Recurring Fanon Character / Video Games

• Angry Birds: The fan animations Hungry, Hungry Piggies and Ninja Swine feature a large purple bird that bounces on structures as its main ability. This unofficial flock member has been used by fans in games and animations, often with the fan nicknames Benson or Bounci.
  • Alex Bird, a gray bird created by a young fan in 2014, is often used by fans ironically, due to being outlandishly amateur and for being "normal and legal".
• Animal Crossing:
  • Brutus is a character originating from an Urban Legend of Zelda. He is allegedly a black version of one of the dog townspeople with red eyes. He is claimed to move in if you neglect your game for too long, speaks and sends letters in binary, and has a house full of nothing but fish that crashes after entering it. He apparently leaves the town after just one day. While the rumors of his existence are fake, he became a popular character in the fandom for a while.
  • Bill Wibbly is a bear villager originating from a Tumblr post that parodies the fandom’s strange hatred of certain villagers. After the meme became popular, artworks, memes, and fan edits of Bill Wibbly appeared in the fandom.
  • Aika is a creepy little girl from Aika Village, a fan made horror-themed village accessed through the Dream Suite. She is a female human villager who dresses like the red doll item and whose only line is "This is inside of my dream." The disturbing story told by the village led to Aika receiving fanart and fanfics which interpret the story.
  • Shaki, nicknamed Blazel or Chestnut before her actual name was discovered, is a Dummied Out squirrel villager who can only be found in the files of the first game. She became rather popular among fans for her mysteriousness and cute design.
• Animal Jam: fman122 was a supposed player originating from an Urban Legend of Zelda who hacked naive players by sending "gifts" by Jam-a-grams to random victims. He was said to have a dark red wolf avatar. While he probably never existed, he became popular due to fear of these rumors.
• Bendy and the Ink Machine: Before Chapter 5 came out and disproved the theory that either Wally Franks was the employee whose soul was used to create Ink Bendy or that he would just make a physical appearance^note neither of which turned out to be true; Ink Bendy was created without a soul and Wally Franks truly was "Outta Here", it was popular in fanon and fanart circles to predict and visualize Wally being the Bendy counterpart to Allison Angel and Tom, working with them to help Henry and defeat the Ink Demon.
• Bio Force Ape: As part of an elaborate hoax done in 2005, a person named Paul Brown supplied fake screenshots supposedly coming from a prototype of this notable piece of Vaporware. One character seen in these screenshots was the Butter Monster, a parody of the sellers who wanted Paul to sell the prototype to them. Five years later, when Paul helped find an ACTUAL prototype for the game online, the Butter Monster itself was nowhere to be seen. Nevertheless, it remains more popular than any of the actual game's cast.
• Club Penguin:
  • On DeviantArt, there's Daina Sam DJ, a yellow penguin with red hair who is the daughter of Cadence and Franky. Whenever the two are drawn as a family with their child, chances are that child is Daina. In rarer cases, they may have another daughter named Cadencita, who just looks like a smaller version of her mother with wings and is the older sister of Daina.
  • Also on Deviantart, Bubbles. She's a light blue penguin with long brown hair who is used as G Billy's love interest. After Petey K, she's the most popular love interest for him.
• Deltarune:
  • Mike is a character that the fandom created in response to some of Spamton's dialogue. He is typically depicted as either a TV Head Robot or as the strange figure that appears as an Easter Egg in Queen's basement, commonly also being the host of a Sadistic Game Show as a call-back to Mettaton and speaking in some form of Leet Lingo.
  • The Queen of Spades is a character from fanart and fics following the release of Chapter 1 and is portrayed as the King’s wife and Lancer’s mother. However, her popularity faded once Chapter 2 released and revealed a similar character named Queen who quickly became beloved by the fandom and a popular Fountain of Memes.
  • SHOW_RUNNER, a character created from an Urban Legend of Zelda about an unused shop that can be found in the game files that sells only one item: a Disk Fragment (or DiskFrgmnt). He, like Spamton, lost everything, and it's implied it was because of Spamton. He became popular with the fans thanks to his so-far pretty unknown backstory, his Ugly Cute design, and interesting 'unused' storyline, being aware of the fact that he's not supposed to exist.
  • After the fandom found out about the Snowgrave route, Berdly the Defrosted (a.k.a. a version of Berdly where he managed to survive Noelle freezing him, and becomes an Expy of Undyne the Undying as he's ready to face-off against the player for corrupting Noelle) became a popular idea among fans.
  • Skuntle Bingoid is a supposed secret boss of Chapter 3 portrayed as a lawn gnome. He is usually occupied by a track from Undertale: Halloween Hack known as "No More Nuzzles" played at 115% speed. He is used to point out the convoluted methods of how to find the secret bosses and how they always have awesome music, which fans then painstakingly try to recreate by finding the obscure soundfonts and samples used in them.
