People Becoming the Mask in Fan Works.
Crossovers
- The Confectionary Chronicles explores how Gabriel has grown into his role as Loki. After acting as a pagan god for centuries, he has acquired some aspects of their behaviour and abilities, such as an awareness of the faith of his worshippers when they’re conducting prayers and rituals. The only difference between Loki and standard pagans is that he doesn’t ‘need’ faith the way other gods do, although the faith of Hermione Granger gives him a noticeable boost as she conducts rituals to his worship.
- Claymade's The Dark Lords of Nerima is a particularly insightful examination of this trope when a wounded Youma from Sailor Moon is taken in by the Ranma 1/2 crew.
- Explored in the Mass Effect/Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles crossover Drift
, where Cameron has spent a couple hundred years carefully developing an entire personality construct based on her "Allison" memories, effectively becoming an otherwise indistinguishable human. It turns out that Cameron has apparently been using the Allison persona for so long that elements of her have influenced other parts of her "brain", like her combat programs - which she finds quite troubling because she is apparently unable to actually do physical maintenance on her processors. - Equestria Girls: A Fairly Odd Friendship: While she starts out just wanting to keep an eye on Timmy, Sunset gradually becomes a loving sister figure to him. To her credit, she was generally nice and wanted to help him from the start.
- Equestria Girls: Friendship Souls:
- Flash started out as only pretending to have a crush on pony Twilight so she would let her guard down so he could find out more about her. Nowadays, however, he feels the crush isn't nearly as fake anymore.
- This happened to Soul Reaper Discord in the backstory. As the project head of XCution, he was supposed to be researching and testing the Humane Five's mothers under the guise of being a helpful soul training their powers. Over time, his contact with them made the mask become genuine, and he went from using them to doing his damnedest to try and help them. His failure to do that still weighs heavily as one of his biggest failures.
- Adagio's Benevolent Boss treatment of her minions, particularly outside of her inner circle, was at least partially Pragmatic Villainy, but it seems that over time she's come to genuinely care for them.
- Gospel of the Lost Gods: A constant concern among the Wards is making sure that they don't let their duties and actions in Westeros consume their identities.
- Guardians, Wizards, and Kung-Fu Fighters: Chapter 22 ends with a quote by Cyrus Ludmoore about how everyone wears masks, and if you do so long enough, it becomes hard to tell which is more real — the mask you wear, or the face beneath it. Later chapters make it clear that such a conundrum has happened to him, as after all his years undercover in the Rebellion as Drake, he's come to genuinely care about the companions he's manipulating for his family's Long Game.
- Lulu's Bizarre Rebellion: Shirley started out being manipulated into the role of Zero by Lelouch as nothing more than a figurehead with powerful stand, with Lelouch literally dictating her speeches by writing on the inside of her mask with his stand. Then, when she accidentally gets her father killed she retreats into the Zero persona to deal with it, becoming more loyal to the role than to Lelouch and developing her own planning skills.
- Point Me at the Skyrim has Victoria Dallon/Antares being unable to say with a straight face which identity is the real her or if there's any difference anymore. Doesn't help that her superpowers come from an Eldritch Abomination.
- Superwomen of Eva 2: Lone Heir of Krypton: Asuka decided to pretend she was a superheroine... and throughout the story, she becomes one.
- Thousand Shinji: At the beginning, Shinji intended to pretend that he cared about Asuka, Rei, Misato, Touji, Kensuke... in order to manipulate them. However, he quickly came to care for them and regard them as his family sincerely.
- In Truth and Revelations, Daniel has become so used to his new identity that he even asks his old friends, such as Hermione and Hagrid, to start calling him Daniel rather than "Harry". The transition is 'aided' by the Fake Memories he included of Daniel Jackson's past, including the death of Daniel's parents, who Daniel essentially considers his 'real' parents as he has literally no memories of James and Lily to be properly attached to them.
- The Seraphim, the major antagonist of Angel of the Bat, doesn't have the prestigious lineage he claims he does, he's just so crazy he forgot what he was saying was a lie to gain followers.
- From the Cylons' perspective, this is what happened to Boomer in Did I Make the Most of Loving You? (in reality, her restored memories of the future just helped her commit to the Colonials even knowing that she was a Cylon).
