History Main / Fanwank

* Justifying HollywoodTactics or anything done in the RuleOfIndex as being appropriate InUniverse;

"Wank" originates in British slang as a term for masturbation. Thus, "fan wank" refers to writers stroking their own egos by writing at length about things only they care about. The term was coined by ''Series/DoctorWho'' fan and ''Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse'' writer Craig Hinton, who was no stranger to fan wank himself, and applied the term to his own work. That said, some fandom circles also use "wank" to refer to a fan behaving [[UsefulNotes/BritishEnglish like a wanker]], such as BrokenBase feuding and other gross displays of FanDumb.

!!Examples:

** It is notorious among the fans for having an open ending. This leads shippers to writing piles upon piles of fanfiction hooking up the main characters with each other, [[FanPreferredCouple especially Ranma with someone who isn't]] [[BaseBreakingCharacter Akane]] [[{{Tsundere}} Tendō]], despite Ranma×Akane being the series' OfficialCouple. The ShipToShipCombat that developed between various factions was bloody -- in fact, this very entry was changed to stop a FlameWar from starting.

** Another common fan wank on the Jusenkyō Curses is adding the secondary effect of actively attempting to induce the transformation rather than simply making it possible. This is typically done by making the victim a [[KryptoniteIsEverywhere water magnet]] and [[InvokedTrope invoking]] a ContrivedCoincidence to wet the victim if they haven't changed for too long. This idea is often used either (or both) to avoid RuleOfFunny explanation of where the convenient buckets/thrown water comes from in more [[{{Deconstruction}} deconstructive works]], or to explain why Ranma [[VoluntaryShapeshifter gaining partial control]] over his curse doesn't simply turn into an effective cure due to the canonical {{Aversion}} of the SecondLawOfGenderBending: even if the water trigger of his curse is removed, and replaced with a voluntary mental triggering or other far more controllable trigger, the curse still forces Ranma to spend some time in his cursed form.

** KiManipulation gets a lot of this. Everything which isn't explained in-universe tends to be attributed to Ki manipulation. Mousse has a HyperspaceArsenal up his sleeves? He's using Ki to compress space. The Happo Fire Burst explosives? Conjured from Ki. Akane's "signature" mallet(which she doesn't even use that often)? Obviously a Ki construct. Kuno's [[WoodenKatanasAreEvenBetter implausible use of his Bokken?]] Clearly, it's reinforced with his Ki! This probably in part comes retroactively from ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'', as such HandWaving is ''canon'' in ''Naruto''; everything out of the ordinary is done with Chakra.

** One theory suggests that Sailor Pluto is deliberately engineering a timeline where 95% of the Earth's population is killed off in a thousand-year glaciation period [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans in order to produce Crystal Tokyo]]. At ''no point'' does the [[Anime/SailorMoon anime]] ever say anything along the lines of 95% of the population dying in a disaster. The anime notes that Usagi awoke a frozen world from slumber in the 30th century and ascended, whereas in the [[Manga/SailorMoon manga]], there was no disaster at all and the utopia evolved naturally. So the entire theory is FanWank piled upon FanWank.

* The ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'' franchise as a whole has the "Turn A Bang" theory, derived from a scene in ''Anime/TurnAGundam'' that depicted a period of history made up of clips from various other ''Gundam'' shows, which were originally touted as {{Alternate Universe}}s. Fans responded by building a timeline that tried to fit all those shows into a single universe. It's hard to do, and every new show only makes it harder (and a piece of official merchandise[[note]]Specifically, the manual for the Master Grade Turn X model kit[[/note]] said explicitly that all universes after ''Turn A'' except ''Anime/GundamBuildFighters'' are part of the timeline, so they have to do it).
* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' fanfiction is very nearly the most written anime fanfiction on Platform/FanFictionDotNet, mostly due to what Kishimoto decided to wait to reveal: the name of the Fourth... Fans thought his name was "Arashi ___" with the common idea being "Arashi Uzumaki" because everyone thought he was Naruto's father. We do now know his real name, which is [[spoiler:Minato Namikaze]], but fans remain free to speculate on his actual situation (reincarnated as Naruto after sealing the Kyuubi in himself?), village laws (the idea of "Clan Restoration Act" for a dying clan), the concept of a council (sometimes split into a Shinobi Council and a Civilian Council), {{shipping}}, Naruto's mother, bloodlines, members of Akatsuki, and whether or not Madara is actually immortal. Most of these were eventually confirmed or {{Jossed}} in canon.
* ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' has inspired more EpilepticTrees than any other anime, which is practically inevitable when you consider [[MindScrew how weird the story is]], the [[GainaxEnding sheer number of things that go unexplained]], and the creators' [[TeasingCreator refusal to explain anything]] (because it's post-modern, apparently). Fans have thus theorized that Yui Ikari was the mastermind behind everything, that Unit-00 [[spoiler: kept going berserk]] because Naoko Akagi was the soul inside it, whether or not Rei is [[spoiler: technically related to Shinji]], whether or not Rei [[spoiler: as an Angel/Human hybrid]] can have children, that Misato was [[spoiler: the one who shot Kaji]] (though that is one of the rare examples of a fan theory that [[WordOfGod Anno himself]] has outright {{Jossed}}), and that only children can sync with the Eva because it's fueled by teenage {{Angst}}.

