#i should do more touhou art it really vibes with me

[the-dragon-girl-27]

Apparitions Stalk the Night

speedraw

[evilisk]

Thinking About TH18′s Cast

Just revisiting my thoughts on TH18′s cast now that we’re hours away from this year’s popularity poll.

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Here are the Unconnected Marketeers characters from “least to most liked”

No. 8: Takane Yamashiro

Before UM, I always thought a second Kappa would be good. I thought that because ZUN has Nitori appear so often in official works that a second Kappa would allow Nitori to feel less overexposed. While I still like Takane, and I eagerly anticipate what fan works will do with her and Nitori, I do have to admit she’s the weakest newcomer of the bunch.

I think her design (which is a remix of Nitori’s one) is the most disappointing aspect. On the one hand, it’s consistent with Touhou’s lore; the Yamawaro have been in Gensokyo’s background since Wild and Horned Hermit, and their visual design straight up was just “Kappa but with Camo”. On the other hand, it’s hard not to call the design extremely safe. Takane’s design looks even worse when we have Megumu to compare to; she’s another Tengu, sure but she looks nothing like the existing tengu. I think it wouldn’t be wrong to call Takane’s design the least ambitious one in TH18.

I should say: I really do love UM's cast. Her being my least favorite doesn't mean I dislike her at all. But I really can’t justify putting her above anyone else.

No. 7: Sannyo Komakusa

It’s another character I appreciate for the world building. I didn’t explicitly want another Mountain Hag, but I do appreciate that we got her anyway; she and Nemuno help make it feel like Youkai Mountain isn’t just populated by Tengu. I don’t have much else to say; she’s just not my type of character. I find her unconventional power to be really fun. I’ll always prefer ridiculously specific and mundane powers like “the ability to listen to 10 people at once” or “the ability to calm people with tobacco smoke” in Touhou.

No. 6: Mike Goutokuji

She’s still a Stage 1 boss (most Stage 1 bosses don’t end up being hat interesting) but she’s great. Her backstory is just interesting enough to make her better than most Stage 1 bosses (it arguably makes her better than a good number of Stage 2 bosses too). I also like her attacks. Most Stage 1 bosses are too easy, but Mike’s spellcards are just difficult enough to make Stage 1 interesting. 

No. 5 Megumu Iizunamaru

I wasn’t expecting to place her so low when I started this post. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that, to me, she’s the least interesting of UM’s Big 4. It's still great that we get some Tengu worldbuilding with her. But Megumu’s simple “hungry for power” motivation is a bit generic compared to the other co-conspirators. I can’t dislike her too much though, her theme is great and her star themed danmaku is so pretty.

No. 4 Misumaru Tamatsukuri

While I don’t like her design, she’s just so mysterious that I can’t help but be fascinated by her. I mean this lady crafted the Hakurei Yin Yang Orb. She has so much potential. The context of her fight is also hilarious. We’ve all heard Touhou bosses go, “sorry but I can’t let you pass” but Misumaru’s fight is the first time where “actually, yes, you really shouldn’t keep going forward”

No. 3 Chimata Tenkyuu

The Goddess of the Marketplace herself has really grown on me. At first I thought her design was horrid and her theme was underwhelming. Now I can't even get her theme out of her head (...that outfit still bad though. At least fan artists can make it look good. And the original, bad as it is, is bad in a fun, “vintage ZUN Art” kind of way a la TH10 Hina). Chimata really is a fun addition though. Her backstory gives me such strong “underdog final boss vibes” like Shinmyoumaru in TH14. I’ll also admit I love Touhou’s god characters more than the youkai, so I’ll happily accept another.

As for second and first place... I actually cannot decide which character I like more.

No. 1A Momoyo Himemushi

“Giant, stinky, fight hobo centipede youkai that wants to eat dragons” is just such a fun concept. And everything also about her is great too from her patterns to her boss music to her design (it’s honestly perfect for Momoyo’s personality. Though I am also in love with all the unnecessary ribbons on Momoyo’s limbs). At the same time, she is a bit simplistic. And Momoyo is far from the only fight hobo Touhou. Even if she’s one of the rare fight hobos that ISN’T an oni...

