History Main / FakeBetterAlternateTimeline

* ''ComicBook/TheSupermanAdventures'' issues #30-31, written by Creator/MarkMillar, featured the storyline "Family Reunion", in which Superman, after disposing of an exploding antimatter engine in space, returns to Earth and discovers that a whole year has passed since he was last seen. In this new world, Ma and Pa Kent, sadly, have died in a house fire, and Lois is in a new relationship. Also, Lex Luthor, in the absence of Superman, has figured out new, effective ways to psychologically reprogram supervillains and is hailed as a hero; while this makes Clark question whether or not he was of any real help when he was around, it at least has a bright side in that his supervillains have been rendered harmless. Returning to the Fortress of Solitude, Superman discovers that his Kryptonian mother, Lara, is alive, as is his father, Jor-El, who managed to save one of Krypton's cities, Kryptonopolis, from the destruction of the planet. When this seems to be a silver lining to the new circumstances, [[spoiler:this turns out to be another dimension, into which Superman was knocked by the antimatter explosion. Unfortunately, the destruction of Krypton turns out to have made Lara hellbent on conquering Earth, having already brainwashed this dimension's equivalents of Kal-El and Kara Zor-El into fighting for this plan. She also reveals that ''she'' had them kill Ma and Pa Kent, masking it with the house fire]].
* The classic Superman storyline ''ComicBook/ForTheManWhoHasEverything'' by Creator/AlanMoore shows Superman living a new life in which he is living, happily married with children, on Krypton, whose destruction never occurred. While this turns out to be an illusion created by [[LotusEaterMachine the alien plant Black Mercy]], the dream world turns out to be a darker place than it seemed at first glance. [[spoiler:His father Jor-El, mocked for his failed doomsday prediction, has turned to reactionary politics, and Kal's cousin Kara (Supergirl) is attacked by people protesting Jor-El's use of the Phantom Zone.]]

* {{Subverted|Trope}} in the {{Literature/Goosebumps}} story Literature/TheCuckooClockOfDoom, where Michael's time-travel makes his little sister Tara RetGone. The book ends with him thinking he'll go back for her one of these days, but as the book presents Tara as a genuinely chilling sociopath the timeline really is better off without her.
* ''[[Literature/TheMidnightLibrary2020 The Midnight Library]]'' follows a woman who, after being DrivenToSuicide minutes before midnight, finds herself in the titular library which is filled with possible lives she could have led. The [[SpiritAdvisor librarian]] tells her she must use the books to find a new life to live in. She explores many alternate choices (if she'd gone through with her wedding, if she hadn't left her band, if she'd become an Olympic swimmer, a glaciologist, etc.), leaving each one "when the disappointment becomes total." [[spoiler:Ultimately, after experiencing a huge number of alternate lives and trying sincerely to settle down in one of them, she sees the possibilities and the value she'd overlooked in the life she wanted to leave and fights her way back to that, managing to save herself in the nick of time.]]

* ''Series/{{Community}}'': [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] following the events of the episode "[[Recap/CommunityS3E04RemedialChaosTheory Remedial Chaos Theory]]" where, at Troy and Abed's game night housewarming party, the timeline is split depending on the roll of a die. The "Prime" timeline continues when Abed catches the die and reveals Jeff's trickery, which seems to be the best of the options. Later in the season, when the study group is kicked out of Greendale after Chang takes over, they speculate that what they thought was the best timeline was really the ''worst'' given their current situation. After they rally to overthrow Chang at the end of the season, restoring the "Prime" timeline, it's revealed that their counterparts in the ''actual'' "Darkest" Timeline, jealous that there is another timeline where they could possibly be happy, are planning to invade...

** The episode [[Recap/PsychS05E014ThePolarizingExpress The Polarizing Express]] had Shawn being shown visions of what the world would be like if he'd never returned to Santa Barbara. The visions all contradict each other (one of them sees Lassie installed as a tyrant at the SBPD, another shows Gus with a family, and a third shows Jules as a successful cop in Miami), but Shawn's guide says that this is unimportant, and the real important thing is that Shawn himself would have been squandering his potential. The real lesson he was supposed to take away from the visions is that asking WhatIf is pointless.

