/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>46745537
>How exactly do you determine if a character is undercooked or not? Can you give some types of examples?
Personally, I'd say setup and pay-off, both in the short and long term, define if a character is undercooked or not. Things that characters do or happen to them without setup bear no weight, and too much setup without conclusion is frustrating and lackluster, so balance is a first; secondly, the quality of both setup and pay-off, which should be self-explanatory, differs from person to person as it can be objective what someone thinks is good or not. Those two combine in their character moments and how well such moments can describe the characters.
For example, take Yukari's big character moment in the project and its ramifications : when she finally got pregnant. After 18 threads of setup, of increasingly maddening pursuit of that conception, of leaving only breadcrumbs for us to try to guess the answer, and of witnessing the terrible things she'd do to achieve her goals, such as the sword in the lake, she finally gets pregnant. And the first thing she does after that is go talk to the only person on Gensokyo who truly makes her happy, but who's also her greatest mistake—a conversation that reveals everything (why does she do the things she does? Why is she the way she is? If she could opt out of all this, would she? Are her motives sympathetic, or is she just completely unhinged?) and more. What follows is the culmination of all the new info we've gotten in the form of her talk with Anon, where she is again offered a way out, but the consequences of her actions, the HSE, stop her from changing.
>unhinged, absolutely implacable in her pursuit of 'true love';
>traumatized and full of millenium-aged regrets from which she's unable to let go, blaming herself for being powerless even though she's one of the strongest around, the thing that drives her search for more and more power to fill the void of weakness;
>a control freak who can't comprehend what love is, living a life that, because of her traumas, she thinks is built on fake love and desperately wants to change and fell something real;
Those three segments of chapters are Yukari, and perfectly define her character in the project.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, you have Sanae, a character I began writing for the Birthday Party and picked up again in the Keine finale. She did barely anything during the party, and they had no payoff as she was left untouched for a long time, a time when she had not an ounce of setup or depth added to her character. She was a plot device without any set-up to her name due to circumstances around the Moriyans and that was used to make the cold war between Yukari vs. Reimu and the Jobber Squad (as an entity) for Hana more digestible. Sanae is what an undercooked character looks like, but that can change, as sometimes all a character needs is the spotlight and time dedicated to them.
Again, that’s only my opinion.

>>45352840
beautiful 2hu image

>>45332532
if it were me on this, I'd never writefag here again. Hanabro wrote a shitton for the HSE too, seeing all been brushed aside it's disheartening as hell.
though that's ultimately his decision

>>45299360
I'll commend your soul, anon
thanks -- all categorization of info is good for smooth brains like mine

Based on everything I'd seen of Hearn and of Reimu's reaction to her, I expected that there was something more...Embarrassing involved, like she was honestly just really concerned for Reimu's wellbeing but had to disguise it under a lot of mystique, kidnapping, and grandeur. It seemed to fit with the way she'd acted about my plan to convince Yamame to stop eating human flesh back in the storm, when she'd said that she hoped that Yamame succeeded, but only after lecturing me on how she liked eating everything, including human. It was...a strange conversation in retrospect, but I had been mostly worried about being trapped somewhere weird at the time, so I hadn't really focused on it. Finally, I focused back on Ran, who'd seemingly managed to get herself out of the past and back into the present. I slowly asked her if we were good. "...Yes, we're good. I lost my temper over questions that you didn't understand why you shouldn't have asked. Just...Let's start again." She sat up straighter, inhaling deeply. "Tell me the rest of the Eientei Investigation." She said, her voice slipping back toward the calmer and more collected Ran that I'd begun the conversation with.

So I continued, and I continued until I was done. I explained my part in Eientei, then I explained what Reimu had told me and what Tenshi and Marisa had told me about their parts in Eientei. I explained the fight I'd watched against Reisen and Eirin, and how it had ended, including the gory details about Eirin's...Death. Ran didn't interrupt me, and after I'd finished recounting my roasting via Master Spark, she asked me some follow-up questions, then nodded in satisfaction. "Very good. This should be enough to make a report for Lady Hearn." She got to her feet. "This may not be part of my official orders, but I would like to tell you that Lady Hearn will be keeping an eye on the Eientei residents until they have proven that they can act unsupervised again." I asked her if this included the private therapy sessions I was having with Eirin, and Ran watched me impassively for a moment. "She will respect your privacy. Otherwise, Reimu would be upset." That wasn't as great of an answer as I was hoping for, but I'd take it for now.

With that conversation done and my awful attempt at asking questions put to rest, I wondered what was to happen now. "Well, Chen has yet to return, and I believe I know why. Your love is a tsuchigumo, correct?" I nodded. "I acquired a book on spiders from a bookstore in Hokkaido recently and gifted it to her as a reward. She enjoyed it. Perhaps a little too much, because it has become her new fixation." Books? "Spiders." Ah. "Indeed. Now, she's desperate to learn more, and I just sent her out to where a real spider youkai is." I could see what she was saying, so I suggested that we go and check for ourselves.

So, I stepped over to the door to Reimu's room and pulled it open. And then I stood there. And I kept standing there. And after a few moments, Ran physically moved me to the side and looked outside for herself. And then...She stood there. So there we both were. Standing and staring.

Because in front of us, on the veranda of the Hall of Worship, were Chen and Yamame, and Yamame was teaching Chen how to sew. "There, you see? You have to be careful about using too long of a thread. It'll wear out before you're finished. Oh, and make sure you sit up straight. Bad posture will cause more damage to you than Reimu ever could. Understood?" The two were sitting on the edge of the veranda, and I could see some sort of green cloth in Yamame's hands, but I couldn't quite tell what it was.

"Yes, Miss Yamame!" Chen replied happily, raising the green thing that Yamame had been holding herself. It looked like it was Chen's hat, actually. "Is it done? I think that’s all the stitches…"

"Not quite, Chen." Yamame replied, guiding Chen's hands back down. "Take a look at the inside." She flipped the hat inside-out. "See here?" She pointed at a clumped-up section of thread. "This is why we have to be careful about the thread tangling on the inside while we're working on the outside. Always make sure you're feeling the inside while you're going to prevent this."

"Oh...I think I get it." Chen said, looking down at the hat. "How, um, do we fix it? Do we have to undo the whole thing?" She sounded distinctly terrified of the possibility. “I hope not…”

Yamame shook her head. "No, we can do something clever instead." Yamame pulled a needle from her sleeve and brought it to the knotted bit of thread. "If we just..." She pulled, unwinding the thread slightly until the knot loosened. "Once the knot's loose, cut it in half and tie the ends up."