Flanderization/Video Games

"Sigint: Uh, Snake... What are you doing? Snake: I'm in a box. Sigint: A cardboard box? Why are you... Snake: I dunno, I was just looking at it, and suddenly I got this irresistable urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box. Sigint: Destiny...? Snake: Yeah. And then when I put it on,I suddenly got this feeling of inner peace. I can't put it into words. I feel... safe. Like this is where I meant to be. Like I'd found the key to true happiness. ...Does any of that make sense? Sigint: Not even a little. Snake: You should come inside the box.. Then you'll know what I mean. Sigint: Man, I don't wanna know what you mean!"
 * In Super Robot Wars 3, Henken Bekenner's crush on Emma Sheen gets rather creepy. In canon, Henken made it a point to watch out for her and she was aware he cared for her. In the game, he turns into a Stalker with a Crush to the point he starts creeping her out.
 * Johnny Cage from Mortal Kombat became so diluted he became a parody of what he strove not to be. In the beginning he was more serious (but no less arrogant) and a very competent fighter, but devolved into a Plucky Comic Relief character as the series went on. This was likely a Take That directed at Daniel Pesina, the actor who originally played Johnny Cage, after he was fired by Midway for posing in character as Cage to promote another company's fighting game (Blood Storm).
 * Inverted in the case of Nightwolf. Originally a parody of Thunder Hawk in MK 3, he became The Smart Guy in the cartoon, and in Deception, we had him literally going through hell to rescue Liu Kang. Then in Mortal Kombat 9 he became the leader of the Defenders of Earthrealm.
 * Sadly played straight with Mileena who has been completely flanderized into a Psychopathic Womanchild in MK 9.
 * Paul Phoenix from Tekken has gradually become more of a joke character as the series has progressed. He remains one of the toughest characters in the game, however. Kuma began in Tekken 1 as a fearsome and realistic bear character but began to become a joke in Tekken 2. His identically named son who appears from Tekken 3 onwards is a complete joke character due to the introduction of Panda.
 * In Final Fantasy VII Cloud Strife actually did very little brooding, preferring to focus on fighting Sephiroth and saving the planet from Shinra. The guy even cracked a few jokes at his friends and could take a jab back in return, and is very caring of his friends and claims he "trusts everyone". His archrival Sephiroth was a Dark Messiah who wanted to become a god to reshape the planet into his own personal utopia, and he screwed with Cloud's head to do it in revenge for Cloud defeating him years prior. Ever since the original game Cloud has been warped into a loner who brushes off his friends' attempts to help him while he broods and angsts over Sephiroth, and Sephiroth's only character traits now are his ability to manipulate Cloud's emotions and taunt Cloud with the fact he's so good at it. The Foe Yay between them has also gotten increasingly heavy-handed, to the point Sephiroth almost seems more like a jealous stalker or a scorned ex than Cloud's hated enemy.
 * There's also Aerith and Yuffie. Aerith was originally a headstrong Plucky Girl with a strong spiritual side and a slight flirtatious streak. The girl threatened to rip off a guy's balls at one point. In the spin-offs whatever stubbornness and flirtatiousness she had is gone, and her spiritual powers and connection to the planet have become her core character traits--as a result the girl is portrayed as a saint, the human incarnation of Incorruptible Pure Pureness with powers so strong she can save the world from beyond the grave. Meanwile Yuffie was originally a bit goofy and silly, but she was still quite cunning, witty and sneaky--she is a ninja after all, and the former Trope Namer for Wutai Theft. In spin-offs she's a typical Genki Girl and is just loud and hyper. Crisis Core rectified both of these though; and Aerith and Yuffie are more or less back to how they were in the original game.
 * Not to mention a lot of fans flanderize the characters, thanks to Poe's Law. Playing the original Final Fantasy VII, you might actually be surprised to find that Cloud is NOT eternally whining and brooding, or that the characters actually DON'T cry as much as the Hatedom say they do.
