The following have their own pages:
- Frozen Hearts (Red Witch): The ending for this story is this for the canon fates of Simon and Betty. In this story after everything they gone through, Simon and Betty are finally together and both share the power of the Ice Crown, keeping them sane since it's split between the two. In canon, Simon and Betty are separated yet again — while Simon is cured from the crown, Betty becomes the new GOLB and banishes herself to protect Simon and the rest of Ooo.
- In The Citadel of Truth, when Finn reunites with his parents in the afterlife, they are presented as a loving and caring couple who sacrificed themselves for the sake of their son. It makes the revelation of who Finn's father truly is in the canon Adventure Time even more heartbreaking.
- The Arrow story Red featured a romance between Sara Lance and Thea Queen, which became awkward after the show's revelation that Thea killed Sara while under the effects of a mind control drug. This led to the story's deletion.
- In How I Became Yours, Toph - after hearing that Sokka revealed Zuko and Katara's love child Kuzon's existence by sending a letter to Zuko - says, "Katara is going to kill you... I can only imagine what Mai will do to Zuko...". A demonized, Out of Character, Yandere Mai poisons Katara, causing her to miscarrynote , and later tries to kill her herself.
- In the sequel comic How I Became Yours: Rise of the Agni Army, it's pretty much a given that Zuko's murderer was indeed Mai, who somehow survived being bloodbent to death. Brr...
- It's astonishing how similar Zuko confronting Mai about hiding the existence of his love child with Katara by hiding her letters until a servant showed them to him is to Ozai confronting Ursa in a flashback in The Search over Zuko being Ikem's son rather than Ozai's, something he learned by the servant Ursa entrusted to deliver her letters betraying her and giving them to Ozai. Zuko may be turning out more like Ozai than he thought here.
- Batman: Dead End (Alien vs. Predator & Batman): This Fan Film features the Joker being lifted up and dragged away by a xenomorph, never to be seen again. Andrew Koenig (the actor who played the Joker and son of Walter Koenig) died by hanging himself.
- In chapter 75 of Child of the Storm, the usually nigh-infallible and apparently omniscient Doctor Strange, when questioned by Jean on whether he's correct about something, makes the following Badass Boast: "I am the Sorcerer Supreme, Miss Grey. Mistakes and misapprehensions are for other people." However, chapter 9 of the sequel, Ghosts of the Past, reveals that he previously made one hell of a mistake, his inability to track Sinister meaning that he didn't arrive in time to stop him stealing Maddie/Rachel from her crib.
- In chapter 2 of Ghosts of the Past, Harry snarks - when Carol grabs his arm, intent on hauling him Slurpie-wards - that he'll have to follow, because, "I'm very attached to my arm and I like to think that it's very attached to me." In chapter 14, his Blank Slate body, the Red Son, winds up having his left arm - and eye, and most of his left side - blasted off by Magneto as the latter tries to bring him down without doing permanent damage, then replaced with a Cable style techno-organic arm.
- Children of Time (Doctor Who & Sherlock Holmes): There's bucket loads of Foreshadowing for the season 1 finale, and plenty of moments within the three-part finale itself that get worse later on.
- “Not if you do not wish to truly experience your role and sleep on the street...” Which Beth Lestrade actually ends up doing in the next episode while on the run with the Irregulars.
- “I should have cuffed you to the railing back at Baker Street.” Sherlock Holmes cuffs Beth to the cab door just half an hour later, which starts the ball rolling on a world of trouble between the two.
- Not to mention the use of Vincent Starrett's famous Sherlockian poem as a Motif for the finale. Sherlockian readers will never think of the words "always 1895" the same way again.
- In Fractured, a Mass Effect/Star Wars/Borderlands crossover, some characters joke that Lilith might become addicted to Eridium. She doesn't but ends up addicted to something else.
- The Misery Senshi Neo-Zero Double Blitzkrieg Debacle (Daria & Sailor Moon):
- The MST has a joke wherein Ami interprets Daria's descriptions of Trent to mean he's like Kevin Spacey and fails to see why Daria is still not willing to commit to a relationship because of that. Given that Spacey's career was later torpedoed by allegations of sexual misconduct, Ami ends up looking worse in that gag.
- The story's plot of a terrorist essentially using a passenger jet as a missile to destroy a prominent target was plausible in 1998 when the story was first written, but also fictional. The riffing was originally released in 2000, when the same standard applied (hence numerous jokes and skits about it). Post-9/11, the subject matter is downright horrifying, and in the 2010 updated re-release, the author added a disclaimer re-iterating that he had written the story well before the attacks.
- Amazana Yoriko being a Japanese Nazi was once considered just another one of the fic's weird quirks. Fast-forward to increased awareness of fascist and nationalist sentiment in Japan...
- Miraculous Knight: Lila Rossi here has ended her lying following Volpina, and is among Marinette's friends in class. The story was written between 2016 and 2017, well before the events of the infamous season 3 premiere "Chameleon", where she threatens Marinette to not expose her lies or she will ruin her life.
- NiGHTS: Quatro Facets of Dreams (NiGHTS into Dreams…, Coraline, Spooky Month, Gravity Falls, and Undertale): In this story, a minor but impactful plot point is that Pump's parents are not at home. The fourth episode of his home series, "Deadly Smiles" (released weeks after the story was concluded), confirms it as canon when Pump bluffs Susie's threat to call their parents, since they'd never answer even if she called them.
- The Owl and The Frog
- Belos pressures Sasha into sending Luz into his world to help him learn glyphs for notorious purposes. In canon Owl House, Luz suffers hard depression after learning that she indirectly helped Belos with his plan for the Day of Unity, to the point where she develops implied suicidal thoughts. The fact that Belos here is trying to push Luz into the same situation makes it hard for readers to continue knowing what's going to happen.
- "What If... Luz and Anne switched places?" has Sasha falls further into Belos' influence and possibly control. In "Thanks to Them", Belos has complete control over Hunter which drains his life force after the possession. If not for Flapjack, Hunter would be gone for good. It's hard not to worry Sasha will potentially fall into a similar fate.
