#askthehermit

[freshholeinthewall-blog]

if Seiga were to come to the human village, what would be her reason?

I have to imagine she’d go there on a somewhat regular basis! It’s the only place other than her fellow hermits’ residence where she could have contact with other people. After all, she probably doesn’t have a lot of youkai friends, if any, that she would visit.As for what she does there, who knows. Her first visits probably involved trying to see if she could find anybody interested in her Taoist arts, or just anybody who could be impressed by them. A part of that was just her own desire for attention, and another was in aiding Miko’s goal in wanting to make a splash in Gensokyo. 

Nowadays, she frequents the shops and establishments like anybody else, despite her apparent reputation as a wicked hermit. Most people don’t entirely know what to make of that title though, there’s still plenty of chances to make any kind of first impressions she might want.

[psionicsiblinghood]

askthehermit replied to your photo:I have no idea of what they’re looking at I leave...

OH NO THIS IS REALLY CUTE ;o;

(asadasd GOOD, THANK. I MIGHT COLOR IT AT SOME POINT, MAYBE)

[askzannie]

askthehermit replied to your post:How did Zannie meet her ex?

if he was using her than he probably approached her with the intent of wooing her. she’s in a high position as a researcher and that can get her into a lot of places that normal gieegs can’t….

((YOOOO can I borrow your brain for like a week))

[askthechillpigmask-blog]

David and Teal Mook

YOU MAKE MY GEM BLOOM???????? YEAH THAT

[aggressiveporkbun]

beautiful colonel baby

All the tired excursions to the club are grinding on his nerves; he hadn't been expecting a warm reception from the army when he joined, but still he could never get over how merciless the environment seemed to be at points. He's now found himself outside, moping against the trunk of a tree, leaning with his forehead against it whilst he watches his arms dangle down below. How he wishes sometimes one of the other soldiers would approach him at the table, give him reason to distract himself from the job when he's under fire from superiors. But alas, dough man remains a puddle of angst with his new found tree friend.

[ursadoodles]

MEG! MEG! This one is even better than the other two! Combo of the two I posted earlier. askthehermit

[podunks-hero]

askthehermit started following you

"Hello there... whatever y'are."

[freshholeinthewall-blog]

"So, because you have blue hair and i have blue hair, does that mean we're related?"

“Why am I getting a sense of deja vu… No, I’m afraid blood goes deeper than just sharing similar shades of hair.

Though... aren’t fairies like you born from nature itself? Wouldn’t that make all of you ‘related’ to each other?” 

Clearly her hair was more of a stylised black than blue, anyhow.

[freshholeinthewall-blog]

[[What plots have you always wanted to write, but never had the opportunity to? Are there any writers you'd particularly enjoy such a thread with?]]

I assume you mean specific kind of scenarios to roleplay and not just writing in general. If it was the latter, I could drum up wishful ideas for stories all day.

Anyhow, when I think about plots I want to do here, it’s almost always associated with a specific other roleplayer. I’d feel a little awkward bringing them up, saying “I wish I could do ‘this’ kind of scene with ‘this blog’!” because if they read it, they might feel weird! 

More general or vague plots would perhaps be:

Seiga having to challenge someone in a game of wits or schemes (I’m not really smart enough to do such a thing organically)

Yoshika getting to be a dangerous and intimidating zombie towards someone else.

Just having Seiga integrate/intrude in whatever setting/situation that involves the other blog’s character(s).

The third point is what really makes her feel like an easy slot-in fanfic character, doesn’t it?

I guess if I haaaaad to come up with a specific example, I might sometimes wonder or think about what kind of place Seiga would end up in the far future, say three hundred years? Or maybe in a sci-fi setting, since I’ve never done much of those with her before.

Maybe even find her way onto some space station while passing by and deciding (or being forced to) stick around for whatever reason, hint hint.

[freshholeinthewall-blog]

[[Any particular artist you enjoy drawing reaction shots from? Any others that you find particularly inspiring?]]

I think compared to other tumblr roleplayers, I have a fairly limited amount of reaction shots to draw from. That’s entirely because I have not updated my collection in a very long time! 

When I was first looking to make some icons, I specifically sought out doujins that I had enjoyed reading that featured Seiga in them. 

One from からあげたろう or Karaagetarou

A few from じぜる (Jizeru)

And one from… Oh shoot, I think I actually forgot who the artist for this other doujin was. (EDIT: I have since been reminded that the artist was  茶戸 (Chado)from the circle, Tohonifun)

Add on some from official printed sources, freebies from icon heaven, and gifts from others (specifically the first Seiga rper and other pals from tumblr), and that’s pretty much my whole collection.

[freshholeinthewall-blog]

"I see you've finally been let out of jail…" bizarre!Nero to bizarre!Seiga

“I know! I was getting rather impatient myself in there...” She checks over herself, straightening out her outfit.

“I mean, really. You’re found burying a dead body and suddenly everybody’s so quick to look at you as if you were going to eat the corpse for dinner and some babies as desert.”

[freshholeinthewall-blog]

[[What about the outside world does Miss Kaku miss? What would she trade to go and experience that again?]]

Your question brought another question to my mind that I don’t think I had thought about. How easy wold it be for Seiga to leave Gensokyo, if she even can at all? Presumably she entered by ‘following’ where Miko’s mausoleum went when she finally decided to check up on that, and probably entered through the barrier through a complicated bit of magic. 