* ''Literature/NyarukoCrawlingWithLove'' obliquely references the concept in one of the ''Nyaruani'' shorts: In a FourthWallMailSlot segment, a reader asks for an explanation for why the order of Mahiro and Nyarko's classes is different between the novel series and a short story. Nyarko's response is to angrily tear the letter into confetti.
* ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'':
** At several points in ''Manga/StardustCrusaders'', Jotaro's [[FightingSpirit Stand]], Star Platinum, demonstrates NewPowersAsThePlotDemands: it suddenly becomes able to extend its fingers to hit Dark Blue Moon and Strength's users, gains a VacuumMouth to inhale Enya's [[FogOfDoom Justice]], and most glaringly of all, [[spoiler:suddenly becomes able to [[TimeStandStill stop time]] just like DIO's The World]] during the final battle with no foreshadowing. Some fans theorize that Star Platinum actually has an AdaptiveAbility and can gain any power it needs to protect Jotaro.
** In an early fight in ''Manga/GoldenWind'', Giorno's Stand, Gold Experience, is pierced by a Stand arrow used by Polpo's Black Sabbath. This turns into a PlotHole later on, where it's revealed that [[spoiler:if a Stand is pierced by an arrow, it evolves into its Requiem form, gaining new abilities]]. One common explanation is that [[spoiler:since the arrow used to turn Silver Chariot and Gold Experience into their Requiem form has a unique, scarab-shaped design, that specific arrow is somehow special, and the only one which can unlock a Stand's Requiem form]].
* ''Manga/DrStone'':
** The story starts with the main characters Senku and Taiju being [[TakenForGranite petrified for over 3700 years]] and [[AndIMustScream remaining conscious the whole time]], but [[AngstWhatAngst they seem perfectly fine after they revive]]. Since it's shown that being petrified and revived heals all physical injuries, some fans tried to justify this by claiming that petrification and revival also heals ''mental'' issues, meaning Senku and Taiju ''did'' GoMadFromTheIsolation, but their sanity was restored after they revived. This is unlikely, however, since some flashback scenes from Senku's perspective while he was petrified show that he was perfectly calm and rational even after counting billions of seconds.
** Shortly after the petrification event, a group of 6 astronauts returned to Earth. 3700 years later, their descendants form a village with a population of around 40. If you ask fans how they didn't die out from inbreeding-related problems generations ago, be prepared for much arguing about how genetics work, if enough generations would result in some people no longer counting as related, or if the villagers ''are'' inbred, with some of the girls' strange-looking faces being used as proof.

* ''ComicBook/VForVendetta'' gives us the fan wank of V's gender. In both the graphic novel and film, V is consistently referred to as "he" and "the ''man'' from room five", but V is speculated to be [[spoiler:Valerie, a female character we only see in flashback, presumably after some serious surgery]].

