Self Fanservice: Difference between revisions

 

{{quote|"Would you draw me with your pencils and your pens

 

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--[[Guilty Pleasures|or, you know, maybe it didn't]]. It's now built up a fanbase. Folks are writing [[fanfic]]s, drawing [[Fan Art]], and spreading the joy over the Internet. So far, so good, right?

 

{{examples|Examples (by original media):}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* With regard to ''[[Pokémon (anime)|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 Hero|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.

 

== Comic Books ==

* [[The Joker]] gets this quite frequently, ESPECIALLY after ''[[The Dark Knight]]''. Granted Heath 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,<ref>5' 3" officially; compare average US height (20+ years old), which is about 5' 9" for males, 5' 4" for females</ref> surly man with more body hair then a bear. Count how many times he's given a height boost, a full-body wax, and just made flat-out generic handsome.

 

== Film ==

* There is art depicting [[The Ring|Sadako Yamamura/Samara Morgan]] as a [[Moe]] [[Shrinking Violet]].

** Even the regular stitchpunk versions of the characters are sexed up. And especially the OCs. So. Many. Boobs!

 

== 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 [[Alan Rickman|the actor who portrays him in the movie]] 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.

** 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.

*** Like Snape, though, her movie self shoulders a good part of the blame. Emma Watson [[She's All Grown Up|filled out nicely]].

* 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 [[Troubled but Cute|victim of sexual abuse]] with [[Anything That Moves]] tendencies and he spends most of his leisure time [[Fan Service|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, [[Lolicon|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. [http://community.livejournal.com/fanficrants/9660970.html There's even a post on fanficrants about it.]

 

== 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 [http://www.ns-media.com/bionicle/images/bionicle_r3_c1.gif as a set] and [http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs22/f/2008/012/e/3/Gali2008_by_Lordstevie.png in fan art].

 

== Video Games ==

* Unsurprisingly, [[Metroid|Samus Aran]] has been getting a triple serving of it ever since the introduction of the [[Latex Space Suit|Zero Suit]].<ref>[[Super Smash Bros.|Brawl]] then proceeded to '''''[[Up to Eleven|super-size]]''''' said serving with a topping of [[Male Gaze]] and [[Fetish Fuel|incredibly blatant BDSM overtones.]]</ref> See for yourself: [https://web.archive.org/web/20150725154722/http://www.metroid-database.com/mzm/art/zss_crawl.jpg original artwork,] [https://web.archive.org/web/20121228192742/http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/characters/images/zerosuit_samus/zerosuit_samus.jpg Brawl,] [http://transfuse.deviantart.com/art/Zero-Suit-Samus-Animu-138572532 fan art.] Look on the bright side: at least it doesn't make her look too different from her canon portrayal.

* Alma from the ''[[First Encounter Assault Recon|F.E.A.R.]]'' games.

** On the fan''girl'' end of the scale, there's Double H. Although he has an [[Adorkable|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|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 [[Race Lift|lighter skin]], especially if they're explicitly stated by the mod's creator to be self-fanservice.

 

== Web Comics ==

* Quite possibly [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in [http://brawlinthefamily.com/images/W017.jpg this] ''[[Brawl in the Family]]'' strip (original page found [https://web.archive.org/web/20100527072042/http://www.brawlinthefamily.com/comic151.html here]).

* Given the cartoonish style of ''[[Homestuck]]'', there's a lot of room for interpretation as to how attractive the characters are, but the [[Ensemble Darkhorse|Trolls]] are generally drawn in fanart as pretty good-looking for grey-skinned, horned aliens.

** 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 reinterpeted 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.

** 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-lengthed (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 fanart that his/her androgeny is difficult to translate into more detailed (i.e. not stick figure) art styles. So usually you get feminine features on an [[Pettanko|ambiguously feminine]] body.

 

== Web Original ==

* ''[[Homestar Runner]]''.

** Strong Bad intentionally does this to himself all the time, and he invented [http://www.hrwiki.org/wiki/Different_Town_Character_Variations#Modestly_Hot_Homsar Modestly Hot Homsar].

 

== Western Animation ==

* ''[[Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy]],'' of all things. [[Generic Cuteness]] (...and [[Yaoi Fangirl]]s/the [[Relationship Sue]]) struck the titular trio hard, but especially Double-D. Maybe [[Nerds Are Sexy]] after all.

** [http://miimochi.deviantart.com/ 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...)

** 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 [[Lampshade Hanging|hang a lampshade on it]] and apologize to the reader.

* There's a lot of [[Family Guy|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 [[Informed Deformity|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 1987|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' April O'Neil would very rarely display [[Absolute Cleavage|cleavage]] while wearing it—even in cases when she realistically would. Of course this attribute is commonly made prominent in fan art.

* There's a considerable amount of fan art for ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|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...

 

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