What are the "What If?" or parts of the canon you're exploring further that you're exploring in your fanfic?

Inspired by this discussion.

I've got a small fan-fic, only partially done, about Ava Sharpe from Legends of Tomorrow set way back in the past, pre-Artificial Human, pre-being cloned, which is very probably Alternate Universe Fic, and doesn't feature any of the canon characters from that show. She's very definitely an Alternate Self here. (even this one's personality is different)

This fits in with the exploring canon further discussed here.

I do sometimes have a tendency to focus on secondary or minor characters, which can be a good thing or bad thing depending on setting.

What are you focusing on, in this regard, that's either a What If?, or a part of the canon unexplored?

Edited by Merseyuser1 on Jan 24th 2019 at 6:55:25 AM

Remember the season 3 finale of The Flash, where Caitlin said she wasn't Caitlin any more, but she wasn't Killer Frost either?

I explore that a lot in my A Us. I feel like the idea of her being both and neither, rather than two people residing in one body, is very fascinating and I like speculating how a blend of the two would interact with others.

That isn't to say I don't enjoy the dynamic they have right now- I do- but the Split-Personality Merge is always a trope that I find fascinating and "Snowfrost", as I call her, is fun to write.

Good to see another Arrowverse Fan Fic writer!

I'm up to Season 5, but forgot that bit about Killer Frost... it was ages ago I saw that episode!

If you've got any good completed ones published online, post the link here, I'll have a read of them!

I've been trying to construct my own canon for the character from Legends of Tomorrow, although how far I take Broad Strokes well... working that out.

Edited by Merseyuser1 on Jan 24th 2019 at 7:02:58 AM

I been working on an Alt U Fic Spice Girls Fic Astral Journey: It's Complicated. I'm getting tired from prompting it... at least another tropes site loved enough for it's own page.

Been There

Yet, I would love if anyone would check it out and leave a comment.

Edited by JDRod_2 on Jan 27th 2019 at 7:23:52 AM

There are a few characters in Pokémon Sun and Moon who are technically Fallers, despite never being explicitly identified as such in-game. My fic has a subplot in which one of these characters gets stress-activated shapeshifting powers... just as the Ultra Beasts start showing up again. Naturally, this doesn't go well for him.

I like to explore offscreen moments in my Yu-Gi-Oh fanfics, as well as 'what if Yugi lost this one duel' cause given the high-stakes games and different things the various antagonists want, any loss could have different consequences.

Stories based on the video games are a lot of fun too. Not many YGO writers write about those!

Edited by lalalei2001 on Jan 27th 2019 at 5:43:53 AM

If anyone's interested, I go by the name of "Transformers 0" on Fanfiction.net, and I have an Avatar AU story called "Shatterpoint" that explores how the events of the show will go down if the Southern Raiders had succeeded in capturing Katara on their last raid.

That reminded of something that similar in video game, L.A. Noire. In Cole Phelps' funeral, Herschel reminds Jack that he was never his friend. The latter accepts that, but adding one fact that this doesn't mean he's an enemy to him, which Herschel said that he believed Cole knew that.

I took an idea that Dragon Ball fans have likely had for awhile, one that was elaborated on by Youtuber Masako X but ended prematurely, I felt, because of how they wrote the story.

It's one where Bulma doesn't meet Goku at the start of Dragon Ball. Anyone familiar with the story knows that this meeting sets off a chain of events that leads to Goku becoming the champion of Earth, and going into Super, defending the entire universe from destruction.

I thought it was fascinating not as a "For Want of a Nail" but just the extent to how the universe carries on without the franchise's main character. Bulma is still a semi-capable protagonist, if a selfish, vain person. She meets people throughout her journey with Goku that were similarly capable, if underutilized or less important as the narrative followed Goku's adventures.

Originally Masako had ended the story with Bulma and Oolong being changed into carrots by Boss Rabbit. But, I realized, Bulma and Oolong didn't even want to stick around to face that guy, so I wrote that they ended up leaving to continue their journey before he showed up.

From there, I started using characters like Roshi, Launch, the Ox King, Kami, and even Arale to fill in parts of the story where action needed to happen, and I took the idea from the early sagas of Dragonball all the way to the Majin Buu saga, and I'd even started getting into Super.

It's the most fun I've had with a what-if story yet. I've genuinely sat on the Dragonball Wiki for like an hour or more just skimming through the events of the manga, altering events to exclude Goku, and figuring out how Bulma and the gang would navigate certain scenarios (like Mercenary Tao, and the Saiyans) without having Goku around. It struck me just how much this story goes on - several villains become their own downfalls, several fight one another, and several heroes can find plausible solutions without Goku.

It's had it's pitfalls - like having to use filler/movie material/characters at times - but it's been entertaining rewriting a series I've watched since childhood.

I started on a fic months ago (and haven't gotten very far on it as yet) for the purpose of worldbuilding the setting of Digimon Xros Wars. The point of it is to expand upon the roughly 90% of the Zones that either the protagonists didn't visit or just weren't shown in either the series or its manga adaptation. Seriously, there are canonically 108 Zones and we only get to see about fifteen or so plus a few unnamed areas between the two adaptations.

The fic isn't actually in either Xros Wars continuity, but does use the setting. For the first part (still in-progress), I created an Always Night Zone whole-cloth with a Devidramon as a protagonist.

Hey, wait a minute the Celebrity Deathmatch Fan-Fic that sometime after the series. There was some unanswered question about Deathbowl 98. Hard to believe more than 2 decades, and finally I had to pick up the pieces. It's called "Final Stand of Death" on Wattpad if you're asking.

I started brainstorming and creating a lot of meta for Avatar: The Last Airbender.

In particular, I wanted to explore parts of the past and future of the Earth Kingdom, which was a major setting in Season/Book 2 of the animated series. I'm completely disregarding the post-series comics for reasons and forging my own future for my favorite characters eventually.

Anyway, I've been diving into one of my underrated, unpopular faves, King Kuei of Ba Sing Se and his adviser, Long Feng.

I had this idea that since Kuei was so young when he was named king (He was only four years old according to wiki pages, and 25 in the original series) - Long Feng was his regent. He was also his guardian/father figure, and all the time Long Feng is running the scary secret police he's also raising Kuei.

It is a complicated concept, but it's not anything I'd seen explored before in fanfiction.net or AO3 so I've brainstormed an entire universe based off this headcanon.

... I feel like I've rambled.

That actually sounds really interesting and makes a lot of sense! I feel like this adds an additional reason why Kuei would be so trusting of him- and in a way, it also makes Long Feng's betrayal feel tragic.