⋮ No. 12135 >>/th/94836 The Game
For anyone who isn't aware of or hasn't read this classic.
The writing is sharp, the ending, in addition to existing, is spectacular while avoiding ass-pulls. Though you can't get all the answers until the Q&A thread, what feels like a contrived/improbable scenario basically has its bases covered.
⋮ No. 12162 >>12160 In addition to what
>>12161 said, there's also
>>/shrine/35509 which is about Marisa setting up a school for magic in the village. Byakuren and Miko have appeared as semi-major characters, and it seems this trend is going to continue.
⋮ No. 12167 >>12163 There
are specific areas in Owen's
A Scarlet Stained-Memoir that qualify as creepy and/or horror. If you're okay with the story being primarily an adventure until your each such sections, I'd heartily recommend it.
⋮ No. 12262 >>12261 Just about anything written by
early days Yaf.
Honestly though, stories that are "so bad it's good" are even more subjective than regular recommendations, so your mileage may vary.
⋮ No. 12264 >>12083 Youmu's Journey is pretty good, but then Glen got hit by a truck. He's better now, or so I hear.
THP.
Trucks are attracted to us!
⋮ No. 12354 >>12353 Do the Right Thing has Medicine as one of the main characters and is one of the longest stories on the site, clocking in at thirty threads and still going. It's a silly over the top comedy story, but it gets (somewhat) less silly as you go on. I recommend you read at least the first three threads or so before judging whether you want to continue reading.
First thread is here:
>>/th/119276 Latest thread is here:
>>/th/170664 ⋮ No. 12448 >>12446 This. Spoil that shit.
The Game is mandatory THP reading, period. You don't have to finish it, but you at least need to try.
And do it fast so Otherwise can get more readers.
⋮ No. 12849 >>12845 Ancient Gensokyo (as a younger self)
Retrospective and Astronomical Narration (one or two entertaining scenes)
Gensokyoland Saga
There has to be others, particularly more recent ones than these...
⋮ No. 12857 >>12855 One in /youkai/ about a gun nut murdering tohous with great detail. Palingenesia has an anti hero MC too (at the very least)
Also that story about an evil being coming back to life to try and take over Gensokyo. She had Marisa and Alice subdued and EX-Rumia as a partner. A bit of /at/ laying around. 'twas "The antagonist" I think.
But, the most evil MC, by far, was the protagonist of "Shoes: the heist" He was literally forcing Tohoes to walk barefooted!
⋮ No. 12862 >>12861 Deep and meaningful interaction between some of the loneliest characters in Gensokyo.
It's the sequel to both Being Meiling and Pleasant Meadows, but is a bit more serious than the former, and nowhere near as dark as the latter. It focusses on how Aya went from respected Tengu warrior to irritating gossip and pervert, and the process by which she realises just how far she's fallen and begins to rise once again, all thanks to a certain neglected goddess of (mis)fortune.
I do feel, however, that the
sex scene should have been delayed a few more updates. The quality was also slightly lower than the story posts.
⋮ No. 12905 >>12862 And I'd read it if it didn't update 2 threads in the time it takes me to read through 1.
While it's great he can update so frequent, at the same time I feel it's it's weakest point, for the very reason above.
But that's just me.
⋮ No. 12927 >>12926 >/underground/ Histories of Gluttony and Labor is fun and only started recently.
Otherwise is
probably excellent but I'm not reading it because I can't bring myself to give even one tenth of a shit about Sanae after reading The Game. I'm hoping Fell writes something new after Otherwise.
Kiss Me is okay, but quite dark.
Can't help you with older stories, my memory is shit.
>/border/ The only active story is Another Incursion, and that's not really my cup of tea. BackupWeasel's untitled Miko story was good but it died suddenly.
⋮ No. 12951 >>12944 Histories of Gluttony and Labor in /underground/ is ongoing. It's a crossover with Dwarf Fortress.
A Wizard Is You is long, and technically ongoing, but currently suffering from a severe case of Busy Author. It's good in the sense of being well-written and entertaining, and it's a crossover, but I wouldn't say it's a good crossover as such. It's a crossover with D&D 3.5's rules, but no specific setting.
