Let's not get ahead of ourselves and imply Mokou's father is nice. Her father has multiple wives and is, along with the other suitors, trying to force Kaguya into marriage.
Everything is relative.
Crown Prince
edited 16th Dec '14 9:41:34 AM by ninryu
Rainy Echoes
Mokou's feeling extra powerful tonight. Must be due to the tunes she heard in passing.
Regal Smoke
Immortal Piano
Victim of Ash
Ash Feelings
The Tragic Immortal
Immortal Blaze
Smoky Trip
Victim of Time
Smoke's Echo
Whimsical Smoke
Immortal Domination
This. Cannot. Continue.
Dangit, I want to compliment the rest of your musical offerings, except "Volcanic Flow" is not only my favorite "Extend Ash" remix, but it's probably in my top five Touhou mixes in general. It's just that amazing.
The only other music I'd add would be... let's see... "Immortal Terror" doesn't have the best instrument quality, but it's a nice spin on "Immortal Smoke" that really ignites towards the end. Mystical Chain's Mokou-Kaguya battle has a good medley, and the fight itself has to be seen to be believed. And if you can put up with the simplistic art style and school swimsuit fetish, EWI's "Immortal Smoke" music video basically sums up Mokou's character in just over three minutes.
I was never implying or saying Mokou's father was in the right.
This is of course a situation where one culture's notions of honor may not fit in with our contemporary ethics. Fuhito wasn't considered a bad man for marginalizing Mokou and keeping her out of sight, nor for trying to "win" a bride through a stupid quest, but for cheating during that stupid quest.
As a consequence, this makes judging Mokou's subsequent actions more difficult. Maybe she felt fully justified in going after the one who had dishonored her family (well, the person who set up the contest in which her father cheated, but that's basically the same thing, right?). Or maybe it wasn't about the honor so much as an attempt to distinguish herself in the eyes of her father? Or maybe she was intensely jealous towards Kaguya for threatening both Mokou and her mother when it came to her father's affections. Or maybe she was herself attracted to Kaguya and didn't know how to deal with those feelings.
In other words, Mokou may be a mess of jealousy, justified(?) rage, and daddy issues, even before adding the whole "insane from the weight of the centuries" angle.
Current earworm: "Awe of the Unknown"
One Winged Egret
In other news, her dad got another of his daughters married to the Emperor and took control of the Imperial bloodline for the rest of forever. So maybe he lost the girl but he kind of succeeded in his other goals.
...It's actually kind of weird to mix the Kaguya story with this historical stuff because the emperor was also supposedly in love with Kaguya and then settled for the daughter of his rival? Well, I suppose it's no worse than Yorihime marrying her own nephew.
Formerly G.G.
Yorihime married her nephew? I wonder where Mokou learned her fire magic from?
"Thanos is a happy guy! Just look at the smile in his face!"
Baring hearts for years
Male bonding over the fact that they were both rejected by Kaguya, clearly. They had a drink, shared their tales of woe ("You tried giving her a fake? Oh ho! That was clever! Good one, mate!") and decided to become in-laws.
I wonder if she even knows. She probably doesn't care, but who knows, maybe it's what's got her so angry. After all, it's not like she ever saw any benefits of being in the royal family. No, that was her [partial, probably] sister. That said, the whole drinking the elixir thing came first, but who knews, maybe plans were already underway when Mokou headed out, blaming Kaguya for 'promoting' Mokou's own sister.
Wow... that would be -extremely- envious and spiteful behavior. Which certainly is a common sort of behavior, especially by people that history tries to ignore.
As for Mokou's Fire Magic? I imagine it's mostly self-developed. In which case, fire because hey, what's a loner immortal care anything about collateral damage? Her BAIJR article suggests she cares more now, but she probably caused plenty of forest fires out of boredom or anger over the years.
I write some fanfiction. Satori's Tale is done... but I'm not.
The Shrouded Knight
Here's another thing that might lead Mokou to feel justified in her vendetta against Kaguya. Wasn't the reason Kaguya's tasks were impossible because she already had the items she sent her suitors out for? If that is the case, then Mokou's anger could also be because not only did Kaguya humiliate Mokou's father, she did so knowing full well that her task was impossible to accomplish legitimately.
On the other hand, I'm not sure if Mokou had any way of knowing this. In fact, I can't even remember where I read that, but Kaguya's Touhou Wiki page says it was revealed during the final stage of Imperishable Night.
Funny but not helpful
"HOW DARE YOU NOT MARRY MY DAD"
"I wasn't really interested in romance and I should be allowed to make that decision"
"buh spluh uh CHALLENGES AND TASKS?!"
