#ITS THAT SIMPLE

[morgantheblue]

I know you said you're ignoring authorial intent, but like why? Why are people so willing to give DC a pass for all this. Cassandra Cain took those mantles not for any of those in universe reasons.

But because DC were being Racist.

Because Dan DiDio didn't want a non-white Batgirl. Its as simple as that. Its also why they sent her to Hong Kong. A city she had no connection with aside from it being in Asia and Cass is Asian.

Orphan was the most insulting and I'm glad Brombal is making it clear, Cain is just "That man" he's not Cassandra's real father. Neither Cassandra nor Shiva consider him such.

Cass, Names, and the Black Bat Era

With a Black Bat mention in 2025 (read Batgirl (2024) #4!!), it seems as good a time as any to look back on one of Cass' most fleeting identities. We all know why Cass took up Batgirl and Orphan, but we don't get to see the thought process behind Black Bat. I'm going to consider why Cass might have chosen Black Bat as her name, and what it means for her relationship to Bruce and the Bat symbol.

This analysis will purely consider events from the characters' perspectives, ignoring authorial intent. There is like a negative percent chance any of the connections I make here were intended, and Black Bat probably was just a name they randomly picked. This is essentially me trying to make sense of the little Cass bits we get during the Batman Reborn era.

Background: Batgirl and Orphan

Growing up nameless, Cass associates names with personhood and autonomy. Batgirl was the first (and the most important), and a large part of Batgirl (2000) showed how Cass only thinks of herself as Batgirl.

Batgirl (2000) #7

"You need to relax, Cass--sorry--Batgirl." Barbara's 'sorry' indicates that Cass' identity is purely Batgirl, disliking any other name. (For a more in-depth exploration of this moment, see renaroo's meta!). This shows how it's not just the mantle, but the name - the actual word - that matters to Cass.

A very similar thing happens in Batman & Robin Eternal #26:

Once again, Cass is extremely particular about what people call her. And once again she rejects one identity in favour of another - she struggles with being more than one thing. Whatever identity she adopts, it contains her whole self.

Which is why when she loses herself, she becomes nameless:

Batgirl (2000) #73 / Red Robin #17

In the first panel, Cass has just 'killed' Shiva and forsaken Batgirl. "She thought she was a bat. But she came to find she wasn't that either." Without the bat, she becomes a girl "named Cain." While not technically nameless, Cain is just her father's last name - she has no first name of her own. This namelessness occurs again in Red Robin. After Bruce tells Cass to give Steph Batgirl, Cass is left without the bat again - and, again, she becomes nameless. Tim gives her a bat costume, asks her what she needs, and she says "to... just... be...".

If she takes up another name, she will become something - a name is not only identification, but transformation. When she has no idea who she is or who she wants to be (as seen in the end of Batgirl (2000) and Red Robin), she chooses namelessness.

The Gift

Cass remaining nameless not only shows her lack of identity, but her rejection of Bruce and the Batfamily.

Red Robin #17

Here, Tim says it doesn't matter what Cass calls herself, they'll always be family. Cass' answer is cryptic: "But family is not always home..." If we look at Cass' history, the only times she leaves her family is when their relationship becomes unbearable. She runs from David Cain because he makes her kill; she leaves Babs because she calls her stupid; she leaves Gotham the first time because of Steph's death; she goes to Hong Kong because Bruce makes her give away Batgirl. Family isn't home for Cass only when something awful happens.

For Cass, family and names have always been linked. In my gift post, I talked about how Batgirl was presented as a gift, and how Babs says gifts are things that make you "feel[...] not alone" (Azrael: Agent of the Bat #61). Batgirl, a gift, makes Cass feel "not alone." The mantle represents her connection to the Batfamily.

In fact, Red Robin parallels the original gifting of the Batgirl suit:

Legends of the Dark Knight #120 / Red Robin #17

Tim explicitly links the gift of the Bat symbol to family: "the...family... has settled down. I thought maybe... it was time to make it all official." (This also somewhat parallels Bruce's adoption of Cass, which Tim was also there for). But Cass doesn't accept the gift this time, telling Tim that Steph is already Batgirl, and that 'family isn't always home'. She keeps the suit, but the ambivalence in her response shows her ambivalence to her family.

Batgirl and Orphan are both familial names, one linked to the Bats, one linked to David Cain. Names to Cass represent both her own identity and her relationship to other people. When Batman took Batgirl away, he was essentially revoking her place in the family (Batman R.I.P happens right after her adoption too). Though we never explicitly get Cass' feelings, her hesitance at Tim's gift says a lot.

