Contrived Coincidences in fan works.
Crossovers
- In the Altered Destinies Fan Verse, Katsuhito Masaki was the master of Sasaki Kojiro, who quickened after his legendary duel against Miyamoto Musashi and took on the name Hiko Seijuurou. Hiko eventually became the master of Himura Kenshin, who ended up reincarnating as Ranma Saotome Katsuhito’s grandson.
- In Amazing Fantasy, Izuku is surprised to learn that his great-great-grandparents had Quirks that would neatly explain his new Wall Crawling and Intangibility powers. He decides not to show off his Super-Strength to his mom to avoid worrying her.
- In Blood Sisters, when Edward first calls Bo to explain that he's just learnt that his girlfriend Bella is an adopted fae, Bo immediately wonders if this is a trap, considering that she just learnt that she even has a sister called Isabella and is now being told of an unknown fae of that name, but agrees to exchange DNA so that they can each carry out tests to make sure.
- Child of the Storm has such a complicated Tangled Family Tree that it needs its own page, and loads more Contrived Coincidences besides, such as characters always being in the right place at the right time. Then it turns out that Chessmaster and time-traveller Stephen Strange has actually been manipulating events for millennia in order to prepare the Earth for war against Thanos, neatly justifying all of the coincidences in the first two and a half Harry Potter books as well.
- Crazy Irken and ? (Invader Zim-based crossover fic anthology by D_rissing and nightmaster000. note ): In the The Proud Family chapter, Penny’s costume when attending Comic-Con is a member of Galactic Patrol, an in-universe show about a Space Police fighting an evil empire of Insectoid Aliens. But as it turns out, there really was an organization called Galactic Patrol that fought the Irkens, so Zim mistakes her for an actual member and abducts her for interrogation. And for an even bigger coincidence, the location of the Patrol’s hidden base that he coerces out of her not only turns out to be a real place, but is where the Resisty is hiding, meaning that the information Zim gives to the Tallest turns out to be accurate.
- Dante's Night at Freddy's 2: Animatronic Boogaloo treats the reader to the ridiculous coincidence that Not only did Dante's twin brother Vergil once work the security post at a Freddy Fazbear restaurant in 1985, but also killed the animatronics within in almost identical ways that Dante would over thirty years later. To the point that, when Dante was sent back in time to 1987, he didn't even realize he was in a prequel. Of course, given every absurd moment leading up to it, it's Played for Laughs.
- Empathy: This is referenced in the first chapter's title: Chance Encounter, which was when Riley wandered into the beginning of Big Hero 6.
- The Faith Chronicles opens with Faith escaping from Sunnydale to Colorado Springs, where she gets a job in a restaurant regularly attended by the SGC staff just in time for SG-1 to intercept an attack on Faith by a Council wetworks squad, leading to Sam Carter meeting Faith and setting off a chain of events that reveal that Faith is the daughter Sam had been told had been a stillbirth.
- Justified and weaponized in Fist of the Moon. If you try to go back in time and change things, you become massively unlucky as the universe literally is out to get you.
- In the story Harry Tano, it is explained in a throwaway line that each year, a different wizarding family uses this to ensure that all the new muggleborn students make it through to platform 9 & 3/4 so that they can get on the Express.
- A Gem in the Rough: After leaving Alabasta, quite a few things happen in a convenient manner for the Crystal Gems and the Straw Hats:
- Pressing the Belly Bag Badge causes them to go straight to Beach City instead of the U.G.R.V. like it was supposed to.
- Vidalia manages to cause Amethyst to reform after taking quite a long period of time to do so.
- Capturing Peridot the night after they come back.
- Greg eating the Rhythm-Rhythm Fruit, which was found by Onion stuck to the hull.
- All of this turns out to have a logical explanation: Garnet accidentally turned on the "Plot Contrivance Mode" of the Belly Bag Badge, which Uncle Grandpa turned off for them.
- I'm Nobody:
- At the beginning of the fic, Roxas is randomly thrown into a corridor of darkness that lands him at the exact location of Tali'Zorah as she's bleeding out from her injuries. Him being at the right place at the right time saves her life.
- At another point, while Roxas is going through a Heroic BSoD and returns to the Organization XIII HQ to gather his thoughts, he overhears a conversation between Xemnas and some other members that reveals their true motives.
- A little later, the three independent groups that are currently storming Castle Oblivion find themselves on the same floor at the same time, entirely by accident.
- Inconsistency
has the PI Agency Drac-U-Allies (consisting of different fictional vampires as human siblings) whose involvement with the Miraculous Ladybug cast all leads them with Lila Rossi under their eye. In chapter 2, the eldest sister Lily lampshades this by asking how is it all of their jobs seem to point to the Rossi family. To clarify:- Draculaura and Sibella are hired by Principal Damocles to investigate why Mrs. Rossi has been absent from parent/teacher conferences and why hasn't she been answering any calls.
