Self Fanservice

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One of these Snapes is not like the other...

"Would you draw me with your pencils and your pens Make me much prettier than I really am?" —Dimensions and Verticals, Say Hi To Your Mom

So you've got this series. Maybe it's a TV show. Maybe it's a movie or video game. It got pretty good reviews--or, you know, maybe it didn't. It's now built up a fanbase. Folks are writing fanfics, drawing Fan Art, and spreading the joy over the Internet. So far, so good, right?

Well, there's one thing. The series as it originally stood was sort of... missing something.

Mainly? Fan Service.

Maybe it was directed mostly at the opposite gender from some of its fans. Maybe the art style didn't really have the Generic Cuteness common to many other animated works. Maybe the primary audience was children, so out of a few isolated instances, making attractive characters wasn't really the primary goal of the series. Or maybe the original was a book, so the appearances of the characters were mostly left up to the reader's imaginations. Whatever the case, the series finds itself without a Mr or Ms. Fanservice other object of fan lust.

However, this state won't necessarily last long. One (or more) of the characters is going to end up transformed into the unofficial fandom sex object (or at least made far more attractive in fanart). If they were originally ugly, they'll be transformed into a Bishonen in fanart. If they were originally cartoony and flat, expect them to pick up curves. They may be attacked by Relationship Sues. The fans have decided to instigate Self Fanservice. The targets of this can vary—in a cast without Loads and Loads of Characters, this can happen to one of the primary male/female characters simply because they're there. It can happen to villains, because Evil Is Sexy. And if your cast has a good woobie, the angst factor may draw fans in.

To a casual member or newcomer to a fandom, this can seem strange, seeing an ordinarily unattractive (in a bland way) character suddenly drawn in shirtless poses with a seductive look.

May lead to or be caused by an Ensemble Darkhorse or a Draco in Leather Pants. A leading cause of the childhood-scarring properties of Rule 34. Compare Perverse Sexual Lust. When it's an adaptation that ups a plain character's sexiness, it's Adaptational Attractiveness.

Examples (by original media):

