One Winged Egret
And... I was told that Ms. Yakumo is, in fact, rather sociable and likes talking to people... How does that figure into your view of the subject? Is she talking to her flowers? I believe not! I think she's genuinely interested in people and their lives. She's also proud of her work and likes to talk about it to whoever will listen. However, she cannot see other people as equals. Maybe not flowers, but perhaps children would be the better analogy here? She talks down to people from a position of superiority. She knows that she knows what's best for Gensokyo and everyone else, no matter how much she loves them, is merely someone to be controlled or convinced. Not complete control, as she is especially interested in the difference between people and their free will, but stray too far outside her guidelines and she'll smack you down with force.
Edit: Oh yeah, themes:
- Boundaries
- Curse of Dream and Reality, Border of Life and Death, Mesh of Light and Darkness, etc
- Impossible Science
- First Category Perpetual Motion Machine, Laplace's Demon, Infinite Superspeed Flying Object, etc
- Fourth Wall Breaking
- Danmaku Bounded Field, Border of 2D and 3D, etc
Also, she's left handed.
edited 5th Feb '11 5:10:31 PM by Clarste
Funny but not helpful
In the other thread, we were talking about Yukari/Reimu's bomb the Opposite of a Lack of Common Sense and someone said that it was based on a japanese expression "the opposite side of common sense" where something that makes sense on the surface has hidden disadvantages.
So, the opposite of a lack of common sense might be something that seems like it makes no sense but has hidden advantages or logic behind it. I think that's a good description of Yukari. Much of what she does seems random or capricious or "Yukari screwing around again" but no one understands the workings of Gensokyo more than Yukari.
In the Three Fairies manga, she beats the crap out of the titular characters when they try to move into a tree closer to the shrine. She then explains to them that by losing horribly they passed the secret test of character. The random tree was from the mundane world and had been accidentally made into a god by Reimu. Someone crafty or powerful could do horrible things with that. But Yukari was satisfied that the fairies were stupid and weak.
In PCB, Yukari weakened the border between the Netherworld and Gensokyo to let Yuyuko steal Gensokyo's spring. Why would she do this? Opposite side of a lack of common sense?
Also, I'm going to steal a quote from either Pratchett or Gaiman thats pretty applicable to Yukari.
God does not play dice with the universe: He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players [i.e. everybody], to being involved in an obscure and complex variant of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.
I love it.
It might just be that she knows exactly what she's doing, even if it makes no sense to humans. In that regard, it's kinda fitting she has a kitsune as her shikigami. And who knows, maybe even her non-interference caused her constant sleeping has a purpose. Yukari doesn't act whenever she can, she acts whenever she must.
I am now a shiny stone~
Rather than having a rigid list of Plans of What to Do with Gensokyo, Yukari has a long bulleted List of Fun Things to Do Because, or Just in Case, or Whatever.
The three finest things in life are to splat your enemies, drive them from their turf, and hear their lamentations as their rank falls!
The Youkai Revolution
A youkai is a product of animism. Human emotions gather and accumulate a creative force that gives life where there was none. The creation of hostile life in things that man fears. The ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy.
Man's fear has always been a strong driving force for progress. Man fears his death, and so he gathered into settlements. He created laws and rules. He created rulers so that they may ensure that the law will be upheld. It is all for his protection. The order is vital in ensuring that man will have to fear nothing. The order must be protected. None must endanger the order. Man fears that which may be a danger to his order, and there has always been a particular enemy that roused his fear like no other. That creature called woman.
In a patriarchal society, man rules with a strong fist. The eldest teach the young and tell stories of old, shaping their imagination. Woman has always been mysterious to him, and the mysterious is always dangerous. His fear was strong, and it gave life to many youkai who represent that which inspires fear and awe in him.
The playful spirits known as fairies have always been common representatives of smaller and larger phenomena of nature. Yet it came to be that once, thousands of years ago, a fairy came to be born bearing a force that nature itself had not known. It was an element that man himself had created in his fear of disorder. Words of power. The element of taboo.
