#i'm so serious about the devin Grayson thing

[necrotic-nephilim]

for the ask game perhaps 25 or 22? :]

-searchforahero from the main blog <:

for the choose violence ask game!

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

i've answered this one a couple times so hmm lemme think. OH i think the Pre-Crisis relationship between Jason and Nocturna <3 i'd do ANYTHING to have more fanon content for Nocturna being Jason's maternal figure and how their bond could be explored. i think about her a lot and i wish we got more of her, it feels like fanon just glosses over it. which is understandable given it's Pre-Crisis and all, *but* a lot of fanon Jason takes pull from his Pre-Crisis comics so i feel like we should see more of a Nocturna presence. like she seems like the type of character fandom woud love to sink their teeth into. mysterious love interest of Bruce's fights Bruce for custody of Jason? that's PEAK fanfic material. i would like more of her <3

25. common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

i was going to say the obvious one of antis crying about having to filter out Batcest content bc how dare Ao3 not entirely consist of content that caters to their sensibilities. but honestly? a bigger one? any complaints about Devin Grayson as a writer. most information about her is incorrect (she did not change her last name bc of Dick, Tarantula is not her self-insert, she did not write the rape scene as a personal fantasy, she is not in love with Dick) and the information that is correct and genuine criticism of her writing (how she handled the aftermath, how she wrote Dick's Romani heritage, etc) applies to *every* male writer in the industry. it's always *just* her though, that this fandom harps on to the point she's this boogeyman that somehow is responsible for every bad comic plot ever. i'm begging people to move on. complain about *literally* anyone else i'm begging. the genuine criticisms of her have been exhausted and all the other things about her are straight up misogynistic lies. because a woman in this industry will always be more scrutinized. i don't think she's perfect, nor do i think her writing is without flaws, but i do think most ppl complaining about her haven't even read her work. they just want to make a woman into a scapegoat. it'. truly irks me one day I'll write a long thinkpiece about it-

[northoftheroad]

I really like your blog and read a lot of things you had to say about Wolfman, so can I pick your brain about Devin Grayson?

A lot of people seem to say she wasn't good for the Nightwing run. Just wanna know your opinions about it

I'm gonna read her run anyways. It's just that I like your takes on things. Especially since you make connections with older comics.

Honestly, I think there is a lot to enjoy in Devin Grayson's stories. In Titans, she wrote Dick as a competent workaholic and the Titans as a group of very close friends. JLA vs Titans has a worried bat-dad, which is always adorable. Dick and Tim have fun together, and Bruce is emotionally complicated in Batman: Gotham Knights. Batman plus Arsenal is great (Roy chews out Batman!). Her story in the Robin 80th anniversary comic has a fun twist. Etc.

Batman: Gotham Knights # 8 & 9

Then there's things I don't like.

The rape. IMO, you shouldn't write rape in comics unless you're prepared to deal thoroughly with the consequences in the story. Admittedly, the sexual assault in Nightwing vol 2 # 93 is probably dealt with more seriously than the Mirage situation by Marv Wolfman, but I still wanted something more. Blockbuster's murder and the rape had an enormous impact on Dick's mental health; we should have got a resolution where Dick could admit out loud (if even only to himself) what happened, where he could get what help he needed and decide to move on. (Preferably, I would also have liked other characters to realise what had happened and not only be assholes…) (That Devin Grayson, in some interview, wanted to call it not consensual instead of rape doesn't help (full disclosure: I don't know if she's backed down on that).)

The retconning of Dick as part Roma. Now, it's for people who are Roma to have opinions about representation; I've seen (allegedly, because who knows what is correct on social media) both Roma people who like it and those who don't. From where I'm standing, it wasn't well done. The only comic arc where a Roma parent is essential to the story is quite problematic; you get the impression that the writer did it… to exoticise Dick and have Bruce talk like a racist…? 

Gotham Knights # 20.

Some later stories have acknowledged this retcon, but only a handful of issues from decades worth of comics. Most writers ignore it, and Dick has never been portrayed as being fluent in a Romani dialect or adhering to any customs (other than looking for Romani food and talking about some legend.) He didn't even speak Romani when Devin Grayson wrote him.

