The Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium

As far as befriending youkai goes, remember that Gensoukyou has only really been around for ~100 years. Before it was established it's unlikely that she ran into too many, and most of the ones she did meet were probably the type that were mostly just interested in their next meal. So by the time Gensoukyou came around and she'd be reasonably able to find someone intelligent with a long lifespan she'd already grown accustomed to being alone.

Mokou is unspeakably badass. In all-out battle mode she's just as impressive as Utsuho, except a) she isn't a bird brain, b) she can't die. Sear her to ash, tear her apart, she'll be back. The only limitation is how much pain she's willing to endure before giving up.

In fact, going through Danbooru's Badass pool suggests that at least a third of all entries from Gensokyo include a certain fire-flinging immortal.

Picspam ready... picspam, fi-yah! pants on fire, kickass cape, you again, kiai, Faw-con..., death glare, ha...dou..., chunky updraft, tranquil fury, lookin' kinda alien there, here too, pissed, 3rd-degree burns, headshot, respawn.

What else to say... well, I keep forgetting she's female. It's not so much the pants as the fact that Japan likes the white-haired pretty boy look so much. I'm also confused over her backstory: did her mother die and her dad wanted to remarry, was she adopted, or what? The former would give her another (paradoxical) reason to loathe Kaguya.

I've noticed that fanon tends to overlook the fact that she shoved a guy down a steep mountainside to his death to get at the Hourai Elixir, and instead tend to assume Mokou's immoral for wanting immortality. Then there's the line "The next three hundred years I spent harboring a grudge against this world, and was able to preserve the faintest sense of identity by immediately dispatching anything that crossed my path, youkai or otherwise." (emphasis added). There might be more than one person's blood on Mokou's hands. Maybe acting as a guide is her way of slowly atoning for her period of sociopathy?

I like Clarste's take on her relationship with the moon-NEET:

Almost poetic, that.

Kaguya means different things to Mokou at different times - immortality doesn't mean changeless, after all. In the beginning she was an enemy, then she became someone to unfairly blame as the cause for all of Mokou's troubles. She was an obstacle to overcome, a motivation to improve herself, then a bitter memory. Now she's a nemesis that spices up an endless existence, one of the few beings able to emphasize with Mokou, and the only person she really knows in this weird little place called Gensokyo. In the future... who knows?

This isn't to say that I'm opposed to the Mokou/Keine ship, but it's just a temporary dalliance. The only guarantee in Mokou's life is that Kaguya's going to be there with her. Even when the sun burns out and there's nothing left to do but watch the stars wheel overhead, winking out one by one over the eons...

I wish I had some drawing skills, so I could make a comic of that or something. The last five or six panels would be Mokou and Kaguya slumped against each other on a blasted hillside, with fewer and fewer stars above until we fade to black.

Current earworm: "A New Journey"

Hourai immortality is going to suck once the sun engulfs the Earth and Mokou and Kaguya are left to drift through space, dying approximately every five minutes.

Or even when all life on Earth dies except for those two. I wonder if they could cannibalize each other to survive so they wouldn't have to constantly die of starvation.

edited 21st Jun '10 7:26:34 PM by Bocaj

Forever liveblogging the Avengers

I always figured that Eirin was working on the cure to immortality, just in case. Not sure if I read that somewhere or thought of it on my own though.

Wouldn't be surprised if she already had some ready, just in case Mokou goes completely nuts.

I meant for Kaguya. A suicide pill, for after the earth explodes.

I think that was a plot point in the Touhou Battle Royale doujin. Eirin created an anti-Hourai poison. It felt more like a plot-device to get Kaguya and Mokou out of the way given the last-one-standing-wins premise. Also, the poison's main ingredient was Moon Rabbit liver. Guess whose.

Forever liveblogging the Avengers

The idea of a power dampening field allowing Mokou or Kaguya to die also came up in the Tag Dream doujin... for all of two panels.

I have a message from another time...

Depending on how the reviving works, I don't think they actually have to worry about anything after the planet explodes. They're still capable of sleeping and, presumably, being unconscious. Thus even if they are capable of reviving before the cause of their death ceases acting (fire or violence is one thing, but if you die because you're in an environment that physically cannot support life, like the vacuum of space or anything you can't breath, it doesn't really make sense to gasp back to life every ten seconds—without spontaneously generating some oxygen, wouldn't you just die the exact same instant?), they're probably going to spend the whole time unconscious. The only problem is if the universe goes with the "Take damage normally until dead, then spring back fully healed" interpretation.

