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Listen Sanji and kitchen talk never gets old to me. Please take into consideration the following:

1. Sanji walking around with a very, very hot pan saying 'hot behind' and dodging past Nami to plate. She obviously does not take this well and thumps him so hard the pan almost falls. He is very confused, he looks like a kicked puppy. Nami hit him and left while mumbling to herself.

2. Zoro notices how the cook weaves through tight spaces very easily, especially during battle. He doesn't understand why the cook keeps yelling 'on your left!' behind!' 'corner!' at Marines and other pirates. Or why some of them yell back 'heard' or 'got it, left/corner/behind!'. What the fuck.

3. Sanji walking around with a knife and yelling 'Sharp!' as he walks out to do whatever. Franky says he's looking sharp as always cook bro. Sanji thanks as he starts peeling vegetables or something.

4. Law hearing all of this and yells at Sanji to shut up because he just wants some peace and quiet and why the fuck are all the Strawhats so loud. Sanji apologizes because it's a force of habit after being in professional kitchens since he was eight and he doesn't want to hurt him or the crew. When Law asks for further clarification he explains 'hot' and 'sharp' means he's holding something dangerous, obviously, hot pans, hot plates, knives. The 'on your whatever' and 'corner' means he's telling people where he's coming from so there's no collisions. Law is blinking at him is exasperation and agrees that him yelling that is more than acceptable because of who the Strawhats are.

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Do you think theres any boat-degas within skywalking distance ?

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Since people are still confused about Tims dating history and over-exaggerating how big of a slut he is or saying that his type is blondes, I'm going to clear some things up.

Also, I'm counting actual canon relationships, not just random women who kissed him because I cant be bothered and some of those were grown ass women kissing a fifteen year old.

First girlfriend: Ariana Dzerchenko - Tims first girlfriend when he was fourteen was a black haired Russian immigrant who lived with her uncle. Their relationship was kinda strained because Tim couldn't tell her everything about himself as Robin and she kept accusing him of cheating on her and then cheating on him and when she tried to admit to him that she went out with another guy he fell asleep and her uncle tried to kill him and they were forbidden from seeing each other. It was a whole thing. By the end of the relationship, it was very strained and they were obviously trying to make something that couldn't work, work.

Tim technically kissed Stephanie after she saved him from getting buried alive with her dad, and went on kinda dates with her as spoiler and robin when Ariana and Tim were forbidden from seeing each other. I think Spoiler and Robin kissed during those kinda dates after Tim and Ariana were allowed to see each other again and trying to make their relationship work. Tim was going to tell Ariana but she dumped him so the whole issue was resolved.

This is the only instance of Tim cheating. Yes, it was very messy. But it was mainly chuck dixon trying to push for Timsteph to be together and force steph into a manic pixie dream role and make her seem so much more rational and reasonable than ariana and not like other girls.

Second Girlfriend: Stephanie Brown. Honestly, they were so cute together. Especially when they written by Jon Lewis. Steph starts off not knowing anything about Tim but Batman betrays his trust and reveals Tims identity to her when he goes missing. Their relationship only becomes stronger though and they lean on each other and are honest and open and Tim tries to kill someone for her. They loved each other and I loved them together. They genuinely looked out for eachother.

And then, something stupid happens.

Darla decides to kiss Tim instead of saying hey I like you when Tim has said repeatedly that he has a girlfriend. Steph was spying on Tim and runs away just before Tim cuts off the kiss and tells darla that she shouldnt have done that. This is what people also bring up for Tim cheating. but. literally.

Anyway, war games, darla dies, steph dies, jack dies, dana is hospitalised with grief and darla comes back to life. what they had i wouldnt call a relationship, especially because tim isnt in the right mental state for one right now, what with losing steph and all. And darla isnt in the right headspace either, so they didnt actually date even though people keep trying to bring up darla as a relationship.

Third girlfriend: Zoanne Wilkins. An african american high achieving girl who is on her way to harvard. I love her, and she and Tim are similar in the way that they are academically smart and inclined and shes understanding of what hes struggled through with losing his parents and getting kidnapped right in front of her and everything. She is understanding, but ultimately they call off the relationship and stay just friends.

