We're about two weeks out from the deadline. Still plenty of time to think things through and get started if you haven't. Either way, hope you manage to get a handle on your ideas and are able to direct energies towards writing. Best of luck.

>>17527
Making some progress, I guess, though it's been fairly slow. I'm still hoping to make it in time this time.

There's about a week left before the deadline. Hope prospective participants have managed to be productive. Either way, there's still a fair amount of time left to write, polish up, and get things done.

There's still a bit to go, but I've made progress. I'm not even sure how much what I've done fits the themes anymore, but I'm not going to throw it away after spending as many weeks as I have to get what's there.

God, I hope I can finish.

Entries thread is now live >>/shorts/2959

>>17528
>>17530
I made it somehow.

We're past the two-day submission window and so I think I can safely call things to a close. Congratulations to everyone who participated! I hope everyone had fun writing and I hope that everyone enjoys reading the stories!

I'll be taking a day or two to read and think about things and then I'll post my thoughts in this thread.

I'm kinda late to the party but I made it yay

Guess it's been long enough that someone ought to say something. I've had a hard time finding the time and focus to do a big all-in-one-go writeup, so I'm going to split things up as I can manage. I'm also going to start with the later entries because I read those more recently and don't have that much to say.

Otherworldly Flavor

Cute, I guess. I like the overall feeling of Yuyuko and Youmu's characterisations/relationship being more plausible than often depicted by people in fanworks. Concretely, Yuyuko isn't simply a comically exaggerated glutton, and she plays dumb head games with Youmu. I think the only thing I'd say on that score is that, sure, Yuyuko might want Youmu to improve in some respects, but I think it's just as often simple trolling on her part. In this case, it's slightly more than that, which is fine for the purposes of the story. Also, Youmu is fine in that regard, too. She doesn't see much value in thinking too hard on her assigned tasks and just wants to bust through like the sword-brained dunce she is. Cute and dorky.

I'm not quite sure I buy some of the stuff regarding wolf tengu readily accepting Youmu's presence. Yeah, she's not a human, so that might matter, but I still think they're not going to necessarily be that friendly. Begrudgingly accepting, maybe, but not exceptionally friendly. Probably some personal bias at play there, I'll admit. Still, tengu generally are notoriously insular and up their own asses as a whole, regardless of exact variety, so there is some pretty hefty suspension of disbelief needed here.

As far as the themes of the exhibition, I'd say the writer more or less touched on them but didn't particularly integrate them, if that makes sense. The 'obligation' part is a very straightforward duty on Youmu's part, which is whatever; it works as far as a setup, sure. The 'opportunity' part is a little harder to spot. Is it Youmu getting to go along with the wolfs to their watering hole? Is it Youmu getting to get drunk with them? Youmu being effortlessly accepted into the wolf huddle? Youmu getting to experience the transcendence of fuck-hot spicy food? It's difficult to say. I don't have a good suggestion here as to what could have been done differently, but it does feel a tad undercooked in that sense. Maybe the premise needed a little more space to breathe or something? Maybe Youmu needed to come away with something more than a job well done? As it sits, the story boils down to "Youmu does her job and gets drunk whilst doing it." Fine for what it is, I guess, but as an exhibition piece, it might have used a bit more spice, unlike the tengu's fish skewers.

Prose-wise, I had some qualms with this piece. I feel like English might not be the writer's native language; correct me if I'm wrong, because I've been mistake before. Most notable is a lot of weird tense issues towards the beginning that start to taper off as it gets along. It applies just as much for natives as ESLs, but try to keep your narrative tenses consistent. It's not to the point of being hard to follow here as much as it is jarring. Mechanics aside, I also just felt like there was a lot of 'fluff'. (Pardon if I don't point out particular examples here because I don't have the time or energy right now.) By that I mean that there were bits of context regarding Youmu/Yuyuko, the netherworld, the Mountain, etc. given that felt beside the point, or small asides that just didn't add anything. Sometimes little snippets came across like the writer trying to feel a bit clever or trying to be funny, but it just fell flat for me. The dialogue also felt pretty stiff and/or overloaded for what it needed to be, and probably could have either been slimmed up or bypassed altogether.

As a whole, I'd say it's all right for what it was trying to be. I'm neither overwhelmed nor underwhelmed; I'm just whelmed.

Eientei M.D.

Just gonna say up front that this definitely had more glaring ESL issues. Sometimes, because of the mistakes in word usage or expressions employed, I wasn't actually sure what the writer meant to say in particular. I don't have useful to say beyond suggesting brushing up, consulting reliable sources for help, and reading, reading, reading more literature (i.e., not fanfiction) in English to get a better feel for usage.

As far as the premise, it's a bit all over the place. We have Reisen as the perspective character, playing Watson to Eirin's Holmes. That's fine and well, but what role does Reisen play here otherwise? Pretty much none. She doesn't do anything of any note. The narration could just as well have been an omniscent, third-person gods-eye and nothing would have substantially changed. Yes, there is the very mild conceit that this is all supposed to be some kind of record kept by Reisen, but why does it matter? Frankly, it's handled so haphazardly that it doesn't have much bearing on anything. Why would a bunch of scribbled notes be part of a secret official record among Eientei's files? Why couldn't it have just been Reisen's diary or somesuch? What significance does any of what's recorded have to anyone beyond maybe Reisen? I just don't see it.

Then there's the meat of the story, Eirin chasing a diagnosis as if this were an episode of House M.D.. Unfortunately, unlike your average medical drama, there's little compelling here about the chase. It's just flat procedure spelled out over a number of paragraphs, capped off at the end by Eirin exposition-dumping her chain of reasoning about events. Most of the intervening material is everyone around Eirin being befuddled by what's going on and following along perplexed. We don't even get much of a sense of what's going on prior to Eirin doing her doctor-detective thing and magically spitting out an answer like some kind of Star Trek device, driven along by the plot because she has to hit the beats, as it were.

