Main Page » Old Touhou stuff » Touhou Nekokayou: Scarlet Weather Archive in Japanese Red »

Touhou Nekokayou #101: Touhou Saisoutensoku #8: Waking Dreams

Created:

Always use secure-HTTP / Unsecure HTTP / Permanent Link

First Previous Random Next Latest

Format: png jpg (quality 25 50 70 90) gif

Touhou Nekokayou: Scarlet Weather Archive in Japanese Red #101

Touhou Nekokayou: Scarlet Weather Archive in Japanese Red #101a

First Previous Random Next Latest

Characters: Marisa Kirisame, Reimu Hakurei, Rin Satsuki, Hong Meiling, Meimu

東方再想天則 〜 Rethinking the Natural Law (Touhou 12.3i) begins here. Furthermore, for those of you who only pay attention to this stupid comic, I have released chapter 2 of Redefined Fantastic Object!

Bwargh, I probably shouldn't have Rin doing the infodump-thing. I'm at least trying to make it amusing, though ... hmm.

In Meimu and Meiling's conversation, I had to balance "Meimu is ten" with "Meimu acts like she does with the previous comic" with "Meiling is not Generically Annoyed Person" (with, in panel 17, "EVERYONE WANTS TO BE DANMAKU FIGHTING!"). Meiling is evidently friends with Cirno, so in panel 13, she's not going to say "Yeah, that doesn't say anything," but she does know that Cirno is a bear of very little brain. Ultimately, in Meimu's case, I characterized her exactly how I wanted to.

Panel 14 is the first time I have attempted to depict someone in create.swf with their hands on their hips. It took some photoshop and the "hands to face" object, but I did it!

In panel 19, Meiling touches upon one of the problems with time travel: grammar. There's three different ways to talk about events in time travel: objective (one event chronologically happens after the other: "I ate breakfast, then I got dressed"), subjective (from the perspective of the time traveller: "I got into my time machine, went back in time to the year 1865, and stopped John Wilkes Booth from shooting Abraham Lincoln"), and metatemporal ("before, Lincoln was assasinated; afterward, he was not"). You ought to make it clear which type you're talking about when time travelling, otherwise time travel will give you a headache.

As you can see, I've already devised a danmaku-pattern for Meimu. It'd probably have to be a Spell Card in the fighting-game storymode, though. And yes, I know that's not what Extreme Color Typhoon looks like, but whatev. (And I had to add outlines to the letters of the spell-card name, since they were kinda hard to make out, sorta.)

No new music or if-this-was-a-game character-info today, sorry. (Though technically, if this was a game, Sakuya wouldn't have gotten involved in Mugetsu and Gengetsu's thing, I suppose ...)

