#and now for something different from kogasa

[lilycoris]

[inversionimpulse]

Something that's frequently emphasized in Shinto literature that I've read (there is no one Shintoism, so I don't mean to say that this is some kind of Truth, but it is prominent in several schools of thought) is that a god is not a distinct kind of being per se.

Rather, all expressions of musubi (Instead of wasting time on the full theology, let's just go with some Skillful Means here: you ever watch Star Wars or play Final Fantasy 7? Yeah that's close enough) with distinct identity and direction are gods. Since all material and immaterial things in the world are expressions of musubi, all distinct things in the world are gods or at least have the souls of gods within them. Even things as small as the words we write and speak. Now it is convenient to reserve the word "god" for gods of a particular scale, but all things share the same essential divine nature.

Touhou takes a weaker form of this stance, tending to prefer to present gods as a distinct category, but never failing to acknowledge the divinity inherent in even things as small as a person's passing desires and the potential of these things to become gods given favourable conditions (or to cease to be distinct from other divinities, as the aforementioned passing desires may or may not have done with Miko).

(it is, after all, somewhat hard to have tsukumogami without the idea that all things possess divine souls, since as far as I know most current forms of the folklore are founded on the idea of the god of the tool becoming restless)

So what makes, E.G., Sanae different isn't that she's a divinity. On an ontological level, her divinity isn't special. Kosuzu, Kogasa, or a particularly nice-looking rock have the same inner divine nature. It's just that, to paraphrase an obsolete adage about longbowmen, "if you want to raise a goddess, start with her grandmother." It's a kind of path dependence, where decisions made long ago constrain our choices today: Kogasa was born onto the path of a tool, and there would be a cost to choosing to change paths to godhood; Kosuzu could become a god but, having been born a mere middle-class villager, probably couldn't do so on her own; a rock could easily become a god, but it cannot choose to do so, and must be elevated by someone else. Sanae, by contrast, was born onto a divine path and would have to choose against godhood.

If people were actually born blank slates equally able to conduct themselves in any direction according to nothing but their own will, as many classical liberal (in the philosophical sense, not the political sense) individualists would like to think, Sanae could well be outshone by mere stone.

... I was building to a point here. Do you know what it was? I think I've forgotten.

It can't have just been comparing Sanae unfavourably to a rock, can it?

[sneakyscarab]

alrighty, ive now caught up from my backlog of touhous that ive beaten, so the pace from now on is gonna slow down since i need to beat the games first before i write about them. who knows though, if they take as long as this one did maybe i can keep up this pace :P

nina's thoughts on Touhou 12 - Undefined Fantastic Object

so funny story, after Subterranean Animism took me like two weeks to finish, i went into UFO expecting a similar result, but i ended up clearing within a single day. twelve (12) attempts of UFO and i had already got my 1cc! im a bit impressed with myself tbh, but i think i was helped by the gameplay changes in UFO that make it a bit easier.

for starters, real bombs are back baby! no more trading attack power for survivability, full power bombs are here again as a seperate resource. life pieces stick around, but now boss fights only give one out when you defeat their last phase. you would think this makes life pieces incredibly scarce, but theres another entirely new source for them: the titular Undefined Fantastic Objects. some enemies now drop little ufos that fly around the screen that come in one of three colours. when you pick up a ufo it goes into a small tracker in the corner, and when you collect 3 in a row all of one colour, or 1 of each, then a Big UFO spawns on screen. the UFO sticks around for about 10 seconds, slurping up every collectible that shows up onscreen. for each item it grabs, a meter around the ufo fills up and at max it drops an item depending on the colour, and when destroyed it drops another item plus everything it picked up. rainbow ufos drop more small ufos, green gives you a bomb on full meter and a bomb-piece on kill, red gives you a life piece on both, and blue does… something? i don't know. i never saw any items pop out of a blue ufo, and i prioritized blue ufos the least. i can only assume they do something relating to points since those are blue, but i honestly have no idea cause i beat the game before i had to go look anything up about it. once i figured out red guys gave you life i basically hard-focused proc'ing red ufos as much as possible, going for rainbow or green when red wasnt possible. as weird as the ufos are, i have to say their mechanics are conveyed surprisingly well without any real tutorials or even words, just really solid ui design.

the last new addition to the gameplay comes in the playable characters, Sanae is here now! wooo Sanae lets go! obviously Reimu and Marisa are here too, each of them get 2 weapon options so theres still only 6 total. i gave each one a shot, although some of them i literally only played once lol. Reimu has the standard homing shots and needles, Marisa has her illusion lasers but a new secondary weapon that shoots in sort of branching V-shapes, with a couple shots going behind her as well as in front, which i didnt find many uses for in my brief experience with it. illusion laser is the only one of these that i played more than once, as i put most of my focus into Sanae. both of Sanae's movesets are pretty neat, her first one was my weapon of choice for my 1cc attempt. based on Kanako, she shoots out snake beams that fly vertically, and then if they see an enemy to their left or right they take a 90 degree turn, making for an interesting type of homing. her other set, based on Suwako, shoots out frog beams in a wide fan angle, or straight ahead when focused, that explode into lingering AoE damage when they hit a target, which is great at clearing out huge swarms of enemies. i really like how her movesets sorta play off of Reimu's homing shots and Marisa's piercing lasers, but in very different ways compared to the two of them.

for the new characters, my favourite is probably Kogasa. this poor umbrella girl just wants to be scary, but shes inherently too silly-goofy and struggles to do what she as a youkai is Supposed to do. she's trying her best though, and looks adorable while doing it. i believe in you Kogasa!

