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‘It’s terrible! And even with my powers, there’s nothing I can do about it!’
‘Clearly, it’s an affront to my sister’s entire existence. To both of our existences, even!’
‘I… I see,’ Sanae said, scratching the back of her head. ‘I can understand why that’s a problem for you, yeah.’
‘Couldn’t you help us?’ Minoriko asked, her eyes wide and pleading. ‘Maybe with you and the Moriya Shrine vouching for us, we could convince her to change her mind.’
Sanae looked away, her lips curling into a grimace. ‘Changing Yuuka’s mind? I… I think that’s impossible. You know how she is, don’t you?’
‘Impossible?’ Shizuha folded her arms, the anguish on her face shifting to annoyance. ‘Aren’t you the shrine maiden who performs miracles? How is anything impossible for you?’
‘Yes, but, well, you see, for a miracle to happen, there has to be at least some chance of the thing occurring naturally…’
Shizuha’s frown deepened. ‘Of course there’s some chance! Reimu has made her change her ways and behave several times! Are you sure you’re not just scared to–’
‘Be-besides!’ Sanae interrupted, ‘Lady Kanako said that I shouldn’t do work for other deities than those of the Moriya Shrine. And, I have errands to run for her, actually!’
‘I don’t think this…’ Minoriko started to say, but the shrine maiden had already hurried off down the path. Sighing, the harvest goddess turned to look at her sister. ‘Urgh, that could’ve gone better. I’d have thought the Moriya representative would show more determination.’
Shizuha nodded. ‘Right! This does not promise much good for the Moriya Shrine, if their shrine maiden cannot…’ She trailed off into silence. After a few seconds, her resolve broke, and she fell to her knees. ‘Oh, Minoriko, what are we going to do? Even the Moriya Shrine is too afraid to challenge Yuuka. How can we possibly win against her?’ She slumped into a sitting position and began to sob.
‘I’m sure it’ll be alright,’ Minoriko said softly, kneeling down beside her sister and wrapping her in a hug. ‘There are many powerf
It’s a quiet day, as I like. There are many ways to pass the time, some very exhilarating, others collected. Mine is often associated with the former.
I puff a hit of smoke from my pipe, my pride and joy. Smoking isn’t what I’m referring to, though. That’s very much the latter.
No, the pastime that I prefer and give to the people of this land of Gensokyo is that of gambling. In this room suffocated by my pipe smoke there are many Youkai of all creeds who roll dice, draw cards- and some even bring in tiles on occasion. The regulars are tengu, kappa, and various other miscreants that live on this cutely named Youkai Mountain. I’ve taken residence in my own little corner called the False Heaven Shelf for so long that people who come to play don’t even remember my species, though that’s not their fault. Over the ages everyone began to look closer and closer to humans in appearance, until one day I noticed that my own robes were filled by someone I didn’t quite recognize. Not the worst thing to happen to a mountain hag.
The changing times didn’t stop anyone from enjoying foolish risks or having luck be in their favor, no. I would say it let them enjoy their pastime more than before, treating those human compulsions like their own. The only changes now are remnants of the world we left behind appearing on occasion. Nothing so grand as lost writings or treasures. We’re the kinds of people to look for western card games or new house rules for games on hand.
A couple weeks ago, one of these house rules came into my den. It was a funny little thing at first, just an old hanafuda game called Koi-Koi. Seldom played in my view, the many Youkai decidedly considering it too juvenile for them to participate in. Quite ironic to hear coming from the diminutive kappa, with their upturned heads planted on oversized packs. I thought it no more than nostalgic novelty to see the hanafuda cards broken out, with the preference for western playing cards over the last decades.
What truly caught my eye was when they suggested different house rules. They would shorten the game length from the original twelve rounds to just three. Twelve represents one year, like how the cards of hanafuda
I remind myself of Koi-Koi. Specifically with this few rounds, I need to close out each round fast. No need to try and get a lot of cards for more points, nor wait for a really good set to show up. There is no waiting that can happen here. If Kicchou is doing the same,
Looking at my own cards I have an alright hand in terms of the value of the cards, but the field has only one match right now. Hard to find a set I could make with that.
