#i know i said i was gonna be normal about batgirl 2000

[glitter-stained]

I know I keep saying "god I need to read Batgirl 2000" and not doing it and talking about other comics I'm reading. I understand how this may be confusing, so here's a clarification: I absolutely want to read that comic. It's gonna be glorious.

However, the thing is that while I study neuropsychology with a bunch of other students, we all have our individual specialities; specifically I'm doing my master's thesis on language development disorder, and my goal is to later do a phd on language disorders. And I do know myself. The moment I get my nasty paws on Batgirl 2000? Forget that Jason is my favourite character ever and I have a shitton of meta planned about him. Forget the fact I have exams and I won't be able to get that damn diploma if I fail. The moment I read batgirl 2000 it's fucking over, I'm digging a hole in the ground like a hibernating bear and dissecting the cognitive and neurological implications of Cass' character until I explode. I'm chewing on her character with my teeth. Even the idea makes me giddy. i'm already having to stop myself from writing the jason metas right now because of exams and it's not even my domain, i'm gonna start bleeding from my eyes when I read that comic.

And the issue is, you know Scott Lobdell? Most beloathed Jason writer, ruiner of jayroy for a whole category of people, roy harper enemy #1, kory destroyer, cheshire caricaturer, extremely unpopular writer and yet somehow still not unpopular enough? This guy went to college to study psychology and decided to drop out to write for dc comics. And I can't, I really can't afford to have anything in common with him. The idea is terrifying. So until I've passed those damn exams and survived internship season Cassandra is staying safe and warm in the pantry where I cannot reach her. In the meantime I got about 40 BoP issues to get through before I can get to the part written by Gail Simone.

Thank you for understanding.

[leoruby-draws]

Finally the last team for my au is introduced, Cass and her new friends!! Been waiting a while to post this but last week I was a bit under the weather. So I posted a bit earlier than usual this week.

Cass being part of a team means there are 5 kid teams (tho Dick's team are just about adults anyways), all the kids having their own friend group outside of the bat family was something I wanted to do. It took a lot of digging to find all available heroes that could not only fit into their age groups but also produce the character interactions that I wanted.

Cass was never really part of a 'teen titans' styled team of her own(well except for like two issues of Young Justice) tho she did occasionally interact with other young heroes. She would be part of (non-bat) teams sometimes, like the outsiders and currently Birds of Prey but not a kids team. Part of why is because she debuted as near adult (17) and also stuck mostly with the batfam. I also got the sense that Bruce wanted her to focus on her batgirl duties, and wouldn't want her to be distracted with having other hero friends.

Though circumstances are different in this au, and with Jason,Steph, and Tim having their teams, Babs gets the idea to get Cass a team of her own! Friends are important to have and Babs wants Cass to have the full benefits that friendship offers!

So here's the members of this team:

Top row- Natasha Irons (Steel, like her uncle), Ray Terrill (the Ray), Arisia Rrab (Green Lantern)

Middle row- Traci Thirteen, Lorena Marquez (Aquagirl), Cass Cain (Batgirl), Connor Hawke (Green Lantern), Cody Driscoll (Risk)

Bottom Row- Jenni Ognats (XS), Grace Choi

Also while not shown on this page, there's also Wendy Jones aka Windfall and Carrie Levine aka Red Wing. You'll see them down below in the other drawings.

Over time I'd like to get more into team along with their interactions with Cass but for now lets just concentrate on a few of them. Starting with the Lantern of the group, Arisia Rrab.

Arisia is currently a Green Lantern in training, just like in canon her family has a history of becoming Lanterns. But Lanterns live dangerous lives and after the death of her parents Arisia was chosen by the ring to be next. Normally the corps don't induct children into their ranks, but Arisia is a special case. Since she just a trainee I decided to have her be mentored by Hal Jordan and John Stewart on Earth, similar to how Hal was trained by Sinestro. As for her sector, it's probably being watched by temporary Lanterns (maybe from the honor guard?)

