Spirit Sign "Massive Touhou Upgrades"

[Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara]

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[Shmooply]

Moving tomorrow so someone else will have to take care of shit here for a few days.

(This was, in fact, a lie)

 

[Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara]

(This was, in fact, a lie)

It wasn't a lie I just overestimated how much shit I had to do >:V

 

[Maverick_Zero_X]

The revisions look fine to me besides Immunity negation, which I’m on the fence about.

 

[Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara]

Nice, thanks for helping out.

 

[Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara]

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[Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara]

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[Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara]

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[Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara]

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[Shmooply]

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[Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara]

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[Malomtek]

Well first things first, phantoms don't have death hax, you're thinking of ghosts. Touhou does differentiate between the different kinds of spirits. Secondly, assuming that spirit power, spirit, or spiritual energy are different things is just silly. In HM, for example, the spirit bar is just called spirit, even though it functions identically to the bars present in other games that are referred to as spirit power. We have reason to equalize these things, because both the games and the characters themselves don't treat them with any meaningful distinction.

I wasn't really arguing that "spirit power", "spirit" (as a term of power), and "spiritual energy" are different things, I was just making a distinction between spiritual energy and souls in themselves.

We've been over the soulhaxing soulless beings stuff, it's no different than similar showings from Yukari.

But Yukari's powerset is basically a more floridly worded variant of concept manipulation/reality warping. Given that context, it would be "reasonable" for her to engage in logically self-contradictory exploits to some extent, or what have you. In contrast, any random Touhou character messing with the "souls" of beings that are explicitly supposed to be bereft of souls is just a self-contradiction and an absurdity in itself.

The 'gameplay only' argument is somewhat absurd too; As mentioned before, Sanae's comments in UFO confirm that spirit power is a real thing the characters are aware of; They just consider it so mundane that they don't bother bringing it up most of the time. Additionally, the entire plot of SWR hinges on characters noticing that everybody's spirit is being absorbed, and they consider this a major incident. So the existence of spirit power as an in-verse thing is all but confirmed, as well as the acknowledgement of its absorption.

Both the acknowledgement of spiritual energies and the existence of a major incident involving their absorption are quite distinct from the notion that characters can absorb spiritual energies from each other with just their basic attacks, which is one of the major tenets of OP.

In fact, from what I know about Touhou thus far, the ability to absorb spiritual energy is considered quite specialized (as in, being the function of special abilities), and the fact that the mass-absorption of spiritual energy was considered an "incident-worthy" event by various main characters, instead of something rather banal (as it would be if characters can absorb each others' spiritual energy with just their basic attacks), is even more evidence for spiritual energy absorption being specialized and not something that can be done just by bullet hells and random spell cards.

But most importantly, do we even need in-universe confirmation? Like, take 17.5 for instance. When you graze bullets, they turn into water, which I plan on adding to the profiles as transmutation. Would you reject that on the basis of "the characters don't mention it, so it didn't happen"? We have an explanation for how it works, and we see how it works in action. That's good enough for most people. But spirit does at least have the distinction of being an in-universe power source that characters make note of from time to time.

Honestly, 17.5 is hardly the only example, even currently accepted stuff like player system cards have the same issue as what you're describing, and I guarantee I could find more examples.

Transmutation of magic bullets into water using some specialized and specified new ability is, even just gameplay wise, very mechanically different from supposedly extracting spiritual energies/"soul stuff" out of people with basic attacks in an otherwise unexpanded-upon manner. They are not functionally equivalent or similar, and shouldn't be treated as such.

 

[Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara]

I wasn't really arguing that "spirit power", "spirit" (as a term of power), and "spiritual energy" are different things, I was just making a distinction between spiritual energy and souls in themselves.

And you aren't really explaining why that's the case. Like, your only point in that regard is that spirit based attacks don't automatically kill people, but that's not even accurate because phantoms don't have death hax like you claim.

But Yukari's powerset is basically a more floridly worded variant of concept manipulation/reality warping. Given that context, it would be "reasonable" for her to engage in logically self-contradictory exploits to some extent, or what have you. In contrast, any random Touhou character messing with the "souls" of beings that are explicitly supposed to be bereft of souls is just a self-contradiction and an absurdity in itself.

