The purpose of these discussion threads is to get people talking about touhou characters but also stories that they have appeared in. In other words, it’s less about presenting a summary that can be found in a wiki page or profile and more about discussion with your peers here. You should[ ideally be engaging in back and forth about not only the characters but what other people have said. The barrier to entry is low and you don’t need to write a wall of text to participate! Just what you think and feel is good and interesting enough.

Below are few things that you might want to consider or talk about when it comes to a character. The intent isn’t just to cover the basics but also how these characters may fit into fiction and any interesting portrayals in stories.

- What the character is like: their personality, values, mindset, worldview, interests, and how they approach their existence, generally.
- How they fit into Gensokyo or Touhou: the relationships they might have, how they present themselves, how they interact with youkai or humans, and where they spend their time.
- The types of scenarios or situations that might be typical or interesting to see them in: it might be something that they don’t want to do and are forced to do regardless or it might be something routine, but it’s still something of an opportunity to see alluring aspects of them.
- The ways the characters have changed over time or in their appearances in canon or how depictions in stories on THP have maybe given you a better appreciation for them.
- Aspects of the characters that you think haven’t been explored properly or might be worth seeing in a story some time. Or different takes in stories, drawings, comics or other fanart that seem worth highlighting.

There’s much more that can be said and I’ll repeat that the general idea is to foster discussion. You can go on about your headcanon and all the cool ideas you may have on a character and post them—and it’s appreciated!—but it’d be nice if most of the time we’re not talking past one another but engaging and having a discussion. So make sure to check back and talk to other posters too!

As a final note, I’ve gone through the trouble of mostly automating the character selection process. It should randomly pick a character when I tell it to and it’s weighted to mostly avoid another character from the same game for the subsequent roll as well as any character that has been chosen in the last six months. If you think that the minimum time before a character should be eligible again should be increased, let me know, but I think it’s a reasonable gap.

The protagonist of the still ongoing manga, Lotus Eaters, Miyoi is a zashiki-warashi who works at the Geidontei pub in the human village. Adorned with her distinctive whale-shaped hat, she seems like an affable waitress and typically passes as human. Miyoi has possessed the Ibuki Gourd in order to be able to see the world beyond the pub. She is able to manipulate memories and cause recurring dreams in people who have imbibed alcohol and that has helped her keep her true nature hidden for the most part. Still, several persistent youkai have begun to regularly visit Geidontei at night for a drink.

https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Strange_Creators_of_Outer_World/Who%27s_Who_of_Humans_%26_Youkai_in_Gensokyo/Miyoi_Okunoda

Most recent thread-meister here. Thanks for taking over. In all honesty, I had kind of resigned myself to leaving the thread dormant for a whole load of reasons that are off-topic to really get into here. Frankly, I felt as if I probably wouldn't participate even on the off-chance the thread were revived. Yet, here I am, willing to give it a try.

So, Miyoi. Perhaps it's befitting her whole 'thing' towards the start of Lotus Eaters, but I often forget about her. Even within that manga, she's not the biggest feature, a lot of the chapters focusing on Reimu, Marisa, Suika, Mamizou, Aya, or any number of characters besides Geidontei's poster girl. On one hand, it's a little unfortunate, but I suppose, on the other, it's hard to say much about fundamental aspects of her character without addressing the elephant in the room: her relationship with Suika. As I suppose some part of that is a Big Plot Point — inasmuch as Touhou manga have those — who knows how much of that we'll get until the sudden (likely rushed) Big Crisis at the end of the manga.

Personally, I kind of want to know more about Miyoi as a zashiki-warashi. It is, of course, her nominal 'type' of being, but what does it really mean as far as her existence, particularly in relation to others? Why does she want Geidontei's master to remain ignorant of her? Why did she, unlike so many of her kind, want to leave her home? Why does she fiddle with peoples' memories in the first place? Why does she give them nightmares? Is some of that part of the nature of a zashiki-warashi, or is she somehow special in that respect?

I don't have too many answers, myself, but maybe those sorts of things can spur discussion? Beyond that, all I can really say is: Miyoi a cute.

I think that Miyoi is uniquely positioned in terms of relationships and situations. She lives in the human village and her trade means that she’s always interacting with all sorts of people. Regular humans, goddesses in disguise, pushy youkai after dark … she’s the sort of nexus that I don’t think you otherwise see in Touhou (Reimu and Marisa also move between those worlds as well but aren’t really part of the fabric of society). As shown in the manga, Miyoi does hear a lot about rumors or otherwise is aware of situations that are going on in Gensokyo. Unlike the normal heroines, she’s not typically personally involved in solving the bigger issues but her role as a supporting character or a link between other characters who are doing things is something valuable in storytelling.

I don’t want to be too reductive but some of what >>17623 is asking can be explained by youkai and their nature. She is pleasant, generally, but has a mischievous or darker side, which I think keeps in line with the general way youkai tales are presented. Suika doesn’t seem surprised by Miyoi giving people nightmares and amusing herself and so it seems like a normal enough thing for a youkai to do to me. Zashiki-warashi are known for playing pranks and given that she’s not permanently hurting anyone it seems in line with what one might do given the chance. The explanation of her wanting to see the world is something that probably can also be taken at face value because it’s not like zashiki-warashi can just spent their time wandering about; even the remote work thing in the chapters with Okina doesn’t sever them from being bound to residences; Miyoi saw an opportunity in the oni gourd and took it.

The relationship with Suika, in particular, is interesting with me, and the license she gives to Miyoi (while taking advantage of the opportunity to find a drinking spot) with her gourd and abilities is an interesting angle. We’ll have to wait to see if it gets expanded upon (I won’t hold my breath) but it’s at least been interesting to see things like how the sake generation works, how Suika indulges Miyoi and how she’s built up a spot for her and other select youkai in the village.

Do wish Miyoi would pop up in more stories. She’s made brief appearances here and there but nothing too substantial. I’ve had some ideas for some of the stuff I’ve worked on but for one reason or another I’ve had to cut out her role or work on other stuff first. Still, there’s plenty of potential for a short stories involving her and her customers, youkai, Reimu et al, or whomever else. As Lotus Eater has shown she’s a useful vehicle to look into the various goings-on in Gensokyo.

And yeah, she's pretty cute.

>>17624
You know, it's funny, now that you mention it: Miyoi, a youkai, being arguably more part of the fabric of society in the village than Reimu or Marisa can claim to be. Given that the whole 'nobody remembering who she is' thing has fallen aside a bit, I wonder if she isn't a presence in the neighbourhood. She probably can't move far from Geidontei, but she's clearly able to go outside, so it's not outside the realm of possibility that she could interact with people outside of the bar. What would the neighbours say about her, I wonder?

>Miyoi saw an opportunity in the oni gourd and took it
Sure, but why? A zashiki-warashi is generally focused on her 'home', so what would make her turn outward? I don't suspect it's as simple as 'because she could'.

>As Lotus Eater has shown she’s a useful vehicle to look into the various goings-on in Gensokyo.
Riding a whale....

...I wonder if that whale motif is ever going to get any kind of explanation. How does a hikkikomori house goast know what a whale is?

I've not read Lotus Eaters yet so I can't speak too much about her, but I can say that I love her design.

>>17626
I know, right? I remember being a little iffy on it when they first revealed Lotus Eaters, but it grew on me quickly. Part of it might be a slight affinity with pink-haired characters, of course. Still, the skirt with the Ibuki Gourd-like motif is pretty sweet. And, obviously, the whale hat.

>>17626
I want to buy her hat. It's so... it's such a... hat.

Kind of a dumb thing, but it is an interesting thing to note that douji (what Miyoi is to Suika; see >>17316 for more) and warashi sort of share a meaning of 'child'. I don't think that in itself is indicative of anything, but it is an interesting coincidence.

I guess Miyoi is kind of child-like in many ways. As >>17624 notes, her nightmare shenanigans and such are more like pranks than anything. Plus, she just kind of comes across that way, y'know? I want to pinch her cheeks and pat her head.

As to her relationship with Suika, I didn't quite realise it until it was pointed out, but Suika does give Miyoi a lot of leeway in spite of the latter being technically a servant/follower. Really, she doesn't ask that much of Miyoi beyond use of Geidontei at night. Though it does beg the question of why she went and had the poor girl scared witless before springing that idea. Do the two of them know each other particularly well? I can't remember too clearly, but I remember getting the sense that Suika had only sort of noticed Miyoi and let her go on living in the gourd out of whimsy, but had otherwise maybe not gone out of her way to interact before?

Something I kind of wonder about with Miyoi and the whole zashiki-warashi thing is: what happens to her when the old man dies? There's no sense that the old man ever had a family, so it seems likely that Geidontei just sort of dies off after he's gone. Even though she can move off on the gourd, she does seem attached to the bar. It makes me wonder if she isn't thinking about a future where she moves homes, or if she would rather disappear with Geidontei.

I find there's a couple of question marks that emerge about Miyoi especially regarding her being a Zashiki-Warashi.

there is one of the chapters about the Zashiki-Warashi's disappearing from the village (again) but Miyoi wasn't one of them, and in fact she did not know about where they went at all? why was she excluded from Okina's remote work scheme?

Also she is markedly different from the other Zashiki-warashi since they are pretty much all much smaller than her. I don't know if it is explicitly said in the manga's themselves or elsewhere in touhou and thus can't confirm if this is actually canon, but the touhou wiki describes them as "Child-like"... which Miyoi isn't.

I do enjoy the Lotus Eater manga, especially how Miyoi kinda acts for her regular night customers (Suika, Aya, and Mamizou) in a similar manner to how Kosuzu did for Reimu and Marisa in her own manga. even if they all have to strut their scary reputations before inviting themselves into her night shift. (which gives us her various scared faces so... at least we get some amusement from it! XD)

>>17625
>I wonder if she isn't a presence in the neighbourhood
We see her talking to random humans outside Geitondei in some panels. An example off the top of my head when it was raining and she was trying to get them to leave the village (and was ultimately ignored). Given the very large and lively village depicted in LE (and to a lesser extent, FS), I don't think that random people really think much about her as they go one with their lives—she's just another villager to them. To her immediate neighbors maybe she's just the cheery granddaughter of Geidontei's master.

> How does a hikkikomori house goast know what a whale is?
Could be something as banal as the master read about them one time and thought they were neat and ordered a sign made with one. Miyoi has simply copied that motif.

>A zashiki-warashi is generally focused on her 'home', so what would make her turn outward?
I feel like this can be bundled with what >>17630 brings up. The other zashiki-warashi didn't necessarily want to stay in their same old environment either, hence the "remote work". They all, voluntarily, decided to go away from their homes and to stay elsewhere. Having the Ibuiki gourd, Miyoi had an outlet that wasn't available to her peers.

>>17629
>douji and warashi
They have a laugh about that early on in the manga, when Suika starts dropping in at nights.

I don't think they have much of a relationship prior and Suika generally comes off to me as whimsical and fairly kind-hearted while playing up the oni aspect of herself when it's convenient (like to banter with Mamizou or Aya, or save Reimu from being a dummy and giving her visitors food poisoning). I'm not sure how much time had passed between Miyoi inhabiting the gourd and the beginning of the manga, but I got the impression it had been a very recent development; Suika's first interaction with Miyoi is as a patron when she's undercover as a human. I'm assuming that they are getting to know each other better as the time passes, with Suika (and others) often sharing with her knowledge about drinks and practices. The closest thing we've gotten to more serious "plot" was when the taoists popped up and the relationship between Miyoi/the Ibuiki gourd/Suika became important again. So it's maybe their relationship isn't just about having a drinking spot in the village but one of mutual utility.

It's hard to speculate what Miyoi's long-term plans are. My take is that she's helping out the bar because it's fun. She's very much a people person and takes clear satisfaction from cooking properly, serving new drinks, and otherwise pleasing the customers. So, if the old man dies ... maybe she'd try to keep running things herself? She's probably get support from her (now) acquaintances, both human and youkai. The point is made that zashiki-warashi need to move, yes, but that chapter is also called "Change is the Way of Youkai" and I think that the events of LE, generally, show how resourceful youkai can be in finding new ways to thrive.

>>17630
They're basically children in most traditional depictions (some theories of their origin say that they're an outgrowth of the high child mortality that happened during years of famine). But I wouldn't read too much into their appearance in Touhou as artists and their assistants have a lot of latitude in depicting what to draw and how to draw it (ZUN is more involved in the general story and dialogue) . They're consistent with their depiction in WaHH more than anything and I think that Miyoi's marked differences with them has more to do with practical concern with making her character visually stand out. I'm not sure if LE tankobon have been released yet but, if they're anything like FS' releases, they may have a little extra bit of stuff from ZUN and/or the artist where they talk about stuff like that. Of course, you're free to disagree and speculate otherwise but I haven't seen anything else in the manga that sets up some sort of large reveal about Miyoi (unlike the obvious stuff in WaHH).