And what does it amount to? Very little. The actual diagnosis is something incredibly uncomplicated that seems to require Eirin only because of a pretty bum conceit that human medicine in Gensokyo is somehow too primitive to imagine things like parasites. Never mind that Japan had had contact with Western medicine even prior to the Meiji period, and even Chinese medicine that was known wasn't just rain dances and witchcraft. For the sake of this story, we have to believe that Gensokyo is something on the level of the most stereotyped image of the European Middle Ages, and only the brilliance of a brain like Eirin can show these primitives the light. If I can be frank, I feel like this entire thing could have been delegated to Reisen. Perhaps the bunny wouldn't have fully understood the implications of everything, but I don't feel like Eirin would waste her time and mental resources on something as trivial as a case of hookworm. She's simply not that proactive outside of very extreme circumstances, and even someone like Akyuu having some sort of crisis wouldn't prompt much urgency from her.

Premise aside, there's also a general lack of real adherence to the themes here. Who's obligated to do what here? Is Eirin obligated to help Akyuu? Not really. She gets asked by Kosuzu, but that's on the basis of "Maybe she'd feel bad if she didn't?" Is Reisen obligated to follow Eirin around? Not especially. She seems to follow more out of personal curiosity than any particular duty. Then, is it about Akyuu as the Child of Miare? If so, so what? It has no real bearing on the events of the story. It's just context. Beyond that, I see little else that would fit. As to the 'opportunity' part of the themes, I see... basically nothing? Akyuu getting to play in mud? That has, again, no real bearing on anything beyond providing an excuse for why she has worms. Sorry to say, but this just doesn't stand up as an exhibition piece on those grounds.

There's a lot I could say regarding prose, but a lot of it is hampered by aforementioned ESL issues, so I think I'll save it. That said, I will say one thing: Dialogue is not punctuated how the writer thinks it is.

ex. "I am saying words." The maid said. <-- Wrong
ex. "I am saying words," the maid said. <-- Right

There was a lot of that, and it's a common mistake made by folks copying other mechanically-incompetent writers. I'll repeat and stress the need for reading actual literature to pick up the basics. That goes for pretty much everyone, but it goes double if English is not your first language.

Okay, here's more since I've got a bit of time.

Weightless Shoulders & Shackled Hearts

I'll start with this one because I have more to say.

I see ESL issues with this, or at least that's my perception — the usual tense issues and some strange word usage here and there. Also, this has the same dialogue punctuation issue as Eientei M.D. I'd be rehashing >>17544 to comment much further.

Conceptually, I don't buy this piece at all. The concept of a 'god of evil' is so far from the Japanese religious/superstitious milieu of the Touhou Project that it feels like something from another IP. Gods are not moral actors; they don't embody binary values of 'good' or 'evil'; they are essentially forces of nature that simply exist as they are.

As far as how the story is executed, as much as I can care to puzzle it out, I'm left wondering what exactly happened and why it matters. Eiki talks to an egg and it loosens its spiritual(?) grip on people around it. Okay, and? Even if we accept that premise, it feels like there's a whole lot of missing context to really feel as if the story matters. Most of the presentation is through dialogue that says a lot and conveys very little. Much of that feels like the characters explaining things to the audience instead of speaking to each other, except it barely accomplishes that. I guess I'm left with the impression that some of this hinges on the author's particular interpretation of things, but they haven't conveyed very much of it. As an aside, I'm also generally confused as to what the author was going for as far as the particular speech quirks of the talking egg. I'm also not sure Eiki feels like 'Eiki', but there's so little here to go on that perhaps that's just a hallucination. Oh, and the opening bits are pretty well fluff; they might give context, but the writer could just as well have given that context whilst beginning in medias res, and the story would have been better off for it.

Thematically, I see a very superficial application of 'duty' for 'obligation' and... nothing much for 'opportunity'? It feels like 'opportunity' might apply here in the vaguest sense of 'a thing happens by chance', inasmuch as Eiki chances upon an evil egg, but that's pretty weak if that's the case. So, yeah, can't say it meets expectations in that respect, either.

A flawed piece — that is what it is. Could it have been better? Maybe. I think what I'm seeing is a result of perhaps hasty decisions and little time to think it over. In which case, maybe there's no helping that it's come to us in this shape.

Record of a Burden

I guess I feel much the same about this piece as the previous, though I would say there are fewer puzzling decisions made.

The premise is kind of whatever. Keine has a conversation with Akyuu about life and tries to be of comfort despite the latter's neuroticism in the face of her life circumstances. Sure, believable, if not true to many people's lives. That said, why Keine? Why not Kosuzu? Why not Reimu? Why not any of the myriad characters Akyuu could conceivably have contact with? It doesn't feel like there's a very good answer to that question. We just have to accept from the beginning that Keine and Akyuu are friends of some description, and this is the vehicle for Keine being able to say something about Akyuu's lifestyle. That's a weak justification, so I have to say I don't feel particularly convinced in that regard; I'll go with it but not without my reservations.

Thematically, the 'obligation' is here, as with most pieces, via the role Akyuu plays and the attendant duties. Whatever, that's fine. Safe, but fine. There is even something of a concrete, but equally safe, conceit towards 'opportunity' in the form of Keine's suggestion that Akyuu go play with Kosuzu. It would have been nice to see something less safe, but there's naught to be done for it. Expectations have been been basically met.

