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Pepi

Shrine Denizens
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  1. Warning! This text contains heavy spoilers for all of the Hifuu Club’s stories, Sumireko’s and Yukari’s stories. The following text began as an attempt to explain the themes that ZUN approaches in the Hifuu Club’s stories, but it ended up becoming an analysis of a bunch of different lore pieces glued together, with some theories sprinkled on top. The text participates in the #HifuuDay , a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the first Hifuu story, Ghostly Field Club. “Dreams and reality are different. That's why it's possible to make dreams reality with great effort.” Changeability of Strange Dream. Gensokyo's reason to exist: It’s important that we refresh this now. In Touhou’s world, people slowly, but surely stopped believing in the supernatural (myths, legends, gods, etc.). This made the Youkai enter an existential threat, as they require faith (that one believes something unexplainable exists) to continue living. Yukari Yakumo and the Hakurei Clan decided to create a separate world to harbor all of the Earth’s Youkai, preventing their extinction. First by making this place, Gensokyo, be able to draw the supernatural to itself. Gensokyo was later isolated from the world in 1885 A.D, due to humans loosing their faith in Youkai. A very small amount of supernatural beings remained in the outside world, mainly Mamizou, Yukari, Kanako and Suwako. With the latter two moving into Gensokyo quite recently. The world truly stopped believing, not even gods could survive with so little faith. But a few people in the outside world noticed that those myths and legends were real. Either via a divine bloodline, like in Sanae Kochiya's case or in Sumireko Usami's, as she unexplicably manifested psychic powers. She plays a crucial role here. Sumireko is the founder of the Hifuu Club, an organization dedicated to study the supernatural. Once she figured out that all of the Youkai gathered in the magical land of Gensokyo (probably thanks to Yukari), she knew what to do. Revealing that Youkai are not a mere legend. Unfortunately, things went south for her, as she got trapped in Gensokyo as revenge for messing around. Seeing no other chance, she decided to attempt a suicide attack at the barrier. With the goal to unleash all the Youkai to the outside world. Of course, Reimu stopped her. But this lead to unforeseen consequences for Sumireko. Due to her abusing the ability to enter Gensokyo in her dreams, she switched places with her Dream World self, among other side effects in the disease known as Fantasy Syndrome. The first time, she got the help of Yukari and Doremy to get out of truble, but the second time she switched places with her Doppelgänger for about three weeks. During that event, before Sumireko could stop Dream Sumireko, as a way of surviving the onslaught of bullets found in her dreams, she managed to collected pictures of the danmaku of all the residents of the Dream World. Essentially creating evidence of Gensokyo. She posted all of that to social media, gathering a pretty decent following. As you probably guessed, nobody believed in Sumireko and just saw her posts as something entertaining. It probably didn’t help that the memories of the events of Violet Detector vanished from Sumireko’s mind. In the end, the world didn’t believe in a quite powerful psychic with photographic evidence of Gensokyo. What a helpful evidence... ”The true nature of Chuunibyou is the heat of life. It's an explosion of one's imaginative power. It's a form of resistance against a chilled society, wielding both purity and creativity.” Dateless Bar “Old Adam”. A Broken Future: Zun presents us with a world set in an undetermined future. In a subtle way, he tells us this future has philosophical problems that go straight to its core. As we saw with Sumireko’s experience, people stopped believing in the supernatural, they stopped dreaming of achieving the impossible, children stopped having fun. The neglected nature was emulated with fancy paintings in buildings and fake, over-enhanced landscapes locked away inside a screen. Moon travel was possible, but inaccessible to everyone. Everything just had to have an explanation, and unexplainable but provable information was discarded as nonsense made by a bunch of lunatics. This futuristic world is the one that Maribel Hearn and Renko Usami inhabit. It’s very likely that Sumireko is an ancestor of Renko, due to all the similarities between them. It’s also likely that Renko had the material at hand, just believing that her ancestor was pretty good at fabricating stuff (keep in mind, she studies physics, there’s only rational explanations in her mind). Only to get her assumptions broken into pieces by Maribel’s abilities, that shared some resemblance to her ancestor from long ago, Sumireko. We can actually prove that Renko had access to Sumireko’s archive, what other explanation is there for the following?: During Ghostly Field Club, Renko urged Maribel to help her search the boundary to enter The Netherworld. In this story, she had a notebook with some undisclosed photos. Including one of The Hakurei Shrine. "How come you have a photo of the Netherworld?" "I have a back and forth route you don't know about, Merry." My partner took out a picture and started talking as usual. "But never mind that, Merry, why don't we go see the entrance at the Hakurei Shrine?" It’s almost always Renko the one that proposes new plans and activities for the club. During all of the Hifuu Club’s stories, we clearly see that our mystic duo is troubled with the state of the world. Only recently in “Dateless Bar Old Adam” did they feel more included in the world, as they found more people that think alike, after the publication of their book under the pen name of Dr. Latency became somewhat popular in Japan. They had no other choice but to form the Hifuu Club, in order to be themselves, investigate the supernatural, and maybe with some luck bring the faith of the supernatural back to the world. “The real reason she was put in the sanatorium was probably because it was determined she had some kind of psychological anomaly. Of course that wasn't the case, but society just isn't receptive to strange people. That's why Merry had to keep her ability secret, as some element of the occult.” Neo-traditionalism of Japan. Maribel and Yukari's connections: Again, we come back to Sumireko to find the keys for the next step in the story. During the events of “Anitomy of Common Flowers”, Yukari helps out Sumireko in her first experience dealing with Dream Sumireko escaping to the real world, by forcefully dragging Sumireko into Gensokyo, forcing her escape from The Dream World and then to