I know WFA is too OOC for some people, but I need that shit right now.

I do love seeing the Batfam beating the shit out of each other. I like how messy their relationships are and I have always loved flawed characters.

But idk, man, Batman #138 just really crossed a line for me and I need a reminder that there are other depictions of Bruce that aren't so fucking heinous.

I'll take this shit:

Over this shit:

Any. Fucking. Day.

okay i think enough time has passed that i can joke about it

Jason: Your methods are ineffective. If you don't permanently stop criminals they will just continue to hurt people. Bruce: *finds a permanent way to stop people from being violent and uses it on Jason, a dangerous criminal* Jason:

(ready to read at Ao3)  bounded

JaySteph Halloween!! @jaystephevents ​

Pairing/s: Stephanie Brown/Jason Todd

first two chapters are up!!

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences

Summary:

Stephanie is not a witch, she made sure of it. What she is, is something only one man in town knows, and it seemed he did not plan to stay long.

Prompt used: monsterhunter!jason, notawitch!stephanie, alternate universe - supernatural elements

I hate that I hate WFA bc it could be so much fun. Slice of life batfam is such a funny concept to me but. Alas.

opinions?… 😬😬

https://www.tumblr.com/melmov/750293558453501952?source=share

link

Wfa =free, comics = $3.99 per -> subsidized demand -> market distortion -> :/ :(

The claim of that post—“people have gotten tired of unrelenting grimdark” e.g. actual DC main runs and therefore prefer “slice-of-life fluff [that] also presents a coherent, easy-to-enter, balanced storyline” e.g. WFA—is directionally accurate but its also sort of talking about a Different Group of People than DC Comics Readers.

in particular there is a group of people who have been pretty much totally deracinated from developing or being capable of developing their own opinions on media or humor or life. because of social media and maybe also they r very young. there is a general valence to that part of fandom: the incorrect quotes, the Canva-post-derived politics, the memetic vocab + jokes and like this weird very limited view of redditizedhistory and culture+literature consisteing of the binding of Isaac and twoheadedcalf poem. and so there is just genuinely not the ability to process things that haven’t been run through a filter of accessibility. and WFA, which has BEAUTIFUL art and lots of very sweet moments, IS super accessible and its also sort of been through the preapproved foundfamily neoliberal kitsch machine and come out with a passing grade. but yes it is missing that like elusive Something and it also lacks a seriousness and it isnt the Characters. it’s something else. And its so pretentious to say its for people who don’t have the like stamina ??? for longerform storytelling but yes if you pressed me i would say its a bunch of people, primarily young genz and millennial girls/women, whose critical mental faculties and attention spans have been fried by social media and underexposure to challenging original content

that’s a different new group being lassoed into dc stuff from the previous existing audience. The DC Comics Reader People. i don’t know how much of this to do gender politics with but comics fandom has DEFINITELY gotten MUCH more female in the last 2 decades and there was a distinctive male comic book go-to-the-LCS-and-get-physical-copies and rigorously-autisticslly-fight-about-minutia-of-canon culture. Men also r going to be the one who GENERALLY prefer your fightheavy “”””grimdark””” comics, as opposed to women who doooo generally prefer social relational content. And also women-dominated comics fandom spaces are obviously qualitatively different from men’s fandom spaces. So PART of the reason WFA outsells real DC stuff is market distortion and PART is the DCfan genderdemographic shift that favors content like WFA

I rly hesitate to endorse a lot of Canon dc tumblr’s posts about the fanony WFA-style stuff bc it seems so clear that a the latter is enjoyed primarily by a group of very young people and it also feels like there’s a weird power imbalance intellectually between fanon and canon people. AND I AM A BIG BELIEVER IN LET PEOPLE READ AND ENJOY THE CONTENT THEY WANT and they shouldn’t be shamed for enjoying something as visually sweet and cute as WFA. and a lot of canon tumblr’s rants abt fanon stuff r clearly sort of excessively vicious and insecure attempts to feel superior. although admittedly quietly they r correct but it comes off cruel idk. also i think that BATMAN and superman and to some extent some others ARE indeed very flexible in terms of what is canon and what you have to consume to have consumed The Character and The Story. ive never seen BTAS but as far as im concerned, someone who has only watched BTAS is someone who has the right to do whatever batman stuff they want.