The fairy with the purple dress and intelligent eyes was little more than an annoyance. Yet, a fairy is immortal. And words are all it takes to overthrow a world. The fairy grew more and more powerful the more man got to resent her for that sin of hers: That sin of crossing the lines he had set. The sin of questioning those boundaries he had marked. The sin of ignoring restrictions and the order of man's world.
Soon, the fairy changed. She had turned to something different. She had become the first true Youkai – a being of antagonistic thought, the embodiment of something created by man himself that he fears more than any of nature's hazards.
The Youkai grew powerful, but she knew better than to use her might insensitively. Her intellect encompassed the whole world, and her powers surpassed it. She knew better than to cause upheaval with no reason behind it. None knows better than a Youkai herself that terror will only cause man to resist ever harder. Thus, she remained in the shadows, the whole world a chess board of infinite complexity, moving her pawns and turning them to queens with her unseen hand.
When it came to be that youkai had to be protected from man's overwhelming order, she knew to retreat and create shelter, to create Gensokyo and many other Lands of Illusion throughout the world.
But she does not rest. The seeds she had planted continue to grow, memetic viruses spreading undetected. The Lands of Illusion, under the constant superveillance of her all-seeing eye, the Fox. The other Lands of Illusion, supervised by allied forces. And even when she is asleep, she observes the outside world through the eyes of a chosen angel.
The forces of chaos are ever-present. The natural law of irony has it that chaos is only another form of order. The new world will come. The revolution is already at hand.
edited 6th Feb '11 10:54:55 AM by Fawriel
Funny but not helpful
She is woman, hear her snore?
Forever liveblogging the Avengers
Yukari doesn't sleep. She waits.
Funny but not helpful
And even when she is asleep:?
I did like the write-up though.
edited 6th Feb '11 11:01:39 AM by Bocaj
Forever liveblogging the Avengers
[...]she observes the outside world through the eyes of a chosen angel. Yukari doesn't sleep. She watches you sleep.
Funny but not helpful
I guess I have to admire her constant vigilance. She certainly does a lot of watching. While she's laying in her futon. With her eyes closed. And the lights off. Its less dangerous. And after telling Chen to keep that blasted noise down.
Forever liveblogging the Avengers
Indeed! *oblivious smile*
No, but seriously. I have to say that I'm very fond of my ideas there. I mean, I attempted to justify the heavy slant towards female characters. I did not think that was possible in a manner that was anything close to serious, but when I had that lecture about American literature and the whole lesson was about post-modernism, how it takes delight in crossing boundaries and how women were finally getting suffrage and everything, it was like, bam.
AND I took the idea someone came up with long ago that fairies who become too powerful turn into youkai, and the silly joke I made in response to it about Yukari starting off as a fairy with a really crude sense of humor, and turned it into something serious.
I don't mean to brag or anything, but... I'm just so happy with it! So there!
edited 6th Feb '11 11:25:38 AM by Fawriel
Funny but not helpful
Yeah, it was a good write-up. I judge it White.
Forever liveblogging the Avengers
yeah that was pretty amazing, gotta say
The Youkai Revolution
I think I heard it once before, and I think it was Faw that mentioned it.
Ahahaha! Ah.
Okay! So, uhm, anyone want to discuss the ideas? What do you think where Yukari came from and where she is going?
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Actually, I think someone else came up with the idea...
edited 6th Feb '11 11:59:49 AM by Fawriel
To be honest, I never thought too much about Yukari's origins before. One of my first ideas was that she was actually born from the barrier itself... but then I didn't realize that she was there when the barrier went up and even had a hand in its creation.
Hmm, I think the last time anyone saw the Dragon was when the barrier went up. Maybe she's related to him somehow.