teleport her to the real world for a duel with Dream Sumireko. This was quite an outreach on Yukari’s part, this intervention broke the rules of The Dream World as stated by Doremy. No actual consequence was explicitly shared, but Doremy is not the kind of character that gets easily pissed off and she did this time. In “Alternative Facts in Eastern Utopia”, Aya develops a theory that the only one who could have assisted Sumireko in traveling and descovering Gensokyo, had to be Yukari, with her theorized goal being doing a reset of Gensokyo with a select group of Youkai. Even with the explanation of Sumireko using the urban legend of the Seven Wonders and the Occult Balls with the power of the Wonders, as a way of getting inside Gensokyo, how did she manage to enter Gensokyo without knowing anything about it or the Urban Legend incident in the first place? We know that she didn’t use the conventional entry, as that is what Mamizou used to trick and trap Sumireko inside Gensokyo. Aya is right, it’s pretty unlikely for a human to enter in such a particular way, and even stranger to see one that developed impressive powers without magic gadgets or a connection to the gods. Why would Yukari bother in helping out a dangerous human with psychic powers from the outside world? We know that Ms. Yakumo is pretty lazy, as she delegates most tasks to Ran and Chen. It’s pretty out of character for her to risk Gensokyo’s existence. Even more knowing that all of this ended up allowing the Lunarian invasion in “Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom” and her backstory with Lunarians. All the times she or her shikigami have been playable, it was to prevent a bigger disaster from striking Gensokyo. But thinking that Maribel is somehow related to Yukari, if not Lady Yakumo herself, explains why Yukari bothered with helping Sumireko in different occasions. Zun gives us some small gems to work with. 1) Time of creation We know that Yukari and Maribel were created around the same time. Perfect Cherry Blossom came out the 17th of August 2003, Ghostly Field Club came out the 30th of December 2003. 2) The relationship to Lafcadio Hearn: He was a foreigner who traveled to Japan, who quickly renamed himself as Koizumi Yakumo. Lafcadio was extremely important, as he gathered and translated many of Japan’s folk stories into books for the world to enjoy (most Youkai come from his compilations). 3) Powers: Both characters share a similar kind of power. Yukari’s power is like a more absolute version of Maribel’s. 4) Designs: Their designs are nearly identical, their clothing is close in style. The biggest difference is that Maribel’s eyes are yellow, but Yukari’s are usually purple (opposite colors) Now, the connecting point is not there, we just don’t know. The fact is that there is no grand, explicit evidence that connects these two characters. There are a few theories that come to mind to explain possible paths to make the relationship between these two a real thing. Before focusing in the one that i have been building up to, let me explore the other scenarios. 1) No relation. Knowing Zun, it's just likely that there is no direct relationship and it's just one more wasted plot point to add into Touhou's already large list. 2) Yukari is Maribel's ancestor Another likely scenario and the one that makes most sense, is that Yukari is family of Maribel. It was already stated that Maribel's family had supernatural powers, it's very likely that Yukari was a prodigy that ended up transforming into a Youkai and that Maribel is unknowingly following her footsteps at becoming a great magician and possibly a Youkai. 3) Maribel and Yukari are the same person Get your tinfoil hats, it's theory time. Is Maribel going to become Yukari? As we go along reading the stories of the Hifuu Club, we start to notice something particular. Maribel’s powers start to get out of control. At first, it’s just the ability to observe where the boundaries of reality are, but it would evolve to dreams were Maribel would appear inside Gensokyo. She started to question the nature of reality at this point, because some of the objects that appeared in her dreams started showing up in her real life. Renko clearly noticed that something strange and potentially dangerous was happening, as Maribel just making objects appear out of nowhere breaks the laws of physics. She theorized that maybe her power evolved to manipulate boundaries. Could she get spirited away or eaten by a Youkai in her dreams? In “Trojan Green Asteroid” we saw that Renko’s fears were right. Maribel managed to bring Renko along to see the Torifune spacial station in outer space, probably thanks to a small Shinto shrine gate located in the station. During their exploration, a strange winged cat managed to scratch Maribel. It was bad enough that she had to go to the hospital. They truly were inside Torifune. After that, in Neo-traditionalism of Japan, we found out that Maribel was quarantined for months in a remote location in the mountains. The sickness was labeled as a form of delirium caused by an unknown virus. She would come out alright, but Renko kept seeing that things were going strangely. The latest development in Maribel’s powers is the ability to show images at will of strange places via a hand mirror. “Come to think of it, recently it felt as if Merry's abilities were getting stronger. At first they had fun enough with just being able to catch a glimpse of strange new worlds, but now they were bringing things back from those worlds as if it were nothing.” Neo-traditionalism of Japan Unfortunately, it’s been 7 years since the last development in the Hifuu Club’s stories (outside the reference of Misumaru’s magatmas being made from Izangi Objects). This leaves us at a really awkward spot, because we are expectant to see how the pen name of Dr. Latency evolved and if Maribel’s powers kept going in crazy directions. Just at the turning point, because the next story should introduce new elements to keep the narrative fresh. I have no option but theorize. My theory is that Maribel’s powers will keep getting out of control, eventually leading to her turning into a Youkai, Yukari Yakumo. The main reason I think this will be the case is that it explains Yukari’s strange behavior regarding Sumireko. I bet that Yukari is a time traveler. Getting time into the matter is crucial, maybe Yukari is stuck in a “Back to the Future” situation, where story events need to progress in exactly a certain manner to allow for her creation. Like how in the movie, Marty has to make sure that his parents will end up together after he uknowingly screws up the meeting that would make them fall in love. If she didn’t help Sumireko in that way, it would risk breaking the timeline or deleting her existence (and therefore, Gensokyo). If