Tenuously Connected Flavor Text

Most Flavor Text is clearly connected to the item it's describing, but sometimes it's not, usually because it's a quote, or a Shout-Out, but there are other varied reasons too numerous to list out. On the one hand, this can be annoying if you're depending on that flavor text for useful information, but on the other hand, the results are often humorous.

Basically a type of Gameplay and Story Segregation, where the flavor text is "story" and is segregated from the mechanics / game world / name of the item, a.k.a the "gameplay".

In any case, those disconnected descriptions is what this trope's for. A Deliberately Different Description, however, is when descriptions that follow a pattern suddenly break that pattern.

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Examples:

Fan Works

• Hocus Pocus Grounded: Titled after the card that inspired the story, and the flavor text inspired the title of its only chapter, "Persists over it!":
  "Please in you pay forget that: persists over it!"
  -Pinkie Pie
• Unhinged: Title reference to the "Un"-sets of Magic: The Gathering, with their deliberately silly cards. Randomly generated cards, cause this, for most chapters, such as:
  • "Blatant Mailpony Diplomat":
    "To excess. Elegance. I wouldn't know which friends.
    Do not get how of decora, zebra shadow often piece of this
  • "Swallow the Meek":
    Reality are just gladly."
    -Pinkie Pie, Bearer of Laughter. Should disappoint when it will comes of fate. This course that happy to town logical result is the Battle panache."
    -Rainbow Dash, Bearer of Loyalty of my friendship, but I've seen the Dewdrop Decimal System, research."
  • "Apple Family Feud":
    "We may not real rough to draw
  • "Vacation Pony Paladin":
    "We couldn't need and I can never underestimate a forgiving that discover thing mind of corkscrew. She inspire comes out of a waves. Not very and
  • "Howling Me"Pinkie's Lassoeratorseshoes!"A True, Trap": Which at least mentions a named character:
    "Is this you like a hole."
    -Ditzy Doo, spell of bloodcurdler!"
    -Pinkie Pie, Bearer of Laughter my ink.
  • "Mega-Pony Trophytershy's Owl":
    When Magical, dear?
    "How many hats."
    -Marion Mare, magic surprisingle push your stitching for long with you should buckle as act.
  • "(Daring Do and the) Flawless Horseshoe":
    Ench.")
    "Weird. I hope it reality outweigh flanned."
  • "Mass Squade Balloon":
    "...and hate the bravado, and under 'E'!"
    -Pinkie Pie
  • "Debt (Or: Trial by Fire)":
    Expected yet ponies lurks in a higher putting for the ancient of the world, but are for the world."
  • "Merry Mutiny":
    "It is the middle of the place."
    -Princess Twilight Sparkle solutely little variance among target."
    -Trixie Lulamoon, traveling.
  • "Explode Twice":
    "Oh, I swear come and your audience on the truth, them.

Tabletop Games

• Magic: The Gathering: A few, from multiple sets, all quotes:
  • Mudhole: Apparently referencing a quicksand-like location, with its effect "Target player exiles all land cards from their graveyard.":
    "Doing okay back there, Tarv? Tarv?"
  • Several cards from older Core Sets had flavor text from actual, real-life literature, completely free of both the context of the card and the original quote. For example, Dark Banishing (a card about obliterating one's life force) gets flavor text from Romeo and Juliet:
    "Ha, banishment? Be merciful, say ‘death,’ For exile hath more terror in his look, Much more than death."
  • Silver-bordered cards, a.k.a the "Un"-set cards, which are deliberately silly:
    • Bosom Buddy, an Elephant Townsfolk, where the flavor text is a reference to Alcoholics Anonymous:
      "Step 1: I believe in a power and toughness greater than myself . . . ."
    • Chaos Confetti: Noting how it's an Ascended Meme of a story usually by that name: a tourney player used the card Chaos Orb, which dictates that you toss the card into the air and anything it ends up touching when it lands gets destroyed. Instead, this guy tore it into pieces and sprinkled it onto the field, destroying pretty much everything his opponent had.
      And you thought that was just an urban legend.
    • Collector Protector: Referencing part of its effect cost, "Give an opponent a nonland card you own from outside the game" obliquely. Mudhole being a nonland card:
      "Here-have a Mudhole."
    • Double Header: Self-referential, and not connected to the depicted monster:
      "Players that don't read flavor text aren't too bright, sorta smell, and dress funny. But let's just keep this between us, okay? They can get kind of violent."
    • Flavor Judge: Hypothetical words of the controller, who has to explain something happening in the game to someone else.
      ". . . and now they're trying to make a brick wall on my property fight a dinosaur to the death."

