Fans Prefer the New Her

A specific type of Audience Reaction. For every Unnecessary Makeover, you're bound to find the opposite. This is the case where a character in-universe (usually female) gets some kind of makeover. Her friends are horrified that she would change at all and treat said makeover as something awful or else spend a good time talking about how much better she looked before. Normally, because Status Quo Is God, the makeover will be gone and the character will be back to normal, though sometimes the friends may learn An Aesop that the friend dresses for herself and not to please them. However, Fans Prefer the New Her (or him). The scruffy guy might look good in a business suit, a Tomboy might suit the Girliness Upgrade, the Evil Makeover might be an objectively more interesting design (one way or another)... you get the picture.

NOTE: This is not just 'character gets a makeover that the fans approve of'. In-universe, it has to be disliked by the other characters or the character themselves while still having the fans' approval.

See also Unnecessary Makeover, Beautiful All Along, and Just the Way You Are, which is what this trope is trying to be. Closely related is Critical Backlash - and this is the fans having that to the character's appearance.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• More than a few School-Live! fans enjoyed Miki wearing an eyepatch due to injuries sustained due to an explosion caused when a helicopter burst into flames with her nearby. Her eye eventually healed though. The anime adaptation didn't even include the injury.
• Fuu from Yuki Yuna is a Hero received an Eyepatch of Power partway through the story when she becomes blind in one eye. The reason she wears it is no laughing matter but fans agree she looks cool with it. Her eyesight was fixed in the final episode though.

Comic Books

• Spider-Man
  • This happens with Spider-Man's black costume, although to be fair, half the characters were rather accepting of it. It's Mary Jane who dislikes it and insists that he get rid of it (although in her defense, she was just attacked by someone wearing an identical costume, so her disdain for it was understandable). The costume has persisted as a fan-favorite, appearing in nearly every adaptation of the character in some form since its debut in 1984, and constantly being featured as an alternate outfit in video games.
  • This is played a bit straighter in Ultimate Spider-Man, where Peter got the same black costume and lost it over the course of a couple issues. When Mary Jane discovered he'd discarded it, she agreed that "it wasn't him".
• One issue of Archie Comics had Betty start dressing goth and hanging around goth kids. Her friends are at first negative about the change but in the end try it out themselves in order to relate to Betty. Betty looked really attractive as a Perky Goth, especially since she had blue eyes when normally they're a cartoony black, however it isn't referenced after that issue.
• When Storm first had her biker/mohawk makeover, the other X-Men were shocked and Kitty in particular hated it (along with Storm's new aggressive personality). However, fans loved the new look, and like Spider-Man's black costume, Storm's mohawk is frequently brought back in the comics and is often an alternate skin for her in video games.

Films — Animated

• The Disney Princess merchandise does this with Mulan. Her dolls almost always feature her in the pink dress she wore for the Matchmaker at the beginning of the movie. However, Mulan herself was uncomfortable in it and it represented a lifestyle she did not want. It doesn't stop her from looking stunning when the makeover is complete though.
• In a similar example, some Brave merchandise depicts Merida in her baby blue dress. The same one her mother forced her into and represented the Arranged Marriage she didn't want. Most Merida cosplayers usually choose the princess's simple dark green dress she prefers, or else the one she wears at the end (symbolising her character growth).
• Madam Mim from The Sword in the Stone is an old ugly witch but for about half a minute, she uses her magic to transform into a beautiful young curvy version of herself and then promptly transforms back to her old self, proclaiming she prefers looking ugly. Most fans disagree, which is why the majority of fan content features her beautiful version.