Yukari's ability being as powerful as it is has nothing to do with whether or not it can bypass immunity. We can't just say "oh she's a reality warper, of course she can ignore iimmunity" because that ignores what immunity is supposed to be. It's a clear NLF on your part to claim as such. So yes, it is just as contradictory regardless of Yukari's powerset, and hell, she's far from the only character on this wiki who can bypass type 5; These sorts of illogical interactions are quite common, given we apparently have nearly 1,000 characters who can negate type 5. Yukari is just an example of how such contradictions are common even within Touhou.

Both the acknowledgement of spiritual energies and the existence of a major incident involving their absorption are quite distinct from the notion that characters can absorb spiritual energies from each other with just their basic attacks, which is one of the major tenets of OP.

I would again direct you to Sanae's statement, which is pretty clear about spirit power dropping from enemies being canon in-universe.

In fact, from what I know about Touhou thus far, the ability to absorb spiritual energy is considered quite specialized (as in, being the function of special abilities), and the fact that the mass-absorption of spiritual energy was considered an "incident-worthy" event by various main characters, instead of something rather banal (as it would be if characters can absorb each others' spiritual energy with just their basic attacks), is even more evidence for spiritual energy absorption being specialized and not something that can be done just by bullet hells and random spell cards.

There is a massive difference between what Tenshi did and what regular spirit users can accomplish, though. What Tenshi did took place across a low multiversal distance at minimun (unlike the 1v1 aspect of regular spirit users), was causing localized weather changes across all of Gensokyo, and of course that isn't even getting into the second aspect of the incident where she caused an earthquake that destroyed the Hakurei Shrine, and gave the possibility of an earthquake that would destroy Gensokyo. So, it's really a matter of scope, but the point is that it's still an acknowledgement of spirit in-universe.

Or think of it this way: Weather manipulation is quite common in Touhou, but Remilia's scarlet mist was a different case given it blanketed all of Gensokyo and caused sickness to whoever breathed it in, thus making it an incident. It's not a perfect 1-to-1 comparison, but it shares the same core idea of Tenshi's thing, where common abilities dialed up to 11 can become incidents (another example being Eirin's illusion in IN, which affected all of Gensokyo and was noticed by every single youkai, unlike the smaller scale illusions commonly used by other characters).

Transmutation of magic bullets into water using some specialized and specified new ability is, even just gameplay wise, very mechanically different from supposedly extracting spiritual energies/"soul stuff" out of people with basic attacks in an otherwise unexpanded-upon manner. They are not functionally equivalent or similar, and shouldn't be treated as such.

The water absorption and transmutation in 17.5 is never actually explained like you're claiming it is, though. It is given just as much acknowledgement (or even less acknowledgement, taking Sanae into account again) as spirit power. They're both powers that don't have clear definitions or explanations in-universe, and I'm saying it's absurd to think one is fine but the other is unusable.

 

[Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara]

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[Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara]

Oh btw, DDC does make explicit mention of spirit power absorption being a real thing. Not only that, but it attributes it to basic attacks as well, and further supports the idea of power null judging by the names.

 

[Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara]

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[Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara]

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[Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara]

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[Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara]

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[Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara]

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[Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara]

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[Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara]

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[Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara]

Bump, and also another instance of immunity negation: Spirit manip works fine on Suwako, who also lacks a spirit. I think we're at a point where this is consistent enough that we can't just glance over it and pretend it doesn't exist or is an outlier.

 

[Sniper670]

Bump, and also another instance of immunity negation: Spirit manip works fine on Suwako, who also lacks a spirit. I think we're at a point where this is consistent enough that we can't just glance over it and pretend it doesn't exist or is an outlier.

Isn't all this game mechanics. The plot of the game was that the animal spirits needed to possess a human to even be able to interact with her, why? because she had no soul and was just a husk. And it was never contradicted, even after her defeat. Basically they couldn't soul hax her due to lack of a soul so they had to use brute physical strength.

Those spirit energy thing shouldn't take precedence over the plot. Don't you agree?

 

[Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara]

I fail to see where I brought up WBaWC in my latest post? Anyways, I already addressed the game mechanics argument; Touhou consistently represents lore tidbits through gameplay, so to assume that WBaWC was an arbitrary exception needs some kind of proof behind it. Even then, spirit power is very much not just a game mechanic, as it is consistently treated as canon across the entire series, so making a debunk on the basis of it supposedly being game mechanics is flat out wrong.

