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What Could Have Been / Fan Works

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What Could Have Been in fanfiction...

The following have their own pages:

Amphibia
  • Medicated: Opin88's original idea was that Anne had the Calamity Box as in canon, and the girls' transformations were permanent until the gems were recharged, which forced them to turn back into humans. Then DragonLovingGirl6 suggested making it so the transformations were never permanent instead.

Animorphs

  • All Assorted Animorphs AUs: Sol originally planned to include Bonnie from Eleutherophobia in "What if Jake and Cassie got married?", but decided against it because most people wouldn't know who she was.
  • Eleutherophobia:
    • Sol briefly considered focusing the series around Eva or Alloran, but chose to resurrect Tom instead because he was more intimately connected to the family lives of the Animorphs, which she wanted to explore.
    • There was originally going to be a scene where Marco asks Tobias how to tell the difference between an ex-host and a nothlit, but Sol removed it because she thought it made Marco come across as too mean.
    • The fight between Tom and Margaret in Ghost in the Shell was originally going to take place during the day, but Sol had trouble coming up with a justification for a golden eagle (Tom's raptor morph) losing a fight, until her beta-reader suggested setting the scene at night and having him morph an owl instead.
    • Chapter 6 of How I Live Now was originally going to begin with the Animorphs reluctantly explaining the Chee to Tom and Eva, but Sol cut it because it killed the pacing.

Calvin and Hobbes

  • Calvin & Hobbes: The Series: The episode "Temporal Delay" was originally named "Terror From the Year 2011", then "2012" (a reference to Terror from the Year 5000), before adopting its current name for two reasons: the title would become dated very quickly no matter what year was chosennote , and there's isn't really a "terror" in the plot of the episode.

ChalkZone

  • Sinful Behaviors : DarkHououmon originally had different plans for the story, and had she kept to her original intentions, the story would have turned out quite different.
    • The original plot of the story would have taken place after communication between ChalkZone and the real world became commonplace, and would have dealt with zoner slavery to an extent.
    • In another version, the story was going to involve Rudy and Penny trying to stop Mr. Cosmo from exposing ChalkZone, but he succeeds, and the rest of the story would have dealt with trying to undo the damage.
    • Originally, Ms. Saffron was supposed to be the same level threat as Mr. Cosmo. The author, at one point, considered making her the main antagonist rather than Mr. Cosmo.
    • Snap was not supposed to get that badly hurt initially, and was to aid Rudy throughout most of the story.
    • The author had considered ending the story with Snap never regaining the ability to walk. She decided to scrap this idea.
    • Play the Game
      • Originally, the story was going to have Bardot cause some confusion by creating a timid Draow clone using the blue chalk. This idea was dropped in favor of having a sort of return of Ms. Saffron in the form of a video.
      • In the original draft of the story, Draow was going to be the main antagonist.
  • Shattered Doll: Originally, Sandra was going to be a more classic villain who had never known Snap before, and thus had no connection to him when she began to torment him. In this version of the story, she intended to kill Snap from the beginning and she did not attempt to justify her killing zoners for meat; it was something that she just did because she wanted to. However, during the course of writing chapter one, the author began to write the character in a new direction, and eventually led to the morally challenged character present in the current story.
    • Mint was not going to be in the story at first. The author had debated on whether or not to make Shattered Doll a sequel and to what story, or let it be stand alone. She ultimately settled on making it a sequel to You Belong To me, and thus Mint was brought in.

