Many fanfiction writers have made
Deconstruction Fic that deconstructed both the original franchise and its characters.
- At The Food Court was written solely as a Take That! against Cori Falls's infamous fanfiction, particularly The Prodigal Parents, in which Ash becomes a Future Loser with severe delusions and who can no longer live unassisted because he has the mental age of a kindergartener. (In case it isn't clear, The Prodigal Parents was a bashfic written from a pro-Team Rocket perspective.) At the Food Court reinterprets everything, taking canon and basic human decency into account, showing that Ash was once a normal kid whose life was ruined by criminals who beat him up so severely, he had to be hospitalized, and permanently regressed to the cognitive level of a kindergartener due to massive brain damage. It doesn't shy away from showing how horrible a fate Ash suffers and that no one could possibly inflict that on someone and remain sympathetic. Without the Protagonist-Centered Morality in The Prodigal Parents, Jessie and James are not heroes, but villains.
- The (Edit) War for Ash’s Freedom to not be Betrayed is one long deconstruction of the prevalent Darker and Edgier Betrayal Fic genre in the fandom (and all the tropes that come with) in the form of the titular edit war, a fight between Arceus and a figure named Darkern Edgier over Ash's fate. The latter's plans are often derailed by characters actually acting in-character (especially when it comes to Ash's The Pollyanna and All-Loving Hero traits), his preaching about "strong" and "OU tier" Pokémon falls flat because it relies entirely on gamesverse statistics that tend to be ignored in the anime (e.g. Ash manages to beat three of those "OU tier" Pokémon with the statistically-weaker Unfezant simply because he has more battle experience than their trainers), and reality refuses to be ignored whenever he tries to make Ash suffer (e.g. he tries to kill Pikachu with a horde of Pokémon that's 4x weak to Pikachu's Electric attacks, leading to Pikachu curbstomping them all).
- There are a lot of fanfics out there in which Ash is made invincible, and it is perfectly possible to interpret The Greatest There Was or Ever Will Be as a deconstruction of them, because the first chapter is nothing but how Arceus set things up from the very beginning to favor Ash and give him superpowers (such as overwhelming charisma and the ability to make all of his Pokémon accept his Training from Hell) that he logically should not possess. And yes, Ash does let all of his power go to his head occasionally, which terrifies both his friends and himself, when he returns to lucidity. It's as if the writer is sending a message that such an Invincible Hero is only possible in these fanfics because of authorial intervention.
- Kindred Spirits
, an AU of Pokémon: The First Movie, deconstructs Common Mary Sue Traits. The heroine is an O.C. Stand-in rather than an actual OC, massive changes must be made to the setting for her to even existnote as the canon character she is based on is dead by the time the anime takes place, the fact that she shares her name with the fic's author is pure coincidence as a result, and, even though she befriends the canon characters instantly and scenes from the movie proceed all but unchanged except for her giving a line of dialogue here or there, her presence has actually made the situation worse. - Lamentations of a Pidgeot deconstructs the common joke among the fandom about Ash never visiting Pidgeot like he promised when he released her into the wild, when in reality, this promise is a line exclusive to the English dub of the anime, and Pidgeot was simply released normally. First, Pidgeot goes into denial, telling herself that Ash will come back and later worrying that he may be hurt. Then she hears Delia and Professor Oak talking about Ash's latest adventure in Johto. She keeps waiting until she eventually gives up. And finally, she reaches the anger stage and never quite leaves it, attacking trainers who try to catch Pokemon in that area because she doesn't want them to go through what she went through. It should be noted that this story was written before the finale to Pokémon: To Be a Pokémon Master, where Pidgeot does in fact rejoin Ash.
- No Antidote shreds The Power of Friendship... and you may never look at your starters the same way again. Or any of your other Pokémon.
- A Pikachu in Love is Deconstruction for OC/Canon pairings, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl character type, and the ideal that Ash and Pikachu's bond will always remain strong. Though the latter gets Reconstruction at the end of the fic, and though Pichi did manage to pick Pikachu up when he was questioning his relationship with Ash, Pichi's wacky and carefree antics nearly get Pikachu killed by an Ursaring later on in the fic, and this causes her to suffer a temporary Heroic BSoD as result. On top of that, her attempts to make Pikachu lighten eventually leads to heartache for both of them when Pichi realizes she's in love Pikachu, and though Pikachu loves her too, it was because of her that he realized his bond with Ash was too strong for him to ever leave him, and decides to stick with Ash until the end.
- Poké Wars is this for the Pokémon revolution genre with it pulling absolutely no punches with showing how divisive and destructive such an act would be. It also highlights how lethal the Pokémon can be.
- Pokémon: The Mew-sical deconstructs Ash's bond with Pikachu — when Team Rocket successfully kidnaps Pikachu, Ash goes crazy, and becomes willing to stop at nothing to get him back. Though Ash recovers Pikachu and all is right at the end, the implication is clear that, if he had failed, Ash would have become just like Giovanni (whose reason for villainy in this is because he himself lost his own Pikachu) in time.