No. 1B Tsukasa Kudamaki

Tsukasa is such a lovable scamp though. And she appeals so much to my tastes. I love manipulative Touhou characters like Miko and Mamizou, and I especially love the ones that really don’t do much fighting (a la Seiga and Tewi). I also appreciate how Tsukasa is so good and so prominent in UM’s story, she makes you forget that she’s just a midboss.

I really don’t know who I prefer more. Momoyo has an actual boss fight and is more “complete” as a Touhou character, but Tsukasa has so much potential (if nothing else, I really want to see Tsukasa interacting with Mamizou). I think, for this year’s popularity poll, I’ll have to go with Momoyo. For no other reason than “I liked Momoyo first”. If they end up giving us more votes this year, maybe I’ll vote for both. If not, I’ll probably just vote Tsukasa next year/poll. 

[t-a-c]

Opinions on video games I played in the long, long decade of 2020

Fire Emblem Three Houses – Cindered Shadows: wow this came out in 2020 huh. The side story was a great campaign, and I should really give the game another run to try using the characters in the main game.

Warframe – Scarlet Spear: this event was honestly pretty tedious and the all-or-nothing score bonuses felt really punishing. And to think this was still the better way of getting Arcane upgrades

XCOM: Chimera Squad: oh wow this also came out in 2020. This feels like they didn’t want to commit to a full XCOM 3 yet but wanted to make something so they could try experimenting with new gameplay elements and concepts. If that’s what they intended, I really like that approach.

Megaman Zero/ZX Collection: A really solid compilation of some mostly solid GBA/DS games, with quite a few options and enhancements to make the early-series jank a bit more tolerable. The added bonuses like the art gallery and the challenge mode are very nice extras as well.

Streets of Rage 4: I was never expecting this game to happen. I was less expecting this game to come out and actually be not just good, but incredible. Now I’m gonna wonder what other old Sega series gets resurrected from the void...

Blaster Master Zero: A nice throwback/re-imagining of the NES original that does a lot to forge its own identity. Still need to try out the sequel, I’ve heard good (and weird) things about it.

Mighty Gunvolt Burst: the existence of this game single-handedly justifies and redeems the existence of Mighty No. 9.

Rise of Industry: A nice fun little resource management/logistics game. Gives me slight Transport Tycoon vibes.

Half-Life 2 – Episode 1 + 2: yes it took me almost 15 years to get around to finishing HL2 and playing the Episodes and that’s only because if I didn’t raocow was going to do it first. Overall pretty good, but I think I can go without a Strider fight sequence ever again

Half-Life Source: yeah I can see why people say this is a janky port

Black Mesa: For a fanmade project, this is absolutely incredible. The sheer number of ways that it improves and iterates on the original is astounding, and the new take on Xen is utterly mindblowing to experience

Slay the Spire: A nice fun diversion, especially on the days where I’m too worn out to focus on anything more mentally involved.

Final Fantasy XIV – 5.2 through 5.4: honestly if 5.3 had been the end of the storyline like they originally set out to do, I would have been fine with that, it was an excellent conclusion. However, with what 5.4 is setting up, I am eager to see what 6.x might hold (and hoping that it doesn’t suffer for Yoshida being involved elsewhere with directing XVI)

Phantasy Star Online 2 (NA Version): on launch? Worst experience I’ve had trying to install and run a game. Once Ep4 and the Steam release came out? Good. Once Ep5 came out? Great. Once Ep6 Pt1 came out? Excellent. I can nitpick some of the item name translations to hell and back, but the story dialogue and voice acting is very good.

Command & Conquer Remastered: I was expecting over and over for EA to find a way to screw this up. Somehow they didn’t, although I imagine that Petroglyph, Lemon Sky, and the community doing most of the work kept things on track. A very good remaster of a good RTS duology.

Tropico 6: I finally got around to grabbing this off my wishlist. It’s got a lot of improvements and additions over what was there in 5, and the series flavor is still present and accounted for, but there’s still a lot of stuff from 3/4 that I miss.

Touhou Spell Bubble: Picked this up after watching it played by HoloEN, and I’m enjoying it a lot even though I haven’t really touched rhythm games in a long time. Really good music selection, although it has the ‘early Windows era bias’ a lot of derivative works have.