>>17631
>I don't think that random people really think much about her as they go one with their lives—she's just another villager to them. To her immediate neighbors maybe she's just the cheery granddaughter of Geidontei's master.
Hmm, a very incognito Miyoi, huh? Makes me wonder what she could possibly see that others can't if she could blend in that well. Maybe there's no need for a monke detective...

>They all, voluntarily, decided to go away from their homes and to stay elsewhere.
That chapter felt poorly-done in terms of conveying why they'd done anything; it ended up feeling a bit like they'd just run off "just because lol". See also: Miyoi's lack of relevance through much of it despite it being about zashiki-warashi.

>I got the impression it had been a very recent development
Same, and I kind of wish there was more indication as to how recently. Then again, ambiguity is grounds for people to explore. I'd read something with Suika and Miyoi becoming better friends or whatever as long as it's cozy.

>>17630
She's pretty child-like personality-wise.

>>17632
>She's pretty child-like personality-wise.

I'm not too sure I agree mostly off of her being a... waitress isn't the right word I'm pretty sure, but still.

on a different not further on the question of her being a Zashiki-Warashi aside from what I ahve already mentioned, it is interesting that despite her constant corrections on the subject that most people that talk to her long enough to take a guess at what she is, most, if not all do not peg her as a Zashiki-Warashi, but rather something else. though that might be tied to her personal power over dreams.

something else that occours to me is that from the first couple of chapters it seems that they were implying that Miyoi has in fact been present at quite a few of the after incident parties at the Hakurei Shrine (they remember her after some reminder in chapter 1) meaning that she could have been going for a long while and just recent circumstances are... weakening(?) her ability to make others forget (Reimu seems to consistently remember her at this point, and Marisa is getting there herself.) it perhaps helps that they now have knowledge about her from a source aside from just directly interacting with her.

>>17623
>who knows how much of that we'll get until the sudden (likely rushed) Big Crisis at the end of the manga.

I think this big crisis might not end up being as rushed as it might seem right now. there seems to be some sort of set up going on hinting at a possible confrontation by the Taoists after Miyoi left behind a Geidontei bowl after rescuing Suika from them.

though I do get the feeling that that confrontation might be happening soon.

I think it's pretty safe to say that Miyoi is just pretending to be a Zashiki-Warashi, or at the very least only fits into the definition on a very technical basis. More likely than not she's some sort of Alp which falls in line with how Remilia thought hobgoblins would be a good replacement for the zashiki.

Thinking about pink-haired characters makes me wonder what would happen if Miyoi encountered Kasen. Given both her connection to the resident Japanese goblin and her frequent dealings with Reimu, it'd be a little weird if they didn't cross paths. I bet it'd be pretty tense, especially with how Kasen generally likes to avoid Suika. Then again, maybe Geidontei's poster girl's sunniness and simplistic diligence could win over a horny hermit.

>>17634
I don't think it's safe to say that at all. There may well be other things going on with her but she does seem to be unambiguously a zashiki-warashi. Otherwise she would not need Suika's gourd to wander around (and hadn't before), nor would she have been worried about Suika disappearing with the gourd in the chapters where the latter is underground dealing with the aftermath of Yuuma. Yuugi taking her in for a while saved her from disappearing.

>>17636
Oh shit, I forgot about the big drunk underground bear letting her crash at her pad.

Can you imagine a story with Miyoi being roomies with Yuugi? Miyoi would try to be the voice of reason, but she's just too adorable (and bulliable) to take seriously. Suika would be watching the chaos from afar and laughing her ass off, occasionally drifting in and out like an absentee dad when she wants to stir up some shit.

>>17635

its rather interesting how the main characters of the characters introduced in the mangas don't really interact with each other much, if at all ( the three fairies seem to be the exception.) this especially noticeable between Miyoi and the other village resident manga protagonist Kosuzu. especially considering LE ch. 49&50 which Kosuzu could have solved pretty instantly.

I find there are a lot of interesting comparisons between the two, both live in the village, but Miyoi bring a comparative Youkai perspective to contrast to Kosuzu's Human one.

>>17638
Compared to the book-lender, Miyoi's less of a dummy and doesn't have to be bailed out as much for getting herself in trouble. She's more of a victim of others causing trouble that she has no real hand in beyond maybe guilt by association (e.g., being a youkai). And very often, she's not even affected much by things going on beyond being a distant witness at most.

>>17638
Funnily enough, the perspective we get with Miyoi feels more human to me than Kosuzu's. Maybe it's because of the other characters, including the human regulars, but Kosuzu seemed like she's more in her own isolated world and has very little sense of what's normal in the day-to-day. That Kosuzu draws the wrong conclusions from reading stuff like magazines doesn't help things either.

The youkai perspective in LE kind of comes through more from the other youkai characters like Mamizou, Aya, and Suika than Miyoi herself.

>spoiler text
If you mean the postmarks, not sure that she'd be able to know what they were since they're not really writing or a book as such.

>>17640
That makes me wonder what would come of Miyoi reading the same sorts of things. Would she rationalise it as 2deep4her and drop it? Would she try to make sense of it in some quaintly ordinary way? I guess she might come to weird conclusions herself, but perhaps ones less likely to lead to some sort of disastrous action on her part.

But, well, I guess it makes sense that a zashiki-warashi might have a slightly more 'human' perspective, considering they're in an almost symbiotic relationship with them. Even youkai like the ones named, who are reasonably friendly with humans, can only mostly see things from the perspective of how they benefit from humans.

>>17639
heck at this point Miyoi has managed to get someone else (namely Suika) out of trouble herself!
and the main time she was really in trouble that I recall, the association was of the other Geidontei night patrons (because Yukari felt left out XP ...oh boy what sort of face do you think Miyoi would make if Yukari showed up one night? probably a similar one to what she would make if she learned the naggy patron she gave nightmares to was Kanako)

>>17640
Kosuzu's ability is to be able to understand any writing she reads and so while she might lack context she'd be able to tell the writings were taking inventory of the food storage inside rather than any sort of curse for Reimu to cleanse or whatnot. Granted since it was Mamizou that was behind it leads to the headcanon I have to fill in that plothole, but this is Miyoi's discussion and not Kosuzu's. and as for whether her powers would apply in that instance, well, it worked for the fox kid's wall doodlings, so it should work there too?

>>17643
>if she learned the naggy patron she gave nightmares to was Kanako
Maybe an initial shock followed by still feeling justified, I'd think. Kanako was extremely insulting, god or no.

>if Yukari showed up one night
Not sure she even knows who Yukari is unless Suika's told her. It's hard to say if she has that much of a perspective of things that far above her pay-grade, either. If they act relatively normal, I think Miyoi would probably treat anybody the same, youkai sage, god, human, or otherwise.

Actually, somebody remind me, did Kanako return to Geidontei after that? Kanako being a humbled regular at Geidontei would make for... dunno about a good story premise, but it would maybe fit into a story somewhere, I guess.

Kind of unfortunate that the cool fashionable onee-san Kanako was just a vehicle for ZUN having an old man rant about sake production and the overemphasis on 'purity' in modern brewing. We'll probably never get any more.

>>17644

the end of ch.15 mentions (and shows) that Kanako does still show up in her disguise "from time to time" though she still very opinionated during those times according to Miyoi

Vampire, resident of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, and younger sister of Remilia. Flandre isn't typically seen in public or at the many drinking parties in Gensokyo—unlike her sister—and spends most of her days inside her home. With her blonde hair, more brash attitude, and strange bejeweled wings, she does not attempt to put on the same air of refinement and sophistication that her elder sister does. Flandre is capable of immense destructive power and a few interesting spellcards, such as cloning herself. First appearing as the Extra Stage boss in Embodiment of the Scarlet Devil, she has since made mostly minor appearances in other games and print works, and finally debuted as a playable character in Sunken Fossil World.

https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Strange_Creators_of_Outer_World/Who%27s_Who_of_Humans_%26_Youkai_in_Gensokyo/Remilia_and_Flandre_Scarlet
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Perfect_Memento_in_Strict_Sense/Flandre_Scarlet
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Bohemian_Archive_in_Japanese_Red/Flandre

Since nobody wants to start, might as well with something. Maybe people are afraid of her?

I used to hate her but I've grown to like the character a little more with th17.5 onwards, where I think she has a very cool movesets (well, most movesets are great there but still). Let's say I learnt to tolerate her. I still think she's overrated, though, and having her as a fave 2hu is probably a red flag.

I never understood the crystals on her wings, or the "wings" themselves.
Are those real? Prosthetics? Are the crystals necessary or are they for decoration?

I like to think the crystals are supposed to tinkle like a windchime.
Design-wise, the wings make zero sense but those plus Laevateinn gives you possible one of the most recognizable silhouettes ever.

That's it for now. Maybe I'll make a follow up, who knows.

I don't care for Flandre on the whole, but I'd say she's also had little chance thus far. In my mind, she was barely a character until her most recent appearances. Like, we didn't know that much about her beyond fairly basic things. Now we have a slightly more sketched out picture of her personality, though I feel like the second artist for Detective Monke ignored much of the first half's nuance.

I haven't seen any particularly moving portrayals of her on THP. Even in Scarlet Tycoon, which I helped work on, I always felt a little unsatisfied with how she was depicted in the couple of brief appearances she got, always leaning a little too far into 'moonbat bipolar loli' territory. I was entertained somewhat by her one canon appearance in Theater of Youth, but that was more for the comedy of having a swipe at Flan fans than anything particularly serious; Arc was certainly not going to go out of his way to see her again, I felt.

Setting aside my own biases against SDM characters, if I were to include Flan in a story nowadays, I think I'd try to get away from the whole 'caged animal' sort of character that's been typical for a while. Perhaps she has her own particular view of things, but I don't think that necessarily makes her psychotic or mentally disturbed. Beyond that... I'd have to think on it.

>>17647
I don't get the wings, either. I guess they could be an illusion? Maybe the crystals aren't really part of them and they're like accessories. If they really are her wings, then I have no clue beyond maybe them being some kind of... magical prosthesis?

I guess I like to think of them as something Flan herself thinks is cool and impressive. Others look at them and are probably as baffled as any of us.

In the limited early canon appearances of Flandre, she came off to me as irreverent and the kind of character that just did whatever they wanted when they wanted. I’ve never really thought much of her as a character and the usual depictions in fiction tended to portray her as mentally unstable, childish or, in some more uncharitable circumstances, a nymphet—takes that did nothing for me. In the Satori manga she’s shown to be more nuanced, staying in her own little world but also running roughshod over everyone else when the opportunity arose. Still, a little naive and not really prone to thinking about things carefully. (Her as a convoluted plot device after the artist swap and the ensuing “top 10 epic anime confrontations” chapters is a regrettable development and doesn’t really do much for the character. It perhaps only pleases the easily impressed who don’t care for substance. But I digress.)

I think that an interesting approach to depicting her might involve exploring her relationship with her sister as it’s clear that they don’t see eye to eye on things. The question of how she keeps busy year-on-year also is another opening, I think. She’s in that sparse and windowless room of hers because she wants to be but how does she occupy her time? Can't be playing with toys all the time for. Read? If so, what kind of books? Tales of knights and princesses? I-novels featuring middle-aged authors in Taisho-era Japan? Does she also share her sister’s western sensibilities or clear preference for that aesthetic? Is that indicative of their origin or just a coincidence? The possibilities are many and I don’t think most of the stories I’ve seen her in deal with her voluntary isolation and what may lead her to be a recluse so unlike her gregarious sister.

Maybe she’s doomed to remain a scary creature that most people avoid, content to ripping them apart if the opportunity arises. That would be a shame, I think. But it’s hard to get past the very large baggage of early modern Touhou and the way that the SDM was fêted and featured prominently in both official works and in fandom.

>>17647
I don't want to read too much into depictions in manga as those can be just a matter of artist's preferences and lack of time for detail but the crystals seem to just magically float beneath her wings with no clear attachment. Perhaps fancy ornamentation she's chosen for herself.

I've been writing a little bit about Flandre lately, so I've had to do some thinking into her character as well. My read on her is that she enjoys a good fight and opportunity to flex her powers, especially the eye-crushing destruction thing.

Each time we see her out of the house, it's usually for the explicit purpose of a fight (EoSD vs Reimu/Marisa, SFW vs Yuuma) or otherwise to flex her powers (destroying the meteor in BaiJR, showing up for the festival in GoU). Of course, a one-hit kill ends most fights pretty quickly, so she can't use her signature ability on most enemies. When she had the chance to fight Yuuma, who could survive being destroyed, she seemed pretty happy to get the chance to do that over and over again.

It's got to be almost impossible to stop her from doing what she wants. As she says, "It's impossible to lock me up." That does seem to influence her attitude, and how casual she is with everyone. Hard to fear anything when you have that in your back pocket.

I'll admit to having struggled with her a bit. She's not quite a meathead, but she's definitely a much more blunt character than her sister. She's also been much less prominent until 17.5 and FDS.