- Tell Him All But The Truth (The Secret Show & Psychonauts): As if Victor's mental breakdown at the beginning of the fanfic wasn't heartbreaking enough already, it became even more so when the author revealed in Chapter 20 that they'd been dealing with severe psychosis while writing the story.
- Tokimeki PokéLive! and TwinBee:
- In "Prophecy of Failure!?", It's revealed that a possible future Earth is mostly uninhabitable due to Global Warming with only the polar regions and lower Canada remaining habitable with many species possibly having gone extinct. Come Pokémon Sword and Shield, the Pokédex entry for Galarian Corsola reveals that it was eradicated by Climate Change in the past.
- The Massive Multiplayer Crossover fanfic Like Broken Glass
kicks off with the murder of Rizzoli & Isles cop Barry Frost. The author was just as blindsided as everyone else when, halfway through writing the story, Frost's actor Lee Thompson Young committed suicide. - Obscure DC Comics hero Blue Jay appears in issue 1 of Comic Book SNAFU. According to Word of God, the first issue was still being written when issue 1 of Heroes in Crisis came out, where Blue Jay is killed off in a Squicky manner.
- The City That Never Sleeps Job is a crossover fic between Leverage and Law & Order: SVU. The fic has The Leverage team trying to take down a child trafficker, a job which hits rather close to home for Parker due to her abusive childhood. At one point, Parker outright asks Nate if he is a child molester, which he immediately denies. In 2020, Timothy Hutton, Nate's actor, was accused by a woman named Sera Johnston of raping her when she was fourteen years old.
- Halloween Unspectacular: The ending of the seventh collection, where The Bad Guy Wins, a number of heroes are dead as a result, and there's only one ray of hope to break up the Downer Ending, feels eerily similar to the ending of Avengers: Infinity War, which came out several months later.
- Super Sentai vs. Power Rangers: The Liveblog: Any moment where main character Rika berates the story about how Cole was chosen to become Red Conqueror and how his shipping with Sakura was handled, coupled with the potshot against the events with Sean's ascension as the Ultimate Red Legendary Ranger and using some certain Twitter posts to disprove Cole's kindness towards women, became this with the news that Rick Medina (Cole's actor) stabbed a roommate with a sword and killed him.
- In Chapter 61 of Universe Falls, the Gems react pretty badly to learning Rose Quartz had their memories of Ford Pines erased, and why. Then "A Single Pale Rose" aired and revealed an even BIGGER secret Rose had been keeping from them: Pink Diamond is Rose Quartz, and faked her death.
- Rising of the Sleeping Soldier: In Chapter 3, Myne/Malty tries seducing Alucard in a Honey Trap for her own schemes. It fails spectacularly, annoying him to the point where he stuns her with a Rage Breaking Point Nightmare Face before sending Motoyasu to collect her. Then in the Season 3 Castlevania episode "Abandon All Hope", Alucard ends up falling for a Honey Trap devised by his new friends Sumi and Taka, having forced to kill both of them with his One-Handed Zweihänder when a misunderstanding about his motives leading them to try and murder him.
- What the Cat Dragged In is a crossover between Miraculous Ladybug and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, taking place and published around Season 1 of the former, that has the Avengers analyze with concern about the situation in Paris, many of which become hauntingly accurate predictions in later seasons.
- Nick Fury's fear of the potential consequences of a SHIELD agent with vital top secret intel bears fruit in canon when in "Backwarder" Hawk Moth akumatizes Master Fu's old lover by complete chance and she promptly volunteers extremely damaging information to him.
- This fic analyzes how Ladybug and Chat Noir's Wake Up, Go to School & Save the World routine would absolutely wreck their personal lives, unnerving everyone discussing it (especially Tony). The duo would eventually suffer the effects of this in canon; in particular, their inability to tell anyone they're heroes ended up costing them their romances with Luka and Kagami, respectively.
- Tony's analysis on Hawk Moth's theoretical Motive Decay proves to be chillingly accurate to the canon show's Season 5 premiere when he squanders a golden opportunity to achieve his stated objective in order to pursue revenge against Ladybug.
- In DC Nation, issues #20-#21 of the New Teen Titans comic (May-June 1986) are affectionately known as "The Mission from Hell." The Titans were (temporarily) mostly broken up after incidents involving or happening roughly around the time of Crisis on Infinite Earths. Wonder Girl, who is left in charge with an empty nest, calls in Aqualad, a newly-minted Flash, a Hawk without Dove, Jason-Robin and her ex-boyfriend Speedy. At the request of King Faraday, they help to protect a peace conference which is being threatened by Cheshire. Yes, the Cheshire Speedy had a relationship with. This was where it was discovered they had a child together. Issue #21 closes on some supposed to be heart-warming reconciliations between Terry Long and Wonder Girl and also Speedy and Cheshire, including him getting to hold his daughter for the first time. Also, Wally getting to explain his new role as The Flash to his hero-avoidant then-girlfriend Francis Kane. Now, look at these events through the lens of:
- Wonder Girl and Speedy still being in love, but not pursuing those feelings due to the machinations of Dark Angel.
- Aqualad being suicidal after the loss of Tula.
- King Faraday being mind-controlled by Diablo to be Gamemaster.
- Wally-Flash not knowing what he's doing and trying to imitate Barry Allen. His behavior around this time is often-cited by his peers in-game as to why "growing up and becoming JLA members" is no longer concidered an option if the Titan in question wants to keep their sense of self.
- Wonder Girl having a miscarriage after a fight with Cheshire when she hadn't known she was pregnant which actually stopped Aqualad from killing himself. After getting treatment, which she swore him to secrecy about, the next day she finds out about Lian's birth.
- Jason being the voice of reason among his older, more experienced peers. In Nation-canon he received a statue in the memorial hall upon his death for this and the work to free Raven, which is different from in pre-reboot DC-canon.
- Having Speedy, Wonder Girl and Flash return to Cheshire, Terry Long and Francis Kane with the idea that this is a relief to them. In Nation, all three couplings have been portrayed as abusive and/or unhealthy relationships.
