#Steph’s an interesting character!

[zahri-melitor]

Okay, thought experiment where we DO fully remove All Steph from the DC timeline and how that changes plots and events (or ‘Steph only ever appears in ‘Tec 647-649, is a one appearance character, retires when she’s told to’).

This is not saying Steph’s a bad character. It’s more an examination of how she is, aside from Batgirl 2009 and Batgirls, very much a supporting character, and under the conceit of “remove a character, what changes in the timeline”, your answer for Steph is “not a great deal”.

Tim might date Ariana a bit longer, but it’s not going to make a huge difference, given they break up during Aftershock and there’s no way this relationship survived No Man’s Land. Maybe they’re on-again a bit more before the end.

Tim then probably dates Star during Brentwood, because Dixon couldn’t leave Tim without a girl for a hot second in case we started getting ideas about him not being completely heterosexual

Tim/Darla probably actually happens or is more flirted with at Louis E. Grieves.

Knightfall – no changes, aside from the fact Tim never gets buried alive with Arthur Brown.

Contagion / Legacy – no changes, Steph doesn’t participate

Final Night – Tim probably is alone, doesn’t have anyone to squabble with

Cataclysm/Aftershock – not a whole lot here. We never get the Huntress/Spoiler team up, which is sad. Maybe we get a Huntress/Azrael team up instead (ahahahahahahahaha can you imagine)

We never get the pregnancy plot (hopefully)

Steph doesn’t feature in No Man’s Land proper. No changes.

Officer Down – Steph doesn’t appear

Steph doesn’t exist, so Bruce never breaks Tim’s trust by telling someone his identity in Robin 87. Bruce probably just sulks about Alfred not being there and waits until Tim pops up. Alternatively, Bruce sends Cass to go look for Tim, which is still the broken trust but less fraught as there’s no background fight over ‘I can never tell you my identity’ and Cass is with Babs anyway.

Early Cass & Steph team ups – either Cass gets a civilian friend before Brenda to be friends with, and/or Cass and Tim get more early on team ups and Tim starts trusting her earlier as Cass knows Tim’s ID, and/or (interestingly enough) timeline would let Dinah introduce Cass to Mia, and we give Cass some more of her own supporting cast/friendships.

Joker: Last Laugh – Cass probably gets Steph’s appearances, rather than Cass being banned from any theme villains, due to the urgency

Gotham Knights #22 – Cass gets this detective training session with Bruce on account of the theme villain thing in J:LL and it’s good because Cass needs more detective training anyway

Batman: Family – Cass or Dinah or Helena get a bit more to do here.

Bruce Wayne: Murderer/Fugitive – Helena probably gets Steph’s bits, or Dinah just does more.

World Without Young Justice: it’s Cass, not Steph here, and Cass is still Batgirl. We see the world doesn’t have a Robin (which is realistically what would happen without a 1989 Tim). This plays into later Kon/Cass.

Cass also goes to Zandia.

Steph’s not in Hush.

Now for the big one. War Games.

I think you can go two ways with no Steph in War Games. 1. War Games doesn’t happen (which doesn’t really make sense, the Bat office used Steph as an expendable to kick things off here, rather than this being an outgrowth of Steph as a character). 2. Someone else initiates War Games. Your two best options are either: Orpheus messes up on his gang infiltration and something like the shootout meeting still occurs; Jason reappears JUST slightly earlier and his initial moves for control of the underground initiate the shootout meeting. Probably deliberately to kill off gang heads, rather than accidentally like it was for Steph. His efforts for this may not be revealed during War Games, he’s just a shadowy figure causing problems.

Helena probably also gets to feature in War Games, a plotline about gangs and mafia in Gotham, a topic she’s only JUST SLIGHTLY related to, rather than sitting it out for unclear reasons.

Black Mask May not torture anyone other than Orpheus, but if they still sacrifice a character here to make it ‘real’ I suspect Holly Robinson goes instead. (This then has knock on effects over in Catwoman but nowhere else)

There is no Robin 4 while Tim is ‘retired’. The school shooting at Louis E. Grieves and the gang warfare in the streets are what convince Jack that Tim isn’t safe either way, Tim returns to being Robin on schedule. Alternatively, Tim returns to being Robin after Identity Crisis, under the intense angst of “even being retired didn’t save my Dad (for some reason Tim would still have been out that evening), Dad told me to be a hero”.

