#Modern Cassandra

[j-august]

A wild flash reprint appears!

It's 'Modern Cassandra', originally published in F&SF a couple of years ago, now free to read in Small Wonders:

Modern Cassandra tries so hard to warn us, but all her visions go to Junk. I have an important revelation! she writes. I saw you in my dreams. This is urgent. Please reply, but even though she flags her emails as top priority we never do.

With thanks to Medium Amanda, who made a really dedicated effort to connect with me towards the end of 2019! And yet I never replied to her. What would have happened if I had?

[demonicsuffrage]

Somehow, in the far future, Tim's canonical age finally moves past 17, and his siblings take him out for his 21st birthday

Dick, placing some vodka shots in front of him: Time for your first drink! I can't believe you've already grown so much!

Jason: Drink those slowly, alright? Do you need us to dilute them or-

Tim, already downing the shots in under three seconds flat: Can i have more

Jason:

Dick:

Cass, covering Damian's eyes:

Tim: uh I mean ooh! It burns! It's...so bitter haha

[maemil]

I've been seeing a whole lot of posting about Cass hallucinating her girlfriend and I do love it, but I think we should all also acknowledge that Steph does this shit too, they're literally made for each other 💕

Batgirl (2000) #26

[batfamgalore]

*Alfred is reminding Bruce to go to a school seminar for Damian that’s about helping the development of kids behavior*

Bruce: I don’t know why I have to go to this thing. In case you’ve forgotten I’ve raised a few kids.

*Cut to Jason pulling Dick’s hair and Dick poking Jason trying to escape. Tim, Steph, Cass, and Duke stare at Bruce*

Bruce: Why look at me? It was Alfred’s fault. I was barely around!

[casscainmainly]

Stephanie and Cass have such a complicated dynamic to me that I can never fully enjoy any dynamic/trope that's slapped onto them, like 'golden retriever x black cat' or 'sunshine x grumpy' or whatever. They're almost always inaccurate because Steph and Cass are both multifaceted and three-dimensional women who can't be boxed neatly into categories, and assigning one of them as the 'optimist/happy one' rings false at different stages of their relationship. What I love so much about them is that they can't be boiled down to one thing. It's refreshing to have a relationship between two women that holds space for all their flaws, nuances, shifting feelings, clashing morals, and more. Of course anyone can call them any trope, it's all good fun!! The appeal for me though is how static tropes don't really apply to them.

[literallyjusttoa]

"Sunny!" you cry, "Why did you draw the entire Trojan royal family from oldest to youngest in two days? That seems wildly unhealthy!"

"hurghhhhhhhh" I reply.

Anyways here's the full family portrait

(Only four of these people survive the Trojan war btw :D)

[theocddiaries]

Bruce: Clark! Where are you, honey? I need to talk to you. Clark: What is it? Bruce: Do you know what our daughter did? Clark [Points at a sleepy Cass]: Nothing. She's fine. She's reading. Bruce: No, not her. Steph! Stephanie! Come over here. I want to talk to you. Clark: There she is. Not a scratch on her. Bruce: Do you have something you want to say to us? Stephanie: Uh… Bruce: Mmm… let me help you out here. Fake I.D.s? Clark: What?! Bruce: Mm-hmm. Stephanie tried to get her and her friends some fake I.D.s. Steph: I wasn't gonna use them for drinking. We just wanted to get into this club to see a band. Bruce: She took a bunch of money from them and then she lost it. Clark: How much? Cass: $900… Bruce: You're kidding me!? Steph: It's not my fault! I gave money to this guy. He's the one who ripped us off. [Damian comes in, with a black eye] Bruce: …What happened to your face? Damian: I ran into a door. Bruce [Stern]: What happened to your face? Damian: Clark hit me. Bruce: What?! Clark: It was an accident. I was trying to open up a band-aid for his arm! Bruce: His arm too?! Damian: That was all me, I swear. [Cassandra falls to the side, asleep on the couch] Bruce: …What's wrong with her? Clark: …Growth spurt. Bruce [Stern]: What's wrong with her? Clark: …I drugged her. Bruce: Clark! Clark: I accidentally gave her the nighttime allergy medicine. Bruce: Ugh… Okay. All right, one thing at a time. Stephanie, how are you going to repay your friends? Steph: I don't know… Jason: She needs the money back. Who is this kid? Steph: A guy at school's cousin's friend. He lives in Gardena. Dick: Well, if you know where he lives, just call the police. Clark: No cops. We can't afford a scandal right now. Your dad's running for town council. Bruce: That was before, when I thought you could take care of the children. I take my eye off the ball for one minute, and I've got one in a coma, one with a black eye, and one running a crime ring. Jason: Well, to be fair, Steph started her crime ring when your eye was still on the ball.

