History Fanfic / ImperfectCherryBlossom

* WellIntentionedExtremist: [[spoiler: Alt!Hectia.]] [[spoiler: Her]] grand plan is to [[spoiler: lead humanity across every timeline to prosperity.]] However, in the name of accomplishing this,[[spoiler: she's destroyed countless timelines, killing at bare minimum trillions, orders the surviving timelines destroyed when she finds the one she wants, pushes to actively worsen timelines to strengthen Haruhi and Sasaki so that she can get more power when she steals theirs, and plans for her first act as a perfect god to be the [[KillEmAll total annihilation of every single Kyon in the Multiverse]] because of the vague and unexplained possibility in canon that Kyon can take Haruhi's powers and thus could possibly do the same to her if she wins.]]

* RealityEnsues: Getting magic doesn't mean that you can automatically understand or use it, and even if you do figure it out, it doesn't make up for having any combat experience. Kyon spends most of the fights running support and his victories are the result of careful and creative use of his resources rather than outright power or skill. It takes [[spoiler: years of training and power-ups]] for him to have a chance in a straight-up fight, and even then he's still far weaker than the rest of the incident resolvers and prefers to assist and coordinate over front-line combat.
** Life-threatening situations and traumatic experiences aren't things you can just get over once the events are passed. [[spoiler: Kyon ends up traumatized and depressed after he kills a Sky Canopy Domain unit at the end of the PN arc and struggles psychologically with recovery.]] It takes [[spoiler: learning he's dead in the future and resolving to survive even if he has to kill]] for [[spoiler: Kyon]] to even start moving past it.
** Youkai preying on humans isn't something that the humans can just forget. Despite forging bonds with the residents of Gensokyo, the question of whether or not he's correct in protecting beings that kill people to survive or a society that seems to treat the weak as irrelevant is something that Kyon struggles with for quite a while.

* [[AGodAmI A God Am I]]: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] by Sasaki, who views becoming a god as a downgrade from being human and actively avoids becoming one despite having the ability to do so easily.

* [[AdaptationalBadass Adaptational Badass]]: [[WorldOfBadass Pretty much everyone.]] Stage bosses now require multiple characters working together to beat, with some like [[spoiler: Parsee]] even being capable of holding their own against the entire party, and even the mooks can be a serious threat to the heroes under the right circumstances.

* [[BatmanGambit Batman Gambit]] This is pretty much the MO of most of the schemers. Yukari sets up situations where the heroes better nature leads them to fulfill her goals, [[spoiler: Yasumi]] creates a scenario where [[spoiler: Tenshi's pride and desire for entertainment push her to go all out against the heroes and encourage the incident resolvers to keep training]], and [[spoiler: Alt!Hectia]] uses the information from [[spoiler: past timelines]] to predict and manipulate the actions and abilities of the main characters.


* [[BerserkButton Berserk Button]]: Don't threaten the people Kyon cares about. [[BewareTheNiceOnes You won't like what happens.]]

* [[BrainwashedAndCrazy Brainwashed and Crazy]]: The Altered. They're effectively magically brainwashed characters, identified by static where their eyes are. Much like zombies, they can spread the infection via contact and tend to ignore pain and damage. Their presence is one of the main indicators that [[spoiler: an outside force is interfering with Gensokyo.]]

* [[TheCorruption The Corruption]]: The [[spoiler: light of the false moon]] drives any and all Youkai in contact with it steadily insane regardless of their power or precautions. The afflicted then proceed to search out and kill anyone and everyone in Gensokyo, with a special emphasis on fairies. The only way to prevent it from twisting you is avoiding [[spoiler: the moonlight]] entirely.

* [[DeconstructionFic Deconstruction Fic]]: Imperfect Cherry Blossom takes a good long look at parts of Gensokyo that are rarely covered in the canon, such as the actual mortality rate of humans not part of the village, the fairness and potential lack-thereof of the status quo, and the darker side of some characters. With special mention going to [[BloodKnight Remilia]] and [[TheChessmaster Yukari]]. All the wonder and joy of Gensokyo is still very much there, but there's no denying that it's a deadly and at times dark place and the dangers that the Youkai pose to humans are something that Kyon and the other humans can't forget.

* [[TheDreaded The Dreaded]]: Deliberately invoked by Yukari. She's effectively Genoksyo's boogeyman to the average being and the few instances of her cutting, mostly, loose are outright terrifying even for the incident resolvers.

* [[TheGadfly The Gadfly]]: Satori. She isn't deliberately malicious about it, but she isn't above prodding people if she considers it useful. Such as how she reveals Kyon's collection of Mikaru pictures to distract him and Marisa and later goes on to reveal Sakuya's, and nearly the other heroines, most embarrassing secret when they start judging him.

