The Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium

She lives with a bunch of animals and her sister is into Freudian psychology. I'd assume she'd be used to it.

Maybe she has her own kinks or something. It'd be amusing for her to comment on your fetishes even though you said nothing.

Perhaps she enjoys reading their thoughts on the matter?

...Now I'm imagining Yukari and Satori going around peeking at people.

edited 26th Feb '10 5:49:01 AM by Lemurian

So she has hints of being a psychic voyeur? That's... kinda fascinating, in a naughty kind of way.

She doesn't seem to like peple or her power much, so something like that is unlikely. I see her more as a bookish type; she needs something to do since her pets are running the hell for her.

Tenshi next?

Ah, Tenshi. Sure.

Sorry for the inactivity lately, I've been at home pretty little due to Birthday and such things.

Aye, Tenshi.

Just a query. Seeing as this is page nine...should it be dedicated to that "Nine of all Nines"?

(Cirno for all those bakas out there)

edited 28th Feb '10 11:39:47 AM by RJ TAYLER

Holy crap YOU'RE RIGHT! ...
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Cir-frikkin-no

Sir von Avatar

Cirno's voice is the strongest tsukkomi

Traits:

• Baka (ranging anywhere from The Ditz to Informed Disability)
• arrogant, self-assured
• mischievous
• feisty

Relationships/Shipping:

• Letty (part-time friend)
• Daiyousei (full-time friend)

Write-up:
Cirno is THE baka, but she would never admit it. If you ask her, she's a great big genius, not to mention the strongest! In terms of fairies, she might have a point there, but in the greater scheme of things...

Similar characters:

• Rumia (young, not too bright, think they're all that)
  
  
  
  
  Daiyousei

Miss McAvatar

Traits:

• mischievous and playful <=> timid and reserved

Relationships/Shipping:

• Cirno (close friends)

Write-up:
Daiyousei is Cirno's friend.



What, are you wondering why I'm saying so little? Well, today I'm gonna leave the speculation to you guys, because my image of these characters is entirely set in stone, and all I'll do until this discussion is over is present and defend it!

As you may know, my view of Cirno and Dai is shaped almost entirely by the doujin Because Cirno-chan is the Strongest.... I strongly advise any Cirno fans to read it, as well as anyone who might plan to become one! Explaining my views would require spoiling the story, so gauge carefully if you want to read it first or not.

In the story, Cirno, a fairy who's naturally pretty strong with her rare ice power that actively affects her surroundings (making her fellow fairies hate her for being cold), finds Daiyousei naked on some shore and brings her home to bring her back to health. The two grow close, but as Letty feared, Cirno's condition worsens dramatically, because Daiyousei's power is, just like Cirno's, one that affects her surroundings - miasma, the bad air that causes illness and death. Cirno could take it for a longer time than other fairies due to her strength, but she's not powerful enough to be able to fully withstand it. Thus, Dai-chan took drastic measures; she made Letty encase her in solid, magical ice that will only free her if it's destroyed by someone of a command over ice at least as great as Letty's own. Within the ice, she waits in a semi-conscious slumber, while Cirno desperately trains to become stronger, in order to one day free her precious friend... But there is no doubt in her mind that it will happen. Because Cirno-chan... is the strongest.

The great thing about the story is that it puts Cirno's entire character concept into a completely new light. She may or may not be smart, but perhaps it's more of an Idiot Hero lack of common sense and book smarts. She doesn't care for education, but that tendency is justified in her dire need to simply become stronger and stronger. She might be arrogant, but it's a very natural reaction to being ostracized like that. Not to mention the new take on her catchphrase. In fact, one could possibly even work it into the canon timeline to explain Cirno's growth in power from a 2nd stage boss to a powerful player in Hisoutensoku.

