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StevosStuff — When to Abandon the Spell Card Rules
Published: 2014-04-25 03:34:03 +0000 UTC; Views: 4451; Favourites: 58; Downloads: 19
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A PSA brought to you by Canon.This is a huge peeve when I read fan works. Either the writer thinks spell cards are inherently lethal, or they think their plot is so dangerous that the people of Gensokyo need to disregard the spell card rules and start murdering people in order to survive. Considering what our human heroines have gone through, no it's not.
Also, the spell card rules are common knowledge in Gensokyo. Not knowing a thing or two about them is like you or a fellow citizen not knowing about your country's constitution (or equivalent/synonym/insistent term for a constitution). So if someone's breaking the spell card rules in Gensokyo, they're breaking the law, and pretty much have no excuse.
To fanfic writers: in future fics, make combat beautiful, elegant, and pacifist, like the spell card rules!
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Comments: 64
SWR:
Marisa: Rigged weather?! This is the Holocaust all over again!
Reimu: We need to do something.
Yukari: *kills them with a train*
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This one was kinda awkward for me to read, considering I just happened to play Impossible Spell Card.
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Even lunarians and people who have been sealed away for centuries knows the spellcard rules. There's no excuse.
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idea: ignore when outside gensokyo, when both consent to ignore, or: risk of death if they do follow
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You got it wrong about UFO. Reimu and Marisa get to screw over all those 6 victims because thay saw a ship and they said to themselves: "Hey, that's a nice flying ship. I wonder what treasures remain inside of it." The alien thing was in the EX stage.
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Even burning from Marisa's mini-hakkero, Reimu doesn't care at all. XD
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I'd like to read more fiction where the Spell Card rules are a key factor to the story rather than a simple gimmick of the canon characters (more than likely to be dwarved by OCs). It's a real disappointment that so many stories fall under this category.
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An Amanojaku is being dickish? Let's ALL abandon spell card rules to take her down... and still fail.
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Funny, cause despite its name, none of the spellcards in the game are actually impossible. Not even the tutorial ones that shoot walls at you. I'd liken it to the characters making things unreasonably hard for Seija, but not impossible so still legal.
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It's not truly impossible, but that's what the backstory says.
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So, about a week after this is posted Impossible Spellcard is released. Wow. Someday this is going to used in dictionary as the picture next to 'Irony".
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Except even Danmaku Amanojaku's spellcards are possible to beat without using the cheat items.
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In-universe, the characters creating the spell cards intended for them to be impossible to dodge.
That's sort of like an attempted crime versus actually succeeding in the crime, just because you didn't get to go through with it yet doesn't mean you aren't guilty.
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So how about when it comes to characters incapable of making danmaku in the first place due to their own universal laws and composition?
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You know, I actually did read a doujin where spellcard rules went out the window and ended in the deaths of several canon characters including Yukari. Since when did Nazrin get HAX lasers?
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Haxing my lasers cause I'm Nazri-*Pichuuned~*
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In fact, it's those HAX lasers (and Sukuna/Seija making Nazrin a meguka) that got Yukari involved in this incident. So what does she do? Kill Seija point blank and uses her last breath to kill Nazrin. (Even when she's sliced in two, she'll still do anything to protect Gensokyo)
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That WAS the task given to her by the Dragon, after all.
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Yes, but what if the villain doesn't want to follow the spell card rule in the first place?
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I didn't say a thing about the other characters keeping to the rule.
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Then why should the characters themselves? there's a long list on what characters could decimate an entire nation if they went all out and then more
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I didn't say a thing about the other characters keeping to the rule.
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His point was, if the villain doesn't want to follow the spellcard rules then why should the main characters themselves still follow it? Characters like Yukari, Shiki, Yuuka and so many more can easily destroy/kill millions if they use their full power.
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Oh, so you're implying the villain would stand no chance at all if they use their full power.
