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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
Yeah, I'm not saying blood or violence can be shown in Touhou, in fact, some times death of Touhou characters makes interesting stories (see Concealed the Conclusion), in fact I would be lying if I said I didn't found the opening interesting. The idea of average spellcards becoming extremely lethal and random sounded like a great idea for a story, along with Reimu suddenly getting ill. I thought it would be something such as "this disease can't be cured, since it is destined that all Hakurei die from this disease at one point in their life," and the story would center around a grieving Marisa and co. Then it delves into random cursing, random violence, and a bullshit ending that made me want to walk right up to the fic creator and beat him with his own computer.
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To each his own, I suppose. I personally enjoyed it, though I do agree that the author could've cut back on the amount of cursing. The bit where Reimu asked to be violated with the knife is just plain-ass gratuitous, too.
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Koishi's Heart-Throbbing Adventure
Of course, they say it is the exception that proves the rule ;3
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Interesting point, but what if I disagree? Would I be wrong to change the rules- while respecting the fact that they existed in the first place? I'm fully aware of Touhou canon, own every game and spent a little too much time researching settings, lore and characters. Yet I feel writing within those boundaries is too safe. Too easy and leads to something ultimately predictable. What if that laws being broken because it is necessary? What if something can't be solved just because Reimu used her cure-all heroine abilities in the usual pacifist way? That's why I play the Touhou games, to get those stories. I prefer fanfics that bend the rules (not saying I've seen many that exactly impress me/entertain me/catch mt interest) and bring a sense of actual danger to Gensokyo. We could write stories to try and imitate ZUN with ZUN's characters and lore, or simply work with half of that. ZUN follows HIS way of writing because that's the way he does it, that doesn't mean we have to follow it. But don't get me wrong, I respect ZUN for his creative mastery and versatile set of creative skills. I just feel people who write fics have the right to branch off, unless they are trying to write something that would pretend to be canon/used by ZUN.
If what I wrote was too long here's another way of my explaining this- You can be safe or break the rules. What would be more enjoyable to write? Something predictable or something at least slightly less predictable?
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Totally agree here, especially when reading your meaningless souls. But still there's something that people might (if not already) do something stupid with the spellcards system. I watched the "Touhou Reireimu" series and there was one point that I did "what?". The point where Reimu shoots her spell to EX-Rumia and that the bullets don't hurt at all, not even a scratch in the cloths, also put the fact that the more hit Reimu did, the more EX-Rumia is crying, I find that ridiculous. Especially when after (not) all canon battles, the defeated person has holes in cloths, scratches and bandages. Sakuya in eosd even has blood on her knife when defeated and her whole appearance on stage 6.
So, it should also be added that violence is permitted in fanfics.
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Even so, I did not write start writing TMS because I wanted to follow others guides or rules. I am not doing this story for people within the Station Wagon or any other Touhou fan source to praise me or respect me. I am writing this and spending so many hours on it because I fell in love with Touhou. ZUN is such a massive inspiration for me as a game designer/writer and I wanted to take my most developed ideas and mix them with Touhou in a story that would be fun for me and some close friends.
I do not care what people agree on or disagree on for Touou fanfic, I do not care what's cliche or what's been done before. I just enjoy writing it.
I do hope others are free-willed enough to write whatever they want.
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Then comes Touhou 14.3 and everyone abandons the rules to...GET BACK AT SEIJA!
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Actually, they still seemed to follow them from what I can see.
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Agreed. Good thinf Stevo. Every fic writer needs to see this.
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The only other reason I could think of for abandoning the rules is that the antagonist chooses to not follow it themselves.
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Granted the temptation of abandoning the spellcard rules is unusually high because writing danmaku is not easy, since danmaku is primarily a thing for visual media, not written media. As an exception, Imperfect Metamorphosis (which is a fic that I consider close to an actual professional work) doesn't present a single spellcard battle, however it acknowledges and shows the consequences of not using the rule (however this is the exception that tests the rule, because if it was written by an amateur writer, it could easily be a failure of a fic due to some plot points that he manages to make it work).
I, for example, thought that a plausible way to abandoning the rules would be an alien invasion.
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Granted I thought of even more aliener aliens, hehe, but there are fics in which Lunarians invade the Outside World (and they suck), while they agreed to the spellcard rules in the manga, in the sense of formality.
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