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Mythology Gag / Fan Works

Go To

To the surprise of few, it turns out fan works have a tendency to reference their source material.

Works with their own pages:

Individual examples:

Crossovers
  • Alien/Species Crossover: Return to LV-426:
    • Several to Aliens (Steve Perry Trilogy).
      • The human host for the Xenomorph the Company breeds is Likowski, James T., just as in those novels, though his circumstances are entirely different.
      • Rim is mentioned as another incident involving XX121, with only Corporal Wilks and a civilian girl named Billie as survivors. Billie is institutionalized for her Xenomorph-related trauma, as she was at the start of the trilogy.
      • General Thomas AW Spears appears in the second half of the story as an antagonist. Third Base and Major Powell are important, and Spears' arc in this story is basically his arc in "Nightmare Asylum," except breeding hybrids and raising them like AWs instead of breeding Xenomorphs as his "ultimately loyal soldiers."
      • The telepathic communication of the Xenomorphs is an important plot point. Lise is telepathic, too, and she and the Xenomorphs can sense each other.
    • The story also uses several concepts from the development phase of the first Species film.
      • Denis Feldman's original conception was that it was unsophisticated for aliens to visit Earth in "a giant tin can," so envisioned contact with aliens taking place via information exchange, perhaps the aliens teaching humans to build something that could talk to them more efficiently than radio waves. He imagined a biological being instead of a mechanical device, this leading to the idea of growing an alien hybrid. The hybrids having telepathic communication, and reaching a "critical mass" where there are enough of them psychically communicate with the Senders, is an important plot point.
      • H. R. Giger's initial conception for Sil was that she was to be translucent, and glow with heat as she grew angrier or more threatened. Lise and the other hybrids have this ability, able to emit intense heat in their hybrid forms, giving them yet another weapon to use when they have to defend themselves. Fire is never brought up as a way to potentially kill them, as Giger felt fire would be ineffective against beings that can emit their own burning heat.
  • Avenger Goddess: The first time Clint Barton meets Diana (unaware of her true identity), he observes that half the problems that occurred in Greek mythology are the result of Zeus being unable to keep it in his pants.
  • Avenger of Steel sees a few of these mentioned when Clark is traveling with Thor, Loki, Sif and the Warriors Three, such as the time Thor wore a dress and posed as his mother to retrieve a lost Mjolnir (as it turns out, even most Asgardians were unaware of the myth that Loki is the mother of Sleipnir, Sif admitting that she started that rumour to get back at Loki for taking her hair).
  • AWE Arcadia Bay (Rogue_Demon): Two cases of potential candidates for the Prime Candidate Program Emily finds include the Mexico Border Massacre of 2017 and the Bright Falls AWE.
  • Ben 10: Reincario:
    • Previously, Ken (Ben 10000's son) had mentioned that in the roster of his Omnitrix were Sandbox, Shellhead, and Snakepit. The first of these three makes their debut in Chapter 9.
    • Gutrot's species name and home planet makes more sense when you remember that Derrick J. Wyatt based him on Koffing. The species name is Koffikauser, and his home planet is Gnizeew XVII (A Sdrawkcab Name of Koffing's evolution Weezing and the atomic number of chlorine (17)).
  • BlazBlue Alternative: Remnant:
    • One of Ragna and Ruby's first interactions after becoming partners is him calling her a brat and her reacting with anger, much like their first interaction in BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle.
    • Yang musing how she'd "melt some bones" with the guitar she won is a reference to RWBY Chibi where she said the same during the battle of the bands.
    • Jin saying how he'd rather slice off someone's arm than let himself degrade into laziness is one to when he sliced off his brother's arm in canon.
    • When Ruby sees Yukianesa for the first time, she says "Now that's a katana!" which is another nod to RWBY Chibi.
  • In The Captain of the Virtual Console, the Pokémon arc, despite being an adaptation of Pokémon Yellow, has some post-Gen 1 elements, like Berries and Johto Pokémon.
  • Code Geass: Paladins of Voltron:
    • Suzaku's Bayard takes the form of a katana (albeit one with a European hilt/crossguard). Suzaku did indeed wield a katana with great skill in Code Geass: Tales of an Alternate Shogunate.
    • Just like with Pidge in Legendary Defender, Kallen's mental picture is of herself and her brother, though this time around, the team assumes that Naoto is her boyfriend (since Kallen isn't hiding her gender).
    • Kallen's Bayard takes the form of a clawed gauntlet, just like her Guren's Radiant Wave Surger. Later events in The Rise of Voltron indicate it actually is a mini-version of the Radiant Wave Surger.
    • Milly comments on Allura's bust size, just like she did with Shirley in Episode 3 of Code Geass. In another Call-Back, Shirley's hair stands on end (as does Kallen's) when Milly starts the comment, knowing exactly what is about to happen.
    • When he decides to leave the Paladins, so he can return to Earth to overthrow Britannia, Lelouch muses that Allura could likely be one of the Paladins and take his place as the leader of Voltron. Allura did become one of the Paladins in Season Three of Legendary Defender.
    • Charles' plan to defeat Voltron hinges on Lelouch abandoning his allies to rescue Nunnally, exactly what he did at the end of R1. This time, though, his friends manage to calm him fast enough to allow for him to consider a better plan of action.
    • Shirley's confrontation with Viletta in Chapter 26 is highly reminiscent of their confrontation in canon at Port Yokosuka.
  • Cool Cat and the Beauty of War and Destruction:
    • Moon Man plays the piano, as a reference to the original advertisment of the mascot.
    • Heinel speaking French is a reference to Boazania being France -inspired and Voltes V 's plot essentially being The French Revolution IN SPACE!.
    • Heinel causes 9/11. This is a reference to the fact that in the original anime's first episodenote , one of the things the Boazanians did when invading Earth was destroy the Twin Towers.
  • The Dragon and the Bow
    • The name of the story is taken directly from Brave's working title, which was "The Bear and the Bow."
    • Hiccup and Fishlegs being best friends is a nod to the original book series. Same for Hiccup and Snotlout being cousins.
    • While battling Mor'du, Hiccup and Merida knock a menhir on top of him, which is what killed him in Brave. Except it doesn't kill him here, and he uses the menhir to break the legs of Angus the Clydesdale instead.
  • Equestria Girls: Friendship Souls: There are several references to both Bleach canon and previous generations of the My Little Pony franchise.
    • After an assassination attempt on Twilight, Sombra notes that he is far from omnipotent or omniscient, and sometimes wishes that he could see the future, despite the headache that it would be. Seeing the future was the power of Yhwach's "Almighty" in canon.
    • Apparently Jin, or at least his Equestria Girls counterpart, once tried to enact revenge on Soul Society like in the Bount arc of the anime, and it ended similarly poorly for him.
    • Several of the Espada and other Arrancar are villains from previous generations of the My Little Pony franchise, like Grogar, Catrina, and Squirk.
    • Following the Everfree arc, Discord mentions that Sunset should visit London sometime when talking about groups other than the three main factions.
    • Grogar is researching Segunda Etapa.
    • Twilight mentions how her world's version of Sombra left with his Radiant Hope.
  • Fist of the Moon: Ranma shows off her Gender Bender Mode Lock to try to quell a hostile girl's gym class she's been assigned to, protesting that she is just as much a girl as they are. Akane ends up adding her two cents by saying, "and better built to boot", something Ranma used to insult her with in the first volume of the manga.
  • In Heroes Never Die It's Hero Time, the starting number of aliens Izuku Midoriya has in the Omnitrix is nine, a reference to how in the original work, he is the ninth holder of One For All.
  • Inferior or Superior:
  • Squirrel Girl's penchant for defeating the biggest baddest Big Bads while the narration is busy elsewhere is very much present in The Institute Saga.
  • In Justice League of the Rebellion, Lelouch (this world's Batman) eventually uses a Knightmare named Azrael, who in DC comics was an Anti-Hero that took the cowl after Bruce Wayne was injured by Bane.
  • Khaos Omega likes to do this a lot, often with names.
    • When coming up with names to differentiate themselves from variants they encounter, Natsume picks 'Zephyr' after her Emblem Frame's Hyper Weapon Zephyrus Rampage.
    • Tyra Michaels is the one who named Anise's 'Angel of the Twelve' form, as Tyra was once one of the namesake Twelve. She explains the name choice as having been playing Destiny recently (with Anise quickly deducing Tyra's run included an encounter with Xur, who has the similarly-named title 'Agent of the Nine').
    • Another Tyra-related case, a subset of Anise's Amethysts takes on the name 'Magii-Zephyr' as they look like a businesswoman (much like the members of Natsume's Zephyrus Butterflies lesbian harem, but not as scandalous) but under a blouse compatible with the Amethysts' minimum bust is an excessively long dress; the blouse is intended to pass the skirt of said dress off as just a skirt. Tyra's larger bust than her blonde twin Kendra is why the subset's skirt is actually a dress, because Kendra wore the team jacket closed but Tyra's larger bust forced the jacket open. A book Anise read during one of her school ops further makes the 'Magii-Zephyr' subset's dress one that without the excessive length wouldn't look out of place at a prom, because she'd read about one girl who'd worn a prom dress to a job interview.
    • One member of the 'Magii-Zephyr' subset, who Anise adds to her lesbian harem during the "World of Amethyst" mission, life-links two spells that limit Anise's abilities in terms of utilizing her serum for manipulating her hair onto XQ teammates more synonomous with the specific traits in regards to Anise (the length is linked to Kandyce while the wavy style is linked to Hollie). Her limiter outright requiring any sneakers she were to wear to be high-heeled is then subsequently life-linked to Burrini Myers, who'd given Anise her first such pair during the fateful Samurai Angel op in 2011. Anise got that limiter on top of one that enables her to avert the Sadistic Choice trope, where only compatible clothes lets her wear Ugg-brand boots in their true form (they become ballet boots that look heelless but sound like stilettos otherwise); one compatible outfit is Milfeulle Sakuraba's main choice during what ends up as a 10-Minute Retirement during her route setup in the first Galaxy Angel trilogy.
      • The specific 'Magii-Zephyr' member subsequently implements a bridal variant of the subset into the Ultra Diamonds when reactivating their teal-haired leader's limiter in regards to hair length (calling it the only one of her original appearance-related limiters that needed to be reactivated), so the bridal-themed lesbian harem doesn't have to rely on their leader's experiences elsewhere to get things they'd want. Kandyce herself consciously mandates a white blazer for the businesswoman part of the new subset's appearance, to further fit in with her lesbian harem's overall bridal theme.
    • Right after "World of Amethyst" is a four-year school op. An Amethyst subset dubbed "Armada 109" is first revealed to Anise in the first year's February, and she has to add two of the members to her lesbian harem on the second Friday of that year's March. That second Friday is dated March 10. On top of that, one of the members to be added to the Amethysts has already been determined (the only member who doesn't start in stockings, sporting a wedge sandal familiar to Anise, and has already booked the entirety of class periods 3 through 7 for her intimacy session). Khaos draws this one from his own real-life high-school years (for during his 9th-grade year he shared four of the five class periods mentioned with the real-life basis of both the Armada 109 group and his self-based OC Jet's eldest sister, while March 10 of that year was the second Friday and the day the real-life Hollie Brazie wore the specific wedge sandal deemed one of XQ Hollie's signature shoes).
      • And speaking of Jet, he's often described as having the three bottommost spikes of his Mobian namesake's feathery full-mohawk. He's also the leader of the Rainbow Angels, with Anise as his second-in-command. Then "World of Amethyst" reveals her Project Absalon callsign is not "Amethyst", but "Babylon". As for Jet's Mobian namesake, the team he's leader of? The Babylon Rogues.