• Don't Starve: Winnie, a Dummied Out character who was alleged to have a vegetarian, animal-centric playstyle. Due to her resemblance to Wigfrid, fans have pegged the two as sisters who are opposites in every way.
• Doom: John Stalvern is a space marine and the protagonist of the Troll Fic DOOM: Repercussions of Evil. While the fic is extremely short, John became well known because of its hilariously bad writing.
• Fate/Grand Order: Shimatsu-ken, a super-deformed dog version of Koha-Ace's Okada Izou. Lack, Izou's artist for the game, originally drew a sketch of it as a gag,^note Izou's hair looked like the fur of a small dog, and its name is a pun on "Ken" as a homophone for "sword" and "dog" in Japanese but the fandom quickly embraced it and made it a recurring Canine Companion of the GUDAGUDA gang.
• Fire Emblem: Kelik from The Last Promise (A ROM Hack of The Blazing Blade) became one of the most, if not the most, popular Fire Emblem fan characters of all time largely due to him being a walking 2000's edgy Anti-Hero that is so hard to take seriously that he became very memorable in an instant. There are tons of fanart made for him, is subjected to numerous memes, and is also often joked as one of the many characters suggested to be added to crossover material like Heroes and Engage.
• Five Nights at Freddy's:
  • Five Nights at Freddy's: Originally a hoax regarding a "secret character", Sparky the Dog became a popular "secret" character among fans. He even received something akin to Ascended Fanon when series creator Scott Cawthon included a dog animatronic named Fetch in the tie-in book series Fazbear Frights.
  • Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach has "Glamrock" variants of pre-existing characters:
    • Glamrock Foxy is easily the most popular fan animatronic to see in stories and fanart, mostly owing to Foxy's Ensemble Dark Horse status and the fact he's the only member of the original four to not appear in any form in this game (as images of Glamrock Bonnie can still be seen). As for his design, he is often depicted as having fully embraced his pirate theme, wearing a pirate's coat and hat along with his classic eye patch and hook hand (although certain depictions add in a Glamrock flair). If he was replaced in the past, Roxanne is almost always who took his role and unlike Monty and Bonnie, the duo had a good relationship and Roxanne is normally crushed by him getting decommissioned.
    • Glamrock Ballora is also popular, albeit not to the extent of Glamrock Foxy. More often than not, she loses all of her Uncanny Valley traits, becoming a straight up fanservice style Robot Girl, right down to losing her Eyes Always Shut trait. As for her role in stories, she is always a heroic character who serves as the Team Mom, helping Gregory and Glamrock Freddy defeat Vanny. If she was brainwashed, expect her to somehow be snapped out of it unlike the other animatronics. Much like Sparky, she would also become Ascended Fanon when an actual Glamrock Ballora appeared in the Tales from the PizzaPlex story, Cleithrophobia.
• Friday Night Funkin' has a large and incredibly talented modding community whom have created a multitude of mods that are high-polished enough or filled with lore that they naturally become a hit with a fandom.
  • Whitty, a humanoid bomb, is a very popular fanon character due to his incredibly well-done fan week, to the point where it could easily be mistaken as official. As such, he often appears in fanart and memes, and the developers of the base game occasionally retweet art featuring him. Interestingly enough, he was an already existing OC that was around before Friday Night Funkin' was a thing.
  • Hex the basketball robot is the star of another "good enough to be official" fan week with a whopping five songs. Mostly, Hex is liked because of how friendly he is compared to most other opponents, both in canon and in other mods.
  • Carol is one of the first fan characters to really gain a hold in the fandom, beginning as a simple sprite swap of Girlfriend before getting her own week, and is frequently seen across fan works due to her mods being well-made, in addition to being just plain adorable. Some fans have gone as far as to ship her with another popular fan character, Whitty, be it as a Crack Pairing or a genuine Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl relationship. The two were eventually made canon by Carol's creator with the release of the Date Week mod.
  • Sarvente and Ruv from Mid-Fight Masses have been steadily gaining a foothold in other fan-content outside their fan week. While the character dynamics between them and the Boyfriend/Girlfriend couple provide fun enough potential material and the week songs are enjoyable, the thing most people like focusing on is the utterly badass Russian hard-bass style of Ruv's "singing", which fans like pairing up with other fan characters such as Whitty through song remixes, just to hear that bass comboed with other "singing" styles. Even Phantom Arcade mentioned how much he enjoyed "Zavodila", the song featuring Ruv in the actual mod. Alongside that, their children from another universe, Selever and Razasy, are also rather popular.
  • Garcello from Smoke 'Em Out Struggle; on top of the mod being well-made in general, Garcello himself became incredibly popular for being a surprisingly whose songs are incredibly fun to play without being ridiculously hard to beat. What endeared him the most to the fanbase, however, is how his smoking habit had gotten him killed in the middle of the mod, and how his final goodbyes at the end made him a very likable and tragic character, to the point where fans want him to be an official character in the game itself.