Anime and Manga

• With regard to Pokemon - obvious Lolicon bait Misty and Dawn receive insane amounts of fanart in which they are aged up, complete with everything that comes with puberty. Some of the former is the work of the female fanbase - it comes from having a romance subplot with the Chaste Idiot Hero and the need to make her a plausible Love Triangle center in fanfiction, justified in part by how her sisters look...but for the most part it's the guys.
  • However, Ash, Gary, Drew, Paul and Kenny also have their share of fangirls as well, even Tracey has some. Oddly, the only main character without hoards of fangirls is probably Brock.
    • Tracey usually does match his description and characterization, though.
• Given how Dragonball Z fangirls see him, you probably wouldn't think that Vegeta was a perpetually scowling midget.
• The eponymous characters of Akagi and Kaiji are often getting their (rather... bizarre) faces turned more into standard Bishonen style.
  • Case in point... ^{[dead link]}
  • The women (especially Mikoko Sakazaki) also get this treatment fairly regularly.
• One Piece: Although most of the characters with Estrogen Brigades are already conventionally good-looking or otherwise close to it, and therefore do not warrant Self Fanservice, Spandam - much reviled by male fans as a fugly Smug Snake, but Draco in Leather Pants to more than a few female fans - often gets this treatment.
• Pretty Cure fan art, especially that of Yes! Pretty Cure 5 and Heartcatch Pretty Cure, has a tendency to depict the (middle school aged, usually flat-chested) girls with distinctly more mature bodies.
• Nnoitra Gilga, the creepy, spoon-wearing, Blood Knight with weird teeth, from Bleach gets turned into a Bishonen in a lot of fanart.
  • Mayuri Kurotsuchi is susceptible to this as well, though note he mostly looks so freaky because of make-up; without it he's not really bad looking (although he is missing an ear).
• This happens to 90% of the characters in Naruto. Hinata Hyuuga is described by the databooks as rather plain and bookish, but fanart tends to make her out to be this gorgeous goddess. Sakura has a small chest and fanart tends to make her out to be a goddess too.
  • Databook descriptions aside however, Kishimoto draws Hinata buxom and cute as a button while Sakura reaps all the benefits of Generic Cuteness and makes up for her lack of endowment with a different focal point.
• Soul Eater: Some people are trying to figure out what Shinigami-sama looks like behind his mask. Of course, since his son is the somewhat Bishounen Death The Kid, people (read: mostly fangirls) think that he must be even more sexy-looking.
  • Well the Hungarian dub did give him a rather sexy voice when he went serious. On a different note, this may be a moot point since every single time his clothes were damaged, it was quite obviously visible that he had no physical body underneath that shroud.
  • He's the anthropomorphic personification of death. What do you expect to find under the mask?
  • The manga has, in fact, indicated that Shinigami might have/had a human form at one point; one, Mosquito knows what the Lines of Sanzu are, which Shinigami doesn't obviously have at the moment, and two Kid is a sort-of clone of Shinigami.
  • Maka occasionally gets this as well, albeit to a lesser extent; granted, she's fairly cute to begin with, but some fans seemed to miss the memo that she's above an A-cup
• Axis Powers Hetalia, of all series, gets some of this too. There's a Cuba/Canada doujinshi somewhere where, aside of having super Moe Canada, turns Cuba, who in canon is a chubby and Hot-Blooded Jerk with a Heart of Gold, into a slim, suave and super handsome Latin Lover. Even though one of the main charms of the Cuba/Canada pairing is to have a non-traditionally-handsome guy getting the romantic attention of another male and thus proving that looks don't matter.
  • England sometimes gets hit with a milder version of this trope. While the majority of his fans do recognize that his combative personality and Big Ol' Eyebrows are his major Charm Points and leave them intact, there are still some who "improve" him by softening his personality to make him into an unironic gentleman (even though England being hilariously unsuited for the gentlemanliness he claims to possess in so many ways is one of the defining marks of his character).
  • The huge lot of Russia fanarts in which he gets a nose job and a liposuction, making him another victim of Generic Cuteness.
  • While Taiwan is a very pretty girl and is referred to as such in canon, her breast size often goes rom "on the average-to-small" side to "Ukraine level".
    • The same can be said of Belarus. Since breast size tends to be genetic and she's Ukraine's sister, it can be justified, but it's rather jarring when fanon "bust charts" portray her as bigger than Hungary.
  • America is shown shirtless in canon. While he's no lightweight, his muscles are still about half the size fandom commonly portrays them.
  • France's body hair can be greatly reduced or absent in fanart. Though a few will exaggerate it instead.
• Ponyo's father, Fujimoto, often loses his long nose and wrinkles in fanart.
• Slam Dunk: In canon, the characters are generally good looking but in the most masculine way possible. Fangirls tend to forget this and draw them as generically pretty.

Comic Books

• The Joker gets this quite frequently, especially after The Dark Knight. Granted, the late Heath Ledger was a pretty guy but his Joker looks quite gross with his poor hygiene, wrinkled face and nasty scars. Of course, he becomes a pretty bishonen with cool scars in loads of fanart.
• Wolverine. He's a short, surly man with more body hair than a bear. Count how many times he's given a height boost, a full-body wax, and just made flat-out generic handsome.
  • Being played by Hugh Jackman in the movies for one.
• Watchmen: Rorschach. 'Nuff said.
• In the earliest appearances of Lex Luthor he isn't exactly ugly but he isn't as attractive as the current media portrays him as.

