The New New Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium

No this is not a rigorous examination of the scientific method:

Step 0: notice something you can't explain (Holy shit my engine just exploded!).

Step 1: come up with a hypothesis (Magic exists!).

Step 2: define relevant terms (Magic makes engines explode!)

Step 3: find evidence that supports your theory (generally by disproving competing theories/explanations, even if you had to put them forth: Marisa shooting the engine made it explode!).

Step 4: use the evidence to refine your theory (There are a lot of ways for magic to make an engine explode!), and repeat.

So I guess the question I ask is... why seek magic? Why did she think Magic was a suitable explanation for the step 0 instead of science? She likely had some sort of religious experience or the like... science failed to explain something that she witnessed. Though... it could have just been a personal failing as in the example above, and she simply didn't know the proper explanation. She's only a super-genius; she isn't omniscient.

Science isn't the opposite of magic. It's just something that's particularly hard to study because the results depend more on the observer than anything else. Other than that, magic and science are basically the same thing.

In most circles, it is portrayed as such but then again most writers aren't scientists..

Marisa follows a very scientific method with her mushroom experiments. And possibly gets high off of them. But that's also scientific.

See, she carefully writes down what happens when she throws agglomerations of random melted-down mushrooms at people. Most of the entries look pretty similar.

Well, the scientific method is a thing for magicians or Marisa wouldn't use Master Spark if she couldn't control it.

edited 6th Mar '14 7:50:34 PM by GAP

The difference might be socialization, perhaps. Yumemi has managed to find a career path that aligns with her weirdness, which both reinforces but moderates and guides it. She even has grad assistants to validate her opinions when the Academy doesn't. In contrast, it's suggested that Kotohime's family tries to keep her under control, which could have the result of putting her loonieness under pressure until it explodes and she goes on an adventure.

Or maybe it's the medication. Maybe that's why she doesn't seem to have stuck around - she was in pre-Eientei Gensokyo, after all.

Aww, they all so sound so good I don't know which to pick! The Yumemi who always dreamed of something more to discover and so latched upon "magic" as an explanation for the first thing science couldn't handle. The Yumemi who blamed a data error or equipment failure on gremlins and still managed to blunder into the magical demiplane. Or the Yumemi who saw God and mistook Him for Merlin.

Hell, maybe the catalyst event for her expedition was a side-effect of that medication she's on. Kinda like those antidepressants that cause suicidal thoughts.

edited 6th Mar '14 11:08:44 PM by Tacitus

edited 9th Mar '14 6:00:24 AM by ninryu

...So we're done with Yumemi, then. Next is the poisonous doll

...seriously?

Ahh, wrnog thread.

Yeah, we are done here.

Sorry that I didn't have much to say aside from the opener. Yumemi is still cool in my book.

Yumemi's the only final boss who's a normal human. Since native humans won't even think about causing incidents, only humans from outside Gensokyo are final boss material.

But for now, let Yumemi bask in this honor.

edited 8th Mar '14 7:26:08 AM by Diamite

Well that was weird. Anyway, the next three in the line-up are Kogasa, Bhava-agra, and, drumrolll, Letty Whiterock! Just in time for spring. Until then, gas masks on, people.

Medicine Melancholy

Theme: "Poison Body ~ Forsaken Doll"*

Spellcard Motif: Poison
Spellcards: (PoFV, StB, GoM
Poison Sign "Nerve Poison," Poison Sign "Melancholy Poison," Fog Sign "Gassing Garden," Poison Sign "Poison Breath," Confusion "Into Delirium"

Write-up:
Halfway up one of Gensokyo's mountains is a nameless hill, a dark and windblown place filled with toxic lilies. In olden times unwanted children were abandoned here, and at some point someone left behind a doll as well. Now, many years later, that discarded toy has become a particularly poisonous youkai.

