#profandomhopper

[melodyatlas]

long time no work on the list of prompts given by @profandomhopper i still love all of them sm, eventually i will get to all of them lmao <333

this one isnt gonna be a real fic cause i’ll get way too bogged down in making it so detailed and expansive bc i love love love reverse robins so much- but lets ramble on about this a little, yeah?

tim is only there the night dick’s parents die because he’s stalking bruce a little bit (look, he’s past the revenge part of his red hood era, but he and bruce still aren’t on good terms and there’s smthn about bruce taking jason to the fucking circus of all things that tim can’t just ignore. so hes there. for research.)

so tim is there solo, watching bruce, and he walks past a young dick grayson before the show, catching his eye. maybe its because he’s wearing a coat even though its still closer to summer weather than fall, maybe its the pretty, unnatural white streak in tims hair, or the long scars on his cheeks- whatever it is, dick can’t look away, and tim has always been /very/ good at knowing when he’s being watched

so tim notices dick right back, and is intrigued by this kid in full acrobatic get-up, and yeah, he could let the moment pass, keep walking, follow bruce and jason into the tent they just disappeared into- but he was raised in certain social circles, knows how to make small talk- and he was batmans partner, knows how to talk to kids and put them at ease in hard situations

so he stops and talks to the kid. finds out dick is nervous. not about the acts he’ll perform in show- no, hes been training for this for years- he’s as comfortable up on the bars and tightropes as he is on the ground- but about how big the crowd is, how he’s only just started joining his parents for real performances, and gotham is the biggest city theyve been to since he started.

tim gets dick to tell him about his favorite part of the act- a quadruple front flip- and he tells dick to try to imagine hes just practicing during the performance, don’t look or think past all the lights, just let the sound wash over him and focus on his own heartbeat. theres not going to be anyone else in the tent, just him and his parents.

he sets dick at ease, and before they part ways, dick tells him that he wont imagine theres no one else there, that instead he’ll imagine its just tim there. that he’ll do the flip for him. it earns him a ruffle of his hair as they part ways, and if tim makes sure his seat has a good view of both bruce and the aerial part of the show, then thats no one’s business but his.

none of them expected the tragedy of that night.

tim certainly didn’t expect bruce to take dick in- or even for dick to remember his interaction with tim that night, past all the trauma of losing his parents like that.

but dick does remember. and over the years he makes it a point to remind tim that /hes/ the first bat dick met. even if tim doesn’t consider himself a bat at all.

tims still quite estranged from most of them for the first few years that dick is with them, but as soon as dick picks the robin moniker and is on patrols, tim finds that he has a shadow quite often. no. shadow isnt the right word for it. shadows are silent, often overlooked. robin is not silent, and impossible to overlook- constantly butting into tim’s business as the red hood, even more annoying than jason was when he was trying to get tim to “see reason” about going back into the fold. jason was the one who ended up seeing reason there though, and eventually realized that the fractures between tim and bruce weren’t going to be fixed no matter how much meddling he did

jason could be convinced that while the bats cant kill, the red hood did actually need to. it was necessary to tim’s goal of controlling crime- but dick was never going to be convinced. and he was young enough and optimistic enough, that tim couldn’t keep having that argument with him like he did with jason. something about dick just made tim want to protect him. protect his world view.

so on the nights when robin trails after the red hood, he goes a little softer, and it fuels dick’s obsession with tim, knowing that the red hood wont kill in front of him, knowing he’s the only one of the bats to evoke that gentleness from tim after his resurrection

it becomes a Thing as dick gets older. he spends more time trailing after tim- he says its because tim wont kill in front of him, and he’s just doing his part to keep the deaths from piling up, but he and tim both know theres a deeper reason. that dick just likes to be around him. that /tim/ just likes when dicks around.

then dick almost dies, the court of owls trying to take him, maybe, and tim ends up slaughtering the perpetrators with no mercy.

tim does not go to see dick at the manor while hes recovering.

dick does not take kindly to this.

as soon as hes physically able to sneak out, he does, makes his way to tim’s main base of operations and confronts him about killing a bunch of people for him, and in the argument dick yells out a confession- that he loves tim. that he’s kind of always loved tim- since that first meeting way back when he was just a little kid.