How she wrote the relationship between Dick and Barbara. They were supposed to be old and dear friends, apart from a couple. Barbara blamed Dick for being sexually harassed (kissed), and when he came to her for comfort, reeling from Haly's circus being burned down, she asked him to leave after few hours night. That's not a relationship I, as a reader, would root for.

To be fair, she intended to write a story about how Dick went from being happy, to making his life living hell, and presumably end in a new happy place for him. Dick and Barbara are written in a way that would end in their splitting up. (Writers will create conflict because the storytelling needs it, and sometimes we as readers can think it was out of character, or unnecessary.)

I expect I would like her writing better if she could have finished her story. Maybe she would have got together the Dick/Barbara relationship and delivered a satisfactory resolution to the rape. But DC editorial interrupted her plans with Infinite Crisis, where they almost decided to kill Nightwing, and she had to make a rushed conclusion that never went anywhere. And when the Nightwing comic continued, it was in another town and one of the worst Nightwing stories ever.

As I said, I like part of her characterisation of Dick – how he can be ultra serious just as well as joking around, has a tendency to overwork himself, blame himself, he wants to give everyone a chance. But… I know she's said in an interview that she thinks of Dick as a contact junkie* who processes with his body before his head. I'm not down with that. Ok, as an acrobat, you could argue that body memory and responding to the touch of his fellow performers is essential for survival. And Dick might be freer with hugs than Bruce Wayne and Alfred, but that's a very low bar to set. Marv Wolfman wrote a Dick Grayson who was very private and could hardly show his love for Kory physically in public. (To be fair, when Dick dated a few girls in college in the comics from the 70s, he didn't mind holding hands and kissing in public. But, as much as I enjoy citing examples from older comics, the 80s is the start of a deeper characterisation for Dick Grayson.) I read Dick as a guy who's very much in his head – if not for any other reason, Batman must have drilled into him to think and question everything. There are panels where he seeks out solitude or watches nature programmes without talk to relax. And I also read him as uncomfortable with strangers touching or ogling him.

Anyway, happy reading. Of course you should read and form your own opinions. I guess you'll find things to love and things to loathe - I find that's true about most comic book writers and runs, myself 😎

*The way I think about him, he likes everyone, he's sort of a contact junkie — just this incredibly physical (and attractive) person who lives wholly in the corporeal plane and responds with — processes things in — his body before his head or heart. I imagine that he can be hypnotised by a touch the way other people can be stopped dead in their tracks by the sight of money or the promise of true love.

[zahri-melitor]

#op i trust you but can i also get some sources#i am interested (from @ccain)

Oh god, where do I start. A lot of this is just...general knowledge or stuff that pops out when you look at a timeline of how the stories going on shake out.

It is very, very clear when you look at how the storyline started, Devin Grayson pitched a 'break the cutie' plot. She spends 18 months carefully making everything go wrong in Dick's life, and then presumably intended for him to come out the other side stronger and more committed to The Mission.

I'm going to compare this again against Red Robin #1-12, which is a compact and successful example of this sort of storyline. RR #1-4 is Tim Hits Rock Bottom. The events of the past 5 years or so finally catch up with him and Tim Breaks. He yells at people he's close to, pushes everyone away, and goes on the run. RR #5-8 is Tim swimming around going 'well I've given in to my Worst Impulses, Am I Evil?' and flirting with Doing Wrong. RR #9-12 is the resolution - Tim realises he still has people who love him and rely on him, he goes to heroically save Bruce's loved ones, and gets a moment of pure sweet resolution hugging Dick in the Cave.

Devin Grayson's whump plot for Dick essentially runs from #71-95, and then from #107-116. She desperately tries to wrap it up in #117 but it's halfhearted at best. The intervening 11 issues (almost a YEAR) in the middle there, #96-106, consists of: 3 issues of War Games, one issue post-War Games that is essentially just the fallout and new status quo being explained to Dick (because he was unconscious during the final parts of War Games), Nightwing #100 (which is about long term stories and doesn't bother to seriously get back to the plot as it's essentially a stand alone issue), and then #101-106, which are Nightwing: Year One, written by Chuck Dixon.

