Boo. Mask-ot. Not funny, didn't laugh.

(It was quite funny and I did laugh).

Asking for the one THP writer living in Gensokyo right now - this is going off US time right? So 28th US time would be 29th in Gensokyo (Japan) time, if I'm working this out correctly.

Glad this theme got chosen, I was mulling over ideas for it.

I can feel Kokoro's dead-eyed stare when you ask her not to look at you.

Can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!

>>18579

Ah, you've brought up another aspect of Satsuki I forgot - that she was meant to be a main character.

An airhead, huh? It could work, but you've got me thinking of a different way to depict her.

What if for a main character Satsuki, we played into her forgotten-ness more? One of the main themes of Touhou is preservation - Gensokyo is a sanctuary for the forgotten, after all.

What if Satsuki wants to solve incidents to gather fame, and make her name known in order to preserve her very being as a Yokai? Perhaps she puts up a haughty front as an ancient and venerable Qilin in order to mask the anxiety and fear that wracks her as a being on the verge of disappearance, perhaps one that has already lost parts of themself? I think that kind of character could be good, and could explore some interesting concepts of the ways Touhou's world works.

art is from https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/123072793

>>18581

Poor Satsuki-chan...slow death by ontological decay would be a pretty heavy theme. Wouldn't Yukari's Boundary of Fantasy prevent this type of thing though?

Or maybe...existence is a privilege afforded only to the useful Yökai, with the less desirables being driven out of hearth and home by a faith-based bureaucracy and ecclesiastical red-tape.

It's definitely an angle that works. Characters proactively working on protecting/enhancing their mythos is something I want to see more of in Touhou stories.

>don't be afraid to speak up.
o-okay.

>>18577
>>18581
y'know, if i'm allowed to play around with the timeline a bit, i have a different idea that's formed from her not being a playable main character yet possibly being an important figure. what if she's forgotten mostly because she's long dead?

insane idea, i know. but, yeah, taking all the common, if disparate, aspects i suddenly have this image of her being some sort of a human sage. with her circle-cut design, perhaps her qilin association is not exactly a literal one, where instead she embodies their virtues. perhaps one was sighted during her birth. like her namesake, she detests violence and would prefer having tea and playing her erhu. would probably make a good nurse. the first inklings of something akin to spell card rules could've originated from her as well.

an unexpected lynchpin of those precarious formative years when the need arose, and through her one could see the glimmer of a future gensokyo. in that sense too she embodied a qilin. cinnamon roll was too good for the world then. maybe still is. long-lived folks might know of her, but not who she was. and the only thing left of her visage is a glass plate negative kept somewhere nobody seems to remember.

could be sappy, maybe trite. i like it tho. of course, i don't speak as someone who's consumed enough of gensokyo's history. feel free to correct me.

>>18579
>airhead getting caught up
that might work. i don't see a qilin figure going around getting into fights for vague reasons unless it's clearly a subversive take. granted, it's touhou. still, it's why i'm leaning towards her not being a playable character if

>>17987
Speaking as a collaborator on that one, it would have been hard for Kinu to finish since the writer, uh, didn't plan much and lost interest in figuring it out after a while. Rural Concord ended up being something like a spiritual continuation, even if it wasn't strictly the same.

Here's another story I haven't seen anyone bring up:
>>/border/31609

The premise is pretty interesting as far as "walk around and survey Gensokyo" stories go, and it's short and sweet. No need to artificially heighten stakes for the sake of a forced plot or neatly tie up everything with a comprehensive conclusion, just a quick, cozy stroll with some fun character interactions. There's not too many stories that (tangentially) touch on the gyrations of the afterlife, so there's that too. Reading it shouldn't take that long for most considering it's pretty short, so there's not much reason to not. More CYOAs ought to be as small-scale and focused. Maybe more would finish like this one.

>>17990
Is there any way to contact him? He seemed to change his trip alot, so I'm not sure. Really wanted to talk to him about his interpretations.

>>18374
If you come across any Japanese goblins, give them a sniff for good measure, too. Report back on that.

On a slightly tangential matter, I wonder what humie scent is like to non-humans. Do they find it offensive? Intoxicating? Attractive? At the very least, distinctive? Can they tell us apart by smell, or is it relatively constant? Is there a fairly consistent value ascribed, or is there wide variance?

I think I've seen matter of the sort pop up once or twice in THP stories, but it seems like something not often paid much heed.

Any good recent academic papers out there on miko? I read a few some years ago that I unfortunately never saved. Not having academic database access anymore sucks...

