In Spite Of A Nail / Fan Works

Examples of In Spite of a Nail in fan works.

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Crossovers & Fusions

• Avenger of Steel: Although the Avengers and Superman are involved in stopping the Hand's schemes in New York, Matt Murdock still makes his public debut as Daredevil (initially wearing the suit during the Siege of Avengers Tower) to help capture Fisk.
• Avengers: Infinite Wars: A somewhat meta example occurs; despite the fact that Spider-Man obviously never saw the same film as he referenced in the Battle of Leipzig Airport, Spider-Man still uses a similar plan to stop the Zillo beast when it's rampaging through Coruscant as he used against Ant-Man during the aforementioned battle. As another "meta" example, during a later mission Peter is given the code-name "Night-Monkey". On a wider note, Anakin has a vision on Mortis which implies that, despite all of the new allies and enemies the Avengers have assembled, the events of Avengers: Infinity War and the Snap are still going to happen.
• Avengers of the Ring: Key Avengers assist in the quests of both trilogies (Wanda Maximoff joins the Company of Thorin Oakenshield and Steve Rogers, Thor and Bruce Banner assist the Fellowship of the Ring), but certain key events still play out as they did without the Avengers' aid, such as Bard killing Smaug or Gandalf bringing Eomer's forces to assist in the siege at Helm's Deep.
• BlazBlue Alternative: Remnant:
  • Even without Sun involved, the battle at the docks still happens, albeit with different people involved aside from Blake and Penny.
  • Despite not competing and being able to stay at Ruby's house, Penny still attends the Vytal Festival, her reasoning being that she wants to be there to support her friends.
  • Even with the different teams, Yang and Weiss are still the ones of their team to move to the doubles round and they still end up fighting Flynt and Neon like they did in canon. In addition, Yang still ends up fighting Mercury during the singles rounds and is still framed exactly the same way as she was in canon.
  • In the end, the events of the third volume still end with Blake running away, one of the main characters getting maimed (only in this case, it's Ruby rather than Yang) and having to stay home to recover, Roman getting killed, and Weiss being forced to return to Atlas.
  • Though the reasoning is different, Jaune, Ren, and Nora still journey across Anima following the events of V3.
• Boldores And Boomsticks: Faba still created Type: Null, even though the Ultra Beasts have been replaced by the Grimm.
• Code Prime: Whilst the presence of the Autobots ensures the survival of both the Yamato Alliance and the civilians of Saitama, Lelouch still ends up almost being found out by Cornelia and requiring external aid to escape.
  • Despite Lelouch taking precautions to keep his Geass from going out of control, and Euphemia being spared by the author, the SAZ Massacre still happens, but it's caused by a Pretender posing as Euphie, the real one kidnapped by the Decepticons.
• "darkly, darkly, dawn glittered in the sky" features Sansa Stark (Game of Thrones) being reincarnated as the twin sister of Lily Evans (Harry Potter). While this results in Severus Snape basically abandoning his birth family to be adopted by the Evans, he still ends up being sorted into Slytherin. Sansa reflects that where Severus would have previously been sorted into Slytherin because of his ambition to prove himself more than his father's son and the product of his mother's "mistake", he is now driven by ambition to prove himself as an Evans to the pure-bloods who might doubt his worth, Sansa musing that it will take years for Severus to move beyond the idea that he has to earn a place anywere.
• The Dragon and the Butterfly: Stoick still ventures to the Dragon's Nest woefully unprepared despite the different circumstances behind him meeting the Red Death.
  • The Dragon and the Butterfly: Whiteout: Despite the lack of a Dragon Eye and Dragon Hunters necessitating a trip to the "great beyond", Berk still established an outpost that would become Dragon's Edge. In this case, it's used by Fishlegs as a summer camp for young Berk children.
• In the Sonic the Hedgehog and DCAMU crossover Flashpoint 2: Advent Solaris, despite Barry's latest flashpoint causing a timeline that results in the Sonic the Hedgehog characters existing (talking, anthropomorphic animals and all) in addition to the continents of the Earth being in different shapes, not only do Barry and Iris still exist, but they also still evidently have their usual jobs and Barry's mother even met apparently the same fate.
• A Hero's Wrath:
  • While he has powers here, Izuku is still technically quirkless.
  • Despite the fact that Izuku was born with powers in this continuity, Bakugo still thinks that Izuku not having a quirk makes him a useless deku who couldn't be a hero.
• The House of Elendil:
  • In the backstory, Elendil supported Rhaenyra in the Dance of the Dragons, and she lived to become Queen of Westeros, but it hasn't butterflied the history of Westeros in any way. This is in part because this was published before The Princess and the Queen, when little was known about the Dance of the Dragons, and in part because all canon Targaryen kings descend from Rhaenyra's bloodline anyway.
  • Despite the establishment of a royal army led by good old Ned (not to mention the presence of several Numenoreans) Ned is still taken captive (he is busted out but then recaptured), although he does keep his head.
• The Infinite Loops: Loops have this hardcoded into their premise. An anchor is intended to stabilize a universe, no matter how many variant loops it goes through, although the Anchor can sometimes replace other characters within a Loop, so they aren't always playing the same role. Also, Fused Loops can have non-native Anchors present. There are also a running gag in some Loops where a specific event happens no matter what other things occur:
  • In the My Little Pony Loops, no matter what Twilight does, her library will end up being destroyed by the end of the Loop.
  • In the Star Wars Loops, Barriss Offee will always end up dying in some manner before the Loop ends.
• Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail: The author notes reveal that despite Chloe getting on the Infinity Train, the episodes starting from Episode 29 (which is a Chloe focused episode) still happen in some capacity. After Ash learns that Goh knows about the Infinity Train — which was something he's not supposed to know, else the fear of him trying to enter it to save Chloe. But since Chloe doesn't want to see Goh again, it would probably keep her trapped forever — along with Trip having called him out on never doing more to help Chloe^ExplanationAll Ash did was just ask Chloe to come along and not go past that and his only information about her came from Goh who is not the most reliable source of info out there and Trip has pointed out that Ash went an extra mile for everyone else in his life, he finally breaks down and ask if things could've gone different if he did something more. Trip sadly notes that with how Goh and Chloe's problems go back years, Ash probably wouldn't have been able to change things either way.
• Jaune Arc, Lord of Hunger (RWBY & Star Wars): At the climax, the Fall of Beacon goes very differently due to Nihilus' role in the story, but several details persist: Penny is still trashed, Pyrrha is still killed near the battle's end, Ruby still unlocks her Silver Eyes in response to Pyrrha's death, and a member of Team RWBY (not Yang losing her arm this time) still suffers life-changing injuries at Adam's blade. In the aftermath, Beacon Academy is still put out of commission by the Fall, and Team RWBY still gets broken up with Blake running away and Weiss being sent to Atlas (both under markedly different circumstances than in canon).
• Despite the Britannian Empire not being a thing in the world of Justice Society of Japan, Lelouch is still Zero, he still works with C.C., he still has a Geass, and he's still the head of a mercenary company known as the Black Knights. The reasons for this are, as of now, unknown.
• Know Thyself: the Prelude: While Neo isn't the One and it is implied that Agent Smith hasn't been destroyed yet, he and Trinity still become an Official Couple and Cypher still betrayed them and killed Apoc and Switch.
• Kyon: Big Damn Hero: Practically every world Michikyuu Kanae has been to contains Kyon, and generally Haruhi.
• Lost in Camelot;
  • Although Kilgharrah states that Bo being sent back to Camelot will heal the rift in the world that would have been created from her being sent to the future, and thus change what would have happened, so far most of the major threats from the series have happened as they did originally. The only obvious difference is that some events haven't occurred in the same order as in the original show (Aredian comes to Camelot after Freya's death rather than before, as an example).
  • Invoked when Merlin notes that he would have had feelings for Morgana whether or not Bo was present in Camelot; the only difference her presence made was that she gave her partners the courage to act on their feelings, Merlin openly confessing that he doubts he would have had the nerve to actually tell Morgana how he felt on his own given her social status.
• Lulu's Bizarre Rebellion:
  • Unable to give Lelouch a geass, C.C seeks out Nunally and gives her the exact same geass Lelouch received in canon.
  • There is still a "massacre princess" incident, but it's caused by the rogue Stand Anubis, not a geass and since the general public knows about Stands, none of the controlled people are considered at fault.
  • Villeta still gets stuck in the persona of a woman named Chigusa, but it's because of vampire Kusakabe's Stand turning her Japanese.
• The Mountain and the Wolf: The first chapters involved the Wolf showing up and essentially kill-stealing various character shortly before they would have died anyway, so very little changes in the overall plot. Things only start changing in the later chapters, where the Wolf's interference results in several characters being spared their canon deaths and abducted for some nefarious purpose.
  • Notably, Daenerys still attacks King's Landing, although due to a spell misattributed to Cersei, but doesn't do as much damage due to being driven off by the sound of the bells. She also ends up killed in front of the Iron Throne, but this time Jon had nothing to do with it.
• My Miraculous Academia: Despite being on opposite sides and Izuku having the Butterfly Miraculous, Izuku and Ochako still win the Heroes Vs. Villains exercise.
• Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!: Izuku's origins and powers are radically different thanks to arriving on Earth as Kal-El. Despite winning the Superpower Lottery, he's still lonely and a Nervous Wreck out of guilt and fear after he nearly kills Bakugou as a child. When he does get to U.A., his costume still has the bunny-eared hood designed after All Might's hair despite the Kryptonian elements incorporated into it.
• The Twilight/Titanic (1997) fic "Never Letting Go" sees Jack and Rose swap times and places with Bella and Edward, leaving Bella and Edward in Rose’s stateroom on the night of the sinking. Apart from Jack surviving and Rose joining him in the future, it appears that the sinking as a whole unfolded as it always did, with no clear sign that Edward’s presence on the ship saved anyone new (he insisted that Bella take a lifeboat but remained behind to go down with the ship until he and other survivors were rescued).
• New Vegas Showtime: Despite Ryuji taking the Courier's place as the latest of Think Tank's abductees, the events (at least initially) unfold more or less as in canon, implying there's something special about Ryuji's brain, equivalent to the Courier's brain damage from the double tap.
• In the Shadow of the Moon: Homura Akemi lives in the Moon Kingdom and Walpurgisnacht doesn't exist. But Madoka still dies, and Homura still goes demon. Homura herself lampshades this trope, insisting that the narrator (Sailor Venus) cannot help her and shouldn't feel guilty about that.
• Remnant Inferis: DOOM: Despite initiation not even taking place in this fic, the Beacon teams still form exactly as they did in canon. The Doom Slayer suspects that the teams turned out as they did because Ozpin deliberately set them up that way.
• Shinji And Warhammer 40 K is an inversion of this. It isn't the fanfic that needed the nail, it was canon. It still plays the first several Angels almost completely to canon (with minor changes in character attitudes and relationships and much greater levels of awesomeness) but at about Chapters 15 to 20, depending on the reader, it suddenly stops being anything close to canon. Probably best summed up with the following line.
  Shinji: Then hear my command. Send the assassins. Plant the evidence. All the things we talked about before...let it be done...Begin The Purge. Protect my city.
• Shinobi of the High Seas takes In Spite of a Nail to ridiculous extremes. Despite Naruto being there and regularly interacting with the Straw Hats (including adding Nami and Robin to his harem), every major event of the anime/manga happens without fail, even if he's there. It's to the point he completely misses the entire Marineford arc, only hearing of it second-hand.
• A Special Kind of Magic: Sword Art Online exists in both the MCU and Ren's home universe, despite the wildly different histories and timelines.
• Take the Pain Away (Amphibia & The Owl House): Similarly to in "Young Blood, Old Souls", Lilith has an internal Heel Realization in Belos' presence and pretends until Belos has left that she'll go along with his orders (here, the Realization is instead prompted by Lilith discovering that Belos is performing atrociously cruel experiments on Marcy). Also like in "Young Blood, Old Souls", this prompts Lilith to pull a Heel–Face Turn which involves her attempting a rescue of Belos' prisoner (Marcy), flying away from Belos' castle (on Lilith's staff instead of Eda's Owl Beast form), and effectively becoming a fugitive living at the Owl House in the aftermath.
• There Was Once an Avenger From Krypton: According to Azmuth, despite the circumstances always differing in how he acquires the Omnitrix, Ben's first alien is always Pyronite (except for the reboot where Ben's first alien is Fourarms). This is even the case for counterparts in universes where the species doesn't exist.
• Total Loud Island: Even with Lincoln and Dawn's effects on Total Drama Island, they can't be in two places at once. Other times their actions don't have that big an effect on the plot. For example...
  • Despite paralyzing Heather, thus preventing the Killer Bass hunters from shooting Heather, Leshawna, Beth and Lindsay in an ambush and allowing Beth to shoot Sadie, Edward can't stop Cody from being mauled by a bear, nor could the Killer Bass just not find other deer. As such, the Screaming Gophers still lose the challenge and Cody is sent home because of his injuries.
  • While the Killer Bass have a better night camping in "The Sucky Outdoors" thanks to Dawn's tarp, Katie and Sadie still get lost in the woods, thus costing them the challenge.
  • Even with the different character interactions, different alliances and new challenges, most of the story beats of the original series are still followed. Ezekiel, Noah, Justin, Katie, Izzy, Cody, Beth, Sadie, Harold, Eva (the second time), Bridgette, and Lindsay are eliminated in the same episode as in canon, Heather still forms an alliance with Lindsey and Beth, Beth still takes the cursed tiki doll from Boney Island, most of the challenges and objectives are still done by the same characters and some of the challenges are even won in the same way as in canon.
  • Even with Geoff being eliminated early and Lincoln not being on his side, Duncan still forms the Guy's Alliance. This time, the alliance works, whether due to Courtney being Duncan's mole or just good luck. But even then, after "Hide and be Sneaky", not a single guy was eliminated.
• Khaos Omega invokes one in a story set during the events of Yu-Gi-Oh GX: Anise (replacing Jaden, who thanks to a Meme Storm tangent is an Obelisk girl named Jade) is determined to avoid the Abandoned Dorm Incident fearing a Meme Storm-activated reincarnation tangent happens. Crowler and Titan, respectively the mastermind and instigator of the incident in both canon and the tangent Anise wants to avoid, willingly align with her. Unfortunately, someone else overheard Titan's end of the call behind his aligning with Anise and took it upon themselves to make the incident happen anyway. To make matters worse for Anise, the new instigator's deck even included some cards to ensure one particular reincarnate met the requirements to trigger the condition codenamed '2811 Aether'. On learning just who the particular reincarnate is (the one friend of hers from her five-year stint at an otherworld brothel during her days thinking she was an orphan who actually saw the arrival of Fontina Evans the day after she left) via eavesdropping on a meeting involving the incident's four victims at the suggestion of a DAS member, her fury at the instigator is so high she fires an energy storm so massive she nearly rips an entire multiverse apart. At least said energy storm enabled her to finally fully burn off the Mark II curse tied into "2811 Aether".
  • The energy surge was picked up by Kaiba, bringing him to Central much like the origin of the tangent in play. Not long afterwards, the substitute opponent suddenly breaks out of the Shadow Realm, bringing all the missing students with him. Mentioning his Meme Storm shield (codenamed 'Future Past') causes Anise to realize the individual is an 'agent-in-place', and had waited to round up all the missing students so he could break all of them out in one go (having forcibly triggered the incident as an excuse to be sent into the Shadow Realm to initiate the rescue to begin with).
• Switch The Colors:
  • Despite how radically different this version of Izuku is, All Might still encounters him and decides to give him "One For All".
  • Bakugo still hates Izuku, but while in canon it was for his quirklessness and whatever "undeserved cockiness" he had in spite of this, here it's because of his "copycat" quirk.
• Thousand Shinji: In spite of his completely different upbringing, new powers and improved relationships with the remaining main characters, Shinji was unable to avert most of tragedies: Touji still got crippled when Bardiel hijacked an Eva, he himself still got stuck inside Unit-01, Asuka still was mind-raped by Arael, Rei still blew up when she fought Armisael and Third Impact still happened.
• The Senshi Files: Despite Harry adopting Makoto Kino shortly after the events of Storm Front, the basic canon of the Dresden-verse seems to be unchanged. Justified in that the earlier plots tend to happen to Dresden, rather than as a result of him, and the story itself being focused on the Tokyo end of things.
• Where the Sunlight Ends
  • Despite Norman being cured in No Way Home, Harry still adopts the New Goblin persona, albeit as a full-blown superhero.
  • In Peter Three's universe, Gwen Stacy is still dead, which weighs heavily on Peter Three.
• WonderShock: Despite the story being set in the Bioshock universe, everything that took place in American McGee's Alice and Alice: Madness Returns happened exactly the same way as they did in their games, with the only things changing being that the real-world settings were in Rapture rather than England. Though this is justified due to the games taking place in Alice's mind, so not much in Rapture would have any affect on them.
• Loki'd, Loki learns he is a Frost Giant centuries sooner than in Marvel Cinematic Universe cannon after Hiccup becomes his chosen. Despite his knowledge of his adoption, the events of Film/Thor play out the same. Hiccup becomes immortal and thus is able to live to modern times and is able to take part in the events of most of the Phase One movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Despite Hiccup's presence and being named Tony Stark's godfather rather than Obadiah Stane, the events of Captain America: The First Avenger and Iron Man remain largely unchanged. Iron Man II is when some changes start to happen with even more happening in The Avengers (2012).