Sumireko truly is Renko’s ancestry, if something bad happened to her, Renko wouldn’t exist and that changes everything. Due to this, Yukari is forced to intervene. Another scenario is that Maribel and Yukari are in a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde situation. That Maribel turns into “Mr. Hyde” at probably random times and that’s when she does all the Yukari business. This explains why Yukari is labeled as “lazy”, it’s not that she is lazy, but rather she has a limited time of action. It could even work in the same way as Sumireko traveling to gensokyo in her dreams. Once Maribel “wakes up”, Yukari has to banish from whatever thing she is doing and return to her real body. This would also make Yukari’s time traveling less powerful and more of a side effect. Another possibility would be that Yukari “glitches out” and sometimes Maribel’s mind ends up in Yukari’s body (just like Sumireko with her Dream Doppelgänger) and those are the situations we see depicted in the Hifuu Club’s stories. “If you try tossing your faith in information aside, you just might be able to get more enjoyment out of the fanzine(?) that Renko and Merry wrote.” Dr. Latency’s Freak Report Is Zun just drunk? Maybe it’s all part of Zun’s plan in criticizing today’s day and age’s obsession with seeking an explanation in cryptic subjects. Playing with rhymes and poetry that alludes a meaning that doesn’t exist, or one that the individual must create on interpretation. I think that Zun has something planned, but who knows at this point. Maybe it is done to inspire his followers in creating an explanation? Just like I just did, or was he just drunk? The important thing, more than theorizing and scheming, are the messages found hidden away and reflecting upon them. Is our world becoming more and more alike Maribel and Renko’s future world? Is that a good or a bad thing? Do people exist out there with mystical powers? How real are urban legends? What role does faith place in our lives? Is our scientific progress damaging us? Why do we hate and fear what’s different and unknown? “I'm not so worried about where the "Sealing Club" is headed, but... Yes, Merry and Renko, who was featured in the text and is part of the mysterious "Sealing Club" that participates in all sorts of occult activities. While I didn't go into great detail, has scientific progress prevented them from eating wild bamboo shoots? What a pity.” Changeability of Strange Dream.
  2. I made a detailed guide that should make hisotensoku work. Just get the soku rewired version and follow the instructions there if the help here didn't already work out.
  3. You like retro things? Yeah... Are you one of those people that go out of their way to install 20+ year old games? You know you are masochist right? This is why i decided to make a guide in how to run PC98 games, to save you time. and because i promised it Let's begin! 1) Required programs: We are going to use RetroArch for this guide. You can get it at https://www.retroarch.com/ If you are on Linux, please use the version found here https://flathub.org/es/apps/org.libretro.RetroArch because it has some things we will need that other versions lack. And disable flatpak sandboxing, see my Touhou on Linux guide for steps. Of course, we are going to need PC98 games for this. You can get them in a familiar place, and if you are good searching inside archive.org. I recommend that you place your games in a fixed location, like for example create a Games folder and place them there. If you want to know why and what RetroArch is: In simple terms, it's a fronted (like the packaging of your ice cream) that is made to provide an easy to use User Interface for almost every emulator in the planet, without sacrificing advanced settings for the looks. It's like the king of emulators. 2) Installing the emulator: As we know, RetroArch just facilitates installing the actual emulator. Go to Main Menu, Online Updater, Core Downloader. Then, scroll down until you find NEC - PC-98 (Neko Project II Kai) and click it. If you don't see the Kai version, try out the version without the Kai. 3) First Run: Now, to finish setting things up we need to run the games. Click on Main Menu, Load Core and select NEC - PC-98 (Neko Project II Kai). Then, click on Load Content and browse to the file location where your games are and launch a game. You will see a black screen with some cryptic techy text, ignore it and press F1. Scroll until you see Add to Favorites. This will provide you easier access to the game, it's going to save you time. Then, scroll until you see Core Options, and make sure the settings displayed match the ones in this image, then exit with backspace: 4) Enjoy! It was that easy. It may seem too simple, but figuring out the right options for a smooth experience took me a while, it's better to have them centralized in one place. Some small advice, do the Add to Favorites for every game and save the image above for easier setup (i don't remember if RetroArch saved the setup for all the games in the emulator). And to make the game load faster use the built in shortcut for Fast Foward in the L key. But you should enable a shortcut for the better version of Fast Foward. You can find it in Input, Hotkeys, Fast Foward (Toggle) Did your computer explode??? If you have any issues, please tell me and i will do my best to help you. Same if you know something to improve this guide.
  4. It is! But the biggest power move in the poll belongs to Yuuma. She was 53th on her first appearance, but she jumped all the way up to 29! She went up 24 positions. What makes me sad is that Sumireko dropped 16 spots, life is rough. There where some interesting things in the songs. Alice In Wonderland went up 7 spots (from 89 to 87) and Memento of the Avaricious Beast went up a mind blowing 59 spots, from 136 to 77! Other song that made a big difference was Necro-Fantasy, it went up 24 spots from 91 to 67.
  5. Border of Life, played in a music box. I want to cry, it's so beautiful.
  6. Not a specific song, but Someone 45356 has lots of arrangements using stranger music genres. https://www.youtube.com/@Someone45356 For example, he has Cumbia Amazónica of Son Biten's theme
  7. I forgot compostiors were a thing, I never noticed any extra input delay from it. On KDE it allows you to disable it, but GNOME like always just doesn't. I'm adding the SFX part and compositor guide, thanks!
  8. The reason i didn't make this guide with Lutris was because i couldn't find any way to open a wine terminal inside it. Aside thcrap, it should work as well. Other reason is that Bottles allows things like exporting a Bottle (if you have other machine with Bottles, you load the Bottle file produced, and it stores all the configurations), it's more ambitious than Lutris.