  • The titular Sky of Vs Sky remains to be a hit within the FNF fandom getting a steadily increasing amount of recursive mods and other fan-content that include her, with most of her popularity starting after her original mod was deleted, mainly because when people heard it was deleted everybody wanted to check out the hubbub through mirrors and videos and ended up enjoying it, allowing her to be a mainstay in the fandom roster of fan characters, especially those who can separate the character and art from the artist and their inspiration.
  • Tabi is a rather popular fan character, thanks to not only the mod he came from being enjoyable and having amazing songs, but also because of his interesting backstory that gives an interesting case of Adaptational Villainy to Girlfriend and delves into how villainous Daddy Dearest is.
  • A Guy on the Internet, or A.G.O.T.I., from Friday Night Funkin': ENTITY is a popular character due to his well-made mod and absolute bangers of songs. Yet another point is his voice, which not only sounds nice, but also fits really well with songs from other mods. Even the controversy regarding his namesake didn't deter people from liking him.
  • Bob from literally every fnf mod ever; the popularity stems from the mod being a parody of the "Character turns mad at third song" trend, while being both hilarious and completely terrifying, something that isn't common for mods of the type.
• Half-Life:
  • John Freeman, Gordon Freeman’s brother and the protagonist of the So Bad, It's Good Troll Fic Half-Life: Full Life Consequences, became famous in the fandom because of the hilariousness and ridiculousness of the story.
  • Headcrab zombies clad in HEV suits are a popular enough concept to have appeared in several different fan mods, including Half Life Zombie Edition, Entropy : Zero 2, Black Mesa, and Field Intensity.
• A Hat in Time:
  • "Hat Adult", the Overnight Age-Up of Hat Kid seen in some early builds has a lot of fanart dedicated to her, for obvious reasons. To a lesser extent, "Bow Adult" and "Mustache/Beard Woman", the adult versions of Bow Kid and Mustache Girl respectively, are also occasionally seen.
  • "Timmy/Band-Aid Kid", the original Player Two of the game, before being officially replaced by Bow Kid. Even though he was replaced because the crew disliked him, fans latched onto him and had him continue appearing in fanwork, usually as Hat Kid's sweetheart.
  • Moonjumper, an initial part of the Big Bad Duumvirate in Subcon Forest, before being removed in favor of having the Snatcher as the only Arc Villain. He is generally considered to have once been the same entity as the Snatcher back when he was The Prince, before being separated.
• In the webcomics for Helltaker, ever since she was revealed to exist, Baphomet the goat-fetishist demon became a very popular O.C. Stand-in for fan-content. But what really solidified her fandom status was when Pixiv artist Grizz made a series of comics that were so close to Vanripper's comics in artstyle and writing that their version of the character became the permanent unofficial design for all fanart of her going forwards.
• Jet Set Radio: Created as part of the JetSetSona art contest's backstory, DJ Doctor K and the rival gang Sk8tengu fulfill this role, with the former even reappearing during Professor K's takeover of SiIvaGunner's channel to take the reins of the broadcast for a short while.
• It’s common in Kantai Collection fanfiction for the Japanese Admiral to be named Goto (sometimes as a pun on Togo), and the American Admiral (or at least one of them) to be named Richardson, with both being Reasonable Authority Figures. It’s also somewhat popular in comic fics to make one of the Abyssal leaders Abyssal Admiral Suwabe, a Beleaguered Boss and (sometimes) Friendly Enemy introduced in a popular series of fan comics.
• Kid Icarus: Cloud Angle, the Marty Stu invoked protagonist of the Troll Fic Kid Icarus Uprising 2: Hades Revenge, is an angel with blonde hair and green wings who works alongside Pit. While he isn’t as popular as other badfic OCs, he has made some appearances in other fanfics like The Hot Topic Krew and Tingles Raveng The Tingling.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • Roxel, a fan child of both Roxas and Axel (who are both male), has a surprising amount of fanart from multiple artists. No one's quite sure where he came from or who created him, though.
  • Soranort, basically Sora as one of Xehanort's vessels, exploded after 3D released. While initially mainly being an AU to the end of that game, he grew in popularity until many fans became convinced that he would become canon at one point in Kingdom Hearts III. However, after that game debunked the idea, he dropped in popularity.
• Left 4 Dead: It's fairly common among fans to treat the Director as a genuine character, when it is really a program responsible for populating the game's levels with zombies and items without having any basis in-universe. When the Director is interpreted this way, "he" is usually seen as the Big Bad, actively commanding the infected hordes in an attempt to kill the survivors. Physical depictions vary, from a Special Infected who always remains out-of-sight from the survivors, to a Jerkass God out for the survivors’ blood, to an actual movie director (with the survivors and infected just being actors).
