#I might add one later

[stupid-kh-fankids-askblog]

Hey Noel! Silly question, buuut... how would you describe *☆▪︎Shelby▪︎☆*, in your own words?

TW: occasional & accidental misgendering (but is quickly corrected by oneself).

Noel’s caught off guard, her face and ears turn red. “OH- um. Shelby, as in P-…” She hesitates for a moment, figuring it wouldn’t be okay.

“… she-, she’s funny, a little mean, VERY impulsive, and she’s even started asking me to go to the casino with her! But heh, I can’t really get in since I’m not 18… He’s- damn! Sorry, I’m still getting used to the new name and the whole ‘she, not he’ thing..” She mumbled, a little frustrated with herself.

“I’ve been trying to hang out with her for a while now- ever since I saw her first really. I always thought she was cool with hi- her read hair and stubble and jacket and-“ She quickly shook her head and gave a small dismissive wave. “Sorry, I’m blabbering again-“

“But ever since she started going by Shelby and changed her appearance a little, she’s…” Noel pauses for a moment to think. “She’s really pretty. It- it’s just confusing. I mean, she’s a girl now, so I shouldn’t like her anymore, right? But— I do.” She mumbled, her face growing redder.

“….” She smiled awkwardly and let out a forced cough. “Can- uh, can we talk about something else?”

[theydjarin]

Ah yes. The good old days when shipping wars hadn’t been invented yet. Before the existence of antis when we all lived in harmony -

No, no. Tumblr and twitter had *created* puritan culture. I mean before then.

No no no before then. Before social media poisoned everything-

Before then….?

Before….

Well surely shipping wars didn’t exist before the internet-

[crowlion]

[sualne]

nice color palette old man, don't mind if i do!

[mochiajclayne]

My favorite headcanon that I seldom indulge with has got to be zosan being jealous of Law.

Like, hear me out: Sanji watches Zoro and Law discussing something and decides he doesn't like it one bit when it threaded into bickering territory. On the other hand, Zoro observed Sanji and Law talk and he definitely doesn't vibe with the familiar fire of annoyance that he sees flashing in Sanji's eyes, thank you very much.

What makes this funnier is Law being unaware as to why he's dealing with the occasional glares from the guys when the topic of discussion he had with them was about Luffy whose he's been trying to make romantic progress with. Cherry on top when Law misinterprets the entire thing and thinks zosan likes Luffy that way instead of connecting the dots between Zoro and Sanji. LMAOOOOO.

[slavhew]

i may not show it but im

perpetually insane about them

[rachiebeee]

they are best friends and siblings and i love them both so dearly. featuring piercings bc i stand strong in my belief that they would

[lost-in-yahargul]

if you're looking for bloodborne art requests, may i humbly offer Yharnam, Pthumerian Queen? as a chalice dungeon-only boss she's v underrated imo. alternatuvely, one of those fucked up crow things that are all over the damn place in central yharnam

This was a super fun one, thank you! :D

[casscainmainly]

The Evolution of Cassandra Cain's Dialogue

Since Batgirl #1 is out and thriving, I thought it'd be fun to dive into the history of Cass' dialogue throughout different writers/runs. This is not comprehensive - I'll miss some writers, but I'll be covering her generally most known runs in mainline continuity (so no DCeased, Shadow of the Batgirl, etc.). Not a linguist by any means, so linguists on here feel free to chime in! (I'll also give opinions on which interpretations I personally prefer at the end).

Without further ado, we'll start at the beginning:

Kelley Puckett - Batgirl (2000)

Pre-issue 4, Cass speaks minimally in one-word sentences and doesn't have internal narration. Post-issue 4 (when a metahuman changes Cass' brain), she develops an internal monologue and begins to speak longer sentences. I'm splitting Puckett's Cass dialogue into 3 stages: early, middle, and late.

Early (#4 - #12): Cass speaks short, fragmented sentences. Each word has an ellipses between them (panel 1 above, from #7).

Middle (#13 - #24): Cass continues to speak incomplete sentences (often missing a subject or pronouns), but without ellipses (panel 2, from #13).

