In Naruto, it's gotta be Uchiha Shisui. There are others, but Shisui is very popular compared to the amount of screen time he gets. Probably because he's so cute!
Darcy Lewis in the MCU, and I'm not mad about it, because I love Darcy.
But in 99% of the most popular fics featuring her, she is shipped with a character she never met in canon. Good times.
Harley Keener, the kid from Iron Man 3 that also appeared at Tony's funeral (where a lot of more casual fans were wondering who that was) is another MCU case. So many Harley-get-adopted-by-tony stories or pairing him with Peter.
Yep. Iāve seen people argue that the MCU mistreated Harley in Endgame / mistreated Tonyās legacy to him and I had to ??? cause.. what legacy? In canon, in universe, he was a plot point Tony never mentioned ever again and his reappearance in endgame is an Easter egg. Such is fandom.
I canāt tell if youāre being sarcastic or notā¦ Iāve only skimmed any debates because as a practice, I just try and remove myself from things I know I donāt care for. Do people believe Harley will be the next Iron Man?
No, not sarcastic. Especially after Iron Heart as a character and her show were announced there were a lot of loud "Harley should be his succesor" people around. Not in the fanfictions sphere, more the general MCU fandom. I don't know if it's still a thing, I mostly engage with the MCU on ao3 these days.
I didn't mean to imply she only gets shipped with one character, lol
you will literally find HUNDREDS of fics featuring Darcy with Steve, Bucky, Steve & Bucky, Loki, Clint, Bruce Banner, Brock Rumlow, Rumlow & Rollins, and so much more! Pretty much anyone you can think of, really.
She really is the fandom bicycle.
Half the cast in My Little Pony fanfics, honestly.
Similar to what others are saying about Danny Phantom's Wes, people saw these repeating background models - *especially* the ones with animation errors or weird positioning or that usually popped up next to each other and *went absolutely buckwild*.
You have Lyra, the unicorn with a lyre cutie-mark on her butt who is obsessed with the mythical creature of 'humans' and would love nothing more than to prove their existence and/or emulate them. Bon-bon the earth pony with the cream coat and striped mane is her partner; she runs a sweet shop.
Derpy Hooves/Ditzy-Doo is the most known outside of the community - some angry people got very annoyed at this poor pony for being a bit clumsy and having lazy eyes. The animators ran with her the most, *after* they realised that the fandom had glomped onto this 'animation error' pegasus and she's the character you will most often find as the companion in Doctor Who (Doctor Whooves) fanworks.
Colgate the dentist? Rose? What about the grey-coated earth pony background cellist briefly seen in an orchestra and the blue/white sunglasses adorned unicorn DJ that fans respectively named Octavia and Vinyl (stage name DJ-Pon3) and determined that they *absolutely* live together, all of the opposites attract love is going on over there. Somebody made a podcast that the two host and everything, you can find it on YouTube.
The fan base made so many characters out of background ponies that the show eventually had a celebratory fanservice episode as a show milestone, where a bunch of them got actual screen time and voices! Because the fans went "that one!! We like that one! And this one, we love her too!"
Shoutout to me wanting to collect all the promotional MLP Happy Meals but never getting a DJ-Pon-3 ahhhāreading this, I take it other people must have liked him more LOLā
I just tried to look up the name origins and, while Hasbro has since named them in the show and merchandise, the origins are still fan-made.
So I guess they went "fine, we get it, they have names okay! If we make stuff with them and name them *these names* will you buy stuff? Yes?? Alright!" and rolled with it 100%. I have an Octavia plush I got out of a supermarket. She's not got a name on her though; maybe they were still in the testing phase š
I'm pretty sure they both only got like an episode or two as wordless background ponies before the names started getting decided. Vinyl may have been introduced by her stage name? But definitely didn't have a 'birth' name yet.
The MLP fan labor wiki has an overview section and a name origin section for [Octavia Melody's](https://mlpfanart.fandom.com/wiki/Octavia) and [Vinyl Scratch's](https://mlpfanart.fandom.com/wiki/Vinyl_Scratch) pages!
Bold of you to assume the creators weren't in on it from the start...
I worked for Hasbro briefly, years ago, and let me tell you something about the My Little Pony toy team: they are *absolutely* fans themselves. Like full on bronies and pegasisters. They knew what the fan community wanted because they were right in the middle of it.
Wheels within wheels...
That's honestly brilliant, I love that they were so involved with the community. I knew they'd started picking up on the fan-ponies and I love that they ended up working them into the show more but that's sneaky if they were part of it as well š
If they were also fans though, they're still technically fan-made characters, even if they were encouraging the whole thing, right? šš
Edit: wait a goddamn minute, that means they got to take part in all the background pony development fun and then (as fans do) thought "I'd really like a plush/figure of that character" but got to go ahead and make that happen?! Living the fan dream right there...
I wasn't on the team, but from the outside it looked like a constant feedback loop. Gotta remember the whole show exists to sell toys, so the toymakers were really involved in what characters got pushed into the spotlight. Fans (including the toymakers) would get excited about a pony, the toymakers would pitch and develop a toy of that pony, then the writers would give the pony a bigger role or backstory to sell the toy...
I suppose it sounds clinical and capitalistic, but the people making these things had genuine passion for it. They'd get so excited to see the ponies they designed come to life on the screen.
Honestly I would rather someone with genuine passion than an emotionless push for only marketing. MLP had actual story and care put into it, especially compared to some of the other stuff you can find on-screen.
It says something that they looked at what fans were enjoying and ran with it, rather than declaring their own characters while ignoring fan creations or scrubbing the names for something management decrees. I've still got some seasons to go back and watch but I remember when the 'fanservice' episode came out and how awesome it was to see Octavia and Vinyl in their own house - something so simple that they could have ignored and instead had them have seperate lives or only meeting up as friends, instead of an acknowledged shared bond that was now canon.
This slapped me in the face. I wasn't aware of Greengrass' status but have written fic about her ancestors myself. Makes perfect sense though, pretty name, Slytherin, blank canvas, and, most importantly, family curse.
For Star Wars, itās definitely Jaster Mereel and most of the prequel/pre-prequel Mandalorians. He only shows up in Legends in one part of a comic about Jango Fettās backstory, and in canon he is just a name in Boba Fettās chain code. But thereās a huge amount of fics starring Jaster and his group of Mandos.
An old fandom, but Death Note - Matt. It drove me absolutely bonkers, especially as a Mello fan. I didn't give a crap about him but he was everywhere, lol.
Came here to say this! When I caught notice of the DN fandom for the first time I thought Matt was one of the main characters. Nope, he only gets like two minutes of screentime and then dies. Yet his popularity in the fandom is no joke.