* Due to its rather simplistic storyline, ''Film/{{Enchanted}}'' fans have been left with the task of interpreting several plot threads left at the end, including the rhyme and reason behind [[spoiler: [[PairTheSpares Edward and Nancy]]'s last-minute hookup]], and how someone as naive as Giselle would react when she learns about sex.
* Used InUniverse in ''Film/GalaxyQuest''; fans of the show have constructed a whole map of the ship and worked out explanations for everything on it -- which pays off when the actors need that kind of knowledge aboard the real ship. They even have their own bizarre explanation for what the Omega-13 device does which deviates from the show's conventional wisdom; [[spoiler:it's not a bomb, but a time machine (with a 13-second range) -- and they turn out to be right there, too!]] It's also some subtle FridgeBrilliance, as the aliens who built the ship must have done the same wanking from [[AliensStealCable watching the same "Historical Documents"]].
* The plot of ''Film/TheMatrixReloaded'' and ''Film/TheMatrixRevolutions'' is so impenetrable that it has actually spawned a cottage industry of books seeking to explain it. The content of these books ranges from cutting-edge philosophy to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Icke some nonsense about space lizards,]] suggesting that Lovecraftian madness awaits any mortal who should happen to solve the mystery.

** Luke uses the Force to [[PsychicStrangle choke a Gammorean]] in ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' -- but isn't that using TheDarkSide? Fans have wanked this away by claiming that it's only simple telekinesis rather than a specific "power" and any Force user can do it (the Dark Side just likes it a lot more, and there's no BadPowersBadPeople at play here), to there being no intent to kill (thus not the Dark Side), to Luke using the JediMindTrick to make the Gammorean ''think'' he was choking but not put him in any real danger.

** At the end of ''Film/ANewHope'', everybody got a medal except for Chewbacca. Not wanting their heroes to look insensitive, fans have wanked that Wookiees don't believe in medals and awards, and that Chewie was offered a medal offscreen and declined the honor. One comic book {{continuation}}, however, cheekily suggested that Leia was just too short to actually put the medal around Chewie's neck, and it would have been undignified to give her a ScullyBox during the ceremony.[[note]]Although there is precious little direct evidence, what is out there does seem to suggest this was at least in part the reason that Chewie never got a medal -- that with Peter Mayhew being considerably taller than Carrie Fisher, there seemed to be no good way to film him receiving one without it looking ridiculous. Mayhew has said that in compensation, Chewie was given the last line in the film.[[/note]]

* ''Film/{{Enemy}}'' has ''many'' theories about "what it all means." Here's [[http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/03/14/enemy_movie_ending_explained_the_meaning_of_the_jake_gyllenhaal_and_denis.html one take]] from ''Slate''.

* This trope is OlderThanFeudalism; in the last days of the Roman Republic, Stoic philosophers didn't spend their time on the mysteries of life and the nature of virtue so much as exactly how many rowers [[Literature/TheOdyssey Odysseus]] had.
* ''Literature/HarryPotter'' has a very prolific {{fanfic}} collection with its share of fan wanking; one of the most prolific is ''FanFic/HarryPotterAndTheMethodsOfRationality'', which tries to explain as much of the mythos as it can. The biggest question facing the fandom, though, is how exactly [[SuperpowerfulGenetics magical inheritance]] works; no matter how you do it, it cannot be explained simply by a single gene: if magic is recessive, [[MuggleBornOfMages Squibs]] can't exist, but if it's dominant, Muggle-borns can't, and ''neither'' case explains the observation that every muggle/mage pair depicted has 100% magical offspring. (Incidentally, ''Methods of Rationality'''s author gave up on this question and made it a single recessive gene, explicitly ignoring the canon.)

** The Doctor apparently has a granddaughter (and has since the beginning), but many fans vehemently insist that no character on the show (and most especially not the Doctor) can ever, ''ever'' be suggested to [[NoHuggingNoKissing engage in a certain physical activity]] often responsible for producing parents of grandchildren. So they produce fan wank to explain away the Doctor's "granddaughter" as not related to him at all.

---->Kate Lethbridge Stewart: "Malcolm, I need you to send me one of my father's incident files. Codenamed Cromer. '70s or '80s, depending on the dating protocol."

* ''Franchise/StarTrek'' fan wank is exemplified by the "Klingon Forehead Problem": Klingons in [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries the original series]] had smooth foreheads, whereas they have ridged foreheads in every other work. Fans have been wanking on this for decades, with theories from Klingons removing the ridges with cosmetic surgery to better disguise themselves to just not all Klingons having them. Creator/GeneRoddenberry initially claimed that they always had ridges, but the original series [[DirectLineToTheAuthor lacked the makeup budget to show them]]. In ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'', though, the crew meets 23rd-century Klingons who have smooth foreheads; ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' explains this as the result of a genetic engineering experiment GoneHorriblyWrong that infected a significant portion of the population. One novel said much the same thing, and the non-ridged Klingon were human-Klingon hybrids shunned by the rest of the Klingon population. That could explain why they were sent off to patrol the border, were permanently pissed off at humans and lack the Klingon honour so prevalent in later shows. (The non-canon ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'' shows how they were cured in the late 23rd century.) But another ''[=DS9=]'' episode shows some original series Klingons arriving with ridged foreheads; fans wank ''this'' away by claiming they had cosmetic surgery to pass themselves off as "normal" Klingons.

* ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' has at least two of these: one in ''Series/PowerRangersTimeForce'' during the teamup episodes with ''Series/PowerRangersLightspeedRescue'' and the other during ''Series/PowerRangersDinoThunder''.

** [[Series/PowerRangersDinoThunder Dino Thunder's]] specifically deals with Tommy's degree: a doctorate in paleontology. Tommy graduates high school in 1997 and leaves partway through ''Series/PowerRangersTurbo'', though I don't think it's specified when exactly, only that it happens after Justin starts at Angel Grove High School before Tommy leaves. Dino Thunder (despite what the [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Timeline/PowerRangers timeline]] says) takes place over the 2003-2004 school year by the 'Class of 2004' banner we see in the final episode. Tommy has roughly 5 and a half years to complete every single degree he'd need to be a doctor of paleontology. To get that degree, it takes 8 years at minimum up to 11 years to complete. Tommy either straight up skipped getting his master's degree and went from undergrad to his Ph.D. studies, took no semesters off, or did some sort of combo degree (undergrad/masters or masters/Ph.D.) where he could get the degrees in less time, if not some combination thereof.
* In ''Franchise/{{Stargate|Verse}}'' fandom, one of the most obvious and yet never directly addressed questions is why all the [[AliensSpeakingEnglish aliens speak English]]. Various theories have emerged, the most popular being that the stargates themselves act as translators. Further speculation suggests that travel through a stargate somehow implants individuals with the ability to speak other languages, but it didn't originally manifest because the Earth Stargate uses a haphazard jerry-rigged control system. ([=McKay=] complains that the Earth gate ignores ''hundreds'' of important commands that normal gates use.) The producers, for their part, claim it's just a convention to make everything feel less contrived.

* ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'' is specifically designed to spawn this, with fans spending pages of threads on Website/TelevisionWithoutPity and other sites guessing who the mother is, how the many events Future!Ted says are important to the story with factor into the story of the mother, and the significance and context of many orphaned, NoodleIncident-like flashforwards that Future!Ted promises to explain later and how they will fit into the future story arcs. There has also been constant wank trying to justify how one of Ted's previous girlfriends might be the mother, as well as speculation about how Ted will meet the Mother (it was finally revealed that he met her at Barney's wedding), and theories about what the goat in Ted's bathroom on his birthday was about (it was part of a multi-sided KudzuPlot and wound up putting Ted in the hospital).
* On ''Series/{{Merlin|2008}}'', Morgana and Morgause are established as half-sisters, though it's never definitively said whether they share a mother or a father. There's evidence for either Vivienne or Gorlois as the shared parent, but in series 3 it's [[TheReveal revealed]] that Morgana's father is not Gorlois at all, but Uther (making her half-sister to Arthur). Since Morgana and Morgause continue to refer to each other as "sister" after this, most fans assume that Vivienne is the shared parent. Added confusion comes out of the fact that Gaius initially called them "half-sisters" (long before he knew that Uther was Morgana's true father), a statement that doesn't make sense unless you assume that Morgause had a father who ''wasn't'' Gorlois (otherwise they would have been assumed to be ''full'' sisters).
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'', being a complex, sprawling fantasy series that often leaves events off-screen, is highly prone to fan wank. There's even a fandom-specific term, "honeypotting"[[note]]Named for the "Lannister Honeypot Theory", a moderately popular fan theory born of Talisa's characterization as a sassy, liberated field nurse, which struck many fans as anachronistic to a [[CrapsackWorld crapsack]] medieval world and convinced them there must be more to the character. This led theorists to ultimately settle on Talisa being a {{Honeypot}} in the employ of the Lannisters, meant to seduce Robb to set up the Red Wedding, and claiming the letters she said she was writing to her family were suspicious. The theory was ultimately bloodily {{Jossed}} with when the Red Wedding actually played out, rendering the intricate fan explanations for her behaviour completely moot.[[/note]], for when a theory is seen as either smarter or more complex than the showrunners actually wrote.

