Let's attempt this resurrection with the help of Kazami Yuuka. She must know a thing or two about that, having been in both the PC98 run and the Windows revival, and even Seihou project as well! Like many Touhou characters, especially early ones, she's quite a vague figure, so there are many ways to interpret her, many ways to write her, many roles to give her in a story. But what you think about her in-game appearances? What do you think about her portrayal in fanworks? Do you have any ideas yourself?
Also, an organisational question: should characters be selected randomly, or should I just pick them myself?

>>18277
Most powerful youkai have strong characterizations, but Yuuka is left pretty vague. That means when I have a spot in a story than needs a generic powerful youkai that won't bring in lots of unwanted baggage, I tend to reach for Yuuka to fill that role.

>>18277
Yuuka is a nice, pleasant character. Not one of my favourites, but good to think about every once in a while. In the omikuji book, ZUN said that she's basically a guest character from the old works, that probably helps.
She fits the archetype of an old and powerful youkai, but not in a pompous way. She's a somewhat typical cheerful and carefree bully, there might even be something innocent to her threats, though not childish. Violence, destruction, it's all a bit of light-hearted fun for her, isn't it? Might also be an expression of her love for solitude, but I don't think it's as hateful as it seems. Hopefully she will continue to spend this eternity joyfully alone.
I also like her appearance, there's something light and cheery but calm and subdued about it. Also, remarkably for Touhou, she more or less feels like a real girl, visually speaking. It must be the hairstyle change — commonplace in real life, but kind of rare in fiction, unless it's a plot device. Her sleeping outfit is a bit whimsical, but otherwise, she's quite believable. She even reuses clothes in different outfits! Her vest and tie seem to be the same in Seihou and th9. It's great.
>>18280
Handy, isn't it, early Touhou vagueness. I feel like many fanworks use her that way, actually.

>>18277
I like when Yuuka has a mellow attitude. Despite her sadism she's a person who enjoys living a quiet lief away from trouble and even if she doesn't have any affinity for humans, she won't go out of her way to bother them.
Even if she is teases the people she runs across, she's careful about it and doesn't start trouble. I imagine she has a very ethereal beauty to her, with her being a person who enjoys the little things in life and long quiet days.

>>18277
Yuuka probably one the only Touhou characters I can think of that most depictions of her just kind of work. Like she can be full on sadistic monster, to not really well understood nice lady and anything between; and it really doesn't feel like a wrong version of her character.

There's can be a bit of fun when she shows up in some fan work, since you're not really sure how she'll be portrayed for a least a little bit.

>>18277
I think Yuuka's lack of appearances has actually helped her longevity in the fandom. She's remained pleasantly undisturbed, so people are free to approach her however they want. Want to pull in the way she acted in PC-98? Sure, go ahead. She's still plenty belligerent in PoFV. Want to make her more misunderstood and nicer? That's fine, just say that she was teasing specific characters, or that it was a strange day because of all the blooming flowers. Anything goes with her and none of it really feels wrong since there's little to work off of.
I'm a big fan of writing her as a character who's metaphorically in retirement. She's happy to just chill out and do whatever she wants, from strolling the Garden of the Sun to visiting the flower shop in the human village whenever she wants, regardless of what anything thinks. She's got a lot of patience and you'd have to actively work at it for a while to break it, but if you do, you're not going to like what you find.
There's no real call for this anywhere in canon except perhaps the fact that she refuses to properly fight the protagonist in LLS until she's gotten dressed, but I really like to see focus on her elegance. Especially when you then juxtapose it to when she loses her temper and gets into the violence.
I do like when she isn't outwardly threatening, or at least when it seems like it's unintentional. Making certain actions of her feel subtly threatening is a lot more fun to me.
P.S I get to ramble about flowers whenever I write her, and I love doing that.
P.P.S For me it's the green eyes and the hair over the eye. I love all her outfits equally.
P.P.P.S I really love her name. It seems to flow off the tongue great. Ka-za-mi Yuu-ka. It's just the right amount of hard and soft syllables.

>>18289
>P.P.P.S I really love her name. It seems to flow off the tongue great. Ka-za-mi Yuu-ka. It's just the right amount of hard and soft syllables.
Oh yeah! Flows well. I love cases when 風 is read as kaza as well. Just feels good phonetically! Is it fitting for her? I dunno, it's quite a simple, grounded name, actually, even if the spelling of the given name is a bit unusual. Is that Yuuka-like?

