Characters you grew to like thanks to Fanfiction.

I have many. Like Ino and Tenten from Naruto. There was an epically hilarious fic where Neji was really dumb in anything other than being a Ninja. Like a movie was paused and Neji wondered why everyone wasnt moving and they told him \"They are thinking Neji...\"

I don't think Princess Luna from the My Little Pony fandom would have even half of the fans she does if it weren't for the fan community going nuts with her.

I personally grew to like her after her portrayal in Through the Eyes of Another Pony.

Lady Bow from Paper Mario. I liked her design/ability wise but wasn't big on her personality, at least until fanfiction came along. It's gotten to the point where it enticed me to include her as a secondary character in my own. Can say with certainty that it wouldn't have happened if not for a few fics I read.

Mari Makinami. Didn't really saw much of a big deal with her in canon Rebuild of Evangelion, but stories that use her rightly (read: have her do much more than what Anno is using her for) such as the Superwomen of Eva series have made her grow on me.

Well... admittedly there's also a couple of stories that have made me go through stints where she has become a full-blown Creator's Pest for me (any fanfic ideas involving her that I could devise kind of ended in a Sam Peckinpah / Quentin Tarantino The Wild Bunch-Django Unchained-style blood-bath Blast Out)... nowadays it's gone back to a general setting of "cool".

Edited by marcoasalazarm on Jul 19th 2018 at 6:58:20 AM

Frozen (2013) as a whole. I never really liked the movie ... it wasn't terrible per se, but I thought the plot is disorganized (especially the second half), the characters are annoying and messily written, and the entire thing is overrated.

Then I found out that Elsa was originally supposed to be the villain/antagonist, and I thought, "hey, that the movie would be much better if they'd just stick to that original concept."

So I began looking for Evil!Elsa fanfic and fanvid, and at the same time, came across various online discussions about which version of Elsa would have been better. The people who were happier with the current version had really good points, but I maintained that those arguments weren't conveyed/executed properly in the movie.

Along the way, the theme of forgiveness and redemption came up, and there were talks about whether or not Hans (whom I thought was incredibly lame and poorly written as a villain) could be redeemed in the sequel. The idea of redeeming a Tragic Villain made him seem a much more compelling character than what was shown on-screen, and the better manifestations of his motives and characterization were presented much more clearly through fanfiction.

So I guess those two are some of my favourite Disney characters now, and it's certainly no thanks to the actual movie they appeared in.

Yeah, thanks for noticing that typo. I was trying to either say that, or that the ideas were conveyed/executed poorly instead.

Edited by Adept on Oct 21st 2022 at 7:52:21 PM

Um...I think you meant you mantained they werent well represented in the movie.

Also Kankuro, He's awesome in fics by an author that used to write lots of Naruto fics. Even if the same author had...fics that dont hold under scrutiny especially with Kankuro. Also I LOVED Skips from Regular Show in canon but Fanfic sealed the deal. Too bad he has so very few fics. And Margaret. Margaret is really lousy in show but she's awesome in some fics.

OH And last but not least Edith from the Captain Underpants movie.

Shizuka Joestar from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, thanks to Vanishing Act. The author did a great job turning an invisible baby with zero characterization into a likable main character with her own quirks and insecurities. He definitely handled the character better than I did in one of my fics.

Both Dark Samus and Emperor Ing, as of Space Pirate Confederation. Mostly Dark Samus’s relationship with Ridley in the story, but there are other things. I actually sort of liked Emperor Ing before, mostly because of this, but Space Pirate Confederation propelled it to my favorite Metroid character who isn’t Ridley.

Oddly enough, it wasn't reading fanfics but rather writing fics that made me warm up to Derpy Hooves and Trixie.

Thankfully, though I didnt account for that possibilty, the thread DOES thankfully allow both writing and reading.

I wound up warming up to Akane Owari a little after writing about her. She’s not one of my favourites by any means, but writing her did make me like her a little more.