i wasn't expecting to be a Ichirin & Unzan fan, but they surprised me. Ichirin is basically a stand user, a buddhist monk who controls her partner Unzan, a old man wind spirit with a powerful beard and even more powerful fists. the spell cards involving Unzan are great, seeing his huge angry face show up and throw hands is just hilarious. the best one by far though is their final attack, what i would call the absolute funniest spell card of the entire series so far: Thunderous Yell 「A Scolding from a Traditional Old Man」. if the name alone didn't convince you, the visuals are also hilarious, with two massive Unzan faces appearing on each side of the screen and shooting angry eye lasers at you. just look at it. perfection.

it's become a pattern in these posts that i talk about three new characters, but none of the others in UFO really stood out to me. if i had to pick one id go with Captain Murasa, just cause pirates are cool, but i don't have much more to say about her lol. sorry UFO crew!

anyways i think its about time to wrap this one up. thankfully i kept this one short so we dont have another SA essay situation lol. UFO is pretty fun, if a little bit Too easy with how much free stuff you can get from good ufo management. the story and characters really didn't stand out to me, and with how quickly i finished this one i don't expect it to really stick out much in my brain once i finish the series. if anything from UFO sticks it probably will just be Unzan's laser eyes. can we play that back one more time? thanks.

[tribow]

It's 2014 and this marks the release of Impossible Spell Card! There's a break of activity going on in the canon, but Seija continues to be an active antagonist for the time being.

This gives plenty of time for the characters in Double Dealing Character to get different interpretations in the fanon. So here's what happened in 2014:

Characters keep forgetting Ichirin exists so she tries very hard to be involved in anything.

Kagerou is commonly shipped with Wakasagihime.

Wakasagihime has to deal with many characters (especially Kagerou) trying to eat her

Futo has gotten a lot more competent during this year and isn't portrayed as child-like at all now. She's more like Miko's uncontrollable and self-appointed lackey now.

Sekibanki has a similar situation to Kogasa where she's trying to scare people and fails often. Her success rate is much higher than Kogasa's though.

Rinnousuke gets a surprisingly large amount of works this year.

The Grassroots Youkai Network are mostly used as a comedy trio and nothing more this year. A little dissappointing for a lore hunter like me.

Seija is commonly depicted to be able to reverse concepts/intangible things. (For a silly example, reversing their sexual preference)

This slowly happened over time, but Nue is getting commonly depicted as a kid or young teenager. (Think of it as like her being the youngest in the Myouren family).

If I had a nickel for every western drama parodied in a touhou doujin manga this year I would have two nickels! (It was NCIS and House)

Hitting Raiko gets you a drum sound.

Sanae tends to battle Seija much more seriously due to not being playable.

Orin is still at the Hakurei Shrine it seems.

Shinmyoumaru can eat a lot!

Yukari is not very forgiving of Seija as she sees her as a danger to Gensokyo. Usually gets told to chill out by Shinmyoumaru or Reimu.

The relationship between Shinmyoumaru and Seija is usually romantic.

Been witnessing a pattern of the artists doing official touhou manga making yuri touhou doujins in their free time.

I WISH I had something to say about Raiko, Benben, and Yatsuhashi, but their depictions in fanon this year rarely ever change much from canon. Even when it does, it was never something that I saw become a trend.

Surprisingly, I don't have much to say. Seija and Shinmyoumaru completely drown out the other DDC cast.

Scichil (Hokuto) pops off with their doujin manga: Vector Spectacle. It's such a good read, definitely my favorite from this year.

No idea what's in store for 2015, but I'm expecting another big shift in status quo.

[megumu-iizunamaru]

TH17.5 Gouyoku Ibun Speculation & Talk

Hello everyone, happy Gouyoku Ibun release month! I'm going to write my thoughts about this game because it's been living rent free in my mind since they first teased it!!

The Story

So first off I want to talk about the story and what's it's going to be like. According to Zun's tweet; the game is going to have "the most devastating storyline you've ever seen." Now this could be just Zun hyping us up, but considering the plot of WBaWC, and how the yakuza are involved in this game too, the story could as well be devastating. Maybe not in the sense that a character is going to die or something lol.. but the events of the game are going to impact Gensokyo and future games. The inclusion of Kanako kinda supports my theory, because she has been involved in many storylines that have impacted Gensokyo a lot, like bringing nuclear energy to the realm, taking over Yokai Mountain and basically starting the religious "war".

The implied final boss of this game, Toutetsu, who is the leader of Gouyoku Alliance aka the eagle clan, is a Taotie which is a creature associated with greed. My guess is that Toutetsu is like a greedy businesswoman who will end up having some sort of business agreement with Kanako which will impact Gensokyo in some way or another. Will it be oil related? Who knows!

The Game

About the game itself, I think the game is going to have 6-8 stages per each character. It's a safe number to go with because every mainline game has 7 stages (excluding PCB and PoFV) and every spin-off game made by Tasofro has about 5 to 6 stages.

Judging by what we have seen in the demos and in the trailers, I think each stage has 2 bosses, which depend on the character you are playing. Stage 1 has Reimu or Marisa, stage 2 has Yamame or Kogasa and Stage 4 has Kanako or Murasa. The only stage without a known second boss is stage 3, but we haven't seen who Kanako or Murasa encounter in it yet.

Now it's possible that I could be totally wrong because we haven't seen who Kanako and Murasa encounter in the first stage and it would get very repetitive if you always have to fight Reimu or Marisa at the first stage.

