Unexpected Character in Fan Works.
Works with their own pages
Amphibia
- Embrace the Fall
: A series where everything goes Off the Rails during season 3 of Amphibia, and firmly goes into Alternate Universe Fic territory once Anne becomes a villain Drunk on the Dark Side. Thus, it's a huge surprise that the last two chapters of the main story feature canon Anne, who's now serving as a Guardian-in-Training watching over multiple timelines.
- Eleutherophobia: Gives appearances to almost every surviving Yeerk host, no matter how minor:
- The businessman in the cell next to Tom in The Day the Earth Stood Still turns out to be David's dad.
- Melissa Chapman and Taylor both have cameos in Ghost in the Shell where they give Tom their opinions on voluntary Controllers.
- Mr. Chapman arrives to help the teens investigate the Skrit Na ship in The Thing from Another World. Then at the end, Alloran shows up to save them from the air force.
- What Tomorrow Brings: At first, it seems like the chapters will be narrated by the Animorphs in the same order as the books... so imagine readers' surprise when chapter 6's narrator was not Ax, but Tom.
- An odd example from Calvin & Hobbes: The Series - the series finale "Black Rain" features none other than Slender Man as a major character. This has caused some rather mixed reactions from reviewers.
- Child of the Storm:
- The fic delights in this (something helped by the author appearing to have a near encyclopaedic knowledge of Marvel and other canons) but in particular, Jack O'Neill as the uncle of Carol Danvers? Harry befriending a young Jean-Paul Beaubier a.k.a. Northstar and Diana of Themyscira? Harry Dresden as a consultant for SHIELD, the mentor of Bruce Wayne and later, the apprentice of Wanda Maximoff?
- Namor, while very briefly alluded to once or twice, is one of the biggest surprises of all in chapter 71.
- Gambit's appearance and Dudley's reappearance as the Blob in chapter 8 of Ghosts of the Past were surprising to say the least.
- And in chapter 9, no one saw Maddie Pryor being revealed as Jean's twin sister, Rachel Grey coming either.
- In chapter 32, despite the fact he'd been alluded to several times throughout both books, and his Doombots were some of the earliest appearing opponents, no one expected Victor von Doom to make his bow, much less be a key part in the resolution of the arc.
- Code Prime (Code Geass & Transformers): Mainly utilizes characters from the Code Geass and Transformers Aligned Universe canon, but several characters not from canon have appeared in the story.
- Megatron uses a Pretender drone disguised as Euphemia to initiate the SAZ Massacre. Said Pretender drone is based on Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen's Alice rather than either the Marvel iterations or Transformers: Super-God Masterforce.
- The first chapter of R2 surprised fans with the debut of Sky-Byte and T-AI from the 2001 Robots in Disguise anime. Also debuting was Doctor Arkeville all the way from Generation 1.
- Nobody was expecting Colonel Madd from the Nightmare of Nunnally manga to appear in the first chapter of R2, as the author previously had no plans to include characters from Nightmare.
- The Great Starship Battle: James Bond is from the spy genre so he, M, and Q stick out like sore thumbs amid all the sci-fi characters.
- Infinity Train: Blossomverse:
- Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail Considering how the Infinity Train can pick up people with different traumas, one can expect Chloe bumping into the most unexpected people.
- Chapter 3 has Chloe wish Jaden Yuki good luck on his journey.
- Chapter 13 has Chloe meeting up with Ray and Zack and Satou and Shio. It's also heavily implied that Chloe tried playing chess with Seto Kaiba.
- Part 2 reveals that a new Pokémon Trainer is entering the Train. Said trainer? Hop. He also lands in what is the Infinity Train's version of Silent Hill as he's greeted by someone named Alex Shepherd.
- Chapter 16 reveals that Paul is also in Silent Hill, but this one is more shocking than Alain since the latter was implied by Word of God. And then the next chapter reveals Alain himself.
- Chapter 17 introduces Rashid and Azam traveling with the Red Lotus Trio across a desert.
- The Curry Arc has Chloe meet up with Romin Kirishima and the Curry Prince happens to be a reincarnation of Prince Soma.