    • Speaking of "World of Amethyst", several females are encountered in rooms having a number prominently associated with said girl:
      • Daisy, Peach, and Rosalina usually end up with their multiple variants occupying rooms nine, ten, and eleven respectively due to their Strikers numbers (with Anise even bringing up the third Strikers game, where Rosalina made her Strikers debut due to the naming of room ten on the Shining Royals route). Their Smash roster numbers are how their maid variants got their landing coordinates (Daisy and Peach, the former as the latter's "Echo", share room thirteen while Rosalina landed at forty-eight).
      • Two other Rosalina variants end up in other numbers due to the platinum-blonde's connection with ProtonJon: One drew room seven on the Velocity Rush route due to F-Zero mascot Captain Falcon's machine bearing number 7 while the other, accompanied by Tekken fighter Lili and Claire Redfield of Resident Evil, got room fifty for one of Jon's donation alerts (involving a Tekken song and Claire's brother Chris, who punches a boulder at Albert Wesker, another Jon mascot, because of the songnote  playing).
      • Multiple Pokémon characters find their landing positions due to some part of their canon appearances:
      • Thirteen girls, led by Valerie, draw room six of the Electric Runway route as all thirteen debuted in Generation VI (and the route specifically is because Valerie is a fashion model-turned-designer). The debut generation is also why Dawn (who ends up on the Road to Number One route) drew room four and Burgundy from the anime got room five on the route where she ended up. Valerie is also the sixth of the Kalos Gym Leaders (with four of the twelve Furisode Girls accompanying her being her Gym Trainers), which is how Candice (accompanied by her anime BFF Zoey) ended up in room seven.
      • Another anime-related assignment is Misty in room fifty-four - the Pokédex number of Psyduck. To Anise's relief, Meme Storm opted to go the Infinite Loops way with her assigned surname, by giving her Jackson.
      • Jasmine's assignment is due to her rematch team from Pokemon Heart Gold And Soul Silver, landing in room sixty-two due to it being the level of her ace Steelix in said rematches.
    • During her "Diva of Tallon" op, Anise dodges the explosion that normally takes away Samus' upgrades through using her Zonova Chill XF Series model's built-in wings. It is possible to avoid that explosion via glitch, but landing on Tallon IV reveals Samus lost the upgrades anyway. Anise had planned that as one of two sequence breaks she was willing to do (the other involved an Energy Tank in the Magmoor Caverns sector); both breaks involved use of the wings, which are standard on all XF Series models. The explosion evasion break is largely because she didn't want to find out the hard way what it could do to her with all the additional equipment (acquired between Aether, the Phazon Crisis, and an X-Parasite barrage on ZDR).
  • Last Child of Krypton: When Leliel Mind Rapes Asuka with its illusions, Shinji, a.k.a. Superman confronts him saying a single word:
    Shinji: "Burn."
  • Le Commencement du Diable Blanc shows Mr Sinister telling a young Gambit he can help him with his Power Incontinence, a reference to him doing exactly that in the comics. Since he's Obviously Evil, Remy's dad instead goes to Pr Xavier who decides to put psychic blocks on the boy's powers — the same thing happened to Jean Grey in the X-Men Film Series, with the nice little bonus that Gambit legitimately had the potential to become as bad a threat than the Dark Phoenix.
  • Lord of the Castle:
    • A couple for Castlevania: Symphony of the Night:
      • When Etrigan sees Alucard, he declares "DIE MONSTER!", much like Richter did to Dracula in the beginning of the game.
      • Dr. Destiny using Alucard's memory of his mother's burning and his fate of being trapped in a nightmare is similar to the Succubus.
    • Alongside the Philosopher's Stone, Alucard and Etrigan discuss the possibility that Morgan Le Fay may be after the Ebony and Crimson Stones.
  • Manehattan's Lone Guardian: Within the boundaries of a powerful illusion, the difference in appearance between X-era reploids and those in the Zero era is noted. When meeting X for the first time after he returns to his original body, Leviathan states to herself that the armor he's wearing is a total throwback and that she's never seen a Reploid wear boots that big before.
  • The Many Dates of Danny Fenton: To the Danny Phantom theme song. In Danny and Phantasma, Phantasma is described as "much more unique than the other gals".
  • The Matrix Rewinds: Rachel's red-pill name — Prospera — is a reference to the role she played in The Tempest during the events of Life Is Strange: Before the Storm.
  • My Huntsman Academia loves to indulge in this, with many scenes in it being tweaked versions of scenes from My Hero Academia.
    • Izuku first uses One For All when he has Tenya throw him into the sky to punch out the Giant Nevermore and save Pyrrha, mirroring how he first uses One For All in his home series to save Uraraka from the giant zero-point robot.
    • Weiss ends up on the same team as Pyrrha, a reference to Weiss' plan in the original RWBY. The kicker is that she's still not the leader, Izuku is.
    • Izuku's desperate fight against Katsuki has lines and actions taken word-for-word from the Heroes vs. Training Exercise, including Izuku's extremely narrow victory over him.
    • Izuku is forced to break all ten of his fingers by using his mouth to break his thumb for a Smash during his fight against Yang, which is extremely reminiscent of Izuku's battle against Todoroki during the Sports Festival arc.
    • Denki calls Izuku a "lucky curly haired smooth talkin' son of a bitch" after learning that he's dating Yang, a reference to his reaction to finding out that Izuku was alone with Camie Utsushimi, a girl whose Quirk renders her naked.
  • There are several in Necessary to Win, more often to the Saki side of the story as a result of the fic taking place primarily in the Girls und Panzer world.
    • Hisa vaguely references Yasuko losing to someone younger than her in the past, a reference to Yasuko's defeat against Koromo.
    • Toki, while hospitalized during the match between Pravda and Black Forest, wishes that she could use astral projection to help Ryuuka know where to go in order to win, much like Ryuuka's ability in the captain match of the semi-finals of Saki.
    • As the Saunders team discusses how to deal with Oarai, Mairu suggests that they could afford to make some sacrifices to gain the advantage, not unlike how she favored giving up the vanguard match by placing someone who wasn't good enough to win but wouldn't go under 0, and having the stronger players recoup the losses. Kirame, the said sacrifice from canon, suggests that it would be a way for them to help the team, but Himeko, who, in canon, had reservations about the plan, tells Kirame not to sell herself short.
    • In Toki's final scene, it's pointed out that she can't see the future, a reference to her ability in Saki.
  • In the Death Note and The House of Night Crossover NoHoper, Light's new surname, Asahi, came from the canon as an alias used by both Light and Soichiro during the Kira investigation.
  • The Peer Gyntening: Ophelia from another Project Arrhythmia level collection, Heartstrings, appears in the level geer pint as a "savior" that gets quickly killed. She dies almost exactly how she does in Heartstrings, which was also made by geer pint's creator noodlekin.
  • Rachel The Vampire Slayer has several references to both Animorphs and Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
    • Marco's last name is Monroe-Cabrera, the second half coming from his actor in the Animorphs TV series, Boris Cabrera.
    • Jake mentions that he assumed Cassie was a K. A. Applegate fan growing up.
    • Rachel mentions David Boreanaz was at a party she snuck into.
  • In the Danny Phantom/Beetlejuice story Say It Thrice, the events of the Beetlejuice cartoon never happened. The fanfiction is based on the film version instead. That doesn't stop Lydia from ending up with the red spiderweb-patterned poncho that she wore in the cartoon.
  • In Sekirei? Is that some new species of little sister?, Naruto and Uzume do a "Lee! Gai-sensei!" style hug, yelling "Bro!" and "Little sister!". Naruto even uses his god-like powers to create an ocean at sunset for fun.
  • Superwomen of Eva 2: Lone Heir of Krypton:
  • Sonic Generations: Friendship Is Timeless : While battling the Egg Wyvern, Sonic teases Eggman by using his taunt lines from Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
  • A Subtle Knife: The protagonist absently advices to a Robin fanboy to steal the Batmobile's tires if he wants to audition for the job. The kid is named Jason. Do the math.
  • Star Trek: Phoenix: In "You Can Lead a Horse to Water", Belle mentions that when she was younger, Sunset became mildly obsessed with Danganronpa and considered writing a holonovel based on it. This is a reference to the other long-term story the author published before this one, Danganronpa: In Harmony's Wake, an Equestria Girls/Danganropa crossover featuring Sunset as the main character.
  • In Struggle and Strife, after Cloud Strife is reborn as Jaune Arc, the only non-sword weapon he's willing to use is a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire and filled with nails, a Lethal Joke Item from the game.
  • Sudden Contact: Kerrigan gives Legion its name. Both she (In Starcraft II) and EDI are voiced by Tricia Helfer.
  • There are several nods to both Super Sentai and Power Rangers in Super Sentai vs. Power Rangers: The Liveblog.
    • Radiguet's monsters' naming schemes take from the naming schemes from the Rangers in several Sentai shows, such as Himitsu Sentai Goranger and Dai Sentai Goggle Five.
    • In Quest 25, Rika tells Takeru, "But don't worry, M!Takeru. You still have Haruka to fall in love with, too, you damn playboy!", and she mentions that Okelampa may likely be grumbling about a raise. Both are based on the gag sub for Maskman.
    • Task 30 has Rika say that Justin losing his powers to save the Turborangers is dumber than the old lady saying that there are no such things as monsters in "Trakeena's Revenge" and all the times Tommy sacrificed his Zords.
  • The Naruto/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles crossover Teenage Jinchuriki Shinobi has Raphael in a tag team with Hyuuga Neji against Kidomaru, a sound ninja who has spider-like properties, referencing how the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) antagonist Spiderbytez was a result of Raph's anger problems.
  • That Time I Got Thrown Across Dimensions and Landed On My Big Tiddy Redhead GF Who Is Also A Devil: Mirio uses his Devil Fruit powers to pull out his own fangs and use them as daggers, insisting that it's "how sabretooths hunted in ancient times", a joke based on how ancient zoans in One Piece have ludicrous powers that are apparently the "true power" of the animal. In particular, King being able to pull back his headcrest to launch his beak at high speeds, which he claims his how pteradons hunted.
  • Thousand Shinji:
    • Shinji calls his pet hawk "Horus".
    • After her Eva attacks her best friend, Asuka calls herself "Asuka the Betrayer". Kharn the Betrayer was the greatest mortal Champion of Khorne.
    • Asuka thinks that eight is a nice number. Eight is Khorne's sacred number.
  • Timeless Academia features a scene where Saber!Gilles de Rais mistakes Artoria Pendragon Alter for Jeanne d'Arc, mirroring the same mistake his Caster counterpart made to regular Artoria in Fate/Zero.
  • The Truth Behind The Lie: The idea that the Auryn can remove memories is taken from the Neverending Story novel. There, every wish Bastian makes takes away one of his memories. Here, the wish is strong enough to take away all of the Empress' memories, thus explaining why the Timeless Child could not tell Tecteun anything about herself.
  • The Vampire of Steel:
    • Kara mentions she used to live in California, a few hundred miles from Sunnydale.
    • She also tells Buffy about her boyfriend problems with her high-school sweetheart Dick Malverne, Jerro the Mer-Boy and Brainiac 5.
    • She also brings up her time playing "Margo Hatton" in "Secret Hearts".
  • In Walking in the Shadows, Xander Harris makes an offhand mention that he wears a mouthguard to bed to make sure he doesn't mutter Latin in his sleep, a nod to season four of canon when he accidentally sets a book on fire by speaking Latin while holding it.
  • Wednesday and the Doctor:
  • In Wizard Runemaster, after Dobby saves the group from Aran, Onyxia warns him that if he saves her again, she will eat him.
  • In The World's End, Angel wonders if Xander (Who's gained the powers of Trunks) could catch an attack even while meditating. He throws a shield at Xander, who gets hit in the face and starts cursing.
  • While the How to Train Your Dragon elements in The Dragon and the Butterfly are from the movie, Hiccup's Atrocious Alias — "Hiccup the Useless" — is from the book series.

