Huzzah, another exhibition. Time to take chances.

Brevity's never been my strong suit, but I guess it's time to practise.

>>18161
On the topic of flash fiction, Bunny Stew is a classic horror example. You can find a bunch of readings of it on youtube, but the og was posted in a Disney short horror story competition back in 1993
Below is an analysis of the work.
Link: https://www.slaphappylarry.com/bunny-stew-by-mikki-mares-short-story-analysis/

>>18166
There's all sorts of different approaches and genres possible with the format. People can tell all sorts of stories with varying complexity in spite of the low word count. The sky's the limit for this exhibition, too, and I hope that people will do whatever fun thing they feel like!

Kind of a silly question, but do the stories need to be titled?

>>18173

I don't know if it's strictly required, but it does make organising reviews and the like easier. Though I imagine giving yourself a one-off nickname would work well enough as an identifier.

>>18173
No, they're not required. But as >>18174 pointed out, it makes talking about the story easier. Referring to Untitled story 1, Untitled story 2 etc. could be needlessly confusing.

>>18173
There's a lot that could be said about titling stories, but my go-to (because I'm bad at titles) is just picking a single word that has something to do with something in the story and going with that.

>>18176
I'm concerned that a title will look excessive. I'm not done yet, but close, and it's pretty short even within the limit. Well, whatever, I'll figure it out, it's my own personal hang-up, haha.

We're a little under halfway there to the submission date. Perhaps you've already thought about an idea—possibly even started writing—or perhaps you haven't gotten started at all. Either way, there's still a fair amount of time to get things done or to get going in the first place. If you're on the fence about giving it a go, I encourage you to try. I know it can be challenging to tell an interesting story within a word limit but because it's a different sort of experience it can also be a fun change of pace.

I look forward to seeing what you all come up with. Good luck!

Can't wait to see what people come up with.

I have my first draft done, now I just need to cut out half the words.

Basically nearly done just need to add a few words

Is there any rule against uploading multiple entries?

>>18184
There isn't usually an explicit rule against it, but the general assumption in these events has been that writers will only be doing one entry per event.

>>18185
Granted, that's usually been with the understanding that most stories people make are tough to write and perfect within the span of a month due to their length already, let alone writing two. If there's any contest where it's really viable people could make multiple complete works, it's the flash fic expo. And it's not like there's prizes to double-dip from, either.

I guess it's up to the boss man? I mean, worst case scenario, just post your second flash fic as a short a couple weeks after the expo.

>>18184
There aren't many rules by design in these events as the primary goal is to foster creativity and get people participating. If you think that you can write multiple worthwhile stories then you're welcome to submit them.

Adding as a reader and writer but not event organizer, I'll caution that there isn't a necessary correlation between length of a piece and its appeal and quality; a bloated piece, with many thousands or more words, can be as ineffective of a story as something overly lean. A shorter format may seem easier at first blush but it can be more difficult to attempt to communicate interesting thoughts and feelings to the audience with fewer words. At least, so I feel from my experiences reading and writing. Ultimately, your experience may differ and your judgments on standards is a useful guide.

This is one of my favorite things I've ever written. Super excited to share.

I believe I've finished a piece, but I can't be sure.

...I don't have much confidence because it takes having a lot of clarity of purpose to manage in so short a space.

I've got a draft done. I'm not quite happy with it and I can't see how to get it where I want it to be.

Do I spend the remaining time trying to straighten it out, or try to hammer out one of the other ideas I had? I think I'll work on another project the rest of tonight and sleep on it.

We're a week out from the deadline! Plenty of time to work out ideas, refine them, and polish as needed.

>>18188
And I'm excited to see it!

>>18190
Yeah, a short format can be pretty tough in its own way. Gotta really focus on the essentials sometimes. I'm sure that you still managed to do a good job.

>>18191
Sometimes a bit of sleep and not poring over the same thing for a while and then coming back to it with fresh eyes can help in my experience. No sense in forcing things just yet. Still a fair amount of time left.

>>18191
>>18192

Also, don't forget there are both formal and informal proofreaders on the dicsord! If you're unsatisfied, sometimes a sounding board is just what you need.

When do submissions open, I'm wktk

Hi! Are we allowed more than one submission?

>>18195
Scroll up, that question was answered just a few posts earlier in the thread... >>18187

The thread for entries is now live: >>/shorts/3274

Feel free post your submissions!

Really looking forward to reading these :DD

I'm sure they're going to be wonderful :DD

Oh god. there are so many

My PC has died, bringing my progress back.
Probably won't be able to post my story today.

>>18199
Indeed. It makes sense if you consider that the shorter format makes this exhibition more accessible for newer writers compared to the previous ones (and the site in general also seems to have gained several new writers this year). The number is also increased because some people decided to submit... more than one entry.

>>18201
True, it's easier for newbies... Saying this as one.

I'll say this to start off; I'm really liking the ones with firmly established characters, actions, and plot progression. I'm not fond of the waffling, meandering stories about some poorly defined ideal.

>>18204
Me neither And mine is like that lol

Alright, time to close the submissions. Turnout was pretty high this time around. Hope you had fun and thanks to everyone for participating!

Feel free to talk about the stories posted in this thread and share any comments or feedback that you like. I'll be posting my own thoughts in sometime later as well.

Wait, can we submit one more? Almost done with it

Hey everybody, author of First Contact here.

Wew lads!

I am absolutely floored. I knew that the shorter format would allow for more entries, but I was expecting something in the early double digits - I'd have been stunned if we hit something ending in -teen.

Congratulations to all of the participants! I hope this has been fun for everyone. I know I had fun.

I think everyone deserves their fair shake, so I've gone and written down my key thoughts for every single short. I've given myself 100 words for each one, so please understand if all I've wrote is criticisms, that doesn't mean "I had nothing good to say about it", it means "I had two topics of meaningful feedback, instead of one". I'm more than happy to elaborate on any of these if people want to hear more - and in general, even the floor of writing skill here is higher than it is in most other expos and comps. There's even one example of a writer here who IGNORED my advice during the contest and benefited from it. Basically, nearly all of these works're actually quite good; it's just if I tried to give everything an in-depth review, we'd be here all month.

So rapid-fire reviews, let's go!

Rumia and Remilia - 1059 words

A cute little scene that I think falls just short of landing it into a true friendship. It’s decently made, but there’s no big emotional thread tying it together.

I think the big thing is that Remi’s hesitation and mind-change reads less as “hey, this girl is a good person for helping me out and maybe we can be friends” and more “fuck it, I got a few more hours to kill before the others get home”. It’s detached from anything to do with Rumia aside from her mere presence, resulting in a weaker ending than it could be.

Nightbug - 1080 words

It feels weird that Wriggle is fighting Rumia to save a human and the latter’s running to Remilia. Granted, that weirdness is based on opposing fanon, but still. It’s more weird that a cannibalistic youkai runs away after one kick. Nightbug Rumia doesn’t feel like R&R Rumia; should she?

No one feels perfect in this one; the criminal doesn’t defend himself despite having a makeshift bludgeon (which never helps or hinders anything, and has no impact on the story). Wriggle steps in for him, and Rumia is either out of character hunting him or out of character giving up.

Reisen kills Turbo Granny - 918 words

Stories where one universe’s character chumps another can be fun, but I think this doesn’t quite get it right, for a lot of reasons.

One is that this Turbo Granny is too clearly unrelated to Byakuren’s version, and Reisen never seems to realise it. I also don’t think Reisen has enough power to no-diff Turbo Granny and her earthbound spirit without at least making precautions. Her hallucinations aren’t quite that powerful. I’d have preferred someone who can genuinely outspeed her - like Aya, Youmu, or Sakuya - to be the one to knock her flat instead.

And Tewi’s bit is unnecessary cliffhanging.

“Clothes” - 787 words

Surely Eme knows that the sanctuary is the single worst place in Gensokyo to sell clothes? It’s one thing to pick a location that doesn’t match your target market, but in the sanctuary a loincloth is fancy. It’s too contrived for her to look good.

I think that her talent - making clothing that’s perfect for the person in front of her - is beautiful, but it’s unsupported by Marisa’s assessment of her clothes. It’d be better if she was somewhere like the underground, and while the clothes she makes are perfect for specific undergrounders, there’s nothing Marisa’s friends would like initially.

Unlived - 999 words

It’s a very interesting introspection, but I don’t think it works for Youmu, who is literally too much of an airhead for Hakurouken to tempt her. And for someone who has gone so deep in on her introspection, the idea that she’s never tried smiling at people feels like a lame ending to the thought.

The end is too abrupt for what I think is meant to be her being forcefully "reset" for whatever reason? I feel a tighter edit on the introspection would have given you more time to give the ending the hints of truth it needs.

Kudamaki/Kuro - 946 words

It’s well written (...well, I was the editor) but looking back, understanding it requires understanding Redo/Reimu up to Kosuzu’s arc, and USiL/TFatS, and that USiL-Chen’s backstory had her originally named Kuro. Which I think is new information here?

This goes for the Dandadan crossover too - trying to hang something off too much of other references can make it really challenging for others to understand what’s going on. I think the flash fic format makes this harder, because there’s no space to explain things at the best of times. Make sure to link it in Outside/Omakes!

A Snipping Motion - 923 words

The vibe on this one is so damn good. I love the feeling of pre-apocalypse stories, of that nervous energy and building tension. Even though this probably needed an editing pass (what’s a tom outfit? Why is Seiran “the infiltrator” instead of “the scout” or “the outrider”?), it would only be a polishing, where my issues with a lot of the other stories feel like they need some actual rewrites.

Most of the ones before, it feels like my word limit is preventing me from talking about the good points. In this, it stops me from gushing enough Alas.

One Dish - 983 words

Shinmy is cute, and this story is cute. That’s great already. One thing that does stand out is that it feels like Shinmy should be eating as she goes; either that, or people should let her know early on to avoid the mess. With that said, she’s drunk, so maybe the problem grew over time.

Probably the biggest thing is that I feel the color theme at the start could be a stronger through-line. That should have been a bigger focus of the foodstuff descriptions, making it clear how vivid the food is - right up until it isn’t, of course.

Destination Elsewhere - 776 words

I like this as well, but being spaced out further from the moment of anticipation makes the anticipation lesser as well. Perhaps because of that, and because of the more blunt ending, I find more and bigger nits to pick here.

I’ve never in my life heard of an attack vest that could look like a belt when in progress; I can’t even picture it. And the family group of three moms and four daughters is a brick of confusion in the middle of what should be a tender moment. Should be at least one auntie here instead, maybe two.

An Iota of Eternity - 997 words

The framing device of him talking to someone is really nice, but I find myself wondering who on earth it could be. He is either a prisoner of the moon talking to... someone, or (un?)dead, talking to Mokou - but why can’t he reach Eirin if the Hourai Elixir allows him to do this?

Regardless, I think I would have liked for him to be a bit more oblique about who he was speaking about, not mentioning a name - and rather than Reisen, I’d have liked the messenger to be the one Eirin’s speaking to. Setup and payoff, y’know?

Influence - 987 words

It’s weird that the storm speculation in the first half and the merchant gossip in the second seem completely unrelated. That feels like an obvious thing for someone to tie together the story’s themes; even the particular conspiring youkai being a weather youkai would have done nicely.

Suika’s explanation feels like a backloaded plot to fit wordcount, and what’s frustrating is that it didn’t have to be. She’s the only one really talking about the merchant, everything else aside from one accusation is just bantz - talk in a flash fic should be more meaningful, or removed entirely.

Sugar Shape - 997 words

This story feels like it’s written to make you sympathise with Snae and support Tsukasa.

It doesn't.

Sanae surely has backstage access to Moriya merch if she really wanted it; all she should really be there for is the challenge. Instead, this just becomes two people bothering a stall worker because Sanae’s too prideful to admit she’s handicapping herself.

The game is perfectly fair, Tsukasa proves that; they’re just being assholes about it. And subverting the ‘win the prize for your beloved’ trope just suggests Tsukasa cares more about bullying the yamawaro than she does about making Sanae happy.

Burakumin - 1773 words, not counting FIN.

This had me actually go out and google who Danzaemon is - fascinating, isn't it. It’s a lovely short, with a deep character even without context? Top notch.

...I think the last segment could be cut with nothing lost. Especially because he trades with a kappa, not a yamawaro? …But that’s burying the lede a bit; this overshoots the 1000-word limit by a country mile. It’s genuinely great writing, don’t get me wrong, and I’m glad it got its time in the sun, but its comparative oversizing is visible to the naked eye even before I opened up a word counter.

The Day Fire Fell to Earth - 935 words

This feels the most “a torn-out chunk from a longer story” out of the works, I think - it’s just a touch frayed around the edges where most others feel more internally complete. Sen, if she is the ‘felinid’, doesn’t give us enough to confirm that’s what she is. I thought she might have been Reisen, honestly.

There’s multiple things where I think the prose needs refinement, even if the idea doesn’t. (e.g. there’s no way this counts as murder, but witnessing death might give similar shock.) And I needed to google SA58; ‘rifle’ would have worked fine.

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Second part coming shortly, please wait warmly...

And here's part 2...

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Rolling River, Standing Stone - 487 words

I struggle to accept the idea that Eika or any of the spirits are ‘stones’. Eika’s canonically compared to jellyfish, and mizuko are also, y’know, ghosts - which both are generally everything stones aren’t. Like floaty and squishy and see-through.

Still, this comes in well under half the wordcount, tells its story well, and is elegantly written. If the analogy didn’t clash so harshly with my jellyfish impression, this’d be a contender for my top spot.

One Last Bloody Tear - 942 words

The beginning is full of mystique and atmosphere; it’s a really beautiful bit of prose about a leaf in the wind. I’m a bit disappointed that the leaf moteaf fades out in the second half; part of me thought the leaf was Shizuha herself.

Ubame being a Hakurei needed more concrete setup in the first half to work as a payoff in the second. I’d have mentioned Reimu being orphaned in the start, to which Ubame’s description then is the matching piece… but I may be rating this harsher because I like Kasen as Reimu’s secret youkai mom instead.

Midday - 994 words

A really solid piece, with a lovely bit of a vibe. I’m a sucker for Hakurei shrine residents and their slice of life stuff, though less so than I am a sucker for the pre-apocalypse.

This and Midnight are some of the best works in the expo, by my eyes. Well written, moody, convey their feelings super well. I love them both, and the author’s done good work with them.

First Contact - 1000 words

The ending got a big rework - it was originally reinforcements, but the horror isn’t from the numbers. It’s from how inorganic and uncanny the Haniwa are; Proto-kun painlessly tearing himself apart simply to get a better weapon works much better, for conveying something not unkillable, but unflinching.

“What if people who don’t even understand metalworking tried to fight a Terminator?” That was the inspiration for this piece. But at some point, the scrappiness and damage changed my outlook - and I found myself thinking of FNaF instead.

Midnight - 1050 words

I love this as much as I love its twin. Both are great little atmospheric pieces, and they’re both filled with this melancholy I can’t get enough of.

If I had to give some critique, I’d say that the bridge isn’t quite made between ‘the children are hurt’ and ‘the youkai haven’t settled down and become more peaceful’. It’s there, it just doesn’t get enough to make it explicit. A mention of an actual attack on the shrine might have helped - but that raises the question why Hakurei-san isn’t there protecting her daughter until she heals. A beautiful work, regardless.

An Unconscious Visit - 1081 words

I’ve always felt like I’m in the minority for seeing Satori as the far more interesting of the Komeiji sisters; I’m glad this work does her justice, and gives a good dig into her psyche. Koishi’s portrayal is good too - coming home on her sister’s birthday, even if she doesn’t remember why, is just a sweet thing.

One thing I will point out, though - if Satori’s celebrated enough now to have a fireworks display for her birthday, does that not suggest that satori are no longer feared, and Koishi can open her eyes? Maybe it’s just Chireiden celebrating, Iunno.

Reisen kills an Alien - 917 words

I have no idea what this is meant to crossover with. MAD Magazine, maybe? Or the Aliens franchise? It feels like that’d help me understand it…

Regardless, a lot of the same issues that I felt about Turbo Granny apply here. Reisen doesn’t feels like she’s the sort to casually lay a Xenomorph low, at least not without more of a reaction. To me, Reisen’s less “well, time to beat this thing, let’s get it done”, and more “oh shit, this time I’m really going to die”.

And why does she need to step on landmines to disarm them?

The Visitor - 720 words

I feel like Yukari and Ran can do a better job of keeping Chen (and the stray cats) out of something important like this. She should have tried some better tactics, as well, offering food or toys to the cat rather than just chasing her down.

Chen’s honestly just too close to Yukari in general for me to be sold that she’d be both so thrown out by this and unaware of how important it is to follow their instructions. If you swapped her out for a village kid or a wandering minor youkai, I’d have much more happily bought in.

Sculptor - 274 words

The shortest work of the whole lot, and yet still quite enjoyable. We get into the sculptor’s head quite effectively.

I’d like a little bit more understanding of how exactly the sculptor’s making their works. What do they mean when they say little pieces of themselves? A bit of describing their raw process, setting the scene around when they’re thinking this, might have been the piece needed to help us understand why Keiki values them, even if they don’t get it.

Just Ignore This One - 617 words

Why’s there a white soldier(?) setting something up in a place on the edge of Gensokyo? More to the point, Ran should be responding to this one of two ways; either a formal diplomatic overture to get them to kindly fuck off, or just jump straight to killing them nice and quick.

The kitsune doesn’t come off well here, being needlessly antagonistic and snippy, sabotaging the purpose she approached them in the first place. And the womanising just serves as a distraction to mask whatever the purpose of these guys is meant to be.

Cyberpunk: Lunatic Red - 838 words

Of the five works you’ve self-claimed, I would say there’s been a consistent decline in quality from the first you posted to the last. I’d have cut back on the quantity and focused more on quality; give each one it’s own time to shine.

The whole ‘oops, I revealed I’m a youkai’ thing feels out of position; I’m shocked the people wouldn’t be able to rationalise her as some sort of psychic power if they know she has that much. And considering the attack, they have much bigger things to worry about right now.

[Untitled Alice Story] - 454 words

I like it! It’s a nice little story about Alice growing up. Quite melancholy.

Are Shinki’s guests meant to be her own creations? It feels like Alice is making a comparison here between her playing with her dolls and Shinki talking with her guests. If it’s intended, there’s a tragic note running through the heart of it… but I don’t know if I’m making that up.

Regardless, I do love it when people draw a link between Alice’s desire to make living dolls and Shinki’s self-created world of magic. It’s always such a fun thing to speculate on.

Would you like to know more? - 1374 words

So this is supposed to be something like the Imperial Infantryman’s Uplifting Primer. And from what I’m seeing, it’s meant to be some sort of speech as well. I get what you’re going for, but I think this too openly undercuts itself. The official lines are too contradictory, instead of coherent but absurd lies.

For example, the ‘Recuay’. Rather than calling it an apex predator, it should be described as a docile lump, with reports of Recuay attacks being called misinformation - but because they’re harmless, obviously no rabbit should ever shoot it under any circumstances. Still a great read, though.

One Shell Too Many - 1488 words

The author of this one gave me three options and asked which one he should pursue. I’m glad he ignored me; this turned out far better than I expected.

Now, granted, this is the second-longest story here, and it overshoots the mark by nearly one-and-a-half times. But perhaps because I know a little more about the story’s circumstances - that was largely done in a single day - I just end up more impressed. Still, it’s a fun story - though it does raise some questions re: inter-youkai food chains. Iunno, I just think it’s neat.

Little Princess’ Little Odyssey - 973 words

Shinmyyyyy!

I don’t know if ‘little princess’ would be something Inchlings would see as respectable. There’s some other weirdness as well; why is the Lord Custodian carrying around the Mallet, just to not use it? And why refuse her the mallet, but still let her head off on her own?

You could probably have removed the intro section entirely, starting at Shinmy landing outside Akyuu’s manor. That would give a bit more time to have them bond a bit more, and smooth out winning the inchling over. In flash fics, even two scenes could be too much.

A Remedy for a Headache - 1164 words

I know this was translated at the last minute, so I don’t want to be too harsh, but I do wonder if something’s been lost in the process. I’m finding it hard to follow. From what I get, Renko(?) is trying to investigate something called the Distant Star, and heads to a shrine to find it… I’m not sure how that leads to the fire starting, or her getting stabbed in the head.

...I think it’s just I never get a lock on what she’s actually looking for. As a result, it’s hard to tell how tragically close she was.

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And that's everyone! Once again, if anyone wants to know more about my thought process (or tear me or my critique a new asshole) I'd love to hear from you. Congratulations to everyone, once again!

>>18210
>>18209
I wanna respond here since your thoughts feel very flesh out desu.

Rumia and Remilia
I agree. Honestly I think I should have focused on a smaller scene. Every time I tried writing this story I ended up getting closer to 2k or 1.5k words so I think it suffers a bit from being cut down and that I didn't do a very good job at establishing it al all.
Honestly I’d ranked it as my personal least favorite of the five stories.

Nightbug
This is my entry that I like the most even if I still think its incomplete. I actually forgot I mentioned Remilia here, I guess I just like those two being friends and I did write this at the same time as the above entry so it ended up slipping in there. More on her character, I don’t think of her as being very determined, she’s thoughtless, childish, and if something isn’t easy she’ll leave and either end up crying about it or being unfazed depending on how badly it went.
Admittedly she was an after thought, I just wanted Wriggle to save a human. It would be more in character for her to be trying to sell something to the man, but I wanted her to do something heroic and cute.
While in retrospect the guy being a criminal was probably just a subconscious reference to Fuuzasa’s Doujins probably since I was reading ‘for half a grain of rice' at the time and so I was thinking of them. It's not really important and I probably should have cut it.

Reisen kills Turbo Granny
Power levels are always something that seems a bit silly to be caught up on in crossovers. I didn’t think too hard about that honestly, I gave a passing thought to writing an extended combat scene but didn’t really care too and honestly that wasn’t what I was going for at all. I guess there was some exposition about how this favors the Touhou side of the crossover but I don't really have the desire to extend this so whatever.
The real failure here was definitely to entertain you, the joke here is supposed to be the gap between Reisen’s outer and inner appearance. To everyone else she’s the nigh unstoppable badass but inside she’s just kind of a pathetic and lazy person with a cute personality instead of a cool one.
Also I just don’t like Aya, or Sakuya. They inspire nothing in me, while I just don’t think of Youmu although in retrospect the bayonet thing is probably more Youmu coded. But Youmu and Yuyuko having nothing to do what's going on in DanDaDan. Like their only connection to what would be going on is
>Ah yeah I want to retrieve the testicles,sop the alien globaists, and stop CSG from getting the DanDaDan since that all sounds pretty evil.
Unlike Reisen, Tewi, Kogasa, Koishi, Shimmy, Seija, Okina, Yukari, or the Lunarians who all feel like they could be given more specific motives in a crossover. Those people also all never had an occult orb so i don't know why they would appear in an ULiL centered crossover.

Oh yeah and Tewi is totally unnecessary here, I just like her and thought adding her last minute was fun.

Reisen kills an Alien
I think this is the third weakest. Just something I wrote since I devoured MAD in a day. To be clear it's a crossover with the Shounen Jump Plus serialization MAD. A lot of the comedy comes from the juxtaposition the reader is expected to have from reading that series and Reisen.
She assumes they’re Xenomorphs when they’re only knock off Xenomorphs(who are more dangerous than the og xenomorph) but honestly I don’t see Reisen as a person who would have a problem with either, especially an actual xenomorph and not the aliens from MAD.
There isn’t a good reason she needs to step on the landmines to disarm them, I just thought it was funny. Especially for when the Jericho guys come to pick them up to discover a path cleared through their minefield, mapping and writing that interaction out in my head was just too funny for me to pass up.
So it's not very funny honestly, but I enjoyed writing it.
Lunatic Red
I don’t agree this is the worst one, it’s probably the second worse one behind R&R desu. Just something I wrote earlier and ended up chopping up for this since I wanted to see if I liked it more when I cut it down, and I did end up liking it.
But if you think
>The whole ‘oops, I revealed I’m a youkai’ thing feels out of position; I’m shocked the people wouldn’t be able to rationalise her as some sort of psychic power if they know she has that much.
Then I congratulate you on finding the joke. It’s not supposed to be a dramatic moment, it's kind of nothing since there are more immediate threats. Namely someone in the outside world was a large amount of Youkai and half-youkai but that’s not on Reisen’s mind at all. While in the broader scope they’ll probably just think she has some special wetware due to being a mysterious higher up from the Hourai Pharmacy Group(Think I forgot to name drop that lol.)
In a greater sort of setting sense, Cyberpunk does have psykers but its mainly schizo shit that people don’t belive in like AI demons manipulating the fiscal and digital layer of reality to fuck with you.
Although I have absolutely no desire to slow down in exchange for quality for another one of these flash fictions thingies. I’ll probably end up writing the same amount of entries. Especially since every time I started to give one its own time to shine I ended up over the word count limit.
That’s not me blaming the contest mind you, it’s my fault for not trying harder to make better entires or to focus on one thing. I just wanted t write what was on my mind and didn’t think too much about what I wrote.

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Anyways thanks for the response!

Don't have much to say, but here are my thoughts on the entries!

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“Clothes" by Anonymous
The sentence structure is a bit off and awkward, I feel like in a lot of places it could be more succinct. I feel like the spider Youkai’s wail should have been written out, something like.
>”Waaah!”
-or something, despite the text saying her wail was loud I didn’t feel like the wail was loud.
I thought the Apron was going to be Marisa’s Marisa apron. The one with a big M on it, but was pleasantly surprised but the star patterned design that reminded me of Mima.
I didn’t find it funny but it was pretty cute.
I still don’t understand the euphemism-
>“getting permission” from the yamanba, Marisa set to work “pulling weeds.”
-is, but I liked it well enough.

Unlived by Anonymous
Very well put together, and a cooler and more contemplative Youmu than the normal dork. Not to my preference but it’ s good. Some of the sentences are a bit confusing but it's okay.

Kudamaki/Kuro by Lost Soul
I really like this one, there was a good aching in my heart the entire way through. I loathe to see child characters like Chen get hurt so I’m glad Tsukasa got punished even if I think her kidnapping Chen is a bit out of her wheelhouse. It was a bit hard to follow at times but it's my favorite so far.
All in all I loved it 10/10

(After reading Goobi’s review I came to realize this was a crossover with something I didn’t know, but I still really really liked it and I think it was effective in evoking the emotions you the author wanted me to feel. Still my favorite.)
A Snipping Motion by Anonymous
I don’t get it. Some of the sentences seemed well put together but it was kind of hard to follow.

One Dish by Anonymous
Feels cluttered the prose are okay. But I think something more focused like Shimy having a 1:1 or 1:2 interaction would have been better. I feel like there was a missed opportunity to Wakasagahime to be treated like a piece of food but I Still liked it decently enough

Destination Elsewhere
It’s okay. Doesn’t really elicit any specific feelings in me except for pity for Seiran but I thought it was okay.

An Iota of Eternity
Short, sweet, and nice. I think this is Chang’e’s PoV, no? Anyways I really liked it, a straightforward story I could enjoy.

Influence by Anonymous
I liked it, seeing Shion and the bar gang is always fun the atmosphere was nice, and I really liked the joke.
>”Could do with more kindling.”

Sugar Shape by Anonymous
Prose could use some work but I really love the Tsukasa and Sanae duo, characters tend to be stuck too much to their first appearance so seeing these two together is great. Now I really want to see tsukasa play squid game. Some of the text felt superfluous or like they described the wrong thing.
>"Perfection is a lot to ask, isn't it?" Tsukasa sympathizes. *scratch* *scratch*
The line above feels especially egregious by the standard of this entry.
Other than that I really really liked it, probably my second favorite so far.
I especially like the ending and Sanae using a miracle for her sugar-treat-thingy.

The Day Fire Fell to Earth by Knightsmaid Sonya
Pretty cool, felt pretty protagonist-y. I like to see Satsuki and having her as a spiritual-symobiote companion ala Sukuna, Uru, Turbo Granny...etc sounds fun. Just not vert touhou. Over all I think its okay.

Rolling River Standing Stone by Anonymous
I think I like it straightforward but it doesn’t elicit any specific emotions in me. A bit repetitive but I think its well put together.

Unnamed by Our Last Bloody Tear
Nice atmosphere, lead up is a bit long but Ubame Hakurei. Now that’s an idea I like. I didn’t have any problems with the prose or sentence structure so I ended up liking this one quite a bit.

Midday by Anonymous
Really liked this Reimu characterization here. Reimu is really a nice person who also sees herself as heroic. But often comes across as a thug, scammer, or mean due to various misunderstandings. Seeing her care for Mizuchi like this is nice and I have to praise Mizu’s characterization as well. Seeing the village canals mentioned is always nice as well.
Loved the somber atmosphere and the Marisa related subtext. Well put together too, tied for my second favorite so far.

First Contact by Anonymous
First contact type stories are a favorite of mine, decently put together with some of the same bad habits I’ve developed with extraneous text that doesn’t add to the work, but that’s very minimal. Seeing Saki is nice too and I like her characterization here.
The prototype is also nice. This is my third favorite so far.

Midday by Anonymous
I’m guessing this is from the same author as Midday. I think they’re roughly equal in quality but I love Midday more. Still really like this one, the melancholy is nice. Personally I would have chosen Mima over Mokou for this conversation but I like it.

An Unconscious Visit Anonymous
Well put together and I always love some good Komeiji Sister angst. Fourth favriote spot but I son’t have much to say.

The Visitor by Anonymous
Is competently put together but it didn’t elicit any specific emotions in me and I don’t really get what is was going for. Reminded me of a horror game I saw on youtube.
I don't have much to say here but its okay.

Sculptor by Anonymous
The Haniwa PoV is nice, a bit strange for my taste and well put together. I think it's good.

[Alice Story]Untitled 2 by Anonymous
Not a fan of stream of consciousness type stories but this is well put together technically, not my cult of tea though.

Would you like to know more? By Anonymous
Feels out of character for the Lunarians, also the propaganda feels a bit too American. Hell is American, the Lunarians are Chinese. Large walls of text are hard for me to read, please break up the paragraphs.
Also Reisen wouldn’t have the name Inaba, she would just be Reisen. The last name Inaba was given to her by Kaguya and Tewi had objections to adding her to the family so she became a member.
I get what it’s going for but it doesn’t feel well researched enough and a bit out of character. I think the prose are fine, a bit thick but good. Other than that its eh/even

One Shell Too Many by Anonymous
Some awkward sentence structure, like the pairing of characters although its not a risky one, very safe agenda here. The crab and wriggle are funny, but I don’t get the joke at the end.
It’s okay. Are the monks crabs(now Youkai) who have now come back for revenge?

Little Princess' Little Odyssey by Anonymous
Very cute and a very unsafe pairing. Some of the structure felt a bit off but I really like this.
My fifth favorite, I love to see more Sukuna. Not much to say here besides I really, really like it.

Sen, author of A Snipping Motion and Destination Elsewhere here, and here are my comments on everyone's pieces (part one). I think overall there's a nice breadth of stories here. These aren't really reviews, since I tend towards gushy, but I hope there's some points of feedback here and there!

---

1. Rumia and Remilia
- Cute setup! Loved the "You!" and "Me!" interaction between Rumia and Remilia, really conveys Remilia's character especially (a person who demands favors to random people with "You!")
- Liked the dialogue, feels true to their youngish characterizations
- There's a shadow of angst here which lands, with the description of Rumia's difficulty in understanding others
- Liked the descriptions about Rumia and Remilia getting their hat, the 'fearsome silhouette' especially. But a hiccup in prose at that section?
- Felt that it cut off at the exact moment it was getting more interesting! What trick with their abilities, I'd love to know. Overall was a solid piece with just enough setup and sweetness.

2. Nightbug
- Liked the buildup until the point of 'the man sped up', the sentences are pretty punchy, and I liked 'cocked her head like a dog'. I feel that a good descriptor of that sort of gesture
- I'm not sure about the stinger though. 'Organized crime'? Not sure if that's the way the man would self-refer to his activities, let alone in dialogue
- There's a contrast drawn here between Rumia and Remilia and the Rumia here, which I like!
- Overall was short and contained, although a bit lacking in the emotional oomph of the piece before it

3. Reisen kills Turbo granny (TouhouXDanDaDan)
- I have read Dandadan! Cool that there's two turbo grannies, with Byakuren as well
- The dialogue actually is snappy! I liked how crowded the piece was with Reisen's thoughts
- Not sure why Turbo Granny doesn't try out her powers or fuse with Okarun, especially if the characters feel some sort of threat from Reisen, or why turbo granny doesn't try talking, like she does in the series
- Not sure why Reisen would report back to Yukari, but I suppose that's part of her 'taking part in the removal of incidents of her own free will'
- Overall was a bit weak in my opinion, especially with how the crossover was a little underutilized. The fact that both are searching for balls could have been, in my opinion, written in for more laughs maybe?

4. "Clothes"
- Really like Marisa's internal narration here, especially the bit about the cat
- Yasuda's cute but wow that's a coercive marketing strategy! I like how it's very obvious that it's her first time selling things, with how much she blabs and hovers around Marisa
- I like that Marisa's impulse is to buy clothes for her friends, it's so charming
- The apron sounds gorgeous, though I'd probably keep that away from the kitchen (or atelier) proper
- I again liked how positively Marisa is portrayed here, she knows to praise Yasuda for a job well done
- Overall a pretty trim fic with a nice wrap, but I would've liked more characterization for Yasuda especially, she was so nice and gone so quick!

5. Unlived
- I liked this exploration of Youmu's half-and-halfness (liminality?), especially the diction: 'drifting' 'floating' 'shivering'. I do think the syntax becomes a bit too weighty towards the end, especially as she begins to question her role
- I liked how the writer uses Youmu's ghost half to characterize her, with her attributing the detachment to her spirit. I thought that really emphasized her half-and-halfness since it's clear that in these situations, she feels dissociated from her ghost half *and* her human half
- I like how Youmu's still thinking of using her sword everywhere
- As a monologue, I think this piece would be significantly enhanced with more showing - the first part with the old woman, I thought that was going in that direction, with more dialogue, but I guess not
- I like the pep-talk Youmu gives to herself
- Overall, I enjoyed the contemplative mood of the piece and the halves being drawn

6. Kudamaki/Kuro
- I apologize for not being more familiar with the setting for the characters!
- I like the childish progression of thoughts here, and the angst hinted at and then tackled with
- I usually don't like ellipses, but I liked the use of them here to signal thought and confusion
- Aww, I loved the fluff at the end!
- Overall, I didn't really get the thrust of the story, but what I did get I liked!

7. One Dish
- This starts with some delicious descriptions! I especially liked the 'swaying farewell to winter', and likening the served food to constellations and bodies of water, and the reveal at the end that it's just normal sized banquet stuff from the eyes of an inchling
- I like the interjections from the other characters, I felt they characterized and rounded out the piece very well, especially Youmu
- I like how each of the food items added a lot to the characterization of everyone, although I felt that towards the end the descriptions got a bit too adjective-laden
- The description of the food stayed nicely vivid throughout, although the color theme popping up at the end could have been strengthened I think
- Overall, a strong and deliciously descriptive journey!

8. An Iota of Eternity
- I really like epistolary stories, so that's a personal yay from me
- I wonder who this is addressed to? I wonder why he takes the pains to explain the elixir, and why he expresses his love for Eirin to the addressee?
- I like how the letter-writer's melancholy is conveyed here through his reaching of poetry, and his habit of writing in conditionals
- A bit confused as to who the letter writer is: Is he Ninigi-no-Mikoto, descending? References to him taking on an earthly wife in mythology? Is he Takemikazuchi, with the references to pacifying Izumo?
- I like the references to reeds here, with how often it is mentioned in the Kojiki, it's a nice flavor to the letter
- Overall I thought this was an elegantly written piece, though a little too oblique for me (I should read more mythology!)

9. Influence
- Really liked the involved description of the storm at the beginning, descriptions like that are tricky (I feel) to join coherently, and I think the writer pulled this off well
- I liked how those two old men behaved like those two old men!
- The piece flowed well and sounds well I think, the ending of the two halves of the piece especially were well-rounded and had satisfying syntax ('indistinguishable from the soft rain' and 'enlivened—if not to say made tumultuous—by banter and drink'), though I thought it got snagged at this sentence in particular: The diminuitive behorned oni... with a little too many details
- I think I expected the fic coiling up for something, but the juxtaposition of the two halves - especially with the malicious gossip at the end - sort of comes out of nowhere, though I do like how that juxtaposition was enough
- Overall I thought this was a nice, descriptive fic, although the two halves could be joined a little more explicitly

10. Sugar Shape
- I like how quick the setup to the piece is, and how it immediately conveys to the reader the setting, the mood, the relationships
- Not sure if I like the sound effects, though that's just personal stylistic preference
- I like how Sanae finishes hers with a miracle, and is a little on the huffy and confident (and dismissive sometimes) side
- The flow of the fic was nice, with the dialogue interjections. The characterization of Tsukasa especially shines through, with her 'playing both sides' given a more generous reading here. I really like Tsukasa crushing the candy at the end
- Overall, a nicely sweet (and not too sweet) piece with nice characterizations

I've tried to keep my thoughts relatively short but this is still going to take a few posts due to the number of entries. These are not in order of posting but rather in the order that I wrote down my thoughts. I'll continue to be working on the rest in the meantime. Feel free to ask me to elaborate if you wish.

