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Black Magic in the Black Market: Touhou 18.5 + Ability Card Revisions

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This will be just a general revision covering new material from 18.5, as well as an overhaul on how ability cards work, what abilities they grant, and how they are indexed on profiles. This is probably my last thread before an extended "hiatus"; Hiatus as in I won't be posting new shit, but " " as in I'll still be working on larger revisions because I do not understand the concept of burnout.
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General Additions

Marisa

Aura & Space-Time Manipulation from her magic circle. In 18.5, the main mechanic is a magic circle that passively surrounds you at all times. It causes constant damage to anything within its radius, as well as slowing them down to a near stop. The circle can also be projected outwards, but takes a few seconds for Marisa to recreate it.

Possibly passive Probability & Fate Manipulation, due to how her Mini-Hakkero is supposedly able to bring good fortune. 'Fortune' in the context of Touhou denotes one's control over the memory layer of reality, which dictates probability and fate, and controlling it allows one to tilt the outcomes of any situation in their favor, including through good luck charms. So this goes a little deeper than supernatural luck due to verse mechanics. The 'possibly' is due to how Rinnosuke is unsure of it having this property. We would need to apply this to the Mini-Hakkero page as well.

Resistance to Metal Manipulation due to how her Mini-Hakkero is made of a metal that is immune to rusting. Again, this applies to the Mini-Hakkero page too.

Suika

Air Manipulation from filling a cave that was formerly an anoxic zone with air, making it so people could breathe in it.

Ability Cards

How They Work

Much of the basis for these upgrades is based on the mechanics surrounding ability cards. They function by copying the magic that all beings possess using dragon gems, and then sealing them within ability cards. The ability cards can then be used by anyone to access the same powers as the original character; This is demonstrated by how all ability card descriptions start with "(x)'s ability to". So, from the power mimicking nature of ability cards, we can assume two things. First is that ability cards function on the same potency, mechanics, and limitations as the original ability; If a copied ability is layered, so is the ability card, and so on. The second is that characters should possess the same abilities as their respective ability cards, if not already listed. After all, for an ability card to copy an ability, a character must already possess that ability to some degree.

There is one more small addition to make to ability cards in general, and this is their designation as optional equipment. This is fine in most circumstances, but at the end of 18.5, Marisa canonically chooses to keep the black markets open so she can hoard every single ability card, keeping them for herself. This is the purpose of the card equipment section in 18.5. Therefore, she has extremely easy access to all ability cards, and they should now be considered standards equipment for her and her alone (the Ultramarine Orb Elixir and player system cards are still optional).

The full list of ability cards from 18 and 18.5 can be viewed here and here, respectively.

Ability Card Changes/Additions

Kiketsu Matriarch's Threat should be Mind Manipulation due to its ability to drain the willpower of people and make it impossible to resist. This is also due to it copying Yachie's power, which removes people's will to fight back, something she has canonically used for mind control. It's also layered due to Yachie's mindhax working on the cast of WBaWC, who already resisted mindhax at that point.

Reliable Tanuki Apprentice should be Limited Resistance to Spirit Manipulation, since it prevents your spirit from falling below a certain point. This also applies to Mamizou, which means she's the only character to possess any degree of spirit manip resistance, which is.... weird.

Homing Attack via Yin-Yang Orb because it fires homing shots.

Light, Heat, & Fire Manipulation via Mini-Hakkero, as the Mini-Hakkero works by firing beams of intense light and heat (and occasionally fire).

Animal Manipulation via Safe Return Amulet and Shed Snakeskin Amulet firing animals. This also applies to Sanae.

Screen Border should be Breaking the Fourth Wall, as it is specifically in reference to the game screen, a concept which is confusing to most Gensokyo denizens. This can also be used as further justification for Yukari's 4th wall breaking.

Gluttonous Centipede should be changed from stat amping to Accelerated Development.

Esteemed Authority is Aura & Existence Erasure from how is thins out all projectiles in an aura, which Miko should also possess.

Character Changes

Eiki should have Resurrection through Money Is The Best Lawyer In Hell, as it implies she can bring people back from the dead for a price, though there isn't anything implying she requires money to bring people back to life.

Sumireko should have Attack Reflection due to
Psychokinesis letting one reflect projectiles back at their opponent.

Youmu gets additional Duplication justifications via being able to create a new phantom half of herself at will via
Spare Half-Ghost.

Shinmoyumaru should have Transmutation with the
Miracle Mallet, as it can turn things into money.

New Ability Cards

Indomitable Meathead should grant Accelerated Development (of the reactive power level variety) since it increases your power every time you get hit.

Life Explosion Elixir should be Explosion Manipulation and Transmutation, as whenever you get hit, it deploys a 'Spirit Strike' that transmutes everything nearby into money.

