#just because I've been running across so many 'Tim Ends Up In Another Universe And Learns How To Be Loved!' fics in the tags

[umbrellajam]

#nice world is like 'oh we've saved u from that uncommunicative world full of assholes- don't u want to stay here and talk about ur feelings'#and i want tim to be like 'No! im an uncommunicative asshole! i wanna go home!' (tags via @nikrei)

GOD. YES. if canon Tim ended up in a touchy-feely universe he would immediately break out into hives and throw himself out the nearest window even if he had to crash through glass to do it.

or alternatively, break out into hives but suppress his urge to run screaming because that would be Highly Suspicious so he would Lie Lie Lie with a smile on his face, trying to figure out the dynamics in this world on the fly so he could collect information and allies and resources in order to FLEE HOME AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

he would not tell the Stepford Bats a single damn thing about himself or his universe if he could avoid it, would find them exactly as creepy as they would find him, and would leap back into his own universe with a 'THANK CHRIST' at the earliest opportunity/convenient portal.

one of those "Tim gets sent to another world where everyone is a lot more emotionally intelligent and affectionate" fics, except he finds it so unnerving and hates it so much he goes out of his way to start fights and get them mad at each other before he leaves, and when he gets home damian stabs him and he's like "oh thank GOD everyone is normal here"

[sasheneskywalker]

i was going to reblog this with my commentary added in the tags but it turns out i also have a lot to say. first of all, it was a pleasure to read your thoughts and i entirely agree, you've articulated a lot of what i've been struggling to put into words. if you want to write more fandom meta, i'd always be delighted to read it.

wfa being both the effect and the cause of fanonification of comics is very true. generally, i see this trend of simplifying character dynamics, especially found family dynamics, in a lot of fandoms. i know that sometimes in order to write an alternate universe fic you have to tweak the characterization a bit for it to make sense, but i think most characters have core personality traits and fundamental relationships and if you get rid of them it feels like it's not even the same character anymore. not to mention that the oversimplification isn't limited just to fics, it frequently appears in posts about headcanons that seem to want to be based on canon. and people write fics explicitly based on comics they haven't read which is so baffling to me. how many people writing post-red robin dick & tim & damian fics have actually read red robin and tim's robin solo so they have an accurate picture of these characters' relationships and know the events with full context? how many people writing about tim's childhood actually read comics with janet and jack drake and seen how tim interacts with them and how he feels about them? that's how we end up with "dick wanted to send tim to arkham" and "tim's parents left 3-year-old tim alone for months in the drake mansion next to wayne manor" which are both completely untrue (a lot of it is also people projecting onto tim but that's a topic for another post). i understand why people say "even the comic writers don't keep consistent characterization so why should i bother?" because there are some wildly ooc comics out there, but i disagree with this view. in most cases (at least in post-crisis era) there exist some stable character traits that can be observed across multiple different runs written by multiple different writers.

i'd love to read an in-depth exploration of differences between fanon and canon portrays of batfam members. i know there are some posts like that already but from what i've seen most are short and try to overcompensate for fanon too much (fanon dick is happy, naive, and optimistic? let's emphasize how manipulative, depressed, and powerful he really is, to a point where it also feels exaggerated and not canon, just in a different way). and fanon evolves a lot too, it'd be interesting to see how fanon!jason from 2018 differs from fanon!jason in 2024 (for example i've seen a fanon vs canon post saying fanon!jason is often portrayed as a rapist in angst fics and i was so confused because i've never encountered a fic like that, but apparently that was a thing a few years ago. here's an amusing post about batfam fanon from 2014). and if you want to elaborate more on the "justice league meets the batfam" aus, i'd also love to listen. here's a great post about it, btw. (may i also suggest discussing the titans tower aus because i feel they are in a very similar category as the "justice league meets the batfam" aus?)