Could she replicate it easily enough to leave in and out of Gensokyo at will, or is the process to difficult to bother with unless it was really warranted? I don’t think I feel like settling with one conclusion or the other, but for the sake of your ask, we’ll assume she’s relatively ‘stuck’ in the land of fantasy for now.

Gensokyo, and the Human Village specifically, probably brought up a lot of old memories of living among such times in the past for Seiga. Time had moved so gradually that before coming here, she probably never had a chance to directly compare the two different kind of worlds.

One thing she would miss, other than your usual modern luxuries or conveniences, would be how in the outside world, there’s always something being changed around the corner. New people on street or in power moving to and fro, places being renovated or torn down, trends beginning or ending. Gensokyo in contrast, tends to be more ‘stable’ and it’s changes much more gradual or subtle, not that there isn’t still a lot of variety to be found from day to day.

I don’t think Seiga would necessarily trade or give up anything to experience that kind of world again though. If anything, she’d first try to adapt and make her own excitement where she is now.

“Sometimes I do find myself missing little things, such as what it’s like to ride a bus. But it’s been pleasant as well, and even strangely nostalgic, seeing what this land of fantasy has to offer.”

[freshholeinthewall-blog]

Quick, Seiga! Make a character of your own! :D

“Huh? Right now? Well…” And she was already grabbing a pen and paper. “I don’t know if it’ll be as good as Kojoro, but how’s this?”

…There lives a young, brilliant girl from Japan. Brilliant for both her great knowledge acquired over a lifetime, and also for her great creativity and passion for literary arts. 

Thanks to some mystical assistance from a wise woman she met, she now has a strong body that never ages or decays, a stomach that never lets her get fat, and a mind that continues to express wonders to all. She’s over ten centuries years old! Isn’t that impressive?

“…Oh, I suppose she needs a motivation of some kind? How about… ‘She wants to see all the beauty the world has to offer, forever’? I think it beats your ‘wanting to fight for peace’, personally speaking.”

[freshholeinthewall-blog]

[[If Seiga had the means and opportunity to make another masterwork Jiang-shi like Yoshika, would she do anything differently?]]

I find myself asking whether Seiga would create another jiang-shi like Yoshika to begin with. The jiang-shi is clearly special to the hermit, perhaps even considered by her to be one of her greatest works, whom she she has kept maintained after about a millennium give or take. 

For her to do it again, would it be someone else she felt expired too soon? Someone whom she liked the idea of doting on for the rest of their un-life? Or maybe even to replace Yoshika if the latter were to suddenly stop being around someday.

Either way, what would she do differently? She certainly doesn’t have much of any ‘complaints’ about the first time, after all.

“Perhaps I’d implant some sturdier bits underneath the skin so they’d be a bit less prone to breaking apart? Apparently you can do that with medicine nowadays. 

It’s also much easier to preserve organs too with modern equipment, so a new jiang-shi I made might actually have a functioning liver and stomach... Actually that sounds more inconvenient than anything, so scratch that.

Otherwise, there’s a limit to how much ‘differently’ I could really do. My darling Yoshika might just be perfect, you know?”

[freshholeinthewall-blog]

Does Seiga have any wishes of her own? :D

Of course. She’s always desiring and aiming for something, and she’d tell you that nobody should ever quite be content with what they have.

“If you were looking for specifics, don’t expect me to open my heart so readily. I suppose if you were to ask me what I’d wish for this moment… Maybe for some of my acquaintances to be more readily accepting of my methods. It always takes a bit of time, especially for Miss Tojiko, to convince then not ‘everything’ I do is against some law of nature. …Oh, but honestly, I find that to be a charming trait of hers.

Maybe more readily accessible materials for my brewing. The only reason I don’t do that as much these days is because quality herbs or spices are hard to come across. I remember when I could just walk over to some off-the-road poisonous bush and pluck them that way…

And finally… Well, no harm in saying this, but I do wish the Yama’s various ‘agents’ would stop coming after me every century or so. It’s more annoying than anything really, and usually ruins my schedule for any given day.”

[freshholeinthewall-blog]

[[Hail, noble Baked! If there was one thing you could change about Seiga's character design, what would it be?]]

I may not be nobility, but I can say I’ve probably thought about this at least once before. 

The first thing that might come to mind would be her clothes, but it’s really easy to just picture her wearing different outfits depending on the context, so really I’d just be talking about what I think her taste for fashion would be. Though I will say that ever since I saw a single drawing with her usual white vest having long sleeves, I found myself wishing she could show up in canon looking like that too.

Anyhow. As for more drastic changes to her design, it’s hard to say given just about everyone in Touhou is drawn rather simply. You just have to assume she doesn’t actually look like a really pale, stumpy child like every other character (I would never trade ZUN’s art for anything though, just so we’re clear). Her hairstyle is pretty much perfect as is, those giant distinct loops on top of a fairly messy mass showing both her roots but also her own customising of it.

I guess my answer to the question is that I can’t think of anything I would change to her fundamental look. Though I suppose if I really wanted to change something, and the reason for it has nothing to do with how they look, it’d be her hair colour, and by extension her eyes. I mean… they’re blue for the same reason Sanae has green hair. I can’t ignore it because it’s how she’s designed, but I can’t come up with any explanation for it! That’s why I prefer to picture her as you see in my avatar, a stylised black that appears blue because narrative liberties.