#touhou has a lot of good character dynamics that are super fun to think about

[spear-gsun]

do you have any favorite pairings ?

I'm not a huge shipping person however Suwakana (kanako x suwako) is really really good I like some other pairings too, doresagu, momomegu, junheca, sakiyachi, and some others that im probably forgetting rn are very cool Overall i think im more into platonic pairings or family-like dynamics, but if i started listing all of those that i like this would get way too long lmao

[freshlybakedspiderbread]

Chimata if you feel like it!

General opinion/How much I care about them: i dont remember if it was really soon after or if it took some time for it all to click, but i've really come to adore all of th18's cast, and that includes that Chimata who has one of the best designs ever and I am being completely sincere! 🌈 i love everything about her. Her concept as a god of markets and how that was clearly inspired by real life doujin conventions yet still making it make sense in the setting of touhou, and her personal journey of rising back up to power thanks to the really complicated connection she's struck up with Megumu is so compelling and instantly had me and so many other fans running hamster wheels in our brains for years to come...

Also the majority of her dialogue is just really really funny, between bragging about how amazing markets are (She's right) or getting so offended when the player characters insult her card... She's kind of a mess even moreso than the usual touhou character, and that she's also a final boss and super powerful god makes a fun contrast i like a lot.

A ship I love: the obvious one is chimata/megumu though its a bit weird to talk about in this context because personally what i love about the marketeer quartet polycule is how Megumu is at the center and how the other three reflect and bring out different aspects of her (Although at the same time i also think Tsukasa can easily be the 'center' pov if needed to, because they all think the scheming tube fox is cute!). Going into detail on all that would probably steer the topic away from Chimata too much so i'll just say for now that I think Chimata and Megumu, without either really meaning to, brought the 'best' out of each other. Its just that their 'best' in this case meant giving them the means and confidence to take everything for themselves 😄

(also kind of a tangent but ive also always kinda thought megumu/chimata is similar in superficial ways to how i see yachie/keiki from just the previous game maybe with the dynamics reversed a little. But then following on that thought, momoyo is kinda similar to saki, and then i have no choice but to say tsukasa like some inverse mayumi... Its just nonsense but its funny to me think about)

A non-romantic relationship that I love: as of right now, she's gotta be reeeeeally ticked at Marisa right? Chimata had gotten over that whole thing of attacking her market as a robber and turning her bedridden, but then the stuff with the black markets had Marisa being trusted to stop them and then putting it off to enjoy collecting cards instead 😂

But despite all of that, I think Chimata ultimately would still acknowledge that avariciously human spirit which is vital in those who seek to do exchange, and will probably take Marisa off her personal market banlist eventually....

The NOTP: I actually think Chimata would get along surprisingly well with Momoyo but ive no desire to make something romantic out of it. although... maybe if megumu was somehow their driving motivation???

My biggest headcanon about them: i actually dont have anything too substantial this moment if only because her actual canon has been already so substantial and fulfilling... Though i think after becoming bedridden after UM's ending, she was resting at Megumu's place and was helping herself to the fridge and stuff without any hesitation or remorse 😊

An idea for a fanfiction I would like to write/read about them: well i'll just say for now that i definitely want to do a specific story featuring the market quartet sometime.

anyhow, something about her makes me feel like shes a prime candidate for those AUs where she swaps roles with another character (like megumu or kanako) yet somehow retains mostly the exact same personality and mannerisms.

Something that makes me think of them: i will always think of chimata now whenever i purchase goods and services, and remember to thank her for keeping me alive 😊

[ofthenoseclan]

@scarletdestiny

i love how the lunarian society is written, as someone who loves touhou for its political satire i think its one of the best examples of it in the series. the way its isolationist society is realistically incredibly flawed, but the people within it are always viewed as people who have their own conclusions on the way its structure works, is super refreshing!

sometimes i wish wed get to see the capital firsthand in more depth but i also think that it would be unnecessary . bougetsushou infamously has many problems but i disagree with people saying that the final arc should have had more focus on the conflict within the capital. i think that knowing the way its society functions on a deeper level would be a bit needless, as we have more than enough insight into their policies through how they interact with the earth and how they respond to perceived threats to their livelihood. i think this is why i like the plot of 15 a bit more than i do bougetsushou, on average.

reisens character arc where she gets de-radicalized over her period on earth after defecting is fantastic in its natural slow development, and i think was one of the best examples of bringing a character back after a long absence for good effect.

the watatsukis themselves are sadly not characters i really think about often, nor are kaguya and eirin, or sagume really. not to say i dont love the way they are implemented into the plot and worldbuilding, but theyre just characters that have a hard time grabbing me personality-wise; i think theyre very well written for what they are and i value them in an objective sense.

rei'sen is chill but suffers from "target for exposition" syndrome and doesnt do enough past that for me to appreciate her deeper than surface level.

seiran is fun, definitely my favourite of the rabbits design-wise, but i wish she didnt leave the moon rabbit military post-15 since i wouldve liked to see an example of a character going the opposite route from reisen and being increasingly propagandized to lunarian views; i feel like zun could get a lot of mileage out of the concept. regardless, i look forward to however zuns going to build her arc in 19.

i do still love seirans dynamic with ringo, who is a wonderful complement to her. mochi dango gfs settling down and running rival shops after leaving the military. love that for them. also, ringo's stage theme is within my top 5 songs in the franchise so shes got that going for her

tku for askin!