A-D

Ace Attorney

• A Complete Turnabout: While the non-DL6 world is completely different from the one we know some things don't change. Phoenix and Iris still meet and fall in love, Phoenix and Maya still become friends, SL-9 still happens and Karma still kills Gregory Edgeworth although much later.

Animorphs

• All Assorted Animorphs AUs:
  • It takes the Animorphs longer to figure out how to defeat Visser Three in "What if Eva was never a controller?" because they don't have an inside source on Yeerk politics, but most of the people who died in the last two books still die in this universe.
  • In "What if they rescued Alloran in #8?", it's mentioned that the Earth invasion is scarily efficient now that Visser One is in charge. Despite this, the Animorphs are still able to save Eva, and Tom still has to die.
  • Elfangor stayed as a human in "What if Elfangor and Loren raised Tobias?", so Mertil and Gafinilan end up creating the Animorphs instead.
  • "What if Ax joined the team in the first book?" stays very close to the canon timeline after the events of the first book, with the only change being Ax is an Authority in Name Only when they have to deal with Andalites.
• "What if Tom was never a Controller?": Even though Jake's motivation to join the war in canon was to save Tom, which obviously doesn't apply here, the events of the first five books play out mostly the same.
• Unlike in canon, The Word of Your Body's version of Rachel knows what she wants to do after the war: get hormone replacement and breast implants. She still dies on a suicide mission.

Arrowverse

• Vigilantes' Dawn:
  • The Lances still get divorced, despite Dinah Lance not having the angst of knowingly allowing Sara to go on the Gambit and not telling anyone (as it was Laurel Oliver invited instead, which was presumably planned and told to her parents). This is even lampshaded by Laurel, who wonders if there were some underlying problems in her parents' marriage that she didn't notice before she left. More likely, Dinah just couldn't deal with Quentin's alcoholism while in the throws of her own grief.
  • Thus far, the story follows Stations of the Canon in regards to Season One, though there are changes that are beginning to snowball into greater ones.
  • Felicity Smoak still gets recruited into Team Arrow, and is ultimately interested in working with them for the same reason — find Walter.
  • Though Thea ends up doing her community service at an animal shelter in the Glades, and isn't with Laurel when it happens, Roy still tries to steal her purse, Thea gets him caught and then ends up not wanting him charged because of his sob story. They still end up dating, more or less as they did in canon.
  • Though the circumstances are very different, Team Arrow still breaks into Merlyn Global to get Felicity access to Merlyn's servers.
  • One of the two Markov devices is disarmed, and the other still goes off, though the circumstances are different.

Avatar: The Last Airbender

• Absolute Trust:
  • During the events of "The Deserter," Alec keeps Aang from blowing his cover on stage. Unfortunately, Chey loudly mentioning that Aang is the Avatar causes Zhao to find them only one day later than in canon.
  • Alec defuses all of the conflict between Toph and the Gaang, meaning she never runs away and meets Iroh. Yet when they, Zuko, and Iroh have Azula cornered and she brings up that Alec redirected her lightning, a technique that Iroh himself created, he looks at Alec in askance, giving Azula the opening to attack Iroh.
  • Alec prevents Appa's kidnapping at the hands of the sandbenders. But Alec still leads the Gaang to stop by Full Moon Bay to recruit Suki early, meaning they still meet Than, Ying, and Asha. And when their things are stolen, they quickly go through the options: talk to the ticket lady? No chance. Use the Beifong clout? No animals allowed; she could bluff about Momo, but not Appa. Fly Appa across? Not safe for a pregnant woman. Float Appa across? Predators in the water. Send Appa across to wait for them? He flew too much yesterday. In the end, there's no choice but to go through the Serpent's Pass.
  • Alec prevents almost every bad thing that happened in or around Ba Sing Se, including Appa's kidnapping, Toph's kidnapping, and Azula infiltrating disguised as a Kyoshi Warrior. But the Dai Li remained loyal to Long Feng, and that was the only loose end needed to ensure that the city still fell to the Fire Nation. And similarly, Iroh still stays behind to help the Gaang escape.

Battlestar Galactica (2003)

• "The Other Side of Dawn" depicts a world where Laura Roslin enlisted in the fleet with her childhood friends William Adama and Saul Tigh, rising to the position of XO on the Pegasus before the Cylon attacks. Despite this and other changes (such as Tom Zarek being the Secretary of Labour), the events of the series play out basically as in canon up until Pegasus and Galactica reunite (Laura was injured in the attacks and so the officer who was XO in canon took her place for a time).
• "Starting Over" is set in a world where Lee Adama ran away from home when he was a teenager, starting a chain of events that result in Zak never going into flight school even if he still joins the Colonial fleet as an officer. After Lee is found on another ship in the fleet after the Cylon attack, he still ends up becoming a pilot with the callsign "Apollo" and ultimately falls in love with Kara. By the time the fleet has found New Caprica, although some people (such as Gaeta) have died where they survived in canon, in general the fleet is in the same situation it was at this point in the show (although Zak is the commander of Pegasus rather than Lee).

Bleach

• Vow of the King:
  • Even though Yhwach is long dead, Masaki was still eaten by Grand Fisher as her powers hadn't properly returned yet.
  • Ganju still messes up the kido chant for the Flower Crane Cannon even though the others aren't bickering. Instead, the problem is caused by him having smudged his notes.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

• In All These Things That I've Done, depicting a world where Angelus was never cursed because the clan was killed before the spell could be cast, the Scooby Gang still exist as they did originally, and after Janna Kalderash provides the curse to give them an edge by using it on Angelus, Buffy still ends up falling for Angel.
• The Angel series "Another Hero" begins with Cordelia using her dying moments to go back in time and save Doyle's life, also giving him a generalised 'download' of the major events of the future so that Doyle will be able to stop the gang falling as far as they did originally. However, although aware of the risks of some parts of the future taking place, Doyle actively tries to ensure Connor's birth in "Season Two" as he feels the baby was the one good part of the future, only to learn after the fact that his efforts to 'lead' Angel to Darla caused Cordelia to miscarry their own child.

Coco

• Dead Men Tell Tales: In spite of Hector figuring out from the very beginning how he died unlike what happened in canon, Ernesto is still adored by the living and Hector is still unable to cross the marigold bridge.

Code Geass

• In Dauntless (Allora Gale), the "Nail" is Clovis discovering Lelouch is alive, reuniting him with the Britannian royal family. Though a lot of things do change, Lelouch still makes contact with C.C. and still gets his Geass.
• In Lelouch of the Apotheosis, despite C.C. also bearing the mantle of Zero and being an Ace Pilot to put all others to shame, Kallen still pilots the Guren while C.C. uses a Gekka. C.C. justifies it by stating the Guren's more aggressive fighting style doesn't suit her as well as it does Kallen.

Danganronpa

• "and back into despair again": Despite the casts of the first two games switching places, Sonia Nevermind, Akane Owari, and Yasuhiro Hagakure still make it to the end of their respective stories alive.
• In spite of major troublemaker Komaeda being much saner, and by extension, much less troublesome during Point of Divergence, several events still turn out the same.
  • Chapter 1's murder happens in roughly the same way.
  • Togami still dies in Chapter 1.
  • Komaeda is still kidnapped in Chapter 2.
  • Chapter 2's murder still heavily involves Twilight Syndrome Murder Mystery.
  • Someone still tries to kill themselves in chapter 3.
  • Akane and Komaeda both get despair fever in Chapter 3.
  • Chapter 3's murderer has the exact same motive as their counterpart in canon, with the major change being that it's not Mikan.
  • Chapter 4 still involves a suicide pact.
  • Komaeda goes into the Final Dead Room in Chapter 4.
  • Komaeda dies in chapter 5 from suicide.
  • Chapter 6 is roughly the same as canon.
• In spite of Hajime actually being an Ultimate Student in Valhalla's Angel, some things haven't changed.
  • Hajime and Chiaki still bond over video games.
  • Fuyuhiko, Hiyoko, Mahiru, Sonia, and Mikan are still the only students who attend class every day before Chisa shows up.
  • Chiaki still becomes Class Rep, only this time, Hajime and Kazuichi share the role with her.
• Alternative Class Despair has a lot of these moments in spite of the two classes having their roles swapped around.
  • Junko is still the Mastermind behind the Tragedy and the killing games.
  • Additionally, Junko still backstabs Mukuro, albeit nonfatally this time.
  • The Imposter is the first victim, and Teruteru is his killer.
  • In addition, Teruteru is killed via being cooked alive.
  • Fuyuhiko still loses an eye.
  • Mikan and Hiyoko still die in Chapter Three only their roles are reversed.
  • Kazuichi still makes it to the end of his killing game.
  • In spite of Makoto being dead, Komaru still becomes the hero of Towa City.

Danny Phantom

• Anathema looks at Dark Danny's life after his creation in the dark future witness in "Ultimate Enemy", which reveals that Vlad was still able to create his various clones of Danny, trying to use them to stop Dark Danny in combat (only for even Danielle to die when she destroys herself using the Ghostly Wail against Dark Danny).
• Shown in the Facing the Future Series where, despite Danny preventing the Bad Future in "The Ultimate Enemy," Skulker and Technus still end up joining forces to form SkulkTech. When this is pointed out, the subject of whether or not Box Lunch will be born also came up, much to the disgust of Danny, Sam, and Tucker.

Death Note

• In the Role Swap AU Superhero, despite Sayu not falling for the fake L's taunts like her brother did in canon, the real L still figures out that Kira is in Shinjuku, because the news of Otoharada Kurou, Sayu's first victim, was only broadcasted in that prefecture.

The DCU

• Daughter of Fire and Steel: Despite Kara's presence and aid during the Kryptonian invasion, everything ends the same way as in Man of Steel; Zod is killed, the World Engine is destroyed, and the rest of the Black Zero's crew get sent back to the Phantom Zone.
• In Hellsister Trilogy, the Anti-Monitor was defeated in the Crisis on Infinite Earths, but several events, such as an army of villains coming together to conquer several realities, still happen.
• Parodied in Kara of Rokyn. Although the Crisis on Infinite Earths is averted and the subsequent multiversal upheaval affects the Watchmen Earth deeply, some deaths are impossible to prevent. Like John Lennon's: "The Comedian died, as did the original Nite Owl. So did John Lennon. Nobody could do anything about those."
• In Supergirl (2015) fanfic Survivors, Superman doesn't introduce Kara to the Danvers but she meets them anyway. Kal-El isn't found by the Kents but his cousin settles on Clark for his Earth name. And Kara eventually becomes Supergirl.
• To Hell and Back (Arrowverse):
  • Even with the presence of Barry and Kara and the lack of Sara, Shado still dies from a gunshot wound.
  • Replacing Oliver with Slade in his non-Lian Yu adventures only changes the ultimate outcome of one of said adventures. Also, despite the Mirakuru no longer driving him insane, Slade is still forced to leave behind his biological son Joe.

Doctor Who

• In "Jack of All Trades", despite history having changed so that the Time War was never fought, the Eighth Doctor still ends up travelling with Rose Tyler and Jack Harkness.
• In Last of the Time Lords, even though the Tenth Doctor is Killed Off for Real in "The End of Time" because he ran out of regenerations in this fanfic and the Master doesn't end up on Gallifrey so he gets the TARDIS to oversee the Doctor's dying wishes, the time machine still crashes in little Amelia Pond's backyard in 1996 and the Master investigates Prisoner Zero and the crack in the wall while waiting for the TARDIS to fix itself. This is despite the lack of a powerful regeneration from the Doctor or similar kind of incident to damage the console room/engines that would necessitate the events of "The Eleventh Hour". It's implied that the TARDIS crashed there on purpose to kickstart everything that happens in the story.

Dragon Ball

• In Legend of the Monkey God, Bulma still spends a considerable amount of time dressed as a bunnygirl despite Oolong not coming with her and Goku, and the Pilaf Gang not managing to blow up their car. Instead, Oolong stole several of Bulma's dyno-caps along with all her clothes, leaving behind fetish gear instead. Bulma chose the bunnygirl outfit as it was the least risque.
• In The Warrior's Daughter, it is Bulla instead of Trunks who goes back to the past in the Android/Cell Arc, and her presence sets off a lot of changes. Nevertheless, Gohan still is the one who kills Cell, Vegeta's child dies during the final battle, and their death leads Vegeta to reconsider his own behavior.

E-H

Encanto

• How Far Do These Roots Go Down?:
  • Pepa still marries Félix and Julieta still marries Agustín.
  • The Madrigal who can see the future is still the Black Sheep and shattered the prophecy to protect Mirabel.
  • Mirabel does not get a gift.
• Returning Home: With Mirabel's disappearance, things in the Encanto play out virtually the same as they did in canon, though this time it's Julieta who snaps and dresses Alma down, resulting in Casita's collapse and the miracle disappearing.

