Adaptational Heroism / Fan Works

Adaptational Heroism in Fan Works.

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Crossovers and Fusion Fics

Crossovers/Fusion Fics

• In the Adopted Displaced story Dressed to Steal, Penelope is the Black Knight and working for Le Paradox as per canon. However, here she realized her mistake but is now being blackmailed into continuing to assist and is utterly miserable about it. Fortunately for all involved, she is eventually freed and happily rejoins the Cooper Gang.
• Avengers: Infinite Wars features a few of these;
  • Most notably, Barriss Offee appears set to avoid the breakdown of her canon counterpart, now that she has the love of Peter Parker and Ahsoka Tano to give her important emotional support and encourage changes in the Jedi Order.
  • When he meets the Avengers and has spent time interacting with new Order members such as Celeste Morne, Baron Mordo appears set to avoid his canon fate as one of Doctor Strange's most persistent enemies, to the extent that he's basically considered a reserve Avenger.
  • While Thrawn is generally an antagonist to the heroes in canon, here he makes his debut alongside a group of captured Jedi padawans, including Ahsoka. He has since been shown volunteering for the new draft to the Republic Army in a talk with the Avengers and later has joined the 501st.
  • In Clone Wars, Boba wanted revenge on Mace Windu for killing his father, with that quest for revenge leading to several deaths as people were hurt or killed in the crossfire. Here, Spar reaches out to him and convinces him to join the Protectors meaning that series of events never took place. This may have far reaching effects as in canon these events are what ultimately led him to becoming the bounty hunter we see in the original trilogy.
  • While Bo-Katan Kryze eventually fell into heroism after the rise of the Empire, here her worldviews are repeatedly challenged and questioned by encounters with the Avengers and others. As such, she becomes the first breakaway faction from Death Watch, resolving to create a new world alongside her sister and Spar (and it's strongly hinted that she's attracted to Matt Murdock/Daredevil into the bargain).
• Doctor Arthur Watts in BlazBlue Alternative: Remnant still works for Ironwood and Atlas by the time the canon events of RWBY begin, contrasting the main series where he faked his death and allied himself with Salem to spite Ironwood. This is a result of Pietro Polendina not being part of Atlas in this story.
• In The Myth of Link & Zelda: Breath of the Wild Ganondorf in this story is said to be as much a victim of Demise as Link, Zelda, and all of Hyrule, because it's not actually Ganondorf who's been committing the atrocities over the years. It was the curse Demise left behind that took over his soul and enslaved him and his power for its own purposes.
• Up for debate if this is true with Godzilla in the Godzilla and My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic crossover, The Bridge. While in most of the Toho and Legendary continuities he's more often just territorial animal lashing out rather than an intentional villain, he was only fully benign in the late Showa series back in the '60s and '70s. So far and according to Word of God, this Godzilla will be heroic after some misunderstandings are straightened out. It bears mentioning that this incarnation is the grown-up Godzilla Jr. from the Heisei series, who was hatched by and was generally amicable towards humans and thus was a gentler soul to smaller sentient creatures than his adoptive father.
• Arisugawa's Locket, Keiko is much nicer than she was in Revolutionary Girl Utena due to working for Juri and dating May.
• Code Prime: In R1, the Black Knights, Lelouch especially, are more heroic than they are in canon, due to interacting with the Autobots, thus justifying their moniker as "Knights for Justice". In the sequel R2, the Black Knights' ranks grow to include antagonistic characters from Code Geass canon and spin-offs that resist the Decepticon occupation, including Cornelia, Nina, and Suzaku.
• In “Come Together”, after Tom Riddle (Harry Potter) spends time in a Hydra prison and joins the Howling Commandos (Captain America: The First Avenger), following the Commandos’ raid on Nurmengard, ‘Lord Voldemort’ becomes an official hero for the wizarding world in the same manner as Captain America. Riddle is shown pondering how his younger self would feel about his alias becoming a muggle symbol of heroism.
• A Divine (Romantic) Comedy: In keeping with the Hellaverse interpretation of Lucifer, it turns out that the Biblical story of the Devil tempting Jesus in the desert was actually just Lucifer desperately trying to make a new friend, which Heaven warped in retellings to make him look bad.
• Equestria Girls: Friendship Souls: Discord is a great deal more noble than the one we got on the show, even after his Heel–Face Turn. He's even The Atoner for all the bad things he did in the past and is the closest thing Sunset and the human five have to a mentor.
  • While the broken system and poor living conditions of Soul Society are far more deeply examined than in canon and this version having its own skeletons in its closet such as Hitsyo Aku, Project Xcution, and the Bount Genocide, Equestria Girls Soul Society comes off as much better overall: There was never a Quincy genocide, no signs of there ever being Hollow Pits, the Fourth Division is treated with respect instead of moronically being bullied for being weak, the Eleventh Division is a well-disciplined unit instead of being a band of thugs, and a majority of the Captains are shown to be far more concerned with doing their jobs with monsters like Kenpachi and Mayuri not on their payroll.
  • The Quincy get this as well; they aren't a band of one-dimensional cackling, Ax-Crazy Nazis who team kill their own side and are shown to truly want to protect the world from Hollows with good people fighting for that cause, and a king who doesn't casually murder his own men for trivial reasons. Combined with Soul Society's Adaptational Heroism above this leads to more nuance and legitimate Grey-and-Grey Morality in the war between the two factions.
• Earth's Alien History:
  • Many races who were painted purely as enemies of humanity in their source material become much more heroic here, such as the Romulans or the Harvesters.
  • According to Amazonian lore, most of the Greek gods were far less dickish than mainstream ancient Greek lore would have you believe: for example, Apollo never cursed Cassandra. The main exceptions are Zeus, Poseidon, and Ares.
  • Spock's brother Sybok, rather than being a cult leader, is a missionary working to bridge the divide between Vulcans and Romulans.
  • Dr. Halsey, and the SPARTAN program as a whole by extension, is much more moral than canon, recruiting adult volunteers rather than abducting children as test subjects.
  • Bowser is only trying to kidnap Princess Peach in order to expose to her how she's been reduced to a puppet by the corrupt Toad aristocracy, who are also engaging in repressive Fantastic Racism against non-Toad races.
• Fate Revelation Online:
  • In canon, the guild Fuumaningun only showed up briefly to antagonize Argo. Here, the guild Fuumanin are not only wholly subordinate to Diabel, but a proud Front Liner scouting guild.
  • In canon, there were hints that Diabel had real leadership potential and the best interests of the other players at heart, but he got killed trying to steal the Last Attack on the first boss. Here, being saved by Shirou gives him a chance to develop into a real leader.
  • Kuradeel was introduced as a mole for Laughing Coffin in the Knights of the Blood Oath, and gleefully murdered someone for no real reason before getting killed himself. Here, while he clearly has the seed of resentment, getting recruited by Ilya does wonders for his self-esteem, and he even gets a decent reputation among the Front Liners for going embarrassingly far on Shirou's fetch quest.
  • While Rosalia is already a criminal by the time she is introduced, Ilya forcibly recruiting her turns her into a hero almost against her will. Likewise, her guild gets turned into a subordinate guild of the BSM, rather than a mid-tier thief guild.
  • The Front Liners in general, really. In canon, the Clearing Guilds were little more than a collection of the strongest players vaguely united in a common goal. They were in constant competition, could barely agree on strategy, and at least once a major decision was decided by a duel rather than, y'know, democracy. Here, due to Diabel keeping them working together, they are the paragons of the players, with everyone seeing them as the heroes working to keep the rest of them safe.
• In Fates Collide, certain characters like Gilgamesh and Kirei Kotomine are dedicated to protecting human life, even if they are pricks about it.
• The Emperor of Warhammer 40,000 was an Anti-Hero at best, and a Type III Anti-Villain at worse (and a hypocritical Jerkass either way). The Emperor/Princess Celestia of The God Empress of Ponykind is much more noble and heroic, and more willing to admit when she is wrong (sometimes to unhealthy extremes).
• Gone Batty (Sefiru): Oda Jun used to be part of a gang that sells girls into sexual slavery, and then finds out that one of the girls he sold is the younger sister of his newest boss. While in canon he keeps this a secret and tries to kill the sister and Kiryu to keep his boss' attention all to himself, in this fic he has a Heel Realization. He decides to tell everything to his boss, so he puts on his best suit and gets ready to die. The boss doesn't kill him because Oda has the most info on her location, but he indulges in Extreme Mêlée Revenge. Oda remains a steadfast ally of the heroes afterwards.
• Harbinger (Finmonster): Ember McLain is one of the heroes here and not a villainous ghost who seeks to control others. She came to Blithe Hollow to help Danny and Norman because fate guided her.
• Gilda in the Harmony's Warriors, who in canon is a jerk, but in this setting is the counterpart to Wolverine and an Anti-Hero.
• Hell's Boiling Point: The Demon Hunters are a situational example, as they actually end up helping Hellboy and Team Luz fight against the Leshy, who's a much greater threat to all parties and therefore a more lucrative prize for the Hunters. Having Eda effortlessly finish it off also makes them decide that dealing with the Leshy was the smarter option in hindsight.
• How To Drill Your Way Through Your Problems: Bakuda, now second in command of Team Neo-Gurren, was rescued from the ABB before she did any of the villainous things she did in canon. As a result of Will's influence, she seems to have developed a more heroic use for her ego, even choosing to spare Lung's life after defeating him.
  • One could make the case for Mouse Protector, seeing as in canon she would have become Murder Rat thanks to the Slaughterhouse Nine. Thanks to the appeal of giant robots, she remains a hero.
• In The Infinite Loops villains will sometimes start looping. Doing so will often cause them to stop acting villainous for a variety of reasons, the biggest ones being that they realize their actions will have little if any actual impact and that they get the chance to see how things turn out because of their villainy. It helps that the Anchors of loops tend to be the heroes that villains are in conflict with and messing with Anchors is typically advised against due to higher risk to the loops than other actions, which usually leads to the Admins setting up Punishment Loops. (Killing an Anchor automatically ends a loop and Anchors are chosen based on emotional stability, so causing emotional pain is a very bad idea.)
• JoJo New Universe
  • Funny Valentine in Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure Steel Ball Run was the Big Bad. In the Series Fic, he's the Big Good and the Benevolent Boss of Sadao Kujo's team.
  • While Hol Horse began as the same villainous Stand user as in canon, here he performs a Heel–Face Turn after an Enemy Mine against Enya Geil and joins the Crusaders in killing DIO, even playing a part in defeating many of DIO's minions and the vampire himself.
  • While Kirei Kotomine still has the same Evil Feels Good issue as canon, Positive Friend Influence from his Assassin servant Arsene Lupin III has him become a thief focusing on Pay Evil unto Evil rather than trying to unleash all the world's evil.
  • Vinegar Doppio initially started as the The Consigliere to the Boss of Passione. However, intervention from DIO's servant DeKurliss allows him to find out that Diavolo is his split personality who took over his body and that the girl their trying to kill, Trish Una, is his daughter. In the end, he performs a Heroic Sacrifice to save Trish from the effects of Silver Chariot Requiem.
  • Thanks to her sentient Stand Centuries giving her a new perspective on humanity, Junko Enoshima realizes that love in despair is a fallacy and never becomes the Big Bad that causes the biggest diaster in history.
  • While Lila Rossi started as the Attention Whore who lies about celebrity connections to win over her classmates, a confrontation by Sumire Yoshizawa and a heart-to-heart with Marinette leads her to drop this behavior. She even becomes Hawkmoth's Redeeming Replacement as the Butterfly hero Monarch and a long-time ally to Joker.
  • In Phantom Thief Origins, many of the canon Palace rulers from Persona 5 are now Joker's allies against the Stand users of Remnant.
• In Justice League of Equestria: Gods and Monsters the MLP cast take the roles of certain DC characters, however certain villainous characters are given more heroic personalities, for example:
  • Toyman & The Trickster (Button Mash and his mother). Who are basically Anti-Heroes out for revenge and aren't interested in committing crimes unless they somehow hurt Black Mask’s business. When Black Mask is finally killed they retire, steal all of his money and relocate to another city.
  • Black Manta (Featherweight), who is actually Atlantis' ambassador.
  • While The Black Racer was never a villain to begin with in this version the Racer is The Flash via using Gilda's body after the coup on Apokalips in which the New Gods killed its physical body there.
• The J-WITCH Series:
  • In W.I.T.C.H. canon, Raythor's initial appearance in Season 1 portrayed him as a one-dimensional Mook Lieutenant, who only becomes a Noble Demon when he returns in Season 2. This latter characterization is brought up right from the start of this fic.
  • The canonical Prince Phobos didn't get much characterization beyond being a power-hungry Evil Overlord who is implied to be willing to kill his manipulated little sister Elyon after stealing her powers, and he somehow caused their parents' disappearance. In this fic, he tried to bring order to Meridian after he was framed for his parents' murder, eventually becoming a Knight Templar due to all the resistance directed towards his rule. While he still manipulates Elyon in preparation for stealing her magic, he makes it very clear that he has no intention of killing his only remaining blood relative and plans to wipe out her memories and return her to Earth to live an ordinary girl's life instead. Also, some of his canon villainous acts, like imprisoning Elias in his own painting, are committed instead by Daolon Wong, one of his morally worse Co-Dragons.
• In Kingdom Crossovers, Zim is now The Atoner, having reformed two years before the start of the fic.
• In King of Thrones Viserys is a better person than in canon. Though he does struggle with his trauma.
  • King Robert has fun dueling and becomes closer to Tommen and Myrcella. This leads him to try to be a better king.
• Kings of Revolution has some examples:
  • Gil Graham. Justified as he has now become the The Atoner after falling for the tricks set by the Big Bad.
  • Quattro. After being nearly killed, falsely accused of being a traitor and learning that her idol, Due has been compromised, she Took a Level in Kindness in hopes of getting revenge against the Big Bad.
  • Sette. Once loyal to Tre, even when being sentenced to an orbital prison in canon, she has been programmed to switch loyalties. Her new master? The Black Knights.
• In Worm canon, Sophia Hess was a Sociopathic Hero who was The Bully to Taylor Hebert. In Knight of the Night, a meeting with the Planet Popstar team has her much more well-adjusted as a Cape, and she and Emma are Taylor's friends.
• Knights of the Otherworld adapts four villainous Riders, Ryuga, Ohja, Abyss and Odin, and turns them into heroes working with the other Riders.
• LandoftheFuture's DreamWorks Animation crossover fanfics granted this treatment to Tai Lung, Lord Shen and the Wolf Boss from Kung Fu Panda, by having them survive their canonical defeats and undergo Heel Realizations during their recovery periods, eventually having full Heel Face Turns and allying themselves with Po, Shifu, the Furious Five and the other DreamWorks heroes.