- In the Heirverse series, this is pretty much how Gin and Aizen get together. YMMV though as this could just as easily be a case of Beneath the Mask and some of Kyouka's comments would imply that.
Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Wars!
- Zaysen in The Bucky O'Hare Web Series. A toad spy altered to resemble a hare named Renfield, he's placed in mammal society and very quickly becomes enamored with the freedom of expression and choice it offers, at least in comparison to that of the toads. He develops close friendships with his co-workers, and even begins dating one, and gradually starts feeling guilty for secretly betraying them the whole time. Although he faces some hurdles (a big one being that he's outed and captured), he gradually assimilates more or less perfectly, and even his boyfriend doesn't entirely mind that he's a toad.
- Applies to Faith in Worlds Apart; in this version of events she initially just pretended to defect to the Mayor so that she could be a double agent, but eventually decided that the mayor was treating her better than the Scoobies and defected for real.
- Lelouch of the Rebellion RX: Demonic Knights has Lelouch abandon his apathetic schoolboy personality completely and fully become Zero before using his Geass on Emperor Charles to erase everything except for his memories of being Zero. Even after his memories are restored in Chapter Ten, Lelouch continues to believe that he is Zero whenever he is with most of the Black Knights.
- In My Mirror, Sword and Shield, Suzaku was an Ordinary High-School Student turned unintentional time-traveler. Fearing how his appearance could butterfly the War of Ascencion and erase his timeline, he joins Emperor Lelouch's Evil Empire as a knight. Suzaku puts on the facade of being a loyal obedient knight to Lelouch in order to keep track of him and make sure that Lelouch dies at the right time. When he refuses to give up Lelouch to the JLF despite being unarmed and surrounded in the Battle of Narita and being promised to be absolved for his actions. Suzaku then realizes that he is genuinely loyal to Lelouch. Which complicates things.
- In Resurrected Memories: Ember starts up the whole "Amberline" charade in order to get close to Danny in order to destroy him, the first part of the plan works so well that she ends up falling in love with him and gives up all of her evil plans, she even reaches a point where she’s willing to swear off her ghost half permanently for him.
- Renamon is this in Digimon Trinity. As it turns out, she only partnered with Rika in the first place because Apocalymon ordered it, as he wanted to learn how to use the bond between Digimon and Tamer to strengthen the Nightmare Soldiers. No one anticipated that she would actually come to care for Rika.
- In the Princess of the Isle series, Audrey (Descendants) has been maintaining a second identity as 'Addie' on the Isle of the Lost for years with the aid of her adopted grandmother, Angelina Jolie's Maleficent. However, when Ben states that he won't be releasing some of the other Villain Kids from the Isle yet, Audrey briefly goes full 'Addie' when Ben and Mal decide to keep the barrier up rather than release Gil (who Audrey regards as her True Love) and other less evil villain kids.
- FNAFNG: During the events of Space Furries, Brianna was sent to work at the Mega Pizzaplex by Shadow Bonnie in order to spy on the people working as entertainers. However, after developing a crush on Vanessa, she soon embraced her new calling as a Glamrock Baby, genuinely loving her job and falling in love with Vanessa.
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
- In Where there is strife, there is Pride, rather than posing as the Fuhrer's son as in canon, Pride is set up to be adopted by Maes and Gracia Hughes in order to keep a closer eye on Maes' close friend Roy Mustang. While he initially disdains them and is aggravated at being forced to act the part of a cheerful, innocent child even in private, the Hughes' doting behavior and genuine love grows on him over the years (especially contrasted with his cold, dutiful relationship with Father), and though he tries to justify it to himself as merely appreciating the attention and care he is naturally due, he becomes truly fond of them (and eventually Elicia when she is born, quickly developing a strong Big Brother Instinct) even as he continues working toward Father's goal. Eventually, his doubts and conflicting loyalties lead to him saving Maes' life when he is targeted by the other homunculi after figuring out Father's plan, and his justifications become more and more flimsy even to himself. Maes and Gracia learning the truth and still loving him and considering him their son regardless finally pushes him into a full-on Heel–Face Turn. By the end, he comes to realize that "Selim Hughes" has in fact become more than just an affected persona for him and accepts it and his family as a part of who he now is (tellingly, during his encounter with Truth he is addressed as both "Pride" and "Selim").
