The Touhou Character Alternate Interpretation Compendium

Oh god. Now I have the image of her leaving some dead youkai in/on Satori's slippers and expecting her to be proud.

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^^Orin isn't limited to human corpses, you know. So being stuck underground isn't much of a problem for her.

edited 10th Jun '10 5:37:17 PM by Hylarn

Ah, point. Guess I was stuck in the "'Youkai does something inherent to their nature' = 'Affects humans in some way'" mindset.

Hmm... makes me wonder if Orin still gets evil spirits if she collects a youkai's corpse, since only humans are capable of becoming spirits.

edited 10th Jun '10 5:45:10 PM by Servbot

Probably not. Seems Orin is actually harmless, then.

And yet you can't help but stare. Like some kind of traffic accident. In hell.

Anyway, I wonder how familiar Orin is with Koishi. Orin has her job to do and Satori has other pets assigned to hang out with Koishi.

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Well, there was that one doujin, already linked, that posits that Orin saw Koishi shut off her third eye.

I have a message from another time...

She probably sort of knows her, but I doubt anyone is familiar with Koishi.

Except Satori, obviously.

Join us in our quest to play all RPG video games! Moving on to disc 2 of Grandia!

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Flandre Scarlet

Appearance/voice: Manzai with Remilia. (Ignore the graphics.) (Ignore the graphics. For Cirno.)

Theme:
The Centennial Festival for Magical Girls, U.N. Owen Was Her?

Traits:

• Docile <=> Uncontrollable
• A child in every respect but time, despite being only 5 years younger than her mature sister
• Not. Sane.

Relationships/Shipping:

• Remilia (Her beloved sister. Whether the love is reciprocated is subject of debate. Little debate. By popular vote, it is.)
• Sakuya (One of the few people she has been in contact with.)
• Marisa (Often shown to be playing with each other.)

Write-up:
Flee. Flee while you still can. Soon, it may be too late. Soon, the world may end in front of your very eyes, and all that you knew and loved will end. Death by moe.

Fun fact: "Moe" can also be read to mean "burning". A more fitting word could hardly exist to describe Flandre.

As you all know, Flandre is one of the most memetically powerful characters in the series, with a character theme that has been remixed so often there is probably not a person who can keep track anymore. But on to the character herself. Who exactly is she? Who's the girl next door living in the Scarlet Mansion? You better learn her nam. Cause it's Flandre.

Flandre has been locked up in the Mansion's basement for approximately her entire life of about 495 years. It's a safety measure. For the rest of the world, that is. She has always lacked a certain natural self-restraint, and being born with the power to destroy anything at all, letting her run free was not in the best interest of anyone. Fortunately, Flandre obeys her sister like a good child. Until one day...

Being such a secluded character with such potently creepy, yet also endearing character traits that fit together so well, yet seemingly contradict each other, Flandre is a character that raises many questions, and inspired many minds to find answers to them.

Just what is the extent of her insanity? Is she just naive, with too little self-restraint for someone with such power? Is her perception that much a childish one that she can't tell she's hurting those she plays with? Or is she indeed a veritable psychopath who finds delight in toying with the innards of her "playmates"? Can she be taught to behave herself through the power of friendship? Did her life in the basement ultimately cause more trouble than it prevented by alienating her from the rest of the world? Can love bloom on the battlefield? And what's up with her wings? Did she make them herself? Was she born without natural ones, or were they destroyed?

In the end, one can only hope that fate will smile upon her. For her sake as much as our own.

Similar characters:

• Not Nue (Really.)
• Yuuka (Replace Yuuka's Opposite of a Lack Of Common Sense [aka Wisdom] with the opposite and you're pretty much there.)

---

Flandre is really a pretty fascinating character. Her design is ingenious, if only because of those wings. They are an absolutely amazing design decision. I'm not even sure how to describe it. They are so obviously artificial. Playfully colorful, cheery Christmas lights, but also pointy, attached to a gnarled, spiny, dark wire. They are not her natural wings. She's like a fallen devil who tried desperately, or perhaps just ingenuously, to fill that void with something that is clearly not natural.

