#Fanon vs. Canon

[umbrellacam]

Saw a post where someone wasn't sure if Tim being good at computers was a fanon thing or not and friend I am happy to inform you that he's been a computer/tech guy from some of his earliest appearances in the comics.

Detective Comics (Vol. 1) #620 (Rite of Passage part 4) - immersed in the ~web~

Robin II: The Joker's Wild #3 - tabletop roleplaying games and spending hours in the basement on the computer - not beating the geek allegations on these fronts, Timmy

Detective Comics (Vol. 1) #676 - Dick was more into traditional detective work and tended to outsource the computer stuff in these days

Batman (Vol. 1) #514 (Prodigal part 10) - hackin' through all the garbage and garble

Robin (1993) #33 - Robin sneaking in and connecting Oracle with the baddies' mainframe so she can do her thing and steal all their data >:)

Nightwing (1996) #6 - "no you're really talented and well suited to be Robin." "no, you." "no, YOU!"

Tim is definitely not as good as Babs/Oracle, but he's certainly her back-up for computer work in the 90's batfam. They're tech buddies and Robin!Tim is her little assistant sometimes, it's super cute:

Birds of Prey (1999) #19 - happy to play with big sister's fancy high-powered toys

Legends of the Dark Knight (1989) #125 - real cute kid

And Dick will hand off computer jobs to his little brother when he doesn't want to bother Babs 😂 (that outsourcing I mentioned):

Nightwing (1996) #68 - examine them pixel by pixel, eh? welp, sounds like a job only you can do, Timbo, you got this buddy, byyyyeeeee

And then when he'd grown up and been doing this for years, he leveled up accordingly, and did stuff like use his access to the League of Assassins computers to overload the generators in every base he could find, etc. etc.

Red Robin (2009) #8 - yeah that was pretty dumb of you Ra's :)

So yeah, it was a bit of a specialty of Tim's, in large part because he was introduced just at the turn into the 90's, when personal computers were really starting to take off and become widespread. (Robins gotta be cutting edge and all)

Of course, by no means does it follow that the other Bats suck at computers (there is no 'smart one' they are all incredibly smart and capable). This is especially true as reboots and the sliding timescale of comics have moved the DC characters into modern times, where computers run the world and everyone grows up with one in their pocket. The baseline familiarity and expertise that everyone can be expected to have is just much, much higher these days.

It gets exaggerated in fanon as all character traits do, but computer guy Tim is definitely not something just made up out of whole cloth :)b

[northoftheroad]

Was Dick ever fired at 16 in the comics or is that fanon only? I've read more than one fic in which they mention him being fired at 16 yo and becoming Nightwing not long after. How accurate is that?

Not very accurate. As in, at all.

Originally, Dick chose to leave Robin behind. He had started and left college/university twice so he should have been at least 19.

The first time it’s Bruce who makes decision is in Batman vol 1 # 408. In Nightwing Year One, Nightwing vol 2 # 101, Batman did use the word fired. Dick should still be around 19 when he becomes Nightwing (in Batman vol 2 # 416, Dick asks why Bruce took on Jason as Robin when he said it was too dangerous for a 19-year-old).

Batman # 408

Batman # 416

Nightwing # 101 (part of Nightwing Year One)

Tom Taylor has had Dick saying he was fired in his run, Nightwing vol 4 # 79, but we’ve never seen the details and he was definitely drawn as a young adult. You can have a lot to say about Bruce Wayne, but he’s never fired and kicked out a child DickRobin (well, he did leave him to take care of himself once in the Golden Age, to protect Dick from a guy who intended to murder him, but that’s a different story).

Batman vol 1 # 13

There is one story where Dick stormed out of the manor and said he wanted his emancipation, and stopped being Robin for a while. It’s in Nightwing vol 2 # 134 and forward a few issues. I’m not a huge fan of it, but Dick was 16-17 at that time. (He didn’t become Nightwing and he went back to Robin at the end of the arc.)