- In Shifting Heaven and Earth, Kralel is tasked by Gabriel to spy on Aziraphale for evidence of corruption or dereliction of duty while pretending to just be his assistant-in-training but he grows genuinely fond of Aziraphale and ends up going to great lengths to help him even against Gabriel's wishes.
Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi / The Untamed
- In the Everyone Lives With Knives continuity, Jin Guangyao goes from using his nieces and nephews’ need for his care as a way to increase his own fortune to genuinely loving them.
- John-117 in Company0051. As such, he certainly doesn't appreciate the having to be out of armor, and to make matters worse the armor in question is kept by a scientist who seems to have a bit of a fetish for it...
- In Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness, from the perspective of Hogwarts students in 1997-8, there's no real difference between Severus Snape pretending to be evil so as not to make Voldemort suspicious, and Snape actually being evil.
- In Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality we learn that one of the villains originally constructed their villainous identity simply to test their allies and provide an enemy for them to rally against, but became disillusioned when they failed to put up an effective resistance and eventually came to enjoy the role and the respect it afforded him from their fellow villains.
- The Reveal in the middle of Chapter 3 of Finding Freedom. You thought that the Beta Couple's main reason for being added in the previous chapter was to give the other main character a boyfriend too or to be the cute established couple? Think again."Don't be stupid, although I know you can't help that. Kiku's... not my type."
Also a lie, Heracles told himself. He definitely felt something for the other man, cherished his time with him and his quirks and just... all that made him who he was. When he kissed him, it was real. By now, everything he did with Kiku was real.
- In Cheat Codename, Blue Laser tried to manipulate Reynold into becoming his lackey, but he slowly realizes he cares for and values him.
- The Smeet Series: In the third story, Indokani, Tenn is sent to infiltrate the kurokani program, disguised as a Kryvtor. In the process, she gets close to several of the other trainees and is surprised to find herself coming to genuinely like them.
- Queen of Shadows: Thanks to Shendu trying to rewrite the Book of Ages, Jade Chan ends up in an alternate reality where she has replaced the queen of an empire of Shadowkhan. Trying to fulfill the role so she isn't caught out, Jade unknowingly does a better job of being the queen than the real queen. Her advisors take this more as her developing into a true leader than anything suspicious.
- Of Woman Born: Diana Brando, a female version of Dio, plots to marry her adoptive brother Jonathan Joestar as it is the best chance she has to sustain a living in Victorian England, acting as a smitten girl in his presence to get him to fall for her. She does end up falling for Jonathan's kindness... but by then Jonathan has come to love her as a little sister.
- Subverted in Surface Tension. When she began falling for Malon and later Ruto, Zelda tried to make herself believe that she was just really into being her male disguise Sheik. No, she's a lesbian who has had a hard time accepting it.
- A Piece of Rebellion: Bad Cop/Good Cop initially plans on tricking Wyldstyle and the rest of the rebellion into believing that Bad Cop is a darker side of Good Cop, and that he legitimately wants to help them fight President Business. Over time, however, Good Cop finds himself sympathizing with the Master Builders more and more, and subsequently clashing with his brother over how they should proceed.
- In Where There's Smoke There's... A Smoker?, Marinette blurts out to Adrien that she is smoking to explain why she was in an alleyway alone instead of powering down from Ladybug. She even gets actual cigarettes to cover her claim. By the end of the story, she admits that she has become addicted to smoking as it helps relieve stress from being the new Guardian and Ladybug.
- Angela's Pet Monster involves Randall getting adopted by a human girl. At first, he doesn't care much for her, only wanting food and warmth. However, he quickly grows to like her, which leads to his Heel–Face Turn.
- Flashback: When Eri reverts All Might's body back to its prime, he regains his former idealism — something which had degraded into being a mask he wore to reassure others. He resolves not just to beat the villains, but to do all he can to help those in need.
