Draco In Leather Pants / Web Original

• Adult Wednesday herself is not portrayed as a bad person in Adult Wednesday Addams but her entire persona is unrelentingly dark and macabre. So it's not surprising that some fans can't help but find her sexy. It doesn't hurt that Melissa Hunter is very attractive.
• Referenced In-Universe in Bishop Barron's video on "The Limits of Tolerance." An Episcopal Bishop interpreted an exorcism in Acts of the Apostles as an act of intolerance against a demon who was charitably giving a slave girl unique spiritual gifts. Bishop Barron uses this absurd anecdote to distinguish an all-inclusive, never-challenging love with the Christian love that requires intolerance. That is, intolerance for Satan.
  "Up until last month in Venezuela, the entire Christian interpretive tradition read that passage [...] as the story of the liberation of a young woman who had been enslaved both to dark spiritual powers and to the nefarious human beings who had exploited her. But not Bishop Jefferts Schori, who reads instead a story of Paul's deep intolerance."
• Channel Awesome:
  • Dr. Insano has a good fanbase. His multiple choice mysterious past just adds more fuel to it.
  • The Nostalgia Chick and The Nostalgia Critic get this too, with some of her male fanbase treating her like she's a Closer to Earth goddess and a bit of his female fanbase treating him like he's a poor love who just needs a snuggle. Even though they are generally good people and she's a Broken Bird while he has issues up the wazoo, it's been made clear that they're both fairly douchey as well.
    • The Chick's bad side (always present enough for the fanfic writers to make her a Fetishized Abuser) is coming out more with every video since "Kirk vs. Picard", in a attempt to make the difference between Nostalgia Chick and Lindsay Ellis more obvious. Doesn't stop the love, though.
  • In the same vein, there's Linkara. He has a big ego, is rather self-obsessed ("It's always great to see me", he says to his girlfriend's welcome), is often oblivious to things going on around him (such as Mechakara), and his number-one priority seems to be the size of his fanbase. Worst yet, he has a selective memory about some of the less-than-heroic things he's done (watch his later segments in Kickassia again after his big Badass Boast). You'd think these attributes, coupled with his desperate need to save people and be thought of as heroic Nice Guy, would be apparent; according to his fans, however, he's the nicest, most heroic guy on the site.
    • This was directly addressed in the "Guns and Sorcery" story arc, in which Linkara's magic stopped working because Margaret, the spirit in the Magic Gun, sensed he was turning evil (with many of the above examples cited as proof). His powers returned after he owned up to his moral shortcomings and vowed to try to be a better person.
    • A sort of in-universe example features Snowflame, from the New Guardians #2 and #1 reviews. In the first video, he's loved for being an extremely hammy and hilarious villain. A villain who kills people and deals in cocaine. When Linkara later reviews New Guardians #1, he has an actor portraying him on set as a lovable and overly energetic Cloudcuckoolander.
  • This can happen very easily with any instance of Alter-Ego Acting when fans don't realize that character and actor are not meant to be one and the same; for example, while Lewis Lovhaug is a very sweet, friendly guy, Linkara's an asshole and Lewis has openly said so (as he pointed out, what else can you call a guy who threatened a friend with spaceship-based weapons in order to win a petty argument?).
  • Hyper Fangirl, during her early days when she was a Stalker with a Crush towards Critic, had a lot of people calling her adorable, believing that Critic should be nicer to her. A few people even shipped them, despite her breaking into the studio, terrifying him, and even kidnapping him. Even Doug himself complained about this.
• Cosmic's Objection lol stuff has this video, which compares Iris's portrayal in fanon with canon as a way of demonstrating people falling into this trope. The "Canon" is arguably an example of Ron the Death Eater^{Explanation(Major Trials and Tribulations spoilers!)}Iris's only assistance in her sister Dahlia's crimes was to try to retrieve the necklace from Phoenix, which she did with the intention of ensuring that Dahlia didn't end up killing Phoenix. She also played no role in killing Misty Fey in 3-5, and only helped move the body to prevent Maya from becoming a suspect., but the juxtaposition helps illustrate this trope.
