The New New Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium

I guess you might be right as Flandre could use a role model or a friend to help her get adjusted....well, as adjusted as a youkai could be.

Well, at least she now has the chance to spend time outside of the basement. Personal headcanon (heavily influenced by various fanworks) is that after the Eo SD extra stage Remilia realized keeping her sis imprisoned in the basement 24/7/365 does more harm than good, and allowed her to wander mansion grounds as long as she behaves. Not a huge expansion to her territory, but then again it's not like the other residents leave very often themselves, so it's a little more fair. Interaction with other people is gonna be good for her, even if everyone she's likely to talk to isn't really normal themselves (Marisa included).

edited 12th Oct '15 9:31:06 AM by trepmaws

Flandre wants to play. And play she shall!

Who Killed U.N. Owen
U.N. Mercy
Sins and Retribution
Owen's Madness
Folk Owen
U.N. Owen Was Jazzy
A Dirty Lie
The Love of This Girl is Like of a Puppet, Even if it's a Lie
Ruinous Beat
Sweets Time
Encroaching Ruination
Fragments of Destruction
Destruction's Class Act
Fall Into Ruin With Grace

Overall a jazzy selection, gets the playful side of the little vampire.

These pics, on the other hand, focus on the darker side of Flan. Recommended listening includes "Sweets Time Midnight," Lyrical Crimson's take on Flandre's theme or its remix, and "Devil's Advocate."

The Devil's shadow
Silhouette
I'm gonna trike like hell
A phone wallpaper, if you want it
Alternatively...
Speaking of wheels
We can guess at the choker's function
Wishful thinking
Hi there
Her toys break so easily
Aggro
She's loose
Breach
EX-EX Flan?
Wall jump
Imizu's take
Wand of Loki
She burns from within
I'm reminded of one of Boatmurdered's two survivors, a little girl who spent her days playing happily in the fortress bonehoard
Persona!
Iconic
And then the mansion had a basement fire
Wonder how many artists they go through to finish one portrait?
Cloning accident
Near symmetry
Makes me think of Gollum for some reason
And then there were none?
Roses
Once again, I must say that I feel Banpai Akira does the definitive portrayal of her

Good news is, Gensokyo being Gensokyo, the standards for "well-adjusted" are somewhat laxer than in the outside world. As for Flandre's friendshipping options, Marisa is perennially popular due to its basis in canon, followed closely by Koishi (because they're both weird) and Mokou (because she's a toy who won't break).

My complaint is this - why not Kaguya? She's just as unbreakable as Mokou, and could teach Flandre how to put up a proper, polite facade over her underlying insanity. Then Flandre and Remilia could have charisma battles that end in the sort of horrific violence you use to make the endless years more interesting.

More pictures.

The unstoppable force meets the immovable object
Cute little nutters
Interceptor
Feel like I've seen this one before recently
Cool Big Tomboyish Sis
This is the story of how Meiling saved Christmas
Babysitting as a full-contact sport
Of course, her oldest friend is her big sister
Happy together
Maybe I should've put this one in the "creepy part" of the picdump
Bonding over a shared love of pyrotechnics
In the Scarlet chapel
Cuddle
Just looks weird
Batmobile
Still a favorite
D'awww
Stop undermining my stoic facade

Not unreasonable - that partygoer who talked to Akyuu probably didn't make it all the way to the basement to catch that glimpse of Flan, and of course Flan had that unsupervised interview with Aya. Really, given Flandre's powerset, any "imprisonment" is going to be voluntary on her part. But nobody's going to try to stake the Scarlets in Gensokyo, so neither of them has any reason to hide, so unless there's a party or something Remilia has no reason to ask Flandre to stay in her room for the evening (afternoon?).

Random tangent - it's not official, but Koumajou Densetsu has a pretty awesome theme for the Flandre battle.

edited 16th Oct '15 7:49:07 PM by Tacitus

Kaguya's immortality is much more played down than Mokou's. Like, the first thing you think of her would be "Lunarian princess", then "bamboos", then "rabbits", then "HELP ME EIRIN", and finally "oh yeah, she's immortal too". Her immortality is more like a side note, rather than a key part of her character like Mokou.

Besides, I can't see Flandre and Kaguya working out at all. I can see Mokou being good with half-crazy children since she were one herself. But I don't think spoiled princess Kaguya can even stand insane brats.

Flandre is insane...insanely adorable that is.

I think she'd also be too busy dealing with day-to-day Eientei things to go do stuff involving the SDM. Mokou doesn't have nearly as many attachments, so she'd be able to go "play" with Flandre more often.

Mokou also went through a psychotic period where she incinerated anyone she stumbled across, so that may balance out any "good with children" points earned from being a former spitfire. As for Kaguya, well, she puts up with Mokou, right? And Tewi. Maybe it's just me, but I picture Kaguya as the sort of Perfect and Elegant Princess who could take any of Flandre's outbursts in stride, someone who has just enough of a dark side herself to relate to the little vampire.