 * From Final Fantasy IX we have Kuja, though his choice in fashion was... questionable, his eerie rhythm, complete disregard for all life except his own, skin that was likened to steel (which was not segregated when you finally fight him), and the unholy mother of all Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrums made him a very legitimate and creepy threat, though most people tend to remember him for his appearance in Dissidia, as an Ambiguously Gay, very feminine sort of manchild who gets no respect from the other villains due to his age and only really wants to be alone with Zidane. The Prequel does explain this though:
 * Lara Croft started as a modest, down to earth woman in Tomb Raider. In Tomb Raider 2 she became more witty and slightly more threatening and bloodthirsty. Later on she was heavily Flanderized into a Hollywood-style tough girl for Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation, and by Angel of Darkness this had become exaggerated to Jerkass levels.
 * When Crystal Dynamics reboots the series with Tomb Raider: Legend, Lara's personality becomes far more emotional and sensitive. At first, this was something of an improvement. In Tomb Raider: Anniversary, the second Crystal Dynamics game, Lara takes just one human life and turns into Lady Macbeth, constantly looking at her hands for the rest of the game.
 * Bear in mind that Anniversary shows Lara's first human kill. is the only human she kills in the game and only in self defence. Everyone else is taken out by someone/something else. Also, she looks at her hands for about 5 seconds in that cut scene and it's never mentioned again in the game at all.
 * In Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, one could potentially argue that HK-47 was somewhat Flanderized. In the original, he was calmer and tended to display his sociopathic tendencies only in isolated situations, like during certain "aggressive negotiations". Outside of combat and negotiations, he was a perfect gentleman, though he spoke with a disturbing flippancy/eagerness about death and destruction. In the sequel, he became a straightforward Killer Robot, speaking boldly and constantly about slaughtering all meatbags. This, however, worked in his favor, as without it, the now-famous line, "Definition: Love is making a shot to the knees of a target 120 kilometres away using an Aratech sniper rifle with a tri-light scope," would never exist.
 * Also done with his unusual speech pattern. In the first game the "Definition:" or "Statement:" or "Query:" before his dialogue was relatively simple, there weren't that many of them (maybe five or six at most) and they served to logically categorize the things he said. In KotOR 2, the prefixes start becoming increasingly specific. The HK-50s take it to the next level by adding descriptive adjectives to the mix, to the point that they often serve to ironically undermine the following statement completely, a la Stephen Colbert's "The WORD" (i.e. "Hasty Retraction:", "Condescending Explanation:" or even "Fabrication:".)
 * Namine of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories started off simply having power over memories. In Kingdom Hearts II, her powers now are said to only work for Sora and it has a side effect on those alligned with him. And as of 358/2 Days and Coded, she can now acess anyone's memory from any distance, so long as they are "connected to Sora" (which is most of the cast) and Namine has basically become omnipotent as a result. While one's mileage may vary as to how this all affect Namine's overall character, most fans are finding it hard to deny that her powers and their effects have gotten ridiculously out of hand.
 * The whole Command and Conquer: Red Alert has undergone this. While some people complained that Red Alert 3 was ridiculously over the top compared to the previous games, it had already drifted dramatically starting with Red Alert 2. Red Alert had time travel, an Action Girl, and some over-the-top technology and characters, but it was about as serious as the Tiberium Series. Red Alert 2 expanded on this with much more over the top stuff (Giant mind controlled squid?) and much more cartoonish units and scenarios. Red Alert 3 is par for the course after this.
 * Command and Conquer: Tiberium Series also has undergone this, if more subtle. The first game was a quasi-futuristic military strategy of the western nations against an elusive terrorist faction with stealth and laser technology. The second game threw the world into chaos, added jumpjet infantry, mecha, cyborgs, mutants and a super AI and attempted to explain Kane's origins. The third game went back to the original style, but left the super tanks, super weapons, lasers, stealth, and added mobile defense posts, Ninja, mad suicide bombers, and all sorts of walking, hovering and flying aliens, who subsequently got their asses kicked. The expansion of that game then re-added the mecha and cyborgs. The so far last game threw away base building and money and added Powered Armor to everyone, while extrapolating nearly all unit concepts introduced in the series into one game. Talk about a Zig Zagged Trope.