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • BEN, a creepy, supernatural doppelganger of Link that originated from the Ben Drowned Creepypasta, has become a recurring supernatural villain in The Legend of Zelda fanworks, even having its own video games and legends.
  • The Patchwork Fic fan-comic A Tale of Two Rulers spawned various popular Zelda/Ganondorf children, including Covarog, Ralnor, and Orana. Sometimes their half-sister Rinku is included, though that depends on if the work has it's own version of Link or not.
  • Jenna Silverblade is a Mary Sue invoked self-insert love interest of Link from the famously So Bad, It's Good fanfic My Inner Life. The story and Jenna’s character are widely mocked, making Jenna one of the most popular OCs in the fandom.
  • A female pink-haired Link was depicted in an obscure 1986 Japanese magazine that would have been forgotten had Twitter user Kazzycom not taken photos of the design in 2019 and HistoryofHyrule not uploaded high-def scans of the female Link on Twitter in 2022. This pink-haired female Link became a popular subject for fan art on social media, and want her to be in a future Zelda game, seeing this as proof that a female Link can work.
  • Born out of a meme, "Rehydrated Ganon". In the teaser trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Zelda and Link find a corpse-like character which fans assumed to be some version of Ganondorf. This prompted a memetic trend that he'd come back to life were he to be rehydrated, which prompted this version of the character. "Rehydrated Ganon" is depicted as a handsome Mr. Fanservice that wears little in the way of clothing (usually only a waist down robe or the "Desert Voe" set of the game) and is often portrayed as a heroic version of Ganondorf, teaming up with Zelda and Link.
• Lobotomy Corporation: BongBong is an Agent with long dark blue hair, a ^-shaped mouth and starry eyes, who was randomly generated in the playthrough of an anonymous 4chan user. Her distinct appearance and unusual name made her explode in popularity, leading to many pieces of fanart being made about her and for her to eventually start being recognized outside of 4chan's gaming boards.
• Mega Man (Classic): This is inevitable given the series' lengthy history and its 8-bit origins making character sprites easy for anybody to design. The two most prominent would be Bond Man, a glue-based Robot Master cut from the first game (and who was not restored for Mega Man Powered Up in favor of two new Robot Masters filling out the 7th and 8th boss spots), and Honey Woman, an early concept character for Mega Man 9 who eventually became Hornet Man. Both received nods in the Mega Man (Archie Comics) series.
  • On the fangame side, Dagger Man, one of the Robot Masters featured in Mega Man Super Fighting Robot, makes guest appearances as a boss fight in Make A Good Mega Man Level 2 and Mega Man: Rock N Roll.
• Metroid: Solomon Aran is the noncanonical younger brother of Samus who was only mentioned once in a Nintendo Power article about the collaborative fanfic Blood of the Chozo, in which he was apparently an unused concept. Despite (or because of) his obscurity, Solomon gets a fair amount of attention by the Metroid fandom. There have been quite a few Epileptic Trees as fans attempt to deduce how he could fit into the current canon, with one common theory being that he's Sylux's true identity.
• Mii Series:
  • The character creator of Miis allows for the creation of specific avatars that are popular in the community. One of the most commonly created Miis is one named Hamburger, which has its face edited to look like a hamburger. It has rectangular eyebrows to represent the patty, red lips to represent the ketchup, green eyes to represent pickles, and the rest of its head makes up the buns.
  • Another popular Mii usually named Dino, Dinosaur, or T-Rex looks like a dinosaur because of its dark skin and light hair and beard that gives the appearance of a large mouth.
  • Two Faced is a popular Mii that originated in the Tomodachi Life playthrough of Vinny from Vinesauce. She is designed to look like she has two faces, as her eyes and mouth look like three eyes shared between the faces, two eyebrows look like the noses, and wrinkles look like mouths. She is treated as an antagonist in the series and has received a lot of fanart.
  • Lonk from Pennsylvania, a caricature of Link with a vacant stare and an open mouth. He first appeared as a random Mii someone created on StreetPass Mii Plaza, and he soon became the focus of many memes. Similar Miis also became popular, such as Petch from Texas, a caricature of Peach.
• Minecraft:
  • Herobrine began as a Creepypasta fan character, but soon rose in popularity to become one of the most recognizable villainous icons of the game, despite never actually being in it. Countless fanfictions, mods, music videos, parodies, fan books, and the like have featured Herobrine as a recurring villain. Additionally, Herobrine became something akin to Ascended Fanon when Mojang included references to the character in the game, such as adding "Removed Herobrine" to patch notes, referencing him in the console edition trivia facts, and even sneaking him into some promotional material for Minecon 2011.