I don't think I have anything to add to the tengu scent discussion (other than maybe that I suspect Hatate's habits overcome whatever scent tengu naturally have or prefer to apply, and she smells like anyone else who shuts themselves in their room 364 days/year. Personally that makes me want to dunk her into the nearest bathtub, but somebody in this thread probably finds it attractive), I'm just dropping by to drop off some tales of necromancy from the journal article I used as a resource for my exhibition entry last month.

Specifically: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10371397.2015.1007120

I have access through my university, but I suspect most other people are going to be out of luck, so if anyone wants I can at least summarise the myths mentioned within (it's mainly focused on one in particular, but it details several others for cultural and historical context). Or just copy them out, if that doesn't violate the site's rules on piracy? Just the summaries of old stories, I mean, not the whole article.

>>18395
I can try and take a look if I have time, though with classes starting up again soon, I don't expect I'll have much.

>>18439
Thank you, highly anonymous enthusiast of olfactory and linguistic fancy.

>>18440
But, anon, in truth I've accomplished nothing! Only a listing of trifling details absent any true significance. Why, an actual writer could have taken the same ideas and conveyed a sense of place far better than I did in the semi-shitpost above. Globs of adjectives and adverbs spattered about higgledy-piggledy hardly qualify for even a decent attempt at sensory detail. No, I've managed a far cry from any writer with a half decent imagination, to say nothing of enthusiasm for the subject.

>>18441
>>18439
You've made a good effort in your reply. Perhaps you could expand your attempt for an extra-credit and longer form assignment on the scentscape of Gensokyo. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to highlight how specific stories would be improved by the inclusion of such considerations in their text.

>>18417
>Any specific recommendations?
Tbh I don't know any from english natives I'm so sorry

Here is a link to the letters sent by TS Elliot, a famous poet, to a muse of his called Emily Hale. They cover a period of 1930 - 1956, continuing throughout WW2, so they should have some juicy stuff in them for someone wanting to write an piscescope work like yourself. Best of luck!

https://tseliot.com/the-eliot-hale-letters

>>18413
For something to read: Dracula and Frankenstein are always good recommendations, I like Flowers for Algernon as well.
Speaking about Dracula, it's amazing how interesting Bram Stoker can make some of Van Hellsing's transcribed monologues.

Last bit, and then I'll talk a bit about my story!

22. just ignore this one
- It reads like an interesting creepypasta but okay!

23. Cyberpunk: Lunatic Red (Reinsen in Cyberpunk 2077)
- I'm not familiar with this franchise either. I wonder why Reisen took so many pills too, I thought she'd probably be more careful with those

24. (Unnamed Alice Short)
- I like the interview format, since you can imply so much about the interviewer and the interviewee.
- I like the interpretation that Alice is from Makai and that she was sort of made there, that when she went over to Gensokyo she was essentially already set as a person. I also like how Alice here is a bit fogged up with her memories, which suggests something magical
- The ellipsis use here is a little too much for me, but I like how it's used to show the significant pauses in the story, like the pause before 'big things'
- The characterization of Alice as having a bit of a mimetic desire is interesting. Her explicit denial of loneliness at the start is really nice as it shows she's probably very worried about being lonely. I get the impression that Alice is still very much seeking, and that's a nice melancholic feeling to evoke
- Overall an enjoyable melancholic short about Alice

25. Would you like to know more?
- I think this is the Starship Troopers style? I see the irony in it. I've never played Helldivers either, so I can't speak to that game, nor have I read any Warhammer 40K books
- I like the bits about recommended usage, since it evokes scarcity
- I'm not sure about the bits of speech interspersed since that makes me a little confused about the format. Is this some sort of propaganda broadcast being interrupted by a drill instructor? Also, I'm not sure why some terms are italicized and some aren't
- I like the recursive promotion of Reisen into infiltrator
- Overall, I'm not sure about this one.

26. One Shell Too Many

Sen here! Before anything else, 'tom' in the context of my entry is related to 'tomboy', so a 'tom outfit' is an outfit emphasizing more masculine, angular stylings. In my headcanon, it's the equivalent here of a woman with her hair cut short and wearing a turtleneck with pants, sort of the Audrey Hepburn look. Rabbit fashions!

I hope that clears up the mystery and I apologize for confusing everyone.

I vaguely promised a self-review somewhere up-thread. There's not terribly much to say since I've gassed on about thematic matter in responses to others, but I suppose I can make a quick remark about the writing process.

