Always found the they never broke up tag rlly stupid tbh, their discographies exist. From the first albums to the last, there’s always mention of heartbreak, a split, the joy of getting back together sort of (thinking of lucky again and tbsl here), but then again I could be reaching

I don't think it's reaching when you read those lyrics and think, huh, wonder what this repeated motif across five albums is all about, huh, wonder if it's possible that two people can have a tumultuous relationship and document it ALL OVER the place. You wanna see a reach? I've got some unhinged chess posts for ya lmao

☕ + wfa

i do not like wfa with ham, i do not like it, sam i am.

I have a lot of problems with Wayne Family Adventures. The idea for it is solid enough, but the execution is. bad. I've put my thoughts below the cut because this got long, so I hope you don't mind me going in depth on my feelings.

Duke Thomas as a POV character - I'm plagerizing heavily from my convo with @phamtai about this. Def check them out for more info and better insights than mine into the character. Duke is extremely well established in canon despite only having been around for a decade or so. Remarkably, it's taken until WFA to butcher his character. Duke in this series is too polite. He's too clueless. He's been presented as the Relatable Kid archetype that he doesn't fit. In canon, Duke has never not been self-assured. He's a relatable character, yes, but not because he doesn't know what's going on. He has experience as a hero long before the batfam became involved. And since then, he's bonded with them. WFA doesn't show his connection with Cass, his dynamic with Bruce or Jason, and completely ignores his conflicts with the family. In a supposedly family-focused product, those are damn near cardinal sins. He may as well be a totally new character. Duke has been watered down so much for the sake of this series. WFA could be a vessel to explore so many things about him that we don't see a lot of on the regular page. We could see a dive into the parallels between him and Bruce, the full psychological impact of losing his parents, epecially in contrast to Jason, how his world view and morals differ from Batman's, the daily consequences of his powers, or the fallout of his mourning independently for the friends he's lost. But those would be interesting angles WFA doesn't seem eager to explore. If you can't imagine a version Duke punching a cop just because they're a fucking cop, you're doing it wrong. Another issue is, unfortunately, Duke's role as the only Black batman member. I shouldn't need to explain why it's problematic to be showing his as constantly less knowledgeable and presumably skilled as the other bats. (No, it doesn't matter that Dick and Damian are drawn with dark skin. Dick has been written as a white man for nearly his entire existence. The person who retconned that is notoriously racist and has spent years defending her inclusion of sexual assault in her writing. I have no issue with Dick being Romani, but just changing the color of his skin is not the way to do it.) DC has recently had a push towards inclusion, on the page an behind the scenes. This is good, of course. Though if they really are committed to representation and inclusion, it needs to be an effort seen across the board. Faux pas like this paint a pretty obvious picture.

The Webtoon format is shit - Webtoon is a great platform for indie writers and artists. It's not my style of content, but I get the appeal. IMO, it's ridiculous to accept a professional comic publisher shitting out 12 page fluff pieces. Yes, the weekly comic format has been phased out for a reason. Yes, halving the workload is a possible way around that restriction. But there just isn't a good enough reason to do it. It's a pretty obvious ploy to seem "hip" and "get in with kids these days." It's lazy and frankly kind of embarrassing. For anyone who doesn't know, a standard comic book is usually 24-28 pages. This isn't an arbitrary number, it's part of the format for the art form. That length allows for necessary plot developments in a serial story line while also giving the characters, themes, and artwork time to breathe. Furthermore, it's what most comic readers have come to expect over the decades. Halving that wouldn't necessarily be a problem, there are plenty of examples of well made shorts out there, but coupling that WFA's love affair with single panels and splash pages is a major issue. Say you make a 12 page comic with 4-6 panels per page. You have 48-72 panels to work with. You can sit a compelling story into that, with or without heavy dialogue. But bring that down to 12-24 panels, and you have one of two options: either 1) ultra-compress your narrative or 2) reduce the plot to compensate. Ignoring the formatting choices, WFA is a convenient reason for DC to keep the worst of the status quo in the bat titles. There's no need to acknowledge criticism of Bruce's treatment of his family when they can simply point and say "Jason's throat hasn't been sliced open here! And look, Damian hasn't been left with the crushing guilt of his grandfather's death! We even let Tim exist as his own character!" WFA doesn't change anything, it shows that DC is aware of its problems but would rather outsource them than put in the work to fix it. There's a special kind of rejected feeling that comes with being told "I hear you, I just don't care.

Fandom isn't bad, but - Everyone is familiar with the incorrect quotes format by now. Sometimes they're funny, most of the time they tend to over-saturate. WFA is like if a incorrect batfam quotes blog was a comic. It's a steady supply of one-liners and references, sure, but it lacks any real substance. If that's what you like, I can't fault you for it, but it's not going to be everyone's cup of tea. The way the batfandom has piled onto the "this is the best thing ever" bandwagon is concerning to me. There has been good batfam content in canon, you just need to know where to look for it. The lack of critical analysis of the project and dismissal of critiques is always an alarming pattern, but the way WFA has come to be the odd face of the fandom is just bizarre. It's everywhere, as you know if you've ever tried avoiding it. Thinking about WFA being the default interpretation of these characters makes me nervous. They lack the depth their canon counterparts. I don't care if you enjoy WFA, I do understand the appeal of it, but for the love of the gods, take it down from it's pedestal.

