>>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.

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

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

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

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

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

26. One Shell Too Many

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

>>18170
Human I remember your
>interpretation

That Doremy cosplay pic is almost criminally cute.

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

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

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

>>17973
People said the same about several touhous with little lore, and yet Satono/Mai and Nemuno produced very interesting discussions in the end, leaning precisely into the personal interpretation angle.

>>17976
Exactly!
Also, PC98 characters have the benefit of there not being all that much to know in the first place. Their in-game appearances are basically what they are, you won't even have to do a lot of reading or anything. Which is why I'm suggesting it! The barrier to entry is lower for people who may not really engage with the cast outside of a few favourites, but may still want to comment. And it's just fun! Old works are fun, th1 especially is very fun to talk and think about.

Well, are we going to get new characters to discuss? The irregular discussions thread seems to be active enough, even if people aren't writing huge posts every time. If Teruyo is fed up and doesn't want to run the discussion thread, should someone else take over?

>>17891
Mystery Celebrations author here. A huge thank you for taking the time to analyze the prose of my writing, and for rewriting the paragraph to illustrate your points. I'll definitely reserve some time to learn more about storytelling and rhetorical techniques. I think it'll be valuable knowledge for both reading and writing.
I wanted to focus on the house at the very beginning because I like to have a very good stage for whatever scene is in play. The house was going to be the main setting of my work, after all. I wanted to set the stage and the tone and hook at once. Hook? Yeah, the hook was intended to be the setting of Yukari's house itself, since its still a mystery in canon. But as others have said, thats a trapping of fanfiction - presupposing that your readers are familiar with the material.

>>17892
>But as others have said, thats a trapping of fanfiction - presupposing that your readers are familiar with the material.
My own issue with that mindset/approach is less about familiarity with material being adapted as much as a presupposition of investment by default in particular understandings/interpretations thereof. For instance, I'm not invested in, say, Alice and Marisa being friends unless a very good reason is established within the narrative; i.e., the onus is on the writer to show how that's true and why we should care, not simply tell us that's the case or take it all as a given.

My comments part three.

On Alcohol & Oceans

Sorry, I don't really get it. It's just not a very Touhou-like piece to me. Everything's so surface-level. I don't think Alice is the kind of person to waste emotions on berating herself for mis-timing the fuze on one doll, for example, considering how many she must go through a month. She care a lot about her craft, sure, but she's ambitious about it and, like, owns it in a way that I feel should indicate a more robust attitude towards setbacks. Maybe she just happens to be a sorry drunk, but that doesn't mean that any reason to be sorry is as good a reason as any other, you know? Or, like, Kokoro has personal pronoun confusion and doesn't understand what drinking is? I don't really buy it. Feels like it takes too much of a generic "artificial and/or alien plural-self ingénue" template. Murasa's depressed because she was randomly reminded of the ocean by a total stranger she wanted to fuck? It's all this superficial stuff that's way too easy to reach for, draped over characters who talk and think and act like they could be in fanfiction for any other piece of media.

It's just a bad match for me, I guess. I don't really have anything constructive to say. Maybe the same thing I said to the Ranout: Chen Buren author—try and go beyond just walking and talking and set dressing, and try to actually delve into being. Like... I can't help but compare it in my mind with Sinker, another Ichirin/Murasa piece from elsewhere on the internet. The Murasa there still kind of talks like a fanfiction character; I guess it can't be helped; but on a deeper level she doesn't think that way. Her background informs what she uniquely is and what she uniquely needs, and what happens in the story is driven by that. It's importan

Considering the entire theme of my story, it only felt fair for the contest reward to feature one last Satori fakeout.

But in all seriousness, thanks for being our artist, Kosu. The art you've provided for R/R and USiL both has been fantastic, and as I had no particular ideas on a Mystia story myself, I decided to outsource the problem. And, as per usual, Gooboi's done a terrific job with it - the misadventures of little tiger Mystia were a joy to both read and edit.

And with that... thanks to everyone who was part of the contest, thanks to Gooboi for hosting it, and I'll see you guys when I've got something else written. Until then.

>>17840
I, personally, loved it. Mystia is the sort of person to use the jeweled pagoda as a fuel source for her stove.

My one question is how Kyouko got sent to her.

I'm not crying, someone's chopping onions!

This was completely unexpected and it absolutely made my day, my whole week, everything.
I have to thank both of you, I can't find words to thank you enough, this meant a lot to me!

It's always a pleasure to draw stuff for the worlds you have gifted us, and I'm always happy to help you in any way I can.

Shit Fart Online sucked and VR is a forced meme.

Gensokyo is still not real and VR is shit.

As I'm busy preparing to go out of the country for the next month, I don't have that much time to deal with this thread, so we're going on hold yet again. The thread's near auto-sage anyway, so this is as good a point as any to drop off for now. See you in November with a fresh thread.

In all honesty, maybe you'll just offload the thread to someone else (again) instead of shutting it down?
It doesn't seem like much work to take on, simply post a first post with roll and a second one with collection of canonical sources, that's all for mandatory threadkeeping.

I'll be taking over the character discussion threads for the foreseeable future. This thread is almost auto-saged so new thread:
>>17620