Animorphs

  • All Assorted Animorphs AUs:
    • While most chapters are based on the books, there are a few references to the TV show. In "What if the series was set in modern times?", Marco ties Jake/Temrash to a chair during The Capture, instead of tying his hands behind his back like in the book. In "What if Tom's yeerk got the morphing cube from David first?", Jake morphs Tom in order to confuse some Controllers, just like in "Face Off". In "What if they were all from different AUs á la Into the Spider-Verse?", the alternate version of Tobias is from the TV show's universe. In "What if Rachel's mom was a controller?", one of Rachel's sisters takes a photo of Rachel and Tobias just to tease them like in the episode "Underground".
    • There are also a few references to the author's Eleutherophobia series. "What if Jake seduced a sub-visser?" has a passing reference to a blonde cooking show host who's a controller; she matches the description of Vicky Austin, a minor Posthumous Character. In many chapters, Tom has Character Tics such as clenching his right hand, swearing a lot, and bouncing a basketball on sleepless nights. "What if they were caught during their first mission?" mentions a Yeerk named Nikto 770 who scans human media; in Eleutherophobia, she was one of Bonnie Park's Yeerks, who worked for a news station.
    • In "What if they were caught during their first mission?", Jake and Cassie are infested by Essak 1275 and Niss 240, who have similar names to their Yeerks from the Bad Future in The Familiar, while Tobias gets Odret 177 like in Back to Before.
  • Eleutherophobia:
    • Tom's habit of clenching his right hand is a reference to the TV show's adaptation of The Capture, where Tom's right hand starts shaking after his phone call with Jake, which is strongly implied to be him Fighting from the Inside.
    • In Ghost in the Shell, Tom recalls Essa 412 inserting Yeerks directly into people's ears without having to go to the Yeerk Pool first, which was a common occurrence in the TV show.
  • Sporadic Phantoms:
    • The ads, referred to as These Messages (itself a mythology gag to what Ax called ads) are always this - from the Barry and Cindy Sue show, to the "Happy Meal with Extra Happy."
    • Robin orders a cocktail called the "kandrona sunrise" in episode 7.
    • Kyle's ringtone is the TV show's theme song.
  • In What Tomorrow Brings, Rachel notes that Tobias wore headphones on that fateful visit to the construction site, just like in the graphic novel.

Arrowverse

  • To Hell and Back (Arrowverse)
    • Chapter 16, the Christmas Episode, is titled "Beebo Day", referencing the stuffed toy Beebo from Legends of Tomorrow. Kal even receives a Beebo toy as a gift from Ruby.
    • Nathaniel Adam, Bette Sans Souci's deceased fiance, is the secret identity of Captain Atom, Plastique's husband in the comics.
    • The title of Kal-El's Birthday Episode is "For the Boy Who Has Everything", in reference to the famous comic story that also dealt with Superman's birthday.

Avatar: The Last Airbender / The Legend of Korra

  • Republic City Blues:
    • Korra claims that she wasn't the one holed up in a compound, it was Asami. This is the exact opposite of canon.
    • Korra claims that the Avatar is a myth that one tells to children. In canon, she is the Avatar.
    • In this universe, bloodbending is a story that the Southern Water Tribe tells children to scare them into behaving. In canon, it is a very much real and present threat.

Batman

  • After her spiritual conversion to Catholicism in Angel of the Bat, Cassandra Cain wishes to give up the Batgirl mantle and start fresh under the name of "Angel of the Bat" (usually Angel for short). After retiring from her original costume, Stephanie Brown briefly wears it in her place and mentions she'd like to take her place with her blessing, and that the costume could use some purple. These were all references to Batgirl (2009) which, in this continuity, didn't/hadn't taken place.
  • Kate Kane is a champion professional boxer in Eight Count, similar to how her main canon counterpart was a boxing champion at West Point.
  • The Redemption of Harley Quinn:
    • Harley's twin girls are named Della and Deirdre Dennis, who were Harley's twin granddaughters in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.
    • Selina names her and Bruce's daughter Helena, same as the original Huntress.

BattleTech

  • Along Came a Spider has a couple What If? moments that refer to canon events obliquely, such as Kai confronting Dr. Lear after a fight triggered by her calling him a murderer and son of a murderer, as Kai's father's killing her father involuntarily during a Solaris VII duel was a sticking point between them in canon, but the two never form their canon relationship.

Beetlejuice

  • In the Contractually Obligated Chaos series, Lydia at one point realizes that her ability to communicate with animals, something she was canonically shown doing in the Animated Adaptation, is proof of something stated earlier in the fics. She then dryly comments that this ability makes her an "actual Disney princess." BJ asks what that makes him, to which she replies that he's "Something from a Tim Burton movie, of course." The fic takes place in the cartoon verse, meaning that the movie never happened. A few lines of dialogue from the movie also get used throughout the series, purely as this.

The Black Cauldron

Bleach

  • Vow of the King: Two of the swords used by Ichigo and Eien-ō during the former's bankai training are the original forms of Zangetsu and Tensa Zangetsu.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

  • In Xendra, while Buffy is in LA after staking Angel, the other Scoobies have to take down a vampire coven run by an overweight teenage vampire going by Lestat, a nod to Buffy meeting Dracula in canon and mentioning having killed several overweight pimply vamps calling themselves Lestat.

Calvin and Hobbes

Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers

  • There are a few fanfics featuring Clarice, the female nightclub singer chipmunk from the classic Chip 'n Dale cartoon "Two Chips and a Miss". Of all the Chip 'n Dale cartoons, this one is by far the most similar to Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, being the only one without any larger character (such as Donald Duck or Pluto), the only one featuring another rodent character, the only one in which rodents regularly wear clothes, and the only one which hints at a rodent society. Rangerphiles sometimes even refer to "Two Chips and a Miss" as Episode Zero.
    Nonetheless, "Two Chips and a Miss" is from 1951, and Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers aired from 1988 to 1990. Fanfic authors who include Clarice have to deal with this Time Skip of almost 40 years in some way.
    • The Midnightverse: Diamonds In The Desert relocates the events of "Two Chips and a Miss" to 1983. Nonetheless, some time has passed since then, seeing as DITD takes place in 2007. This Mythology Gag even stretches into the story itself when Clarice asks Chip and Dale to redo their routine from back then as an encore to her own musical revue.
    • Of Mice and Mayhem takes a somewhat different approach; Clarice herself doesn't appear, but Monterey Jack and Zipper have taken over the Acorn Club at which she used to perform after busting its previous owner, Rat Capone. Chip and Dale themselves come back to perform at the Acorn Club like they used to do.
  • The Nowakverse: In Under the Bridge, Widget a.k.a. The Gray Mouse channels her hatred for her twin sister Gadget into the destruction of dolls modeled after the latter. These are in fact the infamous "Gadget Plushies" (plastic head and paws, otherwise fabric, no actual plush involved) made by Applause in the early 90's, best known today for being among the best Gadget merch — and outrageously expensive. Kapitänleutnant Jürgen even asks The Gray Mouse whether they should go back to Orlandonote  and get some more.

