#DCxDP AUs are so popular! How is this not a thing?

[magicpiano]

AU where Tucker Foley (Danny Phantom) and Richie Foley (Static Shock) are cousins.

[ekat-fandom-blog]

Bounty Hunter AU but DCxDP

OK, so I really enjoyed my bounty hunter au, but I feel like I could make it more entertaining. This is a human au btw.

Some info: Bounty hunter is an actual job and are mostly called bail enforcement agents or fugitive recovery agents. They can legally pursue fugitives across state lines and break and enter their house without a warrant if they know the fugitive is there. They primarily pursue and apprehend fugitives who have skipped bail or failed to appear for court proceedings. Only 4 states ban bounty hunting; Oregon, Kentucky, Illinois, and Wisconsin. (I do not know if this would be mirrored in DC because of how many super villains there are.) The laws regarding bounty hunters vary state to state. Only the USA and the Philippines have legalized bounty hunters.

Danny becomes a bounty hunter out of spite towards the GIW. His goal is to show up the GIW bounty hunter group and rub it in their face. And to catch Vlad and turn in the bounty on his head.

Danny's gotten pretty good at being a bounty hunter. He's caught quite a few criminals and is on the case of another one that happens to have crossed over into one of the hero's territory.

Here's a few ideas of how this could go:

Danny goes to Gotham to catch Johnny and Kitty. Given that their aesthetic matches Gotham pretty well, they're able to blend in well enough that even though Danny's tracked them to Gotham and is loosely working with the commissioner, he has to resort to asking for help from the Bats. Neither side trusts the other. Danny nearly gives up when Johnny and Kitty go through another dramatic break-up that has nearly the entirety of Gotham gossiping about it. He finds them, handcuffs them, and leaves for Amity. Both the bats and himself are relieved to not be dealing with the other.

Danny goes to Gotham to catch Spectra. Her and her butler are slippery and wonderful at disappearing, but given the amount of poverty they stick out. This tips off the Bats' that something's wrong. Danny gets to town and while the bats do not trust him, he's working(sorta) with Commissioner Gordon. As a last ditch effort to avoid getting caught, Spectra and Bertrand join Joker and Harley. Despite the four getting along, Harley gets jealous which causes them to have an explosive falling out, catching everyone's eyes. The situation becomes Spectra & Bertrand v Joker & Harley v Danny & the Bats.

Danny goes to Metropolis to catch Aragon. He chose the place because he thought it would be easy to lay low and then start a new cult. He wasn't wrong. Danny teams up with investigative reporter, Clark Kent, to find the slimy ex-cult leader.

Skulker goes to Jump City to hunt Beast Boy. He, unlike most of Danny's other bounties, is wanted in several states. He's also one of the few to seek out Danny specifically. So when Danny shows up to prevent him from doing his job, Skulker sees it as an opportunity to use BB as bait. A 'two birds, one stone' sorta thing. Danny teams up with the rest of the Teen Titans to take down Skulker and save BB.

The GIW ends up chasing down the same fugitive as Danny (for different bounties) in Star City. Green Arrow has to keep the two from destroying his city.

Desiree goes to hide in Faucet City. She's laying low by working as a fortune teller(cliche I know) but the ambient magic is causing her reading to be rather accurate. Especially the readings about misfortune. This gains her the attention of the news and Wiz Radio Show host, Billy Batson. The news is how Danny learns where she is. Billy thinks that Desiree is a new villain, while Danny's just trying to figure out how Desiree became such a popular fortune teller while trying not to make a huge scene. The two meet and immediately clock the other as a potential ally in taking down Desiree quietly. Between how many secrets Billy keeps and Danny's constant off-the-wall split second decision making, it's like working with the Bats again but they actually get along.

and here's two crack-ish ideas for you:

Danny is standing just outside of Wisconsin while Vlad taunts him. Saying stuff about how sad it is that bounty hunting isn't legal in Wisconsin. Danny just calls the fricken cops on him instead.

Or instead of Danny calling the cops, he just starts leaving. Vlad is not done taunting him though and starts to follow him, when he realizes he's fallen into a trap and left the relative safety of Wisconsin.

[robinasnyder]

I think two parts of this particular issue are as follows:

1) tumblr's tag system is shit.

Which, yeah, everyone knows this, but it's really frustrating when you're searching in DC character tag and even if you have dcxdp filtered, those crossovers are 99% of popular searches. Even knowing it's tumblr's fault, doesn't change that it kind of sucks to be looking for a character/series and only getting content for an entirely different series.

This is, of course, a long running issue of tumblr, but it doesn't change the frustration. Hell,bI get frustrated with it and I'm one of those crossover fans. It's just bad when I'm searching for a character and I literally forget that I searched for that character bc every popular post is dcxdp prompt fic, even when I'm loving said fic. It doesn't feel great, especially if said character isn't as popular as say, batman, and so there isn't exactly a glut of new content to begin with.

I won't say it's crossover fan's fault, especially when everything is generally very well tagged. But I try to be sympathetic about it because it does kind of suck of the non-dcxdp fans.

2) DC canon is already a game of telephone to fanwriters.