Also weird thing with Cassie I wouldnt count because it was a grief fueled depressive spiral that was bound to end badly because they were both thinking of kon while it was happening. so i dont think they really dated

Fourth girlfriend: Tamara Fox. Tam is different because she knew Tim was Red Robin from the start and she has been involved in so much crazy shit with him i dont know why she hasn't beat him up yet. They werent really together a whole lot, but they had like a fake engagement to get Vicki Vale off their back and hey it worked. They

And then there was this weird thing with lynx who was maybe a good guy maybe a bad guy and tim broke her out of prison and they kept like getting freaky on rooftops. It was weird, but this kinda happened at the same time of the Timtam stuff. Not really dating, just a few makeouts on the roof. So cheating? If Tim and Tam were actually dating, which was really unclear.

Idk what happens in new 52 cos i just. ignore. all that.

Tim and steph are back together! In young justice 2019 at least. And they are so cute and in love.

But then they break up off panel and Tim comes out as bi and dates bernard. Its very much a disservice to this relationship that is so iconic and amazing and im not saying that tim being bi and tim dating bernard is bad or wrong, im just saying that tim and steph not having any real closure on their relationship is not good because they kind of just thrust tim into this realtionship with bernard built on nothing. but its whatever.

First boyfriend: Bernard Dowd. His friend at louise e grieve memorial, before it got shot up and the third person in their trio died. when the school got shut down, people were sent all over the place, Bernard to some rich private school and Tim to bludhaven where he drops out of school completely. They dont keep in touch, which is pretty much explicitely states in robin 1993 when bernard makes a rough estimation to darla as to where tim is. but still. its very random and kind of bland and kind of like they just forced a boyfriend onto tim to be like hey look we have a bisexual character.

I just wish there was a proper build up instead of it kind of being random. And breaking up with steph off panel. and just there being nothing of substance of their relationship. all of his other relationships show conflict and resolution. Secret identities play an issue with his ability to communicate, his inability to be honest, his grief and issues with balancing his lives and living up to expectations of a relationship. Does bernard know tim is robin? ive seen those pride covers and like i read td:r but idek when he reveals hes robin. it was a while ago but still. does bernard know what happened to darla? also why would they reunite two of the trio and not bring back darla. like where is their magic best friend? it could be so interesting to see their relationship change from when they were in high school to young adulthood but no. They had so much potential, but the execution was just oh look hes gay and has boyfriend now. theyre happy, no conflict, no substance, no nothing.

Anyway. Four official relationships. I feel like thats normal for like a 19-21 year old. Hes not that big of a cheater, but he is still messy and weird and has strange homoerotic friendships. anyway. dc bring back zoanne wilkins and darla aquista and i will love you.

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Welcome to my unpopular opinion but I am so, so tired of people and just the fandom as a whole vilifying the Drakes to an obscene amount. Like, were they the best parents in the world? No, but they weren't the abusive and neglectful monsters most of the fandom tries to write them as.

Jack and Janet were fully under the impression Tim was being taken care of when they were gone because he was in boarding schools, a responsible and logical place to put a child if you knew your work would have you traveling a lot. The only reason this wasn't true because Tim was the one to make it so. Tim was the one sneaking out of boarding schools and not telling his parents what he was doing.

Every time in the comics when the Drakes came back, Tim was excited and actually did spend time with them. We are given multiple accounts from Tim of him hanging out with both of his parents when they are back in town while Tim is being robin.

The Drakes also very much cared about Tim. The first thing Jack does when he finds out Tim was in a dangerous situation (being Robin) was get Tim out of it. Yeah, it sucks that Tim's opinions and thoughts were acknowledged, but Jack did what any loving and responsible parent would do the moment they find out their son was risking their life and doing something extremely dangerous and reckless and that's get him out of it! Jack moved Tim away from potential danger to keep his son safe. The moment Tim went missing Jack dropped fucking everything he had in terms of influence and fortune to get his son back. Is that the behavior of someone who couldn't give a shit about their son? Someone who clearly doesn't care about their safety and existence? No. It's not.

Besides, not even Tim himself vilifies his parents. Time and time again in the comics, Tim is shown missing his parents, talking fondly of them. Literally during the whole saga where Tim was traveling through time and the multiverse to find Bruce during failsafe, Tim embraces his mother and just enjoys being with her. Tim's ideal world and life is his parents being alive, it's Tim being with his Dad and Mom.

The Drakes are not evil monsters, and honestly, Tim's story and dynamic with Bruce is so much more interesting when the Drakes are loving and caring and Bruce isn't 'saving' him from his parents.

