I think it’s a fine idea to have a thread about writing. It’s an interesting conversation to have.

>Stories are about conflict.
This seems altogether too reductionist to me. That isn’t to say that conflict isn’t an important or, perhaps, the most important part to a story but I feel like there’s too many qualifying asterisks or instances “yes, but…” to accept it uncritically. I’ll say that there’s a lot of contrast and framing that complements conflict, among other things, and leave it clumsily and imperfectly at that, because I think what you use to explain yourself is more interesting to dissect right now.

>the vast majority of this conflict is character vs character
A hard disagree from me there. This is certainly true of something like one of the touhou video games, but that’s because it’s necessarily adversarial to function as a game. It is also true in various pieces of media and particularly of styles of media but it is far from a universal truth. Though it’s clear from the rest of what you’re saying that you’re not exactly limiting yourself to simple “man vs man” type conflicts, I’d still say that you’re limiting yourself to a very small part of storytelling.

I do not put this forward as a call towards authority, tradition, or even majority taste, but I encourage you to think of examples of fiction and literature in general that have stuck with you personally and with society at large. Internal conflict, conflict with society/expectations, destiny/nature, etc are indeed the majority of the conflict among the corpus of civilization. This is not to say that character conflict isn’t important or also not there in those works but that they are not really what they are about nor do they necessarily contribute in major fashion to how the plot develops. Think about how most of their scenes/chapters develop. Read passages of books that you like. Often it is the narrator and/or the protagonist that set the tone and how plot progresses with their perception and reaction driving development more than the goals of

To perhaps the point of blatancy, I authored Very Forbidden Scrollery. Unlike last time, however, I wasn’t really attempting anything “different,” style-wise, so that’s fine. There’s not much more to rant about. To start, I’d planned to finally write a lewd Reimu (who “transacts” with a village artisan, who turns out possibly to be her dad – Reimu’s mum was never forthcoming), but then I got into an accident, spent a few weeks in near-constant pain, and so that daydream slowly lost its lustre. Afterwards, the D bent in an unexpected direction, and here we are.
>Why an old man…?
The C-‘tism. Kosuzu’s grandpa is an existing “character” who “appeared” in the manga, so I went for him rather than an OC. More fun that way. To me, if not your moral compass.

Also, don’t be surprised if you ever read up on the person Kosuzu’s inspired by and spot a familiar name. Just a little in-joke by yours truly.

Oh! And in case you ever feel like re-reading this piece of filthy smut, I cross-posted it to AO3 with a few… additions… which wouldn’t have worked out as well on THP: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45836953/

>>16961
>Then you had to go and make a weird conscious decision to be more... I can't find the correct word. 'Sleazy' is the best I can come up with, even if it isn't the greatest encapsulation.
I’ll break character here and admit that, yes, it is indeed an affectation. In brief, I took a study of available, written 2hu erotica and discovered a dearth of “pornish,” doujinshi-like scenarios – that weren’t futa, anyway – despite the vast popularity of general “sleazy” smut. It is a hole I’ve since dedicated myself to filling like the lowest-hung innuendo. It may not be everybody’s cup of hot coffee, certainly not the favourite flavour as has been evidenced, but it’s a (self-imposed) obligation.

>>16985
>Also, don’t be surprised if you ever read up on the person Kosuzu’s inspired by and spot a familiar name. Just a little in-joke by yours truly.
But I didn't see any Benjamin Smith Lymans mentioned in the story?

In the eventuality any interested parties haven't yet noticed, the prize has been delivered: >>/at/41283.

Not a dear or familiar character to me by any means, but it's turned out decently well, I dare pat myself on the back.

You can't legislate good behaviour, but you can have reasonable rules-of-thumb. I had a few thoughts about things in our outer communities, so I decided to share some of those.

N.B. This shouldn't be taken as a do-or-die pronouncement by moderation. Just take it all into consideration and otherwise continue acting like a decent human being, okay?

https://www.tekitou.moe/posts/2023-03-31-ontopic.html

Did you know THP had a birthday yesterday? Happy fifteenth, THP. I'm sorry I couldn't do anything.

Anyway, I started this post a while back and meant it to be something of a long 'user's manual' sort of thing, but that got pretty tiresome. I ended up retooling it to be a lot more concise, mostly because I didn't feel it needed to instruct as much as bring attention to things. With any luck, I'll have brought some previously unnoticed things to someone's attention.

https://www.tekitou.moe/posts/2023-04-02-keepingup.html

Here's a quick little piece about a long-time daydream of mine. It's idealistic and perhaps unfeasible. Hell, maybe impossible. I'd still like to see it happen someday.

https://www.tekitou.moe/posts/2023-04-18-tuhupike.html

>>16937
Soft NACK on my part. Right now, it's basically Scarlet Tycoon and Girl of Death, with (I guess) the addition of Not-Life now. Maybe we could go on with that, but it kind of seems like the choices available put off some people last time. I haven't had time or energy to come up with additional suggestions, so I feel kind of bad about not having much to add to the process. If others want to go ahead as-is, then I guess I'd come along, however.

