Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara
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I think he means more along the lines of subjective reality, where what a youkai believes about themselves affects themselves.
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Touhou Perception Manipulation Removal
- Thread starter Jinsye
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- touhou project
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So (a subset of) reality warping then. But I'm more waiting on Sir Ovens himself to answer what he would prefer to see.
Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara
She/Her- 9,828
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I suppose this could be an example (particularly the first scan), since it shows that youkai were initially defined by human thought but are now defined by their own thoughts. We see this by how Suika is hurt by beans when she believes she should be, but when she chooses to stop believing that, she's no longer hurt by them. Basically youkai are only hurt by things that they believe they should be, which I definitely think constitutes their state of mind dictating their physiological traits.
Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara
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FantaRin_The_First
Username Only- 4,447
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... Ngl, Touhou does have a vibe that it would function great as a light novel... or a long running JRPG series, with a crap ton of spin-offs.
Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara
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Ok yeah but each Touhou girl has their own niche ability and mind powers seem to be Koushi's niche. You can't relate an ability specific to her to every other Youkai.
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My sister in christ, you just sent me a scan of a woman saying she doesn't like beans when they're thrown at her but is indifferent about eating them. I'm 100% sure I wouldn't like beans thrown violently at me but I'm perfectly fine consuming them.
This in no way backs up conscious thought affecting the state of reality.
Also I need some context on the first scan, but don't Youkai have conceptual existences? Doesn't it just mean like they came into being due to being formed by humans forming conceptual notions? And the fact that each Touhou girl has her own niche power stems from the fact that they embody their conceptual niche? I'm asking because I'm not well versed in Touhou and I'd like an explanation.
ÆONS
He/Him- 1,510
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There's missing context, here it is.
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Ok so it's a conscious reality thing. I'd imagine that the rumors thing is only applicable as a group consensus. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the scan insinuates that humans, by forming stories and myths about the Youkai, govern their physical existence. Which further validates the above scan and my argument about how they're conceptual existences.
Alright if I got that part right, then it still doesn't solve the part where Youkai can perceive time slowly. Unless there is a scan of a general consensus that Youkai perceive time slowly, there really shouldn't be any reason why the original perception scan should be treated as anything but figure of speech.
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To sum up the current state of affairs, you've shown me a scan of a Youkai explaining that they need to have fond memories in their long lives, a scan of a Youkai having perception based abilities due to her niche power being mind related, and multiple scans of Youkai existences being governed by public consensus.
But not once have I seen a scan that proves all Youkai have perception manip that allows them to see the passage of time move slowly. This has been a very contrived endeavour to prove a very small thing that isn't there and I think that speaks for itself.
But not once have I seen a scan that proves all Youkai have perception manip that allows them to see the passage of time move slowly. This has been a very contrived endeavour to prove a very small thing that isn't there and I think that speaks for itself.
Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara
She/Her- 9,828
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No, beans are genuinely a weakness of oni, she says they're poisonous to oni and are used to exorcise oni. There are more examples of this, it's based on the ritual of setsubun in traditional Japanese myth. So yes, oni have a really stupid weakness, but the scan I provided shows they can just... not be weak to it if they don't believe they're weak to it.
Nah, what a youkai embodies or lives for doesn't have a whole lot of relation to their powers. Most youkai embody human fear, but have wildly varied powers outside of that. Some youkai do embody things that relate to their powers, but they're more like the exception rather than the rule.
No, her ability to read minds was what was unique. Koishi closing off her mind is just an in-universe example of what would happen if a youkai's desires are suppressed or erased. What makes her "unique" would be the fact that she's the only youkai to have canonically done this (that we know of). Could also argue that her mind manip was what let her close her mind in the first place, but that's just the means, when the end result is what matters more here.
My brother in Christ you're the one who asked for scans of youkai using their thoughts to affect reality....
Anyways, the text uses "unsurprisingly" as a means of treating the time perception as the cause of their altered memories, but there's nothing saying that their longevity and memories causes their altered flow of time. I haven't seen anyone actually debunk that point yet, or show me an excerpt that proves that their longevity and memories affects how they see time other than "it just makes sense". At that point we could make any number of arguments that ignore the content of the text and go with what we personally think should be the case, but I don't think anyone else would allow that in any other context. You're also technically right about youkai being governed by human thought, but this scan shows that that isn't really the case anymore and youkai can change on their own after being freed from human imagination.
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Jinsye
She/Her- 10,487
- 1,623
- Thread starter
- #93
That is literally not what the scan is at all. She does not affect her reality with her own thoughts thus blocking her weakness. That's the collective perception of humans which youkai are subject to. She is abusing that to her advantage, because while perception makes it so that she gets hurt by beans, it also solidifies her existence because the HUMAN (not Suika) perception felt the need to make a ritual to exterminate Onis.
