Miscellaneous Questions Thread (LOOK HERE OR DIE)

[Alfred F. Jones]

As far as I know, it's purely random.

[Silentsword]

Is there a particular trick to triggering the Merlin glitch in PCB? I've tried several times to purposely set it off, but she always transitions into Concerto Grosso correctly.

Not sure if this'll help or not, but Ran and Yukari have a similar glitch with Perfect Buddhist/Butterfly in the Zen Temple.  It appears to be triggered when the spellcard is cleared at the moment the active manji switches.

I say "appears" because I've only triggered it twice, once against each of them, and both times it happened I cleared the card as it was switching - compare to the literally dozens of times I've finished the cards without a hitch.  If my theory is correct, it must be a one or two frame window.

Reasoning by analogy, it's possible that a similar hiccup occurs with Merlin as well.  It *might* even be possible to get one of the other sisters to go nuts as well.  I'd say to aim for moments where the behaviour of her laser is going to be changing and see what happens?

[DgBarca]

Isn't MoF backgrounds based of the real Yatsugatake Mountains near Suwa Lake ? And SA based of something nearby ?

[Drake]

Not exactly the backgrounds, but the scenarios and general plot are based off of Suwa Lake and it's surroundings, yes.

[DgBarca]

Not exactly the backgrounds, but the scenarios and general plot are based off of Suwa Lake and it's surroundings, yes.

Well I mean, are the background (semi-)exact recontruction of landscapes near Suwa Lake ?

[Jana]

There is a video series that shows where various things in Mountain of Faith came from in the form of a travel diary. The first video is here, and the others can all be found on the uploader's YouTube page.

[8lue Wizard]

I just had the most awesomest idea in the history of anything, ever, but it involves synchronizing events in two separate runs, which would be next to impossible to do by hand. Does there exist any utility or documentation that would allow me to hack a .rpy file?

[Demonbman]

If Hakugyokurou is the place where only dead can be, why is there plants? Not only the Ayakashi, but Youmu tends a garden, Is she gardening dead plants?

[Arcengal]

Is there a place where I can find Japanese spellcard names in Romanji? I can't read moonspeak and I'm curious to know if they sound awesome.

[Alfred F. Jones]

I just had the most awesomest idea in the history of anything, ever, but it involves synchronizing events in two separate runs, which would be next to impossible to do by hand. Does there exist any utility or documentation that would allow me to hack a .rpy file?

Drake would know this. Remind me to bother him about replying to you later.

If Hakugyokurou is the place where only dead can be, why is there plants? Not only the Ayakashi, but Youmu tends a garden, Is she gardening dead plants?

Flowers (<3) seem to have some underlying symbolism with death in the 'soak. Remember PoFV, where the spirits of the dead turn into lycoris radiata, aka Higanbana (those red flowers that always show up with Shikieiki in pictures like these). It's up to interpretation, but I prefer to think that the flowers she gardens are in fact dead souls, and the "tending" she does is simply guiding them to enlightenment.

Is there a place where I can find Japanese spellcard names in Romanji? I can't read moonspeak and I'm curious to know if they sound awesome.

If these exist, I do not know at all. Sorry.

[beaver1231]

I'm back here again...

I suddenly got curious about Koishi and looked up on her ability.

Touhou Wikia says:

Manipulation of the subconscious

What exactly is this ability supposed to do? Or is this free for interpretation?

[Dizzy H. "Muffin" Muffin]

Well, canon explicitly states that she uses it to "go unnoticed" in her official profile (that's how she got to the Moriya shrine without any of the Tengu knowing about it), and then there's all her "lolpsychology"-themed spell cards. That's it for canon, but you can extrapolate based on that; presumably, she's going unnoticed by moving your awareness of her into your subconscious, so that you "forget" you're looking at her. I'm guessing she can also go the reverse -- if there's something you're only subconsciously aware of, she could see it the way Satori could see your conscious thoughts, and use her power to make you consciously aware of it. In one of my fanfics, Satori realizes that something's amiss, but can't quite put her finger on it; Koishi sees what Satori "noticed" and moves it into her conscious mind. In another story -- this is on shakier ground, more of a "hey, that's doing stuff to the subconscious, right?" -- she uses her power to suppress Flandre's destructive urges, sort-of-hypnotizing her and making her docile. And, much like real hypnosis, it ceased to work when she hit something Flandre really didn't want ...

[Drake]

she uses her power to suppress Flandre's destructive urges, sort-of-hypnotizing her and making her docile. And, much like real hypnosis, it ceased to work when she hit something Flandre really didn't want ...

i wonder where that came from!!!!!

Anyways, sorry to say but I have no clue how you would hack a replay. Even if you could, it would be extraordinarily likely that it would desync immediately or just plain crash the game. Like I've said before it's not a video file, it's a data file. You would have to edit every frame of data, which would take a stupidly enormous amount of time anyways.

[Dizzy H. "Muffin" Muffin]

i wonder where that came from!!!!!

... whut? It came from my understanding of how hypnosis works.

[Drake]

Oh ok. Guess it's just me, then.

