Sense/Flandre_Scarlet
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Bohemian_Archive_in_Japanese_Red/Flandre

Since nobody wants to start, might as well with something. Maybe people are afraid of her?

I used to hate her but I've grown to like the character a little more with th17.5 onwards, where I think she has a very cool movesets (well, most movesets are great there but still). Let's say I learnt to tolerate her. I still think she's overrated, though, and having her as a fave 2hu is probably a red flag.

I never understood the crystals on her wings, or the "wings" themselves.
Are those real? Prosthetics? Are the crystals necessary or are they for decoration?

I like to think the crystals are supposed to tinkle like a windchime.
Design-wise, the wings make zero sense but those plus Laevateinn gives you possible one of the most recognizable silhouettes ever.

That's it for now. Maybe I'll make a follow up, who knows.

I don't care for Flandre on the whole, but I'd say she's also had little chance thus far. In my mind, she was barely a character until her most recent appearances. Like, we didn't know that much about her beyond fairly basic things. Now we have a slightly more sketched out picture of her personality, though I feel like the second artist for Detective Monke ignored much of the first half's nuance.

I haven't seen any particularly moving portrayals of her on THP. Even in Scarlet Tycoon, which I helped work on, I always felt a little unsatisfied with how she was depicted in the couple of brief appearances she got, always leaning a little too far into 'moonbat bipolar loli' territory. I was entertained somewhat by her one canon appearance in Theater of Youth, but that was more for the comedy of having a swipe at Flan fans than anything particularly serious; Arc was certainly not going to go out of his way to see her again, I felt.

Setting aside my own biases against SDM characters, if I were to include Flan in a story nowadays, I think I'd try to get away from the whole 'caged animal' sort of character that's been typical for a while. Perhaps she has her own particular view of things, but I don't think that necessarily makes her psychotic or mentally disturbed. Beyond that... I'd have to think on it.

>>17647
I don't get the wings, either. I guess they could be an illusion? Maybe the crystals aren't really part of them and they're like accessories. If they really are her wings, then I have no clue beyond maybe them being some kind of... magical prosthesis?

I guess I like to think of them as something Flan herself thinks is cool and impressive. Others look at them and are probably as baffled as any of us.

In the limited early canon appearances of Flandre, she came off to me as irreverent and the kind of character that just did whatever they wanted when they wanted. I’ve never really thought much of her as a character and the usual depictions in fiction tended to portray her as mentally unstable, childish or, in some more uncharitable circumstances, a nymphet—takes that did nothing for me. In the Satori manga she’s shown to be more nuanced, staying in her own little world but also running roughshod over everyone else when the opportunity arose. Still, a little naive and not really prone to thinking about things carefully. (Her as a convoluted plot device after the artist swap and the ensuing “top 10 epic anime confrontations” chapters is a regrettable development and doesn’t really do much for the character. It perhaps only pleases the easily impressed who don’t care for substance. But I digress.)

I think that an interesting approach to depicting her might involve exploring her relationship with her sister as it’s clear that they don’t see eye to eye on things. The question of how she keeps busy year-on-year also is another opening, I think. She’s in that sparse and windowless room of hers because she wants to be but how does she occupy her time? Can't be playing with toys all the time for. Read? If so, what kind of books? Tales of knights and princesses? I-novels featuring middle-aged authors in Taisho-era Japan? Does she also share her sister’s western sensibilities or clear preference for that aesthetic? Is that indicative of their origin or just a coincidence? The possibilities are many and I don’t think most of the stories I’ve seen her in deal with her voluntary isolation and what may lead her to be a recluse so unlike her gregarious sister.

Maybe she’s doomed to remain a scary creature that most people avoid, content to ripping them apart if the opportunity arises. That would be a shame, I think. But it’s hard to get past the very large baggage of early modern Touhou and the way that the SDM was fêted and featured prominently in both official works and in fandom.

>>17647
I don't want to read too much into depictions in manga as those can be just a matter of artist's preferences and lack of time for detail but the crystals seem to just magically float beneath her wings with no clear attachment. Perhaps fancy ornamentation she's chosen for herself.

I've been writing a little bit about Flandre lately, so I've had to do some thinking into her character as well. My read on her is that she enjoys a good fight and opportunity to flex her powers, especially the eye-crushing destruction thing.

Each time we see her out of the house, it's usually for the explicit purpose of a fight (EoSD vs Reimu/Marisa, SFW vs Yuuma) or otherwise to flex her powers (destroying the meteor in BaiJR, showing up for the festival in GoU). Of course, a one-hit kill ends most fights pretty quickly, so she can't use her signature ability on most enemies. When she had the chance to fight Yuuma, who could survive being destroyed, she seemed pretty happy to get the chance to do that over and over again.

It's got to be almost impossible to stop her from doing what she wants. As she says, "It's impossible to lock me up." That does seem to influence her attitude, and how casual she is with everyone. Hard to fear anything when you have that in your back pocket.

I'll admit to having struggled with her a bit. She's not quite a meathead, but she's definitely a much more blunt character than her sister. She's also been much less prominent until 17.5 and FDS.

>>17650
>Maybe she’s doomed to remain a scary creature that most people avoid, content to ripping them apart if the opportunity arises.
Even canon seems to like positioning her that way; at the very least, she's always kind of a boogeyman that makes people nervous.

That said, I agree that her relationship with Remilia is something that's not very often commented on, much less explored to any real degree. From what little I recall, the consensus tends to land on them largely not interacting at all, with Remilia doing everything she can to avoid it. Given all else, I wouldn't blame Remilia for not wanting to have much to do with her sister. I feel like, even if she's not restrained as such, there's still a strongly unspoken sense in the SDM that Flandre should be encouraged to stay put as much as possible.

I think what makes it difficult to say a lot is not having much of a sense of the history of the Scarlets and their estate. We don't know a lot about what they may have gone through together, much less separately. Hell, we don't even know much about their origins. When I helped write Scarlet Tycoon, we made up a whole bunch of background for Remilia et al., but that's ultimately all it was: a fabrication for that story.

But, erm, as to Flandre herself, I do also wonder what she does to pass the time. Something that was brought up in Scarlet Tycoon was the possibility of her painting, and whilst it doesn't seem 'likely' — inasmuch as anything can be likely with 2hus — it would be interesting if she had something of an artistic streak. Given that she's more of a recluse, it'd make sense that she'd mostly do things that can be done alone and that take a lot of time and effort. Maybe she crawls around Patchouli's library and helps herself to books, reading up on the wide world she mostly doesn't step into. There is that certain naïvite to her character that makes me think she would probably be a little bit inquisitive about all sorts of things.

>But it’s hard to get past the very large baggage of early modern Touhou and the way that the SDM was fêted and featured prominently in both official works and in fandom.
Pretty big part of why I don't touch on them, myself; they've already got a lot of attention that other casts haven't, even if most of has a history of being quite shallow.

>>17651
>Each time we see her out of the house, it's usually for the explicit purpose of a fight
>It's got to be almost impossible to stop her from doing what she wants
>EoSD vs Reimu/Marisa
Well, in that case, she was actually confined to the SDM by Patchouli making it constantly rain, keeping her penned in by an aversion to running water.

Speaking of which, I don't think there's been much comment one way or another about her fearing the sun as much as her sister. I wonder about that. I mean, it'd be funny if that were more of a 'Remilia' thing than an innate 'weakness' to both of them.

>>17652
>I don't think there's been much comment one way or another about her fearing the sun as much as her sister.
Image from after the fighting at Myourenji.

>Maybe she crawls around Patchouli's library and helps herself to book
Maybe the fairy maids bring novels to her. Still raises the question of who curates the books and what her tastes are like.

>>17653
>second half of Detective Monke
into the trash it goes

>Maybe the fairy maids bring novels to her
Dunno, probably hard or even impossible to strong-arm them into doing anything that involves the other ojou-sama. Unless they don't know anything about it, but that seems unlikely since they probably talk.

>what her tastes are like
The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas? Who doesn't love a tale of adventure and cold-hearted revenge?

>>17654
Outright stated that they bring her trays of food and other things for her. Disliking a manga does not make it any less relevant.

>>17656
It's another detail from FDS. Discarding canon because you don't like it and taking a weird high ground and tone policing certainly doesn't add anything to the conversation. Do better.

Flandre's hard to say a lot about because she's largely isolated in her sister's mansion, and in the couple of times she's out of the mansion, it's viewed as a major event. We also don't get much of a view of her in more ordinary circumstances, so we don't have much clue what she's like when not in a combative state or gleefully strangling gatekeepers.

With how she's treated as being 'a bit strange', a shut-in, and a little naïve, I'd think she might be a bit of a gloomy child normally, maybe not having that much to say to anyone, a bit lost in her own world. It's likely nobody can tell very well what she's thinking, so they probably don't interact more than strictly necessary, unsure if anything they do or say might not provoke some fit of temper. Other maids aside, Sakuya might be the only one who has any significant degree of interactions with her, and that doesn't strike me as likely more than maybe the odd bit of empty chatter or question from Flandre's end, not going out of her way to encourage or discourage the younger sister, just maintaining a careful distance. Remilia may or may not have tried to have something of normal relationship with her sister at some point, but I feel like she's probably given up on that since, preferring to live out her life as if she's simply not there, occasionally reminded by some spot of bother, or maybe even the odd drop-in by Flandre, an occasion she probably greets with a forced smile, empty pleasantries, and cold sweat. I think Patchouli might be the one who would meet Flandre with the most open sense of disinterest, treating her like a pestering child, doing whatever she can to get rid of her as soon as possible, never really fearing her beyond what sorts of repercussions a full-on tantrum might have on the library, figuring she can use magic to keep her at bay otherwise, or pull someone else in to pacify her in a worst case scenario.

As far as Okina, I don't think they're likely to have much to do with each other after all is said and done. That seems like an arrangement of convenience and not much more.

>>17648

I thought Scarlet Tycoon Flandre was written well. Clearly dealing with her personal demons while still making an honest effort to be a functioning member of society. Maybe if that story got a few more threads it would have turned her into a Flandre this site could be proud of.

>>17660
Eh, sorry, but I'm gonna beg to differ. She was basically just girlrotting in Remilia's not-dungeon. The overall course of things was, well, the events of EoSD's extra stage, unintentionally caused by her dear sister's attempts at keeping an eye on her, stoking a growing agitation in the back of her mind at a lack of novelty in the confines of the mansion. Afterwards? Who knows.

The main writer was (obviously) much more focused on Remilia as a whole, and the inclusion of Flandre at all was more of an incidental bit of pathos than anything. Flandre could have factored into some exploration of the Scarlet sisters' background at some point, but that's already wading out into theoretical waters. I'm not saying she couldn't have shown up again, have been of actual consequence, and maybe even demonstrated the sorts of character traits ascribed. It's just, having an inside view, I don't feel it was likely she would be more than a momentary Sword of Damocles for Remilia.

>>17661

Well, mental health in fiction is a rather delicate subject. Even our ongoing stories like Green Eyes Online and Hakurō seem to have characters dealing with issues that deserve much more than the casually dismissive lip-service that fantasy-type settings typically pay to these kinds of things.

And, in a broader sense, I've never encountered a fantasy story that handles this topic particularly well. Perhaps hoping for a good Flandre story is simply asking too much.

>>17662
I wouldn't dismiss it as categorically impossible, but I have no idea what such a thing would look like. There's a lot of blanks that have to be filled in just to create context for her to do anything, and then there's the fact that her inner life is generally a mystery.

As to mental health as a topic, I think pathologising Flandre is kind of whatever. It's fine if she's just a weird kid, imo. In fact, I'd find it kind of refreshing if that was how she was treated in a story. People can make her 'crazy' if they want, but I can do without being hammered over the head with it.

Komachi is a shinigami who works as a ferrywoman on the river Sanzu, transporting the souls of the departed across to the other bank, where they await their turn to be judged by the Yama. She is a convivial character who enjoys a nice chat and will sometimes slack off from her duties. With that said, she is still shows concern about issues relating to ghosts, spirits, and the afterlife and is known to appear in Gensokyo to investigate unusual events or situations. Komachi has appeared in several games as well as official print works, being playable in Phantasmagoria of a Flower View and Scarlet Weather Rhapsody and appearing regularly in Wild and Horned Hermit where she and Kasen would chat about—among other things—ongoing events and problems.

https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Strange_Creators_of_Outer_World/Who%27s_Who_of_Humans_%26_Youkai_in_Gensokyo/Komachi_Onozuka
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Perfect_Memento_in_Strict_Sense/Komachi_Onozuka

I like Komachi quite a bit. She’s affable, easy-going, and her design is appealing. She appears a lot in the manga and seems to get along with most people that she meets. Add to that she knows a lot about the dead and humans and you’ve got yourself a character that should be easy to use in many different types of stories.

Sadly, that’s not really how things have worked out and there’s a dearth of good Komachi material out there.

I would like to know more about the ministry of right and wrong, generally, and her perspective might be interesting to see but stuff like her appearing in the village to find a wayward soul like in LE is a good enough hook for me. She probably spends most of her time at the Sanzu or Higan but she doesn’t seem to be restricted to where she might go within Gensokyo proper. Sure, a lot of the obvious stuff involving her might involve death in some capacity but I could definitely see her popping in for a drink and a snack in the village or building up a relationship with someone because they’re a good talker or are otherwise interesting. That’s more or less the case with Kasen, anyhow.

I’m not sure she has anything more than a professional/hierarchical relationship with Eiki. Eiki most likely doesn’t really approve of her initiatives beyond PoFV but I think that there’s usually not that much work to be done anyhow, seeing as Gensokyo is a fairly small place with few people that would die and need to cross the river every day. But maybe there’s something in exploring how Komachi might relate with other shinigami, perhaps the type that actually do hunt hermits?

All of this is off the top of my head, maybe I’ll have more to say later.

One has to wonder how necessary Komachi's job is. With the increasing amount of technology in Gensokyo, could Komachi not be replaced by a single steam boat? Even if she regularly uses her distance powers to cross the Sanzu river, that means the distance across the river is some tangible, objective measurement and not some metaphysical bullshit that requires her actual presence.

Pretty sure the whole 'pay literally all your spirit money just to cross a river' is a ploy by Big Shikigami to unfairly tax the marginalized, underrepresented spirit community.

>>17665
On one hand, I'd like to know a bit more about the afterlife/hell and what the particular deal is with the judging, reincarnation, etc. of the dead as an organisational structure. On the other, I don't know how many can deftly handle all of the unspoken Sino-Japanese-Buddhist baggage of ZUN's post-death-worlds in any exploration thereof. Yes, a lot of it is kind of handwave-y to start, without much adherence to tradition and folklore, but there's still the general... 'flavour' of it that I feel is jeopardised by mishandling.

As to Komachi herself, I do like her very loudly edokko aesthetic. She's the embodiment of iki in many ways: laid-back, detached, dedicated to leisure. I could see her perched on the side of the River Sanzu smoking a kiseru, waxing poetic about the frailty and fleetingness of life — before grabbing a passerby and cheerfully coercing them into paying for lunch. Maybe it's a sort of personal bias, but I bet she also gambles all the time, too, spending every bit of her winnings on fine drink and food.

I guess she would probably get along pretty well with the more laid-back or party-hardy sorts of characters. Speaking of which, I do wonder what sort of relationship she might have with Yuyuko, considering the latter is notionally in a seat of authority over some of the dead. Assuming Komachi's not just limited to her ferrywoman duties — and I think it's safe to say she's more of a general-purpose bureaucrat of the dead — what sort of organisational nonsense might necessitate a trip to the Netherworld? I think there's grounds for something there, maybe.

That said, I'm not sure on Komachi's inner life. We know a lot about the fact that she likes to, well, take it easy, but it doesn't say much about what she values. When we see her in official works, it's basically in the context of her occupation, so there's not much to go on outside of that. In the first place, what the hell is a shinigami? Yes, it's a thing described by Lafcadio Hearn in an obvious parallel to 'the Grim Reaper', and probably made up by him — but, that aside, what is it? What does it mean to be a kami whose existence comes with a functional role that corresponds to death? What does that mean for your everyday, moment-to-moment existence? Are you alive? Do you count as dead? Are you outside that dichotomy altogether? It's the sort of thing that raises fundamental questions that are hard to answer.

>>17667

Her laid-back personality might be a coping mechanism. If you think about it, she's got the absolute worst fucking job on the planet. I mean...most people would just laugh off angry ghosts and vengeful spirits as just another quirk of Gensokyo, but those would constitute the entirety of Komachi's customers. Every. Single. Day.

Eiki should be thanking her lucky stars the poor girl hasn't gone postal, as I don't imagine anyone living or dead can out-faith a god of death. Logically, it shouldn't even be possible.

>>17667
Yuyuko's duties and relationship with the rest of the afterlife is fairly vague and, to me, seems roughly to be "keep the spirits of the netherworld in the netherworld" and not much else. So not sure that Komachi would have much occasion to pop in but I'm sure that they'd get along fine, maybe taxing Youmu to keep both with plenty of drink and food.

I think I agree with the general aesthetic that you've brought up but I would perhaps not lean in too much on more modern (well, relatively) edo habits and perhaps think of the poems of and stories about her namesake, Ono no Komachi. Perhaps she is a romantic soul in that regard and perhaps the types of stories for which she stretches out the boat trips the most are those of forlorn love or great passion. Or, maybe, her cheery self isn't completely without nuance and she holds a little sadness or bitterness when it comes to those subjects.

I don't think she's any more alive or dead than any kishin or yama. That may be a cop out but it's not the kind of thing I believe ZUN has given much thought about in the general cosmology. The kami side of things doesn't seem like something that's very relevant to the character. But, hey, maybe she does need faith and the reason she's going around Gensokyo so openly with a scythe is to remind people of death and whatnot. I think it's more that she's so laid back that she doesn't care but there's nothing solid either way I guess.

>>17668
I don't think that she's dealing with all that much that's nasty. Vengeful spirits are mostly in the underground and come about in specific circumstances and ghosts, angry or not, tend to be around whatever they're still attached to (like drinking at Geidontei). The spirits of the dead are mostly just patiently waiting their turn to be judged by the yama.

https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/702172

This comic is a good summary of my thoughts on Komachi's behavior and personality. I think she's chatty and outgoing in the way friendlier taxi drivers are. She only sees her passengers once, so why not make the trip pleasant? I think it's how she would choose to handle her professional duties.

I also like the idea of her spending leisure time on gambling and drinking. She gives me the impression of someone who likes partying and carousing. There's several characters that opens up potential relationships with, but I don't have the brainpower to dwell on that right now.

https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/748691

I think of her relationship with Eiki as generally positive. Eiki would be exasperated at Komachi's laid-back behavior but also trust her to get things done when it matters. For her part, I think Komachi might be able to occasionally offer advice or suggestions to Eiki that she would recognize the worth of.

>>17669
No doubt that Yuyuko's duties to the afterlife are probably fairly limited. Still, I think it's not impossible that Komachi is sort of a general-purpose bureaucrat and would take it upon herself to 'conduct routine inspections' as an excuse to do little. Maybe not incredibly often, sure, but perhaps with some regularity.

>Perhaps she is a romantic soul in that regard and perhaps the types of stories for which she stretches out the boat trips the most are those of forlorn love or great passion. Or, maybe, her cheery self isn't completely without nuance and she holds a little sadness or bitterness when it comes to those subjects.
I see that as pretty compatible with the edokko aesthetic; there's a very 'living to die' kind of thing with iki-ness that carries a certain romanticism with it.

>That may be a cop out but it's not the kind of thing I believe ZUN has given much thought about in the general cosmology.
I mean, sure. It's just the sort of thing where it's hard to know how that sort of point of view affects how one sees things. The obvious answer is that we're supposed to wave our hand, assume she's 'like us' in most basic respects, and go on about our day. Still, that leaves a lot of gaps.

>ghosts and spirits
There's also the fact that most of the spirits of the dead who aren't ghosts or vengeful spirits — which is a whole thing that is kind of separate of the dead; an onryou is more of a powerful lingering emotion that becomes its own being than the person themselves — can't exactly speak or... well, do much in general beyond float around being vaguely conscious. Komachi just basically talks to herself when ferrying folks, so it's hardly that much of a strain. Plus, the real nasty shit goes to more direct agents of Hell, anyway.

>>17670
In all honesty, I don't think she has that much of a relationship with Eiki. They know each other from being part of the same machinery and have interacted, but those interactions were largely of the same nature as, say, someone from one department complaining at someone from a different department because their lack of addressing an issue has caused problems with their own work.

I mean, we don't know how many other subordinates are under Eiki's jurisdiction, how many report to her directly, etc., so skies the limit, I guess. But, I dunno, feels like being the yama would put you at a pretty far remove from someone like Komachi, who's more just a low-level cog in the machine.

...I wish there was an org chart of the afterlife.

>>17670
If I had to cross over into the afterlife, I'd certainly want someone as affable and cute as Komachi to take me there.

>>17671
I suppose that I don't really see her as a bureaucrat, though I guess everyone involved with the the ministry of right and wrong would qualify. It's odd to extend the notion of bureaucracy and its associations with paperwork and labyrinthine regulations with other creatures like kishin as well. But anyway, what Komachi's other duties may be is definitely something I'd like to know more about. Her wandering about—or perhaps better put, perambulations around—Gensokyo seem to not have any real connecting tissue save for it involving the dead in some capacity. Yes, the netherworld is a place she might go to, but would she maybe take to inspecting cemeteries? Would she poke the taoists like she did Kasen, showing up t o their temple and remind them that their quest for immortality inevitably ends with the agents of the afterlife winning? Would she be disturbed or maybe amused by Kaguya, Mokou, and Eirin or is all that nonsense simply above her pay grade and hence not worth bothering with initiative?

I'd like to see something light in tone, maybe comedic, of Komachi doing these things while claiming work expenses for food and drink at bars and restaurants. One would think Eiki would not be amused if she found out.