- Seras is hired by Gabriel Agreste to act as his son's bodyguard while the Gorilla is out on a family emergency. She ends up witnessing and intervening against Lila's borderline sexual assault against Adrien.
- Even in his civilian life, Alucard ends up hearing about Lila when his honorary nephew Nino tells him about Lila losing a family heirloom and insisting that Marinette stole it, with the discussion causing both to suspect that she was trying to frame Marinette for theft. It's during the same conservation that Alucard realizes that Nino's classmate Lila is the same Lila Rossi that Seras has been investigating.
- In chapter 3, Al gets hired by a man named Antonio to find his missing wife and daughter after a surprise divorce while he was out on a business trip. The man's full name is Antonio Rossi. Al has to tell D and Seras that no, he isn't joking that he also has case related to the Rossi family.
- In Kyon: Big Damn Hero, there was a need for a Dimensional Anchor. The item found in Tsuruya's backyard during the events of the seventh light novel? Guess what it is.
- This is actually lampshaded in The Legend of Fodlan, as Hubert suspects Link of being a spy for Those who Slither since he just so happens to appear and gain Rhea's favors right as Edelgard becomes a student.
- It is not a coincidence in Life Ore Death that Red Arrow just happens to call for help from the Team when Ferris is the one most available (it's the middle of the school week), nor that the League of Shadows agents involved are ones she has history with; it's a deliberate setup to find out more about her powers. However, it appears to be total dumb luck with no justification that they run into a young Cassandra Cain on the mission, and she proves critical to saving Renka's life when things go wrong.
- The Moon's Flash Princess: Suguha, while seeking a VR game to help her understand her brother Kazuto's love for such games, meets Kouichirou Yuuki, who not only is part of the company that is creating Alfheim Online, but also has access to his sister Asuna's (Kazuto's Love Interest) stream of what's going on within Aincrad.
- In Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!, the can Izuku kicked in frustration just a few minutes earlier flew across the city and hit All Might in the head, giving the Sludge Villain an opportunity to escape and attack Izuku, which in turn attracted All Might after he saw Izuku's Heat Vision go off in the distance while the boy was escaping the Sludge Villain. Izuku is painfully aware of this.All Might: I almost had him, but then a can fell out of the sky and hit me in the face, giving him an opening. Seriously, a can falling out of the sky! How does that even happen?!
Izuku: [sheepish] I-I-I wouldn't know... - Oni Ga Shiku Series: The sheer amount of One Degree of Separation in this fic makes for some crazy coincidences.
- Izuku first meets Kiryu because Haruka's school decided to take a field trip to Musutafu for a day to visit UA, Kiryu offered to be a chaperone, and he decided to take a smoke brake in the very same beach Izuku is cleaning up, while Izuku was there. Not to mention that it was Majima - aka Kiryu's rival - that ordered Izuku to clean the beach in the first place.
- Majima first runs into Hisashi when he drops a cigarette butt to the ground and Hisashi decides to give him the riot act over littering and protecting to environment. Minutes later, he goes to deliver a message to Hisashi's father Musashi and finds Hisashi in the office. Majima did not even know Musashi had kids. He lampshades this bit by commenting about how luck turns out.
- Akiyama bribes Izuku with a used copy of Dragon Quest III that used to belong to Ichiban. This would not be such a big coincidence if not for the fact that Ichiban (who is still in prison at the time) made friends with Akatani, who was sent to jail by Izuku.
- Speaking of Akatani and his connection to Izuku, the dude's girlfriend is Midnight, aka Izuku's Art History teacher. Who met Izuku before UA started because she went to visit her friend Rio while she was doing one of Akiyama's tests that Izuku was inspecting. Akatani is quite surprised when Midnight tells him that she met Izuku prior to the UA entrance exam.
- In Origins, a Mass Effect/Star Wars/Borderlands/Halo Massive Multiplayer Crossover, the Citadel Council lampshades this when they all conveniently show up in one spot where Caitlin Flanders finds them. It's heavily implied based on the previous chapter that Shepard and/orCortana caused this otherwise-unlikely group-up to happen, as Grayson wonders if they've been "set up."
- A Peaceful Afterlife: Kira meeting HOLY DIVER, aka DIO, a man who employed Kira's father Yoshihiro, immediately upon death is acknowledged by HOLY DIVER, who sees it as fate.
- A minor one happens earlier on in Ponyville goes to the...dragons??. When Twilight is trying to make the three dragons feel more at ease, she hears one of their stomachs growl and starts to talk about Sugar Cube Corner, and all the treats it has there. This causes them to realize how hungry they are and start to drool with hungry looks on their face over Twilight's descriptions of the treats there. Well, guess who everyone's favorite Moe Blob draconiphobic happens to walk in at that exact moment...