May I also remind you that Yoshika and Suwako, unlike Mayumi, do not need to lack souls for the plot of the games they appear in to still work, so this whole argument still doesn't work because it fails to account for 2/3rds of the reason immunity negation is even on the table.

 

[Sniper670]

I fail to see where I brought up WBaWC in my latest post? Anyways, I already addressed the game mechanics argument; Touhou consistently represents lore tidbits through gameplay, so to assume that WBaWC was an arbitrary exception needs some kind of proof behind it. Even then, spirit power is very much not just a game mechanic, as it is consistently treated as canon across the entire series, so making a debunk on the basis of it supposedly being game mechanics is flat out wrong.

May I also remind you that Yoshika and Suwako, unlike Mayumi, do not need to lack souls for the plot of the games they appear in to still work, so this whole argument still doesn't work because it fails to account for 2/3rds of the reason immunity negation is even on the table.

Okay. Question.

Is there a lore explanation as to why the Animal spirits need a human body in other to negate soul hax immunity?
Why don't they do it directly, instead of the possessing physical bodies.

You're basically putting game mechanics over lore here. But i'm open for your opinion

 

[Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara]

I literally just explained why it isn't game mechanics. C'mon man.

We have 0 indication that beast spirits possess any kind of spirit manipulation, as they are never depicted as harming the protagonists in any way, let alone show any degree of spirit manipulation. The only exceptions are the three Animal Realm faction leaders, who we obviously cannot scale fodder beast spirits to, especially when it comes to hax, which usually requires a great deal of evidence.

To give another example of what I'm talking about, other youkai show spirit manipulation very consistently, yet we aren't giving characters like Tokiko or En'enra spirit manip based on that, because they lack any showings of it. It's why I specified only characters who are shown to be fighting other characters within the games qualify, and beast spirits do not meet this requirement.

Basically beast spirits don't have immunity negation because they aren't shown to have access to the in-verse mechanic that grants access to it. Simple.

 

[Sniper670]

I literally just explained why it isn't game mechanics. C'mon man.

We have 0 indication that beast spirits possess any kind of spirit manipulation, as they are never depicted as harming the protagonists in any way, let alone show any degree of spirit manipulation. The only exceptions are the three Animal Realm faction leaders, who we obviously cannot scale fodder beast spirits to, especially when it comes to hax, which usually requires a great deal of evidence.

To give another example of what I'm talking about, other youkai show spirit manipulation very consistently, yet we aren't giving characters like Tokiko or En'enra spirit manip based on that, because they lack any showings of it. It's why I specified only characters who are shown to be fighting other characters within the games qualify, and beast spirits do not meet this requirement.

Basically beast spirits don't have immunity negation because they aren't shown to have access to the in-verse mechanic that grants access to it. Simple.

Why did they need human host in the first place. Let's start from here

 

[Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara]

Why did they need human host in the first place. Let's start from here

We've been over this. Beast spirits cannot harm beings without souls. Haniwa are beings without souls and were trying to take over the beast spirits' home. So to prevent this they need someone who can harm soulless entities (ie; The protagonists).

I'm not sure where you're even going with this, I'm losing track of how many times I've had to repeat this stuff.

 

[Sniper670]

We've been over this. Beast spirits cannot harm beings without souls. Haniwa are beings without souls and were trying to take over the beast spirits' home. So to prevent this they need someone who can harm soulless entities (ie; The protagonists).

I'm not sure where you're even going with this, I'm losing track of how many times I've had to repeat this stuff.

Relax. We'll get to the end of this

You know that the reason is because the humans possess a physical body that can interact with her, and not because the humans possess the magical ability to negate soul manipulation immunity.

Where in the plot was it mentioned the humans possess such a special property as soul immunity negation, or anything close to that. The spirits certainly didn't, nor did the humans

Entire plot is this. Spirits are Intangible, can't harm a physical being. To add insult to injury she doesn't have a soul to be possessed. So what do they do, they possess a human who has a physical body in order to defeat her physically. Cos the soul hax is useless.

What you're doing right now is putting game mechanics above the entire plot and the lore.

 

[Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara]

You know that the reason is because the humans possess a physical body that can interact with her, and not because the humans possess the magical ability to negate soul manipulation immunity.

...Okay, and? What relevance does this have to anything at all? Humans can interact with haniwa. They can also use spirit manipulation on haniwa. Yes, the beast spirits chose the protagonists specifically due to the interaction aspect and not the spirit manip aspect, but how exactly does this disprove the ability to use spirit manip on soulless beings? I genuinely cannot understand your point.