Late (#25 onwards): Cass begins to speak complete, simple sentences, punctuated by a few ellipses (panel 3, from #33). She continues to speak grammatically (though slowly) throughout the final part of Puckett's run.

Dylan Horrocks - Batgirl (2000)

Horrocks writes very similarly to late-Puckett, with Cass speaking in full, simple sentences, punctuated by the occasional ellipses. Horrocks introduces two new elements to her dialogue:

Cass stutters, sometimes repeating a word or phrase at the beginning of a sentence (panel 1 above, from #39). This is mostly used in the earlier parts of Horrocks' run.

She quotes reality TV (panel 2, from #51).

Maybe because of the reality TV, Cass also speaks more colloquially here than in Puckett's run, using phrases like "come 'n' get it" (from #57).

Andersen Gabrych - Batgirl (2000)

Gabrych's run focuses heavily on Cass' dialogue. Panel 1 above, from #58, suggests her narration boxes are another form of dialogue - Cass is speaking into a recorder. Several features of Gabrych's Cass dialogue are:

Ellipses: Even more than his predecessors, Gabrych scatters ellipses throughout Cass' speech (panel 1).

Fillers: Cass extensively uses filler words such as 'uh', 'um', and 'like' (panel 1, panel 2 from #61).

Longer sentences: Cass is more talkative and speaks longer sentences (panel 1, which is basically more words per panel than Puckett and Horrocks combined).

Wordplay: Cass often ponders definitions and word structures (panel 1, 2).

Adam Beechen - Batgirl (2008)

After evil Cass (that dialogue is not worth discussing), Beechen gets another chance with Cass in this miniseries. More than any other writer, Beechen differentiates Cass' internal monologue from her dialogue - her narration boxes are much wordier than her speech.

Her dialogue is a more loquacious version of late-Puckett or Horrocks: full sentences interspersed with ellipses (panel 1, from #1). The ellipses drop off towards the end of the series.

Her narration boxes use a variety of sentence structures and vocabulary. They read more or less as fluent English (panel 2, from #4).

Scott Snyder - Gates of Gotham (2011)

Snyder's Cass somewhat resembles mid-Puckett, using short sentences without ellipses (panel 1, from #2). She speaks a fair amount, but is more taciturn here than in any previous run. This is partially due to her not having narration boxes.

A unique feature of Snyder's Cass is preferring formal to informal speech. Though she uses contractions (panel 1), she goes large stretches without them (panel 2, from #3). She also omits the subject of a sentence only once in 5 issues, whereas native speakers (like Dick) drop the subject all the time ('have you ever been to Paris?' vs. 'ever been to Paris?'; Snyder's Cass would always say the former instead of the latter).

Sidenote: Batman & Robin: Eternal (2015)

Quick note about B&R:E: Cass is reintroduced into canon after being erased by the New 52, which means she's back to having very limited language ability. The series is scripted by multiple people, so it's hard to analyse. Suffice it to say she speaks in monosyllabic words, at most a short, incomplete sentence, but is mostly silent.

James Tynion IV - Detective Comics (2016)

Because Cass' language ability has been reset, Tynion develops her speech along the lines of Batgirl (2000).

Early Tynion has Cass speaking single word sentences (panel 1, from #938). Very similar to pre-metahuman touch Cass in BG (2000).

During the League of Shadows arc, Cass begins to speak a few words at a time, often separated by an ellipsis (panel 2, from #956).

Afterwards, Cass' friendship with Basil Karlo blossoms, leading to this run's most distinctive language feature - Cass improves her speech via studying and quoting Shakespeare (panel 3, from #958). Her improvement is reflected in the rest of the run through speaking longer and more frequent sentences.

Bryan Hill - Batman & The Outsiders (2019)

Like other writers, Hill's Cass generally uses short, simple sentences. She frequently drops the subject or pronoun in a sentence (panel 1, from #1). Hill doesn't use ellipses to separate the sentences, opting for periods most of the time.

Cass sometimes omits other words from her sentences too, dropping articles like 'a' and 'the' (panel 2, from #4), prepositions like 'to', and verbs like 'is' (panel 3, from #9). This peters out in the second half of the run.

