#its bc they started nitpicking the story and I kinda lost motivation to work on it lke this shit is stupid. and cringe

[francy-sketches]

I'm gonna have to work on my final project non stop for like a month straight bc I procrastinated on it too much fuck my stupid baka life

[evilisk]

Just finished going through the current event rerun in LostWord (it’s a mystery-themed event starring the three Witches, Kosuzu and Akyuu) and I have thoughts about it

The Good

As a big Forbidden Scrollery fan, I’m always up for Kosuzu and Akyuu shenanigans. We don’t get enough of them in fanworks tbh

Cool mystery theme. It’s much classier than some of the other events (which include “an excuse to put characters in maid outfits”, “an excuse to put characters in cheerleading outfits” and “a perfectly okay theme about all the sister groups in Touhou, presented in the weirdest way”)

Speaking of classy, god do Marisa, Alice and Patchouli’s costumes look good. If I ever save up enough of those God Crystals, I’m definitely getting Patchouli’s alt (mostly bc Patchouli’s default portrait is embarrassing...)

I like the "overprotective parents” characterization given to Kanako and Suwako... even if it’s not super accurate.

The Bad

The mystery writing kinda sucks. It starts off decently enough but it’s super obvious that the writers gave up halfway through because, while Alice and Patchouli do actual detective work for their portions of the story, Marisa’s “plan” is to get everyone in Gensokyo to accuse one another, and then to nab whoever didn’t get accused by other people. 

On the one hand, Marisa’s plan isn’t actually successful, so it’s not like the story condones her plan. But on the other hand, it’s a really stupid plan and I can’t believe Marisa actually followed through on it. Incredibly dumb plans like that are Reimu’s thing

The lackluster mystery wouldn’t be as disappointing if the main story wasn’t already so much like a mystery story with its structure TBH. Each story has you investigating each AU’s Lost Word like you’re looking for a killer and a motive. I definitely expected better.

Other

While it’s cute that the story begins with Yukari giving Akyuu and Kosuzu a license to participate in spellcard duels, I’m fairly certain there is no such license in canon. 

The general setup is nice and “realistic”. Akyuu has gone exclusively to Kosuzu for book-related matters, I also like the idea of Kosuzu enlisting Marisa and her Witch pals in a book search. What’s silly is the idea that someone would steal the Gensokyo Chronicle so they can “get the other hand on other characters”. The book isn’t an objective list of weaknesses (for example, it has information about shinigami and hermits we know to be untrue by other, more reliable sources in-universe). It’s disappearance wouldn’t cause an incident quite like the story suggests... this is a total nitpick though. It’s obvious they needed to up the stakes SOMEHOW.

The idea of a massive nerd like Kosuzu getting into any sort of action is, no offense, kind of laughable. We’re talking about someone who canonically fainted when (she was aware) that a youkai was within social distancing range of her.

tl;dr I think the event gets point for not being an excuse to put characters in weird costumes and for having Akyuu and Kosuzu in the forefront, but it also loses points for being a mystery-themed event with a less interesting mystery than any of the main game chapters