Hello, fans of fall, one and all!
We’re sorry for our completely inexcusable absence last time year, but on behalf of my sister and I, we’d like to welcome you back
To the one, the only-

HARVEST MONTH WRITING CONTEST!

Hang on, girls. It’s the Spooky Month contest, not the Harvest Month-

Same difference! Everyone knows the only important thing about Halloween is that it happens during our beloved autumn! How could some childish trick-or-treat thing compare to the majesty of a good harvest?

Or the changing colors of the leaves!

Ah, yes, the leaves. Truly a life or death matter there for the villagers, isn’t it, Shizuha?

Ah, yes, because everyone’s dreams of fall are about grubbing around with dirty root vegetables, aren’t they, Minoriko?

They are when they’re farming for a living!

Right, so that’ll keep them busy for a while. So without further adieu, welcome back to the third annual Spooky Month Contest!

THEME

As per the results of a Discord poll, the chosen theme for this contest is Sea of Stars! Which means your entry must feature either water or space (as in outer space) in a prominent role!

WHAT?! This theme doesn’t have anything to do with us at all!

Shizuha’s right! What happened to the harvest festival? Where’s our beautiful autumn?!

That was last year’s theme. The theme changes every year, we’ve established this.

This is false advertising!

What advertising? I seem to remember get

Since the last thread (>>19104) has reached bump limit, let's continue the customary character discussions in a new thread. Just like before, every week, everyone will vote for a new Touhou character to discuss. If you have anything at all to say, or just enjoy thinking and talking about Touhou, by all means, share your thoughts. If you want to comment on a character that has been discussed previously, you can use >>17770 The Irregular Character Discussions Thread.
You can comment with your interpretation of the character's personality and outlook, your opinion on what they stand for, story ideas you have for them — anything goes. This is a writing-focused board, but no specific angle or approach is mandatory. You don't have to write a lot either — a small message is just as good, just make sure it's something fellow participants can latch onto or expand upon. As well as just sharing your thoughts, please don't forget to engage with other posters. It's fun to read what others have to say, and starting a conversation helps you shape and enrich your own view.

Apart from the obvious, here are some things you might want to consider:
The boss fight, if there is one — there can be a lot of personality to things like spellcard names and bullet patterns.
The music theme — to help you set the mood, at least!
The character design — visuals are the first thing you see and what you remember them by, after all.
The mythological/cultural inspiration — it can fill in a lot of blanks in an interesting way.
Changes over time — whether in the source material or the fandom.
That's just to get you thinking.

But either way, don't be afraid to speak up. Happy discussing!

Six already, can you believe it?

Hey everyone, I’ve been diving deep into the lore recently and wanted to pitch a theory connecting a few disparate pieces of canon regarding Nue Houjuu, the newly introduced Chimi Houjuu, and the unresolved plot device from Undefined Fantastic Object.
The Observation:
Nue and Chimi share the incredibly rare surname "Houjuu" (封獣). While fans have noted they share the trait of being "unidentifiable" (正体不明), I believe there is a direct, mechanical link between them that goes beyond just being ancient, pre-youkai anomalies.
The Core Theory:
"Houjuu" is not a traditional family bloodline. Instead, it is a classification or title for beings spawned from the "Seeds of the Unknown" (正体不明の種) that Nue scattered across Gensokyo during the events of Touhou 12.
The Evidence:
The Mechanism of the Seeds: Canon states these seeds have no fixed form and manifest based on the observer's inability to comprehend them. They are literally the physical embodiment of the "unknown."
Chimi’s Official Title: In Fossilized Wonders (Touhou 20), Chimi is explicitly given the title "The Unidentifiable, Unruly Beast" (正体不明の順わぬ妖獣). This directly mirrors the nature of the Seeds.
The Etymology: "Houjuu" (封獣) can be interpreted as "Sealed Beast" or "a beast forced into a concept." It makes sense as a categorical title for anomalies that the world cannot properly define, rather than a passed-down human-style surname.
The Conclusion & Prediction:
If "Houjuu" is a classification born from these seeds, then the "Houjuu lineage" is actually a renewable resource of cosmic anomalies. Because the Seeds of the Unknown were scattered across Gensokyo and never fully collected or destroyed, they are still out there.
Therefore, my prediction is that we will continue to get more "Houjuu" characters in future games. Every time a human or youkai encounters something so bizarre that their brain cannot categorize it, a Seed could hatch, resulting in another entity bearing the "Houjuu" classification.
It perfectly fits ZUN’s pattern of l