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One Dish

Cute little idea executed in a competent manner. Actually reading it was fun and engaging enough. Getting an inchling’s eye view of one of the many parties held in Gensokyo is neat and there is a fair sense of motion and movement. Descriptions were succinct but reasonably varied and gave a good sense of the types of sensations encountered. There’s just not that much there there to the story, however, other than having characters appear and some description. And even then, it feels weighted towards the first few. The wrapping up is efficient but I think that it’s a missed opportunity not to elaborate on the the good-natured barbs boisterous exaggerations even if it came at the expense of the earlier bits of description of characters and their food. As it stands there’s no real change or commentary offered by this little grand tour and the story feels like it’s missing something of substance that would make it memorable.

An Unconscious Visit

Having Koishi in anything is a challenge because she’s not much of a character. This piece does acknowledge that on some level but I think that getting anything interesting or novel from using her is doomed as it is written from her perspective. Leaning too much into how alien her mind is undermines the intended emotional denouement but having things as they are or going further in the other direction, and giving her more thoughts and personality, would make it even more generic and outright sappy. I think if you wanted to have Satori’s emotions and sadness be central or their relationship analyzed then it should have been told from her perspective. The failure to meaningfully connect or to be sure that Koishi actually understood what was going on in Satori’s heart might have had something to it then. But I think that if you’re going to do that you might as well rethink what it is you’re trying to say and accomplish in the first place and write a more focused idea.

A snipping motion

The bits of moon rabbit culture are interesting. They’re the strongest parts of the piece as well as the sense of it being a unit with a mission. There’s clear inspiration from genre fiction that sort of works but a lot of awkward phrasing, strange word choices, and the like detracts from the reading experience. I also wasn’t sure all the colors had a logic to them or a narrative purpose beyond being inspired by the in-game character titles.

Here’s a few examples of sentences that could use improvement:

>On each seat was placed an aluminium can.
>Waves seized her. Dashed her against crags. You weren’t meant to say; walk back on that.
>Not wanting to think was eliding, thinking in different ways.
>Outside, the veils streamed, and against each window a rabbit was redly backlit.
>Everything was up in the air. Nothing could be finished without a return.

It comes off like you’re not a native speaker or don’t have much practice writing in English. Please don’t take it the wrong way as I want to encourage you. Read more books and think about the parts that you like, maybe even copy them down for inspiration/reference. Maybe also see if you can talk to people here about writing and editing as I think it would help. Your instincts for actual storytelling and setting the mood seem okay but are being limited by all these other things.

Destination Elsewhere

Another moon rabbit story, eh? I’ll repeat what I’ve said before and say that I find these explorations of their culture and lives interesting. I’ll also take a swing and bet that you’re the same author as A Snipping Motion. If so, some of the same issues with phrasing and the like that I pointed out there also apply here. This is overall better as a story and less messy and easier to follow. These snippets of moon rabbit life are neat and would maybe someday work as some sort of anthology (in classic sci-fi tradition).

Even if you’re not the same person it’s still cool to have these little forays into relatively unexplored territory for touhou fanfiction and I think that the restraint that this short format enforces overall helps things. Too often too many authors make too big a leap and have to fill up too many of the blanks in canon or build too much that’s ultimately uninteresting to anyone but themselves. Worse still, it’s then easy to get overwhelmed and stuck in a mess of your own making. It’s better to have a clear core idea that you follow through on like with this piece.

The Visitor

There’s an overuse of commas and many sentences are needlessly complex. While that can be a deliberate choice or style I don’t think that’s the case here. I think that you’re likely inexperienced. Here are some examples of clunky sentences:

>What does consider this word are the creatures that crawl from nooks and shadows to look upon the girl.
>Only, she stops before one particular building in which this offender enters.
>The girl did not pause mind for this, instead resolving herself to enter, punish the troublemaker, and glimpse this guest for herself.
>The main room containing a filled dish, and a smoking pipe resting on an ashtray, are not notable features for the girl as she begins inspections.

Given that this piece is streaming the thoughts and feelings of the perspective character, shorter and more direct sentences would be more effective carrying the reader along for the ride. But this isn’t a panacea and other aspects, such as descriptions, also would likely need to be changed. As I think this is a matter of experience the solution is simply to read more (not fanfiction or other amateur writing) and to keep on writing more. You’ll get a better feel for things with time.

An Iota of Eternity

Bold choice to tackle Eirin and introduce an intimate relationship she had in the past; she’s very alien in many ways and attempts to humanize her often come off as clumsy or lean into the cliché. I think with your approach you managed to do something interesting. An outsider with a deep (albeit non-romantic) love was a sensible way to do it.

As a matter of personal taste, I’m generally disinterested in the intersection of actual mythology and Touhou. Often fans lean into it too much overly emphasize elements that are, at best, only meant to be taken at a surface level value when it comes to being relevant to Touhou. You avoided predicating the whole of the story upon it which is good. The philosophical/scientific explanations were mercifully brief as well but didn’t really add that much to the subject-Eirin relationship which is what I think is at the core of the piece.

How the love manifested is very clear: it is not romantic nor jealous and ends in willing sacrifice. But beyond both having turned their back on the moon for reasons there’s not much of the why. Why, specifically, Eirin? What about her person attracted the test subject? Her wisdom, her nobility, drive, something else? It didn’t need to be spelled out in so many words but a little more to think about would have been good.

A nitpick: the parenthetical asides break the flow a little bit and that they should have, perhaps, been their own short sentences.

The ending with the shift was also clumsy. It is too tell and not show and some ambiguity about how Eirin chose to remember—if at all—would have been more powerful.

Regardless, I liked the story quite a bit and have critiqued it more because of its ambition.

Kudamaki/Kuro

Scenario that’s needlessly confusing and not helped by the overuse of ellipses and dashes to indicate stuttering. If you’re going to ask the reader to suffer through that sort of subjective perspective the prose needs to be at least more polished elsewhere to compensate—as things stand it’s painfully basic. It is also incredibly out of character to portray any of the Yakumo as some sort of traditional family unit with affection for one another; that is a very fanon take and is the diametric opposite of how Yukari behaves or treats her shikigami—namely, as a tool whose lack of imagination she is unimpressed with. The intrigue angle was vague and didn’t really have any legs to it. As a result of all of the above this entry fell utterly flat for me.

Sugar Shape

Why Tsukasa and Sanae? Feels like they’re together because reasons that are not explained. They don’t seem to have much of an actual rapport nor even a dynamic of note. It feels like they were arbitrarily selected to be depicted to be doing the same activity in the same place at the same time.

Sanae’s sometime obsessive (and dorky) side comes off well enough and that’s an aspect that’s a little underappreciated by fans at times so that’s nice to see. Descriptions and prose are a little too basic and I think that it relies a little too much on dialogue—which isn’t necessarily a problem in a story except that here there isn’t much that’s of any consequence there in terms of storytelling or making us understand the characters better.

This isn’t terrible by any stretch, so don’t think I’m wholly panning the story. But I am not sure what I’m supposed to take away from it beyond the most face value stuff.

I know that I can't write reviews of any coherence for most works, so I won't even try, I'm writing to rectify one specific, most grave error:

The Iota of Eternity

>Rather than attempt to defy physical entropy (thermodynamically insolvent to an extent obvious even to Earthlings)

Second law of thermodynamics is not a first-principle law of physics that is considered fundamental and true until deeper yet underlying laws are found, like what are the general relativity and Standard model considered at the moment. It, and the entire statistical physics, is a phenomenological theory that is derived from the assumption of one postulate - all microstates corresponding to a given macrostate are equiprobable. This theory simply happens to be applicable to basically everything humanity knows as for now, so it tends to be conflated with true fundamental theories (even by some physicists), but there's no fundamental law that said postulate can't be violated - Maxwell's demon is the most well-known thought experiment that violates it (against, certain physicists argue that this is impossible, but on closer scrutiny all those articles involve circular reasoning or straight-up invocation of metaphysics like "information" as a physical reality). Of course you may still introduce it as the fundamental law within your interpretation of Touhou as a fictional assumption, but surely earthlings' understanding would be flawed and only accidentally true then, according to Eirin?

(Also I deeply do not believe Kaguya could be the reason Eirin made the elixir or, indeed, that she could care about this random noble girl at all before that what happened, happened)

(Also, the last fic - I KNOW WHAT YOU DID HERE)

More thoughts. Still not done!

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Burakumin

Yukari’s whimsy and inscrutable ways are handled deftly and avoid the common pitfall of going too far in any one direction. It’s a pleasantly sensible characterization.

It’s an interesting approach to have a different sort of outsider feature in a story and I think that a sense of internal dignity comes through. There’s disjointedness in the story between a few elements like the firearms, kappa, and the yamawaro; it would have made for a tighter story to simplify a little in that regard and kept your word count in check. The prose was generally competent but there are portions—particularly in the third and fourth section—that could have done with (another) edit pass or rewrite as some things sound a little too unnatural or clunky.

Cool concept and I’m glad to see this sort of very human story being written on THP. By that I don’t mean that it follows an actual literal human. You could have something like this about youkai too. I mean that it has heart and with its attempts to say something about life and existence beyond the surface level. Would enjoy seeing more things by you.

Rolling River, Standing Stone

I think that the passage of years has made susceptible to becoming maudlin. At any rate, your story touched me and that’s always worth pointing out. Not only is it emotional but it lacks any fat in terms of storytelling and uses very plain and direct language to eloquent effect. The approach is perfect for a minor character like this and you’ve cleverly avoided the struggle to invent too much in a limited space. I also greatly appreciate that it covers an important aspect of the Touhou setting that often gets overlooked or overshadowed—it’s not just about spellcard rules, Gensokyo, or youkai as such etc., but a certain outlook and sensibility expressed through aspects of the canon that is difficult to define but I nonetheless think is nonetheless central to everything. It can be manifested as a certain nostalgia, aesthetic quality, or even through things like wabi-sabi but it’s not any one of those things. Maybe it’s something that ZUN grew up with as I’ve encountered a similar vibe when reading folk tales and how people from around the Nagano area act.

(But that’s neither here nor there.)

Congrats on bringing all that I’ve mentioned together in a very adept fashion.

just ignore this one

Convention has it that you should separate different speakers into different paragraphs—even if those speakers only say a single word. Exceptions exist but do not apply here.

The humor doesn’t do anything for me here nor the general execution. I think that there are more subtle ways of dealing with people beyond the barrier and even an unimaginative shikigami likely has instructions and enough experience to do things differently. The story doesn’t really have any sort of resolution or do anything that’s interesting with characters. Consider what you’re trying to accomplish or transmit to the readers when you write.

Untitled Alice Story

As much as I love Alice, I firmly am against linking her to the PC-98 era stuff. It has never come up and doesn’t seem relevant to her life nor personality as it has been depicted in the years since. There never was anything concrete, anyways, to make her Shiki’s child.

Alice’s voice in this also is unlike her appearances in manga and in the games. There, she’s more confident and does not meander. If the intention was to have her regress into childhood as she reminiscences then it is too abrupt and unprompted. If that’s not the case, then it strikes me as odd that she only describes without offering commentary from her own perspective. It seems implied at the end that she is afraid of being sad and lonely if she “grows out” of playing with dolls for good. I think that that take completely ignores her agency and drive to be a magical weirdo who chose her life and who does things like put on puppet shows in the village.

Leaving aside my take on that, I think that this piece is also a little rough in presentation. Only use one pair of parenthetical em dashes in a sentence for clarity and don’t overuse ellipses. Don’t be afraid to break large paragraphs down for legibility either—this isn’t a cardinal rule but combined with your other usage of punctuation it makes things more difficult to follow than is needed.

Still, all that said, I think that if you buy into the premise don’t mind the roughness it’s a concise and emotional piece.

One Last Bloody Tear

Smooth prose that playfully goes for the clever turn of phrase but manages to avoid crossing into outright self-indulgence. (Possibly by virtue of length.) I’m surprised by the characters depicted, especially Ubame who is from an upcoming game (but, yes, appears in the demo). This surprise leans towards bewilderment, however. What on earth is going on with the story? Maybe I’m missing something but I couldn’t fathom why Shizuha, a very minor goddess that no one in-setting really cares about and specific to the beauty of autumn, is recast as some sort of goddess of decay that is prayed to and depicted as wise and knowing figure. Nor why there is this other leap with Ubame, making her a morose figure that for some reason has some sort of relationship to Ibaraki-douji (???) and the Hakurei (?!). There may well be a bit of mythology that I’m missing or it’s a reference to something or the other that I’m just ignorant about.

Putting my possible ignorance aside, death and decay are clear running motifs and it feels like the work is trying to say something. And the narrative does progress and build up towards a moment. I felt like it was intended to be a pithy conclusion. But because I could not successfully buy into the context and characterization it just left me in the cold, confused as to what I’m supposed to take away from the story.

First Contact

A story that focuses on the beast realm and its happenings is always welcome. But I couldn’t gel with anything beyond that. The haniwa couldn’t be touched at all by the beasts, necessitating the plan in WBaWC. They are also hollow vessels and the license taken to depict it as some sort of horror genre creature is also something that put me off; the frustration and despair of the matriarchs could have still existed without it. … And you don’t really need something like a parenthetical question mark as the narration already casts doubt about the character’s impressions. Nor is the Latin particularly sensible in the context of touhou. Overall, feels too Western in sensibility and doesn’t really engage the source material in a sufficiently novel or engaging fashion to otherwise justify it.

Sculptor

Thought it was a one-off thing but you made the same mistake three times: you see something in something or someone that’s not external. That aside, the piece is direct and gives you a little snippet of interesting perspective. Though if there is more going on in the relationship, if there’s more value to the sculptor and their creations, beyond being among the first and putting in bits of their soul it remains unclear. It does also rely a little too much on the external knowledge of the audience about touhou to make the connection as to who the goddess is. But, then again, I’m not sure that matters to what is being said.

Would you like to know more?

Eh, Starship Troopers and/or Helldivers 2 doesn’t feel appropriate for the moon. Neither does the more modern-Fallout-esque kind of humor attempted here. They’re more space China and the rabbits closer to slaves than would-be “citizens”.

Regardless of my feelings on the type of satire and if it is appropriate to Touhou, the execution itself is also lacking. It seems to blather on and on, forcing the ridiculous over-the-top scenarios but also not offering any insightful critique of them. The fact they are mentioned at all is the punchline. (Reminds me of The Outer Worlds in that regard, particularly the front-loaded first half which is difficult to stomach.) Take it easy, let things breathe a little, respect the intelligence of your audience because they’ll get it if you do it well. Less is more.

Hello! I wrote ""Clothes"" and "just ignore this one" and would like to give some commentary on them before I write my reviews.

"Clothes":
To start with, I'd like to make sure there's no confusion on why a spider youkai isn't in Old Hell with the rest of them. Eme Yasuda is not a tsuchigumo, but a spider youkai like how Wriggle is a firefly youkai. I wrote this hoping that other creators might take inspiration and create their own characters and locations that would fit into Gensokyo (hopefully with more screen time than just a for-fun cameo). I went with a reclusive tailor because it was the easiest to write something with. Originally it was going to be about Yuuka encountering and following a pyroxene andesite fairy named Pebble who is seeking revenge on Cirno for putting her in time out, but I wanted to show off every part of her character, and that would have required a lot more words. I feel that I showed off everything that I wanted to with Eme except for the fact that her clothes are danmaku resistant (I think of danmaku as hard light soft balls—they're heavy, solid, and they leave burns on whatever they touch). I don't like the way I ended this story, but I felt that if I didn't end it with something unsatisfying, I'd feel the need to write something I didn't need or want to. But, if I can find a use for her, she will be seen again!

just ignore this one:
I have this headcanon where everyone is making a bigger deal out of the "if the barrier falls, we all die" thing than it actually is, and in reality, they just lose 75-80% of their power. This would likely mean that the barrier lets magic in but not out thus making the magic in the area more potent, and— Well, we can get into the metaphysics of magic and spirituality in a different board if anyone's interested. Anyway, second headcanon that inspired this snippet is that I thought I read somewhere on the wiki that there were other Gensokyo-like places for different regional mythos (this is likely false and came to me in a dream or something), so I thought "What if there's a greater bureaucracy with these enclaves, and Gensokyo as a whole is in the same position that an Outsider is when he first enters Gensokyo?" I did it this way, though, because I thought it'd be easier to accept than something like having Greek warriors show up and declare everybody owes them taxes. Hindsight says this was the worst. We'll see what hindsight #2 says. I hoped to inspire people to think a little deeper about the limitless possibilities of what can happen in and to Gensokyo because we're writing fanfiction. Now disregard everything I just told you. The reason it's called "just ignore this one" is because 1) it didn't get through the first draft and 2) it's a crossover with a fic that doesn't exist yet.

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Reviews (Keep in mind that I'm not good at this):
Rumia and Remilia:
I really like this! It was so cute seeing them interact together! I don't think I've ever seen anything where they interacted so closely to each other, either, despite how well they can work off of each other. I also liked their characterization. Seeing Remilia be humble and Rumia struggle socially was like a breath of fresh air. It was nice to see the start of their growth in these areas.

Nightbug:
Ahhh, a pseudo-sequel to "Rumia and Remilia," I see! Also, I honestly thought Wriggle was going to kick the human at first! You go, girl!

Reisen kills Turbo granny:
I don't really know what I can say about this one. Though it does inspire thoughts of Gensokyo's youkai living in secret without the need of the barrier.

Unlived:
Poor Youmi... I can only wonder what that last paragraph meant. Good prose! Even if I wasn't in the mood/mind set to read something elegant.

Kudamaki/Kuro:
I'm glad you had the opportunity to writing something for this! I was pleasantly shocked to see it. Here's hoping your next post comes soon!

A Snipping Motion:
I'll admit that I didn't entirely get it. Is it like conversation going on in a D-Day landing craft? Either way, I thought it was nice and pleasant. Even if it wasn't supposed to be.

One Dish:
That was adorable! And now I'm starving!

Destination Elsewhere:
I liked it, but I just don't know what to say about it. Maybe I would if I knew about certain Japanese customs. I know I felt what Seiran felt at the end, though. Good work!

An Iota of Eternity:
Beautiful. Lovely.

Influence:
Ahhh, a scene at Geidontei is always nice and cozy! I'm afraid that's all I have to say... What Suika was talking about was interesting to speculate about, though! ...I don't think I understood everything you wanted to convey...

Sugar Shape:
Reading past-tense works and then seeing present-tense tripped me up a bit. Bit of an odd ship, but I can see it floats. A very nice snapshot of life in Gensokyo!

Burakumin:
I never would have imagined Yukari Yakumo helping hunt ducks! This felt like four different entries that all take place after another, but I don't mean that poorly. I think this struck a good balance between introspection and progressing story, even if it's slice of life.

The Day Fire Fell to Earth:
An entry that draws many more questions than answers. I'm interested!

Rolling River, Standing Stone:
Poor Eika... I'm glad you decided to write about her; she doesn't get enough love. I say while not really liking her all that much. But that doesn't mean she doesn't deserve more love!

One Last Bloody Tear:
Sobering and thoughtful.

Midday:
Good to see Mizuchi on the right side of the law and taking it easy.

First Contact:
Badass! I'm sure we've all imagined a DOOM-like fic in the Animal Realm, but you've pulled it off even better!

Midnight:
This feels like the other side of the coin with Midday. I'm guessing that's intentional, actually.

An Unconscious Visit:
Is it too much to ask every one of these fics to end with Koishi unsealing her third eye? Maybe... But I'm still going to do it.

Reisen kills and Alien:
I don't really have anything to say about the content, but you're pretty good with narration.

The Visitor:
Spooky! Mysterious! I might not get it, actually, but it was still a good read all the same!

Sculptor:
Aww, poor, sweet little Mayumi. Not designed to understand, but designed to understand understanding.

Cyberpunk: Lunatic Red:
I guess Eientei's gone international, huh? But without expanding within appropriately.

untitled fic (2025/07/24 (Thu) 15:57 No. 3304):
This was sweet. It felt like listening to a grandmother talk about her youth.

Would you like to know more?:
LMAO! Sign me up!

One Shell Too Many:
This was interesting and entertaining. I'd never thought of crabs becoming youkai, much less joining the Myouren Temple. Were you inspired by Christmas Island red crabs or something similar?

Little Princess' Little Odyssey:
For some reason, this story made me really interested in what politics might look like in Gensokyo. Shinmy was adorable, as always, and I'm glad she didn't choose violence with Akyuu.

A remedy for a headache:
Maybe I get it? Probably not.

>>18209
Gooboi's Review of "Clothes":
That last sentence of your first paragraph is throwing me off, so I'm gonna have to ask for you to elaborate. I'll admit, though, that a boutique being in a cave doesn't make sense at all unless you just say "It's Gensokyo, so it's fine," so if that's what you mean, then, yeah. Your second paragraph is also throwing me off. Maybe you'll understand if I elaborate on what's going through Marisa's mind: She's just looking for something that might go with her witchy aesthetic first, and then she'll take a closer look if she does find something. And since she's not finding anything, she's not really paying attention to anything else about them. In hindsight though, I should have at least said there were a lot of vibrant colors because Eme does really like vibrant colors/clothes.

Gooboi's Review of just ignore this one:
White, yes. That's the mystery. I tried to suggest that—to Ran—this situation is the same as trying to disarm a bomb with a deadman's switch and that anything other than everyone being completely still could destroy the barrier. Her shikigami half has no programming on what to do in this situation, and her kitsune half is confused and nervous (hiding it, though) because of the impossibility of the situation. It may seem out of character for Ran, but the flirting really ticked her off and threw her out of sync with her shikigami side returning her prideful kitsune side, kind of like Chen getting doused with water but not completely. Sometimes some people have that one little thing that sets them off, even when they're usually so level headed. I'm sure you get it; I just probably didn't do a good job of her having that trait. The womanizing as a distraction is kind of intentional by the character; he just doesn't want to be bothered by anyone while he's working.

>>18212
BombaBomba's Review of "Clothes":
Noted about the sentence structure, but I disagree on writing "Waaaaah!" It's just not my style. Yeah, I think I flubbed that euphemism at least a little bit. It was supposed to be that she tricked the yamanba into letting her gather herbs by telling them that she was pulling weeds, but then I forgot what I was writing halfway through the sentence.

>>18213
Anonymous's Review of "Clothes":
Sounds like you understood what I was going for! Especially about the apron. I was going to write a line about how it was "better fer showin' off rather than potion brewin'," but that would have been in the middle of an additional 500 words that I didn't feel added anything else to what I had. I do want to show her off more, but she's kind of exactly the one-note character you'd expect from a reclusive spider youkai with a talent for making clothes. The other problem is that she's like Junko in that I can't find a good reason for her to show up anywhere other than where she's already been seen before.

>>18217
Teruyo's Review of just ignore this one:
I was going for "all these people are having conversations at the same time, but I don't want to write it in a way that's annoying to read." It sounds like your familiar with doing that to represent the multiple voices of a crowd treated like one "character" speaking. Truth be told, I didn't write this for the sake of the content itself but rather with hopes that someone might read it and be inspired to do something as outlandish and bold. I feel kind of bad for wasting everyone's time with this, but it'll all be worth it if even just one person finds inspiration from it.

>>18219
"Clothes"
So, for Eme Yasuda's shop to be failing despite making good clothes, she has to have made a mistake in it's setup somewhere. It has to be something where Marisa would be the first person willing to explore it after some period of time, obviously. A sign with "Clothes" pointing to a hole in the ground is already a good example of this; it reads more like a dumb youkai's trap than the lemonade-stand-tier sign it actually is.

Whatever mistake or mistakes she's made describes her character in some way by the type of mistake it is. And honestly, the hole in the ground and her general demeanour already sell her quite convincingly as someone who's still learning social graces, or maybe is a bit too strongly leaning into trapdoor spider instincts.

The thing is, on top of that you have her also making a second, even bigger mistake; setting up in what seems to be the yamanba sanctuary. The sanctuary is a place that shuns civilisation for the most part, and they have a very specific patchwork style of clothing there. Moreover, because it's a sanctuary, outsiders are usually not allowed. It's a location where people have to, as Marisa euphemistically puts it, "get permission" to enter. All of this makes it a catastrophically bad place to set up any type of store, let alone a clothing boutique/hole-in-the-ground.

On the second paragraph, Eme manages to quickly replicate Marisa's style, which is a good saving grace, and from that I read that her talent and unique selling point is 'quickly comes to understand a customer's style, and can create it within minutes once she's grasped it'. But she doesn't seem to have clothes that reflect the other residents of the Yamanba sanctuary; there's no clothes that you'd expect the people like Nemuno or Biten to like. That Marisa describes most of Eme's existing options as near-misses for her friends also seems to go against that style insight talent I'm reading from her making a great apron for Marisa. It's such a poor understanding of the customer base and the wider world, that it felt like she went from "flawed but earnest" to something too dumb to take as an earnest attempt to sell clothes.

Basically, she should have either picked a good presentation, or picked a good location, and her style-sense should be already present in the clothes Marisa's looking through for the normal residents of the area. Screwing up one is perfectly reasonable, but screwing up both strains credibility - it should be more that her mistakes are so big in one that it negatively affects the other. And considering that the vibe of the story is the hope this store does become successful in the future, I think the location is the bigger and less acceptable issue.

Aside from the underground, which I suggested in my initial feedback, I can see two other places which make a lot of sense. One is just outside of the human village, where she'd have a lot of better-presented competition and the humans would give her a particularly wide berth. It's a good location for a clothing store, but her poor presentation sabotages it, which is bad but fixable as she grows over time.

The other option is on Youkai Mountain, on the trail to Moriya Shrine - that has since become replaced by cable car. In that case, the location is bad, but the reason it's bad is partially out of her hands, and only requires missing a few key pieces of information, rather than not realising that the place that shuns civilisation would shun a clothing store.

>The other problem is that she's like Junko in that I can't find a good reason for her to show up anywhere other than where she's already been seen before.

The good thing is that she's a store owner; interesting things can come to her!

I don't think Eme being a reclusive character is a terrible thing - her setup's basically perfect for a slice-of-life, customer-of-the-week style episodic story where you can see her meeting a customer, learning about them and a lesson about running her store, and giving them a good piece of clothing that suits their needs at the end of the episode. Like I said, it just needs a better location where anyone could wander in, rather than being in the exclusive territory of the people who think wanting toilet paper is being high-falutin'.

Just ignore this one
>Sometimes some people have that one little thing that sets them off,
I think the issue is that, in the scope of the story, we don't get to see her in any state other than that. She's more or less irritated and off her game from the moment he starts talking, which makes it seem like her default state is irritated. I don't think it's a bad flaw for her to have - no smooth-talker should be invincible - but because of the limits of a flash fic, we don't get the time to see her default state before we see her get frustrated.

I think this concept could have flourished in a bit of a longer story format, honestly; a lot of this story's issues are things that are meant to seem like overreactions in context, but the story doesn't have enough time to establish that context. You're relying on people buying into an unusual core headcanon of 'breaking the barrier isn't that big of a deal', but you don't have time to make it clear that the stakes are actually far lower than people realise; stuff like that is holding this back from reaching it's potential.

We used to wait until later to identify ourselves, but when in Rome...

If I’m honest, I feel like there should have been a strict limit of a single entry per person. There are a lot of entries and it’s taken a lot of energy and focus that I don’t have to get through all of them.

That complaint aside, I’ll address a handful of general points to more than one writer before getting into the specifics:

One, I saw a lot of entries that suffered for expecting buy-in by default from the audience for the simple presence of particular characters or situations. It’s a common enough ill to fanfiction as a whole, but it doesn’t do many favours when going over countless entries. This goes double for things like crossovers and fanfiction-of-fanfiction. Writers really can’t count on that sort of investment from the get-go for the entirety of the audience, or even a majority of it. Whilst it’s certainly their prerogative if they want to limit their audiences, it’s not something that makes much practical sense in an event like this. The way I see it, events like these are meant as a display of skill, and being able to draw in a wider audience is a skill unto itself. Besides that, the result is often something that will leave little impression in the reader’s mind.

Two, many entries were simply too big in scale for the format and just didn’t work as ‘flash fiction’. Some went well over the word limit and others seemed more like slivers cut from a larger context. I feel that, in order to work in this format, one really must strive to tell a story that is generally self-contained. That doesn’t mean that there can’t be the more general implications of ‘something more’ afterwards or before, but the actual relevant parts of the story ought to resolve themselves within the given space. In service to that point, instead of making the same comment ad nauseum, I’ve opted to simply state that up-front.

Three, ellipses were a problem with some entries, namely overuse. It would do lesser-experienced writers good to research what ellipses are and their actual usage. I mean, it’s fine every so often to have them for purposes of ellision. I’m simply not convinced by arguments about their use to ‘preserve rhythm/pacing in dialogue/narration’. Those aspects should ideally be inherent to the writing itself, not requiring an extra visual indicator to be sensed.

Four, just so I don’t repeat this excessively, I’ll once more implore people to read more books. This especially applies to newer writers, but even writers who consider themselves more experienced can also use exposure to different things. In general, though, wanting to write without reading is weird and counter-intuitive. Reading only fanfiction to learn how to write is also weird and leads to things like weird dialogue formatting.

Influence
Into specific comments. Love the title for the double-meaning. Very snappy. I also love this piece in general because it feels very intentional; it knows what it’s trying to do and does it. You’ve got the normal tableau of humans at Geidontei in the first half, followed by the somewhat rowdier one of youkai in the second half. There’s also the setup of the gossip in the former half, tucked in with the barflys’ banter as a passing mention, and then the general revelation in the latter. The quiet of the ending contrasts the noise of the beginning, and further turns it around by attributing it to humans, just as the racket was attributed to youkai at the start. It’s a nice little closed loop.

Also of note, I found myself roaring at the exchange between Aya and Mamizou. Some of their exchanges in official media are already funny, but I found the biting sarcasm here even funnier. That’s really the sort of comedy that works in the written word; it’s not going for over-the-top hilarity, just being a little bit cheeky.

If only I could consort with kappa in clandestine deals…

Destination Elsewhere
I found this piece fine overall, though I will say that I might have liked it more on first glance than upon closer inspection. The imagery set up at the start works for the story being told, and I like the overall ‘flavour’ reminiscent of wartime Japan. It’s also a bit interesting to have a bit about Seiran’s family unit and the attendant eccentricities implied — and the ‘implied’ is critical! — but I also do feel it could have been ellided too. There is a certain normality and so forth brought in by starting there, but I think just a bit less setup following the opening bits would have served the story better. The gravity of the story feels centered more on Seiran’s middle mother and the shrine visit than anything else. Of course, I do feel a bit unsure of the final few paragraphs. Why did her perhaps-birthmother look at her in such a way? Is this story about the inevitable falling away from one’s kin in adulthood? That’s what I can parse, but I can’t be wholly certain.

A Snipping Motion
This entry has promise but it’s also marred by a lack of focus. There’s colour imagery that’s, well, colourful but doesn’t do much in the end. There are exchanges that don’t necessarily ring false but don’t convey a lot. There’s a shared consciousness of a popular work amongst the rabbits, but that just sort of fills out space. I can see what the writer was getting at with the rabbits and their hyper-social nature. There just needed to be a bit more of a core, I think. Otherwise, it’d probably have worked better as a longer piece, not flash-fiction.

One Dish
I’m hoping this doesn’t come off too catty, but I’d say the piece itself summed up my feelings late in the game with this bit:
>The flavors of all, but the distinctiveness of none […]

This shares a bit of the same issue I had with the entry just prior. In this case, much in the same way that the diminutive princess goes ‘round the buffet, there are lots of small bits where this character and that are mentioned to no especial end. Whilst I’d also say it rubs up against Point One way up above, I think the more immediate issue is that most of those appearances just don’t do much for the story being told, and they take up more space than strictly necessary. Focusing it down to Shinmyoumaru and Reimu or similar would have worked as flash-fiction, I feel. Beyond that, things like the attempt at colour imagery aren’t unappreciated, and the toothsome nature of the food is well conveyed even in written word. Maybe some future longer effort could be as appetising?

A remedy for a headache
I’m just going to slip this one in here because I don’t have that much to say. Basically, I don’t really see much here beyond very, erm, aesthetically-driven writing. Which I’m not at all against! It’s just that I don’t get much else out of it, being pretty blunt. I’m guessing this is meant to be based on the music CD stories somehow, but I’ve no real clue how; I see them as more of a side project of ZUN’s than Touhou proper, so I’m not intimately familiar despite having read them once or twice. Neat to capture the feeling of a dissociative episode, I guess, whether or not that was the aim.

Sculptor
Point One kind of applies here. I get the general sense that this is about Keiki and haniwa, but there’s nothing that calls it out in any hard way. Overall, not too much to it: a haniwa-making haniwa has some kind of adoration for its creator. And? I’m not saying that there has to be anything spectacular, but perhaps a bit more could have been drawn out. It might have served the writer to think on how to more concretely express that adoration, since that seems to be the core feeling. Further exploration left as an exercise for the reader.

The Visitor
A bit of Point One here as well. Chen isn’t exactly a compelling character, so why should I care now? It’s fine and all that her feline friends are more of an impetus for going into the scary house, granted, but what then? The writer just sort of caps off Chen wandering about and having a bad feeling with a blob of darkness as… a stinger? Was I meant to be somehow surprised by this? Afraid? Amused? In all honesty, it comes off as a non-sequitur. I nearly feel like the writer wanted to write something of some existentialist horror stripe and just decided to include a Touhou character for the sake of it. It’s a bit hard to suss out the intention here.

One Last Bloody Tear
Another Point One job. I mean, good on the writer for trying out a newer characer. I will absolutely applaud the initiative taken there. The only thing is that I’m not taken with the story in general. Shizuha’s interpretation here is kind of weird and arbitrary, in service to trying to tie a wholly unrelated character to Reimu. I don’t know, man; it’s really weird. I also don’t think the whole attempt at rhyming worked that well. Yeah, there are internal rhymes or near-rhymes in different lines, but if the writer meant it to be, say, poetry-like, then they’re missing metre as a component, arguably more important than rhyme schemes. I just don’t perceive any sense of rhythm.

Rolling River, Standing Stone
I’ll also applaud the writer here for taking on a character that doesn’t get much mention. The piece itself rings pretty true to the character, and I’d say the consistent imagery helps. In some ways, it’s a bit of a character portrait, but there’s also a bit of an emotional line that can be drawn from abandonment to acceptance. It doesn’t overstay its welcome and I respect that.

And I’ll call that part one of however many. I’ve been at this a while and feel like I ought to break it up instead of trying to get it all in one go.

Hi, I wrote One Last Bloody Tear. And accidentally punched the title into the username slot, my bad! More on that later.

I'm not a literary critic. I have no education in literary criticism. But I'll try to at least say something about as many entries as I can.

Rumia and Remilia

"You!" "Me!" is a simple gag that always gets me. I think Remilia's dialogue needed a little more, I'm not sure how to put it, forcefulness? But Rumia was very cute. The whole thing is very cute.

Nightbug

Seeing Rumia on the hunt was cool and builds up nicely, and I thought re-characterising the Wriggle Kick fan joke as a Wriggle running a PR campaign was funny. The human character didn't really work, I found; maybe if the yakuza(?) connection informed his characterisation more?

Reisen Kills Turbo Granny

I never got around to reading Dandadan, I'm afraid, so I don't know how qualified I am to comment on this. Reisen being pressganged into doing some kind of job in the outside world is a fun conceit, but it doesn't have enough room to breath here.

"Clothes"

It's cute, the prose has a good flow to it, and it has a nice sense of humour. Eme is so relentlessly awkward you wonder if it's a deliberate manipulation - I mean this positively, it's well done characterisation.

Unlived

Oh, characterising Youmu's alienation from humanity through a sense of out-of-body experience is so clever, I love it! I'm not 100% confident I understand what the last bit is meant to represent in that context (I think either the fear of an unknown future, or losing what grounding her sense of self has as she resolves to reorient her behaviour to suit the expectations of others?), but of course that's on me, and either way it's wonderfully evocative. I really like this one!

Kudamaki/Kuro

I once again don't have the context for this (I'm sorry! I keep meaning to check out USiL and it keeps not happening). That's not a criticism, just means I'm outside of the audience for it. But I can say it does a great job of inhabiting the perspective of a hurt, confused child!

A Snipping Motion

Ah, I love the feeling of awkward tension just before a deadly situation, and the attempts to break it by distracting attention to pop culture. This has a fantastic atmosphere to it.

One Dish

This is a veritable feast of imagery! I love how powerful the language is, and man am I hungry all of a sudden. Wonderfully warm and fuzzy story!