I don't know, it's just... amazing.

Kinda surprising that she's in so few games, but I guess it makes sense. She can't really be in a fighting game, for instance, because she'd just kinda... destroy everyone. Her official profile (further down on the page) is brief and a pretty well-put description of her destructive tendencies, I can only recommend it.

Of course she could be in a fighting game. It's not like we'd expect Cirno to be able to keep up with Suika or Yukari anyway, so I think we can assume some amount of Gameplay and Story Segregation. Plus, they're still apparently using Danmaku rules of some sort, even if it doesn't look like it.

Also, I'm not sure that the "opposite of a lack of common sense" is wisdom. The word used for "opposite" means something like, "the other side" "the reverse" "the lining". I think literally it would apply to something like the other side of a coin, or the inside lining of one's clothes. It's part of the same thing, but the side you don't see. Idiomatically, "the other side of common sense" seems to be used in things like opinion sections of newspapers where people are objecting to laws that seem good on paper. In which case it implies something like "the hidden costs of common sense". By extrapolation, "the other side of a lack of common sense" would be the hidden benefits of lacking common sense. Which seems like the kind of thing Yukari would endorse.

On Flandre... she's crazy and powerful, but also quite a bit of a woobie. Because she's been locked up all her life and all that. While it's debatable whether she's crazy because she is or because she's been locked up, I prefer the former because the latter makes Remilia look a bit cruel. Of course, if you want drama that's a ready-made source right there. Not that there aren't other things that would make Remilia look cruel if you look for them...

I don't doubt that there's Gameplay-Story Segregation at work in the fighting games. I was more offering that as an explanation for why ZUN has decided not to make her playable (yet). After all, she's such a popular character that it must have been a conscious decision to make.

Of course, it might just be that she's back down in the basement, or at least not allowed to leave the house, as far as ZUN is concerned.

Every other character is such a popular character that it must've have been a conscious decision blah blah blah. They're probably limited more by development time than anything else, and they probably decided that they wanted more games to get representation rather than cram in every single character from EoSD

fsdgas

ZUN does have characters that he prefers. I think he's just not all that interested in Flan, like how he doesn't seem to care about Yuuka.

edited 11th Jun '10 4:47:19 PM by Hylarn

He cared enough about Yuuka to bring her back from the PC-98 era (out of only 4 characters who were). Well, either that or he was really half-assed about PoFV and didn't bother to come up with a new character design.

edited 11th Jun '10 4:53:26 PM by Clarste

Fanon tends to vary on how insane Flandre is. In canon, she's apparently safe enough to be in an interview with Aya. In fact, her profile describes her as docile and that her insanity makes it hard for people to understand her. Notice it doesn't mention the possibility of her insanity making her dangerous. Her major problem might be impulse control problems or not knowing her own strength. Her toys end up broken and she doesn't interact with many people. Aya, or at least the Bohemian Rhapsody in Japanese Red, describes Flandre's problem as "emotional instability." Her profile says she's "kind of nuts." Her Perfect Memento article says that she rarely attends the parties that Remilia throws, is normally locked in the basement but may stay there willingly, and that she doesn't have many friends and that even Remilia spends little time with her. It might be silly to try to psychoanalyze but Flandre may have some kind of agoraphobia or social withdrawal problem. Not a huge thing for a normal person but you don't want a person with kyuu powers freaking out around people. Just give Flandre's power to the main character from Welcome to the NHK for example.