Films — Live Action

• The Stepford Wives (2004)
  • The robot wives in both versions are forced into different outfits than they normally wear. In the original film, it worked because Joanna, Bobbie, etc were already very good-looking beforehand - and they were forced into 1950s-style dresses with too much make-up. The implication was that they looked like porcelain dolls. But in the remake, Joanna spends most of the film with a hairstyle that doesn't suit her, and Bobbie is likewise dressed down - making the robot transformations come across as She Cleans Up Nicely. The rest of the wives are likewise put into very flattering sundresses.
  • Similarly, Roger looks much better after his makeover without the loud mishmash of colors and clownish outfits.
  • This would have been the case for the original too. Word of God says that the wives would originally have been dressed "like Playboy bunnies, sans the ears" until the director cast his wife Nanette Newman as Carol. As she was significantly older than the rest of the actresses playing the wives, the change to 1950s dresses was done.
• In Freaky Friday (2003), Tess is repulsed by the makeover she is forced to get when Anna is in her body. Except she had a very unflattering hairstyle before said makeover and dressed all in black dowdy clothes that didn't seem to fit her. This appears to be just Tess's reaction, as she gets a few looks from men as she walks down the street after the makeover and her fiancé seems to like it too.
• In The Hole, Liz dyes her hair blonde to get Mike to notice her, but freaks out at the result and dyes it back. The actress is actually a natural blonde so the colour suits her much better than the black hair she has for the rest of the film.
• In V for Vendetta, Evey is naturally furious at having her head shaved in prison yet Natalie Portman pulls off the bald look really well. Portman herself had this reaction, having wanted to shave her head for a while.
• In a similar example to the above, when Anne Hathaway is shaved nearly bald in Les Misérables (2012), it's meant to be just another degradation in her character's miserable life. Turns out, Anne Hathaway looks fantastic with short hair, and a lot of fans embraced the "new look", not realizing she fully intended to grow it back.
• Mika Boorem's makeover in Augusta Gone is meant to symbolize her character properly going off the deep end and when she checks herself into a teen rehab centre, the psychologist forbids her from wearing her punk-rock/heavy metal clothes. Compared to the extremes some rocker chicks go for, Augusta looks quite tame and actually suits the look.
• Fred and Velma in the live-action Scooby-Doo movie get possessed by demons that think all humans dress like beach party kids and so they get made over accordingly, which suits them. In fact, when Velma puts her glasses back on, she looks very nice indeed.
• The Hunger Games:
  • Katniss Everdeen has a lot of dresses that are popular with cosplayers - including her iconic 'Girl on Fire' dress. She wears these while being pimped out just before being sent to participate in a brutal death match.
  • There's some of this in-universe too, where Katniss's distinctive braid becomes popular as a fashion statement. Katniss only wears her hair like that when she's hunting - because her district is poor and she has to hunt to make sure her family has enough food.
• In the American version of The Experiment, a dramatization of the Stanford Prison Experiment, Travis has his long hair shaved off in a Traumatic Haircut - where the guards then piss on his freshly shaved head. Rather than getting shaved completely bald like his German equivalent, Travis just has a buzzcut - which actually suits Adrien Brody better.
• Midnight Express - Billy has to get a haircut when he goes to prison. He goes from having floppy '70s Hair to a buzzcut that suits him. It's still got a little bit of length, so it's not like he's scalped.
• In Avengers: Infinity War, Steve Rogers now sports a full beard that puts Thor's to shame, reflective of the long months he's spent separated from the other Avengers and on the run from the law. The fans were quite...vocal about their approval, to put it lightly, and many mourned its absence in Avengers: Endgame as an Unnecessary Makeover.
• Conversely, in Endgame, Clint Barton has shed the moniker of Hawkeye in favor of calling himself "Ronin", wearing an all-black costume with a hood and wielding a katana more than his bow. The choice reflects his serious Sanity Slippage into a violent Vigilante Man who hunts down and murders organized criminals in cold blood as an outlet for his rage and grief over the deaths of his family in the Snapture, and many of the other Avengers, especially Black Widow, are horrified by this mark of his descent into darkness. The fans enthusiastically embraced his new look because the Ronin persona looks, and is, ridiculously badass.
