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I love your Stephanie Brown post. It verbalized this feeling I've had about her character for awhile but didn't quite know how to phrase.

Just wanted to thank you for that!

ah thank you <3

yea to me, the super frustrating thing is that dixon's sexism gives her flaws that i find super narratively compelling and interesting and 3-dimensional and overall strong in a way that other writers somewhat miss the mark for me (i actually have a lot of criticisms about bg2009 and how bqm wrote her--overall i find it a very surface level girl power story veneered over pretty standard 2009 era sexism wrt the dynamics between women that has not aged super well and doesn't do much for actually giving steph interesting depth as a character & i find it's weakened by the fact that it is a doylist apology for the absolutely horrific way editorial treated steph prior to her death (which. she does deserve an apology and to be treated better), but also by doing that it makes almost every other character such as babs seem unreasonable and bad for their very understandable watsonian response to being wary of steph for many valid reasons and also makes it hard to actually give steph any flaws that aren't just quirky or clumsy--she's not perfect because she's adorkable). dixon steph has so many problems, being written by dixon, but she's truly my favorite flavor of steph because despite how horrid dixon is, you can absolutely tell how much he truly cared about her as a character. like. i bet if you asked him, he would have nothing but positive things to say about her personality and other characteristics. in fact, i believe a lot of the letters to the editor that talked about her back in the early robin issues had a lot of super positive things to say about her! like he created her! she's his blorbo! he wants to put her through the struggles!

like so many of her struggles when he's writing her is so much due to his sexism (she's never quite as competent as tim, and shouldn't be because she's The Girlfriend--compare to characters like babs and dinah and helena that were women but also written as extremely competent and good at what they do) and also because he wanted to put her through the wars, give her adversity to overcome! like steph is treated horribly a lot. by everyone. but it's partially because he wants her to perservere through it because he likes her and wants her to succeed. like a couple of very common threads through dixon's storytelling for her are the following:

tim is condescending (because that's how boys and girls are. see also: every 90s tv show that had a beleaguered sensible man with a nagging, over the top, ridiculous woman who does silly things that the man Puts Up With) -> steph gets mad -> tim thinks to himself that he shouldn't be so hard on her and usually apologizes -> well, actually tim was probably right because steph did get into trouble but steph making constant mistakes isn't actually narratively seen as "hey, maybe she should stop if she's making mistakes" because dixon wants her to continue.

or

more experienced vigilante (male or female--tim gets a lot of flack, but honestly, almost every single vigilante in batbooks at the time seemed to think steph wasn't quite good enough--batman, dick had his reservations about her, barbara didn't really necessarily want to train her, *cass* straight up told her she shouldn't be doing this, dinah didn't want to be her mentor, etc) tells steph not to screw up -> steph screws up -> steph has to get bailed out by more experienced vigilante -> steph keeps trying despite this

like so many of her diary entries that steph writes involve some flavor of "i've been told not to do this, but i have to, it's something i need to do despite all the naysayers". and it's sexist! because chuck wouldn't necessarily write the 'screw up and overconfident which usually leads to needing to be bailed out but keeps trying anyways' kind of a narrative for a male lead character (male characters get the 'i'm super competent but insecure/humble about it and when i make mistakes i'm able to figure out how to fix them by myself' narrative). but at the same time, it's what he truly believed for her--that she deserved to keep going despite any naysayers. if he truly believed that steph shouldn't be a vigilante or thought poorly of her, she would have been written out and/or he would have written her as making a mistake so bad she wouldn't have continued her activities as spoiler and finally agreeing with everyone that she's not cut out for this. but he didn't. dixon writes her as not as competent as her peers because he has a worldview where girls are lesser and not capable of being as good as the boys. but he writes her with dogged determination to keep trying despite this because dixon truly thinks she deserves to keep going despite any mistakes he writes her making and that her perseverance should be rewarded.