I can't think of any others. But I have heard that something involving Meta Knight is like what you are looking for except for being the opposite of "good".
⋮ No. 13040 >>13039 Off the top of my head, there's a short that Owen wrote a long time ago.
>>/sdm/24891 There's also
RaAN, but I don't have the link for it.
⋮ No. 13043 >>13040 Do you mean Retrospective and Astronomical Narration? Because while the archive seems to have been eaten by grues I found an (incomplete?) archive on another site.
>http://sentrygun.com/touhou/cyoa/RaAN.html However, the Story List shows that RaAN had eight threads - this archive only has three, from the looks of it.
A better version would be appreciated, although I don't know if it exists.
Maybe I'll try trawling the Wayback Machine.
⋮ No. 13049 >>13043 ... now
that's an interesting find. The header listings in that link were never posted in threads, they're from my personal archival copy. I don't recall sending that to many people at all, though obviously I must have done so at some point. I wonder how it ended up there?
The major divisions are days/chapters, not threads, and the final version ends around entry 5.5, so that is indeed rather incomplete. But why would you want that old thing, anyway? If you want fairy focus, there's Fairy on Scarlet Lake in /sdm/. If you'd prefer action, Otherwise in /underground/ has you covered, or pick up Pleasant Meadows in the recent archives. And if you'd like to wrap your brain around some complex crunchy concepts, try Not-Life and Project D.o.l.l in /others/.
⋮ No. 13051 >>13049 >But why would you want that old thing, anyway? Because none of the stories you mentioned have Cirno in a major role? That's what
>>13039 was asking for, after all.
>>13043 If you want a copy of RaAN, try asking on IRC or /blue/, they'll probably be able to help.
⋮ No. 13064 >>13062 Yeah, that's the gist of it. I imagine some Touhoes with strange powers like Yukari and Nue could be painted in a more terrifying light when they discard their moe human-like front.
For example, most depictions of Yukari's gaps are only explained as a flimsily described n-dimension inhabited by creepy eyes, and just leave it like that. But how would it be if someone were to stare at it for too long? Or worse, get trapped in the gap-space for what it seems like an eternity? That's the kind of concept I'm curious about, and I wanted to see if someone here had decided to explore that angle.
>>13063 Ah well, it's a pity. If only I were more confident in my writing skills I would write a one-shot myself.
⋮ No. 13077 >>13076 Alice's Life (Sucks) in forest is pretty good, but it's short and only updates sporadically these days. Alice is the protagonist.
Glass Half Empty has the protagonist as Alice's apprentice, but it's a
continuation spin-off(?) of Distilled Encounters from Festive Times, so you may wish to read that first. It may have died in it's final thread though, but it might still come back.
Teruyo is the author, in case that bothers you. On a related note, Theater of Youth is a high school AU that has Alice in a fairly prominent role.
If you're willing to go for something older, Gensokyoland Saga had an Alice route. Also, vikings. Pretty damn long too. Might not be some peoples cup of tea though. Like most of THP's stories it's almost certainly dead, but Norseman has reappeared after long stretches of time before.
Finally, Marisa's Magically Magnificent Maktaba has Alice in an important role. It just updated a couple of days ago.
These are all I can think of at the moment, but you can probably find more if you look.
⋮ No. 13079 >>13077 >Finally, Marisa's Magically Magnificent Maktaba has Alice in an important role. Not really. Shoehorned emotional drama bullshit that is completely unnecessary and detracts from the quality of the original premise.
Actual spoiler ahead.
Seriously, don't read this if you don't want to be spoiled.
I mean it.
Here it goes.
NTR. ⋮ No. 13085 >>13084 We must have different definitions of NTR, then.
>muh pure waifus Fuck you. That's got nothing to do with it. I actually
like how Alice is presented in that story, because it's something that is actually different to the usual fare.
I'm just utterly disgusted with the way the author pulled a complete bait-and-switch with both Marisa's characterisation and the tone of the entire story, based on a single vote that was deliberately misleading.
⋮ No. 13090 >>13085 I'm the author of MMMM, and I'd just like to say a couple words.