  9. Welcome to a new topic! I've heard you want to become a supa hacka... That you want to reject your privileges of touching grass and embrace headaches while trying to get everything working, just to play danmaku games... Are you ready to embrace the Linux inside you? BECOME THE PENGUIN!!! ACT LIKE A PENGUIN!!! SPREAD THE PENGUIN!!! Our deepest apologies for the interruption. A supa hacka hacked shitposting into the mind of Pepi, but unfortunately he is now cured. On this guide, we will see all the tricks to get Touhou and other helpful programs running on Linux (Touhou Patch Center and Touhou Practice). This will also include Program and Linux Distribution recommendations for the optimal experience. We will later include guides on how to run the PC98 games and Lost Word on Linux, tell me if you prefer those guides as separate topics or as replays in the comments. Let's get to the point. Technical Terms Warning I'm going to be using some technical terms, they will be explained at the bottom of the Topic. Also keep in mind that if you deviate too much from the steps presented here, things may not work, so do them at your own risk. 1) Pre-Touhou Linux Distro and Program Recommendations: Touhou works pretty well on most Linux Distributions. I'm just being nitpicky to guarantee you a good experience without troubles. And it's important that we remember a golden rule of computers, it may work on my machine, but it can break on yours. All Steam games have a Linux compatibility page that clues you in on tips and tricks to get everything running correctly, we aren't going to use it, but it can be helpful for other games. https://www.protondb.com/ If you are utilizing the GNOME Desktop, please avoid playing the game in fullscren or in the Wayland session. GNOME currently lacks some technical things related to tearing that makes playing Touhou very unpleasant. I heavily recommend that you utilize a Linux Distribution that ships the KDE Desktop, as it's what the Steam Deck uses, and it's the fastest to introduce Gaming benefits (along other benefits). You can find KDE distributions on https://kde.org/distributions/ My personal recommendation is that you use Nobara or Kubuntu, these two are the most reliable Linux KDE Distributions out there. Before we install the software needed for this to work, you should know what a Compositor is. A Compositor is an extra layer inside the Window Manager (what manages windows, lol) that is tasked with showing pretty animations and some things like 3D effects, like the old Compiz effects (search that on youtube, it looks fun). If your Linux Desktop supports it, disable Composition for full screen programs as it will increase responsiveness. Im certain that KDE and most Desktops support disabling it. Be aware that GNOME doesn't provide an easy way to disable it. The only downside is that it will increase the chance of tearing happening, if that's your case, please check the Troubleshooting Step at the end of the Topic. Now, for required software, we are going to need the Flatpak Package Manager, the Bottles program and Flatseal. You can install Flatpaks by following the guide at: https://flathub.org/es/setup Once that's done, install Bottles by following the instructions at: https://flathub.org/es/apps/com.usebottles.bottles by clicking on the big blue "Install" button. After that, install Flatseal by following the instructions at: https://flathub.org/es/apps/com.github.tchx84.Flatseal And of course, you need a Touhou game. If you are already on this website, you know where to find them, maybe in the big "DOWNLOADS" button? Then always download (if available) the versions that already come with thcrap installed. DON'T DOWNLOAD IF IT SAYS UNPATCHED. 2) Managing Flatpaks: Linux's distributions always ship with something called a "Package Manager". They are tools that allow you to install, update, remove and more things with Software. They are usually limited to different distributions, for example Kubuntu uses APT and Nobara DNF. We are going to use Flatpak, a universal package manager that you can install on ANY distribution (avoiding fragmentation troubles that are common in Linux). If you want to utilize Bottles to its fullest potential (including increased ease of use and the ability to run thcrap Patches and thprac) we need to disable Sandboxing. If you want a more limited, but more secure experience (especially when running Windows programs), ignore this section. Flatpaks have the characteristic of being Sandboxed (it means they are isolated from the rest of the system), these are the steps to disable Sandboxing: Open Flatseal and you will see something like this: On the left you have your flatpak programs and in the center/right the list of permissions that flatpaks have. You will scroll down the list until you find the Filesystem section, then find the All user files section and click enable. This disables sandboxing. 3) Installing and Running Touhou: And then, Marisa said "it's touhouing time" and she touhoued all over the place, resolving the incident. I'm not sorry. Create a folder wherever you want where you will place all of your Touhou games. What i do in my PC is to make a "Games" folder and drop all the games downloaded with thcrap in there. This is important if you want to download custom thcrap patches, and if you don't, keep them organized anyway, love yourself a bit and don't keep everything dropped on the desktop. Open Bottles. It will first give you a welcome screen, and it's probably going to download some files (I don't remember, and I'm too lazy to check). Once you can move around in the program, click the + button at the top left and it will ask you to make a new Bottle. Click the "Gaming" button and name the Bottle Touhou. Then it will download some stuff (it takes a while). Once it's created, enter the bottle and test if the touhou game works correctly by clicking on the big "Run Executable" button and navigating until you find the game's executable. If it worked, congratulations! You can now prolong your suffering with the danmaku! If it didn't, or you have any kind of small issue, check the Troubleshooting step. Don't settle for an experience with even the smallest issue, in this house we want it flawless! I recommend that you add the game to the Programs Shortcut in Bottles, by clicking the + Add Shortcuts button and then selecting the game. You can also launch the game by right-clicking in the executable and selecting Bottles as the program to run the games. If you want to create a shortcut, use the Linux version, called Symbolic Link by following the instructions here: https://linuxhint.com/create_symbolic_link_ubuntu/ 4) Using Touhou Patch Center (thcrap): Thcrap works as a tool to make loadable modifications to your Touhou games. Unfortunately, I was unable to run Thcrap's modifications directly (the patched english executable bundled with the downloads works) and we have to use some terminal commands to make them run. But first, launch the thcrap executable found inside your game's folder (if it gives an error, try