• This Cracked article, "9 Famous Movie Villains Who Were Right All Along". Bizarrely it tries to say Sauron never does anything wrong and is only trying to help oppressed minorities, even though the first minutes of the movie say that Sauron was trying to gain dominion over Middle-Earth.
  • Also from Cracked is a word for the concept, "malamorous".
• At its height, the Creepypasta community was infamous for this trope, often with legions of fangirls attempting to glamorize and/or justify characters who were mass murdering serial killers.
• This trope is a massive Berserk Button for almost all of the sporkers at Das Sporking. Many of them express confusion, during their sporkings, about why the fanfiction writers fangirl certain villains at all if they're just rewriting them in ways that don't resemble their actual selves at all.
• The Notebook and Tony the Talking Clock in Don't Hug Me I'm Scared have an unusual case of this. In canon, they're essentially Misplaced Kindergarten Teachers who browbeat and bully the main characters into accepting their viewpoints, and their "lessons" have a tendency to end in bizarre and brutal gorefests (how much of a hand they had in the gorefests is iffy). Neither one really demonstrates any personality traits beyond being self-obsessed and mean. In fanon, watch as they transform into the protagonists of a Tim Burton film and become kooky, quirky Comedic Sociopaths, playing up their association with creepy things and massively playing down their general rudeness. They're also usually made into love interests, even though they've never had any kind of interaction.
• Dream SMP: Due to the large fanbase his content creator counterpart has, Dream is regarded by some parts of the fandom to be this. So-called c!Dream apologists insist that he is morally grey, Forced into Evil (or Slowly Slipping Into Evil at best), and had good, well-intentioned reason for doing everything he did, which included and was not limited to child abuse, murder (to Serial Killer levels), and plotting the massacre of four L'Manburgians for the "crime" of trying to stand up to his violent Control Freak tendencies through declaring independence. Oftentimes, these 'reasons' and 'justifications' classify as Disproportionate Retribution at best, and Blaming the Victim, dehumanization, and spread of blatant misinformation at worst, making this vocal stance highly controversial in parts of the fandom. Unsurprisingly, many of the Dream apologists do not look upon Tommy or Wilbur fondly, believing them to be the root of Dream's fall into morally dark territory, though there is plenty of canonical evidence to prove otherwise.
• Everyman HYBRID has this with HABIT. In fact, the character has so many fangirls that there's a go-to response... after all, he did eat a baby.
• Happy Tree Friends fandom does this with Evil Flippy, insisting that he's really just misunderstood and needs "twu wuv", or his good side in order to become an upstanding member of society. Never mind that they've already got Good Flippy to toy with.
• Hazbin Hotel: Angel Dust and Alastor each have a massive legion of swooning fangirls (and some swooning fanboys), despite the fact they are both extremely amoral Jerkasses, with the former being a mobster with zero qualms about killing other demons for territory or a cheap laugh, and the latter being a vicious warlord who was an equally sadistic serial killer in life^note and who may have possibly been a cannibal. There are several factors to this: one, they are such Large Hams that they're extremely entertaining to watch regardless of their untenable morals. Two, they're already in Hell, so it's not like they aren't being punished for it, even if they both seem to take eternal damnation in stride. This segues into point three, being that Angel volunteered to be Charlie's test subject for her rehabilitation project and Alastor is sponsoring the project, even though Angel doesn't seem to be trying that hard at redemption and no one knows why Alastor would support such a project to begin with. Point four is that supplemental material from Vivziepop points toward Angel having a positive relationship with his little sister Molly and having a tragic backstory in being murdered by his older brother for being gay^note This last one was changed to a drug overdose, but the homophobia is still implied. The final point seems to be, in a meta sense, a straight case of sex appeal: voice actors Edward Bosco^*Alastor and Michael Kovak^*Angel Dust greatly enjoy playing up Angel's sex appeal and Alastor's creepiness^note which often shoots the moon and loops back around to sexy, something Bosco has acknowledged and actively invokes as a loophole to Vivzie's desire to not hypersexualize Alastor during live streams with one of the HH animators, and seem perfectly aware of how many of the fangirls are attracted to their voices. In response to this, much of Alastor's fandom portrayal deliberately frames his Nightmare Fuel as erotic, in spite of the fact that, in addition to his amorality, he's also completely asexual, and therefore nothing he does is intended to be framed that way. This YouTube comment reacting to this fact sums up the entire situation:
  "Alastor is asexual"
  "Fangirl: That sign can't stop me because I can't read!"