like consider the arc where steph finds out tim's identity. dixon makes steph seem unreasonable for daring to change her mind and realize that yea, she does want to know the boy under the mask she's dating after all (because dixon thinks that girls are fickle and change their minds and boys shouldn't have to put up with that kind of nonsense behavior, not because this is a super valid thing to want) -> he has her go beat up an innocent boy named tito and stalk him in the hospital (because dixon is a sexist who things girls are just like this) -> tim does rightfully get mad about this and leaves in a huff -> batman tells steph tim's identity and she gets what she wanted?? -> tim is mad at her and batman until JLL when this is all swept under the rug and they go back to happily dating again + at this point everyone is open to training her/finally giving her a chance (until murderer/fugitive when she gets locked out again--which also leads into the era where dixon is no longer writing her--and after this is when we really get a lot of the really iconic unfair treatment towards her because at this point didio wanted her gone). and it creates this absolute interesting dissonance where you can see the overt sexism in dixon's writing and it's infuriating. and at the same time dixon also rewards her for the sexist way he writes her and she does generally get what she wants because dixon wants to give her the reward for her perseverance.

hell, consider the pregnancy storyline which is beyond overtly sexist and conservative but is probably the part where steph is most treated the best/in the right. tim and her mom are shown as in the wrong compared to her "correct" decision to keep the baby and they have to come around to support her. not just that, but for her to be given a teen pregnancy storyline in the 90s and not be shown as a Bad Girl for getting pregnant as a teen? dixon hates women and yet to him steph is a good girl who makes a mistake (something something he'll judge others, but when it comes to his daughter that's a different case. expections apply.) and she gets an ultimately supportive good boy boyfriend who helps her go to birthing class despite the fact that i'm sure dixon looks down on unwed teen mothers a lot.

it's just. i want to study it under a microscope. there's so much to unpack there.

the real reason that tim can't age over 18 is because if he did, dick would have an existential crisis about how old *he* is. wdym tim, who was 13 when dick met him, is 21 now. if tim has been doing this for 8 years, how long has dick been doing this for? wdym tim is legally old enough to drink now? if *that's* true then dick's no longer 25. when did dick suddenly get so close to 30. that's not a thing that's real. *his* annoying little brother isn't that old because dick's not that old. he hasn't really been working here for going on 20 years, right? can't be, because he just started here two days ago.

so yea, tim's not older than 17. who are you trying to kid here? dick's not gullible. he won't fall for your lies.

what utter nonsense are you going to try to tell him next? that damian's in high school or something? he's onto you.

There is so many thoughts I have attached to this narrative and the consequences that it has, but also the fandom and the way that fandom changes narratives as well. It's really interesting to go back and analyze the original foundations of any character and do mental compare and contrast to what others would do with the character and the storyline. But to go back and look at the foundations for female characters and the way that their oftentimes male creators choose to portray them.

Now I admit I haven't read all of Steph's stuff. I'm slowly going through it, but do we ever get the full backstory on Crystal? Because I can see with a little author perspective shift while still using all of the foundations Dixon has given us a very powerful story on the life of the Brown family.

It's also interesting to see what it implies about certain plot points or character traits for characters because while never stated when going back and looking at the Browns with both the original intention of Dixon but also outside analysis on larger narratives. It can tell a lot.

1. Crystal Brown is strong in many ways that the narrative doesn't acknowledge. There's the saying that you can stop being drunk but you'll never stop being an alcoholic. Addictions don't just disappear over night for the vast majority of people, and those urges and muscle memory exists for a very long time. Crystal presumably got clean quick and the narrative doesn't show her relapsing at all [This is definitely Dixon's personal bias and perspective on addiction, but I digress it what it implies for Crystal's character.] She kicked an addiction, found a stable job as a nurse, and inserted herself back as a parental figure for Steph. That's perseverance. [Dixon's pull yourself up by your bootstraps sort of mentality shows in this. How with hard work things get better.]

2. Crystal Brown had the qualifications to go from what by the narrative is very much shown as unemployed for an undetermined amount of time to a stable job as a nurse. Now depending on where and what type of nurse this can be different. It's been awhile since I've read Steph's stuff in full but I don't think two to four years passed in the narrative, so Crystal had to at least been qualified in the basics before her introduction during Steph's introduction. That would fold into Dixon's narrative of middle class falling on hard times a lot more than if Crystal wasn't qualified beforehand. Because if Crystal was a nurse beforehand than it would slot right into the idea that the Brown's could get out of the financial issues they were in.