* [[GreyAndGreyMorality Grey And Grey Morality]]: There's a lot of this. The residents of Gensokyo are shown to be, for the most part, good and reasonable people who frequently put their lives on the line to protect their home and don't go out of their way to cause harm without reason. However, they also survive off the kidnapping and murder of countless humans and are a threat to humanity by their very nature. In contrast, [[spoiler: Suou and her followers]] attempt outright genocide, enslave others, and try and kill anyone in their way, but do so in order to [[spoiler: protect Haruhi-Earth from the threat Gensokyo poses.]]

* [[TheHeart The Heart]]: Kyon, hands down. He's the only member of the incident resolvers who has unambiguously positive relationships with all the others and he's often the one who helps them work past their issues or recruits new allies. It's outright stated that his presence is the difference between the cast using the standard Touhou method[[labelnote:*]]everyone wandering around on their own, randomly beating people up until they find the culprit[[/labelnote]] and the more cooperative and streamlined approach.

* [[ALighterShadeOfGrey A Lighter Shade Of Grey]]: Gensokyo tends to come off as this. Despite the [[GreyAndGreyMorality morally-dubious]] [[ImAHumanitarian actions of the population]] they're largely portrayed sympathetically and don't perform the kind of atrocities that the other factions do. A lot of this comes down to the fact that [[PunchClockVillain outside of their dietary needs and the need for humans to fear them]], youkai characters aren't shown acting maliciously beyond being overly manipulative or quick to pick fights, with even one as hostile Rumia befriending a human child and later [[spoiler: being genuinely distraught at their death.]] Since the other factions are actively trying to kill the cast and many ''many'' innocent people and show little to no remorse for their actions, they tend to look significantly worse.

* [[OutsideContextProblem Outside Context Problem]]: Play straight and [[AvertedTrope averted]]. Kyon easily adapts his experiences with closed space and Haruhi to Gensokyo, but Yukari is blind-sided by [[spoiler: the intrusion of the Sky Canopy Domain]] and forced into disadvantageous situations while she tries to adapt.

* [[RealityEnsues Reality Ensues]]: Getting magic doesn't mean that you can automatically understand or use it, and even if you do figure it out, it doesn't make up for having any combat experience. Kyon spends most of the fights running support and his victories are the result of careful and creative use of his resources rather than outright power or skill. It takes [[spoiler: years of training and power-ups]] for him to have a chance in a straight-up fight, and even then he's still far weaker than the rest of the incident resolvers and prefers to assist and coordinate over front-line combat.

* [[SpannerInTheWorks Spanner In The Works]]: The [[spoiler: entire PSC arc]] is this for [[spoiler: Hectia and her arrangement.]] It is ''heavily'' implied that [[spoiler: Yukari]] deliberately arranged for it to go the way it did in order to [[spoiler: prevent Kyon's death]] and invoke this trope.

* [[StarCrossedLovers Star-Crossed Lovers]]: Kyon and Marisa. It's made clear that Kyon has a thing for her and that the feeling is mutual on her end, but Kyon's responsibilities in the outside world and the danger that would come from breaking Haruhi's heart makes a relationship between the two pretty much impossible.

* [[TemptingFate Tempting Fate]]: [[spoiler: Suou]] makes the mistake of gloating to the captive heroes that she's researched every youkai in Gensokyo and accounted for their powers. Cue [[spoiler: [[PutOnABus Mima]]]] blowing up [[spoiler: the fake moon with a Twilight Spark.]]


* [[WellIntentionedExtremist Well-Intentioned Extremist]]: [[spoiler: Alt!Hectia.]] [[spoiler: Her]] grand plan is to [[spoiler: lead humanity across every timeline to prosperity.]] However, in the name of accomplishing this,[[spoiler: she's destroyed countless timelines, killing at bare minimum trillions, orders the surviving timelines destroyed when she finds the one she wants, pushes to actively worsen timelines to strengthen Haruhi and Sasaki so that she can get more power when she steals theirs, and plans for her first act as a perfect god to be the [[KillEmAll total annihilation of every single Kyon in the Multiverse]] because of the vague and unexplained possibility in canon that Kyon can take Haruhi's powers and thus could possibly do the same to her if she wins.]]

* [[WhamLine Wham Line]]: "All right, human. Let me spell it out for you, plain and simple so you can begin to grasp the situation. [[spoiler: Gensokyo invaded our world".]]

* [[WhamShot Wham Shot]]: At the end of Chapter 40, [[spoiler: Alt!Hectia]] is reading a book that is implied to have set [[spoiler: her]] down [[spoiler: her]] current path. Its title? [[spoiler: The Disassociation of Haruhi Suziyama]].

* [[TheCorruption The Corruption]]: The Altered. They're effectively magically brainwashed characters, identified by static where their eyes are. Much like zombies, they can spread the infection via contact and tend to ignore pain and damage. Their presence is one of the main indicators that [[spoiler: an outside force is interfering with Gensokyo.]]

* [[WhamShot Wham Shot]]: At the end of Chapter 40, [[spoiler: Alt!Hectia]] is reading a book that is implied to have set [[spoiler: her]] down [[spoiler: her]] current path. Its name? [[spoiler: The Disassociation of Haruhi Suziyama]].