None of this says "Suika can just turn off her weakness if she wants to". As for your scan above, she says that the beans are only effective during Setsubun. Another example of HUMAN perception changing youkai, not youkai perception changing youkai. This is because beans are most notable for causing harm to Onis during Setsubun. Literally nowhere in your scans it even implies that Suika subjective realities herself.
Weird mental youkai gaining mental powers by turning off her third eye is far less of a stretch than "every youkai has personal subjective reality" or whatever. Especially going off the fact that I'm fairly sure Koishi still conventionally exists, she's just an antimeme. So it wouldn't even really match with the scan you've shown above.
But since her powers are specifically mind related, it would be a stretch to scale to to every single youkai who have never demonstrated it. Especially since you really haven't shown any proof that Koishi vanishing and the previous scan are related in any way besides "oh it's kind of similar" (and even that's not true)
Once again. You're repeating the same argument because you don't seem to understand the concept of subtle writing. Not everything is blatantly spelt out for you. Not every metaphor has a big fat "THIS IS A METAPHOR" sign. The context (memories, old lives, nostalgia, Yukari talking about flowers) pretty clearly indicates that it's a metaphor, and multiple other staff members agree with this.
Not every sentence has to beat you over the head with a literal interpretation, flowery and subtle writing is a thing that exists too.
Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara
She/Her- 9,828
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You mean the collective perception of humans that youkai have explicitly been unbound from? The perception that youkai can now manipulate to alter themselves freely?
None of this is reliant on setsubun; Suika believes she can be harmed by beans in one chapter, and is affected by them. But in the next chapter she believes she should not be harmed and therefore isn't. The only reason she has to choose to be hurt by beans is because they do, in fact, solidify her existence. But it is ultimately still a choice she has the power to make; Humans aren't the one who decide whether or not Suika gets hurt by beans, Suika is. She also says that through fearing their rituals, they live on in their oral tradition; This means it is ultimately up to the youkai, given that it depends on whether or not they fear the effectiveness of that ritual. So yes, youkai do have control over their traits via their personal belief, that was something that was established long ago.
Also, literally nothing says the beans are only effective during setsubun. It's just that setsubun is the only time the beans are a nuisance to oni since everyone is throwing them everywhere. This itself supports my argument, because the general public still believed that the second setsubun was a real thing and was celebrating it as normal... but Suika was still able to eat them just fine, in spite of the beliefs of humans. This alone shows she's unbound from human thought and dictates her own qualities.
...She literally ******* lost her mental powers though. What we see with Koishi is an example of what happens to a youkai when their mind is suppressed or otherwise erased, and while the means through which Koishi accomplished that are unique to her, the end result very much is not, since we have Aya's statement that youkai deny their existence when denying their mind/desires.
Also Koishi only really "exists" when she wants to be seen, otherwise people forget she ever existed and can't conventionally interact with her. She has type 3 NEP for a reason, but that's still NEP.
In literally any other context, yes, it would be a stretch. But we have a statement saying that youkai are erased from existence when their mind is shut off, and Koishi is a feat backing up that statement. And the evidence of her having NEP is how she is stated to be devoid of mind and form, and has become an embodiment of emptiness; I legitimately cannot think of a more explicit combination of traits giving someone NEP.
I have 0 ******* clue why Koishi having mindhax in any form is a factor here. All youkai have "possibly" mindhax, so even then that isn't really an argument :v
And what are you using to dictate the meaning of that metaphor? The way words are written - their meaning, tone, and order - will always dictate what the text means, and that is true regardless of if something is a metaphor or literal. And the way the words are written do not support your interpretation regardless of whether or not it was written as a metaphor. Metaphors aren't ******* immune to the rules of grammar.
Like the interpretation isn't even inherently wrong! I admit it makes more sense as the default assumption, if all the individual pieces of that statement existed in a vacuum or were ordered differently. But that isn't the case, now is it?
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+1. This makes a lot of sense, and interpreting this statement literally seems to be unsupported.
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To be frank, both OP's argument and the argument for Perception Manip pretty much come down to "I assume this is the correct interpretation". You could make the argument that, for people who live for much longer, time goes by faster as any particular day is less meaningful and not as worth focusing on compared to someone who lives for less time and has to savor every last day.
That being said, we don't give abilities off of assumptions. There's not enough evidence here for an ability whatsoever.
That being said, we don't give abilities off of assumptions. There's not enough evidence here for an ability whatsoever.
Jinsye
She/Her- 10,487
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- Thread starter
- #98
I'll be frank. I do think these arguments are getting repetitive. We're just going to be going around in circles at some point.
