Stephanie Brown (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ichoosefight) wrote2011-12-06 05:19 pm
ichoosefight) wrote2011-12-06 05:19 pm
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lastvoyages Application Remix
Character Name: Stephanie Brown
Series: DC Comics
Age: 17
From When?: Robin #131, after being shot and kicked down a flight of stairs by Roman Sionis.
Inmate/Warden:
Inmate.
Stephanie is often selfish, reckless and impulsive. At times she balks at authority on principle rather than because the authority in question is wrong. She also has a vicious streak, which only really becomes a problem after Batman trains her. With knowledge of techniques that use deadly force she is likely to kill something without really thinking about it. In fact, the biggest problem is that she tends not to think about it, leaps before she looks and gets herself into all manner of trouble. She needs to learn to plan ahead and reign herself in.
Item: NA
Abilities/Powers:
Stephanie is a self-made vigilante. From the very beginning she made her own costume, improvised her own gear, and trained herself. She’s the independent sort who can do just about anything she sets her mind to, and more than likely would prefer to do it on her own, thank you very much.
This self-determination has forced Steph to be a quick learner, especially when it comes to physical abilities, because if she doesn’t learn and adapt she could very easily be killed. When she really decides she will learn a skill, she generally learns it and excels at it.
As a gymnast, she’s very flexible and quick, which makes up for her relative lack of physical strength compared to the other Bats. She has a certain grace when she fights, and she never stops moving.
Steph’s biggest strength is her indomitable spirit. For all of the terrible things she has been through, she has pulled through and come out the other end all the stronger for it. Traumas that could have easily destroyed her only made her more determined to continue fighting the good fight.
Personality:
Stephanie Brown is a girl who likes to take matters in her own hands. Rather than sit back and wait for more experienced individuals to get their shit together, she determines what it is she wants to happen and does whatever she can to make it happen. Of course, it took 15 years for her to realize that the experienced individuals didn’t have their shit together. As long as she’s been alive Stephanie’s father has been an abusive asshole, driving her mother to abuse prescription drugs on top of verbally and physically abusing her himself.
The cause of Arthur Brown’s psychosis is unclear, and whether or not his abusive behavior is linked to his criminal set of problem solving techniques he is a father figure that should have been removed from the equation years ago by social services. In Gotham these sorts of cases tend to be overlooked, and Steph had to rely on his inability to successfully pull off a bank robbery and a clean getaway to keep him in prison and she and her mother safe. When even that system let her down, releasing him and declaring him ‘cured’ of his pathological need to actually send the police clues to help catch him in the act, Stephanie knew there was no other course of action but to make sure he was put away herself. Batman and Robin already set an example for her, proving that masked vigilantes could in fact put criminals behind bars. It wasn’t a far stretch for her to take to the sewing machine and copy their act.
Whether it’s sending her father to prison or getting just a little bit closer to her favorite Boy Wonder, Steph knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to go for it. In fact based on her actions it seems there is very little of which she is actually afraid. She dives into conflict without a second thought and has no hesitation to tell others how she feels. This puts a bit of a strain between her and Batman, who doesn’t think she should be on the streets. She is often telling him that he isn’t the boss of her and more or less ignores every instruction he gives her. Batman is enigmatic at best, and she doesn’t try very hard to read him. Instead she focuses on what she thinks is best for her. She says she’s afraid of him, but if her fear shows at all it is only with indignation and a stolid refusal to back down.
This policy causes some tension in her relationship with Robin as well. Whether he’s following Batman’s lead or trying to protect her out of affection, Robin often voices his disapproval of Stephanie’s chosen career track. At times he is respectful and understanding, but at other times he shows no respect for her decision and even calls her by her name while they’re fighting together. Robin seems to have conflicting feelings towards Stephanie, and she reacts in kind. Underneath it all she has an undeniable attraction to him and keeps coming back. When he’s respectful she takes the job seriously, and when he isn’t respectful she retorts and acts bitter. Their relationship is very reactive, and often seems on the edge of breaking.
Steph and Tim’s relationship is best shortly after they begin dating officially. Ironically, this is long before she knows his name, and Stephanie isn’t able to do vigilante work because she has just discovered she is pregnant. Not with Tim’s child, of course, but with the child of her previous boyfriend Dean who dumped her when an Earthquake hit and things got a little too dangerous for his tastes. Throughout the pregnancy Tim was incredibly supportive of Steph, giving her advice and even taking her to lamaze classes disguised as ‘Alvin Drapper’. The pregnancy was incredibly difficult for Steph, mostly because she has a weakness for children. In fact she would have kept the child if she could, and is adamantly against abortion (at least while hormonal and being used as a mouthpiece for the pro-life writer in charge at the time).
