#some of my absolute favourite in all of touhou

[spear-gsun]

Okina matara..

#touhou #touhou project #okina #Okina Matara #i need to play HSiFS again both battles against Okina are like #some of my absolute favourite in all of touhou

[ofthenoseclan]

tell me about kanako pls

WHY BUT OF COURSE (sorry this took so long ^^;)

kanako is one of my absolute favourites in the cast because shes the character that to me brought what i like in the franchise into focus in full form. while there were hints of political satire in touhou starting around the tail end of the ninth game and its following spinoff literature, it wasnt until i reached the tenth mainline title that i really fell in love with touhou, and the driving force of that change was yasaka kanako.

kanako is such a fun character to me because her very concept is so compelling, and its delivered in an extremely satisfying way. she is a god who treats religion like running a business, and is pragmatic to every end. this is both one of her greatest strengths and a source of literally all of her issues. everything about kanako is a vignette that illustrates how her capitalistic drive for innovation creates the troubles she faces in advancing further toward her goals, and her misunderstanding of spirituality as an economic problem to be solved for efficiency creates roadblocks for her lifestyle that she is entirely, confidently blind to.

once again i have to stress, this does seem to work for her in some aspects! when she took over leadership of the suwa shrine, she did so by being calculating and planning ahead against anything suwako had up her arsenal, then sweetened the deal for both of them by offering a compromise (sharing residence as the local kami, with suwako acting as the native god and kanako being the face of the shrine who gets the worship). she made a judgment call by choosing to move the shrine from the outside world to gensoukyou when she realized that it was no longer feasible for her and her company to rely on worship from outside world humans. all of these things are demonstrably good business decisions made in the name of keeping her livelihood as a shinrei stable. however, after she moves into gensoukyou with her wife and daughter, she begins to get, well, greedy isnt the right word, but...

capitalism is a force that has to inherently grow, as that is what its entire existence encourages. so what happens when you introduce an individual whose skill is in her capitalistic business prowess into a society that has no knowledge of it? you get kanakos assumption that she needs to introduce it into their culture. she could always have more people worship her. so she tries outperforming her competing... shrines. what would make me a better god? what would prove im more fit to lead gensoukyous humans? these things start running through kanakos head very very quickly. and it isnt out of self-importance either (unlike certain other religious leaders in gensoukyou cough cough miko), she just sees it as the natural extension of running her shrine.

but of course, when you introduce capitalism into a culture, you Introduce Capitalism Into A Culture. in kanakos pursuit of refining her worshipers into customers, she makes it clear to others in her field that there is even a race for power at all. her insistence to assert her presence in gensoukyou through gaining human worshipers via the hakurei shrine alerts reimu to her as someone who is influencing the status quo in the first place. her arms race for nuclear fusion (of which she is the only participant) is directly responsible for the introduction of the myouren temple to gensoukyou, which in turn leads to the introduction of miko and her band of taoists. not to mention her many, many unnecessary entrepreneurial ideas she comes up with in the print works (although they seem much more respectable when shown side-by-side with the anarcho-capitalist schemes of the kappa). these things never would have threatened her position had she not attempted to expand her reach.

in one sense, this is a huge character flaw for her. however, the other side of this coin means that no matter the conflicts kanako brings about for herself, she always views it as inevitable; something that is bound to happen over time regardless, and just another stepping stone on her business ventures. this aspect of her is what i find most interesting—her complete inability to see the big picture in her endless strive for religious success is somehow her most reliable asset. its what makes kanako wonderful to me, and endlessly engaging even after almost two decades since her introduction.

#touhou #kanako yasaka #blub #hydrophone

[kozachenko]

I've crawled out of my cave after playing Final Fantasy IX for a long ass time what have I missed?

Artist's Notes:

I'M BACK BABY! A while back I made a post with a new style experimentation thingy but I ended up deleting it because it was just kind of a boring face thing, I was planning on doing more art but then I started playing Final Fantasy IX and uhhhh yeah so that game has kind of taken of my brain for the past two weeks and I am 20 hours into the game because I love it so much. I wanted to draw Vivi because Vivi is just really fun to draw ok? I've kinda been feeling really burnt out with my lineless style, mainly because of how hard it was to do lighting. I'll show one of my initial art style tests on the bottom of this post. Again, used to have it be an individual post but it was just one face so it was kinda boring, so might as well include with this one on the subject of art styles. I wanted to kinda mix some aspects of my older style with the sketchy shading lines with a more painterly way of doing the lighting (mainly in the shadows). All in all, I think that's my favourite part about this drawing, it feels nice to finally be able to do some proper lighting again, and I want to experiment even more with my lighting and rendering in future pieces. Also, part of the pant shading got kinda lost in the sketchiness, so for next time I'll probably focus on the clarity of the more sketchy parts of the drawing, since I did go with my initial sketch for the final drawing. I also gave up on the background since I had no idea what to do for it, and I didn't put too much detail into the staff as I forgot which one I gave him in my current playthrough and I didn't want to risk spoiling myself via looking up references, but that's ok I like how the singular yellow circle on it matches Vivi's eyes. Also I was having a bit of trouble figuring out how to draw his body and how to pose him, but I like how the pose turned out a lot. It was inspired by his idle animation when in a battle in game where he does a little shimmy.

Ok I need to talk about Vivi's design because I love it so fucking much oh my god-

I absolutely love how his face is just in complete shadow and only his eyes stand out, it's so cool and unique and I love how they recontextualized the original black mage design from the classic Final Fantasy games. How they did it I won't say because I don't wanna spoil the game, but someone give this poor baby a therapist because he goes through a lot. Actually, same can be said for all of the FFIX cast, they all need therapy (again, I won't spoil anything, please go play the game for yourself).

While I do love almost all the characters in the game, even though Vivi is most fun to draw, my favourite character has to be Zidane (the main protagonist of the game). He's a really fun protagonist, and they could have easily written him as a misogynistic jerk who doesn't respect women but they didn't, and I really appreciate that. He's just an overall cool dude who's a really nice older brother figure to Vivi and also just has a cool character design (who I also want to draw eventually). Initially in the game I was planning on grinding levels for Vivi to make him the tactical nuke of the party, but then that title went to a different character (who was initially multiple levels behind the group since I grinded the party in the starting area way to much before they joined, but now they are two levels ahead of everyone and have pulled the team through a lot of tough battles, again I won't say who it is because it is kind of a spoiler and the way the gameplay actually ties into their character arc is just so good omfg). Once I eventually finish the game I'll probably write a full review on here, so no spoilers until then lol

Also, I've kinda been burning out a bit with making Touhou art, which also made me a bit burnt out with Touhou stuff in general (although I will continue keeping up with the manga) so getting into other things (i.e. Final Fantasy and even Fallout since I've watched the first season of the TV show which is a whole other post for another day) has helped me refresh and given me something new to think about. I've ended up in the exact place I feared ending up, where I would start drawing fanart for it not because I wanted to but because I felt like I had to, so I'm taking a bit of a break. When I do draw Touhou fanart again I'll try to draw for the sake of myself, and to all the other artists and fanartists on this platform (and on any social media for that matter), take care of yourself and don't forget to take breaks when you need to!

(Ok part of that last paragraph was definitley influenced by the good ol' "it's 9:00pm and I need sleeb, but the message at the end still holds up, always take care of yourself)

Oh yeah, and here is that one style experiment I did btw

Man I really fell down the "Yoshitaka Amano art enjoyer" to "Final Fantasy fan" pipe line didn't I?

#art #fanart #final fantasy ix #vivi final fantasy #ff9 #vivi ff9 #final fantasy #final fantasy fanart

[sanhatipal]

~~ Shards of Eden ~~

This is my little cove, and where I post art and dump other things occasionally. Come inside,have a look~

I haven't lasted 2 weeks on any other site since the fall of g+, except maybe twitter but that also drove me nuts and I always took long hiatuses, but have been here constantly since 2018. Which...says quite a bit. I'm a doctor by profession,but here on Tumblr for fandom (pretty obviously) and art

My fandoms:

Pandora Hearts

The case study of Vanitas

Fate series (mainly Fate/Stay Night)

The House in Fata Morgana

Shadows House

Rozen Maiden

Tegami Bachi / Letter Bee

Witch Hat Atelier

xxxholic

Witch's Heart/Majo no Shinzou

07 ghost

D gray man

Some others I'm into but not that crazy about: Touhou, Madoka Magica, Princess Tutu, Tsubasa Reservoir chronicle, Totsokuni no Shoujo (and more but my head is empty). I like seinen, josei and a very specific brand of shonen: aka things enough to mess up my brain. I don't enjoy romance, sexual things(says the Fate fan..HAH. but seriously,I don't.), or mecha unfortunately

I tend to draw Pandora Hearts, VnC and Fate fanart most

I collect figures,so you'll see them here,but since ,as you can see,most of my faves are a bit on the below the radar side,there hardly are any figures... you'll see custom figures here,and orginal character figures because I like those too.