Furthermore, though this is not specific to this doujin, it gives more depth to the friendship between the two, and suggests a basis for Dai-chan's reservedness and her "minion"-like relation to Cirno - because Dai really owes Cirno something and she's the first girl she could be friends with. Together with Cirno, she could even be able to live out that mischievousness that I hear is typical for fairies. Also, I like to think that Cirno does sometimes doubt herself after everyone's always calling her stupid and everything, but whenever she's down, Daiyousei will be there to unconditionally cheer her up and assure her that she's a great genius with a heart as big as a mountain. It makes for a great dynamic, I think!

So yeah. Maybe Cirno is dumb. Maybe she's arrogant. But in my eyes, she is a wonderful person anyway.

So what about you guys!

edited 4th Jul '10 6:27:51 AM by Fawriel

I approve of this interpretation, Faw.

In fact, I think it's very...

Totally cool.

YEEEEEAAAAAHHHHHHH

edited 28th Feb '10 6:22:15 PM by Zudak

Well, I'll start with Daiyousei. I really like the way she was portrayed in the Wrestling Tag Tournament Yonkoma Doujin (that I can't remember the name of). Loyal and supportive to Cirno, worrying about her when she's afraid she's doing something silly but supporting her whatever she decides. Not very strong, but very kind.

Hmmm, Cirno. I've never liked her that much, but Cirno-chan's the strongest really made an impact. I don't like airhead-Cirno; naive and overconfident Cirno is more what I think of her as. I really like the way she's portrayed together with Cool Big Sis Letty, though.

I'm gonna have to say, I don't really like that doujin. So I'm not going to let it affect my opinion on anything. Sorry.

Cirno is a big fish in a small pond. She's the King Mook of fairies, and everything she does is on the scale of fairies. She's smart, for a fairy. She's the strongest, for a fairy. She could very well be the greatest fairy in the history of all fairies. But she's still a fairy. Her arrogance comes from actually being the best amongst her peers. But of course her peers are all fairies.

Fairies are fundamentally childish and a bit amoral. The Fair Folk. They're immortal, so they don't really understand things like pain or death. Thus, Cirno does things like freezing frogs to shatter them and harassing travelers. She's not evil or cruel, she just doesn't know any better. So her stupidity is the simply the ignorance of a child, rather than any sort of super-stupidity or anything exaggerated like that. However, because of her nature, she can't really learn either so she'll be stuck at this level forever.

Letty, being a more powerful nature spirit of the same domain, is either a big sister figure or a mother figure. Possibly there would be no difference as far as Cirno's concerned.

Daiyousei is just a big fairy. She's probably Cirno's partner in crime, if anything. She's also fundamentally a fairy, so she's not particularly smarter than Cirno, so maybe more like her sidekick or yes-man. Well, maybe those words are a bit strong since they're just kids, mentally, but surely you can imagine a little gang of children with a de facto leader? That's how I see Cirno.

I don't think those two interpretations are necessarily in conflict, though. In both cases her stupidity is really more just naivete and childishness rather than outright idiocy.

edited 28th Feb '10 8:16:31 PM by Zudak

Okay, I'll start with Dai-chan. Typical fanon personality for her is cheerful and unusually smart (or cowardly) for a fairy. Good friends with Cirno, she tries (and generally fails) to keep her out of trouble. I go for the Because Cirno-chan... version, because I really like it.

Cirno is generally agreed to be powerful for a fairy, not all that bright, and childish. The degree of all of these depends on the work, even in canon. Power-wise she's been everywhere from a stage 1 midboss in PCB, to near protagonist level in UNL, with fanworks showing similar variety. Her intelligence level varies similarly, at least in fanworks, though canon never has her go beyond The Ditz (and her actions in UNL make the most sense). Probably the main difference between her canon and fanon versions is that fans tend to forget that she's naturally mischievious, having her act like a normal child.

The really weird thing about Cirno is that the times she is weakest are the middle of the endless winter (when an ice fairy should logically be doing pretty well) and when fighting on her own home turf (duh). Well ok, that second-weakest is probably tied with Aya's game, but whatever. The two games in which she's a playable character, by definition, take her farther "out of her element" than the games where she's a pushover.