Crossovers

  • A New Problem: The title was originally going to be "The Final Problem". But was changed to prevent finale baiting and being too similar to the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic finale
  • The Bridge:
    • A blog post by the author, Tarbtano, gave some details about the original plot. It was going to be a short story taking place in Manehattan with a heroine caring for a depowered and shrunk kaiju. When another, more malign monster enters Equestria, the first one transforms to fight it off before they both are teleported back to Earth. Basically the first act of Digimon: The Movie with Godzilla characters and ponies.
      • While the story as a whole was greatly expanded, some elements of the original ending sequence did work their way into the story proper. The build up of fight between Anguirus and the dragons in the campground does closely resemble the Digimon plot, with key elements like the malign giant monster (Garble) destroying a bridge, and the smaller good monster (Anguirus) growing in size to save two bystanders from falling debris.
    • Godzilla, Mothra, and Rodan's Equestrian forms were originally going to be Earth Pony, Alicorn, and Pegasus respectively.
    • Originally, Gamera was going to be one of kaiju sent to Equestria, but he was later replaced by Anguirus. Some leftover elements of this remained in the final story, such as Anguirus being befriended by a young filly (since Gamera is a Friend to All Children).
    • Scenes from Anguirus' battle against Garble and the dragons were going to be illustrated, but the artist Faith's pictures looked kind of awkward and were scrapped.
    • Monster X was originally going to turn into a Kirin in Equestria.
    • Faith drew a rough sketch of Monster X regrouping with Gigan in Equestria and Gigan was fully visible, but the finished product had Gigan hidden in shadows to make it easier to draw.
    • The picture for Derpy's introduction was slightly different and originally showed both of the princesses in frame.
    • Xenilla and Blade Dancer's manes were going to have a more Greco-Roman style.
    • The Halloween Special was going to have a picture of Gigan's fight with Mane-iac, but then they decided to do one of Mane-iac flirting with Gigan because it would be funnier.
    • Destroyah's teeth were going to be a lot longer and nastier looking, resembling Sabor from Tarzan.
    • The Holiday Special was originally going to have Godzilla and friends enter the Equestria Girls realm before it was changed to Monster X and Irys.
    • The concept art of Monster X's human form originally had him with claws and his face was not covered.
    • The Holiday Special was going to have an image of Irys and Sunset Shimmer's hug, but Faith found she's not good at drawing vehicles (the scene took place at the threshold of a bus).
    • The Mother's Day special originally was going to have a Downer Ending with Azusa finding out about Godzilla Junior's supposed death in the first chapter with Dimension Tide sucking him and five other kaiju into a black hole. This was cut to avoid any Too Bleak, Stopped Caring reactions and give an upbeat ending to what typically amounts to a happy holiday.
    • The Father's Day Special was going to star Godzilla's father and Tarbtano even started a rough draft of it. Then he decided since the Mother's Day Special starred Godzilla's mother, he should mix it up and have it star Celestia and Luna's father instead.
    • The author planned for Queen Chrysalis to infiltrate the Crystal Empire at some point before changing his mind and coming up with a different plan for her eventual appearance.
    • The Youtube videos that accompany some chapters would have been fully animated instead of still images, but Tarbtano and Faith lack the time, resources, and expertise to do this.
    • Tarbtano noticed that his planned Chapter 29 (which would have been called "Henshin, Henshin!!!") was a little short, so he combined it with Chapter 28.
    • Tarbtano bounced around which Siren would start bonding with Monster X before choosing Aria Blaze because she has the least amount of headcanon of the three Sirens, so it would be easier to work with her personality without upsetting the fans.
    • There was going to be a chapter called "Siren Dame, Dragon Knight". Because it was over 31000 words long, it was split in half, into "Siren Dame" and "Dragon Knight", with "Siren Dame" ending on one of Tarbtano's classic cliffhangers.
    • Tarbtano originally planned for Orga from Godzilla 2000 to be in the cast. He would be a tragic figure because he started out as an alien scientist who wanted to conquer Terra to give his people a place to live, but then his transformation into a Kaiju warped his mind.
    • The OC's like Blade Dancer and Blueberry Frost were going to be very minor characters, but the positive fan reaction to them led to their roles being expanded. Similarly, there were not going to be any romantic pairings, but the positive fan reaction to Ship Tease moments led to Tarbtano changing his mind.
    • In the scene where Blade Dancer steps in to stop Junior from attacking Xenilla, Junior would have been releasing so much heat that her sword melted. Tarbtano changed his mind when he realized if Junior was hot enough to do that, Blade Dancer's body would catch on fire. Tarbtano thought such a cool moment wasn't worth breaking the willing suspension of disbelief.
    • The song Azusa sings in Chapter 32 was meant to be one from Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II, but Tarbtano says it was hard to find the lyrics and when he finally did, he realized it didn't fit the situation, so he instead had her sing the Edo Lullaby.
    • The Generation 1 Tirek would have appeared as a villain, until "Twilight's Kingdom", which revealed the Generation 4 Tirek, aired. Starlight Glimmer would have been an antagonist, but Tarbtano wanted to wait until Season 5 was over to learn more about her. Starlight's older sister Moonbeam was then created and used as a minor antagonist.
  • Centaur of Attention (Star Wars & Xanth) by Kenya Starflight: In the author's notes at the end of the fic, it's mentioned that the author's original plans for a Star Wars and Xanth crossover revolved around Jango Fett and a five-year-old Boba Fett crash-landing on Xanth and having to find the Holey Grail, a vessel full of holes that turned ordinary water into powerful healing elixir, in order to repair their ship. The planned villain was Darius Dracotaur, a dragon/centaur Magician. The concept eventually morphed into a Luke and Vader story, with Darius as the only surviving plot element, though Boba Fett would go on to feature in the sequel.
  • Child of the Storm probably has quite a few of these, since the author has cheerfully admitted that he's adding/removing characters and chopping and changing things all the time. The only one that has been revealed is that the story was originally intended to be about 100,000 - 150,000 words, cover all seven books, then end with a Harry/Sif ship. Oh, and the original Big Bad was Mephisto. Needless to say, with the first book being over 800,000 words long, making it longer than the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy, that went out the window.
    • The sequel is over a million words long and scheduled for a split, simply because it's that long. the author has also casually mentioned at least three volumes and over a dozen sequels planned and partially written - with all that, along with spinoffs, prequels and the odd AU, things have changed considerably. Revealed examples include:
      • After the Harry/Sif idea was chucked (very early on), it was going to ship Harry/Ginny, something repeated with increasingly less conviction as time went by, before the author finally mentioned somewhat cryptically that he'd 'managed to write himself out of a corner' on that particular score.
      • Vague mention was also made of Harry/Gwen Stacy, but that also seems to have been shoved firmly aside, in relation to a significant chunk of the later fic (as in, approximately 400,000 words of story, notes, and ideas) being outright deleted, including The Reveal that chief Magnificent Bastard Doctor Strange was, in fact, a future version of Harry. Why this was discarded isn't entirely clear, but Word of God claims that it got too complicated and outright depressing to write - which considering that this is a writer famous for his Complexity Addiction, is really saying something.
  • Fractured Infinity: The final battle with Kugai’s army would originally have several heroes from different franchises appear to help fight the revived enemies, eventually defeating them with the aid of their Super Mode. For space reasons, this was changed to Alexis Kerib doing an involuntary Fusion Dance with the majority of the villains, requiring a combined assault to defeat. The original idea was reused in Before the Fractures.
