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RandomNumbers5902672 — Are Swords the Problem?
Published: 2013-04-30 01:36:42 +0000 UTC; Views: 3979; Favourites: 41; Downloads: 24
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I believe it's well-established that swords aren't the best weapon for Touhou due to its bullet hell nature but I believe that it ended creating an "anti-sword sentiment" (by the way, I can't type this without laughing). But the problem is that I think it misses the most important point, so I made this, with a literature review, in other words, analyzing actual fanfic.Fanfics cited:
* Twenty Years Later: Reimu's Successor (there is an even better danmaku battle in chapter 4, Patricia vs. Yuugi, but I decided to let the battle between the OCs to show it's good as well)
* Alice's Glorious Homestead Defense
* Colorful Days
* Imperfect Metamorphosis (yep, this fic commits a lot of "heresy" judging what most guides put, but it also makes this "heresy" completely moot)
Used custom props from:
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Comments: 55
In this setting, a character would typically use the sword as a focus, unless, of course, a threat expressly requires permanent removal.
Otherwise
"Blade Sign: Radial Javelin"
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The problem is..... it is in fact possible to use a sword in danmaku. Youmu is the (half) living proof of that.
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I think I covered this point in the comic.
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Painful enough.
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You remembered Shanghai Green! That makes me far too happy.
This is a very thoughtful approach to representing Gensokyo. I'm not sure I've ever seen a fan treatise quite like this! Hopefully, Jack Diehard can get some lessons from Yumemi or Youmu before he gets kyuu'd.
Also, now I have to check out Colorful Days.
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Thanks, glad you liked it!
Also, Colorful Days is a really cool fic, I recommend verily.
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Damn straight, it commits heresy! It makes for hilarious freakouts from the purists!
Looking at you, Zelinko.
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HOLD ON!!! YOU HAVE AN ACCOUNT HERE?!!
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Sort of. I don't actually use it for anything, save to leave occasional comments.
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Oh, you're here as well too, hehe
Yes, you are a heretic! (actually, this started with a discussion of usefulness of swords in Touhou, started with this comic [link] , and many reactions to it were that swords should be banned, purismo and stuff, and then I tried to say that's not the way stories work and used your fic as one example)
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I'm everywhere. Posting my story's name is the equivalent of saying "Candyman" five times into a mirror.
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Hehe, it's good to have popularity.
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Yuka would do an "old-fashioned" battle with such a lousy person if he asked for it.
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I find this an interesting observation of a tendency for people to, say, insist that swords are innately more heroic or 'better' than guns or similar weapons, on the basis that they're older and more 'good old ways'. I find this a notion rooted in the mistaken concept of Medieval Stasis as a good thing, which is a view point I REALLY DISLIKE. Among other things, there's a suggestion that people don't understand how technological progress works, and seem to believe that swords just basically popped up with the same manufacturing process and stayed like that forever~
This was a fun deconstruction. I'm not familiar enoguh with the Tohou fandom to be as close to it as you are, and this was a fun read
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I forgot the link to the comic, [link]
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Actually, in the WSW, there's a debate that I like to name "The Sword Debate", about the usefulness of swords in Touhou. Swords aren't good to use in Touhou due to the bullet hell nature. See this comic for a better explanation.
Glad you liked, I aimed at something more universal here. Though I must say that someone should study about the role of swords in fiction. I was discussing below with ~mobiusonedt that there might be a relation between the rise of anti-heroes and the fall of the sword as a practical weapon, but it's just a hypothesis, a Literature major could investigate it.
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"What am I doing here?" Even the cameo doesn't understand
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It's because only placing Stevo and Spaztique would create too much free space, so I needed a random person.
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Well done, sir.
WELL DONE INDEED.
And you are absolutely correct: It's not the IDEA that matters...but how the author HANDLES it that really makes it a win or a fail.
and GOD F*CKING DAMN IT IMPERFECT METAMORPHOSIS.
I HATE THAT FIC AND LOVE IT AT THE SAME TIME.
