The New New Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium

Aya is probably a consummate liar at worse or even someone who doesn't really lie but sells falsehoods.

Maybe a smart liar. Not someone who would claim something outrageous like being the one to resolve an Incident, but someone who would tweak the details of it slightly to make a better story, or deliberately fail to fully investigate something so she could insert her own speculation without fear of contradiction. So like a producer adapting history to the big screen, or a student writing a paper.

Storm of Loyalty

Something about "Wind God Girl" lends itself well to breathy instruments like accordions

Western Wind

or harmonicas.

Secret Mountain Passage

Just enchanting, like something out of NieR.

The Tengu Steppes

Hot DAMN this is good, something that would fit in with Command & Conquer: Generals and its GLA themes.

Wonder if Mongolian mythology ever came up with a race of bird-folk? I mean, if the wolf tengu are adapted from Chinese myths, surely their northern neighbors had something. And geez, tengu would be a terror up there - no cover at all.

Anyway, artdump time, which will hopefully be as good as the musicdump. There's lots of Aya art, and lots of upskirts, but also lots of quality stuff too. I only browsed the first hundred pages or so and still came up with eighty examples.

Swooping onto the scene of a hot scoop
Needs her own superhero fanfare
Face to the wind
Well? Don't waste her time
Deep red eyes
Strangely shy shutterbug
Hint of a playful challenge
"That can't be right"
Kind of a dork
Cocky racer
Exuberant supersonic newspaper deliverywoman
Boyishly handsome
Sharp-dressed sketch
She's cute-ing it up, must be a trap
The overbearing student newspaper boss in the high school AU
Nailed it
Girl of the dusk
She needs some of the late Monty Oum's patented Anti-Upskirt Technology
The look of someone who dropped their camera high over the ground, but who also has ample time to catch it
Profile and wing study
Feathery hair, but not hair feathers
Probably a metaphor for how her words don't always follow the path of history
That thing is utterly failing at its job
Gotta go fast
Wonder when she'll wear that outfit in a game?
Wings for the wing throne?
More crows
Very fancy
Nice patterns
The sword may not be strictly necessary
The juxtaposition between the mustachioed old man tengu mask and her obviously female figure is a bit jarring
Might want to leave the sword at home next time you go out "disguised"
There ya go
She's not very aerodynamic in this one
Dantewontdie does it again
I always wonder how animal youkai view their mundane kin
Aya and her highly-placed sources
Leader of the flock
And what's the term for a group of crows?
I think we all should have suspected her ties to organized crime
Does this look like the face of journalistic integrity?
That's a more dignified tengu mask
Seems more ninja-ish than usual in this one
Getting serious
She provides the carrion, they provide the cleanup
Speed versus strength, taking all bets
Tengu often pose in front of beautiful backdrops
Mountain shrine
Valley girl
Should have worn pants
Wonder how well she can fly beyond the Border?
By the mountain road
Does Gensokyo even have a lava level?
At home in Tengopolis
Why do they even need railings?
Dog-and-a-birdfight
Lot of wind going on I guess
What's the proper term for a two-person selfie?
Style shift
Deliverygirl
Feel like we're intruding
Best watched with "Duel of the Fates" playing
Still like the style
I forget if these two have a canon relationship or not
The two great chroniclers of Gensokyo. We're screwed
It's okay, youkai are mostly on-board with "catch-and-release" these days
I wanna make a Triforce reference but aren't sure what traits they'd embody
Maybe deepcrows are distant relatives to tengu? They've gotta be more closely related than the flying wolves, right?
A downside of wings
School news radio AU?
Problem, roundears?
Be careful when you peep
This is a disturbilarious little series
Every time I see this one, I hear this music
Ta-da!
Gensokyo's Clothing Fairy sure works fast
Northeast Yukkuri Street?
Not busy
Too busy
Just right

edited 17th Apr '16 3:41:38 PM by Tacitus

The Great Tailor Youkai don't mess around, see?