[radramblog]

Ultimate^2

Super Smash Brothers Ultimate has finally unveiled its final DLC character, with reactions ranging fully across the spectrum. Hot takes abound.

I mean, statistically, just about every possible opinion is going to be represented. There were at least 500,000 people watching the reveal stream, and that’s not including those viewing through restreams. That’s insane for a trailer of any kind, let alone for a console-exclusive video game DLC.

Now that it’s been like… a day and a bit, I think most of the spciest takes have probably been made, which is the perfect time for me to chip in with my own milder opinion. More of a butter chicken, really.

(no images in this one i’m lazy tonight)

I figure I’m this late already, might as well drop some notes on the other ones first.

Piranha Plant was kind of the definition of an unexpected pick. Not only was it from an already well-represented franchise, being fucking Mario, it’s also just…not a character. As such it makes an odd choice for a DLC fighter…except for the part where it was free. If you owned the game in its first month. And frankly, I don’t think people would have been happy if it wasn’t. As it is, though, it’s a perfectly fine character- surprisingly cute, actually.

I’m unsurprised about Joker’s inclusion. With how huge Persona 5 became in both Japan and the west, capitalizing on it to make a shitload of money makes perfect sense. The character plays well enough, though the meter gimmick was kind of a daunting sign of things to come. All that in mind, though, the most surprising thing about Joker being in the game is that they still haven’t put P5 on the Switch. Atlus please.

Hero and Banjo/Kazooie were announced on the same night, and I distinctly recall someone saying that this was one for the Japanese audience and one for the Americans. I mean, I’ve never played Dragon Quest, so I guess I fell into the latter? Both series have a long, well-regarded pedigree (Banjo’s lack of recent offerings notwithstanding), so both arguably deserve their respective positions. Hero is the much more notable character gameplaywise, though, with the incredibly complex mana and spellcasting mechanics. Complaints about RNG in Smash aren’t completely unfounded- though it has existed in the past in the form of, say, Luigi’s misfiring side-B- but I know a lot of people think Hero took it too far. If I’m honest, though, the weirdest thing is just having Akira Toriyama-ass 3D models in the game. Banjo’s gameplay is…awkward. The kit is kind of a mess, but at least the gimmicks weren’t going too hard, you know?

Next was Terry, perhaps the most obscure character on the entire list in 2021. I actually really like Terry in this game- while he’s still trying to emulate a similar feel to Ryu/Ken, the difference feels more natural, if that makes sense. Maybe it’s because I’ve never really devoted significant time to them, but Terry’s kit feels easier to work within than the Shotos when going between characters.

Finally for the first Pass, we had Byleth. I think it’s for the best that they announced the second Fighter’s Pass before this released, because if both 4 and Ultimate had ended their run on Fire Emblem DLCs then people would have been pissed. I mean, people were already pissed, but like…moreso. As someone who has played Three Houses, I do think the game is worth celebrating, but having yet another Fire Emblem Protagonist (read: basically a blank slate) in the game over all the substantially more interesting characters 3H has to offer is just really frustrating. Also the final smash looks like dogshit, like FE3H has overall worse animations than Smash for obvious reasons but I’m pretty sure this attack looked better the first time around.

FP2 opened with Min Min, which brings ARMS to the table. ARMS. The only first-party fighting game Nintendo has outside of Smash, so it looks a bit less weird next to everything else but…come on, man. I think this was the most confusing pick of all of them- the game came out in 2017, and having Min Min in Smash would serve as promotion for a sequel…which hasn’t been announced. There was a graphic novel in the works, but it was cancelled earlier this year. Oops? At least the stage was fun.

As much as playing them is awkward and complex, the Minecraft addition was fitting. Only the best-selling game around. I think people weren’t sure if Microsoft would go for it, but they let us have Banjo, so sure. I’m mostly just annoyed that they couldn’t get any of the songs from the actual game in there- like, you got one in from the fucking mobile game, but you couldn’t just get C418 on the phone?

Sephiroth is definitely one of the hype-ier releases from this pass. The character is iconic, as is his theme and his home game. I’ve never played any Final Fantasy game, but I can still respect the name. Once I remember how to spell it. The whole bossfight aspect to his release was also quite cool, while it lasted.

On the other hand, I have no love for Pyra nor Mythra. There’s so much wrong with these ones, frankly. They’re another swordy character, immediately following Sephiroth too, and they go back on Smash’s very deliberate decision to split characters like Zelda/Sheik and Samus/ZSS up (Yes I know Pokemon Trainer does the same thing but I have a lot more leniency for them). Add in their being from a JRPG much less well-known or remembered than the previous couple characters and the designs being…questionable, I have a big issue with the whole thing. This was also around when I kinda stopped playing the game in general, and they definitely didn’t help pull me back in.

Kazuya might have, though. With the exception of him and Sephiroth, all the characters from the Fighter’s Passes were pretty much protagonist-types, but this motherfucker pulses with the essence of bad guy. What I’m saying is that he’s fucking cool, and while he’s ludicrously complex, that makes perfect sense since…I mean just look at the combo lists from Tekken 7. His inclusion also kinda rounds out the list of biggest fighting game franchises out there being rep’d in the game, though I imagine now I’m going to have stans from Mortal Kombat or whatever on my back. They’re not going to put a fatality-capable character in Smash, guys!

