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idk Brazil is a no man's land but I do know quite a few people who are into touhou here, and I was introduced to touhou by a brazilian friend anyways so yeah there seems to be a decently-sized community here unfortunately due to how stupid and generally just ignorant my country and people are, it's hard to say there's a lot of people into this

I read if and when I find a good book to read... Reading the digital copies just does not feel the same.

I feel like this point is an almost entirely different problem. While yes, deleting old art is pretty wrong imo, and I too do not have a lot of respect for those who simply switch to waifu simulator game drawings (thanks kancolle) I think that they do not have to pay mind to what the fans want them to draw, especially if they arent doing it for money. Sometimes interest in a series can wane, and you will instead become interested in a different series. Say, for instance, you in particular. You become big on posting topics on warhammer or something, and it gets a good amount of people to like you and follow you to see your discussion boards or videos you make on the series (i admit this point is a bit of a stretch but hear me out). Suddenly, warhammer has lost some of the luster it had before, and you see this bright shiny newer series called "touhou project". all of your attention shifts suddenly to tuhu lore and tuhuposting, making touhou videos instead of the previous warhammer ones. the fans can become confused by the change, but wouldnt you still be in your right to move to a different form of enjoyment, even if it disappointed other people? I definitly agree though it can be super annoying to find someone who suddenly stops doing touhou stuff ;-; On the topic of them being mercenaries, i mean yeah kind of. a lot of them either genuinely enjoy the flavour of the week anime, or rely on commisions to gain income, and fortunately people enjoy seeing high quality art of the anime they enjoy. That is part of the issue with touhou being less mainstream, is that by logic it should be getting much less than we have already gotten, but fans are just so miraculously dedicated and talented that we have already gotten a lot more high quality art than other niche fandoms. some of the problems with finding high quality art feels more like an issue on the western/english speaking side of the fandom personally, as most reddit posts dont really fall into the "high quality" style you brought up, yet every other pixiv post i come across from touhou has a TON of detail put into it, its insane. if you wanna be able to see more high quality stuff i would check out pixiv directly as thats usually where the good stuff is. Sorry if i sound kinda dumb, I'm not used to making big posts like this yet! ;-;

"It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you've got."

Both of you are bringing up very good points. So, to put it like this: - while I was in school, getting a GF was like my very last concern; I was way too busy trying to give my best and learn - when I was in like the 7th grade, I got my first crush for a girl - almost a year older, but both of us were colleagues for some private classes - after almost an entire year of being hesitant, I decided to finally tell her what I feel - in short, it did not end well, as it went into basically her leaving the conversation under the pretext of "I am busy, need to solve something" - we have never spoken since - in high school, I continued to be just as interested in learning, even with whatever BS the teachers throw at you (Romanian education system, oh you magnificent being) - colleagues around me started asking me why I am not bothering with getting a GF (I was already 16-17), and my simple answer was "I do not feel bothered to do so" - in the end, I got at best to be good friend with some of the girls in my class who helped me a lot especially after I moved up to make my accommodation easier, and at least got myself a group of friends - whenever I was looking at a girl and was thinking "she looks good", most of the time it happened that she already had a partner - actually, one girl apparently got a crush on me; however, she was two years younger (I was in the 11th grade, and she was a fresh(wo)man), and the whole thing was shared - I was fine with her as simply a buddy I could talk to about matters like history (unlike other girls, she really seemed to be curious to learn new things, and wanted to find out about the history of the town - she was coming from another place when we met) - what initially started as me giving her history meditations ended u as totally not dates, which I realized way too late - when she wanted to pull her move, and I was still too oblivious to what she was intending to do, especially since I was not really interested, we had an argument, and did not speak to each other for more than half a year - afterwards, I was told that I basically dodged a bullet with her as she was apparently a bit out of her mind; but I think it was better for both of us as in the end I got well over high school, and she moved again, this time managing to achieve one of her dreams (publishing a book she kept telling me about) [Intermission - how 2020, the pandemic and 2 months of lockdown have messed my mind] - in the late autumn of 2019, I got my first graphic novel - I really liked the story, but the main attraction for me was the protagonist - a Russian immigrant girl called Anya - I though she looks cute (really liked the design), then after a while I started asking myself in disgust if I got my first fictional crush (apparently, this is a thing in the United States, and t happens to kids when watching cartoons?) - ever since, I also got such a feeling while in the quarantine that was early 2020 related to a character called Tari from the web series Meta Runner - combined with the loneliness and lack of proper contact with others until the lockdown was over, I start to think whether any serious change took place in my mind at the time (it was also that I recently turned 18, merely a few days after lockdown started) - in the end, I found Touhou towards the end of 2020, and ever since I am stuck into this rabbit whole of a series filled with cute or badass designs and tons of awesome fan-art - now that I got into my first year of college, I started to feel more and more alone and isolated from anyone else - online courses seem to be dragging on and on, and I cannot meet anyone as everyone from my generation has left the town - I would go visit them, but that would mean a 4 (now 5 or more) hours commute from my small province town to Bucharest, the capital - it just made me feel more and more alone, as I really miss going out with people and having a chat - to make it worse, my best friend, who I really used to spend a lot of time with, is no longer an option; nowadays, I am lucky if we manage to chat once a week, as he is also very busy with preparing his own entrance at university (Medicine, so a lot of stress), and wants to make sure he will pass the entry exams; therefore, no more time to chat with me and his generation friends (he is one year younger) So yeah, this is a bit more of a proper content about what is going on with me. And why I feel like not very sure what I actually want, what I feel/impulse that I want, and what I am actually missing. And seeing messages and discussions that basically my whole way of living is wrong does not help at all. Like I felt perfectly fine until now with how I am and what I prefer to focus on, but it feels like a sudden change has taken place and made me reconsider my values and things I like. As on the whole matter of "waifus" and whatever since I originally said liking Touhou might be like a women-repellant thing (especially since it is not like I was called a weeb for liking Touhou, despite me never having watched an anime or read a manga in my life), I got to remember about this little thing I was reading a couple years ago on 1d4chan:

Personally, I have been looking at this thing from another point of view. Think of an artist (or any sort of creator) that builds up a fanbase around them. The people gather as they like the art of the person, or they like the topic they are drawing. After a long time of familiarizing your fanbase with one thing, you are all of a sudden switching to a completely different franchise, without any warning or explanation. In some of the cases, the artist may even delete their works related to the previous franchise. Those who have been around since the artist used to draw what they used to enjoy are now confused, not really understanding why the change (bonus points if they never address again the previous franchise they used to draw from). While the new topic may gather new fans, you have the chance of also losing the ones that really appreciated your art for what it used to depict. Some of the details in here are very specific because way too many times I have met the situation, even in our fandom. Artist draws cool Touhou stuff, then suddenly switched to another series (bonus points if it's a gacha game series/any other series with easy to lewd waifus). Yo find their old Touhou art on an image platform like Danbooru or Zerochan, want to see the original upload on Pixiv/DeviantArt/Twitter/whatever other platform, but you see a "this post has been deleted". You go back to the image board, see the artist has more Touhou stuff. This time, you just want to check their Pixiv/DeviantArt/Twitter/whatever account as a whole. And to your surprise, there is no more Touhou pictures there - everything was deleted. Personally, I believe deleting your old art is a bit of a sin. Not only do you leave a false impression be not showing any great artist started from low, but you also erase a part of your artist identity and past. Just like when trying to erase parts of history just because they do not fir your agenda anymore. To me, they (this kind of artists) are basically just mercenaries nowadays, switching from one series to another together with the trend. Latest anime series, this flavor of the month game, you name it. Whenever something falls out of fashion, the artist will also switch to the next big thing. Also why call them "mercenaries"? In the past, mercenaries used to be those professional soldiers who used to fight for the one who could pay them the highest. Nowadays, I would call artists as such since they are also can get paid a lot by milking popular franchises of the week/month, as well as these series giving them basically infinite resources to lewd - let's be honest, a lot of the designs from the series listed below in the spoiler area basically have a big sign next to them saying "pervert me" - totally on purpose because of the original game design for that characters - that, and people being horny after ship girls, gender-swap historical figures and CCP Chinese gacha game (all hail Zhong Xina!). Overall, I just feel the idea Touhou fanart is rather low(er) in quality than what those mercenaries are producing nowadays for other franchises and their fandoms. But I think the element of Touhou fanart that has a special spot in my hear is the great variety of people it brings together, everyone with their own style. "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get." is a rather pertinent idea for presenting our fandom, so unique in its way of being and creating their content.