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Memetic Badass / Fan Works
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  • Child of the Storm has several examples:
    • In-universe, the Lady Knight (an immortal human woman who's taught most of the major badasses in history how to fight, including Cuchulainn, Sif, Fandral, most of the Argonauts, and William Marshal) and the Winter Soldier. Pretty much the entire cast, both good and evil, either respects him, or is flat-out terrified of him. He also has a kill count in the hundreds.
    • Doctor Stephen Strange. Lots of characters in various media are either The Archmage or a Magnificent Bastard, meaning that they can defeat their enemies with either brains or (magical) brawn. Strange is both. He plays every single character in the series like a harp (with the exception of Sinister, because the latter is blocked from Strange's foresight). He even gets a mention in the House of Magic and is an accredited member of the Omniscient Council of Vagueness. Oh, and he's a time traveller.
      • Whatever it is you had planned? He's already worked that into his own strategy. Oh, and he probably manipulated you into thinking of it in the first place. Tell him that something's impossible? He'll do it just to prove you wrong. Harry notes at one point that while Magneto's teaching style is to let a student figure out what is and isn't possible (and tricking them into doing things that they'd normally assume were impossible, opening their eyes), Strange's teaching style consists of simply doing whatever you want and just ignoring reality altogether.
      • On the occasions when he gets his hands dirty, well... he duelled Grindelwald, then a Physical God thanks to certain deals with various Hell Lords, to a standstill, flattening Berlin and leaving Grindelwald with 'only' his natural powers (and the Elder Wand) and literally walked away whistling, and defeated a Physical God-level Humanoid Abomination while giving someone a pep talk via Astral Projection on the other side of the battlefield. This, by the way, is on top of his normal job as Sorcerer Supreme, which job description basically entails scamming and/or beating up Eldritch Abominations. Oh, and he can Apparate around, into, and out of Hogwarts. This isn't a continuity error - he's just that awesome.
      • He also (see below) resurrected Harry Dresden. He didn't just bring him back as a zombie. He actually grabbed his spirit and put it back in his body, so that he came back exactly the same as before. This is generally regarded to be all but impossible (at least, for anyone who isn't a Physical God) by other magic-users.
      • The Disir are 13 monsters that Odin's father, a Physical God who put most other Physical Gods in the shade, could only exile. Strange, when he got pissed off at them, restored their consciences and trapped them inside a crystal ball, to be haunted by the spectres of their victims for as long as he pleases.
      • The Council Elite is a group of the most powerful Physical Gods in existence, each of whom is at least a low-level Reality Warper. When they get uppity, Strange somehow combines Stealth Hi/Bye with Big Damn Heroes, by teleporting them to the ultimate prison, temporarily locking one of them inside a cell which will just sap his power and make it accessible to Strange with almost no effort, and unleashing a Badass Boast that leaves the rest of them terrified. Sound difficult? Not really—he had the Tesseract, which was loaned freely to him. Why? Well, he could've just stolen it from Asgard's highest security vault any time he liked, but that would've taken too long.
      • After getting on her nerves, he nonchalantly tells the Avengers that Mab (yes, that Mab, who even Thor and Loki step lightly around) knows better than to mess with him. While inspecting his fingernails. No one disputes this.
      • Multiple characters in the know consider him to be the most dangerous being in the universe, explicitly saying that he is more dangerous than the personification of Death, the most powerful member of the Endless (and probably the kindest), the most powerful beings in the universe, who put Physical Gods in the shade. They're right.
    • Harry Dresden. In addition to his canon feats, his duel with a Physical God-level Humanoid Abomination ended with Dresden unleashing a vast column of flame that jetted over a thousand feet into the air and launched Gravemoss from under to Paris to the North Sea, several hundred miles away. In their rematch, he cuts off Gravemoss' arm and forces him to run for his life. Oh, and he's in line to be Sorcerer Supreme one day, meaning that many feats of Memetic Badassery are yet to come.