She became pregnant at the age of 15, a freshman in high school. The only reason she had sex with Dean in the first place was a combination of peer pressure and low self esteem, a mistake she will be certain never to repeat again. Her mother was recovering from her drug addiction so long as Arthur was in prison, but it still left Stephanie as the 15 year old high school student single mother of a child whose grandfather gave her nightmares over the baby’s safety. Keeping the child simply wasn’t an option. She was so distraught by having to give away her child that she refused to see it before they took it away, and didn’t even want to know the gender. She recovers from the rough birthing quickly but doesn’t return to high school. She only talks about her child twice more in the series: Once when she explains to Cassandra Cain that she feels bad about it, but doesn’t regret giving her child a better life than it would have had with her, and again on her ‘death bed’ when she asks Batman to make sure the child is taken care of. The loss of her child is something that Stephanie thinks about and has very strong feelings about, but not something she ever really wants to discuss. She knows she made the right choice and chooses to leave it at that.
It’s a funny thing about Stephanie that despite growing up in such a damaging environment, with a criminal for a father and a junkie for a mother, that Steph never fell into the trap of blaming herself for her parents’ shortcomings. As she explains to Tim after her father dies later in the series, she places the blame for her home life squarely on her father’s shoulders. For her whole life Steph has had two theories about her father: he’s evil, or he’s weak.
She has a similarly grounded view of other such deviants, which she explains in talking to Tim about how she feels about her father’s death and an attempted sexual assault she suffered in elementary school. She knows that there are people who are mentally ill, and they don’t represent the majority or their entire gender, race, what-have-you. But those people can do a lot of damage. She’s also well aware that there are perfectly healthy people who do bad things for what they think are good reasons: selfishness, desperation, fear. She also understands that her reactions to those sorts of incidents and those sorts of people are perfectly natural and valid. Sick people may not be the majority and the majority of men may not be evil, but after an attempted assault it’s perfectly normal and acceptable to be afraid of men. And maybe selfish, desperate, scared people don’t deserve to die, but they remind her of her father and make her angry and so she doesn’t feel the need to go out of her way to save them, either. Robin attempts to teach her the value of saving lives, but for now the best she can do is admit that sometimes other good things happen when you’re wasting your time saving a couple of scumbags.
Perhaps it’s her history, but Stephanie has a rather bleak outlook and tends to expect the worst from people. Robin often has to convince her that she’s supposed to be saving people even if they’re the bad guy, and it takes longer than he can afford to wait for her to realize the truth of it. She would rather take care of herself than spend any effort on criminals like her father. Under Robin’s influence she tries to be a better person, but some habits are hard to break, and others she just plain doesn’t want to. Sticking up for herself and for other victims is one of the latter. Her bleak outlook translates often to a dry sense of humor and sometimes even serves as an emotional defense mechanism – when you expect the worst, nothing can let you down, right?
She’s very self-aware when it comes to her own motivations, admitting that she wants revenge against her father more than justice and that she’s more interested in seeing Robin than fighting crime. She doesn’t fight these urges and she isn’t ashamed of them, they’re just part of who she is. She fights her father not because she sees him as her responsibility, but because she wants him as far away from her and her mother as she can keep him. Once her dad runs out as an excuse and her relationship plans with Robin fall through, Stephanie keeps up the vigilante gig for no better reason than because she enjoys it. She may not be able to put her finger on exactly why, but putting on the mask makes her happy an that’s reason enough for her to do it. Maybe it’s the adrenaline or maybe it’s the feeling of helping people, but she keeps coming back for more. Most likely vigilantism appeals to a part of her that has been neglected in her upbringing: a sense of importance. Fighting crime puts Steph in control of at least one aspect of her life, and it allows her to be a part of her community without resorting to crime (as she thinks of it – vigilantism is obviously illegal). The Spoiler mask is a way for Steph to mold the world she lives in and make it better, something that she might never have been able to do as the poor child of an unskilled criminal thug.
