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Hello THP, it has been a while, hasn't it? I'm not dead, by the way. Though I haven't exactly been writing things for THP in many, many years. But at the same time, RiG still floats into my mind from time to time, mostly as a reminder of perhaps my greatest failure. Failure in the sense that it is probably my single most successful thing I've ever written, and I never finished it.

And that greatly bothers me. Yet at the same time, I am unsure if I could ever really give RiG a very satisfying conclusion, given it was my first real CYOA and the plot was basically built up as I did it. While I still have the general outline of what I wanted to do in mind, it does beg the question if it'll be a very enjoyable ending by this point, and further, what really makes a good ending to a CYOA?

A part of me has also toyed with the idea of starting RiG from scratch with a far more concrete idea in mind, and less of my constant readjusting/adding/removing 'content' and 'features' at a whim. Yet at the same time, I am fully aware this may not really accomplish much by starting Reina's journey over from scratch. Particularly because I am sure the faithful readers, still want to see more of the relationships that were already cultivated, and it isn't like starting it over is going to help them there.

This is a kind of rambling post to say I'm not dead, I think of RiG all the time, and I strongly feel I need to find a way to continue it, or finish it. It really puts a hamper on my other ideas and projects, because RiG always sticks in my head as the story I really, really want to write and finish. Which is part of why the Teahouse CYOA fizzled out and died, because I did not like writing something on the same 'scale' as RiG, without having actually finished it!

Well, that and it turns out I never did figure out what Isuke's power would be, and since she's a Gensokyo native, I really need that before I can write her again.

Anyway, what are your thoughts, those of THP who still remember the days of Restorer in Gensokyo? Would you be happy with my attempting to salvage what I remember of my vague plotlines of years ago, or is it best to simply start it over with a more defined goal or some such? Or, should I simply let RiG go and accept that I messed it up and move onto something else?
I'll level with you: it's been way too many years for me to care about RiG at all. I can't remember enough about it to have strong feelings here.

As a general THP reader and sometime writer, though, I think you should do whatever you feel strongly about. If you want to finish up a story, do it, but don't feel beholden to it out of a sense of duty. Otherwise I think it'll just be yet another dead end when you get fed up of forcing yourself. Give a story an ending, if you must. Doesn't have to be a full-blown revival. A reboot is fine too. Something new is also great. Whatever it is, though, pour all your heart into it. Even if it doesn't work out, there's something to be said for genuine effort.
Ctrl + F "Restorer"


Just don't.
Do what you want to do. If that involves RiG, okay. If it doesn't, whatever. Relying on any of us to tell you what to do is just going to lead to more burn-out.
I say what I said back then. If you cannot fully commit to it dont bother, it is a huge turnoff to read each one of your tries where you selectively decide what is retconned and what isnt while making a OC the main focus of each try, yet said OC and her ties to 2hus changes constantly throughout stories to meet demands of whatever you have cooked up.

Adding management sim elements to the story if you cannot even finish said story in the first place is just one more nail in the coffin.

I really did like the first attempt of Restorer BUT, if you plan to do another offshot or change shit yet again, dont bother, you might aswell start a new story. If you do RiG, commit to it and dont give us another "Hey I wanna try again post" in two years.
If you really want to find some closure, I think you should start-and end- a new story. But I think the time has passed for RiG.
why don't you come up with a different idea

it can't be healthy to be stuck on a single story and character for like 10 years or whatever
If you feel like writing, write. That's the important thing I think.

In my experience, older stories tend to build up weird baggage and fog around what is actually going on that makes them hard to finish if you come back to them after a while. But, it's also familiar to you, so maybe it would be easier to focus on getting back into the actual writing part when you aren't focused on the world building.

I dunno. I'd read either, so do which one you want (and don't worry about switching to another option if the first doesn't work out).
It has been quite a number of years, hasn't it? I kind of forgot how many years its been. Thank you for the feedback though.

To be fair, I find that's not entirely accurate. The first was abandoned due to it being my first thing on THP and making some pretty big mistakes that I wasn't aware of. Although I suppose the other 2 abandons of 2/2b are right, even if I can't remember the circumstances surrounding that anymore.

That's really the tricky thing, since I kind of want to do RiG, but I also want to try and do something new. That was the original idea behind doing that Teahouse thing, but as always I tend to just jump into ideas and expect that I can flesh out the details as I do it, instead of planning out the things before hand and then writing it.

While writing a new character is something I want to do, I also really do enjoy writing Reina.


