whos-madi

[gretahayes]

DC should announce a Black Bat and Batgirl mini, with Nightwing as a guest star, and confirm Cass is there but keep what role she's playing a secret and the Batgirl a secret too. People will wonder who the Batgirl is, theorize on whether it's Steph or Tiffany or an old Batgirl brought back or a new one altogether, or if Cass is the Batgirl. They'll assume Cass is Black Bat but keep their minds open to the possibility of it being a new character talking up the mantle.

DC releases the series. It's Batgirl!Cass and Black Bat!Tim, and the only in-universe explanation given is "sibling bonding trip". This is not set in Gotham, it's set in Bludhaven where they bother Dick relentlessly. They nearly kill a man and almost drive Dick to a breakdown because of stress/worry every issue. Steph shows up sometimes to laugh at them. It's silly and sometimes they discuss their trauma and bring up therapy but decide they're too cool for it

[onlycleverinmyhead]

I think what drives me crazy about how Bruce treated Cass in Batgirl 2000 after she kissed superboy is that David Cain trained her to be nothing more than a weapon, and part of Cass' growth is learning that she is a person but instead of helping her Bruce gets angry at her for doing what teenage girls do. I think his mindset is that a true crimefighter lives and breathes crimefighting, and he holds himself to that standard, so when he meets Cass he sees her as 'perfect, so why 'ruin' her with hobbies and feelings?

[thefriendlyneighborhoodace]

sometimes i think about how funny it would be if bruce had a slight english accent as a result of alfred being the only adult in his life for most of his formative years. that or he just says british slang instead of english.

this either drives his children insane, or they think it’s the most hilarious thing ever.

__________________________

Bruce: Can you pass the chips?

Dick: Sure, B. *passes over the potato chips*

Bruce: No, the chips.

Dick: ???? … yeah? here?

Bruce: NO! THE CHIPS! *gesturing wildly for the french fries*

Damian: Father, are you having a stroke?

———

Batman: Alright, this mission is very important. It is imperative that everything goes to schedule. (shh-edule)

*red robin and red hood snicker*

Batman: *glare* As I was saying, it all must go to shh-edule…

RR & RH : *uproariously laughter *

Batman: *harsher glare* Is something funny?

RR: Oh nothing, B, don’t worry.

RH: Absolutely nothing wrong, “left-tenant”

RR & RH: *dying of laughter *

———

Bruce: *reaching the end of a long rant about responsibility and making sure you are keeping yourself and others safe* And what do you have to say for yourself??

Duke: … You sound like Alfred…

Bruce: *horrified look over coming him* … what

Cass: *furious nodding*

*Some time later, after B has been fished out of Gotham Harbor, which he jumped into after declaring that he “couldn’t turn into his father”*

Alfred: *reaching the end of a long rant about responsibility and making sure you are keeping yourself and others safe* And what do you have to say for yourself??

Bruce: *white as a sheet* … Sorry Alfie…

*Steph is heard furiously cackling in the background*

_______________________

anyways i just thought this was fun

[starspilli]

batkids game night. they’re playing fortnite

(click for full quality <3 also available as a print!)

[ditzybat]

Kon: guess who I hooked up with?

Tim: i dunno man, who?

Kon: Black Bat!

Tim:…

Tim: you hooked up with my sister…?

Kon: …I didn’t know she was your sister!

Tim: I’m a bat, Bat is in her name!

Kon; oh my god… Batman’s gonna kill me

Tim: and I am going to break through your TTK and castrate you

[fantastic-nonsense]

pack it up babes, this run is going to kill me

[theflashjaygarrick]

Cass is so fun as a character because she fulfils the 'gruff but with a heart of gold' trope in a way that normally is exclusively used for male characters. Cass can be abrasive, and asocial, and off-putting. She is better than everyone, knows it, and she is not afraid to say it loudly to your face. She tried to help Babs feel better after seeing her cry, and decided the best way was to simply throw Nightwing out of a window (it's okay, he was fine).

But Cass is also someone who loves deeply and cares so much. About everyone. She has strong moral convictions to never kill not because she's scared it would push her over the edge but because she values people's lives so much. Because she believes everyone can choose to be better, and they deserve the chance to make that choice.