[bbs-backlog-challenge]

BB’s Games Of 2019

2019 as a year felt like it lasted two years, and a lot happened in my personal life. Got a new job, learned to drive, got my first car, moved out of the in-laws’ basement into our first real apartment, started my first long-term game of DnD (which in itself has involved a new relationship and an emotional breakdown)- and between it all I somehow managed to play 77 games. Backlog’s down to 35 titles, lads- at this rate, I’ll be down to zero by July 2020. (Not gonna happen.) In 2020, I’d like to explore the SNES catalogue a little more, but before that happens we have to review everything 2019 brought me, in a somewhat chronological order.

- Near A Tomato Carry-over from last year’s post since I was in the middle of playing it at the time. I definitely never quite got a handle on the combat and I think some of the themes went over my head, but I still had fun here, and the 9S hacking minigame never got old. It was a gift from an old friend who I miss. Was nice to reconnect. - SSBU With my new main Zelda, I cleared all of WoL and got every spirit on the Spirit Board. I never really used her before but she’s cute now! Really liked the attention to detail in the spirit encounters. Unfortunately, Cloud is still in the game. - Mega Mans 1 2 and 3 I actually spoke about my experiences with the Mega Men in my BBLC post for Mega Man Eggs, so you should read that right now. - Metroid Samus Returns It’s Good. Like, a solid Good. Never Great, never Bad, just Good. It’s nice to see one of the least accessible games in the series get a remaster, but it feels very disposable, if that makes sense. Like they just needed a Metroid to keep people busy while they reboot Prime 4 development. AM2R is vastly superior, go play that. One point of amusement- the game tells its story without narration, and also seems to pre-suppose you know Metroid lore. I was entertained by the thought of a newcomer to the series being completely mystified by the sudden space-dragon that comes out of nowhere to wreck you at the end of the game. - Khimera: Destroy All Monster Girls You can click here to download it, ‘cos it’s free, which is almost criminal. This is one of the higher tier games I’ve played this year. A little bit Mega Man, a bit Metroid, with hints of Touhou and Undertale, it’s pretty tough at times but never to ‘precision platformer’ levels. It’s a lot of fun and the dev deserves your support. - Steve And Ollie RPG Oh, I made this one. Making something else next year? Question mark? - Prof Layton 3 Feels like these are getting weaker as they go along. The story has always been absolute boohockey, but the puzzles feel like they’re degrading in quality too. With over 200 in each game, that’s not super surprising, and I’m glad they didn’t bulk it out with a load of the awful block-slider puzzles. Still, it’s Layton, if you liked any of the other games you’ll like this cos it’s the exact same thing. - Fault Milestone Two Yo, there ain’t a damned thing I can say about Fault, so go play the first one and then play this and you’ll understand. - Full Throttle I never bothered to finish it. The obtuse old Sierra puzzlers were hard enough to deal with back in the day, and just feel kind of inexcusable now. I don’t have the patience for it. - eXceed 3rd Slick and fun bullet hell with a nigh-incomprehensible story and great music. Touhou fans will like it. Music by SSH who is relatively well known in doujin circles. - ASAMU Finished it before writing my BBLC post! - Eternal Senia Everything I said in my post rings true- do your best to look past the wonky translation, because there’s a heartfelt story underneath it. Very accessible gameplay, by design. - Inivisble Inc You have never before been, nor will you ever again be, so aware of having left a door open. I fully expected to hate Invisible, but I got hooked pretty hard. Quite tempted to do another run of it once the backlog is clear. - Pyre GOTY. Supergiant’s best game so far, and that’s not an easy thing to say for this Bastion veteran. I sobbed by the end. I’m not being dramatic- literally sobbed. Please play it. Music and writing and, just, heart, are all top tier. All the Nightwings are the best, but Hedwyn is the best best. - Ellipsis Finished it before writing my BBLC post! - Just Cause 2 I found myself getting bored very quickly. The main missions are all identical (really, they are) and the side missions are very uninspired. Blitzing around in a jet or grappling around a mission target is a lot of fun but it feels very shallow. There’s a lot to do but not really any reason to do any of it. I dunno, it’s