Works and fictional characters that you've confused with each other

For a long time, I thought Edward Scissorhands was a horror movie villain because I confused him with Freddy Krueger.

At some point I mixed up Grojband and Gorillaz a lot, because Corey kinda looks like 2-D.

Before I started watching My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic as a kid, I saw a clip of Rarity from when she gets butterfly wings and thought that was Princess Celestia, and later when I saw Celestia I thought she was Luna.

Edited by Hqami on Feb 19th 2024 at 1:17:03 PM

Before I was a teenager, I thought that Homer Simpson's name was Bart. This extended to a dream I had, where a show had a song about the construction of a (non-existent) local building; the song had a slower coda about someone adding a drawing of Homer, who was referred to as "Bart Simpson" by the singer. I think I figured out who Homer is when I saw his name mentioned in a junior high school textbook before I started watching the show in 2013.

My first exposure to Junie B. Jones was in Grade 1, when another student read part of the fourth book of the series to the class. I didn't catch the title of the book, or even the series, at first. I heard something that reminded me of "Hilltop School" from Timothy Goes to School. So, when I heard a rude-sounding line, I was a bit confused and internally angry, in a "What the heck kind of Timothy Goes to School story is this?!" way.

When I was reading the first Keeper of the Lost Cities book, I got Alden and Elwin's names mixed up and it took me a while to realize that they were two different characters.

When I first saw The Loud House, I got Lori and Leni mixed up.

When I was a kid, I thought Babe was a different version of Charlotte's Web, to the point where I thought Babe's real name was also Wilbur.

As a child I did not know that the superheroes of DC and Marvel were in separate universes. I have an old crossover-comic that features Spiderman and Superman teaming up, but I did not understand the significance with it. I just found it obvious that Hulk could visit Metropolis and end up in a fistfight with Supes.

I've gotten Treasure Planet and Atlantis: The Lost Empire confused, due to them both being Cult Classic Disney animated movies from the early 2000s.

For the longest time, I thought Vinesauce and Vsauce were the same thing. I don't believe I'm the only one who's made said mistake.

It took me a while to figure that out as well.

When I was a kid, I assumed that Fullmetal Alchemist and Full Metal Panic! were part of the same franchise.

I also remember confusing Banjo for Crash Bandicoot.

Same! When I first heard about "Vsauce" I assumed that was a nickname for Vinesauce or something

I get this with fandom terms and acronyms.

Example: STAB means same type attack bonus. A Pokémon of whatever type deals more damage using a move of that type than a 'mon that does not match the move's type would. A fighting type, for example, might be able to learn a wide variety of moves (e.g. Fire Punch, Ice Punch, and Thunder Punch), but really gets a kick out of using fighting moves. While a lot of Pokémon can help their trainers by using field moves Cut and Strength in the overworld, normal types make the best use of them in battle. A psychic type has psychic abilities. And so on.

So, knowing this, how should I interpret it when fans of the A Song of Ice and Fire books list the deeds of Ser Barristan Selmy and put special emphasis on how he cut through the STAB fighters at the battle of the Trident? Hm, yeah, it is very impressive to fight and win against medieval knights who get a boost from another universe with completely different world building. Makes sense? Not really, but it is not immediately obvious what STAB means in the ice-and-fire context. For the curious, it stands for Stark Tully Arryn Baratheon, noble houses that were allies at the time of the battle in question.

Another example is CC in the context of The Sims - short for custom content, so, cosmetic mods like clothes and hairstyles - vs. CC in the context of Stardew Valley, where restoring the community center is a major part of the plot, but the fandom is less likely to use the acronym.

Edited by prinzessinnen-und-raben on Feb 20th 2024 at 8:17:55 PM

I get Life Is Strange and The Last of Us mixed up a lot, and same with Master Detective Archives: Rain Code and Another Code.

I mistook Kel'Thuzad for a Warhammer character; turns out that it was actually Nagash I was thinking about.