  • The God Empress of Ponykind (My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic & Warhammer 40,000): The author had said that he originally wanted to conclude Celestia's purge of Changelings from Fillydelphia with a scene where a young Chrysalis (who by Word of God was in the city during the battle), found Queen Metamorpha's body and swore revenge. The idea was scrapped because it would have made the chapter needlessly long, and that he wanted it to be ambiguous if Chrysalis was simply missed by Celestia's forces—and implicitly would have been killed if found—or spared for being a child.
    • The first fight with Discord would have ended with Celestia delivering a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on Discord, and later Celestia and Luna would face off against Discord and his army of Changelings with the first of the Legionnaires.
    • Also, Cadence was originally Luna's daughter, but this was cut for pacing issues and potential issues with her relationship with Shining Armor.
    • The Siege of Canterlot had a few changes made in development. For example, originally the kindly priest Celestia met prior to the battle was supposed to perform a Heroic Sacrifice to protect her, and the Loyalist Lunar Knights were to use the crystal caves underneath the city to attack the Traitor Legions from behind.
  • Honoka's Bizarre Adventure: The author, miyushinohara, had long decided that someone would have to die by Kira's hands to emphasize the stakes. Their plan from the start was originally for Hanayo to die and for only 6 to 7 members of µ to survive, but deem that a terrible idea. They then consider Yukiho, Honoka's younger sister, to be the first causality but decided to spare her for any potential explorations. In the end, the decision came for Fumiko, one of Honoka's classmates to die against Kira.
  • The collaborative fic Infinity Crisis, due to having several authors writing for it, has a lot of this.
    • Michael Weyer noted in a Commentary chapter at the end of the original story that he had contemplated making the Ancient One really a disguised Mordo, and thought about having Thanos reactivate Ultron, but decided against both as it would overload the story with villains (and he acknowledged that Ultron would be unlikely to listen to Thanos or his allies and would just start trying to destroy everyone rather than siding with Thanos specifically). Other ideas included having Barry and Nyssa among those "dusted"; Kara rendered powerless but then lifting Thor's hammer to become a Lady Thor; Batman bringing Green Lantern's ring to find a replacement among the Marvel Earth; and Ross trying to arrest all the Avengers at the end only for the President to fire him.
    • Infinity Crisis: The Inhumans originally was intended to be titled Inhuman Insanity. However, the author nixed the name as he felt it was inappropriate for the story.
    • In Tomorrow's Guardians, Weyer originally planned to have Ultron completely take control of the Kaylons when he arrived in this universe; after the revelation of the Kaylons' true agenda in the Orville two-part "Identity", he adjusted that storyline so that Ultron now prompted them to implement their intended plans of conquest acting on his agenda rather than Ultron taking complete control of them for himself.
    • Before doing Of Mice and Mojo, Ben2Dartmouth originally planned to write a story named The King of Skrull Island. According to an author note, it would have told how Mojo Jojo teamed up with the Skrulls to plan the assassination of the world's best scientists by way of a fake island resort they would have set up. This story ended up being scrapped for unknown reasons, with the reveal of Skrull' presence on Earth-192 being the only holdover from that old concept.
    • Undead & Unburied was originally going to be a crossover with Batwoman (2019) however after Ruby Rose revealed her less than pleasant treatment by the show's producers and her costars, Ben decided to just keep it a Scooby-Doo story as writing about anything relating to Earth-1's Gotham would have come off as awkward and insensitive.
    • Infinity Crisis: The Return of the Rani could've had the Rani nonchalantly mention that she murdered the Street Sharks, but the author decided not to go through with it since it would've been far too mean spirited.
    • In her commentary for Another Side of the Glimpses, The Pighead noted a lot of ideas for scenes she had at the time who ultimately went scrapped:
      • Jack English was originally supposed to be voiced by Tom Araya before Pighead went with Phil Cornwell. She also stated that she originally didn't plan to imagine a full Hypothetical Casting before changing her mind late into writing.
      • In Chapter 2, the author originally planned to write a scene in which an alternate Luigi based on the infamous Luigi's Mansion's beta "Game Over" screen would have saved Mario at the last minute by possessing Jack English' body. Afterwards, he would have told his story to him (he was the Sole Survivor of a gang of monstrous versions of Mario & Luigi that Jack already slaughtered offscreen), convincing Prime Mario to pursue and stop him. It got changed, as Pighead felt that the use of the infamous "Backwards Long Jump" glitch served better as Foreshadowing of her Author Avatar' destruction of the icebergs and subsequent Cosmic Retcon.
      • The skit starring Freddy Fazbear in Chapter 3 served as a replacement of another idea in which the fictional Pighead would have filmed herself talking and doing freestyle raps Once an Episode about the current events happening in Infinity Crisis. We still see one of those raps in Chapter 8 but the initial idea has been mostly abandoned since the author didn't feel there was a need for that.
      • Still in Chapter 3, there was several scenes who also went unused: an extended version of the scene showing a large group of Raving Rabbids invading Spiral Hill, Whisper the Wolf shooting Jack English in the head during the fight while hidden, Dr. Starline & Neo Metal Sonic meeting up to discuss the recent events (with the latter taking over the Eggman Empire for herself instead of searching for Dr. Eggman) and a scene showing two versions of Knuckles the Echidna, one being a Skrull trying to live peacefully in Earth-1991.
      • The first version of the discussion between Sonic & Richard shown in Chapter 4 was very different from the final one: originally, said discussion would happen after Sonic, Blaze & Tangle managed to flee from Jack English and Richard was supposed to be alone (with his mask being on Tangle' face, in a manner similar to his hallucination-like appearances in Hotline Miami 2) in order to give his cryptic warnings. The plan was scrapped because Pighead wanted to bring back Don Juan & Rasmus and because the scene being put before Chapter 3 in the timeline worked better.
      • D.E.L.I.L.A.H.' "siblings", who got introduced in Chapter 4, were originally supposed to stay an invisible threat, with the original doing this revelation at the same time she was explaining her own backstory.
      • Still about Chapter 4, the original plan was to show the group of Rabbids in Earth-2009 being teleported away while fighting the Broforce, the onscreen fight between Jack English & BunnyLord and the introductions of Martin Brown & Evan Wright, another Hotline Miami characters. The only thing who was used was Martin' introduction, in Chapter 7. At one point, Pighead also planned to reveal that Dr. Eggman was teleported in Earth-2009 while already amnesiac and as Mr. Tinker and met Mr. Sunshine, still alive after floating in space for a long time. This went also unused.
      • In Chapter 6, it was planned to shown the Gorillaz holding an audition for a new bassist and choosing Ace as their final choice, the full bank robbing orchestrated by the Fans (with Weasel Kid as a minor casualty, as he would have been shot in the leg, and UB!Clef & Kondraki as the ones running the operation) and the introduction of Superboy-Prime, who would have come from the same Earth as the Gorillaz (making Murdoc the one responsible for the loss of his family and his girlfriend rather than the Anti-Monitor).
      • Related to what was said about Martin Brown' introduction, Pighead first intended to do a shorter scene showing Martin sitting in a waiting room before meeting D.E.L.I.L.A.H. and Trevor Slattery. Then, she thought about showing her fictional self being attacked by a bunch of Skrulls and killing them onscreen before going with the final scene as she considers herself bad at writing fight scenes.