 * Mega Man X: As Executive Meddling forced the series to go beyond the creator's planned ending, X5, some of the main characters had certain aspects of their personality stretched out to artificially create conflict for the next few games. While Zero always stayed friendly to X, he became rather gruffer and more stereotypically badass as the series went on, especially when Axl was introduced. Sigma degenerated just as badly as Dr. Wily, if not worse, as he went from very nearly destroying the world and being a truly Magnificent Bastard...to a shivering pile of zombie-animated debris in just one game, and by the next game explained his final boss status as simply "because I'll never stop until you're dead!" It was X that the fans complained about the most, though: while he had always been more pacifistic and less violence-inclined than Zero, this was expanded into the defining aspect of his personality, so that rather than being a reluctant cop, he was a stereotypically annoying whiner who kept advocating non-violence even when the situation had clearly gone south. This led to him abandoning active duty at the beginning of X7, so we started off playing a Megaman X game not playing as Megaman X. He does return, though.
 * Speaking of the X series, even words can undergo Flanderization. The term Maverick initially referred to a Reploid who attacked and killed humans, but starting with X4 the meaning started to become warped as a political tool, usually with the purpose of sending the Maverick Hunters after the designated targets. The distortion of its meaning remains long into the Zero series, where the Resistance are (mostly) law-abiding Reploids just trying to keep themselves operational amidst an energy crisis.
 * Kratos of God of War could be considered to fall into this. In the first game, his bloodlust is a facet of his deeper personality - he channeled the memories of what he had done into his rage to become more brutally efficient. In the second game, Kratos lost that, and became simply bloodlust and badassery in human form. The third game, however, reverses this trend thanks to his interactions with Pandora - it is through her that he is reminded
 * Of course, in the three games his "sins" usually consist entirely on inadvertently killing his own family, not the dozens and dozens of other innocent murders he commits throughout his adventures.
 * Sodom from Final Fight was originally a samurai-themed underground wrestler with a somewhat misguided fascination with Japanese culture. In the Street Fighter Alpha series (especially in the Japanese versions of the games), this fascination became more of an obsession, with Sodom usually speaking in mangled Japanese, writing his gang's name in kanji, and going as far as to travel to Japan to recruit sumo wrestlers for his gang.
 * When Mai Shiranui was first introduced in Fatal Fury 2, she was simply a female Ninjutsu master whose relation with Andy Bogard (being the granddaughter of his sensei, Hanzo Shiranui) was barely mentioned in her back-story. In later games (especially in the anime adaptations), she became so fully obsessed with Andy to the point that she yells his name whenever she gets K.O.ed in The King of Fighters games and most of her endings revolve around her trying to get Andy to marry her.
 * Mai's voluptuousness in Fatal Fury 2 and Special was also nowhere near as exaggerated as it was in later games. It wasn't until the KOF games, when they gave more revealing clothing and bouncing breasts, that her status as Ms. Fanservice was cemented, with heavy contribution (pun intended) from Masami Obari via the Fatal Fury anime films.
 * Captain Qwark from the Ratchet and Clank series has become an increasingly unintelligent character in recent games. In the first game, he wasn't portrayed as being particularly stupid, but was shown as being cowardly and rather incompetent. In the second game, Qwark successfully takes control of the Mega Corp corporation and executes a Evil Plan that only fails when he puts the batteries of the Helix-O-Morph in backwards (it's a long story). In the third game, Qwark goes completely bananas (literally) when he for some reason is acting as the chief of a monkey tribe on a tropical planet. After his subsequent Heel Face Turn, he has been portrayed as exceedingly vain and in Size Matters and Tools of Destruction he borders on The Ditz territory.
 * Achmed Khan from Backyard Sports was originally a great athlete who simply listened to rock music (although he had his headphones on everywhere). This quirk was run into the ground by later games, making him a guitar-wielding crazed fan, down to the fact that he could not focus due to loving music.
