I should get more than one Touhou icon.

[spotto]

This is my fifth rewrite of this post, lololol. Let's see if I can actually finish something here.

So the topic at hand is why I like Murasa/Nue at all, and I've given a lot of thought into it. Maybe if I haven't been spending most of my nights LoL'ing I'd have more time to think, but alas. When I first tried to type this up I couldn't actually think of a proper reasons besides "Murasa looks good in the fanarts more than her standalone ones for some retarded reason" in the sense that Murasa actually wears a skirt less when paired with Nue, probably for the contrast that one is wearing shorts and the other an impossibly short skirt! In which I delved into a rant about how lolis should not be sexual objects, but that's another rant for another day (or it'll show up randomly in this one anyway! Who knows!) I also talked about how skirts actually DON'T bother me anymore, not because it's a skirt (I still don't like them) but sometimes people depict the skirt as close to her knees without a belt or a ripple in the skirt or anything and it just makes her design look rather plain. Instead of this whole "IT MAKES HER LOOK VULNERABLE!" business which I still agree with, if the skirt were shorter and looked like a sailor fuku's skirt instead, of if there were a belt, or if they were shorts she wouldn't look like such a bland character, and thus one of the many reasons she isn't popular.

But I digress, I've figured out why I enjoy this pairing as much as a do, considering I found very little similarities between this one and any other pairing I've ever liked. I usually can just say "durr there is a pattern and I am boring and consistent THUS WHY IT IS SO! Yay the end" but here, the matter is different entirely. Even so, I will compare and contrast with those of the past because doing so is fun.

It has a lot to do with their backstory, which is why I have been writing fanfiction about all this, but again my gaming has started once again and I find I'll rather fail with Ezreal on Summoner's Rift than sit in front of a word processor thinking up of all the amazing vocabulary I know to pad my story, but again I digress. I think one of the biggest reasons I loved KazumiSayo is that one part of that pairing was very lonely, knew no one else, and someone comes flying in and makes her life (or afterlife, rather) enjoyable again. The prospect of making a lonely character not lonely is one of my biggest loves perhaps having to do with the fact that I had a rather lonely childhood and so wished for some awesome person to do this to me, and though I've known lots of people through my life more often than not it has to be the other way around for a friendship to happen because if you do nothing nothing will come to you. So I suppose a character like so is either rare or unrealistic, but when they appear it's rather satisfying to see. (Though it's not like Sayo did nothing, but you get my point)

This situation is a lot more complicated. First, the setting is not a "school for super cute Japanese schoolgirls" as the abridged series puts it, but a fantasy world halfway through in another dimension, bordered off from the real world. The creatures are those we no longer believe are true, but mostly myth in this part of the world, and somehow that strengthens their existence in Gensokyo. People are more than just 500 years old, rumour has it that the drunken creator considers Eirin to be of an absurd age, for she has existed for more than eight digits, but no one knows how valid that is because he was drunk, yet at the same time he is always drunk, so perhaps what he said is actually true. So several, if not almost all characters are in some part based on Japanese myth, and just like with Hetalia I've learned more about the subject they are based on because of it. 

Let's start with Murasa because she has more humanlike qualities, being a former human, so it'd be easier to compare. A long time ago she indeed was a human, who at some point was on a ship, that at some point sank in some unknown fashion, and due to this shipwreck she drowned. She then became a spirit who sank many other ships for an unknown period of time before a human (who was possibly a youkai at this point, who knows) with incredible magical power decided to help her, and free her from her curse in the seas.