Film

• The Ring: There is art depicting Sadako Yamamura/Samara Morgan as a Moe Shrinking Violet.
• Given that the entire cast of 9 are non-humans, fanart of them as humans was inevitable... and yes, usually, every single one of them will be drawn extremely attractive. Sexy tribal warrior chick 7, 3 and 4 as themselves, Moe 5 and 6, Chris Redfield!8, or - hell with it - Hot Dad 1 and 2, anyone?
  • Even the regular stitchpunk versions of the characters are sexed up. And especially the OCs. So. Many. Boobs!
• Expect Darth Maul from The Phantom Menace to be more handsome and much more muscular in any fan art.
• While Snow White is already beautiful, many fan artists tend to forget that's she's only fourteen years old and meant to have a modest figure, opposed to being another Hourglass Hottie.

Literature

• The Harry Potter fandom, of course. Snape was originally supposed to be rather unattractive, with greasy hair, pale skin, and a long, hooked nose. You would think this would have put more people off, but no. Of course, many of these people were simply finding the actor who portrayed him in the movies to be rather attractive.
  • Lucius Malfoy is another example. He's not unattractive in the books, but that's because he's given virtually no description at all. Put Jason Isaacs in a blond wig and fancy wizard clothes? Now you're talking.
  • And Lucius' son, played by Tom Felton, isn't too shabby himself.
    • This actually came up in one of the interviews with J.K. Rowling, once — she mentioned not quite understanding Draco's leather-pantsed status, pointing out that she never said he was attractive in the actual books.
  • Hermione, however, is by far and large the best-known example of this trope; the fans who use her as a Possession Sue will have her undergo a makeover, making her bushy hair slick, and having her grow "curves in all the right places" over summer vacation, to get all the boys lusting after her. Saturday Night Live even ran a skit about it with Lindsay Lohan as post-curves Hermione.
    • Like Snape, though, her movie self shoulders a good part of the blame. Emma Watson filled out nicely.
• Crowley is almost always depicted as suavely handsome in the Good Omens fandom, which does make sense. Aziraphale was also commonly portrayed as angelically beautiful in early GO fandom, but more recent fanworks seem to be moving away from this trope in regards to him, going for a more plausibly middle-aged, plump, and/or bookish appearance - this nerdy middle aged version has been exacerbated by Michael Sheen's interpretation in the Amazon Prime adaptation. Some of them do go the Nerds Are Sexy route, but it's still a far cry from pretty!Aziraphale.
• Kyp Durron in the Star Wars Expanded Universe gets this in a way. He's usually just the same appearance in both, but the Slash Fic tends to make him a victim of sexual abuse with Anything That Moves tendencies and he spends most of his leisure time naked. Oh, and he gets to call Luke Master, nudge nudge.
• There's fan art for A Series of Unfortunate Events which depicts one of the minor villains—a bald, big-nosed Dirty Old Man who sometimes wears a scruffy white wig—as a gothy White-Haired Pretty Boy.

Live-Action TV

• Oh, the things the LazyTown fandom does to Sportacus and Robbie Rotten... The extreme athleticism of the former and... suspicious bulge of the latter may be bordering on Parent Service. Either way, the Periphery Demographic has made some... interesting things of both of them. And, from an entirely different quarter, Stephanie.
• Apparently some Supernatural fans think that Gabriel isn't pretty enough and thus give him a new, drop-dead gorgeous vessel in their fanfics so that he can fit the archangel part better in looks. No, really. There's even a post on fanficrants about it.

Newspaper Comics

• This often happens to the kids from Peanuts. A few examples would be this picture of Lucy and Schroeder, this Linus, or this Peppermint Patty.
  • And then there's the "Peanuts Revival" series of artworks created in 2006-2007 by an artist using the name "gNAW". Depicting the Peanuts crew as high schoolers (mostly -- Sally looks to be maybe 13 or 14, and Rerun is ten or so), it makes every girl a stunner, even Marcie, and Charlie Brown himself is surprisingly badass-looking. And we get to see a Little Red-Haired Girl worth obsessing over. gNaw's original website is more than a bit annoying to navigate, but that's okay, the pictures can be found all over the Web if you don't want to scroll through thumbnails one at a time (and occasionally get dead-ended).
    • Here's one set.
    • A couple more can be found here.
    • This Italian-language page has almost all the known images in one place.
• Lois of Hi and Lois frequently gets turned into a Hot Mom and beyond, particularly in the (NSFW) works of the artist who goes by the name "Rage Grenade".

