Needs Help: Characters.Touhou

a) ZUN creates new character pics for each new game. Why shouldn't the fighting game makers? They just lack his skills, so the result is different.

b) It wasn't accepted by everyone. Considering the amount of time this thread has been sleeping, there are a lot of people who have an opinion but just don't care enough to voice it. That's the silent majority. What that opinion is can't be said, so let's not assume what it is.

c) We are not other wikis. They have other goals, other guidelines, other site structures, and other communities. For instance, they have characters on separate pages, not by game. It's only natural they'd come to their own conclusion.

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I'm in favour of the current state of affairs. The fanart we're using is pretty nice.

There, my silence has ended.

Conception is sin Birth is pain Life is toil Death is inevitable

I don't care if we use either ZUN art, offical non-ZUN art, or fanart as long as we can all agree on something.

I do lots of stuff. The real question is am I any good at that stuff.

Problem is that it always seems to be that one little vocal minority that causes us not to get anywhere.

...ooooook, apparently this is still unclear. I'll try again.

Mr. Slug, that is a very noble goal, but it's also impossible. The two sides will never just decide that, yes, all along, the ZUN-Art/non-ZUN-Art really was the only good choice for the page Both sides want their respective pics on the page. The only thing that can realistically happen to solve this is that one of the sides convinces the other that their choice is objectively better or more in line with site policy, and then the other side accepts this.

Which is what happened

More on that down below.

That's quite harsh, Matt. And also not that correct in a few ways. First off, yes, we non-ZUN-Art-guys are the minority, but not really "that one little minority"; we're about a third of the Touhou fans here. But I agree that with only me as its vocal representative, we appear super small.

But on to the main point: Matt, I am not the cause of "us not getting anywhere", which I assume is you meaning "finally exchanging the pics for ZUN-Art". That is actually your side's "fault", if anything. Because, and I already posted this last page over two weeks ago, your side won the debate a while ago.

I, sadly, was the only one who debated against the ZUN-Art-side, and I conceded defeat. I accepted mainly the argument that is was common TV Tropes policy to have art from the games themselves, and I accepted that you were the majority and deserved to win because of that. So, anyone from your side could have started changing the char page pics weeks ago to ZUN-Art. You could do so right now, and there would be no argument. Yes, I still have issues with certain parts of the whole deal (which I've outlined also last page: PC-98, Fighting Game Art), and I might bring those up here in the thread after the pic exchange process, in another friendly discussion. But that should not keep anyone from just finally starting the dang process.

(Side note: this does kinda make me question how "horrible" the non-ZUN-Art-status-quo at the moment really is to your side... if this Alphes-Style-art really were this offensive and wrong and legions of fans wanted ZUN-Art, then where are the dozens of dozens of posts clamoring for when it will finally be gone and the initiative and will to finally solve this "blight on the site" that has been going on for years now?)

"Mystia is a former German nun“ -Clarste //// "[...]collectively, we have the power to destroy the Aki sandwich" -Clarste

The answer in the last bit lies in the "been going on for years" bit. Most people just don't care anymore.

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A few things:

If I appeared harsh then sorry since that was not my intent.

Second, I wasn't pointing fingers just at you, I was pointing fingers at the whole group you represent.

Thirdly is that I didn't know of the consensuses since I rarely check the forums^note I ain't what you would call the most sociable of people and generally just tend to feel lost in the randomness and general insanity that results when multiple people's opinions meet. unless I know there is some special message I am specifically waiting for.

So I want to know, Do I have the go-ahead? Yes or No? I want to avoid a repeat of what happened last time.

edited 25th Nov '15 12:12:31 AM by matteste

Well, I, with all the non-authority I have here, do give you the go-ahead, Matt. You could maybe, just a suggestion, just start with the chars starting from EOSD on? Because Reimu/Marisa and PC-98 still are topics that I've really wanted to discuss here for forever. But! As I said, it's your decision. And Matt, it won't be a repeat of last time, since this time, it was discussed and then changed based on a consensus, not changed overnight without one word of warning.

"Mystia is a former German nun“ -Clarste //// "[...]collectively, we have the power to destroy the Aki sandwich" -Clarste

Just popping in to give an opinion, personally I'd prefer to leave things as it is. A little bit of cohesion and communicates the character designs pretty well without looking not-good.

And about the rehosting fanart without permission thing, most of the alphes-styled art we get is from dairi, and according to their Pixiv, they don't mind rehosting their work elsewhere so long as its not for commercial profit/claiming credit. Just make a mention of who the artist is and linking to a Pixiv page would be sufficient.

http://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=4920496

edited 25th Nov '15 2:28:25 PM by Zansnae793

Really sorry, Zansnae, but the discussion has been done for weeks This is gonna happen, no more arguing against it. But I'd REALLY appreciate it if you still checked into the thread regularily, there will be further discussions, and I'd be glad to have one other person on my side here

"Mystia is a former German nun“ -Clarste //// "[...]collectively, we have the power to destroy the Aki sandwich" -Clarste

The index picture is meant to convey just how utterly massive and diverse the Touhou roster is, and the 20th anniversary picture illustrated that perfectly, by including literally everyone. No picture with that many characters is going to be clear at wiki size - the picture there now certainly isn't, and the picture that the 20th ani picture replaced was even less so, and it remained there untouched for years. Besides that, the actual clarity will depend entirely on how big your monitor is and your chosen resolution.