Nightwing vol 2 # 134

More about different versions of Dick becoming Nightwing is this old post:

[bethanydelleman]

Did you know that Mary Bennet is never associated with Fordyce's Sermons in the novel? Examining one of the most fandom confused characters in Austen:

An update on one of my older posts.

[luxshine]

As I work on my next #Letstalkabout video, I remember this one, where I talk about how, while everyone is completely entitled to their own headcanons, sometimes they become incredibly popular and part of fanon. And that is when we should stop a bit and think where does that piece of fanon comes from and what does it say of how we view the characters and whom they represent! https://youtu.be/qsogqG0aAAg?si=0G7yC8EpcM0H8x3a And if you like my art, you can get commissions at @artistreeio https://artistree.io/luxshine #moonknight #fanart #opinion #Speedpaint #video

[onewomancitadel]

I guess like, my problem with Rey of Sunshine who doesn't even any problems and Dark Fuck Prince Kylo is not really just the existence of it, but just the assumption that's what the dynamic is. That's what 'fanon' is. The expectation that everybody else goes along with it, and if you're not talking about it you're talking about something else. Like people saying, 'Oh, TLJ changed the Reylo dynamic' no it didn't. It was a completely organic follow-on from TFA. Kylo doesn't even want to kill her and is perpetually fascinated by her, Rey's offended by him because he's pretty despite being evil (keep in mind people were expecting something very different when the mask came off) and she doesn't understand why he's not a 'creature in a mask' and why he killed his dad when she wants her parents back.

This isn't even really a RWBY fandom problem when I describe my issue with the fanon, it's just more apparently extreme in some cases. I don't know if this has anything to do with fandom going mainstream (and passive consumption) because fanon archetyping definitely used to be a thing before it, I just wonder if it's more pervasive because of the authority certain platforms and identities afford over others.

I also feel like, yes you want to find community and connection, so that means that there are people searching for x dynamic who will encourage the presence of x dynamic, and some people just want that. That explains a lot about fanon in my opinion and in part explains the DFP and Rey of Sunshine/grumpy/sunshine duo, because that's an easy replicable romance novel dynamic that a lot of people search for, and it does speak to some burgeoning sexual desires.

I always try to understand where people are coming from and I don't think fanon is necessarily wicked in any sense, it's just annoying.

[umbrellacam]

Tim actually didn't move to Bristol, and specifically next door to Wayne Manor, until after he became Robin and his dad woke up from his coma. It was suggested by Alfred as a way for Tim to continue secretly being Robin, and fun fact, a secret tunnel was built under a cistern in the Drakes' cellar all the way to the Batcave to further enable his vigilante career c:

As far as we've been told, Tim grew up in various apartments/condos that the Drakes owned mostly on Gotham City island proper, and Jack didn't even want to move out of the city but had to be persuaded (links on Tim's childhood living situations: (1) and (2))

(also Steph is from the suburbs on the mainland, not Gotham City Island (or Crime Alley).)

There's not a single thing you could say to convince me that Bruce and Tim are gothamites. Look at this fucking map

Bristol is so far removed from the heart of Gotham that there's quite literally no way it shares many, if any, cultural traits with Gotham. That's not even counting the insane wealth disparity that makes the ways of life (and therefore culture and habits and dialects and food) completely incomparable. Tim and Bruce aren't gothamites, they're Bristol brats, and I fully believe nobody in Gotham would accept them calling themselves gothamites. Especially with the size of the Wayne Estate.

[phantasm-masquerade]

reblog for a bigger sample size if you feel like it

[umbrellacam]

Anyway, as I'm going back and reading a period during which the Teen Titans and other heroes were highly visible and active with the public, including Batman to a certain extent, and with camera!Tim and the idea of reconciling incompatible timelines on my mind -

I feel like the camera!Tim fanon where Tim follows Batman and Robin around in person for years could be (among other things, such as wanting him to interact with/admire Jason and encounter/join the Batfam early, etc.) partially a result of the retcon that B&R are shadowy, unconfirmed urban legends, and not public figures. Even for people who haven't read this retcon in the comics themselves, the "B&R as urban legends" world-state is still very popular, well-known, and often used in fic and fandom.