Destination Elsewhere

Similar to the other moon rabbit story, but heavier on moodiness and imagery
Once again a really interesting little peek into the moon rabbits' lives, this time coloured in a sort of ominous mundanity. A last day on Earth type of thing, other than not being on Earth.

For both pieces, there's always a humorous dissonance (for me, anyway) to the moon rabbits being portrayed as disciplined, controlled, and militaristic, compared to over in Bougetsushou.

An Iota of Eternity

There's various ways that it's not quite to my personal taste, but it's still fascinating. The idea of interrogating the perspective and history of a lab rat for the Hourai Elixir is a really solid conceit, and I enjoyed the imagery and prose.

Influence

Some of the turns of phrase bother me, others I quite enjoy. I especially really liked the narration of the storm at the beginning! Overall I'm not sure about it, though. It doesn't particularly have a plot that I can see, but it's divided between two images that don't resonate or contrast enough to quite feel paired to me, so I don't find that it works for the 'painting an image' type of short fiction either.

Sugar Shape

Personally, the writing style chafes (third person present tense is not my cup of tea, nor are *sound effects*), and normally I'm not a fan of the pairing. But the ending completely turns that around for me. I went through most of it feeling that Tsukasa's characterisation felt oddly lacking, but that last bit let it all shine through at once exactly where it needed to be!

Burakumin

A moody piece about an under-represented aspect of Japanese history, and more broadly a worthwhile reflection on a cultural and historical constant, the denigration of nevertheless demanded work. Part of me thinks it would work better as an independent short story, and not a Touhou fanfiction. It's well over the word limit and it's a bit hard to say why when it most certainly could have been cut down. If we were rating these, I'd feel compelled to knock it down to zero for failing to meet the terms of the exhibition ... but we're not, so I can just say I'm glad I got to read it!

The Day Fire Fell To Earth

This seems tangentially related to Touhou at best. It has a couple of proper nouns and otherwise seems like a completely different kind of fantasy story. I guess the portrayal of Satsuki Rin is drawing from the Qilin being an omen of the impending death of a great person? And it does capture the energy of the type of fantasy it is, I think! I do agree with a couple other comments that it would be interesting to see more of it. It's positioned just right, and does just the right amount of saying things without explanation to make the question of what's going on past the bounds of the excerpt appealing.

By the way, what language does the hyphenated dialogue come from, if any? I've seen it before in a translation from Russian, but I'm not sure if that was the initial language or the translator.

Rolling River Standing Stone

Bittersweet. Very much the painting a picture school of short fiction, and simple in theme, but I think it's nice. Plus, I'm always glad to see Eika!

Midday

I'm really glad to see Mizuchi here! I know she's kind of divisive, but I really like her. I think this handles her nicely, and it's nice to see her confronting the way things have changed, and Reimu helping her through it.

First Contact

I liked this quite a bit. The mounting horror as the beast spirits come to understand what they're dealing with really works, and it's neat seeing the haniwa approached with a high-tech bent! The pedant in me wants to complain that it's not canon-compliant, but I'm also not the type to consider 'canon' a moral authority or anything, and the departures are all to the story's benefit.

Midnight

A companion piece to Midday, yes? All of the same subject matter, from the other end. Somber and touching.

An Unconscious Visit

A couple really granular and not-worth mentioning things bugged me, but otherwise I liked this one. Satori's breakdown hits, especially the "meat puppet" line. Not the sort of thought she'd ever normally entertain, but the kind of thing that breaks through when she's already unstable... is my takeaway, anyway.

The Visitor

The prose is trying to be flowery but falters regularly, I'm finding (I think English is probably not the author's first language? Good on them for making the effort to write in a second language if so! I most certainly could not do the same). Some of the turns of phrase don't quite work. "What does consider this word," for example; I can tell what it means to say, but it takes a bit of fighting the more natural interpretation that they are thinking about the word 'home,' not that they consider Mayohiga home. Anyway, it's interesting! One of those pieces that's just mainly about the mood, I think.

Sculptor

This one is really interesting. I'm not sure how to talk about it, but I really like it!

Just Ignore This One

I am to ignore this one, apparently.

Untitled

Another one I'm not sure how to say anything about. I like it, I can say that. It's uncomfortable in a good way.

Would You Like To Know More

I don't think the Starship Troopers take works very well here.

One Shell Too Many

A cute, humorous episode in the life. Quite fun! I think there must be some wordplay or aphorism I'm not familiar with regarding crabs and monks, though.

Little Princess' Little Odyssey

Adorable! I found the prose a little awkward, but Shinmyoumaru getting strange ideas into her head and charging ahead without another thought is always fun.

A Remedy for a Headache

I think something must have been lost in translation, or I'm just worn all out now that I'm at the end, because I'm not sure I get it. Narratively or aesthetically. It's... Renko having some kind of very symbolic dream while traveling by train, right? It's cryptic as hell, which I do actually enjoy!

One Last Bloody Tear

I'm now going to ramble at length about my own work. Do go ahead and skip to the last paragraph if you're not interested.

I was never quite satisfied with this, though also never outright unhappy with it. Making final revisions late at night, then posting it before sleeping on it probably didn't help.

I also overly indulged in a bit of an unfortunate combination of "I am just in favour of authors being cryptic sometimes" and "I got tunnel-vision and forgot that not everyone has the context I do," so allow me to exposit about a few points. I don't have a lot to say about the process of writing it otherwise, anyway.

And also I just love explaining trivia to people. It's an addiction.

On Shizuha: Shizuha was picked for being tangentially related to death and rebirth - the seasons are often symbols of that, and Autumn especially connects with death, as pointed out in Shizuha's sobriquet "Symbol of Loneliness and Demise" - and for being an artist who is fit to judge Ubame's 'construction.' She wasn't meant to be out-and-out a goddess of death, but rather, that Ubame was worshipping her in a way that emphasised that aspect. In my experience you often see that in local and individual Shinto practices; gods interpreted to suit the worshippers' needs in ways that you might or might not expect from the god in question. Did you know some shrines venerate Susano'o for safe childbirth and happy marriages, for example? And other shrines pray to Tsukuyomi for fertility, for another example. I'm given to understand Inari is especially prone to this, but I'm less clear on the details.

... She's also a little bit of a tunnel-visioned holdover from an earlier outline where she and Ubame were just going to have a meandering, pessimistic reflection on her life and death without Ubame specifically being after anything. It probably would have meant getting rid of the seasonal imagery, but maybe I should have rewritten it for Eiki or Yuyuko? I'm not sure.

On Ubame: There's a theory that yamanba originate as a demonisation of shrine maidens who were distant or even alien to their community due to their isolated location. I think this is probably a bit of a retrojection, like dinosaur bones inspiring dragons (though at least miko have the advantage of not normally being found in scattered pieces underground, barely distinguishable from rocks!), since the origins of the myth don't seem to be well-recorded enough to support any confidence in this, and it doesn't match up with what I understand the current models of folklore development suggest: that belief exists first, and then evidence is reinterpreted to prove the belief.

... which still leaves you with, in a sense, "people made shrine maidens into yamanba." So I applied that literally into "the Hakurei maidens become yamanba after they retire or die." As for why Ubame specifically? ... to be honest, basically just because 'fistfighter' is a popular fanon portrayal of Reimu's mom, and Ubame being only in a demo so far has the least space to contradict me. Not that her interaction with Reimu in that demo exactly screams parent-child reunion, but that's also part of why I tried to be vague on what generation this even is (I shouldn't have mentioned the girl's hair colour at all, that was a mistake, even if you take it as a longstanding Hakurei trait). Maybe the daughter is actually Granny Hakurei with the war banner gohei!

At any rate, the yamamba thing was the priority of the story; I think I got much too distracted by the seasonal imagery and strayed too far from that. Though on the other hand I think the seasonal stuff was the best part of the story, so maybe I should have abandoned the yamanba stuff...?

On other mythological references: The other people Shizuha mentions as comparisons to Ubame's case are drawn from a paper I recently read, on necromancy in Japanese myth. It primarily focused on the Tale of Lord Haseo, where the scholar Ki no Haseo wins a beautiful but strangely quiescent woman in a bet with an oni that lives in either the Suzakomon or Rajoumon (in which case it is implicitly Ibaraki-Douji, or at least fair to interpret as such) of Heian-Kyou. He's warned not to touch her for 100 days, and when he inevitably does it anyway, she melts into water. The oni attacks him in a rage, but is repelled by the god Tenjin, who explains that the woman was brought to life by the oni using the most beautiful pieces of many corpses, but still needed those hundred days to obtain a soul. Incidentally, some versions replace Ki no Haseo with Miyako no Yoshika (I'm not clear if these versions include the Tenjin bit, which would be anachronistic with Yoshika still alive/in the capital). The other myth she brings up, also mentioned in the paper as a point of comparison to Haseo's story, is Abe no Seimei being resurrected by his teacher, Saint Hakudou, using 372 human bones. The story says they're all Seimei's, but in that case he'd have to have had an extra 166 bones. This both shows a more clear-cut case of bringing a dead person back, and also indicates that even if you had a complete corpse, you'd need something more to complete a resurrection. In an earlier draft I actually had a mention of a different necromancer more directly relevant to Touhou: Saigyou, taking human bones out to a moor to make his own man just to see if he could, then abandoning it there because he's disturbed by its soulessness, but worried that killing it would nevertheless be a murder. But after asking for feedback on the story, I was told it came off like Ubame had been made from scratch rather than ever being a human, so I swapped Saigyou's story out for one about a resurrection in hopes that would help without losing some imagery I liked or adding clunky exposition.

And the leaf bit was kind of derived from a paper I read ages back about the nature of gods in some interpretations of Shinto, which IIRC took a moment to muse about how gods can have contradictory scales. Every word you write or speak contains a divine spirit, but there are also gods of words in the abstract; every tree contains a very small god, but the forest as a whole is also a god. So the leaf is Shizuha at a small scale, or at least some kind of divine endosymbiont that is also capable of manifesting as her. A god's gut flora, so to speak. Mystical mitochondria!

At any rate, thank you everyone who enjoyed my work, thank you so much everyone who wrote (and wow, we got a lot of people in for this! That's awesome!), and thank you a ton Teruyo, for organising the exhibition!

Late entry! I'm sorry! Please forgive me!

Hi! I wrote the untitled story. It's my first time doing creative writing, ever, at all. It's usually impossibly difficult for me, but because I took the path of least resistance here, it came easily. You have to start somewhere, so it's fine. This format is just the right length, it gave me courage. Thank you so much for this opportunity! More experimental exhibitions like this one would be great to see and try out.
I'm all for death of the author and intentionally wrote a pretty vague story to see how others would view it, but if anyone's curious, here's my own interpretation/intent. Basically, it's something like a transcript of an interview tape, one where you can't even make out what the interviewer is saying — hence the way it's written. Alice is being interviewed by Akyuu for her Perfect Memento thing (hence the "Oh, do you?", and why she's even talking about it at all), and trying to be discreet, because she doesn't want any extra attention for having unusual origins, and kind of failing, because she likes talking about dolls too much. She hesitates sometimes, like when saying "childhood" or "mother", scrambling for innocuous words. The visitors were quite real, foreign, intangible, and once Alice started playing with their shapes, they got familiar, smaller, sillier, less real, and got so small that she could store them on her shelf like a little handmade dollhouse. She's a bit concerned, but not particularly worried, that it will happen again, with her current world. I don't think it's sad or melancholic... To me, it's a kind of light horror-comedy about a Makai person's carelessness. I know full well it turned out neither funny nor scary, though. But I imagine it's passable for a first time.
By the way, I wanted to call it "Spectral estate" (after Ligotti's), because of the audio tape thing, and because there's, like, an estate. But it looked excessive.

I also translated the last story, "A remedy for a headache". It's not a flattering translation, to be honest... The original prose is quite vivid and flows much better, and because I had to rush, I didn't have much time to phrase things in a way that would mimic that flow, so it is what it is. The writer is satisfied, but still.
Though, really, it's just the stylistic aspect that could be said to have been lost in translation. Make no mistake, it very much is intended to be indirect. Not impenetrable, though — just reliant on implying things rather than stating them outright. The two main characters — or, maybe, the two states of the main character — aren't that hard to figure out if you consider albums, titles, abilites, themes, all of that. As for what's happening, well... Renko, captivated by the Distant Star, came to investigate it, and found that you ought to light one yourself. And she did. And she became its Swordsman. That's what can be inferred from all of the things referenced, at least!
Yes, >>18215 really does get it.

That's that for my involvement. Because of the amount of entries and because I've been somewhat scatterbrained lately, I can't really say enough about every story for a full review of each one, but I will say that many of the entries did quite well, and even if you don't do too well, telling a complete story within a thousand words is still a valuable exercise. So it means that everyone got exercise and learnt something. I liked "Little Princess’ Little Odyssey", it's cute, and inchlings are fun because mundane things are vast and fascinating to them. I liked "First Contact" as well, it's good as horror, Mayumi has a lot of potential for that, doesn't she? I liked "One Last Bloody Tear"'s portrayal of Shizuha. Those are the ones I wanted to highlight a bit. I might write proper mini-reviews for each one later.

>>18224
No worries! Lots of stories get in late in expos, and there's a fair few people who aren't even through the main body of stories yet! As long as you had fun and it was good practice, it's worth it to post it.

I'll add on a review for yours, with the same limitations as the others of 100 words max, and the same offer to expand on it if you want more detail. Once again, I'm offering the disclaimer that I can really only give the most key feedback with these limitations. .

Kamehime - 1175 words

I think there’s one big thing that’s harming the vibes here. The story feels like it’s meant to sound almost like a bartop discussion, with its very casual tone and the mulling back and forth at the details. But unfortunately, the banter's tone got mauled by a thesaurus.

“Pebbly section of shore” vs. “sky was a cliff of tourmaline” is a great example of this. The former makes sense for casual banter, the latter for a prepared declaration of love. They don’t mix well - at the very least, the speaker’s conversation partner should have dunked on their needlessly fancy phrasing.

>>18220
Gooboi's Follow-Up Review of "Clothes":
It sounds to me like you're saying that the location of the shop and the fact that her clothes don't cater to the yamanba who she would likely want to please was jarring and took you out of the story. Or maybe you're offering suggestions for how I could depict her growing her business and as a character. Either way, this is what I think may be the answer(s) you're looking for: I wanted every detail to showcase her character: A bit on the shy side, anti-social, inexperienced, less intelligent than average, makes clothes she likes, eager to please, and a savant for style. The reason I didn't explain why her shop was there or describe the clothing in the store was because I believed it was inconsequential to that goal. I do have reasons for her location and product (which, perhaps, would benefit from being taken back to the drawing board), but the short answer is that her only goal is to make clothes and see people smile when they wear hers. The yamanba clearly aren't going to wear hers, so she gave up on trying to making clothes for them. The reason she's in the Sanctuary is because she's been there before the yamanba, and they don't see her as a problem in any way—she does her thing, and it doesn't bother them, so why bother kicking her out?

I actually do have an idea for a shopkeeper OC story, but not with Eme; she feels like she'd be too passive for me to enjoy writing as the MC. Instead, I'm going with a "people are walking wallets" character. I need to finish "I Have the Right to be Happy" first, though, and then I want to try writing my first CYOA.

Gooboi's Follow-Up Review of just ignore this one:
I get what you mean. I guess I just assumed everyone would think she's always level-headed. Yeah, this would be chapter one of a longer fic, but it still needs way more thought and work put into even just this. I completely failed to give all the pieces to show what I was trying to show.

Kamehime:
Adorable and wonderful! Reading a meteorologist's perspective was really interesting!

hello. writer of "burakumin" here. first fanfic, first time writing and first off, let me apologize for the almost 1800 words. i'm just writing casually, putting to words the scenes that come up in my head. I might work on 200 words one night and let it stew for another. then I get another spark and continue. my process is kinda like that.

started it with 1 week left which isn't much considering that. I did work on something else the week before, related to "three men in a boat" if you can believe it. but decided burakumin was better. the "epilogue" part I actually finished second-last and the proper ending last. worked that on the last night, pulled an all nighter, saw the thread up in the morning and then spent more hours "proofreading" and debating whether to post it at all.

it's basically an abridged (clearly not enough lol) version of a something longer I was starting to write (only the duck hunt so far). everything after was treading new ground. it's one part of some interconnected story ideas I have, one of them being the ma'am and suika. maybe someday.

>>18209
>Top notch.
thank you. I'm floored by the positive responses. I don't know what to think.
>last segment could be cut
yeah, I see it. I like it but it's more of an extra. at the very least I could've put the fin at the proper ending.
>>18217
>Yukari’s whimsy and inscrutable ways are handled deftly
glad I did her good. aside from "write gud", I think my biggest fear is getting down the characters. sparse material/open-ended nature of a lot of 2hus feels like a double edged sword.
>firearms, kappa, yamawaro
black powder firearms are cool. but really, hinawajū are famously matchlocks, so having a percussion converted one would be handy for hunting in wetlands. but that means needing percussion caps which I don't think the village has the capacity to produce. so, kappa. I just chose yamawaro because they're deeper in the mountain + firearms = them making noise to the tengu's displeasure.
ultimately they could have been cut down to better fit the format.
>Would enjoy seeing more things by you.
this is a terrifying sentence but thank you.
>>18218
>This felt like four different entries that all take place after another
yup. vignettes over the course of the day.
>slice of life.
if I keep writing it might mostly be these tbh.
>>18222
>Part of me thinks it would work better as an independent short story
maybe if I could actually write historical fiction. personally, it being in gensokyo *is* why I like it. perhaps it's less 'touhou fanfic' and more 'story set in gensokyo'.
>so I can just say I'm glad I got to read it!
thank you.

and another round of thank yous for the exhaustive efforts of the writers and reviewers in this thread.

Almost done! Will try to get to the rest at some point before the weekend is over.

---

The Day Fire Fell to Earth

There is nothing of Touhou in this. Neither in theme, presentation, or character. Satsuki isn’t an actual character. You can’t expect anyone to care or to be invested in the wholly original work that’s presented here with … a fox OC that seems to maybe be a western creature themselves (Why else does it have a specific type of Western rifle? Why does it have a very Western kind of cookie and longing for bread?) Why is any of the action going on? Nothing is hinted motivation of either characters. Despite following the fox’s thoughts there is no context for what they are doing or why (or, indeed, how and why they got their wounds). Perhaps in a longer format where more things (not least the characters) were set up and explained you could get the reader invested and tie it in to actual Touhou.

Also feels like you may not be a native speaker. Read more fiction (not fanfiction!) in English and get a feel for how sentences flow, how people speak, and the subtleties of syntax and grammar.

Bomba’s various works

I’m lumping all of your stories together because what I have to say more or less applies to all of them. You clearly have enthusiasm, good. But I wish you had taken to heart what I said here: >>18187

There’s a lack of polish in your prose and there’s not much to your stories beyond a couple of things happening to characters (thankfully, mostly Touhou). But what’s the point of them? What was accomplished in terms of characterization, in highlighting something about the series or setting, in presenting a distinct and compelling vision? If it’s just a bit for fun for your doesn’t mean that it’ll be fun or interesting to your audience, that you’re telling a story worth telling. That energy that you clearly have would have been better spent trying to make something memorable and that wasn’t just a bunch of elements mashed together. I don’t just mean the crossovers but, yes, while I’m at it: crossovers are shit to anyone who isn’t invested in the author’s take of two disparate media, much less familiar with one of the things to begin with!

I’m sure that people will enjoy what you’re written. But I want you to challenge you to more. Really, most of my comments here are meant to make people think critically about things and improve. Aim higher!

Find something beyond the superficial that you wish to share, an idea or feeling you want to transmit to others. Break the idea down, work at it, and build a compelling narrative that is told in the way that it needs telling. Put that energy in making something the best that it can be. Most of all, keep in mind that just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should!

Midday

It’s fine in terms of writing and having a little emotional moment and successful conclusion. The clumsy kindness of Reimu is a good little touch in that regard. The story is fairly obvious in terms of structure and its use of past v. present to lay things out. This isn’t a bad thing in and of itself but I have never been persuaded by the take that you sometimes see in fandom that things before the spellcard rules were bloody and that humans were brutalized prey. That isn’t to say that there isn’t death or a few harsh realities aren’t shown in the series.

And earlier before the barrier, things like the death of Mizuchi would have been necessarily a rare occurrence because otherwise it would undermine the need for the barrier and “nature preserve” aspect of Gensokyo in the first place.

Regardless, they are not any sort of significant part of the tone nor identity. Certainly it’s not something that would harden Reimu or anyone else to “bloodshed” as little to no blood is actually shed. Exterminating youkai is never really depicted with any similarity to something found in particularly grim setsuwa or the more macabre Edo-era stories. But a deeper conversation on the subject is outside the scope of discussing these stories.

Midnight

Judging from the prose, title, and subject matter, I think that you’re the same author as Midday. I liked this one less than the other, mainly because the depiction of Mokou feels off. Pre-IN she wasn’t really invested in humanity or dealing with people and was just being a loner. Having a direct relationship with the Hakurei or trying to comfort someone like that by being optimistic about the future seems incredibly out of character for where she was at for hundreds and hundreds of years.

The way Mokou actually tells her perception of the events back then in the manga works better because it leaves things to the imagination; in this story the particulars of the relationship with Mizuchi, the wear on the Hakurei shrine maiden, seems like forced emotionality. Worse still, it’s unearned because of the limited time we spend with these characters because of the format. We’re told this and that about the life of the Hakurei priestess but it almost feels like a bunch of bullet points of tragedy that are there to push the reader towards an emotional response.

One Shell Too Many

I don’t get the reason for much of anything here. There just happen to be some crabs that are shape-shifting youkai that for some reason allowed themselves to be caught and sold … and eventually killed? Why? And why do we spend any time at all with Wriggle? What relevance does she or her bug powers have except for getting her nose pinched? I feel like the likely answer is just arbitrary preference from the author. With the ending and the bits with Wriggle it looks like the author was trying to be humorous. If that’s the case, I can’t help but feel like that could have been accomplished with far fewer words and leaning into the strengths of the short format and playing up the absurd. As it stands, I’m not left with much of an impression.

Little Princess’ Little Odyssey

The story could have started at:
>Eventually, she reached the higher ledge, pulling herself over and onto it.

And nothing would have really changed. But beyond that, I’m not sure what the real point of the story told is other than to show that Shinmyomaru is impulsive, doesn’t think things through, but ultimately harmless—established facets of her character. I am tickled by the idea of Akyuu writing down the Shinmyomaru’s colorful tales but that doesn’t actually happen here. Things just resolve in a very anticlimactic manner and there’s not much to the two purple-haired princesses meeting.

A remedy for a Headache

Hifuu, gotcha. It does cleave close to the style of the stories told with the albums. Complete with the idiosyncrasies and obliqueness of what’s being said. But it still is weird for other reasons, not limited to somewhat jarring phrasing in places and structure. I think that might be obfuscating the point of the story and lessening the impact of the choices made. You have to be extra mindful that you need to be precise and clear with your language when attempting something whose style is unconventional otherwise you risk being unintelligble to your audience.

(ZUN’s little ramblings via the CDs are also, at times, strange but he has the great advantage of having music that helps set the mood and process what is being said.)

Part two, here we go.

Pardon if I’m a bit curt on some of these, especially on the ones I just didn’t care about/for. See the beginning of >>18221 for all references to general Points One through Four that I made to shortcut a lot of what I feel the need to say.

An Unconscious Visit
Point One applies here in some regards, though it’s more an issue of execution for me. The emotions displayed are understandable, but they feel somewhat unearned. We, from Koishi’s null-mind perspective, can’t really perceive what it is that Satori is going through, so it ends up having little weight beyond a sense of demanding the reader already hold a certain sense of pathos for the whole situation. Yes, yes, it’s tragic — but so are a lot of things. Which isn’t to say I hated it for that fact, but I suppose it raises the question of why it wasn’t simply from Satori’s perspective instead.

just ignore this one
Point One, pure and simple. Perhaps Point Two as well, as I get a whiff of the concept being connected in the writer’s mind to something outside the work itself.

Would you like to know more?
No, I would not. Next question.

I haven’t paid attention to word counts, but this feels very strongly Point Two. It’s also solidly Point One, being a clear style-parody of something like Helldivers 2. Absent a strong draw to that by default, there’s not much of interest. The humour relies on bombast and a sort of amateur improv theatre sense of absurdism that falls flat at every turn. There’s also the pure fact that this barely feels of Touhou, much less about it. On a conceptual level alone, it just doesn’t hold up, unfortunately.

The Day Fire Fell to Earth
Points One, Two, and Four. Just like the piece just prior, I have the same issue here but even worse. I’m sorry, but nothing will convince me to care about someone’s homemade mythology dabbed with the faintest trace of Touhou-shaded polish. This doesn’t engage with the series on the conceptual level in any demonstrable way, which makes me question if the writer even cares about Touhou beyond the most surface-level trappings. Talking about execution is a waste of time, but I also find it substandard in a way that significant exposure to the wider body of literature out there would probably go a long way in remedying.

An Iota of Eternity
It’s an interesting take on a notably difficult character, so I’ll applaud that alone. Still, I do feel that the core of this entry is a little undercooked, verging on Point One. The perspective character loves Eirin in a way that is described, yes, but the sense of why that would even be is missing. In fact, it’s more centered on their view of Eirin than Eirin herself. In that sense, the feelings are a little unearned; I’m not sensing the actual gravitas of those emotions. The ending is also weak for just outright telling us what could be hinted at in more subtle ways. Ponder this: did it really have to be an exchange between Eirin and Reisen? Additionally, the whole little metaphysical explanation detracts a bit, meandering off what should be a pretty tight focus for such a short piece.

Stylistically, I’m just going to say that the parentheticals really break the flow of the prose, and there are quite a few for the space of the piece. Also, just to nitpick, a hyphen is different to an em-dash.

Burakumin
Point Two for this one. I’d say it’s fine for the most part, and I appreciate how it reminded me somewhat of Turgenev in some capacity. That said, it needed more focus. The piece comes off as several pieces of a story stitched together, and I think one or other of the halves needed to go. Personally, I’m whatever on dealing with Yukari, even if the handling here was defter than most, so that would have been a prime candidate. I’m also not sure I see the ‘burakumin’ part hinted at in the title beyond some very general implications. In general, eta were people who lived fairly communal existences to survive, so one guy out on his own doesn’t give much sense of that without seeing how ‘normal village folk’ view him. Maybe some of these things are particularisms in the writer’s own views or understanding. As I say, fine but perhaps a bit absorbed in some of its own ideas.

Sugar Shape
Point One. What was the aim here? Why Tsukasa and Sanae beyond a surface-level connection? What is even Tsukasa’s role here? Why couldn’t it have been Sanae alone? These are the most pertinent conceptual issues to ponder.

Execution-wise, if the focus was meant to be the actual katanuki-ing, then it ought to have started there. Also, the onomatopœia only add visual noise and convey nothing that couldn’t be just as well done in-prose.

First Contact
Point One. Points for attempting to cover Beast Realm stuff, but this doesn’t do anything interesting with the material. The haniwa as a Terminator-esque robot is just a big whatever to me, as is the general recapitulation of WBaWC inherent in the events of the story. In many regards, this feels only like Touhou in a surface-level capacity.

Midday
Midnight
I’m grouping these together because I get the strong sense they’re the same writer. If they’re not, sorry, I guess.

Still, it’s pretty Point One with both. The sense of angst and tragedy is just generally unearned. We’re being told to feel bad about things that are sad and bad with nothing much to back that assertion. Sorry, but it’s the sort of thing I find very tiresome. There’s also a lot of unncessary circle-squaring going on with everything to do with Mizuchi and whichever Hakurei it was. The stuff with Mokou is particularly weird because Mokou just flat-out had little to do with people for so long.

Untitled Alice Story
Point One and strong Point Three here. Maybe Point Two as well? I feel some particularisms in interpretation. Either way, sorry, but PC-98 does nothing for me on a pretty basic level. Besides that, something about the idea of Alice presented just doesn’t ring that true to me; she’s absolutely fixated on dolls to the point that I’m not sure she’d even question ever getting tired of them.

Clothes
Points One, Two, and Three. This probably ought to have opened in the shop already if that was the main thrust. Overall, though, I feel the question of why a random donut steel as opposed to, say, Yamame is a more pressing issue. Also, the emotions are largely unearned; we’re just essentially pressed with the idea that Marisa is swayed by the spider’s tears or attracted to the suddenly offered apron rather than truly convinced of it.

One Shell Too Many
Point One. This is unfocused in general and seems to just be a couple of things the writer thought was funny thrown into a rough framework. I don’t see much point in the choice of characters, nor do I see much story here in general.

Little Princess’ Little Odyssey
Point One. Much of the above could apply here, too, though I at least found the general meeting of Shinmyoumaru and Akyuu cute. However, the characterisations were a bit flat. Shinmyoumaru is brash, yes, but she can be other things. Akyuu feels largely just present and shows unearned goodwill towards Shinmyoumaru. Also, everything up to the two meeting could have been cut, to be honest.

Kudamaki/Kuro
Points One and Two. Nothing more to say.

BombaBomba’s five(!) entries
Points One, Three, and Four were pretty much made to address all of these. Sorry, but I see little but undirected enthusiasm here. There’s not much engagement with Touhou on any interesting level; most of what comes off feels just like recapitulated fandom memes in slightly different configurations. It’s fine to have enthusiasm, but it’s important to rein it in and harness it to more useful ends. Also, especially in an event like this, crossovers are just a big no. Not sorry.

Apologies to the latecomer, but I just can’t right now. I have a headache, low energy, and waning focus, so I’ll have to get to it at an unspecific ‘later’.

>>18231
...right, shit, I forgot to go ahead and reveal that I wrote Unlived. Unfortunately, the aforementioned headache is pitching towards a migraine, so I'm not even going to attempt to say much on it right now. It's not like there's a greater context to expound on or anything, so I don't think it warrants much in the way of explanation, anyway.

>>18231
>>18230
Responding to both since I have the same thoughts about both responses here. Funnily enough my criteria for ideas I chose were just small cute things I didn't think I could write a story about, beside the desire to see two action figures be smashed against each other or liking Wriggle. So in my mind there’s just not much to say here other than I was just having fun writing and didn’t put too much thought into what I was writing itself. I'm glad to have participated and been able to read what other people wrote here.
I saw someone on the discord server comment about how next time participants should be limited to entry, and I think that’s a good idea for next time if you want to get a different result. I’m glad that the energy I had translated through, though, writing is something I really enjoy. I’ll try to improve my lacking prose more and I’m glad to have gotten so many responses.
Anyway, if we do this again I'll try to make my submission(s) funnier.

>>18233
Oh yeah! I totatly forgot so I hope he forgives me for this, but only one of my entries ever had a second draft and was edited. That was Nightbug, edited by lowcreatureofthenight.

This is mostly going to be short overall impressions and heavily tilted by personal preferences. I confess I'm not a literary reader or writer (hey i just like touhou too much and idk why) so there's a bunch of wonderful stories here that went blasting over my head. That makes it both hard to understand these entries deeply and to give proper criticism. So I apologize in advance when I leave out a story or I'm not able to say much at all.

Kamehime
Please correct me if not, but I believe it's Meiling as the subject and implied as the Dragon god? I think the dialogue-like setup and imagery was interesting. I like how the narrator's understanding of the personified weather grows which simultaneously offers an explanation for the Human Village's dragon statue's eyes, which is a topic I've not encountered at all in other fanworks.

A remedy for a headache
Very mysterious and dark atmosphere.

Little Princess' Little Odyssey
Previous reviews have already said most of what I wanted to here. Akyuu and Shinmyoumaru have a very nice exchange of dialogue, but as a suggestion, I think the journey to reach Akyuu could be enhanced if it revealed to Sukuna details that support her later sympathy for Akyuu. Say, servants gossiping or impressions that Akyuu also has relatable restrictions in her lifestyle despite being called a princess? Of course, there's not a lot of words to spare in this exhibition.

One Shell Too Many
The opening and Wriggle trying to save the crabs is fun. The crabs becoming youkai lost me, however.

(untitled >>/shorts/3304)
The writing got across sadness and a little nostalgia.

just ignore this one
I feel like I'm missing a lot of context, and I felt the dialogue dragged for what felt like a tense stand-off situation.

Sculptor
I liked this one quite a bit. Very short and a neat concept of a haniwa using their own clay to make smaller sculptures.

The Visitor
This is great as well, pretty spooky. Chen and her cat village is nice to see. I am curious if the mystery individual in the house is related to the disembodied eyes in Yukari's gaps?

An Unconscious Visit
This one was painful and tender. I feel Koishi is a challenge to write, but this depiction was convincing to me and I personally enjoyed feeling Satori's turmoil from her dialogue and Koishi's perspective.

Midnight + Midday
I can't say much for these because I'm still apathetic about Mizuchi or Cheating Detective Satori. I did like Mokou being awkward in the conversation and struggling with communicating her vastly longer term outlook.

First Contact
This was really fun. This story really captures the relentless nature of Keiki's haniwa in brutal fashion. I also liked the concept that Keiki isn't the first attempted savior of the human spirits.

Rolling River, Standing Stone
Really well written and captures both a sense of timelessness and togetherness.

Destination Elsewhere
Interesting look at lunar rabbit society.

A Snipping Motion
I very much enjoyed this one. The way the nervous energy is conveyed and shared, the cultural elements of the rabbits, and the way their telepathy works were all wonderful. I believe this may be the lead up for the events of LoLK?

Unlived
This is good. The scene is vivid, the initial introspection gives off a sense of loneliness and helplessness, and I also really liked how Youmu's desire for growth pulls through. It does feel like Yuyuko is depicted quite harshly, almost cruel to Youmu. My personal opinions thrash against it, but unfortunately for me, I also can see how it fits the ghost. Damn.

Clothes
Extremely cute. My only complaints are that Marisa feels too enthusiastic as the end and that stating the full name of the seamstress in dialogue makes the original-ness of the character stand out. I say this only because having names at the end gives them a lot of emphasis, but I'm not sure what the significance of us knowing the character's name is in this short work.

One Dish was my entry. I'm really heartened that people seem to enjoy this depiction of a shrine party and I fully accept the criticism of a lack of deeper substance. The main idea for this was Shinmyoumaru's first flower viewing party in a post-DDC context, and her getting overly excited by the sheer variety of new faces and their giant-scale cuisines. She would learn the lesson that it's better to stick with and enjoy one thing fully rather than force having it all. I admit it's a pretty basic fable-like setup and that I wasn't too successful in communicating it. I intentionally set up a dizzying number of characters to capture Shinmyoumaru's own experiences, but the food section probably took over the story.

One specific thing I would like feedback on is Reimu's final line about cleaning up. I thought it would add some humor by breaking Shinmyoumaru's reverie, but I'm afraid it might've twisted the ending away from the lesson learned.

Overall, it was great seeing so many entries to the point of overwhelming. There's a liveliness to events like this and I want to thank Teruyo, Mask, and the others on the site staff for both running these events and the site in general. Thanks to everyone for participating and reviewing.

>>18235
It might have worked to have a panoply of different 'hus if you'd had more space to start, but the fact remains that there wasn't. Also, I'd say the fact that it was meant to follow on the events of DDC wasn't really communicated. At least, I'm afraid I didn't catch that from any particular lines.

>the final line
Well, what you wanted to communicate was a bit muddled structurally, so whether or not the closing bit was a non-sequitur is immaterial. I can't say I had any real reaction to it; it just was.

>Unlived
I'm not sure where the impression of Yuyuko being cruel came from. The fact that she's humiliated Youmu? I felt it would be generally understood that the nature of their relationship would be clear from wording like 'pleasantly belittle'. The point is that Youmu is childish and reacts like a child to things, including being a bit thin-skinned when her mistress makes her the butt of a (probably harmless) joke.

As to Youmu seeking growth, you're sort of half-there. I mean, she does want to grow as a person, but it's also something a bit more fundamental. She doesn't feel alive because she has no real human connection to anyone. Everything about ghosts, death, coldness, and so on is in service to that point. However, it's a difficult thing to overcome when her only viewpoint is as someone who can't be fully counted as human. In some ways, it's a delusion for her to pursue that end, but only inasmuch as lacking the maturity and true introspection that would allow her to understand her own behaviour with others.

Just as an aside, did you catch all of the appeals to bonds, ties, cords, etc.? The severance thereof or the urge to do so? That's what I feel was key to the whole piece. Indeed, Youmu's first instinct is to sever and be severed from, even from herself. Something to chew on.

>>18236
I thought Yuyuko was being cruel as well. The fact is she humiliated Youmu and she's an adult responsible for Youmu's care. True Youmu is also her servant, but that just adds another layer to the power imbalance between the two of them. I also think that while air-headed at times Youmu wouldn't earnestly make a comment that she thinks would hurt Youmu's feelings, and I think Yuyuko would have a pretty good read on what Youmu is thinking as well. Yeah, children act childish and they need to grow up, but this sort of ribbing is something men do to each other, not women. So it comes across as harsher here.
Yuyuko, as an authority figure who holds a lot of power over Youmu and is thus is responsible for her well being. If Youmu does something bad, its also Yuyuko's fault and if Youmu is hurt that's also her failing. Youmu as you present her here, while a bit more introspective, is as you say, a child. You have a child-coded character being picked on by their surrogate parental figure and mentally spiraling in response. Of course Yuyuko is going to come off as cruel.