Related questions are: Is mainline DC batman stuff GOOD right now? and Is WFA good? I agree that mainline DC stuff isnt the best right now and i haven’t read WFA so i can’t comment on its quality but i honestly don’t think its the case that “WFA is better written than actual Batman comics, so thats why WFA is more popular” lol

Canon vs Fanon with the BatFam

being someone that has only recently started reading comics, i find the discourse between canon and fanon super interesting

bc there's a few different camps when it comes to what people think and i'll try to go through the groups i have personally encountered

Fanon is wrong, toxic, and is bad for the characters

not going to fully disagree but i feel like there is a perspective thing in play. not everyone can afford to read comics and a lot of people don't want to go to those dodgy websites that attempt to track you and give you a million viruses. also, a lot of people will start with fanfics and then progress into canon characterisation. AND some fic writers actually write in canon characterisations (i'm trying to for mine anyway)

Webcomics are bad because they aren't the same as canon and people thing they are

ok, look, no one reads WFA for hard hitting batman stories, we read it for the fluff. some of s just want super light-hearted stories about the batman having a snowball fight, or playing vigilante bingo, or who can do the most 2 finger push ups. and we get bonus stuff like jason having a flashback/panic attack (im so sorry i'm tired and i can't remember the proper word) and bruce helping him ground himself AND TELLING HIM HE'S PROUD

we just want the fluff ok, we know it's not the full character on display

i know red hood outlaws isn't well loved too but it's a fun introduction to the characters (and we got dick and babs wedding and it was beautiful)

Fanon confuses new canon readers and can make it hard for them to enjoy it

i agree with that fully. luckily i started with dick and he's basically the same, if not better in canon that fanon. but i know characters like tim get butchered by fanon purely bc its the things that are fun and easy to write about that stick and so he just became a shell of himself.

dick was a fun one bc you actually got to see him be a badass in the comics as opposed to the golden retriever he is in fanon. the dude is unhinged and that's so much more interesting

People don't read the comics bc they can just read fanon works

see point 1, but i think a lot of people (like me) get super interested and then start to read canon. i started with DC through a Percy Jackson crossover fic years ago that i recently re-read and it sent me down the rabbit hole. now i'm waiting for my copies of nightwing vol 2 and 3 to arrive having read vol 1 and fear state today

fanon is a gateway

am i saying that fanon is amazing? no

but i think we should work more on educating about canon instead of antagonising, as it will make the community a better place

more jayroy because everyone seemed to love my first one hehe hoho

ok so i have my own little canon of the whole batman timeline that ill… probably make a dif post about cause.. boy is it a lot. i know the basics timeline of how everything came to be but since I dont know all of it, i hc’d and filled in some gaps! (im SO able to adjust to real canon- i wont be a lil whiner if anything i made up doesnt fit or make sense. FEEL FREE TO EDUCATE ME… nicely.)

ALRIGHT soOO the reason I say all that is bc i feel like at one point, BABY Jay and Dick became close. I KNOOOOW I KNOW in the comics they had NNNOTHING to do with each other.. but like. imagine how cute???

so one day, Dick comes over to the manor with the intention of scooping his baby brother up. Maybe they were planning on getting a bite to eat somewhere. But then, Dick kinda springs on the idea of Jason maybe coming over to meet the titans! and at this point, I think hes with Cyborgggg, Starfiiireeee… Raven, BB.. YOU KNOW WHO THEY ARE. anyway. So Jay, oF COURSE, agrees because??? meeting Dicks team??? thats the coolest thing ever?? SO they grab their food then head over to the tower and on that day… Roy decided to show up…

now PAUSE. I know this is wack aging.. bbbut I put a lot of time and brain energy into making sure this makes sense. in current day. dick is 22 and jason is 19 (i think this is WFA logic but…) so back then.. jason was like roughly 13 making Dick 16ish?? so ROY being a bit older than both of them, would be aaabbbooout imma saaay 18? ok cool ya lets go with that.

resume. jason sees roy and is all woh!! awooga!! who is this handsome stud!!!??? and roy OBVIOUSLY doesn’t entertain this tiny baby puppy crush because?? thats a child. LMAO. Roy shows ZERO interest back. i need that to be VERY VVVERRRY clear. NONE. NO INTEREST. Dick sees this and teases Jason- which Jason protests that he doesn’t like roy like that cus ew!!! liking someone!!?? gross!!!

fast forward to like- Jason coming baaack, settling in as himself and red hood.. yknow. he already has done some team-ups with the bats,, eventually he has to do one with Arsenal.

this is the first time they’ve interacted since Jays been back. Roy’s got word of Red Hood- Jason Todd, being alive and… kinda well. at first Hood was scary, intimidating, rough and kinda mean? but once they got into that hotel room they had to have because they were outta town, he got to see Jason all soft and not as scary. and truthfully? He liked it a lot. He found more and more reasons to spend time with Jay.. have team ups and missions..