- Pokémon Reset Bloodlines deconstructs a few tropes in its main story and the side stories that apply to both the series in general and fanfiction in general.
- The historical criminal 20 Gyarados Bill deconstructs the Magikarp Power trope by having a villain realize he can take the cruddy fish found everywhere there is water and make them badass. He does so, and uses them to go on a villainous rampage instead, for after all it is not just heroes capable of taking the slow path to greatness.
- The Path of Most Resistance trope is also deconstructed: while the main story and the Astrid oneshot show that trainers like Ash and the OC Vermell can use this trope to truly prepare themselves for basically anything, the Cipher one-shot introduces the readers to a rookie trainer named Shawn who tries the same thing, by taking on the Orre region of all places. Because he wasn't truly prepared to handle such a tough path, he ends up with no money and forced to join a criminal organization to survive.
- Mundane Utility is deconstructed in the Sabrina Gaiden. Sabrina's father convinces her to use her powers to help people in her hometown. Unfortunately, many people begin to take advantage of her goodwill, asking her for help in easy tasks they could do themselves, which builds up a lot of resentment and eventually sparks her Start of Darkness.
- Sex God is also given a beating in Chapter 27. Anna notes that the lover she had who sired Arnold is by far the most sexually pleasing lover she ever had, but she notes that the physical pleasure involved was missing something. She notes that two later lovers, who were nowhere near as good as he was, had it. Basically the point there is just being an excellent lover physically can't match lower quality lovemaking where genuine affection and care are in play. Notably, Reset is a Harem Fic, where characters capable of immense physical love to every XX chromosomed being the writer likes is commonplace and often exists in place of non-sexual romantic connections.
- The fanfic in the same point draws a slight but noticeable difference between physical and emotional fulfillment in sex. You can enjoy one on its own, but having one does not mean you have the other. The first character in story noted to having both is a villain, and the fic's Knight of Cerebus at that: as you don't need to be a good person overall to qualify, but be a good person to the one(s) you are having sex with to qualify for the trope. Just being morally lower than others doesn't decrease your ability to provide physical or emotional pleasure in the act.
- Famed In-Story is given a hard blow in Chapter 29: Ash, unlike in canon, is recognized for his past accomplishments, but this also means people know what to expect from him. Janine changes her strategy around from her usual specifically to counter him (by using Stealth Rock, knowing that his two most likely Pokemon to use against her are Charizard and Butterfree, she cripples much of his team). While he still wins the fight, it is a lot harder than it would have been normally and such a trend is likely to only continue with later gym leaders and challengers (and does in the case of Blaine, who outwits Ash in a game of I Know You Know I Know and outplans Ash's own plans against him. While Ash does win again, it is made clear that being Famed In-Story made it harder than it would have been otherwise).
- The fic early on deconstructs the idea of breaking Ash (and other anime protagonists in Pokémon) from the Status Quo Is God trope: while Ash does demonstrate some frustration with being under it early on, it is made clear that the Status Quo also keeps things from turning too dark, even as it makes it so they never win. With it removed, MissingNo outright spells it out that all paid an Equivalent Exchange to be free of it, regardless of the fact that none of them chose to. Now Ash and all of the protagonists are free to pursue their dreams and achieve them, but at a cost that ranges in intensity for each of them, first shown by Brock being able to find love at the cost of both of his parents being dead at the start of the story. The Status Quo sucks, but removing it leads to issues that they are not used to, nor are pleasant.
- Red's memetic status as a silent badass is also deconstructed. Red legitimately has socialization issues that make it hard for him to bond with people and Pokémon alike, as seen in his interactions with Ash and co. in chapter 26 and his own Pokémon in his One Island Oneshot. While he is still skilled and is not a bad person in the inside, these issues do make his goals harder to reach. In particular Mega Evolution is something he is told by Siebold he will struggle with because of his social issues with his Pokémon, even though the author does make it clear that Red does not mistreat them. This trend continues during the Two Island Interlude, as shown by the fact that, despite having a closer bond with his Charizard than with most of his other Pokémon, it's not strong enough for him to learn Blast Burn from Ultima (as it's powered by the friendship between trainer and Pokémon), and also has led him to not to pay enough attention to his Clefairy's Ax-Crazy tendencies or how to deal with them.
- In the same Two Island Interlude, Red's Combat Pragmatist philosophy is also partially deconstructed. His mother taught him that not giving your all against an opponent is seen as an insult and lack of respect. However, during his battle with Ultima, she defeats him with ease, despite her Dragonite not even using its full strength, as the only purpose was to gauge Charizard's power. When Red is upset about this, Ultima points out that, barring a life-or-death situation, she's not going to cripple an opponent, showing that, at least for competitive battling, sometimes holding back isn't necessarily a bad thing.
