Crack theories

[shadowbringer]

Again, the burden of proof to disprove a theory is on YOU.  Postulating that a possibility requires an assumption in a theory is redudant.  IT's a THEORY.  OF COURSE IT'S GOING TO HAVE ASSUMPTIONS.  PROVING these assumptions to not possibly be able to exist is what you have to do, and merely stating that "one must make assumptions, therefore this theory doesn't hold water" is not how actual logic is supposed to work.

If ZUN didn't want people to make assumptions on this matter, he would have directly stated what Maribel's relationshp to Yukari was instead of give his more vague response that requires assumptions to get anything from. Ergo, the fact that assumptions must be made for this theory are a given.  What you have to do is PROVE those assumptions can not be possible, and so far you just keep parotting the same meaningless stuff that PROVES ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.  Especially in this case, where Akyuu already gave an explanation about why Yukari is so smart.

proving the theory is also what you're supposed to be doing, too. It's like if I say, "I have an invisible dragon pet in my house!", then ask others to disprove what I say and expect others to not ask me for proofs. You've been posting "evidences" that leads to your theory; why are you just as eager to assume that said evidences the only possibilities? There are more sides to this history, than what you want people to know or see.

If you go by the "anything is true until proven wrong", why are the other theories (not limiting myself to mine, but whatever else may appear) out of consideration for you? Also, what proof do you have regarding how Maribel would befriend Yukari, and then "snapping out" and becoming Yukari? (note, though, that I don't assume even my theory to be true, due to room for error, as I've stated before, but you instead seem to base yourself on assumptions. Plus, said assumptions are based on your view of Yukari. Why should her every trace, even her personality, be the way you dictate it?)

The last paragraph ("If ZUN didn't want people to make assumptions on this matter") is once again an assumption by you, which also didn't explore the other theories (the more probable being "Yukari wasn't Maribel". I could even extend this a bit by saying that Maribel can be a relative, and use Suwako and Sanae as precedence examples.. but I don't bother enough about Maribel, and more importantly, there's no conclusive data). Also, why would you try to guess what one's saying or thinking and then claim that the way you've guessed is the way things should be? (there is a saying, "science doesn't provide certainties, while religion provides false certainties")

Finally, this whole theory could be a good fanfic, like Concealed the Conclusion and other stuff could. But there's no use trying to make people believe said theory is canon.

[Tengukami]

No one is trying to make anyone believe the theory is canon.

Starxsword is making arguments against Tiamat's theory about things that either a) aren't there or b) have already been explained canonically.

That's why this back-and-forth continues.

[Alfred F. Jones]

Basically, what Ammy said. This thread is supposed to be for many, many other crack theories and related discussion, not just Yukari being Maribel. If it could be dropped after this post, that would be most kind.

And to get this thread back on its rails, a crack theory from me: Yumemi is actually the alternate-universe daughter (or niece) of Reiji and Tsuneko Okazaki, the microbiologist husband-and-wife team who discovered Okazaki fragments.

[Starxsword]

No one is trying to make anyone believe the theory is canon.

Starxsword is making arguments against Tiamat's theory about things that either a) aren't there or b) have already been explained canonically.

That's why this back-and-forth continues.

I will stop posting any more about Maribel and Yukari, but you may want to read some of the replies. I'll quote them for you:

<Tengukami no Futo> That's OK. I've already read them. Also, instead of turning this into the Starxsword vs. Tiamat thread, how about just offering another crack theory?

[TAKE IT CACODEMON!!]

Here's one of mine:

Yuuka isn't actually a troll, nor is she a psychotic murderer. She only acts that way and uses rumors about her to keep people from bothering her gatekeeper and her flower garden.

Mokou claiming she went crazy for two hundred years was an attempt to make her look unsympathetic to Keine. Can't keep people too close, after all.

There's two types of youkai in Gensokyo - one are the lovable, weird-but-endearingly-human ZUN youkai, who are humanoid and civilized and frequently lie about their ages to make themselves look more powerful (after all, youkai do get more powerful with age, but really, most people don't live to a hundred and still act immature... well, emphasis on most). The other are violent, disgusting, historically-correct creatures that will rape you and kill you, and maybe not in that order. They both come from the same evolutionary line of youkai, though.

Grimdark stuff are just rumors spread across the Human Village to slander youkai and humans. Ties in with the human village distrusting Reimu in BAIJR (but then again, that may be Aya insulting Reimu).

