Cerebus Retcon: Difference between revisions

* Shinobu in ''[[Urusei Yatsura]]'' is an example. She starts out with the comedy ability to hit really hard when she gets angry. After a while, it becomes a real ability. The series never stops being a comedy, though oddly enough in movie 3 (''Remember My Love'') the aliens leave, and without the genre shift brought by the presence of aliens, Shinobu alsoshe loses theher powerpowers.

* In the comic version of ''[[Wanted (Comic Book)|Wanted]]'', the supervillains use an actual, massive in-universe [[Cerebus Retcon]] in order to erase all memory of superheroes and supervillains. During this transformation, it shows in vivid detail how [[The Golden Age of Comic Books|Golden Age]] visual styles and themes eventually shifted into a more realistic, [[Darker and Edgier]] style seen in more modern comics.

** At least the 'revive dead people' part was retconned back in again. Kid Eternity is seen reviving Marvin. Who was killed by his dog. Who was really a demon. So, yeah. More [[Cerebus Retcon]].

== [[Fan FictionWorks]] ==

* There's also a surprising number of ''[[Kim Possible]]'' fanfics with depictions of mental trauma and constant injuries that Kim and/or Ron acquire on a daily basis from their fights with supervillains. There are also several fanfics dealing with the incident in the [[Big Damn Movie]] where Kim [[Moral Dissonance|kicked Shego off the roof of Bueno Nacho into a charged electrical tower with the intent to kill,]] coming up with pretty dark, nasty answers for both Shego's physical condition as a result and Kim's thoughts and feelings during and after the fight.

* In one ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'' fanfic titled "''Behind the Smile''," it is suggested that Hayate suffered sexual abuse in the foster care system before living alone, and her [[Skinship Grope]] tendencies were a way of warding off unwanted male attention.

* In ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7081044/1/Crumbling_Masks thisCrumbling Masks]'', a ''[[ZeroThe noFamiliar Tsukaimaof Zero]]'' fanfiction, Saito and Louise relationship of [[Abuse Is Okay When It Is Female On Male|Abuse is ok when is female on male]] is taken seriously; but instead of the usual angst one might expect from this type of stories {{spoiler|It ends with both of them realizing they actually enjoy being in a S&M relationship and accepting themselves as the kind of persons who would enjoy that kind of thing.}}

* In the ''[[My Life as a Teenage Robot]]'' fanfic ''[httphttps://web.archive.org/web/20150206120455/https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2379730/1/My_Life_as_a_Teenaged_Von_Neumann_Device My Life as a Teenaged Von Neumann Device]'', [[Robot Girl|Jenny's]] [[Ridiculously Human Robot|ridiculously human nature]] is extended to her having a robotic reproductive system... and her discovering all the baggage that comes with sex, up to and including {{spoiler|being molested and raped by Cluster guards, and an accidental pregnancy}}. Also, [[Alpha Bitch|Brittany Crust]]'s rivalry with Jenny [[Villainous Breakdown|turns into a full-blown paranoid hatred of machines]] that [[Sanity Slippage|culminates in a psychotic break]] where she {{spoiler|starts talking to her television, tries to rape [[Kissing Cousins|her cousin Tiff]], tries to ''murder'' Tiff's boyfriend in a jealous rage, and ultimately ''merges'' with Queen Vexus in a last-ditch effort to get rid of Jenny.}}

* ''[[Hunting the Unicorn]]'' is a ''[[Glee]]'' fanfic that uses this to [[Deconstruction|rip apart]] [[Relationship Sue|Blaine's]] portrayal. He's compassionate, selfless, and loyal--whichloyal—which means he [["Well Done, Son" Guy|defends his estranged father]] from any kind of insult, ignores personal issues until he is literally ''dragged into therapy'' by [[True Companions|the Warblers]], and is so [[Wide-Eyed Idealist|unflinchingly helpful]] that [[Chronic Hero Syndrome|dropping everything to help Kurt after ten minutes]] doesn't mean he's a perfect [[Marty Stu]]--it—it means he's a naive little boy that dodged a ''huge'' bullet by meeting someone who "only fell in love with him."

** In ''[[Lilo and Stitch (Disney film)|LiloandLilo and Stitch]]'', when Lilo's home gets destroyed by a bunch of aliens, it's played for laughs. When [[Promotion to Parent|Nani]] and social worker Cobra Bubbles come back (just after Nani was able to convince him NOT to separate her from Lilo)...it leads to the social worker deciding to take the little girl away, much to Nani and Lilo's despair.

** Along the same lines, it's hard to not laugh when a young [[Hercules (Disney1997 film)||Hercules]] accidentally sets off a [[Disaster Dominoes]] that destroys an entire agora. But when the understandably upset townspeople proceed to yell at and insult [[Break the Cutie|the poor guy...]]

