#stephanie talks fandom

[klarolinedrabbles]

I have noticed a lot of arya stans had to leave tumblr and abandon their fics or just dont find joy in this fandom anymore and i wonder if it is because of all the hate arya receives everyday from a certain fandom that is jealous and petty arya is better than their boring fav. its exhausting having to read all that hate and try to defend what is canon in the books just to fall on deaf ears

I have to say that's not the way I see our fandom tbh. It's very much the same as it's usually been. In my experience, of course.

[welcometogrouchland]

Disgustingly messy and crusty sketch dump but I couldn't get my own terrible theory out of my head and ended up making a bunch of sketches about it. Also at the end a bonus dickbats and Damian doodle bc I was reading an issue of their Batman and Robin run (IDs in Alt)

[alliumbunny]

my favorite types of Robin(any) art is when they draw one of them as the TINYIST little thing <3

oh dick starts being robin at 9? ya well were drawing him like he's 4 and he's adorable

Oh jason started at 12(i think??) haha lets make him a baby :)

tim is 13(?) when he starts! MAKE HIM 6!!!!

Steph was robin... I don't actually know the age? like 14-17? i've seen different ages and idk which ones are true. LETS MAKE HER 10!!!

Damian is like 9, when he starts(i think?) MAKE. HIM. 2.

I think it's adorable

less when they make them act that young, but it is funny so.. idc :3

[finemealprompt]

DP x DC Prompt #63

Steph has incidentally amassed a large number of followers with her memes. She didn’t expect anyone to follow her, especially when she started off by making memes for such a niche fandom. 

But, hey, she’s made several friends through this meme account (incidentally). Her best online friend, though, is this guy who lives in nowhere Illinois (according to him). She only starts to get a little worried when it’s been a whole week of silence from him.

[mzminola]

Bruce sets up an elaborate mindfuck for Tim's birthday in an attempt to make Tim less trusting of even allies, giving him a mental breakdown. Bruce claims this will make Tim a better vigilante.

Tim, upon figuring it out, throws his Robin uniform literally in Bruce's face, cussing him out (like, actually censored swears, which Tim usually doesn't use), and quits. He talks with Steph about how messed up it was, and she empathizes out of her own messed up experiences with Bruce.

An unclear but short time later, probably a few days, Tim un-quits and states to Bruce that he doesn't expect an apology (not because it's unnecessary, but because he knows Bruce).

~

Stephanie returns from presumed death, finds Bruce, and accepts his orders to not reveal herself to everyone else & to take extreme actions to, once again in Bruce's estimate, make Tim a better vigilante.

This includes running around town in her original costume so Tim thinks his dead friend has a copycat, hiring people to attack him, working with a bomber, and even after knocking all that off, not sharing pertinent information about it with Tim, resulting in Tim being caught in an explosion.

Tim yells at Stephanie and says "Don't let me catch you wearing [the Spoiler] costume ever again." When she tracks him down a little later, he refuses to speak with her.

An unclear amount of time later, probably a few months, Tim is willing to work with Stephanie to stop a supervillain plot.

~

Some fans treat Tim's word-choice in the confrontation with Steph as him trying to control her. As him thinking he's got the authority to decide who can and cannot operate as a vigilante, at least in Gotham.

But. Like. One, aside from this one conversation, he takes no actions to stop her. He doesn't steal her gear (like Bruce sometimes steals people's uniform), he doesn't go and tell other people to stop working with her, he doesn't even go snitch to her mom.

Tim just. Tells the friend who got him very badly hurt while mindfucking him that he doesn't want to see her in the field again.

Two, it's a pretty dang similar response to when Bruce mindfucked him in the first example. Tim is the one who insists Batman needs a Robin. And here he is depriving Batman of Robin.

Yet if I tried to claim "Tim quitting Robin is his attempt to control Batman, is Tim acting like he has authority to stop Bruce from being a vigilante" you'd laugh in my face. Because that is a huge leap to make, with convoluted logic, and isn't supported by the rest of the text.

Bruce & Stephanie both screw Tim up really badly.

He confronts them and says he's breaking ties.

Then after a little distance, he goes right back to working with them.

And some people think this is...controlling? Don't get me wrong, Tim has some controlling tendencies, they all do, but it's usually teaming up with Alfred to stop Bruce patrolling while injured, and lying his ass off to everyone so he can do what he wants.

This? Is not that.

[that-asian-child-of-aphrodite]

Stephanie walks into the woods, and sits on a rock, as tears start to fall down her face. She hugs her knees to her chest and stays there.

[cowboymater]

none of the batboys are "woman-coded" or undergo the "female experience" bc you motherfuckers actually talk about them instead of stripping their backstory for parts and slapping them onto your special guy so that the 839584th whump fic on his ao3 tag can have some extra kick

[pinazee]

Two small hatchetfield HC’s, paulkins and Steph and Richie :)

On their third date, emma noticed paul said okay a lot. Just to see what would happen, she started saying okay back to him every time he did throughout the date. it reached its peak at dinner when they said okay back and forth to each other 7 times before paul picked up on what she was doing and she explained she was fucking with him. He blushed in embarrassment but she explained she just thought it was amusing and kind of adorable which made him blush more. From then on saying okay to each other was like an inside joke.

