Barely a week after Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010) movie came out in 2010, Fanfiction.Net was flooded (thirty fanfics in the new section and at least that many more in the general Alice in Wonderland section) with fan authors who either have Alice stay in Wonderland with the Hatter, or have him go with her.
Just look at any Aliens fix-fic. At least 95% of them ignore the third and fourth films and have Mama Ripley, Papa Hicks, their adopted daughter Newt, and Uncle Bishop, returning safely to Earth and living a peaceful, happy life where they never encounter another xenomorph ever again.
Many, if not most, Brokeback Mountain fics undo Jack's death and give him and Ennis a happy ending.
Sarah will get wished away by Toby/her parents/her roommate/etc. putting her in Jareth's clutches or running the Labyrinth again. Romance Ensues (a 99% chance).
Jareth will get all possessive and try to whisk Sarah away as his 'bride'. Romance Ensues (a 99% chance).
Either Jareth or Sarah is in Big Trouble and the other has to help him/her out. Chance of romance? 99%.
Jareth is in trouble with the Fae Courts because he let someone succeed at running the Labyrinth.
Original female character wishes her child/sibling/self away and winds up being romanced by Jareth.
Post-film Live Free or Die Hard fanfic often has hacker Matt moving in with John McClane, since Matt's apartment was destroyed by terrorists. John lives alone and kinda lonely without his ex-wife and kids; Matt was shot point-blank in the knee, an injury that would require weeks to months of recovery with assistance. What better setup for fanfic roommates?
The Hangover fics have a very high tendency to have a previously unmentioned sister or female cousin of one of the four guys (usually Doug) join up with them and get involved with Alan, or more rarely Stu or Phil.
Scotty in one story was described as having used a technobabble trick that worked on paper, but not in the real world. The computer had a Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies reaction: it spawned more Klingon warships than existed in the entire Empire at the time, and the instructors booted him over to engineering track, which was Scotty's hope all along.
There's the idea that Kirk received some of Spock Prime's memories of his friendship (or "friendship") with Kirk Prime during the mindmeld on Delta Vega is particularly common — especially among Kirk/Spock shippers.
It is commonly assumed that Gaila survived.
Another favorite is to have the Kirk from the movie universe live through (or have lived through) the Tarsus IV massacre that formed the basis of the TOS episode "The Conscience Of The King". In most examples, the situation is worse in some way (or many ways) than the TOS version — for one thing, virtually every fic of this type portrays Kodos as a willful monster rather than the Well-Intentioned Extremist he was set up as in canon.
A number of Spirk shippers have incorporated Kirk's death and reanimation in Into Darkness as being a pivotal moment that leads to them becoming a couple.
One somewhat popular variation holds that Kirk's "I want you to know why I couldn't let you die" was actually going to be the preface to a confession of love for Spock, but when Spock offers an alternative explanation, he decides to take it (usually for reasons along the lines that it's probably better if Spock doesn't find out). When he finds himself alive, he eventually decides to tell Spock for real.
Going along with this one, a number of fics have jumped off the premise that Spock realizes (or realizes he can no longer deny) his own feelings for Kirk when he sees Kirk dying. This usually results in him breaking up with Uhura by the time Kirk wakes up.
TRON fanficcers have all got their own guesses about what happens to the title character after his involuntary dunk in the Sea of Simulation. Other very common plotlines involve getting Flynn back to analog after being trapped in the digital world for 20 years, and scenarios where Alan is brought to The Grid to repair his damaged software, if not full-blown Legacy AU fics where Alan ends up investigating the arcade himself and shot into the system. Some fic goes into Sam's other "pranks" on Encom. Others try to figure out how Quorra's going to adjust to analog. Plenty of fanfic guesses about what happened to Yori (if you ship Tron/Yori, she's alive. If you write slash, she's de-rezzed), or the cast of TRON: Uprising (which had a Bolivian Army Ending). Patchwork Fic with the "other sequel" isn't uncommon, either.
Fix Fics that change the ending of X-Men: First Class so that Xavier and Magneto never become estranged and/or Xavier is never paralyzed are ubiquitous in the fandom.
Most fics seem to fall into this territory, whether it's filling one adaptation's blanks in with comicverse facts, or the spreading around of Character Tics, or the presence of characters who technically shouldn't exist in this version. Most adaptations can't include the large cast the comics feature, and someone will always get mad that their favorite gets left out.
X-Men fanfics occasionally give comicverse Gambit his first animated counterpart's habit of talking in third person.