Also if every stage except the final stage has 2 bosses, there would possibly be around 14 characters. But if I recall correctly, Zun said in a tweet (couldn't find the tweet so i could be wrong, sorry!) that the game is going to have a lot of characters, so it's possible.

The Characters

And that brings us to the remaining bosses, who could they be? I think it's safe to assume from what we've seen, the game focuses on the characters from MoF to UFO, so from 10 to 12. But it's very possible that characters from different games appear as well (mainly WBaWC because the game is related it). There seems to be a water theme going on as well.

So, I think the potential characters we will see are:

Parsee Mizuhashi: She is the bridge keeper of Former Hell and I think she is a fine candidate to be the other boss of stage 3. She is the only non-Chireiden character from SA we haven't seen yet, and she has connections to the Former Capital which is the location of the 3rd stage.

Komachi Onozuka: Now what would a Hell related, water themed game be without our beloved ferryman of the Sanzu River. Komachi has a lot potential to be a boss in this game because of its connections to Hell. Eiki asked Youmu about about Yachie, so I think Komachi could have started to do some investigating on her own (which also means skipping work).

Urumi Ushizaki: A water related oni? Perfect for 17.5! Meanwhile she may not have any known connections to the Former Hell or the underground, she could have a lovely cameo if there is a stage located at the Sanzu River. She works with extinct giant fish and plesiosaurs who would definitely be bothered by the oil gushing out of the ground. Could also work as a playable character.

Yachie Kicchou, Saki Kurokoma, Mayumi Joutoguu and Keiki Haniyasushin: I think it's most likely that at least one of these characters is going to appear. Yachie and Saki have a rivalry with Toutetsu, and Mayumi and Keiki oppose her.

If you ask me, Saki and Mayumi would be the most likely out of these four. Saki is already interested in visiting Gensokyo meanwhile Yachie is probably busy running the Beast Realm and being a horrible person in general. Mayumi and Keiki seem to have a very Youmu and Yuyuko like dynamic, so it makes sense Keiki would send her off to protect Gensokyo. But I wouldn't be surprised if Keiki decided to show up herself.

Characters that I personally would want: Seiga Kaku: She seems like a person who would be interested in the oil and imo she needs more screen time. Maybe she could have a competition with Yachie to see which is a nastier person.

Nue Houjuu: She needs more screen time!! she was so underutilized in the occult legend arc!! also she already is familiar with former hell and following Murasa around, so why not?

Hecatia Lapislazuli: Oh come on, who doesn't want to see Hecatia? It would be interesting to see her opinion on the Beast Realm and them kinda invading Gensokyo.

Eiki Shiki, Yamaxanadu: In my opinion it would be a wasted opportunity to not hear her thoughts about the Beast Realm, and it was already shown she had interest in Yachie.

Last Thoughts

I am VERY excited for this game. When I heard it was going to be related to WBaWC, I was already sold!

The inclusion of Kanako and Murasa was imo a very smart and nice move. Kanako always brings out these juicy lore things in Touhou and it's nice to see Murasa come back after 12 whole years.

I already love the music, and I am very excited to hear the rest. The stage backgrounds of this game look so nice and I am very into the art style of the character sprites.

Lastly but not certainly the least, I am more than excited to see Toutetsu. She sounds like an absolute bastard, which is a character type I LOVE. The yakuza were such a good addition to the cast, and having one do nasty things that would affect the story of the whole franchise sounds so interesting! Also her whole concept, an ancient beast being a yakuza ruling over a realm is SO good. As an art history nerd, I hope Zun includes bronze vessel aspects in her design.

I hope everyone enjoys Gouyoku Ibun once it releases! Tasofro worked on it so hard during the pandemic and I'm sure the game will be great!

[takerfoxx]

When trying to write a big balloon of good feelings with the EXPRESS INTENTION of bursting it... how big is too big before it's just cruel?

A very good question, and it comes down to purpose, execution, and follow-through.

Now, given my history and reputation, those sorts of situations are something of my forte, and I’ve had a lot of experience and trial and error to work things out, so here’s how you get maximum impact out of your dark, cruel plot-twists.

First, ask yourself why are you doing this? Is it purely for shock value, or does it serve some greater purpose for the plot and characters? If it’s the second, then go ahead and skip to the next section. If it’s the first, then go ahead and put that idea back in the oven because it’s totally not ready yet.

Look, as a writer, I get the appeal of shock value. Shock value got Imperfect Metamorphosis on the map. Shock value is in my blood. But if all you have is that shock and nothing else, then it’s shock value for shock value’s sake, which is just shallow and useless. You want to shock and disturb, yes, but you also want your audience to keep going to find out what happens next! Dangle that emotional catharsis in front of them! Give them some measure of hope that this is leading somewhere satisfying! Even stories like Chinatown and The Mist, which ended with the protagonists losing in horrible ways despite all their efforts, still felt like they were saying something bigger about the human existence and didn’t feel like they were cheating the audience.

For example: Marisa’s death in IM. I’ll freely admit, the idea first occurred to me and became part of the plan for the shock value, a way to throw down the gauntlet and show that no one is safe. But since the idea came to me early in IM’s run, I had literal years to refine the idea, build towards it, and map out how the fallout would go down, so that by the time it came around, it had turned into an essential part of the plot, from which the rest of the story would lead.