Richie and Steph both secretly watch a kids show called The Little Lion. Well, its a secret for Steph. Richie has stickers everywhere and a keychain of a little lion on his backpack. When Steph saw it she dragged him across the school without a word until they were alone (richie thought she was going to assassinate him or something by how intense she was).

She got close to his face and said threateningly, “im about to tell you something that you can never repeat to anyone, anyone, including ruth, do you understand?”

Richie cowered and nodded.

Steph reached into her backpack and pulled out a little plush of one of the characters. Richie was confused for a second, looking between the plush and her until it dawned on him.

“No!”

Steph nods.

“You’re a-“

“Part of the pride? Yeah.” Steph looked away embarrassed, even though she knew he was in it too, but then Richie dived into all his favorite fan theories and now every wednesday after school they’re either at each other’s house watching it or texting each other.

[franollie]

one day yall will understand that she would h a t e him

[quadrantadvisor]

What if I scripted Stephanie Meyer's "The Host" into a TV show, and I kept all the rad as fuck sci-fi concepts and the messaging about human love and resilience, but I removed all the nasty bioessentialism and openly advocating for teen girls to date adult men. What then?

Probably would keep the focus on Wanda and Melanie's relationship, rather than the love square/jealousy plot. I never liked how after Melanie started "fading" in the book she basically became a nothing character. Also the way she completely lost all sense of self and/or rationality whenever her dude was around was uh. Dumb.

Also the cast of the human survivors are so potentially interesting, but we never spend any time with them. They could have sub-plots! We could get to know them! The funeral scene of that one guy would be way more emotionally effective if he like. Actually had a character before dying.

We're keeping all the alien species as they were described, like the telepathic underwater plants, or the polar bears with hand blades, or the bats who communicate entirely by singing. Also benevolent parasitic communism. That's good as is.

But yeah every scene with Jared or Ian needs to be at least slightly reworked, so we can get them to the level of "flawed yet compelling" instead of "irredeemable assholes". And we're aging Melanie up a few years, that's going to solve a lot of our problems from the get go.

Uncle Jeb and Jamie are mostly good, they can stay. And the basic plotline of the human characters being rightfully terrified of Wanderer because of what her species has done to the human race, but as a result mistreating her, since there's no way for her to adequately communicate she's not a threat to them, and then slowly learning to accept and to trust. Honestly that slaps. I love when characters get the shit beat out of them because of Circumstances. I love when people who think that they have to be enemies, because they have every reason to be, because not only are they on opposing sides but they have actively harmed one another already, decide to become family instead. Favorite storyline, has the same vibes as that one ATLA fanfic where Zuko's taken captive on a water tribe ship, y'all know what I'm talking about [you likely do not know what I am talking about].

Basically The Host would be one of my favorite books ever if it didn't suck so bad. Also no one ever cared about the movie adaptation. A TV show could be so kickass. Thank you for attending my ted talk.

[laufire]

I posted a bunch of prompts for the three sentences ficathon in dreamwidth; all of them about the DCU, because it's how I roll these days lol. Here's the list, in case anyone wants to leave me something 👀

DC comics, Diana Prince, restoration. 

DC comics, Dick Grayson, family. 

DC comics, Donna Troy, identity issues. 

DC comics, Jason Todd, Robin. 

DC comics, Kara Zor-el, homesick. 

DC comics, Talia al Ghul, tragedy. 

DC comics, Stephanie Brown, vindication. 

DC comics, Barbara & Cass, projecting on others. 

DC comics, Bruce/Talia, anything with the “son of the demon” storyline. 

DC comics, Dick/Helena Bertinelli, secret identity. 

DC comics, Jason & Talia, reunion. 

DC comics, Jason & any bat, alliance. 

Young Justice, Dick/Zatanna, second chances. 

I'll be looking at the ones left by other people now, see if I get some inspiration ^-^

[soleminisanction]

There are very few ""headcanons"" out there that get a bigger side-eye from me than people who try to make Stephanie Brown into a Black girl.

Firstly because that is not a headcanon. That's just a whole-ass retcon created out of thin air. A headcanon would be saying she's a natural redhead like how Morgan Kohan played her on Batwoman, or that she's mixed-race because of the curly way some artist draw her hair. There's definitely flexibility in race interpretations for comics but looking at the blue-eyed blonde-hair white girl and declaring her "actually Black" is not one of them.

