#tim doesn't think it's him but he figures if it's gonna be a total shock then it might be him

[magicofrobin]

jason will admit to having a favourite sister (barbara) but he will not admit to having a favourite brother. that does not stop his brothers from trying to guess who it is.

[kit04kat]

Ranking the batfamily most to least likely to become a supervillian. (Plus all my ramblings about why I put who where [disclaimer, i have not read the comics due to me not having that kind of money]) I started thinking about this while reading a fanfiction where Dick, Jason and Tim were taken in by villians instead of Batman and it got me thinking. Anyways, let's get to the rankings.

1: Tim Drake. Starting off strong with our resident boy-genius with stalker tendencies. This may shock some of you, but I look at this human disaster and see a plethora of supervillian potential. You take away this man's adult supervision and the world may never be the same. What was happening with the league of assassins? And the fact that he tried to clone his best friend out of grief? Also I feel like we all skimmed over the fake uncle shenanigans too quickly. I once saw someone say something like Tim's moral code is copy-pasted off a house rules sticky note on the fridge and I agree.

2: Jason Todd. Seriously, we all saw this coming. Now, you might ask me, "but Kat, why is Jason at number 2? Didn't Red Hood already do the villian thing?" And to that I say, Ha! I am ranking them on supervillianiousness(???) Jason had his whole revenge plot and crime lord thing in Gotham but after that was done, he kinda settled out a little bit. So no, I don't think Jason has ever been a supervillian, just a villian, and after that he was more like an antihero/vigilante. That being said, I don't think he is incapable of being a supervillian, which is why he is number 2.

3: Stephanie Brown. Ok, I'm gonna be honest, I was really wavering on the order of the people in the middle. Also, I'm not gonna claim to know a whole lot about the adventures Steph has been through. That being said, I feel like she is just a tad bit more unhinged than the rest of the people in the middle, and therefore more likely to go insane. And if she had the proper motivation, she could totally be a badass supervillian. (Kind of reminds me of Jason in that way)

4: Damian Wayne. Alright, here's the thing. A lot of Damian's character development has been about him overcoming his heritage and learning that the things he learned with the league of assassins were bad. That being said, I don't think he will ever leave behind those ideologies as thoroughly as Cass and Bruce did. I think he sees the world in a lot more shades of grey than they ever will, and because of that, I've decided to put him forth on our list.

5: Barbara Gordon. I'm putting Oracle right smack dab in the middle. Not because I couldn't figure out where to put her, but because that's where she belongs. Listen, do I think she would ever become a supervillian? No, not really. However, if for some reason she had to become a supervillian, she'd be able to do it. If she ever turned to the dark side, it would be completely thought out. Calculated. And my girl doesn't do anything half-assed.

6: Duke Thomas. Now, Imma be honest, I don't know a whole lot about Duke, and I didn't really know where the best place to put his would be on this lineup. I put him in 6th cause I don't think he'd turn into a supervillian but he's more likely than the last three. He probably deserves to go further up the list, but oh well.

7: Bruce Wayne. I know some people will probably say he should be further up the list, but here is my reasoning. Batman's whole kinda thing is that he's always toeing the line. He's doesn't kill because he knows he wouldn't be able to stop. He is Darkness, Vengeance, the night, all that stuff. (It's why Batman needs a Robin) If he broke, he'd be broken. I don't think he'd be able to come back from that (I also disagree with myself a bit, cause there's no way his kill count is 0. I mean, he's been beating people up at night instead of therapy for decades) Anyways, that being said, man is stubborn and has been doing this vigilante stuff for a longggg time. I simply don't think he's gonna turn.