Actually, on second glance, I have a very defensive hand that could score me well if I play it right. Four of my cards are chaff, a low scoring card meant for gathering ten to close out a round fast, but the other four are of interest. The deer is part of a three card set worth five points, so is the poetry ribbon, and the blue ribbon. The real standout is drawing the cherry blossom curtain, part of a two card set.
It would be good if I score off of that last one this round, but the other two rounds might not be so fortunate. I could focus on gathering chaff for quick sets. With only three rounds, though, Kicchou could get lucky and find the same hand I have now, putting us at even or worse.
“Hm,” I hear from behind me. Inubashiri is trying to act like she isn’t hovering around, but woefully fails at doing so.
“This isn’t a game of go. Sit by the dealer if you wish to watch,” I scold the hound.
She shuffles by the tanuki girl as Kicchou makes her first move. She takes a blue ribbon from the field, a sound play to take high value cards from the field first and foremost. I can rest easy knowing that I have the last in that set, however. She draws a cherry blossom poetry card from the deck but doesn’t have a match on the table.
Looks like my best play will be going for the poetry ribbons, since the last one is still on the field. It’s only too bad I won’t directly take it. Just holding the cherry curtain puts me in a dominant position for multiple high value win conditions, so Kicchou will look to close the round with a fast and low score if she doesn’t have something of her own.
“So what is the point of this?” Kicchou asks, turning her eyes up to me while I read her. She keeps her cards tight to herself as s
It's been a while. If anyone even remembers, I'm the writer of A (Lion-)Dog Among Gods (>>/youkai/31590). I semi-recently talked about my wish to revive that story and my troubles in doing so (>>/gensokyo/17495), and part of that effort is going to be starting off with a small, generally related project. I have something of a direction in mind, so it hopefully won't take me forever to write something, but I'm also not going to promise daily updates or anything that wild. This whole thing will amount to a handful of short updates with no choices. I'd still appreciate it if I got some kind of commentary or discussion.
Don't mind if events or circumstances described clash with what's already been depicted in Lion-Dog.
Sorry for the delay, I went to sleep right after posting. I know that you said you don't expect answers, but I read through everything again and I'll give it a shot at feedback, at least on the characters side:
First of all, Aya. She properly reads as a journalist trying to follow a story, keeping some professionalism which I'll admit, it's not something I see about Aya often portrayed as. Personally I like that. Even if seeing Aya as a nosy reporter can be funny sometimes, many take it too far making her seem outright shameless and annoying to read.
On the other hand, I don't see why is Aya doing this. I suppose that the meta reason probably is to do a recap of what happened with the other story or to serve as a follow-up, but as a character I can't see if Aya is doing this out of curiosity, out of concern for Reimu or without a reason other than just making new issues for her newspaper.
From what little dialogue Kasen has, she's par for the course for what I expect of Kasen.
Aunn I feel sorry for. I can feel the sadness in her and I want to give the doggo a hug. About the part about Reimu feeding her so little scraps, to me it feels like an attempt of proverbially kicking the dog, maybe even an attempt at comedy that doesn't land. Either that, or wanting to paint Reimu as the bad guy of the story, which also makes sense or else there would be no conflict for the story to go on, but I feel it makes the character of Reimu feel negligent, uncaring and/or unappreciative of Aunn's work and for me, that feels off. I don't mind seeing Reimu as a kind-of-a-jerk sometimes, sure, but I don't see her as the kind of person that would be abusive towards one of the only people that actually cares for her and the shrine.
I know this is lampshaded in the closing part of that update and may even be a fabrication on Aya's part, but I had to point it out (again, please keep in mind I haven't read the original story).
Marisa is the only one that feels off to me, but you already addressed that one.