Fairy Tail

• The Alternate Tail Series, despite the change in cast, still has the plot stick towards The Stations of the Canon. Though there are a few notable examples.
  • The main cast still takes the Galuna Island S-Class job, partially because Pantherlily is after an Anima forming above it.
  • Even with Lisanna alive^note Or rather, never sent to Edolas and everyone in Earthland thinking she was dead, Elfman is still traumatized from using Full-Body Takeover Magic, albeit because when Mira jumped in to protect Lisanna it left them both injured for weeks.
  • A zigzagged trope. In the S-Class Trial, the participants face off in entirely different matches in the first round than canon, with the exception of Gajeel and Lily (in place of Natsu and Happy) versus Gildarts. However, the passing candidates (Gajeel, Lyon, Cana, Lucy, and Elfman) are the exact role counterparts to the ones in Fairy Tail (That being Natsu, Gray, Cana, Levy, and Elfman).
• In The S-Class Mage, a work where Earthland Lucy looks and acts like Edolas Lucy and thus joins Fairy Tail years ahead of canon and rises to S-Class, things still happen more or less the same way as they did in canon, and where it diverts, it diverts in a way that benefits the protagonists. For example, Simon survives the Tower of Heaven arc, and Jellal's name is cleared at the end of the Oracion Seis arc.

Fate Series

• Passing Days shows that despite Vy's best efforts, Dr. Roman still passes at the end of Part 1 and the Lostbelts start with all the Servants being unsummoned from Chaldea. It's also implied that a majority of the Lostbelts still end the way they do in canon.

Fire Emblem

• Despite Byleth's best efforts, Lord Lonato still dies in Fire Emblem: Three Houses: Fifth Path, though his manner of death (being shot through the head by a soldier working for the Flame Emperor as opposed to being killed by one of the students) is different.

For Better or for Worse

• Foobar: Try as Elly might to use magic to make her future better, her very limited ability to influence events (and ignorance of the fact that her victims are aware of what she's trying to do) results in only a minor change in her surroundings. Said minor change is a true awareness of how damaged she is.

Friends

• "Beautiful Release" shows a world where Ross and Rachel are still married to Carol and Barry respectively, Rachel having never left her wedding and Carol never realising her sexuality. Despite this, Chandler and Monica are still engaged by the time that would have been the events of the seventh season, and when Ross and Rachel run into each other at a dinner, they have a brief affair before both decide to leave their spouses, Monica giving Rachel a job and Phoebe providing her a place to live. Despite the different circumstances of them coming together, Ross and Monica each reflect that Rachel joining the group has in some way made it feel complete beyond her just evening the male/female ratio; in the penultimate chapter, Rachel muses on a recent moment when it was just her, Chandler and Joey in Central Perk, observing that it actually wasn’t as awkward as she’d expected despite her relative lack of contact with those two.
• "The One With the Thanksgiving Kiss" creates a world where Monica and Chandler have had a complex on-off near-relationship since early in the first season, which led to Ross and Rachel starting to date earlier than in canon and thus avoiding breaking up after "The Break". Despite these changes, Chandler and Monica still make their relationship official while Ross is getting married in London, and two of the gang get married in Vegas a year later, although this time around Ross marries Rachel in London and the Vegas wedding is between Chandler and Phoebe (Phoebe was trying to help Chandler get over his fear of marriage and he was drunk enough to believe her argument that a marriage in Vegas was only valid in Vegas).
• In TO On the Streets, despite Monica having been kicked out by Judy when she turns eighteen, she still ends up meeting Phoebe and falling in love with Chandler.

Futurama

• Love Can Surprise You At Any Time In Your Life diverges from Bender's Big Score onward by revealing Leela is pregnant with Lars' baby. The fic begins right before The Beast with a Billion Backs and continues throughout that movie, but most of the canon plot points are maintained, albeit kept to the sideline if Leela isn't directly involved. While Leela gets too sick to continue through the Deathball game, Planet Express still wins the right to research the anomaly; Fry's relationships with Colleen and Yivo still continue, albeit with more focus on Leela's feelings about them; Bender's subplot still occurs, albeit largely offscreen, with the only difference being that he now talks about Leela's pregnancy while Leela, Amy, and Zapp hide in Destructinator; Kif still dies (with his death being a plot point in convincing Leela to keep her baby); and Amy and Zapp still sleep together, albeit with a slightly different buildup and follow-up.

Game of Thrones / A Song of Ice and Fire

• Purple Days: Being a fic where there's a "Groundhog Day" Loop, there's quite a bit of this. Notably, it's very damn difficult for Joffrey to avoid the War of the Five Kings or a parallel breaking out due to the schemers of King's Landing, or to avoid Ned Stark dying. And Robert is pretty much already a dead man walking before the loop starts because even without the boar and wine that caused his death in the original timeline, Robert's body is simply too unhealthy thanks to indulging in all kinds of bad habits over the last 15 years to keep going for much longer by the starting point of the loop.
• My Father's Son: Despite one of the "proximate" causes of Robert's Rebellion being removed, this still isn't enough to change some things.
  • Though the realm would have a "legal" matter of Lyanna marrying Rhaegar, a series of events would still cascade into Rebellion, as Rickard and Brandon are still killed by Aerys.
  • Lysa Tully is married to the Lord of the Vale to ensure a political alliance for a war.
  • Jaime Lannister is still proclaimed a Kingslayer. Though this time, he gets it to protect Rhealla from being named a Kinslayer.
  • The Greyjoys still do a rebellion.
  • A bit earlier than in canon, but Catelyn Stark is still killed in a surprise attack sponsored by the Lannisters.
• The Peggy Sue fic There and Back Again has several to go along with the Point of Divergence changes.
  • Syrio Forel is hired by Ned Stark to train Arya.
  • Renly marries Margaery Tyrell; this time, it's Robert's idea so he can get Renly and the Tyrells off his back about marrying Margaery after the Lannister incest is revealed.
  • Jaime loses the use of his sword hand; it isn't cut off, but instead badly broken to the point that one of his fingers needs to be amputated.
  • Viserys is still marrying Daenerys to Khal Drogo.
  • Rattleshirt winds up getting killed by Tormund.
  • Jon receives a slash to his face near one of his eyes, this time from a White Walker.
  • Cersei gets most of her hair cut off.
  • It's not at the level the War of the Five Kings was in the original timeline, but Petyr Baelish still effectively kicks off a Succession Crisis and Civil War between the Baratheons and the Lannisters over the Iron Throne.
• In the new timeline Catelyn brings about in What If...? Catelyn Tully, Lyanna Stark may have gotten married to a different man (Jaime Lannister, to be precise) but still ends up giving birth to a baby boy with brown hair and grey eyes named Jon. This causes Cat (who had brought this new timeline about by making a wish that her original fiance Brandon wasn't killed) to realize that the Jon of the original timeline is actually her and Ned's nephew through Lyanna and Rhaegar, which not only means all her ire at him was unfounded but also makes her wish (which she made out of anger after a big argument with Ned over Jon) All for Nothing.

Gargoyles

• In the fic "Guardian of the People", although Elisa is now a gargoyle herself and has been since birth, she and Goliath still meet when he saves her life after she falls off Wyvern because she was initially so shocked at the sight of another of her kind that she didn't adjust her fall to try and glide to safety until she was too far down to do anything on her own.

Good Omens

• Shifting Heaven and Earth: Crowley didn't Fall and is instead an angel named Kralel who idolizes Gabriel and is sent to Earth to spy on Aziraphale who he looks down on for being potentially corrupted. Despite this, he and Aziraphale become good friends like in canon and he eventually Falls, adopts the demon name of Crowley, and helps Aziraphale thwart the Apocalypse. The summary of the Apocalypse-that-almost-was even lists all the major things that still remained the same in spite of Crowley and Aziraphale's different backgrounds.

Gravity Falls

• Reunion Falls:
  • While Wendy knew Dipper's real age and their relationship is a solid "brother/sister" dynamic, Dipper still lies about his age to join Wendy's friends like in "The Inconveniencing".
  • While he doesn't hide his birthmark with a hat, D​ipper still goes by "Dipper."

Harry Potter

• In the Adam Winters series, where Harry Potter's death is faked and he is raised under the name 'Adam Winters', the events of the first two books still take place basically as they did in canon, as does the Triwizard Tournament (apart from 'Adam' not taking part in the Tournament himself). Lupin, Moody, and Umbridge all take on their roles as Defence professor a year later than they did in canon, and Sirius escapes a year 'late' because he sees a different photo of Scabbers (this one showing the Weasleys at the World Cup rather than after winning the prize draw), but the general details remain the same, even if Adam has a significantly different academic career than Harry as he starts Hogwarts basically a year later.
• In "Breaking the Window", a chain of events led to Hermione (from just after the final battle) making contact with Bellatrix Black from thirty years in the past. Initially, Hermione is uncertain about using this contact to try and change Bellatrix's history, particularly as Bellatrix explicitly asked to be told nothing about her future, but as time goes on, Hermione's memories start to slightly change, such as now recalling Bellatrix blaming her for something while she was being tortured in Malfoy Manor. When Hermione and Bella are drawn into 2001 — thirty-three years in Bellatrix's future and three years in Hermione's — after a trip through the fairy hole they were using to communicate, Hermione's memories alter so that Rudolphous Lestrange is now the one who committed most of Bellatrix's original crimes, such as beating Hermione at Malfoy Manor and killing Lupin, Hermione's goal in talking to Bellatrix now intended to save her from her mysterious disappearance and likely death rather than to stop her becoming a Death Eater. Further changes emerge as they spend more time in the new future, such as Lavender now being in a trauma-induced coma since being attacked by Fenrir Greyback during the Battle of Hogwarts and Hermione apparently not knowing Tonks that well (although Tonks is still alive in this timeline), but the general details of the war remained intact.
• The Chosen Six:
  • Prior to Harry attending Hogwarts, Dumbledore introduces various reforms, including helping Professor Binns pass on and hiring Professor Rogers as the new History of Magic teacher. Students tend to find the course boring all the same.
  • Accidental magic still ends up being used to get revenge on a bully during Dudley's trip to the zoo for his eleventh birthday. Specifically, Dudley himself ends up using his magic to trap his former friend Piers Polkiss in the monkey exhibit, as the latter purposely pretended to still be the former's friend to enjoy a free trip to the zoo while giving the former a hard time.
  • Despite being much better at flying due to having practiced at Remus's magical preschool, Neville still has trouble controlling his broomstick during his first lesson at Hogwarts and ends up losing his Remembrall in the process. Madam Hooch reassures him that it was caused solely by faulty school equipment and that he did nothing wrong.
  • Related to the above, Harry still becomes the Gryffindor seeker after one of the teachers sees his natural talent for flying when he catches Neville's Remembrall. The difference here is that Madam Hooch is the one who sees him catch it after it falls out of Neville's pocket when the latter was having trouble with his broomstick, whereas in canon, Professor McGonagall sees him catch it after Malfoy steals and drops it. Moreover, Harry insists on earning the position fairly by opening tryouts to all first years rather than just straight up accepting the offer.
  • Like in canon, the Mirror of Erised is discovered by students who decided to stay at Hogwarts over break, one of whom did so due to his troubled family life.
  • Draco gets into trouble after failing to convince a teacher that Hagrid has a dragon just like in canon. His attempt to prove his accusation is quite different, however.
  • Harry doesn't fall into a coma after the incident with Quirrell but ends up sitting out the final Quidditch match anyway due to being heavily traumatized by the encounter. Additionally, Harry's idea to introduce reserve teams at the beginning of the year means Gryffindor actually goes up against Ravenclaw with a full seven-member team, yet Ravenclaw still wins the match due to loss of morale from Harry sitting the game out.
• In A Different Dursley Family, it's said Vernon and Petunia were destined lovers. The "nail" of this fic was Vernon trying to steal a statue from Smeltings (his secondary school) for a prank. In that fic, Vernon was caught and expelled for this, which resulted in him being cut from his father's will and becoming a mechanic to earn a living. This prevented him from being the intolerant man who'd force Harry Potter into abuse and yet, he and Petunia met, fell in love, and had a child. Prior to the fic's proper beginning, the author briefly mentioned other alternative timelines coming from the statue prank and the only one specifically stating Vernon wouldn't marry Petunia was one where the statue fell on him, causing his death. And even then, Harry's life wouldn't be different from canon since Petunia would marry a squib who was as envious of his magical relations as Petunia was of her sister.
• Justified in Harry Potter and the Nightmares of Futures Past. There is a mysterious character known only as "the agent-in-place" who somehow knows what happened in the original timeline, possesses vast resources and impressive magical power, and secretly acts behind the scenes to ensure that things like Harry violating the Decree For The Reasonable Restriction Of Underage Wizardry, Ginny getting possessed by the diary and Harry getting entered into the Triwizard Tournament still happen, no matter how hard Harry tries to prevent them from happening. Notably, Harry has no idea that the "agent-in-place" exists, which means that from his point of view, these canon events still happen even though it no longer makes the least bit of sense for them to happen.
• The many Deaths of Harry Potter: Despite the multitude of changes created by Harry's paranoia about being killed, he still frees Dobby by tricking Lucius Malfoy into giving the house-elf a sock using the same method he did in canon.
• In The Power of Seven, despite his growing distance from Harry, Dumbledore still investigates the cave to find a horcrux (albeit accompanied by Bill Weasley rather than Harry), and Word of God has confirmed that Tonks and Lupin are still involved and Tonks is now pregnant. Later, Voldemort's successful coup of the Ministry prior to the start of what would have been Harry's seventh year creates a situation basically the same as at the beginning of Deathly Hallows, save that Dumbledore is only missed presumed dead rather than his death being known for a fact.
• The Rose Potter series is a close copy of canon that stars a female version of Harry with Story-Breaker Powers. This results in many places where Rose easily resolves something Harry failed to do in canon, but inexplicably still has to deal with the fallout — for instance, even after clearing Sirius Black's name, she still has to meet and contact him in secret as if he were still a wanted criminal.
• In "A Second Chance", although events change when Sirius is released from Azkaban and becomes Harry's guardian when Harry's five years old, Sirius still dies in the Battle of the Department of Mysteries, although this time he leaves behind a wife and unborn twins among various other changes.
• In Seventh Horcrux, Harry ends up with the soul-fragment of Voldemort inside him taking over his body as a baby, meaning he basically has Voldemort's mind, skills, and attitude. In spite of this, his life continues on a broadly similar track, albeit for different reasons. Harry's life is pretty normal and he still goes to Hogwarts because he's a Retired Monster and would rather teach at Hogwarts than Take Over the World, he chooses to be Sorted into Gryffindor because he tried Slytherin and it didn't work out, he befriends Ron and Hermione because he sees one as an able minion and the other as Obliviously Evil, and he ends up opposing Voldemort (or rather, the rest of Voldemort) out of ego and spite. Many other ideas and setpieces in the books also end up being repeated in some fashion, such as Voldemort coming back at the end of fourth year, Hogwarts being attacked during sixth, and the Ministry falling at the start of seventh. He even ends up in a romance with Ginny, albeit an extremely one-sided one (she became attracted to him because she developed a thing for Dark Lords while acting as the Heir of Slytherin). As the story's largely a comedy, this isn't too much of a problem.
• Trolling the Toad: Most of everything that happens before the Christmas holidays goes along with the canon timeline, including many of the literally torturous detentions, the establishment of the D.A, the Quidditch ban, Nagini's attack on Arthur Weasley, etc. The interview with Rita Skeeter and the subsequent Quibbler ban also happen, and D.A. still gets exposed, but the main alterations to the timeline occur after that. The author acknowledges this in their first author's note of the story.
  I may mess around with certain plot points in this story, but the basic overall plot of OotP will remain the same.

