This is probably what I was doing while this whole thing was brewing.
With the blogosphere slowly succumbing to the powers of bullet hell, I can say that the hijack is going smoothly as planned. That was one thing I was worrying. The other thing, we’ll talk about, heart to heart to heart, you, me, and Touhou.
The virality of Touhou started to spread in the blogosphere, which sparked a sudden surge of interest within its citizens. Bloggers started to talk about preferred characters, semantics of Touhoudom, and love for the world that spurred an unstoppable cult following, things that I have already mentioned in the past. Normally, I wouldn’t tinker with it and let it just unfold by itself. But somehow, an unknown amount of mischief made me spout something about it, and everything went crashing down, raging bloggers and all.
Our Gensokyo is divided into two categories: Original material (the original Touhou games), and fan material (doujin games and paperback). These form an equilibrium of sorts. The original material serves as basis for fan material, and fan material serves as a tribute to the original material.
This is where it gets murky. Because the franchise has two areas of interest, the community divides itself into two factions of interest: Those who love Touhou for the original material (dubbed as “The True Children of Touhou”), and those who love Touhou for the fan material (dubbed as “The False Children of Touhou”). The former, as the elitist, arrogant, and perfectionist power, would take offense if a Touhoufag lives for the sake of fan material while being oblivious to the original stuff. The latter, as the rabid, generalist, genre-loving power, would take offense if a Touhoufag lives a childish, I’m-not-leaving-my-nest life by not actively engaging on any fanmade content. “Why love Touhou if you can’t even dodge bullets?” “Why love Touhou if you don’t even see the beauty of fanmade material?” It’s like the Code of Cosplay, where you can’t say anything about a cosplayer if you don’t know where the cosplay is from, or you can’t cosplay if you don’t know where the cosplay is from. From black and white, the discord between the fans sows confusion on the fandom that should simply be loved for all that it is.
This leads us to “The Ultimate and Complete Touhou Experience”. From hereon, we walk the line between the two factions, the grey zone that embraces everything regardless of origin. There is no such thing as True or False Children of Touhou, since you can become both at the same time. You love fanmade content? That’s fine, since you loved the original games even if it’s not the same way you love your doujin stuff. You love original content? Sure, since you opened up on fan material, even though you don’t love them the same way you love your originals. Because people paid homage to both fanmade and original content, there’s no discrimination, there’s no elitism, no nothing. It’s like Nirvana, where Touhoufags complete their very being by indulging on everything that was, that is, and will be.
Pay tributes to original content by getting fanmade material. Pay tributes to fanmade material by getting the original content. Stay in the grey zone, enjoy, and all will be fine in our Gensokyo again.
And while you’re at it, apply this logic on your general otaku fandom too.
I definitely agree with the last sentence. You have to know your stuff if you want to say something about it. For any source.
Though, I shall continue to live in my Touhou fandom-less bliss and not have to worry about this. \o/
It’s not really that applicable if you’re talking about “Gateway Material” (or material that made you follow a certain genre). But after that, it’s this logic that needs to be applied.
As for your Touhou bliss, you’re not doing anything wrong, so I’ll leave you alone for that.
You’re just saying this because you really hate the “True Touhou Fan” logic of “primaries” and “secondaries”, right?
Well, that’s good and sane of you.
Enjoy your trip in Gensokyo.
Actually both True and False Touhou Fans have that kind of logic. You can’t tell what’s good and sane if both parties have facts and fallacies to throw at each other.
I guess I can support this sentiment. I certainly appreciate Yuka Kazami more when I kick ass with her in PoFV. Go go mixed fandom!
Not using the PADMaid, eh? Yuka really DOES kick ass. That three-projectile bullet-spreadshot of hers definitely makes up for her lack of speed. Oh, and her stats. Her power really does compliment the lack of speed.
GO GO MIXED FANDOM.
hehe. For me, in every game I’ve been picking the slower characters. I like to remain as stationary as possible and use a greater range. So I usually pick Reimu over Marisa, or whoever is slowest available. On PoFV I’m using Yuka and also have it set to ‘charge’ mode so that I’m always going slow~