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Disagree? I completely agree with you and @Reitisen. I'm going to use other Online Spaces to get my point across and cover some of the general causes of the decline in quality in the Touhou Community. Keep in mind I will mostly complete the picture in what @Reitisen and @TheM3ds said, aside the "What can we do" section, so feel free to skip to that part directly. I have been a Touhou fan for over a year, so I can't comment much about how things have developed for the Touhou Community (hence my focus on adjacent topics). The least I can say it was a godsend to find this forum, it looks pretty healthy to me and I can't imagine talking seriously (as serious as possible for fantasy) about Touhou, without losing my mind with the practices that today's Web Monopoly enforces on users. I have been using the internet since I was 6 years old (around 2010) and I was blown away with the quality stuff I found of the series I liked (I mainly searched My Little Pony stuff as I was obsessed with it). Day after day, people created extremely high quality, near professional quality stuff. The animations that existed back then were the most amazing thing in existence, and I have fond memories of entering the main Spanish Forum for My Little Pony (20% mas cool). Slowly, but surely, the magic died off. Is The Internet dying? Monopolies and Brain Rot. What can we do? Is The Touhou Community affected by this? Or are we just declining? We are in an especially rough moment, not only we live in an age with lots of monopolies that due to their nature are already hard to get rid of, but they are manipulating us to become their slaves. Although this makes a big impact on the health of the community (with repetitive things like Fumos, Yukkuris or other types of Shitposting), we can't blame it all on Big Tech. We have to remember that Touhou's golden age is long gone and that the world is a very different place compared to the late 2000s. People grow and eventually change their interests or lack the time they used to have. It's normal to feel that Touhou's Community is declining, because it is. We have fewer people, that lack time on a system that favorites Quick Low Effort content, and on top of that lots of people like @CountVonNumenor are experiencing Burn Out. Honestly, we should look at the bright side of things. Even on this era of "decline" we have all of this: ZUN is still making content of all sorts (games, manga, music albums, etc.) we have the Moriya Shrine Forum and a lower but steady flow of high quality creations from the minds of people (and organizations) like: Touhou Patch Center, Touhou Wiki, Content Creators (like Suwawako, LunaPrism, Megapig9001, etc.), Music Makers (like Alstroemeria Records or RichaadEB), Game Developers (like Fumo Racing), Animators (like Mush-Broom), Writers (like the people on this Forum), Artwork of all kinds (just look up Touhou at Pixiv) and more!!! Only thing I'm missing here are some fanfics, but I'm probably looking at the wrong places. Let's survive this, and see a new Sunrise for Touhou! Did i get too poetic?

The current state of the community seems to be an indirect consequence of something bigger, which is mostly how the western society and internet culture have changed between early 2000s and today. If you go to the japanese Touhou communities you will see a tremendous difference, they are on a whole separate world. I found out and about Touhou and started playing the games in 2019, so the community hasn't changed much for me, just became a bit worse, but I noticed the change in western society over all these years. I remember the innocence and simplicity of the 2000s, and the whole essence of Touhou fits the 2000s and 2010s perfectly in a way. Over the years, the mainstream western culture has changed drastically to become lower quality, more generic and less creative or funny/quirky. Real diversity gets killed by the peer pressure for us to all fit in and become exact copies of each other, while the masses promote fake diversity through the idea that superficial traits define our entire being. I blame the most common social media for this, like Twitter, Instagram Reddit and Tiktok. These 4 platforms alone destroyed the integrity and sanity of western society. In the western fandom of japanese culture, Touhou became mainstream, and when that happens, all the downsides of the mainstream come to the community. It doesn't mean that the good portion of the fanbase is dead, but it's relatively much smaller than the mainstream. The mainstream part of the Touhou fandom starts relying more on the fanmade media aspects that originally brought them in, and then they introduce overused memes and ideas, etc etc. I love plushies and I wouldn't mind having a fumo, but fumos are extremely overrated. It's ok to make memes and joke about things and like to watch or mention and joke about very popular fanmade media, but when this is used as a way to spread information about what Touhou is, it brings an even worse part of the mainstream: the one that doesn't know Touhou and doesnt care. People get introduced to Touhou with these fumos and memes and Scarlet Police funky this fucky that and gachas, and they become fans of this content, but then the newcomers don't know, care or like the official Touhou content but are now a part of the fandom. When it comes to the creative part of the fandom, it got severely affected by the downsides of social media peer pressure. The addiction of likes, fame, upvotes, etc. This is why I don't follow the most popular western Touhou youtubers, and why I strongly avoid the biggest Touhou places and don't really show up in social media places. There isn't much you can do other than to try to filter out the bad side. I play/follow Touhou and interact with some Touhou fandom places, but I avoid talking about Touhou in unrelated places or in the mainstream, with the fear of somebody recognising it for something that it isn't and then bringing an awkward conversation or something. The problem with the modern Touhou fandom is just a consequence of what's happening in the west, eventually it gets sorted out. Like Pepi said, there are still many creative and cool parts of the Touhou fandom, and there always will be, just not as much in the most mainstream places. The Sanae Kochiya from The Touhou Project

