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panel redraw, original under the cut

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BOOM two in one day! I do think that stephanie is one of the better designs I've done (even if i dislike the colour purple). She's gonna play a more supporting role in the series until later chapters, but im excited to experiment with her!

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tumblr post: imagine if the batboys went to a concert--

me, breaking down their front door: WHERE IS CASS

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Not my usual stuff but this is for the gorgeous @redsray enjoy _(:3 」∠)_

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Cass and Steph are sparring. It proceeds as usual with Cassandra winning effortlessly over and over. Her hands are folded behind her back, infuriatingly smug smirk of superiority on her face as she sidesteps all of Stephanie's kicks and punches and calls her "slow" and "sloppy" and "weak" before sweeping the legs out from under her. Steph hits the mat hard for the umpteenth time that night and blows the hair out of her face in frustration. She looks up at Cass who grins mockingly down at her and a decision is made. She picks herself up. She dusts herself off. She looks Cass square in the face and reaches over to tuck a stray hair strand behind Cass' ear. Cass' smile fades and her eyes widen. She pulls Cass in close and her jaw goes slack. Steph leans in for the kiss and Cass hesitates before closing her eyes and leaning in also. Then Stephanie grabs her by collar, pivots on her heel, flips Cassandra over her shoulder and slams her down on the mat with the might of Hercules. Cass lays there staring blankly up at the ceiling struggling to process what has just happened. "I know what you're thinking," Stephanie says, "that trick was only ever gonna work on you once in our lifetimes and I wasted it being petty. And you're totally right. And it was totally worth it." Steph is already halfway out the door with her gym bag slung over her shoulder, whistling a tune as she goes. Cass has not moved nor blinked.

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EVERY TIME BRUCE CALLS MAPS ROBIN LETS GO

Batman: Black and White (Vol 2 #4)

Batman 2016 (#121)

Batman: Brave and the Bold (#11)

That is all thank you everyone

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quick robin steph redesign

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'dick was the angry robin' 'jason was the angry robin' 'tim wa-' NONE OF THEM WERE 'THE ANGRY ROBIN' THEY ALL DEAL WITH THEIR TRAUMA IN THEIR OWN WAYS AND ALL OF THEM HAVE A BROAD SPECTRUM OF EMOTIONS. ALL OF THEM HAVE LOST THEIR COOL OR HAD AN OUTBURST AT SOME POINT. ITS JUST WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU ARE A DEEPLY TRAUMATIZED CHILD!!!! THEY CANNOT BE REDUCED TO JUST ONE WORD THEYRE ALL COMPLEX AND THREE DIMENSIONAL CHARACTERS!!!!!

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One sec I need to talk about Shiva.

Lady Shiva was introduced in Richard Dragon: Kung Fu Fighter in the 70s. She was a traveling martial artist hellbent on getting revenge for her sister, who she believed had been killed by Richard Dragon. She lured Dragon into a trap, revealed herself as Carolyn's sister, and tried to fight him to the death. Once she realized that Dragon had nothing to do with it, that Cravat and The Swiss (unimportant villain characters, they killed Carolyn) had been the ones to kill her sister, she helped Dragon defeat the villain (by giving him her shiny belt so he could redirect the beam of a deadly laser that was being pointed at them while they were fighting, don’t even ask) and Richard Dragon and Lady Shiva became allies, friends even. Dragon convinced her it would be a waste to kill Cravat and told her that he had killed the Swiss himself. She accepted this. They shook hands. This all took place over the course of one issue of Richard Dragon: Kung Fu Fighter. It took ONE issue for Shiva to go from antagonist to ally. She then tagged along with Richard because she liked the adventures he got up to, the danger, the challenge, and the thrill of it. Richard even called her later on when he needed help on a different adventure. What I’m saying is she didn’t start out as evil.

Okay, so what do we know about Shiva so far? She’s a thrill-seeking peripatetic martial artist of great capacity and skill. She cared about her sister. She’s willing to kill. She’s an adventurer and a valuable ally. Great. Moving on.

