User blog:LoverofAllThingsCute/Grudging Spirits, Hope, and Multiple Story Lines

So, today, I have made a personification of the Stage 1 midboss of Ten Desires, that I have nicknamed Zokurei Juon (juon = "grudge", zokurei = "vulgar spirit"). She looks like this:  She has the ability to summon divine spirits to her side in a fight, just like her description on Touhou Wiki says. Wait, why am I telling you this? Oh... right! She plays a role in a possible plot line for Touhou 15, which shall hereafter be referred to as Touhou Zetsubou: Legend of Hope (or just TH15, if you want).

Playable Characters

 * Hakurei Reimu
 * Komeiji Koshi
 * Flandre Scarlet
 * Hijiri Byakuren
 * Kazami Yuuka

Reimu Route Bosses

 * Stage 1 Midboss: Ibuki Suika
 * Stage 1 Boss: Marisa Kirisame
 * Stage 2 Midboss and Boss: Yakumo Yukari
 * Stage 3 Midboss: Unnamed Evil Spirit
 * Stage 3 Boss: Medicine Melancholy
 * Stage 4-Extra Midbosses and Bosses: See "Bosses after Stage 3"

Koishi Route Bosses

 * Stage 1 Midboss: Orin
 * Stage 1 Boss: Komeiji Satorin
 * Stage 2 Midboss and Boss: Mizuhashi Parsee
 * Stage 3 Midboss and Boss: Moriya Suwako
 * Stage 4-Extra Midbosses and Bosses: See "Bosses after Stage 3"

Flandre Route Bosses

 * Stage 1 Midboss and Boss: Patchouli Knowledge
 * Stage 2 Midboss: Unnamed Tengu
 * Stage 2 Boss: Ibaraki Kasen
 * Stage 3 Midboss: Unnamed Evil Spirit
 * Stage 3 Boss: Kazami Yuuka
 * Stage 4-Extra Midbosses and Bosses: See "Bosses after Stage 3"

Byakuren Route Bosses

 * Stage 1 Midboss and Boss: Murasa Minamitsu
 * Stage 2 Midboss: Konpaku Youmu
 * Stage 2 Boss: Saigyouji Yuyuko
 * Stage 3 Midboss: Unnamed Evil Spirit
 * Stage 3 Boss: Zokurei Juon
 * Stage 4-Extra Midbosses and Bosses: See "Bosses after Stage 3"

Yuuka Route Bosses

 * Stage 1 Midboss: Elly
 * Stage 1 Boss: Mugetsu
 * Stage 2 Midboss: Onozuka Komachi
 * Stage 2 Boss: Yamaxanadu Shikieiki
 * Stage 3 Midboss: Rumia
 * Stage 3 Boss: Flandre Scarlet
 * Stage 4-Extra Midbosses and Bosses: See "Bosses after Stage 3"

Bosses after Stage 3
Like with Concealed the Conclusion, Stage 4-6 and the Extra Stage will have bosses that are shared between all five player routes.
 * Stage 4 Midboss: Unnamed Evil Spirit
 * Stage 4 Boss: Mokutou (TSotEW Stage 4 Midboss, a friend of Marisa)
 * Stage 5 Midboss: Unnamed Evil Spirit
 * Stage 5 Boss: Hope
 * Stage 6 Midboss: Unnnamed Evil Spirit
 * Stage 6 Boss Zetsubou Pandora
 * Extra Stage Midboss: TBA
 * Extra Stage Boss: TBA

Reimu Route Stage 1-3
It is the end of spring, but Gensokyo does not feel very summer-like. Everything is greyer than normal, and everyone is in a state of depression for very little reason. Reimu feels like there is a reason behind this depression plague. The next morning, she sees Suika and Marisa sitting on the steps, looking like there is no point to their existence. She asks what is wrong, and it turns out that the normally cheerful human and oni have caught on to the depression plague, and there is nothing they can do about it. So, Reimu asks if they would want to have one last danmaku battle for old time's sake. They do so. Reimu wins, as usual. Suika mentions that she saw Yukari standing on a chair in the forest outside the Human Village. She doesn't know how to hang oneself, so she asks Reimu what this means. Reimu immediately heads straight for the village in a state of fear, knowing that if Yukari dies, Gensokyo will end. Hoping to convince Yukari to stop, she confronts her. Yukari tells her that all hope has left this place, and that she wants to end it, because she doesn't wish to force everyone to have no hope left, even though she has none left herself. Reimu then attacks her to try to get her to change her mind, though Yukari still puts up quite the fight for a stage 2 boss. She defeats her, and Yukari then takes the noose down from the tree and takes the chair away. Before leaving through one of her gaps, Yukari tells her that, in order to end this, she must find out the cause. Thus the quest begins for the source of the despair plague. She flies over the unnamed hill full of poisonous lilies of the valley, and battles an evil spirit that refuses to tell her his name. Afterwards, Medicine asks her why she is here, and what she is doing. Reimu tells her everything that she knows has happened in this story, and Medicine does not believe her. She then starts a danmaku battle for the sole reason that she can, and, of course, she loses. Medicine tells her that she heard rumours that Gensokyo's hope has been stolen by a young human with a box. She goes on to tell her that said human is in a place known as "Reimaden". Reimu remembers this place and finds the gateway back at the Hakurei Shrine.