What Was Tim's Gift Anyway?

When Tim first sees Cass, he thinks to himself:

Red Robin #17

This is a great insight into what Tim was actually offering. The first thought reveals that Tim wasn't suggesting Cass be Batgirl again, which Cass assumed. He knows Cass doesn't want to be "who she was" - he thinks she's being true to what "she wanted to become."

What does he think Cass wants to become?

Batgirl (2000) #59

In Robin/Batgirl: Fresh Blood, Cass tells Tim the "the only thing" she's ever wanted was to be Batman. This is the only thing she wants - when Tim says she's being 'true to what she wanted to become', it's likely he's thinking of this conversation. So when Tim offers the batsuit, he's offering the bat mantle. He's offering what she always wanted to be: Batman.

But Cass' conception of Batman is clearly tied to Bruce ("take over for him when he's... done"), which in turn ties the concept of Batman to Gotham. Cass does become the Bat of Hong Kong, but she doesn't take the Batman name (which she totally could, since Bruce and Dick are sharing the name; or she could be 'the bat' or whatever).

Instead, she chooses Black Bat. Both Batgirl and Orphan are taken from other people, so this is strikingly the only name Cass invented (even Kasumi was probably not her invention? It was a disguise anyway). But was Black Bat actually Cass' invention?

Tai'Darshan All Along

Batgirl (2000) #40

Black Bat is also taken from someone - from Cass' first canon love interest, the one and only Tai'Darshan. I seriously don't think DC knew they were taking the name from him, but they did and that means Tai is extremely important to understanding Cass' Black Bat era.

Because Tai doesn't just represent teenage hormones. Like Lady Shiva, Tai'Darshan was a foil to Batman, someone who opposed him in almost every aspect. He is Cass' first proper rebellion, kickstarting the downfall of Cass and Bruce's relationship in Horrocks' run; he also died because of Bruce's interference, something that Bruce himself thinks is the reason Cass doesn't trust him anymore.

Batgirl (2000) #47

Though Bruce and Cass make up in #50, there is something permanently secretive about Black Wind and Cass' relationship. Bruce says "she won't tell me what" happened, and Tai's last conversation with Cass is about secrets:

Batgirl (2000) #44

Tai'Darshan represents Cass' secret side, a side "buried" from everyone (particularly Bruce). Tai's reference to Cass' "real name" is poignant - in a way, he was the first person who liked Cass for Cass, who asked her to take off her mask and admired her face underneath. He never knew who she really was, but he loved her anyway. The 'bat' in Black Bat doesn't refer to Bruce, but to Cass. It makes sense that at a time of complete identity loss - after giving up Batgirl at Bruce's orders - Cass would turn to a nickname from someone who caused her falling out with Bruce, who represents secrets, rebellion, and a self defined outside of Batman.

Black Bat

Gates of Gotham #4

I wrote elsewhere about how Gates of Gotham, and this conversation with Dick in particular, is Cass rebelling against Bruce's (and DC's) decision to boot her from Gotham. In GoG #5, she tells Tim she's staying. Black Bat as a mantle is not really Cass becoming 'the Bat' of any place - it's something different, something new. It's a reconfiguration of the Bat symbol as something that's hers.

I think Tim bookending this Black Bat experience is important, too. He gives her the Bat symbol in Hong Kong - she comes back to Gotham to tell him she's returning permanently. Black Bat and Red Robin are syntactically similar, and Black Bat is very similar to one of Tim's name suggestions ("Black Robin"). For Tim, Red Robin was punishment made into redemption; he took the name from Jason and made it his own. Black Bat, in its own way, is Cass doing the same. By taking a nickname from Tai'Darshan, she is using the bat name/symbol without attaching it to Bruce; in fact, the memory of Tai is against Bruce. She's taking back the symbol that means so much to her and making it her own.

Conclusion

This was honestly a big excuse to remind people that Black Bat comes from Tai'Darshan. As one of 4 Tai fans on this website, I just think his role in Cass' life is really interesting and underappreciated! His storyline may be awful in every way, but I'll always have a soft spot for him as a character.

Also I was writing this before Batgirl (2024) #4 came out and it does somewhat complicate this reading. Shiva is implying that Black Bat, like Orphan (and Kasumi) are identities that Cass affects, that she's "aspiring to be somebody else". I don't think Shiva is being quite fair - Orphan, for instance, is as much in defiance of David Cain as it is an homage to him. But it's interesting that even when Cass is constructing her own identity, she consistently defaults to using other people's names. In that way Shiva is right - for Cass, names are gifts, so she never tries to name herself. She also, even in this reading, clings to the image of the bat. I'm highly interested where Brombal's investigation into Cass' identity will take her, especially in regards to superhero and legacy mantles.