The Question 1987 features THE Lady Shiva. A character capable of both ruthlessness and mercy, cruelty and tenderness. A curious, thrill-seeking, teasing character. She was vicious and nonpartisan and she was working as a mercenary for hire. But she was an ally, even when she was beating the shit out of Vic. She loved the O Sensei. You can tell she even cared about Vic in her way. I’m not saying she had a heart of gold, or that there weren’t tropes she fell into. She wasn’t and there were. But she was a fairly well-rounded, morally gray character that played a key role wherever she showed up. She was closer to a non-traditional anti-hero than anything else. Idfk, just go read The Question.

I read a tvtropes article describing Lady Shiva as “an archetypical Dragon Lady, complete with sinister motivations and exotic sex appeal,” which… she isn’t. She subverted this trope in several ways actually. She never had “sinister motivations” until Chuck Dixon got his grubby little hands on her. Her motivations were pretty neutral. She had her own set of principles, she was very morally gray. She wanted to travel and fight worthy opponents on her adventures for the thrill of it. She seemed to operate mostly on personal whims, and on the basis of building worthy rivals, out of love for the art of combat. And she didn’t use her sex appeal for shit (until the Richard Dragon reboot comic kms), she didn’t tolerate sexual advances or objectification. She just WAS NOT a conniving temptress, I don't understand where this misperception came from (but I do blame Dixon, I’ll get to that in a sec).

This same article states that she began as the arch-nemesis of Richard Dragon? Unless you’re accepting the version of the two of them from the very short lived Richard Dragon 2004 series as their canonical relationship then NO she didn’t. But I digress.

There was a marked change in the way Lady Shiva was written by the time Robin (1991) came out, this is where her character starts to lean towards the Dragon Lady trope imo. She also weirdly, and maybe arguably, leans more into traditional femininity while at the same time being written as more wild and uncontrollable. Chuck Dixon seemed to fundamentally misunderstand Lady Shiva as a character. He turned her (sometimes ironic) disdain for brutes who wouldn’t last a second in a fight with her into stereotypical womanly haughtiness. He turned her capacity for ruthlessness into bloodlust. And he made her into a conniving, somewhat deranged, villainous woman, tempting our young hero towards evil (oh my!). Again, I’m not saying she ever had a heart of gold, but Dixon changed core character traits (namely her respect for other people's personal code) to turn her into a villain.

“Kill him, little bird. Kill him and become a predator…Aren’t you my weapon? My instrument of death? Say you are mine.” Like?? She would not fucking say that, respectfully.

That isn’t even to mention Richard Dragon (2004) where Dixon turned Shiva’s relationship with Dragon into a resentful, sexually charged dick-measuring contest.

Even so, I don’t entirely hate Shiva as a villain, especially in Batgirl (2000). Pucketts Shiva is a bit less egregious imo. So she’s a passively suicidal evil mentor-figure who wants Cass to be a killer like her. Whatever, I can get on board with that I guess. I can enjoy it because I love Cass and this is a great comic run. But the retcon that–Listen, THE RETCON THAT IS SHIVA’S SISTER BEING KILLED BY DAVID CAIN, SHIVA DESCRIBING THIS AS FREEING, SAYING SHE’S GRATEFUL, THEN AGREEING TO GET PREGNANT WITH HIS CHILD IN RETURN?? This boils my blood. Shiva, who was introduced as somebody who cared about getting revenge for her dead sister. Shiva, for whom freedom and autonomy were core character traits. That Shiva?? That Shiva is relieved her sister is dead and is willing to carry her sister's killer's child to term?? What the fuck?

I hate it. I don’t understand it. Why would you take a complex character who makes it difficult to tell who she really cares about, and flatten them into somebody incapable of love?

Okay I’m done, this is getting too long and I don’t even want to get started on New 52 era Shiva. I don’t have a conclusion, I’m just annoyed. Thanks for reading. The Question (1987) is NOT a perfect comic but if you’re interested in Shiva please please please check it out, it’s very moody and philosophical, noir-esque. Also Chuck Dixon suck my dick.