Finally, this rounds us around to the original point of this article. Let’s talk about Sora. And by that I mean…I don’t really have a huge amount to say about him. Kingdom Hearts is a franchise that completely passed me by growing up, and I don’t think I have the time or energy to devote to it now. I’m sure it’s good, people seemed really excited for him to be in the game so they have to have gotten that love from somewhere, but I don’t share that feeling.

That’s not to say that I don’t think he deserves a slot. The idea of “deserving a slot” in Smash Bros is kind of an odd concept, even though it’s come up a lot so far this post. But a slot in this roster isn’t just a place in a popular fighting game, because at this point, Smash is kind of a museum of (mostly Nintendo) games- and so having representation is a forever acknowledgment that the franchise is, or has been, an icon to so many. Kingdom Hearts, to my knowledge, has 100% earned that position, and so Sora getting to be playable here makes perfect sense. He wasn’t my pick (Touhou representation never I guess), but I’m happy for those who wanted him.

As far as the actual gameplay looks, he reads like a character that kept in mind what people didn’t like about Hero when he released. It’s another sword-based character, which I think at this point speaks more about the demographic of video game characters than it does about Smash. But I appreciate that the Magic Bullshit is toned down, and that it’s also his only real gimmick (The 3-hit combo feature is A Thing, but other characters e.g. Bayonetta have already done that, so whatever). His recovery potential looks patently absurd- like he just gets Pikachu/Pichu’s Up-B as a Side-B that can also be chained with his actual Up-B? This guy better be light as hell or he’s going to be super hard to take out. I dunno, I think he looks solidly fun enough- more dynamic and aerial than the other swordfighters, at least- and that’s good enough for me.

And I guess that marks the end of Smash Ultimate. Not with a bang, but with a key…dude. It’s been a very solid run, the game managing to keep itself fresh across several years of development, even as other games have risen and fallen. Smash is kind of forever at this point, I think, though the finality of Ultimate’s ultimate character implies that this particular iteration may be coming to its end. And seeing as it is always one Smash per console, I wouldn’t be shocked if the Switch itself was nearing its endgame as well.

Okay but also it’s pretty funny how they heavily censored everything Disney out of Sora’s DLC except for that little Mickey charm on the trailer, like how much must that one shot have cost them, was it even remotely worth it, I don’t know but I kinda want to

[megumu-iizunamaru]

TH18 Demo Thoughts, Opinions and Speculation.

Gonna talk Touhou under the cut, this is gonna be longish.

Gameplay & Concept:

I'm not a bullet hell person, but the card system is fun and it's very different from the usual touhou mechanics, so I think I'm gonna play this one a bit more than I usually would. The cards have a lot of potential and imo they are nice little cameos for existing characters.

I love the rainbow theme of the game, it's very bright and lovely compared to WBaWC's darker themes. Zun could have easily overdone it and have flashy colors everywhere, but he kept it nice and subtle. This sounds silly but main menu has this feeling of being on your porch after a rainy summer day.

Characters:

Sanae's route seems the most interesting so far. She apparently has no knowledge of the Rainbow Dragon's Cave which is surprising. Sannyo might have hinted that Kanako knows about it and hasn't told about it to Sanae.

Reimu's and Marisa's routes seem pretty ordinary, I was expecting Reimu to be more into the "business" aspect of the incident tbh. This incident feels like something straight from Marisa's alley and I'm looking forward to her interactions with the new characters bc they are almost always hilarious.

I don't know how I feel about Sakuya as a playable character in this game, having her collect cards for Patchouli seems kinda random and I would have preferred to have another character in her place, like Saki who recently came to Gensokyo and seems like a person who would be interested in the ability cards. But it's nice to see Sakuya bc she is a good character.

Michael "Bingus" Goutokuji: She is a perfectly nice character. Her design, backstory and theme are just nice. Her name gave me slight whiplash. Really enjoying the memes and fanart of her.

Takane "Green Nitori" Yamashiro: I like her design a lot, but compared to the other 2 newcomers she is a bit bland. Would love to see more of her in the future, especially her dynamic with Nitori. She defo has "manga appearance" material.

Music:

Sannyo "Meira's Incarnation" Komakusa: My favorite one from the bunch. Her concept is SO GOOD. She is the cool weed aunt I never had. She is a good addition to the series and I would love to see her in a fighting game and have her gambling den as her stage. That being said I think her color scheme could have been a little different so she wont get so easily mixed up with Meira and Yorihime.

Stage 1 themes took a while to get used to but after a few listens they are p fun, Mike's theme is super catchy, and like Zun said it's has this cat feel.

I had to warm up to the OST for a little while, but so far it's very decent. My expectations were a bit high after WBaWC but it's shoes are hard to fill.

The title screen theme is chill and refreshing after WBaWC and Gouyoku Ibun.

Stage 2 themes are the weakest of the bunch imo, the stage theme is atmospheric and neat. Takane's theme is very weird but in a good way.

Stage 3 themes are very good, the stage theme is my favorite song so far, I can see it used as the staff roll theme. Sannyo's theme is very serious yet carefree, very fitting song for an aunt.

Gonna guess the remaining bosses are going to keep the money and mountain dweller themes. I think the final boss will be another obscure deity like Okina and Keiki, or even a dragon like the game's title suggests. I don't think we will be getting another random yokai like in the early games. I would love to have the final boss be based off Iwanagahime but I think "her name is too big" for Touhou.

