Fandom Snowflake Challenge #9: "Favorite Trope/Theme/Motif/Cliche/Whatever"

From snowflake_challenge:

Challenge #9

Talk about your favorite tropes in media or transformative works. (Feel free to substitute in theme/motif/cliche if "trope" doesn't resonate with you.)

I love me a canon divergent alternate universe (AU) fic. I'm not big on AUs where the setting changes (though, like anything else, there are exceptions), but I love it when a story tweaks canon and then spins off the story from there. It's such an interesting way to explore the characters and their thoughts and feelings as things unfold differently than they did in canon.

I'm particularly fond of the "# things that never happened" format (I think it's usually five things, but the number of things doesn't really matter), probably because it just gives me more fic to read in one little bundle.

I'm sure how popular that format is these days (maybe it varies across fandoms), but it had a heyday in the early to mid-2000s, a peak fannish time for me.

I've written a couple canon divergent AUs in the past couple of years for "Forever Knight" (FK) fandom, both relating to the series finale "Last Knight" (because of course they do; I think every FK fan fic writer has probably dealt with that absolute gut punch of a series finale in their own way). Specifically:

Five Ways "Last Knight" Didn't End. Exactly what it says. Five ficlets set during "Last Knight" that tweak events to lead to different outcomes.

Dust to Dust. Completely sidesteps "Last Knight" and replaces it with this instead, picking up right after the penultimate episode, "Ashes to Ashes."

I certainly hope to write more canon divergent AUs because I love them. Because my current fannish writing obsession is "Grantchester," I have a WIP for "things that never happened on a weekend in Brighton" that explores what might have happened if poor, sweet, confused, closeted, and scared Leonard Finch hadn't turned down Daniel Marlowe's invitation to go to the seaside town of Brighton (a queer hot spot) during season 2.

In another fandom, Oz, I have a canon divergent AU rec that, in my mind at least, is legendary in the fandom:

My Wife and My Dead Wife. A completely AU season 3 (written before season 3 aired) that incisively and brutally tackles the whole Thing (with a capital T for sure) with Vern Schillinger, Tobias Beecher, and Chris Keller. (If you're unfamiliar with Oz, be forewarned, nothing in Oz is for the faint of heart.)

Have you ever written a canon divergent AU to tweak a piece of canon and replace it with what might have happened instead?