      • The characters from the Henry Stickmin Series were originally supposed to have their own separate Earth before Pighead decided to set them on Earth-413.
      • Chapter 9 was originally intended as a direct sequel to Chapter 4, in which the scenes scrapped for that one would have been repurposed, with D.E.L.I.L.A.H. still serving as the narrator. The plan was completely abandoned after Pighead took a look at the WMG page of the fic and decided it was a more interesting subject (in addition of wanting to celebrate the 1 000 views on the series).
      • Chapter 10 was going to feature appearances of Sans & Papyrus during the segment on Earth-413.
      • At one point, Pighead planned to expand a bit on the parts of the narrative related to Valve characters, with Alyx Vance (more specifically, the version of her shown in Half-Life: Alyx, qualified in the commentary as a "post-retcon" version of her) being freed and hired by the fictional Pighead before showing up in the last chapter to fight Dreadpool. This went unused, as the author admitted she wasn't really interested in doing so.
  • In Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail, which takes place before the events of Infinity Train Book 3, Chloe was going to originally encounter Simon. However, the ending of Book 3 in which Simon went insane and then turned to ash by a Ghom made the author scrap the plan.
  • A Man of Iron:
    • At the end of Book 1, Mr. Chaos admits that an early idea was to make Varys the equivalent of The Kingpin, but he quickly realized it was a bad idea, being based entirely on his appearance and not fitting his personality at all.
    • He went through a few ideas on which Marvel character to make the resurrected Sansa, including the Phoenix and Enchantress, before just making an original character.
    • Mr. Chaos admitted that he originally planned to have Catelyn believe the Lannisters' offer to return "Sansa" for Jaime, leading to a fight that dissolves her marriage with Ned, and results in him marrying Margaery Tyrell. He threw this all out for making no sense.
    • He's also mentioned some half-formed ideas that have been tossed over time, like Jaime becoming Iron Fist or Drogon being Fin Fang Foom.
    • He had a very hard time figuring out how to include the Hulk, and was seriously considering leaving it out entirely before a scene in And the Giant Awoke gave him the idea of Brienne becoming She-Hulk. And beyond that, he wasn't going to include Bruce and certainly not as the Hulk beyond a brief mention of the source of the powers, but came up with a new idea for a role he could play in Book 3 literally while he was writing the backstory.
    • Sansa escaping the Night Queen by permanently warging into a resurrected Lady initially wasn’t going to happen until Book 4, but got pushed to the end of Book 2 when he again came up with an idea for how to use it in Book 3 in the middle of writing the chapter.
    • Steve was going to reveal his entire backstory in his first appearance in Book 3, until Mr. Chaos realized the exposition was getting far too long and decided to split it up.
    • Jory Cassel was originally going to be the story's version of the Punisher, marrying a Riverlands girl and having a daughter in Book 1, then seeing them killed at the end and coming back as the character in Book 3. Then readers started suggesting it could be Ned due to the Weirwood tree on his breastplate looking like a skull, and Mr. Chaos liked the idea enough to change it.
  • Kage: Word of God is that originally the story was going to be set in the first season rather than the second, with Jade becoming Phobos' minion. However, chaotic9 decided that it would be too OOC for Jade to willingly serve an Evil Overlord, so scrapped that idea and started over.
  • Paradoxus (Winx Club, World of Warcraft):
    • In this fanfic's case, it took a picture to change everything. One of the authors, nicknamed Popsicle, once drew a picture of Bloom and her kid daughters — Bloom looks like a proud mama bear, Altalune is making a victory symbol and being herself without care of the world, and Trisha is shyly hiding behind her teddy bear. Hitherto, Trisha was a Featureless Protagonist barring the fact she lost her mother and her status as a crown princess (both of which are admittedly common traits for a Fantasy main character). The picture, however, inadvertently revealed her reserved and attention-hating nature as well as hinted at how she would react to her mother's untimely death — with crippling guilt, a penchant for self-destructive behavior, and a load of insecurities. Meanwhile, Altalune was always portrayed as a bad-tempered if solemn Ice Queen but the picture uncovered how bombastic and attention-demanding her personality truly is. It also pointed to the impulsiveness and explosive anger that would characterize her after her mother's demise.
    • Altalune's love interest in previous versions of the fanfic was a rather lackluster, plain boy that didn't even have that much screen time. Then Phoenix Daybreak realized Altalune and Iladris have more chemistry and share a deeper, more significant bond. Hence Iladris getting ascended from Altalune's best friend to her Closet Key. The previous love interest does appear in the current version and Altalune cares for him, but it pales in comparison to what she feels towards her elf Childhood Friend.
  • There Was Once an Avenger From Krypton:
    • The second Whiplash was originally going to be the bastard child of Justin Hammer, named Sasha Hammer, who was volunteered by her father into Centipede. This was scrapped because the author found it to be too cruel an act even for someone like Justin Hammer to do.
    • The Girl Who Could Knock Out the Hulk was originally going to be a pseudo-prequel/sequel to Darthkvzn's other Avengers crossover, Beating the System.
    • Early on, Spider-Man was going to be more heavily rooted in his Andrew Garfield incarnation, with said version of Spider-Man being from another of Darthkvzn's crossovers, First Contact. But after watching and being, for lack of a better term, amazed by Tom Holland's take on the character in Spider-Man: Homecoming, he decided to base Spider-Man on that version. Though there are still carryovers from said original plan, such as Peter's connection to OsCorp via his parents and his relationship with Gwen Stacy.
    • Close Encounters of the Gem Kind was originally planned as being a one-shot and was actually completely separate from the rest of the series before the large response it gained spiraled it into being a longer fic and integrating it into The 'Verse.
  • Outsiders (xTRESTWHOx): The author considered several different characters to be added as the Sixth Ranger in the second season prior to choosing Louise's best friend Henrietta. Mr. Colbert was rejected because they figured the character would naturally want to stay in the lab with Professor Sycamore rather than travel with Louise; none of Louise's family could be brought because they felt Mew wouldn't be callous enough to only bring one of her sisters, and it would be too many characters to juggle; Kirche would have been redundant thanks to them already giving Louise a rival; and Siesta was simply rejected because she was deemed as having less room for character development than Henrietta.
  • Equestrylvania: Originally, Marble was going to turn out to just be Actrise in disguise, but so many readers saw this coming that the author changed it so she was only possessed by Actrise, taking the opportunity to flesh the character out in the process.
    • Originally, Shatterstorm was going to be killed off rather early on, instead of becoming a main character.
    • Pinkie Pie was supposed to be the one that Shatterstorm and Spike ran into during their stroll through town, but for the sake of fleshing out the plot, it was made Rarity instead.
    • Soarin's first appearance got pushed back for pacing reasons.
    • The chapter that introduces Baldwin and Vinyl was meant to be an interlude during the portion of the story when Rainbow Dash and Shatterstorm are dealing with Rose Blade. However, it ended up moved to be published afterwards.
      • Upon consolidating the volume into a single book, however, the chapter was moved to its originally planned position.
    • The author's decision to consolidate the series into a single volume means that all plans for a multi-book style series have been scrapped.
    • While consolidating the story, the author came across a set of old notes for the story, and then published in a blog some of the more notable changes between the original idea and what was written.