War Games still happens – Tim and Cass may or may not move to Bludhaven afterwards. Tim probably still needs that break from Gotham. Babs probably still leaves town if the Clocktower gets blown up, and thus Cass moving also makes sense. Also they wanted a pretty clean slate for Bruce to angst over Jason.

If not, Tim and Cass stay in Gotham, Cass still ends up on her roadtrip, we come to Infinite Crisis the same way anyway.

Nothing bad happens with Leslie. There is no character assassination. She remains in Gotham. YAY!

Babs never shows Charlie Steph’s autopsy photos. Maybe she uses Jason’s. Maybe she just…doesn’t do this.

Cass doesn’t hallucinate Steph. Maybe she has visions of someone else, or none at all, or someone else like Boston Brand turns up.

Fast forward to 2008. No Steph in Gotham Underground (which she does nothing in anyway, it’s just a tease about a return)

We skip the Steph returns plot as no Steph. (This bit doesn’t make a lot of difference, fewer assassins).

Steph working with Ulysses Armstrong to ‘test’ Tim – either Bruce can arrange this nonsense himself, or you know, Ulysses is an annoying villain anyway. Maybe HE just causes problems on purpose. Maybe the back of Tim’s head never gets burnt. That would be nice.

Batgirl Volume 2: Steph does not feature in this.

Battle for the Cowl: Steph essentially sits this out apart from complaining that Tim told her to retire.

Batgirl Volume 3: three big ways this could have gone. 1. Cass gets an ongoing again, after all that character rehab done in Volume 2, instead of being shipped off to exile/Hong Kong. Cass plays Batgirl to Damian’s Robin, which would create interesting dynamics. 2. The slot is used for the Batwoman ongoing that had been in development hell since 2007, Rucka gets 26 issues rather than 10. 3. We get Babsgirl two years earlier. Oracle: The Cure did what the name promised on the tin, follows through on the old Brainiac tumour plot. (Ugh)

Cass PROBABLY still plays Batgirl to Damian’s Robin in option 2, with only sporadic appearances in titles not written by Morrison. Option 3 obviously has some Dick and Babs conflict over the fact she can now walk, Babs probably still runs a Birds of Prey during this time. Cass likely still gets shipped off.

Nu!52 happens. No Steph.

Rebirth. I’m unfamiliar with most of Steph’s appearances from her reappearance onwards, but the thing everyone always says is that she basically shows up as “Tim’s Girlfriend” or “StephnCass”. Cass doesn’t appear as a double feature. Tim’s obviously dating other people. Scanning the wiki entries doesn’t show me much of anything loadbearing that wouldn’t just be written as Cass by herself. Steph apparently talks an OMAC-Tim down at one point? Maybe his favourite, most trusted brother (Dick) could do that instead.

[welcometogrouchland]

[ID in ALT] Steph and Damian doodle! This taps a bit into their pre-52 dynamic so that's what I was thinking design wise at first but I wanted to draw it w their more recent designs as well to stay hashtag current and topical, so you get both/a fusion, lol

[mischiefbuckley]

THIS SCENE WAS SO BRILLIANT

[necrotic-nephilim]

saw you wrote reverse robins too, it always has a thing for me. what's your headcanon about it? any particular ship you like?

oh i ADORE Revers Robins, i wish i got the chance to write it more! i think there's something interesting in the challenge of flipping these characters and trying to see how they would change in each other's arcs. How Tim would approach being Red Hood, how Damian would approach being Nightwing, etc. it's all so interesting to me. some headcanons i have are

i think, making Damian the oldest and forcing him to mature on his own with just Bruce is fascinating. bc it's going to make a *very* emotionally closed-off Bruce. the bulk of Damian opening up happens when he's Dick's Robin, so to make it just him and Bruce destabilizes a lot of that. Bruce chose Dick, but if Damian's the oldest, it's likely he didn't choose Damian, he got stuck with him. which adds to their dynamic and imo makes Damian a bit more stunted in the way Dick is, in that being raised solely by Bruce can make one. emotionally constipated. i do think Damian would be forced to mature a lot faster and would be a very quiet person.