• In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Bucky has gone from looking like a dapper, young WWII soldier, to sporting long hair and a kickass, Russian bullet-proof suit and metal arm as the Winter Soldier. Most fans prefer his badass Winter Soldier look in the franchise.
• Beastly—the book is about a spoiled Pretty Boy who undergoes a Karmic Transformation, turning him into a fanged, hairy monster. In the movie, though, he is cursed to look like...a tattooed punk with a shaved head and some scars? It's a pretty severe change, but the fact is, many viewers will find him more attractive when he's "cursed." (Which makes sense, in a meta way—after all, the filmmakers almost certainly made this decision based on the logic that their male lead needs to be hot.)
• Valley of the Dolls has an infamous Cat Fight where Neely discovers that Helen Lawson wears a wig to hide her grey hair. The wig itself was not Susan Hayward's natural hair (nor was the grey, mind you; she bleached it for the scene) and done in an unflattering tightly curled '50s 'do. The grey hair just makes Helen look like a Silver Fox. Word of God is that the original plan was for her to have a cap that made her look like she was losing her hair, but the actress refused.
• This Boy's Life has a sequence where Toby is forced by his abusive stepfather to get a haircut. While traumatic for him, the flattop haircut actually looks quite good on Leonardo DiCaprio.
• The Outsiders has a memorable moment where Johnny and Ponyboy have to cut their hair while hiding from the law. Ponyboy also has to bleach his, which he doesn't want to do. Due to Acceptable Breaks from Reality, the bleaching comes out quite well and flatters C Thomas Howell.
• The Craft:
  • It's written into the film that Bonnie's scars vanishing, and her subsequent makeover to show off more skin and pay more attention to her appearance is a sign of her becoming "totally narcissistic" - also marking a Face–Heel Turn. Needless to say, Neve Campbell looks positively stunning.
  • Nancy is especially dressed down at the beginning of the film, due to being so poor she has to shoplift most of her things. As she goes mad with power and transforms into the film's true antagonist, it's accompanied by an Evil Makeover; now she's wearing extremely flattering Hot Topic style outfits, giving her a dark alluring appeal.
  • There's also a scene where Nancy casts a spell to make Chris think she's Sarah, which leads to her attempting to sleep with him. The sequence is decidedly un-sexy, but damn if Robin Tunney doesn't look great in Nancy's black dress.
• Boyhood has Mason getting his shoulder-length hair sheared completely off by an abusive stepfather to look more masculine. He's so traumatized by this, he doesn't even want to go to school. His actor Ellar Coltrane however was thrilled to have his hair cut, hating having to grow it out for that part of the film.
• A Quiet Place takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting where society has collapsed. John Krasinski sports a bushy beard to convey that the family has to live rough. The beard however was a hit with fangirls, who felt it made him look like a Hunk (similar to the Steve Rogers example above).
• Imperium has the male protagonist shaving his head to infiltrate a neo-Nazi gang, which he shows visible discomfort at doing. It turns out, however, that Daniel Radcliffe looks great as a skinhead.
• The Chilean movie La Buena Vida features two musicians joining an army orchestra. Both have long hair and beards, and are required to get their hair cut short to meet army regulations. One in particular looks quite sad during the haircut. Both however suit the shorter looks.
• Fear Street Part 2: 1978 sees Cindy fussing about her ruined clothes after she gets trapped underground for most of the night, crawling through mud and people's feces (with other characters reminding her how much she smells). The Messy Hair, torn clothes, and covering of dirt however makes her wildly more attractive.
• In Return of the Jedi, Princess Leia is infamously forced into an incredibly revealing Go-Go Enslavement golden bikini by Jabba the Hutt, and while it's meant to be degrading for her, it hasn't stopped years of fanboys from ogling her, or cosplayers from excitedly replicating it.