and i agree that telling people to just read comics in an annoyed tone is not going to help anyone. but on the other hand the fact that telling people to read comics in a polite way is also considered rude feels a bit weird to me too. that's why i avoid talking about fanon vs canon stuff most of the time, because it's a very emotional topic to a lot of people and requires some nuance (and we all know social media is allergic to nuance). i agree that sometimes comics might be hard to get into, even with reading lists and other people willing to help and guide you, but i also think that a lot of people overestimate the difficulty of it. it just takes a bit of looking around and asking people. and getting comics in a digital format is also easy, it took me 10 minutes of googling to find a site where i could download comics for free and read them on my computer (obviously it's piracy, but this is a "be gay do crime" website so i don't think it'd be a problem for most people).

and from what i've noticed, both fanon and canon fans sometimes have a superiority complex and insist that their way is the best way to interact with fandom which contributes to a hostile fandom environment. if i see another post saying "if you like fanon!jason you should read canon!helena :)" i'm going to scream. it ignores so many things about these characters and why people like them to make superficial comparisons and feels very condescending to jason fans. (but also, i'm on a dc fanfic server where people often ask for fanfic recommendations and i frequently have to hold back from saying "this premise you're looking for in a fic is exactly what happened in 'this comic', maybe read that first???" so i kind of get it.)

i'll quote here a post that i find interesting and whose conclusions i agree with:

"All this leads me to conclude that the majority of fanon fans don’t actually like the characters all that much; they’re convenient excuses for them to participate in fandom. Which I also think is, in no small part, a reason why so many of them react so negatively to being told to pick up a comic; they came to this fandom specifically to consume it as a fandom, because they wanted the fandom experience without having to consume a canon. This is not a phenomena unique to the batfam fandom (again, see the Migratory Slash Fandom), but it does fascinate me. While fandom is often said to be an experience focusing on transformative art, I think it’s also safe to say that, especially as fandom has become more mainstream, an increasing amount of people are looking to it less as a way to engage with their favourite pieces of media, and more as a type of media in and of itself. I think the reasons for this are similar to the reasons mass media entertainment like the MCU are so popular; you gain a lot of enjoyment out of it with very little risk involved. By consuming the same fics of the same characters (or the same archetypes) over and over again, you are rarely at risk of being challenged or even disappointed. It’s often very clear right from the start whether or not a fic will appeal to you, and if it isn’t, it’s easy to just look for another one. It requires less emotional investment than most other types of media, even ‘popcorn media’ like the MCU - or, yes, DC Comics. It’s safe, it’s enjoyable, it’s comforting, like McDonalds, but just like McDonalds, it’s ultimately bland and unsubstantial."

there's of course another issue that i don't see people talking about as much and it's the difficulty of reading comics as a medium. it took me a while to get used to the conventions of the medium, to learn where to look first when i open a new page, which speech bubble to read first, how to interpret fight scenes when at first glance they seem very messy. and i still sometimes have to stare at a panel for a while to understand what exactly is going on (i had the same issues with manga). i'll be honest, i vastly prefer movies and books to comics, no matter how many comics i read. but i'll keep reading them because i want to experience the story and there's no alternative (except maybe novelization, but even they're not exactly the same).

i also want to point out that a lot of people get into canon content after reading many fanon fics. and even when they read the comics, they interpret them through fanon lens because it's difficult to get rid of the preconceived notions when you've been reading fics with these characters for months before picking up your first comic. your fanon history will color how you understand these characters and their canon actions.

