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Basically what the title says. I personally (among MANY others) learnt about it through Bad Apple. Specifically, I was scrolling through the playlists of a YouTuber called GD Colon and found one called "haha weeb". I got interested (as at the time I started watching a lot of anime) and checked it out. It was full of Japanese songs, one of which was Bad Apple. If I remember correctly, I learnt that Touhou was actually a video game series through either the comments on the Bad Apple video or from Megapig9001's video explaining it. I got this video recommended after watching the original Bad Apple and then another video titled "Bad Apple but the lyrics are describing what happens in the video". Luckily, I keep a lot of stuff (more like I am data-hoarding) so I got all the dates of the events so if anyone is wondering: 2021/11/13 - First time listened to Bad Apple 2021/11/19 - Watched "Bad Apple but the lyrics are describing what happens in the video" 2022/01/06~17 - Went through a Bad Apple phase where I watched a lot of these videos with bad apple played on literally anything 2022/01/23 - Downloaded Touhou 6

For me, it's been quite a long story. And literally one that would be way too long to write again in here. Therefore, why I have put it as a thread in my early days at the Shrine, and will just link below. To cut the story short, it was in the second half of 2020, and involved a chain reaction caused by me discovering Rhythm Heaven first, then from there evolving into Touhou. However, the thread has the full story of what actually happened...

Funny you should mention that... Well, I have figured a way to get back spoiler tab access, so now I shall proceed with what I was going to say. Normally I would wait until the end of the tournament before talking about songs, but there's something I want to talk about right now.

Yes, Youmu did win the Popularity Poll in 2021, just like he did one year prior in 2020. The 2021 poll is also the one associated with an alleged fraud that might have placed Myon on top of the charts, even if following a recounting of the votes she was still on top. Youmu was my first favorite character in the series, and I have talked about that in the past. Which also explains this comment I made back in the day when I found a certain song from Shinra-Bansho that got stuck into my head for a few days and generated an unreasonable amount of melancholy for my younger self. Actually a very good question. It makes you think of the fact nothing stays the same, as much as you might try otherwise. Everything evolves or mutates, and I think it is a natural fear of the human for the unknown and uncertain, a wish to remain in familiar territory. In our case, once the thing you used to like evolves beyond your recognition, it becomes sort of a dilemma whether to adapt with the times, or maintain yourself into that little island of familiarity you felt so comfortable in until then.

Interesting lists. Before Akyuu rose to the top, you were a fan of Myon, huh? Seems like Youmu's popularity never fades. If I recall correctly, she even managed to take the crown in one of the last character popularity polls? I could be mistaken, it has been a couple months since news of that came around and I'm too lazy to verify it at the moment. Maybe I'll bother to do another sorter and find my previous results, too. That could make for a fun subject. Yeah, it starts with a successful video and it just ends with milking the trend. Youtube works in a way to reward consistency above everything else (such is why artists struggle to find success in the platform if they adhere to the mentality of making quality, time consuming works), and it seems suwa's main priority here is to keep his channel and community alive above anything else. Though, by following the example of https://www.youtube.com/@AspreyFM, I think suwawako could use a little more creativity in his most recent posts (admittedly though,asprey doesn't post that often either, so maybe it is unavoidable). My personal bias against some of this touhou new breed comes with the very idea of new fans getting introduced to an old fandom. It's like you have this beautiful garden, but suddenly, the new hired maids, through no fault of their own, start planting new flowers, pruning the branches you took a liking to, and maybe even removing some of the "uglier" plants, all with only very superficial knowledge of how it came to be many years ago. To your dismay as the old gardener, you can still recognize the garden, but with all of it mischaracterized, shifted to fit a new vision. No fault of their own, of course. How could they know? And perhaps, in a moment of self reflection, you could even reach the conclusion: Is my way of viewing and treating these characters more valuable than the newer ways just because it was here first, and it borrows from ancient knowledge, now forgotten for the most part?

