cnibcliner

[xbuster]

Never thought id see belly button prolapse magic, how did u stumble across it?

I remembered seeing a video of Renko and Merry’s hats having sex so I searched “Renko’s hat sex” and the belly button prolapse doujinshi was one of the results

[lemon-dokuro]

Yesterday, I watched Sound Holic's 2007 Touhou fan film, Touhou Project Side Story ~ Memory of Stars.

The plot is about Kaguya's father, the Moon's ruler, coming to take her and Eirin back. Makes heavy use of sci-fi aesthetics and is mostly set in space. Naturally, because it was released before Bogetsusho/Silent Sinner in Blue, all it had to go off of for the state of the Moon civilization and Kaguya's relationship to it were the 8th Touhou game and maybe Reisen's route/interactions in the 9th. It's a little interesting to see the creators' interpretation because of that, but... It was recieved very poorly by the japanese Touhou fandom in 2007 when it came out, you can even find comparisons to the infamous Cookie series. The reception is understandable — it really isn't good. I actually wouldn't call the story or the premise bad, they're just kitschy in a way characteristic of the otaku culture of its time, but they are ruined completely by the wonky presentation and especially the incomprehensible pacing. I don't want to recap it here because the anime isn't even that long or hard to find, but if I did, I'd have a fair bit of trouble. It feels like one of those 90s OVAs that tries to cram 4-6 volumes of a manga in about 40 minutes, so most things happen too fast to have an impact. There's a whole character that makes absolutely no sense because she has too little screen time and too little actually explained about her (Sphere Sieben, the redheaded space commander lady). Sakuya is there for a barely explained reason. Mokou comes out of nowhere in the middle (well, at least that had a point, ridiculous as it was). And considering this, bizzarely, the movie also has a lot of pointlessly drawn-out scenes where not much happens, like they were trying to pad out the runtime, even though there's a lot of substance they could have added. I have no idea what kind of constrains they were working with, but it's not like they couldn't have just written it more tightly. If not better, then, you know, at least. Even though I don't think the general premise and the story are bad per se, they are very unfitting for Touhou. The creators are obviously going for space opera aesthetics, which is a really weird fit for Touhou. They don't even really try to make it fit. Egregiously, Kaguya's presumably biological father, Luna Marius, has a sci-fi-ish western-style name for absolutely unexplained reasons. Of course, that kind of naming difference is not implausible at all, but it's a really weird creative choice, especially considering it's never adressed, not even in a throwaway line or anything. One could say it's emblematic of the work not compromising the conflicting aesthetics in any way. The visuals are often criticized for obvious reasons. They are great to me because I'm an oldschool doujin fetishist, but it's clearly all very stiff, mildly inconsistent, generally amareurish and feverishly oversaturated with bright flashing effects half the time. The backgrounds mostly consist of said effects. A lot of the animations are obviously reused. That being said, the original character designs are pretty well done. The bunny girl looks especially good, the artist absolutely nailed the early windows Touhou design style. Also, naturally, because Sound Holic is mainly a music circle, the soundtrack is decent. It's not remarkable, but there's nothing wrong with it, it's standard for 2007 Touhou arrange tracks. There's not much to say about the voice acting either — standard for doujin anime. The voice actors are inexplicably pretty well-known, but it's not that uncommon to see big names on the most random 2000s doujin projects. That's probably how these people become popular in the first place.

Well, what can I say overall. It's a weird little movie. I can't recommend it, but maybe you'll get a laugh out of it, or maybe you'll like the visuals as much as I did.

Also, that rabbit's names are both mochi types...

[theoddest1]

What made Touhou Project more successful as a franchise is how its Game Devs allows creative fandom ideas including fandom games on Steam so long as they respect the source materials rules in doing so. Viziepop is like that person who hates AI artwork because is afraid it will outshine her original source material rather than accept it would enhance it.

Well, AI sucks (unless for memes and even then), but Viv has been on record to shame someone for using AI voices all cause they can't afford VAs. She did so in a way that generally was unnecessary and could have been tackled in a far more mature manner. I get not liking AI voices, though, for obvious reasons, but she didn't help the situation at all.

But yee, the example for Touhou is a good one cause for as long as I can remember, I recall seeing a lot of Touhou related content as a result of fans and so it lead me to KNOWING about the franchise as an effect of that. That's how most stuff gets far. Fans tend to help solidify the popularity of a franchise or the hatred for it. Viv has only aided in making many hate her shitty franchise by cultivating a shit fanbase. (There are so few good eggs, I feel so bad for em.)

[touhoufest]

What do you think makes Touhou so Appealing to many people?

I believe the fact that ZUN crafted Touhou to have a ton of interpretation to the worldbuilding and characters along with having very loose restrictions on derivative works allows people to let their creativity and productivity run wild with the series, along with it having a unique vibe in the art and music not really seen in other franchises.

The goofy whimsy of the characters also add to the appeal factor, though that's moreso my allure to it.

But really, there are many different pieces of Touhou that bring people towards it: the official games, the fighting games, the fan games, the characters, the derivative fanworks, the worldbuilding, the music, the fanart, the cosplaying... there's a lot!

I hope this answers your question, and maybe you can think about what your favorite part of Touhou is.