Clarste I'm afraid I'll have to revoke my post about you in the Gush About Tropers You Like thread sorry man

So basically you see fairies as the quintessential mooks of Touhou and Cirno as the Elite Mook? That's cool, too.

I really like the way she was portrayed in the Wrestling Tag Tournament Yonkoma Doujin (that I can't remember the name of).

Brickman, it seems like kind of a futile effort to try to gauge a character's actual power based on varying power levels in the games. Sake not even drop and all that. But if you insist, maybe Cirno's not as powerful in winter because her ice powers aren't drawn from her surroundings (unlike Letty's, perhaps), so they would remain consistent and the coldness of winter would mean that her iciness isn't as much of a shock.

I wonder, does the fact that fairies resurrect after being killed mean that they don't feel pain? That doesn't seem like a logical conclusion at all.

Also, I'm really curious to see which visual portrayals of Cirno you guys like. I notice a certain trend to portray her as either a cute, prepubescent little girl like in this IOSYS album cover◊, with short limbs and stubby fingers and everything, or a somewhat taller, more wiry girl who looks to be more around the age of 10 or 12. Which do you prefer? On that note, I really like this picture◊. For some reason she looks amazingly intelligent in it and I'm not sure, why. Well, I definitely like the latter version better, which is one reason why I prefer the manzai for her voice rather than her IOSYS album story - the IOSYS version just sounds really childish. That, and it makes her out to be more of a spoiled brat than an arrogant tyke.

And in case anyone happens to totally crave for more sympathetic portrayals of Cirno, Happy Flame Time has her pop up a few times in doujins. In Yakumo de Pon, Cirno comes by the Yakumo residence to ask Chen to come play with everyone, but Chen can't because she's housewatching, so Cirno flies off and a little later the whole gang pops in to play at Chen's place instead. Daiyousei spills that it was Cirno's idea to do that, which she's not happy with at all. Tough guy Cirno! And in Cold Wind But Warm Winter (the famous "Sanae is a good girl" one), Cirno is shown to be very understanding of the sadness that befalls the Aki sisters at the end of Autumn because she misses Letty so much when winter is over. Pensive Cirno!

dont look at me like that theres nothing wrong with liking an idiot fairy from a silly game series ._.

edited 1st Mar '10 4:01:00 AM by Fawriel

I like how she looks in her UNL-art.

Oh yeah; "Touhou Tag Dream" was its name. The artwork is a little rough, but the humour is good and the story fits nicely together. It's also a very good example of using all the Windows-characters. It's still running, BTW.

I like to think of Cirno of being childishly silly. She's very smart for a fairy, but she's also naive and easily tricked or fooled into humiliating situations, so the other Girls love to tease her.

Visually? I prefer her looking about 10, on the lanky side. I prefer her as the tomboy type, so I prefer a design that matches that.

I just had an interesting thought: The lower the temperature is, the quicker her brain works, the smarter she gets. Which still might not be all that smart. But yeah.

edited 1st Mar '10 11:02:57 AM by Zudak

... So Cirno is a troll?

That... may actually be where I got the idea.

Amusing idea, but I don't recall a sharp decrease in intelligence when she met Utsuho.

More of an increase, since she got the hint that fleeing would be a good idea right about then.

I've mentioned to Fawriel before, I got the idea that Daiyousei is the reason Cirno is so arrogant. Daiyousei really wants Cirno to stand out and succeed, so she keeps telling her encouraging things like "Come on, Cirno! You're the best! No one else can match you, because you're the greatest! You're the strongest!" Who knows, maybe without Dai's influence, Cirno would be meek and subdued, but with Dai's encouragement, she finds it in herself to go "Yeah...yeah! Yeah, maybe I am! I AM the strongest!".

Or something I dunno I'm ramblin' and I haven't thought about this in a while so I'm rusty.