    • Harry Potter/Thorson, meanwhile, has a rapidly growing reputation, partly because he is the Boy Who Lived, and partly because he is the Boy Who Continues To Live No Matter What Is Thrown At Him - no matter whether he's being attacked by Death Eaters, Basilisks, Dementors, Voldemort, the Disir, the Slendermen and HYDRA's Werewolves, Project Ultimatum, Daken, armies of HYDRA troops both muggle and magical, Gravemoss, the Elder God Chthon, Voldemort again, the Death Eaters again, Sinister, Dudley a.k.a. the Blob/the Beast, Maddie Pryor/Rachel Grey, the Red Room, Dracula and the Grey Court, an Elder Wyrm... one way or another, no matter how outclassed or outmatched he is, he'll come out the other side intact - and increasingly on top, as he gets stronger, more skilled and savvier. Which is generally more than can be said for whoever's gone up against him. Or whatever's left of them, anyway. After the incident with the Red Room, Draco Malfoy, who's been quietly, and with reasonable accuracy under the circumstances, deducing what's happened, flatly states that there are very few organisations he can think of capable of containing Harry, and they're mostly supernatural superpowers. And that's just in his normal state, not taking into account the Phoenix.
  • Mr. Black in Make a Wish. "Whoever caught the rabbit first would get the title of the best and be given the job of tracking down all the death munchers. Umbitch took one look at the forest and concluded that rabbits don't exist. The Aurors went in with fifty men and came out with ten . . . having fought a great battle with the rabbit and barely escaped with their lives. And Mr. Black . . . he didn't even bother to show up . . . three days later, the rabbit died . . . of 'natural causes.'"
    • Don't you mean that the rabbit died . . . in an 'accident'"
  • The Moonstone Cup: Twilight becomes this in-universe.
    "Yeah! Twilight Sparkle!" The gryphon went on, oblivious to Twilight's nervousness and Pinkie's Pinkieness. "She's an alicorn sorceress from Manehattan. Purple, kinda like you." The large gryphon leaned her head down and lowered her voice, conspiratorially. "Rumor going around the aeries is that she's actually another sister of Celestia and Luna and the Manehattan story is just a cover. You really didn't know about this?"
  • John Freeman who was Gordon Freeman's brother, who was one day in an office, typing on a computer.
  • Mortality Watson is most definitely this. In one chapter, it's implied that A LOT of villains are freaked out by him because they know that they shouldn't mess with Holmes if Watson is helping him out.
  • AOT Skits depicts Mikasa as a beloved hero who singlehandedly kills all Titans.
    Author: I could write an essay on why Mikasa isn't a Mary Sue. I just wanted to [write the fic] because she's a total badass.
  • Several MLP fics that somehow have Megan return to modern Equestria have her discover ponies remember her as an utter badass if not straight up divine. Granted, she is a badass, just a Badass Normal.
  • Played for Laughs in-universe in Sonic X: Dark Chaos. After she stuns Astorath in battle, his fellow Hell Knights start spreading rumors describing Cream the Rabbit of all people as a demon-slaying monstrosity who "pisses fire and eats planets".
  • Overlady: The Minions tell tales of Karin of the Heavy Wind such as how she "doesn't have fingers, only more wands" and "her bear skin rug isn't dead, it's just too scared to move". Louise implies the latter might actually be true.
  • Harry Potter is considered a total badass by the day employees in Five Nights with Harry for managing to be the night security guard at Freddy Fazbear's for over a month.
    • In Thirty H's, Harry is a guitar-playing eldritch abomination.
  • Garfield: fat, lazy, eternally-sleeping housecat by day. But when the night comes, if Garfield: Royal Rescue is to be believed, he becomes a ripped, muscular, Testosterone Poisoned chiseled hunk of a superhero.
  • Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars: Lineage, an absolute One-Man Army who can take on a dozen tanks in a Battle in the Rain single-handed and emerge victorious, duel Darth Maul toe-to-toe, put up an excellent fight against a fully-trained fallen Jedi Master who was trying to kill him at the age of fifteen, and if that fails, snark any enemy into submission as the Deadpan Snarker supreme in a World of Snark.