Presentation is where I feel this piece falls down a little. There is certainly a scene here being set and a conversation happening. However, how much of the scene-setting contributes much? Precious little. It feels more like the writer pointing out random things that don't have much inherent relevance to anything beyond being 'there' in the scene. The dialogue, too, feels pretty explanatory, if not a bit like the characters are monologuing at each other more than talking. It's hardly the worst as far as that particular sin, but I suppose it's also worsened by how stiffly written a lot of it is. In fact, I'd say that's the real problem with this piece: everything is very stiff. The writer could perhaps used a glass of wine or similar as they re-wrote and smoothed things out a little. Overall, it kind of just needed to relax more, maybe take some time to breathe a little.

It's far from the worst of the bunch, but I suppose I'd say it suffers from its stiffness and slight irrelevance in both presentation and thematic material. I'd encourage the writer to keep trying and perhaps try to draw something further out of the concept if they can.

The Problem with Civilisation

After finishing up being a bit harsh with other pieces, I'll — perhaps unwisely — admit that I wrote this piece.

I'll reserve my opinions on it for after the event is over, but I suppose I'd say that I personally feel this was the best piece from this exhibition. And I say that with a bit of a regretful air, as I wouldn't necessarily consider it fantastic; for instance, Teruyo's entry from the last exhibition was far better than what I've managed. That said, I did try. If there was some way I could have done better, I'm not sure I would have had the time. Ultimately, I consider it the best I could do in the time given, and given a lot of challenging life circumstances happening simultaneously. Unlike a lot of things I've attempted or even managed to actually write in the past, I'd say this piece, no matter its flaws, is actually 'finished'; I have no inclination to revisit it or 'improve' it in retrospect. That's quite a feat, speaking for myself, because I'm often left dissatisfied with my own writing and wishing to extrapolate more or reconfigure whole-cloth, wishing to incorporate a newer viewpoint or an 'improved' approach.

I hope that doesn't sound conceited.

>>17545

Look, I'm one of the writers here, and while I agree with most of what you've said in your post, it really, really doesn't need to come off as harsh as it was. I'll be frank and say that the whole thing left a sour taste in my mouth, to the point that it discouraged me from further engaging in these exhibitions.

I'm not asking you to stop the criticism—I really appreciate them, in fact—but it really could've been worded in a way that doesn't feel condescending.

>>17546
I'm not sure what was condescending about what I've said. I tried my best to engage the pieces as I saw them. If that somehow came across as harsh, I'm sorry, but nobody has to coddle you, least of all me.

>>17545
I love some good harsh criticism from time to time, but if I may offer a, uh, critique of this critique? If you're going to backhand someone, at least give them a compliment first. Even if it's the most superficial thing you liked, it at least lets the writer have something to commiserate over.

Also, you asked why Keine of all people would be talking to Akyuu? They both run the temple school together and both teach there. Akyuu has also stated that like most people, she has to read about history to learn about it, so there's even an avenue to say that Akyuu consults with Keine regularly for the Gensokyo Chronicle. It's not exactly a hard connection to make.

>>17548
Dunno what to say beyond that I'm just pointing out things that even slightly feel like there's a possibility of improvement upon, even if that's merely by providing food for thought going forward. That is what criticism is to me. Nothing more, nothing less.

Frankly, if I wanted to be harsh, I could have been far more abrasive.

For what it's worth, I think the "harsh" reviewer was pretty much on point. I agree with everything they've pointed out, and I don't think any of it comes particularly undeserved. Their feedback was blunt, sure, but blunt is not the same as harsh and harsh is not the same as condescending. In fact, here: I'm going to be condescending.

Record of a Burden

Here's what we learn, over the course of the piece. Akyuu is stressed. Keine is busy. Akyuu is busier. Akyuu is stressed because she's busy. Akyuu doesn't have much time left. Akyuu is stressed because she doesn't have much time left. Akyuu has to spend what little time she has left being busy. Akyuu is stressed because of that. Keine is the only one she can talk to about it. Keine only has the most generic of commisserations to offer; the most banal of advice to give. She gives it. Akyuu is cheered up by how completely thoughtless it is. That's why the two of them are friends. The end.

Now, don't get me wrong. I can tell that this piece was written with care and effort. The way that it flows—from sentence to sentence; from paragraph to paragraph; from dialogue to description and back to dialogue—is pretty good. The scene is set; the actors are warmed up and in character. The central emotional conflict is a compelling one which I'm sure a lot of us have known the experience of, at one time or another. The space is there for a good story to come to life.

The problem is that there's vanishingly little of rarity present. Akyuu is busy, but with what? With the Chronicle. Well, we know that. Keine is busy, but with what? With being a teacher. Again, we know that. There's a lot that needs chronicling. Such as? Akyuu has a lot of things she wants to do. Like what? Keine runs into difficulties protecting the village. Okay? She has things she'd rather forget. Who doesn't?

All this is part of the basic package of canon knowledge which we, as fans, carry with us all the time. Whenever the topic starts to get somewhere beyond that, something that might cause us to pause and think or savour or speculate, the characters wave it off with some unspecific sentiment, like they don't want to get into it. The effect in the end is that they seem to be suffering the abstract burden of ... adulting, but without ever doing any adulting to warrant it; and they succeed at talk therapy by failing at talk therapy.

That's not necessarily a problem, even. Often, in Japanese media, things are left unsaid, instead conveyed by framing and subtext. But, by and large, that hasn't been done here. There are scrolls, but we know there are gonna be scrolls. Servants, but we know she has servants; pills, but we know she's taking pills. What's written on the scrolls; on the faces; on the labels or the lozenges? "A handwritten advertisement of some kind of festival"—what kind of festival? Is Akyuu interested in attending it? What previous question, two paragraphs up, could this banner have answered, if more detail was given; the connection drawn out a bit more?