>>16938
Hmm. Well, I won't push for it, since I'm kind of slammed with work at the moment, but I'm not giving up on it either. We've got the contest going on right now, anyhow, so maybe I'll refloat it once we wrap that up.

This is kind of a repeat topic in some ways, but it came up again in the outer communities.

For whatever event we hold next, there is always the possibility that we could abandon the pretext of 'competition' and just have an exhibition, whether a general one or based on some sort of thematic element. Given the lack of stakes (e.g., meaningful prizes) for contests beyond 'bragging rights', there's little difference beyond a somewhat formalised voting process. Were we to transition to an exhibition, we would essentially just be doing away with voting as a procedural element.

Some out-of-band communication has involved some dissatisfaction with what could be perceived as a lack of serious scrutiny involved in judging contests, leading to contests being, at best, popularity contests. Leaving the veneer of 'competition' out of things would alleviate any perceived need to tailor an entry to any particular sensibilities to 'win'. By the same token, the objection has been raised that even the thinnest pretext of 'competition' might be necessary to motivate some entrants. There is also the fear that removing the voting process will lead to a dearth of feedback desired by those submitting entries.

There's probably much more to be said, but I'll leave that to the rest of you to discuss. Considering there's nothing yet in mind for another event, competition or otherwise, there's not much pressure to make a decision right this minute, but it would behoove those interested to make it at some point.

So, as a writer, I personally love write-ins, as they're a sign of viewer interactions. Granted, I haven't had anything I'd consider a particularly silly or unwarranted write-in, so I might be a bit biased. I have had a few that have been fairly off-the-rails, but they've still been legitimately good (or at least reasonable) ideas based off of the information available at the time.

As far as writer interaction with the readers go, that's tricky. See, the thing is, I actually love talking about my story. I could easily throw several paragraphs in almost per update about what might have happened, or could have happened, or my thoughts on something. But I don't. I'll throw stuff in as an end-of-part coda, perhaps, but I fear to say too much.

Two reasons for this. The first is that I don't want to bias the readers with my personal commentary. Author's notes are fun, but the story must stand on its own without them. If someone who doesn't read any of the notes about what I intended comes to a completely different interpretation of the characters than what I intended, then I've screwed up as a writer, and that's a real risk if I keep outright telling the viewers what I intended after each update.

The second comes down to vanity. There was a previous community I wrote in where I got in trouble for self-advertisement, and I had a bit of a rant about how my story wasn't getting the attention it deserved compared to other, worse stories. It's not something I'm proud of, and pretty much ended my involvement in that community, as well as the story I'd been writing at the time. (Which is honestly a shame, as I wouldn't mind finishing or maybe rebooting that some day.) Because of that, I try to take a hands-off approach to commenting. It's easier for me to avoid attention seeking if I minimize my interaction outside of the updates. Or, as is increasingly the case these days, apologizing for updates being late. Alas.

Speaking of apologies, I'm one of the anons who floated the idea of participating and never did anything. So... sorry about that, I've just been busy lately. Even finding time t

>>16931
>If someone who doesn't read any of the notes about what I intended comes to a completely different interpretation of the characters than what I intended, then I've screwed up as a writer
I mean, that's going to happen no matter how much footwork you put into stage managing reader perception of things. You can outright directly tell people that things are one way or another, yet they'll still come to head-scratching conclusions based on inherent biases or whatever. I've had it happen time and again in my own writing to the point that I long gave up trying to correct people. Dunno, though. Maybe it depends how much investment people have in your story. Nobody around here really has the same experience writing, for better or worse.

As to actual book club matter, well, no real need for apologies. There was hardly a call for strong commitment. The pacing that so annoyed certain people was chosen with the assumption that people would probably fall in and out. If things go on and you happen to only find time to get involved every once in a while, that's fine enough.

Very belated in getting my thoughts in.

>>16920
>Did the story make you feel anything?
Hesitation, mostly, or a sense of "waiting for the other shoe to drop". I get the feeling in the end that it was mainly supposed to be a fun adventure focusing on personalities rubbing off on each other and which wouldn't get super into it, but it really was hard to tell because I still felt like that could have changed at any moment.

>What did you think of the writing style?
I think the author is a fair hand at scene-setting and has a good sense for personality as external affect, but could probably stand to get a little deeper into a character's psyche, past, and whatnot in order to get them to really stand out from the page as fully-developed people. Of course, I haven't seen them write any characters in extremis, so maybe they were simply keeping it up their sleeve, but the keystones-and-chicken-twine analogy from earlier still strikes me as salient.

>Was there any passages that stood out to you?
Hobo silence

>Would you recommend this story?
I don't think I could, in good conscience; but then again I pretty much have to have liked something nearly unreservedly in order to be able to recommend it to anyone else without a whole bunch of caveating. Besides, it just didn't get far enough.