• In The Last Daughter, Zod goes from a cruel general to helping Jor-El get Zara off of Krypton. He himself doesn't and gets killed when Krypton explodes.
• The Last Son:
  • Madelyn Pryor is usually a baby-murdering incestous sociopath. Here, she’s Jean Grey’s maternal aunt and a member of S.H.I.E.L.D..
  • Taryn Fujioka, in X-Men: Evolution becomes antagonistic towards Jean Grey due to their feelings for Scott, and upon their exposure as mutants, Taryn shuns them both. In the fic, she was happily reunited with Jean when they were given a "trial run" to be allowed in school, though it was her parents who disapprove their daughter's friendship with the mutants.
  • Similarly, Principal Edward Kelly is portrayed as being very divided on his views on mutants, but eventually adopted a more tolerable stance thanks to having been saved several times by Superman. However, his brother Robert "Bob" Kelly filled his role by taking on his more despicable traits from canon.
  • Lex Luthor, of all people, serves as sort of an analogue to the Justice League of America's mascot/collective sidekick Snapper Carr. However, he does exhibit some questionable motivations. Sadly, that may be coming to an end come Book Four.
• Lost in Camelot ultimately sees Morgana avoid her fall to villainy as her new relationship with Bo and Merlin encourage her to open up to Arthur and Gwen about her own magic. Her changing attitude is most keenly demonstrated when Morgause tricks Morgana into becoming the host for the sleeping curse that struck down the rest of Camelot; not only is Morgana willing to risk her own life to break the curse, but after Bo is left near-death trying to save Morgana's life, Morgana makes it clear that she rejects Morgause as her sister in favour of those she cares for in Camelot.
• The Marvelous World Of DC:
  • June Moone/The Enchantress, instead of being a woman possessed by the spirit of an ancient witch prone to running through the Heel–Face Revolving Door, is a witch in her own right, and a straightforward hero, too.
  • Beast Boy's uncle is a lot nicer than his canon counterpart because he's Beast of the X-Men.
• In Life Is Strange, Courtney Wagner was little more than Victoria Chase's Beta Bitch with hints of Hidden Depths that Max could bring out. In The Matrix Rewinds, she's nothing but kind and friendly to Chloe and Kate when they're freed from the Matrix, even explaining that her cruel personality in Arcadia Bay was just an act as part of her cover, and she uses her downloaded knowledge and skills to serve as the crew's medic.
• Metal Gear: Green: In canon, both Lady Nagant and Spinner are villains. The former being hired by All for One to whack Izuku in the Tartarus Escapees Arc while the latter joined the League of Villains due to Stain's declaration and Shigaraki's manipulations. Here, the former was busted out of Tartarus by Snake and becomes one of the MSF's top officers and chief assassin, while the latter joins thanks to finding the MSF logo before he is Driven to Villainy.
• In the Bleach/Madoka fanfic Moebius, has Kriemhild Gretchen, who instead of a world-ending Witch is the benevolent Goddess of the Quincy.
• Akoya Seishu is more stable and nice to Hiyama Shunka in MHA - An Asura is Born, who he has married. He is still obsessive, such as dedicating large amounts of time to investigating Niko's past and he immediately questions his wife if Izuku has any signs of abuse so he can investigate the Tokita household.
• In The Moon's Flash Princess, Kayaba Akihiko did not intend to turn Sword Art Online into a Death Game, instead wanting to use it to give the players the skills needed to form a Badass Army to help the Sailor Senshi. Alas, Jaedite was able to turn it into a Death Game thanks to a clever Trojan virus.
• Hans in the first installment of the MRA Trilogy, for a given value of "heroic": he was an MRA agent out to rape and enslave Queen Elsa and Anna, his failure treated with sympathy by the cast. The second installment has a more weird example: while the Reapers are on the same side as the organic alien races, conspiring with the Asari to make a "femnazi empire". Though the story treats them as evil, the worst they do is shout "CHECK YOUR FUCKING PRIVILEGE", so they'd have been fully redeemed in just about any other fanfic.
• Necessary to Win does this with Black Forest from Girls und Panzer. It's suggested that Erika and those who also criticized Miho's decision to save her teammate are not necessarily the majority in Black Forest, but the most vocal group. There are several others who support Miho's decision, even if they're not entirely vocal about it. Maho is a minor case, as her more benevolent motivations are more openly touched upon here.
• In Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!, the Music Meister is Neil Patrick Harris' stage name and hero name. He's an international singing sensation and once worked at U.A. His original appearance in Batman: The Brave and the Bold is a supervillain who nearly takes over the world with his singing voice.
• Nobledark Imperium:
  • In a general sense, humanity, the Craftworld eldar, and tau are all way easier to identify as the good guys in this story, being on the whole much less xenophobic and tyrannical than their canon selves and much more willing to coexist with other species.
  • The Void Dragon, while a Mad Scientist on a cosmic scale, is hardly malevolent and inscrutable like he is in canon... mostly. Unless you make him mad. He's also the only C'tan to actually try to live up to the ideal that "We're the gods of the Necrontyr, we should act like it" and regrets that the Necrontyr souls were stolen (once he learned that those were something that Necrontyr kind of needed). That being said, he doesn't really get people and has no sense of restraint.
  • Kor Phaeron was Katholian (essentially a distant descendant of Christianity) instead of a Chaos worshipper like his canon counterpart. He was also a Good Shepherd who raised Lorgar well.
  • No Primarch turned traitor, and Horus at one point explicitly rejected Chaos' offer. Most of their legions followed suit, although some marines turned traitor.
  • Legienstrausse, canonically the sole assassin of the Maerorus temple (an experiment into using genetic modification to create the perfect assassin) who went rogue immediately, is here the only sane result of the project and helps hunt down her less fortunate fellows.
  • Oscar himself is far more of a genuine hero than the canonical Emperor, being humbler and generally more connected to the Imperium he rules.
• One Punch-Gamer also has a good version of Slender Man. While he originally appeared as a quest boss in SAO (and thoroughly traumatized poor Argo), afterwards he lives in the woods behind Kirito and Asuna's log cabin (in both SAO and ALO), and is friends with Yui (she gives him cookies). He even helps out in the final battle against the Big Bad. It is strongly implied that Slendy is not a game character, but is actually the real thing, somehow inside the games.
• In Persona EG:
  • Chrysalis, unlike her canon counterpart who invaded Canterlot to steal its love energy to power herself and her subjects, is just a normal businesswoman who was recently disgraced and outed from her CEO position. She is later welcomed to Canterlot High with open arms when Flash Sentry figures out a way to help her by making her the school's new tennis coach after the old one quits.
  • Sonata Dusk, is just a regular teenage girl instead of an evil siren. She is devastated by the deaths of her sisters and loss of her voice. She is overjoyed to have friends who care about her and support her through her hard times.
• Perturabo in Remnant:
  • In canon, Perturabo was a cold, short-tempered sociopath. Here, the titular Primarch is the exact opposite; he rules Atlas with wisdom and benevolence, is fiercely loyal to those he regards as his friends, and is even shown to be a doting father (he is Penny's maker and adopts Ren and Nora), along with being a very indulgent Honorary Uncle to Ruby, Yang, and Weiss.
  • Several of the traitor Primarchs are also given this treatment. Mortarion and Konrad Curze remain loyal to the Imperium, although they still are dedicated to their own ideas of dolling out justice; Lorgar wasn't as badly rebuked by the Emperor and thus also stays loyal; Magnus the Red let his own arrogance consume him to the point that he accidentally cursed his own Astartes during an attempt to cure them of the Flesh-change, and now is doing his best to fix his mistake while still serving the Imperium.
• Crossover fanfiction Point Me at the Skyrim has Invictus and Sevitus. Unnamed NPC guards in the game, here they both prove vital in helping Victoria navigate around Skyrim in her initial travels.
• In The Prayer Warriors, Luke Castellan from Percy Jackson and the Olympians is inexplicably on the heroes' side, despite being the canonical traitor in Camp Half Blood, and Draco Malfoy is a "secret Christian" at Hogwarts. This is odd, as most of the other villains from canon are also the Prayer Warriors' enemies.
• Reenacting a legend:
  • In High School D×D, Kokabiel wanted to restart the Great War simply to sate his bloodlust and prove Fallen Angels are the supreme beings. Here, that was a lie to get followers and his true motivation is to defeat the gods and free humanity from them so they can move forward and advance to being beyond mere sheep. However, he lost his way during his quest and doesn't care about innocents being killed, forcing Shirou to kill him.
  • In DxD, Jeanne was just as corrupt as the rest of the so-called Hero Faction, only wanting to be a hero to be famous and willing to take a child hostage to get an advantage. In this fic, Jeanne genuinely wanted to help people and was unaware her teammates were corrupt. When she finds out, they brainwash her. Once Shirou undoes the brainwashing, she quickly joins him and Xenovia.
• In Remnant Inferis: DOOM, since Gretchen never got killed, Hazel never joined Salem and works alongside Ozpin.
• Several examples in Roller Brawl: The Mega Cyborg
  • Xander Payne and the Emerald Spears as a whole are a much less villainous organization, as rather than get rid of robots entirely, they instead want restrictions on them so they cannot cause as much harm. They do take over the ARTS Convention, but Xander and the Emerald Spears make it clear that they want minimal casualties, human and robot alike, and Xander is furious with his partner Lord Obsidian when he suggests more violent methods, stating he wants violence as a last resort. In canon, the Emerald Spears had no issue showing their utter disdain and forced all robots to stay at gunpoint, but in the fanfic, they allow any robots alongside humans to leave if they wish. They also never intended on blowing the ARTS Convention like the canon Emerald Spears did, and that idea came from Suna and Lord Obsidian. Ultimately, Simone, Xander, and Theo all make a Heel–Face Turn when it becomes clear that the defected Onyx Axes are far more violent than they ever intended, willingly working with the Robot Masters to save as many lives as they can.
  • Quick Man also makes a Heel–Face Turn, helping Dr. Light's Robot Masters and the Skyborgs navigate Dr. Wily's fortress.
  • Blues also joins Mega Man and Dr. Light's side much earlier than canon, working directly alongside Roller Brawl to save Dr. Light from the Onyx Axes and fighting against Lord Obsidian. Additionally, his relationship with Dr. Light improves greatly after he hears from the doctor himself that he never meant to replace him with Rock, Roll or Roller Brawl.
• "The Savior Fables" reveals that Narcissa and Sirius were secret friends at Hogwarts despite the disapproval of their families, with Lucius, James, and Remus recognising their friendships, as well as Lily’s friendship with Snape, and forming a group of seven to keep the secret; even Snape and Lilly’s ‘break-up’ was just staged to deflect Dumbledore’s attention. Lucius only joined the Death Eaters because he was forced to do so, and Lucius, Narcissa, and Snape have done their best to support Remus after the loss of the rest of the Marauders.
• In the Sixes and Sevens, while Dreadknight is a traditional villain who's fought Iron Man and Doctor Doom, here is made heroic by making him the temporary alter ego of Abraham Van Helsing from Dracula.
• In Spider-X, Tabitha and Lance were always more tentative members of the Brotherhood, but here they explicitly 'defect' to Xavier's along with Wanda after learning that Magneto intended to use Mastermind to brainwash her if Wanda didn't side with the Brotherhood on her own.
• Stargazer: In the Inheritance Cycle books, Formora was a Fallen Hero who willingly betrayed the Dragon Riders to Galbatorix, and (along with her brother) was responsible for permanently crippling Oromis and Glaedr. Here, she was Forced into Evil by Galbatorix using his knowledge of her true name and deeply regrets everything she did while under his thrall. After breaking free from Galbatorix's control and going into a Self-Imposed Exile, she becomes a straight-up hero when given the chance and joins Ikharos in his quest to Save the World from Nezarec and the Strife Cult.
• Kin in Teenage Jinchuriki Shinobi starts off as a minor villainess like her canon counterpart, but was given a shot at redeeming herself after having a small talk with Splinter about how Orochimaru basically used her her entire life, while she dies in canon.
• In Temporal Anomaly, the Intoners are able to avoid their With Great Power Comes Great Insanity Face–Heel Turn thanks to Sougo being able to remove their individual piece of the Flower, going on to aid in its destruction and save the world.
  • Unlike his canon self, Oma Zi-O is making genuine strides to transition from an Evil Overlord to The Good King.
• Examples from the There Was Once an Avenger From Krypton series:
  • Verdona's reasons for leaving Earth and her family behind are far more noble here, as she sensed a looming threat on the horizon and left to face it to keep Earth safe.
  • Chloe in this verse is actively trying to atone for her bad behavior and doesn't suffer from Aesop Amnesia like she did canonically.
  • Saiyans in general, while not exactly nice people, are far from the psychopaths they were touted as in DBZ canon.
  • Raditz is a bounty hunter and has a stable relationship with his siblings compared to the canon Cain to Goku's Abel.
  • The Red Ribbon Army are re-imagined as a robotics company and not a terrorist organization.
• Loosely applies to Raphael in Tok'ra Apocalypse; he is still anti-human, but Gabriel is able to convince him to stand down his plans to continue the Apocalypse, and the archangel even agrees to put some angels in regular contact with the SGC.
• In the school arc presented in A Triangle in the Stars, Bill and his friends band together to rescue Steven from Gabriel, with varying degrees of reluctance and of excitement.
• Warning Letter: While Light Yagami starts out just as villainous as he was in Death Note, The Phantom Thieves end up stealing his heart at the end of Chapter 3. After several chapters marinating in the guilt of what he did as Kira, Light even ends up awakening his Persona and joining the Phantom Thieves himself.
• Web of Cadmus features a variation of this when Project Cadmus create a clone of Spider-Man who adopts the name 'Kaine'. While Kaine spends some time working for Project Cadmus, and he certainly isn’t a fan of Peter’s, he is generally acting as a hero, and shows no sign that he will adopt his 616-counterpart’s more murderous tendencies.
• Sylvanas Windrunner and Onyxia are both considerably more heroic in Wizard Runemaster. Onyxia changes from The Vamp to a caring mother whose manipulations in Stormwind are instead a result of Varian's jerkassery. Sylvanas is canonically somewhere between Anti-Hero and Anti-Villain, Depending on the Writer who pulls morally questionable acts such as developing a new plague and betraying Garithos. Here she's an outright hero, though a practitioner of Good Is Not Soft, who only intended the plague to be a weapon of last resort and killed Garithos because he planned to betray her.
• In Wonderful (Mazinja):
  • Due to Taylor's influence, Sophia becomes somewhat more heroic and less unpleasant than her canon self.
  • Emma doesn't become a psychotic bully after being attacked by the ABB gang, and she becomes a hero later on.
• Yin-Yang: In She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, it was revealed that the First Ones were an evil empire. Here, they were allies with ancient Eternia and strove to keep peace, protecting the world of Etheria from harm.