-- Shameimaru Aya

[just-antithings]

JAT: there's a Touhou charity zine for palestine in the making, so I checked out the mods and found one 21 year old anti

The zine in itself is fine, the guidelines are ok too. I would just say proshippers should avoid that one for your own safety (because you never know with antis)

so I checked this anti's posts and found them posting this some time ago:

"this media is problematic, so why do YOU as an anti enjoy it" this is gonna sound crazy but you can enjoy something and not blindly enjoy or not dislike certain aspects at the same time i know right

Oh you are SO CLOSE. It's not like... proshippers aren't incapable of doing this? That's, idk, the a concept of being proship?

It just sounds like they're saying if we don’t constantly point out how wrong and not good and illegal and harmful and yada yada yada certain aspects are, that automatically means we support it irl, which uhhh... is really stupid coming from an adult and who is a Jujutsu Kaisen and Touhou fan no less...

the one mod who I found is an anti is a discord server and creative planning mod. I wish them good luck with their project, seriously, I just wish it didn't involve antis

Oof any time antis are involved in a project you know there’s going to be huge drama

[djyellur]

Introduction 👻

Hi Im rana or i sometimes go by juju or ryst and im a minor…..i draw & animate (sometimes) And I fangirl over a lot of stuff so I might be annoying about it lol and I am not creative when it comes to original characters. Oh no peekaboo and I also am a huge fan of dj sharpnel….Im awful at understanding jokes or misread stuff so sorry if I give attitude to you for no reason 😞..

dni..::👮

If I dont like you ill just block you

Interests……..

I like super milk chan, rhythm heaven, Splatoon, Needy streamer overload, Madoka magica , Warioware, Tomodachi life, Animal crossing , Class of 09, nintendogs, Flipnote studio, Azumanga daioh, Good girl and bad girl, Touhou, vocaloid lost media, Pretty blood, htf, danganronpa, sdr2?.w.

I REALLY REALLG LIKE DJ YELLOW . My other favorite characters are Space dancers, Step switchers, Pearl and marina, Callie , Rin kagamine, 9- volt, Ashley (warioware) 5 volt , milk chan,Cosmic dancers, Rabbot, luka megurine, monkeys from rhythm heaven (Theyre the cutest things to evar exist) popuko amd pipmi and Nutty

Other socials

Youtube: djschoo.l

Tiktok: ryukkasanjou

Discord: djschool

[talenlee]

Game Pile: Gensou Narratograph

I’ve spoken in the past about the sprawling storytelling tradition of the Touhou Project. If you’re unfamiliar, the way I consider Touhou is not a series of videogames or even a franchise as you might conventionally interpret it, but rather a sort of communally shared storytelling space created by a large body of uncapitalised creative sources. Despite the fact that Touhou is the product of, initially, the work of one person (working in concert with an audience and then a community), it isn’t really reasonable to call it a franchise or even a universe. Those things imply a structure, a sort of coherence or an overarching ownership, and that’s something that Touhou absolutely does not have.

What Touhou has is a community and that community connect with other members of their community in almost any communication media you can find. It’s games, sure but it’s also doujinshi, fanfiction, fan art and in pretty much every single place people can create stuff, you’re going to see people creating something Touhou adjacent. In this way, Touhou stretches from a source point out and into pretty much every single other place people can be. I don’t have any proof but I’m confident that someone on the Antarctic Research Station of some country or another had a Marisa sticker inside their backpack or whatever.

Touhou is a lot of things, which is to say, I better watch my mouth. What I think I can say, pretty unreservedly, is that Touhou is distinct. Touhou material does not tend to look like or present itself as anything but Touhou. There are other materials full of girls who look like they’re twelve and wear numerous petticoats and ostentatious hats, but most of them succeed at looking like Touhou and not so much like their own thing distinct from Touhou.

What Touhou makes tends to be made for an audience of Touhou fans, which is why some of the games have a reputation of being brutally, comically hard. There’s a sort of deliberate alienation at work: Don’t you dare ask Touhou to change for you, you need to change for Touhou! Yeah the game is unfair and hard and you can’t get the good ending if you can’t skate through these bullets right, that’s how we like it! That’s how you know you’re a real fan!

(This is not really how they talk)

(most of the time)

(Since they left 4chan)

Anyway it’s this pre-existing weirdoscape that gave rise to what is, to my eye, simply the strangest goddamn Tabletop Roleplaying game I’ve ever seen.

Content Warning: I’m not really a Touhou fan and this game doesn’t change my opinion of it. If you’re heavily invested in this game being a good game and want to see me praise it, you won’t, so it’s probably best to just jog on.

Just a note: I’m reading an unofficial translation of Gensou Narratograph. I’m not fluent in Japanese, and any time I think a phrase is badly written or clunky or strange, I let it go. That’s not important to this and treating the game as if that’s vital is a great way to cut yourself out of a lot of really cool translated TTRPGs.

If you’ve been paying attention to me talking about Tabletop RPGs for any length of time, you might find that because I don’t get to play them very often I usually look at them in terms of their approach, their interface, and their offerings. Oo, what fancy words. What do they mean?

The approach of a game is how it induces you to play it. What’s the introduction to the book like, when does it start you playing it?