- Realizing that Lian would have been conceived just about the time of Wonder Girl's wedding to Terry Long with the compressed timeline. Can you say rebound?
- In the Superman fanfic Superman of 2499: The Great Confrontation, starring the descendants of Superman and Supergirl and written in the early 00's, the arguments of the side of the Family that argues against revealing themselves to the world no matter what is usually treated as strawmen. Several years later New Krypton came out and proved humans were willing to accept the existence of a Superman, and even a Superboy or a Supergirl... but they would never accept hundreds of Kryptonians living among them.
- In the Supergirl story Hellsister Trilogy, Linda Danvers and her adoptive parents attend Clark and Lois' wedding. Fred Danvers is aware that many super-heroes are attending and jokes about figuring out their secret identities. Linda warns him about Green Lantern mind-wiping whoever gets too nosy. The whole sequence is treated as a funny moment, and was written four years prior to Identity Crisis deconstructing the idea of heroes mind-wiping villains.
- Kara of Rokyn:
- Superman and Supergirl drifting apart gradually isn't liable to sit well with fans of both characters who hated the fact their relationship was cold and distant during the New 52 relaunch.
- There's a scene where Kara and her clone Linda gleefully plan to troll Dick Malverne as payback for all those times he tried to expose Kara's secret. In 2003, a canon story has Dick confess that he always knew Kara's identity before dying from cancer.
- In A Force of Four, Power Girl tells Superman that he couldn't ever fill in as her father. Several years later Infinite Crisis comes out, where Kara gets her real memories back, including Kal and Lois treating her like their daughter... shortly before both of them passed away.
- Sleeper in the Cave has the country of Morrowind be rocked up by a plague, putting a lot of stress and anguish on the characters. The author expresses a lot of discomfort over this now that COVID-19 happened, worrying about triggering the readers.
- Bloodbath is an alternate take on chapter 473 where Lucy, snapping from trauma of having to sacrifice Aquarius's key during the Tartarus arc, takes advantage of Brandish letting herself be vulnerable in a bathtub then stabs her in the back with one of her keys and kicks her head into the tile, killing one of Alvarez's top mages in order to protect her loved ones. This was before chapter 467 and 468 came out, which revealed that Brandish believed that her mother Grammi was killed by Lucy's mother Laylanote . It's likely that Brandish's last thoughts were that a Heartfilia had once again killed someone from her family.
- In Fate/Gamers Only, the Okeanos Arc has Rikku acting more volatile towards Jason, including giving him a verbal beat-down. In the Atlantis Lostbelt, not only does Chaldea run into Jason again, but he also states that he remembers the events of Okeanos. Rikku and Jason's meeting in that arc will go less well than in canon.
- Seventh Endmost Vision: In the story, Tifa was reported dead after the events of Nibelheim five years ago, and many like Rufus initially suspected that she was a SOLDIER taking the name and identity of the famed war-hero, Cloud being one of the few that recognizes she truly is his Childhood Friend. However, in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Cloud is manipulated by Sephiroth into thinking that Tifa was killed during the events of Nibelheim, and that the one traveling with him is a Jenova offshoot, leading to nearly deadly results for Tifa.
- Chapter 6 of the Fire Emblem Fates fanfic A Brighter Dark has Corrin coming into contact with Mikoto for the first time after being taken away by Garon, but completely rejecting her Hoshidan heritage and threatening to kill anyone who refers to her by her Hoshidan name (Kamui). Mikoto winds up doing just that when a dinner invitation is ruined by an argument between Corrin and Takumi, and two chapters later, Corrin's Ganglari sword suddenly comes alive and skewers Mikoto in full view of a crowd of angry Hoshidans, reigniting the war with Hoshido and Nohr in earnest.
- One story arc in Springaling involves the characters playing paintball, with several gags about Springtrap being unable to hit anything he aims at. Forty-odd comics later, it stops being funny once Springtrap explains why he can't aim guns properly: he got shot by accident while people were trying to get a fighting dog off him, then was unable to quickly put said dog down because it felt like the gun kept jumping around in his hands.
- Springtrap and Deliah: Springtrap's motives for his murders were a misguided dream of starting a family, as he believed he was keeping his victims with him forever and that he would be a better father than their actual families. Later installments of the games and the novels depict William Afton—his canon counterpart— as an Abusive Parent, enough to give the novels' version of Elizabeth a serious complex. In other words, the sort of person this Springtrap would probably be outraged by and would use as an example.
- The soul-crushing Hunting the Unicorn became this when "I Am Unicorn" aired. The episode's Kurt/unicorn comparison is largely Played for Laughs, while the fanfic is a huge Deconstruction of Kurt and Blaine's relationship. And then "The First Time" made the fic even more painful: In the show, Blaine is sixteen and loses his virginity with Kurt. In the fanfic, Blaine lost his virginity at sixteen because he was desperately lonely, and he wanted to invoke Sex Equals Love. It didn't work.
- My Immortal gets one when during an author's note Tara suggests that Harry must kill himself in order to kill Voldemort because he is a horcrux.
- In The Spoils of War, Bellatrix declared when she was six that one day she'd live in the biggest castle in the world. When Harry and a sane Bellatrix review her memories, she notes she was right. The biggest castle in the world is Azkaban.
- Harry Potter and the Boy in the Flowerbed, which was written before Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows came out, explores George's (and to a lesser extent, Fred's) failed attempts at getting their Apparition licenses. They managed to Splinch themselves (leave parts of them behind) during at least a few of the attempts, though it was Fred that lost an ear.
- Mistakes features a scene where Balhae, sharing South Korea's body, makes a Life-or-Limb Decision and cuts off the shared body's feet in order to remove their shackles. (Being nations, she can stick them back on, but still.) This chapter was written well before "Caliborn: Enter".