* Subverted in ''WesternAnimation/WhatIf2021''. Two episodes focus on timelines that appear to be better overall than the MCU's central "Sacred Timeline" but have a SuddenDownerEnding to make them appear worse. In the second episode, a timeline where T'Challa became Star-Lord has him bring peace to the galaxy, turn the Ravager pirates into heroes, and the Mad Titan Thanos into a good guy, but it's negated by the reveal that with Peter Quill helpless on Earth, his evil father Ego can consume the galaxy without a fight. In the seventh episode, Thor being an only child creates a galaxy-wide dance party that turns villains into party animals, brings peace between the Asgardians and Frost Giants, and at worst causes some easily cleaned-up mischief. It's seemingly all for nothing at the end when Infinity Ultron invades this timeline. However, after the Guardians of the Multiverse assemble to defeat Infinity Ultron, these timelines are seemingly allowed to go to an ideal future for good, with Party Thor returning to a jubilant galaxy and Star-Lord T'Challa returning just in time to blow up Ego.

A storyline where our protagonist finds themself in an AlternateTimeline that seems much better than their original timeline. Maybe the difference is that [[BetterIfNotBornPlot the protagonist themself was never born]] or otherwise didn't come to exist the way they did in the original timeline. Maybe [[ForWantOfANail some other specific event happened differently]] in the alternate timeline's past, and the effects of that ripple into the present. Or maybe the "alternate timeline" is more like a full-fledged AlternateUniverse that resembles the original world in some ways, but has been different from it in other ways for as long as the story cares to show.

*** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E14Tapestry Tapestry]]", Captain Picard has [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane a dream or vision]] in which he is told by Q that he died due to his artificial heart being damaged by a compressed teryon beam. He is given a chance -- which he accepts -- to avoid the fight which caused him to need the artificial heart. [[ForWantOfANail He is then shown that the attitude that he needed to avoid that fight would have meant that he would take fewer risks in the future and -- as a result -- never become captain]].

* ''Series/MyHero2000'': In "Time and Time Again", George changes the past to make Janet's life happier. The eventual timeline created as a result seems to be perfect -- Janet and Piers are happily married with ten children, Janet's parents and Mrs. Raven are happy, and Tyler is both in a relationship with Miranda and is living where George and Janet usually live. George is tempted to live in this new timeline be... until he learns that Mrs. Raven is having an affair with Piers, at which point he resets the timeline.

* In episode 67 of ''Anime/YoKaiWatch'', Whisper dreams of a reality where Katie got the Yo-Kai Watch instead of Nare. At first glance, she seems to be better at it than him since she's friendlier to Whisper and helps him memorize Yo-Kai Wiki pages and her Yo-Kai are all rarer than his, but they all have personality quirks that make them less reliable (for example, Jibanyan may be lazy, but he's not a delinquent like Baddinyan and doesn't consider tasks below him like Goldenyan) and the fact that she resorts to using Whisper as a weapon after Goldenyan refuses to fight Noway implies that she either didn't befriend as many Yo-Kai as he did or her other options were even more unreliable.

*** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E14Tapestry Tapestry]]", Captain Picard has [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane a dream or vision]] in which he is told that he died due to his artificial heart being damaged by a compressed teryon beam. He is given a chance -- which he accepts -- to avoid the fight which caused him to need the artificial heart. [[ForWantOfANail He is then shown that the attitude that he needed to avoid that fight would have meant that he would take fewer risks in the future and -- as a result -- never become captain]].
*** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E10Parallels Parallels]]", Worf finds himself shifting between various quantum realities. In the last one, he's the first officer of the ''Enterprise'' to Captain Riker since the events of "The Best Of Both Worlds" (in this timeline, they were unable to save Picard from the Borg), and married to Troi with two children. But Alexander, Worf's son from the Primeverse, doesn't exist, which saddens him, and Geordi is also dead from an engineering accident.