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Accidentally peaked after such a long artblock

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Some Stephcass because its been a second

#art reblogs #stephanie brown #cassandra cain #stephcass

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having Stephanie brown thoughts 2day..ouuu when that one fic said 'they didn't like her enough to save her'. when she was robin or batgirl and she encountered any gotham vigilante and they all concluded she wasnt skilled enough, wasn't disciplined enough for this life. her care for others and resolve weren't enough, she HAD to do it their way. when she was herself, unapologetic, heart bared open and they looked down on her for that too. bcs she said what she meant and meant what she said instead of constantly playing 4D emotional constipated chess everytime she opened her mouth. steph who bares her optimism and forgiveness like a honed weapon in a house full of people who made her teen years a living hell just because she was a little annoying

#text reblogs #stephanie brown

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Able bodied people proudly saying Oracle is back because Babs wore glasses and sat behind a computer in Birds of Prey #7 is frankly embarrassing.

Babs has been wearing glasses and sitting behind a computer since 2020 and even calling herself Oracle because the writers at DC are ableist.

Oracle is a disabled superhero specifically a paraplegic woman and there was zero acknowledgment of that in in Birds of Prey #7 Thompson just did what every other able bodied writer has done since 2020 and had Batgirl Babs call herself Oracle.

Like I have been a disabled person advocating for Babs to be physically disabled again since that was erased in 2011 and its amazing how easy it is for DC to trick able bodied people to post about how Oracle is back when nothing could be further from the truth.

#text reblogs #barbara gordon

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girl who dreams of violence and killing but doesn’t out of fear of becoming like the very people she hates 🤝 girl who sees the good in everyone and gets physically ill at the thought of extreme violence , justified or not

#text reblogs #stephanie brown #cassandra cain #stephcass

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Oracle isn't just a name. It's an identity that is inextricably intertwined with Barbara Gordon reclaiming herself and her sense of agency over her body and life after becoming disabled.

The last 13 years of dedicated activism have gotten us back to a point where Oracle is acknowledged and Babs is portrayed as a competent adult woman, and I'm grateful she finally has her team back. But DC still refuses to acknowledge and uplift her as disabled, undermining the core thesis of Barbara's character in the modern era. And as long as she's not visibly disabled…she's still not Oracle.

Oracle was created because two people (Kim Yale and John Ostrander) saw a horribly misogynistic story and went "no. We can do better. We SHOULD do better." Oracle was a rebirth, a revitalization, a refusal to allow women to be relegated to the sidelines and margins of superhero comics regardless of physical ability.

To refuse to portray her as visibly disabled undermines everything that Babs as Oracle stood for, both in-universe and in real life. It betrays the identity's foundations as a reclamation of agency and heroism. It betrays her creators' intent as an avenue for disability representation and a revitalization of a character summarily discarded because the company saw no further use for her. It betrays the millions of readers who read her stories for nearly 25 years and enjoyed stories brimming with strength, independence, and heroism that depicted a disabled character at their center.

It's doubly frustrating because it's clear that DC is slowly moving Cass back into the "primary Batgirl" role, allowing us to have a semblance of Oracle back, but they seem to think of Oracle as an interchangable identity with Batgirl that Babs would have had even if TKJ had never happened. And outside of Batgirls (which ended last year), they won't even meet people halfway and make Barbara an ambulatory wheelchair user who uses forearm crutches and/or a cane when she's mobile.

Again: I'm grateful that Oracle is being acknowledged again. I'm grateful Babs is back to being a competent adult and team leader who has friends outside of Gotham. But I continue to be frustrated at the company-wide sexism keeping her from fully moving on from Batgirl and the ableism prohibiting her from being shown as visibly disabled.

#text reblogs #barbara gordon

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patrol is fun :DD

#art reblogs #stephanie brown #jason todd

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☀Stephanie. A commissioned piece for Women's Day! Really enjoyed drawing her :)

#art reblogs #stephanie brown