First, while you are allowed to have your opinions, I really don't see how this could be considered NTR. Marisa was not both humiliated and sexually aroused at the act of Alice having cheated on her, and furthermore Alice still loves Marisa.
I don't think Marisa has gone under any sort of characterization shift - Marisa has continued to act in a similar matter as herself before the reveal, and she still womanizes/quips/works on her library.
And, while there was a tonal shift, said shift only applied for a few updates; the next updates with Akyuu and Byakuren were much more focused on teaching than relationships, and the readers chose to ask Maribel for advice on love instead of advice on schooling, which is beyond my control.
It was not a bait-and-switch. Nothing about the story was invalidated with the cheating reveal, it only shown more light on the MAlice relationship.
⋮ No. 13091 >>13090 Look man, the fact is, prostitution and cheating is not a good thing to add to a story of the kind you're making, no matter what you call it. Even if you ignore the 'my pure waifu' angle (which can also be valid, if you ask me. Touhous are mostly idealized for a reason), no matter how much you say it's magical good gensokyo whoring where nothing is unpleasant, it doesn't exactly bring good images to mind, you know? Your story, from the beginning, seemed to be just light-hearted romance, adventure-ish, sort of a slice-of-life thing. Whores bring to mind awful stuff. It's not a dignified profession, many of these people live awful lives and do it out of necessity. I plain don't want to think about whores (or cheating, for that matter) when I'm reading a happy go lucky touhou fanfiction.
I could have easily accepted it if it was a dark story from the beginning or an /at/ romp, but it clearly isn't, and you're clearly sticking with it since it's in the latest damn update.
I don't think I'll drop your story entirely, but you can be sure I'll be skipping any part that mentions Alice.
⋮ No. 13097 Well, I don't really agree with
>>13091, and seeing this discussion made me go find and read MMMM (it's in /shrine/ if anyone's curious) and I wound up quite liking it. So, recommendation thread success, I guess?
splICEd in /th/ also looks super cool!
⋮ No. 13169 >>13167 >everybody dies or suffers forever So far the only one who has died is
Rin Saetsuki, but she never really "existed" anyway, so yeah.
It's more like a mystery story. The MC appears to have stolen a book which holds one third of a Kirin's soul, and he's hunted by the village, and Reimu, because of it. He flees to Youkai Mountain where he discovers a curse that's been laid upon it.
As I understand it, the MC is to gather the rest of the books while fleeing from Reimu and others, while trying to uncover an incident he somehow ended up in. All the while he's trying to figure out who the Kirin is exactly, and who exactly he himself is, as the one he thought he was, didn't exist, apparently.
Ikaros also have made it a habit of starting each new thread by temporarily switching perspective to build on the plot, and allow you to make meta-story choices.
⋮ No. 13179 >>13169 Gah, hope that wasn't a bunch of spoilers.
Thanks, though. I'll give it a shot.
>>13178 What?
⋮ No. 13187 >>13186 That kind of stuff always happens. We find a cool new thing to explore in our stories, everybody (over)exploits it for a year or two, then we grow bored of it and it becomes uncool, and we start to subvert it and deconstruct it to all hell, if just to seem more original than the others. Then, if we're lucky, the trend will die out after everybody has squeezed all we could from it. If not, it will experiment a revival and become cool again, thus turning into another cyclic trope.
So yeah, the subversion of the "always friendly toehoes" gimmick was just as much of a trend as the straight version, but you can bet all your money it will come around in time and become the next hot topic again.
⋮ No. 13224 >>13220 Okay, here goes. Keep in mind I'm only going over stories that I've seen mentioned a lot by users -- I'm not exactly a veteran around here so my information could be a bit incomplete. If anyone more versed in this site's stories would like to contribute, I'd appreciate it.
Of course, there's the original
Waking Up in Gensokyo by Gensokyo Man and
Misadventures in Gensokyo by Kirakishou. They're both referenced a lot with some of the "site memes." Personally, I passed on them, because I wasn't fond of the simplistic style of those days.
This Shrine by YAF has had four successful runs. I haven't read that one, either, but if it ran four times it must have done something right.