- After being declared leader of the "Villain" side of the exercise in Hero Class Civil Warfare, Izuku spends an entire weekend pouring over movies where the villain is a main character (including The Godfather, The Dark Knight, Ocean's Eleven, and the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe) to create the perfect villain persona as "Kingpin." He then spends the rest of his prep time helping his teammates do the same. While it goes a long way towards helping them win, the observing teachers become concerned they're getting a little too into character after the Villain Team blows up a building. It turns out Izuku predicted this possibility, and recruited Shinsou specifically to act as a Morality Chain should he start to get Lost in Character.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- In the short comic Becoming The Facade, by Rated-R-PonyStar, two changelings kill and assume the lives of two royal guards, one of whom has a family; the assigned changeling develops genuine feelings. Unfortunately, he successfully procreates with his "wife"; before he can come to terms, he comes across his partner's grisly slaughter of the family, in an attempt to Maintain the Lie. Enraged, the changed changeling kills him without a second thought., whilst shouting 'Bastard!'.
- Anchor Foal: While Fleur intends to stay professionally detached, only acting as though she's friends with Fluttershy and Caramel, she gradually shows signs of growing legitimately fond of both and actually befriending them. This eventually reaches the point where she actually falls in love with Fluttershy.
- Zigzagged in Bride of Discord, where Discord has feelings for Fluttershy from the beginning, but initially tries to justify his attempts at wooing her to himself as an attempt to manipulate her into falling in love with him, so she would be unwilling to join her friends in trying to stop him when he finally targets the rest of Equestria. But as the story goes on, he eventually forgets about the manipulation angle and is genuinely trying to convince her to marry him for its own sake.
- In Diaries of a Madman, Bon Bon has been away from the changeling hive and amongst ponies for so long that she's come to consider herself as a pony foremost.
- In Who We Are, one of the Mane Six is revealed to secretly be a changeling. While it's never revealed which of them is, she's shown to be far less concerned with being outed as a changeling and more with losing her friends.
- In Without a Hive, by Phoenix_Dragon, a novice Changeling Infiltrator named Nictis is cut off from his Hive, and forced to pretend to be a (female) Pony named Meadow Song for many, many years, during which it has no contact with his own kind. As the years pass, the identity of Meadow becomes all too real, causing a slow change in Nictis's own loyalties and values.
- Really, almost any Naruto fanfic that has the word 'mask' in the title.
- Likewise, in many Naruto fanfics where he uses Kage Bunshin that have to act like someone other than himself, they end up actually thinking of themselves as their adopted persona. Case in point, in The Ninth Sekirei Pillar, a pair of clones pretending to be a married couple actually start thinking of themselves as a married couple. Naruto doesn't protest their moves to prevent their dispelling since he "doesn't want memories of fucking himself".
- Likewise, in many Naruto fanfics where he uses Kage Bunshin that have to act like someone other than himself, they end up actually thinking of themselves as their adopted persona. Case in point, in The Ninth Sekirei Pillar
- Blackkat's Reverse: Originally, Kurama's search for the other jinchuuriki is mainly motivated by his desire to find a place to hide Naruto, the only one he cares about. Over time, however, he gets attached to Gaara, Fuu, and Yugito after seeing that all three of them are just lost, neglected children who don't have anywhere else to go.
- In Deep Cover, Naruto gets sent on a mission to infiltrate the Sound village, with the idea that his behavior is so loud and obvious that nobody would suspect him hiding something. He betrays Konoha and has a romantic moment with Tayuya while watching it burn. Thinking back on how he made his decision, he realizes that at some point in the past, he stopped caring about Konoha and decided that Sound was his home.
- A Drop of Poison: Several of Naruto's shadow clones adopt full-time disguises; the longer they live, the more they adopt traits from their cover identities, to the point of effectively becoming unique individuals in their own right.
- Little Uzumaki: When Team Seven falls into a Fountain of Youth, Naruto and Sakura lose all their memories of their past lives. Sasuke, by contrast, retains his memories but pretends to have been fully reverted just like his teammates. However, he occasionally finds himself reacting to things in childish ways that he didn't intend to react, making him fear that the Fountain still had some effect upon his mind.
- Subverted and then played straight in Snapshots of The life and times of Hatake Kakashi, Nukenin where Ran has been one of Konaha's top 5 longest running infiltration, after ten years in the Grass village, but when she's ordered to 'go nukenin' and get close to the titular character, she finds that she rather enjoys the freedom that being a nukenin offers.