A-M

Ace Combat

• Bandog in Three Strikes. While the game implies he marked Full Band to be shot down and killed, in 'Three Strikes' Full Band's death was the result of a plan to 'fake' the death of Spare 6 going awry. He goes on into the story to become a close comrade of Trigger and her friends.

Adventure Time

• Gunter of Frozen Hearts (Red Witch) is noticeably a lot more nicer and loyal to her master, the Ice King than the mischievous, rebellious, and disloyal penguin that we see in the source material. Case in point, she is the one who stops the fight between Finn and Ice King, becomes angry when Simon is kidnapped by a group of humans which prompts her to use the demonic wishing eye to save him, and gives both blankets and shades of red to Marceline when she is waiting for Simon's frozen hibernation.
• Something More (Adventure Time): The Ice King stopped being a villain as early as Season 3 but in this fic he stops being one as soon as he shows up and Finn meets him, since the latter feels sympathy for him and helps him move on from his princess-kidnapping ways much earlier.

Amphibia

• You’re About Seven Years Too Early: Andrias' Heel–Face Turn and rejection of the Core happens way earlier than in the show due to the Calamity Trio being younger than in canon, and his disgust that the Core is trying to order him to kill Marcy. As a result, he is secretly trying to stall the order and is actively trying to destroy his master.

Animorphs

• In canon, Marco was extremely reluctant to take any part in the war, and only started to truly invest himself when Visser One's identity was revealed. The Marco in Animorphs: The Reckoning is much more invested, and berates the others for not realizing how important their role is.
• In Where The Truth Lies, it turns out that David is working to save the Animorphs, since he never had the chance to betray them like in canon.

Attack on Titan

• Age of Titans: Annie is secretly working to restore a proper king for Eldians to save them from Marley, unlike canon where she went along with Marley's plans.

Avatar: The Last Airbender

• The Stalking Zuko Series:
  • Mai's parents, especially her father. In the "Rebound" comic, Mai's father is completely loyal to Ozai and is trying to get his children to join him in the New Ozai Society, angry at having lost his job. This continues in "Smoke and Shadow," and while he does a Heel–Face Turn in the end, he's committed enough crimes to go to prison for a long time. Here, it's indicated that his job is the reason why he couldn't be as close to Mai as he'd hoped. He flats out quits his job to work in his brother's factory, while high-paying is not as prestigious, in the hopes that he would more time to rekindle his relationships with his family.
  • Zig-zagged with the Southern Water Tribe. On the one hand, they're shown as more misogynistic than they are in canon. On the other, they don't seem to have any extremists like Gilak, and the North is shown as the more unreasonable side during the peace talks, due to being condescending toward the South and overly willing to punish their defeated enemies.

Beast Wars

• In Beast Wars: Symmetries, while Inferno was still reprogrammed as a Predacon, his ant instincts and the continued existence of his pod result in him developing an appreciation for nature and a tentative friendship with the Maximals, culminating in him sacrificing himself during the final battle against Megatron.

Berserk

• Griffith gets this treatment in Absent Injury. Not only is it clear that the events of the Eclipse didn't happen in this continuity, he's less amoral and self-serving than he was in canon. He was driven to become king partly because he genuinely wanted to help the less fortunate, sincerely loves Charlotte, and feels very real remorse for the death of Adonis.

Blade Trilogy

• Charity Case reinvents Jared Nomak's reasons for attacking the vampires. Rather than pursuing the destruction of his former people for the events that turned him into a Reaper from the beginning, Nomak is initially shown living on the streets until he is offered help from Anna, an American expat living in Prague. When Anna is attacked and nearly killed in the bloodbank Nomak attacked in the film, he infiltrates the facility purely to rescue Anna even after she has become a vampire herself, and takes steps to ensure that the other Reapers know not to harm her even as he leads them against other vampire safehouses.

Bleach

• Vow of the King: Bambietta and Candice are allies of Ichigo and company rather than enemies.

Breath of Fire

• Most of the recurring villains in War of the Dragons, where the added personalities they get present most of them as either a Noble Demon, Affably Evil, Punch-Clock Villain, Brainwashed and Crazy, while also suffering from a vision given to them by Myria that compels them to carry it out if even they feel it's morally wrong. The one exception is Myria herself, she's portrayed as being '''FAR''' more evil than in the game having the Start of Darkness for each of them, all while convincing them they were acting on a vision from Ladon.

Brightburn

• To a degree in A Monster's Nature; Brandon is still primarily using his powers for his own benefit with the relatively unrefined goal to "take the world", but where he was willing to crash a plane to conceal three deaths in canon, it's significant that he goes to great lengths to try and protect Caitlyn when fighting the android AN-3.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

• Btvs: Seasons Rewrite: In canon, Spike went through the Heel–Face Revolving Door and didn't truly begin to redeem himself until Season 5. During the Season 4 rewrite, he's considerably more heroic and actively helps the Scoobies out against Adam.
• In Unconquerable Souls, the Wishverse version of Amy Madison ends up joining the White Hats after she is restored to her body, in contrast to her canon counterpart's disinterest/outright opposition to the Scooby Gang.

Calvin and Hobbes

• The Calvin & Hobbes: The Series finale episode "Black Rain" does this to the Slender Man, who takes out the Big Bad and secretly waves goodbye to the main heroes as they leave implying that he had been on their side the whole time.

Carrie (2013)

• Carrie: Coronation gives Carrie a chance to be a hero when a school shooting interrupts the original plans for Chris's prank, allowing Carrie to use her powers to protect the other students.

Code Geass

• In canon, Marianne vi Britannia fully supported Charles zi Britannia's Assimilation Plot and was killed by V.V. in a fit of jealousy. In Darwin, V.V. has her assassinated because she was hindering their Assimilation Plot by advocating against war with the E.U., claiming that after having won the war to install Charles as emperor, she'd had enough bloodshed for one lifetime.

Crusader Kings

• Frequently seen with anyone playing the Crusader Kings II: Game of Thrones Mod. Reducing Stupid Evil to Pragmatic Villainy is common (and, well, pragmatic), while those really eager to screw with canon history will go out of their way to make the likes of Gregor Clegane and Tywin Lannister genuinely heroic figures, just to prove they can.

Danganronpa

• Alternative Class Despair:
  • Due to the very premise of the series, Junko brainwashing her classmates in Hope's Peak Class 78 into Despair rather than her upperclassmen in Class 77-B, Class 77-B do not become the Remnants of Despair here. This also extends to their teacher, Chisa Yukizome, who isn't lobotomized into becoming The Mole in the Future Foundation.
  • In regards to Class 77-B's Killing Game, canonical killers Mikan and Peko don't commit murder here. Mikan ends up becoming the first victim of Chapter 3 while Peko ends up surviving and taking Toko's role in Ultra Despair Girls.
  • Since she's part of Class 78, who go through the Neo World Program in this AU, Mukuro is cured of Despair, freed of her sister's influence, and has a Heel–Face Turn.
• Zigzagged with Korekiyo in Danganronpa: The Immersive Learning Program. In the second trial, Monokuma reveals that Korekiyo was initially driven to despair after the death of his older sister, even developing a split personality based on her like in canon. However, he received treatment from Hope Peak's Academy when scouted, and there was no mention of his serial killing like in the game's canon. Unfortunately, seeing his dead sister in the motive video began to undo the work, causing him to try and kill Celeste in order to escape and find out the truth. That said, he did try to protect his friend Sonia when she unknowingly springs his trap.
• Never Say Never is quite possibly one of the few known fanfictions that has Mukuro Ikusaba at her most sympathetic, heroic, and humane. All over the Danganronpa, Mukuro's characterization was dependent on the story to the point of making her Ambiguously Evil. She was a reserved girl subservient to Junko, following her orders just to make her happy in Danganronpa Zero and IF (while being noticeably Ax-Crazy in the former). She turns on Junko in the latter story and helps her fellow classmates escape, but even that had some selfish intent behind it^note She does it out of both love for Makoto and to make Junko happy by feeling the despair of betrayal.. Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School downplays her sympathetic qualities while showing more of her villainous actions as Junko's accomplice, even going so far as to call Makoto a loser and suggest killing him. While she still starts out in this fanfiction with her characterization from IF, her sister's betrayal and her classmates' kindness towards her causes her to turn on Junko completely and undergo a Heel–Face Turn out of more altruistic motives, undergoing a Redemption Quest by helping to save and comfort her classmates throughout their time trapped in the school, and finally standing up to her sister.
• As Danganronpa 3 has made clear, Mikan Tsumiki was the first to fall into despair and side with Junko Enoshima. In The PreDespair Kids, she actually sees through Enoshima's manipulations, but pretends to side with her in order to work from the inside and stop her plan.

Danny Phantom

• In canon, Desiree is one of Danny's villains. In Lady Luck's Favor, however, she is one of his allies, as well as a Benevolent Genie, due to Danny wishing that she be able to choose which wishes she wants to grant.
  • Penelope Spectra undergoes a Heel–Face Turn and becomes another of Danny's allies after he wishes that she be able to use positive energy to maintain her body.

The DCU

• Nightwing: The Series gives this to Deathstroke. While he initially appears to be as brutal as his comic book counterpart that keeps the Never Hurt an Innocent ideas, it turns out that most of his high-profile victims were responsible for the military experiments that turned him into the proficient killer he is, and are implied to have made him kill children, causing a Roaring Rampage of Revenge. When Slade confronts the last of his victims, he looks like he's about to break down into tears over this. He also favourably compares Nightwing to his son Grant during their last conversation, although we never find out why he views them as alike, since he gets shot in the head by Jason Todd.
• In Part of the Night- an AU of The Dark Knight Rises- Selina is depicted with much more of a spine than in '-The Dark Knight Rises. Rather than let herself be intimidated and manipulated by Bane, and be complicit in murder or terrorism, she chooses to help Bruce with stopping Bane so she can get herself and her sister out of the criminal life.

DC Extended Universe

• Daughter of Fire and Steel: In the films and comics, Doomsday was a psychotic monster from the get-go. Here, he started off as a valiant and heroic Kryptonian hero before the experiments that made him so unstoppable drove him mad.

Death Note

• Fade:
  • Light Yagami. Since his half of the story shows Kira's descent into madness, he outright refuses to become like Kira, sticking to killing only criminals who have been given the death penalty or have committed crimes that deserve such a punishment, and refraining from using innocent people to achieve his own ends.
  • Beyond Birthday, who wishes to stop L's reign as Kira and save Light.
• Light Yagami is given this treatment in Innocent and Proven Guilty. Since he never got the Death Note, he never became Kira and is actually trying to figure out the identity of this universe's equivalent. While he's an antihero (part of his motivation for trying to catch Kira is to get the better of L), he's nevertheless disturbed by the number of people supporting Kira and is completely genuine when he says he'd get revenge on Kira if they were to hurt his family.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba

• Blade of Demon Salvation: The Spider Demon Mother (who is given the name Ito by Genya) undergoes a Heel–Face Turn when Tanjiro spares her life and offers her a chance to live without having to eat humans. After helping Genya escort the injured Tanjiro to Tamayo's clinic following Rui's death, she becomes an assistant to Tamayo and works with her to help create a cure to turn demons back into humans.

Disney Animated Canon

• The Horned King was portrayed as an irredeemable sociopath. When he's resurrected as the Villain Protagonist of Hope for the Heartless, he's close to his original portrayal, but he gradually turns into a Noble Demon and Byronic Hero thanks to Avalina over the course of the story.
• This unnamed Tumblr fanfic goes for an alternate take on Anastasia and Drizella's characters from Cinderella. Their mean behavior as children stems from being jealous of how Cinderella's father loves her compared to their own abusive mother. As they grow up, they feel powerless to help Cinderella and just watch her abuse from afar. As teens, they start acting kinder to their step-sister in private.

Dragon Ball

• In Frigid Future, Salza acts as a Noble Demon who willingly volunteers to be Cooler's sparring partner so that Cooler can become stronger, despite knowing full well that all that waits for him are several No Holds Barred Beatdowns. Cooler even says that he won't show Salza any mercy, but he doesn't care. Even Gohan and Cooler were impressed by that.
• The Vicious Gods Wrath: Tagoma is The Mole from the Galactic Patrol, infiltrating the Planet Trade Organization under Jaco's orders. He works to sabotage Sorbert's efforts in resurrecting Freeza, though fails to do so and is killed for his efforts by Freeza.

Fairy Tail

• Thanks to the Role Swap Plot basis of the Alternate Tail Series, former Fairy Tail antagonists Lyon, Gajeel, and Pantherlily start out as members of Fairy Tail instead of having to go through their Heel-Face Turns in canon.

Fallout

• Better to Reign in Heaven: The residents of Tranquility Lane are just bystanders in Fallout 3, and the most help that Dithers provides is in directing the Lone Wanderer to the abandoned house where Braun is hiding his auxiliary terminal. By contrast, the story's incarnation of Dithers is the Wanderer's ally and confidant throughout his time in the simulation, even saving him from a Fate Worse than Death at Braun's hands, and later leading the residents in rebelling against Braun in order to buy the Wanderer the time he needs to activate the Chinese Invasion Failsafe.
• Fallout: Europa: The Brotherhood of Steel is much less ambiguous as they were in Fallout 4 which likely comes from the fact that, with the threat of a giant Super Mutant army closing in on all human settlements, they have a much clearer enemy to fight.

Fate/stay night

• Fate/Harem Antics: This version of Sir Galahad has Mash Kyrielight's looks and personality, which makes her more heroic than her canon counterpart since this fic was released before canon Galahad was revealed to be a total asshole.

Final Fantasy

• Us and Them: Raised in a loving family with full knowledge of what Jenova is and his true parentage, Sephiroth manages to resist going insane and becoming the monster he was in canon.
• Seventh Endmost Vision: Rufus, rather than becoming Shinra's president, instead grew so horrified at what the company was doing that he now leads AVALANCHE in this fic. Sephiroth as well, since in this fic, he, not Aerith, was raised by Elmyra Gainsborough and is a kindly Farm Boy doctor, though he has yet to learn of his true heritage.