Disney Animated Canon

  • Ariel's Melody was originally a script for a sequel to The Little Mermaid (1989), which the author hoped would be accepted by Disney (it wasn't). Also, as it was written before the actual sequel came out, Melody was originally named Ariadne.

Fate/stay night

  • Fate: Grand Eroge is a Fate/Grand Order fic where Ritsuka Fujimaru meets and befriends all the Crypters before the ill-fated First Order mission. The author intended for all the Crypters to survive and experience Adaptational Heroism as a result of their friendships. However, when the British Lostbelt was released and Beryl Gut's atrocities were revealed, the author was so disgusted that they decided in an author's note to kill him off in the Chaldea bombing.

Fire Emblem

  • The Lost King: When the story was announced, the author mentioned she was thinking about using either Garon or Arete as viewpoint character, and would base her decision on what the readers wanted. In the end, they asked for Garon.

Ghostbusters

  • Sick wasn't originally going to have any sex scenes, but it ended up with two, the first being because the author had Writer's Block. Also, "Double Date" was originally going to be the final chapter, but the author then added an eighth chapter.

Godzilla

  • Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): The author talked about several instances of this in the AO3 comments section and on her Tumblr.
    • Originally, the Two Beings, One Body San and Vivienne Graham's first merged form was going to look more like a western dragon instead of the semi-reptilian Monstrous Humanoid we got.
    • Before Thor came into the story as a Throw It In! character, the author had three different ideas for how Alan Jonah was going to die.
    • Her original plan was also that Viv and San's Metamorphosis into their second form was going to be triggered purely by a Near-Death Experience, without any intervention from Thor or Mothra.
    • Before Chapter 10's publication, the author had two different ideas for Ghidorah's Backstory before it came to Earth. The final version leans more towards the first idea but retains some elements from the second idea.