the other executable) and create your patch. It's important that you give the file a name that's easy to remember and write, like "th06patch1" Remember that we placed all the Touhou games on the same folder? To make running these patches easy, create a text file where you are going to store all the terminal text needed to run the patches. We need to copy the file path of the folder where thcrap stores all the patch files, it's a folder named "thcrap". The file path has to look something close to this: /home/YOUR-LINUX-USERMANE/Games/Touhou 6 - The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil/thcrap In the text file you made, paste that and place a "cd" before the file path, like this: cd /home/YOUR-LINUX-USERMANE/Games/Touhou 6 - The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil/thcrap After that, place the following thing in the top of your text file: thcrap_loader.exe PATCH-NAME.js thXX That command is what we are going to use to execute the game, the "patch-name" is the name of the patch of choice you want to run and the "thXX" is the identification to what game the patch belongs, for example Touhou 6 is "th06" You can also get more specific and write the finished command close to the game location/cd command and not the template at the top, for example: "thcrap_loader.exe th06patch1.js th06" The idea of the template is to make it easier if you create lots of patches constantly to avoid the hassle of writing them down in the text file. This is a screenshot of my text file: Save the text file and leave it somewhere handy. After that, it's time to test if this worked. Open Bottles and the Touhou Bottle, then scroll down until you find the Tools section and open the Command Line option. Note that you need to have Bottles' Sandboxing disabled to make the following work. Other thing, Bottles' command line doesn't support Ctrl + V, use right click and select paste. Once in the command line, paste the game location/cd line and press enter. What this does is enter the folder where thcrap is located, it's the text command to double-clicking in a folder to enter it. After that, paste or finish writing the thcrap_loader line and press enter. If everything worked, the game should run with the selected patches. There's a chance that any crash is due to the patches and not the process itself, if you have any issues check the instructions again, as this is very logical and the errors were likely your fault. 5) Running Touhou Practice (thprac): Thprac is a tool that makes practicing Touhou games easier. It's a lifesaver, and it replaces Touhou's mostly lackluster practice mode. You find it in-game after entering the respective game's practice mode. To download thprac, go to https://github.com/touhouworldcup/thprac and search for the releases button and download the first result (at the bottom of the first result, select the .exe file). My advice is that you place thcrap's executable in the folder where all of your games are stored and manually add the games using thprac's interface. In the download link there is a tutorial video of how to use it. Aaand... Done! Thprac works almost flawlessly under Linux, the only troubles is that sometimes when you update it, it looses the file locations or the interface gets all laggy after you close a game (just close and open thcrap again). It's also impossible to run Touhou6 directly from thprac, altough it's likely that if you run the game first and then launch thprac it will work (i didn't try it). Touhou6 is a pretty old game and it also has issues on Windows, be patient with it. 6) Troubleshooting Help: I'm going to place a common question, and its answer, like a common Q&A part of a website. My game makes my screen break! You are likely suffering from Screen Tearing, it's something that happens when the game wants to draw frames quicker than what your monitor supports. The effect is a graphical bug where horizontal lines cut the image and it makes it look ugly. This only happens if you are running the game under the Legacy X11 Graphics (worry unless you use KDE or a Wayland Window Manager). Currently it affects the mayority of desktop users. The solution is to enable the "tear-free" mode. Note that if you use an NVIDIA GPU you have to enable the feature inside their graphics menu, i never used NVIDIA so i can't help you here, search for "linux nvidia screen tearing" or something like that and follow the instructions. If you are using AMD/Intel, follow the instructions in this website https://linuxreviews.org/HOWTO_fix_screen_tearing . Please be careful, any error can make your system boot without graphics, read attentively. This is the setting i use to disable tearing, exclusively for recent AMD GPUs: sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-amdgpu.conf (inside the text file, paste this using right click paste) Section "Device" Identifier "AMD Graphics" Driver "amdgpu" Option "TearFree" "true" EndSection My Touhou sounds wrong!!! This happens when you are using an incorrect version of WINE, please read the step below. Thcrap doesn't download anything! Our second WINE (what Linux uses to run Windows things) problem in the night! The problem can manifest itself as either errors during downloads of patches running Thcrap to modify your game, or when running the bundled executable, as it auto updates itself. It sometimes happens that WINE has some broken things, the solution is to change the WINE version. Luckily, Bottles provides an easy way to switch WINE versions. First, go to Bottle's general settings, look up the 3 dots in the top right and click Preferences, then click on Runners and search for the option that says Proton-GE, click it and select the first option in the drop-down menu and hit the Floppy/Save Button Once it downloads the version, go inside the Touhou Bottle, go to the Settings option and click the Runner setting. Then, a drop-down menu with all the available WINE versions will appear, select the Proton-GE and once it finishes try to launch Thcrap again. If it fails, repeat the steps but with other wine versions that aren't Proton-GE. My game's position looks shifted! This happens if you are on The X11 Legacy Graphics, it's impossible to fix. Well, you can switch to Wayland Graphics, but it's still not widely adopted, only GNOME, KDE and Window Managers like Sway fully support it at this time. Let's say that Seija infected your game and played with it's possition. You can always run the game in Windowed Mode. Eitherway, this shouldn't be problematic, because Touhou already has unused space in it's UI and it doesn't affect gameplay. Touhou 14 Crashes! Seija likes to troll you... There's currently a bug with thcrap that makes it crash the game if you run thcrap under X11. The solution is to annoy thcrap devs on their discord to make them fix it (don't be rude!), or run the game unpatched. Running the game with Wayland Graphics also fixes the issue. Touhou 14 doesn't save my controller scheme! Read the question above, Seija really hates Linux... The solution is to run the game unpatched. Thprac doesn't run Touhou 6! It's unfixable. Read step 5) for more information. Maybe politely annoy the devs of thprac??? My game doesn't connect to the internet! Follow the steps on the "Thcrap doesn't download anything!" section. 