#the cassandra project

[fleur-dans-la-nuit]

Dick gaslights himself 💀.

These images aren’t mine, they’re from the Wayne Family Adventures comic on Webtoon. I just used them as they’re easy identifiers of each character, also in the same style.

[theresstilltime]

sibs on an outing

[puppetmaster13u]

Hear me out: Demon Batfam but Bruce gets them as babies because people won't stop trying to sacrifice their children and he is So Tired

And it is semi-early Batman Bruce too.

[graytodd]

When to get along they find 'a common ground'

[kitkats-and-kittens]

Can we have some more bilingual Damian Wayne moments please?

They did it a little in older comics with him speaking in his own language as well as Cantonese in one comic panel I can remember. Besides those two and English I don’t know what other languages he speaks, but at minimum it’s three, though I feel like the league would’ve probably trained him in more.

Still I haven’t seen it as often and it makes me sad, because as a bilingual person with many bilingual friends the fuck ups are usually hilarious.

Like with Damian especially I feel like he would overcorrect cause the English language has so many exceptions to it’s very loosely defined gramma rules and he’s such a perfectionist that he would stick to that shit even after finding out it’s wrong, I also think it would drive him a little bit insane cause it’s technically right, but it also isn’t (not speaking from experience at all).

Also while we’re at it let’s just throw the rest of the Batfam in there cause I’m pretty sure they all speak at least one other language. I want a comic panel like the scene in Umbrella Academy where Diego and Ben start arguing in Spanish and Korean respectively except it’s eight kids all screaming (or signing) at each other in several languages some of which aren’t even human.

[ikiprian]

yeah yeah, jason todd’s dip in the ecto-lazarus pit changed something in him irrevocably, enough that he feels a resonance with fellow living-dead danny we’ve all been there

but you know who else has been killed and was revived by the lazarus pit? another member of the batfamily, a fellow hero, world class fighter, stubbornly believes in second chances and redemption? cassandra motherfuckin’ cain

[ghostbredtt]

uhh sorry

[violent138]

Kate Kane would double over laughing every time she saw Steph fail at doing something cool to impress Cass, who responds by trying to help (which gets Steph more flustered) and Bruce keeps trying to ask Kate what's so funny but she can't answer while giggling further at Stephanie's glares.

[casscainmainly]

I headcanon that Jason, Cass, Barbara, and Duke are the major lit lovers in the Batfam, but they have very different tastes. Jason's taste leans toward British literature, stuff like Shakespeare and Alexander Pope (and Austen of course), but he also enjoys dystopian novels like Brave New World, 1984 etc.

Cass loves contemporary novels, including romance (stealing this from Shadow of the Batgirl!). She prefers stories with happy endings, and she also loves detective fiction, specifically British/American Golden Age - I think she'd adore Agatha Christie's cosies.

Barbara has the most diverse reading taste, and is the only one who can discuss books with the others without it devolving into a fight about whose taste is better. Her specialty is feminist fiction, stuff like Virginia Woolf, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Audre Lorde. She's not big on poetry, though.

Duke is THE poetry fan. He's a big defender of contemporary poetry, particularly poetry by POC authors, and loves Hanif Abdurraqib, Toi Derricotte, and Ocean Vuong. He does love Harlem Renaissance too, but makes fun of Jason if he brings up Langston Hughes (along the lines of 'oh is that the one Black poet you know?'. Jason, as a genuine Hughes fan, hates this). Duke, like Cass, loves detective fiction, but he prefers hardboiled noir over cosies. Cass and Duke get into tons of fights about this.

Duke and Jason both loathe BookTok, while Cass enjoys it. Barbara is neutral but prefers BookTube. They tried to form a book club once but Barbara didn't show up (she knew what would happen), Duke left halfway (he can be very elitist in his literature views), and then Cass threw Jason out a window (he insulted her reading taste).

These are just my thoughts, feel free to disagree/add on with any of your own!

[alien-bluez]

separate post of my close foster swift family face studies + headcanons sorry i dont have jodie or hermie... maybe one day

[avayarising]

Deaths of Cassandra Cain

Part of the Batfam Death Project.