As a writer, Devin Grayson essentially had no choice about anything that happened in that year. Her plot got put on hold for two other stories. It also got put on ice at the worst possible moment: right as Dick hit rock bottom in #93, and let Tarantula shoot Blockbuster. #94-95 mostly consist of Dick wandering around in a daze, probably dissociating from the horror of what he's just let happen, while Catalina tries to marry Dick.

In Red Robin terms, imagine if after RR #4, as Tim is lying there bleeding to death, the plot got put on hold for 11 months while Tim had to go back to Gotham for Blackest Night (instead of those issues just happening as separate tie ins), followed by another writer getting to spend 6 months recapping A Lonely Place of Dying. Imagine what that would do to the story's pacing.

Once Devin gets control of her story back, in issue #107, she launches into the Mob Arc. I like the Mob Arc, being #107-112. It's the equivalent of RR #5-8. Dick's decides that he's a Terrible Person, so he's punishing himself working as an enforcer for the mob. He's also simultaneously remembering what it's like to be part of a family, with a father who cares about you and a little sibling to protect. This is the upswing. It's where Dick is supposed to start recovering, and working out that he's not Evil.

Unfortunately for everyone concerned, the plotting of Infinite Crisis is underway at this point, and Dan Didio wants to kill off a character to seal This Is Really Serious. He wants to do a Barry sacrifice. Didio picks Dick, for a variety of reasons that have been explained many different ways over the years, but that essentially boil down to "Didio saw Dick, as a legacy character, as superfluous". He wasn't Batman OR Robin, but he used to be Robin. People would care but it wouldn't disrupt things that much. Here's a very basic explanation from Didio - there have been a LOT more details leaked over the years.

Didio got it very, very, very wrong. His writer's room for Infinite Crisis essentially staged a coup and forced Didio to accept that killing Dick Grayson would result in half the writers walking/resigning, including iirc Geoff Johns and Marv Wolfman. Geoff Johns was the lead writer for Infinite Crisis. People cared very much about Dick. They swapped his death out for Kon's instead (and the swap came very very late - Infinite Crisis is written as if Dick's about to die, they swapped out pages at the last minute).

BECAUSE Dick was now fated to die during Infinite Crisis, Devin got told to wrap her story up. Nightwing was ending issue #117. She segued over into the Slade plot (which probably was her next intended move anyway - Dick training Rose would be the shock that brought him back out of his moping over being evil), but only gets 3 issues of this, including one where Roy gets to yell at Dick about What Are You Doing??? Slade's also simultaneously part of the Evil Plot going on in Infinite Crisis, and since Dick's dying anyway, the event writers decide to drop Chemo on Bludhaven, to again ramp up the drama and sacrifice. If Dick's dead they don't need the city, plus Devin Grayson had already killed off the majority of characters people cared about there anyway (Batgirl is already scheduled to end at the same time too, and moving Robin back to Gotham was the long term plan anyway).

Standing in the ruins of Bludhaven, in issue #116, Dick finally, finally reaches where RR #9-12 should start. He gets back into the blue fingerstripes and mourns his dead.

Unfortunately for everyone, this resolution arc gets exactly one issue, #117. Dick finally gets to tell Bruce what happened to Blockbuster (which if events hadn't intervened, was more likely to have happened back around #99 or so, or maybe a little later), and he gets engaged to Babs because he's about to die and that was his little treat for getting offed (this is similar to how Steph got to be Robin because she was going to die in War Games. You get a little treat because you're about to be dead).

Unfortunately for Devin Grayson, this level of resolution is about as popular as burnt toast. Didio is shaking up writers for most titles anyway in the aftermath of Infinite Crisis - the point of One Year Later is that they can set up fresh teams on all the books. Devin is off Nightwing, never having got to resolve her plot.

And also, because the last two years of storytelling on Nightwing have been approximately as popular as a root canal with the fans (due to, as I noted, the main plot spending a year in a holding pattern, followed by 11 issues that never fully got back on track after that disruption, as they also got completely thrown for a mess again by Infinite Crisis), Devin Grayson is essentially out the door at DC as well.

I've seen books still be successful around this level of editorial fuckery. But it takes skill, talent and a lot of luck, and Devin Grayson didn't have the trifecta.

