#bab meta

[tarragonthedragon]

i actually think that after she's had time to catch up on some social development Cass is probably one of the better bats at passing for normal. she and Dick and maybe Steph have the best sense of performing "just some guy". Bruce, Babs, and Duke all overstep the mark and successfully pass as "not normal but not in a batman way more a this dude weird as fuck way" whereas Tim, Damian, and Jason are all under the mistaken impression that they can just be a version of themselves that is not a vigilante and come off as genuinely unhinged

[toomanyf4ndoms7]

Barbara Gordon did not claw herself back into the narrative, becoming a brief member of the Suicide Squad and the leader of the Birds of Prey with a complicated and kind of manipulative but still loving relationship to her team for her to be put into the role of Sane Mom Friend by the fandom. She has layers. She cares, by the Bat-Signal in the sky she cares, but she can also be messy and complicated.

[umbrellajam]

Saw a post where someone wasn't sure if Tim being good at computers was a fanon thing or not and friend I am happy to inform you that he's been a computer/tech guy from some of his earliest appearances in the comics.

Detective Comics (Vol. 1) #620 (Rite of Passage part 4) - immersed in the ~web~

Robin II: The Joker's Wild #3 - tabletop roleplaying games and spending hours in the basement on the computer - not beating the geek allegations on these fronts, Timmy

Detective Comics (Vol. 1) #676 - Dick was more into traditional detective work and tended to outsource the computer stuff in these days

Batman (Vol. 1) #514 (Prodigal part 10) - hackin' through all the garbage and garble

Robin (1993) #33 - Robin sneaking in and connecting Oracle with the baddies' mainframe so she can do her thing and steal all their data >:)

Nightwing (1996) #6 - "no you're really talented and well suited to be Robin." "no, you." "no, YOU!"

Tim is definitely not as good as Babs/Oracle, but he's certainly her back-up for computer work in the 90's batfam. They're tech buddies and Robin!Tim is her little assistant sometimes, it's super cute:

Birds of Prey (1999) #19 - happy to play with big sister's fancy high-powered toys

Legends of the Dark Knight (1989) #125 - real cute kid

And Dick will hand off computer jobs to his little brother when he doesn't want to bother Babs 😂 (that outsourcing I mentioned):

Nightwing (1996) #68 - examine them pixel by pixel, eh? welp, sounds like a job only you can do, Timbo, you got this buddy, byyyyeeeee

And then when he'd grown up and been doing this for years, he leveled up accordingly, and did stuff like use his access to the League of Assassins computers to overload the generators in every base he could find, etc. etc.

Red Robin (2009) #8 - yeah that was pretty dumb of you Ra's :)

So yeah, it was a bit of a specialty of Tim's, in large part because he was introduced just at the turn into the 90's, when personal computers were really starting to take off and become widespread. (Robins gotta be cutting edge and all)

Of course, by no means does it follow that the other Bats suck at computers (there is no 'smart one' they are all incredibly smart and capable). This is especially true as reboots and the sliding timescale of comics have moved the DC characters into modern times, where computers run the world and everyone grows up with one in their pocket. The baseline familiarity and expertise that everyone can be expected to have is just much, much higher these days.

It gets exaggerated in fanon as all character traits do, but computer guy Tim is definitely not something just made up out of whole cloth :)b

[seilnakyle]

rereading some Batman Family (1975) and the way Dick continuously forgets about his poor college girlfriend Lori the second he’s around Babs is so 😭

HE IS A MENACE OH MY GODD 😭 😭 😭

She and Babs seemed to get along fine thankfully, no cat fighting, I can hardly blame her for not trusting HIM around HER tho 😬😗

And it reminds me how it was immediately back on the second Dick was around Babs again in Nightwing Year One, with Babs again gently reminding him to keep things “business”

And it’s funny how people who don’t know what they’re talking about sometimes say they hate Babs for “cheating on Dick with Bruce” something that only happened in a btas comic completely unrelated to main comic canon, when Dick’s tendencies to emotional infidelity have been a canon thing in comics since the 70s. I love Dick and I absolutely reject the idea of him actually being a cheater in a serious relationship (sleeping with Babs while engaged to Kory) but this boy was flirting with and then fully confessing his feelings for Babs while being in a whole relationship in 1975 😭

This is also the reason I can never exactly buy them as “bestie exes” because even when they were broken up, Vicki Vale was talking abt their “Hot unspoken tiger heat” 😳

even though they stayed friends, they never really…stopped being in love. They would continue to pine for each other and continue to speak of and think of each other as “the one that got away” pretty much until they got back together in modern comics.