First I've had a few experiences with fictional ghosts already, as anyone reading this blog can tell. I like ghosts. I like the prospect of them. I've seen a few horror movies where ghosts simply exist to scare the hell out of you and then kill you, but in less cynical stories, ghosts automatically get a tragic backstory, and you get this feeling that you want to help them because of it. There is always some sort of obstacle that prevents you from doing so however, but in fiction we can make that obstacle go away pretty easily, with instant things like magic for example. Murasa though is a heavy contrast to what I was used to. When I had my first impressions of Touhou, I loved Yuyuko a lot being a ghost with a tragic backstory. Despite her apparent inherent ability of being able to send someone to death instantly, she seemed like a harmless creature who was shunned for her rather dark and dangerous ability when alive, thus her suicide.

Sayo is an even more lighthearted ball of wisp than anything I've ever seen. Negima's like that. They try to make it dark sure, maybe give the main character a cliche troubling past or something, but no one ever dies and the characters themselves generally seem very idealistic. The current conflict right now even is pretty much "which one of us should save the world!" rather than a big good vs. a big bad. Fate is just taking a more dire approach in resetting the world over Negi's "well I know less than you of what the bloody hell is happening but KILLING EVERYONE TO SAVE THE WORLD IS TOO EXTREME! Class 3-A must find a much more fluffy and unrealistic way to solve problems!!!"

I think what disappoints me even though the story really is not about Sayo whatosever, is that she seems to not be interested in her life before the afterlife anymore. Certainly it's far more entertaining than anything she's experienced in her limited memory, but I always waited for many years to see what Sayo's story will be. How did she die? Why does she have such a lingering attachment to this world? This was a mystery I really wanted to see, but the conclusion to her character hasn't happened yet because the current events are much more important even if I'm not very entertained or interested by it at all, thus my hiatus of this series. (Now I didn't mean to go in a tangent and start ranting about Negima, but damn they are really easy to rant about!)

My favourite Negima fiction ever described a spirit like this: An extreme amount of emotion so strong that it cannot leave the world.

These last two spirits I've discussed, it's quite obvious their lingering emotion was sadness. (At least in Sayo's part) Yuyuko's, though quite sad, is moreso Yukari's omipresent powers than emotion because if that video of their backstory is completely canon, she remains a spirit due to her corpse being used by Yukari to seal the evil cherry tree, and so Yuyuko will never re-enter the reincarnation cycle to suffer again because apparently her unique ability that caused her so much hardship when she was living will forever follow her soul wherever she goes. That's good though, Yuyuko seems to be enjoying her status of being the mistress of Hakugyokurou (I CAN FINALLY SPELL IT HOORAY!) fairly well. (Well the whole her body being used to seal the tree is definitely canon, but I dunno if Yukari has anything to DO with it... /should play PCB lololol)

Then there's Murasa.

Her lingering emotion could've been sadness, but it's quite clear from the backstory that her strongest emotion when she left the earth was not one of sadness, but anger. The sad ghost may be sympathetic, moe, and cute. You want to help her and wish she wasn't dead. That she's really lonely and someone should be her friend. The ANGRY ghost, however...

Well what are those movies where ghosts only exist to scare and kill you for? Those are the angry spirits still lingering on the world. Angry ghosts I've found are more often than not just exterminated rather than, well, helped. After all they have no qualms about killing people and generally being very violent, you know because they're rather enraged so of course the common people will see them as pests and never see through what they really are that they once used to be a human. They are now irredeemable, and really it would use up too many resources and time to really help them. People might die trying, after all. Of course, this being Gensokyo and not a cliche horror movie, we do have the luxury of helping them, or rather a person who is willing to despite the massive risk to it. She did have, like I said before, unimaginable magical power.

The interesting part about Byakuren saving Murasa to me is that despite Murasa sinking THE VERY SHIP Byakuren was on, and thus drowning the PEOPLE THAT WERE WITH HER, Byakuren still went ahead and helped her. Any other situation, any other time, any other person and they would probably just exterminate that stupid ghost ruining the trade routes just because she was a little angry. If I were a human during this period of time and heard that the famous Youkai Exterminator did that I'd be pretty goddamn pissed myself, but whatever  Byakuren's reasons were, she went ahead and did what she did, and so the character Murasa could exist.