- Ash's Aunt Hilary and his cousins Trey and Troy are actually from some very obscure live-action commercials as noted by the author's notes at the end of "Le Chat Chalet" Car.
- Infinity Train: Knight of the Orange Lily The Ultra Recon Squad appears at the end of the 3rd chapter, heavily changing the Ultra Beast arc.
- Infinity Train: Boiling Point: With Boscha going on a huge rampage and destroying cars, One-One has asked someone to put a stop to him. But who is it? an alternate version of Chloe of the Vermillion.
- Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail Considering how the Infinity Train can pick up people with different traumas, one can expect Chloe bumping into the most unexpected people.
- Last Mage of Krypton (Harry Potter & Superman): Harry's animagus form counts as a minor one (being Krypto), but the big surprise (and proof it was a triple-crossover all along) comes with the last minute appearance of Pete Wisdom, director of MI-13 and Director Fury's English counterpart.
- A Man of Iron (Marvel Cinematic Universe & A Song of Ice and Fire): Has numerous Marvel characters appear or outright referenced in later chapters.
- Logan shows up as a Dothraki bodyguard to Daenerys.
- Arya's second chapter hints at Magneto, Mystique and presumably other mutants somewhere in Braavos, which is confirmed in her third. Her fourth reveals that "Syrio" is just an alias of Mystique.
- Syrio also alludes to the existence of Norman Osborn, in the form of a Pentos merchant whose servants called him a goblin and who taught Syrio that "the only thing people love more than a hero is to see a hero fail, fall... die trying". He's also the one who gave Shireen her greyscale-infected doll.
- Tyrion's third chapter has Hawkeye, going by Clynt appear as a sellsword working with Bronn.
- Ned's third chapter reveals that Jon Arryn had a friend called Viktor who suffered a terrible accident at a blacksmith's that left him horribly disfigured.
- He finally appears in Chapter 8 of Book 2, covered in metal like his comic self, and a member of the Thirteen that rule Qarth.
- Logan mentions a woman in the Summer Islands that can control the weather.
- He also mentioned a man made of stone who wears nothing but a loincloth.
- Pepper talks to a Lady Morse, who Word of God confirms is Mockingbird.
- Word of God has confirmed that Captain America will appear despite previously saying he wouldn't.
- The Night's Queen takes over Sansa's body and restores it.
- The Book 2 prologue introduces Jane Foster and Thor, and furthermore that the Norse gods are exactly the same as in canon; it's just that none of the world's religions have managed to get them right.
- In the second chapter of Book 2, Tony mentions a sellsword he met with a flair for the dramatic, a twisted sense of humour, and a penchant for saying "Alright, maximum effort".
- During Jorah's vision in the House of the Undying, Wade makes an appearance in all his fourth-wall-breaking self, not only knowing about Daenerys and the others watching the vision, but also referencing the author.
- Tyrion meets a Goldcloak named Jeor Stacey, who also tells him about one of his men named Rickard Parker who was killed along with his wife, while their son was away with his uncle Benjen.
- Ivan Vanko (a.k.a. Whiplash) is an Ironborn captain who joins forces with Asha Greyjoy in order to destroy the North and the Westerlands, because he wants to take revenge on the Lannisters and the Starks, who killed his family during the Greyjoy Rebellion. They end up killing Ramsay Snow, and try to kill Tony.
- Phil Coulson (or, rather, Phylup, son of Coul) becomes the new castellan of Iron Pointe after Obadiah Stane's death. This is especially a surprise as the story is largely based on the comics rather than the Marvel Cinematic Universe where the character first appeared, though he's since become a Canon Immigrant.
- In Chapter 6 of A Crack of Thunder, Tony mentions a singer named Alyson Blarre. "I saw her perform once in Highgarden... she was dazzling."
- Oberyn Martell's first daughter (legitimized by Ned as Hand of the King), and Jon's future bride, is Natasha Martell, the Black Widow.
- Brienne of Tarth has a cousin called Bruce, and she is the story's equivalent to She-Hulk.
- The Court of the Others includes The Commander, who is mixed with the Red Skull.
- The Guardians of the Galaxy are agents of the Children of the Forest from their dimension.