Personally, I think Marisa is the kind of person that cares a lot about the people she.. uh... cares about, but is too proud to admit
I really love the picture you've been painting with these entries. I'm a sucker for "quiet catastrophes" in the general case, of course, but I'm also enchanted by the way you seem to hit this teetering balance of comedy, tragedy, and simple matter-of-factness. I get the feeling that things are in some sense poised to change, but that nobody can really say when they will—each character has her own reasons for behaving as she does, but there's that gap of powerful subjectivity between them that keeps things from getting out in the open and shaking out to a resolution. It brings the setting to life in a way that makes you feel like you could wander in it for weeks or years and not know exactly which one it was.
In a more technical sense, I think the varying viewpoints here circling around, but never actually reaching, Reimu herself really adds to the sense. She's the person that Gensokyo really revolves around, and at the same time she's the one that always returns it to that state of the "empty center" that's core to traditional Japanese aesthetics and philosophy. So this is something like an inversion from the usual pattern—a quiet spiral inwards, rather than a lively acceleration outwards. It's a feeling that I think is very important in a general philosophical sense, and very underappreciated, too. The subtle but insistent imagery—antiques and curios; fish bones; rice cracker dust; fallen leaves, acorns, overgrowth, and wild animals—gives it a creeping aesthetics of sabi shading into outright decay that tickles me to the core.
Sorry that I haven't been able to comment earlier, but it's really great stuff. Keep up the good work!
>>2993
Thanks. It's always nice to feel like someone 'gets it', even if I'm not that certain of the finer points. In particular, I guess I hadn't so much included the imagery of wear and decay consciously as much as out of a personal aesthetic choice. I appreciate you highlighting it.
Kiketsu Plushie Investigation Audio Log:
Are we doing this? Really doing this? I mean, Yachie's the boss and all, but they're a child's plushies!
...
As Asami, he-who-manages-Reimu, first of his name, put it, "Yes, shut up, and don't leave the file anywhere you-know-who might find it." Which is absolute fishbait. I don't know why she's suddenly so touchy about the plushies now. Everyone knows the girl loves those things, and she's still willing to dive into the pile when nobody's looking. Maybe the old man found out and teased her about it? Or the crafting goddess? (Sure hope the boss knows what she's doing working with that psycho.) Whatever. Beyond my paygrade.
What, you want me to call her "the miko" all the time? I know that's the cover story, but this is an internal file! Nobody's going to see it!
...
Fine, whatever. You're the boss.
Entry 1 - Genjii:
This one was the easiest one to verify. Our miko had dreamed up a turtle plushie with a beard, we check out the surface, and lo and behold, the Hak- what do you mean we're not using the name? Our miko's never supposed to see this file anyway, right?
Whatever. Anyway, the future youkai shrine has a giant youkai turtle of the same type, complete with beard.
Anyways, Genjii is absolutely our miko's favorite plushie. He's the one she insisted on taking with her when Yuuma attacked, and she loves him to bits. Like, literally to bits, the boss has had to patch him back together several times. She doesn't actually play with him as much, and when she does, he comes out on top, but he's the first one she'll cuddle if she's feeling down, and especially if she's scared. Though she tries to hide whenever she does it these days. It's a pity too, pushing her around on top of Genjii when she was tiny used to be a blast.
Interestingly, Genjii's also the only male plushie in the bunch. Which, taken at face value, means that he must have been the most important man in her past life.
...what? Look, you asked me t
I'm quite liking the dynamic between Greg/Kiiro and Chen near the end, there. Both of them think they're the big sibling, so to speak, and therefore need to protect the other from Tsukasa/Yukari. Greg thinks Chen is a 'brave little thing', Chen thinks of Greg as her little brother.
Not sure Yachie would ever be willing to so much as be in the same room as Satori. Yukari might consider it for Ran's sake, though.