Fire Emblem

• In the Fire Emblem Fates fanfic A Brighter Dark, Garon and Hans retain many of the traits that made them villains in canon (Garon being The Conqueror who exacts brutal retribution against his enemies and rebellious vassal states, and Hans being a Psycho for Hire with little impulse control who was recruited straight from prison), but they do have occasional moments that show they aren't completely wicked:
  • Unlike canon Garon, who only saw his children as a means to an end in the war against Hoshido (and was already dead for a long time and being puppeteered by Anankos), he does make more of an effort to talk to them as his children instead of just barking orders at them.
  • When Hans is exiled from Nohr for going against his orders, he finds himself in an Enemy Mine with Hoshidan princess Sakura and villager Mozu, and finds himself warming up to them against his wishes as they struggle to survive until the war blows over. Sakura survives (up until the point where the story was cancelled), but the others don't.

Five Nights at Freddy's

• Mike's New Ghostly Family:
  • The ghost children no longer retain their homicidal urges they possessed in canon and let go of their blind murderous ways, instead being genuinely willing to atone for their murders of many innocent nightguards they've committed when trapped inside the animatronics. Having Mike Schmidt as their new parental figure certainly helped them to further change for the better.
  • Charlie, a.k.a. the Marionette's ghost, though she was still the closest thing the series have to Big Good in canon, was just as vengeful as the other ghosts, indiscriminately killing the nightguards in her lust for revenge. In the fanfic, however, while she did claim the two victims, she was able to snap out of her blind rage and ceased killing innocents, and in the fanfic's take of Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator, she made no attempt on Michael Afton's life as Lefty and instead served as his ally from the shadows, assisting him in stopping William Afton and the other dangerous animatronics.
  • Elizabeth Afton in canon was Daddy's Little Villain who wanted to follow her father's child-murdering footsteps and directly assist him in murdering innocent children as Scrap Baby. In the fanfic, however, her evil actions were explained to be a result of Circus Baby's child-murdering programming plaguing her mind and William Afton manipulating her into serving him when she was at her weakest. Without her former father and his malevolent creation's influences and after being Happily Adopted by Mike Schmidt, Elizabeth (now known as Liz Schmidt) became a much more noble and heroic figure, genuinely willing to change for the better and feeling nothing but repulsion at her past self's actions.
  • Shadow Bonnie and Shadow Freddy are both Ambiguously Evil, with their true natures never explained, but they were clearly a threat to the player, crashing the game if stared at for too long, and Shadow Freddy also lured the animatronics possessed by the ghost children to William Afton to be dismantled (though the exact reason why was never made clear). In the fanfic, however, neither of them are malicious at all, instead safeguarding the corpses of the murdered children in the '80s Freddy's location to ensure they'll be given a proper burial, and Shadow Freddy had purely noble goals in leading the animatronics to Afton, hoping that they would be able to put an end to his evil, except things didn't quite go as planned. Shadow Freddy is also revealed to be the same person as Evan Afton, a.k.a. the Bite Victim, who directly assisted his older brother Michael throughout his entire quest to save the ghost children's souls and permanently put an end to his father's evil.

God of War

• In Zeus' Godly Goodtime, Zeus wants to improve his relationship with Kratos and bears no ill will towards him. Kratos considers Zeus to be very embarrassing.

Godzilla

• Abraxas (Hrodvitnon):
  • Monster X (a Two Beings, One Body fusion of San and Vivienne Graham) is benevolent, aligned with Earth's Titans, and comparatively goes further out of its way than most Titans do to avoid innocent human casualties; instead of being an evil invader like in Godzilla: Final Wars.
  • Mandazawa is an innocent Protectorate to the heroic Titans and at one point a Tagalong Kid, whereas the original incarnation was an Anti-Villain and subsequent incarnations in movies have been Brainwashed and Crazy or straight-up monsters. This extends to Manda's father the Lord of Dragons before him, who was on outright friendly terms with Godzilla when alive and isn't mentioned as having gone to any morally ambiguous lengths defending his territory.
  • The Abraxas version of Ren Serizawa, who was introduced before Godzilla vs. Kong came out, is a mostly heroic character, described by the author as being roughly Heroic Neutral; instead of being a callous Evil Genius with an anti-Godzilla agenda.
  • Rodan and Scylla both fight for Godzilla against the Many; whereas in MonsterVerse canon the closest either of them has come to acting heroically is when they submit to Godzilla's dominance, and they're outright described in the Godzilla vs. Kong novelization as being among the nastier Titans.
• Kaiju Revolution:
  • Titanosaurus is never mind-controlled like in his original movie and he even seems more outright benevolent as he comes to aid of the inhabitants of Mu and fights Godzilla himself to save the island.
  • Gorosaurus was an enemy of King Kong originally, albeit only an animal. Here, he is Kong's closest ally.
  • In their movie debut, the Seatopians were a villainous species who attacked humanity with Megalon. Here, they are fairly friendly creatures who shelter the humans who land on Mu.
  • Ebirah is traditionally a villain. Here, he fights against humanity to defend Mu, though is ultimately forced to retreat thanks to Godzilla.
  • The Mahars were originally tyrannical slave-drivers. Here, they are merely a race of observers, albeit one that tends to kidnap people and other creatures for research purposes.
  • The Watchuka originally resented humanity for being Earth's dominant species and wanted to supplant them, but here they are a race of peaceful wanderers.
• Monster Island Buddies: Gigan is still one of the villains, but rather than being a Psycho for Hire who chops opponents For the Evulz he is an adorably nerdy Punch-Clock Villain who even wants to be friends with Godzilla, his supposed enemy.

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi / The Untamed

• In A Game for the Fool, Madam Yu manages to grow from her canonically bitter and abusive self to a stern and strict Reasonable Authority Figure.
• Everyone Lives With Knives: Jin Guangyao, once his character development has kicked in. By the end of "What Could Have Been", he is truly loyal to his half-brother's family and wouldn't dare hurt Jin Zixuan's children.
• In The Lost Cause, with Jin Guangyao's descent into villainy stopped around midway through, he's a much less evil person.
• In A Matter Of Age, this is likely what will happen going forward to Jin Guangyao. Near the end of the fic, he promises Nie Mingjue that he won't kill anyone else, and since the fic is told from his perspective, it's clear that he means it.
• in The Red Earth, Wen Ruohan is still pretty ruthless and power hungry. However, Mingjue's influence keeps him from becoming the full-on evil overlord he is in canon.

Grand Theft Auto

• Jerusalem, in his Let's Play of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, portrays CJ as slightly more benevolent than canon. For example, in the original game, he kills Madd Dogg's manager because Loc told him to. But in the LP, he initially refuses Loc's plan; when he later ends up killing the manager anyway, it's because he goes temporarily insane due to sleep deprivation and stress.

Harry Potter

• Harry Potter story Cruciamentum Eternus has Lucius Malfoy - canonically known to be a Smug Snake, invoked-Karma Houdini, Screw the Rules, I Have Money!, racist Death Eater - systematically murdering Death Eaters and intending on assassinating Voldemort himself after Draco is murdered.
• The Ben Folds Series features Draco, Blaise, and Pansy working for the good guys. In canon, they either aligned with Voldemort or remained neutral-ish.
• Harry Potter and the Prince of Slytherin:
  • Snape suffers from this because the author dislikes how much of an unsympathetic Jerkass canon Snape is, whose only saving grace was being played by the extremely charismatic Alan Rickman.
  • Played with in regards to Tom Riddle. Unlike canon, he seems to have initially been a Well-Intentioned Extremist who wanted to protect muggleborn by framing the purebloods through petrifying the muggleborns. His plan worked until Myrtle was accidentally killed and he reacted by using Occlumency to suppress all guilt, remorse, or compassion, thus resulting in his Start of Darkness. Things got worse once he split his soul...
  • Similarly, Bellatrix Lestrange is just as bad if not worse than her canon counterpart. Bellatrix Black, on the other hand...
  • Lucius Malfoy's allegiance to Voldemort was always spotty at best and becomes nonexistent once he learns about the Horcruxes. That said, when he thinks a conspiracy is found out, he is perfectly willing to abandon his co-conspirators to their fate while spiriting himself and Draco away, although negotiations with the discoverer make this unnecessary.
  • Barty Crouch Sr. turns out to be a Reasonable Authority Figure rather than the merciless Jerkass that he was in canon.
• In How Friendship Accidentally Saved Magical Britain, rather than mind controlling Ginny and using the basilisk to attack Muggleborns, the shard of Tom Riddle bound to the Diary despises Voldemort and wants to kill him, and his nearly fifty years spent fully conscious and imprisoned within the Diary have left him wary of committing crimes like he used to and risking going into any kind of real prison. When he finds out about the other horcruxes, he hunts them down and destroys them himself, sometimes at great risk to his safety and wellbeing- removing Harry's horcrux knocks him unconscious for days on end. He also becomes actual friends with Harry and leads the charge when Harry is kidnapped, and is ultimately the one to kill Voldemort for good in the end.
• In Harry Potter, Marge Dursley is Vernon's sister and acts even nastier to Harry than the Dursleys. My Nephew Harry, a fanfic by Lucillia, gives her more understandable motives for her nastiness. She is portrayed as having been hardened by her own upbringing into a woman who supports Tough Love. She thus mistreats Harry based on the lies told by Petunia and Vernon. When she learns the truth, she hits the wall and starts giving Harry the love he deserves.
• In canon, the basilisk didn't show much personality beyond "let me kill". In Percy Weasley and The Prefect Job That Isn't A Vanity Role, she's a victim of Tom Riddle's herself, having been mutilated and tricked into believing the castle was under threat.
• The titular character of Petunia Evans, Tomb Raider. Instead of marrying Vernon Dursley and becoming the overbearing shrew of an aunt to Harry Potter, she instead goes to boarding school, studies archaeology, and is hired by Gringotts to be a Tomb Raider who takes great joy in raising her nephew as a single aunt. Once she slowly comes to terms with her envy over not having magic, she even hooks up with Sirius. Oh, and she regularly takes on zombies, mercenaries, and Sand Drakes with Guns Akimbo, enchanted mines, and RPGs.

Homestuck

• Downplayed in cool and new web comic. In canon, Jack Noir is an Omnicidal Maniac who is Always Chaotic Evil. In cool and new web comic, Jack Noir isn't exactly a hero but he has a steady partnership with Rose because she is uncorrupted like him. He also seems actually intent on ruling Derse instead of going on a murder rampage.

How to Train Your Dragon

• Downplayed, as while he did eventually become a good guy late into Race to the Edge, here Dagur the Deranged in The Berserkers Bride shows his devotion to his wife fairly early on and is essentially a protagonist the whole time (albeit the "Chaotic Neutral Blood Knight" type of protagonist).
  • In the series, the Skrill plays antagonist for most of its appearances (also downplayed in that it becomes neutral to the riders in its latest appearance). Here, Hiccup manages to train it, befriend it and name it "Maelstrom", becoming Dagur's dragon.
• Invoked, as in Dragons: Race To The Edge, Trader Johann turned out to be one of the main villains, but in A Thing of Vikings, he's an ally of Berk, and Word of God has confirmed that he will not turn out to be a villain later, as that character twist was considered to be both lazy and insulting (particularly as Johann displays a range of features and traits that are associated with anti-Semitic stereotypes, which are then compounded by the character twist into something that "makes the character into something straight out of literal Nazi propaganda").

The Hunger Games

• Saving the Boy: Downplayed. While Peeta was always a hero, the first book shows he's willing to kill others to protect Katniss. Since Katniss isn't in the arena, he has no desire to kill the other tributes — and ultimately doesn't, making him the first Victor to have no kills to his name.

Invader Zim

• Re: My Hostage, Not Yours: In canon, Iggins was a Jerkass who cheated Gaz out of a game and mocked her for it, while in the original version of MHNY, he was the Big Bad of the second story, being a Psychopathic Manchild who declared a vendetta on Gaz out of an obsessive need for revenge for what she did to him in that canon episode. Here, he's a more well-adjusted individual who got therapy after canon, and only crosses paths with Gaz out of coincidence when he goes to Dib for help with a paranormal problem.

Jojos Bizarre Adventure

• The Twilight Man: Canonically Wamuu was the Noble Demon among the Pillar Man, though his Undying Loyalty to Kars meant he aids him in the latter's goal. With Wamuu never raised by Kars and Esidisi, he remains with the rest of his people. He dedicated his life to stopping Kars from using the Mask on the innocent Day Men.

Jurassic Park

• It's not the Raptor DNA:
  • The story shows what would happen if the Indominus rex from Jurassic World, who has been given the name Elise, got reached out to by Owen right before the final battle could occur and is redeemed into a pleasant Gentle Giant. It was also revealed Elise's rampage was not only due to isolation but also being viewed as a monster for years and the death of her cherished sister, who succumbed to terminal illness as opposed to getting cannibalized by Elise like in canon.
  • The Spinosaurus from Jurassic Park III was portrayed as a Prehistoric Monster of some sort. Here, where he's named Sobek, he has been given more depth in terms of personality, being portrayed as a Blood Knight who is ill-tempered at worst and his persistent chase after Grant and the Kirbys from the film turned out to be justified. He softens up after his fight with Rexy, and ends up becoming a mentor for Elise.
• Jurassic What If...?: Dennis Nedry in Episode 5 ("What If The Indominus Rex was in Jurassic Park?") was never contacted by BioSyn and doesn't in any way endanger Jurassic Park or commit corporate espionage like his canon counterpart did.

Kingdom Hearts

• Kingdom Hearts: The Antipode: Downplayed. Xemnas, being Terra's Nobody rather than Xehanort's, is noticeably greyer and more sympathetic than his canon counterpart. Notably, he holds a degree of attachment to his old friends (plus Riku) and goes out of his way to ensure their safety despite them being a threat to his plans.

Kirby

• Kirby: Right Back At Ya! Season 2 has Marx, who was a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing and the villain of Kirby Super Star and its remake in canon. Here, he is a close friend of Kirby and helps him out whenever he can.

Land of Oz

• In The Witch of Oz, a genderbend fanfic of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Elphias and his brother Nestor have always been good, but were orchestrated by the people of Oz due to Elphias's green skin and his uncontrollable powers. He became an apprentice to Ozia until he learned that she's a fake and uses a stone to draw out his powers. He's forced to escape to protect his friends, and Ozia lied that he attempted to overthrow her.

Let Me In

• The extent to which this applies to TorontoBatFan's Let Me In series can be debated depending on whether viewers saw Abby as a victim or a manipulator in the original film, but here her actions are portrayed in the most sympathetic manner possible, making it clear that she only killed humans for blood because she had genuinely never thought about drinking from animals and had no other way to survive.

Mass Effect

• Used in Mass Effect: Clash of Civilizations to highlight how much the timeline has been altered. Saren is a Politically Incorrect Villain and Knight Templar traitor in the games, but due to the altered timeline, the Freudian Excuse and Reaper-contact that caused him to be that way never happened. Thus he's still a jerk, but now he's a Noble Bigot with a Badge at his worst and a Reasonable Authority Figure at his best.