Control

Darkwing Duck

  • In the fanfiction series Negaverse Chronicles, events in the Negaverse are shown rather than those of the regular universe from the show. In Bushroot's backstory, Dr. Gary and Dr. Larson start jokingly teasing him about how the potato Bushroot has been experimenting on is his new girlfriend, that it might start sucking his blood like a vampire, and that russets are evil. All of these things refer to an episode of the show, "Night of the Living Spud," where the normal universe's Bushroot tried to create a mutant potato girlfriend for companionship.

DC Universe

  • Sorrowful and Immaculate Hearts series:
    • "Wayne Manor" contains a bunch of references to events from the lives of other versions of Batman:
    • In the Scrapbook Story "Bad Publicity", a photograph identified in-universe as "the mansion from that made-for-tv movie [about the Wayne family]" is Wikipedia's photo of the mansion that represented Wayne Manor in The Dark Knight Rises.
    • In "Christmas in Kansas", there's a scene where Bruce reflects on the way re-enactments of his parents' murder have settled on a standard narrative that is actually inaccurate in several important respects; as described, it's the version established by Frank Miller and copied by most subsequent retellings, complete with the evocative detail of Martha's necklace breaking.
    • In "Arm Candy", Clark goes gooey over one of Dick's puppies, and Dick decides they should name the puppy Kryptonite — or maybe shorten it a bit... (He settles on naming it "Kay".)

Death Note

Doctor Who

  • The Bugger Anthology: In "Bitch Fight II", Dalek Fendan Braser tells his opponent it heard Gareth remarried. The Cyberman with the broken emotional inhibitor that the Doctor and Mrs. Moore talk to in "The Age of Steel" got converted right before she was going to marry Gareth.
  • In "Game of Doctors" the planet the 9th Doctor starts on is called Maladoom, after the planet the 20th anniversary special was originally going to take place on.
    • The fanfic series of this writer also has a race called the Petrans, first appearing in Beginning of War named from and based on the enemies of the Daleks that would eventually become the Movellans in "Destiny of the Daleks".

Dragon Ball Z

  • When Beerus shows up during Bulma's birthday party in Vegito's Harem, Bulma complains that they're ruining her 28th birthday, referencing Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods where she claimed to be 38. Lampshaded by Krillin who points out that she's older than Goku who had Gohan in his twenties and Gohan is currently in his twenties.

DuckTales (1987)

Final Fantasy

  • The Tainted Grimoire has two:
    • One is Kain Kimahri, whose name is made up of Kain and Khimari, from Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy X, respectively.
    • The other is to do with Clan Tourneys. The Clan Tourneys shown are one-on-one duels, unlike the six-on-six shown in the games. It is mentioned that the Clan Tourneys used to be like the games but starting with the one we're shown, a format change was made to give smaller clans a chance against the larger ones.
  • Us and Them:
    • At one point, Rufus finds Jessie, Aeris and Tifa at or near tears as they're playing a video game. Rufus notes they must have finished the first disc.
    • Some of the books Aeris likes to read are Wild Rose, Quest of the Paladin and Melodies of Life, which the author has said are Final Fantasies I, IV, and IX respectively.
    • Rufus mentions he was considering becoming an anonymous donor to AVALANCHE at one point.

Food Wars!

  • In Nouvelle one of Erina's assistants happens to be a character from the original one-shot pilot chapter.

Friday Night Funkin'

  • Two Idiots:
    • The chapter where Cherry teaches Keith how to sing is called "Up! Down! Left! Right!" in reference to her voice clips in the original game's tutorial song.
    • Keith and Cherry jokingly call each other "The Boyfriend" and "The Girlfriend".
    • The haunted house is located south, in reference to the second song of Week 2.

Godzilla

  • Godzilla Neo:
    • Reports of another Hedorah named Deathla are a reference to the unmade film, Godzilla 3D to the Max.
    • Godzilla IV's name "Ghost Godzilla" was derived from the unused script Godzilla vs. Ghost Godzilla.
    • Several of the Orochi Spawn were based on Kaiju from the Godzilla: Trading Battle game.
    • Varan was meant to be one of the Guardians for the original script to Godzilla Mothra King Ghidorah Giant Monsters Allout Attack, but was scrapped. His original role as a Guardian was restored here.
    • Mechani-Kong having a hologram of a woman is a reference back to his debut movie.
  • Kaiju Revolution:
    • The Rodan female is named Radon after one of the titles made for the American release of Rodan.
    • A large number of the Kaiju's stories in their entries are based on the films they appeared in:
      • Godzilla's backstory combines Godzilla (1954) (Godzilla is mentioned obliterating Odo Island and leaving Tokyo in a "sea of fire"), Godzilla (2014) (the Castle Bravo tests were really an attempt to kill Godzilla and he first attacks Japan in 2014), Shin Godzilla (Godzilla changes forms through-out his attacks and attacks Tokyo again in 2016) and The Return of Godzilla (the Shockirus are mentioned as parasitising Godzilla and humanity attempts to dispose of him via bombing a volcano so he would fall in). As a bonus, all of these films are also the first movies for each of their respective eras.
      • Just like in his original film, Rodan has a mate, is found alongside the Meganulon and he and his mate make a nest atop a volcano before being bombed and thus tumbling into the Earth. Radon is also initially found on Isla de Mona, Rodan's location on the MONARCH Sciences tie-in website for Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019).
      • Anguirus being an old enemy of Godzilla who fights him in Osaka is akin to his original role in Godzilla Raids Again. His battle with Godzilla in Honolulu may be a reference to Godzilla (2014) and Anguirus regenerating just from his tail, which burrowed into the ground after a battle, could be a reference to King Ghidorah's defeat in the Cretaceous and eventual return in Rebirth of Mothra 3.
      • Mothra resides in the Temple of the Moth in China like in Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), and was initially discovered in 1961 surrounded by vampire plants just like in Mothra. The Shobijin being derived from humans living in isolation with Mothra is a reference to the Houtua from Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle.
      • FATHOM's exploration of Skull Island is essentially just Kong: Skull Island but with the Vagnosaurus in place of the skullcrawlers and the added motive of finding Carl Denham's film reels. Speaking of which, Carl Denham and his crew are the first to discover Skull Island and only a sailor and a film actress (clearly Jack Driscoll and Anne Darrow) survive the trip, referencing King Kong (1933), and Denham's son is named Vincent Denham just like in the Kong: King of Skull Island novel.
      • The story in King Ghidorah's entry is heavily based on Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, with too many references to that to say, but also references Rebirth of Mothra 3 again (via Ghidorah being defeated in the Cretaceous by Mothra's species and also being responsible for the KT extinction) and Destroy All Monsters, due to Ghidorah being a malevolent alien force who makes the world's Kaiju attack various locations across the planet via mind control
      • The current story arc is shaping up to be mostly a remake of Invasion of Astro-Monster.
    • There also references to past films and other media where certain Kaiju debuted in the rogues gallery's entries:
      • Zilla and Komodithrax's friendship is a reference to their romance in Godzilla: The Series. Zilla is also mentioned as sinking a Japanese vessel off the coast of French Polynesia in 1998 and attacking New York City when Mu awoke, referencing his debut, as well as being initially mistaken for Godzilla like in Godzilla: Rulers of Earth.
      • The Yongary feed off of oil and gasoline, referencing Yongary's original film Yongary: Monster from the Deep. It's also heavily implied that a Yongary burrowed beneath South Korea in 1967, referencing both the initial film's year of release and Yongary's country of origin.
      • The intro to Ogra and Gorgo's profile is one big reference to Gorgo, as it takes place in the film's year of release (1961), mentions dead mutant fish which were seen in the original Gorgo (a particularly ugly specimen, maybe one of the fish or just another unfortunate creature, is taken to a carnival, which is what happened to Gorgo in the original film too) and focuses on a volcanic eruption on Nara Island, upon which Ogra is worshipped as a protector deity just as in the film. Ogra is also mentioned as rampaging through London like in the film too in the actual story section.

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi / The Untamed

  • The Lost Cause features Nie Huaisang using the exact same method to get rid of Jin Zixun as he'd use on Jin Guangyao in canon: yelling "look out" and letting Lan Xichen do the rest.

Gravity Falls

  • Reunion Falls:
    • In "Carpet Diem", Mabel, Candy and Grenda read racey werewolf novels at their sleepover. Here, they "trained" for future ghost-hunting by ogling the werewolf section in the journal.
    • In "The Inconveniencing", Mabel gets sick on Smile Dip after suffering from a Mushroom Samba. Here, Candy and Grenda use it to expell Bill from her.

Harry Potter

  • For The Greater Goof: Due to Snape being nicer to the Gryffindors following Peter Pettigrew's arrest, Fred and George decide to shelve a prank where they unexpectedly shampoo the former's hair; this references how in Deathly Hallows Fred cracks a joke about Voldemort moving faster than "Severus Snape confronted with shampoo" while running a pirate radio station.
  • A Friend Indeed has Harry wonder about why Rita Skeeter hasn't written any articles lately, and whether "Maybe she hacked someone off and they threatened her enough that she's stopped writing for a while." In fact, he accidentally stood on her beetle form after the Yule Ball.
  • Knowledge is Power: As is customary for the author, Mr and Mrs Granger are called Dan and Emma.
  • Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality:
    • Hermione starts a club named SPHEW.
    • A sixth-year Gryffindor attacks a sixth-year Slytherin with a curse without knowing what the curse does.
    • A second-year witch in Beauxbaton brews polyjuice and gets cat hair in it by accident, turning her permanently into a cat-girl.