Star Wars fanfiction is particularly notable for its time travel fics, where characters from the original trilogy era (usually Luke, but sometimes Leia; never Han) inexplicably travel in time to the prequel era and warn their parents/Yoda/everyone about what Palps is and what he's up to. Time travel, Sith alchemy, or other means can also be used to cross eras, like bringing Knights of the Old Republic characters into the film eras. This only increased after Star Wars Rebels introduced the World Between Worlds, which makes time travel possible.
A stock plot of Star Wars fanfics is Dark Luke/Dark Leia/both Dark. In this case, either or both of the children was not hidden particularly well from daddy, or not at all, and is educated as a darksider.
"What If" scenarios are very common. What if Qui-Gon Jinn lived to train Anakin? What if Ahsoka Tano accepted Jedi knighthood? What if Anakin was stuck in traffic and came too late to intervene in Palpatine's arrest? What if Padme lived?
Since the saga's acquisition by Disney, most fanfics will, while setting themselves in whichever continuity the author prefers, still borrow freely whatever characters, ships, or other aspects of the other can fit their story.
The Han/Leia ship on its own has quite a few ship-specific plots. Common tropes are Leia having a Heroic BSoD over Alderaan, both of them having to huddle together for warmth at some point on Hoth, the two of them going on dangerous missions together in between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, Leia reacting very badly to learning that Darth Vader is her biological father, and their reunion after escaping from Jabba's palace. “Journey to Bespin” fics have also been a staple in the fandom for years.
Alternate universes in which Leia's parents survive the destruction of Alderaan are also relatively commonplace because they provide endless fuel for relationship drama between Leia and Han. Most of the time, the conflict comes from the fact that Leia is an Uptown Girl to Han, and Bail (and sometimes Breha) Organa disapprove of this immensely. Sometimes the surviving Alderaanians aren't her parents, but are some other miscellaneous adult authority figures; either way, the effect is the same. A variant of this has said parents/authority figures return to Leia's life years after the original trilogy has ended, having missed virtually the whole war, and being baffled by both the galaxy around them and Leia's life choices. This concept has spawned multiple fan 'verses.
After Revenge of the Sith, there was a huge influx of fix fics resurrecting Padme, usually revealing she faked her death to protect Luke and Leia and help with the resistance against Vader, who she usually still loves, unless it's an Obidala fic.
Much of the fanfiction revolving around Padme becoming a Force ghost just to reunite with Anakin can be seen as this, given the belief by George Lucas and the EU that there is no afterlife or higher plane for anyone in Star Wars save for Jedi very potent in the Force (and some Sith spirits as well).
Han being adopted by Bail Organa and his wife is a common one in fics where Anakin never turned to the Dark Side. It’s mostly used as an excuse to include him (and Bail and Breha) in stories set in a ‘verse where Luke and Leia logically wouldn’t have met him under the circumstances they did in canon, if at all. Occasionally, Jedi!Leia will become his bodyguard, kicking off a Bodyguard Crush romance.
The Sequel Trilogy has plenty of Role Swap AU where Rey and Kylo Ren switch alignments. Considering their respective heritage as a Palpatine and Skywalker, this is not surprising.
Not long after the ending for the The Rise of Skywalker was revealed, many dissatisfied Rey and Kylo shippers wrote fanfiction where Kylo/Ben Solo doesn't die after giving his life force to heal Rey and is allowed to live Happily Ever After with her.
On the other hand, fans who would have liked Rey to have a more direct relationship to the Skywalker family have taken the route of rewriting the Sequel Trilogy with her being the biological daughter of either Luke or Leia.
Also on the other hand, there are people who believe the one who deserves more love is not Kylo, but Finn. These fics usually have no redemption for the former and make the latter a Jedi and Rey's soulmate.
Even among fans who don’t want Rey to be a Skywalker or a Solo, a very common Fix Fic topic is making her not a Palpatine.
A common method of setting up a ship between characters who have never interacted in Canon, or are even enemies, is to have the two characters get marooned on an unknown, remote planet after a crash landing that kills everyone else on the ship (though this rarely includes other main characters, who will inevitably come later to rescue the couple), thus forcing the two to work together to survive.
The vast, vast majority of Rogue One fanfic consists of "Everybody Lives", or at least "Some of them Live" AUs, usually to explore the What If? scenario of the Rogue One crew interacting with characters and partaking in events from the Original Trilogy combined with Jyn and Cassian falling in love. Fics are generally split on whether part of the crew continues fighting the Empire in some form (as part of the Rebellion proper or independently), or if they go into some level of retirement.