i've mentioned this in a post talking about JayTim in RR AUs, but Tim as Red Hood would be *far* more calculating, imo. i think a lot of the emotion of Jason's actions would be stripped from it. even if you make Tim a killer (such as when Tim is Savior in a future universe) he's never going to be a "heads in a duffel bag" killer. he's going to be planned and methodical about it. (like how he almost killed Boomerang) half of his plans would be hidden from Bruce and i think part of the game for Tim would just be seeing how much Bruce even figures out.

replacing Tim with Jason instead of vice versa is interesting, bc it forces Jason to enter the role of Robin with a lot more caution. i think his backstory still works in a RR situation, street kid Bruce just kinda plucked from nowhere and called Robin. bc Bruce is grieving, and this if the first kid whose mischief sort of reminds him of Tim. but bc there's a dead Robin before Jason, it means he's going to be treated with much more care. and his anger regarding entering a Red Robin role could be interesting bc he is known for his anger and i do think he'd be far more violent about the transition, as opposed to Tim's self isolation route.

for RR, i always always prefer that it's Damian who adopts Dick. usually i like it best as Damian adopting Dick when Bruce is "dead", but i think it also works if Bruce is alive when Dick comes into the picture. it'd make for a stunted relationship bc of how closed off Damian is while *wanting* to do right by this kid, or at least do better than Bruce did. and i think Damian as Dick's mentor figure would make how Dick confronts his anger very different.

as for Steph, in any case where i do a Reverse Robins, mentally know i'm also picturing it with a Reverse Batgirls. and to keep from Cass just not moving around, i'd include Helena's time as Batgirl and thus, Steph is Oracle, Cass is Huntress, Helena is Black Bat, and Babs is Spoiler. which, makes canon ships like TimSteph and DickBabs a lot of fun. also you have a lot of curious things to explore by flipping Cass and Helena's moral codes under their vigilante titles. Cass as an outsider to the Batfam instead of being under Bruce and Babs' wings? could *really* force her to do unsavory things. and Helena with more support could be a bit softer around the edges. honestly, i could make a whole post about Reverse Batgirls too bc i think most RR AUs don't tend to address the women in it, which is terrible. gimme Oracle!Steph. and with Spoiler!Babs, if you play with Babs brother that rarely exists being the person she becomes Spoiler to stop, that could be super fun.

as for my favorite RR ships: i'm a suck for RR!TimDami. i think it's just bc of all ships, that one tends to play with the AU the most, in my experience? which is *so* fun bc Nightwing!Damian and Red Hood!Tim struggling to reconcile is everything. i devour every fick. i'm also particular to JayTim, just bc i think Jason as Robin seeing Red Hood!Tim would *immediately* be too interested for his own good as he copes with his anger of being replaced as Robin. but seriously any RR ship if the worldbuilding is done well will always draw me in. i just adore seeing how ppl explore filling in the logical loopholes and if backstories need to be adjusted or not and how personalities would naturally change in the situation. it's endlessly fascinating to me.

[thebestusernamepossible]

Literally going insane, might have to write fanfic for the first time in 2 years because the people™️ do not get my favorite female characters like I do and I feel the insurmountable urge to write her. I’m going to bite drywall why don’t ppl see her complexities. PLEASE STOP WRITING HER ETHIER AS DOMICILE MOM OR BITCH (or just for shipping) she is so so cool please guys please.

Also while I’m here, fandoms tendency to shove women in the ‘pure powerful goddess who can do no wrong’ box and then proceed to never give them an actual narrative role other than like ‘supportive’ or ‘took out a few background guys’. Like why DOES this incredibly badass and complex female character just get shunted into doinging some cool flips, getting praised about it (she’s the strongest fighter, so feminist wow) then never getting actnowleged as a 2 dimensional character.