Adding onto this it also would give Crystal an environment where she would have access to medications that she could have become addicted to. It could have been from stress and anxiety dealing with whatever was going on with Arthur at the time or something completely unrelated, but Crystal being a nurse would also play into Dixon and other Conservatives fears on the drug epidemic spreading to hard working middle class Americans. Just something to look at and consider.

3. Because Dixon was rewarding the Brown's within the narrative, within the context of a character it shows that Crystal knew her way around saving and putting money where it needed to be. Crystal was not just hardworking, but knew where to put her money in order for it to hopefully [and because of Dixon's narrative] succeed.

I have a lot more to say on this but I just think it would be interesting for people to incorporate more of this back into the Brown family narrative.

actually there is another super interesting way in which you can tell dixon is trying to narratively reward steph for her perserverence (aside from writing her to fit his sexist worldview and rewarding her for that) & almost the... "pick oneself up by their bootstraps and succeed no matter your circumstances and what barriers there may be" narrative he kind of has for her and that is with the evolving nature of her social class through her appearances while he writes her imo (the ultimate bootstraps story that conservatives love) (which also contributes to the vast difference of interpretations of steph's economic status)

so honestly, in her first appearance in detective comics #647-649 she is very much coded as coming from a background of lower class/working poor/welfare stereotypes with a criminal father and an addict mother.

their house is visibly run down & not taken care of. crystal is emaciated and wears a robe all day/doesn't bother to get dressed, doctor shops for pills, and is whiny about how she'll get sicker without the prescription pills she's addicted to (you know nothing about crystal's initial aesthetics screams welfare queen imagery to me, tbh. they certainly don't seem to be implied to be "scamming the system just to live it up on steaks and lobster" and dixon would be way more overt about welfare fraud. i would call this more "white trash poor person" imagery as i imagine he sees it.).

interestingly though is the framing of steph by dixon as incredibly positive in comparison to her surroundings. in a way she's conceived as someone who is fighting against the poor circumstances that she was born into--she's going to be spoiler and rise above her criminal father and compared to her mother who can't be bothered to get dressed because she's always high, steph's going to dress nicely. those jeans she's wearing? that back pattern pocket is pretty iconically calvin klein. those were like. status symbol jeans of the 90s. now i'm not here to argue about affordability indicating she's way richer than she actually is here, because this was the 90s and steph very much could have afforded nice clothes and a vespa for herself on her summer/part-time job (in fact the clothes she wears on her vespa are pretty implied to be some sort of part-time job uniform), but it's a very interesting contrast that dixon draws, especially considering his biases. like you can tell he thinks that steph is in no way responsible for her circumstances (it's not her fault that her dad is a criminal and her mom is an addict) & and that being born into her circumstances don't mean she's doomed to end up like them--as long as she works hard and does the right thing, she'll be rewarded. in this case, she'll present herself as higher class/act classier than her unfortunate surroundings (via her external presentation of herself--she'll work hard and get the things she deserves for her hard work and effort) & resoundingly reject following her criminal father's footsteps by becoming the spoiler in order to cement herself as Not Like That. like he went out of his way to make her circumstances be more stereotypically poor and then show her as being above all that. she's the noble poor to her unfortunate white trash circumstances. (which is in line with dixon's classism and conservative viewpoint that it's okay to be poor, as long as you're white and don't act like those people do and hate your circumstances/are motivated to rise above them).

and this thread of how crystal is/stephanie's circumstances continues through crysal's next two appearances in robin #3 and showcase '95 #5 (though this was was written by keri kowalski, not dixon). she's still presented with very stereotypical aesthetics: she's never dressed, at this point, it's not implied she works...

and again, you can tell that dixon likes steph despite the fact that he wrote her as poor in her initial appearances because he often writes her as though he considers her above her circumstances (because those aren't her fault and she's working hard to not be like that).