>>17672
The Ministry of Right and Wrong are talked about in terms of things like needing funding for operations, and the whole thing is clearly taken from the Chinese folk-Buddhist model of the afterlife, Enma and all, so it's hard not to think of it as a massive cosmic bureaucracy.

That said, I guess Komachi would qualify more as a 'functionary' than a full-on bureaucrat. At least, I can't see her doing much paperwork. Even if there are matters of procedure and the like, I'd bet she fobs them off on others, perhaps pushing her fellow reapers into covering for her. Honestly, that'd make for a pretty funny story: Komachi the irresponsible office worker and her reaper co-workers who have to put up with her lackadaisicalness.

I do think Komachi might take a certain interest in Yoshika, the latter being a corpse reanimated with no regard to its former personhood. I don't know if she would care enough to take any action against Seiga over it, but I think she might feel a certain sympathy. I'm not sure how she would interact with Seiga, though. Might not be real amicable.

As to the mooninites and hobo, well, she'd probably lean towards amused, I think. They're technically outside the purview of life and death now, so there's no real reason for her duties to involve them. Still, she might find their points of view interesting given that freedom from the normal bounds of living.

The hermit responsible for convincing Miko of the virtues of Taoism, Seiga first appeared in Ten Desires and acted to protect the mausoleum where Miko would be resurrected. Described as a “wicked hermit”, Seiga is self-centered and does not hesitate to deceive others. Among the immortal acts she has committed, the reanimation of corpses into Jianshi stands out. She controls and uses (the mostly mindless) Miyako Yoshika, using her to guard places or do other tasks subject to her whims. Seiga has managed to persist as a hermit despite moving from her native land to Japan (and, eventually, to Gensokyo) and the occasional attacks by kishin to end her unnaturally-extended life and to have her fall into hell. Seiga’s hairpin allows her to open holes in any wall, pass through, and then have the hole close, allowing her to enter and leave most pleases as she pleases.

https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Symposium_of_Post-mysticism/Seiga_Kaku
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Strange_Creators_of_Outer_World/Who%27s_Who_of_Humans_%26_Youkai_in_Gensokyo/Yoshika_Miyako_and_Seiga_Kaku

>>17674
Addendum to above: include discussions of Yoshika if you like, as she's not really much of a character on her own right and it would make little sense to have be the subject of a future roll.

>>17675
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Symposium_of_Post-mysticism/Yoshika_Miyako

Throwing in this just so we've got all resources linked.

>>17674
She stole my Christmas tree

Seiga's not a character I have any particularly strong feeling about... and yet I do kind of feel like she could be explored somehow. She's someone who is, at her core, a deeply conceited and selfish kind of evil, who in her heart-of-hearts cares for absolutely nobody but herself, and that's something I haven't seen touched on too much with her. Also, I think there's a tendency to associate her too much with Miko; despite their past ties, I'm pretty sure the resident Nyan-Nyan gives zero fucks about the puffball head and has only ever used her as a means to an end.

Yoshika is the cuter and more immediately interesting one, but it's sort of by virtue of being Seiga's accessory. She's inherently mysterious because there's no definite handhold on who she might have been in life. Rather than being a person of her own, she's more of a monument to the beautiful sadness of a life passed, made permanent(-ish) in a twisted way. I think there are a lot of stories about grief and holding on far too long that can be told through Yoshika.

Running on empty, so that's all I can muster for the moment.

>>17674
Let's just go ahead and get this out of the way; Seiga is objectively the sexiest Touhou character ever made. You're free to debate it, but the science is settled.

Anyways, for me, Seiga is simultaneously one of Touhou's darker characters while also being one of its more childish characters. That is, if there was any Touhou character that would fit the label of "Disney Villain" the most, I feel like it would be Seiga. She's fun, she's friendly, she's charismatic, but she's undeniably evil, doing evil for the sake of evil like stealing Christmas. She proudly calls herself a wicked hermit, and carries a business card. For lighter stories, I think going this route is the best and it's always entertaining.

I unfortunately don't know much about both Seiga's inspiration source as well as Taoism, and I feel knowing both, particularly the latter, would help in creating a more in-depth Seiga. I've seen multiple interpretations of the backstory where she's married. Suikakasen goes with a pretty positive interpretation, where the two clearly had a level of love for each other, but you could go in other directions too. One poster a while back said that the marriage would've been forced back then since her husband had snuck in to sleep beside her, and likely while Seiga was younger. Here the escape into Taoism can be interpreted as freedom, and adds to how carefree she seems to be with her actions, doing wicked things without concern or care.

How though does one reconcile her acts as a hermit, someone who is trying to achieve enlightenment and virtue to enter heaven, while being unrepentantly evil and thus shut out from heaven? You can't say she's unskilled in Taoism as that simply isn't the truth, she taught Miko and everything we see shows that she is skilled and intelligent. She even has a bit of zeal for Taoism, so it's hard to argue she's using it purely for utilitarian means. I think this may be why many stories in the West tend to avoid using Seiga for much more than necrophilia jokes - to be able to write about a character with whom Taoism is an important part of her beliefs and worldviews, you yourself need to know Taoism. And most Westerners don't know Taoism.

I'd love to see her used more in stories and fanworks (and it's not like she's unused, she's fairly common for a not-TH6-8 girl), she seems like the kind of character who would be starting incidents. But due to the difficulty of Taoism, I doubt we'll see much with her in the West that goes deep into her character. At least the Disney Villain Seiga is still very fun though.

On a final minor note, Seiga really benefits from Desire Drive being a popular song.

>>17679
Saying 'Taoism' is kind of like saying 'Shintoism': it falsely implies a monolithic character to what's actually a broad, convoluted field of heterogeneous folk religions somewhat artificially crammed together because someone or other saw fit to apply some philosophical framework to claim them as 'the same thing'. In the case of Taoism-as-she-is-practised (as opposed to 'philosophical Taoism', which is 'people playing word games with the text of the Tao Te Ching'), you're looking at a whole shitload of different Chinese regional folk beliefs thrown together with smatterings of Neo-Confucian cosmological superstition-disguised-as-science and droplets of folk figure mutterings. This manifests itself in expressions as benign as temples to folks gods and as dangerous as encouraging others to drink mercury. In most Japanese media, Taoism works out to simply a nonsensical shorthand vehicle for ye olde Ancient Chinese Secrets™ (just like Nai-Nai used to make). So, basically, no real need to know much beyond the most stereotypical trappings to deal with Seiga because it ultimately doesn't mean much beyond 'Chinese-themed occult bollocks'.

Seiga being unabashedly evil is something fairly different from most characters in the serious. She dotes on her pet corpse even while she desecrates whatever Yoshika’s memory might be, speaking kindly of her puppet and taking the time to ask Aya to take a picture of them together. She cheats death, she tricked and abandoned her family, she does what she pleases when she pleases. I find the unapologetic nature of it an attractive quality. Don’t get me wrong, she’s awful and would likely only habitually associate with anyone in order to take advantage of them or get something that she wants. But there’s a freedom when it comes to writing a character who is likely unbound by conventionally-accepted morality and whose worldview, while not outright hedonistic, is about self-interest and enjoying her freedom.

Most characters who know of her would be wary of her. Those who don’t know her might find her pleasant enough in a casual interaction as she’s not murderous or otherwise unhinged. Still, learning more about her might be interesting to experience in writing; seeing that there’s things off about her, that her judgment is unconventional, and the dawning horror of what she’s done with the poor dead young girl. Still, maybe that might be balanced by the charm that she has with her foreign (read: Chinese) ways and also that she’s one of the few characters who has actually been married and likely has a pragmatic understanding of those sorts of bonds and relationships (though, yeah, she rejected hers). While I’m not sure that I would lean into the more sexual aspects of hers casually when storytelling, they are still implicitly there, and could be explored if relevant to the narrative.

>>17678
>I think there's a tendency to associate her too much with Miko [...]
She’s definitely not part of the strange hermit temple thing Miko has going on and in SoPM Miko distances herself from Seiga when pressed. So whatever affection there may exist is likely to be one-sided and come from Seiga.

>>17679
I’ll mostly echo what >>17690 said about Taoism and emphasize that it’s a whole patchwork of ideas that range from traditional practices to esoteric alchemical and magical practices that don’t really have much relevance to whatever Laozi may have written. More importantly than that, Taoism as a whole has not been examined in Touhou (nor, really, any other religion beyond its superficial traits and often syncretic practices within Japanese culture) and so it isn’t really an angle that I think would be worth investing oneself with when telling a story. The systems and expressions of cultural identity (including religiosity) in Touhou are fundamentally Japanese and I don’t see any character existing outside of that perception or assumption. Even more obviously Chinese things in the series like Lunarians or Son Biten are evidently very much viewed from a solidly Japanese perspective. I mean, obviously, tell whatever story you think is interesting, but I don’t think Taoism is really relevant to the setting or character motivations except in the most superficial of ways.

>>17681
>while not outright hedonistic
You know, that's sort of an angle I don't think I've ever seen done with Seiga. What in the heck would that even look like? It's a vaguely interesting thought.

As to other characters' reactions to Seiga, I'm sure there are some who would flinch less, even at the less savoury aspects, though probably few who would applaud her or feel much sympathy. For instance, I feel like someone like Komachi wouldn't be very shocked by much of her villainy, even if she'd probably take her to task somewhat on the necromancy. Overall, of course, yeah, most others would likely not take well to a wicked hermit's shadier side.

>The systems and expressions of cultural identity (including religiosity) in Touhou are fundamentally Japanese and I don’t see any character existing outside of that perception or assumption.
Honestly, this needs to be a sign so we can tap it in any discussion.

Come to think of it, Seiga's (and Yoshika as well, by association) one of those characters where we have absolutely no idea where they are on an everyday basis. She doesn't have any real lingering connection to Miko and company, so it seems likely that she has a place of her own somewhere. I guess the boring, but sensible, answer would be that she has her own little hidden world like the other hermits. However, a much more interesting possibility to consider is if she lives in the village, almost hidden in plain sight. After all, even though she's a wicked hermit, she mostly leaves others alone unless they pique her interest. There is the problem of Yoshika being a bit more of a noticeable piece of furniture, but either Seiga keeps her out of sight, maybe sending her off with orders to do some inane task to keep her busy, or perhaps the villagers, as they're often portrayed in the manga, don't even notice she's a walking corpse. It would certainly be in the normal spirit of things for folks to only think that the pretty Chinese lady and the oddly pale girl are just a couple of oddballs, nothing too rare in Gensokyo.

>>17683
I don't see Yoshika moving much at all. Last we "saw" her, in AFiEU, she was still hanging around the cemetery around Myourenji. So whatever setup Seiga has, she mostly leaves Yoshika up to her own devices or sees her whenever she feels like it.

But, yeah, I could see Seiga living in the village. She might be bored of the quiet and calm of senaki and choose to live where the action is, as it were. Could just be an unused room in a mansion somewhere she is squatting in, coming and going as she pleases. Maybe she's wicked enough to use her taoist magic to beguile the master of the house. Wouldn't put it above her and would certainly fit the selfish, manipulative, and cruel beauty trope found in so much Eastern literature.

>>17684
>I don't see Yoshika moving much at all.
I mean, she doesn't do much of her own accord since she's more like a meat automaton than anything. If she does move around, it's because Seiga's given her specific instructions to do, even if it amounts to '10 move forward 20 move backward 30 GOTO 10'.

>unused room in a mansion
>beguile the master of the house
Wouldn't shock me if she did something like poisoning someone to steal their house and gain a bonus corpse doll on top.

Though, having said that, I guess she's not strictly a necromancer as such. She certainly has Yoshika, but I can't remember if she has a specific predilection for making marionettes of the departed. And even if she does, she could be particular about whose corpses she uses. Maybe she only likes pretty corpses she can use as quasi-living dolls. Maybe she only wants corpses whose memories would really be defiled by making jiang-shi of them. Then there's probably hundreds of ways she might otherwise use a stiff for some occult devilry...

Anyway, I guess that would make for an interesting part of a story: Seiga usurping some old, well-off house, perhaps also its associated servants, and passing herself off as whatever's convenient as to not raise suspicions. Certainly opportunity for some horrifying revelations as, say, someone sticks their nose in further than would be wise.

On a rather tangential note, I wonder how Seiga and Orin might relate as morose, corpse-handling figures. Yes, the likelihood that they'd have much to do with each other is slim, but if they did, would they see it as a commonality? Would the corpse-cat find the wicked hermit an appealing presence and cosy up to her? Would Seiga see the feline as a unique opportunity to play around, if only to maybe steal a body or two out from under her? Or would they be antagonistic? Would Orin see Seiga as a poacher, someone who wants to muscle in on her game? Would Seiga perceive another disturber of the dead as competition and want to ward her away from any potential prizes? Perhaps some middle ground?

Both debuting in Undefined Fantastic Object, Shou and Nazrin have a strong relationship to the Buddhist deity, Bishamonten. Though Shou is nominally a monk and second-in-command at the Myouren temple, she is also a stand-in/avatar of Bishomonen, who is also worshiped at the temple, meaning that she is nominally an figure of worship herself. Nazrin was dispatched by Bishamonten to support Shou and keep an eye on her and, despite that mandate, does not live at Myourenji nor does she follow the temple’s other teachings and only appears there when she is called for by Shou.

Shou has tiger-like motifs in her appearance, her original youkai form having been based on the idea of a tiger. Her current form strongly resembles statues of her deity. Considered a youkai that attracts wealth, Shou is also capable of creating gems using the lasers of the Jeweled Pagoda gifted to her by Bishamonten.

Nazrin is much less ambiguously mouse-like, featuring large ears and a tail—she’s sometimes depicted in the company of normal mice, often carrying some in small basket. She uses her dowsing abilities, and the mice in her service, to locate treasure. Nazrin appeared for the first time as a playable character in Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost.

https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Strange_Creators_of_Outer_World/Who%27s_Who_of_Humans_%26_Youkai_in_Gensokyo/Nazrin_and_Shou_Toramaru
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Symposium_of_Post-mysticism/Shou_Toramaru
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Symposium_of_Post-mysticism/Nazrin

I guess I can see why they would be bundled together. It's unfortunate how Shou gets little screentime despite her somewhat interesting background. At least Naz got UDoALG.

Nazrin is consistently among my top favourite characters in spite of a relative paucity of proper appearances. I didn't especially like her as a boss in UFO, especially since her theme is kind of whatever, but her overall character has always been attractive to me. Fan depictions of her position her as something of 'yet another long-suffering servant character', which I don't entirely disagree with, but I think it's a little exaggerated most of the time. Really, part of what makes her interesting is her relative independence despite having notional ties to the Myourens. She just kind of runs around hunting down treasures on her own, living in her little hut near the dump. Plus, she's kind of a double-agent in terms of really being one of Bishamonten's high-ranking familiars but serving as underling to his avatar. There's something about her as a character that just feels kind of crafty, perhaps not in a big-brain kind of way, but she has a certain cleverness that keeps her alive. It's that sort of thing that allows her to be smug whilst also being a coward, which I find charming.

As far as depictions on THP, there haven't been too many, and most of the ones I can recall have been pretty incidental. About the only one I'd say was fairly close to good would be Summerfield's Sand and Pebbles, but even there she's not of especial focus despite being something of an anchoring point for the narrative. I've wanted to do something with her, but the lack of cohesion with the Myourens is kind of a double-edged sword when it comes to finding a narrative. I guess there's the general revelations(?) about having passing acquaintance with some of the other hell-bound characters, but even that doesn't immediately spark anything too compelling.

There's also something of a lack of definition beyond 'smug but cowardly' and 'treasure seeker'. How does she spend her days? What does serving under Shou look like? How does she interact with the others at the temple? How often is she even at the temple? Why does she look for treasure beyond the thrill of the chase? What would she do if she wasn't hunting treasure? What is it that she really values? These things aren't easy to come up with convincing answers to, which makes degrees of characterisation arbitrary, though I feel like there's a point past which it wouldn't come across as the same character if taken too far. (Of course, that point applies to just about anyone who isn't given prominent billing in the official media.)

...I've kind of run out of steam despite genuinely being enthusiastic for Naz. Well, more to be said later, I guess, plus I haven't really said much on Shou yet.

These are two characters which I don’t really have strong feelings about.

Shou, I guess, has at least has the aspect of being part of the Myouren gang. She’s not exactly a good Buddhist and, despite being a literal avatar of a “deity”, still drinks to excess and isn’t exactly disciplined. That’s a source of potential tension with Byakuren but, in practice, I don’t think it has really been explored very much in either official works or fandom. … Come to think of it, what is Bishamonten’s relationship to Myourenji? Selected an avatar and someone to keep in check but does this entity regularly interact with its disciples? Does Byakuren feel its (dis)pleasure at the state of affairs? The actual, practical, day-to-day affairs of the Myouren temple are pretty underdeveloped. So is Shou, I suppose. She might be Byakuren’s lieutenant (and also an object of worship) but I don’t think she’s setting up sutra recitals like Byakuren or taking on disciples or teaching others the ways of Buddhism. And, well, there’s a lot of criticism of Byakuren and how she’s not really the model Buddhist and on the path of enlightenment … but why would a big-name Buddhist entity like Bishamonton sanction a youkai Shou and, therefore, the temple and its head priest if it didn’t mean that they weren’t on the noble eightfold path (or, well, close enough to orthodox teachings).

I guess I’d enjoy seeing some of that possible tension explored in a story though Buddhism and examination of it aren’t really relevant to Touhou. A flawed Buddhist, a youkai that’s not above having fun, I guess is how I’d describe Shou.

As for Nazrin, she’s something of an ancillary character. She seems more interested in her own desires of finding treasures than life at the temple, let alone spreading the teachings of Shakyayuni. That she was chosen by Bishamonten seems to be a point of pride but, in a practical sense, doesn’t really change things as she’s not really interacting with Shou or the rest of the Myouren denizens regularly. I somehow doubt she’d have much to say about faith or enlightenment given her proclivities. Still, I think it could be fun to have her appear as a force in a story that leads to exploring forgotten treasures or areas, possibly entangling others in a complicated web of events. If things get too gnarly, I’d bet she’d sacrifice her mouse underlings in order to try a clean break. Maybe someone who could see through her and expected as much might fluster her and force her to get her own hands dirty.

>>17688
>what is Bishamonten’s relationship to Myourenji
>big-name Buddhist entity like Bishamonton
The thing is that, as far as Japan goes, Bishamonten is just another one of the Shichifukujin, who are by and large tied with material success and plenty, at least in the popular consciousness. The original manifestation, Vaisravana, is himself just a Hindu god integrated into Buddhist cosmology, but ties between Bishamonten as realised in Japan and Vaisravana seem pretty loose. That said, more esoteric strains of Japanese Buddhism do incorporate icons like Bishamonten, which feels kind of appropriate for Byakuren, who more than likely has embraced fairly esoteric practises herself. Really, though, Bishamonten's presence among the Myourens feels like, well, classic Japanese syncretism. I think it's probably split-the-difference on his role being somewhere between guaranteeing degrees of material fortune for the temple and some sort of conduit related to Byakuren's magic.

As to Shou, I do wonder about her role in the temple, practically speaking. There is the whole mixed-up deal with her technically being Byakuren's disciple but also worshipped by her as Bishamonten's avatar, which probably does fuel some strange tension at times. I could see there being a silent conflict between her and Byakuren over who serves whom, leading to degrees of dysfunction within the ranks. There could be a split in loyalties among the human adherents, some hewing closer to Byakuren, others closer to Shou. Granted, Shou does technically owe Byakuren for unspecified help in the past, so perhaps that's taking it a little far. Still, I think it'd be interesting.

>>17689

Surely 'Avatar of Bishamonten' is just a mantel Shou wears, tied into how the power and faith system works in Gensokyo, and not something actually sanctioned by Big Brother Bishamonten.

The behavior and discipline discrepancies noted by >>17688 certainly corroborate the idea that actual deities aren't micromanaging their assets in Gensokyo.

>>17690
It says outright in her SoPM profile that she's an 'avatar of Bishamonten', and her UFO profile outlines how all that happened, so saying that it's a self-styling or whatever is a stretch. I also fail to see how Shou not following strict Buddhist monastic asceticism is relevant to the idea of Bishamonten watching Shou; in her game profile, it says that Bishamonten more or less approved of her job as a faith-gatherer for himself, so whether or not she's a 'good Buddhist' doesn't seem to really matter — besides everything I just explained about his place as a syncretic deity figure who isn't necessarily of Buddhism in and of himself.

Anyway, more on-topic, given her whole deal with attracting riches, it's funny that Shou hasn't been shown having anything to do with gambling. Would someone like Sannyo know her deal and simply not allow her in her gambling den? Would any and all gamblers in Gensokyo be afraid of her having some kind of preternatural luck on account of her avatar-ness? Or would she not have any sort of perks in that regard at all and simply be another sucker? Maybe she's good at attracting the pity of others and using others' money? Maybe she'd just lose a lot of money? Either way, how would she view any gains? For herself? For the temple? For Bishamonten? Would she give most of it to Byakuren and pinch a little for a tipple? Would she go hog-wild and spend it all in one place? Would she hoard it and add it to a growing pile of riches, which she intends to swim in à la Scrooge McDuck? There's a few things in such a situation that would say a lot about her character.

First appearing in Urban Legend in Limbo, and ultimately responsible for that incident, Sumireko is a high school student from the outside world with an interest in the occult. After that incident, she begins visiting Gensokyo while dreaming in the outside world, interacting with numerous characters, notably Reimu and Marisa. She’s appeared in several of the official print works since, most prominently in the restarted Curiosities of Lotus Asia where she eventually does part-time work for a spell at Kourindou.

https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Strange_Creators_of_Outer_World/Who%27s_Who_of_Humans_%26_Youkai_in_Gensokyo/Sumireko_Usami
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/The_Grimoire_of_Usami

Sumireko feels like the most controversial modern Touhou character. People tend to really HATE her on account of being a zoomer, dominating in the written works and feeling like a "loved by everyone" character in those, and her personality coming off like a mouthpiece of ZUN.

