Miscellaneous Questions 6: The Questionating

[the old guy]

It's in IN's Netherworld team ending, which was really badly translated in general. A lot of the endings of IN read like gibberish.

「まだ、死にたくは無いわ。それに私は、姫の能力で作られた薬を服用している。残念だけど、冥界のお世話にはなれないのよ。」
"Well, I don't want to die just yet. Besides, I've taken the medicine made with the Princess' power. Sorry to say, but I really can't become the Netherworld's caregiver."

OMG, thank you so fucking much Drake, you are the Real MVP! I was getting so fucking sick of that stupid "Eirin didn't drink the Elixir" myth, and now we can start putting it to rest.

[TresserT]

Speaking of IN and the Netherworld team, is it ever explained amywhere how they managed to freeze the night in IN? The other teams have somewhat obvious explanations, but...

[the old guy]

Maybe Yuyuko asked Yukari to do it?

[Sagus]

I don't think it's ever made explicit what they did.

Maybe Yuyuko used her powers to kill the sunrise.

[Tiamat]

OMG, thank you so fucking much Drake, you are the Real MVP! I was getting so fucking sick of that stupid "Eirin didn't drink the Elixir" myth, and now we can start putting it to rest.

Actually, thanks to several translators, maybe one of which was Drake (I forget. It was so long ago...), I've updated the wiki several years ago to start putting that to rest (I thought those exact words myself back then, too)

[Phasm]

I read somewhere that Youmu and Yuyuko conducted a ritual in order to freeze the night.

[Drake]

That probably isn't the case. For that matter, the usual answer for Scarlet team is that Sakuya would have frozen the night, but we're aware by now that it's impossible for Sakuya to do that.

Even the "historical" take as written in BAiJR and PMiSS suggests that multiple parties were involved, as has become a running theme in all later works. Sakuya was stealing items for Remilia that night, who wanted to go to the moon before dawn, and Marisa was following Sakuya, who had stolen her mini-Hakkero. That being said, it doesn't disqualify either from being involved in the incident, and Sakuya even claims in her interview that she stopped the incident, but couldn't have stopped the night with her abilities (which is consistent with modern Sakuya). Aya later notes in the article that there were rumors that various humans and youkai, including Reimu and Sakuya, were involved in its resolution. She also muses in the article for the incident that the power to stop the night is quite a serious power and isn't sure who would have that kind of power. PMiSS also implies Reimu was a culprit/resolver of the incident, as she's the one Akyuu says won't give you a straight answer about that night. I'm not sure if there are any other places where ambiguous notes about the incident are made, but I wouldn't be surprised.

The whole concept of IN as a game in the first place is just that ZUN wanted the game with all these playable characters. It isn't particularly strange to suggest that he didn't really have any good justification for saying each team stopped the night besides that the night had to be stopped somehow. Judging by the self-imposed mysteries behind what actually happened, I'm banking on the guess that ZUN has no actual answers here.

I think that if it were absolutely necessary to spell out a concrete answer (and it really isn't), my answer would be that Yukari herself stopped the night, regardless of how many parties were involved in the actual incident resolution, and that's that.

[Prime32]

Wasn't there something about Marisa and Alice using a "forbidden spell" to stop the night?

The Remilia/Sakuya team fights Reimu, and the Youmu/Yuyuko team fights Marisa. This can be taken as evidence that Remilia's route is in continuity with Marisa's, and Youmu's route in continuity with Reimu's. Which would in turn mean it's possible that Patchouli stopped the night in Sakuya's route.

[MANoBadAssGar Jr.]

I wonder if it's possible for hourai immortal to "register" an "update" to "restore point" for when they "reset"-ing

like, what happens if hourai immortal get pregnant and then they dies. or pregnancy incapabilities comes with hourai immortality.


btw, it's not like i'm having thought about something kinky, i swear.

[Phasm]

To be honest the hipothetical baby might be able to inherit the " Hourai Gene " however in the case it does not, i think that a healthy pregnancy could happen, however should something happen to the Mother's body let's say... Mokou because she's the best person for this example.
As you all know whenever Mokou attacks she specializes in Fire Magic, in fact she likes it so much that she often burns her own body in her attacks. < This can lead to the destruction of the body as we saw in IN and ULIL specially in ULIL since she burns helfself to ash in order to recover health for her attacks.
The baby would not survive unless it had the " Hourai Gene ".

Provived that People who drank the Elixer can even BECOME pregnant, since:

The first taste: One becomes incapable of growing up and ageing
The second taste: One is incapable of getting sick
The third taste: One becomes immortal

As soon as you taste the Elixer your body cannot grow and age which might mean that an Embryo can simply not be produced by the person who drank the elixer. And in the case that she can still become pregnant, now give her another taste and she now has total invulnerability to alterations in the body such as desiese, i don't know if this also encompasses pregnancy.

