Miscellaneous Questions Thread 4 - Bring us your Questions!

[Biakmon]

When did this pair start to spread in the fan community - Alice x Marisa and/or Patchouli x Marisa?

[Drake]

Pretty much immediately with all of them after EoSD and PCB respectively. But Touhou wasn't super driven until PCB, so if you're talking about actual volume of fanworks I'd have to say after PCB. However, we don't have the same tools for distribution back then that we have now, so we don't really have a whole lot of early examples of fanworks.

[Starxsword]

I'm not sure in what sense you mean by this, because this is demonstrably untrue. A "dead person" is the corpse itself. A ghost is the active spirit of a dead person. They are not one and the same. Also, not sure the spirits of dead people qualify as youkai. I think they are rather a class of supernatural beings unto themselves.

This was my mistake, I misread the person's response. I thought they said something different. But I disagree, it does qualify as youkai. Youkai by its broadest definition pretty much means strange beings. Or do you mean more specific sub category of youkai, like Tengu?
For instance Murasa is a youkai and she's a ghost. Same deal with Yuyuko.

[Tengukami]

Oh, I was just under the impression ghosts were a separate thing from youkai. Don't know why, as the very broadest definition includes them. Never mind then!

[Starxsword]

I could be wrong here, but I don't believe they are. That is as far as I know.

[Tengukami]

Yeah, no, ghosts are youkai. For whatever reason I was confusing them with something else.

[Clarste]

Ghosts are pretty definitely youkai. It's a very broad term.

[strangedudemeh]

No idea if this is a correct thread for that, but I don't know of a more suitable place to ask this in, so forgive me:

Does Paletweb ship to Russia? (or countries other than US/Germany/etc in general) I think it's in the "Europe Area", but since it's so vague, I can't tell if that's the right one.

[Prime32]

Does Yorihime's sword (in "sword cage" form or otherwise) have the ability to nullify peoples' powers?

[neetori]

Pardon me,
Are there any conventions that have a prominent Touhou Project fanbase, such as AWA?

[cuc]

What is the origin of the phrase 君は実に馬鹿だな, associated with Nazrin (see Drake's signature or title)?

[neetori]

What is the origin of the phrase 君は実に馬鹿だな, associated with Nazrin (see Drake's signature or title)?

The origin is from Doraemon, where the protagonist is told off out of disgust when he tries to get away by replacing a broken lightbulb with a ball.
It was a meme for a while on 2ch, then may have spread even more after vocaloid Teto`s song of the same name.

The relation to Nazrin may be that she once says 「ばっかだなぁ、君は」 which is very similar in context, and so a fan made her say the meme instead in his work.

[Sungho]

From what I can gather, it's comes from Doraemon.
Doraemon says this when Nobita tries to cover up a broken light bulb with a baseball.
Searching withきみはじつにばかだな might work better.

[neetori]

Does Yorihime's sword (in "sword cage" form or otherwise) have the ability to nullify peoples' powers?

The answer is probably not, in my opinion.
She does seem to nullify/paralyze with her sword, however as she invokes other gods and uses their power through the sword as well, it can be said it is the god`s power to do so.

[Kilgamayan]

Pardon me,
Are there any conventions that have a prominent Touhou Project fanbase, such as AWA?

Most of the major North American conventions have a substantial Touhou presence; Otakuthon in particular has a Touhou-dedicated weekend-long subevent. Beyond that, you could try any of AnimeExpo, Otakon, AnimeCentral, A-Kon, AnimeBoston, SakuraCon, AnimeNorth, or Fanime for large crowds of people.

[neetori]

Pardon me. (and thank you for the response earlier)
Are there any active translators on this website?
And/or is there a need for such?

[Kilgamayan]

There are a few users on this site that do translations in various capacities, though we as a site don't offer any sort of translation services and I don't think there's any kind of dedicated translation thread.

For your second question, with the sheer volume of Touhou content, I'd say there's always a need for translators. :V

[Paz legalces]

Last year, one of the Touhou Wiki's character profile for Hijiri Byakuren used to state that she let a boat of monks died (whether accidentally or purposely was not disclosed)
...this does not seems to have any citation from anywhere (as far as I know), and there were various forums (wrongly) used it as one of the basis for her character's interpretation
...but recently, it seems like I can't find that line anywhere on any Wiki anymore... seems like it has been removed
Does anyone know if that line still holds water, and the citation behind it?

[CyberAngel]

It's in Murasa's UFO profile. Definitely true, every bit of it.