- White Rain has Itachi Uchiha and Lucia van Alstyne; the former's motivations were only revealed long after his death, while the latter only came to realize it after being interviewed by Ibiki.
- A Crown of Stars: Discussed in chapter 34. Asuka says she has worn so many masks during her life that she is not sure of what is her real self anymore. Another character suggests that she should choose one mask and wear it until it becomes real.
- Camouflage Contract, a Super Junior fanfic about the Eunhyuk/Donghae couple (more commonly known as EunHae) is all about this trope. Eunhyuk gets Donghae into a fake relationship with him so he can avoid others' suspicions and in turn Donghae can raise his son well instead of having to be a prostitute every day for money. At first it was only temporary, but through time, they truly fall in love with each other and decide to settle with the other for real.
- After exonerating Naofumi in Ambition of the Red Princess, Malty thinks to herself that she'll have to become Mien the Adventurer for real now as she won't be able to rely on her royal status anymore.
- Jaune in Forged Destiny. At the beginning of the story, he is merely a disguised Blacksmith pretending to be a Knight with none of the knowledge or skills to back it up. After a few adventures though, he develops into one of the most heroic characters of the main cast with a knack for tactics and improvisation that makes him one of the more valuable party members.I was a Blacksmith, but I'd never felt less like one than I did right now. I could remember back when Beacon started and that reality had plagued me every day.[...] No one could look at me and think I was a Blacksmith. I never acted like it.
- Emerald and Mercury in A Monster's Marriage pretended to be ordinary civilians around Jaune because Cinder demanded it, wanting to keep that part of her life away from her husband. When Cinder is forced to turn against Salem's forces (due to Watts blackmailing her and Neo wanting Watts dead), Mercury remarks that when he was around Jaune, he didn't have to be "Mercury Black, professional killer"; he could just be "Merc" and he liked being Merc. Emerald admits the same about being "Em".
- Jaune Arc in Professor Arc goes from a bumbling Butt-Monkey doing his best to act like the professional Hunter his credentials paint him as to a serious professor who frequently forgets he's the same age (or younger in some cases) as his students and a genuine badass who's acknowledged as a hero.
- A Rabbit Among Wolves: Jaune, through a series of freak accidents, ends up in control of a White Fang branch and branded public enemy #1. He steels himself to the task of reforming his branch, if only to clear his name and convince everyone he isn't a monster. However, he becomes increasingly more concerned with helping to reform White Fang, as he witnesses (and experiences himself) the injustices Faunus in Remnant go through.
- Cinder Fall in The RWBY Loops zigzags this trope something fierce. Because of the way the time loops work, she decides to fake a friendly looping identity with which to socialize with the good guys whilst simultaneously indulging her villainous side in secret. The two identities both manage to grow stronger and cause more internal conflict to the point where, with a little assistance from an outside force, they become independent and unaware of each other. This does not end well.
- The King Nobody Wanted: Falena Lothston and Uthera Ruari are heavily implied to be Blackfyre spies pent to infiltrate Viserys' court. However, based on a conversation Oswell overheard, the two are genuinely fond of Viserys and mean him no harm. Uthera expresses a desire to have Viserys marry her younger sister so that the Blackfyres and Targaryens will become one family and finally stop fighting each other.
- In Sean Bean Saves Westeros, the "real life" Sean Bean is transported into the land of Westeros of A Song of Ice and Fire. Now living as Ned Stark, not just playing him on TV, Sean Bean has a hard time not accepting Ned's family as truly his own, especially after Sansa is rescued.
- A Pretense of Romance starts with Daniel offering to pretend to date Sam to encourage Jack to acknowledge his own feelings for her (Sam resigned from the Air Force in protest of a dangerous order and is thus no longer in SG-1). However, as the fake relationship unfolds, Daniel ends up falling for Sam for real, and Sam later realizes that she feels the same way. That said, when they talk about their new relationship in the final chapter, both of them reflect on past moments where they realize with hindsight they felt a certain jealousy towards the idea of someone else being interested in the other.
- The Naked Jedi: Essentially how Sarza and her apprentice stop the monster on Honoghr; they reach out and convince the creature that it truly is the life-forms it's imitating, essentially forcing it into dormancy.