Its interesting that Akyuu says, in PMiSS that she has few friends among the Scarlet Devil Mansion youkai. Either Akyuu is hedging her bets by putting in a margin of error - aka, few friends versus probably no friends but I don't feel like talking with her to verify that - or there are some among the named SDM bosses or fairy maids that play with Flandre. Fanon tends to have her in friendly, sisterly relationship with Meiling for whatever reason. Fanon also has her friends with Marisa and even has her spend more time with Remilia. She really respects her sister and that, more than any amounts of locks or chains, is what keeps her under control. Patchy would probably be a likely candidate for maybe friend but tutor at least considering that Flandre's room and the library are both located in the basement of the mansion.

Really, its up to the individual fan how crazy or lonely Flandre is. Is she allowed outside the mansion? Is there a Level 10 Alert everytime she leaves her room? Does Marisa stop by just to play with Flandre, try to avoid her, or make time to see her in the midst of great library capers? Is the staff of the mansion afraid of her?

Be careful when checking out doujins that feature Flandre as a main character. They can be depressing. Or bizarrely heartwarming. Flandre is a crapshoot.

Aozora-Market's Christmas Present.

Aozora-Market's Scarlet and Scarlet.

Hole of Yago's Sister of the Devil.

Red Sky of Japonesia parts one and two. Honestly, its more about Remilia but her locking Flandre in the basement is the driving force behind the plot.

Angeltype's Good Girl Remilia Theater. The second page. I don't know why they bothered to zip two pages but there you go.

Shino's Young Mistress' Epic Homestay Battle. First time Flandre is spending the night away from home. What could possibly go wrong?

There are some other really good doujins but I can't remember the names right now. Some really good Remilia vs Flandre fights. On a personal note, the outcome of Flandre's fight in Touhou Tag Dream was a let-down.

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Art:

• Flowers
• Eclipse
• Lanterns
• Engrish
• Cocoons?
• Seagulls
• Danmaku
• Skeleton
• Is her dress made of blood?
• No noise pollution laws in Gensoukyou
• All king like
• But Sakuya is the dog
• Detail
• Kimono
• How does that hat stay on?
• Wonder what that looks like from a different perspective
• No creepy subtext
• Cellphone
• Loli incest yuri
• No graverobbing here
• A flan that's actually good for you
• Are those teeth?
• Pity they're just mirrored
• Crystal farm
• Isn't that Moriya's danmaku?
• This is my wallpaper
• Almost angelic
• Taking after Hijiri
• Way too close
• Worst hands ever
• I like the one on the right
• No nose
• Moonlight
• Tiny mouth
• The glow is probably useful in the basement
• Candy
• Last thing you'll ever see
• Rain
• Red and white

Fucking lolicons

Flan deserves partial credit for getting me into Touhou - I heard Dark PHOENIX's remix of "Tiny, Tiny Clever Commander", learned it was from this Touhou thing, and did a TV Tropes search. That lead me to the Crowning Music page where I heard that something called "U.N. Owen Was Her?" was amazing and amazingly popular. And then I saw artwork of Flan and was like, whoa! Those wings! This is different.

So yeah, first character I knew by name, and ties with Remi for my all-time favorite.

Incredible visual design aside, I think it's the clash of sweet, innocent child with Person of Mass Destruction, sprinkled with all the angst of vampirism and seasoned with loneliness and isolation, that makes her so interesting. You can play her as a sympathetic villain, victim, bubbly protagonist, unthinking force of destruction, or just about anything, and you'd still be faithful to some facet of her character.

Is she a bright, cheerful girl who just wants to make friends? A spoiled brat with the nasty habit of breaking and blasting those around her? A lonely little girl shut away in a basement, desperate for companionship? A wide-eyed, innocent child oblivious to the fact that her cakes and treats are made from humans? A passionate girl whose attraction to others is a battle between friendship and her unstoppable, horrible hunger? A sunny spirit struggling against the darkness within and without, wracked by her affliction and unholy thirst, someone simply damaged by what she is and what she’s done?

Eh, why not all of the above? As if Taboo "Four of a Kind" wasn’t enough support for multiple personalities, there’s always the mental effects of being shut inside a basement for centuries at a time.