 * The Ar tonelico series features an in-universe example. Any part of a Reyvateil's problems, desires, or what-have-you get blown to spectacular proportions in their Cosmospheres. Outside of the Cosmospheres, however, the changes in character after you go in to their Cosmospheres are much more subtle.
 * All the Harvest Moon 64 characters were flanderized for Back to Nature. The Wonderful Life characters descendants, were flanderized even more for the DS games. But that's justified due to them not being the same person and having more boring lives. For example Popuri was originally just The Ditz and was a bubbly sweetheart. In Back To Nature she became an immature Adult Child, which only got worse with her appearances in both DS and Island of Happiness.
 * Inverted in the Mass Effect series. In the first game, we see few members of each species, each playing up one identifying trait (belligerence for the krogan, devotion to duty for the turians, the like), but in Mass Effect 2 we meet and talk to many different members of each species with widely varying personalities and outlooks, giving us a much broader look into the societies built around the identifying traits from the first game and the kinds of people that live in them.
 * Urdnot Wrex de-Flanderizes pretty significantly for his appearance in Mass Effect 2. In the first game, he states flats how the Krogan mindset has coupled with the genophage to mean that his people are dying out--mostly due to work as mercenaries and bounty hunters being more appealing than working on a solution. He spends the majority of the first game idly complaining about the Krogan's problems, but doesn't really do anything until Virmire, in which he's mostly just belligerent. Cut to Mass Effect 2, where he's revealed to have spent the last two years forcing the Krogan to address the problems caused by the genophage before the damage is too great to be undone. While everything he does is in typical blunt Krogan fashion, his actions and goals take on much broader scope during the second game.
 * In Dragon Age: Origins Zevran was a nuanced character with complex motivations. During his cameo in Dragon Age 2, he plays up the sarcasm and perversion rather more than is strictly necessary.
 * Debatable. Most of Zevran's complex motivations and character nuances were seriously Hidden Depths, even in the first game. He isn't acting all that differently than he was when he first meets the Warden; why would Hawke get a more complete picture of his character when the two only interact for about a day in-game?
 * Isabela in Dragon Age 2 is an in-universe example, actually, she's a rather complex character with a buried honorable side under the greedy pirate, but all everyone besides Hawke can focus on is how many people she's had sex with.
 * Welch Vineyard of the Star Ocean series. She originally appeared in Star Ocean 3 as the energetic and somewhat Tsundere item creation clerk. She was popular, so she returned as a hidden recruitable character in the remakes of Star Ocean and Star Ocean 2, as well as returning to a role similar to her Star Ocean 3 role in Star Ocean 4. (albeit looking a little different in the latter) Her later appearances saw her randomness, tsundere-ness, and energy level turned way up, making her a little obnoxious at times.
 * Essentially all of the cast in the Crash Bandicoot franchise have devolved into dopier, more sociopathic caricatures of themselves. This says nothing of the series' cultural nods, Crunch for example went from a somewhat aggressive tough guy with subtle demeanor and voice mannerisms as a slight homage to Mr T to basically being a shallow parody of the star. Even former 'sane' straight men like Aku Aku and Coco are now melodramatic jerkasses Genius Ditzes.
 * Snake and cardboard boxes got out of hand at some point...
 * They were always out of hand.


 * Peach of the Super Mario Bros. series is largely known nowadays for her over-the-top stereotypical female personality and ditziness, but she wasn't always like that. The series started off with her having the power to undo Bowser's evil spell which is why Bowser kidnaps her, a motive that has become nearly forgotten. Still, in Super Mario 64, she was portrayed as a dignified, intelligent-sounding monarch. Come Super Mario Sunshine, her ditziness took over full force, leading to the Peach we know today.
 * Bowser himself has also gone through some personality changes over the years. He started off as being someone who wanted to take over the Mushroom Kingdom, take the princess, and beat Mario, to becoming a tough guy with an image to keep and would be rather be caught dead than to assist Mario in some of the RPG spin off games. He goes down even further by kidnapping the princess (and possibly taking over the world/galaxy) because he likes her and finds fighting Mario more of a sport rather than a need to get rid of someone standing in his way for total domination.