Her training will probably last longer that Hal since Arisia is a kid and will need more guidance, also in my au the Guardians have a bit more rules regarding minors and more safeguards. So Hal and John try to take care of her and any accommodations she needs as a kid. Hal kinda hates the added responsibility, tho he's slowly learning to enjoy having a sidekick of his own. The other lanterns like to help out sometimes, with Katma being esp fond of her. Btw you know how right after crisis there were a bunch of lanterns living on earth and had this fancy house built, I think that's where I'm gonna put Arisia in as her living place. Like I said, Hal and John try to make sure she's still ok.

Also for added info, for John, he isn't a back up lantern like how he started out in canon. When he started out, there was only one lantern per sector but in the 2000s that got bumped up to two (earth is special and gets like a million lol). I'm just rewriting the rules in this au so that there's always been a 2 lantern per sector rule. He also started a bit earlier, not long after Hal.

Anyways, Arisia is now on earth experiencing earth culture and even attending school in Coast City, she loves learning and is focused on doing well in both school and GL training. She decided to join a kids team to get better experience in crime fighting and is enjoying making new friends. I wanted her with Cass because I thought Cass would benefit with having a mature, studious kid as a friend (Babs certainly thinks Arisia is a good influence on her) but also I'd think it would be funny if Cass does something profoundly weird and unhinged and Arisia simply assumes that all earthlings are like that ("oh, you just emptied my fridge while I was gone, I guess that's just normal on earth").

Also you can see up there that Arisia also has to deal with the other kid lanterns that are popping up, I've already posted about Rankorr and Miri. Miri is pretty annoying to Arisia and keeps trying to convert her to the violet lantern corps, Arisia tries to avoid her. She gets along a bit better with Rankorr but is a bit intimidated by him. You can also see that there's a Blue Lantern (Nicole Morrison) and a Yellow Lantern (Nax). I'll probably talk about them another time, suffice to say that Arisia seems to have been given the mission to keep an eye on these other young lanterns and see what exactly their up too.

Also I'm just gonna get this outta the way, I'm not aging up Arisia nor am I gonna her and Hal get romantically involved. Not even gonna elude to it, I'm just straight up ignoring all that. Arisia is a kid and staying that way, and Hal is just her loser mentor.

Now lets go on ahead to the speedster, Jenni Ognats aka XS.

Just like in the comics Jenni is from the future, and is the granddaughter of Barry Allen aka the Flash. Atm I'm not entirely sure how her story goes because there a lot of time travel involved and time travel plotlines always confuse me. Lets just say while trying to train for the Legion of Super-Heroes (who are kids not teens btw) try-outs, she ends up going a little too fast and ends up in the 21st century. Barry and Iris (who've just gotten engaged) are shocked by Jenni's abrupt appearance but decide to take her in and take care of her while they try to figure out how to send her home.

Barry adores her and both of them get along pretty well since they seem to have similar temperaments. Jenni likes to trail after him and help sometimes with fighting crime, its great training for her future with the legion. Wally down there is a bit jealous of their great bond but feels a bit guilty over it since Jenni is very sweet and likes/respects Wally as well. At least she doesn't annoy him like the other kiddie speedsters.

Jenni starts off a bit timid and insecure in the comics so thats how she's starting off here too. Maybe being in a team with Cass with help her out, hanging with someone very confident (arrogant even) can inspire her to be more secure in herself. Jenni also gets along with Arisia as well, their is an easy camaraderie between them. Plus they both know they both have a time limit on this earth/time and are trying to enjoy their time here while they can.

Lets go on with the others, like Ray Terrill aka the Ray.

Ray was one of the first members of the team I'd considered for Cass's team and thats because they share something in common. And thats a childhood kept in isolation, though it manifested differently. Ray lived almost his entire life (until age 18) indoors because his 'father' (actually uncle) told him sunlight would kill him. It was actually the opposite since Ray has the power of light. I suppose in this au his uncle died earlier so Ray discovers his powers sooner. Perhaps he also found his mother and maybe lives with her as well?