8: Dick Grayson. We are getting towards the bottom of the list here, to the people I think are least likely to become a supervillian. Dick has been through so much. With Renegade, Red X, Spiral, whatever was up with Ric, he took up the cowel and became Batman when Bruce was gone (which is something he never wanted to do), he's had so many of his friends die, family die, and that's not even all! He's been through a lot, but he's also the light to batman's dark. He's been through all that and still chooses to be good. There's no way he's ever becoming a supervillian (even if it is a very interesting plot in fanfiction)

9: Cassandra Cain. Last but certainly not least, Cass. I personally think she is the least likely to become a supervillian. She was raised as a weapon and taught to kill, but she has completely overcome that. She won't kill at all, much like Bruce, but she's also more emotionally sound. Her morals are strict, and she doesn't have to fight with herself to keep them. I love her so much, truly one of the best of us.

I'm gonna put Alfred as a honorable mention. He doesn't get to go on the list cause honestly, if he ever became a villian, it's over. He's have the world in his clutches before the week is over. Gotta respect him for having the patience of a saint.

This was so long! Anyways, feel free to add to this or tell me how you would rank them differently!!

[notsogreatpotoo]

up for ranting about more of your ocs?

hi! sorry this ask took me a bit, friend, i've got an exam today and i was studying lol

but i am absolutely up for it & i made a new one the other day :]

lee edwards is now a stand in for tim drake's fake uncle. basically at one point tim invents a fake uncle complete with documents and hires an actor to pose as 'eddie drake' so he won't get adopted by batman after jack drake dies. in canon i think the actor is named richard beren(?) and doesn't get involved in tim's life but i wanted to say no to that. lee edwards is a background actor bc he is pretty good at not looking directly into camera and looking like a generic dude, and generally his luck is slightly above average for gotham. until the story starts and his apartment complex burns down. oops. at least i gave him an emergency duffle. no casualties, i promise.

lee has his neighbors, and coworkers, etc, but he's not super attached to anyone bc he's been kind of drifting along for awhile. then after the fire, robin (tim) says he knows someone who has lee on their hiring list and gives lee their number. (cough cough, tim's a stalker and has been considering him for the position for a bit and while he was gonna do someone more shady so they wouldn't question why tim needs a fake uncle and wouldn't care about what he's doing, he starts to like the guy after he calls and he also has hardly any self-preservation.) lee ends up disturbed that this kid is so intent on being alone but he kind of understands because he was also neglected as a kid (not to the extent that tim was, but he also ended up completely cutting away from his parents bc he transitioned and they wouldn't respect him, so we're not comparing hurt here) and he knows what it's like to need to rely on yourself bc relying on someone else gets you hurt (can you tell i'm projecting lol). so lee immediately decides 'cool, imma help this child as much as possible' and moves into the drake manor. (in a little bit he realizes he just illegally adopted a child for money and freaks out a bit internally bc that totally sounds like he's a kidnapper but he gets over it.) tim is immediately kind of shocked at how nice lee is to him / how involved he is in his life. lee and bruce are both super great to each other and super angsty in their own heads about how the other is obviously a better parent than them. lee ends up finding about robin bc he keeps seeing tim come home with injuries and thinks he's being bullied at school; he talks to bruce about it and realizes that bruce is being way too dismissive about it for how much he cares and starts watching closer, realizing that tim's getting hurt overnight when he comes out for breakfast with bandaids on his hand that he did not have the night before. he knows that something's up but he doesn't discover tim's identity until the kid patrols while sick and returns to the house delirious enough that he doesn't take his robin costume off before flopping into bed, and lee goes to get him bc he knows the kid's been under the weather and he wants to know if tim's going to school today.

lee's a trans guy and he's been stealth for a bit, so imma have him and tim kinda clash with each other over privacy bc i can and bc tim's a little stalker, not a little angel. i love him so much and he's very flawed. lee agrees with me. lee does not actually get outed bc i don't wanna write that but he does eventually come out on his own to tim which puts their discussions about privacy in a new light. tim also gets to realize that when it comes to family, information offered rather than taken feels better to know.

on a less serious note, lee is a good baker and a decent cook, he knows nothing about actually doing photography but absolutely loves tim's pictures, and he has a grudge against batman / the city for child endangerment, which makes tim and bruce nervous literally every time he brings it up.

imma figure out more stuff to add and how im gonna do it later bc i like this concept a lot :] but i have a meeting and a class and an exam :[

thank you for the ask friend sard!!!

