#i feel like this translates well enough from her fgo canon

[chufa]

playing with miaoyi’s genshin verse what if she’s a yaomo who only really makes herself known following the death of xiang yu during the archon war

[randomnumbers751650]

Since nobody spoke about her, let’s talk about the Protagonist of Touhou Lost Word. In gacha games, the protagonist doesn’t have a personality or established backstory in order for the player to insert him/herself in the plot. You can deduce much of the demographic target and the intentions of the writers by checking which of the characters fawn over the protagonist.

But the Protagonist from TLW is different. She is definitely a girl and she has not even a “canonical” name or title, not even a reference design (like FGO has Ritsuka Fujimaru, Azur Lane has Admiral, Arknights has the Doctor), so let’s just be weebs and call her P-chan. Yet, she shares a lot of traits with the other standard gacha protagonists, like memory loss, ambiguous past, her choices don’t have bear much significance in the plot (in the sense of radically altering it).

One thing I like about her is that P-chan is definitely a girl. I call the attention to this again because a lot of gacha – at least the ones I played or know something about – give the option for the protagonist’s gender to be ambiguous or to choose between male or female, but the writing is clearly geared towards a male one. It helps that Touhou’s cast is mostly female and having a male protagonist would be…on the nose, so setting up a female protagonist was the right call, and it removes the aforementioned ambiguities.

That being said, we still know little about her. Maybe it’s too early to think about it because, as of this writing, the second part of chapter 2 will release tomorrow, and this text doesn’t count what is happening in the JP server. She has shown to be polite and dependable, with Marisa commenting she’s kind of like Reimu. In the cutscenes, she acts like an enabler to the character around her, in the she observes and enables their interaction, but still they still ask P-chan’s opinion on things. Plus, P-chan can act as their coach/manager in danmaku (or battle of bullets like the translation, I feel it’d be better if they kept the original term), which is where the gameplay comes from.

The writers need to balance P-chan to be her own character and still be open to be the player’s interpretation. As the plot advances, I expect her to become more her own character, since most gacha games tend to follow this trend (Ritsuka is definitely not a self-insert by the time of the Lostbelts and neither is the Doctor in chapter 8). But I don’t think it’ll be “developed” enough to cut down the player’s interpretation, only that she is somehow related to the incident and the cubes in a deeper way than it was shown. Still, at least one thing I can admire about her is her simplicity. Even if she doesn’t have much of a choice, she accepted the task because the ones needed asked her nicely.

Antagonist: “Why are you doing what you do? Why do you go out of your way to solve this problem? It’s none of your business!”

P-chan: “Well, I’m the only one who can mess with these cubes in a safe way, but… Why would I even refuse it? These people asked me so politely, and they’ve been helping me since then. They’ve become my friends.”

Still, the plot of TLW is really great, aimed toward people who had been fans of Touhou since the 2000s, with a more carefree interpretation of the characters (in surprising news, it turns out that Remilia and Yuuka won’t immediately murderize you if you step in their homes, just don’t be a jerk, but who wants to be a jerk? But Rumia is still Rumia, I wonder if that’s why she hasn’t been added to the roster both in the West and in JP). Even if she’s such a mystery, I’m invested in P-chan’s journey.

[ksatriya]

i woke up and read this little rant about nasuverse and heroic figures and myths written by @ostrumregalis  and then another rant by @solaetis which absolutely spurred this on:

i want to start by saying that i’m not a practitioner of Hinduism. but when i pick up muses like Parvati, Indrani, Shani, Rati, and Rama, i do my utmost to keep in mind that they are still living gods. that many, many people do worship them, and i want to be respectful in my writing. i do as much research as i can, i try to curve how much i lean on fate’s preexisting lore for them, bc that lore, those views on the current Indian servants are colored by what material the writers can get a hold of at the time, and how tv may portray these characters vs the written source material. and i’m aware that there isn’t a single writer behind every character, so personal views do color characterization.

Rama’s portrayal is one that i have mixed feelings on. in his debut chapter he is more akin to the hero i’ve seen on the Ramayana serials. he’s still this heroic prince out there trying to find his way back to Sita. and i know he’s a king taken from the point where he has sent Sita into the wilderness when she’s pregnant. and it’s a very heartbreaking moment in his life. i get why Rama is written as seeing his youthful adventurous self as his ideal moment in life, and that’s one thing I do take issue with. because someone like Rama, who is closer to his true self, i.e. Vishnu, than Krishna, ought to have no preference in his life. least of all that moment in his youth? Rama was 90% on the verge of a mental and emotional breakdown when Sita was kidnapped by Ravana. Lakshmana, his brother, is the only one keeping him from actually killing himself by constantly reminding him that he will get Sita back. and i’ve spoken about his curse a few times, which is another thing that bugs me? but you know, it is what it is. and then there’s the question of his godhood. i do love that Rama is still an unchanged Avatar, that even though he is a god, he is a god in mortal flesh. he gets to sit on this funky pedestal of technically being a god breaking the rule of you can’t summon gods to chaldea. ditto with Arjuna Alter. and yes, I’m aware that they’re supposed to be at a fraction of their power, but let me have this.