An extremely common plot in Galen Erso/Orson Krennic slash fics is Krennic becoming suspicious that Galen and Bodhi are having an affair, with horrific consequences generally following. Whether he's right or just mistaking the situation varies from fic to fic, as does whether he actually is in some kind of dysfunctional relationship with Galen or just obsessed with him from afar.
Stand by Me fics tend to have about four plots that get recycled over and over again. Chris gets laid = 99% of Stand By Me fanfiction right there:
A) A girl moves to Castle Rock, meets the boys and the Cobras, and falls in love with Chris/Teddy/Ace/Eyeball.
B) Retelling the Ray Brower trip with a girl accompanying the boys (Usually the fifth member of the gang the author adds and pretends was always there), and said girl eventually falls in love with Chris.
C) A girl in the boys' gang, that Chris has known his whole life, and they're best friends and they fall in love with each other.
D) Gordie and Chris realize their feelings for each other are now starting to go beyond friendship.
Easily a good portion of Kingsman: The Secret Service fanfic have this plot point: Valentine is a lousy shot and Harry, aka Galahad, is still alive. Often this goes hand in hand with another plot point: Harry becomes the new Arthur. This becomes Hilarious in Hindsight since the sequel Kingsman: The Golden Circle confirmed that Harry's alive after all. Speaking of, a decent amount of post-Golden Circle fic has the premise that Merlin survived the landmine that killed him. It didn't hurt that he initially was supposed to survive, but was Killed Off for Real when test audiences felt living cheapened his Heroic Sacrifice.
Before the film even came out, fans started writing fanfics about Owen's relationship with his Velociraptors. Adorableness typically ensued.
After the film's release, stories about Claire and Owen dealing with the aftermath of the titular park's possible closure became very common.
Stories about Zach and Gray comforting each other over the incident.
The odd "Gray gets hurt on the island" AU, usually in stories that basically ask "What If? the Indominus rex clawed Gray's leg instead of his bag?"
Because of the epic climax, it's common to see continuation stories wherein Blue (the only surviving raptor) befriends the Tyrannosaurus rex and sometimes the Mosasaurus.
There are quite a few stories where Owen (or someone else) gets turned into a dinosaur (usually a Velociraptor) due to magic or super science.
Due to the Spin-Offspring nature of the series, many Descendants fanfics revolve around children of random Disney characters interacting with the existing cast. This can come in one of two flavors:
A) retellings the first film, with the addition of a girl who is usually close friends with Ben (close enough that she becomes one of the first who learns about his proclamation regarding the Isle), not prejudiced against the villain kids, and who falls for either Jay or Carlos;
B) Post-movie fics where more villain kids are brought over from the Isle.
Much like the Glee fics about Sugar being Brittany and Santana's Kid from the Future, following the release of Pitch Perfect 2, many stories emerged applying a similar concept to the character of Emily Junk, whom the shippers of Beca/Chloe have decided to portray as their future daughter.
The 2003 Peter Pan film inspired a lot of fics where Wendy goes back to Neverland as an adult and finds herself attracted to Captain Hook.
After the events of Deadpool 2, the titular character travels back in time to fix any mistake from any franchise. Of course, it's always a crossover story.
Mean Girls: In many fics, Regina is a closeted Armoured Closet Gay (or rarer, bisexual) who's in love with Janis (who is either bi or gay). The drift between the two came because of their budding feelings for one another.
The film's plot with an extra child. They're usually female and a love interest to Charlie.
Charlie and Wonka-centric fics set in the future. Some are platonic and some are Slash Fics.
Fics about what happened to the kids after they left the factory.
Flash Forward Fics where an adult Charlie holds a contest to look for a heir.
Joker (2019): Many fanfics explore the relationship between Arthur and Bruce (especially a teenaged Bruce). It's common for these fics to go with the theory that they're half-brothers.
Fan writers and artists for the The Dark Knight Trilogy of Nolanverse Batman will often try to incorporate their favourite Bat-Rogues in the style of that series — Harley Quinn in particular is popular.
The Hobbit fandom is rife with Fix Fics that make it so that Thorin, Kili, and Fili all survive the events of the Battle of the Five Armies and Bilbo chooses to stay in Erebor rather than return alone to the Shire. An especially popular subset of this plot is Bilbo or one of the dwarves being sent back in time to fix things.
For fic writers who want to stick closer to canon events but still give them a happier conclusion, a common alternative fix-it plot is to have Bilbo find some way to reunite with his dwarven friends after he dies despite hobbits and dwarves having separate afterlife places in the Tolkienverse.
A number of fics focus on Culture Clash between Bilbo and the dwarves with them humorously misunderstanding each other's cultural quirks, especially when it comes to courtship practices.