Incidentally, if we can't link to Danbooru for reference pictures (why? It hasn't had ads for years and isn't NSFW unless you want it to be), then use safebooru.donmai.us, not safebooru.org. The latter is an extension of Gelbooru, an insidiously lewd website with far worse ads than Danbooru ever had. Plus, as a result of being linked to Gelbooru, it lacks a lot of the functionality of the donmai.us domain. For example, safebooru.donmai.us will copy over any notes or tags that Danbooru users have left, which are always far more thorough than on Gelbooru.

edited 25th Nov '15 6:40:56 PM by Vidszhite

You're talking as if image clarity is a binary thing and not at all dependent on the colours. Neither is true.

Also, you're edit warring by changing the image on your own, when it had been changed after a discussion.

I don't personally think there's any problem linking to Danbooru. There are people who're still suspect of it since before they removed the ads, which caused problems. Pixiv is actually worse, since it will randomly show explicit pictures as suggestions for other pictures. Danbooru only shows what you search for yourself.

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Yup! Fully agree with Mr. Duck. Change it back. This thread exists for a reason: to prevent exactly these kinds of unannounced one-man changes.

—

Also: Danbooru has been clean and not a problem for years. We LITERALLY link to it daily in the thread and haven't heard one word from any mod against it.

"Mystia is a former German nun“ -Clarste //// "[...]collectively, we have the power to destroy the Aki sandwich" -Clarste

Thanks for the clear up, then I should probably get to work. Expect to see a few changes over the coming days.

Well Regarding the Main character page, it was I who suggested to use the art that they currently have since they are the main characters and therefore deserve a little special treatment^note  I just wonder, should we use Moe's ULiL art, or the art from SCoOW for Reimu and Marisa?.

I wont touch PC-98 page as of now simply cause I ain't sure how to proceed with that one. The rest should have art from their debut game, that way each separate game page remains consistent with itself. The side games page should remain largely unchanged, only Hatate needs a change. For the supplementary materials I only need to find some good art of Rei'sen as well I might change Kasen's back to her WaHH art.

While I highly doubt this will be the last we hear of this issue, atleast I hope that new arrivals to the wiki will no longer fall to the meme of using fanart here. For me this whole issue has just seemed like one huge logical fallacy.

Well enough from me, I have said my mind and things has been somewhat reasonably resolved.

Over and out.

edited 26th Nov '15 1:41:56 AM by matteste

~Vidszhite, please do not unilaterally change the image while it's under discussion.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Well, it's literally impossible to go with only ZUN-art, because many of the fighting game and non-game characters don't have publicly available ZUN designs (I believe only Suika and Tenshi do).

First appearance makes the most sense to me, although that does run into the counterintuitive fact that Aya's first appearance was in Bohemian Archive, not Phantasmagoria of Flower View.

edited 26th Nov '15 5:12:26 AM by Clarste

Did we agree on whenever we should use portraits or full-body pictures?

Continue the bloodline, Fujimaru!

Well I'll say this, Some of the art, especially from the earlier games where of rather small resolution, 128 pixels of width is not uncommon. So making only portraits of those would prove challenging unless you want really small pics.

I don't remember having that discussion. Most are portraits, though, and I generally find them to work better on character pages. However, a representative image is a higher priority.

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Well I'll go ahead and add them as full body at the moment. Due to the older games it just ain't practical to use portraits. However we can always change later.

Also this is more of a taste thing than anything else but should we use these two from SCoOW for Reimu and Marisa since then it both matches the main page picture (made by the same artist) and since it is from a world building material instead of the games. Not something I planned to argue on, just a small question at which one you might think works best.

edited 26th Nov '15 6:28:26 AM by matteste

OK! So, first off, great to see more people here!

I've now gotten my first view of the new EOSD page. I find the size of the pics perfectly fine (Although: the EOSD pics seem much shorter than the PCB ones, which seem too tall and overlap the char articles sometimes)

But! And this is where we encounter one of the BIG problems that I hoped we could finally settle. When Sakuya's pic made me vomit from how badly drawn it was, I only then realized that her gorgeous SWR artwork, and all the other Fighting Game Art was now gone, too. Let's discuss this (also ties into Matt's question there)

So, opinions please on the use of the Fighting Game Art!

