Unintentionally Sympathetic / Fan Works

Times where somebody proved Unintentionally Sympathetic in Fan Works.

---

Crossovers

• Equestria Girls: A Fairly Odd Friendship: Timmy destroying Gary and Betty's truck is supposed to be treated as him crossing a line by the Rainbooms. Most viewers believed Timmy was in the right, especially since Gary and Betty are incredibly obnoxious characters who made Timmy's life miserable. It doesn't help that while the audience is aware Timmy can't kill people with his magic, the Rainbooms weren't aware of that fact.
• The author of The Grinning Snake clearly dislikes Shizuru and believes she got her long-overdue comeuppance for killing the First District when the daughter of one of her victims makes a contract to send her to Hell. However, some, such as Shizuru's fans, sympathize more with her and may not believe she deserves to go to hell for massacring an evil organization.
• Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail:
  • Word of God is that Goh is a deeply selfish and uncaring individual who holds the most responsibility for Chloe running away, and his efforts to fix things are wrongheaded and shallow. But his guilt and self-loathing come off as a little too genuine, and his fragile mental state (before, during, and after his Trauma Conga Line) makes the prospect of Chloe completely rejecting his friendship, something that the story insists is her right, seem more like a cruel Break the Cutie than anything cathartic or deserved. The Intermission attempted to amend that somewhat with Goh being sorely in denial about what Chloe actually wants from him, but not everyone felt that it was sufficient. Arc 2 made the amendment much better by making it clear that Goh's problems have gone beyond Chloe and him, making him reach the intended sympathy level for many readers (as in, little to none). Then the combination of Parker's "nightmare therapy" backfiring, his stay at a suicide ward, and his kidnapping made him truly sympathetic. And all of this ignores the fact that Chloe is not blameless in their deteriorating friendship.
  • Ash is already treated by the narrative as sympathetic compared to Goh or Professor Cerise, but a sizeable and very loud group of readers and critics of the story consider the treatment the story gives him to be unwarranted. These readers consider the berating of Ash for being on one end of a communications failure to a point of him developing a guilt complex to be entirely unfitting of the "crime". These readers also tend to be a lot less sympathetic to Chloe because to them, Ash is essentially being blamed for both their parts of Poor Communication Kills.
  • While the narrative frames Delia as being in the wrong during her argument with Ash, more than a few reviewers, and at least one co-writer, see Delia's disinterest in forgiving Chloe as her own choice that isn't being respected and think that the choices of words Ash uses, such as comparing her to Parker despite a demonstratively different approach to her views of guilt and blame, are uncalled for.
• Buffy in Silent Reproach. The reader is meant to conclude that Captain America gave her a well-deserved case of Quit Your Whining by pointing out that in World War II, both the draftees and the volunteers simply did their job. However, the speech falls flat because, as quite a few reviewers point out, Cap fails to realize that Buffy was given a much more difficult and thankless battle to fight with less help and at a much younger age than most draftees. Draftees also generally have the hope of serving out their terms of enlistment and going home, while Slayers are stuck with the job until they die in the line of duty.
  • A fanmade sequel titled Disapproval Earned has Xander rip Cap a new one by pointing out how much worse Buffy had it than a war draftee, including that she died twice to save the world.
• Dumbledore in Touken Danshi and The Order Of The Phoenix is meant to be seen as unreasonable and incompetent in running his school, but it's hard not to feel sorry for him when the alleged heroes insult and threaten him with bringing an army over to station on Hogwarts grounds for the crime of not immediately granting special treatment to Harry and expecting him to finish his required schooling and not become an outcast.

Ace Attorney

• Morgan Fey in Transplanted Character Fic Tales of Attornia. She's evil because she demanded that Phoenix kill Maya. Except Maya blew up her hometown almost killing her and her daughter, and killing everyone else (except Athena). Phoenix actually wanted to kill Maya for exactly that. But then he found out that Maya is his mentor's sister, and suddenly Maya is the victim and Morgan is the villain (who gets immediately executed without trial) who "used" Phoenix to do something he intended to do anyway.

Avatar: The Last Airbender

• How I Became Yours does this to Mai. She was supposed to be the bitchy Woman Scorned standing in between Zuko and Katara's Super True Love, but she did have a good point in keeping the news that Katara was pregnant with Zuko's kid a secret in part due to the blowback that would happen if people learned he had an illegitimate child with a Waterbender. Plus, Zuko was cheating on her when that poor kid was conceived, so refusing to let him know is an understandable, if cruel revenge for that. At the very least, Mai didn't deserve to be bloodbended to death by a badly Out of Character Katara, when she could've easily restrained her with said technique so she could be sent to trial.
• Aang in The Stalking Zuko Series. Katara and the author often take the least favorable interpretation of his actions and motives, such as suggesting that he deliberately ran away before the Grand Finale and spared Ozai only to keep with Air Nomad teachings - Katara refuses to hear Aang's arguments in his own defense, and virtually everyone agrees that he owes her an apology for what he's done. While Katara claims to view Aang as a friend, she often seems to view him with a great deal of pity and reluctantly interacts with him, even when it seems as though he doesn't fully deserve that treatment. As a result, while some viewers believe this is necessary for Aang's Character Development, others believe that the story is too harsh on him.

