The New New Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium

Now, what kinds of elemental combos is Patchy thinking off...?

Elemental Piano
Hidden Spell
Secrets of a Lost World
Inquisitive Spellcaster
Fragmented Space
Mystery of Seven Worlds
Elemental Chaos
Seven Worlds, Seven Paths
Drizzly Rain
Studious Magician

edited 28th May '16 6:16:19 PM by Diamite

I wonder about Pache's relationship with the other SDM cast? I know Remilia and Pache are friends.

I really didn't want to keep hammering on with this, since I was just thinking of it as a fun bit of trivia, but I think you're deeply misunderstanding what my point was. When I say she's a celestial wizard, I mean that the Week itself is an astrological construct. A "week" has no meaning at all except to separate the days into the various planets. Just like a month has no meaning other than keeping track of the phases of the moon, and a year has no meaning other than to keep track of where the sun is (and therefore the seasons). She's definitely a One Week Wizard, and I never meant to imply otherwise. I merely wanted to elaborate on what exactly that entails.

edited 13th May '16 8:50:46 AM by Clarste

You make a good point and a reasonable argument, but I refuse to accept Patchy as some celestial spellcaster until she puts a sun or something on her PJs to go with that crescent moon.

Anyway, it's probably about time to move on. Any last thoughts about Patchouli before we see if Yukari is awake?

Mine's that I love the "by-the-book but still makes lots of mistakes" characterization she has, as seen when she spends so much time researching enemies in Subterranean Animism that she keeps giving useful (or not) information about enemies Marisa has already blasted past. it really makes the Scarlet Devil Mansion cast a bunch of oddballs - Remilia's childish beyond her years, Sakuya's a serial killer who will replace a broken teacup with another broken teacup or try to open a window on a spaceship, Flandre is Flandre, Meiling hallucinates epic battles with giant catfish, and now there's Patchy who may be the smartest of the bunch but still causes facepalms. No wonder they all click so well together.

SDM are really close to each other. I wonder what Patchoulli current stance on Marisa.

They would seem to be on working terms, at least. How much further it goes depends on the shippers.

So give an overdue book return for Miss Knowledge, then. Coming up will be Kokoro, Momiji, and one of the two firsts of the lasts. But for now, here's

Yukari Yakumo

Stage: The Border Between Youkai and Humans
Phantasmagoria. She was also living on the border of Gensokyo.
BGM: "Youkai Domination ~ Who done it!"^note Another version of Youkai Domination. It's not that different from the original though...
Theme: "Necrofantasia"^note Meant to be an arranged version of Ran's theme, it ended up quite different. This one has an ominous feeling. Or rather, she's the very embodiment of ominous. Even compared with the past characters, she has a devious appearance, a dubious character and thoughtless danmaku. The theme's just like her: devious (lol).
Other Theme: "Night Falls ~ Evening Star"^note This is the theme of Yukari. I think the combination of ominous and nice parts suits Yukari's personality well. And I wonder if I've finally written a song that doesn't mix Eastern and Western styles together, but expresses them separately. I shouldn't combine East and West for Yukari. After all, if I don't keep them separate, then there's no boundary.

Spellcard Motif: Borders, boundaries and barriers

Sample Spellcards: PCB, GoM, IaMP, SWR, IN, StB, 'soku, ISC
-Barrier "Curse of Dreams and Reality," Barrier "Mesh of Light and Darkness," Evil Spirits "Yukari Yakumo's Spiriting Away," Sinister Spirits "Double Black Death Butterfly," Shikigami "Ran Yakumo," Barrier "Boundary of Life and Death," Border Sign "Boundary of 2D and 3D," Border Sign "Boundary of Wave and Particle," Shikigami "Chen," Abandoned Line "Aimless Journey to the Abandoned Station," Magic Eye "Laplace's Demon," "Impossible Danmaku Barrier"

Write-up:
One of Gensokyo's founders and most powerful and notorious denizens. Yukari Yakumo is a youkai with control over boundaries, the sort of power that can do just about anything you want with the right semantic justification. Even beyond that she's a powerful spellcaster, so not only does she has a shikigami servant, her servant has a servant. She's also a manipulative schemer who's had her hand behind several pivotal events in Gensokyo's history as she steered events toward her inscrutable goals, a "youkai-like youkai" who can baffle even her fellow supernatural creatures.

Perhaps fortunately, Yukari is also quite lazy, so she'd rather prod her proxies into action than get involved herself - and if she is involved it's usually a sign that things have gotten serious. Unless she's the one causing the Incident, in which case it's probably all according to plan. Unless it's another instance of Yukari being whimsical and too careless to clean up after herself, but isn't that what minions are for?