* The ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}'' fandom is very weird about this. Pretty much all forums, the most prominent being Platform/BZPower, had or have entire sub-forums dedicated to storyline-discussion and theorizing. On one hand, the amount of fanwank that built up during the toy-line's run is incredible. On the other, most of the fandom is very strict about adhering to canon, creating a sort of vicious circle that leads only the toughest fanwank to survive. This eventually led to the fans bombarding the official writer with their own ideas to canonize them. [[AscendedFanon Some]] [[PanderingToTheBase made it through]], but after a while, he had to leave the online forums due to LEGO's policies. Even after the toys were canceled, the fanwankery just kept on going. Fans are trying to explain the ludicrous powers through real-life physics (despite the writer's insistence that they don't apply here), bringing back romance after the NoHuggingNoKissing rule, and declaring fan fictions as canonical {{alternate universe}}s.

* ''VideoGame/{{A3}}'' has such a case when ''Elegant Vacation'' preview drops. Although back in ''hAve A greAt trip'' Homare easily catches a thief with a hug, fans never live down Homare's ''Hotel Compass'' backstage, in which Homare struggles to carry boxes and is hit by a really bad case of sore muscles the day after training with Tasuku, and makes it as a gold standard for Homare's physical strength despite many instances of Homare displaying athleticism. Therefore, fans have a heated argument over why Homare is drawn more built in the illustration and the card of ''Elegant Vacation''. Some reasons include Homare training with Tasuku off-screen, Homare's history of ballroom dancing helps with it, or just a case of DependingOnTheArtist.

* Why, exactly, have we never seen a male Mithra in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI''? The official explanation for a lack of male Mithra [[PlayerCharacter PCs]] was originally simply that they're unadventurous and so never leave home, to the consternation of those who are uncomfortable with the concept of the NonActionGuy or just of not being able to play a cute catboy. With the release of the first expansion, we see our first truly wholly Mithra town and still no men (due to early fears of running into the [=PS2=]'s technical limitations), the explanation was elaborated as the slightly less plausible "they never leave the Mithra homeland" without clarifying that Kazham wasn't it, and thus the FanWank engine got the push start it needed. The most popular fan explanation is that they're too rare for use as anything but dedicated breeding stock, and what man would complain about that job, up to and including being chained up in the shadows? ''Wings of the Goddess'' does finally show ''one'' male Mithra in a cutscene (clothed, no less), but this may be too little, too late. Similar questions existed for the "all-female" Viera race found in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsAdvance'', ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'' and other [[TheVerse Ivalice]]-bound games, until ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV: Endwalker'', which added male Vieras to the game.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' nearly went through the same song and dance for single gender races as ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'' did. The Miqo'te were going to be female only and the Roegadyn would be male only, but players complained about it and the developers allowed the opposite sexes to be playable.

** The many, many efforts to make a coherent timeline out of the series have led to endless FanWank. The most accepted resolution was to split the timeline in two in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Ocarina of Time]]'', made possible by the game's use of TimeTravel. Creators Creator/EijiAonuma and Creator/ShigeruMiyamoto confirmed that there was a timeline but refused to show it to anyone, only occasionally saying which games come after which. That was until the 2011 release of the artbook/encyclopedia ''Hyrule Historia'', which indeed reveals the whole timeline -- and shows that ''Ocarina of Time'' split the timeline into ''three''. Fans still aren't sure what to make of that, with some questioning why "game overs" in other ''Zelda'' games don't cause additional timelines. Other than the obvious, that is.
** Is Sheik [[WholesomeCrossdresser just Zelda crossdressing]] or [[GenderBender did she actually use magic to turn herself male?]] That one should have been resolved through WordOfGod: Sheik is, officially, canonically, absolutely a WholesomeCrossdresser. But, for various reasons, some fans simply refuse to accept this as canon.
* ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'':
** The franchise has enough fan wank going about Nobodies and all associated {{mind screw}}s that they've caused multiple spoogenamis.
** The AnotherSideAnotherStory special ending from the first game deserves a special mention. The quantity of FanWank that single video originated rivaled all the ''Series/{{Lost}}'' and ''Zelda'' timeline theories.
** "What would [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII Rinoa]] be like if she was in ''Franchise/KingdomHearts''?", a question that resulted in a [[http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Dion_Roger%27s_Rinoa cosplay firestorm]].
* From ''Franchise/{{Super Mario|Bros}}'', a particular fan wank from the Koopaling [[EnsembleDarkhorse fansite]] [[http://www.lemmykoopa.com/ Lemmy's Land]] considered Bowser Jr. to be Baby Ludwig von Koopa under a different name and appearance, which was finally {{Jossed}} with ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBrosWii''.