I also really wanted to say, the topic of Youmu stabbing herself with her swords in order to accomplish something does come up in PoFV when Tewi says-
>If Youmu stabbed herself with that sword, she would receive greater good luck~
-If she beats Youmu in multiplayer.

>>18237
>being picked on by their surrogate parental figure and mentally spiraling in response
It ain't that deep, my guy. The implication is Youmu being the butt of a joke or whatever and going, "Well, I'm leaving!" in the same way that a bratty kid might do. Like, honestly, you're reading a bit far there.

And, well, there's quite a bit of difference between childish and actually being a child. She's immature, not literally a mental child.

>>18238
I don't think I'm reading into it. The story doesn't make any attempts to undermine Youmu's emotions in a comedic way where it makes it look like she's childish and 'pleasantly belittle' sounds like a cruel turn of phrase someone would use to down play something they've said in order to hurt another person's feelings.
We don't see what Yuyukp would say so the event itself so its entirely left to audience imagination. Yuyuko also, as the fic itself points out, makes a lot of demands of Youmu and as the fic points out, Youmu has been serving Yuyuko like this since her earliest memories. Which seems cruel, not to mention Youmu's emotional state.
>Hadn’t she also walked to the precipice and gazed at the living world? Despair swarmed in a thick haze.
Which Yuyuko should take some account for, instead of just as the fic describes.
> After her mistress had humiliated her at yet another party,
-humiliating her again. Yuyuko is the unseen villain here, she's literally responsible for. Youmu's last lines here also sound like victum blaming.
>Rather than Lady Yuyuko, her current point of view was the taut cord to sever.
Yuyuko is responsible for Youmu and is the reason she has the life that she has. Now Youmu goes on to think she'll learn from the humans, but the root of her issue here is the long life of servitude she has to a woman who belittles her and doesn't take responsibility for her when she's in a bad emotional state.

BombaBomba's 5 Entries >>3275: Rumia and Remilia is okay at a rookie level. I personally feel like it overuses the "is that so" trait associated with Rumia, but overall I would say that the story did not overstay its welcome. The same cannot be said of your other four entries, which I rapidly ran out of patience for and felt were made mostly of fandom memes. The crossover also has no appeal to me. The volume of words is noteworthy but amounts to little without a compelling reason to pay attention, and I would also say it conflicts with the event guidelines to limit word use. Consider the merits of quality over quantity as an approach.

Clothes >>3278: The entry is okay at a rookie level. The stuttering and general overwrought emotional responses of the original character felt crude enough to detract from the entry. I also feel like this premise was not suited for the word count limit of the entry, as I think the relationship between Marisa and the OC needs more detail to make interesting. As it stands, it feels rushed. Maybe the exaggerated behavior I mentioned earlier is related to this. Overall, I think it is okay. Consider taking a step back from your ideas to assess how many words you will need to flesh them out without relying on shortcuts.

Unlived >>3279: It is interesting to see a Youmu story that takes a more serious tone rather than a comedic one. I remember reading some stories about the differences in character lifespans in the past, but not many in recent years. Maybe the topic fell out of fashion. I like how this one examines her relationship with Yuyuko more critically and describes some meaningful tension in it rather than lean on something like “I <3 MY OJOU SAMA”. I also appreciate the choice to not include any dialogue in the story. I feel like it contributes to the sense of Youmu being isolated by other characters, including Yuyuko, who assume that she is stagnant and dull while she actually is keenly aware of things. To see Youmu given this level of reflection and intent to grow is refreshing and pleasantly surprising when so often we instead see characters reduced to fit crude and preconceived roles. If I understand the ending correctly, her intent to outgrow the stagnant patterns of her life had the effect of severing herself from the cycle of life and death altogether. I am not fully confident in my interpretation and hope to find the answer later. Overall, I think this entry is very good. I am satisfied and have no significant suggestions to make.

Kudamaki/Kuro >>3280: I am told that this is redo reimu fanfiction. From what I see of the prose I would say it is unpolished but still okay at a rookie level, but due to lacking context for redo reimu I am unable to engage with this story. This entry is a particular example of a common pitfall in fanfiction (an especially crossovers): The writer assumes familiarity with characters and setting from the source material and saves some effort but makes it harder to ‘onboard’ readers who may have different interpretations or levels of familiarity and also can easily lead to shallow descriptions and interpretations. Relying on this shortcut is understandable but can develop into a problem that limits your writing technique, even within fanfiction. Consider how you can more completely ‘sell’ to your readers what you want to write.

>>18239
Yeah, you're taking a lot of stuff that's more figurative at face value here. Sure, Youmu feels bummed about her lack of connection to others, but that's separate of the issue of whether or not her mistress is a meanie.

Also, as I said above, her whole thing with thinking she'll somehow magically be 'more alive' by connecting with others is ultimately a delusion on her part. It's naïvite manifest. She is being clownish on a meta-level by charging towards a goal like that on the assumption that it's as simple as 'be more personable'. Yes, this is meant to be somewhat funny if you think about it too long.

It ain't that deep, bro.

>>18241
I mean, Youmu lacks a connection to others due to the circumstances of her birth, which are both being a half-human half spirit, and being born into generational servitude.
Yuyuko, a person who's responsible for Youm's servitude doesn't try to help her with her problems and instead makes fun of her.
That's a mean thing to do.
Also I thought Youmu's conclusion wasn't delusional, it doesn't say anything about her become literally more alive. Her problem is that she feels bad she lacks human connection, so she decides to try to make more of an effort on her part to make a connection with humans.
Is it going to be more difficult than she thinks, yes. But that's just her first clumsy step to getting the human connection she desires.

>>18241
If Unlived was trying to be funny at Youmu's expense, it missed the mark pretty badly, at least for me. I felt bad for her.

>>18243
That whole facet of the story isn't meant to be 'laugh out loud' funny. It's supposed to be more of a mild chuckle and a shake of the head. And I suppose there's a level of black humour, too. "We laugh so that we may not cry," sort of thing. It doesn't resonate with all people, but can't do nothin' 'bout that.

>>18242
Yes, but there is also the fact that she's a massive fucking dork who takes herself very seriously. If all you're seeing is the tragedy of it, I don't know what to tell you.

>>18244
Youmu's come across as very somber here, she has a lot of problems in her life. One of them being a circumstance of her birth that she can't change, but even then she resolves herself to try to make a human connection.
Honestly, I relate to her here too and I think her actions are laudable. She's making an effort to confront her emotional problems and deal with them despite the challenges she has in her life.

>>18245
Look, it's fine if you understand things differently. Really. Just, do understand that there was an intention there, and I've more or less stated it as best I can with authorial authority. Maybe not with the most confidence. Maybe not in the clearest fashion. Either way, I'm just asking that you consider that intention in light of your own take. You don't have to agree with it, but you ought to chew it over.

>>18246
You're flufflymaask? I thought he stopped responding since you dropped your tripcode? But yeah. I take that into consideration, and I think its bunk. Which is a shame, since, despite not being my favorite I though it was probably the best quality wise since it was very effective in evoking the emotions I thought you were trying to convey. Now I don't know how to feel about it.
But I can say this. Its in no way funny, its a very somber and sweet story about a girl with a lot of issues who takes the first step to try to address them.
Although congratulations on making me really like Youmu, I didn't think of her much before I read Unlived.

>>18236
Thank you for the feedback, it is helpful.

I've completed a reread of "Unlived".

I may have gone too far to say Yuyuko is "cruel" as I probably empathized too much with Youmu from the first couple reads. I was going to explain further, but that conversation left the station long ago.

Of course, this is Youmu's story. I did get something of her dependence on her swords, but I completely missed the references of severing as just metaphors. I think I was able to appreciate the concept better on the latest read. Other reviewers do bring up that theme, so it does seem like it's getting across. Hoping those questions weren't rhetorical, but I did indeed get something to think about.

Again, I'm not great at picking up the finer ideas in literature. It's a skill I've neglected from reading stories primarily to get invested in things and events, which were certainly compelling here on their own. For whatever my opinion's worth, I still really enjoyed "Unlived", even if I missed much of the higher level stuff.

>>18240
Oh, derp, I was going to respond to this one as well.

I'll get to writing up a sort of self-review at some point, but I'd say you're pretty off the mark with the ending. Which is fine! It's pretty abstract, partly because I simply ran out of room. I see it as a bit of a blessing in disguise, though. The only thing is that I might have had a different ending line. In fact, I did before. It previously ended with something along the lines of
>Youmu felt herself being tugged downward by something.

I wanted the final sentence to reflect the sense of cords, ties, bonds, lines, etc. I mean, the whole point is that Youmu always tries to sever things. Notice how she instinctively grips her blades to steady herself? It's all sort of clumsy, yes, but I had little time and space to work. That said, what I ended up going with at the end is more along the lines of talking about how she's detached from herself. I guess I wanted to make it a little clearer that she really doesn't know what she's doing in a larger sense. In other words, she's still a fucking dork.

>>18247
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Adding on to past discussions.

>The Day Fire Fell to Earth

So, I got a post in the discord taking issue with part of my post, screenshotted as the image of this post.

To elaborate on the issue I had with this, the problem is that there's not enough in the story to understand why Sen reads it as 'a murder'. The goddess appears, heals Sen, refuses to explain anything, and then dies.

Even if Sen's presence is responsible for that death, it's weird for them to say it's a 'murder'. I'm not even sure they actually touched her, and whatever their presence was doing, they were fine approaching and healing Sen without hesitation, exhaustion, or regret. It's hard to even take it as her being 'dead' in any sense of the word.

I feel like a soldier has some rather more specific interpretations of what them killing someone is like. So having what appears to be some sort of modern-ish soldier leap from "this person vanished in front of me" to "I MURDERED them" feels out of character. And without the time to explore what that means for gensokyo or sen's mindset around life and death, it's hard to follow how that even works.

Basically, to make the through-line to make Sen's response feel reasonable, it requires more information than what the story currently contains, and probably more than what a flash-fic could fit. And as the last line of the fic, it carries a lot of weight that it doesn't have the foundation to support. I think something to that effect could work, but it should leave more unsaid about Sen's interpretation of events. It has a bad echo of a common complaint about 'millenial writing', where people go 'did x just happen?/did I just y?' after a big event. Takes the edge off when the edge really should be there.

>Unlived

I'm going to be blunt, what I read the work as was horror, not humour in the slightest. The fact that Youmu has this deep introspection about being seperated and ostracized from most others is tragic, the fact that Yuyuko either can't or won't help her understand to the point that Youmu considers murdering her comes off as casual cruelty, and the ending about 'falling with nothing to meet her' in particular has this "you've started to make progress, so now something's happening to prevent that progress" vibe to that makes it seem like Youmu's deliberately being kept in this miserable state for whatever reason.

If that's meant to be read as humour, I can only guess that it's meant to be she either tried or actually did walk off some edge or something literally. Which is so completely unrelated to the general concerns Youmu's thinking about and the rest of the work that it makes no sense as a punchline.

Like, this Youmu does not read as a dork. She reads as an abused child; someone deliberately ostracized and kept unable to understand things she really should know by now. "My master is holding me back, I should cut myself off from her - no, it's all my fault" is unironically the sort of broken self-defeating logic you get from abuse victims, it's Stockholm Syndrome. As a result of that, the one thing I did recognise as not fitting the introspective vibe - "maybe I should try smiling?" - reads as tragically sheltered, or even like an indicator of deep socialisation issues, rather than a dorky naivete.

I think this may have a problem of being written with too much context being already accepted by the author/editor, and that context being implicit in their read of the work but not actually hinted at so the audience can follow. To make it more clear she's just being a chuuni dork, she'd need more moments of actively undercutting her own introspection with more sheepish realisations - e.g. "How many decades has it been with that old woman, I remember her as a little girl with that red kimono... no, wait, was that her granddaughter? I saw them eating dango together. Oops." that sort of thing.

>>18248
Hey, if I made you think and consider your own point of view, I've done my job as a writer. I mean, seriously, a lot of people don't introspect much about their need to identify with a perspective character emotionally or similar sorts of things. Gives me a bit of a warm fuzzy hearing all that.

As to picking up on things, I'd say don't worry too much. I'm never that sure what I've even picked up on from literature. Hell, my writing process is painful as all get-out because that sort of abstraction is difficult for me. Brain-wiring stuff, innit. Still, it's just a matter of reading and appreciating. Just keep reading and appreciating.

>>18250
There's quite a few assumptions there that I'm not real sure what to say about. Like I told the other guy: it ain't that deep, man.

I think part of the problem is that teasing, like Yuyuko does to Youmu, is only ok if the target is sort of ok with it. In Unlived, Youmu is clearly not ok with it, which makes it bullying. And a hereditary master bullying a hereditary servant is kind of horrifying, especially with the POV character being the victim.

Well, here we go. These reviews are by necessity all going to be brief, just a paragraph or so for most of them, and I'm afraid a lot of them ended up being some variation on "I didn't get it." I tried to offer constructive criticism wherever possible, so apologies if any of this comes off as harsh, but hopefully it'll at least be helpful.

Rumia and Remilia:
Honestly, I have trouble seeing this as Remilia. The idea of a vampire being helped out of a sunlight-related problem by Rumia is a clever one, but Remilia has a lot of pride. I could see a scenario where she's reduced to taking help from a minor youkai like Rumia, but it would need to be a lot more serious of a situation, and she'd be completely humiliated by the need. Remilia strikes me as a more "I guess I'll let you help me, if you insist" kind of person, and this one is too humble and unassuming to feel like the Scarlet Devil.

Nightbug:
If you'll excuse the pun, this one feels like it needs a proper stinger. But in all seriousness, the general story concept is again decent. Outsider finds himself in trouble and Wriggle saving him from Rumia is something I could potentially see happening, but it's missing a few pieces to tie it together. Wriggle's not the most antagonistic youkai in the world, but she's also not particularly friendly to humans. Why would she care about the random human outsider, or her reputation in the village? The other thing is that the organized crime briefcase/handcuffs bit doesn't seem to tie into the actual Gensokyo half of the story. The events would play out essentially the same way if he was a completely normal outsider, so why does the organized crime connection matter?

Reisen kills Turbo granny:
This story in particular feels like it falls victim to the old problem of telling instead of showing. There's several points in the story where Reisen's thoughts, narration, or dialogue feel less like something Reisen would actually do, and more like you needed to spell out to the reader that "X thing is happening" or "Reisen is feeling X right now". That's always immersion-breaking when it happens, and while I didn't see it in your previous entries, it kinda plagues this one.

"Clothes":
So, first off, I like the characterization of Marisa here. There's a few clever lines, like how her curiosity was going to get someone else hurt, or her "pulling weeds" as a front for herb gathering. With that said, I feel like the twist isn't quite sold well enough. The reversal of Marisa being interested in a newly made garment is plausible... but if the spider here is just that good, why weren't the existing clothes of the same quality? There being nothing to Marisa's wardrobe is one thing, but if there's nothing anyone she knows would be interested in, what exactly is the store stocking? Marisa's turnabout is also a bit too earnest for her - even if she's awed, I think she'd pretend not to be, in the hopes of getting a better deal.

Honestly, I kinda suspect some of this is the word limit hitting. I'd love to see an expanded version of this that goes into more detail about this strange new youkai and her weird store.

Unlived:
To be honest, this feels like flowery prose for the sake of flowery prose. I'll admit I've never been one who cared for that style of writing, so this may be a personal taste thing, but the descriptions in the first half or so mostly fell flat for me.

As for the central conflict of the story... I feel like that it doesn't hold true to Youmu. The idea that her life has been in large part unlived is fine, I can see her being stuck in a holding pattern, but I think that's more Youmu being Youmu than something Yuyuko has inflicted on her. The half phantom has never struck me as resenting Yuyuko, even if she's occasionally frustrated by her. If anything, her master is the one most likely to pull her out of her comfort zone and make sure she gets other life experiences.

A Snipping Motion:
The writing tone is good. I can feel the sort of pre-deployment nerves from Ringo, the restlessness, the worry she's trying not to voice. I don't have much to criticize beyond a few small editing things ("tom outfit" and such). The one larger point is that perhaps making the looming threat of deployment a bit more obvious would have made it easier to get, but that's always a fine line to walk, and you don't want to be too blatant about such things.

One Dish:
This one's pretty good. Poor Shinmy with her carefully laid plans, all undone by a simple oversight. Pretty much the only thing I'd have wanted to see added would be a punchier description of how all those wonderful distinct foods had merged into a brown stewish sludge... but that's a minor criticism. Overall, a great read.

Destination Elsewhere:
I just didn't understand the twist to this one. Even after reading it a couple times, I don't understand what the look of "hateful savage warning" was about. It's also unclear to me what the significance of the belts being finished would be, or why that would be a bad thing. The writing style isn't bad, but I simply didn't get what you were trying to communicate.

An Iota of Eternity:
First things first, there comes a point where your choice of words is doing nothing but showing off that you know how to use a dictionary. Nobody is going to know what haruspex means without looking it up.

Aside from that... the idea of Eirin having an old pupil who helped her refine the Hourai elixir as its test subject is an interesting one, and the twist of her being dead (or possibly stuck in limbo) as a direct result of said experiments is delivered well. My main complaint would be the characterization - I understand why you went the route of having her obsessively devoted to Eirin, but I don't particularly enjoy that sort of character.

Also, one other small point - it's a bit weird for her to make the request in terms of "beautiful princess looked after by a wise doctor" when she's outright been naming Kaguya and Eirin anyway. I'd also expect Mokou (who I assume is the one she's talking to) to have some sort of response if she's not completely incapacitated by her temporary death.

Influence:
This story just came off feeling like it needed more of a point. I'm genuinely just not sure what you're trying for here. Is it to demonstrate Miyoi's own influence at Geidontei over people and youkai? Is it showing the pub functioning in similar fashion for both humans and youkai, outlining the similarity of the two groups? Is it meant to instead show the differences, how humans were duplicitously shooed out for the youkai to gather and be welcomed? I'm genuinely not sure what you were going for here, and as a result the story didn't leave much of an impression on me.

Sugar Shape:
I do find myself sympathizing with the yamawaro here. Tsukasa's own prize-winning effort does prove the game is fair, and so it comes off as Sanae being childish and a bit spoiled. The characterization is otherwise fine, Tsukasa's backhanded threat at the end is very much her... but because the yamawaro is legitimately just refusing to be bullied, it comes off as more malicious than justice. If the game was actually rigged in some way (Tsukasa noting how bits of the wafer overlapping the lines of the prize are effectively glued together or such), it'd feel a lot stronger but as-is, the punchline falls a bit flat.

Burakumin:
Honestly, I enjoyed this as just straight up slice of life. While I didn't get the explanation of why Yukari's interested in him, the moments of him hunting ducks, dealing with kappa, and just general being an old guy with a comfortable life are still compelling. It's a good short.

The Day Fire Fell to Earth:
The first thing I want to point out is formatting. You need some space between paragraphs, because as-is the text ends up all clumped together and it's harder to read. It's a small change that makes a big difference.

As far as the story itself goes, this is another one where I simply don't understand what the author is getting at. If not for a vague awareness of Satsuki Rin and the single mention of Gensokyo, I wouldn't know this was a Touhou story at all. I've got no idea what sort of conflict the character is in, why she's eating blood cookies, or serves a head maid, or anything. So it's hard for me to say anything more.

Rolling River, Standing Stone:
I had to look up Eika to fully understand the stillborn child part. The idea is suggested within the story, but not quite clearly enough for someone unfamiliar with the character to be certain. Which is a flaw I have in my own writing - I tend to assume my readers will be familiar with whatever character I throw in at any point, so it's hard for me to throw stones here.

Jokes aside, I think the short works pretty well, showing how Eika's entire personality is making the best of a bad situation for all the stillborn children she's responsible for.

One Last Bloody Tear:
I'll freely admit I have no idea how canon-compliant this actually is, but what you've written is interesting. The characterization of Shizuha as a small god of death is one I haven't seen before, but it makes a certain amount of sense, and it gives her something to be aside from one of the hapless, harmless stage 1 characters.

The final line is pretty good, too.

Midday:
It's a bittersweet moment. Things have changed, mostly for the better, but that doesn't mean that what came before won't be missed. I don't have any criticism for you, I think you knew what you were going for and more or less nailed it.

First Contact:
I was editor for this one, so all I'll say is that I think it came out well.

Midnight:
Really, I need to finish reading Foul Detective Satori. Not knowing as much context makes this one harder for me to get, but it's still well-written. The one small thing I'd point out is that the there's a couple paragraphs near the beginning where Mokou's name gets repeated several times in quick succession - swapping that out for an equivalent description to vary it would be nice. But it's a small criticism, and other than that I think the piece is fine.

An Unconscious Visit:
As a known Satori fan, I would like you to keep in mind that I'm biased based on the characters you've chosen.

And with that said... this was fantastic. It's my favorite piece in the exhibition. Satori's grief at her sister being right there but not there is raw, and it hits hard. Her grief, the clues that she's drunk, the outright begging for Koishi to say she'll come back... and then the moment of truth where the unconsciousness youkai lets loose a tear? It's all great.

So yeah. I love the concept, I love the execution, and I really hope you continue writing, because this was excellent.

Reisen kills an Alien:
Again, I'm finding "show, not tell" to be applicable advice here. There's just too many points through this story where Reisen's dialogue, thoughts, or narration is very clearly there because you wanted the reader to know something, and not because it's something Reisen would actually say or think. Such things always take the reader out of the story when they occur, and while it's a hard line to walk (just look up and see the number of pieces where my response was basically "I don't get it"), learning how to show a character thinks or feels a certain way without spelling it out is a key skill for any writer.

The Visitor:
The rising sense of dread works alright. The setup of it being an otherwise ordinary house works against it, but the slowly increasing sense of wrongness compensates. However, I'm having trouble with the logic of Chen continuing to explore. The initial idea of venturing in to find a runaway cat is fine - I can see Chen being just rebellious enough to ignore an order with that as her excuse. However, her instincts are clearly telling her something is wrong here, and that combined with a vaguely ominous Yakumo warning to steer clear of the place should be more than enough to get her to leave. Particularly when she opens the final room, her instincts are screaming at her, the "room" is nothing but utter blackness, and... she enters anyway?

The stinger also doesn't really resolve anything. Why is the room pitch black? What even is the eye that lurches away? I'm just not sure what actually happened here.

Sculptor:
I'm afraid this is another piece I simply didn't get. I'm assuming this is meant to be about a haniwa assisting Keiki, but I don't for the life of me see why she'd want a haniwa whose role was to sculpt small figurines. Presumably it's an emotional attachment to one of her first creations, but that still seems an odd thing for her to spend time making, considering that it has seemingly no utility in the gang war she's fighting. It also seems off for her to let the haniwa erode into his own sculptures if she's attached to him... ultimately, the piece raises more questions than answers for me.

Just ignore this one:
The characterization seems really off for this one. The swap between an almost robotic narration and Ran acting like an offended liberal woman is incredibly jarring... as is the fact that this random guy sees a kitsune appear seemingly out of nowhere and his response is to dismissively flirt with her. I can't imagine Ran acting like that, nor can I imagine someone capable of finding the Hakurei behavior having such an obvious death wish.

Cyberpunk: Lunatic Red
I think I'm just missing the necessary crossover context for this one. My guess is that the missile hitting the player character is an established event in the early game of Cyberpunk 2077, and that if I'd played the game the point would be more clear. As is, I don't really understand what the point is, or why an assault force of youkai and half-youkai would be using a missile in the first place.

Untitled Story (Post 3304):
Remember, leave space between your paragraphs. It's less of a problem with such a short entry, but it makes the story a lot easier to read.

Beyond that, it feels like the idea is only half drawn-out. There's a hint of something here, of Alice either using her dolls to learn human interaction, or reducing said interaction down into playing with her dolls, but the piece is so brief I only caught a glimpse of the idea, and I'm not sure where you meant to go with it.

Would you like to know more:
Same first comment as the piece above, please space out your paragraphs. It makes a story much easier to read.

Beyond that, I think you're stuck between two different tones. On the one hand there's the Lunarian propaganda, where the story would take itself fully seriously and you're relying on the reader being able to read between the lines and pick up the hints to see how screwed it is... and on the other there's the tongue in cheek satire, where the narration itself pokes fun at the same thing. Your story seems caught between those two extremes, sometimes trying to be more serious, and other times trying to be funny. I think either one can work, but you'd have benefited from choosing one of the two extremes and sticking to it. As-is, the tone's a bit muddled, and the work suffers for it... which is a bit of a shame, because I did chuckle at a few of the jokes, particularly the "Susano, witness me, you bi-" line.

One Shell Too Many:
First off, I do like the idea of the scam. Selling crabs on the cheap that are actually crab youkai who escape from the bucket at the first opportunity is an amusing one. With that said, Myouren Temple seems like the wrong group to be pulling off said scam... which ties into the other issue, which is that Mystia, Wriggle, and Rumia are not really in a position to be trying to eat half a dozen Myouren youkai clergy. Even if they can take the fight (which isn't clear they can, given they're all minor youkai), they absolutely can't take the likes of Byakuren. Or Shou, or Murasa, or Nue, or probably even Ichirin.

The twist is also a bit on the unclear side - it took me a second read to fully understand what you were going for, though I did get there in the end. But with that said, the writing style felt fine, and the characterization seemed decent as well (aside from Mystia's sudden turn to violence at the very end being a bit abrupt), so I think with a few tweaks this could be a good short.

Finally, one last smaller point: I think Wriggle should react to Mystia saying spiders are similar to insects. Considering spiders eat insects, I'm pretty sure the bug youkai would find that a really important distinction.

Little Princess' Little Odyssey:
Apparently Shinmy needs a better intelligence network. For this one I think the general strokes of the story are fine - I can absolutely see the inchling charging off with a half-baked plan like that, and Akyuu managing to calm her down and befriend her. I think all the story really needs is an editing pass. There's moments here or there where punctuation is missing, or the wording is a bit awkward, and while it's not so frequent as to be unbearable, it does break up the story's flow somewhat.

A remedy for a headache:
The writing style's fine, but I don't know what's going on with the actual story. Is the Distant Star supposed to be the Hakurei Shrine? If so, what does that have to do with a star atlas? I'm assuming that the ability to plot the sky and stars means the narrator is Renko, but why does she grow a horn out of her forehead? The answers simply aren't clear, and that makes it hard to understand anything that's going on here.

Kamehime:
I like the concept, but I think the story could use tightening up. Through the first half of the story it felt like a lot of words were being used without actually saying much of anything. Which is a real shame, because once you mention that the woman the man saw was an oarfish, and you make the connection between her moods and the actual weather, the story becomes really interesting. The idea of a meteorologist falling in love with a youkai that controls the weather and connecting her because of it is a really good one, and once I realized that was what the story was about, I did genuinely enjoy it. I just think that the beginning of the piece can be trimmed down to get to that all-important hook a little faster.

>>18252
Look, mate, it's not a cutting social commentary on the nature of power. Sincerely not what I set out to do. If I had done, it would have been a lot more obvious.

I hear and comprehend all the words about bullying, power differentials, and so on. However, that's got little to do with what I was doing with it. If that's how you take it, that's your own assumptions at work. I'm asking that you lot take off those assumptions for a moment and just take the work without a load of values projected onto this or that emotion.

Finally, we come to my own story. Before I get into responding to feedback, I'd like to thank Gooboi for his hard work in editing, as well as Maxis for reminding me the exhibition was a thing in the first place. Without his prompting, it's unlikely I would have written anything up, and I'm glad I did. Kudamaki/Kuro was a fun piece to work on, and participating in this exhibition meant I got to read a couple of real gems.

But without further ado...

Kudamaki/Kuro:
There's two points of criticism I've noticed in particular about this piece. The first one, that it's recursive fanfiction relying on a lot of background knowledge, is entirely fair. This really is just an omake for the Outside/Omakes thread that I decided to write up and post for the exhibition because I knew it would be the right length. As a result, it's not really general Touhou fanfiction in the way most of the entries are, and I understand that limits the audience for it somewhat. Hopefully people enjoyed it and were able to understand the general gist regardless, but needing to have read through Kosuzu's arc in Redo/Reimu is something of a barrier to entry.

The other common criticism is that the prose is basic... which I think misses a fundamental point, because that was an entirely intentional decision. Kuro is a small child, and the short was written from her perspective. While there's absolutely a place for flowery prose in writing, Kuro simply doesn't have the mind or the vocabulary to come up with it.

At it's core, the story's about a child that abruptly realizes she's abused, but who isn't quite capable of putting it into words. The point was to convey that hurt to the reader while staying within the limits of Kuro's own ability to communicate, and judging by the responses, I think it succeeded, at least for some of the readers.

Regardless, thanks to everyone who participated in the exhibition, and in particular to people who took the time to offer feedback. Here's hoping you guys continue to write.

Alright, time for my roundups. There were a lot of pieces to go through, and I’ll admit that I had different amounts of energy going into each one, but I hope that I can be of some minor food for thought. I wrote all of these before I found who the author was if it was not stated, so this should all be clean slated. I also have not been following any discussion in the review thread outside of my own work, so I hopefully missed any crossbreeding on that.

To start, The Visitor is my piece. It was made with the singular thought that it would be fun to make a short horror for the shorts event. I’ve seen someone nail my influence on the head with Youtube horror, which is more a sign that I couldn’t cater to my writing on a more intellectual level than it is the idea itself being at fault. I’ve also seen notes either not understanding the stinger or thinking the stinger is middling, which I won’t argue with. I wanted to start it out as a ‘two sentence horror’ type of tale but never found the best phrasing for those two sentences, so I should have spent more time developing it.

But enough about me, let’s run through everyone’s stories.

Rumia and Remilia:

As a first entry this is a fun little get together, but to say that I believe the characters as they are shown is… a stretch. Not that I dislike them, but it isn’t how I’d see them act in my own mind. Rumia was higher mannered and Remi was very open to childish activities. That said, I certainly liked this the most out of the three initial entries from BombaBomba.

Nightbug:

Loosely connected to the first, this is your typical ‘first exposure’ type story. Using Rumia as the first Youkai someone sees is a standard go to for multiple reasons, however because of this there usually needs to be a hook or strong characterization of the would be victim. Did the man with the briefcase come off as someone with an interesting story? Almost, but I did feel he lacked something to convince me that he was out of his depth. Did I also think the initial portion with Rumia could have been curtailed slightly for more ‘definitely not a Kamen Rider’ Wriggle? A little. Fun bit, but you could have left off the guy noting ties to organized crime at the end, a reader understands how strange that is by its presence alone.

Reisen kills Turbo granny (TouhouXDanDaDan):

Disconnected from the first two, this one could have fooled me if there was no specific note stating it was a crossover. The two protagonists of the guest series are certainly not present enough to pin down characters in an isolated environment, nor does the eponymous Turbo Granny have much threat or significance to our viewpoint character Reisen. That said, this was a good characterization of Reisen in her significant beats, especially since this is her ‘on duty’ mode. Did I believe every word in this vein? No. Did I enjoy this little moment? Yes, though it was weird.

"Clothes":

An entry more typical in its story line, with proper opening and closing. The usage of Marisa as her usual adventurous self is very well on display here, and as fun as usual. The visuals of this spider Youkai are quite well woven, even giving me pause for if the spider girl had real spider features or not. The details caught my attention, and the little microcosm including the girl making an outfit in minutes made me real happy. Also good work on setting up in a single sentence. You cheated a little by leveraging the community’s prior knowledge of who’s who and why someone would be ‘pulling weeds,’ but the efficiency speaks for itself. Now I only have to wonder why the mannequins were naked. Is the spider stupid? Does she not understand marketing?

Unlived:

Oh, she was literally floating up. Funny. No but seriously this is a nice Youmu introspective, how her personal view of life and death are so disconnected from humans despite being half human herself. That sort of restless doubt that follows a character like Youmu in her airheadedness broken up by moments of extreme lucidity. Good stuff.

Kudamaki/Kuro:

Ones like this are hard for me. There’s clearly competency on display, as well as a sense of understanding what the story is attempting to convey, but I do not think I can accurately comment on this one due to my current lack of background with works from the same author/anything that may be related. I hope people that do know think it’s good.

A Snipping Motion:

An interesting one. Almost feels like a puzzle, too. There’s so much information with only snippets that are useful, the rest drowned out in the small talk nonsense of the lunar rabbits. Was there maybe extra symbolism in them going on about a Wuxia romance? Maybe, but I’d be arsed to figure that one out. What I’m more interested in is how I feel slightly lost in what is going on, if that is actually intended by the writer (well done if so), and if they meant to put aft instead of fore for the side of the ship.

One Dish:

Tour de Gensokyo, foodie edition. A trounce through many smatterings of characters, almost like a fair ride for the inchling. What comes up as a neat detail to me is how Shimmy does not know the names of foreign foods whereas she directly references Japanese cuisine. This is of course disconnected when she doesn’t name the boxes that Yuyuko uses but points for what’s there.

Destination Elsewhere:

I find myself having difficulty understanding what is happening in this story. It begins with Seiran looking at a ship undocking, using terms that would imply space travel, and the rabbits are working in cluttered conditions to complete stitched belts, but then they end visiting a shrine to complete their belts. This shrine doesn’t seem to be metaphorical but real with a real gate to pass under. I’m unsure if this disconnect is coming from a lack of adequate explanation or maybe if it’s actually intentional, but because of it I could not invest myself fully into what Seiran was necessarily feeling with her many mothers and sisters surrounding her.

An Iota of Eternity:

I read this one before it was posted to the exhibition as an aside editor. It elicits a lot of interesting characteristics to how Eirin would have to operate in her past before the Hourai Elixir was completed, and skirts around a lot of nitpicks people could have with brutal efficiency, such as why Eirin would care to make the medicine at all. I don’t consider Eirin the vaunted god of intelligence that cannot err like many interpretations seem to, and so a sort of sacrificial lamb to the advent of the ultimate medicine makes sense to me. The usage of an outside character to pluck out Eirin’s underlying emotional core is a good choice, too. Someone of a similar mindset would be the only person to see past the ego. I am still mixed on the ending, as it is non sequitur from the rest of the passage that otherwise reads like a letter.

Influence:

This work does well to draw in interest in the goings on around the bar, but does little payoff to anything meaningful. This, combined with the unfortunate elbow bumps in grammar, greatly lowered the overall quality in my eyes. Suika’s explanation was far out of left field as something not foreseen by the reader, especially as it had no obvious bearing to the lengthy exposition of the storm at the beginning. You’ve done well with the characters’ dynamics, and utilized them to the effect I can imagine it being a real scene from Lotus Eaters, but without the background work to show that some event transpired before being explained it can all come off moot.

Sugar Shape:

If I’m reading this right, it’s a short where Sanae has Tsukasa out on a date? Okay, that’s alright, if not a little weird for the shoulder devil. Its points were cute, utilizing Sanae’s ditsy nature to carry along Tsukasa’s more industrious attitude when set to a task was a fun dynamic. Tsukasa thusly declining the prize for succeeding when Sanae didn’t get her way was also an interesting show of care in the fox’s own malicious way. Now, the main point I have is that the onomatopoeia was largely unnecessary for its lack of variety. I think it can work, but there would need to be more distinct sounds of interest to show what a character is doing. A crack and plunk from Sanae was not enough to make Tsukasa’s continual scratches interesting to stop and read. Now where do I get a Mishaguji plushie?

Burakumin:

A somber tale. A strange old man. What’s more for me to love? There are some exceptional grammar issues present, and occasional odd word choice, but otherwise a well told piece of the man’s life. I will call into question the necessity of the beginning being in the perspective of a game duck, especially when the same hunter comes in right after. It could have easily been from the hunter’s perspective entirely. I also do wonder the purpose of the supposed time skips that occur, and why they happen when they do. I also think these could be molded into a single morning to morning period for that sense of daily minutiae.

The Day Fire Fell to Earth:

This reads like an excerpt from a larger work. Inside that context it is largely fine outside of the odd formatting with included dashes, but in the context of a short that should be primarily self contained it does not pan out nicely. The majority of the text seeks to elaborate details of past events that have already happened and the perspective protagonist as a character, while the final portion exposits a more overarching prophecy that little to no direct impact on the piece alone. Could this piece have worked even as a sort of excerpt like this? I think so, you would definitely need to cut down on the prior stated qualms. You can leave the bare bones of actions and fill in the rest with more in the moment descriptions, but that is only my opinion.

Rolling River, Standing Stone:

Well that was enjoyable. There were minor grammar issues in a couple places, but that’s probably my only complaint. The stream of confused conscious for a character that is almost never tackled made for a setting rife with good visuals and I seriously enjoyed that. I hope to see you write more, whatever it may be.