[clairedelune-13]

If you don’t accept me at my 

You don’t deserve me at my 

[lilbreed1ngdoll]

everything i say when im getting fucked is true.

when i tell you to "mark me. im yours", you best believe im gonna be the loyalist bitch within the known universe

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

I cannot make things simpler than this specific analogy

Dinosaurs : Birds :: Mammals : Bats

imagine if this mass extinction had only one surviving group of mammals, and that group was bats. they wouldn't stop being mammals, even if they were the only ones left.

that's the situation birds are in. except with one extra detail: birds are doing better, diversity wise, now, than all dinosaurs were doing at the end of the Mesozoic. turns out being small and flying around gives you access to more niches.

so yeah. birds are living dinosaurs, and the story of dinosaurs just gets better after the asteroid, not worse. if we're going with more diversity = better, which is the usual standard in evolutionary biology, at any rate.

tada

[mossycakes]

at the end of the day im just a girl whos a boy who likes boys to be girls who does girls like theyre boys and does boys like theyre girls

[rukafais]

seeing ten million posts on my dash arguing about how Toshiro's Not That Bad And Um Actually Laios Is Not Only Bad But Worse is deeply fascinating because that bit in the manga was like, to me, "they clearly both miscommunicated because they have different styles of talking. the point is both of them shot past each other and neither of them are Completely Right or Completely Wrong, it's just an interaction that shows that you can piss someone off without meaning to/you can unfairly put your expectations for behaviour on someone without quite realizing it. they got in a dust-up and cleared up the misunderstandings and came to a greater understanding of each other as people after getting their feelings out."

[cat-of-starlight]

Hey gang no meme with this one but hot question for the Limbus gang- Why am I still seeing people he/him-ing Dante

Where did you people come from? Has the plot not been clear enough for you?

no but like deadass

I've legit reached a point seeing some NEW posts (I won't name names) where I'm like "Oh ok cool theor- Ah- they used "He" for Dante- oh ok this person's opinions are now 100% invalid, moving on"

legit why are we still doing this- Even NPCs meeting them for the first time use they/them for them-

AND IF EVEN THEIR ENEMIES DON'T MISGENDER THEM, YOU GUYS SHOULDN'T EITHER

Also if you pull the "Oh, well they cant remember their gender but may have had one before their memory loss so I'm using he/him because of what they used to be" card?

1- You don't know that they started as a guy- they could have even been a woman- who knows- we only hear ticking- Also you know what, even Faust, WHO CLAIMS TO KNOW WHO THEY WERE BEFORE, at least to a degree, ALSO uses they/them for them, so checkmate

2- A character/person doesn't NEED to have a reason/memory loss to be nonbinary- They could very well have been NB even BEFORE the memory loss- Its not like its uncommon in canon- I could be remembering wrong but I think like. most of the Wonderlab gang was only referred to by they/them- most of them looked pretty fem- still they/them though. (At least the translation I read)

3- I'm beating you to death with hammers

[rescuerabbit]

its so frustrating how people will act like using TMA/TME language is just defining people by their assigned gender at birth. literally thats only true for TMA people, and we’re never the ones trying to fight this terminology. TME does not mean the same thing as afab, because theres a lot of amab people that are transmisogyny exempt! its literally just language used to help understand and explain trans women’s oppression. if you take issue with me talking about the unique bigotry i face as a transfeminine woman, i’m not interested in being in the same community as you.

[promethelice]

You know what I would do if I was rich?

Step 1:take my money to a financial advisor have him invest half of it in whatever will make me more money

Step 2:use the other to begin buying a cornering the production market for paper cups and rope.

Step 3:expand sustainable industry in paper cup and rope production with my enhanced finances

Step 4: cancel all my investments and withdraw all my money

Step 5: buy as many paper cups and rope as I can as well as a boating permit

Step 6:rope together all my paper cups

Step 7: drop my creation into the water and live on my paper cups until I slowly drown as they biodegrade.

Thank you.

