The New New Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium

As Sanae says in Forbidden Scrollery, why would they purposely try starting something with everyone else when they're one of the most isolated powers in Gensokyo?

Reisen said that, but the point still stands.

I think separating "power of the sun" from "nuclear fusion" is exactly what the story isn't doing though. They're being conflated in order to demonstrate that there is no distinction between technology and spirituality, which is of course what Kanako wants. The sun is awe inspiring in its divinity, a position that I think most people could agree on, and nuclear fusion is the concrete manifestation of the sun's divinity. Kanako's goal was simply to bring that divinity to the world in a way that wouldn't be easily replaced by burning coal and lightbulbs, keeping gods relevant as history inevitably moves forward, even in Gensokyo.

Hmm. I notice that we've talked a lot about Ustuho's function and the mechanics behind her current situation, but not much about the little birdie herself. Kinda like how Kanako saw her as more a means to an end than a youkai with her own life to live.

Anyway, it's probably about time for any last-minute Okuu thoughts before we move on to Parsee.

I wonder if she still has other hell crow friends.

Me Too. I wonder if she is high on the pecking order.

UTSUHO REIUJI: (All caps because I don't know how to bold text, apologies)

A hell crow that is a literal birdbrain. She can do her own job very well, but it is because she has that information implanted into her by either the Yatagarasu him/herself or Kanako Yasaka.

To be perfectly honest, I sort of envision a bit of a parallel between her and Lennie from Of Mice And Men. Like Lennie, she has a lot of strength, but she doesn't necessarily know how much strength she actually has. Or perhaps she DOES know, but she doesn't know what is the full extent of her own strength. She also has a Straight Man of some sort (George to Lennie in Of Mice And Men). They are also ditzy to some degree.

Let's see...I don't have much to say about her own power besides what's already been said, so I won't say anything about it. (aside from her powers possibly piercing the heavens, but oh well.)

...Kind of a foolish decision on Kanako's part, going ahead and feeding the crow a part of the Yatagarasu. Damn place (and maybe planet) nearly went into irradiated slag before Reimu and Marisa went and pulled a Spanner in the Works moment, and possibly saved Gensokyo. Rin may have also have done something about it, creating that geyser so that it would attract the attention of potential shrine maiden, possibly trying to find a way to tell Gensokyo about the incident without Satori-sama noticing. You know how kids try to solve incidents without their parents knowing or even noticing, right?

Sorry if this is long for ya guys, I have been meaning to write this for a while, but laziness took over.

'''Utsuho Reiuji''' -> Utsuho Reiuji

Clarste: Thanks

testing

Fusion is just a cheap tactic to make weak crows stronger.

Don't do fusion, kids. Only use all-natural supplements to gain ultimate power, like magical mushrooms you find in the woods around your house.

Hmm, all Wikipedia says about crows is that they exhibit communal roosting. So maybe? Except Utsuho is a pet crow, not a "wild" one. So if she had friends or family among the other deep crows, why would Satori end up more or less adopting her?

Also... well, she's the ditzy one among a species known for its intelligence and wisdom. So my gut says no, Okuu probably doesn't have many, if any, crow friends.

And I really wasn't trying to make her such a depressing figure, but sheesh, the more I think about her the sadder her situation becomes.

Albeit a Lennie who shot salvos of miniature suns when she got frightened instead of just grabbing and holding. Hope taking a yin-yang orb to the face solved that problem along with the megalomania.

edited 7th Mar '16 6:22:18 PM by Tacitus

Okay, let's have one last lead-lined round of applause for Okuu! Up next will be Kana Anaberal, Ayayayaya, and... huh, random.org rolled a 1, so it's Elis! But first, someone who is undoubtedly jealous of all the characters who have already received so much attention:

Parsee Mizuhashi

Stage: The Deep Road Connecting the Past and the Above Ground World ~ The Deep Road to Hell
BGM: "The Bridge People No Longer Cross"^note This is the second stage theme. We're going down deeper and deeper. It's not too bold and very ambient, so it's the traveling song of traveling songs. Somehow it feels kind of Japanese, but that wasn't on purpose, hence the "somehow". By the way, this has nothing to do with anything, but caves are great.
Theme: "Green-Eyed Jealousy"^note This is Parsee Mizuhashi's theme. She's a youkai with a wounded heart. So, I thought I'd like to make her a melodious song, and this is how it ended up. You wouldn't think it's a song for a shooting game, but when I tried to think of something good for a shooting game it settled down into something like this.