- In Your Father and Mine, France glomping Louisiana when introduced to her is a little funny on the first read. Then America reveals Louisiana is the second person to hold this name — the previous one was her mother, Louise Annette Dubois, and in Nation terms, she was France's daughter but since he never suspected she existed he accidentally abandoned her to grow alone and thinking he never cared at all about her, as he wasn't there for Louise. It turns France's adoration for the current Louisiana — his granddaughter — strangely poignant, as he's giving her all the love her mother never got to know from him.
- Cheating Death: Those That Lived: Rook's feud with his mentor Olga and Trolling of her is a humorous Running Gag that loses some of its mirth with the late-story reveal that Olga killed him on behalf of the Capitol during the Rebellion, but now feels horrible guilt over doing so.
- The Victors Project: In Fall Into the River, Cecelia's stepmother Spindella repeatedly insists that Cecelia wasn't deliberately reaped to punish Spindella for her role in the Rebellion. She argues that if that were the case, they would have waited a few years, then reaped her biological daughter, Kerry, when she came of age. Five years later, in The Bonds of Blood, Kerry is deliberately reaped the first year she's eligible to be a tribute, although for completely different reasons than Spindella's activities.
- Horseshoes and Hand Grenades: Seeing Gentaro's turn to the dark side, and the idea of a main Rider pulling a Face–Heel Turn would become a recurring element for the Reiwa Kamen Rider entries, starting with Kamen Rider Zero-One. Aruto would be the first main Rider to become a villain, albeit temporarily after seeing Izu murdered in front of him by Horobi. In Kamen Rider Outsiders, Gentaro himself is among the heroic Riders who supported Zein, an A.I. bent on subjugating humanity to purge all malice.
- The fanfic From Shizune's Perspective was written before the release of the full game. Several of the twists come off in a new light when you consider what happens in Shizune's route.
- Early on, it's revealed that Shizune is bisexual and Misha is heterosexual; Shizune mentions that she once confessed to Misha, but takes her rejection due to Incompatible Orientation in stride. In the full game, the situation is reversed; the lesbian Misha confesses to the heterosexual Shizune, and is rejected, but Shizune wants her around as a friend, leading to tension as Hisao gets closer to Shizune.
- Midway through the fic, Shizune finds out that Misha and Hisao are in a relationship when she finds them having sex, and is upset because they never told her. In the game, choosing to give Misha Sex for Solace gets you Shizune's bad ending, and Shizune never even finds out.
- Later in the fic, Shizune vents to Emi about how her deafness prevents her from getting school gossip, which, in serving as Student Council President, earns her a reputation as bossy. In the full game, Shizune's well-intentioned efforts to inspire the student body to act, hampered by her communication problems, drove the rest of the council besides Misha away, and resulted in her being quite lonely.
- Shizune once tells Misha "Eat me," prompting Misha to quip that she told Shizune that she didn't go that way, to which Shizune responds with a nonchalant "Your loss." In the actual visual novel, the full version of which was released after the fic, Misha is a lesbian who confessed to Shizune and got rejected, but Shizune continued to keep her around, counting on her for her friendship. Misha takes the rejection and Shizune's continued presence quite hard, and these issues come to a head at the end of Act 3, potentially ending their friendship and Hisao's relationship with Shizune if you make the wrong decision.
- Kingdom Hearts: The Antipode
- Xemnas' line "I'm what's left. Or... maybe I'm all there ever was." takes on a new meaning when All That's Left reveals that Xemnas is really Terra, reduced to a hollow husk that knows only of hatred and rage. In other words: all that's left of Terra.
- Several examples in regards to Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep.
- Prior to the climax, Aqua tells Terra that he'll "go astray again". She soon regrets these words, especially when she discovers to her horror that she was right; he really did go astray again.
- During the climax, Xehanort urges an enraged Terra to give in to The Power of Hate. A decade later, anger and hate are the only emotions he remembers.
- Terra's heartfelt words to Aqua upon their reunion in Kingdom Hearts III (notice a pattern?) are bittersweet compared to their reunion in All That's Left when Aqua learns of her best friend's fall from grace.
"You never stopped lighting my way back."
"Unfortunately, there was nobody left to light the way." - The Old Life Alive Again:
- The revival of every Organization member that died during Chain of Memories is this with the reveal in 3D that Nobodies can grow hearts and the one in coded that destroying a Nobody and it's correspondent Heartless leads to the creation of the original Somebody, since Genie basically doomed them to be Xehanort's vessels. Nice Job Breaking It, Hero! At least Xion's situation is better, considering she and Roxas actually ran away from the Organization.
- At one point, Xemnas gathers the Organization in a meeting to debate whether or not Roxas and Xion grew their own hearts. Come Kingdom Hearts 3D, and it turns out they did grow hearts indeed.
- In Thrones of the Four Pillars, the Ghibli Hills is a Miyazaki-themed world that is destroyed by the Big Bad. This gets harsher when it was noticed that Studio Ghibli closed its doors (it went under restructuring process though but it doesn't make it less harsher).
- Stories and Tales from Dimension 63: In Chapter 14, Linka's brothers claim they will bury Ron Andy if he ever hurts her. Then, in Chapter 17, when a very nervous Ron Andy breaks up with Linka, the brothers come dangerousy close to following up on their earlier threat.
- A Prize for Three Empires: The scenes where Carol Danvers and Iron Man have a heated argument seem harsher after Civil War II came out.
- In the final chapter of X-Men 1970, Cyclops and Marvel Girl are happy because the local media chooses to refer to them as just super-heroes. Said scene was written more than one decade before a All-New X-Men scene where Havok complains about being called the "M"-word.
- X-Men: The Early Years: In "Anger Management, Geeks, and Other Scarey Things", Scott Summers expresses envy of Magneto's drive to lash out at everyone angrily. Several years later, the comics would have Cyclops ally himself with Magneto.
- A large part of the fic Bring Me Home focuses on Marinette getting into a car accident, being rescued by Adrien and later recovering with his help. A few weeks after the story was completed, the author Maerynn was tragically killed in a car accident.