I like a lot of things,but mostly whimsical, folksy aesthetics,forests and plants, and glowy flowers and things like wisp motifs (there's no limit actually).My favourite colours are,as you might have guessed, the multitude of shades of red, deep maroons and browns. I love fantasy,and folk tales and Celtic things in general have been my passion for a long,long time ,though I also love things inspired by Alice in Wonderland .

As far as music goes...I sang soprano at a choir for a larger part of my teenage,and choral music is very close to my heart. My favourite genres of music are Celtic, especially Irish traditional, new age, classical/neo classical, sea shanties,and whatever Yuki Kajiura and Mili have going on.

Now...art! When not doing fanart,I like drawing fantasy illustrations, and one day I'd like to illustrate books but that's a pipe dream. I'm self taught,and use mostly watercolour and ink. I also love sculpting. It started with trying to sculpt figures and while that's still what I do most,I sculpt other things too,and in general it has to be the favourite of my scores of hobbies . I also do bookbinding...and music box strips ...and doll customs...yeah there's no rhyme or reason to what I do and don't actually.

Sometimes I post photos of plants,I like taking photos and smelling wet mud

If you want to hop into my DMs to talk about fandoms or fanart,feel free! I would be very happy! Also I really love getting tagged and asked ,but often don't get around to responding because I'm a mess of procrastination...if that happens please don't mind, I really really appreciate it and it certainly made me happy,and I'll get to it as soon as I can.

If you've made it this far,thank you. It's been quite a long post,and thank you for reading,I appreciate it. Here are my other blogs:

@sanhatis-abyss absolute reblog hell,if you're looking for something I reblogged 2 days ago my condolences,you probably won't find it unless you scroll for hours. Sometimes I shitpost there , sometimes I scream about the latest thing that consumed me, that is ,if I don't accidentally do it here. Truly,an abyss.

@amaryllis-arachne my doll blog. I realise not everyone likes dolls,or photos of disembered plastic body parts,so I don't reblog those onto the abyss blog. Sometimes I put pictures of my own dolls there,and sometimes er...yes parts.

If you want my other links, they're all in the blog description. Except my Anilist, but it's really not worth anything,since I don't review or rate or anything,just use it to keep track. I do roughly-monthly uploads on YouTube of craft tutorials and drawings,but there's not much rhyme or reason to that either... anyways,hope you have a great day,and hope you find anything you like in this mess of a red coloured pit.

#oh also I'm Indian #I forgot to mention and can't figure out where to put it in the post so tags it is #feel free to ask me anything #pinned post

[lilyblackdrawside]

Game balance is a pretty common topic and I think about it too sometimes. In the context of single-player games, specifically.

long post.

When it comes to multi-player versus games, things should remain balanced. They won't be, that's how we always end up with all the possible options a player can pick in different tiers, but there should be some striving towards not creating gross disparities.

However, in games where we don't have 2+ humans facing off against each other, I think it's absolutely fine to pretty much throw it out the window. There's really no harm in it and it opens up pathways for creativity to flow. Some things can be very difficult to bring in line with other options, so if a dev is afraid of having an unbalanced option, they might end up discarding something that could've been really interesting.

To stop with vague words, I'll go to my go-to series: Touhou.

In the Touhou games there is hardly a game where you don't have one or two character or shot options that stand out as being noticeably stronger or weaker than the rest.

Sanae in Ten Desires just sucks. Her shot deals no damage and is awkward to get the most out of in boss fights.

Meanwhile Marisa B in Double Dealing Character might just be the most powerful shottype in the series.

There are many such cases, I could keep listing them. Marisa in UFO is kinda terrible overall: A-type has a bad bomb for that game (Master Spark kills your movement and instantly annihilates UFOs, making it ill-suited for playing into the game's gimmick) while B-type has the worst shot (nice idea, but deals negative damage) but a good bomb. She just can't win in that game.

To stick with UFO for a moment longer, Sanae A's homing snakes have a tendency to miss if you make them travel too far. (They still do that even in later games, but only in very specific situations. In UFO it happens kind of a lot.)

Subterranean Animism is also full of off-beat shots. They're all on Marisa, too. Marisa A(lice) has a focused shot when unfocused and a spread shot when focused. Naturally, this is deliberate and I like it, but it is undeniably awkward to use. She's also the only one who loses more Power on death when full than she drops, because Alice gives her 8 Options instead of 4, but only increases Power gains by half or two thirds, I don't exactly remember, so you're always in the hole so to speak. Marisa B(atchouli) has like two useful formations - Fire and Water. Wood is a super-spreadshot that has a 90° dead zone in the front, Metal shoots to the right and left and Earth shoots behind you.

Marisa C(appa) has good damage but no spread (pretty normal for Marisa), but it has a bomb that deals 1 damage. It can't kill any enemy. C sucks for the main game and is godlike in Extra.

On that note, all of Marisa's bombs just suck ass in some way. Alice's and Patchouli's need you to go into melee range. Alice's does have long-range damage, but it's not much and Patchouli's is just a melee blast. Nitori's is a barrier. Barriers are nice, we know that from PCB, but between that and a narrow forward shot, Marisa C struggles to generate initiative during stage portions. You don't have a button that just handles things.

However, what do all of these wonky, sometimes underpowered shottypes in common? They're fun to use. I love messing around with Marisa B's formations, finding the optimal spots to use them. Can you clear the whole game with just Fire and Water formations, treating them as your Focus and NoFocus shots? Yes. But there is room to master it.

While I don't love to play UFO, I think Marisa B might be my favourite shot-type because it's so bad. It feels good to make it work.

Now on the other end of the spectrum there's DDC's Marisa B who is incredibly plain and breaks the game in two. It's just Missile Marisa and her bomb is some dinky circle that slowly travels upwards, deals mediocre damage and has invincibility time that's less than half of its total duration.

It also converts any bullets it erases into P-items. You can generate more resources with this bomb than it uses. It gets stronger the higher you set the difficulty. Marisa B scales with the difficulty. There is no other shottype in the series that does this. Okay, SA Reimu B also does this, but her bomb just converts enemy bullets into friend bullets so it's not anywhere near game breaking.

So what am I getting at here? The games would be worse if every shottype was "balanced", however nebulous the idea of that may be.

If every shot-type had to not suck, we wouldn't have gotten SA Marisa C, which is pretty annoying to use for 90% of the main game. We probably wouldn't have gotten a third of Mountain of Faith's shot-types or TD Sanae either. (nobody seriously plays MoF Reimu C for some notion of that being the most powerful shot-type in that game. It's a close-range type attack that you have to be insane to get the most out of. Just pick Marisa C like everyone else who's too cool to play normal shots.)

I like the wacky stuff. I want more Touhou games with weird shots like we had in MoF, SA, UFO and DDC. I want another Cold Inferno, I want Marisa's piercing lasers back, I want another SA Marisa A who has a focused unfocused shot for really no reason at all. Give me jank. Give me another shot-type that wasn't thought through to the end and accidentally breaks the game in the best way possible. Or just another MoF Marisa B.

Honestly, Mountain of Faith's Marisa B is a great example of where imbalance can hit a peak, because due to a glitch it deals so much damage that until like Stage 6 it clears all spellcards and nonspells so fast that bullets won't even reach you. There's no sense in it at all, but it is funny. It's funny! You can avoid this glitch from triggering; Its activation is somewhat specific. It's not something I want all the time, because that one just ruins the game, but is there any harm in it? No! Nobody is harmed by it. I get to laugh at the glitchy laser and have a good time.

Similarly nobody is harmed by someone having an easier time clearing DDC because they picked Marisa B and I'm not harmed from struggling through UFO on that Marisa B.

The bottomline here is that people shouldn't worry about whether or not a game is "balanced", so long as there's no element where players can abuse imbalanced elements against other players directly. And even then, fighting games have always and still have joke characters that are way weaker than the rest of the cast and it's fine. People love the challenge these things bring with them. They love to pick some crusty guy in a fighting game who has no movement, no options, bad frames or whatever and get the most out of it. It feels good to prevail from a disadvantaged position.

#long post

[loewens]

As someone who has never played anything from tohou series where would you recommend to start?

I don't know if I am the right person to answer that but:

First, the games don't have official translations. You'll have to patch them yourself: https://www.thpatch.net

It's very easy, with a good tool to walk you through it.

If you want to play the games, generally most Touhou games always have a new set of characters as enemies aside the playable protagonists. So you don't need to play all the old games to get what's happening, or at all tbh. I always just played the ones I felt like out of order.

I'd say the ones on Steam are the most accessible, and I do think Mountain of Faith is a good title to get a feel for the games. You could also try one of the newer titles first, but I am still on my quest to finish the newer games, so I can't comment on that.