Literature

• Lampshaded in The Saga of Darren Shan. Lady Evanna can take whatever form she wishes and occasionally makes herself stunningly beautiful. However, her preferred form is a hairy human-wolf hybrid. When Darren asks her why she doesn't stay beautiful all the time, she says that the hairy form is how she was born and prefers it for that reason.

Live-Action TV

• Elliott and Carla have this reaction in Scrubs when they meet a patient who just got plastic surgery after a car accident and wants to go back to the way she looked before
  "I know I had a big nose and droopy eyes, but they were my big nose and droopy eyes"
• The reality series Extreme Male Beauty has the presenter Tim revealing his new self to his wife and friends who are all repulsed by it and the end of the last episode has him going down to the pub to start reverting to his old self straight away. While admittedly what he had to go through to change was excessive (long hours in the gym, crash dieting, etc) he didn't look nearly as bad afterwards as his friends were saying. What's even worse is that the first episode has him thinking his wife wants him to change and she insists she doesn't but he goes ahead with it anyway because he wants to change. It also comes across as a rather mean-spirited anti-fitness Aesop; ignoring that the excessive methods Tim went through to get in shape are precisely what personal trainers advise against. Namely he was trying to get in shape cold turkey in eight weeks - whereas most people advise making gradual adjustments in lifestyle.
• Similar case with the show Scene Stealers where teenagers from one scene were made over to try and pass as those from another (i.e. a plastic was made into a goth). Some of the teens that got made over suited the new styles quite well, especially Michaela a goth who became Mikki a plastic. She suited the plastic look much better than the girl who made her over. A rude girl Gemma also got made over into a posh look that looked better without all the extra jewelry, etc.
• The reality show That'll Teach Em, which saw modern teenagers sent to 1950s-style school, had all the boys receive a traditional short back and sides haircut, which did not make some of the long-haired rockers happy. One boy, Brennon Gunston, started out with long floppy blond hair and ended up leaving the series as a result of the Traumatic Haircut. Yet to some, the haircut looked nice on him. These types of shows become Hilarious in Hindsight since the 1950s hairstyles came back into fashion.
• On an episode of Snog, Marry, Avoid?, POD is appalled when presenter Ellie gets hair extensions put in. Ellie does indeed look very nice with long hair and the extensions themselves looked quite natural on her.
• Total Divas has Paige getting annoyed at having to do Beautiful All Along for the Hall of Fame ceremony. Plenty of fans enjoyed getting the chance to see her tanned and in a Pimped-Out Dress.
• Once Upon a Time:
  • In an alternate universe in the Season 4 finale, Emma has been locked in a tower for years and is dressed in rags. The gown she's wearing is actually quite nice and it rather suits Emma's Unkempt Beauty. Too bad she changes out of it pretty quickly.
  • The same finale has Regina living as a forest bandit who's been persecuted by Snow White, and pines for unrequited love. The costume she wears is very flattering with some fur trim and a long ponytail that suits her.
  • After Regina's Heel–Face Turn, the elaborate Costume Porn she favoured as the Evil Queen retroactively becomes a symbol of her utter depression and self-loathing - which led to her becoming a villain in the first place. But given how nice Lana Parrilla looks in that outfit, plenty of fans prefer the Evil Queen look.
• In the final season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xander has his eye gouged out by Caleb and consequently starts wearing an eyepatch. The fans loved it and it's almost unanimously considered to be his most iconic look, because of how badass he looks, and because the Eyepatch of Power is an incredibly strong visual symbol for how far he's come as a character. Xander is understandably not fond of it, because losing an eye is painful and inconvenient.
• Spartacus: Blood and Sand:
  • Lucretia looks very nice when she starts wearing her red wigs in Season 2. Unfortunately, she's being forced to wear them by Ashur as a way of him asserting his dominance over her - and after he's brutally raped her. This is lampshaded when Illythia compliments Lucretia on how nice she looks with the red hair - only for the latter to shudder.
  • Plenty of fans prefer Spartacus with short hair too rather than the long hair he has in the pilot episode...which is cut off in a Traumatic Haircut when he's captured by the Romans. Likewise, he keeps his hair short during the war - when Crixus has grown his out - as a representation that the man his wife loved is no more and he can never go back to his old life.
• Sabrina the Teenage Witch:
  • Hilda gives herself long hair when she eats 'hair soup' in one episode, but gets rid of it by the end of the episode because the upkeep is too much. Doesn't stop her from looking great with it though. Sabrina does likewise in the same season finale (although it's more practical in her case, to allow Harvey to climb up it to rescue her).
  • A Season 7 episode has Sabrina getting trapped in a colleague's computer and he uses Photoshop to turn her into a big-breasted bimbo in a tight pink dress. In-universe it's meant to be humiliating for her (though she does enjoy some extra attention) - but needless to say, it's a pretty blatant example of Fanservice.
• Charmed (1998) has a Bad Future where Prue has become a Corrupt Corporate Executive who is estranged from her sisters. Her attire is a tight strapless dress that's very flattering to Shannen Doherty - and she looks stunning with long blonde hair.
• Stranger Things:
  • In Season 2, as Eleven/Jane finds her lost "sister" Kali, she trades in her rural look (from her time in hiding) for a more edgy, punk look complete with slicked back hair, a leather jacket, and eyeliner, which seems to reflect her personality much better than anything she's worn before. Most fans prefer this Bitchin' look!
  • In Season 4, Hopper gets his head shaved as part of the torture process when he's sent to a Russian prison. Turns out David Harbour looks great bald.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation has Data giving himself a beard in one episode. Troi bursts out laughing at the sight of it, and it of course doesn't stay. The beard itself actually is quite flattering and suits Brent Spiner's facial structure.