[Dizzy H. "Muffin" Muffin]

Oh, yeah, when that doujin was released, I remarked on the similarity to my story which I'd written months before. :V

[KrackoCloud]

Where did the   Ex-[insert Touhou]   concept come from?
Like, when people draw a character differently and assume she now has broken powers or something.

[Dizzy H. "Muffin" Muffin]

Probably EX-Keine. Then the fact that Rumia's profile states that she can't take her hair-ribbon off, followed by Wild Mass Guessing about EX-Rumia. And just took off from there like it usually does, I guess.

[Jana]

I guess you could trace this as far back as PC-98 Alice too, who appeared both as a normal stage boss and then as a powered-up EX-stage boss. In fact, I think it'd be quite reasonable to think she was the first Touhou character to have an EX-form, despite no apparent physical changes.

[Nobu]

That brings me to a related question: where did the term Ex- most likely originate from, to refer to powered up versions? It's common terminology now, but I'm trying to think of the first source to use that type of terminology but am drawing up a blank. I know Guilty Gear XX used it for alternate skillset chars, but doubt that's the first place. Also, Pop'n uses it for hardest difficulty.

[Moerin]

In fact, I think it'd be quite reasonable to think she was the first Touhou character to have an EX-form, despite no apparent physical changes.

Actually, I'd say Rika was the first, but meh.

And I suppose the terminology is just a shortened form of "EXtra".  At least, that's what I always figured.

[Bananamatic]

I think that the term "EX Keine" was used just because it was shorter than "Keine in extra stage"
IMO EX forms don't exist. It's just a way to easily tell apart which stage boss you mean.

Keine just had different appearance because it was full moon.

If there would be EX Cirno, there wouldn't be any difference in her looks.

[Blaman]

Alright, so I've read a bit of Advent Cirno, and wanted to start working on a little Zelda-like game with Cirno as the main character. I already have the sprites drawn for her (I'm not using the Advent Cirno look, just normal Cirno.) but I wanted to know: what are all of Cirno's swords in that manga and do they have specific names? I want it to be fairly accurate, so I don't look like a idiot if I finish it. XD

(For anyone whose curious, I'm using the program called Zelda Classic to hopefully make this.)

I have an odd feeling this is the wrong place to ask this... >_>

[Alfred F. Jones]

I have an odd feeling this is the wrong place to ask this... >_>

Don't worry, we can move it to Projects in a jiffy. They can help you out there.

Merged to the general question thread, since the topic was a general Touhou related question and its more likely to be answered there. Though if you want to make a topic pertaining to the game itself, still feel free to do so in Projects. 

@ Nobu: Sure thing. My bad, then. o/

[Danielu Yoshikoto]

i only remmember one whice looks like a slice of a watermalon.

sorry never read advent Cirno.

[Sabino]

I wanted to know: what are all of Cirno's swords in that manga and do they have specific names? I want it to be fairly accurate, so I don't look like a idiot if I finish it. XD

According to the Nico Nico Encyclopedia, the sword is called バスターチルノソード　("Buste Cirno Sword")
It's formed by 当たり剣 ("Atari sword" or for direct translation, "Winner sword")
which looks like a stick from a popsicle with "あたり" written on it.*
スイカソード ("Watermelon Sword") looks like a watermelon popsicle, also called スイカバー("Suicaba-")
チョコエッジ ("Choco-Edge") looks like a blade shaped cocolate stick, comes in set of two.
ウエハースブレイド ("Wafer Blade") Small blade shaped wafer, also comes in set of two.

The blade order from outside in probably goes Wafer, Chocolate, Watermelon than Winner.
*A little fun fact, since  あたり which is "winner" can also mean "hit" (In terms of accuracy) Sometimes people say that this sword has 100% accuracy XD

I think you'd be better off also doing a quick search on pixiv or something to checkout how they look since there's just so much I can explain in words.

[Ghaleon]

I have a question...Is Utusho supposedly stupid for a reason other than being a "bird", was she dropped on the head as a baby? Ravens are actually pretty smart, and I don't just mean compared to other birds, they're like dolphins where people debate if they are more intelligent than humans and whatnot. Even simple crows are pretty darn smart compared to most animals (and not just birds).

[Spidere]

How in this estranging world, do you make avatars transparent? Gimp or Photoshop? I'm inexperienced in their use, so yeah.

[Dizzy H. "Muffin" Muffin]

I have a question...Is Utusho supposedly stupid for a reason other than being a "bird", was she dropped on the head as a baby? Ravens are actually pretty smart, and I don't just mean compared to other birds, they're like dolphins where people debate if they are more intelligent than humans and whatnot. Even simple crows are pretty darn smart compared to most animals (and not just birds).

I don't think there's really that much of an explanation. Though you could make the case that it's not INT that's her dump stat, it's WIS -- she's just inexperienced with how the Real World works since she's lived with Satori her whole (sapient) life.

[OkashiiKisei]

I don't think there's really that much of an explanation. Though you could make the case that it's not INT that's her dump stat, it's WIS -- she's just inexperienced with how the Real World works since she's lived with Satori her whole (sapient) life.

And since Satori is a crazy cat lady who lives entirely alone with her pets without any human(oid) contact whatsoever, you can expect Utsuho to be slightly socially awkward and lacking in knowledge. Just let her stay at Patchy for a while and she'll catch up.