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The duality of man

(Tim is my favourite Robin but I also wish he was not Robin)

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Hear me out, hear me out. The reason why I think the dynamic of Batman and Robin is abusive is not because of the concept of child sidekicks.

Whenever you see other heroes with their respective sidekicks, their dynamics are about mentorship and being a guiding hand, most times about teaching the younger generation how to understand their powers better and how to use them for good. Child sidekicks are most commonly for the benefit of the child, not the adult.

That is not the case with Batman and Robin.

B&R's dynamic is for Bruce's benefit. Robin is the light to Batman's darkness. Robin is the one who saves Batman from himself. Batman needs a Robin. This is widely a result from Tim Drake's introduction as Robin, when Bruce was passively suicidal and causing more harm to people than he should. Tim and Bruce, in a vacuum, are not that much of a problem. It's still kind of messed up that Bruce would depend on a 13-year-old to get his mental health sorted out, but it makes sense in the context it exists in, where Jason had just died and Bruce blamed himself for it while simultaneously being in denial about his pain. The problem is that the idea that Batman can't function without a child to help him with his mental issues stuck.

It means that, between bad writers and good writers and wildly different interpretations of Bruce as a father, Bruce starts being painted as obsessive. He needs Robin to always be happy -- the guiding light -- he needs Robin to always be funny and upbeat but still mature and skilled and ready to die for Their Cause, that wouldn't have been Robin's cause at all if Bruce hadn't introduced the idea of it to them. Needing your child to never express a Bad Emotion or act out of line (like Jason was, for example, in the events leading up to ADITF) or else you're going to make them feel like they're undeserving of their place in your family (I'm not your father, Jason, I don't need teenage rebellion) is, in fact, abuse.

And the worst part is that this dynamic gets retroactively attributed to every Robin!!! Even though it really originated (or, rather, became truly ingrained in the text) with Tim!!! Because we keep getting more and more Robin Dick and Robin Jason stories written post-Robin!Tim and it gives them a dynamic with Bruce that they didn't have before!! Which sucks !!!

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Doctor I Am Hurt

Summary:Tim is a doctor. Bruce Wayne is a liar who does not play polo.

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Note: Prompt fill.

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tim + brentwood characters as boys i was legitimately friends with in high school and think of every single day:

Buzz- Jake (fake names for all of my friends bc privacy reasons) who complained about hanging out with nerds, got into a fistfight with someone else on his football team bc they called us nerds, was thoroughly convinced he'd run laps faster if he was hopped up on pixie stix (i held his backback while he got sick in the bathroom👍👍), he tried to hit on my older sister and she laughed at him, he was so put out he contemplated becoming a monk for a week

Wes: Max, who i helped sneak an entire bottle of orange juice on to the bus to our choir competition, but was unaware he brought a full bottle of vodka as well, ended up crying on our choir teacher for the three hours after the comp and i bought him a box of donuts after school, he did not stop doing this and had severe beef with a kid he knew in 5th grade and hadnt seen since but also hadnt forgotten their name and last i knew, was still awaiting for a dreaded confrontation to eventually come

Kip: Eduardo, who we all thought was studying during lunch but was actually filling his notebook with weird facts he observed about us and also managed to chew several packs of gum at once throughout our math class before the teacher noticed him, didnt know the plot to the clockwork orange so i lied about it for 5 weeks before he read it and called me just to tell me "you lying frog" befire he hung up

Ali: Ángel, who lied several times on separate occasions to the campus security about where people smoked, forgot what chihuahuas were twice, and almost drowned when he was swimming except his older brother got him and he immediately called me while waiting for the ambulance to tell me he almost fucking died, randomly sang a song about crabs he made up throughout the day

Danny: Ben, helped me with my biology homework because i helped him with essays, once released a live rat into the computer classroom because he had beef with the teacher, once texted me at 11 p.m. because he was having a mental breakdown over his chem work before he realized he was actually looking at trig and i told him id shoot him with a tranq gun if he woke me up like this again, kept forgetting how to tie his shoes

Tim: Teddy, he catfished 6 men over the age of 30 by pretending to be a 13 yr old girl and lured them to the part of town where there is an absurd amount of wild dogs that evade animal control and are known to maul humans, i watched him lockpick the english teacher's door so he could take back an essay he wrote bc it was actually a slash fic he printed out and turned in by accident, we hung out at a dennys once and he accidentally put his hand in syrup, looked me dead in the eye and said "i did that bc im gay" and wore pastel pink for a month bc it pissed off the hall monitor, his dad, and also six teachers he didnt even have class with

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ngl i am not a fan of ships that are like “well they both get shipped with x, so let’s just ship them together!!” when they have 0 history and/or 0 chemistry. i’m sure i go about shipping in a different way than the next guy but idk it just irks me.

