Neo Quinn
Touhou faction writeups: The Moon
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https://images.plurk.com/2Rf7yYlebuqayDbbC1UH6B.png We've had enough of this dude
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So, the moon comes up in Eientei, as where Kaguya & co. came from
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Let's get into the history of that
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and that means we need to talk about Purity
New! XC
fuck you moon
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Purity in Shinto, and also in Touhou, is defined by the absence of Impurity, which is a more concrete thing
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Humans can be tainted by impurity by coming into contact with certain things
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illness, death, bodily remains, violations of taboo
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it's metaphysical
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Earth is LOUSY with impurity
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but there are other realms that lack impurity, which are called Pure Lands
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the Netherworld is one, as is Heaven
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in Pure Lands, time doesn't flow normally, nothing grows or decays, life and death do not exist as a distinction
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The Moon is an artificial Pure Land
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It was first inhabited by the work of Lord Tsukuyomi, the moon god
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who conceived of the foundation of lunarian technology, which is that all of reality is built on probabilities, meaning that by manipulation of those probabilities, anything can be possible
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so he artificially increased the probability that life from Earth would reach the moon
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He did this to escape the impurities of earth and create a new pure world
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The Moon technically isn't actually pure, it's just extremely low purity
Love Snake Kaja
You mean low impurity?
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yes
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low impurity
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the inhabited part of the moon is called the Lunar Capital
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we first saw this in Silent Sinner in Blue, the manga sequel to Imperishable Night
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where, after learning about the lunarians, Remilia got the idea in her head to build a rocket and go to the moon
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the problem is that Touhou has 19th century tech at best
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and yet, with a little help
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https://images.plurk.com/3khYUBC1dULvaNGJgWdZ23.png she made a fucking moon rocket
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It's a combination of outside world concepts (three-stage rocket) and shinto concepts (powered by three gods of travel), and it actually made it to the moon
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Remilia's invasion crew was intercepted by a broadly-disliked divisive touhou character
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https://images.plurk.com/5btCE0lUStGY5IJbOej7mZ.png Watatsuki no Yorihime
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captain of the lunar guard
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the reson that people don't like Yorihime is this:
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reason*
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the lunarians are broadly established to just be Better than earthlings.
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they're stronger, smarter, more skilled, and wield greater powers
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Yorihime fought Marisa, Sakuya, Remilia, and Reimu in a series of one on one spell card battles
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she won all of them
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she has the ability to summon gods into her body and user their powers arbitrarily
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she beat Remilia by just channeling Amaterasu and radiating the power of the sun for an OHKO
Princess Emily
That's pretty hardcore to have as your guard
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I forget the details since I haven't read SSiB since college, but
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iirc Yorihime was facing accusations of treason because of someone using her god-channeling power and people assuming that meant it had to be her
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when in reality Yukari had been trainingi Reimu to use the same power
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so after beating Reimu, Yorihime drags her around the capital to show off that she can summon gods too, to prove her innocence
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most of the lunarians didn't really know what was going on, and thought it was a street performance, so they just threw money at Reimu
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Yorihime did not let her keep the money
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https://images.plurk.com/3DTuu1lsAn0EjFFgdHb4Zl.png anyway here's her sister, Watatsuki no Toyohime
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while Yorihime was busy facetanking the entire touhou cast, Toyohime went to Gensokyo to accuse Yukari of meddling
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Yukari was meddling
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she's the one who planted the idea of the lunar invasion in Remilia's head
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and the whole thing was an elaborate diversion
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to allow Yuyuko to sneak to the moon and steal a jar of really valuable lunarian wine
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Yukari described this as rent payment from the moon for offloading their fugitives onto Gensokyo
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Toyohime's main thing of note is her fan, which is one of the most advanced weapons on the moon
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capable of purifying massive areas down to the atomic level
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so! that was the first lunar incident
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some brief tidbits before getting into the second one
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you can't just send a ship to the moon and see the lunar capital
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it's like Gensokyo
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a pocket dimension within the world of the moon, accessible only via shenanigans
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for a time, the lunar capital considered itself to be at war with America
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because of that flag we planted on the moon
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they never actually shot back though
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anyway jump ahead to Touhou 15, Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom!