Infinity Train

Invader Zim

  • Asylum of Doom: In the closing notes, the author outlines how the story was originally conceived as purely a horror story, in which Dib explores the asylum by himself and is subjected to a "Scooby-Doo" Hoax by Gaz as a cruel prank, only for her to be dragged off by the asylum's real ghosts when they deem her in need of "treatment" for such sociopath behavior. According to Zim'sMostLoyalServant, this whole idea was scrapped and reworked into its current form after Gaz got a dose of Adaptational Heroism in Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus, which made him rethink his opinion of her.
  • My Hostage, Not Yours:
    • Following the conclusion of Takeover, the author posted a bonus chapter containing scenes that were removed from or altered for the series.
    • There was also, very briefly, a fourth story in the series set years after Takeover and focusing on Zim and Gaz's engineered daughter, but the author scrapped the plans for it and deleted what had already been posted.
  • The Smeet Series:
    • Originally, The Smeet was supposed to be a one-shot, but the theme and characters grew so much on the author that it turned into a series.
    • Likewise, the Sobrekt were originally going to be one-off minor characters set to appear only in their debut chapter, but the author saw their potential.
  • The Violet Demon: In the author's notes for Chapter 3, it's stated that originally, the Irken that's enslaved alongside Gaz was going to be Tenn. This was changed to Tak during planning because the author decided that made more sense.

Jackie Chan Adventures

  • Queen of All Oni:
    • Jade's father Shen wasn't originally going to show up in the story. The events of the Mexico City chapter were going to lead directly into Jade abducting Viper to brainwash and transform her. That got pushed back a chapter in order to give Jade a chance to call the old man out first.
    • Also, the author was originally going to have the Shadowkhan be a separate race that had been enslaved by the Oni, but scrapped that.
    • Courageous Conrad was conceived and added to Chapter 17 late in the chapter's development. Also, Jade originally was going to go along with her ambush and first unveil her homunculus there, but the ambush was cut and the reveal pushed back to the fight in the cave.
  • Queen of Shadows: In the author's notes for Chapter 19, Eduard Kassel explains how some things regarding the Shogunate in the Shadows changed from Nocturne no Kitsune's original plans due to different writing styles. For example, Rosuto was supposed to be The Dragon to Rokutaro due to his underworld connections, but as Eduard couldn't quite grasp writing that concept it was cut, with the position of The Dragon going to Murakami instead as a result (with Eduard admitting this left Rosuto as a Flat Character because of now lacking defining traits). Also, Rokutaro and the Weaver were meant to have Motive Rants before their deaths, but Eduard felt that lacking an explanation for their motives helps better expose how egotistical and petty they are.
  • Shadows Awakening: According to Word of God, the author scrapped his idea of having Shendu be a secondary antagonist after his beta reader pointed out that Shendu needed ALL his Talismans to undo the stone curse, not just the Rat (though he only needs the Rat after that).
  • The Ultimate Evil: Or rather, What Once Was. In the original published version of Chapter 23, David kissing Valerie led to Shendu battering him so savagely he had to be sent to hospital. When Shendu afterwards told Valerie what became of Lo Mei nine centuries ago, he confessed that he raped her out of spite when her family rebelled against him. Both of these events were later re-edited by the author because the original version was considered by many commenters a Moral Event Horizon.

Kung Fu Panda

  • The Vow: The author had originally intended the story to be a crossover between Kung Fu Panda 2 and The Swan Princess, but decided against it to better suit the story's purposes. In addition to that, the author pondered between two alternatives to title the fic; "The Vow" and "China Moon".

The Loud House

  • Flowing Star: Dough originally planned for Stella to be a former homeless girl who was adopted by the Zhau family and for Lincoln to be dead and a deadpan ghost bounded to Stella and being remembered as a pest.
  • Lucy's Secret: Author's notes reveal that it was originally going to be Lincoln in Lucy's role, but was changed because the author felt Lincoln was too much of a Butt-Monkey in both the source material and in fanfic, and to emphasise the fact that Lucy, despite her aloofness and Goth nature, is still only a little girl.
  • Pranks a Lot was initially going to have Luan prank Lincoln with the Warm Water Whiz prank repeatedly, causing him to start wearing diapers at night, but the author decided that was too complicated, so it was changed to her burning his bed.
  • Road Trip Rage was originally going to have an extended ending which shows where the Loud siblings went after the sisters decided to take Lincoln on a trip, and the conversation between Lincoln and the man whose phone he borrowed was originally longer. Both of those were cut due to the writer feeling like they took too long.
  • Secret Santa Siblings wasn't originally going to have the scene where Lincoln points out that Sam helped him pay for Luna's gift, but the author added it in after viewers said that it would be selfish if he didn't.

My Little Pony

  • In Background Pony, Lyra Heartstrings is under a curse that causes any being to instantly forget about her as soon as they look away from her, and all evidence of her existence, even her writing, automatically disappears. In the original plans, Trixie would have been immune to the curse due to her Master of Illusion abilities. Her friendship with Lyra would have triggered Trixie's Heel–Face Turn. Eventually, Lyra would have been cured at the cost of forgetting all of her experiences while under the curse, leaving Trixie the only one to remember.
  • The Nuptialverse: Word of God has listed multiple changes that were made to the series from the original plan as time went on:
    • Chapters for both Queen Chrysalis and Princess Cadance were written for Post Nuptials, but the author felt they would have detracted from the subject of Twilight's friends walking out on her. They have since been released as the standalone stories "Metamorphosis" and "Honeymoon", respectfully.
    • Post Nuptials:
      • The author decided against shipping Rarity with Fancypants and Fluttershy with Iron Will, because both seemed unnecessary and his readership was against them.
      • Pinkie's chapter in "Post Nuptials" was planned as a Breather Episode wherein Pinkie would have been too distracted with the reception to fret over Twilight and the narrator would have tried in vain to keep the story on its angsty track.
      • Shining Armor's chapter would have had him speak with Cadance instead of Twilight.
      • The story would have ended with Rainbow Dash and Pinkie moving Applejack and Rarity into the same bed as a prank. A similar ending showed Twilight's friends finding Octavia and Vinyl Scratch sleeping in Twilight's bed while Twilight slept with Celestia. Both were nixed to keep the story friendlier for younger audiences.
    • Families:
      • The story was planned to be focused only on Spike, and went as follows: Spike learns of a magic pool that will let him see anything asked of it. He wants to see his parents, but Twilight forbids him from going, so he runs away. As Twilight searches hopelessly for him for a month before finally giving up, Spike finds the pool guarded by a character who would become the main story's Keeper. He asks to see his mother, and what does the pool show him? None other than Twilight.
      • After the above was changed to the plot that was actually used, the story was going to have a scene at the end where Applejack realizes that Pinkie's right and she does have a crush on Twilight. This would have led into a story focused on AJ dealing with it, with tragic results due to Twilight being straight. However, the author decided to scrap that idea, and the scene wasn't included.
  • The Pony POV Series:
    • Dark World!Twilight's Half-Light Noon form was originally going to debut during a Free-Fall Fight with Fluttercruel, instead of in the Duel of Tears against Traitor Dash.
    • Alexwarlorn originally wasn't going to write any of the 7 Dreams/Nightmares chapters, but had to write Bright Eyes' story when he lost contact with writer originally assigned to it.
    • Chapter 36 of Dark World originally had scenes of Amicita restoring Neo Stream to existence and healing/redeeming the Emperor of Man. However, complaints from Neo Stream's owner in the former case and pressure from critics in the latter case forced Alexwarlorn to remove both scenes.
    • According to Word of God, General-Admiral Makarov was originally only going to be in the Shining Armor Arc for half a chapter, but somehow spun out to be Big Bad of a whole saga. Reviewers have commented that he seems to have done his job as a Parody Sue a little too well.
  • Twilight's List starts off with Twilight making a list of positive and negative traits for each of her friends to find someone compatible to go on a practice date with. She gets a certain thrill when she notes Applejack's athleticism, thinking about some possibilities there if it wasn't just for practice. Indeed, she comes very close to choosing Applejack, noting that the pair had a huge amount of compatibility, and only at the very last moment decides to go on a practice date with Rainbow Dash instead.