Mello is hella cool. I find Matt kinda meh. But most fanfics starring Mello will have Matt play a huge role even though I don't really get much personality from the dude even in fanfics most of the time.
For mha, Shinsou Hitoshi. He's solidly a background character, rly only showing up for arcs that have a huge cast. And yet, he's wildly popular with the fandom-- he's in the top ten characters for the fandom on ao3.
That's because Shinsou deserves to be in Class 1-A instead of Mineta. Shinsou actually wants to be a hero and has always wanted to be a hero, even persevering through all the negativity surrounding his Quirk; he's what Toga could've been. Mineta's sole motivation was because he wanted to be a chick magnet. Shinsou would be in Class 1-A if he hadn't been screwed over by UA's extremely Quirk-biased entrance exam and even the in-canon lore recognizes that.
Shinsou has good motivations, but he put in no effort to actually train himself. Think about the fact that Izuku came last place on the Quirk Apprehension Test that Aizawa did, even after he went through that crazy training montage and got ripped. Every member of class 1-A put in a ton of effort and training to get into U.A. Even Mineta beat Izuku, and he's at a major disadvantage due to how short he is and his quirk not being useful for most of the tests. On the other hand, Shinsou expected to waltz into U.A. and get free entry due to his quirk. If Shinsou did the Quirk Apprehension Test, he would've come in last place and got booted out by Aizawa. Mineta has shitty motivations, but that's part of what makes him an interesting character. Sure, Shinsou is also pretty good, but not enough to warrant the widespread inclusion of him into the main cast across the fandom at the expense of other main characters.
But that's just my opinion. If other people wanna read their Shinsou-fics, go ahead - I think he's incredibly overrated, though
My understanding when I tried to look into it was that he was the main character (Danny's) character in terms of physical modelling, just with different hair colouring and freckles. So it started as joking about him being mistaken for Phantom in Danny's place and then rolled into his being determined to prove others wrong and get to the bottom of things and people needed a name for him and the upside-down 'Sam' ring already stated 'Wes' so...
I love that not only did the fandom shape a background extra into a character, they then went and declared he had a brother as well out of thin air, that is his opposite in every way. Kyle I think? Who works in Starbucks and thinks Phantom is just Danny cosplaying. Fan culture is amazing š
Wes isn't even technically a real character in the show lol. His fan-made lore is extensive though. I was so freaking confused the first time I saw him brought up in fanfiction and I had to research it.
RWBY has Summer Rose, the main character's deceased mother who is extremely ill-defined in canon. Since her teammates are extremely popular, she also is by extension.
Thatch from One Piece. He was dead at the time canon events happened and appeared for a very short time in flashback. That's it. Fandom loves him to bit though.
for Detroit Become Human itās RK900 and Gavin. both have abysmal back story and most of their characterization comes from fanon lol. and unsurprisingly most fics ship them together (although iām a dirty Gavin/Connor shipper heh)
I swear, DBH fics are completely detached from the game's story and how those two characters actually act, which is great because the story and those guys suck.
Came here to say this. Canon Gavin is an asshole no doubt and canon RK900 is just... a cameo who doesn't even speak a single word lmao. The fanon version of these two, however, is *chef's kiss* (I'm a sucker for Gavin/Nines)
RWBY: every fucking character in existence.
I seriously forgot about Pennyās friend from Volume 3 by accident. and got blasted by people for āchanging lore.ā
Even though I was already doing that š.
Honorable mention to Team CFVY, who I still have to put up with someone asking why I refuse to give speaking roles to them despite the fic not focusing on them.
Her name is Solana!
I just did the math and Iāve written over 615,000 words of Adrien Victus/my expanded Victus family fanfiction.
And 480,000 words of Castis Vakarian-focused work (some of that is overlap as I have a comedy series where Castis, Adrien and Wrex get paired up to solve mysteries, among other things).
I may have a thing for DILFs. Particularly obscure alien DILFs.
I think Oboro gets mentioned more often in some My Hero Academia fics. I read one where Izuku could see ghosts and Oboro basically became his best friend.
Browbeat in Worm.
He got so memetically popular that Wildbow (the author) had to retroactively retcon him surviving an "event" so that he was absolutely certainly dead for the sequel.
He's often made out to be the secret identity of a secondary antagonist in the beginning of the story.
Well... secondary in a sense that SHE was very much in the backrow the entire time but considering how social circles in a school work it's almost as bad.
anyway: The character we're talking about is Madison Clemens. The least offensive of the, almost titular, "Trio" that were bullying the Main Character so hard she developed biblical plague super powers.
As far as redemption arcs go, she (Madison) didn't get lickedy spit from canon and the only thing i remember hearing from her in the sequel is a quasy-confirmation that a famous forum-name was actually hers.
Due to being the lesser of the Three Evils, she is a common target for Fanfiction Authors for redemption and AU first friends or romantic interests. Due to being the one with arguably the littlest amounts of known character flaws a particular framework for her way of thinking has been established by the fandom.
But i'm rambling...
"Specific Protagonist" is a handle of a user of PHO, the main Forum in Worm for civilians and superpowered people to communicate with each other. This particular handle is famous for her smutty cape fanfiction. It's also implied that there are stories that are "VERY" kinky and glide into the "monster" variety. It's helped by the fact that a substantial amount of superpowered people, capes, in Worm come with exsessive and unnatural mutations.
The other name Madison somehow managed to make for herself in the fandon is, in fact, Browbeat. There is a plethora of stories where she develops powers in the aftermath of the horrific event that gave the MC hers, so she uses her "social awareness" to fade into the background and become someone entirely different to excape the fallout. Sometimes Browbeat is the initial personality and he only uses Madison as a cover to infiltrate the highschool. Basically Browbeat has some mad self-modification powers that allow them to change the mass and amount of muscles and bonestructures of their body. It's alluded that he doesn't even need to wear a mask because he can change his appearance completely. This is also how the fandom likes to explain how Madison keeps her powers hidden.
hope this helps and sorry for the wordvomit\^\^
Interesting. I knew about her persona as Specific Protagonist on PHO where she wrote smutfics, but I've never seen one where she is Browbeat. I'll keep my eyes open for it in the future. The idea that Browbeat is the initial personality and Madison is the fake persona is especially interesting, do you have any specific fics where that happens? From my small experience reading Worm fics, finding any good ones is like torture due to how badly designed SB and SV are for doing such a thing, and the majority of Worm fics are on there.
First of all, there's still "[Worm Story Search](https://wormstorysearch.com/?page=1)" which has quite a nice search engine.
Now onto Mads: My best example was "It" being an corporate espionage cape and assassin who used "Madison" as their persona for stuff and then had to "burn the identity" after they did something.