>>16927
Ran, you don't need to argue this hard. We believe you deserve Youkai rights, too.

Some personal contribution to fire starting, now.

Yukari Yakumo intentionally lost the initial Lunar-Youkai war. I personally believe this a bit further than simple headcanon, since it is easy to argue political gain for Yukari. The original lunarian war started around the time that Youkai were at their absolute highest point in strength. Shuten Doji and his commanders were still active, Yuyuko Saigyouji had recently become the spectre incarnate of death, and Yukari herself was looking for an excuse to get on everyone's radar. Invading the Lunarians is, of course, a very bad idea. The only member of an army where it's strongest members consist of the aforementioned would be Yukari herself, who has manipulation of fundamental concepts of reality as an ability. The heavenly gods of the established Lunarian dominion (and Chang'e, for whatever it's worth) are the same creation and conceptual gods of yore, and even non-god level commanders of this society are given absurdly potent weaponry. Yukari is the only member on the same playing field, and yet she doesn't seem to actively threaten the Lunarians at any given time. This is further confusing because she would be the only one capable of instigating an invasion in the first place with the means to create a portal from the Earth to the moon (that the Lunarians set up a nasty trap for her afterward). The Lunarians still don't kill her when she makes a second offense in the events of Silent Sinner in Blue, which means she never established the extent of her powers to them. It can be concluded that Yukari did not fully fight with all her power in the war, and thus the Youkai army lost handily, starting a sharp decline in all Youkai activity thereafter.

The morale hit to the Youkai society of the time after the war would have been large enough to outright spiritually harm them, and cause the start of the dwindling fear within humans toward Youkai. This goes so far as humans fighting and breaking the oni cabal (story of Shuten Doji&#

>>16929
I feel like that was actually confirmed at some point, but I don't recall where. Granted, I don't believe Yukari fighting "with all her power" would have been enough to change the outcome (and I find issue with the description of her powers as affecting "fundamental concepts of reality" - such a phrase is completely oxymoronic); but that's beside the point as there was likely never any intention of success. Achoo outright summarises the result as the blunting of youkai ambition and circumscription of their activities; and mentions that this is well-known even amongst humanity. And, more generally, when it comes to geopolitically non-dominant illiberal regimes, foreign policy is often just an extension of domestic policy, so it makes absolute sense to me.

>>16925
>>16926
>>16927
>Ran wn beep boop at you
put me out of my misery now

>>16788
Are you okay, Anon? Do you need medical assistance?

>>16788
Well, can't seem to find Jugglers and Geomancers anywhere in the madland, so let's just hold out hope for that special Fortune Teller escape tale instead!

>>16787
>UFO days
I'm not sure where my head was. Things stayed reasonably active up to around the time of DDC, and that's kind of where prominent newhus kind of trail off. At least, it feels like later newhus have appeared less. Yachie, for instance, was only in Teruyo's story AFAIK.

Either way, the Fortune Teller didn't appear until 2015, and the LoLK cast owns most of the attention paid to that period, so it's not a huge surprise that there's not much in the way of writing featuring him.

>Any general tips for going back to an abandoned story?
Do you really want to go back to it or do you just feel obligated?

What did you want to do in the first place? Has that changed? How? Does that greatly change anything? Does it conflict with anything you've done already? Do you care if it does or not?

Do you even know what you want to do?

There's a lot of questions that could be asked in return. Think long and hard before you do anything.

>>16740
Thank you. That clears things up. At the very least, I know what I want to do, and I should just do it, even if it takes me a while.

>>16730
Reread it, then see if that kindles any desire to continue it. Plus it'll remind you of where things left off, and hopefully of what your original plans were.

>>16673
Looking forward to the eventual /at/ spinoff, Lust Market.

>>16700
Is that anything like Lust Bees, the porn companion to Lost Bees?

>>16701
When the Last Bee is gone, and the Lost Market fades...

>>16660 here.

Spontaneous manifestation of head ornamentation for medical purposes shouldn't count, I'd think. It's not part of their normal attire, it's just there for safety.

In other news, of the true hatless 2hus not yet discussed, I think Kaguya has a pretty good shot of dethroning the current leader.

Kaguya doesn't wear a hat, and doesn't need to. She has her own personal doctor in case she ever gets sunburned, she doesn't get much sun in the first place, and if she got a hat she'd stop having a character design in eternal stasis. Plus, Mokou has a very high hat score, and those two would obviously be on opposite sides of the scale.

>>16666

Not to be needlessly contrarian, but I cannot accept 'medical reasons' as a valid explanation for this phenomena. A vast number of post-battle band-aid application are placed in strange places such as over the clothes/hair. Meanwhile scuff marks, bruises, and other clear indicators of fisticuffs remain uncovered and untreated.

I can only assume that the bizarre ritual of increasing a defeated opponent's hat/accessory score is meant as a show of dominance.

Jade Beauty