The mastery of the characters and their personalities and Gensokyo in general, RIGHT DOWN to the PC-98 era characters is nothing short of GODLY.
...I just really wish it wasn't so damn enraging with that much grimdark. TT^TT
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Addendum: to tell the truth, I think that Diamond in the Rough is darker than IM.
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Probably, yes, which is why I've resolved never to go within a mile of DitR. If IM could send me into such an apopleptic rage over the grimdarkness, DitR will probably make my head explode.
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Yep, in the end any plot at the hands of a good writer can work into a good story. The reason why I made sure I included IM was because it subverted many conventions of Touhou and yet it'll take a good time for someone in the WSW make a fic at that level.
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Yeah...it treated Touhou WITHOUT sticking to the formats and limits of the games, showing how Gensokyo operates in reality.
And in all honesty, I've NEVER seen a Touhou fic quite like that.
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"showing how Gensokyo operates in reality"
Haha.
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This conversation may be two months old, but it made my day.
MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
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Er...okay?
Glad I could help, I guess!
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Very nicely done.
I get the idea that swords are viewed as heroic, hell I grew up with star wars and loved the lightsaber battles. But people forget there are other types of bladed weapons. Spears for example.
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I think it would be interesting if somehow someone researched whether there is a correlation between the replacement of swords by guns and the popularization of anti-heroes, but it was just a thought I had when I was making this comic.
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I think you might have something there. The best example i know of is the many comics of the 90's, grungy anti heroes run amok and have less scruples about killing people.
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Because, if you stop to think, Touhou is full of anti-heroes. The most obvious example is Marisa, but Reimu may qualify.
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How would Reimu qualify as one?
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I believe she has some anti-heroic characteristics in the sense of the original definition of anti-hero.
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I think this should be able to expand to using weapons in danmaku battle anyway (which ain't main source of their power or are magical like Youmu's swords)
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The fighting games go through this route.
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Yeah, thoug Komaichi (and maybe Marisa) is the only one fo the playable cast who has a weapon which isn't magical for what we know with other characters either having magical weapons (Youmu's and Tenshi's swords) or isn't main focus of their fighting style (Ichirin's rings)
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A lot of people seem to forget that Call od the Moon is a story where the main character uses a sword. However, I as a writer used said sword as a plot device to force the main character to change.
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Yep, that's an alternative as well, though here I focused on battles.
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Oh Jack..When will you get the hint?
Coincidently, I made a comic about his need to use swords today: [link]
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Favorited. A masterful guide to the whole sword debate, and another use of that "Jack with a sword in a field" setup (I swear, that comic has really snowballed into something). Most importantly, amazing illustrations! Not only did you have your proof, but you had the fics to back you up (and illustrations, too!).
Also, for Walfasers, another great example of using swords is ~HydroCherri 's Demon Hunter Linda series, which has its own self-contained fantasy world where swords are normal weapons and thus appropriate for combat.
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That's nice, hehe. Yep, Jack is becoming an internal meme of Walfas, (along with PPP... that means... TO THE SWLCMOBILE!). I must say that doing the illustrations was the best part, thus recommending good stuff. For some reason I think I didn't check HydroCherri's work, I'll see it.
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When I think of swords in Touhou, I think of the likes of Flandre Scarlet or Youmu Konpaku, ones which, while lethal on their physical merits (as IaMP and SWR demonstrate for Youmu), have an additional purpose which actually makes them a worthy weapon to the ranged fighters of Gensokyo.
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As any sword in Touhou, they have a supernatural element (and they were granted before the spellcard rules), though the supernatural element is always present, even in the low-quality fics.
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...oh yeah, and the Patricia versus Yuugi fight is chapter 4, not chapter 3. You probably made that mistake because Yuugi's the third 'boss' she fought, heh heh.
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Ok, corrected.
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Was there a Demoman there at the end who shouted Ka-boom there?
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Considering that Jack Diehard has a lot of enemies, that can be true.
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