Spellcard Motif: Envy
Sample Spellcards: SA, GoM, DS
Jealousy Sign "Green-Eyed Monster," Envy "Green-Eyed Invisible Monster," Grandpa Hanasaka "Jealousy of the Kind and Lovely," Grandpa Hanasaka "Shiro's Ashes," Tongue-Cut Sparrow "Hate for the Humble and Rich," Tongue-Cut Sparrow "Large Box and Small Box," Malice Sign "Shrine Visit in the Dead of Night," Malice Sign "Day 7 of the Shrine Visits in the Dead of Night," Jealousy "Jealousy Bomber," Resentment Art "Grudge Returning"

Write-up:
Another denizen of the Underground who has fallen on hard times, though in Parsee's case this wasn't the result of the local sinner-punishing industry packing up and leaving town. She was once the guardian spirit of the passage linking the surface and the world below, but her jealous nature caused her to resent travelers who seemed to be enjoying themselves. Eventually Parsee became an embodiment of jealousy able to induce envy in other people, someone who exists to drive her victims mad and destroy their lives.

Naturally, this makes her perhaps the most unpopular member of an already despised population of youkai. Fortunately, Akyuu has researched a countermeasure for anyone who may have fallen victim to this green-eyed monster: vent your jealousy with alcohol. In an interesting coincidence, Parsee's most popular pairing is with a gal who never sets down her booze...

Relations

• Other SA cast members (neighbors she's jealous of)

See also the previous two compendiums.

According to Akyuu's profile on Satori, that title would belong to her (I could elaborate further, but I'll save that for Satori's turn). Though it would make a lot of sense for Parsee to think she's the most hated resident of the Underground, given the tendency of the envious to think they're worse off then they really are. As her own profile says;

I find her power to be quite a fearsome one, because "Her core as a youkai is a human disposition", the desire to see themselves get what they feel they deserve. One day, you think "Why am I still single while women fight over Jerk McJerkerson?" The next, you're getting up at 2:00 AM to nail an effigy of him to a tree and she's got you hook, line, and sinker.

edited 8th Mar '16 4:51:32 PM by Lightblade

Parsee Mizuhashi:

A denizen of the Underground, whose jealously knows no bounds.

Ugh, I still can't figure out how to dance around her Spell Cards after the mid-stage one...

Parsee gets super envious at times. I also think she's a good observer, perceiving the amount of envy in others. If the envy's a good amount, she could turn it up, making them feel just like her!

It's kinda funny how the solution to her envy-inducing ways is by drinking alcohol. Drunken stupor, not-so-nice rants... Hm, I wonder if Parsee hates alcohol herself. Then again, wouldn't drinking some fine booze enhance her envy-inducing technique?

edited 11th Mar '16 5:53:46 PM by Diamite

I think it's purging. Like, Akyuu notes that envy or jealousy can be useful as an inspiration to improve yourself, putting in the extra work to make the moolah to keep up with the Joneses, but it probably isn't healthy to let it build up and keep it bottled up. So take a drug that lowers your inhibitions, let some of that negativity out, and afterward you can blame it on what you drank with dinner.

Huh. Maybe this is where the oni reputation for honesty comes from.

Ah, that's right, forgot about the mind-reader. Hmm, that's a tough call, actually - on the one hand you have the girl who knows who you really are behind your mask, all your embarrassing secrets and suppressed impulses, while on the other you have the girl who can change who you are, plant this vicious seed of envy within your mind that can consume your life.

No wonder the plague spider is popular by comparison.

I was also tickled reading the bit about the effigies. We know Parsee probably wasn't the one who started the practice, but that's pretty clever, some ancient hashihime setting up a custom that powers her entire species. Almost a path to godhood.

Bocaj: Heh, nice arrangement that you linked there.

Anyways,

Parsee Mizuhashi

A youkai of pure jealousy. She is one of the more tragic characters in Touhou lore. Jealousy is an emotion that, when expressed in a small amount (or medium, but that is a stretch), it can help people. Get them motivated to do some things that are good. Maybe even make them work harder for a goal that they want to achieve. Jealousy, when expressed in a large amount (or letting it grow, fester, and consume you) would cause a great deal of pain, as one who has experienced it will attest to. Who knows how long Parsee has been in that state?

I envision her as just a regular human woman who had a very tragic thing happen to her, Her, as a woman, had a pretty decent life, with a loving husband. After a bit, though, her husband cheated on her, which made her very vulnerable. A youkai decided to take the initiative, and put a curse on her that turned her into a youkai that could only feel jealousy. This jealousy built up to the point of which she became the very personification of jealousy. Damn shame...

Her own power: The ability to manipulate jealousy of other people (as a Hate Plague starter of sorts.). Sounds a bit "meh" in comparison to a lot of the other physically related powers in Touhou, but her own power is VERY dangerous if she were to affect the jealousy of some of the cast. It would cause quite the nuber of problems in Gensokyo if she decides to actually take out the jealousy other than those straw dolls she constantly nails to parts of the bridge or trees.

I found one of the write-ups located on the previous Compendium interesting, in how the first-person sounded from the view of Parsee here. (I don't really remember what exactly how it went, seeing as how I first saw that thing about a year ago.)

Parsee is actually along the lines of my faves (along with Yuugi, Satori, Sagume, and Mokou.), so i felt like writing a lot here about her. I just seem to have a soft spot for tragic characters, that's all.

edited 12th Mar '16 8:56:09 PM by Brandon22000

And the Underground sure is full of them - good-natured youkai hated for their particular powers, victims of meddling deities, even the party-loving oni have a melancholy to them. And they're all down there because those on the surface drove them away. The Undertale crossover writes itself.