Now I come to the whole definition of youkai.

In myth, youkai are generally, if not always, just horrible selfish beings with no moral responsibilites. Now rarely in Touhou are you told the origin of a youkai. Do youkai have parents? Are they born from the parents through childbirth? Are their ways of existence identical to that of the humans? Or rather, where do the youkai themselves come from? I'm going to use Kogasa as an example. She used to be an umbrella. Yes, an umbrella. The myth here is that an abandoned umbrella is abandoned for so long that it manifests into a youkai. Of course being Touhou the youkai is also a girl, but you get the point. Humans who do magic too much also become youkai, and so on and so forth. Tewi was a rabbit who lived too long, and so she became a youkai.

Basically, if something is out of the norm, especially out of nature's balance, it will manifest into a youkai. Murasa is one of these things. She probably existed as a spirit filled with so much rage and hatred for so long that she too, eventually became a youkai. First she was a human, and I'm assuming a human with a rather normal, in fact happy life to make her so mad that it was taken away from her, and then a spirit. A vengeful ghost that throughout its existence eventually becomes a youkai who now somehow has the belief that if she sinks enough ships she'll have the power to go on land and terrorize people there too. I'm sure she too was expecting, and so would anyone else really, if you're genre savvy that a creature of such existence would generally need to be destroyed...and then someone bloody helps her!?

Thus why I agree with every single depiction so far (except maybe one) that has her crying the moment she is saved. It is an incredible image really, no matter how it's shown. You know everyone wants you dead. You know they have good reason to want you dead. You know that if you fail to do the things you do you'd be dead. Yet someone comes and does everything you completely do not expect, giving you a hand. You can only stand there, stunned, unable to believe that this is happening to you. You are the luckiest youkai in the world.

You know at this very moment that Byakuren is for real. She isn't some wannabe person doing it for the glory of the youkai. This defining moment right here shows how very devoted and serious Byakuren is about in terms of saving the youkai. As a human, sure you'd be pretty upset by this, but you have to admit that the amount of dedication she has is admirable. Incredible. This isn't "derp there is a sad harmless ghost there. All I need to do is magicz and be their friend! :D" The inherent risks for something so ballsy, the fact the everyone knows the youkai is a dangerous, harmful creature and yet she does it because this is what she believes. That's insane.

Ah right, this post was explaining why I like Murasa/Nue. Do not worry, I will get to it...eventually.

So, Nue.

Ah the stark contrast. Nue is all about being a mystery, being unknown. It is only natural that we know nothing of her backstory. We do not know if a nue is formed by a disturbance in the balance of nature, but the fact that she is THE nue, and therefore a unique youkai among youkai says something. I've said before that a lonely ghost is very appealing to me, but how do you feel lonely if you have never experienced the opposite? How can you be sad if you were never happy? Just like how Murasa was a rather destructive ghost. How can she be so emotionally upset if she was never happy once before? Nue is pretty much a demonic shapeshifter. A lot of the reasons I like her is moreso of the present than some backstory or whatever Byakuren did. In fact Nue didn't even know who she was until...2009, probably a thousand years after all this backstory silliness.

But yes, Nue was a solitary creature in the past, always has been. A few stories that do touch up on what it must've been like so long ago in the Heian period like to input the humanlike quality in her that she was lonely. That only implies that there was time she wasn't like this though, and well for me no matter how much I speculate I like to think Nue has always been alone. As a youkai she really only knows one thing because it's all she's done in her life--scaring people. That is how she even exists too. I don't know if she actually physically harms anyone, but I don't think a common man whose just had a long day would enjoy being scared shitless randomly before going to bed. Well, I certainly won't. So like all youkai Nue was probably regarded as some sort of pest.