a kind of hollow experience, that I nonetheless had fun with. - LiEat It went over my head a little, but that’s more on me I think. These horror-esque, eccentric japanese RPG Maker games usually do. But, it’s neat, and short. If this sort of thing usually sticks on you, I think this is a good title. - Shantae Pirates Curse These games always felt non-essential to me; I’m not sure why they never stuck. They never really go below or above Good. Entirely enjoyable but I don’t feel like I’d have really missed anything if I hadn’t played them. It is, however, absolutely worth investing in for the utterly superb sprite work. That doesn’t sell a game by itself, I know, but Shantae is a pixel art masterclass. - FF5 I’d more or less finished it by the time I wrote my BBLC post, so I don’t have much to add. It’s a refreshingly goofy entry in a series known for taking itself too seriously, even compared to its predecessor. Look forward to my entry for this game in my Games Of 2020 post, having played the Four Job Fiesta! - Touhou 17 It’s mid-tier in the touhou hierarchy, IMO. Didn’t set my soul alight but I did enjoy it. Playing as Wolf Marisa makes the final boss too chaotic to really enjoy, but playing through again with Reimu made it more fun. I beat Extra on my third run through, which gave me false confidence that after 10 years I might actually be good at these games- to then be quickly humbled by attempting Th11’s Extra. Final Boss’ theme song has one of the greatest lead-ins of all time, especially given you start the fight by running away from her! Also really loved the Stage 4 theme as you barrel head-first into Hell (the real one this time), and the haunting, calm-before-the-storm serenity of Stage 5, overlooking the City Of Beasts. - HackNet + Labyrinths GOTY. (Yes, I know I already said Pyre was GOTY; it’s my post, I can have two GOTYs. Make your own damned post!) It’s hard to say what I loved about these games without spoiling too much- just know that they play very much like investigation games, and figuring out the puzzles feels great. Labyrinths technically takes place during the events of Hacknet, with a somewhat more Black Hat approach to things- despite this, play all of Hacknet first, and then play Labyrinths. The expansion introduces a lot of new stuff and much trickier challenges, such that going back to the base game afterwards to finish that would leave it a little hollow- a disservice to how great the ending is. - Mega Man X I said everything I wanted to say in my BBLC post, and anything I didn’t cover was better said by Egoraptor. - Octodad Finished it before my BBLC post! - Chroma Squad The final mission is disappointingly poor, but everything up to that point was pretty good. Huge variance and creativity in the bosses. However, the most fun I got from it was when I realised the game allowed me to customise my team name, transformation name, and other such terminology. Dave, Dayve, Davy, Davina, and Dehve shouting “It’s time to Chromatise, Chroma Squad!” very quickly became “It’s time to shit, you bunch of fucks!” and it was funny every single time. (Personal favourite bit of dialogue- “I tried to shit! It worked!”) - Pyrite Heart Finished it before my BBLC post! - Starfox 2 Finished it before my BBLC post! - Burly Men At Sea Finished it before my BBLC post! - Disc Room Finished it before my BBLC post! - Kokurase Finished it before my BBLC post! Should have broken these ones up a bit! - Metroid Rogue Dawn Very, very impressive romhack let down by a distinctly un-fun final section. They managed to fix so many of OG Metroid’s problems, I’m surprised the gauntlet of terribleness that is Tourian escaped with only a cosmetic change. Nonetheless, it’s free, and the other 95% of the game is superb, even from a purely technical standpoint. - Wuppo I dunno what happened here! I was full of praise for Wuppo when I played it, but somehow I just couldn’t stick with it and just never felt like playing it. It’s a very aimless game, and I wonder if that might be why? It’s a shame, I feel disappointed in myself for not seeing it through, but ultimately I play games to have fun and I just wasn’t quite there with Wuppo. - Super Mario Odyssey I loved it, obviously. I wrote my BBLC post towards the end of my time with Odyssey so most of that stands- I do want to add that the controls always felt a little loose, like I wasn’t quite as in-control as I was in Galaxy. Also Mario prioritises walljumping over ledge-grabbing and it’s super-hard to unlearn that instinct after 20 years. Finally- Long Journey’s End is just bullshit. - Secret Of Mana Dropped it pretty soon after