For me, I feel like works that highlight Sumireko's devil-may-care and desire to do batshit crazy stuff like suicide-bomb the barrier and act more antagonistic to everyone make her feel much more likable to me than when she's used as a normal character. It's really strange.

Shout out to her fighting game debut, Artifical Dream, and USL.

I like her in concept if nothing else. The idea of a "modern" magician who uses ESP showing up was a good one and fit well with the Urban Legend incident. I also like that she was ultimately a pawn despite her literally strong showing. I haven't read the written works though, which may be why I haven't gotten as bad an impression as some other people here.
>>17693
Teenage esper does magic 9/11. What actually was her intention with the orbs? I know she was being duped by... Either Sagume or Mamizou? But I don't remember what they tricked her with.

>>17693
I'll dispute her coming off as a mouthpiece of ZUN since ZUN has very clear opinions about things (see the interviews/afterwords to any one of the games/print works) but I'll count myself on the side of people who dislike her as a character. She feels like Poochie the Dog, someone cynically foisted upon the fanbase by someone how pointed to "market research" and tried to tick all of the boxes of what "the youth" are into without understanding the culture of the works or its target demo. I wouldn't be surprised if the publishers or partners that ZUN works with pushed for a "relatable" character like her.

I have no problem with the concept of an outsider who comes into Gensokyo from time to time because reasons but she doesn't really seem to add anything to the setting and her self-admitted chuuni energy is incredibly off-putting. I do resent the hijacking of CoLA and of the pointless chapters in WaHH that don't really go anywhere but somehow major characters find themselves caring about some human and their fate among other instances. She's fine for a fighting game—those traditionally don't really tie in with the overall stories and themes of the mainline games and are often far sillier—but in other contexts she sticks out like a sore thumb. The more ambiguous take of Renko and Maribel was a better way to have outsiders peering into the fantasy of Gensokyo, there was no need to have an active actor who other characters inexplicably tolerate their nonsense.

I don't think I'd use her in a story except as, maybe, a passing reference, as I think she's fundamentally a bad fit for the rest of the setting. I haven't seen any portrayals of her that I've enjoyed and, indeed, the type of stories where she appears prominently tend not to be things that I find interesting or well-written. I'm trying not to be wholly negative but I'm struggling to think of anything that I find interesting or good about Sumireko; I don't find her design either good or bad; most of the feelings I have about her besides what I've mentioned are neutral at best.

>>17692
I think I liked her in USiL more than in any of the official works.

I'm often hyperbolic in expressing dislike of Usami Sumireko, but the truth is that I don't really care about her in any sense. Though I could certainly see her being something Kadokawa pressed ZUN into including for the sake of 'marketability', and thus her manifestation being something of an act of malicious compliance on ZUN's part, I don't think that's necessarily the case, considering how much she's been included in things thus far. In some ways, I think she represents Old Man ZUN having an Anno Hideaki moment and going "Man, otaku are dumb," albeit maybe in a slightly more tongue-in-cheek manner.

Just to stay on the 'otaku' thing for a moment, I'll point out some context that people often lack regarding her: She is basically the equivalent of a moonbat UFO chaser who reads the equivalent of tabloids and desperately wants every headline to be true. I don't know how much of a 'subculture' it actually is in reality, but there's this image of an 'occult otaku' in some Japanese media — someone who reads tabloid-like publications about 'UMAs', alien sightings, or supposed evidence of ritual cults or whatever, spends all their money on supposedly 'magical' objects sold by dubious individuals, and wastes a lot of their free time trying to conduct hokey 'rituals' and 'magical experiments' based on playground whispers. There's also the whole 'chuunibyou' thing, which I suggest consulting a search engine about if you're not familiar. Sumireko is basically an aggregate of these sorts of archetypes, except The Joke™ is that she actually has some degree of 'superhuman ability' (though it's poorly defined outside of in-game depictions, which are, well, in-game depictions) instead of merely being delusional.

Of course, there's the additional twist, requiring a bit of reading between the lines, that she's really kind of just, well, a typical insecure teenager deep-down. That is, no matter how much she inwardly (or outwardly, I guess) sneers at others for being conscious of things like trends, she's just as susceptible to the same kind of human mentalities she decries. A lot of this is kind of hard to pick up on without some cultural background, and I can't even begin to give an adequate primer on understanding the basics of such things, but I picked up on it pretty quickly when reading Nu-CoLA.

I do agree with >>17695 on disliking how other characters were made to immediately care about her despite there being nothing that compelling there. It feels like someone's harebrained OC manifested into official works. And, honestly, I feel like most depictions of her I've seen don't do much to dispel that feeling. Overall, I think she tends to get taken far too seriously despite being something you're not supposed to take very seriously at all.

Honestly, I'm trying to think of how I would better use her in a story, and I'm drawing a pretty big blank. It's partly a lack of care for the type of character she is, but also I kind of just don't think she's warranted in most cases; to include her at all in things is to ascribe far more importance than she really has. I dunno. Maybe I just need to take a breather and think some more before I can find a positive somewhere.

P.S. The whole 'Occult Balls' thing was an absolute mess, and I have an uncontrollable urge to make wanking gestures in the air every time it's brought up.

>>17694
>What actually was her intention with the orbs?
To 'break the border between reality and fantasy', basically. As noted above, she's basically a moonbat occult chaser who wants to believe in the supernatural so that she can be a special snowflake.

>I know she was being duped by... Either Sagume or Mamizou? But I don't remember what they tricked her with.
I'm not quite sure, but you might be referring to how Sagume hijacked her 'power stone' shenanigans as part of LoLK's incident. I don't care to remember much on the fighting games, but my recollection is that the one ball in particular was swapped with a different one, which Sumireko only noticed after the fact.

Considering just who my story stars, I think I'm legally obligated to post my thoughts this time around.

This may surprise you guys, but I find canon-Sumireko a pretty dislikable character. She really is a stereotypical high school girl, and I find her nicknames, speech patterns, and just general characterization to be irritating. I mean, in Urban Legend in Limbo, the various youkai basically put her through the Gensokyo equivalent of a haunted house just to give her a good scare and teach her a lesson... and her reaction is basically "Come on, forgive me! It was just a prank, bro!" before going for a dramatic suicide bombing.

Her later appearances I find less jarring, as it does seem like the scare given to her in ULiL made her grow up a little. That said, there's still elements I don't particularly care for. For example, Dream Sumireko declaring she's going to live the high life of a high school girl in VD, plus the bit about posting pictures of Reimu's danmaku for likes on Facebook. This is true to her being a high school girl, but compared to Gensokyo's variety of interesting youkai, a high school girl with a social media fixation and a few psychic powers feels like a bit of a letdown, and borderline out of place.

In all fairness, I do actually like her role in Grimoire of Usami. Aside from a bit of text-speech, I was fine with her judging (or "judging") the competition, and I thought Sumireko's role in setting up the fireworks competition was clever enough. I haven't read too much of her in the print works, so not much comment there.

Fair warning, if you don't care about my story, you can skip the rest of this post, but if you read (or at least keep tabs on) Urban Student in Limbo, you may find this interesting.

The first question is obvious. Given that I'm not a fan of canon Sumireko (she's not my least favorite character, but she's probably somewhere in the bottom quarter or so), why did I write a story where she's the secondary protagonist?

This came down to plot demands. Going into USiL, I had very little planning; the story was started pretty much on a whim. I knew I wanted an outsider protagonist, I knew I wanted them to have some magic without being particularly strong, and I emphatically did not want to resort to "Yukari's gapping in random people again".

As such, the canon example of an outsider magician getting lured into Gensokyo was a good place to start. And to make it even better, the loose idea I did have at the time was really compatible with the idea of urban legends.

If you're wondering what that original idea actually was? Male protagonist ends up in Gensokyo and runs into Koishi. Koishi decides to travel with him largely on a whim, they go around Gensokyo and she gradually starts to care about him... which shocks her once she realizes it, because that should be impossible. It turns out that while she's gaining emotions, her traveling companion/friend/love interest is losing his. And towards the end she finds out that this was the plan from the start; it's something that Satori set up to get her sister back at the cost of some random human. If you've been reading USiL, you'll realize the above idea has basically no relationship to what the story actually ended up being. Because I realized, if the idea was to use an urban legend to fix Koishi... why wouldn't Satori just seek the help of the people behind the Urban Legend Incident? And so the story proceeded from there.

But getting back to Sumireko, that was the initial reason she ended up in the story. You can't have a story set during the Urban Legend Incident that doesn't feature Sumireko. Though admittedly, I made an effort; the story's first vote was the option to leave Sumi behind and have your Gensokyo adventures without her. You can also see my opinion of canon-Sumireko reflected in her early usage and characterization. Before I got to grips with her as a character, I tended to minimize my usage of her beyond what the plot strictly required. Similarly, she's somewhat harsher with Greg than she really should be early on; that comes mostly down to me having not nailed down how close their friendship was at the time. I think Alice's house was the turning point there, where I started to figure out who my Sumi was as a character, and what made her different from canon-Sumireko.

Basically, USiL's Sumi has one key difference from canon-Sumireko, and that's her connection to Greg. Greg is a close friend that she helped build back up from his own personal low point, one who shares her passion for magic and helps cover her weaknesses quite well. She feels responsible for him and cares quite a bit about him, and that grounds her quite a bit; both her usual behavior and any dramatics she might resort to have to account for what that behavior will mean for Greg. (This is why she hasn't tried a barrier suicide bombing stunt yet; that wouldn't help Greg.) Greg also contrasts her in a few instructive ways as well; he's very much a good-aligned character where Sumi is more neutral, and his natural inclination to forgive others is contrasted by Sumi being more than willing to fight back blow for blow.

There's another aspect to her character I've played up a bit, though it's less of a change. And that's that Sumi is straight up a brilliant magician. She's self-taught, (though in USiL she did have a little help from a less gifted friend), but she's trading blows with the likes of Marisa, Miko, Kasen, and so on. Unfortunately for her, she's stuck in a world where plenty of youkai can match or exceed her power, but this does make for interesting writing opportunities. (Very Dresden-esque, if you will.) She has considerable firepower, decent versatility, and a sharp mind, while continually stuck in situations where the brute force she can apply just isn't enough. It's a nice recipe for clever underdog victories, though this is more on the plot device/ planning fights side than her actual characterization.

And with all that said... USiL's Sumi is still recognizably Sumireko. She's abrasive, proud of her magic, and a bit too willing to offend other people. She's still got that dramatic side to her as well; she does love a good bit of grandstanding, and has no problem with making a point in vicious fashion. But having a genuine friend she's trying to protect softens her character quite a bit, and that trait has developed into a key part of Sumi's personality: She doesn't care too much about what happens to random people, but the people she actually cares about she'll fight to the end for. She understands loyalty.

And I think that's the key thing that you need if you want to use Sumireko in an interesting way. By herself, she's an awkward, nerdy high schooler with psychic powers, who almost can't help feeling out of place. (In Gensokyo and the outside world both.) But give her someone to care about, and I think her character becomes significantly more interesting. This can be a close friend like Greg, it could be more of an adversarial rival like Nitori, or even just an outright enemy, but I think she really needs someone to bounce off of to draw the necessary depth out of her character. This is something she noticeably lacks in canon; she has a decent circle of acquaintances, but there's no one person she's particularly connected to. (Seriously, the character canon Sumireko has had the most meaningful interaction with is her own dream self.)

But yeah, I've definitely become fond of my Sumireko over time, and she does have a couple of my favorite moments in the story so far. She's definitely reached the point where she's more a variant of Sumireko (specifically, what if Sumi started with a close friend who shared her magical interests) than a straight interpretation of the canon character though.

>>17698
>And I think that's the key thing that you need if you want to use Sumireko in an interesting way. By herself, she's an awkward, nerdy high schooler with psychic powers, who almost can't help feeling out of place. (In Gensokyo and the outside world both.) But give her someone to care about, and I think her character becomes significantly more interesting. This can be a close friend like Greg, it could be more of an adversarial rival like Nitori, or even just an outright enemy, but I think she really needs someone to bounce off of to draw the necessary depth out of her character. This is something she noticeably lacks in canon; she has a decent circle of acquaintances, but there's no one person she's particularly connected to. (Seriously, the character canon Sumireko has had the most meaningful interaction with is her own dream self.)
I think this paragraph sums up the Sumireko problem and explains exactly why I liked USiL's Sumi over canon. But to expand on it: Canon has this occultist/magician/super loner type with a zoomer dream self, but she's all alone. Wanted to research this secret sealed-off world? No, gets chased around for her trouble. Her own incident got manipulated by moonies and she didn't even realize. I think she gets intimidated into watching some human get carried off to his death at one point. Then her dream self tries to replace her real self - which, notably, even in the official works everybody treats as "problem solving itself". THAT'S the kind of treatment she's getting. It's like the very picture of human hubris before the unknown. BUT.

But if you simply give this eccentric an actual friend to care about and be together with (doesn't even matter who, it might as well be Mokou), suddenly none of this even matters, because the point of the story isn't hubris anymore, but friendship and curiosity. She sees a witch who casually vaporizes a whole pond just to defeat her? If she's with someone, it's not for vainglory or pride she's fighting, it's for them not to kick it.

So yeah, this might be why.

>spoiler
That's the developer commentary mode I did not expect to see today. Then again, the current state of chaos is absolutely better.

I've never once even opened these discussion threads, but I wanna change that. Problem is that I don't really have anything intelligent to say on any of the characters, or if I do, I keep those thoughts secret because I plan on writing something that I want to rip off the cover of and go, "BEHOLD!"

I have a Sumireko cameo in my next chapter…? Well, I guess because of my limited knowledge and understanding of the character I plan on writing her as "Reimu if she grew up in the outside world." That could be a little interesting, right? Actually, I think I will put that on the ideas list.

>>17698
I really liked reading this, though!

Come to think of it, we have a limited picture of how Sumireko sees human society in Gensokyo, but I do wonder how she would react when confronted with something like tengu society. She's the kind of character who is mired in present day Japan's obsessions with rumour-mongering and myth-making. Would she recognise the tengu as the sort of funhouse mirror reflection of humans that they are? Would she find the engrossing? Would she completely fail to see the parallels and be repulsed? Would she simply look at them, make a smug internal remark about 'things these days', and tip her fedora in self-satisfaction?

I see a kind of tendency for humans to somehow 'get' the Other seen in youkai in fanworks, but I think there's an opportunity vis-a-vis someone like Sumireko, who's a little know-it-all, to show off someone who misses the point entirely.

Also, not to get too off-topic, but...

>>17700
>Problem is that I don't really have anything intelligent to say on any of the characters
If you read back through the threads, you'll see there's rarely much pithy said most of the time. Frankly, flinging out the most interesting/insightful/what-have-you remark about the topical character possible is far from the point of the thread. A better metric for participation is "Is this something anyone can offer any sort of meaningful response to?" What that means in practise — hell if I know.

So, honestly, whatever. You have an opinion on Sumireko? Give it. You wish she was something else? Express that. You disagree with someone's take? Dispute it. It doesn't have to be in the form of an essay, nor does it have to be profound.

>>17701
Yeah, sure, okay.

>>17695
I am less than inclined to believe she was a "market research" character or one pushed on ZUN either, if only due to how by sheer weight of her name Usami connects her to Renko Usami and Maribel, and thus to Yukari through whatever the true connection between Yukari and Maribel turns out to be. That sounds a bit more important of a position to give to a character that was pushed onto him by someone else.

furthermore if she is someone that was foisted on ZUN... why has he made it so there's now FOUR of her running around? (Her, her doppelganger through which she interacts with Gensokyo, her Dream self, and now thanks to CoLA, her AI self that now also is appearing in gensokyo.)

A little side note off of this point, but it is kinda interesting that really despite the last hashtag at the end of VD's final boss fight neither of the combatants were really the "Real" Sumireiko Usami as a CoLA chapter has Kasen and Mamizou confirm that the Real Sumi was alive and fine in the outside world just not able to interact with Gensokyo at the time

------------------

Sumireko has some interesting comparisons and contrasts to other characters. Firstly, as an outsider that showed up and caused an incident in Gensokyo she has some comparison to Sanae. though there's some difference in generations and whatnot. quite a different fan reaction at that as well! Sumireiko is far more casual about youkai than Sanae is.(Kasen complaining how casual Sumi is regarding Youkai compared to how aggressive Sanae can be to some of them, such as Kogasa.)

speaking of Sanae, as well as >>17694 's post it is rather interesting that Sumireiko and Sanae have not interacted at all so far in canon games, as well we have an outside world Priestess, born with incredible power, and an outside world "magician" who is incredibly focused on her craft. meaning that Sumi is in some ways to Marisa that Sanae is to Reimu.

which brings me to the other character that I would compare Sumi to, namely Marisa, especially considering that latest chapter of Lotus Eater's, with Marisa barely avoiding going Youkai thanks to Miyoi's intervention. meanwhile I might be misremembering here, but If I do recall correctly, because of the Doppelganger situation that Sumi is using to interact with Gensokyo... she is technically guaranteed to become a Youkai at her death. though that was in part due to her doppelganger being less mortal than her human self so it will continue when she dies, though I am unsure if it would basically house her soul or develop its own at that point?

>>17703
The harsh truth of the matter is that the the point releases in Touhou are of lesser importance and the events that happen there are less relevant to the setting and characters. This informs all other things I’ll say.

Though to foist may mean to force in some contexts, I made no claim of forcible imposition. I did say that she felt like an addition that was pushed by publishers or partners who work with ZUN. He is not particularly jealous or closed off to other ideas and has given considerable latitude before to artists (ie changes in CDS, comments in FS) and other studios (Twilight Frontier adding Shion and making changes to the roster) who have worked on the franchise.

The connection with Renko is as ethereal as Yukari’s is to Maribel—a splendid reference, but nothing concrete, nothing that can be used to define characters on either side of the equation. The types of stories told in the music CDs are not only different in format, obviously, but mood and how they add to the world of Touhou. Sumireko does not expand anything, she is something inserted clumsily into the middle of an existing dynamic and the implication is that somehow we are all supposed to care. It does not matter how many irrelevant clones or “selves” of Sumireko may exist, she is still a foreign body in more than one sense, and she has very little impact on the setting as she does nothing for the overall moods and themes. Perhaps another symposium-like print work may change things but I wouldn’t hold my breath and would bet that she’ll be just one of many characters who fall by the wayside in future works. Until then we endure and can only speculate.

So, maybe in the end, the other sense of “foisted” may be appropriate after all!

Hatate first appeared as a playable character in Double Spoiler, a point release game in the vein of Shoot the Bullet. A crow tengu journalist, she has her own newspaper called the Kakashi Spirit News and competes with other papers such as Aya’s own Bunbunmaru. Hatate possesses the ability of spirit photography which she uses in conjunction with her camera—a flip-phone—to look find images and information for her articles without having to leave her home. She’s something of a shut in and isn’t readily seen around Gensokyo, unlike Aya. Hatate has also appeared in several print works and in other non-mainline games but, most prominently, several of her articles have appeared in both Symposium of Post-mysticism and Alternative Facts in Eastern Utopia.

https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Strange_Creators_of_Outer_World/Who%27s_Who_of_Humans_%26_Youkai_in_Gensokyo/Hatate_Himekaidou

I heard someone once say (I believe in the discord) that Hatate's purple dress compared to Aya's red meant that Hatate was nobility and Aya was, if I remember correctly, of the warrior caste. According to the wiki, it's also possible that Hatate is the younger of the two. If that's the case then it would make for an interesting senpai-kouhai dynamic, so it's a shame ZUN never properly uses her for anything

>>17706
Heard a similar thing about colors and ranking/caste, and with Megumu being blue and a great tengu it does help the idea.

But man, when the first thing talked about this character is mostly the Tengu in general and not about her, it really does say how nothing Hatate is.

Sad but true

It’s a little bit of a shame that Hatate hasn’t appeared more in both canon materials and stories. She was basically forgotten about until AfiEU and even then it’s just her playing second fiddle to Aya’s … whatever you want to call that. Still, it doesn’t mean she’s not interesting. To me, she’s always felt like a nod, if not to say parody, of the 00s Japanese blogosphere/internet with her style of secondhand commenting (her phone can only search things for things already reported) that’s pre whatever we’d call current social media. This is not really something that people outside of Japan can really understand or relate to and my own exposure to that era of blogging/pre-smartphone-phone posting is limited.

That said, Hatate’s desire to go beyond her little bubble is what sets off DS as she’s looking at what Aya does. She’s assessing a rival and finding out how Aya kind of creates news by being involved with her subjects and a lot of her spellcard comments are interesting since they not only reflect her own (somewhat vapid but at least cheery) perspectives but also comments on Aya and the news-reporting business as a whole. It doesn’t clearly state why tengu bother with having multiple newspapers, sadly, but it does I think show a certain curiosity and dynamism that maybe plays out in the larger tengu society—might help explain why deals are struck with others like the Moriya and yamanba instead of the obvious course of isolationism.

Last we saw Hatate, she was still a relative recluse in her own little lair during the events of the Satori manga. As she doesn’t seem to be particularly shy or socially-awkward, it’s hard to imagine that she spends all her time by herself or most of her time working. Juvenile tengu spend their times mucking about in abandoned places around the mountain, wolves like Momiji play shogi, and Aya is a workaholic, so I’m not sure what Hatate might do for leisure. Perhaps given her possible connection to the kappa (via the camera phone) she also has access to other kappa tech including the not-pokemon games that they’ve developed. Or maybe she does take after Aya more than she might care to admit and does spend most of her time immersed in the world of news.

As it’s unlikely to see her outside of her home on the mountain, I suppose most stories that feature her would have to be set there. But maybe something else, not dissimilar to the events of DS, or some sort of newspaper competition, might get her to interact with the rest of the world. As she has much less practical experience interacting with Gensokyo’s denizens it could be amusing to see her act as a fish out of water and maybe fumble when trying to pass incognito in the village or something like that.