- Doom scoffs at a mention of Illyrio Mopatis, as his son and daughter plus their companions have caused a good deal of trouble for Doom.
- Ulysses Klaue shows up as a mercenary blacksmith in Tywin's employ.
- Omega Red is apparently a Northern boogieman.
- During the archery contest of Jon's wedding, Tony mentions the winner was a young man (who he suspects was a woman), named Byshup, who disappeared as soon as the price was given.
- It is confirmed that Renly is Justin Hammer's counterpart.
- The head jailor of Winterfell is named Jon Walkar.
- Amora the Enchantress is disguised as Melisandre.
- Logan's vision of his future shows a little girl who can produce two claws like he does.
- Amora wasn't the only Asgardian in Stannis' court: Ser Davos Seaworth is actually LOKI.
- During the Battle of Blackwater, following the massive Wildfire explosion, Tyrion mentions hearing reports of a man turning into a wolf and eating his own men, while another says a squire turned into living ice and that Lord Marcos Specture believed the moon was talking to him.
- Cersei gets Psylocke/the Shadow King's powers.
- Euron Greyjoy has become Ronan.
- My Hero Playthrough: While the replacement characters in class 1-A all show up in the story in some way before they are named, Hikari Shimooka appears in 1-B's roster with no build up. It does not hurt her unexpectedness that the manga in which she originally appears is not very well known.
- In Origins, a Mass Effect/Star Wars/Borderlands/Halo Massive Multiplayer Crossover, a Holocron loaded with the Force ghosts of canon characters pops up — It Makes Sense in Context, but nobody saw that coming. Especially since the whole point was that "A long time ago..." had been taken extremely literally to the point where known Star Wars was considered ancient history.
- Facing the Future Series: Many readers were surprised to see the return of the ghost half that Tucker wished for.
- Yandere Sumia: The cast is almost entirely composed of characters from Fire Emblem: Awakening- Sumia, Chrom, the rest of Chrom's potential wives, Cordelia and Lucinanote - so it's a bit of a surprise when Glass from Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade turns up near the end.
- Dæmorphing (Animorphs & His Dark Materials): At first it seems like chapter 2 of The Herdmoot is being told from an omniscient third-person perspective, but after a few first-person pronouns, it becomes clear that the Ellimist is narrating. This came as a shock to readers because as in canon, the higher powers rarely interact with the main plot.
- The New Adventures of Invader Zim has a habit of bringing in minor one-shot characters from canon, to the surprise of most readers:
- Absolutely no one expected Squidman to show up, considering his sole appearance ended with him being eaten by a shark.
- No one was expecting Counselor Dwicky to appear, as his last appearance appeared to have him Put on a Bus.
- The Violet Demon: Tak appearing in Chapter 3 as another enslaved gladiator took everyone by surprise, judging by the reader comments.
- How Roid's Plan Could Have Backfired Horribly: Deals with the many ways Roid's master plan in Macross Delta could have backfired due one of the many holes in the plan working against him, mostly due to factors present in the series itself. Then chapter 6 has the Protodeviln show up just to wreck the Sigur Valens, and chapter 7 has Lynn Kaifun appear on Windermere and talk king Gramia into a more peaceful policy that also repairs Windermere's economy. Roid actually wonders how the latter one happened (Berger brought him there to have Kaifun talk Gramia into a new economic policy, as on the long term a relatively peaceful and economically powerful Windermere will give the Epsilon Foundation a much larger profit).
- Mega Man: Defender of the Human Race: Nobody expected the Mega Crew's leader to be Tiesel Bonne.
- Abraxas: Although it's a MonsterVerse fic, it's definitively a Godzilla-centric fic and it's written by a Godzilla-centric author; picking up after the events of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and focusing on the consequences of Ghidorah's severed left head remaining intact and being seized by Alan Jonah's organization, and using the MonsterVerse's strictly Godzilla-associated characters Dr. Vivienne Graham and San (the left head) as its two main protagonists. So it was quite out of the blue when Kong: Skull Island characters, the Skullcrawlers, popped up quite suddenly in the fic in Chapter 11 and had a lasting pseudo-presence across the fic when they were assimilated by the Many as a major component.