Story & Speculation:

Very excited to see what the story has in the store for us once the full game releases. The incident is very "Touhou" and a nice change of phase after WBaWC and assuming the intense story of Gouyoku Ibun. I can see the story taking a serious turn after stage 3 like in the previous game, expecting Zun to keep roasting capitalism even more. Sannyo called the cave dangerous, but I don't think she meant like "there are baddies who will beat you up" and more like "the cave has riches that will drive you insane", but knowing Touhou it's most likely the first one.

But overall a good demo and very excited for the full game!!

[lori-hime]

I haven't written much about what I've been up to lately, so here's some word salad updates~ 🥗

NijiGaku Anime

So I started watching the new LL. I hadn't been keeping up with SIFAS' story, but I did read some of it when it first came out. I gotta say, I'm really enjoying all of the changes they decided to make for the anime version of the story, to both the characters and story. It's starting to feel like something coherent. The story in the game was ok, but the main thing that interested me was the interactions with Muse and Aqours, overshadowing the actual "plot" and even Nijigasaki themselves. But the anime really made me interested and excited about the story and characters again. I would be a little annoyed about the personality and dynamic changes, but honestly, I'm used to it by now. LL always ends up doing this sort of thing, and the personalities only seem to become solidified after the anime airs.

A little disappointed in Kasumi's change in some vague ways I don't really feel like describing, but honestly it balances out because Ayumu is fantastic now (previously one of my least cared for of the group.) Yu's personality is surprisingly super gay fun and I'm really excited for her and Ayumu's dynamic in particular. They're so cute. Seriously feel like I'm gonna ship them hard.

I also really like Rina's initial personality in this. Not only is she bad at expressing emotions through her face, but she also seems bad at expressing them through words too. I feel like this is gonna be much more interesting than her already being cutesy and genki like in the promo stuff and SIFAS.

When Karin was first shown, I had mixed feelings. At first I was like oh god I'm gay and she's beautiful. But the whole sexuality flaunting thing kind of put me off for several reasons I don't really wanna get into explaining. I really didn't know how to feel. I started liking her a little more during SIFAS, when she competed against Muse in DDR and lost... started feeling like I was getting a glimpse of her real personality without the whole sexy idol persona. Although not much has happened in the anime with her yet, she's giving me Nozomi vibes and I love it. I actually think if I had gone into this without previous knowledge of the characters, I'd be betting she'd become my fave for sure.

My list has gone from Kasumi > Rina > Kanata / Emma > Karin > Ai > Setsuna > Ayumu > Shizuku to Yuu > Ayumu > Kasumi / Karin > Rina > Kanata / Emma > Ai > Setsuna > Shizuku

Still biased a bit towards characters that have shown up more in the first two eps, so it'll undoubtedly change. But It's really interesting how much the characters I already felt I had good placements for changed so much.

Edit for episode 3, because I didn't post this fast enough. Student council speedrun was fantastic. Yu continues to be incredibly gay. I wonder how this episode will affect the ships people will gravitate towards. LL has always been a fairly monoship fandom, heavily gravitating towards specific pairs. Of course that's largely the fault of canon itself, often pushing and developing single ships. Well, I suppose we saw a big change with Aqours, though, especially with season two. But even then, the ships tended to stay at least between girls of the same year (aside from my rarepair, shout-out to YohaRiko.) Now, I wonder. From the very beginning, before Yu even had a name, it felt like they were really pushing the shippy stuff @ the viewer. I wonder if that’s still gonna be the angle. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it yet. I really want to see more YuAyu rather than YuSetsu, but I can't really be mad at more gay content unless they try to make it a DEEP story and then fail to resolve it but haha they'd NEVER do that, I'm sure!!

As for the others... I'm guessing they're gonna push RinAi, KarinEmma, YuuKasu, and maybe YuuShizu? My original guesses were that AiKarin would be a thing, evoking NozoEli v3. But I guess that'd be too predictable a third time. KarinEmma sounds like it could be cute and sweet, RinAi feels like it has adorable potential, and YuKasu vs. YuAyu sounds like it could have some good comedic rival-y potential, given they don't make Kasumi super serious about it and make it really angsty. Not that a cute idol show would ever do such a thing haha!!!!!

Higurashi Gou

Also started Higurashi. I doubt many people know this, but I used to be a major Higurashi fan before I got into Touhou. It was my main "fandom" I guess, even though there wasn't really that much of a fandom to interact with comparatively. Anyway, despite that, I didn't think I'd get into this remake super hard... but I'm really loving it so far. The art style is really pretty and eye candy, and it turns out it's a direct continuation of the story rather than a remake. Very excited to see where it's going, and also to see a lot of my baby Rena again.

An interesting difference to me as I'm rewatching are my feelings for Keiichi. While I don't hate him, over the years I've really grown tired of the generic male leads (especially in harem anime) like him. Of course, he's definitely not AS generic as they come, or maybe perhaps that's just my bias from when I used to really like him. The me back then found him unique enough to stand beside the girls. Nowadays, I definitely can't say the same. At least he doesn't grate on my nerves as much as most other harem anime protags do, however. I feel like despite lacking the quirks that make the girls so likeable and unique, he still has something going for him... perhaps the fact he's framed as inherently different from everyone else, because he comes from the city, and the way he acts a bit more realistically to the scary things that are happening. Although those things are obviously explained away later, at least for now I still accept him for what he is, old bias or not.

Genshin Impact

Been playing Genshin Impact religiously and loved every second of it. Though I've caught up with the main story content, so sadly it's slowed down. I'd never heard of this game before it came out, so I was absolutely wowed that such a game was f2p. I've heard a lot of people criticizing it because they added gacha in at the last minute, and I definitely understand being annoyed through the pov of someone who was anticipating it. But part of me is still really thankful that the game is free at all. I suppose that full but paid 60 dollar game would still be a better experience, but because of my non-existent budget situation, I may not have ended up playing it at all.