>>17706
>>17707
I have no idea where you might have gotten the idea about the colors as that's not a thing AFAIK. And, well, her relationship with Aya is clearly as rivals and both throw shade one another in their comments/articles.

smelly dumb phoneposting scum

But, more seriously, Hatate is fine. There's not a lot concrete established about her, but the same can be said for a whole slew of other characters. Hell, she's more developed in terms of having something resembling a basic motivation than a lot of 2hus.

But, well, recapitulating things that looking over the official material could tell you doesn't make for very interesting discussion, so I'll share a bit of my personal interpretation of Hatate as a character instead:

Maybe it's just because of her character design or interference from anime and 2hu fanworks, but I think of Hatate first and foremost as a bit of an 'ojou-sama' character. (I also have a predilection for those types, but that's neither here nor there.) It kind of tracks with her shallow experience of society and the world in general, as well as her initially dilettante approach to her paper. She comes across in that sense as someone who does it as a hobby rather than with any real ambition or need to be professional. I could very well see her being some slightly well-to-do crow family's little pearl who's never particularly been required to do anything and has devoted a great deal of her young life to leisure.

So, perhaps the Kakashi Nenpou was something started on a lark. Maybe, like most tengu, she was generally immersed in gossip and rumour-mongering as a social pursuit and thought to herself, "Gee, I could do that, too." Maybe she vaguely liked the idea of being lauded for having journalistic clout among the tengu, having got caught up in the furor of the newspaper competitions with everyone else. She got set up, perhaps begging some startup capital from her family, and proceeded to do it 'for funsies' for a while. Then, despite her relatively low standing, she took notice of Aya's ability to get fresher news and started to get curious. Following the events of Double Spoiler, her direct clash with Aya lights a small fire under her butt and makes her want to do things 'more seriously'.

That said, I think she's the sort to have pretty lukewarm ambitions. As mentioned, as of Detective Monke, she seems to generally still be following things from afar instead of getting dirty in the field. I think she's got the sort of curiosity necessary but perhaps lacks a certain confidence and drive to do the real field work without being compelled. A lot of times, she might give in to the temptation to take the easy way out on things, not quite able to bring herself to struggle at things. This probably causes others to view her as lazy and incapable, which more than likely galls her on some level, even if she tries to act like it doesn't bother her. I think she also has a definite competitive streak in her, and she probably wants to win approval from others but puts on something of an aloof, independent persona — a tsundere, if you will.

There's probably more I could say, but I think I've hit some of the more core things, so I won't turn this into an essay. I just think she's more interesting than some will give her credit for.

>>17709
>To me, she’s always felt like a nod, if not to say parody, of the 00s Japanese blogosphere/internet with her style of secondhand commenting [...] that’s pre whatever we’d call current social media.
Even into the age of social networking services, there's a whole load of what are called 'matome sites' that are comprised of edited together pieces of threads on places like 2ch, sometimes interspersed with (often vapid) reactions from the editor. I think there's an element of that involved, though there is certain a bit of that 'early noughts feature phone internet' sort of thing going on, too.

Though ZUN also did say somewhere, perhaps in an interview, that The Joke™ was basically 'lol Google', so it's probably also just a general crack at the kinds of things where people search up things, copy-paste them, and pass them off as their own take on something.

>might help explain why deals are struck with others like the Moriya and yamanba instead of the obvious course of isolationism
This is a point that people often overlook with the tengu, and I appreciate it being brought up. I certainly don't think Hatate is necessarily more than typical in her curiosity about things among her fellows, even if she's perhaps taken it a step further than some would.

>As she has much less practical experience interacting with Gensokyo’s denizens it could be amusing to see her act as a fish out of water and maybe fumble when trying to pass incognito in the village or something like that.
An interesting thought! I hadn't really thought of anything like that because I mostly think of Hatate in the context of the Mountain. Indeed, it would take a lot to dislodge her from it, I feel, but it would be interesting to see her outside of her accustomed environs. She strikes me as likely to wobble on her legs a little when faced with the unfamiliar.

>>17706
>>17707
The above anon has already kind of covered this, but I just want to say that any idea of tengu 'castes' or 'classes' is hard to nail anything down on besides general statements made by outside sources like Akyuu about the crows having one role, the wolfs having another, etc. Any definite statement on pretty much anything about the tengu is basically interpretation.

>>17710
>She comes across in that sense as someone who does it as a hobby rather than with any real ambition or need to be professional.
I feel similarly about her. She doesn't seem as dedicated as Aya is and I could see it come off as the hobby of a sheltered, well-to-do girl. We haven't seen how Aya lives (IMO probably in a shack surrounded by ink and mimeographs but that's neither here nor there) but we have caught glimpses of Hatate's, err, hideout and she does seem to have spacious real estate that's reasonable equipped. Who pays the bills or, at least, secured that space in the first place? I'd like to imagine that tengu fuss over the limited space on the mountain one way or the other.

I don't know if there's a real trajectory for her to get more ambitious, at least to the extent of leaving the mountain, but I don't think it would be impossible either.

>>17713
>Who pays the bills or, at least, secured that space in the first place? I'd like to imagine that tengu fuss over the limited space on the mountain one way or the other.
Perhaps Hatate's family is nouveau riche, having made a fortune out of a recently (read: within the last few decades) inflated real estate bubble. Given how much tengu society has been somewhat obliquely positioned as an allusionary distorted mirror image of post-war Japanese society, the idea that they could go through their own analogue of the bubble era — something that I felt a lot of the deal with Megumu and the events of UM could have dealt with but never did in any direct way — isn't that farfetched to me.

>trajectory for her to get more ambitious [...] to the extent of leaving the mountain
Would probably depend on the premise of any story involving her. I see her as someone who has a lot of (often unwarranted) pride in herself, even if she lacks the drive to do anything congruent to that pride much of the time, so any threat to that is probably enough to start pushing her out of her comfort zone. Or maybe she'd need shoving from outside circumstances, like rich girl Hatate being cut off by her family and needing to actually run a profitable paper. Hacky, sure, but reasonable.

Damn, I've been slacking. Need to get to all these characters and catch up again.

I'll say a few words about each of them, though know that I've got other thoughts hidden in the wings.

Miyoi

I think she has a prankster side to her that's tragically under-utilized. After all, her first couple chapters are basically just her going out and fucking with Reimu for a laugh. She strikes me, oftentimes, as someone who avoids trolling because it'd cause bigger trouble for her in the future, not because she's someone who's too nice to ever think of trolling someone. I think she can be really fun if you give her just a bit of a latent mean streak that the right situation can bring out.

Personal favourite depiction: The Kousei doujin where Akyuu has her number and she tries increasingly violent and desperate methods to suppress her memories. Here, have a link:
https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/5111358

Flandre:

I haven't yet decided how I'm going to depict her in R/R. I do think there's fun to be had in a variety of depictions for her - though I also think they work best as doujin characters and the like when she's got at least some grounding in sanity. If it's a song or something, go hog wild.

Though there is at least one point I want to keep in mind when we do get there. I personally quite heavily subscribe to a 'mind shapes the matter' mentality when it comes to youkai and gods - your mental age shapes your body more than your physical age, with some small exceptions. Which does mean that Flan, and Remi for that matter, are still children at heart.

I do like stories where she griefs her sister for fun, but not ones where she outright hates her. I kinda like ones where she ultimately agrees with her own incarceration, at least to a degree, or has otherwise managed to make the most of it - i like the idea that both scarlets are far more intelligent and wise than they appear at first glance.

The other thing I'll say is that, for a long time before I got into touhou proper, I knew about flandre's theme - through one video in particular. This video siad it was the 'full version' of flandre's theme, but it actually was a sequence of her canon theme from EOSD and 'Last Brutal Sister Flandre S' by cool&create. So for the longest time, I though flandre's theme had one perfectly normal run, and then went absolutely batshit metal after that. And I always thought that was the coolest shit ever - like what could otherwise be a perfectly normal boss suddenly burst and went batshit insane. Always loved that idea. current upload of that video has 15m views, so clearly I'm not the only one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jJZA-O_B78

Komachi

I really do wonder how she got her job, and how she keeps it for that matter. For the latter, at least part of it is that Eiki is a generally permissive employer when it comes to her employee's foibles, judging by komachi and kutaka both.

And speaking of kutaka, i've mentioned this when the chimken came up but kutaka is CRITICALLY underutilised when ti comes to exploring the relationships between her, eiki, komachi and the bureau. Kutaka and Komachi genuinely have almost entirely oppsite problems, and it'd be interesting to see how they interact in that setting.

As for before her current self... I think that's a massive well of untapped potential. Komachi is always framed as an employee of the ministry - and we've already seen with Jizou-turned-Yama Eiki that there's reasons to believe she wasn't always a shinigami. What was lil' Komachi like? I have this super-strong image of her being a hard worker when she was a kid, personally.

Kaku Seiga and Miyako Yoshika

Seiga's one of those oh-so-handy characters for a plot. She's the perfect person to fill in an 'evil genius' sort of role. Need a villain for your story? Need that person to also create some mcguffin or plot device to shake up the status quo? Seiga can fill one or both roles without a moment's hesitation and the most shallow and self-serving of benefits for herself.

As for Yoshika... I like a lot of depictions where she still has shades of her identity as miyako no yoshika, and kasen's gets hit with the world-shattering reality of her once-lover being turned from a male poet into a female zombie. But I also like her as a fleshy robot which is perfect for macabre roles. I did write her being used as a crowbar at one point, after all.

Toramaru Shou, and Nazrin

Poor Shou gets such a rough deal by the fans. You lose something important ONE time and people treat that like your entire personality.

Nazrin, meanwhile, gets cast as the brains of the operation. Often to the point where shou is essentially non-functional without her, and making her bratty and bossy as a result. The last part feels a step too far - one depiction I did enjoy with that basic dynamic as a premise had her going entirely the opposite direction, becoming so much of a shadow to shou that she didn't even speak in speech bubbles most of the time.

But I think it's far more true to both their characters, especially as evidenced if FDS, that the relationship is nowhere near so upside-down. While shou has her dopey moments, the truth is that she kept myouren's ragtag bunch of misfits together for centuries without hijiri in the picture - and she's actually one of the most level-headed both before and during the crisis.

Nazrin, meanwhile, is probably too smart for her own good. She strikes me as the sort to come with some sort 'if i do this, i can get 90% of the job done in half the time!' scheme that will only cause problems in the long run.

They're fun characters, with a fun dichotomy. LET SHOU BE A PLAYABLE CHARACTER ALREADY.

Sumireko

I don't think she's meant to be some kind of outright unambiguously likable character; she's a dumb brat who needs to spend a few years becoming a more rounded person. And frankly, I'm rolling my eyes at the conspiracy theories here about her being only added in by others demands across multiple entirely different genres. She wouldn't get so much prominence if she didn't have a point or purpose.

I feel like in practice, she often ends up similar to how I've heard some people describe Alex from YIIK. A character thats meant to be deconstructed but getting through her insufferable surface personality is more than most people can stand.

I don't think she's an author mouthpiece - rather the opposite, in fact. One very interesting aspect of Sumi that I've heard discussed is that she actually has a dichotomy with Sanae; Sanae being the embodiment of the benefits of the modern world, and Sumi being the embodiment of the downsides.

And in that light? Someone lonely and isolated and burying herself in a world of fantasy, while wearing a mask of superficial cheeriness and memery?

Personally, I like imagining her as Renko's mother. Mainly because I like imagining what it would take to ground her and round her out.

Hatate

Hatate's actually a super unique touhou precisely because she's NOT unique. It's actually rare to have two characters that can fill the same roles as each other, but aren't designed as a duo from the start. Heck, most of their appearances revolve around her being a counterpart to Aya, giving an entirely different perspective despite being nominally in the same role.

I like the idea that, while Aya's older, cynical and is used to 'playing ball' with the powers that be, Hatate's still a wide-eyed young idealist who's telling the truth no matter what trouble it gets her into (if only because she hasn't yet found the sort of trouble that'd MAKE her keep it quiet). Like she doesn't do as much to keep the tengu's secrets, but it's at least partially because she genuinely doesn't realise the tengu have secrets to be kept. The tengu wouldn't do that, right?

And that their rivalry comes, at least from Aya's end, the sneaking suspicion that hatate's the woman Aya really wants to be.

...Not really related, but I also subscribe to a headcanon that when it comes to tengu aesthetics, it's aerodynamicism that's value far more that hourglass figures. And that Aya and Momiji are very much the embodiment of lean, fit tengu grace, and Hatate... isn't.

>>17714
>Perhaps Hatate's family is nouveau riche
Personally wouldn't go that far in terms of speculation and would just lazily rest on the "hime" part of her name (yes, I know that it's not indicative of much) and the general sheltered outlook she had with reporting/people outside the mountain to say she just comes from some privilege and money. While ZUN does filter in outside fads/practices (sometimes for commentary), I'm not sure how far I'd push it in terms of the tengu being an oblique image of postwar Japanese society. Mostly because we don't actually know much about tengu society and what their daily lives are like.

>I see her as someone who has a lot of (often unwarranted) pride in herself [...]
I do share that, think that the way she takes the competition with Aya seriously indicates as much. Perhaps she could be goaded into leaving the mountain or the desire to get one over Aya (or whomever else) would motivate her. I suppose that I'd have to sit and think about if I were to try to write something where she's prominent as it'd also depend on the type of story and what other characters might be involved.

... I was going to give a go at replying to the large post since but I get the feeling that its author is entirely too self-absorbed to make the effort worthwhile even in the unlikely event of a reply. Not much point in posting sporadically in a thread if all they do is talk at people while attempting to attention to themselves. Why the assumption is made that others would care is a mystery. The point of the thread, as I understand from >>17621, is that we should try to talk to other posters about the current character and any ideas and points made about them. Concisely: aim to have a discussion and not a series of monologues.

>>17722
>the "hime" part of her name
I mean, I guess she could also just literally be a daughter of some very titled sort of family. I do think she probably comes from a privileged background, though I guess it's always possible for her to come from a comfortably middle class sort of background, perhaps being a spoiled only child or baby of the family. Feels more likely that she's just a rich brat, though.

>While ZUN does filter in outside fads/practices (sometimes for commentary), I'm not sure how far I'd push it in terms of the tengu being an oblique image of postwar Japanese society. Mostly because we don't actually know much about tengu society and what their daily lives are like.
We certainly don't have a lot of concrete info on tengu society, but what little we've got second- and third-hand doesn't feel exceptionally 'pre-modern' (as non-useful as such notions tend to be). Besides, there's a relatively strong energy of a well-developed material culture that comes with having things like an entire industry of newspapers. Granted, there's all kinds of basic information missing about how tengu 'work' on more fundamental levels, so I suppose there's always the possibility that they're so different to humans that things can't possibly have developed in a similar way. It's something that requires a lot of assumptions and leaps of faith to say much about, I guess.

>the way she takes the competition with Aya seriously
The other side of it is that Aya doesn't seem to take her very seriously at all. It's the sort of thing that makes me think of Hatate as someone who seeks others' acknowledgement, if not approval. Deep down, it's possible that she even admires Aya on some level, though she'll probably never admit to it. Or, at the very least, she might be very reluctant to admit it out loud.

>we should try to talk to other posters about the current character and any ideas and points made about them. Concisely: aim to have a discussion and not a series of monologues.
I agree with the sentiment, but I do think that there not being much of a culture of discussion on THP outside of particular contexts hampers this sort of thing; frankly, it already takes a certain degree of artifice to create any context for this discussion, so it's certainly not going to happen spontaneously. I don't have any good solution beyond doing my part, unfortunately. Perhaps it's the sort of thing that does warrant admonishment to draw public attention. Then again, that assumes people aren't just largely scrolling past everything, which isn't a safe assumption to make. It's certainly tricky.

...anyway, I find meta-talk a little uncomfortable here, so I'm going to leave off and hope I haven't set off any sort of conflagration.

>>17722
No promise on how self-absorbed I'll sound, but I'm more than happy to reply if I'm the person you mean. I was trying to keep up and reply to the last thread more proactively, but life and stuff meant that I fell waaaaaayyyy behind on this one. And a lot of the characters that came up before i said anything on this thread are ones where I feel like I have less popular/more unusual headcanons on, which resulted in the massive post of a half-dozen conversation starters fired ad-hoc.

>>17722
>Personally wouldn't go that far in terms of speculation and would just lazily rest on the "hime" part of her name (yes, I know that it's not indicative of much) and the general sheltered outlook she had with reporting/people outside the mountain to say she just comes from some privilege and money. While ZUN does filter in outside fads/practices (sometimes for commentary), I'm not sure how far I'd push it in terms of the tengu being an oblique image of postwar Japanese society. Mostly because we don't actually know much about tengu society and what their daily lives are like.

Her family may be riche, but I sincerely doubt it's nouveau. The tengu caste system seems pretty rigid, so any crow by default corresponds to at least middle, if not upper-class. And journalism tends to be a rich people's profession; compared to the unseen long-nose tengu (who are said to 'specialise in business work', which sounds like office jobs), and wolf tengu and yamabushi (who correspond to guards and 'printers', clearly manual labour), the crows seem the most likely to align with with the general upper class, non-STEM-university types.

For that matter, Tengu society as a whole... it's rather odd, honestly. It seems like the only major, consistent export they have is information, or newspapers more specifically. Does that mean that the society is otherwise a largely self-sufficient closed system? Is trading for other items a rare luxury, or a default they allow so they're not completely uncheched and thus deserving of a response?

Hatate I would assume is relatively well-off at least in general, and probably counts as such even within her caste as well. She's got a relatively new device as her camera, when she could very easily have a hand-me-down from an older generation. She also seems to be very interested in the benefits of outsider technology - again, a mindset that tends to correspond to the young and the wealthy who are most likely to be the early adopters. And to further my point, it's worth noting that she's only young in tengu terms - she talks about seeing the ocean 'one more time', so she's probably at least older than the barrier. And despite being a relatively unpopular author, she's still got fairly new electronic tech - in gensokyo, no less.

Though, perhaps I'm reading too far into it. Perhaps she just got some special concessions because of her own thoughtography?

>Feels more likely that she's just a rich brat, though.
Yeah, what I lean towards.

>We certainly don't have a lot of concrete info on tengu society, but what little we've got second- and third-hand doesn't feel exceptionally 'pre-modern'
I mean 'pre-modern' in historical terms is nowadays taken to be before the 19th century and Japanese culture was fairly urbane and not ignorant (things like leyden jars were known and studied and mechanical fascination with things like karakuri also existed). Even if Gensokyo is culturally kind of pre-Meiji doesn't mean that its inhabitants are wholly unsophisticated. Just wouldn't go hard one way or the other without evidence.

>The other side of it is that Aya doesn't seem to take her very seriously at all.
Yeah, Aya doesn't really care about her much at all. Then again, Aya doesn't really seem to care about much but her paper (and herself). She originally distorted one of Hatate's articles in AFiEU but that feels more like an opportunity to mess with a competitor than actual active dislike. It's generally assumed that Hatate is younger than Aya and this sort of thing strikes me as possible evidence as the one-sided nature of the rivalry is a little childish.

>>17724
Fair enough, just seemed weird to post a bunch of stuff on previous characters, start talking about your own works, and ignore/not engage every other poster in the thread. As we're on an anonymous board and as the point of the thread is conversation, and we seem to get so little from people, I jumped to conclusions.

>And journalism tends to be a rich people's profession
I'm not sure where you've gotten that from? If you're sort of referring to Japanese society in general, especially those from the Meiji era or later, I don't think many journalists or writers came from money. A lot of acclaimed novelists moonlit as journalists and by and large they were all the starving artist type (often with serious mental issues to boot) and even in cases where their family had money, they were often cut off from them for various reasons but partly for not conforming to the head of the family's wishes.

I'd also question Akyuu's classification of tengu castes—she's not an infallible source and hasn't experienced a lot of things first hand which, given the mountain's secretiveness and the aggressive way the tengu patrol their territory, makes any information on them suspect.

> Is trading for other items a rare luxury, or a default they allow so they're not completely uncheched and thus deserving of a response
Personally, I imagine that they trade with the other inhabitants of the mountain, at the very least, who, in turn, might trade with humans. The snake that posed as a human selling genbu river crabs in LE didn't seem suspicious to the barfly (and only a little to Marisa because he didn't enter the village) so it feels likely that there's human that venture out to wilder parts of Gensokyo to gather or trade stuff. Wouldn't imagine that tengu allow outsiders, even merchants, free access to their village but maybe they have a small merchant quarter or something.

>She's got a relatively new device as her camera, when she could very easily have a hand-me-down from an older generation.
Could she? We know the kappa made her camera but we don't really know how commonplace cameras are in Gensokyo—maybe they're all built by the kappa too or maybe they're otherwise found in Muenzuka. I don't want to speculate too hard but the kappa seems to be able to mass produce fairly complex electronics (the waterproof gameboy-like portable games consoles) so maybe a camera shaped like a flip pone isn't that much effort.

>>17725
>pre-modern
Er, yeah, it was a poor choice of words. I guess what I mean is... it doesn't feel like tengu society is structurally aligned in a way that lines up with popular conceptions of times prior to pseudo-command economies disguised as liberal ones and one-party-states disguised as democracies? I don't think there's necessarily not-daimyou doing not-sankin koutai and such. Sure, Tenma is a thing, and the great-tengu in general are a thing, but I guess it doesn't feel... necessarily 'feudal' — there is perhaps hierarchy of a sort, but it's difficult to characterise it because there's no clear answer on its basis. But, well, I dunno. It's largely based on a 'vibe' more than anything factual.

Anyway, so, yeah, it's hard to place Hatate (or the other tengu characters for that matter) without making a lot of assumptions about this sort of stuff.

>It's generally assumed that Hatate is younger than Aya and this sort of thing strikes me as possible evidence as the one-sided nature of the rivalry is a little childish.
You know, come to think of it, yes, I also assume she's younger generally, but it does make me think what things would be like if Hatate were older than Aya. I mean, it's not impossible, right? Sure, it'd make her a bit pathetic, but that's sort of inherent pathos, right? She'd be like a johnny-come-lately who's underachieving in her field and being shown up by a cheeky upstart, and that would gall her enough to start making an effort.