I saw this a lot when I was in the Batman fandom, particularly with Cassandra Cain. She is a highly complex and interesting character, but in fandom she’s kind of shunted to ‘Badass therapy dog who takes care of the men’. Because even on the slight chance her backstory is brought up it’s always never delved into and mostly used to make her etheir more tragic and in need of support on a surface level or to let her be compassionate with the men characters who get their actual problems foucused on. It’s a unqiue kind of frustrating because it’s like almost letting the cool female character be cool, but it’s more like the idea of a badass women is shoved in your face, maybe joked about (or if we’re lucky she gets to beat up a few bad-guys), but ultimately treated like a cardboard cutout. Interestingly this actually isn’t entirely a female character thing, it’s also common with like old grandfather/grandmother characters and the elderly in general. But it’s usually badass women from what I see. :/ Why can’t fandom explore their stories (people do but why is it so much less), why can’t they be the prtags of cool AUs or time-travel fix-its, or crossover events

Idk I think I’m just frustrated, and I typed out more than I thought I would. Also Ive seen what happens to some other posts complaining about fandom misogyny, so please know if you’re a TERF, fuck off you have no place in this discussion. We will never agree, and frankly all of these points apply to canon Trans Women characters. Don’t say shit ill fucking end you.

[mamawasatesttube]

i have to speak my truth. i think timkon clone baby aus fucking suck

[roseworth]

comic convos with Comic Dudes are crazy bc we are reading these stupid picture books so differently. when we have a “who’s your favorite robin” convo and i say jason or steph and they say “tim because he’s the best one” i know we are looking for completely different things in these books

[deeply-unserious-fellow]

Me and my brother came up w/ this headcannon while joking around last night and I think it's neat so I'm posting it here: Steph from NPMD secretly really likes the Z-O-M-B-I-E-S franchise. They're her guilty pleasure movies :)

[cluescorner]

They fucking did it again those bastards. Jason Todd fucking dies 2: Electric Boogaloo. Fuck it, let's go for a threepeat at this point. It'll be funny as hell.

[welcometogrouchland]

Babygirl I can concieve of stephcass dynamics you couldn't even imagine (arospec Cass not understanding why "probably bi but has a job so she doesn't have time to think about that" Steph apparently needs a man (she doesn't, it would just be nice) and doesn't want to platonically settle down with cass in their old age)

[mischiefbuckley]

I want to see Eddie’s sisters on the show. I need to see this man who we have seen time and time again be an adoring and loving father to his son show us how protective and caring he is towards his sisters and especially with the dynamic of how they grew up with the parents they had as well like it would be very interesting to see say if there was an Eddie Begins Again/Eddie centric episode in season 8 to see how that plays into Eddie’s childhood and again the whole Mexican Catholic religious background he had growing up and how that’s affected his life time and time again from feeling forced into a marriage because he found out his girlfriend is pregnant and that was the right thing to do, but later signing up for the military because again he is the man of the house and is suppose to provide for his family, so he’s mirroring what he has seen growing up with his father never being present and always working.

When he does come back after the end of his first tour he’s met with medical debt in the form of his son Christopher being diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy, so again what does he do he signs up for another tour, so he is able to take care of the bills and make sure Shannon stays at home and takes care of Christopher because that’s the role his mom had when he was growing up, again mirroring his childhood experiences being that both him and Shannon were young parents and Eddie didn’t know any better. When he does come back after he’s awarded the silver star, he has trouble assimilating back to what his life is suppose to be. He’s suppose to be the supporting husband to his wife and kid and on top of still having his parents never thinking he is doing enough as the man of his own family now. When Shannon leaves him to go take care of her mom, his family immediately blames her for everything and tries to take advantage of the situation of Eddie being busy and trying to provide for his son by working 3 different jobs while also keep in mind already thinking of the future and he had been looking at other cities to move to because again he didn’t want his son being raised in the type of environment he was raised in. He got offers from Chicago and LA, but ultimately he ended up choosing LA and started his probationary year at the LAFD at station 118. And throughout his journey on the show we have seen him time and time again not only adjust to his new life now that’s he’s living in Los Angeles, but he has a positive support system around him including a new best friend who he can rely on and they have each others backs no matter what.