Toys

• Bionicle, features mostly robotic but still humanoid characters. It goes to reason that fan artists will try to humanize them even more, or smooth out their metal parts to create a sleeker appearance. For a more direct example, compare Toa Gali as a set and in fan art.

Video Games

• Unsurprisingly, Samus Aran has been getting a triple serving of it ever since the introduction of the Zero Suit. See for yourself: original artwork, Brawl, fan art. Look on the bright side: at least it doesn't make her look too different from her canon portrayal.
• Alma from the F.E.A.R. games.
  • Of course, post-Project Origin, this isn't quite so applicable. Healthy (as opposed to emaciated) adult Alma is actually attractive (and naked all the time. No matter what.).
• Dark Link, a mindless, faceless living shadow from The Legend of Zelda is almost always drawn as a White-Haired Pretty Boy, often with peach skin and normal eyes in reference to Shadow Link from the Four Swords Adventures manga.
  • The only time Dark Link has had a face (along with a regular Master Sword) is in Super Smash Bros. Brawl and even that's due to Palette Swap issues. When you fight him in an event match, Dark Link is his normal faceless self.
  • A good bit of Midna fanart (the ones by Japanese fan artist Dogear, in particular) up her from amply-curved to extremely amply-curved. Though there's just as much that goes the opposite extreme and makes her sort of a reverse-Pettanko...
  • Navi, in the games she's a floating ball of light, in the fanart she's sort of an angel with fairy wings & a skimpy costume/wearing nothing.
• The straight example is Magus from Chrono Trigger. His official art Looks Like Orlok, but you'd never guess it from the fanwork.
  • It has to be seen to be believed. ^{[dead link]}
  • Don't forget Frog.
  • To be fair, he was designed to be very pretty in the sequel(s).
  • And when all the character art got redrawn for the PlayStation release, he was much better looking than his equip screen portrait - less like Orlok and more like Vegeta.
    • He always had Vegeta's face, except paler. And Piccolo's body structure (tall and muscular). Akira Toriyama tends to reuse character designs, after all.
  • Also Lucca.
• Super Mario Bros.: Mario, Luigi, and even Wario and Waluigi have had this happen to them.
  • Mario is a short, plump, round-faced toon with a big nose and solid mustache. When the trope is applied, you get the most average looking anime character in existence that happens to be wearing a red cap with overalls, that used a pencil to scribble on their upper lip. Oddly enough he'll always stand taller than Peach, even though not a single video game has portrayed him taller than the princess. Luigi is the same, just taller. Wario replaces all fat with muscles, maybe a slightly thicker mustache, and Waluigi is just a sly, tall, lanky version of Mario.
  • Both Peach and Daisy also get this a lot. A lot. It's considered a fetish to a good amount of people. Peach goes from a slightly ditzy, easily tricked lady with plain expressions, with absolutely nothing overly sexual about her character other than that she's pretty. The fans amp up the boobs and remove 50% of her dress. This is assuming she's IN a dress and not something sluttier...
• Izanami, the True Final Boss of Persona 4, looks only slightly attractive in her non-human yet non-boss form. Then certain fanart transformed her rather gorgeous versions of herself.
• The Psychonauts fandom has pulled this off both with the hero, Raz (Shotacon ahoy, given that Raz is supposed to be 10), and local Ensemble Darkhorse/potenial Woobie Sasha Nein. Sometimes, er, both at once.
• Not entirely averted in the Star Control fandom, where female fans sometimes draw aliens in human bodies without making them sexy. Even Human!ZEX isn't a Bishounen... but the recent posts in the Livejournal community do tend to skew toward alternate-universe Hurt Comfort Fanart.