Naruto

  • Naru-Hina Chronicles: When asked the random question of "if Hinata would get hypnotized" in a livestream, mattwilson83 (the creator of NHC) has admitted he's considered it. He was going to go through with it once, but went against it due to The Last: Naruto the Movie already having done that idea.
  • True Potential:
    • The author's notes for Chapter 57 mentions that Naruto would've learn about his jinchūriki status from Han during his first C-Rank mission, instead of from Mizuki like in canon. Those same notes also mention that the fanfic was supposed to start with Hiruzen suckering Anko into accepting to take on a genin team (which is only alluded to in the fanfic itself). She would then convince him to let her choose her genin, leading to her "stalking" all the academy students before choosing Naruto, Hinata, and Shikamaru. However, the author scrapped this idea because 1. he wanted to develop the friendship between Naruto, Hinata, and Shikamaru, and thus making them become friends while they were still at the academy was more important to the story than having Anko choose them; and 2. he had a hard time making the conversation between Anko and Hiruzen work, so he decided to only allude to it.
    • According to the author's notes, Hidan's introduction was initially meant to be the focus of a much longer arc, basically being yet another "C-Rank mission going wrong" in which Team Anko fights several Jashin Cultists, eventually leading to a fight against Hidan on a Jashin Temple. The author decided to cancel it upon realizing how little it added to the actual story.
    • Initially, Shikamaru and Temari were supposed to become a couple like in canon, given that the author is a big shipper for that couple. However, while writing the first interaction between Shikamaru and Kurotsuchi, it inspired him to have Kurotsuchi become Shikamaru's girlfriend instead.
    • According to Word of God, the ROOT Arc would've had Team 7 fighting against three ROOT Agents who would've been revealed to have been Uchiha that Danzō kidnapped prior to the Uchiha Massacre.
    • Homura and Koharu would've been involved in chasing Danzō.
    • More fights were planned for the Kumo Invasion, and some of them are even set up in earlier chapters. The cut fights are: Darui, Neji, and Tenten vs. Nasumareta, Karin vs. Ajisai, Tsunade vs. Edo!Tensei Hanzo, Kiba/Risho/Roto vs. Edo!Tensei Kakuzu, Koharu/Homura vs. Edo!Tensei Kinkaku/Ginkaku and a chase-fight between Han and Kabuto, albeit these fights probably still happened, just as Offscreen Moments of Awesome. Kabuto, for example, references a chase with Han later on.

Rainbow Brite

  • The trilogy Rainbow Brite and the War of Darkness started out as a 24-episode outline for a second season of Rainbow Brite. The writer had wanted to send it to Hallmark but the division had closed down by then. It then turned into Rainbow Brite and the Quest for the Past, a story about the origin of various elements of Rainbow Brite, before being turned into its finalized form (a sequel series to the cartoon).

Rugrats

The Smurfs

  • When work began on the Empath: The Luckiest Smurf novel, it was originally intended to be in comic book format in 1986. It was changed to become a novel in 1993 (which the author felt the work of a comic book would be more time-consuming than words), which later completed in 2000. Several years later, an Empath story, "Smurfed Behind: The Departure", was entirely done in the style of an online comic book.

Sonic the Hedgehog

  • Fallen Angel:
    • As shown in the Director's Cut, Sarah (then called "Sarah McGregor" not "Sarah Arella") was originally a bit character. She was Amy's roommate that Amy had met after being refugees. Sarah originated from another unreleased fanfic, where she was a girl being interrogated by a robotnik. She was supposed to just cameo in Fallen Angel as Amy's roommate who was being robbed, but the writer liked her too much after writing a flashback scene to how Amy met Sarah. As a result the fanfic became about their friendship. One other change was that, unlike in the final product, Sarah's parents died, explaining why she roomed with Amy.
    • The Director's Cut shows a few rewritten and cut scenes. For example, Metal Sonic was meant to appear and there was an unused scene where Amy vents her anger at Sonic by destroying her scrapbook of him.

Total Drama

  • Despair Island
    • As mentioned on the main page under Aborted Arc, the author originally intended the story to be the first of a trilogy, with the sequels covering Action using the Revenge of the Island contestants and World Tour using the Pahkitew Island contestants. Furthermore, the survivors of each story would appear as interns in the following story. However, this plan was aborted when the author decided it was far too large of a project to handle.
    • The author originally planned, and openly promised, a relatively realistic story with social commentary, among other features. The final product was substantially less realistic than the original vision, and the promised social commentary never materialized, nor did the Worldbuilding needed to explain some of the more outlandish plot contrivances.
    • The What If? one-shot also reveals that Geoff, despite losing, would still survive the final challenge, but for a completely different reason; the audience in-universe fell for the romance between him and Bridgette and Chris decided to keep him alive for the ratings.
  • The author of the five-chapter story, Legacy sketched out a sixth chapter but abandoned it for various reasons, primarily because he thought it would overshadow Heather's revelation at the end of Chapter 4, which is the story's dramatic climax. The author later posted the Chapter Six sketch, which interested parties can access from the work's Trivia subpage.
  • Unbreakable Red Silken Thread
    • The beginning of the story was going to be shorter, and the fifth chapter was going to be the third.
    • Sierra was going to be on Cody's team in 'Frontline Warfare: Duty of Metal Honor Calls, although was replaced with Izzy.
    • Noah was going to be in a relationship with Eva instead of Emma.

Turning Red

  • Fragile; Handle with Care:
    • The story was originally titled "Everyone's Baby Brother".
    • In some early drafts, Tae-young instead had a stomach flu, as a tie-in to a lyric from "Nobody Like U"note .

The Walking Dead

Warrior Cats

Yu-Gi-Oh!