When Steph first faced her father in costume, she was angry enough that she was willing to kill him. Batman convinced her not to, and since then she has more or less fallen in line with his rule of ‘no killing’. Beyond that she doesn’t have the training to choose whether or not she does permanent damage, nor does she have the talent to even come close to killing someone unintentionally. Later in the series she does have the training, and she is firmly of the policy that if someone intends to kill her then she isn’t going to hold back. This only changes after severe emotional trauma (to say nothing of the physical trauma that followed) convinces her that she doesn’t want to break any more of Batman’s rules. She doesn’t kill, not because she’s against it but because Batman is. At this canon point the most immediate reason is because Robin wouldn’t approve, and if she wants to be his girlfriend she has to have his approval.
If there’s one thing Steph is good at, it’s rolling with the punches. She’s been through several kidnappings, near-death experiences and the like, but she always manages to find the time to get back on her feet and crack a joke. She isn’t the sort to sit and cry until someone saves her. She pays attention to her surroundings and takes advantage of any opportunity to save herself. For all that she is so often dependant on others to save her, she is a very independent individual. There have been occasions when she was scared enough to consider leaving the vigilante lifestyle behind, but she’s both reckless enough and determined enough to work through it (much to Tim’s dismay, of course) and put the mask back on.
Ironically enough, Steph doesn’t like secrets. Or perhaps more accurately, she doesn’t like when people keep secrets from her. She has plenty of her own, but not knowing Robin’s secret identity wore on her for a long time. For all her protests that she was happy just to be with him, she has a nearly insatiable curiosity and finds it incredibly frustrating when people know more than she does. It’s this curiosity that drives her to be more of a ‘true’ vigilante. She often goes on cases to discover the truth – about her drug-dealing gymnastics coach, about her father’s relationship with the Riddler, or even about her boyfriend possibly cheating on her.
For all of her confidence in other areas, Steph has really poor self-esteem as well. She’s legitimately surprised when Robin is nice to her, and even tells him that he’s probably too good for her. All of this of course while she’s dating a boy who’s name she can never know and whom she can never be allowed to see without a mask on. She claims that she would recognize him without the mask, but it’s obvious that Steph doesn’t believe she deserves better than half a boyfriend.
Barge Reactions:
Evidence suggests that following the War Games incident Stephanie sinks into a deep depression. From the moment the gang bosses open fire on each other she blames herself for all of the destruction that follows. This feeling only intensifies when she learns that Batman is Matches Malone, the missing link to her stolen plans. She begins questioning her status as a Robin, a title that clearly means a great deal to her, as well as Tim's feelings for her. Specifically, she asks Batman if Tim hates her. She doesn't respond when he insists that Tim has always adored her. The most compelling evidence is the way she leaves Gotham, literally walking away from her life without taking any measures that suggest she intends to return at all.
Coming to the barge as she would, immediately after being brutally tortured, Steph's immediate reaction will be fear and distrust. On her final escape from Roman her only thoughts are helping to fix the mess she made and getting medical care. She will insist on getting her message to Batman, even from beyond the grave, until she can be convinced that it is impossible. There was plenty of time during the torture for her to contemplate own death, so that will not come as much of a surprise. Still, it is a difficult thing to cope with for a girl who has never been quite so close to death before.
We have seen from her response to her father's death and her actions after Jim Murray's attempted assault that her initial response to trauma tends to be to protect herself. In both cases she left immediately to seek out a place where she felt safe. She makes some cursory attempt to explain herself then quickly withdraws. She also responds with reckless violence, though she tends to direct it at those who deserve it. All of these coping mechanisms will likely be repeated on the barge and take up much of her time for the first few weeks. Her own death, as the lesser trauma, will be treated much the same as her father's death and her own pregnancy. She owns it, making no effort to deny the truth and talking about it quite casually. Partly this is a refusal to feel ashamed and partly it's a way of externalizing her feelings. She is quite skilled at keeping her mixed feelings organized in her head, accepting both the good and the bad in any situation. Clearly this is not the case when she sees only bad in a situation, such as the attempted assault and the War Games incident.
Put simply, Steph will lash out violently when given the opportunity (likely in some way that will result in her getting the crap beaten out of her), retreat to a place of safety and isolation, and act as though everything is fine. If and when she does talk about the things that bother her, she will do so with honesty, some bluntness, and a measure of self awareness uncommon in a person her age.
Assuming that she manages to deal with her own issues long enough to confront the issues inherent in the barge itself, the phrase of the hour is “roll with the punches”. She deals well with the various measures of weirdness that her life becomes from the day she put on a mask up until her time later on as Batgirl. While she is ever aware of how bizarre the world around her is, she does not try to deny the reality and rather struggles along as she would in more ordinary conditions. It helps that as Robin she was primed on various aspects of the DC Universe she was previously not aware as, such as evil alien invaders, strange super powers, alternate universes and the like. Hearing about them is vastly different from experiencing them, but it does give her something to measure the weirdness against.