Sheep You Want to Count is Subjective Reality, which... works a bit strangely. Essentially, the description of the card implies it works by rendering the current conflict (the 'stage' in gameplay terms) a dream which the user then wakes up from, thus making the fight not real and as though it never actually happened. As Marisa has this card in her standard equipment and Doremy is the character from which this ability was copied, this should be passive for both of them.

The Rabbit That Landed is Summoning via copying Seiran's ability to summon projectiles from another dimension.

Stimulating Scales is Bodily Weaponry via copying Eternity's ability to use butterfly scales as projectiles.

Offensive Jeweled Pagoda is Transmutation and Radiation Manipulation via copying Shou's ability to fire lasers that are able to turn the ground to jewels and are stated to be gamma-class lasers. Shou gets these abilities too, obviously.

Beauty of Destruction is Passive Durability Negation and Limited Power Nullification via copying Flandre's ability to destroy anything, which includes energy-based projectiles. Flan gets the power null too, of course.

Physical Enhancement Jizo is Statistics Amplification. Was technically in 18 but 18.5 changed it to be stat amping for some reason.

Drenched Giant Snake is Petrification and Statistics Reduction from how it turns things to stone and reduces their speed even after they're freed. Will apply to Urumi too, if I ever get around to making her profile.

Drunkenly Whimsical Ibuki Gourd should be Empowerment from increasing your strength via drinking alcohol, which also applies to Suika.

Pristine Self-Confidence is uhhhh.... Social Influencing? Let's go with that. Junko gets this too.

Smelt's Scales should be Invulnerability, possibly Spatial Intangibility from how it makes you invulnerable, but the description implies that it might be because there's a small world fish phase into to avoid danger. You know the drill by now, Wakasagihime gets these too.

Too-Honest Signpost and Hasty Detour of the Three Crossings are Existence Erasure that fire off in a vertical and horizontal pattern, respectively. You're never gonna believe this but Kutaka and Komachi get these abilities too.

Magic Circles

As explained earlier, Marisa possesses a magic circle that is seemingly unique to her. However, it should be known that this extends to far more characters than just her. First and foremost, we see several ability cards pertaining to altering magic circles. Keep in mind that since ability cards copy the abilities of another target, the characters represented on those cards must possess the same magic circle-altering abilities... and by extension, magic circles. This means Patchouli, Byakuren, Flandre, Futo, Aya, Aunn, and Narumi all gain aura and space-time manipulation of a passive nature, as well as the traits of their ability cards (passive dura neg/power null for Flandre, and petrification/statistics reduction for Urumi).

This also means that anyone who faces these characters in combat will also gain resistance to these abilities, which will look like the following:

-Reimu/Marisa: Resistance to Space-Time Manipulation, Durability Negation, Power Nullification, Petrification, Statistics Reduction (Unaffected by the magic circles possessed by characters like Flandre and Urumi, which passively slow things down to a crawl. Via scaling to ability cards, these magic circles should also possess the ability to destroy anything in their radius like Flandre's ability to destroy anything, including energy-based projectile attacks, as well as Urumi's ability to cause things nearby to turn to stone and lose speed upon being freed)


-Youmu: Resistance to Space-Time Manipulation, Petrification, Statistics Reduction (Unaffected by the magic circles possessed by characters like Urumi, which passively slow things down to a crawl. Via scaling to ability cards, these magic circles should also possess the ability to cause things nearby to turn to stone and lose speed upon being freed)

-Joon/Shion/Yuuma/Kogasa/Kanako/Utsuho/Yamame/Yuugi/Murasa/Kutaka: Resistance to Space-Time Manipulation, Durability Negation, Power Nullification (Unaffected by the magic circles possessed by characters like Flandre, which passively slow things down to a crawl. Via scaling to ability cards, these magic circles should also possess the ability to destroy anything in their radius like Flandre's ability to destroy anything, including energy-based projectile attacks)

You may have noticed that I gave access to magic circle-based ability cards to characters like Reimu, Sakuya, and Sanae, despite them lacking magic circles. This is because that was a lie just now, and they do have magic circles. In fact, all spell card users do. In StB, it is stated that
everyone in the game possesses a magic circle, supported by how Aya herself has one. We can also see magic circles of similar design appear any time someone uses a spell card in other games (you can see them pop up right before the spell card triggers). So all spell card users have magic circles, which have a very clear set of properties that grant Aura & Space-Time Manipulation. This also means they should have resistance to it, as all spell card users are unaffected by the magic circles of other spell card users. In case spell card users universally have space-time hax seems sus, consider that spell card users would have it anyways, as they are all capable of bestowing names to their spell cards, a process which not only defines the spell card's meaning and power, but also distinguishes it in space-time. So spell card users having other forms of space-time hax is much less questionable.

