Usually, a sequel shows what happened next in the world of the original work. This trope is when a sequel or spin-off shows what happened next in a world where the original work is only fiction.
A common aspect is that although the sequel (or spin-off) is generally constrained to be the same genre as the original (otherwise, why make it a sequel?), setting it in a different world allows the creators to go as Broad Strokes as they like, and play with things not working according to the rules viewers would expect from the original.
May include an invocation of The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You, especially if it's in the horror genre.
Compare Nested Story Reveal, where part of a story is revealed within the same work to be fictional; Recursive Canon, where an earlier work in the series is real but also has an in-universe fictional work based on it; and Legend Fades to Myth, where an earlier work in the series is real but has become a legend in the time of the current work.
Unmarked spoilers ahead!
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Digimon:
- Digimon Tamers: The Digimon franchise is only a work of fiction, up to and including the previous two anime installments. All the main characters are huge fans of the trading card game in particular, with one even having the moniker "Digimon Queen" due to her skill in the competitive scene. Then real Digimon start showing up, with the explanation that the multimedia franchise was based on real experiments with AI (that supposedly went nowhere). The more "grounded" nature of their reality means the show ultimately skews darker than most other Digimon series.
- Digimon Liberator takes the same approach; this time stating that the Digital World was something that was discovered and that the virtual pets and cards were created as ways to help stabilize and protect Digimon.
- The Gundam Build branch of the Gundam franchise contains stories in which the rest of the franchise is fiction, but new technology has allowed fans to create working replicas of the Gundams and pit them against each other in non-lethal combat. The tone is generally lighter than most Gundam stories, with elements of self-parody.
- In Gundam Build Fighters and Gundam Build Fighters Try, the competition involves remote-controlled scale models. Somehow, there are also characters that look and act like the ones who are otherwise only fictional.
- In Gundam Build Divers and Gundam Build Divers Re:RISE, the competition takes place in an online virtual reality game that lets players feel as if they're actually piloting the Gundam.
- The twentieth anniversary movie for the Ojamajo Doremi franchise, Searching for Magical Doremi, is about the anime series' impact on various fictional fans who grew up watching it.
Comic Books
- The Flash (1959): Flash Comics is only a work of fiction, and the Flash is "just a character some writer dreamed up". A fan of the comic book gains similar powers in a Freak Lab Accident, and decides to base his superhero identity on the comic book character. The choice to turn this version of the comic into a Continuity Reboot, rather than a simple revival, and make the older comic fictional in-universe, was the first step towards establishing the DC comics continuity as a multiverse, with far-reaching results to this day.
- Solar: Man of the Atom (Valiant Comics reboot): The comic book Doctor Solar is only a work of fiction. Phil Seleski, a fan of the comic book, gains energy-based superpowers and splits into two beings, one of whom is based on Doctor Solar.
- In Jeff Lemire's Moon Knight run, we are shown segments where Moon Knight might be a fictional comic book being adapted into a film for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Emphasis is on might as the run is noted for its Mind Screw elements.
- After Patsy Walker became the superheroine Hellcat, The Defenders established that the original Patsy Walker humour book was written by her mother and based very loosely on her and her friends.
- When Marvel completely rewrote their Western character the Two-Gun Kid, including changing his real name, the original Kid was said to be a fictional dime-novel character who inspired Matt Hawk to take up the name.
- Superman: Secret Identity is a 2004 Elseworld story based on the idea behind Superboy-Prime from Crisis on Infinite Earths, but executed as a standalone non-canonical story without ties to the larger DC universe. On an Earth much like our own, where superheroes don't exist but Superman comics do, David and Laura Kent decide to name their newborn boy Clark, as a homage to the fictional superhero. He is frequently bullied in school (and later in his life, at work) for his non-existent powers, and people try to jokingly hook him up with girls named Lois. One day on a weekend trip, however, the teenage Clark discovers that, seemingly out of nowhere, he has acquired real superpowers that seem to match Superman's in all aspects.
Fan Works
- Arai-san Mansion: The original Kemono Friends is shown to be one of the movies at the cinema and gets a couple of cameos on TV.
