#God's weakest nerf tbh

[formaldehydefce]

Has anyone told the people that are allergic to peanuts that they really aren't missing that much?

[evilisk]

My Favorite Touhou Characters circa 2019

aka Here’s who I voted for this year’s popularity poll would have voted for if the Touhou Popularity Poll actually happened at the beginning of this year when I thought it was going to

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Here are my 7 character picks:

Seiga Kaku

Miko Toyosatomimino

Yoshika Miyako *new*

Okina Matara

Saki Kurokoma *new*

Mamizou Futatsuiwa

Yatsuhashi Tsukumo *new*

Explanations for Each Pick:

Seiga: Surprise surprise, the person with a Seiga avatar is a Seiga stan (is that how you use that word?). Seriously though, I don’t have time to get into it now, but I genuinely love Blue Chinese Necromancer. 

Miko: Still the best Stage 6 boss in the series tbh. The only bad thing you can say about her is that her TD theme is kinda boring, but HM fixes that with its rendition of True Administrator. Otherwise, she’s leader of the best faction (Taoists), has the best extended family (Kokoro, Okina, Saki), has the coolest spellcards and design etc.

Yoshika: It's shocking but yeah, I've never voted for Yoshika until now. Too many characters, not enough voting slots tbh. There's always been one revolving spot in my picks, it just so happens that Yoshika gets her turn this year (just as Futo got hers last year). Jiang-shi are cool yo

Okina: Last time, I voted Okina out of hype for her lore (being a Sage of Gensokyo on par with Kasen and Yukari) but this year, I’m voting for her because I now legit enjoy her character. ZUN revealing that Okina’s intended as a powerful god of the disabled and other discriminated is super cool (so is having her manhandle dumb Hell Gremlin in VFiS)

Saki: Wily Beast and Weakest Creature ended up having the most fun cast in a while, so choosing any character to rep them was hard. I couldn't decide between her, Kutaka and Yachie. Ended up deciding on Saki because a vote for Saki is a tertiary vote for the Taoists / Ten Desires (yeah, I like the Taoists / Ten Desires, sue me)

Mamizou: This is my second consecutive vote for the Tanuki (or it will be, once voting goes up). It’s amazing how much Forbidden Scrollery changed my opinion of Mamizou. She went from being one of my least favorite modern Touhou characters to “favorite Youkai character in the series”. She’s easily one of ZUN’s most well-realized characters, after Reimu, Marisa and Yukari.

Yatsuhashi: Last spot was pretty hard to pick. I ended up going with Yatsy because, dammit, the Tsukumo’s, especially Yatsy, don’t get enough appreciation! I feel like there’s so much missed potential with the Tsukumo’s. I mean, they’re were born because of / for a failed revolution. They’re literal Tools of Revolution. How can you not think up anything interesting with a starting point like that? smh, I really need to get into writing fanfic one of these days. But yeah, they’re getting a vote because the sisters have so much untapped potential.

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 Runner Ups:

Kaguya: Labyrinth of Touhou has slowly been changing my mind on Kaguya. She's too useful, like an easier to use version of Patchouli with more support capabilities. (NOTE: After playing LOT2, where she’s horribly nerfed, I will not be voting for her)

Any other Wily Beast Character: I really think the entire cast of WBaWC is perfect and while I could easily pick Saki for the Miko Connection, you cannot force me to pick between any of the others. I love the entire case.

Benben or Raiko: Already explained my reasoning for voting the Tsukumo’s but I specifically went with Yatsuhashi since she really gets the rough of it. I’ve actually voted Raiko before, so I didn’t feel a pressing need to include her, though I also think her “Horismriver” arc gives her more than the two Tsukumo’s. Benben doesn’t have it as good as Raiko, but Benben isn’t called “not-Yatsuhashi” like Yatsy is called “not-Benben” so yeah, easy vote there.

Marisa: Who the hell doesn't love Marisa? One of these days, we really gotta push for Marisa to reach first place. It is a disgrace that Koishi's managed to overthrow Reimu at least once yet our Ordinary Human Magician has never gotten to do so.

Kasen: This one's shocking to me since, for as long as I've been voting, I've been dedicating one of those votes to the Wild and Horned Hermit herself. I’m still kind of in shock at the idea that Kasen might never appear in a canon work again (as a latecomer to this series, I’ve literally never not known a time before WaHH). The combo of WaHH’s meh ending with Okina becoming more active lead to me not voting Kasen.

And that’s that. I’m not sure I’ll have the same list if / when we actually have a Popularity Poll this year. Labyrinth of Touhou 2 really changed my view of a bunch of characters. 

Here’s a list of other characters I’ve voted / considered voting (more for my own reference than anything else)

List of Previously Voted Characters (By Number of Times I’ve Voted Them)

Kasen Ibaraki

Yuuka Kazami

Aya Shameimaru

Yumemi Okazaki

Tewi Inaba

Ringo

Nemuno Sakata

Futo Mononobeno

Reimu Hakurei

Shorlist of Characters I’ve Always Liked, But Never Got Around to Voting (Because 7 Characters Of A 150 Character Cast Is A Stupidly Small Amount)

Kaguya Houraisan *new*

Yachie Kicchou *new*

Kutaka Niwatari *new*

Hong Meiling

Youmu Konpaku

Kanako Yasaka

Parsee Mizuhashi

Tojiko Sogano

Raiko Horikawa

Benben Tsukumo

Yatsuhashi Tsukumo

Akyuu Hiedano

Kosuzu Motoori

Marisa Kirisame

Elly