[lyinginahammock]

Rewriting Young Justice Season 3, Part 1

I love Young Justice. It's probably one of my favorite animated series of all time. But even I'll admit that it has problems. So, as an exercise in creativity, I'm going to rewrite the series from where I think it went wrong - Season 3. We'll be doing chunks of a few episodes a piece, with a total less than the 26 we have for the sake of focus.

Specifically, I'm going to tighten up the story and refocus it in three ways:

Take out the Judas Contract elements. It's a storyline that's only ever worked (in the animated medium) in Teen Titans.

Shift the focus to the Batman Inc. stuff that's happening in the background, and introduce a character that's been hinted at for two seasons, and

Focus on the new Kid Flash's struggles with living up to the OG Kif Flash.

Let's get it started with the first three episodes.

Episode 1 - Back in the Game

We open in some major city in Europe approximately a year after the end of season 2. Haley's Circus is in town, and Dick Grayson is performing as Daring Dan Danger. He's been retired from heroing following the death of Wally West, and has dropped off the face of the Earth, as far as the rest of the superhero community is concerned. It's clear that he's found some solace on this sabbatical.

Following his performance, he returns to his trailer only to find Bruce Wayne waiting for him. Bruce reveals that he's known Dick has been with Haley's Circus all along - after all, it's where he grew up, but Batman has been running interference for him, keeping his location hidden out of respect for Dick's privacy, but that's over now. Batman needs his help, needs both Dick Grayson and Nightwing. He's about to do something big, and he needs his most trusted lieutenant at his side. Dick agrees.

Cut to Central City. Bart Allen, the new Kid Flash, is sitting with Artemis and Will Harper. Bart is having an identity crisis and doesn't know if he's living up to the mantle bestowed upon him - after all, Wally was a founding member of The Team, a legend in the superhero community. They assure him he is. He leaves, grateful for the support.

Next, we cut to the island of the League of Shadows. Ra's al Ghul stands watching a Helmeted Figure spar with three members of the League of Shadows who remained after he retired. The Helmeted Figure holds his own against the trio, two of whom are armed with familiar weapons (eskrima sticks and a bo staff) and the third fights bare-handed.

Cut to the Batcave. Batman Inc. (in this iteration, Batman, Nightwing, Oracle, Robin, Batwoman and Orphan) all stand in a circle. Batman exposits his plan for fighting the Light at their own game - they're gonna run counterops against the Light's more clandestine operations, and they'll sever ties with the Team and the Justice League in order to keep the reputations of those groups clean.

Episode 2 - Splintered

We open on the Watchtower. Batman Inc. are all their, excluding Nightwing. At a meeting called by Batman, they all resign their memberships to their respective groups. We focus on two particular interactions - Batman and the senior League members and Cassie Sandsmark (Wondergirl) and Tim Drake (Robin). The later is an interaction alluded to but never shown on-camera, and in this version, it's the start of a plot thread we'll get to later.

This news rocks everyone on both superhero groups. Robin had been the nominal field commander of the Team following Nightwing's departure, and Batman was a founding member of the Justice League.

Cut to the farm that Connor (Superboy) and M'gann (Miss Martian) own. The two of them sit with Jaime Reyes (Blue Beetle), Bart Allen, and Cassie Sandsmark, Tim Drake's contemporaries on The Team. They're still in shock - this is unlike Tim. Tim's fellow Team members vow to find out what's going on, why Tim did this, and set off to start their investigation. After they leave, Connor laments that Dick Grayson isn't there - he could've talked some sense into Tim Drake.