[rafeandonlyrafe]

Why did you feel the need to put a fucking WARNING for reader being “chubby”? Love your fics so this was disappointing.

i get where youre coming from but i use warning very very loosely. if you look on any of my fics, a lot of things dont need a "warning", its more of just telling people things that are in the fanfic. also, some people might not to read about a chubby reader that mentions insecurities bc it could be triggering for them. if it isnt for you thats great but the warnings are for everyone, if i make any specific description of readers body (or even personality!), it gets put in the warnings

[fallinginaforrest]

*blasts bootleggers with my mind beams*

[moonlit-minuet]

Lisa Frankenstein is THE movie of all time

[im-going-to-eat-your-family]

I get super offtrack and stuff but um here's me talking about myself and stuff

If you wanna listen to me rant ig:

So I learned about therianthropy from youtube (bc I don't have/want tiktok) and it was very different when I searched it on tumblr

I'm a lot more informed now I think and I've gotten more comfortable in my own fur (haha get it?[I'm so sorry]) and it was a huge thing for me for the first few months cause like WOAH new identity unlocked! And I wanted to tell my friends cuz... They are my friends ..... And I want them to know who I am ig

And holy roll of toilet paper that was so freaking awkward

I explained a little bit about what it was, and how it was different from tt and yt and they didn't say anything they just kinda say there and we're like okayyyy thennnnnn and I told them if they wanted to ask questions they could and i wouldn't bring it up again if it made them uncomfy

So I didn't bring it up again

One of the two friends has never said anything about it at all (it's fine, it is kinda weird even to me, so I understand) and the other is I think getting more less uncomfortable about it

Like friend #2 I was walking home from school with and they go 'haha you sound like a crow' and I just AAAAAAAA THAT MEANT SO MUCH TO MEEEEEEEEEEEE

but it is such an uncomfortable topic for people that I will never share that again unless they ask. I'm not gonna lie but I'm not gonna bring it up either 😭😭

I do occasionally hint at it? Like I won't say 'therian' or 'alterhuman/nonhuman' but I will say 'lok yeah I'm a crow/otter/cougar/etc' and I love doing that

It makes me so happy

Bc 'therian' makes people think of people that wear masks and run around on all fours (neither of these things are bad, but that isn't what therianthropy always is. The way I worded that sounds negative but I don't mean it that way I'm just bad with words)

And that makes ppl uncomfortable bc they don't understand it

Anyway

Online? I've gotten so much more comfortable

I've occasionally mentioned my animalness on my main blog bc.... ITs whO I aM

I don't like sharing my user to ppl I know offline bc I don't want them to know

But

I think as I've grown more used to and comfortable with my identity, I care less

So the next time a friend asks for my user? I will say @im-too-emotionally-involved because if they care about me at all? They will respect me and who I am.

[thebiggerbear]

I will never understand why people make posts making fun of certain things they don't like in fanfic and then put that in the character/ship fanfic tags so writers can see them. And these are the same people that expect weekly updates and don't understand why their favorite fics don't get updates or why their favorite fic writers stop writing/updating.

You're literally ripping your nose off to spite your face. Didn't work out too well for the last guy, just saying.

[vanderdyks]

I saw a post on twitter saying there would be a translation note here explaining that goku thought bread, and therefore, because of the absence of an explanation from the translators, goku really did forget pan. Someone correct me if im wrong, but i havent seen a translator note in awhile. I dont recall there being one during the whole "kiss debacle" either.

But if thats not evidence enough, Goku's embarassment should be.

Hes not embarassed that he "forgot" her. He didnt. Hes embarassed he didnt immediately think of her first. Its the "eh? AHH!" as in OH THAT PAN. Hes never struggled with his family's names, he wouldnt forget pans existence. His SONS ARE RIGHT THERE. To me, its clear he thought bread and thats why he's so confused. And then embarassed by that fact.

Goku doesnt ask "Who's that?" Or "Who's pan?" He just repeats the word. Because why would piccolo and gohan would be going to pick up bread. When I saw this panel first circling, I figured something was up. Because it didnt seem to match. Something was off. Translators make mistakes. It happens. But if you really look at this, Goku confusing pan and bread makes the MOST sense and matches his reaction as well.

Not to mention its set up as a joke. Not a joke that he FORGOT pan but that everyone else thinks he did. But he didnt. Thats the joke. Because while everyone else knew what piccolo meant, Goku didnt. Remember, he takes things literally. Its not an insult to pan either for him to think of the food first. Because of context. If piccolo stated they were picking pan up from school, then Goku would have been given the context HE NEEDED to come to the same conclusion as everyone else. And that is VERY Goku. He needs specifics. Goku not understanding things in the same way as everybody else around him is a common occurance in the series.

And maybe I am wrong. Maybe the intention is for goku to have forgotten pan, but fuck that because we all know he would never.