  • Entity 303, also referred to as "The New Herobrine", was another popular Creepypasta fan villain that was meant to be regarded as even more powerful and evil than its predecessor. While Entity 303 never reached the same popularity as Herobrine, it was still featured prominently in fanfictions, videos, and mods.
  • Humanized versions of the Minecraft mobs, usually portrayed as scantily clad Animesque girls, have become quite popular in fanart, music videos, and mods, especially the Creeper, who is portrayed as a small, cute blonde girl in a green hoodie and leggings.
  • The King and the Prince are the protagonists of the web animated series Fallen Kingdom that has become very popular in the fandom, leading to them becoming popular fan characters.
  • Bumbo is a sombrero-wearing cactus with a mustache who was created by You Tuber Iskall 85 and is a recurring character in the fandom, with numerous people building their own version of him.
• Neko Atsume: Hobo and Glunkus, a dirty brown cat and a black cat whose whole face is teeth, respectively, originated from a single Tumblr user's dream and were subsequently illustrated by another Tumblr user. Their designs appear in more fanworks than some of the canon cats.
• After players realized that the Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons in a comfort grip look like a dog’s head, artists began drawing a dog with the controller as a head. The Switch Dog received a lot of fanart, some innocent but some NSFW.
• Back in the really early days of the Pikmin series, the fanbase on the IGN board had several characters that originated from fanfics that would not only appear in others fics, but also in several Play-by-Post game threads. The most notable of these was "Blacknight", a villain character originating from this Script Fic who quickly became the go-to villain for most stories on the board; and an Anti-Hero in some others.
• Pizza Tower quite a lot:
  • Pizelle, a Role Swap AU version of Peppino who is the third boss The Noise, but with Peppino's clothes, and originated from a popular fangame called Sugary Spire. She quickly became extremely popular among the fanbase, and is featured in a ton of fan works and memes.
  • Pissino, a goofy and mangled version of Peppino similar to the fourth boss Fake Peppino who makes memetic sound effects with just about every single action he does, originated from a shitpost-themed mod. He quickly became popular among modders, shitposters, and lets players for his goofiness.
  • Baba, a killable easter egg character from the popular Scoutdigo mod who appears in a secret area, and when killed, turns into a creepy-looking reskin of Pizzaface that follows your every move, and Jump Scares you upon killing you. He became popular for his Self-Imposed Challenge potential, and surprisingly genuine scariness.
  • The Toppin Waifus are Moe Anthropomorphism versions of the Toppins, originating from a popular mod. Due to their designs, they appear in a lot of fanmade content and memes. Though they are somewhat Base-Breaking Characters due to being yet another example of Moe Anthropomorphism in a time where that trope has been overused ad nauseam.
  • Similarly, Peppina Ramen is a Rule 63 version of Peppino who originates from a fanart portraying Pizza Tower as a 90s anime which later inspired a mod that’s currently in development. Her mod became popular upon its reveal, and she’s often featured in fan works in which she’s portrayed as Peppino’s daughter or sister Depending on the Writer.
• Pokémon:
  • MissingNo. and M were a pair of glitches that occurred in Pokemon Red and Blue when data was mixed or corrupted, causing a sprite of jumbled pixels and Normal attack moves. This gave rise to the popularity of the fan-nicknamed "Glitch Type" Pokemon, with MissingNo. and M becoming the most popular of these and appearing in several Pokemon fanfictions and Creepypasta, codifying the Glitch Entity archetype.
  • Many unused Pokémon are popular among fans, such as Kotora, a cute round tiger.
  • The fangame Pokémon Uranium contains many Fakemon that are popular in the fandom. One of the most memorable is Dunseraph. Reasons for its popularity include being a much-needed evolution to the otherwise mediocre Dunsparce, changing types from Normal to Dragon/Flying, good stats and movepool, and a beautiful design that is both majestic while at the same time retaining Dunsparce's dopey charm.
  • The Kaskade Region has many popular Fakemon designs, but the most beloved is Tofrug, a Poison/Fairy type that combines a frog and a tofu block. It is loved for its adorable and creative design, receiving a lot of fanart and even its own plush.
  • Platypet was originally a platypus Fakemon created for a fake leak that claimed it was a starter for Pokémon Sword and Shield. Even after the leak turned out to be a hoax, the design remained popular. Eventually, the artist sold the design to the developers of Temtem, where it was put into the game as a Water/Toxic type temtem.
  • Tentaquil is a Fakemon created when a 4chan user was asked to draw their fan favourite Pokémon without a reference, and the user replied with "tentaquil" when asked what it was. It became very popular in memes, with people pretending it was a real Pokémon.
  • Mewthree is a hypothetical second clone of Mew that is popular as an Urban Legend of Zelda. Many fans have theorized about its existence and it has appeared in various fanworks.