>>17650
>Maybe she’s doomed to remain a scary creature that most people avoid, content to ripping them apart if the opportunity arises.
Even canon seems to like positioning her that way; at the very least, she's always kind of a boogeyman that makes people nervous.

That said, I agree that her relationship with Remilia is something that's not very often commented on, much less explored to any real degree. From what little I recall, the consensus tends to land on them largely not interacting at all, with Remilia doing everything she can to avoid it. Given all else, I wouldn't blame Remilia for not wanting to have much to do with her sister. I feel like, even if she's not restrained as such, there's still a strongly unspoken sense in the SDM that Flandre should be encouraged to stay put as much as possible.

I think what makes it difficult to say a lot is not having much of a sense of the history of the Scarlets and their estate. We don't know a lot about what they may have gone through together, much less separately. Hell, we don't even know much about their origins. When I helped write Scarlet Tycoon, we made up a whole bunch of background for Remilia et al., but that's ultimately all it was: a fabrication for that story.

But, erm, as to Flandre herself, I do also wonder what she does to pass the time. Something that was brought up in Scarlet Tycoon was the possibility of her painting, and whilst it doesn't seem 'likely' — inasmuch as anything can be likely with 2hus — it would be interesting if she had something of an artistic streak. Given that she's more of a recluse, it'd make sense that she'd mostly do things that can be done alone and that take a lot of time and effort. Maybe she crawls around Patchouli's library and helps herself to books, reading up on the wide world she mostly doesn't step into. There is that certain naïvite to her character that makes me think she would probably be a little bit inquisitive about all sorts of things.

>But it’s hard to get past the very large baggage of early modern Touhou and the way that the SDM was fêted and featured prominently in both official works and in fandom.
Pretty big part of why I don't touch on them, myself; they've already got a lot of attention that other casts haven't, even if most of has a history of being quite shallow.

>>17651
>Each time we see her out of the house, it's usually for the explicit purpose of a fight
>It's got to be almost impossible to stop her from doing what she wants
>EoSD vs Reimu/Marisa
Well, in that case, she was actually confined to the SDM by Patchouli making it constantly rain, keeping her penned in by an aversion to running water.

Speaking of which, I don't think there's been much comment one way or another about her fearing the sun as much as her sister. I wonder about that. I mean, it'd be funny if that were more of a 'Remilia' thing than an innate 'weakness' to both of them.

>>17652
>I don't think there's been much comment one way or another about her fearing the sun as much as her sister.
Image from after the fighting at Myourenji.

>Maybe she crawls around Patchouli's library and helps herself to book
Maybe the fairy maids bring novels to her. Still raises the question of who curates the books and what her tastes are like.

>>17653
>second half of Detective Monke
into the trash it goes

>Maybe the fairy maids bring novels to her
Dunno, probably hard or even impossible to strong-arm them into doing anything that involves the other ojou-sama. Unless they don't know anything about it, but that seems unlikely since they probably talk.

>what her tastes are like
The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas? Who doesn't love a tale of adventure and cold-hearted revenge?

>>17654
Outright stated that they bring her trays of food and other things for her. Disliking a manga does not make it any less relevant.

>>17656
It's another detail from FDS. Discarding canon because you don't like it and taking a weird high ground and tone policing certainly doesn't add anything to the conversation. Do better.

Flandre's hard to say a lot about because she's largely isolated in her sister's mansion, and in the couple of times she's out of the mansion, it's viewed as a major event. We also don't get much of a view of her in more ordinary circumstances, so we don't have much clue what she's like when not in a combative state or gleefully strangling gatekeepers.

With how she's treated as being 'a bit strange', a shut-in, and a little naïve, I'd think she might be a bit of a gloomy child normally, maybe not having that much to say to anyone, a bit lost in her own world. It's likely nobody can tell very well what she's thinking, so they probably don't interact more than strictly necessary, unsure if anything they do or say might not provoke some fit of temper. Other maids aside, Sakuya might be the only one who has any significant degree of interactions with her, and that doesn't strike me as likely more than maybe the odd bit of empty chatter or question from Flandre's end, not going out of her way to encourage or discourage the younger sister, just maintaining a careful distance. Remilia may or may not have tried to have something of normal relationship with her sister at some point, but I feel like she's probably given up on that since, preferring to live out her life as if she's simply not there, occasionally reminded by some spot of bother, or maybe even the odd drop-in by Flandre, an occasion she probably greets with a forced smile, empty pleasantries, and cold sweat. I think Patchouli might be the one who would meet Flandre with the most open sense of disinterest, treating her like a pestering child, doing whatever she can to get rid of her as soon as possible, never really fearing her beyond what sorts of repercussions a full-on tantrum might have on the library, figuring she can use magic to keep her at bay otherwise, or pull someone else in to pacify her in a worst case scenario.

As far as Okina, I don't think they're likely to have much to do with each other after all is said and done. That seems like an arrangement of convenience and not much more.

>>17648

I thought Scarlet Tycoon Flandre was written well. Clearly dealing with her personal demons while still making an honest effort to be a functioning member of society. Maybe if that story got a few more threads it would have turned her into a Flandre this site could be proud of.

>>17660
Eh, sorry, but I'm gonna beg to differ. She was basically just girlrotting in Remilia's not-dungeon. The overall course of things was, well, the events of EoSD's extra stage, unintentionally caused by her dear sister's attempts at keeping an eye on her, stoking a growing agitation in the back of her mind at a lack of novelty in the confines of the mansion. Afterwards? Who knows.

The main writer was (obviously) much more focused on Remilia as a whole, and the inclusion of Flandre at all was more of an incidental bit of pathos than anything. Flandre could have factored into some exploration of the Scarlet sisters' background at some point, but that's already wading out into theoretical waters. I'm not saying she couldn't have shown up again, have been of actual consequence, and maybe even demonstrated the sorts of character traits ascribed. It's just, having an inside view, I don't feel it was likely she would be more than a momentary Sword of Damocles for Remilia.

>>17661

Well, mental health in fiction is a rather delicate subject. Even our ongoing stories like Green Eyes Online and Hakurō seem to have characters dealing with issues that deserve much more than the casually dismissive lip-service that fantasy-type settings typically pay to these kinds of things.

And, in a broader sense, I've never encountered a fantasy story that handles this topic particularly well. Perhaps hoping for a good Flandre story is simply asking too much.

>>17662
I wouldn't dismiss it as categorically impossible, but I have no idea what such a thing would look like. There's a lot of blanks that have to be filled in just to create context for her to do anything, and then there's the fact that her inner life is generally a mystery.

As to mental health as a topic, I think pathologising Flandre is kind of whatever. It's fine if she's just a weird kid, imo. In fact, I'd find it kind of refreshing if that was how she was treated in a story. People can make her 'crazy' if they want, but I can do without being hammered over the head with it.

Komachi is a shinigami who works as a ferrywoman on the river Sanzu, transporting the souls of the departed across to the other bank, where they await their turn to be judged by the Yama. She is a convivial character who enjoys a nice chat and will sometimes slack off from her duties. With that said, she is still shows concern about issues relating to ghosts, spirits, and the afterlife and is known to appear in Gensokyo to investigate unusual events or situations. Komachi has appeared in several games as well as official print works, being playable in Phantasmagoria of a Flower View and Scarlet Weather Rhapsody and appearing regularly in Wild and Horned Hermit where she and Kasen would chat about—among other things—ongoing events and problems.

https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Strange_Creators_of_Outer_World/Who%27s_Who_of_Humans_%26_Youkai_in_Gensokyo/Komachi_Onozuka
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Perfect_Memento_in_Strict_Sense/Komachi_Onozuka

I like Komachi quite a bit. She’s affable, easy-going, and her design is appealing. She appears a lot in the manga and seems to get along with most people that she meets. Add to that she knows a lot about the dead and humans and you’ve got yourself a character that should be easy to use in many different types of stories.

Sadly, that’s not really how things have worked out and there’s a dearth of good Komachi material out there.

I would like to know more about the ministry of right and wrong, generally, and her perspective might be interesting to see but stuff like her appearing in the village to find a wayward soul like in LE is a good enough hook for me. She probably spends most of her time at the Sanzu or Higan but she doesn’t seem to be restricted to where she might go within Gensokyo proper. Sure, a lot of the obvious stuff involving her might involve death in some capacity but I could definitely see her popping in for a drink and a snack in the village or building up a relationship with someone because they’re a good talker or are otherwise interesting. That’s more or less the case with Kasen, anyhow.

I’m not sure she has anything more than a professional/hierarchical relationship with Eiki. Eiki most likely doesn’t really approve of her initiatives beyond PoFV but I think that there’s usually not that much work to be done anyhow, seeing as Gensokyo is a fairly small place with few people that would die and need to cross the river every day. But maybe there’s something in exploring how Komachi might relate with other shinigami, perhaps the type that actually do hunt hermits?

All of this is off the top of my head, maybe I’ll have more to say later.

One has to wonder how necessary Komachi's job is. With the increasing amount of technology in Gensokyo, could Komachi not be replaced by a single steam boat? Even if she regularly uses her distance powers to cross the Sanzu river, that means the distance across the river is some tangible, objective measurement and not some metaphysical bullshit that requires her actual presence.

Pretty sure the whole 'pay literally all your spirit money just to cross a river' is a ploy by Big Shikigami to unfairly tax the marginalized, underrepresented spirit community.

>>17665
On one hand, I'd like to know a bit more about the afterlife/hell and what the particular deal is with the judging, reincarnation, etc. of the dead as an organisational structure. On the other, I don't know how many can deftly handle all of the unspoken Sino-Japanese-Buddhist baggage of ZUN's post-death-worlds in any exploration thereof. Yes, a lot of it is kind of handwave-y to start, without much adherence to tradition and folklore, but there's still the general... 'flavour' of it that I feel is jeopardised by mishandling.

As to Komachi herself, I do like her very loudly edokko aesthetic. She's the embodiment of iki in many ways: laid-back, detached, dedicated to leisure. I could see her perched on the side of the River Sanzu smoking a kiseru, waxing poetic about the frailty and fleetingness of life — before grabbing a passerby and cheerfully coercing them into paying for lunch. Maybe it's a sort of personal bias, but I bet she also gambles all the time, too, spending every bit of her winnings on fine drink and food.

I guess she would probably get along pretty well with the more laid-back or party-hardy sorts of characters. Speaking of which, I do wonder what sort of relationship she might have with Yuyuko, considering the latter is notionally in a seat of authority over some of the dead. Assuming Komachi's not just limited to her ferrywoman duties — and I think it's safe to say she's more of a general-purpose bureaucrat of the dead — what sort of organisational nonsense might necessitate a trip to the Netherworld? I think there's grounds for something there, maybe.

That said, I'm not sure on Komachi's inner life. We know a lot about the fact that she likes to, well, take it easy, but it doesn't say much about what she values. When we see her in official works, it's basically in the context of her occupation, so there's not much to go on outside of that. In the first place, what the hell is a shinigami? Yes, it's a thing described by Lafcadio Hearn in an obvious parallel to 'the Grim Reaper', and probably made up by him — but, that aside, what is it? What does it mean to be a kami whose existence comes with a functional role that corresponds to death? What does that mean for your everyday, moment-to-moment existence? Are you alive? Do you count as dead? Are you outside that dichotomy altogether? It's the sort of thing that raises fundamental questions that are hard to answer.

>>17667

Her laid-back personality might be a coping mechanism. If you think about it, she's got the absolute worst fucking job on the planet. I mean...most people would just laugh off angry ghosts and vengeful spirits as just another quirk of Gensokyo, but those would constitute the entirety of Komachi's customers. Every. Single. Day.

Eiki should be thanking her lucky stars the poor girl hasn't gone postal, as I don't imagine anyone living or dead can out-faith a god of death. Logically, it shouldn't even be possible.

>>17667
Yuyuko's duties and relationship with the rest of the afterlife is fairly vague and, to me, seems roughly to be "keep the spirits of the netherworld in the netherworld" and not much else. So not sure that Komachi would have much occasion to pop in but I'm sure that they'd get along fine, maybe taxing Youmu to keep both with plenty of drink and food.

I think I agree with the general aesthetic that you've brought up but I would perhaps not lean in too much on more modern (well, relatively) edo habits and perhaps think of the poems of and stories about her namesake, Ono no Komachi. Perhaps she is a romantic soul in that regard and perhaps the types of stories for which she stretches out the boat trips the most are those of forlorn love or great passion. Or, maybe, her cheery self isn't completely without nuance and she holds a little sadness or bitterness when it comes to those subjects.

I don't think she's any more alive or dead than any kishin or yama. That may be a cop out but it's not the kind of thing I believe ZUN has given much thought about in the general cosmology. The kami side of things doesn't seem like something that's very relevant to the character. But, hey, maybe she does need faith and the reason she's going around Gensokyo so openly with a scythe is to remind people of death and whatnot. I think it's more that she's so laid back that she doesn't care but there's nothing solid either way I guess.