the batfam being seen as a nuclear family in fanon is an especially interesting thing. many people have written about that so i'll just link their posts here: "if the nature of two characters’ relationship hinges on technicalities like whether they call each other brother/sister in canon, or the batfam wiki, or their adoption papers by the same dude instead of the actual nature of their relationship, which for some of them, does not fit siblings at all, then you could hardly call them siblings, even by the standards of canon itself", "I’m tired of purity police batfam fans trying to force their personal interpretation of decades old comic book characters on everyone", "“batfam” content to but to what end", "The Batfamily Shouldn’t Work", "The Wayne family", and the entire fanlore page about batfamily. it feels especially relevant when it comes to shipping and the entire fandom discourse around "batcest", which, again, many people have written about. but another thing i've noticed is how often characters from outside the batfam are written in a very ooc way to fit a ship dynamic. wally, roy, kon, and jon are especially victims of that (and their supporting cast, interesting relationships and backstory details are often entirely erased. for example, where is linda park in wally/dick fics? is superboy's backstory from before he joined the young justice ever mentioned in tim/kon fics?). i sincerely sympathize with fans who can't even go into these characters' tags without being flooded with ooc ship posts. i don't know the solution to this problem. even when a character is part of the ship, i think you should tag your post with this character's name. i guess "don't like don't read" and "block and move on" are golden rules, but i totally get the frustration of non-batfam dc fans when they see batfamily inserted into every single dc thing, both in official comics and in fandom spaces.

it's not limited to shipping either. so many people want the "good dad bruce" but also need a bad parental figure for their fics so they vilify jack drake or oliver queen and now some fans seriously think ollie is a worse father than bruce in canon. or i've heard from a mutual that she was on a deathstroke-centric discord server where they basically claimed every atrocity slade has committed was misinterpreted/never actually happened/shouldn't be discussed because it ruins the mood. i know why people get so defensive when you point out their favorite character has flaws and done some terrible things, especially when it's not relevant to the discussion and the only reason someone does it is to announce how much they hate your fave, but pretending it never happened makes talking even more difficult and prevents you from exploring interesting aspects of the character. not to mention if you ignore some events that present your favorite character in negative light, suddenly a lot of other characters' actions stop making sense. (for example if you ignore that jason was a full-on villain (maybe antivillain?) running around gotham and actively killing people in Batman and Robin, it doesn't make sense for dick to put him in arkham. and then you have people crying "why would meanie dick put his traumatized little brother jason in arkham with the joker?" completely ignoring the context and skipping over relevant information.) a good post about a similar problem when it comes to steph is here.

this is just me complaining, but the character tags on tumblr are so full of fanon posts and ooc "incorrect quotes" that it's frustrating to look at for someone who enjoys these characters in a completely different way. i don't want to be a killjoy and spoil people's fun or request that everyone caters to my desires but occasionally i just need to vent somewhere (i mostly do it with friends in dms so as not to create a negative atmosphere but sometimes it's just not enough). it's just a bit annoying to me when fanon starts to completely dominate fandom spaces. and you can't even filter it out because both fanon fans and canon fans use the exact same character tags and a lot of people don't tag their fics with a variation of "i don't read comics", which i understand, you're not required to do so, i just think it might be useful.

i enjoy some fanon tropes and fics based on them and i sometimes read fics from fandoms where i’ve never interacted with any of the source material. reading fandom blind can be fun. i do not, however, think that makes me actually knowledgeable on the subject. i also wouldn’t be writing my own fics where i bash characters and critique plot points of the original media when I’ve never actually gotten a firsthand look at it as a source. that just leads to a wack-ass game of fic of theseus where other people who haven’t interacted with the original fandom read my fic of a fic, write their own fic of a fic, and every deviation gets further and further away from canon so it’s not even the same story remotely anymore. and then those people will get into fights on tumblr with people who do know the source material and it’s like bro, you didn’t even pass the introductory course.

again, you can write whatever you want, interact with fandom however you want, but please don't claim your headcanons and interpretations are based on canon when you avoid reading comics. if you want to support your analysis with panels, at least read the comics where they're from first and make sure they're not taken out of context. (there's this post going around with the panel of bruce hugging cass from her batgirl solo which is supposed to prove he's a good dad. it completely misses the point of that scene and how terrible bruce was to her for the entire run.)

and finally we arrive at more controversial stuff, namely fandom racism and misogyny. i'm just going to once again quote this post because i think it's very well put:

"This focus on fandom trends and tropes over actual creativity or care for the characters is also visible in the way bigotry manifests in this fandom; namely, in literally the exact way you’d expect. The female characters and characters of colour are shuffled to the side, non-existent, vilified, and/or reduced to harmful stereotypes. Barbara is probably the one I saw the most often in fanfic, but usually just as ‘Dick’s girlfriend’, and even then, she was often vilified for Dick angst (especially in fics about examining Dick’s trauma from his canon sexual assault; Kori also often gets the short end of the stick in those). After that, probably Stephanie, who fanon fans don’t really seem to know what to do with, so she’s basically just there as comic relief waffle girl, most of the time, though sometimes she can be used to either further Tim angst or further vilify Tim, whatever the fic calls for. Cass has gotten included more in batfam fics as of late, likely in response to critiques of fandom racism for leaving her out, but again, it’s clear people don’t actually know what to do with her. She’s often reduced to a racist stereotype of a quite, stoic therapist for whatever guy du jour needs it. That, or she’s in Hong Kong and just not there. Duke especially gets left in the dust in fandom, usually just being non-existent, but when he’s there, he’s almost always nothing more than the straight man for the actual fun characters to play off of. Talia probably has it the worst, though, and almost universally gets vilified by fanon stans in order to write sadboy Damian. All of this is extremely predictable behaviour and falls entirely in line with general fandom misogyny and racism; ignoring or vilifying women and characters of colour, or using them as very minor characters at best. The only two characters of colour who aren’t regularly left out of fic are Dick and Damian, who are both also conveniently the two characters most often drawn and written in a whitewashed manner. In addition, there’s a real trend of demonizing Damian in fanon fics where he isn’t written as an abused sadboy, which I’d argue is in no small part due to fandom racism, considering Damian’s behaviour is in no way as bad as Jason’s, who doesn’t get anywhere close to the same demonization and gets woobiefied instead. I also find it convenient that Damian is probably the batboy who receives the most vilification in fic, when he’s the most obviously non-white of the batboys they’re willing to acknowledge. Fandom often cries for more diversity in canon, only to ignore the diversity already there and focus on the same generic white guys. The batfam fandom is a brilliant example of this. Which is not to say that fandom racism and misogyny isn’t present in the canon parts of the fandom (and canon itself); it absolutely 100% is. But I’ve found that canon fans are also more likely to like and care about at least one of the characters I’ve listed as ignored/vilified, and are willing to create and consume content for them, whereas fanon fans… aren’t, really. I’ve never seen a fan of fanon Cass the way I’ve seen fans of fanon Dick, for example. Obviously, this could just be by coincidence, or I’ve just surrounded myself with people like that, but it’s been a trend I noticed. Racism and misogyny is present in every part of this fandom and should be addressed as such, but I feel like it manifests the most blatantly in the fanon parts of this fandom."

disclaimer: i don't think every person who doesn't include cass or duke in their fics is sexist or racist. (for example, if you write fics set only in post-crisis era it's understandable why duke would be absent.) i'm not here to accuse anyone of being a bigot. i simply think it's worth examining why we prefer certain characters to others, why we include certain characters in fics and not others, and why we characterize certain characters in fanon the way they're characterized. finally, i urge everyone to read these two essays: What Fandom Racism Looks Like: Beige Blank Slates and What Fandom Racism Looks Like: Migratory Slash Fandom’s Focus. they really describe a lot of batfam fandom trends and how they manifest in a lot of other fandoms and fandom spaces.

thank you for listening to my ramblings <3

@sasheneskywalker i love when you enable me to ramble about things because oh my god do i have thoughts.