- Abraxas portrayed a pair of human-Titan Platonic Life-Partners being in a life-threatening situation at the climax, where the Titan almost dies in front of the human (transhuman in Vivienne's case), who can only watch; about a year before the MonsterVerse canon did so with Kong and Jia (Godzilla vs. Kong), then Annie and Dog (Skull Island).
- The fanfic Mortal Kombat: Redemption depicts Jade's mother as the previous queen of Edenia who was corrupted by the One Being forcing Sindel to kill her. This was written before Mortal Kombat 11 which retcons Sindel from being brainwashed by Shao Kahn and Shang Tsung to being Evil All Along and having murdered her husband Jerrod.
- The Conversion Bureau:
- This little ditty from the author's notes is pretty darkly ironic considering how the fic ended up spawning a lot of War Fics, deconstructions, Dark Fics, and the like."I've seen a lot of backstories written about how Equestria is simply a post-apocalyptic Earth set in the distant future. I decided to expand on it in a much less... grimdark fashion."
- These quotes from Twilight Sparkle in the original story were meant to be joking, but became way less funny with the numerous stories that have the barrier being intentionally expanded as a means to force ponification, and any stories that have the PER in them."Now, I'm almost positive all of you are here because you want to become a pony. This is a fact. You don't come here because you don't want to be a pony, unless someone forced you at gunpoint, but that's a different story."
"Our plan is to ponify you, the sooner the better. Expect this to happen when you least expect it."
- This little ditty from the author's notes is pretty darkly ironic considering how the fic ended up spawning a lot of War Fics, deconstructions, Dark Fics, and the like.
- The already-disturbing My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic Cupcakes (Sergeant Sprinkles) became even more disturbing when the episode "Party Of One" aired, which at one point has Pinkie Pie having a psychotic breakdown whilst alone in a room with Rainbow Dash.
- The episode "The Cutie Pox" has given us a possible, in-canon reason on why the townsponies in Story of the Blanks would be so terrified of Cutie Marks.
- The episode "Hurricane Fluttershy" had a flashback to Flight Camp when Fluttershy failed a flying test and crashed, after which she was surrounded by her class mates and subjected to a Circle of Shame. This makes a similar flashback scene in Getting Back on Your Hooves, where a near identical incident happened to Rainbow Dash, not only plausible, but even more disturbing. Even the author was a bit freaked out by this. And then "Newbie Dash" confirmed that something similar did indeed happen to Rainbow.
- At one point in "The Crystal Empire Part 2", Twilight uses dark magic, which causes her magic to go from magenta to black, to find a secret underground staircase made by King Sombra. In the fanfic Pages Of Harmony, written several months before The Crystal Empire aired, Twilight's Mad Scientist Laboratory is reached through a staircase very much like Sombra's, and her magic's color changes from magenta to black.
- To those not so much enamored with the concept of My Little Pony: Equestria Girls, Pink Personal Hell And Altering Fate may come off as this with the concept of altering one's fate through supernatural means... and traveling into another Fisher Kingdom world through a magical mirror.
- The Fanfic Trixcord involved Trixie, after being terrorized by Discord, run into an open street where she gets her neck snapped being run over by a carriage (she gets better). The episode Magic Duel had an insane Trixie with semi-fourth wall breaking powers declare she did not trust wheels.
- For a Meta example, this is the last image the popular artist Ghost posted to her Art of the Pony blog before sadly passing away.
- Dear Applebloom had Rainbow Dash framed for sabotaging Cloudsdale's weather factory. It turned out she wasn't above doing that anyway.
- In Little Sun, Twilight chews out Princess Celestia for ordering the murder of Applejack's parents for being part of the Nightmare Cult, saying that Apple Bloom was only a few months old then and has no memory of them. It became harder to swallow after the San Bernadino shootings in December 2015, in which the married terrorist couple responsible was killed in a police shootout and left behind a six-month-old baby girl (who may or may not have been an alibi).
- In Comatose, Shining Armor has a nightmare where he witnesses his own harsh words toward Twilight in "A Canterlot Wedding", and he is unable to move or be heard to try and stop it. A similar nightmare would befall Sweetie Belle in "For Whom the Sweetie Belle Tolls".
- In a greater-scope sense: the entirety of events between Seasons 8, 9, and the subsequent A New Generation Movie is seen as a copy-paste of the general plotline from Fallout: Equestria:
- Princess Celestia making the choice to Abdicate the Throne to A Princess whose only other certification during Celestias' tenure as ruler was simply running a School.
- After the abdication; the new Princess decides to reorganize the Equestrian Government to have The Element-Bearers from G4 serve as the new advisors to the Princess.
- Before Equestrias' collapse, Twilight Sparkle creates a backup plan to restore Equestria after the cataclysm by using a set of crystals that requires Ponies working together in order to activate them.
- The collapse of Equestria happens as the Three Tribes split apart; with the Pegasi in-particular retreating above the cloudline and winds up creating their own civilization which is more technologically-advanced than anypony else.
- A Red Earth Pony in the newer generation finds themselves in a position of power that they serve as the Big Bad by creating a Cult of Personality that has aspirations to Take Over the World and wipe out all the other factions that stand in his way.
- The next generation of Heroes that crop up consisting of a Societal outcast Main Lead that is visited by a Unicorn Mare that causes problems for the Heroine that she is forced to leave home, and along the journey teams up with an Earth Pony, a Pegasus from high social standing that fell from grace, the Unicorn Mare responsible for the mess that happened, and another Mare who uses a popular form of social media to communicate and inspire ponies around her with.
- Team8: After Neji nearly kills Hinata in their match, her teammate Shino asks what sort of flowers would be appropriate for Neji's funeral. Not only does Neji die near the end of the main series(in a scene that occurred years after the chapter's publication in the fanfic), but a scene in the Distant Finale sees Naruto and Hinata's daughter leave sunflowers at his grave.
- The strife of Carlos in All Mixed Up! surrounds him being long-forgotten by Odd Squad agents following Ocean's firing, and growing depressed over time. His comment about wasting away in particular brings some tragic implications, given that the Season 3 episode "Welcome to Odd Squad" would describe Carol, and by extension the Math Room, as being ancient technology and completely obsolete compared to the more high-tech smartwatches that agents have in the show from Season 2 onwards.