[Sungho]

It just says that the people who came with her were flung into the sea, though.
Whether the people were safe or not isn't really mentioned anywhere.

[CyberAngel]

Oh, right. It also doesn't say who the people were, only that there was one monk that's obviously Byakuren.

[Drake]

There were other humans besides Byakuren. It's debated as to whether or not the other people drowned, which is where the controversy lies.

(I'm personally of the stance that they died, to note. Moreover it would have likely been Byakuren's intention from the start, given the outcome.)

[Lunarethic]

I don't know if anyone has pointed this out but this is just a random thought I came up with,
But has anyone else noticed that Hopeless Masquerade's Spell Card System is breaking the rules of spell cards? Let me explain

Here's what the touhou wiki says about spell card

 However, the user may only cast the spell that was specified by the spell card until the trance ends, limiting its overall usefulness.

OK so in Hopeless Masquerade , the character calls the spell , uses it , and then normally attack and then use the spell again which contradicts with the rule of spell cards (it disatifies and satisfies me at the same time though , you wouldnt want mamizou to cast that tori spell with bunches of twats coming of the gate a bunch of time now would you? )

[Drake]

Not really, you described mostly regular use. The spell is declared and then it's used. There aren't any other spells in-between, and once that spell is finished, you don't use it anymore. Using various physical attacks and danmaku isn't the same thing as a spell card (although it's fairly ambiguous what the actual threshold is).

[neetori]

Thank you for the reply.
Pardon me:

What is the best way to identify a series verbally (to a English speaker)?
By numbering, by Japanese title, by subtitle, or translated title?
For abbreviations for titles (i.e. EoSD), do people say ee-oh-es-dee, or simply like Scarlet or Scarlet Devil?

[Drake]

Subtitle and/or acronym. Perfect Cherry Blossom or Pee-see-bee, etc.
The exceptions would be 12.3, it has no easy subtitle so it's just called Hisoutensoku or Soku, and 12.8, which is called Fairy Wars or Great Fairy Wars. 12.5 is called Double Spoiler.

[CyberAngel]

On HM spellcards, a similar system was in IaMP, but with a few differences, like you could use the spellcard a few times within the time limit after declaring it, but you can declare only once a round. As Drake said, it's not technically breaking the rules since you can only use one spellcard at a time anyway, and normal moves and skills aren't spellcards.

[Reddyne]

Last year, one of the Touhou Wiki's character profile for Hijiri Byakuren used to state that she let a boat of monks died (whether accidentally or purposely was not disclosed)
...this does not seems to have any citation from anywhere (as far as I know), and there were various forums (wrongly) used it as one of the basis for her character's interpretation
...but recently, it seems like I can't find that line anywhere on any Wiki anymore... seems like it has been removed
Does anyone know if that line still holds water, and the citation behind it?

I think I can elaborate a bit more on this since there's always been some disagreement on the subject. Please pardon my blatant bias.

The entry in which Byakuren let a boat of monks die was put in roughly 2-3 years ago and edited out a little over 1 year ago. The 2-3 year old edit used Murasa's profile backstory as a source, and some parts of fandom has been using it as a source for the above since UFO was released, though it clashes with what other fans think. In the end, Murasa's backstory really just doesn't elaborate much on intent, foreknowledge, loyalty, betrayal, or whatever on the subject. It just sort of happens and it is what it is. The 2-3 year old edit did. Since the whole thing doesn't really doesn't definitively point one way or another, it was edited to better reflect the more neutral angle of Murasa's profile backstory. 

Some of the stuff in the 2-3 year old edit also included some minor but related loose personality strokes which were counterintuitive to the above as well as happenings with her in UFO/the character's profile in SoPM/a line or two from her dialogue in SoPM. That was tightened a bit, too.

[Prime32]

The answer is probably not, in my opinion.
She does seem to nullify/paralyze with her sword, however as she invokes other gods and uses their power through the sword as well, it can be said it is the god`s power to do so.

Well that's what I meant. But it seems like the sword itself could have been created by Gion's power, with the cage being just another way of using it. Reimu was able to channel three gods at once, after all.

[Kwak]

I'm aware of ZUN's "answer" from AWA, but...
How could the Moriya Shrine possibly not have gotten involved in Hopeless Masquerade?!
I just can't think of any explanation that doesn't leave their inaction seeming like something out of a bad fanfiction. They couldn't have just stopped caring about getting faith when it would be easiest to do, and even if they knew it was actually an incident that'd just be more reason to send Sanae, not less. Any speculation from previous games/SoPM/fanwank would be much appreciated.