so recently, i made a post discussing the phenomena of DC x DP and DC x MLB crossovers and why they exist and part of that post was discussing how largely speaking, at least half, if not more of the Batfamily fandom doesn't read the comics. if they interact with canon DC material, it's adaptations that are their own sequestered universes and oftentimes not remotely comic accurate or seeking to be. the most obvious example is the Young Justice cartoon. i'm adding a cut to this post because it just got so long i'm so sorry.

a lot of times, when people are discussing the "why" of this oversaturation of fanon-only fandom, they blame Wayne Family Adventures. and i think, to a point, i agree WFA is responsible for a boom in this fandom. but as someone who's been in the fandom long before we had WFA, to me it's the other way around. WFA was DC's way of meeting the demand for this easy-to-get-into, easy-to-consume content about the Batfamily that predicates itself on the comics just enough to be vaguely the same characters, but has a more sitcom, slice-of-life sort of vibe so DC could profit off of this section of the fanbase that otherwise wasn't consuming its primary material. and well, it's definitely worked. not only that, but i have a weird theory that the decline in the MCU also led to the rise in the Batfamily fandom. when you consider the fan content that made the MCU popular within fandom, it's that 2012 "they all live in Avengers Tower and Thor is eating poptarts and Clint is in the vents and there are movie nights every Friday" sort of vibe. those were the fics that were a hallmark of the fandom. and as the MCU has strayed from well... quality content in general, but specifically well-thought-out crossover content where characters can have their own arcs but also exist in a wider story where they clearly care about each other, that fandom was sort of homeless. so where do you go, if you like a superhero found family where you can have villains for angst but also stick them all in one big family-like home for silly crack and have a plethora of options for gay ships? well. you go to the Batfamily. if you write a crack/fluff Batfamily genfic with silly vibes and low stakes instead of say, a fic about a very specific comic issue even if it's a popular comic, you're *going* to get more traction for the former. because the fanbase largely just isn't reading the comics.

and i feel... complicated about this. because on one hand, Don't Like Don't Read has been a tenet of my fandom experience. i'm very pro-fandom and that includes fandom content i don't like. and to an extent, i do think this sort of should apply to Batfamily fanon. i enjoy having my moments with other comic purists, giggling over exceptionally painful OOC headcanons or even facepalming in pain over some content but it is on me to not interact with that content. you don't make fandom a better place by being hostile to fans who engage with canon in ways you don't approve of. and frankly? we as comic readers are not going to get non-comic fans to read the comics by being asshats to them. no one is going to want to pick up any comic if we get a superiority complex about it. and also, i feel like we're all lying to ourselves a little bit insisting comics are so, so easy to get into. they're not. we can just all agree, they're really not. i've been single-handedly helping my sister get into comics, specifically Wonder Woman and no matter how simple i make it, i watch her get frustrated trying to understand what pre-Crisis and post-Crisis and New-52 and Flashpoint and all these things mean and what a retcon vs a reboot is and what a Crisis Event is and what the hell Diana's current backstory even *is*. sure, you can give someone a beginner list of comics to start with and slowly dip their toes in the water but sooner or later, *something* is going to confuse them. comics as a medium straight up aren't going to be everyone's cup of tea. and if someone *just* wants to read silly fluffy fanfiction about the Batfamily, i can't entirely begrudge them for not wanting to take the hours and hours out of their day to understand this medium. it's not an accessible medium to get into. "read this and this, but this run is out of print and this run wasn't collected in trades at all but also make sure you read that event in order and this is a good comic but the backstory in it is retconned and you *have* to read this it's so important but it's also really bad because the author kind of sucks" sounds. ridiculous for someone who like. just wants to read some stuff about Nightwing. sometimes, we all make reading comics sort of sound like a chore, not a hobby.