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Alright now that I’ve finished Yj 98.. and what an abrupt ending it was… (another post for another time) I gotta admit a hot take here.

I did not like how the girls were handled in #38 with robin and barts departure.

I understand they were upset and dealing with what happened on apokolips in their own way but arguably I’m peeved at their shitty attitudes. No one trusted robins judgement, fought him every step of the way even though he’s team leader until it actually became a physical fight, leading to their split, which led to their capture. Imo he had every right to leave. What’s the point in being team leader if this is how they treat him in a disaster? And even if he hadn’t up and quit, if he stayed team leader or even let someone else take the role earlier than canon… how could he stay on this team knowing they wouldn’t listen to him no matter his position? Or stay knowing that this same fight will absolutely start again if he rolled over and they didn’t talk about it? Then there was the “guilt by his association to Batman..” Was it shitty to break his promise to Greta? Yeah sure, but her bringing up her one sided delusional cat fight with spoiler like some jealous ex even though robin had no idea how she really felt? Shitty. As if spoiler had anything to do with this AT ALL. And don’t get me started on Cassie’s “apology.” That was downright disrespectful. Downplaying the situation and his feelings about it just so she can get him to stay for their own gain… Shitty.

Then there’s Bart. Fresh off losing Carol and his mom again, watches AND feels his scout get obliterated, falls into shock and then is immediately captured and put in a VR nightmare illusion by granny where he relives the same moment of death over and over on a loop. When they break him out he’s still in shock and goes comatose for an entire week and even with his speed healing, “takes a few weeks to get back on his feet.” After that he can’t even get himself to put on his costume, much less run even casually with Max. So he quits and the girls reactions are pretty much: “you’re being a coward after 1 bad event and we won’t have it.” Like??? Cissie quit when she nearly killed a man and yeah they fought that decision too but they didn’t question her judgement or god forbid make her feel bad for it and let her go while still keeping in the loop with her. HELL BY THIS POINT SHE’S STILL RETIRED!? But no it’s “you’re leaving because you’re a coward. We’re not afraid of dying so you quitting because you ACTUALLY saw and felt yourself die, a trauma explained by max to be more than the word could be defined, is unsupported.” AND THEN LITTLE LOBO, WHO CAN’T ACTUALLY QUIT THIS TEAM BECAUSE HE’D HAVE NOWHERE TO GO BEING THE WEAK END OF THE GENE POOL,,, HIS OUTBURST AND WANTING TO BE LEFT ALONE IS SUPPORTED BY ANITA EVEN THOUGH ITS FOR LITERALLY THE SAME REASON AS BART?? They both want to be left alone because they both died and now are scared of their own mortality but only 1 is supported because….why?? Is it Anita’s crush on lil lobo or what? Bart “can’t quit” because being impulse is “who he is,” COMPLETELY contradicting the years (by this point) of lessons Max has been trying to teach Bart about enjoying some normality outside of his hero life. I am 100% sure that when he said “I’m trying out a new lifestyle” he was thinking of Max. Implying that he can’t be ANYTHING other than Impulse, erasing Bart and his feelings as a whole person, is so shitty.

Idk I usually love the girls but this issue man. They had me wanting to jump the screen.

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Timbern and timbartkon for ask game :3c

TIMKONBART GET A BIG RAINBOW STAR BECAUSE THEY ARE THE BEST EVERRRR i love them so much. especially the version in my mind where bart is aroace and qpps with kon and besties with tim and still 1000% an integral pillar of the relationship. they were assigned one shared brain cell at red tornado. they get each other. they are obsessed with each other. i love them wauahghgh

as for tim/bern... sorry but its so deeply not my cup of tea. i so badly wanted to like tim's canon queer relationship but if im being honest reading tim drake: robin made me kind of actively more homophobic 💀 like, if bernard kept literally any of his personality from robin '93 and if darla/laura was still a relevant part of the trio maybe i'd give a shit, but as it is... i just hate megfitz's writing and that whole book was so all over the place and ooc that in order to actually like this ship i think id basically have to delete bernard and rebuild him from the ground up, at which point its pretty much tim/"oc that i just named bernard". it shouldve been ives smh