Plus her guild is running Timesink Cavern to get everyone geared for the next big patch. I thought the point of being a princess was that you had other people to do stuff like that. My understanding was that Eirin was doing doctor stuff, Tewi was controlling the rabbits to the extent that the little buggers could be commanded, and Reisen was alternatively playing nurse, getting pranked or given menial tasks. Not much else for Her Highness to do besides be a pretty princess.

Yeah...

You have been warned
Charisma Break in three...
Someone's going for a ride
Cower power
Hoverpuppy is outta here
Uniting the world (in mortal terror)
This is why Mokou leaves the lessons to Keine
Mugs!
Art!
Body art!
Chu!
That's not how vampires work
That's not how weapons of destiny work
A poignant metaphor for violence
The tragedy continues in the child posts
Tremble, mortals, and despair
Maybe she doesn't see a reason to leave the mansion
Oh no Terajin help

edited 13th Oct '15 6:56:12 PM by Tacitus

I get the feeling that Flandre's "insanity" is because of her ability. It's like some kind of defense mechanism caused by the gap between her being a child and her ability to basically destroy everything. As child she feels vulnerable, vampire or not, yet she lives in a world as fragile as tissues; she just need to close her fist to cause something to explode, hard as it may be. Thanks to her ability to see the "eye" of things Flandre sees everything as unbelievably fragile. Being so young, her mind can't cope with that reality, creating a bipolar personality between a frightful little girl and a Destroyer of Worlds. It probably also causes her to have a disassociation while playing with her playmates, as the burden of seeing them as people while being so easily able to accidentally kill them would be too heavy.

That must explain why Flandre is so awkward and even nervous around other people. She hasn't seen the light of day for 495 years and that is intense even for a youkai.

edited 14th Oct '15 12:41:30 PM by GAP

The light of day isn't very healthy for a vampire

Yeah Iw as being metaphorical but it is a bad metaphor.

Or maybe not so much a way to bridge that gap as a consequence of the gap itself. Like, Flandre thinks of herself, behaves as, and ultimately wants to be just an ordinary little girl. Her vampirism, in addition to her ability, puts her constantly and completely at odds with this - the child wants friends, the vampire thinks they smell tasty, the child wants to play outside, the vampire can't stand sunlight, and so on. So she's been more or less suffering from five centuries of these collisions, compounded by a lack of socialization.

Remilia, in contrast, is sane (more or less) because her desire to be a pretty princess who always gets her ways is supported by her vampirism. She wants people to listen to her and do what she says, and being an immortal blood-sucking devil makes this significantly easier.

Contrary to popular depiction, I don't think vampires want to be "normal". I think it's an arrogant and narrow-minded to assume that "human" is the default. They're vampires, that's who they are; why would they want to be something different?

edited 16th Oct '15 7:11:50 AM by ninryu

At the same time, Tacitus was acknowledging a range of desires among vampires. Some may wish that they were still human. Others won't. I don't think that that's especially arrogant.

Its worth noting that Flan gets fed 'normal food' with blood baked in rather than gnawing on someone or drinking from a measuring cup like Remilia presumably does.

Remilia's all like "only primitive organisms need an organ for thinking" so I think vampires would generally find humans kind of stupid and disgusting.

edited 16th Oct '15 1:50:43 PM by Clarste

I suppose it depends if vampire is a template or a species. If the Scarlets were human children who got vamp'd early in their lives, then their options are either to embrace their condition, angst about it, or maybe embrace it up until it becomes a hindrance. If the Scarlets were born vampires, then yes, they'd have no reference to ever want to be human. Unless, again, they got hung up on the downsides of being a vampire.

Yeah, I was gonna throw out the notion that Flandre doesn't know she's a vampire, but reading her dialogue, she differentiates herself from Reimu by referring to the latter as a human, and mentions "I've only ever seen humans in the form of a drink." So she sounds aware that she isn't drinking tea with supper.

But wait, Flan's profile specifically says "Perhaps she hasn't made any connection between what she always eats and living humans." So is the translator mucking about, or ZUN?

edited 17th Oct '15 9:40:01 AM by Tacitus

Maybe it's referring to her not ever thinking about what a living human would be like. Like someone who knows where a steak comes from still being surprised by...

I can see that as we far as we know, Flandre has been a vampire all of her life.

Even if she started human, 500 years is a long time.

Two good pages of conversation, not bad at all. Any last thoughts on Flandre before we move on to Youmu?

1. I know it is a design choice but how does Flandre have rainbow colored diamond shard wings and how does she fly with them?

2. How do you pronounce Flandre? I always make the mistake of calling her "flan-drei" and not "flan-der".

Wait, it isn't Flan-dre? That's how I say it.

Furandōru