- Double Rainboom: Was touted as a massive fan project for My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic but no one upon no one was expecting it to be a crossover with The Powerpuff Girls.
- Moonstuck having Changelings show up was somewhat unexpected, as the comic had started before they were introduced in the show. The real shocker however was the Big Bad being Discord, as not only was he the first character from the show other than Luna to appear, he also completely destroyed the common assumptions about the timeline (pretty much everyone had assumed that the comic was a metaphor for Luna's Enemy Within struggle with Nightmare Moon, not Luna and Celestia finding the Elements of Harmony.
- This My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fan video features a surprise cameo from a pony version of Gamzee Makara of all characters.
- This Bites!: Who would've guessed that Gin, Apis, her dragon Lindy, Mr. 5, Ms. Valentine, and Ms. Goldenweek would've ended up being part of the Barto Club?
- Be honest. Did you really expect the CP9 opponent for Cross during the Enies Lobby Arc to be Hattori?
- Persona 5 Adult Confidant AU:
- The main premise of the story is based around swapping the ages and roles of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts and the Adult Confidants of the canon Persona 5. As a result, the new Phantom Thieves are given their own Personas. Most of them were made specifically for the AU, so it was a surprise to see Robin Hood, Akechi's fake Persona, as part of the cast. And as Sojiro's Initial Persona no less!
- Considering the first two Persona games have largely fallen into obscurity, many saw it as a surprise when Nameless and Belladonna made an appearance.
- Similarly to the above, one comic has Tae and a few other Phantom Thieves going to a Gas Chamber concert, with Eikichi Mishina from Persona 2 making a surprise cameo.
- Pokémon Reset Bloodlines: Has trainers and Pokémon appear in different places and roles than usual. One notable example is the appearance of Solidad during the Battle Dome Arc, given that she debuted many arcs later in canon and as a Pokémon Coordinator, not trainer.
- Heian Conglin: Is basically a darker version of Jumanji where Ranma and Shampoo are the players. Early on, Tokyo is evacuated due the game's jungle occupying the whole city, Ranma, Shampoo and Happosai (a past player) are trying to win the game... And then Pantyose Taro shows up from nowhere to demand that Happosai changes his name.
- Marque and Reprisal: We see an Unexpected Mecha: the GR-002 Strike Garland, a veritech hovercycle similar to the wheeled GR-001 Garland, appearing only in the Robotech Technical Files.
- We also meet Mark Landry, Stacy Embry, and the E.V.E. from the little-known Robotech the Movie.
- Weiss Reacts:
- The majority of crossover characters originate from Fate/stay night, Persona or Chobits. Thus, almost nobody expected Tohru Honda to fill in for Roman when he pulled a Screw This, I'm Outta Here due to the antics of the other staffers. Neo, Emerald and Mercury were unexpected, having been introduced long after the fic started. The Slender Man is also in the Reactsverse, calling himself Slen D. Man.
- Zig Zagged with the Badass Family chapter- almost everyone called a Euphemia expy as one of Jaune's siblings, but nobody expected Lucina to be one too.
- Cam Steady's Sonic the Hedgehog Villains Rap Cypher features a roster of mostly obvious choices — Eggman, Metal Sonic, Mephiles the Dark, Zavok, Chaos and Infinite the Jackal — but many on first watch are surprised that Cam himself didn't do a verse. Then, the ending screen starts glitching... and Sonic.exe appears.
- Sonic Villains:
- Like in the aforementioned Rap Cypher, no one was expecting Sonic.exe to be part of the titular roster of villains. The first full trailer also teases the appearance of spinoff .exes Fatal Error and Rewrite, though the context implies that both of them are simply alternate forms of Sonic.exe himself.
- Solid Snake, voiced by David Hayter himself, is also set to make an appearance.
- O Mother, Where Are Thou?: The second half introduces Class 40, or "the Diesel", a Thomas and Friends character who only showed up in two stories of the pre-CGI seasons and hasn't appeared in canon since.
- Fantasy Kaleidoscope: The first episode looks to be a straight retelling of Perfect Cherry Blossom, until going Off the Rails at the end with the appearance of Sanae three games early.