- Marie D. Suesse and the Mystery New Pirate Age!:
- This fic was written long before Trafalgar Law's backstory was revealed, but it still manages to resonate when his crew dies and you realize this is the 'third time his family has died right in front of him. No wonder he went nuts."No. Not my family. They're everything to me...I can't lose them."Law did not smile. "I know."
- The fic and canon have surprising parallels when it comes to the person Trafalgar Law hates most- a World Noble responsible for a sibling's death. In the fic, Law despises Madelyn, a World Noble who caused her brother Monkey D. Luffy's death in a misguided attempt to ensure Law would reach the One Piece first. In canon, Law's Arch-Enemy is Donquixote Doflamingo, who is later revealed to have come from a family of World Nobles and murdered his own brother, the person Law cared about most.
- This fic was written long before Trafalgar Law's backstory was revealed, but it still manages to resonate when his crew dies and you realize this is the 'third time his family has died right in front of him. No wonder he went nuts.
- Now We Are Six has the crew encounter odd magic mushrooms that de-age them to six years old, though with their memories intact. While they're cultivating the cure, some of the crew goes hunting and Sanji is angry about his child body being unable to handle the strain. When Usopp chides him for complaining, note that this fic was written in 2012, several years before we found out certain things about Sanji.Usopp: You know, Sanji, I don’t know what kinda childhood you had, but maybe you shouldn’t be so unhappy you weren’t a lean, mean killing-machine at the age of six. I mean, think about it, for heaven’s sake.
- Watashitachi Wa Roger Kaizoku Desu We Still Stand Proud: The story reveals that Shanks never took Luffy as a cabin boy because he and Buggy were both traumatized from their time as cabin boys for the Roger Pirates, and both resolved to never take in a child until they have to. The film One Piece Film: Red reveals that not only did Shanks adopted and raised a girl named Uta after finding her in a treasure chest when she was a baby, but he had to leave her behind in the country of Elegia when he and his crew took the blame for the destruction of the kingdom that was unwittingly caused by Uta and her Sing-Sing Fruit. That would tragically lead to Uta becoming the Anti-Villain Big Bad of the film and finally dying in her father's arms after using the last of her strength to free the captive civilians and heroes from the Sing-Sing World.
- In an author's note for the fanfic New Lifenote the author mentions that he is serving in the Canadian military, so updates will be sporadic because he doesn't have access to a computer. A reviewer by the name of Robert Donahue subsequently left a comedic review on June 2, 2010 that sent well wishes to him and expressed hope that he would recover. Sadly, the author later died from injuries sustained in Afghanistan. The review in question?"hey man its cool i understand with war and stuff. just dont die and write more for us ok lol"
- Note that as of 2014, the author's cousin has deleted all of the chapters to the story except for the first one, but the reviews still provide evidence for this.
- In Pokè Wars: The Subsistence, after fending off a pack of bloodthirsty Fearow, Tracy says "I hope that Ho oh wasn't affected by the dampener removal, I'd hate to see such a great Pokémon like that do terrible things." This gets harsher when it is revealed that not only was Ho-Oh affected by the dampener removal, he was the reason for it happening in the first place. To make this even harsher, his justification for the dampener removal? Genocide of the human race.
- From the Professional Wrestling series The JWL: On Episode 63, The Undertaker cut a promo on Daivari International, where he challenged the stable's monster The Burmese Python for a match for the following show, saying, in part, that they "will have to dance with the Reaper." Episode 65 started with the memorializing of, among others, Lance Cade, a member of Daivari International.
- Autumn and Spring: In this fic, which takes place in the distant future, Ukyo is revealed to have also fallen into the Spring of Drowned Girl, and is forced to stay in the cursed state of her younger form when her default body ends up suffering a fatal heart attack, to which Ukyo realizes to her horror if she ever returns to her default body she will likely die instantly. This ended up becoming both far more uncomfortable and tragic when Ukyo's seiyuu Hiromi Tsuru ended up dying from heart palpitation problems in November 2017.
- The short Linkin Park RPF Vanitas ends with Mike committing suicide by hanging, and his bandmates wonder if they missed something in his paintings. In 2017, Chester would die in a similar way, and many critics would reevaluate his lyrics.
- The already Tear Jerker worthy backstory for Kurumu in Get What You Wanted and its spinoffs, being so desperate for Tsukune's love she was willing to be his mistress if he'd just show her some love, becomes far worse with the canon explanation that heartbreak will kill a succubus.
- Coeur Al'Aran:
- A couple of his older fics — Not this time, Fate and White Sheep — have General Ironwood declaring martial law to seize emergency powers in Atlas, and it's a good thing which aids the heroes against Salem on account of how petty and argumentative Atlas' other top authorities tend to be depicted in Coeur's works. Then Volume 7-8 of the show came along and had Ironwood doing the same, and it was much less pretty and bore very negative results for everyone involved except the villains.
- Not this time, Fate: The whole concept of a timey-wimey phenomenon rendering Jaune decades older mentally that Team RWBY and doing a number on his sanity would eventually enter the show in a different form, in Volume 9, where Jaune is stranded in the Ever After and forced to take The Slow Path to reuniting with Team RWBY whilst still dealing with psychological trauma.
- Null:
- Penny gets forcibly turned into a puppet by elite Atlesian antagonists meddling with her software to make her do their bidding against her own will. This fate would also befall Penny in canon during Volume 8. And just like in canon, it indirectly leads to Penny dying for a second, and permanent, time.
- Team RWBY are quick to easily forgive a female former-antagonist (Penny) because she helped out them and them alone in some way, ignoring all the harm that she objectively did to other people as if it never happened or just doesn't matter to them — which is exactly what their canon selves do with Neo at the end of Volume 9, mere minutes after Neo murdered the Curious Cat (who had a much lower body count and lacked her agency over their turn to evil) no less. Harsher yet, Team RWBY in Volume 9 aren't called out on their moral hypocrisy for doing this and the female antagonist gets off without any further punishment, unlike the Null version where Jaune avenges Penny's role in his mother's death by giving her a lethal Heel–Face Door-Slam and then takes Team RWBY to task for not thinking about what she did to anyone besides themselves.
