>>45406202Bad headcanon, since in all Pokémon media Steven is portrayed as a well spoken and charismatic/competent guy and we never really see him 'slip'. Mr. Stone spergs about rocks and steel pokémon as much as his son, so the apple just didn't fall far from the tree.
Him being a protagonist-type though I'll give you. He even apparently befriended the lati (had eon flute) and is always chasing harder fights (Sidney tries to drag him away from Battle Maison back to the league to no avail, and he ends up going away from Hoenn to train).
As for 'being the Devon heir', in HGSS he's fucking doing business at Silph co., so looks like he's already preparing to take over his father when the time comes. No incompetence shown even here (and it would have made sense to slap a flaw on his character by making him not want that responsibility).
Wallace feels more like a strong psychological support to him, seeing how he replaced him at the league without a second thought when he expressed the need to leave that spot. But really, there's no sign of Wallace having to cover up for Steven's slip-ups. More than anything, Wallace seems obsessed about him, because he will always, ALWAYS, mention Steven one way or another and tell the player something about him...
