#specifically referring to phantasm characters here btw

[necrotic-nightshade]

The urge to draw Gravity Falls crossover art w/ my OCs... it temptses me.

[yamayuandadu]

Whoa, the Chinese fans got such a cool detailed wiki and we are stuck with a barely updated one that had basically no details whatsoever. Do you mind updating the English wiki with these mythology stuff? Also, can you elaborate more on Keine's spell cards? Are all her "crisis" spell cards about attempts at erasing history or just that one?

I can make an account on the wiki, sure, I’m not sure if my wonky english is appropriate for it though. And I don’t really think there’s a shortage of good editors (the notes on Okina’s spellcards have some trivia in them I had no clue about!), things just take time because the western fandom is smaller and has much fewer readily available resources to rely on. Anyway, here we go, Keine’s spellcards are under the read more. She’s my fave character and I’d like to believe I know most of what there is to know about the bai ze/hakutaku, so ask away if there’s anything else you’d like to know.

Imperishable Night cards:

Spiritual Birth "First Pyramid": self-explanatory, pyramids are more or less synonymous with the start of recorded history in the common perception. “Spiritual birth” (産霊) is a reference to the trinity of kami which come into being from nothingness, before Izanagi and Izanami.Origin Sign "Ephemerality 137": emperor Jinmu, the mythical first emperor of Japan, supposedly lived for 137 years. “Ephemerality” refers to his lifespan being short compared to his divine ancestorsAmbition Sign "Buretsu Crisis": Buretsu was, supposedly, a wicked emperor, and his successor was a distant relative, but some historians argue that the latter pretty much started a new dynasty. Since imperial japanese propaganda was heavily focused on the divinity of the emperor etc, there were attempts at hiding all of this (not a very hard task, Buretsu is barely discussed in historical sources).Ambition Sign "Masakado Crisis": Taira no Masakado was a rebel and self-styled “new emperor”. He was deified after death, in hopes of placating his potential vengful spirit. No actual ereasure of history happened here, though arguably Masakado’s common perception changed with time.Ambition Sign "Yoshimitsu Crisis": Yoshimitsu was one of the Ashikaga shoguns, regarded as the real ruler of Japan by a number of foreign envoys. He tried to claim a title reserved for the emperor for himself, too. Ambition Sign "General Headquarters Crisis": self-explanatory, really, isn’t it? The emperor is no longer divine, it sure is a major rewrite... but the Meiji/Taisho/Showa obsession with the divinity of the emperor was itself a rewrite of history, and the myth of the imperial family’s divine descent is in all due likeness just a mythical adaptation of a conflict between bronze age rulers.Basically, all Ambition Signs deal with threats to continuity of the emperors’ power.Land Sign/Scheme cards, all 4 of them, are just the imperial regalia. The “jewel” is a magatama btw, the same kind of charm as Keiki’s necklace is made out of. They were likely an universal symbol of divinity.Ending Sign “Phantasmal Emperor” might be a reference to the same event as GHQ crisis (divine emperors becoming nothing but myths)Pseudo-History "The Legend of Gensokyo", Past "Old History of an Untrodden Land -Old History-", “Total Purification” and Future "New History of Fantasy -Next History-"don’t reference anything specific.Future "Gods' Realm"uses the term Takamagahara, The Celestial Plain, where the celestial gods, including the ancestors of emperor Jinmu, dwell in the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki (so, if we go by Kanako’s comment in LoLK, presumably the moon?)"Emperor of the Land of the Rising Sun" is self-explanatory.Reincarnation "Ichijou Returning Bridge" seems to refer to a bridge in Kyoto, but I don’t know much about this one. All I could find in english for now is a blogpost with no details about the legend. I assume that since it’s an EX spellcard it’s a nod to Mokou first and foremost.

Shoot the Bullet cards:

Light Sign "Amaterasu": the sun goddess Amaterasu is the grandmother of Ninigi, sent to pacify the earth, who in turn was the great-grandfather of emperor Jinmu.Shroud Sign "Rain of Showa": almost definitely a reference to the weather during emperor Hirohito’s funeral. The danmaku is meant to evoke the shape of chrysanthemum flowers, an emblem of the emperors.Hollyhock Sign "Mito no Mitsukuni": Mitsukuni was a Tokugawa daimyo of the Mito domain. He commissioned a set of books known as Shinpen Kamakurashi, dealing with the history of Kamakura (the city, not the time period). He was also a fierce opponent of honji suijaku (shinto-buddhism syncretism), which probably counts as attempt at rewriting history, I guess? Additionally, a triple hollyhock symbol was the Tokugawa emblem.Japan Sign "Yamato Kingdom": self-explanatory.