- White Sheep:
- Overlapping with Heartwarming in Hindsight, this fic depicted Salem trying at being a housewife and a loving mother two years before the show revealed that was part of her backstory. Suffice to say, it works out a lot better for Salem in this fic than it did in her Origins Episode.
- Qrow being derided In-Universe as a perv after he gropes the human-Grimm hybrid Sapphire in a fight — not aware until after the act that the humanoid Grimm in question was half-human, completely sentient, and does not appreciate the action — becomes a lot harsher after Qrow's original voice actor on the show, Vic Mignogna, was fired because of a string of sexual harssment allegations.
- My Abominable Monster Classmates Can't Be This Cute!: This fic introduced the idea of Salem secretly kidnapping people and forcibly transforming them into her mutilated Grimm agents two years before the canon revealed the Hound to be as much in Volume 8. Darker yet, it's suggested in the show that Salem is actively looking to capture Ruby alive so that she can turn her into another Grimm hybrid; the Salem of this fic has essentially long since succeeded in that endeavor.
- Caves of the Ancients: Raker the Jackal lights the entire Oil Ocean Zone on fire. The same thing is triggered in Sonic Mania, when you defeat the zone's midway boss.
- Out of The Ashes: As if the name itself isn't bad enough, the fanfic details characters being killed in explosions, buildings exploding and, to top it all off, a terrorist group. The date it was posted? September 11, 2001.
- Those Left Behind has the main cast running into a remaining battalion of Jem'Hadar that aren't aware the Dominion War is over, with the Ensigns (particularly Mariner) dealing with them in the typical comedic manner the fic author is famous for. One year after the fic was finished, Season 4 of Lower Deck would reveal that Mariner fought in the Dominion War and saw many of her fellow ensign sent out to fight the Jem'Hadar and die in the process, which forged her into the Military Maverick she is in the show. It be more likely Mariner would have a more volatile reaction to the same soldier race that killed off so many of her old friends.
- Chapter 4 of Destiny's Child And Her Bridegroom has a scene where one of the Queens comments on how the love between Queen Jubilee and her Chancellor husband Zoisite might be a sham. A month after the fifth chapter was posted, the author's own relationship with their boyfriend ended in an ugly breakup.
- Magna Clades:
- Chapter 8 depicts the main antagonist Zoisite raping an underage Connie in graphic detail, with the following chapter beginning with an Author's Note dedicated to Justin Carmical, who'd killed himself that year in 2014. Four years later, he was posthumously revealed to have been a sexual predator while working at Channel Awesome.
- Steven kills Zoisite and Zircornia completely by accident at the end of Chapter 13 and then expresses remorse over what's he done by puking in Chapter 14. Years later in Steven Universe: Future, Steven accidentally shatters Jasper while sparring, and the event serves as one of the final nails in the coffin that leads to his mental breakdown a few episodes later.
- The End of Ends: Count Logan became an omnicidal villain simply because he was dumped and because he had a tragic past that the author exaggerates by making it seem like nobody liked him, not even the Titans. A few years after this fic was written, Elliot Rodger would kill 6 people and himself because he was enraged that he was a virgin and had a sad past consisting of...watching other people make out and listening to other guys brag about their sexual exploits. He would also write a manifesto stating that he'd like to have women almost completely exterminated and that he intended to kill many more people on his "Day of Retribution".
- FURTHERFELL: In Drama! Romance! Bloodshed!, Sans counters Grillby complaining about him not paying his tab and having too much to drink by claiming that everyone enjoys going to the bar because of him, as he "gives this place so much atmosphere". The following story branch, Neutral in Name Alone, proves Sans right; his disappearance results in the bar closing down and Grillby going bankrupt because the atmosphere's been ruined by his best customer vanishing.
- While chapter 8 of we light ourselves up from the deepest of pits is mostly adorable, there's an unshakable sense of wistfulness to it. Then we find out that the reason Chara was making a point of spending time with their family was because they were planning to kill themself the next day.
- The climax of the 2008 fanfic The Merry Go Round Broke Down revolves around the success of Enchanted being due to revitalize the traditional animation industry. That didn't occur in real-life. Disney's Winnie the Pooh (2011) was considered a Genre-Killer for traditionally animated films and, as a result, few were released during the 2010s.
Dormant/Dead/Unsorted
- While not noticeable to the reader at first, the scene in Nexus where Dante hugs his nephew could count, especially if you read the precursor’s bittersweet ending. It was Heartwarming Moments, since the character showing the emotion was Dante, until Jack ruined the moment by (unknowingly) reminding Dante that he didn’t remember him at all. Then Dante just looked depressed.
- In The Prayer Warriors, during the attack on the temple of Zeus in "The Evil Gods Part 1", Percy Jackson encounters a woman being raped, killing her rapist but sparing her because she cried out loudly enough and indicated that she was not enjoying it. In "Threat of Satanic Commonism," when Ebony gets raped, he not only kills the rapist, but also kills her, showing that he meant what he said.
- In the Gensokyo 20XX series tie-in the Gensokyo Diaries, Sanae mentioned, in her second entry, that Kanako slapped her (for reasons unknown, be noted). If we consider what happens in her last diary entry before her death in 20XXI, the latter's abuse may have had its roots there. Likewise, we have Reimu's diary, as those were her last rational thoughts pre-age regression.
- In Feel, we have Delicate and Sickly Rei and in the chapter after her POV, where she was talking about the first time Satsuki spoke and how Satsuki worries about her and her health problems, it is implied that she passed away. Amoridere's grandmother had just passed away and said chapter and the one after was written while she was in hospice, which makes this all the more worse, especially since, shortly after, she had written a dedication to her.