But then again this is just conjecture ( scribbles some pappers )

[legwan-w-spioszkach]

Currently the english Touhou Wiki has Rumia's theme being translated literary as "Apparition Stalk the Night". This bugged me the day i decided to retranslate music themes' names, when i ended up with the more probable translation of "Voyage of the Night Demon".
Given the fandom has recently been phasing out the woolseyism and other literary tranlsations for the sake of translations as exact as possible (as possible as to still sound like real speech), I've became curious. The page for the EoSD's music on the aforementioned wiki does not provide explanation as to whether or not it is a reference to some popculture or other stuff.

Can someone enlightment me :V ?

[Drake]

It isn't really "night demon" as it's 夜行, not something like 夜妖魔. 夜行 is really just traveling at night, so the song is referring to either Rumia walking around, or somebody else walking around and Rumia being there. Either way conveying this as "stalks the night" isn't that bad.
妖魔 itself being "apparition" was probably just a whatever-translation (plus it's just "youma" in the comments), but it isn't like that's a term that's really used in Touhou anyways so it isn't a big deal.

I did go ahead and clean up some of the music comments though.

[N-Forza]

I never really saw the problem with "youma" being translated as "apparition" (as opposed to "kobito" as "inchling") and "stalks the night" doesn't really strike me as a huge departure from the original either.

To be honest, I think some of the translations could use a little more "Woolsey" (although things like the prevalent Imperishable Night English patch goes way too far) but it's a tricky issue.

[PK]

Well, we also have 妖魔本 translated as "demon book", and in FS 39 there was this thing called simply "youma" that i don't know how was originally written (was it "妖魔"?).

[legwan-w-spioszkach]

I'll have another question, this time about Flandre.
Is here any deeply psychological fanwork centred around Flandre? I do not mean works where she is just presented as crazy, I want works that are more creative about it.

[Clarste]

Well, we also have 妖魔本 translated as "demon book", and in FS 39 there was this thing called simply "youma" that i don't know how was originally written (was it "妖魔"?).

Yes, that was 妖魔. I don't know if youma is a technical term in Touhou or not, but I've been leaving it as is in my translations, just in case. IE: I call them youma books, not demon books.

[Red770]

I have a burning question that's been bugging me. Before I forget, here is the question:

In the land of illusions is death an ending? Or is it a means for a new beginning? If that's not an illusion what is?

Also if your emotions die out and is replaced with apathy what happens? (hint: you get a raymoo  :V)

[Sophilia]

Well, not only do we have various flavors of immortals, we've also got fairies, ghosts, and celestials who can continue on after dying like nothing happened.  At the same time, the afterlife is a concrete thing, and there have been humans and youkai that had a very real death in the print works.  I wouldn't say death in Touhou is a new beginning, as much as it is a continuation of the cycle of life.  Remember, there is Buddhist style of reincarnation and judgment, and the Child of Miare uses that to continue his or her work on the Gensokyo Chronicle.

[Suspicious person]

In the land of illusions is death an ending? Or is it a means for a new beginning? If that's not an illusion what is?

Depends on what you mean with "ending" and "beginning".
For the regular humans, and by that I mean the not-Akyuu ones, there are various things that should be held in consideration : if a human dies while bearing some super strong feelings of attachment or regret to the world, he'll become a ghost ; and if he was consumed by grudge, like jealousy or something that goes along these lines, chances are that he becomes a vengeful spirit or a youkai. In these two cases, you can say that the former human still keeps some traits of his individuality back when he was still a human : In these two cases, you can say he still continues on, even after death, so I'm am not sure if you could consider this as a new beginning.

When a more regular human dies a completely regular death, with no problems, no regrets, nothing whatsoever, his soul eventually crosses the Sanzu river, gets to Higan and get judged and, somewhere down the line, eventually reincarnates. Now then, here's the thing about the not-Akyuu reincarnated souls : they don't carry any memory whatsoever of who they were in their previous life. Even the vengeful spirits in imprisoned underground, who are supposed to stay there until they have repented on their past sins, have no memory whatsoever of the sins they are supposed to repent for (a certain character said that, but I don't quite remember). In this case, it's a complete new beginning for the reincarnated not-Akyuu soul : no trace whatsoever of who it was in the past. I guess this might fit what you mean by "new beginning".

In the case of non humans (ie : beasts,...) , supernatural beings and "special cases",  I won't delve into the specifics, but basically what should be considered is whether they can die or not and if they do, what happens next : do they stay dead or not ? No seriously, you can stretch this topic far and wide, especially if you take each and every race and peculiar characters into consideration.