Impossible Spell Card cards:

"20XX: An Afterlife Odyssey": an obvious movie reference, rather than a historical one. Great Fire "Flower of Edo": a reference to a proverb about how common fires were in Edo. No relation to the play known as “Flower of Edo” in english, afaik.Naturally, all the emperor references are here since the hakutaku was supposed to advise monarchs, which ZUN interprets as writing history in their favor. However, Keine seems to believe everyone should pass history on, going by the BAiJR article, so I guess she’s not a fan of that.

[shabootyisland]

Howdy! I’m bored and I’m making this post on a whim to help introduce people to the whole Touhou thing! I’m gonna teach y’all a few tips I wish I’d known myself. I’m not qualified to make this post. Anyway!

REASONS TO GET INTO TOUHOU

An almost all-female cast. Seriously, I’d estimate 97-98% female

VERY STRONG FEMALES. Many of them could kill you very easily.

The characters (in-game at least) aren’t sexualised! They just fight each other. And then have parties. Lots of them drink.

The games (the ones that aren’t fighting spin-offs, at least) are all made by one dude who is drunk basically all the time. Art, music, coding, it’s all done by one guy (commonly known as ZUN)

The art’s really charming, even if it isn’t the greatest

The game is really hard but beating it is very rewarding

Lots of great music, and remixes of said music!

You can’t really spoil a Touhou game, and can start pretty much anywhere.

Now, having that said, here’s how to get into Touhou.

METHOD 1: MEMORIES OF PHANTASM

Memories of Phantasm is a fanmade adaptation of the stories of a few Touhou games, though it is not in the order the games were released. Although, that doesn’t really matter too much. Each game basically has its own story, or incident, as they’re often called, that is rectified by the protagonist.

While Memories of Phantasm is officially non-canon, it’s a great way to meet many of the popular characters. Since the characters are spread out through various different games, it can be difficult to get to know some of the more important ones. Most fan favorites make an appearance in some way or another.

This is how I personally got into Touhou! After watching this, I downloaded and played the Touhou games, and was able to recognize some characters

You can watch Memories of Phantasm subtitles on youtube here.

METHOD 2: ACTUALLY PLAYING THE GAMES

So, you’re like, “I heard there’s games, so why bother watching an anime?” And that’s valid.

But there’s one pressing question: Which game should you start with?

Short answer: any of them. The stories aren’t really “connected,” and you won’t really be losing anything by playing a newer game.

If you want something easy, my suggestion is Touhou 8: Imperishable Night.

IN is considered the easiest by most fans. Start off on the easy difficulty. Trust me on this one. Easy is a lie. Touhou difficulties can more accurately be described as:

Easy > Hard

Normal > Really Hard

Hard > Really Goddamn Hard

Lunatic > Absolute Shitfest

(BTW, most ENG fans refer to Touhou games by making an acronym of their English Subtitle. For example, you might see Touhou 7: Perfect Cherry Blossom simply referred to as “PCB”)

If IN ain’t your style, pretty much any Touhou game from 6-12 is probably a good bet.

Avoid Touhou 15. Its difficulty is unspeakable. Do not start with Touhou 15 unless you have a death wish.

You can download English translations of Touhou games from either moriyashrine.org or nicoblog.org. I usually go with the latter because my laptop doesn’t like the Moriya Shrine for whatever reason.

Alternatively, you could just type “touhou (number here) download” and you should be able to find it, though I can’t guarantee you’ll be downloading an English translated version.

If you’d like to support ZUN with real money, you can buy Touhou 16 on steam. It’s very cheap at only $15. The only real downside is that it’s in Japanese, but, since all Touhou games play relatively the same, you should be able to get the hang of it.

(Oh and you can also buy the fighting spinoff Antimony of Common Flowers on Steam it’s $25)

HOW TO PLAY TOUHOU

Here comes the part that I really wish someone had told me about.