Creepypasta

• In the Creepypasta Clockwork: Your Time is Up, after the protagonist, Natalie, snaps and becomes a Jeff the Killer Expy as a result of doctors experimenting on her, she murders her entire family in a disturbingly lovingly-detailed fashion. The author tries to portray this as justified by making her suffer massive abuse from them as a child, with her father being an Abusive Parent and the brother being an incestuous child rapist. Problem is, Natalie's brutal, over-the-top murders of her family are far worse, with the tamest one (her mother's) involving her paralyzing her, cutting her chest open, and ripping out her heart and waiting until she bleeds out (the more gory ones are certainly NSFW). Suffice to say, with how Natalie remorselessly butchers her family, it makes them surprisingly pitiable (yes, even the incestuous child rapist) and makes Natalie look a lot less likable.

The DCU

• The Supergirl story Hellsister Trilogy would have us believe that Superman is being irrationally overprotective when he comes to blows with Dev-Em... no matter what Dev-Em acknowledged he looked to pick up a fight with him. No matter what Superman may feel less than thrilled to hear his cousin has become the lover of a former delinquent who screwed him up purely for fun. No matter what Superman of 2499: The Great Confrontation hints their relationship will leave Kara broken-hearted.

Fairy Tail

• Natsu in Lucy's Unwanted House Guest. He's a jerk to Lucy, but that doesn't mean he deserves to be framed for beating her up, given Fake Memories of actually doing it, and being barred from the S-Class Exam^note He'd seen becoming S-Class as a way for him to more easily find Igneel for five years as punishment. To make matters worse, he has no idea that the person who framed him is none other than his girlfriend Lisanna, and all the while, he's struggling with his unrealized feelings for Lucy. All in all, this makes him more of a Jerkass Woobie than a straight-up Jerkass, but the story never seems to consider this.

Five Nights at Freddy's

• Five Nights At Freddy's: Lost Souls: Golden Freddy has started to evoke that reaction in readers from Night 5 onward. He's meant to be an antagonist, but many readers found themselves sympathizing with him more and more, especially when he started to be contrasted against the far less fleshed out Kelly. His dislike for teenagers and adult humans is given a very good reason in his own side story Crybaby, his love for the Fazbears and desire to protect them is revealed as genuine, if misguided and possessive, and while he does do some reprehensible things, like telling Cody he'll hurt Bridget, he ultimately doesn't truly want to hurt anybody (until Night 6, anyway).

MonsterVerse

• Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): Emma Russell briefly in Chapter 12; not in terms of how vile her methodology for trying to save the world when she was alive was, but in terms of her inaction against Alan Jonah after the latter threatened to have Madison's throat slit, which Madison brings up in the present in Chapter 12. Emma standing by and doing nothing is made out by Madison and Mark to be Emma endangering Madison via inaction, but anyone who's read the scene from the movie novelization to which Madison is referring will know that Emma was doing nothing because Jonah made it clear to them that that was the only way she could prevent his men delivering on that threat.

Harry Potter

• Britney in My Immortal. Sure, she (somehow) releases Snap, Loopin, and Hargrid from Azerbaijan near the end, but before that, she is treated with contempt by Ebony and her friends for the "crime" of liking Hilary Duff and not shopping at Hot Topic. Even after she breaks the aforementioned criminals out of prison, Ebony still shows more offense towards her prep status.
• In One World, Ron Weasley is a bit of an odd case of this, since as of this writing, he's barely even appeared in the story. After the author's decision to stick to canon pairings led to backlash from people who don't like Ron, the author said he'd be sure to show Ron as "a prat and a git," but not a Death Eater, and he and Harry would take longer to become friends than in canon. Naturally, some readers thought the author didn't give Ron enough credit or understand him as a character, while others had the opposite reaction.
• In Princess of the Blacks, Lily Potter was initially intended to be a Jerkass who couldn't accept that her daughter wanted nothing to do with Lily or James. Instead, she became The Woobie who was willing to stay away from Jennifer in the hopes she'd one day be willing to reconnect. Word of God states that Lily is the equivalent of a kicked puppy whereas James has become the Jerkass.