Again, the timing is good—there's been room made here to seize on things, and make them into symbols; infuse them with meaning and sentiment. If you were working with a camera, then juxtaposition would be your tool. Since you're a writer, your tool is metaphor. What are the specific qualities and relationships among the props in the scene, through which you could imply something about the personages? What's been exchanged between Akyuu and Keine? What understanding or emotion passes between them? What props could you describe, in more detail than they'd normally warrant, in order make them stand out and bring that exchange to life?

You even have a little bit of it already. The Sun is setting; the cicadas are crying—summer is ending. There's a lovely moment where focus is given to a butterfly just as Akyuu is talking about time; about frailty. That's spot on.

You just gotta have, like, a shitton more of that.

The Problem with Civilisation
Weightless Shoulders & Shackled Hearts
Otherworldly Flavor
Eientei M.D.

Look, uh, I got out of bed to write this up 'cause I couldn't get to sleep, so I'm gonna go back and do my writeups for these later.

>>17550
Thanks for the back-up, fam. I felt I was offering a high degree of courtesy by speaking my mind frankly, yet somehow that translated to condescension and/or being overly harsh? I don't really get the expected alternative. If it's not simple defensiveness, then it almost feels like it has to be a cultural difference or something. But, well, whatever. I haven't yet seen a compelling case made for changing anything.

Good work, everyone who submitted! I'll look at some of the shorter stories first; I'll review the longer entries later when I have a bit more time, but I wanted to get some of this feedback out as soon as I could.

Record of a Burden
I wrote this! I'll give my own thoughts on the story later.

Weightless Shoulders & Shackled Hearts
I generally liked this one. The idea of a god of evil, brought into existence because people believe in the concept of evil, is an interesting one. I’ve seen similar entities in some manga, such as Soul Eater, Berserk, and probably others as well I just can’t think of off the top of my head – and the latter of those has an egg-shaped god, too. The visual of chains being attached to humans’ souls, meanwhile, reminds me of Bleach. I do think the concept of this god could work in the setting of Touhou, because in “metamythological” settings like Touhou there is the fundamental mechanic that “entities are brought into existence because humans believe in them”, and humans do certainly believe in the concept of evil.

The concept is interesting, though I do think there could have been some improvements to the way it is executed. The portrayal of Eiki is fine, I suppose, though her speech does feel a bit more “casual” than I’d expect it to be. I did feel a bit thrown off by the bit that goes “A saint could raise this being, and it would not matter. It will default to its nature.” This seems like a very un-Eiki-like thing to me, because surely, wouldn’t she think that any being could avoid Hell by improving themselves? But then, in the rest of the story, she essentially helps the egg do exactly that, so that makes up for that bit of weirdness.

The prose is fine, if a bit bland. There are, however, some persistent errors, particularly with punctuation, that other anons already pointed out. I did like the egg’s odd speech patterns, they evoked a sense of an inhuman being trying to come to terms with human language.

The story’s overall connection to the concepts of “opportunity and obligation” doesn’t seem that strong, though I did see what you were going for with the discussion of the egg’s “duty”. Finally, the ending works fairly well, with a sense of openness, though overall this story feels to me more like the beginning of a longer story rather than something complete in itself.

Eientei M.D.
The concept is an amusing one, a House M.D. kind of scenario with Eirin; that works, because Eirin is certainly eccentric enough to fit. It almost has the vibe of a detective story. Those kinds of stories tend to work a bit better if the story is longer and the mystery is a bit more complex, so it’s not just a list of clues and then the solution; though, the simple medical problem here works for the length of story you’re going for. However, I think it would have flowed better if we got more hints of Eirin’s deductions throughout the story rather than one big summation at the end, though I suppose it fits with the typical Holmes-and-Watson kind of dynamic of the detective genre.

The main issue holding the story back is the clunkiness of the prose. There are a lot of sentences where I can sort of understand what the writer is trying to say, but the actual words used are just slightly wrong. To give a few examples, “It reminded me of a folklore” should be “It reminded me of a folktale” or even “a piece of folklore”; “The cooperation could have been a better start” should be “could have had”; and instead of “The doctor smiled in a calm, calculated demeanor” I would write “The doctor smiled with a cold, calculated demeanor” or better yet, “The doctor smiled, but (she) gave off a cold, calculated demeanor”. There’s also similar punctuation errors to the previous story.

From the grammar and some random appearances of Baltic letters (ę, ē, ų) it’s clear the writer’s first language is not English, but then again, neither is mine; so, what I’d recommend, apart from just reading and writing more English, is to get someone to proofread your stories. With a little more editing, this story could be quite fun!

The final part of the story that shows the connection to the exhibition theme feels a bit disjointed from the rest of the story, like an obligatory (heh) throw-in rather than the theme being an organic part of the story. I suppose the way to improve that would be to also reference the concept a bit earlier in the story – for example, through Eirin and Reisen speaking to Akyuu and getting some indication of her feelings before they’ve figured out the medical mystery.

>>17550 here. Continuing.

Otherworldly Flavor

Okay, I see your deal. You're American but you're a fan of English prolixity and dry snark. That explains the tense issues. You're doing that thing that English writers of a certain tradition do where, in the middle of past-tense narration, they give little gnomic asides in the present tense. Thus the paragraph starting with "It might be worth clearing up".

Here's the thing, though: they are gnomic asides, in the sense of "expressing general truths". They have the effect of collapsing the distinction between the narrative world and the reader's, and so you only want to do it for general statements which you want to emphasise as being particularly characterful. Douglas Adams uses this technique quite a lot, to great effect, so here's an excerpt from The Hitchhiker's Guide to illustrate (emphasis mine):

>It has been said that Vogons are not above a little bribery and corruption in the same way that the sea is not above the clouds, and this was certainly true in his case. When he heard the words integrity or moral rectitude he reached for his dictionary, and when he heard the chink of ready money in large quantities he reached for the rule book and threw it away.