Marvel Cinematic Universe

• letmetellyouaboutmyfeels' MCU Rewrites: In the rewrite of Avengers: Age of Ultron, Pietro and Wanda Maximoff are given more heroic qualities pre-Heel–Face Turn compared to how they are in the movie:
  • Pietro expresses disgust towards working with HYDRA (even calling them 'Nazi asses' in a conversation with Wanda) and tries to convince Wanda that they should not team up with Ultron, asking her how many lines they must cross to take revenge on Tony Stark and if it is all worth it.
  • Wanda, unlike in the movie, does not intentionally cause The Hulk to go on a rampage and is horrified at her actions when Hawkeye tells her that she made The Hulk lose control and is headed for the city where he will hurt innocent people.
• Essentially applies to Wanda in "Stars Will Light the Way"; while she is still the one hunting America Chavez (as depicted in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness), here she is revealed to have been explicitly possessed and manipulated by Chthon, rather than hunting America on her own.

Merlin (2008)

• "The Sorcerer's Bride" basically makes Nimueh a more heroic character; she acknowledges that she would be tempted to go on the Roaring Rampage of Revenge she indulged in during her time in Camelot in canon if she returned to the kingdom, but by forbidding herself from going back she is able to focus on her duties as High Priestess, as well as tutoring Morgana in her own magic and offering advice when Morgause captures Merlin and Morgana.

Mega Man

• In Mega Man: Defender of the Human Race, Proto Man is a more heroic character than his Ruby-Spears self.
• Mega Man Recut has several of the Robot Masters, but Enker, Galaxy Man, and Ra Thor are probably the most notable.

Miraculous Ladybug

• The Adventures Of Panthera Noire: Thanks to Panthera's influence, Chloé and Lila are making efforts to better themselves (though Lila is a mild case of Reformed, but Not Tamed).
• Burning Bridges, Building Confidence has Chloe working to redeem herself rather than assuming that her stint as Queen Bee proves she's worthy of being a superheroine. While not particularly interested in mending fences with her classmates — at least not while they're all fawning over a Consummate Liar like Lila — she isn't bullying them anymore, and has reached out and tried making amends with others. Including Marinette, with whom she's tentatively built up a nascent friendship even before Cole shows up. She also openly acknowledges that since she outed herself to all of Paris, trusting her with the Bee again would be a risky move.
• Hero Chat:
  • Chloé is a great deal more kind and legitimately heroic here than she is in canon, where she outright refused to accept that she needed to change in the least and stayed the same Alpha Bitch she started as.
  • Felix is more in line with his Jerk with a Heart of Gold self from the original preview. It's later revealed that he is the hero Lord Winter as well.
• Miraculous Alliance:
  • Chloé's redemption arc sticks as she actively overcomes her past self, becoming the fifth member of Team Miraculous.
  • Lila grows over her grudge against Ladybug, and becomes a superheroine herself as Pipistrello.
  • Nathalie isn't following Gabriel as blindly as in canon, eventually realizing his madness and getting into a coma to try and stop him. She also sets in motion the events that expose his identity.
• The Lament Series (ChaoticNeutral): Since the reality-altering Wishes effectively shuffle around roles, this happens quite often:
  • Gabriel's Lament: As part of their retconned Backstory, Emilie used the undamaged Peafowl Brooch to become a superheroine, rising up to protect Paris.
  • Chloe's Lament: Despite Chloe's assumption that switching places with Marinette guarantees that she'll become the next Ladybug, she fails her Secret Test of Character without ever realizing it. Instead, Master Fu selects Sabrina, who has gone from being Chloe's Beta Bitch to a confident young woman who serves as their Class Rep and happily becomes Red Queen alongside her partner Cheshire.
• Rise of Mariposa:
  • In canon, Stoneheart is a supervillain created by Hawk Moth preying on Ivan's insecurities and corrupting him with his miraculous. Here, Stoneheart was created with Marinette as the butterfly miraculous wielder with the intention of protecting Mylene from Harlequin.
  • In canon, Chloe was turned into Anti-Bug, a supervillain designed to be an Evil Counterpart to Ladybug with the purpose of stealing her and Chat Noir's miraculouses. Here, Mariposa turns her into Se Rallier, a princess-esque Champion who converts those around her into her loyal knights with the purpose of fighting off Harlequin.
• Rise of Paonne and Renard Rouge: Gabriel Agreste was a Kid Hero and wielder of the Peacock Miraculous. Justified, since the fanfic started long before the reveal that Gabriel was Hawk Moth.
• Scarlet Lady: In canon, Lila is a Hate Sink with no redeeming qualities whatsoever and an irrational hatred of Ladybug. Here, a combination of Marinette and Alix reaching out to befriend her after her disastrous first impression and the local Ladybug heroine being far less sympathetic stops her turn to villainy before it can even begin, and she becomes a far nicer (if brutally honest) person. She's also given a Freudian Excuse for her constant lying, something she lacks in the show proper.

My Hero Academia

• In Custody Battle, Nana Shimura never received One for All, Tenko Shimura was never taken by All for One, and he lives a happy life as a U.A. student
• In Forgiveness is the Attribute of the Strong, a young All for One travels forward in time. Due to character development, he no longer has any interest in becoming a villain.
• Rather than become a Serial Killer who joins the League of Villains, Himiko Toga in Green Tea Rescue is inspired by a chance meeting with Izuku to get into U.A. and become a hero, joining class 1-A and becoming close friends with the main cast.
• In Ignited Spark, due to being rescued by All Might instead of All For One, Tenko Shimura is a teacher's assistant at U.A. Likewise, Himiko Toga is Recovery Girl's assistant.
• In My Name's Deku, It Means Business, Himiko Toga is a student at U.A. and the ninth holder of One For All rather than a serial killer like canon.

My-HiME

• In Perfection Is Overrated, the story diverges from canon around the time the Himes are manipulated into attacking Nao. As such, Nao and Shizuru do not undergo their Face Heel Turns as in canon, until one of the SUEs alters their personalities, resulting in Natsuki having to fight each of them. Nao ends up as an Anti-Hero who ultimately ends up questioning herself and taking a level in kindness, and while Shizuru finds herself doubting herself over her feelings for Natsuki, she ultimately comes to terms with them.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

• In Change, Queen Chrysalis is not an evil queen at all. She is kind and caring and wants for all of her subjects to be healthy and happy, including her own daughter. She only invades Canterlot to gather love energy for her hive and save Twilight's life, not to conquer the land. She even tells the others where to find the real Cadance when the invasion is over.
• Codex Equus:
  • Golden Scepter, despite being based on the Emperor of Mankind, is completely different from him in personality. The Emperor of Mankind was a well-meaning yet ruthless, xenophobic, and hypocritical Jerkass who loved humanity but only for what it could be and never loved it on an individual level. He was also a neglectful parent who treated most of his Primarch children as little more than tools, and was abusive at worst. Golden Scepter behaved similarly during the Imperium era that took place after the "Twilight of the Alicorns" until he was betrayed and wounded by one of his own generals during a coup and had to be put in magical stasis to heal himself. After he was found by Luminiferous and Dazzleglow in the Second Age, he would undergo a long process of Character Development as The Atoner, wandering around Equus to learn from the examples set by both mortals and divines. The result was a truly benevolent Emperor who settled down before the Fourth Age and founded the much smaller yet thriving Terran Empire and became the father of several Semi-Divine sons.
  • Meanwhile, those of the Emperor's sons who betrayed him and became Traitor Primarchs in WH40k canon also became heroic in the Codexverse, as Golden Scepter Took a Level in Kindness that had a huge impact on how he raised his children.
    • Primarch Magnus the Red tended to be an Insufferable Genius, yet was loyal to his father despite the negative reputation he has as a psyker. He turned traitor in the Horus Heresy after a rather unfortunate combination of arrogantly pursuing even forbidden knowledge, the manipulations of the Chaos gods, and being censured and alienated by the Emperor's actions. Crimson Star, Magnus's Codexverse counterpart, also started out as an arrogant Insufferable Genius, until he was blinded saving a classmate in a carriage accident, and became rather depressed after realizing that he is now no better than those he once deemed beneath his intelligence. Thanks to the love and support of Golden Scepter, as well as those who genuinely cared for him, he would come out of his ordeals a much better and heroic person.
    • Primarch Horus Lupercal was originally the favored firstborn son of the Emperor of Mankind, until he turned traitor thanks to the manipulations of both Lorgar and the Chaos gods, making him think that the Emperor truly wanted to become a god and didn't care about the Primarchs at all. This created the Horus Heresy that tore the Imperium of Mankind apart. Here, as Blazing Hoof, he's a benevolent demigod Prince who never turned traitor, as his father, Golden Scepter, went through lots of Character Development that heavily influenced how he raised his sons.
    • Primarch Lorgar Aurelian would lose his faith in the Emperor of Mankind after a particularly brutal and humiliating incident (the complete destruction of Monarchia), which drove him to worship the Chaos Gods and orchestrate the Horus Heresy. Here, Written Word, Lorgar's Codexverse counterpart, was never driven to turn traitor because Golden Scepter, unlike the Emperor of Mankind, was a good father and thus was gentle in explaining to his son the folly of both his devotion and his actions. Because of this, Written Word would realize the true value of faith as a unifying and empowering force, and became a beloved Alicorn demigod hero who's also badass.
    • Perturabo would betray the Emperor of Mankind and side with Chaos after decades of being passed over in favor of Rogal Dorn, being unable to showcase his true skills as an engineer and architect and instead was stuck with the most grinding sieges during the Great Crusade, and being treated with dismissive contempt by most of his brothers. Here, as Steel Barricade, while he initially started out as an Insufferable Genius worse than Crimson Star, he eventually learned the value of humility and empathy after being exiled for instigating a particularly destructive duel against his older brother, Clear Voice, and after brutally murdering a corrupt Tauren Pony king and nobility in a fit of explosive rage. While he was left a stoic and cold Jerk with a Heart of Gold due to psychological trauma, his efforts to atone for his actions nonetheless led to him becoming a beloved and respected demigod Prince of the Terran Empire - which is partially thanks to Golden Scepter's influence on him as a father. Notably, one of Steel Barricade's deeds included attending the Hoofington Conference, where he and his brothers would present solid evidence on why Synthetic Automatons shouldn't exist for the anti-Synthetic Automaton side, "with all the effort and ability expected of an Alicorn demigod scion of Emperor Golden Scepter".
    • Primarch Angron had the Butcher's Nails implanted on him at a young age to turn him into a powerful gladiator. As a result, he became a bloodthirsty, rage-driven horror who put the Butcher's Nails on his own World Eaters legion, and was responsible for many war crimes and other atrocities. He also became one of the first Primarchs to side with Chaos, though part of the decision was influenced by Primarch Lorgar, who wanted to save his brother's life after learning that the Butcher's Nails were slowly killing Angron. By contrast, Red Blade was initially a shy yet kind foal who became a Bully Hunter to protect others from being bullied, only for him to become no different than the bullies he hunted when he left Crimson Star near death, unaware that Crimson Star wanted to die out of guilt. He eventually realized the error of his ways after witnessing the Poenan Pantheon's fanatical and zealous crusades, and instigating a revolution against a kingdom's tyrannical government that got too bloody and out of control, which motivated him to both control his anger and practice discipline and self-restraint.
  • Prince Blueblood in canon is a boorish Jerkass and Prince Charmless. In the Codexverse, he is a beloved war hero among his soldiers and a stallion completely dedicated to the well-being of Equestria and its people. His facades were his way of getting around the insidious and malignant members of Canterlot's nobility in order to do what he truly wanted. Beneath them, he's a very nice pony, if a bit cynical and pragmatic.
  • Sigvald the Magnificent is, to put it lightly, an incredibly depraved, sociopathic, cruel, and vain man who became Slaanesh's favored champion. Here, Prince Stoltur Skjöldur, who is based on Sigvald, is a very honorable and noble individual who upholds the oaths he makes and tests mortals with his Evil so they could become strong enough to oppose Evil itself, even though by nature he is still an evil and depraved god thanks to being one of many divine and demi-divine sons of Pokhot, the Bogolenya Deer goddess of Lust and Pride.
• A Diplomatic Visit: The second story, Diplomat at Large, introduces the Siren trio from Rainbow Rocks. In the adaptation of that story, Aria Blaze and Sonata Dusk turn out to have been manipulated by Adagio Dazzle into working with her and allowing her to expand her influence as Lady of Hatred. When they're broken free, Aria is furious at her, and subsequently inherits the mantle of Hatred when Discord decides she's a good match for it. The two soon return to Equestria and are welcomed back, moving to the Crystal Empire so Aria can learn from and work closely with her Opposite, Princess Cadance.
• Garble is still a pony-hating Jerkass in The Fallen, but he now has a Freudian Excuse: He hates how ponies have always gotten everything they ever wanted while his kind has to struggle for survival every day. He also refuses to go along with the Big Bad's Evil Plan.
• In The Flash Sentry Chronicles: Trixie starts the same way she did in canon, as a traveling show-mare who lied about her achievements to make herself look better and show off. But, thanks to being saved by Flash from some crooks earlier, she opens up to him and his friends and helps them stop the group of crooks that attacked her. She decides to better herself, and later becomes the apprentice of Princess Luna.
• Canon Chrysalis was a ruthless dictator who kept her subjects constantly starving, but in Love Bites, she is an ally of Equestria and Twilight's kind-hearted babysitter.
• This trope is half the premise of The Rainsverse: Chrysalis and Sombra are (as far as we can tell) Big Goods, and the six Knights of Harmony are all ponies who were villains in the Celestiaverse.
• Stallions Of Harmony Verse: Sunset Shimmer who in canon was Princess Celestia's evil former student and the Big Bad of Equestria Girls is instead Twilight's best friend and fierce academic rival.
• Sunset of Time stars Sunset Shimmer. While her canon counterpart was an arrogant and power-hungry Alpha Bitch, this Sunset is kind, noble, and a loyal student to her mentor Twilight. Reversed into Adaptational Villainy with Sunset's past self, Vesper Radiance — she's a murderous and insane psychopath looking to kill Celestia (and anyone else who gets in her way), conquer Equestria, and rule it as a Physical God.