- The Star Trek: Enterprise/Battlestar Galactica (2003) crossover "Reunion” opens when Racetrack’s Raptor makes a wrong jump and arrives basically right behind Enterprise while it’s in the Delphic Expanse. Having explained the Colonial Fleet’s status to the senior staff, Racetrack takes Archer and Reed back to Galactica and Archer is swiftly able to form an alliance with the Colonials, working with them to make new plans to protect Earth from the Xindi and find the superweapon.
- In Ripples of Coincidences SG-1 informally adopts a four-year-old Harry after Marge Dursley abandons him in Colorado. Due to his Parseltongue ability and their belief that his father was an alien, they decide to take him off-world.By sheer coincidence, the total time that took one Albus Dumbledore to be informed that something was wrong at the Dursley residence, find the time to check it out, just about have a heart attack at realizing Harry Potter was no longer there and the Dursleys had been arrested, quietly panic, call for a search of the missing boy-hero, run into walls not even magic could get through, get mightily frustrated, finally accept that he wasn't going to be told where the child was and resort to a Locating Ritual to find him, amounted exactly to the time needed for SG-1's uncharacteristic mission to be approved, prepared, and launched.
- In The Search for Victory, it initially appears that this is the best description of the chain of events that led to Daniel Jackson, S.H.I.E.L.D. and over half of the Avengers being at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the same day; Coulson's team, Natasha and Clint were tracking Daniel independently as they were suspicious about his history, Steve and Sam were just visiting the museum for a day off, and Tony was alerted to the attack on his own. However, it’s later confirmed that the Ascended set it all up so that the Avengers and Stargate Command could join forces against the Ori for the final stand.
- In Spider-X, with no obvious sign that they were aware of the other, Xavier and Mystique each recruit their first ‘mutate’ (an artificially-enhanced human rather than a traditional mutant) at the same time, Xavier recruiting Spider-Man and Mystique enlisting Electro.
- Taylor Varga: The entire chain of events surrounding Saint's capture. In order:
- Taylor and the Varga decided to swim north for some weapons testing, ending up in the vicinity of Newfoundland.
- They blasted a couple of islands to pieces using hammer strikes, releasing enough energy that it caught the attention of Dragon and Armsmaster.
- While testing the blast voice, they blew up several more islands, drawing a line directly from their initial strikes to Saint's hidden base (which they had no idea was there, and which is completely undetectable from the outside).
- They then randomly decide to see if they can cut an island in half with the blast voice, and in so doing totally destroy Saint's weaponry and suits, the Ascalon console, and the base's life support systems while leaving Saint and his minions alive and unharmed, yet helpless and with no option other than to surrender to the Dragon craft that was coming to investigate Taylor and the Varga's earlier antics.
- And they did all this while there was no effective satellite coverage, so the PRT has no real data on who they are.
- This actually gets Lampshaded by Armsmaster, who states that whoever was behind this must have known exactly who and where Saint was and have detailed intelligence on PRT capabilities, because the idea of flawlessly pulling off something with this many moving parts by accident beggars belief.
- Turnabout Reunion: Athena just had to turn on the TV to see Sunset Shimmer's conviction. I mean, Detective Fulbright even specifically mentions Phoenix's name.
- Witches Wizards Shadows and Souls: While former magic minister Fudge is visiting the Japanese ministry of magic as part of some standard diplomatic visits, the Death Eaters decide to remind him that nowhere is safe and attack a nearby park filled with muggles. Unfortunately for the Death Eaters, Yugi Moto and his friends decided to hang out for launch at that very park. Later the gang is surprised that for once the magic-wielding psychopaths weren't targetting them specifically, and that it really was a coincidence.
- In Three Strikes,
- While Trigger’s sister is a medic assigned to the 'Kestrel II', she is on maternity leave at the start of the war and so is spared from possibly sharing its fate in the aftermath of Operation Dual Wielder.
- Somehow, Trigger has never seen the documentary that was made from Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War which has her own father in it. It’s a very popular film for people who want to join or are part of an air force. Maybe her family made sure she never saw it if they could help it to keep her from find out their Dark Secret but to miss it by mere minutes as it played in the base’s mess hall is something else.
- In Alvan an the Chipmunks 3: The Second Squeakuel Snoop Dogg is unable to return home to save the chipmunks from a rapist until the appropriate moment in the plot because a 747 crashes in the highway in front of him, causing a traffic jam.
- A Moth to a Flame: Not only did Marcy happen to find the Calamity Box at a thrift store by chance and recognize it from a library book when she ran away from home after learning that her family was moving out-of-state, she just so happens to be a direct descendant of the humans who created it and lived in Newtopia. Andrias and Marcy believes this was fate, and it only fuels Marcy's obsessive belief that she's destined to use the Box for greatness.
- Cor Et Cerebrum: Jason gets very lucky at one point when a run in with some skin heads goes poorly and he crashes right by were Dev is grabbing some tacos. Dick wonders how Dev got there instantly and Dev maintains an air of mysteriousness by just saying he's the doctor.
