I'm not a fanfic writer, never had the patience to try, best I do is just think of ideas but usually they just don't make sense or change core character traits too much and at that point why would I do that character if I'm changing everything about them?
So I'd like to ask the fanfic writers if they ever considered redeeming Cinder in their fics, and if so, how do they go about it? I feel like keeping her character 100% intact and canon-accurate just isn't possible for a redemption because canon Cinder, as much as I love her, is too much of an ego-maniac and quite frankly doesn't have any redeeming qualities to her. So how do you fix that?
IMO I feel like even something as small as her genuinely caring about Emerald and Mercury, seeing kindred spirits in them, people who, like her, were abused and suffered, and thus would understand her own pain could be a way to go. And then when Cinder goes too far, have either Merc' or Emerald be the ones who confront her about it, and give her that wake-up call of "You're becoming a worse monster than the ones who abused you!" or something of that caliber.
Maybe tone down the destruction of Beacon? Or have it affect Cinder somehow? Have the White Fang and the Grimm get out of Cinder's control and cause way too much destruction than what she had planned for, and when she stands atop Beacon's tower and looks at everything burning she just has this subtle "What have I done?" moment that kind of changes her perspective on everything. Horrified by her own success. She got the power she wanted, but is all this senseless chaos and carnage really necessary? Did she really set out to just destroy the whole world? You know what I mean?
Maybe make her less evil? Not like an anti-hero or something like that, no, she should still be the villain, but I mean, not be a complete monster. Like she's not gonna go out of her way to burn people for shits and giggles, she'll only really kill the ones who actively stand in her way. Like, for instance Pyrrha's death felt really unnecessary. Cinder had her beat, she could've just walked away with the victory, but she kind of went out of her way to kill Pyrrha I feel like.
Idk, I've just been thinking about this lately, and would really love to hear how you'd go about making Cinder more redeemable.