Something I feel that's worth mentioning with Kazami Yuuka specifically is that I saw a pixiv post that compared five different common depictions of her, translated now here on danbooru: https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/9053765?q=parent%3A9053765

And it really does attest to Yuuka's versatility that there's five measurably different styles of depictions she gets, even if they overlap at times.

I have something I like to call the Waluigi theory, where franchises actually thrive when there's a little bit of something vague enough to allow just about anything to fill it's place, something for fanworks to thrive in. Of course Touhou in general has always been S-tier in interpretation potential, but Kazami Yuuka does stand out as a particularly vague one.

>>18277
>Also, an organisational question: should characters be selected randomly, or should I just pick them myself?
Actually, wild thought; would it be worth pre-selecting say a trio each week (random or pre-picked), and then having the readers vote for one of them? It might be a good way to encourage people to keep engaged with the thread.

>>18296
Oh, neat analysis in the pictures, with different flavours of portraying an refined and powerful character. Though I don't think I've seen the "genuine shoujo type" anywhere, it feels a little off... The "gap moe tender type" is the closest to my own perception, as I usually gravitate towards more light-hearted tones, though I see her as more youthful and a little more energetic.

>Actually, wild thought; would it be worth pre-selecting say a trio each week (random or pre-picked), and then having the readers vote for one of them? It might be a good way to encourage people to keep engaged with the thread.
Hm! I don't mind, it would be a little exciting, though I feel like winning the vote should result in something more than just being the week's subject of discussion... But maybe it's enough.

>>18296

This is the main reason I enjoyed Yuuka's arc in Touhou Mystia's Izakaya. They choose to go with a gentle, cute-as-a-button Yuuka, yet her punishment spellcard for fucking up her order is just blasting the dinning area clean in half and then walking out, as calm as you please. Most punishment spellcards are some small, trivial thing you can work around, but Yuuka demands a level of respect not seen with any of the other customers. It really highlights the duality of her nature, and of nature in general, so well.

>>>>18321

Is that really what she does? Man, I gotta get around to playing the DLC sometime, that's awesome.

>>18307
Yeah, genuine shojo seems a bit rare. I tend to like silent appreciator and gap more. The only one I'd have to say I dislike is the final boss type.
Power wanking characters to be even stronger or all powerful or whatever just isn't appealing to me.
The same artist did patchouli as well which seems pretty neat, although that wasn't upload to dambooru. Really I feel like there are so many flavors of each character to play around with.

>>18321
Is it framed as comedic or more scary-like? Or is it just mundane?

>>18325
I found a clip of it. https://youtu.be/s615ej7XcWM?si=v5glGFbsNF7wq8OB&t=144
She really just chooses violence and cuts your customer possibilities in half. That's amazing.

>>18329
>Dislikes: Filling, Japanese, salty, hot
>Japanese
Lol, lmao even. You serve her Japanese food one time and they kill half your guests and wrecks half of your Izakaya.
I wonder if she enjoys Greek?

>>18336
>Dislikes: Filling, Japanese, salty, hot
>not spicy
ez

>>18329
Oh, that's pretty funny. I don't really know that game well, but it seems not even like demanding respect per se, like >>18321 said, but just something she thinks is natural to do in such a situation. Something about whimsical blue-and-orange youkai morality, a result of their power and longevity... It's cute, actually. I have to admit that it's cute.

>>18296
The big one for me is the Elegant Appreciator type. I love it when she's classy. Stuff like the Final Boss type and the Sadistic type really don't do much for me. It's just too obvious and it feels like it reduces her potential as a character. If you have that version in a story, there doesn't seem to be much different you can do or show off with her personality.
>>18324
>Patchouli
Damn, my anemic magician looks like THIS!??

>>18324
>The same artist did patchouli as well which seems pretty neat, although that wasn't upload to dambooru.
Actually, the Patchouli ones are on Danbooru as well, as well as ones for Yukari and Sakuya. It's just that the ones for Yuuka are the only ones that have been translated yet. They're collected in this pool: https://danbooru.donmai.us/pools/25196

>>18343
True, but the Patchouli and Sakuya ones were uploaded 19 hours ago, so they weren't on there when that post was made.