 * Luigi started out as a recolor of Mario but started to grow in character. In the first Paper Mario game he keeps asking to join Mario on his adventure, even if he’s scared of ghosts. However, when he got his own game in which he was shown as The So-Called Coward, he faced his fear of ghosts head on. Since then, though, being a coward has been his main character trait. Not that this is a bad thing.
 * The most notable example of Flanderization regarding him can be found in the Mario & Luigi series. In the first game, he had very bad luck, and wasn't as brave as Mario, but he was still capable enough in his own right. In later games (particularly Partners in Time), he's a complete wuss who can't seem to do anything without screwing up and getting hurt.
 * Luigi's cowardice could be a case of Canon Immigration, as even back in the western cartoons Luigi was shown as easily rattled and averse to conflict, whereas Mario never backed down from a challenge.
 * This has also happened to Princess Daisy of all characters. After her much-needed Divergent Character Evolution away from Peach, Daisy became more of a tomboy with a spunky and energetic side, but was still generally soft-spoken and rather calm. As the games went on however, Daisy became more hyperactive, louder and more shrill with each new appearance. Needless to say, this hasn't worked out too well.
 * Girl Stinky in the Sam and Max games went from being a Wrongly Accused Smug Snake Know-Nothing Know-It-All who was nonetheless friendly enough with Sam and Max to help them out a few times (or at least look the other way while they did what they had to do) in Season 2, to being psychotically evil and cripplingly lazy in Season 3. Also, in Season 2, the other characters consider her reasonably attractive despite her awful personality, and Flint Paper thinks of her as a Film Noir Femme Fatale, but by Season 3 her personality leads her to be considered so repulsive Max nearly projectile vomits after watching her and Sam do a Fake-Out Make-Out. Since the universe functions on Rule of Funny, this is generally considered an improvement.
 * Max's childlike aspects were exaggerated between the comics and the games, and further along from Hit The Road to Season Three. In the comics, he's still whimsical, but also snarky, intelligent and tough, and his moments of childish behaviour are mostly based on Steve Purcell's own memories of himself as a child and all the cuter for being assigned to a more mature and competent character. By Season Three he can use Psychic Powers by using special children's toys, which 'only work for those with the mind of a child', and his snark has mostly gone in favour of creepy, deranged glee and references to his stupidity and short attention span. It works a lot in Sam's favour, though, by giving them greater Cast Speciation - decreasing Max's snark frees up Sam to become a Deadpan Snarker, rather than a toned-down version of Max like in the comics.
 * However, in Season Three, after switching to Max, the game shows a random image of something from Max's memory. Many of these things include images of things in American history or various animals, suggesting that Max is smarter than his personality lets on.
 * Done on purpose to the Brotherhood of Steel in Fallout. From Fallout 1 to Fallout 2 they become significantly more secular and generally bigger jerk asses, then even more so in Fallout New Vegas. This is due to the time differences between the games, as each generation drifts further and further away from the original intentions of the organisation and into more overt technology worship and becomes increasingly secular and elitist, which was originally a very minor aspect of the Bo S. Their increasing elitism is a major plot point for their quest line, including the member that can be recruited by the Courier. In the NCR and Independent endings, their decision to embrace or abandon their isolationism ultimately decides whether or not
 * The Numans/Newmans of the Phantasy Star series have undergone a race-wide Flanderization of their own; they are now often sardonically referred to (and mistaken for) Space Elves, due to Sega focusing more on their adeptness with magic and their elflike appearance:
 * In the original quadrilogy, Numans were originally genetically-engineered Half Human Hybrids as an Expy of Myau the Musk Cat in the first game (Nei from Phantasy Star II was originally going to have far more catlike features and a tail, according to Tohoru Yoshida).
 * By Phantasy Star Online, Numans were renamed to Newmans and made into a full race of genetically engineered beings rather than one-off experiments. PSO made them more like a Witch Species, as they were considerably better with Techniques than Androids or Humans of the same class.
