kozachenko

[kozachenko]

Behold, my Touhou Project Inscryption Au that I started working on before all the stuff with Touhou 20 went down. Mainly finished this so I could get it out of my head lol.

No one asked for this. No one needed this, but I have free will and this is how I choose to use it lmao.

Artist's Notes;

Full disclaimer I have never played Inscryption before, I have only seen gameplay videos going through the entire game and have watched lore recaps, analyses, and videos on it. I do still love this game though and want to play it someday.

I remember it was during one of my many rewatches of Markiplier's Inscription playthrough (The Flying Uryaruli never gets old, plus they're kinda comfort videos lmao) that I thought of the dumb idea of "what if Chimata was in it?" and thus this idea was born. My initial concept of this was "the devil added microtransactions to his game" (bonus points if you understand that reference), which then evolved into "what if Megumu, Tsukasa, and Momoyo were the other scribes" which then evolved into me thinking way to fucking hard about this idea and deciding to swap out those three for other characters to be the scrybes. I'm sure you can tell who I chose for the new scrybes based on the cards (it's Zanmu and Keiki), though I did leave a hint as to who would be replacing which scrybe in this AU (hint, look at their health and attack line's, Keiki's attack is 1 btw it just got covered up by Zanmu's card). That part will probably become clearer as I develop the concept more (which will probably come in a long while) but in the meantime I'll explain the abilities more.

So I decided to adapt the cost into coins because in my mind, Chimata would focus really really hard on the collectathon trading card aspect. In fact, I imagine that in the beginning of this AU she's say something like, "and if you collect all of the cards, you'll be able to find a special little promo code in them. For what exactly? Well where's the fun in me telling you that now!" As I wrote in the image above (for those who can't read the font it says, "Balancing isn't exactly my forte, so some of the cards I gave you in your base deck have a 50/50 shot of being trash or stupidly overpowered!") Chimata probably doesn't care for the balancing and mainly wants to oversee the exchange in ownership with trading cards. I know characters like Nemuno or Ubame fit Leshy's vibes more but Chimata was kinda the progenitor of this idea and I think it would make more sense for her to care about cards so much so yeah lol (also there is a specific part in Act 1 of the game where I think Chimata's theming with the moon in Stage 6 of UM would work really well).

Also, in this AU, Sumireko would be the protagonist who runs a lost media Youtube channel where she discovers the cartridge with Inscryption in a similar way that Luke did in the OG game.

As for the effects on the cards, I'll go over them briefly:

Zanmu's sigil would negate the effects of the opposing creature's sigil, I was initially gonna give her the "if an opposing card attacks this one, it doesn't" sigil but decided that would be too OP and went for this idea instead.

Keiki's sigil basically functions like the warren sigil in the original game, where upon placing her down on the board she gives the player a free Haniwa card (which would be 1 attack 2 health and no cost). For obvious reasons I think this fits Keiki pretty well.

So the main purpose of this AU isn't to be 1 to 1 with the game's characters personality-wise (for reasons that will become apparent if you know who Keiki is substituting for) but in terms of theming I did try to think about who would fit best (other than Chimata but again, she's kinda got special treatment since I just though the idea of her constantly pulling out microtransactions to get herself more faith or trying desperately to convince Sumireko to get another person to play the game so she has someone to trade with would be funny). Visually this will also look different from Inscryption because...ain't no way I'm replicating that and also I want to use this as an oppurtunity to let myself do harsh lighting because I love doing harsh lighting in my drawings :D

Again, this is going to be an ongoing project of mine that is mainly gonna be shitposts like this. As you can see with the drawing I did not care about rendering the metal scale much and focused more on getting the shading on Chimata right. I also changed some things about her design and added some stuff, mainly changing how her dress pattern works, added some shoulder ornamentation to her cape, and gave her some nice big golden sphere earrings because I know she'd wear something like that.

