Miscelleneous Touhou thoughts and commentary.

[Dark Kitsune]

I want to ask: Of all the Touhou characters in various official outfit variants, who will make the least attention when taking a stroll at the Outside World?

Most definitely Ran.

Hatate would work. Though the hat might look odd.

[Aya Reiko]

I want to ask: Of all the Touhou characters in various official outfit variants, who will make the least attention when taking a stroll at the Outside World?

Hecatia, Yukari, Reisen (just add a hairband), and Alice.

[Neptune]

I want to ask: Of all the Touhou characters in various official outfit variants, who will make the least attention when taking a stroll at the Outside World?

Is it okay if I say PC-98 characters? :v Pretty sure Elly, Yuki, Chiyuri, Rika, Louise and Ellen would be fine  :3

Shizuha, and Yatsuhashi could be as well.  :derp:

[Tribow]

Is it okay if I say PC-98 characters? :v Pretty sure Elly, Yuki, Chiyuri, Rika, Louise and Ellen would be fine  :3

Shizuha, and Yatsuhashi could be as well.  :derp:

What about Orange though.

[PK]

SCoOW characters' profles. I'm taking it as truth even outside ZUN's direct comments since he supervised them, and IIRC one of the reasons he made others do them is because he realized his own were less...understandable.

Moon rabbits are youkai after all.
Yukari's powers confirmed to be a game-breaker (literally! :V). Not that most didn't realize it already, but now there isn't "Akyuu's bullshit" to blame anymore.
Tewi's luck-granting ability might be passive and not under her own control. Apparently, "we" are able to enter Eientei in IN because she gave us enough luck to do it.
I like this "new" way to look at shikigami. Also, the weakness to water seems to be specifically only Chen's deal, Ran as no such thing in her description.

[snowflake247]

SCoOW characters' profles.

Where can I read these? Are they on the wiki? I feel like I'm "out of the loop."

[PK]

Where can I read these? Are they on the wiki? I feel like I'm "out of the loop."

Here.

[Clarste]

Tewi's luck-granting ability might be passive and not under her own control. Apparently, "we" are able to enter Eientei in IN because she gave us enough luck to do it.

I didn't get that impression when reading it. It was more like she was intentionally letting us in for her own purposes, even if she made a show of fighting us. Like Aya in MoF. The whole context of the paragraph was essentially that she's the one who's really in charge of everything that happens in Eientei and the bamboo forest.

[Drake]

And really that's the gist that we get from other works like CiLR as well. People like to understate Tewi's importance as a character because she doesn't usually show up in any visible and significant way, and her fandom characterization is incredibly shallow, so it's good that recent stuff like this and WaHH have kind of tried to reestablish her position.

[Sagus]

At the request of her old friend Yuyuko, she weakened the border of the Netherworld in order to allow Yuyuko to gather spring from Gensokyo. And once the incident was over, she was again asked to redraw it

Is this really what the japanese original says? 'Cause it's a retcon, isn't it? Yukari's PCB profile only mentions Yuyuko asking her to close the hole, not open it; it kinda implied that Yuyuko herself had done it. PMiSS said it was Yukari's fault, yeah, but I think I remember asking this on the questions thread and we basically concluding that it was a case of Akyuu just blaming the most obvious culprit.

Ran Yakumo is strictly the shikigami, and the nine-tailed fox youkai she is possessing is an entirely different being. However, since the original fox never shows on the surface at all, there's no problem in thinking of Ran Yakumo as a nine-tailed fox.

...well now, isn't this some fascinating information that raises all sorts of questions.

[the old guy]

Is this really what the japanese original says? 'Cause it's a retcon, isn't it? Yukari's PCB profile only mentions Yuyuko asking her to close the hole, not open it; it kinda implied that Yuyuko herself had done it. PMiSS said it was Yukari's fault, yeah, but I think I remember asking this on the questions thread and we basically concluding that it was a case of Akyuu just blaming the most obvious culprit.

Actually it was Reimu who broke it. Her power is breaking barriers after all.

...well now, isn't this some fascinating information that raises all sorts of questions.

Yes, it is indeed very interesting. I wonder what would happen if the fox woke up.