Yukari, for all her quirks, is usually considered a benevolent-ish force working to preserve Gensokyo's existence. But recent events have raised questions about her true motives, so undoubtedly there's more to her story than what little we know now.

Relations:

• Reimu Hakurei (friend, student, proxy)
• Yuyuko Saigyouji (dead friend)
• Suika Ibuki (oni friend)
• Ran Yakumo (shikigami)
• Chen (shikigami's shikigami)
• Zenki, Goki and other crows (even more shikigami)
• Maribel Hearn (there was this guy named Lafcadio...)
• Everyone else (potential chess pieces)

See also the previous two compendiums.

edited 16th May '16 9:00:22 PM by Tacitus

The interesting part about Yukari is that we know surprisingly very little about her past and she is confusing yet she makes sense,

Yukari: a benevolent-ish force.

Yukari's pretty nutty and yet definitely one of the more frightening creatures in Gensokyo when you think about it for a while. Though it seems most importantly for the sake of everyone else in the universe, Yukari only cares to stick around Gensokyo and the immediate part of the Outside World.

It's hard to say when she's telling the truth or when she's just using half-truths to manipulate the situation to her advantage. As such it's also a little hard to gauge the limits of her powers, even with what we've seen of it.

Though I think ultimately the only way you'd see Yukari's bad side is if you do something that can legitimately threaten Gensokyo, as Tenshi learned the hard way. Though when you consider this it does make her nonchalance towards the Lunarians during Lo LK rather interesting. You'd think she'd immediately want to deal with them, but instead she just brushed them off and said they were no big deal. But how exactly could she know that everything would ultimately turn out alright?

Perhaps it's not so far of a stretch to assume that Yukari has lived through these events before, not as Yukari but as her original identity of Maribel. An odd sort of dream paradox I'd say, or perhaps something greater. The fact you can throw "perhaps" into a lot of Yukari's facts shows how much of an enigma she is.

Yukari is a youkai who is extremely youkai-like and very mysterious.

Guess I'll try doing a musical analysis of Yukari's two battle themes:

Night Falls ~ Evening Star: Definitely the kind of song that describes Yukari's personality. Devious, always plotting, and staying right on the boundary between knowable and unknowable. Like you're just on the cusp of getting an understanding of who she really is, only to get the proverbial carrot yanked away at the last second. Did Yukari plan this the whole time, is she just really good at pretending to always have a plan, or both? Who knows?

Necrofantasia: If Necro-Fantasy can be described as describing Ran's order, than Necrofantasia is pure chaos and overwhelming power. Marisa can talk about how danmaku is all about power, but if the Master Spark is akin to a single modern artillery piece, then Yukari's ultimate spells are akin to a full-on naval artillery barrage reducing an entire coastline of defensive fortifications to rubble. Yukari represents power almost as well as oni do, even if it's mostly based in magic as opposed to physical strength like Suika and Yuugi. Because that's how it feels to hear the song, like you're being assaulted by countless bullets with no escape. (Or as the Lyrica Live lyrics go, "♪Raw power at the peak, not a single weakness In the masterful design, yet holding strong.♪" At the same time though, even if Yukari is power personified while in combat, she's still got a finesse to her attacks that most lack.

On the other hand, we might know something about her future. Wait, no, that's wrong - our future, her past. On a potentially related note, it looks like Mary's eyes are solidly golden on the cover of Dr. Latency's Freak Report.

Anyway, this whole Shrouded in Myth thing may be deliberate on Yukari's part. One theory I read on the wiki - or was it this wiki? - was that Yukari's managed to build such a fearsome legend around herself that it's able to sustain her like lesser youkai rely on attacking humans. A neat trick, but it doesn't let you get too chummy with folks.

Although you might not like what she decides is in your best interest. Isn't that right, Youkai moon invasion force of a thousand years ago?

She could probably unzip you like a Halloween costume stuffed with pasta, yeah.

She either has some information we don't have access to, or she's supremely confident that Gensokyo's champions can handle things without her involvement. I'm also rather interested in her remarks in Marisa's ending about it being good that Gensokyo could change with the help of powerful artifacts like the occult balls. Does Yukari worry about Gensokyo stagnating, does she have an endgame she's trying to prod the pocket dimension toward? Does she know how this story ends and sees the occult balls as the next step on that path?