[theriverbeyond]

we have all spent a lot of time discussing the griddlehark get along shirt but have we spent enough time discussing the ianthenaberius get along saw trap. when you hate a dude but you are dependent on his image and his success and his skill, when you use him up and eat him up and think that means it is done and you won, because you never cared about him anyway. but it isn't done, because in killing him you have done the exact opposite of ridding yourself of him and now he is bound to you forever. he is changing you he has changed you he will continue to forever change you and you cannot escape that, ever, because you choose to eat him and that cannot be undone. when you hate a bitch but she owns you, and as much as you hate her you love to excel at the things she needs you for. you practice and you practice and you practice, and you are perfect, and then as your reward for a lifetime of labor she eats you and you can do nothing but be subsumed into her soul forever because you were never a real, whole, individual person anyway -- you were always an extension and a tool and a sword. maybe being stuck in her teeth is the best revenge you could hope for

[welcometogrouchland]

my Stephanie Brown hot take is that she should get mad bitches now that she's single in comics. Yes yes shipping BUT the one time she had sex she was punished by the narrative via teen pregnancy. I think she should be allowed to have as much sex as she wants with zero consequences. Could be a lot of sex, could be a little. Point is she should get to do it without getting narratively baby trapped this time. she should get them pregnant, actually.

[franollie]

if every DC writer could read DC first: batgirl/joker that’d be great

even in just the last few pages it really nails their dynamic and the meaning of the batgirl mantle. Cass more than anything has a deep seated need to prove herself. shes competitive and babs knows this

THESE PANELS RIGHT HERE!! THIS WAS THE WHOLE POINT!!

“you’re going to make people forget me and thats okay” GOD I WISH

more than anything the batgirl mantle is about needing to prove yourself be it to the men in your life (babs), to the readers (cass), or to the writers (steph)

this is why babsgirl doesn’t really work anymore. babs has proved she’s capable as oracle she doesn’t need the batgirl mantle anymore. batgirl was the first name cass was given and it was someone else’s—thats not inherently a bad thing. it gives her a reason to keep fighting and it suits her natural need of competition.

anyways if you aren’t gonna read Batgirl 2000 at the very least read DC first: batgirl/joker

[casscainmainly]

Some Thoughts on Lady Shiva and Cass

(This post is me hashing out my feelings on modern-day Shiva + Cass, it's not complete or definitive or even particularly good. Also absolutely no hate towards any writers, but a warning that this post will be critical of/contain spoilers for Batgirl (2024)).

It's interesting to me that comics has trended away from the original David-Shiva-Cass set-up, where David is very emotionally involved with Cass (whether or not you label it 'love') and Shiva is the least emotionally involved - to Shiva being the most important figure in Cass' life, except maybe Bruce, and Cain completely gone. This isn't to criticise Batgirl (2024) (or Batman & The Outsiders, or Batgirls, or WFA...) but this phenomenon is genuinely like. Strange? Because even when Cass was reintroduced in the New 52, Cain was still the most important person in her life; she literally named herself after him. Then, when Detective Comics (2016) rolled around with its not-very-good Shiva writing, Shiva still didn't super care about Cass. But now we're at a point where newer people might think Shiva is her most important parental figure, which I honestly think shouldn't have happened.

The original David-Shiva-Cass dynamic is not only good because Shiva's uniqueness as a character shines through, but because it's a deliberate inversion of gendered and racial tropes. Here, the dad is more emotionally invested, and the mom is emotionally aloof - and she's not demonised for it, because she wasn't even originally Cass' mom. As soon as the Shiva mom revelation sets in, their relationship changes to centre that motherhood angle. This is reductive not only to their original relationship but to Shiva herself, who now cannot be adversary, ally, or anything else without it being filtered through 'Cass' mom'. I'm not saying this is problematic, because it's not the worst thing an Asian woman character has gone through, but it is disappointing when so much of the nuance Puckett built between Cass and Shiva has been lessened because of a bio connection.

