Examples of Formula-Breaking Episode in Fan Works.
Crossovers
- 100 Percent Hero revolves around Mob being transported to the universe of My Hero Academia. The second half of Chapter 28 reveals how Reigen, Ritsu, and Teruki are coping with his abrupt disappearance.
- Aura of the Azure features several Side Chapters, each designated with a (S) next to the chapter title. These shift focus away from the main four teams of RWBY, JNPR, RJNN and BLST and offer other characters' perspectives.
- Crazy Irken and ? (Invader Zim-based crossover fic anthology by D_rissing and nightmaster000. note ): The fourth chapter breaks the trends previously set up by the story, in that it’s not a crossover between Invader Zim and something else (the chapter's focus girl Zita is a minor IZ character), and Zim's relationship with the focus girl is neither rape (as with Starfire and Betty) nor emotional manipulation on the girl’s part (as with Courtney), instead being a genuine romance.
- Dinosaur: A Prehistoric Park Adventure: While most of the previous entries (aside from the specials) focused on rescuing animals on the brink of extinction, The Long Night of Winter reveals that the park needs time to expand and recover from housing so many animals. This results in all of the residents and some of the staff being sent to a temporary park in Cretaceous Alaska.
- Dueling Trigger Finger:
- Rather than a duel, Chapter 17 features Yami challenging Genocide Jill to a shadow game, which culminates in Jill being effectively erased from existence.
- Chapter 82 also forgoes a standard duel in favor of the participants staging an RPG-esque battle against Dartz's Orichalcos minions.
- Event Horizon: Storm of Magic: Interspersed within Book 2 and 3 is a Cyberpunk subplot set on Earth as two Company™ agents, Dominic and Ellen, race against the clock to figure out who is the traitor sabotaging their operations out on the colonies.
- The Many Dates of Danny Fenton: There have been two chapters that don't take place on one of Danny's dates. One is Tucker's date with Lisa of American Dad! that ends poorly. The other is Jazz recognizing how boring her summer vacation is due to her brother's dates, his friends being busy and that the ghosts are barely attacking Amity Park.
- A Lost Owl: Chapter 18 is told entirely via entries in Yunan's Expedition Journal, as she records her experiences while searching for The Source.
- Parallel Processing: Occasionally, the series features interludes framed as people posting on Ascent, an online Citadel forum, in order to demonstrate how the public are reacting to events happening in the main story. Other chapters are presented as in-universe documents.
- Ponies One Half: Chapter 76 takes us back to Ponyville. The trope name is even used.
- We return to Ponyville in Chapter 101, as we see Shining Armor take the news about Prism Star, and asks for advice from Big Mac and Blinkie on how to take her existence, as niece or as a sister.
- Power Rangers Clockwork is this to the entire Super Sentai vs. Power Rangers: The Liveblog series. Where the previous stories have liveblogs of various works, Power Rangers Clockwork is simply a story in script format. In addition, the series' main character Rika, the other Legendary Rangers, and the Brotherhood of Destruction do not make an appearance, at least until the final chapter in a voiceless cameo for the former character.
- The Reactsverse: Eurydice is the Oddball in the Series, serving primarily as a Fix Fic for Your Lie in April. Its placement in the greater 'verse is unclear, as the only element that isn't canon to the source material is the land of the dead.
- Universetale: Chapter 7 is framed as a pair of posts on Ronaldo's blog, Keep Beach City Weird, with a few members of the Undertale cast leaving some comments.
- YuyaVision: Rather than focusing on one of the dimensions, Broken Side of the Mirror is set in the Spirit World.
- The Fire Chapters: Chapter 9, "The Shallows", dips into more psychological horror and thriller territory than the series' usual action-adventure scope.
- Cinderjuice: The installment Meteor Shower is different from the rest of the series in almost every respect. It has one single point of view (that of Prince Vince); it's a one-shot; and the Idiosyncratic Episode Naming comes from the song of the same name by Owl City rather than from a Disney fairy tale.