Or surely, between outside technology and kappa magitech, by the time that starts becoming an issue someone will have created something that can be used to render an ordinary human (which in most respects they physically are) unconscious indefinitely. Then they just have to stick themselves in a space shuttle towards Amdromeda or something.

I think we've already debated the endgame strategy for dealing with immortality in some other thread a while back, though, so lets not get into it.

Damn you people work fast.

I just got my comp back(I don't think I posted and mentioned this yet) so I was gonna make a mega post with Flan's stuff and some Rumia at the bottom and by the time I get any free time Mokou's already up.

I hope you don't mind if I make a mega-post with Flan and possibly Rumia in there since I did wanna put up my Flan thoughts. And yes I know everyone is allowed to post and stuff but I feel like I'm posting this anyway in lieu of getting it done to make me feel better about not having anything.

Build a wall o' text, Ruki. If you build it, they will come. They will read the writing on the wall which itself comprised of writing.

I'd be glad to hear your thoughts on Rumia and Flan. Add on any insight you have on Mokou too.

@Brickman, do you remember which thread you discussed immortality endgame in? It seems relevant to my interests.

edited 21st Jun '10 10:38:53 PM by Bocaj

Forever liveblogging the Avengers

Are you kidding me? Mokou and Kaguya will be billions of years old by the time the sun engulfs the Earth. By then, the Hakurei and Yakumo line will have perished and the border to Gensokyo would dissolve out of neglect. If they still have their immortality even without Gensokyo's power of belief, and they still don't do anything to help them get off the planet with their absurdly high amount of time and resources (let's face it, they're likely a LOT more powerful after a billion years), then they deserve whatever fate awaits them.

and that's how Equestria was made!

I'd kind of expect them to suicide around the time humanity goes extinct, and I'd be greatly surprised if Eirin wouldn't have made that possible by then.

edited 21st Jun '10 10:57:38 PM by Hylarn

I find it kinda funny some people like to make Mokou kinda health negligant, given she's apparantly a health nut...

Same with smoking, although in that case it might just be that she figures the regeneration fights any cancer or something.

Also random Danbooru comments of potential interest.

"In fact, given that the vast majority of her life was before Japan was opened up to foreign trade and during that fairly short window she was still a backwoods hermit, she's probably smoking marijuana and not tobacco.

That's right. She's smoking a joint every time anyone sees her, and she's still pissed off and uptight all the time. Imagine what would happen if she stopped."

Mokou is health negligent. She says so herself in Cage in Lunatic Runagate.

She knows that she'll live anyway, so she ignores things like eating and warmth. I think she only describes herself as a health nut so that people who've only known her for a few decades won't ask questions about why she's lived so long and looks so young for her age.

Just had some cheerful Fridge Logic about Mokou and Kaguya's fate - they don't have to watch the universe die around them. Heaven's been invaded before, or they could just fly over the barrier to the Netherworld. If Suika could bully her way into the land of fluffy clouds, surely an unkillable phoenix-girl and an immortal lunatic princess could negotiate for some heavenly real estate.

And in a worst case scenario, there's magic to fall back on. With millennia to develop their skills, there's the option of pocket dimensions or interplanar travel to dodge entropy's cold grasp.

Heh, or after the heat death of the universe, jump-start a new one. "And The Lord said 'Suck on this, moonbitch!' And there was light."

I read Mokou as kind of sloppy. She could forget to eat or drink, she's probably built up a staggering tolerance for pain so she just might not notice minor self-inflicted injuries, and she doesn't fear consequences of her actions because they can't kill her and there's no punishment that will stick. Plus there's the whole "oopsie a forest fire" in her interview with Aya.

Hmm, she could eat nothing but junk food and not die... but would she get fat? Her hair changed color post-Elixir, so her body isn't set at that instant... or did the act of drinking it change the color? Need more data.

I'm not sure about "pissed off and uptight all the time" either. Taciturn, certainly, a byproduct of many years spent alone. Poor personal skills, not above threatening nosy tengu with barbecue. But I think Mokou only really lets lose during her duels with Kaguya and all the therapeutic fire-flinging and bodily harm. Hence the oopsie.

Music: Concealed the Conclusions version of "Extend Ash" is pretty good, even if it gets stuck on one riff for the last minute or so. Virus Key's orchestral version is better, I think. TAM's remix of "Reach for the Moon..." is, well, typical TAM, all moving stringed instruments and piano. CtC's take on it is okay, I guess. But "Immortal Terror"... somehow it works with synthesized brass ensembles. You can really imagine Mokou hulking out once the theme kicks in.