Medicine Melancholy is a little bundle of misanthropy who spends Phantasmagorica of Flower View talking to "Su-san," basking in her poisonous power, and eventually declaring that she'll emancipate her sister dolls from humankind. As a relative newborn, she's doubly dangerous in that she doesn't understand how to hold back in a fight, and lacks the experience to know when she ought to. Despite her ambitions and potency, the one time she was sighted near the Human Village she promptly ran away, as she'd presumably never seen so many people at once. Akyuu suggests that her readers avoid the youkai until she matures.

Though not a particularly popular character, Medicine stands out for being one of the most antagonistic members of Touhou's cast, making her useful if a story needs a villain. On the other hand, Medicine hasn't really thought her doll liberation campaign through, and doesn't have much experience dealing with humans, which allows authors to cast her as a more sympathetic noob youkai. And it should be noted that Medicine's human friendship ranking is still listed higher than that of Yuuka Kazami.

Relationships:

• Alice Margatroid (she likes dolls, so they'd get along?)
• Yuuka Kazami (they both like flowers and murder, so they'd get along?)
• Eirin Yagokoro (many poisons have medicinal purposes, so they'd get along?)

Interpretations:

"The Potential of Poison"
by Antimatter 625

See also the first two Compendiums.

edited 12th Mar '14 9:57:47 PM by Tacitus

I sort of doubt that she'd like Alice that much, at least at first.

Sitcom Arch-Nemesis to both Kogasa and Raiko, anyone?

On a more serious note, I have this headcanon that she is actually Alice's first attempt (as well as only successful thus far) at making a sentient doll. Unfortunately, she was left up on that hill, possibly in an And I Must Scream situation do to not being able to move.

Medi tried to kill Yuuka...

Eirin is manipulating Medi for her own ends, yes

Medicine Meloncoly is a doll. Abandoned, after hundreds of years she became a youkai relatively recently. Because of this, she is rather inexperienced and uneducated, and doesn't know how the world works, nor can she judge strength, so she always goes all out.

Perhaps due to the hill where she was abandoned, she has power over poison, a terrifying power that can easily spell doom to her enemies, especially since due to all the different varieties of poison requiring differing treatments, preparation is near impossible. Even touching her is dangerous. Seriously, don't do it. Stay away.

Medicine's goal is doll liberation, as dolls spend their existence being used by dirty humans, and clearly they are alive and enslaved because of this. (As mentioned, Medicine isn't that bright).

edited 8th Mar '14 7:57:31 PM by Otherarrow

Oh, right, the only stories about her I particularly remember are Lily of the Valley and the later parts of Omoito

I wonder what would happen if Mamizou met Medicine? Medicine is a troublesome kid who cynical and naive about the rest of the world and doesn't know anyone outside her own valley.

edited 8th Mar '14 8:57:43 PM by GAP

Tanuki and Tsukumogami have excellent compatibility.

...Nah, too easy.

Hmm. So she worked on Medicine for a bit, gave up, dumped her out in a bunch of dangerous foliage, and whoopsie, turns out she wasn't a failure after all? Not sure if that meshes with the amount of time it takes to make a tsukumogami, but then again we're not sure that's what Medicine is. Maybe she isn't a normal object-turned-youkai.

Wonder if exposure to Makai's miasma confers a resistance to terrestrial poisons...

So you're agreeing with me, then.

Yay, reading material!

Omoito is pretty bad though.

You're the only one I recall that disliked it. Though, not much to do with Medicine

Art dump:

Benevolence of deadly poison
Medicine
Staring
Medi-chan!
Nameless Hill
The children beginning to bloom
Medicine
Medicine Melancholy
..
Beauties of nature
Person of destiny
Ms.Medicinedoll
Medicinemelancholy
Confusion "Into Delirium"
Nameless hill
The doll rotten since long ago
Waltz with me
Patting
Patting

There's more (quite a bit more), but I think this should be most of the good stuff

What we learned here:

• Medi is in rather a lot of art, but rarely as the focus character
• Her primary appeal is her outfit
• People are reasonably creative at naming pictures of her