Some would say to start with Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, that game and the ones that follow it, contain a few of the most popular characters in the fandom.

Surprising absolutely nobody Imperishable Night is my favourite. It's the one where Alice and Marisa team up for the first time and if you like my art probably the one you'd be the most Interested in? I also find it to be one of the more forgiving Touhou games.

These two games are not on Steam though and you have to source them somewhere else. i would recommend starting with one you find interesting thats on steam.

Steam has Demos for the games that are on it, so you can try if you like them.

You could also try and jump in reading one of the published manga that the creator wrote, like Forbidden Scrollery.

#loewens text posting #ask #if anyone has better advice feel free to share

[crystalelemental]

Crystal! Idk if you've seen, or if you have interest, but they managed to make Touhoumon Showdown work again!! It even has UU and Ubers now, with Ranbats hopefully coming soon?

But right now you get such hits as OU being dominated by birds and a funny cat (and also Flan), UU if you want to play OU without the aforementioned monsters (it still has some absolute monsters though, personal favourite tier - you get to run nonsense like 500+ attack Explosion Hina, or 484/372 phs def Yoshika w/ Recover!)

Again, no idea if you have any interest, but if you do, it's a fun format to mess around in! Also Ubers exists and imo Tenshi is the best mon, which is the world as it should be.

I have seen your posts about it, and I admit I've been side-eyeing it. My problem is I don't remember the type chart at all, and am kinda hesitating on jumping in, but I can't promise that won't crack. I am kinda curious.

How far into Touhou does this go? If my memory is good, it's only like...UFO or TD, right?

#emrylurkeroftheloch

[sneakyscarab]

hiya! so those of you following me may have noticed that touhou has taken over my brain over the last summer. i’ve been working my way through playing all* of the main touhou titles and after finishing th11 realized that i have many thoughts about these games and no real outlet because none of my friends play touhou so im just gonna start doing these review-esque posts about all the touhou games once ive finished them. as you can tell by the fact i just beat 11 i have a bit of a backlog here so expect to see a handful of these.

if you do not care about all that, thats fine. i just really wanna talk about touhou lol. posts in this series will be tagged “#grimoire of nina” for archival/organiztion purposes. anyways all that said it is time for the actual post

nina’s thoughts on Touhou 6 - Embodiment of Scarlet Devil

it's the first touhou! well it's not obviously there's a big 6 there but it's the first in the windows continuity, the first that ive played through to the end and finished, and supposedly the first in the streamlined danmaku style of gameplay. 

since its the first of them, its lacking in many unique elements that make it easy to talk about, so this one's probably gonna flow way worse than later reviews. it's very simple but not in a bad way, just raw shootin’ and danmaku dodgin’. one interesting “mechanic” unique to this game is ironically it's lack of one. in touhou to make dodging the bullets possible your actual hitbox is way smaller than your character sprite, and later games let you view your true hitbox while focusing. EoSD doesn't have that, so you kinda just have to get a feel for what parts of you can safely take a shot without you getting owned. it's kinda fun not knowing exactly whats safe, but probably rough if you’re used to the later games. of the different player options my favourite was Marisa’s illusion laser setup (i am not immune to master spark) but all 4 choices were pretty fun, and i ended up doing 1cc’s with both of Marisa’s options.

the characters in this one are all really good! it helps a lot that most of them show up frequently in future games and outside media and get more development. if i had to pick favourites though, id go with Rumia, Patchouli, and Koakuma. Rumia is a adorable little gremlin youkai with darkness powers who flies around t-posing, using darkness to create an orb around her during daytime to block sunlight and subsequently bumping into trees cause she can't see anything through the orb lmao. Patchouli is a tired magician youkai who spends all day in a huge magical library reading tomes and being bothered by Marisa. she has like asthma and anemia so she can't do any physical activity ever she's just the ultimate nerd. also her everyday outfit is just some comfy purple pajamas its an absolute vibe. lastly Koakuma is Patchouli’s familiar who's a summoned demon of some kind (usually interpreted as a succubus) who has the unfortunate job of actually managing and organizing the insane labyrinthine library that they live in and assisting Patchouli with personal matters. ironically Rumia and Koakuma have like the least characterization actually in the game (along with Daiyousei) but they get more love in external media and fanon. 

overall EoSD is great. it has a set of beloved characters, and really solid base gameplay. its a bit basic and lacking in a few features but its still great fun :> thanks for reading if you actually stuck with it this far!

(*not sure if i will play the first 5 games from the pc-98 era. i may check them out afterwards but theyre not high priority)

#grimoire of nina #touhou #touhou 6 #touhou eosd #embodiement of scarlet devil #touhou project

[cometmystic]

hey!! i dont think youve posted abt this yet so… tell me abt your fav characters!!! :D

im about to ramble and expose some weakpoints on the internet so heres a cut !!! im gonna talk about the three that are in the forefront of my mind at the moment !! maybe this will change if you ask me in a months time,,, maybe not !!! mwah thank you for sending me asks sweetie

lots of history with this girl; soo i found out about her during my first mugen phase ? so like 11-13ish,, there was a genre of character that was modeled to play like smash bros characters, and in looking those up, i found one of this weird woman... hong meiling was her name ? she was related to this weird frog girl whose hat was evil and maybe the mcdonalds song girl ? whatever the case i needed to download her. and i couldnt because the download was down. this sent me uo the wall for several years and implanted her name into my brain,, up until i got into touhou proper thanks to you actually !!

so now im learning about the lore and the characters, and turns out theres more to this meiling than being elusive and pretty !!! so this gloomy, scary place behind one of the touhou worlds most significant battles is guarded by this friendly, easygoing redhead ? and shes fiercely loyal and protective of the mansion as well as gensoukyou, despite being employed by people who almost ate the world right up ? thats so wonderful !! shes so cool !!! and she takes care of flowers, and canonically doesnt like dodging bullets and tries catching them instead, and no one has any idea of what she is...!!!! theres so much to her !!! but most of all, the absolute tragedy of some of her mansionmates getting boatloads of development and lore, while shes,, basically in the same place she started in ? even flan did ! but meiling still gets depicted as just lazying about, despite that trait of hers being in favour of working in the scarlet devil mansion, which people fear and dont visit ? or rather used to... so she should have evolved along with it,, so that sadness also makes me even more attached to her in a way !!

i know shes not the most mistreated character in touhou or anything, far from it since shes a th6 girl and those get Everything and everyone sick of them but... idk !! id love to see more of her shine someday ouo

heres some sprite art i made of her

this character is a whisper in the wind. this character is a shadow in the wall of a cave. this character is the tree that falls with no one to hear. this character isnt real. this character is one of my favourites

like shes drenched, positively oozing with lore and content, and its all so utterly relevant and unique that i cant possibly talk about any of it because i cant be bothered to spoiler tag this,, but like,, reading between the lines of the fiction and uncovering lil things about her and what shes like was the most fun ive had during my dngnrnpa phase, to the point that,, here she is still !! at the tippy top !! and because of things youre intimately familiar with russell, you probably know shes probably gonna stay !! im very sentimental like that

and it wasnt even just lore either, her design kind of instantly drew me to her back when i was part of the original animes speculation circle and,, wow suddenly my sonas attire seems a little um,, familiar doesnt it : ...i promise i had other inspiations for ir too óuo;

heres some pixel art i made of her

finally this girl !! much like is the theme here, some lore to my meeting this one !!! this one predates even meiling, since i think i was 9 or 10,, see there was a broadcast channel here called animax, and its responsible for a lot of my taste even nowadays,, from the name you can guess it broadcast all sorts of dubbed anime all day long, most of which i absolutely should not have been watching at that age, like hellsing and gantz oops... well there was this other one which until like 4 years ago i only had the faintest recollection of,, i think there were demons in it or something,, mostly i remember being infatuated by the blonde girl

well 2018 comes around and the memory of this lady shoots straight into my brain in the middle of a call with you russell, which you might remember ! i describe to you what it looks like and tell you that i think a guy kills her and she has him help kill bad guys or else hell kill him right back ? and you, through intense googling, eventually are able to tell me it was called lunar legend tsukihime. woag ! lore unlocked

i wiki crawl for a while out of curiosity and find out that she has a fighting game that kinda rules, and that everyone hates the anime and you should read the visual novel instead and,, hey were making a visual novel at some point huh russell ? maybe i should study up on this tsukihime thing,, apparently its pretty influential,, and

obviously arcueid is ridiculously charming and fun, and every second with her is a mildly exciting, mildly creepy (fun way) delight, and its hard not to absolutely love her for that alone !! but also like,, much like the love for meiling started like a new phase in my life, arcueid did the same thing, in a very wonderful way ? a phase where were both really into this thing and talking about it so often and making so many new ideas about it together,, were playing higurashi currently and it feels like an extension of this, of her, and like,, its so special

i love what meeting arcueid again after 10 years did for me

heres some pixel art i made of her

and if you stuck with me for this long, heres a lil gift !! a lil happy ending for 13 year old me i suppose !!!

i found her after all ouo

#normalclear

[purenguyening]

For the name + question thing: N A O - (A) L I C E + M Y S T (E) R (I C A)

spell your name in my ask, fandom edition!