How to Train Your Dragon

  • In Chapter 6 of The Home We Built Together, Hiccup casually draws up an idea for a Flaming Sword.
  • A Thing of Vikings:
    • In Chapter 17, after Magnus woos Ruffnut with an original love song, she counters it with "For the Dancing and the Dreaming" from How to Train Your Dragon 2.
    • Also in Chapter 17, Hiccup echoes his sarcastic line from the first movie:
    Hiccup: Yep. Pain. Love it.
    • Here, Astrid and Cami are second cousins, no-doubt a reference to Astrid being the closest equivalent to Camicazi the film-franchise possesses.
    • One of the dragons used in training is named Horrorcow, the same as Fishlegs's dragon in the books. This one is a different breed and sex, though.
    • Dragon eggs do explode, as they did in Gift of the Night Fury, complete with Astrid shouting "THE EGGS EXPLODE!", but with the twist that this is not due to them hatching; instead, eggs with developmental disorders of their hydrocarbon organ system (the organs that let them breath fire) explode about three months into their seven month gestational cycle.
    • In Chapter 42, when asked by Einar what he wants out of life, Tuffnut responds with "a finely crafted mace and a chicken".
    • In Chapter 46, Astrid asks Hiccup why he's hesitant to let Wulfhild into his heart and into their bed. The following exchange calls back a pivotal moment from the first movie:
      Hiccup: I don't know! I don't! Astrid, there's no fleet sailing to doom right now, why do you have to know now!?
      Astrid: Because it needs to be done. And done properly. And with every day that we ignore it, it gets worse. [points to Wulfhild] And because she's our friend, and she deserves an answer! She'll remember what you say right now, and so will I!
    • And then they quote word-for-word their exchange from that scene.
    Astrid: So, what are you going to do about it?
    Hiccup: Something stupid, I guess.
    Astrid: Good, but you've already done that.
    Hiccup: Then something crazy?
    Astrid: Now that's more like it.
    • Astrid's unsuccessful attempt at making a steamed milk beverage during Yule is mentioned in Chapter 54, alluding to her Yak Nog recipe in Gift of the Night Fury.
    • In Chapter 56, Fergus's gift for Stoick is a bear skin cloak.
    • People in-universe are iffy as to whether the hive queen was red or green (with at least one family of rumors using this as the basis for there being two hive lords that Hiccup fought, with him killing one by blowing it up from the inside and killing the second by destroying its wings mid-flight).
    • Gobber is the Dragon Healer in line with him being the Dragon Dentist in canon.
    • In Chapter 61, Hákon mentions the tradition to name the runt of a litter "hiccup" which was originally mentioned in "Portrait of Hiccup as a Buff Man".
    • In Chapter 71, when faced with Father Henriksson's machinations, Wulfhild asks, "Now what will you do about this?" Astrid comments, "That's usually my line."
    • At the end of Chapter 73, after Hiccup and his allies defeat the Eirish army attacking Vedrarfjord, Hiccup looks at the devastated army and sadly mutters, "I did this."
    • Drago's attack on the tribal chief's meeting is similar to the one in the second movie.
    • Chapter 83's epigraph reveals that Hiccup will have a descendant named Kamikaze – who is also Fishlegs' descendant, to boot, going by the clan name.
    • In Chapter 93, Valka's middle name, Zephyr, is taken from the name of Hiccup and Astrid's daughter from the Babies Ever After end of How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World.
    • Chapter 102 has an unusual one, referring not to HTTYD, but to another well-known work.note  When she and Mac Bethad discuss eliminating Mildew, Gruoch comments "'Wash our hands of him'? Is there enough soap and lye in the world to get that spot out?", bringing to mind her most well-known linenote  from Macbeth.
    • In Chapter 104, referencing the end of How to Train Your Dragon; during a conversation with Hiccup, Gobber admits that what Berk always needed was "A little more of this," to which Hiccup answers, "You just gestured to all of me."
    • In Chapter 113, in a nod to the movie she's from, Mulan disguises herself as a man named Ping. As a further nod to the source, Chapter 140 sees Mushu declare dishonor on a stubborn dragon similar to how he declared dishonor on Mulan and her horse in their first meeting.
    • In Chapter 115, while waking up Mulan and getting ready to train, Shang says several lines based on or are exactly the lyrics from the Mulan song I'll Make A Man Out Of You.

Jackie Chan Adventures

  • In Queen of All Oni, Jade creates a set of magic fans she can use in battle, a reference to the series' opening sequence, where she has a pair of fans.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

Kingdom Hearts

Kung Fu Panda

  • In The Vow, Lord Shen is revealed to be the one who invented the acupuncture restraint used to immobilize Tai Lung for twenty years. This is a reference to Po's comment about the chi disrupting cuffs used on him and the Furious Five during the second movie by Shen's soldiers being based on the same technology as Tai Lung's restraint.

Lyrical Nanoha

  • In Power Games Alicia mentions a story about a princess who slept for centuries after her kingdom was destroyed, which is referencing Ixpellia and serves as Foreshadowing for her early appearance in in the story.
  • In the Service makes a huge number of them. A Material-S reference dies at the hands of Vita in the second chapter; Isis Eaglet is a Combat Cyborg based on early fan speculations from her resemblance to Subaru and Ginga Nakajima; Uno and Signum discuss a world called "Lamia" and Uno describes it as "the loveless place" referencing Signum's status as an expy of Lamia Loveless; people who encounter Cypha of Huckebein tend to compare her to Signum though the two never meet in this continuity, referencing their fight in the canon.

Marvel Cinematic Universe

  • In Chapter 43 of Turning Tables, Spider-Man is suffering from a Mushroom Samba and is scrambling to find a cure when he is given an injection of Scorpion's venom like in Spider-Man (PS4).
  • An almost literal example occurs in If I Could Start Again when Thor and Loki are discussing Asgard versus Norse mythology with some mortals. Loki comments that Norse mythology is a combination of prophecy and "very drunken" fantasy, before remarking that Sleipnir is older than he is. In Norse mythology, Loki is the mother of Odin's eight-legged horse Sleipnir.
  • The Devil's in the details: Whenever Matt isn't available, Peter would have Karen Page forward messages for him. What makes this ironic is that Peter's canon-counterpart has an AI named Karen that does similar errands for him.
  • Sixes and Sevens has Michael Carter use the cover identity Brian Falsworth, and then another cover identity Kevin Marlow on top of it. Marlow became the superhero Destroyer, an alias that Falsworth also used before becoming the second Union Jack. It's also under the Marlow identity that he meets Berthold Volker, who in the comics is the German third of the true identity of Agent Axis.
  • Hell's Kitchen, Full of Grace: Jessica once sarcastically calls Matt "Batman", the character Daredevil having once been played by Ben Affleck in the film adaptation and Batman in the DC Extended Universe.

Miraculous Ladybug

  • Maris Stella:
    • When Naota finally confesses to Fletcher, an eavesdropping Plagg mentions that, according to the shows he watches on Netflix, developments like that are supposed to take "at least five seasons". Canon Miraculous Ladybug was in its fifth season when that chapter went up.
    • Vivi Elakha, originally a Final Fantasy XIV OC, is akumatized into Forgiven Neglect, a form based on the sin eaters from that game's Shadowbringers expansion.
  • A pilot video for the series, which didn't end up becoming canon, had a slightly different looking Ladybug holder, named Bridgette. In Spellbound (Lilafly), Bridgette is a former Ladybug holder who lost the earrings and was taken by the fae, losing her memory of her own name and becoming a shapeshifter with a ladybug-themed native form.

Mobile Suit Gundam Wing

  • Wings to Fly uses the line "apparently the gravity screws with their heads, or some such spacenoid propaganda", sending up much of Zeon philosophy from the original Mobile Suit Gundam.

Monster Rancher

  • Phoenix's Tear: Reignition:
    • Mocchi refers to himself and the rest of the Searchers as 'goodies', causing Suezo to burst out laughing at the childish-sounding term. In the English Dub, heroic characters were often referred to as 'goodies' while villainous characters like Muu and his followers were called 'baddies'.
    • The leaf hare Juniper rejects Strach's offered deal by declaring that he's a good guy. In the original Monster Rancher game, several monsters had Dub Name Changes, such as the Leaf Hare being renamed 'Good Guy'.

Mortal Kombat

My Hero Academia

  • Cheat Code: Support Strategist: The written portion of the Support entrance exam requires Izuku to write an essay analyzing two different Quirks. Izuku recognizes the first Quirk as belonging to a (retired) Hero named Glimmer, a nod to a one-off Original Character who featured in Mastermind: Strategist for Hire, another fic by the same author.
    • A similar crossover occurs between Viridian: The Green Guide and Mastermind: Rise of Anarchy. Viridian features Katsuki attending a villain rehabilitation center, where he builds relationships with several of the others present. In Rise, he instead encounters them while they're attempting to steal an ATM, attacking them as a Vigilante Man and killing Ogawa, who became his best friend in Viridian.
  • A Green Dragon's Hoard:
    • Manami Aiba's screenname is La Brava, her villain alias from canon.
    • Ochako's appearance and Quirk are based of her prototype design, back before she was split into Yu Takeyama and Ochako Uraraka.
    • Ojiro's status as The Generic Guy is played up to the point that nobody remembers him from the entrance exam except Hagakure.
    • Yamato's last name is Kozuki, reflecting her desire to be Oden Kozuki in canon.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