(You want an example of a book that survived this level of nonsense? Marc Andreyko's run on Manhunter. Which got cancelled TWICE and then finished up as a back-up in Streets of Gotham. And even that won the lottery several times)

Since I’m once again thinking about it, Devin Grayson really had the worst luck in the world for her whump storyline.

Sure I’m certain it would never have ranked up there with people’s favourites, but I’d love to have seen what her original pitch for the resolution of the storyline was. Presumably the depression-almost-marriage, then Dick runs off and joins the mob, then we finally get a comfort arc where he realises he’s NOT that person and reconciles with the family.

Instead: 9 of the following 13 issues to Nightwing #93 were out of Devin’s control (War Games then Nightwing Year One), she gets her mob arc up only to be informed Dick will be getting sacrificed in Infinite Crisis, and she diverts over to the half done Slade story because nothing really matters at this point, hey? Editorial drops Chemo on Blüdhaven because Dick’s dying anyway, we can sacrifice his city for drama, only for the rebellion to save Dick AFTER PAGES ARE TURNED IN.

I know everyone dislikes #93 and why they feel that way, but it’s also basically the last point for the subsequent two years where Devin had any control over the course of the title, at the end of which she was removed. #94&95 are the start of Dick’s reaction. She gets to write #100 and ONE proper story arc in after this point: the mob arc #107-112. Everything else is scraped together transitions or preempted or someone else’s story.

If her story hadn’t been disrupted for an ENTIRE YEAR at its lowest point by intervening events, so that fans had given up on getting any sort of catharsis out of the whump and had turned on Devin, I can see a world where people enjoy Devin Grayson’s run as ‘the one where Dick gets to go off the rails’. It’d be his Red Robin - known to be Dick not acting normally, but with the fun that yeah, that was DESERVED, and Dick came out the other side solid.

But we don’t live in that world, and instead we live in the world where fans spent an entire year in a holding pattern at Dick’s lowest point, and just gave up caring. The narrative was set. This was The Worst Story (until the subsequent two Worst Stories came about)

[fantastic-nonsense]

Can of Worms Time;

Say you were editor of The Nightwing and BOP books and there’s fan demand for Dick and Babs to finally tie the knot.

How would you pull it off?

Well I wouldn't do it by having Dick feel pressured to propose to a woman he's not actually actively in a relationship with anymore because he thinks he's going to die and wants to get it off his chest before he runs off, gets hit by a massive energy beam during a multiversal invasion event, and ends up in a coma, that's for sure.

No I'm not bitter about Infinite Crisis and Devin Grayson's continual misunderstanding of Dick and the Dick/Babs relationship, why do you ask?

More seriously, let's play this out with post-Crisis!Dick/Babs but sprinkle in the occasional piece of post-Flashpoint stuff (aka, we're talking Nightwing and Oracle, competent and independent adult heroes who both actively lead their own teams, have their own friend groups, have had serious previous love interests, and have their own responsibilities outside of a relationship with each other).

Realistically, the actual proposal would likely be pretty quiet. Dick and Babs are both pretty private people when it comes to their relationship and they both know what a Production™ their family and friends would cause if they knew there were plans (I'm thinking about Dinah and Tim specifically here, but everyone involved would be guilty). I think they'd wait a few days before letting everyone know.

My running gag during the wedding prep era would be that every time they're trying to plan an aspect of the wedding, they keep getting called out to go deal with superhero stuff. This would obviously usually be within the context of whatever a-plot they're dealing with in their individual books, but also just...littering references here and there about other stuff happening in the background.

Trying to book a caterer? Whoops, all-hands-on-deck alien invasion. Talking about flowers? Gotham's had another Arkham breakout. Trying to get to a dress fitting? Oh no, the Birds need help breaking into a high-security prison in Bialya. Scheduling their mandatory pre-marital counseling sessions? Oops, the Titans need help dealing with some major universe-ending threat. Nothing that actually puts a strain on Dick and Babs' relationship, but something that's just exasperating enough to be plausible for two characters who are traditionally DCU linchpin characters with a lot of responsibilities and funny enough for readers to not get tired of it.