N, your favourite crackship:

Nakamori Aoko/Mouri Ran, mostly because I like to poetically name the ship "A blue orchid". I do think they should meet and they'd definitely get a long, though.

A, fandom you blog about the most:

Going based on tumblr, probably Touhou Project? It's the fandom that saw the most activity out of me.

O, tell us about your favourite AU for one of your ship:

In the same Touhou Modern AU, I like the idea of Yoshika and Kasen running a Dim Sum shop together, but like with every other alternate universe, I never dedicated time to actually sit down and flesh it out further...

--

A, fandom you blog about the most:

I think second most might be Ace Attorney (though I have never finished Spirit of Justice and ever started the Dai Gyakuten Saiban series). I used to write a decent amount of meta thoughts on it and had a short list of what I imagined an Ace Attorney Investigations III would look like, it's still floating around somewhere on Tumblr under my old blog...

L, a quote from one of your fandoms which you absolutely adore:

Haibara: Oh, since when did I become your assistant?

Conan: Not, assistant, partner.

&

Haibara: Moreover, I also believe in him as my partner.

This is a bit of a cheat because I think it works specifically if you know they're from back to back movies (the former from Movie 11 and the latter from Movie 12). They're a very lovely pair of moments that I think captures a lot of the trust and faith Conan and Ai have in each other.

I know the term they specifically use is 'aibou' but I have heard it's slowly becoming a term to have a romantic sense and I, personally do like the term partner as a romantic term, too...

I, a book you can read over and over:

A Tour of Calculus by David Berlinkski. I like reading about the history of mathematics. I don't know if I can fully read it right now and follow all of the logic since it's been a long time since I've read anything about mathematics in full detail, but I would like to give it a go in the neat future.

Also, I love that one of the chapters is just title "Yo."

C, which fandom do you know the most about?

Touhou Project just because of sheer scale and how long it's been running. I would argue, even though I only focus on like a small faction of Touhou, it's still a lot.

It's a very dense series and even if you only focus a small section you end up learning a lot.

E, a character you think you’re the most like?

Ema Skye from Ace Attorney. I can't help but feel a lot for her about her frustrations in her career path and wanting to repay my debts to others but not able to due to circumstances out side of my control.

--

M, your favourite writer/s

I had to think about this because I tend to only read a small fraction of a writer's works and it's rare for me to read all of their works.

Off the top of my head: blackidyll, huppaduppa, mimicteruyo, and rabbiteclair

For a more traditional published author, Rebecca Traister has been lingering in the back of my mind lately.

Y, which of your favourite shows has the worst writing?:

Detective Conan, but I think is in part to Aoyama wanting to push for like 200 volumes and so there's a lot of easy points.

One moment that I find particularly off-putting is Haibara's restrained reaction to Kid tazing Conan. It just felt off and it's one of those moments that I really felt my suspension of disbelief breaking.

The other moment is during the London Arc where Ran shouts at Shinichi to "deduce her heart". That moment made me incredibly uncomfortable.

S, which ship do you have an infinite amount of songs for?

Honestly, none. I have like one romantic song that I will shamelessly slap onto all of my OTPs instead.

It's Nodey's Đôi Khi ❤️

(Yes, the heart emoji is very important) There's some details of the song that I know won't work for every OTP, but I just adore the refrain too much:

Đôi khi em trông thấy anh

Đôi khi lại không

Đôi tay ta ôm lấy nhau

Không đi về đâu

Sometimes I see you,

Sometimes I don't

Our hands embracing

Into nowhere.

The above is the official translation (like, what you'll see when you turn on English Subtitles) but the way I've always understood the song is:

Sometimes, I see you, sometimes I don't. (With) our hands entwined (we're) going nowhere.

Functionally, they're the same, but my read of it is a little bit more personal? And I always thought it suited a bit more once you know the featured artist, Suboi, is married to Nodey.

I digress.

T, favourite female characters?

At the moment, Makomo.

I don't know why but when I'm alone I find myself muttering "Everyone shut the fuck up, right now, Makomo's here" every time I saw her and it's kind of evolved a bit where my friends will send me art with the caption: "Everyone be quiet!!! She's here!!!" and I just get really happy? I love her dearly.

E, a character you think you’re the most like?

Haibara Ai, I just love her arc and her coming to terms with the past and how it doesn't define her who she is today. She's rebuilding her life and finding joy in the people who love her.

R, best book to film adaptation, in your opinion?

This is cringe and a failure on me since I don't have usually pick up a lot of books and movie adaptations together so my only answer is, sadly, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

I, a book you can read over and over

I'm not entirely sure if I should count it since I'm really only reading it for one specific chapter but, One-Winged Butterfly, specifically the chapter "For Those Who Do Not Smile."

There's a lot of fun details that just bring a smile to my face.

C, which fandom do you know the most about?

Free! Probably in part there's a lot of magazine articles and interviews that have been translated over the years so I end up picking up a lot of the thought process behind the making of the series.

A, fandom you blog about the most

Going by my blog's tags, Free!

#thanks for the ask! #asks #naosuki #as an aside i did a quick run of the lyrics in google translate #the google translated version of the lyrics is #sometimes i see you sometimes not #our hands holding each other not going anywhere #so there seems to be multiple reads of the same refrain

[hartmannyoukaigirl]

I looked up tohou because u post a lot about it and omg u are so correct about the character design.. it's so beautiful and interesting and REAL and so far away from the grossness of current anime. i quickly scrolled past the fanart because i didn't want to pollute my brain with it . The official art is so good. I wish there were anime shows that had female characters like that (unfortunately i dont play games and i dont know how to so playing touhou itself isnt an option). Do u perhaps know about any shows?

GIRL WHAT. HELLO. HI ??? U KIDDING ME I DIDNT SEEM A LUNATIC 24/7 TALKING ABT TOUHOU SJFJFKF

IKR IKRIKRIKR the designs are Soooo fucking good amazing. Reimu & Marisa are of course iconic and there's also characters like mokou who is. my favourite design actually !! and junko ( touhou. Search Junko Touhou ) hecaita clownpiece ... reisen .. eirin kaguya youmu yuyuko yukari ( her second design ) etc etc god there's sm characters that are just absolutely perfect and amazing. ZUN thank u for being the only male artist ever

there are a few shows with good female character design however they're very rare and even then, I never loved them ( both the characters and designs) as much as I loved touhou <3

Touhou is a game series only, there's a few ( fan made !!! ) anime 'adaptations' but they're ..... ... ... .. . . ... .. . . .... . . . . there's memories of phantasm however if you're going to watch it take with like an entire spoonful of salt because it Anime fies alot of things and makes touhou. bad. and shows fanservice of the kid characters ok actually dont watch it

even if you're bad at bullet hells/shmups I reccommend playing it nonetheless, I can give u download links and how to install and everything ! it might be a bit hard at first but it's fun. the character interactions are really funny and the music is. of course. AMAZING. and the spell cards ( bullet patterns ) are beautiful albeit torturous.

alot of touhou is also on YouTube... like geniunely a whole lot of content is just videos, either Animations or PVS or canon or fan made music ( you've 100% heard atleast one touhou song in your life. at the very least. Bad apple and night of nights are touhou and you mustve heard either of them at some point. also alot of songs you might've randomly liked on YouTube are touhou without you knowing, that happened to me a LOT ) idk. it's very fun to watch the various stuff people make, the fandom is seriously exteremely talented and amazing and. god. I ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ touhou PVS so much they're so fun and silly and cute and tbh, if you've loved vocaloid and it's community before then touhou is gonna be Heaven for you. it's like an upgrade with SO MUCH CONTENT to what I loved abt the vocaloid community ( people making shit up and making exteremely beautiful music and art and stories and PVs about it, except with touhou there's the canon characterization which Expands stuff, if I'm making sense ) idk just. yes. yeah

The Content and absorption of touhou is through playing the games and seeing all sorts of beautiful, emotional, dramatic, comedic, silly and all extermely fun stuff people made based off the silly lil charas in the games. I love the community.. it's really not an anime that you watch but rather a community you have fun in honestly

#this is like the best ask to ever get tysm anon #sorry for the entire essay i am #normal #and sane

[ofthenoseclan]

Who is your favorite Touhou character and why? :0

sorry for taking so long to respond to this, i had to charge an infodump spirit bomb. also my original draft got deleted when firefox crashed on me halfway through typing

for a long time i considered renko and merry my favourite characters in touhou as a unit (and they are still definitely second place) but over time another character has grown on me enough that she overtook them in my mind, and that was toyosatomimi no miko!