- In The Familiar of Zero Louise's classmates mocking her about being a failure was already pretty depressing, but two points in Soldier of Zero make it far worse. First, Louise keeps a stock of Dreamless Sleep potions which at the times she used to deal with odd dreams and nightmares but originally used them as an alternative to crying herself to sleep. Second, in her first year Louise locked herself in a chapel and prayed to God and the Founder for a sign that she wasn't a failure or a mistake. She brought a knife with her with the intention of leaving with her answer or not at all.
- That Faith clearly uses her sexuality as a shield is harsh on its own, but in Xendra it's eventually revealed that she was a child prostitute before being Called.
- Rise of the Dragon Child opens right after the True Dragonborn's murder by the Thalmor faction, forcing a horrified and enraged Akatosh to look for a substitute. In chapter 20, Paarthunax shows Harry the grave, and solemnly confesses Rael of Bruma was the grandson to a good friend of Martin Septim, who later ascended and fused with Akatosh. The Time-God's anger in the first chapter wasn't just because the Thalmor foolishly endangered the world, it was personal to him.
- In Kyon: Big Damn Hero's prologue Kyon tells Ryoko that she is the most reasonable person to ever try to kill him but that he remembers that time she stabbed him all too well. This becomes hilarious later on when we learn another two of his classmates tried to kill him during separate occasions, and when he's fighting for his life against some Yakuza.
- The fanfiction writers for the site, Ghostbusters West Coast, have a particularly bad record for this. One story had Michael Jackson as a werewolf who got savagely beaten up by the main characters and then arrested for murder, and another had a character explaining that he almost ran over an old man because "I thought you were Ted Kennedy."
- In a 2009 episode of Calvin & Hobbes: The Series, a panicking Calvin claims that "Japan is going to fall into the ocean!" In 2011, Japan and the ocean found themselves in a rather unpleasant relationship.
- In the anniversary chapter of You Got HaruhiRolled! (written in July of 2010) one of the many ridiculously over-the-top things to happen in the SOS Brigade and Anti-SOS Brigade's fight is that Mikuru somehow gets into position to smother Fujiwara with her breasts, almost killing him before the others intervene. Of course it was only a gag then, but once the eleventh novel of the source material is released, it is revealed that Mikuru and Fujiwara are siblings. Now it becomes so much more disturbing.
- Akane's Pervert Revenge Mode against the Hentai Horde in canon becomes a lot less funny and a lot more justified in Ranma Saotome, Chi Master where it's revealed one of her greatest fears is that she'll lose against them and be gang-raped.
- This webcomic◊ essentially shows a playthrough of Persona 3 in which Minato goes through the game acting like a Jerkass to all his friends, and as a result, doesn't maximize any of his Social Linksnote , something that is very much Played for Laughs. In particular, after Keisuke leaves the art club, Minato steals the credit for his painting by crossing out Keisuke and writing Minato instead. In Persona 5 you learn that Yusuke's guardian Madarame has been doing this to him for years, and even let Yusuke's mother die so that he could steal her painting and exploit Yusuke's talent.
- In Dreaming of Sunshine, an earlier comment making fun of Shikako's love of explosions turns out to be true."Do you think you made enough exploding notes?" Kakashi-sensei asked seriously. "You might only be able to level a very small country."
- In The Rod Squad which is basically Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers in The '70s, Foxy Glove invokes one when she predicts cable TV—and claims it's going to be "all FREE".
- In Green Tea Rescue, the scenes that take place in the future reveal that Himiko Toga ends up taking the "R-Rated Hero" moniker used in canon by Midnight, who in this story is her mentor and Parental Substitute. This shows the closeness between the teenager and the teacher, but acquires a darker tone after Midnight dies during the Paranormal Liberation War Arc.
- Diary of an Analog, in Chapter 18, featured a noteworthy portrayal of a Dark Digivolved MagnaAngemon into ShadowSeraphimon against a murderous opponent who had racked up a high body count by the time this occurs. The opponent is Darkdramon. However, in spite of this being a Dark Digivolution for Patamon, he still shows sign of his usual self as he inflicts hell upon Darkdramon for his actions, giving him a Family-Unfriendly Death in the process.note ShadowSeraphimon also emerged while T.K. was having relatively stable emotions, as opposed to how most Dark Digivolutions happened while the human partner was unstable with the resulting Digimon becoming a mindless beast. Considering just how Darker and Edgier this is with past canon examples, this couldn't possibly happen in an actual Digimon series for real, could it? Well, in Episode 13 of Digimon Ghost Game, that is exactly what happens; a majority of the overall beats in Chapter 18 of Diary of an Analog are disturbingly accurate in hindsight to what happens in Episode 13 of Ghost Game, the opponents in both cases being a Serial Killer member of the D-Brigade of Mega and Champion Level respectively, and both of them going up against the lead protagonist with their partner mon undergoing Dark Digivolution in a completely different light from how past examples have handled this sort of corruptive Digivolution. Gammamon to GulusGammomon, however, differs in few key areas which make it all the more a horrifying experience than MagnaAngemon to ShadowSeraphimon was. First, there's the fact GulusGammamon Dark Digivolves on his own accord with no influence from Hiro and using his own negative emotions as the crux of how he becomes this form, and not only that, but GulusGammamon isn't a mindless beast either; he's completely and fully aware of exactly what he is doing as his personality has completely warped into a sadistic, hatemongering powerhouse, who outright kills Sealsdramon. With ShadowSeraphimon having thought he killed Darkdramon, it wasn't treated as abnormal because this was far from the first time Patamon killed any of his opponents, and this sort of fight was kind of standard issue for the original Adventure continuity. Here? GulusGammamon has first blood out of all of the protagonist Digimon in Ghost Game, as none of them had outright intended to kill the enemies of the week previously, and instead tried to resolve things peacefully. Also, the last detail that's very subtle if anything? Darkdramon's body count was limited to the double digits; Sealsdramon killed 1,000 Digimon up until GulusGammamon skewered him.
- Memento Mori from Durandall of Kyon: Big Damn Hero fame is pretty disturbing on its own. It gets worse once you realize the author was just as suicidal as the Kyon in this fic.