  • For an Unlicensed Game example, Corphish's fake 2-stage evolutionary line (which makes it resemble more like a lobster with long antennae as it evolves and can fire beams from its claws) seems to be a popular choice for the unofficial gachas if they chose to adapt this species. In the Pokeland mobile game, where this different take possibly originated from, it seems to be The Artifact from the use of Captain Ersatz versions of the mons for marketing. Even its naming is also picked up as well, which favors "Lobster (title)" (even extending to renaming Corphish itself) over the more creative naming the franchise of origin is known for.
  • Regitube is a Water-type member of the legendary golems that is made up entirely out of blue inner tubes. It came from a viral video of man covering his body and limbs with inner tubes, which led to Pokémon fans comparing him to one of the Regis.
• While it's a meme in Sonic the Hedgehog series to make fun of the abundance of OCs and Fan Characters, there's a few that manage to stand out enough that they become quite memorable to the fandom.
  • From Sonic the Hedgehog 2, there is an infamous glitch that would turn the titular hedgehog green with a black mark on his face. The character, nicknamed Ashura by fans, would become popular enough to receive some fan works with him acting as an Evil Counterpart of Sonic; this eventually inspired Ian Flynn to turn Anti-Sonic into a green hedgehog named Scourge in Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), along with the later creation of Surge the Tenrec in the Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW) comics.
  • Omelette, also known as Eggette or Eggatha, was created after the artist AlphaGamboa noticed an upside down sprite of Eggman during the Flying Battery boss fight in Sonic Mania looked like a different character. The character became popular with the fanbase and is commonly regarded as Eggman's niece or daughter, and is used in notable fanworks such as Sonic Legacy and the eighth season of Sonic for Hire, and even has a cameo in Sonic X Reanimated. As of Sonic Frontiers, this would essentially become Ascended Fanon with Sage, an A.I. created by Eggman who takes the form of a young human girl and eventually bonds with him enough that she is outright considered to be his daughter.
  • X, also known as Sonic.EXE, is a vile, Ax-Crazy demon that takes on the appearance of/possesses Sonic. This character, originating from its own story, has since had multiple fan video game adaptations, and has frequently been pitted against Sonic himself in fanfictions and videos.
  • Maria the Hedgehog was created by fans and is often mistaken for canon. Though she's usually depicted as Maria reborn as a hedgehog, some depict her as a clone.
  • Nazo, a mysterious white-furred hedgehog who bears a passing resemblance to Super Sonic from an unused Sonic X screenshot◊. Although Word of God has since confirmed he was merely an alternate design for Super Sonic, fans treat him as his own character to the point where he was the main antagonist of Nazo Unleashed.
  • The most common depiction of the Player Character of Sonic Forces is a bespectacled wolf with rust red fur, usually named Gadget and equally often shown to favor the Burst Wispon, directly based off the character used for the Custom Hero reveal trailer. Also helping the popularity is the fan-preferred Angel/Devil couple dynamic between Gadget and Infinite.
    • Similarly, a popular depiction of the Avatar named Ian Jr. ("son" of storyboarder Ian Mutchler) has gained a following of his own, no part in thanks to his notable design elements, unpredictable personality, and similarly popular couple dynamic with Infinite (albeit being more one-sided on Infinite's part). Ian Jr. has gone on to make cameo appearances in official Sonic media, including TailsTube and The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog.
  • Sonichu is a character from a widely hated webcomic of the same name and is a fusion between Pikachu and Sonic. He appears in a lot of memes, fanfics, and fanart due to the ridiculousness of his character and story.
  • Aurora is a Fan-Created Offspring of the Sonic Boom versions of Sonic and Amy, created by E-vay. She's popular among Sonamy fans and gets many fanworks in turn based on her, including fan games.
  • Similar to Sonichu, Coldsteel the Hedgeheg (sic) is another character that became infamous due to the absurdity of his design and backstory, only this time with several extra helpings of edginess. He's become synonymous with the concept of terrible, overly edgy fan characters even outside the Sonic fanbase, and his name is often invoked when describing such characters.
  • Trevor the Hedgehog is a character created by Saltydkdan as a joke during his playthrough of Sonic Adventure. He is Sonic's brother who looks like a green version of Sonic. He is bisexual, is a fundamentalist Christian, and is sexually attracted to his mother and his brother.
• Splatoon:
  • Verna Rassica is an original inkling created by Rassicas, a fan who's best known for translating No Export for You bits of series lore into English. He is a stubborn and alcoholic Grizzco manager and is one of the most popular fanmade Inklings, receiving a lot of fanart.
  • Splat Tim is an inkling that comes from a distorted picture of the Inkling boy from a Cats vs. Dogs Splatfest promo image◊ was posted on Twitter with the caption "it splat tim" (a corruption of "it's splat time"). It inspired a series of Stylistic Suck fake game covers◊, and tends to be associated with the phrases "He does it!" and "It's him!" (the latter being from one◊ of the many "sequels"). Splat Tim is often treated as his own character and is the subject of numerous memes.