N-Z

Naruto

• Foundational Legacy has Utatane Koharu break away from Danzo and Homura to become a Reasonable Authority Figure. Instead of supporting Danzo's desires to undercut the Sandaime's authority and twist everything to his own selfish ends, she offers Hiruzen sincerely good advice about how to handle Sakura unexpectedly manifesting the Mokuton, proving herself to be a valuable ally in dealing with her former cohorts.
• Guilt of Innocence: Although the outcome is apparently the same, the circumstances behind Sasuke going to Oto are all it takes to make him selfless and brave instead of selfish and obsessive. In canon, it's only for the benefit of his personal goals that he willingly goes there and cuts his bonds with everything he holds dear. In Guilt of Innocence, he's being asked by his Hokage to risk everything (his sanity, his bonds with his team, and his own integrity) so Orochimaru doesn't attack Konoha again while the village is recovering. And to learn valuable information about his operations.
• Some characters in Kitsune no Ken: Fist of the Fox get a complete personality makeover in contrast to their original personalities in Naruto. Specific examples include Kabuto, who in this story is the benevolent retainer to the Hyuga family and a Shipper on Deck for Naruto and Hinata (in canon, he's The Dragon to Orochimaru and definitely not a trustworthy person); Uchiha Fugaku, the head of the Uchiha Zaibatsu and a caring father to Sasuke as well as a decent guy in general (canon Fugaku was emotionally distant from Sasuke and was planning to start a coup together with the rest of the Uchiha clan); and even Orochimaru, who's simply doing his job as a defense attorney in getting Mizuki's goons out on bail but is otherwise not shown to be malicious (canon Orochimaru, besides being a major antagonist for most of the series, is a Mad Scientist and Bad Boss to his own henchmen).
• Kokuten:
  • Sasuke has the chance of stopping Itachi from mass-murdering their fellow clan members, which is heroic (and less bloody than his canon path of revenge) regardless of its outcomes. Moreover, learning the truth before he defected and killed his older brother allows Sasuke to restore his loyalty to Konoha even if only by virtue of how much Naruto and Itachi love the village. This somehow leads to him aiding in recruiting Tsunade so she can be the next Hokage and rein in the chaos.
  • Kid Ino displays great if foolish bravery by defending kid Naruto (whom she still despises) from his Uchiha kidnapper. She goes as far as to form the trademark Yamanaka hand seal with the intent of overtaking the mind of the attacker — an adult kunoichi.
  • Kid Sakura, after watching her friends being kidnapped, requests the first ANBU she encounters to rescue them. She supplies said ANBU with very valuable information and is willing to accompany him wherever her friends are being held captive.
• In canon, Kakuzu was a member of the Akatsuki whose primary interest was money. In Old Man by the Bar, Kakuzu is initially cold to Kiba, Choji, and Sakura, who approached him for war stories for a class project, thinking he was an old veteran of Konoha rather than a dangerous Missing Nin. He eventually becomes a mentor for them, teaching them skills to make them pragmatic fighters. It eventually esculates to him smuggling Fū out of her village and into Konoha, keeping the rest of the Akatsuki out of the loop.
• Son of the Sannin has the following examples:
  • In canon, Zabuza and Haku are pretty much the Starter Villains faced by Naruto's team. In this story, the former appears as a mercenary hired by the Uchiha Clan for their insurrection, but is made prisoner and given a chance of parole on the condition that his protegé becomes a student of the Konoha Ninja Academy. Zabuza eventually turns into a Reformed, but Not Tamed ally to Konoha, while Haku graduates and even becomes part of the same team as Naruto and Hinata.
  • Rasa never joins up with Orochimaru and remains a faithful ally to Konoha due to Jiraiya having reinforced Gaara's seal when he was a child. He also eventually has a Jerkass Realization after all three of his kids are nearly killed by Akatsuki during the Gaara Retrieval arc.
  • Downplayed with Itachi, who was always technically a hero. It's just that here he's publically a good guy instead of a Mole.
  • By the time the story reaches the Shippuden timeframe, Sasuke still remains loyal to Konoha instead of pulling a Face–Heel Turn like in canon. It helps to have Itachi around to act as his Morality Chain.
  • Neither Karin nor Suigetsu ever worked for Orochimaru, instead remaining loyal to their home villages (and in Karin's case, the village in question is Konoha).
  • The Sound genin trio formed by Kin, Zaku, and Dosu appear a couple of times as antagonists in the arcs involving Orochimaru in Part I. At the end, they are taken prisoner and left under the custody of Anko Mitarashi, who takes to train them herself and breaks them out of their loyalty to Orochimaru, becoming Konoha shinobi by the time Part II rolls around.
  • In the final arc, Kaguya Otsutsuki, of all characters, is hit by this. In canon, she was pretty much a Generic Doomsday Villain (at least until Boruto goes further into her motivations). In this story, however, she's shown to be heavily repentant of her actions in life and is proud of the world her sons helped create after defeating her, even acknowledging that she came to love Earth and humanity as a whole after living among them. It goes to the point that she entrusts Naruto and Hinata with defeating Madara Uchiha and protecting that world from the eventual invasion of her kind.
• War of the Biju: In this fic, Obito was never designated as Madara's successor and thus is not Tobi. The Tobi in this fic kills him for his eye, preventing him from ever making a Face–Heel Turn. Obito's heroism is firmly established when Kabuto revives an artificially aged-up version of him during the war and forces him to fight against Kakashi and his batallion.
• your move, instigator (draw your weapon and hold your tongue): Since the Third Shinobi War kept going, Orochimaru remains in Konoha. He still performs questionable experiments, but since the story is told through Sakura's eyes, we're not privy to how deep those go; she's only aware of the poison he asks her team to test on a river. He also becomes a mentor to young Tenten, garnering a remark from Shikuro about how he seems to be making a habit of that.

Neon Genesis Evangelion

• EVA Sessions: Someplace Vast and Dry: Gendo runs NERV strictly as an agency to defend humanity against The Others, without any ulterior motives.
  • Back in Antarctica, Gendo assumed leadership of the Katsuragi Expedition immediately after his friend Dr. Katsuragi was killed at Ground Zero of The Event, and organized the successful evacuation of all surviving scientists; in contrast, canon Gendo was instructed by SEELE to leave one day before Dr. Katsuragi unknowingly triggered Second Impact.
• Evangelion 303:
  • Gendo...barely. He's still up to something and probably gunning for revenge against SEELE, but here, at least he's working to knowingly save lives instead of turning everyone into orange juice.
  • Kaworu and Rei are a bit straighter of an example. Instead of being Angels, they're all flesh-and-blood humans and genuinely desire to use the Evangelion project for good.
• RE-TAKE
  • Shinji doesn't become a near Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds like his canon counterpart and does risk his life during the events of "End" even knowing that as he is an Angel he will have to die afterward. Even when he gets the life with Asuka he always wished for he takes his own life to ensure the Third Impact can't occur.
  • Rei III is introduced earlier than her canon counterpart so acts as an ally while never supporting Gendo's plans.
  • Gendo of all people. Despite being much more cruel than his canon counterpart in his attempts to manipulate Shinji into supporting his plans, during the events of "End" he realizes what a mistake he made and unlocks the Positron Rifle to allow Rei to aid Shinji.

NieR

• Shadowlord, the Big Bad himself, makes a Heel–Face Turn in Tower of Babel. And the characters in general are more willing to talk rather than jump straight to murder (being able to actually talk to each other really helps on that front).

Once Upon a Time

• A Different Fate:
  • In return for being freed from the Dark Realm's pull, Tiger Lily forced the Black Fairy to try and free Rumplestiltskin from the dark curse. As a result, the Black Fairy is portrayed less like a For the Evulz Madwoman and as someone who is genuinely trying to do something good. She takes a liking to Belle and even gains Tinker Bell as an ally who, after helping Nova reunite with Grumpy, unceremoniously quits as a fairy, leaving before the Blue Fairy could take her wings and wand away.
  • Because Cora was eliminated before she could goad Regina's Start of Darkness, Rumplestltskin could never get to corrupting Regina and had to resort to Zelena. As a result, Zelena was the one who murdered Snow White's father and Daniel, causing Regina to run away with Snow White as a fugitive and never become the Evil Queen.
• In Freeze on the Stones, Regina's canon role is given to her mother, Cora. Instead of being the first Big Bad, Regina's now a hero who loves Snow White and wants to protect her and her family.

One Piece

• Coby's Choice:
  • After realizing what Crocodile's plan would bring unto Alabasta, Miss Valentine's Day and Miss Goldenweek defect from Baroque Works and join the Straw Hats.
  • Finding his life as a Galley-La employee more fulfilling than as an assassin, Kaku leaves CP9 and helps the Straw Hats rescue Robin.
• This Bites!:
  • Downplayed with Franky. While he wasn't an outright villain in the manga, in the Water 7 arc he rob the Straw Hats of their goal and allowed his men to beat up Usopp, which lead to a Cycle of Revenge until CP9 lead both groups to team up. In This Bites, the Franky Family are fans of the Straw Hats thanks to the SBS broadcasts, and after some negotiations, he agrees to help them build a new ship much earlier than in canon.
  • Played more straight in Apoo, who in canon is an Opportunistic Bastard that set up Kidd and Hawkins to be found by Kaido. Here, he starts off a friendship with Soundbite and Cross thanks to their mutual love of music and is motivated to help Cross and his allies take down the World Government and make the world better for all.

The Owl House

• While in The Owl House Emperor Belos was a dictator, in Luz Belos: Princess of the Boiling Isles he is portrayed as much more sympathetic and benevolent. He offers amnesty for the Owl Lady in exchange for being her new teacher (unlike his canon counterpart, who only wanted to catch her to get her portal and then tried petrifying her despite promising otherwise to Lilith), approves of Luz's relationship with Amity and even considers reforming the Coven system.

Persona

• In Persona 5, the persona user nicknamed "Black Mask" was a psychopath murdering people or driving them temporarily insane by abusing the Metaverse. In The Evil Queen, he narrowly avoids falling to madness and by the time he meets Akira and Ann, he becomes The Mentor to them both and teaches them how to steal distorted desires.
• Persona 5 Adult Confidant AU:
  • Madarame and Kunikazu were both despicable Palace targets in canon, while in the comic, they appear to be overall well-adjusted teenagers, and seem to genuinely care about Yusuke and Haru, respectively.
  • In canon, Robin Hood was Akechi's alternate Persona, a representation of his affable public demeanor masking his vengeance-fueled true self. Here, Robin Hood is the initial Persona of Sojiro, the main character of the comic.

Pokémon

• In Ashes of the Past, Team Rocket head Giovanni is still a ruthless mob boss, but is also a Reasonable Authority Figure who tolerates failure if there is a clear and explainable reason (like agents going up against people completely out of their league), promotes heroic behavior to garner good PR for his organization, and considers losing his Persian more unforgivable than an attack on his position. As the story progresses, he begins to eschew his more megalomaniac plots on account of how unprofitable they are.
• Mysterious Encounter makes Lovrina an unwilling accomplice to Cipher's plans and also makes her a traitor to them. In the game it is based on, Lovrina is a Cute and Psycho willing member.
• Pokémon Reset Bloodlines:
  • Lt. Surge goes from the bullying jackass of the anime to a friendly, respectful guy, bringing him more in line with the version from the games.
  • Erika, while retaining some issues originating with her anime self, shows herself to be friendlier and less restrictive than her anime self was.
  • BW Rials Burgundy and Georgia are no longer antagonistic and appear in moral and helpful takes on their pettier roles in the original series.
  • Per Pocket Monsters: The Animation, Ash's grandfather was like Ash's father, his son-in-law, in having left the family and never come back, leaving his wife, Ash's grandmother alone to run the family restaurant and raise Delia, which left Delia with resentment at him (and her husband). In Reset, he is very much present in his family's life and hates Ash's father for having left, though he dies of a stroke before Ash is born and Delia does admit she and him did not have the best relationship, though it is clear she still loves him in a way she did not in the above light novel.
  • The average Aether Foundation member is shown to lack the air of fakeness that they had in canon to some extent and are fully devoted to helping Pokemon. They just happen to have Faba around, and their president is currently high on crazy venom from another dimension.
  • While always a sympathetic character, Doctor Fuji is treated more sympathetically and less villainous than his canon self with no interest in having Mewtwo run around and blow stuff up. Then he dies because Mewtwo gets out and blows stuff up.
  • Despite original appearances, the Hypno of Three Island isn't malevolent like the games somewhat hinted.
    • A Reset original character got this when adapted to another work by the author: in Shudo cross Modern Ash: The League Refocused 20 Gyarados Bill is mentioned as a Professor and one of the world's leading sociologists. Similarly an immigrant in reverse, Electra Artisan is not depicted as corrupt and money-focused as she was in the original fic when a version of her showed up in Reset Bloodlines.

Portal

• In Portal 2: The (Unauthorized) Musical, the Cores, who were largely passive in the game, take on a more active role in the boss fight against Wheatley. Special mention goes to the Space Core, who physically drags Wheatley through the portal into space.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica

• In Thanks Kyubey, the main difference from canon is that Kyubey isn't a manipulative, callous Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist; but an honest, sympathetic and genuinely helpful Mentor Mascot.

Rango

• Old West turns Rattlesnake Jake from a Psycho for Hire with just enough honor to qualify as a Noble Demon into an Unscrupulous Hero with a traumatizing backstory and capacity for intermittent moments of compassion.

The Rising of the Shield Hero

• Hope of the Shield Hero: The Three Heroes in canon were all Idiot Heroes at best and The Poorly Chosen One at worst, being Destructive Saviors in their attempts at a short-sighted chance at living out a hero fantasy. While Motoyasu is mostly unchanged, both Ren and Itsuki are far less gullible, far less of a dick to Naofumi and each has a Break the Haughty moment that makes them more worthy of their titles.
  • Ren Amaki, while he was the Token Good Teammate among the Three Heroes, his character flaw of being an Ineffectual Loner still made him The Poorly Chosen One, resulting in poor teamwork amongst his party. He also became a Destructive Savior as a result of slaying Gaelion and leaving his body to rot, and he did believe Malty and the Church's flimsy accusations against Naofumi. Here in this story, Ren treats Naofumi with more kindness, giving him the benefit of the doubt after seeing Myne get in bed with Motoyasu. He also learns that Gaelion was an innocent dragon and adopted father immediately after striking the fatal blow on him, causing him to recruit Wyndia into his party to atone for his mistake as well as to give Gaelion a proper burial (averting the Dracolich problem that occurred in canon), and it allows him to learn to work alongside his team.
  • Itsuki Kawasumi in canon was an egotist who cared more about the fame and glory he could receive as a hero, causing him to commit seemingly heroic acts that only proved detrimental to people in the long run^note Such as killing a king for overtaxing his citizens and leaving a new government to take over but failing to see the problem that caused those taxes, such as funding the military to fight the monsters. Adding insult to injury, the new government ends up overtaxing their citizens just as much for that reason., and refusing to take responsibility for it. It takes being betrayed by his party members, falling victim to the Curse Series, and being saved and taken care of by Rishia for him to get his act together. Here, Itsuki gets more Pet the Dog moments and takes Raphtalia's words about helping slaves to heart, allowing him to root out corruption in Melromarc and save innocent Demihuman slaves, as well as finding a party that is genuinely heroic and loyal to him. Perhaps the most noticeable change is how Itsuki treats Rishia, growing to care for her far earlier than in canon, showing remorse and concern when he accidentally injures her, and being relieved when she's healed whereas Pre-Character Development Itsuki in canon abandoned her for being an inconvenience^note And either because she reminded him of his weaker, bullied self in the web novel, or because she unknowingly upstaged him and earned the queen's praise for contributing in the fight against the Wave in the manga.