Can't say it'd be my first choice as far as handling Hatate as a character, but it'd be interesting for someone to do it, I guess.

>>17724
>>17725
>given the mountain's secretiveness and the aggressive way the tengu patrol their territory, makes any information on them suspect.
I also greatly question the idea of tengu 'castes' as a whole because of that. In fact, I feel like anything that humans think they know about tengu could very well be a sort of 'kayfabe' deliberately presented to outsiders for the sake of confusion and misdirection. And, well, the real-world analogue in the supposed 'classes' of the Tokugawa era was nowhere as rigid as is commonly supposed and was, in fact, pretty damn porous for a lot of the period.

>camera, etc.
There's a whole lot I want to say when/if we get to Nitori, but I'll just say that I doubt Hatate's gara-kei phone is that special. She's largely positioned as someone who would be mostly obscure in greater tengu society, so why would she have anything particularly precious? I guess the circumstances of something like that could factor into a story, but I can't say it'd be that inherently interesting.

Also, pretty sure the whole 'thoughtography' thing is just part of The Joke™: she's literally just doing the equivalent of Google Image searching on her phone to pull up existing images; it's very in keeping with ZUN's tongue-in-cheek tendencies to frame these sorts of fantastical things (from a human point-of-view) as strange and supernatural when they are, in fact, quite mundane.

>>17725
At least part of the original intent is 'different ways to write characters', so i felt compelled to at least shoot those weirder interpretations out at least once.

>I'm not sure where you've gotten that from?
Perhaps that's more a rather cynical and western-rooted view of modern journalists coming through. From my view of things, it tends to be pretty heavily a rich man's profession, bloggers even more so - you need a decent amount of writing/soft science education and a certain level of arrogance to even hope to make it as the headliner of a newspaper. And considering AFiEU's nature, I feel like there's at least some level to which modern journalism is what's being referenced by the tengu as opposed purely to traditional japanese systems - though how much any of them would apply is up to any number of interpretations.

Though I'm absolutely certain that the castes are there and pretty locked in, and I have me some sources - more reliable than Akyuu herself, as well.

One is Symposium of Post-Mysticism, where much of the description of tengu castes comes from Byakuren and Kanako. Kanako in particular I think is a fairly trustworthy source here - god of the mountain and of the tengu to at least a degree, she should have some level of insight, if not oversight, within the tengu. She gives some description of some of those castes, and doesn't challenge Byakuren's description of others - if there's anyone we can trust on that matter, it's probably her.

https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Symposium_of_Post-mysticism/Part_3

The other part comes from one of the only parts of AFiEU that feels somewhat trustworthy - which is the other Symposium held by three 'anonymous' tengu.
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Alternative_Facts_in_Eastern_Utopia/Article_and_Interview/Three_Tengu

There's a few claims here which feel relevant:
Tengu B (who is definitely not Hatate, wink wink) says Tengu A(ya) is 'acting pretty high 'n mighty for a 10,000 year old failure of a Tengu!' That sounds like the sort of thing a younger kid says to an older person to disrespect them.

And Tengu C (Momiji) is quite explicit about being lower rank. She openly states "You crow tengu still have it nice, since you can leave the mountain. Us lower ranks basically aren't allowed to work outside the mountain." Whether that 'lower ranks' refers to multiple different castes, or just multiple wolves, isn't clear, but the way she frames it makes it sound like leaving the mountain is a privilege of being high-caste. She also refers to Hatate with noticably more formal language when voicing the same complaint as Aya, while hatate herself is openly insulting to the higher-ups, implying she has generally more leeway.

Then, in Level 11 of Double Spoiler, Hatate talks about great tengu twice in her kanako comments. In the first, she outrights calls the great tengu 'kind of pathetic' for their attempts to use moriya shrine, and in the second she says that in informal parties she can butt heads with great tengu. Definitely a lot of rich brat energy to her - not so high that she can just say whatever, whenever, and get away with it, but high enough that she can afford to get sassy during a drinking party and not get clapped for it later.
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Double_Spoiler/Spell_Cards/Level_11

>>17726
What we do have suggests that Aya and Hatate, at the very least, can't easily get replacements. In Level Spoiler, Aya goes from stating that Hatate's camera is inferior to saying she's totally not jealous... and then repeating that a second later. If it was easy to get a replacement, I feel like that'd not be as much of a bother for her.
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Double_Spoiler/Spell_Cards/Level_Spoiler

Mostly obscure doesn't mean that she's not got some family wealth or the like. And at least some of that obscurity is due to her own proclivities, not where she defaults to in society. It's also noteworthy that Aya describes Hatate's phone as '(halfhearted) kappa's work'. That implies it's a custom item built to certain specifications, which would make sense if it's meant to be used with innate thoughtography skills. Though, again, whether that's because it's a luxury camera or merely an alignment of her skills is another matter entirely.

Something about Hatate I note is that I think she might've managed to either have improved or gotten better with her ability between DS and CDS, as chapter 20-21 shows that she doesn't need others hearing the news in order to take the spirit pictures. (in fact she manages to get the pictures of Reimu and Aya's fight, write an article, print it, and send it to Aya's location by the time Hina and Rin had found her.) and the following chapters was actually taking the lead tracking Mizuchi... at least until Mizuchi countered it somehow.

>>17715

I’m unsure if we’re not supposed to talk about previous characters after their week has passed, but well you already did so I’ll add a couple more cents in response!

Miyoi
While I wouldn’t say ‘mean’ would be entirely inaccurate, I’d lean more on ‘mischievous’ for Miyoi. And in fact, in a weird way I wonder if she is in fact a fan of Reimu and Marisa, and was using the new ability to move about thanks to half-moving into the gourd to create a personal demonstration (with how she was cheering for Marisa to shoot off a Master Spark in chapter 5, which as an aside it is interesting when that happened, the illusion(?) caused Marisa to aim the spark upwards rather than in a direction that could hit the shrine or others, now whether that is out of care of the surroundings, or just survival instinct to not Tenshi the shrine again) though otherwise I do agree that it's too bad that we don’t get more Miyoi mischief in LE.

Actually looking over things while checking chapters… There's 2 incidents now I notice where all the Zashiki Warashi do something… but not Miyoi, and both times it involved one of the sages too… there’s the distance working chapter in Miyoi’s own manga… but there’s also chapter 14 of WaHH where all the Zashiki Warashi left the human village for the outside world temporarily… but the way Miyoi speaks in the opening chapters of LE, she’s never left Geidontei before she decided to hitch a ride Suika’s gourd… and going off of how the games and most of the print works iirc take place about the same time as they are released (CDS I think being a strong exception.) either Miyoi’s only about 8 years old or again something funny is going on with her and her claim of being a Zashiki Warashi (and adding to the ch.14 example, the following chapter reveals that the Zashiki are Yukari’s spies in the village… but Miyoi doesn’t seem to familiar with her…)

Shou & Nazarin

Yeah a big attribute or incident does seem to be how a character’s fan perception usually is initially developed (and can have some real staying power!) even outside of Touhou and unfortunately Shou’s just happened to be ‘Oh Nyo I lost the REALLY important thing!’ but good points on her holding the Myouren crew together during the long exile and being the steady one there and in CDS. sadly I’m not too familiar with them outside of that so I don’t have much to say about Naz in response.

(btw what was the depiction where Nazarin wasn’t even speaking in speech bubbles?)

Sumireiko

She’s not the first to have a really bad personality either, kinda makes me wonder what not just a teamup of her and Sanae would be like… but also Tenshi (whether in a Trio, or a sumi-Tenshi teamup.)… that would be… ‘interesting’ in the definitively Chinese sense of the word!

I wouldn’t go for Renko’s mother myself… because in that case it sounds like Renko might not be mentioning things to Meribel, such as her mother’s rather interesting friends that would often stop on by… though I only go one step further as a Grandmother, long enough that Kasen’s and Mamizou’s outside would visits might fade from the family memory, but short enough that the memory and records of Sumireiko’s Sealing club aren’t completely gone for Renko and Meribel to inherit… though yeah I could see what you mean.

Hatate

>And that their rivalry comes, at least from Aya's end, the sneaking suspicion that Hatate's the woman Aya really wants to be.

Yeah, while there’s some things I’ll save for whenever Aya’s turn comes up, Aya’s reaction of being devastated of learning about Megumu’s scheme in Chapter 38 of LE does lend credence to that.

>>17730
Mischievous is probably a better word to describe it than what I was going for.

I'm not sold either way on her being a zashiki-warashi; the examples given can fairly easily be explained by her more unique circumstances as the staff of a bar. She's been stated to be older than the bar's actual owner, so the 8 years old theory's out, at least :p.

If she left the bar unattended to explore work in the outside world, the owner would really struggle; the ZWs we see leaving houses come from households with multiple people, where their help is appreciated but not necessary. Miyoi only leaves Geidontei long-term if she needs to for survival. And she can't work the front counter from the Land of the Backdoor.

Shou and Nazrin
It's Good Day! Myouren Temple. (Warning, it's surprisingly crude in it's humour at times. Do not go in expecting innocent Myouren temple.)
https://danbooru.donmai.us/pools/4168

Sumi
I'd argue that it's not even that she has that bad of a personality, when measured by touhou standards; it's that everyone ABSOLUTELY knows someone with her character flaws in their real life.

As for the mom vs. grandma thing, it's really just what you want to put in the gap. lots of story potential there.

Did sumi and tenshi ever team up during AoCF? I don't remember.

Hatate
Because we should at least keep our posts partially on topic... now that you've raised it, Hatate has managed to grow quite a bit in the scope of canon, hasn't she? I'm again gonna say this is suggestive of her being on the younger side of tengu.

It might be reflective of how, in these days, iphones and distributed media are actually faster than traditional reporting. It's still reactive, but the reaction time has markedly increased.

As for the countering, I was under the impression that wasn't Mizuchi, but Yukari yeeting myouren to the underground to leave mizuchi down there. For all the good that did.

>>17730
>>17731
>>17715
Stick to the character currently being discussed this week.

>>17727
The contention isn't that castes or stratification does or does not exist to whatever extent, rather if it is defined along the terms Akyuu puts forward. Even Kanako in what you posted isn't speaking comprehensively or definitively about tengu and their society as she uses "I've heard" and "seems like" when talking about them. There clearly is some sort of pecking order in tengu society but whether it's based on "racial" grounds, on blood/family, or something else remains unclear.

>Aya goes from stating that Hatate's camera is inferior to saying she's totally not jealous... and then repeating that a second later.
Conversely, Hatate praises Aya's camera. I think it's more indicative that they're simply two different types/approaches. Sort of like their styles of reporting as a whole.

>Perhaps that's more a rather cynical and western-rooted view of modern journalists coming through
I won't belabor this point too much as it is largely off-topic but journalism at big organizations is just yet another white collar middle-class job. Comparable to being a professional office worker anywhere. And those are the best-paying jobs. At smaller cities or whatever you're probably making a police officer or firefighter's salary. These are the vast majority of journalists out there. Perhaps newscasters and talking heads on large networks earn much more, but these aren't analogous to Hatate and Aya.

>>17733
Honestly, this whole conversation just sort of drives home the fact that making any kind of remark on the tengu characters requires running through a minefield of interpolation. Even the basic question of how any one of them is situated hierarchically relative to another isn't that settled — beyond, yes, Megumu is a great-tengu and thereby technically 'superior' to the others — and other questions ultimately come down to arbitrary matters of interpretation, given how much supposed information about tengu society is presented through hearsay or statements absent much actual significance without further qualification.

Granted, much the same could be said for any given Two-hoo, but it feels 'like anyone else but moreso' in the case of the tengu.

The Prismriver sisters are, from youngest to oldest, comprised of Lyrica, Merlin, and Lunasa. They are a group of poltergeists who form a musical troupe and they made their debut in Perfect Cherry Blossom and were playable in Phantasmagoria of a Flower View. Though they were based on an actual group of human sisters who lived once upon a time, they are the creations of another human—the youngest of the human sisters—who conjured them up into existence and thus are not ghosts. Each sister plays their own different instrument and are able to do so without use of their hands or feet and they are known for playing concerts in the Netherworld and elsewhere Gensokyo. A recent development for their ensemble is that Raiko has joined them as the band’s drummer.

https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Strange_Creators_of_Outer_World/Who%27s_Who_of_Humans_%26_Youkai_in_Gensokyo/Prismriver_Sisters
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Bohemian_Archive_in_Japanese_Red/Lunasa
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Bohemian_Archive_in_Japanese_Red/Merlin
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Bohemian_Archive_in_Japanese_Red/Lyrica
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Perfect_Memento_in_Strict_Sense/Lunasa_Prismriver
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Perfect_Memento_in_Strict_Sense/Merlin_Prismriver
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Perfect_Memento_in_Strict_Sense/Lyrica_Prismriver
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Alternative_Facts_in_Eastern_Utopia/Article_and_Interview/Prismriver_Sisters_and_Raiko_Horikawa

... Quite a few links this week!

Not really sure what to say about the Prismrivers. They definitely feel like the product of a younger ZUN, before his worldview for the Touhou Project was... mostly reasonably self-consistent-ish. Not sure he'd be introducing characters like them nowadays — or, if he did, they'd likely be presented in a pretty different fashion.

I like to think of their supposed backstory like those fake 'biographies' that big-time music labels used to put out about artists they were pushing at the time: meant to be interesting and fantastical but lacking much basis in truth. And, honestly, I think it'd be more interesting if it were total fiction that they themselves put out there. Like, I dunno, I think 'weird not-ghosts LARPing as tragic tulpas as a stage gimmick' is both amusing and interesting.

Overall, I find the musichus pretty disappointing, considering the series has such good music on the whole. They overall tend to not be that interesting in and of themselves, and they lack much relevance beyond their initial appearances, maybe making an odd background cameo in an ongoing manga if the artist needs to show an event of some kind happening. For the most part, ZUN never does anything of particular significance with them, so they're just sort of... there. Plus, the later ones sort of feel redundant, even if they're more forgettable. Maybe I'd feel differently if someone did something of interest with them, but I've yet to see that happen.

As to the individual Prismrivers... I'll have to come back to them later. I haven't given any of them much particular thought; I feel like they're largely indistinct, anyway, once you get past how they're 'positioned' relative to each other.

The thing that’s most interesting about the Prismrivers to me is the way their music influences the mind and spirit, affecting mood. Which is pretty obvious since that’s what music does, generally. They themselves are basically the embodiment of different kinds of noise that comes together to form music. It’s kind of ironic that for a series that’s well-known for its music and ZUN’s own interest that they’ve never really appeared in any sort of significant capacity in manga, maybe being asked to put on a show at a shrine festival to attract more visitors or something like that. Kokoro has and—incidentally—had the events of HM not really been about the religious gohei-waving contest they would have been a good fit for that game.

Their music affect youkai, the dead, and humans alike and it seems like they somewhat routinely put on shows. This makes me wonder about how common it would be for villagers to go to their shows, potentially intermingling with youkai. Sure, it might be mostly unknowingly but given that we’ve had unknown humans do things like go to the gambling den on the mountain maybe there’s an amount of weird villagers who are fascinated with the Prismrivers and their other fans because they are youkai. As illustrations show stages and other equipment, maybe there’s even roadies. There can’t be that much live music around in Gensokyo (Kyouko and Mystia are the only other examples that I can think of) and their sound is definitely different to more traditional Japanese music. With all that said, I think that anyone interested probably learned about them word-of-mouth because they’re still youkai and very unlikely to perform openly in the village.

There’s a clear sense of the sisters’ personalities despite their relative low profile in the series. As they’re presented as a unit, more or less, I haven’t really thought of them as individuals but they’d certainly behave differently if you encountered them one-on-one. A fan or a groupie for each would be a different kind of person as well. Somehow, I don’t think they’d really care about that sort of thing or fame, unlike most musicians, since they’re just there to make noise. I’m not sure where I’m going with all this except to say that there’s potential there for storytelling.

>>17738
>Kokoro has and—incidentally—had the events of HM not really been about the religious gohei-waving contest they would have been a good fit for that game.
Pretty interesting point to bring up. They certainly might be able to whip up the masses, though I'm not sure why they would do beyond 'for the lols'. I suppose at that point you'd probably have to have a new character pushing them into it for reasons. At least, that's the sort of thing that'd be par for the course for the fighting games.

>This makes me wonder about how common it would be for villagers to go to their shows, potentially intermingling with youkai. Sure, it might be mostly unknowingly [...]
It's not unreasonable to think that most of the folks quoted in the PMiSS articles are villagers, so if you take it at face-value, then there are supposedly humans who stumble into their shows with some regularity. Not to mention they seem to have a fan club. Either way, sure, they're a spectacle all their own, so they're likely to attract attention from anyone even peripherally aware.

As far as them not performing in the village, I think they probably could do, but they might choose not to for reasons of mystique. I could see making potential listeners hoof it all the way out to some remote location being part of the appeal; it's special when you either stumble onto them in the middle of nowhere, or have to risk life and limb just to get out to one of their performances. Then again, others organise their shows, so maybe that's just coincidence. It would be interesting to know even just an example of who gets them to put on shows, incidentally.

>>17736
Following on this post, I do think it's interesting how, as sort of mentioned by >>17738, the Prismrivers don't necessarily produce actual sound but rather the spiritual 'essence' of sounds, which can't actually be heard by the ear and resonate solely with the mind and spirit. Granted, Lyrica is the exception there, since she does produce sound from a synthesiser, but it's still an interesting concept. Questions of things like sound amplification in their performances kind of disappear when you consider that you can't properly 'hear' what they're playing as such.

As far as the individual Prismrivers, the most personally relatable one is Lunasa. I think of her as the one most likely to 'normally' interact with anyone, though whether or not such interactions would be pleasant is another story. She's noted to be fairly gloomy, so I see her as the resigned type who mostly sees the downside of things, perhaps being the retiring, hesitant sort who has to be pushed into things. Out of the three, I think she'd be the one with the most 'artistic' sense, not just doing it for the love of noise-making but also an appreciation for the beauty of music. Of course, she'd also be the most resistant to putting on performances, maybe feeling that others can't appreciate things on the same level; she's noted for 'solo performances', but that's ambiguous enough that it could just mean 'playing by herself when she thinks no one else is around'. She'd probably be the least popular and also not that likely to go out of her way to interact with any fans she might have.

Merlin's the least interesting to me. Mostly, I just see her as the one to avoid the most. She seems like the type of individual who just sort of does things and then is confused when actions have consequences. Much like Seiga, though, if you're not interesting to her, you're probably not in much immediate danger.

Lyrica is behind Lunasa as far as being personally interesting. She's the glib one who is something of a front-man, but she mostly gets the others to do things in her stead. As noted, she's even the stand-out as far as their performances, playing a synthesiser that makes actual sound instead of conjuring auditory hallucinations. I think she'd probably be the most dangerous out of the three because she's not the type to do anything without an agenda. Maybe she'd also be the most attention-seeking? I guess I could see her being the sort who wants to be fawned on. In fact, if you think about it, it's probably her dealing with organisers in the first place, so it seems about right as far as why they'd have performances in the first place. The only real mystery there is why she'd bother having two not-sisters to back her up when she could easily go it alone. Perhaps it's a pragmatism thing.

I guess there is some interesting fodder there, but their lack of general relevance sort of hampers placing them in a story. At least, I feel it'd be hard to write any particularly serious story about them. In most hands, any figurative story is probably an attempt at comedy or somesuch.

>>17739
>>17738
>Somehow, I don’t think they’d really care about [...] fame [...] since they’re just there to make noise.
>Then again, others organise their shows [...] It would be interesting to know even just an example of who gets them to put on shows, incidentally.
I've been thinking about this again, and it really is sort of mystery why they'd be putting on shows in the first place. What is it that they get out of it? Do they need/want money? Attention? Social capital? What would they even do with it as noise-making spirits?

On an individual level, yeah, Lyrica might be one of the more attention-hungry ones, but I don't think that necessarily applies to the others. Lunasa probably shuns attention to an extent, and Merlin's probably just there out of a, "Sure, sounds fun," sort of sentiment.

I guess it'd kind of boil down to a given story as to what any of their given motivations might be.

Unrelated Lunasa pic that I thought was okay.

>>17738
Personally, I tend to think the prismriver's are generally more agreeable to humans, at least in the sense of having concerts in sensible, safe areas. Going out in the wilds and mingling with Youkai feels more like a Choujuu Gigaku thing.

In fact, the fact that their music is spiritual in nature might make them more dangerous to youkai thna they are to humans, oddly.

It's worth noting that their story's definitely at least mostly legit - backed up by the Yama herself:
>The souls here are human souls from the outside world.
>They are using the flowers as their foundation right now.
>You three were born as spirits.
>What was once your foundation doesn't exist anymore.

>Spirits without a foundation are extremely unstable.
>It appears that your musical instruments are your foundation,
>but that in reality is false.
>Your foundation was the human that created you.
>And that human is no longer here.
>If you don't wish to disappear,
>the first thing you must do is realize your reason for existence!

Aside from that, In terms of general tips for writing them I think it's worth noting that they're... at least as far as I can remember, the only family with three members, let alone three sisters. So if you want to write something with slightly more complicated family dynamics, they'd be the framework I'd turn to.

>>17741
>Personally, I tend to think the prismriver's are generally more agreeable to humans, at least in the sense of having concerts in sensible, safe areas. Going out in the wilds and mingling with Youkai feels more like a Choujuu Gigaku thing.
The SCoOW article outright states they mainly perform for youkai. Lunasa's BAiJR interview has her moving a show to the surroundings of the SDM and Merlin's has her playing at a graveyard. Akyuu further has them playing youkai parties. Any way you slice it, youkai are involved and they take place in locations that aren't particularly safe for humans.

>>17740
It does sound glib but I don't think it has to be any deeper than "youkai being true to their natures". They're playing concerts because they'd be playing anyways. Added bonuses like fame or money probably don't mean to much to them but I could see them making the most of it if only to be able to get their hands on new, different instruments that they can try out. Merlin mentions playing all sort of brass instruments and they can't be too easy to come across in Gensokyo.