7) Technical Terms: Yes this is all over the place and not in alphabetic order, im too tired right now. I will format it better later if possible, if not im sorry :) Im not getting paid so it's fair. Wayland and X11: Wayland is a graphical api that makes sure that the programs and desktop inside your Linux can communicate effectively to your graphics card. It's the modern version of the older X11. KDE: A community of people that decided that making software following certain guidelines was Kool. Yes they like to write everything with a K, like Konsole or Kate. They also make a desktop enviorment jam packed of features. Desktop Enviorment: It's the interface you see when you boot up your computer. Windows has one, Mac has one, Android has one, you get it. WINE: It's a translation software that translates the differences in functioning between WIndows and Linux. Think of it as someone translating English to Spanish. GNOME: Another desktop enviorment that was created because they didn't like how Kool KDE is. Joking, it was because at the time there was some drama and im too tired to explain it. They like to not listen to their users and they give fancy excuses. Linux Distribution: When someone decides to make a version of Linux. The general term is Linux Distro, these are things like Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, AmogOS, Hanna Montannah Linux, Ubuntu Satanic Edition (yes, those existed). Package Manager & Flatpak: Already explained in the post. Read please! Steam Deck: Amazing handheld console that can also work as a personal computer thanks to Linux! Linux: A project from Linus Torvalds to create a kernel (what communicates between your hardware, like your mouse, and the software inside the PC). It took off and it's used in lots of things. You will often see a shitpost that says "it's not Linux, but GNU/Linux", yeah the GNU guys where involved in making Linux big but that's all, ignore it. Touhou: Why are you here? Game with epileptic lasers with badly drawn, but eitherway cute girls made by a Japanese Human who has addiction problems with beer. We like that in here. Window Manager: Something people who dislike to touch grass use. It's a more minimal approach to desktop enviorments, it usually also auto resizes windows to use all available screen real state. It's useful for people who really enjoy Linux's freedom aspect. Altough you will get better results with KDE or GNOME, avoid them if you want to keep your mental sanity. Did your Computer Explode??? Jokes aside, i hope this was helpful. We will see each other again shortly, but with guides in how to run PC98 games or Lost Word. Remember to comment how you want it to be done, either via answers in here or as sepparate Topics. If there's any improvement to this Topic, please comment it down below or via private messages (either from Moriya directly, or via my discord that's available on my profile page). I will post any new discoveries as comments (idk if you can edit posts here, never tried it, oh well). One more question, would you be interested in a "How to Linux 101" Topic? I can write a guide in how to switch if someone's interested, let me know!
  10. I always have pretty bad luck with my choices on Linux, turns out GNOME has some pretty big issues I could write a novel about. Anyway, I'm now on Nobara KDE and I found this absolutely stunning Sumireko wallpaper in a loading screen of Lost Word
  11. One big problem i see with the "parental responsibility to rise children" is that in today's world, it's not uncommon for both parents to be working, and the side effect is little time left to dedicate to children. And not every parent wants or can leave their children with their other family members. On a worst case scenario, the children will not know their parents outside of weekends and dinner time (from 6PM to 10PM) and they will have to either leave their children alone or with not very trusted family members or the modern equivalent of maids. This exacerbates the problem of increasing reliance on technology if the children lack entertainment outside of it. It can also decrease their grades if nobody teaches them how to study and do homework. One solution could be to place the children on extracurricular activities and hire a teacher for the homework. But that leaves them with no free time, and that's very bad.
  12. I'm very worried about the slow collapse of the education system, not because I dislike the needed changes, but because it can place the education system in total crisis mode. This might look inoffensive, but it's dangerous for the following reasons: 1) More control to the wrong people: One of the root causes of the issues regarding education is due to the interests of people that use education as a mean to achieve their goals (like companies wanting obedient workers). If everyone who really cared about education quit the system, it will give those evil people direct control about the education system, and they can choke everyone to it. For example, they can lock you out of jobs and social services if you don't have certifications in the official schools promoted by the state, essentially forcing parents and society to either comply or make some very big protests. 2) What about the Children? Children are going to be left in a pretty rough spot. They are either going to face a myriad of problems, in the meantime the system needs to restructure itself. And that restructuring can take a while, maybe from 1-4 years? It can range from a social questioning to the need of kids having to spend 15 years minimum of their lives to studying, to children being forced into temporary solutions with dire consequences (like the pandemic, but much, much worse). The worse side effect is that those children will become adults at the helm of society one day. What will happen? 3) I'm a Robot Beep Boop Are Parents and Teachers going to get replaced? It's already very common for kids to be overly dependent on computers, what's stopping Big Tech from releasing dirt cheap online courses of just high enough quality to surpass the Prussian system? You can also add up tailor made AIs on top, hell they could even make AI Teachers shaped like Skibidi Toilets. We can be sure that something is changing in the Education System. Let's push for something useful. Other problems that also weaken the Education System are the Demographic Crisis that are coming soon and the overall increasing global trends towards "Literally 1984 + Cyberpunk Dystopias". Something else I noticed is that in Argentina (where I'm from) teachers have been forced to lower standards because most Children were failing at everything. It's backed by statistics. The results from the tests made to evaluate the performance of the students gave very reduced numbers compared to past years (before the pandemic), yeah something's wrong here...