- Christmas with a Corduroy: This is a Slice of Life Christmas story without any supernatural elements. In fact, there is no mention of the supernatural at all, besides Dipper remembering the context behind how he learned that Wendy never had a proper Christmas.
- Heroes of the Desk: One chapter switches entirely to an in-match view, though outside normal Heroes of the Storm, depicting said Heroes as fighting of their own volition rather than being controlled by humans on the author's vision of a StarCraft-themed map.
- 496 Reasons Why Multidating Is More Complicated than It Seems: The prologue and planned epilogue are written in the Homestuck style of second person, has special requirements for visible dialogue, and dialogue in question is written in script format. The pairing chapters read like a typical third-person fan fic. The beginning AN even mentions this, and to not report the fan fic for being a second-person fan fic.
- Heroes In Forgone Dreams: Chapter 9, instead of focusing on the Star Allies, the chapter focuses on Shadow Kirby and his battles in the Coliseum.
- Peeking Through the Fourth Wall:
- Episodes 11 and 35 involve three stories being MSTed instead of one.
- Episode 17 involves the author himself and three of his friends doing the riffing instead of the Louds.
- Episode 22, the Christmas Episode, and Episode 35 have Ronnie Anne on the couch with the Louds.
- Episode 26 has Clyde on the couch with the Louds.
- Episode 28 takes place in the Casagrandes' apartment instead of the Louds' living room, and it features Ronnie Anne, Bobby, C.J., Carl, and Sid reading the story instead of any of the Louds.
- Episode 32 features Lincoln reading the story with his friends instead of any of his sisters.
- Episode 36 has Lynn Sr. on the couch, and is the only episode to feature either of the parents.
- Episode 38 takes place in the "One of the Boys" dimension.
- CONSEQUENCES: Most entries in the series focus on Lila dealing with the fallout of her actions after her Karma Houdini Warranty expires. WORLD BEYOND, by contrast, centers around Hawkmoth using the stolen Miraculous Box to go on a worldwide reign of terror. Lila only appears once, gets yelled at by Adrien for trying to blame the heroes for Hawkmoth's actions, and is later shipped off to juvenile detention offscreen after the supervillains are arrested.
- Lady Luck:
- While most chapters adapt an existing episode of the original series, "The Queen's Battle Part 2: Chloé" centers around Chloé calling her mother out for being so neglectful and abusive. Sabrina prevents her friend from being akumatized by trapping the butterfly Hawkmoth sent after her under a vase.
- Generally speaking, most chapters based off an episode where a new hero debuted feature the same akuma and Miraculous, with Chloé giving the latter to a different person than Marinette chose. "Startrain" has her bring the Horse Miraculous along, but ultimately find a way to get the train back to Earth without recruiting another hero.
- The Lament Series (ChaoticNeutral): Most laments center around somebody making a selfish and ill-considered Wish on the Ladybug and Cat Miraculouses, learning the hard way that Reality Warping Is Not a Toy when they're trapped in a Self-Inflicted Hell. Marinette's Lament instead presents her Wish as her reluctantly crossing the Godzilla Threshold in order to keep the power out of Hawkmoth's hands. It's implied that the Universe takes far more kindly to her Wish as a result.
- The One to Make It Stay: Paper Skies Peel Off the Walls is a collection of side stories set throughout the series. And It Won't Be Long is notably the only chapter in the entire series that is told in first person, by virtue of being a series of journal entries penned by Felix.
- The Smart Adversaries AU typically has the Point of Divergence be something the main antagonist does. Some entries defy this set-up, however:
- In Frightningale Fixates, Chloé takes too long to set up her "perfect revenge" against Clara Nightingale for excluding her from the music video shoot. As a result, Marinette and Adrien have to don their costume masks, causing everyone present to realize they actually are Ladybug and Chat Noir.