And when we get to season 5 where he’s going to therapy and talking about his past trauma and ptsd from being in the military and we see him be vulnerable and we see him as he has his mental breakdown after he finds out that the people he saved back in Afghanistan have all died, he’s at a lost for words and doesn’t know how to handle that pain so he completely loses it and the one person that comes to his rescue and supports him through everything is Buck. So it will be very interesting to see now with how season 8 pans out how they will tackle the whole catholic storyline if Eddie is going back to church now that he’s all alone and can’t really rely on his primary role of being a father because he’s son is away and for the first time in his life he is completely alone with all his emotions. It will again be very interesting to see what different storylines they have planned out for him, but even with the interview today that was released where Tim mentions that he’s even isolated in a sense from Buck with him being in a relationship and his time outside of work being limited on when they can hangout and it sounded like Eddie would be third wheeling so it will be something to watch with everything else he has going on if they are going down with the catholic guilt storyline with him coming to terms with his sexuality

[weaverofink]

stephanie brown aka my favorite cringefail bisexual

[onlycleverinmyhead]

Batkids’ backstories (in like, a sentence)

I just needed to write this down to organize my brain:

Was raised by a criminal father and a mother with an addiction: Jason Todd, Stephanie Brown.

Had a loving family who’s destruction led to them becoming a crime fighter: Dick Grayson, Duke Tomas.

No tragic backstory, he just decided to make batman his charity case: Tim Drake.

Was literally raised by assassins: Cassandra Cain, Damian Wayne.

[secretlystephaniebrown]

I miss 1987 comics. It felt like things had substance over production value.

[cleromancy]

i absolutely do not vibe at all with any red hood steph concept ive ever seen because fucking nobody engages with it in any depth its just 🤔🤔 steph is basically the same as jason right? people who dont like jason online say so so it must be true~

like i need you first of all to walk back several steps and understand two major things about utrh and stephanie brown here. the first is that steph got into crime fighting in the first place bc she wanted to ~spoil~ the crimes of her c-list supervillain father. the second is that the core of the tragedy of the red hood is that batman is supposed to be his fucking dad.

so if you do want to do a red hood stephie concept here which. to be clear is not something i am INHERENTLY opposed to. you have a couple options to make it potentially coherent but you need to actually be deliberate and clear about what youre trying to do with that concept. you need to step away from jasons tragedy and look at hers and figure out where exactly her anger and hurt are coming from and who exactly theyre directed at, as well as what specifically in your au concept it would be so different than the canon one where when she comes back she wants to do pretty much the opposite of what jason wanted when *he* came back.

and. crucially. if the difference is the relationship she has to bruce being different you actually do need to show not tell that dude. im sorry but if you just *tell* me that in your universe that steph has a more deep and meaningful relationship to bruce i 100% always am like "ill believe it when i fucking see it". like, she has parents of her own and while that doesnt preclude having a more signficant relationship with bruce (see: timmy)... you really do have to do the legwork or it looks like youre just writing them out and asking us to take your word for it that Of Course steph wants bruce to adopt her, hes batman! gag, retch, spew. do notdo this.

FRANKLY in a reverse robins concept i vibe way more with steph as red robin than anything specifically her getting the dumpster costume from whoever you do put in the red hood role. (frankly x2 i still think if they really truly had to do the storyline they did in canon where shes still trying to do bruces dirty work for him and hires assassins to kill tim to ~make him better~ lmao she should have been the one who wore the Bad Robin uniform before tim got it instead of fuckin ulysses i just think it would have been more coherent and also funner for me personally)

anyway if you link me a red hood steph concept here and it sucks or does any of the things i Just finished critiquing i will be very irritated and i will not be polite to you about it. just as a fair warning.

[starlooove]

I hate when side characters get more attention that main characters in batfam specifically when it’s vs poc like it’s so sick how dukes place is constantly questioned by like. Anarchy fans or whatever or cass is consistently mischaracterized by ppl who go the extra mile to get Helena’s backstory straight - not to say these characters suck or whatever like I enjoy them but the double standards is crazy and until it’s fixed a part of me just cant love ppl like Harper row - what? How do I feel about Terry McGinnis? Well. Uhm. Well. UR DODGING THE FUCKING POINT