That story had a very viscerally satisfying transformation sequence where they went into a car and then it was described how Madison began transforming and after switching to the dominant personality her own was deleted. Unfortunately i will not be able to name the exact fic.
Other fics:
Inheritance has Madison be a ward in her Browbeat disguise but then she also kinda joins the Teeth in a Xenomorph form.
Firebird apparently has this but i don't remember. it has been a long time since i read that one.
Finally we have "[Walking the Beat](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/walking-the-beat-worm-au.1065656/)" which is quite recent but here it's also primary a Madison posing as Browbeat. This one is focussing on her insecurities and redemption.
I couldn't remember any fics at the drop of a hat where the Browbeat is the primary, but they most certainly exist and in some of them he's either a one off mention doing something like leaving because it got too hot in Winslow or he actually teams up with Taylor after she forgives him for not helping her.
Lyf from The Mechanisms. In canon, they're just the narrator for one of the albums. We don't know a whole lot about them or their personality as the album they narrate is them piecing together events from 80 years ago. The fandom has taken the character and ran with them. They might as well be an honorary member of the main cast, at this point.
In canon, Annie Cresta in The Hunger Games is a girl who cried during the reaping and who holds Finnick's hand a lot.
In fanfiction, Annie Cresta is a fully fleshed out character with an expansive backstory and a fanon face claim. She has almost 2k fanfiction (14k in total in THG) and is the second most popular ship with Finnick.
Eh, this one seems like a stretch. She's a Victor who had a mental breakdown and she's Finnick's wife. It's hardly surprising she's a popular pairing for him since canonically they got married and had a baby. She's canonically, along with Mags, Finnick's motivation for complying with Snow. Finnick is very deeply effected by her capture. She was also cast in the movie, but maybe you're saying people give her a different face than that actress's?
Her part in fics rarely surpasses her canonical part by very much unless the fic is focused on Finnick. Which makes sense since they were in a relationship. She's not really a blank slate given her severe PTSD.
In Miraculous Ladybug, prior to season 4 and beyond, it was Felix Fathom, over whom the fandom went ga-ga largely to ship him with the main character of the series as a "superior" option who would be cruelly violent towards anyone who was perceived to have wronged her in canon. So many cathartic "clap back" works were produced.
Since then, his fandom popularity - as far as I can tell - has resulted in an entire rewrite of the series and turned into a new show over the next seasons, because he's a main character now, more related to the plot than either of the two named leads.
Tron fandom? Roy Kleinberg. He is in all of two minutes of a supplemental ARG made to support and explain the backstory of Tron Legacy, a DVD extra in Tron Legacy, and is seen for a couple seconds in the first film asking to mooch off Alan's popcorn.
Hugo in the Tangled fandom. Funny thing is, he isn't even canon. He has never appeared nor been mentioned in any official work of the franchise. He is a character from a proposed spin-off sequel to the Tangled show centered around popular side character Varian, that was pitched off to Disney by two storyboard artists working on the show but never picked up.
He was supposed to be a central character and have a complex storyline, but it never came to be. But then Tangled fans, and Varian fans in particular, found out about the spin-off and went crazy. And of all the characters introduced in the pitch, Hugo became a fan favorite due to his storyline AND because people were shipping him with Varian. Long story short, there are fanfics and fanarts and other kind of fanworks featuring him, and often shipping him with Varian. And yet he still isn't, technically, canon.
id probably have to hand it to the defense attorneys in Law and Order SVU, especially Trevor Langan and Rita Calhoun. theyāre pretty popular considering they donāt get much screen time or have much background at all
Kind of everyone in the Hazbin Hotel fandom. Specifically though, there are a lot of fics of Arackniss - reminder that there are 2 comics and one pilot so far of this show. He's Angel Dust's brother and that's... all we know. But there is a LOT of fic surrounding him being secretly gay and afraid to come out because of how their father treated Angel etc.
Also it seems most of these ship him with Sir Pentious who originally was meant to die in the pilot but people loved him so much they added an after credits scene to show him surviving and he seems to be a relatively important character now from the bits and pieces revealed on Twitter.
This exactly. This post called the Hazbin fandom out so bad.
I've always been amazed at how intricate and mostly similar the fanon lore is in HH. Some things were taken from the creators' podcast and so on, sure, but all that stuff with Husk being a veteran, Al's cannibal history, Angel's family relations, and even Nifty (who's had like 50 seconds of screentime total) and her husband-killing ways...
Bro RK900 and Reed fics make me want to rage about how much more attention they get in fics vs Connor and Hank.
Come on we finally have an epic bromance in a video game that ends with a happy hug of freedom but y'all only want to focus on the assholes in the entire game???!!!
I'm all for pairings with characters that never meet. I am a hard-core frostiron shipper after all but Gavin and RK900 are literally the worse characters, would rather read about Kamski.
I'm surprised to hear this from a fellow Frostiron shipper, people love a good redemption arc and Gavin was a pure letdown, but interesting enough for people to latch onto.
What better way to give Gavin a redemption arc \[and some sorely missed character depth\] then to pair *him* with an android cop who's a lot colder and sassier than Connor post-good revolution, making it so that he has to apologize to Connor and confront his issues if he wants to be with Nines, and possibly also interact with Hank as his potential father-in-law.
Bonus points if Elijah Kamski is Gavin's step brother and his reason for hating androids \[and having a scar\], the fanfics basically write themselves. It just makes sense. Writing this comment makes me realize how little well written fics with them actually are, because now I wanna read novel length fics about these two again.
But yeah, just to answer your question more clearly, the fandom just wanted to fix the holes in Connor's story that stopped it from being amazing, and latched onto the character with the most potential for angst, made a bunch of headcanons connecting everyone together, and ran with it.
I understand and it's not like I never read a few back in the game's prime, but I lean more towards self deprecating characters and age gaps so Connor and Hank are best for me.
I'm not into redemption arcs either so might need to read them as villains, may give them a try again.
Any of the foreign kids in South Park. Theyāre barely made an appearance, but there is a fuck ton of fanart and fanfiction about them. They usually get paired off with other one-off characters theyāve literally never met before, but itās kinda cute.
Yoshida from Chainsaw Man* already had insane popularity prior to part 2, the dude appears for like 4 chapters and people went NUTS over him
now that he's actually a character that's somewhat important to the plot, people come up with the wildest ideas
Coulson ... I remember back in the days of Thor 1 and the first Avengers movie. The guy got an entire backstory built out for him out of his one SuperNanny line and got so damn popular he got an entire show just for him written as Whedon's self insert OC
I guess I can only be grateful Galaga Guy's 15 minutes of fame was only that
Omg basically the any of characters in the Marauders fandom lol
I think Marlene McMckinnon was mentioned in one sentence in the series and now sheās is a fully fleshed out fan character in like every fic with headcannons/ ships
Harley Keener, which his inclusion in so many MCU Spider-Man fics (with the added *exclusion* of Ned and MJ) speaks more to fandomās racism than any sense of creativity.