High School D×D

• Go Away I'm Watching Porn:
  • Raynare. Issei and Jasmine treat her horribly, and their excuse that she failed to protect Asami falls kind of flat because she did everything in her power to do so and the effort nearly killed her. Prior to that, Issei chased her around for several hours with a pair of massive dildos, viciously threatening to anal-rape her with them. Yeah, she shouldn't have taunted him for screwing up Kuroka's backstory, and it was technically meant to be a training exercise, but Issei's response was wildly disproportionate, his threats were not idle, and he surely could have come up with another way to "motivate" her^note Such as threatening to stop cooking her lunches, which had worked before.. Later, Kuroka starts an argument with her, and when Raynare gets the upper hand by calling her out on lying to Issei about her past, Kuroka pettily gets her electrocuted, while Vali and Jasmine act like she deserved it and subject her to even more torture. In the next chapter, she gets tied to a Sybian and whipped just for accusing Jasmine of padding her chest (and knowing Jasmine, she likely started it), and then she is subjected to a particularly rough round of sex with Issei. While the latter was done with her consent, the handling was so brutal it came dangerously close to rape. Suffice it to say, rather than being seen as a bitch getting her Just Desserts, Raynare comes off more as a Jerkass Woobie being used as The Scapegoat by a group of petty assholes. Compounding the issue is that it's all but said Azazel is pissed at her too, and that she has no place with the Grigori anymore as a result of what happened to Asami, coming across as needlessly cruel to someone who nearly died trying to protect Asami, even if she failed.
  • Sona in Chapter 18. After being continuously left in the dark and forced to deal with Jasmine and Vali making rude comments, she finally reaches her wit's end and tries fishing for information from Jasmine about Issei's past. Jasmine then pokes at her insecurities about Serafall, and Sona chooses to insult her for being a sex worker in a blatant Author Tract moment. The narrative acts like she deserves to be attacked by Jasmine, but as several readers pointed out, Jasmine had done nothing but act condescendingly towards the group, and was taking her issues out on everyone for something that was not their fault. And for all her talk about her being a "stupid kid" being kept in the dark, Jasmine still refuses to actually tell them anything, leaving many to feel Sona was needlessly vilified for the sake of making Jasmine look good. This got furthered when ThirdFang decided to address the reaction to their treatment of Sona with a lengthy Dear Negative Reader comment, making many see them as doing it intentionally just to piss off the critics.
  • The Maou, Michael, and Azazel. Issei regularly lambasts them as incompetent idiots who are only trying to be nice to him so as to get back in his good graces for their own benefit, with him refusing to forgive them for "abandoning" him. However, their "abandoning him" is a large case of Show, Don't Tell, with several readers noting how they are going out of their way to try and make things right by Issei when they don't really owe Issei anything, and his treatment of them comes across as needlessly antagonistic.

The Land Before Time

• Hyp from Secret Love gets this pretty hard. While it is undeniable that his knocking Ducky into the tar pits with his tail was bad, that's when things go south when Ducky and Petrie's mothers come to scold Hyp alongside his own father, which turns from scolding him for endangering someone to outright screaming at him for not liking Ducky and Petrie's secret relationship. So instead of seeing a bully getting scolded for his bullying ways, we basically see more of a repentant bully getting yelled at for not supporting a secret forbidden couple.

The Loud House

• The Loud sisters, with the exception of Lori, Lucy, and Lily, in One Angry Person. All they did was minorly inconvenience their brother Lincoln (Luna, for instance, accidentally stage-dived onto him and she even apologised for it) but they're the ones who are treated as having to atone for it, while Lincoln does all manner of terrible things to all of them, including breaking Lynn's nose, and gets away with it.

Miraculous Ladybug

• Isekai'd as Chloé tries to present Adrien as a self-centered jerk when he immediately ditches the gift Marinette gave him in favor of the one given to him by the reader insert in Chloé's body. However, not only does he show no outward signs of disliking Marinette's gift (even thanking her for it), but the gift the reader insert gives him is an incredibly rare DVD copy of a film starring his Missing Mom — meaning it's only natural that he gets more excited about getting it. Not only does Adrien come off as Innocently Insensitive at worst, but the whole set-up makes the reader insert come off as a jerk for deliberately upstaging Marinette's gift just to push her own agenda.
• The Karma of Lies: Adrien is meant to be seen as a self-centered Entitled Bastard with a bad case of Never My Fault, and thus deserving of all the Laser-Guided Karma he gets hit with. However, a number of readers felt that his treatment fell into Karmic Overkill; not only does his life end up systematically destroyed until he's got nothing left, but it's stated in the narrative that he's suffering Lila's karma as well as his own, leaving her free from the consequences of her actions outside of some paranoia (when most "salt fic" writers at least make sure she gets punished alongside him). Several Recursive Fanfics aim to "fix" this Karmic Misfire by punishing Lila... and, often, Marinette as well, blaming her for Adrien's suffering.