- In Meet Me Where You're Going, Steph and Cass are stuck in an elevator shaft when they happen to hear two guards walk by mid-discussion of the changed date and location of an illegal auction. Justified, because the villains are luring them into a trap.
- In Resurrected Memories: Ember infiltrates Casper High around the same time that A.J. Murray starts as the substitute music teacher and then independently ends up befriending A.J.’s daughter Zoe after saving her sister Maggie from Skulker, however where this trope really comes into play is that it turns out that A.J. is none other then Ember’s little sister Amy all grown up which also makes Ember an aunt to both Zoe and Maggie.
- Returning Home: When Mirabel gets separated from her family, the person who finds her and adopts her is her long-lost Abuelo Pedro. They even settling into a "abuelo/nieta" family dynamic, unaware of just how accurate it is.
- In The Fifth Act, Zack is extremely fortunate that he went outside and went below Plate when he was musing over his failure to find out what happened to Cloud and Kunsel. Because he literally bumps into Young Cloud who went to Midgar to find Cloud and treat the Mako-overdosed Kunsel.
- Way to Normal, a Final Fantasy XIII fic (specifically from the Lightning Returns subset), has a few happen in the first few chapters:
- Lightning, waking up on a hill just outside Alsace, was only a few feet from her younger sister Serah
- The house Lightning and Serah choose to go to first in order to learn where they are happens to be the home of their teammate Hope Estheim's parents. Hope himself, now back in his older Academy Director look from XIII-2, landed on the opposite side of France (near the Brittany area) with Snow Villiers and Snow's pre-Purge crew (with said crew, mainly the blue-haired Lebreau, running a general store close to said landing coordinate).
- The nearby city of Strasbourg includes a mechanic shop where another teammate, Sazh Katzroy, and his son Dajh are. Sazh owns the shop, and also there is an old buddy of Serah's in Chocolina.
- The train ride to Paris sees Lightning run into two individuals she had previously helped during Lightning Returns; chef Sebastian Aryas, who came to them when Serah recognized a dish from their train's buffet, and Dolce (who doesn't fully recognize Lightning partly because the elder Farron introduces herself by her original name Claire), who had asked for some help reaching a dessert. Lightning using her original name Claire ends up helping her out somewhat since Dolce named her stuffed animal (which the sisters lampshade it thankfully being a rabbit) Lightning.
- Snow and Hope, who went to Paris at about the same time, check into a hotel that just so happened to be owned by one of Snow's former employees during his time as the Patron of Yusnaan. They don't immediately realize Lightning (who was recognized by her cab's driver) and Serah were staying at that same hotel.
- During a library search she was doing, Serah happens across Sazh's wife Estelle. A similar search by Hope ended far more sourly when Snow recognized Alyssa from a paradox he had previously experienced during XIII-2.
- Both Farrons plus Hope have their bank accounts at the same bank as the particularly high-profile individuals. One employee happens to recognize Lightning as the Savior and Hope as the Academy Director (from Lightning Returns and XIII-2 respectively), indicating he was one of the XIII-2 characters who lived long enough to have a role of some kind in Lightning Returns.
- TO On the Streets has Chandler run into Ross on the street and invite Ross to his wedding just because they were college roommates who had since fallen out of touch, completely unaware that Ross is actually the brother of his fiancé (Judy kicked Monica out while claiming that Jack and Ross knew and approved of the plan when in reality they had no idea).
- In Son of the Desert, while wandering through Central, Edward happens across and talks to other Ishvalans, and Roy is literally tossed to him when he is thrown out of a bar.
- Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): Following the global Titan Mass Awakening, Alan Jonah and his paramilitary take up residence in a long-abandoned Monarch outpost which just so happens to be built atop the odd Titan who rejected King Ghidorah's summons and remained asleep. As a result, said Titan once he fully awakens is present to help San and Vivienne Graham escape to safety.
- crawlersout: Fem!Harry's forgetting to pay her taxes somehow leads to her meeting Gellert Grindelwald, who takes an interest in her and subsequently establishes himself as both the Big Bad and her Stalker with a Crush in later meetings. Though it's heavily implied that the initial encounter was not a coincidence at all.
- In End of the Day a book Harry accidentally drops behind the sofa falls open to a picture of the malign ritual circle someone carved into the underside of the chair in Harry's office.
- The story of Caitlin in Hogwarts Exposed is built on Contrived Coincidence. The girl with a ridiculously tragic backstory who Hermione takes pity on just happens to have exceptional magical potential that gets revealed later on and a twenty million Galleon inheritance.
- In Make a Wish, Harry's travels around the world (especially at the beginning) are fraught with so many Death Eater deaths that people think "Mr Black" (Harry's alias) is an über-Badass wizard who can make anything look like an accident. The accidents are more a combination of genuine accident and pissing off the guy who makes the Death Eaters' Portkeys; Mr Black has literally nothing to do with it outside of happening to be in the general area.