  • In the case of Angel Dust, however, this only applies to his characterization in the Pilot. As the series progressed and Angel's character was explored more in-depth, he turned out to be a far more sympathetic and tragic character than one would think at first glance. Eventually, the fanbase's perception of the character shifted from projecting humanizing qualities onto him (because he was entertaining and/or hot) to genuinely feeling for the poor guy and wanting to see him improve.
    • The "Addict" music video, which focuses on Angel's emotional state and his relationship dynamics with both his boss Valentino and his friend Cherri Bomb, has resulted in even tighter and shinier leather than ever before for Angel. The video makes it clear that he is a regular victim of sexual abuse at the hands of Valentino, and Cherri Bomb takes revenge on Val by destroying his advertisements and buildings, eliciting more genuine sympathy from the fandom than he had before. The video had the added effect of Draco-fying Cherri herself, promoting her from unstable, foul-mouthed pyromaniac who was Angel's Toxic Friend Influence, to a caring, loyal and genuine friend to Angel, and possibly the only real friend he has, even if her method of showing it just happens to involve indulging her destructive tendencies, earning her even more fangirls and fanboys than she already had.
    • Once the first full season of the show came out and spent a full episode on Angel and his personal issues, the "Draco" part was done away with entirely. The episode goes to great lengths to show that, beyond his crass and hypersexual persona, Angel is a fundamentally broken, self-loathing Sad Clown who turns to mindless hedonism to cope with his absolutely horrible existence as an abuse victim who is utterly powerless to do anything to change his situation. Perhaps the most poignant moment in the episode is when Angel almost gets roofied and presumably dateraped, before breaking down and revealing to Husk that he let it happen in the hopes that he will one day get so broken that Val will tire of him and stop treating Angel as his favorite toy. While the pilot had some moments which could be construed as him having a nicer side, it's made wholly unambiguous here; he truly does care about the others at the hotel and see them as his friends, even pleading with Val to not hurt Charlie before outright standing up to him for Niffty's sake. Furthermore, he ultimately does come around to Charlie's ideas of redemption and, thanks to the positive support network of the Hotel, changes for the better as a person.
• Helluva Boss:
  • Ms. Mayberry gets this treatment. A good portion of fans find her a victim of spiritual injustice, that for one impulsive act of wrongdoing, she gets unfairly damned. While she certainly is a tragic figure, there's a huge gap between rightful anger that your husband is cheating on you and cold-blooded murder. He was an ass who spat on his wedding vows, but that didn't mean he deserved to get his insides splattered out. She also had no idea that Martha and her family were serial killers and simply hired I.M.P to kill her purely because she was the one her husband was cheating with; if she did know, she no doubt would have warned Blitzo not to underestimate her.
  • Due to Season 1 only depicting their relationship after Stolas had an affair with Blitzo, Stella gained a lot of sympathy from fans who think she was right to be furious with him, with some going so far as to claim her hiring Striker to kill him was completely justified. This despite the show establishing early on that Stella is at best a neglectful and at worst horribly abusive spouse whose main problem with Stolas' affair wasn't even that he cheated on her, but that he cheated on her with an imp. It got to the point that when "The Circus" outright hammered in that Stella had always been vindictive, petty, and a blatant bully to Stolas verging on emotional domestic abuse, some accused it of being a retcon to make Stolas sympathetic by derailing Stella in spite of the overwhelming foreshadowing. While Stolas is by no means a saint, Stella definitely isn't the poor innocent victim some fans make her out to be.