>>17668
I don't think that she's dealing with all that much that's nasty. Vengeful spirits are mostly in the underground and come about in specific circumstances and ghosts, angry or not, tend to be around whatever they're still attached to (like drinking at Geidontei). The spirits of the dead are mostly just patiently waiting their turn to be judged by the yama.

https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/702172

This comic is a good summary of my thoughts on Komachi's behavior and personality. I think she's chatty and outgoing in the way friendlier taxi drivers are. She only sees her passengers once, so why not make the trip pleasant? I think it's how she would choose to handle her professional duties.

I also like the idea of her spending leisure time on gambling and drinking. She gives me the impression of someone who likes partying and carousing. There's several characters that opens up potential relationships with, but I don't have the brainpower to dwell on that right now.

https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/748691

I think of her relationship with Eiki as generally positive. Eiki would be exasperated at Komachi's laid-back behavior but also trust her to get things done when it matters. For her part, I think Komachi might be able to occasionally offer advice or suggestions to Eiki that she would recognize the worth of.

>>17669
No doubt that Yuyuko's duties to the afterlife are probably fairly limited. Still, I think it's not impossible that Komachi is sort of a general-purpose bureaucrat and would take it upon herself to 'conduct routine inspections' as an excuse to do little. Maybe not incredibly often, sure, but perhaps with some regularity.

>Perhaps she is a romantic soul in that regard and perhaps the types of stories for which she stretches out the boat trips the most are those of forlorn love or great passion. Or, maybe, her cheery self isn't completely without nuance and she holds a little sadness or bitterness when it comes to those subjects.
I see that as pretty compatible with the edokko aesthetic; there's a very 'living to die' kind of thing with iki-ness that carries a certain romanticism with it.

>That may be a cop out but it's not the kind of thing I believe ZUN has given much thought about in the general cosmology.
I mean, sure. It's just the sort of thing where it's hard to know how that sort of point of view affects how one sees things. The obvious answer is that we're supposed to wave our hand, assume she's 'like us' in most basic respects, and go on about our day. Still, that leaves a lot of gaps.

>ghosts and spirits
There's also the fact that most of the spirits of the dead who aren't ghosts or vengeful spirits — which is a whole thing that is kind of separate of the dead; an onryou is more of a powerful lingering emotion that becomes its own being than the person themselves — can't exactly speak or... well, do much in general beyond float around being vaguely conscious. Komachi just basically talks to herself when ferrying folks, so it's hardly that much of a strain. Plus, the real nasty shit goes to more direct agents of Hell, anyway.

>>17670
In all honesty, I don't think she has that much of a relationship with Eiki. They know each other from being part of the same machinery and have interacted, but those interactions were largely of the same nature as, say, someone from one department complaining at someone from a different department because their lack of addressing an issue has caused problems with their own work.

I mean, we don't know how many other subordinates are under Eiki's jurisdiction, how many report to her directly, etc., so skies the limit, I guess. But, I dunno, feels like being the yama would put you at a pretty far remove from someone like Komachi, who's more just a low-level cog in the machine.

...I wish there was an org chart of the afterlife.

>>17670
If I had to cross over into the afterlife, I'd certainly want someone as affable and cute as Komachi to take me there.

>>17671
I suppose that I don't really see her as a bureaucrat, though I guess everyone involved with the the ministry of right and wrong would qualify. It's odd to extend the notion of bureaucracy and its associations with paperwork and labyrinthine regulations with other creatures like kishin as well. But anyway, what Komachi's other duties may be is definitely something I'd like to know more about. Her wandering about—or perhaps better put, perambulations around—Gensokyo seem to not have any real connecting tissue save for it involving the dead in some capacity. Yes, the netherworld is a place she might go to, but would she maybe take to inspecting cemeteries? Would she poke the taoists like she did Kasen, showing up t o their temple and remind them that their quest for immortality inevitably ends with the agents of the afterlife winning? Would she be disturbed or maybe amused by Kaguya, Mokou, and Eirin or is all that nonsense simply above her pay grade and hence not worth bothering with initiative?

I'd like to see something light in tone, maybe comedic, of Komachi doing these things while claiming work expenses for food and drink at bars and restaurants. One would think Eiki would not be amused if she found out.

>>17672
The Ministry of Right and Wrong are talked about in terms of things like needing funding for operations, and the whole thing is clearly taken from the Chinese folk-Buddhist model of the afterlife, Enma and all, so it's hard not to think of it as a massive cosmic bureaucracy.

That said, I guess Komachi would qualify more as a 'functionary' than a full-on bureaucrat. At least, I can't see her doing much paperwork. Even if there are matters of procedure and the like, I'd bet she fobs them off on others, perhaps pushing her fellow reapers into covering for her. Honestly, that'd make for a pretty funny story: Komachi the irresponsible office worker and her reaper co-workers who have to put up with her lackadaisicalness.

I do think Komachi might take a certain interest in Yoshika, the latter being a corpse reanimated with no regard to its former personhood. I don't know if she would care enough to take any action against Seiga over it, but I think she might feel a certain sympathy. I'm not sure how she would interact with Seiga, though. Might not be real amicable.

As to the mooninites and hobo, well, she'd probably lean towards amused, I think. They're technically outside the purview of life and death now, so there's no real reason for her duties to involve them. Still, she might find their points of view interesting given that freedom from the normal bounds of living.

The hermit responsible for convincing Miko of the virtues of Taoism, Seiga first appeared in Ten Desires and acted to protect the mausoleum where Miko would be resurrected. Described as a “wicked hermit”, Seiga is self-centered and does not hesitate to deceive others. Among the immortal acts she has committed, the reanimation of corpses into Jianshi stands out. She controls and uses (the mostly mindless) Miyako Yoshika, using her to guard places or do other tasks subject to her whims. Seiga has managed to persist as a hermit despite moving from her native land to Japan (and, eventually, to Gensokyo) and the occasional attacks by kishin to end her unnaturally-extended life and to have her fall into hell. Seiga’s hairpin allows her to open holes in any wall, pass through, and then have the hole close, allowing her to enter and leave most pleases as she pleases.

https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Symposium_of_Post-mysticism/Seiga_Kaku
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Strange_Creators_of_Outer_World/Who%27s_Who_of_Humans_%26_Youkai_in_Gensokyo/Yoshika_Miyako_and_Seiga_Kaku

>>17674
Addendum to above: include discussions of Yoshika if you like, as she's not really much of a character on her own right and it would make little sense to have be the subject of a future roll.

>>17675
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Symposium_of_Post-mysticism/Yoshika_Miyako

Throwing in this just so we've got all resources linked.

>>17674
She stole my Christmas tree

Seiga's not a character I have any particularly strong feeling about... and yet I do kind of feel like she could be explored somehow. She's someone who is, at her core, a deeply conceited and selfish kind of evil, who in her heart-of-hearts cares for absolutely nobody but herself, and that's something I haven't seen touched on too much with her. Also, I think there's a tendency to associate her too much with Miko; despite their past ties, I'm pretty sure the resident Nyan-Nyan gives zero fucks about the puffball head and has only ever used her as a means to an end.

Yoshika is the cuter and more immediately interesting one, but it's sort of by virtue of being Seiga's accessory. She's inherently mysterious because there's no definite handhold on who she might have been in life. Rather than being a person of her own, she's more of a monument to the beautiful sadness of a life passed, made permanent(-ish) in a twisted way. I think there are a lot of stories about grief and holding on far too long that can be told through Yoshika.

Running on empty, so that's all I can muster for the moment.

>>17674
Let's just go ahead and get this out of the way; Seiga is objectively the sexiest Touhou character ever made. You're free to debate it, but the science is settled.

Anyways, for me, Seiga is simultaneously one of Touhou's darker characters while also being one of its more childish characters. That is, if there was any Touhou character that would fit the label of "Disney Villain" the most, I feel like it would be Seiga. She's fun, she's friendly, she's charismatic, but she's undeniably evil, doing evil for the sake of evil like stealing Christmas. She proudly calls herself a wicked hermit, and carries a business card. For lighter stories, I think going this route is the best and it's always entertaining.

I unfortunately don't know much about both Seiga's inspiration source as well as Taoism, and I feel knowing both, particularly the latter, would help in creating a more in-depth Seiga. I've seen multiple interpretations of the backstory where she's married. Suikakasen goes with a pretty positive interpretation, where the two clearly had a level of love for each other, but you could go in other directions too. One poster a while back said that the marriage would've been forced back then since her husband had snuck in to sleep beside her, and likely while Seiga was younger. Here the escape into Taoism can be interpreted as freedom, and adds to how carefree she seems to be with her actions, doing wicked things without concern or care.

How though does one reconcile her acts as a hermit, someone who is trying to achieve enlightenment and virtue to enter heaven, while being unrepentantly evil and thus shut out from heaven? You can't say she's unskilled in Taoism as that simply isn't the truth, she taught Miko and everything we see shows that she is skilled and intelligent. She even has a bit of zeal for Taoism, so it's hard to argue she's using it purely for utilitarian means. I think this may be why many stories in the West tend to avoid using Seiga for much more than necrophilia jokes - to be able to write about a character with whom Taoism is an important part of her beliefs and worldviews, you yourself need to know Taoism. And most Westerners don't know Taoism.

I'd love to see her used more in stories and fanworks (and it's not like she's unused, she's fairly common for a not-TH6-8 girl), she seems like the kind of character who would be starting incidents. But due to the difficulty of Taoism, I doubt we'll see much with her in the West that goes deep into her character. At least the Disney Villain Seiga is still very fun though.

On a final minor note, Seiga really benefits from Desire Drive being a popular song.

>>17679
Saying 'Taoism' is kind of like saying 'Shintoism': it falsely implies a monolithic character to what's actually a broad, convoluted field of heterogeneous folk religions somewhat artificially crammed together because someone or other saw fit to apply some philosophical framework to claim them as 'the same thing'. In the case of Taoism-as-she-is-practised (as opposed to 'philosophical Taoism', which is 'people playing word games with the text of the Tao Te Ching'), you're looking at a whole shitload of different Chinese regional folk beliefs thrown together with smatterings of Neo-Confucian cosmological superstition-disguised-as-science and droplets of folk figure mutterings. This manifests itself in expressions as benign as temples to folks gods and as dangerous as encouraging others to drink mercury. In most Japanese media, Taoism works out to simply a nonsensical shorthand vehicle for ye olde Ancient Chinese Secrets™ (just like Nai-Nai used to make). So, basically, no real need to know much beyond the most stereotypical trappings to deal with Seiga because it ultimately doesn't mean much beyond 'Chinese-themed occult bollocks'.

Seiga being unabashedly evil is something fairly different from most characters in the serious. She dotes on her pet corpse even while she desecrates whatever Yoshika’s memory might be, speaking kindly of her puppet and taking the time to ask Aya to take a picture of them together. She cheats death, she tricked and abandoned her family, she does what she pleases when she pleases. I find the unapologetic nature of it an attractive quality. Don’t get me wrong, she’s awful and would likely only habitually associate with anyone in order to take advantage of them or get something that she wants. But there’s a freedom when it comes to writing a character who is likely unbound by conventionally-accepted morality and whose worldview, while not outright hedonistic, is about self-interest and enjoying her freedom.

Most characters who know of her would be wary of her. Those who don’t know her might find her pleasant enough in a casual interaction as she’s not murderous or otherwise unhinged. Still, learning more about her might be interesting to experience in writing; seeing that there’s things off about her, that her judgment is unconventional, and the dawning horror of what she’s done with the poor dead young girl. Still, maybe that might be balanced by the charm that she has with her foreign (read: Chinese) ways and also that she’s one of the few characters who has actually been married and likely has a pragmatic understanding of those sorts of bonds and relationships (though, yeah, she rejected hers). While I’m not sure that I would lean into the more sexual aspects of hers casually when storytelling, they are still implicitly there, and could be explored if relevant to the narrative.

>>17678
>I think there's a tendency to associate her too much with Miko [...]
She’s definitely not part of the strange hermit temple thing Miko has going on and in SoPM Miko distances herself from Seiga when pressed. So whatever affection there may exist is likely to be one-sided and come from Seiga.

>>17679
I’ll mostly echo what >>17690 said about Taoism and emphasize that it’s a whole patchwork of ideas that range from traditional practices to esoteric alchemical and magical practices that don’t really have much relevance to whatever Laozi may have written. More importantly than that, Taoism as a whole has not been examined in Touhou (nor, really, any other religion beyond its superficial traits and often syncretic practices within Japanese culture) and so it isn’t really an angle that I think would be worth investing oneself with when telling a story. The systems and expressions of cultural identity (including religiosity) in Touhou are fundamentally Japanese and I don’t see any character existing outside of that perception or assumption. Even more obviously Chinese things in the series like Lunarians or Son Biten are evidently very much viewed from a solidly Japanese perspective. I mean, obviously, tell whatever story you think is interesting, but I don’t think Taoism is really relevant to the setting or character motivations except in the most superficial of ways.