- In Of Western Stars Sirius, having escaped Azkaban so he can meet a six-year-old Harry, happens to come across a truck being sent to the town where Harry and his relatives live.
- In The Thorny Rose, Bill Weasley points out the very strange situation that Harry owns Dobby, a house-elf who was previously owned by the Malfoys and who can tell them everything they need to know about Malfoy Manor, just when they need to raid the place in search of a book that contains important information. Harry says Karma owes him a few favours.
- Dangerverse: Remus just happens to be in Little Whinging, at the park where Danger is playing with Hermione and Harry. Justified in that there were other forces at play.
- In Prodigal Son, Hiccup arrives back in the Archipelago over Helheim's gate just as Berk figured out how to navigate the fog and have just awoken the Red Death ready to kill them all.
- The Devil's in the details: The fact that Daredevil's son would become Spider-Man is a complete coincidence.
- "Spider-Who" features a reality where Mary Jane exists in the MCU as a separate person from Michelle Jones. She was abducted as part of a scheme by Tombstone to lure out Spider-Man shortly before the Snap, and by sheer coincidence not only was Mary Jane another victim of the Snap along with Spider-Man, but she returned to life in a manner that allowed Tombstone's men to recapture her (albeit with some questions about whether they should bother continuing the plan).
- In Mass Effect: Synthesis, a shocking number of major and supporting characters from canon are individuals needed for synthesis with the Reapers, who can only achieve synthesis with a single organic in the universe. Shepard and her mother, Joker, Anderson, Tali, Wrex, Aria, Garrus, etc., but the most ridiculous is that the last Reaper to achieve synthesis happened to need a Prothean and the last remaining one, Javik, matched.
- One of the primary obstacles Juleka faces in Juleka vs. the Forces of the Universe is how events just happen to push the Love Square together.
- Despite how one of Andre's marketing gimmicks (alongside his 'sweetheart ice cream') is that customers have to track his cart down, when Juleka starts looking for alternatives she finds that suddenly they can't avoid him — wherever they happen to be going, he just happens to have set up his cart.
- When Gabriel launches Adrien the Fragrance, it's accompanied by an advertising blitz that leaves Juleka seriously wondering how much money the Agrestes can pour into such things, along with questioning whether Adrien is the only model he employs.
- Phoenix's Tear: Reignition: Hare invokes this in order to justify not telling the other Searchers about the Phoenix's Tear when they first met. Holly already had her own magical pendant in the Magic Stone, and given how he'd just attempted to trick the group out of their tournament winnings, it would have seemed incredibly coincidental for him to reveal he just happened to have one as well, making it seem like he was spinning more lies.
- In Lavandula Somnambulist, the fact that Izuku (son of Midnight) and Shinso (adopted son of Eraserhead and Present-Mic, Midnight's friends and coworkers) becomes friends comes as a complete surprise too all three of their parents.
- My Hero Academia: Mechanical green: Right as Izumi and Inko are giving Ochaco a ride back to the apartment she was staying in, they see a massive tank crashed through the upper floor of the building, caused by the criminal Mirai had been tracking using his Quirk to make a JSDF tank driver go temporarily insane, said driver having a Quirk that makes vehicles jump. Only one apartment was damaged in any way, Apartment 202... the exact apartment that Ochaco was staying at. Fortunately none of her stuff was damaged, but this forces her to stay with Izumi and Inko for the night, in turn allowing her to witness one of Izumi's trauma induced nightmares and give her a Declaration of Protection. Durandal points out the absurdity of the events and how, in any other circumstance, it would be humorous.Durandal: I'd say it sounds like something from a comedy sketch, but considering what could have happened, I think it's best that no one found this funny.
- Green Bean Stream Scene also features the scene of Ochako and Izuku reaching her apartment building just after something bad has happened, but the fire caused presumably by Endeavor proved far more effective on Ochako's stuff than the tank did.
- Whispered Tribulation: What Aizawa's "evidence" boiled down to is just a protracted list of coincidences that can (and are) explained away as such.
- Aizawa happens upon Izuku's notebooks and assumes that he was gathering intel, citing the various notes detailing the hero's weaknesses. What he missed was that he also wrote down ways they can circumvent these weakness, something that he had helped with Pony and other students at Class 1-B with.
- He was there at the USJ when the League's first invasion occurred because he was exploring the campus on a bike. He didn't heed the alarms because they didn't go off. He had a first-aid kit on him that he would then use to help the injured students and faculty because he was a frequent victim of Fantastic Racism at his last school and learned not to depend on adults to help.
- The reason he was in Hosu when the Nomus attacked was because he was retrieving garlic salt for his mother. When he saw the nomus rampaging, he ducks into an alleyway that happened to be the same alley Stain and Ida were in. He then tend to Ida and Native's wounds, blowing off the Hero Killer as unimportant by comparison, surviving after he shattered the Hero Killer's faith in his own twisted ideals.