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The incident is the arrival of an automated lunarian probe in Gensokyo
magnet
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which is erasing all impurity as it moves, which is really a huge problem because impure beings would die if purified
magnet
fuk tha moon
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remember, pure beings aren't permanently alive - they don't have a concept of life and death
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drinking the hourai elixir, like kaguya did, makes you less pure rather than more, because the concept of immortality is founded in the fear of death
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Eirin, who's from the moon and actually is Yorihime and Toyohime's old teacher, knows this is a problem because the humans and youkai of earth aren't strong enough to stand up to the lunarians
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so she created the Ultramarine Orb Elixir and gave it to the protags
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it creates a state of temporary purity and allows the user to see into the immediate future
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this ties into TH15's gimmick, where instead of having a stock of lives, dying just respawns you a few seconds back
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that's a timeline you avoided using the ultramarine orb elixir
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it's needed because the pure power of lunarian weaponry would instantly and permanently kill any human in one hit
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leading the Earth Purification Recon Mission are these two! https://images.plurk.com/2uPwaPVPvWsqjIPxE0UGaa.png
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Seiran and Ringo, a pair of moon rabbits
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they're small fry, sent as expendable ground troops
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and after being defeated, Ringo reveals that some serious shit is going on in space
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the lunar capital has relocated from the moon to the dream world
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or is in the process of doing so
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so, when the protags cross through the dream world and arrive on the moon, the capital is abandoned
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aside from Sagume Kishin
https://images.plurk.com/5wbBUmNZAtfBibcPljsYLl.png
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a lunarian goddess with highly esoteric powers
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she can, by speaking, change fate
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if she speaks about any ongoing situation, then it will resolve in the opposite of the way it would have otherwise
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the details of how this works and its limitations are largely unknown
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but she fights the player to evaluate their strength, and see if they're powerful enough to resolve the incident facing the lunarians
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the next character on the journey isn't really part of the lunar capital but I can't not mention her
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https://images.plurk.com/2Yv29yeCDGTjKc6AJdfIW5.png that's right. It's Clownpiece
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Clownpiece is from hell
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she rules
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she's a fairy of pure chaos, a servant of Hecatia, the goddess of hell
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Yeeeaaaaah hell fairy!!!
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who was borrowed by a certain person in order to attack the lunar capital
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she dresses like that to evoke the image of the american flag, on purpose, as an insult to the lunarians
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so let's get into what's actually going ON in this game
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https://images.plurk.com/54CTUZ98Af1LRZ07kxTX5n.png this is Chang'e
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a lunarian goddess who drank the hourai elixir, and was punished with eternal imprisonment
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her husband was Hou Yi, the archer who shot down nine of the ten suns that the world once has
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once had*
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he also killed a lot of other people
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one of them had a mom
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named Junko
https://images.plurk.com/4qn9J0XRL53kut4KqmWGUn.png
Overbringer
The thing a lot of people point out about the big Yorihime fight is that Reimu and Marisa we’re not putting their heart into it since they weren’t personally invested in the duel
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yeah they were super phoning it in
Overbringer
So we don’t ACTUALLY know if they would lost if they’d been trying harder
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anyway Junk was driven mad with vengeance at Hou Yi for killing her son
Overbringer
(They probably still would have lost)
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Hou Yi's not around anymore, though, I'm pretty sure he's dead
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so instead she focused her grudge on his wife, Chang'e
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Junko's ability is... VERY esoteric
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it's called the ability to purify anything, but it's a different kanji than the words used to talk about purity in the lunarian sense
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ZUN has described as like
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there was a time before reality, when all things were divine in nature and had no names
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and Junko's ability lets them return to their divine pre-impurity nature
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Junko's plan had two objectives:
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Objective 1: Introduce the concept of life and death back to the lunar capital
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This would make it no longer a pure land, and is why the lunarians all fled to the dream realm
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and also why they sent a probe to purify Gensokyo - they needed a new pure land in the case that they lost the capital, so they were just gonna erase gensokyo and move in
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Objective 2: Murder the absolute shit out of Chang'e
Princess Emily
fucked up, lunarians,
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I'm leaving a lot of steps out because TH15's plot is actually really complicated
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but when the Lunarians fled to the dream world, she arranged for Hecatia to trap them there, and then the lunarians unexpectedly didn't shoot back
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leaving Junko and the moon in an awkward months-long stalemate
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until the lunarians tride to flee to earth, kicking off the whole game, and getting the humans to defeat Junko
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her vengeance grudge died down a lot over her six month stalemate, so she accepted her defeat in the end, taking solace in the fact that the lunarian sages had to pull off some absolutely wild convoluted bullshit to deal with her
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so, the Lunar Capital has been restored, and the lunarians are still assholes lurking around the edges of the story
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a fun fact about Junko to wrap this ramble up:
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every Touhou character of note has one or more official titles
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like Reimu's most recent is "Shrine Maiden of Paradise"
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Junko's title is this:
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She purified herself of all identifying information as part of her plan
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so she has no title
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Next writeup will be going back to hell to learn about the Animal Realm
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and... may be the last proper faction writeup
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I'm running out of groups with more than like 2 characters
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but if anyone has ideas for more I'll consider em
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less concrete factions like the human village or the youkai sages
Love Snake Kaja
So there aren't that many established characters from Hell?