She isn't sweet and friendly and someone who always manages to get on with people, but she also isn't a cold ruthless assassin. She is a tough, broken person who finds something to protect in everyone. Someone who can frankly be a jerk (and can be difficult for some people to get along with) but who would risk her life time and time again if it meant helping someone. Cass is a hero through and through.

Anyway, I just love Cass.

[ashoss]

the rest of the flock :)

part 2 to this

[allthegothihopgirls]

anyways i think bruce historically takes the batboys on an annual fishing trip which they all hate so so so much. it gets to the point where it's only tim accompanying him, because unlike dick or jason, tim would simply disintegrate from guilt if he stayed home.

then cass comes along and bruce thinks "oh no well there goes my fishing trips. all of the boys hate them anyways... and it's not like i can take a GIRL fishing."

cue bruce and cass, alone next to some dinky old river with nothing but their fishing rods and an esky full of cold beers, wearing a matching pair of fuckass fishing hats, both religiously applying sunscreen and bug spray.

[frogsonandholmes]

I always have incredibly mixed feelings when it comes to people depicting Cass as a dancer. On one hand, I think that its a really cool way for her to express herself through movement in a way that is not born of violence.

BUT the idea that The Cassandra Cain would take a lesson or join a class is crazy. If girlie is dancing there is no way she's being told how to do it by someone else, or learning choreography.

I think that we as a society need to remember that Cass thinks she can do anything, with no training or preparation, and 99% of the time she can.

[ultravhasart]

Presenting Cassandra Cain!

[onlycleverinmyhead]

I’d like to think Bruce got Batgirl! Cass and Robin! Tim to work together a lot so that they could learn from each other.

Cass is a good teacher, she and Tim fight and after each duel, she positions their bodied and repeats the movements slowly to show him exactly what he did wrong. At first Tim thinks he isn’t getting better, because he basically went from losing to Cass in 0.5 seconds to losing to Cass in 1.1 seconds but then he fights a non - Cass person and absolutely slays 

 Tim is a bad teacher at first. He’s one of those people who knows a subject so well that they treat complicated shit like it’s trivial. and he talks fast, very fast (autism). In their first lesson, while Tim is walking Cass through a crime scene he’d created , he’s showing her a broken clock and indicates this is a clue for the time of the murder- only to realize she can’t read clocks, he decides to skip the mathematical principles and focus on the “simple parts” so he starts explaining how long hand changes number every five minutes, but like, it doesn’t stand still then moves every five minutes, it’s always moving at a pace of 2pi*d/60 (in/ minutes). d, being the diameter of the clock in inches of course, and 60 because there are 60 minutes in an hour, fun fact!  the division of the hour into 60 minutes and of the minute into 60 seconds comes from the Babylonians who used a sexagesimal system for mathematics and astronomy, isn’t that cool? and the short hand is 12 times slower than the long one cositmoveseveryhourandtherearetwentyfourhoursinadaybutit’sdevidedtotwosegmentsoftwelve except for military time that’s 24- and then he notices Cass’ eyes are glazed over so he just, brings a big clock and starts moving the hands himself, to indicate five minutes, ten, twenty, all without saying a word and Cass gets it. Tim buys her a big clock for her room and she likes to just look at how it moves. she likes clocks, clocks are cool.

 while teaching Cass Tim learns to teach in her language.

[mysteriousbeetle]

based off the comic by @/silkentine.

[dieubius]

uhhh. bruce wayne modelling gig. have a good day 🥰

[ditzybat]

Dick, sighing: it’s hard being the only emotionally adjusted one in this family

Tim: LOUDDDD incorrect buzzer

Jason: you’re the most like Bruce out of all of us, and that man isnt exactly the poster child for emotional stability

Damian: I concur, while Timothy and Jason see their feelings as afterthoughts, and fear mine underminded - you, Richard, brood and suppress until the miscommunication blows up in your face, just like father.

Tim: exactly, the most expressive and normal one of our colony are the Batgirls… and that’s saying something

[bats-and-the-birds]

I am thinking about the batkids and their rooms at the manor.