 * Phantasy Star Universe turned the Newmans into a collective Wutai race of spiritual environmentalists. It was the players of this game that widely used the term "Space Elf" to refer to Newmans the most, and the Newmans of this game most closely fit the "Type II" variant of that trope.
 * The Newmans of Phantasy Star Zero fall somewhere between a warlike and scholarly attitude, being closer to PSO's treatment of Newmans than the other games; here, though the Newmans here also have a Moon Rabbit motif.
 * Yuan Shao in Dynasty Warriors is originally portrayed as an honorable, if not a bit too proud, nobleman with some Ted Baxter tendencies. As the series progresses, his prideful characters has been exaggerated to the point that he became extremely arrogant and pretentious.
 * Which might be more or less accurate on his 'real' persona base on Guo Jia's comment on him in Romance of the Three Kingdom (the source material).
 * The Disgaea series always bring back the characters of the previous games as bonus characters. However, they always come back as flanderized versions of themselves. The ur-example is Laharl, the protagonist of the first game. He starts out as an annoying, self-entitled brat but goes on to deal with a potent childhood trauma, stops shutting out his feelings, gains devoted allies, and even a Love Interest. He's still kind of a jerk at the end, but you can tell he's matured. When he appears in the sequels he's still the Overlord, but he acts like a annoying brat who wants to be the main character again for more screentime and related benefits, such as being able to win every battle because the player can just reset and grind more until he wins.
 * Etna starts as King Krichevskoy's vassal, who, after the king's death, is given the mission of raising Laharl. Long story short, she starts off loathing the prince for his brattiness but gains respect for him as he matures, and eventually settles into being his right-hand demon. Cue Disgaea 2, where she leaves Laharl's service in a quest for personal power because she hates him. Then there's her fondness for sweets; while her sweet tooth is mentioned once or twice in the original, some later games (e.g., Prinny Can I Really Be the Hero) depict her as sweet-obsessed in search of some legendary dessert.
 * Arguably inverted in Zelda, with Ganondorf. In the first games he starts out as some sort of boar/pig monster, in The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time it is revealed he was a human wizard, but came off as an unruly and savage power hungry tyrant. In Wind Waker he is depicted as intelligent and sophisticated, and despite the controversial insertion in Twilight Princess, that was his most eerie and intimidating appearance of all.
 * In the first few Monkey Island games, Guybrush had a tendency to be a bit dim every now and then, but overall proved himself to be a fairly competent adventurer. By the time Escape from Monkey Island happens, it's a wonder he can even put on his own pants, let alone solve any of the game's puzzles.
 * Civilization has Gandhi. In the original game, civs are random, so Gandhi isn't always the peaceful ruler that he's famous for being in real life. in particular, fans got a kick out of and made a meme out of Gandhi threatening them with nuclear weapons. In Civ 5, he's specifically programmed to use nukes more than any other AI is programmed to use or do anything.
 * Persona 4 has this in-universe with the characters' Shadows, which reduce them to a single defining (and completely overblown) character trait.
 * In Knuckles Chaotix, Espio was a detective and had the ability to walk on walls and ceilings. In Sonic Heroes, he was given more personality and also had some ninja elements to them due to his previous abilities, plus the fact that he should have Invisibility, due to being a chameleon and all. It seemed more like a hobby than anything major. In Sonic Generations, Espio's ninja qualities have been enhanced to an obvious degree, with more ninja mannerisms, a heavier focus on his invisibility and shuriken, and his voice sounding like it was ripped straight from the animes.
 * Malfurion Stormrage from World of Warcraft has suffered from a severe case of flanderization that takes him dangerously close to Character Derailment levels. While he was always one to put aside differences to face a common threat, Cataclysm has made this his sole character trait. He's so focused on stopping Ragnaros that he blatantly ignores the Horde's attacks on Night Elf settlements, infamously going so far as to defend them in the Leyara questline. This would be somewhat justifiable if he were a strictly neutral character, but he's supposed to be the leader of the Night Elves.
