Superman, In The Middle Of A Battle: *gets Hit By A Shard Of Kryptonite*

i think cass is always quietly trying to encourage her family to protect their necks, whether training in instincts during spars or by vetoing costume designs without throat protection. she knows it's not anymore vulnerable than your soft tummy and achilles tendons, but the illogical part of her will never forget her hand slick in blood watching a body do something she's never seen before and wondering why is it doing that? what did i steal from him when i grabbed? what was so important that i tore away?

Billy is just tumbling through the sky screaming while Freddy is on the ground recording him and can’t stop laughing

Billy hasn’t quiteeee mastered flying in his regular human form yet☁️

(Continuation of my last post ⬇️)

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AXE

What if Billy kept some of his powers in his human form? ⚡️

Bruce is NOT Stephanie’s dad but she does hate him in a way that only a daughter can hate her father.

Ouch :(

Ow :(

I’ve been thinking about the “turned into children” trope that we batfam enjoyers love, and one that I really like is the justice league turning into children. Bruce from before his parents died (see: a little piece of shit), Diana from before she learned about the outside world (see: really confused bc men??), Oliver at 15 (see: also little shit but for entirely different reasons) and so on and so forth… BUT then we have captain marvel who’s already technically a child, so I present you the idea:

Billy doesn’t turn into a child, and stays in his adult form. He has to take care of the league, because the world can’t know that they’re children (duh), but he’s having a really hard time seeing as he’s also a child. No one questions why he’s not a child, because you know, they’re not league yet. But once they’ve transformed back (they keep their memories), they start running tests (both magical and scientific) on him to find out why he it didn’t effect him, but find NOTHING. In the end they deem that maybe captain marvel is just immune to reverse aging spells.

And this is where I present to you yet ANOTHER idea:

One day one of them (whoever you like) sees billy transform and assumes he was hit with a reverse aging spell. Cue Billy having to dodge actually explaining how he’s a real child and why the reverse aging spell didn’t work on him

Perhaps I found the girlfriend I’ve been looking for all along

Hi. I'm not a canon purist and enjoy some fanon content very much, but I do think people in the fandom should at least familiarize themselves with the canon content and source material. It's easier to break the "rules" so to speak and experiment with canon when you know what that actually is. I've noticed a lot of fans that are only familiar with fanon criticise content that doesn't line up with what they believe to be canon but isn't. The Red Hood for example. I've seen writers who portray him as the violent criminal he is in much of the canon be completely decimated by Jason fans who only know fanon and the retconned version of Red Hood and completely deny canon even exists and refuse to even glance at the comics. Transformative works are important and playing in the sandbox is for everyone but fandom literally cannot exist without canon. Canon is important and people can do whatever they want with it but they should respect it enough to at least look at it.

Hi anon, I'm going to hold your hand as I say this, and I will say it as gently as I can: This is still a form of canon purism.

We can absolutely agree that readers shouldn't berate or abuse writers for how they choose to portray characters in fic, whether that's a more canon-faithful characterization or a popular fanon version. If readers don't like how a character is portrayed, we should encourage them to hit the back button instead.

I want to draw your attention to some of the words you used in your ask above: "should" "respect" "decimated" etc. Those are some strong words to describe how you think people need to behave, in order to exist in fandom. Of course, there is no fandom without canon source material -- I'm not denying that. But with such a wide and varied canon, the DC fandom has examples of the Red Hood you mention above, AND the "retconned" version you also reference. Both are canon, as in actually, officially, canon. WFA is canon, and that Red Hood looks very different from the Red Hood you describe.

Now, I think your issue is that you enjoy a certain version of canon, and you're frustrated that the fandom doesn't also, as trends ebb and flow, enjoy that canon as much as you do. Again, I want to acknowledge that just because a certain version is popular, it doesn't give folks the right to berate authors for writing a different version. But again, I don't think that's what we're really talking about here. From your ask's tone, I think you're suggesting that people should, in order to participate in fandom, read that older canon, that different version, or as you say, "glance at it" before enjoying or writing the fanon version.

Guess what? They actually, really, really, don't have to. It sounds like you have some issues with judging your fellow fandom members who don't read what you do or reference certain canon. But the magic of this fandom is, you can enter it at any point. We're a big pool, and if someone's entry point is the Lego Batman movie and that's it, that's still valid.

Fandom stems from canon, yes, but I almost never hear people talk about movies, or web comics, or other media when they talk about "required reading." It's always a comic. I really wish people would reflect on that before suggesting it as the one true path to being a fan.

The other thing I don't see asks like these reference ever is the reality that sometimes a fandom outstrips its canon material, and that that's an eventuality in some spaces. Fanon interpretations become popular, and people write about those specific characterizations or scenarios. They ebb and flow, like I mentioned, and some are more canon-faithful than others. Some completely reject canon, and again -- it's still fandom. It doesn't make it better or worse than a more canon-faithful fic. It's just different.

I had a couple asks about this topic a few weeks ago, and I'm assuming you haven't read those or you likely wouldn't have sent me this ask. But in them, I discuss how sometimes we need to suck it up and be unhappy that canon-faithful fics aren't as popular in a fandom at a specific time, and stop punishing fellow fans for writing and enjoying those fics. And we really need to stop shitting on them publicly on Tumblr.

Because often, what you're really saying is that you wish more people would write more canon-faithful fics, and stop writing ones about fanon topics you don't enjoy or think are accurate. And to that, I again say, there is nothing you can or should do to change that behavior from others. If you want to read it, write it, enjoy it, etc, do it yourself. Build the comic-faithful community here, write fics and promote challenges, create a discord channel and discuss your "required reading" there.

We are all writing and reading fanfiction at the end of the day. It is a great equalizer in many ways. My silly Lego Batman fic is just as valid as a canon-faithful rewrite of a certain Batman issue. One is not better than the other, or more deserving of respect. You will never get me to admit otherwise on this blog.

tl;dr: people should absolutely not berate authors who choose to write canon-faithful characterizations. however, there are layers of judgement and disdain many DC comics canon-faithful authors/readers have for their fellow fans that I think we need to examine critically in order to coexist respectfully.

I want more Batman being a little scared of bats. I mean that’s why he became BATman, because he saw bats as scary enough to strike fear into the hearts of criminals! Ik he got over that childhood fear, but I still want him to just be a teeny bit scared of them cuz it’s funny.

Like, he’s cool with the Bats in the Batcave, cause he’s familiar with them and they’re all doing their own thing.

But he’s in a different cave with different bats? As soon as one of those little fuckers flies a little too close to his head, he’s ducking on instinct and speed walking out of there.

For Halloween Captain Marvel Jr dresses up as a really niche character and no one gets it.

But then like some civilian kid points at Jr and yells the character’s name really excitedly and then Jr flies down with stars in his eyes and gets just as excited as the kid.

Somebody records the interaction and every time it comes up Jr gets really embarrassed.