then, outlaws happened and those two were together almost 24/7. They were kicking ass- and this opportunity lead to them getting to actually know each other a loooot better. Roy found himself swooning. Jason was witty, charming and so funny.. not to mention how HANDSOME he was. he felt dumb. this was dicks little brother,, he couldn’t like him? thats weird right? though.. Jay was an adult who can make his own adult decisions on if he wanted to date Roy or not… and truthfully, Jay seemed a to still be a little into him... So, jokingly, one night- the two were doing their annual playful banter and in the middle Roy decided to pull that, “You wanna kiss me so bad.” card and. Yea. Maybe they DID end up making out… and lead to more… (kori was out dw, she didn’t witness this)

from there, Roys little feelings kept growing.. and even Jasons. Jay was completely head over heels. He felt like a moron- as if his puppy crush from years prior was clawing its way back…. but every meet up, every hotel room- every trope where there was one bed… every ki..kiss.. every.. naked cuddle-

LORD!!! What were they DOING. Even if it hurt to think this, Jay assumed they were just fuck buddies. He didn’t think Roy even liked him any other way.. but HOOOO did Roy want something more. and eventually, he brought it up. he asked what they were.. jason was like YOU TELL ME??? but then they had a serious talk and by the end of it? they were boyfriends EEEE!!!

then… the domestication began… but thats for another time UH WINK.

what do you think of the rhato webtoon so far?

tbh! more than anything i think its just kinda boring.

i dont think the jason characterization is TOO terrible. i hated the "bad robin" stuff they were doing in the first few issues but they havent really brought it up since so whatever. honestly the plot immediately leaves my brain right after i finish reading it so maybe im misremembering this but?? they took the job to get the idol from just some guy and didnt ask any questions,,, including when martian manhunter tried to get it back,,,,,, idk! like babygirl you know better than this what r u doing!!! it seemed very odd to me that the fact that a justice league member was trying to stop them from taking this "family heirloom" wasnt an immediate red flag

as far as artemis and bizarro go its kinda eh. i hate hate hate how artemis's face is drawn, it looks too yassified to me. also she had some kind of she ra moment in one of the eps which felt very weird. i dont read a lot of artemis content so i cant rly say whether or not shes being written in character. shes a lot like she was in rhato 2016 and i liked her in that so! sure! but bizarro-wise ive mentioned this before but. the opposite talking gets old FAST. the one (1) thing i will give lobdell credit for is that he knew biz was gonna be a recurring character so he didnt do all that because it def gets annoying

anyways. aside from me being picky, overall its just kinda boring. the plot isnt very interesting and it feels like even when things happen, nothing is rly happening ??? idk. i think that webtoons are one of the worst ways to tell an actual story. like wfa works because its just a little slice of life thing and it shouldnt be taken seriously, so the webtoon is a nice format for that. but when rhato is trying to like. Tell A Story it doesnt really work to tell it in a webtoon

but i do like things about it! i think there are fun moments! i rly liked the ep where jason could tell that someone had replaced artemis because he knew exactly how she drew her sword :) that one was a nice one that stuck out to me. i also still think the art is very pretty even though they do artemis dirty

tldr: its fine, there are things i like about it and i have no strong moral objections to it, but its mostly just not very interesting

WAITWSITWAIR!!! after i sent that last ask i came up with the perfect idea thats so much better and not completely edgy just to be edgy. im so excited. i love writing again Ah!!! /pos

Basic idea, After the ant cult bullshit. OJ becomes a workaholic to ignore his anxieties with taco still being alive and after them. OJ worked rlly hard before, but after? Guy never stopped working. When it really become obvious OJ wasnt well was when he ignored whittling. That is literally his favourite thing. Paper noticed this and he knew, The tavern, OJ’s pride and joy was an trigger for him. Paper started saving up money. Doing whatever and i mean whatever he has to, to get this money. Paper was planning on buying Farmland and a Farm so Him and OJ could live out their lives there. Paper would still work At Tavern OJ (Or Tavern Knife ig) helping Knife serve customers, being a breadwinner. But OJ would stay at home and be a whittler. Eventually he actually started getting DECENT at whittling and turn a profit. This is the VERY basics but its so much better than my other idea. - wfa

AWWE GOD BLESS THIS IS REALLY CUTE,,,, i need to stop saying god bless- not the point tho

I LOVE THAT SO SO MUCH???