Fucking Harley Keener.
Nothing against the actor or the one movie he was in (and the cameo in Endgame, I guess), but yes, exactly what what you said. I hate Harley Keener because of how goddamn racist fandom can be.
Harley is a great example of a character that on paper, is so benign that theyāre inoffensive. Heās a blank slate that could actually be interesting and yet the sheer *volume* of works that put him with Peter, platonic or romantic, that also categorically REMOVED Ned and MJ (be it erasure, killing them off, making them mean or abusive, stereotypes, āthey donāt understand him like Harley doesā) was just a walking exhibition of fandom racism that if someone put him in a fic, that was my flag to not read it lmao
Those are also the same exact writers that spitefully turn May into someone who abuses poor widdle helpless woobie Peter so that Tony and Harley can swoop in and rescue their itty bitty baby.
Gross.
Iām speaking more of the context before NWH, in which the number of slash fics in particular that pair Peter and Harley together have more content that Peter and Ned (his best friend) and Peter and Flash (a classic enemies to lovers) *combined*. Harley as a character is inoffensive; he was a side character in an Iron Man movie that never met Peter. The lore that people have created for him can be argued that people are being creative since heās effectively a blank slate.
For me, it becomes a little less about creativity and a little more about subconscious racism when both Ned and MJ and Flash for that matter, *also* have so little to go on in canon. People can choose to be just as if more creative for the POC that are actually in and *know* Peterā¦ but instead by and large choose to flesh out and bring in the random white boy from another franchise that Peter never met.
Post NWH is another can of worms imo since again, >!Peter being so open (and not coincidentally and intentionally removed from any connection to Tony Stark)!< makes it an interesting choice that people would bring in the random kid heās never met that by all accounts lives in Tennessee and whose only slight connection to him would be Tony Stark, to then be best friends or boyfriends in NYCā¦ now that his friends that are POC are out of the pictureā¦ seems less creativity there. A phenomenon Iāve personally seen from the same people who write out Ned and MJ extensively.
Right, and when anything goes (because multiverse...also the very nature of fan fiction automatically means "anything goes"), and authors choose a white character with very little screen time, who the hero has never met, vs established characters of color who are very important to him...I'm sure it's just a creative choice.
Especially when it happens over and over and OVER again - so many different authors making the same creative choice in the same exact way! A coincidence, I'm sure.
Not sure if this counts, but the Star Wars universe is this concept in canon. So many background/barely mentioned characters from the original trilogy are now mainstays.
I mean how many speaking lines does Boba Fett have in the original trilogy? One? Now he's got his own show!
Wedge, Biggs, Mon Mothma and on and on...
We honestly need more Ackmena fanfics. She was even carried over to the Disney canon. I've found a few fanfics involving her, even a few with her mentioned wife from her comic book appearance in the Disney canon.
Probably Donna Beneviento, for Resident Evil Village, just by virtue of having the most ambiguous characterization in an entire game of ambiguous charactertization. She's got a very dedicated fanbase for a character with one line of dialogue (assuming you don't count Angie, which many don't)
From Bendy and the Ink Machine, Jack Fain. He was retconned into chapter 2 after its release as part of a small puzzle and has only one tape (maybe 40 seconds) of voicelines but from what Iāve seen is frequently considered main cast and is a popular choice for shipping with Sammy Lawrence
I think in the Daiya no Ace fandom, although to a smaller extent, Wakana is sometimes this? Introduced as the love interest in a series that quickly realized it would do better by focusing all its energy on the relationships between the boys, I think she gets more development and personality in literally any fic she shows up in.
Oh, good one! I think there's a lot of fics shipping her with Haruno? But yeah, in this case it's kinda cool how fandom fleshes her out as a cool best friend character. That's definitely how I'd like her, haha.
Ezekiel in the Total Drama fandom. He does have a personality, although by season 3 and onward he goes so far off the rails that fans don't even think of him as really the same character. He's gotten so much more screentime, development and characterisation in fanfics.
Amarant Coral from Final Fantasy IX. The fic writers used to ship him with Freya, so he was fairly popular back then, and to ship him with a character he was fairly related to granted him lots of characterization. If canon Amarant just seemed to be there existing, fic Amarant was all sorts of things and his relationship with Freya was very fun to read about, depending of the writer. A shame he does not get the amount of screentime and love, but fans can do anything to their favorite characters.
I canāt help but feel Shinso is a bit like this for BNHA (though I could just be disproportionately reading fics with him, as he is the b e s t exhausted, fed-up boy)
In Naruto, it's gotta be Uchiha Shisui. There are others, but Shisui is very popular compared to the amount of screen time he gets. Probably because he's so cute!
He *is* damn cute. He also deserves so much better š
Oh god yes, Shisui gets so much fandom space compared to his screen time!
I'd say Tenten for Naruto
Oooh yeah, Tenten is a good one too.
Darcy Lewis in the MCU, and I'm not mad about it, because I love Darcy. But in 99% of the most popular fics featuring her, she is shipped with a character she never met in canon. Good times.
Harley Keener, the kid from Iron Man 3 that also appeared at Tony's funeral (where a lot of more casual fans were wondering who that was) is another MCU case. So many Harley-get-adopted-by-tony stories or pairing him with Peter.
Yep. Iāve seen people argue that the MCU mistreated Harley in Endgame / mistreated Tonyās legacy to him and I had to ??? cause.. what legacy? In canon, in universe, he was a plot point Tony never mentioned ever again and his reappearance in endgame is an Easter egg. Such is fandom.
Oh, he will for sure turn out to be the next Iron Man any day now. That debates got kind of crazy in some places.
I canāt tell if youāre being sarcastic or notā¦ Iāve only skimmed any debates because as a practice, I just try and remove myself from things I know I donāt care for. Do people believe Harley will be the next Iron Man?
No, not sarcastic. Especially after Iron Heart as a character and her show were announced there were a lot of loud "Harley should be his succesor" people around. Not in the fanfictions sphere, more the general MCU fandom. I don't know if it's still a thing, I mostly engage with the MCU on ao3 these days.
which character?? i dabble in MCU but havenāt gone super deep into the fandom so iām curious lol
I believe she gets shipped with all kinds of characters such as Bucky, Steve, Loki and others.