You'll notice that he only uses present tense when there are no specific referents in the narrative. The moment he starts talking about a particular Vogon, in this case Captain Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz, he reverts to past tense: "this was certainly true in his case". Now, take your paragraph:

>It might be worth clearing up a little misconception before proceeding. Though the world at large sees the girl—her name is Youmu, incidentally—as an earnest servant and something of a personal attendant to the capricious Yuyuko that is just something that happened to have worked out that way. ...

The first sentence is fine. It's metacommentary about the narrative as narrative, which in that sense does actually exist in the reader's world, and it's addressed directly to the reader. "Her name is Youmu" is already starting to overreach: when you do this you are not channelling Douglas Adams but Lewis Carroll and children's books. Everything else is too specific to be rendered in present tense, including "The world at large sees the girl".

Which brings me to my more general point: This style of showmanship requires discipline. You need to get everything absolutely right, so that when you do something fanciful on purpose, the readers know that it's intentional. It means you can't have mistakes like ["Statement." Character said]. It means you have to choose one level of formality or class, and adhere to it scrupulously. It means you have to kill the American inside your head with its flabby redundant phrases ("nice crisp"; "even rarer still"), and study the ways in which eloquence is achieved by efficiency alongside extravagance of verbiage.

You're part of the way there. You have a good vocabulary and a cheeky sense of bombast, and you're more than capable of putting together a good sentence. The issue is the "more than": you try to pack too much into your sentences, leaving them too uniformly long, and so they end up bogging the reader down and blunting any punchlines that you're trying to throw. You need varying sentence lengths in order to establish an engaging flow, and you need to have some faith in your readers by cutting out redundancies and gratuitous connectives.

The story itself was quite enjoyable.

>>17550 again. Continuing.

Eientei M.D.

There's some seriously intolerable cultural myopia going on here. Premodern people don't have an issue with "witchcraft" because they're too stupid to understand progress; premodern people have an issue with "witchcraft" when actual harm has befallen someone in the context of an intra-community conflict, or because they are Abrahamics who believe in Satan. Neither of these apply to a doctor who, as far as any human villager can tell, is a well-studied and respected practitioner of the venerable Chinese tradition of internal medicine.

The plague mask is even less justifiable. The Chinese medicinal tradition does include a concept of miasma—which is environmental, not supernatural, and not contagious. A "spreading curse of death" is the exact opposite of that—to say nothing about how Akyuu's own household, at the very least, should understand her shortened lifespan as being part of an explicit deal with Hell, rather than some sort of transferable affliction. It would have been at the very least somewhat believable if they had decided to prevent Eirin from seeing her because, for example, they accepted that it was her time to die and that she needed to be sequestered to make her final ritual preparations and pass on with dignity, but instead you've gone ahead and made them as stupid as possible in order to prop up the superiority of the modern scientific mindset.

Anyways, you also have a bunch of grammatical issues like comma splices and the ["Statement." Character said] thing, and the way you phrase things is really stiff. The characters are flat stereotypes and the dialogue doesn't sound like the way anyone actually talks. The diagnosis isn't very interesting and the final takeaway is a display of how compassionate and inspiring Eirin is, which, uh, ha. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Listen, the appeal of House isn't actually how superior and flawless the guy is. It's how much he self-sabotages and how gay-married he is with Wilson. And also the grody real-life medical edge cases that the writers actually put some pretty deep research into.

Weightless Shoulders & Shackled Hearts

That's not how gods work. You can have a god that removes Shinto impurity or misfortune from people—Hina and the Hinamatsuri already function in that role—but not one that both removes evil and is evil. You can have a god that transfers Buddhist merit to people—Amida Buddha, for example; people are petitioning that guy for salvation all the time—but not one that both removes evil and is evil. Again, you can have a god that just plain is considered evil; quite possibly even a god of evil—Ame-no-Hikoboshi comes to mind—but that's on the Shinto side, where "evil" just means "rebellious and unruly". Really this notion of "evil" as a manipulable substance diametrically opposed to "good" is a children's cartoon thing. Like Samurai Jack; like Aku. The egg and chain visuals and the vaguely robotic speech pattern are also children's cartoon things. The resolution to the conflict where a responsible adult takes charge of a misbehaving kid is definitely a children's cartoon thing.

Uh, yeah. Dunno what else to say.

I can share this, at least ... The Gnostic conception of Judas is somewhat like what you've written here, maybe. In the Gospel of Judas, he's Jesus' favourite disciple and is in on the whole plan from the start, and ends up being double-martyred by going to Hell for his role in facilitating Jesus' sacrifice for everyone else.

Super heretical, obviously. But it still only works in a dualistic context, which Touhou is definitely not.

Fuck, did I write Hikoboshi? I meant Ame-no-Mikaboshi. Kagaseo. Lucifer. Guest star in an early chapter of the Three Fairies manga. That guy.

(Heh. Guest "star".)

Nemunoid author, gimme a bit longer to cover yours.

>>17550 once more. Last one from me.

The Problem with Civilisation

I enjoyed this piece quite a lot. First of all it thoroughly immerses the reader into Nemuno's viewpoint, with the frequent descriptions that we're given both internally and externally. Though it's the longest piece in the exhibition, I never felt like it was dragging on and I always had a sense of being present in the scene. There's some physical comedy with the fweaty beaft and more than a little emotional tenderness—even Byakuren, principally a facilitating character, comes across as fully-fleshed, showing the pain of being mistrusted even as she indulges the very sorts of subtly controlling mannerisms that cause her to be so in the first place.

In terms of critique I'm going to zoom in on the ending sequence. There are two issues that I see here, both to do with momentum/pacing. The first is with these two paragraphs, which together serve to wrap up Post Two:

>Should he ever show up at the edges of her sanctuary, she would immediately know. She would be ready to go to him, no matter when or what circumstance. Of that she was willing to swear, both to herself and to him.
>Kenji nodded, sniffling. The tears that had rolled down his cheeks had ceased, though his eyes were still dewy. He returned the mountain hag’s gesture.

