Which characters got "twisted" or misused by the fandom the most?

[Prime32]

Yes. And by extension, the way some fans will dismiss literally everything Akyuu says with "unreliable narrator". First, because this term does not mean "never tells the truth", but rather that they tend to embellish or diminish parts of a narrative; not every single thing they say is an invention. Second, when Akyuu does make dubious claims, it is really pretty obvious.

Nah, there's one thing Akyuu said which people will make an exception for and claim is absolutely true: her article on Yukari. Despite this being one of the few things we know is unreliable, since Yukari herself edited it to sound more impressive (while leaving in things like "Yukari weakened the border of the Netherworld" that she knows are untrue).

[Tengukami]

Nah, there's one thing Akyuu said which people will make an exception for and claim is absolutely true: her article on Yukari. Despite this being one of the few things we know is unreliable, since Yukari herself edited it to sound more impressive (while leaving in things like "Yukari weakened the border of the Netherworld" that she knows are untrue).

That is funny, but for real: anytime someone makes a claim about a character, and someone else counters with something Akyuu wrote, 9 times out of 10 the response back will be some variation of "akyu is unrelibl narater". It's tiresome.

[Tiamat]

I was under the impression Yukari editted the chronicles in order to edit certain aspects of history that she didn't want people to know, not to make herself more impressive.  The latter would be kind of... too petty for Yukari, IMHO.

(even then, Akyu was with her so I doubt Yukari would get away with outright lying.  My theory is that for almost anything in the Chronicles that beings with "It is said", the "one from who it was said" was Yukari.  ...although there is one "it is said" in there where the footnotes explicitly state the "sayer" was Rinnosuke.  But that was just for that one case and is the only time a footnote disclaims it was someone else)

Yeah, the impression one gets from her spellcards is that she has a bunch of different types of dolls named after different places from around the world. Shanghai is just next to London and Kyoto and Russia as part of her "dolls of the world collection" or whatever. I blame IAMP for this though, since Shanghai and its Hard version Hourai were the only placename spellcards that carried over.

And of course as mentioned creating a sentient doll is her long-term goal. Which makes me sad we don't see more portrayals as a mad scientist trying to create life.

Yea, Alice's first picture in BAiJR wasn't exactly that of a sane magician, IMHO...

[Prime32]

I was under the impression Yukari editted the chronicles in order to edit certain aspects of history that she didn't want people to know, not to make herself more impressive.  The latter would be kind of... too petty for Yukari, IMHO.

(even then, Akyu was with her so I doubt Yukari would get away with outright lying.  My theory is that for almost anything in the Chronicles that beings with "It is said", the "one from who it was said" was Yukari.  ...although there is one "it is said" in there where the footnotes explicitly state the "sayer" was Rinnosuke.  But that was just for that one case and is the only time a footnote disclaims it was someone else)

Well...

In addition, I received a great number of requests from youkai (Such as, "Make me sound stronger," or "What do you think of this power?" ), so what started out as a guide to help humans defend themselves from youkai became, before I knew it, a manual for youkai to help others learn about them. In fact, a number of the youkai threat levels have been inflated somewhat in this volume.

The way Akyuu greets Yukari in Memorizable Gensokyo implies that they've been allies for multiple lifetimes. At least, Akyuu definitely understands the importance of Yukari's work for maintaining the balance of Gensokyo, so I think she'd cut her some slack as long as she gets to snark about it afterwards.

I'd say Yukari trying to make herself sound scarier is perfectly in-character for her.

In any case Yukari didn't weaken the border of the Netherworld (that was Yuyuko, possibly worsened by Reimu depending on route), but neither did she try to edit that part out of the Chronicles.

[Clarste]

I took that line to mean that she weakened the border of the Netherworld enough for Yuyuko to do her thing. Does Yuyuko even have the power to weaken it? She sends you off to Yukari to fix it afterward anyway (which she still hasn't got around to doing). Then again, how the heck does Youmu manage to "steal spring"? So maybe that part doesn't have to make sense.

I don't remember anything that explicitly confirms that Yukari had no part in weakening the border though.

[Prime32]

I don't remember anything that explicitly confirms that Yukari had no part in weakening the border though.

The next time she woke up, she received a request from Yuyuko asking her to restore the boundary between the world of the living and the world of the dead. It was a ridiculous request since Yuyuko was the one who weakened it to begin with, so Yukari rubbed the sleep from her eyes and set out for repairs.

Maybe some nuance was lost in translation though.