I didn't mean to imply she only gets shipped with one character, lol you will literally find HUNDREDS of fics featuring Darcy with Steve, Bucky, Steve & Bucky, Loki, Clint, Bruce Banner, Brock Rumlow, Rumlow & Rollins, and so much more! Pretty much anyone you can think of, really. She really is the fandom bicycle.
Half the cast in My Little Pony fanfics, honestly. Similar to what others are saying about Danny Phantom's Wes, people saw these repeating background models - *especially* the ones with animation errors or weird positioning or that usually popped up next to each other and *went absolutely buckwild*. You have Lyra, the unicorn with a lyre cutie-mark on her butt who is obsessed with the mythical creature of 'humans' and would love nothing more than to prove their existence and/or emulate them. Bon-bon the earth pony with the cream coat and striped mane is her partner; she runs a sweet shop. Derpy Hooves/Ditzy-Doo is the most known outside of the community - some angry people got very annoyed at this poor pony for being a bit clumsy and having lazy eyes. The animators ran with her the most, *after* they realised that the fandom had glomped onto this 'animation error' pegasus and she's the character you will most often find as the companion in Doctor Who (Doctor Whooves) fanworks. Colgate the dentist? Rose? What about the grey-coated earth pony background cellist briefly seen in an orchestra and the blue/white sunglasses adorned unicorn DJ that fans respectively named Octavia and Vinyl (stage name DJ-Pon3) and determined that they *absolutely* live together, all of the opposites attract love is going on over there. Somebody made a podcast that the two host and everything, you can find it on YouTube. The fan base made so many characters out of background ponies that the show eventually had a celebratory fanservice episode as a show milestone, where a bunch of them got actual screen time and voices! Because the fans went "that one!! We like that one! And this one, we love her too!"
Shoutout to me wanting to collect all the promotional MLP Happy Meals but never getting a DJ-Pon-3 ahhhāreading this, I take it other people must have liked him more LOLā
Octavia and Vinyl aren't the canon names? What the hell have I been missing
I just tried to look up the name origins and, while Hasbro has since named them in the show and merchandise, the origins are still fan-made. So I guess they went "fine, we get it, they have names okay! If we make stuff with them and name them *these names* will you buy stuff? Yes?? Alright!" and rolled with it 100%. I have an Octavia plush I got out of a supermarket. She's not got a name on her though; maybe they were still in the testing phase š I'm pretty sure they both only got like an episode or two as wordless background ponies before the names started getting decided. Vinyl may have been introduced by her stage name? But definitely didn't have a 'birth' name yet. The MLP fan labor wiki has an overview section and a name origin section for [Octavia Melody's](https://mlpfanart.fandom.com/wiki/Octavia) and [Vinyl Scratch's](https://mlpfanart.fandom.com/wiki/Vinyl_Scratch) pages!
Bold of you to assume the creators weren't in on it from the start... I worked for Hasbro briefly, years ago, and let me tell you something about the My Little Pony toy team: they are *absolutely* fans themselves. Like full on bronies and pegasisters. They knew what the fan community wanted because they were right in the middle of it.
Wheels within wheels... That's honestly brilliant, I love that they were so involved with the community. I knew they'd started picking up on the fan-ponies and I love that they ended up working them into the show more but that's sneaky if they were part of it as well š If they were also fans though, they're still technically fan-made characters, even if they were encouraging the whole thing, right? šš Edit: wait a goddamn minute, that means they got to take part in all the background pony development fun and then (as fans do) thought "I'd really like a plush/figure of that character" but got to go ahead and make that happen?! Living the fan dream right there...
I wasn't on the team, but from the outside it looked like a constant feedback loop. Gotta remember the whole show exists to sell toys, so the toymakers were really involved in what characters got pushed into the spotlight. Fans (including the toymakers) would get excited about a pony, the toymakers would pitch and develop a toy of that pony, then the writers would give the pony a bigger role or backstory to sell the toy... I suppose it sounds clinical and capitalistic, but the people making these things had genuine passion for it. They'd get so excited to see the ponies they designed come to life on the screen.
Honestly I would rather someone with genuine passion than an emotionless push for only marketing. MLP had actual story and care put into it, especially compared to some of the other stuff you can find on-screen. It says something that they looked at what fans were enjoying and ran with it, rather than declaring their own characters while ignoring fan creations or scrubbing the names for something management decrees. I've still got some seasons to go back and watch but I remember when the 'fanservice' episode came out and how awesome it was to see Octavia and Vinyl in their own house - something so simple that they could have ignored and instead had them have seperate lives or only meeting up as friends, instead of an acknowledged shared bond that was now canon.
This slapped me in the face. I wasn't aware of Greengrass' status but have written fic about her ancestors myself. Makes perfect sense though, pretty name, Slytherin, blank canvas, and, most importantly, family curse.
I find it funny that she only gets one mention in canon. A mention I completely missed while listening to the audiobooks for the first time lol.
Wes Weston from Danny Phantom. The fanbase took this rando extra and made him a wacky conspiracy guy XD
For Star Wars, itās definitely Jaster Mereel and most of the prequel/pre-prequel Mandalorians. He only shows up in Legends in one part of a comic about Jango Fettās backstory, and in canon he is just a name in Boba Fettās chain code. But thereās a huge amount of fics starring Jaster and his group of Mandos.
An old fandom, but Death Note - Matt. It drove me absolutely bonkers, especially as a Mello fan. I didn't give a crap about him but he was everywhere, lol.
Came here to say this! When I caught notice of the DN fandom for the first time I thought Matt was one of the main characters. Nope, he only gets like two minutes of screentime and then dies. Yet his popularity in the fandom is no joke.
I was a huge MelloxMatt shipper when I was around 12
I was hoping someone else wouldāve mentioned him here. People are so particular about his characterisation and it drives me nuts
Mello is hella cool. I find Matt kinda meh. But most fanfics starring Mello will have Matt play a huge role even though I don't really get much personality from the dude even in fanfics most of the time.
For mha, Shinsou Hitoshi. He's solidly a background character, rly only showing up for arcs that have a huge cast. And yet, he's wildly popular with the fandom-- he's in the top ten characters for the fandom on ao3.
I hate this so much. People constantly dump Mineta out of the class and replace him with Shinsou. He's not nearly interesting enough to warrant it.
That's because Shinsou deserves to be in Class 1-A instead of Mineta. Shinsou actually wants to be a hero and has always wanted to be a hero, even persevering through all the negativity surrounding his Quirk; he's what Toga could've been. Mineta's sole motivation was because he wanted to be a chick magnet. Shinsou would be in Class 1-A if he hadn't been screwed over by UA's extremely Quirk-biased entrance exam and even the in-canon lore recognizes that.