So during the 1994 Zero Hour event, there were a bunch of time anomalies and various adjustments to the canon, including (re-)establishing Batman (and Robin) as a hushed, menacing ~rumor~, more phantom and myth than man, as a matter of Bat policy. No public appearances. No clear photos, no hard facts.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #0

Batman: Shadow of the Bat #0

We even have Dick relaying a slightly tweaked version of his origin, implying that Batman did not swoop down and publicly comfort Dick Grayson in the circus ring after his parents' murder (as was shown to have happened in Batman: Year Three and A Lonely Place of Dying back in 1989 - and which served as the initial reason Tim started admiring Batman!), and in fact Dick "...didn't believe the stories about the Batman" until months after he moved into the Manor, when Bruce told him the truth and showed him the Cave:

Robin (1993) #0

And of course the many subsequent instances afterwards of the existence of Batman, Robin, Nightwing, etc. all being kept on the down-low:

Young Justice (1998) #52-53 - Tim creating his Mr. Sarcastic guise to avoid being on-camera as Robin.

Detective Comics (Vol. 1) #727 - Bullock and Montoya being true Gothamite bros to the Bats.

And many more, etc.

All of this is obviously incompatible with the prior era and many events where Batman and Robin were very well documented as heroes, including Tim's origin in Batman: Year Three and ALPoD, as mentioned above.

As Tim related, he followed them mainly in various news media, and it was in fact on TV that he fatefully saw Robin's quadruple flip, years later:

Batman (Vol. 1) #441

By contrast, the 2016 recap of Tim's origin in A Lonely Place of Living, which restored his pre-Flashpoint backstory, does have Batman appearing at the circus again, and even taking Dick with him, but it doesn't include anything about Tim following Batman and Robin in the news, clipping articles, etc. It doesn't even mention when or how Tim saw Robin performing Dick Grayson's quadruple somersault in order to piece things together:

Detective Comics (2016) #965

But okay, if Batman and Robin were subsequently retconned into shadowy urban legends that didn't regularly appear in newspapers or on TV, how do we reconcile that with Tim's backstory as a fan who stalked followed them super closely?? His creepy cute scrapbook of newspaper clippings and Moment of Revelation from watching them on TV can't exist in the same form anymore, it's incompatible.

We can fudge an in-universe explanation covering most of the retcon, like it was a policy change that Batman instituted early in Tim's Robin tenure, and say Oracle went back and scrubbed photos, videos, records etc. from existence. We'd probably have to lean into the sliding timescale of comics and pretend all of this happened in a more digital era, though, because otherwise there are all of those pesky physical records...

We can cover the gaps by handwaving that the 'shadowy urban legends' cloak of secrecy was never foolproof, and hard evidence of B&R's existence did exist here and there, but was limited and hard to find. This jives fairly well with the actual 'urban legend' era post-Zero Hour; they couldn't avoid being witnessed or interacting with people all the time. Kid Tim would just have to do more involved digging than snipping articles out of the daily paper. Maybe the hidden security camera footage of Robin's flip that was shown on the evening news was much more shadowy and ambiguous than in canon, and it's because of Tim's special interest that he was even able to recognize B&R, and what was going on? I like this one, personally.

But alternatively. We do know that he followed Batman in person and took pictures at least in Batman #440. We're pretty sure that he had to have followed Dick/the Titans around in New York before, given that he'd memorized the Titans' schedules and knew the locations of both Kory's and Dick's apartments (also Batman #440; Tim, pls...).