[Clarste]

Well, normally I would say "I just didn't remember it", but looking at the Japanese text it just says "she herself weakened it" instead of "Yuyuko weakened it" so it might be unclear who it's talking about. Depending on contextual clues. I... really don't want to think about this right now, so I'll leave it at that.

[Maiden Synnae ミ☆]

[cuc]

Re: PCB barrier

One or two years ago I made a serious effort to figure out what exactly happened in that story. My conclusion was that Yukari here was thinking "Yuyuko, you weakened it yourself, it's all your own fault", with no ambiguity in context.

Sorry, I don't have time to go through over the text again.

[Drake]

Yes, that was the conclusion I came to as well. "Damn it Yuyuko you did this yourself, don't give me that 'fix it pls' nonsense"

[monhan]

I think the same when I first read it, but thinking about it again and after reading the original Japanese texts, I think it's not so strange to take that "自分で" part as Yukari referring to herself, so she was the one who did it as requested by Yuyuko.
It's like someone asked you to repair a car he told you to break beforehand, which is why she found it to be ridiculous.

[Razzi Zadhna]

Looking at it, IN didn't get off too well either:

-Wriggle and Mystia got the short end of the stick, besides "lol Wriggle is a DUDE" and "Yuyuko eats Mystia"
-Keine is literally a schoolteacher and nothing else. Her traits as a historian and guardian are usually ignored. Oh and she's randomly a crazy molester. Ugh.
-Tewi is a gigantic troll and jackass who does nothing but fuck with everybody else. Why don't more people ever use the fact that she's really old and thus would know a lot about ancient Gensokyo?
-Reisen is a stockholm-syndrome suffering extremely passive martyr who suffers endlessly from the malicious antics of everyone around her, and who willingly endures all this bullshit
-Eirin is a mad scientist who tests everything on Reisen. And only Reisen. Because the fandom has decided that Reisen is the chew toy who will suffer through everything and AUGH WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ONE OF MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS
-Kaguya is a NEET
-Mokou is a hobo
-Kaguya and Mokou literally cannot be in the same room without trying to violently kill each other. Either that or they're secretly lesbians. It is either one or the other. No in-betweens allowed

IMO the worst kind of fandom memes are the ones which originate from non-canon things. Say what you want about them but at least stuff like "Tenshi is a masochist", "Yukari does nothing but make endless gambits", and "Reimu is dirt poor" are exaggerations or jokes from actual canon things. But when the meme originates from some random thing like a niconico video that just happened to feature the character, I hate that. At least make your jokes based off canon material.

[Alcoraiden]

Here are my big objections to fanon:
- Eiki isn't a midget; she doesn't have a short temper; she isn't confirmed to be flat-chested. (Dude, ZUN just can't draw boobs. We have *no idea* how flat or not most characters are.)
- Meiling doesn't sleep all the time.
- Yuyuko isn't a mindless glutton. She just likes food and likes joking around.
- Youmu isn't super innocent to the point where she is plainly ignorant.
- Reisen doesn't exist for sex appeal. I am so tired of this.
- Eirin isn't a crazy mad scientist.
- Keine doesn't go around headbutting everyone crazily. So can we stop with the CAVED thing?  Also, hakutaku can be either leonine with horns or bovine. Why doesn't anyone pick the cool predator? Cows are lame. But there's no sign as to which she is canonically, as her tail doesn't resemble either a cow's or a lion's, and the horns are on both versions.
- Remilia isn't a small bratty child. She's five-fucking-hundred. She's probably more mature than any of the main characters. Good grief.
- Sakuya and pads. Uuuuuugh.
- Kaguya is not a lazy NEET. Every time this is said I want to shank something. She has art exhibits and is a connoisseur of artifacts and fine art. Fitting for royalty. Also, of course she doesn't go out and do manual labor or something; she's a *princess*.
- There is nothing at all special about Reimu's armpits.
- Rinnosuke does not have a crush on Marisa or anyone else to the point where it gets all creepy. Seriously now. I don't even like Rinnosuke and I have to defend him here.
- THE CHARACTERS ARE NOT SMALL CHILDREN. Or else we have no real evidence to suggest they *are.*
- Last, I would love to say that Okuu isn't a moron, but it's actually canon. Which makes me so, so, so sad.

I heard some complaints about Yuuka, but I really do like Sadistic Yuuka on the grounds that Akyuu (yes yes she's unreliable, but hey, it's what we got) says she has the worst human friendship level out there. Got to mean something I guess. I also like the idea of "nice cute" Gensokyo having a flat out psychopath. (Though I prefer Grimdark Gensokyo myself.)

