Miscellaneous Questions Thread 3 - Ask Question, Receive Answer

[Drake]

Something that suddenly entered my mind and won't leave me alone...

Can Tojiko and Mima possess people? They are vengeful spirits after all...

Vengeful spirits are only a subclass of ghosts that has little meaning other than having a grudge against something and being able to cause noises/thunder/lightning. Through the process of becoming a shikaisen, Tojiko could have invaded a corpse as her "container", although this would be impractical because the body would have quickly eroded, being dead. Clearly, invading something that's dead for the process of putting your soul in an object that doesn't "die" in order to escape death is completely redundant. I doubt that invading another person would work to begin with, as they already have a soul, but for the same reasons a shikaisen would never want to invade a person. Of course, Futo swapped her intended container with a crappy one that broke anyways, hence why she's a ghost, but to answer your question, "probably no". Ghosts haven't been shown to have the ability to possess people as of yet.

[Sagus]

But... then they are different from the vengeful spirits that the 3 big bosses (and Marisa) talked about in the Symposium? The ones that can possess people and youkai?

Perhaps because their grudge is mostly gone...

[Polaris]

Tojiko is essentially the same type of ghost as Yuyuko, and is definitely not a vengeful spirit. As for Mima, she came and went before any mention of vengeful spirits, so nobody can say for sure whether she actually is the type of vengeful spirit that was discussed at the symposium.

[Sagus]

Tojiko is essentially the same type of ghost as Yuyuko, and is definitely not a vengeful spirit.

SoPM: "[...] As she carries a grudge against humans, her nature is that of a vengeful spirit. [...] She seems to be a fairly high class vengeful spirit, as she is able to make thunder fall. [...]"

Though Akyuu also does say "Fortunately, her grudge has almost dissipated, and she is turning into an mere thunder-causing ghost." so it seems that Tojiko really isn't a vengeful spirit anymore.

[Polaris]

Curse you ZUN and your silly ghost taxonomy. :derp: If Tojiko wants to possess people then I guess she could, but there won't be any definite answer to that.

[Starxsword]

Ghosts haven't been shown to have the ability to possess people as of yet.

While not explicitly shown, Touhou ghosts have been implied to have the ability to possess people. When Yuyuko was talking to Marisa in the SWR dialogue, Yuyuko talks of possessing Marisa. Also I believe there is talk of possession or maybe it was curse? in one of the 3 fairies' manga. I don't quite remember where though.

@Mima and Tojiko: They probably can't possess people.

[Drake]

Attending to the stereotype of ghost possession through character banter is just as close to "they can possess people" as is just going "ghosts can usually possess people so these probably can too". Unless it's happened or is reliably said to be able to happen, you can't really say it's canonically validated.

I did earlier use some misleading wording though: Vengeful spirits are a subclass of ghosts, but they are usually closer to phantoms (as usually seen), and could probably be called a subclass of them as well, since most vengeful spirits mentioned are phantoms (well, humans) that have been sent to hell (SA, WaHH etc). While as mentioned, vengeful spirits have been at least said by Kanako to be able to possess bodies, they haven't been shown to as of yet. More importantly, Tojiko became a ghost rather than these usual vengeful spirits, and while she might have been able to possess people before she stayed a ghost, as I explained this would be a redundant solution for her and she'd be better off turning into a teakettle. Mima is also moot since she doesn't exist when regarding current canon details :^D

[Sagus]

I wasn't really thinking about Tojiko possessing people to complete her immortality process, it was more a "general capabilities of the character" question. I mean, if she still COULD possess people and youkai the way Kanako says vengeful spirits can, she'd be an enormous danger to youkai. Incidentally it seems that possessing youkai would kind of complete her immortality process, since, if Byakuren is right, that'd completely destroy the original mind of the youkai and replace it with hers (Byakuren: "It means they have died as that particular youkai. What's left is a completely different youkai. [...] The new youkai's core would be the mind of the spirit that possessed them... In other words, rather than being reborn, the spirit will take over their entire existence.")

I'd trust Kanako on this matter; there's no reason for her to just make this stuff up (unlike Yuyuko who is fond of trolling), Akyuu, Miko and Byakuren didn't disagree with her (one is a scholar and the other two are highly knowledgeable on spiritual matters, and Byakuren is the one that explains what would happen if a youkai got possessed), and although Kanako does say she never actually heard about youkai being possessed, the way she speaks about humans being possessed and the consequences of it imply she has seen or at least heard about this happening before (Kanako "The scary part is when they possess humans. They possess to humans and induce them to resent their own kind. [...] they would fall into paranoia, not being able to tell friend from enemy.")

[Goldom]

Are Aya's expressions in STB judging my score, or do they just vary card to card? For some reason I used to be sure they were, but when I was just playing the game again for the first time in ages I didn't see any evidence of that, nor do I remember why I thought so...

[Zil]

Assuming you scored high enough to avoid the default disappointed response (she says something like "I took a lot of pictures, but none of them are any good,"and I think the text is blue) then her expression just depends on the scene. Your score doesn't effect it beyond that.

[AnonymousPondScum]

Where the Hell does Alice pull all her dolls out from?

[fondue]

Where the Hell does Alice pull all her dolls out from?

It's Gensokyo, nothing makes sense.

[Sagus]

Where the Hell does Alice pull all her dolls out from?

She's a magician. It wouldn't be hard to believe she has something like a bag of holding to carry them around.

[Delfigamer]

She's a magician. It wouldn't be hard to believe she has something like a bag of holding to carry them around.