The interface of a game is how it plays. What does the game let you dick around with? What are the systems in the game space that you can play around with and that you can express using the game’s systems and how does the game’s systems make them work? Simplified, what does the game give you as a button and what happens when you push it? This includes things like if the book is well-written, how you handle it, and if it looks nice.

The offerings of a game is the promise of the fantasy you get to indulge if you play it! Whether it’s becoming an adventurer engaged in tactical combat or a spacefaring captain doing deals for rare goods, the offering of a game is how all the other stuff makes space for you to enjoy this thing.

I think, fundamentally, that the more I read and reread this book, every single part of Gensou Narratograph is extremely, extremely bad. Or rather, completely unsuited to my experiences of what I want in a tabletop RPG. It’s one thing to call the approach bad, but is it bad if the approach is explicitly trying to get a mere normie like me to go away? Is that not the point?

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Also behind myself. Because in terms of approach, this game starts not with an introduction to the universe, nor an invitation to fantasy or even character creation, but instead with a page describing the ‘correct’ way to read this book. The first thing the book says to do, the way you should start with this game, is not to look at mechanics or character options or anything like that, but to instead read a recap of a play session of the game, with Zun. Zun is the creator of Touhou. Zun is, in a way, just some guy.

This recap is a hundred and ten pages long.

It is a hundred and ten pages long.

This game does not start you with character creation, but instead an actual play script with someone famous, and you should want to read it because that person is cool and famous and important. I read some of it. I tried. I also didn’t have any meaningful context for the actual play because to me, understanding how the game works is important to knowing what’s going on when they make gameplay decisions. But okay, after that, we get to the introduction, which begins with a pitch for its fantasy about being resolution experts who use spellcards to unleash a beautiful hell of bullets. Great! This is the stuff I expect I’m supposed to be seeing in a game like this, so far so good. Then we get a description of what a tabletop roleplaying game is, a description of the gamemaster and players, and then a description of what you’ll be playing.

Let’s put a pin in that point though.

Then we get a list of requirements – rulebook, players, place to play, d6s, writing tools, types of sheet, tokens, and a nice reminder to take breaks. Then there’s a list of nice-but-not-necessary things to include like snacks, music, time and place for post-game talk, some resistance to bullets, and people to play with, which gets mentioned twice as both necessary and not necessary. I personally would file players under ‘essential’ rather than ‘nice to have.’ Then we get some glossary and it’s blessedly short – this whole introduction is only five pages long! – before the book introduces characters.

Now, in my preference of an approach, I think that you should give people the pitch of the offering – here’s the fantasy! – then the basics – here’s what a d6 is! – and then the fundamental mechanics of the game, like the d20 resolution system, where big numbers are better – and then move on to character creation. Which means that while I feel like I’m missing something, once you get past that 110 page introduction, then this approach is more or less doing what I expect to do in a book with what I consider a good approach.

But we’re going to put a pin here to jump ahead a chapter to talk about the rules, the things that make up the interface.

The rules system is built around checks; you roll n dice to aim for a target number of y, formatted as ‘nd:y’, and that works fine as a formatting choice. This is not an additive kind of dice roll, though, but a dice pool. So if you roll 2d6 aiming for a target of 4, and you get a 3 and a 3, you didn’t succeed at the check. It’s a simple binary system too – either you rolled the target or higher, and you succeed, or you rolled below it, and you failed. You have triumphs and fumbles, representing very good success and very big failures, and, shout out to thy dungeongal, it has even got a failure table for fumbles. It’s not a Rolemaster fumble table, but it’s pretty good for a small affair in a simpler game.

There’s something like an initiative system for most of the story – a ‘yet to act’ and ‘acted’ system, which means that once you do something significant, you have to wait until everyone else has a turn. I don’t mind this, this is a system that formalises something I know a lot of people already do in their game situations. Some players don’t like this? I know a few who would rather be quiet and let the story happen without being regularly called upon to check if they’re okay.

From there, there’s mechanics about a multi-phase story, following a pattern; you have an investigation phase with quests you should fulfill, and the quests serve as flags for getting to the next part of the story, in the next phase. Clues are distributed randomly by dice on a pre-established map, and then there’s a time limit to work out how long you have left to fulfill the investigation phase of the story. There’s random daily events that represent the ongoing life in Gensokyo, a recovery stage of the day, and players even move around the map of the world based on rolling dice according to their motivation stat.

You know, like a roll-and-move board game.

Players are atomised in this part of the game. They don’t move as one but instead everyone is moving and investigating in their own time. If you wind up in the same square as a player you can build a bond with them and do your thing with them, which is useful for assisting later on. Failing to uncover a clue in a location leads to more clues being propogated, meaning that over time the play space fills with clues and failures still bring opportunities.

The combat system – called Danmaku Combat – is heads-up, one PC vs one NPC. Characters have unique boards for combat, known as their Danmaku Fields. From here the rules get complicated, and I use that word in place of the word complex. You roll to determine attacks. Your die rolls represent how many bullets you place around your enemy, but also where. You don’t get to control that. You can use spellcards, and then you can roll to dodge, and finally the game calculates hits. Then there’s a set of qualifiers to check how the resolution of that round works, bullets are tidied up, and the combatants reset to a new initiative.

After that, there’s a denoument which also suggests that you should share the story of your game on social media.

