And it goes so well with that "Yukari created the Hakurei Border" WMG.

I'm pretty unenthused by it, though.

They just have similar powers. Although it's entirely possible that Yukari was the one who originally gave the Hakurei family their powers, I really don't think they're related.

That's like claiming Marisa is descended from Patchouli because they both use the Non-Directional Laser.

...No, Marisa and Patchouli can do the same things because they both use a power set that anyone can learn. I'd assume that borderhax are much rarer

edited 9th Apr '12 5:17:14 PM by Hylarn

Just about all we know on that topic is that the border is the Hakurei border, and tied to the family line somehow, such that if Reimu dies, Gensokyo gets screwed, and that Yukari had a hand in putting up the barrier (Wait, this is WMG? I'm pretty sure it's outright fanon, if not canon. Wow. I could have sworn it was canonical.)

Maybe Yukari infused the power of barriers into the line, maybe she just linked their life to the barrier's, it's not really clear. Maybe every 20 years or so she goes ahead and makes a virgin birth in the line or something as border maintainance. That'd be pretty creepy. Whatever... this is definately WMG territory.

So, what % of adults (not counting the elderly or otherwise infirm... though I'm not sure it'd even be a big disadvantage) from the human village do you think Rumia could defeat 1 on 1? Just curious how capable/defended you think the village is. Personally, I'd say a good majority. About 85% or so. It's kind of a power level comparison, so hopefully this won't blow way out of proportion.

Since this is all under Reimu's profile, I would assume shrine maiden refers to Reimu. Also considering that further down, the shrine maiden was almost definitely Reimu, as it talks about the Scarlet Mist incident and how the shrine maiden likes to have rematches.
As for when this could be agreed upon, it can be anytime before Embodiment of the Scarlet Devil. They give no real time line as to when Reimu agreed on this.

I have a completely different opinion. I am always under the impression that Yukari has nothing to do with this. She may be the one that solved the Vampire Incident(we know youkai are the ones who solved this), but as for the spell card rules, I don't think she has anything to do with this.
This is mainly because Reimu does not seem to know Yukari prior to Perfect Cherry Blossom.

Yukari did teach Reimu about gods and how to summon them. So, she probably knows a thing or two about gods and shrine maiden duties.

edited 9th Apr '12 8:10:39 PM by Starx

Honestly, I think the only ones who'd lose to Rumia are the ones stupid enough to stick their hands into the darkball.

Which is apparently a common enough thing that Akyuu needs to tell people not to do it by adding a section about Rumia to the Chronicle, despite her irrelevance. So make of that what you will.

But if it comes to a fight, I think they will be able to at least run Rumia off.

edited 9th Apr '12 8:20:39 PM by Otherarrow

Akyuu does recommend kicking, if I recall correctly.

Well, the point of that huge paragraph i wrote earlier was more that all we know of with respect to the shrine maiden's (Reimu or not) involvement in the spellcard rules was that she gave an "OK". Actually, looking at the spellcard rules entry in PMISS, those ones seem to have been what was handed to her, and at most she refined them into what we see now. It's written on the same paper as the Youkai contract... the one that's unbreakable, as a deal with a devil.

What... how could I have missed this? This totally supports my theory that spellcard rules are magically enforced. It outright says so right here. The magically binding, unbreakable contract is literally part of the spellcard system. It doesn't particularly explain why, say, Byakuren has them, so I suppose there's still the assumed "They're quick writing up spellcards while bantering", but it at least explains why Utsuho dueled rather than just blowing the bejeezus out of the silly girl in front of her.

As for how it's unbreakable, we have Remilia to thank for that. Akyuu says it's simply because of the fact Remilia's a devil, but I strongly suspect that that is the most heavily implied use of Remilia's fatehax. That's more for Remilia though.

Heh. Rumia nomming on someone...

"Getitoffgetitoffgetitoff!" flailing the arm she's attached to, then a buddy comes up and punts her away before giving a disapproving scowl.

Poor thing.

Oh, yeah, since we were talking about gender relations earlier, I'd like to mention that women did a lot of the gathering and crafting in pre-agriculture communities, so it wasn't just childcare. My mind keeps drifting back to the question whether or not we would expect to see strictly defined gender roles there - I'm still thinking no. Magic may or may not be a game changer; it would be interesting (and frustrating) if women were expected to suppress their magical power they way they had to strangle so many strengths and talents in different cultures over the centuries. That would be another reason for Marisa to thumb her nose at the place and charge off into the woods to be a witch. (It doesn't seem likely at all, though.)

I think that the way shopping is treated in Touhou fiction is one of the more interesting anachronisms of the setting. I'm not sure if I can articulate it at two in the morning, but the mentions it gets seem to have kind of a modern attitude, don't they? Maybe I'm just seeing consumerism where there is none.

No, no, there's definitely some kind of modern economy going on there. After all, shops only work if you can buy comparable items at two or more stores. More evidence that the Human Village is more the Human City, or at least the Human Township. Perhaps Gensokyo is indeed dimensionally transcendental, because I don't know how this would all fit in otherwise.