Alternatively, this may be the point that her reputation is breaking down. She sat out Urban Legend in Limbo even though that involved a hole being torn through the Barrier, and in a strange coincidence, this Incident introduced us to the founder of the Sealing Club that Maribel Hearn will one day join. As the gap between Yukari and Mary narrows, there may be less and less that this occasionally far-sighted youkai is able to predict.

What's the saying? Plans can break down. You cannot plan the future. Only presumptuous fools plan. The wise woman steers.

Less effort involved, too.

Yukari Yakumo:

An extremely powerful youkai who essentially engineered Gensokyo's existence. Very hard to comprehend.

For great boon or bane, Yukari moves at her own whimsical pace. The only person who could probably keep her in line is of course Reimu, but that's only from a business viewpoint(incidents).

The only person Yukari would never prank is of course Yuyuko because they're true buddies. Everyone else could be her playthings if she feels like it. And this includes any ounce of charity from her. She's very unpredictable. It's quite difficult to read between her lines. Maybe it's a passive perk of her power.

After working hard to create Gensokyo, Yukari's quite hands-off when it comes to leading it. Maybe her hibernating is a way to keep her massive power within the boundary of her capabilities...

I always wondered about Yukari, Yukari and Reimu acts as balancers in some way shape or form but why doesn't Yukari participate in incidents?

She's participated in incidents a few times. Albeit one of those times (Imperishable Night) is probably non-canon.

And then there's that great quote, "Oh, so that's a 'strange incident?' Then I suppose I'm a mobile strange incident." Maybe she creates Incidents like a swimming fish creates a wake. Maybe she's busy with all those other Incidents we never hear about. Or maybe it was finals week and Dr. Yakumo was doing overtime grading papers.

Well, as far as we know. What's the simile, we're like fish in the sea, and somebody sticks a finger in, and we're like, "whoa." She may be a lot more active but in guises we can't comprehend.

Or maybe it's more like when Yukari does move, it's in carefully-considered ways that set things in motion so she accomplishes the most through the minimum of effort.

Or would she?

Huh, that's a novel way of looking at it. The usual notion is that Yukari is powerful but prefers to conserve her strength, while this suggests that Yukari is powerful because she conserves her strength.

Or maybe her strength is usually occupied. Like, as a youkai of boundaries, it takes a lot of effort just to remain Yukari rather than some sort of formless monster. Or would she "fall apart" into a monster and a human woman?

It's also possible that if she creates incidents in her wake, that napping constrains her movements and keeps Gensokyo from collapsing into wackyland.

It's not wackyland already?

That being said, I've heard of a couple of potential reasons behind her sleeping habits. Other than what brought up about conserving power, I think Touhou Tonari posited that she might bluescreen due to mental trauma over Yuyuko's death if she stays awake too long or is up during the winter.

Here are a couple of my guesses on why Yukari sleeps so much: 1) she especially loves to troll Doremy and the -getsu siblings, forcing herself to sleep constantly in order to enter the Dream World and go screw with them; 2) long ago she got hit with a nasty Lunarian curse that tried to force her into an eternal slumber, but her border manipulation allows her to get around it sometimes via screwing with the border between sleeping and waking; 3) she is constantly on the borderline between sober and drunk, forcing her to sleep off the constant hangover.

Those are fair points. I could see that happening considering the games.

It is probably canon.

He predates even Highly Responsive to Prayers, but Xellos the Mysterious Priest (self-described) feels sort of like a cross between Yukari and Aya. He's a ridiculously powerful being of pure evil and entropy who will nonetheless goof around, deliberately lose fights and even help the heroes save the world, with no one being able to understand his true motives. Also he can teleport.

We can't say the reverse is true, though.

edited 21st May '16 8:32:52 AM by Prime32

I don't see how Yukari could prank Yuyuko given that Yuyuko can practically read her mind, They've just been friends for so long that neither of them could possibly surprise the other anymore.

@Starx To my knowledge, Sakuya and Remilia supposedly solved that incident. They fought Reimu, who was alone.

It's like, Reimu apparently solves most of the incidents... But not Imperishable Night. Is this just a fan theory with no basis in fact, or does it mean that Yukari wasn't really involved in a main series game until Subterranean Animism?

Reimu tells Aya that she solved the Incident.

There seems to be conflicting evidence that all the teams were involved.

Which makes me imagine Reisen getting beaten up four times in a row.

You have Reimu and Yukari punching her in the face with Ran while Marisa and Alice just politely hang back. Whatever is going on here probably doesn't involve them so they'll just wait their turn.

Quite an accomplishment actually. Perhaps their finest collaboration. Them managing, as a duo, to politely hang back.

Well, they were being polite to the combatants. Not so much to each other.