One Last Bloody Tear:

I can’t say I fully understand what is happening in this piece. Is this a standalone article or part of another series? It feels like a piece from another series but the recency of one of the characters calls that into question for me. There are also details in the beginning that feel like an abstraction of a past event. That I’m focusing so much on this separation from the actual scene itself should be a sign that this work didn’t elicit anything on its own for me, seeming to have required reading elsewhere that I don’t know.

Midday:

A piece requiring an up to date knowledge of the FDS manga, and overall I like it, but I do wonder if it could stand on its own as an isolated work. I lean towards saying no, in spite of the handle it has on the characters and their dialogue, and that’s rather unfortunate. Of course, I may not be able to make that call since I am one in the know.

First Contact:

Okay, yeah, it was cool. Like, too cool for me to be mad about needing prior knowledge coming in. I liked the characterizations and their specific dialogues, though the clay soldier may have leaned a little far on that terminator aesthetic to be taken seriously. I also question why a god of creative pursuits would require something like a prototype. Anyway, yeah, pretty good.

Midnight:

I assume this is the same author as Midday, as per the subject matter and title. Unlike the first piece, this one can almost stand on its own merits with some clever tweaks here and there. Hell, I’d say I really enjoyed this one as just a conversation between someone who is ageless against someone whose age has caught up to them, reminiscing about past tragedies and uncertain futures. I’d say if you took out some names and lore references this might sparkle.

An Unconscious Visit:

Damnit I’m a sucker for emotional stuff, well done. I think you mostly hit all the key beats to properly introduce the characters in a way for their conflicts to show naturally. My big critique is that I’m not sure if the usage of first person for a character like Koishi is even feasible, since her mind is supposed to function like a broken mess of neurons that don’t properly stitch coherent thoughts. Of course, that is an assertion without any hard backing, as we only truly know that she closed her third eye and thus her own mind.

Reisen kills an Alien (MAD crossover):

Reisen can’t catch a break, it seems. Just like I can’t seem to get a series that I know. Oh well. My notes from the Turbo Granny short largely ring back to here also. One major point I hadn’t noticed in the previous short compared to here, however, is that the internal character thoughts are being used in a rather clunky manner. What I mean is that without the italicization from the previous story, a lot of internal thoughts read like dialogue without any proper dialogue tags. Treating internal thoughts much like dialogue where you give it proper tags can alleviate some stiffness in the narrative flow that the third person perspective has brought up.

Sculptor:

Short enough to be more of a poem. First of all, in. You see in them, not on them. Secondly, the deprivation of structure comes too quickly after the sentence ‘Sculptures of life in other places.’ It needs to be led into with more of an incline. ‘Scultpures of happiness in existence. Sculptures of sadness reflecting.’ Break. ‘Sculptures that are cute, ugly, etc etc.’ Of course that is only my personal choice for how that would be structured to a more natural rhythm. The verbiage also seems to clash between the perspective character showing insecurities and then stating that it is for sure its goddess’s most faithful servant. If you might think this nitpicking note that the overall structure was good in my eyes and that you need to be especially meticulous for a poem.

just ignore this one:

No, I won’t. You posted it, you will get a critique. This reads as almost a pure script with characters talking. There’s little information to go on, and even less for what specifically is happening. While the latter can be fine the former makes for an uphill battle that isn’t worth it. Pure dialogue should be reserved for when a scene between two characters has been so directly set that there is no question of who is talking, what they are doing, or why they are talking at all. This piece doesn’t really fill those criteria and so requires an overhaul from its current structure. Also who is this Ran and why is she immature?

Cyberpunk: Lunatic Red (Reinsen in Cyberpunk 2077):

I can’t say I felt like I got a whole lot out of this one. There was a lot of setup on the scene and while something did happen it came off as more of a ‘so that’s it, then?’ sort of delivery. I think it was stuck in a lot of building on itself that it couldn’t get to really show what its purpose for doing so really was. I guess I would state it was more of a chapter 1 than a short, if that makes sense.

Untitled Alice Story:

A cute little exposition. I imagine that this is Alice sitting in a therapy room for whatever reason, lounging on that lengthy red couch. I enjoy this perspective of Alice, giving her that sense of actually having lived in Makai, and the inevitability of her outgrowing it. My only complaint isn’t really with the grammar, but there could have been more paragraph breaks in the text. Something to let the lines breath a little and make it easier for wandering eyes like mine to keep their place.

Would you like to know more?:

It’s… yes I know it’s the… okay, stop, I get that it’s the Helldivers lore transposed onto the lunar rabbit army. You don’t need to beat me over the head with it. It was enjoyable, but overstayed its welcome somewhere halfway. One important thing with the Helldivers propaganda is that it isn’t quite so hamfisted with its rhetoric. This passage reads as a parody of that and of the lunarians in general. If that was the intention, then alright, I guess? Helldivers already hits the level of parody (to I think American values), so it’s more or less unnecessary to flanderize it. Anyway, fuck ‘em moonies.

One Shell Too Many:

Mystia… yo hold up. I gotta wonder what the chain of events were here. Were the crabs Youkai that changed back into crustaceans for Mystia to catch, or did they just turn into Youkai and lied about the Myouren temple stuff? Hm. Anyway, I liked that. Wriggle antics are a favorite flavor of mine, extra points for all of the bug jokes. This was a nice change of pace, no real hidden meanings behind it for the reader to feel the need to ponder over for days to come, just an amusing scenario culminating in a… concerning joke.

Little Princess' Little Odyssey:

I can absolutely see this premise happening in canon. Shimmy is such a goofball in that respect. I think I have little to comment on with this one. The story was well put together, cohesive, and self contained. Now I would claim that the enjoyment would require prior knowledge of the characters, but that’s hardly a grievous sin to ask for. Also, would Shimmy refer to herself as Shimmy? I do wonder.

A remedy for a headache:

This one is tricky. I’m not sure if this is a story that the reader should understand on a first read or not. I’ve clearly gotten that it’s about Renko wandering off to a broken shrine that burns down, but details outside of that are difficult for me to grasp. Was the distant star a metaphor? Did Renko die? Was she truly injured to begin with? Questions that I do not have an answer for nor do I think I want an answer, as that sort of discovery is worth thinking about from a piece like this. Well done, aside from a grammar mishap here and there.

Kamehime:

Well, damn. I was gonna give you a bit of playful grief over being a late entrant, but that story had me floored. The beginning, with the narrator’s skittering thoughts taking the helm, had me far from hooked, but the further in I got, the more I realized that was a sort of design choice to show his lack of ‘human’ contact for long periods of time. That sudden change into excellent weather based visualization really sold how much the narrator was enamored by the visage of the lovely gateguard, and I’m all here for that. And that climax, the realization that everything was tied together by the weather itself, oh that’s some icing on the cake. This was a good read, and I thank you for giving it to me.

>>18258
Hey, Poignant, thanks for the reviews!
Rumia and Remilia
I had the same problems with the characterization honestly and I dislike this one the most. I feel it really does an active disservice to both of the characters I chose here even though I wanted to write a story about them. I guess that's my fault for trying to write a story about Remi, who I don't have any strong feelings on one way or another.
I understand why people dislike the crossovers since they’re just something I wrote for my own sake, but I have no idea why people like this one more than Nightbug its the one I enjoyed writing the least and I think it's worse in every aspect.

Nightbug
I'm confused where you're getting Kamen Rider from. I've never watched Kamen Rider and wasn't thinking about it, in that same vein, from just reading the thread I get the vibe that people think Wriggle was being altruistic here. Which wasn't my intent, she, as always, is just trying to increase the popularity of insects and herself. Her logic is-
>humans like humans and don't like to see other humans die
>Oh a human in trouble
>That means I should help him in order to make humans like me more.
So the joke is that she didn't save the guy heroically, she saved him in her own petty self interest.
The criminal thing was sort of just a last minute/slip of the mind thing and I think I really could have done better with it. I should have put more work into this one instead of putting it off until the last minute.

>>18256
He's just trying to explain where he thinks you went wrong with communicating your intention as an author. I think the title is also pretty flawed if you were going for a more comedic direction. A title is the first impression you as an author make of the reader and something like "Unlived" Is really dramatic sounding and not very chuuni-like.
For instance, lowcreatureofthenight posted "No Second Chances" but the WiP title was "Sex with the Sex Frog", which was a bad title that didn't prep the reader for the work.
Maybe also writing a stronger contrast between Youmu's thoughts and reality would also help, as it it feels like the joke is the sub text and the drama is the plain text.

>>18231
>Turgenev
hey, that's a name I can look up. thank you for the recommendation.
>Point Two for this one.
>it needed more focus.
yeah, for the format, that could've been done.
>one or other of the halves needed to go.
honestly leaning on the kappa part where I could've spent instead on his living circumstances. maybe not even wholly, just making it more relevant.
>I’m whatever on dealing with Yukari...so that would have been a prime candidate.
I uh need help on this one. I don't get what you're saying here. 😅 but personally, I like the idea of yukari having casual hobbies beyond scheming, the barrier and a broad idea of gensokyo. I wanted to show that, if just a bit.
>not sure I see the ‘burakumin’ part
it is partially misleading. it does serve to give that vague notion which, sure, "fits" him for the villagers. I was debating whether to title this Danzaemon or Burakumin/Danzaemon instead. "danzaemon" went away in the meiji restoration. officially, they do not exist anymore. the question of "why did we come here" can be expanded on but it's beyond the scope of the format. ultimately, he lives in relative isolation doing sometimes unsavoury odd jobs, his inherited wealth being a safety net. kinda stuff that invites gossip. that bit I should've written.
>eta were people who lived fairly communal existences...one guy out on his own doesn’t give much sense of that without seeing how ‘normal village folk’ view him.
very good point. not just between him and villagers, but also other eta, if they meaningfully exist as a population. I never really thought on how to handle their presence in gensokyo. size, relative importance, level of prejudice, any attempt to assimilate them into the village, etc. things to ponder but, again, might be beyond the scope.
>perhaps a bit absorbed in some of its own ideas.
i am a vibes-based writer for now, unfortunately. very sad. also Point Two.
but, if I aim to improve, I want to write something that's not hard to read. not that heavy on prose, bits of description and colour. just a story to tell.

thank you for the feedback. feel I have a better direction to work with for a revision exercise.

Sen, back for more reviews, falling freely from the review tree! Actually most of these are gushy, as before. Will definitely add commentary about my own pieces soon, thank you so much for reviewing!

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11. Burakumin
- I really liked the writing style! Nicely dynamic, with a nice pull to it, lingering on just the right details, very confident
- I like the focus on slice of life, what it's like to just be a normal human not in immediate crisis (though because of his status, he would never get the upper hand)
- I really enjoyed the characterization of all the characters here, the sharp but brief glimpses, especially the kappa scrabbling
- I'm wondering why Yukari's taken an interest in him. Maybe she's staying true to the maxim that everyone is welcome in Gensokyo? I felt the bit with Yukari was the weakest part in a very strong entry
- Overall, I like the sedate, satisfied feel to this. I felt like the piece was about a man comfortable with his station, such as it is

12. The Day Fire Fell to Earth
- The formatting is a little strange! I've seen the -s before speech elsewhere though, I wonder if it's a stylistic choice
- I'm not sure why but the constant repetition of the word 'spruce', and especially 'colossal spruce' seemed a little ponderous
- I'm not sure I get the context behind this. I'm not sure what the emotional blow is supposed to be, and why Satsuki is burning herself. I'm familiar with the legends of kirin and the mandate to rule: is it a reference to that? That there's destruction on the horizon?
- I felt it could have been a lot clearer that 'felinid girl' refers to Sen
- Overall, this feels like a story chopped off from a longer story, one that needed maybe a bit more exposition

13. Rolling River, Standing Stone
- There's a famous (ish) flash fiction piece by Richard Shelton called 'The Stones' that this short reminded me of, also about stones moving (or not moving). From the very first paragraph, I think this story sets out the flash fiction note strongly
- I like the reference to abortion and dead babies here, the sin being the godly sin of not rounding that big stone in the right order, and the reference to a 'leech', presumably to her namesake Hiruko/Ebisu
- Very confident style, the short sentences carrying along, the repetition of 'stone' I thought was a very strong note throughout
- I like the transition between stones and stone-stacking, and her empathy towards the stones, and her finding company in the stones
- Overall a very strong piece that, out of all the entries I've read, most reads as flash fiction with the strong repetitions and the slow but gradual revelation

14. One Last Bloody Tear
- I like the notion of Shizuha being a god to the smallest detail, that her falling leaves are themselves aspects of her. I find that very cool.
- Also starting off, there's already a nice seesaw rhythm, with the alliteration of fade and fall, settled and stay, red-white repetition. It's a very pleasant piece to read aloud I think
- I feel that the conversation could have been condensed a little, but I really like that Shizuha is characterized as a little god of death
- That last line!
- Overall, I think this was a strong piece especially with the rhythms at the beginning, very melancholy, as befits Shizuha

15. Midday
- I really like how Reimu is portrayed in this, as kind but also as having a past that she shares (more than she likes?) with Mizuchi.
- I like the stumbling of 'What else do you miss?' with Reimu reaching out, and also being thoughtful about Mizuchi. Also the reference to Reimu's ability to eat sweets without thinking about her weight gets a throughline here
- There's a nicely sad energy to this piece that befits Mizuchi, and them both talking about loss. I think it's a great prelude to whatever relationships she will develop with Reimu
- There's a lot that's not being said here, which is really good in the context of the relationship. I think the author's said just enough
- Overall a very warm piece I really enjoyed reading. There's a sense of nostalgia here which I love

16. First Contact
- Explosive first paragraph! I really like the impact of that, and the effects of such a blow
- I like the atmosphere here. All these normally imperturbable characters being unnerved, and having to check slowly, it lends a nicely terrific suspense I think
- All the unnerving details converge with the quick flashbacks, which is a good method of doing it I think. And then the reveal of the thing not being dead is great (and the atmosphere of always thinking that a betrayal is coming up)
- Very nice Terminator-y vibes, especially with Mayumi using her own body parts as weapons
- Overall a dynamic piece with a lot of suspense coiled up in such a short space

17. Midnight
- I think this is a very nice companion piece to Midday, although I think Midday struck the emotional bell a bit clearer
- I like how Mokou is characterized here as being very blunt, and as not having a real clue about the senior shrine maiden's burdens. It's a nice contrast to Reimu reaching out to Mizuchi
- The sustained note of sadness is nice, but I think there's a bit too much exposition dialogue in the middle. I like how Mokou's awkwardness is constant, though she does have the best intentions. And she *would* reach for time to soothe everything
- The echo here between stories and between eras of Mizuchi and the senior shrine maiden was really good!
- Overall I think this was a nice 'echo' to Midday, though maybe a bit weighted by exposition in the middle

18. An Unconscious Visit
- A thoughtful depiction of Koishi, in first person! That must have been such a challenge, but I thought it was borne up nicely here
- I really liked the sisterly bond! Them hugging and Satori emphasizing again that Koishi is always welcome, and Satori's angst at being essentially their secret-keeper, remembering everything
- I liked the bit about transferance of feelings. I guess this terrifies Koishi so much because this is what she tried to escape. But I felt that the note of angst was sustained a bit too long afterwards. I liked the part about Koishi also crying
- And that ending! Very lovely and warm
- Overall, I think this was a very tender piece, with sharp sadness but an equally sharp and warm resolution, and in first person too!

19. Reisen kills an Alien (MAD crossover)
- I'm not sure what sort of setting is described honestly, I'm unfortunately not that familiar with the Alien franchise. Is it a barren planet? I'm also a bit surprised that Reisen reacts to her situation rather flatly
- I'm not sure about this device of talking about everything she's doing, for Reisen. She's telling a bit much
- Also isn't the alien's blood supposed to be corrosive?
- Overall, I'm not familiar enough with the franchise to comment too much on this

20. The Visitor
- I like the buildup to something uncanny here: the house being outwardly normal and drawing Chen's curiosity is nicely unsettling
- I really like the part where Chen tries to play and bend the shelves to see if the cat did indeed go there. I feel it's something people do unconsciously a lot
- I like the reference to the myths of Mayohiga, with the house being kept in perfect order. It adds to the uncanniness, although I suppose Chen is fine with it
- I don't know about the final reveal. The void and the eye being hammered in so much, I think was a bit too heavy in contrast with the really great buildup
- Overall, a nicely suspenseful piece!

21. Sculptor
- A prose poem is nice! A bold choice definitely
- I like the rhythms beginning with 'Happy, sad, cute and ugly...' and the exploration of possibilities there. There's a tick-tock rhythm that's sustained with 'I am unable...' I think
- I like the humbleness of the haniwa and her determination and loyalty. This haniwa needs a hug and a lot of reassurance
- Overall a nice prose poem exploring a haniwa's determination!

Author of Sugar Shape here. I want to address a couple points that have come up repeatedly about my piece before getting into my reviews of others.

First, for people wanting to know where the Sanae/Tsukasa relationship came from, the ship is based on their interactions in Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost. Tsukasa was shown to have been hanging around the Moriya Shrine, and she has some really flirty dialogue with Sanae, so it only takes a small leap of headcanon to put the two of them romantically connected. There have been a smattering of other works shipping them, mostly in the western fandom, but I wanted to do my own take on the ship.

Second, multiple reviewers have pointed out that they actually sympathize with the yamawaro and... yeah, you're kind of meant to. Tsukasa is a trouble-maker and a wicked white fox and up to her usual tricks here. Sanae is a good person overall, but she gets wrapped up in things easily and Tsukasa is a bad influence on her. The yamawaro is more abrasive than he needs to be, but there's a strong argument he's basically in the right. That interplay was one of the things I was trying to put in the story, and I'm glad I succeeded, even if I didn't get credit for meaning to. If it makes you guys feel any better, Sanae would never actually have the yamawaro banned over this, Tsukasa's just making an empty threat to be a shithead.

The use of sound effects also came up repeatedly, but I don't really have an excuse for those. I thought they'd be good, people didn't like them, I regret the error.

Anyway, on with the reviews. I'm skipping the ones that are crossovers with works I'm unfamiliar with, or that went way over the wordcount, or that specifically instructed me to ignore them.

Rumia and Remilia
It's a cute ship, and a clever idea for the meet-cute. The high class girl at her wits end, bailed out by a passing commoner <3 The ending felt rushed though, like it was trying to do too much. I think you could have cut some of the meandering in the middle (the bit about the newsboy cap seemed unnecessary) and given a little more weight to the ending. Otherwise, you could have put even less in the ending and relied on the reader's imagination, but the ending as written is kind of the worst of both worlds.

Nightbug
The POV OC wasn't really introduced and we weren't given much reason to care about him, so there wasn't really any tension when Rumia was going to eat him, or much reason to celebrate when Wriggle saved him. Found it hard to care about this one.

"Clothes"
This feels like more of a vignette or scene in a larger story than a full story. It would be an ok introduction for a character in a longer work, but it doesn't stand on its own. If you wanted to give it more tension and make it feel more like a full story, I think making the OC youkai the POV character rather than Marisa would help. Marisa's stakes are pretty low here.

Unlived
Yeah, this story reads a lot darker than it was apparently intended to be. I think it's decent as a dark story, a slightly different take on Youmu, not entirely canon-compliant but that's fine. Themes about immortality and being cut off from humanity are common Touhou fare, and I can feel Youmu's loneliness and hopeless sense of being stuck coming through. It just weirds me out to have the author so insistent that it's supposed to be funny when it feels so tragic to me.

Kudamaki/Kuro
I'm frustrated by this story. I spent a lot of time trying to understand it, racking my brain trying to figure out what a Kakusy-Saki was supposed to be, but apparently this story is set in an AU I'm not familiar with. I think it's fine to write stories in an AU for an exhibition, but it would have been polite to mark that in some way for the people who are not familiar so they don't waste their time.

A Snipping Motion
This feels like more of a vignette or scene in a larger story than a full story. It would be good as an opening scene to establish worldbuilding before telling a story set in that world, but it doesn't stand on its own. I think you have some nice ideas for Lunarian military fiction, but you'd want to put them in a story.

One Dish
I really really liked this one. It was a celebration of Touhou, lots of fun to see all the different characters and their takes on party food, and Shimmy tied it all together in a way that fits her character, with her excited ambitions exceeding her capabilities. This is the sort of story that fanfiction was made for; it could only be told in an established universe, it takes the huge amounts of piled up lore and plays on them to build a light, cute piece that's a lot of fun. This was my favorite of the stories overall.

Destination Elsewhere
It felt like this was trying to be a story in the same universe as "A Snipping Motion", but the world-building felt less coherent. It feels like there was an attempt made at telling a proper story, but I can't tell what exactly you're trying to say in between all the sci-fi stuff.

An Iota of Eternity
It's fine, I guess. It definitely gives a voice to its first person narrator, and it gives some new interpretation to canon events. IDK, Lunar politics just kind of leaves me cold. It seems like a nice enough story, but I couldn't get into it just based on my preferences.

Influence
I'm not sure if I missed something subtle here, but the story doesn't seem to have a point? Just two groups talking? If you were implying something deeper you were too vague and I missed it.

The Day Fire Fell to Earth
It doesn't have much connection to Touhou, and it's not very compelling as original fiction. Don't care for this one at all.

Rolling River, Standing Stone
This is basically just recapitulation of Eika's origin story. It uses oblique language and metaphor, but when you puzzle through the oblique language and metaphor the prize inside is pretty plain. It doesn't give any new insight on Eika's character or anything.

One Last Bloody Tear
There's good, well written imagery in the first half, but I couldn't understand what you meant in the second half. You were trying to imply stuff and be indirect, but you didn't leave enough pointers there for me to figure out what the heck you were talking about.

Midday
A cute Mizuchi story, that tries to grapple with some of the darkness of the setting without wallowing in it. It was straightforward and obvious in a lot of places, telling rather than showing emotion, but I liked the descriptions of the village and the changes Reimu brought about. And the story really made you hopeful and let you root for Mizuchi's redemption. This was my second favorite of the stories overall.

First Contact
This one was all right as an interpretation of what the introduction of the haniwa must have been like to the Animal Realm, but the characters were very flat. The haniwa I understand, that's just how they are, but the animal yakuza bosses felt like their personality was missing. It might have been better to focus on one and delve deeper into her thought processes rather than having all three on the scene.

Midnight
I guess this is supposed to be the sad dual to the cute Midday, but I wish you had just spent the time tightening up Midday. The characters don't feel like they're having a believable conversation. Mokou especially feels OOC, this is supposed to be Mokou from before Imperishable Night, right? What is she doing providing emotional support to some random shrine maiden who's just going to die anyway?

An Unconscious Visit
It's an emotionally impactful story, but I felt like it made Satori a little too pathetic. She's had a while to come to terms with her sister's situation, her emotion shouldn't be raw like that, it should be fermented and bitter. I also don't agree with the choice to write a story from Koishi's POV when kind of the whole point of Koishi's character is that she lacks a POV.

The Visitor
Another story I couldn't make heads or tails of. Vagueness isn't good for its own sake, you have to carefully guide the reader to let them draw conclusions or your story just doesn't land.

Sculptor
This is written more like a poem than a story. There's no real progression or tension or plot, just some theme. And it's not great as poetry. If you want to try to make that fly, you need to do something with the rhythm or diction or colorful metaphor or something. The writing was too straightforward to be a poem and not structured enough to be a story.

Untitled Alice Story
The writing style on this one was too much, broken up with ellipses and dashes all over the place. Used judiciously they can add rhythm to dialogue, but used this much it just becomes painful to read.

Little Princess' Little Odyssey
This story goes too far playing into Shinmyoumaru's traits of being excitable and naive, to the point that she becomes a caricature. The Shimmy as written in this story is like a bad parody of canon Shinmyoumaru. You can have a little fun with her character, but if you go too over the top you take away the sliver of dignity that is actually an essential part of who she is. She's like Cirno-level stupid here and that's just not right.

A remedy for a headache
I don't really "get" the Hifuu stuff. This might be a good story for somebody, but not for me.

Kamehime
I like it. The POV character is given enough characterization to make you care about him, and his dialogue is snappy and pretty funny in places. The sense of an ordinary person admiring a celestial servant from afar is nice, it's good to sometimes get a more "street level" view of the fantastic goings on in the world of Touhou. This was my third favorite of the stories overall.

Clothes

I don’t really have much to say about this one. It’s not bad and it’s a little cutesy and depicts the kind of weird thing that may well exist in Gensokyo. It just sort of concludes, maybe more from reaching the word limit than it actually stopping at an interesting point, and I’m not sure there’s much to take away from the experience. It’s more of a scene than a story or maybe the kind of thing you’d find in a compilation of vignettes about youkai. Maybe, as an exercise, try breaking down what it is that attracted you about this idea and why you used these elements (Marisa, clothes, store). Once you realize why these things are there and what you’re trying to make the audience think and feel you can refocus and tighten the narrative to get something sharper and more memorable. I don’t mean to be too harsh—it’s also fine to just want it to be a silly little cute thing and leave it at that.

Kamehime

The rather late entry. I almost immediately had a feeling for your identity because your way of putting things is pretty unique for these parts. Glad you’re still among the living. You’ve understood the assignment well, creating a very short, but full and self-contained story, that would likely lose its charm if it was longer and overstayed its welcome. You weren’t bleeding obvious about things and respected the intelligence of the reader, adding a bunch of details that tie in tightly at the end.

I like your flourishes and aesthetic sensibilities, as usual. I will nitpick about a few small things, like the simile “black as the ink on a summons to court” or some of the non-weather descriptors as being perhaps a little too elegant, a little too outsider-y, and not the kind of language an isolated little kappa meteorologist might use in conversation. But, whatever, that matters as much as having to manually cycle the dragon statue’s eyes. (Has it really been 20 years since PmiSS? orz)

There’s not much else to say other than I wish you would write more. I would not have minded a little more self-indulgence with the meteorological language though that objectively would have made the piece less accessible. It often feels like we lack stories that are unapologetic about striving for more; most people seem content to not try.

Unlived

Ah, it was fantastic to read this! There’s a great emotional core there that resonated with me and made me smile and also feel a certain kind of melancholic tenderness. The imagery such as the river of ghosts, seasons, other things that evoke the passage of time but also highlight just how unchanging things are for Youmu is very effective. The paradox of her being bound but also untethered also works very well in underscoring her turmoil and confusion and of not having a sense of where she really belongs and how to relate to others. There is a lot that is crammed into the piece but it all feels essential to tell the story.

I think that perhaps some might quibble with the characterization, expecting Youmu to be a little more sanguine but I bought in completely. This take is more than justified given the setup of the context of this instant, of what she has experienced, and otherwise carries in her heart.

There’s a whiff of self-pity about her:
>The unhappy coincidence of birth had tied her to the duties of the Konpaku name
>Yet, her spirit lamented, ever detached from her cold body, doubts held her fast. [...]
Youmu does feel sorry for herself in both CoLA and her interview with Aya. Part of the reason why other characters get a kick out of pushing her buttons. It’s also a source of humor in both of those print works and, I suspect intentionally, also here.

>a translucent curtain descended between them, as frost on a glass window
This reminded of something I’ve read elsewhere (a Japanese author? Maybe Izumi Kyoka?) but I can’t quite place at the moment. Great turn of phase that immediately makes things clear, at any rate.

Things might have needed a little bit of tightening or rewording towards the end as it runs out of steam a little. Still, put into perspective, this and other things are minor flaws, like some of the more complex sentences in the piece that can tend towards feeling just a touch overwrought.

The important thing is that I think you transmitted that sense of connection and disconnection, of things ever-so-simple (and could be cut with a single slice) but at the same time part of something that can’t be easily defined or have their structures fully appreciated due to lack of perspective and experience.

Overall, it’s close, but I can safely say that this is my favorite entry.

Influence

This was me and I tried for something different.

Instead of concentrating on any one character, I wanted to comment on Gensokyo itself as well as youkai and their relationship to humanity. Characters are purposefully depersonalized and the piece avoids names save for Miyoi who serves as an anchor for various elements and unifies both halves. (Fans may know the characters and that gives them a little something extra but nothing that makes a huge difference to the story.) The perception of what youkai are and where trouble comes is a central idea here. The piece begins with loud, obvious interpretations of the supernatural manifest in a coming storm and in the doom that comes with it. The humans are talking about youkai trouble but are steered away from worrying about it. I purposefully reintroduced all of the creatures that are mentioned and offered a deliberate contrast to what the ideal of what humans might expect; they are quieter and their way of doing things is much more subtle.

Things like the sweeping and impersonal language language that’s mixed with speculation becomes more certain and intimate in the back half as the actual dynamics in Gensokyo come into focus. That’s where the assumptions in the first half are challenged. Though most youkai need humans more than they care to admit, and do deceive them without regret, they need not be always so explicitly adversarial; Miyoi is just as bad as the rest of them but both she and her customers get something from each other; the explanation at the end underlines that things can and do work out and there’s no need for pretensions in order to enjoy mutual benefits.

As the literal storm dissipates, a more figurative one is (routinely) brewing in the heart of the village but both may be full of sound and fury but they signify very little and aren’t actually that dangerous. It is, in fact, a liveliness that’s fairly similar to that of the humans. (The volume of sounds at every point in the story is mentioned and there’s parallel trajectories for the increase and decrease.)

The alternate title for the piece was: “Perception”

Also, given the initially distant and stuffy style of the narrator, I found myself leaning into a distinctly British voice (and mannerisms) as I went along. It seemed fun and felt right and I think makes the story stand out a little as it’s a rare thing to see on THP. By the end we’ve lightened up but continue to speculate, inviting the reader to draw their own conclusions.

There’s more that I could say but I think that that’s enough given the reception. A bit of a shame that only one person seemed to get it in any capacity and understand why things are the way they are. Honestly, looking what has been said about other stories and how they've been engaged I don’t think that it’s a huge a failing on my part; perhaps it’s a matter of expectations or limited perception :V

---

Will probably try to dive into the comments more fully and reply to stuff if needed/requested now. I usually avoid looking at what other people are saying in order not to taint my own thoughts until the very end.

>>18263
Rumia and Remilia
Thanks, although I didn't think of their relationship as romantic. They're just friends, other than that I'm glade you dislike it as much as I do.

Nightbug
Honestly, I didn't think pov character at all, he's just a generic pathetic person. I think part of the problem is I did give him any defining characteristics at all, next time this type of character should be even more of a mob.

>>18264
>I purposefully reintroduced all of the creatures that are mentioned and offered a deliberate contrast to what the ideal of what humans might expect; they are quieter and their way of doing things is much more subtle.

I think I see what you were going for, but if the heart of the story was supposed to be drawing contrasts between the humans and youkai, you needed to set them up for a more direct comparison. Having them discussing the same events, for example, would go a long way. You could give the human take on events, and then flip the perspective by showing the youkai take, and lay out a contrast that way. By having them talk about totally different things, it's not clear that they're supposed to be contrasted, or how you would do so.

As the story stands, the only real connection between the first and second half is that it takes place in the same bar. There need to be more similarities in the situation for the differences in how the groups respond to the situation to come into focus. Otherwise it just looks like two different things that happened.

>>18240
Bee's Review of "Clothes":
Your criticisms have been taken into consideration.

>>18253
Lost Soul's Review of "Clothes":
I should have been thanking everyone who wrote nice things about this short, so thank you and everyone else who enjoyed it! I didn't really try to do any kind of dramatic twist, but I get what you mean. I know it wasn't clear, but Marisa didn't describe the quality of the clothes because she wasn't really paying attention to the clothes as she wasn't interested in them. She was interested in the apron because it matched her aesthetic, but the rest didn't. I imagine Marisa doesn't bother spending her time on things she's not interested and tried to show that here. Yeah, I should have named at least a few garments in hindsight. Too earnest, sure, maybe, but she got it for free. There's no better deal than that. Partly word limit, partly I felt like adding more would have been spinning wheels for the sake of adding just a tiny bit more lore. I do want to do more with her, but I know I'd struggle to write a story with her as the main character.

>>18258
Poingnant's Review of "Clothes":
It sounds like you understood every little detail except yes, she is stupid and yes, she doesn't understand marketing. She's not Cirno stupid, but she is visibly below average intelligence. She's an idiot savant for clothing and fashion, though.

>>18263
LikeMindedPerson's Review of "Clothes":
You can consider it an introduction or first chapter of something else, yeah, because it kind of is. Except that story is supposed to be slice of life and not very long.

>>18264
Teruyo's Review of "Clothes":
Yeah, I was hoping one could read it as either a sweet little slice of life moment or the first chapter of an actual story. I wasn't going to be upset if I went over the word count, but I knew that if I did I'd be writing an ending that was too long to match each part of the story's structure and be filled with almost nothing of substance.

Everyone's Review of just ignore this one:
If I could, I'd go back in time and kick my own ass for posting this. Not because no one understood it, but because I didn't do nearly enough to try to make you understand.

>>18264
'Perception' might have been more apt, but the double-meaning of 'influence' made for a right beautiful title. Eleven out of ten.

I guess I didn't really pick up on the Albion-isms, but maybe that's just because it looks 'normal' to me after so much of that sort of literature. It is somewhat apparent on a second read, though.

And I'll admit that it didn't completely occur to me in the moment that Miyoi is the way she is, but it does click into place fairly quickly. I mean, it makes sense she's 'Team Youkai' as it were. Of course she'd try and steer gossipy barflies from the truth of the matter.

Glad you liked Unlived. Will maybe have more to say on that score when I've had coffee.

>>18266
They are talking about the same thing. Like, it's set up right in the prose.

>“We must be bothering her. We’re the last ones here again. I suppose we got too caught up gossiping like a pair of washerwomen.”

>The topic of strange goings-on in the village was wholly forgotten.

>“They are talking about that rich merchant at the edge of the village who died recently, the one so wealthy that even you couldn’t have ruined him. Very old money. His home was there before any of this was here; people worked their land as tenants ages ago. It would seem that certain youkai consorted, undisguised, with the man years ago and, maybe, still consort with his heir. They got access to all sort of luxuries like fine liquor and a reliable base in the village. No one’s ever seen anything. But since when has that ever stopped the nosy sort from kicking up a fuss? Plus these two are fuming at the missed opportunity. ‘Cos they are too thick to think about fun ways of dealing with humans.”

The implication is that both parties were spending time talking about this merchant and his down-low dealings with youkai. It really doesn't need to be spelled out that much.

Also, that's not the only contrast, as Teruyo put himself
>The piece begins with loud, obvious interpretations of the supernatural manifest in a coming storm and in the doom that comes with it. The humans are talking about youkai trouble but are steered away from worrying about it. I purposefully reintroduced all of the creatures that are mentioned and offered a deliberate contrast to what the ideal of what humans might expect; they are quieter and their way of doing things is much more subtle.

Starts with "humans believe that youkai are big spooky things who make thunderstorms", continues with "youkai are catty bitches who sit around bars being salty that they didn't form sweet secret, sexy arrangements with rich humans". Hard not to see a contrast there.

Just to completely spell it out for those in the back: The implication is that the youkai in question is/are kappa ("base in the village") and that the nature of their relationship with the merchant was/is sexual ("consort with"). The guy was getting turtle 'tang for good liquor and keeping quiet about sneaky activity.

And that's right there in the text! Out in the open! It's really not that obtuse.

>>18268
Did you consult with the author on this piece and have him explain to you what he was going for? Because I really don't see how there's enough in the text itself to conclude that the youkai being referred to in the second part were kappa. All sorts of youkai might like fine liquor and a base in the village.

Likewise I don't see how you connect the mention of "strange goings-on" to mean that the humans had been in fact talking about the youkai scandal and it just hadn't been written into the story in lieu of writing them talking about the weather, unless the author directly told you that was what he was going for. It's a very thin possible connection, but it's not enough to make the connection clear unless you have more information to know that's what's being referred to.

>>18269
I just... read the story, saw the mention 'strange goings-on' followed by everything Suika said, and it clicked together, given all of the other sound-and-fury about youkai set up at the very start, plus all of the general implications of... everything Touhou? Don't know what you want me to say. It's a matter of just noticing things. I didn't have to confer with the writer on any of that.

As to how the youkai being kappa, how many others have been observed in official material with a secret base in the village? It's in Forbidden Scrollery. Yeah, that requires a bit of knowledge of, well, Touhou, but it's also not critical to know the fact that it was the kappa, either.

>>18267
I forgot to add my name to this

>>18264
Sometimes I go about in pity for myself, and all the while a great wind carries a stream of goasts across the sky.
—Konpaku saying

>>18266
There is more than one way to thread together a story beyond depictions of events. The connection of place is there, yeah, and so is Miyoi. But there's also the fact that it's the same kind of youkai (plus a goddess) being present between both halves. It's the similar behavior and energy of the groups and how they wind up and down when gossiping. They are gossiping about the same happenings in the village. It's the motifs and the deliberate mention of noise. There is a lot of small things that tie things together. What they think of the rumor doesn't really matter nor is it worth spending time with their own opinions on it—the mere fact that it's about humans and youkai fraternizing without deception shows that they are more alike than different.