He and Cass tend to bond over their lack of interaction with society and how it affected them, honestly I don't think it got the focus it should have gotten in Ray's own comic. Being raised like that and only having the tv as your window into the outside world, Ray should be a much weirder and awkward person. But while Cass didn't even have television, she understands Ray few others can. I kinda want to make Ray a bit of a 'right-hand' man to Cass, and at first I even played with the idea of having Ray crush on Cass a bit. I dropped that when I learned he was gay in rebirth, tho I think having their connection be platonic makes it work better.

Here's some doodles of this team, along with a bonus Koryak.

Look at Ray and Cass looking cool, as they should be!

The girl in pink in the bottom row was me trying to figure out how to draw Natasha Irons, just trying to play around with color pallets and hair styles. Also looks like Lorena and Koryak seem rather interested in each other.

Speaking of Lorena aka Aquagirl, lets go into her.

I say Aquagirl but since Tula is currently using that maybe I should have her be Aqualass (should I make Koryak aquaboy? eh). Her being here basically means the Sub Diego incident occurred, I thought of her getting her powers another way but I liked that story line so I'm keeping it. She tends to split her time between Sub Diego and Atlantis and is currently being trained by Aquaman. Tula helps with training as well and is overjoyed at having her own mini sidekick.

Lorena, along with Ray, was one of the first members I put on the team and one reason is that I think that she and Cass would have a pretty good chemistry together. Kinda similar to what Cass and Steph had in the comics but certain vital differences. For one there's far less of power imbalance with Lorena being a meta, so Cass wouldn't see her as needing protection. This works on a social level as well, since not only in Lorena and Cass in different 'families', Lorena isn't outcasted like canon Steph.

Also, while I wouldn't call Steph insecure really, she had some baggage with how much better Cass was in hero work. Lorena doesn't really care about Cass's skill level, like at all, she treats Cass as an equal and expects the same in return. Cass kinda respects this in a way, and likes that someone just see her a someone 'regular'. Lorena is slowly teaching Cass to just chill out and hang out like regular kids do, which is one of the goals that Babs was aiming for.

In drawing I posted a while back, I had Babs and Tula meet and become friends, primarily so that they could arrange a 'playdate' for Lorena and Cass. Leading into the rest of the team overtime. Here's the first meeting between them actually:

Lorena makes her splash into Cass's life, I wonder if Lorena will introduce Cass to actual mermaids.

Here's some extra doodles for the team.

Up there is Carrie and Wendy, who I didn't put in that first drawing, no room. Carrie on the left is the youngest of the team and shows it. She's very naive and looks up to the others a lot esp Cass (she's so cool!! :D), hopefully she has a better fate than what she got in the comics.

Wendy on right was part of the outsiders, and before that a villain group called the Masters of Disasters. Since she's younger (in fact I deaged her by a year or two) she got rescued from her abusive sister and is now trying to become a hero. Batman recommended her to Babs who put her on the team. Having a evil family member and being forced to be evil is something Cass understands, tho Wendy is still a bit intimidated by her a bit. But I think they could learn to get along. Also look at Ray looking fancy, always thought his costume looked like a band/military outfit.

Later on I can get into the others but I'm still reading and refining what I want out of their interactions with Cass so thats for another time.

Here's a concept doodle of the first team line-up here.

You can see that I put in Mia aka Cir-El as the super of the group, I thought that her being the 'daughter' of Superman it'd be funny to have her team up with Cass, the daughter of Batman. But I couldn't really make them click in my head and decided to go with Natasha as the super. I felt a bit bad cuz Mia was a fun little character but that's how it goes. Maybe she'll team up now and then as an ally of sorts.

And lastly, here's a group shot of the team after I finally settled on what I wanted the line-up to be! Here they are:

Btw, I don't have a name for this team, like with Steph, but if anybody has any suggestions let me know! I kinda asked for help earlier with Steph's team but I didn't get a name that worked for me (maybe I'm just too picky). In exchanged, I can give you a free doodle of any character of your choice.

Well, hoped you liked all of that, take care!