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I'm not implying that. I'm merely proving RougeAlienPirate's point. All you were asking was what if the villain doesn't want to follow the Spellcard rules and all Rouge and I was saying that the heroes doesn't need to follow the rules if the villain doesn't want them.
Oh, but if you really want me to answer. I say, it depends. If the villain is some evil God or anything higher than a human/youkai then the heroes will obviously have some trouble but if the villain is some generic human then it would be illogical if the heroes had any difficulty killing him as many characters are merely suppressing their powers and can potentially kill. How can one suppress their powers? Take Marisa from Fairy Wars for example as the Master Sparks she's using in that game are completely dumbed down to the point where it's like a flashlight. Other examples I can give that can potentially kill without Spellcard rules are Yamame(Miasma), Wakasagihime(She's a mermaid and mermaids are considered as Sirens in greek), Yuugi/Suika, Kanako/Suwako, Mystia, Chen, The UFO cast except Kogasa, and this is just a few out of the many others I can give.
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Well then, I don't see the problem.
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Wow, I guess it's a good thing that Zombie Reimu will have a good explanation why the Spell Card Rules don't apply.
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This, this, this, this, THIS!!!
Hell, a fic with low stakes would be welcomed at this point: enough apocalyptic incidents.
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What would the heroines do if up against someone who not only could beat *them* using the spellcard rules but would also be sore winners?
For example, say the Lunarians invade (Reason? Um... they want to weaponize the youkai by forcing vengeful spirits into them.), play by the rules, and win. What recourse do the heroines have after that?
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Do what Reimu does: keep trying until you do win.
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Uh…huh…
I know you’re trying to avert yet another gappyfic where Spikehair Swordcock duels Seph-faux-roth to the death in a post-apocalypitic Gensokyo where everyone’s reduced to cheerleading whores (*inhale*), but doesn’t restricting the solution to danmaku take away the chance for characters to be creative with their powers? I’m not saying the solution needs to be WMDs or even violence, I’m just saying it shouldn’t *have* to be danmaku.
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Spaztique, in Pokémon Black and White, the main conflict is between Team Plasma and the PC. Team Plasma wants to separate humans from Pokémon. In the last battle, the PC battles N, the "Team Plasma Messiah". The future of Unova is in the PC's. If you lose, Team Plasma wins and demands all trainers to release their pokémon, close gyms and forbid capturing and training Pokémon. So, what happens if you lose again in the game? It's simple, you go back to the Pokémon Center and try again, until you win, because it's just a game.
Now, suppose I'm writing a novelization of Pokémon Black and White. And me, as the author, decides the PC will lose the battle with N. What happens? N says that he's not the main characters and decides to let the PC goes back to the Pokémon Center, heal and try again? No. The PC loses, Team Plasma wins, because nowhere in the story the main character has to complete a game, it's not a game. There is no gameplay and story segregation simply because there is no gameplay. Perhaps the PC can try again, but it won't be with the same circumstances.
ZUN endogeinized the gameplay and story segregation saying that continues are canon because of the structure of the setting and the story (in other words, the incidents are and are not as serious as they sound). But he can change the structure of the setting, like in SSiB.
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Ops, bad formatting.
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Wow. So if someone doesn't use spellcard rules in their stories, they're a horrible person.
Way to try to stifle creativity and originality, pal. Forcing people to try to write fan fictions your way.
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...Or maybe you just don't understand how Touhou canon works. A lack of spellcard rules in a Touhou fic would be like calling this guy "Zelda."
All it does is show that the author knows nothing about the subject s/he's writing about. In fact, it's much more creative to work around the rules of the universe that you've decided to work in. It shows respect and love to the original work, while still looking as though it could potentially happen in that work. If a Death Note fic had Light write the name "Bob" into his death note, and everyone on Earth named Bob died, the rules of the fic do not correllate to the rules of the canon universe, where he would have to have a specific Bob's face in mind to protect all the other Bobs. That means the author doesn't know a thing about the work he's writing about.