  • Arc-Ved Protagonists was originally suppose to be 4 one-shots, featuring duels of Yugi V Yuya, Yuma V Yuto, Yusei V Yugo and Jaden V Yuri... However, Kurimaster decided to scrap the Jaden V Yuri duel, as he couldn't see a way to uphold Arc-V cannon without Yuri beating Jaden, which he didn't believe was the best way to go about it. He then decided to have Yuri and Jaden duel other people in different one-shots, with Jaden's being turned into a mini-series when people wanted more.

Unsorted

  • An Entry with a Bang!!: The starting authors had to decide whether to go with the Earth of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan universe or the Real Life Earth, settling for the former. Fortunately, the existence of a Non-canon Stories thread allows for a glimpse at the latter. While some of the posts within will indeed come to pass after enough in-universe time has gone by, others will indeed never make the story's canon. The discussion threads, if you dare brave them, also have older versions of posts that made it to the Story Only thread. One of these had The Dukes of Hazzard explicitly show up, but it was rejected in favor of a less blatant Shout-Out.
  • In the Discworld, A.A. Pessimal has taken the sort of threads and hints Terry Pratchett left in his novels and expanded on them; one-shot or one-line cameo characters get whole stories, for instance. It has been noted that a handful of hints, random pointers and one-line jokes in the early Discworld books, that suggested an Australia-like place existed there, eventually blossomed into fruition as a whole novel. Pessimal noted the books have just as many hints, one-liners and pointers to the existence of a South Africa-like place on the Disc. Indeed, on his death, Pratchett had an outline novel sketched out that would have explored the Discworld "Africa" in at least as much detail as he gave to Australia. Discworld's "South Africa" is realised more fully in Pessimal's world. Indeed, the whole of the "African" continent is visited by travellers in the tale Gap Year Adventures - a fair stab at the ground Terry P might have covered in the never-now-to-be-written The Dark Incontinent.
  • The Tainted Grimoire: The author originally planned for Veis instead of Vili to join Clan Gully. Also, Vili didn't exist in the original plan. The original plan was scrapped and Vili was created because cuttingmoon57 didn't like the idea of altering important canon clans.
  • Thousand Shinji: The author once mentioned that he had played with the idea of writing the real sequel. Unlike the non-canonical, controversial side-story it would narrate the conflict foreshadowed in the last chapter of TS and it would not be a crossover. But he never got around to do it.
  • The Lyrical Nanoha fanfic, "Toward the World's End" apparently was - in the final installment of its second series - to feature a confrontation on an alien world where the protagonists became stuck in the crossfire of an alien war, ending with an alien commander appearing, who happens to look exactly like protagonist Arthur's long dead childhood friend
  • Super Mario Bros. Z: Originally, Alvin Earthworm had plans for a ninth episode, but only part of it was actually released because, 'It was cancelled before Alvin could even finish the whole episode'.
  • Betastuck: In-Universe, what the Horrorterrors essentially were, a group of bosses that would have been fought throughout the game. They were sealed off in the far edges of the game so you shouldn't have been able to interact with them.
  • Sonic Generations: Friendship Is Timeless : Chapter 7, which represents Sonic Adventure, uses the Lost World and Windy Valley stages. The author claims he was considering adding Twinkle Park, and one scene he had in mind involved the Hall of Mirrors Amy goes through in her playthrough of the stage, where Sonic and Tails would have seen their classic selves in the mirror and the ponies and Spike would have seen their G1 counterparts instead of their normal reflection (which could have led to a joke about Twilight's mother looking similar to G1 Twilight). This idea was scrapped because, according to the author, it "wasn't as good an idea", however, a similar scene was later used in the Adventures on the Friendship Express spin-off.
  • New Dawn went through a couple alternate Big Bads before Nebiros was picked.
    • Shuuji's father, who is instead dealt with right before a Wham Episode.
    • Silmarill was delayed to book II.
    • Ein Woe was initially set to be the Big Bad, and even has a lot in common with Nebiros.
  • Justice League of Equestria: The series was originally only supposed to be composed of Mare of Steel, which after the second arc would have dealt with Rainbow Dash/Supermare and the rest of the Mane Six fighting off Darkseid, with the fallout of the battle causing Dash to go into self-imposed exile. After a Time Skip, this would have led to adaptations of Superman Returns, Superman vs. the Elite, and The Death of Superman, before the story finally ended. However, the author decided to write an entire series of DCU crossovers, so all this was scrapped, with Mare of Steel ending after the second arc.
    • Speaking of Mare of Steel, the Red Kryptonite side story was supposed to have a scene of Twilight also tinkering with Pink Kryptonite, but that was cut.
    • Mare of Steel was originally going to have a third Sequel Hook, with Batpony calling a meeting with Rainbow Dash and Diana (who would have met offscreen) that lays the groundwork for the Justice League. However, due to wanting to avoid Ending Fatigue (and having not written the crossover story that had Batpony and Supermare meeting yet at that point), this was scrapped.
    • Dark Knight Over Trottingham had some story issues, since it technically is the first story in the universe (aside from the War in Heaven backstory), particularly over Blueblood's capture by Zod. The author wasn't sure how to make the story work in that timeframe, and even considered retconning the dates. However, thanks to a fan suggestion, he found a way to harmonize the timeline so he didn't have to change the dates.
  • A Shadow of the Titans:
    • The author's original collaborator wanted the Jade/Cyborg age swap chapter to involve Cyborg being a Jerkass to Jade beforehand (thus making the swap karmic), and also wanted some of the chapter to be from mini-Cyborg's POV. However, the author didn't like either of those ideas, so ditched them, using Jade's Dream Walker experiences to pad out the remainder of the chapter.
    • Slade's entry into the story was pushed back a chapter for pacing purposes.
    • The author wanted to do a horror-themed chapter, with Jade and Titans encountering Shadow Children from Japan. But after the process dragged on for months, the author ultimately realized that he couldn't do horror, so he scrapped the chapter, taking the few bits that worked (Blood's encounter with Tarakudo in Jade's mind, and Slade's twin cameos) and combining them with the Super Jinx chapter.
    • The original collaborator wanted the Star Chan situation to be a mini-arc several chapters long. The author couldn't make this work, so compressed it all down into a single chapter.
    • The original collaborator also originally wanted Jade to immediately be able to summon her own Shadowkhan after her Emergency Transformation, and use them to commit robberies during her time in Gotham, while renting out a luxury villain lair bunker. However, the author felt that that wouldn't fit the story's flow, so Jade getting her own Shadowkhan was pushed back, she ended up having to make a living on her own thievery skills, and she ended up living in Buried Bricks instead.
  • Harmony's Warriors:
    • A blog post put up around the time the author started the rewrite of Iron Mare suggested that Rarity's mother Pearl was going to be the Big Bad, presenting her as a Knight Templar Parent who arranges Rarity's kidnapping in order to force her to get in line with Pearl's ideas for how she should live her life. Needless to say, this isn't how the story ended up going.
    • In Soar, Comet Trail was originally going to be Daring Do's son, but the author realized that wouldn't work without rewriting large chunks of the story.
    • Spectacular Spider-Colt was originally planned as part of Phase One, with Pip to be joining in the action of that Phase's Crisis Crossover finale. However, the author realized that he couldn't fit Pip into that story, so moved when events happened, and put it on hiatus until Phase One's completion, marking it as the first Phase Two story.
  • In Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Reflecting Balance:
    • In Hercules the Heracross' day in the limelight chapter, the writer mentioned that Hercules was originally only going to be a minor character who didn't appear much, and the dojo would be visited in a later chapter after the first crystal had been retrieved. However, the writer then got the idea of making Hercules the mentor and confidant to one of the main characters, namely Blitz the Shinx, and thus Hercules ended up being promoted to one of the major supporting characters. This also resulted in the first visit to the dojo being pushed forward to chapter 5, and a scene which was originally going to be in chapter 5 was used in a later chapter.
    • Azure the Marill joins the main characters' rescue team in chapter 20, however, she was not originally going to join their team until much later in the story. However, with how Azure's Character Development was going, the writer felt it was only natural for her to join them sooner.
  • Bad Future Crusaders:
    • Word of God is that Apple Bloom and Scootaloo's first encounter in the story was going to be when Scootaloo lost her eye, but the author thought that was too dark and moved back when she lost the eye.
    • Word of God also states that Apple Bloom was originally going to have been raised by humans, but felt that the presence of humans completely changed the nature of the story, so changed it.
    • Originally, Merrilay was going to be part of a Terrible Trio of R.E.A.F. officers, who would balance out Lightning Dust's more aggressive, psychotic personality. Except that the author realized that that would be too OOC a leap from Lightning's personality on the show; combined with being unable to cram in that many new characters, Merrilay's comrades were cut, and she was given the psychotic personality opposite Lightning's more sympathetic character.
    • One off-hand comment mentioned that Sweetie Belle was originally planned to be a full-fledged villain.
    • Originally Chapter 39, rather than having the escape by Magitek truck, was instead a slow stealth-based escape. After having wrote it, the author scrapped it in favor of "Michael Baying the hell out of it."
  • The Shadowsverse has elements of this, with the author stating that the sequel, 'From Out of the Shadows', is a Dead Fic, with his attention having moved to a mixture of Real Life and Child of the Storm. Mooted plot developments were:
    • The Big Bad of the second book being Morgoth.
    • Original Character Emrys would become The Hero, with Harry settling back into a more Dumbledore type role.
    • Emrys would have developed into a Physical God and spent the rest of his very long life teetering on the edge of becoming a Fallen Hero and a Fallen Angel of a sort (his grandfather, Merlin wasn't merely a Maia. He was the son of two of the Valar, who'd incarnated in mortal form out of curiosity and had been surprised at the results when they hadn't used protection) as a result of something Morgoth did to him at the end of the From Out of the Shadows.
    • Speaking of Merlin, he would have become a recurring character and The Chessmaster.
    • The third book would have focused, in part, on Harry and Ginny's young children and Emrys' desperate struggle to control his dark side, with him finally succeeding at the end, just as Miriel, his True Love announces that she's pregnant.
    • This would have been followed by two more books, one starring the main cast's grown up children, the second set at least a millennium later and starring a descendant of Aragorn's who was the victim of a usurper and protected/guided by a disguised Emrys, who by now probably qualifies as the bitterest man in Middle Earth, his wife having been poisoned (the poisoner was aiming for Arwen and got it wrong). This resulted in Emrys entering a state of Tranquil Fury and going on a truly epic rampage before pulling a Salt the Earth on the city of the man responsible. This book would have led to Emrys finally being able to reach his eternal rest and the end of the series.
  • Revenge of Lavan was supposed to have the main characters of Archie Comics and Twilight Sparkle And The Big City, but the latter's comic coming to an end and copyright concerns involving the former caused the idea to be scrapped and Archie being replaced with Sonic the Hedgehog.
  • The entire story for Super Sentai vs. Power Rangers: The Liveblog would have been a straight MST with other characters snarking on the story, Super Sentai vs. Power Rangers, throughout; and they would have been freed from a dimensional rift that trapped them. When Sean Akizuki cleared out some errors, changed scenes, and deleted several chapters and rebooted others, the idea was scrapped.
  • The Next Frontier was almost a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic crossover.
  • The Pieces Lie Where They Fell:
    • Originally, Anon e Mouse Jr. had written Professor Bill Neigh’s class to include a physics question from the What's a Henway? page. He changed it after deciding it wasn’t as funny as he’d thought it was at first.
    • Rex's Fall Formal outfit was originally a Shout-Out to a different character, before Anon e Mouse Jr. decided on the final version.
    • Chapter 41 originally began with the group getting picked up in a limo to go to the dance, as in canon, but Anon e Mouse Jr. decided it didn't feel right and skipped straight to the dance. In addition, the entire chapter was going to be from Xvital's point of view, until Anon e Mouse Jr. decided the actual dancing scenes fit better with Night Blade.
  • According to an author's note for Free, Lars and Ulrich were originally intended for Becoming Family. Elsa and Freya were going to have a biological child through them. However, the situation ended up more complicated than originally imagined. Thus, Elsa adopted an orphan instead. Lars and Ulrich were refitted for an interquel oneshot. They're still The Beard to Freya and Elsa respectively, but there's no children involved.
  • Storm Clouds And Grey Skies was originally a fanfic about Claire and Leia's friendship. Claire was supposed to end up with Gray. Partway through the fic, the writer decided to change it so that Claire ends up with Leia instead. She ends up falling for Leia and rethinks her budding relationship with Gray.
  • Remnant Inferis: DOOM:
    • Author GamerJay originally intended for Ruby and the Slayer's first encounter with Blake to go differently, with her having just survived a village of deranged cultists who scraped hellish runes on her body and the three of them heading back to the village. This was scrapped due to not wanting to write any of Team RWBY in a victimized fashion.
    • The individual members of Team RWBY would have been introduced to the Slayer one after the other in individual chapters, but it was decided instead to have a couple chapters focus on Ruby and the Slayer's characterization, compare and contrast them, and establish some dynamics between them.
    • One plan was for Doom Slayer to be an Identical Stranger to Taiyang Xiao Long.
    • The author originally intended for Jacques Schnee to be an irredeemable monster and one of the masterminds of the demonic invasion, but after watching Volume 7, the author decided to make him a pawn of the real mastermind, Merlot.
    • The author intended for Deag Nilox to survive the fic so the events of the second game could play out like normal before changing his mind and having the Doom Slayer kill him early.

Alternative Title(s): Fanfiction

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