If you like the SDM crowd, there's
Expectation of Sanguine Disorder by Hungry Youkai. I'm not quite sure what it's like.
Then we come to
A Scarlet-Stained Memoir, by U.N. Owen. Personally one of my favourites, it's a mystery/adventure story that takes place in the SDM. It gets unnecessarily grimdark near the end, but at least it was completed. By the same author, though under a different pen name, is
A Fairy's Tale, another SDM-centric story. However, this one is a slice-of-life, and it is arguably written better than ASSM.
Also within the SDM is
Patchy Quest. It's not that old, but it's certainly an interesting read if you like crossovers (Touhou x Harry Potter). It has a big problem of dragging out in the later threads, which caused me to drop it. I don't think it has completed, either.
Moving on from the SDM, there's the infamous
Gensokyo High, by Taisa. It's a high school alternate universe that never ended properly, so if you want closure you should probably avoid it. Not to mention it had a lot of waifu shitstorms in its run. I only read it so that I could finally get why everyone keeps bringing the story up.
Speaking of slice-of-life school AUs, I highly recommend
Theater of Youth, by Teruyo. I've only just read the first few threads, but so far it's one of the finer stories I've read on the site. It's not completed, but the writer is not inactive, either. If you finish it quickly enough you might be able to start voting before the story ends.
Of course, no list of THP's stories would do without mention of
The Game, by Fell. This story is... "different," to say the least. All I can say is, if you're not fluent with English, it might do you good to skip this one. It can be kind of hard to understand, though that's part of its beauty. Also has a prequel going on right now.
If you have weird kinks, and you like "management" games, and also don't mind reading shitstorms, try
City Quest. I meant it about the weird kinks, though.
Then we have Keymaster, a writer known for his almost-daily updates. All three of his stories take place in the same universe. There's the slice-of-life
Being Meiling, the murder-mystery
No Escape (note: listed as
Pleasant Meadows in the story list), and the currently-running
Tengu of Misfortune. The only one that really requires prior reading is that last one -- the other two you could read without needing prior knowledge of the Keyverse.
There's also my story, something that has been described as "experimental," to say the least. (Probably because it tries to remove the fourth wall between reader and story.) It finished just recently, but I'm not sure whether it belongs on this list or not. I hope I didn't miss anything. Anyway, you can access all of these stories from our storylist:
http://www.touhou-project.com/storylist.php ⋮ No. 13228 >>13227 Aaaaamd both eventually died.
Myouren Academy has never been my cup of tea. The writer's prose feels clunky and too simple.
And as for ToY, I've lost faith in Teruyo as a writer.
⋮ No. 13235 >>13228 http://www.touhou-project.com/others/res/56617.html#58580 Not dead, just, uh, busy and unmotived before recently. Also, I completely respect that you don't read my story as those are completely valid reasons. I myself have noticed and I do try to be conscious of it while writing. Sadly, I feel as though my efforts don't always yield the result I'm looking for.
Anyway, on to recommendations.
Personally, I enjoy
WASTED Fifth Age and Planescape: Touhou by Wanderlost. The former being a little more amusing and lighthearted, and the latter being darker and grittier.
Not-Life by Flanders finished up recently, so if you haven't read it, do it now!
Same Old Story by Realmhopper is nice, when it updates...
Tengu of Misfortune is entertaining and usually brings a smile to my face, but to me at least, it seems to be dragging on. Could be that I'm just not a fan of overly long stories.
Kiss Me over in /underground/ looks promising, something I plan to pick up soon.
Over in /shrine/ is Marisa's Magically Magnificent Maktaba. It does a good job with it's characters, descriptions, and flow. Granted, real life has prevented the author from updating this month, but hopefully he'll be back in force next month.
⋮ No. 13242 Having just finished The Game, by Fell, i'm not entirely certain i'd recommend it. If its your type of thing, it's probably the best thing ever. If not, it'll leave you lukewarm at best and disgusted at worst.
The Eldest Scarlet is a fun read, and gives a lighter view on the Scarlet family through the eyes of the OC, their older brother. Then it died.
Kiss Me is a good story focusing on Kisume and fleshing her out as a character, but pending death. Hey, things have come back from worse.