her backstory is a bit confusing for those unfamiliar with a very specific period of japanese history, so this is going to be a lot to explain, but ill try my best to recap it:

umayado no ouji, or better known today as shoutoku taishi, was a political figure in japan during the asuka period. he was regarded as one of the primary founders of buddhism within japan, which granted him sainthood status after his death. in recent years, the legitimacy of some texts chronicling his accomplishments has been doubted by scholars, making him somewhat of a semi-legendary historical figure nowadays.

in touhou, his biography is reframed a bit: shoutoku taishi was a renowned regent from a very young age, capable of listening to the concerns of many individuals at once and easily posing solutions to issues of the countrys people. he was incredibly caring for his nation, and so feared for the deaths of his subjects—and by extension, himself, as he believed he was the only one capable of leading his people away from strife. because of this, he sought for a way to live forever.

he was then taught the ideals of taoism by seiga kaku, an immortal taoist hermit, or "xian", who moved to the country from china. he wished to follow in her footsteps to ascend to immortality, but the process would take time away from his position as regent. shoutoku taishi needed to be sure that japans public would not be led to unfair death by an improper ruler while he was focused on pursuing taoism, so seiga recommended he first spread buddhism to the public, since its creed discouraged violent acts and power imbalance.

as time went on, shoutoku taishi noticed his health was dwindling faster than expected. the ascetic training needed to become a xian was something that took a great part of ones life, and he feared he would pass on before reaching immortality. so, he devised a new plan: he would become a shijie, a xian who achieves an unjust form of immortality by swapping their body with an item of great value to them. the object takes residence in their coffin, replacing their corpse, and the consequence of death they have gained by living in the first place gets passed onto it. the practice is said to fool deities who would otherwise come searching for them to take to the afterlife, sacrificing the item in their place. in this case, shoutoku taishi chose his shichiseiken, or seven star sword, as the object to swap places with.

to go through this process, one has to cut ties with their identity and all people close to them in their life in order to prevent deities from tracking them down, so after the former regent performed this ritual, he slept under the earth to lay low. while he laid dormant, his legitimacy as a historical figure began to be doubted by many, so his resting place was teleported into gensoukyou, the setting of touhou, where myths and legends that have had popular belief in them fade away get brought in order to survive.

the saint finally resurfaced in 2011 during the events of touhou shinreibyou ~ ten desires., the 13th mainline title in the series, taking a new form and name to avoid detection and subsequent judgment from deities of death. she is now known as toyosatomimi no miko, shijie xian and crown prince of taoist thought, who aims to convert gensoukyou to taoist beliefs using her renowned charisma and leadership skills.

my absolute favourite aspect of miko is not her backstory, but rather her personality. she is obscenely self-centered, truly believing 100% that she is the only one fit to lead gensoukyou, but nevertheless acts completely composed and dignified to maintain her image. she knows gaining power by force wont lead anyone to worship her, so she attempts to gain political favour grassroots-style, just like she did in her prime. she once showed up to a contest where people compete for the most visually appealing danmaku, and upon appearance said something along the lines of, "i truly hate to steal the victory so easily, but i appreciate the opening act before my arrival." no one could call her out for being insulting, however—because, reluctantly, everyone agreed her danmaku unfortunately was in fact better than the competition. this sense of flair extends to her design as well; she's got a huge focus on royal purples and golds, and her danmaku patterns have motifs of blinding holy light, befitting her high-and-mighty attitude of herself and her ideals.

she has an ongoing rivalry with byakuren hijiri, the figurehead of gensoukyous buddhist group, who serves as her foil in many ways. despite publically endorsing buddhism, miko disagreed with its principles internally; now that her act is through, she sees it and its spokespeople as no more than an obstacle on her way to the top, and byakuren is no exception. because of the tension between the two, a lot of people ship them together. i dont, personally, but i dont dislike the ship either, its fun.

miko also has a major appearance in my favourite spinoff literature, touhou gumonkuju ~ symposium of post-mysticism., which transcribes an in-universe symposium between three different religious powers in gensoukyou: kanako yasaka representing shintoism, byakuren representing buddhism, and miko representing taoism. the three of them have a dialogue over how best to lead gensoukyou's people politically and spiritually. this book is wonderful to read if youre someone like me who enjoys touhou for its political satire, because it gives so much focus to the ideologies of these three characters and sets up a lot of dry satire and political text between these three characters with extremely varying mindsets. it gives these cast members a lot of time to shine, while setting up the finale of the ongoing arc within the games that introduced all three of them.

im a huge fan of mikos aesthetic in general. she has a really fun outlook and attitude, and whenever she is on screen she becomes the center of attention without fail. she demands attention, she is confident, self-assured, and an enormous prick, and i love her for it all. she is also, if only by technicality, canonically transgender, which is a big point in her favour for me. toyosatomimi no miko has grown on me for good reason; she epitomizes everything i love about touhous cast, plot, and worldbuilding. shes my ride-or-die favourite and likely will remain as such forever!

ps: here, check out a spell card of hers

#touhou #toyosatomimi no miko #blub #hydrophone #miko tag

[neokad]

Touhou VI: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil - or my first journey into a bullet hell game

Touhou is that one pew pew game series with cute anime gals, right?

Source: https://pixiv.kurocore.com/illust/54033795

Just like what I think are many people, that’s pretty much all I knew about the franchise as a whole! And to be honest, for a long long time, I was AFRAID of going any closer to anything Touhou-related! Because of them being bullet hecks, they seemed like the most frustrating and unfun games I could possibly be playing! But then... time passed... Fast forward to somewhere in 2020: I was watching the biyearly Games Done Quick event, and one of the first runs showcased during it was none other than Touhou Luna Nights! But while the speedrun itself was very impressive, the thing that really captivated me was well... everything else! Even though this was only a Metroidvania fangame, IT LOOKED LIKE SO MUCH FUN! The graphics, the special effects, the mechanics... everything just seemed like a dream!  In spite of that, I only picked the game up and played it about a year later, thanks to a Steam sale! And to keep things short, I ADORED it. It was a bit too short, but everything else was spot on, and even better than I thought it would be from what I saw at GDQ! But that’s sadly a review for another time :(  Because I literally fell in love in this game, well... I thought “screw it, I’ve been morbidly curious for years now, let’s actually try a freakin’ Touhou game!” 

And so, after some research I’ve learned that the sixth game - the first one released on Windows PCs! - was the one that served as inspiration for Luna Nights as a whole - its characters, music, stage aesthetics and more! It just seemed natural to settle with this one~

How did it go? What did I think about it? Well, that’s why we’re here: those are my thoughts about Touhou VI: the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.

Now for a pointless history lesson: as I said earlier, Touhou 6 was the very first game published for Windows PCs, all the way back in 2002! The five previous games were actually exclusive to a Japan-only machine, the NEC PC-98, a line that prevailed strongly in Japan before Microsoft conquered the world. As such, it’s really the first game that’s still relatively accessible today, as PC-98 emulation is... not really a stable thing yet -_- So even though this wasn’t quite true, it’s as if I started my journey into Touhou with the original! And once I started playing, I was honestly surprised at one thing once I hit the title screen: this game actually has lots of options to make the experience easier or harder!

I know that being able to change your starting lives, starting bombs, choose your overall difficulty and such isn’t groundbreaking at all, but honestly? I didn’t expect things to be so customisable in a bullet heck game series - a genre that’s known for being merciless to players! I did decide to go on Normal to have the “intended” experience, but things aren’t as daunting as you may think!

This game also allows you to play as not only Reimu, the poster character of the franchise, but also Marisa! Both of these girls also boasts two different weapons each, with their own strengths, weaknesses and bomb attacks! Again, I genuinely did not expect so much breathing room even though looking back... I feel like I should have : P

Once I actually started playing the game itself, there’s yet another thing that surprised me: the difficulty curve... it’s... manageable??

Now granted, I’m a person that plays a *lot* of games, and on top of that, I play lots of action games as well, games that require quick reaction times, good pattern reading and so on so forth. So there’s a chance my judgement on the game’s difficulty might be wrong or biased... but to me? Embodiment of Scarlet Devil actually has a good difficulty curve! The first stage of the game has many enemies that can shoot many bullets, but they’re slow, predictable and relatively easy to avoid because you have lots of space to maneuver around! On that same train of thought, Rumia, the first stage’s boss, certainly doubles down on the number of bullets she can throw at you. But, their patterns are once again pretty slow and predictable, making things much more comfortable at the start of your adventure!

But hold on a minute here, how does this game actually plays? Well, this is where I need to let out a horrifying truth:

Touhou is actually really, REALLY fun.

