wolfnanaki said: Doesn't Flan have that one ability where she can destroy anything instantly just by closing her fist?
There's some nightmare fuel for you.
If you just blindly followed the canon, there would be no Gensokyo anymore, or at least there wouldn't be any life except Kaguya and Mokou. Lots of Touhoes have incredibly exaggerated powers that would allow them to do almost everything.
I mean, Remilia, changing the fate? What the fuck, she could just change your fate to have a heart attack or whatever. Game over. Sakuya? Just stops the time and stabs you, if it's a youkai or something, she decapitates them. Game over. Flandre? Simply destroys anything instantly and unavoidably, game over. Keine? Eats the history of you even being BORN, game over (or no game at all). Kaguya and Mokou? They are immortal, damn it, how are you going to defeat them? Okuu and fusion power? She could make the light gases in atmosphere go through fusion, then let the other substances join and make the whole Gensokyo one blazing furnace of eternal fire.
I mean, the canon is somewhat ridiculous in giving terrifying powers to some and giving totally useless powers to others (finding stuff, surprising people that doesn't even work) and then making every competition just danmaku fights.
This is also the reason why is so difficult finding a reasonable doujin with characters actually using their powers properly. Because making the balance believable, canon and interesting at the same time is really hard.
Or Shikieiki for that matter. Immortal. Never been alive, existed forever, therefore not a real being, therefore theorytically unlimited power. Last Judgement. No life left, Human, Youkai, Ghost, Fairy, Whatsoever.
looks more like blood sprayd onto remi than an actual wound of any sort, so someone got owned and it wasn't remi. the linear blood trail on her wing is proff.
Justy said: If you just blindly followed the canon, there would be no Gensokyo anymore, or at least there wouldn't be any life except Kaguya and Mokou. Lots of Touhoes have incredibly exaggerated powers that would allow them to do almost everything.
I mean, Remilia, changing the fate? What the fuck, she could just change your fate to have a heart attack or whatever. Game over. Sakuya? Just stops the time and stabs you, if it's a youkai or something, she decapitates them. Game over. Flandre? Simply destroys anything instantly and unavoidably, game over. Keine? Eats the history of you even being BORN, game over (or no game at all). Kaguya and Mokou? They are immortal, damn it, how are you going to defeat them? Okuu and fusion power? She could make the light gases in atmosphere go through fusion, then let the other substances join and make the whole Gensokyo one blazing furnace of eternal fire.
I mean, the canon is somewhat ridiculous in giving terrifying powers to some and giving totally useless powers to others (finding stuff, surprising people that doesn't even work) and then making every competition just danmaku fights.
This is also the reason why is so difficult finding a reasonable doujin with characters actually using their powers properly. Because making the balance believable, canon and interesting at the same time is really hard.
You are my idol now. Thanks for thinking the same way as I do. And to explain it so perfectly.
Dont forget yukari, with the power to modify, destroy and create ANYTHING, or yuyuko who is able to kill anything thats alive.
But yes, canon powers are insane, thats why danmaku was created? well, not really. It was more because if you kill the miko, gensokyo goes out of balance and well, it stop existing (or something like that). No youkai wants to die, so they cant kill the miko, thus they need a way to fight her. Danmaku was created to do so, and it was nice to be able to actually fight a youkai like yukari without getting your border destroyed. Also it gives a chance to youkais like yuuka who's power is insane (magical and physical) but her born ability is useless.
Does no one notice Reimu's arm socks here? I mean, come on! It looks more like what happens if Reimu looses. To who, I don't know, but it looks like it was either Remilla or Flandre.
As to the powers being severely unbalanced? Well... DUH. Any time there is a superpower lottery, there are going to be some that end up with the short end of the stick. Others getting the extremely LONG end of the stick exist as well. that aside, the entire spell card system was created to make a balancing effect for Youkai and Human abilities. Basically, rules of a tournament. Only losing could easily mean death.
Justy said: If you just blindly followed the canon, there would be no Gensokyo anymore, or at least there wouldn't be any life except Kaguya and Mokou. Lots of Touhoes have incredibly exaggerated powers that would allow them to do almost everything.
._. Things like this are explained to be in simple terms as "control"
It's hinted multiple times that Remilia's power is not consciously controlled.
As for Sakuya, if she can clean without causing dust to stir, it also suggests that interacting with things that are not moving with her while time is stopped might be impossible. Or she's just like Dio and always toys with people. Of course, you go with that, the person will eventually be able to move.
Flandre is suppose to be able to just destroy things |D Super over powered, but once again-control. She likes to play, after all XD Remi just wants to keep her from abusing that power. It's suppose to be terrifying.
Kiene can erase history, as in, records. That's all. She can't remove you from existence.
Mokou and Kaguya tire, and still require food. If you want to stop them, keep them from being feed, and they continously die from it, as well as being unable to move.