Haruhi Suzumiya

• In SOS Pretty Cure, Haruhi is still melancholy about the fact that she has failed to discover any supernatural phenomena, even though she becomes a Magical Girl before ever forming the SOS Brigade. When Kyon asks about that later on, it's Hand Waved by means of redefining what the paranormal is.

Hellaverse

• In The Prince and the Thief, while Moxxie was happily raised as Prince of the Pride Ring instead of being the miserable son of The Don in the Greed Ring like he was in Helluva Boss, he still winds up possessing a love of firearms, even publishing a dissertation on the applications of firearms for orchestral music.

Hetalia: Axis Powers

• Monarchy Over The Danube: Although history progressively changes over the course of the story, some events still happen more or less as in real life, such as the Spanish Civil War and World War II. Even further on, a few Historical Domain Characters still manage to become prominent heads of state, like Queen Elizabeth II for England.

How to Train Your Dragon

• The divergent event in The Blacksmith's Apprentice occurs a few years before the main storyline begins, but despite the dragon war being waged for another few years, Hiccup, Astrid, Fishlegs, Gustav, and the twins apparently still end up training the same dragons they trained in canon (although Hookfang is trained by someone else as Snotlout becomes a full villain).
• The Home We Built Together:
  • Hiccup still builds the Mangler, shoots down Toothless, and wrecks half of the village. The only difference is that Astrid tries to help and gets clipped by the Nightmare in the process.
  • Astrid's first ride on Toothless goes pretty much the same as it did in the movie, only this time Toothless scares her for calling him a "thing".
• A Thing of Vikings: Dragons aside, world history proceeds near identically to real life up until 1040 AD, the year Hiccup defeats the Red/Green Death.

I-L

Infinity Train

• He Never Told You: Discussed. Grace wonders if Simon would still be alive if he hadn't gotten on the train. The Cat points out that if Simon hadn't gotten on the train, there's no guarantee he'd have been any better off, due to how stubborn he was.

Jackie Chan Adventures

• Project Dark Jade
  • Jade Dragon has Jackie still ending up fighting a demon to stop an army of dragons from attacking China, despite it being a Demon!Jade instead of canon's Shendu.
  • The fic Queen of All Oni, while differing from the canon Jackie Chan Adventures plot at the start of the canon's fourth season with Jade having a Face–Heel Turn as a result of a spell of Daolon Wong, has a large number of similarities with the series plot.
• The Ultimate Evil / The Stronger Evil: The first story in particular (which covers the events of Seasons 1-2) is quite canon-adherent, with the overall storyline staying the same despite numerous Point of Divergence instances; whereas the second story (mainly covering the events of Seasons 4-5) is more willing to exploit the potential for canon divergences.
  • When Shendu assaults Uncle's Rare Finds during his search for the Pan'ku Box's ancient hiding place, he ends up having a little face-to-face with Valerie Payne instead of searching through the books until Jackie and Captain Black arrive, but he still finds what he's looking for since Valerie has just the book on her person at the time.
  • Even though most of Season 4 is skipped over in favor of the Demon Chi arc, the Chans apparently still encountered the Ice Crew before Drago hires them.
  • Even though Daolon Wong is killed before the Oni Mask arc can commence, Tarakudo is still inadvertently brought to the game – by Drago in this case – in an effort to gain control over the Shadowkhan.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

• The Joestar Chronicles
  • Despite Joseph and Tomoko being the opposite genders from canon and thus Josephine being the one to carry and give birth to female Josuke, Josuko is still raised in Morioh with her father Tomoki as neither Josephine nor Suzi have the energy or the position to raise another child in their old age.
  • Even though Josephine died in the fight against Dio, Shizuka still ends up as Josuko's adopted sister because Tomoki adopts her instead.
  • Giornata, the female version of Giorno, was conceived by DIO to be his and the late Johanna's child, and was intended to be raised by Pucci should DIO fall against the Crusaders. However, thanks to a mishap at an airport, Giornata ends up with her canon self's neglectful mother and thus ends up with the same childhood leading her to Italy.

Kim Possible

• The one-shot "Eric" reveals that Kim's boyfriend Eric was actually real after all; Drakken replaced him with a synthodrone to demoralise Kim at a key moment. While Kim attends prom with Eric as her date as originally planned, thinking back on the mission leads to her realising that even if she's never thought about Ron that way before, she can't imagine her life without Ron in it, leaving the prom to find Ron and confirm his feelings for her before she acknowledges her own feelings for him.
• "The New Kid" is an AU where Ron's family never lived in Middleton until he was a teenager, so he and Kim weren't best friends since pre-K. Despite this, Ron still has Rufus as a pet and Kim still goes on missions with Wade as her tech expert, until the two start running into each other as Ron is currently working as a hired contractor for various villains. However, after Ron is injured protecting her from Shego, Kim goes along with the assumption that he is her partner so that Global Justice will give him medical attention, and they end up forming such a good bond that they become genuine partners.
• Nights in the Big City includes Alternate Universe versions of dozens of major and minor Kim Possible characters, even though its Alternate History diverged at least a century and a half ago (one character mentions Robert E. Lee as a "Blue" (Union) stalwart who went on to become the 17th President).

Kung Fu Panda

• The Vow:
  • The time between Shen's takeover of Gongmen City and the Furious Five's arrival is changed from three days to three weeks for pacing reasons, but the overall plot from Kung Fu Panda 2 still remains largely unchanged.
  • There's a notable divergence from canon where Shen first confronts Po and the Furious Five in the dungeon instead of the Tower of the Sacred Flame because Shen is laying a trap for China's nobles at this time. However, once the heroes break free and the nobles are led to safety, things largely return to the canon course of events with Po and Shen's chase through the cannon factory.

Life Is Strange

• Bloom: Kate Marsh still gets drugged and assaulted at a Vortex Club party, despite the fact that the person responsible for that incident in the game, Mark Jefferson, has been Adapted Out. However, his absence does mean that Rachel Amber is alive and is able to intervene, getting Kate out of there and destroying the video of the incident that caused Kate a lot of trouble in the game.

The Locked Tomb

• it's about the bones: The events of Canaan House apparently went reasonably close to canon, including the part where Harrow became a Lyctor. Which shocked everyone because she's the cavalier, and that should absolutely not be possible.
  God: You went backwards? Good lord.

The Loud House

• Within The Loud House fandom, there are many fanfics that try to add an OC (usually an extra sibling) to the family. The majority of these fics follow the same basic strategy: Step 1: create an OC. Give him/her a name, some personality traits, talent(s), and interest(s), but don't think too much about questions like how their presence might change the events of a certain episode. Step 2: go to the Loud House wikia and copy-paste the script of an episode. Step 3: add a few lines or small scenes here and there for your OC, but overall keep the plot exactly the same. Especially the ending.
  • This phenomenon is lampshaded and given a Take That! in chapter 20 of the fic Stories and Tales from Dimension 63. In this chapter, the character William Cryptos gives Lincoln the chance to see other dimensions in which he has even more siblings than the usual 10 sisters/brothers. At first, he is thrilled, but he quickly becomes annoyed by the fact that despite these extra siblings, everything remains the same:
  Lincoln: It's like the multiverse just spit out a random person and added them to the family, only for them to do nothing to change stuff!!
  William:Sometimes the universe has lapses in creativity is all.

Lucifer (2016)

• "Detective Decker’s Devil Dog" opens with Lucifer having been cursed into the form of a dog by a witch. Despite this change, he and Chloe still become partners when Lucifer’s dog self ends up part of the police K-9 unit, dog-Lucifer being assigned to Chloe even after she is returned to homicide until the curse is broken.

M-P

Marvel Comics

• The Daredevil fanfic "When the Rest of the World Walks Out" is an AU of the famous Born Again arc. In the original story, after Matt gets disbarred by Wilson Fisk's machinations, Matt and Foggy part ways and don't meet up again for a long time. In this alternate story, Foggy decides to go to Matt's brownstone to make sure Matt's okay. He arrives just moments after Fisk blows up the brownstone, and finds Matt kneeling in the rubble clutching his costume. Most of the original story's beats still happen with altered details: Foggy learns Matt's identity now, something that wouldn't happen for another decade in the comics. Because of Foggy's presence, Matt is still very much active after Fisk's attempt to have him killed in the cab. As a result of Matt being active, he's able to thwart Fisk's attempt to get rid of Nick Manolis, the cop Fisk had bribed to discredit Matt. Spider-Man has a lengthy appearance that incorporates a meeting with Fisk from his comic line, along with Flash Thompson's legal troubles. Ultimately, all of the immediate problems (Fisk's vendetta, Matt's disbarment, Karen's addiction and stalker) are still solved and the characters end "Born Again" actually in roughly the same place they got to in canon, just a few years ahead of schedule and with a lot less angst and lies/miscommunication.
  • Due to still being written when the Netflix show came out, some minor elements of that ended up being incorporated into the story as well, such as a few cameos from Foggy's Netflix girlfriend Marci Stahl (here a colleague of Foggy's at Kelco), Fisk's front of Confederated Global^note The corporate name that James Wesley used in season 1 when hiring the firm to defend John Healy getting name-dropped, and Foggy's middle name being Percy.^note Established in season 2 episode 10 when Fisk was threatening Matt

Marvel Cinematic Universe

• In Because I Knew You, while Wanda's impromptu visit to Peter Parker leads to her destroying the Darkhold on her own as he reminds her what she truly stands for as an Avenger, she still forces Wong to take her to the 'original' Darkhold on Wundagore Mountain. Wanda's intention on this trip is to stop the Darkhold corrupting her or others again, but she still starts experiencing visions of what could happen if she took America's powers and tried to claim her children again, although she ultimately snaps out of it on her own when she experiences a vision of killing Peter when he was trying to talk her down.
  • The sequel opens with the Masters of the Mystic Arts preparing to defend America Chavez from a dangerous witch (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness), except that here Wanda is one of the defenders rather than the attacker. Later, when various heroes travel to Earth-717, one of the differences between the two worlds is that in this reality Stephen Strange’s sister Donna survived the fall into a pond that killed her in this reality. As a result, Stephen never became a doctor, but he and Donna still became students at Kamar-Taj.
• A Colder War depicts Steve being discovered in the mid-1980s rather than in 2011, which sets off a range of changes such as only Howard Stark being killed and Hank Pym being "lost" instead of Janet. Despite these changes, the second fic in the series concludes with Steve, Janet, a teenaged Tony, and Connie Fletcher (an older Black Widow who escaped with a still-young "Natalia") agreeing to form a team that Janet terms "the Avengers", albeit acting as more of a discreet strike force due to their lack of raw power.
• In Desire Written in Olive, the events of Captain America: Civil War still play out almost identical to canon despite Wanda marrying Tony (to protect her from possible deportation and imprisonment) and eventually falling in love with him. The only main difference is Wanda acting as a mole and trying to stop Steve and Bucky. They still get away, beat Tony in Siberia, and break Sam and Clint out of the Raft because when Wanda tries to stop Steve, he accidentally crushes her ribcage by throwing his shield into it.
• Despite the lack of Poor Communication Kills of canon, What If still keeps pretty much all the same major plot points, simply improving the relationships between characters instead for the most part. Thor still gets banished from Asgard, Loki still invades New York with the Chitauri, etc. Most notably, Erik Stevens/N'Jadaka still becomes Killmonger and tries to usurp the throne despite being taken back to Wakanda after his father's death.
• The Devil's in the details: Despite Peter's non-existent affiliation with Stark Industries, Happy and May still wind up dating and Peter is given clearance to use EDITH.
• Despite Peter's wildly different origins in Lies of omission, he still winds up with spider powers and joins the Avengers.
• The work-in-progress The Defenders (2017) fanfic Soliloquy is an AU where the Hand decides to attack Matt, Luke, and Jessica's loved ones at the 29th Precinct. Many of the events that happen in The Defenders climax still happen, such as Misty Knight getting her arm chopped off by Bakuto, and Matt still being "killed" under Midland Circle.
• letmetellyouaboutmyfeels' MCU Rewrites: In Age of Ultron: Redux, Pietro Maximoff/Quicksilver is Spared by the Adaptation during the Final Battle against Ultron. However, in the sequel New Avengers, Pietro is killed by Tomi Shishido/Gorgon.
• In Legacy (DocSuess), despite the wildly different life Peter has had compared to his canon counterpart, he still gets bitten by a spider and gets superpowers from it.
• Turning Tables: Pepper's Rescue suit still gets built. This time it was Peter who made it, deciding that she and Morgan needed some level of security when he intended to retire as Spider-Man.
  • While it takes him longer, Peter manages to crack the method of time-travel just like Tony did in Endgame.
• In Z To A, when a temporally-displaced Peter Parker and Wanda Maximoff visit the Ancient One, she affirms that her death is a fixed point in time no matter what anyone might do. Later, after Peter and Wanda's actions prevent the Snap, the consciousness of the Stones assures Peter that, for the most part, those born in the five years post-Snap will still be born unless that's blatantly impossible due to factors such as their parents only meeting after one partner or the other was killed in the Snap.

Mass Effect

• Mass Effect: Life is a Game: To Paragon!John Shepard's shock, when he meets his Renegade!Female counterpart, Jane says that she killed Wrex, Mordin, and Legion in her first playthrough. However, despite her joking about it, there is absolutely no way she'd promote Uldina to the Council over Anderson, something she and John are in complete agreement about. The fact that the divergent Paragon and Renegade paths both inevitably led to them facing down the Star Child in the same way at the same time really ticks her off.