Also, someone brought up Akyu's threat level and how it's probably exaggerated and shouldn't be taken as a power level metric. To that I say...welp, it's not like we have a better standard! XD People can basically throw darts and determine power levels. ZUN left his world really ambiguous with regards to this.

[aListers]

- Meiling doesn't sleep all the time.

While her sleepiness is probably exaggerated, it was the major plot point for her story in hisoutensoku and eyewitness reports in perfect memento in strict sense do say that she has been caught sleeping. This is a trait of hers. The fanon part is that she is bad at her job due to it and that is proved wrong by perfect memento in strict sense.

[Clarste]

- Remilia isn't a small bratty child. She's five-fucking-hundred. She's probably more mature than any of the main characters. Good grief.

Maturity isn't just a function of age. Her profile says that vampires sacrifice the ability to grow up for their immortality, so it's reasonable to interpret that as her being an eternally immature child. Throw in her circumstances and, well, how she actually acts in canon and I'd say that's the correct interpretation.

Well, it depends on what you mean by "bratty" I guess. She's not the type to throw tantrums since she has enough power and servants to get what she wants anyway, but she does show this childish jealousy towards other people having things that she doesn't. The solution being to get one of her own.

[Drake]

- Yuyuko isn't a mindless glutton. She just likes food and likes joking around.

Although it is a running joke, it's quite justified to say that she's a glutton. There's IN, but also her animation in HM, demolishing dumplings in SSiB (and it being reiterated in CiLR), sneaking food and constantly mentioning it in SDV, talks about eating eel against Iku, Sakuya makes fun of her in Soku about dying of hunger... There are probably other instances. Yuyuko's constant hunger illustrates her as a kind of Hungry Ghost, which is also consistent with her background and the Buddhist imagery surrounding her (it's also what Sakuya calls her in said quote).

- Youmu isn't super innocent to the point where she is plainly ignorant.

This is also pretty prevalent, but maybe not as you're wording it. "Curious but oblivious" is sort of the core of her character.

Also, someone brought up Akyu's threat level and how it's probably exaggerated and shouldn't be taken as a power level metric. To that I say...welp, it's not like we have a better standard! XD People can basically throw darts and determine power levels. ZUN left his world really ambiguous with regards to this.

The threat level is particularly about how threatening and/or mysterious they are to humans. Note in particular how amicable Hina is, but because she apparently spread misfortune to everyone around her, her threat level is very high. Yamame also follows this pattern to some extent. They're dangerous, but because humans stay way from them their actual personalities are relatively unknown, and so the suggestions to avoid them are inflated.

[game2011]

Akyuu (yes yes she's unreliable

Hope you don't mean everything she says cannot be trusted...

Also, of course she doesn't go out

The Inaba manga shows that she is willing to go out.  It's Eirin who doesn't approve of her going out.

[Drake]

Hope you don't mean everything she says cannot be trusted...

reread what he said and try again

[game2011]

reread what he said and try again

I did, and the impression I got is like "she's not reliable, but if she says so, we'll have to believe her, since there are no other sources for better information."

Sorry if I'm not getting something...

[Tengukami]

- There is nothing at all special about Reimu's armpits.

IOSYS really made this hugely popular, for whatever reason. I suspect ARM has some kind of pit fetish or something.

[Tiamat]

Remilia strikes me as a person who's goals and demeanor are immature, but underneath that is 500 years of wisdom.  After all, the employees of the Scarlet Mansion are allowed to leave at any time but most end up staying, so she must be doing something right.  So basically someone who's extremely bratty and petty and has the goals and desires to match, but more than smart and wise enough to know what she's doing.  I always figured one of the reasons she's so easy-going about being stopped in EoSD is because she never really intended to go through with the mist to the point where it started hurting Gensokyo in the first place, but instead just wanted a little brief (and more relatively harmless) fun.  Trying to remember if there was actual evidence for that or not.  It's been years...

Oh right, now I remember.  The potentially wise reason Remilia did it was to make Sakuya not as cold to humans (though that's Akyu's speculation, admittingly).

[Clarste]

Contrast the fairies, who are also eternally children but also really dumb.

[Raikaria]

The threat level is particularly about how threatening and/or mysterious they are to humans. Note in particular how amicable Hina is, but because she apparently spread misfortune to everyone around her, her threat level is very high. Yamame also follows this pattern to some extent. They're dangerous, but because humans stay way from them their actual personalities are relatively unknown, and so the suggestions to avoid them are inflated.