  • Chaz, while implied to have actually cared about Moxxie in some manner, was still shown to be primarily interested in his own pleasure and satisfaction during his sole appearance. Despite this, many fanfics will have him be much more caring and considerate towards other characters, usually whoever the author wants to ship him with.
• Parodied in the video If Joffrey Was The Hero. It splices together various Game of Thrones clips to make it appear that Joffrey was a wise and compassionate ruler whose murder was a great tragedy. In canon, the exact opposite is true, something which the video's creators gleefully acknowledge.
• The Monstergirl Encyclopedia has this in spades. Many male readers reading about a setting full of hot monster girls that all want to have sex with men find the concept quite enjoyable, ignoring that the monstergirls will generally rape any men they see and force them into a relationship, commonly using Mind Control powers or simply superior force to make them stay. The Demon Lord responsible for the current setup is a Well-Intentioned Extremist that wants to end a Vicious Cycle of humans and monsters constantly killing each other at the whims of the Chief God, but the only way she could think of to override the monster's instincts to kill humans was to turn them all into lustful women that could only reproduce with human men. She's also spreading demonic energy over the world, which transforms the landscape and and turns humans into Incubi if male and random monstergirls if female while also brainwashing them so they aren't bothered by it. In addition to this, she's willing to eagerly convert/brainwash races that were fairly peaceful towards humans to begin with to strengthen her own forces. The Chief God's resistance to this presents of a risk of extinction for all races, due to fact it means new men aren't being born of the constant monstergirl/human couples, though the Demon Lord is trying to prevent this. Many readers will, however, miss the whole brainwashing deal and simply consider the Demon Lord a hero.
• RWBY fanbase does that to several of the show's villains.
  • Roman Torchwick is often portrayed sympathetically in fanworks, being frequently made into a Lovable Rogue or an Anti-Villain of sorts. In canon, he is a violent criminal who commits armed robberies, gleefully blows up airships and is implied to engage in You Have Failed Me towards his underlings. His sole motivation is stated to be his own survival and he doesn't care how many people he has to hurt in order to ensure it. The only sympathetic quality he is shown to possess in canon is his Villainous Friendship with Neo.
  • Neopolitan, Roman's partner in crime, is quite popular with the fanbase due to her character design and a unique combat style. While not much is known about her, she is established to be a remorseless killer and an accomplice in some of her partner's worst crimes. Fans still tend to show her a lot of sympathy and tend to give her redeeming traits, occasionally resulting in a full-blown Heel–Face Turn. Her grief over having lost Roman as shown in Volume 6 further encouraged fans to give Neo this sort of treatment.
  • Adam Taurus is a mass-murdering terrorist and a domestic abuser, portrayed as an embodiment of spite and cruelty. Any well-intentions he had for his actions has long since been lost as he got Drunk with Power and began Slowly Slipping Into Evil in the backstory. His handling is regarded as contentious due to a large portion of fans thinking he would have worked better as a well-intentioned anti-villain. Then there are some fans who attempt to whitewash Adam's canonical nastiness, ignoring or excusing many of his villainous actions. For example, they downplay his abuse of Blake, justifying his emotional manipulation by saying that he wasn't lying to her during his character short and arguing that he only vowed to destroy Blake's life in Volume 3 because she "betrayed the White Fang". This became more common after Adam revealed his face, which not only proved he had traumatic past but also increased his attractiveness significantly.
  • While she isn't necessarily evil, Raven Branwen's characterization in fanworks generally emphasizes her regretful, self-loathing side that is briefly glimpsed during Volume 5's finale. The other side of her characterization, specifically the It's All About Me aspect that directly leads to the final battle in Volume 5, tends to be played down.