  • Anthropology: Lyra's birth name was Heartstrings, but she preferred the name Lyra, since it was more of a human name. A reference to the fact that when her toy first came out, it was named Heartstrings, but the fans preferred the name Lyra, and thus she renamed as such.
  • A couple ponies from past generation appeared in minor roles in Asylum (Daemon of Decay):
    • Silver Glow is a pony from both G2 and G3, though considering she's a unicorn she's likely based on the G2 incarnation.
    • Toola Roola, an artist pony from My Little Pony (G3) appears as the art teacher, in-charge of the arts and crafts room at the asylum.
  • Bad Future Crusaders: There are a few nods to previous generations of My Little Pony:
    • Sonhos Vale, the country where Apple Bloom and Silver Spoon grew up after leaving Equestria, is Portuguese for "Valley of Dreams".
    • Pavel, the gryphon who Apple Bloom was friends with in her youth, was from a country or town called "Grogary Gorki", which is Russian for "Grogar's Mountain"
    • There is also a filly at one point who shares a color scheme, interest in being an environmentalist, and a father who works for the paper, with a pony from My Little Pony 'n Friends. Since it's actually Bright Eyes the changeling in disguise, he also shares the same name.
  • A Diplomatic Visit:
    • In chapter 17, Twilight and her friends visit the Big Apple Orchard in the Packlands. This was one of the original names intended for what became Sweet Apple Acres in canon (the other was "Big Apple Farm").
    • Chapter 21 namedrops Skydancer, Queen of the hippogriffs; she shares her name with two G1 ponies — the Summerwing Pony Skydancer and the similarly named pegasus Sky Dancer (who predates her).
    • In chapter 2 of the sequel, Diplomat at Large, Queen Remigium mentions that Chrysalis had plans to harness the power of the Secretariat Comet to give herself a tremendous magical boost, but was locked away by the other Queens before she could do so. Using that same comet's magic-enhancing power was part of Chrysalis's scheme for revenge in the first arc of the IDW comics.
    • Chapter 6 mentions another event from arc 1 of the IDW comics; namely, Rainbow Dash's reveal that she suffered a sugar-induced memory blank of the wedding.
    • In chapter 6, Discord says of the Storm King that "this fool seeks to unbalance the cosmos. And believe you me, she's already unbalanced enough as it is!" This references Cosmos, main villain of the 43rd arc (issues 75-78) of the IDW comics, an alien entity obsessed with Discord.
    • Chapter 8 reveals that Squirk, a monstrous octopus from the G1 cartoons, also exists in this setting and has been imprisoned for millennia.
    • Chapter 1 of the second sequel, Diplomacy Through Schooling, mentions an incident from centuries ago in which an Abyssinian sorceress, Catrina, based on the G1 character of the same name (who was also an anthropomorphic feline), had a conflict with the wolves of the Packlands. Unlike her Witchweed-addicted counterpart, this version focused on gender-bias, leading a pride where males of their kind had no rights until the Abyssinian central authorities stepped in and defeated her.
    • In chapter 4 of Diplomacy Through Schooling, Trixie mentions a former Sadist Teacher of hers named Hydia, after the lead witch from My Little Pony: The Movie (1986).
    • Chapter 5 features a brief appearance by Long Play, Vinyl Scratch's older brother, and references the events of the comics arc "Neigh Anything", in which he debuted and in which Vinyl is shown getting her Cutie Mark.
    • In chapter 8, Lavan (another G1 villain) gets referenced, and is confirmed to have been destroyed by Luna and Celestia's mother and some other alicorns.
      • Aputsiaq, Lady of Winter and former Lady of Hatred in this continuity, shares her name with Snöflinga's niece in the Doa-verse.
    • In chapter 14, during Twilight and Magic's talk about improving the butterfly wings spell from the episode "Sonic Rainboom", Magic explains where this upgraded version came from — specifically, the Suspenders-verse (an M-rated series of fics that are part of the Powers-That-Be multiverse). Shortly afterward, Twilight quotes a certain animated movie, which was also quoted in the third story of that series.
    • Featured in The Diplomat's Life:
      • In canon, little Princess Flurry Heart's Crystalling was carried out before her paternal grandparents arrived. In this version, they're present from the beginning... so her maternal grandparents are the ones who show up late (albeit for unspecified reasons).
      • Rainbow Dash's Element test is based off the events of Friends Forever issue #36, when she has to repair Spitfire and Soarin's friendship because he's tired of her disrespecting him when he's been nothing but loyal to her.
  • Elementals of Harmony: From multiple stories in the series:
    • Elementals of Harmony: A few:
      • Quoth Applejack, "Ah'm bein' a silly pony, ain't I?"
      • In a nod to Faust's preliminary designs, Fluttershy's full name is Fluttershy Poseysfilly.
      • In a similar vein, Pinkie's father comments on how much she takes after her grandmother, calling her "a little surprise."
    • Sideboard of Harmony: Multiple:
    • The chapter about how the universe was made, is called "How Pinkie Pie Got Her Cutie Mark.".
    • No Such Pony, No Such Zone has a reference to Pinkie Pie yelling 'Oatmeal? Are you crazy?!' in The Ticket Master from the original show:
      "Anyway, the point is that you promised Twilight that you'd find a hole in all our schedules and she'd go full-on Cream of Wheat if she wasn't there for the rest."
      "'Cream of Wheat'?"
      "Even crazier than oatmeal."
    • Chrysalis and her tribe used to be the Flutter Ponies.
    • Rainbow Dash's love of telling scary stories is indirectly referenced when Ditzy tells Dinky and the CMC a ghost story that used to scare the down right off her as a filly back in Cloudsdale.
  • Escape from the Moon:
    • In chapter 19 of the sequel story The Mare From the Moon, Celestia mentions a Miss Hackney, who was teaching the day Lemon Hearts got her head stuck in a flask (as seen in a flashback in the episode Amending Fences), and who shares her name with the girls' teacher in My Little Pony Tales.
    • In chapter 2 of the side-story The World Left Behind, Twilight tells Sunset Shimmer about one of the alternate universes she viewed with her fellow Princesses, wherein "Blueblood was so detestable and offended every single pony in Ponyville, to the point where Luna broke free from Nightmare Moon on her own because she was so tired of being compared to somepony like him just because they were both royalty." She's describing the events of the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Deviations comic.
  • Equestria: A History Revealed is practically built upon the whole concept, with references from large past events to the minute historical details brought up in the show. The author even slips in some references to past generations and fanon material. The Bibliography itself should be prominently mentioned in this, with tiny jokes and details regarding background characters and historical books brought up once in the show.
  • Flash Fog: From September 2 – 12:30 PM, when Twilight remarks on Fluttershy's competence, it references the Keep Calm and Flutter On episode of the original show, where Fluttershy does handle Discord:
    In fact, if Discord ever shows his face around here again, it might be a better idea to put you in charge."
    "Okay, now you're just being silly."
  • Harmony Theory: At one point, Rainbow Dash disguises herself by dyeing her coat and mane pink and purple, the same colors as Firefly, the Generation One pony she was based on.
  • A Moon and World Apart: In chapter 18, Celestia briefly remembers seeing a particularly nasty villain named Cosmos appear in some of the dimensions she viewed. Cosmos was the main villain in her self-titled arc of the IDW comic series.
  • Oversaturated World:
  • The Petriculture Cycle: In the first story, Petriculture, the use of Surprise, a character from an previous My Little Pony show, My Little Pony 'n Friends, in the story, as the pony who would become Pinkie Pie, and was Twilight Sparkle's imaginary friend.
  • The Pieces Lie Where They Fell:
    • In chapter 21, Hidden Dagger mentions one of her Executive Directors, a Ms. Hackney, who shares her name with the girls' teacher in My Little Pony Tales.
    • In the final scene of chapter 28, Discord's description is word-for-word identical to his first appearance as described in the narration from chapter 7 of The Mare From the Moon, another work set in the same multiverse as this one.
    • In chapter 29 of the sequel Picking Up the Pieces, during his second talk with the Bearers, Discord uses the same words or variations thereof to describe each of them that Princess Celestia used for each of the Elements after Twilight's ascension to alicornhood in Magical Mystery Cure — "Optimistic" (for "optimism", or laughter), "Devoted" (for "devotion", or loyalty), compassion (for kindness), integrity (for honesty), "charitable" (for "charity", or generosity), and leadership (for magic).
  • Pinkie Tales: In The Little Mermare, Pinkie's coat and mane inexplicably change from pink to white and yellow, when she first transforms from a sea pony to a pegasus, the same colors as Surprise, the Generation One pony Pinkie was based on, who was also a pegasus. Though her coat and mane are back to normal after she transforms into a pegasus for good at the end.
  • Rainbow in the Dark: There are so many that the author and editor released a special chapter full of trivia and extras.
  • Sharing the Night: The story was first written and plotted out during at the tail end of Season 2, was only completed during the later half of the ninth and last season, and its mythology-heavy setting and worldbuilding had limited ability to expand to incorporate events, concepts and characters introduced as the show's own setting developed in its own direction. However, a number of these things are referenced in humor over the story's course.
    • When Twilight is visiting her parents, Velvet makes an oblique reference to having another kid. Twilight is vehemently opposed to this idea, both because she does not want a sibling twenty years younger than her and because she does not want to explain to her friends why she suddenly has a brother out of nowhere. This is based on the opinion, common in the fandom at the time of this writing, that Twilight turning out to have a famous, beloved and heretofore-unmentioned older brother in the Season 2 finale was rather weird.
    • In the epilogue, Twilight sarcastically describes a scenario where Celestia's bitter and exiled ex-student Sunset Shimmer leads an armed revolt against the throne, "but unfortunately Sunset Shimmer doesn't exist".
    • In the sequel, Twilight states that she is the alicorn of the stars, not of some nebulous concept like friendship.
    • While discussing possible replacement homes after their palace's destruction, Twilight mentions disliking on of Rarity's potential designs, a giant crystal tree with a castle in its boughs. The tree itself was fine, but she found adding a full castle on top of it to be gaudy.
  • Stroll: Two episodes from Season 5 are referenced:
  • Sunsplit Saga: Sunspawned: "I expected many things, but this is a complete surprise." Referencing the Mirror Pool of the episode, "Too Many Pinkie Pies":
    I suppose that there was that one hedge-witch seven hundred or so years ago, if her ramblings about a 'mirror pool' were correct
  • Tealove's Steamy Adventure has a scene where a Mad Scientist tries to change Tealove's eye color. This is a nod to Tealove's inconsistent color in the official tie-in media: the original Tealove toys had pink eyes, but she suddenly had blue eyes when she appeared in the IDW comicbook.