the interesting thing is how this evolves once crystal kicks her addiction. which. frankly, i don't believe we ever see exactly when this happens? she's still an addict in showcase '95, but by her next appearance in robin #43 in 1997, she seems to. certainly be different than she was portrayed in her few initial appearances and appears to probably be sober at this point.

she's well put together and clearly employed, a far cry from the initial imagery dixon initially used for her. now it doesn't say she's a nurse here, just that she works at the hospital, but the white shoes and dress are an imagery giveaway. and now making steph's mom a nurse is actually kind of a soft retcon of her previously implied situation and a pretty interesting one at that because nursing--nursing and teaching occupations back in the 80s and 90s (and even today for nursing) iirc were considered good jobs to the middle class, on account of them being professional and steady jobs that required a degree of some sort that couldn't be automated or sent overseas (and there's a shortage, they need nurses!), like other jobs that were being lost at the time. so by making her mom a nurse, dixon was explicitly cementing their family circumstances as middle class as opposed to implied poor like their very initial appearances (or even what might've been considered "working class" at the time by certain economic theories, given that nursing isn't necessarily considered an "unskilled" job and does require college + it may be considered a pink collar job but in general there's good job security so it's such a gray area) (forgive my use of quotations here, i don't personally believe that jobs are unskilled and that the working class is a nebulous term that is illdefined and covers many different jobs with vastly different potential salary opportunities. a union working class electrician could very well be upper middle class based on salary, low cost of living, and lack of debt compared to someone who works at minimum wage, lives in a HCOL area, and has 75k in college loans but both are considered working class because they provide labor for wages) (i'm thinking of a 90s working class that was viewed between the middle class and the poor that consisted of a lot of what people considered blue collar or routizined work, but again, that means almost nothing in terms of salary potential and economic opportunity. plumber and warehouse worker are both considered blue collar, but their economic circumstances can vastly differ, but i digress-)

which is actually a pretty interesting evolution to her initial implied socioeconomic circumstances. because if her mom is a nurse & has a middle class job, then their economic issues previously weren't necessarily just that they were poor. it's that they were middle class fallen on hard times. which also coincides with the shift in the 90s where people were starting to be frightened of the middle class getting ravaged by the opioid/drug crisis. so now crystal isn't a stereotypical poor white trash addict, she's a middle-class worker who fell on hard times. and if they were struggling with finances, it wasn't that they were poor, it was more to do with struggling on account of crystal's addictions and having to deal with steph's dad/pay for him/he used their money and house for his villainy. and you end up because of this retcon having this issue where yea, she was initially presented as poor. but for the vast majority of her appearances, when she more consistently started to have a presence, she's written as middle class fallen on hard times. and you get this dissonance in her reading where it's like, yea, at the beginning, she was poor (and in far more stereotypical circumstances), so you can't say she never struggled financially. but also to claim she's just poor is to go against a lot of imagery that indicates more of a lower middle class (middle class, but struggling/tighter finances/no significant wiggle room), such as having a mom who's a nurse, having a home computer, etc. and in this case i really don't think this was just a case of dixon not knowing how to write a poor person (though that's definitely somewhat involved, this is dixon after all), because the choice of profession for her mother and giving her access to a home computer in the 90s and the overall improvement of her perceived home environment as the series progressed do seem like a deliberate choice on dixon's part. he probably would have known that nursing was considered a "good, steady" job to have.

anyways, i don't necessarily think this retcon is. necessarily worst thing in the world. it's much less stereotypical than poor/bad people are in poor/bad situations because of their choices and it acknowledges that people in all socioeconomic tiers can struggle with issues like crime and addiction.

alright, continuing on. there's an interesting thread in the steph pregnancy arc that has crystal ruminate on how steph ended up that way because crystal was a bad influence for marrying arthur and the pills. but because chuck has decided that the browns are more lower middle class than straight lower class there's a bit of a redemption/reimagining of his initial poor view of crystal once she gets sober and a marked improvement in the appearance of their socioecomonic status. take robin #58 for example.

