Now that I think about it...

I don't actually rant about Touhou that often, but if you go back merely a year or so you could've seen me fill this blog constantly with complaints about Negima. (And I loved Negima, but at the same time hated it. I loved it enough to put tons of time into my wall-of-text complaints, but complained so much because of all my problems with it. Works like those are what drives you to scream and shake your fist at the invisible causes of the universe) And while I do have a decent amount of posts here of Touhou it's not really comparable to my past fandoms...so what gives? Well mostly because I am actually quite happy with this fandom despite all the shortcomings. There will always be people who complain about everything no matter what, but as I've grown older and (hopefully) wiser, I've become far more mellow about things, not letting the tiniest of things throw me out of whack and feel great rage for the rest of the day.

The other reason is because Touhou doesn't release weekly chapters you can pick apart. (I did however read the first chapter of Forbidden Scrollery, but I have nothing to say about it, so) So until something major happens like a new game or what have you, there isn't much to say. I could rant about fanworks which I have done so constantly (and Touhou itself is even a doujin game, so) but I haven't been as drawn in to such fanworks since Chirei De and anything by Shinoasa; those works are brilliant. When I do rant it's like that one fanfic or that really bad PV that butchers all characters, but these rants are quite obvious and I'm merely venting as opposed to discussing with the invisible readers out there my own thoughts. (I may rant about Tag Dream depending on how the current match turns out, been following that 4koma since I got into Touhou and my favourite team is in the ring right now. Several fans have already pointed out the many flaws and "bullshit" results from the fights, but that's what you'd expect from a shounen)

So I actually thought of something to discuss, that being my own strange tendency to hop onto new favourite characters in Touhou, something I may do once or never in other fandoms, but have done so frequently (at least to my standards) which I can easily chalk up to the diverse and numerous characters that exist for Touhou. When there are this many characters to choose from who all have their own fanbase somewhere on the planet churning out fanworks for everyone to see, it's really easy to hop over. So let us begin with my journey through the Touhou fandom and which character I clung to along the way!

For once, Touhou itself cannot be blamed on Aoi-dono. She certainly helps fuel my love for the game series thing, but my clan friends were already well into Touhou (if only for the fighting games at that period) and it definitely sparked some interest. For a lot of 2010 I'd play IaMP with them occasionally, or "that fighting game with the animu girls" ..yes. When I played that game, I quite liked Meiling or "China" MERELY because of how under-appreciated she seemed to the game and my clan friends. They often called her China and I didn't realize that was a fandom-wide joke, and thought they themselves were being disrespectful to (mostly) their own ethnicities. (at this point though, I do not care) Anyway since she was lowest-tier and therefore technically was a joke character, I thought I'd feel better maining her (and thus losing with her) because Meiling was very melee-ish and that was what I was used to in fighting games.

Also SAKUYA SAKUYA ROOM CLEANING STOP! 

I never discovered the Touhou Wiki until later as all my knowledge of these characters were from the fighting games' wikis. I had no idea there was anything beyond these fighting games and that they were only standalone...by the time December arrived I was itching for a Pokemon game but felt so unbelievably bored by Kanto/Johto (and I refused to play Hoenn due to stubborn nostalgia) At that time I was one of the hipster Pokemon crowd who hated anything beyond the first generation (well, first two generations...I do remember playing Crystal fondly) So I discovered Touhoumon, which put a brand new twist into what I was bored with. With my six Touhoumon being solely the characters from IaMP, I recall going through the game and announcing how boring and useless all these other Touhoumons were! WHO WERE THEY!? WHO CARES! THEY AREN'T REMILIA OR YUYUKO!

And at this time I began to like Yuyuko. Mostly from touching a bit of the Touhou fandom...because I noticed it was there, or how else are the endless amounts of Touhoumon versions out there!? In my previous fandom I was very fond of a ghost and her supposedly heartbreaking story, but it was sidelined for plot, and as we now know never going to be addressed ever. (ANGER STILL LOOMS DEEP WITHIN SPOTTO) So here we have yet another cute ghost girl except this time, her backstory is PART of the plot...of one of the games at least. With the tree being evil and her body being used as its seal, this girl had a very sad, sad life...it's so wonderful she's absolutely happy as the immortal mistress of the netherworld. Also she was likely a beginner's choice in IaMP (but so is Sakuya) and therefore I can hammer people into the wall with her awesome melee butterfly flips without much skill. HOORAH. The PV that depicted Yukari (who is normally an ageless near-omnipotent gap youkai) breaking down from Yuyuko's predicament really reined me in. Not only that, I discovered several 4komas including "Gensokyo Great Sports Day ~ 200 Yojana in a Flash" that greatly increased my love for Yuyuko. (And made me like Aya for a bit. I still had no idea who she was though. When the UFO arc happened I was like "WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE!?!?!? RAH! GO BACK TO YOUMU THEY ARE THE BORING")

