Characters and couples research

Active source

2. What the fandom is writing

Avalance is a canon couple. This fundamentally shapes what the fandom produces. The central goal is not getting them together (that is already done) but finding and extending the quiet moments the show didn't have time for.

The most-written sub-genres:

Domestic/fluff fic — the largest and most beloved category. Morning routines, Sunday pancakes, Ava reading Time Bureau reports while Sara commits minor acts of domestic chaos. The Waverider as home. Their apartment in DC. The tension between Ava's need for order and Sara's fundamental inability to have it. These fics are about what it looks like when two people who have never been allowed to be safe are finally, quietly, safe.
The clone identity arc — Ava learning she was made in a lab and the subsequent unraveling. The central reassurance the fandom keeps reaching for: "you might have been made in a lab, but you made yourself into a person." Sara as the one who tells her she is real — not because Sara is naive but because Sara has looked at enough fake things to know the difference. The fake memories of her childhood and how they feel real anyway. Meeting her "parents" who aren't her parents.
Sara's scars — "The first time Ava sees Sara's scars" is a recurring fic title and a recurring fic premise. The scars are physical evidence of everything Sara has survived: Lian Yu, the League, every battle across time. The fic premise: Sara is defended about them (she doesn't explain them, doesn't offer them as evidence of anything). Ava sees them anyway. What Ava does with them — doesn't flinch, touches them gently, does not say a word — is the love declaration.
Sara's trauma and PTSD — Nightmares. Death residue. The specific damage of having died and come back and not being sure what that means for you. Sara waking up screaming. Sara going very still and quiet when something triggers her. Ava learning to tell the difference between "Sara is fine and being reckless" and "Sara is not fine and needs to be held." These fics are mostly about Ava learning Sara's specific language of distress.
Post-canon pregnancy/wedding — Massive. The show ended with the couple expecting a child and the fandom has been writing the aftermath ever since: the pregnancy, the baby, the Legends as a chaotic extended family, Ava's first nightmare, what name the baby has, the Heywood-Sharpe family dynamics.
Time travel tropes — Specific to this pairing because of the setting. Being trapped in the past together. Meeting younger/older versions of themselves (and neither is prepared for it). A future Sara or Ava showing up and accidentally revealing something the present-day version hasn't admitted yet.
Legitimacy crises in parallel — The fandom's central insight: both of them believe they don't deserve this. Sara because of her past, her kills, the version of herself she became on Lian Yu. Ava because she was made in a lab and doesn't know what that means about whether she's "real." The relationship works because each woman believes in the other's realness even when she can't believe in her own.
Fix-it fic — Season 6 (Sara is abducted by aliens, Ava's grief and the proposal that almost happened). Season 7 (robot apocalypse, the wedding happening anyway). The fandom has some consensus about which season moments needed more time and tenderness.
Modern AU — Time travel removed, roles preserved or inverted. Ava in law enforcement (common) or a very uptight bureaucrat; Sara as a fighter/criminal/MMA athlete. The rivals dynamic mapped onto a civilian setting.

Provenance & technical details

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Revision history (1)

Revision 1 · 2026-09-06T18:47:12.694Z