Cass has two very definite deaths and one implied death. She also spent several days in the Spirit World. Total time dead: up to a couple of days, plus Spirit World time.

Verifiable deaths

1. Beaten in the chest by Lady Shiva (Batgirl 1:25, 2002)

Cass asked Lady Shiva (her mother, though at this point she didn’t know that) to train her because she was losing her ability to read body language. Shiva agreed, but in return asked for Cass to come back in a year and duel her to the death. Cass agreed to this. When the time came, they fought on a rooftop, and Shiva quickly killed Cass with what looks like a pre-cordial thump.

Cass was raised to life again by Lady Shiva some unspecified time later through some unspecified technique (though she did say she had prepared for years to be able to do it) involving punching her in the chest again.

Time dead: Unclear, but probably of the order of hours. Since the location where Cass was resurrected was not where she died, Shiva must have had to move her corpse, so probably at least a few hours, plus however long it took for Shiva to do whatever she did to resurrect Cass.

2. Took a sword for someone else (Batgirl 1:72–73, April 2006)

So before Cass was born. David Cain made other attempts at creating the Perfect Warrior, and he started out by taking existing children (from Ra’s Al Ghul) to train, rather than attempting to breed one. One of these became known as Mad Dog: very skilled but almost mindless and uncontrolled. In a forest in the middle of nowhere, he attempted to stab someone, Cass leapt in front, and:

Even though it looks from this picture like that big fat knife goes right through her ribcage, heart, and spine, she still managed to kick Mad Dog in the face before collapsing and dying.

After Cass died, she awoke being carried by Steph.

Steph told Cass something she couldn’t have known (that Blüdhaven had just been destroyed), indicating she was really present and not just a near-death hallucination.

Of course, it later turns out that Steph was never actually dead at all, but at this point in time she is dead, and her presence is meant to be an indicator that Cass is truly dead.

Lady Shiva raised her (again), this time via a Lazarus Pit. (At this point, Cass has only very recently found out that Shiva is her mother.)

Cass came out angry with Pit Madness, but Shiva trapped her in a net and coached her through it. Cass calmed down in a matter of minutes.

Time dead: between several hours and a couple of days (Shiva had to carry her out of a forest on foot and get to the Lazarus Pit before she could resurrect her).

Bonus extra deaths

(Implied, inferrable, ambiguous and arguable deaths)

1. Probably died in Death Metal along with everyone else (Death Metal 7, 2021)

Cass probably died in battle when the Dark Multiverse invaded and destroyed all the worlds of the multiverse. All the remaining heroes came together in a hopeless fight against an army of their worst nightmares, including an apparently never-ending swarm of groblins (mindless evil Jokerised Robins led by the Robin King, an evil child Bruce Robin).

Cass’s death isn’t shown on panel and neither is her dead body, but she is definitely in the group of Bats standing ready to fight (far right, in an oddly ill-fitting Orphan outfit):

And later Evil Child Bruce Robin tells Batman that everyone else is dead, so that seems like Cass is dead too.

On the other hand, Evil Child Bruce Robin probably doesn’t know what’s going on away from his immediate vicinity, so it’s possible that Cass was drawn away during the battle earlier on and is still out there fighting in a different part of the field.

After this, Wonder Woman persuades the Creators to remake the world and everyone is fine again.

Time dead: unclear; might be up to an hour, or longer if it takes longer to remake the world.

2. Perhaps was shot by Lady Shiva at some point (Spirit World 3, 2023)

Thank you to @fantastic-nonsense for pointing this one out! During Cass’s trip to the Spirit World (see below) she was bitten by a kitsune spirit and regained the memory of a previous encounter in the Spirit World when she was dead. The flashback montage panel shows Shiva shooting Cass in the chest, followed by Cass’s revival in the Lazarus Pit in Batgirl 1:73 with its very distinctive hook and chain.