Where in the plot was it mentioned the humans possess such a special property as soul immunity negation, or anything close to that. The spirits certainly didn't, nor did the humans

I never said it was in the plot. The humans showcase that property because they are explicitly shown to have it. You're basically just going 'what proves this feat happened other than the proof that it happened', so if you're gonna continue down that road please just leave.

Entire plot is this. Spirits are Intangible, can't harm a physical being. To add insult to injury she doesn't have a soul to be possessed. So what do they do, they possess a human who has a physical body in order to defeat her physically. Cos the soul hax is useless.

What you're doing right now is putting game mechanics above the entire plot and the lore.

For the millionth ******* time, spirit is an established part of the lore and is not game mechanics no matter how badly you want to pretend it is.

Also your plot synopsis doesn't even help your arguments? Like yeah it's technically true, but what is it even supposed to convince me on?

And yet again, there are still two instances where the supposed 'plot/game mechanics' disconnect doesn't even apply, so this whole argument is wasting my ******* time.

 

[OverlordDonnelly]

Relax. We'll get to the end of this

You know that the reason is because the humans possess a physical body that can interact with her, and not because the humans possess the magical ability to negate soul manipulation immunity.

Where in the plot was it mentioned the humans possess such a special property as soul immunity negation, or anything close to that. The spirits certainly didn't, nor did the humans

Entire plot is this. Spirits are Intangible, can't harm a physical being. To add insult to injury she doesn't have a soul to be possessed. So what do they do, they possess a human who has a physical body in order to defeat her physically. Cos the soul hax is useless.

What you're doing right now is putting game mechanics above the entire plot and the lore.

Nobody ever said that the reason they needed the humans was because of their soul immunity negation, you're creating a strawman argument. As stated above, there are other examples of Soul Immunity negation, and this is just another example.

Besides, the animal spirits would have no way of knowing the humans had said abilities, anyway. I'm not even fully convinced on the immunity negation, and even I don't see the logic in your argument.

 

[Sniper670]

Nobody ever said that the reason they needed the humans was because of their soul immunity negation, you're creating a strawman argument. As stated above, there are other examples of Soul Immunity negation, and this is just another example.

Besides, the animal spirits would have no way of knowing the humans had said abilities, anyway. I'm not even fully convinced on the immunity negation, and even I don't see the logic in your argument.

So you're headcannoning the fact that they have such a ability. Disregarding the plot, screaming strawmanning, putting game mechanics above the entire plot/lore and waiting for this to get accepted

You have a long way to go my friend.

 

[Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara]

Can you chill the **** out? I fully agree with Donnelly's assessment of your points, and I have attempted to explain to you how this is not game mechanics, something that you are intent on ignoring.

I would like for Touhou threads to at least try to steer away from the toxicity they fall into all too often, and you are not helping that.

 

[Sniper670]

...Okay, and? What relevance does this have to anything at all? Humans can interact with haniwa. They can also use spirit manipulation on haniwa. Yes, the beast spirits chose the protagonists specifically due to the interaction aspect and not the spirit manip aspect, but how exactly does this disprove the ability to use spirit manip on soulless beings? I genuinely cannot understand your point.

Answered that question. You keep bringing it up. Explained it again below

I never said it was in the plot. The humans showcase that property because they are explicitly shown to have it. You're basically just going 'what proves this feat happened other than the proof that it happened', so if you're gonna continue down that road please just leave.

This is a lie. The entire reason humans were needed was because they possess physical bodies to interact with the Haniwa. Nothing more, nothing less. There was nothing, no statement made that they were needed for any special reason beyond that.

For the millionth ******* time, spirit is an established part of the lore and is not game mechanics no matter how badly you want to pretend it is.

Also your plot synopsis doesn't even help your arguments? Like yeah it's technically true, but what is it even supposed to convince me on?

And yet again, there are still two instances where the supposed 'plot/game mechanics' disconnect doesn't even apply, so this whole argument is wasting my ******* time.

Essentially, you want us to disregard the plot in favor of game mechanics.

 

[Sniper670]

Can you chill the **** out? I fully agree with Donnelly's assessment of your points, and I have attempted to explain to you how this is not game mechanics, something that you are intent on ignoring.

I would like for Touhou threads to at least try to steer away from the toxicity they fall into all too often, and you are not helping that.