This is one of the issues at the heart of the piece—expectations, perception, biases or whatever else you want to call it does not correspond to reality and youkai aren't an entirely unknownable and scary thing but behave very similarly to humans. If there wasn't a taboo (arguably, on a meta level, necessity), they could well get along with each other at a pub as they clearly can in a private space. The other important thing is that youkai maintain this distance by manipulation and subterfuge not the obvious booming thunderstorms and displays of power as might be expected. (Explored in FS, LE, and other print media where you have various youkai scheming against each other for influence in the village.) Maybe the youkai in the mansion is doing the same? Who can say? Regardless, it's very understandable and human too. Both groups end up drinking and gossiping, making more and more noise as things get lively for good reason.

I'm not sure how I can put it more clearly after walking through things step by step as with my original comment.

>>18268
I'm glad you enjoyed it. The title was a last minute decision, chosen between the two as I was putting stuff in the posting field. And, well, the Britishisms are probably what people meant by the unspecified "grammar issues" with examples like "got" used instead of "gotten", "catch cold", "'Cos" and a few other things like that are not US usage. (Additionally, I looked up stuff like em dash usage and found that the British usage only uses spaces around them when it is used to indicate an omission.)

>>18269
The only things I've shared about the story to anyone are things I've said in this thread. They're right about the things that they bring up. And those meanings and connections are not meant to be obfuscated or difficult to figure out. The things they highlight are right on the money in terms of links between between elements and there's plenty more as I've mentioned that bind things together. Things from both halves are compared to one another multiple times and in different ways throughout.

There's no real direct indication that it's a kappa, you're right about that, but feels like the sort of creature that would want a base in the village given their usage of warehouses in official media. Or maybe it was Suika herself, lusting for fine liquor and good company? That's an exercise left to the reader ☺

>>18209 (Gooboi)
It is interesting to me that you suggest I be more oblique rather than less in the body of the story while also having the protagonist directly address Eirin. The impression I have of the majority of comments so far is that, with few exceptions, they find it to be already too oblique. I personally feel that it is more interesting for the protagonist to not speak directly to Eirin. Something about absence making the heart grow fonder. My interpretation of things for this story is that the protagonist is stuck in a sort of ‘unreal’ state of existence due to the effects of the prototype hourai elixir, and is speaking to an unspecified hourai immortal as they wait to ‘respawn’. For the purposes of this story, Eirin is not herself a hourai immortal. I don’t have a good answer for why they can’t speak to Kaguya and I’m not particularly interested in it besides.

>>18213 (Anon)
This is not intended to be an epistolary story. I could have done a better job of making it clear that this was a depiction of a ‘face to face’ conversation. The only real sign is that the protagonist asks for the favor and receives a reply. I did not bother trying to base the protagonist on a mythological character. They are an original character that represents an anonymous Lunarian who is relevant only in relation to Eirin. Izumo and the reed plains are mentioned because knowledge of what the Capital did there (in this story, essentially war crimes) are a motivating factor for the protagonist and possibly Eirin to rebel.

>>18214 (Teruyo)
I agree with the criticism of straying from exploration of the relationship with Eirin. I think I simply lack understanding to portray things in a more compelling and believable way. Hopefully my work on this piece will advance my understanding of it.

Similarly, I find I lack a confident answer for the question of why exactly the protagonist came to love Eirin enough to sacrifice so much for her. Again, I don’t understand this in great detail. I think it was something like respect and admiration, and wanting her to be free of the Capital. That still doesn’t really answer your question. I have some idea of the overall shape of the thing and the inputs and outputs but it’s all very superficial and I don’t have any real understanding of the sort of love I wanted to portray. Again, I hope that I may overcome this ignorance.

The parenthetical asides were excessive. I borrowed their use from another flash fiction story that served as inspiration and implemented them in a clumsy way. I think I would eliminate at least half of them on a revision. The ending dialogue is another stylistic choice I imitated. Multiple people have suggested that the story would be stronger without it, and I think they are accurate.

>>18231 (Fluffy Mask)
Yeah, it does feel undercooked. I still do not understand the concept of love. I added the metaphysical explanation part because I felt like it could be beneficial to demonstrate that the protagonist was fully aware of the process and her ‘star pupil’. Somehow I wanted to emphasize that they were not just a fan of hers but someone who could meaningfully contribute with their mind in addition to their body. I’ll think about better ways to do that, or even if that is something that is worth emphasizing at all.

Do I look like I know what an Em Dash is???

>>18253 (Lost Soul)
> showing off that you know how to use a dictionary
Knowing how to use a dictionary is a basic skill relevant for any person who wants to write or read.

>>18258 (Poingnant)
I received your feedback elsewhere and consider it to be useful. I am inclined to agree with you and others regarding the weakness of the ending dialogue. The simplest solution may be to omit it entirely.

More reviews of entries to follow.

>>18274
— This is an Em Dash. It can be used in place commas, colons, a pair of parentheses.
– This is an En Dash. It is used in compound adjectives, in date and time ranges, and when you want to connect two things at odds with each other. Like score or factions set against one another.
For instance.
>Tengu–Kappa War
or
>The score is up to 0–8 in the Tengu Kappa ball game (I don't know sports)
- This is a hyphen. It is used for hyphenated compounds, which can be nouns verbs, and adjectives

Computer keyboards tend not to have a key for the Em or En dash so you don't see them used a lot in fanfiction and instead see a lot of ellipses and parentheses. This ties into Teruyo and FluffyMask's greater point about fanfiction-type writing which can are especially prevalent in digital a serial or one-shot format type fiction.

>>18275
Thank you. This is helpful.

I'll put my trip back on for this, I guess.

Sincerest apologies to the writer of this one. Physiology made reading and considering considerably more difficult than it had to be for a bit. Luckily, I’m clearer-headed today and can perhaps divine an insight or two. No promises on being that articulate, though.

Kamehime

Splendid. Have a plate of gabagool for yourself. I’ll have to admit that I’d taken a different piece for being yours, and I’m sorry for being so prejudiced as to make such a mistake. Just seeing this one made me realise my error. And I’m quite exhilirated to see you writing once more!

In all honesty, I’m not sure what I can say about this piece that isn’t somewhat trite. I mean, Teru took a lot of the words out of my mouth. I love the tone of it, the vividness of the imagery evoked, and the emotions drawn upon. I don’t know much about love per se, but that sort of fascination should be familiar to most, even if it’s not about an individual. I mean, if you told me that the meterologist kappa was, in fact, talking about anything other than a person, I’d have believed it just the same.

Dragons are very sticky subject for Touhou because official material tends to lend them a certain weight that they might not always be due. Of course, this is fine. We can always use things that linger more to the back and never need to be called frontward. In this case, you have left this dragon to loom in the distance, and that fact is appreciated. Their presence is felt in the mind of the kappa, yet they’re never seen up close. Yet there is no need for them to be close because their admirer is a watcher of weather and an all-out observant individual!

Another often less deftly-handled bit of setting is anything to do with the heavens, Ryuuguu, and so forth. That’s partly because it’s such a muddle of things that ZUN just sort of stacked together with, I’d ween, little regard for future cohesion. You’ve taken advantage to simply slip out a choice bit in the form of a fishy messenger and appeals to the mythology of Ryuuguu. It’s very class. It shows that there needn’t be too much done overtly with what bits there are; you’ve managed to evoke emotions through them with very few convolutions.

In sum, I’m still not sure what I can meaningfully say. There may or may not have been flaws in the prose, but I’m so smitten by the story that I, like a mountainous meterologist, am zeroed-in on its more lovely features. Congratulations on putting out one of my favourite pieces of this exhibition, you beautiful person, you.

>>18274
The thing is that I'm not sure it mattered that much the specifics of who they were. It's fine if they were meant to be a 'star pupil' or somesuch, but the fact of the matter is that there wasn't a whole lot of space to get into that. What was more pertinent was the draw to Eirin that they had, and I think you did manage to convey some sense of that love that wasn't quite romantic but also not quite platonic, nor was it just simple admiration. You understand a little better than you credit yourself.

>>18273
You know, I had the thought that maybe Suika was the youkai for a moment but dismissed it because it felt 'too obvious'. Silly me! I suppose the Japanese goblin is certainly the type to sneakily get what she wants, too.

And I love the points brought up about misdirection and subterfuge with youkai in Touhou and how they're just as similar to humans as they are different. Both often end up lost in the wash, I feel.

>>18261
Admittedly, the only thing of Turgenev's I've read is A Hunter's Sketches — or however else the title is translated. In fact, one of the earlier vignettes in that collection involves waterfowl hunting!

>I don't get what you're saying here.
I was simply saying that, if it were me, I'd have taken the Yukari bits out. Some of that is simple bias against Yukari being given a foreground treatment in stories; I do acknowledge that your handling is far less heavy-handed than it would be in a lot of cases. I also just felt as if those parts didn't carry that strong of an idea, as opposed to the kappa bits.

Anyway, I suppose I found the general thought of actual eta being involved a bit more fascinating. It's not a subject touched on often, even in actual Japanese literature, and I've considered it a few times myself in the context of Touhou. Perhaps this will be the final necessary nudge? (Probably not, but there's always hope.)

Continued apologies to those who had things to say further up. I'm trying to get around to you!

To continue >>18225 and respond to feedback...
To everyone who mentioned paragraph breaks: damn! You're totally right! The paragraph spacing in my word processor kind of misled me here. I'll have to pay attention to that.
To everyone who mentioned punctuation: as I've said, it's an attempt to style the text after candid spoken word, or after transcripts of it, or something like that. I understand the feedback! I just wasn't sure how else to portray the prosodic aspects of her speech as I imagined them. Is there a way to do that that's easier on the eyes?
Also... I should have made my intention way clearer in the text itself. Basically everyone figured that she was talking to herself and not to someone else, and treated the story accordingly. And it's actually a reasonable read, considering what I've written!

>>18217
>As much as I love Alice, I firmly am against linking her to the PC-98 era stuff. It has never come up and doesn’t seem relevant to her life nor personality as it has been depicted in the years since.
Of course it's never come up! What kind of an argument is that? Nothing from the PC-98 era has come up as of late. You can disregard it if that's your preference, and it's a perfectly reasonable preference to have, but don't pretend there's any objectivity to that. There's no outright in-text contradiction to considering her a Makai person — and even then, it's not like you have to smooth out contradictions in the first place, even if most people prefer internal consistency. I know you're very concerned with what fandoms call "canon", but there's more to Touhou than just the explicit text of it.
>There never was anything concrete, anyways, to make her Shiki’s child.
True, hence why I'm not even really doing it here. I used to have that kind of interpretation, but don't really subscribe to it anymore (though I still believe she isn't a total Makai nobody due to th5's extra stage, her reappearance in Windows games and a few of her titles, and because it's fun for me). In the story, Alice called her a mother to sound more mundane.
>Alice’s voice in this also is unlike her appearances in manga and in the games. There, she’s more confident and does not meander.
My bad, sort of. She's not intended to be timid or anything, I was trying to convey that she's choosing her words carefully and even making a few things up on the go.
>If the intention was to have her regress into childhood as she reminiscences then it is too abrupt and unprompted.
No, not at all, there isn't even any childhood to regress to, as you can gather...
>If that’s not the case, then it strikes me as odd that she only describes without offering commentary from her own perspective.
Not sure what you meant here. Isn't offering commentary from her own perspective basically all she's doing here?

>>18231
>she’s absolutely fixated on dolls to the point that I’m not sure she’d even question ever getting tired of them.
Okay, that's a pretty funny way to put it, and maybe even sort of a good point. And I did want to portray her as fixated on dolls, actually.

>>18222
>Another one I'm not sure how to say anything about. I like it, I can say that. It's uncomfortable in a good way.
I'm very flattered, that's what I was going for. Thank you so much.

My comments part one.

So, to start off, there's a sort of thing which I'm going to start calling the "pure fanfiction formula" from now on: names/epithets + dialogue/gestures + props. This is what a ton of fanfiction authors start out knowing, because it's what they start out reading, and it leads to a natural plateau where their writing can't get any more interesting until they find a way to branch out of this basic formula, by for example reading some actual books. And the top of the plateau is readable, but unremarkable, because all that's fundamentally there is permutations of things that can be recognised on sight. The characters are no more than the basic identity and collection of traits you immediately recognise them as having, and the actions and dialogue are likewise no more than a recognisable moveset laid over basic stage directions: a greeting; an expression of surprise; a physical assault. Very often the environment suffers most, because actual places are often irreconcilably specific, and it's glaringly obvious when they've been reduced to such a "moveset"; as if "tree" were simply a thing that the ground did on command. You end up with a story which is basically not more than its individual pieces strung along into words, and which leaves me personally with nothing worthwhile to talk about.

Anyways, I'm just going to say "PFF" if I see it, instead of repeating this whole thing every single time. Okay? Wonderful.

Rumia and Remilia + Nightbug
PFF. I particularly don't like it when non-fairy characters who simply happen to be child-shaped are portrayed as being actually child-like. There are other personalities to explore. Check out Forest Mix, for example.

Reisen in Crossovers With Works I Haven't Read/Watched/Played, and also Kudamaki/Kuro
I don't touch no crossovers, neither.

"Clothes"
I'm picturing Eme as the Dolomedes tenebrosus that's been living in my basement lately. Cute little bugger. I wish mine could weave me an apron as nice as that, but it's too shy, I guess; it mostly just runs away from me.

Anyways, cute, but PFF. Still, I see a hint of breaking out of it, in the deliberate ekphrasis in the description of the apron. It's a comfy technique that I appreciate seeing in a story, and I feel that often writers shy away from it because it strikes them as "purple". Well, they shouldn't! It's got a Greek name and everything! It's a legitimate device that you can use!

just ignore this one
'Kay.

Unlived
You know, I can relate to this piece a lot. I've felt the kind of ecstatic euphoria Youmu describes, on several occasions before, when witnessing the stars at night beyond the clouds on summer nights just like these. I've felt like I was stuck in a kind of perpetually childish state while watching the cycling of the seasons, and gotten the impression that nothing ever seemed to really change about myself. I've had that feeling of not knowing what to do with my emotions when teased lightly for a mistake, and I've also had my mind respond to social slights by immediately jumping to "solving the problem by the shortest line possible". And I've had to teach myself to smile, quite literally.

Despite all that I'm not a fundamentally Youmu-like person, so it's at the same time quite unfamiliar and more than a little pitiable. I suppose my critique, then, has to do with the sudden turn at the end; the decision to change her point of view? It doesn't really seem like it "comes from" anywhere; there's no antecedent other than the negation of a negation; the rejection of rejection. Of course it's meant to be rather floaty and optimistic, the way these sorts of personal revelations often are—but some visible source of inspiration might have been good? Even just a sentence, for example, to remind us of the stream of the living-dead that she's been looking at? It would have also added a shot of "story-presence", to prevent the latter half from seeming too much like just a summary of her thoughts.

I'm mainly thinking of this scene from Tolstoy's The Cossacks, which is a similar sort of sudden personal revelation that turns out to be overly naïve by the end of the book: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Cossacks/Chapter_XX

A Snipping Motion + Destination Elsewhere
I want seven more of these kudasai. They're well-conceived and pleasantly written with excellent atmosphere, and of course I'm an absolute sucker for Moon rabbits taken seriously. But... they also kind of hint at too much that doesn't go anywhere when it's just these two shorts alone. If you had more pieces in the collection, I think you'd be able to organise your details better and couch them in, if not necessarily explanations, then additional subtext that gives the reader a better idea of their significance? As it is, it's derivable, with the aid of background knowledge, but not really communicated, if you get what I mean, and in that sense they're not really self-contained.

My comments part two.

One Dish
This is a comfy entry. It starts out strong with the exposition on colour, and the expansion from gastronomical into geographical and architectural scale using Shimmy's perspective is nice throughout. Again, I appreciate the deliberately sensual style, being somewhat of a gourmand myself. The thing is, I feel that the descriptions don't quite maintain the level of quality that I think the approach demands? Particularly when it comes to the choice of referring to the characters only by epithets—you end up reverting to things like hair, or costume colour, or summaries of their basic character concepts, which end up coming across as cliché because of the context-free way in which they're slotted in. It feels like you're just side-stepping a name, instead of building up a description from the basic foundations of what Shimmy is thinking and experiencing in the scene. And there's no reason for it to be that way, because you've already used Shimmy's inch-level perspective to brighten up your descriptions of the food, right? It's a perfect opportunity to make use of synecdoche for the characters as well—not a "princess", but her ivory fingers; so on and so forth. Making it even clearer that it's like a train of sensations for her, and less like a checklist of characters to run through.

An Iota of Eternity
The concept is fundamentally good and interesting, and it invokes some quality backstory details, but it feels like a draft. That is, it feels like all the material has been gotten down as a first go, but it hasn't yet been packaged into a story rather than a series of explanations. The most glaring lacuna is... who is it? Not their name or their identity, but what it's like to be them, or speak to them; what implicitly happened just before Mokou met them in the space between death and rebirth, and where have they managed to stand with respect to each other in the short space in which they've interacted? The narrator is "not a poet", but still they should have a picture of what kinds of thoughts and doubts their conversation partner might be having—a phrase like "suffice it to say" is easy to reach for, but it doesn't serve a real purpose unless you've related it to what actually suffices for the goals of the conversation. What kind of person does the narrator wish to present themselves as, and why? What kind of an interpersonal understanding do they wish to receive from Mokou? Do they have a body, which they're implicitly emoting with? And I want to know what they felt in the wake of Takemikazuchi's Roaring Reed-Rending Rampage. They don't seem the sort for whom words often fail, or emotions often brim over. Maybe it overwhelmed them then, but they might well be able to talk about it now; and if so then that's another layer of framing that should be taken into account.

That's the basic question in my head. Who, describing whom, to whom, and why?

Influence
The atmosphere is excellent as is usual for your stories, but, hmm... it took a couple of attempts at writing out this very comment before I actually "got" it. And now that I do "get" it, everything that you've mentioned becomes a lot more visible, but I find that there's basically this one initial spot of weakness, which is that someone jumping into this story for the first time has no idea how to categorise the preliminary exposition. Their first thought is likely to be a literal interpretation, and it's very easy for them to miss the fact that it's subtextually tied to the "gossiping" that the two old men are caught up in. Particularly when, as you've mentioned, the voice of the narrator is rather distant and stuffy, whereas the atmosphere between the two men is anything but. The way that the preamble bends into a somewhat abstract discussion of purpose and existence doesn't feel like it contributes to the subtextual element—I think maybe instead the words could have been spent on something like a continuation of the list; a few more specific ghoulies being hypothesised one after another, to capture a bit of that "oh, yes, and what about" feeling that's often present. You know, belly-drumming tanuki and rain-catching kappa all joining in; using a bit of disproportion and absurdity to keep it vivid long enough for the connection to be made, and to set up the parallelism more clearly.

Well, you know who I am, and you know how nit-picky I can get about signposting the reader properly, so I'm sorry for getting on the same old case again, but this time I tried to identify the most minimal, targeted change that would make all the difference in my view. I hope it's useful, even if you disagree :>

Sugar Shape
An oil fire of a PFF. I know what you're doing, but sorry 🧯💨

Burakumin
It's exceedingly good as far as a first attempt at writing goes. You've got a few wobbles to do with consistent tense and grammar, but nothing a proper editing pass wouldn't have rectified; and also an impressively developed grasp on several deeper aspects of the craft. There are also a few points where your phrasing dips into cliché; but, again, I think some more time to revise would have given you the opportunity to strengthen them. It's thoroughly well-informed, not just about general things like the status of hunting and firearms, but about smaller things like the special dispensations of Suwa-taisha or the daily schedule being from pre-dawn till noon. The image of Yukari piloting a punt is simultaneously hilarious and not at all exaggerated or unfitting. I'd very much like to see what your writing can be like when it isn't hurried out in short order like this.

The Day Fire Fell to Earth
This is basically fine as far as, like, webnovel-style worldbuilding fantasy goes. It's not even PFF, because there are things we don't instantly recognise! Anyways, I'm not gonna, like, dunk too much on the subject matter, because plenty of beginning writers start out writing this kind of gratuitous "all the things that appeal to me, personally" worldbuilding fantasy, and many of them go on to write pretty good stuff afterwards once they get it out of their system. Check out >>/shorts/1779, maybe, since you seem to be into this sort of thing.

Rolling River, Standing Stone
You've told her story and you've told it well. It's simple in an effective sort of way. Almost like stacking stones one on top of the other. Round and cute and kind of helplessly forlorn.

One Last Bloody Tear
Oh, this one's really good. I like it a lot, both aesthetically and conceptually, and the prose is quite charming—I think the rhyming manages to sidestep too much of a twee feeling, by being interleaved with passages of alliteration and not adhering to any kind of predictable pattern. I don't know if this was intentional, or if it's just something that you just felt intuitively, but I want to specifically point out your use of four-beat stress-timed phrases, which together with the alliteration give the feeling of the archaic English style of poetry: "She saw that the rivers were running red, flush and flooding with sunset rays". It lends an excellent feeling of motion to the prose which does a lot to break up the kind of lockstep that rhyming tends to create.

If I've got one criticism to make, it's that it's just not very clear that we're talking about the Hakurei line. You imply it at the start using a paint-by-colours reference to PC-98 Reimu and Genjii, but I just plain didn't catch it because of how non-suggestive those basic colour words are; my mind jumped to different characters entirely. I think you could have reworked it to be more actually suggestive and less of a wink-nudge kind of deal, basically, in order to be in line with the dignity of the rest of the piece.

My comments part three.

Midday + Midnight
Both of these start out strong, and the atmosphere is quite good throughout, if you ignore the dialogue... and it's really easy to ignore the dialogue. I mean, even the pacing of the speech itself is fairly effective, the way it's broken up, contributing to the atmosphere of hesitant reconciliation. But the material things that they say are just not quite to the level of dignity that I think is demanded. They're summing up exactly the difference in contexts between the two time periods, and exactly how they feel about it, without adding much of anything that brings the speakers to life as individual people in individual contexts, rather than, well... PFF props. The sweets cart detail is there, but it's a stock kind of detail that's just slotted in context-free; and meanwhile Mokou's random prognostication is, you know, just plain absurd.

I think you're getting there; your composition at least I feel is breaching the glass ceiling. Keep at it! Read more! Reach higher!

First Contact
PFF. You've also plateaued, so all I can suggest is the same as the last one. Also, if you were trying to render "God of Idols" in Latin, what you want is the genitive plural: deus idolorum.

An Unconscious Visit
Again, PFF plateau. Like, to take just one detail into account, why does she have to be drinking red grape wine? Is there any kind of local flavour you could have injected through that particular prop, whether you stick to that drink or no?

The Visitor
~(=^•ω•^) <- Cat witnessing horrors beyond her comprehension (she doesn't get it).

It's a cat-like piece, I guess. Gave me a good chuckle.

Sculptor
I can't believe Keiki is using generative AI in her workflow.

I dunno. The conventional takeaway of "little guy doing its best" is just not that interesting to me. I think there's more untapped potential in the concept of a "creator" which is not just too inchoate to appreciate what it's doing, but which fundamentally cannot appreciate it because it is the unmoored process itself. This is a bit of a derail, but if anyone's interested in that sort of thing, you might want to take a look at this post: https://nostalgebraist.tumblr.com/post/785766737747574784/the-void

Untitled Alice Story
It's realistic for people to struggle to phrase things when monologuing, but it doesn't mean you should indulge it this much when it comes to writing a short story. Pace >>18227, you are still writing a piece of literature and not simply transcribing a recording, and I think it's preferable to go beyond what might be considered "realistic" diction in order to accomplish your literary goals. A few disfluencies are fine, in order to suggest an unrehearsed kind of rhythm, but when it's time to really speak then it's time for you to really speak. As in, compose, with authorial voice. Look back at some of the examples linked at the top of the thread to see what I mean.

Would you like to know more?
What in the name of His Augustness Moon-Night-Possessor did you just say about me, you little Earthling? I'll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Eagle Ravi, and I've been involved in numerous secret raids on NASA, and I have over 300 confirmed Saturn V shootdowns. I am trained in orbital warfare and I'm the top emissary in the entire Lunar Capital. You are nothing to me but just another trojan. I will put you on a trans-Hell injection with delta-v the likes of which has never been seen before on the infinitely low Earth, mark my araburu katarigoto. You think you can get away with spreading that kegare to me over the faraway voyage of 380,000 kilometres? Think again, runagate. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of bakus across the Dream World and your pillow is being traced right now so you better prepare for the hammer, Earthling. The hammer that wipes out the pit of overflowing impurity you call your life. The rabbit has landed, Houston. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can purify you in over eight hundred myriad ways, and that's just with a salt shaker. Not only am I extensively trained in spiritual combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the Lunar Defence Corps and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your star-spangled butt off the face of the planet, you little clown. If only you could have known what reversal of the wheel of fortune your unfortunate "slip of the tongue" was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have kept silent, sinner. But you couldn't, you didn't, and now you're pounding the rice, you lunatic runagate. I will MG MG all over you and you will drown in it. You're fucking dead, short-ears.

One Shell Too Many
No such thing. Heaven is a place where you eat two crabs a day on weekdays, a tableful on Saturdays, and take a break with surf-and-turf on Sundays. Thank you Nature for carcinisation; keep 'em bangers coming.

... It's a fun concept, I mean; crabs are inherently funny, and so are monks; but I think you spent too many words on the crab shenanigans for too little payoff, and you didn't really capitalise enough on the monk disguise. Kanibouzu are known for their riddle-posing tendencies, so I think you could've paced the piece more around the hinting and winking and nudging, and less around arthropod-to-arthropod communication. As it is, they get rumbled way too quickly and it doesn't build up enough to be that funny.

Little Princess' Little Odyssey
It's mostly PFF, but Shimmy's inch-high perspective provides some easy opportunities for recontextualisation, like "brush" into "lance". Think of more ways to do these kinds of things!

A remedy for a headache
I get what you're doing, but it's kind of... kitschy? Like, you go out of your way to mention that Renko's forgotten her hat; but it feels like the only reason you do that in that specific paragraph is because you went, "well, Renko has a hat and no horn, and Kongara has a horn and no hat, so I've gotta carry both parts of that across". But the transformation doesn't really feel like anything deeper than a simple swapping of appearances and identities. Like, it doesn't really feel like Renko from the start. She's a grad student, a trained physicist, right? I'd expect at least a preliminary hypothesis when it comes to the 星幽 or the "Distant Star", or at least some kind of perspective that e.g. calls up the fact that paradigmatic shifts in science often come about by trying to explain an irreconcilable edge case. Instead she just sort of asks around helplessly and sleepwalks into her fate, the way every other "OH NOOO I'M GOING INSAAANE" type protagonist is wont to do. I dunno... I think for me the appeal of Hifuu comes from its unapologetic "high nerdiness", and the spooky aspects are secondary. Check out Benjamín Labatut's When We Cease to Understand The World, maybe, since it came to my mind while thinking about this.

For the translator, you've got some tense consistency issues to work out.

Kamehime
I'll write up my thoughts on this one in a bit.

>>18286
>For the translator, you've got some tense consistency issues to work out.
True, true. It's usually done by reading through the finished translation a couple of times, shouldn't have neglected that, especially if time constraints aren't much of a concern here.

>>18209
>what's a tom outfit?
All's I can think of.

>>18253
>Nobody is going to know what haruspex means without looking it up.
What's the matter? A bit of unusual vocab too... haruspicy for you?

>>18274
>I borrowed their use from another flash fiction story that served as inspiration
I'm curious; which one, if you're willing to share?

>>18253 >>18292
>Nobody is going to know what haruspex means without looking it up.
Haven't most people played or at least heard of Pathologic?

>>18293
The story I used for primary inspiration was The House of Asterion by Jorge Luis Borges. The parenthetical asides and the style of the ending came from it. I also attempted to emulate elements of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

>>18295
Oh, hell yeah! Asterion was one of the ones that I first looked to for inspiration as well. It just reminded me of House of Leaves though =ω=

So, thank you all for the feedback on "A remedy for a headache"! As I understand it, readers were divided into those who found the story mysterious and those who drew some connections between Renko and Konngara. Overall, both ways of reading are valid. I personally love both incredibly strange things that don’t inherently suggest an answer and puzzle-like stories, so for the exhibition, I tried to create a work that would meet these criteria and appeal to a broader range of site visitors. This is also why I decided to touch on Hifuu: until now, I had limited myself exclusively to PC-98, so in a way, this is indeed an experiment.
Yes, first and foremost, it’s worth noting that this is a translation. The translation was done very late, and that’s partly my fault (though I’m pleased that my story ended up (almost) being the last one — I've always wanted to be the author of the final story in a collection!). I’m quite satisfied with the quality of the translation, and I’d like to sincerely thank the person who helped me — I would have done a much worse job on my own, and the original draft written in English was frankly terrible. Nevertheless, I find it appropriate to try and address the main questions related to this:
>>18210
>I know this was translated at the last minute, so I don’t want to be too harsh, but I do wonder if something’s been lost in the process
Those who read both the original and the translated versions noted a significant difference in perception, mostly stylistic. There are a few moments I personally would have translated differently to create a different impression, but they don’t affect the logical structure of the narrative. I’m genuinely sorry if it was hard to follow the story: I always try to balance the abundance of oddities with a good pace to help readers overcome obstacles effortlessly. I also strive to improve my language to better control such things.
>>18230
>You have to be extra mindful that you need to be precise and clear with your language when attempting something whose style is unconventional otherwise you risk being unintelligble to your audience.
This is exactly what I mean: when it comes to nuances, how something is written is no less important than what is written. I am honestly trying to write reviews for other works, but evaluating language or style is often very difficult for me: it requires a substantial background in English-language fiction, while I mostly read non-fiction in English and have a weak grasp of literary subtleties.
>>18222
>Renko having some kind of very symbolic dream while traveling by train, right? It's cryptic as hell, which I do actually enjoy!
One theory proposed off-site suggested that Renko got hit by a train and ended up in a Buddhist hell — and I really liked that one too. I often lean toward circular composition, even if it’s not always obvious, and it’s gratifying when people find some aesthetic in it, especially tied to the logic of dreams.
>>18255
>The writing style's fine, but I don't know what's going on with the actual story. Is the Distant Star supposed to be the Hakurei Shrine? If so, what does that have to do with a star atlas? I'm assuming that the ability to plot the sky and stars means the narrator is Renko, but why does she grow a horn out of her forehead? The answers simply aren't clear, and that makes it hard to understand anything that's going on here.
The plot here is indeed built around a small mystery, but I didn’t want there to be a fixed answer or even a need for one: that would turn reading into an intellectual competition, which isn’t fair to readers uninterested in such an activity. There is a connection between the two characters (I mentioned it at the start under a spoiler), but in my opinion, knowing it shouldn’t give any advantage to those who aren’t aware of it.

>>18286
The last review, to be honest, is a separate conversation and great food for thought, though responding to criticism where the author’s intent is the subject of discussion is always tricky.
>Like, you go out of your way to mention that Renko's forgotten her hat; but it feels like the only reason you do that in that specific paragraph is because you went, "well, Renko has a hat and no horn, and Kongara has a horn and no hat, so I've gotta carry both parts of that across".
Hah, yeah, it might seem a bit too contrived. I honestly forgot that she left her hat on the train and later planned a scene where she wants to take it off but can’t (the horn pinned it to her head) and panics. But since Renko wanted to forget it, I decided not to play god-author and adapted the scene, letting things take their course. I can’t say how bad the decision was compared to the original plan.
>Like, it doesn't really feel like Renko from the start. She's a grad student, a trained physicist, right?
It was a very cruel move on my part: I left the girl without her best friend, sent her on a train at night, and then the train suddenly stopped… And then there’s that headache…
>I think for me the appeal of Hifuu comes from its unapologetic "high nerdiness", and the spooky aspects are secondary.
…So, it seems there’s not much of the “spirit” of Hifu here. Plus, there’s no music, which, for me personally, softens the perception of the situations the duo gets into. The poor thing has really been a pale shadow of herself in recent months, but she doesn’t seem like a Kafkaesque figure to me. That said, I like this sense of being lost and the distorted perception, so I appreciated Fluffy Mask’s comment (>>18221):
>Neat to capture the feeling of a dissociative episode, I guess, whether or not that was the aim.
Moreover, I really thought a lot about what hypotheses Renko might propose regarding the phenomenon until I concluded that, well… none. And it’s not even about the scientific paradigm that can no longer explain anything. I once gave a lecture on neopositivism to students, but I noticed that the topic itself wasn’t interesting to many — they were more eager to learn how to do things and change the world, not study it. This ties into how I see Konngara: a raw, dangerous life force (she even has an exposed heart!). You won’t see the Distant Star until you light it yourself, yes, and this transition from a contemplative Renko to an “active” one… Perhaps I should have emphasized the contrast more? In the end, some understanding had been brewing in Renko for a while, I think: it’s just that, due to the nature of the phenomenon, it was expressed as a dreadful headache. Alas. I still highly doubt things are actually as I described them.
>Check out Benjamín Labatut's When We Cease to Understand The World, maybe, since it came to my mind while thinking about this.
Hmm, okay, I’ve heard about that book for a while, but I haven’t gotten around to it: I have quite a hefty reading list, but why not?

>>18294
There are only a few videogames with enough cultural currency to be part of the canon. A random janky East European adventure game is not one of them. People have heard of, like, Super Mario Brothers, sure. Pac-Man, OK. Pathologic is a deep cut.

>>18300
Isn't that the joke he's making.

>>18213
Hmh, I don't think it's particularly contemplative as such. The intent was for it to be more impressionistic, to convey the sense of Youmu being aimlessly wistful. I literally started from the general concept of 'someone looking up at the summer sky and feeling wistful', and the story is a result of a fairly intentional building process of questioning what Youmu would feel that sort of way about and how it would manifest. The fact of the matter is that a lot of the people quibbling with me above are too fixated on all of the things portrayed as singular incidents or concrete desires, but Youmu is very generally longing for things like human connection. In a greater sense, she doesn't know what she wants, and I think that's a pretty big element of the story's core: longing without any direction.

>uses Youmu's ghost half to characterize her
Well, it's not really her ghost-half being referred to by her 'spirit'. It's much more figurative in nature, meant to emphasis (clumsily) the sort of detachment from herself that Youmu feels. I did briefly consider trying to incorporate the ghost-half more, but I felt it was beside the point to do so, besides the obvious lack of space.

>syntax becomes a bit too weighty towards the end
Care to share examples?

>>18218
>>18222
It's a little hard to formulate in words exactly what I was going for, but the last line is sort of meant as a last finger on the scale in terms of saying that Youmu doesn't really know what she's doing. She's unmoored. She doesn't actually know what it is that she wants. She's just sort of barrelling forward toward an uncertain goal, unsure where she means to end up. She is, in a sense, a cosmic fool. Yet when you consider the rest of the piece, she also takes herself extremely seriously and perceives an immense emotional gravity in everything mentioned. I suppose I wanted to leave the reader a bit unsure themselves.

Somewhere above, I mentioned another iteration of that line that was more the opposite and was supposed to emphasise how Youmu still felt pulled back to her unchanging ways in spite of her simple-minded resolutions.

>>18258
Nope, any floating was purely figurative. Glad you took a lot of other things more for what they were, though. Youmu is, in the end, a fucking dork who takes herself too goddamned seriously.

>>18264
>There’s a great emotional core there that resonated with me and made me smile and also feel a certain kind of melancholic tenderness.
This is exactly the sort of feeling I was going for, so I'm glad it resonated. It's hard to convey that sort of aimless wistfulness, and I think many others projected a lot of strange values onto things rather than taking them for what they were.

There’s a whiff of self-pity about her:
>The unhappy coincidence of birth had tied her to the duties of the Konpaku name
>Yet, her spirit lamented, ever detached from her cold body, doubts held her fast. [...]
Youmu does feel sorry for herself in both CoLA and her interview with Aya. Part of the reason why other characters get a kick out of pushing her buttons. It’s also a source of humor in both of those print works and, I suspect intentionally, also here.

>a Japanese author? Maybe Izumi Kyoka?
I can't recall clearly where it might have come from, but I suppose I was channelling a bit of Kawabata's Snow Country for whatever reason when I wrote that line. There might have been something else of his that sneaked in there as well. I don't recall specific lines that well from things I've read, so it's more about impressions, I think. Perhaps I've unconsciously assimilated a phrase or two here and there.

>Things might have needed a little bit of tightening or rewording
>some of the more complex sentences in the piece that can tend towards feeling just a touch overwrought.
Could you point out examples? I don't mean to make excuses, but there were many times I knew the feeling I was trying to convey but didn't quite have the space for it. In the end, I had to try to fold things over in ways that were probably not ideal, all in the interests of being fairly strict with the word count.

>The important thing is that I think you transmitted that sense of connection and disconnection, of things ever-so-simple (and could be cut with a single slice) but at the same time part of something that can’t be easily defined or have their structures fully appreciated due to lack of perspective and experience.
Thanks! In all honesty, I felt like I beat the audience over the head with the imagery, but I also felt I couldn't really omit any of it without diffusing the meaning too much. Overall, I was walking a tightrope with this piece, and I probably stumbled more than a few times. At the very least, though, I can claim this piece in particular had a lot more intention baked-in than things in the past. I'm actually feeling good about it for once.

