#wow thats a lot of tags lmao woops

[sneakyscarab]

hello! it's been a while since ive written out my thoughts about touhou! part of the reason why is that i've been working on a website of my own, which now hosts all my grimoire of nina entries with enhanced bonus features! plus a lot of other things on other pages but this is the relevant part to this post. i'm not sure whether i want to continue making tumblr versions of the posts now that i've set this up, but for now im gonna do both a tumblr edition and a neocities edition. with that out of the way lets get started on...

Touhou 1-5 PC98 Extravaganza!

after finishing the main series (and taking a probably needed break from bullet hells for a bit) I went back to the beginning and checked out the first wave of Touhou, the 5 PC98 games!

putting this up front, while i absolutely respect what these games did to kick off the series and get things going, i cant say i was very fond of them, so the overall tone of this writing is on the neutral to negative side. just something i feel i should note. with that said, let’s get started.

Touhou 1 - Highly Responsive to Prayers

Highly Responsive to Prayers is a weird game. contrary to what one would expect, the First Touhou Game is not a vertical scrolling shooter like others. HRtP is instead a sort of breakout/arkanoid type game, where you control a miko-shaped paddle named Reimu running back and forth bouncing a giant yin-yang orb that clears up tiles, beating a stage once you’ve cleared the screen. it does actually have whispers of the series’ future though, with turrets in levels that shoot bullets towards you, Reimu having a amulet-shooting ability (influence the orb's movement), screen-clearing bombs, and menacing boss fights.

you heard me right, this breakout clone has boss fights, and theyre kinda wild. every 5th stage is a boss, which have big hitboxes and shoot out tons of bullets and other attacks which you have to simultaneously avoid while also manipulating your orb in order to hit the boss (because only the orb does damage). After beating the first boss youre given a branching path between Makai or Hell, and either choice gives you 15 more stages for a total of 20.

overall HRtP is a very bizarre and not particularly great game, but its uniqueness makes it really stand out, and if you're in the market to play a weird breakout/bullet hell game for whatever reason you should try it out.

Touhou 2 - Story of Eastern Wonderland

now This is a Touhou game! released alongside HRtP at Comiket 52, Story of Eastern Wonderland is what i would say is the true first Touhou game, being a vertical scrolling shooter with 6 stages, fancy boss fights, and ridiculous characters.

right out of the gate SoEW shows off how wacky the PC98 era lore is, with the first stage containing not one but two military tanks as boss fights. the third stage's boss as well is a weird metallic wall with 5 "eyes" and innumerable laser cannons. its wild. as for gameplay, it's pretty much what you would consider Standard Touhou, although with some features missing that havent been invented yet, notably the movement-slowing Focus mechanic.

one interesting thing about this game is the colour choice: likely due to palette restrictions pretty much the entire game is a combo of red+purple, with the occasional blue+green sprites. even marisa is not immune, having bright red hair only in this game alongside a purple robe+hat.

its very surprising how close SoEW already is to the modern gameplay loop, although i guess it shouldnt be Too surprising considering scrolling shooters are like one of the first game genres ever made. its a pretty fun time, but also pretty rough around the edges.

Touhou 3 - Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream

if you thought we would stablize into the regular style now that we've seen SoEW, you'd be off the mark. Phantasmagoria of Dim Dream is actually a VS game in the same style as the later PoFV and UDoALG titles! it was really surprising to me seeing just how much experimentation was going on with the series this early in its lifespan, but I suppose that happened a lot back then.

in terms of gameplay PoDD plays surprisingly similar to PoFV, with the same enemy combos, sending spells at each other through a charge meter, and summoning yourself as a boss fight on the other guy's screen as an ultimate move. it even has the same insane boss summon rebound mechanic and the same cheating bastard final boss ai!

one funny difference is that, since faeries hadnt yet been established as go-to mooks, the enemies during duels are a variety of random things. besides ghosts you just have star, moon, or heart shapes with ' ' and ^^ faces. theyre so abstract I kinda love it lol.

like SoEW its surprisingly functional for its age, although also like that game it still lacks features like focus, leaving it being unpolished in comparison to newer variations of this formula. unless youre a PC98 enthusiast id recommend playing PoFV or UDoALG instead, especially since the multiplayer on this one is local-only.

Touhou 4 - Lotus Land Story

now things are starting to standardize. Lotus Land Story is another vertical scrolling shooter and adds in a bunch of features not in SoEW that would go on to be series mainstays: focus, boss phases, boss item drops, and most notably having Marisa as a deuteragonist! if SoEW was a standard touhou missing some features, LLS is taking steps to a full on touhou game, missing just a few mechanics from EoSD, notably the spell card system and point-of-collection line.