Keymaster seems like a repeat recommendation, but i'd recommend his second story, Pleasant Meadows, as his best. It's rather more serious than Being Meiling, not a hard thing to accomplish with that story, but it's entertaining.
If you're looking for a short, downright fun read, (Un)Gratefully Doing It Yourself by Jerl is a good story to read with a rather demure deathseeker protagonist.
Lastly, Girl of Death by Zal, the writer of Animating Gensokyo, is a story about the origins of Alice which links the PC-98 era and Windows era together, and is in my opinion the finest piece of writing on THP. Cannot recommend it enough.
>>/underground/8620 ⋮ No. 13247 >>13241 ALREADY WATCHED ALL OF THOSE, BUT YOU HAVE GOOD TASTE
>chill with the capslock okay
>>13242 I remember reading the first few threads of The Game several years ago and enjoying it then, although my taste for HORRIBLE TORTURE seems to have diminished, because now those parts just come across as nasty. I'll take it for another spin.
I read bits and pieces of The Eldest Scarlet while it was running, and it seemed fun enough. I'll give it a go.
I've only read bits and pieces of Kiss Me when it first started and I liked what I saw, but the update speed turned me off. Now that there's a sizable chunk of writing to go through, however, I'm all for a reread.
I was actually on the ground floor for Pleasant Meadows, and I really enjoyed it up to the first ending. The redone ending worked out far better for my tastes. I also really liked Keymaster's use of music, which amplified the effect of some parts to amazing levels.
Parsee's the best girl, no question. I read the first two posts of (Un)gratefully Doing It Yourself when it was first posted, and it was enjoyable enough. I'll see what's been added since then.
Girl of Death seems to be the only one on this list I haven't read at least part of, and it makes a strong case for why I should rectify it with that first post alone. Plus, while Alice isn't exactly my favorite touhou, I'm willing to see what she can do.
Personal recommendations from me back to anyone else looking for some action can go with Taisa's Touhouvania story, although that apparently hit a nasty and rushed end at the last moment. I also really liked The Idea of Alice, both for its lighter moments and the blistering fights. Finally, I really, really enjoyed Owen's Priceless, even though it was only vaguely related to Touhou.
⋮ No. 13286 >>13226 Going several threads, a lot of months and several dozens if not 100k+ words now in ToY. Haven't bothered counting. By far the most successful school story on the site going by effort, time length and relative lack of shitstorms/waifu wars or general implosions. Might help that I actually have a plan for dealing with that sort of nonsense thanks to years of experience writing on the site and looking at all of these other stories. I've ribbed those other writers (with their approval/encouragement often!) and their school stories within the story itself several times. The references are just part of it. There's also an attitude that people shouldn't be fixated on routes or any one choice. Maybe the old-school VN vibe I try to give it also rubs off on the readers.
Don't avoid it. Embrace it. Learn to love again. Love touhous and your fellow anon. Also theoretically fast updates whenever I have time to write. Like multiple per day. It was a story purposefully designed to get people to destroy their f5 keys like in the days of yore.
>>13228 Losing faith for no real reason is why the site is slow as molasses. I may have a lot of negative traits but I'm one of the few (only? haven't seen YAF around lately) writers that has been writing for the six full years since this site became a thing more or less with little interruption. If you lose faith in a loser that's likely to stick around until there's only one other person left on the site then you might as well just leave now and never come back. What chance do fledgling writers have otherwise? Make the most of what you have. Read, vote and write if you're a writer. Complaining is easy. Doing something about things isn't that hard if everyone pitches in. Otherwise we'll just keep up this horrible trend of low activity with both reader and writer being demoralized.
And well, as for me personally, if you ever have a problem with something I said or did in a story please direct complaints to me directly. I will always hear people out and give an explanation or even change things if I'm clearly in the wrong about something.
>>13230 Updates soon, after people vote and people know that it's on.
Sorry I know that this isn't really a recommendation post but thp needs to be less serious business and more open to having fun. If you feel that you can't, believe in the me that believes in you. Read some of the newer stories that have popped up on the site. Show your support. Though I haven't checked it out yet, I hear that White Wolf and Cub seems to be interesting.
