Flash Forward Fic

Some fanfic writers want to explore what the characters feel during the work. Others want to explore what will happen shortly after the work ends. Others want to explore what will happen long after the story ends.

A Flash Forward Fic takes place long after the story has concluded and the characters have new concerns. While a Continuation usually aims to tie up loose ends or explore unresolved story threads, the Flash Forward Fic is more often used for character study, exploring how the characters reckoned with the events of canon and how their world changed after the fact. Essentially, it's crafting a Distant Finale or "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue for a work that never got one. If the work explicitly takes place a decade or two in the past, this also allows the writer to explore how the characters would behave in modern times.

Works with canon child characters often attract this type of fanfic. Skipping several years into the future to when the characters are teens or adults allows more flexibility with plotlines, since the characters are more mature and the fanfiction can put them in situations involving driving, employment, independent living, sexual situations (including, controversially, Rule 34), and parenthood (allowing room for Fan-Created Offspring).

For canon variants of this trope, see Distant Finale, Distant Sequel, "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue, and Flash Forward. Compare High School AU, which can also involve aging up child characters but is typically an Alternate Universe, not necessarily part of the same canon. Likely to be Outdated by Canon if the work eventually has a Time Skip. See also Kid Hero All Grown-Up and Schoolyard Bully All Grown Up.

Examples (sorted by medium of canon):

Anime & Manga

• Assassination Classroom has Adventures in Solitude, taking place 15 years after the finale.
• Death Note:
  • Death Note II: The Hidden Note is a sequel that takes place nineteen years after the original. Most of it happens in Ottawa, Ontario and averts Canadian stereotypes. Page here.
  • Ryuk Returns takes place five years later where Ryuk finds a new Death Note user.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Judgement Day (Dragon Ball) is set many decades after the end of Dragon Ball Super after Goku and Vegeta have both died of old age and focuses on their time in the afterlife.
  • The Saga of the Last Two Saiyans is set several decades after the end of Dragon Ball Super. At the start of the story, both Chi-Chi and Bulma have recently passed away in old age. Goku and Vegeta are set to leave Earth to begin their training as immortal Destroyer Gods.
• Mai-HiME: Future is a future fic for My-HiME, obviously. The focus is shared between the canon cast and the younger generation, leading to even more characters than the source material.
• The Neon Genesis Evangelion fic HERZ continues the series changing the outcome of the Final Battle against SEELE (due to a chain of events the Third Impact was averted). The story begins twelve years after, showing how the world and the characters have changed and what challenges they are facing while gradually showing how they got to that point.
• Tricanon is set sometime after the timeline of Pokémon: The Series.
• Elemental Chess Trilogy is a Fullmetal Alchemist fic, and the first story takes place three years after the Promised Day.
• Flowers Drenched in Vodka is set a few years after the events of Love Live!.
• ''Spirited Away 2 : Return to the Spirit World'' takes place twelve years after the events of Spirited Away, and has an adult Chihiro stumble back into the spirit world after spending the past twelve years trying to go back.
• The Shin Sekai is set 20 years after the ending of Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan and focuses on Rikuo's children.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!:
  • Decks Fall Everyone Dies takes place about eight years after the main events of Yu-Gi-Oh!, where the collapse of Duel Monsters has turned Domino City into an urban hellscape where dice games reign supreme. In the fic, Tristan and his former classmates are twenty-four and Mokuba is eighteen.
  • Next Generation of Shadows takes place six months after the incident with Diva, featuring a nineteen year-old Yugi adopting a five year-old Zane and a two year-old Syrus. The first part of the story takes place over about a week, then undergoes a timeskip to three years after that point.
  • Say Something takes place five years after the end of the series.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! Forever is set in 2018, over a decade after the end of the original Yu-Gi-Oh! and Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, and follows the exploits of Yugi's son Yugo, Kaiba's son Seta, and their classmates, allies and rivals from one adventure to another, including Duel Monster tournaments.
  • The Yu-Gi-Oh! fanfic The New Millennium set in the year 7006 (exactly 5,000 years after the last episode of classic Yu-Gi-Oh! aired), follows the adventures of Bennu Tamaki and her co-star, Celeste Blackstone, who obtain two Millennium Items through mysterious circumstances. Upon donning the Items, the two experience strange memory gaps. (Word of God states that they're reincarnations of classic Yu-Gi-Oh! characters, although Celeste's Yami, Aclina, is a character reused from a different plotline.)