My keyboard is giving out on me, so this will take even longer than usual. 19: Diao ye zong - The Second Performance: Curse Deity Approaching the end. Y'all ever hear jumpscares referred to as "cheap horror?" In theory, a jumpscare exploits a fight-or-flight response to "cash-in" on building tension; this is contrasted to the more difficult process of cultivating dread over time, sometimes withholding payout indefinitely in favor of an enduring horror. This doesn't have much practical application for me, since I don't tend to engage with horror in the first place, but it struck me as a fitting parallel for my experience with this piece. Pola's Eternal Hades will serve as my musical comparison to cheap horror; it accomplishes its mood by crafting an atmosphere out of elements specifically selected for their fitting qualities. The end result is effective, but lacks depth, and therefore endurance. Curse Deity is meant to be an unsettling song; its lyrics communicate a heavy threat, belying the lighthearted tone they are sung in. Their is a unique form of discordance throughout, the nature of which is of a level beyond my ability to fully analyze, but I suspect some advanced chord work in a carefully maintained distance between the melody and accompaniment. The resulting product lacks overt horror, yet its intricacies allow the effect to penetrate far deeper than a more obvious piece would. A masterpiece of tone setting. 10/10 20: C-CLAYS - The Moon which was Swallowed to a Wolf Confusing but apparently intentional grammatical error aside . . . At first, this seemed some straightforward augmented Oriental folk. Yet with further listening, I find myself at the diversity of instruments at play, being more than I usually hear utilized. The augmented accompaniment is balanced surprisingly well; the Oriental folk takes precedence, and usually feels the focus, with the additional parts serving to reinforce and elevate the arrangement. As the piece progresses, the balance becomes more even without losing the folk focus. All this works splendidly with the source motifs. A minor downside is the limited escalation of the piece; the piece reaches its peak energy early on after an initial buildup, and fails to have a proper climax. Nonetheless, the dynamic instrumentation and arrangement make it a fun piece Would (/will) listen again. 8/10 21: UNDEAD CORPORATION - Kushinada-hime "AAHHH!" The previous tournament entry from Undead Corporation (several tournament ago) is still one of my favorite submissions, being a wonderful blend of folk and rock accompanied by a stellar vocal performance, all together doing great justice to a usually too-familiar motif. This piece has a lot of the same elements, but with a bit heavier emphasis on the metal and less obvious applications for the source material. I think it's pulled off well, but isn't as fresh to me as the other one was; whether this is because the pieces are too similar, or there is something else lacking in this one, I'm not sure of. Nevertheless, I did enjoy it, and whether the intro is meant to be amusing or not, I've become quite fond of it. The lyrics are weird, though. Fun in an epic way, oddly nostalgic. 8.3/10 This did take longer, I'm really tired now, and I'm worried about how much that effected this post.

It looks like I have found a fourth breed of "Touhou stereotypes" video, and this one is still fresh (just a bit over a week). So there's more than just Beastmaster Zeman and Suwawako making "Touhou stereotypes" kind of videos... I never really managed to understand where they base the traits of the characters from? As well as for the people who like them. Do they take from canon? Fanon? The author's own wild imagination?

I remember watching the original "mommy" video soon after it was first recommended in my feed. I was familiar with the "x be like" and "y slander", or at least with examples that I had fun with. I was not expecting however to see this one format exploding within the Touhou community however, and literally spawn dozens of channels that copied the formula for a "quick buck". But it is what it is. The trend os gone, or at least mostly gone (there still are some weird mutations f it you might be able to find every blue moon, and with some mutations compared to the original). Now that I think of it, Touhou fans be like... Yeah, I really felt that with some of the connections he made. Some of them really did not feel like what you would expect from someone who likes one character or another. Despite personals bias, I tried to check out if I can identify myself with some of the archetypes he created for my top 10 characters according to the sorter. And what I can is that, outside the example for Akyuu, I feel that everything else was a hit or miss (with more misses to be fair). Which only proves my opening statement for the thread: "stereotypes are just that, stereotypes; it does mean they universally apply, or that all people who like x or y are in a specific way" I agree with the volatility of the test. I have done the sorter three times in my two years of being in the community, and each time the top 10 has been quite interesting. Some things remained the same (like Akyuu and Eiki being constantly in top 5), but others fluctuated quite a lot. Just look at my previous two sorters: It sure will be interesting to see what changes might come next year when I will do the sorter again...