I think it would also be fun to have a Nightwing issue focused on Dick running around Bludhaven dealing with petty crime while trying to figure out who his best man is going to be. Should it be Wally, who's been the best man at all of his previous weddings/wedding attempts? Should it be Roy, who's stuck by him again and again and (Dick thinks) should get a chance to actually be in a wedding party that's not his dad's for once? Should it be Tim, the sibling he's closest to? Should it be Donna, who he walked down the aisle at her own wedding? He has so many choices, all of which would be good choices for different reasons and none of whom would be particularly offended by him picking someone else. He picks Wally in the end, because why mess with what works, and asks the others+Garth and Damian to be groomsmen (yes, Donna's at the altar with him too).

At some point, Babs just appoints Dinah as her Maid/Matron of Honor and lets her run her entire wedding prep process for her. Babs might be a control freak, but this is one area where she's largely happy to let someone else take care of the minutia. She grabs the rest of the BOP Core Four+Cass, Steph, and Alysia as her bridesmaids, picks out her dress, and calls it a day.

As for the wedding itself, I want two things out of it: one, someone important (not Dick or Babs, so maybe Wally or one of the Bats?) nearly doesn't make it to the venue because of a massive superhero conflict, and two, the actual wedding goes off without a hitch. I'm very determined that the actual wedding will not be interrupted or otherwise ruined in any way after the disaster that was Dick/Kory's attempted wedding and the pre-wedding trials I just talked about. So they get their wedding, they go on a honeymoon somewhere, and they TURN OFF THEIR COMMS for a week. The honeymoon period is for enjoyment, not distractions; they've both had enough of those.

Publishing/IRL time-wise, the proposal would happen in a Nightwing issue, I'd let the engagement era happen over a year or so (so 12 issues for both the Nightwing and BOP books, exploring the process from both their POVs) and then have their wedding in a crossover issue. So...yeah, that's how I'd pull off a Dick/Babs engagement and wedding in the context of Dick and Babs both having their own books.

[luanna801]

Despite everything, does Birds of Prey #8 still hold up?

So the simple answer to that is that, for me (and I can't really speak for anyone else), yes, it does.

But because I'm me, I'm also going to go a bit deeper here. And for some reason, this got SUPER long, so I'm breaking it into multiple parts and putting this under a cut:

Part 1: Chuck Dixon and His Politics

To start with, I'm assuming that by "despite everything", you're referring to Chuck Dixon's frankly horrifying politics (as seen in his bizarre recent series Alt-Hero), and the understandable backlash against him as both a person and a writer as a result.

I get this, absolutely. It's honestly a very complicated thing for me to know that Dixon wrote some of my favorite comics in the late 90s and early 00s, and also know that he's someone whose beliefs I find repugnant in so many ways. And it isn't just BoP #8 - Dixon's runs on Birds of Prey, Nightwing, Robin and so on in that era were incredibly influential. He basically WAS the Batfam in that era. He created the Birds of Prey team. He co-created Stephanie Brown. He had a huge influence on shaping Tim Drake's character and the various relationships between the Batfamily members. In many ways, Dixon is responsible for the incarnation of the Batfam that I love.

Nor can you pretend that his politics have nothing to do with his writing, because Dixon's values have always informed what he writes, to good and bad (like his rather infamous statement that "superhero comics are, whether die-hard fans like it or not, ostensibly children’s comics and perhaps not the forum to be informing children of homosexuality, heterosexuality, or sexually transmitted disease", an obviously questionable statement since he wrote numerous heterosexual romances in his comics but disapproved of gay characters being included, or included in what he considered the "wrong" ways.)

I will argue that, from what I can tell, Dixon definitely wasn't always as extreme a conservative as he is now - current Chuck Dixon would never have written this scene, for example, and would probably criticize it as the kind of "pushing a SJW agenda scene" he now condemns if someone else had written it. Some of the values 90s/00s Chuck Dixon promoted in his comics were, in fact, things I agree with and enjoyed about them. You don't have to be a conservative to enjoy wholesome family dynamics or a subtler approach to sex and romance, even though I obviously disagree with certain things he excludes from his definition of "family friendly".

