crying at la manchaland

[I saw you mention in the tags that you aren’t familiar with their lore so for context: Yuuma’s bio, Okina’s bio + summary of her religious references, Yuuma's Stage 8 cutscene and ending (text only 1 2), and a rundown of their story line in Sunken Fossil World:

both of them want to monopolize the oil/blood sea in the Former Hell of Blood Pools, but Yuuma found it first; Okina causes the oil to leak on the surface and pollute the water, prompting several Gensokyo residents to investigate. None of them manage to defeat Yuuma, so Okina sends in Flandre to kill her. Yuuma is resurrected and seeks to form an alliance between her organization and Gensokyo, so she and Okina become co-managers of the Hell of Blood Pools. People keep wandering in there for sightseeing, forcing Yuuma to seek the culprit. She confronts Okina and they blame each other for the tourist problem and end up battling. After Yuuma wins, they catch the Yorigami sisters trying to scam people with the tours, but they decide to leave that whole problem for Reimu to deal with]

Ok so:

(↑ taken from a different translation)

My interpretation is that during their fight they came to understand each other by using their powers: Yuuma can comprehend things by consuming them; Okina says "your back is not lying to me" so maybe she could gain insight of a person by peering through a door on their back (using her unexplained power over mental energy?)

(and she straight up says that the only way to understand Yuuma is to be consumed)

Elaborating on that, does Okina want to be consumed because of her usual attention-seeking tendencies (wanting to be known and understood)? If Yuuma consumed some abstract fragment of Okina during the fight - and she perceives things by swallowing them whole - would she crave more to get a clearer picture?

And despite seeing Yuuma's true nature, Okina only grows more fond of her; everyone else in SFW was freaked out by her or at least disliked her.

There is also a certain term that Okina uses in that exchange that was kinda lost in translation:

(I get that it was likely translated to avoid confusing people with her theatrical/religious references, but her dialogue in HSiFS is just as confusing for the exact same reason, yet none of it was dumbed down like this)

Translating it as lie or madness feels like over-explaining a metaphor; the whole point is that she implies both. It's also possible to interpret it as her comparing Yuuma to herself - it's said that everyone dances to Okina's script, meaning that she is a god of noh and a manipulator. So in that sense she implies that Yuuma is being a manipulator too; alternatively, she is calling Yuuma a disruption, like a kyogen performer in a noh play.

Yuuma also likens Okina to herself calling her unparalleled in greed - much like when she says it to the Yorigami sisters, she seems to mean it as a compliment (she also lives off greed and appears to enjoy eating it the most) Speaking of compliments:

Madness is a running theme in SFW: Yuuma is shown to be going mad from trying to consume all desire and hatred from the dead beings from which the oil is made. She toils alone without rest, wallowing in her own greed as she fantasizes about all the power she will have to dominate both hell and the surface world, and viciously defends her petroleum from intruders.

(source)

In this context, madness is meant as recklessness, destruction (and self-destruction), and especially greed. The entire plot pretty much revolves around Yuuma, Okina, and their greed.

Yuuma is more honest with herself at least:

Okina gets an excuse because in the end the oil is in the right hands (allegedly), but she still caused pollution on the surface and manipulated Flandre only so she could take control of the Hell of Blood Pools:

(source)

However without her involvement, the incident would not have happened in the first place. This reinforces her as a god who sometimes uses destructive means for the "greater good". In this case, it is a bit similar to her role as a god of tengu-warding, and how that concept works.

For context:

(source 1 2)

(source)

In the Grimoire of Usami Okina talks about looking for "true madness", she also chastises her servants for spreading madness poorly; both likely in reference to her warding off madness (lack of wisdom/enlightenment in this context) by spreading it herself.

So it's ironic that Yuuma "defeats" Okina with her own methods: like Okina's attempt to beat Yuuma with Flandre's destructive powers (beating a void with another void); and like the leap dance is meant to ward off tengu, Yuuma's mad performance ("your kyogen") defeats Okina. That metaphor also ties off their ending as they agree to exist not as enemies but as ~business~ partners, like the link between noh and kyogen.

It's also interesting that Okina avoided a direct confrontation with Yuuma until the very end, probably because she knew they could just keep fighting indefinitely - Yuuma would just keep consuming everything Okina could throw at her. Yuuma won because she managed to drag Okina into that futile fight - that realization was likely what made Okina concede. Besides being the only person (so far) who can stand up to Okina, Yuuma also is the only one who almost saw through Okina's scheme in SFW - she got her overall intentions right, but instead of blaming the oil leaks on her she thought it was the tours.

Bonus Yuuma bringing up Okina for no reason in UDoALG even though she's got nothing to do with the plot at all

So yea they are funny and annoy everyone around them including themselves and then they destroy each other for fun. They should be together in future games or manga and say more weird shit and cannibalistic innuendos for me to overthink <3

Hi tumbler. This is part of an art trade with @pest725