I will say about this system I appreciate some simplicity. If you’re in the same square as a bullet, you get hit. That’s just how bullets work. There’s even a mechanic for grazing! I like some of the board-gamey mechanics and I think the idea of flying characters bringing their own ‘board’ to represent how they influence the space around them in battle is pretty novel!

I do not like any of the other mechanics.

No not even that one.

I’m trying to be kind. I’m trying to be kind, I’m trying so hard. I’m trying to approach this as if it’s just extremely alien, as if it’s categorically different to what I want in games and therefore every single thing I dislike is fine because cheese and apples, oranges and pears, some people just like different things, it’s fine, it’s fine, and hey, maybe even I’m being a bit of a western chauvinist expecting this game book to be built the way I think a game book should be.

Except hang on, no I’m not, I’m talking about this strictly as a matter of preference. And we’re not even at the thing I find the most repellent about this game.

See, when I described above ‘characters,’ you might notice I didn’t use the term ‘creation.’ I called the section ‘characters,’ because you don’t get to create characters. Characters are pre-generated. This game comes with thirty writeups of established, pre-defined, pre-characterised Touhou girls, and you get to get to pick one of twenty-one character traits about them that can, based on the dice, be entirely equally distributed across all thirty of these characters.

This is fantastically strange to me.

This is actively player hostile to me.

And it’s not like this breaks with the trend of how people care about Touhou: I don’t know anyone with a Touhou OC, but I know a lot of people who refer to old friends, friends they had in younger days, as ‘a Marisa’ or ‘a Reimu.’ I know more Touhou fictives than I know people who create new things in the Touhou space. If you’re a Touhou fan, you’re probably a fan of these characters, and I guess if that’s all you’re a fan of, you wouldn’t be bothered by the lack of a creative toolkit for existing within this world.

This is a vision of tabletop RPGs that does not exist to me outside of the most fishknived deliberate designs like Everyone Is John. This game’s vision of its setting and its characters are not that this is a place you want to play in but that this is a pre-existing cast of characters you want to embody and play. You don’t make a Touhou OC (A TouhouC) in this game and get to play them meeting important NPCs, you pick up a pre-established Touhou, with her established interests and behaviours, and try to play her as close to your vision of her as you can. And I say her, because they are all women, and…

Lords.

I know there’s a queer angle on all this but I am too aware of the audience that likes Touhou for the Wrong Reasons, because, again, I know where a lot of the English-speaking fandom came from.

If I was going to be so gauche as to talk about Gensou Narratograph as if it were a mere game that I was going to have an opinion on I’d say it looks like it sucks. But that’s just my opinion based on merely reading the entire book and not being already a fan of Touhou, a shorthanding of a number of critical considerations of the qualities and choices made in this game, summed up in a short form to express my ideas clearly. It’s not that it’s a bad game, it doesn’t make people ill or commit tax fraud or anything. Chances are good, if you’re a fan of Touhou, you’re probably going to love the idea of a game that hands you a character sheet at the start and says congratulations, you’re Suwaku Moriya now! Look at your funny froggy hat! You have a skill called Creating Kun (Earth)!

It is, in the truest sense, the most Touhou TTRPG that could exist, in that it seems completely impenetrable to me, offering no reason to engage with it outside of pre-existing love and veneration for the property, and happy to be that way.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[que-de-metal]

🎇2023 Fanfic Favourites🎆

Hi guys! I wanted to share some recs before the year ends! I have an inspiration blog for sharing original art (@qululq), a personnal blog for sharing fan art (ask off anon for url if you want) , but fanfiction is harder to share since it's on a separate platform. So here's a round-up of some of my most beloved stuff I read this year (not all of it was published this year, some are older fics! I also only picked one fic by author but do check their other works <3)

Things that can be read without knowing a particular fandom:

benefit of broken hearts - Hilarious and sweet rom-com about immortality based on the song Beach House by Carly rae Jepsen

Something Else Woke Up Inside Me - Short horror story based on the visuals of Monster by Red Velvet. One of the coolest monster concepts!

At This Point, Don't Let Go - (gift for meeee) Experimental story about body swapping based on this Perfume MV.

Coffee Realists & Tea Dreamers - (another gift for me. technically read in 2022 but since the author reveals were this year i'm including it!) Short story with all original characters in the universe of Werewolf the Apocalypse. The eeriness of areas that toe the line between urban and rural.

Touhou fics (for this it was really hard to only do one fic by author lol):

Longing That Transcends Memory (by @freshlybakedspiderbread) - Various stories about love centered on Akyuu, based on the TH ship week prompts and exploring so many fun concepts and aspects of her character.

The Immortals (by @mimicteruyo) - Diary of Mokou long after the fall of Gensokyo, about eternity and the fates that befell a big cast of long-living Touhou characters.

Erin Yagokoro Says Nothing (by @yukareimu) - Pre-canon pre-Eientei TeruEri fic. I feel like saying too much would spoil it. It's short and brilliant so go see for yourself!

The Cicada Shell Diary (by @littlejustices) - LittleJustices strikes again with another amazing diary-format AkyuuRei fic. Really creative and elegant take on the ship.

Various other fandoms:

[LoZ: Majora's Mask] A World Reborn (by @theseventhsage) - A few days in Cremia's life after the world didn't end, with a focus on her unrequited love for Anju who reunited with Kafei.

