#redefining the improbable AU

[magician-under-the-m00nlight]

please pretend you didn’t see the previous version of this drawing

Just in case anyone wondered exactly how Shinichi missed his personal encounter with aptx4869.

On one hand, now Kaito has to *shudder* pretend he likes a detective, because he has to keep consistency. On the other hand, now he's Ran's favorite, which gives Shinichi endless grief.

(Text in the drawing transcripted under the read more!)

Shinichi, desperately trying to shake Kaito off before Ran can catch up and give him hell for ditching her: C'mon, I'll be right back! So be a good boy and stay with Ran-neechan, okay?

Kaito, wobbly, about to make full use of the tantrum card bc he's not letting this teenager he just met chase after two shady guys and get himself killed like a DUMBASS: But I want to go with you...

[grey-scale-monotony]

Cream-of-the-crop Tommy fics

AKA my super picky ass and its fave fics

This is a list I will continue to update but these are some of the fics I have read (most of them are already pretty popular but tbf thats for good reason) that I think are just some of my favourite fics

Please note that these are not ranked by anything and I’ll also be making 2 separate lists for Superhero/powers AUs and foster AUs bcs I have read far far far too many of them

1. Ours Poetica by zeeskeit [unfinished] This fic is one of the most masterfully written fics I've read, the poems the author includes are just incredible, I love the pacing as well as the other characters that we get to meet. This fic legitimately made me try learning poetry, I'm shit at it but the writing is literally that inspiringly good

2. Butterfly Reign by SilentTeyz [unfinished] Pain. Agony. But so wonderfully written, I love it. The cutthroat brutality even the nicest characters are capable of bcs that's just what is needed in the royal court is one of my favourite things in this fic, there is only one character in this fic I think is actually in the right 99.9% of the time and that's Tubbo. Also love the reasoning we get behind all the characters actions *cough* Wilbur *cough*. Also Beau is incredible.

3. 3 weeks, 41 critters, 1 human (series) by Badnews [on going series] There are a lot of very good space AU/humans are orcs SBI fics out there but this one takes a popular trope and redefines it into something else. The rest of SBI as aliens slowly realising Tommy has sentience is such a hard thing to write but the author does it in such a way that it's realistic (well as realistic as an alien fic can be) and not rushed with an easy fix-it-all solution

4. Whatever Remains, However Improbable by 7CxRhyeby (completed) This fic was a fic I'm still yet to read anything similar to and I love I for that, Wilbur is a framed detective which suits him so much, the different povs are all so well written its just so *mwah*

5. FOIL v.) [something considered wrong or undesirable] from succeeding by MistBorn_SprenDeath (one shot) ok this one is very short compared to the others but its wonderful, Tommy is blind, vampire SBI are dicks, BUT, Tommy is not compliant or complacent, he is smart and philosophical and doesn’t roll over to be babied and I love that for him. Please read this if you have 5 minutes its so worth it.

6. Vibrations by celestialwarden [completed] I don’t read many canon based fics, I’m more of an AU gal but this fic is an exception, and by that I mean its exceptionally well written. Tommy goes on a healing arc, gets a child, gets a Sean (we stan Sean) what else could you need? It has some heartbreaking angst and reunions, also some terrifying cliff hangers, but it all turns out well in the end. Just keep reminding yourself that especially towards the second half of the fic. You’ll need to.

7. The Case of the Fire Inside by trying_to_spell_both_our_names_at_once [ongoing] Whenever the author replies to a comment I left on the most recent chapter of this fic I immediately put down whatever I’m doing cause that usually means a new chapter is coming out. This fic is so unique, Selkie!Tommy and lighthouse keeper W, T, & P,  Evil bastard dream but older brother dream and its so sweet bcs Tommy is friends with SBI as a seal but also a human but its also so sad cause DREAM dbshbvhdj I love this fic pls read it.

8. Kings To You by Flustered [ongoing] as I mentioned earlier I’m not a huge fan of dark SBI but Tommy in this is just? so? cool? From the first chapter he is so badass, continuously does the impossible (I won’t state his feats cause spoilesrs but he is so cool) and when Techno goes all dark and possessive he’s like ‘fine, you want to make me “yours” well then your mine as well bitch’ He literally just goes “same” when Techno is doing his whole piglin bonding thing. Did I mention he’s badass? He is so badass

9. Diasporas Blue by SilverWing15 [completed] Werewolf Tommy is so perfect always, and SilverWing is such a wonderful writer this fic is just perfect. Its soft and fluffy but everyone is also oblivious idiots, sometimes you just need that hurt/comfort with a little bit of fantasy found family.

