Flanderization/Fan Works

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Examples of Flanderization in Fan Works include:

  • Perhaps the classic example of fan-driven Flanderization is Akane Tendo of Ranma ½. Akane was depicted in the source material as a kind-hearted girl with a somewhat hair-trigger temper who actually likes her unwilling fiance Ranma and helps him more often than not. Yes, she got violent, but usually only after being pushed a bit too far, or when subject to unexpected stress. However, over the course of about a decade, fan writers turned her into a "psycho-bitch" in denial about her raging jealousy, who would batter Ranma with blunt objects for passing the rice the wrong way. To its credit, the Ranma fanfic community eventually recognized that Psychobitch!Akane was a profound distortion of the original character, and she's mostly disappeared (except in Deconstructions and, of course, when it's funny).
    • The Ranma fanfic community is also responsible for Flanderizing an entire neighborhood -- the Nerima district of Tokyo. Nerima is a quiet, sedate little middle-class community, and Rumiko Takahashi set Ranma ½ in it to provide a contrasting backdrop to the zany antics of her cast. However, over the past three decades fic writers -- inspired by ever-increasing numbers of bizarre Martial Arts and Crafts practitioners who show up in Nerima over the course of Ranma‍'‍s 39 volumes -- have slowly turned Nerima first in a neighborhood known for its weirdness and around-the-clock violence, and eventually into an open-air asylum where the mere intent to visit it is an official declaration of suicidal intent.
  • In Fate/stay night, Gilgamesh is an egocentric bastard who tries to commit genocide because he doesn't think humanity is worthy of his rule who has attraction to Saber because she keeps resisting him. In Teach Us, Gil Sensei! said character is reduced to a whiny Saber fanboy willing to become a gym teacher just so he can afford an apartment. Of course, being a comedy fic this is all Played for Laughs.

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