RWBY

• Can One Change Fix All of RWBY?: Some, though not all, of the canon villains instead become heroes acting to save Remnant in this iteration.
  • Dr. Arthur Watts, unlike his pure evil canon portrayal, becomes allies with Team RWBY and the good immortal, instead of being allied with the evil immortal, but he's an antihero whose primary concern is screwing Ironwood over rather than saving the world.
• Jaune got eleven waifus pregnant:
  • Whitley Schnee is portrayed not as the Bitch in Sheep's Clothing he is in canon, but as a caring, upstanding young man who loves his sisters, no matter how much he may tease them. When his father disowns Weiss, he responds by exposing his unethical practices and having him thrown in prison. Once he takes over the SDC, he puts an end to the company's corrupt and abusive practices. He even builds a massive, luxurious mansion for his sister, her husband Jaune, Jaune's other wives, and all their children.
  • Cinder, Emerald, and Neopolitan are far better than they were in canon, being three of Jaune's loving wives.
• Linked in Life and Love: Raven, Yang's mother, is a much more heroic figure in the fic than in canon. Here, she actually had a good reason for leaving, and once she returned to her Bandit Clan she reformated it into a respected company specializing in mercenary work. And when she hears Yang is in trouble, she immediately throws everything aside to help—unlike in canon, where she dismissed Yang's trauma as not her problem.
• As part of the premise of being a Mirror Universe fic, RWBY: Dark features heroic versions of Salem, Cinder Fall, and other villains from the series proper.
• RWBY: Destiny of Remnant:
  • Raven Branwen in canon is a Social Darwinist and Dirty Coward who abandoned her husband Taiyang and her newborn daughter Yang, wanting to stay out of Ozpin's war with Salem to the point she murdered the Spring Maiden and took her powers, as well as sell out her brother to Cinder all for the sake of her survival. Here, she is an aloof and pragmatic, but loyal ally to the heroes and Ozpin, lacks her canon counterpart's cowardice and selfishness^note She even ironically shows disgust towards a mook's cowardice, and she keeps tabs on her family rather than abandon them^note She admits she still loves Taiyang even when he moved on to marry Summer and is happy for the both of them, remains the Mama Bear to Yang, sincerely respects Ruby's determination and courage and is even seen as an Honorary Aunt to the latter. She even goes so far as to sacrifice her life to save Qrow from Cinder's attack, something she never would have done in canon.
  • Neopolitan remains an antagonist in canon, wanting to get revenge on Ruby for Roman's death and is willing to work alongside Cinder despite also blaming the latter (with some persuasion after Neo targeted Cinder first). While she does want to avenge Roman's death here, she instead sabotages Salem's operation and helps the heroes free Pyrrha from their clutches, becoming a genuine ally to them.
  • Cardin Winchester becomes The Atoner here as a result of Jaune saving his life, becoming a more sympathetic and courageous person over time, and sacrificing his life to help Pyrrha and her rescuers escape.
  • While he's still a Corrupt Corporate Executive, Jacques Schnee does go through a Heel Realization after Winter is proven right about Ironwood being brainwashed and tries his best to make amends. Unfortunately, since he basically abandoned Winter to rot in prison instead of giving her the benefit of the doubt, Winter outright refuses to accept his apology, making it painfully clear to Weiss that their father has a lot to do before she can even consider forgiving him. He has since started working to change for the better.
  • Both Ironwood and Winter end up receiving this treatment as of the canon Volume 7. Ironwood undergoes a Face–Heel Turn in canon due to his growing paranoia, becoming The Unfettered in his fight against Salem's forces to the point he decides to leave Mantle to fend for itself and actually turns on Ozpin, even going so far as to try to kill his current vessel Oscar. From that point onward, he starts committing more atrocities such as murdering councilman Sleet, shooting down ships meant to help Mantle's citizens evacuate to safety, and threatening to bomb Mantle to force Penny to come to his side, an act that finally causes Winter and Marrow to turn on him. Winter remains loyal to Ironwood and obeys his orders without question, though she is merciful enough to give her sister and her friends a head start, and she also encourages Penny and Weiss to form their own path. It's only when Ironwood makes it clear he'll actually carry out his threat and attempts to shoot Marrow for disagreeing with him that Winter goes against him and fully helps the heroes. While Ironwood does become an antagonist in this story, it's only because he's brainwashed, and he returns to being an ally once he's freed. Winter also doesn't have blind loyalty to Ironwood, secretly going against his orders and helping her sister smuggle Penny out of Atlas when she learns Ironwood plans to use her as a suicide bomber, both to save Penny's life and to stop Ironwood from potentially provoking the other Kingdoms to go to war with Atlas.

The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System: Ren Zha Fanpai Zijiu Xitong

• SV Wishes has its transmigrators act out on their more altruistic desires since they aren't being forced by the System to stick to a narrative.
  • Shen Yuan isn't pushed into throwing anyone under the bus to save himself. In addition, his ignorance of the series' plot leads him to be kind to Luo Binghe out of sympathy. While he justifies it as insurance against Luo Binghe's betrayal, he's very caring to someone he thought was an NPC.
  • Shang Qinghua is more proactive in his attempts to change the storyline compared to his canon counterpart who passively went with The Stations of the Canon and had to force to act. Shang Qinghua goes out of his way to warn people of their potential dark fates and is overcome with remorse that he wrote them horrific futures that he does everything to change it.

A Song of Ice and Fire

• Chasing Dragons:
  • Euron Greyjoy is far from the psychotic reaver of canon, instead being one of Stannis' most stalwart and loyal allies. Ultimately subverted, as it turns out that he's playing a Long Game to take the Iron Throne for himself.
  • Likewise Vicatarion, who in canon was little more than The Dragon to Balon and later a thug for Euron. Here, he's one of the great heroes of the Abolitionist Alliance.
  • Instead of being a self-aggrandizing fool who would kill an innocent child on a whim, Gerold Dayne here has entered into Ned's service for the chance to restore his family's honor by killing Arthur and reclaiming Dawn from his fouled hands. Four years of drudge work in and around Myr has done little to curb his self-importance, however.
  • Petyr Baelish avoids his canon role of throwing a kingdom into chaos out of hatred. He instead took the opportunity to join the Kingdom of Myr, first as a civilian administrator before becoming a secret agent for its newly-formed intelligence service.
• Robb Returns: Though still an opportunistic cutthroat, Bronn is both much more sincere and loyal than what he really is in the books, to the point where he asks to legitimize Ursula Stone, the bastard of the man whose keep he now owns. The fact that he's serving Lord Arryn, who's happily supplied him land and titles as he's wanted, likely helps.
• In Modern AU Fic A Vicious, Vengeful Sea Cersei Lannister's only appearance is as a Goop-esque figure who appears on morning shows to promote her juice cleanses, with no indication that she's The Caligula, murderously unstable, of an incestuous Yandere.
• In The Young Stag, several characters are given this treatment.
  • Arya Stark is portrayed as an Unscrupulous Hero on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge in both the books and the TV show. Here, her character arc is all but absent, making her much more heroic and kinder as a result.
  • Cersei Lannister. While still very much one of the main antagonists, her redeeming quality is her unconditional love for her children. However, in the TV show and books, her love for them is a twisted form of narcissism, as she loves having children become miniature versions of herself instead of being individuals. Here, her love is portrayed as more genuine, and also extends to Steffon, who inherited the looks of House Baratheon, indicating that he is Robert's son, not Jaime's.
  • Stannis Baratheon. He's still The Stoic character we know him as but acts more like a Cool Uncle towards our protagonist, Steffon. He believes in equality among the common people and shows a softer, more understanding side around his friends and family. Not campaigning for the Iron Throne probably helps as well.

Sonic the Hedgehog

• In Sonic X: Dark Chaos, the Metarex were changed from a group of faceless robots trying to destroy the galaxy to a group of Well Intentioned Extremists who want to kill Tsali and rebuild the Seedrian species by any means necessary.
• Tales of Sonic the Hedgehog does this with Robotnik's former identity, Julian Kintobor. In Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) and the Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), he was a megalomaniacal sociopath from the start. Here, he's more in line with the heroic Dr. Ovi Kintobor from Sonic the Comic, being a genuinely Nice Guy who wanted to help people.

Soul Eater

• Quite a few Soul Eater fics prefer to have Crona and Ragnarok remain in Shibusen like in the anime as opposed to going back to Medusa as antagonists like in the manga. Breaking Point and Soul Eater: Troubled Souls are two such examples that take advantage of that.

Spider-Man

• The Web of The Spider-Man: Peter Parker was never a particularly mean or villainous guy, but the weight of "with great power there must also come great responsibility" didn't really sink in until after his uncle's death. Here, Peter rushes in to help a guard who was Pinned to the Wall even before getting his powers. Afterwards, Peter's respect for his uncle and binge-watching of anime and cartoons inspires him to use his new abilities to become a superhero even without Ben's death.

Star Trek

• The Star Trek: Enterprise fic "Familiar Strangers" does this to a degree for the Enterprise-generation Mirror Universe; when Hoshi Sato finds herself in that universe through a transporter accident (with her counterpart having been killed long before she could join the crew), the Mirror Archer proves to be a more reasonable individual, listening to Hoshi's insight and showing greater pragmatism than his canon counterpart's desire to just kill everyone he didn't like.
• In Between the Mountain and the River, Sybok's counterpart is far more balanced and reasonable than his Prime incarnation, and on a planet where There Are No Therapists his philosophy of embracing emotion and confronting pain begins to serve a beneficial purpose. He also becomes a valuable ally to Jim and Spock.

Star vs. the Forces of Evil

• The Butterfly Sisters: Mina Loveberry, downplayed. She's still racist towards monsters and, along with Solaria, is patiently waiting for monsters to "show their true colors" so she can kill them and Globgor. However, the fact that she's willing to wait until they actually pose a threat, and that she is kind to Meteora despite being half-Monster is a big divergence from canon. Although this could be contributed to the fact that this is a younger, less insane Mina.
  • The MHC are a similar example. They hold no ill will towards Eclipsa and Meteora since they believe that the former's marriage to Globgor was an unwilling arrangement rather than her choice. Having said that, they still wanted Festivia to be born first because they didn't want a half-monster inheriting the throne (like in canon). Though they warm up to her and give her her own wand later.
• Queens of Mewni: Most of Solaria the Monster Carver's worst genocidal tendencies are removed in this canon, thanks to her becoming more a Mama Bear and caring more about punishing mewman on mewman crimes, and got passed to Solaria's ancestor Meteora the Relentless (different character from Eclipsa's daughter Meteora).

Star Wars

• Darth Vader: Shattered Galaxy: Since Palpatine is no longer around to get in his head, having been killed by Vader and Maul in the previous story, Dooku never left the Jedi and is still on the side of the light.
• The Desert Storm:
  • Because of Ben, Jango Fett becomes much more heroic than his canon self. He becomes one of Ben’s closest friends and even a pillar of support for him. He also mentors Obi-Wan and sides against the Sith rather than help them. However, on more than one occasion it is gently pointed out to him that he is still fundamentally the same man — just one now aware (and horrified by) how far he's willing to go to get revenge, pointed at the bad guys, and with several Morality Chains (Ben, Obi-Wan, and Satine).
  • In Legends, Komari Vosa falls to the Dark Side and becomes the leader of the Bando Gora following her banishment from the Temple. Thanks to Ben and Obi-Wan convincing Dooku to take her back as his Padawan, Komari doesn't Fall and ends up becoming a Cool Big Sis for Sian. Chapter 9 of Mirage subverts this, as Lady Livion's POV shows that Komari is being drawn into the Dark Side by Darth Plagueis with the Jedi around her being none the wiser.
  • Because Obi-Wan helped liberate the Kaleesh people, Qymaen Jai Sheelal (Grievous's past self) doesn't develop a hatred of the Jedi and ultimately becomes an enthusiastic ally to Obi-Wan.
  • In Legends, Bruck Chun was a bully who joined Xanatos Du Crion and remained a villain up to his death. Here, he ultimately rejects Du Crion and deeply regrets spying for him. He ends up joining the Temple Guard to atone for his actions.
• Since the major Point of Divergence in Precipice is that Anakin never followed Mace Windu to Palpatine's office, he never led the attack on the Jedi Temple and instead defended it, averting his fall to the Dark Side. Instead, he goes on to become a hero of The Rebellion and is one of the biggest threats to The Empire.

Steven Universe

• The Steven Universe fanfic We Are The Chatroom Gems has a few examples:
  • Bismuth in the original was a Knight Templar who got poofed by Rose Quartz for wanting to kill the Diamonds. Here she's simply a close friend of Rose.
  • Sugilite in the original was well-intentioned but incredibly violent to the point of attacking Pearl. Here she's another friend and in a relationship with Sardonyx and Opal.
  • Though YMMV on how evil Blue Diamond is, Azura just has depression, and is shown to be more tolerant and open-minded than Yella.
• In Steven Universe, Rhodonite mentions that she had to go into hiding when her Morganite discovered her. In What Might Have Been however, there is mention of a Morganite joining the Crystal Gems to save a pearl and ruby from getting shattered.

Super Mario Bros.

• The Sea Shadow: It's downplayed since Vivian was never really a villain but in this story, she is on the heroes' side from the start.

Sword Art Online

• The Kirita Chronicles:
  • While Kayaba Akihiko remains the Big Bad of this story, his more humane side is explored. He saves the lives of a few players and seems to have a soft spot for some of them, especially Kirita.
  • Neither Johnny Black nor XaXa have been introduced as members of the Laughing Coffin, and they appear to be relatively decent people.
  • Unlike Kuradeel's somewhat psychotic canon version, this version was willing to save people's lives during his introduction. He has been going through Sanity Slippage and Took a Level in Jerkass due to the death of his best friend, however he still seems to care about the people he considers friends.
  • Akio the genderbent version of Asuna, is a downplayed example because while Asuna was a good person in canon, Akio is much nicer than Asuna was from the start.