crystal gets to support and affirm steph, be present (unlike her initial appearances). and in robin #84 after she's aware of steph's going out as spoiler after having recently found the spoiler costume (and trying to put her down about it--compared to when steph was doing spoiler stuff in the kitchen and her mom didn't even notice because she was high) and the visual design of the inside of their their house has definitely improved from run down to standard middle class, fairly nice looking.

which again feels fairly deliberate to me. because it doesn't just seem like dixon not understanding what it means to be poor, there's a deliberate moving of steph's socioeconomic status up more towards middle class once her mom gets sober which i feel like aligns nicely with chuck's viewpoint that if you're poor, you're poor because of bad choices and once you make good choices you can settle back into relative comfort.

and notably he gives even bigger reward to crystal for kicking her habit and make better choices and renouncing her husband's criminal ways (when she found out steph was spoiler and turned him in she was like "hah, serves him right"--compare this to when she was implied to be visiting him in steph's first appearance and she was being presented poorly): she, like steph, will now get sympathy for being put in a situation out of her control and the hard times that have fallen upon them. in robin #93 and #94 arthur comes home and parks himself there and nobody likes it.

and yea, they're shown to be struggling--crystal doesn't have extra money laying around to hire a lawyer to kick our her husband--a long, arduous, expensive process (+in robin #94 she's shown as being fed up with the court process as well). but rather than her being treated bad by narrative for not having money, she's presented quite sympathetically. she doesn't want them there or have anything to do with them. she's a hardworking, middle class woman who maybe fell on hard times because of her past addictions and having a criminal husband, but because she did the right thing and got clean and renounced those ways. she's not being seen as culpable to the situation--she's being seen as a victim of it this time. anyways, dixon eventually resolves the situation by sending dinah over to kick out the villains inhabiting her home, which shows that he thinks that they're (crystal and steph) deserving of being saved from the circumstances that keep them down (because they're hardworking people who are actively trying to get out of their situation and better themselves). and it aligns quite nicely with his conservative view of the world, that people who work hard get rewarded for their hard work and good things happen to them.

like i'm not going to pretend that the browns are rich by any means. they're clearly not. but there's an interesting way in which dixon improves steph's class as a reward for her perserverence. the last mention we get of any potential class by dixon is her conversation with tim in robin #100 where tim is catastrophizing about the loss of his money (which i know is nagl), but it also doesn't exactly imply she's poor and she's not exactly mad at him for being tone-deaf. she's just matter of fact about not understanding the big deal--just that she fights crime on a budget. so it's more her way of telling tim that he doesn't have to worry about the money thing/going down to middle class when it comes to being robin--after all, she's done just fine as spoiler by being smart with her money. which is actually fairly in line with dixon's viewpoint that if you make good decisions with your money, you'll do just fine and can/should afford to do what you want.

his biases and politics are sooo obvious with the browns tbh. all in all, the way he writes the browns (crystal & stephanie) wrt class i get a lot of flavors of that stupid fucking hillbilly elegy book. they're not poor welfare recipients because they're the true, hardworking people who deserve to be middle class. they were down on their luck and made bad decisions and had unfortunate things happen to them (arthur, crystal's addiction), but they overcame that like good hardworking americans (became spoiler, got sober) and as a result their economic situation improves as god intended. anyways, like i said before. it makes it so hard to be like "yea, steph was poor!" without leaning into dixon's stereotypes of poor people (addiction, criminality) and when he does write them as poor/struggling he writes them as the "true poor" "the good poor people who would never depend on aid, they just work hard to reject their circumstances and elevate themselves as they should". but it's also hard to uncomplicatedly say she was middle class, because despite being presented as lower middle class for a lot of her appearances, it's also another part of dixon's classism that has him improving their economic class over time because it's an improvement inexorably linked to his belief that hardworking americans can just pull themselves up by their bootstraps because he shows steph and crystal doing just that.