WFA is... fine. It's yet to commit any sins too egregious, but, like all DC properties, it's a ticking timebomb. I won't be surprised when it goes off, and I can't say I'll be sad to see it go. Ao3 has better content, anyway

Dicta, I saw your great reblog about racism in fandom. I have a question that applies to white fic writers. There's this problem of white fans ignoring POC characters and failing to have good representation. At the same time, there's this issue of white people totally sucking when they try to do it. Saw a post recently like: "Non-Muslim people considering writing a Muslim character--just don't. Don't." Do you have any thoughts about dealing with this? Much love!

So many thoughts, anon. I’ve got a related ask that’s been hanging out a while and I’ve been waiting until I have enough time to sit down and properly answer, so I’ll have more and maybe more settled thoughts when I have a chance, hopefully soon. For now, these are sort of preliminary thoughts. Feedback is welcomed and valued and appreciated!

tl;dr: I think both of those arguments are right and it’s hard.

To be really candid, as a white fic writer, writing non-white characters makes me nervous, specifically because I really, really don’t want to fuck it up. But I don’t think my nervousness is an adequate end to the conversation; the experience of nervousness is nothing on the experience of constant erasure that I’ve experienced as a queer person within mainstream media, and I imagine that it’s nothing to the erasure that poc experience in fandom. So I think white people need to suck that one up, that  focusing on our nervousness as its own thing is not reason enough to stick with white guy slash.

The part abut there being real potential to fuck it up in harmful ways is the part we can’t gloss over, and I do think that’s worth being nervous about - but that nervousness needs to generate thoughtfulness and caution rather than inaction. There are two (and a half?) main questions I’ve had in my head about this. And again, I’m really open to pushback on all of this.

1) How useful is it to distinguish between writing about vs writing as? I’ve seen this distinction made elsewhere/seen it go around as a farely common piece of advice, between writing about marginalized characters but not pretending to write as a marginalized person - so, for instance, don’t write as a Muslim character, but do include well-researched and thoroughly considered Muslim characters in your story. That way you’re including marginalized characters without claiming that you know what it’s like to be marginalized. That’s something that makes me, like, hum consideringly in a not-bad way. But the research part feels really key. It’s not enough, imo, to write a character and then add a line about the color of their skin and call it a day. If your white POV character is dating or close friends with or in a close working relationship with a person of a different race, and especially if it’s their first time dealing with institutional racism in such an immediate and emotionally invested way, they’re going to need to deal with that. Even if it’s not the first time, that stuff is going to need to be in there if you want to avoid erasure. So if you’re going to write that you need to go read (and then give credit, in your author’s notes, to!) accounts of people who have lived with those experiences and who can point out dynamics you might not be aware of. For instance, someone sent me this article recently, about two friends trying to plan a vacation and the black woman having all her attempts to make an airbnb reservation declined, and then the white man getting his reservation accepted on the first try, and how that changed their dynamic and their trip. (See also: the classic on this.) So, say you’re writing a buddy cop au with a mixed race couple in a forced proximity/maybe bedsharing situation, how is your characters’ race (and location, and time period, and gender, etc.) going to change the process of getting that room? More generally, we need to not just say “this is Joe and by the way he’s [insert characteristic here]” - we need to consider how that would change their lives and where that would show up in our stories.

2) Does the way white fic writers approach writing characters of other races make a difference? I sometimes see people talking about writing diverse stories like it’s one of those tasks you do because you know you should, but you don’t really want to, and it sort of feels like a drag, and I can’t imagine that doesn’t come through? I mean, maybe not? But it definitely informs the sentiment around them and contributes to, I think, this sense that stories about people of color are somehow created with less joy and enthusiasm? And to be embarrassingly honest, there are times when it’s come really easily and felt really natural and obvious to me to have Kingsley or Lee in a certain role, and times (none of which have seen the light of ao3) when it’s felt forced, and then stilted as a result, when I’m doing it because I feel like I should. Otoh, I really really want to write fic for Moonlight. I had that instant fannish reaction when I saw it, like five story prompts in my head before we were out of the theatre, was on AO3 looking for fic in the car home, feel a deep soul-level need for 20k about the evolution of Kevin’s relationship with his hands, and another at least 10k about the last things Juan thought, and several dozen different stories that retell everything from Teresa’s point of view, and maybe a 70k slow burn bookmarked by Chiron’s reflections on the different ways Kevin touches him and the space in between the thing in the schoolyard and the thing in the apartment (I’m trying to be vague bc spoilers but thinking about it gives me serious feels). I don’t think that enthusiasm is enough on its own; does it make a different at all? I think it might - I think when they’re characters we love fannishly and want to understand, more people might be willing to do the research and put in the work to really understand what their lives are like, and that that could be a moment when fandom is pretty powerful.

2.5) So one thing we as white writers have to do, as this post from earlier said, is to “put in the effort to fall in love with POC characters.” That doesn’t mean forcing it, that doesn’t mean doing it with a sense of dread, but it does mean actively seeking out media that includes POC characters and it does mean thinking about and embracing them. This is partly an issue with canon creators, who often don’t give us much to work with, but that’s less and less true. There is stuff out there if we go look for it, and there are characters who will grab us by the heart if we give them the chance. If we have to go looking for that, that’s work we should be willing to do.

The common denominator here seems to be doing your research? That no matter what, that’s really really important. I think that’s a good takeaway. And the rest I float as thoughts more than suggestions because I think as a white person my perspective here is necessarily limited. Also this is a hard question! So again, thoughts and responses are welcome!