Not the most proud of this piece (I finished this at around 10:30 at night so I was kinda eepy finishing this up) but for a shitpost, this is really all it need to be tbh.

[kozachenko]

New addition to this headcanon, since the new game's plot takes place around Youkai mountain and Kanako is all about bringing technology to Gensokyo, Kanako accidentally used an AI and fucked up Gensokyo's landscape so parts of the mountain look like AI generated slop and everyone is freaked out about it. The Tengu have called it the new Moriya Shrine Conspiracy.

Since all the AI stuff in Touhou 20 has linked back to Nareko, I now have the headcannon that Nareko got all her information on ancient Egypt from Chat GPT, and since she doesn't know any better, takes it as gospel. Also, when someone (probably Keine) told her that Cleopatra was actually Greek, she didn't take the news well and is still in De Nile to this day.

[kozachenko]

Spreading this around too because this also has some good information on Adobe Firefly that I didn't know about before making my own post about it. There's so much new information coming out about all the AI stuff that needs more exposure in the fandom.

As I mentioned in my own post about this, I don't think it's right that we should settle for "it could be worse" and I hope this doesn't become a pattern in newer Touhou games after 20. Touhou also matters to a lot of people, so I'm not surprised people are trying to lessen the impact of Gen AI being used. Heck, even for me I have basically been conflicted on how I feel about the series after this, so it's easy to fall into that trap. Also, in terms of how talked about this is on Tumblr, it's slowly becoming more talked about but it still needs to be discussed more.

This whole ordeal has become the Touhou fandom's 9/11 at this point and this whole thing has just been really disappointing.

heya, just to say i'll be taking a quick break from Touhou. I'm not sure how talked about it is on tumblr, but Touhou 20 has Generative AI used in Adobe Firefly for the backgrounds. I was already bummed by it, but seeing people's reactions being a bunch of changing mental gymnastics to excuse it or make it seem less bad is not it. Especially with a lukewarm thread making its way on socials to "document" this by someone who DID use AI in the past and doesn't mind its usage. While it's true that ZUN always relied on stock images for his backgrounds, the excuse that "he didnt know any better/it was an accident" has been debunked. now, people are using the excuse of "adobe firefly is ethical, actually". it's not! Firefly is half adobe assets like they claim they are, and half trained on midjourney, which, you know, is NOT a closed circuit and therefore NOT as ethical as it claims to be. Besides, "ethical" or not, it's still encouraging and endorsing the usage of generative imagery since ZUN is so influencial. Monkey see, monkey do. Others that follow his lead might not be as "ethical" as he says he is when they do it in their own turn. I've even seen people claim that it's "no different from him ripping off other series for his pc98 cast" which is a VERY wild and bold take to make in order to make it seem normal and misses the point. I don't want to dunk on ZUN or get the pitchforks out. I am being vocal BECAUSE touhou means so much to me and I want the best for the series i considered to be so rich and unique for all those years. And I don't think regarding ZUN as an unproblematic saint who isn't accountable for anything ever at all is a good stance. I just need this to sink in for me and to swallow that pill bc to say i'm disappointed, both in ZUN and in fans excusing this with rapidly changing alibis, is frankly not it.

I'm tired of fighting. I don't want to spark any drama but I am exhausted. Keep supporting your artists, keep fighting against the rise of AI and do not let it be normalized, even by people you look up to. I will always have my favorites very dear in my heart and it doesn't take away from them, if that's what you were wondering, but I need some time to swallow that pill. Thank you.

[kozachenko]

I'm too tired and bad at words to do a super deep dive. But I highly recommend reading that thread as Richard is good at words.

But I have to get this off my chest, so to make my opinion a long story short:

I'm not happy

I don't think any sort of genAI belongs in media regardless of how "clean" or minor it is.