Professional Wrestling

• At Over the Limit in 2010, CM Punk lost a Hair vs. Mask match against Rey Mysterio and got shaved bald. Most fans seem to prefer him with the short hair, and he kept it relatively short since then.
• Molly Holly:
  • She was brainwashed by The Hurricane into becoming Mighty Molly. She herself was surprised that it's one of her most fondly remembered gimmicks.
  • Most fans preferred her with the blonde hair she had as Miss Madness, Mona, Mighty Molly and her Holly Cousin character. She's a natural brunette and having to maintain the blonde colour ruined it, and changing it to brown after a Face–Heel Turn was because it was "like straw" to quote her. She did re-bleach the hair when she made a cameo return at WrestleMania 25.
  • And her head shaving in 2004 was meant to be the ultimate humiliation for the character. Turns out she looked great with a bald head, and she actually didn't mind the look either.
• Becky Lynch was given a broken nose and concussion by Nia Jax throwing a stiff punch. The image of her with blood pouring down her face just made her look even more badass and attractive.
• Vince McMahon had to have his head shaved as a result of Umaga losing to Bobby Lashley at WrestleMania 23, humiliating him and naturally resulting in a few weeks of him trying to hide his bald head under a fedora or do-rag. But after a while when it started to grow back, particularly around the time he held the ECW Championship, it arguably suited him. He grew it back longer, however.
• Eric Bischoff likewise lost a match to his nephew Eugene, and the fans voted that the penalty would be for him to have his head shaved. He appeared on Raw the next week so furious that he announced he was giving himself the week off. And when he revealed his freshly shaved head, it ended up looking great. And since he'd been forced to dye his hair black when he joined the company two years prior, it allowed the natural grey to come through, giving him a Silver Fox look.