Touhou is a danmaku/bullet hell shooting game. Your objective is to shoot down the enemy while managing to avoid the metric fuckton of bullets they’re shooting back at you. Basic controls are as follows:

Z to Shoot/Confirm Menu Selections

X to Bomb/Cancel Menu Selections

SHIFT to Focus

Arrow Keys to Move

ESC to Open the Pause Menu

Shoot at all times. There is no reason to not shoot. Touhou does not have a pacifist mode. Not shooting will only lengthen the time you must suffer.

Bombing is for when you get into a tough situation/a really hard boss. A bomb will do massive damage, and temporarily rid the screen of some/all of the bullets. Additionally, in some games, you can perform a “deathbomb.” By using a bomb right after you get hit, you won’t lose your life. You will, however, use your bomb/lose some power. (Whether you lose a bomb/power depends on what game you’re playing.) Bombs are also known as Spell Cards.

Focusing changes your shot type, and lets you move slower. Many of the bullets are only pixels apart from each other, so you can use it to help you dodge them. Sometimes, slower is better than faster.

Additionally, while focusing, you can see your hitbox. It’s the little circle pictured here:

Since there are so many bullets, it’d be unfair if the whole character sprite was a hitbox. So, hits will not count unless they make direct contact with that circle.

There are a few things you’ll want to collect, or, actually run into when you play a Touhou game. Specifically, these:

The P’s will make your shot stronger once you collect a certain amount of them. In older Touhou games, (6-8) Power could range from about 0-130 (that may not be exact.) In newer Touhou games, power ranges from 0.00-4.00, with a few exceptions depending on the game and shot type you choose.

If you collect enough of the blue thingies, depending on the game, you’ll get another life! You should stock up as many lives as you can, because you will lose them. (In other games, these just add to the score.)

These thingies (sometimes they have a B on them) are bombs! Useful.

In games where those blue thingies don’t get you a one-up, five of these life pieces will.

In newer games, when you start, you’ll see an “Item Border Get Line” message:

If you pass that line, all the P’s and blue thingies onscreen will automatically drift toward you, as if you were a magnet. It’s risky, but useful.

The item get line does exist in other games, it just doesn’t show up as a message.

Graze is when a bomb nearly hits you, but does not, it adds to your score.

Score is kind of like it is when you play Super Mario Brothers. It’s there, but it’s not really a big deal unless you make it one.

Touhou games are played like arcade games. Meaning you can’t save and come back to them later. (Unless you’re playing Touhou 15/Using Steam Cloud.) You’ve gotta do it all in one go. A successfully cleared run only takes about 25 minutes.

You can replay your playthroughs later if you choose to save your replay upon dying/clearing the game. It’s very useful in case you want to like, record it r upload it to youtube.

By the way, you can upload any part of your Touhou LP to Youtube. ZUN won’t copyright you. All he asks is that you don’t post the endings you get upon clearing the game in video form online. Of course, you won’t be punished if you do, but you probably shouldn’t do it outta the kindness of your heart.

Aaand that’s about it! Phew, hopefully that wasn’t too overwhelming. If I forgot somethig or any of this is wrong, let me know! I’ll fix it up right away.

SOME LINKS WORTH CHECKING OUT:

Touhou Wiki

EricVanWilderman’s Let’s Plays (ESOD/PCB) (He explains how the game works as he’s playing, in case you’re more of a visual learner.)

/r/Touhou

Moriya Shrine (it has more than just game downloads! Also I stole like 2 pics from them oopsie)

Touhou Character Introduction Twitter Thread

[avalonblue12]

@theliterarywolf​

I saw a post somewhere where you asked for an explanation, but I couldn’t find it, so I’m putting it here. I’ll try to make this sound as not-confusing as possible despite it being Fate.

Basically, the “Foreigner” Class in Fate/Grand Order is a class entirely dedicated to HP Lovecraft and his works. In-universe, Lovecraftian Gods are entirely fictional, but due to the machinations of a past antagonist, they’re slowly leaking into Fate’s reality.

A Foreigner Servant is a historical figure that made contact with a Lovecraftian entity and walked away while still maintaining their identity/some semblance of sanity and some of said entity’s powers. In-universe, they’re described as “refusing to be consumed by madness, and then consuming the madness instead in turn”. 

Each Foreigner is linked to a specific god- for example, famed Japanese painter Katsushika Hokusai is tied to Cthulhu. This applies to all (non-joke) Foreigners with one major exception, but I’ll get to that later.