Cut to some fictional European country. Tim Drake and Dick Grayson are in a warehouse busting a metahuman trafficking ring. Tim is obviously off his game, almost getting got multiple times, only to be saved by Nightwing. Once the bad guys are finished, Tim confides in Dick that he regrets breaking up with Cassie (whom he's been in a steady relationship with for a year) and that he misses her and his friends. Dick tries to console him, and they free the metahumans (one of whom is Halo, but the metahumans aren't the focus of the season). Tim heads back to the Batcave, and Dick says he has to drop these kids off somewhere safe, opening a boomtube. He guides the metahumans through it, and the episode ends.

Episode 3 - Old Friends

We open some distance from the farm from last episode. The boomtube opens and Dick steps out. His plan is to just leave the kids there for his friends to deal with, but as he starts to leave, he's confronted by Miss Martian and Superboy, who are shocked to see him. He jokingly asks if he wasn't stealthy enough, and Miss Martian reveals that it was his mental signature that alerted her - she could pick his mind out of a crowd any day, so feeling it in such a small group was so easy she didn't have to try.

They take him back to their house and ask him if he's heard what's going on, that Batman and co. have severed ties with the rest of the superhero community. Dick confirms he has, and says that he's part of Batman's team. Stunned by this revelation, Superboy and Miss Martian don't even try to stop him.

Cut to the following night. Nightwing is in Bludhaven on a rooftop, surveying the city. As he sits on the rooftop, the Ship decloaks, and out step the remaining members of the Team from Season One, along with Red Arrow. They confront him about joining Batman's team and how he didn't even say "hello" to them before severing ties with them. The scene is reminiscent of the confrontation and intervention had for Will Harper in season two. They try to get him to tell them what Batman is planning but he refuses to, saying that he's only coming out of retirement for because he owes Batman too much not to answer the call.

Cut to Gotham, where a similar scene unfolds with Tim Drake and Cassie, Bart, and Jaime. The emotions are much more raw and on display, showing that they lack the emotional maturity of their older counterparts. The confrontation almost comes to blows, the only person not gearing up for combat being Jaime Reyes. We get a brief mental dialogue between Jaime and the Scarab, and we find out that the Scarab has read Jaime's endorphins and body chemistry and has made the decision not to fight Time Drake as Jaime isn't acting rationally, and using the Scarab's weaponry could result in their (Jaime and the Scarab's) friends getting hurt. Jaime instead tries to talk everyone else down, and Tim escapes the confrontation, clearly emotionally conflicted. Cassie and Bart ask why Jaime didn't try to help them fight, and he relays the Scarab's reasoning.

The episode ends back on Ra's Island, with the Masked Figure once again fight the three aforementioned enemies, defeating them with somewhat more ease.

Next time, we'll do another three episodes as Dick and Tim's friends attempt to uncover the Batfamily's plans and Ra's al Ghul unleashes his most deadly soldier.

[thatblondeperson]

So another reason I see people degrading Steph for or hating on her for comes from the way that fans seem to hypersexualize her or slut shame her which is so great to see in the glorious year of 2020...thought we were past this, y'all. It's a very bizzare thing too because it's so out of touch with reality.

For starters I've seen a lot of people shame Steph for getting pregnant in the first place. As if it's solely her fault. (Another trend, just blame everything bad on Steph regardless of how many other people are involved... 😒) As if Steph wasn't in an incredibly unhealthy relationship with a guy who was clearly in his early 20s. I don't think they ever explicitly mention Dean's age, but he does not look like a teen. And given the way we see he treats Steph, I'd wager that the pregnancy was more his fault.

He just seems like the...irresponsible type.

But sliding pat the fact that it's totally never ok to shame a young girl for getting pregnant, I'm gonna discuss the more frequent negativity which seems to be even more out of touch with what's even happening in the comics.

A lot of people rag on Steph for her excessive flirting, and her tendency to try and pressure or push Tim past his comfort zone. In all honesty this is just completely rooted from a self-projection perspective. While Steph does flirt pretty heavily in the beginning, it's done still in a lighthearted manner. She's 15 after all, and doesn't know how to get this boy's attention properly. The relation she's been in and the ones she's seen growing up weren't healthy, and definitely showcased leaning in favor of the men. Stephanie was probably taught that the best way to get a boy's attention was to act flirty and persistent. Men like that right??