Unlived was a fairly deliberately written piece in a way that I feel other works of mine haven't been. I started from a fairly basic core conceit — someone looking up at the summer sky and feeling wistful — and tried to derive a narrative from that. The choice of Youmu as a central character came from a slightly murky place, but it was a sort of process of elimination of characters I felt could feel wistful about anything; I was also deliberately avoiding Mountain characters this time, as I hew rather close to them in writing. I perceive something of a purity and simplicity of feeling in someone like Youmu, and the starting place was that simplicity in drawing on the longing felt gazing up at the nighttime sky in summer. The rest was a question of what she would long for and how that would manifest, not to mention how to practically tie that up in a thousand words. I feel the construction of it was like an essay in some ways, and I wasn't very sure of it as a story as I was writing. As I've said elsewhere, I felt I may have been beating the audience over the head with thematic ties like the strings, cords, and so on, not to mention the endless severings and cuttings. There were certain bits where I fell victim to trying to be too economical with words in service to the word count, and I ended up being a little awkward in terms of wording. In some ways, I also feel I might have been a bit too simplistic in my approach to portraying things, but I also believe it was suited to the format. Anything more involved would have called for a longer story, so there was little I could really do in that regard.

Ultimately, I'm not sure of my prowess at flash fiction, nor do I feel an especial affinity for the medium, but I did have fun with it on some level. Being able to keep a certain strong focus on a single idea made writing, something rarely simple for me on a certain basic level, straightfo

>>18163
>>18164
Ah, shoot. That's what happens when you, ah, over-focus on, er, certain areas of the picture over others. An easy fix at any rate, if you at all care:
https://files.catbox.moe/el7p3u.jpg
>I had a more silvery hair colour in mind while I was writing it
My thought process went: eagle -> bald eagle's the popular depiction, innit -> so, a smoothed-down, white-ish dome with some kind of yellow/orange accent to evoke the beak. Come to think of it, perhaps looking at bald eagle pictures stuck him with yellow eyes in my head.
>August/September
I'll drop a note and pop the question somewhen closer to that time, then.
>AO3 version
Planning on that soon? I'd like to include a link once I chuck these up in the usual places, some time, finally, eventually.

>>18167
>an interpretation of the peanut trees
Admittedly a bit of an afterthought on my part, and I realise those nuts are the size of award-winning apples, but I wanted something visible there. Yanno?

>>18170
Human I remember your
>interpretation

That Doremy cosplay pic is almost criminally cute.

Just realized I forgot to say what it even is, Gensokyo D20 is a Touhou D&D 3.5 conversion.

Have you tried asking the Touhou Subreddit? Or maybe /jp/ now that 4chan is back online?

>>18013
I remember his posts. He's already been to both, as well as /tg/ and, IIRC, an altchan or two. From what I gathered, most of the rules were found saved elsewhere except for the ones he specified which unfortunately seem lost. About the only thing you could do is try tracking down the author for them, or do your best to homebrew up those monsters and magic items.

I think the only backstory Alice needs is Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit".

>>17991
>By the way, I don't have a concrete idea of how exactly Alice left Makai
My apologies, clearly, it was to work as Mima's maid. (Yes, I know it was just a gag...)

I really liked the Tewi discussion in the first character discussion thread so I wanted to bring her up again. Namely some of her dialogue that I liked
Starting from the top in PoFV, when Lyrica asks if Rabbits used to fly in the sky, Tewi answers that they did but evolved away from that. After winning, when answering why she flies, Tewi says that there wasn’t anywhere else she could go any more so she decided to go up.

When Youmu says it's strange for an animal like her to enjoy the netherworld, Tewi answers that rabbits are high class animals who exchanged a lot with gods in the past.

Finally in her story mode, She then tries to buy part of Medicine’s flower field from her, but gets poisoned instead.

After that Eiki scolds her for being a trickster, leading to her versus dialogue where she dispenses these fortunes.
If Reimu makes the Torii gate of the shrine face south instead of east she will have good luck
If Marisa moved out of the forest of magic she would have good luck
If Yomu stabs herself with her sword, she will have good luck
Tewi tells Cirno to go after frogs of higher rank, getting Cirno eaten by the great toad. This probably isn't a fortune and is just a prank.
Tewi tells Merlin she’s willing to help promote her as a solo act as some sort of business deal.
Tewi advises Mystia to open a new business, causing her to open her lamprey stand.
Tewi talk to Aya about improving how well her papers sell. Later Aya starts handing out free extra additions, it isn't successful due to Aya being dumb and not much happeneing.
Tewi goes back to medicine to ask if she's reconsidered selling some of the land in her field of flower. (Just speculation, but since Medicine and her flowers poison can also be used to create medicine, she probably wants to align her desire to see pretty flowers and secure a new source of resources for the Hourai Pharmacy.)
Tewi scolds Komachi for being wasteful with money and using it as a Danmaku (I find it funny, I've seen more poor Komachi's then rich ones, but in reality she's loaded just poor at handling money.)
When talking to Eiki in the versus mode, she says she’s giving people good a