Video Games

• The Borderlands series: Not just for Legendary Weapons, but some skills, too:
  • Borderlands 2: Some of its skills:
    • The Mechromancer has the "Robot Rampage" skill, whose flavor text only makes sense because of its description, that it creates a flurry of lasers:
      If one attack is good, then seven should be elected Mayor.
    • The Gunzerker has the "Come At Me, Bro" skill, where the flavor text only makes sense because of its description, that taunting is a way to heal to full health, and taunted enemies deal reduced damage:
      Nigh invulnerability is a hell of a drug.
  • Due to the Shout-Out nature of most of its flavor text on Legendary Weapons, it's sometimes not all that connected to the item:
    • Borderlands:
    • Fremington's Edge sniper rifles have the text "I can see my house from here!", indirectly indicating its enhanced zoom. How enhanced? Most sniper rifles have a zoom of between 4x and 6x. The Fremington's Edge has 11x.
    • Blasters: Firing a effectively continuous stream of energy:

      "Pew Pew Pew!"

    • Major Toms from Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!, which shoot a burst of 10 rounds every trigger pull when zoomed in, and the text is likely a reference to The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars:
      Destroy the martian spiders!
• Drakengard: The first two games have some for its weapons, which are connected, but takes levelling up the weapon a while, to reveal how:
  • Drakengard has a short story for each of its 65 weapons, unlocked as they level up:
    • Apostate's Misery: Poleaxe:
      Level 1: There was once a wind spirit who fell in love with a mortal man. Though it was against all the laws of her race, each day she allowed her love and passion to grow.
      Level 2: The spirit was condemned to death for the betrayal of her race. The Lord of Spirits sent vassals to carry out the sentence, armed with a bardiche enchanted to slay spirits.
      Level 3: Sensing that her life was in danger, the spirit made one last visit to the man she loved, then fled through the forests and seas and mountains, pursued all the while by her would-be executioners.
      Level 4: Some years later, a healthy young boy was seen playing around the village. This remarkable boy could control the very winds. His father never told him who his mother was...
    • Butcher's Joy: Cleaver (Sword):
      Level 1: Juices oozing from tender, succulent flesh, the sweet aroma of fine herbs... The master cook made dishes of meat that none in the city could resist.
      Level 2: Every day, customers lined up outside his inn, waiting for their chance to partake. Even the king himself would sneak down from his castle to sample the master's art.
      Level 3: But once he entered his kitchen, the smiling cook's face would grow stern. The meat he used was no ordinary meat...
      Level 4: The years passed, and the cook and his inn disappeared from the town. But his cleaver remains as gleaming and sharp as ever, waiting for its next master.
  • Drakengard 2:
    • Apostate's Misery: Poleaxe:
      Level 1: The young man was popular with everyone in the village. He had the ability to control the wind, and was often seen flying over rivers and valleys. He was a cheerful boy, though he always seemed be troubled by something.
      Level 2: Several years later, his father passed away. Before he died, he told his son about the young man's mother, whom his son had learned never to mention in his presence.
      Level 3: "Go to the place marked on the map." said his father. As if guided by a spirit, the young man took up his scythe and left, carried by the wind. How long had he been travelling? Over the forests, oceans and mountain Ranges he flew. Exhausted and frail, He came at last to a village.
      Level 4: The chief of the village welcomed the young man and told him that the scythe he was carrying had once belonged to the village. Just then, a beautiful woman entered the room. The young man knew at once that she was his mother. From that day forth, he helped keep peace between humans and wind spirits. The scythe was never used again.
• EVE Online most ships' flavor text is a short in-universe history of the ship in question. But for most Strategic Cruiser and Titan class ships, the flavor text is tangentially-connected quotes from in-universe literature or interviews:
  • Strategic Cruiser:
    • Legion: Only clear at the end:
      Revelation burrows through the material world, devours creation's soil, digests the thoughtless void, and produces significance with God's grace. From emptiness comes meaning, essence from existence, soul from matter.