This is a big issue that comes with having such a huge amount of content and not a lot of easy ways to access it. Even outside of the dcxdp space, just in DC fan spaces, I see comics fans who have expressed that they wished people wouldn't create stuff for characters if they hadn't even read the comics. Now, I'm not talking about what's wrong with that idea, just this: it's frustrating when a fanom idea is so big everyone quotes it like it's fact and you can tell a lot of people have no idea what the source actually says.

For example, using the batfam: there's an entire subgenre of Tim- and/or Jason-centric fics where they have an au of the titans tower incident where Jason breaks in and beats Tim for replacing him. A lot of aus are like "what if Tim got to tell Jason how much he was missed?" And then the fic gets mushy. Thing is, I finally read that chapter, and you know what? Tim does kind of get to tell Jason, but Jason doesn't really care. He still beats Tim down (though Tim got some really good hits in), but he walks away kind of respecting Tim for his abilities. So even though I love that au, in the back of my head I'm like "yeah, but Tim did tell him and Jason still kicked his ass".

Here's another example, from my favorite magic bastard man: John Constantine hasn't bartered and traded his soul away a thousand times. In one comic he sold his soul twice. Basically, he got lung cancer and to get himself cured, he sells his soul twice, then also pisses off another powerful demon so they also claim his soul. Those demons are the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of the Fallen, aka: the worst of the worst. He sort of tricks his way into being able to live bc all three demons consider themselves the full owner of his soul, all three want to collect, but to do so would encroach om the others claims. Aka: they'd have to go to war with the others to collect. No soul, even John Constantine, is worth a war in hell.

You can also see that part of the House of Mysteries show where they basically show him doing the same thing. But again, he sells his soul 3 times max, and not pieces.

But so many fics include the "sold his soul a billion times" thing that it's treated as canon, and its just... isn't.

There's a lot of DC fanon treated as canon as is, then add in another layer of telephone going through crossovers where is seems like most dcxdp fans come in from the dp side, or the batfam side. Which isn't bad. I literally started loving Constantine because of the crossovers and then started doing my own research and reading.

Short of stopping to read every comic in existence (of which plenty contradict each other) before writing, there's no way to assure that there isn't this game of telephone. But, again, no fandom should have such a steep learning curve to enter. And again, every fandom I've ever seen has some thing/character that is a certain way in fandom but not in canon and people don't realize because it's so prolific.

I suppose it comes down to this for me: we're going to keep hearing this complaint because of the nature of the beast (tumblr, the game of telephone that is dc canon *and* fandom, people who are just entering the fandom). The best I can suggest is as follows:

- Try to be understanding of the people who love DC and just wish that they had other people to share with/content which reflected what they're a fan of. (Especially fans of non-batfam characters.)

- keep tagging things as properly as possible.

- keep enjoying the thing.

- be open to learning about canon stuff and reading comics, cause there's cool fun stuff there.

- don't feel like you *have* to read to be a fan.

- don't be a dick.

DPxDC and OOC

I've had a couple of posts cross my dash recently where people lament that a lot of the dpxdc fandom writes characters very OOC and how we're proliferating these characterizations among each other. I figured I'd add my own two cents.

I think the fundamental discrepancy comes from trying to reconcile two canons with vastly different tones.

Danny Phantom is a comedy superhero show operating on cartoon logic. Why do ghost experts Jack and Maddie never realize their own kid is a ghost? Why is the status quo restored at the end of every episode? Why does Danny shoot an ectoblast out of his butt that one time? Because it's funny. It's cartoony action fun where the plot is resolved in 22 minutes, there's never any lasting consequences and it's aimed at kids.

DC meanwhile wants to be taken Seriously. Heroes get beaten within an inch of their life, traumatized, killed and even the good guys do messed up things (often to each other). Yes there's action and puns, but also horrific violence, actions have consequences and it's (mostly) aimed at adults. When a main character dies the comics show their family and friends mourning and things are very dramatic. Even though at this point we, the audience can pretty much expect every death to be undone within 2-5 years of publishing, but I digress.

So how do we, the fanfic/fanart creators reconcile these differences when we make our crossovers? We either make DP more serious and somber, or we make DC more comedic.

Suddenly we have a DP verse where the Fentons' bumbling obliviousness is elevated to serious neglect or outright abuse. The GiW are no longer a minor annoyance, they are a serious threat with genocidal plans and a desire to vivisect the protagonist. When actions have consequences, we imagine Danny as dealing with serious PTSD from having to be a solo superhero and witnessing his family's death that one time (and maybe also getting vivisected). Danny is not just a teen superhero, he's now the Ghost King with serious responsibility on his shoulders.

On the flipside, if we make DC more comedic we tend to exaggerate character traits for comedic effect, focus more on the interpersonal dynamics (especially the Batfam) and have the characters act more casual and silly. Suddenly the Batfam goes from a group of seriously messed up individuals who have trouble communicating with each other and fight all the time to Batdad "Kids if you don't stop killing criminals you won't get dessert ffs" Bruce. Violence is played for laughs instead of taken seriously. Yeah they fight, but they still Love Each Other.

And THIS IS PERFECTLY FINE. It's transformative work! And trying to reconcile these disparate fandoms is hard! Fandom is a labor of love. We do it for free. We do it for our own entertainment. And no one is forcing you to read fics you don't like. DLDR and all that.