Even in the womb, she knew you. And gave you a distinctive and probably impractical outfit so you wouldn't be born naked.

Probably 'bout time to move on, so any last-minute thoughts on Ayayayaya? Mine's that my favorite fan work featuring Aya is probably "Super Speed Starters" by karaagetarou. Which isn't to say that her appearance in gensokoumuten's "At the Moriya Shrine" isn't good too.

How powerful is Aya compared to the Tengu? And the Heroines?

Assumed to be very powerful, she is one of the older tengus, at least 1000 years old. Stronger than the heroines for sure.

I wonder if she and the rest of the tengu would be considered less powerful if Gensokyo had a different method of conflict resolution? It's not like tengu are known for their brute strength or anything, and we've never seen Aya employing any fancy martial arts. But she's hella fast in a setting built around danmaku combat, and as has been said, Aya has a thousand years of experience zipping around and not getting killed. And I guess there's that fan.

I imagine that speed also translates into power. Tengu might not be strong as Oni, but Aya's muscles are able to propel her body faster than the human eye can follow, and I wouldn't want to pit mine against them.

Most of what bullets have going for them is being hard and fast.

Tengu are fast and, well, insert mental picture of Aya flexing if you wish.

Muscles Are Meaningless.

Maybe not a bodybuilder but I could see having runners muscles and even fairly toned.

Fast yet weak doesn't really make much sense, honestly. Force is equal to mass times acceleration. The faster something accelerates, the stronger it is. I mean, theoretically something could be so light that it does no damage (ie: a ping-pong ball), but there's no indication that tengu are exceptionally light.

Also magic. Tengu can presumably use magic, and magic is considered an equally valid source of strength among youkai. Even Suika, an oni, is more proud of her magic strength than her physical strength.

Tengu being uncannily light for the size of their body would be actually pretty cool, now that you mention it.

Lift them with one hand, watch them put a fist through steel.

Maybe they have hollow bones and an immensely powerful musculature for their size as a throwback to when they needed to fly with, y'know, wings. But now modern tengu can get around with magic and their vestigial wings fold into hammerspace when not needed.

Well, let's give a round of applause for Aya, a polite but futile gesture since she'll be long gone before our hands hit each other for the first clap. Coming up will be Patchouli, Yukari Yakumo, and someone with a helluva poker face. But first, a blast from the past,

Elis

Stage: Makai, levels 11-14
BGM: "Oriental Magician"^note This might be a catchy arrangement, since it was originally sooo dark. Looks like I inadvertently made all the songs Japanese style...totally different from how I do it now. (;_;)
Theme: "Magic Mirror" ^note This piece has a pretty good feel to it. This kind of tune (with a touch of mystery) is indispensable for mid-game. Well, not that my current stuff's all that different.

Write-up:

Another one-shot PC-98 encounter. Assuming Reimu's path to vengeance led her to Makai after her shrine was wrecked for the first time, the miko ran into Elis in the magical realm of Makai, specifically the Ruins of Vina. She then proceeded to batter her enemy into submission with a bouncing yin-yang ball, and Elis hasn't troubled her since, proving that violence really is the answer.

Beyond this, we can only ask fruitless questions. Is Elis one of Makai's demons, or a devil as her title suggests - and if so, what is she doing in Makai? Her theme calls her an Oriental Magician, but then why does she have a name that could be a derivation of the Hebrew moniker Elijah or a corruption of the Greek goddess of strife Eris? And was she truly an innocent bystander in Highly Responsive to Prayers' conflict? Not to imply that Reimu has never beaten up the wrong person, of course...

See also the previous two compendiums.

edited 21st Apr '16 10:40:27 AM by Tacitus

Elis:

A magic user that happened to be in Makai during Reimu's initial warpath. ...And was just in her way.