Path to Redemption:
First and foremost, Stephanie will need to be approached with care and allowed to come out of her protective shell. She has suffered terrible trauma that she will need to work through before she can even be convinced that leaving the barge would be a good thing. For this she will need good friends and an attentive warden who will not try to push her to change or make things worse before she’s ready to accept a new life.
Stephanie has a stubborn streak a mile long, and it’s important to recognize that this is an aspect of her personality and not something that needs to be driven out of her entirely. She does, however, need to learn to recognize when she is being stubborn for the sake of being stubborn and when she needs to work around that. In order to learn this it would be helpful if her warden could take the time to get to know her well enough to know when this is happening and call her out on it. She is generally honest with herself, and though she may protest she will take note of the comment.
Her recklessness and impulsivity can be treated with a sense of self-respect and self-value. She has the tendency to focus entirely on helping other people and ignore the danger to herself in the process. As Cassandra points out, she needs to save herself first, then try to save everyone else. She will not, however, take kindly to the suggestion that she has low self-esteem. It would be best to build on this aspect of her redemption slowly and subtly. Another thing that may be valuable to work on with her is the feeling that she has to prove something. This feeling contributes a lot to her recklessness and occasional casual disregard for human life. While she does want to help people, she often twists that feeling into wanting to prove that she can help people, and that she by extension has some value.
The vicious streak will also be difficult to remedy. Her background lends well to violence, and the habit is deeply ingrained in her psyche. Robin tries to teach her about saving the bad guys, but she doesn’t take it to heart for a very long time. She needs to learn to put her anger and self-righteousness aside and treat even villains as lives worth saving. This may come about best in discussion about the barge and how it works and why. It would be wise to incorporate the people she meets and things she sees on the barge into this particular lesson.
History: Stephanie Brown Wiki
Sample Journal Entry:
Can I eat meals in my room?
[ Steph has previously been quiet, keeping to herself and more or less living on snacks. She’s done it before. But even with her appetite not quite up to snuff, after a few days candy and chips just start to make her feel worse. So here she is, speaking into the device she’s only really skimmed through with very little ceremony to precede it. ]
I mean, obviously I can eat in my room. But is anybody going to hunt me down or whatever looking for missing trays?
[ That’s the only thing that’s stopped her – the idea of someone banging on her door demanding used cutlery. She wants her privacy. Her voice is utterly flippant, making this out to be much less of a big deal than it really is to her. ]
I swear I’m not hoarding silverware or anything crazy like that. I’ll give it all back, I just don’t want to eat in the hall. It’s too noisy. Gives me headaches. [ It doesn’t, but that’s a better explanation than ‘I don’t want to be around other people more than absolutely necessary.’ ]
Sample RP:
Stephanie stood with her arms crossed, considering the raised bar in front of her. She had only intended to get a look at the gym as part of her explorations. The bar had caught her attention and held it.
The last time she had been on a bar was a year ago. She quit the team after the discovery that the coach was dealing drugs and hadn't been back since. She hadn't missed it, not when she spent her nights-- no. No, she didn't want to think of that. That life was in her past. But gymnastics, that was constant. There was no harm in going back to that.
In the metal over her head she saw exhaustion, work. But she also saw freedom, the thrill of motion, (her body straining to reach the next roof), the rush of air past her face, (the chill barely slowed by her mask), the grace of the human body. This would be worth it.
She took a deep breath and let it out. Then she took two quick steps and hopped up to grab the bar. With a great effort she pulled herself up until her hips came in contact with the metal. There she held the position for a long moment.
She let out a gasp. Her elbows were shaking, her muscles screaming. She lowered herself as smoothly and quickly as she could and dropped to the ground panting.
Once she had caught her breath she pressed her fingers in a line up and down her biceps and asked herself what went wrong. She was plenty hydrated. She had eaten breakfast- only a piece of toast with jam. She had slept- badly. The last time she had exercised was the day she got here. The day she died. She was out of shape.
She twisted to look up at the bar again. It was out of her reach, it seemed. For a minute she just stood there, brow wrinkled in a slight frown. Then she dropped to the ground and started doing push-ups. It took her a month to get out of shape. It wouldn't take too much longer to get back up to snuff.