As one last musical note, I've heard it suggested that the high-speed tapping heard in the original "Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke" is suggestive of a ticking clock played in high speed, symbolic of how the years just blur by for an immortal. If that was intentional, my awe for ZUN goes up another notch.

...Marijuana, huh? That needs to be incorporated in some fan works...

edited 21st Jun '10 11:45:06 PM by Tacitus

Current earworm: "A New Journey"

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

So that's how the Big Bang came to be!

"FALCOOOOOOOON PAAAUUUNCH!!!"
"HOURAI KIIIIIIIICK!!!"
-boom-

"'Sup, Yukari."

I think she simply said that for the dark humor. I mean, her life is defined by her taking some medicine and living really long. Won't find anyone health-nuttier than her!

... Yes, yes, I'm supposed to be gone. I still watch this thread though. Because it is my baby! Also I wanna welcome Ruki back. I missed you, man!

Edit:

FFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU why didn't you tell me that that MokouXMystia comic was still on-goiiiiiiing! It couldn't possibly have stopped at a worse time!

Ggggggggnnnnnnnnnnnnnhhhhhhh!

edited 22nd Jun '10 3:59:03 AM by Fawriel

And in the Inaba comic, Keine lectures her on eating and sleeping properly and not just relying on her immortality. And Mokou light-heartedly tells her that she ate poisonous mushrooms just the other day. And then she asks Reisen to shoot her in the face.

Actually, look at the contrast between Mokou and Kaguya in the sense of their immortality. Mokou will forgo sleep or food because the Hourai elixer lets her. Kaguya won't skip a meal, seems like the type to sleep in, and rides an ox cart through a building in the Inaba comic (which is canon in my heart) rather than walk.

Sorry about that. Would it help if I told you that its subject to crazy schedule slip?

I think it said somewhere that Mokou (and probably Kaguya) could not enter the Netherworld at all. Like Yuyuko said, being there is the same as being dead and that's something that Mokou (and Kaguya) can't do. Heaven is probably fair game considering that Celestials aren't actually dead. But since Tenshi's Heaven is just a big rock floating over Gensokyo, when Gensokyo and/or Earth goes, so does that Heaven. Makai is probably safe. I think its an entirely different dimension or something.

I like this idea more than I should.

Only tangential, but I've seen different interpretations of Mokou's feelings on immortality. I think its canon in CiLR that she's currently enjoying being immortal now that she's found Kaguya. And I think the worst Kaguya gets is being bored. And she uses Mokou to liven that up. But that's canon or as close as I can recall. Some grimdark fanworks make them suicidal. I remember one where Kaguya pretended to kill Keine to get Mokou mad enough to expend the effort to kill her. By burning her soul or something. Eh.

edited 22nd Jun '10 12:18:13 PM by Bocaj

Forever liveblogging the Avengers

Seconded.

Once, when I was thinking of the speculative documentary "The Future is Wild"  ^*

, I came up with the thought: What if, after 200 million years pass and the Squibbons are building up their society, Kaguya & Mokou are still there?

I make video games! Or plan to, anyway.

"We could use SQUIDS, Mokou!"

"...Uh..."

"SQUIIIIIIDS!"

...

"Bow to me, puny Squiddmen, or face the WRATH OF FIRE!"

"...M-mokou." >_> "T-they're squids. They can't understand us."

"...Well, I can dream, can't I?"

...

"So...should I show them how to make fire?"

"Now, now, Mokou. We can't interfere in evolution TOO much."

why am i even writing these

-UFO lands-

Aliens: Greetings, Earthlings! We come in peace/ Take me to your leader!

Mokou and/or Kaguya: Yeah, taking this now. Thanks, bye.

-UFO hijack-

Continue fighting in a galaxy far, far away...

edited 23rd Jun '10 12:48:02 AM by Scholastica

That makes me wonder how Mokou would fare against a Xenomorph.

Or, Mokou or Kaguya as the Non-worm God-Emperor of some kind of sandy planet.

Hey, new doujin what I found.

Also, @Fawriel: Night Sparrow Love updated.

Forever liveblogging the Avengers

Living flamethrower versus a species that can only be safely disposed of by fire. Wonder how that'll turn out.

Okay, you've got me there. But I was wondering what would happen if she got facehugger'd. She'd be pissed when she re-spawned from having her torso explode outwards. Hopefully, the chestburster wouldn't take on any Hourai characteristics.

Forever liveblogging the Avengers

Don't you become immortal if you eat her liver or intestines or something? The Hourai elixir seems to have a physical presence in her body. I suppose whether the chestburster gets it depends on exactly where the elixir is within her body.