What do you mean toxity. If you ask me you're the only one being toxic here

 

[Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara]

Answered that question. You keep bringing it up. Explained it again below

...No you didn't. This is the first time you've responded to the question, because it was the first time I asked it.

This is a lie. The entire reason humans were needed was because they possess physical bodies to interact with the Haniwa. Nothing more, nothing less. There was nothing, no statement made that they were needed for any special reason beyond that.

I know. They were recruited for their physical bodies. The spirit manipulation was just an added bonus, and is something the beast spirits had no way of knowing about. Again, this doesn't even debunk anything. It's just explaining the plot.

Essentially, you want us to disregard the plot in favor of game mechanics.

Uh huh. Okay. No way you aren't trolling right now. How else would you so easily ignore literally everything I just posted?

What do you mean toxity. If you ask me you're the only one being toxic here

The 'you have a long way to go my friend' comment was 100% disrespectful and unnecessary, and your repeated deliberate ignorance of certain points is doing nothing but dragging this thread on longer than it needs to and is making any attempt at genuine debate nigh impossible. I'm about 2 seconds away from bringing this to the RVR, because I have 0 tolerance for disrespect and derailment on what is a very important CRT for the verse.

 

[OverlordDonnelly]

So you're headcannoning the fact that they have such a ability. Disregarding the plot, screaming strawmanning, putting game mechanics above the entire plot/lore and waiting for this to get accepted

You have a long way to go my friend.

I'm not even fully convinced on the immunity negation

Want to try that again, friend? That's quite the accusation to make, and I won't be so keen on being friendly in the future if you make such assumptions on my part again.

The point is, they have affected enemies who have no spirit to take, by taking spirit from them anyway, and the aforementioned spirit power has been acknowledged as being something that physically exists in the verse, outside of gameplay. Nobody is saying that the plot revolves around said power, and even if the humans can or can't negate soul immunity, it wouldn't affect the main focus of the story. Even then, you're hyperofocusing on one example.

Besides, as an indexing wiki, you'll find plenty of example where a character's ratings, powers, and abilities would break the setting and story of their worlds, but we allow such things to be added and looked over, anyway.

I'm being brutally honest when I say, the arguments you're making don't seem to make sense, or even fully support your disagreement, I'm afraid.

 

[Sniper670]

...No you didn't. This is the first time you've responded to the question, because it was the first time I asked it.

Lol

I know. They were recruited for their physical bodies. The spirit manipulation was just an added bonus, and is something the beast spirits had no way of knowing about. Again, this doesn't even debunk anything. It's just explaining the plot.

It wasn't added bonus. Enough of the headcannons. Did you even understand the plot of the game? Show me scans of there being "an added bonus", beyond the spirits taking control of the humans physical body to defeat the haniwa. Which, as explained by the spirits themselves, is simply a vessel they can use to physically interact with the haniwa since they were intangible. The entire premise, as I've said for the nth time, lies on the fact that the haniwas have no soul and need humans as a vessel for interacting with them. Soul haxing being useless was the reason the entire story even took off

Uh huh. Okay. No way you aren't trolling right now. How else would you so easily ignore literally everything I just posted?


The 'you have a long way to go my friend' comment was 100% disrespectful and unnecessary, and your repeated deliberate ignorance of certain points is doing nothing but dragging this thread on longer than it needs to and is making any attempt at genuine debate nigh impossible. I'm about 2 seconds away from bringing this to the RVR, because I have 0 tolerance for disrespect and derailment on what is a very important CRT for the verse.

LOL

 

[Sniper670]

Want to try that again, friend? That's quite the accusation to make, and I won't be so keen on being friendly in the future if you make such assumptions on my part again.

The point is, they have affected enemies who have no spirit to take, by taking spirit from them anyway, and the aforementioned spirit power has been acknowledged as being something that physically exists in the verse, outside of gameplay. Nobody is saying that the plot revolves around said power, and even if the humans can or can't negate soul immunity, it wouldn't affect the main focus of the story. Even then, you're hyperofocusing on one example.

Besides, as an indexing wiki, you'll find plenty of example where a character's ratings, powers, and abilities would break the setting and story of their worlds, but we allow such things to be added and looked over, anyway.

I'm being brutally honest when I say, the arguments you're making don't seem to make sense, or even fully support your disagreement, I'm afraid.

Play the game. That's all I'd say.