I don't think ZUN is evil or beyond redemption or whatever considering his use doesn't replace any artists, it ultimately is a very minor element of the game where there was never much thought put into and he seemingly used an "ethical" model (which I still think is some bullshit but it would show he does has some consciousness about the use of AI.)

I do think he is pretty fucking stupid for making all this rah rah in 19 about AI and then using it the very next game.

I probably won't buy or play touhou 20 myself unless it's removed, genAI stuff geniunely makes my skin crawl. But I'm not going scorched earth and abandoning the series and I, a rando you don't know, would suggest you don't either.

Because I still love the artistry of the fans and the silly girls, I still love the story and worldbuilding (although I can't say i'm looking to dig into the themes of 20 considering my earlier point about 19.) And I still want to support all the artists who love this series too. So I will continue as I normally do, reblogging art and occasionally making dumb posts, this includes the characters from 20 and beyond.

I keep wondering if I'm overreacting or not. But ultimately I'm just really disappointed. Not because I expect a 50-something year old Japanese man to uphold my morals and worldview, but because I see Touhou as a whole to be a bastion of creativity and artistic freedom. So to see this from the creator, even if it's small and done as ethically as possible, stings me to be honest.

This is something I thought before this ordeal, but feel much stronger about now. For the love of fucking god ZUN, hire some help for these games. Shit, at least get Beatmario or Ki-san to find some non-AI stock images lol.

Oh no i wrote many words when i said i wouldn't waaaaaaahhh

(P.S. If you feel the same way then absolutely voice your displeasure via steam reviews, tweets, etc. But don't be an asshole or ultra aggressive and angry towards ZUN or those who play or make content of 20. That will probably change no minds. Save that energy for the tech companies and the governments that allow them to push genAI unregulated. ZUN at least shows some care and concern with it's use, they don't.)

[kozachenko]

On a less serious note about the whole Touhou 20 AI situation now that things have basically been resolved (at least from my point of view), I think it's really funny how the entire fandom that knew about this collectively went through the five stages of grief over these past few days. I made my last post about this literally at midnight so I wanna make this one just to sum up my thoughts when I'm not mentally tired. This is a long post so I'll just put it all under the "keep reading" tab.

I find it interesting how basically every theory I've heard for the past few days about the AI usage ended up being kinda right???? Like, it's both stock image use, AI use, AI use RELATED to Adobe (the person on reddit who speculated something along those lines must feel like a fucking prophet right now), and my own theory about the AI being used for time efficiency was also right. While I still don't think I'll be playing 20 anytime soon (not until I sort out my feelings about potentially playing it), I'm kinda (emphasis on kinda) relieved that things were nowhere near as bad as I thought they would be.

I do really wish that ZUN gave himself more time (like, at least a year) to make these games if he ended up having to resort to adobe's AI to quickly get background stuff done (and even with Adobe's AI there's still some ethical issues there) or get someone he knows to help him find backgrounds while he does the heavier stuff. This is why there are game development teams, because there does come a point when you're basically unable to do everything yourself in such a short amount of time.

This, oddly enough, brings me back to when I was really into Pokemon a few years ago, and the quality of the games was being impacted by Game Freak's size as a game studio and crunched time. Of course I haven't really been up to date on new Pokemon stuff now and I never head of them trying to use AI in an official game, but I just wanted to mention this since it was on my mind.

In the end, I am against AI usage and think that ZUN would have been better off just making the backgrounds himself via his own photography and photo bashing/drawings and I think it sucks that I have to settle for a "it could have been a lot worse" in this scenario.

But people have said this before and I will say it to, DO NOT HARASS OR THREATEN ZUN! It does literally nothing good for the community and is in no way a constructive way to criticize a person's actions or decisions. Also, I don't think people making fanart and stuff for Touhou 20 are "complacent" and "encouraging ZUN to keep using AI" The characters and music are still products of ZUN's own creativity and people still have a right to enjoy those good parts of the game.