- Izuku was there at the League of Villain's attack on the Pussycat's training camp was because Inko won the The Gemini Croquet Contest and they both stayed at a nearby hotel.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- Ascend (xTSGx): As Lampshaded by Spike in Chapter Four, the reason for sudden stopping of dragonfire communication:Celestia via letter: I regret to inform you that, due to the increasing instability within the Griffo-Minotaurian Empire, I have been advised by the National Defense Council to halt all forms of Dragonfire communication, effective immediately.
[...]
Spike: “Oh, come on! That's so contrived!” - The Dear Sweetie Belle Continuity: "Paternally Yours" has Sweetie Belle lampshade one when she realizes that her singing tutor is her father.
- Near the end of Twillight Sparkle's awesome adventure, Pinkie Pie finds a hidden elevator to Celesia's throne room. It's thoroughly lampshaded.
- In Fate/Starry Night, Ritsuka is surprised to learn that one of his Mystic Codes is a perfect replication of Homurahara's school uniform. He doesn't think too much about it, considering it a convenient way for him to blend in and talk to Rin at school.
- This Bites!: How was Vivi to know that they'd show up at Water 7 right when the Aqua Laguna would be coming in on the next day? Well, knowing the Straw Hats' luck...
- In One Punch Man: Hero's Harem, several different groups express an interest in either City Z in general or Saitama's group in particular and all head there on the same day. Said groups include Fubuki's faction, the Tank Top army, members of the Monsters Association, a team of Class A heroes, Swim, and another group of random monsters.
- Sylvia the Sylveon has several of these, all of which involve the titular character reuniting with her family:
- When Sylvia loses the collar that allows her family to recognise her, it is found by a friend of her sister, Lucretia - and it is the fact that said friend had wandered off that leads to the reunion.
- Sylvia leaves behind Hikaru, Nicodemus, and Dilandau because she sees who she thinks is one of her brothers - she is half-right. However, her "reunion" with Vapor does not go well.
- Sylvia is sold to the same people who captured her brother Alseides, and the two of them happen to be the competitors in their next Beastly Bloodsports-esque fight - which gives her a chance to save him. Later, after they both get caught in a landslide, their brother Moondancer, who happens to be nearby at that moment, helps Sylvia take the dying Alseides to a Pokémon Center.
- Sylvia passes out from starvation; not only does it happen right as a certain green-haired man is passing by, but it happens just outside where her brother Bolt and his family lives, leading to them to look after her instead. Sylvia even describes the reunion as "one that I thought I would [n]ever ever experience". Not to mention that Bolt managed to run into the perfect wife in the wilds of a region that the Eevee evolutionary line isn't native to.
- Sylvia happens to witness her brother Konoha evolving and getting beaten up by his trainer for his defiance - prompting her to come to his rescue.
- Not only does Sylvia return home just as her father is about to die, but he manages to hold on long enough to hear about both her and Moondancer's adventures - which is also what he needed to die happy.
- Averted and then subverted in With Strings Attached. The woman that kidnaps John turns out to be the person who has the Kansael, which the Fans were going to maneuver to Paul. Varx comments that this is a great coincidence, but Jeft points out that it's no coincidence—the script they wrote for the woman has been altered by an outside force. Which turns out to be the C'hovite gods. And the subversion is that it's not them, it's actually Jeft, who altered his own script and created his own coincidence.
- Rosario Vampire: Brightest Darkness: In Act V chapter 39, Moka and the others arrive at the destroyed human city shortly after Render, Leon, Apoch, Astreal, and Good!Falla's battle with Jovian, Jacqueline, and Evil!Falla has left the city in ruins; the HDA promptly uses this to blame the group for the destruction and place them under arrest. In Act VI chapter 10, after the group has escaped the HDA complex, Razico even notes that their arrival was bad timing.
- In Not this time, Fate, in the time between Jaune deciding not to go to Beacon during this loop (to last longer and have more time to prepare next loopnote ) and Beacon's Initiation, he somehow manages to meet the entirety of teams RWBY, CRDL, JNPR, CFVY, Emerald, Glynda, and Ozpin. All on top of a Beowolf attack that never happened in the original timeline. Jaune maintains his decision not to enter Beacon, right up until his meeting with Yang leads to a Bar Brawl that'd have them both spending the next several years in prison if he doesn't "admit" to being a student at Beacon. It's eventually revealed that Fate is an actual entity that's been manipulating things in an attempt to make events proceed as in canon.
