Non-Indicative Names in Fan Works.
- Generally speaking, it is really common for fanfics that feature copious Squick and Gorn — especially those of the troll variety — to be named after some really innocuous element, since the goal is to catch the reader off guard to boost the shock value.
- The infamous Cupcakes (Sergeant Sprinkles), for instance, features Pinkie Pie poisoning Rainbow Dash via cupcakes and eventually baking her into cupcakes, but the title conveniently skirts over the fact that the fic is about Pinkie torturing and murdering Dash.
- If mowing the lawn was all that Cloud Strife did in Cloud Mows the Lawn, we'd all be much better off, and the same goes for Dipper Goes to Taco Bell. Both fics are actually primarily about graphic scat, and for that reason, neither of them have pages on this wiki.
- The Bank Called, Your Reality Check Bounced has nothing to do with banks, bounced checks, or reality checks. It's just used for Rule of Funny.
- Bring Me Back Home: When Ladybug mentions Hawkmoth's name to Cat Noir, he lampshades the oddity that a villain with the Butterfly Miraculous named himself after a moth.
- Calvin & Hobbes: The Series has the MTM, shorthand for Mini Time Machine. It's actually a Do-Anything Robot. This is eventually lampshaded:"Well, I don't use [the MTM] for time travel much anymore, but..."
- Celestia VS Cleverbot is more like "Luna VS Cleverbot."
- Dark World Role Play (Deltarune, Undertale): Downplayed. While the majority of the roleplay does take place in the Dark World, it's mostly confined to just Cyber World.
- In Dimmed Spotlight, Ace Spade is actually a rapper.
- Diary of an Analog's author MF217 goes on an extended rant about the original BlackSeraphimon name from the Japanese version as opposed to the Dub Name Change of ShadowSeraphimon, the latter of which being used for the fic proper. His justification as seen in his notes for Chapter 18?"What exactly seen below
◊ is actually black? If this were BlackSeraphimon from Digimon World 3 I'd understand why it's called that, but ShadowSeraphimon is green, and the bat-like wings aren't even black as would be the case with the likes of Lucemon FM or Mastemon or almost all of the Devimon-Species Digimon, but instead it's an odd purple color." - The stories which make up the Elemental Chess Trilogy are this, being completely non-indicative of their plots. They're actually Terminology Titles, so they make a kind of sense in context, but still have no real bearing on the stories in question.
- Eyrie Productions Destroys the Marvel Universe. It's an effort to simultaneously introduce the author's first self-insert character (from much older works and roleplays) to general readership and wrap up loose threads from said works, as he couldn't be bothered to keep up with the varying continuity (and quality) of Marvel Comics. Nonetheless, no universal genocide occurs, though it's threatened. As one poster on the EPU forum indicated (spoilers), though, "there just isn't much ring to EPU Locks the Marvel Universe in a Closet, Then Eats The Key".
- The End of the World: In "The Golden Mean", District 2 Victor Philo finds the "Career tribute" label confusing, pointing out that while they do train for the Hunger Games, they tend to either die young in the arena or retire in comfort after a few years of mentoring, rather than make their whole life about the Hunger Games (with Brutus being a rare exception).
- Played for Laughs in Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works] Abridged, where Rin insists on referring to the Holy Grail War as the "Murder-Death-Kill," on account of the fact neither the real Holy Grail nor an actual war (at least not in the strictest definition of war) is involved. There is, however, a great deal of killing.Rin: Point is, I'll start calling it "Holy Grail War" when the name isn't just a cool stand-in. In the meantime, "Murder-Death-Kill" is a way more on-point name, with "Ghost-Death-A-Thon" as a close second!
Kirei: I disagree on principle. - The Feel of Feelings Rewrite: Harry, who's a little loopy from two years in Azkaban, names his pet grim, a shadow animal, after the Egyptian sun god Ra.
- The title of The Games of the Gods has this problem, as the author admits in a note under book 1, chapter 39. The bonus chapter lampshades the problem.Mandos: This is the end of the special feature for 'The Games of the Gods', in which no games were ever actually played by gods.
- Harry Potter and the Lack of Lamb Sauce: The title of the fic is a spoof of the infamous Hell's Kitchen meme, and at no point in the story does the lack of lamb sauce become a plot point. In the final chapter, the quote in the titular meme is briefly dropped as a gag, though.
- Hermione's actual talent is nowhere to be seen in Hermione's Talent, where the only talent she displays is in being an Alpha Bitch in between imitating anachronistic pop musicians.
- Neither word in the title Homestuck high is very indicative of what happens in-story; it bears almost no resemblance to Homestuck, and only the first chapter involves high school. However, the title could be interpreted as meaning that the author tried to write about Homestuck while high.
- Horseshoes and Hand Grenades: Downplayed. Ophiuchus is a Serpent and not a Serpent-bearer like the constellation he's named after. It's explained that he bonded with Asclepius—the man who is the basis of the Serpent-bearer—and eventually he took over his body after Asclepius's soul was devoured.
- Imaginary Seas: As per standard in the Fate Series, Percy's Archer version wouldn't use bows at all due to how notoriously bad he is with them. Instead, he'd simply use his demigod powers to fling water at his foes and shape it into weapons and attacks.