Unsorted
- Comic Book SNAFU: Ultron Mark Twelve is the twelfth incarnation of Ultron who performed a Heel–Face Turn. He hasn't been used for years, so it's doubtful anyone would expect him to appear in this series.
- Issue 2 has Gajeel and Akiza teleport to Fuyuki City from Fate/stay night and encounter Lancer/Cu Chulainn.
- Checkmate includes Lightbringer.
- Rias Gremory encounters Gajeel and Aki in issue 3.
- Monika appears on the Character Blog.
- With Digital Progressive being a crossover between Sword Art Online Progressive and Fate/EXTRA, literally no one could have expected the addition of Maple to the cast.
- The Girl of Tomorrow: John Jones actually being the Martian Manhunter? A lot of people figured that out. Armsmaster becoming the Batman? Speculated by a number of fans, thanks to the previous story. Doomsday caught a few by surprise, but due to the nature of the story, it wasn't completely unprecedented. But who expected Sir Arthur C. Clarke to make an appearance?
- Hellsister Trilogy is a Pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths DCU story that features virtually every hero and villain created before 1985, as declining to introduce Post-Crisis characters. So it was a bit of a shock when, after sixty chapters, a Post-Crisis character made it to the scene. And that character wasn't an obvious choice like a Kryptonian, Batman or Wonder Woman... but Destruction of the Endless, a character notorious for his unwillingness to interfere in mortal affairs.
- In Horseshoes and Hand Grenades, outside the Original Characters, all characters introduced are from Kamen Rider series. Hence it comes as a surprise when Yumeria Moegi appears in A Month of Sundays, having been fired and in search of a job.
- Imperfect Metamorphosis including PC-98 characters isn't unexpected, as many Touhou Project fanfictions do that. What was unexpected was that nearly all of them show up eventually, including really obscure ones like Kotohime, Rika and Konngara (the former of which plays a major role). And it was really unexpected when Rin Satsuki turns out to be a main character, as she was never in the games in the first place.
- The Infinite Loops: Characters become Loopers based on their relationship with their respective loop's Anchor. Closer the relationship is, more likely the character Awakens and becomes a Looper. As a result, very rarely do the enemies of an Anchor become Loopers — it's considered an anomaly when it happens, unless the enemy in question wasn't particularly antagonistic and/or had strong morals. Also, as a Loop ages, its Awakening rate slows down significantly — the Original Seven's Loops, for example, are so old that they've gone millions of Loops without a new Looper. Then Billy happened. Billy managed the inconceivable: he made Gendo Ikari a Looper. On top of being from one of the seven oldest universes, Gendo was the most hated non-MLE in the multiverse next to Dolores Umbridge. Just about everyone had the "pleasure" of meeting his baseline self, and despise him with a passion. The Anchor of his Loop, his own son Shinji, is one of the few willing to give him a chance and even then he makes no bones about how much he still hates him.
- In Justice Society of Japan, given how Lelouch Lamperogue appears early on one would probably assume that Zero would be one of the first characters from that series to join the team. WROOOOONG. Shirley Fenette joins instead.
- The Paperinik New Adventures fan comic L'Ultima Terra has two:
- When Scrooge decides to form a superhero squad he summons the members of the (now disbanded) Ultraheroes (that is, Paperinika, Super Goof, Red Bat, Cloverleaf, Iron Gus, and Paperinik himself)… And the Masked Whitewasher, an obscure and klutzy (yet surprisingly effective) superhero present in Italian Disney comics.
- After bringing his nephews to Grandma Duck so they'd be out of the line of fire when he faces Antares, Donald makes a phone call to his sister Della so she'd know where they are in case he doesn't survive.
- The King Nobody Wanted: Even considering how many obscure characters or Canon Foreigners from established houses appear in the story, it's doubtful anyone remotely expected a claimant to the throne of House Mudd (which has been presumed extinct since the Andal invasion) to show up.
- Mega Man Recut has plans to include every Robot Master in the series, and many appearing Robot Masters were unexpected.
- In My Immortal, when Ebony is trapped in the past, Marty McFly, or rather, morti mcfli, shows up out of nowhere to bring her back to the present. There's also the shocking moment when "Tom Bombodil" appears, though it seems to later on be just another name for Voldemort (his middle name is Satan).