Miraculous Ladybug

• A Different Miraculous Set of Circumstances...:
  • Marinette still gets to be Multimouse, albeit with a different power set and without having been Ladybug first.
  • Like in canon, Luka is aware of Marinette's superhero identity without her being the wiser.
  • Alya's aspirations to become a reporter and admiration for superheroes haven't been affected, so she still creates an internet blog named after Marinette's secret (and unknown to Alya) identity: Multimouse Media. And the reason for this is that Multimouse, like Ladybug, is the hero Parisians admire the most.
• The Lament Series (ChaoticNeutral): Wishes tend to shuffle the cast of the metaphorical play around. So there's still a villain, and heroes still rise up to stand against them, but the results vary depending on who winds up in what roles and other factors.
  • Gabriel's Lament: There's still a Hawk Moth, and Emilie still has the Peafowl Brooch; however, Gabriel does not have the Butterfly or any other Miraculous, and is forced to watch his wife endanger herself as one of Paris' defenders.
    • Marinette and Adrien still have their respective Miraculi but are unaware of their significance and have no idea where they came from.
  • Chloé's Lament: Despite swapping positions, Marinette and Chloé retain their respective personalities, meaning Chloé is still despised for being a bullying Spoiled Brat while Marinette is well-liked for her thoughtfulness and kindness.
    • The Mayor's family still runs their own hotel, and the Dupain-Chengs still enjoy baking, taking the time to work alongside their kitchen staff to prepare meals whenever they get the chance.
    • The Ladybug and Black Cat still serve as Paris' heroes, making their debut against Stoneheart in much the same fashion. Adrien also remains the Cat Hero, though Plagg encouraged him to call himself Cheshire rather than Chat Noir and had him change his appearance.
    • Andre still dotes upon his daughter, though he lacks the resources to pamper her to the same degree that he did while the Mayor.
    • Miss Bustier remains sympathetic to Chloé, still seeing her as a troubled girl who needs guidance more than she does discipline. Unfortunately for Chloé, that decision hasn't been left in her homeroom teacher's hands.
  • Your Wish is my Command (Miraculous Ladybug), a Recursive Fanfiction for the Lament series, sees Lila make her wish to have Adrien’s life, creating a world where she is Gabriel Agreste’s daughter and Adrien lives with his mom, aunt and cousin. Despite many things changing, like Lila’s Karma Houdini Warranty becoming void having Gabriel as a father, and Adrien no longer being an Extreme Doormat without Gabriel as a father, a few things remain unchanged.
    • The heroes are still active, they’re just not Marinette and Adrien anymore.
    • There is still an "Umbrella Scene" between the new holders.
    • The Love Square is different now, too, as the heroes share a mutual attraction to each other both in and out of the mask.
    • Alya still creates a blog centered around the heroes, like the Ladyblog for Ladybug, dubbed CocciNews after the new Ladybug hero Coccinelle.
• In Lady Fairy, Chloe treats Marinette relatively the same despite the fact that the later is blind (which in a way makes Chloe worse).
• Leave for Mendeleiev sees Marinette transferred into Mendeleiev's classroom at the start of the series, rather than staying in Miss Bustier's. Despite this change, Alya still ends up creating the Ladyblog and pursuing Ladybug's identity...and despite the strain this naturally causes between them, she and Marinette gradually forge a connection to the point of making a new blog together after she deletes the original one.
• Miraculous: Tales of Scarlet Beetle & Ikati Black, a Role Swap AU, sees different characters take up the Ladybug, Black Cat, and Butterfly Miraculouses (Kim, Max, and Nathaniel, respectively); however, some things remain the same despite the circumstances.
  • The Butterfly wielder is still a villain (though more of an Anti-Villain than the canon one) with the same goals, and the Ladybug and Cat still oppose him.
  • All of the akumatizations so far (minus the Canon Foreigner Anti-Eros) match the canon ones to a T.
  • While Gabriel is far more lenient here than in canon, Adrien's still spent most of his life homeschooled and only gets to go to public school for the first time at the start of the story.
  • Chloé still causes someone to be akumatized in the Valentine episode even though Kim doesn't have a crush on her. This time, she causes Nino to get akumatized after she sabotages Max's Valentine confession to Kim.
  • Kim also ends up Brainwashed and Crazy like the canon episode, though this time because he is put under Anti-Eros/akumatized Nino's control as Scarlet Beetle rather than becoming an akuma himself.
• Oh, You Don’t Have to Do That. (Communication):
  • Played With. Despite the heroes finding both the Miraculous Grimoire and the Peacock Miraculous in his office, Gabriel still avoids being outed as Hawkmoth by getting himself akumatized as the Collector. That said, Master Fu tells Adrien that his father is still the most likely suspect, which comes to play after the Lila incident when Adrien investigates his father and finds the secret elevator to his lair.
  • After the class realizes that Miss Bustier figured out Lila's plot to frame Marinette when she stole the answers of an already graded test, Adrien is frightened of how close Lila could have succeeded if she stole the answers beforehand. Ms Mendeleiev tells him and the others that even if Lila did steal the test answers before the tests were graded, the teachers would have checked the security cameras to find out the true guilty party, especially after the students told them about Lila's sociopathic behavior beforehand.
• PrincessOfTheCorner wrote a rewrite outline of the series where Marinette is a trans boy name Marin and Adrien is a trans girl named Adrienne. However, some elements from the original series remain the same.
  • Marin still becomes friends with Alya after she transfers to his school while Adrienne still becomes friends with Nino.
  • Nathaniel and Nino still have a temporary crush on Marin. Nathanial ends up outing himself as bi thanks to his akuma-self Evilustrator trying to take Marin on a date, and Nino^note One of the few that know Marin was assigned female at birth ends up dealing with an LGBT crisis regarding if he's not straight or if he's subconsciously denying Marin's identity. He still gets together with Alya during the events of Animan but accepts that he's not straight and he had a crush on his male Childhood Friend.
  • The Lila subplot is changed so that she tries to seduce Marin as her Meal Ticket, and thus she avoids lies that he could reasonably disprove (such as her knowing Jagged Stone, whom Marin did commissions for). He still finds out because she lied about being best friends with his superhero self Lordbug.
    • Most of the class still doesn't believe Marin when he says that Lila is a liar, since they regard his suspicions of her as either his tunnel vision crush on Adrienne or insecure paranoia that a "nice" girl like Lila would like him.
    • Someone still gets accused of being jealous of Lila, and here it's Adrienne (who after being threatened by Lila to stay away from Marin and learning from Marin how Lila threatens him to date her or she'll turn their classmates against him, is much more aggressive against Lila during the events of "Chameleon"). Adrienne's classmates know she's still in denial about her feelings for Marin, so it's easy for Lila to paint Adrienne as being jealous that Lila is trying to get close to her crush.

MonsterVerse

• Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): Although this fic's events create some divergences from Godzilla vs. Kong and its spin-offs, other things remain the same:
  • Despite the Titans from the Mass Awakening remaining awake in this continuity instead of returning to hibernation, Camazotz still attempts to invade Skull Island as he did in Kingdom Kong.
  • Madison and Mark Russell still move to Pensacola, Florida, albeit a year or three earlier than when the Godzilla vs. Kong novelization said they did, and Mark still rejoins Monarch.
  • Ren Serizawa still takes a high-ranking job at Apex Cybernetics, albeit for very different reasons than in MonsterVerse canon.
  • Apex Cybernetics still obtain a remnant of Ghidorah via a black market dealing (though not a direct piece of the three-headed creature itself this time), and they obtain it just over a year after the events of Godzilla: King of the Monsters^note The Godzilla vs. Kong novelization, which has a bad case of Writers Cannot Do Math regarding chronology consistency with the years and the dating in the timeline, indicates Apex buying Ghidorah's remains occurred roughly fourteen months after Ghidorah's death at Boston.
  • In a non-canon crossover post by the author where Abraxas' Madison meets a canon-adjacent version of herself, they discover that in spite of how different their lives after the events of King of the Monsters are^note Abraxas!Madison now works for Monarch as Mark's assistant and her relationship with Mark has gotten better, whereas Canon!Madison is in a public school, is banned by her Mark from Monarch, and her relationship with him isn't so hot; they've heard the very same wise words about trauma and happiness from different sources: Abraxas!Madison from the Chen sisters during the events of the fic, Canon!Madison from her therapist.
• This Abraxas Recursive Fanfiction by SyfyGuy2 has one across the last two stories, which are set in alternate timelines to each other. In both the Genocide Route^note A timeline where the Titans have reset the clock on human civilization and the Coexistence Route^note The Titans and humanity have found a lasting coexistence with each-other, Monster X travels across the world to Mothra's shrine to see an older Madison Russell, and X is delayed by a MonsterVerse antagonistic creature which Monster X duels and defeats.

My Hero Academia

• Ascendant: Despite the parallels that All Might sees between Izuku and All For One, Izuku is still offered One For All. Multiple times. After an extended Trauma Conga Line for both Izuku and All Might, Izuku finally accepts and becomes the Ninth Holder just in time to stop a group of terrorists from escaping I-Island.
• Apotheosis (MHA):
  • Despite Izuku's absence from Class 1-A, most of the events of the school year happen more-or-less the same as they did in canon, with a few exceptions.
  • Related to the above, the events leading up to the Shie Hassaikai raid happen very similarly to canon, in spite of the presence of the HRD, the public losing faith in heroes, and Izuku and Ochako being a part of the HRD and not interning under Sir Nighteye and Ryukyu respectively.
  • In the end, Izuku still receives One for All. Though, in this case, it wasn't "receive" so much as steal.
• Black Fox Series: All Might, after the first story, intends to make Izuku his successor. However, Izuku rejects the offer because he's insulted that even after he proved what he could do while quirkless, he's still asked if he wanted a quirk as if his accomplishments weren't good enough to show he didn't need one.
• In Custody Battle, All Might never received One for All but he became the first quirkless hero instead.
• Ere we go, Pluz Ultra!:
  • Despite having a vastly different personality, Izuku still views Bakugou as his best friend. Rather than being oblivious to Bakugou's bullying, it's because Izuku has the mentality of an Ork and thinks "Splodey-boy is dead funny" to fight.
  • Even though Izuku displays a fair amount of skill at using his Quirk during the entrance exam, Aizawa still erases it during the Quirk Assessment Test. Unfortunately for Aizawa, said Quirk is the psychic energy of an entire tribe of Orks and punches him in the face for "telling it what to do".
• Erased Potential:
  • Though the circumstances surrounding it are very different, with Nedzu pointing Toshinori towards Izuku and all, Toshinori still offers Izuku the chance to become his successor.
  • Uraraka is still threatened by the zero-pointer during the entrance exam. Midoriya isn't there, having gotten in on recommendation, and Bakugou saves her instead.
  • The League of Villains still attacks the USJ, and Midoriya and Asui both end up in the water training area, though Kaminari is with them.
  • A guardian still considers pulling their child from Yuuei in the wake of the USJ attack. Instead of Inko, it's Kaminari Koharu, Denki's grandmother.
• For the Want of a Nail Series:
  • Mastermind: Strategist for Hire:
    • Izuku Midoriya still ends up cleaning up Dagobah Beach like in canon, though his motivation is out of guilt for his crimes, instead of the purpose of training up his body (though that is also a factor).
    • The Sports Festival still continues as planned in spite of All Might's death in the USJ attack.
    • Izuku still saves Iida Tenya from being killed by Stain, though Izuku had no intention to.
    • Despite All-Might's murder at Izuku's hands, All For One is still captured.
    • The Training Camp attack still happens, except thanks to Izuku's advice, Shouto Todoroki is kidnapped (and ultimately recruited) instead of Bakugou. Alongside Kota being killed by Muscular, due to Izuku not being there to save him, like in canon.
    • Despite All-Might's murder, All For One is still captured.
    • Kurogiri is still captured by the heroes.
    • The League of Villains vs. the Meta Liberation Army arc still occurs just with Shouto added to the mix.
  • Deku? I think he's some pro...:
    • Ochako still ends up using her Quirk on Izuku when he trips at U.A.'s entrance, but here it happens on their first school day instead of the exam day.
    • The first Heroes vs Villains match is still Izuku-Ochako vs Katsuki-Tenya.
    • The USJ incident goes through similar events as in canon, from the League's appearance to the spread of Class 1-A across the USJ.
    • The Sports Festival is essentially the same as in canon, with the only main differences being Mineta not passing to the Cavalry Battle and Deku losing in his tournament match against Shinso, who later loses against Todoroki.
  • Cheat Code: Support Strategist:
    • Even though Izuku is in the Support Course, he wins the Obstacle Course during the Sports Festival - he even does the "jump on the mines" trick to reach Bakugou and Todoroki and jump from their backs.
    • Two of Izuku's teammates for the Cavalry battle are Mei and Uraraka.
    • Tensei is crippled in one of Stain's attacks.
  • Shadows: The Horror Movie Heroes: Izuku still saves Bakugou from the Sludge Villain in spite of All Might's time limit having run out for the day — appropriately enough, it's by exploiting the Sludge Villain's fear of All Might by bluffing that he was just down the street.
• I am [REDACTED]: Despite Izuku's absence from canon due to him leaving Japan, some things still remain the same.
  • Izuku still broke his arms multiple times while training in America.
    • As the Ninth holder of One For All, Izuku managed to awaken Black Whip and presumably the other quirks that the previous OFA holders had.
  • There is an implication that the Stain incident still happened leading up to Iida confronting him, but one of the big changes due to Izuku's absence is him having an artificial arm.
  • All For One and All Might still had their fight which resulted in the former being permanently defeated and being imprisoned in Tartarus and the latter permanently being De Powered and forced into retirement.
  • One of those things is Mirio losing his Quirk while rescuing Eri, though by the present storyline, Eri has learned to control her Quirk enough to help him regain it by de-aging him.
• When Jackalope began publishing chapters past the introduction, the events depicted were almost the same canon (The Sludge Villain attack, All Might's secret being discovered, the entrance exam) with only minor changes that didn't change things dramatically (The Sludge Villain is replaced by Himiko Toga and Jiro is around for both the secret being discovered and the entrance exam).
• Jade Lightning:
  • Izuku/Mikumo still cleans up Dagobah Beach as part of his training for the UA entrance exam.
  • Izuku/Mikumo and Uraraka Ochako still go up against Bakugo and Iida during the Battle Trials and win, though the manner of means were different from canon.
• In Juxtapose, Izuku isn't Quirkless. But his Quirk, "Minor Banishment", is deemed so useless that he's treated as if he were by everyone from his classmates to his teachers to his Quirk counselors. Because of this, he still gets the All of the Other Reindeer treatment and is a Shrinking Violet from years of bullying and scorn. Despite not seeing All Might's weakened state, Izuku is still being lined up to inherit One For All.
• Lavandula Somnambulist:
  • Bakugo's treatment of Izuku is relatively the same, mistreating him for his comparatively unimpressive quirk instead of being quirkless.
  • All Might still tells Izuku that he can't be a hero after saving him from the Sludge Villain, though this time it was because he thinks that Izuku's quirk is ill-fit for the high-stakes, fast-paced lifestyle of a pro-hero.
• Looping Back to the Beginning: When Shinso loops for the first time, he has no idea what's happening, and calls Midoriya for help. Except Midoriya hasn't gotten his memories back yet, so he's just confused. When Shinso talks to Momo and has everything explained to him, he's worried that he screwed up Midoriya's life somehow and he'll never get his memories back. Momo assures him that time is pretty stable; unless they do something major (such as pre-emptively annihilating all the villains), things will stay the same. In fact, the class often uses this fact to screw with Midoriya before he gets his memories back, since he's the last one.
  Midoriya: [after getting his memories back] I TOLD THEM TO STOP DOING THIS!
• Pro Hero Metal Bat:
  • Izuku still trains by cleaning up Dagobah beach.
  • Izuku and Uraraka still go against Bakugou and Iida in the Battle Training and win in a similar manner.
• Quirk: Sequencer:
  • Despite Midoriya refusing All Might's offer, he still ends up with One For All thanks to Sequencer. In the next chapter he also ends up cleaning Dagobah Beach despite not training under All Might though it was All Might who suggested it to him.
  • Despite not using One For All Izuku still ends up breaking two legs and an arm against the Zero Pointer in effectively the same manner as Canon!Izuku did (breaking his legs just to get to the machine and his arm in his attack).
• What's in a Hoard?: Ochako still calls Izuku "Deku" even though he developed a powerful Quirk when he was four because Bakugo uses the name as a taunt whenever he challenges Izuku to a competition.