- Jimmy's Visit With Dr. Franklin: Initially Virgil and Richie were just pawns in Jimmy's plan of bringing his brother back to life however they started to grow on him when they were at his house and he felt genuine remorse both after scarring them away after he tried to show them his dad's gun and for accidentally shooting Richie in the leg.
- In Pulse, Pearl only accepted Amethyst as a teammate because Rose ordered her to. Over the millennia, Pearl's barely-hidden distrust of/apathy for Amethyst grew into real friendliness."No, Amethyst," Pearl said quietly. "You're wonderful. We all thought you were."
"No, you didn't!" shouted Amethyst. "I bet you would've killed me if Rose wasn't there."
"I probably would have," said Pearl, "and it would've been a horrible mistake."
- It's All in the Details:
- Thanks to Gabriel’s efforts in creating a new background for Castiel he has a ‘valid’ identity as a pagan god, with the result that prayers to ‘Kaseva’ will actually summon Castiel (although he is not subject to the weaknesses of a pagan god).
- Word of God explicitly states that Chuck is God (written before that was confirmed in the show), but most of the time He just acts like Chuck, only allowing his true self to slip through on a few moments.
- This trope is a major part of Avatar. As far as Robin's concerned, when the mask goes on he is Robin - Tim Drake (unusually for a Teen Titans fic, Robin is the Tim Drake version rather than the Dick Grayson one) doesn't exist. He deliberately wears the mask at all times, even when hanging out with the other Titans, because he considers leading the Titans a 24/7/365 job, so he decided to simply stop being Tim, who he feels doesn't have what it takes to be a hero.
- Suikakasen: Kasen pretends to want to help Yoshika become a hermit after she realizes that she can get Yoshika to gather the materials she needs to get past gate Rajoumon so that she can retrieve her severed arm. After Kasen gets Yoshika to buy both books about hermit training and barriers, a Good-Times Montage plays that first portrays Yoshika engaging in hermit training at the instruction of the books while Kasen focuses on the books about barriers. As the montage goes on, however, Kasen starts to develop a genuine friendship with Yoshika and begins listening to the hermit training documents too. Once Kasen realizes this trope is in action, she doesn't take it too well and plans to covertly off Yoshika, but Yoshika tells Kasen about how grateful she is to have met her and adds that she can't stop fearing the day of her death when they are apart. This makes Kasen undergo a Heel Realization and confess the truth about who she really is and that she used Yoshika. Yoshika doesn't mind because of their friendship and suggests that Kasen could get over her Loss of Identity by becoming a hermit together with her. Kasen's present-day character title being "One-Armed Horned Hermit" should tell you all that you need to know from this point.
- Ripples: Will Vandam becomes Trapped in the Past of Meridian, as well as de-aged; however, she's convinced the whole thing is a Lotus-Eater Machine as part of some convoluted plot of Phobos. She plays along, taking the name Van Rivers, eventually becoming the friend and confidant of the child version of Prince Phobos. By the time she realizes it isn't an illusion, and that she's really trapped in this new timeline forever, she's spent so long as "Van Rivers", and become so distanced from "Will Vandam" that it's hard to think of herself by that identity. She also finds that, having spent so many years convinced everyone around her was only an illusion, she has a very difficult time "remembering to care" about anyone besides a select few. She eventually decides it's easier to embrace the "Van" idenity, if only as a way to cope.
- Lord Doom: Taylor originally created the persona of Lord Doom so she'd have the funds and parts necessary for her tinkertech. Months after retiring Lord Doom in the epilogue, she admits that she retained more of his personality than she'd like to admit. When Shadow Stalker pushes her buttons one too many times, Taylor threatens her as Lord Doom, revealing she was the villain all along.
- A literal example in With This Ring. In the Renegade timeline, Orange Lantern rolled with the mistaken identification of being Grayven in order to foil several Apokoliptian invasion schemes for earth by 'claiming it as his own'. However, as part of this masquerade, and also as a general Power-Up, he used a piece of Apokoliptian technology to reshape his body and soul in Grayven's image (gaining Super-Strength, Super-Toughness, Healing Factor, and powerful innate magic). Since doing so, he has found himself having flashbacks to Grayven's past and is finding difficulty separating his SI past life and Grayven's in his memories.