Aside from the arguably shitty monetization practices, however, the game is fantastic. It really is as similar to BoTW as people have mentioned, and I really appreciate that. BoTW, from a gameplay standpoint, is absolutely my favorite game. It's exactly what I want from any given game. So I really appreciated this. The story and characters of Genshin are also really interesting. I really like Qiqi, Venti, Fischl, and Xingqiu, among others. I spent a while rerolling for Qiqi or Venti 5*s, and eventually got an account with Qiqi. Venti on the other hand I've been trying to roll for but sadly haven't gotten. I have 1 roll left before the banner ends, so hopefully.. My friends whaled him for me. I swear I tried to stop them! I owe them my soul...

HoloLive, Pikamee & Vtubing

I briefly started getting into HoloLive a little while ago. After the Aloe stuff, I started worrying a bit about how the company handles these situations as well as the girls' freedoms and how much of their donation money they actually get.. (I made a post about it a while back.) After a while my worries died down a bit, but then came back full force with the Coco and Haachama situation. After that and one too many uncomfortable sexual jokes, I decided to just distance myself from HL. It's a shame, because I really enjoyed their personalities, but it was making me feel uncomfortable more often than not.

I told myself it’s fine, I’ve got Pikamee if I ever feel like watching vtubers again. And then like a week later... Well, it’s not really something I wanna talk about here, but she made some posts on twitter that made me too uncomfortable to continue watching her either.

On a much lighter note... A friend of mine showed us how to use prprlive and facerig to use the Touhou CB Live2D models, and Asa and I played around with Mokou, Kaguya, and Lyrica’s. It was quite fun, and I do look forward to using the Kaguya one for private streams on one of my servers. I’ve actually always wanted to try out vtubing stuff myself, but not really publicly. Of course, the costs for getting a model drawn and made specifically for me are too much for something I’m not really committing to, so this is perfect. I’m excited~

Touhou Cannonball & Kagura Thoughts

It’s been a long time since I talked about Touhou CB on my blog, and I’m pretty sure I left things on a pretty bad note. Mainly dissatisfied with Mokou’s portrayal for pretty shallow reasons on my part, despite they game having just started and having a lot of room to grow. And grow it did. While I quit pretty early in because of that, Asa decided to take over my account. She realized that it was pretty easy to upgrade any given character you had to a 5* without having to rely much on the gacha. She ended up playing a lot with the goal of upgrading everyone we had. I came back to it around July and actually had a lot of fun with it. The cast had gotten much bigger and we really enjoyed playing on multiplayer. It wasn't the best game ever from a gameplay standpoint, but it definitely had it's charm. The announcement of its death, although unsurprising, came at the worst time. Asa and I actually cried a little when we saw the announcement, ngl. The game had such good, wholesome, Touhouy vibes to it. Nonetheless, we made the most out of the last month or so after the announcement. We played a LOT of multiplayer and had a lot of really cute and good interactions with other players. Near the end, we realized that Lyrica was the only character from the normal banner we were missing, so we grinded like crazy (mostly Asa) to try to get her... we ended up getting a number of 5*s but none Lyrica... she eluded us to the very end. It was quite sad, but how hard we worked for it still felt satisfying somehow. We were able to max out our multiplayer level and complete a ton of goals we wouldn’t have otherwise.

So after this bittersweet experience with Touhou gacha, and all the scummy things I've been hearing about Lost Word, I've been thinking like... I'm done with Touhou gacha, at least for now. Don't wanna hear anything else about it for a good while. And then the 25th anniversary hits and they announce Kagura. Ugh. Please, give me a break. Needless to say, I'm gonna have to give it a try. Touhou is my life, I love rhythm games, I love Touhou music, and I love character collecting games. And I've been waiting for something to replace SIF gameplay in my heart for a long time. I'd banked my hopes on SIFAS but it's really barely a rhythm game so.... at least now that I've gone through CB's death and seen how cruddy LW is, I'll have lower standards and not get my hopes up too high.

If you got this far, thanks for reading my rambles and have a good day~

[nekoprankster218]

10 Touhou Characters I Really Like

I did a 10 Characters, 10 Fandoms post and couldn’t come up with a singular candidate to represent TouHou Project, so this is my answer.

1. Fujiwara no Mokou

She was super close to being my pick for the previous list. I started having a bigger appreciation for Mokou around a year ago, and I think writing fanfiction and shipping her with Kaguya is mainly why. Love her design, and her dynamics. And all the angst potent in writing- (but also how laidback she actually is in canon).

2. Toyosatomimi no Miko

Also came close to being my pick for the last list. The gif pretty much explains everything: her hairstyle, her cape, her headphones, her wife. She and Tojiko are another of my main Touhou ships. I could honestly talk a lot about that. And my Touhou ships in general. I should make a list on that-

3. The Scarlet Sisters (Remilia and Flandre)

Originally was just gonna be Flan, but found this nice gif of the both of them. Flan was the first Touhou character I declared my favorite, and the SDM remain my favorite group from the franchise. Also love the sisterly relationship they have, as well as Remilia’s balance between formal and immature. If I could just find a nice gif of the whole mansion crew, I would’ve just put that as my Touhou entry on the 10 fandoms list.