The Human Village isn't a village. More like a small city at this point.

[VIVItheFujoshi]

my ideas:
Youki is alive. Only for logic: in PCB, is said who he was training Youmu but one day "dissapered"...that means who he never passed to the netherworld like a died person, too. Well, and something interesting: he was for 300 years the gardener of the Hakugyokurou. If you divides 300 for 6, you obtain 60, the age of retirement of samurais. the age of initiation is 10 years; that means 60, the age of Youmu had in PCB. Finally, why nobody knows where is he? because maybe he looks diferent: more young. he leaves Hakugyokurou for turn a hermit. (curiosly, this was a thing who lots of samurai, in stories, do in their retire: turn hermits, enter to a shrine for live in seclution, be teachers or "cops" in a village...or found a simple life) and, how is an half ghost, achieve the hability of change his age... the hint of this i founded in the dialog of Youmu and Seiga Kaku: (thanks Touhou Wiki)

Kaku: A hermit is a hermit. Perpetual youth, a clear mind, a sturdy body. It seems you're the same sort of being. You've transcended life and death, haven't you?
Youmu: No, uh, I can die.

and is again called a Shikaisen for Futo, and even Miko believed who she was an hermit or a shikaisen. Maybe the Konpakus have the potencial hability of obtain a very slow age.

---

Originally, the Kourindou shop was a real but abandoned "Temple of the perfumed rain" (a translation of the name) ...a place where the people leaved their old tools, artifacts and dolls for avoid the tsukumogami curses. (in some traditions even are burned) ...when Rinnosuke occuped the place, saw who the "temple" is in the middle of Gensokyo...and how he likes the word play, Kourindou was the chosen name.
http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Talk:Curiosities_of_Lotus_Asia/Chapter_06  (discussion in Touhou Wiki about the word plays)

but you know, this is only speculah.

[haoreos2]

I had an idea a while back explaining the hitbox deal. Doubt it was intended in any way, but it's a fun theory: Character's in touhou games have hitboxes smaller than their sprites to represent the fact they can dodge in three dimensions, rather than just two.

[Starxsword]

You know how Kaguya comes up with these new impossible requests and how she wowed everyone when Reisen was drunk? My theory
is she came up with yet another impossible request while Reisen is drunk, but this one is new and improved and put Eirin to shame. My
guess is that it is some kind of robot rabbit that can grow big and shoot lasers.
note: this robot rabbit comes with an auto self destruct function, just like Alice's Goliath doll, so no trace of it can be found.

[Alfred F. Jones]

Yumemi is the descendant of Erica Fontaine from Sakura Taisen III.

[Sophilia]

The residents of the Scarlet Devil Mansion are numerous and infamous.  The known list includes Meiling, Koakuma, Patchouli, Sakuya, Remilia, and Flandre.  But there's one more person that I believe resides there, and that person is Kana Anaberal from PoDD.

How is it possible for a PC-98 character to be a SDM denizen?  Quite easily, actually.  Embodiment of Scarlet Devil happened in 2002.  In its character notes on Reimu, it states:

Chronologically this title is not too far from the previous
title, thus her age stays the same as before.

So it was less than a year after Mystic Square, if we can trust ZUN.  But in Aya's article on Lunasa, which takes place in 1998, it mentions the Scarlet Devil Mansion explicitly.  So the Mansion didn't just poof into being for the events of EoSD, it's been there for a little bit.  This also implies a little something about the Vampire Incident, but we're not here to rehash that noise.

Now, let's talk about Kana herself.  In her PoDD profile it states that she's a poltergeist created by "a mentally unstable girl,"  and lives in "an enormous Western-style mansion."  Now, there are a number of Western type buildings in Gensokyo, including Alice's house, the Prismriver manor, and the SDM.  But Alice's house isn't big, and Layla specifically created shades of her sisters.  Plus, Flandre has been referred to as not being in her right mind more than once.
Her situation in PoDD, specifically, is that "lately its owner has gotten used to her and won't pay her much mind, so she's thinking of moving."  Well, yeah.  I don't think it would take that long for Remilia to become accustomed to having her around, especially considering all the other supernatural stuff that happens around there anyway.
As for the maid dress she's wearing, that's because she's probably been drafted as an SDM maid.  Sakuya probably still does all the work anyway.  Kana may be even less reliable than the fairies, since the purpose of a classic poltergeist is to toss stuff around, make noise, and try to scare people.
It's probably just a coincidence that someone named after Cape Canaveral lives in a place where they shot off a moon rocket, but I wouldn't put it past ZUN to do this deliberately.