Funny but not helpful
The fairy to youkai idea came as a sort of WMG from Cirno's story in POFV where its sort of implied that Cirno might lose her fairy immortality if she gets stronger and/or strays too far from the lake. I'm uncertain.
Forever liveblogging the Avengers
Man, I have to admit I know nothing at all about the dragon except he's presumably a dragon and has an Iku messenger.
Oh yeah, that also means that strength alone isn't enough to turn youkai, since Cirno is clearly more than strong enough to hold her own against actual youkai.
edited 6th Feb '11 12:10:00 PM by Fawriel
Oh, right. I remember that discussion!
edited 6th Feb '11 12:09:17 PM by Zudak
Good Egg
Who is Yukari?
Yukari is the strange, enigmatic caretaker of Gensokyo. She comes and she goes, always reinventing herself, always seeking out new experiences. She manipulates events with a keen eye, always the best player on the field, even when she's planning against herself. And when the world disappoints her, she goes back to bed and dreams about being Yukari.
Who is Yukari?
Yukari is the terrifying force of nature that stands between everything. Night and day are different because she exists. Man and woman are separated because of Yukari. Sky stands above earth stands above water because of Yukari - without her, nothing is. She is more than a god; she is one of the pillars of all creation, kin to The Dragon. And sometimes, she retires to her room and sleeps, dreaming of being Yukari.
Who is Yukari?
She is a foolish old hag who carries power over the boundaries, and wastes this power, caring instead only for her slumber. She is a wise, immortal being who knows the value of free-will and the virtues of restraint, and so retires to her bedchambers out of fear of what she might do. She is a cruel and selfish being who cares nothing for mortal life, seeking ever-greater power and the domination of anyone who could oppose her. She is an impish elfin youkai, mischievous and gay, kissing the shrine maidens and dancing with the fairies. She is a traveler between worlds, a dreamer of deep thoughts, the writer of all that happens within Gensokyo, and she goes to bed at three in the morning and sleeps through the next week, dreaming about being Yukari.
Who is Yukari?
She is all of them and none of them at the same time, changing her aspect as fits her whim. One morning, she may arise and plot the conquest of the moon, readying the shrine maiden and the vampire for their prophesied roles, and then the next she will have forgotten all about it, save a scribbled note to herself about the moon. She chooses as she will, flitting between realities, and ultimately being something far beyond human comprehension. And at night, she kisses her kitsune on the forehead and thanks her for her constant work, and she plays with the nekomata until it falls asleep or runs off into the woods to play with its friends, and then she lies down between reality and fable and dreams about being Yukari.
I wonder what she will be when she wakes up?
Time keeps dragging on.
Ghosts' Poet
Yukari~The Border of Thought and Instinct
I find it interesting how the interpretations of Yukari tend towards two extremes. The first is that she's Gensokyo's hidden guardian, the incredible chessmaster, always making sure that things proceed properly from her point of view. The second is that she's the wild card, the Chaotic Neutral god, who does everything, usually sleeping, on a personal whim or a theory inscrutable even to her.
My personal interpreation leans more to the latter. When Yukari wakes up, whenever that is, she has no plan. Sometimes, she'll read the reports on current events that Ran painstakingly collected while she was sleeping. Other times, she'll throw the reports into a trash gap, venture into Gensokyo and act on what she sees. Sure, she's ready to make a complex, intricate plan to get what she wants, but she's just as likely to just teleport pies into Reimu's face every hour for the next three months. Part of being the boundary youkai is crossing over borders from time to time.
Sleepwalker
In most cases, there is absolutely nothing notable about a character that's asleep. It's why a character going to sleep is usually a good time for a transition. It's a break from the action. Nothing's happening. You can go now. Seriously, go.
However, considering how much the Gap Hag sleeps, perhaps we should examine her sleeping a bit more closely. As this comic has helpfully illustrated
, Yukari's powers don't turn off when she goes to sleep. Of course, this comic only shows Yukari's gap abilities, but there still leaves the question of the boundaries.
