>>18701
Yeah, sadly there don't seem to be a lot of readily available sources on that, I do remember a doujin series where it's mentioned that Megumu was worshipped as a god once.
https://danbooru.donmai.us/pools/20436
So there's that angle to work with, although I don't view Megumu as someone as somber and calm as she's presented in this series. Even if Megumu looks like an grown woman she's pretty energetic and naive.
It's a cute contrast between that and her position as a daitengu.
More about tengu generally, I remember some myths I heard once about how the origin of japanese steel fan martial arts is from tengu.
I did also find this wordpress blog, which shines some light on why Megumu might have a stars theme due to Ilzuna Gongen having a connection to a deity of the cosmos. https://asceticsandpilgrims.wordpress.com/2012/11/24/takaosan/img_1914/
I don't know the truth of it, but seeing the merging of mythologies and how dim the lines between buddha, god, and youkai can be is fun. It's been mentioned that there are probably hermits among the tengu, it'd be kind of funny is there are some tengu-buddhists who are interested in properly playing their role as testers of faith instead of just slandering people in newspapers.

Izuna Gongen having connections to a star deity reminds me of the afterword of the Doujin Izunary Friend where the author says that Megumu's ability to manipulate the starry sky could be connected to the Youkai constellations named by Yukari as well as the Big Dipper and Tengu connections having ties to Okina.

>>18706
Oh yeah, I remember that doujin now! Megumu was really charismatic in that. Although reading the afterward again, it mentions a descent of Izuna Gongan, which makes me think of the word descendant. That makes me wonder, are Megumu and Ran relatives? Ah, Tengu and Amanojakuu might also be related, youkai families sure are weird.
Ex-punk mother and her blue Daitengu grandmother, an adoptive cat daughter, with a lazy Yukari in there for good measure. Of course if you put Megumu as a relative of Izuna instead of the tengu/god itself, then I guess they could be cousins, with Megumu being that one annoying ambiguously related family member.
Either way, despite her demeanor, might Megumu actually be surprisingly qualified for her position as a Daitengu? That's a scary thing to imagine, a stage 5 boss like her with such a gullible personality being really strong. Although she's also ended up alongside Shou in the, 'Snubbed from being playable by your subordinate.'
So sad, although that makes me think that Shou and Megumu might me a seriously amusing pair, someone as serious and harsh as Shou paired with someone as excitable and fight happy like Megumu. Not to mention they're both drunks considering touhou I think my assumption here about Megumu is correct, one a tengu, the other's a buddhist idol, and both of them are martial types.
Although I wonder who we'll see first, the other Daitengu or the Tenma. I wonder there's a white wolf Daiteng.

>>17370
You know the conversation in the main thread made me think. I feel like Sanae is actually worse than Reimu in some aspects.
Sanae also supports Gensokyo and two gods who are extorting the trapped human villagers for profit and faith
They're more successful than Reimu, while she worries about food insecurity they seem to eat fine. So she's exploiting the human villagers more.
Sanae comes from the outside world and chooses to throw away its morals. Unlike Reimu she doesn't live in an environment where the status quo of Gensokyo is normalized. So she has no excuse there.
Unlike Reimu or Yukari she didn't help set up the spellcard rules and doesn't return outsiders to the outside world. So she's not actually helping people.
She chose to go to Gensokyo entirely of her own free will.
As she is from the outsider world she knows how good the villagers could have it but doesn't help them.
She's just as much as a scam artist as Reimu.
Neither she or Reimu actually feed humans to Youkai but by supporting Gensokyo they’re guilty by association.
She has no excuses and does all the same bad things Reimu does. Of course she doesn't actually kill someone on screen, but given her track record I feel that's more like a lack of opportunity.
So she knows how good the villagers could have it, but doesn't do anything to help them since it's beneficial to herself, while also having none of the excuses of being raised in Gensokyo like Marisa and Reimu are.

>>18703 (cont.)
Although to comment on some of the discussion from the Sanae thread, namely the repudiation of the Moriya Family trope. While they aren't exactly pseudo parents with Sanae, I don't think she herself is overly loyal to them, nor do I think of their relationship as just business partners.
I think that, at least since Hisotenkou, that there's a degree of equality and care to their relationship, despite them being her gods.
Like in CDS, Sanae calls Suwako and by proxy Kanako out for constantly going behind people's backs and taking unilateral action. As a shrine maiden I think that Sanae naturally has a close relationship to them even if it's not as family, as she channels their power. In Hisotenkou Suwako expresses pride in Sanae for going against her and explains how Kanako is worried about how they always have to lend her power. They don't want Sanae to be reliant on her and like nurturing her independence when they can.
I do think there is some closeness there, of course saying that Sanae is still a servant to them and she still does bug them to cook her meals. Although I don't think that exists in opposition to them having a closer, more familial relationship, parents and children are ideally supposed to support each other and even if they want to support Sanae. There's a sort of tension in the parent child relationship, on one hand the desire for independence and on the other hand your familial duty to your relatives. Although I only really think of this in context with Suwako and Sanae as they are blood family. maybe those two can have a sort of dynamic that Kanako can't be completely let in on, which can create a sort of tension within the Moriya shrine.

I forgot yo post this during Reimu week.
translated: Reimu-san, who will listen to anything she's told, but will also mercilessly exterminate any youkai without questions.

Ten Days Remain. Everything going okay?

No need to panic yet, but the clock is ticking...

It's going to take a lot more effort, both just to finish it and to polish it too. But i hope the end result is good and people enjoy it.

>>18696
I ended up shelving idea 3 alongside idea 1. So I stuck with idea 2 and finished it. After that I passed the draft around some more and, I looked at someone's else's draft.
It was pretty fun.

>>18650
>I wanted to comment on your argument, maybe even dive in... now that I've read it — we're thinking in such different paradigms it's nearly pointless. Simply look at this:
>two? three?
Three I think. Me, my usual conversation partner, and some other guy.
The quota you were responding too isn't from me, but I don't think you, me, or my usual partner have all that different a perspective. Incidents are largely theater, Gensokyo is a dark setting, everybody is a hypocrite. Although I do believe outsiders do die unlike what you and others say, so they die alongside the people who break the rules/law.
Neither do I really think Reimu is a good or evil person, the situation is more complicated than that and boiling down to good and evil is boring and isn't something I'd want to write in a story. Which is why I don't argue for Reimu being a good person, I don't think she is and the idea of Reimu being a good person without any moral complexity, questionable decision, or moral grayness doesn't interest me. At the same time, Reimu have no internal conflict us equally unappealing to me.
But to answer your question, is such a peace worth it?
I don't know and I'm not sure Reimu is entirely confident in her answer either and I think that's interesting. It's something interesting to explore in a story. So to jump off of that really metal idea of Reimu becoming the little living shrine of the Hakurei god. I think that would be a good place to explore that idea.
For instance, maybe as Reimu undergoes physical and mental changes, she comes to believe it isn't worth it. So in order to repent for her crimes and ensure Gensokyo is destroyed she kills herself at the perfect moment, right in the middle of her transformation. When the Hakurei god is mortal enough to be killed and Reimu is godly enough to make sure she can drag it down to hell with her. Of course her friends and self interested Youkai try to keep her from committing suicide but Reimu succedes anyways and ends up

New one's up!

>>18688
link it, then! (it's >>18683)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

26. One Shell Too Many

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

>>18170
Human I remember your
>interpretation

That Doremy cosplay pic is almost criminally cute.