So time goes by, I still play the games and the Touhoumons, but since being exposed to the fandom I delve deeper. At some point we upgrade from IaMP to UNL (or Hisoutensoku now, UNL is what we USED to call it back in the day) but at the time I preferred IaMP because of its quicker pace and its declaration gameplay. And there is a peculiar character in UNL that drew my eye, one who hopped around as movement, and flapped her arms for flight. I found Suwako's gimmicky playstyle somewhat refreshing to play and thought, perhaps if I learned how to play Hisoutensoku with her, would develop some sort of weird style with the other characters or something. And just like with the games, I wondered if Suwako had any fanworks that pertained to her.

That was when I discovered doujinshi. Suwako's backstory was the plot for two such doujinshi, both with their own compelling versions. I loved reading through them and gained a new-found respect for Suwako who quickly overtook Yuyuko as my favourite. She also has an awesome hat, and this was the time I began loving the hats in Touhou. (if you notice the head accessory for the next few characters) Sadly I never got too far into UNL (still preferred IaMP forever) so I never managed to learn much of the game with Suwako, but continued my way with Touhou. At this point I also knew the existence of the actual main bullet hell games, and obtained Embodiment of Scarlet Devil to attempt. I played my way through easy, struggling through such spellcards as those flowery ones Meiling spat out and EVERYTHING on Patchouli's stage, to SCREAMING my way around Sakuya's knives until finally she yelled at me for playing easy, which deflated every accomplishment I ever achieved to that point. I then decided to jump too many levels and learned how to beat Rumia (with zero bombs and deaths! That's how much I played that single level ololol) on Lunatic. At some point I finally reached Remilia in Normal but never got past her ever. Flandre will never be seen, it appears.

Also at this point, as I waded my way through the fanworks and started reading through some of the profiles on the Touhou Wiki, I found a character named Koishi. She had a nice hat, which was a big hit for me. What really drove Koishi home was a particular ongoing comic at the time called Chirei De. This comic detailed its own version of the events before Subterranean Animism and it was by far the best doujinshi I have ever read. Every panel was coloured and the art style was overwhelmingly adorable. The facial expressions would make me melt whenever they cried and I just began to love the entire Chireiden cast at that point. The lovable oaf Utsuho, the genuine cat Rin, the devoted owner Satori, and then Koishi, who was but a poor youkai who wished not to be hated. Her predicament was truly tragic, and her self-exile to the above world (and ignorance of the sky/tomatoes) was just a wonder to read through. I remember putting on the most awesome symphonic Nuclear Fusion remix when I got to Okuu finally combining with the Yatagarasu. My day would be automatically made whenever Chirei De updated (which wasn't all that often!) and my sadness continues from its end.

So yes, that was why I loved Koishi oh so much. There were also other creators that did stuff with Koishi, some good and some bad. I won't name names for the bad, but I'm quite sure I mentioned them before. There was an ongoing meme about Koishi of how she was associated with the "Freud was right" trope. Some of her danmaku looked suggestive and it became a bit of a joke especially in the western community, which I started to take a look at. An especially notable creator for the western community had an odd affliction for one Captain Murasa. I then recalled that she was one of those forgettable characters in the Sports Day 4koma I complained about. But this person made Murasa especially interesting, if not very canon, but it was her dysfunctional relationship with the rest of the Myouren Crew did I begin wondering about the UFO cast. She was a ghost after all, and from my Yuyuko paragraph above, I do love me some ghosts. Bring me more ghosts Cap'n. It was also through the Captain did I realize how much I loved androgynous female characters. Something about them just clicked and I had actually portrayed a few characters from older fandoms that way as well (due to their personality) so not only did she fit the whole ghost shtick, she made me discover that other shtick of mine. HMMMMM...