And as OP mentioned, Steph wasn't even INTERESTED until Tim kissed HER!! Teasing aside, she knew he had a gf, but that changed when Tim kissed her. She figured that meant he liked her and she developed a crush.

How Steph gets blamed for coming on too strong when TIM FUCKING STARTED IT is beyond me. Hey look, Steph getting blamed for everything again trend.

I had a few friend who went so far as to say that Steph's actions were on par with sexual harassment and this is another common trend. Which, ok, I at least see mildly where people are coming from, but this also comes into that self-projection I was mentioning.

A lot of fans like to project this image of naivety and a babyish nature to Tim. Since he's so tiny, and just the goodest of boys, he couldn't possibly ever want anything to do with sex! Ew, icky! Can't damage the boy virgin, he must remain pure and perfect!!

There's talk that Tim was absolutely mortified when Ari tried to seduce him, but in all reality he was very respectful and even told her he WANTED to take that step, but just wasn't ready. So this idea that Tim is terrified of sex and boobies and hates anything to do with it, is just incorrect. Was Tim surprised/shocked? Yes, but he handled it maturely and respectfully because he loved Ari.

So when people bring up this panel about how naive Tim is cuz he thought holding hands was how you made a baby...like seriously?

He makes no mention of that. It's clearly just Steph trying to lighten the mood a bit. Tim's not this innocent baby who thinks he knocked his gf up, he knows how babies are made.

This is a common thing from Steph, that type of lighthearted teasing that she does and part of me thinks it comes from a place of her just constantly trying to cushion all the blows that she keeps receiving in life. Much like other depressed or pessimistic characters in media, Steph is sarcastic and snarky. Joking and teasing her way through a lot of things which I think is more a reflection tactic than anything. It's not inherently mean either. I don't know who needs to hear this but lighthearted teasing between friends, and poking fun at each other is normal. Those are typically your best friends as they are likely the most honest and straightforward with you when you need them to be. The most I see Tim protest this is with a mildly annoyed "Steph...". I don't know where fans started perpetuating this idea that Tim despised being teased or that he hated how mean Steph was to him...I think it's still that self-projection, MUST PROTECT BABY mentality with Tim...

I'm not gonna lie and say that Tim adored it every second, but he teased Steph a fair amount back. The one that always comes to mind is where he tricks Steph into thinking he fell and then ends up holding her upside down off a building...now I know she was safe but I would consider that alone as a lot meaner than any of Steph's teasing.

As far as the assumption that Steph only wants to fuck Robin...jeezus...I mean she genuinely cared for him and aside from maybe a couple vague advances, at no point does she ever excessively try to pressure Tim into having sex. Steph imo is just as hesitant as Tim is in that area. Initially in the beginning she seems more open, but she simmers down quickly because she realizes she doesn't need to do anything like that to convince Tim to stay around. Her mother was likely sexually abused by her father, Steph experienced sexual harassment, and Dean clearly took advantage of her in some way or another and dropped her once she became undesirable...Tim stuck around, he saw Steph's worth as a person which was new for her.

Early instances like this to me are a fluke thing as things like this did not come up again. This is really the most forceful Steph ever was with Tim. She made a move that he clearly wasn't reciprocating. Given any of their other encounters together, I don't think anything serious would have happened had this scene not been interrupted. Tim would have stated that he wasn't interested, maybe gotten mildly condescending, and Steph would have snapped at him and they would have moved on.

There are of course the other mild instances where Steph makes a barely even mild sexual comment, or issues where she doesn't seem to have a lot of shyness around Tim...but I would call neither of these anything to lose sleep over.

I mean at best the panel above shows the vaguest innuendo I've ever seen in my life, and it's not even an innuendo. It is before they were official though, and Steph might have been a bit forward, but in a very flirtatious, teasy way. Not in an "I MUST ENTRAP AND CORRUPT THIS BOY" way.