[Tiger Tiger] Among the roses - Luck/Ludovica from the POV of an outsider noble as Ludo reappears in the public eye!

[Yellowjackets] An Unofficial Anthology of the Online Fandom for the Yellowjackets Tragedy (warning: doesn't work on mobile) - Fake internet pages from the Yellowjacket universe and its true crime community and Yellowjackets RPF writers. Super fun.

[early Dreamcatcher MV continuity] Room 808 - A short take on the events of the Chase Me MV. This was my intro to K-pop MV fanfics and to Dreamcatcher!

If you know the tumblr handle of one of the writers tell me so I can mention them. Likewise, if you're one of the writers and would like me to remove your fic/handle from the list tell me too!

I hope you find a fic that you love in there! What were your 2023 favourites? (I don't want to turn this into a tagging game but I'd love to see more recs <3)

[cheesy-che]

If it’s okay for me to ask what were your inspirations when creating mizuiro?

Ok, first of all, you're totally allowed to ask! Secondly, I don't think you're ready for my weaboo answer. I'm sorry in advace HAHA. I was 13 when I decided to join a Bleach Roleplaying Forum. (Yes you read that right.) I created a character, Mizuiro, who was a Shinigami. She was depressive and shy. Her sword had the power to choke people to death. It was something like "Choke, Chinmôku" (meaning "silence"). She was very dramatic HAHA. Her first design was based off Youmu Konpaku from the game Touhou. To this day… I still haven't played or don't know anything about Touhou (lol sorry). Using Gimp back then, I colored her hair pale blue because I thought it could be cool to have a whole theme with her name, Hasu Mizuiro, meaning "Pale blue lotus". I knew there was someone called Mizuiro in the Bleach series already, but I guess I didn't care oops.

She stayed my muse for so many years, because I, too, struggled with depression for a long time. She was an escape to my emotions, I guess. During my late teenage years, I began writing with her with some friends of mine. Again, I was at a very bad place in my life. Mizuiro helped me a lot. Over the years, she kept some of her main traits : Melancholic and calm. I also developped new ones for her, like being curious to the core, creative and a daydreamer. At first, I got a lot of inspiration from my intense feelings and many expressions using the word "blue" (ie : Why so blue?; Once in a blue moon; Feeling blue; etc) During the pandemic, I began writing with her again- as an escape. (There is a pattern here, see.) I always loved the Vaporwave/Synthwave aesthetic and music. During those years, it kept me calm. I decided I would associate this type of music with her, mostly because it explores themes of escape and half-lucid dreams. In 2020, I had a lot of time and got inspiration from this music. I finally found the courage to publish some of my writings online. Because of ~life~ and how busy I am, I concentrated my energy on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) universe. It was both because I never stopped being obsessed with it and because it was better for me to focus on one coherent backstory instead of different projects. Since then, I was introduced to an online TMNT fan community and people were actually reading what I published. My main writing project with her is Space Echoes. Since I began posting, I received many drawings of her [HERE] and I'm incredibly grateful for these. The TMNT community is amazing, and every time someone reads about her or my story, it makes me teary-eyed. Honestly, I wasn't expecting any of this love. I can't express how happy it makes me that my blorbo is getting so much attention, even though I am not very quick in my writing. ;__; Here's a recent drawing of her by my friend, @sassatello. I can't thank the community enough for the support it gave me over the recent years. Mizuiro keeps evolving and it makes me want to keep going.

Thank you so much, Anon! This ask also means the world. 💙

[slightly-gay-pogohammer]

At least with a game that never comes out, you can't be disappointed by it's quality.

my biggest counterpoint is that. yea a bad disappointing game is, technically speaking, of course bad - it comes with bad writing, bad characterization, and also most of the time you have to pay for it

but. here's the kicker. even in shitty ass games that i hated, i could find something i actually liked!!! as much as i despise thieves in time, i have the second chapter very enjoyable, for example, and while yiik is a poorly thought game with abysmal writing i do find a few characters and OST pretty damn good, and going with fangames idk if any touhou fan ever played dream logical world but it's bad in possibly anything except some INCREDIBLY creative spellcard ideas with the fifth boss that i'd love to see used again!! and if anything, you have plenty of people to complain with!!! fun!!!!!!!!!

but when a game is just cancelled. what is there :( there are people in the tags that say that if a game is cancelled we could still get it in the future so it's good but. no we don't. we won't get alice asylum, because american mcgee said that having the game cancelled completely ruined the idea of game developing for him; we won't get the raving rabbids prototype, because we already got a raving rabbids game; we won't get the tomb raider angel of darkness trilogy because the devs were rushed and the first game flopped

like yea having a shitty game is more frustrating but not having one to begin with is way more crushing to me :(

[gensokyofestival]

Prompt List for 2023

It looks like we’re going to have a month-long event in March as usual, so here for your enjoyment is this year’s prompt list! I carefully chose all these prompts for variety, open-endedness and creative potential, by getting Cirno to recite random pages from a dictionary. We hope you like them.

If you haven’t heard of the Gensokyo Festival, we run a yearly event about sharing Touhou fan works during a month of daily prompts. Everybody is welcome, even if it’s just for one prompt, and having fun is what matters most. As Cirno would say after reading an entire dictionary out loud, why not come for a tarriance and undertake our conjuncture?