Here are a couple of things from when I knew very little about The Simpsons:

There was a time when I wondered if "Sabre Dance" was "The Simpsons Theme". It isn't, though the song is featured in the episode "Dial 'N' for Nerder".

There was a time when I assumed that Homer was voiced by John Ratzenberger. Then, after I started watching the show, the aforementioned actor made a cameo as a CGI Homer in "Treehouse of Horror XXV"!

And now, some reposts:

One time in my grandparents' spare room, my Grami and I saw part of the beginning of Frosty the Snowman (when he first comes to life and Hinkle takes the hat back). At first, Grami said that the snowman was Frosty, but eventually (sometime before Hinkle told Hocus Pocus to stay in the hat), she told me that it actually wasn't. So, for a few years, I thought that what I had seen there was something other than Frosty. When I saw the Animated Credits Opening of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, I wondered if that was the show I had seen in the spare room. Eventually, in late 2007, my house had its first HDTV, which temporarily gave us some extra channels. You can imagine how I felt when my mom showed me the same Frosty scene when it was playing on an earlier CBS feed, which was one of those temporary channels we had. In fact, I wasn't convinced until the title appeared! That night, I recorded it and Frosty Returns on a VHS when they played on our normal CBS feed.

There's a scene in the Arthur episode "Water and the Brain" where Brain slowly walks into a swimming pool, then chickens out. Well, I'm not sure if this false memory came from a dream or not, but I once falsely remembered the scene as having Timothy Goes to School characters, since my brain confused it with an episode of that show called "Taking the Plunge".

Later, when I was a teenager, I had another episode-and-show mix-up: There's a scene in the Jimmy Two-Shoes episode "Toast Busters" where a ghost performs the Flushing Toilet, Screaming Shower trope on Jimmy repeatedly. There was a time where I mistakenly thought that this happened in Johnny Test (presumably in the episode "Johnnycicle") with Johnny as the victim and Brain Freezer as the perpetrator.

And now, something else I haven't posted yet:

After I saw the Scrabble Junior box that has kids holding up the letters of the word "junior", I forgot which "junior" game it was. So, I imagined the cover as saying "Clue Junior", with the kids appearing one-by-one as "PBS Kids Go!" logo music played. I ended up getting Scrabble Junior for Christmas 2004, and I got Clue Jr. for Easter 2007.

That reminds me of when I misremembered the scene from the Family Guy episode "He's Too Sexy For His Fat" where exterminators shoot up the Griffins' house as a scene from a King Of The Hill episode!

For years, I somehow managed to combine Interstellar and Jupiter Ascending in my mind. I've only seen the former, mind you.

There's three obscure animated movies that I mix up a lot because of their names: Starchaser: Legend of Orin, Odin: Photon Sailer Starlight, and Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey.

Edited by Hqami on Feb 21st 2024 at 8:09:56 PM

On the acronym confusion - there is a US Representative named Marjorie Taylor Greene who uh, has made some controversial statements. People have apparently taken to calling her MTG for short, and the first time I heard that being used I wondered what everyone had against Magic: The Gathering all of the sudden.

Ahaha, that's great.

That reminds me of the time when people on the HobbyDrama subreddit were talking about the artificial flavor enhancer MSG and my brain decided to parse it as Magic Se Gathering. I don't even play that game, it just seems like more of a hobby.

Oh, and when I commented that, someone else proposed Metal Solid Gear as an alternative.

I get acronyms like that confused a lot too, especially if there's more than one fandom that uses the same ones.

Sometimes I have mixed up the names Todd Edwards and Todd Howard.

When I was small, I used to get The Three Stooges mixed up.

I thought Larry was Curly, Curly was Moe, and Moe was Larry. Don't ask me where I thought Shemp fit in back then.

x4 Something similar for me - it's common for fans to abbreviate the various Taskmaster spin-offs by their home country, and every time I see TMNZ in a vacuum I consistently parse it as Teenage Mutant Ninja Zurtles despite my minimal awareness of that franchise.

not me specifically, but when my friend got into Guilty Gear he initially confused That Man for Big Man LOL

That's also great!