  • While James Ironwood is intended to be sympathetic as a tragic demonstration of someone who wanted to save the world from Salem, but was blocked from doing so by his flaws consuming him, a number of fans have instead insisted that he's in the right and that his actions, from closing off Atlas from the world to turning Mantle into a police state and later attempting to abandon Remnant as a whole, are harsh but necessary, and claim that he was simply doing what was logical in his situation. Many fans tend to ignore that his actions only cause more problems and that he has a habit of refusing to accept responsibility for said problems when called out on it, even blaming the heroes for being in his way and not his own flaws. These same fans continued these defenses even after James shot and attempted to kill the teenaged Oscar. Once he descended into full villainy in Volume 8 with actions such as killing Councilman Sleet and threatening to bomb Mantle, many claimed that his character was derailed rather than try to defend his actions like before, once again ignoring how much he was already on the brink of losing his sanity and all of his actions basically being in character, just driven to their worst extremes.
• Some of the SCPs on the SCP Foundation wiki get this treatment. One example is SCP 682, who's sometimes portrayed as a Tsundere reptile that wants humans dead because they keep trying to kill him, despite that he's a nigh-immortal Eldritch Abomination that wants nearly all life on Earth dead because he finds it disgusting. Word of God implies that 682 might not be naturally violent or malevolent, which might make the leather pantsing a little more justified.
  Dr. Gears: Whatever Clef had done that causes his head to be unrecordable seems to bugger up more than just cameras. 682 was unsure as to what in the fuck was going on. 682 isn't inherently a violent organism, as we understand the term. When not faced with unreal terror, 682 is actually somewhat cautious and shy, like many big predators. If Clef had stayed inside, 682 would have probably adapted past the “face cycling” thing, and butchered him. As it was, the big gecko was waiting to see what would happen.
  • On another note, there's Able, despite him being a clear Omnicidal Maniac whose brief attempt to work with the Foundation ended due to him slaughtering his coworkers more out of boredom than anything else. The sheer amount of nice fan-art for him probably helps explain why he's so liked. Though there are other reasons others like him, of course, with some admiring his in-universe mythical status as a Gilgamesh-esque demigod.
  • Out of all the SCPs, SCP 049 might get it the most. While his article has gotten a rewrite in May 2018 that makes him more sympathetic, it doesn't change the fact that he still actively kills people and turns them into mindless zombies that attack other living beings, just to cure them of a pestilence that he can't properly explain.
• The Slender Man sometimes gets this treatment, much to some people's horror.
  • There's a gag comic circulating explaining why he's not actually evil. For a start, he's only stalking you because he's trying to return that DVD he borrowed from you.
  • To be fair, he probably just wants his twenty dollars.
  • He also has a fan-created brother named Sexual Offenderman. He's a rapist, but girls still love him
• In SuperMarioLogan, the character that receives this treatment the most is Jeffy. Many fans view Jeffy as the funniest character in the series or generally feel sorry for him because of his childhood upbringing (being mentally and physically abused by an abusive mother). Regardless, Jeffy had committed downright cruel acts such as making his father miserable on a daily basis, the worse offenders being "Jeffy's Bad Word" and "Locked Out." He swears profusely, brutalizes other characters, among other bad deeds. As a result, Jeffy is considered one of the main reasons for Logan's channel getting demonetized.
• Uncyclopedia enjoys giving Adolf Hitler this treatment.
• Ask Princess Molestia: A lot of fans will quickly dismiss Molly's actions as being harmless and just tame despite Molly on certain crossovers have kidnapped and implied to have sexually assaulted a Fluffy Pony, chubby pony, or others, and on certain occasions depending on the writing to have genuinely treated and/or abused her guards, most of her friends including her own sister, and others like her own personal sex objects and nothing more without remorse or empathy most of the time.

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