"It turns out 'I'm not that into you' rustles the jimmies of self-important men. So I had to redirect their energies and/or get them killed in the attempt."
"Did you seriously just use the phrase 'rustles the jimmies'?"
"I am a master of your earth jive, hep cat."
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
If I recall, Mokou's dad was sent to get the jeweled branch of hourai. Branches come from plants so therefore there's likely to be more than one of them.
edited 17th Dec '14 5:07:06 PM by Bocaj
Forever liveblogging the Avengers
This. Cannot. Continue.
Hmm. Just occurred to me that Mokou never mentions having to dodge household soldiers during her quest to get her revenge on Kaguya. So it sounds like she was able to run away from home, and... nobody cared.
You know what they say, beauty is fleeting (ha!), but a politically-advantageous arranged marriage can pay off for generations. It's not like you can't find a hot mistress on the side, anyway.
Ever gone into one of those skull-bursting rages where your muscles contort and you nearly go blind? Go deep enough into one and you normally die, but if you don't, boom, pyromania.
Less jokingly... well, she never mentions studying magic anywhere, does she? But she presumably picked it up while living as a hermit before she snapped for three hundred years. So did someone show the extraordinary poor judgement of teaching this unstable girl how to throw fireballs? Or by living as a "normal" human for so long, perhaps Mokou became a sort of youkai without any further effort on her part? More likely that she was simply born with a talent, and was able to put herself into and survive enough dangerous situations to develop it. Sorcerer levels, in other words.
Hmm, being a "witch-child" would certainly help explain why Mokou was shut-in and ignored by her family...
Current earworm: "Awe of the Unknown"
Well, you know she has it in Imperishable Night, but it doesn't mean she has those items then. The main issue here is Mokou's dad and the other suitors are trying to force her in marriage, because they are rich and powerful.
Everything is relative.
Funny but not helpful
I think that's the interpretation Taker Fox's Imperfect Metamorphosis went for.
Forever liveblogging the Avengers
This. Cannot. Continue.
But I wanted to have an original idea... 
Some thoughts:
"Living Ghost"
Mokou's basically a ghost, even if she can never be invited to tea at Yuyuko's.
It's not just about the inability to die. A ghost is, at least in some popular depictions, a tortured spirit tied to the earthly realm by its unsettled business. In Mokou's case, she has the recently-revived feud with Kaguya, and more importantly her guilt and regret for killing Iwakasa and stealing his cargo.
A ghost is an echo from the past, a shred of history endlessly repeating itself - the headless horseman searching for his lost noggin, murder victims drifting near their crime scenes covered in spectral blood, etc. Mokou's tied down by her murder of Iwakasa and the theft of the elixir, both in the sense that that's why she's in her current state, and because she's never gotten over that act. She was able to forget about the woman she hated, but not the man she killed.
Ghosts are stretched-out, translucent beings, something much less than what they were. In her thirteen hundred years, Mokou has gained little and lost nearly everything. All that's left of her family is the clan name she stubbornly uses, even after she abandoned them so she could paradoxically avenge her father. She's asocial, if she has hobbies we don't hear about them, she doesn't have many skills beyond hurling fireballs. Mokou has lost a lot of herself over the long years, reducing her to her hatred of Kaguya and probably her hatred of herself. Most of the past thousand years has been meaningless to her.
Unlike a ghost, Mokou isn't going anywhere - even if she gets over her issues and makes peace with herself and Kaguya, she's trapped in an endless mortal existence. But it's not all bad news. She's now in a place where immortal beings aren't feared and reviled, with an eternal punching bag to relieve her boredom. And she could always look to religion - Mokou may be unable to enter a higher realm of existence, but if peace comes from within, could a certain go-gooder Buddhist show her a way to reach nirvana? Or could the myriad long-lived youkai and deities of Gensokyo offer Mokou tips on how to train her mind to endure eternity? Could she even find a way to transcend her humanity, becoming something more than an undying woman?
Probably not for a while. Just being able to be herself is pretty novel for someone with Mokou's history, and someone so rooted in the past is likely resistant to change. But Gensokyo offers this living ghost two enormous benefits: a less painful existence, and options. Mokou can't be exorcised, but she may be able to become more than what she is.
edited 22nd Dec '14 8:44:43 PM by Tacitus
Current earworm: "Awe of the Unknown"
Rainy Echoes
Mokou, the eternally-bound spirit...
So, how did Mokou become a traveler's compass through the Bamboo Forest of the Lost? I imagine she herself got lost in its woods for years until she navigated the entirety of it. Through luck. I suppose she tried starting forest fires, but these bamboos have a tendency to grow very quickly, more so than ordinary bamboo. Or Kaguya's eternal powers cover the forest as well, making Mokou's fire blasts ineffective.