I got some art too: girl has issues, lunging, shadow, cranky, eye, chains, flowers, hungry, hair down, swords, exuberant, ready for MGS4.

I'm not well-versed in doujinshi, but I liked Shino's "Young Mistress..." linked above. It's a good take on Flan: almost well-adjusted, up to the point she annihilates something. The (non-romantic, please) pairing with Mokou works for the odd couple angle, and the whole "one of the few people that's Flan-proof" thing is an added bonus. I think the latter is why fanon has her hang out with Meiling - if she can take that many knives to the head, she can take a Flan outburst. ...Which reminds me of gensokoumuten's comic, which incidentally shows a creative use for Flan's wings on page nine. (click the dimensions under the pic statistics to make the pages bigger)

Probably blabbing too much, so I'll close with two remixes that I think do good jobs of portraying aspects of the awesomeness that is Flan: "Sweets Time Midnight," which plays on the innocence and isolation, and East New Sound's remix of their own remix, which plays up the bloodlust and schizophrenia.

...I thought for the longest time her name was Fiandre.

edited 12th Jun '10 2:35:16 PM by Tacitus

Current earworm: "CHIMERA"

Dear god, that postman comic is just about one of the best things I've ever seen. I love it to tiny little bits of lovely goo.

I'll submit my own contribution to this: Double Scarlet

Part of what makes Flandre scary to hang around with is that if she throws a temper tantrum, you'll be toast.

Thankfully, she's coherent enough in canon to not be too much of a danger.

Some traits of Flandre I glean from fanon:

• Innocence (Sakuya, what's sex?)
• Not knowing how tough things are (Can you play with me? My last friend broke while we were enjoying some danmaku ;_;)
• Cheerful in more than one way
  • creepy cheerful
  • genuine lightheartedness
• unpredictable
• may possess a little bit of a calculative/dominant nature over people who are not her older sister (Cruel Sisters and the Suffering Maid and Touhou Celebrities ~Abunai Sisters have her want to do all sorts of things to poor Sakuya - Also, chocolates laced with love potions!)
• One particularly amusing fanwork I can't quite remember the title of had her become a hikikomori doujinshi artist, and blaming it on Remi not letting her out of her basement.
• Wants her sister's love (See also Double Scarlet ;_;)

edited 12th Jun '10 9:42:30 AM by AceOfScarabs

The three finest things in life are to splat your enemies, drive them from their turf, and hear their lamentations as their rank falls!

You know, I heard that Kaguya & Mokou were originally planned for UNL, but scrapped because Tasogare decided to put more focus on "weaker" characters or something like that  ^*

 ^*

^{This is opposed to SWR, who had exactly ONE stage 3 boss (Alice) and nothing lower in a cast of 15}

. That may have something to do with why Flandre wasn't playable.

edited 12th Jun '10 9:54:55 AM by XionGaTaosenai

I make video games! Or plan to, anyway.

Oh wow, I can't believe I forgot about Double Scarlet in my search for good Flandre avatars.

^^ But I want Mokooouuu.

edited 12th Jun '10 9:50:25 AM by Fawriel

^^ Ah, I was wondering why Imperishable Night still has a total of one representative in the Fighting Games despite having been around for a while. <<;

edited 12th Jun '10 10:56:35 AM by Servbot

Nope,actually Mokou and Kaguya were scrapped because they were GAMEBREAKERS.There is also rumors that Nitori and Wriggle were also planned.

edited 12th Jun '10 11:38:02 AM by DonRavioli

Unless I'm missing something, this makes no sense whatsoever. A character's power is entirely determined by the programmers and nothing else.

I'm reminded of the alleged fact that some Japanese gamers actually petitioned for Mewtwo not to be in Brawl because he's too weak. The original strongest Pokemon. Too weak. As if that had anything to do with Mewtwo rather than the fact that the arbitrary values they assigned to it and its moves sucked.