Finning it. There’s some logic to the way the game works, some kind of hidden turn-order system, that I could not at all figure out. My AI companions (useless, btw) would hit an enemy which meant I couldn’t, except sometimes the hit would still register but only actually go through 3 seconds later, without any way to tell which way it was going to go. It takes like 7 months for your character to get back up after taking a hit. It’s just, wonky, and I couldn’t solve the puzzle of how to make the game do what I wanted to do. - Pokemon Shield Still working my way through it. It’s- yeah, it’s pokemon. Get a similar vibe to Sun/Moon with it that it’s kind of unfinished- lots of small (and some not so small) parts of the game just feel like there were bigger plans that couldn’t be realised in time. I’m still enjoying it! They did a great job of making the gym battles, and the whole process of 8-badges-then-champion, feel like a spectacle. I think only the anime has managed it to this degree before. - Earthbound Man, I really, really want to like this game, but the battle system is terrible. I need to play through the game again buffing my party up with cheats or something, because it’s so unbalanced and cheap. Everything else about the game is wonderful, but I got so frustrated with the fights! - Mario Kart 8 Didn’t play any of the single player this time, it was midgi’s christmas present so I just joined a couple of multiplayer games. Absolutely baffled that the game features F-Zero style anti-gravity courses, has Mute City and Big Blue, and even has the Blue Falcon as a selectable vehicle, but they haven’t put Captain Falcon in it. Like he’s ever going to get another game of his own? Let him have this! - Carmageddon 2 It’s pretty clunky by now, being 20 years old, but still plays well enough. The physics are super loose so you slide around like your tires have been buttered. It was more fun when they were zombies instead of just normal people. Missions are brutally hard and should be skipped with cheats. - Neopets After 15 years of playing, I finally got a Ghostkersword. The site as a whole has gone through a lot, and certainly its heyday is long gone, but there’s no other game quite like it. I’m playing the Food Club every day, still. - SIF New phone can’t run the actual gameplay section well enough, so I just log in occasionally to grab free scouts. Here’s another one whose golden years are behind it, sadly, but I certainly still have a lot of affection for SIF. - FF1 Mobile version, which fixes a lot of the bugs with the NES original. This year I completed a solo run with 1 Red Mage, a 4-black belts run, a low-level run, and a 4 White Mages run (which ended up being a lower-level run than the low-level run). I’m fairly comfortable in calling myself an expert in FF1, now. There’s still not really any other games like it- build a party as balanced or imbalanced as you like, and see how they fare. I’d like to build my own game in a similar style, one day. - Re: Live Gacha games and RPG just don’t mix! Both gacha and events do not gel with core RPG mechanics of your character(s) developing in strength as the game goes. It seems impossible to balance the game well- do you cater to the whales who spend and spend until they have the strongest teams possible, meaning the free players or the terminally unlucky can’t stand a chance, or do you cater to those players and give them no reason to spend for the more powerful characters? It’s a shame, because the anime was baffling but in that enjoyable way where you just kind of go with whatever it throws at you, and exploring that in a non-freemium game with a solid beginning middle and end would be really interesting. - Tiny Thief Mobile game that’s not available any more, I think my BBLC post covered it well enough. - F-Zero One of the criticisms most commonly levied against F-Zero is that it wont hold your attention for long. While that’s true, it’s not like you have to make a purchasing decision about it any more- it comes bundled in with the other games you’re buying, so the only investment is time. Ignoring that, it’s still fun to burn around the tracks, and the sense of speed hasn’t ever diminished. The music, too, is underappreciated, with Port Town being my personal fave. - F-Zero GX I can’t believe Nintendo hasn’t done anything with this ridiculous universe for 15 years now. The cutscenes are so hilariously overwrought, and the cast of characters is huge! It could so seamlessly intersect with the Starfox universe, too. There were rumours of a Starfox Racing title some time ago, and I really hope that’s the case. It’d work