Koishi Route Stage 1-3
Chireiden is unusually quiet. Quiet and cold. Koishi goes to the Remnants of the Hell of Blazing Fires to inquire as to why it is so cold. There she finds Orin and Utsuho gazing into the magma, pondering the meaning of their lives. Koishi asks why it's so cold, and Orin tells her that they no longer have any hope left to do their job. Koishi decides to go get her onee-chan and start a danmaku battle just to cheer everyone up. Koishi wins. Satorin says that quite a lot of people from the surface have been annoying her to the point that she wants a gatekeeper. Koishi decides to inquire as to what is going on, so she goes to the bridge that separates the Old Hell from the surface. Parsee tells her that she is jealous of her for actually having some hope in this whole thing. She is also jealous of the people coming from the surface seeking hope, knowing that they will not find it here, anyway. She is also jealous of Satorin for fighting Koishi before she came to her. Koishi asks how she knows this, but Parsee doesn't respond. Koishi then decides to start a danmaku battle with one condition: the loser has to tell the victor their motives. Koishi wins, and Parsee tells her that she's just doing some job that she doesn't want to do, for lack of hope, just like two others in the Old Hell. Koishi then goes to the Moriya Shrine, which is a place that she likes to hang out at. There, she finds Suwako, the normally cheerful goddess of the Suwa Lake. But, she is acting completely indifferent to everything. Koishi asks why, and Suwako is in despair for the sole reason that "some idiot loli stole all of Gensokyo's hope". Koishi asks if she can fight her just one more time. After Suwako points out that Koishi has never fought her, the danmaku battle begins. Suwako loses. Suwako then tells Koshi that the "hope thief" lives in Reimaden, and that the gateway is near a shrine that is a rival of hers. Koishi then heads to the Hakurei Shrine, because that is the only place that Kanako openly has stated to be competition.

Flandre Route Stage 1-3
Flandre woke up one morning in a state of boredom, and finds the library in extreme disarray. She asks Patchouli what is wrong. Patchouli says that there is no more hope left in Gensokyo, and that it is pointless to take care of the library any longer. She then goes on to say that she is waiting for Marisa to steal some of the books. Flandre then tells her that God is on everyone's side, even if they have a demon for a servant. Patchouli asks if He can do anything about this despair plague, as she is an atheist. Flandre affirms this. She then asks if she wants to "play" (read: have a danmaku battle). Patchouli agrees, and subsequently loses. Koakuma then tells Flandre that she has seen some activity at the summit of the Great Youkai Mountain. She then decides to tell her to "tell Remilia-oneechan that I'll be busy". She then flies off towards the summit of the mountain. On the way, she is blocked by an unidentified tengu who tells her that she should "go back to the dungeon that you call home". Flandre then defeats him and finds Kasen, releasing several youkai that she has befriended to the wild. Flandre asks what's wrong, and Kasen responds with "I have no hope left for any of these beasts anymore, so they can go free". Flandre tells her that they are her friends and that she loves them. Kasen says that there is no point in taking care of them anymore. Flandre decides to stop her, and get the youkai to stay with her. Kasen refuses, but then gets pwned in a danmaku battle, even though she puts up quite the fight. Kasen then asks if she can find out what is going on in the Forest of Magic. Flandre decides to go, as she has enough hope left to go there without getting herself killed on purpose. There, she battles a random evil spirit, then bumps into Yuuka, who informs her that she is headed to the Hakurei Shrine to put an end to the despair that has clouded all of Gensokyo. Flandre tells her that she is headed to the wrong place. Angered, Yuuka then decides to fight her. Flandre wins. She then asks Yuuka where she is really going, so she tells her that she is headed for the gateway to Reimaden, near the Hakurei Shrine. Flandre then heads for Reimaden's gate to pursue the cause of this despair plague.