At first it does seem like a pretty standard shooter: you shoot at things, dodge bullets, collect power ups to boost your weapon’s strength, and make sure you don’t die too much in order to reach the final boss in good shape. However, what I ended up loving about Touhou are its many, many mechanics that spice things up beautifully! The first one I wanna focus on is “Grazing” and it’s actually pretty simple: if you do your best to get close to a bullet or a laser without touching it with your (very small!) hitbox, you graze that bullet! Not only will a satisfying sound effect play out each time you graze something, you will also gain points each time you do this maneuver, making it essential for a high score, and especially, to gain extra lives faster!  Secondly, there’s bombing! I am totally repeating myself here, but while each character has a different kind of bomb to their disposal, they each function in relatively the same way: you get to launch a strong attack against your opponents, get invincibility frames, and on top of that, get rid of any bullets that are currently on the screen! I love bombs in this game because they create a great balance: you can totally use them for offensive purposes, buuuut they also serve as a great defensive clutch if you just find things too difficult at the moment.  Bombs even have two extra layers to them! When you will get hit and lose a life (and believe me, you will) your bombs will get refilled back to three, urging you to not hoard them too much even if you’d prefer to save them for a tougher part. Because if you die, you might just “waste” bombs in a way! However, here’s an advanced kicker: if you manage to hit the bomb button just as you are hit by a projectile (8 frames within death I think!) you not only are able to save yourself from losing a life, you also won’t lose a bomb at all, either! This is a very difficult trick, but a very cool and potentially important one if you plan things out in the heat of battle ^^

Then there’s a mechanic that, to my knowledge, got introduced in EOSD: the POC, as in Point Of Collection! Now, as you destroy the many enemies after Reimu or Marisa, they naturally drop many power ups and point icons, and because there’s many of these you’re bound to miss them. However, this is where the POC comes in: if you are at full weapon power, you will earn the ability to collect every icon on the screen! This makes sense and is actually very smart, because most players - myself included - tend to hug the bottom of the screen as bullets are more scarce and slower here. BUT reaching that POC close to the top of the screen is a great way to incentivise players to risk things in order to get a massive amount of points and gain extra lives way faster! And finally, as soon as you do reach that max power, the game will automatically wipe every single projectile off the screen, so it’s even possible to time when you’ll get your final power boost to make things easier on yourself!

All of those mechanics together make Touhou EOSD a pure joy to play! It’s simple on the surface but has such interesting mechanics and risk-reward elements that can push you out of your comfort zone, but never forces you to! And sure enough, I got addicted~

Even though I did say that the game had a good curve and started off not too difficult, it does not mean that your journey will be easy: even early game bosses such as Cirno and Meiling took me lots of practice to get consistent at, by studying their patterns and testing out which strategies worked the best for survival. And eventually, even Patchouli and Sayaka’s stages will test you out with lots of predictable-yet-deadly bullets to test out your screen reading skills and even reflexes.

Touhou may be more accessible than I thought, but do not be mistaken: on Normal, this game will still challenge you, and I absolutely love it for that <3 

Another thing that helps this game out is - please pretend to be surprised - the music. Touhou has always been known for bringing some very good tunes all around, but besides Luna Nights’s incredible soundtrack, I actually never got to listen to any of them besides Bad Apple and one fanime opening my bestie sent me one year ago. And well... it’s true!

The game uses some very artificial, even out-of-tune instruments for its music, but strangely enough, it REALLY works! It gives the music a very nostalgic, warm feeling that’s hard to describe, but it works so well at making those songs catchy as all heck! It also helps that the compositions themselves are pretty strong and surprisingly complex for its genre, too! I would pick a favourite theme to show off, but the soundtrack’s just really consistent and good all around!

Sadly, I mostly cannot say the same for the game’s presentation. This game is a PC app from 2002 and it sadly somewhat shows. I’ll even bring a special mention to the in-game portraits, which are hilariously HORRIBLE! Thankfully dedicated fans have made a patch to improve the game’s visuals so that they’re more in line with later titles, but at base it’s really not the prettiest gem visually...

...except for the spell cards, the bosses’s strongest attacks, which are genuinely gorgeous multicolored motives that will struck you in awe before you are inevitably destroyed by them, it’s great! My favourite is the one you get from Meiling’s mid stage encounter, pictured above!

Before wrapping up this long, long post, I do wanna add this: the game will unfortunately only give you the good ending only by playing on Normal and above, and only if you beat the game without using any continues. This is called a 1CC, or 1 Credit Clear. Even if I don’t think the bad ending’s actually that unsatisfactory, I did want to get better at the game! So I practiced for many hours a day for a couple of weeks, memorized each boss’s patterns, learned where to graze, when to optimally reach the POC to get as many points as possible... this game pushed me to get better with an incentive, a reward waiting at the end, on top of the satisfaction of simply cheesing what used to be so difficult at some point and... well, I think this is the proof of a well-crafted game right there. After many failed attempts, I finally managed to 1CC this game (pictures below!!) and it was, genuinely, one of the most satisfying moments in my gaming life <3 

So... yeah. I might be a Touhou fan now. Welp.

Touhou VI: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil was such a pleasant surprise for me: I expected a game I’d find somewhat boring at best and frustrating at worst, but I ended up having a very, very good time, and honestly? It’s not as hard as you’d think it is! You can beat a Touhou game, so long as you are interested in practicing and getting better, and I promise it’ll feel rewarding in the best of ways <3

I just wanna say thank you to Luna Nights and Team Ladybug, because without them, I would have never been curious and then surprised by how cool this game is. Thank you <3 

And many thanks to you, the reading, for staying until the end! Thank you for reading!

#long post #touhou #touhou eosd #eosd

[mimicteruyo]

Yo guess who replayed all the mainline Windows Touhou games to see if their opinions had changed/evolved

To begin with, I should say that all my opinions are extremely subjective and more based on vibes than anything else. With that said, the things I usually look for in these games are the following, in no particular order:

Characters/Story

Atmosphere/Seasonal rep/Sense of identity

Music

Gameplay (less scoring and more things like general difficulty level, resources, gimmicks, the aesthetic beauty of the patterns etc.)

Even then, a game can be great in three of these departments and still be something I don’t really enjoy playing (*coughs* LoLK *coughs*), and a game that only really hits the jackpot in one can still be precious to me.

EoSD (Normal, ReimuA, 1cc just barely)

I'm always surprised by how much this resembles Mystic Square, but hey I'm on the record as someone who really likes MS. I recalled the patterns being both denser and faster than they really were, but tbf I played Crimzon Clover like an hour before I played EoSD so that may have influenced my judgement. I don't play this one much, but I'm not gonna front: I really enjoyed my playthrough and the soundtrack is a classic.

PCB (Hard, ReimuA, choked with 25 seconds on the final timer lol)

When I list my favourite games of all time, PCB is the one which gets to represent Touhou as a whole. And yup, I still love everything about this game (except Charming Domination Who Done it? whoops). For a while, I thought I had finally gotten sick of playing it, but turns out I was only bored because I was playing it on Normal for some stupid reason even though I have already 1cc'd it on Hard. Beautiful and atmospheric and great fun.

IN (Normal, Border Team, guess)

Hard Mode actually kicks my ass in this one lmao. Stage 4 Powerful is still one of the most fun stages in the series, and the Extra Stage is a personal favourite (yes, even with Fujiyama Volcano). In general, it basically does everything right. Even then, it's not usually the first game that comes to mind when I think of my favourites, but I have a great deal of respect for it.

PoFV (Easy, Reimu [usually Normal + Yuuka but meh])

I... don't actually like playing this one that much? In fact, if I have to play a Phantasmagoria game for fun I'm probably going to pick PoDD. With that said, the story, characters, the atmosphere and music in the later stages, and all the additional fluff are so much my jam that I still cherish this game deeply.

MoF (Normal, ReimuA, 1cc)

For all that this game has a reputation for being easy, I have a terrible track record actually beating it (in fact, my previous clear was from 2015, which... wow.) However, by utilising such cunning strategies as "actually looking at the screen" and "using bombs sometimes" I made it through with just two misses. This game captures autumn the same way PCB captures winter a.k.a. really well, and in general has a unique beauty to it.

SA (Normal, Reimu + Yukari, Utsuho blasted me into outer space)

Love the atmosphere, love the soundtrack, love the characters and especially how well the spell cards in this game support characterisation. Punishes mistakes harshly and doesn't offer that many resources, which means I stink at it lol. Still a personal fave.

UFO (Normal, SanaeB, choked on the final card)

Similar to SA except not as much my cup of tea. I really like the characters and think that the soundtrack may even be slightly underrated. Generous with resources, which is nice since I desperately need them all, but the UFOs are still kinda a pain. I actually did well against Murasa this time, but Shou slaughtered me and Byakuren finished me off.