so my point is, i do extend some grace to Batfamily fanon for existing. i think my biggest gripe is, as i said in my other post, misuse of tags (if you're not creating content about comics, maybe you don't need the comics fandom tag on Ao3, just the all media types umbrella tag) and my far bigger gripe: when panels are taken out of context to support fanon only headcanons. if i could impart *anything* onto the Batfamily fandom as a comic fan it'd be this: if you haven't *read* the comic, don't spread the panel. if you don't even know what comic it's *from*, don't spread the panel. it's fine to use comic panels to discuss your headcanons, but so often i see someone spreading a comic panel from a comic they haven't read, and when asked where it's from, they can't source it. a silly example that comes to mind is a post going around, taking a panel where Dick, in his internal monologue goes "here comes the sun. do do do do." and the post is claiming it's from him getting buried alive. when that panel comes from Nightwing (1996) #140, and he gets buried alive in Nightwing (1996) #127, two completely different moments frankensteined together. if you're going to not read the comics, that's completely fine, but unless you're sure of the source and the context, panels shouldn't be spread around. i'm sick of this specifically happening to Red Robin (2009), with ppl claiming Tim has totally killed people because he blew up some of Ra's' bases, when those panels within context, make it clear he gave everyone time to escape. and in a later arc in that very comic, Tim grapples with the idea of murdering Captain Boomerang, and *specifically chooses not to*, because he doesn't agree with murder, even against the person who has hurt him the most. if you'd like to write fanfiction where Tim is pro-murder and has done some sketch things, i'm totally on board and would probably like to read it. but there's no need to pretend it's canon from a few panels you saw out of context.

beyond that, i think it's not *entirely* correct to say that fanon is harmless. whenever i see very WFA-positive posts, they often default to the argument that WFA is fun and silly, and comic fans are killjoys for not liking it. which. i think is complicated because the issue is, WFA and fanon don't exist in a vacuum. if you like WFA power to you, i don't think it's the worst thing ever, but i do think it's degrading to these characters because honestly? they feel incompetent in the webtoon. it's one thing if WFA was solely a slice-of-life sort of deal, just having silly episodes where Bruce is taking on a PTA mom or they're all fighting for the last cookie. but when WFA attempts to take on more serious plots with these characters, it *fundamentally* falls flat in understanding them. i get it, Bruce comforting Jason having a panic attack because a noise reminded him of the crowbar felt cute in a microcosm, but i'm so serious when i say that storyline destroyed how like. half of this fandom understands Jason Todd's relationship to his trauma. it doesn't understand how he reacts when he's triggered, what coping mechanisms he seeks out, and how he would handle Bruce comforting him. even if i can believe for a brief moment Jason *would* be triggered by something like that, him running and trying to hide and then getting a hug from Bruce to make it okay is just. painful. WFA needs everything to be wrapped up in a nice, neat little bow. so even when it starts to tackle interesting concepts, it makes them fall flat with its need to be soft, low stakes, hurt/comfort. there was a two-parter episode that dealt with the complicated mutual hatred/jealousy between Tim and Damian that *almost* really interested me because for once, it felt like the webtoon wanted to explore canon messy dynamics. but of course, it had to be fixed with one conversation and a hug. you don't mend the *years* of issues these characters have like that. WFA isn't in character because these characters are hyperbole cartoonified versions of themselves to fit within the medium and be a cute happy family.