Also, not everyone knows about this. The day after the demo released was when I found out about the whole AI thing after I saw one person talking about how they were gonna abandon Touhou and got so confused that I had to look up what happened with Touhou 20, saw "Touhou 20 AI" as a search result and stumbled upon the reddit post discussing it. I then looked to Tumblr, saw no one talking about it, and then waited to see if anyone else would talk about this and take that time to collect my own thoughts on it. The only reason I know is because I just so happened to find a post that was vaguely alluding to something bad happening. I bet a lot of other people in the fandom right now could also be unaware of this, so please give them some grace too.

In the end, there isn't really a wrong way to handle the outcome of this situation (OTHER THAN HARRSING ZUN AND SENDING HIM THREATS). Whether you choose to stay in the fandom, play or not play Touhou 20, (RESPECTFULLY) critique the game, not play it but still enjoy the good aspects of it (like the characters (has to change art in general because...ya know...) and music), all of those aspects are your decision and are based on your own morals and views on AI and how it is used in the game.

If there is any information that is wrong in this post, or anything that needs clearing up, PLEASE tell me in the comments. I'll probably add an edit on this post saying to go there. Also, if the link works (let me know if it doesn't), I'll also put the Twitter thread on this whole situation here for the sake of spreading it around because more people need to see it.

[kozachenko]

Edit: PLEASE READ THE COMMENTS THERE IS INFORMATION I MISSED IN THIS POST THAT IS COVERED THERE

Ok so I remember reading a few Tumblr posts a while back talking about the state of modern Touhou games, and one of the things mentioned was how a lack of time in between releases would end up ruining the game....and I think that's probably the culprit of why there are so many AI generated backgrounds in Touhou 20.

I have a feeling that he spent a lot more time on stuff like music and gameplay while trying to balance personal life stuff, ran out of time and realized "oh shit, I have to get this out in time" and probably ended up using AI because it was the fastest option. I legit would not mind if an extra year was taken to work on these games so that every part of it is good quality, and I was reminded of those tumblr posts I read when I saw this AI stuff start popping up.

I'm probably gonna take a break from Touhou stuff for a while after this, I'm still somewhat excited for the new characters, I still wanna see where the story goes, and I do wanna listen to the new music, but I don't know if I'll play Touhou 20 anytime soon... I mean, I'm bad at bullet hells in the first place so I would have probably done this anyway.

Also, if anyone knows where AI was potentially used in Touhou 19, please tell me because I haven't been able to find anything on it and have only heard of the allegations that there were...which also sucks because Touhou 19 is one of my favourite games in the series...

(Side note, but if this does get fixed later down the line and the game is basically purged of the AI backgrounds, I will probably feel a bit more optimistic about the seires)

[kozachenko]

Since all the AI stuff in Touhou 20 has linked back to Nareko, I now have the headcannon that Nareko got all her information on ancient Egypt from Chat GPT, and since she doesn't know any better, takes it as gospel. Also, when someone (probably Keine) told her that Cleopatra was actually Greek, she didn't take the news well and is still in De Nile to this day.

[kozachenko]

@silverwarewolf

People were ragging on Touhou 17 for being too easy and not having great boss mechanics and music, in 18 some people realized how broken the card mechanics were, in 19 there were a lot of balancing issues and the AI on Lunatic was just straight up nightmarish at points (look up any gameplay with Zanmu's AI on Lunatic, especially if its with the player playing as Orin). The AI stuff is probably the worst stuff that has been discovered though, because each issue did kinda escalate. I think this curse started with Violet Detector as I remember hearing how that game was an absolute mess.

I am also relatively unsure of reception on some of the Touhou games as well, but this is just based on what I've heard and gathered during my time in the fan base.

[kozachenko]

Wow! I'm so excited for Touhou 20! People are playing the demo and are saying good things about it, the music is the best it has been in years, this new game could be what brings about a new golden age for Touhou-

AI generated images get found in the games files and are actually in the game itself

God damn it...