[pansy-picnics]

big day for the ukd nation how we feeling guys…..

[everwalldigan]

Ok but what if Cass my chronically online princess picks up some of the modern slang and makes it her mission to use it at the most inappropriate times (wether she’s aware she’s doing it or not is up to you)

Cass, complimenting a meal: whoever made this needs to get their ass ate

Bruce: *has a stroke on the spot*

Cass, looking at a unconscious beaten up Jason in the medbay: where’s the girl with the list

Cass, humming while tying up a cannibalistic cult: big back big back, big back big back

Villain: *monologuing about their motives and they awful life that lead them to villainy*

Cass: skill issue

Cass, nodding while drenched in blood after a fight: serving so much cunt

Steph: hell yeah you are!!

[neuro-psyche]

jason todd is a girls girl.

let me explain (ik ik i say that a lot)

Jason Peter Todd will stand on business if it means helping someone out, especially a woman.

A creepy man following you home? woah that's crazy jason todd is very suddenly your friend and just so happens to be walking the same way.

Someone being a dick to you in public and making a scene? jason intervenes, handling the person after calling you a cab and paying for it up front.

You need someone to watch your drink? Mr. Fucking Red Hood will stand with a gun held over the drink until you get back, regardless of what he was doing.

Jason Todd is a girls girl in my mind and I will die on this fucking hill.

seriously though I feel like he and Steph would recreate that sonic meme that's like

Steph, saying something about how she, Cass and Babs are better than the rest : -and I'll prove once and for all that a female can be just as good of an hero as a male!

Jason : You know, anytime someone calls attention to the breaking of gender roles, it ultimately undermines the concept of gender equality by implying this is the exception and not the status quo.

Steph :

Jason :

Everyone and their mother :

Jason : What? Just because I'm a resurrected zombie freak and assassin, doesn't mean I'm not a feminist. I read pride and prejudice, dammit.

[batbunker]

One of my biggest pet peeves is how many people tag Batfam fics with "Modern AU" when they really just mean capeless or civilian AU.

[welcometogrouchland]

ONCE AGAIN thinking about how Steph and Cass both think of crime as being related to abuse but they think of it in different ways based on the abuse done to them- Cass is inclined to see perpetrators as abused in some form and in need of rehabilitation bc the only way she can conceptualize her abuse is through David's making her a killer (and not any of the physical abuse involved in her training or the emotional and psychological abuse of depriving her of speech, because those both make her a better vigilante in her mind) whereas Steph sees the perpetrator as abuser, because her father's criminal persona (his violence, his inferiority complex, him literally and figuratively holding Steph and her mother as hostages) is so entwined with the abuse he inflicted on her and her mother, and she feels this so strongly she often fails to see Cass' perspective of criminals as victims, when of course the answer lies in between in that many of the most iconic rogues of Gotham (save few who lean one way or the other) are both abused and abuser, victim and perpetrator, Steph and Cass' number one fear, the one Steph can't think about and the one Cass obsesses over, of being just like the people who hurt you.

[universal-joke]

Thinking about Cass and the Lazarus Pits.

[amrubrum]

Clary and Alec in CoB when Alec refused to admit Clary was a shadowhunter:

y'all i pray this makes sense🙏🏻

[moonfoxdoodles]

Wip i wanted to finish for the tts anniversary but uni said no💔

Finishing it soon tho

[blackbatcass]

Not to get back on my soapbox but bruce & cass’s early relationship does make me want to eat drywall. any outsider could tell you bruce is obviously enabling cass’s unhealthy behaviors and yet he 100% completely believes he’s doing the right thing for her because that’s what he thinks he would have needed in that situation. and. that says some real interesting things about bruce as a person. wow, mr. wayne, are you totally sure that what you needed when you were cassandra cain’s age was someone holding you to impossibly high standards, keeping you shut up in a cave all day, training you until your lungs gave out and encouraging vigilantism to consume every aspect of your life? is that really what you think you needed? does this maybe stem from an ultimately twisted view of yourself, bruce?