  • Although less popular than Splat Tim, Splat Tina is a similar character who has appeared in memes, being instead a distorted picture of a female Inkling.
• Street Fighter: In Street Fighter II, one of Ryu's winquotes states "You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance!". Players immediately began to speculate who Sheng Long was, and it eventually became rumored that Sheng Long was the name of Ryu and Ken's unseen master. Electronic Gaming Monthly seized on this idea and launched an April Fools' issue in which they gave a detailed (and false) description of the absurdly difficult and convoluted way to unlock Sheng Long as a boss. But there was no Sheng Long; Ryu was telling his opponent that to stand a chance, they had to overcome "Sheng Long", which is a translation error for "Shoryuken" (Dragon Punch). But Capcom liked the idea so much that they later introduced Akuma for Super Street Fighter II Turbo. This did not end fan rumors or fanon about Sheng Long, however, and EGM again posted another April Fools' prank for Street Fighter III. Years later, for Street Fighter IV, Capcom finally introduced Ryu and Ken's real master, Akuma's brother Gouken, who had almost all of the abilities that EGM had once claimed Sheng Long had, stated "You must defeat ME to stand a chance!", and had "aka Sheng Long" as one of his equippable titles just to put the issue to bed. Despite all of that, though, Sheng Long is still a popular fanon character and occasionally reappears as an alter ego of Gouken, a third brother to himself and Akuma, or a forgotten student who trained alongside them, amongst others. Soon after, Sheng Loing had a Shadaloo C.R.I. profile and was introduced as an NPC in World Tour mode of Street Fighter 6.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Bowsette came about as a result of fans speculating what the Big Bad Bowser would look like under the effects of the Super Crown from New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, which in canon turns Toadette, and only her, into a human resembling Princess Peach, granting her the ability to double jump and glide. The trend started in 2018 when fanartist Ayyk92 put out this fancomic based on the ending of Super Mario Odyssey. Ever since, fans of the idea have been pumping out artwork and even cosplays of their own take on the Peachified koopa king with varying degrees of human and koopa traits as well as her hair color varying from blonde (to better resemble Peach) to red (to stay truer to Bowser). Bowsette inspired countless fan works, including Bowsette Saga and numerous NSFW works. She became incredibly popular, to the point Nintendo had to offer a "no comment" about it, but made clear the character could never happen.
    • The popularity of Bowsette has led to the creation of other Super Crown versions of Mario characters. The next most popular is Booette (sometimes referred to as Boosette), a female, humanoid version of King Boo.
  • Clawdia Koopa is Bowser's ex-wife and Bowser Jr's (and sometimes the Koopalings') mother. She originates from false rumors that a British issue of Nintendo Power once mentioned her; in reality, the magazine wasn't even released in the UK, and the rumors were based on an Original Character of the same name from the fansite Lemmy's Land.
  • Sponge is a depressed third Mario brother created by Vinny from Vinesauce. The popularity of Vinesauce made him probably the most well known depiction of a third Mario brother.
  • Shy Gal is a female human version of a Shy Guy. She became popular in fanart because of her attractive figure.
  • Grand Dad is a color-swapped version of Mario who originates from 7 GRAND DAD, a Mario-themed bootleg version of The Flintstones: The Rescue of Dino & Hoppy. He became well known after the game was streamed by Joel from Vinesauce. He later became best known as the mascot of the YouTube parody music channel SiIvaGunner. Grand Dad has received many memes, fanart, and even fangames.
  • SMG4 is a character from the web series of the same name. He is the creator’s Author Avatar and a blue and white recolor of Mario who has received a lot of fanart and fanworks because of his videos’ popularity, at least prior his redesign in 2022 that erased his conection with the Mario franchise to avoid getting Screwed by the Lawyers, which has caused it to no longer appear, or at least not be used as much as it once was in Mario fanworks.
    • Another popular character from SMG4 is Fishy Boopkins, an Otaku Spike with a wacky personality. He became popular enough that many refer to any Spike as Fishy Boopkins. Though much like SMG4, he stopped frequently appearing in Mario fanworks after his redesign.
  • Scripulous Fingore comes from an Urban Legend of Zelda and was supposedly an unused ghost enemy in New Super Mario Bros. that was removed from the game for unknown reasons. The hoax became popular with fans, as Scripulous received many memes, fanart, and edits.
  • Wapeach, a Wario-counterpart to Peach who was originally going to appear in Mario Power Tennis, became extremely popular in late 2023 after Fumihide Aoki, the creator of Waluigi, posted concept art of her on Instagram. Fans loved her cute appearance, yet violent personality. Many fans are hoping that she'll be brought back in the future.