 * The titular character of Conkers Bad Fur Day is generally described as an alcholic foul-mouthed squirrel, which is very much overplayed. He drinks only a few times throughout the story and his limited profanity is about PG-rated and hardly warrants a censor bleep. The foul-mouthing comes from everyone and thing else around him.
 * Veigue from Tales of Rebirth gets this treatment whenever he appears in one of the Tales comedy CDs. In the game, he has a habit of saying or yelling his girlfriend's name a lot, and occasionally gives melodramatic equality speeches, but they're hardly his only character traits. In the CDs he becomes "That guy who yells his girlfriend's name and gives melodramatic equality speeches".
 * Touhou Fan Fiction does this a lot with the many many characters who, in the games, have only slight hints at personality traits to begin with. Which makes Touhou a unique case where Flanderization, Character Development and Character Establishment are very often one and the same. In fact, many popular characters have personalities that developed before Word of God announced them in official side works, thus often clashing with the official version, which in turn makes for interesting stories when the different sides try to take control of the plot. One of the best examples is Koakuma, who officially is a mischievous little demon who does erants because she has to and loves to play pranks, while the most famous fan variant is a faithful librarian servant who may even have a crush on her summoner Patchouli.
 * Reimu is officially a little lazy but still a dutyful Miko who uses her insane luck and instinct to solve problems. Fan works often paint her as a Jerkass Sue who would do anything for money because she is just that poor. The other variant is upping her inate sweetness Up to Eleven.
 * Marisa is a complex character, best friend and strongest rival to Reimu, hard working, level-headed, but a little on the greedy side, especially when it comes to power and loves flirting and bantering. She has enough reasons for all of those too. Her most common fan version is outright kleptomanic, destructive and has a massive lesbian harem.
 * Alice is a gifted doll-maker, solitairy, polite, but also cold and neutral towards others. In fan works she is either a hardcore Tsundere mostly towards Marisa, or an even more hardcore Yandere, usually towards Marisa.
 * Remilia and Flandre are intelligent, young (by vampire standards) ladies, if a little childish. Remilia is usually portrayed as extremely childish, arrogant and demanding, while Flandre is either sweet or a Creepy Child with massive streaks of Person of Mass Destruction. Sakuya is a mysterious maid, Lady of War style and keeps her cool in any situation, but often portrayed as obsessed with her mistress and with hidden streaks of blood-thirsty killer. Meiling is a strong and dutyful gate guardian, yet in fan works always sleeping on the job.
 * Yuyuko is The Ojou, knowing and well-reserved, acting dumber than she really is, but since Imperishable Night all she ever does is trying to eat, eat and eat, while Youmu, dutyful if a little clueless samurai gardener bodyguard that she is, is either outright at a loss at what to do or so competent she's been offered job contracts by all other factions already.
 * Byakuren is The Mentor, The Messiah and one of the nicest characters in a series of usually nice if overly bored strong people. In fan works her messianic nature is exxagerated to Incorruptible Pure Pureness or to The Ditz because she spend so long alone. Shou is always losing stuff, while Nazrin is always busy FINDING said stuff.
 * Cirno actually is the most powerful fairy by Word of God, but despite all fairies being The Ditz by default, she suffers the treatment of beating Ralph Wiggum in most works. Recently, some fan works have rectified this by making her an Idiot Hero but very likable and compassionate, which is ALSO different from her initial canon appearance, where she is a Creepy Child at best and outright malicious at worst.
 * It's example the same for Utsuho, except how she is a Genius Ditz because she knows absolutely everything about nuclear fusion and assorted technology.
 * Aya is a slightly over-active photographer and tabloit writer, always busy with making stuff (up). In fan works, she is a creepy pervert who takes delight in takes pictures of others in embarrasing poses or simply Panty Shots.
 * Yuuka is a strange case, because she is often portrayed as a violent maniac who takes delight in torture and violence, but also has a tender side to those she likes. Like, ya know, how she actually IS in canon.
 * Yukari is a schemer and controls Gensokyo, but is often asleep. Like Yuuka, that's also show she acts in canon.