Special Notes: I’m using the same account as Batgirl!Steph for the icons, sorry, please don’t get confused.
Series: DC Comics
Age: 17
From When?: Robin #131, after being shot and kicked down a flight of stairs by Roman Sionis.
Inmate/Warden:
Inmate.
Stephanie is often selfish, reckless and impulsive. At times she balks at authority on principle rather than because the authority in question is wrong. She also has a vicious streak, which only really becomes a problem after Batman trains her. With knowledge of techniques that use deadly force she is likely to kill something without really thinking about it. In fact, the biggest problem is that she tends not to think about it, leaps before she looks and gets herself into all manner of trouble. She needs to learn to plan ahead and reign herself in.
Item: NA
Abilities/Powers:
Stephanie is a self-made vigilante. From the very beginning she made her own costume, improvised her own gear, and trained herself. She’s the independent sort who can do just about anything she sets her mind to, and more than likely would prefer to do it on her own, thank you very much.
This self-determination has forced Steph to be a quick learner, especially when it comes to physical abilities, because if she doesn’t learn and adapt she could very easily be killed. When she really decides she will learn a skill, she generally learns it and excels at it.
As a gymnast, she’s very flexible and quick, which makes up for her relative lack of physical strength compared to the other Bats. She has a certain grace when she fights, and she never stops moving.
Steph’s biggest strength is her indomitable spirit. For all of the terrible things she has been through, she has pulled through and come out the other end all the stronger for it. Traumas that could have easily destroyed her only made her more determined to continue fighting the good fight.
Personality:
Stephanie Brown is a girl who likes to take matters in her own hands. Rather than sit back and wait for more experienced individuals to get their shit together, she determines what it is she wants to happen and does whatever she can to make it happen. Of course, it took 15 years for her to realize that the experienced individuals didn’t have their shit together. As long as she’s been alive Stephanie’s father has been an abusive asshole, driving her mother to abuse prescription drugs on top of verbally and physically abusing her himself.
The cause of Arthur Brown’s psychosis is unclear, and whether or not his abusive behavior is linked to his criminal set of problem solving techniques he is a father figure that should have been removed from the equation years ago by social services. In Gotham these sorts of cases tend to be overlooked, and Steph had to rely on his inability to successfully pull off a bank robbery and a clean getaway to keep him in prison and she and her mother safe. When even that system let her down, releasing him and declaring him ‘cured’ of his pathological need to actually send the police clues to help catch him in the act, Stephanie knew there was no other course of action but to make sure he was put away herself. Batman and Robin already set an example for her, proving that masked vigilantes could in fact put criminals behind bars. It wasn’t a far stretch for her to take to the sewing machine and copy their act.
Whether it’s sending her father to prison or getting just a little bit closer to her favorite Boy Wonder, Steph knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to go for it. In fact based on her actions it seems there is very little of which she is actually afraid. She dives into conflict without a second thought and has no hesitation to tell others how she feels. This puts a bit of a strain between her and Batman, who doesn’t think she should be on the streets. She is often telling him that he isn’t the boss of her and more or less ignores every instruction he gives her. Batman is enigmatic at best, and she doesn’t try very hard to read him. Instead she focuses on what she thinks is best for her. She says she’s afraid of him, but if her fear shows at all it is only with indignation and a stolid refusal to back down.
This policy causes some tension in her relationship with Robin as well. Whether he’s following Batman’s lead or trying to protect her out of affection, Robin often voices his disapproval of Stephanie’s chosen career track. At times he is respectful and understanding, but at other times he shows no respect for her decision and even calls her by her name while they’re fighting together. Robin seems to have conflicting feelings towards Stephanie, and she reacts in kind. Underneath it all she has an undeniable attraction to him and keeps coming back. When he’s respectful she takes the job seriously, and when he isn’t respectful she retorts and acts bitter. Their relationship is very reactive, and often seems on the edge of breaking.
Steph and Tim’s relationship is best shortly after they begin dating officially. Ironically, this is long before she knows his name, and Stephanie isn’t able to do vigilante work because she has just discovered she is pregnant. Not with Tim’s child, of course, but with the child of her previous boyfriend Dean who dumped her when an Earthquake hit and things got a little too dangerous for his tastes. Throughout the pregnancy Tim was incredibly supportive of Steph, giving her advice and even taking her to lamaze classes disguised as ‘Alvin Drapper’. The pregnancy was incredibly difficult for Steph, mostly because she has a weakness for children. In fact she would have kept the child if she could, and is adamantly against abortion (at least while hormonal and being used as a mouthpiece for the pro-life writer in charge at the time).