** In the ''VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver'' games, whether Raikou, Entei, and Suicune are cats, dogs, or whatever. Many forums moderators decided that people are free to call them whatever, but if there's any argument they are "officially" the three legendary ''gerbils''. ''WebAnimation/PokemonGenerations - Episode 6: The Reawakening'' seems to suggest they are dogs, but raises more fan wank than it settles.

* ''VideoGame/Fallout4'' states that the chem stimulant Jet existed as a Pre-War drug, which contradicts ''VideoGame/Fallout2'', where Myron claims to have invented the drug himself. While this has never been addressed in canon, fans have noted that a plausible explanation practically writes itself with no mental gymnastics needed: Myron is an amoral, drug-cooking sleazeball and staggering case of SmallNameBigEgo, so it's completely in-character for him to reverse engineer a post-apocalyptic version of Jet from available ingredients, and then lie about inventing it to puff up his own reputation.
* The ''Franchise/SilentHill'' series by its nature encourages this in their fandom; Website/GameFAQS is filled with exhaustive plot and character analyses. A sure way to troll any fan forum is to cut down EpilepticTrees with the insistence that it's all just deliberately invoked MindScrew on Creator/{{Konami}}'s part.
* ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedBrotherhood'' has a popular fan theory that Cesare Borgia is the creator or inspiration for Abstergo Industries -- because he said the word "cleanse" once.
* The ending of ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' has inspired FanWank that enveloped the entire series. This is one of the reasons that Bioware released an extended ending DLC. Allegedly it was the intended effect, if the head writer really did write "[[AC:LOTS OF SPECULATION FROM EVERYONE]]" in his notes on the ending. [[DownerEnding Most fans took this in a direction he didn't intend.]]
** All the indoctrination theory was [[https://www.thegamer.com/mass-effect-3-ending-writer-idea/ commented]] later on by [[WordOfGod Chris Hepler]] with "The Indoctrination Theory is a really interesting theory, but it's entirely created by the fans. While we made some of the ending a little trippy because Shepard is a breath away from dying and it's entirely possible there's some subconscious power to the kid's words, we never had the sort of meetings you'd need to have to properly seed it through the game. We weren't that smart. By all means, make mods and write fanfic about it, and enjoy whatever floats your boat, because it's a cool way to interpret the game. But it wasn't our intention. We didn't write that."
* Some fans of the ''VideoGame/NinjaGaiden'' series try to fit in the events of the original arcade game (which is largely unconnected to the NES version and its later sequels, save for a few superficial similarities) into the continuity of the later console games by claiming that the two player characters (a pair of ninjas, one in blue and another one in red) are actually Ryu Hayabusa and his father Joe (or [[DubNameChange Ken]], depending on the version) undergoing a mission that they went through before the events of the Xbox and NES games (despite the fact that the player characters in the arcade version were never given identities).
* In ''VideoGame/{{Okami}},'' you play as a goddess (Amaterasu) that has taken on the form of a white wolf. Largely due to sexism and a desire to play as a male character, some fans began undermining the gender of Amaterasu in various ways, such as by arguing that the wolf was in fact a separate male entity from Amaterasu serving as her vessel, and/or that Amaterasu was male in her previous life as Shiranui (this one was clearly not true in the first game, but the sequel {{retcon}}s Shiranui into a separate male entity), and/or that being a god, Amaterasu lacks a true sex. "Evidence" for these theories includes random [=NPCs=] referring to her as male, which is very easily explained by the characters just assuming this; characters also tend to assume she is a dog, but for some reason these same fans don't argue the validity of that. They also ignore or try to argue away the much more numerous references to her as female, including a character that is able to see her true form (a beautiful human maiden), and the fact she's based off of a clearly female Japanese goddess.
* An oft-mentioned criticism of the ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'' series is how Rebecca goes from an inexperienced but reasonably badass ActionGirl who holds her own against hordes of infected and even takes on a Tyrant one-on-one in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil0'' to a mewling DamselInDistress who can't even handle a hunter without pratfalling and needing Chris to save her ass in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil''. A common justification is that by the time the events of ''Resident Evil'' rolled around, Rebecca had been running around for well over 24 hours straight without rest, sleep, food, or drink[[note]]There ''is'' a scene of her sleeping in The Residence in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvilTheUmbrellaChronicles'', but it's unknown how long, or how well, she was able to sleep before Richard finds her[[/note]]. No justification or excuse is given for how she could have lost her magnum, her shotgun, her grenade launcher, or all her ammo and healing items beyond just her handgun and a piddling amount of bullets though.

