Flashbangs & Frag Grenades

Fanfiction
Title:	Flashbangs & Frag Grenades
Author(s):	Calchexxis
Date(s):	March 17, 2021 - Present
Length:	547,077 words
Genre(s):	Romance
Fandom(s):	League of Legends
Relationship(s):	Lightcannon
External Links:	AO3 Spotify Apple Podcast
Audiobook cover of Flashbangs and Frag Grenades
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Flashbangs & Frag Grenades is a popular Lightcannon fanfic written by Calchexxis that started in 2021. It became very influential on the characterization of Lightcannon following its rise in popularity due to influx in new fans the television show Arcane brought to League of Legends fandom.

A audiobook version of the story, read by Sam Gabriel, began releasing episodes on Spotify and Apple Podcast in 2022.

Influence on the Lightcannon Fandom

In an tumblr ask about the history of Lightcannon, in which Flashbangs & Frag Grenades was mentioned, Calchexxis chimed in with the following:

Speaking from experience, at the time there were no consistently updating Lightcannon fics except mine. Jinx was kind of a meme in the community as a sort of wish.com Harley Quinn, and with other more popular ships like Cait/Vi (called Piltover's Finest back then), Diana/Leona, and of course the K/DA ladies present. Even my own work was pretty sparsely viewed before Arcane came out and people came doggedly searching for cute sapphic copium in the angst-ridden wake of Arcane’s ending.

But that ending changed everything.

I can’t explain how weird it was to see hundreds and hundreds of people suddenly appearing and commenting, then seeing my own personal story tags like ‘Lux is Crazier’ appearing in other fics I had no input in. Even my own personal world creations like the fictional Zaunite language of gutlau being referenced started appearing in other stories. That was to say nothing of the characterization of Lux in almost all of the newer stories being parallel or outright identical to my version of her in Flashbangs where she’s more or less a sociopathic spy wearing a mask of Disney-princess-esque gentility.

To this day, I’ve only ever suspected this, but I can’t help but wonder how much of Lightcannon specifically stemmed directly from Flashbangs, if only because it was, again, the only thing there was to read that was still updating. It was pure luck even if that IS the case, because I had no input on that and it caught me off guard more than anything, but it’s still very weird to think about.

Calchexxis, May 8, 2024.

Fanart

• Heavily inspired by that one scene in Flashbangs/Frag Grenades (by Calchexxis on Ao3) <3 by xi-xi-chen
• Seraphine and Renata from @calchexxis side story A Traitorous Heart from their incredible lightcannon Flashbangs & Frag Grenades series. by raidintombs
• lux's line is from this fic by closetedYAWA