there is so much complexity to it, especially in scenarios where Danny and Damian are fraternal twins, and Danny takes after Bruce more (i.e. white-passing) while Damian takes after Talia more. and how, maybe Danny would have an easier time settling in with his peers when he gets to America by virtue of the color of his skin, but now he also feels the distance from his heritage and home culture.

cause like... we know that Damian, canonically, still retains an accent (that is not American/native to Gotham) even after half a decade out of the League. so you have to think about... how much pride Damian must have, of where he came from and who he came from, that Damian doesn't feel the need to train his voice. because we also know that Damian, canonically, is very good at impressions. if he wanted to talk with an American accent, I'm sure he could. but he doesn't.

but does Danny feel that way? does he feel pressured to quickly learn how to talk like the other kids at school or else be labelled as Other? 'cause we see how many old school stereotypes Amity Park still lives by. how the teachers favor the bully, who also so happens to be the jock, and the mean girls who can make you the social outcast on a whim. for Danny, who may be desperately trying to lay low, social isolation or mockery may literally be a death sentence (particularly in modern settings that include social media).

and when Danny goes to America, he would go stay with the Fentons. and, good or bad parents, the family is still white. and yes, in an au where Danny is white-passing, he would look that way too. but that doesn't change the fact that, culturally, he grew up in the Middle East with a mother that was half-Arab and half-Chinese herself. we don't even know if English is his mother tongue. it could be Arabic, it could be Farsi; since Talia is also half-Chinese, he might have grown up learning some Cantonese or Mandarin too.

and speaking as someone who struggles to understand the language of my grandmother... it can be so, so heartbreaking. so just imagining Danny, in a country he's not familiar with, with a family that can try so so hard and still never be the same... now to also have possibly no one to speak the language with and slowly, over time, losing your mother tongue? losing a part of yourself that you were once so proud of?

not to mention how he has to break free of the cult mentality all at the same time. coming to America and facing anti-Arab prejudice, and trying to do research online to fight the stereotypes only to realize that yes, the stereotypes are wrong, but also his childhood should have never been like that. not by American standards, or by Middle Eastern ones either.

so just like... constantly feeling shamed on all sides and like he can't fit in anywhere, which is eventually made worse when he becomes a halfa. because even in the League Danny was different. we know that the League of Assassins doesn't discriminate when it comes to race (Pru is my favorite example), but just in his own immediate family Danny would feel it the most. because Bruce is not around. in an au where Danny takes after his father the most, he cannot see the visual connection. all he can see is how Damian looks like Mother and I don't.

and for a kid, who may already be falling behind in training, who may not be able to compare to his prodigy twin brother. who may already feel ostracized by a mother who looks at a son and sees a father instead--any and all comparisons would chafe.

But canon didn't give us that. Fans did.

Fans put in the time and effort to flesh out a world that the creators didn't have the means or desire to. It is the community that found ways to give this story depth and life. We might not always remember the names of fans who started the headcanons and popular tropes of today, but the least we can do is respect and acknowledge that someone, not the showrunner, gave us that.

I do remember a lot of the blogs here on Tumblr that made me fall in love with the community.

I remember Floralflowerpower, who had an almost photographic memory of the show and talked about ideas like Amity Parkers thinking Phantom had died in an avalanche/ski accident, or helped stitch together a timeline by taking small details like the calendar from Masters of Time or that time Vlad watched Michael Jackson be arrested, who enjoyed Phantom Planet despite the mockery of other members in the community.

We have Marsalias who has given us so much lore around the Ghost Zone that still prevails today. I haven't even finished Mortified and yet the 100 chapters I have read still affects how I write my own headcanons around how the system functions. Like "Long Now" being the name of Clockwork's lair came from that fic! So much of our concept around ghost lairs comes from that fic.

I love omegasmileyface's hc for Tucker's younger sister Lola, the ballerina, friend to Klemper. I've incorporated her into a handful of fics already, and I would love to include her in more.

I love the headcanon that Sam and Paulina were childhood friends, who went to a fancy private school together once upon a time. Whose friendship ended disastrously and is the reason why the two clash so much in the show.

So much of what we enjoy about DP did not come from the show. It came from the community. It came from the fans.

It doesn't matter if you added "Not Canon Compliant" or "Canon Divergence" or, hell, "Not Fanon Compliant" you'll still get comments about how "uhhhh that's not how that character acts at all—"

Except it is how that character acted in this other comic you have read and can directly reference but clearly the commentor hasn't read it or else they wouldn't be saying this. But if you try to defend yourself and point out how you're Right Actually, it just turns you into the "um actually" fan that everyone finds obnoxious and—