It seems like extending these instances into a more regular pattern of Tim following the Bats around, and gathering photo evidence for his scrapbook by taking pictures himself, and witnessing Robin!Dick's flip in person, is one possible way to reconcile the inconsistency. And one even more likely to be used by people with only more general fandom knowledge, who are used to the 'urban legend' world-state but want to have Tim stalking the Bats at length anyway. (Which, along with New 52 Tim, is part of how we get baby super-hacker and electronic stalker extraordinaire Tim fanon, as well, I'm sure.)

[cupcakeshakesnake]

Got out of bed half awake to scribble this

[beanthebugboi]

Canon/Headcanon likelihood chart

So I've been thinking about @macdenlover 's "levels of headcanon" chart (about how heavily a HC is influenced by canon), so I decided to make my own scale about how likely a HC is to be true (including different levels of canon) using queer cartoon characters as examples :)

I just spent an hour making this because I was bored. Enjoy.

Inspiration:

[grape-souffle]

[niftukkun]

welsknight fanon v canon : aka the funniest contrast ive ever seen from fanon v canon.

heres the textless version and some thoughts

the contrast between canon and fanon with welsknight is so funny to me. every single fanon piece (usually writing but sometimes art) i see of him hes so knightly and goody two shoes and like. posh?? and then i watch his videos and he puts a bridge on hypnos front lawn without asking for permission. he made a secret tunnel between him and hypnos storage rooms for shits and giggles. hes doing an old man impression of kids these days with their gadgets and he brings up papyrus paper of all things. he gives off such mischevious little man vibes and he is at best a knight wannabe but realistically seems to be just be in it for the aesthetics and fandom takes it all way too seriously. its hilarious and i genuinely cant take any fanon depiction of him being all knightly and pretentious without thinking of the fact that he spent so much on mangrove to line the secret tunnel between him and hypnos storage rooms which he built without telling hypno. peak smug cat meme vibes

anyway uhhh tldr welsknight is not a knight that armour is made of foam and its hilarious how seriously the fandom takes him. send post

[correlance]

"Fanon Alastor" vs. "Canon Alastor" by @madelezabeth (?), colored by me! I found the uncolored version posted to r/HazbinHotelMemes.

[sanemifucker]

[bethanydelleman]

The fact that people get angry in JAFF if Colonel Fitzwilliam isn't named "Richard" (non-canon)

I also frequently get angry comments for not making Caroline evil enough 😅

[grabs your shoulders and shakes you] something being widely accepted fanon does not actually make it "basically canon" and it doesn't mean people who don't incorporate it into their fics or acknowledge it are doing something wrong

[queen-morgana91]

Damn atla fandom is always looking for the yin/yang dynamic and "soulmates" trope when in the canon series it's literally...... Zuko and Aang

I mean, Sokka IS absolutely Aang's best friend and brother, but the soulmates platonic bond belong to them

Enemies to friends, opposite elements in terms of temperament, both related to Roku and Sozin, both have "restore my honor" thing, both have scars from Azula, "the Avatar bring Zuko hope" line etc etc

They are meant to be friends bonded by the universe (Roku and Sozin again, hello?) and their respective paths were constantly intertwined. You learn about their backstories BY PARALLELS, BY DREAMS

“The storm” and "The Avatar and the Fire Lord" are two of my favorite episodes because it really highlights how their fates are intertwined

They are THE narrative foils of the series. From episode 1 until the very end you know they are connected

I mean look at Zuko here

You can’t tell me Zuko didn’t think about this convo/experience in general all the time before switching sides. He’s not angry or disappointed. He looks contemplative, like what Aang said really got to him, even if he doesn’t know it yet.

Aang couldn't never hate Zuko because he knew why Zuko was the way he was and Zuko was obsessed with him for 3 seasons.

In the end they are presented together side by side as the Fire Lord and the Avatar. Their union is what will bring peace

But since it's not a "romantic connection" this relationship is ignored bruh