THE FANDOM FLANDERIZATION MEME

[elfstoned]

We all know how fandom flanderizes characters, but what if Save the Earth were a television show?

How would fandom get it wrong?



HOW IT WORKS:
Post a comment with your character journal explaining generally what the twisted and horrible fanon version of your character is. What less significant personality traits do they fixate on? How do the thirteen-year-olds on fanfiction.net write them? Who are they shipped with ad nauseum? What are they like in Omegaverse?

OPTIONAL: Reply IC to others' comments as your own flanderized fanon character, or feel free to have the real version express horror and disgust (or vicious amusement).

Have fun!!

Comments

GUNTHER MAAKE | GAMZEE MAKARA

[coulrage]

The fandom doesn't know what the fuck to do with this boy so most of the time he's shoved into the corner and a bunch of 420 references and swearwords are jammed into his mouth. Ironically he's almost never portrayed as a bad influence; more as a poor defenseless soul whose family was horrible to him and who never meant to hurt anybody ever. Even if he kills someone it's not his fault ever there's just voices telling him to and it's not under his control.

On the other hand there are those fans to enjoy his possibly insanity and stretch it as much as they can; to the point where it starts to seem like the echoes mean nothing, and he was just a manipulative freak from the beginning. They seem to have a real thing for giving him sadistic tendencies toward Karson in particular. They make it so that he's not scared of going crazy at all, he's just playing victim so people will be easier to grab.

And oh man do they love shipping Gunther and Karson, that is the king ship. Since Gunther is taller and stronger and has all the disturbing nightmares, he gets to be a sugoi manry seme who completely ignores Karson's boundaries for some reason or another and a lot of the fanfics are really uncomfortable reads. Also, kinks aplenty because the fandom has kindly forgotten how upset hurting someone makes him.

Hikari x Gunther, Dr. Strider x Gunther, Colette x Gunther and even Jack Valenti x Gunther have all been spotted on FF.net. Most of Tumblr's fanbase is very confused by this.

Since half the fandom don't actually know how mental illnesses, drugs or clown obsessions even work, a lot of fanwork portrays mostly stereotypes with Gunther's face dumped on them. If they're not convinced he's a glorified teenage Joker, they're sure he's a lazy crybaby who does basically nothing but lay on Karson's floor and whine/sleep.

Once upon a time some obscure writer wrote a fanfic where Gunther moved in with the Valentis and ended up with Jack acting as his grudging father figure, along with a whole lot of sexual tension with Karson happening. The fandom clings to this as part of canon despite the fact that basically all of their personalities are way too forgiving of triggers in the interest of making the AU work.