Transcript

  1. (Marisa, Reimu, and Rin Satsuki are at the Shrine, drinking green tea.)
    Rin: Meimu -- that's what the culprit of the current Incident calls herself -- is trying to subtly alter history in her favor without harming major events.
    Reimu: You can do that?
    Rin: Hey, the same thing happened when you broke the Stone of the Celestials.
  2. Rin: Her goal is to take the appearance of Hisou Tensoku's shadow and make it more of an Incident while making you two more incidental to its resolution.
    Marisa: Kinda too late since we already know what it is, ze.
  3. Rin: Yes, but you don't know about her.
    Reimu: ... except that you're telling us all about her.
    Rin: Yep!
  4. Marisa: This is an annoyingly-roundabout way of saying "I'm already making it fail," isn't it?
    Rin: Hey, I've got to be infuriatingly mysterious *somehow*!
    Reimu: Fine. What's this "Meimu" actually *doing*?
  5. (Reimu sips her tea.)
    Rin: She created a dimension called "Gap Land," made from shadows of the shards of broken history.
    Marisa: Cool! So, it's basically made entirely outta magic, right?
    Rin: Yep!
  6. Rin: From there, it seems she's trying to capture Cirno, Sanae Kotiya, and Hong Meiling in her Apertures, with a spell to make them *want* to come in if that doesn't work. Then they'll fight her, and she doesn't care if they win.
    Marisa: Huh.
    Reimu: That explains that, sort of ...
  7. Rin: She's apparently motivated by jealousy of both of your fame and success. Starting with the current Incident, she seeks to discredit you two as Gensokyo's prime Incident-resolvers.
    Marisa: So, she's willin' to go to all the trouble and risk the wrath of ... um ... everyone?
  8. Rin: She's *ten.* No matter how you slice it, thinking things through is going to be something that happens to other people.
    Reimu: (aside) This tea's getting cold ...
  9. (Long panel: Meiling arrives in Gap Land through an aperture, which closes behind her. Meimu is dizzily lying prone on her back, with a knife in her forehead.)
    SFX: BEOom
    Meiling: Huh? ... Sakuya!
    Meimu: Owww ... why's the ice fairy the only one this really worked on ...?
  10. (Meiling lands as Meimu jumps up, knocking the knife away.)
    Meiling: And you are?
    Meimu: Ah! Welcome (dramatic pause) to Gap Land! I am Meimu, the mysterious youkai from the year 174 GC! I have come to make sure that certain events happen the way I want them to!
  11. Meiling: Ah. You know, all my worries about omens from Taisui Xingjun are starting to feel kind of ridiculous --
    Meimu: (partly obscuring the end of Meilin's bubble) Aha! So, you recognize me as a superior opponent, then!?
  12. Meiling: Well, technically, I was going to say, "because you're coming off as even more ridiculous."
    Meimu: Hey, *Cirno* didn't think anything like that!
  13. Meiling: Um ... I'm sorry to say ... that doesn't actually say much.
    Meimu: Hmph! Well, I still won't have to worry about beating *you*, anyway!
  14. Meiling: (hands on hips) Really.
    Meimu: You can't beat Cirno or Reimu, and you aren't gonna beat me!!
  15. Meiling: ... Why Reimu?
    Meimu: (sweatdrop) Huh? Um ... uh ... because she can beat pretty much everyone!
    Meiling: What? Then why does it matter if *I* can't beat her?
  16. Meimu: N-never mind!
    Meiling: (sweatdrop) ... Right. As for Cirno, I beat her all the time. In fact, it's rare for me to *lose*. (aside) Though she *has* been getting better lately ...
  17. Meiling: But if it's a fight you want, I can certainly oblige you that!
    Meimu: (shooting straight up into the air) Aha! Yes! Right!
  18. (They continue flying upward.)
    Meiling: Gimme your best shot!
    Meimu: Yeah, right, you'd never be able to handle my best!
    Meiling: I'd wait a bit before saying that if I was you!
    Text: And other exclamations of overconfidence!
  19. (Meimu starts firing dark red and purple bullets.)
    Meiling: So, does this, uh, happen in your past, or is fighting me something you're changing?
    Meimu: I'm actually not sure! There's no reason why I'd've heard about it if I do it right! I'm just as in the dark about who's going to win as you are!
  20. (Meiling dodges as Meimu launches a wave of yellow ring-bubble-bullet-things.)
    Meiling: What happened to "you have no chance of winning"?
    Meimu: Hey! No fair dodging so easily!! And why aren't you attacking!?
  21. (Meiling dodges the yellow rings as Meimu launches out another wave of red and purple dark-bullets.)
    Meiling: Oh? You want me to go on the offensive now?
    Meimu: Yeah, yeah! Gimme your best shot!
  22. (Meiling unleashes a huge swarm of impenetrably thick rainbow-gem bullets, overwhelming Meimu. A ghostly Spell Card image of Meiling appears, too.)
    Spell Card: Colorful Sign 「EXTREME Color Typhoon!!」
    Meiling: Okay!
    Meimu: WAAAAUGH!
    Spell Card Meiling's Hat: I'M TOTALLY A DRAGON
  23. (Meimu explodes.)
    Meiling: If you want to win ...
    SFX: KRAKOW
  24. (An aperture leading to the SDM gate appears behind her and yanks her through.)
    Meiling: ... do more than *boast* WAUGH!
    SFX: ZUN

All Touhou characters are © Team Shanghai Alice and/or ZUN; create.swf is ⑨ KirbyM with help from Thefre. "Sakura petals" brush in main/4koma logo was made by Kisara Girl. "Falling leaves" brush in 60-Years logo came with Photoshop.