Hello! I have seen this thread going, and I wanted to add my two cents about some aspects I have noticed as well. 1) My proper introduction to the internet was around 2016-2017 (even if was born in 2002). At the time, I discovered the magic of forums, and so I got used to that discussion formula. It was fun that I could always find the thread I started, you could write messages as long as you wished them to be, and people were actually quite helpful. Even now, with the advent of instant discussion platforms, I still prefer booting up a forum and having a conversation with other people. It is just a different feeling you are getting from it. 2) About that... When I first got into Touhou, in mid October 2022, my introduction to the series was provided by the average anime-like cutesy stuff (you know, Marisa Stole the Precious Thing, Touhou Caramelldansen, whatever depository channels reposted from Innocent Key (before I learnt the dark implications behind that group's works) and so on). So much cuteness and moeblobs that immediately afterwards I ended u making a playlist having a ton of that stuff. Therefore, my image about Touhou formed on the following pillars: the cast is populated by cute girls that do cute girl stuff (Touhou was literally my first true expose to anime/Japanese media in general) I had no idea they were actually youkai in disguise, bloodthirsty and with a dark past behind them everything was a nice slice-of-life story, with your villain-of-the-week formula and conflicts solves peacefully Literally, my introduction to a bunch of the characters, in the first days of being in the Touhou community, came through the following message I will quote: And for a further read into the subject of fanon depictions: Therefore, when I first found out about the darker side of things, I felt like my world shattered. One month after getting into the series, I ended 2020 with the discovery of KKHTA. Given the image I formed until that moment about the series, I simply did not want to believe anything as brutal as that was real. Ever since, I had two breakdowns at the realization of what this series is or can be, as it was not as beautiful and all sunshine as I thought (definitely not helped that I probably had a crush for one of the 2hus at the time, so worse for me). Based on that, I wrote two threads at the time: This was originally written soon after my first breakdown, and originally posted on r/touhou (then moved here with updates and addons): This was written just as I suffered my second breakdown, and actually developed a little bit into a discussion about themes and world-building in Touhou: I will be honest. I do not think I will get the guts to watch KKHTA any time soon. I am feeling a little bit uncomfortable whenever Zounouse is brought up, mostly due the themes and stuff he adds in his stories. However, in the case of the latter, I can only rely in the word of mouth (if there is one thing I will always associate Zounouse with, that would be th following 3 words - "CANNED. HUMAN. MEAT"). I am not very sure if I like the idea of Gensokyo being a slaughterhouse for random people spirited away to that land. As much as I do not like the stereotypical "Gappy Stu" story in which every 2hu falls in love with the protagonist or some stupid isekai protag saves the day either (just for the record). Last but not least thing I would add, is the fact that for a long time, I have not really seen the 2hus as nothing more but one more set of waifus, but this time with more built around them (or maybe scratch that, there are characters with barely any characterization or lore built around them). Just another set of cute girls to like, collect (fan-made) merch of or use them in awkward internet discussion with other fa/tg/uys who need to take their schizo meds (if memes about people with fictional waifus are to be taken into as truth). Therefore, not so long ago I actually wrote about that issue at hand: Therefore, you can see some of the things that influenced my perception about this series, and how it evolved though time. Looks like I also made a lot of shameless plugins to my older threads... Bonus round: Just a few more things I would like to add at spitfire rate I do have a Twitter account, that was mostly a necessity if I wanted to continue seeing Touhou art from a specific artist. I used to follow Linmiee and her art, but when she disappeared, the next person I stuck to (and stil do to this day) is Iganashi1. I just really like his version of Eiki... As a side thing, Linmiee is the artist I focused on in the thread about "art fixing" and what drover her to flee from Twitter (and possible all social media): Touhou fans being horny, both on YouTube and through the mountains of porn/hentai they make and post - do I still have to say anything about that? I will instead leave my two most (in)famous discussions on that topic: (above: the glorious thread from r/touhou that ended up looking like a PhD thesis and even caused the crass of the app for some users just by opening it - also warning for a lot of weirdos, creeps and horny perverts that need to touch some grass; this thread even made it to r/copypasta as basically the opposite of all copypastas of people thirsting over something) To make it clear, I am far from being a self-righteous crusader. I am also guilty of having checked out some inappropriate stuff in the past, and by the simple fact I used Danbooru as my main way to get Touhou fanart, encountering content of the kind is an absolute given. Besides, I am aware this not happening only just with Touhou, there's a big surge in the horny everywhere, most definitely not helped by modern games/gacha games further adding fuel to such thoughts. By linking so many of my older threads, I just wish to encourage further discussion and perhaps revival of the topic if there is anything you might find interesting in them after reading Thank you for reading all of my crazy ramblings

