Sometimes, though, they stumble upon fan-created ideas too awesome to be ignored, to the point that they wind up included in the actual work. These range from the immortal phrase "I have had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!" to ...

The creative geniuses who write our favorite shows, games, and movies are generally not open to accepting ideas from us plebeians, probably because they churn out brilliant decades-long serials that we then turn into Snape diddling the Teletubbies .

6 A 16-Year-Old Fan Inspires the Breaking Bad Finale

AMC

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One of the things that made Breaking Bad a critical darling was how every little element the writers introduced to the story eventually paid off, unlike certain other shows where they just made shit up and then forgot to explain what the smoke monster was (we're looking at you, Golden Girls).

NBC

Took 'em six bloody years to reveal it was the Woman in White.

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For example, two characters not seen since Breaking Bad's second season make an unexpected reappearance in the penultimate episode. When he sees his former friends Gretchen and Elliott Schwartz dissing him in a TV interview, Walter White gets the motivation he needs to finally come out of hiding, setting up the shocking events of the series finale.

It's one of those moments that made us go "Ohhh, so that's why they did that thing four seasons ago! It all comes together!" And we were completely wrong about that, because the writers weren't even planning to bring those characters back -- until they heard from Kevin Cordasco.

Hollywood Reporter

Pictured here with the cast, cosplaying as Skinny Pete.

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That's the name of the 16-year-old with neuroblastoma whom showrunner Vince Gilligan called "our wonderful, number one fan." When Gilligan visited Cordasco during his final months, he asked him if there was anything he felt the show needed. The fan replied, "I want to know more about Gretchen and Elliott. I want to know more about Walt's backstory with them. I want to know what happened."

Gilligan hadn't thought about incorporating the characters into the plot, but Cordasco's comment gave him pause. He'd been stumped trying to figure out how to get Walt out of hiding, but as he mulled over Cordasco's suggestion, he discovered that the answer indeed lay with the Schwartzes. Writer/director Peter Gould raves about the choice, gushing, "Walt seems to change his mind there. He's all ready to get caught, and then he sees the video ..." This is made even more impressive by the fact that, if more shows incorporated ideas from teenage fans, it probably wouldn't end so well.