Byakuren Route Stage 1-3
Myourenji has had little to no visitors, and Byakuren has been the only one doing sutra chants and meditations for the past few weeks. She decides to see what's up. Minamitsu tells her that all hope is gone from Gensokyo. Byakuren decided to ask where the hope went, but Minamitsu didn't answer. Minamitsu, instead, decided to have a danmaku battle before she runs out of hope for anything. She loses. Byakuren then decides to go to Hakugyoukorou, where she wishes to talk to Yuyuko and Youmu about all this. Youmu doesn't wish to do anything remotely related to gardening or training, and Yuyuko has refused to eat for the past week. She asks if this has anything to do with all the hopelessness in the Human Village. Yuyuko says that it's extremely possible. They then have a danmaku battle to remember each other if despair takes their love of everything. Yuyuko loses. Then, Juon floats in and decides to taunt Byakuren for little reason. Byakuren then decides to ask Juon if this is because she wants what she does not have, and therefore suffers. Juon denies this and then denounces the Buddhist idea of suffering. She then lets loose an evil spirit to get rid of Byakuren, but it is defeated. Juon then attacks Byakuren and loses. Juon then tells her that the hope has all been taken to Reimaden, and that the gateway is near the Hakurei Shrine, where they have managed that gate for many generations. Byakuren then heads for Reimaden to investigate if Juon is not lying.

Yuuka Route Stage 1-3
The demons who live with Yuuka in Mugenkan have not been up to their usual tricks. Yuuka believes that they have run out of hope to do anything, so she decides to find out if this is what happened. Her gatekeeper, Elly, confirms this. Yuuka then says that, just because she doesn't have any more hope, doesn't mean that everyone else shouldn't. Picking up her magic umbrella, she then fights with Elly to get her to "get a hold of yourself, woman!" She succeeds, but Elly still doesn't care about anything. Yuuka then does the same to Mugetsu, who lived in the dream world until after the events of Perfect Cherry Blossom. Same results. Yuuka then goes to Higan to ask if Komachi is too lazy to do her job, because, if there are no more hopes for a purpose in the population, she will need to do her job a lot. Yuuka finds out that this is true, and she really is too lazy. She then talks to Shikieiki about this. She still doesn't care about anything. Yuuka then defeats them both in a danmaku battle, and decides to go to the gateway to Reimaden, which she knows houses the only being capable of removing all hope from the world. While she flies over the Forest of Magic, Rumia gets in her way, something she really, really shouldn't have done. She then bumps into Flandre, who she informs that she is headed to the Hakurei Shrine to put an end to the despair that has clouded all of Gensokyo. Flandre tells her that she is not going to the right place. Angered, Yuuka then decides to fight her. Yuuka wins, and tells her the true origin of the despair plague is in Reimaden, which is where she is going.

All Routes Stage 4-Extra
The protagonist enters Reimaden, where she is confronted by various evil spirits. She defeats lots of them and meets a nephilim who refuses to give her name. (If you are on the Reimu or Flandre route, Reimu or Flandre will reveal the identity of the nephilim to be Mokutou, Marisa's childhood friend.) The nephilim tells them that she has lived in Reimaden for quite some time, and that she knows that who is responsible for this is a child, and that she has lost her mother to an insane human. Because her mother did nothing wrong as far as she knew, she entered a state of despair and opened two boxes that she was given when she was old enough to understand instructions. She was also told never to open them. Ever. When the child opened them, one of them released huge numbers of evil spirits into the world, most of them going into Reimaden, and the other had Hope trapped inside it, making sure that the world would never lose all hope. Hope for a future, for a purpose, for everything. When Hope was released, it took all of Gensokyo's hopes with it, leaving everyone in despair. It is now the protagonist's quest to return Hope to where it belongs. But, first, they must defeat the guardian of Reimaden: Mokutou. After she is defeated, the protagonist then goes on a mad chase through Reimaden, where they defeat evil spirits like crazy, eventually finding Hope itself, in the form of a ball of yellow light. The chase begins, and it is loaded with danmaku. Hope is eventually captured (If you are on the Yuuka route, she stuffs it in her umbrella and charges off with triumph.). Now that Hope is in a place where it can be maintained, the protagonist finds the place where the ultimate cause of this disaster sits in despair, with two open boxes. Her name is Zetsubou Pandora. A powerful evil spirit stands between you and the girl, which you defeat. You then confront Pandora and tell her to put hope back where it belongs. She does so, then decides to have her first danmaku battle, using some spellcards that she has inherited from her mother. She loses, but the last one she uses seals away all the evil spirits that she unleashed in the beginning. She then allows you to go home (If playing on the Byakuren route, she adopts her). Reimaden, devoid of inhabitants other than Mokutou, is at peace. I don't know any scenario for the Extra stage, or who the boss and midboss should be.

Conclusion
Well, this is about it for this blog post. :3