On a serious note though, I really really hope this was just a mistake on Zun's part, it likely is considering his stances on AI but man if this isn't fixed in the full release or isn't even addressed I'm probably gonna have to find something else to hyperfixate on... I legit can't see Touhou stuff the same anymore, even though this could very likely be a mistake.

For anyone who wants to know more, here's where I found out about this:

[kozachenko]

I. LOVE. NAREKO. SO MUCH SHE HAS BECOME MY NEW FAVOURITE FROM THE DEMO OMG-

Artist's Notes;

Before I even knew about her character, her design and theme made me like her so much omg I knew I had to draw her and it was enough to distract me from the Touhou Project Inscryption AU art I was working on before this but that's not important right now. I love her and the stage 1 boss so much (Chimi is a little too weird for me I'm sorry), but Nareko's colour scheme stood out to me a lot.

I know she's not acutally Egyptian and is just larping, but I did try to give her some more melanin since I thought that sort of skin tone would jive better with some of her other colours. IDK why but tan skin and blue hair go really well together, this is like, the second time I've done this so far (I WILL GET TO KEIKI IN A MOMENT BECAUSE HOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOO BOY DO I HAVE SOME NEW IDEAS NOW). I also didn't feel like drawing hands, so I put them behind her back, though I do think the pose fits. I also exaggerated her shorts because again, her design has is really fun to exagerrate and stylize. I didn't go too nuts on the rendering, really only felt inspired to do some of the clothes and a few gold bits. One of her key earrings kinda got lost in some of the gold but honestly I just wanted to doodle her.

AND NOW ONTO MY IDEA WITH KEIKI BECAUSE OOOH MY GOODNESS I NEED TO GET THIS OUT OF MY BRAIN. So like, in ancient Egypt, one important part of their funerary rights were these little idols called Shabti, which were intended to assist the dead in the afterlife as servants and were used since all the way back in Old Kingdom Egypt. Another funerary rite Egypt is well known for is also the pyramids, which were large tombs constructed for the deceased that also date back to Old Kingdom Egypt. (If I get something wrong with ancient Egyptian history btw, please correct me in the comments)

All I'm saying is that Keiki could very possibly connect with Nareko over funerary rights, and Nareko would probably appreciate the funerary rites of the Kofun period that Keiki has dominion over since there some similarities between Ancient Egyptian funeral rites and Kofun period funeral rites (not saying they are identical, but these are just some connections I've noticed). You know, maybe if Nareko met Keiki she'd probably help support her in her faith since she would also likely believe in idol worship and...y'know, they'd probably be friends :)

...Their ship name is Kei/Reko and I will say no more.

Now back to the Touhou Project Inscryption AU I was working on before this

[kozachenko]

I would love to hear more about the idea that renko becomes the Hakurei god!! Its the first time I've heard a headcanon even remotely close to that idea and I'm just so fascinated by it?? So many implications

I remember hearing that headcanon be passed around in the fandom a few times before and I adopted it mainly because of narrative reasons. I thought it would be interesting to see how Renko and Merry ended up, and the idea of them ending up in two very different places during Gensokyo's creation, one becoming a god and the other becoming a Youkai, just felt right to me (pretty sure this is the Madoka Magica fan in me talking, if you know you know).

I also think that it's pretty easy to work into the canon, as even though Yukari hasn't stated to know the Hakurei god in canon, Yukari is a well known unreliable narrator. She could easily be saying this in order to keep Reimu in the dark just enough so she still complies with everything she says. There's also the fact that when interacting with Sumireko (who is literally a canon ancestor to Renko due to a shared last name) she doesn't really express any kind of emotional anguish or regret, which leads me to believe that Renko probably didn't die before Merry became Yukari (though the angst angle that provides is fun to think about since I'm a sucker for angst lol).