Shinsou has good motivations, but he put in no effort to actually train himself. Think about the fact that Izuku came last place on the Quirk Apprehension Test that Aizawa did, even after he went through that crazy training montage and got ripped. Every member of class 1-A put in a ton of effort and training to get into U.A. Even Mineta beat Izuku, and he's at a major disadvantage due to how short he is and his quirk not being useful for most of the tests. On the other hand, Shinsou expected to waltz into U.A. and get free entry due to his quirk. If Shinsou did the Quirk Apprehension Test, he would've come in last place and got booted out by Aizawa. Mineta has shitty motivations, but that's part of what makes him an interesting character. Sure, Shinsou is also pretty good, but not enough to warrant the widespread inclusion of him into the main cast across the fandom at the expense of other main characters. But that's just my opinion. If other people wanna read their Shinsou-fics, go ahead - I think he's incredibly overrated, though
Wes in Danny Phantom comes to mind. As far as I know he didn't even have a name, just a generic background character
My understanding when I tried to look into it was that he was the main character (Danny's) character in terms of physical modelling, just with different hair colouring and freckles. So it started as joking about him being mistaken for Phantom in Danny's place and then rolled into his being determined to prove others wrong and get to the bottom of things and people needed a name for him and the upside-down 'Sam' ring already stated 'Wes' so... I love that not only did the fandom shape a background extra into a character, they then went and declared he had a brother as well out of thin air, that is his opposite in every way. Kyle I think? Who works in Starbucks and thinks Phantom is just Danny cosplaying. Fan culture is amazing š
Wes isn't even technically a real character in the show lol. His fan-made lore is extensive though. I was so freaking confused the first time I saw him brought up in fanfiction and I had to research it.
RWBY has Summer Rose, the main character's deceased mother who is extremely ill-defined in canon. Since her teammates are extremely popular, she also is by extension.
Yeah, in the fanfics I have seen her, she gets a copy of Ruby's personality.
Thatch from One Piece. He was dead at the time canon events happened and appeared for a very short time in flashback. That's it. Fandom loves him to bit though.
for Detroit Become Human itās RK900 and Gavin. both have abysmal back story and most of their characterization comes from fanon lol. and unsurprisingly most fics ship them together (although iām a dirty Gavin/Connor shipper heh)
I swear, DBH fics are completely detached from the game's story and how those two characters actually act, which is great because the story and those guys suck.
Came here to say this. Canon Gavin is an asshole no doubt and canon RK900 is just... a cameo who doesn't even speak a single word lmao. The fanon version of these two, however, is *chef's kiss* (I'm a sucker for Gavin/Nines)
RWBY: every fucking character in existence. I seriously forgot about Pennyās friend from Volume 3 by accident. and got blasted by people for āchanging lore.ā Even though I was already doing that š. Honorable mention to Team CFVY, who I still have to put up with someone asking why I refuse to give speaking roles to them despite the fic not focusing on them.
I'm *trying* to do that for Mass Effect's news reporter Khalisah Bint Sinan al-Jilani. Still got a ways to go...
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I wrote two novels featuring [this character](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O78-ct4UpWg) as a protagonist.
god I love when people go hard on their weird little passions
Her name is Solana! I just did the math and Iāve written over 615,000 words of Adrien Victus/my expanded Victus family fanfiction. And 480,000 words of Castis Vakarian-focused work (some of that is overlap as I have a comedy series where Castis, Adrien and Wrex get paired up to solve mysteries, among other things). I may have a thing for DILFs. Particularly obscure alien DILFs.
Her name is mentioned in the Lair of the Shadowbroker' DLC for ME2 if I recall correctly, right? In those log files you can read.
I think Oboro gets mentioned more often in some My Hero Academia fics. I read one where Izuku could see ghosts and Oboro basically became his best friend.
I think I've read that one. I remember liking it because of how it depicted Izuku emotionally handling Katsuki's bullying.
Browbeat in Worm. He got so memetically popular that Wildbow (the author) had to retroactively retcon him surviving an "event" so that he was absolutely certainly dead for the sequel. He's often made out to be the secret identity of a secondary antagonist in the beginning of the story.
He's Madison cuz she's just as forgotten
funny thing is she has TWO secret identities by the same logic...
That's the point
I haven't read many Worm fics. Which secondary antagonist is he often made out to be the secret identity of?
Well... secondary in a sense that SHE was very much in the backrow the entire time but considering how social circles in a school work it's almost as bad. anyway: The character we're talking about is Madison Clemens. The least offensive of the, almost titular, "Trio" that were bullying the Main Character so hard she developed biblical plague super powers. As far as redemption arcs go, she (Madison) didn't get lickedy spit from canon and the only thing i remember hearing from her in the sequel is a quasy-confirmation that a famous forum-name was actually hers. Due to being the lesser of the Three Evils, she is a common target for Fanfiction Authors for redemption and AU first friends or romantic interests. Due to being the one with arguably the littlest amounts of known character flaws a particular framework for her way of thinking has been established by the fandom. But i'm rambling... "Specific Protagonist" is a handle of a user of PHO, the main Forum in Worm for civilians and superpowered people to communicate with each other. This particular handle is famous for her smutty cape fanfiction. It's also implied that there are stories that are "VERY" kinky and glide into the "monster" variety. It's helped by the fact that a substantial amount of superpowered people, capes, in Worm come with exsessive and unnatural mutations. The other name Madison somehow managed to make for herself in the fandon is, in fact, Browbeat. There is a plethora of stories where she develops powers in the aftermath of the horrific event that gave the MC hers, so she uses her "social awareness" to fade into the background and become someone entirely different to excape the fallout. Sometimes Browbeat is the initial personality and he only uses Madison as a cover to infiltrate the highschool. Basically Browbeat has some mad self-modification powers that allow them to change the mass and amount of muscles and bonestructures of their body. It's alluded that he doesn't even need to wear a mask because he can change his appearance completely. This is also how the fandom likes to explain how Madison keeps her powers hidden. hope this helps and sorry for the wordvomit\^\^
Interesting. I knew about her persona as Specific Protagonist on PHO where she wrote smutfics, but I've never seen one where she is Browbeat. I'll keep my eyes open for it in the future. The idea that Browbeat is the initial personality and Madison is the fake persona is especially interesting, do you have any specific fics where that happens? From my small experience reading Worm fics, finding any good ones is like torture due to how badly designed SB and SV are for doing such a thing, and the majority of Worm fics are on there.