Formerly G.G.
Mokou is a great forest guide, she literally years to analyze the forest area.
"Thanos is a happy guy! Just look at the smile in his face!"
This. Cannot. Continue.
Well, Mokou's had a full two weeks now. Any last thoughts before Wriggle lights up sometime tonight or tomorrow?
Current earworm: "Awe of the Unknown"
Uh, uh, uh, how did Mokou's hair turn white?
(I never found the promised more Mokous. People said stuff better!)
Don't PM me. We don't like being PMed.
Baring hearts for years
My favorite "Clearly its not the case but shush I like it." idea behind Mokou's hair being white is that it's literally burned to ash by her inner fire or something as soon as it regrows (Which is immediately thanks to the elixir), and it's more like a waterfall of ash rather than actual hair.
More reasonably, it could be that her earthly impurity didn't mesh perfectly with the Hourai elixir, so her hair still turned white. Or it may be a symbolic 'she's burned out' thing going on.
I figure the fire magic factors into it somehow.
I write some fanfiction. Satori's Tale is done... but I'm not.
This. Cannot. Continue.
Probably magic, yeah. Can't be dye, since it wouldn't get revived with... well, would it? She doesn't seem to come back nude during IN, so maybe the Elixir works on clothing and accessories?
Anyway, whatever fire magic she's mastered has probably turned Mokou's hair white, so even if she learned it after becoming immortal, the instant she's revived it overwrites her normal hair color. Unless she went white-haired between her "young Mokou" picture and drinking the Elixir. I hesitate to blame it on a flaw with the Elixir itself, because that would be suggesting that Eirin could make something imperfect.
...Although if Mokou's humanity is interacting weirdly with the Elixir, who's to say if she's as eternal as she thinks?
Current earworm: "Awe of the Unknown"
Formerly G.G.
Yukari did state to Reisen in In that nothing lasts forever......
"Thanos is a happy guy! Just look at the smile in his face!"
This. Cannot. Continue.
All things must end, including the Mokou discussion.
With my mighty executive powers, I have decided that Mary and Renko should be discussed as a single entry, since they're even more inseparable than Reimu and Marisa. They will be followed by baton-twirler, and a swordswoman of a distant star.
Stage: Where the Fireflies Fly
Are the fireflies brighter than usual, or is it just your imagination?
Tonight will be a long night.
BGM: "Illusionary Night ~ Ghostly Eyes"
Theme: "Stirring an Autumn Moon ~ Mooned Insect"
Spellcard Motif: Fireflies and other bugs
Notable spellcards: IN, GoM, StB
Firefly Sign "Meteor on Earth," Lamp Sign "Firefly Phenomenon," Wriggle Sign "Little Bug," Wriggle Sign "Nightbug Storm," Hidden Bug "Endless Night Seclusion," Firefly Sign "Fixed Star on Earth," Butterfly Sign "Butterfly Storm,"
Notable Other Attacks: The Wriggle Kick
Write-up:
A firefly youkai with command over insects. In her heyday Wriggle was equal to the tengu and oni when it came to inspiring fear in humans, but in these times of fumigation and insect repellant, her power has waned. This isn't to say Wriggle should be underestimated - insects are everywhere, there's tons of them, and they're generally icky. But without some hornets or harvest mites around, Wriggle's mostly harmless.
As such, Wriggle is often lumped with Gensokyo's other underdogs in Team ⑨, assuming she isn't being paired with Yuuka Kazami for the sake of pollination jokes. Her other claim to fame is her boyish appearance (it's the shorts and haircut), enough so that ZUN had to clarify Wriggle's gender. And of course there's also her history of drop-kicking newbie players in the face...
Relations
- Bugs
See also the previous compendiums.
edited 23rd Dec '14 9:26:45 AM by Tacitus
Current earworm: "Awe of the Unknown"
Funny but not helpful
I don't know, they have some scary insects in japan.
I'm not ready to tell the Queen of Bugs to get a desk job.
Even if the modern world has good fumigation, how advanced is the fumigation in Gensokyo?
Forever liveblogging the Avengers
This. Cannot. Continue.
Advanced enough for Akyuu to write about it, at least. She talks about using bonfires, and also a recent invention called "pesticide." And it's oh-so-easy to imagine the Moriya Shrine developing a new crop-protecting technology to market to farmers, creating another ecological disaster to fuel the next Touhou game.
You have to wonder if anyone's cut out the middleman and gone to Wriggle and paid her to keep bugs away from their fields. Though they might have gotten a lecture about pollination and the usefulness of ladybugs instead.