  13. Wake up Babe, more music players!!! Quod Libet: Okay, it's available for pretty much every operating system but Android/iOS. This one surprised me with how well it works and how fast it is. It manages to give 0% usage of CPU and no kind of audio skipping or malfunctioning. Although it's a little memory intensive at about 120MB of RAM. I have to give them credit, it's written in python, and it's blazing fast. Tauon is also written in python, but it's like 5 times more resource intensive when you see the CPU usage. It has good plugin support, and it's being very actively developed, with a new version every 3 months or so. The developers say the focus of Quod Libet is to find a middle ground between music players entierly based on indexing the music tags and more simplistic ones that just read the folder name and treat it as the album name. They also say it scales well to libraries with 10.000 or more songs, something impressive once you notice that Tauon developers advice against doing this. Quod Libet has become my main music player, it's too well-made. If you want to read more, check their website. https://quodlibet.readthedocs.io/en/latest/# And of course, the screenshot!
  14. I share your thoughts, the school system is ROUGH. And from the things I heard of my older friends in universities, it gets worse. They are getting their health destroyed, pulling off insane sessions of studying combined with great amounts of stress just to get the certification title to exercise the thing they are passionate about (if doing that doesn't kill your passion, you are amazing.). Of course, they still teach you helpful stuff in universities, but the negatives are greater. I am one of the nerds, I always took the classes seriously and got good grades. It was thanks to my dedication that I actually learned was what taught, but someone who has a life outside the text books isn't going to learn much. The schedules are badly planned, especially the morning shift (standard), it's done to benefit the schedules of the parents who also go to work and have to commute. I had to wake up at 6:00AM and do a 1-hour rush to arrive on time. After that, I came home at 12:00PM. Once I had lunch, and a little of relaxing, the time was 3:00PM, depending on the day I had to do homework, prepare for a test or both until 6:00PM. At that point, the day was over for me, I was too tired to do anything more productive than playing video games or watching some form of entertainment. The system only teaches you how to memorize, if you memorize the content, it's the easiest way to get good grades with little actual learning. It was made like that because factory jobs are based on memorizing repetitive steps to accomplish a task, and the system carried over from the industrial revolutions to modern times. Another problem is that the content is not well selected. One common example is basic economics and taxes. I wonder why they don't teach how to cook good foods or idk even basic psychology. One of the biggest problems is that teachers are almost globally badly paid for their job. They have to monitor groups of children for 5–8 hours a day, thought out how to teach the subject, prepare the homework and tests, be good at teaching the content and making the kids learn it. If teachers had better lives, even on a bad system like ours, they would be capable of making kids learn great things. I don't know if you are still on the school system, my best advice is to just treat it as a procedure. Get over it with the least amount of effort possible that gets you the highest grades possible, if you see something worth learning put some extra effort. Keep in mind that if you want to attend a university, I heard that having good grades gives you better chances. Capitalism applied to learning. I didn't have a great experience on secondary school, I had very few friends and the stress from school was enough to cause me some mouth sores when all the exams took place. It also made me unable to get more hobbies. Thank god the pandemic happened, it allowed me to make all the assignments at my own pace, and it gave me time to learn the subjects better. Hell, I even managed to know the teachers better as they were more relaxed. Having few friends played to my favor here, as the common case was it disrupting your life by making you locked in the inside of your home.
  15. It could also be a specific problem to your hardware. I'm running a ryzen 5 3500U with integrated vega 8 graphics.
  16. I also ran Touhou 19 on Linux. I didn't have any issues, aside being unable to connect to my friend for some reason? Note, I'm running it under the Bottles app with their custom wine version (soda 7.0.9).
  17. Does anybody here know how to set up a private room for online play? I don't see any option to select a specific room to join EDIT: I figured it out, first both players need to set the same room name (let's say "SonBitenDrip69"), then you click on "join room" and done!
  18. That's why I said that I dislike TH11 not due to it being badly done, but for personal preference xD Eggplant supremacy is real.
  19. It is. ZUN hired someone from I believe Twilight Frontier to make new boss sprites and his wife to make new back/player sprites. I'd say it's around 5-10 seconds, idk for certain. Once the competitive scene takes off, we will have tier lists and detailed documents for all the game's mechanics. He was, but I'm certain he was the person in charge of the game's character drawings and endings. I don't know how involved the rest of Amusement Makers was with the development of Mystic Square, but I remember the credits having the typical Everything = Made by ZUN
  20. The ending CGs were good in the past, back in 1998 (25 years ago)... In Mystic Square, the ending has different fully colored drawings with a good art style despite the limitations of the PC98 hardware. Look at this: Now that the veins of hype are dry on my end, here's my opinion/review of Touhou 19. TLDR: The "Unfinished" in the title describes the game perfectly. Good Things: 1) The game has good mechanics. Charging attacks is intuitive and easy to pull off, getting the meter bar full is a simple collect the orbs, the spared hit is a good mechanic to make the game less punishing, although it's exploitable if you are good enough. Once a competitive metagame develops, we will know for sure how well done the combat system is. 2) Artistic department is beautiful. I really like the new designs and ZUN is improving his music, he used a lot of new instruments to him, the mixing is great, and the melodies still feel fresh even if he still composes with the same kind of tricks. 3) The story and writing is great. We still don't know the full details, but from what I've read, it depicts Gensokyo in the brink of a war, and it has a lot of interesting dialogue. For example, Son Biten being gaslighted into believing she's Son Goku's reincarnation, Hisami's possibly masochist tendencies and Chiyari being a hikikomori. She also managed to get me uncomfortable due to how creepy I find her. And that's all. Yeah i didn't like this game. I don't like a ZUN game since Touhou 11, it's incredible how massive his screw-up was in this one. I may dislike Touhou 11, but the game is finished and decently polished, not the case here. Bad Things: 1) The CPU is unbeatable. Especially when you take into account the "Human vs CPU" mode. As the CPU in this game is practically invincible, it's not like in PoFV where the CPU gets hits in normal. In about 2 hours of gameplay, the best I did was getting the CPU to drop 2 death bombs, meanwhile I was playing Orin VS Zanmu. 