Utsuho has ability of NUCLEAR fusion. And there, she seems to have to have a point of focus around her body. Not to forget that there are many gases in the atmosphere to prevent us from all going up in flames when some one lights a match.
Also, even though you didn't mention Yukari, she IS suppose to be totally overpowered. She can't make existence, and that's pretty much it.
The canon gives them insane powers, yeah, but there are limits that are stated, with in canon, and hell... If you don't make them strong, then what's the point? Of course, Flandre's ability is still overpowered.
badhabitrabbit said: Mokou and Kaguya tire, and still require food. If you want to stop them, keep them from being feed, and they continously die from it, as well as being unable to move.
That wouldn't work. In CiaLR, Mokou said that food, water, and all necessities of life, she's independant from even sleep: It would't affect them at all, though still feel all the pain. A more appropriate thing would be to... put them up into outer space and watch their bodies freeze and explode over and over from the vaccum, only for them to resurrect to blow up again. Eugh, just thinking about it is scary.
Yukari: She could use all her power so everything is a single existence, hence without borders everything would exist a single object. Makes me think of a black hole...
Yuyuko: I don't even like ghosts. They haunt people. Yuyuko could do some really scary stuff.
Reisen: People don't think of this much, but controlling waves is a powerful thing. Controlling brain waves can allow her to possess someone and make them kill themselves. Not to mention light, sound, and any other form of wavy tangibility.
There are so many others, but I'd take up too much space talking about them all.
The spell card system was created precisely so that neither side (Humans, youkai, gods, onis, whatever) has a total clear cut advantage. The Youkai know that they'd be nothing without the humans, the humans know they'd have trouble without the youkai, the Gods need faith from either, the Oni like contests too much and are too honorable to go against the rules...there's a balance there, and until Reimu instituted the spell card system between TH05 and TH06 (After some incident with vampires that *wasn't* ESoD) it was rather delicate.
Now, 'youkai extermination' just amounts to beating them up on a relatively level playing field...deaths are relatively uncommon, and it's a lot more peaceful, so long as you stay out of places where you're likely to bump into low-level, bestial youkai who don't have the intelligence to understand rules, or just don't care.
And so long as you don't piss off Yuuka.
As for the specific examples...
Yuyuko's too flighty to use her power.
Yukari's too interested in keeping Gensokyo peaceful/fun.
Keine's ability to erase and create history, assuming you don't take it to mean she makes records, has limitations of its own. First, she can only change and create history during the full moon in her were-hakutaku form. Otherwise, she can merely hide it.
Utsuho's too stupid to think of that (And 'nuclear fusion' doesn't mean radioactive, it just means you fuse the nucleus of two atoms together, releasing energy, so pretty much anything lighter than iron is fusable with a net energy gain, if you have high enough heat and pressure, such as that in a star)
Kaguya and Mokou do need air, food, water, etc, to keep living, but they will ressurect, yes...they're immortal.
Shikieiki is just...judgement. She may have the final say over where you go after you die, but that doesn't directly equate to sheer raw power.
Flandre's ability to destroy things is consciously activated, but she oftentimes just seems to get carried away without realizing what she's doing. Coupled with her being completely and utterly bonkers and having ludicrously poor impulse control, that makes her the most dangerous. (Dangerous does not directly equate to deadly.) That's why she spends most of the time locked up.
Remi's ability isn't consciously controlled, from what I understand (Though in some interpretations it is) and seems to be more attached to knowing ones fate through name fortune telling...I'm probably wrong about that one, however.
Sakuya's time stop ability may preclude her from directly interacting with things she wants to *stay* stopped...thus why she doesn't just stab people in the face and instead throws her knives...as soon as she makes contact with something that's stopped, they become un-stopped.
Reisen's control over waves....That, I think, was Zun just not thinking it out enough. Kinda like Magneto the master of magnetism. Theoretically, he should have control over the entire electromagnetic spectrum, which is basically....everything. He could negate the magnetic forces that keep atoms from flying apart, or manipulate the atoms to form new ones.
dudemang said: Ehhhh, I wouldn't say that. Truly, the mastery over boundaries in any sense of the word is a terrifyingly broad power in theory, but there's probably some limitation to it somewhere - I wouldn't think she could create anything out of nothing for example.
Sure she could. She can manipulate the boundaries between reality and fiction, and existence and non-existence. In theory that should allow her to create anything out of nothing (and vice versa).
Zun did say that yukari's power is the power of logical creation and logical destruction. Gensokyo exist because theres a boundary between this world and it.
I see a Remilia that Flandre mowed down on her way out, who is going to recover shortly (because, y'know, if you bothered paying attention to canon you'd realize that this is no worse than a nosebleed to her) and be on her way to bring her sister back before sun-up.