[Drake]

But in Aya's article on Lunasa, which takes place in 1998, it mentions the Scarlet Devil Mansion explicitly.  So the Mansion didn't just poof into being for the events of EoSD, it's been there for a little bit.

I like this. Good eye.

[Mimachiro]

Kana Theory

Best theory yet. It's actually quite plausible. :3

[haoreos2]

That is indeed a nice theory. Only issue with it I can see is why she's never seen or mentioned in the games, which could just be conservation of detail.

[Starxsword]

@Sophilia:
Sounds good. If Zun introduces her, he might make it that she has always lived in the SDM, kind of like how Kyouko is already a resident
of the Myouren temple. Too bad, I don't have real confidence on any PC-98 character being introduced. I tend to ignore them until
they get re-introduced.

[Tiamat]

That is indeed a nice theory. Only issue with it I can see is why she's never seen or mentioned in the games, which could just be conservation of detail.

ZUN's stated in e-mails that he either "can not comment" or has "no comment" on the PC-98 characters (I forget which. The former makes it more likely what happened that I'll go into below, but the latter would imply it too).

Things like that are usually stated when there's a legal issue involved (or attempting to avoid a legal issue).  ....not always, but there's a good chance, I think?

As I've stated before, ZUN's already stated in interviews that he had most of Touhou's plot planned out before he even started making Touhou games. The sheer lack of PC-98 characters in future games possibly comes from legal copyright issues.

I wouldn't be too surprised if Kana was indeed planned for the SDM, but got removed because... well, again, legal issues.

Of course, there are many other possible explanations too. After all, I imagine ZUN had to change a lot of what he originally planned for Touhou if legal issues were involved. For example, it's possible that the prismriver sisters ended up being a revised version of what ZUN originally intended for Kana.(revised/changed, of course, since as pointed out, Kana as she currently stands wouldn't fit in with the Prismriver background)

I like the SDM theory about her, though. That maid observation ties it in really well.

[Starxsword]

I see this a few times. Is there proof of this legal issue Zun has with his characters? I was always under the impression he made them,
so therefore he owns them.

[Romantique Tp]

That's right, Japan follows the berne convention - everything you create is yours for as long as it's not created under contract and you put your name somewhere. Amusement Makers is nothing more than a student group, so there are no contracts involved. The fact that ZUN could arrange Seihou songs without mentioning Amusement Makers or Seihou should make this very clear.

[Tiamat]

Hmm, is that it?  Well, in that case, it does make the likelihood of legal issues very small.

Ah, here's the exact statement (well, translated, of course)

http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/ZUN%27s_E-mails

> ? Are Yuki and Mai really dead?
> I know we're dealing with an old game, but were Yuki and Mai from Mystic Square really killed?
> Looking in particular in the conversation when Lady Mima and Yuki are left... (sweat)
> Or is this also a type of joke, like Lady Remilia's statement that "Sakuya is dead" in EoSD?

"Basically, they're whatever-works types, so they might not be dead.  I generally have no comment regarding
older works.  Please ignore it as much as you can in derivative works. :-)"


Wow, if it wasn't legal issues.... that's harsh.  Almost feels like he's treating it as an "old shame" or something, considering that he even asked the fans to ignore his older works in derivative works.  O_o

Suddenly I now get the image of ZUN looking back at the PC-98 series and saying to himself, "God, what the hell was I thinking?"

Then again, maybe he just meant the laws/physics of older works (IE, he's subtlely saying he wish he thought of the "Spell Card rules for dueling" before those works) and not the characters. ....maybe, what with him ignoring all those characters to disturbing degrees today.


EDIT: Added the original question so people wouldn't take "So they might not be dead" out of context

[Starxsword]

I think it is probably because making a somewhat coherent world is hard if you include the PC-98 characters. Why not just start over
and re-introduce them later on?
I think of it like trying to tell a story, you start out, but not really sure what you wanna write. Then, you get a idea and have a sort of
coherent story line in mind(EoSD and on), then you think maybe the earlier works may interfere too much with the later works, so
ignore it.
This is all just my interpretation of things and there is no factual evidence to prove this.