tim says it was just a childhood infatuation dick held too long- that dick’ll get over it, that he would have already if he hadnt spent all these years following tim around

an “I don’t want to get over it” from dick, before he’s pressed up against tim

and tim- he should probably make dick stop. age gap aside, if bruce finds out about this itll reignite all their issues with one another. dick tries his best to make it hard to think about bruce or any potential consequences though, and soon enough tim does succumb to it

the red hood may have a certain reputation, but /tim/ has never been about working solo- he’s always been about human connection, and playing the part of red hood makes him forget that sometimes, so he falls into what it feels like with dick. but only as tim. he doesn’t let it affect the red hood. but dick doesn’t care, /tim/ is the part he wanted anyway, they can keep fighting about what tim does as red hood so long as dick and tim are together.

[necrotic-nephilim]

@profandomhopper i was going to reblog the original post this comment was left on but i felt it divorced itself from the original topic so much, you get your own post for giving me delightful permission to ramble about this. buckle in people this is long.

so, DC is a big fandom that expanses a lot of different types of content, and like anything, is subject to crossovers. the obvious ones like Marvel are for the reason of being a similar and equally popular superhero world, so it's easy to transpose the worlds onto each other and overlap the characters. both of these worlds deal with multiverses and endless, endless heroes. it makes sense and there's no real stretch to think Batman and Spider-Man could co-exist. i mean, there have been canon crossover comics. and even some more random crossovers like White Collar have pretty easy to trace origins, being an actor in WC was a popular Dick fancast back in the day so there was some bleeding over that led to a well-loved niche crossover space.

but Danny Phantom and Miraculous Ladybug are where it gets interesting. because at a surface, MLB sort of makes sense. it's a superhero world, you're following a teen girl superhero and sure the mechanics are pretty contained, but the crossover should make sense. but when you compare it to the crossover numbers of other superhero media like say My Hero Academia, Ladybug takes the *crown* with such a bizarre popularity. and of course, DP feels like it makes even less sense. sure, you *could* lump it into at the very least, superhero-adjacent media, but it's not a true hero world like MLB or DC is.

but, the thing to always understand about DC, *especially* the Batfamily (which is where the crossover content propagates the most) is this: a *very* good chunk of fans don't interact with the comics. i would venture to say even most Batfamily fans don't read the comics and actively talk about it. we've all read a very fandom big Batfam fanfic where the author's note mentions the writer has never touched a comic in their life. typically, these fans are either cobbling together their understanding from fandom content, or by frankensteining unrelated DC adaptations to understand each character. you take Bruce from Batman: TAS, you take Dick from the animated Young Justice, you take Jason from Batman: Under The Red Hood animated movie, you take Damian from the DCAMU Batman vs Robin, and you read some fandom metas to fill in the rest and well, you've got some sort of an understanding of these characters. read enough incorrect quotes, some genfic, a couple of character metas, and boom, you understand the Batfamily fandom enough to start creating your own content. and of course now. now you have Wayne Family Adventures so it's even *easier*. a pretty easy to pick up webtoon that's filling in all the gaps for you. but i've been in this fandom long enough to remember before we had WFA and even then, this was still a common, if not the most popular way, to ween yourself into the DC fandom space. you cherry-picked the canon you liked and then plunged into the depths of fanon.