Comic Books

• Batman: We Are the Night focuses on Damian Wayne, now in his twenties, has succeeded Bruce as the Batman, and his fourteen year-old sister Helena is Robin. Many of their allies and adversaries are the children of the Batfamily, the Justice League, and the original Rogues Gallery - some canon, but some original.

Crossovers

• Paradoxus: Given this is a crossover, the exact amount of time in the future varies from one franchise to the other. But, overall, it's enough for the Winx Club to have spawned and raised teenage-to-young-adult daughters or, in Sylvanas' case, adopted one.
  • Paradoxus diverges from World of Warcraft at some point between the end of the "Warlords of Draenor" expansion and the Battle for the Broken Shore. Since Sylvanas doesn't become Warchief, a good chunk of the ensuing canon events never occur. So the tense peace between the Horde and the Alliance extends for a longer period of time. When Magix makes a rather random contact with Azeroth, 150 years have passed since then. The actual present in Paradoxus is set about 30-40 years after that (at least if we go by Iladris' age).
  • The time we have flash-forwarded in Magix (from Winx Club) is easier to keep track of. When Bloom gets forcefully teleported to Azeroth, it's been 5 years after Domino's restoration, which would make about a year after the sixth season^note  Paradoxus doesn't take into account later seasons because they weren't aired yet. The course of time is slower in Magix than in Azeroth, so between first contact with Azeroth and the actual present, only 18 years have rolled by.

Films — Animation

• The Final Straw is a Lilo & Stitch fic that takes place when Lilo is seventeen, long after the events of canon, where she is a young child.
• The Lion King: Kiara's Reign stars the next generation of lion cubs after The Lion King II: Simba's Pride.
• Take a Stand: Star of Ceartais takes place 17 years after Zootopia, 16 years after the first installment of "TAS", and features Nick and Judy's daughters Luna and Robyn and their friends and lovers as superheroes. Third installment The Broken Mirror is another five years on when both Wilde sisters have spouses and are planning families.

Films — Live Action

• The Fall of San Franciscois a The Good, the Bad and the Ugly fic that picks up some forty years later, with Tuco as a rich old man living in San Francisco during the quake of 1906.
• The Merry Go Round Broke Down is a Who Framed Roger Rabbit sequel written and set in 2008, many decades after the original film's 1940's setting. It's themed around the conflict between CG "digis" and traditional "toons". Eddie's grandson Freddie and Roger must find out who are murdering digis around Hollywood.
• Return to the Labyrinth takes place thirteen years after the events of the movie and sees a twenty-eight year-old Sarah Williams return to the Labyrinth to stop evil forces that have invaded.

Literature

• Diary of a Wimpy Kid:
  • Diary of a Wimpy Kid: 25 Years Later takes place when Greg is an adult, specifically in the year 2035. He tries to resolve his own shortcomings that happen that year.
  • Diary of a Wimpy Kid: 75 Years Later is a Distant Sequel of Diary of a Wimpy Kid: 25 Years Later, and it shows Greg as an old man, meeting Rowley for the first time in years. Sadly, he can no longer remember Rowley.
• Discworld:
  • The fics of A.A. Pessimal are now routinely taking place up to twenty years after the end-point in the canonical timeline caused by Pratchett's death. ^note Children born to characters who were originally marginally there in canon are now approaching seventeen and eighteen. Things have begun to change in Ankh-Morpork; a seemngly ageless Vetinari still runs the City and Sam Vimes is older and determined not to retire as Watch commander. Housemistresses at the Assassins' Guild School are now younger than the canonical characters Pessimal began with, and the guild itself is poised to change its Master, as Lord Downey contemplates retirement. Social change has happened in Ankh-Morpork with its equivalent of "housing projects/council estates" appearing to replace slum landlordship. The city has a Standing Army, a well-resourced Navy, and the beginnings of an Air Force. Pessimal's second-generation OC's are coming of age into a changed world.
  • The fanfic The Brain Thief stars older versions of the canonical Young Sam and Princess Esme, and adds a number of Original Characters such as Carrot and Angua's daughter and Sgt Colon's grandkids (since he already has adult children by the time of the novels).
• Warriors:
  • Golden Dawn: Lost Sunrise takes place many years after the events of The Last Hope, the Grand Finale of Warrior Cats. Thus, all the canon characters have died out and been replaced by OCs.
  • Daughter of the Sun (ShoutFinder), features the children of canon characters and takes place after the last modern-day Warriors book, The Last Hope.

