Hey I’m feeling emotional about Stephanie being Tim’s home/morality chain/life’s ambition in Tynion’s Detective Comics run again so let’s talk about that a little (or a lot... this is long).
So, Steph is used throughout the Rebirth run as the team member representing the average citizen of Gotham. Therefore, in-story the more Tim puts her on a pedestal and the less he actually involves her directly in his plans, the more we the reader see him loosing his way. We know at the end he’s on the right track because he listens to and responds to Steph’s encouragements and ideas. She’s like...the embodiment of Gotham to Tim, weirdly enough. So bare with me while I try to verbalise it (clumsily. with lots of scans).
This is a one way post and doesn’t really talk about what Tim is to Steph which is a whole other discussion and it’s nearly midnight I need to sleep...another day perhaps.
So in 935 their conversation which reveals them to have returned to their romantic relationship centres around whether Tim truly wants to stay a hero or do something else with his life. Steph says that Tim has the whole world in front of him, and asks what he truly wants. It’s implied by Tim only staring at Steph during their conversation then kissing her that ‘the whole world’ and ‘what he wants’... is her. No I am not reading too much into this silence.
Then a bunch of bad stuff happens, Tim redirects the drones only after Stephanie calls him to let him know they were heading for her, and when she tries to give a last goodbye speech. Which honestly this is just on point for them to have a big dramatic moment only for the other to throw themselves in the way like bitch you thought you were a martyr... anyway. In the flashback of 963 again Steph’s insecurity rears it’s head a little and she asks if Tim really wants her there for all these big plans of his and Tim reaffirms he literally can’t do it without her.
So when you see that adult Steph totally rejected Tim and legit went into hiding from him you’re like... ah. Something went awry here (understatement of the year... Tim shoots Lonnie in the head trying to find her.) And then Steph being Tim’s safety net is again implied in the dialogue between Bruce and Tim in 967:
Which lo and behold who is the first person adult Tim seeks out to silent beg affirmation from?
And one of the ways adult Tim just to throw current Tim off kilter is by using Stephanie as an out from the costume (call back to John Lewis’ run there perhaps). Steph in the next arc is used a the voice box for the ordinary people of Gotham, the one who get manipulated and used by heroes and villains alike, the ones Tim is supposed to be helping. This is why it’s a good thing Tim wants to involve her and says he can’t do it without her. It’s when he starts pushing Steph back and away from what he really wants, things go wonky.
There’s then a shift from “I’m doing this with you” to “I’m doing this for you.”, particularly from 970 onwards, but you can also easily see that future Batman would say this and it is almost said word for word (albeit to Cassandra) by Tim a few issues later. Steph consistently sides with the people on the ground and calls out Tim calling them stupid for being manipulated and thinking himself above them. She nearly has a Padme Amidala moment of “you’re going down a path I can’t follow” but thankfully she drags him back kicking in screaming (however... Star Wars AU Star Wars AU... the whole batfam would be an actual nightmare if they were jedis). But it has to get worse first.
What I find interesting is that when Stephanie does watch Tim start to have a bit of a breakdown she repeatedly steps back and is like “look I love you but I am not watching you self-combust like this you are loosing your way” and that’s when Tim either loses his temper or in the case just falls to the ground and is has the “I can’t escape my own future” despair moment in 974.
So her leaving is supposed to be the inciting incident of we are hurtling down a bad end here moment and even Bruce is like... Tim and Steph... separated? Not good. And goes to correct that in 979 by calling Steph back to help. She’s the only one who understands Tim and what he actually wants.
So in 981 when Steph the “irrelevant nobody” aka the representation of the average Joe of Gotham aka “help on person at a time” turns up the mere sound of her voice is enough to make everyone stop. She encourages Tim to make the right decision and win the day by remembering you can’t solve crime alone that’s just incredibly self destructive as well as destructive to everyone around you and it doesn’t matter what you call yourself your actions matter more than that. Steph re-centres Tim, but ultimately he makes the right decision on his own, Steph and Ulysses being the good and bad angels on his shoulder (fitting, considering Ulysses was deliberately written as a dark mirror and Steph’s entire arc has been centred around how best to help people).