so well (by which I mean, a particularly enjoyable kind of awful). Anyway, the game still plays great, Story Mode is WAY too hard, Dr Stewart’s theme is a Tune. - Stratosphere This game is from 1998! Build a flying fortress, deck it out with fortifications and weapons and power supplies, then use it to destroy other fortresses. I only ever played the demo as a kid, never got the full game. Took some cajoling to get it to work on modern hardware, but eventually I got in and it wasn’t worth it at all. Wow, that performance, apparently it was designed to run at a terrible frame rate and it wasn’t just a result of my 1998 PC not being up to the task! A shame, but I guess it put one of my ghosts to rest. - DKC 2 The best of the three SNES games, despite the inclusion (and protagonism) of Diddy Kong. Lots to love here, but the OST is top notch. - DKC 3 Not as good as 2, but IMO better than 1. There was a much heavier emphasis on gimmick levels in 3, not all of which hit their target, but does provide a great deal of variety. Consensus is that 2 is better, but if someone claimed 3 was the best DKC, I’d let them get away with it. - King Arthur’s World (SNES) Speaking of putting ghosts to rest… We somehow always managed to get this game whenever we got a SNES, and kid!Beebs most certainly didn’t have the patience for it. Adult!Beebs barely does, either. It’s a very ambitious attempt at some sort of RTS/Puzzle hybrid, somewhat comparable to Lemmings? King Arthur must make his way from his starting position to the throne elsewhere in the map to claim it as his own, using the myriad abilities of his soldiers to get him there in one piece. I decided this year that I was finally going to play through the whole damn thing, start to finish, for the first time ever. With copious use of save states and rewinds, I was finally able to slay this demon. For as fiddly and frustrating as it is, I would still say people should check it out if they have the tools to do so- there’s not really anything else like it, on SNES or otherwise; you’re guaranteed a unique experience, if nothing else. - Oscar (SNES) Terrible. - Spanky’s Quest (SNES) With a name like that, how could I refuse? It’s a weird little puzzler, aping (wahey!) Bubble Bobble and Parasol Stars a little. You’re a monkey who can blow bubbles that stun enemies, but if you bounce the bubble on your head it gets progressively larger and can be burst to send a barrage of similarly-sized sports balls at your opponents to knock them out. You know, just like real life. - Addam’s Family (SNES) This easily-dismissible movie tie-in is actually a very competent platformer with some very, very light metroidvania exploration involved. Gomez has to go through Addams Mansion and rescue the members of his family who have been kidnapped by… something. There’s hidden secrets everywhere and the family can be rescued in any order you like. Genuine recommendation. - Panel DePon/Tetris Attack The only vs puzzler I enjoy (yep. Not even puyo puyo. I know.) I played the HECK out of this in my teenage years, and got crazy good at it. Tendonitis says I’m not allowed to do that any more, but once I shook the rust off I was still pretty strong! It was released as Panel DePon in Japan and was fairy themed, but for the western release they replaced all the fairies with Yoshi characters and renamed it Tetris Attack despite having nothing to do with Tetris at all. Up to you which you prefer- language isn't too much of a barrier here. Soundtrack is killer. - Subsurface Circular Finished it before my BBLC post. Still not decided if I liked the way it ended. - Master Of Orion 2 C’mon. After playing three other pretenders to MoO2’s throne, I had to give the real deal a couple of spins too. It’s Civ 5 in space. Customisable race builds. A whole galaxy to bring peace to, by whichever means you prefer. Would love for someone else to get into it. - Touhou 8 Last minute entry I just played yesterday ‘cos I wanted some Touhou and I haven’t played this entry in a long while. A Solo Marisa Normal Final B run, if you’re interested. Kaguya beast-mode tearing apart the Spell Of Imperishable Night at the end of the game is still an awesome moment, but it’s a shame you can miss the last couple of spells if you take some unlucky hits. - And here’s the list of Bins, which are all covered in their BBLC post: No Time To Explain MoO Skyborn Jumpjet Rex StH 4 Ballistick Munch’s Oddysee Outland Project CARS RiME Magicka Waking Mars Urban Chaos Divinity: Dragon Commander Strike Suit Zero Hell Yeah! Lambda Wars Beta Stranger’s Wrath MoO 3 XCOM Lots more Fins than Bins this year! Good to see!