My-HiME

• In Perfection Is Overrated, while the SUEs' arrival results in an alternate suspect arising for the attack on Yukariko, resulting in the Himes not going after Nao, there are several other changes. Yukariko and Ishigami die when Ishigami tries to take advantage of SUEs with the ability to alter their targets' memories and personalities to spark infighting among the Himes. The First District still gets destroyed, not by Shizuru, but by The Usurper-possessed Obsidian Lord, a brainwashed Mikoto, Nagi and two SUEs.

My Little Pony

• A Diplomatic Visit:
  • As chapter 10 of Diplomacy Through Schooling notes, even without Spike's presence during the events of "It's Not Easy Being Breezies", some of the Breezies still got separated from the rest of their group and had to be helped back home.
  • Despite an early warning that something had escaped from Tartarus, Tirek is still able to avoid detection and launch his attack.
• RainbowDoubleDash's Lunaverse: Lampshaded in Crisis on Two Equestrias. When the Celestiaverse Twilight encounters the visitors from the Lunaverse, she goes off on a rant about how despite the two universes having had radically different histories for the past millennium, the same ponies were still born, ended up in much the same places, and even developed recognizably similar personalities. She's well on her way to a full-fledged existential breakdown before Spike helpfully pokes her.
• My Choices: Twisted Tales Through Time: Despite all the social changes that Blue Star brought about and Luna's continued presence as a leader of Equestria, the world still developed very similarly, with Twilight still becoming Celestia's student, Shining Armor still developing a crush on Cadance, and so forth. Word of God is that this is an inherent trait of time travel in this setting: the timeline tries to stay as static as possible, and pushes probability around to do so; therefore, any change which can actually have a long-term effect on the timeline has to be big.
• Pony POV Series: Despite unforeseen circumstances like the Windigos, Discord's first reign, and Nightmare Moon, the version of Ponyville designed by the Alicorns and Draconequi during the Cosmic Retcon of G3 still comes into existence as planned.
• Quiververse: In this storyline, thanks to everything regarding Sunset Shimmer and a desire to avoid becoming a Broken Pedestal, Princess Celestia fills Twilight in on a number of things, particularly the Tree of Harmony. Thanks to this foreknowledge, Twilight's able to put two and two together regarding the plundervines very quickly once the time comes, and convinces Discord to help deal with them. The vines, however, attack Discord, and she and the rest of the Mane Six are forced to return the Elements to the Tree of Harmony anyway.
• Slice of Velvet and Pear: Twilight Sparkle and her mother meet the Apple Family and become close friends with them she is still a filly, leading to her discovering The Power of Friendship and moving to Ponyville early. However, the Butterfly Effect of this leads to her never becoming Princess Celestia's student or Spike's main guardian, with Moondancer instead taking those roles. Despite this, Twilight Sparkle and her friends still go through the trials they went through and discover The Elements of Harmony of Harmony like in canon... but the Element of Magic's now split between Twilight and Moondancer, who then moves in with Twilight alongside Spike.

My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!

• Fortune_Lover_(TGS Beta)(SARU_rip)[T+Eng0.75_Sincere].zip: Played for Horror. The basic premise is the existence of a Fortune Lover hack (implied to have been created by A-chan), in which the Katarina Claes of Fortune Lover is replaced with the Katarina Claes of My Next Life as a Villainess, while everyone else's dialogs and event flags are left unaltered. The result is that all of Katarina's attempts to escape her doom are worthless: she is labeled a villainess despite doing nothing on-screen to deserve it, denounced for crimes that she never committed, and finally killed or exiled for no reason other than the immutable Plot.
• My Next Life as a Villainess Who Lives in Luxury: Katarina, who regained her past self's memories and personality but doesn't remember the game Fortune Lover, still tries to annul her engagement with Prince Gerald, due to finding the idea of being engaged at age eight, especially to a member of the royal family, to enclosing.
• pleased to meet you (hope you guess my name): Katarina still tries to annul her engagement with Geordo because of what she remembers from the game. She's completely taken off guard when he agrees in the second chapter, not realizing this was due to him realizing Maria had won (due to Maria being much closer with Katarina in this fanfic).

Naruto

• Androgyninja's A Drop of Poison:
  • While there was no Uchiha Massacre here, Sasuke retains a standoffish attitude and smugly superior attitude towards others due to coming from such a powerful and influential clan, along with wanting to assert himself due to being stuck in Itachi's shadow.
  • Raiga Kurosuki replaces Zabuza as the Kiri missing-nin hired by Gato. However, Zabuza and Haku still appear during the arc as bounty hunters, and Zabuza still cuts down Gato.
  • Lee still challenges and curb-stomps Sasuke while their teams are trying to register for the Chuunin Exams.
  • Despite how Zaku and Dosu meet their ends in the Forest of Death, several of the matches for the Chuunin Exams' preliminary battles remain the same. Particularly notable with Shikamaru and Kin, since both her teammates were killed, requiring her to ally with another group in order to pass the second round.
• In A Case Study in the Sturdiness of the Rookie 9, Naruto is assigned to Team 10 with Ino and Kiba under Sarutobi Asuma. However, the events that plagued Team 7 in canon still followed him, such as the Wave mission and Orochimaru attacking the genin during the Chunin Exam, with Kiba ending up with the Curse Seal.
• Ffreire's NaruFox AU:
  • While Obito and Rin are both Spared by the Adaptation, Obito still had a Near-Death Experience that left him heavily scarred and gave his left eye to Kakashi.
  • Although no Uchiha Massacre took place in this universe, Fugaku and Mikoto passed away around the time that it would have occurred in canon, with Itachi becoming Sasuke's guardian.
• Guilt of Innocence: Most of the events of the canonical Sasuke Retrieval Arc still happen, noteworthily, the fight at the Valley of the End. The encounter between Sasuke and the modified Team 7 (plus Yamato and Sai, minus Kakashi) in one of Orochimaru's bases also still takes place. On top of that, Danzo sends Sai to assassinate Sasuke because none of the Konoha elders were privy to Sasuke's mission. It's justified, though, since Sasuke had to keep up his cover so as to convince everyone, even the people closest to him, that he has turned traitor; and that Tsunade distrusts Danzo. Finally, after killing Orochimaru, Sasuke still recruits Suigetsu, Karin, and Juugo to aid him in his purposes. And in the same order, to boot.
• Lampshaded in I Am NOT Going Through Puberty Again!, when the seating arrangement for the Chunin Exams ends up identical to the original timeline despite Sakura stating that it would be statistically impossible. Most of the characters also end up with the same significant others despite vastly different circumstances.
• Son of the Sannin goes off on a different direction from canon only a few days after Naruto's birth with most major events either being changed or avoided altogether (since the author hates The Stations of the Canon). Despite this, lots of little details still match up, if in a wildly different context. To give a few examples:
  • Hinata first meets and falls in love with Naruto after he protects her from some bullies, a fight he manages to win.
  • Sakura and Ino's friendship falls apart during their academy years because of Sasuke, since Ino hates Sasuke for his mother having been responsible for her father's death during the Uchiha Insurrection. She can't bring herself to be friends with someone who could love an Uchiha.
  • Tsunade gifts Naruto with the First Hokage's necklace (as a graduation present instead of for winning a bet).
  • Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji are all placed on the same team with Asuma as their sensei despite all the other teams being wildly different.
  • Shikamaru faces off against Temari in the Chunin Exams and gives up part way through. Unlike canon, the match was during the preliminaries instead of the finals and the jonin present felt that he gave up too early rather than seeing it as a sound tactical decision.
  • Neji's match in the Chunin Exam preliminaries ends with one of the combatants being badly injured because they made the mistake of pushing their opponent's Berserk Button. Except this time around it's him on the receiving end of the beating.
  • The Rescue Arc at the end of Part I caps off with a fight between Naruto and Sasuke, though here Sasuke is actually trying to free Naruto from mind control.
  • Every canon couple ends up together, most of which happen much earlier.
  • Danzo dies by blowing himself up with the Reverse Tetragram Sealing due to Obito's mind control.
  • Naruto and Hinata still name their firstborn son Boruto despite Neji (who he was named in tribute of in canon) being Spared by the Adaptation.
• Space to Breathe:
  • The central 'nail' of the fic is that Sakura ends up transferring out of Team Seven and apprenticing under Ibiki after protesting Kakashi's plan to enter them into the Chunin Exams. However, she ends up entering the Exams anyway at Ibiki's suggestion with two other teammates in order to test her newfound skills.
  • Despite how Sasuke gets eliminated in his preliminary match, Kakashi still teaches him his signature move, the Chidori. Kakashi soon comes to regret this thanks to how Sasuke chooses to use that power...
• A Wrinkle In Time: Despite two more teams passing the second round of the Chuunin Exams, the match-ups all end up being the same and the same people still end up going to the finals.

Neon Genesis Evangelion

• A Crown of Stars:
  • Before Daniel's arrival, Shinji and Asuka were arguing about the past. Shinji wondered if they could have averted Third Impact and led happier lives if they travelled back in time with their full knowledge, but Asuka firmly believed they could not have changed a damned thing.
  • In Avalon, Shinji and Asuka hear about other alternate dimensions and even find their counterparts of other world. Not matter how different, all Evangelion baseline timelines have one thing in common: Shinji and Asuka are together.
• Despite the vastly different circumstances leading up to it, Rei still ends up sacrificing herself to defeat the 16th Angel in Advice and Trust. The author said that he did this deliberately to draw a contrast with how everyone was at that point in the main series.
  By having that one event turn out the same, but for entirely different reasons, the whys would be underlined, and the consequences even more so.
• The One I Love Is...: Although Shinji, Asuka, and Rei and their relationship changed a lot throughout the story, most canon tragedies still happen. Their different and improved mindset only changed one thing: the outcome of the war.
• Read the Fine Print (Evangelion): Shinji and Asuka becoming friends when they are seven leads to Shinji making a choice that causes him to be unfit to pilot an Eva by himself. And yet, Shinji runs away after Shamshel is destroyed right like he did in canon, even though he does not even take part in that battle.
• The Second Try: Despite Asuka and Shinji having foreknowledge and increased skills at their disposal, most of the Angel fights end up with broadly similar results as in canon, with the biggest exception being that Toji is recovered from the Bardiel-possessed Eva with only minor injuries. (It's something of a sore spot for Asuka that Bardiel and Zeruel beat her a second time, not to mention having to face Arael again.) The thing that makes the biggest change over time is their unwavering bond outside of combat, which keeps them sane and stable.

OMORI

• Time to Disinfect: Even though the inciting incident for the game never happened, Mari and Sunny still get into an argument that ends with Sunny shoving Mari off her feet, though luckily for them, the different context means it's much less dangerous than it was in canon.

Once Upon a Time

• Mr and Mrs Gold: Despite the difference Belle's early liberation (and her Storybrooke counterpart's presence) has on the story, various events and factors still fall into place, considering Rumpelstiltskin was the one that set up the dominoes and this version of Belle is now in on the plan.
  • Henry still gets the book… it is just that Rose gave it to him and not Mary Margaret.
  • Maurice's Storybrooke persona Moe French winds up in the hospital… but it has nothing to do with Mr. Gold, instead caused by organ failure.
  • Mr. Gold's treasured cup gets stolen on Regina's behalf… but by Kit instead of Moe French.

One Piece

• This Bites!:
  • Cross' attempted interventions seem to result in keeping the crew safe... only for him to take the hit instead. This happens with the prehistoric bacteria on Little Garden, the initial meeting with Mr. 2, and the 1st round of the Davy Back Fight.
  • Cross warns Vivi about the bomb in the clock tower ahead of time, and she includes that warning in her message to her father that she sends to Alubarna. Due to the moles in the Royal Army, Baroque Works gets wind of it, and the army they amass together with the Mr. 7 pair's sniping skills results in them guarding the bomb successfully against the siege until the war begins.
  • As Vivi finds out, one of Cross's biggest fears in this world is, despite everything he's tried to do, failing to stop the Paramount War.
  • Despite Cross's planning, Luffy still ends up revealing himself to Jonathan.
  • Cross manages to stop Foxy from shooting the horse Shelly, but after witnessing Foxy's callous attitude, Luffy still ends up accepting the Davy Back Fight anyway. When the rest confront him about it, Luffy says that he already knows the Fight's risks from Shanks's stories, but he also knows about the one-on-one Captain's Fight at the end, and he wants to beat up Foxy for pretending to be a pirate.
  • Despite Cross's promise, Merry's keel is still broken beyond all hope of saving.
  • Robin still hands herself over to CP9 to keep the crew safe.
  • A downplayed example: Shu still manages to rust part of Yubashiri's blade.
  • Despite Whitey and Squardo's assistance, Ace still loses to Blackbeard and is captured by the Marines... on account of Aokiji sticking his nose in at exactly the wrong moment.
• A Different First Crewmember:
  • Nami is still obsessed with money despite not having to buy her home island from Arlong. Justified given that if her family had just had more money, Bellemere would have still been alive when Shanks turned up to defeat Arlong.
  • Likewise, the crew has to get a ship from Kaya despite Nami commissioning one beforehand because Buggy blows it up.
• The Logia Brothers:
  • Ace still eats the Fire Fire Fruit, but it's given to him by Akuma along with his brothers getting theirs, rather than him finding and eating it while starving on a barren island.
  • Sabo still joins the Revolutionary Army even though he wasn't almost killed by a World Noble. Instead, he deliberately seeks them out himself.
  • Word of God confirms Enel still has electricity powers, but his come from a powerful paramecia fruit rather than a logia.
• This Bites!: Downplayed in the case of the Thriller Bark arc. Because of the high stakes involved, Cross informs the crew of everything he knows is going to go down; they make plans for how to beat every enemy and each of Moria's underlings, stock up on enough salt to wipe out the zombie army five times over, and even have teams in place to disable Oars before he's activated and for keeping Moria from waking up. The Strawhats still struggle to win because Moria and his crew are still incredibly tough - and because they're inadvertently pushed off the script themselves, including Moria going Super Mode. About the only thing their preparations accomplish is cutting out the chapters where the Straw Hats run around like headless chickens before getting their acts together, and the whole wedding thing.