>>17681
>while not outright hedonistic
You know, that's sort of an angle I don't think I've ever seen done with Seiga. What in the heck would that even look like? It's a vaguely interesting thought.

As to other characters' reactions to Seiga, I'm sure there are some who would flinch less, even at the less savoury aspects, though probably few who would applaud her or feel much sympathy. For instance, I feel like someone like Komachi wouldn't be very shocked by much of her villainy, even if she'd probably take her to task somewhat on the necromancy. Overall, of course, yeah, most others would likely not take well to a wicked hermit's shadier side.

>The systems and expressions of cultural identity (including religiosity) in Touhou are fundamentally Japanese and I don’t see any character existing outside of that perception or assumption.
Honestly, this needs to be a sign so we can tap it in any discussion.

Come to think of it, Seiga's (and Yoshika as well, by association) one of those characters where we have absolutely no idea where they are on an everyday basis. She doesn't have any real lingering connection to Miko and company, so it seems likely that she has a place of her own somewhere. I guess the boring, but sensible, answer would be that she has her own little hidden world like the other hermits. However, a much more interesting possibility to consider is if she lives in the village, almost hidden in plain sight. After all, even though she's a wicked hermit, she mostly leaves others alone unless they pique her interest. There is the problem of Yoshika being a bit more of a noticeable piece of furniture, but either Seiga keeps her out of sight, maybe sending her off with orders to do some inane task to keep her busy, or perhaps the villagers, as they're often portrayed in the manga, don't even notice she's a walking corpse. It would certainly be in the normal spirit of things for folks to only think that the pretty Chinese lady and the oddly pale girl are just a couple of oddballs, nothing too rare in Gensokyo.

>>17683
I don't see Yoshika moving much at all. Last we "saw" her, in AFiEU, she was still hanging around the cemetery around Myourenji. So whatever setup Seiga has, she mostly leaves Yoshika up to her own devices or sees her whenever she feels like it.

But, yeah, I could see Seiga living in the village. She might be bored of the quiet and calm of senaki and choose to live where the action is, as it were. Could just be an unused room in a mansion somewhere she is squatting in, coming and going as she pleases. Maybe she's wicked enough to use her taoist magic to beguile the master of the house. Wouldn't put it above her and would certainly fit the selfish, manipulative, and cruel beauty trope found in so much Eastern literature.

>>17684
>I don't see Yoshika moving much at all.
I mean, she doesn't do much of her own accord since she's more like a meat automaton than anything. If she does move around, it's because Seiga's given her specific instructions to do, even if it amounts to '10 move forward 20 move backward 30 GOTO 10'.

>unused room in a mansion
>beguile the master of the house
Wouldn't shock me if she did something like poisoning someone to steal their house and gain a bonus corpse doll on top.

Though, having said that, I guess she's not strictly a necromancer as such. She certainly has Yoshika, but I can't remember if she has a specific predilection for making marionettes of the departed. And even if she does, she could be particular about whose corpses she uses. Maybe she only likes pretty corpses she can use as quasi-living dolls. Maybe she only wants corpses whose memories would really be defiled by making jiang-shi of them. Then there's probably hundreds of ways she might otherwise use a stiff for some occult devilry...

Anyway, I guess that would make for an interesting part of a story: Seiga usurping some old, well-off house, perhaps also its associated servants, and passing herself off as whatever's convenient as to not raise suspicions. Certainly opportunity for some horrifying revelations as, say, someone sticks their nose in further than would be wise.

On a rather tangential note, I wonder how Seiga and Orin might relate as morose, corpse-handling figures. Yes, the likelihood that they'd have much to do with each other is slim, but if they did, would they see it as a commonality? Would the corpse-cat find the wicked hermit an appealing presence and cosy up to her? Would Seiga see the feline as a unique opportunity to play around, if only to maybe steal a body or two out from under her? Or would they be antagonistic? Would Orin see Seiga as a poacher, someone who wants to muscle in on her game? Would Seiga perceive another disturber of the dead as competition and want to ward her away from any potential prizes? Perhaps some middle ground?

Both debuting in Undefined Fantastic Object, Shou and Nazrin have a strong relationship to the Buddhist deity, Bishamonten. Though Shou is nominally a monk and second-in-command at the Myouren temple, she is also a stand-in/avatar of Bishomonen, who is also worshiped at the temple, meaning that she is nominally an figure of worship herself. Nazrin was dispatched by Bishamonten to support Shou and keep an eye on her and, despite that mandate, does not live at Myourenji nor does she follow the temple’s other teachings and only appears there when she is called for by Shou.

Shou has tiger-like motifs in her appearance, her original youkai form having been based on the idea of a tiger. Her current form strongly resembles statues of her deity. Considered a youkai that attracts wealth, Shou is also capable of creating gems using the lasers of the Jeweled Pagoda gifted to her by Bishamonten.

Nazrin is much less ambiguously mouse-like, featuring large ears and a tail—she’s sometimes depicted in the company of normal mice, often carrying some in small basket. She uses her dowsing abilities, and the mice in her service, to locate treasure. Nazrin appeared for the first time as a playable character in Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost.

https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Strange_Creators_of_Outer_World/Who%27s_Who_of_Humans_%26_Youkai_in_Gensokyo/Nazrin_and_Shou_Toramaru
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Symposium_of_Post-mysticism/Shou_Toramaru
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Symposium_of_Post-mysticism/Nazrin

I guess I can see why they would be bundled together. It's unfortunate how Shou gets little screentime despite her somewhat interesting background. At least Naz got UDoALG.

Nazrin is consistently among my top favourite characters in spite of a relative paucity of proper appearances. I didn't especially like her as a boss in UFO, especially since her theme is kind of whatever, but her overall character has always been attractive to me. Fan depictions of her position her as something of 'yet another long-suffering servant character', which I don't entirely disagree with, but I think it's a little exaggerated most of the time. Really, part of what makes her interesting is her relative independence despite having notional ties to the Myourens. She just kind of runs around hunting down treasures on her own, living in her little hut near the dump. Plus, she's kind of a double-agent in terms of really being one of Bishamonten's high-ranking familiars but serving as underling to his avatar. There's something about her as a character that just feels kind of crafty, perhaps not in a big-brain kind of way, but she has a certain cleverness that keeps her alive. It's that sort of thing that allows her to be smug whilst also being a coward, which I find charming.

As far as depictions on THP, there haven't been too many, and most of the ones I can recall have been pretty incidental. About the only one I'd say was fairly close to good would be Summerfield's Sand and Pebbles, but even there she's not of especial focus despite being something of an anchoring point for the narrative. I've wanted to do something with her, but the lack of cohesion with the Myourens is kind of a double-edged sword when it comes to finding a narrative. I guess there's the general revelations(?) about having passing acquaintance with some of the other hell-bound characters, but even that doesn't immediately spark anything too compelling.

There's also something of a lack of definition beyond 'smug but cowardly' and 'treasure seeker'. How does she spend her days? What does serving under Shou look like? How does she interact with the others at the temple? How often is she even at the temple? Why does she look for treasure beyond the thrill of the chase? What would she do if she wasn't hunting treasure? What is it that she really values? These things aren't easy to come up with convincing answers to, which makes degrees of characterisation arbitrary, though I feel like there's a point past which it wouldn't come across as the same character if taken too far. (Of course, that point applies to just about anyone who isn't given prominent billing in the official media.)

...I've kind of run out of steam despite genuinely being enthusiastic for Naz. Well, more to be said later, I guess, plus I haven't really said much on Shou yet.

These are two characters which I don’t really have strong feelings about.

Shou, I guess, has at least has the aspect of being part of the Myouren gang. She’s not exactly a good Buddhist and, despite being a literal avatar of a “deity”, still drinks to excess and isn’t exactly disciplined. That’s a source of potential tension with Byakuren but, in practice, I don’t think it has really been explored very much in either official works or fandom. … Come to think of it, what is Bishamonten’s relationship to Myourenji? Selected an avatar and someone to keep in check but does this entity regularly interact with its disciples? Does Byakuren feel its (dis)pleasure at the state of affairs? The actual, practical, day-to-day affairs of the Myouren temple are pretty underdeveloped. So is Shou, I suppose. She might be Byakuren’s lieutenant (and also an object of worship) but I don’t think she’s setting up sutra recitals like Byakuren or taking on disciples or teaching others the ways of Buddhism. And, well, there’s a lot of criticism of Byakuren and how she’s not really the model Buddhist and on the path of enlightenment … but why would a big-name Buddhist entity like Bishamonton sanction a youkai Shou and, therefore, the temple and its head priest if it didn’t mean that they weren’t on the noble eightfold path (or, well, close enough to orthodox teachings).

I guess I’d enjoy seeing some of that possible tension explored in a story though Buddhism and examination of it aren’t really relevant to Touhou. A flawed Buddhist, a youkai that’s not above having fun, I guess is how I’d describe Shou.

As for Nazrin, she’s something of an ancillary character. She seems more interested in her own desires of finding treasures than life at the temple, let alone spreading the teachings of Shakyayuni. That she was chosen by Bishamonten seems to be a point of pride but, in a practical sense, doesn’t really change things as she’s not really interacting with Shou or the rest of the Myouren denizens regularly. I somehow doubt she’d have much to say about faith or enlightenment given her proclivities. Still, I think it could be fun to have her appear as a force in a story that leads to exploring forgotten treasures or areas, possibly entangling others in a complicated web of events. If things get too gnarly, I’d bet she’d sacrifice her mouse underlings in order to try a clean break. Maybe someone who could see through her and expected as much might fluster her and force her to get her own hands dirty.

>>17688
>what is Bishamonten’s relationship to Myourenji
>big-name Buddhist entity like Bishamonton
The thing is that, as far as Japan goes, Bishamonten is just another one of the Shichifukujin, who are by and large tied with material success and plenty, at least in the popular consciousness. The original manifestation, Vaisravana, is himself just a Hindu god integrated into Buddhist cosmology, but ties between Bishamonten as realised in Japan and Vaisravana seem pretty loose. That said, more esoteric strains of Japanese Buddhism do incorporate icons like Bishamonten, which feels kind of appropriate for Byakuren, who more than likely has embraced fairly esoteric practises herself. Really, though, Bishamonten's presence among the Myourens feels like, well, classic Japanese syncretism. I think it's probably split-the-difference on his role being somewhere between guaranteeing degrees of material fortune for the temple and some sort of conduit related to Byakuren's magic.

As to Shou, I do wonder about her role in the temple, practically speaking. There is the whole mixed-up deal with her technically being Byakuren's disciple but also worshipped by her as Bishamonten's avatar, which probably does fuel some strange tension at times. I could see there being a silent conflict between her and Byakuren over who serves whom, leading to degrees of dysfunction within the ranks. There could be a split in loyalties among the human adherents, some hewing closer to Byakuren, others closer to Shou. Granted, Shou does technically owe Byakuren for unspecified help in the past, so perhaps that's taking it a little far. Still, I think it'd be interesting.

>>17689

Surely 'Avatar of Bishamonten' is just a mantel Shou wears, tied into how the power and faith system works in Gensokyo, and not something actually sanctioned by Big Brother Bishamonten.

The behavior and discipline discrepancies noted by >>17688 certainly corroborate the idea that actual deities aren't micromanaging their assets in Gensokyo.

>>17690
It says outright in her SoPM profile that she's an 'avatar of Bishamonten', and her UFO profile outlines how all that happened, so saying that it's a self-styling or whatever is a stretch. I also fail to see how Shou not following strict Buddhist monastic asceticism is relevant to the idea of Bishamonten watching Shou; in her game profile, it says that Bishamonten more or less approved of her job as a faith-gatherer for himself, so whether or not she's a 'good Buddhist' doesn't seem to really matter — besides everything I just explained about his place as a syncretic deity figure who isn't necessarily of Buddhism in and of himself.

Anyway, more on-topic, given her whole deal with attracting riches, it's funny that Shou hasn't been shown having anything to do with gambling. Would someone like Sannyo know her deal and simply not allow her in her gambling den? Would any and all gamblers in Gensokyo be afraid of her having some kind of preternatural luck on account of her avatar-ness? Or would she not have any sort of perks in that regard at all and simply be another sucker? Maybe she's good at attracting the pity of others and using others' money? Maybe she'd just lose a lot of money? Either way, how would she view any gains? For herself? For the temple? For Bishamonten? Would she give most of it to Byakuren and pinch a little for a tipple? Would she go hog-wild and spend it all in one place? Would she hoard it and add it to a growing pile of riches, which she intends to swim in à la Scrooge McDuck? There's a few things in such a situation that would say a lot about her character.