[lyricalive]

Why do you identify as Maribel so much? like, why you like the Sealing Club? (Renko included) I'm sorry if this is a weird question, it's just that they don't seem to be very popular in the fandom :''(

The first thing that drew me to Maribel was my huge,self-defining interest in the philosophy of subjectivity:  things that can’t be definitively categorized, distinctions that are very fragile, the ability to perceive similarthings as different or different things as similar.  The way that everything boils down toperspective and perception.  The way thattotal opposites, like fantasy and reality, can blend into each other.

I admire Yukari as the most powerful presence in Touhou,something that really defines the meaningfulness as Touhou as a series for me,because I believe very strongly in “boundaries” as an extremelyimportant concept that affects anything and everything.  I can’t just directly relate to such a badass,though.  The more reserved Maribelrepresents the external study of the same ideas – while still fascinatingly playingwith the border of actually embodying it herself – so she became someone I feltcomfortable attaching to.

She is a human who is more personable than a youkai; furthermore, being a college student on the border of childhood and adulthood makes her feellike a more timeless attachment than a particularly very young or old character… especially for me, a very childish adult.  Her role as someone who is very immersed in dreams/daydreams, who lets fantasy takea large role in her life over more practical things, is easy to identifywith.  Her personality is mostly positive,but she has well-established fears, and she relies on Renko to keep her focused forward.

When Lori first told me she felt “like the Renko to myMaribel,” she meant it as a compliment to my creativity, as if my lyricismrepresented a frame of mind that was like a new world to her.  I was absolutely touched by this, especiallybecause I could say similar sentiments in return about her own talents.  With the detail she puts in her art and designs, forexample, it’s clear that she also has special eyes.  Having complementary but different strengthsis something I love about the Sealing Club’s dynamic, and about relating tothem.

Independently, I like Renko as a character even more than Maribel.  From the most superficial points – althoughpurple is my favorite color, Renko’s modern black and white is much more of my preferredfashion style.  She’s more targeted inher aesthetic.  She’s smart, geeky, fun.  She has the vibe of a protagonist, someone worthputting in charge of a club.  I interprether as being very dense in her perception of others’ feelings but very honestand straightforward in expressing her own, which is a really charmingpersonality to me.  She’s full of obscureknowledge, and full of confidence.  Asthe objectivist, she sees “what is”… but it doesn’t limit her from “whatcould be,” rather making her ready to accept anything and fit it into thepuzzle of reality.  She’s so cute and likable and cool.

No matter what, they are much better as a pair.  In generalabout the club…  I just really, reallylove everything about the aesthetics they represent and the ideas theyinspire.  I’m fascinated by mythology, dazzledby stars, and god do I adore trains.  I love playing with theconcept of time and the meaning of dreams.  I want to see what they see, know what they know.  I love their wittiness, their quirkiness, theirdelightful fluffy banter.  I love the cozinessof their context.  I love how theyprovide a new subtle perspective on the motifs of Gensokyo, constantly teasing atit – requiring knowledge of Touhou to appreciate their stories more, so it constantlyjust reinforces my love of the whole.  Ilove the closeness of their friendship and the limitless possibilities of theirteamwork, the way they make each other more interesting as they interact.  I love them being more “normal” humans, as I said, but not a “normie” sort of normal, being more in the fringes of their society.  Their occult pursuits give them the appeal ofchuunibyou, people who reject thecommon reality to earnestly embrace something greater… and they have the skills and mindsets to actually achieveit.  I love how they give hope of outsidepeople being able to reach amazing places, too.

By the way… do you think they’re unpopular with the fandom?  I think they’re rather popular, although ofcourse they always deserve to be more so.  Lori actually tells me she feels a little hipster-ish about the increasing attention they get,because she’s been interested in them even longer than me.  I can relate; when I get really attached tosomething, I kind of wish to monopolize it more.  (So it does make me happy if you perceive meas “one of the few” who appreciates them well.)

At the same time, I obviously don’t want them to beignored.  Overall, I think they’re in agood place.  They are the Secret Sealing Club after all, so theycan’t be wholly mainstream; their underground nature is part of their appeal.  But they do get a fairly satisfying flow ofart compared to some other characters.  Theyget a good deal of respect from talented Tumblr artists, they get this awesomelydedicated blog that wonderfully captures their everyday life, and they even gotthat lovely fan anime!  Because they haveso much music associated with them on their CDs, they also get a lot ofarranges.  …Also, being so loosely connected yet so technically isolated from the rest of the series, there are noshipping debates about them at all.  Ifyou ship them with anyone, you ship them with each other, making them one ofthe most popular ships due to lack of conflict.   As it should be.