She became pregnant at the age of 15, a freshman in high school. The only reason she had sex with Dean in the first place was a combination of peer pressure and low self esteem, a mistake she will be certain never to repeat again. Her mother was recovering from her drug addiction so long as Arthur was in prison, but it still left Stephanie as the 15 year old high school student single mother of a child whose grandfather gave her nightmares over the baby’s safety. Keeping the child simply wasn’t an option. She was so distraught by having to give away her child that she refused to see it before they took it away, and didn’t even want to know the gender. She recovers from the rough birthing quickly but doesn’t return to high school. She only talks about her child twice more in the series: Once when she explains to Cassandra Cain that she feels bad about it, but doesn’t regret giving her child a better life than it would have had with her, and again on her ‘death bed’ when she asks Batman to make sure the child is taken care of. The loss of her child is something that Stephanie thinks about and has very strong feelings about, but not something she ever really wants to discuss. She knows she made the right choice and chooses to leave it at that.
It’s a funny thing about Stephanie that despite growing up in such a damaging environment, with a criminal for a father and a junkie for a mother, that Steph never fell into the trap of blaming herself for her parents’ shortcomings. As she explains to Tim after her father dies later in the series, she places the blame for her home life squarely on her father’s shoulders. For her whole life Steph has had two theories about her father: he’s evil, or he’s weak.
She has a similarly grounded view of other such deviants, which she explains in talking to Tim about how she feels about her father’s death and an attempted sexual assault she suffered in elementary school. She knows that there are people who are mentally ill, and they don’t represent the majority or their entire gender, race, what-have-you. But those people can do a lot of damage. She’s also well aware that there are perfectly healthy people who do bad things for what they think are good reasons: selfishness, desperation, fear. She also understands that her reactions to those sorts of incidents and those sorts of people are perfectly natural and valid. Sick people may not be the majority and the majority of men may not be evil, but after an attempted assault it’s perfectly normal and acceptable to be afraid of men. And maybe selfish, desperate, scared people don’t deserve to die, but they remind her of her father and make her angry and so she doesn’t feel the need to go out of her way to save them, either. Robin attempts to teach her the value of saving lives, but for now the best she can do is admit that sometimes other good things happen when you’re wasting your time saving a couple of scumbags.
Perhaps it’s her history, but Stephanie has a rather bleak outlook and tends to expect the worst from people. Robin often has to convince her that she’s supposed to be saving people even if they’re the bad guy, and it takes longer than he can afford to wait for her to realize the truth of it. She would rather take care of herself than spend any effort on criminals like her father. Under Robin’s influence she tries to be a better person, but some habits are hard to break, and others she just plain doesn’t want to. Sticking up for herself and for other victims is one of the latter. Her bleak outlook translates often to a dry sense of humor and sometimes even serves as an emotional defense mechanism – when you expect the worst, nothing can let you down, right?
She’s very self-aware when it comes to her own motivations, admitting that she wants revenge against her father more than justice and that she’s more interested in seeing Robin than fighting crime. She doesn’t fight these urges and she isn’t ashamed of them, they’re just part of who she is. She fights her father not because she sees him as her responsibility, but because she wants him as far away from her and her mother as she can keep him. Once her dad runs out as an excuse and her relationship plans with Robin fall through, Stephanie keeps up the vigilante gig for no better reason than because she enjoys it. She may not be able to put her finger on exactly why, but putting on the mask makes her happy an that’s reason enough for her to do it. Maybe it’s the adrenaline or maybe it’s the feeling of helping people, but she keeps coming back for more. Most likely vigilantism appeals to a part of her that has been neglected in her upbringing: a sense of importance. Fighting crime puts Steph in control of at least one aspect of her life, and it allows her to be a part of her community without resorting to crime (as she thinks of it – vigilantism is obviously illegal). The Spoiler mask is a way for Steph to mold the world she lives in and make it better, something that she might never have been able to do as the poor child of an unskilled criminal thug.
When Steph first faced her father in costume, she was angry enough that she was willing to kill him. Batman convinced her not to, and since then she has more or less fallen in line with his rule of ‘no killing’. Beyond that she doesn’t have the training to choose whether or not she does permanent damage, nor does she have the talent to even come close to killing someone unintentionally. Later in the series she does have the training, and she is firmly of the policy that if someone intends to kill her then she isn’t going to hold back. This only changes after severe emotional trauma (to say nothing of the physical trauma that followed) convinces her that she doesn’t want to break any more of Batman’s rules. She doesn’t kill, not because she’s against it but because Batman is. At this canon point the most immediate reason is because Robin wouldn’t approve, and if she wants to be his girlfriend she has to have his approval.