- Princess Celestia Hates Tea involves Celestia admitting that she dislikes tea, and all Hell breaking loose as a result. The sequel, "A Short Story by Twilight Sparkle", reveals that all of those events were just a story that Twilight wrote — and the real Celestia wonders why Twilight caricatured herself so viciously in that story.
- His Honor, The Mayor, Drew Lipsky? and its sequels takes place in a world where Kim Possible is a bunch of stories Ron wrote on the internet based on Kim's actual adventures kinda like The Rusty Venture Show, though he had to change a lot of details for various reasons.
Films — Animation
- Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022) is about the Animated Actors who starred in Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers attempting a comeback after thirty years, and finding themselves investigating a real mystery.
Films — Live-Action
- Adaptation.: Being John Malkovich exists as a movie within the world of Adaptation., and the protagonist Charlie is the writer behind its script. However, since Adaptation. takes place while Being John Malkovich is still being shot, it's more of a meta-prequel than a meta-sequel.
- Anaconda (2025): The film is a Denser and Wackier follow-up to Anaconda, about a group of friends trying to make a No Budget remake of the original film. Things go awry when they end up finding a real gigantic monster anaconda to replace the regular-sized one they were using in the film that they accidentally kill.
- Arthur: Malediction takes place in the "real world" and involves fans of the trilogy taking a trip to the house where they were filmed at.
- Bewitched (2005 film): The TV series Bewitched is only a work of fiction. The part of Samantha in a remake goes to a real witch-passing-as-normal; Hilarity Ensues.
- Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2: The movie The Blair Witch Project is only a work of fiction. A group of fans go to visit the locations where the movie was shot, and have a horrifying possibly-supernatural experience.
- An Older Than Television example is the lost film The Golem and the Dancing Girl. A supposed Self-Parody of 1915's The Golem, the plot involved an actor who plays the titular Golem in a movie, who wears the monster makeup to a party to impress a girl.
- Both the second and third The Human Centipede films: In The Human Centipede II, the original is only a movie. An obsessed fan of the movie decides to make his own human centipede. The third film, The Human Centipede: Final Sequence, similarly has the first two films as fictional and inspiring its villain.
- The Koker Trilogy by Abbas Kiarostami: the first film Where is the Friend's House? is a straightforward story about Iranian schoolchildren. And Life Goes On... treats the first film as an a work of fiction, and features a fictionalized Kiarostami returning to the area after a devastating earthquake to check on the wellbeing of the original child actors. The final film Through the Olive Trees is a fictionalization of the making of the second film.
- Wes Craven's New Nightmare: The movie A Nightmare on Elm Street is only a work of fiction. The actress who played the Final Girl starts experiencing supernatural phenomena similar to those her character had to deal with.
- The Muppets movies generally play fast and loose with the fourth wall anyway, but Muppets Most Wanted specifically opens with the reveal that they haven't reclaimed their popularity and had fans thronging the streets, because The Muppets (2011) was just a movie, and those were all paid extras.
- Return of the Living Dead is set in a world where the Zombie Apocalypse of Night of the Living Dead (1968) happened, but that movie is a Broad Strokes adaptation of the actual events so George A. Romero wouldn't sue. The differences in zombie lore between the "actual" events and the "fictionalized" version become a plot point.
Burt: I thought you said if we destroyed the brain, it'd die!
Frank: It worked in the movie!
Burt: Well, it ain't working now, Frank!
Freddy: You mean the movie lied?!? - In Scrooged, Frank Cross is producing a television version of A Christmas Carol while also being haunted by the Ghosts of Christmas.
- Spirited (2022) is a modern musical take on A Christmas Carol, with the characters aware that the book and even Scrooged exist in universe. Comes further than Scrooged in that midway through the movie it is revealed that the current Ghost of Christmas Present is Ebenezer Scrooge himself.
- The Town That Dreaded Sundown (2014 film): The original The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976 film) is only a work of fiction.
- Twisted Childhood Universe: Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 depicts the previous film, Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, as a low-budget film adaptation of the Hundred Acre Massacre, explaining why Christopher Robin, Pooh, and Piglet look different.
