#ask bookworm

[ask-bookworm]

Hey Bookworm, it's Drury, I just wanted to say that I really like the lamp you haveon your hat. It's just... So.... Mesmerizing..... What was I talking about? -Drury

Oh! Uh-thank you?

It’s really just for helping me read.. are you all right?

@ask-the-c-listers

[hungry0bookworm]

New to this blog, are you studying abroad in Japan now?

I am, yes! I’m studying Japanese at a language school in Tokyo.

How I ended up here is a long story but basically, two years ago I was seriously ill, and thought I was gonna die for real and stuff, and that prompted lots of deep life questions. One thing I’ve always wanted to do is learn Japanese in a classroom setting and get seriously fluent at it, so once I was better I looked into the options. It turned out learning Japanese in Japan would cost exactly the same as learning it at home, in London. So I thought “Fuck it, I don’t like anything about my life right now and I’m not gonna use my savings for anything else. I’m going to Tokyo.”

And now here I am in Tokyo! No regrets.

[ask-bookworm]

Perhaps I may be of some assistance? I still owe you for saving my life.

Ah well thank you for the offer!

You could come over to my residence to talk about the details?

@ask-victor-fries

[ask-bookworm]

Merry Christmas, and happy holidays!

[hungry0bookworm]

What do you think of the fangames released on consoles?

I don’t know because I haven’t played any of them! The only console I own is a 3DS (and a computer, I suppose).

A lot of them have really pretty art and graphics though. Or at least, the screenshots look pretty lol

[hungry0bookworm]

so what's your thoughts on the sealing club fan-animes? (especially that new one being produced as a collaboration with tumeneco and surrounded by enemies?)

I dunno because I haven’t watched them. I don’t really watch anime... lol

While I am a fan of 四面楚歌/Surrounded by Enemies, that anime bundle cost 5000 yen and I was only interested in the novel, so I didn’t buy it. I might have bought it anyway in the past because I was loaded back then, but I’m a poor student now... ah well.

I think it’s cool that it exists though. All the Sealing Club fans I know love it.

[hungry0bookworm]

hi! since you seem to know more about the japanese side of the touhou fandom, i wanted to ask about something... there seems to be a big difference in how the japanese fandom portrays marisa and how the western fandom portrays her? i was wondering if this is an actual thing or if i've just seen too much of certain artists on either side of the fandom.

Hmm… I think there is a difference, based on what I’ve seen. (Huge generalisations time!) Basically, western fandom Marisa is the Marisa we see in IN’s magic team route: silly, somewhat irresponsible, doesn’t take things seriously, about to blow herself up in a wild experiment and Alice is the only one who can talk her out of it etc. It makes sense, considering MariAli is the big popular ship in the west, and the western fandom generally prefers the cute and silly side of Touhou, but I’ve seen her characterised like that in serious stories too. This Marisa is pretty fun to write, so I can see the appeal.

The Japanese fandom has a huge range of fanworks spanning well over a decade so I’m going to stick to what I’ve seen recently. The Marisa I usually see in doujinshi is a more serious version of the Marisa we see in the print works: she’s had a troubled childhood, struggles to keep up with Reimu and does everything she can to get stronger, sometimes dropping dead in the process. In recent stuff, she tries to become a youkai magician and has the inevitable tragic showdown with Reimu.

…But I suspect this reflects my taste in touhou doujinshi more than anything! I like my fanworks full of pain and suffering so that’s what I mostly read. It’s not all doom and gloom, I swear! But I think the Japanese love to think about her ‘omote’ (front) and ‘ura’ (back) sides a lot more than the Western side. ‘Omote’ is the side you show to people in public, and ‘ura’ is how you actually are; in private or with close family and friends. Marisa’s ‘omote’ is her carefree, jokey side, and her ‘ura’ is her studious, serious side who left her family to live in a forest full of dangerous youkai and experiments with hallucinogenic mushrooms.

I’ve seen a few Japanese creators depict Marisa as someone with a limited range of emotions, or empathy issues. Bizarrely enough, Akyuu seems to be one of those people: her real person fanfic about Marisa in AFiEU (everyone please read it!) depicts her as very… relaxed about all her friends getting murdered, and that ending…! Yes. Good.

God I wrote an essay… anyway the short version is, you can find lots of different Marisas in the Japanese fandom, and a lot of them are similar to how she is in recent canon. But I think you can only find one or two Marisas in the west, and she’s usually similar to early canon. In my experience.

[hungry0bookworm]

I just found this blog, anyway just some comments/questions from me. 1. Why no search box? 2. You seems to have difficulty with AOCF (especially since you mentioned easy mode). Do you know that you can destroy bullet by dashing/flying/jumping through them (aka. the "graze" mechanics, though unlike the main game here you are running AT the bullets)? This makes the game really easy even on Override difficulty. 3. Do you plan to write anymore Kosuzu's fic, with or without shipping?

Hello!

1) The theme didn’t come with a search box, so there’s no search box! lol I’ve been meaning to change the theme for about 4 years now but I’m too lazy. I figured most people would just use the tags, but I suppose some of the tags have a lot of posts... a search box might dig up some embarrassing old posts from several years ago too. Hmm... I’ll think about it.

2) Yes, this is how I beat Shion in the end, actually! I grazed a ton, then spellcard, grazed some more, another spellcard etc. But thanks for the advice anyway! I’m not that great at the fighting games so I usually play on easy mode to read the story, then occasionally do VS mode and... that’s about it. The fighters can be great fun and I really enjoy seeing all the characters interacting, but I prefer playing the main games overall.

3) Definitely! Kosuzu is Not Safe. I have a nice list of Forbidden Scrollery bad ends tucked away somewhere and some of them are too sinful for me to write... for now *omnious music*