The Owl House

• Luz Belos: Princess of the Boiling Isles:
  • While Luz's Half-Human Hybrid physiology makes her useless against the protective magic in Warden Wrath's treasure vault, Eda still has her help with the hopes that Luz's authority as princess will be enough to get King's crown back. The rest of the episode continues like normal with Luz causing the prison riot as her canon counterpart.
  • The events of "Witches Before Wizards" play out about the same as they do in canon, the only real difference being that Luz sees right through Adegast's illusion for the con that it is and she only pretends to be captivated by the whole thing.
  • While Luz has her own reserves of magic, she still ends up discovering glyph magic.
  • Amity and Luz still wind up in a Wizard Duel with each other, though while in "Covention" Amity and Luz duel over Amity's hatred towards Luz and Luz defend King from her (Eda and Lilith moderating due to their own issues with each other), here the duel is much more in good fun, Luz and Amity dueling reluctantly as their respective mentors try to prove who's the better teacher. The duel plays out similarly though, with Eda booby-trapping the arena, Lilith slipping a construction coven patch onto Amity, and Amity running off in shame.
  • Eda still chaperones Grom. Here it's because Lilith "volunteered" her.
• In Hail To The Queen, while Luz was adopted by Belos around the start of when the main series would have occurred, some of the same things still end up happening.
  • Luz still ends up being close friends with Willow and Gus.
  • Lilith still confesses to cursing Eda and splits the curse between the two.
  • Amity still defies her family and becomes a regular visitor of the Owl House, even if for different reasons.
  • Lilith and Hooty still become best friends.
  • King learns about his true origins largely the same way.
• While canon!Luz was put in the Potions track in "The First Day", in A Hero Forged she's put in Construction. Ironically, she's still thrown in the Detention Track because she tried using a potion to perform Construction magic.

Persona

• Persona 4:
  • In Façade, despite the fact that Yu Narukami is female, the plot chugs on as usual as far as events go. Thus far at least — Yu's budding friendship with Mitsuo might change things...
• Persona 5:
  • Persona 5 Adult Confidant AU:
    • While all the other characters have had their ages and roles adjusted for the story, Igor still retains his usual appearance and role as head of the Velvet Room. According to Word of God, this is because the age swap only applies to Persona 5 exclusive characters, while Igor is a recurring character throughout the series.
    • Even as a teenager, Kawakami still works at a maid café.
    • The first mission is still about a Shujin authority figure's sexual harassment and rape of someone close to one of the leads, who eventually attempts suicide as a result. Kamoshida is also present (as a Jerk Jock rather than a Creepy Gym Coach), is still a creep, and managed to hurt Shiho (previously his gym teacher) anyway.
    • Wakaba Isshiki still dies, leaving Futaba with Survivor's Guilt. The events eventually lead up to her becoming a Palace target as in canon.
    • In spite of not being the Phantom Thieves in this universe, Futaba is still portrayed as being friends with the other members.
  • At the end of the Peggy Sue fic Succession, despite all of Akechi's changes to the timeline, Akira Kurusu still comes to Tokyo to live with Sojiro and attend Shujin Academy for his second year of high school. The details are vastly different, though; in this timeline, Wakaba's survival dramatically increases the popularity of LeBlanc, to the point where Sojiro needs to hire a part-time employee to keep up. Akira is able to accept due to not being framed for assault by Shido, and so he comes to LeBlanc to line his own pockets with spending money.
  • Throw Away Your Mask: In spite of Akechi's presence, SEES' adventure still hits most of The Stations of the Canon to broadly the same outcomes. Even so, Akechi worries that he had an adverse effect on the timeline, not helped by Ikutsuki telling him his help was invaluable as everything turns for the worse in the months following.

Pokémon: The Series

• In The Greatest There Was or Ever Will Be, Ash actually defeats Sabrina in a Gym Battle on his first try. Even so, she immediately flies into a rage and traps him and his friends into an illusory world, because without Haunter, he could not purify her soul.
• In Pokémon Reset Bloodlines, even considering all the changes between timelines, as well as Ash and his Pokémon having awareness of what happened the first time around, some events happen more or less as they did in canon. Examples include:
  • Despite arriving in time to Oak's lab, Ash finds out that the three starter Pokémon have already been claimed.
  • Ash and Pikachu are still attacked by a Spearow flock on the road to Viridian City, this time even without provocation.
  • Misty has the same Pysduck she involuntarily caught in the anime. Only this time, she actually caught it of her own volition, plus she already had it by the time she met Ash.
  • Despite her completely different upbringing, Iris has the exact same Axew, Excadrill, and Emolga she had in the anime, in addition to having been raised alongside her Dragonite.
  • Ash once again finds himself banned from entering Erika's Gym, albeit this time for a reason out of his control.
  • Lara Laramie still gets her arm broken, forcing her out of the Big P Pokémon Race. Fortunately, like in canon, Ash is able to fill in for her.
  • MissingNo mentions that all the people and Pokémon Ash met in the previous timeline are still tied to him. Hence why Ash, and to a lesser extent other trainers, end up finding the exact same Pokémon they had in the previous timeline, and how Ash ends up meeting the same people, even if it's under different circumstances.

Psychonauts

• Martyshka:
  • Despite having been raised under the name "Rasha" instead of "Razputin", everyone still calls him "Raz" for short.
  • Raz and Lili are still friends in this version and Raz develops a crush on her.
  • Norma is still an Alpha Bitch that antagonizes Raz, though by the events of the story they had fallen into a Friendly Rivalry.
• Razputin Vodello AU:
  • While the circumstances of Raz's presence at the Motherlobe are completely different, Raz still winds up exploring Helmut, Compton, Bob, and Cassie's minds and fixes their respective minds much like his canon counterpart.
    • While Raz alerts Otto of Helmut's brain in the Brainframe, Raz still has to go in Helmut's mind to help him process his sensory overload and regain all of his memories. In this case, it's due to a malfunction in Otto's machine meant to ease Helmut into it one at a time.
    • While this version of Helmut meets with Bob before Raz can fix him, Bob is too far into his alcohol-infused angst to listen. When Raz and Helmut enter his mind, Helmut is too weak to stay and his astral projection fades out, leaving Raz to fix things himself.
  • Even with Nona dead in this version, the story still ends with a volatile hydrokinetic rampaging across Green Needle Gulch and the Quarry. In this case, it's Raz.

Q-T

Quantum Leap

• "Beth" looks at the reality Sam created when he told Al's first wife Beth that Al would come home. Despite Al having a wife and four daughters, he still ends up having the same breakdown that led to him meeting Sam in canon, this time attributed to him having a relapse into alcoholism due to bad memories of his time as a prisoner.

The Rising of the Shield Hero

• In Ambition of the Red Princess, Naofumi still ends up purchasing Raphtalia despite never being betrayed by Malty and thus still being in good standing and having a decent amount of money. Rather than being desperate for a way to damage enemies, Naofumi is convinced of the need to expand their party and the werewolf slave Beloukas initially suggests recommends Raphtalia because he doesn't want to see her die.

RWBY

• Coeur Al'Aran:
  • Not this time, Fate: A major premise is that no matter what Jaune does, he is never able to prevent both the Fall of Beacon and the death of at least one of his closest friends. In the one case in which he did so, he was killed almost immediately afterwards, resetting the timeline anyway. It's eventually revealed that Fate itself was actively preventing him from succeeding.
  • Null:
    • Despite her initial friendship with Jaune when she's still in the White Fang, Blake still ends up abandoning the Fang during the train heist (even with Jaune present) to become a huntress-in-training at Beacon, and apart from Jaune not being a student in this fic, Team RWBY's and NPR's line-up remains otherwise unchanged.
    • Despite the considerably changed circumstances on their end, the White Fang and Cinder's team still attack Beacon looking to take the Fall Maiden power from Amber Autumn.
  • Wise as an Old Qrow (link): After Qrow goes back in time to his younger self's body and ends up radically changing his and Raven's teenage life story, one of the ripple effects is that Summer meets the Branwen twins three years earlier than she did in the original timeline (meeting them when they're first-years in Signal, rather than when they enter Beacon Academy at 17). Despite this, the bare bones of Summer and Raven becoming acquainted are the same as what they're stated in Coeur's fics to be in the original timeline, even if they do occur three years early and in a much more clipped form: Raven viciously antagonizes Summer, who snaps after a ton of school bullying and beats Raven to a pulp in a red haze, which immediately earns Summer Raven's immediate respect due to the Darwinist worldview that the latter was raised on.
• Children of Remnant:
  • Despite Kuroyuri not falling in this timeline, Ren and Nora still end up as a pair (in this case, it's because Ren's parents took her in upon realizing she was homeless).
  • Subverted; it originally seems that Pyrrha sliced Yang's arm off in the cafeteria fight, but Yang's POV reveals that it is still attached, if only just barely. And then it's played straight when Summer reveals that the doctors couldn't save the arm.
  • Roman, Neo, and Mercury Black still end up in Cinder's employ.
• For All Time: One of the reasons Ruby travels back in time is because she thinks she can manipulate Past!Weiss into returning her feelings. This never works, though she has tried it literally hundreds of times.
• Holding the World On Their Shoulders, a Role Swap AU where Cinder becomes Ironwood's Number Two, has Winter Schnee become a Happy Huntress, and May Marigold become Salem's Dragon, but Cinder still ends up losing one of her eyes. In the original show, it was burned out by Ruby's silver eyes. Here, it's shot out by May, who actually intended on killing her, but had second thoughts at the last second
• My Abominable Monster Classmates Can't Be This Cute!:
  • Although it happens many years earlier in the timeline, Yang still essentially gets her right arm lost and replaced. Instead of her arm getting cut off by Adam in combat when she's 17 and her replacing it with an Atlesian cybernetic prosthetic; here, Yang's right arm is replaced with a gigantic Grimm arm (similar to Cinder's post-Fall of Beacon Grimm arm in canon) after she was turned into a Grimm hybrid 10 years ago.
  • Although Jaune never started the school year as a Beacon student, Pyrrha (and presumably Ren and Nora) still end up on a team named JNPR without him. Word of God in the author's notes suggests that the "J" in their team is Jacqueline Ivory, who originates in Project JPDE.
• In A New World on her Shoulders, Ruby and Weiss still end up as partners on the same team despite their part of the story being set in Atlas whereas the canon story was set in Vale. Yang and Blake also end up on the same team as well.

Smallville

• En Tempus Veritas opens just after Lana's funeral, with Clark meeting a meteor freak who can show him how his life would have turned out if he made one different decision. Clark chooses to see what would have happened if he had never crashed Lex and Lana's engagement dinner, believing that if Lana hadn't learned about his powers, she would never have died. The new chain of events presented includes Clark and Lois falling in love and having a son, but Lana still ends up dead, helping Clark get over his guilt as he is assured that her death had nothing to do with him.

Sonic the Hedgehog

• A Rose And A Thorn 4 features a character going back in time to save the Ark. Despite knowing everything that can happen, she still cannot stop the destruction of the Ark or the death of Maria. It all happens anyway, so Sonic Adventure 2 happens anyway.
• Sonic X: Dark Chaos:
  • Despite the very different setting and tons of added OCs, the story still roughly follows the general plot arc of the original Sonic X. Sonic fights new villain, Cosmo arrives, the heroes go into space to find the Chaos Emeralds, meet several canon alien races, and the adventure ends with a huge final battle and Heroic Sacrifice Bittersweet Ending.
  • Additionally, the Seedrians are still utterly wiped out and Dark Oak forms the Metarex in both the canon and Dark Chaos universes, even though the Dark Chaos backstory is very different.

Stargate SG-1

• "How Long is Forever?" sees the Daniel Jackson of early in the campaign against the Ori make contact with an alternate timeline where he died early in his third year with the program but Sha're was rescued from Amaunet and joined the SGC in his place. Talking with the alternate SG-1 of this reality, Daniel learns that in this reality, Cameron Mitchell was the one to attract Vala's interest and be sent to the Ori galaxy with her (after Sha're translated the device).
• "None So Blind" states from the beginning that it is set after the defeat of the Ori but in a world where the events of "Unending" played out slightly differently. It is only at the fic's conclusion that Teal'c's private thoughts confirm what happened on the Odyssey in the erased timeline- Daniel admitted his feelings to Sam and Mitchell and Vala got together- as he ponders the irony that they still ended up together in this version of events.
• "A Road Not Taken" features Jack, Daniel, and Sam being childhood friends rather than meeting as adults. Despite them meeting early on, for the most part their lives play out in a manner similar to what occurred in canon, such as Jack marrying Sara and having a son called Charlie (although he gives Charlie the middle name of ‘Daniel’) and Sam meeting Jonas Hanson at the Air Force Academy. Most significantly, when George Hammond sees ten-year-old Sam and Daniel playing together when he visits Jacob’s house, he recalls meeting the two as adults in 1969 during a time-travel incident, affirming that no matter what else happens the group will still become part of SG-1.

Star Trek

• "Anatomy of a Secret" looks at Deep Space Nine at the start of Sisko's second year of command in the world created by Nero. Despite the other changes caused by such events as the destruction of Vulcan, the station's senior staff still include Benjamin Sisko, Kira Nerys, Odo, Quark, and Julian Bashir (nothing is said to indicate whether O'Brien is there or he's been replaced). While Jadzia Dax is not the station's science officer, she arrives on DS9 as part of a scientific study and ends up revealing her true nature to Sisko.
• Brother on Brother, Daughter on Mother actually makes an effort to justify this with an analogy that time is a rope composed of probabilistic outcomes that produce fundamentally similar alternate timelines with slight variations. A rope can tangle up, but if you pull on a rope all the strands move in basically the same direction. However, sufficiently large Time Travel events can cause the rope to fray, which results in scenarios such as the Mirror Universe ^note It reportedly split off from a timeline where the Western Roman Empire lasted longer and the Nazis, Trumpers, Optimum, and the Krasnov junta were slightly more successful, but then the Borg did their thing in Star Trek: First Contact and caused a fray. and the timeline in which Star Trek: Enterprise took place, the latter of which ended up becoming so unstable it was erased from existence entirely.