Literature
- Miles Franklin wrote two partly-autobiographical novels, My Brilliant Career and My Career Goes Bung. The first is a romance about a young woman named Sybylla Melvyn attempting to establish herself as a writer. The second is a more realistic novel about a young woman named Sybylla Melvyn dealing with the consequences of publishing a partly-autobiographical novel titled My Brilliant Career — which is established to be exactly the same novel in-universe as the one Miles Franklin actually wrote, making the Sybylla of the first novel a fictional version of the Sybylla of the second novel (who is established to have a different number of siblings and other biographical details).
- Occultic;Nine: Faris, along with the rest of Steins;Gate, are revealed to be anime characters in the Occultic;Nine timeline, with Shun noting so while visiting Akihabara.
Live-Action TV
- Curb Your Enthusiasm stars a fictionalized version of Larry David, creator of Seinfeld. There, Seinfeld is as fictional in real life, and one story arc was about getting the cast back together to film a reunion special.
- Doogie Kameāloha, M.D. is a reboot of Doogie Howser, M.D.. In-universe, Doogie Howser, MD is acknowledged as a fictional program, and Lahela Kameāloha gets given the nickname "Doogie" in reference to it.
- Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger is an Official Parody of Super Sentai where the mainline franchise exists (as does Power Rangers) alongside people with actual superpowers. The protagonist is a Sentai Ascended Fanboy who tries to use his knowledge of Once a Season conventions to his advantage.
- The 2024 Matlock is set in a world were the original Matlock series aired and features a new lawyer whose last name is also Matlock, and thus others around her take note of her last name and compare her to Andy Griffith's Matlock. Then it turns out the 2024 Matlock is only using the name as an alias. The name Matlock was used because the main character's daughter was a fan of the original show.
- Powerpuff: The pilot takes place in a world where the girls had a media franchise made out of their heroics, which included the original 1998 cartoon.
- Staged: Season 2 is set around trying to remake season 1 for an American audience.
Video Games
- Played with in HUMAN EXPENDITURE PROGRAM. The events of BLOODMONEY! (2025) are only a game, and Harvey is a person separate from it. But while the torture is fake, his wife Eun-mi has been transferring his digital consiousness into copies of the game every night and selling the experience for profit, making it real enough for him to have nightmares and eventually start retaining injuries. On top of that, his mind is routinely wiped so he doesn't realise what's happening to him.
- Mega Man X DiVE: The Mega Man X series is a work of fiction, to which people around the world connect via cyberspace known as the Deep Log. The player is requested by RiCO — the current administrator of the Deep Log — to fix up the video game corrupted by Maverick Data. The setting allows the game to play with the Mega Man universe's tropes. In particular, the final act is a meta commentary on whether a story can exist without an antagonist.
Visual Novels
- Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony: It's revealed in the final trial that within the universe of V3, all the preceding Danganronpa games and anime are simply that: games and anime. When world peace proved far too boring for humanity to handle, they turned to Danganronpa to sate their bloodlust, and the series became extremely popular. Eventually, mere games and anime weren't enough for them, so it was decided that the franchise should be adapted into a real-life reality show where high school students willingly sign up to become brainwashed with the identities of Danganronpa characters and kill each other on live TV. The actual students who signed up for the season during which the game takes place were quite happy to do so, but the fictional personas who survived to this point are shocked and disgusted that so many people could be so sick as to think their situation is the least bit entertaining. Of course, the possibility is also brought up that the events of the previous installments were real and the person doing the exposition was lying her ass off.
- In Soushuu Senshinkan Gakuen Hachimyoujin, the Shinza Bansho Series by the same author is apparently a popular fighting game series which Ayumi is a huge fan of, owning at least one of the titles and seemingly liking to sing Einsatz when she gets the chance.
Web Video
- Twelve Hundred Ghosts is a version of A Christmas Carol where multiple adaptations are happening to the same person at the same time. Occasionally, the cast will make mention of the original novel during Scrooge's haunting.