On somewhat related note, I wonder to what extent each sister's personality corresponds to their human "original". Like, what would make a musical poltergeist like Lunasa glum otherwise? I mean, I know that the non-fun answer is probably ZUN being cheeky and using each sister as an example of the various types of stereotypical artistic temperaments but I suppose that it'd be interesting to know what drives them, which is another approach to what you were driving at. Maybe it'd be interesting to know how Raiko perceives the trio, she might have more insight into how they view the world.

>>17742
>It does sound glib but I don't think it has to be any deeper than "youkai being true to their natures".
I mean, the majority of youkai characters could probably be explained thusly, but that's not personally that compelling from a narrative perspective.

>get their hands on new, different instruments
I guess that's an angle, though my understanding is that the instruments themselves don't have that much to do with the sounds they conjure — aside from Lyrica, who is more than likely actually playing a synthesiser. Then again, they could perhaps be conceptually fixated on stuff like musical instruments as a part of noise-making.

I guess questions like these are always sort of uncomfortably on the edge of trying to explain a sort of abnormal, alien psychology, something difficult to conceptualise precisely because we're talking outside the realm of reasonable human understanding.

>Maybe it'd be interesting to know how Raiko perceives the trio, she might have more insight into how they view the world.
Maybe? Who knows how deep that insight might go, considering a tsukumogami and a noise-ghost aren't going to have a lot of inherent common ground psychologically. Seems like the kind of thing where Raiko might be able to rattle off anecdotes about interactions with them.

Sharing a name with the type of youkai that are known as satori, this mind-reading youkai can typically be found in the Palace of Earth Spirits, deep underground, in Former Hell. Satori first appeared in Subterranean Animism and has since gone on to make mostly various minor appearances in other media until the serialization of Foul Detective Satori, where she plays a leading role in the plot. Her ability—enabled by the third eye that rests on her chest—causes both youkai and humans to dislike her; it also has enabled her to understand and get along with animals, notably Orin and Okuu, to whom she delegates various tasks; she is also able to communicate with vengeful spirits and so helps manage these so they don’t run amok. Though she shares her mansion with her younger sister, Koishi, and a number of pets, she nonetheless lives a fairly secluded existence and only rarely interacts with anyone else with the events of FDS being a noticeable exception.

https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Symposium_of_Post-mysticism/Satori_Komeiji
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Strange_Creators_of_Outer_World/Who%27s_Who_of_Humans_%26_Youkai_in_Gensokyo/Satori_and_Koishi_Komeiji

I thought of rolling this one up with Koishi since she’s virtually a non-character but, given the fandom popularity, maybe it would be best to keep separate. Perhaps if the people here think otherwise, we can combine them.

best monke 11/10 would play a live game of Ape Escape with

More seriously, though, Satori's always up there in my top picks. It's hard to put my finger on why exactly — besides having a thing for pink hair — but I suppose it's partly just because there is a degree of substance to her as a character. Plus, she is adorably smug.

The real shame with Satori is the relative paucity of opportunities for a character like her. Prior to Detective Monke, she was a near non-presence, and she's frankly pretty close even there, having lacked much relevance to the shonenshit goings-on since the artist change. Her own manga makes it clear — or, at least, before the second artist seemed to forget or disregard that little bit — that Satori can't be anywhere on the surface for a prolonged period without basically being sick. Hell, her profiles pretty much make her out to be a near shut-in, not doing much of anything outside her home, and even there largely keeping to herself. Plus, well, there's the fact that pretty much everybody who isn't an animal dislikes her by default.

That said, my interpretation is that she doesn't let most of that 'being hated' business get to her. She's somebody who enjoys inward-looking sorts of pursuits and probably has a fairly rich inner life for it. I think if you managed to start a conversation with her, you might get fragments of things she imagines, perhaps incomprehensible in-jokes at your expense. I don't know if she's particularly interested in others, but I like to think that she's curious enough to at least prod them for things of interest. She strikes me as maybe finding a certain satisfaction in knowing others' minds whilst remaining a relative enigma. Also, I bet her writing is both weird and fascinating.

I can't say I've seen any really good treatments of Satori on THP, sadly. YAF's take was all right, I suppose, but it's very much his own and came before there was much about her beyond Subterranean Animism. I liked the couple of times she showed up in Theater of Youth, even though Arc was never given much chance to have any interactions that were more than frostily hostile; the angle of Satori as someone very into painting (or visual art in general?) was something uncommon, not to mention one that I'm not sure most on THP could pull off very convincingly. I think she's overall a difficult character to involve in a story for her own sake, so I don't hold out a lot of hope on that front. I'd give it a shot myself, but, well, it's a high hurdle to jump.

As to Koishi, not a thing to say.

Putting aside the whole mind reader thing, Satori comes off as overly confident and smug both in the games and in the manga when investigating things. That combined with the her secluded nature makes her another one of Gensokyo’s certified weirdos. A pet hoarder, too, and since she has her pets do work and manage the grounds and even each other, I wonder what it is that she gets out of having them around in the first place. … Or even why there are so many animals in the underground to begin with. … Or why she’s even at her mansion—her motivations for living there and “managing” vengeful spirits (mostly just checking on their numbers) have never been spelled out. Some sort of deal with the oni? An opportunity to live somewhere where she wouldn’t be bothered by other people? Both? She likes the warmth coming from the blazing hell below? Former hell seems to be a fairly laid back place all things considered and CDS has Yuugi states that it’s not a perfectly sealed prison by design because then people would want to break out, so maybe Satori is just there to give an illusion of some sort of order or administrative entity?

She likes reading and writing books and I enjoy the idea of her nominally being a bureaucrat—someone who files a report every now and again but mostly uses the stationary and other supplies to write things that she enjoys. Would anyone else read the things she writes, however? Don’t think there’s much of an audience between oni and vengeful spirits and the other underground characters.

I guess I like her fine enough, probably one of the more interesting and fleshed-out characters from SA and I would like to see more of her and more about the day-to-day of life in the underground.

>>17746
>I don't know if she's particularly interested in others, but I like to think that she's curious enough to at least prod them for things of interest.
The kinds of stories she enjoys the most are things that get deep into characters’ psychologies so maybe she’d get a kick out of trying to figure someone unusual out. She pulls ups thoughts and other things from people’s minds but that’s not the same thing as understanding them on the whole. It would be interesting I think to explore that sort of angle in a story featuring her, seeing what kind of people she might be drawn towards and maybe her reluctance to spend too much time with them because of the fear that they might grow wary of her (or just outright dislike/hate her).

Sumireko and Satori in the same month? What are the odds?

Right, so Satori Komeiji. The first point is that Satori absolutely plays into the hated youkai bit. She is absolutely, 100% an introvert, and her finishing other peoples' sentences is a reflection of that. There's no reason she couldn't simply... not do that, let people speak normally, and hold a normal conversation. But she makes a point of ending your sentence for you. At every point during the conversation, you are bluntly reminded that you are speaking with a mind reader, and in a somewhat off-putting way at that. I'm inclined to think that Satori thinks this is a feature, not a bug. While she's not outright hostile, there's a very real sense that what she wants is for you to go away, and for her to be left with her pets. And discussion about her in SoPM reflects that; Kanako in particular is pretty harsh, saying that nobody would want to get close to a mind-reading youkai, that conversation with a satori is impossible, and that she's glad Satori's a shut-in with pets, because she really doesn't think she'd have been able to work with Satori herself.

As for the mind-reading itself... Satori outright thinks that her mind reading is an incredible gift, but at the same time, said mind reading is the exact reason she's so isolated. She really doesn't seem to desire any sort of communication or relationship with any surface-dwelling youkai, but at the same time, mind reading is why she gets along with animals so well; Akyuu states (in Symposium of Post Mysticism) that to animals, being able to read minds is a unique power, and that's why there are so many animals in the Palace of Earth Spirits. And it seems clear to me that all these pets are essentially Satori's substitute for more normal companionship. This is supplemented by an interest in reading and writing books (again, according to SoPM), which it makes sense for Satori to have an interest in, as books are something she can enjoy without her mind-reading spoiling any and all surprises. I imagine she'd enjoy movies or TV shows (given a suitable opportunity) for much the same reason.

As far as the canon Satori goes, it would seem this works at least moderately well for her. She's very set in her ways, and actually getting her out of the Palace of Earth Spirits to associate with other people seems like a near-herculean task, but she also doesn't seem unhappy. Her needs are met, she has her pets, and people leave her alone. Is it a sad life to live, or is it merely an introvert's dream? I've got an answer to that, but now we're getting into USiL's Satori.

So, in USiL, Satori and Koishi are kinda opposite ends of a fairly painful spectrum. Them being mind readers leaves them as hated youkai, and the vast majority of people react really badly to them. And as a result, Koishi gave up on her mind reading, while Satori gave up on people. And this is why she's standoffish and emphasizes her mind reading at every turn; she's pushing people away before they inevitably reject or disappoint her. In short, people suck, and if she doesn't let them get close, then they can't hurt her. And the reason her sister closed her third eye is because she wasn't able to accept that that's just the way things are. What she has with the Palace of Earth Spirits, this comfortable seclusion with her pets? That is happiness, because longing for anything more is just going to make you miserable.

Or to put it more plainly, Satori is a lonely person whose negative outlook makes her push everyone else away. And all of her insisting that she's fine, that she's not lonely, that her life is great... it's not quite lying, but there's a degree to which it is cope. Because if she's wrong, if she's not fine, if the loneliness starts to get to her, if her life as-is isn't worth living... then maybe Koishi was right to put out her third eye. And Koishi can't be right about that. She's a mind reader, her very name declares that, and she's built her life and identity around it. Mind reading being a good thing is a hill she's prepared to die on.

And to be fair, while being a mind reader is the root cause of her issues, it's also the source of her self-confidence and the reason she has the pets she treasures so much. Without mind reading, she wouldn't have Orin or Okuu, (or even if she did, she wouldn't have the same level of connection with them), and when her mind reading is temporarily sealed, she just goes to pieces. This isn't just the loss of mind reading, to be fair; she's in a very stressful situation, and the binding sealing her mind reading has a side effect that emphasizes negative emotions... but all the same, being stuck in close proximity with hostile people and not being able to see what they're planning just destroys her. They're plotting against her, she knows they are, but she can't see it. And that means she doesn't know how bad it will be, or when it's going to happen, or how much they're lying to her.

But the thing is, Koishi has a point too. With her sister mostly gone, Orin and Okuu really are the only people Satori feels close to. And part of the reason she's so determined to get her sister back is so the number of positive relationships she has can increase from two to three. And the tragedy of it is that Satori's isolation is in large part self-inflicted. Not completely; there was a time when Gensokyo was legitimately just hostile to satori youkai, and hiding away was the best option available... but that was a century ago. When Satori does finally emerge for USiL, and tones herself down a bit to play nice with the people behind the urban legend incident... it turns out Greg gets along with her just fine. And while Greg is extremely good at getting along with people in general, he's not the only one. Despite how jaded she is, there's an element of innocence to Satori; she's a nice girl beneath her defenses. If she'd just taken those defenses down and given the surface a chance, she could have gotten along with Reimu, Marisa, Kasen, or any number of other people. The age of satori being chased away on sight is long gone.

Unfortunately, that's not what Satori has chosen. She fully expects people to disappoint her, and so she sticks to her isolation... and it takes a set of extraordinary circumstances (the USiL plot) and an extraordinary person (Greg) to break through her defenses and really get close to her.

On that point, a lot of both Greg's character and the plot of USiL is in fact designed to either break down or bypass Satori's defenses, in order to make a Satori romance actually possible. The foot in the door and initial connection is provided by the story hook; Satori wants an urban legend to fix her sister, so she'll play nice and act... not quite friendly, but less unfriendly towards the people behind the incident. As for there being chemistry, Greg's character provides that; he's a genuinely good person who thinks the best of everyone, so there's very little for Satori to take issue with in his thoughts. He also doesn't really trust himself, and so Satori reading his mind and acting as an additional check on him is something he welcomes, rather than being turned off by mind reading. Which is enough for him and Satori to move towards being friendly. And then some meddling by Koishi plants the idea of romance in both their heads... and after Greg makes his interest clear, both of them get kidnapped and taken to the SDM, where Satori's mind reading is sealed, leaving Satori on the verge of a breakdown and with nobody to comfort her except Greg.

And even with all of this... Satori's starting to feel things for Greg, and she does trust him, but she's still convinced a relationship is a bad idea, it would never work, so on and so forth. He's making inroads, but it'll take more still to completely break through Satori's neuroses and for her to admit that yes, this is what she wants. And when those defenses are all finally pierced, and she's able to admit to herself and to the world that she loves him? It's going to be like a dam breaking, because for her to reach that stage, Greg has to be important enough to her to overturn one of the defining assumptions of her life. Or put plainly... she's going to be very, very in love with him by that point.

On the whole, Satori is my favorite Touhou character, and one that I'm always happy to use. I like the dynamic she adds as a mind reader, and she has a good balance of clear character strengths and relatable personality flaws. She can be cold and antagonistic when the situation calls for it (and even when the situation doesn't call for it), but she also has a softer side that can be really touching. Having her bluntly wield the thoughts she's reading like a hammer never ceases to be both amusing and useful, as Hidden Thoughts demonstrates. Even though that wasn't really Satori. I like her dynamic with Orin, Okuu, and Koishi, and even on the sillier side, a Satori that goes out hunting for new pets butterfly net style is incredibly fun.

But yeah, I'm forever thankful that the voters route-locked the story into pursuing Satori early on. I've got no idea how I'd have made a romance with her believable otherwise.

>A pet hoarder, too, and since she has her pets do work and manage the grounds and even each other, I wonder what it is that she gets out of having them around in the first place.
A good point, though I tend to think of the accumulation of pets as a passive process; they've simply flocked to her. If that were the case, it would make sense why she doesn't have much to do with them: her sense of caring about them is equally passive, accepting their presence but not going much further than that. I mean, Satori doesn't strike me as particularly needing anyone's approval, so whether or not her pets hold any affection for her is probably beside the point for her.

>Or even why there are so many animals in the underground to begin with.
This is the much odder point, and I wonder about it as well. We do know that some of her pets aren't 'normal' animals, including things like hell-cats and hell-ravens, so it could be that they were underground to begin with. The rest could be strays that found their way down, as strays are wont to do. There's also perhaps the remote possibility that some percentage of her pets have evangelised to other strays about the kindly monkey who takes in everybody. Who knows?

>Or why she’s even at her mansion—her motivations for living there and “managing” vengeful spirits [...] have never been spelled out. Some sort of deal with the oni? An opportunity to live somewhere where she wouldn’t be bothered by other people? Both? She likes the warmth coming from the blazing hell below?
I choose to believe that the arrangement was something of a 'wrong place, right time' thing for Satori. She could have been among the early parties trailing into Former Hell after its abandonment. Perhaps the present Hell either paid a visit to menace the squatters, striking a deal with the oni there, aligned with Hell by default, to keep some kind of order in return for non-intervention. Among such concerns would be control of the vengeful spirits, of course. Noticing a particularly hated youkai, whom even the vengeful spirits avoided, the rest would have been a no-brainer — press her under vague threats into doing the job, and keep her at arm's length in one of the abandoned palace's of Hell, where she could live comfortably alone.

>Don’t think there’s much of an audience between oni and vengeful spirits and the other underground characters.
Who honestly knows, but something about the mention of anonymously authored books in her SoPM profile makes me think that things she's written may have wormed their way up to the surface somehow. How that could have happened is anyone's guess.

>the fear that they might grow wary of her (or just outright dislike/hate her).
I think the big lingering question mark there is whether or not Satori cares that much what others think of her. Yes, she's among the 'hated youkai' who went underground, but that could just as easily mean she was driven by force. I suppose if she were particularly attached to someone, it would certainly be painful to be mistrusted or despised. However, is she at all prone to such attachment? A matter of arbitrary interpretation, I think.

>I mean, Satori doesn't strike me as particularly needing anyone's approval, so whether or not her pets hold any affection for her is probably beside the point for her.
So what is the point? Not sure it's just (benign) indifference.

>Perhaps the present Hell either paid a visit to menace the squatters, striking a deal with the oni there, aligned with Hell by default, to keep some kind of order in return for non-intervention.
The thing is that she doesn't really keep order. She doesn't really interact with vengeful spirits and even Orin's role seems more auxiliary than proactive. And I personally think that oni like Yuugi would just bludgeon vengeful spirits into compliance if it became inconvenient for them. So perhaps she's a figurehead, a scapegoat in case things get really bad? Not really the direction CDS went but I have all sorts of issues with that and its lack of consistency as-is that aren't worth going into here.

>[...] things she's written may have wormed their way up to the surface somehow.
Mystery novel schlock written for the plebs by Chris Q; Dostoevsky-esque psychological examinations for connoisseurs written by S.

>I think the big lingering question mark there is whether or not Satori cares that much what others think of her.
I think she's the kind that wouldn't care generally about her standing or reputation but if you're of interest to her she might be a little sensitive to what your impressions are. She cares about her sister and Orin & Okuu, and is fairly generous to other underground youkai (the cross-reviews have her consistently excuse/praise the others). Maybe call it a somewhat embittered-but-nontheless sensitive artistic temperament/heart? I could see that being the case but there's no direct evidence of it.

>>17751
>So what is the point?
Iunno. Not sure there's much of a 'point', honestly. Maybe she really is a doting pet owner and it's all a hobby. Or maybe she has a 'generally caring' side that pushes her to show some degree of regard for a bunch of animals that flocked to her. Like most things, probably a matter of arbitrary interpretation dependent on the particular work.

>So perhaps she's a figurehead, a scapegoat in case things get really bad?
Sure, I guess? I mean, it's already going out on a limb to suggest that Hell even cares that much about Former Hell. Satori could just as easily be a local communal scapegoat for the oni, to conveniently blame for things when they go a bit awry.

>Maybe call it a somewhat embittered-but-nontheless sensitive artistic temperament/heart?
I could see it as well, but who knows. With the certain latent smugness in her character, she could probably shrug off degrees of ego damage. I don't think she's necessarily a psychologically 'brittle' sort, though I don't know to what extent she could be called 'resilient'. It's possible that her self-regard is empty puffery and she is, in fact, more sensitive than she appears. I don't think she's necessarily embittered, though. She may or may not hold resentments or regrets over the past, but I could see her taking a long-eyed view of things and doing her best to see them for what they are instead of being affected by them.

It occurs to me that Satori probably isn't nearly as isolated as she seems. She does live right next to a town full of people known for being exceptionally honest and straightforward.

>>17753
If you look at her profiles, there's more than one statement that the Palace of Earth Spirits gets no visitors and that she's largely avoided by others. There's also a general pattern of others not being very eager to deal with her vis à vis things like, e.g., Kanako going behind her back to get to Okuu, or the way others react to her presence early in her own manga.

Not saying it's entirely impossible, but it doesn't seem too probable given all else.

A youkai magician who resides in the Scarlet Devil Mansion and spends most of her time within its library, reading its vast collection of books. A natural-born magician—the only one in Touhou who did not otherwise start out as a human or was brought to life by magical energy—she is frail of health and suffers from asthma; the dust and mold in the library does not help things and can interfere with her ability to successfully finish reciting a spell. She’s a friend to Remilia and have appeared numerous times together, enjoying tea or a meal together. On her friend’s request she conducted research into rocketry and built the rocket that went to the moon during the events of Silent Sinner in Blue. Patchouli has appeared as a playable character in the first two fighting games and as potential partner character for Marisa in Subterranean Animism.

https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Strange_Creators_of_Outer_World/Who%27s_Who_of_Humans_%26_Youkai_in_Gensokyo/Patchouli_Knowledge
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Perfect_Memento_in_Strict_Sense/Patchouli_Knowledge
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Bohemian_Archive_in_Japanese_Red/Patchouli

I like most magicians equally, but... I will say that I am just slightly biased in Patchouli's direction. Having purple hair helps, as does 'bookishness' and 'calmness' being a part of her overall image.

Unlike a lot of even long-time characters, she's had a fair bit of exposure in official works, but I'd say I don't have the most solid grasp of her as a character. She's positioned as the 'brains' of the SDM camp, which mostly seems to work out to figuring out how to put Remilia's harebrained ideas, like flying a rocket to the moon, into motion. It's interesting how the two of them do seem to be friends, though what that really means is a bit ambiguous in my eyes. Does Patchouli really have that high of a regard for Remilia? Could she possibly be a hanger-on for the sake of resources like a giant library? And so on and so forth — I could continually question the relationship between her and Ojou-sama alone.

Overall, though, I don't give a lot of thought to EoSD characters, so I don't have an immediate set of thoughts regarding Patchouli. I'll have to think on it more.

That said, as far as portrayals, I will say that she was easily one of my favourites in Theater of Youth, and it was a shame Anon didn't make choices conducive to her appearing. I liked her quietly impish side when dealing with Arc and his nonsense and her odd dry, biting remark. Such a shame she didn't show up more.

I remember reading a detailed Patchouli story on THP long ago that I felt was a solid depiction of her character. I think it was patchy quest by kahitora and it got kinda weird at points but I think it's still worth bringing up. I liked how it portrayed Patchy as an experienced, clever, and analytical magician who was still limited by physical infirmity and blindspots in her social/emotional understanding. The writer also gave her interesting relationships with Eirin, who treated her illness, and Tewi, who (if memory serves) started tagging along on a whim and eventually became very close to her.

For its many eccentricities, I think the story was an interesting portrayal of Patchouli. I can't think of many other stories that feature her, and all of those made her too... Soft? Too demure, shy, passive, inert, etc. There wasn't much texture to them. Then again, my memory could be wrong and I haven't specifically looked for Patchouli stories.