- The Abridged Series My Little Pony: The Mentally Advanced Series shocked many fans by having the much anticipated Discord Killed Off for Real before the beginning of the show and replaced with Breezen, an obscure one-shot villain from Generation 1 of the show. note
- A New Hope (Danganronpa) has quite a few, on top of the premise of all main series students in one killing game together:
- Hiyoko Saionji turns out to be Kotoko Utsugi. The real Hiyoko appears in the sequel... as the main villain.
- Nobody expected Komaru Naegi to appear as a hostage... alongside Taichi Fujisaki, Yūta Asahina, and other, more obscure relatives. Probably the most unexpected were Natsumi Kuzuryu and Sato, two characters who were canonically dead. Chisa Yukizome’s appearance as an Ultimate Despair is another one. The rest of the Future Foundation and Ultimate Despair, for that matter, is made up of not only the existing members from the anime, but also more obscure characters from material like Danganronpa Zero, such as Yuto Kamishiro.
- Makoto and Aoi’s Babies Ever After from the bad ending of the original game appear in the epilogue.
- Nobody expected to see freakin’ Monocrow, a character from a fangame, to appear in Mists of Penjar.
- Given the series' focus on real if prehistoric animals, there was a fair amount of surprise in Prehistoric Park: Returned from Extinction when a prehistoric dragon showed up in the fourth segment of Dinosaurs From the East.
- The Road to be a Pokemon Master:
- While they were expected to appear eventually, Archie, Shelly and Maxie showing up in the Johto arc caught a lot of readers by surprise.
- Very few people expected Silver to have a Shuckle among his team, nor that it would be able to beat not one but two of Ash's strongest Pokémon.
- Son of the Sannin: One of the reasons Chapter 40 was such a Wham Episode was the revelation at the end that Obito had resurrected Rin Nohara, whose death pretty much kicked off the plot of Naruto as a whole. Since then, she went on to become a major supporting character.
- Chapter 41 of Transformers: MHA has the students of 1A decide on which Pro Hero they want to intern with. Kyoka gets a request from hero she's never heard of before. Who it is, is a huge surprise.Kyoka: Just who are you... Snake-Eyes?
- The ending for the first TS!Underswap demo has Flowey popping up at the end of the demo to try to defuse the situation with you and the Temmies, with the implication he's going to be as important in the full game as he was in Undertale.
- She is mentioned a few times prior to her appearance; however, to judge by the reviews on the first installment of Twice Upon an Age, almost no one expected Bethany Hawke to actually show up and join the Inquisition.
- Webwork has a couple of examples of this, as no one expected oneshot Villains of the Week like Nivor and Origami to show up.
- Wilhuff Tarkin, Hero of the Rebellion does it repeatedly:
- Rivoche Tarkin, Tarkin's genius niece from Star Wars Legends, is a main character.
- During the attack on the Tusken coalition's camp, the Tusken's leader turns out being A'sharad Hett. Lampshaded by Tarkin's "Oh, come on..." when he reveals himself.
- One of the Stormtroopers in Darth Vader's personal legion is Candace Flynn.
- The first of the Malachor chapters features Barriss Offee as the Seventh Sister... After she had appeared as Pellaeon's wife. Turns out that Lady Pellaeon is a clone... And the one who framed Ahsoka during the Clone Wars.
- The Jedi Master known as the Hyperionian is Mickey Mouse in his Jedi Master persona. The Spacebattles thread went on fire when they realized his identity.
- Marisa Zsinj, mother of the Imperial warlord, is a key member of Tarkin's faction.
- Tag Greenley and Bink Otauna show up as Maul's guides to Kenobi's hideout on Tatooine. According to the author it's because their appearance in the (cut) court scene in Solo has effectively made them Canon.
- Rebo from the old Italian comic Saturn versus Earth is mentioned as having fought for the Separatists.
- In one Harry Potter fanfic, Hermione reveals halfway through the story that she is actually adopted. Her real father is... Bruce Wayne. With no prior indication whatsoever that this was a crossover.