I’ve included descriptions of the non-joke characters below the cut if you’re interested

Abigail Williams My Daughter (NSFW warning for her last ascension btw)

Noble Phantasm: Qliphoth Rhizome- Hollow Tree Filled by a Remnant of Light

Description: She uses her powers as the Silver Key to open a gate to the realm of the Outer Gods, which is anathemic to any other form of existence, but especially human life.

She’s basically the original Foreigner. In FGO, the main villain of the Salem chapter appeared in the modern day and possessed Randolph Carter while he was trapped in a dream (yes THAT Randolph Carter, he’s not from FGO’s universe and is chasing some sort of Outer God at the time) so he could create a modern-day singularity in Salem. His goal was basically to create a ritual to summon Sut-Typhon (an implied pseudonym for Yog-Sothoth) by using Abigail’s spirit as a catalyst/vessel. The whole singularity is a fabricated version of Salem, including certain Lovecraft characters to speed up the ritual (a younger Lavinia Whately shows up as a major character and pretends to be Abigail’s childhood friend).

She is linked to Yog-Sothoth, essentially plays the role of the Dunwich Horror, and at the end is adopted by Randolph Carter after becoming a living, breathing, Silver Key.

Katsushika Hokusai (note: Hokusai is the octopus, his daughter is the girl, Oei, they come as a set)

Noble Phantasm:  Fugaku Sanjurokkei (Great Wave Off Kannegawa) - Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji

Description: She paints over reality to recreate the strange and distorted landscape of the waves above R’lyeh

Basically, Cthulhu (Referred to as God of the Abyss), tried to contact Hokusai in a dream in order to get him into a thrall to use his art to spread images that would cause madness amongst humanity, and allow the Outer Gods to descend upon the world. Hokusai was so viscerally insulted by Cthulhu’s poor aesthetic decisions that he told him to screw off. He was essentially so passionate about art that in constituted as its own form of insanity, and thus prevented him from being driven insane by the encounter.

After this encounter he created “The Great Wave Off Kannegawa”, with the subtle implication that it’s actually depicting the waves above R’lyeh. He was also inspired to create “The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife” which is functionally Cthulhu revenge porn when you think about it.

Yang Guifei

Noble Phantasm: Geishou'ui Hiyokurenri- Melody of Eternal Love 

Description: She basically just nukes her enemies using Fomalhaut/Cthugha.

Basically it’s heavily implied that she is linked to either Fomalhaut and/or Cthugha. After her death, the characters in-universe speculate that her Spirit Origin (basically what makes up a Servant’s identity/existence) was tampered with so that her undying love of her Emperor became undying worship of whatever Outer God is possessing her.

Van Gogh (Clytie)

Noble Phantasm: De Sterrennacht- The Starry Night

Description: She distorts reality with her art, essentially creating a field where Servants- but especially other Foreigners-  that allows her to bring  Servants to deific levels and alter their mental structures.

So Van Gogh is a really weird case because she’s a mesh of two people. Van Gogh by himself qualifies as a Foreigner (he’s not a genderbend here btw), but he actively resists being summoned in that class. Clytie is a greek nymph associated with sunflowers and always remaining in wait for her god to appear, so the Outer God possessing Van Gogh meshed his Spirit Origin with Clytie’s in order to create a single Servant that wouldn’t un-summon themselves the moment they manifested.

It’s implied that the Outer God they are linked to is either Vulthoom, or the Colors from Outer Space.

Voyager My Son

Noble Phantasm:  Pale Blue Dot- O' Distant Blue Star

Description: A magical attack that’s fueled by the hopes, dreams, and wishes of Humanity that was entrusted to him when he was first launched into space.

This adorable little boy is the major exception that I mentioned btw! He qualifies as a Foreigner because he has reached/will reach realms beyond our universe. He’s canonically the very last Heroic Spirit (that’s recognized by history) to have ever existed/will ever exist.

Being able to summon objects as Servants is nothing new in Fate, and the reason why he’s a little boy is because the girl who summoned him really loved the story “The Little Prince”, so he appeared in a form resembling said character.

He doesn’t have any links to any Outer Gods or unknown entities, but is representative of Humanity’s desire to grow and keep discovering.

Did you know Fate did Lovecraft stuff? They even gave Servants associated with his works the unique class, Foreigner.

I have been told that Fate has Lovecraft elements. I also think one of the characters in Bungou Stray Dogs is named/themed after him and, of course, we have Junji Ito’s work being very much inspired by him on the cosmic horror front.