Seeing as how Yukari was 'asking', rather than telling, I'd also be inclined to think she might have been asking about the ICs. Only thing is, a secret 8th IC might be a bit of a jump compared to Tsukasa poisoning his mind against the Yakumos. Not that much a jump, considering there's already 7. But still not necessarily the first thing she'd think of.
another thing that might've been discussed was Reimu's own attempt at Shikigami that she mentioned to Kosuzu and Mayumi on the way to rescue Yumemi...
that ought to be an interesting discussion if she ever brings it up.
and on another note: I wonder how it would have gone had Greg not been kidnapped here, especially if he recovered his memories after Yukari had made him a shikigami.
So, the rule I'm using for this is that the initial awakening requires some sort of shock related to your past life. This is why Kiiro awakens upon seeing Yukari, not upon reading Akyuu's scroll. He didn't grow up in Gensokyo, and his memory of the Urban Legend incident is very different from what she would have written.
And this is relevant because for Greg specifically, the beginnings of the shikigami ritual would qualify. Which means that in the hypothetical world where Yukari tries to make an unawakened Kiiro into a shikigami, he'd awaken on the spot and completely freak out. The ritual probably blows up in everyone's face, and I think a very confused and upset Kiiro would make a run for it.
With all of that said, without the kidnapping, things would actually work out surprisingly well. The reason this Kiiro is so hostile towards Yukari is that he has no positive memories of her to counterbalance Greg's extremely negative opinion. If you take a Kiiro that actually grew up in the Yakumo household, he'd have a decade of seeing Yukari as part of a loving family.
Admittedly, awakening Greg's memories is always going to cause a certain level of fear and concern towards Yukari, but a non-kidnapped Kiiro would be very well equipped to stand his ground. Between Kiiro's childhood with R/R Yukari, his bonds with Ran and Chen, and his own personal knowledge of how R/R shikigami work, odds are that he'd get over the cross-dimensional grudge and decide that the Yukari he knows isn't the one that Greg fears. It would take a bit longer for him to get over the fear emotionally, but he'd work at it, and in time they'd put it all behind them.
But despite that, Kiiro probably never actually becomes a shikigami. Even if Greg intellectually understands that it's a completely different ritual with completely different rules and a completely different Yukari, it's just a step too far. He can't do it, even after reconciling.
Also, odds are that Kiiro awakens before him being a shikigami is even on the
Huh, so that was what the Myouren temple background for Kosuzu would have been eh?
That would have been an interesting set up, big sister Orin for Youmu, and Aunt Orin for Kosuzu at the same time...
I don't suppose there will be a chance at rescuing some Keiga prisoners from Reimu's and Kosuzu's end eh?
glad to have gotten some Orin time here.
Post your entries for the exhibition >>/gensokyo/17524 here.
In a world where there are more yokai than there are humans, death is uncommon. That isn't to say it doesn't happen; animals need to eat, outsiders are preyed upon by yokai that need human flesh, and older humans passed on from natural causes. Gensokyo is a small world, and with it, a small amount of death. This leaves Eiki ample free time to lecture people about their vices and how to improve them. When she does, they usually don't follow through, which leads to more lecturing. Outside of trying to help others, Eiki would occasionally give a day to reflect on her actions. Her ability to determine right and wrong and the crystal mirror that can reflect one's past allows her to judge herself without bias. The reason why she has been able to remain patient with people who haven't improved themselves is because she recognizes that she also does it as well.
Like everyone else, Eiki is a creature of habit. Her occupation as a yama made her well aware of this fact. She witnesses her past actions and sees all the errors she could have avoided. During these times of self-reflection, a sense of bitterness would stir her heart. She knows she can do better than this, but like anyone else, changing a habit or your way of behaving is a challenge that even gods struggle with. Whenever that feeling of inadequacy began to form, Eiki would change from her work uniform into a more casual attire and take a walk to gaze at the scenery.