The myth on the nue itself is that a samurai or the emperor or the samurai of an emperor (I don't remember P: ) saw a strange floating black cloud and shot an arrow into it. Out came the nue, dead. Obviously Nue dying would not really work in the scheme of things in Touhou, so I like to think, and others who too have speculated on her backstory that people thought she was dead, but she wasn't. Canon itself pretty much implies she was simply sealed, seeing as her name, Nue Houjuu is literally "the sealed Nue" (how very literal!) and well, I'd speak more about Nue but I can't really think of much else considering how mysterious she is, so now that we know details behind both characters...why do I put them together?

From what we know the two knew each other before the events of UFO, the entire Murasa part could possibly be an explanation of why Byakuren/Murasa could work, but I have several reasons against this. I guess in a nutshell it's like pairing Jesus or some other deity with someone who worships them. That'd be odd, wouldn't it? Especially a person who you'd assume being such a religious figure (in this case, Byakuren and Buddhism) would be abstinent, and considering she has many other followers it really feels more like...a family, or a mother and their children who look up to them rather than anything romantic. They don't seem like the same age or have the same amount of wisdom. I just can't see Byakuren with anyone really. I mean unless this whole Makai business ends up pairing Shinki with her or something, but eh. Despite this she is still one of my favourite characters. (well, UFO entirely is amazing to me)

Well anyway, both Murasa and Nue knew each other before UFO occurred. Keep in mind both characters were alone for most of their existence, not only in their nature or being stuck in the sea, but also being sealed as well, as they both were. If I said "this character knows this one! THEREFORE THEY CAN BE TOGETHER! :D" That'd be outrageous! As humans we have known several, several people in our lifetimes and something like that would be a poor excuse, unless of course you are a person who has known very few people, and especially very few outside of a group you form. They say you remember and are more familiar with those you've met first rather than later. This is why childhood friends becoming couples are so popular in media, which would sometimes bother me as it's often not the case in real life, but if something like this happens when the particular people of topic have very different lives to that of the average modern day human...

It is especially interesting that both characters don't actually feel loneliness, at least not in the beginning. I'm sure a lonely ghost will destroy any company that comes to her, and I'm sure a lonely shapeshifter will scare off everyone around her. The two characters are actually a lot more common than I like to think because I tend to have some sort of an opposites attract kind of mentality about pairings. (not COMPLETE opposites though, >_>) So they knew each other before UFO.

We have absolutely no idea how.

So the speculation boat comes in here. They were both sealed, so I like to believe they knew each other when sealed. It's a pretty reasonable assumption I think, considering Murasa at least has spent a thousand years below ground, so where else could she have met or known Nue, really? No idea WHEN they met each other, but a thousand years is a long time to know someone. On the other hand, maybe they knew each other before the sealing, and didn't see each other FOR a thousand years. You'd think if someone knew someone for a thousand years misunderstandings and pranks wouldn't happen as much as it did during UFO, but...

I like to believe Nue did know Murasa for a long time. I think she was a bit jealous. She didn't know Byakuren personally, but probably has heard of her out of Murasa's mouth or something. Her inner nature being a solitary youkai probably meant she never grew particularly close to anyone underground however, with Murasa probably as the closest but that's really just an acquaintance kind of thing. She would also hate being sealed, after all she did tell Reimu that she could "boil her, or fry her or anything she'd like...but please don't seal her again" indicating that Nue is a free spirit, and loves being a free spirit. Being stuck in one place is definitely not for a roaming youkai like her, so she must've had a hard time being sealed. Murasa most likely at some point spoke about Byakuren in that span of a thousand years at least once, which might annoy Nue. "Someone HELPED the youkai? If she helped a youkai how come she never helped me? Why ISN'T she helping us right now!?" and Nue probably never figured out that Byakuren too was sealed somewhere else, thus the plot of UFO.