Look at how Yuuka and Alice got introduced. You could link them to PC-98, but you don't have to. You just know they knew Reimu prior
to EoSD and that is about all. It leaves things open ended without constricting what is available to develop.

[haoreos2]

@Tiamat: rather than an old shame, I get the feeling he considers the windows games a reboot. "Please ignore it as much as you can in derivative works. :-)", seems to be referring to the discrepancies, rather than the actual characters, from how I read it. Sort of like replying to a "Why did Alice age so much in less than a year" with "Try not to think about it too hard".

I was not aware of that copyright thing, that's interesting. Does kinda put a damper on the whole "Yuuka was the original Yukari but ZUN couldn't get the copyright" theory, though.

Having EoSD as a reboot would explain most of the discrepancies I can think of, looking at other series that have reboots.

[Tiamat]

Well, regarding the Yukari = Yuuka crack theory, one could always revise it from

"ZUN originally was going to have Yuuka be Yukari, but couldn't initially secure the copyright to Yuuka so he made Yukari."

to

"ZUN originally was going to have Yuuka be Yukari, but decided he liked blondes better."

[Starxsword]

"ZUN originally was going to have Yuuka be Yukari, but decided he liked blondes better."

That has a lot of truth to it. Marisa is a perfect example. There is also Alice and to a lesser extent Flandre.

[haoreos2]

Alternatively:
? he wasn't sure if he wanted to bring back any PC-98 characters (justifying Alice because she's completely different except for name and hair, even switching themes from alice in wonderland to dollmaking puppeteer)
? he wanted a different entrance for the border youkai (perhaps he didn't like the idea her starting as a stage 5 boss, or in her PJs)
? the magic Yuuka ended up learning at mystic square (I think?)'s ending turned out to be puppetry, (which Alice saw, and copied later), and Yukari is Yuuka's puppet. Naturally, like all of Alice's dolls, she is blonde, and the hands coming out of her gaps are Yuuka pulling the strings. This also explains why they're never in the same game, abd why Yuuka suddenly got a lot less active (I also really vaguely remember Yukari saying she was gensokyo itself, or the land, or something at one point, but that was probably some fanfic or another). They also have ajacent PMiSS articles, in which they're both described as "youkai-like youkai", and it explains Yukari's constantly shifting age and zamg this theory explains everything!!1one!

Ahem. Yeah, plenty of possibilities other than copyright infringement. Personally I like each one better the way they are now than I would a mixture of the two.

[Tengukami]

Some crazy redhead broke ZUN's heart after the final PC-98 game, which led him to reboot/favorite characters with blonde hair.

[haoreos2]

Some crazy redhead broke ZUN's heart after the final PC-98 game, which led him to reboot/favorite characters with blonde hair.

And that's what drove him to alcohol?

[Tengukami]

And that's what drove him to alcohol?

The alcohol was probably what ended the relationship, but I'm sure he raised the drinking up a notch afterwards.

[haoreos2]

Meiling abuse actually anywhere in canon? If so, that adds another layer of plausibility!

In any case, he then created another character (Aya) who would be a drinking buddy, and spread rumours incognito around the fandom that she was his girlfriend.

How does our resident readheaded oni drunkard fit in?

[Starxsword]

I would assume that is mostly fanon. There are instances where Meiling gets hit, but those are rare.

Spoiler:

Sakuya hits Meiling in her
ending, because she is sleeping and they are about to go see Hisoutensoku. I guess that is Sakuya's way of waking her up.

She does not need to worry about getting yelled at or anything, since Remilia seems pretty lenient towards her workers.

[Desu_Cake]

here's a new one.
The reason part of Byakuren's hair is purple is because during Mystic Square, when flying through makai, Reimu dropped her purple hair dye which by chance landed on Byakuren's head. This also explains why Reimu stopped dying her hair afterwards, although it doesn't quite explain why she brought it with her when incident solving.

[_cf]

3 pages.

No crack theories about Mima.

I don't know if I should be proud or sad.


@Tiamat's Unified Yukaribel theory: Without doing 1/10th of Tiamat's impressive homework, I already had wondered something like this (http://danbooru.donmai.us/post/show/734018, standart danbooru NSFW disclaimers). In my headcanon however Maribel is sent back in time much earlier than 1,200 years ago and Yukari has no memories of her human past, which in essence make them two different characters.