And once you're done checking out the new stories, read some of the older, ongoing stories. They need plenty of love too. For those of you on IRC, ask the author of your favorite ongoing story about updates. Let them know that you haven't forgotten and that they shouldn't forget you either once they have free time.
⋮ No. 13354 I'm looking for a main character with a personality that would give me the same feeling as this quote;
If you're a regular reader of my work, you know I have a preoccupation with sex, awkwardness, and blowing sunshine up people's asses. Thing is, I used to be a very cynical, pessimistic, angry sort of runt. I was sarcastic and surly much of the time, and the reasons for that are myriad and depressing and none of your concern right now, because that was then and this is now. Now I wallow in positivity and the very joy of being because of another totally different reason that you also need not concern yourself with. But the fact that it can happen is what's important.See, the world can be depressing as shit. I know that and you know that. There's a lot of ugly out there. Lots of hate and anger and bags of flaming shit on porches. And as has been pointed out in some of my past articles where I've clumsily tried to impart life knowledge or inspiration, maybe I can't always hit the nail on the head for you specifically. Maybe you're introverted beyond belief, maybe you have endured horrible abuses I can't imagine, maybe you're dealing with emotional and psychological issues that a simple comedy article directed to a general audience could never hope to speak to. But what if I could? What if I could help you? What if you could help someone else? What if just one person somewhere has a better day, a better outlook, a better opinion of themselves and the world at large as a result of things I have seen and experienced and shared? Well shit, son, that's what keeps me going.
I can eat all the dollar store food and taste all the lube in the world while fumbling through every orgyon the Eastern seaboard and I doubt I'll change your life, but I do want you to know why I did those things. Why I'll keep doing goofy shit I've never done before, and keep putting myself places I can't even imagine wanting to be. I do those things for you. The grand, plural, indefinite you. I want you to be wowed by the audacity, and inspired by the ridiculousness. I want you to see the world the way I see it, even if it's just in 2,000 words, half of which are about bum sex and crazy bus people.The world I see is amazing. It's intricate and heartbreaking and beautiful. It's full of monsters and angels, of sights I long to see and sights I can't forget. There are people whose presence has completely altered the entire way I understand reality, and others who I've only caught a glimpse of and fallen in love with for nothing more profound than the way they smile. And I know not everyone lives in this world with me, and to me, it's a little tragic. Too many people live in a much darker world of repetition, depression, anger, abuse, hate, and shit. Shit that's waist deep and you feel like you'll never get out of it. A world in which people who are supposed to protect you betray you, where violence is par for the course, and where fear sits on your shoulder every waking moment because it's how you have to manage your home, your family, your everything. I hate that. I'm sorry for that. I know what that's like.
My experience isn't your experienced, though. It can't be, and it really shouldn't be. We all walk different paths. But the path is on the same planet, at least, and in that we can find some similar ground to try to understand and help each other. So with that in mind, if you find yourself unhappy about life or your path through it, let me give you some things to be happy about right here, right now, in the present!
⋮ No. 13388 >>13387 /th/ is, as always, is a hive of activity. There's
The Hunt for Little Bell, a light-hearted adventure story starring Kosuzu that updates almost at Keymaster-speed.
The Long Game is a direct sequel to Youmu's Journey in /others/, which is also action-packed but in a much bleaker setting.
Day and Knight seems to be the new contender for the Highschool-AU title, and unlike other stories that tried and failed to follow Gensokyo High's steps, this one seems promising.
Diamondfangs of the Never Never is about a... well, it started as A Badass is You-story and became something weird in the road, but it's at its second thread, so there's little chances of being dropped.
No Such Thing As Magic marches on and on and on; and for crossovers you have the hilarious
CTF_Gensokyo (Team Fortress 2) and the
unnamed Killing Floor story.
/eientei/, unfortunately, is as dead as ever.
/forest/ has
Forest Mix, a tale of a gal so hip, Rinnosuke & Co. always have trouble seeing over her pelvis. Her almost undecipherable slang and carefree attitude are the source of many shenanigans and headaches for the poor shopkeeper.
For
/border/, see /eientei/ for a comparison of its state of activity.