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Hi Chande!!! Can I ask about JamieTim? I never thought about a ship like that and I was wondering if you can share some of those thoughts on why you would ship them. It seems really interesting. Oh! If you feel ok about it tho. I don't want you to be uncomfortable with it.

oh gosh it’s a very long story

Initially, I didn’t really ship tim with anyone or even notice much about jaime. During this time I was reading the robin comics and young justice ones while also watching a little bit of yja:s2 with kiddy.

kiddy was really into blue beetle and was reading jaime’s issues at that time as i read tim’s.

i then start to realize a lot of things in yja don’t really relate with how the comics are as well as the pairings on there. (ex. m’gann with superboy? they actually never even really met in the comics?)

so..this gave me an idea to joke to kiddy saying that i’m going to ship my favourite character (tim) with hers (jaime) together. she would ask me why and i would come up with the joke excuse of “it’s ok cause none of the ships really make much sense in the animation in comparison to the comics” 

this would go on for about a while as i began to look for more fanworks for this ship mostly to laugh about to kiddy about how it really does exist since at that time i thought the ship was unlikely to happen..

i eventually found these fanfics that were based heavily on the comics during the time when tim was having a hard time dealing with the deaths of his loved ones. it was then connected to the time when jaime was done dealing with the reach and wanted to become more active with teen titans.

as i read this fic, i realized that the writing was extremely well done for both the characters.

to verify my assumptions.. i began to read the blue beetle comics to see if it was accurate for jaime as well..

they seemed almost spot on for me and followed up with the actual comic events. it made me realize that they actually really do have such a high potential to get along with each other as more than just good friends. they had very similar interests and would be able to work very well together after getting through that first awkward stage of learning what to do

i can’t really explain how i exactly see it in words properly…so if you want to read it here’s the link

http://aravistarkheena.livejournal.com/486101.html

unfortunately, i don’t know where the author is now .. but i would very much like to thank them a lot of this

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"The children yearn for the cape"

The Batkids, ranked by how much they actually yearned for the cape.

Dick Grayson. Literally invented the cape. He manifested it out of pure unbridled pre-teen rage.

Stephanie Brown. Technically already had a cape before she ever even met Bruce Wayne.

Cassandra Cain. Considering how she grew up, it's kinda hard to say. As an adult, very committed to the cape.

Duke Thomas. Manipulated by Alfred, along with a bunch of other vulnerable teenagers, into yearning for the cape.

Jason Todd. Yearned for a roof over his head and food in his mouth. Had the misfortune of getting "helped" by Bruce Wayne.

Tim Drake. Actively did not want the cape. Only took it up to keep Bruce Wayne from murdering people.

I haven't read any comics with Damian yet so I can't say about him.

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Tim Drake’s Friends (not to be confused with Red Robin’s friends)

Inspired by this post by cryptocism, I bring you: Tim Clique-Breaker Drake. 

(Don’t mind me, this is also basically just me taking notes for a fic I’m working on. Tim’s various normal boy friendships. High School Musical has nothing on Tim Drake.) 

(One of these days I’ll write half these characters’ DC Database entries. Today is not that day. All characters listed know Tim primarily as Tim Drake; anyone who knows Tim primarily as Robin/Red Robin, or who know Tim equally as Tim and Robin, is not included. If I miss someone… I missed someone.)

Afficher davantage

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when ur friend cant be simply categorized

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i’ve been thinking abt this for a while and i want ur opinion. do you think characterization-wise stephanie would’ve kept her pregnancy if dixon wasn’t so staunchly anti-abortion? im kinda torn… and ik they retconned it entirely in newer reboots, but i would’ve loved to see her taking care of a kid since she’s good with them

Ok first of all thank you so much for asking me abt this. I actually have so many opinions about Steph’s pregnancy “arc” and I love yapping about her so appreciate this ask a ton.

On one hand, it’s really hard to entirely separate Steph from Dixons conservative values. She was created by the guy and she reflects a variety of semi conservative views in Robin 1993.

Some of these things are deeply connected to her character, for instance her punitive and callous attitude towards criminals. Of course, this attitude absolutely changes over time, but it makes a lot of sense for her to have this conservative approach early on in her crime fighting career, it directly reflects her anger towards her abusive dad.

Others are less grounded in things we know about Steph and more so just throwaway lines, like the joke Steph makes about the Clintons.