LLS is also notable for a few other reasons, one being the character Yuuka who is one of the few PC98 characters to get remade in the windows games, and the other being the origin of the iconic song Bad Apple!! which got remixed by nomico and memed half to death.

Its pretty good, albeit still rough around the edges and missing the sort of spark thats found in later entries.

Touhou 5 - Mystic Square

Mystic Square is where we settle in, playing identical to LLS, which means theres not much to talk about. there are 2 more playable characters than LLS, with both Mima and Yuuka. Mystic Square also includes the 4th and final PC98 character to get remade later in the Windows canon, Alice Margatroid. besides the name and the blonde hair though theres pretty much nothing connecting the two Alices together. if you liked Lotus Land Story you'll probably like this too, i dunno.

alrighty with all those games out of the way its time to talk about the characters of note. and of course if theres one name thats synonymous with PC98 its...

Mima! appearing in four of the five games of this era, Mima is the most consistent character besides Reimu and Marisa, and yet she has never been seen since Mystic Square. this may be a hot take, but i think Mima is emblematic of a lot of the qualities of this era that make it hard to get into from a story perspective. for starters, Mima is incredibly inconsistent. She shows up 4 times and is basically a different character each time; being a random Hell boss in HRtP, a vengeful spirit bent on destroying all humanity (except Marisa i guess?) in SoEW, a woman of few words and a short temper in PoDD, and a snarky bully who tells blatant lies just to see how people react in MS. she also has a weird conceptual design and wack power scaling, being a ghost who was never alive, always been a ghost, who also for some reason has like dragon wings but only when she gets angry (Marisa also has these in PoDD which is really bizarre) and shes able to simply escape being magically sealed away as if she was cracking the seal on a pickle jar and casually beats up everyone in Mystic Square without even blinking. While i do like elements of her character (her lying bastard personality from MS is pretty funny and I see why people would want that back) i think its for the best that she stays in the PC98 era, the one seal she cannot break free of. If she were to come back, so much would have to be rewritten either of the world around her or Mima herself that she would basically be a different character entirely, which i think would cause way more drama than her return is worth.

moving on, lets talk about Genjii! this old fart is basically Reimu's grandpa who is also a magical flying turtle. since Reimu doesnt know how to fly in these games, her pops Genjii gives her a ride whenever she needs to go solve an incident. He also acts as a straight-man to Reimu's comedy in her storylines, often questioning the bizarre things that she says or weird noises she makes. he's just a funny turtle grandpa and i'm here for it. while Genjii has never officially appeared in a game in the Windows era, ZUN has stated that the reason is that he's just enjoying his retirement. Reimu can fly on her own now, so he's just resting in the pond out behind the shrine, doing whatever it is grandpa turtles do in their free time. good for him :>

the last character spotlight is for Meira! she's a cool samurai lady from stage 2 of SoEW who was also Reimu's gay awakening :P (for context, Meira and Reimu's pre-battle conversation is a bit where Meira claims to seek the Hakurei Maiden [for her power] but Reimu assumes that Meira's hitting on her. After clarifying that Meira wants to fight Reimu and take her power after winning, Reimu counter-offers by implying that she'll take Meira as her girlfriend if she wins.) this was almost certainly just intended as a joke, but considering that Touhou Project is basically a yuri wonderland its very funny to see gay implications in literally the second spoken conversation in the entire series. besides that, Meira also has cool attacks utilizing her sword where she makes huge slashes in the air that explode into bullets after a second, which were probably inspiration for Youmu's sick swordplay five games later.

and thats the PC98 era! with these games under my belt ive now played each whole-numbered entry in the series, woo~! so having played them all, what are my thoughts on the origins of Touhou?

i'll start by clarifying that i am generally not a 'Retro Gamer'. while i acknowledge the importance of early entries into series, they are very frequently rough, unpolished, or just straight up unfun because the devs are still working out the kinks on how they want the series to go. this is doubly so for games from this pre-2000s era, where game design in general was still a new concept and most games were working off arcade standards of high difficulty to steal quarters. early Touhou is not exempt from this, these games are missing a lot of features added later that make the games more fun, and the difficulty is much higher with a lot more 'bullshit' design like bullets that spawn on your character or a lack of proper resources given on respawn leading to a cycle of death.