When Dick was first brought to the manor, Alfred put wooden letters that spelled out his name on the outside of the door to his room. He wanted the boy to feel like he belonged, and denoting the room as his seemed like the best way. At first, they spelled out "Richard", and were painted in red, green, and yellow -- the colors that his parents had worn for their circus act, that didn't have any other meaning yet. Dick pried them off the door and threw them away. He didn't want to accept that this was permanent yet. There were new letters on the door a few days later, blue this time, and spelling out "Dick" instead. Those letters got pried off much the same and shoved in a drawer, and they didn't get put back until a year later. He was too short to put them in the same place, so they ended up crooked, and Alfred found it too endearing to fix.

When he left the manor years later, he considered ripping the letters off the door and throwing them in the foyer on his way out. But he left them, and there they remained, crooked as ever.

Jason got his own letters when it became clear he wasn't going anywhere. He helped Alfred put them up on his bedroom door, standing on a step stool to make sure they got in the right place. His were evenly spaced and neatly aligned, and he refused to tell anyone that he cried over them that night. He'd spent months wondering if he'd ever live up to his predecessor, not just as Robin, but in the family as well. And now he had his own letters, just like Dick's, and they weren't going anywhere.

And they didn't. Even after he died. Bruce and Alfred both considered taking the name down to make walking past that empty room less painful, but in the end, they didn't dare touch the letters, just like they didn't touch anything else in the room. Years later, Jason would sneak into the manor through his old bedroom window and find his school uniforms still hanging in the closet, his textbooks on his desk, an open novel on his nightstand, and, of course, the letters still on the door, more of an epitaph than the one on his actual tombstone.

Tim fought for his name on a bedroom door. It took a while, but he trained, and he learned, and he forced himself into the role that he knew he could fill. Part of him thought that no matter how good and useful he made himself as Robin, he'd never really fill the role that the two before him did. He thought there might not be room for him after Jason's death, but he did it. He was older than the other two when Alfred finally put the letters up on his door, but he did it.

Later, when he left in search of Bruce, he didn't think for a second of taking his name down off his door. He'd earned it.

Damian's name got put up practically as soon as he got to the manor. He didn't think much of having his name on a door. If anything, it irked him a bit, being lumped in with the others, but it would have annoyed him more if he didn't get his own name. For a while, his name on the door, marking it as his from the hallway, was the only reason you could tell it wasn't the guest room that it had previously been. He had no photographs, had arrived with no personal affects.

That changed, eventually. As he gained friends, he also gained photos of them. He put up sketches and watercolor paintings of his animals. A dog bed got put on the floor for Titus. But the letters had been there from the beginning, and he grew to appreciate them eventually. His room, with the name on the door, was safe, and he liked it there.

Cass's letters showed up without much fanfare. They were simply there when she exited her room one day. "Cassandra" in black wooden letters that matched all of her new siblings'. She ran her fingers over them with reverence. She'd never been allowed to leave a mark before. Her life was predicated on being a shadow, but there was her name, in big letters, somewhere where other people could see it.

Steph had a room. She didn't want to admit it, but when she crashed at the manor, it was always in the same room. Her name was put up, and she took it down, and it was put up again, and she took it down again until it became something of a game between her and Alfred. If Steph was staying at the manor and Alfred didn't find a wooden S in a random cupboard, then have to search the house for the rest of her name, then he knew she was in a bad mood, and he usually made her favorite cookies and left them outside of the door with her name still firmly in place.

Duke's letters were waiting for him when he moved in. His name in bright yellow letters that matched his suit already in place. Of course it was, it's tradition at this point, and he's part of the family now. He had bounced around for a while now, and the letters on his door made him feel...calmer. It was a sense of permanence, and one he could learn to enjoy.

Barbara didn't need a room. She had her own room, in her own house, but Alfred still offered to mark out a space for her. She declined. When she did stay over, it was either in the cave or Dick's room, she didn't need her own. Still, that didn't mean her mark wasn't left somewhere. There was a study downstairs with a desk that she sometimes did her homework on as a child if she was staying over for the night. Now, the desk held a computer that was wired into the Batcomputer's network, a photo of her and her father, and, of course, tiny wooden letters affixed to the side that spelled out 'Barbara'.