TD (Hard, Sanae, multiple continues)

As a proud member of the PoFV/SWR/TD Character Niche Hell (yes that's a thing now and yes that's what it's called), it's likely a surprise to no-one that I love the characters and atmosphere in this one. Normal is too easy, whereas my sucky skills at resource management guarantee that I'll never 1cc it on Hard. With that said, the patterns and gameplay feel really good and rewarding on Hard so I still prefer playing it on that.

(As an aside, I also played this on Lunatic to re-unlock cards for practice. Basically everyone after Yuyuko gave me grief... except for Futo, who was still easy. Futo what r u doing?)

DDC (Normal, SakuyaA, 1cc)

So much fun! I was lukewarm towards the demo back in the day, but nowadays I like all the characters, and the back end of the OST is just a banger after banger. The gameplay really shines in this one.

LoLK (Legacy Mode Easy, Reisen, 1cc)

Basically I like everything about this game except the part where you actually play it.

HSiFS (Normal, Reimu + Winter, destroyed by Satono and Mai)

I still don't really like this one. Sorry. I think I'm sleeping on some of the characters (Aunn and Narumi especially seem like characters I could appreciate more), and Crazy Backup Dancers is an absolute banger of a track, but the difficulty spike that is the Stage 5 bosses and my general lukewarm feelings towards everything else made me think I was over Touhou.

WBaWC (Normal, Reimu + Otter, 1cc)

...yeah, no, still not over Touhou. Another game where I basically love everything and I'm still shocked that I ignored it for so long even after Ephemeral Unnatural Balance proved I wasn't just old and crusty and unable to appreciate new games. Still in the process of warming up to the characters, but that's nothing new. I should probably move onto Hard Mode pretty soon: my first crack at it took me to Stage 5.

UM (Demo, Normal, Sanae)

Feeling optimistic.

#teruyo talk #i guess my opinions haven't really changed #but there you have it

[usagichronicles]

What some of your best memories in the RPC?

Hmm... I’ll put this under a read more, since I’m in a self reflective and stream of consciousness mood. So this will be entirely unedited, and way too long.

I think some of the early happiness was the reception I got when I first started, about four years and ten months ago. People were excited to RP with me, glad I had decided to finally get involved.

At first I intended only for Cafe, and I put in a ton of work to get her set up. But by the end of my time writing KanColle, I had a lot of shipgirl OCs, and I mean a lot -- Trench Cafe, Spirit of Fire, Ohio, Atlantic Conveyor, Pilar, Houston, Langley, Gangut, Manila, New Zealand, Georgios Averof, Neptune, Leander, Achilles, Kiwi, Tui, Moa, Lanikai, Kirkwall, Jewel of Windsor, Emma Williams, Aotearoa, Helle.

A lot of the best early memories come from Cafe and her storyline. And I must admit, out of the above 24 characters? Cafe, Spirit of Fire, Manila, Kirkwall, Emma Williams, New Zealand, and Aotearoa got a lot of development. But satisfaction in how their characters developed? Only in Cafe, Emma Williams, and Aotearoa.

Cafe and Manila were the only characters who got endings. They were both happy endings. But only Cafe got one I am happy with. 

That being said... I really enjoyed writing HMS New Zealand. I think she was one of my first ‘complex’ personalities, with a storyline that I really tried to plan a bit. It didn’t work amazingly, there was a lot that got derailed, but I enjoyed her.

Aotearoa is a happy story of missed chances. Her personality wasn’t quite so complex, but I thought enough of her, I converted her into a different format and wrote a CYOA novella, rewriting an RP arc that didn’t go the way I wanted it.

There is one other... But I’ll bring that up later.

Moving on from KanColle...

I did a lot of faffing about with Strike Witches. I had four characters. Adeline Kain, Rebecca Moore, Tui Gray, and Helen Clapham. One of those names might be familiar. This... is where Helen Clapham originated. Strike Witches being Strike Witches, there was no active RPC for the setting, and I don’t blame anyone for that. I convinced three others to write it, among them Kako, and we did a brief thing together. 

I stuck with it longer than the rest; I still had my SW characters kicking about by the time I shut down the old blog, and elected not to bring them to this one.

Rebecca Moore was a favourite of mine in that time. It helped, however, that I wrote her with Kako. She had a more sophisticated story than the rest, and on top of that, she had a storyline. She showed up before, she helped Kako’s character, she helped another person’s character who affected Kako’s character -- and though her story ended before I really wanted it to, in a way she also got a happy ending. Still fighting the war, even after she was ordered to go home, helped by Keiko. Pulling her weight.

I’ll skip my attempts at Halo. They had some fun times, but not enough to really bring up. My attempt at Girls Frontline was stillborn. 

Strike Witches is where Helen Clapham got her start (originally with UMP40 as her FC). The Agency version of her started off as an AU, of Helen Clapham, the ex-witch bomber pilot. An AU where she never became a bomber pilot, and fell into another world. Three years later, Helen Clapham the bomber pilot no longer exists.

Agent Helen does, and she’s been a bundle of happy memories. I’m genuinely proud of how she’s developed over time. She’s the muse I’ve stuck with the most, the one who’s seen the most, who’s had the longest storyline. One that sees little sign of ending. Through thick and thin, she’s brought me to tears, she’s brought me to hugging my pillow and giggling to myself. Always with the satisfaction and cheer of writing a character I really, really enjoy. Those tears were not of frustration, and though they were shed in reaction to parts of her storyline that sadden me, they aren’t tears shed because I don’t like it. So I think she’s a big one there.

Victoria Collet deserves a spot here, but she should really be above with KanColle. She got her start back then, after all. She’s ‘Jewel of Windsor’ in the list. She is the only character from the KanColle blog, who survived the transition to other areas of writing. I think she was one of the characters I absolutely loved writing, even back then. Her origin story comes from H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, which is a semi-annual obsession of mine. Though that origin no longer exists, her current form is quite lovely. I always have a goofy smile on my face when I think of her, and her travels with Maria and Kazuko. She’s just a good bisexual girl who’s massively confused by her friends, a lesbian who commonly crossdresses as a man, and a boy who lives as a girl. 

Fubuki has been a story of indulging myself in a guilty pleasure, and genuinely enjoying writing her own stories. A kitsune, a samurai kitsune, an Oda samurai kitsune, a shrine maiden samurai kitsune, it’s indulging in a lot of stuff I like but hadn’t wanted to write before her, due to some embarrassment over the subjects. But encouragement from friends, particularly Kako, saw Fubuki come to be -- and I’ve enjoyed much of her.

Tikva got off to a rocky start. I originally conceived of her as a way to keep writing Cafe, during a moment of weakness where I was lamenting how some things had gone. She was going to be a carbon copy, Cafe’s AI turned human. But the RP partner I was going to write that with stopped writing, and honestly, in Tikva’s case it was likely for the best. 

Tikva’s story is far different to what the original thing was going to be. Who Tikva is now, is very different from who Cafe was, and she’s far better off for it. I am extremely grateful to Kako for helping me with everything with Tikva.

Okoori was my first foray into Touhou RP, and Kako helped immensely in her creation as well. She’s a bit of another self-indulgence. A woman who lives to make people happy, someone who wears elegant cloting, a bit of exposed skin, a youkai concept (yuki-onna) I really like. Writing her helped me get confident enough to adopt Aya as a canon muse, and have Fubuki chase a demon into a magical land.

Grani. Grani Grani Grani. I will be the first to admit, I’ve latched on to her very, very hard. I’ve made tons of headcanons, spend tons of time thinking about her, discussing her, looking at art of her. Thinking of her makes me smile, and writing her doesn’t often cause me to pause and have to think. I can fall into her mindset rather easily. 

Some people say I’m a lot like Grani myself; I’m short, excitable and generally cheerful, I have a strong sense of justice and desire to help others. My only worry sometimes is that my own sense of self might bleed into Grani, but all of what we write has something of ourselves in them. I try not to worry too much. 

There’s far more I could say. 

I could go through each and every single one of my current muses, and I could likely find something good to say about them -- even Chloe, who I haven’t written in a long time. I am very, very happy with my characters. 

Roleplaying is my main hobby, and has been for more than two years now. It’s a passion that I don’t want to lose anytime soon. I put a lot of effort into it, because I love writing with everyone, and I love it when a thread goes well.

So I guess I can say that, many of my recent RPC memories have been happy memories.

It’s likely best if I end it there, rather than continuing. After all, this reply is up to 1,400+ words.

#ooc #out of character #usagi mun speaks #dimensionaljumper

[evilisk]

Reading Len’En Profiles Pt 3

We’re rounding off the cast of EMS by looking at the “Yachie-length”* profiles of Sukune and the Snakes.