The issue has to do, once again, with rarity or new information. The first paragraph, Nemuno's, has her openly committing to something which, from the outset of the story, she is framed as being heavily prejudiced against. That's a hard serve; a moment of truth. It stands out very strongly. Then—she asks Kenji to confirm it.

So, at this point, I expect some sort of reaction from Kenji which is commensurate to what she's just put down; some kind of strong indication of his feelings. But does he give it? Let's look at it sentence-by-sentence:

>Kenji nodded, sniffling.
Basic, but okay. "Sniffling": repeating previous context. Easing us in.

>The tears that had rolled down his cheeks had ceased, though his eyes were still dewy.
Again, repeating previous context ("the tears"), but showing a change in momentum ("had ceased"). The momentum stabilises: "were still dewy". Everything's quiet: we're set up for the moment of truth in return.

>He returned the mountain hag's gesture.
You flubbed it! You're repeating previous context! It doesn't stand out at all!

It's a very subtle thing, but the framing of the boy's action as an abstract "return" of "the mountain hag's gesture" ends up sapping the significance, of the sentence by potholing it away to the previous line. It undermines the boy's strength and agency, which we've just been carefully building up. If he had "gripped the finger tightly", for example, it would have made it his action; an act of deliberate re-creation rather than a hollow pointer. Instead, I'm left feeling unsure whether he's actually on the same page or not; whether maybe he's just emotionally overwhelmed, and only being hustled by Nemuno—particularly since the literal last words here are hers and not his. And if that was the sense I was intended to get, then I'd call it a pretty weak twist, considering there are no implications of anything being off anywhere afterwards. But I don't think it was, so it's just a subtle let down at a critical moment.

The second issue is sort of related. During the epilogue, we get three paragraphs (from "Amid unending" to "Their meeting") detailing Nemuno turning down straight cash but taking a boar carcass as her gift instead. It's rather dry and summary, but still for some reason goes into a blow-by-blow, with a paragraph break between the humans being befuddled and Nemuno noticing the boar. It's just a little too long and establishes a rising action between those two paragraphs for no good reason, since the story is ending anyways. I think those three paragraphs could probably be condensed further into two, or maybe one and a half, and the freed-up space could have been given over to Nemuno's personal impressions of the old couple in light of what Kenji's told her about them. After all, I think most readers will consider him to be the emotionally salient point here, still, and not Nemuno's sense of gall over the thieving piglet—even if Nemuno herself might well view the two as being of equal importance. I think on the one hand it would have been gratifying to have seen one last positive inkling of the boy in her mind, and on the other hand the "punchline" of walking away with a pig after all could land more effectively with some sharpening.

... It's autumn, huh.

Yam season's coming.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

🍠

Here's a little token of appreciation for my favourite of the bunch.

... And a slightly less foggy version for the shameless: https://files.catbox.moe/hzqseb.jpg

>Ah, dear me. Do you not know what a fair is? I suppose it was unfair of me to assume.
Had no idea Boddhists indulged in such wanton punnery.

>>17557
Of *course* the one that teases the concept of age-gap romance is the one that *you* like the most...

Nice work as always, ya old Taoist!

Writer for Weightless Shoulders & Shackled Hearts here. Here are my thoughts on the first three stories. I haven't read the other two stories yet, so they'll be on a separate post.

Record of a Burden

A nice short about how Akyuu's obligations and fear of death have worn her down, Keine is perhaps the best pick as Akyuu's confidant. I enjoyed their chemistry and I see a genuine friendship with Akyuu throwing light jabs at Keine while she rolls with the punches. Seeing Keine of all people turn down tea and ask for sake put a smile on my face; I feel that can totally happen in the series itself, and I hope I can capture something similar in my writing.

The best part of the short is Akyuu's rant because I can feel the author's frustration in her dialogue. The activity she once enjoyed now causes her so much stress, and the little amount of time she does get is so precious that using it at all is putting it to waste. I think this is where the author gave it their all, and I enjoyed it.

How it ended felt right. Akyuu's issue can't be solved immediately because it's a part of her life. I think it's telling how much she enjoys being with Kosuzu by how on board she is with Keine's suggestion. Akyuu expresses no concern about spending time with Kosuzu like she does with any other activity she tells herself she wants to do.

For me, this story is about how draining our obligations can be, and whenever we have free time; use that opportunity to be with the people you love. This was a nice read, and I would recommend reading it!

Two questions for the author: Is the sky turning crimson red supposed to represent Akyuu's determination, or is the story right before EOSD?

What was your thought process behind the butterfly; did it carry any significance?

The Problem with Civilisation

A short-sweet of family found involving Nemuno. Nemuno holds a maternal instinct for Kenji. With their desire to live alone, I felt like their bond was genuine and was the highlight despite their short time together.

The description of living on and near the mountain caught my eye as well. Despite how oppressive it can be living near the tengus, it shows how much Nemuno dislikes civilization that she would be willing to put up with rather than live closer to the human village or somewhere else in the forest. Another point of her disdain for being near a large populated area is that she could have flown over the fair, but didn't. To me, it shows that Nemuno freezes up like a deer in headlights when she's in a populated area or doesn't want to risk being stared at by dozens of people as she flies away. The narration didn't make it clear, so I can't say for sure.

The theme of this story leans more toward opportunity. The piglet grabs the mountain yam, Kenji grabs onto Nemuno's dress and Byakuren asks Nemuno to look over Kenji to name a few. I can't say much on obligation outside Nemuno taking care of Kenji. Overall, it's a good read, I would recommend this to anyone who wants to read more of Nemuno!

