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Touhou faction writeup: The Taoists
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Previously: SDM, Eientei, Youkai Mountain, The Underworld, Myouren Temple
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So, Touhou 12 ended with the Palanquin Ship landing in Gensokyo and transforming into a Buddhist temple
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Touhou 13 starts with a flood of divine spirits erupting from underneath it into Gensokyo
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To understand what that's about, we need a history lesson
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This is Prince Shotoku, regent who served under Japan's first empress
This is Prince Shotoku, regent who served under Japan's first empress
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These days famous mostly for being on the 10,000 yen bill
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But what if I told you... that Prince Shotoku...... was an anime girl
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This is Toyosatomimi no Miko
This is Toyosatomimi no Miko
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the Touhou canon's version of Prince Shotoku
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She displayed uncanny intellect and wisdom from an early age, and like Byakuren, she came to fear the inevitability of death
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but a hermit taught her the ways of Taoism, which she learned were a route to spiritual immortality
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She was excited to have found a way to cheat death, but also was a politician, and found Taoism to be an impractical ideology with which to lead a country
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Buddhism was much more convenient when it came to calming the troubles of a nation
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so, Miko came up with a plan where she would advocate for Buddhism in public but practice Taoism in private
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Unfortunately for her, part of her immortality training involved consuming cinnabar, which is super toxic
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so instead of becoming immortal, her body was ravaged by mercury poisoning
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Thus, Miko decided to become a hermit, and began an elaborate spiritual ritual that would transform her body after a long slumber
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Her plan was to sleep until the nation grew to the limits of Buddhism and were in need of the guidance of a new saint to lead them
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Once this happened, she would emerge in her new form and rule Japan
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So, she set the alarm clock to "when Buddhism falls out of favor in Japan"
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over a thousand years pass
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Buddhism is still going great
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But people are starting to cast doubt on Prince Shotoku's miraculous abilities, and some debating if such a person ever existed at all
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thus, Miko passed from reality into fantasy, and her mausoleum was moved to Gensokyo
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where she finally awakened, only to discover that
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not only is Buddhism still going strong
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but some asshole parked a Buddhist temple directly on top of her mausoleum, trapping her underground
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yes, Byakuren did this on purpose
HotXC
get landed on dumbass
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Miko doesn't really advocate directly for more followers to learn Taoism, but she has her own gang of followers already, and she seems interested in becoming an administrator for the normally-leaderless human village
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She has the ability to listen to ten conversations at once and understand all of them, and also the ability to sense the desires of others
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Her goal is to continue work on her immortality and eventually become a celestial
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Other members
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Mononobe no Futo
Mononobe no Futo
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Another Taoist, who was in on Miko's plan from day 1
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The Mononobe Clan were primarily Taoist, but Futo agreed to ally herself with the Soga clan in order to convert them to Buddhism
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when word of the plan got out, the two clans went to war, and the Mononobe clan was defeated
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When Miko went to sleep to become a hermit, she had Futo undergo the ritual first to make sure it worked
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fortunately, it did
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Futo is an old-fashioned weirdo who speaks in an archaic dialect and is generally kind of silly
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Soga no Tojiko
Soga no Tojiko
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Miko's other consort
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(she's based on historical figure Tojiko no Iratsume, who was a consort to the real Prince Shotoku)
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She was originally going to become a hermit alongside Miko and Futo, but she was sabotaged
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the process involves preserving your spirit in an object, but Futo swapped her vessel out for an inferior one, and instead of becoming a hermit, she became a vengeful ghost
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Remember how I said the Mononobe and Soga clans were at war? Yeah
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Tojiko is another ascended midboss, although she did get a teensy bit of dialogue
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Miko has a spell card that involves repeatedly summoning Futo and Tojiko to attack with her, and each time she does, they each give one mini-line of dialogue
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Tojiko was rescued from the pits of moe that most unspeaking characters fall into entirely because her third such line was 'yare yare'
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Tojiko's vengeful spirit seems to be mellowing, turning her from a vengeful ghost into just a ghost
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Seiga Kaku
Seiga Kaku
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The evil hermit who taught Miko the ways of the dao
GAY TENNA?
sega nyannyan
HotXC
SEGA
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She practices taoism but only for personal gain and is the only member of the faction that actually tries to get people to convert
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here's a photo of Seiga wearing a Santa Claus outfit while stealing people's jewelry
here's a photo of Seiga wearing a Santa Claus outfit while stealing people's jewelry
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that's all you're getting
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Yoshika Miyako
Yoshika Miyako
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A jiangshi raised by Seiga to protect the Great Mausoleum
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She's arguably the dumbest Touhou character
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She has no sense of self while following Seiga's orders, operating as just a mindless zombie minion
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but when left to her own devices, she reverts to something like her original personality
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but also regularly forgets things like her job, and the fact that she has a master
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she's based on Miyako no Yoshika, a 9th-century poet
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She has the power to eat anything, and in gameplay she summons divine spirits and you have to gather them before she does or they'll heal her
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So that's the taoist faction, Miko is a transfemme girlboss with two wives
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Tomorrow, we're going to The Moon
Princess Emily
Taoists seem like a slightly smaller faction huh
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yeah
Princess Emily
But they do make up for it with the transfemme girlboss with two wives.
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they're too self-serving to gather a lot of followers
Bloodededeborne
Seiga being thoroughly evil instead of unhinged is rare, since the only notably evil critter before her was murdertree, right
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She's a bit more small-time evil but yeah
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she's not out here conquering the earth or going on murder sprees
HotXC
she can make holes in walls
HotXC
very good for being an asshole
Vehrec
the taoists having someone who breaks into your house and steals your shit isn't gonna get them a lot of adherents
Vehrec
still less of an asshole than the Moon probably
Rama
Are the Buddhists the only religious organization in Gensokyo that's not a grift
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honestly even that's debatable, with the whole thing where byakuren parked her car on top of Miko's house
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there was a symposium held between Kanako, Byakuren and Miko at one point and Byakuren came out of it seeming like the shadiest one
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(it ended with Reimu showing up and yelling at them to all get out of her house)
Vehrec
wait did they hold thier symposium at the Hakurei shrine, or was that a metaphor?
Villain
It wasn’t literally at the shrine, I don’t think
Villain
She just heard a bunch of high ranking youkai gathering to discuss things and was like “NOT ON MY WATCH”
oh i'm scary
to be fair, being a dick to other religions doesn't mean you're insincere about yours
oh i'm scary
although Byakuren is like
oh i'm scary
philosophically
oh i'm scary
a deeply mediocre Buddhist
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In the events of spinoff game Hopeless Masquerade, a mysterious funk of hopelessness spreads over the human village
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The various religious factions all take advantages of this by having flashy duels with each other in the village to try and win over the hearts of the people
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This seems like it's working, because people flock to watch the fights and cheer on various sides
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But eventually they realize that the only reason people are watching is because they're betting money on the outcome
hot bear summer
busts through the wall
hot bear summer
TAOISTS
hot bear summer
hot bear summer
please take a seat im going to begin my 4hr powerpoint presentation about how miko/futo/tojiko is canon,,,,,