It probably isn't, but it does always come back to haunt me. I think part of it is because Reina was a character I very loosely made, and it was more THP creating her I think. I just wrote her, but a lot of her key features were all created by the voting process. She's just a character I have a lot of fond memories of.

Yeah that's a fair point. I don't remember all the specifics I had planned (and a lot of RiG was kind of made up on the fly as I did it), but I still remember some of the general highlights. It would still be odd to write it again after so many years though.

I want to say, thank you to all so far for their feedback, it is pretty helpful.

I will admit, I think a big part of my wanting to 'finish' RiG, is because I don't want the character to just kind of wither on the vine. Part of this is because when I write now, I really want the character to have some kind of artwork, and I'm a stickler for ensuring OCs have actual original artwork, instead of taking a character from some other franchise and rebranding it or something.

So it just turns out that Reina Roots is a character I have artwork of, which makes her very easy and accessible to write. Ichidou Isuke is another, although I still really need to figure out what her power/ability is since she's a native Gensokyoian.

I remember having a Dragon character at one point as well, come to think of it. Although having an actual Dragon protagonist in Gensokyo has its own interesting wrinkles.

I have some other OCs, but as they aren't created with Touhou in mind, I don't really want to use them and slap them into a setting they weren't created for.

All that aside, I also think I just really want to try and get myself to write again. It is a bit of forcing on my part, but... I can't really get anywhere if I don't at least try to force myself to do something, I think.

Learn how to draw, then you'll never have to worry about not having artwork for your OCs ever again.
RiG seems to be both your first victory and first defeat, and it's arguable those are things that are best left in memory. Like chasing the glories of one's youth, it can show you how you've grown or just repeat past failures.

I enjoyed RiG. It was fun, comfy, low-stakes, and a little bit indulgent. Amusingly, being what is essentially slife-of-life isekai actually made it a bit of novelty, so that's also a plus. Would I want to see it continue though? The answer is a big maybe.

Since RiG was so easy-going I don't feel a dying need to see out Reina's journey. There was no grand plot that I could speculate the resolution of and then be deprived of it like some other stories, and so looking back it's hard to hype myself up. Of course that's just the nature of laid-back stories, nothing wrong with that.

You have to ask yourself, what makes this time different? In the end everyone's probably going to be interested no matter what you do, but if you don't have a clear path in mind it can only end in failure. Do you truly know the end to Reina's journey? Does she even have one?

[ ] Let it die: The road to catharsis, bittersweet but freeing.
[ ] Finish what you started: The road to closure, fraught with nostalgia.
[ ] Retread the same path: The road to triumph, a gamble of your pride.
Some good points here. And truth be told, the best I can think of that restarting it would do "differently", is trying to focus better on balancing out Reina's life and work. Changing RiG from its comfy slice-of-life isekai wouldn't be on the table, since Reina just being a (mostly) normal Outsider brought into Gensokyo is sort of the point.

Just in hindsight, a lot of her actual work was never really done all that well. I flip-flopped on having money be a thing, then never really got a good way to handle Reina actually doing her work beyond, "Do you want to actually work, Y/N", which is kind of a pointless, dead choice.

And then there was never anything to actually use the money on, so what was the point? I would probably want to try and get RiG to better focus on Reina's personal and professional life.

Which is really, mostly because I kind of like balancing the slice-of-life with management-style sim things. As for what I'd consider an 'end' to Reina's story? That is truly the tricky one, since it IS a slice-of-life, and there was really only one thing Reina had to really solve herself.

Thinking of some other SoL CYOAs, the most logical ending to RiG, would probably be when the one major issue in her life is resolved, and then her getting married or something.

I think your opening statement is pretty true though. I'm mostly wary to just let Reina go, because I feel like she deserves getting some kind of closure. I only have one other OC who is really developed (and has any art) that is suitable to use, and that'd be Ichidou Isuke from the Teahouse CYOA. Who would certainly be very different from the shy, uncertain Outsider brought to Gensokyo, as Isuke is an assertive, womanizing Oni who is quite at home in Gensokyo... sort of.
So I think I have a rough idea of how I'd want to handle the teahouse business side of things, I'm just a bit unsure on the overall end goal. This is still a bit like RiG, in being a pretty slice of life thing, so I suppose that isn't too unusual to not have a clearly defined end goal...

I'm also a bit unsure where I want to place it. I recall last time I did on the road to the Youkai Mountain, which may still be the best choice. Though, I may end up just posting it in /th/, since I don't want to just focus on the Youkai Mountain group.

Just giving you all a little bit of an update.

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