To bring up the race angle - Cass and Shiva have always been connected through race. From Puckett's Shiva saying 'you and I are alike' to Brenda's mixed-race question prompting Cass to search for Shiva, Cass' understanding of her race has always been tied to Shiva. This is hard to articulate because a lot of Asian girls genuinely do have intergenerational trauma and tricky relationships with their mom, but like - this is a trope. The Asian girl with an all-consuming, contentious relationship to their Asian mom is kind of a trope at this point. What I found so refreshing about the original Cass parent set-up is that it's an exploration of different parental tropes than we usually get for Asian girls. Cass' struggle with a White dad paralleled Asian girls' experiences with the White patriarchy, and her struggles with Babs and Bruce were so realistic for two White people trying to care for, but not fully understanding, this Asian teenager that fell into their lap. But now that we've overemphasised Shiva, we've taken Cass' original struggles and moulded it into a much more typical Asian girl narrative. (I haven't even mentioned that her original set-up spotlights her biracial heritage much more than anything recent).

Brombal is clearly a Shiva fan, and has said that he aims to write a more nuanced Shiva. I'm not trying to call out Brombal - I think he genuinely loves Shiva - but why does 'a more nuanced Shiva' entail her caring/being invested in her daughter? Why should Shiva need that emotional/biological connection to be more fleshed out? Puckett's Shiva was nuanced without that. I'll even say Bryan Hill, in Batman & The Outsiders, walks that line - Shiva does love Cass, but she's not overly invested in her. In Outsiders, Shiva has her own morals, and the most emotional she gets is when her home village is destroyed. This isn't perfect writing, but Hill shows that Shiva has feelings outside of Cass, and motivations beyond motherhood.

Compare that to Batgirl (2024) - everything Shiva has done, and it's implied this extends to stealing the flowers, has been for/centered around Cass. The best Shiva bit was when she opened up about Carolyn, because that gives her something external! I know this is a story about Cass, but Shiva is at this point a deuteragonist - if Cass' connection to the Bats can be emphasised, Shiva can have something external too. Her connection to the Order of Shiva isn't even that fleshed out. Like, Jayesh straight up dies and Shiva has no reaction. (I do think this is a set-up for the resurrection of Jayesh, Shiva, etc. so this is not bad, but it does contribute to issue 6 feeling anticlimactic.).

(Also the Shiva/Bruce opposition was kinda done better in Outsiders too, whereas here the emphasis on 'motherhood' makes it feel like Shiva should be paralleling Babs. BUT I don't think this is Brombal's fault, most likely editorial shenanigans. It still does make the 'motherhood' monologues weird if Bruce is the parallel to Shiva).

All this to say modern-day Shiva and Cass flattens a lot of what I loved about the original Shiva-Cass dynamic. I do think this flattening is partially due to the reduction in Cass' parental figures - if Babs and David were here, it would be a lot more balanced, and we'd be able to see how they ping off each other. I also think Brombal will likely ameliorate or subvert a lot of the things I've said here, so this really isn't criticism against him or the series. But while Batgirl (2024) is far far better than other current portrayals, it also reduces Shiva to her relationship to Cass/motherhood/the 'Asian mother'. If Babs and David were here to offset this, I think Shiva's characterisation could potentially work. But as of right now, Shiva's over-importance isn't quite resonating with me, for either Cass or Shiva's sake.

(But I really am not a Shiva expert so take everything with a grain of salt, and I know many people do love Shiva-Cass in BG '24 so this is really my singular take!! It's not meant to invalidate anyone's enjoyment of anything.)

[fabfiveunionrep]

Batfam criminal hatred alignment chart

Criminals deserve to be redeemed: Bruce, Cass

Criminals need to be punished: Jason, Steph

Idgaf about the criminals, this is about the civilians: Dick, Duke

Equal amounts of idgafery all around, just clocking in @ crimefighting: Tim, Damian, Alfred

[liedownquisition]

I'm looking for other stuff rn, but it's really interesting to me to have these panels in the story that introduces Jason in the pre-crisis universe... and then have Jason come from what you'd describe as a "broken home" in post-crisis.