If there’s one thing Steph is good at, it’s rolling with the punches. She’s been through several kidnappings, near-death experiences and the like, but she always manages to find the time to get back on her feet and crack a joke. She isn’t the sort to sit and cry until someone saves her. She pays attention to her surroundings and takes advantage of any opportunity to save herself. For all that she is so often dependant on others to save her, she is a very independent individual. There have been occasions when she was scared enough to consider leaving the vigilante lifestyle behind, but she’s both reckless enough and determined enough to work through it (much to Tim’s dismay, of course) and put the mask back on.
Ironically enough, Steph doesn’t like secrets. Or perhaps more accurately, she doesn’t like when people keep secrets from her. She has plenty of her own, but not knowing Robin’s secret identity wore on her for a long time. For all her protests that she was happy just to be with him, she has a nearly insatiable curiosity and finds it incredibly frustrating when people know more than she does. It’s this curiosity that drives her to be more of a ‘true’ vigilante. She often goes on cases to discover the truth – about her drug-dealing gymnastics coach, about her father’s relationship with the Riddler, or even about her boyfriend possibly cheating on her.
For all of her confidence in other areas, Steph has really poor self-esteem as well. She’s legitimately surprised when Robin is nice to her, and even tells him that he’s probably too good for her. All of this of course while she’s dating a boy who’s name she can never know and whom she can never be allowed to see without a mask on. She claims that she would recognize him without the mask, but it’s obvious that Steph doesn’t believe she deserves better than half a boyfriend.
Barge Reactions:
Evidence suggests that following the War Games incident Stephanie sinks into a deep depression. From the moment the gang bosses open fire on each other she blames herself for all of the destruction that follows. This feeling only intensifies when she learns that Batman is Matches Malone, the missing link to her stolen plans. She begins questioning her status as a Robin, a title that clearly means a great deal to her, as well as Tim's feelings for her. Specifically, she asks Batman if Tim hates her. She doesn't respond when he insists that Tim has always adored her. The most compelling evidence is the way she leaves Gotham, literally walking away from her life without taking any measures that suggest she intends to return at all.
Coming to the barge as she would, immediately after being brutally tortured, Steph's immediate reaction will be fear and distrust. On her final escape from Roman her only thoughts are helping to fix the mess she made and getting medical care. She will insist on getting her message to Batman, even from beyond the grave, until she can be convinced that it is impossible. There was plenty of time during the torture for her to contemplate own death, so that will not come as much of a surprise. Still, it is a difficult thing to cope with for a girl who has never been quite so close to death before.
We have seen from her response to her father's death and her actions after Jim Murray's attempted assault that her initial response to trauma tends to be to protect herself. In both cases she left immediately to seek out a place where she felt safe. She makes some cursory attempt to explain herself then quickly withdraws. She also responds with reckless violence, though she tends to direct it at those who deserve it. All of these coping mechanisms will likely be repeated on the barge and take up much of her time for the first few weeks. Her own death, as the lesser trauma, will be treated much the same as her father's death and her own pregnancy. She owns it, making no effort to deny the truth and talking about it quite casually. Partly this is a refusal to feel ashamed and partly it's a way of externalizing her feelings. She is quite skilled at keeping her mixed feelings organized in her head, accepting both the good and the bad in any situation. Clearly this is not the case when she sees only bad in a situation, such as the attempted assault and the War Games incident.
Put simply, Steph will lash out violently when given the opportunity (likely in some way that will result in her getting the crap beaten out of her), retreat to a place of safety and isolation, and act as though everything is fine. If and when she does talk about the things that bother her, she will do so with honesty, some bluntness, and a measure of self awareness uncommon in a person her age.
Assuming that she manages to deal with her own issues long enough to confront the issues inherent in the barge itself, the phrase of the hour is “roll with the punches”. She deals well with the various measures of weirdness that her life becomes from the day she put on a mask up until her time later on as Batgirl. While she is ever aware of how bizarre the world around her is, she does not try to deny the reality and rather struggles along as she would in more ordinary conditions. It helps that as Robin she was primed on various aspects of the DC Universe she was previously not aware as, such as evil alien invaders, strange super powers, alternate universes and the like. Hearing about them is vastly different from experiencing them, but it does give her something to measure the weirdness against.