My Hero Academia

• In Coyote, there's Shota Aizawa, who, after revealing that he was lying about his threat to expel the lowest scorer on his quirk test, gets kicked in the crotch and watches his entire class walk out on him. Shortly thereafter, he's called on the carpet for having expelled all of last year's class in the past (the fic was written before canon revealed that he immediately re-enrolled those students), accused of only wanting to teach students who excel without much instruction, and is suspended without pay. While his teaching methods are controversial, most people, even some of his detractors, see him as a strict but well-intentioned teacher who at least wants to make sure his students are ready to be heroes.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

• According to the author of ARTICLE 2, you're not supposed to like the immature jerk that is Major Shane T. Doran. However, him being a Sole Survivor with severe Survivor Guilt that is unused to the kind of treatment he receives from the Equestrians, takes no shit even from the Princesses, and oftentimes pulls Crazy Is Cool and funny stunts, it's hard not to like him.
• The newfoals that make up the eponymous organization in The Reasonably Adamant Down With Celestia Newfoal Society. The narrative frames them as a bunch of ungrateful whiners who don't realize how great they've now got it since they're now magical creatures living in a Sugar Bowl utopia, but for a great many readers, their complaints are not entirely unfounded as several of them were transformed against their will (one was even ponified in her sleep).
• Queen Celestia from The Conversion Bureau: The Other Side of the Spectrum is the absolute ruler of the Solar Empire, a brutal totalitarian police state that is committing xenocide on humanity, routinely does cruel experiments on humans, and Mind Rapes its citizens on the regular. Unsurprisingly, the narration frames her as an irredeemably evil tyrant. But with the revelation that she is possessed by the Bag of Tirek, the readers came to see her as the biggest victim in the story.

Pokémon

• In Alexa vs. Ash, Ash is treated as a bumbling idiot by the author, who can't even knock out one of Alexa's Pokemon at all (granted, she says that her Pokemon were hurt, but the first three battles shown have her Pokemon turn them into dust almost immediately). Alexa keeps singing her own praises about how she's so much better than Ash, gets pissed when Pikachu keeps using Volt Tackle just so they can get at least one KO on her Charizard (they don't), and when Ash compliments her by saying he enjoyed the battle, she outright bitches about how he let his Pokemon get hurt (even though she basically dished out heavy damage towards them, and battles are not outright cockfights where they need to slaughter each other), how he's an arrogant jerk (never shown, he was complimenting her), and all of Alexa's Pokemon root for her and agree with her. However, it's not hard to feel sorry for Ash, when he basically gets chewed out for the heinous act of being a good sport, and even though you know even if Pikachu defeats the Charizard, Ash is very unlikely to win the entire battle.
• The Longest Road has a very particular case of this in Chapter 28. While the author, like many, was understandably angry for Erika's attitude in banning Ash from her Gym just because he didn't like her perfume, his attempt to get back at her for it ended up going a little too far. For some reason the story reveals that there's a rule in the Pokémon League that forbids anyone in the LGBT community from being a trainer, let alone a gym leader, and she's ousted from her job for that. This also ends up making Ash and the others looking arguably worse than Erika, especially considering that all of her staff (being lesbians too) will probably be out of a job because of it.

Teen Titans

• In The End of Ends, the other Teen Titans and Terra are seen as this, especially in relation to Beast Boy. The narration indicates that they are to blame for everything that happened to Beast Boy; Terra for wanting to live a normal life without him, and the other Titans for not supporting his continued attempts to rekindle that romance. However, not only does the story start off with Beast Boy outright stalking Terra (which naturally scares and concerns everyone), but his refusal to accept that Terra no longer wants him anywhere near her leads him to become a supervillain known as Count Logan, who destroys entire worlds, including Tamaran, purely to spite Starfire and Robin for being a couple. By that point, there is no question that everyone else is right and Beast Boy should have respected Terra's wishes and just moved on.
  • Terra's friends in Chapters 1 and 2 are also this. They're treated as antagonists for keeping Beast Boy from seeing Terra. Consider the Titan in question's willingness to stalk Terra which, understandably, creeps the girls out. When he refuses to let up, they follow through on their earlier threats to hurt him, and Terra accidentally gets hurt in the crossfire, which causes Beast Boy to uncontrollably go into beast mode and nearly rip the poor girls a new one. You're supposed to feel justified in sticking up for Beast Boy when his fellow Titans yell at him and see the girls as Asshole Victims, but it comes across as two girls protecting their friend from a potential creeper and physically suffering for it.

Total Drama

• Total Drama: Cody's Redemption: Courtney tells Cody that they can't talk to each other during the competition after Dodgebrawl. While a sad decision, it's not unreasonable as they have to focus on the competition and Cody could be targeted as well for talking to the opposite team. And even though Courtney does act high-strung around him afterwards, Cody isn't portrayed any better. He goes off on her for her decision and even humiliates her in front of everyone at one point out of pettiness. There's also the fact that he once forced eyedrops onto her despite refusing and roared at her for it.

---