  • Giving the VUX flexible necks, longer head-tentacles, and a smaller eye goes a long way ^{[dead link]} towards making them more appealing while still being, well, VUX. Though that may have been artistic license and a need for a visible reaction to get the joke across in this case.
• All the Special Infected (also, less often, the Uncommon Infected) in Left 4 Dead especially the Witch and the Hunter. (Most of all the Witch.) Compare this image of how they appear in-game to this fanart (not an extreme example), and that's not even getting into shipping them.
  • Even fans who aren't really trying to pretty them up generally draw them younger than the character models appear to be, i.e. as young adults or sometimes teenagers; the Special Infected may be Younger Than They Look as a side effect of the virus (this is a common fan theory), but they still look like they're at least in their thirties in-game. Again, this happens the most with the Witch and the Hunter. Mind you, getting close enough to take a good look at their faces in-game (as opposed to in Garry's Mod or looking at a reference picture) is difficult and inadvisable, so this is forgivable.
  • Also, since a lot of their grossness comes from icky details, simplifying an Infected's appearance will obviously make them cuter as well.
  • This (NSFW). While the Witch can be considerably cuter with removal of some of her infection details, the one with the pigtails is suppose to be the jaw-molten Spitter.
• Characters from Okami find themselves subject to this quite a bit. Perpetually masked Oki is invariably assumed to be Bishonen under the disguise and tiny, Napoleon Issun usually ends up as a Cute Shotaro Boy. The most notorious example has to be the protagonist, Amaterasu. In the game, she's a nonanthropomorphic wolf. In fanart... well, maybe you should just see for yourself. (It is true that the wolf isn't Amaterasu's original form and that one character sees her as an attractive young woman, but the player doesn't get to see this, so it still counts as an example.)
  • Amaterasu has gotten to the point where people seriously want Amaterasu to appear in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 in her human goddess form... even though it doesn't exist in her game.
• A few Pokémon characters get this. For example, Silver has a large fan base that makes him seem different from what he is... It's hard to tell which Silver (Special!Silver or Game!Silver) has the fan base at times though.
  • Differently from what he is personality-wise, maybe? They're pretty justified ^{[dead link]} in his appearance in HGSS.
  • Red is an interesting case. While he isn't ugly per say he is more of a Cute Shotaro Boy. Even at age fourteen in the original games, he is still a rather scrawny looking kid with unruly hair. Fans however ignore this, making him Bishonen and combing his hair down. Even for the remakes, fans use this design, despite the fact he has a new design which is slick and Bishonen at that age.
  • Fan arts of feminine-looking Pokémon (such as Gardevoir) are usually drawn more attractively.
  • Cynthia often gets a few cup sizes larger than she is in canon.
• Mega Man: Granted, Splash Woman is cute and has a pretty good waistline for a mermaid, but most fanart of her (and there's a lot) puts her in all manner of seductive poses, give her a larger bust, and generally make her out to be some sort of goddess. Probably not coincidentally, she's the first (and so, far, the only) female robot master.
• Touhou, due to being about ninety percent fandom and possessing official character art that... leaves much to be desired. Oddly enough the majority of drawings are fairly true to the characters (young girls are drawn like young girls, older women are drawn like older women etcetera), though more bizarre interpretations are certainly not absent.
  • Perhaps the most notable example is Patchouli: loli-lovers draw her flat and, well, loli-esque, big breast lovers give her larger breasts and an adult body and everyone else makes her "medium-sized" and teen-ish. It helps her character type fits either way, and that her clothing is baggy enough that her body type is totally ambiguous.
