History of ☆

Thu, 03 May 2018 23:20:43 GMT

Patchouli Knowledge, known to some as the One Week Girl, is a born magician residing in the land of Gensokyo. Gensokyo is a fantasy land, protected by the Great Hakurei Barrier: A barrier that separates this world of youkai from the mundane human society which is forgetting them.

Patchouli herself in a "born magician," meaning that she is a youkai and not a human. Born magicians can be considered to be demons, and that is exactly how the world outside of the barrier treated Patchouli. The Patchouli outside of the barrier ran an apothecary and used her magic like a science: She even named herself for an herb found at her shop.

However, even one hundred years ago-- when Patchouli was "born,"-- magic and demons were not widely believed in. Nor were Patchouli's seemingly herbal, actually magical, remedies. There was no human respect for a Western Herbalist during the rise of science, even when Patchouli's remedies always worked. So she shrugged her shoulders, decided "fuck you," and left. Herbalogy was just a boring craft she used to fit in anyway, and she had mastered it to the point it was boring.

It was apparent to Patchy that she wasn't going to be able to further her magic studies in a suffocating environment like the Mundane World. While having no interest in anything else, Patchouli was absolutely devoted to learning. She had already perfected her magic to the point of being ageless when she discovered the Scarlet Devil Mansion on the Mundane side of the barrier.

Patchouli found herself perfectly comfortable among the vampiric company in that mansion. While Patchouli originally came to the mansion with an offer to work for her stay there, she never saw what she did for Remilia as "work." Remilia never asked Patchouli to do anything stupid or mundane with her magic: Only for exciting and challenging feats to be performed. The line between "employee" and "house guest" eventually just dissolved into "resident," with Patchouli gaining her own library in the mansion's basement. Likewise, the line between "friends" and "family" became nonsense to Patchouli: This mansion was home, and she adored the residents in a way words could not describe.

When the Scarlet Devil Mansion moved to Gensokyo in the 1990s, Patchouli gladly came with. It wasn't like she was about to leave the library anyway. Patchouli had been expanding the library with an endless supply of books. Even now, the library contains rare books from the Mundane World among those of Gensokyo. Patchouli spends her days collecting books, organizing them, and creating new ones. Any time she has a breakthrough, she adds a new book to the SDM library.

But for a long time, that was all that Patchouli did: Read, Write, Learn, Repeat. She was content to stay in the library, content to have distant and casual relationships with ONLY Scarlet Devil Mansion residents, and a touch scared of the outside world. With how sickly she was and is, Patchouli didn't want to leave her comfort zone.
It wasn't until Remilia's Red Mist incident that Patchouli even started interacting with anyone from outside of the mansion. She met Reimu and Marisa during their nosy investigations and was shocked to be defeated in a battle. It hadn't occurred to Patchouli until that moment that her magic even could be beaten.

This ignited a new passion in Patchy, though she stayed hidden away. Though for the first time, Patchouli did begin showing interest in what happened outside of the mansion. She would listen to Sakuya's tales of investigation and would try to involve herself in small ways, if only by recreating cherry blossoms (an outside event she hadn't cared about before,) and even putting forth talk of how to get to the moon.

It wasn't until the events of Subterranean Animism that Patchouli actually got involved in anything. Even then, it was minor. She assisted Marisa in an investigation, but did not physically accompany her. Even then, it is worth giving Patchouli credit for taking some initiative: She actively made a decision to protect not just the Scarlet Devil Mansion, but Gensokyo as a whole. She even put her faith in Marisa, of all people, instead of an SDM resident.

The pattern of Patchouli's activity continues. In the Immaterial and Missing Power, Patchouli even leaves the mansion and does her own investigating. Ever since the incident initiated by Remilia, Patchouli has been gradually coming out of her shell. She no longer keeps everything to books. In fact, sometimes Patchouli will read about something interesting in a book (ex.:Setsuban,) and decide she wants to try it in practice. She has been much more active (though, that is still a low bar to reach,) and happy since moving to Gensokyo.

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History of ☆