I chose it over using text speech like "lol" or "lmao".
Jesus Christ thank fuck you did that
... but anyway, I feel like I kinda lost the thread of this conversation, assuming it was meant to be a direct continuation ^^;
To summarize what I was going on about; my point was, "feels anime-esque to me" (which is of course short-hand for a very broad set of narrative elements that sometimes apply more precisely and sometimes less so), then you wondered why I felt that way, which makes sense, as I didn't explain - so I tried to explain, or at least line up the examples that signifiy that vibe to me.
But I'm
not confused about "haha" meaning that somebody is amused, or what ~ signifies. I'm just saying these are contributors to the anime-esque feeling (check how often ~ is used in web novels...).
Also, to reiterate, it's not a judgement of quality, just of
vibes. Or style. Or whatever you wanna call it.
I don't like to refer to her as a loli though
I kinda get that, since people can get touchy about it, but the concepts of "loli baba" and whatnot, again, very web novel, very "anime". Those are "fake lolis" too. It also doesn't matter whether they got a more mature body (see oppai loli, because that's of course a thing too ...) ... and yeah, then people sometimes can again get touchy about just being dismissive about characters that look younger than they are, or are more petite, or whatever, which of course can absolutely be real people too. But again, I'm not judging here, I'm just explaining where the vibe is coming from and that's definitely a major one.
The character still very much fits the trope so it reminds me of that trope. And it's a
very Japanese trope. ^^;
Okay, that's that; let's talk about one more things you mentioned -
As a general shoutout to anyone who might have a suggestion for an alternative to "haha", please offer away.
In my opinion: nothing. Nothing is the only correct answer
(a few select exceptions exist, ie a character literally saying "hahaha" like a character could, perhaps ironically, literally say "lol" in reference to the Internet term).
And anyone saying otherwise must be defenestrated for given bad writing advise.
Very much the same as you should never use "sobsob" or "buhuhu" for somebody crying. Which I don't think anyone would. So a bit confusing why more creators on here are ready to use "haha". Tone of dialogue is signposted in visual novels via the visuals (duh), and of course context. "Hey, what's wrong?" "Grandmother just died!" does not need any extra indicator that somebody might be sad (or shocked or angry, depending on further context), same as good banter doesn't either. The player
will get it.
Be bold about it. Let the reader develop the nuances of the tone.
Death of the author. It's
good writing. You do not need to specify ever little piece of theater stage instruction.
Poster winks. That's my hyperbolically stated writing advice on that regard anyway. I'm sure there's legitimate reasons to stick with "hahaha" ... but, dunno, give it a try without? Maybe you'll like it ^^;
Also, hm, I'm sorta debating on whether to bring this up at all or not, but -
Those lore reasons will present themselves in time.
Lore is ... almost fake justification. Characters are the way they are because they are written to be that way. So, to me, personally, when I say "this character feels very anime-innocent to me" an "here is there lore explaining it" is not much of an answer, or justification. That lore is as artificially manufactured as the character.
They aren't real people. They got no agency. They could have been written in any other way with any other lore.
It's like ... "why gets Shinobu turned into a donut-loving loli?" And then maybe somebody will explain why that happens to vampires in Bakemonogatari. But the "real" reason is of course because the author wrote her to be like that.
Which seems completely stupid to bring up since obviously all fiction writing works like that. Every single element of it. But I do tend to think it's an important distinction that sometimes is easily forgotten and shouldn't be ^^; But, eh. Just another of my many opinions