What I’m trying to say is it’s hard to determine what Steph would do if she wasn’t being written by Dixon, or if Dixon wasn’t as conservative on reproductive care, because some details about her are both entrenched as part of her character and also potentially influenced by Dixons politics.

There’s two main themes that come up during Steph’s pregnancy which I think are very in line with her characterization and support the idea that the choice she makes is (fairly) in character: her sense of responsibility, and her protectiveness over children as a reaction to how she was not protected.

The idea that Stephanie fucked up, that she made a stupid mistake and her pregnancy is the “consequence” (an insanely horrifically gross premise, for the record) is espoused by her throughout the pregnancy arc.

This is pretty in line with her characterization.

Steph places a strong emphasis on the idea of internal strength, it’s something we see her value in others and something she commits to herself.

(Her father is "weak" because he succumbs to his criminal tendencies, her mother is "strong" for overcoming her addiction, other drug addicts are weak for failing to do so and turning to crime, her mom is "weak" for grieving Arthur, Steph is called "brave" for keeping her baby, Steph has to be “the brave one here” because Crystal won’t kick Arthur out, etc etc)

Potentially connected to this mindset is how Stephanie is also kind of prone to taking responsibility, and in some cases, taking blame for things that actually are not her fault.

Easy example of this is how she talks to Tim about how he might have cheated and wanted to leave her while pregnant, she takes the blame and responsibility for his (assumed) actions. It’s her fault for being so “fat and disgusting”. She understands why he might have cheated on her.

When Batman tells her Tims secret identity (something she didn’t seem to realize would hurt him and which Batman presented the urgency of the situation under absolutely false pretenses) she immediately takes the blame for Tim’s anger, directly condemning herself and centering Tim’s feelings even when Tim is clearly angry at Bruce and hardly acknowledges her at all during the confrontation. She continues to blame herself for this later even after being reassured by Tim.

And a huge example, how Steph believes straight up that she has “a lot to make up for” because her dad is the Cluemaster. This is a consistent part of Stephs characterization, seems to somehow blame herself for Arthur’s actions, or at least not being able to stop him. Steph holds herself to an unfair metric, she takes on this unwarranted responsibility and blame.

It makes sense to me that Steph would adopt a similar mindset in the case of her pregnancy. She’s quick to assume this responsibility and deride herself and her actions because that’s what she’s always done.

The second factor that I think is playing a role here is Steph’s desire to protect the innocent, especially children, as a reflection of the way she was never protected as a child.

Steph is, as you pointed out, shown to be good with kids. And, I think it’s absolutely worth mentioning that she sometimes projects her own experiences onto them. Not in like a bad way, in a: ‘no one protected me, I want to protect them’ way. This is a super strong protective instinct.

This protective instinct is what (I believe) causes her to befriend Damian during Batgirl (2009): she sees that he was missing out on a normal childhood, something she could relate to, and we see her try to help him experience one.

It’s also why she chooses to let her baby get adopted instead of keeping it: we see her convinced by Tim’s arguement about how her baby would grow up without two parents and compares that situation to how Steph grew up with her dad in jail. (By the way, this is just propaganda, the issue is Steph would have to forfeit her teen years taking care of a baby if she kept it, which she is not old or mature enough to raise effectively and which would doubtlessly have terrifying consequences for both her and her baby, not that the baby needs two parents, and one of them has to be a man. But that’s besides the point.)

The point is, Steph’s shitty childhood makes her protective over children and strongly moves her to ensure similar situations don’t befall them.

I think she’s doing a very similar thing when it comes to her pregnancy.

The whole conclusion to her story in the Secret Origins 80-Page Giant is her telling her unborn baby about her childhood, and hoping the baby will get a better childhood than she did.

In the same way Steph is dedicated to stopping kids from experiencing what she experienced, she feels like she has a duty to her baby to protect it in specific contrast to her own shitty childhood where she was not protected.

We see this idea explored again in Steph’s hallucination/dream while giving birth. Her nightmare is centered around Steph’s fear that her baby would end up in the hands of Cluemaster. She's terrified by the idea of this innocent child getting abused by the same man she was.

Also, notice Crystals role here. Crystal's enabling of Arthur's abuse and general shittiness is something we see explored a few times. Steph identifies that Crystal is willing to be blind to the obviously shitty behavior of her brother, Steph's Uncle Dave, and compares her inability to see the truth to how Crystal apparently acted with Arthur in the past. There's more examples, but the way Crystal facilities Arthurs abuse (which Crystal was a premiere victim of for the record) and is unwilling to hear out Steph in her nightmare is clearly a reflection of Stephs own childhood. She is projecting her shitty past onto her baby again.