I think Patchouli's main relationship is with Remilia. I'm not sure how they get along but they probably do if Patchy has an entire library in Remilia's house. I imagine that Patchy matches her wits with Remi pretty well when they banter. I don't think Patchouli has close relationships with Sakuya, Meiling, or Flan, and I'm choosing to not consider Koakuma for now.

Outside of the SDM, I think she would possibly have some rapport with Alice, but I don't get a similar feeling about other magicians like Byakuren, Narumi, or Marisa. I feel like fan portrayals exaggerate Patchy's relationship with Marisa to an extent I no longer find interesting.

So it seems that my image of her is strongly asocial. She's a physically frail and chronically ill magician who spends virtually all of her time in her massive library. It seems like stereotypical wizard behavior.

I wonder if Seiga and Patchouli would get along. Well, probably not, but it could be interesting to see if they might acknowledge each other's commitment to their magical/alchemical craft. While I see Seiga as antisocial, I think Patchouli is more asocial.

>>17756
Can you go into more detail about Patchy in ToY? It sounds like the sort of portrayal I'd appreciate.

I like Patchouli quite a bit. Like all the other magicians she’s a weirdo but she’s a weirdo in her own way. For starters, unlike the others, she leans heavily into the elemental side of things to the extent of following the order of the days when using magic; her own system sees her combining two or more elements for more powerful spells, too, should the need arise. Add to that her contention that there is no real difference between science and magic, as both look to determine the root cause of things and both require study and disciple, and you get I suppose a very analytical—if not methodical—sort of perspective. Marisa, Alice, and Byakuren all do their study diligently too but I don’t think it’s quite as systemic as Patchouli’s approach seems to be. She has written books following the development of new magic, which is impressive; Marisa may be an earnest-enough reader but she relies a lot on her mini-hakkero and hasn’t really put down her thoughts on subjects save for the one grimoire that’s about danmaku; Alice’s grimoire is a mystery but it’s only just a single book for personal use; we don’t really know much about Byakuren’s magic and Narumi has barely appeared in anything.

But even beyond the magician aspect of things, I enjoy her taciturn nature which isn’t without its occasional whimsy. The sass in the fighting game dialogue is an example of this but also, like, her crop circle experiment that causes Meiling to despair or taking care of the rocket in SSiB. She does seem to get along with Remilia just fine as well as few others so my impression is that she won’t go out of her way to socialize but isn’t expressly cold. Unless you are doing something stupid like trying to steal books she probably wouldn’t be outright rude to a stranger.

With that in mind, I like to think of her as someone who is curious about how things work and maybe, on occasion, that curiosity might extend to people. Maybe someone with some sort of specific, specialized knowledge, or who has some sort of insight regarding either magic or books. I do wonder if she would do much socializing at the parties that the SDM throws from time to time, that said. Might appear, talk to Remilia for a bit, get food and then go back to the library I reckon. It’s important to not humanize her too much, given that she’s still a youkai, but you could do worse at the SDM than her if you’re a normal person.

She’s someone that I’d like to see more in stories—or perhaps even write more of her myself—but given her constitution and interests is difficult to get outside the SDM (both in terms of location and other characters) with her for prolonged periods of time. She’s not particularly friendly towards the other magicians, so I wouldn’t want nor expect something contrived there, but maybe there’s some sort of magical angle that could bring them together for reasons for prolonged periods? Beyond just resolving an incident, maybe some sort of curious event or anomaly that’s worth studying. I don’t see an outsider spending much time at the SDM either (sorry many stories with that premise) so exploring things that way has to be pretty compelling to get me onboard.

>Does Patchouli really have that high of a regard for Remilia? Could she possibly be a hanger-on for the sake of resources like a giant library?
Maybe it’s a mutual beneficial kind of deal. Patchouli gets a quiet space and resources and Remilia gets the prestige of having a curated library and a scholar. I don’t think their relationship is transaction but that could have been the beginning of it and then just become one of familiarity, understanding and respect in their own way.

>I will say that she was easily one of my favourites in Theater of Youth
Also did enjoy that. Had somewhat acerbic humor and playfulness.

>I don't think Patchouli has close relationships with Sakuya, Meiling, or Flan
I think she sees Sakuya as just a servant, not really a friend. She does razz Meiling more than once (telling her not to read manga and be stupid) and also the crop circle thing. As for Flan … I don’t think they have much contact either, as Flandre is even more of a shut-in.

>I think she would possibly have some rapport with Alice
Doubt Alice would go to the SDM and I don’t see Patchouli going to the Forest of Magic. But maybe there would be some mutual admiration for their dedication to their ways of doing magic (kinda is there in the win quotes for the games).

Okay, following on >>17756.

At base, I think of Patchouli as somebody who is, well, a brain. That is, her concern is with 'knowing' for its own sake. She comes across to me as the type who wants to probe the mysteries of everything for the satisfaction of figuring them out. That said, I also think she resembles the stereotyped academic — largely fixed on rarefied ideals as opposed to 'the real world'. Even though the magic she normally wields is based on the idea of elements, things that occur in the natural world, I feel like she'd be more interested in them in a more abstracted sense, conceiving of magic in something like formulaic terms. I guess, in that sense, I kind of think of her as a 'magic otaku, which is how you end up with her penning potentially hundreds of homemade grimoires.

That said, I don't see her as a necessarily asocial sort of person. As has been mentioned, she gets on with Remilia in some fashion, plus she doesn't go exceptionally out of her way to antagonise others who aren't antagonising her first. If she doesn't have contact with others much, it's probably just because she's buried deep in her library. I could see her generally being fine with visitors, providing they don't become too combative or tax her too much. Granted, her frail health probably does limit her ability to handle more than a certain degree of activity. Perhaps she's the sort who would listen more than she might speak. I guess she strikes me as someone who chooses to be silent but doesn't demand silence, if that makes sense. Really, I think she's probably on some level just a calm, low-energy sort who occasionally has a witticism to add to things.

>>17757
>>17759
>Alice
In all honesty, I don't think either would have much reason to care about the other. They might be generally aware of one another, and I wouldn't be shocked if they consider each other's interests strange and perhaps off-putting; magicians are, in my mind, very much like otaku and have a certain disdain for unshared interests. Of course, there could, as mentioned, be a mild admiration of 'the craft' in a general sense.

That said, I do see Patchouli as a brain and someone who is intellectually curious in a broad sense, so she might be the most likely to prod at other magicians' ways if in the right mood and situation. In fact, rather than completely try to jury-rig her own situation, she might even be practical enough to turn to fellow magicians in search of solutions to a problem. The problem would remain as to how she might reach out, but I suppose that's where the contrivances of your average story premise would come in.

>>17758
I'll be honest: It's been a hot minute and I can't recall a lot of the circumstances that involved Patchouli too clearly. I remember her pretending to be Arc's girlfriend to make Orin jealous, though I can't remember if that was during or after his disastrously failed attempt at solving the whole problem with Okuu. She also went along with Arc claiming that they were in an open relationship when he properly met Remilia fairly late in the story's run. In most of the times Arc met her, she was fairly friendly in a... quietly accepting kind of way? Like, she wasn't going out of her way to tear down Arc for being an idiot... most of the time. I dunno. There was an interesting dynamic there. I'd recommend just reading it if you're curious; I need to re-read, myself.

I'm a big Patchouli fan. She's easily my favourite of the magician and magician-adjacent characters. Despite me generally feeling fatigue with SDM characters (though really I just mean Sakuya and Remilia since they're the ones who show up the most), I'm always pleased when Patchouli turns up in an official touhou work.

She's a character who really does have a unique take. She's a researcher far more than she's a fighter compared to a magician like Marisa, who does research but mostly looking for ways to incorporate it into practical fighting magic. She's practically always calm and analytical in situations, and she never really loses her cool. Despite her litany of physical ailments, they haven't stopped her from elevating her mind. She writes books and performs tasks for Remilia when needed, and it's obvious from the Scarlet Mist that she is very powerful.

What I find interesting is that despite being famously reclusive and hating going outside, she seems to be a very good conversationalist. In CDS she talks rings around Satori and pokes fun at her ability, and in SSiB, Eirin subtly threatens to stab her with an arrow without her seeing, and Patchouli not only knows, but talks her down without violence or even an indication that anything was wrong. Whether her speech skill comes from living with Remilia or a more adventurous past is up to interpretation, of course, but it pleases me to have that to speculate on.

She can be quite cheeky in the fighting games, too. It's fun to see those conversational skills directed to that sort of banter. Typically, a character like her tends to be written to be a lot more reticent with her words.

I'd like to write her a lot more. She's a joy to write, I've found, but it's rather hard to justify her appearance without writing an SDM fic. I can't say I know many THP stories that feature her. That's what I get for being too lazy to pick up new stories. Even so, I find that Patchouli is one of the few characters where I genuinely do not believe that anyone has managed to write her better than ZUN himself (myself included, obviously). People tend to lean too far toward the grumpy bookkeeper side or too much toward humanising her, while ZUN strikes a nice balance where she's concerned.

It's hard to gauge her relationships when she rarely appears with others characters for long. She clearly finds Marisa somewhat aggravating, but she recognises that if you really need someone to resolve a problem (I.E Touhou 11) then relying on Marisa is only prudent. Its hard to say how she particularly feels about the other SDM residents aside from little bits in the fighting games that mostly seem to imply that she's only particularly close to Remilia.

>I think she would have some rapport with Alice.
Ooh, I can answer this one! She hates Alice for not being a real magician. This is canon from the Immaterial and Missing Power Awards-Giving Ceremony which was published in Strange Creators of Outer World. When asked about the special award, she (unprompted) goes on a rant about how it should go to Alice for claiming she specialises in magic while putting on doll shows. She says that if she just wants to play house, well that's just perfect.

I'll take from that that Patchouli has some specific ideas about what a magician should do, and Alice isn't measuring up. Marisa does practice wanton destruction, so maybe she meets the criteria in Patchouli's books.

>>17756
>>17760
You know, I was kind of reluctant and held back initially, but I think I'll toot my horn a little bit about a Patchouli I had some involvement with.

I was a collaborator who worked with Mask of Gold on Scarlet Tycoon, and — in addition to coming up with and naming almost all the faeries — I contributed a fair bit to a small handful of updates related to Patchouli. Whilst I won't say there weren't some... fandom-brained things going on there, I still feel like much of what I added was reasonably solid. If I had to pick a weak part — which wasn't wholly my doing — it was that Patchouli did lean slightly towards the 'grouchy librarian' character at times. That said, I enjoyed how she sassed Remilia openly but also was probably the closest thing to a friend she had around the mansion. I also came up with a great deal of her backstory as seen in the very late updates. I guess the real shame is that there wasn't much opportunity to really show Patchouli being a massive nerd.

Anyway, that Patchouli and the one in Theater of Youth are basically among the very few I've felt were reasonably solid, albeit for pretty different reasons. I overall like the latter better, though, probably at least in part because, well, it's not an SDM story.

>>17760
>That said, I also think she resembles the stereotyped academic — largely fixed on rarefied ideals as opposed to 'the real world'.
Probably fair for the most part. But she's also empirical and that shows with her experiments; she's basically writing something on (fried?) bean-throwing magic at the end of IaMP and the whole setsubun also is along the lines of develping something that would bother oni.

>>17761
>She hates Alice for not being a real magician.
Way too strong of a characterization IMO. She is somewhat caustic in IaMP with everyone (even Sakuya in her ending) but in later appearances, including SWR, she's less like that to most characters; she even compliments Alice on her capability to control many dolls.

>>17764
>fried?
Roasted, to be more precise.

But, eh, sure, I guess? Always possible she develops magic in the same way kappa develop gadgetry — fiddling around to solve some problem (real or imagined).

I just think that she would generally be the type to admire philosophic kinds of nattering that equates things like mathematics with magic as an aesthetic.

>Roasted, to be more precise.
Should be but it's a mistranslation in the ending.

>>17756 and >>17760 here. Following up again, I've done a little bit of thinking about the sorts of scenarios involving Patchouli that would be interesting.

To be honest, my highest interest is probably boring for most people, but I do find myself curious what her everyday life is like besides reading. What does she do when her concentration wanders — get up and wander the library, make herself a cup of tea? What sorts of things go into the magic she actually carries out — ritual, alchemy, formula, meditation? What sorts of non-magical things does she take interest in? How would she actually interact with others like the faerie maids, Sakuya, or even Remilia on a daily basis? What would be said? Would it all be only of the most utilitarian matters? Would there be digressions onto more frivolous topics? How would she receive the very odd visitor? What sort of tea does she prefer? Is she picky about what she sits on? What kind of preferences would she have? Seeing those sorts of the minutiae portrayed — seeing the 'texture' of everyday life for Patchouli, as it were — is more interesting to me than most things.

Beyond that, I suppose it would also be interesting to see Patchouli outside the confines of her library, perhaps departing on her own for something she's dead-set on accomplishing. What on earth might that sort of goal be? How would she handle making any sort of trip? Would magic be enough to overwhelm all obstacles? Would she be forced to go slowly and clumsily because of her health? Would she even be able to do it alone? Would she be forced to enlist help? Who would help her? How would Remilia react? How would anyone she encounters react? It's the sort of scenario that raises a lot of questions in and of itself before any other particulars are involved.

>>17767
>I do find myself curious what her everyday life is like besides reading. What does she do when her concentration wanders — get up and wander the library, make herself a cup of tea?

You can infer that from her character traits.

>Asthma
>Devoted to magic as a discipline; has a whole library of books related to the subject; most are probably Grimoires, which are said to be needed to be understood before being able to use their power
>Has a firm grasp of scientific method
>Has a firmer grasp of elemental magic (chinese five elements + sun and moon), to the point of separating days based on the associated element
>Has an even firmer grasp on a magical version of a recreational flamethrower

I can't really picture her being goal-driven or extremely proactive in research, but given that she's a magician, she still does something. So to answer the question, it's probably something like a split of bantering with Remilia, having duels with the rest of the SDM just because, practicing her craft and accomplishing various goals, whether it's making a wine batch or making thieves go away with a giant flood of bullets.

By the way, I do not condone being a NEET. Get a job, you eggplant.

She probably plays Magic the Gathering in her spare time.

>>17767
Her familiar is a succubus. We all know exactly what she's doing in her downtime.

>>17771
What on earth could he have possibly meant by this?

Protagonist of Wild and Horned Hermit, Kasen is a hermit and—unbeknownst to most—both one of the Sages of Gensokyo and one of the Big Four of the Mountain. She’s further appeared in both Urban Legend in Limbo and Antinomy of Common Flowers as a playable character. Kasen is fairly knowledgeable about all sorts of matters, including youkai and various types of creatures, and lives within her own otherworld located somewhere in the Youkai Mountain. She is able to communicate with animals and keeps a variety of pets; she is consistent in showing care for their well being. Her compassion extends to humans as well and throughout the course of WaHH she helps guide Reimu and resolve issues that were affecting the humans in the village.

https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Strange_Creators_of_Outer_World/Who%27s_Who_of_Humans_%26_Youkai_in_Gensokyo/Kasen_Ibaraki

>>17773
She has a great design.
She was made to be Ten Desires' extra stage boss but we got Mamizou instead. Sometimes I wonder how would that have gone.

I would say more about her, but I still have to read WaHH.

I feel like Kasen often gets her character distorted to be naggy and overbearing (like Eiki) or cloyingly "wholesome" (like Byakuren). It's been a while since I finished WaHH, and my interest was flagging by the end, so my understanding of her probably has large gaps. There's probably something interesting going on in terms of the relationship between Kasen and her... Arm? It's not often that we get to see a touhou character's past brought up so directly.

Oh yeah, she's also one of the sages that created and maintained the barrier. That's pretty cool. I'll try to revisit this thought.

I think that she generally takes things seriously and has some semblance of justice that she makes an effort to uphold. I find this notable because I consider virtually every other touhou character to be self-absorbed or in the orbit of another character who is. It's not necessarily that they're bad people or boring characters, just that I see them typically not caring about things beyond their immediate interests. Most of their activity is some combination of entertaining themselves and indulging their vanity.

Some other characters have grander designs but those are self-serving, like Kanako developing the importance of the Moriya shrine. Kasen ranges around Gensokyo, sticking her nose into various situations and pushing Reimu to be a better miko because she cares about the condition of Gensokyo and its inhabitants. Her motivations are not necessarily selfless and her vision is not necessarily accurate, but I find it interesting that she makes this effort.

Regarding the other known sages, she's explicitly disagreed with Yukari's stance. I can't recall any interaction with Okina, though I think they would also disagree. I guess this would be on things like "what the system that is Gensokyo should be made to achieve". Maybe Yukari wants it to be a refugia for the supernatural at the expense of a captive human population and Okina wants about the same but with her role known, but Kasen wants it to be... Actually, I'm not sure. I think she said something about being on the side of humanity, but I'm not sure what exactly she meant.

I'd love to see more of her "animal trainer" side explored more, but I can't think of a way to do it because of the importance of her role as a sage and hermit.

I've meant to say something, but not having read Horny Hermit in a hot minute had me searching my personal volumes for stuff, plus life's been life.

Anyway, Kasen feels like the sort of character that would get a lot of traffic as far as fan works, considering she's 1) close to Reimu, 2) not completely without a background as a character (even if it's still pretty open), and 3) a bloody youkai sage and one of the few as-yet known architects of Gensokyo. Now, that last point is certainly a poorly-defined one, as Kasen's exact role in all of the Gensokyo business isn't known, nor is it likely to ever be totally spelled out — but, well, that's what fan works are for. Even that point aside, there's also the fact that she at least pretends to be a hermit. There's a whole salad of things going on there, and yet I can't say I've seen very much touching on Kasen particularly on THP, nor have I seen much seriously dealing with her among the very few (non-porn) doujins and other stuff I've seen elsewhere.

An anon above did mention that she's perceived to be 'preachy' or 'nagging', and I would agree that the degree is often very distorted. She is one of vanishingly few characters who genuinely seems to care quite a bit for Reimu, enough to try to apply tough love to get her to better herself not only as the Hakurei miko but also as a person. She also seems genuinely caring when it comes to animals, even if most of the ones we see are technically her familiars and thereby her workhorses, so to speak. It's funny to consider that someone like that is, underneath all other identities, an oni, a creature largely known for wanton cruelty and brutality.

Of course, there are hints all throughout Horny Hermit that she does have her species' capability for violence and cruelty hidden behind her veil of respectability. Early on in the series, that was pretty played up, with Kasen proclaiming herself 'a villain' at a few points and showing a sort of two-faced aspect — but it kind of softened as things went on, so I'm not sure whether or not to consider that just a quirk of the long serialisation period.

I don't think a lot of her motivations, ways of thinking, and so on are as clear-cut as I've seen them made out to be. The whole thing with her arm never gets a particularly direct comment beyond some narration at the end of the series, which really just sort of feels like a poetic capping-off of events more than any sort of explanation. Ditto with the whole 'hermit' thing; that part, to me, does feel more deliberate, though. And, again, there is the whole thing with her being a youkai sage that is brought up a very small number of times and doesn't really factor that much into anything that happens. There are so many open avenues for exploring that it feels weird that there isn't more on THP regarding Kasen. Granted, I can't say much in that respect, considering she's only a glancing presence in one of my stories.

But, uh, all said, I consider Kasen to be a pretty interesting character, and there's probably a whole lot I could say, but I can barely get my thoughts together at the moment, so this post is more a starting point than a comprehensive comment.

>>17775
I don't know if she's exactly on the side of humanity. She says things about being aligned with the 'ways of heaven' and so forth, but who honestly knows. The way I see it, she probably isn't going to go out of her way to bring harm to humans, but I don't know if she would necessarily prioritise them above all else. I wouldn't be surprised if human is ultimately sort of a triviality to her, maybe not something she looks down on but also not something she reveres. I mean, if you look at her from the standpoint of maybe actually being a hermit, then it makes sense that she'd ultimately shun humanity; to be a hermit is to abandon humanity and become something 'superior'. But, well, it is that side of her that's friendly with humans that makes her a little suspect as a hermit; it also makes her suspect as an oni, incontrovertible as that point is.

>>17776
Not really sure how any one of those things inhibits covering another. Hell, her 'animal tamer' side is better established than the other sides.

Kasen is fun and it’s a shame she hasn’t really been seen doing stuff since the end of WaHH. I don’t want to get into events from WaHH as I think there’s a lot there to criticize but a more approachable, friendly, and caring “founder” of Gensokyo is a definite change of pace from the likes of Okina and Yukari. Though she can be strict with Reimu (and to a lesser extent, Marisa) she’s not intrinsically a scold and fairly approachable. Despite being a serious sort of hermit she’s also given to fancies like appreciating food or getting swept up in making shrine festivals a success; her connection and care for animals also show a more tender side.

It’d be easy to have her play a supportive, perhaps even slightly-mothering, role in a story, doing the sorts of things that she did in WaHH for the sake of villagers or creatures. Or even have her presented as the wise sage, that’s easy to talk to and go to for advice/insight, sort of like the relationship she cultivated with Komachi. Personally, I think I’d be most interested in getting to know more about her oni past though that seems unlikely given the events of her manga and how she avoids Suika. Maybe there’s lingering feelings of embarrassment about that given her present outlook. Perhaps presenting her with a large amount of sweets might get her to spill just a little.

>>17775
>I find this notable because I consider virtually every other touhou character to be self-absorbed or in the orbit of another character who is.
I agree with you generally, but I’ll add as a counterpoint that Kasen isn’t entirely selfless in WaHH and a lot of the pushing she does for Reimu ultimately is to get her to resolve the thing with the arm when the time comes. Still, I think that’s a reasonable concern given how much of a stinker she was as an oni. By and large, Kasen is fairly selfless or at least invested in making sure that the order of things in Gensokyo works fairly well for everyone involved; humans, animals, and youkai seem to all matter to her.

>most of the [animals] we see are technically her familiars and thereby her workhorses, so to speak.
They may be familiars but their relationship to me seemed almost like something akin to a benevolent lord and her faithful retainers and that she seems to ask them for things only from time to time. It feels idealized and affectionate in both directions.