Secondly, because I have seen (and sometimes gotten) a lot of harassment from Steph fans aimed specifically at Tim's actual, canon Black love interests and teammates. I still seethe at the memory of this one CBR interview I read back when YJ2019 was running, where Brian Michael Bendis and David F. Walker were clearly there to talk up Naomi and Teen Lantern, and in the middle of their heart-felt conversation about the importance of representation for young Black girls, the interviewer butted in to interject, "But you know who I want to see more of?? Stephanie!!!" This going on while Steph fans on Twitter were going on racist tirades because the book dared to highlight the history of Teen Lantern, a character who was actually advertised to be a part of the book and a new member of the team, instead of giving them more of their white-blonde fav who had never been affiliated with YJ and was never part of the advertising.

Thirdly, she was created and so often written by Chuck Dixon, a blatant racist, and as a result there are so many little scenes of her that have uncomfortable racial elements to them. Like the one where he created a pair of Black girls just so Stephanie could call them "raging morons" to their faces and then later talk about how stupid and immature they are compared to her. (Which I am still convinced was Dixon directly criticizing the much better teen pregnancy subplot from Icon & Rocket). Or the borderline-blackface white savior ""demon"" where she wears a dead gnu and maybe accidentally calls herself a bitch in Swahili. (Disclaimer: I do not speak Swahili, and thus do not know how a sentence structure that should read "I am thorn" turns into "I'm a bitch" or "I'm crazy," but I checked that translation with three different robo-translators and got the same results so, shrug.)

And finally -- god, Steph is just, such a walking avatar of white women's privilege. Her entire thing is demanding that she get her way, never letting anyone tell her no, and still being treated by the narrative as a pure-hearted ""beacon of hope"" that everybody needs to protect and nurture at all times.

The inciting incident of War Games can be boiled down to, "A white girl got told no, and made it everybody else's problem." The first attempted Black member of the Batfamly fucking died during that event and got almost entirely forgotten because people only went to bat for the white girl who caused the whole mess and the white woman who got character assassinated to kill her off.

If Stephanie were Black, she wouldn't exist anymore. Fuck, if she were a brunette or just as butch as Carrie Kelly, she probably wouldn't exist anymore. She certainly wouldn't be Batgirl, I can't imagine Dan Didio replacing Cass with another woman of color.

And it's not even just her? Her father is also a very white character. It is incredibly easy to summarize Arthur Brown as a mediocre white man lashing out at the world for not handing him the success he felt entitled to. Take that petulant entitlement away from him and you lose his entire character.

I'm ranting about it on my own blog instead of picking a fight because everybody's entitled to their own fandom experience and blah blah, but this is just. Yeah. Ugh.

[mariathechosen1]

I hate all those posts that are like “Stephanie Brown is the well adjusted one! She’s got her shit together! She’s the normal one! In contrary to the rest of the batfam she’s-“

When she thought Tim had cheated on her, she broke into the batcave, demanded Bruce make her Robin, trained rigorously with Bruce for months, then got fired a few months later because she was too chaotic.

She’s an absolute bastard and I love her

[velvetbunniie-archive]

the reason evangeline survived jacks’s kiss is because she’s a lesbian w an insane comphet crush atm, thus making her immune bc she’ll “never truly love him” (‘cause she’s, you know, 0% attracted to men), and in a month, she’s going to come out of the closet and they’re going to have an immensely awkward breakup. aaaaand send post.

[starlooove]

Listen racists are gonna racist especially when the unconventional new storylines they want are given to black characters instead of their already established white fave; however Stephs Robin era is too close to Tim’s for dudebros to ignore it and too close to fanon tim for y’all to ignore it like. For Duke y’all say he’s too new or whatever but there is literally no excuse for the way steph and cass are treated in this fandom except internalized misogyny. Like especially with tim being a fan favorite and their stories being so intertwined with his at times, on that note where the fuck is Helena?

[parsimonius]

I think it’s a half n half situation here, because like it’s fun to write about and think about in theory if you’re thinking in Bruce’s POV, but in Jason’s… I like the idea of it just making his emotions and physical body stronger. He still is in charge, but it emboldens his moves. He’s an emotional character, and it’s a cool writing device to use, and in the comics Jason is written very wishy-washy because everyone has their own thoughts on his character.

It just depends I think on how writers wish to write him. That’s what’s fun about fanfic!! It doesn’t have to be canon and you can breath life into characters however you chose. So people who write him ruled by the Lazarus and those who don’t, and some in the middle, they are all technically right! That’s what’s fun about writing 🫶 I’ve written Jason in every kind of way because that’s what writing is about! Experimenting with characters until you understand them the best way for you!

And although some will never read the comics, and some will make up..unique headcanons no matter how annoying some may be, it’s all in fun! Unless you are actively hurting people I think it’s okay to have your own idea on characters yknow? I do admit that sometimes I read something so widely out of canon it makes me go “oh!” But even then, I just move on. Some writings are just not for me. And that’s okay!!

I’m confused by people in the Batman fandom saying pit madness isn’t real. In ‘Red Hood - Lost Days,’ Ra’s al-Ghul not only talks about the pit possibly driving Jason Todd mad, he says it might take decades before it’s out of his system.