-Aura & Space-Time Manipulation (Via the ability to use spell cards, which are stated and shown to create magic circles upon use. These circles can passively slow down anything that comes close to them. Spell card users also give 'names' to give meaning and power to their spell cards, a process which also distinguishes something within space-time)

-Resistance to Space-Time Manipulation (Unaffected by the magic circles used by other spell card users, which cause things near them to passively slow down to a near stop)

As for why Yuuma got ****** by Flandre's ability to destroy anything despite supposedly resisting it, only thing I have to say to that is Flandre's passive dura neg is probably just weaker than her active dura neg or something, idk, I'm surprised this was the only major inconsistency I could find in this whole revision.

ANYWAAAAAAAAYS IM RETIRED NOW IM FREE FROM MY SLAVISH DEVOTION TO THIS VERSE I CAN HAVE A LIFE NOW for like 2 months before i decide to come back
 
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Minor thing. Time slow is not spacetime manip, the wiki has never treated it that way and the "manipulating space is the same as manipulating time" statement is meaningless because it's the default assumption that time and space are interchangeable. Should just be time manipulation.

I guess I'll read the rest later
 
Minor thing. Time slow is not spacetime manip, the wiki has never treated it that way and the "manipulating space is the same as manipulating time" statement is meaningless because it's the default assumption that time and space are interchangeable. Should just be time manipulation.

I guess I'll read the rest later
The issue is that we can't apply that logic because most verses just... straight up ignore that. Touhou goes out of its way to affirm that manipulating time affects space, and vice versa, so it should be indexed as both because it sets itself apart from other verses in this way.

To give a comparison, we don't assume FTL speeds in fiction have infinite energy or can **** with time unless the verse goes out of its way to say that it does (like with Fire Force). And when it does make that distinction, we index it as such.
 
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Everything here seems pretty clear cut, I agree with it all. Nice for Marisa to become a massive ******* haxlord now. I was initially pretty unsure about Magical Circles for most of the cast but I lean towards agreeing with it now as well.

I'd probably count Youmu's ability card as Creation, as its just, creating a new spirit. Or perhaps Duplication. Either or should work.

Also its very likely Flandre's passive dura neg/destruction field is just much weaker than her ability to "kyuu" things, or at least it only affects projectiles, it likely shouldn't contradict much.
 
Bump

Forgot to comment on Kirb's response but I think Youmu's ability card should be duplication for her only, it wouldn't give anything new to anyone else. I'll update the OP. EDIT: I forgor she already has duplication 💀 Ig it's fine as an extra justification though, since she can have 2 copies of herself instead of one.
 
Bump

Forgot to comment on Kirb's response but I think Youmu's ability card should be duplication for her only, it wouldn't give anything new to anyone else. I'll update the OP. EDIT: I forgor she already has duplication 💀 Ig it's fine as an extra justification though, since she can have 2 copies of herself instead of one.
Yeah, it'd be duplication for her. For everyone else I'd say it should realistically just be creation/summoning to create a Youmu spirit half
 
Bump

Koishi needs Limited Resistance to Spirit Manipulation, I almost missed this since 18.5's version of Koishi's card doesn't have the part about losing less power.
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This will be just a general revision covering new material from 18.5, as well as an overhaul on how ability cards work, what abilities they grant, and how they are indexed on profiles. This is probably my last thread before an extended "hiatus"; Hiatus as in I won't be posting new shit, but " " as in I'll still be working on larger revisions because I do not understand the concept of burnout.
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mf where is the video?
 
I'm not really knowledgeable on Touhou but from what I've seen this does make sense.

Smelt's Scales should be Invulnerability, possibly Spatial Intangibility from how it makes you invulnerable, but the description implies that it might be because there's a small world fish phase into to avoid danger. You know the drill by now, Wakasagihime gets these too.
You probably could just list this as invulnerability while explaining that it's briefly placing them in some weird fish dimension. (At least that's what I think it's saying?)
 
You probably could just list this as invulnerability while explaining that it's briefly placing them in some weird fish dimension. (At least that's what I think it's saying?)
Isn't that what spatial intangibility is, though? I'm fine with just invulnerability though, since the card description isn't even 100% sure about it.

Thanks for the evaluation, btw (y)
 
I agree with Abstraction's evaluation. Although there is a lot of text in the OP, the changes are not so many, so I believe that with the current input it is safe to apply the changes.
I was gonna wait for 3 evaluations, but if you say it's fine, I'll go ahead and start on the changes when I get the chance. Thank you for helping out.
 
I need to stop here, I started the edits super late and I need to sleep. Will get back to them tomorrow.

Reminder that "not that many changes" for Touhou profiles still means I need to edit like 50 profiles at a time. Surprised I didn't take a break sooner 🗿
 
Ughhhhhhh

Yeah I'll get back on it in a bit, have not been feeling motivated to do edits at all recently.

But I do agree that bumping the thread doesn't have much of a point.
 
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