I think the one reason I’m obsessed with them specifically is their juxtaposition of values.
(This might not be 100% accurate. I haven’t read some of these chapters in a while).
byakuren, in this story, as much as she is wise, is also naive. Her biggest weakness is her optimism, idealism, not only in cannon but here as well. We see her play this savior complex which fits her perfectly and already manifests itself to a point in cannon. Her being naive makes it so she cannot grasp the nuances of people, though. I’m sure she has gotten better since she returned, but I think I can still see it. Especially in her conversations with other sages.
Miko, on the other hand, from what I’ve seen here, has been proselytizing a sort of historical revisionism (?) with how she publicizes her books, and it fits her because I can tell the purpose is to make shoutouku feel less perfect, which for someone who has gender identity issues that could have bigger repercussions than just dysphoria, is poetic.
In truth, I see their characters as yin yang, not only in cannon but also here. I have been wanting to write more on how miko - byakuren are 2 sides of the same oppression coin, how one ends up expressing it internally and the other externally, and how that manifests in one wanting to be as human as possible and the other as youkai as possible — but my point here is not the explain the similarities.
Because they’ll probably never recognize them, truthfully enough. They have their heads too deep inside their religious asses.
Byakuren can be externally naive, but emotionally? She is a manipulator who knows how to convince people, as any religious leader would. I don’t need to go too deep into this, it’s explained in cannon and also shown here, in this work.
Miko is the total opposite. Politician through and through, couldn’t care less about how you feel if it isn’t logical, it just doesn’t matter.
This manifests into themselves as well, how one perceives their own self:
in how Miko struggles immensely with keeping a solid sense of self (see: miko mom wikipedia);
and how byakuren is stubborn to a point of roguing it out if necessary, doing everything by herself, because leaving things to others usually means you get stuck inside historical artifacts.
I didn’t want to write a very detailed with sources post, but I’ve been wanting to write byakumiko parallels. One day I’ll do it for cannon depictions, but for now I’ll leave anyone who read all of this with a big big ramble on this fanfiction.
If I want to do something more structured, I’d just go and finish my constitutional law paper.
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