“We have all the time in the world” is what Steph said to Tim when he came back and after they kissed. She is constantly telling him to slow down and take a breath after they are reunited so this couple with “if you want to come with me...” Tim is involving Steph once more, so we know that he has completed T H E C H A R A C T E R D E V E L O P M E N T of the arc and learned the exact same lesson that Bruce Wayne learns nearly every single arc too: Let the other members of the Batfam help bro it’s not healthy to do this stuff solo.
Anyway the point is Stephanie is Tim’s home, his morality chain, the thing that keeps him focused and the representation of the people of Gotham, of Gotham itself. He can’t get anything productive down without her to the point where even Bruce knowingly sends the two off together because by this point Steph has proven that she can be trusted with this idealistic overly earnest boy. Take Tynion’s Steph from Tynion’s Tim at your own peril.
To conclude...
“You have the whole world in front of you. What do you want?”
*Smooch*
Like bro... that’s romantic as heck.
Anyway Tynion’s run is pretty fun to analyse fight me.
And for my actual question: I think I want to do NaNoWriMo this year, but I’m not sure what I want to write about. Should I,
a) Write a bunch of shorter fics like Whumptober (they def wouldn’t be daily this shit is hurteded me)
b) Say, “fuck it” and write a long fantasy-ish story with the BAU
c) Write a long long story regarding the events on Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down (this would include the stuff in the first bit of the fic, and after Spencer gets sent home- just an all around expansion)
d) Write maybe two medium fics (I already have an idea for one, it would involve the jet getting sabotaged/crashing but I don’t think I could stretch that out into 50k words)
Anyway I might have more ideas that’ll come to me, so I might add to this but. But. So far, what are your guys’ thoughts? I honestly don’t know what to do for Nano this year haha.
Send me an ask or something to let me know which one you’d prefer, or even if you have another idea?? I’m honestly open to anything
PS, all of these will have hurt Spencer because I swear to fucking god I actually have a problem
I am a very intelligent lady, because for months I’ve been all “I want to make things like graphics” and then...I just realized I have Creative Cloud that I could, you know, download to my Macbook Pro.
I've finished playing Trespasser now and I'm kinda wishing I hadn't. Just finishing the DA: I main storyline never felt as super-definitive as this does now. So yeah. That sucks.
☂ For Tony? Can't get his hair wet Steve, besides his clothes are way too expensive.
☂ Trying to find shelter from the rain.
“Oh you got to be kiddin’ me..”
Steve had figured that going out with Tony like normal boyfriends did would be extremely difficult. They both were famous, easily recognized and people weren’t afraid to approach them. Specially him. And it was obvious that Tony got annoyed after the first person; rolling his eyes and letting out sighs that only Steve recognized as the ‘please go away I’m trying to spend some time with my boyfriend’ sigh. But the super soldier was too nice to drive them away.
Eating at the restaurant was as hard, people kept staring and as they hadn’t yet gone public with their relationship they had to act like it was a normal dinner between friends. Which made them both frustrated. In the middle of the meal Steve had reached down under the table to hold Tony from his hand, he just had to touch.
So when they had decided to walk back to the Avengers tower in the middle of the night after the restaurant had closed, they didn’t really expect for rain. And Tony was blaming him, not that he really was mad.
“Come on, there’s a diner around the corner.” Steve had taken off the leather jacket he wore almost every day and was now holding it up over Tony. They were both moving fast, trying to hide from the rain that just kept getting worse. And by the time they reached the diner around the corner Steve was completely soaked while Tony had managed to keep dry thanks to the super soldier’s jacket. He pulled the door open for the billionaire with a smile, shaking the jacket somewhat dry before walking in himself. The diner was empty for the most part, no one seemed to really recognize them. So they picked a booth from the far end corner of the place, Tony closer to the window and Steve beside him.
Steve was still hungry. Or more like he was always hungry, but more so tonight after he lost his appetite in the fancy restaurant Tony had picked for them. It wasn’t the food or the place, it was the people staring at them. So he ordered himself bacon and eggs with a cup of hot chocolate while Tony wanted the biggest cup of coffee they could give.And the evening didn’t feel as bad as they thought. The strangers on the streets or in the restaurant didn’t matter anymore. Or the fact that Steve was soaking wet. In the diner where no one but the waitress recognized them; who promised to say nothing, they could kiss each other like normal boyfriends did. Tony could press against Steve’s side and be happy like that.