Video Games

• In BioShock Infinite, Elizabeth gives herself an Adrenaline Makeover after killing Daisy Fitzroy during the Vox Populi uprising. She chops off her ponytail, giving herself a short bob, and changes from a white blouse and skirt to a full-length dress with a bodice that invokes Of Corsets Sexy. Her previous clothes are drenched in blood, the corset is pretty much her running around in her underthings, and on top of that the dress is a painful reminder of Lady Comstock—she even apologizes, saying, "This is all they had". Of course her new look ends up being the one featured in the poster and the vast majority of cosplays.
• One of the fighters in Castlevania: Judgment was Unexpected Character Cornell who underwent a redesign from a standard werewolf into a black, armor-wearing wolf knight. Cornell himself hates it as being caught in the time loops means he's stuck in his hated werewolf form until he can escape. Many fans utterly adored this new form due to it looking really, really badass and wondered why something like it wasn't his original design.
• A major story arc in Final Fantasy XV involves the protagonist, Noctis Lucis Caelum, returning after a Time Skip where he spent 10 years trapped in the Crystal, now Prematurely Grey-Haired, with his previous Anime Hair hair grown out to his shoulders, a dirty, scraggly beard, and scars and age lines all over his face. It's meant to reflect the terrible trauma he's suffered as a result of spending an entire decade in the spirit world separated from his friends, but the fans...didn't see it that way. Because he. Looks. Incredible. He actually looks awesome with grey hair, the beard adds some desperately needed maturity to his face, (not to mention softening his frighteningly pointy chin), and the Barbarian Longhair looks much more reasonable for a hardened warrior than his previous "Sasuke haircut", and even the dirt and stubble adds to his looks rather than detracting from them. More than a few approving fans have favorably compared his appearance to John Wick or Geralt of Rivia.
• Midna from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess spends the entirety of the game in the form of an imp, the result of a Forced Transformation from the primary antagonist Zant, and seeks to be released from the curse. While we see her uncursed form later, the majority of her fanart portrays her in her imp form. She was also one of the first characters announced for Hyrule Warriors in her imp form, even though the plot had to go out of its way to justify the transformation, while her natural form was reserved for DLC.
• Metroid Dread: The Metroid Suit was very well-received among fans, looking almost like a light variation of Dark Samus, and being the next logical step in exploring how Samus has to control her new Metroid DNA after Metroid Fusion laid the foundation. Unfortunately, thanks to plot-relevant reasons, Samus is unable to keep this new look that fans latched onto.
• While Kyo's original school uniform in The King of Fighters is the most well-known of his various designs on the whole, Japan especially loves Kyo's NESTS-era reinvention outfit of a white jacket, black turtleneck, and jeans, to the point that it shows up as much or more than his classic gakuran in official promotions and crossovers as well as being a very popular subject of fanart. Even though said outfit was what he could find after escaping the clutches of an organization that had abducted and experimented on him.
  • Terry Bogard ditched his iconic red vest and cap for a bomber jacket and an overall more rugged appearance for Garou: Mark of the Wolves to mark the game's timeskip and his graduation from a scrappy street kid to a wise mentor. Most of Terry's appearances since default to his classic appearance, but whenever he breaks out the bomber jacket, it's met with much fanfare.
• During a nightmare sequence in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, the hero Cal Kestis sees himself as an Inquisitor after being tortured into evil. That didn't stop many fans from loving his inquisitor outfit and it was later added as a playable skin to fan request.

Web Original

• In The Nostalgia Chick's review of Jem the Makeover Fairy gives her and Nella garish 80s fashion makeovers. But even though they're meant to be hideous, the costumes themselves are fun in their blatant 80s-ness.