One question for the author: Was Nemuno too nervous to fly or she's not capable of it in this story at all?

Weightless Shoulders & Shackled Hearts

As the writer of this short, I'll only be talking about the process of making it.

The story starts by introducing three worms who tell Eiki all the bad deeds the person she's judging has committed. I wanted it clear that everyone in Gensokyo has three worms in their body that keep track of their bad deeds. The departed spirit denies the accusation, and Eiki uses the crystal mirror to show the spirit its past. Finally, she gives the verdict and sends the spirit to hell. Then, the last soul for today enters her office.

The final soul judged is a child. Eiki finds it evil on sight, but oddities begin to pop out to the yama. The child's three worms were missing, and the crystal mirror failed to show the child's past. Instead of passing the verdict despite knowing the child is evil, Eiki postpones the verdict to find out what is causing this. The story is about Eiki and the child traveling together, and Komachi is there too.

Near the end, there would be a twist where Eiki confronts the person who planned the whole thing, and the child is revealed and transformed into the god of evil (although after reading the review from one of the anons, maybe it would have been better if the child was a god of scapegoats).

I managed my time poorly, so I scrapped the idea and started writing this story with little time. Maybe next week, I'll be able to review it in a more neutral light. If you guys have any questions, I'm more than happy to answer!

>>17557
Nice picture(s). It'd also be interesting to know what you thought of the piece, which particular bone it tickled, and how.

Pretty quiet around here. Guess I'll take that as nobody else having much to say. In which case, here's the face reveal: I wrote The Problem with Civilisation.

In all honesty, it was a struggle to bring this piece to any kind of conclusion. I didn't start with much momentum, and life made it hard to ramp up to any degree. Various obligations that I couldn't put off left me with little focus or free time a lot of days, so there were many days where I simply made no progress at all. That I made it with a couple of days to spare so I could do a perfunctory self-edit and proofread was a feat in and of itself.

It all just underscores that I'm not a writer who can work quickly at all, nor can I very readily reconcile the basic conceptual matter of a story with actual written words. The concept of this piece took me close to a week to even nail down, for instance. I had initially felt like doing something involving tengu, based on one of the suggestions in the OP, but I couldn't come up with anything at all. I suppose the choice of Nemuno was largely due to the Character Discussion Thread. I still had a bit of the discussion about her kicking around in the back of my head by the time the contest started, so I guess she was just sort of an 'easy' choice at the time. She's also deceptively simple as a character. Deceptively.

I say that because I did struggle to feel as if I had a good sense of how to portray the mountain hag beyond the most superficial elements. The particular tone of her dialogue was simple enough, but figuring out what she would actually say, for instance, had me pulling out my hair at points. There were instances where I had to cut back on dialogue for her and try to use Byakuren to push things along instead. Then, when Kenji was actually awake and in the scene, I had to struggle to figure out how she would deal with him. Yes, yes, mommy hag and all, but I wasn't interested in taking the absolute easiest route possible. In that sense, my own struggle to reckon with Nemuno as a character is represented in some of the struggle she has with herself in the story. She is someone who has some principles that she considers inviolable, yet she can't help what instinct compels her toward at times. That internal back-and-forth is what I feel the story is really about, thematic elements aside.

As far as theme, I did consider it from the outset, and I tried to pepper it as much as I could all throughout, considering not just the 'duty' definition of 'obligation' but also the sense of 'promises made'. For 'opportunity', well, I'll admit that I didn't feel prepared to extrapolate too far, but I think I did all right in any case. Overall, I just wanted there to be a sense that, yes, things happened out of a confluence of coincidences, but that also these happenstances worked out for everyone in unexpected ways. For instance, Nemuno causes trouble for Byakuren by stumbling in and making a scene at the temple fair, but she also comes in with Kenji on her back. By the same turn, Byakuren all but presses Nemuno into making sure she can deliver the boy back to his family, but because of it she connects with someone for once. There's a lot of give-and-take going on, basically, which I feel is pretty true to life.

Just as an aside, I feel like I did Byakuren kind of dirty, considering she is a character I like a fair bit. I mean, I was still fairly sympathetic, but I feel like it's easy for people to zero in on her strong-arming of Nemuno and wag their fingers, which is a little unfortunate. Additionally, the lack of cohesion among the Myouren Temple cast made every other appearance more or less a token one. I had initially wanted to maybe have Ichirin be more than an incidental spear-carrier, but I couldn't see a way without bloating things further.

Incidentally, I'd say the length of the piece is where I feel somewhat iffy about it. I don't think the story I told could have fit in a shorter space, of course, but I probably could have told a more compact story. That said, the premise would have needed to be different, probably with different characters, etc. for that to work, so it's all sort of second-guessing. Still, I guess I wish I'd have been able to pull off something shorter and less demanding.

I'm sure there's more I could say, but I'm not sure what at the moment. I guess prod me with questions?

>>17556
I generally agree with the points raised, but I also feel that the former point is beside the point for me. Could it have been more impactful with stronger verbiage? I guess. However, I don't consider that scene to be where anything pivotal happens. If anything, it's simply the resolution to the conflict Nemuno has with herself, with the bath as the climax. That Kenji seems to be given less agency or whatever just doesn't feel particularly impactful to me.

As to the epilogue, dunno. It was largely the latter contents of my story outline with a slight bit of narrative fat brushed on because I couldn't figure out how to wrap things up in a timely manner. In general, I'd say things probably could have ended in an overall different way, but I couldn't tell you exactly how. What came out was merely a compromise with reality over how short on time and, frankly, will to keep going I had. Coming up to the deadline, I simply wanted to be done, and my creative 'reserves' were running pretty dry. In sum, I guess I'd say I'm not wild about the epilogue as a whole, but it's the best I could do given the circumstances.