17 Comments (auto-closed) (rss feed)

CapedLuigisYoshi

About time we had a comic with a number higher than 100.

Okay, so... uh... carp, I don't have any interesting observations. Well, except maybe than Meimu is REALLY getting in over her head with this.

The Watcher

Ya think? Yakumo or not, she's still a kid, and kids don't win danmaku. Look at Rumia and Cirno (well not so much Cirno anymore).

Kitsune Inari

Can't children win danmaku? If so, what was Reimu doing during the PC-98 games? I know it wasn't Spellcard Dueling yet, but she was still p4wning ppl h4rd at danmaku.

Of course 10-years-old Meimu is not exactly 10-years-old Reimu, but still she can at least fly.

The Watcher

Reimu's a freaking prodigy child who doesn't even use her full power. Meimu's just a brat with a lot of power. Against a focused Meiling and an EX-Mode Cirno, she had little chance.

PMiller1

Really did the future Meiling and Cirno knew that Kon Yakumo would do this, I mean of you think about Fighting the Someone form the Past must remeber that happening in the future.

Them again Thay can just went Easy on Young Kon.

Dizzy H. Slightly Voided

Obviously, Meiling and Cirno will remember that it turned out perfectly fine, and that no further action is necessary. ;)

PMiller1

So thay and Sanae Kochiya just let her Play with her Timey Wimey Ball (Warning, link leads to TVTropes. Miller will not be held responsible for hours of time lost as a result of following it)

That remind me, Future Sanae is she a New Goddess?

John Evans

You could go for Continuum terminology. Talking about events that occur elsewhere in the objective timeline, you say "Down" for past and "Up" for future. In the subjective timeline, events are in a time traveler's Age if they've happened, or Yet if they haven't. "During that fight in my Age, I helped myself out. So sometime in my Yet, I'll have to go Down to assist myself."

Of course, in Continuum rules, there's no such thing as "metatemporal" because events never actually change. ;)

...

Everybody was Danmaku fighting...♪

Phuong

EXTREME Typhoon? Yup, totally a dragon.

Dizzy H. Slightly Voided

/ Modified by Dizzy H. Slightly Voided:

Correction: it's totally canon. :3

Astar

Phuong got sorta owned :3

CapedLuigisYoshi

Please, around here we say "merciless'd". Or at least I do. Sometimes. Thrice.

-brick'd-

Phuong

I didn't mean it sarcastically. I like Meiling. But yeah, zing noted.

ZeroInsanity

Well, been a while since I've commented here/read Nekokayou.
You've ruined the fun of whining over temporal paradoxes and such, since you've explained it in an easy-to-understand mannerism accompanied by friggin' diagrams.
DIAGRAMS, FOR GOD'S SAKE. WRYYYYYYYYYYYY

But I digress from my depression-induced whining. I appreciate that this is a much more comprehensive storyline. And that it isn't some random rushed clusterfuck of Walfas sprites and text hell-bent on making sure it reaches the 100th Comic Deadline with some expectedly epic ending riddled with plotholes.

I am happy. Kinda. Not really. Since I'm depressed. But whatever. Like any of you give half of a damn.

Skribulous

I'm amused that what Kon implied about Cirno & Meiling's relative skills completely sailed over Meiling's head. Would be interesting if Meimu's actions actually did ensure the future of EX-Cirno to exist.

On a critical note, KM's weak point is in the plot exposition. Sure, they may be helpful to clarify things, but they're still boring. Even the charts and diagrams didn't help. Then again, you could say it could be intentional as Rin's schtick, but she's not the only offender in the series, as I've noticed that the pacing seems to grind down to a near-halt when the cast have to start explaining their actions in paragraphs.

That's the only things that could use some improvement, otherwise the webcomic as a whole is still great.

Dizzy H. Slightly Voided

Yeah, I know, I know ... In fact, I've already made the one for the upcoming comic shorter!

KamuiK

Future II "I will have defeated you in a danmaku battle." is my fav when talking about time travel, because you are stating something happening in the future from an even FURTHER point in the future where, yes, it has happened. Therefore it doesn't matter WHEN the action happened, only THAT in happened sometime.