- Chapter 41 of the main story takes a shot at the idea of a 'Chosen One' and the rarity of humans with 'pure hearts': Raikou claims that there are many humans with pure hearts even in a single village and that the majority of humans other than them aren't evil. Ho-Oh is well aware of this fact and just avoids humanity in general because it has grown to prefer isolation. Deconstruction does not need to be dark and edgy.
- Chapter 46 takes a hammer to the idea of battle-winning evolution: Pava's Dragonair evolved into Dragonite while battling Ash in the first round of Indigo. Despite the power boost she was unable to win. Pava also deconstructs a common action in game of pushing through the games with a single overleveled Pokémon: not only did this not work in the end for her it also was not a result of laziness but the fact that her time was so limited by family issues she only had time to fully train one Pokémon (Dragonair).
- By the same author, Shudo cross Modern Ash: The Trainer who Questions Humanity takes the original ideas of head writer Shudo and applies them full on to not only later developments to the series (such as Ash's later higher performances and companions, and Ash's rivalry with Paul), and a few fanon ideas for improving the series such as Ash catching more Pokémon and trainers starting at an older, more sex appropriate age. The result: An Ash who has steadily become more jaded with most of humanity outside of the higher leveled broad trainer-coordinator circuit, a vast majority of children being born without fathers to a point that marriage is rare and teen pregnancies are not at all uncommon, and Ash getting to a point the main difference between himself and N is that N would separate all humans from all Pokémon, while Ash would prefer to simply remove Pokémon from people that he thinks shouldn't have them. A number that ranges from thousands to millions.
- Pokemon Wars Of The Dark, as it's a Follow the Leader fic towards Pokémon Reset Bloodlines, also trends to deconstruct several tropes.
- The fic deconstructs the trend of giving MissingNo Adaptational Villainy. MissingNo makes it clear he's aware of how many people see him as a monster, and he's not happy with it.
- The Fandom-Specific Plot of "The reason Ash is 10 is because Ho-Oh keeps him that way" is deconstructed. Ho-Oh's actions caused Ash to lose a piece of his heart and the appearance of a massive amount of space-time distortions that would have lead to Cyrus winning if they went unchecked. When Arceus finds out, the fragment is put through a Tomato in the Mirror reveal, enters the denial and anger stages and never seems to leave them, becoming an Omnicidal Maniac going as Glitchy Red as a result.
- In this fic, there's a deconstruction of a deconstruction. As noted above at Reset, while the status quo sucks, it prevented things from becoming too bleak. However, Wars of the Dark shows that the idea that Ash and his friends would have to pay horrible prices for breaking the status quo is so over the top that it cannot happen without the intervention of a supernatural being (read: the author). To wit, in a similar manner to The (Edit) War For Ash's Freedom To Not Be Betrayed, Glitchy Red tried to make some changes to the world to make Ash and his friends suffer (notably, the changes are the same ones that occur in Reset), only for MissingNo to alter those changes in an effort to minimize the damage. Both the status quo and unpleasant issues that the cast cannot possibly be prepared for are additions from the writers.
- Symbiosis deconstructs aspects of Pokémon: The Series by showing that the criminal elements of various region outright conflicting with each other and compete with each other. Brock's Parental Abandonment by his father has left emotional scars on him due to his Promotion to Parent and having to give up his dreams to run the gym. When his father came back, Brock's lack of anger towards him is seen as running away from his emotional problems. Being able to speak to Pokémon is made a bigger deal than the anime, as since their society revolves around Pokémon people with that ability are very valuable... to the point that criminal organizations will outright try to enslave them if they're caught. Jessie and James deconstruct the Token Good Teammate, as they are far from ineffective. Due to their inherent innocence, there is nothing they wouldn't do in order to stop the "good guys."
- The one-shot Tobias Is Arrested, Yo deconstructs the Fandom-Specific Plot "Tobias' Sinnoh League win is invalidated because using Legendary Pokémon is banned". As Tobias points out to the police officers that come in to arrest him, if using Legendaries was really illegal, he'd have been informed of this long before he made it to the tournament, and a number of people (including the Gym Leaders and the League staff) would be in major trouble for letting him continue regardless. The author also gives an interesting take on the character — not only was he inspired by Ash to enter the League in the first place, but "Tobias" turns out to be a collective false identity being used by a number of Legendary Pokémon Ash met on his travels. His infamous Darkrai in particular is the same one from Pokémon: The Rise of Darkrai, who is rather miffed that a couple of idiotic humans are trying to take the trophy they earned away before he can even show it to Alice.
- The Trainer from a Far-Away Land deconstructs Team Plasma's agenda on the part of the Pokémon. Snivy doesn't hate all trainers, she just wants a better one. While N's Zorua doesn't want N to fulfill his goal of Pokémon-Human separation as it means N will abandon him.
- When a Dream is Done takes apart the frequent fan canon of 'Ash goes to Mt. Silver and becomes a total badass champion'. He does...but not only does he discover that Victory Is Boring, but the isolation and fixation on battles have also seriously messed up his mental state and his relationships with everyone he cared about.