Tales Series

• In Reflections Asch is given this treatment, going from an Anti-Hero Guest-Star Party Member who more often than not made things worse due to his stubborn refusal to cooperate and lashing out constantly at Luke to a genuine heroic individual, if a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, who will tear you apart if you lay a hand on Luke. He even gets Character Development that lets him ditch the worse of his jerkass behaviour.

Thomas & Friends

• Norman Spencer in Sodor's Legend of the Lost Treasure Bad Ending. Norman Spencer in Sodor: The Modern Years tried to modernise the North Western Railway during his time as deputy controller and have diesels replace the steam engines, before having a Face–Heel Turn and becoming the director of North West Package Express. The version of Norman in Sodor’s Legend of the Lost Treasure: Bad Ending, on the other hand, is a member of the Railway Board and doesn’t plan to modernise the NWR.

Tolkien's Legendarium

• In Death Seeker, Grima Wormtongue is revealed to have been under Saruman's thrall, so his treason against Rohan was not really his doing. After Gandalf frees him, he's wracked with guilt over what he did and immediately joins the Riders of Rohan. He eventually dies a heroic death trying to save Théoden from the Witch-King.
• Downplayed a bit with Smaug (more the one from Jackson's movies than the novel) in The Heart Trilogy. He's every bit as selfish, greedy, and bloodthirsty as in canon, displaying his caring side only towards his beloved Kathryn. However, the movie trilogy's Smaug insinuates that he'd gladly join Sauron's cause For the Evulz and is confirmed to have done so in the extended edition. The fic series' Smaug is never interested to serve Sauron or anyone else, wanting to be left in peace with his treasure and Kathryn unless crossed.^note He accepts Sauron's offer in Heart of Ashes, but only because he's angry and determined to reclaim Kathryn and his treasure. Sauron's attempt to influence his actions until Gandalf contains the worst of the taint leaves Smaug even less willing to work for the Dark Lord again. He even takes the side of the Free Peoples in the War of the Ring, if only to ensure the safety of Kathryn and their twins, get back at Sauron and Fankil for everything they've done to the couple, and retake Erebor as his reward for helping the Free Peoples win the war.

Total Drama

• Despair Island: Here, Ezekiel's much more respectable and friendly to his teammates, to the point he serves as the Morality Pet for the rest of the campers up until his death. In the author's reasoning for his elimination, they explain that he served as a great 'pre-merge protagonist' who'd look after his teammates and be there for them in the face of certain death.
• Haunted: Chef worked with Izzy in order to prevent Chris from having his way with the girls the best they could.
• The infamously bizarre Total Drama Fan Film William Country does this with Chris McLean. In the source material, Chris was a sadist who loved messing with the campers' collective heads, used interns to test out the contests he'd use for them during the reality show (and cared very little if the contests killed said interns...which it did often) and was just generally a huge jerk to everyone. Here, he's depicted as a genuinely nice guy who wants the campers to have fun, gives them (mostly) harmless challenges to complete, and promises that everyone (not just the winners) will be rewarded under the condition that they finish the challenges "early".
• The Legend of Total Drama Island:: Scarlett's canonical megalomania isn't a factor here, and her wild hair is more a sign of her having just gotten out of bed, or being played for effect during challenges. She still retains some dark themes, such as her pajamas depicting the fires of Hell, but it's downplayed overall.
• Random Drama Series
  • Lightning, while still egotistical, is shown to be much more of a team player, and even develops an Odd Friendship with Bridgette. This becomes especially apparent when he makes it to the finals in ROTI: while in canon he played the villainous brawn to the heroic Cameron's brains, here he plays the heroic brawn to Natasha's villainous brains.
  • Scarlett in World Tour does go crazy as in canon, but here it is clearly attributed to stress and the machinations of Mal, and afterwards she does whatever she can to make up for it. She's even on the Heroic Hamsters come All Stars.
• Total Alternate Island: While she does have plenty of her original Alpha Bitch moments from the cannon Total Drama Island plot (as well as some new acts of villainy, like tampering with the votes to get rid of Sara), Heather in the fanfiction becomes a Defrosting Ice Queen much quicker, actually shows concern for her siblings back home, and isn`t responsible for some cruel actions in the cannon series (notably getting Trent eliminated, as it`s Courtney who blackmailed him out of the competition here).

Touhou Project

• Touhou Ibunshu does this to about half the cast, presumably to balance out the Adaptational Villainy of the other half. Reimu and Marisa go from selfish violent jerks to instead being genuinely heroic, Yuyuko, Suika, and the entire Eientei Cast Herd are not antagonists, and minor characters like Keine, Alice, Chen, and Ran assist the protagonists instead of fighting them.

Transformers

• Bad Press: In several of the fanfics Soundwave finds, Starscream is portrayed as a heroic Autobot. The actual Starscream, who is firmly an evil Decepticon and was experimenting on a human before Megatron asked him to look at the fanfiction, is less than pleased about being depicted as a member of the opposing faction.
• Quickstrike in Predacons Rising. The original was a Dumb Muscle Psycho for Hire. The version in Predacons Rising is a Noble Demon with a sense of honor and compassion towards his comrades and, in the end, gets a Heel–Face Turn.

The Twilight Saga

• In the Twilight fic "Luminescence", while Victoria still drinks human blood, after circumstances lead to her befriending Bella (even before she identifies Bella as her mate), Victoria agrees to Bella's conditions not to feed on women, children, or any of Bella's friends. As time goes on, Victoria not only steps in to protect Bella, but even finds it harder to just feed on random humans grabbed off the street, such as considering that an old man may have family who'll miss him, even if she never switches completely to a vegetarian lifestyle.

Undertale

• In Inverted Fate several characters achieve this by actually fighting Frisk, rather than the more passive roles they play in canon.
• Storyshift:
  • In the preboot, Chara (shifted into Sans' role) makes fast friends with "Shifty", clearly loves their family, and shows no hostility towards the monsters of the Underground, compared to their mysterious and Ambiguously Evil canon counterpart. However, the King Asriel ending (bear in mind this involves you killing both their adoptive parents, plus Sans and Papyrus) starts to look alarmingly familiar. Since they got shifted into Sans' role, they would have also almost certainly been the Final Boss of the Genocide route and Hero Antagonist fighting against a Villain Protagonist Shifty, had the preboot not been cancelled.
  • In the reboot, while they aren't nearly as friendly to Frisk as the preboot version, Chara is still willing to help Frisk, is protective of their brother, and is also more sympathetic to poor Dogamy than Asriel is, with their love for their family staying intact from the preboot. However, their canon counterpart's hatred for humanity is reemphasized, as they make it clear they are only helping Frisk to obey orders from their mother Toriel and warn/threaten Frisk: "If you want to leave, don’t let the mask slip. We will know." Voltrathelively explains in this Reddit comment that she had intended Preboot Chara's cheerful, chummy behavior with Frisk to be a front they put on to keep the human charmed and non-hostile so they wouldn't attack the Underground. The difference is that Reboot Chara doesn't even bother trying to pretend.
• TS!Underswap:
  • Asgore has Toriel's role, so unlike his canon counterpart, he not only didn't kill the fallen humans, he actually tried to offer them protection and shelter in his home. In Genocide, he also makes a genuine effort to kill Chara and stop them from killing his people, whereas both Toriel and Asgore in Undertale's Genocide were mowed down in one hit without realizing how dangerous the player character was until it was too late.
  • Will apply to many characters in Genocide, most likely. In Undertale, almost all the Genocide "boss" fights are One Hit Kills due to your character's high LV where the "bosses" aren't even programmed to fight back, and all the Underground can really do is evacuate as many people as possible to run and hide from you. In TS!Underswap, Team Switched currently plans for monsters being more active in trying to stop you (thanks to Asgore alerting them about you before his death, so the rationale is that they're not caught as off-guard as they were in the source material), there will be more full-fledged, difficult boss fights like Asgore in the above example with the monsters (even the ones who aren't main characters) doing their damnedest to stop you. By the look of The Stinger in the demo for Genocide, even Sans will be trying to kill you as soon as you arrive to prevent you from massacring the rest of the Underground. Good for the Underground, not so much for the player.
  • Chara arguably qualifies as well. It's hotly debated by fans whether the Chara from the original game was always like their self-serving, heartless, and cruel version met in the Genocide ending (which would make them a straight example of Adaptational Heroism in TS!Underswap), or a Well-Intentioned Extremist and Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds who lost their soul when they died and only becomes truly evil when corrupted by Frisk/the player. Team Switched applies both the Narrator Chara theory^note The theory that Chara provides all flavor text in the game, which portrays them as witty, playful, and friendly, not just the cold and bloodthirsty flavor text explicitly from them in the Genocide route and the player theory^note The theory that the player exists as a separate entity from both Frisk and Chara in-game, and is the one responsible for killing monsters, not Frisk or Chara to their fangame, depicting Chara as a cute, mischievous child who clearly likes Asgore. It's implied in all routes that Chara is being controlled, with any deaths at their hands directly the responsibility of the player. However, going Genocide corrupts them into enjoying the murders as much as it appears to their canon counterpart.
  • As of the demo's ending, this may apply to Flowey if he is sincere about helping Chara (and isn't just tricking them). He saves them from the Temmies no matter what, presents himself as a new friend and ally to Chara, and the role swap means that the Temmies are occupying his counterpart's role as the Big Bad, so this Flowey might not be any more evil than an Undertale Temmie. Muddied by the fact his counterpart is a Manipulative Bastard, he saves Chara from the Temmies no matter what (including the Genocide ending), and dialogue from some of the endings hints at a possible case of Evil vs. Evil with the Temmies.

Warhammer 40,000

• Brighthammer 40,000 is a Lighter and Softer take on Warhammer 40,000. Naturally, examples of this abound.
  • For starters, let's examine this setting's equivalent to the Chaos Gods, the Lords of Order. While hardly "nice" in a mortal sense, they're far better than their canon counterparts, and in-universe considered overall benevolent even by their detractors. For example, Nurgle cures sickness instead of inflicting it, while Khorne is a god of honorable combat rather than wanton slaughter.
  • The Imperium of Man, meanwhile, is a far cry from the "Catholic Space Nazis" of the original setting. People are not forced to worship the God-Emperor on pain of death, Xeno subject races have freedom of travel and settlement, and mutants and psykers are not persecuted or mistreated simply for existing.
  • The Emperor of Mankind is a much more benevolent ruler here, being more outwardly compassionate and heroic than his canon 40k counterpart, and was implied to be a good father figure for all the Primarchs. During the setting's equivalent of the Great Crusade, he let Horus and the traitor Primarchs sacrifice themselves during the Great Crusade by committing ritual suicide, as it allowed them to become Princes of Order and save the galaxy by countering the tyrannical influence of the corrupted Lords of Order, who were all bloated from the souls massacred by the Adepts of Unified Order. In addition, he has a goatee.
  • In this universe, Horus and the other traitor Primarchs didn't turn on the Imperium. Instead, they sacrificed themselves to prevent an endless, devastating war between the Imperium and the Lords of Order, and became Princes of Order who exist to counter the Lords of Order on the immaterial plane on the Imperium's behalf.
  • While they're still pretty brutal, the Orks have a good deal more nobility and restraint than they do in Warhammer. For example, they have a strong code against harming noncombatants, and any Ork who violates this rule can expect to be beaten within an inch of their lives. They're the lucky ones; non-Orks who break this rule are often singled out for particularly brutal deaths.
• If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device: While the Emperor's dickishness is much clearer in this series, and quite pronounced at that, he actually cares about his Primarch as his children, and loves them just like they were his natural sons (though he's still a particularly shitty father). Back in the Black Library books, it's been revealed he never cared about them in canon, at least not as anything more than powerful, yet expendable tools in his conquests.

Worm

• A Darker Path: After Atropos kills all the gang leaders in Brockton Bay, most of the canon villains leave town for their own health. Whirlygig and Trainwreck are too poor to do so, though, so they wind up joining Parian and forming the Brockton Bay Rogues' Guild instead.
• In Mauling Snarks, a major Alternate Universe element is the Slaughterhouse Nine, while still retaining their canon Dreaded reputation as roving serial killers, are actually a secret PRT-allied therapy group for capes with exceedingly violent power urges. Jack Slash, in fact, was the one who turned the entire group once he got rid of King.
• One More Trigger: With Sophia never getting a foothold in Emma's life, and with the traumatic experience of the alley cut short, instead of Emma casting aside Taylor's friendship and bullying her mercilessly for years, she values her more than ever. The two of them and Madison Clements form the core of an independent hero team together.
• Quicken: In canon, Emma was a bully. Here she’s an Anti-Hero. She picked a fight with a group of neo-Nazis because they were beating someone up and forced an enforcer to leave a girl alone.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown

• XCOM: The Advent Directive: In canon, ADVENT is the Ethereals' puppet government designed to hold their control over Earth. In this fic, they're formed by the Commander and EXALT in order to rally the people of Earth against the Ethereal Collective, and fight alongside XCOM for that same purpose.

X-Men: Evolution

• In the X-Men: Evolution fic "Wanda's Life", Wanda is found and rescued from the asylum by Xavier, with the result that she is basically the third member of the X-Men after Scott and Jean, and even ends up dating Kurt.

Young Justice (2010)

• With This Ring:
  • While Teth Adom still initially suffered from Deliberate Values Dissonance, he's less violent and more open-minded than his comics counterpart. He was a Kahndaqi (Egyptian) pharaoh who proved himself worthy of Shazam through his actions as a Warrior Prince and ruled as a beloved monarch for 80 years. He also had pretty legitimate reasons to hate the wizard Shazam. He was trying to form an ancient equivalent of the Justice League with other monarchs to deal with rising threats and Shazam believed that he was trying to become a conquering despot.
  • Queen Clea of Venturia is given more of a backstory than canon, where she's been perhaps harsh but only in response to the much more questionable actions of other parties, and who resents the Atlantean crown for failing to protect her family. When given options for maintaining what independence her city still has, she's quite reasonable.
  • Princess Komand'r of Tamaran (Blackfire) is given the opportunity to make a name for herself as an Orange Lantern, without needing to compete with her sister, and mellows quite a lot as a result, especially after she finds a cure for the disease that took away her solar powers.
• Jason Todd in Young Justice: Darkness Falls. Remember how the original Jason Todd went Jumping Off the Slippery Slope after his resurrection? Well in this fic, Jason, while still not a good guy in the same way The Team and the League are, still stands to fight The Light and use his gang to fight criminals. The fact that he was injured disarming a bomb of Two-Face's rather than getting beaten to death by The Joker might have also helped. In fact, this fic actually has Jason and Bruce reconcile and come to an understanding at least.

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