4. Suika Ibuki

I remember drawing her on my old school binder (and Flan too actually). And despite the fact I intended my current AO3 pfp to be a placeholder, chibi Suika remains the face of my AO3 account. Like Remilia, she has a balance of maturity and immaturity, but for completely different reasons (they key reason being alcohol). I just really love my one fanfc (crossover, and really long) where I embrace the Shuten-douji aspect of her character. And by embrace, I mean drill deeeeep into that iceberg.

5. Clownpiece

I have yet to play LoLK, but I did play one of the fanmade mobile games, and oh my god how I spammed my Discord friends with that torment. Still! I’m weak to her aesthetics and theme songs that I just can’t stay mad.

6. Eiki Shiki

You can blame Memories of Phantasm for this. (and her theme song; actually that’s a pretty good explanation for a lot of my favorites...) I know she’s probably not actually that short, and she isn’t as strict, but fanon is fun! Although I do love the idea of her giving lectures in the mortal world because she actually does care about keeping people out of Hell. She should really be allowed to leave PoFV and not just be a cameo or brief mention in recent games (and least the literature still uses her from time to time).

7. Medicine Melancholy

And speaking of “please bring back earlier casts”! A PoFV character so underrated, there was only 3 gifs of her with gif search. I really fell in love with the theory that the real Medicine is the tiny doll and Su-San is the human body being controlled. But I also just love child characters with more serious characteristics.

8. Seija Kijin

Another case of “blame writing fanfiction”. There was something really special about experimenting with her, given I didn’t pay much attention to her at first. I started to love the potential for arcs and dynamics just her ability brought, given how her very nature as an amanojaku means she kinda has a passive ability of always reversed in a way.

9. Daiyousei

I feel like Daiyousei and Koakuma are less underrated than Medicine (and probably other early, lower stage bosses), even tho they technically don’t have official names. I swear that one Halo-Touhou crossover fic completely shaped my character appreciations, because I also liked Dai more because of it. She’s a cutie, but canonically kind of a blank state. Which really makes it fun to speculate and explore relationships, personalities, and backstories with her. So I guess in a way it makes her more of a doll than Medicine too.

10. Hieda no Akyuu

Akyuu’s special, in a way no Touhou character really has matched. She’s the only one with true visible aging in a setting that feels like it’s stuck in time, and maybe that’s partially because of who she is - the Child of Miare. The one who’s not gonna live past her 30′s. My favorite version of her is when she’s like 10, for the same reason why I like Medicine and charismatic!Remilia. But in recent time I’ve grown interest in her older versions, especially with one lingering thought (and fear). Is Zun really gonna kill her off in a few years? Will future Touhou media feature a dead Akyuu in the Ministry of Right and Wrong? Or is she gonna find a way to live longer? I really can’t say for either (heard one of the literature mentioned her getting interested in youkai books, which may be early seed planting). But Akyuu may just be the first Touhou casualty (that wasn’t part of a backstory), and whether or not it happens, I’m excited to see what the dramatics of it all may stir up.

Unless Zun decides to retcon or ignore it. That’d just be disappointing.

Honorable Additions Because 10 Just Isn’t Enough

11. Komeiji Sisters (Satori and Koishi)

12. Utsuho Reiuji

13. Nitori Kawashiro

14. Kyouko Kasodani

15. Saki Kurokoma

(no gifs...?!)

16. Narumi Yatadera

17. Chen

[doedipus]

dungeon meshi?

001 | Send me a fandom and I will tell you my:

Favorite character: the obvious answer is izutsumi, but I also really like chilchack, kabru, and misurn. just like,,, not as much as izutsumi lol

Least Favorite character: there aren’t really any characters I absolutely hate, but if I really had to pick, I’d probably say mr. tance. he’s just super crotchety and doesn’t really respect namari and the rest of his retainers much at all. also toshiro/sureau and most of his party come off as pretty unlikable. 

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): izutsumi/marcille, farlyn/marcille, laius/kabru, I think there might be something in kabru/misurn and marcille/misurn too but I haven’t really thought about it further.

Character I find most attractive: basically all of the canaries are pretty hot. I think I unironically have marcille’s sense of taste lol. it’s not really the same thing, but izutsumi is another one of those characters that’s attractive in a way that I’d want to project onto them in a story or whatever 

Character I would marry: marcille or farlyn probably, maybe kabru if he transitioned

Character I would be best friends with: honestly most of the cast. chilchack seems like he’d be fun to go drinking with, and the thorden siblings seem like people I’d run into in a d&d group or online game lobby and immediately get sucked into their social circle forever

a random thought: I put all the touhou shit in my fanfic kind of as a joke originally, but after reading forbidden scrollery I feel like there’s actually a good bit of thematic overlap about like, the border between the human and the monstrous and symbiotic relationships between the two and stuff. also reimu would make a great canary.

