Donmai

Hitodama (Myon)

Posted under General

Nanashisan743

Looking through Yuyuko and Youmu's posts, I notice that barely any are tagged with myon. Is Myon ignored unless it's an important part of the image, or should Myon always be tagged?

I also notice that there is only one post with hitodama (this is what Myon is - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitodama ). Is this not named, or is another term used? If it's unknown (though I doubt it), I'll try to start tagging and add a simple wiki entry for it. Or if I learn another term, I'll request an alias.

Updated by jxh2154

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7HS

Myon is always present along with Youmu unless the artist is forgetful, so I'd suggest it should ideally be "ignored unless it's an important part of the image", like in post #9898 or post #121091. There doesn't seem to be any consistency in the way the tag is applied now, so you'll have to go through all Youmu posts if you would like there to be.

It seems like ghost is sometimes used for Myon and the random hitodama that float around Yuyuko, but for obvious reasons it's hard to tell.

Reply
Mr GT

^ To the post above

Myon isn't a nickname for her ghost half. Originally it was some random word Youmu said during a conflict and people misinterpreted it as her referring to her ghost half as such.

Reply
glasnost

In the Japanese fandom, 'Myon' is a nickname for Youmu. In the American fandom, 'Myon' is a nickname for Youmu's ghost half.

It's not entirely clear to me why you bumped a year-old forum post to talk about this.

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WAHa 06x36

Better than starting a new thread to ask about it.

Anyway, it seems pretty weird to repurpose names that already have accepted meaning for other things. And I was under the impression that Danbooru favoured the original Japanese vocabulary in general, so having "Myon" mean something else than it does in Japanese seems out of place.

Reply
glasnost

Oh, now I see it's a tagging question. I thought you were just expressing general wonderment at first.

At any rate, if we were to stop using myon for Youmu's ghost half, we'd have to alias it to something else, and there aren't too many good candidates. I don't think "hitodama" is quite accurate, and a cursory Google search doesn't seem to reveal too many Japanese people using that to refer to it. The usual term of reference I see in doujin and such is 半靈, which is just "ghost half", and personally, I'd rather stick with myon than alias it to youmu's_ghost_half.

Reply
glasnost

WAHa_06x36 said:
Well, yeah, it's mainly question of tagging on danbooru, but I do also in fact wonder where this idea came from in the first place.

My guess would be a mistranslation somewhere along the line, but any documentation of the real reason seems to have been lost to the sands of time. ┐(´д｀)┌

And yeah, I guess konpaku_youmu_(ghost) does parallel kaenbyou_rin_(cat) and reiuji_utsuho_(bird). Something about it still rubs me the wrong way, but as long as there's an alias from myon to the new tag, I'll cope.

Reply
NWF Renim

I have to disagree with your opinion on this matter, WAHa. The ghost half has been depicted by itself before myon -konpaku_youmu, and unlike your comparison to the ribbon, the ghost half has a much more animate presence in the image than a specific article of clothing. Unlike a ribbon which is simply an object, the ghost half can be depicted much more animated and there have been representations of it as more than simply a ghostly blob floating in the background. If you wish to compare it, it is much more similar to Suwako's hat, since it as well has sometimes been depicted as an independent animate/living entity.

Reply
glasnost

Katajanmarja said:
...Which would lead us to tag tatara_kogasa_(umbrella) when the umbrella is using its tongue to do something apparently independent from Kogasa (girl)'s actions, right?

Hey, why not? Actually, such a tag would be highly relevant to my interests; I might just go ahead and start tagging that if nobody has any objections.

Reply
Katajanmarja

A while ago there was a discussion about tagging the absence of a hat (forum #37815). Let me quote a good comment from that topic:

Shinjidude said:

These exceptional absence tags need to be used with expectation in mind. The expectation of a hat based on costume should trump the expectation of a hat based on a character (and their default costume).

Put another way if you wouldn't expect a character to wear a hat given what they are wearing in the image, then exceptional absence tags (like no_hat) shouldn't apply.

And let me further quote what has been said about the pyonta tag (forum #29596):

jxh2154 said:

I guess we can start using it. But only for images where "hat as distinct character" is present. If someone starts tagging it on every image where Suwako is wearing the hat, I'll have to hit them.

If we combine those precedents with what has been suggested here for using konpaku_youmu_(ghost) ~ myon and tatara_kogasa_(umbrella), then a need for two further tags will arise:

Theoretically, this would lead to the following groupings:

This is where my logic takes me, but it does sound... complicated. Not to mention impossible to tag without specialized knowledge on the Touhou universe.

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