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I wrote short essay about what I think would happen. https://docs.google.com/document/d/19l-9EAqwlXcl4MqloEejgSQUHcFuIxoFgoLRPmyXB2w/edit?usp=sharing

I'm bored as hell, let's talk hypotheticals. Let's say that, for some damn reason, the Hakurei barrier breaks, you can say it's the Lunarians going Lunatic mode and say fuck all to the balance of the world, some crazy, angry Youkai God or Yukari just fucking with the residents (both are basically the same thing but you get me, you're a smart...individual), how would this pan out? Of course, you can say "Oh, the Outside World's gonna go extinct because of the wild Youkai!" or "Oh, all Youkai would starve from the lack of faith/fear!", but I want an *actual* answer that's not just a cheap copout, so...let's think about it. We all know how Gensokyo works, it's a magical place (not a secluded dimension iirc, so y'know, it's not the cliché Isekai shit) where the forgotten creatures of old reside! And y'know, also humans but fuck them, whatever, how it works is that, 1800-ish years ago, the 3 Sages came, did some barrier, and invited Youkai, now the thing here is that...well, if you think about it, any "mythological concept" can realistically work. I mean, what are "Youkai" in the context of Gensokyo? Most of them are either races taken from Japanese Mythology (Tanukis, Kitsunes, Kappas, etc...) or ACTUAL concepts taken from Japanese/Japanese resident mythology (take the MoF goddesses F.E, both of them take some stuff from lake Suwa and the things that are around it), sure it's not a 1 on 1 copy, but it wouldn't really be tasteful for the Japanese audience, now would it? Anyways, what I'm trying to say is, Gensokyo is basically a huge gathering of "faithless" concepts, basically how it goes is "Concept is in the Outside World > faith dwindles due to X reason > they 'die' > Gensokyo" So, take the idea into literally any other concept, and boom. Now you might say "Oh, but why isn't there any other concepts in Gensokyo appart from East-Asian mythos?" It's simple... ZUN doesn't give a shit (I know, lazy answer, but c'mon...) okay seriously though, it's just that ZUN makes shit ambiguous, and one of them is well...this entire discussion. Whatever, where am I going with all this? it's simple, way I see it, we're getting a Shin Megami Tensei scenario, if you don't know shit about the series, lemme give you the rundown... Demons from all mythos are somehow in the real world, depending on the games you have a "Demon summoning program" (DDS for short), basically lets you recruit demons, talk and negotiate with them, yada yada... How the world WORKS is different in most games, but the common thing is that humanity is getting the short end of the stick, and you have factions for the demons, Chaos, Neutral and Law as an oversimplification. so, how I see it is, once this barrier goes down, it's gonna be complete chaos for the next few days, y'know everyone fighting each other... the catch is, the Youkai we see in Gensokyo are much more civilized than...well, demons. so, after all the chaos dwindles, humanity doesn't get killed or simply "enslaved", they basically become bargaining chips and life sources for the Youkai. let's just group each "faction" and try to...quantify this shit : >Law : Well, it's not that simple, but how I see it, it's not just gonna be A God, but more like a council of Gods, or in this case Goddesses, you can put most Goddesses with an actual following in this category; Keiki, the Moriya girls, etc... >Neutral : These are gonna be the normal, but not generic Youkai, they're gonna work more with fear than simple faith, but we'll see how it'll work >Chaos : These...are basically New Hell, basically take the Yakuza BS they made, and boom! That's how I see it work, I'm really curious to hear from y'all, and y'know, if you agree with this schizo rambling at 3AM, you guys can put some characters in this "faction" system.

Poetic. I loved it. I'll go outside of the topic for a moment because I agree with that. It's a thing where your perspective of the world affects how you exist within it. So being optimistic or pessimistic don't change how things function, and only how they affect you. Also... we gotta have some spice of life to make things enjoyable, no matter what it is. Even if you look "autistic" while doing so. Being happy is often way more important than what some people think of you. Now back to the topic, I see your point. It's interesting to note that in this case, your singular perspective matters more than what other people think. So if you genuinely think that magic is real and your neighbor doesn't, you might be able to cast Fireball and he cannot. On the scenario proposed of the Great Barrier going down, that would convince some people that magic is real, so that wouldn't really be a problem here. It only sucks for non-believers, heh. It also impacts the total amount of people who are capable of doing so (abandoning your old beliefs isn't always an easy task), and how many would be convinced (or allow themselves to be convinced) that magic is real, thus letting them cast spells or not. I assume it takes more dedication than just simply believing, but if a high-school girl managed to do so, then our Council of Wizards shall rise. And thank you two for the extra input. I really wasn't aware of the Hifuu part of the lore.

Well the thing is, there's really nothing to disprove the existence of magic in the Outside World, i'm totally fine with magic being there, it clarifies Sumireko's entire thing with the occult powers, and strengthens Sanae's point The problem isn't with magic existing, it's with magic not being in modern times, you can point to a lot of things, the belief in science, atheism, or just that some things are forgotten, magic DOES exist in the Outside World, it's just that noone remembers and/or believe in them let's just take Sumi for example, by believing in the occult and making the Hifuu Sealing club, the faith and belief is there for the magic of the occult to work, leading to the games and the sleep bullshit. I'm not going to the hifuu CDs, since i have very limited knowledge of them, but what luki said, it's all about Believing.

Briefly, Gensokyo was created because people started losing faith and were able to racionalize the strange phenomena with science so the fear/belief of yokai was practically non-existent, meaning the yokai started to disapear. As you said, magic does exists in real life, but you have to BELIEVE in it. If you read Hifuu club stories you will see this theme, Maribel Hearn who BELIEVES in the magic is able to enter Gensokyo while Renko Usami who is really smart tries to RATIONALIZE the event with science and is not able to see anything. I would say that the moral of the story is that life without phantasy loses it´s MAGIC. It´s all about believing.

the youkai would survive due to the fact that people would fear them and their existence as they become visible to the world. You can say this is a cheap cope-out answer but I think the youkai would be annihalated by modern military capabilities. Even excluding the nuclear option what chance do most of these youkai have against the power of tanks, attack helicopters, tear gas and cluster bombs. Not to mention any illness that could fall upon them (of course this is assuming that youkai can be affected by human illnesses) due to the fact that the youkai have been isolated from the outside world for so long, new diseases could wipe them out easily. Now of course this only includes the low tier or mid tier youkai, F to B on tierlist terminology. Some like Yukari would be much harder to simply take down with force. Some sort of a contract would have to be established with the world governments. Maybe this contract will be secret and this will be covered up as some massive government conspiracy where people are secretly fed to these creatures somewhere in some underground chamber. Possibly death row prisoners, people deemed persons of interest by the government. Although now this is starting to sound like the SCP foundation. Thats all the ideas ive got. plenty of people here will have actually good ideas about the subject matter im just some dumbass