I also think that, overall, 90s/00s Dixon wrote female characters with respect and nuance, and while he may not have always gotten it right, he also clearly cared deeply about writing Babs as a badass, complex, lovable disabled character, and he wrote some of my favorite scenes with her in that era. And while his writing definitely had some issues with characters of color, I'd argue it was no worse than most comic writers of the time, and better than some who are avowedly liberal (like Devin Grayson).

None of this is me trying to be like "Well, twenty years ago Chuck Dixon was Good and Unproblematic Actually", but I do think that he seems to have become alarmingly radical over time, in a way that I think goes far beyond anything that was ever reflected in his classic comic runs. And when it comes to BoP #8 specifically, I think you don't really see much political subtext in it, even to the degree that this was already present in his writing then. So if you can appreciate any of his work in spite of his current politics, BoP #8 is a good bet. But to those who can't appreciate anything he wrote anymore, I obviously understand.

Part 2: "Holding Up":

I think when we ask if a work “holds up”, we’re usually talking about something that was popular when it first came out, but might be viewed differently now because of how society’s shifted over time, whether that’s with regard to serious social issues, or just our standards for what we consider good storytelling (for example, we might criticize the special effects in an older movie for not “holding up”, where the original audience might have thought they looked awesome.)

The thing is, though, I didn’t read Birds of Prey #8 when it first came out, or anywhere near it. It was published in August 1999, when I was only seven years old, and I didn’t even become a comic fan until long afterwards. At a guess, I think I first read it sometime in 2012, shortly after I started becoming a serious DC/Batfam fan (the first post about it on my old blog is from January 2012, but I’m not sure if I’d read the full comic yet or just seen certain scenes/pages posted.) So in a sense, the fact that I read it well over a decade after it was originally published and loved it in the first place is proof that it holds up, or at least did then.

I can only imagine how much more exciting it must’ve been to read it when it first came out, honestly - Dick and Babs weren’t a couple yet then, nor had they ever been despite some flirting, and unless I’m mistaken it’s the first time an entire issue had been devoted to their relationship and their potential romance like that. It must’ve been incredibly exciting for shippers to read it and realize DC was actually serious about those two, and watch the relationship continue developing over the next several years.

But that wasn’t my reading experience. By the time I came along, nothing in that issue was remotely new or groundbreaking, and yet I loved the heck out of it and still do.

On the flipside, I’m sure there are people who read it at the time who absolutely hated it, and would say to this day that it can’t possibly “hold up” because it was never good to begin with. I got into a debate a while back (seven years ago, if you can believe it!) with a fan who clearly feels that way, and while I still think a lot of the points they raised don’t hold much water, I’m sure there are plenty of people who share their opinion.

Part 3: Disability Representation

Obviously, one of the biggest questions in whether BoP #8 “holds up” - and a far more loaded one than whether it holds up as a good romance issue (which I think most Dick/Babs shippers at any rate would agree it does) - is whether it holds up as good representation of a disabled character, and specifically of a disabled character finding romance.

I certainly see fans, to this day, using some of the panels from this comic as an example of the strength and confidence Babs had in her role as Oracle, and what was lost when DC took that away:

Babs: Y'know, a lot of the time it's like you Batguys want me to hold onto the past because you can't get over it. Understand -- I have. I have a new life now, one I like -- one that fulfills me. It's not the same one I had before, but it's good. Maybe even better.

But she also talks about how difficult the healing process was and that to some degree she’s still not “over it”, which I suppose could make the representation either better or worse, depending on your perspective:

Babs: Everyone talks about 'closure' now. When tragedy strikes they say you need 'closure'. What a crock. I wanted revenge. Swear you won't tell anybody... part of me still does. I remember that night every time I answer the door. And I think about what was taken from me.

Personally, I like the complexity! That she’s not just some perfect aspirational figure, but feels like a real person with messy and conflicting feelings about what happened to her. She’s allowed to be proud and confident in her new role, and yet a part of her is still angry and bitter and in mourning about what she went through. That feels real, to me.