The argument has mostly fallen into disagreements over English. At some point we have to come to a consensus.
I could write a response to Fujiwara's post but I'm too busy too. So I'll do it later. However I think the votes shoild atleast speak for themselves
The argument has mostly fallen into disagreements over English. At some point we have to come to a consensus.
I could write a response to Fujiwara's post but I'm too busy too. So I'll do it later. However I think the votes shoild atleast speak for themselves
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I sort of agree that it's become an argument about English, however English-wise, both interpretations are valid.
That said, opposition makes a great point in regards to the context of the conversation and the fact that one interpretation has huge sweeping implications on the species that have gone completely unmentioned throughout decades of entries, and that just doesn't sit right.
Likewise, if this were a statement about perception of time literally being slowed down, the conversation becomes very strange. How would that affect their recollection of time past in regards to nostalgia?
The interpretation being offered isn't terrible, but it has huge implications and needs better evidence. But that evidence clearly doesn't exist, so the feat should be removed.
That said, opposition makes a great point in regards to the context of the conversation and the fact that one interpretation has huge sweeping implications on the species that have gone completely unmentioned throughout decades of entries, and that just doesn't sit right.
Likewise, if this were a statement about perception of time literally being slowed down, the conversation becomes very strange. How would that affect their recollection of time past in regards to nostalgia?
The interpretation being offered isn't terrible, but it has huge implications and needs better evidence. But that evidence clearly doesn't exist, so the feat should be removed.
Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara
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I don't like the notion that species-wide traits need to be mentioned super often to be valid, I can go through numerous physiology pages and find passive abilities that should be a big deal, but are rarely mentioned in-universe. Another example is how gods in Touhou exist as abstract ideas; You'd think that'd be constantly affecting their lives, to the point where it should be brought up every time a god shows up or has a role in the story. But it just kinda... isn't.
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Maybe not super often. But surely more than once ever, right? Especially something as sweeping as slowed perception of time?
Likewise, the frequency requirement can be overlooked if the evidence is very clear. That isn't the case here. Both sides have valid interpretations (though I lean towards the notion that a conversation about past memories and nostalgia wouldn't revolve around a slow perception of time), which is why its too shaky.
Kirbonic_Pikmin
He/Him- 3,480
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A lot of verses tend to just cover something once and then not mention it again. Repeatedly mentioning something like physiology like that again and again is probably seen as unneccesary. Especially when ZUN seems to have the writing style of "Don't include a character if they aren't needed for this story" and "Don't elaborate on this unless needed".
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This is the second time I've seen this notion phrased this way.
"Repeatedly .... again and again."
Buddy, they're not saying that. They are saying that this has been referenced once, ever, in 20 years, in a conversation predominantly waxing philosophical about times past. No one is saying it needs to be brought up "again and again."
Kirbonic_Pikmin
He/Him- 3,480
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I perhaps worded that more harshly intended, but the point still stands that some things generally don't need to be mentioned more than once, as long as their wording and intention is clear. Especially when, like I mentioned earlier, ZUN isn't typically someone to repeat himself within canon. Major systems like the Spell Card Rules aren't mentioned or repeated frequently and characters can go decades before being officially seen again because they just simply weren't needed. But they still exist and are well defined in the verse regardless.
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From the looks of it, this seems to be the tally so far
Neutral: Jibz, Shmoopy, Aeons, FantaRin (although leaning towards agreement)
Disagree: Fujiwara, Breakdown, Angelzwolf, Kirbonicpikmin
Agree: Saikou, Armorchompy, Roachman, Zencha, ShadowWarrior, Glassman, Malomtek, hairth0cell, Ovens, Mortiza, Deagonx (4 Staff)
This is pretty one-sided so im pretty sure jinseye has enough agreements to remove the ability, especially considering it seems the opposition isn't really bringing anything new to the table atm.
Neutral: Jibz, Shmoopy, Aeons, FantaRin (although leaning towards agreement)
Disagree: Fujiwara, Breakdown, Angelzwolf, Kirbonicpikmin
Agree: Saikou, Armorchompy, Roachman, Zencha, ShadowWarrior, Glassman, Malomtek, hairth0cell, Ovens, Mortiza, Deagonx (4 Staff)
This is pretty one-sided so im pretty sure jinseye has enough agreements to remove the ability, especially considering it seems the opposition isn't really bringing anything new to the table atm.
Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara
She/Her- 9,828
- 12,559
Alright, whoever wants to remove the ability can do so, just check to make sure they profiles don't have pre-existing perception manip justifications. For Yukari, delete the justification and move perception manip next to her astral projection justification. Also remember to delete the category if needed.
i would do the edits myself but i stg if i have to do verse-wide edits one more time im gonna lose my shit
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