* When we're first introduced to Dr. Bashir on ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Star Trek Deep Space Nine]]'', it's played for laughs that he's incredibly [[Insufferable Genius|young and arrogant about what a great doctor he is]]. But it gets distinctly weird to look back on this after a fifth season episode reveals {{spoiler|Bashir's intelligence is the result of illegal genetic enhancements that were performed on him as a child. It's even vaguely implied that prior to the procedure, he had some degree of outright mental handicap.}}

* In ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'', resident [[Proud Warrior Race Guy]] Worf makes an offhand comment about having a poor sex life due to most human women being physically fragile compared to him, lacking his Klingon physiology, meaning he has to restrain himself too much to enjoy sex. This same issue is later referred to in a much more dramatic fashion in ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Deep Space Nine]]'', when he explains that as a boy, he accidentally paralyzed another boy during a football/soccer match when their heads collided, which lead to his restrained and uptight demeanor as he feels he must always be careful to avoid harming other, more fragile beings.

* Sometimes, a [[Cerebus Retcon]] happens naturally as the result of [[Character Development]] over a series. For example, Wesley was a one-note bumbling upper-class twit when he first appeared on ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', completely played for laughs. Once he became one of the regular cast of ''Angel'' his character was fleshed out enough to reveal that his early awkwardness was largely the result of a painful childhood with an abusive father; throughout the series any mention of his father causes Wesley to momentarily revert back to his old bumbling. His father's visit in "Lineage" is an especially dark example.

* ''[[Angel]]'' also applies a massive [[Cerebus Retcon]] in Season 4 in an attempt to inflate the season's [[Big Bad]]. The minor and previously played-for-laughs character {{spoiler|Skip not only takes a hard turn in going from comedy to drama, but}} in one speech gives exposition about how the entire series up until that point has been orchestrated by the mystery newcomer: {{spoiler|"You have any concept of how many lines have to intersect in order for a thing like this to play out? How many events have to be nudged in just the right direction: Leaving Pylea (indicating Lorne's arrival in the Angel Universe), your sister (indicating Gunn's sister who turned vampire causing him to align with Angel's path), opening the wrong book (indicating Fred's transport to Pylea and thereby entering the Angel story), sleeping with the enemy (indicating Wesley's relationship with Lilah, causing one of the major recent internal conflicts), gosh, I love a story with scope."}} Though the speech does not factually contradict the storyline, it indicates a premeditated arc with every event previous to the speech for all main characters as well as the speaker itself which clearly had not existed in the story's mythos.

* In ''[[Bionicle]]'', the traitor Metus got [[Karmic Transformation|turned into a snake]] and banished to the wastelands. The DVD for the movie ''The Legend Reborn'' included a short, [[Slapstick|comedic]] [[Bonus Material|bonus cartoon]] that [[Homage|Homaged]]d the classic ''[[Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner|Wile E Coyote and The Road Runner]]'' and ''[[Tom and Jerry]]'' cartoons, in which he attempts to drop a boulder on the heroes, but [[Team Pet]] Click foils his plans and his [[Zerg Rush|army of Scarabax beetles make short work]] of the snake. Metus's desperation is played entirely for laughs. Later, when other characters came across the snake Metus out in the desert, we found out he had survived all this time by eating rats, and was also suffering from a fatal mental disease that made him unable to dream (and thus, according to the story, release his stress), so he outright ''begs'' them to kill him, because he just couldn't take it anymore. Lucky for him, he later regained his ability to dream and his transformation has also become undone.

** In the original game, ''[[Metal Gear 1987(video game)|Metal Gear]]'', Snake looked to be in his twenties - but he looked to be late-middle-aged in ''[[Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake]]''. For the sequel ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'', the character designer decided to go with a Solid Snake [[Retcon|who appeared to be in his early-thirties]], younger-looking than his previous incarnation. As a joke referencing this, the characters who knew Snake in ''Metal Gear 2'' joke about his 'age'; the sign that Gray Fox is back to normal is when he teases Snake with the throwaway line ''"You haven't aged well"''. However, in ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty|Metal Gear Solid 2]]'', which started the Patriots plot arc, Snake is explicitly mentioned in the script as looking almost unrecognisably older than his self in ''Metal Gear Solid'', even though ''MGS2'' starts only two years later. Liquid spells it out:

*** And it continues in ''[[Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots|Metal Gear Solid 4]]''. The reason for the [[Plot-Relevant Age-Up]] was changed to fit in with [[Retcon|Retcons]]s introduced in the third game, but becomes entirely horrible. Snake now appears to be in his mid-to-late seventies and his health is suffering as a result. {{spoiler|His own parents}} look younger than he does. It's very alarming to remember that the whole plot element started as a [[Continuity Nod]] joke.

** In ''Portal'', the [[Big Bad]] [[G La DOSGLaDOS]] has a hysterical black comedy streak a mile wide. In the finale, you disassemble her cores (who are also individually hilarious) and destroy her. In the sequel, not only do you learn that [[G La DOSGLaDOS]] has been reliving that "death" ''millions'' of times since you killed her ([[Unreliable Narrator|though you only have her word on this]]), but also that Aperture Science was killing people for decades before you came along, Chell has been trapped in the facility since she was a pre-teen, [[G La DOSGLaDOS]] was made by uploading Cave Johnson's secretary (in the deleted content it's clear this was against her will), and that the facility has ''thousands'' of other test subjects to be tormented and murdered.