Current earworm: "Awe of the Unknown"
Speaking of scary Japanese bugs.
The sensationalism of the headline helps, I'm sure.
You know, that is weird - if Mokou's life was kinda crap, why did she give in to the impulse to extend it forever? Is the hunger for immortality something innately human, no matter how miserable you might be at the moment? Or was it really a sort of sacrifice, Mokou giving up her chance at respite so she could get back at Kaguya?
Now... I tried to pare it down, I really did, but there's like 780 pages of Mokou fanart, so even if you just look at the top 100, that's a lot of high-quality stuff. And I guess some less-quality stuff that got upvoted anyway, and I decided to include.
In profile
From the incomparable Terajin
Sketchy smoke
Seated with a cig
Pipe and wet feet
Kicking back with a kiseru
I've run out of synonyms for "cigarette"
The rare lavender hair
The rare Young Mokou
Fabulous
A friendly spar
That hand of her shines with an awesome power
Aerial lounging
No problems staying warm
Helluva roadtrip
The mountains of Gensokyo
Touched by a phoenix
Style shift!
Take your pick
Confident
Swag
Unimpressed
Problem, moonbitch?
She crazy
This is a different type of crazy than the last
You gonna get flamed
Happy?!
Gotta do what you love
Wonder what's the difference between having one eye closed and winking?
Frazzled
Ready for your closeup?
Maybe I'm biased due to my orientation, but it strikes me that women look better in men's clothes than vice versa
Says it's a genderswap, I can't tell
She's gonna butle so hard
She can be a princess when she wants to
Sarashi, ho!
Pants so good they belong in the "Fund It!" pool
The 1980s
Oh, there's a "take_it_home" tag
Modern girls
Post-apocalyptic rebreather Mokou
Post-apocalyptic motorcycle Mokou
Post-apocalyptic monochrome Mokou (getting upstaged by bladed princess Kaguya
Eirin steals the show while Mokou wears an outfit from her youth
She cleans up nicely
Took me a moment to spot Keine at first
Back to back
Das smooch
Potential uncanny valley
An early meeting from Keine's expression
Child post is sad post
Like this
A challenger appears
Mokoross
I love Cirno here
Together they are unstoppable
Chillin' with Flan
Flan looks cute, Mokou just looks wrong
Oy, here we go...
A battle of hair
Choose a side
They've got a real connection
A blazing rivalry
A certain possessiveness
This is like when the two teams line up post-game and shake hands
Catharsis
Reminiscing
Dangerously close to romance there, Mokou
Alright, let's get to the fiery stuff - Mokou owns about 16 of Touhou's 120 pages contributed to the Badass pool. So there's a lot of stuff of her getting all pyroclastic on people's asses. And here's some of it.
She doesn't need the cigarette to smoke
You gonna get PAWNCHed
Fired up
Makin' it look easy
Spreading wings, disdaining buttons
Flaring purple
Ball o' fire
Phoenix aura, ofuda AND a ponytail
Crouching
Casually aflame
Colorful
Mostly orange
Do-it-yourself underlighting
Intensity
She don't even need to aim
That cleavage could be a fatal distraction
Revving up her standard special
Her side special
Launching with her up special
"Was that your best?"
Abs and teeth
That's a smile of grim satisfaction
An earth-shattering fury
She mad
Like the Terminator, but under the skin is another, angrier Mokou
A Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum sans the "suicide"
Neener neener I'm immortal
And not a single eff was given that day
And moving on to the best stuff...
A phoenix, and I want to say a rebreather and dogtags
like
dantewontdie
while reading this
Yellow eyes of creepy
Wide eyes of insanity
Love all this electronic stuff, but there's something about putting oil to canvas with horsehair
Symbolism and topless ladies
I'm reminded of banpai akira's work
The wild firebird of the bamboo forest
Just imagine this coming at you while she was in her "burn down anyone" phase
I still
Feathers
Pretty
Very pretty
Reach for the moon
Listen to this
And wrapping up on a lighter note...
Gentlemen?
Maybe she likes the gasoline smell
Eff bears
Eff Playstation
Maybe this is why she's always starving
Today's holocaust is brought to you by...
Another theory
Maybe she should spread them out
Should be a simple enough conversion
Maybe the Hourai thing prevents her from getting a haircut, so she's stuck with it
Mundane utility
Might be a first for Kaguya
Just hope she doesn't have a nocturnal ignition
Fangirl along with Mystia
Fujiwara no Space Heater
An early Christmas greeting
After this big a picdump, I feel the same way
edited 16th Dec '14 8:57:46 AM by Tacitus
Current earworm: "Awe of the Unknown"