She probably wondered why Murasa was saved when she did nothing to deserve it when she's spent her entire life being alone, now understanding the idea of "loneliness" because she is around people now depsite how very awkward it must feel. Murasa on the other hand probably likes Nue, as in she tolerates her and finds her amusing or something. I'm pretty sure at this point Murasa is the more wise, levelheaded of the two because of her experiences, but I still like to think she has this ounce of silly pride and free-spirtedness about her despite being free very seldomly. She acts like it even though she isn't free, whereas Nue found the sealing to be less than satisfactory and felt very limited, immobilized by it .Generally she was pretty damn miserable. This is the case of "I have ALWAYS had this, and since it's been taken away I never realized how important it was since I always overlooked it!" to "More often than not, I've never had this, so I feel very lucky and privileged whenever I do have it and thus appreciate it whenever I can". Sort of like how someone without many friends will cherish the ones they do have compared to someone who has a ton and will not understand how important the friendship is until they lose them all.

And Murasa's whole outlook about the sealing probably annoyed the hell out of Nue, who wants to get rid of that smirk on her face. So when they do get free and she gets word of whatever the Captain is planning, she tries to ruin it for shits and giggles, since she likes playing pranks and such, but when she realized that what she was doing would benefit her, especially since she has NEVER experienced people EVER helping her, being a youkai, she understandably feels guilt, probably the first time she's ever had. (On the other hand I assume Murasa had been feeling guilty for a long time. I don't know about the ships she sunk, but I think she would see herself as a failure to Byakuren for letting her get sealed. That would be why she immediately tried to free her the moment she got out of the underground. It only makes sense, after all) And now Nue begrudgingly accepts or at least, understands these silly emotions she never cared for, and that's why she probably lives in the temple right now. (I still like to think she roams around a lot anyway, but the temple is a place she frequently stays at, so much that she might as well be living there.)

Anyway in terms of how I see it, I guess if I were to REALLY simplify it, it'd be something like NUE IS TSUNDERE FOR MURASA LOLOLOL but that is just such a one-dimensional way of putting it. I mean if I see fanart, they can BOTH be cocky-looking individuals with grins a shounen lead would envy, but Murasa, being the captain, is more experienced, more levelheaded, and more charismatic than Nue. (Obviously not to the extent of Byakuren. It's kind of like Yukari and Ran, how a kitsune is pretty much the MOST POWERFUL BEAST YOUKAI EVER and the fact that Yukari has one as a shikigami is supposed to make her seem EVEN stronger, but all it has done is downplay Ran's obvious strength which is very unfortunate.) while Nue....well look at it this way. It doesn't matter how long you've existed or lived, if you spent that entire time doing the exact same things you're not going to earn much experience and gain more wisdom, but Nue still has that rebellious naivety about her. If she's wrong she'll deny she is! But the fact that she is clearly wrong is  adorable. Murasa/Nue is probably the hardest OTP I've ever had to define, but in a way I think the fact that it is..undefined is rather fitting.

For those who know little about Touhou. UFO stands for Undefined Fantastic Object. That's either Murasa's ship, or Nue herself. (Usually moreso the former because of the Japanese name, but Nue's official title is Unidentified Flying Girl, so...and she IS responsible for all the UFOs that show up in UFO!)

Compared to anything else I've ever liked? KoHo is simply pairing two characters I like. There really is no merit for them actually being together. KazuSayo is more like friendship, and it's moreso loneliness being ERADICATED than well, two equal sides. Rei/Max makes absolutely no sense (nor does ANYTHING in that series, but I mean...) and I (and this could be BLASPHEMY to Akira, so I apologize in advance) now see how rather boring Kai/Rei looks, even though I do not support TyKa whatsoever, I can see their reasoning to why they dislike it. I think this is the first time I've liked a possible, interesting pairing as opposed to super sappy friendship or two guys together being hot. Seriously all the shounen-ai I've liked have been flat and boring compared to the deeper shoujo-ai ones. I DO WONDER WHY.

I suppose I should end this. Thanks for reading, if you actually managed to get to the bottom of this.

And why not, have a little picture too.