The "Cabbage Patch Hobbits" storyline where hobbits grow their children in their gardens as opposed to giving birth. Usually involves Bilbo growing a child of his and Thorin's after Thorin's presumed death.
The Shire AU has Thorin abdicating the throne in favour of his sister or nephew and settling down with Bilbo in the Shire.
Once Upon a Time in Mexico fandom features far too many fics involving Sands magically getting his sight back. Or to be more specific, his actual eyes.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire: Marianne/Héloïse is the fandom's OTP, even though in canon they end up as Star-Crossed Lovers. So, guess how many fanfics involve getting them back together.
Several The Rocky Horror Picture Show fanfics involve Dr. Frank N Furter being brought back to life or are simply AU fanfics in which he doesn't die in the first place.
More than a few pieces of Scream fanfiction bring back, in addition to Sidney, Gale and Dewey, Kirby from Scream 4, who like Agent Coulson above is never actually officially confirmed as gone in the movie. And in most cases she does not get Killed Off for Real by the end. Howevever, it was later revealed that she wasn't actually dead.
Sucker Punch's fanfics have Babydoll surviving the lobotomy with memories, or avoiding it altogether. There are also a few with Rocket surviving being stabbed (which is understandable since it was never shown where she was stabbed and it may not have been a fatal injury).
Out of the 900 or so fanfics for The Social Network, most are fix-it fics for Mark and Eduardo.
After the release of It: Chapter Two, the majority of the fandom collectively decided that Eddie actually doesn't die and instead divorces his wife and immediately flies to LA or Chicago to live with Richie. Bonus points if Stan isn't even mentioned in the fic but the author still makes it clear in their tags that he's also alive.
Most fanfiction based on the film will have Andy and Miranda meet up soon after Miranda's recommendation and reconnect on a more personal level. It's usually thanks to some meddling on the part of Nigel or the twins. The exact kind of relationship they form depends on the writer, though most will have the two get together romantically, either by finding out they have feelings for each other or by having them admit already existing ones. Some will have the two form a more Mother-Daughter bond, with Miranda encouraging Andy's feelings for another character.
Despite the film ending with her quitting, Andy returning to Runway to finish out the rest of the year is very popular in fanfiction, mainly as a way to keep the Runway characters in contact with Andy.
The Karate Kid: A fairly common plot is having Johnny (and sometimes the other Cobras) making amends with Daniel, begin training with Mr. Miyagi, and rewriting Parts 2and 3 with the inclusion of Johnny. Sometimes the plot even extends to rewriting Cobra Kai.
A lot of fan works have Professor Anemone be a Shipper on Deck for Professor Dovey and Lady Lesso. This often comes in the form of Anemone being the pair's confidant for their secret feelings for each other and/or coming up with elaborate plans to get them together. However, sometimes this is also just the work having Anemone tease them about how bad they are at hiding it.
Following the release of the movie, fics exploring Dovey and Lesso's years at school became very popular. This mainly comes in the form of having the two have unrequited (from their points of view) crushes on each other, or fics with the two dating in their youth.
Fics where Dovey learns that Rafal abused Lady Lesso when she was younger and spends an extended period of time comforting her are quite popular in fanfiction.
A recurring theme in The Ring fanart is to update the movie for the modern age by showing Sadako emerging slowly from a... smartphone screen, resulting in a Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl a few inches tall and consequently adorable. Others go the other way and show her emerging from a jumbotron, either for purposes of fighting Kaiju or Author Appeal.
Barbie (2023): Due to the popularity of the Barbie/Gloria ship, a lot of fanfics for this film have Gloria divorce her husband so that she can be with Barbie instead.
Saw: a significant portion of fics avert Adam's and Strahm's deaths by having Lawrence save Adam before Amanda can kill him or Strahm getting into the coffin, either because he listened to the tape fully or inadvertently during his fight with Hoffman (oftentimes getting stuck with Hoffman). Adam or Strahm becoming Jigsaw apprentices is optional. The ensuing Chainshipping and Coffinshipping, respectively, usually isn't.
Godzilla: One that's been surging in popularity within the last year (though has been around for quite some time prior) is the concept of the "Fangoji". The basic concept is the fan creates their own version of Godzilla in their own continuity (or, more rarely, a continuation, rewrite, or AU of a canon continuity). The concept stems from all the different canon versions of Godzilla, and the variety of different takes there have been on the character, prompting the fan to come up with their own. Common features within these fics include:
The fan creating fanart and visual designs for their versions of the kaiju.