& i think of how it was initially dixon's idea to maybe make steph robin in a storyline & i can't help but feel that's almost a continuation/conclusion of the bootstraps narrative he has for steph.

idk it's just hard for me to say that dixon looked down on steph for being poor/being lower middle class because her story of self-improvement is so tied to the conservative belief of upward mobility with hard work. it's extremely classist. and yet it's still there. on the paper.

bonus, just to prove he sees them (the browns) as a lower middle class family who wouldn't be struggling so much if the government would just stop taking all their money in taxes:

more ill-advised dick & tim era swaps

spyral!dick & alpod!tim

dickbats & new52wasneverrobin!tim

ric grayson & knightquest!tim

justgotfired!dick & literallyjustfoundhisdaddead!tim

tomtaylor!nightwing & brucequest!redrobin

bludhavenjustgotdestroyed!dick & marina!tim

Sorry, I'm hijacking your post because it gave me thoughts on a subject I felt nervous bringing up.

This sums up my thoughts fairly well. I love when people ask the what if kinda off the wall insane alterations but have a background in exactly what they are changing and what that exactly means.

It's the idea that you are taking a canon event or characterization and twisting it in another direction, and testing the other characters around it. Testing exactly what ticks with this alteration.

Fanon concepts don't bother me as long as there is a reason or research behind it. Or it's a slow butterfly effect process to get character from canon to fanon. And even then sometimes it's fun to suspend belief just for a moment.

You can have bad parents Jack or Janet or Dana but some of the best ideas I've seen with this is where it's a slow spiral to the bad, or opposite a slow upward movement to even better. [If that makes sense]

It's the idea of knitting or stitching something onto an existing thing. You can't just add the new fabric or yarn without knowing what you are attaching it too or how to attach it. You have to plan a bit and understand even if just just under surface level, what you are doing.

With secondary and background characters it can be hard because there might not be much or what there is could be inconsistent because so many people have had a hand on the character. But for the Drake's, the Todd's, the Grayson's, Crystal Brown, or a lot of other characters parents. It's good to do some research. It isn't that hard to read a few comics. There free online sites for this and plenty of fans who would help you out.

Know what you twist about a character or what puzzle peice you are warping.

This goes for larger fanon mischaracterization and warping. Read some comics for a character. At least for the concept you want to use. [IE Under the Red Hood, Titans Tower, Battle for the Cowl, Red Robin, Batman Dick with Robin Damian, Batgirl Cass]

It's good to do some background research even if your doing the basics akin to SparkNotes.

It's the idea that being misinformed or uninformed leads to whether purposeful or not harmful or uncomfortable consequences.

There's also the idea that the character with the traits you are looking for already exists.

actually though, to me (and this might sound a bit meaner than i intend, truly, i'm not trying to mean here, just spitballing some thoughts), sometimes with fanon concepts it's not necessarily the transformation or alteration of characters into something they're not that bothers me so much as. hm. the general unawareness that something is a transformed concept. if that makes sense.

so like. overtly and excessively abusive and terrible drakes for example. i, clearly, am not a fan of it. but that doesn't mean it's a concept that couldn't potentially be interesting so long as there is a general understanding that the person is aware of some of the actual canon behind the character & understand how they're specifically twisting and altering for the explicit purpose of transformation & exploring non canon things. so not like 'never touched an actual full issue of a comic at all & are only going based on what i think they are in my head' or genuinely thinking that the character or event is actually like that and are completely unaware it's going against canon & canon intentions (and this is not a 'there's only one true read thing' this is like 'the basis of how things work in canon would mean that this is probably what was meant'). if that makes sense.

like for example. a jack who is much more malicious than he is in canon & a tim that is trying to navigate being severely abused by his dad could be interesting. how does this tim handle it? does he struggle with being a victim yet having the power to stop his dad and yet also can't. is he having issues with tim drake is being abused, but robin is not (the tim/robin dichotomy). is he hiding things from his friends, like ives. is he flittering around dick, wanting to confide in dick but not wanting dick to think less of him? (does this take place during canon events, like prodigal?) are things like that happening? if so, then it's an interesting angle to me.