First appearing in Urban Legend in Limbo, and ultimately responsible for that incident, Sumireko is a high school student from the outside world with an interest in the occult. After that incident, she begins visiting Gensokyo while dreaming in the outside world, interacting with numerous characters, notably Reimu and Marisa. She’s appeared in several of the official print works since, most prominently in the restarted Curiosities of Lotus Asia where she eventually does part-time work for a spell at Kourindou.

https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Strange_Creators_of_Outer_World/Who%27s_Who_of_Humans_%26_Youkai_in_Gensokyo/Sumireko_Usami
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/The_Grimoire_of_Usami

Sumireko feels like the most controversial modern Touhou character. People tend to really HATE her on account of being a zoomer, dominating in the written works and feeling like a "loved by everyone" character in those, and her personality coming off like a mouthpiece of ZUN.

For me, I feel like works that highlight Sumireko's devil-may-care and desire to do batshit crazy stuff like suicide-bomb the barrier and act more antagonistic to everyone make her feel much more likable to me than when she's used as a normal character. It's really strange.

Shout out to her fighting game debut, Artifical Dream, and USL.

I like her in concept if nothing else. The idea of a "modern" magician who uses ESP showing up was a good one and fit well with the Urban Legend incident. I also like that she was ultimately a pawn despite her literally strong showing. I haven't read the written works though, which may be why I haven't gotten as bad an impression as some other people here.
>>17693
Teenage esper does magic 9/11. What actually was her intention with the orbs? I know she was being duped by... Either Sagume or Mamizou? But I don't remember what they tricked her with.

>>17693
I'll dispute her coming off as a mouthpiece of ZUN since ZUN has very clear opinions about things (see the interviews/afterwords to any one of the games/print works) but I'll count myself on the side of people who dislike her as a character. She feels like Poochie the Dog, someone cynically foisted upon the fanbase by someone how pointed to "market research" and tried to tick all of the boxes of what "the youth" are into without understanding the culture of the works or its target demo. I wouldn't be surprised if the publishers or partners that ZUN works with pushed for a "relatable" character like her.

I have no problem with the concept of an outsider who comes into Gensokyo from time to time because reasons but she doesn't really seem to add anything to the setting and her self-admitted chuuni energy is incredibly off-putting. I do resent the hijacking of CoLA and of the pointless chapters in WaHH that don't really go anywhere but somehow major characters find themselves caring about some human and their fate among other instances. She's fine for a fighting game—those traditionally don't really tie in with the overall stories and themes of the mainline games and are often far sillier—but in other contexts she sticks out like a sore thumb. The more ambiguous take of Renko and Maribel was a better way to have outsiders peering into the fantasy of Gensokyo, there was no need to have an active actor who other characters inexplicably tolerate their nonsense.

I don't think I'd use her in a story except as, maybe, a passing reference, as I think she's fundamentally a bad fit for the rest of the setting. I haven't seen any portrayals of her that I've enjoyed and, indeed, the type of stories where she appears prominently tend not to be things that I find interesting or well-written. I'm trying not to be wholly negative but I'm struggling to think of anything that I find interesting or good about Sumireko; I don't find her design either good or bad; most of the feelings I have about her besides what I've mentioned are neutral at best.

>>17692
I think I liked her in USiL more than in any of the official works.

I'm often hyperbolic in expressing dislike of Usami Sumireko, but the truth is that I don't really care about her in any sense. Though I could certainly see her being something Kadokawa pressed ZUN into including for the sake of 'marketability', and thus her manifestation being something of an act of malicious compliance on ZUN's part, I don't think that's necessarily the case, considering how much she's been included in things thus far. In some ways, I think she represents Old Man ZUN having an Anno Hideaki moment and going "Man, otaku are dumb," albeit maybe in a slightly more tongue-in-cheek manner.

Just to stay on the 'otaku' thing for a moment, I'll point out some context that people often lack regarding her: She is basically the equivalent of a moonbat UFO chaser who reads the equivalent of tabloids and desperately wants every headline to be true. I don't know how much of a 'subculture' it actually is in reality, but there's this image of an 'occult otaku' in some Japanese media — someone who reads tabloid-like publications about 'UMAs', alien sightings, or supposed evidence of ritual cults or whatever, spends all their money on supposedly 'magical' objects sold by dubious individuals, and wastes a lot of their free time trying to conduct hokey 'rituals' and 'magical experiments' based on playground whispers. There's also the whole 'chuunibyou' thing, which I suggest consulting a search engine about if you're not familiar. Sumireko is basically an aggregate of these sorts of archetypes, except The Joke™ is that she actually has some degree of 'superhuman ability' (though it's poorly defined outside of in-game depictions, which are, well, in-game depictions) instead of merely being delusional.

Of course, there's the additional twist, requiring a bit of reading between the lines, that she's really kind of just, well, a typical insecure teenager deep-down. That is, no matter how much she inwardly (or outwardly, I guess) sneers at others for being conscious of things like trends, she's just as susceptible to the same kind of human mentalities she decries. A lot of this is kind of hard to pick up on without some cultural background, and I can't even begin to give an adequate primer on understanding the basics of such things, but I picked up on it pretty quickly when reading Nu-CoLA.

I do agree with >>17695 on disliking how other characters were made to immediately care about her despite there being nothing that compelling there. It feels like someone's harebrained OC manifested into official works. And, honestly, I feel like most depictions of her I've seen don't do much to dispel that feeling. Overall, I think she tends to get taken far too seriously despite being something you're not supposed to take very seriously at all.

Honestly, I'm trying to think of how I would better use her in a story, and I'm drawing a pretty big blank. It's partly a lack of care for the type of character she is, but also I kind of just don't think she's warranted in most cases; to include her at all in things is to ascribe far more importance than she really has. I dunno. Maybe I just need to take a breather and think some more before I can find a positive somewhere.

P.S. The whole 'Occult Balls' thing was an absolute mess, and I have an uncontrollable urge to make wanking gestures in the air every time it's brought up.

>>17694
>What actually was her intention with the orbs?
To 'break the border between reality and fantasy', basically. As noted above, she's basically a moonbat occult chaser who wants to believe in the supernatural so that she can be a special snowflake.

>I know she was being duped by... Either Sagume or Mamizou? But I don't remember what they tricked her with.
I'm not quite sure, but you might be referring to how Sagume hijacked her 'power stone' shenanigans as part of LoLK's incident. I don't care to remember much on the fighting games, but my recollection is that the one ball in particular was swapped with a different one, which Sumireko only noticed after the fact.

Considering just who my story stars, I think I'm legally obligated to post my thoughts this time around.

This may surprise you guys, but I find canon-Sumireko a pretty dislikable character. She really is a stereotypical high school girl, and I find her nicknames, speech patterns, and just general characterization to be irritating. I mean, in Urban Legend in Limbo, the various youkai basically put her through the Gensokyo equivalent of a haunted house just to give her a good scare and teach her a lesson... and her reaction is basically "Come on, forgive me! It was just a prank, bro!" before going for a dramatic suicide bombing.

Her later appearances I find less jarring, as it does seem like the scare given to her in ULiL made her grow up a little. That said, there's still elements I don't particularly care for. For example, Dream Sumireko declaring she's going to live the high life of a high school girl in VD, plus the bit about posting pictures of Reimu's danmaku for likes on Facebook. This is true to her being a high school girl, but compared to Gensokyo's variety of interesting youkai, a high school girl with a social media fixation and a few psychic powers feels like a bit of a letdown, and borderline out of place.

In all fairness, I do actually like her role in Grimoire of Usami. Aside from a bit of text-speech, I was fine with her judging (or "judging") the competition, and I thought Sumireko's role in setting up the fireworks competition was clever enough. I haven't read too much of her in the print works, so not much comment there.

Fair warning, if you don't care about my story, you can skip the rest of this post, but if you read (or at least keep tabs on) Urban Student in Limbo, you may find this interesting.

The first question is obvious. Given that I'm not a fan of canon Sumireko (she's not my least favorite character, but she's probably somewhere in the bottom quarter or so), why did I write a story where she's the secondary protagonist?

This came down to plot demands. Going into USiL, I had very little planning; the story was started pretty much on a whim. I knew I wanted an outsider protagonist, I knew I wanted them to have some magic without being particularly strong, and I emphatically did not want to resort to "Yukari's gapping in random people again".

As such, the canon example of an outsider magician getting lured into Gensokyo was a good place to start. And to make it even better, the loose idea I did have at the time was really compatible with the idea of urban legends.

If you're wondering what that original idea actually was? Male protagonist ends up in Gensokyo and runs into Koishi. Koishi decides to travel with him largely on a whim, they go around Gensokyo and she gradually starts to care about him... which shocks her once she realizes it, because that should be impossible. It turns out that while she's gaining emotions, her traveling companion/friend/love interest is losing his. And towards the end she finds out that this was the plan from the start; it's something that Satori set up to get her sister back at the cost of some random human. If you've been reading USiL, you'll realize the above idea has basically no relationship to what the story actually ended up being. Because I realized, if the idea was to use an urban legend to fix Koishi... why wouldn't Satori just seek the help of the people behind the Urban Legend Incident? And so the story proceeded from there.

But getting back to Sumireko, that was the initial reason she ended up in the story. You can't have a story set during the Urban Legend Incident that doesn't feature Sumireko. Though admittedly, I made an effort; the story's first vote was the option to leave Sumi behind and have your Gensokyo adventures without her. You can also see my opinion of canon-Sumireko reflected in her early usage and characterization. Before I got to grips with her as a character, I tended to minimize my usage of her beyond what the plot strictly required. Similarly, she's somewhat harsher with Greg than she really should be early on; that comes mostly down to me having not nailed down how close their friendship was at the time. I think Alice's house was the turning point there, where I started to figure out who my Sumi was as a character, and what made her different from canon-Sumireko.

Basically, USiL's Sumi has one key difference from canon-Sumireko, and that's her connection to Greg. Greg is a close friend that she helped build back up from his own personal low point, one who shares her passion for magic and helps cover her weaknesses quite well. She feels responsible for him and cares quite a bit about him, and that grounds her quite a bit; both her usual behavior and any dramatics she might resort to have to account for what that behavior will mean for Greg. (This is why she hasn't tried a barrier suicide bombing stunt yet; that wouldn't help Greg.) Greg also contrasts her in a few instructive ways as well; he's very much a good-aligned character where Sumi is more neutral, and his natural inclination to forgive others is contrasted by Sumi being more than willing to fight back blow for blow.

There's another aspect to her character I've played up a bit, though it's less of a change. And that's that Sumi is straight up a brilliant magician. She's self-taught, (though in USiL she did have a little help from a less gifted friend), but she's trading blows with the likes of Marisa, Miko, Kasen, and so on. Unfortunately for her, she's stuck in a world where plenty of youkai can match or exceed her power, but this does make for interesting writing opportunities. (Very Dresden-esque, if you will.) She has considerable firepower, decent versatility, and a sharp mind, while continually stuck in situations where the brute force she can apply just isn't enough. It's a nice recipe for clever underdog victories, though this is more on the plot device/ planning fights side than her actual characterization.

And with all that said... USiL's Sumi is still recognizably Sumireko. She's abrasive, proud of her magic, and a bit too willing to offend other people. She's still got that dramatic side to her as well; she does love a good bit of grandstanding, and has no problem with making a point in vicious fashion. But having a genuine friend she's trying to protect softens her character quite a bit, and that trait has developed into a key part of Sumi's personality: She doesn't care too much about what happens to random people, but the people she actually cares about she'll fight to the end for. She understands loyalty.

And I think that's the key thing that you need if you want to use Sumireko in an interesting way. By herself, she's an awkward, nerdy high schooler with psychic powers, who almost can't help feeling out of place. (In Gensokyo and the outside world both.) But give her someone to care about, and I think her character becomes significantly more interesting. This can be a close friend like Greg, it could be more of an adversarial rival like Nitori, or even just an outright enemy, but I think she really needs someone to bounce off of to draw the necessary depth out of her character. This is something she noticeably lacks in canon; she has a decent circle of acquaintances, but there's no one person she's particularly connected to. (Seriously, the character canon Sumireko has had the most meaningful interaction with is her own dream self.)

But yeah, I've definitely become fond of my Sumireko over time, and she does have a couple of my favorite moments in the story so far. She's definitely reached the point where she's more a variant of Sumireko (specifically, what if Sumi started with a close friend who shared her magical interests) than a straight interpretation of the canon character though.

>>17698
>And I think that's the key thing that you need if you want to use Sumireko in an interesting way. By herself, she's an awkward, nerdy high schooler with psychic powers, who almost can't help feeling out of place. (In Gensokyo and the outside world both.) But give her someone to care about, and I think her character becomes significantly more interesting. This can be a close friend like Greg, it could be more of an adversarial rival like Nitori, or even just an outright enemy, but I think she really needs someone to bounce off of to draw the necessary depth out of her character. This is something she noticeably lacks in canon; she has a decent circle of acquaintances, but there's no one person she's particularly connected to. (Seriously, the character canon Sumireko has had the most meaningful interaction with is her own dream self.)
I think this paragraph sums up the Sumireko problem and explains exactly why I liked USiL's Sumi over canon. But to expand on it: Canon has this occultist/magician/super loner type with a zoomer dream self, but she's all alone. Wanted to research this secret sealed-off world? No, gets chased around for her trouble. Her own incident got manipulated by moonies and she didn't even realize. I think she gets intimidated into watching some human get carried off to his death at one point. Then her dream self tries to replace her real self - which, notably, even in the official works everybody treats as "problem solving itself". THAT'S the kind of treatment she's getting. It's like the very picture of human hubris before the unknown. BUT.

