"fake" or "thing you will create" is not an accurate description when you consider that it can be a directory (thus creating a new link within that directory that exists) or even omitted to use the current directory.

The point, decades ago when I first started with unix, was a short, memorable way to remember the order of the arguments, not to memorize the man page. For that, "ln -s <real> <fake>" works fine.

Yeah, my writeup is I guess what you get when you first remember it _wrong_ and then need to overcorrect.