Innocence Mingling with Corruption:

Elis may have been an ordinary oriental magician before venturing to Makai. Heard about how its atmosphere was good for improving magic power, see. What she didn't know was that said atmosphere had a chancy potential of turning humans into demons, or a half-demon. After studying for a good while down in Makai, she noticed some differences about herself. Her eyes are now red, she has a red star on her cheek, she now spouts bat wings and her dusty blonde hair seems to now have a bright, eerie glow. Yep, she's half-demon now.

"Ah-ha, so this is the power of Makai!" she proudly proclaimed. All in all, Elis was glad she mustered up enough courage to make this trip. She was in the middle of revisiting the Ruins of Vina seeing if she could discover something new about the place as well Makai in general. That day, she and Reimu crossed paths. Elis was going to be all friendly and start up a conversation with this stranger, interested in her intentions being down here. Realizing the stranger was only interested in bashing stuff into the wall, she decided to try out her newfound powers.

After losing to Reimu so badly, Elis realizes she still has a lot to learn and more potential to harness.

edited 23rd Apr '16 9:42:10 AM by Diamite

Oooh, that's a neat idea. I always liked the notion that an extended stay in Makai left a mark on people, particular regarding their hair color. But why stop there, why not have more pronounced effects? You could even tie this viral transformation of sorts to Shinki and have it be her way of "creating" her children.

Another angle would be to focus on the demon-devil divide. If demons are Shinki's loyal followers, devils might be Makai's original inhabitants, or recent invaders. And with the recent addition of Hecatia to the cast herd, it's possible that supernatural entities from other mythologies can get entangled with the inhabitants of an eastern wonderland, so maybe Elis is based off Eris, goddess of discord.

Oh, I guess she might be a vampire, too. That's a type of devil, right?

Not much material for an Elis picdump, but here's what I got:

Profile pic source
Wink
Tiny but determined
Outline
This artist has a lot of Elis stuff, by the way
Sassy
Indignant
ZUN style
Not sure why Tenshi's involved
A spectator to Shinki's grand design?
The innocent devil and the fallen angel
That purple Makai sky
Magician
A lot on her mind
Not-so-innocent devil

Elis isn't really a vampire is she? Also, what is it about the Makai that makes magicians go insane?

edited 26th Apr '16 7:04:18 PM by GAP

Elis comes at ye with a special blend of magic.

Eastern Red Magic
Red Mirror
Crimson Plains
Red Alert!

Well, she's got those wings, and can turn into a bat, so maybe? Also Touhou (specifically Akyuu) seems to classify vampires as a subset of devils. On the other hand, the literal translation of kyūketsuki is "blood-sucking oni," so... it's a bit confusing.

As for something in Makai driving magicians insane, I can't remember anything like that, only that the place's atmosphere is both toxic and magically-charged, making it easier to learn magic there assuming you don't, y'know, die. Though I suppose it's entirely possible that such a dangerous atmosphere might have negative effects on someone's mind. Could also be the weird scenery, too.

Now, on the subject of Elis arranges:

Elis is a pseudo vampire huh? I wonder who her magic teacher was?

Maybe she's an 'Innocent' Devil because she never had a teacher. She could have just stumbled into it without any real clue.

One day she was just out playing in the local mysterious cave, next thing she knew she had wings.

Perhaps from what I had read from the wiki she doesn't appear to have any sort of teacher or mentor to guide her.

Elis doesn't have anything beyond a name, subtitle, and character design. She's an ambiguous devil/demon/vampire flying around free of context, getting hammered by a bouncing yin-yang. She's more of a blank slate than the girl whose leitmotif is "Tabula Rasa." It's simultaneously liberating, if you feel like adapting Elis for your own stories, and frustrating, if you like to know what's going on.

...Although this question about whether she had a teacher creates the possibility that devils like Elis travel to the demonic realm of Makai in order to learn magic, just like human magicians do. Maybe Shinki's spells are in high demand.

At any rate, it's been over a week, so any last thoughts on Elis before we leave the PC-98 behind for a bit and hit some real A-listers?