Thus, my theory: Yukari subconsciously moves between boundaries while she's asleep. Sometimes, this can lead to physical changes. Ran might find Yukari as a sleeping puddle (Border Between Solid and Liquid) or looking like a picture negative (Border Between Light and Darkness). However, this can lead to mental changes. Yukari's going to be a lot more cloudcuckoolanderish if her mind crossed over to the Dream side of the Border btw Reality and Dreams. As such, every idiosyncracy in Yukari's actions can be explained as "she must have slept badly that day."
As a sidenote, writing this has slightly, slightly improved my view of Ran. Slightly
edited 6th Feb '11 12:56:43 PM by yarrunmace
you'll then have a grave in the clouds where you won't lie too cramped
You know how I said I had something to say about Yukari? Yeah, forget that. I'm awed by the write-ups and most of them pretty much say what I would probably have said. So I'm just going to ask the usual questions to the more knowledgeable people, so that I have a grip on what's exaggerated (and why) and what isn't.
- The Gaps
- Why do they have eyes in them? Are they more gaps? Can she see out of them? When I first saw them I used to think that Yukari was the Touhou version of an Eldritch Abomination; that the "lady" we see is just a facade and the "eyes" in the gaps are an indication of what Yakumo really is. On another note, I also don't believe Yukari never knows where some of her gaps will lead.
- The Appearance
- Are her face-eyes yellow or purple? I like to think that she just changes them whenever. One minute you'd be talking to her and then you turn for a second. When you face her again you get the creepy yellow eyes (which I guess would be similar to Irisu Syndrome's Anti Poop-Socking method).
- And then there's the various depictions of her with a huge chest *. Why? To signify that she's old? Unlike Komachi ("imposing") and Letty ("fat"), I haven't seen anything in her profile that would indicate that she's stacked. Granted, maybe I shouldn't being using ZUN's art work as a spring board for "how a character should canonically look like".
- And lastly, short hair or long hair? In the fighting games she seems to have shorter hair, which I suppose would be smarter to have in a fight, no where else. Incidentally, her shorter hair makes her look similar to Maribel, who she's rumored to have connections with.
- Maribel
- Most of it is rumors (Yukari is Maribel when Yukari is asleep, Maribel is Yukari when Maribel sleeps) so I just want to know if ZUN ever said anything about the two characters' resemblances.
As far as where I think Yukari came from, I used to believe that she used to serve under the Dragon God until she either gained her gap power from the Dragon (or stole it from the dragons) or she became powerful enough that the Dragon decided to let her take care of the realm while it...sleeps or something. This was partially based on something that I (probably mis)read about the creation of both the barrier between Gensokyo and the outside world as well as the Spellcard duels were done to quell the Dragon God, who was raging and threatening to erase Gensokyo/everything. I'll have to read about that part of Gensokyo's history again to be sure though. But it hinges on Yukari being afraid (not afraid as in "quivering in fear", but as in "I can't stop it if shit goes down") of the Dragon. It also means Yukari's probably a dragon herself. Or something.
edited 6th Feb '11 1:38:10 PM by Customer
Especially since your ideas are always interesting to read. That garden metaphor is a good way to illustrate the way she sees the world. And "thinks 3 steps ahead and 5 steps to the left" is just great. All good ways to demonstrate that youkai way of thinking that Hylarn also focused on in his thing. BUT ANYWAY!
Now, witness. If you know so much about Yukari, then tell me, why does she sleep so much? And... I was told that Ms. Yakumo is, in fact, rather sociable and likes talking to people... How does that figure into your view of the subject? Is she talking to her flowers? I believe not!
... I might've watched a few cartoons too many just now.
PS: SDM, we'll see about that when we get there!
Oh yeah, and let's do that picdump.
As for why that picture before reminded me of her relationship with Yuyuko... Well, I like to think of the two as a sly, cool business girl with more intelligence than she can make use of and her laid-back stoner friend.