Aside from that, what made so many artists draw Yuuka with pantyhose? Was it just one of those things were people just felt like it fit? You see the same with Colorswapped Yuuka Raiko too.

>>18344
Something about serious reserved girls wearing tights, probably. When it comes to anime characters, more reserved and mature or ladylike girls are often drawn wearing tights, especially with uniforms. It's not a universal rule, but you see it often enough for it to become noticeable as a tendency. She is also drawn that way in the background of Hopeless Masquerade, and also in the Kasen manga, I believe. Though that's a symptom rather than the cause.
I have to say I don't really like it! It's a cute look, but not very cohesive. Her outfit has a breezy summery feeling that black tights don't fit very well into.

>>18345
I can't say I've paid too much attention to leggings in general unless it's directly emphasised, but now that you've pointed it out, I think I prefer legging-less, too. It's a bit of a colour clash from the rest of her palette, which is quite vibrant.

While we're discussing her personality type, what sort of relationship do you like her to have with the fairies and characters like Wriggle? Not like they interact in canon, of course, but I've seen everything from "loving mom type" to "scary lady who really means no harm despite everyone hating her" to "oh look, free targets".

To continue >>18345... I want to elaborate a bit on Yuuka's th9 clothes, I like them a lot. The trousers are good too, but I prefer A-line skirts above all.
Even though I hate the combination of a red skirt and vest with a yellow necktie on Reimu, Yuuka, whose outfit is superficially similar and has the same colours, doesn't have the same problem to me. Obviously, the difference in clothing items plays a part too, but the warm and sunny feel the colour combination has is much more fitting for the sunflower-themed girl. Her bright green hair also balances out the warm tones, being somewhat cooler, so it doesn't become unpleasant. It's like a cold wind on a hot day — though maybe I'm just making the comparison because such a wind is blowing in my face right now... The tartan print that the reds come with is quite stylish, too. It's what adds that summer feeling, it's almost like a country lolita outfit, but not exactly, as it's more casual. And those decorative buttons, even though they're often overlooked, really elevate her charm and fit her theme and interests very well.
Also, to continue >>18281, sorry, I just love the way ZUN dresses her: notice how it's mainly her shirts that change every time. Her shirt is noticeably different in every appearance, and that really is how people normally dress in real life! For example, with men's suits and the like, the shirts are more or less expendable, and it's the jacket and the trousers that are made to last, and while I don't think Yuuka necessarily views her shirts like that, as they would have been more plain then, she changes them much more easily. Her vest and trousers between th4 and th5 look more like the same garments -— I like to imagine that the minor differences were her additions, it wouldn't be that unusual for her to make and adjust her own clothes. Her vest had yellow embroidery in th4, but it disappeared in th5, by the way. It's a little funny, it's as if she didn't like it and ended up pulling it out.
Those clothing details are mainly what makes me see her as more youthful. Her fashion sense doesn't read as elegant or ladylike, if taken at face value. It's bright, comfortable and casual, maybe even with a slight pastoral feel. It may even be made to be easily washable if she actually does gardening dressed like that. I think she does, maybe not in the skirt (I don't think it would have had the decorative buttons in that case), but in the trousers, for sure.

To transition into replying
>>18346
>what sort of relationship do you like her to have with the fairies and characters like Wriggle? Not like they interact in canon, of course, but I've seen everything from "loving mom type" to "scary lady who really means no harm despite everyone hating her" to "oh look, free targets".
Basically, because of this casual feel I get from her, she's just a cheerful gardening enthusiast to me. I don't think she's a threat to the fairies as long as they don't mess with her work. I guess they'd treat her like you would your neighbours, who let you play in their yard as long as you don't break anything. And because even things like dying aren't a big deal to fairies, I don't think they'd be that scared.
Wriggle might have some sort of peace treaty with Yuuka. Like, the flowers get to be pest-free, and the bugs get to live, something like that. Maybe they could have been rivals in the past, haha. Not in a serious way.

>>18347
>Wriggle might have some sort of peace treaty with Yuuka. Like, the flowers get to be pest-free, and the bugs get to live, something like that.
It's important to remember that, while some insects are pests to plants, many plants are also dependent on insect pollinators to reproduce and survive as a species. Therefore, I don't think their relationship necessarily has to be an antagonistic one.

>>18348
True! But the pests, and stuff... It's at least somewhat rocky, I think