  • Harry Potter in The Master of Death grows up to be a powerful and very badass sorcerer and when you add in the fact that he is now an Outsider it led to several Chuck Norris jokes by the readers.
  • TRON Fanon will tend to roll this way when it comes to Alan Bradley. He's not a physical powerhouse (but you still wouldn't want to test him there), and plays more like Beware the Quiet Ones using a cross of strategy, Awesome by Analysis, Batman Gambits, and Papa Wolf. One memorable fanfic had him standing down Clu's entire army without so much as raising his voice. If physical force is required? Well, his sons come in handy there; Tron's the scariest fighter in cyberspace and if TRON 2.0 is in play, Jet's quite scary in his own right. And if a fic has him figuring out the whole Physical God in Cyberspace thing? Yeah, just make peace with whatever outranks Users if you manage to piss Alan off.
  • A Clash Of Neets: According to Word of God, the version of Lyanna Mormont in this story is one where all the memes about how badass she is are completely accurate - in her first appearance, when a drunken lord insults her best friend and liege Komekko Stark, she calmly walks up to him, wargs into a bear cub, and mauls him in front of the entire assembled nobles of the North. It turns out her father is the Bear Of The Isle, one of the few surviving Old Gods, who has been Old Madge's lover for years. She's nine.
  • Deku? I think he's some pro...: Deku gets captured by the League of Villains. Twenty-four hours later, All For One is dead and the entire League is in custody.
    • Really, Izuku is this in all of the author’s works.
  • Thanks to the Rugrats fix-it ficWhat If They Were Competent? Lou Pickles has taken out Jason, Pennywise, Michael Meyers, the Candyman, and Freddy Kreuger, with Candyman running in sheer terror the moment Lou shows up.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Paradox: What happens if you turn a certain Yu-Gi-Oh character with Psychic Powers into a Gundam pilot and give her Time Master powers? She gives the Cosmic Era protagonists Kira Yamato, Athrun Zala, and Shinn Asuka a run for their money. Even Rau Le Creuset realizes he's already screwed the moment he gets beaten singlehandedly by the Paradox Gundam.
  • Greg Veder aka the Unknown Parahuman in Mr. Fixit is Respected by the Respected for having gone to eight Endbringer battles in a row (most heroes go to one, very few ever go to a second, and almost none go to a third). But what raises him up to memetic status is his refusal to ever stop working until either the job is done or he physically collapses. When he's swept out to see in his second battle against Leviathan, he's found pulling an injured hero on a makeshift raft, prompting other survivors to say he "Only took so long because he was rescuing someone else. On his own, he'd have calmly swam back to shore and acted like nothing happened." It reaches new heights when a livestream shows him outright ignoring Leviathan only a few feet away from him to focus on rescuing an injured heronote .
  • John Freeman in Half-Life: Full Life Consequences, particularly as a result of the Djy's machinima adaptation of Free Man, which shows him pile driving a train, among other feats. In the climax of Free Man, he keeps killing Combines despite being shot with rockets and stabbed, (using his "bear hands" because bullets aren't fast enough).
  • In Stray, Big Boss is a Memetic Badass to the rest of FOXHOUND. Of course, he is a formidable warrior, but the rumors about his missing eye alone get into mythic territory.
    According to Wolf, it had been given as down payment to a demon in exchange for invincibility in battle, and the day it came back for the other was the day he would die.
  • Nobody Dies makes Shinji Ikari one in-universe after being the only one left concious after a Bar Brawl. ...It's a long story.
    • Specifically, a Bar Brawl at a UN banquet, where the two main combatants were Gendo Ikari and the President of the United States... Who in this fanfic is Stephen Colbert.
    • Let's not forget Shinji And Warhammer 40 K.
  • In Magica Madoka Veneficus Puella, Homura is becoming this (after being Brought Down to Normal no less).
  • A Hero: Chuck Norris Facts are fictional and wishful thinking. Dalek Inquisitor General Facts are real.
    • The fact that its canonical accomplishments (scares other Daleks, survived an Earth-Shattering Kaboom that killed a fleet...) sound like Chuck Norris facts does not help matters.

Alternative Title(s): Fanfiction

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