all said, i cant say i really enjoyed my time with the PC98 titles. you may have noticed that i didn't mention 1cc runs so far in this article, and the reason for that is i couldnt find the motivation to keep trying for more runs like i did with the future games. mix that in with the bizarre, nonsensical, and often self-contradictory writing and you have a recipe for mediocrity. PoDD in particular is an absolute dearth of writing and worldbuilding. most character interactoins are like one sentence long, and the plot involves two scientists on a "Probability Space Hypervessel" who somehow invited in the characters from Gensokyo to the real world so that they could capture them and steal their magic for clout. In Marisa's route after she beats them up they give her a weapon as a reward which is a ICBM with a smiley face that Marisa names Mimi-chan and rides around instead of her broom. like its all so ridiculous you can just tell that these were like student projects done by a dude in his free time and not a serious attempt at making a world or story.

overall i just really have trouble finding passion for these titles compared to the later entries, to the point that i had to shove all 5 of these games into a single article and its about as much writing as Subterranean Animism alone. im sorry if youre a big PC98 and/or Mima enjoyer but theyre not for me, and i have to say im glad that Touhou moved on and evolved past this point.

thank you for reading, and i'll see you next time, whenever that is!

[huangfilms]

Barista!Donghyuck

summary: i don’t usually go to this cafe but i’m glad i did cause you’re pretty cute and i guess i said a pick up line and now we’re just going back and forth with pick up lines i think i like you??

requested by: a lovely anon❤️ thank you!

(A/N) WOOP HERE WE GO !! THANKS FOR WAITING SO PATIENTLY !! AND THANKS FOR REQUESTING!! i hope this is what u envisioned anon i luv u !!! please leave me some feedback and i just wanted to say: thank you all for supporting my work even tho most of it is Trash i love u all with all of my heart!! thanks for existing and following my trash blog too!!!! please excuse my poor skills at making a decent summary!! i hope u enjoy <3

here we go ladies!!! i love barista AUs

would he b a baristo???

uhhh Fuck whatever

anyway!! so donghyuck got this job cause he wanted money

honest to god he hates the smell of coffee but ca$h is ca$h

so he took the job the closest to where he lives

anyway hes had this job for like what??

3 months now??? sure we’ll say that

and so he knows a lot of the regulars

he Loves To Joke Around with them

especially this customer mark

but anywho

so he just KNOWS everyone who comes in and out of this place

he knows their names and what they order

even tho he only started three months ago he Pays Attention

but then he sees u

and he just kNOWS that u arent a regular there cause HELLO !!

hes never seen u before

never seen u during his shift anyway

okay well so hes never seen u before,, but he just Looks At You because youre so,,, gorgeous???

what even??? he really is questioning if youre real or just his imagination

when you walk up to the counter though, he cant even talk,,, like hes frozen

and then when youre trying to get his attention you just wave your hand in his face and snap ur fingers

that doesnt really work out so u just look at his name tag and say his name a few times

‘donghyuck!’

and then he just about melts but then he Snaps out of it because he isnt getting paid to stare at customers

so u order whatever u get at a coffee shop,, thats up 2 u

then he asks for ur name, u give him one,, and then he becomes Confident

‘do i know you from somewhere??’

‘oh i,, i dont think so?? why?’ and ur just confused cause uve never seen him b4 why is he saying that LMAO

‘its just that u look A LOT like my next boyfriend/girlfriend’

AND U BOTH VISIBLY REDDEN LIKE ITS ADORABLE

AND HYUCK IS JUST STUTTERING CAUSE WOW HE JUST S AID THAT CJDJ

BUT THEN U JUST SMILE

and then u walk over to sit somewhere and u just!! hcjsjd

u think about it and ur all like ,,, hmmmmmmmm

hmMmmMmmMmmMMM

your name gets called for your drink by hyuck and u Take Your Chance

‘apart from being cute, what do u do for a living?’

REDNESS PT 2

AND THEN U RUSH OUT BEFORE HE CAN SAY ANYTHING CJDJ

and hyuck just Thinks about it All The Time

cause u dont come back for a week

but when u do come back

hes Red In The Face

all of his coworkers (read chenle and jisung) start to make fun of him

this time tho he takes ur oder right quicc

but he doesnt say anyhing 😪

ur a lil disappointed but i m e a n

its whatever😔😔

anyway!! so u get called for ur drink and then u just hang out in a booth

just sippin ur drink

and then u turn ur cup

then u see it

‘hi. im a theif. i have come to steal your heart : )’

AND U CHOke

but then u start to quietly laugh cause chsjjdjs HE JUSTXHS

and hyuck sees the whole thing

‘donghyuck ur not being paid to just stand around u MORON’ -jisung

and he blushes Again !!! wow !!!