/shrine/ has
Marisa's Magically Magnificent Maktaba, a story of the ordinary magician's struggles to teach magic to the kids of the village with the help of Kosuzu, and fix the wreck that is her love life. There's also
High Contrast, a crossover with Kingdom Hearts. I don't read it so I can't tell you if it's good, but it updates very quickly too.
/sdm has
Gift of the Magi, a Patchouli centered story about her relationship with the rest of the mansion and other visitors. I don't follow that either, but I've been told it's good, so you might want to give it a shot.
Pride of an Ice Demoness is a new story about a, well, ice demoness that gets summoned by Patchy and ordered around by Koa.
Experimental, Artificial Creation is the story of Leo,
the elemental of Cute a young boy knowledgeable in the thermodynamics of hugs and hair ruffles that sways the hearts of many a young woman in Gensokyo with his inherent adorableness.
/youkai/ has the very recommendable
White Wolf and Cub, a story set before the creation of the Hakurei Barrier. Momiji works as a mercenary, killing prime targets and fighting her kin as a traitor. It promises lots of political intrigue, and the writing style is superb in my opinion. Definitely give it a read.
/underground has
Kiss Me, the (mis)adventures of Bucket Loli, Spider Girl and Paruwoman as they travel the surface in search for... well, each character has her own reasons to be exploring an hostile environment, full of people distrusting of rogue youkai like them. Moe moments and drama abound in equal parts.
/others seems to have calmed down after the recent spurt of activity it had been experienced. Right now, the only active story is the ever-lasting
Theater of Youth, and
An Excuse for An Excuse of Aya still updates sporadically.
And lastly, there is an interesting series of snippets titled
X to Y where character X writes a description blurb about character Y, and accidentally let out their true feelings about her. Touches your heart. Also, be on the look out for the
4th Annual Writing Contest, both Veteran and Newbie categories.
I don't read smut, so someone else has to recommend /at/ stories for me. And I think that's pretty much it. Quite a lot of new stories compared to other years, if you ask me.
⋮ No. 13393 >>13392 True. I haven't read it myself so I wouldn't be able to justly recommend it.
I've had it recommended to be a few times already, though.
>descedant of Marisa coming into Marisa I hope that was a mistake, otherwise that'd be a pretty crazy story.
For now I'll assume you meant "descedant of Marisa who's becoming like Marisa"
⋮ No. 13398 >>13396 Hit-and-miss!
Sorry to burst your bubble, but I ain't no fish even if I cane be rather fishy at times, though I do know Fishman on IRC.
But of course you won't believe this, so why do I even bother.
⋮ No. 13405 
>>13403 Other than Theater of Youth, there's also Day and Night on /th/. It's recently started, so there's not too much to catch up on if you care to get in early.
First, ask yourself why you want to write a school story. The popularity and votes that the genre always gathers is attractive enough. Characters who measure their lives in human terms are usually easier to relate to and thus easier to write. Not needing to concern yourself with cast herds is another factor that lets you freely deviate from the standard character dynamics (this one can be done in other genres too, just not generally in a standard Gensokyo). I'm sure there are other reasons, but I can't think of them off the top of my head.
The next thing to consider is what anon wants. Generally, readers prioritize interactions with a handful of characters rather than everyone. Popular touhous or under-appreciated ones or that one character you really didn't expect them to go for, that sort of thing. Of course, these are different things to different people, so be prepared for the inevitable waifu wars. That's not to say it's bad when readers are passionate about things. You just need to be able to weather the shitstorms and know when to put your foot down.
I'd advise you find a niche to do something the other stories don't. Good characters are nine tenths of what makes a school story worth reading, but if the setting and plot are played out, you might get compared unfavorably to the stories that changed things up. You also might not want to go full mundane with things. GH kept magic in while Eastern High was a sometimes unsettling paranoiafest. (MegaSen you faggot why did you cancel it in such a shitty way? Are you even still around?)
Of course, most of this can be applied to any AU type stories, not just school. Space, apocalyptic, crossovers in other settings, and so on.
You'll probably get more actually coherent help in half as many words if you ask over in the writing advice thread in /blue/.