>She says things about being aligned with the 'ways of heaven' and so forth, but who honestly knows.
I’d add to the stuff you’re saying that she might not be dogmatic about it, but it’s certainly something that puts her on a different side to Yukari. Maybe it’s just more a matter of feelings than actions but, even so, she does seem to act in a generally altruistic way. Perhaps her phrasing is just the default of what a hermit is supposed to be rather than how she actually lives her daily life. No way of telling for sure but she’s at least not someone openly wicked like Seiga.

probably will have some other comments after, as well as responding to others comments. But a couple of thoughts that are off the top of my head:

firstly despite how serious she tries to be, she is not immune to the shinanigins of Gensokyo in general, nor particularly of the Hakurei shrine. Sanae accidentally demonstrated thatwhen some of her comments in front of Reimu, Marisa, and Kasen got taken as mocking and ended up with them going a little hairbrained together to create a competing festival to the one that Moriya was throwing that resulted in among other things Kasen hosting a Zoo at the Hakurei festival... which no one came to (Though Sanae would've if she hadn't been running the Moriya festival as she was actually being genuine!)

the second interesting thing that comes to mind for me is her friendship with Komachi. with Komachi coming to hang out to do her "Duty" of coming after the Hermit... but really just chatting...

which actually means that Eiki would be in the know of Kasen's actual identity. I wonder how a meeting between them would go. that and how many people actually know: Komachi, Yukari, Reimu by the end of WaHH... Eiki likely since the Komachi visits...

I've been rereading a bit of WaHH, and what's interesting to me is that while a lot of her motivations are explored, you never know if she's being honest or trying to be evasive due to her identity.

For example, in Ch18 when Miko asks her goal in becoming a hermit, she just says "I wanted to become closer to people." To Komachi, she mentions that she wanted to seize the secret of longevity.

Later on when the whole deal with her arm is revealed, she says that part of the reason she chose to become a hermit was to strive for another world.

It could be that all of these answers are true, in some way. Maybe it's simple, and what she means is that she pursues hermit-hood to establish a cleaner, more pure immortality compared to her old life. But in that case, how does being a sage of Gensokyo fit into this? Was it because she just wanted to help build a secure place to cultivate herself? Or is it something more complicated?

In general, there's just a good amount of depth to explore.

There's also some good information in AoCF, specifically her dream self. As I understand it, dream selves are your raw desires and thoughts without a filter and multiplied a few times, so while not representative of the character and what they would do, they give some insight into some repressed feelings.

In Kasen's case, you can see where her inner oni poking out. She tries to push Joon and Shion away from Yukari, temp them with power, and when they refuse she 180s and tries to get rid of them permanently as they're now in the way of letting the dream selves rule Gensokyo. Her spiel on Yukari shows she knows, or at least thinks she knows, Yukari's true character.

>>17780
I think that the last reason is probably the closest to true since if there's anything that she's consistently afraid of/against it's her arm/being a full oni. So it feels like her being a hermit is a very conscious and strong rebuke of her past life. I couldn't say how life spans for youkai work exactly, let alone oni in particular, but maybe making sure she's out of the cycle of life and death, earth and hell, is simply a nice bonus. The afterlife in Touhou is a mess to put it lightly and I wouldn't personally put all that too much weight into that as motivation.

Being a sage and working towards order seems to me to be a natural result of her decision to shy away from her former life and values and there's isn't necessarily a conflict of interest there between helping others and the well-being of her own self (or soul, if you want to get metaphysical).

>>17778
>>17782
>Personally, I think I’d be most interested in getting to know more about her oni past though that seems unlikely given the events of her manga and how she avoids Suika. Maybe there’s lingering feelings of embarrassment about that given her present outlook.
Really, I think it mostly shakes out to a general pattern with 2hus who are modelled on existing mythological figures: the specifics of their background are rarely directly touched on, often simply alluded to, because ZUN doesn't want to get into the whole messy business of rectifying his particular take with a patchwork of folk tales that themselves often have conflicting versions.

But, well, speaking on a less 'meta' level, I'd say I agree that Kasen does appear conflicted in the face of her murky past. Given her love of animals, I kind of wonder if that didn't have something to do with how she may have changed over time; this is, of course, strongly assuming that she was the bloody-minded Ibaraki-douji present in folk tales. Maybe she met humans who didn't meet her own conception of them and began to feel a draw towards the idea of a changed nature. Or maybe she got a tasty dango from some human she was about to eat and had a change of heart. There's a whole microcosm of possibilities that could be explored.

That said, I'm not entirely convinced she's inherently enamoured with human nature, morality, or whatever. If I had to place my bets, I'd say it's more about 'order', as mentioned. I can't recall every specific instance, but I vaguely remember points where it felt like she was driving at generally 'ecological' sorts of concerns. I don't know if it's specifically out of regard for the environment in the same sense as would be meaningful for humans, but she does seem to express that sort of mentality of general harm-reduction. Human would certainly be part of that, of course. I'm just not sure it's weighted towards them in any meaningful way.

All of this is stuff is sort of things I'd be chiefly interested in seeing covered in fan works, of course. Not that her role as 'sage' isn't interesting or anything; I just don't see it being as meaningfully explored due to the fairly vague nature of what that even means in relation to Gensokyo beyond some unknown level of involvement in its creation — and I prefer to think that any given sage's motivations as being generally beyond anyone's comprehension.

>>17783
That comment about ‘patchwork’ lore actually reminds me how it is interesting we have in WaHH what seems like a purposeful contrast of takes on the same legend. Namely how in WaHH we have the whole Oni's hate beans thing. Kasen freaks out whenever beans enter the picture and works to have the Hakurei shrine have a beanless setsubun...but when Suika arrives at said festival becomes upset that she isn't getting pelted by beans (until Kasen comes in to swap snowballs in instead.) So the one that is distancing herself from her Oni side freaks out about beans as if its the oni equivalent of silver on a werewolf... but the one that proudly throws herself around as an oni the beans are more about the theatrics of it. (see also LE where the beans are practically powerless for her the day after setsubun.)

speaking of Kasen (stealthily) stepping in for Suika. It shows an interesting contrast. While Kasen tries to avoid Suika it's not out of a dislike for her old friend. Compare that to Kasen's interaction with Yukari which Kasen acts much colder towards. (though Yukari was not expecting it.)

it might be the translation that I am reading of WaHH but the way that Kasen says it that even when she and Yukari (and Okina.) were working together as Sages Kasen was working "Alongside the laws of heaven" (which despite how it sounds like she's aligned with the Celestials, the images behind Kasen show Reimu, Marisa, Sumireiko and humans.) she hadn't been on Yukari's side from the start? though they had worked well enough together that Yukari waits for the time that Kasen will be on her side.

It occurs to me that Kasen's multifaceted connection to the Mountain is often overlooked, and that too presents a lot of avenues for exploration. First and foremost, Kasen is incontrovertibly an oni, and not only that, but one of the Big Four of the Mountain, which implies that she saw the era of oni rule on the Mountain and played some representative role in it. Secondly, she at least presents as a hermit, an existence that is often tied to mountains, and she indeed lives in her own senkai somewhere in the mountains. Despite these facts, we don't get much of a sense from WaHH of her having all that much to do with the Mountain on a regular basis.

In particular, I think there's room to explore her relationships with others on the Mountain, ranging from incidental figures like Nemuno or the Goddess(es) Aki to bigger ones like Kanako or even Tenma. Something I find a little odd in retrospect is how glancing Kasen and Sanae's interactions in WaHH felt. Now, it might be a stretch to imply that she has any sort of extensive dealings on the Mountain, but I'm going to assume as such. Considering that Kasen's senkai is seemingly located near the Moriya Shrine somewhere, it would be strange if she and Sanae alone weren't acquainted, to say nothing of the hermit and the two Moriya goddesses. Also of personal note is the relative lack of interaction between her and Aya aside from the one chapter — where Kasen acts vaguely familiar with Aya, though there is certainly something of a distance between them.

Besides them, it'd be interesting if there was any familiarity between her and characters like Nemuno, Takane, or Biten. The first of those is perhaps a bit of a stretch considering mountain hags' propensity to self-isolate and hide themselves away, but, hey, that's sort of common ground, right? The second might be a little more of a stretch, but living high up on the Mountain, it's not inconceivable that she at least has some passing familiarity with the sort of nonsense that the yamawaro get up to; she might even find herself caught up in reigning them in if they get a little too rough on the surrounding nature. The third is less out there, considering her whole thing with animals, and it wouldn't shock me at all if Biten knew Kasen from the time she was a, er, more typical monkey.

I dunno. I think it'd be interesting if Kasen, say, wandered into tengu settlements on the regular, perhaps poked her nose into their affairs a little bit from time to time. Her history with the Mountain might offer her some insight that would surprise even a great-tengu. She might even be able to, say, bully Tenma with no consequences, perhaps having known them before their ascendancy.

There are probably infinitely more possibilities, but that's just the sort of stuff I can shake off the top of my head.

>>17784
I think that we just can't say what motivated Kasen as a sage to help create Gensokyo. No doubt some degree of self-interest in self-preservation. But I don't think it's just that. As mentioned by other posters she shows a lot of different sides of herself to different people and in different contexts and it's difficult to gauge what convictions of hers are the most important to her. While her motivations in WaHH are still somewhat selfish she clearly cares about others and goes out of the way to help others. Perhaps she sees Gensokyo as a necessary evil (after a fashion) and her role is to make sure that it isn't outright abusive to humans (or anyone else). Doubt this will ever get resolved clearly as it's not ZUN's style but it does add a layer when it comes to portraying her in fiction.

>>17785
As you note, there are weirdos like Nemuno and Biten who live in their own little worlds. Kind of their own domains where other characters (tengu and the like) don't venture into. I don't think it's a stretch to imagine that Kasen does the same thing, having staked out her own little part of the mountain. That and using caution/possible hermit arts, I imagine she's discreet and so I don't think she necessarily has much of a relationship with other mountain inhabitants. Many of the issues she resolves in WaHH are done indirectly or in secret and I think that's her preferred way of living, generally. But, who knows, really? Maybe she does pop in every now and again for a bowl of noodles in the tengu village.

>>17786
As far as her involvement in the creation of Gensokyo, I could see Kasen taking a sort of stance similar to Kanako in Symposium: seeing the incipient materialism and denial of the spiritual of the Meiji era and not seeing the portent of anything good. Granted, it's hard to say how much she really cares about humans, but if we assume she does at least care about humanity on its own merits, then it's not farfetched that she may have wanted at least some of humanity to not lose it's spiritual core. It probably does come down to self-preservation on the lowest levels, but we do get the sense that she's not entirely self-centered in the same way many other 2hus are.

>I don't think she necessarily has much of a relationship with other mountain inhabitants
I mean, I don't think she has much connection, but she and Sanae do seem to be aware of each other as sort-of neighbours, so I don't think she's entirely hidden away most of the time. Perhaps she doesn't go out of her way to intrude on others, sure. That said, I wouldn't doubt she'd stick her nose into others' business if there was something going down on the Mountain, like territorial disputes between the kappa and the yamawaro, to say nothing of anything threatening the natural environment of the Mountain.

Making her debut as a stage 2 boss in Subterranean Animism, Parsee is a hashihime who inhabits the underground. Possessing a jealous nature, she further has the ability to manipulate jealousy in others. That can cause her victims to lose the balance in their spirits and provoke a madness that ends up destroying their lives. Parsee thrives of the jealousy of others, using it as energy. A hated being, like most youkai in the underground, she nonetheless has been noted to be cheery and normal when spoken to. In a recent appearance in Foul Detective Satori, Parsee was seen to cooperate with Yamame to try to stop Reimu who had broken into the underground.

I'm dumb and forgot the links:
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Strange_Creators_of_Outer_World/Who%27s_Who_of_Humans_%26_Youkai_in_Gensokyo/Parsee_Mizuhashi
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Symposium_of_Post-mysticism/Parsee_Mizuhashi

I must say she's quite a difficult character for me. Her psychology is basically inhuman with how she is laser-focused on a single feeling, right? Which is why I struggle to comprehend her. But her design is unique and super cute :D

Parsee is a character who seems relatively popular out of the incidental SA cast, but I think she's not often well understood by those interpreting her. First and foremost, she's not a 'bridge troll'; she doesn't have anything to do with actual bridges, even if the big hole leading down to Former Hell is figuratively a bridge. Secondly, she really doesn't have any concrete ties to other Underground characters, so she's not Yuugi's frenemy or whatever role she's often cast into. Thirdly, whilst there's not much to say either way, I'm pretty sure she's not Persian; ZUN basically said she came from a vague impulse to draw a more 'foreign looking' design, but that is in no way an intimation that she's actually a strange foreigner from somewhere on the Silk Road; she's very strongly modelled on the hashihime myth, which is, well, Japanese.

So, what does that leave us with? Well, Parsee is otherwise pretty interesting considering her inspiration: a woman driven mad in fury against an unfaithful husband/lover, becoming an oni in the process. She herself is noted to not be especially pitiable or unfortunate, in point of fact coming off as a rather cheerful sort. Nevertheless, she harbours a lot of innate envy towards others, which seems to drive a compulsion towards fairly two-faced behaviour, being friendly towards others on the surface but then bad-mouthing them from the shadows, for instance. There's also the impulse to latch onto others and excite their own jealousies, whipping them into a fever pitch to feed from in an almost schadenfreude way. However, she's not exactly driven by a need to destroy others as such, and in fact generally tries to warn people about approaching the Underground. I'm not sure if this suggests that she's inherently conflicted as a character, but she's clearly a lot more complicated than the typical portrayal of a fuming goblin who just wants to ruin everyone's day.

As far as portrayals I've liked, the sole honour goes to the Parsee in Heart of the Fool here on THP. Teruyo gets very into showing an almost feverish madness that bubbles through underneath a surface of calm grace, but that often conflicts with itself, never quite agreeing what should be done to quench its appetites. She's an enchanting figure who very quickly attaches herself to the titular fool, and he finds himself almost as fascinated by her as with the oni he clearly admires. I came for the oni, but Parsee is one of the shining aspects of the story. If only there were more...

Given that I haven't afforded Parsee much deep thought, I can't offer much in the way of insight or interpretation from a first post. I'll need to gather myself for a follow-up, I think.

First things first: I enjoy both the stage theme and Parsee’s boss theme. They’re definitively at the top of my list of SA tracks. To add to that, I dig her appearance as the patterns and cut of her clothes stand out among the cast.

I’ll take a slight detour to talk about oni. I’m oversimplifying a lot for the sake of not turning this post into an essay but oni are a a lot of different things to different people in different places (and in different times). I’ll put aside a lot of other types and examples and instead focus on the more sympathetic portrayal of oni and youkai in stories, where they are either created by humans doing bad things or are an analogue to humans, such as the case where one might find mountain bandits or popular rebels who live in the margins of society depicted in similar ways that an oni might. This is a whole sociological discussion but I think that there’s some parallel to it in touhou, generally, with characters like Suika, Kasen, and Yuugi certainly having noble impulses or are more than willing to play a role that’s ultimately rooted in a sense of justice or, at least, in a desire to help in their own way. I’m not arguing that ZUN is deliberately choosing to comment about this or that regarding society and the like as he’s wont to do for other things through these characters but I think that there’s at least a layered relationship with oni in both mythology and in modern Japanese society. And it shows.

So, why mention all that? Well, it’s because hashihime traditionally fall under the oni aegis. If one reads setsuwa or more popular stories of later periods, hashihime aren’t intrinsically evil and they have often been pushed into that condition through the actions of others. Betrayed or abandoned (typically) by their lovers, they are women who find themselves bereft of any economic or societal status or opportunities; they are left destitute and pretty much condemned to fend for themselves. They haunt bridges and their former homes after their (sometimes very willing) transformation and seek revenge on those who have wronged them. In that sense they are highly tragic figures and when they do get their revenge they disappear or are sometimes exorcised or helped to move on thanks to the infinite mercy of the Buddha (standard endings to setsuwa).

Parsee, as she’s presented, isn’t really all of that, but she does share an aspect with those hashihime of myth: she is ultimately envious of the agency others have and she does not. She was consumed by her jealousy of those who passed back and forth freely from and to the underground. Her role as a guardian isn’t all that clear but, perhaps if she had been able to live a little more freely, she would not be as she is now. Yeah, that’s speculation but as far as I’m concerned, it makes her one of the more relatable youkai since she’s explicitly centered around a very human emotion. Like those women whose husbands ran off with another woman or abandoned them for years to get rich in another town, it is fundamentally not her fault that her lot in life is what it is. It makes her very sympathetic in my view. That doesn’t take away that things have escalated and she’s something more than she originally was, to the detriment of those she interacts with.

She’s pleasant enough to talk to even even as her heart roils with emotion one might not expect. There’s a passionateness there that drives her for good or for ill and I’m not sure she would know how to explain it, let alone share it without it threatening to become something wholly out of control. Satori says she’s kinder than people realize (though she’s generally nice about the underground’s inhabitants) and I could see that, though it is likely a kindness that looks mad outside of her personal context. In CDS she says that she’s a professional at counseling—though her definition is gathering up grudges from vengeful spirits—but I think that it does nonetheless show a basic empathy that’s more human than most youkai. She does try to fend off the heroines for their own good in SA as well. So in that regard she seems less weirdly alien to me than most of the youkai we see, who have very inhuman thought processes and are proud of it. <obligatory Yukari joke goes here>

I also don’t think she’s just jealous given her abilities to talk to talk to others and engage in activities other than stewing around the passage to Old Hell. Is there a way to keep her jealousy at bay? I’m not sure. Perhaps she needs a change of pace or a different context to have an opportunity to manifest other emotions for prolonged periods of time. Someone already mad in a different way or who can deflect her own madness? Perhaps a change of scenery, that freedom to come and go like those travelers from long ago might do something for her? Maybe she isn’t completely broken or fully set in an unchangeable path. Youkai can change (Kasen for one but if you want to blame the arm on that, there’s also Reisen and the other rabbits) and though I don’t see someone like her changing anytime soon, unprompted, I don’t think it’s wholly impossible either.

Overall, along with Yuugi and Satori, Parsee is a character I’d enjoy exploring and writing and reading about in a story. I have and plan to continue to do so, in fact, and my and my story’s thinly-veiled identity is likely obvious giving my gassing on though it is not my intention to make things about myself. I will agree other comments that Parsee is a character that isn’t really treated with much consideration for the facts on the (under)ground: she and Yuugi aren’t really a thing and she’s not a foreigner at all—otherwise she wouldn’t be a hashihime to begin with nor would she mess around with straw dolls!

>>17793
>they have often been pushed into that condition through the actions of others. Betrayed or abandoned (typically) by their lovers, they are women who find themselves bereft of any economic or societal status or opportunities; they are left destitute and pretty much condemned to fend for themselves.
Which pretty well fits the status of the Underground youkai as a whole as the 'hated' ones. Even vengeful spirits, who are nevertheless harmful to most youkai in particular, aren't simply the souls of angry dead people; they're the embodiment of emotions so extreme that they manifested as living grudges, independent of the living person who spawned them. I think it's easy to cast them as hopelessly 'evil' or whatever, but I think a fair number are probably representative of things that humans deeply fear or resent and wish to cast away. And, well, not to get too far off into these particular weeds, but I'd say it also speaks to the 'noble' impulses of oni that, as noted somewhere, they were the ones who proactively welcomed the others into Former Hell.

>Her role as a guardian
ZUN made a remark in her SCoOW profile along the lines of, "wherever you find a bridge [literal or figurative], you're likely to find a hashihime," or somesuch. Personally, that makes me think that she just sort of took on that 'role' of her own accord, perhaps drawn to the 'bridge' instinctively. She may have never even been acting in any sort of recognised capacity. We don't really know exactly how the non-oni get on with the oni in Former Hell, but I could easily see things outside the Old Capital falling into a 'someone else's problem' for the oni, for the most part, no matter how noble their intentions.

>Youkai can change
I think the big question there is: Would Parsee want to change? Even if the emotions that drive her behaviour are identifiable and non-alien, I still wonder if the thoughts behind them aren't still ultimately outside human experience. What does her sense of identity even hinge upon? Given how much stress we see placed on 'youkai being youkai' (and conversely 'humans being human') in Touhou, I feel there are a lot of incentives for youkai to not only remain as they are, but to strengthen whatever core conceits sustain their raisons d'êtres.

Granted, there's a whole lot there that we simply don't know for sure, so that's already getting off into some wildly speculative territory. I guess it just sort of underscores how interesting a character like Parsee is when thinking about her speaks to these sorts of things.

>Personally, that makes me think that she just sort of took on that 'role' of her own accord, perhaps drawn to the 'bridge' instinctively.
... Maybe? There's nothing explicitly contradicting that but I was thinking about what is said in her profile, where the translation calls her a protector or perhaps guardian spirit of the dividing pit. I typically associate beings "of a place" with being born or created there as falls in with the general notion of spirits in the shinto/kami sort of way. Why get increasingly jealous of people traveling if you've freely chosen to be in a place and your circumstances? Why not travel yourself? If she did arrive from elsewhere, it would seem to me that there's something powerful that compelled her there.

>Would Parsee want to change?
Not sure it matters if she would want to change. Symposium states that she's a youkai with a human personality (translated as "human disposition"). Humans are many things and, on occasion, we change even if it's just in little ways, sometimes without noticing. Like the whole the whole "counselor" conceit is certainly a slight departure from direct jealousy manipulation and maybe a departure about how she used to think about emotions. There's not too much to go on, admittedly, but because she's very much the embodiment of a human emotion I resist the notion that there's an unbridgeable pit—at least one that is significantly greater than those that exist between people.

>I feel there are a lot of incentives for youkai to not only remain as they are, but to strengthen whatever core conceits sustain their raisons d'êtres.
This is a whole can of worms that would veer into discussion of other characters so I'll refrain from that. I'll just add that perhaps Parsee could come to be worshiped as a jealous goddess who can curse others for being more fortunate and thus knock them down a peg; possibly such a god could be popular among the young girls of the village （笑）。