* ''Webcomic/CyanideAndHappiness'' [[http://www.explosm.net/comics/1819/ mocked this]] once.
* ''WebComic/AxeCop'' - Read through all the paragraph-length commentary on [[http://axecop.com/index.php/acepisodes/read/episode_60/ episode 60.]] And this is just one of the more egregious examples, for the Axe Cop fans.
* ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' is particularly interesting because Creator/AndrewHussie actually pays attention to FanWank theories and sometimes canonizes them in later strips or shows them to be wrong in some egregiously {{anvilicious}} way, depending on how much he likes the theory and/or how much he feels like [[TrollingCreator trolling the fans]].

[[folder:Web Original]]
* WebVideo/RedLetterMedia mocks FanWank to hell and back in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVzc20Bm8Xo&t=417s this video]] discussing the ridiculously detailed but never-mentioned-in-the-films backstory of [[Franchise/StarWars Darth Vader's suit]].
* WebVideo/{{Shad|iversity}} hates this trope and sees it as a sign of bad writing, because the fans are putting more thought into the lore of a work of fiction than the writers are. He even points out the possibility that a later work will contradict the fan theory. One example of this is in his review/rant on ''The Rise of Skywalker'', in which Shad points out that [[spoiler:Luke did not confront Kylo in person in the previous movie even though he had his X-Wing, because according to some fans, his X-Wing was broken, leaving Luke stranded on the island. However, ''The Rise of Skywalker'' establishes that Luke's X-Wing still works, infuriating Shad.]]
[[/folder]]

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLifeAsATeenageRobot'' never got a [[ExecutiveMeddling "true ending"]] and left a lot of things unexplained by the creators, prompting a lot of fanwank about the purpose of the villains, where they came from, why they do the things they do and what drives them. Some people [[{{Fanon}} have their own little universe]] where everything is explained.
* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'': Fans theorized that Terry and Matt's lack of resemblance to their father, specifically their black hair, genetically improbable given their parents' hair colors (red and brown respectively for Mary and Warren), had a role in the divorce. Flash forward to the ''[[WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague Justice League Unlimited]]'' FullyAbsorbedFinale "Epilogue," and guess what? [[spoiler: Bruce Wayne is revealed to have been the boys' biological father, with Warren's genetic material having been, unbeknownst to anyone but CADMUS, overwritten with his. According to [[WordOfGod the series' writers]], this twist was due to realizing the genetic improbability]].
* Aside from the two ''Franchise/CareBears'' movie continuities, as the [[Headscratchers/CareBears Headscratchers]] mentioned, what happened to Dark Heart after he turned human, and for that matter, why did he attack them, why did he [[{{Pun}} care]] about a girl that saved his life once? What was his backstory, and speaking of which, the backstory of all of the villains and the pre-Wishing Star bears and cousins?
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'':
** Let's just say that the fans put a ''lot'' of thought into analyzing the physics, economics, politics, and magic of the setting. In particular, discussions of exactly how powerful Celestia and Luna are, both in the physical and political sense, crop up a ''lot''. Entire fanfics have been written primarily for the authors to explain and justify why their particular set of Fanon makes the most sense.
** In "Daring Don't", Twilight and Rainbow Dash briefly engage in this InUniverse concerning the ''JustForFun/DaringDo'' series.
* In [[https://youtu.be/zTnECu4zeiQ this video (in Portuguese)]] by Brazilian Youtuber ''Cometa Toon'', he says that in ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' there is a pre-Big Bang universe made of magic (which is a chemical element just like oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, et al) all around of "our" universe that is accessible by the Gems' gems, and after this magic gravitationally attracted itself until it became a sphere so dense and heavy that its only option was to explode in the Big Bang, which spread magic throughout the universe, but not in "our" universe, in a universe parallel to "ours". At the center of the Big Bang explosion, this magical universe made a dimensional rift, connecting with "our" universe and close to such a rift was a star "big enough to have gravity" and therefore attracted the magic to its orbit, but because the star could no longer absorb the elements that kept it alive, magic entered the dying star, restoring its life and giving it consciousness. One day, when the star observed that on its closest planet there was a shining stone, which was formed into the first Gem of all. After getting to know this Gem better, the star decided to use all its remaining magic to create new Gems on the planets that surrounded it. And Gems are made by injecting this magic into the earth in a concentrated state, which Injectors can access through their big crystals just like Gems can, and the Warp Pads are made from some kind of metal infused with magic, and, unlike the Gems or the star, the pads did not gain consciousness but gained teleportation powers. It all, incredibly, started as a way to explain the lack of the law of conservation of mass in the cartoon.