But if you simply give this eccentric an actual friend to care about and be together with (doesn't even matter who, it might as well be Mokou), suddenly none of this even matters, because the point of the story isn't hubris anymore, but friendship and curiosity. She sees a witch who casually vaporizes a whole pond just to defeat her? If she's with someone, it's not for vainglory or pride she's fighting, it's for them not to kick it.

So yeah, this might be why.

>spoiler
That's the developer commentary mode I did not expect to see today. Then again, the current state of chaos is absolutely better.

I've never once even opened these discussion threads, but I wanna change that. Problem is that I don't really have anything intelligent to say on any of the characters, or if I do, I keep those thoughts secret because I plan on writing something that I want to rip off the cover of and go, "BEHOLD!"

I have a Sumireko cameo in my next chapter…? Well, I guess because of my limited knowledge and understanding of the character I plan on writing her as "Reimu if she grew up in the outside world." That could be a little interesting, right? Actually, I think I will put that on the ideas list.

>>17698
I really liked reading this, though!

Come to think of it, we have a limited picture of how Sumireko sees human society in Gensokyo, but I do wonder how she would react when confronted with something like tengu society. She's the kind of character who is mired in present day Japan's obsessions with rumour-mongering and myth-making. Would she recognise the tengu as the sort of funhouse mirror reflection of humans that they are? Would she find the engrossing? Would she completely fail to see the parallels and be repulsed? Would she simply look at them, make a smug internal remark about 'things these days', and tip her fedora in self-satisfaction?

I see a kind of tendency for humans to somehow 'get' the Other seen in youkai in fanworks, but I think there's an opportunity vis-a-vis someone like Sumireko, who's a little know-it-all, to show off someone who misses the point entirely.

Also, not to get too off-topic, but...

>>17700
>Problem is that I don't really have anything intelligent to say on any of the characters
If you read back through the threads, you'll see there's rarely much pithy said most of the time. Frankly, flinging out the most interesting/insightful/what-have-you remark about the topical character possible is far from the point of the thread. A better metric for participation is "Is this something anyone can offer any sort of meaningful response to?" What that means in practise — hell if I know.

So, honestly, whatever. You have an opinion on Sumireko? Give it. You wish she was something else? Express that. You disagree with someone's take? Dispute it. It doesn't have to be in the form of an essay, nor does it have to be profound.

>>17701
Yeah, sure, okay.

>>17695
I am less than inclined to believe she was a "market research" character or one pushed on ZUN either, if only due to how by sheer weight of her name Usami connects her to Renko Usami and Maribel, and thus to Yukari through whatever the true connection between Yukari and Maribel turns out to be. That sounds a bit more important of a position to give to a character that was pushed onto him by someone else.

furthermore if she is someone that was foisted on ZUN... why has he made it so there's now FOUR of her running around? (Her, her doppelganger through which she interacts with Gensokyo, her Dream self, and now thanks to CoLA, her AI self that now also is appearing in gensokyo.)

A little side note off of this point, but it is kinda interesting that really despite the last hashtag at the end of VD's final boss fight neither of the combatants were really the "Real" Sumireiko Usami as a CoLA chapter has Kasen and Mamizou confirm that the Real Sumi was alive and fine in the outside world just not able to interact with Gensokyo at the time

------------------

Sumireko has some interesting comparisons and contrasts to other characters. Firstly, as an outsider that showed up and caused an incident in Gensokyo she has some comparison to Sanae. though there's some difference in generations and whatnot. quite a different fan reaction at that as well! Sumireiko is far more casual about youkai than Sanae is.(Kasen complaining how casual Sumi is regarding Youkai compared to how aggressive Sanae can be to some of them, such as Kogasa.)

speaking of Sanae, as well as >>17694 's post it is rather interesting that Sumireiko and Sanae have not interacted at all so far in canon games, as well we have an outside world Priestess, born with incredible power, and an outside world "magician" who is incredibly focused on her craft. meaning that Sumi is in some ways to Marisa that Sanae is to Reimu.

which brings me to the other character that I would compare Sumi to, namely Marisa, especially considering that latest chapter of Lotus Eater's, with Marisa barely avoiding going Youkai thanks to Miyoi's intervention. meanwhile I might be misremembering here, but If I do recall correctly, because of the Doppelganger situation that Sumi is using to interact with Gensokyo... she is technically guaranteed to become a Youkai at her death. though that was in part due to her doppelganger being less mortal than her human self so it will continue when she dies, though I am unsure if it would basically house her soul or develop its own at that point?

>>17703
The harsh truth of the matter is that the the point releases in Touhou are of lesser importance and the events that happen there are less relevant to the setting and characters. This informs all other things I’ll say.

Though to foist may mean to force in some contexts, I made no claim of forcible imposition. I did say that she felt like an addition that was pushed by publishers or partners who work with ZUN. He is not particularly jealous or closed off to other ideas and has given considerable latitude before to artists (ie changes in CDS, comments in FS) and other studios (Twilight Frontier adding Shion and making changes to the roster) who have worked on the franchise.

The connection with Renko is as ethereal as Yukari’s is to Maribel—a splendid reference, but nothing concrete, nothing that can be used to define characters on either side of the equation. The types of stories told in the music CDs are not only different in format, obviously, but mood and how they add to the world of Touhou. Sumireko does not expand anything, she is something inserted clumsily into the middle of an existing dynamic and the implication is that somehow we are all supposed to care. It does not matter how many irrelevant clones or “selves” of Sumireko may exist, she is still a foreign body in more than one sense, and she has very little impact on the setting as she does nothing for the overall moods and themes. Perhaps another symposium-like print work may change things but I wouldn’t hold my breath and would bet that she’ll be just one of many characters who fall by the wayside in future works. Until then we endure and can only speculate.

So, maybe in the end, the other sense of “foisted” may be appropriate after all!

Hatate first appeared as a playable character in Double Spoiler, a point release game in the vein of Shoot the Bullet. A crow tengu journalist, she has her own newspaper called the Kakashi Spirit News and competes with other papers such as Aya’s own Bunbunmaru. Hatate possesses the ability of spirit photography which she uses in conjunction with her camera—a flip-phone—to look find images and information for her articles without having to leave her home. She’s something of a shut in and isn’t readily seen around Gensokyo, unlike Aya. Hatate has also appeared in several print works and in other non-mainline games but, most prominently, several of her articles have appeared in both Symposium of Post-mysticism and Alternative Facts in Eastern Utopia.

https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Strange_Creators_of_Outer_World/Who%27s_Who_of_Humans_%26_Youkai_in_Gensokyo/Hatate_Himekaidou

I heard someone once say (I believe in the discord) that Hatate's purple dress compared to Aya's red meant that Hatate was nobility and Aya was, if I remember correctly, of the warrior caste. According to the wiki, it's also possible that Hatate is the younger of the two. If that's the case then it would make for an interesting senpai-kouhai dynamic, so it's a shame ZUN never properly uses her for anything

>>17706
Heard a similar thing about colors and ranking/caste, and with Megumu being blue and a great tengu it does help the idea.

But man, when the first thing talked about this character is mostly the Tengu in general and not about her, it really does say how nothing Hatate is.

Sad but true

It’s a little bit of a shame that Hatate hasn’t appeared more in both canon materials and stories. She was basically forgotten about until AfiEU and even then it’s just her playing second fiddle to Aya’s … whatever you want to call that. Still, it doesn’t mean she’s not interesting. To me, she’s always felt like a nod, if not to say parody, of the 00s Japanese blogosphere/internet with her style of secondhand commenting (her phone can only search things for things already reported) that’s pre whatever we’d call current social media. This is not really something that people outside of Japan can really understand or relate to and my own exposure to that era of blogging/pre-smartphone-phone posting is limited.

That said, Hatate’s desire to go beyond her little bubble is what sets off DS as she’s looking at what Aya does. She’s assessing a rival and finding out how Aya kind of creates news by being involved with her subjects and a lot of her spellcard comments are interesting since they not only reflect her own (somewhat vapid but at least cheery) perspectives but also comments on Aya and the news-reporting business as a whole. It doesn’t clearly state why tengu bother with having multiple newspapers, sadly, but it does I think show a certain curiosity and dynamism that maybe plays out in the larger tengu society—might help explain why deals are struck with others like the Moriya and yamanba instead of the obvious course of isolationism.

Last we saw Hatate, she was still a relative recluse in her own little lair during the events of the Satori manga. As she doesn’t seem to be particularly shy or socially-awkward, it’s hard to imagine that she spends all her time by herself or most of her time working. Juvenile tengu spend their times mucking about in abandoned places around the mountain, wolves like Momiji play shogi, and Aya is a workaholic, so I’m not sure what Hatate might do for leisure. Perhaps given her possible connection to the kappa (via the camera phone) she also has access to other kappa tech including the not-pokemon games that they’ve developed. Or maybe she does take after Aya more than she might care to admit and does spend most of her time immersed in the world of news.

As it’s unlikely to see her outside of her home on the mountain, I suppose most stories that feature her would have to be set there. But maybe something else, not dissimilar to the events of DS, or some sort of newspaper competition, might get her to interact with the rest of the world. As she has much less practical experience interacting with Gensokyo’s denizens it could be amusing to see her act as a fish out of water and maybe fumble when trying to pass incognito in the village or something like that.

>>17706
>>17707
I have no idea where you might have gotten the idea about the colors as that's not a thing AFAIK. And, well, her relationship with Aya is clearly as rivals and both throw shade one another in their comments/articles.

smelly dumb phoneposting scum

But, more seriously, Hatate is fine. There's not a lot concrete established about her, but the same can be said for a whole slew of other characters. Hell, she's more developed in terms of having something resembling a basic motivation than a lot of 2hus.

But, well, recapitulating things that looking over the official material could tell you doesn't make for very interesting discussion, so I'll share a bit of my personal interpretation of Hatate as a character instead:

Maybe it's just because of her character design or interference from anime and 2hu fanworks, but I think of Hatate first and foremost as a bit of an 'ojou-sama' character. (I also have a predilection for those types, but that's neither here nor there.) It kind of tracks with her shallow experience of society and the world in general, as well as her initially dilettante approach to her paper. She comes across in that sense as someone who does it as a hobby rather than with any real ambition or need to be professional. I could very well see her being some slightly well-to-do crow family's little pearl who's never particularly been required to do anything and has devoted a great deal of her young life to leisure.

So, perhaps the Kakashi Nenpou was something started on a lark. Maybe, like most tengu, she was generally immersed in gossip and rumour-mongering as a social pursuit and thought to herself, "Gee, I could do that, too." Maybe she vaguely liked the idea of being lauded for having journalistic clout among the tengu, having got caught up in the furor of the newspaper competitions with everyone else. She got set up, perhaps begging some startup capital from her family, and proceeded to do it 'for funsies' for a while. Then, despite her relatively low standing, she took notice of Aya's ability to get fresher news and started to get curious. Following the events of Double Spoiler, her direct clash with Aya lights a small fire under her butt and makes her want to do things 'more seriously'.

That said, I think she's the sort to have pretty lukewarm ambitions. As mentioned, as of Detective Monke, she seems to generally still be following things from afar instead of getting dirty in the field. I think she's got the sort of curiosity necessary but perhaps lacks a certain confidence and drive to do the real field work without being compelled. A lot of times, she might give in to the temptation to take the easy way out on things, not quite able to bring herself to struggle at things. This probably causes others to view her as lazy and incapable, which more than likely galls her on some level, even if she tries to act like it doesn't bother her. I think she also has a definite competitive streak in her, and she probably wants to win approval from others but puts on something of an aloof, independent persona — a tsundere, if you will.

There's probably more I could say, but I think I've hit some of the more core things, so I won't turn this into an essay. I just think she's more interesting than some will give her credit for.

>>17709
>To me, she’s always felt like a nod, if not to say parody, of the 00s Japanese blogosphere/internet with her style of secondhand commenting [...] that’s pre whatever we’d call current social media.
Even into the age of social networking services, there's a whole load of what are called 'matome sites' that are comprised of edited together pieces of threads on places like 2ch, sometimes interspersed with (often vapid) reactions from the editor. I think there's an element of that involved, though there is certain a bit of that 'early noughts feature phone internet' sort of thing going on, too.