(*No seriously, these profiles are frigging big)

= = =

So the three upcoming profiles don’t just give us details about each individual character. The information between the three characters give us a complete backstory to the events of Earthen Miraculous Sword. This backstory can be summarized as:

In Len’En’s version of the Orochi myth, Orochi’s corpse lead to the birth of 7 Adagumo Siblings (with Yaorochi being the sword wielding arm of Orochi, and Saragimaru being one of their Eyes).

Though they were born from Orochi’s corpse and vowed revenge on those that killed them, Yaorochi only really had eyes for the sword stolen from them, the Kusanagi / Tasouken. Their obsession with Tasouken even lead to them attacking Saragimaru at some point.

Yaorochi went after the Tasouken when it was lost at sea during, what I think is, the Len’En version of the Tale of Genji (I’m only vaguely familiar with the Tale of Genji between the Warriors Orochi and Genji series of games, so I might be wrong on this). Saragimaru waited for their return by the shore while the remaining Adagumo siblings perished without completing their revenge.

Yaorochi returned with Tasouken, but it was completely rusted at this point. Saragimaru witnessed this return, but Yaorochi did not seem to be aware of who they were (it is mentioned in Saragimaru’s profile that they did not get to reveal themselves as family to Yaorochi, which means they certainly met at one point).

For a time it seemed that Yaorochi had been lifted from their obsession with the blade. Then Yaorochi vanishes. There’s a big timeskip between the next “meeting” of Saragimaru and Yaorochi. Yaorochi begins to fall into a type of depression.

Saragimaru eventually notices Yaorochi in Mugenri. They realize that Yaorochi has become hollow due to the state of the sword. They become sickened by this, as they fear Yaorochi’s obsession with Tasouken, as well as Tasouken’s true power, but they cannot bring back the “true” Yaorochi without reviving Tasouken.

Saragimaru commissions Sukune to create the clay replica, but they don’t pick up the completed sword. Despite this, Yaorochi eventually runs into Sukune and notices the blade.

Yaorochi lies to Sukune, pretending to be a holy servant who can make Sukune’s works complete (there’s this whole bit about crafting and divine spirits in Sukune’s profile that you can check out on your own). They plan the ritual to transfer the power of Tasouken into the clay replica.

The story ends at “designated protagonist breaking into the ritual chamber, about to confront Yaoorchi”

As for my personal thoughts on this backstory... this backstory is so sad :/ It’s also really compelling. But it’s just really sad T_T, like will somebody please give Saragimaru a hug?? They have been through so much.

Before I go on, I should mention that Tasouken, the secret boss of Stage 6, also has a profile, though I don’t feel like talking about it as Tasouken isn’t really a character. The most relevant info here is that Tasouken apparently can’t be wielded by humans. This basically confirms that Orochi was a youkai (this was not clear just from Yaorochi’s profile) which his leads me to wonder if Saragimaru’s dislike of humans comes from Orochi’s death by trickery...

Anyway, onto the character relevant parts of each profile. 

= = =

Stage 5 Boss - Sukune Katano

Original Opinion: I can’t lie here, I kind of knew about Sukune before my deep dive into this series. Ages ago, I watched a video of Earthen Miraculous Sword (I think it was probably Jaimers’ clear of the game). The bosses didn’t really impress me at the time... up until I got to Sukune’s fight. Sukune’s fight kind of blew me away. It’s hard not to be impressed by like, giant Haniwa and Haniwa artilleries. Their fight also helped me *get* what Len’En’s aesthetic is meant to be (it’s drab and low technology af)

When I finally got the chance to fight them for myself, I was just as impressed as the first time I saw them in action, though Sukune’s personality didn’t seem very appealing (again, I don’t like ditzy characters). Now that I’ve gone through and recorded all their conversations for my side-blog, and have also played RMI, I think I can say I honestly like Sukune. When I get to making a “Top Len’En Characters” post, I’ll probably go into more detail there, but all you need to know is Sukune is a character that’s interesting in their first appearance and only gets more interesting the further you get into the series.

Thoughts on their profile: 

Most of their profile is lore about how divine spirits work and that’s whatever. I mean, I get why it’s there. It’s to explain the backstory and how Yaorochi’s plot works. I just don’t have any meaningful commentary about it.

When the profile mentioned how Sukune feels most of their works are incomplete failures, I really felt that. Also, now I can’t help but feel Kuroji is kind of a jerk for dismissing their works.

Though I also feel bad about Sukune being tricked by Yaorochi too.

Sukune loving to open sake bottles but not actually liking to drink alcohol is the funniest thing.

New Opinion: I don’t think my opinion has changed of them, but they’re still really, really cool and I’m so glad that they became one of the series’ recurring player characters

= = =

Stage 6 Boss - Adagumo no Yaorochi

Original Opinion: I didn’t really care for Yaorochi in EMS. I felt they were outshone by every other boss (in terms of personality and musical theme), though their fight was still kind of fun. RMI made me like them a bit more between their powerful shot type, their cool Team theme and their depiction in their route. They give off a really strong “why did I leave my house, I should have just stayed indoors with Tasouken” and it is honestly hilarious. 

Basically, EMS Yaorochi is a cheesy, boring villain, while RMI Yaorochi is more like a single-minded, anti-social dork who immediately regrets trying to get out of their comfort zone

Thoughts on their profile: 

Yaorochi still seems like a massive dork, but the bit about them basically having had depression makes them so much more relatable now.

I think the strange “love triangle” going on between Yaorochi, Tasouken and Saragimaru is fascinating. Saragimaru cares for Yaorochi, Yaorochi only cares for Tasouken, and Tasouken’s full potential can seemingly only be used by Saragimaru, but Saragimaru has no interest in anything other than Yaorochi’s happiness. It’s just all so interesting. It’s just a shame that Yaorochi is the least interesting character in this dynamic, since they know absolutely nothing about what’s going on.

I’m glad that Yaorochi is at least mentioned as feeling bad for tricking Sukune, though I’m not sure how I feel about Yaorochi and Sukune still being a thing in RMI.

New Opinion: While I like Yaorochi a bit more, I still think I’d have to rank them low on the EMS cast. No offense to Yaorochi at all, but someone’s gotta be last, and if I have to choose between Sluggo and Snek being in that spot, well...

= = =

Stage EX Boss - Adagumo no Saragimaru

Original Opinion: I also felt Saragimaru was a little underwhelming in EMS, though I still ended up liking them over their sibling for their design and their amazing boss theme. RMI made it easier to like them since they got partnered with my favourite MC and gave them hilarious banter with them. I wouldn’t put them over Sukune or Hibaru, but I’d say they’re comfortably tied with Lumen and Jun for third. In all, I like ‘em for the fun banter and the dorky Youmu-esque vibes I get from them.

Thoughts on their profile: 

Somebody please give this snek a hug, they have been through so much T_T

More seriously, the whole “can’t seem to approach Yaorochi” thing explains why Saragimaru acts like such a weirdo when you encounter them in RMI as Yaorochi

As I mentioned before, the whole Yaorochi -> Tasouken -> Saragimaru -> Yaorochi triangle is just so fascinating. It’s rather interesting that Saragimaru can theoretically use Tasouken to its full potential (wait, is it “can” is it “could have”, now that Tasouken is a bottle opener)

I just realized that Yaorochi/Saragimaru is the Koishi/Satori and Flandre/Remilia dynamic but more compelling. 

Wait, this weird “unappreciated sibling” dynamic is why they got paired up with Kuroji isn’t it? That pairing makes so much more sense now.

New Opinion: Yeah okay, I think after reading through their profile, Saragimaru is easily my third favourite Earthen Miraculous Sword character. It’s a bit unfair to Lumen and Jun as they’re side characters that get much smaller profiles, but Saragimaru is so incredibly interesting to me now.

= = =

Final Thoughts

I am actually really impressed with JynX’s writing in this game. Evanescent Existence’s story and characters didn’t really impress me, even if it was conceptually very interesting. Earthen Miraculous Sword was not only an immediate improvement (since one of my favourite characters is a flippin’ Stage 1 Boss) but I actually feel that the writing is on par with the Touhou series. And I’m not one of those people that dismisses the writing in Touhou either; the whole Tasouken / Saragimaru / Yaorochi backstory and dynamic is easily as compelling as Touhou’s best. 

If there’s one thing I take issue with, it’s that all the best writing in this game is confined to the profiles rather than the in-game banter... even that’s not a huge issue to me since it’s an issue that could just as easily be said of the official Touhou games (the shooters at least). 

= = =

Ranking the EMS Cast:

Hibaru Kokutenshi

Sukune Katano

Adagumo no Saragimaru

Jun Amanomiya / Lumen Celeritas

Shou Amanomori

Adagumo no Yaorochi

#len'en #len'en lore #earthen miraculous sword #len'en project #len'en tasouken #len'en tasouken earthen miraculous sword #len'en content #len'en profile review #adagumo no yaorochi #adagumo no saragimaru #sukune katano #not a reblog