Me first: I adore the art from ULIL the most out of all the Touhou games. The pinnacle of beauty and detail. And I'm not alone in that. When the artist was revealed before ULIL came out, and whenever we got our first glimpses of a new char pic from it, the thread was super happy about it. When we had all the art, it was IMMEDIATELY applied to the char page, without even having to ask, because nobody would even have thought that we could want anything else but this best possible art for these characters. (All of this applies to the SWR-art before it, too)

And now the thought that the beautiful Marisa and Reimu ULIL artwork could be replaced for absolutely no reason with EOSD artwork really hurts me (just like the replacement of the SWR art). We agreed here in the thread that we would use art from the games because that was more in line with site policy. But we don't have to overdo it and ruthlessy enforce "older ZUN-Art EVERYWHERE!". That has nothing more to do with site policy. (And! By the way, if you used this random "only art from the first game they appeared in!"-rule to its logical conclusion, then you'd have to only use PC-98 art for Reimu and Marisa, and I don't think even defenders of that rule would go that far).

—

Other things: Tying in to the above topic, why doesn't Kasen have her ULIL pic!?! There's even less justification for it than for the others. Is someone on an anti-ULIL crusade?

Reisen 2 looks good! Good find. May I ask where the pics of the Moonsisters are from? (those pics are awesome and have been here since forever, but I was always curious about that)

Also: The Kappa Mob pic has a white line through it? But that may be a problem with my computer only, someone please check that.

edited 26th Nov '15 7:15:10 AM by FellDeedsAwake

"Mystia is a former German nun“ -Clarste //// "[...]collectively, we have the power to destroy the Aki sandwich" -Clarste

I think using third header (or whatever you call those things you use "!" to set up) goes over pictures. I also encountered that problem. It should be fine now.

The pictures for Moonsisters seems to be just tokiame drawing them for the sake of it. I looked up the pictures in danbooru and they don't have "official art" tag. Yorihime, Toyohime

edited 26th Nov '15 7:31:23 AM by TPPR10

Continue the bloodline, Fujimaru!

I was actually about to post, regarding the matter. When it comes to PCB, I am kinda experimenting with various sizes to see what works and what doesn't, for example compare to IN where I did shrink them. As for Kasen it is due to the fact that she debuted in WaHH as well as the page being focused on you guessed it, supplementary material. When it comes to the Kappa mob that seems to be a wiki error, not a problem with the actual pic. When it comes to the Moonsisters I actually ain't quite sure. They are made by the official artist that much I know, but if memory serves I don't think those images showed up in the manga. There actually used to be Alphes style images of those before someone replaced them with the current ones.

However from this point on I actually have to direct some strict criticisms towards you and you alone. Where did I ever say that I would replace the art of Reimu and Marisa with EoSD art? I said I would use the art from SCoOW, and that was only a suggestion. Did you even check the links? I know you are defensive about the Alphes art but now it seems you are defensive about to an almost zealous degree that you start to fall into the Strawman Fallacy. I also have to point out that you are falling into some severe double standard here and you seems to ignore that the Alphes art had very varying qualities. Remember the old Maribel pic hmm? Or if we should go official why not the HM art.

edited 26th Nov '15 7:29:43 AM by matteste

Thanks!

That's fair.

I did check the links. I apologize that I caused a misunderstanding because of poor phrasing on my part. My comment did not refer to your suggestion at all (but if you want my opinion on them: I do like the pics from the magazine, but I prefer the ULIL ones). I just jumped the gun seeing Sakuya's, Patchy's, etc. pics being replaced by EOSD ones, just assumed that Reimu and Marisa would be next and preemptively stated my opinion on that. I did not mean at all to put a statement in your mouth that you did not make. I wa just referring to the general exchanging of pics.

Correction: Fighting Game Art. That's why I use that term, because the ULIL art isn't by Alphes.

True. I lament the loss of the beautiful Fighting Game Art pics and try to argue for their inclusion. Sadly, I'm still alone on it, which baffles me and, yes, makes me post a bit more desperately than normal.

We are in agreement there.

Because it was bad. Everyone agreed on that. We replaced it with the perfect ULIL art as soon as we could.

"Mystia is a former German nun“ -Clarste //// "[...]collectively, we have the power to destroy the Aki sandwich" -Clarste

I think it's starting to look good.

It might be the argument others used, but it's not random. Using whatever pictures you think look pretty is closer to random, but that's a subjective measurement rather than objective (which the first argument is).

Now, the argument I had was to use the images from the games the pages are titled after. Might have the same result, but the argument is different. It also means that that logical conclusion doesn't apply, since Reimu and Marisa are on the main characters page, which isn't tied to any game. And for those two, it might be appropriate to have one Windows era pic and one PC 98 era pic for each, considering the relatively large changes (and questionable canon), like we have for Yuuka and Alice.

By the way, feel free to hook up the ImageLinks.Touhou page with good pictures if you want to show off what the characters look like in the various games. I think that would be appropriate use of that page.

I still think we should remove the pictures of the character who don't have canon designs.

edited 26th Nov '15 9:23:39 AM by AnotherDuck

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