* In ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro ni]]'', Jessica [[Megaton Punch|Megaton Punches]]es one of her friends at school with a brass knuckle after being pissed off in ''Turn of the Golden Witch''. This stance is seen as a joke. Later, in ''Alliance of the Golden Witch'', she uses the brass knuckles again and they suddenly become conducts for [[Supernatural Martial Arts]].

* A lot are done in ''[[Hatoful Boyfriend]]'''s BBL route. Highlights include - Oko San isn't just an idiot, he's an older breed of birds that is less Uplifted than the others; Anghel [[Doing inIn the Wizard|isn't actually a fallen angel]] but has the ability to induce hallucinations in others; Ryouta's weak stomach and Oko San's insane speed are due to Shuu testing drugs on them; Nageki didn't actually kill himself by jumping from the library window due to being bullied (as was implied) but burned himself to death in an underground laboratory beneath the library to prevent himself being used as a biological weapon; and Kazuaki isn't just obsessively mourning the loss of the bird in the blacked-out photo, but is pursuing a Machiavellian [[Revenge]] scheme in his name.

** One of the original series' [[Running Gag|Running Gags]]s was that Grif was in charge of holding onto the Red Team's spare ammo, but would always forget or lose it. {{spoiler|Reconstruction reveals that he didn't lose or forget about the ammo, ''he sold it to the Blue Team for a quick buck''. This has rather bad consequences.}}

* For ''all'' of the main characters of ''[[College Roomies from HellCRFH]]'' (except possibly Dave), what started out as "[[Wacky College|wacky quirks]]" seem darker and darker over time, turning into [[Yandere|personality disorders]], [[Dead Little Sister|tragic pasts]], or demonic influence, until it becomes clear that everyone is ''[[The End of the World as We Know It|playing a part in the coming fucking apocalypse]]''. By the end of 2004, the strip is a [[Dysfunction Junction]] to rival ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]''.

* ''[[Goblins]]'' did this in a big way. What was a farcical joke about how goblins inevitably receive appropriate names from the village seer became this huge plot point about the female goblin Saves A Fox who [[Screw Destiny|successfully struggled against the name given to her]] by killing said fox rather than saving it -- andit—and the joke about how Chief was only the chief because he was named "Chief" was retconned, with Complains explaining to Chief that he only said that as a cruel joke, while Chief becoming actual leader was to avert a nasty prophecy.

** Recently,{{when}} regarding Saves, {{spoiler|it's revealed that the fox likely had a horrific disease and if so, she actually did "save" it by giving it a mercy killing.}}

*** Which in turn makes that original joke far, far darker. Several of those early strips involved an outlandishly panicked coward very nearly dying horribly due to mishap caused by the carelessness of the other goblins, the joke being that the outlandishly panicked coward was, in fact, named Dies Horribly. Dies went on to become a semi-regular character and was the one to make the above-spoilered reveal to Saves A Fox. When he does this, he is ''also'' stating and quite clearly that this joke was ''never'' a joke and that Dies Horribly ''is going to die. '''Horribly.''''' {{spoiler|He did. Then [[Back Fromfrom the Dead|came back]].}}

* ''[[Yosh!]]'' started out as a manga-style comedy, and the protagonist was frequently subjected to the [[Megaton Punch]], thrown out of windows, things like that. Then, once the comic went dramatic, it was revealed that he's a 'Resistant' -- a kind of rare, magical entity who has [[Nigh Invulnerability]] -- thus—thus making him central to the plot of an [[Ancient Conspiracy]] of mages. Upon learning that, the character comments that it's not really a major surprise, considering what he's survived in the past.

* Most of the transformations in ''[[The Wotch]]'' are played for laughs, especially those of Ming-mei and the [[Jerk Jock|Jerk Jocks]]s turned cheerleaders. In the ''Consequences'' arc though, Anne is horrified that she screwed up so many lives. When Ming-mei remembers being transformed, she is clearly terrified and while the cheerleaders are more or less happy as girls, the webcomic ''Cheer'' shows that Jo still is driven to tears at one point when she realizes that no one remembers anything good about their past selves. Cassie's love potions would also fit, starting as a running gag and ending with her realizing that she had selfishly been trying to [[Mind Rape]] someone into loving her. Same with Miranda West, who first appears to be an annoying mentor, but gradually shows signs of being more sinister.

* ''[[Re BootReBoot]]'' started off as a series of standalone episodes, with Bob fighting Megabyte and Hexadecimal's schemes but never outright ending them (except one time he almost did, in ''Infected''). Then the third epepisode of the ''Daemon Rising'' arc revealed that this had all been an ''authorised experiment'', with the Guardians ''allowing'' the viruses to roam free in Mainframe to see if Bob could stop them by reprogramming instead of killing.