Live Action TV

• In the Arrowverse series Legacy, Oliver and Felicity have been married for over twenty years, happily retired from vigilantism with two children. The story is told through the eyes of their reckless teenager.
• The Brittas Empire fanfic Can You Forgive? first takes place, around about 13 years from when the last episode of the show took place. Notably, the characters are shown to be on the career trajectories predicted by "In The Beginning..." which is the show's canon Flash Forward episode.
• The Cousins Crane by Phoebe Roberts is written as a pilot for a sequel television series to Frasier, focusing on the children of the main characters, Freddy Crane, David Crane, and Alice Doyle living through millennial malaise in Boston.
• Glee fics of this type often feature an original New Directions member returning to McKinley to coach a new group of underdogs, either the kids of the other originals or an all-new cast. One of the examples, Twice Gleeful, features an example of the latter, but with a few children of the canon characters (including a now pushing-twenties Beth Corcoran) thrown in for good measure.
  • Glee Reprise twists it with Rachel coming to Akron rather than Lima due to Shelby falling into a coma and 14-year-old Beth needing a guardian as she enters high school. While she still takes over a glee club and has to contend with Vocal Adrenaline, her club is run out of a local community centre and is composed of students from multiple local schools.

Multiple Media

• Ducktales: Twenty Years Later is a Crossover between DuckTales (1987) and several other cartoons and comics from the Disney canon. It focuses on Huey, Dewey, and Louie as adults, who have separated after disagreements over how to spend their deceased uncle's massive inheritance.

Video Games

• Exoria features a Hyrule that is analogous to the modern day, with the games themselves forming the distant backstory.
• The Whyt Game is a Final Fantasy IV fanfic/roleplay which is set so far after the events of the original game that the game itself has almost no basis in it. The original characters are given one or two references; that's it.
• Time Fixers: Nicktoons of the Future takes place twenty years after Nicktoons Unite! and centers around the children of Jimmy Neutron, SpongeBob SquarePants, Danny Phantom, Tak, and Timmy Turner teaming up as they protect their worlds from the threats of evil just as their parents did.
• Persona:
  • Reaching Zenith is an example for Persona 3 and Persona 4. It stars Rui Tatsumi, Kanji and Naoto's eldest child, who discovers that she has the Wild Card. During all of this, the Midnight Channel returns and a mysterious new website emerges as the new Inaba urban legend. A mystery comes to the surface and the next generation of Persona users must answer the call.
  • As the title would suggest, Twenty Years Later is set twenty years after the death of Ken's mother. On the anniversary of her passing, Ken reflects on the path his life has taken since then. It also takes place in the same universe as Ace In The Hole (Persona 5), where Ken joins the Phantom Thieves.
• The Hinagiku Saga of Tokimeki PokéLive! and TwinBee takes place around 3 years after Hilda White and Shizuku Kutashimo Osaka graduate from Nijigasaki High, with Hilda's and Shizuku's adopted daughter Yoko Catherine Osaka White and her friends Elesis "Ellie" Kashiwagi Kousaka and Margo becoming Pokémon Trainers and setting up their own School Idol group just as Yoko's two mothers did.
• Sonic Rift takes place three years after Sonic Forces.
• Gaming's Next Generation is a fanfic occurring a few years after Super Paper Mario X.
• Next of Kin, a Super Smash Bros. fanfic, is set twenty years after the events of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and follows the children of the Smashers, who are accidentally sent to the Mansion after an error with the invitations.

Visual Novels

• Return to Hinamizawa is a fic for Higurashi: When They Cry, set 20 years later, that shares its focus between the canon characters and their children. The author acknowledges Mai-HiME: Future as his inspiration.
• The Danganronpa Gaiden Series is a fic that takes place years after the events of Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School

Web Animation

• Happy Tree Friends 10 Years Later is about Happy Tree Friends getting renewed ten years after the conclusion of the original show, taking place in 2026.
• RWBY: Second Generation is set over 30 years later than the canon.