Another fun thing about this is that Renko is a physics major, and Reimu's key ability being to float away from reality, and the idea of Renko's hypothetical descendants (i.e. Reimu probably since I also believe that there could be a bloodline thing related to the Hakurei god) having the ability to break the laws of physics seems oddly fitting to me.

Also, if you kinda stretch it, you can kinda connect Reimu's intuition to Renko's ability to instantly tell where she is based on the stars and moon. In terms of internal worldbuilding in Touhou, I think it would kinda fit for Renko to become a god to the humans pre-Gensokyo by almost becoming a god of directions and travel, which could also help in the creation of Gensokyo, as deciding where it should be would also aid in its creation (again, this is kind of a stretch but just a random idea I had).

Please tell me any ideas you have had for this headcanon as well because I also think the idea is really interesting!

[kozachenko]

I would like to expand on this just a little bit by adding the fact that before Old Hell's abandonment, whenever Zanmu wouldn't pay attention to Hisami for a little while, Mizuchi would CONVIENTLY and MYSTERIOUSLY escape containment with SOMEHOW no hassle at all, and COINCIDENTALLY would only get caught by Hisami again once Zanmu finally started paying attention to her again.

Mizuchi and Hisami would probably strike a deal every now and then where Hisami would let out Mizuchi on purpose or just let her escape in order for Zanmu to get mad at her and pay attention to her again, all the while Mizuchi gets to run free and try and escape Hell before her absence is finally noticed and Hisami tracks her down and captures her again. In fact, it had gotten to the point where Mizuchi and Hisami made a bit of a game of the whole thing where they see how long it takes for Zanmu to notice.

From Hisami's perspective, it's a win-win because by the time they started doing this she basically knew Mizuchi's methods of escape like she was Mizuchi herself and figured that even if someone does figure out Mizuchi is missing Hisami can easly catch her again. if Mizuchi managed to escape Hell Zanmu would be on her case about it for YEARS and she'd always have her attention no matter what. and no matter what happens she's getting Zanmu's attention one way or another. Mizuchi only agreed to any of this because she thought the whole thing was funny and also because she would take any chance she could get to finally escape Hell. She didn't even have to do anything, so she probably enjoyed it when chances like these came around. What I'm trying to say is, Mizuchi was the unintentional wingman for Hisami until Old Hell was abandoned. Also, Zanmu absolutely caught on to this whole ordeal but did nothing because no matter what she did Hisami would just keep doing it.

New Mizuchi headcannon, back when Old Hell was just Hell, Hisami and Mizuchi 100% knew each other since Hisami would have most likely been sent to try and capture Mizuchi every time she would escape. With Hisami's ability to "never let anything slip from her grasp" as the wiki puts it, there's no way she wouldn't have had to try and capture her again in Old Hell.

[kozachenko]

Tonal whiplash is my specialty :) Honestly I was considering making that part its own post but decided to add it onto here. And you know what? I'm gonna go into more detail about Zan/Hisa here just for funsies and now fully drifting into ship territory is funny.

Zanmu 100% reciprocates Hisami's feelings but doesn't pursue the relationship because deep down she knows that if something bad happens to Hisami or they grow apart she is going to be absolutely emotionally wrecked by having the one thing she cares about taken away from her, solidifying her world view that everything is pointless.

Also, I just wanna mention how in a weird way this also is kind of an evolution of Reimu's "If I don't put in too much effort it'll work out for me."

Ok so I'm still thinking about the new stuff the fortune slip book revealed about Zanmu, and I was just casually thinking about it today when I thought of something. Zanmu's overconfidence is often unfounded, but how many of the characters in Touhou 19 thought that in their encounters with her? In the world of Touhou, the human's perception about any given Youkai, if widely accepted, can change who that Youkai even is. I remember seeing a post talking about how what Zanmu says in the little manga section of this book kinda addresses this, and that made me wonder.