See, here’s the thing you need to understand about dark plot twists: they follow the same rule as edgy humor that breaks societal taboo. And that is this: the twist is not the payoff; the twist is the set-up. Think of the difference of between a rookie “comedian” who thinks that saying shocking things that you’re not supposed to say constitutes as “funny” and those who are offended just don’t have a sense of humor, and a genuine master like George Carlin, who used edge subject matter and taboo breaking not as the punchline, but as the set-up to the bigger joke and thus earn the big laughs when he managed to land the punchline and say something bigger about the topic at hand. It’s a wire act without a net, something that is spectacular if you can pull it off and lead to something greater, but will end in disaster if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Now, let’s move onto the next part: execution. Here you have to be careful, because while it’s perfectly acceptable (and in fact encouraged) to break the rules and conventions of the story’s genre, you still have to ensure that it’s keeping with your story’s internal consistency and rules, and that it makes sense! You want such-and-such a character to betray their friends and turn bad guy? Okay, but it has to make sense and be consistent with their backstory and motivations. You want to pull the rug out from under the heroes and ruin everything they had been working toward? Okay, but it has to be consistent with the rules that you had set up.

I’ll give you a few examples. Now, Game of Thrones might be in the doghouse due the dumpsterfire of a final season, but there was a time when it was upheld as the gold standard of dark plot twists, with the two big examples being Ned Stark’s execution and the Red Wedding. The reason why those moments were so shocking and effective wasn’t because they came out of nowhere, but because they broke the conventional rules of storytelling. OF COURSE the main character would survive! They even gave him an out by having him sentence to the Wall where his bastard son was, where they would no doubt reunite and plan their next steps! Ned’s the hero, after all! Except no, this isn’t that kind of story, Joffrey is still a sociopathic narcissist, doing what sociopathic narcissists do.

And the Red Wedding? OF COURSE it would work! Walder Frey had accepted the compromise, and we’ve put a lot of time and investment in Rob and Cate and their retainers. Rob was practically the new main character, and the driving force against the Lannisters. What was more, he was winning, and he was going to keep winning, even with his one or two slip-ups...except no, he wasn’t, because he had been warned about Walder Frey’s easily bruised ego, he had broken his word, so there was going to be consequences when the Frey’s cut a deal with the Lannisters, so welcome to Medieval-style skullduggery!

Hell, you can have some real fun with this too! And if I may toot my own horn, let’s look at the most recent dark twist from IM: the return of the Shadow Youkai.

Now, I know what my reputation is, and what people expect from me. As such, I can use those expectations to play a sort of follow-the-cup game with the plot. Everyone knew that the Shadow Youkai wasn’t gone for good; the epilogue of Fires of the Sun pretty much showed that. But no one knew when she’d be back, and that let’s me play with expectations a bit.

So I put together a big beach trip, where Rin takes all of her friends, new and old, out into public. And since this is Rin’s story, everyone expects it to go wrong. She expects it to go wrong. Because things always go wrong for Rin!

Sure enough, here comes Hong Meiling and Koakuma, two people with reasons to ruin Rin’s life! Surely they’ll catch and bust her! In fact, it turns out that Koakuma is Elis’s cousin, so surely that would mean she would...except no, they have a short chat, Koakuma doesn’t expose them, and they all go their separate ways. Nothing happens.

Oh shit, here comes Reimu! Not only does she know Rin, she also knows everyone in Team Nineball, and has fought most of the other girls as well! This isn’t good, how will Rin wriggle out of this (no pun intended)...except she doesn’t need to. Reimu and Rin’s various friends walk right past each other over and over without noticing, she chitchats with Hong Meiling and Koakuma for a bit, and then she’s called away to the next chapter’s plot. Rin never even so much as realizes that Reimu was there. Nothing happens.

But wait! Flandre is still a problem, and Seija’s still loose out there! And there she is, taking advantage of Rin’s absence to trigger Flandre’s madness! Surely THIS is the big disaster that’ll...except no, Kogasa quickly gets Seija to piss off and Wriggle coaxes Flandre back to sleep. Nothing happens.

Wait, the beach party was...a success? Nothing bad happened? Everyone had fun and made friends like they were supposed to? And it ends with Rin actually saving a stranger’s life and getting praised for it? Which story was I reading again?

Oh hey, there’s Minoriko, someone who hasn’t been seen a long time, and she says that Hina successfully devoured the Shadow Youkai’s essence, so there’s nothing to worry about. Well, that’s a relief! Strange though that a little curse goddess could handle something of the Shadow Youkai’s caliber, seeing how Sariel already mentioned how unsafe it is to use anything other than the original sword to do so, and how Rhapsody of Subconscious Desire already established that the Shadow Youkai is capable of taking over a secondary host, provided that she had access to their subconscious, and-

Click.

Boom.

So if you’re going to do it, make sure you set up believable reasons why it would happen in advance, even if the audience doesn’t notice them at first. Otherwise, you get Vince Russo’s booking of late-90′s WCW, where everyone was switching allegiances on a dime left and right just for the sake of having a SHOCKING SWERVE! Remember: it’s a highwire act without a net. Know what you’re doing.

Also, for the love of God, if you’re going to have a bad guy do a really bad, shocking thing in one part of the story but later join the good guys later on, don’t just sweep said bad thing under the rug. If Cain the Bloodspiller butchers little Timmy in book one but becomes Cammy the Bloodsaver in book five, then don’t let little Timmy be forgotten. Make sure that there’s still consequences.

And finally, the follow-through. Justify this shocking twist. Have it mean something. Take your time to explore the consequences. Show how it affects the characters. Dig deep into their psyches and make it feel real. The reason people STILL talk about Aeris’s death in Final Fantasy 7 is that the gameplay itself was designed to make you feel her loss, both from the viewpoint of the characters and you, the player.