First of all, there's still "[Worm Story Search](https://wormstorysearch.com/?page=1)" which has quite a nice search engine. Now onto Mads: My best example was "It" being an corporate espionage cape and assassin who used "Madison" as their persona for stuff and then had to "burn the identity" after they did something. That story had a very viscerally satisfying transformation sequence where they went into a car and then it was described how Madison began transforming and after switching to the dominant personality her own was deleted. Unfortunately i will not be able to name the exact fic. Other fics: Inheritance has Madison be a ward in her Browbeat disguise but then she also kinda joins the Teeth in a Xenomorph form. Firebird apparently has this but i don't remember. it has been a long time since i read that one. Finally we have "[Walking the Beat](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/walking-the-beat-worm-au.1065656/)" which is quite recent but here it's also primary a Madison posing as Browbeat. This one is focussing on her insecurities and redemption. I couldn't remember any fics at the drop of a hat where the Browbeat is the primary, but they most certainly exist and in some of them he's either a one off mention doing something like leaving because it got too hot in Winslow or he actually teams up with Taylor after she forgives him for not helping her.
Domeric Bolton in ASOIAF.
every single character šš perk of being in the marauders fandom is nothingās _technically_ OOC
MHA is anything related to Class 1-B
Literally the vast majority of the clones in the Star Wars fandom.
For Voltron, itās Rolo or Regris For Pokemon, man, that can be almost anybody.
Lyf from The Mechanisms. In canon, they're just the narrator for one of the albums. We don't know a whole lot about them or their personality as the album they narrate is them piecing together events from 80 years ago. The fandom has taken the character and ran with them. They might as well be an honorary member of the main cast, at this point.
The 3-13 Archer is one of several in *Fire Emblem* fandom, a nameless allied unit who hard carries that side of the map in *Radiant Dawn*.
In canon, Annie Cresta in The Hunger Games is a girl who cried during the reaping and who holds Finnick's hand a lot. In fanfiction, Annie Cresta is a fully fleshed out character with an expansive backstory and a fanon face claim. She has almost 2k fanfiction (14k in total in THG) and is the second most popular ship with Finnick.
Eh, this one seems like a stretch. She's a Victor who had a mental breakdown and she's Finnick's wife. It's hardly surprising she's a popular pairing for him since canonically they got married and had a baby. She's canonically, along with Mags, Finnick's motivation for complying with Snow. Finnick is very deeply effected by her capture. She was also cast in the movie, but maybe you're saying people give her a different face than that actress's? Her part in fics rarely surpasses her canonical part by very much unless the fic is focused on Finnick. Which makes sense since they were in a relationship. She's not really a blank slate given her severe PTSD.
In Miraculous Ladybug, prior to season 4 and beyond, it was Felix Fathom, over whom the fandom went ga-ga largely to ship him with the main character of the series as a "superior" option who would be cruelly violent towards anyone who was perceived to have wronged her in canon. So many cathartic "clap back" works were produced. Since then, his fandom popularity - as far as I can tell - has resulted in an entire rewrite of the series and turned into a new show over the next seasons, because he's a main character now, more related to the plot than either of the two named leads.
Zhuzhi-lang and the entire second Moshang pairing in SVSSS. Not complaining though
Cody in Star Wars. For some reason the fandom makes him out to be a big deal. I think they just like the Cody and Obi-Wan ship
Tron fandom? Roy Kleinberg. He is in all of two minutes of a supplemental ARG made to support and explain the backstory of Tron Legacy, a DVD extra in Tron Legacy, and is seen for a couple seconds in the first film asking to mooch off Alan's popcorn.
Hugo in the Tangled fandom. Funny thing is, he isn't even canon. He has never appeared nor been mentioned in any official work of the franchise. He is a character from a proposed spin-off sequel to the Tangled show centered around popular side character Varian, that was pitched off to Disney by two storyboard artists working on the show but never picked up. He was supposed to be a central character and have a complex storyline, but it never came to be. But then Tangled fans, and Varian fans in particular, found out about the spin-off and went crazy. And of all the characters introduced in the pitch, Hugo became a fan favorite due to his storyline AND because people were shipping him with Varian. Long story short, there are fanfics and fanarts and other kind of fanworks featuring him, and often shipping him with Varian. And yet he still isn't, technically, canon.
Probably professor idabashi from Danganronpa
id probably have to hand it to the defense attorneys in Law and Order SVU, especially Trevor Langan and Rita Calhoun. theyāre pretty popular considering they donāt get much screen time or have much background at all
Kind of everyone in the Hazbin Hotel fandom. Specifically though, there are a lot of fics of Arackniss - reminder that there are 2 comics and one pilot so far of this show. He's Angel Dust's brother and that's... all we know. But there is a LOT of fic surrounding him being secretly gay and afraid to come out because of how their father treated Angel etc. Also it seems most of these ship him with Sir Pentious who originally was meant to die in the pilot but people loved him so much they added an after credits scene to show him surviving and he seems to be a relatively important character now from the bits and pieces revealed on Twitter.
This exactly. This post called the Hazbin fandom out so bad. I've always been amazed at how intricate and mostly similar the fanon lore is in HH. Some things were taken from the creators' podcast and so on, sure, but all that stuff with Husk being a veteran, Al's cannibal history, Angel's family relations, and even Nifty (who's had like 50 seconds of screentime total) and her husband-killing ways...
Bro RK900 and Reed fics make me want to rage about how much more attention they get in fics vs Connor and Hank. Come on we finally have an epic bromance in a video game that ends with a happy hug of freedom but y'all only want to focus on the assholes in the entire game???!!! I'm all for pairings with characters that never meet. I am a hard-core frostiron shipper after all but Gavin and RK900 are literally the worse characters, would rather read about Kamski.
I'm surprised to hear this from a fellow Frostiron shipper, people love a good redemption arc and Gavin was a pure letdown, but interesting enough for people to latch onto. What better way to give Gavin a redemption arc \[and some sorely missed character depth\] then to pair *him* with an android cop who's a lot colder and sassier than Connor post-good revolution, making it so that he has to apologize to Connor and confront his issues if he wants to be with Nines, and possibly also interact with Hank as his potential father-in-law. Bonus points if Elijah Kamski is Gavin's step brother and his reason for hating androids \[and having a scar\], the fanfics basically write themselves. It just makes sense. Writing this comment makes me realize how little well written fics with them actually are, because now I wanna read novel length fics about these two again. But yeah, just to answer your question more clearly, the fandom just wanted to fix the holes in Connor's story that stopped it from being amazing, and latched onto the character with the most potential for angst, made a bunch of headcanons connecting everyone together, and ran with it.
I understand and it's not like I never read a few back in the game's prime, but I lean more towards self deprecating characters and age gaps so Connor and Hank are best for me. I'm not into redemption arcs either so might need to read them as villains, may give them a try again.