10. Blood Brothers (Blood God!Tommy AU) by lockergirl [ongoing series] Tommy (blood gods) just goes and yoinks a select few people that eventually become his family and I love it. This AU is so perfect, I love that the way he meets each SBI member is unique for each of them, its bloody hilarious when everyone thinks Techno is the blood god, plus the way he actively hates blood sacrifices so he befriends Techno when he sacrifices a fucking baked potato and that just becomes a thing from then on. This fic has angst but its also really funny at times, Tommy can be an oblivious mess but he means well

IF YOU HAVE FIC RECS I WILL GLADLY ACCEPT

[whetstonefires]

⭐ :) Please, your writing meta is incredibly interesting and articulate.

I have tried to answer this ask. So many times. There is a jinx in the air. Thank you! ^^ I’m happy you think so. At least this time I should be relatively streamlined, due to this technically being my sixth draft. (╯▔皿▔)╯

(Which is why I haven’t switched my subject to shake the jinx, I refuse to start completely over.)

I picked my fic Can’t Let it Go, the one inspired by a tumblr post, where a less fucked-up version of the Flashpoint timeline sees Thomas!Batman adopting his main timeline grandkids and/or their parents.

This improbable coincidence needs no justifying because DC always works on roughly equal amounts rhyme and reason, but rhyme is definitely the more prominent in Flashpoint. Since the timeline originally formed in response to the fabric of spacetime catching fire, I assume this means that Reason is the weft, and the more flammable fibre of the two.

The fic is named after a song by the Goo Goo Dolls in large part because it’s the song I associate with Flashpoint Batman and Joker. The vast majority of my headcanons and thoughts about the potential for grand tragedy that DC squandered, by committing to this outrageous concept and then making it so grimdark and petty, were formed whenever this song came on and my mental music video started scrolling.

But I also used that title because it encapsulates one of the major themes of the story. A lot of people like to say, and some canon comics have shown, that Batman is absolutely shit at moving on and letting go. And he’s definitely not good at it! But he’s not the worst.

He has a life. Even before he had his Robins. He’s had friends and romances, before and after becoming Batman; he’s pinned in place by his formative trauma to some extent, and clings to his griefs, but he was forced by the simple exigencies of having to grow up to get some distance and redefine himself away from that little boy kneeling between the bodies, in ways that go far beyond Batman.

He’s got a freestanding adult identity that is heavily tied to the people he lost, but unable to be entirely defined by them.

Flashpoint Joker and Batman, quite apart from how nothing about their existing actually makes sense unless you assume they’re being steered by parasitic surviving memes from a multiverse that was dead at the time, don’t have that. They don’t have distance, they don’t have growth. They took the blow, and they broke. And they stayed broken.

Martha broke worse, and in my interpretation a certain amount of Thomas’ damage is in response to hers, but there’s a dive straight from who they were before into who and what they are now.

An immediacy connecting incident and reaction that means, on the one hand, there was never any chance to put Martha Wayne, Wife And Mother, properly to bed, not when Thomas wouldn’t stay away and let her disappear into the Joker, and she wouldn’t or couldn’t look away from him. And on the other, it means that they are still in a place of reaction.

This is, both the original Flashpoint main action and in my spinoff, the same time period that Bruce was Batman in--they’ve been doing this for the entire period of time he would have taken to grow up. And they have not had any peace, or any recovery. They haven’t even been able to grieve healthily. It’s like it still happened just last week.

They’ve got the nemesis thing going and they’re still married. In the Flashpoint scenes with them I found most interesting based on the body language the artist went with, when Thomas is holding Martha’s attention with a lecture about the multiverse and the possibility of bringing Bruce back into existence, they still act married.

It’s like the Professor X and Magneto thing with extra angst and drama injection, because neither of them is even as reasonable as Magneto manages half the time, and because all that energy is focused around the tiny point of one murdered child, rather than spread out across a society. (And also they were actually happily married for like a decade before it all blew up, which afaik Erik and Charles have never managed in any timeline.)

Anyway. Thomas getting the kids is, in some ways, an expression of his initiating a better grieving process and moving on somewhat. But the way neither of them can actually let go is still a overarching theme, and that’s why I went with that title. The Word document is called ‘flashpoint family bonding au.’