One of my favorite dark twists is Mami’s death in PMMM, because it follows all of these conditions and does so spectacularly. It sets up how dangerous fighting witches is and explains that someone could really die while doing it, while tricking us into not expecting that to happen by already showing us how Mami kicks ass and establishing her as a main character with a promise to form a lasting bond with Madoka right before pulling the trigger. And afterward, it takes the time to really dig into the consequences of her death, from Madoka’s depression to Sayaka’s increased recklessness to being the catalyst that brought Kyoko into the story in the first place. Everything that happens after does so as a result of that moment.

So yeah, by all means, do that shocking thing, but make sure you put in the work to both earn and justify it.

[icedfairy]

Day 2  : Games

"I think Cirno's the human," Kagerou said, studying the fairy carefully.

"Uh, no I'm not!  I'm totally a strong youkai!" Cirno replied, refusing to look anyone in the eyes.  The lie was obvious of course.

"I vote to eat Cirno," Sekibanki said.

"Eat Cirno," Kogasa agreed.

"Vote Cirno."  Wakasagihime finished the game with a smile.

Cirno pouted and stomped.  "How did you know?!"

"Luck," Kagerou lied.  She looked outside at the pouring rain.  The storm had sadly kept away most of the players.  Kogasa and Wakasagihime of course didn't care, but five people didn't make for a good game of 'eat the human.'  Especially if one of the players was a fairy.

Wakasagihime sensed her frustration.  "Maybe we could try out a different game?"

"A great idea."  The shopkeeper, Rinnousuke appeared in their midst.  That was surprising.  Normally he stayed out of the back room when they were playing.  "And I have just the thing for it!  Behold!"

He pulled out a large box with art of a creepy looking mansion on the front.  Bold letters proclaimed, 'Betrayal at house on the hill,' in romanji.

"What's that?" Cirno asked.

Rinnousuka adjusted his glasses.  "It's a board game.  Like Suguroku.  But much more modern.  It's about a bunch of humans who find themselves in a haunted house and then one of them reveals themselves as a youkai."

"Ooh."  Everyone peered intensly at the box.  That did sound like an interesting game.

"Only thirty five zenny," Rinnousuke said with a grin.

So that was the angle.  Ah well, it was pretty cheap.  And it was probably the only thing that would save game night from fairy antics.  Kagerou counted out the coins.  "Here you go."

"Thank you for your patronage."  Rinnousuke said as he handed over the box.

"Would you like to join us?"  Wakasagihime asked.  Ah that was their 'hime.  Always reaching out to others.

Rinnousuke seemed surprised, but looked out at the storm before nodding.  "I suppose I could join for one game.  I can help with the rules."

"The rules?"  Kagerou opened the box to reveal a ton of papers, cardboard cutouts and other items.  "EH?!"

"Wow, that's thicker then Aya's newspaper," Cirno said.

Sekibanki shook a head.  "Well, this'll take some time to work out."

Kogasa started pulling out the pieces.  "Well I bet these are seperate."

Setting up the game took some time, with Rinnousuke needed to expain the rules often.  At least it was in Japanese.

Finally however they managed to get everything set up and began selecting characters.  Rinnousuke grabbed the doctor.  "He looks smart."

"I'll take her, she looks pretty," Wakasagi said grabbing the fortune teller.

Kagerou looked over them.  "I'll grab the creepy doll girl."  If she looked like Alice she was bound to be the secret youkai, right?

The game began, and things started to get interesting fast.  The slow exploration of the house was peppered with surprises.

"A chute?" Kogasa said as she flipped a tile.  "Agh! I'm stuck in the basement?!"

"Oh an item."  Banki looked at the card.  "Dynomite?  What am I going to do with Dynomite?"

Cirno grinned as she ended up in the gym.  "Awesome!  Now I'm totally the strongest!"

"So when's the youkai appear?" Kagerou asked as she prowled the top floor.

"Probably soon," Rinnousuke said.  "Chances are good we'll get a haunt-"

Wakasagihime revealed a room.  "Oh!  Omen.  Let's see."  She tossed the dice.

"Now," Rinnousuke said as the faced ended up blank.

Wakasagihime grabbed the rulebook and looked over it.  "Ahaha!  I'm a werewolf!"  She grinned at Kagerou.  "Gonna eat you~"

Kagerou snorted, then looked at the board.  She was very close.  "Uh oh..."

She began running away really fast, towards the other members.  "Uh, I need some help.”

Rinnousuke adjusted his glasses.  “Sorry.  I can’t beat her.”

Sekibanki shrugged.  “Too far.”

Banki looked over.  “I used my dynamite on the vault so sorry.”

“I can help!” Cirno said.

Kagerou looked over at the fairy.  Then back at the board.  “Maybe I can get to the front door.  She muttered.”

The group scattered, looking for something to escape the ‘werewolf’ among them.  Kagerou was pretty sure she was safe, but when she looked up she saw Wakasagihime was smiling.

“Rawr!” the mermaid said, moving her piece to Kagerou’s and rolling an obscene amount of dice.  “Gotcha~!”

Kagerous looked down at her doom.  “Uh...”  She rolled her own dice, and was greeted with confirmation of her doom.  “I got eaten.”

Wakasagihime pounced on her.  “Om nom nom!”

Kagerou blushed as the mermaid nibbled on her neck.

“Save it for later,” Sekibanki muttered.

“You’re next~!” Wakasagihime said cheerily.

‘Banki looked at the board.  “Ah crap.”

Kagerou watched as Wakasagihime chased down the other players.  “You’re a good werewolf,” she said as Kogasa fell into the mermaid’s claws.

“Thanks!”  She grinned and moved her piece again.  “And now you Cirno.”  The dice dropped.

