I think so many people in the fandom fail to grasp the difference between "flair for the dramatic" and "being dramatic," and that's how we got Sirius Black, the drama queen (TM) who cries when he chips his nail polish or because Regulus is taller than him (WTF???) instead of Sirius Black, the unhinged lunatic who broke into the Gryffindor dormitory on the anniversary of his best friend's death, laughing maniacally and brandishing a twelve-inch blade with the sole purpose of committing the murder he was imprisoned for.
Fanon lobotomies Bruce Wayne in order to make him a good father.
And there’s sooo many examples of this, so in no particular order I’ll explain.
1.) the way that Fanon characterizes Bruce Wayne to “make him a good father” actively lobotomizes him by getting rid of/ignoring his depression, OCD, possible autism, C+PTSD and the other issues he has due to the death of his parents, being raised by Alfred, his training years, and his experiences as Batman. By doing this Fanon retroactively does the second thing that lobotomizes Bruce.
2.) In the effort to make Bruce a “good father” they get rid of his identity. As mentioned previously they disregard the experiences he has and mental conditions, however additionally he has no life outside of his kids. His friends are either; A.) Never mentioned or B.) Revolve around the kids too. Either Bruce is great friends with Clark and Clark is the kids uncle who guides Bruce how to be a parent and is more fun than Bruce! Or Bruce simply has no friends and hangs out with no one 🧍
I have to restate and emphasize that whatever friends Bruce has have to be better than him at social interactions and parenting. They HAVE to be the kids favorites and give Bruce tongue lashings if he EVER makes a mistake.
3.) They make him a doormat. There’s no other word for it, honestly. Fanon makes Bruce a good father by making him a doormat. The kids will express no respect for him, openly talk shit about him to his face and act in the Fanon typical “batshit insane” way and Bruce will either say “haha my kids are so crazy” or “Tired dad sigh my kids are so crazy drink coffee” or shocked by how his kids are acting. As if Bruce isn’t an OG, someone who traveled the world to train with thief’s, exports in espionage, and murderers. It’s literally within the context of the fic that Bruce trained with the league of assassins (because that leads to Damian’s conception) and he’ll still be portrayed as weak/stupid/or simply uninvolved.
I don’t want to police Fanon, write what you want the worlds your oyster, don’t like don’t read, blah blah blah. But it’s all a collection of sane-ism and ableism. Bruce Wayne doesn’t have to be devoid of his OCD, depression, PTSD, or possible autism in order to be a great parent. He doesn’t have to be so passive in order to be a great parent. Give him back his fucking spine because having a doormat parent, as Bruce is often portrayed, is actually not good parenting either.
In the quest to avoid the other extreme, Bruce being an abusive parent, you’ve gone the other extreme; Bruce being a push over. Instead of a character he’s a narrative tool.
This post is inspired by: A fanfic that made Bruce monolingual to uplift the Batkids, anyone who criticizes Bruce for his mental conditions, anyone who says or implies that Bruce is less human because of his possible autism, anyone who says Dick Grayson is a better parent than Bruce Wayne, Wayne Family Adventures, anyone who dogpiles Bruce Wayne, anyone who can criticize Bruce Wayne and not any other character, that one fic that had the tag “Bruce Wayne bashing” followed by “Barbara Gordon is human and makes mistakes”, anyone who thinks Batman should kill, anyone who thinks Jason should be adopted by Talia, Natalie Knight, or anyone else, anyone that contributes Dicks good nature to Clark or Alfred, anyone that says Alfred is a good parent yet call Bruce a bad parent, anyone who thinks Alfred raised Bruce well, anyone who makes the Batkids hyper-competent while also dumbing Bruce down, anyone who makes Tim CEO of Wayne Enterprises, anyone who says “Bruce does nothing for Gotham”, people who think Jason is the protector of crime ally, anyone who thinks that Jason is the protector of women and children, anyone who thinks the Red Hood would have fans, anyone who thinks Bruce needs to be taught how to parent, anyone who genuinely thinks Bruce is lame, anyone who makes Ra’s obsessed with Tim and call him “detective”, anyone who compares Bruce to David Cain or any abusive person, anyone who thinks Bruce didn’t mourn Jason, anyone who thinks Bruce uses Tim, anyone who thinks Tim had to “parent” Bruce, anyone who thinks Bruce can’t cook, anyone who thinks Bruce knows nothing about household chores. Also anyone who thinks Bruce is bad at communicating or lack emotional intelligence. Anyone that makes Tim Drake CEO of Wayne Enterprises when Bruce Wayne is present. Anyone that says Jason’s actions were because of “Pit Madness”
I love fanfiction, I love Fanon, I’ve indulged in a few fics that could fit these cliches and tropes, but the over-saturation of these tropes in fics is genuinely going to kill me.
this is such a non-issue but in my incredibly sleep-deprived state it is pissing me off even more.
i hate the over-saturation of random noun ship names in fandom. I HATE it and i know it's not that deep but like...
marauders fandom...why tf are we referring to remus x regulus (terrible ship btw no offence) as moonwater. are we being serious rn? remus is the moon...his greatest fear...and regulus is water....because he drowned?? like what. and james x sirius as starchaser... pretty name but like,, prongsfoot works just fine. Being a chaser on the quidditch team is not james' whole personality.
[the only noun-ship-name that gets a pass is wolfstar but only because it is part of ancient harry potter fandom history. every other post-2020 noun ship name pisses me off]
I guess i just hate how it's such a surface-level reading of the character. picking a random object/concept and assigning it to a character for the sake of making a pretty ship name,,,, instead of...using their actual names/nicknames. pls. let us go back to combining character's names together...it's so much cuter and it actually conveys what ship it is.
also, it's prolly not directly correlated,, but I do find it interesting that the rise of these surface-level noun ships started at the same time of the extreme fanonisation and flattening of these complex characters....again prolly unrelated but yeah. anyways. can we please use names for ships again
There‘s been countless comics where all of batnation have looked incompetent and stupid, but task force z is where people draw the line? I‘m surprised, because how does jason putting up a fight in a sibling quarrel (where everyone involved is holding back) get negative reactions out of an audience that is continuously served hot garbage??
Well you tell me, my best guess is that because Jason being competent and true to his value will disrupt the happy batfamily fanon fantasy where Jason usually being the dumb joke one or desperate for family approval.
In this issues, Jason was smart enough to outrick his family and basically saying he doesn't care about family approvals as long as he finished his mission
I’m gonna say this is now, if you like a fanon version of Sakura don’t follow me unless you can accept that I like canon!Sakura as well as other characters.