An unpopular opinion: I think my “every elf is genderqueer” headcanon post is unpopular with straight fans lol, but outside of that corner of the fandom I guess maybe “senshi and farlyn are both kinda boring as-is and need more development” would do as a more generally unpopular opinion

my canon OTP: again, idk what the threshold for canonicity is, but marcille/farlyn is basically a reading comprehension exercise so I’m gonna go with that

Non-canon OTP: desperately hoping izutsumi/marcille graduates to canon at some point

most badass character: hard to say, there’s so many characters that are just super cool. misurn telefragging people owns, kabru’s party kicks ass when they actually get to fight stuff and don’t get instantly tpk’d, marcille is pretty badass during the resurrection scene and when she kills the griffon basically single-handedly, izutsumi taking on all the succubi by herself was awesome... I could go on. basically every character has gotten a couple scenes where they really get to shine and I love it.

pairing I am not a fan of: laius/marcille. arguably laius’ succubus implies that he’s into her, but I really just don’t see anything deeper than that tbh. not that they aren’t friends obviously, it just feels really forced to interpret that as romantic.

character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): there hasn’t been anyone yet where like, their characterization just veers off in a stupid direction or anything, but like I mentioned already, I feel like senshi kinda ran out of stuff to do around when they got to the water level with the exception of the griffon arc, and farlyn still needs more characterization imo

favourite friendship: just generally laius’ party seem to get along really well and I love the dynamic they have

character I want to adopt or be adopted by: I think basically everyone except chilchack is about my age (or equivalent) give or take maybe 5 years so it’s hard to say. maybe the thorden siblings as kids? a lot of laius’ flashbacks about how they grew up seems pretty dismal, especially how farlyn was shunned and stuff

[quiesphere]

2017 Art Summary (template)

   When I look at my previous art summaries, I think, "It's already been a year? Two years?!"... I'm surprised at how much I still like some of these pieces. But since I made art summaries for these last two years, why not make one this year too?

   Even though I've been super busy because of uni I managed to draw many things this year, I hope I'll be able to draw even more next year! I'm still struggling with my lenghty art process but I feel like I'm becoming better at it little by little. I can put aside perfectionism now and just, draw and paint with good results, yay! \o/

January - Piece: Tilde of the Forest    I have to admit, I like this one a lot!! I wish I had added some sort of texture, but I want to think it's already fine as it is so it doesn't look too convoluted. I'm glad I managed to make it give off the feeling I wanted it to have. I'm not sure if the forest Tilde lives in will look exactly like this, but I hope to make an area like this in one of my games someday. Making detailed forest maps is super hard, but I'll do my best! ´A`)9

February - Piece: Carmilla    I... barely drew anything this month (mostly stuff I finished the next month). So I picked up this drawing I had done a while ago in pencil and colored it! I really wanted to play FGO back then, but couldn't, but thanks to FGO NA I can now! I've been playing for a while, and I even got her. :') Sometimes dreams do come true. About the drawing itself, I like how it reminds me a bit of a painting, especially the reds. It got so few response when I posted it that I felt like there might be something wrong with it, but now I still like it regardless! \o/

March - Piece: Sisterly Hatred    Finally, a month with more stuff! I was able to draw a lot of Touhou this month thanks to requests on Twitter. ;v; I really missed drawing Touhou!! It's one of my favorite sagas, so I'm glad I drew quite a lot of it this year. The stars this month are the two paintings I drew from Pocket Mirror, though! I really like these two! Special mention to Cynthia too!    (I also started posting my adoptables this month! Yay!)

April - Piece: Wicked Hermit    Touhou! This one was also one of the requests, but I decided to go a bit wild with it and ended up making it more detailed. I wanted to draw a pretty Seiga anyways, so I took the chance. She's pretty high up on my favorite Touhous ranking. ;v; The background was completely improvised, but it looks surprisingly well. I really like how it came out! (After SAI crashing and making me lose all the shading once, it better be... orz)

May - Piece: Cecillia    This one doesn't even have an actual title since it's just a doodle, but since I barely drew anything this month, here it is! Though it does have something special (other than it being a tribute for my favorite OC's birthday! I love her!!), and it's that I drew it in a very very short time while still looking nice. A bit closer to my process goal. ;v; It... it's really going to be two years since I created her next May? Time sure goes by fast...

June - Piece: Lynerea    I actually started this one on May and only finished the last touches in June, but since I was very busy with my third year uni project this month I didn't draw anything else other than adoptables. However, I really, really like the result! It doesn't look like the usual expressions I draw, and it's a bit of a more dynamic stance. The background was also completely improvised, including the magic circles... I'm still not sure how I drew them (magic??), but I'm super happy with it.    I want to make more drawings like this, with people casting magic in cool poses... yeah B)

July - Piece: Yukari    I have to confess, I really disliked how this drawing was looking while I was working on it. I find coloring blonde hair a bit harder than colors like red or green (my favorites to color), and since there was so much of it... Other than that, I felt like it really looked more simple than what I had in mind. It took me quite a lot of tries to get motivated enough to finish it (since I dislike leaving drawings unfinished even more!) However, after finishing it, I feel like it's not that bad at all! I'm glad I did. I have to learn that simple doesn't equal bad. ;v; (The hair still gives me nightmares, though!!)

August - Piece: Forget-me-not    Another piece that took several years off my lifespan, but for a really good cause. I got so tired of looking at it, and I was even planning on coloring all these flowers one by one at the beginning (thanks copypaste for saving me from this torture). But after finishing, it's probably one of my favorites so far, especially the upper left corner! I like that flower section specifically.    This character has her own story which I have pretty much developed, but I've got to finish other projects first. She's not the protagonist, though!    I also opened (pixel) commissions for the first time. I do plan on opening illustration commissions in the future, though! (I'm growing up! \o/)

September - Piece: Rose Queen    I!! GOT!! ROSETTA!! I sparked her on August after having been saving up since January. I really wanted to draw something to celebrate so there she is! I actually made two different sketches, one for this drawing and one for an alternate version I finished later. This one took wayyy too long, so I decided to just go ahead and post it before finishing the other. To be honest, she's probably my favorite character out of, like, anything, so I really wish I could draw her more frequently. ;v;    I feel like I overworked the coloring in this one a bit, though. I hope I get to draw her well someday... on the other hand, I spent a lot of this month working on my cosplay of her. Gotta show my love however I can. /)v(\

October - Piece: Ran    More Touhou!! Ran was the last one of the Touhou requests I got many months before. I wanted to draw her with Yukari (and a bonus Chen) at first, but couldn't get the sketch right. In the end, I gave up and drew her by herself, though it also took a bunch of tries! I'm also proud of Peony, which is another drawing that barely took me any time to finish. I managed to sacrifice a lot of perfectionism in this one, and it made me feel like I had taken a step forward.