A few people in the discussion thread and/or the discord have mentioned either having hoping to say more about characters once their week was over, or due to circumstances were not able to participate in the discussion of the week. So I decided to create a thread for people to be able to continue those discussions without taking up the main thread!

Here’s Teruyo’s link to the characters discussed so far (as well as for the character that is currently being talked about, but discussion for that character should be reserved for the main thread!): https://www.thp.moe/discussion

Waaaah…!

Hello everyone. Welcome to the second Spooky Month Writing Contest. I’m your Mascot, Hata no Kokoro… I’m so happy to meet you all.

Welcome everyone. I’m the host for this contest, Gooboi. Last year’s Spooky Month contest was quite a lot of fun, with a nice variety of entries. I always hoped I might be able to make it a yearly thing; so here we are again, giving it another round.

I’m taking over from Kogasa this year. Halloween… it’s really fun, isn’t it? It’s a time of fear, and joy, and so many others… every emotion I can think of, and more! I joined because I wanted all the feelings you could put into your stories.

Indeed, there’s few times better than halloween to run the full gamut of emotions and experiences. From the horror of the unknown to the simple joys of getting and eating candy… Halloween has it all.

THEME

This year, I spoke to a few members of the audience to get their opinions. And they chose from a small list of options I provided. Kokoro, would you do the honours?

This years theme is… Harvest Fest. So it’s festivals this time? Mamizou took me to one of those last year, in the Human Village - wait.

Is something wrong, Kokoro?

…Wasn’t last year’s theme about masks?

It was, but we’re gonna mix it up every year.

…Then why was Kogasa the host that year? Why not me?

I just couldn’t imagine starting a spooky month contest without her as the host, you know? …Don’t look at me like that.

A-anyway, this contest has two main themes, both themed around fall. One is the idea of Harvesting - both in the literal sense of gathering crops, but the fruits of one

Since the last thread (>>18683) has reached bump limit, let's continue the customary character discussions in a new thread. Just like before, every week, everyone will vote for a new Touhou character to discuss. If you have anything at all to say, or just enjoy thinking and talking about Touhou, by all means, share your thoughts. If you want to comment on a character that has been discussed previously, you can use >>17770 The Irregular Character Discussions Thread.
You can comment with your interpretation of the character's personality and outlook, your opinion on what they stand for, story ideas you have for them — anything goes. This is a writing-focused board, but no specific angle or approach is mandatory. You don't have to write a lot either — a small message is just as good, just make sure it's something fellow participants can latch onto or expand upon. As well as just sharing your thoughts, please don't forget to engage with other posters. It's fun to read what others have to say, and starting a conversation helps you shape and enrich your own view.

Apart from the obvious, here are some things you might want to consider:
The boss fight, if there is one — there can be a lot of personality to things like spellcard names and bullet patterns.
The music theme — to help you set the mood, at least!
The character design — visuals are the first thing you see and what you remember them by, after all.
The mythological/cultural inspiration — it can fill in a lot of blanks in an interesting way.
Changes over time — whether in the source material or the fandom.
That's just to get you thinking.

But either way, don't be afraid to speak up. Happy discussing!

Hey, don't just use the exact same header post. *tsukkomi fan smack*

This thread is for discussing R/R. Theorycrafting, strategizing, discussion, anything, so long as it is R/R is welcome and appreciated.
Spoilers are inevitable here, be warned. Please spoiler image spoilers as they appear on the front page and could spoil others. You can also hide a thread by clicking on the little upside down triangle next to its post number, if you want to avoid this thread for spoilers. Spoilers spoilers spoilers...