Cirno nodded and grabbed an even bigger pool.  Everyone blinked.  “Wait, you can’t have that many dice,” Sekibanki said.

“I can too!  I’m the strongest!”  Kagerou was about to roll her eyes, but the fairy pointed to her character.  “I have the axe, and I spent all that time in the gym!  My strength is maxed!”

The dice hit the ground and everyone stared at the startling truth before them.  Wakasagihime looked at the sheet and said, “Um, I think she killed me.”

Kagerou shook her head at the conclusion to the ‘werewolf’ hunt.  “I should have known it was too good to be true.  There’s always a hidden shrine maiden.”

“At least Reimu and Sanae don’t use axes,” Wakasagihime said.

[rabbiteclair]

skaiandestiny replied to your post: I am drunk and playing Rollercoaster Tycoon 2...

What’s Mariali Day and Umbrella about? Also AliceYukari

That’s a lot of things!

Mariali Day is, perhaps not surprisingly, my last-minute attempt to write a fic for mariali day. In 2014. ... I’m actually not sure what happened with it. I got most of a short story in there, then just kinda abandoned it. It’s basically a one-shot thing about Marisa getting injured, showing up at Alice’s house, and crashing there while she heals.

There isn’t a lot to say about the AliceYukari one. I tried writing a story. About Yukari showing up at Alice’s house and taking her on a date to go ‘look, you’re on the youkai side now, so you need to act like it.’ I only wrote about 900 words of it, most of which was Alice’s thoughts on traveling via gap for the first time. Most of it got recycled into Teeth and Claws.

Umbrella is a story about Kogasa wandering around the human village trying different jobs to try to find a spot to fit in. I wrote a few thousand words of it, but abandoned it when it turned out that it wasn’t really going anywhere.

I remain happy with the intro, though.

"Urameshiya!" Kogasa Tatara leapt out of her hiding spot along the side of the road and landed with her umbrella held aloft, with both its eye and her own red eye glowing in the evening gloom. It was, she liked to think, a very scary thing to do. The humans she'd chosen to spook, an elderly couple out for an evening stroll, did not seem to agree. The two peered at her blankly for several seconds, until the old man finally cupped one hand to his ear. "Eh? What'd she say?" "She said, 'urameshiya,' dear." The man frowned thoughtfully at this. "Urashima? I thought he was dead." "No, dear. Urameshiya." The couple fell into quiet arguing about whether or not Urashima was alive, with Kogasa looking on in bewilderment. After a few seconds, she had to relax her pose. Standing like that for too long was just tiring. The karakasa lowered her umbrella to rest on one shoulder while she watched the bickering, until she politely cleared her throat to draw their attention back toward her. "Um. You... you don't seem very scared." "Eh?" The pair of humans turned to look toward the youkai for the first time in easily fifteen seconds, The man peered over her thoughtfully, then asked, "Are we s'posed to be?" "Well. Um. Yes. I mean. I'm a youkai, and I just jumped out at you." The man glanced to his wife, who helpfully repeated, a bit more loudly, "She says she's a youkai, dear." "Oh! A youkai, huh? Explains why yer umbrella's got eyes." He nodded to himself at this profound insight, then pursed his lips in consideration for a moment before continuing. "... so why should we be scared? You got big claws or somethin'?" He adjusted his spectacles and leaned forward to get a better look at her. Kogasa didn't seem too pleased by this, and shied backward while moving her umbrella to partially shield her body. "W-well, no, but I'm still a youkai. That's pretty scary, right?" "Hmm? ... hon, remember Saito, and that youkai wolf that saved him that one time during the snowstorm?" "Oh! Yes. That wolf, she was such a dear." The old woman turned to Kogasa with a smile. "Led him home, protected his house while he recovered, and didn't want any thanks except a good meal." "Yep, yep. Really opened my eyes, that did. The way I figger it, youkai aren't too different from normal folks." The man nodded again, apparently proud of this egalitarian outlook. Kogasa wasn't nearly as happy about all of this. "Well, okay, I guess some youkai are like that. ... but... but what if was a bad youkai? There are youkai who eat people's bones, or flay off their skin, or give them years of bad luck! I could be one of them!" "Well, you don't look like that kind. ... are you one of them?" "... well. No. ... b-but I'm still pretty scary!" The man nodded at this, then scratched his chin in thought as he inspected the karakasa again. Before he could come to any verdict, though, his wife interrupted by tugging at the sleeve of his haori. "Dear, it's getting dark. We should head back home." "Hmm?" The man glanced upward at the sky, then back down at Kogasa. "Ah. So it is. Well, miss youkai, you have a good evening, y'hear? You want my advice, don't go jumpin' out at people. You might trip and scrape yer knee or something." With that, he hooked his arm back through his wife's, and the pair turned to leave. Kogasa stared at the retreating pair incredulously, then took a few steps to hurry after them. "H-hey, wait, no, I lied! I am the scary kind of youkai! I... I... eat people's skin, and flay them and things!" The pair turned to face her again, and this time, they had a little bit of fear in their expressions. To the karakasa, it was almost intoxicating. Reckless in her victory, Kogasa added, "A-and I once gave a man ten... fifteen years of bad luck!" The two glanced at each other, then back to Kogasa uncertainly. After a moment's hesitation, the woman said, "Well... would you please not do that to us?" Kogasa's tempo was disrupted again. This was not what she had been expecting. "Um. I won't, but..." "Ah! Good. Thank you very much." The woman shot her a beatific smile, and the two turned to leave again. This time, Kogasa didn't bother to chase after them.