• Super Smash Bros.:
  • Sara Osborne is a homophobic, ultra-conservative fundamentalist Christian who originates from the infamous Troll Fic Supper Smash Bros: Mishonh From God. Due to the popularity of the original fic, she has become popular among the Crack Fic community, appearing in fanfics such as The Hot Topic Krew and Tingles Raveng The Tingling.
  • Bigley is a badly-drawn stick figure with a beak and wings that became very popular on the Super Smash Bros. Series Community on Miiverse. He parodies Ridley, who at the time was a popular request for the game but was claimed to be too big for inclusion. He was one of the most popular reoccurring memes on Miiverse, where he was treated like a god.
  • Scrimblo Bimblo the loveable Scrunko, a parody of the many 90's platformer characters requested for Smash such as Crash Bandicoot, Banjo (who later made it in) and Geno (often lumped in despite being an RPG character) is a common source of memes and fanart, with some imagining what his hypothetical game was like.
  • Vincent is a Mii Brawler made by Alpharad, based on Vince from Art Academy. He serves as the hero of the CPU Championship Series.
• Team Fortress 2: Mimi Sentry is the Engineer's Sentry Gun anthropomorphized as a Robot Girl with an Arm Cannon. While far from the first Moe Anthropomorphic character derived from the Sentry Gun, her sharp-toothed design (readily available for use in the SFM and Garry's Mod workshops) was the first specific one to catch on in the 15 years the game had existed so far. She spawned many a piece of fanart and Source Filmmaker animations in 2023.
• Touhou Project:
  • "Sendai Hakurei no Miko" is the hypothetical predecessor to Reimu created as a character for M.U.G.E.N who is typically depicted as being way more physical in her incident solving attempts than Reimu. Her relation with Reimu varies per artist, though she is usually depicted as being her mother or a mother figure.
  • Mitori Kawashiro is a fan-created Phantasm stage boss for Touhou Chireiden ~ Subterranean Animism who is an older sister to Nitori, being a half-kappa born in Hell who has the power to prohibit anything. Even though she is merely a modded character, she still has a cult following.
  • Rin Satsuki, an unused playable character from Touhou Koumakyou ~ the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, tends to be the most popular character in this category. Her portrayal tends to vary from being a Remember the New Guy? type of character, to being an Un-person due to her nature of being an unused in what would’ve been her debut game and whether or not she’s vengeful due to this depending on the writer, or even just being kind of an insane, delusional weirdo.
• Undertale:
  • Red, an additional humanoid member of the Royal Guard from the fangame Undertale Red, is perhaps one of the most well known OCs in the entire fandom. She frequently appears in fancomics, and she made a cameo in the well-known fangame Undertale Yellow.
  • W.D. Gaster exists in the grey area between this trope and an official character. He is mentioned by some NPCs but never actually appears in the game, other than a sprite in the files which most fans believe is him. Despite not appearing, he is one of the most popular Undertale characters due to his cool backstory, mysteriousness, and possible relation to Sans and Papyrus.
  • Doge is an unused dog enemy that would have been part of the Royal Guard. She has appeared in multiple fan works, including Inverted Fate. RG 03 and RG 04, two members of the Royal Guard similar to RG 01 and RG 02, are other cut enemies that appear in Inverted Fate and other fan works.
  • Clover is the protagonist of fangame Undertale Yellow and is the owner of the yellow soul. They are one of the most popular interpretations of the other fallen humans in the fandom.
    • Another Undertale Yellow character to become very popular within the fandom is Martlet, the Deuteragonist who is a blue bird monster in the Royal Guard.
  • Chisk is a fusion between Frisk and Chara that is the subject of many memes and artworks. They are often paired with the quote “fills you with discomfort” because of the uncomfortable expression on their face.
  • Prunsel is a fan character originating from this tumblr post. The poster had a dream where Papyrus was replaced by a giant realistic Faceless Eye staring directly at the viewer, who "spoke" with an ominous red glow that caused the music to cut out. The fandom quickly became enamored with Prunsel due to how creepy yet absurd it was, and began making fanart and shitposts about it. It was an especially big hit on the "r/Undertale" subreddit, with the users treating it as if it were an official character.
  • Baby Bones is a hypothetical third skeleton brother that comes from a post on r/Undertale in which the poster jokingly misinterprets Sans claiming that Junior Jumble is for "Baby Bones" as him talking about another younger brother.
  • Linda is a bitchy PTA mom from an AU called PTA Sans, in which Sans and Toriel adopted Frisk and take part in Parent Teacher Association meetings. Linda serves as the villain of this AU, being a bigoted upper class suburban mom who comes into conflict with Sans. Another character from this AU is Linda's underling Helen. Due to the popularity of the AU, Linda and Helen have appeared in various fan works, including comics and fanfics.