Day 1 | March 1: Eastern Story Day 2 | March 2: Stone Walls and Terracotta Teapots Day 3 | March 3: This Time, With Feeling Day 4 | March 4: Flower Power Day 5 | March 5: Unanswered Questions Day 6 | March 6: I Want One Day 7 | March 7: Why? Day 8 | March 8: Banding Together Day 9 | March 9: Peaceful Days Day 10 | March 10: Turning Over a New Leaf Day 11 | March 11: Bogged Down Day 12 | March 12: Imagination Day 13 | March 13: Acting Your Age Day 14 | March 14: I Did It My Way Day 15 | March 15: Partnership Day 16 | March 16: Take a Chance Day 17 | March 17: Bon Voyage Day 18 | March 18: Rice Field Day 19 | March 19: Defeat Day 20 | March 20: Are You There? Day 21 | March 21: Reminds Me of a Song Day 22 | March 22: Sunrise, Sunset Day 23 | March 23: Protection Day 24 | March 24: Dressed for the Occasion Day 25 | March 25: Movers and Shakers Day 26 | March 26: In a Pinch Day 27 | March 27: Dungeons and Daidarabotchi Day 28 | March 28: Union Day 29 | March 29: Taking It to the Next Level Day 30 | March 30: Her Finest Hour Day 31 | March 31: Closing Time

[singular-yike]

Please tell me about our favorite simp, Haiji! (Actually I like Xeno a a bit more but I think Haiji being in your favorite character slots and me liking Xeno a and Haiji moderately evens out to Haiji being our favorite.)

Alrighty, here's everyone's favourite chestnut head, the deranged little Rinnosuke themself (yes if you think about it that's really what they are):

The Fad-following Spell Collector — Haiji Senri

Name: Haiji Senri

Let's take a look at this oddly familiar name: Haiji Senri (千理 牌示).

Surname Senri, despite what it looks like, Haiji isn't actually related to Tsurubami Senri at all. The two names are written with different characters: Haiji's Senri (千理) vs. Tsurubami's Senri (闡裡).

Haiji actually specifically changed their surname to this because they're just that much of a Senri fan, but showed a strange sense of restraint by not using the exact same characters to write it.

In this rendering of the name, "sen" (千) means "thousand" and "ri" (理) means "logic/reason". As an aside, the name change apparently happened when Tsurubami was the Senri priest.

In their given name, Haiji (牌示), "hai" (牌) means "card", and is the same character used in spell cards (スペル牌); while "ji" (示) means "show". So their name means "card showing" lol.

Obsession #1: The Senri

Haiji is a super ultra duper fan of the Senri and the Senri Shrine, to the point where they collect the first-generation Senri priest's ink brushes. Additionally, they're also a big fan of the 2nd generation priest, who invented the spell card system.

Thanks to this long-time Senri obsession, they were one of the few to closely witness Tsurubami's entire career, and their conquest of Mugenri.

In fact, they frequently hung around Tsurubami and Tenkai, and, at least according to Haiji themself, Tsurubami liked them as well. (Though they apparently don't like Tenkai.) (Also while Tenkai protests, they seem to enjoy the faddist's company as well.)

Obsession #2: Spell Cards

I would explain why Haiji loves spell cards so much, but I think it's better to just hear it from the chestnut themself:

BPoHC Secret vs. Haiji "Cards" are truly wonderful~. They're the most beautiful part of an individual's power made manifest. Their creativity, imbued within their set form representing beauty of expression, is just as captivating! You can glean one's innermost nature from the kind of spell cards they use... And, from that illusion, indulge in a sense of superiority!

Depicted below: An undeployed spell card, as seen in-game. (One truly must admire JynX's graphic design, the thing looks gorgeous~)

Obsession #2.1: Collecting Spell Cards

As an extension of their love for spell cards, they also love collecting them. They love others' cards so much that they only have one truly original card, White Card "Origin Card", and prefer to fight using others' spells instead.

They obtain others' spells through one of two methods:

Dueling others and demanding their opponents to surrender their cards after they win. Some people call this theft, but Haiji vehemently denies it.

Researching others' spells and creating replicas of them, to this end, they can be found in various locations of Mugenri. (This is presumably what they did to get their Touhou ripoff cards)

In particular, they have an interest in spell cards created by "naturals", people who didn't need to learn how to create spell cards, but simply knew the rules and methods instinctively.

Haiji's Spell Card Shop

Haiji runs a spell card shop on the outskirts of the Human Village, where they duplicate the spell cards they own and sell them for a profit.

Notably, while a spell's creator can create indefinite copies of the card, they can't do so when the card is taken from them. So when Haiji takes one off someone through a duel, they're forced to somehow get it back or make do with a copy Haiji made.

Despite the ubiquity of the spell card system, not everyone can create spells, and not everyone can manipulate spell cards as well as Haiji does either.

Yet, everyone can use spell cards. So despite their eccentricities, people from the Human Village do actually visit Haiji's shop regularly. No one else provides such a service, after all, they found their economic niche~. (And I love this point so much hehe)

Haiji the Copycat, Haiji the Faddist

Haiji's a bit of a copycat, preferring to find beauty in others and make it their own rather than to be truly original. They're also called a faddist, although we haven't really seen this in play yet.