Sadly Murasa lacked much of any doujinshi unless I waltzed into H-territory and at this point I did not read fanfiction from Touhou at all. But my brain decided to develop a story for Murasa herself, thus my only two fanfiction for Touhou. (WE WILL NOT MENTION THAT OTHER ONE) The theories that I came up with Aoi-dono were particularly wonderful, and I thought at that time Murasa was that "true" character I'd love from the fandom for the rest of the time I was in it. I thought I was settled and that was it. The only other thing I did at this point besides watch videos where Hijiri is a perfect but tragic saint, was skip my "defeat games by order" philosophy and went straight into playing UFO. That was not a good idea because UFO is hard as hell and I've yet to get past Shou. DAMN YOU SHOOOOOOU~!!! So all was fine and dandy except for the whole "my favourite character is woefully unpopular" part, but I was used to that. Nue even shared top spot with her at the time.

BUT THEN.

THE TAOISTS SHOWED UP.

And Akyuu released SYMPOSIUM OF POST-MYSTICISM!!

EVERYTHING CHANGED!

Ah yes, my experience with being present when the newest game came out. I shared with many others the WTF-faces when I saw the designs of every character. I truly believed everything was ruined to hell until I saw Nue show up and a collective OMFGASM occurred. Then the great disappointment with the extra boss, Mamizou. Truly, I thought she was the lowest of lows after all those absolutely awesome extra bosses we've come to this. A tanuki who shares a similar ability with the last extra boss, has the personality of many other super-old youkai of Touhou, and drinks a lot just like everyone else too. Despite her relatively uncommon colour palette, due to ZUN's not very varied hairstyles she merely looked like a Chen except older. Oh, and she's Nue's friend. That sunk my previous theories of Nue being a pathetic friendless fool...only Alice gets that title in fandom, it seems. The entire game also threw out the bomb that they and the Buddhists (the Myouren Crew) were BITTER ENEMIES. The popular fandom image of the Buddhists being saintly and heavenly began to plummet, especially when SoPM showed up. While I enjoyed the new information and found Murasa still drowning or Shou being drunk highly amusing, my previous image of how they were dissipated quickly. I think the biggest change was Byakuren really. I truly thought Byakuren being a genuinely amazing youkai in comparison to the protagonists in UFO to be an awesome subversion, but it kind of backtracked with SoPM. (Emotional Skyscraper was what really pulled me into the Myouren Crew. It is SUCH a good song and one of my favourites, what made me really believe Byakuren was amazing as all can be, but with a dark past.)

SoPM changed EVERYTHING. Not for the bad, but how I saw the characters certainly wasn't correct...so we move on. 

Throughout almost the entirety of that, I had been of course, looking at other works for other characters because my mindset for Touhou was not strictly on characters I liked unlike most fandoms I've been in...and throughout that entire time, two characters, Keine and Mokou, were slowly rising up my ranks without me really noticing. I've always liked Mokou. It was natural to like Mokou what with her being the sole pantswearer, the manipulator of fire, and the symbolism of the phoenix. But Keine was largely unnoticed from me, despite her stealth rise in the ranks. It was only until I immersed myself into the world of Vivit Gray and found myself noiselessly shrieking at Konac's baby Touhous did I realize that Keine is pretty damn awesome.

I mean, she has that hat. Suwako's got an impressive hat, and Koishi's is stylish. Murasa's is fitting and professional, but Keine's hat... At least Suwako's makes sorta sense with her love of frogs (what with the eyes on top...right?) but Keine's makes ZERO SENSE. WHY does she wear such an outrageously unique hat!? WHO KNOWS! But what we do know is that it is one amazing hat, like the most amazing hat anyone has ever seen. While Keine does not fit the androgynous shtick or the ghost shtick, she does fit with the were-animal shtick. Despite my distaste for Twilight, which is more mediocre than anything, werewolves are pretty damn awesome. I freely admit, that were it not for the majority of the internet's general attitude towards furries, that I may have become one. (Not for the whole creepy sexual fetish thing...I dunno why they always focus on that for the hate) but just the whole artwork with humanoid animals and such. I can draw animals far better than humans but I've forced myself to draw humans more just because such artwork is looked down upon. (Yes, as a teenager I was very impressionable) Also her music was brilliant...Nostalgic Blood of the East, her theme shared with Mokou (Extend Ash), Plain Asia is decent as well! 