* The Western fandom of ''Manga/SgtFrog'' has a particularly weird hang-up regarding whether the kerons, who are alien frogs, have real hair. It started on Platform/DeviantArt and spread to Website/{{Tumblr}}. Although the work has shown all kinds of head hair and facial hair, and even [[spoiler:a mutant mole hair on Keroro's forehead which grows to extreme length]], some fans insist that all that hair is fake (because they're technically "frogs" and thus hairless).

* The ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}'' fandom is very weird about this. Pretty much all forums, the most prominent being Website/BZPower, had or have entire sub-forums dedicated to storyline-discussion and theorizing. On one hand, the amount of fanwank that built up during the toy-line's run is incredible. On the other, most of the fandom is very strict about adhering to canon, creating a sort of vicious circle that leads only the toughest fanwank to survive. This eventually led to the fans bombarding the official writer with their own ideas to canonize them. [[AscendedFanon Some]] [[PanderingToTheBase made it through]], but after a while, he had to leave the online forums due to LEGO's policies. Even after the toys were canceled, the fanwankery just kept on going. Fans are trying to explain the ludicrous powers through real-life physics (despite the writer's insistence that they don't apply here), bringing back romance after the NoHuggingNoKissing rule, and declaring fan fictions as canonical {{alternate universe}}s.

* ''VideoGame/Fallout4'' states that the chem stimulant Jet existed as a Pre-War drug, which contradicts ''VideoGame/Fallout2'', where it's established that Myron invented the drug himself. While this has never been addressed in canon, fans have noted that a plausible explanation practically writes itself with no mental gymnastics needed: Myron is an amoral, drug-cooking sleazeball and staggering case of SmallNameBigEgo, so it's completely in-character for him to reverse engineer a post-apocalyptic version of Jet from available ingredients, and then lie about inventing it to puff up his own reputation.

* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' fanfiction is very nearly the most written anime fanfiction on Website/FanFictionDotNet, mostly due to what Kishimoto decided to wait to reveal: the name of the Fourth... Fans thought his name was "Arashi ___" with the common idea being "Arashi Uzumaki" because everyone thought he was Naruto's father. We do now know his real name, which is [[spoiler:Minato Namikaze]], but fans remain free to speculate on his actual situation (reincarnated as Naruto after sealing the Kyuubi in himself?), village laws (the idea of "Clan Restoration Act" for a dying clan), the concept of a council (sometimes split into a Shinobi Council and a Civilian Council), {{shipping}}, Naruto's mother, bloodlines, members of Akatsuki, and whether or not Madara is actually immortal. Most of these were eventually confirmed or {{Jossed}} in canon.

* The Western fandom of ''Manga/SgtFrog'' has a particularly weird hang-up regarding whether the kerons, who are alien frogs, have real hair. It started on Website/DeviantArt and spread to Website/{{Tumblr}}. Although the work has shown all kinds of head hair and facial hair, and even [[spoiler:a mutant mole hair on Keroro's forehead which grows to extreme length]], some fans insist that all that hair is fake (because they're technically "frogs" and thus hairless).

** Go to the Website/YouTube clip about the creation of the Transformers taken directly from the G1 cartoon it came from. Behold the number of comic fans trying to explain to innocent viewers how it fits into the Transformer God Primus origin from the comics, despite the fact the G1 Transformers cartoon made no reference to Primus, and as far as the TV producers were concerned, this was the intended origin for the show. However, Primus having created Cybertron before the Quintessons' arrival was canonized by the ''[[Franchise/TransformersExpandedUniverse Wreckers]]'' comic.