She probably knows this fact and this is probably the reason she is so comfortable with bluffing and having unfounded confidence. She knows she can get away with it because she knows how people's perception can shape her own nature. Her apathy is also kind of scary as well because it shows that she has nothing to lose. In a way, this kinda makes her more untouchable because you literally can't hurt her in a way that matters.

A lot of the stuff in her fortune slip also comes across as just straight up nihilistic, especially the comment of "Doing anything at all by now is pointless. Soon everything will be covered by nothingness." I remember mentioning in a reblog how Zanmu literally doesn't care when people find out about her plans because she knows everything that person tries will be pointless. Back then I kinda saw this as a supervillain thing, but now it's recontextualized as Zanmu just straight up not caring. Like, not even in a "haha you're so below me I don't care" kinda way but in a "ok so what? I'm still gonna do it, nothing matters to me at this point that you figuring out isn't gonna stop me."

Also, this opens up a whole new avenue for writing any ship with her because I have a feeling that once she does start genuinely caring about a person she is with them until the day they fucking die. Like, it probably takes a lot for her to break out of her nihilistic apathy and start genuinely caring about people (it's probably why she likes Reimu so much) so that opens up a whole new range of dynamics to explore.

[kozachenko]

Ok so I'm still thinking about the new stuff the fortune slip book revealed about Zanmu, and I was just casually thinking about it today when I thought of something. Zanmu's overconfidence is often unfounded, but how many of the characters in Touhou 19 thought that in their encounters with her? In the world of Touhou, the human's perception about any given Youkai, if widely accepted, can change who that Youkai even is. I remember seeing a post talking about how what Zanmu says in the little manga section of this book kinda addresses this, and that made me wonder.

She probably knows this fact and this is probably the reason she is so comfortable with bluffing and having unfounded confidence. She knows she can get away with it because she knows how people's perception can shape her own nature. Her apathy is also kind of scary as well because it shows that she has nothing to lose. In a way, this kinda makes her more untouchable because you literally can't hurt her in a way that matters.

A lot of the stuff in her fortune slip also comes across as just straight up nihilistic, especially the comment of "Doing anything at all by now is pointless. Soon everything will be covered by nothingness." I remember mentioning in a reblog how Zanmu literally doesn't care when people find out about her plans because she knows everything that person tries will be pointless. Back then I kinda saw this as a supervillain thing, but now it's recontextualized as Zanmu just straight up not caring. Like, not even in a "haha you're so below me I don't care" kinda way but in a "ok so what? I'm still gonna do it, nothing matters to me at this point that you figuring out isn't gonna stop me."

Also, this opens up a whole new avenue for writing any ship with her because I have a feeling that once she does start genuinely caring about a person she is with them until the day they fucking die. Like, it probably takes a lot for her to break out of her nihilistic apathy and start genuinely caring about people (it's probably why she likes Reimu so much) so that opens up a whole new range of dynamics to explore.

[kozachenko]

Remember when I asked what Zanmu meant by Suika not acting enough like an oni? While this may be a mistranslation, ZUN's comment in the fortune telling book for Suika implies all of the oni have their own idea of what "being oni-like" is, and so Zanmu is basically saying Suika isn't acting enough like her.

I kinda love this actually, with how Zanmu acts in Touhou 19, this (to me at least) kinda implies that Zanmu is just a weee bit on the narcissistic side (understatement of the century). I mean, the whole reason she trusts Reimu and calls her the "Ruler of Gensokyo" is literally because she reminds her of herself. Zanmu thinks that her way of being an Oni is the best and only way of being an Oni.

Also, this once again makes me wonder how other Oni in Hell act and if Zanmu has kinda encouraged the idea that she is the pinnacle of what being an Oni should be. Suika's whole bit about Zanmu being "a true oni among oni" can also be recontextualized through this lens, as it's less of her complementing Zanmu, and more of her almost mocking her.