2) Lack of features. There's no replay and score system and ZUN can't justify it because he loves to reutilize assets, how hard is it to adapt the 18 game catalog's code to this game or hire someone? 3) Online is unplayable. I couldn't even join a match. The character selection screen dropped frames like crazy, and it had like 30 seconds of input lag. I won't be so critical here because I suppose that writing online multiplayer is very challenging. But why did ZUN not hire someone to make a reliable system? 4) Inconsistent art styles. It was a good idea to introduce new character sprites and boss sprites, but the job was badly done as returning characters like Sanae have their sprites from Touhou 12 meanwhile others are showing off new sprites. But not everyone got a fair deal, Ran's player/back sprite is vomit inducing. If ZUN at least allowed to remake all the player sprites, it would have consistent aesthetics. And he didn't fix the character selection screen to always be a hexagon, instead you get the ugly circle until you select someone. 5) Poor game balance. Half the cast encourages masochism, for example, I only managed to do decent damage with Orin thanks to the cards you get in story mode. Meanwhile, Reimu literally has infinite bombs with a good bullet slowdown aura. What the hell? 6) Atrocious pricing. I can't believe the game costs $15 with all the fundamental problems tainting the experience. For example, Terraria gives you tenfold the content for just $10 and Mystia Izakaya, a complete game without mayor problems (I didn't try it), is only $6. I can't even feel bad for pirating Touhou 19, it's simply not worth the $15. Before at least you got a finished experience with good polish and hours of entertainment. 7) ZUN's pride I believe we are entering a dark period of Touhou if ZUN doesn't drop the pride. Touhou is a FRICKING SOCIAL PHENOMENON in Japan, I'm sure he can hire more people to improve mainline Touhou even more. And not a gigantic amount of people that could bankrupt ZUN, he only needs a few beta testers, someone capable of providing a good online experience and a team of translators. 8) Development problems. If you pay close attention to how the story mode works, you will notice that once you reach a certain amount of time in a fight you automatically win, why is that? ZUN realized the CPU was unfair, but instead of fixing it, he made a quick lazy patch to allow players completing the story mode. Why did ZUN make that choice instead of fixing the problem? I don't know what happened, but Touhou 19 seemed to be stuck in development hell, as it's unusual that he didn't try to fix it by just reutilizing PoFV's CPU (I know he has the code, he kept the sprites after all). 9) Poor roster I know the roster makes sense for the story, but it's very strange that ZUN didn't include more characters. Combined with past games and the card mechanics of 18, he can easily introduce at least like 15 characters. And if it ruins the story, make them extra unlockable characters that aren't involved in the story. It would fit the style of progressively unlocking characters, like how it's done in Smash Bros. It also has some nonsensical character choices like Seiran or Orin, they don't add anything to the story. Something else that's weird is not having Kasen, Clownpiece, Keiki, Chen or Hecatia involved in the story as they are directly affected by the plot of the game. (yes, Chen technically appears in Ran's attacks, but why don't make her more independent?) Conclusion: I'm honestly impressed that, at the time of writing, ZUN is getting away unscathed after such a bad game. Steam's reviews are very positive and I can't comprehend how. Most of the critics I gave are due to a surprising lack of testing, polish and passion in developing this game, not me disliking core parts of the game entirely based on taste (like how I can dislike puzzle games because they don't entertain me). I want to like this game, as the things it does right are amazing, but it has fundamental issues that are only justified if the game was in early alpha. I really hope ZUN patches most of the game's issues (something unlikely to happen) and if that's not the case, at least that Touhou 20 or 19.X is a polished experience with good gameplay and new people on board. Maybe it's time for ZUN to either expand Team Shanghai Alice or hand over Touhou to new developers, it's unacceptable to have this experience in 2023 and a complete lack of improvements in a lot of areas. I just can't get over the fact that games made 25+ years ago on the very limited PC98 platform have comparable quality. Not even counting early Windows era games, my god. ZUN please do something.
  21. Hello Mevs, I'm certain you don't recognize me as I joined after you left. Congratulations on starting to figure out something was wrong. Loneliness can be brutal, we thrived as a species thanks to our collaborative nature, and we are hardwired to seek connections. The best, practical advice I can give is the following: Stay Busy and Love Yourself. Find things to fill the void left by that toxic relationship, try to focus on things that don't have destructive potential, like eating a lot or spending unhealthy amounts of time devoted to entertainment. Learn things, find new people, create something, do exercise, anything that makes you enjoy life and don't get overly focused on the negative parts. Enjoy! Life is a gift! From reading the other responses, I can say, We are here to cheer you up.
  22. Sorry to disappoint you, but Satori rarely appears in that manga. Don't get me wrong, it gives a lot of lore about her, but she could appear more.
  23. Pretty straight forward question, in music you can tune your instruments to use a different pitch from the standard A440. I know that ZUN plays with the pitch, but what pitch does he use?
  24. ZUN is clearly aware of Reimu's selfishness and weak morals. That's why Byakuren is such an effective antagonist, she brags to Reimu a way to balance the hierarchy of Humans, Youkai and Gods. But for some reason Reimu is against that, is there some hidden answer as why Reimu is so reluctant? (aside that debilitating her god even more). In Detective Satori (spoilers ahead) Most of the time she solves an incident, it's because it's her duty, but the reasons are mostly selfish in nature. Just like in MoF, the reason she stopped Kanako was to win the shrine competition. Reimu can be interpreted around the topic of balance. If she tries too hard, things will fail, but if she is completely lazy, things won't work out either. Although it's very in favor of Reimu being the king of lazy people, but hey she is the protagonist, at least her plot armor is literally her ability. Skill issues are tough. Keep practicing! Aya is a great character, i especially like her in Detective Satori.
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