- Lightning Strikes Twice expands upon a canonical Noodle Incident, detailing how Ladybug and Chat Noir could have won a fight against Stormy Weather using a marker and a copier by getting her to question what will happen next if she successfully freezes the whole planet. The nail comes afterward, when an American superhero team is sent to hunt down Hawkmoth, given how Stormy Weather nearly brought about The End of the World as We Know It.
- Weird Dad diverges from canon when August crying for his pacifer causes Marinette's secret identity to be exposed to Chat Noir.
- Cain is told almost entirely through the eyes of Katsuki, an Unreliable Narrator blinded by his Irrational Hatred of Izuku. The sole exception to this is the penultimate scene, which switches focus to Izuku, Inko and All Might as they discuss his future, as well as gently discourage him from blaming himself for Katsuki's fate.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- The Games We Play: Chapter 20 climaxes in The Reveal, as Rainbow Dash finally corners and unmasks Mare Do Well. Chapter 21 focuses entirely upon dialogue as the two debate back and forth.
- Synépeies - A Collection Of NTR Consequences: Affirmation is the only chapter that does away with the usual format of the cheating woman and antagonist receiving their comeuppance, instead focusing more on the male lead's self-improvement into a better person.
- Always Visible: The final chapters of the third act turn a detective story with a touch of mysticism into a fantastically unreliable story about a supercomputer that is being developed deep underground by Japanese scientists.
- The Adventures of Irving and Friends: "NinjaDude and FanMan" is set within the universe of the Team Improbable cartoon series.
- Pokédex One Shots: Technically every story is different, but some more than others:
- Shuckle- advertisement pamphlet
- Unown- poem
- Finneon and Lumineon- propaganda story
- Mantyke- Series of the authors' thoughts and "takes" on the story, with the main character and the Inner Critic's reactions.
- Chronicles of an American Beauty and an American Psycho: "You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison, So We'll Do This Author's Note." The chapter is written in script form, and it consists of Brendon and Pete promoting the author's other works while complaining excessively about how the author made them do it.
- What Lies Beyond the Walls: Chapter 34 is a Whole Episode Flashback centered on the Hero Killer Angus Renhym, which doesn't mesh with any of the series' other subplots until the very end.
- Teratogenesis: A few of the ficlets in this collection branch away from Body Horror:
- We Won't Get Fooled Again centers around a group of cancer researchers dealing with ill-informed protestors who are convinced they're going to be the next Umbrella.
- The Enemy of My Enemy follows a pair of BSAA agents as they investigate an incident at an island lab.
- Life, Love, Friendship, and Lemons serves as a character study for Albert Wesker, expanding upon his life before he ever arrived in Raccoon City.
- Sailor Moon: Between the Lines: The majority of the stories in this series center around scenes set around the time period of a given episode, expanding upon or fleshing out its events. A few episodes expand the scope much further, though:
- Episode 121
is set during the Silver Millennium, focusing on Sailor Pluto showing Queen Serenity a vision of the granddaughter she will never have a chance to meet in person. - Episode 146 jumps into the far-flung future of Crystal Tokyo, with Neo Queen Serenity and King Endymion deciding to play hooky from their royal responsibilities.
- Episode 121
- Oversoul: Chapter 18 is written in a different style than the other chapters, as the scenes are much shorter and purposely leave a lot of questions in the air.
- Entropy: Following Sonic having a Heroic BSoD in Chapter 16, the Point of View switches over to Olly.
- A Dash of Logic: While the author has a penchant for Black Comedy, the series' adaptation of "Demolition Doofus" plays the concept of SpongeBob crippling Mrs. Puff in a vehicular accident completely dead straight, with Mrs. Puff rejecting his tearful apology and kicking him out of her boating school for good.
- The Grand Vizier of Oz has two which happen back-to-back:
- Chapter Eleven is the aptly-named "Letters", which is told entirely through correspondance between Glinda, Elphaba, Fiyero, Dr. Dillamond, their families, a few nobles and a family of Animals.
- The following chapter, "The Family Thropp", opens with a flashback of a young Elphaba playing with her mother Melena, who's pregnant with her sister at the time.