Then there’s the romance angle: I’ve certainly seen this issue (and more largely, this arc) praised for how it defies stereotypes by giving a disabled character a fulfilling love life, and showing a disabled woman as unambiguously romantic and desirable. At the same time, some people might not appreciate how Barbara’s insecurities, which at least partly stem from her disability, are treated as an obstacle to the relationship (“I don’t like to be pushed around”). They might find that stereotypical or demeaning. Similarly, I’ve certainly seen people who find Dick’s attitude pushy or condescending, and feel he should just be listening to Babs rather than pushing her to heal on his terms:

Dick: You know better than that, Babs.

Babs: Does that mean you'll get me down?

Dick: That means you have to trust me.

Ultimately, I’m not a member of the disabled community and I’m definitely not paraplegic or a wheelchair user, so it’s not really for me to say how this issue holds up as disabled representation. I’ve pointed out some elements I think are strengths and some possible criticisms, but that’s all I can really say. Ultimately, it’s for the people actually being represented here to decide if they think this still holds up in that regard.

So those are my overly-long thoughts! The tl;dr is yes, I definitely think it holds up and I still love it. But there are a lot of factors to consider, and I certainly know there are others who would feel differently. I’d welcome other people adding their thoughts, if anyone thinks I missed something relevant or has more to contribute to the conversation!

[necrotic-nephilim]

I started in DC by reading fanfics, but as I began to read actual comics, I started to be unable to read the actual fanfic that got me into it in the first place because it's so out of character.

But there are still some stories that I love to read because I love the found family trope so much, even if it isn't really accurate to the source material.

As a comics purist (sometimes), are there tropes that you like enough that you'll still enjoy a fic even if it's not accurate to canon?

oh my god this is SUCH a fun question. bc while i started with the comics, there were certain characters and/or character dynamics where i was exposed to the fanon before the canon (just bc it's hard to read everything when you start out just to read some fanfic) and so i've definitely experienced the fanon to canon transition. (*especially* with Jason Todd. i had only read 80s/90s stuff where he was already dead or the New-52 bc that was on-going when i got into comics and man. the fanon misunderstandings i had about him before i got frustrated and sat down to read all his pre-Flashpoint stuff were absolutely bonkers.) and aside from that, whilst i tend to prefer canon over fanon, i'm not past giving fanon its flowers for occasionally having really interesting insights. occasionally. so some of my fanon "guilty pleasure" tropes would probably be

Morally Grey Tim Drake - this is one where if you try to back it up with canon, i *will* get salty about it. of everyone in the Batfam aside from maybe Bruce and Cass, Tim has the *most* black and white morals. often his internal conflicts are routed in such an inability to compromise his moral views and it can cause him to clash with other characters. he's *very* stiff and rigid in his beliefs and is *rare* to compromise in even the smallest ways. i mean, DC has repeatedly used Tim Drake of Tomorrow/Savior/Gun Batman!Tim for a reason. it's to demonstrate that of everyone, Tim *cannot* have his morals compromised. there's no grey area for him. he's zero or a hundred, so if he tips over the edge of "too far" he tips *all the way*, and doing so is one of his worst fears, how he could go "too far" if he let himself. a couple panels out of context from Red Robin (2009) (which was a grief spiral for Tim to begin with) don't change that. now that said. if it's done *right*, i sort of love Tim being morally grey in fanfic. it takes a specific flavor for me, and it's incredibly important to include that mental spiral along with it, of him struggling to justify it. i don't have any interest in "Tim Drake is loosy goosy with Bruce's morals and has the highest kill count and no one knows teehee" bc it doesn't play with the interesting parts of making Tim morally grey, which are fracturing his psyche. but all in all, i think it's fun to put Tim in a morally grey area and i will read it in fanfic and i enjoy writing it a lot

Joker Junior!Tim Drake - i've not written it on this account (yet) but on my main ao3 account one of my biggest fics surrounds this concept. this is one of those "well *technically* it's canon but only in a specific very divorced from the comics universe and would not work at all in the main timeline" so, i categorize it as fanon in that 95% of fics exploring the concept are not doing so within the Batman Beyond universe, but the main timeline. i just love it. I'll take any excuse to whump Tim, but this concept is so fun. psychologically breaking Tim will always be my favorite pastime. there are so many ways to explore the long-term effects this could have on him, how it could affect the Batfam. i'm not a fan of it being used as a "gotcha" to Jason or Babs' trauma with the Joker to paint Tim as the Ultimate Victim, but it is fun to see how their relationships would be affected by being mutual victims of him. (i have a vague JayTim idea where TIm fully retires from being Robin after being Joker Junior and killing the Joker, making Steph Robin for most of his typical Robin era and Jason still tracks him down out of curiosity bc he wants to know what happened and all. very underbaked but i've got thoughts.)