Edited by Psychedelicate on Jul 29th 2018 at 10:59:51 PM

Lunafreya Nox Fleuret from Final Fantasy XV was my least favourite changes that was made when Final Fantasy versus XIII was reimagined into XV. As already mentioned in the Base-Breaking Character entry in the game's YMMV page, I saw her as a poor replacement of Stella Nox Fleuret, who seemed to be an infinitely more interesting character in terms of design, her weapon and skills (from what little we see anyway), and her dynamic with Noctis. Due to her short screentime, she comes of as a little more than a generic Satellite Love Interest, even though she is given so much importance in the game's setting.

I began to warm up to the idea of her character when I started to understand the themes the game is trying to convey, and the symbol she represents within that framework, but she didn't really grew on me until I read this fanfic called Somnus Ultima. Her characterization actually presented almost the exact same way in the game, but in the fic, her relevance of her status as an Oracle is more fleshed out, she has a more active role (she ended up helping the party defeat the Big Bad), a few characters actually criticize her inaction and inability to fight, and she has a few playful scenes that gives the character much more humanity, despite still being an Incorruptible Pure Pureness.

Edited by Adept on Nov 12th 2019 at 5:57:20 PM

Canada from Hetalia. Funny, I didn't even notice him before hehe. Everything changed when there were not more fanfics about ships and characters I liked, and then I had to read other ones.

Although I've had at least 12 years to become emotionally attached to these characters. A lot of Guardians of the Galaxy fan fiction is wholesome as all fuck, and it made me adore those guys more than I might have before the film adaptation.

Bellatrix Lestrange, from Harry Potter. I already liked her well enough as an antagonist, but seeing more complex portrayals of her in fanfics- seeing her as a complex human with multiple emotions- made me LOVE her.

I admit this topic is a tad perplexing. If I didn't like a character in the source material, reading a fanfic about them isn't going to make their canon version any better.

For me, it’s less likely to happen with characters I disliked and more likely with characters I was indifferent towards or hadn’t paid attention to.

I find its not so much characters I disliked.

It's characters I was neutral on that fanfics can make me really enjoy

There's always the rare fic in the fandom that takes a minor character and fleshes out the canon traits to make a interesting fic.

To give an example of what I mean.

This Miraculous Ladybug fanfic focuses on a character who, in canon, has only gotten maybe half an episodes worth of development.

And the fic is really really good in my opinion.

Same.

I liked Jon and Sansa of Game of Thrones well enough, but fanfics made me adore them. I've properly noticed Edd Tollett because of one video commentary and one cute fanfic. Now he's like my favourite guy in the series.

Edited by XFllo on Feb 7th 2019 at 4:44:36 PM

Saber. Yes, really.

I grew to hate her in the original VN due to what basically amounts to Broken Pedestal after The Reveal of what I felt were too-angsty motivations, as well as the fact that there's a Bad End where she betrays and kills Shirou if her affection for him isn't raised high enough.

Just an Unorthodox Thief (which is based on the prequel story Fate/Zero, which I've otherwise usually not found interesting enough to dig into myself) explores her character through her developing rivalry with Lupin III, eventually pushing through her angst and trauma to find the core of what she's really all about — and what she's really all about is pretty damn cool.

Edited by EvaUnit01 on Feb 7th 2019 at 10:58:49 AM

Disliking Saber isn't that controversial an opinion EVA, even if it seems that way just because she's popular. Funny enough, I've seen some people who've read that fanfic come to the conclusion that it didn't get Saber at all because her resolution comes at the expense of what her character is actually like in canon.

So I guess it's a better take if you don't like how she is normally, but then that goes back to my post about this thread and my perplexity at it. The character you dislike will always be there, non-conformed to whatever standards you have for them. A fan's take is only that, and shouldn't actually change your opinion on said character because of it.

We know that, you dont need to tell us.

The other fun thing is that EXTRA-verse Saber, as shown in Fate/Extella, being a true Heroic Spirit incarnation of King Arthur, or at least of her legend, is actually suitably close to what it feels the character should always have been like.

So in some ways, this is actually sort of a scenario where I can have my cake and eat it too.

Edited by Adept on Jun 22nd 2019 at 2:30:44 AM

For me, Naru Osaka and Yoriko Kosaka. Mostly from them finding out their respective best friend's secret and accepting her for it. Also, by having them becoming like their best friend; Naru as a Sailor Senshi, Yoriko as a half-Ghoul.