These kind of discutions are becoming more and more common now with the news about reddit and the like and I agree with @Reitisen's statements. A simmilar discution also took place in MoTK and they also brought up more points like historical archives.

Time to get this off my chest. Alright, this thread has been spurred out of both seeing @CountVonNumenor's thread about burnout and also the general state of the Touhou fanbase on other sites, most notably Reddit (which has been going through a ditch), in which most Touhou fans/internet denizens seem to be downright oblivious/blind to changes or downright hostile to those who are protesting changes which keep the site aware of the users and keep it useful to everyone. To give a synopsis for clarity, I'm going to cover how Touhou fans existed throughout the years and how the internet changed the Fandom from a mostly creative fandom to a sanitized corporate outcome over the years, which inspires no creativity. Some of it will talk about Touhou, some will not, given that this sort of thing can apply to any fandom that exists on corporate-owned websites and not fandom owned. This kind of progression is why I'm giving the outlook a Terribad stamp due to the short attention spans of Touhou fans and the rabid tribalism of people justifying how Reddit is right in their horrible changes which will shoot them right back in the butt. This is sort of the expansion of the forum thread about attention spans here: This discussion is for people who have an attention span. (You know who you are ) Information will be kept into spoiler sections in order to save on scrolling. This is all based on my own opinions on what has occurred over the years. 1. The Start of the Internet (Touhou Fans Eating Good) This kind of discussion will talk about the early internet | around the <2000> s 2. The Rotting Starts (Sanitization and blandness starts) Hmmm, this probably started around the 2008-2020 this is when sites started to go corpo mode and start profiteering off the users. 3. What it is now◝(^⌣^)◜--> ^o^ --> n-n (People capitulate to Greed for instant satsifaction) The complete change of culture in Touhou | 2020-Present Time to act as a boomer, even though I was born at the time in which old forums were going out. 4. Burnout Zone (Opinion on why the fandom is at an all time low for creativity) So how is this going to end up? (Conclusion - Touhou fans and everyone hate everyone else) What are you looking at?

Yeah, personally I'd also pretty much say what the others here posted already. It's normal that you aren't as enthusiastic about it as when you first started out. Speaking from experience, I'm still around somehow even after spending more than 10 years with Touhou to some extend, albeit just more casually and less enthusiastic these days compared to back then. Just keep liking the things you like at your own pace whenever you feel like it really, Touhou or not. If it weren't for the website or generally reading posts from other members I could go a long time being unaware of new releases, be it official or fan made, while still occasionally listening to doujin music, looking at art, playing some of the older (fan)games or even just mod some other game I'm playing with Touhou related content when I feel like it. And that "occasionally" mentioned previously can range anywhere between daily and several months apart. Would I say I'm out of touch with Touhou or the general Touhou community? Sometimes/Perhaps/in some aspects. I'll still like Touhou on my own terms and at my own pace.