Naruto

  • In the fic Dead Garden, where instead of Naruto, is Sakura the one with the Nine Tails sealed within her Chapter 2 states that both Sakura and Kakashi are fans of the "Gutsy Shinobi" books series, and Naruto hating them all 'cause people keep comparing him with the Naruto from the book (which ironically would be the canon Naruto since one of them is titled "Gutsy Shinobi Clash in the Land of Snow") It has become some sort of Running Gag given that these books are mentioned at least once in every chapter afterwards.
  • Several such gags abound in Kitsune no Ken: Fist of the Fox. One of the earliest ones concerns the code-names that the Kyuushingai use to identify each other — these are references to the Bijuu each of them hold in the main series, more specifically, the Biijus' actual names. For example, Naruto is known as "Kurama the Fox"; in the main series, Kurama is the name of the Kyuubi, whose form is that of a fox. Naruto lists off all the names in Chapter 3 to prove he is a former member of the Kyuushingai.
  • Naru-Hina Chronicles:
    • In Chapter 111, after Minato has been resurrected, Naruto's evil clone tries to attack him. The Fourth Hokage comments "Well, I never thought my son would try to hit me, the first time we met.", which is exactly what Naruto did to Minato in canon during their first meeting.
    • In Chapter 119, Naruto has a discussion with the newly resurrected Kushina. Just like the first time he met her in canon, he tells her he wishes he had inherited her red hair, to which she responds that he's the second person after Minato to say they like her hair.
  • Son of the Sannin:
    • Sasuke never learns Chidori from Kakashi due to having a different Jonin sensei. However, his genjutsu world counterpart that shows up during Naruto and Fu's Jinchuriki training knows how to use it, much to the confusion of Dark Fu.
    • During their fight against Madara, Sasuke makes a reference to Izanami after asking Itachi if he has a secret time-loop genjutsu. Itachi dismisses such a thing as nonsense.
    • Shikadai has a younger sister named Kazane in the epilogue, as his father had mentioned in canon how he had wanted to have a son then a daughter.
  • True Potential:
    • After meeting Neji (who, at this point, is still a Jerkass) for the first time during the Konoha Chūnin Exams, Naruto tells Hinata "He better hope we don't have to fight!" Naruto doesn't fight Neji at any point during the exams, but it happened of course in canon, with Neji losing against the Uzumaki.
    • The fact that Naruto neutralizes Tenten's weapons via Wind Release during the Preliminaries is similar to how Temari does it in the anime.
    • Hinata develops the 'Protection of the Eight Trigrams: Sixty-Four Palms', which is a jutsu she created in the Search for the Bikōchū filler arc. When she explains it to her father, she thinks while blushing about how thankful she is that nobody saw her when she practiced that jutsu at some waterfall, implying that she did it while being nude just like in that filler arc. And considering Hinata's reaction when she learned that Naruto DID see her (without realizing who she was) in that one episode...
    • Shikamaru "loses" his match with Sasuke the exact same way he "lost" to Temari.
    • Hinata defeats Kankurō in a similar fashion to how her cousin defeated Kidōmaru in-canon.
    • In Chapter 84, Tayuya plays through a flute a song called "Haruka Kanata", which is the second opening theme to the first Naruto anime series. Two chapters later, she plays "Blue Bird", the third opening theme to Shippuden.
    • In Chapter 111, Naruto's inner darkness calls itself "Menma Uzumaki" and has black hair that is longer and shaggier than Naruto's, all of which are references to the latter's World of Ninja version from Naruto the Movie: Road to Ninja.

Neon Genesis Evangelion

  • Advice and Trust: After the end of second chapter Misato promises fanservice after giving a preview of the next chapter.
  • The Child of Love:
    • In the preview for chapter 2, Misato promises fanservice.
    • In chapter 2 Hikari asks Shinji giving a stack of printouts to Asuka… right like she asked Touji giving a heap of printouts to Rei in canon.
    • In chapter 4 Kaji gives Misato a variant of his old line: "May I trust your hormones or your words?"
  • Evangelion 303:
    • One of the plug suit designs is modeled after the ones from Rebuild Of Evangelion.
    • In this scene Shinji tells "Sorry" and Asuka gets angry with him because she does not believe he is sorry at all.
    • Rei slaps Shinji as she did in episode 5 of the series.
  • Ghosts of Evangelion:
    • Four-year-old Ryuko tells Asuka: "Mama! Mama, look at me!"
    • When they met again, Gendo greets Shinji saying: "It's been a while."
  • HERZ:
    • When Shinji goes down to Terminal Dogma, Kurumi stops him pressing a gun against the back of his head. It is a reference to the time Misato tried to stop Kaji in the original series.
    • After the Final Battle, Shinji and Asuka wake up together on a beach.
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion: Genocide has a rather sly one. As Shinji discusses the fact with Asuka that she is is his room, on his bed, he wonders if he is dreaming. Asuka jokes that he might be; suggesting that what is happening might just be a result of him being stuck inside his Eva again, or that he is a Ordinary High-School Student dreaming about being an awesome hero with a hot roommate. Both suggestions are very popular Fandom Specific Plots.

Omen IV: The Awakening

  • Always Visible: The hotel Galbraith checks into when he arrives in London is called "Stait of Snow Lake", a reference to the actor Brent Stait, who played a pimp in the film Omen IV: The Awakening.

One Piece

  • In This Bites!, after riding a T-rex on Little Garden, Cross justifies himself to Usopp and Luffy by declaring it a "man's romance".
    • In Chapter 22, Cross creates the Strawhat Broadcasting Station, which he abbreviates as SBS.

Pokémon

  • Discussed in Jessica. Cameron sees his Pikachu in Pokémon Black starting to act like the starter Pikachu from Pokémon Yellow, and asking if he remembers her. He first dismisses it as a throwback to Pokémon Yellow... that is, until the messages get more disturbing.
  • Pokémon Story: Sinnoh Journey:
    • Ian is introduced on Sinnoh's Route 205 where the Hallowed Tower is located. To make the reference clearer, Ian places an Odd Keystone in the tower and nets himself a chance to catch a Spiritomb.
    • Game Pokedex entries say Tangela can harmlessly regenerate their vines. Scizor is forced to tear some off, while apologizing, to escape its clutches.
    • Aaron's hometown, Metropolis Town, is located in Orre.
    • The "white hand" joke from Lavender Town is used by Ian on Dawn.
    • Ash's Pikachu beats Aaron's Steelix, the evolution of Onix, by using water to make it susceptible to electrical attacks. Just like all the way back in Pewter City with Brock.
  • We Are All Pokémon Trainers:
    • Pentigan's original Trainer Title, MYSTERYMAN, was the title of Eusine in Crystal.
    • When deciding a name for their Exploration Team, Crochet mentions both Team Go-Getters and Team Poképals from the PMD anime specials.

Power Girl

  • In A Force of Four, Power Girl is called the Blonde Blockbuster at one point. A title used by Earth-One Supergirl but no by Earth-Two Kara.

The Powerpuff Girls (1998)

  • In Home in Townsville by PerkyGoth14, Original Character Kenny calls Buttercup by the nickname of Bud. Bud was originally Buttercup's name in the actual series.

Pretty Cure

Real-Person Fic

  • In The Beatles fantasy The Keys Stand Alone: The Soft World, the four are convinced to go questing to save the life of a baby when a priest channels a god who quotes lyrics from "Help!" at them. Later, a minstrel attracts their attention by singing "Norwegian Wood." Again, this is a message from a god.

Resident Evil

  • The Progenitor Chronicles has a bunch:
    • The MC's dream sequence at the very beginning of the fic consists of scenes symbolic for each of the mainline games. For Resident Evil 5, though, all he sees is a boulder.
    • Amy, after backhanding Tom for laughing off their ordeal in Terragrigia:
      Amy: "I. Have had enough. Of your BULLSHIT!"
    • Rebecca jokingly rebukes the MC for calling her Becky:
      Rebecca: "That's ‘Doctor Chambers' to you."
    • The chapters immediately following the events of Resident Evil 6 are called The Rise of Hell and The Reign of Chaos, referencing this line from in-game:
      Carla Radames: "Hell will rise and chaos will reign!" *proceeds to laugh maniacally
    • Rebecca mentions they're studying Natalia's hand, which (unbeknownst to the MC, whom she's talking to) was ripped off by a missed bullet, prompting this response:
      The MC: "…Natalia's hand comes off?"
    • There is a character named Doug who jokingly names a virus "George Bush," which allows a reference to this famous video:
      The MC: "In less than five minutes, George Bush will be released into the atmosphere."
    • When the MC arms the Regia Solis, the time it'll take for the satellite to begin hitting Terragrigia? Seven minutes.
    • Claire references her line at the end of Resident Evil 2 right before shooting Illumina with a rocket:
      Claire: "You LOSE, little girl!"

The Ring of the Nibelung

  • The Cliff:
    • Literally. Mime and Brünnhilde's son is called Regin, the name of Mime's counterpart from Norse mythology. The latter was Wagner's main source of inspiration for the Ring cycle.
    • Regin is enormously like Mime in looks and personality, barely having any resemblance to Brünnhilde. In Siegfried, Siegfried muses that if Mime ever had a son, the latter would look exactly like Mime.
    • Gunther jokingly says that if Mime wasn't so skilled with a hammer, he would have married Brünnhilde, which is what he does in The Twilight of the Gods.

RWBY

Sailor Moon

  • In A New Order Zoicite dies when he's reduced to a charred, blackened skeleton. This was what happened to Jadeite in the manga.

The Smurfs

  • Empath: The Luckiest Smurf:
    • Narrator in "Empath's Wedding" recites a modified version of his Gargamel battle sequence speech from The Smurfs during a similar one in the Imaginarium, with Grouchy reacting the same way.
      Narrator: There comes a time when every Smurf must stand up for what is good and cute and blue in the world. And on this very night before Empath and Smurfette's wedding, that time is now!
      Grouchy: Hey, seriously?
      Narrator: Sorry, it's kind of what I do.
    • In "Gargamel's First Catch", which is an adaptation of "The Smurfnapper" from the comic books, Duncan tells the fallen Gargamel that he would have made haggis from his innards, which is what Gutsy said to Patrick Winslow in The Smurfs movie.
    • Jokey in "Empath The Bandit Smurf" (an adaptation of "The Jewel Smurfer") lampshades that he should have been the one who was lost and taken instead of Empath, since that's what happened in the original story.
    • Grouchy and Duncan McSmurf in "A Vision Of The Blue Moon" (a retelling of Baby Smurf's origin) intercept Clumsy from joining in the Blue Moon Festival Dance and get smacked in the face the same way Clumsy does to Grouchy and Gutsy in The Smurfs movie.
  • In Raven Child's "How Things Smurf" from her The Smurfette Village series, there is a Synthetic Plague that wipes out the Smurfs and Smurfettes known as "The Blue Plague", named for one of the episodes in The Smurfs.

A Song of Ice and Fire

  • In Robb Returns, Benjen meets Coldhands in his ranging when he seeks a wight hand to show what's going on. Benjen is a candidate for being Coldhands in the books — and some characters imply he will become his successor.
    • Bronn is promised a keep. Unlike Tyrion, Jon Arryn manages to deliver very soon.
    • Daenerys gets her three dragons after a fire burns three people (one that wanted to protect her, the other to kill her and the latter having nothing to do with the attack) while she is in the fire.

Spider-Man

  • In the original Spider-Man comics, Peter Parker would sometimes sarcastically observe that "the old Parker luck is running true to form" whenever his Butt-Monkey status came back to bite him. In Ultimate Spider-Woman: Change With The Light, Mary Jane Watson is much more of a Butt-Monkey than Peter, and so she makes the same references to "the old Watson luck" when things go badly for her as well.