  • Touhou is a unique variation of this trope. Characters are not drawn more attractive merely to be more attractive, ZUN is simply a terrible artist and therefore fans improve on them in an effort to portray their "actual" appearance. It helps that there are official examples, significant improvements to characters' appearances present in any work in which ZUN did not draw them, most notably in the fighting Gaiden Games and Perfect Memento in Strict Sense.
• The fanbase for Team Fortress 2 is full of this trope. You can not look for art of it on DeviantArt without seeing all the classes depicted as young and sexy. Yes, even the Heavy. As a fangirl favorite, Medic is especially prone to this. And let's not get started on the female versions of most characters...
• Disgaea characters get this done to them sometimes, although it's almost always Etna and Flonne.
  • On the other hand, lolicons find Etna and Flonne (especially Etna to be an excellent source of fanservice just the way they are.
• Kirby fans mostly leave the characters alone...except for Zero Two, who is continually transformed from a floating white ball into an angel in fanart.
  • Whenever Kirby is drawn as a human fans typically don't make him that chubby. You'll often see Dedede not being as big as you'd expect either.
• Sonic the Hedgehog: Blaze the Cat is quite a prominent victim of this. Fan Art tends to give her a humanoid body and greatly expand her bust size. Even when the rest of the cast are normal.
  • Oh, and Shadow too.
• While a good deal of Kingdom of Loathing fan art uses the same simplistic stick figure art style as the game itself, there's still some artists that invoke this from time to time.
• The MOTHER series, this happens a lot with no other than Porky. Yes, the fat, shorty, smelly, decolourised skin nerd-guy appears as a hottie from time to time. Don't believe me? There is a whole deviantArt group about them.
  • Duster also gets this treatment quite a lot.
• Juhani and Mical (aka "The Disciple") from Knights of the Old Republic have somewhat unfortunate character models in-game. The Game Mod and Fan Art crews usually tweak the models just enough to make them look a little less plastic-looking.
• Beyond Good & Evil‍'‍s Jade, although attractive on her own, is known for her lack of fanservicey-ness, because, in contrast to the trends where many female game protagonists are involved, she dresses sensibly and has realistic, er, proportions. Along come the fan artists, dressing her in skimpy clothing and giving her a bustline ranging from "maybe she's wearing a push-up bra in this one" to "Holy back problems, Batman!"
  • On the fangirl end of the scale, there's Double H. Although he has an appealing personality, his character design isn't especially attractive. Fanart either tends to soften his extremer traits, making him more conventionally handsome, or ignore them completely to make him cute and adorable.
• A divisive example of this is fan-made mods for games like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and the Dragon Age series, where in-game modifications to "beautify" characters like Aela the Huntress and Aveline exist, though male characters aren't immune either. Far more controversial are the mods that give Dragon Age‍'‍s Isabella lighter skin, especially if they're explicitly stated by the mod's creator to be self-fanservice.
• To name a few particularly notable examples from the Undertale fandom:
  • Burgerpants (who looks like a grotesque John Kricfalusi caricature of himself in the actual game) becoming handsome (and sometimes even a Bishonen) in his fanart.
  • Sans and Papyrus gaining magical "energy penises" in their fanart.
  • Toriel and Undyne (and sometimes even Alphys) becoming bonafide examples of Ms. Fanservice in their fanart.
  • Asgore becoming a Big Beautiful Man in his fanart.
  • Temmie becoming a stereotypical Ms. Fanservice in her fanart.