>>17559
The whole thing is that Nemuno, her attention being fixed solely on catching the pig, doesn't notice she's run straight into a populated area until it's already too late. When she realises, she's too freaked out to do anything about it. Then, later, after Byakuren punches her lights out, she can hardly bring herself to attempt leaving because, well, the fact that's she's further than she's ever been from her home, with no idea how to get back, is a bit anxiety-inducing. So, sure, she could factually have flown off quite easily, but there were some heavy psychological barriers in play, making the whole prospect emotionally difficult.

Same poster from >>17559

Otherworldly Flavor

A cute short that felt absolutely like a Touhou work, this one I enjoyed. The characters were used effectively, and I felt like I was reading Youmu and Yuyuko and people with similar names. The theme was simple but strong; Youmu was obligated to fulfill her master's order, and she took the opportunity to go out and party while still getting the job done.

My favorite short in this exhibition. The author had an idea, and they executed it well.

Eientei M.D.

I see the idea; you know how to leave clues, and throughout the story, I felt like I could figure out the mystery. To me, that's where half the fun is, feel close to solving the puzzle and I think you did fine from that angle.

I would like to see you hone your skill in making a mystery. The grammar could use work, but that'll naturally improve the more you write and read. You love House M.D? Watch the episodes and study them; Engage with the media you love and dissect it. You watched your favorite episode? Study and see why it stood out from the rest. Least favorite? Study and ask yourself why it leaves a weaker impact on you.

Be wary of giving a pre-existing character a child. It's a powerful hook and doubly so for someone like Mokou No Fujiwara. It creates intrigue and a lot of questions which is what you want for mystery fic.

Who's the father? Magic exists, so was it with a woman instead? What is the parents' relationship with each other? What is their relation to their daughter and etc.

But the fic wasn't about the daughter, so those questions are left unanswered because it wouldn't affect the actual story. It's a powerful trope so give it serious thought if you really want to make a child oc, or stick to the pre-existing character because in this situation, you could have Mokou and it would not have changed the story.

I hope I can see your writing again in the next exhibition; I'm making an assumption here, but I did feel like you enjoyed writing this fic. To me, that's a sign of a good writer in the making.

Writing my review for Eientei M.D. is inspiring me to dig into the other shorts in this thread. I want to make it clear that this will not be my last post here!

Records of a Burdens

I like the story and it did tug at my heart, some things didn't stick the landing for me.

Despite the story's conflict happening because of Akyuu's sense of impending death from her curse, it's odd that it wasn't shown. The closest we get is her hand straining, but that's due to overworking. She tells us how her body reminds her that she should be dead by now, so show us what she's feeling. Keine says she looks haggard, but we never get a physical description of her body outside her writing hand. You can describe how messy her hair is or maybe she couldn't bring herself to put the brush on the paper.

To summarize: Show me what the characters are telling. A short paragraph about Akyuu's body feeling off would go a long way.

Otherworldly Flavors
This is my favorite and it's hard to suggest any improvement. If I could make one suggestion, I would like it if the story had a more prominent conflict. Youmu goes to get snacks for Yuyuko, but there aren't many obstacles that stand in her way. There was the tengu, but the fight was stopped before it started. When Youmu was flying back, I thought that was when the conflict would start and she now had to resist eating all the snacks while drunk, but that didn't happen either.

You could have it that when she was paying for her snack, Youmu realized the money Yuyuko gave her was missing, or she was more tempted to eat all the snacks before reaching home. Anything that would make the reader wonder if she'll succeed in her quest or fail trying.

The Problem with Civilization
I've seen you talk about your struggle in writing, and I want to say I am happy to see your writing in this exhibition. I also appreciate you taking the time to critique my work and show where I can improve. However, there's room for improvement as a writer and a critic.

For writing: Byuakren and her group's whole purpose in the story was to bind Nemuno and Kenji together. They fulfill that role, but it seems like you didn't know what to do with them after that, so whenever any of them did appear, it felt tacked on. Similar to Otherworldly Flavors, I didn't notice any particular obstacles that the two had to struggle with. Even civilization itself pushed them together because if that festival hadn't happened, Nemuno would have left then and there.

If anything, it's simply the resolution to the conflict Nemuno has with herself, with the bath as the climax.

I didn't feel like Nemuno had any conflict with becoming friends with Kenji either. I'm surprised that you say the bath scene was the climax. I assumed it was the bed scene since that's where Nemuno revealed to Kenji the area she lives near.

In short, Byuakren's group feels underused, there wasn't much conflict and if the bath scene is supposed to be the climax of Nemuno's conflict it needs to be made clearer.

Also, it's hard to believe that Kenji's parents died from an illness when Eientai exist. Or does it? The story doesn't do much to clarify, so I can't say for sure.

It's a nice story, so I hope to see you at the next exhibition.

For critiquing: From a technical standpoint your criticism is sound, but in terms of spirit, it can use some work. As the anon from >>17548 suggested, starting with a compliment goes a long way to criticizing someone's work. It's like giving a shot, the rubbing alcohol is optional, but people prefer it over taking it raw. You've done it in this exhibition too, you've first complimented Otherworldly Flavors and your own story before pointing out their flaws.

You didn't need to do much for Record of a Burden and my story. Just move the positive point(s) to the top and that's all.

For Eientei M.D., it's clear you didn't see anything good about the story, so how do you start with a positive in a situation like this? You need to show that you're on their side.

I see that you put time and effort into writing this, but...
I'd encourage the writer to keep trying and...
I'm sorry, but this story was not my cup of tea...

A single beginning sentence is all you need to show that you're on the author's side, no coddling is required. That's all I have to say and I hope you at least consider it.

I won't do one for mine, since I don't have the confidence to give a fair shake. Overall, I found these stories fine, and I enjoyed reading them, they certainly were not the worst by a long mile!