Asking a fic writer to at least understand the fundamental rules of the universe before writing a fanfiction is not "stifling creativity." All it's asking is for the writer to put effort into their works. Is that such a bad thing?
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While your point is valid, what do you recommend in cases where the antagonist has no plausible reason to want to play by the rules?
I admittedly have ideas of my own but I want to see what yours are first.
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I suppose they would need to find a way to remove spellcard rules altogether. If you scroll down a bit, I mention a fic where spellcard rules are out-of-play, which in my opinion, is a case where it improves the story. It provides a plausible reason as to why the spellcard rules are no longer valid, rather than just ignoring them altogether.
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This was indeed a great point to bring to light for many Touhou fanfic writers, but I must interject. There's actually a few select cases in Gensokyo where Spell Card Rules are thrown out the window. These events are few and far between, but they still exist. It's just that most writers turn would-be spellcard duels into bloody life-or-death situations.
One example where Touhou almost got bloody would be SSiB. If Reimu, Marisa, Sakuya, and Remilia hadn't informed Yorihime about using Spell Card Rules to settle a dispute, Yorihime might have caused some nasty injuries (considering the protagonists were surrounded by divine blades shooting out of the ground).
I could list a few more occurrences (they are mostly not shown in canon materials, only mentioned) but for now, the main thing is that fanfic writers should find creative ways to make vivid and exciting spellcard duels between characters (if battles are pertinent to the storyline, that is).
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Good point, here. But I have to say that Imperfect Metamorphosis would be an exception to ZUN's line in the end: I mean: They're facing a F***ING ELDER GODDESS!!!
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They faced two goddesses named Kanako and Suwako yet they followed the Spellcard rules.
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Because they weren't evil.
In IM, not only did they have to face an Evil Elder Goddess who's a total maniac who enjoys the suffering of others, but they also had to deal with a vengeful Blob Monster who's out for Eirin's blood.
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I like how you added Histotensoku, but yet Reimu and Marisa did nothing
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Seija's bullshit is probably the turning point.
She kinda sorta stole incredibly potent items and has the power to flip shit, so she's kinda sorta really not safe.
And she's on the run.
Solution: Break the shackles of the Spellcard System rules solely on her.
(Ex: Them being, you know, possible.)
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Hopefully this does not exclude bar fights. I mean, if Suika's gotta hit someone they drank her beer
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I've wondered myself, the fighting game's methods of showing spellcard duels is much different than the shmups obviously, but IIRC reading the draft of the rules says that physical contact is expressly forbidden.
If it doesn't... well still, as it stands now there are two ways of performing spellcard duels. This leads me to believe that before a spellcard duel is declared there's an unspoken agreement about how spellcard duels will be carried out for a specific day
Like some days is "Oni Style" (I named it myself because 1. Onis love fighting 2. The first incident causer that required this type of spellcard duel was an Oni) and some days is Regular Style. You know what I mean?
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There's still beauty in Oni Style though, like insane comboing.
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There's Touhou Death Files: Reimu Hakurei , which both abandons spellcard rules, yet provides a reason as to why that is. It isn't even an intentional part on the protagonists.
While it'd be nice for fanfic writers to acknowledge spellcard rules, it doesn't always have to be the case. Just so long as the writer provides a very, very, very good reason to break them (like in the above fic), they can for the sake of drama. Anything less than apocalyptic scenarios should stick to the rules like the canon works.
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In all honesty, I hated that fic. It portrays characters in the worst of light, and it even misses completely obvious answers to questions, such as the fact that Eirin can cure Reimu, because her ability is to make any drug, even ones that work on a mental level, such as the Kochoumugan. It also goes way to far in making everyone suffer, killing off as many humans and youkai as possible, just because the plot needed them to be dead. I don't hate this fic because it is badly writted, I hate it because it tries to act "serious" and "dark", but it has the same shock value of a creepypasta using "hyper-realistic blood".
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Agreed. Plus the author writes nothing but grimderp fics. Serious, what can be expected of a guy who places "hatefic" in the summary?
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