Although it’s most likely that this is just a conflation and reinterpretation of Cass’s previous two deaths and resurrections, the new method of death suggests that this could be an additional, off-panel, death and resurrection.

More details in @fantastic-nonsense’s original commentary here.

Afterlife visits

1. Pulled into the Spirit World (Lazarus Planet: Dark Fate, 2023; Spirit World, 2023)

When the Lazarus Volcano erupts and rains down Lazarus Water on the whole earth, it stirs up a lot of undead. In a graveyard in Gotham, Cass joins John Constantine and Xanthe Zhou (a ’spirit envoy’ who died as a child and was partially resurrected and is now both living and dead) in a fight against hopping vampires (jiang-shi) and a ‘ghost collective’ (a big ball of angry ghosts).

With Constantine’s and Cass’s help, Xanthe exorcises the collective, but on its way out the collective grabs Cass’s ankle and pulls her into the Spirit World with it.

In the Spirit World, she more or less gets adopted by Xanthe’s granny, who has also adopted another ghost, Bowen. (It’s not clear in this panel, but Po Po is tiny and only comes up to Cass’s waist.)

A kitsune spirit she meets there tells her they have met before, when she was dead, though she clearly doesn’t remember her time dead. (The spirit doesn’t clarify which of Cass’s deaths it is referring to, but since she was with Steph all through her second death, it is likely to be her first – but it might be a completely different one; see above.)

Of course, John and Xanthe go in after her and they eventually reunite. After a great quest, the freeing of the ghosts from their collective, and major reorganisation of the politics of the Spirit World, they all leave together through a portal.

Time in afterlife: several days.

Batfam Death Project Masterpost

[fckbatmanhiskidsareminenow]

capa (creative and performing arts) batfamily headcanons

dick sings and dances while he does chores and he’s very good at both

jason sometimes writes his feelings out in macabre mini stories, he can also definitely play drums

tim is an awesome photographer, many people know he takes photos but they don’t know just how amazing they are. in most of his pictures the cinematography is incredible

yes cass can dance but she can also play the harp (don’t ask me why i have no clue i just feel like it suits her somehow)

steph taught herself to paint and sometimes joins damian while he draws

if you can’t find damian try looking somewhere where is a nice stream of sunlight you’ll find him doodling

duke can either sing or play guitar maybe both i haven’t decided yet. oh and he can definitely draw too

[puppetmaster13u]

"MASTER BRUCE, IS THAT A SECOND CHILD-"

Anyone interested in a Writing WIP of Demon Batfam....?

[mintythyme]

The thought that’s been plaguing my mind since the FHJY is how much I relate and like the (theoretical) tenants of The Sun and Night Shipping Goddess Church??

The literal story of the two goddess is so RICH in mythological symbolism for what a worship of them would be, and I just. I wanna make a fucking bible for the fictional goddess of the silly dnd comedy show. I wanna do it. Just. THE SYMBOLISM!!! THE MORALS!!!

[harleyyquinnsgf]

what i think the batkids’s favorite chappell roan song is with no explanation:

dick: super graphic ultra modern girl

jason: kaleidoscope

duke: after midnight

tim: pink pony club

steph: hot to go!

cass: my kink is karma

damian: california

red wine supernova and femininomenon are honorary favorites though. good luck, babe! is up there as well but cass is the one mainly obsessed with it. they somehow programmed something into the batmobile that whenever clark gets in it, casual starts playing. the first time it happened, both him and bruce were very confused.

[erinwantstowrite]

That scene of Cass playing with Peter's hair still lives in my head rent-free. I am a weak sucker for soft Cass content, it is literally my drug. Imagining this scenario in the genderbend au is even better bcz girl Peter has long hair! The possibilities!! Don't let the others steal your little niece away, queen! keep braiding that hair, Bruce be damned!!

i NEED to write more of her soon, especially her interacting with peter. that's her baby nephew!! i plan to have even more soft moments with all of the bats at some point, but specifically need some with Cass, Duke, and Steph

i can so imagine cass braiding peter's hair (long or short) and peter falling asleep while she does it, and cass is happy as can be