[Clarste]

Is this really what the japanese original says? 'Cause it's a retcon, isn't it? Yukari's PCB profile only mentions Yuyuko asking her to close the hole, not open it; it kinda implied that Yuyuko herself had done it. PMiSS said it was Yukari's fault, yeah, but I think I remember asking this on the questions thread and we basically concluding that it was a case of Akyuu just blaming the most obvious culprit.

It's likely that the writer's basically just citing PMiSS as a factual source. The thing about how shikigami work is also something you might take away from reading the PMiSS article on Chen.

[Drake]

1: Shikigami aren't a particular class of youkai, but is more like a software that are put on them. When this software runs, we write that here as being "possessed".

kind of plainly writes it out, really

[the old guy]

......So its just another thing that the fandom once again stupidly ignored due to its basis against Akyuu.
The Touhou Fandoms gonna be the Touhou Fandom i guess.

[Shadowlupus]

Whoops, i have mixed up the post with another Miscellaneous Questions thread.

[Drake]

......So its just another thing that the fandom once again stupidly ignored due to its basis against Akyuu.
The Touhou Fandoms gonna be the Touhou Fandom i guess.

Not entirely, I for one completely forgot about this aspect until it was reintroduced in SCoOW. It wasn't strictly new information and I remember where I had heard this kind of stuff before (even if I hadn't, it's well in line with how ZUN interprets shikigami anyways), but I was still surprised and probably would have made some mistakes if you had asked me about it beforehand. I don't think this was one of the cases where it was something actually well-established that people just ignored, since this point about shikigami was never really expanded upon much anywhere.

[Sagus]

Actually it was Reimu who broke it. Her power is breaking barriers after all.

Er, no? Why would Reimu break the barrier between the Netherworld and Gensokyo? Yuyuko asked Yukari to do it so she could steal spring. Reimu had nothing to do with this.

It's likely that the writer's basically just citing PMiSS as a factual source.

Yeah, but I imagine that ZUN had to read and approve the text, no?

kind of plainly writes it out, really

I remembered this line, but I always interpreted it as being that a shikigami was like installing a third party software that allowed the master to empower the servant (the "possessing" being the fact that the shikigami had to follow the exact orders of its master so it's like the master possessed the shikigami), not that a shikigami is basically an AI that takes control over the body it's inhabiting and is an entirely different creature .

Re-reading it in this new light makes the original meaning really obvious, though, and it makes way more sense than what I was interpreting.

[Clarste]

Er, no? Why would Reimu break the barrier between the Netherworld and Gensokyo? Yuyuko asked Yukari to do it so she could steal spring. Reimu had nothing to do with this.

The idea behind that theory is that you broke it in-game in the process of moving from stage 4 to stage 5. IE: Reimu encounters that giant door and busts it open, thereby leaving the Netherworld border with a broken door. The problem with this is that it doesn't really explain how Youmu was able to steal spring from Gensokyo in the first place.

[Hello Purvis]

Well, Sakuya flew over it, so I imagine Youmu could too.

[PK]

Well, Sakuya flew over it, so I imagine Youmu could too.

Yukari's profile says she was asked by Yuyuko to repair the netherworld border after Yuyuko weakened it (although i suppose it doesn't necessarily mean Yuyuko did it personally with her "hands", so it doesn't exclude Yukari doing it). So my theory is that people could fly over the big door in stage 4 only after the border was already weak, then Reimu passed by and completley opened it while the other two flied above.

[Sagus]

I always figured that the giant sky door being there at all was what it meant for the border between the places to have been weakened, tbh

[the old guy]

Er, no? Why would Reimu break the barrier between the Netherworld and Gensokyo? Yuyuko asked Yukari to do it so she could steal spring. Reimu had nothing to do with this.

She did it on accident.

And she's fucking Reimu. What did you except from her? Not being a grumpy piece of shit?

[Sagus]

She did it on accident.

And she's fucking Reimu. What did you except from her? Not being a grumpy piece of shit?

Still doesn't make sense. Spring was being stolen way before Reimu went to the Netherworld, and it's outright stated Yuyuko is responsible for opening the hole between the places (by asking Yukari or by herself, doesn't matter). Reimu could've at best made it worse, but that isn't really discussed anywhere in canon, is it?

[Tribow]

Well here's my take on the matter.