Web Comics

• Quite possibly lampshaded in this Brawl in the Family strip (original page found here).
• Given the cartoonish style of Homestuck, there's a lot of room for interpretation as to how attractive the characters are, but the Trolls are generally drawn in fanart as pretty good-looking for grey-skinned, horned aliens.
  • It's actually inverted with the Exiles and other characters from Prospit/Derse, who are often drawn with carapaces, claws, and other details that are left out of the more stylistic art of the main series.
  • The scrawny, wheel-chair bound Tavros is depicted as being the Big Guy shockingly often.
  • The Troll Ancestors are often drawn with much smaller horns than they canonically have, but this is understandable since the horns can get insanely large. This can get less understandable for the Troll Kids' horns, however, which have obvious but simple designs but get reinterpreted quite often to suit the artist's desires. Tavros, despite having the largest horns by far, will often get drawn with smaller, sometimes thin horns for the sake of convenience.
• Freefall: Florence Ambrose in canon. Florence Ambrose in fanon.
• The Order of the Stick used to have threads on its forum titled "Oots Fanservice", the contents of which were not drawn by the creator, therefore...
  • The elf Vaarsuvius is perfectly androgynous and, by implication, not necessarily attractive to human eyes. Give the character the Woobie treatment and make their modestly-trimmed (purple) hair grow to long, wild and luxurious (purple) lengths as a side effect of a magic spell, however, and what you get is fanart and fanfic that accentuate the character's ethereal and feyish frailty, their delicate appearance, etc. etc. And don't forget the pointed ear fetishism.
    • It becomes apparent in Vaarsuvius fan art that his/her androgyny is difficult to translate into more detailed (i.e. not stick figure) art styles. So usually you get feminine features on an ambiguously feminine body.
  • Haley, Elan, and Miko are all treated as being quite attractive by other characters, so it's understandable that they're drawn as such.
  • Of course, everyone in the comic is a stick figure, so any fan art depicting them as attractive is Self Fanservice.

Web Original

• Homestar Runner.
  • Strong Bad intentionally does this to himself all the time, and he invented Modestly Hot Homsar.
  • On that matter, it looks like turning Strong Sad into a hoodie-wearing Emo kid has become increasingly popular. A rather thin one too.
• While nobody is denying that some of the people of That Guy With The Glasses are attractive anyway, fangirls turning the boys into skinny bishies and fanboys making the girls thinner and bustier than they are in real life are both popular.
  • Taken to ridiculous levels in the Hate Fic/Wank Fic Beer Enema. A lot of people think the Critic is pretty, yes, but there is no fucking way you could think he has a "barbie doll face".
• Happy Tree Friends, with its Estrogen Brigade and humongous following on Pixiv, has a large percentage of its fanart containing Moe Anthropomorphisms of the critters. Not a big deal, but humanized Flippy is almost always a teenage Bishonen, undoubtedly due to being Draco in Leather Pants. Being that Flippy was a war veteran, he should theoretically be much older than how he's often drawn. And then there's Flaky, who despite her well-known androgyny tends to get a Girliness Upgrade thrown on her like a ton of bricks.
• The Runaway Guys. Not only are they transformed into cute anime-versions of themselves in fanart, they're also subject to some peculiar Self-Insert Fanart at the hands of their fangirls. It doesn't help that, between them, Proton Jon is noted for his resemblance to erstwhile fangirl bait Otacon, Chuggaaconroy is Adorkable (in particular, his Flanderized wearing of polo shirts), and Nintendo Capri Sun is a legendarily Nice Guy.