hell, you could even take dana and completely transform her into something she's not--rather than just a nice woman who's doing her best, is she a gold digger who preyed on her rich patient? is her niceness towards tim a facade? is trying to kill tim & jack & take the money. this clearly isn't true of her at all, but it could be a potentially interesting transformation if you have jack & tim at least acting like their canon selves around this. when does it take place? right after the wedding? when jack loses his money, does she take out a life insurance policy on him? (should she have lbr) does dana push for tim to go to brentwood to get him out of the way? does this end in bruce/jack endgame after batman saves jack? does it have references to nightwing annual 1 & the black widow story there for dick? the world may never know. (knowing dana even exists is a sign that there's some awareness of the canon that's being altered.). this wouldn't offend me as much so long as it was clear that it was an intentional alteration of canon dynamics and a clear what-if exploration.

just my thoughts.

it occurs to me that a truly historically accurate 'batfam over the years' timelapse would include several shots of bruce alone because he's driven away everyone else in his life, and one of that era where he was just hanging out with his sidekick's girlfriend and his bodyguard (again, because he's driven away everyone else in his life)

about to say something controversial.

but. tbh. i think dick's taking in of damian as robin has far more in common with his taking care of tim as robin in prodigal than it does with bruce taking in dick as robin & that's interesting to me.

and i know this is 100% not intentional bc morrison hates tim & also doesn't like post-crisis continuity & also doesn't actually seem to particularly care about characters outside of only what they can do to service morrison's grand envisioned story but.

like. unlike the bruce-dick parallels of bruce seeing young dick lose his bith parents before his very eyes & knowing the horror that causes & having to take him in, damian is brought to gotham around the time of death and left there by his mother (who is still very much alive & damian is not an orphan & dick is well aware of that) & afaik did not actually...witness bruce's death. so you have a child, made robin by the death of a recent parent, who has a very complicated but (if we ignore some morrison) loving relationship with his alive parent (who he is returned to by dick the minute he is grievously injured & needs a parent to make medical decisions for him). who is choosing to be a hero. who needs dick's guidance on his journey to become a hero. who will eventually always be plan to be returned to bruce's care the minute everyone found out bruce was actually alive so that dick could return to the place he made for himself as nightwing (as implied at the end of gates of gotham).

and like, yes i will not deny that dick saw a lot of his own story in damian & probably saw a lot of himself & bruce & that i'm sure was very meaningful to dick. but what i can't get out of my mind is dick in prodigal. taking tim temporarily under his wing as he takes on batman's mantle for the first time. tim is different from him--tim was made robin by the death of one parent. tim has a complicated but loving relationship with his very alive dad. tim grows as robin & in his self-confidence as robin under dick's tutelage and approval. dick was always meant to return to the place he made for himself as nightwing and return to mantle to bruce once bruce was ready to come back.

and like. don't get me wrong. there's so much different there!! tim obviously was never under dick's custody the was damian was, he never needed to be. prodigal was a much shorter event with less room for expansion & tim and damian are very different characters.

but to me. there are more parallels between those situations for dick. idk.

i do think it's funny that tim was like "have we considered that bruce maybe did commit murder" when bruce was framed for murder and then when helena was framed for murder "no way, wasn't her she's being framed" even after she accidentally shot batman in the chest with a crossbow.

The way that this could also solve an identity crisis problem. I know a couple of people who want to write out the identity crisis of storylines they want to tell but still have some key moments. [Take with that as you will] You bring the spy thing in. You are in an intriguing plot that could dive into Drske's history. [The rise of Drake's company, their money, the jobs they took.] You can change the writing of the Drake's kidnapping and Janet's death. Remove some of the racists connotations and focus more on political and espionage. You can then focus on Jack staying in the States and what that means for the past.

Honestly, it would be interesting to just flesh out the Drake's more than what they were. [Hustory wise] and connect the political climate of the end of the Cold War to the continual tensions that existed between countries.

I don't know where I'm going with this, but here's a plot bunny.

nobody understands my "given the political climate of the late 80s & early 90s & the whole bruce is off in moscow fighting an apprentice of the kgbeast right as questions are starting to be asked about tim's parents by alfred and bruce with regards to their general shadiness and tim is notoriously unable to answer what exactly they do because his dad is shown to be fairly tightlipped about his job in a story specifically written by wolfman (who helped create tim) i think that the drakes were possibly initially set up for a potential spy storyline" theory like i do.