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My opinion of this is similar to my opinion of Unintentional Period Piece's No Recent Examples, Please! requirements. In both cases, the special circumstances behind exceptions (particularly dark adaptations of already dark works for Dark Fic, and unusual circumstances for Unintentional Period Piece examples from more than a decade ago) are so subjective (neither Dark Fic nor Unintentional Period Piece is YMMV) that I don't think they're easy to decide.
Edited by GastonRabbit You can't just say "perchance".The thing with Dark Fics of already dark series is whether or not they actually make things worse than in canon and do it in a way that works as a story. I've read a number of Evangelion dark fics, including Aoi and Scar Tissue and several by Adam Kadmon, and I can say with 100% certainty that for the good ones, on a 1-10 scale of darkness, if the original series rates a 3-4, these are at least a 6-7.
As for the example itself, I think calling NGE the "poster boy of darkness" is a stretch, considering titles like Berserk.
Edited by WillbyrEvangelion is more bleak than dark. It's not that things are all that bad (at least on-screen), but there is a sense throughout that the cast will always sabotage their own success.
But I would support limiting the examples to fics that change the tone of the material, rather than emphasise what is already there.
Stories don't tell us monsters exist; we knew that already. They show us that monsters can be trademarked and milked for years.

The description to Dark Fic contains the lines "If the series was already dramatic and dark, it shouldn't really be here (e.g. it's impossible to make a dark fic of The Walking Dead unless you really take it to another level)." So, what's the criteria for this? For example, these examples from the Main page are from already dark series:
- Death Note:
- Death Note isn't exactly a cheerful story to begin with, but The Faceless explores the Fridge Horror of having a realm of Death Gods feeding off human lifespans all the time and what happens when humans learn this. They begin killing each other because of it, resulting in a Post Apocalyptic World of Nihilism.
- A Madman's Circus
is a Death Note Fusion Fic with Vocoloid's Dark Woods Circus where Beyond Birthday runs a Circus of Fear. Poor, poor Light Yagami...
- Neon Genesis Evangelion fandom might be collectively the crowning champion of this trope. The series was the poster boy for darkness to begin with, but amongst fans known for analysing everything down to the smallest detail the ability to tease out the smallest aspect and expand upon every twisted meaning or interpretation is phenomenal. A far from comprehensive list:
- Random1377
is another prolific NGE darkfic author, with entries such as The Lifespan of a Love Affair
(a deconstruction of the Misato/Shinji pairing), Let She Who is Without Sin
(about a Serial Killer), and Aoi
(includes Shinji being killed in the first chapter, and falls apart from there).
- Scar Tissue is also a good one: Asuka blames her scars and death in canon on Shinji and punishes him by subjecting him to constant emotional, physical and sexual torture, and Shinji takes it all because he thinks he deserves it after defiling her and leaving her die right before ending humanity. Meanwhile Shinji's low self-esteem and self-hatred has become a split personality tortures him in the form of hallucinations. And that's only the backstory; the fic itself begins after Asuka beating him so brutally that he has to be taken to the hospital and she finally realizes her actions have been horrible. On the other hand, the fic inverts the usual darkfic formula in that it starts off dark and gets progressively lighter.
Edited by Pichu-kun