i'm not here to make in depth commentary on if i think this is a good or bad thing. trust me i have that commentary in my head, but that would need it's own post. i'm very split on it and my feelings are complicated. my feelings on WFA are even *more* complicated. because oftentimes, the attitude expressed by these fans who are frankensteining this version of the Batfamily/DC world they have in their head is they don't *want* to read the comics. the comics don't contain the content they're after. and to an extent, i understand that. if you're looking for light-hearted vibes of the Batfamily all getting along and having the occasional hurt/comfort moments but in the end, they hug and make up, you're right. largely, you won't find that in canon. of course there are so many comics to recommend for Batfamily interactions, but you have to get specific. you'll find them interacting in small groups, Tim and Dick bonding here, Duke and Cass bonding there, but largely, the comics don't care to balance the ridiculously large cast they've given themselves. but fandom does. it's easy to toss them all in a blender and ignore the parts you don't like. the default argument to ignoring the comics or writing something OOC is always "well the comics are OOC and inconsistent too" which, while a flawed argument that massively misunderstand how comics work as a medium, isn't an entirely incorrect one. you could serve on a silver platter to these fans, an easy and accessible way to get into comics and they wouldn't be interested. it's not what they're here for. fandom is always character-driven above all else. it's driven by character relationships and dynamics. if someone wants to consume content where Tim idolized and stalked Jason as 'his Robin' and now is trying to help him rehabilitate and they're super complicated but have this long epic forgiveness arc, why *would* they read the comics? because they're sure as shit not going to find that dynamic in the comics. it's laughably OOC and not canon at all, but that doesn't matter. what matters is the sandbox. most Batfamily fans care *far* more about the sandbox canon gives them than the actual canon itself. feel how you feel about that, this really isn't being negative toward that attitude, but it is a common attitude.

so, you have Batfamily fans playing in the sandbox and building their own narrative. common fandom headcanons are so common, you could practically write a guide on how the fanon Batfamily works with how consistent people are about it. or you could just read WFA, which is practically the new manifesto of it. even now, with this sudden spike in people talking about canon accuracy and "actually this happening in the comics", they don't actually care about the comics, just what they can cherry-pick for fodder. (even if they rob it of so much context they're just as OOC as they were before. see specifically: the recent phenomena with Tim Drake going from the woobified weakest member of the Batfam who everyone needs to save constantly and he's the smart boy but he's also the one with a sad tragic neglectful past who gets overlooked being the way Batfamily fandom played with Tim for years. but recently, people seem to be pushing this idea of a ridiculously badass Tim, Tim who *totally* has a kill count because of his actions in RR (2009) if you take them completely out of context, Tim who bested Ra's and is even more badass than Jason and he's the 17 yr old CEO of Wayne Industries being cool and flawless it becoming the new fandom zeitgeist. neither of these versions of Tim are canon, and the second fundamentally misunderstands his arc in RR (2009) but the shift has undeniably happened and it's been fascinating to watch. the same thing happened with people suddenly deciding Jason isn't the "angry violent Robin", he was a sunshine sweet boy who was perfect as Robin. neither of these are true, but the second feels more transgressive and new to fandom from cherry-picked panels.) the point is largely, Batfamily fans would rather build their own canon than play with the actual canon.

and then, you have Danny Phantom. i'm not into DP and have no interest to get into it, but what i know about it via fandom osmosis is this: DP fans sort of also don't give a fuck about canon. once again, the canon of DP is a sandbox, not a rulebook. the concepts and the characters are the draw, not the plot itself. i've seen DP posts explaining characters who are essentially OCs, but have become so dominant in the fandom via fandom osmosis. there are concepts and ideas about how Danny's powers work and potential concepts with his ghost nature that either aren't in canon or only happened once in canon and fans decided to expand on that and doesn't care about it's own in-universe logic. i've seen a lot of DP fans also express they haven't seen the show and they don't have plans to see the show. because the show is just some children's cartoon with some inconsistencies and a simple plot, as you'd expect from CN. the show isn't the point. no one cares about it's plot, they care about it's characters. they care about pushing the concept of half ghost boy to a logical extreme and seeing what you can get out of that. can you make it weird and fucked up. how much can you highlight on his trauma and body horror. what identity crisis can you give him and how can you build his interactions with other characters in his world around that and also make those characters fun and unique on their own. sure, the skeleton of canon is there, but the meat lies all in the fanon.