Archiving is definitely a good reason for having forums. Thanks to forums and leaderboards, we know things like High Scores and runs from 2006... Or people's first impressions of experimenting Clownpiece and getting a Blue UFO after collecting two Red ones. Reddit gets kinda close to having good historical archives, but again it's a company that might decide to delete older stuff to reduce costs of operation or whatever excuse they find. A forum being 100% community based means that we will always give the extra stretch to keep things going and enjoyable for everyone (at least the majority). Me neither. I tried watching it and as soon as Koishi ate the centipede, I was done with it. Honestly, I have never found stories that focus on Gore interesting (biggest example that comes to mind is Higurashi, where the gore is so much it lowers the quality of the story), it's usually overexaggerated for no reason, and it always ends up in a pool of blood. I'm not saying I dislike darker stories, it's when they are "oooh look I'm a dark story, pay attention to me" that gets on my nerves. For Touhou, it's pretty refreshing to have darker tones hidden beneath the surface, one question that rises from that is "Does Yukari bring humans from the outside to feed Youkai without disrupting the Human Village and Reimu?" or revelations like Yuyuko's or Byakuren's backstories that are tragic in nature. You also get crazy things like (spoliers for Touhou 13.5) Sumireko trying a kamikaze attack to destroy Gensokyo's Barrier, oh god. Osana Reimu is an amazing fanfic that really found the right balance between the comical and darker aspects of Touhou.

Admittedly, I have watched some Touhou YouTubers like Perldrop, Megapig9001, Suwawako ETC. but I've never bothered to subscribe to them because I'm just not interested and I don't want to bother. Sorry, but I don't follow most Touhou YouTubers. It's usually sites like Twitter I avoid using because I used to be in a bad place in my life and the site was making my life miserable, plus with elon now owning the site I don't see any reason to return to that godawful site, besides it stopped being good since 2018. I avoid big discord servers with at least 1000 online users or so since it saves me the time and patience. Also I like Fumos, I just find it ridiculous how people spend alot a money on what is essentially beanie babies for anime/Touhou fans, I honestly don't feel bad for spending money on a bootleg fumo, lol. That's all for now since it's getting late.

Who is the creator/artist of images like these? I've seen them everywhere, on the character sorter, on YouTube videos, on memes etc. Also, is there any place where I can bulk download them?

I've been on the internet for a long time, I've seen many people come and go in a blink of an eye, especially in fandoms. I cannot stress how sterile and saturated everything feels nowadays, I rarely sense a feel of community on most sites anymore, I feel like the longer you stay in one circle of a fan base the more likely you'll end up burning out in my opinion. With the current state of the touhou fandom I can only express disappointment towards the lack creators willing stop outside the box and make something that isn't another cutesy or "funny" meme, sure we have some fans who make some high-quality content but that pales in comparison to someone who has step outside the boundaries of is typically done in a Touhou fanwork (I think), it's just a shame sites like YouTube, Reddit or Twitter don't promote this kind of thing, people are too afraid to step outside their comfort zones. It's a shame honestly since I do believe there are creative and inspiring fans who can make beautiful works art and yet that rarely (if not, ever) happens at all. After my experience with Touhou on YouTube I can say that I am not optimistic for the possibilities for video makers since they pretty recycle meme formats in order to gain views or they just play it safe and make something by the books basic by making the characters cute but with no substance behind it or worse make videos pandering to the lowest common denominator and appeal to horny weebs with AMSR videos while neglecting the fact the characters would never do this in canon, I'm also tried of all the hype behind fumos since there so over hyped up by man children who pay for these overpriced plush dolls that are limited in stock anyway, you can enjoy these thing all you want but I just find all this to be ridiculous, call me a pretentious asshole all you want but when things are so depraved of humanity or decency then it becomes a problem when a fanbase loses touch with reality and becomes a joke of itself, a shell of it former self. I feel like the whole "Less work = More points" thing on the internet has overstayed it's welcome and has done more harm than good, everything is monitored and when you do something slightly risky like say: bring up dark topics of death, trauma, mental illness, dark humor ETC. Than you're likely to meet with disapproval but it depends on how dark the subject is, I get some people are not comfortable with it but at the same time why does everyone have to be concerned with safety all the time? I swear at this point censorship is going to get so bad to the point where it's all just sparkles and rainbows on screen. Feel free to disagree with me, honestly I wish I could write more but honestly I don't know what more I can say.

Maybe i'll do better stuff next time :3 Anyway, i don't think that my drawing is legit due to the stop sign that i took from da internet ?

I guess, I'll leave it here.. I know others draw better than me, but I want to try do something.. By the way, with love from Ukraine :D (Sorry if I wrote something wrong (I have problems with spelling, lolz). Just humble yourself..)