In any case, here's a list of things they did copy:

The Senri last name, even if slightly altered

Tsurubami's theme, and its title

Tsurubami's spell background, again slightly altered

All their spell cards (except White Card "Origin Card")

Other Neat Points

That really concludes everything major I have on Haiji, so here are a few other neat points:

Despite being so knowledgeable about the Senri, spell card system and spell cards, they're actually a bit airheaded, even forgetting their own name lol

They apparently knew Suzumi even before BPoHC, perhaps they met one another in the capital?

Funnily enough, their clothes are actually not copied from anyone else, and are based on their own fashion sense (which means they came up with the chestnut hat, on their own)

And that's all! Perhaps it wasn't really much of an analysis, but I personally found Haiji info to be a bit scattered, and thought it'd be nice to kind of tidy it all up here.

Bonus: Personal Thoughts

We're really done now, so feel free to leave if you'd like. This little part's just gonna be a bit of ramblin' on why I like them so much~

I really enjoy how they're just a little silly person who's really into spell cards, and yet have found a way to really make things work out for themself, a perfect balance of fanaticism and brilliance~.

I also kinda relate to the whole "finding beauty in others" thing, not necessarily in a self-loathing sense but just in a, "WOW there are amazing people and things out there" sense. It brings me joy just to find out about such things, and even more to learn about them.

I can't really articulate it too well but yeah Haiji's real neat! And their pure enthusiasm is just fun too. Anywho, hope you enjoyed this once again~ :)

[tokyoafterschoolsimps]

Life Update <3

It's quite long under here, so please be prepared ;)

Some updates of my life, for those who are interested :)

I was sent to the ER a few days ago due to unusual nose bleeds 0.o

I Got accepted into Chico! :)))

For game development!!! :DDDDD

Regarding the fan games I've developed/developing...

GAMES

As of 3/30/23, this is the status of the following games.

Tokyo After School Special - [PAUSED]

I'm very sorry to say that this project is still in development. I have yet to improve my drawing skills that I believe would fit this game. Since I am going to school for game development, this will help me craft this project into something I can proudly present to all of you! Thank you for your patience!

Present Danger - [COMPLETED. WILL UPDATE EVENTUALLY]

This game was honestly rushed, and I can do better. While I have utilized some of my skills to create some of the assets, this game is still rough around the edges (not to mention the frame rate, yikes...)

Since it was a small project, improving it will be on the lower list of priority.

Shiro and the Missing Pages - [IN DEVELOPMENT]

The title is a wip.

I got another idea for a fan game :')

I won't reveal much about it until I am ready to release it as a demo

so who knows how long that will take :/

All I will reveal is that it stars our beloved self-cock-blocking nerd, Shiro Motoori looking for his missing pages while chatting it up with the other eldritch classmates.

HOUSAMO X TOUHOU FANGAME - [PAUSED]

In case you followed my twitter, this game was in development before any of the other fangames. Bullet Hells are pretty hard to develop, and I honestly didn't have any idea for the story at the time. While stirring my creative juices, I have eventually came up with a few ideas that will help me get this game flowing. As stated before, I will refrain from revealing anything from this game until I am able to release a demo first. All I will say is that it takes place during "Ueno's Fluffy Dream Kingdom".

FANFICS

I use fanfic submissions to help me with my creative writting. I feel I get better with every fanfic posted, but I would love to hear feedback! Currently, I accept any type of fanfic requests, i.e. Character x reader, character x character, scenarios, etc.

Due to my inexperience with writing fanfics, I've decided to implement a type of "Story Length" upon requests. Basically, when asking for a fanfic of anything, I will ask a Length:

SCENARIO - Bullet points describing the event. Great if you let your imagination do the work!

EXAMPLE:

🦬Wakan likes the smell of flowers during spring

🦬He'll take you on dates on the cafe

🦬He'll order the strawberry parfait and let you try some.

DRABBLE - 100 words or less. Great for on the go reading!

FLASH FIC - 500 words or less. Good for a tiny story!

FICLET - 1000 words or less. Great If you got time to read!

FANFIC - About 5000ish. Wonderful if you want to kill some time!

I will try to strive for the agreed story length. Additionally, if you request to be anonymous, I will respect your wishes and not mention you.

Here are the status of the current fics:

MC2 [FEMC] X Tsathoggua - [IN PROGRESS]

Requested by @veryturtlecol. A continuation of Tsathoggua's date quest. NSFW

MC2 [FEMC] X Gyobu- [IN PROGRESS]

Requested by @veryturtlecol. A tender moment with our favorite tanuki. NSFW

[ofthenoseclan]

what is it u like best about touhou? :3 -> knows nothing about it

tyy

i am a huuuuuuuuge fan of the political satire within the series. its very creative with how it builds its world and cast to speak about themes of anti-capitalism, colonialism, religious systems as means of control, corrupt bureaucracy, and so on, while still managing to tie it neatly inside a relaxing, down-to-earth setting that can be believable and compelling in its own right, separate from the subtext within it. this is something that scratches my itch in a way i havent found any other writer match like zun does, and it annoys me that it isnt something i see a lot of the fanbase discuss in depth

[clock-corpse]

How does one get into TouHou enough to rp? I love the designs I just dk where to start

Okay so, this is going to be a long answer. I would like to say that it's a simple one, but it really isn't given just how old the Touhou series is and how much media there is surrounding it both official and fanmade. So hopefully I can help walk you through things.