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The thing is that hell is really spread out
Love Snake Kaja
Right.
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there's Old Hell, which is where the oni live
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New Hell, which is overseen by the yama
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Higan, the far side of the sanzu river
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the Netherworld, where ghosts hang out awaiting reincarnation
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then there's several other deeper Hells, like the Hell of Blazing Fires (where the nuclear reactor is)
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or the Hell of Pooling Blood, where Yuuma hangs out
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and the Animal Realm
Love Snake Kaja
Gotcha.
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and Hecatia's corner of hell which I'm not sure how she overlaps with the yama
ooh mama suemay
also Makai, which I learned through these writeups is not hell, but another hell-like region
ooh mama suemay
this gensokyo can fit so many hells
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yeah, Makai is its own whole thing
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containing Hokkai
ooh mama suemay
and yeah, the concepts of Junko purity vs Lunarian purity is fascinating in a way that ZUN only barely touched on with the actual religions that would deal with it (buddhism and taoism):

Lunarian purity is, as Quinn said, a Lack Of Impurity, a negative of a negative. As of such Lunarians come across as.... kind of dickweeds!
ooh mama suemay
Junko, on the other hand, operates much closer to the zen buddhist concept of mu, where "purity" is so detached from the concept of impurity to not interact whatsoever. It is a zero.

which is why Junko managing to overload the hell fairies (hi Clownpiece) with purity actually made them incredibly impure by Lunarian standards
Neo Quinn
the reason Junko kept her grudge for so long is because her hatred was purified of its origins, allowing it to sustain itself
Overbringer
So if the heroes had to drink a magic potion so they don’t mcfuckin die
Overbringer
We’re not really following spell card rules anymore are we?
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the lunarians play by their own rules
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because they don't live in Gensokyo and aren't interested
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so Gensokyo people need to be very careful when dealing with them
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also gonna mention https://images.plurk.com/7LN1mYA2ENMectzhyM0Oor.png this and some curvy lasers are about as ornate as Junko's danmaku ever gets
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she has very simple patterns
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which... does not mean easy
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some find Clownpiece harder because she's more chaotic, which doesn't meant that Junko's easy just that piece is the hardest stage 5 boss for a lot of people
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honestly I kind of hated playing LoLK
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the pointdevice system sucked ass and I'm glad it's gone
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and the game is tuned ridiculously hard to accomodate it
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Clownpiece on easy took me like 46 retries
ғᴏxʏᴍᴏʀᴏɴ
raises hand
ғᴏxʏᴍᴏʀᴏɴ
question
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The chair recognizes hannah
ғᴏxʏᴍᴏʀᴏɴ
kaguya and mokou are immortal and cannot be killed under any circumstances, or if they do they just get better
but the elixir made them 'less pure' and purification would kill them
would purification, like, permakill them
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that... is unclear
ғᴏxʏᴍᴏʀᴏɴ
does lunarian purification horseshit trump hourai elixir horseshit
ғᴏxʏᴍᴏʀᴏɴ
hm.
Neo Quinn
probably not
ғᴏxʏᴍᴏʀᴏɴ
takes notes
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but it hasn't been established either way how that would interact
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but it's established that the lunarians are ageless but CAN actually die in theory
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through like, accidents or fights
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because the moon is an imperfect pure land
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a true pure land is like the netherworld, like if you killed yuyuko nothing would happen. she's a ghost
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nothing dies, nothing is born
ooh mama suemay
Honestly Hannah you're asking if lunarian purity can beat lunarian impurity and the answer is probably "what?"

But yeah Lunarian 'purity' is the idea of life and death being impure things; not something that transcends both but excludes both
ooh mama suemay
However it's noted that nobody from the moon has tried to purify kaguya, or eirin, or chang'e
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that's true
ooh mama suemay
So chances are they just. Cannot actually deal with the hourai bullshit
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if the lunarians could kill Kaguya they super would have
ooh mama suemay
Yeah despite how Eirin is still on first name basis with the Torihime sisters, the Lunarians do still have Chang'e in Forever Jail and cannot fucking stand the very existence of Kaguya
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