- Played for Drama in The Wheels of Fate, where Akira enters the Metaverse to try and persuade Yusuke's Shadow into accepting his mentor Madarame is a fraud when the Shadow suddenly erupts into a burst of light and vanishes. Akira, who had used the Metaverse for years to kill criminals, thinks that Yusuke had suffered a mental shutdown from the stress of the revelation. However, when Akira goes over to pick up Yusuke's body, he finds out the artist is still alive. It turns out that at the same time Akira was trying to speak with the shadow, Yusuke was in Madarame's Palace with the Phantom Thieves and awakened his Persona, meaning his Shadow vanished from Akira's sight to become Yusuke's Persona Goemon.
- In Flam Gush when Lina is cut by a poisoned knife in a town she and Gourry are visiting for the first time, the nearest citizen Gourry finds to ask for help recognizes Lina, having known her when they were children. Then, the doctor Ryan takes them too once healed Gourry's mother as well when he was a child. It is implied that Erik may have arranged at least part of this for his plan for Lina.
- In Robb Returns, this is a common occurrence.
- For example, when the Call happened, Brienne of Tarth was on the Vale, and she was pulled towards the Isle of Faces, which leads to her meeting Brynden Tully.
- Big one in chapter 74, where Bronn's keep is exactly in the right place to catch Lysa Arryn as the injury she got from attacking Jon Arryn is festering.
- A common event in Sonic X: Dark Chaos. The characters (especially Knuckles) frequently lampshade it.
- In The Shadow, Luke Skywalker makes friends with Black Three who happens to have friends who regularly hire Dash Rendar for transportation. Dash takes Luke and Black Three's friends in his ship to watch a fireworks display and Mara Jade happens to see it, who goes to inform Vader. Vader is on the look out for a YT series Corellian freighter and happens to find the Millenium Falcon that was trying to infiltrate Coruscant (despite being the most recognizable ship the Alliance has) that day. Luke gets picked up by a different Star Destroyer, which happens to be the one the Alliance attacks while trying to rescue Han and Leia. Though given that it allowed Vader to learn Leia is his daughter and has become a Jedi, one could argue it was the Force at work.
- In Gift of A Diamond, Blue Diamond received complaints in droves about Rhodonite from Holly Blue Agate. This eventually stops after Holly gets demoted to cleaning duty with Rhodonite taking her place after she proposed having him shattered for not following orders that could have resulted in human deaths.
- Hellsister Trilogy: As fighting their way through the anti-matter universe of Qward, Supergirl and her evil duplicate approach a star which happens to be the one where Kara's friend and teammate Wildfire has been trapped for a long while.
- Discussed in Property Of; when Captain Will Lennox learns of the human pet trade on Cybertron from Sam and Mikaela after they are brought back to Earth (with most Cybertronians unaware that humans are sentient), he initially doesn't believe them when they claim that they've met his daughter back on Cybertron as he feels that the coincidence of such a twist is too great. Even after he's assured that they do know Annabelle, he wonders if this scenario was set up to make him reluctant to fight the invading robots by using his daughter as a potential bargaining chip.
- In Arcadia or Bust, a police officer goes up to Jim in the car and tells him that a large calcite stone was stolen from a nearby Mineral Museum, becoming suspicious of Jim when he sees the Heartstone, leading to his arrest.
- In The Great Red Panda Rescue, Mei's friends overhear her kidnappers talking about her obliquely right after they learn she's gone missing.
- "Twist of fate" is set in an AU where Jade was blinded by a stroke and Tori left paralysed from the waist down in a car accident before they met. When the two start dating, school bully Ryder Daniels shifts his taunts from just Jade to mocking them both, to the extent that he drives Tori to tears when he suggests her accident has left her incapable of truly being with anyone, confident that his lawyer father can beat them if they try to file a complaint against him. Fortunately for Jade and Tori, another student was filming the corridor for an assignment at just the moment when Ryder confronted them, giving them clear evidence of Ryder's harassment of two special needs students that prompts the principal to expel him.
- In Another Chronicle, several plot developments only occur due to unlikely happenstances, such as characters conveniently being in the right place at the right moment to encounter each other. For instance, Fan la Norne, a representative from Indol, catches up with the protagonists right when they're considering traveling there. It's lampshaded by Nia, who notices almost every time this happens and theorizes that the Architect is meddling in her life.
Other
- Khaos Omega has implemented a few cases of this, three of them involving four different second-generation Amethysts.
- The first one conceived is Rosalie (conceived long before Anise started to officially form the Amethysts, by a Daisy-garbed Roy on orders of eventual Amethyst member Robin), an Expy of ProtonJon centered on his involvement with Tom Fawkes in the Custom Smash series. Her main case of this happens whenever someone mentions Super Smash Bros. Ultimate around Anise, as she almost always ends up going through the portal that leads to her favorite Custom Smash map's namesake box at that very moment.(someone mentions Smash Ultimate)
Rosalie: THAT'S A BOX! - Rosalie was also involved in the first case of someone's non-Galaxy Angel parent getting scrambled via a convenient naming chain, as her name combined with having inherited Meme Storm (in the direction behind her particular love of Custom Smash, the map known as 'The Box' in particular) triggered Meme Storm's level 4000 "effect" (the Tier 2 upgrade of the level 3400 "effect") caused Pokémon Ranger Summer to conceive Ruby Rose through Meme Storm copying Anise's rape fetish onto Summer. Ruby is canonically the youngest of the show's namesake team anyway, and Anise HAD added Yang as a Gen-1 by the time she found Summer in the first place. What helped Yang's Gen-1 status was that she was closer to two of the Amethysts' three appearance requirements (longer hair and a larger bust than Ruby), had a combat style that could adapt to the third easier, and a prior conversation clued Anise in to the chain behind Ruby.