Western Animation

• In As Told by Ginger, Ginger's friends get really worried when she gets made over to look like Courtney Grippling and she results in learning An Aesop about being true to herself. Though she looked quite nice with her hair done and wearing some of Courtney's clothes.
• The Weekenders:
  • The episode "My Punky Valentine" has Tino getting a punk rock makeover to try and get a girl's attention which his friends are not happy with. He actually suits the punk rock look, but it's gone by the end of the episode.
  • Lor gets a Girliness Upgrade in another episode when she hears a boy likes her. Her friends have an Uncanny Valley reaction to the makeover and the guy says it freaked him out. The makeover itself wasn't as extreme as some other examples since all that was different was Lor wearing a skirt and a girlier hairstyle. Though admittedly, she backed out when she heard she was supposed to get made over even more (including plastic surgery).
  • Tish gives herself a set of fuzzy buns on the side of her hair and the gang act as if it's the end of the world. It wasn't preferable to her old hair, but it wasn't as hideous as they make it out to be.
• In Recess, Spinelli enters a Beauty Contest for kids and at the end refers to herself as a "painted up doll", implying she doesn't like being cleaned up. But she does look very nice in her evening gown with her hair done up.
• The All Grown Up! episode "Bad Kimi" has Chuckie horrified when Kimi shows up with a pink streak in her hair because he takes it as a sign of her rebelling and it's gone by the next episode. The 'do in question? Kinda cute.
• The Simpsons:
  • In "Guess Who's Coming to Criticize Dinner", Mr. Burns gaining fat is portrayed as a bad thing when his shins collapse, but fans commented that he actually looked healthier with the weight on compared to his usually spindly and decrepit appearance, coupled with his new jovial attitude while being fat.
  • In "Large Marge", Marge Simpson is not happy when a plastic surgeon gives her breast implants by accident and she spends the whole episode fretting about them, which of course means they're gone by the end of the episode. This one probably doesn't need any further explanation.
• In the Family Guy episode "Sibling Rivalry", Lois gains weight when Peter gets a vasectomy, up until she becomes as obese as Peter. The show treats this as one of the worst things ever, though some fans (and Peter himself) believe she looks sexy while she was pudgy.
• One episode of Harvey Beaks has Fee getting her first haircut and increasingly cutting it shorter to avoid getting it ruined. Several of the haircuts were considered very cute but by the next episode she has her old hair back. It's at least justified in that she is a Wild Child who never brushes, washes, or combs her hair so long, messy hair fits her better.
• Happens a few times in Jem. In "The Bands Break Up" Raya is disgusted by Kimber's new Misfits-inspired makeup however fans either often prefer it or can't tell the difference. Similarly, Roxy gets a makeover in "Roxy Rumbles" when she decides to change her life and many fans like it quite a bit.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • 'Flutterbat', the Fan Nickname for Fluttershy's vampire bat form, is very popular in the fan fiction. This is ignoring the fact that Fluttershy was turned into it accidentally and the process was very traumatic for her and her friends but she does willingly turn back into this form in a dream in a later episode.
  • Due to Evil Is Cool and the impressive design, Nightmare Moon is popular among fan fiction too. But the villainess was a result of Princess Luna's jealousy and corruption - and the princess is plagued by guilt over her actions. But Princess Luna herself is also quite popular, lessening this somewhat.
  • The comics exclusive Nightmare Rarity also have her share of fans and is quite possibly the biggest Ensemble Dark Horse (no pun intended) from the comics.
  • In the episode "The Mane Attraction", Applejack's fillyhood friend Rara has grown up to become a pony pop star, similar to Lady Gaga. This is treated as her being untruthful to herself, and at the end of the episode, she stops dressing so flashy and changes her music style to ballads. Fans are mixed on this. Many preferred Rara the way she was before the final act.
• In the fifth season of Samurai Jack, to reflect how broken he has become, Jack has a neglected appearance with his hair untied and a beard. Many fans embraced his new design and were disappointed when he returns to his classic appearance after finding inner peace and regaining his sword.
• In Teen Titans during the "Terror of Trigon" arc, Raven briefly sported long hair and a white version of her costume due to magical influence. It was a Shout-Out to how she appears in the comics (she normally wears her hair long, and she temporarily donned a white costume after killing Trigon to celebrate her freedom from him), and many fans loved the new look. However, she went back to her old style in the end just as a personal preference.
• Bullfrag's triangle shades in Ben 10: Omniverse are an example of the animators themselves having this reaction: They're meant to hide Ben's green eyes, but the animators liked them so much he kept wearing them after it was revealed he was really Ben.
• In Jackie Chan Adventures, Jade gets a tattoo of Tarakudo in the episode "Queen of the Shadowkhan" which lets her control the Shadowkhan and starts changing her skin blue and her eyes red and turns her evil. The resulting Superpowered Evil Side was so popular it led to a sizeable collection of fanfics.
• The Dragons: Riders of Berk episode "Free Scauldy" ends with Ruffnut cutting off her braids in order to use them as ropes. In the next episode, her hair is long again. Lots of fans liked her shorter hair.

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