Misused: Serendipity Writesthe Plot

So, Serendipity Writes the Plot, whose alternate title is Writing Around Limitations, is supposed to talk about developmental limitations that influence aspects of a work, but it seems to be starting to become like "That's how this came to be."

Anyway, I'll admit that I myself am responsible for several examples in question, but here are a few of them:

• In The Lion of Ivalice, the story serves as both an AU and a massive expansion of the canon Final Fantasy Tactics storyline, this time by having all 13 of the Zodiac Stones possessing people and manifesting as the Lucavi. At first, when the story was still in its early stages, the author was planning to create original Lucavi for the Stones that the game did not use. It was then pointed out by several reviewers that he may as well use the Espers from Final Fantasy XII as the Lucavi, since XII serves as a Prequel in the Lost Age to Tactics. He decided to roll with the idea, which turned out to be massively fortunate because in Part 2 of the fanfic, Meliadoul gets possessed by the Sagittarius Stone, which is the Zodiac Stone she possesses in the canon storyline. In a total stroke of good fortune, the Sagittarius Stone is also one of only two (the other being Ultima) whose zodiac sign corresponds with a female Esper, allowing him to use the female Shemhazai from XII instead of having to create an original monster.

• There was once a Lucky Star fic called Cries Unheard, about a yakuza plot that involved destroying the girls' lives and driving them to suicide or hikikomori. It was never finished before being deleted, and one of its readers, the aforementioned Economy, was left traumatized from it before eventually wrapping up several of its loose ends himself with THIS IS IT! It is unknown what CU author bloodscorpion4ever's original intentions were, and only others who read CU itself would know if any details would have misaligned between fics, given how long prior it was deleted and that Economy had only read bits and pieces of some chapters while reading others in full. However, the fact that it had died also left room for TII's first act as A Day in the Limelight for the manga-only characters, who rarely get written about in general, and only one of whom appeared in any of Blood's prior-deleted previous stories and a current reboot thereof (as its main antagonist), in order to fulfill the role of who would first undermine the antagonists in some meaningful way.

• In Arkham Asylum, Batman's Detective Mode was so incredibly useful that there was pretty much no reason to turn it off - you could see enemies through walls, the important aspects of the environment were highlighted, and it made locating Riddler Trophies much, much easier without their green lights blending into the background. Rocksteady was upset that players were opting to ignore the incredible environments they'd created by keeping Detective Vision on, so the sequels nerfed it considerably - it darkens the screen so that it's hard to see anything, not nearly as many important details are highlighted orange like before, and, above all, enemies could now jam Detective Vision or (in the case of Arkham Knight) outright weaponize it against Batman.

• The miasma in Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles is the driving force of the entire game, but it was originally just designed to keep the whole team on screen at all times. Your party has to carry around a chalice that wards the miasma in its radius, and leaving the ward causes you to take damage, so nobody can wander off, so split-screen isn't necessary, so everyone gets to enjoy Scenery Porn.

In fairness, while WAL is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, SWtP might be misleading. The word "serendipity" in general is defined as "the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way," and actually, that's exactly what the above examples are.

So, perhaps the two titles should actually represent their own trope each?

Edited by SeaRover on Jan 31st 2021 at 12:38:57 PM