November - Piece: Flower Master of the Four Seasons    I actually drew this one on paper on summer, even before HSiFS came out! I wanted to color it before then but in the end time passed, I drew other things and forgot about it a bit. After that, it suffered a bit like my Yukari drawing on July... I tried to work on it because I didn't want to leave it unfinished (and because Yuuka is my favorite Touhou character!). I wasn't very happy with the result, and lost a lot of motivation.    But in the end, I decided to just go simple and do what I could. And it worked! The background I was scared to face became a few strokes, and in the end I managed to have fun with the coloring. I like this drawing a lot now. I think about this every time I dislike my works in progress; that maybe after finishing I'll look at them with other eyes.

December - Piece: Undead Relic    I had hoped to draw more this month before it ended, but I just took a lot of time to finish a single drawing that is not this one... oh well. ;v;    This is another piece that I managed to finish in a short time with good results!! I hadn't drawn Reliquia in some time. Now that I look at her, I notice that she doesn't actually have that much hair... I just go way too overboard when drawing hair... orz

   I.. I sure wrote a lot this year, didn’t I? It feels like it's kind of an overview of my year and the things I’ve felt and thought about. Thank you so much if you’ve read my ramblings so far!!

   Onwards to a hopefully great, art-filled 2018! \o/

[ciryes]

So now that it's been a few days since HSiFS came out what is your overall opinion on the game? What do you think of the gameplay, characters, story, music, etc. now that you've had some time to experience the game?

I summarized what I thought of the actual gameplay here. It’s a relatively difficult game, but the difficulty comes from how unusual some of the danmaku patterns are. I’ve also tried the extra stage a few times, and it’s pretty easy for an Extra stage, although with some killer midboss spells.

The music is pretty great overall. I liked the demo music and the more I listen to the full version’s music, the more I like it. My only gripe with it is that either Narumi’s theme got glitched audio, or the harsh choice of drums make it sound really jagged and hard to listen to. The actual composition of the theme itself is nice though, so I’m hoping it’s just audio distortion.

So in terms of the actual game, it’s a pretty good game. Nice music and fun to play. The only thing that really disappointed me was the story - not that I think anything is wrong with it, I just feel like there wasn’t enough.

Out of any Touhou game, this one added the least amount of ‘Gensokyo’ to Gensokyo, I think. With every new Touhou game, we get a new group of characters, more lore, more interesting interactions between characters. I think some of the best examples of interesting and impactful Touhou games are Imperishable Night - which added the Bamboo Forest, Eientei, and Lunar Capital to the list of locations within the world, and introduced the people of the moon, who are a whole interesting facet of Touhou - Mountain of Faith, which added Youkai Mountain, the tengu and kappa societies, and introduced the Moriya Shrine and their very grand schemes - or Undefined Fantastic Object, which added the Myouren Temple and opened up into exploring the place of religion and religious conflict in Gensokyo.

Even games that don’t have a lot of major worldbuilding, like Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, are still interesting - even though we only got one new location in this game (the Scarlet Devil Mansion) it’s full of unique, independent but connected characters with different roles and relationships, which makes the mansion a very dynamic and interesting setting even if they don’t get super involved with Gensokyo’s affairs.

Now contrast this to HSiFS. The only new location we get to see is the Land of Rear Doors - which, is really just, as the name implies, an empty void full of doors. Nobody lives there besides Okina and her two servants. It’s a secret realm tucked away in the very furthest reaches of reality, and is essentially just a stage for fighting Okina more than it is an interesting location. There’s no permanent effect of the incident - the game ends with Okina being defeated and restoring the seasons to normal - by the end of HSiFS, nothing has changed in Gensokyo - we just got to meet a new character and see some hints of her motives.

Okina herself is really the only interesting part of the game. It feels like the entire story was written just to show off Okina. She even takes up two stages. Satono and Mai are the only other story-related characters, and they’re really only there as extensions of Okina. The rest of the characters in HSiFS are just minor characters in various locations - which is nice, nothing bad about new 2hu girls, but it doesn’t really have any story value, there’s not really a lot going on. It takes until stage five before you actually meet anybody to do with the incident, and they’re just mindlessly carrying out the orders of the stage 6 boss - the only other character you will meet at this point.

I’m aware that this entire thing kind of turned into a rant, and I apologize for that. I’m just a little disappointed. Don’t get me wrong, Okina is a cool character. Really cool. Her ability is cool, her aesthetic is cool, her music is really cool, and she’s a really interesting addition to Gensokyo. I’m not displeased with Okina at all. I just wish the entirety of HSiFS didn’t revolve around her and nothing else, because it makes the game kind of lore-barren, and new Touhou lore is my favorite part about getting a new game.