Miraculous Ladybug also exists in this similar vein. the characters, the concepts, those hold intrigue. and not even mentioning the fact the original concept for this show was supposed to be aimed to an older audience, so you can see the bones of something a bit more mature and nuanced under this typical, villain of the week magical girl transformation show. the show itself is a bit shallow and that's not a *bad* thing, it's just the medium it exists within being aimed towards children. but the concepts of a teen girl who's basically a sort of chosen one, a boy who doesn't know his father is the big bad of the show, and their weird identity porn love... square thing. those dynamics are *so* complicated and such a fun sandbox to play in with character-driven fandom.

so, at the core, you have three fandoms that care more about the culturally accepted fanon than the canon, with a good chunk of people often not even consuming the original canon content. and well, DC is an *easy* world to transpose just about anything onto. a boy who's half ghost and fighting supernatural threats? that makes sense, DC has ghost heroes like Deadman already. a girl who has this magical item that gives her animal themed superpowers? i mean that's practically the same thing as Vixen's Totem so that one makes sense too. they fit in pretty easy, no needing to change the world to accommodate them. and of course, if you're a fan of *one* fandom where you don't care for the canon content and only like the fandom sandbox, chances are, you'll get drawn in pretty easily to another fandom with similar mechanics. if you can teach yourself the DP fandom rules/concepts, you can teach yourself the Batfamily fandom rules/concepts. and well, since there's so much crossover in fandom members, why not write the fanfiction? crossover fics will always exist, but with such a shared member base, you have a really big boom.

it's why the characters you see DP interact with in DC are *always* characters who are far more driven by fanon than canon. Danny and John Constantine is a *massive* concept. for people who don't read Hellblazer comics. my poor partner, @divine-dominion has lamented to me pretty often about finding DP content in the Hellblazer tag that is essentially turning Constantine into an OC. because whatever version of Constantine is being written about isn't one bit comics accurate, and really, isn't trying to be. and the same thing happens with Shazam. you watch Young Justice and understand him well enough, you get drawn in by the character concept that you just run with it. people put their favorite blorbos in the same place because hey, wouldn't ghost boy be pretty cool in a city like *Gotham*. how would Batman even react to him. and then, the shipping. because ages for the Batfamily can be easily hand-waved and moved around based on where you plop Danny into the timeline, you have your pick of the litter with him, and same with Ladybug. of course there are the most popular ships but largely, the world is your oyster.

i don't think this is the worst thing in the world for either fandom. it's not hard to filter out the crossover tags and scroll past content i don't like. and sure, i see the appeal of making your blorbos from two different places meet. i've got my drafts *full* of DC/MHA crossover ideas because well, i like them both and think that would be cool. i think my only gripe with it is when DP or MLB crossover content seeps it's way into the wrong tags. using the above example, if you're writing about Danny and Constantine but there's zero content of the actual Hellblazer comics, i don't think you need the Hellblazer tag, just the Constantine character tag. tbh i wish this extended onto Ao3 and people utilized fandom tags better. if you're writing Batfamily fanfiction that is very clearly and obviously WFA driven in characterization and concepts, i would far prefer those fics be tagged with the WFA fandom tag rather than the Batman (comics) fandom tag. because well, you're not writing about the Batman comics. and there's nothing wrong with that, but it helps if you don't confuse yourself for content striving to interact with canon more. (this especially extends to Young Justice, by the way. if you're writing for the Young Justice tv show please, please stop using the Young Justice (comics) fandom tag. i'm at my wit's end- /lh)

the whole thing is fascinating. i've got zero interest in entering DP or MLB as fandoms because that's not my speed, but witnessing it as an outsider is my favorite pastime. i see a *lot* of posts going around the DC x DP space that are helping explain to people who's who, what's what, and understanding the canon/fanon of both of these properties so others can better enter the space. which is not something you'd need in a fandom driven only by it's canon content, but it is sweet watching others try to help newbies enter the space. it's a very inviting fandom space, i think, whether you lament it's existence or not. they're just sitting in their corner with their blorbos, and i gotta respect that. the posts explaining the Batfamily to DP fans are always fun for me to read, even if i disagree with some of the characterizations in them because it helps shine a light on what the fans of this crossover regard as "important" enough about each fandom to be worth including those sorts of primers. very fascinating stuff.

[dresupi]

@profandomhopper said:  

I’m sorry babe, I love Darcy!  <3 I don’t think I have ANY unpopular opinions about her...  

She’s bisexual?  I mean... I guess that might be an unpopular opinion?  