Western Animation

• Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy, of all things. Generic Cuteness (...and Yaoi Fangirls/the Relationship Sue) struck the titular trio hard, but especially Double-D. Maybe Nerds Are Sexy after all.
  • Miimochi has what could be considered some of the best example(s) of EE&E Self Fanservice. (though all the character's tongues are the same... unusual colors as in the show...)
  • More surprisingly, the Kanker Sisters also get a lot of this, especially Marie.
• South Park gets rampant Stan/Kyle slash and anime-style fanart of the boys as Bishonen. Sometimes you realize that the skinny, bishonen guy in the red shirt...is supposed to be Cartman.
  • Even typically most people rarely draw Cartman as obese as he actually is. They draw him larger than the others but he's not half as fat as he should be. On a different note most fan artworks also don't draw Kyle with a jewfro (instead making it into a vaguely curly, straight hairstyle), give Kenny longer hair, and give Butters more hair.
• Fanart of Invader Zim as a Green-Skinned Space Stud.
  • Zim is not the only recipient of Self Fanservice in the series. Far from it.
  • Did you know Irkens are not actually supposed to have boobs? No, really, go check the show. See how flat Tak's chest is? Yeah, it's quite different than the fanart, isn't it?
  • Canon Dib is a scrawny little 11-year-old boy with glasses and a big head. Fanon depictions add 5–7 years to his age and make him Tall, Dark and Handsome instead while still retaining his trademark Anime Hair.
  • Like her brother, 10-year-old Gaz in fanart is aged up and given all the beauty that comes with it.
  • Non-shipper fans of Invader Zim live in fear of the day GIR gets this treatment. It's only a matter of time.
    • Those who spend a lot of time on Hentai Foundry know it's already happened.
• The Venture Brothers fanfiction makes the average men musclebound beefcake via Science Induced Phlebotinum. And turns Hank's and Dean's brotherly love into Yaoi. Not to mention those Brock on Doc fics where Doc somehow grows hair and muscles.
• In Metalocalypse, one minor, self-conscious use of this trope in the fandom involves giving Murderface a more flattering haircut than the triangular 'do he has in the show.
  • Nathan Explosion also tends to lose his slight paunch and gets a sixpack instead.
• In Kim Possible fanfics, Ron, who is honestly pretty goofy looking, is usually amped up considerably in the looks department... to the point that some authors both hang a lampshade on it and apologize to the reader.
• [[Family Guy] There's a lot of Meg Griffin fanart on Deviantart, and just about all of it makes her look way more attractive than she is on the show. She's not as hideous as the show repeatedly claims, but she's not that pretty either. In this case, some of those pieces are as much a Take That as just Fan Service.
• Despite what her trademark yellow jumpsuit may make one think, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles April O'Neil would very rarely display cleavage while wearing it—even in cases when she realistically would. Of course this attribute is commonly made prominent in fan art.
• Due perhaps to heavy abuse of Thick Line Animation, Danny Phantom has enourmous amounts of this, mostly directed towards the main eponymous character although resident Perverse Sexual Lust magnet Vlad certainly isn't bereft.
• The more clunky Transformers are sometimes transformed into very pretty, and noticeably more Human-like forms (usually for your CLANG action).
  • Notably with a female shape.
• In The Fairly Oddparents fanworks, Tootie gets a lot of these. It's worth noticing that a majority of these do not involve The Glasses Gotta Go, as the fans seem to think she looks cute enough with them. She often gets better-looking glasses, though.
• Woody has a rather extraordinary number of fangirls (and boys), considering he's a foot-tall cowboy doll.
  • Jessie tends to get a bit of extra "stuffing" in certain strategic areas in fanart.
• Heloise in Jimmy Two-Shoes. In the show, she looks like a little girl (Word of God says she is 14ish). In fanart, she's a very busty and very sexy figure.
• Venger from Dungeons and Dragons is sometimes illustrated by fans as beautiful slab of beefcake with long flowing hair under his cowl.
• PBS is not exempt. Just look up Word Girl on DeviantArt, and you're sure to find that Becky's often been.... um, enhanced. And then there's the pairing pics.... (It doesn't help that the two most popular pairings are Becky/Tobey and Becky/Two-Brains.
• Phineas and Ferb is getting this treatment too. Expect to see lots of bishonen versions of the characters, yaoi of the main characters, and sexy humanized versions of Perry the platypus.
• There's a considerable amount of fan art for My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic that features human versions of the characters of the show. While most of it is G-rated, many artists take advantage of the opportunity to make sexier depictions of the characters without nose-diving into Squick territory.
  • There is a lot of fanart of the ponies themselves as well, of course...
• In Scooby-Doo fandom, Velma gets this a lot.
• Maggie Pesky becoming a Rule 34 sex symbol is basically one of the only memorable things about The Buzz on Maggie; unfortunately, however, Maggie Pesky herself is severely under-aged for Rule 34.

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Now, who does fanon!Snape look like?