Becky Cloonan and Michael W. Conrad - Batgirls (2022)

Similar to mid-Puckett, Batgirls has Cass speak mostly in short, 1-2 word sentences (panel 1, from #2). Cloonan and Conrad occasionally use ellipses as well, though mostly for emphasis/natural hesitation rather than indicating a unique speech pattern (panel 2, from #7).

Cass also has a habit of repeating/echoing a phrase Stephanie says (panel 3, from #16). This might be more of a friendship thing than a speech thing, though.

Alyssa Wong - Spirit World (2023)

Wong's Cass uses short sentences sometimes interrupted by ellipses, like late-Puckett and Horrocks (panel 1, from #1). Generally, if the sentence is three words or less, there won't be an ellipsis (panel 2, from #5).

Kelly Thompson - Birds of Prey (2023)

Thompson's Cass draws on a lot of previous iterations, but is somewhat unique as a whole. Some elements of BoP Cass include:

She speaks in sentences of varying lengths, but rarely with more than one clause (panel 1, from #1). Thompson is more strict about not using commas with Cass than most other writers.

Cass is a little more talkative (panel 2, from #5). Her sentences are fairly lengthy compared to most other runs, and she doesn't always opt for the shortest way to say things ('where is it?' instead of 'do you know where it is?'). Thompson also doesn't use ellipses, which adds to the sentences feeling longer/more complete.

BoP is ongoing so Thompson may add more to her speech.

Sidenote: Ram V - Detective Comics (2023)

Putting this in a sidenote since there's not much to say, but Ram V takes after mid-Puckett, with Cass using shorter, incomplete sentences. Cass almost always omits the subject of a sentence; her dialogue is as short as possible while retaining clarity.

Thoughts

Because Cass' language disability is a core part of her character, but learning to speak is also a core part of her character, I prefer writers who emphasize her unique speech patterns without reducing her range of expression. My favourites are:

Gabrych - by far the person who put the most effort into his dialogue, Gabrych-Cass has such a vibrant, distinctive style of speaking. The narration boxes, Cass' wordplay, and the use of fillers and ellipses all combine for a speech style that highlights her disability without reducing her to it.

Puckett/Horrocks - combining because they are really very similar. Puckett and Horrocks both use ellipses to great effect, and is a great style to emulate for Cass in an earlier stage of life. Horrocks' use of reality TV is severely underutilised. Puckett, of course, is the gold standard for typical Cass dialogue - if Gabrych's style is a little too much, Puckett and Horrocks are the way to go.

Tynion - mostly because of the Shakespeare thing. It's such a beautiful and clever way of showing her progress, and the amount of symbolism you could do with Cass quoting Shakespeare is unmatched.

I don't super enjoy the more talkative Casses (Beechen, Thompson to an extent), though I kind of like Snyder's take because there's a sense of Cass being very careful with her speech there. If you're writing Cass for a fanfic or something, I would avoid Hill's Outsiders; the run is great, but Cass' ungrammatical speech is unusual and doesn't jibe with the rest of her depictions. Ram V and Wong are relatively good depictions to draw from though.

Of course these are my opinions! I may have gotten some things wrong/overgeneralised stuff, so take all this with a grain of salt. All you need to know is you should read Batgirl (2000) :).

[soupysundae]

🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍

[artbyfinnbrown]

Tier List of how good Re:Zero characters are at killing Subaru

[tautozhone]

never will there be a better genre of media than “you can only get anything close to a fresh impression of this once when you first encounter it because knowing what happens next gives you entirely new understanding of what happened before”

like anything that you need an actual mind wipe to enjoy the same way as you did the first time. for it to be just as emotionally devastating. for every twist and turn to make you feel the same.

[starheirxero]

Hey what if Bloodmoon comes back wrong. What if Lunar knows the feeling all too well

[joonebugg]

Hot take but there shouldn't be shipping in the mouthwashing fandom. Anyway goodnight

[landfilloftrash]

pot, kettle, sir.

[devilart2199-aibi]

Gettin' Ultra Magnus! 🚛📝 (TF Rage Battle Gacha)

More of doodling a little thing for each character I obtain in the game :3