Her walk eventually led her to the village. As she enters, Eiki notices something off. The humans didn't seem different, if quieter than usual, but the atmosphere tugged on Eiki's heart. Something wicked is taking root in the heart of this village. It's what she believed, but what she sees in front of her challenges that belief. They were all good people; not a single one of them deserved to go to hell. In her heart, Eiki should be soaring seeing this, but she couldn't let it slide. She recalled some of these people; she'd lectured them before, and their disinterest was palpable. There's no way they could have turned over a new leaf so soon. Can they?
"...Perhaps I'm being pessimistic." She tells herself. &quo
“Oh, it’s the same as last time?” she asked and immediately betrayed a most childish displeasure. It’s the sort that makes cheeks puff, lips curl, and eyes widen and turn to the heavens as if to highlight her suffering so that the universe would fully witness it. The act also highlighted her deathless youth, as the roundening of her facial features combined with her eternal pallor reminds a casual observer of a bright moon on a chilly winter night. The grains of rice that git stuck to her chin and around the corners of her mouth as she munched vigorously (despite the nominal protest) added some greyish-white contrast—their effect was not too dissimilar to lunar mare.
Such thoughts did not, of course, occur to the target of the complaint. She was much too used to her mistress’ peculiarities and, besides, was too busy concentrating on passing the remaining rice balls to her to think about much. Years of service, however, had trained the retainer to be attentive to the wants of her mistress. So an automatic question, one made without really thinking about the particulars of the situation, sprung forth from her lips, “Is it not to your liking, Lady Yuyuko?”
“It’s not a matter of whether or not it’s to my liking,” Yuyuko frowned, pausing from chewing her afternoon snacks. It was then that she noticed the errant grains of glutenous rice stuck to her face. There was no modesty on display as she picked them off with her fingers and then stuck them into her mouth. She let the individual grains roll around her tongue as if they were sesame grains. She, in fact, was thinking that the rice balls could have done with a touch of toasted sesame for texture’s sake. But she didn’t vocalize that complaint, since she knew it would only distract the girl. Yuyuko had long since lost track of the amount of times she had given what she felt were clear instructions only to see the girl fumble about.
It might be worth clearing up a little misconception before proceeding. Though the world at large sees the girl—her name is Youmu, incidentally—as an earnest servant and something of a personal attendant to the capricious Yuyuko that is just something that
Eirin Yagakoro has received many compliments for her competence in the medical field. Even before the start of Eientei, the lunar capital higher-ups have always held her in high regard. I still remember those moments when, even with their advanced intellect, those Lunarians were baffled by the rate at which the doctor managed to solve her cases. It’s no surprise that the commoners of the Human Village would often have their minds blown away by her, to the point that they accuse her of witchcraft. I heard that modern medicine was the closest thing the outside world had to magic, so those villagers were not wrong, in a sense.
Our time in Gensokyo had provided us with a long list of cases, many of which were basic complications that even a Lunarian rabbit like me could solve, more often than not there were cases where the presence of the doctor was very much needed, as without her, there would be no other individual that had enough experience to solve such cases. One of which, still hot in its trail, was the case of the ninth Child of Miare.
It was an interesting case. In a time when bodily damage was often caused by magic bullets, clients with real, natural sicknesses were deemed as slightly above average in terms of their severity. A twin-tailed little girl came at me during my duty hours. Her yellow apron, along with the red and white dress, was unharmed, with little bells adorning her hair. I thought about the likelihood of a human girl surviving in the Bamboo Forest of the Lost at that time, but the questions vanished as soon as I saw the daughter of Fujiwara in the corner of my eye. She greeted in formality before leaving the girl with me.
I leaned down from the registration desk, bringing my slender bunny ears to the girl’s height. “Hello there, young child. How can I help you?”
“Hello, Miss.” She bowed down. Her tone was one of unease, though, she tried her best to hide it. “This is Eientei, right? I heard that there’s a professional doctor here, I want to meet her in person.”
“Sure thing,” I pulled out a sheet of paper from the drawer and clicked the pen in my hand. “What’s the issue?”
The girl hesitated for a second. “I’m afraid it mi