More under the readmore.

So, you say that you like the character designs. Which one? I think this is an important question to ask first. Which character is it that draws your attention? Because if you can figure that out, then it'll become easier to get into the series.

Touhou is a 25 year old series with 20+ games under its belt, not to mention the manga, novels, and independent music soundtracks. While this sounds incredibly daunting, I promise you that getting into the series isn't that bad if you start small. And there's absolutely no rush to learn everything about the official lore before you start RP'ing.

See, Touhou is very much kept afloat by its fanbase that creates numerous types of fanworks ranging from doujinshi manga, games, fanfics, fanart, and just about anything else you can think of. Due to the vagueness of the writing in Touhou, this usually leads to the fans filling in those holes with their own headcanons which the creator ZUN, is 100% supportive of as long as you follow his guidelines.

(The guidelines are real simple. Just don't post video game endings, or create fanworks that depict stuff that could be considered illegal in a real life situation.)

Anyway, because a lot of fanmade Touhou content runs on fanon, it's perfectly fine if you can't get the character down to canon in your first RP experience. Touhou fans are usually laid back about that kind of stuff, and if they're not, ignore them. Explore Touhou in your own time and use your own judgement when creating your character.

So, now that I've told you all this I want to go back to my original question. Is there a character you like? Because if there is, then my best advice would be to hop on over to the Touhou Wiki to look them up and see what official sources they appear in.

Of course it never hurts to also look at fanworks for inspiration, but I must warn you. If you're new to the Touhou fandom and are coming from another Western fandom then you may be a bit shocked. Some people can be into some... things you may not like.

It's an unfortunate fact of being a Touhou fan that you're going to run into unfavorable stuff when searching for fanworks on image boards and the like. It may take some time to learn how to avoid them but it's really easy to figure it out and curate your own space.

The main thing to remember when you run into something that you think might be gross or uncomfortable is to stop, don't freak out, and click off the page.

In the end, Touhou is about creativity freedom and that pretty much extends to everyone who's interested in the series. So don't stress too much about trying to get the character 100% right on your first try. For the most part you can meet people will be supportive of your portrayal and continue to be as you improve.

I hope any or all of this helps! Happy RP'ing! o/

[tribow]

I've really slowed down on my game dev stuff, part of it is just my really bad habit of taking naps after work really cutting into my creative time, but another part of it is me working on level editor projects in Distance.

On one hand, I love working on those levels. I really do. I want to see them finished one day and share them with the community. Unfortunately, I have little to gain from working on those levels. At the end of the day, those levels are for a very niche community. One that's so niche that it'd be next to impossible to use my creative Distance works as a jumping off point to self-support myself creatively. I'm not getting any money nor gaining new experience by doing this. (Well I guess the modding helps with my C# knowledge.)

Whereas, my gamedev endeavors could actually result in some money and important experience. I'm not expecting Vinstar to be something successful, it's practically a prototype to help me learn how Godot works. I have other game ideas I can shoot for. and well...that's part of my problem isn't it.

I got too many ideas I want to work on, and I can't complete any of them fast enough to not end up jumping to a new project.

Why did Vinstar development halt? Because I really wanted to work on those Distance levels. These are the same Distance levels that I stopped working on just to get more Vinstar work done. I can't work on everything at once, but I do have the diligence to eventually see a project through to the end....but is that good?

This habit of jumping my focus between projects gives me an extremely slow pace. Will I finish those Distance levels? Yeah, of course I will. Will I release the Godot version of Vinstar? Yeah, of course I will. Should it take several years? I don't know...

Well, in the case of Vinstar, I only started the Godot build earlier this year. It hasn't been that long yet, but if this pattern continues I have a feeling a public release of Vinstar is gonna be a 2025 thing and I could absolutely release it sooner if I just stopped working on Distance content.

One could say I'm jeopardizing my potential by pouring my love into fan-content of a game with an audience of maybe 30 people, but I don't care. I love doing it. I'm not writing this to convince myself to stop what I'm doing, but I also want to acknowledge it.

I feel I should also use this blog to talk more about my own Distance shenanigans. I've strayed away from focusing on it due to my history of being a touhou fan here. It's not like I'm not still a touhou fan, but it's not the only thing I do y'know? So I'm gonna talk about it more.

I don't believe there was anyone really following Vinstar development outside of some friends, but I do feel I owe a bit of an explanation as to why I slowed down so much. I'm just cooking in Distance.

Still, there's a lot I want to do. I should make a website, or a Neocities website for a blog not entirely tied to tumblr. I wanted to make a leaderboard site for the Competitive Server I created for Distance and I keep holding it off due to my lack of web dev knowledge. I want to make a touhou fan-game one day. I want to make a card game. I want to make a marble game. I want to make games in general. I should make time for game jams. I want to make more Distance levels that aren't huge projects. I want to do Prompt of the Month or Edit the Clock again in Distance (luckily someone else is doing Prompt of the Month in my stead). I want to be able to afford a single bedroom apartment and self-support myself. Too much! But I want to get there eventually.