But the biggest thing that made me love Keine is my OTP, MokoKene. Yes, while the "immortal falls in love with mortal" story is overdone as hell everywhere, it will always click with me. (Turning the mortal immortal ruins EVERYTHING by the way) Simply the fact that Keine, not a very powerful character (compared to everyone else, anyway) still attempts to protect those she loves from such horribly overpowered threats like the incident-solving reality floater Reimu, or the reality-warping near-omnipotent youkai Yukari, or the fate-manipulating vampire Remilia, or the time-manipulating ninja maid Sakuya, or the death-wishing sly ghost, Yuyuko, or "the things my sword cannot cut are next to none!" Youmu, or the bombastic overly ordinary magician Marisa, or Alice. Not only that, she protects the Human Village (which probably needs the protecting) but even MOKOU, the immortal who will be fine no matter what. Keine still risks her butt to eldritch abominations! I find that really, really admirable. Her role as a teacher (though its purpose in canon is simply to educate the humans into not being stupid with youkai, ala history) is expanded greatly in fanworks and makes her character all the more heartwarming. Her role as the teacher over Team 9 especially.

So, with Keine at the moment...will there be more next? Who knows? If you've noticed...there is one character from every main shooting game (if we ignore PoFV which is like the black sheep of Touhou games and the newest one, Ten Desires.) We have Meiling (EoSD), Yuyuko (PCB), Keine (IN), Suwako (MoF), Koishi (SA), and Murasa (UFO). We also pretty much went in chronological order until I went "AHHH! I forgot Imperishable Night!" and loved Keine. (I also found Eientei my least liked cast herd in Touhou until recently when I started to love Keine, Mokou, and eventually Eientei. Those lovable Lunarians, awww. [That sounds like an oxymoron for some reason...]) But if you asked me who MIGHT be next, I'd say Miko of Ten Desires. I've definitely warmed up to her lately. (I liked Futo a lot when TD was released, but then SoPM was all like "FUTO IS HORRIBLE" and then I realized how absolutely badass Miko is) I still like Futo and the UFO cast, and all those other characters. The more time goes by the more I like every character. Maybe at some point in the future I'll even like PC-98 characters!!

Ha, yeah right.

So anyway I'm pretty sure I wrote a rant similar to this earlier, though without all the extra more recent stuff added in of course. This isn't so much "HISTORY OF WHY I LIKE THE 2HUS" and more of the characters themselves though. Also Mamizou is okay now, I don't find her the LOWEST of the LOWS in Touhou. She's just not all that unique to me is all, but I look forward to how she causes Touhou 14 if the chain from MoF continues. I'm thinking maybe youkai living on the outside coming in or something, or is that a bit to overdone? (what with the Goddesses and then Mamizou herself) Perhaps they realized the ease of Mami's entrance to Gensokyo, and flocked en mass into Gensokyo to retain their youkaidom (and not be assimilated into humans outside) which seriously disturbs the balance of humans and youkai, thus the incident? I dunno. We will see in the future I suppose.  

OR if the antagonists themselves have to cause the incident (and not the extra boss) perhaps the hermits' meddling of dimensional realms will do something, like CREATURES FROM ANOTHER DIMENSION! The Necronomicon is in Gensokyo after all. (Or hell, even MAKAI!)

The good thing about Keine and Mokou is I've overcome my immature and silly desperate attempts to cling onto fan pairings. If you remember when TD came out I was unreasonably angry because I thought MurasaxNue was reduced to nothing, since originally it isn't all too popular in the first place, and if Mamizou shows up that kind of dwindles its presence further. So at the moment I don't really care all too much about Mokou and Kaguya or the fans that ship them. I realize Kaguya is a HUGE part of Mokou's character, so ignoring her would be outrageous...and I like Kaguya now anyway. Rinnosuke and Keine put together isn't ridiculous either; they're both half-youkai and have actually met. (Intellectuals, the both of them!) They also seem to share a similar viewpoint on the human-youkai issue. (I think) So I can see that too.

...but KeneMoko is my OTP. Yep. Forever. They just happen to be compatible with other people. MystiaMokou seems out of place though, but I can chalk that up to a well-known very well-written fanwork as well. EirinKeine kind of annoys me not because of the pairing itself, but MokouKaguya fans seem to pair them up as a whole "pair the spares" kind of thing, which I don't like. If you pair Mokou and Kaguya, fine. But don't make it as if Keine and Eirin are suddenly lonely and you pity them so they MUST be put together or something. If someone actually ships the two for real reason and not something dumb like that, then that's fine with me. Sometimes Eirin's put with Reisen but I've never been fond of the superior with subordinate pairing, so... oh wait now I'm going beyond Keine and Mokou. 

But let us stop before this degenerates into a silly pairing rant because those rants tend to have the least quality of them all! 

This has been Spotto, and I am an Alaskan Gull.