because that right there, is the crux of it. the Batfamily fanon seeks to simplify the Batfamily and force them into a nuclear family. there are so many fantastic posts on here discussing how the nuclear family-ification of the Batfam is eroding decades worth of complex histories so i won't go too far into that. but what i will say is that there's this need, in the Batfamily fandom, for the Batfamily to exist as a unit. they are a *family*. (honestly i think calling it the Batfamily is a misnomer and has been for years but we're in too deep now.) they exist to each other first, and any teams or friends they have come secondary to this family unit. you can *specifically* see this demonstrated in what headcanons are becoming popular these days. i have an entire lengthy meta in my drafts about how i *loathe* the "the Batfamily meets the Justice League" genre of fanfic because it makes no *sense*. in order to have this genre of fic exist, you must operate under the assumption that no one in the League, or adjacent to the League, knows the Batfamily exists and are thus utterly shocked to discover Batman has kids. and to make *that* work, you have to strip *every single Batfamily member* of such important dynamics and friendships so you can lock them all in Gotham for their whole lives. Dick can't have the Titans, Tim can't have Young Justice, Duke & Cass can't have the Outsiders, Jason can't have the Outlaws, Damian can't have the Supersons, Babs can't have the Birds of Prey, and so on. because if they had these relationships, they would be known to the League. the Batfamily fandom doesn't care about this, it's just "silly fanfiction", it's not trying to be serious. but how can you say you like Dick Grayson as a character if you don't understand the Titans *are* his family? at some points of his life, moreso than the Batfamily even is. it is constantly repeated to us in most comics with Dick how much the Titans mean to him. he *needs* them to be who he is. the same extends to every other Batfamily member, most of which have been full League members at this point. but in fanon, that doesn't matter. the Batfamily are a sequestered unit first, and all of those side relationships are secondary and easy to toss away, if it makes your fanfic work better.

and because they have to be a unit first, you have these forced relationships that dump years of actual canon material for the sake of making them get along. the Batfamily fandom has its favorites and well. it's no secret it's usually the boys. Jason and Tim by *far* stand out as fandom faves so, their dynamic is a heavily explored one. it does matter that in canon they don't tend to get along and especially don't see each other as family. what matters is that you can push dynamics onto them. and so fanon gets all twisted up about which Robin Tim actually idolized as a kid (Dick) and what member of the Batfamily is pro-murder but still an older sibling figure to him and looks out for him (Helena, or if you want the dynamic of once tried to harm Tim but they've reconciled, Jean-Paul) in favor of who's the most popular. Dick, Jason, Tim, and Damian are always going to be the standouts for popularity, but it's specifically Jason and Tim who are getting fanonized the most. and that's because really, we don't have much canon content of Tim that *isn't* the comics. for Dick you've got Young Justice (tv), for Damian you've got the DCAMU, for Jason you've sort of got the Under The Red Hood movie, but Tim sort of lingers in this limbo. (yes, he's in Young Justce (tv) and Titans (live action) but in neither is he the main character nor given much depth) so, he gets a *lot* projected onto him and has become fanonized. and even with Jason's animated movies, you don't see him interact with Tim, so people build it from the ground up how they want to see it, disregarding of canon comics. i think it's what makes him so popular in the first place- he's malleable into whatever you want or need him to be.

and of course, the fanon ignores other characters in the Batfamily it doesn't know about. i feel like you could create a tier list of Batfamily characters by their popularity, going from the fandom main characters: Tim, Jason, Bruce, Alfred, Dick, Damian. to the underrated: Steph, Duke, Babs, Cass. to the forgotten about unless they're convenient for a story: Kate, the Foxes, Helena Wayne, Carrie, Selina, Harper Row, Maps, Minhkhoa Khan. to the absolutely unknown: Helena Bertinelli, Jean-Paul Valley, Onyx Adams, the Clovers, Julia Pennyworth. it's not lost on me that the ignored characters tend to be women and people of color. which is both a canon and fanon problem, DC will continue adding interesting characters to the Batfamily, play with them for a few years, then drop them to default to the "Batboys" again. and it's a vicious cycle of the fandom only caring about the "Batboys", and thus people entering the fandom via fanon osmosis won't have content about the other characters, therefore, they won't be interested in those characters enough to create it, and it's just this ouroboros consuming itself, no matter how much canon content we have of these other characters. and it's ridiculous just how large the Batfamily is becoming because of this, which is why i'm a pre-Flashpoint fan, because then the Batfamily was contained enough to actually feel like a family with every character having nuances relationships with each other, but i digress because those thoughts could be their own post.