All in all, for the humans, it's mainly about their soul : it simply follow the cycle of reincarnation. In other word, it's getting recycled. I am not sure if recycled material can be considered as "continuation" of what they were before, though.

Also if your emotions die out and is replaced with apathy what happens?

You become apathethic. Duh  :V
Or you become a background character for some fighting game stage

[Goomba98]

Did the hungry Yuyuko fanon meme start before or after IN (the game where she talks about eating Mystia and stuff)?

[the old guy]

After, theres nothing about Yuyuko's hunger in PCB.

[Leon゠Helsing]

So I've noticed that Full Moon Duel in Koumajou Densetsu Scarlet Symphony is an homage to, if not an outright arrangement of Akumajo Dracula X68000/Castlevania Chronicles' Moon Fight (link for comparison), isn't this something worth mentioning in the soundtrack's wiki page?

[Drake]

I'm pretty sure a ton of songs across the two games are homages, so that isn't anything particularly special. But I'm not a die-hard fan of Castlevania so I couldn't really tell you which songs or to what extent. Scarlet Tears is obviously Bloody Tears. Divine Bloodlines is also obviously in Divine Shrine Maiden.

[Leon゠Helsing]

Yes, however while those two are homages in that they're similar in structure, Full Moon Duel pretty much has note-for-note similarities with Moon Fight that I think it may count as an arrangement of it. Heck, even the name itself is almost an outright synonym to Moon Fight compared to the other two which are, again, just homages.

[Drake]

...And the ones I mention don't? There are a ton of exact note similarities, never mind the chord progressions. Even versions of the tracks themselves aren't necessarily going to be the same across different games, nor should you really need a certain amount of notes being the same to be "counted" as an arrangement. By that measure, are a huge proportion of Touhou arranges not actually arranges? For that matter, I don't get why going that step to label it an "arrangement" overtop of a "homage" is even relevant in the first place. Regardless of similarity the intention of the artist is just "I'm modeling this song after X". The track names are basically the same too, it was obviously just easier to make some titles more similar than others while keeping them relevant to Touhou.

[Goomba98]

After, theres nothing about Yuyuko's hunger in PCB.

Does that mean I can call out people who think it's an arbitrary fandom thing like masochist Tenshi (which actually is arbitrary, since there are no hints of her being masochistic in canon)? Did her hunger in IN come from the fandom, or vice versa?

[Camilo113]

Does that mean I can call out people who think it's an arbitrary fandom thing like masochist Tenshi (which actually is arbitrary, since there are no hints of her being masochistic in canon)? Did her hunger in IN come from the fandom, or vice versa?

Masochist Tenshi comes from her SWR Story Mode where everyone gathers in Heaven to "punish" her during the  Celestial Torture-fest The Groundbreaking Ceremony; and I'm pretty sure the whole "hungry Yuyuko" derivates from her IN behavior during the story.

By the way, you could've looked all this in the Touhou Wiki, it's not like those fandom stuff are unfamiliar or hard to find.

[the old guy]

Does that mean I can call out people who think it's an arbitrary fandom thing like masochist Tenshi (which actually is arbitrary, since there are no hints of her being masochistic in canon)? Did her hunger in IN come from the fandom, or vice versa?

It came from IN, but her gluttoness is mentioned a couple of other times in canon, like her fight with Iku in SWR, where she expresses desire to eat Oarfish. Or HM where she is endlessly fed riceballs by Poor Youmu.

Fandom turns this up to 11 and makes her into fucking Kirby, when as far as I can tell, half of her gluttoness may just be her teasing people (like Youmu). I don't think she actually ate Mystria.

[Goomba98]

Masochist Tenshi comes from her SWR Story Mode where everyone gathers in Heaven to "punish" her during the  Celestial Torture-fest The Groundbreaking Ceremony; and I'm pretty sure the whole "hungry Yuyuko" derivates from her IN behavior during the story.

By the way, you could've looked all this in the Touhou Wiki, it's not like those fandom stuff are unfamiliar or hard to find.

It's not like Tenshi WANTED to be punished though, right?
And I'm somewhat afraid of the Touhou Wiki not having the info I want.

[TresserT]

Yes, get angry!
Because if you don't punish me, Gensokyo shall be no more!

(from Youmu's SWR story)

Well you know, I was told by Suika that the gathering "was called 'The Groundbreaking Ceremony' but was actually 'Celestial Torture-fest'".

(from Tenshi's SWR story)

The whole plot of SWR is: Tenshi's bored, so she causes an incident to get people to come beat her up.