Hmm... How much of a role do you figure youkai money plays in this supposed economy? They ARE the majority, but there's still hostilities because of the whole Long Pork issue, not to mention most youkai aren't really into the whole commerce thing, rabbits and night sparrows aside...

Um, I am not sure if you should be reading it like that. I am pretty sure it just means that if you agree to the spell card rules, then it is binding for that battle. This way, youkai can't just kill off humans who want to spell card duel.
I don't think the spell card rules are enforced in any way. Just look at Silent Sinner in Blue and you can see that there were no enforcements.

Oh, and do the games skip over the dialogue where both parties agree not to kill each other?

'Witness the power of my nuclear fusion, AND BE INCINERATED! AH HA HA HA HA HA!'
'Spell Card Rules?'
'Hm? Oh yeah, sure. Whatever.'

I think so. Perfect Memento implies that the victory conditions can be pretty technical, so it can be assumed that most fights are preceded by briefly working them out

Given the dialogue in the games I will now speculate that there is an elaborate and even elegant system of subtle facial cues that duelists use to set the terms and propose spellcard battles.

So while Reimu is calling Minoriko tasty, Minoriko is wiggling her nose to indicate she'll only use a stage one allotment of spells.

And Yuyuko wanted a do-over when Reimu thought she wanted to be stage 1 in TD. All because of an accidental sideways glance.

Well, My thinking was this: so long as one person wants a spellcard duel, the other is forced into one should a conflict arise. I.E. "We'll be using spellcard rules", or even just whipping them out, seals both parties into the system. Because yeah, otherwise Crazy!Utsuho would be having delicious charred witch/shrine maiden husk/charcoal.

And of course every protagonist is going to want to use them. Possible exception: Cirno. But then, the three fairies probably wanted to use them to stand a chance, so... the point stands. The magic may even involve taking the opponents attacks and turning them into spellcards, without their knowledge or consent. I.E. Devil's recitation was just an attack Byakuren had learned, and because Reimu had started a spellcard duel, when Byakuren used it, it was a spellcard.

SSIB... grrr on that fight scene. There are... a lot of things wrong with it. Of course, it's not clear how the enforcement takes place. Perhaps Yorihime was bound by the nonlethal rules. Sure, in SSIB she flaunts some of them (most annoyingly eating the star danmaku), but that's about it. She doesn't declare spellcards, but then, no one seems to ever declare how many they use, so I assume that takes place in offscreen/offpanel explanation, if it's even in the final version of the spellcard rules, which it might not be.

Huh, I wonder what most people (human or otherwise) bet on the duel. Money? Days of service? Fingernail clippings/hair (Everyone always looks at Alice odd when she asks for those. But don't worry, they aren't for a voodoo doll. She even said so.)

She does declare her spellcards, actually. Since declaring your spellcards is basically the same as Calling Your Attacks, which is indeed a thing Yorihime does.

The combatants bet their pride. Which is far more valuable then any physical commodity.

edited 10th Apr '12 6:24:16 AM by asterism

Good point. I suppose she does declare her spellcards. The thing I was talking about though, where nobody says how many they'll use before the start... She's part of the "nobody" there.

And clearly pride isn't the only thing on the line. Other concessions that have been made are "if you lose, you won't turn the surface into an expansion of the blazing hell" and "If you lose, we're having red Miso with the ibis hotpot."

Being able to maintain pride is a key point of the spellcard rules. Because it always allows the excuse of "Well, I could have won, if I'd been using my full powers." even when that's very clearly not true. And the winner gets to keep pride because they won even with one hand tied behind their back, so to speak.

So, do we still have things to say about... what are we talking about anyway?

Human Village.

I have a write-up half-written here, hoping to finish.

The Human Village. Which segued into a chat about the Spell Card Rules.

Humans...

So how many outsiders do you think end up becoming permanent residents of Gensokyo in the human village? I imagine its extremely uncommon, considering how little is known of outside world tech. My guess is there are maybe 3 or so among the thousands of current inhabitants who A: made it to the human village alive, and B: Decided to stay there, rather than go back home via Hakurei.

And the latter one would be an unusual decision. Paradise or no, it's a huge culture shock, and of course outsiders have families and such as well... and they may not even speak Japanese if they're a Yukari gap-victim. And modern conveniences would be... difficult to do without, depending.

I'd imagine it can't be many. Hmm... Perhaps some of them are disappeared, Never Found the Body suicides that Yukari stopped by tossing them into Gensokyo, in her mind granting them a new lease on life or something? It'd explain the apparent lack of technology crossing in...

Enough technology has crossed over for there to be at least semi-functional copies of cellphones

Well, to be fair, most outsiders pulled suddenly from anything will generally have a wallet and a cell phone. And probably whatever donglies are on their keychain as well as the keys themselves, so some flashlights and such likely make it through as well. Other minor knicknacks as well. The sorts of things people have in their pockets.

Also clothes. So there may be quite a few modern outfits running around, though the few outsiders that stay probably hoard them.

Not all the outsiders survive, though. It depends if their first encounter is with, say, Mokou, or with, for example, Rumia.