hyuck then sees u walk up to the counter

and then u say ‘do u have an extra heart? mine was just stolen ;)’ AND U WINK

both of u: Shook

u cannot believe u just—

yall really b doing this to urselves😪

anywho

and then u Ru n again

flight or fight?? just flight. thats it.

but the next day u come in again

and honestly hyuck was up all night writing down pick up lines cause that seems to be what u two r doing now

OKAY well anyway !!

he sees u right away cause u stand out from the crowd 😪😪

and hes mentally picking a pick up line to use this time

nd so u order or whatever and he makes the drink

and when he calls u over he says ‘careful,, the drink is hot. but not as hot as u ; )’

AND UR JUST RED CJJSJD

and HES RED

and chenle and jisung are making fun of him again

AND SO U SMILE AND U SIT DOWN

but right after u sit down u deadass get back up and go to him JUST to say

‘excuse me, i got the worst tongue burn. i think i need mouth-to-mouth’

and its dead silent from where chenle and jisung r standing cause they just hear EVERYTHING

but everything is still going on around u its just silent BEHINd the counter

honestly ur ego is too high for this one cause hyuck! is! speechless! so u couldnt care less about the stares

and donghyuck just blushes DARK RED

he doesn’t say anything but just Stare In Shock and so you just give him a cute grin, take ur drink and g o

AND HYUCK IS STILL THInKING ABOUT THAT LMAODFSDKJFH

so anyway time skip like 2 months

in those two months u guys get to know each other as well,,, but 

EVERYONE knows that u guys just say pick up lines to each other when u come in

like,,, sometimes theres no actual conversation,,, it headass goes like this: u come in, either u or him say a pick up line, then u guys get Flustered, then  the one who didnt Attac first waits a few minutes before shooting Their Shot

and then thats it.

thats the interaction

and honestly everyone knows that you guys have heart eyes for each other

like????

get ur SHIT together u guys smhhhhsdkjfhksd

and honestly hyuck: thinks Its Time

he’s getting his shit together,,,, what about you?????

when you go to the cafe again

you don’t say anything to hyuck,,,, he doesn’t say anything 2 you

everyone is confused LMAOOO

but he just gives you a big Smile and then you wait patiently for ur order

when u receive ur order u go and hang out a bit before you leave

and you look at your cup

‘will u be the coffee to my creamer?’

and you’re just,,,, smiling so hard,,,,,,, wtfdhkajsdlah

ad everyone is just ??? they really b looking like a maniac why are they smiling like that to themselves???

when you walk up to the counter you go nd ask him ‘is black coffee bitter?’ 

and hes confused but he says yes cause,,, black coffee,,,,,, yikes

BUT ANYWHO when he says yes you pull him by the collar and Kiss Him

AND EVERYONE: SHOOK

CHENLE AND JISUNG: GAGGING

literally everyone is cheering because ur Stupid Pining is Over

and then u pull away because wow u done did that in Public

but then u write ur number on a napkin and ur all like,,, text me!! : )

and u grin

ur both grinning

its cute

and then u leave and hyuck texts u about plans because,,, u guys didnt hang out,,, ever,,, u only saw him when he worked LMAO

anyway!! when u guys do finally hang out,, you guys are like,,, super cheesy with each other 

but hyuck is a Sarcastic Asshole so there’s some of that throughout the date

but honestly you guys have such a good time

time skip like a few months!!

anyway!! u guys are dating !! wow cute much cute very cute

when you visit him at work you guys Still Say pick up lines to each other

chenle and jisung regret taking this job because this is the sappiest they’ve seen hyuck

hey ca$h is ca$h LMAO

but when you guys would hang out, outside of his job, he would be all lovely but Still a Sarcastic Asshole

you would sometimes wait for his shift to be over and go with him to his house just to hang out

like you guys would change into something comfy (u have ur own drawer!! but its useless cause u steal his clothes)

and then u guys would cuddle up in his bed and just Talk for a while

and then one of you would fall asleep

honestly this is hitting me right in my uwus i--

and the other would Be So Soft shdskjfh that they would lowkey squeal and then would hold the other closer and just Sleep

anyw ho

donghyuck :( is :( so :( cute :(

he :( deserves :( the :( whole :( world :(

so !! ending notes: barista!donghyuck is a trope that I Love

honestly he could b any kind of barista i just chose him to be a flustered, and flirty one slkdfj

AND THEN HIM AS UR BF??? SASSY AND SWEET !! WHAT A COMBO!!!

and thats a wrap!! end!!

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