>Overall, it’s close, but I can safely say that this is my favorite entry.
Warms me cockles, that does. I'm super seriously glad you liked it, man. I admire your writing a lot, so it embiggens me to get a bit of kudos.

>>18272
Wonderful. Gave me a chuckle, friend. Also pretty well illustrates a lot of Unlived in a pithy way. Very sharp.

>>18284
I'm glad it resonated so deeply! I was hoping it would be relatable in a fairly basic human way to most.

>It doesn't really seem like it "comes from" anywhere; there's no antecedent other than the negation of a negation; the rejection of rejection. Of course it's meant to be rather floaty and optimistic, the way these sorts of personal revelations often are
Here's the thing: I don't see it as a personal revelation as much as simple self-delusion. Consider how much of a fucking dork Youmu is. She's exactly the type of person to have, say, read a book at some point offering generic, shitty advice like 'smile at people to make them like you' and take it to heart, isn't she? She's going from her childish blame attribution to trying in a very dorky way to steer herself towards a more 'mature' point of view — except she has no frame of reference there. She's 'taking the shortest line to a solution' as you said. However, I don't feel the actual resolution or (lack of) understanding is the point. The point is Youmu continuing to bind herself to things in her search to unbind herself — or maybe the opposite? Even she doesn't know!

>>18272
All well and good, but what would her coma dreams be like?

>>18283
I don’t know if it’s a language barrier or what but there’s no need to be that confrontational and defensive. It is called critique and that is based, in a large part, on opinion. You can take it or leave it and learning how to process that is a valuable skill for a writer. There is no pretense of objectivity and you’re the one that has to accept that.

Yes, I don’t care for PC-98 stuff as inserted into this story (or most stories) as it doesn’t feel relevant to the characters as they exist in the current continuity. Attempts to square the PC-98 circle almost invariably feel forced and contrived. And it’s not that I care about canon as such but deviations or attempts to direct it towards a specific characterization ought to be not only plausible, but also justified or explained, and well-executed. Even the wildest deviations should be built up and developed in the work itself. Authors should not expect anyone to buy into something that has a different starting point or interpretation (especially if unconventional) without doing their due diligence. You have to earn that buy in from the reader. See also: my comments on other stories talking about the intangible aspects of touhou and sundry to understand that I am very much not a literalist and I enjoy verisimilitude in whatever form it takes among other things. Hell, some of my favorite stories over the years on this site have been AU-type stories!

In this case here, I simply did not buy Alice’s rambling and somewhat wistful memories of childhood. Not on their own and especially not in the context of Makai. It doesn’t feel true to her character and her behavior in general. The reader is presented with these recollections that lead to her to sadly question whether she’ll grow out of playing with dolls—the Alice we know would never do that and she is obsessed with them. Relying on this telling of her childhood—specific or not to Makai or whatever else—to build up to this fear is ineffective because the work you’ve put in isn’t sufficient to explain or justify this. There is a disconnect there.

What you’re sharing here isn’t useless for characterization, in absolute terms. As an example: it, or something similar, could have been used to explain Alice’s obsession (really, mania) for dolls and part of the reason why she desires to make an autonomous doll. There’s all sorts different directions that you could take Alice playing with dolls in imitation of the adults around her when little and then both figuratively and literally outgrowing those childhood ones.

>If that’s not the case, then it strikes me as odd that she only describes without offering commentary from her own perspective
What I meant by that is that there’s nothing of the current puppeteer reflecting upon what was going on or how she sees things at present. She simply says that she enjoyed things as a child or found the adults difficult to understand or whatever. It could have been an opportunity further get into her mindset and maybe justify your take on the character within the context of the story.

>>18285
That’s the first criticism offered so far in this thread to actually understand the story and be relevant. And it’s completely fair and I agree. Initially, the first paragraph went on to describe the storm as it approached the village, the wind howling over the warren of frenzied monster raccoon dogs or whatever else until the various chain of things reached the men and their gossip. But that was compressed into the sentence about creatures causing disharmony. Instead, the sentence about the beliefs about the nature of youkai was added and how that unnerved people. Why? Well, in part because I thought that it was most important to underscore the preceding point (as it would contrast with the “truth” later) but mostly because this was an ambitious story with a lot of elements and I endeavored to stay within the 1000-word limit and be as concise as possible. So stuff got cut and reworded, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. It’s a trade-off that has to be made and I’m not sure if it was the correct decision but it would have meant chopping off other bits later. I thought it more important to have a little moment for each of these specific youkai later that “humanizes” them as that’s the bigger issue that needed demonstrating. Robbing Tenma to pay Kanako ends with one crucified no matter what.

Annoying to be in agreement but still have me ultimately reject what you’re saying, right? But well, I’ll add that it might be too oblique (and thus difficult for people to get) but what we first get from the barflies is about a youkai—even though they don’t realize it—and they joke about Miyoi giving them a sour, “scary”, look. It is meant as a continuation from the first paragraph in a way though it requires a little hop instead of being an unbroken chain of (as you put it, vivid) sentences and descriptions.

Further, you’ve established something (>>18284) in a playful but more direct and maybe intelligible way than I managed in my critiques. PFF, indeed.

Which brings me to the possibly ill-advised next part of my post. I wasn’t going to say anything so forceful at first but now I feel compelled to lob a molotov or two.

>>18257
Because you had the audacity to say in >>18253 that someone was showing off for having a non-basic vocabulary I won’t stay quiet.

>The other common criticism is that the prose is basic... which I think misses a fundamental point, because that was an entirely intentional decision

The problem isn’t that your prose is basic as such. We haven’t missed your “fundamental point”. One of the best entries in this exhibition, Rolling River, Standing Stone, uses incredibly plain and simple language and descriptions. Couldn’t be any more basic. But it’s fantastic! They use language effectively and it adds to the experience and reinforces the perspective of the stillborn and the nature of their current existence. Contrast that to your own prose and it’s just a mess. It’s annoying to read, difficult to understand what’s meant to be going on, and it utterly fails to put the reader the head space of a child which seems to have been your intention. You might retreat into excuses that there’s a limitation to the character and their ability to communicate but there is a lot of possibilities that exist besides feeling a discomfort in the chest in terms of sensations, perception of someone at a fish tank, and a sweeping and grandiloquent display that’s cognizant of everything.

I don’t mean to pick solely on you but you’re justifying yourself in a way that won’t help you grow as an author. Yes, “PFF” is a big part of it, but it’s more than that! You should like reading, you should like stories, you should like language to varying extents if you’re planning on writing. If you encounter something new and different, maybe that you don’t understand, you shouldn’t dismiss it out of hand or shrug and move on but examine it and interrogate yourself if there’s something of value, something in whole or in part that might be of use to you.

I’ve tried to make my critiques in this thread tailored to each author and in the areas that they need to ponder the most. The reason isn’t because I’m especially skilled or insightful but because I want to spur people on to not only write more but to continue to grow and improve. I want to see the fantastic stuff that’s inside your hearts and minds expressed in the best way possible. A lot of that comes with experience writing but also from reading, from being exposed to all sorts of content and ideas, reflecting upon them, and transforming them into your own. Figuring out your style or writing with intentionality is something to be celebrated! Having a good and varied vocabulary is something to be proud of! Having more tools at your disposal, even if you don’t use them, is always a good thing!

Don’t be stuck in a rut of your own making, scorning (RIP you mad lad) things that challenge and break the mold. Dare to try! Aim for more, for something that’s more than “Touhou meets other touhou and [funny/cute/sad/bad] thing happens.” Try saying something about the cycle of death and rebirth, the dependence of youkai on humans, the limits of the attempts to modernize Gensokyo in terms of social mobility, where they get the salt, or whatever else that’s normally outside your comfort zone! Don’t be afraid to use motifs, explore themes, analyze characters and have layered and multifaceted storytelling. Even if it sucks, even if is clumsy, everyone has to start from somewhere. You learn, you grow, and the only way to do that is through experience and aiming higher. Read all sorts of things and then write, then read yet more and write and experiment even more.

I said it plainly to to Bomba but it applies to everyone here. You clearly want to write and express yourselves and I believe in you. It’s just a matter of keeping an open mind, developing a critical eye, and putting in the work instead of making excuses!

>>18302
>Could you point out examples?
>She silently bore the nips and pricks of laughter, whispers, or stares sometimes attending her presence
>Yet, her spirit lamented, ever detached from her cold body, doubts held her fast.
>A sudden heaviness cleaved Youmu from her revelry. Time and again, her mistress had opined of her gardener’s childishness. In times like these, seized by an erupting joy, terror, agitation, or excitement, Youmu’s lack of refinement became the obvious culprit.
They’re not too bad on their own but I felt that maybe some of that felt a touch much. But mainly because there’s a lot else that’s going on. Probably would be ... less likely to distract if the story had more space to breath (but not too much, because I think that it would suffer if you lingered and wallowed excessively).

>I'm actually feeling good about it for once.
You damn well should! And don’t worry about beating the audience over the head here. I would hope it makes them engage on more than an obvious surface level if they even realize if these things are there.

>>18284
Ah I have to thank you for your reply, it’s really thought out and way more than somebody like me deserves. I wrote my entries just for myself and just to kill time since the act of writing is something I enjoy. You didn’t have to give so much thought to it but you did and I humbly appreciate that from you, a person like you shouldn’t have to waste their time dealing with an unskilled not even amateur like myself. Honestly I think peoples efforts should be rewarded in equal amount to the effort they put in, so to see a person like you who has clearly put a lot more care and thought into this than I have is really humbling.

>Rumia and Remilia + Nightbug
Likewise I understand there are more personalities beyond being child-like, I just don't care about that. The story of the first one wouldn’t work if they weren’t child-like, and I see Rumia and Remilia as being child-like alongside not caring about them in particular. The only reason I wrote that story is because I read ZUN’s comment about how Rumia hasn’t interacted with either of the vampire sisters despite having high compatibility and thought, ‘hey that sounds fun'
I thought about doing something else with Wriggle but gave up on the idea since I couldn’t come with with what sort of product or service she’d be trying to sell this time and I thought Rumia was cute so I decided to include her on a whim. Next time I’ll try to pick better characters and have a clearer idea for a story I want to tell.

Once again thank you for your time. You didn’t have to put so much thought into this but you did and I am very thankful. I apologize if I came off a bit too strong, but I wanted to earnestly express my gratitude.

>>18303
>It is called critique and that is based, in a large part, on opinion. You can take it or leave it and learning how to process that is a valuable skill for a writer. There is no pretense of objectivity and you’re the one that has to accept that.
I know full well it's all technically subjective, but if you frame it like you did ("doesn’t seem relevant to her life nor personality as it has been depicted in the years since" as opposed to "doesn’t seem relevant to her life nor personality as I choose to percieve it based on its depiction in the years since, which I choose to prioritize because of this and that", or something like that), it's easy to percieve an attempt to be prescriptive. But since that's not the case: Alright! It's not like I don't understand not being enticed by general directions rather than their executions. I don't think criticism based on not buying into the premise is very valuable, but not all criticism has to be, so what you said has merit.
>What I meant by that is that there’s nothing of the current puppeteer reflecting upon what was going on or how she sees things at present. She simply says that she enjoyed things as a child or found the adults difficult to understand or whatever. It could have been an opportunity further get into her mindset and maybe justify your take on the character within the context of the story.
It could have had a different premise, sure. I know how it feels to see what you percieve as a missed opportunity, especially when what could have been appears so beautiful to you. It's just that it really wasn't about Alice from, say, Strange and Bright Nature Deity, it was about Alice from Enigmatic Doll C63... At least that's the best way I can put it.
Anyway, my story's too short and plain to argue about it like that, and I have said enough already, so that will be that, I hope. Ah, no, one more thing, actually...
>sadly question whether she’ll grow out of playing with dolls
I never meant it to be saaaaaaaaaaaadddddd it's not a sad fic okay it's not melancholic I said concerned — she said concerned — she's not sad she's like frowning a little and knitting her brows and all like mmm well it wouldn't be a very nice thing to do would it nevermind though it probably won't happen. it's not even dolls in general. it's these dolls. these dolls as in. Whatever. My fault, really. A matter of clarity. My apologies. I guess that's how an author feels when it is killed. I should be humbled.

>>18302
I think that to improve unlived, it would have needed a shorter first half, probably cutting the third person narration and then adding a strong punchline in the second half.The first idea that comes to my mind is have Youmu come to her conclusion faster, then Youmu approaches a lady, but only manages to terrify her. Youmu kills the lady in response, and still smiling, decides to try again.

>>18306
Appreciate the enthusiasm, but maybe you ought to direct that to improving your own writing. Just a thought.

>>18308
Well we were told to keep the thread busy and I think Unlived fails in being particularly funny.

>>18309
I don't think you, or a lot of other people for that matter, have been following the discussion properly. What the author said was it was meant to be "somewhat funny", if you think about it for a while. Somehow poster after poster began to seize on that single word, "funny", and interpret it as, like, funny like a clown; funny like it's meant to amuse you. It's like you've just skimmed your "understanding" of the author's intentions from what some other poster started to argue against on their own, even though that was never what the author endorsed in the first place.

How about this? Put this word "funny" on the shelf for a moment and just try and rephrase what you think the author meant, using different words. Then maybe they can reply, and tweak your understanding if it happens to be wrong?

>>18310
That Youmu was being overly foolish and came to a hasty conclusion about something that won't be easy: She's being naive but I think Unlived lacks a proper punchline for that to work.
There's no contrast between Youmu's thoughts and the reality around her, and the initial third person narration that then lead into her thoughts then seem to give her thoughts more weight, making them seem more serious than they are.
So I think it should have started out with her thoughts and then shown then colliding with the reality of the situation: i.e her and humans can never understand each other, trying to do so is overly naive.

>>18311
I'm still not the author, but here's a question from me.
>To start, she needed to… smile at them? A book had suggested that, hadn’t it?
What kind of impression do these lines give you? Do you feel that the basis of her thinking here is something that you could wholeheartedly endorse, or would you hesitate for any reason that you could describe?

>>18311
I'd exhort you to scroll up and read >>18302, >>18284, and >>18264, ponder what's said there about the piece, and then ponder why the advice you keep giving doesn't apply.

And, well, at the end of the day, maybe you can write it yourself. I'm not interested in retreading this whole thing because I'm happy with it.

>>18312
That Youmu read in a book she should smile at people more in order to get on their good side. It's not bad advice but I've never liked over cheerful people personally.
I get the impression that Youmu is naive but more in the 'undersocialized' sort of way. Youmu doesn't know how to intract with people, not in a dorky or chuuni sort of way. Just smiling at people more probably isn't going to work out, but generally that's how everybody starts out with something they're not good at. Just smiling isn't going to work, but making small mistakes like that is an important part of learning.
Her basis for thinking is that she read it in a book, but given Youmu here doesn't seem to have her social needs met by those around her I think reading about what to do is the next best option.
So yes, I would endorse Youmu smiling more.

>>18308
>>18313
"Git gud first"? You really have nothing better to say than such blatant demagoguery?
Also perhaps people do not need anointed critics telling them how the text should be understood correctly and can have their own opinions?

>>18315
Regardless of what you think, one of those is the author.
If FluffyMask doesn't want to talk about it any longer it's only polite to do as he requests.

>>18314
>Just smiling isn't going to work, but making small mistakes like that is an important part of learning.
So there you go, right? It's clear to you, the reader, that there are problems with the approach she's decided on. And what the author's been trying to say to you is that different people have different emotional reactions when they witness someone else making a mistake like that. Sometimes that reaction is, in fact, to laugh; or to laugh because otherwise you'd feel the need to cry, which is the interpretation that the author had in mind while writing it. You might still personally disagree or not be able to relate, and that's absolutely fine, but I hope we've successfully backed off from the idea that "being funny" was the primary goal, rather than showing someone making a naïve mistake.

>>18317
FluffyMask already said to drop the topic I don't care to talk about it anymore.

Author of Kamehime checking in. I guess since replying to reviews is something we're doing here, I'll do it too?

>>18228 >>18259 >>18263 >>18264 >>18279
Thank you~ I'm glad I was able to get this piece out, late as it was; my brain has not been co-operating very much with me lately and for most of the contest period I'd basically shelved it as unviable. But ultimately I went ahead and completed it, after reminding myself that a thing can't after all be good or bad unless it really exists first.

>>18227
>at the very least, the speaker’s conversation partner should have dunked on their needlessly fancy phrasing
I don't know about you, but I keep company that lifts me up and doesn't drag me down when I aspire to better things 😤
Like I honestly do just talk this way to my friends sometimes? I'll take my time and try to craft the best way of describing something, because it's an enjoyable and beauty-affirming thing to do. Actually I wrote this piece pretty quickly over the span of just a few nights when I'd been having trouble getting to sleep, so there are a few straight-up quotes from "literally me" in there :V

>>18235 >>18255
So it's not really made clear who the object of the narrator's affections is, and that was... partially deliberate? I wanted to leave a lot of things to subtext instead of revealing them outright, because although Meiling was in fact who I initially had in mind... she's a bit of a joke character, isn't she? It's hard to write a serious treatment of her without running into the fact that her association with the SDM is basically just a joke of juxtaposition—an "Eastern" but "continental" gate guard, in front of a "Western" mansion, with a "Western" story antagonist for the first (reboot) entry in a series titled "Eastern". And, besides, the association of Meiling with dragons is pretty flimsy anyhow. So I think this is basically the... okay, maybe not "weakest" part of the piece, given what other people have commented, but, like... reconciling this is the task which I feel I least took ownership of, if you can relate to my saying so.

It's also funny to see people assuming that the narrator is a man. The possibility never even once crossed my mind. Again, pretty much all of the specifics in this piece are subtextual, but "Kamehime" is meant to refer to the narrator, and the line about "turtle-shelled maidens caught on fairy-tale hooks" is implicitly a description of the kappa narrator herself. At the same time it references the beginning of the Mizue no Urashimako story, which of course is a line into the Dragon King's Palace theming, and likewise the next little bit invokes the old Chinese legend of a carp transforming into a dragon after swimming far upstream and leaping a waterfall, with the "coral-red" being an oblique reference to Meiling's hair. Many of the other less specific descriptions were meant to reinforce these themes, like the references to gemstones and mirrors which were intended to evoke the treasures of the Palace, or the equivocation between the sea and the sky which is a core aesthetic theme in the myth. I tried to have some fun with it, like in the description of Iku, leading from sky to sea to squid to ink and back to the implication of some unwelcome "official business" which triggered the thundery mood.

Most of all, I wanted to evoke this sense of all-encompassing beauty which I often get from observing the weather, and so many of the meteorological references are to things that I've personally witnessed and experienced. In fact the first line that formed in my head when I settled on this story was the one about "mackerel clouds like the fleecy underbelly of a tiger"—I'd climbed up on a hill to catch the sunrise, and on my way home I watched in real time the heat of the Sun causing a formation of solid cloud to break up into these gorgeous white tufts, with a simultaneously ferocious and yet languid shape that seemed halfway between fleece and fire. Honestly, when (not if) I revise this piece further, I plan on drawing on more of those experiences and further enriching the imagery; unfortunately I just didn't have the room to really meditate and conjure them up properly, the way my narrator was able to do.

Pic related—we've got dragons in the west, too :>

Just a bit of trivia, also: the unnamed_love-struck_kappa was originally conceived of as being the same as the unnamed_card-playing_kappa from this >>/youkai/31720 previous short.

I think they come across as being rather different people in the end. But who knows? People change...

>>18319
I'm just glad you put out something in general. Seriously. It had been a while since I'd seen anything from you, and I was jonesing a bit. Hell, I was so desperate for a hit of Summer, I thought one of the moon-bun entries was you for a second. It was some real psychosis, man.

>Actually I wrote this piece pretty quickly over the span of just a few nights when I'd been having trouble getting to sleep, so there are a few straight-up quotes from "literally me" in there :V
I was probably one of very few who picked up on the Summer-ness of some of it. Made me crack a smile more than once.

>Meiling
>narrator's gender
In all honesty, I felt like these things didn't matter that much. Sure, it makes it more '2hu' to have, well, a named 'hu in, but it was more about the level of admiration on display to me. I think the substance of it wouldn't change much if it were 'a random dragon'.

But, yeah, Meiling as a dragon is a whole thing I find very dubious and have never bought into much. Even if that was the case, it's kinda, "So what?" Then again, there are certainly other characters that feel the same way, if not moreso. Using a bit character like Meiling is at least a tiny bit amusing on a meta level.

As to the narrator, I never really assumed that much about them on a basic level, because I never felt like their identity mattered too much. Sure, the title puts a finger on the scale a bit, and I suppose I completely missed the 'turtle-shelled maidens' thing, assuming it was just a simple reference to something in the Urashima Tarou myth, but it ultimately felt to me like it was more about 'an individual fixating on another individual' in a fairly removed sense. I guess I might've defaulted to guessing male if I'd been pressed, but that's just a general sort of bias, innit.

>sense of all-encompassing beauty
It's the sort of thing I admire about some of your writing, if I'm honest. I like that very impressionistic aspect of what you're trying to capture. I tried to do a little of that with my own piece, but what you're often able to do is far beyond me.

And I liked all of the meteorological stuff, even if I don't know much about it nor hold much interest in meteorology in general. It just felt like a good fit to everything with watching the skies and such. Something I often find with this sort of thing is that it's easy to fall to 'occupational' sort of writing, getting far too deep into the ins-and-outs of someone who has a job doing their job, but that's not really much of a concern here. I can believe this person does what they're doing, and I don't have to be absolutely beaten over the head with that fact for it to have verisimilitude.

>>18320
I guess I could see it in a 'why not?' sort of way. Wouldn't be out of the question for the dear meteorologist to find their way to the gambling spot for a bit of jolly entertainment every so often. Maybe they might even stare at Sannyo's kiseru and ponder dragons?

To be quite honest, I've always wanted a sequel or some sort of tie-in in some way with Tengu Hold 'em, so it sparks joy to even have it mentioned in any capacity. It's a seriously under-appreciated bit of writing.

Gabagool's on me should we ever meet elsewhere.

>>18319
>I don't know about you, but I keep company that lifts me up and doesn't drag me down when I aspire to better things
Ah, I think I worded this poorly. I wrote 'dunking', but in truth even something as mild as the narrator's own joke about being speciated would work. After all, it's common for people to wax poetic when they're lovestruck, and a bit of playful ribbing among friends about that is just to be expected.

Though looking back, I think I didn't give this one a fair shake, or at least the feedback that made it into my 100 word limit didn't. I think I got the perception early on this was like a blue-collar worker Kappa, someone who'd normally be quite grounded and plain in their speech outside their field. Should have realised that every Kappa's collar is blue :p.

I'm not too bothered by flowery phrasing, at least if it feels justified. e.g. An Iota of Eternity is from a pupil of Eirin; of course their language is gonna be fancy, they're a scholarly lunarian. But for Kamehime, I convinced myself of a detail that really isn't there, and then felt a terminology clash that was just as imaginary as the headcanon. Sorry for that.

Again, like I said in my first post, the limits of my super short limits meant I only kept it to the core pieces of feedback, whatever either jarred me the most or that I thought might help. And also like I said, a work I actually quite enjoyed in this very expo only came about because one author gave me three options, I picked my favourite, and then he ignored me anyway. I couched myself in those things because for all Redo/Reimu's been doing great as a series, that doesn't mean my advice's more helpful or more accurate than anyone else here. No-one's able to cover everything with the various limits everyone's had on their ability to review thirty one works, and chances are that every reviewer's given at least one person a raw deal. Sorry that you were mine.

Ah, now that I've mentioned it...
>>18274
>It is interesting to me that you suggest I be more oblique rather than less in the body of the story while also having the protagonist directly address Eirin.
I didn't mean to suggest having the protagonist address Eirin, that was more a musing on how the mechanics could work such that meeting her himself didn't seem possible. I think the implications of tragedy are stronger if they are never to meet again, I just didn't know how they hadn't already. Sorry if I didn't make that clear.

What I did mean to say was that I would have liked for the second part to be an implication the person he was talking to is passing the message on.

As for the First Contact feedback, I'll mull it all over, but I'll just respond to one piece in particular:
>Also, if you were trying to render "God of Idols" in Latin, what you want is the genitive plural: deus idolorum.
Idola Deus is the name of stage 6 of WBaWC. It's also the pronounciation offered by the furigana when Keiki describes her own position, which in turn leads to it being used to describe her all over the place, like in Akatsuki Records' Keiki song. So it's obviously the title Proto-kun himself would use for his goddess.

It might be bad latin, I don't know... Fortunately, ZUN doesn't either, so it should be fine.

>>18303
I’m sorry to hear you didn’t like my entry. Admittedly, it was an unusual choice for an exhibition, what with being a recursive fanwork of Redo/Reimu, so I knew going into it that I was testing the waters a bit more. Fortunately, it seemed to connect with a few people even without the extra background knowledge necessary, so I’m happy with how the piece turned out.

Regardless, all of this has only made me more eager to get back to my main story. USiL’s been in a great spot recently in terms of both reader interest and moving forwards as a story, and reading some of the better shorts here like An Unconscious Visit has done a lot to reignite my motivation to write it. (Seriously, I know I’m biased towards Chireiden, but that piece is so good.)

So yeah, despite our differences of opinion over the quality of various pieces and philosophy of writing in general, I’m happy to have done the exhibition. I’m looking forwards to get back to writing Urban Student in Limbo; maybe I can even surprise my readers with an early update before my hiatus was scheduled to end.

That’s all from me for now, I’m going to focus on getting that update out while my motivation lasts. Thanks again to everyone who participated, and hopefully you guys continue to write and continue improving. I’ll see you the next time I’ve written something. Until then.

>>18319
>Like I honestly do just talk this way to my friends sometimes?
Relatable. It's not the majority of my speech with friends but, y'know, sometimes the right word(s) to express something just happen to be polysyllabic and less common.

>I'll take my time and try to craft the best way of describing something, because it's an enjoyable and beauty-affirming thing to do.
Laudable attitude. Working at something to get it just right can be really satisfying.

>sense of all-encompassing beauty which I often get from observing the weather
While I didn't get that sense that likely says more of me than you. I got a feeling of dynamism, of the beauty of change in the presentation of the skies and the subtleties such as color and patterns that are there if you look there with patient eyes. ... Yeah that definitely says more about me and how I look at the sky and its myriad configurations. There was clear beauty in the descriptions regardless of my biases.

>>18327
Whether or not I liked the work should not be the main takeaway. Don't retreat into this entrenched position where you're unwilling to think critically and grow as a writer. Most certainly don't lob grenades at others while thinking yourself impervious; Bee's pointed and accurate response shows what you'll get back. Don't dig in further; dare to try!

(Accidentally posted my reviews in the entries thread...I was wondering why the character limit was so high. Sorry!)

Done with my reviews. Splitting it over so many days really helped keep it from becoming exhausting. My head would've started spinning if I'd tried to do it all at once. I enjoyed myself a lot going through everything. Massive six post wall of text incoming. I'm not all that good at feedback, but I've tried my best.

Remilia and Rumia
A reasonably cute story. It's not very complex, and it falls a little into the trap of characters not really justifying their own motives (Remi is pretty rude to Rumia at the start, and even if Rumia is a simple creature, she should still be able to pick up on that and be offended), but it's not really doing anything explicitly bad either. It's nice to see the simple kindness from Rumia win over the complex and scheming Remilia. Suffers from feeling like it stops right as it should get going. It felt a little like we were hurrying to set out goals to be resolved in the end (Rumia wants more friends, Cirno and the others aren't hanging out with her at the moment) rather than following a more natural progression.

Nightbug
Another not very complex story. Here's a guy, here's the typical setup of Rumia trying to eat him, here's Wriggle saving him (for...some reason), and here's him being involved in organised crime (also for...some reason). Basically, every element here feels too light on detail to contain any real substance. Why did the guy have a briefcase handcuffed to his hand? In flash fiction where every word counts, wasting time on a completely inconsequential detail like that seems pointless. Why did Wriggle even care about him? Why would she even need to improve her reputation in the human village when she doesn't actually do anything there? What purpose did Wriggle serve in this story that, say, Marisa couldn't have filled? I'd at least believe it if she was willing to save some random outsider. Even if we need to keep the 'improving reputation in the village,' I'd sooner believe a modern interpretation of Mystia doing that so she can try and set up shop a little closer to the village.

It's readable, but I struggled to find much compelling reason to read it.

Reisen kills Turbo Granny (Touhou x DanDaDan)
I don't know what the crossover here is about, so I think this one might've been doomed to fall flat for me from the start. I'm not sure why the Urban Legends would be manifesting in the Outside World anyway, considering your setup is just what happened in ULiL, and they didn't manifest in the Outside World there. There's some stuff about Reisen and other Incident Resolvers being made to do the dirty work by the 'higher-ups,' without much explanation for who that is and why they're free not to work. I don't buy Reisen thinking about Sagume like this. She's very polite to Sagume in LoLK. Actually, I don't really buy Reisen in this. She's diligent when it comes to real work. Most of her complaints are about menial tasks that Tewi and the other rabbits push off on her.

Anyway, I've barely talked about the story because it suffers from the same problem as the last two. There's no complexity here. Reisen goes to kill the turbo granny...and she does instantly. That's pretty much it. Was the joke about balls supposed to be a punchline? It kind of fell flat.

Oh, one other big problem: This ends on a weird cliffhanger that reads more like a story that just cut off halfway through. Not exactly keeping with what flash fiction is supposed to be: I.E a complete story.

Clothes
Marisa's quite nice in this. It's nice that she was willing to cheer the Eme up by buying something and that she started thinking about what to buy for her friends. The lavish description of the apron really does help you picture it. I think I could've used a slightly stronger idea of who Eme is as a person - she mentions employees at one point but nothing much to understand how this business of hers works. It's probably not the ideal place to set up a shop like this. Even aside from questionable yamanba standards of fashion, they all have a theme going on, so she'd never have anyone to sell anything to.

Overall, this one is mostly fine. Maybe it just needed a line or two tweaked to push a little more description in. I liked Eme and would've liked to get a little more out of her in the short time we have with her.

Unlived
This is lavishly written. There are descriptive techniques at work here to make the world around Youmu feel alive (despite, you know, being dead). There's detailed purple prose sprinkled all throughout the story. This is something that I feel could have been pulled back slightly. Being straightforward would actually fit Youmu well.

However, where I have a problem with this is Youmu herself. I think this story would work fine if Youmu was a character with, say, two or so canon appearances and a handful of cameos. As it stands, there's just too many canon, speaking depictions of Youmu to buy the character she's presented as here. She's an airheaded dork who can't even be tempted into doing evil. If she decides a matter is too complicated for her, she just stops paying attention and starts nodding along.

I guess the thing about the granny thinking of her as an ill omen has some basis in canon from the PMiSS eyewitness accounts, but the very next statement has someone saying that she just looks sort of powerless, which undercuts any idea of her being an ill omen.

There are clear attempts to link this to canon, like Yuyuko's criticisms of Youmu in CiLR, but they don't really serve to reinforce this version of Youmu because there's just too much canon evidence (including Satori in CDS reading her mind) that she isn't like that. And aside from that, Yuyuko's criticisms of Youmu in CiLR are all because Yuyuko is both trying to have her be more independent and talking in riddles to keep Yukari's plan secret, but it's hard for Youmu to understand because Yuyuko doesn't do much in a clear fashion. In the end, Youmu gives up, and that's the last we see of her doing any real introspection.

The idea that she might never have tried smiling at anyone also feels a little...implausible. It felt a little like that entire stuff about how to change things was just shoved in because you felt like the story couldn't just end without her coming up with some sort of solution. I'm not sure why all of this was so overwhelming to her. Youmu's not even a character who's that separate from others. She shows up to parties with Yuyuko often, and in WaHH, she even shows up to parties and banquets at the Hakurei Shrine without Yuyuko. In LE she's shown to be cheerful and chaotic, talking smack to Marisa, crashing into Reimu, and wielding banners as weapons. She even shouts at Yuyuko in CDS for pretending to sleep. The Youmu in this story feels like she'd never consider talking back to Yuyuko, ever.

Mokou might have fit this better. At least I can buy her getting all introspective about a long life. Or Reimu might've fit if you play up the 'youkai shrine maiden' angle.

I've seen it said that you should try and write stories without presuming familiarity with the characters or the setting so that potentially anyone could enjoy it. This feels like it has perhaps taken that to an extreme, to a point where I feel that the person with no knowledge of Touhou would get more out of this than the person with knowledge of Touhou. If it should be understandable without knowing Touhou, it should only be enhanced with that understanding.

Kudamaki/Kuro
I felt like I was having a stroke reading this. Not necessarily because it's badly written - It's very competently written - but because this story might as well start with a disclaimer to skip it if you didn't read multiple other fics, both of which are pretty long, and I wouldn't have even known which fics if Gooboi hadn't mentioned them in his review.

Okay, trying to separate it from other fics...My first time through, I thought this was about Chen's bakeneko side awakening while the shikigami side has control. That didn't make it make more sense. There's a lot of ellipses here, but it doesn't really bother me. I like that there's a lot of simplistic language here to go with the idea of Kuro being a child. I do care about Kuro and I do feel like the fic does a good job of making me feel the pain she's going through.

I've got to echo the other reviews in that Yukari being affectionate doesn't really work. Maybe Ran at a stretch. Yukari's just not that kind of person. She regularly disciplines Ran and doesn't seem to care much about Chen's existence beyond her being an extension of Ran. Maybe this is different in the universe that the pre-requisite fics inhabit, but going off canon, Yukari wouldn't behave like this.

So, overall, it's probably great if you've read the other fics, but without them, it's rather confusing.

A Snipping Motion
I love the feel of this one. There's a tense sort of energy that permeates the entire piece, and it helps really helps you get into the mood of the rabbits. I don't see people make use of the moon rabbit telepathy network much and having their emotions expressed through colours is a nice touch. Seiran being 'the infiltrator' is a nice nod to her profile from LoLK. I wonder if she ever got paid for this last excursion. I love the little world details like the rabbits having an extremely long web novel (or whatever that could be on the moon) that they constantly talk about, and now they're using it to keep their mind off the mission that they don't know anything about.

I think there's two ways to take this. One person might decide that they wish this had spent less time on the rabbits talking about a piece of fiction and more time establishing concrete motives and explaining what was going on, and I think another person (I'm on this side) would like the slightly ethereal nature of the story, being dropped in with no idea what's going on, much as the rabbits themselves weren't told.

The writing here is good, at least to my eye. It all flows well, and even when there's a sentence that seems strange, I find that it feels intentional. It feels like there's a lot of inspiration taken from older literature here, both for the story itself and for the way it's written.

This is one of my favourites from the bunch.

One Dish
Lots of very evocative descriptions here. I love that the ways the food is described would be exaggeration, but to an Inchling, they're suddenly much more accurate. There's a couple that I feel could have gone further, like Youmu's ghost half being described as 'a white...object' when it could have been something more dramatic. Strangely, despite the descriptions of the mountains of food and the constellations, there doesn't seem to be that much about how the food tastes aside from the stew bit at the end. Yes, the crux of the story is that Shinmyoumaru got too much food and it all sort of melded together, but I was expecting a little more on that front for a story that does such a great job of describing the looks of the food. Maybe she could have done a little more taste-testing on the way while picking up all the other food for later?

I've got no complaints about the prose or any of the writing for that matter. It's a nice glimpse into a banquet and it doesn't feel like it needed to be anything more or less. A very nice piece.

Destination Elsewhere
Clearly the same writer from the story before last, and I would still apply the same remarks on the quality of the writing. There are a couple sentences here that are very long, and even though they are split with punctuation to give the reader a break, I still had to read the third paragraph a couple of times to properly take it in.

Seiran seems to have friends in this story, or at least people who care about how she's doing, which is (rather pathetically) not all that true in the original games where ZUN likened her importance to that of a yakuza member who exists to get sent to prison in place of a more important member.

Still, there's a lot to like here. There's still a sense of that tense atmosphere from the previous story, but it's further away here - more distant and looming. I don't think I required a particular understanding of the finer details of this version of the Lunar Capital to understand the story and the feelings on display, which is probably good. A lot of the time, writers can take their worldbuilding too far until they're rambling about things only they care about, but this manages to more or less make everything feel like it's in its right place. I had to think about the last bit for a little while. The mother flashing Seiran a look like that certainly seemed to hit hard.

An Iota of Eternity
It's a good thing the title was posted after the story, or I would've gotten excited at the prospect of seeing Eternity 'Just' Larva in a story.

Jokes aside, I had to look up the definitions of a lot of words for this story. Using vocabulary like this can be good, but if you overdo it, all it does is make the reader feel fatigue (Truth be told, I started reading this last night and quickly decided that I needed to stop and try again in the morning). I guess the reason for getting whacked in the face with 'haruspex' in the first paragraph is because this is in the past and the romans are still around, but even then, I don't believe the Lunarians would care about what their roles and ranks are beyond 'those filthy earthlings sure wear a lot of red.'

