Touhou Discussion Thread 3 ⌈Eternal Fantasy Edition⌋

[Angelzewolf]

Well huh...

Not just UT. What about the chinamen novels.

I wouldn't know as I don't visit those threads. But many Touhou upgrade threads are in "bump" purgatory to the point that some don't finish and are forced to be moved to a different thread in hopes of that finishing. Again, even the most minor upgrades will take weeks and months to get evaluated.

I'm not gonna call the staff bias, but I respect the Touhou supporters still pushing. Cause seeing a downgrade thread get six staffs near instantaneously while upgrade threads can barely squeeze three would be demotivating as hell to me. It's also why I recommend everyone here to follow the strategy people have decided upon. You'll be lucky if a staff pops up to add "fire manipulation" for Mokou as an example, nevermind arguing for stuff like immeasurable speed and what not.

 

[Quibster]

I’m aware that Touhou downgrades have historically received more quicker reception, and while I don’t have an issue with downgrades on principle, there’s a pattern here that’s discouraging. Many of these downgrades arrive with an exhaustive “50 reasons” approach. Certain people have framed previous debates to appear like major inconsistencies, when they’re often rehashing topics that have already been repeatedly debunked or rejected entirely.

Thorough review is not the issue—it’s often the level of scrutiny applied. The sheer volume of these proposals, combined with the speed of acceptance and minimal discussion, feels dismissive, especially when the contributors defending the verse have invested significant time and effort. It’s disheartening when those who ultimately decide these outcomes don’t appear to give arguments the balanced consideration they deserve.

This is a series that spans over 25 years, with 19+ main games, countless spin-offs, interviews, official manga, spontaneous WoG statements from ZUN, and an extensive global fanbase. Indexing this takes days, even weeks, of dedicated review. And within each year, there's often a chance of new content rearing it's head and causing entire pages to need to be re-written. Did you know that Gensokyo is within a Non-euclidean space? How about Hell being infinite in size? Well, ZUN didn't tell us this in 2016. And a lot of pages are in a predicament of "we didn't know at the time", rather than "we overlooked this."

Going on tangent here for the sake of speaking truthfully; I do feel like association with this verse is treated like a pejorative label here. In fact, it’s become so skewed that even being associated with the verse can be treated with outright disdain. I've even been called a “Fuji sock” behind the scenes just for speaking up and arguing for certain feats. What's worse is when there's a meritocratic element of former staff members wielding their connections to current staff members to speak in favor of them, at their beck and call. It does feel like nepotism to a degree, coupled with the already preexisting politics that you have to bear. But such is the way of debating online, I guess?