OK, it seems that my strong desire to go back to the States to join some friends on anime conventions has resulted in a spate of Touhou related dreams recently (My id... Thank you Koishi). Here are some recent ones:
1. I was playing some kind of game on my Xbox again, just like last time, but this time, the game is some kind of crossover between Max Payne 2 and Saints Row 3 (yeah, it was kind of weird). I was on my final storyline mission where I had to save this girl trapped inside a factory occupied by some powerful dude's private army. There are bombs planted everywhere in the factory, so I have to watch out for them. I attempted to clear the mission without looking at any walkthroughs or cheats, but I was only able to get to the bad ending... (which was basically me killing the powerful dude and the factory blowing up - the girl gets killed and I survive the explosion) Frustrated at my failure, I decided to get some help from a walkrthrough which shows me that this mission has some kind of trick in it - basically I had to crawl through some kind of air vent and move around to deactivate the bombs. I manage to deactivate all the bombs and, just as I was about to reach the good ending, I get cornered by the entire army.
The Touhou part of this dream? Well, at that decisive moment when I was trapped in a room by the army, I mucked around with the cellphone function in the game. Out of the long "contact list" I had, I looked up some familiar names... There was Reimu, Yukari Yakumo, and for some reason Packie McReary from GTA 4. I called up Reimu, and she promised to plant some heavy weaponry and satchel charges somewhere in the factory for my use. The most memorable was her closing sentence: "There are no incidents out there that cannot be resolved without some help from extra firepower and heavy weapons." :V :V :V
2. This time I was reading some book with occasional illustrations of the scene described, kind of like SoPM in terms of the art. I don't recall the title or the author of the book, but the storyline was basically about the period after Gensokyo ended a long time ago (I assumed that it meant a long time after ZUN stopped creating Touhou games). There are these two guys who are in search of "a Youkai of harshness who can bring hope". The book goes on to speak about how all the youkai have disappeared from the surface of earth, there is no magic, and "all of Gensokyo is lost", but the two guys believe that "not all is lost from Gensokyo". They believe that there is this one surviving youkai who can re-create Gensokyo and "resurrect the powers that kept it be".
Reading through the book, it turns out that the youkai they're looking for is Yuuka Kazami. In a scene where the guys are detained and questioned by police, they answer that they are in search for "the flower master of the four seasons". The guys eventually manage to escape from the police, and, as they wander through some meadow in the middle of a night, they see "someone standing amidst the tall grass with a parasol". The guys get excited and run towards the person, who is nobody else but their most wanted Yuuka. The illustration on the next page shows Yuuka running away from the two guys while weeping. Yuuka screams out "Leave me alone! Leave me alone! I don't want anybody to look for me anymore! I am a disgrace and I deserve to die a bitter death!" Exhausted, the guys give up on the chase and see her disappear from their sights.
So Yuuka wasn't the homicidal maniac after all?! Aww that does fit her better