      Is God through the wormhole? Did God grant us this boon, this new technology, a revelation from on high? These weapons are God's new prophecy, domain, and blessing. Let us use God's grace and prepare New Eden. We are God's soldiers, weapons, glory. Our people are God's army. Together, we are the legion.
      -The Heresies of Hinketsu
  • Titans:
    • Avatar: Referencing the name's original meaning as a god's manifestation on the mortal realm, this only makes sense if you knew that old meaning. This from the Amarr Scriptures:
      Casting his sight on his realm, the Lord witnessed
      The cascade of evil, the torrents of war.
      Burning with wrath, He stepped
      down from the Heavens
      To judge the unworthy,
      To redeem the pure.
      -The Scriptures, Revelation Verses 2:12
    • Komodo: From an interview of one the founders of its creating organization, Guristas:
      "We're the Ninth Mega now, have been for a long time and we're necessary to the entire setup. The Caldari State was getting stale, hidebound, all that 'Heiian' bullshit. Think the Big Eight give a fedo's fart for that? That's holoprop mindflood. Strictly for the dopes. The proles looking for an excuse not to stick it to Big Daddy Mega. And the eggers who spout 'Glory to the State'. They're the worst. All that power and they bow down before Mother State and Daddy Mega. Sickening."
      "What? Ah yeah, Ninth Mega. What do I mean? Look, the Big Eight, right? They carve up the State between them. They get together, decide what each Mega will run, make it look good for the masses, bit of competition here, a bit of warfare there. That's all show. They're vertically integrated megacorps that run entire sectors of the economy because they've all signed up to a plan. Well, we're the anti-plan. We're the Ninth Mega because someone's got to take care of crime, right? That's us, the Mega of Crime!"
      - Korako 'The Rabbit' Kosakami, interview with Ret Gloriaxx of the Scope's Galactic Hour with Ret Gloriaxx
• Hollow Knight: The Hunter's Journal ostensibly gives information on each of the game's enemies, but some of the entries are more along the lines of philosophical musings, or glimpses into the character of the Hunter himself, mainly because said entries are about a creature the Hunter couldn't have met. For example, the entry for Siblings talks more about the location they are found in, The Abyss:
  Hunter's Journal: Far down below us, beneath the kingdom, the air grows stiller and a sense of emptiness pervades. Can life flourish down there? If so, I will hunt it.
• One Step From Eden: The flavor text that exists for certain artifacts or spells, are majority Shout-Out, meme, or One-Liner. The game has almost no lore. For example:
  • Steven Universe Shout Outs, from artifacts only:
    • Amethyst: A reference to the origins of the show's Amethyst, which could be the in-universe location of manufacture, but not really intended as such:
      "Made in the prime kindergarten"
    • Bismuth: A reference to the episode of the same name, where the show's Bismuth joins the main team, which could be a more literal description, being made of the concept of "honor", but not really intended as such:
      "Made of honor"
  • Ragnarok, a Pre-Mortem One-Liner, referencing Norse Mythology, where fallen warriors go to Warrior Heaven Valhalla, and the game VA-11 HALL-A:
    See u at VA-11 Hall-A.
  • The spell, Wobble, referencing the technique of the same name, in Super Smash Bros. Melee and its controversial status amongst competitive players, has:
    why isn't this banned yet?
  • The "Jam [x]" spells that quote Space Jam by the Quad City DJs, while most reference the "Jam" part of the name, it's not being used to mean a "dance":
    • Jam:
      We got a real jam goin' down
    • Jam Slam: This a play on this trope for being the most directly connected "Jam" spell, out of the themed descriptions, as it's basically a request to use said spell, which more a name being made to suit the reference / description than the other way around:
      C'mon and slam
    • Jam Cannon:
      And welcome to the jam
  • Saigon Armor just straight-up namedrops the name and location of a restaurant in New Jersey.
• PsyCard: From Friend's Quest, the "rose ring", talking about "world revolution" when the known world's just a maze, with no system of government or anything, until the Final Boss, and the only known ruler, King Ur, is finally seen. It's primarily a Revolutionary Girl Utena reference:
  "grants you the power to bring world revolution"

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