[mzminola]

Bruce sets up an elaborate mindfuck for Tim's birthday in an attempt to make Tim less trusting of even allies, giving him a mental breakdown. Bruce claims this will make Tim a better vigilante.

Tim, upon figuring it out, throws his Robin uniform literally in Bruce's face, cussing him out (like, actually censored swears, which Tim usually doesn't use), and quits. He talks with Steph about how messed up it was, and she empathizes out of her own messed up experiences with Bruce.

An unclear but short time later, probably a few days, Tim un-quits and states to Bruce that he doesn't expect an apology (not because it's unnecessary, but because he knows Bruce).

~

Stephanie returns from presumed death, finds Bruce, and accepts his orders to not reveal herself to everyone else & to take extreme actions to, once again in Bruce's estimate, make Tim a better vigilante.

This includes running around town in her original costume so Tim thinks his dead friend has a copycat, hiring people to attack him, working with a bomber, and even after knocking all that off, not sharing pertinent information about it with Tim, resulting in Tim being caught in an explosion.

Tim yells at Stephanie and says "Don't let me catch you wearing [the Spoiler] costume ever again." When she tracks him down a little later, he refuses to speak with her.

An unclear amount of time later, probably a few months, Tim is willing to work with Stephanie to stop a supervillain plot.

~

Some fans treat Tim's word-choice in the confrontation with Steph as him trying to control her. As him thinking he's got the authority to decide who can and cannot operate as a vigilante, at least in Gotham.

But. Like. One, aside from this one conversation, he takes no actions to stop her. He doesn't steal her gear (like Bruce sometimes steals people's uniform), he doesn't go and tell other people to stop working with her, he doesn't even go snitch to her mom.

Tim just. Tells the friend who got him very badly hurt while mindfucking him that he doesn't want to see her in the field again.

Two, it's a pretty dang similar response to when Bruce mindfucked him in the first example. Tim is the one who insists Batman needs a Robin. And here he is depriving Batman of Robin.

Yet if I tried to claim "Tim quitting Robin is his attempt to control Batman, is Tim acting like he has authority to stop Bruce from being a vigilante" you'd laugh in my face. Because that is a huge leap to make, with convoluted logic, and isn't supported by the rest of the text.

Bruce & Stephanie both screw Tim up really badly.

He confronts them and says he's breaking ties.

Then after a little distance, he goes right back to working with them.

And some people think this is...controlling? Don't get me wrong, Tim has some controlling tendencies, they all do, but it's usually teaming up with Alfred to stop Bruce patrolling while injured, and lying his ass off to everyone so he can do what he wants.

This? Is not that.

[nenehyuuchiha]

Hate when people act like Tim is a skinny defenseless poor little meow meow with glass bones and paper skin.

Tim Drake. Red robin.

This mf here 👇🏻

[spoiledqueenie]

The conclusions Babs and Bruce somehow learned from Stephanie’s death:

“We have to stop letting these untrained kids go out and fight by discouraging them and belittling them.”

The conclusion they were supposed to have gotten:

“These kids are going to do this anyways, so we have to train/prepare them and give them a safe place to advance their skills.”

[call-me-oracle]

barbara gordon in nightwing #85 pt. 1

bonus:

[seilnakyle]

[gretahayes]

Barbara 🤝 Max

Parent figures to neurodivergent teenagers who they love and try to do their best by but don't understand, so they hurt. Often getting frustrated and lashing out due to their fundamental differences. Trying and messing up and trying and messing up and trying again. Didn't sign up to be parents but midway realizing they are and floundering because this is a responsibility they didn’t anticipate and what if they mess up? The mortifying ideal of loving a child that's so different from you that you clash in every way possible, but you keep trying because you love them.

Cass 🤝 Bart

Neurodivergent teenagers to parent-figures that don't understand them and they know don't understand them. Constantly trying and trying but knowing their best efforts aren't enough for their parent figures because it'll always seem like they aren't trying hard enough. Not always understanding why Max/Babs are upset with them, but knowing they are, and knowing they're meant to know why, and trying to fix it despite not knowing what they did wrong. Despite it all, wanting to make them proud and knowing they love you and you both will keep trying, for better or worse.