- It's later revealed that this chain is a little more complicated than most people thought, because something in Anise's aura makes it so any pregnancy involving her has to be at least twins. Anise admits she wouldn't be too miffed should Ruby's twin be Cinder Fall, a la the fanfic 'A Rose Made of Ice'. Which way does Meme Storm decide to go? A direction nobody saw coming, picking the fanfic 'Rose Red, Hedgehog Blue' by making Amy Ruby's twin. And it took an enemy using a similar armor scheme to the one Anise and her ZK3 teammates dealt with during an early Sonic Free Riders op back when Anise was still using the Super Saiyan 3-esque hedgehog Zelic as her Mobian guise for Amy to reveal herself.
- Rosalie was NOT involved in the second case, where four game worlds got tied into a chain often dubbed more complex than the one behind Ruby. The four game worlds involved are Fire Emblem: Awakening as the setting in which the chain-induced conception occurs and the home world of the non-Galaxy Angel parent, Fire Emblem Fates as why said non-Galaxy Angel parent is the one the chain centers on (which ends up partially scrambling Meme Storm plans Anise had for Lucina by having the Meme Storm-invoking spell work as intended but still have Robin as an Amethyst under pseudo designation), the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy as the original homeworld of Ruby's main partner Claire "Lightning" Farron and her sister Serah (the younger Farron age-accelerated into being Claire's twin) due to said non-Galaxy Angel parent's canon kid's Fates name matching that of Claire's Eidolon, and Final Fantasy VII simply because Claire is canonically an Expy of VII's hero Cloud Strife. A chain of decisions Anise made during her mission to Cloud's homeworld is often said to have played a role in the chain (with one of them being attributed to Cloud's choice of element for his XF Series Power Suit being the lightning-based Wave as Anise herself already has Ice covered), hence why VII's involved in it, and the Fates involvement is also why Meme Storm gave one of Olivia's kids an effect akin to one particular line from the Camp Lazlo theme song (whose characters tend to appear upside-down via a portal immediately breaking into the follow-up chorus, whose first line is sung by them while upside-down).
- Recently confirmed is a third chain, functioning more like the one behind Ruby, when the Mark III version of a curse Anise was originally hit with in 2693 leads her to the Descendants dimension. The non-Galaxy Angel parent this time is a Mario Kart Tour-original Rosalina variant that spares Audrey from ending up a victim of the curse flaring up, due to said Rosalina variant's codename matching the real name of Audrey's mother. What really makes this chain different than the one behind Ruby is that Amethyst Audrey's twin sister (because something in Anise's natural aura outright mandates at least twins for every pregnancy Anise is involved with in some way) matches the horde of Jasmine lookalikes who joined on a previous op to the Pokemon dimension in terms of where her go-to heels originated (and name, in this Gen-2's case).
- Unrelated to the Anise-led Amethysts, in 2021 Anise partook in two Mario Kart Double Dash tournaments alongside the Rainbow Angels' leader Jet. She used her half of the winnings to found her superstore Sky Relic Central, which usually ends up appearing whenever a new Rainbow Angel's revelation is either coming up or had just recently happened. When asked about how many times this scenario had happened, she names Jasmine Levesque (who joined nine years before the Rainbow Angels got their own XQ division in 2039) as the first case.
- Normally this case is unrelated to the Amethysts; one count that is sees Jude Heartfilia agree to an Arranged Marriage between his daughter Lucy and Anise (who thanks to Inextinguibili Raptus Mark III had impregnated Lucy) citing Sky Relic Central as a backup plan in case his current industry of focus were to suffer some critical problem that would financially cripple him.
- The first one conceived is Rosalie (conceived long before Anise started to officially form the Amethysts, by a Daisy-garbed Roy on orders of eventual Amethyst member Robin), an Expy of ProtonJon centered on his involvement with Tom Fawkes in the Custom Smash series. Her main case of this happens whenever someone mentions Super Smash Bros. Ultimate around Anise, as she almost always ends up going through the portal that leads to her favorite Custom Smash map's namesake box at that very moment.
- In Retsuraed, this trope is referenced by name in their MST of 'When Fifi met Tails', based on how Fifi's boyfriend (Hamton) is away on the day of a school dance at the same time Tails is in Acme Acres looking for a Chaos Emerald.