* [[WhamShot Wham Shot]]: At the end of Chapter 40, [[spoiler: Alt!Hectia]] is reading a book that is implied to have set [[spoiler: her]] down [[spoiler: her]] current path. It's name? [[spoiler: The Disassociation of Haruhi Suziyama]].

** "Well, this is the time to come clean. No theatrics. You're going up against [[spoiler: the Greek Goddess of Magic.]]

** Special mention goes to Kyon. Like in canon, Kyon starts off with no supernatural abilities whatsoever, but [[spoiler: during the ICB arc he gains to the ability to use the blossoms of the Saigyouji Ayakashi to create paranormal barriers that can heal allies or be used as magical bombs.]] Later chapters see him [[spoiler: discover that he can also use heavens peaches to attain a [[SuperMode Focus Mode]], learn that he apparently qualifies to wield [[DivineWeapon The Sword of Hisou]], and have Nagato [[EmpoweredBadassNormal inject him with nanomachines to optimize his abilities]].]] In the Meltdown arc, he leverages all that and the assistance of Cirno and the Three Faries of Light to [[spoiler: ''defeat Alt!Clownpiece.'']]

** The fact that Gensokyo is the only faction shown to undergo [[CharacterDevelopment character development]] doesn't hurt.

** The fact that Gensokyo is the only faction shown to undergo [[CharacterDevelopent character development]] doesn't hurt.

** ''Do not'' mess with Reimu's shrine if you want to keep your teeth. During the SWR chapter, she [[spoiler: [[CurbstompBattle beats down]] [[TheRival Marisa]], [[GrimReaper Komachi]], and [[TheJuggernaut Remilia]] simply because her intuition told her that they had something to do with the incident and she really wanted to vent.]]

* [[AdaptationalBadass Adaptational Badass]]: [[WorldOfBadass Pretty much everyone.]] Even the likes of stage 1 and 2 bosses now require multiple characters working together to beat and even the mooks can be a threat under the right circumstances.

** The fact that Gensokyo actually tries to learn from its experiences and better themselves is a big factor in this.

* [[TheHeart The Heart]]: Kyon, hands down. He's the only member of the incident resolvers who has unambiguously positive relationships with the others and he's often the one who helps the others work past their issues or recruits new allies. It's outright stated that his presence is the difference between the cast using the standard Touhou method[[labelnote:*]]everyone wandering around on their own, randomly beating people up until they find the culprit[[/labelnote]] and the more cooperative and streamlined approach.

* [[ALighterShadeOfGrey A Lighter Shade Of Grey]]: Gensokyo tends to come off as this. Despite the [[GreyAndGreyMorality morally-dubious]] [[ImAHumanitarian actions of the population]] they're largely portrayed sympathetically and don't perform the kind of atrocities that the other factions do. A lot of this comes down to the fact that [[PunchClockVillain outside of their dietary needs and the need for humans to fear them]], youkai characters aren't shown acting maliciously beyond being overly manipulative or quick to pick fights, with even one as hostile Rumia befriending a human child and later [[spoiler: being genuinely distraught at their death.]] Since the other factions are actively trying to kill the cast and many ''many'' other people and show little to no remorse for their actions, they tend to look significantly worse.

* [[ALighterShadeOfGrey A Lighter Shade Of Grey]]: Gensokyo tends to come off as this. Despite the [[GreyAndGreyMorality morally-dubious]] [[ImAHumanitarian actions of the population]] they're largely portrayed sympathetically and don't perform the kind of atrocities that the other factions do. Even Yukari, who is directly responsible for a great deal of Gensokyo's darker aspects, is shown to genuinely care about the rest of the cast and goes to great lengths to ensure their happiness and survival. Since the other factions are actively trying to kill the cast and many, ''many'' other people, they tend to look significantly worse.

* [[AdaptationalBadass Adaptational Badass]]: [[WorldOfBadass Pretty much everyone.]] Even the likes of stage 1 and 2 bosses now require multiple characters working together to beat.

** It's also one of Gappy stories in general. Kyon goes through all the standard experiences, being dropped into Gensokyo, meeting and befriending the canon cast, working with them to resolve incidents, developing powers, and getting [[ShipTease shipping moments]] with the girls. However, he's nearly eaten within minutes of arriving, the SDM plans to treat him as a test dummy and meal at first, he has no combat experience or understanding of his new abilities so he has to depend on the mercy of others to survive and make very careful use of what he has in order to contribute, his power is highly situational and mainly good for support, and he can't bring himself to abandon his life outside Gensokyo for a romance.

* [[TheCorruption The Corruption]]: The Altered. They're effectively magically brainwashed characters, identified by static where their eyes are. Much like zombies, they can spread the infection via contact and tend to ignore pain and damage. Their presence is one of the main indicators that [[spoiler: an outside force is interfering with Gensokyo.]]

* [[AdaptationalBadass Adaptational Badass]]: [[WorldOfBadass Pretty much everyone.]]