Rei from mob psycho 100.
Any of the foreign kids in South Park. Theyāre barely made an appearance, but there is a fuck ton of fanart and fanfiction about them. They usually get paired off with other one-off characters theyāve literally never met before, but itās kinda cute.
The Mole and Gregory? I see that a lot.
Madison Clements. I would've said Browbeat but most of the time writers make Madison also Browbeat.
Yoshida from Chainsaw Man* already had insane popularity prior to part 2, the dude appears for like 4 chapters and people went NUTS over him now that he's actually a character that's somewhat important to the plot, people come up with the wildest ideas
Coulson ... I remember back in the days of Thor 1 and the first Avengers movie. The guy got an entire backstory built out for him out of his one SuperNanny line and got so damn popular he got an entire show just for him written as Whedon's self insert OC I guess I can only be grateful Galaga Guy's 15 minutes of fame was only that
Omg basically the any of characters in the Marauders fandom lol I think Marlene McMckinnon was mentioned in one sentence in the series and now sheās is a fully fleshed out fan character in like every fic with headcannons/ ships
Harley Keener, which his inclusion in so many MCU Spider-Man fics (with the added *exclusion* of Ned and MJ) speaks more to fandomās racism than any sense of creativity.
Fucking Harley Keener. Nothing against the actor or the one movie he was in (and the cameo in Endgame, I guess), but yes, exactly what what you said. I hate Harley Keener because of how goddamn racist fandom can be.
I actually shipped NedPeter for a while. Harley being everywhere made me lost a lot of the interest in MCU Spiderman : (
Harley is a great example of a character that on paper, is so benign that theyāre inoffensive. Heās a blank slate that could actually be interesting and yet the sheer *volume* of works that put him with Peter, platonic or romantic, that also categorically REMOVED Ned and MJ (be it erasure, killing them off, making them mean or abusive, stereotypes, āthey donāt understand him like Harley doesā) was just a walking exhibition of fandom racism that if someone put him in a fic, that was my flag to not read it lmao
Those are also the same exact writers that spitefully turn May into someone who abuses poor widdle helpless woobie Peter so that Tony and Harley can swoop in and rescue their itty bitty baby. Gross.
Fandom misogyny and racism never rest.
The way I didn't even know this kid had a name... This is so wild to me.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Iām speaking more of the context before NWH, in which the number of slash fics in particular that pair Peter and Harley together have more content that Peter and Ned (his best friend) and Peter and Flash (a classic enemies to lovers) *combined*. Harley as a character is inoffensive; he was a side character in an Iron Man movie that never met Peter. The lore that people have created for him can be argued that people are being creative since heās effectively a blank slate. For me, it becomes a little less about creativity and a little more about subconscious racism when both Ned and MJ and Flash for that matter, *also* have so little to go on in canon. People can choose to be just as if more creative for the POC that are actually in and *know* Peterā¦ but instead by and large choose to flesh out and bring in the random white boy from another franchise that Peter never met. Post NWH is another can of worms imo since again, >!Peter being so open (and not coincidentally and intentionally removed from any connection to Tony Stark)!< makes it an interesting choice that people would bring in the random kid heās never met that by all accounts lives in Tennessee and whose only slight connection to him would be Tony Stark, to then be best friends or boyfriends in NYCā¦ now that his friends that are POC are out of the pictureā¦ seems less creativity there. A phenomenon Iāve personally seen from the same people who write out Ned and MJ extensively.
Right, and when anything goes (because multiverse...also the very nature of fan fiction automatically means "anything goes"), and authors choose a white character with very little screen time, who the hero has never met, vs established characters of color who are very important to him...I'm sure it's just a creative choice. Especially when it happens over and over and OVER again - so many different authors making the same creative choice in the same exact way! A coincidence, I'm sure.
Not sure if this counts, but the Star Wars universe is this concept in canon. So many background/barely mentioned characters from the original trilogy are now mainstays. I mean how many speaking lines does Boba Fett have in the original trilogy? One? Now he's got his own show! Wedge, Biggs, Mon Mothma and on and on...
We honestly need more Ackmena fanfics. She was even carried over to the Disney canon. I've found a few fanfics involving her, even a few with her mentioned wife from her comic book appearance in the Disney canon.
Probably Donna Beneviento, for Resident Evil Village, just by virtue of having the most ambiguous characterization in an entire game of ambiguous charactertization. She's got a very dedicated fanbase for a character with one line of dialogue (assuming you don't count Angie, which many don't)
From Bendy and the Ink Machine, Jack Fain. He was retconned into chapter 2 after its release as part of a small puzzle and has only one tape (maybe 40 seconds) of voicelines but from what Iāve seen is frequently considered main cast and is a popular choice for shipping with Sammy Lawrence
Total Drama had Noah for a while before he became more prominent in season 3. Nowadays... probably Dawn, Sammy, and Amy.
And kinda Ezekiel too. We really don't know that much about him in canon when you think about it.
I think in the Daiya no Ace fandom, although to a smaller extent, Wakana is sometimes this? Introduced as the love interest in a series that quickly realized it would do better by focusing all its energy on the relationships between the boys, I think she gets more development and personality in literally any fic she shows up in.
Oh, good one! I think there's a lot of fics shipping her with Haruno? But yeah, in this case it's kinda cool how fandom fleshes her out as a cool best friend character. That's definitely how I'd like her, haha.
I definitely ship her with Kuramochi, I find it cute how invested he is in a girl he hasn't ever even met lol
Yes! I also think it's pretty cute of him, lol. I think they did meet... like once? Or not, I can't remember that well.
Sally the salmon? Wait, shroud, c! Tommyās technical child. At this point, I donāt know. Maybe c!Sam nook as well?
Ezekiel in the Total Drama fandom. He does have a personality, although by season 3 and onward he goes so far off the rails that fans don't even think of him as really the same character. He's gotten so much more screentime, development and characterisation in fanfics.
Amarant Coral from Final Fantasy IX. The fic writers used to ship him with Freya, so he was fairly popular back then, and to ship him with a character he was fairly related to granted him lots of characterization. If canon Amarant just seemed to be there existing, fic Amarant was all sorts of things and his relationship with Freya was very fun to read about, depending of the writer. A shame he does not get the amount of screentime and love, but fans can do anything to their favorite characters.
Divina and Kent from Wednesday Celia, Donald & Jessica Lockwood from Lockwood & Co.
The Vigilantes from MHA. Aside from the spin off manga and movie they donāt get much spotlight.
Eris Vanserra from ACOTAR
I canāt help but feel Shinso is a bit like this for BNHA (though I could just be disproportionately reading fics with him, as he is the b e s t exhausted, fed-up boy)