Webcomics

• Homestuck:
  • The creator-approved "ambiguously-canon" sequel series The Homestuck Epilogues and Homestuck: Beyond Canon are parodies of these kinds of fanfics, focusing on the originally-teenage characters going through the motions of adulthood, including relationship drama and raising children, on top of the issues with their politically-tense society and the crumbling of reality.
  • The fancomic The Motley Two is set on Alternia some generations after the original, and descendants of the original characters play some role in the plot.
  • Another Homestuck fic, the text-based forum adventure Adult Stuck, mostly focuses on the next generation of ectochildren and occasionally the children of the canon characters.

Western Animation

• Captain of a Rotten Planet tells the story of the next generation of Planeteers.
• Courage the Cowardly Dog: Courage the Cowardly Dog JR takes place eight years after the series ended and in a big city called Somewhere rather than a small town called Nowhere. Courage Jr. takes after his father and protects the city from supernatural fiends even worse than the ones from Nowhere while dealing with his father's original enemies and befriending the daughter of one of his dad's worst enemies.
• Don't Haze Me follows Kim Possible as a twenty-one-year-old who spirals into an Anti-Hero after Wade gives her a gun.
• D.J.I.N.N.: Way to Home is a W.I.T.C.H. fanfic about a new group of Guardians taking on the duties of W.I.T.C.H. eighteen years after the canon.
• Ed, Edd, n Eddy: 20 Years Later EP is a series of rap and hip-hop songs sung by the Ed, Edd n Eddy characters after they've hit their thirties.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Pound and Pumpkin Cake's Adventures (and Misadventures) in Potty Training takes place a year after the main series. The Cake twins are old enough to start toilet training, and Hilarity Ensues.
  • Story Shuffle: As said in its Table of Contents entry, "No and Yes" is a Forwardstory, occurring about 10 or so years after the time of the rest of the fanfic series which takes place during the present canon.
  • Welcome Reality + Equestria exaggerates this trope, taking place 1808 years after season one.
• A Magical Evening is a Sofia the First fanfic set in the future, when Sofia and the rest of the heroes are now adults. Later on, Sofia returns to her childhood to Set Right What Once Went Wrong but ends the story as an adult again.
• Parthenogenesis is a Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? fanfic from the POV of Carmen's daughter, Maggie. In it, Carmen has retired as a thief and she travels the world with Maggie.
• Sins of the Past picks up fifteen years after Lila Rossi and Hawkmoth succeeded with their plans, leading to Ladybug mysterious disappearing. Kamala Lavillant-Couffaine finds herself with the earrings, haunted by Marinette herself and trying to piece together just what exactly happened back then.
• Stories from Steven's Future is a crossover (primarily Steven Universe) fanfic detailing the adventures of the Crystal Gems about 24 years in the future, mainly focusing on Steven and Connie's children and their friends.
• Tommy Pickles: The Terrible Twos takes place a year after the events of Rugrats, so Tommy and the twins are now two years old, while Dil is one, Chuckie and Kimi are three, and Angelica and Susie are four.
• Those Springfield Kids is one for The Simpsons, focusing on the kids in their late teen years.
• Similarly, The Simpsons: Team L.A.S.H. is set 10 years after the events of The Simpsons, focusing on four 8-year olds at Springfield Elementary who just so happen to be the sons and daughters of well-known Simpsons characters.
• Total Drama:
  • Total Trauma is a Total Drama Deconstruction Fic following the characters, who were teens in the original, as young adults, coping with the stress of independent living and the trauma of being on a Sadistic Game Show.
  • A more lighthearted fic is Total Drama Legacy, which is about the sons and daughters of Total Drama contestants competing for a million dollars on Pahkitew Island.
• Jem:
  • The fanfic Rock Stars takes place during 1999, nearly two decades after the original series' airtime. It's a oneshot where a music journalist interviews Stormer, who has now became the head of her own indie rock studio, on what's happened in the last decade.
  • Starlight Is For Always takes place over 20 years after Jem. It stars Pilar, the daughter of Jerrica and Rio.
• Young Justice Next Step is set about 17 or so years after the end of Young Justice, though also serves as a continuation of the series fics the writer had as well. So while not as extreme an example as some others, still counts, as it focuses on the children of The Team trying to come into their own in a world at peace.