How does this factor into her choice to not get an abortion? As explored, she has this tendency to project herself and her experiences into kids she sees as in similar situations, and try to protect them where she was not protected. I can see this inclining Steph to 1) see the fetus as a baby and innocent life and 2) feel a very strong protective instinct towards it which think would make her unlikely to abort.

So again, we have this projection where Steph sees the baby as A) her responsibility and B) in need of the protection she did not get.

Both of these factors are undoubtably parts of Steph’s character. So, I’m inclined to say Steph’s pregnancy arc is based in her character.

It comes down to how Steph sees her fetus. If she, like she does in Robin 93, immediately conceptualized the fetus as a separate person, an innocent life, I think her feelings of responsibility and her protective instinct for the innocent and young children would make it pretty much impossible her to end up choosing herself and her own wants over the fetus. I don’t think Steph could ever do that, unfortunately.

On the other hand, if Steph didn’t immediately think of the fetus as a baby, (something that would come with Dixon being less conservative on reproductive rights) I could see her getting an abortion. I do think she’d still feel guilty however, like she’d shirked responsibility somehow.

In conclusion, it’s complicated, but Steph’s feelings during her pregnancy are grounded in her characterization. I think if Dixon was less conservative, we might be able to see how these traits come into play and have Steph maybe learn to prioritize herself despite her self sacrificial qualities, and we could manage not have the 15 year old give birth.

(Okay that was the analysis, now I’m lowkey just going to rant about how I personally feel about the pregnancy arc.)

On a personal level, I think someone should have sat Steph down and explained to her the that she has every right to want to abort? Yes. Do I think Crystal should have had a long talk with her about how Stephanie doesn’t owe this fetus anything and she has a right to be 15 and look out for herself for once? God, yes.

I’m honestly just disgusted by the very concept of the “pregnancy arc”. No amount of cute moments with Tim or attempts to make Steph’s convos with her mom heartwarming will override my disgust at the fact that they made the 15 year old pregnant. It’s not "cute" that she had to deal with pregnancy induced nausea and her math homework. It’s genuinely horrific. It’s not "nice" that Tim uses his Alvin Draper disguise to brings her to Lamaze classes. It’s horrifying that Steph has to ask her boyfriend who has to wear a disguise to drive her to birthing classes because her mom is busy working night shifts at the hospital to support them. It’s not "sweet" when Tim reassures Steph she’s beautiful and Steph playfully threatens to hit him with a teddy bear, it’s sickening that she thinks so lowly of herself in the first place. And it’s definitely not anything but genuinely disappointing that Steph’s next appearance in Robin 93 after giving birth is her jogging to lose the weight she gained from her pregnancy. Just wow.

I love that Steph is good with kids and whenever I see those cute ‘Steph keeps the kid’ au drawings I will admit that my heart is warmed . But at the same time, I'm just personally never going to be in favor of Steph being forced to carry a baby at 15 years old as a "consequence" so we can moralize to the audience about teens having premarital sex. It was not done well. I don't know if it could be done well.

I don’t really think her pregnancy should be decanonized either per se, because I think DC should have to own up to their sexist treatment of Steph (and many many other female characters) instead of getting to pretend they were always perfectly feminist. (This happens a lot with her time as Robin a lot but that’s another post). However, I kind of never want to see that baby appear again in any comic.

When it comes to current comics canon, even if the pregnancy has been retconned, I have this sinking feeling that it’s only a matter of time before that baby shows up as a minor character and becomes a vigilante or some shit. This is the dark timeline to me. The evil universe which I lie awake terrified of but I know is distinctly possible. If this happens, this is my "I told you so" moment.

For me, the “good ending” when it comes to Steph’s pregnancy is she should’ve aborted it. Just no baby, no pregnant 15 year old. She could have even participated in NML in this alt universe (which is another another post). I don't know. I think Steph could be a fantastic mom, but I wouldn't want her to have to be one at 15 or 16.

Thank you again sm for the ask, love ranting about Steph. Totally open to hearing other takes on this arc and Stephs character as always.

[ob-aube]

Tim fanboys harder than anyone, he did that to become Robin and it almost happened again