Path to Redemption:
First and foremost, Stephanie will need to be approached with care and allowed to come out of her protective shell. She has suffered terrible trauma that she will need to work through before she can even be convinced that leaving the barge would be a good thing. For this she will need good friends and an attentive warden who will not try to push her to change or make things worse before she’s ready to accept a new life.
Stephanie has a stubborn streak a mile long, and it’s important to recognize that this is an aspect of her personality and not something that needs to be driven out of her entirely. She does, however, need to learn to recognize when she is being stubborn for the sake of being stubborn and when she needs to work around that. In order to learn this it would be helpful if her warden could take the time to get to know her well enough to know when this is happening and call her out on it. She is generally honest with herself, and though she may protest she will take note of the comment.
Her recklessness and impulsivity can be treated with a sense of self-respect and self-value. She has the tendency to focus entirely on helping other people and ignore the danger to herself in the process. As Cassandra points out, she needs to save herself first, then try to save everyone else. She will not, however, take kindly to the suggestion that she has low self-esteem. It would be best to build on this aspect of her redemption slowly and subtly. Another thing that may be valuable to work on with her is the feeling that she has to prove something. This feeling contributes a lot to her recklessness and occasional casual disregard for human life. While she does want to help people, she often twists that feeling into wanting to prove that she can help people, and that she by extension has some value.
The vicious streak will also be difficult to remedy. Her background lends well to violence, and the habit is deeply ingrained in her psyche. Robin tries to teach her about saving the bad guys, but she doesn’t take it to heart for a very long time. She needs to learn to put her anger and self-righteousness aside and treat even villains as lives worth saving. This may come about best in discussion about the barge and how it works and why. It would be wise to incorporate the people she meets and things she sees on the barge into this particular lesson.
History: Stephanie Brown Wiki
Sample Journal Entry:
Can I eat meals in my room?
[ Steph has previously been quiet, keeping to herself and more or less living on snacks. She’s done it before. But even with her appetite not quite up to snuff, after a few days candy and chips just start to make her feel worse. So here she is, speaking into the device she’s only really skimmed through with very little ceremony to precede it. ]
I mean, obviously I can eat in my room. But is anybody going to hunt me down or whatever looking for missing trays?
[ That’s the only thing that’s stopped her – the idea of someone banging on her door demanding used cutlery. She wants her privacy. Her voice is utterly flippant, making this out to be much less of a big deal than it really is to her. ]
I swear I’m not hoarding silverware or anything crazy like that. I’ll give it all back, I just don’t want to eat in the hall. It’s too noisy. Gives me headaches. [ It doesn’t, but that’s a better explanation than ‘I don’t want to be around other people more than absolutely necessary.’ ]
Sample RP:
Stephanie stood with her arms crossed, considering the raised bar in front of her. She had only intended to get a look at the gym as part of her explorations. The bar had caught her attention and held it.
The last time she had been on a bar was a year ago. She quit the team after the discovery that the coach was dealing drugs and hadn't been back since. She hadn't missed it, not when she spent her nights-- no. No, she didn't want to think of that. That life was in her past. But gymnastics, that was constant. There was no harm in going back to that.
In the metal over her head she saw exhaustion, work. But she also saw freedom, the thrill of motion, (her body straining to reach the next roof), the rush of air past her face, (the chill barely slowed by her mask), the grace of the human body. This would be worth it.
She took a deep breath and let it out. Then she took two quick steps and hopped up to grab the bar. With a great effort she pulled herself up until her hips came in contact with the metal. There she held the position for a long moment.
She let out a gasp. Her elbows were shaking, her muscles screaming. She lowered herself as smoothly and quickly as she could and dropped to the ground panting.
Once she had caught her breath she pressed her fingers in a line up and down her biceps and asked herself what went wrong. She was plenty hydrated. She had eaten breakfast- only a piece of toast with jam. She had slept- badly. The last time she had exercised was the day she got here. The day she died. She was out of shape.
She twisted to look up at the bar again. It was out of her reach, it seemed. For a minute she just stood there, brow wrinkled in a slight frown. Then she dropped to the ground and started doing push-ups. It took her a month to get out of shape. It wouldn't take too much longer to get back up to snuff.
Special Notes: I’m using the same account as Batgirl!Steph for the icons, sorry, please don’t get confused.