Renegade/Apprentice of Slade!Dick Grayson - this is another one where yes, this happened *sort of* in canon, but i highly doubt most people writing Renegate!Dick have read or are actually pulling from Nightwing: Renegade. it's just an exploration fo the concept fo Dick being Slade's apprentice and i will always eat it up in any capacity. whether Dick grows up with Slade from a young age, or chooses Slade for whatever reason later in life. it's not anything that works in canon bc it compromises Dick morally (similar to the above with Tim) and therefore will always come across incredibly fanon in most fics. but i can't say i don't enjoy it. it's fun to make Dick a little morally fucked up and see what you can make him under Slade's tutelage.

Jason & Damian Meeting in the League -there's no world where i believe this could work in the canon comics. (maybe in the Young Justice cartoon i suppose, but even then i think it's iffy) i would go as far to say it's wildly unrealistic. i don't see a world where Ra's would let Jason anywhere *near* Damian, bc Jason was Talia's pet project that he didn't approve of. that all said, there's something very interesting about how they *could've* met and them potentially bonding during that timeframe. them being somewhat brotherly during this time because Jason sees Bruce in Damian and sort of latches onto the kid and Damian is full of wonder hearing real stories about Batman and Robin, then that getting violently ripped away by Jason leaving the League is fun to me. it's fun how that could affect them within the Batfam and all. it's super fanon to me, but i do not care. i will eat it up

Bad Dad Clark Kent/Good Dad Lex Luthor - i will admit as a late, i've been less and less kind to this particular fanon bc of everything i've argued with people about, *this* one seems the most pervasive as misunderstood fanon. i don't mind when fanon exists, my gripe is when ppl try to claim it's canon. and the *arguments* i've had over this with people who can never seem to cite an actual comic are... frustrating. but that said, i think there is something fun to this strictly in fanon. the duality of who you expect to accept Kon and who you expect to hurt him being flipped is just sort of fun for the occasional guilty pleasure fic. it can make Kon's internal conflict a bit more interesting. the same goes for the Jon favoritism from Clark, it's not a canon thing (and i rlly wish ppl understood how complicated the timeline of Kon and Jon is and any distance from Clark toward Kon isn't malice, it's that Kon is from a timeline that Clark does not remember in the current canon so Clark just straight up doesn't know the poor kid.) but it's sort of fun to give Kon that complex of being overlooked and forgotten sometimes. making Kon just a *bit* more Luthor than Kent will *always* appeal to me in fanfic, especially if he *knows* it's wrong but craves approval from anyone who will give it.

Good Dad Bruce Wayne - i'll die on the hill Bruce is canonically a shitty father. maybe not to the extreme some people write him as, but he's not great at it. that said, i enjoy it in fanfiction. sometimes, i just want silly fluff or hurt/comfort where Bruce finally gets it right and manages to comfort whatever Batkid is in the fic. one of my favorite fics of all time is hinged on Bruce being a good dad, so i think it's just fun to explore how good the relationships *could* be, if Bruce was slightly less of an asshole. i usually prefer him as an asshole, but there are times i want low stakes nonsense.

Gotham Rogues Having Soft Spots for Robin(s) - just about every Rogue in Gotham has done something absolutely irredeemable, and most of them don't like or care about anyone in the Batfamily. but if there's a fic where one of the Robins inexplicably is sort of close with a Rogue and they have a cute silly relationship out of it? I'll eat it up i fear. Steph and the Riddler are besties? I'll believe it. Tim and Scarecrow get along pretty well? give me ten of these. Rogues protecting Robins just hits a spot. the unexpected nature of the relationship, as well as the fact they see each other regularly, can make a lot of good fodder.