I love the framing of this story. It seems to be the speaker perhaps speaking to Mokou, who's dead and regenerating. It works well. I really like that in the speakers last few sentences, he doesn't say Eirin or Kaguya's names despite naming them previously. It sells that idea that these people in the present are something very different to him than they were in the past. It makes him sound most wistful about them. The untouched teacup feels like an acceptable level of intimacy to someone like Eirin. If it was anything more lavish, I'd find it unfitting.
I rate this one highly. Very good job.

Influence
This feels very slice-of-life. It's nice to see. The language and word choices are perfect for the feeling that you're aiming for, and I definitely felt the warmth and cosiness of the bar compared to the downpour outside.

There's two sides to this story, but honestly, I'm not really sure why other than because that's the way it is in Lotus Eaters. I guess the goal is to show that the place is a place of refuge for both youkai and humans. Sure, it succeeds at that, but at the same time, it does so without really saying much else. There's nothing much going on here, just a conversation during the day side and a conversation during the night side. I liked the barbs in Aya and Mamizou's conversation, I feel like it's pretty true to Suika to try and place herself as above it all when describing the rumours about the youkai potentially sleeping with the villagers in exchange for perks to Shion.

Much like in actual Lotus Eaters, Miyoi is a background character in the latter half. She feels like the poster girl in the first half, talking to the patrons, subtly convincing them to stick around and drink more, but she feels like she's only there in the second half for Suika to call for more food and drinks and otherwise melt into the background. No lines, no relevance, could probably have been replaced with a sexy lamp.

I think this is a story that would've benefitted from tying the two sides together more strongly. If, say, the villagers were actually discussing the same event that Aya is reporting on, but drawing entirely different conclusions from their limited perspective, I'd feel that the two sides of the story linked together or contrasted a little more. Instead, there just seem to be two different sides here that are just presented with no real attempts to do anything with them or relate them to each other. Even if the villagers are talking about the same thing as the youkai, it's only mentioned off-hand in the text and not part of a conversation or anything, so it doesn't really have much impact anyway.

Sugar Shape
I've got a bit of a weakness for the Sanae/Tsukasa pairing, so I'm sort of biased toward this one. At the same time, though, I don't think I could see Tsukasa in any relationship without there being some sort of scheme at play, either to get her access to something or to give her power over someone. Even in UDoALG, her interactions with Sanae had the ulterior motive of getting access to the Moriya Shrine.

That said, if her goal is to subtly coax Sanae into worse behaviour, then I think this works. She does all these gentle encouragements of Sanae's behaviour until she just up and cheats the game, and then she encourages it further and congratulates her for it. I thought maybe her goal was to waste Sanae's money, which would tie into the usual Pipe Fox curse of wasting all your money as the fox eats you out of house and home.

We could definitely lose the sound effects being written out the way they are. It just pulls away from the immersion. Nearly all the sound effects could be described without needing to write them like this.

Burakumin
This one's well over the word limit, but if it's meant to be four vignettes, I guess I can forgive it. It helps that I think this one is really good. The little moment-by-moment minutiae of the old man's life is written well enough for me to get into it, and I despite it being longer, I found myself able to read through this whole entry without losing interest compared to a couple of the other entries. I liked the references to big dreams when he was young and how they didn't really pan out, like his hopes of one day conquering the mountain.

Looking at some of the other reviews, people didn't really seem sure why Yukari had an interest in him. True, it's not really stated or anything, but I've always had the impression that Yukari could be like this. She sort of does this in canon already with her constant pestering of Rinnosuke in CoLA, so I don't really have a problem with it here. Maybe she just saw some sort of idealism in the old man that piqued her curiosity and kept her sticking around. Who knows? I don’t really feel like I need to know. Either way, I like the way Yukari is captured here. She's mysterious and aloof despite showing up constantly, just the way she should be.

I'm happy to have read this. It's another one that's high on my rankings.

The Day Fire Fell to Earth
First things first, it could do with proper paragraph breaks. My eyes start to glaze over if I'm looking at one big block of text.

Second things second, the only thing I could find explaining what a 'felinid' was is the Warhammer 40K wiki. Is this supposed to be a crossover?

Third things third, this strongly feels like it was cut off from something larger. In that sense, it doesn't quite succeed at being flash fiction because it's obvious that there was more beforehand and more afterward that the reader would need to know to actually get the story across. Sen in this story seems to work for the SDM or at least be somewhat related to it, given the reference to the 'head maid,' and she's been travelling for a while, but this combined with her being a felinid (still not 100% what exactly that is) screams that it needs more exposition to understand. I guess that goes back to the previous point about it feeling cut off from a larger work.

Rin Satsuki is a character in the barest sense here, and she's essentially not a character in Touhou. Thus, we're already low on stuff from canon Touhou to connect ourselves to. Here, she feels more like, say, the Lady of the Lake from the legend of Prince Arthur, who shows up solely to give the protagonist their great quest rather than be a character. Wouldn’t really be a problem in an Epic like Prince Arthur, but in flash fiction, you can't waste your limited words on something that only serves to promise something more that you'll never get to see. Also, I don't think I quite understand the title's relevance here. Nothing seems to have fallen to Earth. I guess Rin's described with a lot of fiery language, but she dies and leaves Earth, so that can't be it either. Maybe it's another thing that would only make sense with the context of the larger work that this relates to.

In its current form, I think there's a lot of problems with this. While I think this hasn't succeeded as flash fiction, I think that perhaps it could succeed in the full form, or at least it could attract the audience that will appreciate it. Don't give up!

Rolling River, Standing Stone
A much shorter entry, which is nice for me as I work my way through these. That said, it might be shorter in word count, but it's just as packed with meaning and intent as everything else here. One thing that greatly pleases me here is that it doesn't rely on flowery prose and complicated words to get the emotions and points across. The language used is refreshingly direct. There's a pleasant feeling of the writing creeping out further as the stone discovers sensations and surroundings.

I've not got much to say about this, or much critique to offer. I think the story accomplishes the goals of this exhibition extremely well. It's one of the best pieces here. I'm just glad I got to read it.

One Last Bloody Tear
I loved how evocative the journey of the leaf was! From it falling free to making its way to Ubame, the descriptions were excellent at capturing a world at the end of Autumn, on the brink of a colder, darker season. I loved the flow of that section, especially the 'Down' section.

Shizuha's an underappreciated hu in my eyes, so I'm happy to see her here. This is a more sombre, more delicate version of her then I've seen in the past, but it's fitting for someone who's being and godhood is tied to the ending of the season. It's befitting, then, for her to be more like a small goddess of demise. There's something very Reimu-like in Ubame saying that the Sages can keep it to themselves, and I don't know if that was intentional, but it does help me to buy the idea of Ubame being a former Hakurei.

I think I needed to know more about yamanba in mythology to understand this better. Mentions of Ibaraki-douji carving the finest features from a thousand cadavers and Saint Hakudou caught my interest, but either my google-fu isn't good enough to find out anything further, or there's not anything on the English side of the internet, because I don't really know what it's referencing. Similarly, I couldn't find much on yamanba or if they come into existence that way. Maybe it's just the interpretation in this story? Either way, it doesn't really affect my enjoyment of the story. I don't think it could really be explained better without making that part of the text more cumbersome.

Anyway, my point is I really liked this.

First Contact
Framing the coming of the Haniwa army across the Beast Metropolis as a horror event is a great choice. I actually tried to write a Mayumi piece for this exhibition, but I did it from her perspective and I couldn't get it to tie together in a way that satisfied me. I'm glad this piece managed it much better than I did.

I don't really buy the three matriarchs teaming up for an attack like this - fanon aside, they don't really like each other much. It's more likely that they tried to kick each other into harm’s way as things kicked off, and Yuuma probably split and headed for the Hell of Blood Pools as soon as she had a chance. It'd only be toward the end of things that I could see desperation forcing them to team up, as that's exactly what the beast spirits did when they came to the surface to seek help. I don't think they'd be teamed up for the very first Haniwa soldier, is what I'm saying. I suppose this story would've felt a little devoid of elements to latch onto if it features OC lieutenants from each family or something, but I think that'd be the more likely way this would go in canon. I'll look past it because it's more interesting to see the matriarchs team up, even if I don't think it makes much sense.

I'm not a massive fan of the last line. The "Now, Lady Kurokoma...shall we continue?" line seems a little too...informal? It's too human for a being that can just keep going and going until it's grinded down into dust. I think for the 'Oh no, this is an unstoppable force' feeling, the Haniwa should have said something a bit more impersonal.

Not sure about Yuuma having to reform from Yachie breathing fire either. She's described as nigh invincible for a reason. Even Flandre barely managed to put her down.

I've complained a fair bit, but I do like this. I like the mounting horror in the matriarchs, I like the way desperation and panic take Yachie first and she starts throwing out fire breath. I just wish Yuuma had gotten to do something too.

An Unconscious Visit
I always did like Satori more than Koishi, so this was good. Satori's inner turmoil at Koishi's behaviour is something I love to see explored. Her pain at losing Koishi is often glossed over for the pain that led to Koishi closing her third eye in the first place. Seeing her break down like this and beg for the version of her sister who isn't there anymore to come back to her does tug at the heartstrings.

Problem is, it only really works if you already know their backstories. I could likely empathise even if I was a newcomer, I think, but I'd be mostly confused on just what happened to Koishi that could be so bad so as to send her sister into such a miserable state. I don't know if the emotions would have connected as well. I don't necessarily think it's impossible to make this work, but a lot of the internal monologue would probably need to be modified to better hint at the backstories.

Satori's meat puppet line might have come a little early. I think it feels too much like an accusation. I'd have placed it later in the breakdown so that it feels more like something she's said in the heat of the moment rather than something that she's been thinking for a long time. I do like how Koishi reacts to the whole thing. She's sort of baffled and confused and all she can think to do is try and hug Satori, only to find that it makes things worse and she still doesn't really get why. It's often hard for writers to find a way to write Koishi that keeps the whole 'doesn't think' thing in mind, but I like the approach here well enough.

Also, on the topic of canontisms, I'm not sure about all this. The idea of a big fireworks display for Satori's birthday doesn't sit right. Reason one, there's been exactly one real firework in Gensokyo ever, which the kappa set off at Reimu's firework danmaku festival, and the only reason they did that one is because they were worried no one would show up. I don't believe that the underground would actually have access to plenty of fireworks. Reason two, most people don't like Satori. It's established that she gets a wide berth from everyone in the Ancient Capital because no one likes having their mind read. I don't think she'd have a big party like this with big flashy shows. I'm not entirely sure it was necessary, either. There's a potential version of this story out there that skips the fireworks stuff and the suggestion of a big party and simply does the same topics with just Satori and Koishi. Maybe Satori's refused to celebrate her birthday properly ever since Koishi left and this is the first time that Koishi has managed to make it home in time. The fireworks stuff is nice scenery, but I don't think it was necessary.

Reisen Kills an Alien (MAD Crossover)
Back to crossovers I know nothing about. I didn't know what this was about when it was posted, and I still don't know what it's about now. This is partly because the story did nothing to make me at all interested in finding out.

Three of the five BombaBomba entries here are Reisen stories. All three of them seem to involve tossing Reisen into some random scenario so she can do a thing and then the story ends. This time, the thing is killing a Xenomorph or something. Unlike the previous Turbo Granny one, this one doesn't even seem to have much explanation for why Reisen is there. She kills the Xenomorph thing, and then some other people show up, apparently insane, and that's your lot.

I've got nothing to say about this. I didn't really care. Sorry.

The Visitor
"I don't get it lol": The story. It's pretty good. A lot of the time, when Chen shows up in a story, she's written as a child and/or just exists so Ran can have cute moments. It's rare for people to focus on Chen by herself, and rarer still for them to do so without making her feel like a child. Obviously, she doesn't have any proper interactions with other characters in this, but she doesn't feel overtly childish.

This story feels like it's being told after the fact, like perhaps Yukari or Ran are using it to tell a story to Reimu or someone about a youkai/horror beyond your comprehension. There's a doujin by Niy about Ran being trapped in an infinite room because a building in Mayohiga itself is the youkai, and I felt some shades of that here, though this is closer to typical haunted house vibes with objects moving and disappearing to make you doubt yourself.

There's a lot of little cat-like things Chen does here that I enjoy. The way she tries to match the creak she hears by messing with the shelf felt very cat-like. Her immediate assertion of how silly it was that she was told not to disturb the room and that anyone here would not be a guest felt like a sort of cattish thing too (If I'm lying about all of this, it's because I've never had a cat).

Some people might have appreciated more concrete details to this, but I quite like where it lands, vagueness-wise. I might suggest that you could've gone a bit further with the unsettling changes to the house. Repeated sounds, shifting sources of light, a notion that that weird pinprick of light you saw might be someone's eye - that sort of thing.

Sculptor
Another pleasant short one. It's closer to poetry than some of the others, I think, but I'm not the most knowledgeable, so I can't say for sure. I can get behind the idea of leaving little fragments of yourself in your creations, but I'd have liked a bit more explanation as to what that exactly means. Usually this is more metaphorical, but in Touhou it could very well be literal. This is very economical with the word count, but I think it could have gone a little further to explore the sculptor's devotion to Keiki. More evocative language, perhaps building the declarations of devotion up until the end.

The determination of the sculptor to be as useful as they can be to Keiki until the very end come across well. I believe in them.

just ignore this one
Will do. Cyberpunk: Lu— Okay, fine, I won't ignore it. I don't really care for it, though. Various assumptions and choices about how the barrier words don't land for me. The male character is like repellent to me. I didn't even want to read his dialogue.

The story ends in the middle of something happening, so there's not even a satisfying conclusion.

I'm not even sure where they're supposed to be. The barrier is a metaphysical thing that runs through the Hakurei Shrine (hence when the barrier is broken through in ULiL, it manifests as a giant crack through the ground in front of the shrine). With no explanation on what 'barrier maintenance' consists of in canon, it was inevitable that this would have assumptions, but I don't really like said assumptions.

There's no real balance here between dialogue and everything else. The majority of it is an argument where I don't even want to read half of the dialogue. I don't really like Ran being expressed as an operating system when the only time that's even been suggested in canon was an analogy by Akyuu of all people. Ran doesn't come off anything like she is in canon here.

Basically, I disagree fundamentally with basically all of this, and thus I'm bowing out now.

Cyberpunk: Lunatic Red
Wow, a BombaBomba entry featuring Reisen crossing over with something I didn't play, where a thing happens and then it sort of ends. Say it ain't so.

Look, I get it. You get excited about a concept, start writing, and before you know it you're five entries deep. I've been there. But writing is just as much about being able to recognise when something isn't up to snuff as it is about being able to write lots. It's important that you can look at these and say, "Maybe this isn't the best I can do," instead of just dumping every half-baked idea out there.

Not that this couldn't have worked, but it doesn't really seem to engage with the themes of either Cyberpunk or Touhou. Like I said at the start, Reisen is there, a thing happens, it ends. Why not write something about how faith tries to co-exist with the rampant technological playground that is Night City? Or something about how few happy endings there are in a Cyberpunk setting? There's even a vague thread with Reisen's headaches and the overstimulation of the outside world that could be picked up on.

Also, it's pretty obviously a start to a story, not a complete story. Like all of your five entries, it feels like it needed more time. Quality, not quantity.

Untitled Alice Story
A one-sided interview? Interesting way to take the format. It could be Aya or it could be Akyuu, but the interviewer seems to relate to having an estate and servants, so probably Akyuu. PMiSS, then. I've always liked the interpretation that Alice was from Makai and left in such a way that she never felt like she'd fully separated from the place. The reminiscing here feel a little like it's dragging her back there, back to the loneliness and the clockwork people that filled the halls, all Shinki's creations. I think what you're going for here is that Alice is the only 'real' one? She describes Shinki as her mother, but it doesn't feel all that motherly. Shinki feels distant - like there's a gulf between her and Alice that even growing into adulthood couldn't bridge. I was half expecting Alice to ask Akyuu why she was looking at her like that at the end after describing such a lonely, strange existence.

I can't claim to fully understand it, but I can claim that have enjoyed it. I do think it could've done with another pass for readability. Paragraph breaks, etc. Probably split that big paragraph in half, too. I get that it's a transcript, but some of the punctuation feels a little repetitive. Maybe some more creative wording would've helped.

Would you like to know more?
Eh, not really.

A propaganda address in the style of what I assume is Helldivers (Which I didn't play)? I don't really care much for hyper-militaristic Lunarians. There's ample evidence in Bougetsushou and various comments from Reisen that the moon rabbits aren't really all that disciplined. Maybe I'd get this more if I had played Helldivers. As it stands, there's just a lot of things being thrown in my face that I don't know or care about, and this reads like a parody of Helldivers, and one of the few things I do know about it is that it's already a parody of hyper-militaristic, hyper-patriotic American values, so parody on parody isn't doing much for me. There's a lot of specific ranting about specific scenarios and specific rabbits as well, which isn't fitting for the tone of the rest of the piece and just took me out of it even more.

Sorry. The interest just isn't there.

Also, paragraph breaks. I had to take a break before reading this because that massive block of text had me eyeing my toaster and my bathtub.

One Shell Too Many
I don't think Mystia would know what a Goliath Bird-eating Tarantula is. Aren't they native to South America? This is like, a personal thing, but I've never really liked the assertion that Wriggle might have power over things like spiders, since they're both not insects, and orb-weavers eat fireflies.

Pedantry aside, I think this piece is more or less fine. I wish there'd been a little more done with the disguises. Maybe the first half could've been cut back and Mystia serving the nuns could've been expanded on further. As it stands, it's just over a bit too quickly for me to settle in.

Overall, this is a pleasant read. It's not saying anything complex or trying to hide deeper meaning. It's like a nice, warm drink. In fact, if there'd been some more detailing of the environment, like maybe a cold night and then the warmth of Mystia's stand could be a contrast, I'd find it even cosier.

Little Princess' Little Odyssey
For some reason, it's never occurred to me that Shinmyoumaru and Akyuu look similar. I've never been able to get into using the fandom nickname of 'Shinmy,' so I did have to tell that part of my brain that kept clicking its teeth in annoyance to button it while reading this.

While I do like the idea of Shinmyoumaru doing this, I don't think it works with her character at this stage in her life. Pre-Seija, pre-Reversal Incident, she's sheltered and naive, and it took Seija's lies to coax her out into orchestrating an incident. I don't really buy that Shinmyoumaru doing the whole journey and everything. I could see the Shinmyoumaru of AoCF doing it, though. Especially the one who's started interacting with people like Tenshi.

Side note - What size is she in this? Inchling scale has always been very variable across stories, from absolutely miniscule to, like, knee height. There's a mention of getting a lift on a dragonfly's back, but that implies such a tiny scale that I struggle to believe it.

I always like seeing mundane things described with epic language when it's from Shinmyoumaru's perspective, like Akyuu's brush being a 'lance with a black ichor oozing from it.'

I think this story could've engaged slightly further on similarities between Akyuu and Shinmyoumaru beyond the looks. Perhaps it could've said something about how Shinmyoumaru spent a lot of her life under the rule of the oni, and Akyuu's life always has her early demise bearing down on it, so before she's even particularly old, she'll be as stuck as the old Shinmyoumaru was by the weaknesses of her own body. I'm just spit balling here, but as it is, I think the story doesn't really do anything with the meeting between these two.

Even so, I didn't get bored reading it, so it's done better than some of the other entries. Keep at it!

A Remedy for a Headache
I was surprised to see something that connected Renko and Konngara like this here. I guess it makes sense with Renko's abilities, though it feels a little like a reach to me. Konngara is an attendant of the Buddhist deity Fudou Myou-ou and doesn't really have much to do with anything Shinto. Even in HRtP, Konngara is the boss of the Hell route, and Hell in Touhou is pretty Buddhist (And the Hell route is the bad route, because Sariel is a known shithead and Fudou Myou-ou isn't, so I can't see him ordering Konngara to burn the shrine down).

I wish this carried a little more of Hifuu's signature nerdiness. There's always been a gulf of weirdness that separates Hifuu from regular Touhou. In the Hifuu albums, Merry and Renko will do really weird stuff without blinking an eye, and at best they'll then start discussing the intersection of psychology and quantum physics afterward. It feels to me like this story could've happened to any passerby. There's not enough Renko in my Renko, thank you very much. Even as far gone as she seems to be here, I still expected Renko to start wondering about some sort of quantum physics explanation to what was happening, or maybe a thought that Merry would know.

I like the atmosphere. I feel like it really does feel like someone on the cusp of losing themselves. Not that long ago I read somewhat well-known fucked up Hifuu fanfic, The Gymnopédies Never End, which had some similar vibes to this in places, although they were taken even further to the extreme. This kind of reminded me of some of the feelings that story forced on me. I think maybe it's a slight touch of insanity.

Kamehime
I really like this one. The idea of a regular person falling in love with something so above them that it's like loving the sky itself is a very evocative feeling. I wish it felt like the framing was a bit more serious. There's turns of phrase that bring into mind a casual conversation at the pub or the like, but when describing how the speaker fell in love with a dragon, the speaker's tone is almost reverent and in awe. Just changing some of those casual conversation lines out for something that demands language like that might go a long way, I think.

Aside from that, I think this is a good flash fiction entry. There's not a massive amount here that feels like it needs prior knowledge - Maybe a line to make it clear that the dragon statue is used for predicting the weather, and slightly more clarification on Iku's position.

The language used is evocative and really helped me get into the mindset of the speaker, so great job on that front. It might've been a late entrant, but I'm very pleased that this story made it in.

And finally, I've arrived at my own entries.

Midday
Midnight

I wasn't really sure what I wanted to write when I first saw this posted. I tend to write comically large word counts, and the lowest I've worked under had been 3000 words, which I complained at length about at the time. In the end, though, I think the lower word counts are what require the most skill from me, so any chance to practice that skill is worthwhile.

Alright, onto my own two entries. I'm not that great at talking about my own work, but I'll do my best.

Midday's concept made it to my initial shortlist quite quickly. Originally, it was to be a tour, checking out different places, and even though nothing much would've changed, there'd be something fundamental that Mizuchi felt was different. Under the word count, I quickly realised it wasn't going to work, so I shrunk things down to one conversation at one particular place. I'm not too skilled at this sort of succinct writing, so I'm thankful for a lot of the reviews here helping me understand what did and didn't work. I really wanted to get Mizuchi's mood to feel like she's still struggling to accept things in the modern times and that they might actually have gotten better. I didn't want it to feel like she purely misses the previous Shrine Maiden, either. There are some complicated feelings there.

There's plenty I'm not happy with. I saw one piece of feedback mention the 'bloodshed' line. I'd like to think that I don't go full Grimsokyo with pre-Spell Card Rules Gensokyo, but I do go for it being a fair bit bloodier. For example, I do think that Reimu has killed her fair share of youkai before the rules came into play, and she's been doing it from very young. The village is like a bright light and the youkai are moths, especially back then. Even so, I think that line oversold things. Something I couldn't fit in this is that while both Reimu and Mizuchi enjoyed the village of their times, neither of them are part of it in the way that the villagers are. Both lived and grew up separately from it, so they don't feel like it's home in the way that the villagers feel. I don't think I managed to fit enough into the dialogue, leaving it to feel a little bit pointless. I probably needed to spend some more time really evaluating what lines were needed to drive the point home. More evactive language could've been used to describe the village, and a lot could probably have been redone to better drive some sort of point home.

And the clock strikes Midnight.

I didn't consciously start this to make it a companion piece to the previous entry. The titles didn't even get added until right before they got posted. Between finishing up the Mizuchi one and starting this one, I started and scrapped a Mayumi piece and a Sanae piece because neither felt like they were coming together the way I wanted them to.

Mokou mentions in CDS that she saw Mizuchi in her final moments, when the previous Shrine Maiden was trying to convince her to come back. Something about that germinated, and I thought, 'how would the Shrine Maiden look back on this further down the line?'

I saw one person say that they would've picked Mima for this instead of Mokou. While I'm not against including PC-98 in general, I don't think Mima fits. Her hatred of the Hakurei Shrine is different, and I don't think she'd be willing to take things seriously. She'd rather make fun of the Shrine Maiden for feeling sad about. Or kill her.

So, Mokou it was. I know she's got a poor history of caring about things, but we're only a hundred years prior to the present time here. She met Kaguya again two hundred years ago, so I'd like to think that she's at least recovered some sort of ability to function like something resembling a human being. We've seen mentions in Hifuu that Mokou fights massive creatures in the Bamboo Forest from time to time, and I don't expect that she only started doing that in the present era. Even if she doesn't care much about the human village (doubly so since Keine isn't around yet), if there's a big monster in her way, I believe that she'd probably fight it. And if the Hakurei Shrine Maiden happens to be fighting it as well to protect the village, then what's the harm? Might as well kill some time.

There's even less to go off with the previous Hakurei Shrine Maiden. Quite literally all we have is a couple shots of her and a vague mention of something she might've said once by Mokou. Even Mizuchi's memories don't give us much insight. I knew that I wanted her to be tired and weary, but I wanted it to be from age. My personal headcanon is that she was quite an excitable and cheery girl when she was younger, though much like Reimu, she did have a serious mode that she could slip into.

Mokou's an awkward creature covered by a layer of coolness in my eyes, and since I believe that she's at least somewhat close to her canon mindset by this point, I think she might fumble and feel like she has to say something to the Shrine Maiden. I thought it would be interesting to have an ageless person and an aging person in the story. Mokou's weariness can't physically affect her like it can for the Shrine Maiden. I aimed to have the whole piece feel weary, but I'm no expert and I'm not sure I accomplished it.

I think I probably had Mokou be a little too normal here. In hindsight, she probably wouldn't have had much to say in terms of comforting words. People die, after all. Her prognostication was something that I put in at the end of the editing process and didn't really think about, but I can see how it comes off as a bit trite. I feel like I didn't manage to either describe the environments well enough or make the dialogue snappy enough, so I don't know if anything really came across very well. I could've done a better job at the complexities, anyway.

I'm not massively well-read, so I wouldn't be surprised if that was influencing my quality. It's something I'll keep working on. There's plenty of other issues across both entries, most of which have been pointed out already. Even so, I hope some people got something out of reading these.

I'm just yapping now. Well done to all participants! It's great to see so many entries here, especially seeing as a good few are from first time writers. Thanks to Teruyo for organising the exhibition and thanks to everyone who's left feedback and reviews.

>>18330
Rumia and Remilia
I had the least fun out of all the stories I wrote, but I still had fun. I probably tried to do so much. Extending their walk around the lake and stopping at the gate would have been better or skipping that walk around the lake to have them play around the SDM.
The idea that the fairies weren’t hanging out with her due to any particular reason aside from being busy, since Rumia’s friends are busy she goes wondering about without much to do. Remilia acts rude since she’s embarrassed and children have a hard time controlling their emotions. She’s probably a bit too childish here but she’s not a favorite of mind and whenever I try to think of her not acting childish those panels of her sitting in a highchair and beg fed appear in my mind.

Nighbug
Yeah the setup for him working in organized crime was a last minute thing when I had it pointed out to me he needed a reason to end up in Gensokyo but I think in retrospect he should have even been more non-discript. Just a generic terrified mob outsider would have worked fine.
As for why Wriggle is trying to improve her reputation in the village I thought that was self-evident, every appearance beside her trying to improve the reputation of insects in the village. That’s her same motive here, but it wouldn’t be funny if she phrased it selflessly so she said it in a selfish manner. She doesn’t particular value the outsider but her brain connected the dots of
>Humans like humans
>Humans don’t like other humans dying
>So I should lead a human to the village and then to Reimu in order to get humans to like me and insects more
As for why she wants to do that, I’m not too sure but it's the character ZUN decided on her: She tries to set up business and services that get people to like insects but they invariably fail and she tries again.
I agree that Mystia also would have worked, but she would have more or less had the same motive here, saving a human from Rumia for selfish reasons.
But as you say that fits better with widely accepted fanon so Mystia probably would have been the better choice.

Unlived
Although there's a pretty stark difference between this story and canon I don't think that's an issue at all. This is fanfiction, by the mere act of writing authors should feel free to stray as far from canon as they like and I thought that this was a really gripping Youmu that FluffyMask managed to write here.

>>18335
I said Mima, since the Previous Hakurei shrine Maiden wasn't the one right before Reimu. She was the one who helped set up the Hakurei Barrier in 1885, Reimu is at least 12 or more by the events of EoSD which put her birthday firmly something during the latter 1900s.
So it would be more correct to say she's Reimu's grand mother of great grand mother. The reason I said Mima is that since Mima knows a lot about the Hakurei shrine by her own admission and has a grudge against it, she was probably part of the same generation as the PHSM and Mizuchi before she died and became a vengeful spirit. Although as Teryuo said up thread it's hard to square PC98 with current Touhou since they're so detached from each other, but when somebody can make a connection really work and pull a gripping story out of it, I think it's fine regardless. Disregarding that I like to think that Mima, like Mizuchi has a reason for her hatred, and her the the Hakurei back then alongside Mizuchi. Although that steps a bit too much on Mizuchi's toes lol.
I have a bunch of other thoughts for this but they're all headcanon so I won't mention them.
Although Mokou is also a good choice as her and the shrine maiden can share in the feeling that they both betrayed someone close to them. As Mokou did in her past to become a Houraijin.

Anyways, always great to talk.

>>18331
>That said, if her goal is to subtly coax Sanae into worse behaviour, then I think this works. She does all these gentle encouragements of Sanae's behaviour until she just up and cheats the game, and then she encourages it further and congratulates her for it.

Yeah, you got what I was going for. A lot of Sanae/Tsukasa stuff has Sanae redeeming Tsukasa, but I think the more interesting dynamic is Tsukasa corrupting Sanae. (Also better-supported by canon, for what that's worth.) I really like Tsukasa's canon depiction as a troublemaker with a light touch, and I wanted to try my hand at writing her that way.

>We could definitely lose the sound effects being written out the way they are. It just pulls away from the immersion. Nearly all the sound effects could be described without needing to write them like this.

Yeah. I wanted to use the sound effects to imply emotion without having to write it and bring an immediacy to the piece (also why it was written in present tense). Especially the scratching, my hope was that it would give a sense of Sanae's frustration, an annoying noise of Tsukasa making steady progress, contrasted with her failure. But it seems like I only succeeded in annoying the readership.

Lesson learned there! I will think long and hard before I decide to use sound effects for effect in another piece of writing.

Oh, yeah, one more thing I wanted to say about Unlived.

>However!
"No!"

seems like this thread has settled down so i won't keep y'all long.

>>18262
>she's staying true to the maxim that everyone is welcome in Gensokyo?
i want to believe. enforced cutesokyo now.
>>18258
>the necessity of the beginning being in the perspective of a game duck
i will say it's one of the first things that came to me when i started writing the longer version. it's not something planned (what are those?) but it did make myself think between his horror at raising animals for meat and the violence enacted from hunting.
>>18285
>special dispensations of Suwa-taisha
i'm gonna stop you from crediting me. i just lucked out on this one. hunting... eating meat? it explains everything! thank you sanae.
>Yukari piloting a punt is simultaneously hilarious and not at all exaggerated or unfitting.
a bit of something i pulled from three men in a boat.

and since talk of consorting with kappa came up, i do wonder if anyone thought percussion kappa was pining for the old man for a sec. anyway, take care, folks.

>>18350
>i do wonder if anyone thought percussion kappa was pining for the old man for a sec
If that wasn't the intended implication, I'm a little surprised. It made sense that youkai, especially more typically anthropophilic ones like kappa, might have less... let's say restraint with 'outcastes', people already outside of normal rules of conduct.

>>18341
Oh, right, was going to sneak in a quick response to this.

It was in the back of my mind as soon as I put in that exclamation point, not going to even lie.

>>18350
Well, lucky you on the Suwa thing, but in that case let me thank you for the book rec instead.

It's fucking funny!!!!!!!!!!

Hello everyone, I am the writer of Rolling River, Standing Stone. Thank you all very much for the feedback! The style of this piece is quite different from my usual prose, and somewhat experimental, so I wasn't sure whether it would come across well. But, I'm glad to hear that, for the most part, it did!

The idea of this fic came about when I was thinking about "how do I fit a story within 1000 words when even my short stories often tend to be at least 2000 words long", and I got the idea to write a story with very simple prose, with no extraneous words. I had an earlier idea to write about Eika, and I decided to use this when I realised the unusual, simple prose would fit well with Eika's unusual character.

There is one specific comment I want to respond to, in >>18210, about using the metaphor of a "stone" for Eika instead of a "jellyfish". My personal view on this is that I see Eika as a character that has aspects of both jellyfish and stones, which may seem somewhat contradictory, but I think that is one of the interesting aspects of her character. There are a lot of canonical elements that link her to stones – the main activity she is shown doing is stacking stones, her spellcards revolve around stones, and her theme is even named "Jelly Stone", showing her dual theming of jellyfish and stones. She also has long, jizou-like earlobes, just like Narumi, who is explicitly associated with stone statues.

Additionally, Eika is linked to the deity Ebisu, who started out as Hiruko, the "leech child" of Izanami and Izanagi, before transforming into the god Ebisu. Similarly, in this story I showed Eika as someone who has transformed from a jellyfish-like form into her current stone-like form. Currently, she is not a floating, boneless creature, but someone who lives outside of the water, on the beach covered with stones, and that is why I decided to depict Eika as a "stone".

Anyway, I will try to comment on the other stories sometime soon – it is just rather time-consuming given the sheer number of entries, particularly when I am also working on my ongoing longer story.

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
- The premise is cute. Mystia would think of crabs as bugs with all those legs
- I enjoyed Wriggle pretending to be a crab and communicating with a crab, I thought that was cute
- I enjoyed the second half in the temple, but I thought the swerve was a little too abrupt
- I'm not sure about the disguises thing. I felt the youkai form should have been built up a bit better, although that was a fun reveal
- Overall, I think the two halves were good, but I'm not sure if the joining was strong enough. It felt a bit like two stories - two good ones, but I wish they were joined better

27. Little Princess' Little Odyssey
- The premise is nice, and I like how Shinmyomaru's identity is very wrapped up in being a princess. The premise recalls that doujin about the purple-hair character's club
- Shimmy shimmied haha. But I like her liliputian adventure, the sequence is good and emphasizes how much this is a quest for her, and how her perception colors how she sees Akyuu
- The reported speech is a bit weird. Capitalizations and 'she declared' and no full stops after dialogue when the next sentence is an action
- I think the story stops a little too soon, when things are getting interesting with both parties being interested in knowing the other
- Overall, I enjoyed the adventure, but I wish there was a bit after!

28. A remedy for a headache
- Really like the atmosphere. The language is Hifuu, down to the slightly chuuni way Renko describes things, and her gentle fixation on facts about the railway and the musings about Konngara's sword
- It's spooky in a way the good creepypastas are spooky I think. It recalls classic 'Saya in Underworld' stories to me, more than anything, and it even has the classic endings as well! All that's missing is a hot mentor
- I like Renko's dissociative episode. Again, very creepypasta
- The mysterious, context-less writing works for the creepiness, but I think the writer should've been a bit more explicit about Renko's motives
- Overall, a nicely mysterious piece, recalling creepypastas.

29. Kamehime
- I love the concept of impossible love here. It really frames why and how he's so obsessed with weather. It reminds me of one of my favorite short stories called Phantoms, from Steven Millhauser, also (partly) about an impossible love
- The spoken format is nice, with concessions for literary flourishes. I think I read this more as a monologue to himself, the audience being largely secondary. And it is about love, so I think people should be allowed flights of fancy. I would snicker a bit at someone describing their own hair as 'matted' though
- The personification of weather is wonderful. It does read to me rather stalky, which is probably the point
- I do think the story is very rounded out by the last line, and the answer is very much apparent in the path just trodden: you love a dragon god very distantly, and it is rather tough and one-sided
- Overall very touching! I love reading about impossible loves. This is the paragraph (from Phantoms) that this story evokes in me:

After two days of futile brooding he returns to the stream, to the exact place where he stood when he saw her the first time; four hours later he returns home, discouraged, restless, and irritable. He understands that something has happened to him, something that is probably harmful. He doesn't care. He returns to the stream day after day, without hope, without pleasure.

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, straightforward and even, dare I say, enjoyable. I've always been a strong proponent for restrictions in writing, but self-imposing them is always a bit difficult. There's always something just a bit outside the scope that one wants to do, tempting one to not abide by the terms set. In this case, there simply wasn't enough room to escape the guard rails without dispensing with the whole exercise, so there was some comfort in it. Overall, I'm pleased with what I was able to do, something very rare on the whole. Would I do flash fiction again? If there was another exhibition, I suppose. Of my own accord? Perhaps not. I think I'd rather take some of the lessons learnt and apply them to works with a bit more room to breathe. I don't know if the same approach can serve as well, but I don't see why it can't be tried, at least.