speaking of Arjuna Alter, he more or less has become an Avatar to the amalgamation of gods... or someone akin to Para Brahman, as Karna more or less becomes this combination of Adi Narayana (Vishnu) and Parama Shiva. Hinduism is complex, has many. many variations and very interesting concepts.

but it goes without saying that not all Indian servants are treated equally. there has always been this unrest about who is the better brother, Arjuna or Karna. who was right and who was wrong, who is the villain? and that’s not just something with their portrayals in fgo, that’s all around the world. it’s preferential. i will admit that i love Karna way more than Arjuna. i have a huge soft spot for Karna. it’s the underdog thing, you know? and his death is so fucked up that i love it.

in fgo, Arjuna has been stripped of a lot of his characterization to fit a certain mold, i,e, chuunibyou. but we get moments that reveal the complexity of his character, like his second interlude - according to the translation I read. this peak into his psyche reveals deep rooted insecurities and the trauma he would be dealt with by taking his brother’s life. how he blames this dark side of him which has been imprinted on his memories of his charioteer, Krishna. the best part about it is when we look at the Mahabharata and Krishna’s role, yeah, Arjuna isn’t wrong in blaming Krishna for this moment. for doing something as dishonorable as killing an unarmed man. (i’m still working through a slightly more cohesive translation of LB4 so I hold my tongue on that.)

and we turn around to look at Karna. sweet, perfect baby Karna. can do no wrong, Karna. so charitable he’d rip his armor off and give it to you if you just asked, Karna. like... Karna wasn’t nearly as charitable as he’s often written? and I’ve said it in the past, and I’ll say it again, Karna’s charity was based on whether he was praying to Suryadev atm or a bhramin was asking a boon of him. he was also noted as having a sharp tongue, and let’s not forget how he tears into Draupadi during that horrific moment during the dice game, you know the one. Karna’s a suta, neither here nor there in the caste system, and he’s treated as an outsider all of his youth. he has this idea of being a kshatriya - and he is, on a technicality bc there are sutas who are kshatriyas. he’s also the son of a charioteer, and god knows you owe your life to your charioteer. in fgo, the focus is on the more positive side of Karna, showing him as being overly generous, as being far more heroic than the texts play him out to be.

the choice to write them this way to fit nasuverse’s idea that servants are merely copies of their true selves influenced by humanity’s perception of them, but i don’t think it’s that hard to just sit back and go “are these really the qualities that we should be focusing on”? and that idea doesn’t quite cut it. this argument fails when you look at Teach, for instance. Black Beard was a terrifying pirate, an amazing pirate. he was a man with very specific morals and ideas, and none of those views paint him as the MISTAKE that fgo’s portrayal is. NO ONE would look at the name Black Beard and thing “that guy was a huge otaku/lolicon/pervert/etc”. are you fucking kidding me? I think of Black Beard and I imagine a towering giant of a man, his hair blue-black as the ocean depths, his beard  long with some braids in it. there’s a sharpness in his eye, a deep frown on his lips as he views the world. he’s a calculating man. he’s terrifying and awe inspiring all at once...

so... who is this joke we see in fgo? 

we get heroes turned into jokes, their genders flipped, turned into lolis or big breasted mother figures who nearly cross that line between mother and lover. you can’t expect historical accuracy or an accurate portrayal.

so when i write, i write with the idea that the Indian muses I pick up deserve a world of respect. that i separate the ideas that fgo might place on them with how i personally feel that they should be written. i write with this idea of canon divergence. i don’t have to love how fgo treats Rama, i write him as i think he should be written.  i don’t have to like how fgo portrays Arjuna or Karna, or Parvati, Kama/Mala, Ganesha, Ashwatthama, etc. i write with that in mind so i don’t burn myself out on comparing the canon to my portrayal every time. it’s difficult, it’s heartbreaking watching characters I’ve grown to love be pushed into one trope or the other, knowing that they shouldn’t be that way.

when i started writing Arpita, and this re-imagining of the Mahabharata, as inspired by one of my friends in India and her own friends, i wanted to see what it’s like writing a character from the other side. i wanted to see if i could maker her fit into nasuverse... and it’s difficult. it really is. i cannot make light of the way women were treated in India during that era. I cannot make light of a vast and beautiful religion and all its figures. i cannot make light of the struggles and the trauma and the pain and suffering that these characters have to be put through. i don’t know how they do it, the writers for fgo. i don’t get how they chip away at characterization, how they settle on the ideas they do. yes it isn’t all doom and gloom for Arpita, bc obviously there’s plenty of light hearted moments she would experience. but it’s just not for me...

i guess i’m trying to express that fgo’s portrayal isn’t always right, that if you like a character well enough, maybe you should see what they’re like outside of the canon. you’ll find that your current interest might just be more amazing than you think? and don’t worry if you prefer fgo’s portrayal over the reality, it doesn’t matter what others think. you do you.