Hm...
Grimoire! :V

[AnonymousPondScum]

I figured it was her grimoire except presumably to summon the dolls she would need to OPEN the grimoire and when she does that shit gets real. As shit has not gotten real since her boss fight in the PC-98 games it stands to reason she hasn't opened her grimoire. I 'unno! /:V/

[Hanzo K.]

I always figured she just had them premade, and just summoned them in via magic. That's how it seems to be when she uses skills like Doll Archers in the fighters at least.
Admittedly, she probably carries a few on hand, but that's just something practical to do. WOuldn't wanna be caught unarmed in a place like Gensokyo would ya?

[Drake]

You don't need a grimoire to perform magic if you're a magician.
You don't even need somewhere to hold them if you're a magician.
Hell the doll strings are magical and she doesn't even use her hands to control them.

[AnonymousPondScum]

Oh. Well then!

Next question:

Why the heck is a goddess of misfortune so low on the totem pole?

[Ikari]

Why the heck is a goddess of misfortune so low on the totem pole?

Why is she not? She's not the god of harvest, who brings you food, or the god of whatever.

She's a goddess of curses and misfortune. You don't want that around you, so people would logically avoid her. The fear slowly makes you forget that she collects curses for you, and you take it for granted.

But Hina's not the goddess in the proper sense anyway.

[Goldom]

Your new title/text.  :V :V :V

Edit: changed again 

[Drake]

She's a goddess of curses and misfortune. You don't want that around you, so people would logically avoid her. The fear slowly makes you forget that she collects curses for you, and you take it for granted.

Speaking of which her purpose is to gather the misfortune from humans, it just so happens that if you get near her you'll get hit by some of what she has. She isn't affected by the human misfortune but being unable to speak with humans much is pretty unfortunate in itself

[game2011]

What's with the ridiculous amount of OC-centric Touhou fan fictions?  And most of them have generic and uninspired plots too: random guy ends up in Gensokyo and interacts with the girls or gets into conflicts.  The series has a tons of characters to write stories about, and most people choose to use OCs instead?!

Anyone who is familiar with the Touhou section of Fanfiction.net should be able to tell this.  Admittedly, I'm not a fan of OC-centric stories, so maybe it's just my personal pet peeve, but what I said is still true, however.

[Ikari]

Anyone who is familiar with the Touhou section of Fanfiction.net should be able to tell this.  Admittedly, I'm not a fan of OC-centric stories, so maybe it's just my personal pet peeve, but what I said is still true, however.

I made a small pen and paper Touhou rpg myself, and I admit that once you create a Touhou OC, the desire to write a self-insert is quite powerful.

Thing is, it seems people who write them have no idea how to write a self-insert. They aren't inserting themselves in Gensokyo, they're just changing the characters like they want and most of them ends up being completely unrelated to their canon depiction. I know that a lot if left to interpretation, but it often goes downright insane.

I think the main reason there is so many Touhou self-insert is because Gensokyo is a wonderful world full of characters that is basically a playground left for the ''author'' to exploit as he wish. Unlike most fandoms, you can just pick one of the many groups and push your self-insert into it. (The SDM, the Myouren temple, Team (9), etc).

[game2011]

Just so you know, it's only OC protagonists that I don't like, but I have absolutely no problems with OC villains, so long as the protagonist is a canon character.  In fact, quite a few of my FF.net stories have OC villains.  I'm fine with good OCs as long they are side characters.

Anyway, thanks for the response!

And one more thing: we can all agree that Touhou 6 is the Street Fighter 2 of the series, right?  Characters from that game, especially the SDM crew, are seen almost everywhere in fan stuff and are usually the first group of characters fans think of when talking about Touhou.

[AnonymousPondScum]

And one more thing: we can all agree that Touhou 6 is the Street Fighter 2 of the series, right?  Characters from that game, especially the SDM crew, are seen almost everywhere in fan stuff and are usually the first group of characters fans think of when talking about Touhou.

More or less. It also standardized the game mechanics for up until Mountain of Faith, which is like the Street Fighter III of the series.

[game2011]

Thanks for the fast reply!

[Ikari]

Just so you know, it's only OC protagonists that I don't like, but I have absolutely no problems with OC villains, so long as the protagonist is a canon character.  Quite  few of my FF.net stories have OC villains after all.  I'm fine with good OCs as long they are side characters.

Oh absolutely! OC villains are a good idea, since most Touhou characters aren't evil, mostly causing an incident once and then being rather peaceful. Besides, every Touhou game brings up new characters then never makes them cause an incident again. I think that in Touhou case, making a dramatic plot using canon Touhou characters is great, but not necessary, as a good OC villain is just as great.

Characters from that game, especially the SDM crew, are seen almost everywhere in fan stuff and are usually the first group of characters fans think of when talking about Touhou.

Yeah. I really wonder why, there's so many other casts now.

[AnonymousPondScum]

Yeah. I really wonder why, there's so many other casts now.

Probably since it's the first in the series, so when people look up information on Touhou they wind up looking up TH06 first. I imagine the Imperishable Night cast is a decently close second since it's the easiest-to-get-into of the games, gameplay-wise, and attracts a sizable contingent for that reason.

[Drake]

What's with the ridiculous amount of OC-centric Touhou fan fictions?
And most of them have generic and uninspired plots
Touhou section of Fanfiction.net

maybe because all three of these things are intrinsically linked somehow!!!!!

[Ikari]

There's a reason Fanfiction.net is nicknamed The Pit.