Or maybe my unpopular opinion is that I don’t have anything bad to say?  

[melodyatlas]

another prompt from @profandomhopper

match/tim with kon-plications lmao, aaaaaahhhhhh i love this!!!

not a real fic, just my ramblings, and heads up that the match/tim is dubcon and there are mentions of potential noncon (sorry if that wasnt the vibes you were going for lajksdhgjkhag)

i'm imagining this being like, an au of when match is pretending to be kon in young justice, and tim is just coming to terms with actually liking kon, and match decides to pursue tim as some fucked up trophy to lord over kon

so match starts to pursue tim and tim can tell that something is /off/ about him. he doesn’t /want/ to look too hard into why something is off, because he /does/ like the attention match is giving him, but there's just no way for him to turn off the detective in him. if something is going on with kon, he needs to find out what it is so he can help.

so it comes to this head where tim realizes that match isn't kon, but he realizes it when hes alone with match and things move too fast for him to get the upper hand- match ends up pinning tim, rutting down against him and muttering little things into his ear about how he knows tim has a thing for kon, how he should just close his eyes and pretend that he’s who tim wants him to be- c'mon, tim, he looks just like kon, after all- and there's this moment of hesitation, where match thinks tim is going to agree, going to just go along with it to get the false memory of being with kon, and maybe tim does briefly consider it, but there's no way match would just /let it all go/ afterwards, no way he wouldn't bring it up to kon and the rest of their team and tim just can't. besides, there has to be some other reason match infiltrated them and- /where is kon/ where has kon been this whole time that match has been here?

so tim knows he has to get away here, can't give in to the little thought in the back of his head saying he could just give himself this one little fantasy- he purposefully relaxes into match grip anyway, pretends he is giving in, lets match kiss him, spreads his legs a little bit to seem more inviting, murmurs something about wanting to /touch/ and match is overconfident enough, and caught up enough in the euphoria of tim's surrender, that he does let tim's wrists go, giving tim the opportunity to drag his hands down match’s chest, keeps him distracted enough to slip one of his hands to the lead lined pouch on his belt, flipping it open to get out his emergency kryptonite

it evens out the playing field a little more, gives tim the element of surprise enough to flip them over and get the upper hand. this one is a good end, where tim keeps the upper hand, contains match, interrogates him about kon and gets back with the team to mount their rescue mission

in this case, i think it would be fun for tim to keep silent about the specifics of what happened between him and match, leaving out anything that wasnt just “i could tell he wasn't kon and we fought”

but after kon is back he goes to match’s cell, supposedly just to make sure he’s properly contained, but rly to rub it in his face that his team knows him well enough they weren’t fooled by match’s ‘inferior imitation’ and match gets all smug and says that no one had a clue, only tim, bc of his poor, pathetic crush, and kind of breaks kons brain. a loop of “tim's crush?? tim's….. crush??? crush?? tim? On me????” and match goes on to brag about how good tim tastes, how good he /feels/, implying a lot more than how far he actually got, and kon kind of loses it, almost breaks into the cell to hit him, barely holds himself back and has to go retreat to his room to Think™ about tim and his supposed crush and /why/ kon felt so terrible at thinking tim and match were together. tries to brush it off as him just being protective of his friend who was assaulted, but realizes there's this other underlying feeling about how even if tim had been an active participant, kon still wouldn't have liked it- eventually he figures his shit out, but it takes… A While. meanwhile hes been weird around tim because of it and it's making tim extra paranoid cause the last time kon was so weird he /wasn't kon/ so tim keeps trying to spend more time with him to make sure he is himself and also to see how he can help him (bc it /is/ him, tim knows).

theres also the potential for a harsher story here, tim not being able to beat match would lead to some,,, ,, rly fun alternatives

[melodyatlas]

i got a long list of prompts from @profandomhopper that i am hoarding like crazy bc i want to write a lil smthn smthn for each one of them <3 (but don't expect them all to end up so long lmao, this turned into 7.6k words of dick being jealous as hell)

also do i get bonus bonus points for using both jay and bernard?

heres the ao3 link <3