Star Trek

Steven Universe

  • In What Might Have Been, when Rose asks if Garnet can foresee any possible futures if the Diamonds are planing any retaliations. She sees two; they corrupt everyone on Earth instead of Rose and two gems next to her, or the creation of the Cluster.
  • Chapter 3 of Piece of a Diamond starts out with Steven, Rose and Pearl baking cookies, something canon-Steven pictured Rose would do in "Lion 3: Straight to Video".

Supergirl

  • In Hellsister Trilogy:
    • Kara mentions she once made Lois believe she was married to Superman in Lois Lane #55.
    • Satan Girl references several former Supergirl's adventures: Red Kryptonite making Supergirl grow a second head in Action Comics #283, the birth of Satan Girl in Adventure Comics #313 and the appearance of Nightflame in Adventure Comics #421.
    • The Spectre states it's the second time he rescues Kara after the events of War World
    • In the third story, Kara mentions her meeting with Lightning Man in Action Comics #289.

Superman

  • In the Earth-1 fanfic Superman Family: The Legacy, Supergirl's ex Salkor explains how he and Kara could have a child without her knowing by telling Superman that on his world babies are grown in Uterine Replicators, even using the exact phrase "birthing matrix" from Post-Crisis portrayals of Krypton. Bronze Age Supes thinks the whole thing sounds cold and clinical.

Teen Titans (2003)

  • New Tamaran:
    • The future revealed in the epilogue has characters from Kingdom Come, Batman Beyond, and Earth-Two.
      • Slade's new apprentices include Galatea.
    • Supergirl calls Lex Luthor a diseased maniac.
    • The iconic scene from Crisis on Infinite Earths of Superman screaming as he's holding Supergirl's corpse is recreated with Wonder Girl in Superman's place.
    • The warden of Arkham, and later Belle Reeve, is none other than Lyle Bolton.
    • Bumblebee was a sidekick for the Atom, just like she was in Young Justice (2010).
    • Wonder Girl reveals that Kyle Rayner made her a heart-shaped necklace from green ring light, just like he did in Green Lantern Vol. 3 #78.
    • The end of Justice Returns is a Shout-Out to the beginning of "Divide and Conquer", the first Teen Titans episode.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012)

  • In The Chronicles of Karai Getting Her Shit Together, when Raphael's lack of interest in pursuing a relationship with a human becomes apparent, Leo cites that his type must be "out of this world", referring to his relationship with Mona Lisa in-canon.
  • Underneath the Sakura Tree:
    • Tang Shen's friend who helped her and Yoshi move to America is named Mei Pei Chi.
    • In the second chapter, Tang Shen visits an antique called Second Time Around ran by Aggie O'Neil, the antique store April O'Neil ran in the original Mirage comics, the 2003 series and the live-action trilogy.
    • The antique Tang Shen gets from Second Time Around is a figurine of a rat and four turtles, an obvious allusion to Splinter and the Turtles from canon. According to Aggie, it was sculpted by an artist named Peter Eastman who was popular in The '80s.
    • Murikami's granddaughter is named Lotus, an obvious reference to Lotus Blossom from the 1987 series.

Tolkien's Legendarium

Tweeny Witches

  • "The Reason He Lies": Sigma mentions Jestor, the best scientist among his people, as another example of how not even a warlock in the majority is safe once he offends the dictatorship even in the slightest way. Jestor is the posthumous antagonist of "The Secret of Dragon House" in The Adventures, the OVA spin-off of the TV series, and he was accused of high treason in canon just like Sigma's father is in the fic.

Undertale

  • In the Storyshift preboot, Undyne (who is in Mettaton's role) gives a variation of her canon pre-battle dialogue in response to her manager at her piano recital complaining about the human appearing on stage.
  • TS!Underswap:
    • The Mad Dummy takes a few cues from Undyne in Undertale, making Chara fall off a bridge in Ruined Home and chasing them with projectiles in a Call-Back to Undyne chasing the Human Child with spears and making them fall off a bridge in Waterfall. They are also just as unreasonable in hating Chara no matter what they did in the tutorial, the same as they were with whatever the Human Child did in the tutorial with their cousin and like Undyne justifying her attacking the Human Child with different excuses depending on the route.
    • In the City of Old, Asgore owns a flower shop named Flower King like in Deltarune.
    • Selecting the use option on the cell phone has a few secrets from dialing random numbers, one of which is the "Hotline for Idiot Babies", also from Deltarune.
    • Chara's shadowed face in Genocide might reference up to three! Their face is hidden this way in flashbacks showing them from the front in Undertale, in the debug build of Undertale there exists a sprite that looks like a cross of the Human Child and Chara with a shadowed face who you can make show up instead of the Human Child's reflection,note  and Kris has an almost perpetually shadowed face when you're controlling them in Deltarune.
    • When fighting Asgore on a genocide run, his final attack is taken from one of Toby Fox's earlier ideas as seen in the artbook, as is the terrifying face he makes during it.
  • The Undying:
    • When entering the True Lab, Sans briefly mistakes Mettaton's voice for a siren going off. In canon, mentioning Mettaton's voice in the essay segment of his EX fight has Mettaton say he has a siren-like voice before going "Awooga!"
    • Sans asks Undyne if she thinks the worst people can change, then follows up by asking her if she thinks the human could've changed their ways if they really tried; this paraphrases part of his pre-fight speech to said human at the end of a No Mercy Route.

The Walking Dead (2010)

  • Shane's reaction to murdering Rick in Better Angels is a lot colder than Rick's reaction to murdering Shane in canon. However, there is a sentence that references the scene where Rick blames Shane for taking things this far, where Shane imagines Rick's corpse shouting this at him.
    Rick: You did this! Not me! NOT ME!

Wednesday

  • Either Way What Bliss: The title is a reference to a famous line from the 1991 film where Gomez says he would kill for or even die for Morticia "Either way, what bliss". Enid even says this line to confess her feelings for Wednesday.

Worm

  • Wyvern: As the story goes on, it's shown that Taylor got Lung's canon ability to turn into a dragon, while Lung was the one who got Taylor's canonical bug control power. During a fight, this results Lung (in this universe called Inago) nearly killing Vicky the same way that canon Taylor killed Alexandria.

Xenoblade Chronicles

  • Where We Don't Belong: Rex is amused when Mio rides Dromarch, because he tried to convince Nia to do the same thing in 2.

X-Men: Evolution

  • The SuperStarr Chronicles
    • In chapter 9, Ronnie Rocker conjures up masks for the X-Men to better hide their identities. Jean's is yellow with two points, referencing her green mini-dress costume from the 1960s.

Young Justice (2010)

  • A brief mention is made in the beginning of Universal Constant of an incident in which Superboy — suffering from a breakdown after discovering M'gann had tampered with his mind — attempted to run away to Honolulu, only to be caught by Superman, who then took him to his parents farm in Smallville to help him heal. In the 90s Superboy comics, the titular character spent the beginning (and for the majority) of the comic living in Honolulu, and in the very last issue, Superman brought him to live with the Kents after a traumatic event.
    • In the same section, Kon reminisces on how he managed to piece his ears before Superman caught him. The Kon-El Superboy used to be frequently depicted with pieced ears in his first appearance and throughout the 90s.

Yu-Gi-Oh!

  • There are a LOT of them in Arc-Ved Protagonists, to all throughout the various Yugioh installments
    • In "Coming right back": When Yugi is explaining the story of Dark Magician, he states that he waited 3 or 5 millennia to meet his friend again, forgetting which one. In the 4Kids dub of the original Yugioh, it was 5 millennia, but originally it was 3. Also, when Yugi comes in, he is described as wearing his jacket like a cape, something Yami did back in DM with the Domino High school uniform, Yuya makes note of this, thinking it looks cool, referencing that he is seen doing the same thing with his school uniform in Arc-V.
    • In "Synchro Testing": Yusei summons monsters from both the anime and the manga, as well as monsters from neither. One monster he summons is Cosmic Blazar Dragon, which was supposedly used by an alternate version of him from the time line Z-one originated from in 5Ds. Furthermore, Akiza is stated to be a doctor and even patches up Yugo's broken arm, referencing how she chose to become a doctor to help people by the end of 5Ds.
    • In "Reluctant Choice": Atticus puts on a small black mask that only covers the upper half of his face, just like the mask he wears when taking on the powers of Nightshroud (aka Darkness) in GX. Also, the last turn of the duel has singularities with the last turn of the first duel in Arc-V, where Yuya/Yuri is able to summon their Ace Dragon, after getting a slight boost from Zarc when their field is empty and they have seemingly bricked, and attacks with it to win the duel with the help of the dragon's effect.
    • "Dark Fusion", being the longest of the stories, has more then the rest:
      • The monsters Sora summons when facing Jaden are the same ones he summon when facing Shun in Arc-V, even summoned in the same order and with the same materials.
      • Whenever someone fusion summons without needing to activate a card effect first, Jaden refers to it as Contact Fusion, the term used in GX to describe when he did just that with the Neo-Spacains.
      • The outfits Syrus, Bastion, Hassleberry, and Chazz all wear after switching out of the Duel Academy blazers are based on alternate outfits they wore in GX. For Syrus Hassleberry, and Bastion, it is what they wore before joining Duel Academy, and for Chazz, it is what he switched to when he temporarily transferred to North Academy.
      • When Super Dark Fusion is first activated, the situation is similar to when Super Polymerization is first used in GX. In both cases, Evil Hero Infernal Gainer just returned to the field from it's own effect, and was then Fused to the only monster the opponent had out on their field thanks to the quick-play spell cards, and then the monster summoned from them latter made the last attack to end the duel.
      • During the last chapter, Jaden scenes the 4 Dimensional Dragons in Yuya's deck in a way similar to how his cannon self sensed the Egyptian Gods in Yugi's deck during the last episodes of GX.. Furthermore, some of what he says to Glow Moss latter on echo what his thoughts in that duel were.
      • Also, the ending of the last duel shares singularities with the ending of the last duel in season 1 of GX, where Jaden plays Battle Fusion to power up his monsters when his opponent attacks it, only for the attacking monster to get stronger despite this, causing Jaden to play Final Fusion to end the duel in a Draw.

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