OK, this has been long overdue, time to get stuck into this. So, what other series do I like, eh? As far as fandoms go Touhou is absolutely the one I am most involved in, but of course I have many other interests as well, mainly in video games. It has been said before on this forum that I am a fan of Monster Hunter, so let's start there. While I haven't played many games spanning across the whole series, it still holds a place as one of my favourites of all time. I have my friend to thank for introducing me to this series, who convinced me to try the demo of Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate on the 3DS. And ho boy, let me tell you that demo alone is absolutely gripping. Monster Hunter is often considered a difficult game to get into, everything from controls, to difficulty, to understanding systems, it's an action RPG game with a lot of complexity and gameplay that doesn't go easy on you, but when it clicks, it clicks, and as someone who enjoys a good challenge, it didn't take long for it to click with me. It's basically "boss fights, the game". So now I'm hooked on this demo, but wait - there's a new MH game coming out! The demo for that game comes out ahead of release, so I now have even more demo content to get me hyped up before the release, and so my journey is set to begin with Monster Hunter Generations. In retrospect, going with Monster Hunter 4 would honestly have been the better decision since that game is held in high regard for many reasons, but it didn't matter at the time, as I enjoy the crap out of MHGen anyway, and my friend gets it too so we can play multiplayer, an aspect which makes MH even better. I've since continued my journey with Generations Ultimate, Rise, and soon I'll have Rise's expansion to look forward to, Sunbreak. I've been on this paragraph for way too long now so I'll wrap things up, but one of the things I also love about MH is something I like in common with Touhou and that's the community, even if I'm not involved with it the MH community are the one of the most helpful and welcoming groups out there. So what else can I talk about? Well, this is less known about me, but I'm also quite into the Warcraft universe (however I should add a disclaimer here, that Blizzard is a shitty company and I'm aware of it). I used to play World of Warcraft for a time, although I wasn't super integrated into the whole multiplayer aspect and grinding endgame dungeons with a guild and such, I just spent time exploring the overworld to level up my character, occasionally joining up with a friend who also played at the time. I don't play anymore because it's bloody expensive, not helped by the fact that it's a huge timesink, fans aren't happy with the current direction of the game, and the fact the gameplay loop of WoW is just kind of boring, yet strangely addicting... however, there is another side of Warcraft that I can still enjoy, and that is Hearthstone. On the offchance you don't know, Hearthstone is free to play spin-off game of Warcraft where you collect cards and build a deck to verse other players. If you're looking for a well balanced, engaging strategic card game, that's... not what Hearthstone is. Hearthstone is random, chaotic, wacky, unpredictable, and most certainly not balanced - but you just have to understand that's part of the appeal. Also, collecting cards is enjoyable, and although you can spend money on the game, free to play is doable and very appreciated for a TCG. Seriously, I also used to collect and play cards for the Pokemon TCG. SO EXPENSIVE. The fact Hearthstone is a TCG I can play for free makes me come back to it, and as mentioned, the craziness that can ensue under the right conditions might seem unfair to some, but it's inherently what makes the game entertaining. There are many other video games I've played, for example I'm a fan of metroidvania stuff, but I'll leave it at that, since I'm not about to make this into a fat list of everything I've ever played. What is worth an extra paragraph though is tabletop games! As you may have picked up on by now through my mention of Hearthstone and Pokemon TCG, I am a fan of card games and indeed board games. I own a few myself, but of course I have a friend group to play with as well, and it's by pooling our different games together that we get to experience a wide variety of fantastic board games... OK it's mostly just one guy who has all the stuff, but I digress. Cool strategic board and/or card games that you can play 1 on 1 and/or in a group that come from niche indie board game makers are absolutely my jam... so, speaking of jam, makes you wonder why I recently created a card game for that game jam, hmmmm?