This also makes the fanfic part of my brain go nuts because in a previous post I mentioned how Zanmu's overconfidence and tendency to bluff her way out of a situation could just be a facet of the facade she's put up for herself to survive in Hell. Narcissistic tendencies tend to be rooted from deep seeded insecurities after all.

One last, kinda unrelated, thing I want to mention is that this book kinda shows the difference between Zanmu and Yukari. Even though they're both puppet masters, Yukari doesn't really go out of her way to say that she's better than everyone else. I could be missing a few examples, but Yukari never really tries to posture herself as this "super smart amazing mastermind" to anyone else. However, in Touhou 19, Zanmu always makes a great show on how she will "be the one to bring peace to the surface" or "I have already solved the incident on the surface world" and even outright insults some of the other characters by calling them "stupid" or "selfish" or just straight up saying that they have a poor judge of character or weren't smart enough to pick up on what she's doing. Hell, in Marisa's scenario, Zanmu chastizes Marisa for falling for her trap, only to follow it up with "well it is one my traps though" like she's congratulating herself for managing to fool someone with such a shabby little trinket.

Yukari knows that she's powerful, so she doesn't feel the need to try and show off. Yet, even though Zanmu claims to be untouchable, and to most people she seems to be, Zanmu still talks a big game about how she's "already won" and that any attempt to fight her is "pointless." Even though it felt impossible for any character to win against her, how much of that did her ability to "return things to nothing" play in that? How much of that was really just her ability talk her way out of a situation? Just something small to think about, as well as being kinda sort unrelated to the question. I will take any excuse to psychoanalyze Zanmu lol

[kozachenko]

Ok so I was looking at the new Touhou book and was like "ok I'll see how much the wiki has translated" and then after finding out that the fortune slips for a vast majority of the characters hadn't been translated yet I went, "ok then I'll just have to rely on my phone's kinda bad translation camera thingy" and while looking at Zanmu's fortune slip I found something interesting, to try and paraphrase the....kinda rocky translation into something that makes a little more sense;

"She has an air of being capable of anything, and has many demons under her command. In reality, she is a bluffer, and her confidence is unfounded. Even if it is a bluff, if she is overconfident, she can appear attractive. She seems to see herself in Reimu and is worried for her, hoping that this time she won't end up in Hell." (honestly this last part was confusingly translated so idk 100% what this means but it's still interesting)

I really really hope we get a proper translation for this on the wiki soon because ooooh my goodness this reveals a lot about Zanmu's character omg. Like, this opens up so many possibilites for her character and potential stories and omg I love that this implies she's not invincible. Her implied care for Reimu here is also very interesting and I predict that the Zan/Rei shippers are gonna have a field day with this.

And on that note, I think it would be really interesting if we ever got a Touhou work where Zanmu's humanity is explored. Like, how much of it does she still have left after becoming an Oni, and how has this changed her? Also the whole "she's overconfident thing" is also super interesting and makes me wonder what she thinks of Hell's residents idolizing her so much. Is the air of confidence she puts on a facade? Is her ego and self-righteous nature just a cover up? This could possibly just be a by-product of having a hyperfixation on this character but this little, poorly translated by google lens, mini-profile on her in this new Touhou book has already given me so much to chew on.

Also, this little interaction here? I love it. Reimu's little blush at the end is adoreable and I love it. These two need to interact MORE I NEED MORE OF THIS PLEASE, JUST GIVE ME AN OFFICIAL MANGA OR SOMETHING-

(also on the same page, Zanmu's little jab at Chimata is fun, I was actually thinking about how the two of them may interact with each other so this was excellent food for me)

[kozachenko]

New Mizuchi headcannon, back when Old Hell was just Hell, Hisami and Mizuchi 100% knew each other since Hisami would have most likely been sent to try and capture Mizuchi every time she would escape. With Hisami's ability to "never let anything slip from her grasp" as the wiki puts it, there's no way she wouldn't have had to try and capture her again in Old Hell.