Even this panel ^ which was always described to me as Steph asking Tim to watch her change...which she doesn't. She simply invites him in and he declines. It's not this big deal it seems to frequently be described as.

Steph definitely has her flaws, and coming on as strong as she did with Tim is a vague flaw. She's 15, I'm not gonna chastise her for not knowing how to properly handle a crush, especially since she mellowed out fairly quickly once she and Tim were dating, and she realized she didn't have to flaunt herself in the way she thought she had to to get his attention.

The closest she ever gets to asking him to bang is the above panel where she's on top of him, and it's such a halfassed attempt if it IS a legit one. Past that, they never really talk about sex. At no point do that have any moment similar to Tim's with Ari. Steph doesn't pressure him, and he doesn't pressure her. She never complains that she can't "bang" him, and neither of their self worth of each other is rooted in whether or not they can "bang". The idea that Steph is only interested in Tim if she can fuck him is just such a blatantly wrong and out of touch perspective of their relationship that it's almost laughable.

The next closest they get is maybe 1 horny inner thought from Tim in RR, and then in convergence when they actually make plans to sleep together at the end of the world, but end up happily cuddling instead.

Steph is not this hypersexual slut that antis try to make her out to be, and anyone who wants to slutshame her can go through me.

I'm sure this wasn't very eloquent, and @incoherentbabblings helped to find many of these panels, and a lot of her opinions are in here as well, and I'm sure I repeated myself a lot, but eh. I'm just 5000% done with antis reaching and making up shit about Steph to turn her not only into an abuser but a sexual harasser as well.

(Commentary and thoughts on the problem with certain anti tags and frankly anti tags in general, be warned)

I'm going to be honest, there is nothing that infuriates me more than those who attack a ship, or a character as abusive for the reason of banter, poor writing verging on character assassination or astonishing reasons as one character being created to be a beard for the other.

To give an example, the TimSteph ship has attracted a lot of hate recently because apparently one of the two is abusive towards the other (mostly Steph).

Now, I'm not against preferring another ship to that one, such as StephCass or TimKon, or feeling that Steph has basically had a lot of her agency taken away recently, reducing her to just Tim's girlfriend and that causing people to distance themselves from the relationship, those are all fair enough reasons to not really like the ship. Even feeling like there is no chemistry is a reason, that I disagree with, but can respect.

What I can't respect are some of the reasons given for hating the ship.

To give an example, one tumblr outright stated that part of the reason (though not all of it) they hated Steph was because she was created by a homophobe (Chuck Dixon who IS conservative at the very least) to serve as beard for Tim.

Ignoring for a second that Tim is explicity sexually attracted to women (though considering the run that made that clearest was FabNic's version of Red Robin, I can understand not knowing about it), Steph was originally created to be a one-off character, it was fan popularity that caused her to return AND become a love interest for Tim. Even ignoring that, Tim was dating another girl named Arriana, which didn't work out for various reasons, the least of which was his constant absences to perform his duties as Robin.

Speaking of FabNic, it was his run as writer for Robin that is most often brought up when giving reasons to hate Steph and call her abusive. A run that was basically a rush job, when Dixon left DC again for unrelated reasons, where FabNic proceeded to write Steph hire Scarab of all people to fight Tim non-lethally after promising Batman to make him better. I'm going to be honest, I hated the idea of this to begin with, but someone pointed out how stupidly out of character Steph hiring Scarab was given that A) she would definitely not have the contacts to pull it off, and B) Scarab was the entire reason Steph got fired as Robin, resulting in a lot of trauma for her and I have to agree.

Combined with Steph being portrayed as unusually incompetent and her motivations being glossed over and it really reads like either A) FabNic had a vendetta against her character, meaning her character was hurt again almost immediately after being finally getting a break and having her incredibly spiteful death retconned or B) he was in such a rush due to being brought in to write the final arc of Robin in a hurry when Dixon left, that he didn't think his ideas through, and just wanted to get rid of Tim's supporting cast quickly and finish things up for the next writer to have a clean slate, causing him to write that mess of an arc.