- In Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail, Atticus calls Chloe "Chloe of the Vermillion" (as she's from Vermilion City). Chloe notes that it doesn't really fit her since Vermilion is a shade of red and she's wearing a white dress. Later, she names the trio of herself, Atticus and Lexi the "Red Lotus Trio" even though none of them wear red (except for the red on Atticus's crown) or are associated with lotus flowers.
- In Kara of Rokyn, the titular character isn't from planet Rokyn.
- In chapter 8 of Kiryuuin Chronicles, Satsuki lampshades this in her recollections about Rei's bird:"At the time, I thought it was a very funny name to give to a bird that isn't what its name will have suggested, yet she named it Budgie.". Note that Budgie's a dove, not a parakeet.
- There is no war in The Last War unless you count the one between the author and canon.
- Maria Campbell of the Astral Clocktower: Maria complains that her Light Magic does not produce visible light, only a phantasmal light that is invisible to all except other Light Magic users. The name is likely a reference to how it is the opposite of Dark Magic, which also has nothing to do with light but is the direct power of humanity's Dark Soul (that's why the only way to get it is through Human Sacrifice). However, since it's a very common in-universe mistake to assume that Light Magic can be used to provide illumination, Maria grumbles about it pretty much all the time.Third Prince: Why is it called Light Magic, then?
Maria: I have no idea, your highness. Perhaps it doesn't eat very much so it can fit into its favorite dress. - Moon Daughter has a chapter called "Jason Dies." He doesn't. The author even follows it up with "Lol I bet you were expectin for Jason to die, thats called a twist."
- My Immortal
- The fic hardly features any immortality and few would want to claim ownership of it.
- It also doesn't feature the eponymous Evanescence song; Evanescence is mentioned, but the song's lyrics never make an appearance nor is the song itself mentioned.
- In Nareto: The Scret of Shiobi, "Mary Sue" is actually the Only Sane Man.
- Since events in the Darkwing Duck fanfiction Negaverse Chronicles takes place in the Negaverse, names that would have once been considered meaningful names are now completely misleading. This was actually lampshaded by a character.Doctor Vulture: "Well that's the ironic thing about this world isn't it? All the people with villains names are good guys and all the people with hero names are bad guys. Take for instance Captain Boyscout, with that name you would assume he is the world's nicest guy. It turns out he is a con and a complete thug…"
- A lot of fan works about New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe's infamous Super Crown have characters who use it get the suffix "-ette" added to their name thanks to Bowsette, the fan character that popularized it. Peachette, the originator of the naming convention, was only called as such because it was a Portmanteau of Peach and Toadette, the character who got the crown in the first place (seen clearer with her Japanese name, Kinopeach). Averted in Japanese, which gives the transformed characters a completely different naming scheme from Peachette ("[x]-hime"/"Princess [x]").
- People do die in Nobody Dies.
- Ojamajo Doremi: Rise of the Shadows doesn't have the titular Doremi as the main character, and the plotline is ultimately an Excuse Plot to show off the Queen's Super Mode and establish the author's favorite pairing. The titular Shadows themselves don't actually "rise" per se, and are little more than a collective Generic Doomsday Villain.
- Pretty Cure Perfume Preppy doesn't feature any actual preps.
- The titular Sex Note is a reality warping tool of the sex kamui, and while it does increase libido to use it other than that none of its abilities or restrictions actually have any direct relation to sex. The Power Perversion Potential comes entirely from the user. When that user is asexual, everything goes Off the Rails.
- Shatterheart is a Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE- fanfic that has nothing to do with Fran's Limit Break or Final Fantasy XII
- In The Stalking Zuko Series, Zuko's "guilty dance" is not an actual dance, but a series of predictable actions he does when he feels ashamed. The title is an aversion; once Katara warms up to Zuko after "The Southern Raiders" part of the story, she stops stalking him (although she does frequently eavesdrop on conversations), and the next installments are titled "Not Stalking Zuko" and "Not Stalking Firelord Zuko."
- Swimming in Terror has the first chapter called "Island and Kuma." Monokuma doesn't even show up until the second chapter.
- Thirty Hs; the title doesn't really describe anything, much less what's going on, not that any title really could. The summary claims that the fic is about Harry Potter "[eating] a sandwich and [discussing] life with a famous author", which is true in the sense that Attack on Titan is about Eren Jager riding a horse and watching his classmate eat a potato. Within the actual story, Dumbledore owns a "Moonbase" which is explicitly not on a moon, and Rape Radbury and the rape ape never rape anyone.
- Touhou Doujin: Dawitsu's Folly has no visual media beyond character artwork on the author's deviant art, and is a simple Gen Fic.
- The Final Chapter of Twillight Sparkle's awesome adventure is actually the 2nd-last chapter, with the Final Chapter 2 being the last one.
- Ultra Fast Pony The fic is set in a world where almost everyone has some variety of Meaningful Name. So the few who don't tend to throw others for a loop:
- In "Saying Words", Rarity meets a rich pony who wears a fancy jacket and no pants, and she reasonably assumes his name is Fancyjacket. No, his name is Fancypants.
- "So Random!" opens with Pinkie Pie wondering why a pony named Rose (who has a rose cutie mark) is growing and selling lilies. Rose blames it on her bad memory.
- In What a Strange Little Colt, Rainbow notices the irony of Gabriel’s northern hometown being named Westfield.
- Whatever Happened to Elfstar?: The titular Elfstar, despite the name, isn't actually an elf. Marcie actually brought this up only to get shot down.