Except Yuuka manages that level with her power being over Flowers. Not illness or misfortune itself. There's a huge difference between someone whom touching would afflict you with Misfortune, Illness or Poison [Medicine] regardless of what they want, and Yuuka.

Plus her game personality is clearly... yeah. You're not sane if you are making threats about turning people into a mist of atoms as if you are joking, and 'Genocide is just a game'. I mean, she wasn't even provoked to go into Makai. The tourism wouldn't have bothered her, she dosen't even live in Gensokyo. She went there for the lols, and her 'game of genocide' was pretty much unprovoked.

And don't say that's her PC-98 personality; she's NO BETTER in PoFV. I seem to recall her threatening one of the rabbits with turning them into stew.

Yuuka Victory Quote vs Reisen:
If you thought I'd know without you even saying anything, big mistake.
It looked like you wanted to say that tonight is rabbit stew.

She's willingly happy to accept blame for the incident despite KNOWING exactly what the cause is. And thus have an excuse to fight.

Not to mention what Eiki says to her:

If you rest here, you'll become insane.
No, you might already be a little strange.
Whether it be humans or youkai,
or ghost or fairies,
you've attacked them.
Without much reason, as well.

[Yuuka]:     

I was just teasing them.
It's a daily thing.

It is pretty clear that Yuuka is at best, insane [Again, her reactions to things are violent and disproportionate, and Eiki strongly hints it, going so far as to correct herself when she says Yuuka will go insane], and at worst, pretty darn close to her depiction in fanon.

Honestly; I find Fanon Yuuka to be one of the more accurate representations.

[TresserT]

While I agree that Yuuka isn't exactly benevolent, I think you're really exaggerating things. There's a large gap between "you might already be a little strange" and "Yuuka is, at best, insane". She's definitely a strong and violent youkai but she's also someone who followed a code similar to the spellcard rules before they were ever invented.

She doesn't take the initiative in attacking humans (from her PMiSS article), she never goes all out and admits loss even if she could keep going (also her PMiSS article), and she is very cooperative as long as you play by the rules (same as before). You could say that Akyuu is unreliable, but I think the fact that she's a human and feels this way says something.

I think that, at worst, Yuuka is a bloodknight version of Remilia; she's whimsical and enjoys fighting, but she's also wise and kind enough to handle herself. She's not some sadistic monster.

[Drake]

Wait what

I never said anything about Yuuka. I was talking about how the threat level isn't about a range of power, but how threatening they might be to humans. Of course Yuuka's going to be high by that measure????

???????

[Clarste]

Point is that Akyuu writes from the perspective of a sickly little girl, for an audience of farmers and shopkeepers. For those people, it doesn't matter in the slightest what "power level" Yuuka or anyone else has, the only things that matter are how likely they are to hurt you and how likely you are to get away from the encounter safely. The more whimsical the youkai is, the less safe you are around them because they're unpredictable. "Friendliness" is measured separately because they could be very friendly but still get you hurt by being around them (or by being too friendly, like Mamizou or Seiga).

[Raikaria]

While I agree that Yuuka isn't exactly benevolent, I think you're really exaggerating things. There's a large gap between "you might already be a little strange" and "Yuuka is, at best, insane". She's definitely a strong and violent youkai but she's also someone who followed a code similar to the spellcard rules before they were ever invented.

True, but it's the fact she says it as a corrective statement after she claims Yuuka would go insane. It's a pretty strong implication that she already is unhinged to some degree. And 'insane' doesn't have to mean 'murders everyone on sight'.

Wait what

I never said anything about Yuuka. I was talking about how the threat level isn't about a range of power, but how threatening they might be to humans. Of course Yuuka's going to be high by that measure?

?

I might have gone a bit far on explaini9ng the threat levels and my Yuuka example, sorry, got carried away.

[TresserT]

The fanon interpretations don't really bother me much; I pretty much treat canon and fanon versions as completely different characters. I know Tenshi isn't really a masochist, but that's not going to stop me from making jokes about it.

The things I can't stand, for some reason, are the chibis. Things like this and this drive me crazy. You could put anyone from any fandom in place of them and it still works fine. It's not exaggerating personality traits it's ignoring personality all together and using them just because they're cute girls. It basically treats every character as if they're Reisen, and that bugs me.

[Shiina Tamai]

One thing I don't like is when people turn characters like Utsuho into mindless evil monsters who want to kill everybody in Gensokyo for no reason.

[ILikeBulletZ]

I actually legit used to believe the "Tenshi is a masochist" one simply because I keep reading it everywhere and I assumed it must of be true then (Flawless logic I know).

Then again I barely play the Fighters so I don't have much of a way to know better