Star Wars

• Played with in Riding the Wheel of If, where in some alternate universes characters don't exist, and others even have them change gender. On the other hand, those versions of the characters that are the same gender are pretty much identical physically, and they're always the same age (per Word of God; when one author wrote a story where Obi-Wan was younger the original author said that didn't happen and it was considered AU to the series). And certain events take place in most or all universes, and if Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon both exist they're usually together, but that's all just Because Destiny Says So.
• In Eros Turannos, despite Anakin not growing up on Tatooine and his absence from the events of Phantom Menace, Qui-Gon Jinn still died during the battle with the Trade Federation, Vader still constructed C-3PO to help raise himself, and Padme now owns R2-D2, justifying her having an astromech droid who doesn’t obviously help her senatorial duties as he saved her life and she just likes having him around. Later on, Obi-Wan Kenobi becomes Vader's Jedi Master as he begins to explore the power of the Light Side rather than the Dark.
• Order 66 and the fall of the Jedi Order still happen in Precipice even though Anakin never follows Mace Windu to Palpatine's office. According to the author's writing tumblr, at that point, Palpatine had pretty much absolute control and there was no practical way for anyone to stop him by that point, and Anakin isn't important enough to risk his entire plan just to gain his perfect apprentice.
• The main turning point in Star Wars: Point of Divergence is that Anakin sides with Mace Windu in the duel in Palpatine's office and never falls to the Dark Side. Despite this, there are still some events that remain the same:
  • Tarkin still ends up on Sidious' side and still commands the Death Star.
  • Anakin still dramatically reveals himself to be Luke's father, using the exact same dialogue as in canon (although this time, Luke is the corrupted Sith apprentice).
  • Obi-Wan still meets his end aboard the Death Star, sacrificing himself to save the heroes.
  • Anakin is still the one to finally kill Sidious.
• "For Such a Time as This" depicts a world where the Jedi Order were officially ordered to disband after the apparent final war with the Sith a thousand years ago, but in reality, the Order went underground and continued to operate in secret. Despite the Order's more limited resources meaning that many members were never recruited, such as most of the non-human Jedi (with the exception of Yoda) being absent because the Order don't have the means to identify potential Jedi on the scale they can in canon, Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Anakin Skywalker are all Jedi, while Dooku has still become a Sith Lord (along with Xanatos, Qui-Gon's pre-Obi-Wan apprentice in canon).
• In Heretic Pride, Shmi Skywalker is freed from slavery shortly after the events of The Phantom Menace, and consequently she never meets and marries Cliegg Lars. But she still meets and befriends Owen Lars and Beru Whitesun under other circumstances, because some of the author's other works had developed Shmi's friendship with Beru and the author wanted to show a version of that in this timeline.

Super Mario Bros.

• The Sea Shadow: In spite of Vivian and Bobbery now being an adopted family, both still join Mario's team in what would have been the same chapters as canon, as Vivian winds up in Twilight Town around the same time Doopliss steals Mario's body, setting her up to join him after defeating Doopliss.

Supernatural

• In The Corrupted Innocent, while Bela Talbot's presence leads to such changes as Deanna Campbell (the Winchesters' maternal grandmother) being drawn into the present, she cannot stop the Seals being broken and Lucifer's release.
• In It's All in the Details, even with the new history unfolding, Chuck is still writing about the original events in the gospels that get published, only writing what’s really happening as an ‘alternate’ that he writes down when his new guardian angel isn’t looking.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012)

• In Shards of a Memory, since Dr. Falco develops the power to control cats instead of rats, he still gains control of the Turtle's surrogate parent/sensei.
• Underneath the Sakura Tree: While Karai isn't Miwa in this version, she was still raised by Shredder to believe that Yoshi killed her mother.
• Turtle Kittens:
  • Even though he had won his battle to the death with Yoshi this time, Oroku Saki still winds up horribly disfigured in the fire.
  • While Aspen lets the turtles choose their weapons, they all wind up wielding the same weapons as the ones Splinter chose for them in canon.
  • An argument that Shredder finds out about the Turtles through Bradford and their own carelessness, but while in canon Mikey outed himself willingly, here Bradford had been spying on them from a distance.

Terminator

• In the Terminator Genisys fic "A Fracture in Time", despite everything changed by Skynet’s interference and John’s new state, he still ends up meeting and falling for Kate Brewster, to the extent that Kate inspires John to reject his programming and join Kyle and Sarah’s opposition to Skynet.
  • The sequel "A Strand in Time" takes it even further when Kyle and Sarah go back to 1984; despite John living a more conventional life with Kyle as an active father, Sarah is still committed to an asylum and John meets Kate when he’s a child. After Kyle is killed in a confrontation with a T-1000, John runs into Kate at a party in Mike Kripke’s basement in 1997, just days before Judgement Day, and the party is attacked by a T-X before John and Kate are rescued by ‘Uncle Bob’.
    • “Strand in Time” also includes Kate dreaming of what appears to be a world where she was the leader of the human resistance and John was never born; when she and Danny Dyson developed the time displacement engine, they send Kyle Reese back to 1984 to try and stop Skynet in its ‘infancy’ on a relatively impulsive choice, with no awareness that doing this could create John Connor.

Tolkien's Legendarium

• There's a whole category of Lord of the Rings fanfics called "Tenth Walker" fics. In these fanfics, the Fellowship is joined by a tenth member, often a girl from our world who has fallen into Middle-earth. Despite this tenth member and any possible romantic entanglements arising from their presence, the plot goes on as usual. The Tenth Walker will often steal lines and actions from other characters like being the one who guesses the password into Moria or saves Frodo from the Watcher in the Water, but does not contribute anything new. Boromir still dies, the Hobbits still get kidnapped, and so on. It gets especially egregious when the character is supposed to be extremely powerful in a way that should rightfully influence the plot but doesn't.

Total Drama

• A BFG's World Tour: Despite DJ's continued presence, some World Tour Stations of the Canon are unable to be avoided.
  • Duncan is still caught in London and forced to return to the competition.
  • Duncan is also still involved in someone catching Gwen making out with another competitor in the confessional except here, he's the one doing the catching instead of the one making out with her.
  • Gwen is still called "New Heather" at one point during the Area 51 challenge.
  • Blaineley still "wins" the Second Chance Challenge and is forced into the competition as retaliation by Geoff for sending Bridgette to Siberia.
  • Chris's plane is still blown up in Drumheller, resulting in the one responsible being disqualified from the competition.
  • Cody and Alejandro are still part of the Final Three.
  • Despite neither one making the finale, Heather and Alejandro still have their showdown over the volcano, except here as helpers rather than competitors.
• A Codette World Tour: Despite being set in an alternate version of Total Drama World Tour where certain events cause the story to snowball into a totally different direction than canon, there are still several examples of this.
  • Although Team Victory become Ascended Extras and have two of their canonical members reach the merge, Harold and Leshawna are still eliminated very early and in the same locations, thanks to Alejandro's manipulation.
  • Sierra, Courtney, and Izzy are still eliminated in the same locations they were in canon (and for the same reasons in the case of Sierra and Izzy), and Cody still comes in third place.
  • Despite the different team compositions, Team Chris is Really Really Really Really Hot keeps its name. This stands out because in canon, Sierra was originally assigned to that team and came up with its name, but then switched over to Team Amazon so she could be with Cody. In this story however, Cody is on Team Victory and Sierra is on Team Amazon from the start, so Team CIRRRRH's name is never really justified.
  • Duncan still quits the contest when in Egypt, only to be forced to return to the game in London (although through totally different circumstances). Likewise, Tyler is still the one who sees Duncan cheating with Gwen (although the kiss is upgraded to sex) and is forced by Alejandro to reveal it to everyone in Greece.
• Courtney's Crusade for Redemption: Despite Courtney's intervention, some events happen just as in canon.
  • Alejandro gives the Villainous Vultures the victory in the first challenge.
  • Lightning, Jo, and Heather get eliminated in the same challenges, and for similar reasons, as in canon.
  • Mike still gets accidentally hit in the head by Scott, which brings Mal back.
  • Mike defeats Izzy in the boxing challenge, with 'Mal' fighting her at first. It later diverges from canon as Mike ends the fight as Vito.
  • Duncan destroys Chris' cottage ("It was a mansion!") and is sent to jail.
• For Want of a Mohawk
  • Heather still steals and reads Gwen's diary during the talent show challenge and Justin is still the camper eliminated in that episode.
  • Gwen and Heather are still partnered together for the rock-climbing portion of the trust challenge, with the person in charge of the harness still trying to sabotage their partner (except here it's Gwen who does it and she's not as successful as Heather was in canon).
  • A camper is still medically evacuated after being injured by an animal during a challenge, except instead of Cody getting mauled by a bear during the Deer Paintball challenge, it's DJ getting attacked by a moose during the extreme sports challenge.
  • The later-eliminated half of the Katie-Sadie duo still has their earlier-eliminated friend show up to pick them up on the Boat of Losers after their elimination.
  • Heather still gets a massive Sound Effects Bleep-filled "The Reason You Suck" Speech from one of her former alliance mates only one episode later than in canon, and from Beth instead of Lindsay, though Lindsay tells Heather after her elimination that she agrees with Beth completely.
• Total Drama All-Stars Rewrite: In spite of the four additional characters, many things go the same as in canon.
  • Almost all eliminations are the same. The only changes are Anne Maria getting eliminated in Sam's place (as he is not competing) and Gwen going to the finale (Owen is the other person eliminated in "The Bold And The Booty-ful instead). In the same vein, most challenges are won by the same team/person as in canon. "Food Fright" is the only exception.
  • Duncan is still arrested and sent to prison in "You Regatta Be Kidding Me".
  • Courtney still makes the infamous chart in "Sundae Muddy Sundae".
  • In "The Bold and the Booty-ful" Chris still yells at Gwen over the painting of him, even though she doesn't use bear poop this time. This time, it's because(or he thinks) she made his chin too big.
    • Gwen still says the line: "Are you kidding me?! How does such a big ego fit inside such a teeny-tiny brain?", only this time, she is saying it to Chris for the above moment rather than Duncan.

Trollhunters

• Becoming the Mask (Trollhunters): The circumstances that lead to Claire's brother being swapped for a Changeling are not recreated - Jim and Toby never follow the goblins into the museum and see Nomura in her Changeling form, pushing her to reveal the recently-recovered Fetch to Bular in the next episode to convince him of her usefulness and to spare her life. However, Enrique still ends up being kidnapped and replaced.

True Blood

• How Could You Forget is an AU of True Blood season 4 and beyond. In the original show, Bill Compton sends Eric Northman to a covent to check on some witches. Eric threatens the head witch, Marnie, bites her, and in the original show, she erases his memories. Here, she lets Eric go, and Bill is forced to visit Marnie himself to try apologizing for Eric's actions, only for Marnie to erase his memories instead as revenge for Eric's visit.
  The end result is that all of the scenes that amnesic Eric had with Sookie are now transferred over to Bill with the dialogue mostly intact. Pam's role as the concerned vampire progeny is taken over by Jessica. Jessica and Sookie have to coach Bill in order for him to do everything he does as Vampire King of Louisiana in the original timeline without giving away his amnesia. Pam is still subjected by the witches to her face-rotting spell, but the events leading up to it are slightly altered^note In the original timeline, she goes to confront the witches trying to get them to reverse Eric's amnesia; in this timeline, Eric sends her to check on the witches after Jessica visits him to ask for information about a book that she found in Bill's office. Subsequently, Eric's attempt to get help from Bill leads to him confronting Jessica, and pressing her for answers, causes her to let slip the truth about Bill's amnesia The witches' attack on the Tolerance Rally still happens, with the witches still controlling Eric, but the faerie magic Sookie uses to stop Eric's attack ends up also restoring Bill's memories. The rest of Bill's efforts to take down the witches from there to the end of the season are unchanged, and Nan Flanagan's death is completely intact. Seasons 5 and 6 ultimately progress mostly the same but with some minor alterations to the details here and there.

The Tudors

• Handmaid has a few examples:
  • Anne still becomes Marquess of Pembroke, though in this case, it was Katherine's idea (largely as an act of spite to Thomas Boleyn for his poor treatment of Anne).
  • Anne still suffers a miscarriage in her second pregnancy. Though, instead of being poisoned, she was pushed down a flight of stairs by Thomas Seymour.
  • Edward, Henry's son by Jane Seymour, is still born. However, he is unambiguously a bastard and didn't reconcile with his father and siblings until he was twelve due to his mother and uncle being considered traitors. He's also born several years earlier, which is presumably why Jane survived his birth.
  • Jane still dies days after Edward's birth, as she was charged with high treason months prior and was set to be executed after her son was born.
  • England and Scotland are eventually united under one crown decades earlier when Henry and Anne's son Edmund marries Mary, Queen of Scots.

The Twilight Saga

• In Bonne Foi, even when Carlisle didn’t turn Edward as his first ‘son’, he still ended up turning Esme and Rosalie as in canon, which led to Rosalie turning Emmett and Jasper and Alice joining them on their own accord later. Carlisle's thoughts after meeting Edward also mention that Carlisle sees Bella as a daughter after all the effort he put into helping her recover from her accident, Bella and the Cullens still close even without her canon relationship with Edward to give them the final push.

U-Y

Undertale

• Aftergore: Despite all the differences between both the versions of them and the consequences of their actions, Frisk still takes an identical role as the final boss of the pacifist run in variations I-IV.

The Walking Dead

• Better Angels has Shane Walsh surviving the ordeal at the end of Season 2. He takes over Rick's position as leader, corrupting the group with his ruthless survival philosophy. Despite this, the Atlanta group is still put on a path to The Prison where Rick leads them in canon.
  • Zig-zagged because Shane's leadership puts the group at much worse odds than their canon counterparts.

Warhammer 40,000

• Nobledark Imperium: Despite a divergent history that led to an Imperium that's drastically divergent from the canon one in several aspects, Krieg still ended up becoming a bombed-out ruin of a world thanks to a civil war between rebels and Imperial loyalists, resulting in a Death Korps of Krieg that are basically identical to their canon counterparts.

The Witcher

• The Accidental Warlord And His Pack: Despite Astrogarus and Radowit's deadly tournament between the Cat and Wolf schools never happening with Guxart locked in a cell next to Vesemir the two still became fast friends.

Xenoblade Chronicles

• Where We Don't Belong:
  • On the XC1 side at least we have Dickson and Alvis, who are obviously very interested in ensuring that canon events still happen like they're supposed to. Moebius X and Y, who are cooperating with Ontos, are equally invested in ensuring that Aionios can come to being, by preventing the worlds from being destroyed before the Intersection occurs.
  • Nia still ends up captured by Brighid, even after they mistook Mio for her. In fairness, the captures took place not long between each other when the Ardainians were still on alert.
  • Metal Face still kills Fiora during the Colony 9 attack due to Alvis interfering with Noah's attempt to save her.
  • Due to Mio's attempt to avert Vandham's death in Olethro Ruins leading to her seemingly performing a Heroic Sacrifice, Rex still ends up recklessly charging at Malos, this time to avenge Mio. As a result, Mythra has to reawaken to save him, and Obrona and Sever die, though the reason Obrona dies this time is due to Sena rather than Mythra.
  • Despite Eunie and Zeon joining Melia's hunting party, they aren't able to prevent the group from being nearly wiped out, must less defeat the Telethia. Even Eunie managing to Interlink with Taion didn't help, partly due to the Telethia being possessed by the black fog.

X-Men: Evolution

• The SuperStarr Chronicles: The third and fourth chapters show the story's version of the events of the episode "Growing Pains". The X-Men and Brotherhood still have a brawl at Bayville High's soccer field. The difference is instead of fighting each other, the X-Men and Brotherhood end up joining forces to fight Bounty, a space bounty hunter who was after the Brotherhood's new members and mentor.

Yu-Gi-Oh!

• A Mother's Touch:
  • The You Show vs LDS duels never happen thanks to Yoko's interference, but Yuzu and Gongenzaka still go out to learn Fusion and Synchro from Sora and Yaiba respectively.
  • Yoko sadly admits to Reiji that even if she was told ahead of time about Yusho willingly jumping into another dimension, she wouldn't have been able to stop him.

Unsorted

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