[tsuitouu]

[ KOGASA ] Alteo - Part 4 [ August 23rd ]

Kei’s picture didn’t seem to move, even when time did.

Even when he did.

Kogasa slowly knelt in front of the photograph, careful not to disturb the bundle in his arms. A wry smile came to his face.

“Hey.”

Ke’s eyes stared on.

“It’s been a while. … Don’t look now, but I got you something.”

He gently set the small pot of blue hydrangeas in front of the photo. His face fell after a beat of silence.

“Don’t get the wrong idea. I still don’t like you, and I don’t feel like changing my opinion about you any time soon.” He nodded towards the pot of flowers. “This’… this’ for me more than you.”

He crossed his arms.

“It’s been three… - three and a half?… - years since I played your game. I was… a really different person back then.” He looked off to one side. “… I was trying to be the kind of person my dad wanted to be; someone who killed his feelings in order to rise above peoples’ expectations. A protector who never faltered, no matter what came his way. All the stuff he… wasn’t.”

…

“… The boy who died back then… he was trying too hard to be someone he’s not.”

He was not, nor would he ever be, what Hiraoka Mamoru wanted from him.

“… But we both knew that already, huh?” Kogasa shook his head. “And yet, I became afraid of the things he was scared of, too. Letting people down, not being able to protect people, never being strong enough… I hate it when I can’t be the person my friends and family need most. And that… made me do the same mistakes he did, I think.”

He’s pushed so many people away in the past. He’s hurt his friends so many times. He’s placed Amaryllis’ life in danger more than once - and he never be someone who can truly protect her, even if he wanted to.

“… I sometimes think that, without even trying, I’ve become an echo of what he was.”

…

“… Yet… somehow… I’m still alive, and I’m with all of people that matter to me. Even when I make mistakes, and even when they see me fail, people stay. And… and they love me. A lot.”

His hands rest against his lap, and he stares at the faint scars along them.

“… I don’t know what you saw in me all those years ago. … I’m scared to know.” A humorless laugh left him. “But… whatever you saw - whatever told you to keep me alive long enough to get this far… I appreciate it.”

…

Kogasa inhaled.

“… Seriously, why do I keep talking to you? It’s not like you’re going to tell me anything worthwhile.”

He got up to his feet and dusted himself off. He stared at Kei’s photo, words forming and disappearing in his head for a moment longer, before he quietly bowed his head and left.

[takerfoxx]

“Fires of the Sun, Part 6″ Thoughts

I know this is coming late, but i had a busy weekend. Stupid million sport games and most of my coworkers calling out.

I'm going to skim over most of the opening scene, as there's little to add, and just comment on the bit where the Dragons accidentally barbecue the mob. I went back and forth on whether or not to go through with that, as I've been trying to pull away from grimdark plot twists. One possibility was to have them break up out of the ground when Yukari was exploring the ruins of Mugenkan and unknowingly attack her, and have Yuuka reform and go after her with the mordite blade when she was distracted. But in the end, I went with this direction because A, I needed to keep Yukari and co. busy for a little while longer so Rin could wrap things up with Sakuya, and B, Mima's plan needed to succeed in a major way. Thus far, only Patchouli ended up falling victim to her revenge scheme, and with Satori's rescue her dupes actually ended up netting something of a profit. So having her successfully rack up a huge amount of collateral damage and put it on Yukari's shoulders helped cement her as a dangerous antagonist and set up Yukari's attempts to take her down in the future.

Rin and Flandre's cute little celebration helped establish a few points. First, in a callback to her misunderstanding how handshakes work during her meeting with Utsuho, Flandre not getting high fives really is clueless about how to interact with people. Even going beyond her fits of destructive rage, she doesn't know about handshakes, doesn't know how high fives work, and just doesn't get how to function as a normal person. She's never had the opportunity to learn. I personally feel that, once you get past her psychotic episodes, she really is a sweet girl at heart. This is further emphasized by her and Rin's reactions to Yuuka's "death." Rin didn't feel bad one little bit, while Flandre immediately was hit by guilt. Not to say that Rin should have felt bad. Hell, I don't think anyone would claim that Yuuka was someone worth shedding tears over. Still, it does sort of show that, despite their similarities, they're sort of developing in opposite directions. Rin started off as meek and scared and really hesitant to hurt anyone, and now she's finally run out of fucks to give and gladly dishes out beatdowns when the situation calls for it. Flandre was violently unpredictable at best, far more prone to berserker rages before Rin unlocked the Adult personality, but now feels terrible for contributing to anyone's death, even a monster like Yuuka. I don't know if that's going to lead anywhere, but it's interesting to note.

Now, I'm not going to say all of Wriggle and Kogasa's frequent interactions are necessarily leading anywhere, but…well, okay. So maybe I'm just sort of testing the water with that one. Romance is something I've mostly avoided until now, and do sort of want to expand things in the future and try out different things, so…it's a possibility, let's just keep it at that.

Rumia's insomnia problems are interesting on a meta level. I introduced them mainly because of my own time with having chronic insomnia and how much that ended up affecting me. Now I've long gotten over them while Rumia still has them, poor kid. Obviously her problems are way greater than mine. I just messed myself up with unhealthy habits. With her, I think something is definitely screwed up in her brain. I was actually going to take it even further with her frequently hallucinating that she was still in Rin's mind like that one time by the river. This didn't end up happening mainly because when you got a lot of plotlines running around, sometimes interesting ideas just have to get cut.