and the thing about fanon is it doesn't exist in a vacuum. DC has started turning the comics to accommodate for what fans are asking for, because fans will beg and beg for content they're not going to consume. Tim Drake: Robin had Tim as a coffee drinker because that's the fanon accepted headcanon. and the resolution of the recent Gotham War arc was for Bruce to buy this new manor for everyone to move in and call him. nevermind that most of these characters have their own homes and have zero reason to be moving in with Bruce. Tim had his marina in Tim Drake: Robin, Dick has Bludhaven, Cass and Steph have their little side of town in Batgirls (2022), and so on. these characters are being forced together as a unit, as one big happy family living together, to appease what non-comic fans want and it's damaging comic relationships. Robin: Knight Terrors saw Jason and Tim team up and working together, which i've seen varying opinions on but i personally despised. their interactions made zero sense for any of their canon history, but it appeases them being this close sibling relationship that fanon acts like they are. also the fears they faced in their respective knight terrors didn't make sense for either character and *only* worked as a moment of bringing them together so they could reassure each other and have this weird dreamscape bonding moment. the canon is bending itself to the will of fanon rather than building on the pre-existing complex relationships. Tim barely even gets along with his most important team in Dark Crisis: Young Justice because it seems the only important relationships the Batfamily can have is with each other. and when we do see them outside of the Batfamily, it only seems to be to relive the glory days like with World's Finest: Teen Titans, instead of developing them as they currently exist. this isn't recent in the comics, it feels like you can trace it back to the New-52, but it does feel a *lot* worse over the recent years. WFA is fine when it exists in its own bubble, but the simple truth is, DC content never exists on its own. the adaptations will reflect back onto the comics. (the damage the Young Justice cartoon has done to some characters should honestly be studied) and so it does frustrate me a bit when fanon-only or adaptation-only fans act like we're being nothing but killjoys for being frustrated with this. since they don't read the comics, they don't see how the comics are suffering as a result of this.

people argue about what's out of character for the comics they don't even read. i'm sorry, but "bad dad Bruce" is consistently canon. that man is just kind of shitty. when you take someone who has the drive he has, who has this need for the Mission first, who needs a teenager in spandex next to him to keep him off the ledge, that guy is sort of going to be a shitty father figure. he just is. not on purpose or with malice, but when you compare him to any other dad in a big DC family, he sure takes the cake. it's why characters like Oliver Queen tend to *really* fucking hate Bruce for how he treats his kids. Bruce loves fiercely, but he doesn't do well with putting that love first. and his love is a controlling one, he is very particular about controlling how others in the Batfamily are "allowed" to operate. it's what drives the wedge between him and Dick, it's why Steph is never a true daughter to him. (besides the reason of her needing to be a love interest to Tim first, anyway-) i've never understood the massive outcry of people reacting to Bruce kinda being shitty in comics they're not reading. there are some moments that get ridiculously OOC with how cartoonishly evil he is (the whole Gotham War arc and that... complicated mess with Jason) but largely if you want sitcom loving nuclear father Bruce, you have to accept that is a fanon thing, not a canon one. the Batfamily being a nuclear family in *general* is fanon. most of the "Batkids" don't actually see Bruce in a particularly fatherly light and begging for moments where he calls them his kids or they call him dad outside of incredibly specific circumstances is just OOC.

it's getting harder and harder to exist peacefully in this fandom it feels like, if you don't comply to the standard fanon has set. i'm happy people are having fun with their blorbos, even if in ways i dislike, but that "harmless fandom fun" does ripple it's way back to canon, eventually. so i end up pretty tangled with my feelings because are fans at fault for DC making these poor decisions? probably not, but it certainly feels like an unfortunate cause-and-effect situation whether at the end of the day, nobody is happy. and of course, i know some fanon-only fans are striving to be more canon accurate and care about canon dynamics more than others, but for them it's always going to be an uphill battle with the above-mentioned out-of-context panels thrown around and ever-pervasive fanon overtaking anything that's truly seeking to be canon compliant. so really, it sometimes feels like we're all losing.