It looks like the old thread (>>16402) has passed away into obscurity, never again to be bumped. Oh, well! In lieu of repeating the premise of the previous thread, I'll index the previous posts but otherwise rely on the title to be self-explanatory enough:

>>16403 The Tengu a broad-ranging academic overview of tengu-related myths over the centuries
>>16408 Kojiki, the oldest surviving written work from Japan, which details its ancient mythology and the history of its earliest emperors

But I'm going to start this thread off with a different kind of background influence on Touhou, which many of you will already know about but which some of you might not! The illustrated oeuvre of Takemoto Izumi was an early, maybe even formative, influence on ZUN's aesthetic sensibilities, and their influence can be seen very strongly in the earlier games, extending as far as an entire character—pic related—being imported wholesale into the third game of the series. While the overt borrowings may have tapered off over the years, you can still witness the cute, bubbly, but also earnest and at times seriously reflective sensibility in the tone and approach of Touhou today. So, even though the majority of us may be readers and writers and thus might incline more towards textual aspects of the setting or the lore or the characters' personalities and backgrounds, I think it's worth taking a second look at the "silly outfits" of our favourite girls with a finer and more appreciative eye for what non-textual sentiments might have compelled ZUN to design them that way, beyond the two extremes of "obscure mythological reference" and "unqualified whimsy".

Ahead of the site’s anniversary next month, it’s time for another writing event!

Participating
Anyone can participate as a writer and/or a reader, and all skill levels and types of interests are encouraged. Prospective writers are to submit a piece by the end of the submission period and everyone, both writers and readers alike, are encouraged to comment about the stories and discuss them. Feedback and critique is always appreciated! As with most site events, the idea is to have the community participate and make things lively.

The tradition is to have people submit entries anonymously, so as to not taint perceptions and color feedback, but this is just a suggestion. The main goal of these events remains to encourage the community to create and for everyone involved to have fun.

Submission period
Submissions will be opened around a month from now on 2026-04-01. A thread will be created for entries and there will be a 2-day window for any stories to be counted as part of the event. You can post something later than that, but the idea is to have everyone on equal footing when it comes to getting comments and feedback.

Themes
These events are normally centered around some theme. Entries ideally should contain elements of either or both of the themes. These themes are meant to spark inspiration or help writers along and how broadly or specifically they are implemented are up to the writer.

This time around, the themes are comfort and community.

Comfort can mean anything ranging from a prosaic, physical, sensation but it is probably best read as something (or someone) that provides solace, consoles, provides relief or enjoyment; a small ritual enjoyed by a character after a long day of work, catching up with an old pal to put things into perspective or distract, or appreciating the effort put into a special meal would all qualify here. This can be something abstract and mostly intellectual, it

I want there to be more places in Gensokyo with people in them! Seriously, there's only, like, 6 locations that people care about! Hakurei Shrine, Forest of Magic, Human Village, Youkai Mountain (I'm including Youkai Forest and Genbu Ravine as part of Y. Mtn.), Scarlet Devil Mansion, Myouren Temple, The Netherworld, Mosleum of Dreams, or whatever it's called—the Taoist place—the Bamboo Forest of the Lost, Kourindou, Underground, Hell... And it's the same people doing the same thing every time!

Everywhere else is just "___ Path," "___ Lake," "___ Flower Field," "___ Hill," and they have no people! They're filler! Or the center point of a mystery that goes nowhere! It's boring!

I want more villages! I want the sea! I want Hokkaidou! I want Kyuushuu! I want more youkai societies! I want faction conflicts that aren't just "Buddhism vs. Taoism," "Don't trespass on Youkai Mountain," "the villagers are afraid of youkai and chase them out," or "Hell is having another gang war!"

I want to complain about all the story ideas that I have that get cockblocked by stuff like "Murasa would never sail a ghost ship through the skies plundering the rich because 1) she's Buddhist, 2) she doesn't have a ghost ship, 3) the only people to plunder are the human villagers, but they're protected by the shrine maiden, so there's nowhere else to plunder while waiting for the heat die down" even though she's the only character to be able to do that!