To anyone unfamiliar with FabNic's work, the exact same thing happened in Red Robin when the Nu52 was about to happen, so he ended up butchering an entire arc he had planned, Tim's character suffering from an abrupt shift in coldness again when he was getting better and left the series on a frankly unsatisfying cliffhanger. So, I can completely see that as being what happened.

Now as for those who say that Steph's banter with Tim is cruel and abusive. This is something he canonically said very shortly before their relationship started.

So Tim definitely gave as good as he got.

Though this is nothing to what he once said to his first girlfriend, Arianna.

Not that I believe for a second Tim is actually sexist, but his banter can be unusually and unintentionally aggressive at times.

Now I'm not going to say a word about most of Yost's Red Robin run, but what helps is that Tim is not being portrayed as being in the right with many of his actions and gets called out as such, plus he was written pretty clearly to be in a mentally bad place.

Otherwise I and probably a lot of Tim's fans, hate the Batman jr. Character arc every writer (but Dixon ironically) seemed to have fixated on him having, making him become positively humourless for quite a while (especially in Teen Titans, but to be honest there are many fans of the YJ team who hated that run.) Which basically started with Steph and his dad's deaths by the way.

I'm not going to deny Tim and Steph had their fair share of drama before War Games, most notably the power imbalance caused by Tim knowing Steph's name, but being unable (yes, unable) to give her his. Tim had a reason for not telling Steph, Bruce making him promise not to, and he kept that promise even with the YJ team, and even made it clear that Steph couldn't know if they entered a relationship. That's all fair enough, even if Tim had a nasty habit of reminding Steph he knew her name while they were out in the open, putting her identity at risk and knew she hated it.

The stalking was caused when Tim implied he personally knew a girl they rescued, causing Steph to realise just how unbalanced their relationship was, since Tim could be cheating on her without her knowing due to the double life (and had in fact done so to his previous girlfriend Arianna, with Steph).

Which lets be honest, is also completely understandable as their relationship couldn't work long-term without it being equal knowledgewise.

Think about it, you're in a relationship with someone who refuses to tell you his real name, you may be able to recognise him without his mask on, but have no idea he goes to the same school as you since he makes sure to avoid you while simultaneously keeping an eye on you.

Tim himself realised this, since when Batman leaked his secret without his permission, he eventually made it clear he didn't blame Steph and that he should have been open with her when it began to trouble her.

As for Steph coming on to him when he had a girlfriend and wasn't interested, well this is what caused her to crush on him...

He had just been traumatised by being trapped underground with Cluemaster (brrr.) So kissing her in relief when he had a girlfriend was understandable, but it's also understandable that Steph thought he was interested in her especially since he never mentioned a girlfriend.

Amd Tim clearly cared for her in some way regardless judging from this page when Steph was kidnapped a few issues later.

As for Steph only being in love with Robin... the problem is that Steph made it clear once that she didn't care if Tim quit and she'd love him all the same.

So, no, I don't think Tim and Steph was an abusive ship, it might not be your cup of tea, but it's certainly not abusive, especially when written by a writer who isn't being rushed or got a lot on his plate.

As a side-note, it's worth noting that due to how the Tumblr Search Engine works, people not looking for Anti Tags, and instead quite the opposite, still end up finding them on occassion, so yes, they have a right to be annoyed and complain in private conversations.

I'm sorry if this devolved into a rant, but many anti threads have a nasty habit of focusing only on the bad, even when that bad isn't consistent characterisation. Whether we like the Character or not, we need to remember that having so many writers means that the Character will be screwed up occasionally. How many times has Batman learn not to be a jerk only to return to be a jerk almost immediately? How many times has Green Arrow gotten his act together only for another writer to have him return to cheating on Black Canary again?

We have to concede that any character can be screwed up by the wrong writer and we shouldn't hold that against them, especially when the stuff we don't like doesn't consistently happen.