Now, I'm curious about when Parsee became a hashihime. Her original profile refers to her as a "guardian spirit," but also notes that she was "extremely jealous" even then. So, there's one possibility - Parsee started out as some sort of unspecified mystic protector who was assigned to watch over an important route between the surface and underground, and just so happened to be inclined toward envy. Maybe some curse amplified this trait, or maybe it naturally snowballed until she became a malicious entity of pure jealousy. That's a heck of a cautionary tale - forget spending 21 days under a bridge, if you aren't careful and can't let go of your negative emotions, they can transform you into a monster!

Another option would be that Parsee started out as a hashihime, and some brilliant Underground human resources manager said "hey, we've got this bridge that needs guarding, so she's perfect!" Or maybe it wasn't quite that stupid and Parsee was the best candidate available, in which case damn.

I wonder what Suika meant when she said this about Parsee , "She's a lowly youkai driven by jealousy."

Tacitus:

Well, I HAVE seen a large amount of Undertale/Touhou crossover fanart, so your statement is perfectly fitting.

As to whenever Parsee became a hashihime...I am not sure about that. I really am not.

GAP:

Hmm..I am not sure. Maybe she was just telling what she saw was the truth behind it all (after all, oni don't lie).

Going through the SA character dialogues is interesting in general, and the various youkai partners' reactions to Parsee are a mix of amusing and enlightening. Nitori focuses on Parsee's detestable power before telling Marisa to beat her up, while both Suika and Aya focus on the fact that the bridge princess is just a small fry (perhaps because both belong to races that now and in the past ruled Youkai Mountain?). Patchouli meanwhile gets sidetracked by the question of why a Persian would be guarding a bridge beneath Japan, and of course Alice and Marisa are still talking about video game levels and experience points (or should that be EXecution Points?).

Yukari's reaction I find intriguing, though.

Reimu: What was her problem?
Yukari: (She is a youkai of jealousy binding this world to the next through her regrets.)
Reimu: This world and the next? Aren't there too many people who can go back and forth between the two? Reapers, ghosts, and...
Yukari: (That's just because human death has a bewitching effect on youkai.)

I never knew there was some sort of Netherworldly connection associated with hashihime. But the way Yukari puts it, it sounds like someone's death might have been involved in Parsee's backstory. Except it's kinda hard to make that flow with the whole "jealousy" angle.

Oh, and by the time Marisa reaches the Former Capital, Patchy has figured out that Parsee is "A youkai driven mad by jealousy, sworn to protect the bridge." Which sounds like she went bonkers with envy and then ended up with her guardian position, which again makes little sense.

edited 14th Mar '16 8:20:35 PM by Tacitus

The hashihime was originally human before being turned into a youkai by her own jealousy (of her ex-husband's new wife). So I read that line as Yukari describing Parsee as a kind of ghost: bound to the world of the living only by her grudge. Because without it she'd have been dead by now.

Also, I think Yukari's next line is a bit mistranslated. I would say it's more like "to youkai, human death is a charming/fascinating thing."

edited 16th Mar '16 4:25:41 AM by Clarste

It is interesting that Parsee is some sort living grudge but I wonder if she can be compared to Junko?

Hmm, good comparison. I guess Parsee is a more "natural" grudge monster in the sense that her jealousy was able to grow and consume her, whereas it sounds like Junko voluntarily cast off everything about herself but her grudge against Chang'e('s husband?). Parsee is also the more tragic figure, I'd say, since her profile suggests she wasn't always this way and may not have had a choice in the matter, whereas Junko became what she is of her own volition and arguably has already gotten her revenge.

And I guess this does raise the question of why Junko felt the need to purify herself to become a grudge monster when there was already a way to become a hashihime. Guess she didn't want to spend so much time on a bridge?

As an aside, Parsee's sprite◊ in HM is kinda creepy.

Eh, I can see it, but then you could also make the argument that other youkai are ghosts bound to the world of the living by the work they do spooking/antagonizing humans. Or that humans are ghosts bound to the world only by eating, drinking and breathing.

And if it wasn't charming, it'd certainly make some youkai's jobs a lot harder, to say nothing of meals.

They also have very different reasons for becoming what they are today. Junko is motivated by avenging her dead son and has a specific target, while Parsee just smolders with generic rage at everyone. I think of Junko as the "wrath" to Parsee's "envy". It does make me wonder which characters would best embody the remaining five of the Seven Deadly Sins, but that might be a better topic for the main thread.

That could be debatable. I feel Junko has the more legitimate reason for her transformation. I don't think being upset at people crossing a bridge really compares to Outliving One's Offspring.

edited 18th Mar '16 2:30:05 PM by Lightblade

So Parsee is just a living grudge who gets jealous over anything and everything.