The barrier was weakened well before Reimu did anything. When Reimu showed up she broke the barrier completely to go by.

In the conversation between Youmu and Reimu, Reimu had said that the barrier opened quite easily...or at least imploed that. She acted as if she didn't have to make muh of an effort to open it at all.

When Marisa approached the barrier she was amazed by how strong the barrier was. Marisa isn't stupid, she knows a lot, and if she said it was a really strong barrier then it must have been.

And that was when the barrier was already weakened.
If the barrier was never weakened to begin with would Reimu be able to break through with no effort as she implies?

I think not.

[Clarste]

If the barrier was never weakened to begin with would Reimu be able to break through with no effort as she implies?

I think not.

One of the chapters of Forbidden Scrollery demonstrates that Reimu knows a "cheat" technique to immediately unbind any seal. I think that scene is more meant to demonstrate Reimu's overwhelming talent in certain fields, especially in comparison to Marisa.

[Tribow]

One of the chapters of Forbidden Scrollery demonstrates that Reimu knows a "cheat" technique to immediately unbind any seal. I think that scene is more meant to demonstrate Reimu's overwhelming talent in certain fields, especially in comparison to Marisa.

Well.....
I haven't read that yet.

Even so, to break the barrier before the incident happened, Reimu would have to know that the barrier exists.
It didn't seem like she know about it until stage 4 PCB

[MANoBadAssGar Jr.]

I'm imagining an elderly person telling touhou stories as fairy tales in storytelling style
like,
"Once upon a time there's a girl who lives in a very big mansion, she really want to go play outside but unable to because of her physical circumstance........"
"............and she ended up got beaten to a pulp down to the floor by the intruder in her mansion. The girl got rob of her happiness, but everyone else now lives in more harmony. The End"
or
"Once upon a time there's a tiger and a mouse, they are on a journey to find something that can save their friend. The tiger were too prideful to let others know it's blunder, so to hide it the tiger make use of the mouse companion to do the labor. And the tiger able to retain it's respectful appearance because of help from the mouse."

"Once upon a time there's a woman who lives happily with her husband and son, but one day the son was murdered and the mother driven into becoming a terrorist with the help of her friend who is a triple agent and her underling who looks like an arsonist."

"Ice fairy who likes to freeze frogs and got punished by the goddess of frogs"

"A modern young girl who got cut off from electricity and steadily losing common sense"

"Demon rabbit who sells medicine which occasionally mixed in with shady drug."

"A half-ghost who is afraid of ghost."

"Red-green spinning thing by the foot of a mountain."

"Woman in a gap who like to peep on people in secrecy."

"A girl who sell antidote to the people she poisoned"

"A slacking ferryman and stray spirits"

[Sagus]

We all know that Mokou dies a lot in her IN duel with the heroines, and there's some discussion regarding as to why.

After replaying ULL a bit, another possible explanation occured me.

In ULL, one of her attacks is to kill herself in a burst of fire. This attack is one that needs to be used with some regularity so that she can regenerate the damage that her own attacks cause her.
Couldn't this also be the case for her IN fight? She'd kill herself after each spellcard so she could go back to fighting with a less battered body.

[the old guy]

I'm imagining an elderly person telling touhou stories as fairy tales in storytelling style

I think that was intentional on ZUN's part.

"Once upon a time there's a woman who lives happily with her husband and son, but one day the son was murdered and the mother driven into becoming a terrorist with the help of her friend who is a triple agent and her underling who looks like an arsonist."

......Um, i don't think "terrorist" and "triple agent" are words that would be used in fairy tales?

Also, you would like this:
http://vgperson.com/junyaseuss.htm

[Clarste]

We all know that Mokou dies a lot in her IN duel with the heroines, and there's some discussion regarding as to why.

After replaying ULL a bit, another possible explanation occured me.

In ULL, one of her attacks is to kill herself in a burst of fire. This attack is one that needs to be used with some regularity so that she can regenerate the damage that her own attacks cause her.
Couldn't this also be the case for her IN fight? She'd kill herself after each spellcard so she could go back to fighting with a less battered body.

It's more like she burns herself to ash for each spellcard, rather than doing some special move between them. Ultimately, her body is still as fragile as a human's, and she's pushing it past its limit.