> What would happen if Myon physically went inside Aya, such as through her mouth or ear or something?

> You would probably just pass through. You don't think it can occupy the same space as something that's actually physical. That, or possession. If it were that easy to keep hold of a phantom...
>_

Youmu:

> "I shouldn't."
> Look over to where Alice went and raise our voice slightly.
> "Alice, what exactly is it you're doing? Something feels really interesting."

Myon:

> Adopt a very curious look, looking back and forth between Alice and Aya's spirit.
> Partially extend a half-pointing hand in the direction of Aya's spirit, but do not actually physically interfere.

> Alice doesn't answer.

> You move your hand a bit, but keep the intrusive thoughts at bay.
> Aya's spirit does finally get into her own body with the help of Alice, and moments later, she's up and awake.
> "Ahh. Finally. How I've missed you, body." The tengu stretches. "That was a good crash landing, all things considered. Nothing's broken."
> "Well, you are a youkai..." Alice comments.
>_

> Is Youmu within reasonable raised-voice talking distance with Alice and Myon?

> Yes.
>_

Youmu:

> "We can move somewhere more open if we need."

Myon:

> Float close to Aya's body (head side) and watch to see what the other two do.

> "Do you need?" Reimu questions.

> You get closer to Aya and watch.
> "Hm..." Alice readies.
> You watch as she hooks Aya's spirit  with some strings, guiding it to her body. It looks really simple. You're not sure why they can't just return themselves if it's this easy.
> Though, now that you're this close and watching so intently, you can feel something... interesting. You can't out your finger on it, but it should be the missing link to whatever trick let's Alice fix people where they can't themselves.
> ...
> Your curiosity wants you to physically interrupt it, at least to get a feeling for it yourself. But you've made Alice annoyed with your lack of being careful before. Then again, she didn't seem to stay upset. Maybe you can get off with it again...
>_

The "danger" gacha / mobages poses to Touhou is grossly overstated tbh.

Mobile games can be surprisingly healthy for Touhou, as they help alleviate a lot of concerns regarding retention of both fans and creators as well as the introduction of new blood. A pretty underated aspect of the Touhou mobile game scene specifically is how the companies that make those ALWAYS make a conscious effort in involving the community : there are always touhou music circles involved in the making of the soundtrack, always touhou fanartists responsible for the fanarts, and eventually touhou content creators who make content based of the actual game (the Japanese ones generally enjoyed quite a boon in this gacha period of touhou) : this obviously means MONEY and profits for all the people concerned. For the content creators, this obviously means more lucrative opportunities linked to touhou specifically, and the average 2hu consumer enjoyer get to have more 2hu related stuff to look forward to. So probably helpful in relation to the issue of people drifting to others IP due to either new opportunities or lack of content. And besides potentially introducing newfriends to the series, it creates ANOTHER breed of touhou fan communities for the ones who discovered this series and are gathered together around such or such touhou mobile game : being both accessible (like c'mon, don't you guys have phones ?) and far less intimidating than the bullet hell games surely means better reach. It's also pretty possible that average mobile games fans who are looking for new releases got introduced here simply because they just tried to get in these touhou mobile game's communities in their pursuit of the hobby.

As for the much dreaded excessive commercialization aspects, it's a pretty legitimate concern for sure, but not necessarily realistic. I'm gonna illustrate how things actually go in reality with a little story time(<3) + a comparison between touhou cannonball and touhou lost word :

Back when it was first announced, pretty much NOBODY was especially thrilled about touhou getting gacha, plus there being the fear of seeing the infamous predatory practices in gacha introducing themselves in touhou : touhou cannonball went under MASSIVE scrutiny by the community (who greatly believed in the usual doujin way of doing things), but no excessive problem was found initially. THEN it happened : the first big event of the game : it was set to introduce FOUR FES (or UFES ? not so sure anymore) character (basically super rare ones that you *could* get in the gacha) with busted stats getting introduced together in an event that was set to last for the later half of december : so basically, you had VERY rare and powerful girls that you could only roll for in a VERY BUSY TIME OF THE MONTH, not to mention the fact that people still had to go to school, work, whatever social engagements they have, and the festivities for that time of the year, and furthermore, management only gave like 50 of the stuff you use to get reroll for the occasion (and I believe it took 10 of those to do one roll) : wild stuff. It was quite obvious that getting the people to fork the money in order to get them was the big idea. "The greedy face of management has shown itself", the community that gave the game a chance was NOT HAPPY, the stream in which the event was announced was lambasted by dislikes to high hell (cuz it was in an era were you could just see the dislike bar), people reviewbombed the crap out of the game, and whenever somebody uploaded a Touhou cannonball video, they'd suspiciously get A LOT of dislikes without a proper explanation too (so obviously discouraging) : with the loss of the community's support and the initial interest that it had for being the first touhou gacha, well, touhou cannonball slowly but surely sled into the realm of irrelevancy, and unto termination. A sad (but deserved) story and a cautionnary tale for future Touhou gacha projects to come ...

But much later, when another much more appreciated touhou gacha called touhou lost word, who enjoyed the reputation of being unusually nice in its practices when compared to other gachas, reached it's first anniversary, it also did something that basically introduced SIX very rare (FES, UFES or whatever ??? dunno about gacha linguo) characters : skepticism was on the rise, and quite a bit of dislike went on the video while the stream hasn't even ended, BUT, however ... they did things way more reasonably : about 2 of the rare characters over a period of time. Touhou lost word would later introduce new characters to the gacha in a somewhat similar fashion without provoking the ire of the community (not to mention it's interpretation of the characters were more true to life and had more personnality than the curated, fake-like "family friendly" 2hus from cannonball) : to this day Touhou lost word remains pretty much the face of touhou gacha, and they add and innovate more of their initial formula by doing music videos, making fumos, minigames and even various collabs ...

Anyway, the point is quite simple : touhou fans ain't stupid ; any touhou gacha with bad or nefarious monetization schemes are gonna get rejected by the community, pushed into irrelevance and unto end of service : this means that companies that wanna do touhou gacha are REALLY incentivized to go for more consumer-friendly practices and have an understanding and a respect for the culture ; while those who give into corpo greed are just gonna natural-selection themselves out of the way (we're a corporate greed hating ecosystem) :

So, with companies incentivized to "do better" or fail, and the fact that ZUN is still the guy who owns the copyright anyway, corpos can't just mess around with the IP nor the community in an aggravating way without offing themselves.



All in all, I think that considering the economic opportunities plus the exposure that the fan creators get (I myself discovered Morimori Atsushi and ぱらどっと from Touhou lostword music), the additional touhou content that the average fan can put their teeth into (plus more community involvement born from the new thing OR straight up birth of new Touhou communities that are centered around the mobile game), and the various collabs and projects that clearly exceed the small scale of a doujin circles (touhou lostword and danmaku kagura getting big names for their music stuff for example), it's pretty fair to say that the Touhou venture into the realm of mobile games is _{*coughs blood*} good actually.

_{I will never understand why touhou mobile games always *have* to be gacha of all things, though}

... although potentially mistaking Touhou for a gacha series has got some serious cringe potential, I believe whatever misunderstandings may be would be handled by virtuous and patient gentlemen who totally won't be vulgar or rude in explaining the matter.

18 has what's pretty much loot boxes

Hardly, theres none of the real life financial element that enable predatory practices from greedy corpo-rats, the gambling aspect is hardly comparable, skill still takes priority over simply having good cards, and all cards can straight up be unlocked with a cheat anyway. It's more of a discover-and-unlock thing from roguelikes.