The New Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium!

That might be what makes it hard, though. After all, it's not like there's anybody out there watching transactions or gathering statistics.

Just borrow one of hell's beancounters. I'm sure they could figure it out

Oh, I'm sure Gensokyo has a functional economy. It's just one of those things that happen offscreen.

Bean counting was outlawed in the Old Hell. It's considered culturally insensitive to bring it up.

As for Ran, she's an interesting character who doesn't get much play because she's sandwiched by two more interesting characters. One of her most interesting fanon appearances is in Tohnifun's Yukari vs Ran where she doesn't show up that much comparatively she still hugely affects the plot, becoming the end goal for Yukari to strive for and driving Remilia batshit.

I'm dissappointed that Ran doesn't show up more often. She shows up a lot in Ea CM, way more than Yukari and close to Chen, who already shows up a ton anyway. Ran is definiately in the top 20 appearing canon characters.

I'm not sure if I'd call Chen more interesting.

The fandom certainly thinks so. CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN, anyone?

I still need to make a Ran write-up. Anyway, I'm voting we move onto the gap-hag herself.

I have to agree. The fandom seems to like Chen just because she's a precious Cat Girl. But I suppose we'll get to that when we get to her.

I say if we're going to do Yukari, we should finish off with Chen afterwards so we have the whole "family" done.

Well, yeah, but that's not exactly "interesting". She's a great character to have around, but she herself is not the greatest source of interesting stories!

Of course, that does depend on one's idea of "interesting stories" and being a source thereof "herself". Aside from Old Aunt Yooks, who works very well as a stand-alone character, they all need each other to function as what they are.

Well Chen is considered a more interesting character because cute and because she's part of Team 9 so she has a group that she works with and that stories can be based around.

Ran mostly interacts with Chen or Yukari and gets outshone by either. Chen can have story potential from random shenanigans to Team 9 hi-jinxes or trying to help out Ran or Yukari. Yukari can basically interact with anyone since Yukari is screwing around again but can specifically interact with Yuyuko or Reimu. As said, Ran mostly interacts with Chen or Yukari so she tends to be a satellite character. Chen or Yukari can have problems that don't involve Ran. Ran doesn't tend to have problems that don't involve either of them.

I think it would be interesting for Ran to sort of interact with either Patchy or Eirin given the completely canon because I said it is interest in academic matters. She could even interact with Youmu since their masters are friends.

Well, I guess that's true. I was mostly basing that assessment on how much strength the character's characterization has on its own, where Ran has the upper hand against Chen, who is mostly defined as being... cute. Not to say that she can't be much more than that, but that's pretty much the thing it boils down to.

I admit I'm also biased because I like characters who are beautiful. Not in the sense that they look pretty or anything like that. Though I guess that's often a part of it. It's hard to express, but I value characters who just exude a sense of grace and beauty. Touhou and, for instance, Pokemon, have such magical settings that lend themselves very well to such creatures, and I find Ran gravely underestimated as one. She's a kitsune, which alone is already quite something if you know what kitsune are all about. She's got a motif of Buddhism and is a mathematical super-genius, which is a combination that just doesn't happen anywhere even though it has such crazy potential for an interesting view of the beauty of the world! Symphony of Science and all that! And on top of that, she's a mother figure who is also extremely powerful! The potential just does not end!

Clearly she needs more love. Go forth Fawriel! And write the story of Ran Yakumo Versus The Gensokyo!

Yes! I will go forth and write this piece of art that will make thousands of people see the world for all its beauty through the eyes of this character! I will make them believe!

[jump cut to several months later, Fawriel crying over a badly drawn pile of pages showing Ran naked from various angles]

I... I tried!

I choose to believe that the naked drawings were for character practice and not indicative of the final proposed product.

I have to say, the other two seem far more...worldly, if that's the correct term. Ran is constantly calculating stuff and thinks in terms of equations, even when it makes no sense to do so.

A sense of grace and beauty and a habit of streaking.

Yo Tsundere Alice, I'm really happy for you, and I'mma lets you finish, but Suppa Tenko is one of the worst Touhou memes of all time.

Of all time.

SHE LIKES FEELING THE GRASS AND THE BREEZE.

Tangentially, I once saw a doujin where Yukari was going around streaking to Ran's consternation and embarrassment. Yukari finally manages to talk Ran into trying it out and then the Yama shows up and arrests Ran. And just Ran.

As for Ran, she's an interesting character who doesn't get much play because she's sandwiched by two more interesting characters.

Isn't that how it always goes? If you took one of the "unpopular" Touhou characters and put them in most other settings, they'd dominate. Gensokyo is just the kind of place where a graceful, hyperintelligent kitsune can blend into the background.

I have to say, the other two seem far more...worldly, if that's the correct term. Ran is constantly calculating stuff and thinks in terms of equations, even when it makes no sense to do so.

Inspiration! Ran is a reverse Cloudcuckoolander. While your goofy classmate daydreams to escape from a drab and mundane world, Ran is a genius mathematician who lives in a world of superpowered jackasses and reality warpers with ADD. When Yukari spends a day randomly gapping one of her buttmonkeys around Gensokyo, when the balance of nature is thrown out of whack by a bored Celestial, when everyone is going around beating seven levels of hell out of each other over a half-glimpsed shadow in the distance, Ran just sighs to herself and takes refuge in the pristine, ordered realms of higher math.

...Sorta like Piggy. Huh. Wasn't expecting that.

I like that theory.

Incidentally, the point of Ran is that she's a computer. ZUN makes it clear that Shikigami are the fantasy equivalent of personal computers. Or perhaps personal computers are the technological equivalent of shikigami. As the only character who's primary role is to be a shikigami, she demonstrates that by being a computer.

edited 3rd Feb '11 1:44:30 PM by Clarste

Incidentally, I like to compare human minds to computers as a metaphor to explain the possibility of true free will. Just in case anyone's gonna go and think that being "a computer" makes one automatically terrible and soulless!

Hmm. I just returned, but I guess it's time to get working on that Yookery.

She's a computer and a live-in maid and a blunt object all in one. Shikigamis are basically better than computers in every way.

Consider: its incredibly unlikely that Ran is equipped with Twitter.

Edit: I can't read.

edited 3rd Feb '11 2:58:39 PM by SuperDimensionman

So a shikigami is a computer and Chen is a shikigami's shikigami, what does that make Chen? An iPad App?