Though ZUN also did say somewhere, perhaps in an interview, that The Joke™ was basically 'lol Google', so it's probably also just a general crack at the kinds of things where people search up things, copy-paste them, and pass them off as their own take on something.

>might help explain why deals are struck with others like the Moriya and yamanba instead of the obvious course of isolationism
This is a point that people often overlook with the tengu, and I appreciate it being brought up. I certainly don't think Hatate is necessarily more than typical in her curiosity about things among her fellows, even if she's perhaps taken it a step further than some would.

>As she has much less practical experience interacting with Gensokyo’s denizens it could be amusing to see her act as a fish out of water and maybe fumble when trying to pass incognito in the village or something like that.
An interesting thought! I hadn't really thought of anything like that because I mostly think of Hatate in the context of the Mountain. Indeed, it would take a lot to dislodge her from it, I feel, but it would be interesting to see her outside of her accustomed environs. She strikes me as likely to wobble on her legs a little when faced with the unfamiliar.

>>17706
>>17707
The above anon has already kind of covered this, but I just want to say that any idea of tengu 'castes' or 'classes' is hard to nail anything down on besides general statements made by outside sources like Akyuu about the crows having one role, the wolfs having another, etc. Any definite statement on pretty much anything about the tengu is basically interpretation.

>>17710
>She comes across in that sense as someone who does it as a hobby rather than with any real ambition or need to be professional.
I feel similarly about her. She doesn't seem as dedicated as Aya is and I could see it come off as the hobby of a sheltered, well-to-do girl. We haven't seen how Aya lives (IMO probably in a shack surrounded by ink and mimeographs but that's neither here nor there) but we have caught glimpses of Hatate's, err, hideout and she does seem to have spacious real estate that's reasonable equipped. Who pays the bills or, at least, secured that space in the first place? I'd like to imagine that tengu fuss over the limited space on the mountain one way or the other.

I don't know if there's a real trajectory for her to get more ambitious, at least to the extent of leaving the mountain, but I don't think it would be impossible either.

>>17713
>Who pays the bills or, at least, secured that space in the first place? I'd like to imagine that tengu fuss over the limited space on the mountain one way or the other.
Perhaps Hatate's family is nouveau riche, having made a fortune out of a recently (read: within the last few decades) inflated real estate bubble. Given how much tengu society has been somewhat obliquely positioned as an allusionary distorted mirror image of post-war Japanese society, the idea that they could go through their own analogue of the bubble era — something that I felt a lot of the deal with Megumu and the events of UM could have dealt with but never did in any direct way — isn't that farfetched to me.

>trajectory for her to get more ambitious [...] to the extent of leaving the mountain
Would probably depend on the premise of any story involving her. I see her as someone who has a lot of (often unwarranted) pride in herself, even if she lacks the drive to do anything congruent to that pride much of the time, so any threat to that is probably enough to start pushing her out of her comfort zone. Or maybe she'd need shoving from outside circumstances, like rich girl Hatate being cut off by her family and needing to actually run a profitable paper. Hacky, sure, but reasonable.

Damn, I've been slacking. Need to get to all these characters and catch up again.

I'll say a few words about each of them, though know that I've got other thoughts hidden in the wings.

Miyoi

I think she has a prankster side to her that's tragically under-utilized. After all, her first couple chapters are basically just her going out and fucking with Reimu for a laugh. She strikes me, oftentimes, as someone who avoids trolling because it'd cause bigger trouble for her in the future, not because she's someone who's too nice to ever think of trolling someone. I think she can be really fun if you give her just a bit of a latent mean streak that the right situation can bring out.

Personal favourite depiction: The Kousei doujin where Akyuu has her number and she tries increasingly violent and desperate methods to suppress her memories. Here, have a link:
https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/5111358

Flandre:

I haven't yet decided how I'm going to depict her in R/R. I do think there's fun to be had in a variety of depictions for her - though I also think they work best as doujin characters and the like when she's got at least some grounding in sanity. If it's a song or something, go hog wild.

Though there is at least one point I want to keep in mind when we do get there. I personally quite heavily subscribe to a 'mind shapes the matter' mentality when it comes to youkai and gods - your mental age shapes your body more than your physical age, with some small exceptions. Which does mean that Flan, and Remi for that matter, are still children at heart.

I do like stories where she griefs her sister for fun, but not ones where she outright hates her. I kinda like ones where she ultimately agrees with her own incarceration, at least to a degree, or has otherwise managed to make the most of it - i like the idea that both scarlets are far more intelligent and wise than they appear at first glance.

The other thing I'll say is that, for a long time before I got into touhou proper, I knew about flandre's theme - through one video in particular. This video siad it was the 'full version' of flandre's theme, but it actually was a sequence of her canon theme from EOSD and 'Last Brutal Sister Flandre S' by cool&create. So for the longest time, I though flandre's theme had one perfectly normal run, and then went absolutely batshit metal after that. And I always thought that was the coolest shit ever - like what could otherwise be a perfectly normal boss suddenly burst and went batshit insane. Always loved that idea. current upload of that video has 15m views, so clearly I'm not the only one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jJZA-O_B78

Komachi

I really do wonder how she got her job, and how she keeps it for that matter. For the latter, at least part of it is that Eiki is a generally permissive employer when it comes to her employee's foibles, judging by komachi and kutaka both.

And speaking of kutaka, i've mentioned this when the chimken came up but kutaka is CRITICALLY underutilised when ti comes to exploring the relationships between her, eiki, komachi and the bureau. Kutaka and Komachi genuinely have almost entirely oppsite problems, and it'd be interesting to see how they interact in that setting.

As for before her current self... I think that's a massive well of untapped potential. Komachi is always framed as an employee of the ministry - and we've already seen with Jizou-turned-Yama Eiki that there's reasons to believe she wasn't always a shinigami. What was lil' Komachi like? I have this super-strong image of her being a hard worker when she was a kid, personally.

Kaku Seiga and Miyako Yoshika

Seiga's one of those oh-so-handy characters for a plot. She's the perfect person to fill in an 'evil genius' sort of role. Need a villain for your story? Need that person to also create some mcguffin or plot device to shake up the status quo? Seiga can fill one or both roles without a moment's hesitation and the most shallow and self-serving of benefits for herself.

As for Yoshika... I like a lot of depictions where she still has shades of her identity as miyako no yoshika, and kasen's gets hit with the world-shattering reality of her once-lover being turned from a male poet into a female zombie. But I also like her as a fleshy robot which is perfect for macabre roles. I did write her being used as a crowbar at one point, after all.

Toramaru Shou, and Nazrin

Poor Shou gets such a rough deal by the fans. You lose something important ONE time and people treat that like your entire personality.

Nazrin, meanwhile, gets cast as the brains of the operation. Often to the point where shou is essentially non-functional without her, and making her bratty and bossy as a result. The last part feels a step too far - one depiction I did enjoy with that basic dynamic as a premise had her going entirely the opposite direction, becoming so much of a shadow to shou that she didn't even speak in speech bubbles most of the time.

But I think it's far more true to both their characters, especially as evidenced if FDS, that the relationship is nowhere near so upside-down. While shou has her dopey moments, the truth is that she kept myouren's ragtag bunch of misfits together for centuries without hijiri in the picture - and she's actually one of the most level-headed both before and during the crisis.

Nazrin, meanwhile, is probably too smart for her own good. She strikes me as the sort to come with some sort 'if i do this, i can get 90% of the job done in half the time!' scheme that will only cause problems in the long run.

They're fun characters, with a fun dichotomy. LET SHOU BE A PLAYABLE CHARACTER ALREADY.

Sumireko

I don't think she's meant to be some kind of outright unambiguously likable character; she's a dumb brat who needs to spend a few years becoming a more rounded person. And frankly, I'm rolling my eyes at the conspiracy theories here about her being only added in by others demands across multiple entirely different genres. She wouldn't get so much prominence if she didn't have a point or purpose.

I feel like in practice, she often ends up similar to how I've heard some people describe Alex from YIIK. A character thats meant to be deconstructed but getting through her insufferable surface personality is more than most people can stand.

I don't think she's an author mouthpiece - rather the opposite, in fact. One very interesting aspect of Sumi that I've heard discussed is that she actually has a dichotomy with Sanae; Sanae being the embodiment of the benefits of the modern world, and Sumi being the embodiment of the downsides.

And in that light? Someone lonely and isolated and burying herself in a world of fantasy, while wearing a mask of superficial cheeriness and memery?

Personally, I like imagining her as Renko's mother. Mainly because I like imagining what it would take to ground her and round her out.

Hatate

Hatate's actually a super unique touhou precisely because she's NOT unique. It's actually rare to have two characters that can fill the same roles as each other, but aren't designed as a duo from the start. Heck, most of their appearances revolve around her being a counterpart to Aya, giving an entirely different perspective despite being nominally in the same role.

I like the idea that, while Aya's older, cynical and is used to 'playing ball' with the powers that be, Hatate's still a wide-eyed young idealist who's telling the truth no matter what trouble it gets her into (if only because she hasn't yet found the sort of trouble that'd MAKE her keep it quiet). Like she doesn't do as much to keep the tengu's secrets, but it's at least partially because she genuinely doesn't realise the tengu have secrets to be kept. The tengu wouldn't do that, right?

And that their rivalry comes, at least from Aya's end, the sneaking suspicion that hatate's the woman Aya really wants to be.

...Not really related, but I also subscribe to a headcanon that when it comes to tengu aesthetics, it's aerodynamicism that's value far more that hourglass figures. And that Aya and Momiji are very much the embodiment of lean, fit tengu grace, and Hatate... isn't.

>>17714
>Perhaps Hatate's family is nouveau riche
Personally wouldn't go that far in terms of speculation and would just lazily rest on the "hime" part of her name (yes, I know that it's not indicative of much) and the general sheltered outlook she had with reporting/people outside the mountain to say she just comes from some privilege and money. While ZUN does filter in outside fads/practices (sometimes for commentary), I'm not sure how far I'd push it in terms of the tengu being an oblique image of postwar Japanese society. Mostly because we don't actually know much about tengu society and what their daily lives are like.

>I see her as someone who has a lot of (often unwarranted) pride in herself [...]
I do share that, think that the way she takes the competition with Aya seriously indicates as much. Perhaps she could be goaded into leaving the mountain or the desire to get one over Aya (or whomever else) would motivate her. I suppose that I'd have to sit and think about if I were to try to write something where she's prominent as it'd also depend on the type of story and what other characters might be involved.

... I was going to give a go at replying to the large post since but I get the feeling that its author is entirely too self-absorbed to make the effort worthwhile even in the unlikely event of a reply. Not much point in posting sporadically in a thread if all they do is talk at people while attempting to attention to themselves. Why the assumption is made that others would care is a mystery. The point of the thread, as I understand from >>17621, is that we should try to talk to other posters about the current character and any ideas and points made about them. Concisely: aim to have a discussion and not a series of monologues.

>>17722
>the "hime" part of her name
I mean, I guess she could also just literally be a daughter of some very titled sort of family. I do think she probably comes from a privileged background, though I guess it's always possible for her to come from a comfortably middle class sort of background, perhaps being a spoiled only child or baby of the family. Feels more likely that she's just a rich brat, though.

>While ZUN does filter in outside fads/practices (sometimes for commentary), I'm not sure how far I'd push it in terms of the tengu being an oblique image of postwar Japanese society. Mostly because we don't actually know much about tengu society and what their daily lives are like.
We certainly don't have a lot of concrete info on tengu society, but what little we've got second- and third-hand doesn't feel exceptionally 'pre-modern' (as non-useful as such notions tend to be). Besides, there's a relatively strong energy of a well-developed material culture that comes with having things like an entire industry of newspapers. Granted, there's all kinds of basic information missing about how tengu 'work' on more fundamental levels, so I suppose there's always the possibility that they're so different to humans that things can't possibly have developed in a similar way. It's something that requires a lot of assumptions and leaps of faith to say much about, I guess.

>the way she takes the competition with Aya seriously
The other side of it is that Aya doesn't seem to take her very seriously at all. It's the sort of thing that makes me think of Hatate as someone who seeks others' acknowledgement, if not approval. Deep down, it's possible that she even admires Aya on some level, though she'll probably never admit to it. Or, at the very least, she might be very reluctant to admit it out loud.

>we should try to talk to other posters about the current character and any ideas and points made about them. Concisely: aim to have a discussion and not a series of monologues.
I agree with the sentiment, but I do think that there not being much of a culture of discussion on THP outside of particular contexts hampers this sort of thing; frankly, it already takes a certain degree of artifice to create any context for this discussion, so it's certainly not going to happen spontaneously. I don't have any good solution beyond doing my part, unfortunately. Perhaps it's the sort of thing that does warrant admonishment to draw public attention. Then again, that assumes people aren't just largely scrolling past everything, which isn't a safe assumption to make. It's certainly tricky.

...anyway, I find meta-talk a little uncomfortable here, so I'm going to leave off and hope I haven't set off any sort of conflagration.