Smug, incompetent Yukari got a lot of flak early on in this story's run, and admittedly deservingly so. I still feel she got a harsher rap than she should have, but that's just my opinion. I worked pretty hard to soften her up somewhere around the mid-point, and may have overcompensated at points, but here at the end I do feel she's finally settled into a nice groove as a take-charge commander. Hey, I like strong authority figures in my stories. Just don't insinuate anything of my sexual preferences from that.

And I don't know if Kotohime was taking a dump or not, I just hope she found time to wipe if she did.

In other news, I really should have paid more attention to Doremy Sweet's design, as I kept describing her as having a puffball tails instead of a cow tail until the very end. Another reason to go back and just fix all the mistakes. Though interesting to note, I was thinking of including Wriggle in that final climax with Yuuka, to have her attack her from behind with an army of insects and just call her out on all the shit Yuuka had done to her while kicking her in the head over and over. Unfortunately this got cut for the same reason everything else did: no room for it. Which is a shame, because she did deserve that closure. Rin apologizing to her for it was sort of to make up for not including it.

I do like Wriggle's constant concern for Elly, even after everything that had happened. I think the flashbacks to when they were friends were a major part of the decision to start portraying Elly in a more sympathetic light. I was actually kind of tempted to have Rin successfully kidnap Elly and bring her along for a sort of weird forced face turn. Alas, I needed her elsewhere, so instead she got paired off with Yuuka's super-burnt body instead.

While I'm pretty happy with how FotS came out as a whole, there are three parts that stand out in my mind as personal highlights. The first is Utsuho's speech to Rin from earlier. The second is that final mental confrontation between Rin, Flandre, and Yuuka. And the third is the faceoff between Sakuya and Rin, with Rumia's life and Flandre's freedom on the line. Something I've learned from wrestling and various other action-heavy series is that you don't need a bunch of flashy moves and big explosions to craft a memorable showdown. You just need two people with clear motivations who really don't like each other stuck in the same room with something very important on the line that neither of them can afford to lose. Though I actually had to rewrite a couple parts in post, as originally Rin was going to go straight from saving Rumia to threatening Sakuya with the knife without so much as checking up in Rumia. I've mentioned being on the autistic spectrum a couple times, and unfortunately that does mean I often overlook those sort of empathetic details. And no, that doesn't mean I don't have empathy; far from it. It just means that my way of expressing it is often a bit…off from everyone else, and I sometimes have to remember how most people express emotion when writing. So that whole bit had to get changed to have Rin express the emotions she ought be expressing, as well as that short confrontation between Rin and Flandre over Patchouli's death to make Rin more panicky over Rumia's peril. I like the way I am and wouldn't change it even if I could, but it does mean that I sometimes have to consciously remember to do things that most people just do naturally.

Anyway, this scene was also another example of foreseeing logical problems and countering them ahead of time to avoid fridge logic. Why wouldn't Sakuya just stop time to begin with? Well, she needed to force Rin to give up Flandre. Why wouldn't she do it when Flandre was released? Her hands were full and Rin would have killed her the second the pocketwatch appeared. The tricky one was why she wouldn't just stop time after Flandre was out and Rin was otherwise distracted. Thinking of this problem actually led to a pretty cool bit where she tried doing just that and Flandre seeing it and screaming out a warning. I was stumped at how Rin would get to her in time before she pressed down. I mean, she's really fast and all, but she's not that fast. Then I remembered that Flandre's power is instantaneous, and it would be a great symbolic moment to have her be the one to destroy the pocketwatch, followed be her getting defenestrated. Hey, I like Sakuya as much as the next guy, and totally get where she was coming from. But come on. From Rin's point of view, she totally deserved that.

Which was then followed by Mima trying to squish her with rocks (and boy, was it tough to arrange things so that would end up happening after all!) and Meiling comes in with the save! Nothing much to say about that except I thought it was rad. Yeah, I really liked these last couple of chapters.

Now, if anyone is curious, Yuuka's odd look and bizarre babbling are a parody of Broken Matt Hardy, a pro wrestler (and yes, my life does in fact revolve around pro wrestling. Deal with it), whose…unusual reinvention of himself was one of the most talked about stories in 2016. Suffice to say, it's weird, it's indescribable, and it's very, very entertaining. I love the character, and couldn't resist sticking in a little shoutout, mainly to see if anyone would notice. And someone actually did!

Though, on a side note, it was actually originally Sunshu that was supposed to take the hit from the mordite blade. That's why she showed up in that scene where Yukari slapped her and Orin down. I had an idea where she'd break free, storm into the mansion, and go after Yukari again only to get killed by Yuuka. But that was scrapped because I figured that the GPF knew their stuff and would be able to restrain even an oni, especially one that Yukari had already put down. Besides, Shinki taking the hit instead opens things up for some interesting future developments.

Other things that I got a kick out included the fact that the Dragon King's name is Frank. Okay, Francioux, whatever. It made me giggle. As did Rin pretty much lighting Sariel up like a Looney Tunes bomb explosion. BECAUSE I'M AN ADULT!

Another thing I haven't talked much about: Mima and Seiga's role in FotS. Here, they pretty much were the Greek chorus, watching and commenting on the action. With so many moving parts, it was useful to have a sort of outside perspective explaining the various characters motivations and why they would do some things, as well as set up the couple of times Mima interfered. In things like The Storm and The Curious Case of Rin Satsuki, Yuuka filled that role, but since Lady Meika already said that she was going to refrain from doing commentary that role was instead filled by a different set of assholes.

And no, I have no idea how Seiga and Futo got down there so quickly. Use your imaginations. Though I can already tell that Futo's speech patterns are going to be a pain in the ass until I get the hang of this old-timey talk.