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mzminola · 1 year

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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.

#Robin 1993 #and a little bit of RR #Bruce Wayne Critical #Stephanie Brown Critical #DC #Batfam #comics meta #Tim Drake #meanwhile Cass nerve strikes both Steph and Babs at least once each #to stop them from following her or stopping her when she wants to go do something dangerous alone #and nobody talks shit about her for THAT #I love Cass! she is simply not exempt from Being An Asshole sometimes #and it does drive me a bit buggy that like...#it never comes up in these discussions #Bruce Wayne #Stephanie Brown #characters are all tagged for archival purposes #dunno if this is Fandom Critical or just Fandom Exasperated

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fantastic-nonsense · 2 years

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I might be wrong but I figured you'd be the person to ask: Someone in a Discord server I'm in was talking about the "popular fanon idea of Cass learning ASL and sometimes preferring it to speech." And I... don't think this is fanon? Doesn't she canonically know ASL? I know she learned English and (I believe) Mandarin but I'm almost positive there are also lots of canon instances of her signing.

Okay so I'm going to split this ask into two questions:

Does Cass know American Sign Language (ASL), canonically?

Could Cass learn ASL?

The answer to #1 is no, Cass doesn't canonically know ASL to my knowledge (caveat: this does not, apparently, apply to the Young Justice cartoon universe; Cassandra Wu-San does appear to know some form of legitimate sign language). Canon!Cass, on the other hand, knows some basic signs and does use them, but it's more charades, 'loud gesturing,' and basic hand signals than it is ASL. The reasons Cass knowing ASL is such a popular fanon misperception are rather complex, but it largely comes down to two things: misunderstanding how ASL works and misunderstanding what Cass's disability actually is.

ASL isn't just some fancy hand gestures that translate one-to-one into spoken English; that would be "baby sign" or spell signing at best. ASL is a language, with all of the complex grammar, vocabulary, syntax, and sentence structure that implies. It takes years of learning and immersion to understand, learn, and utilize properly, just like any other language. Treating it as anything else is a form of ableism.

Someone like Cass who has difficulty processing language is going to have just as much trouble learning ASL as she would English, Mandarin, or any other language, because her problem isn't that she just "doesn't know English." Cass's disability is not that she can't read or communicate verbally: it's that her brain is literally built different because of how Cain raised her, and that affects how she processes language (and thus how she communicates with other people):

"David Cain…had some unusal ideas about combat. He experimented with infants. Trained them in isolation and deprived them of human speech. The goal was to adapt the language center of the brain to interpret physical movement as a language. She can…read you. Your body. That's why she understands what you're saying when she doesn't know the words. It's why in combat, she knows what you're going to do before you do it." -Batgirl (2000) #1

"The language centers of your brain are all over both hemispheres. Not centralized like with most people. When you try to read or write, your brain doesn't know how to keep it cohesive. But the good news is--you can learn. It's just a matter of figuring out how." -Batgirl #67

It's actually specified somewhere (I don't have the panel on hand, unfortunately) that she doesn't know sign language; Cain wanted her to read natural body language and nuance, not artificial hand gestures. Cass's primary "language" (and thus form of communication) until her brain was semi-rewired was body language.

But body language isn't actually a language; it's a form of non-verbal communication that functions through the (largely subconscious) 'reading' of both conscious and unconscious physical movement. Cass's childhood and training simply elevated that ability to ridiculous heights:

"A special ability to predict my opponent's moves. That doesn't begin to describe it. Time...ran together. The future...blending...into the moment. A blink of an eye...the knife thrust that follows...both one. It was like...like I could predict my opponent's moves. Okay, that does describe it. But it doesn't do it justice. All this knowledge. No substitute for knowing." -Batgirl (2000) #7

We see explicitly how this ability plays out on several occasions throughout her Batgirl run and the Detective Comics Rebirth run, and it's pretty clear she's reading subconscious feelings, thoughts, and movement, not language:

Cass absolutely communicates via hand gestures before and after Batgirl #4, but it's not any form of cohesive language, much less ASL. It's effectively advanced charades mixed with some universal non-verbal gestures:

"You don't speak any language, do you? Except violence." -Detective Comics (1937) #734

"Is he giving you any trouble?" *Cass flaps her hand to indicate the guy is a blabbermouth* "Got you. He talks too much." -Batman: Family (2002) #7

*Cass gestures to Jason's heart, Tim's mind, and Dick's voice to indicate she understands how they work as a team*-Batman and Robin Eternal (2015) #3

People learning a English as a second language already have an understanding of how language works, but Cass doesn’t have that foundation. Her primary language isn't sign language, it's body reading. Thus, she struggles to speak, read, and write in English not because it's a different language than she's used to communicating with but because it's the first actual language she's ever learned. Fanon largely projects ASL fluency onto Cass because they fundamentally don't understand how her abilities work (and thus don't understand how her disability works either).

Does Cass have the ability to learn ASL? Absolutely! Would ASL be a really cool way of depicting Cass communicating with other people and an interesting way to showcase language learning difficulties and communication disabilities in the visual medium that is comics? Absolutely! I would actually be genuinely thrilled if canon and the fandom actually worked with what a physical, visual-based language like ASL might mean for Cass's ability to communicate given her childhood training. But as it stands, "Cass knowing ASL" is a well-meaning but misguided fanon attempt to showcase inclusivity while being...well, frankly kind of offensive.

(As for why she would theoretically "know" Mandarin, it's a product of the incredibly racist and ableist writing that defined the "Evil Cass Era." This culminated in DC putting her on a bus and shipping her off to Hong Kong because "Asian girl knows Asian languages, right? Brilliant! Send her off!" while ignoring literally everything about Cass ever. She's never actually shown speaking Mandarin, Cantonese, or any other dialect of Chinese on-panel, but we can reasonably infer she probably picked up SOME level of comprehension while living there.)

#cassandra cain #cassandra cain meta #batman #batfam #batgirl #asks #ableism #fanon vs canon #disability #note: I have not read all of Reboot!Cass's appearances so she theoretically MIGHT know ASL even though it's super doubtful #but pre-reboot!Cass DEFINITELY doesn't #long post #batman meta

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madcapberry · 3 months

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One sec I need to talk about Shiva.

Lady Shiva was introduced in Richard Dragon: Kung Fu Fighter in the 70s. She was a traveling martial artist hellbent on getting revenge for her sister, who she believed had been killed by Richard Dragon. She lured Dragon into a trap, revealed herself as Carolyn's sister, and tried to fight him to the death. Once she realized that Dragon had nothing to do with it, that Cravat and The Swiss (unimportant villain characters, they killed Carolyn) had been the ones to kill her sister, she helped Dragon defeat the villain (by giving him her shiny belt so he could redirect the beam of a deadly laser that was being pointed at them while they were fighting, don’t even ask) and Richard Dragon and Lady Shiva became allies, friends even. Dragon convinced her it would be a waste to kill Cravat and told her that he had killed the Swiss himself. She accepted this. They shook hands. This all took place over the course of one issue of Richard Dragon: Kung Fu Fighter. It took ONE issue for Shiva to go from antagonist to ally. She then tagged along with Richard because she liked the adventures he got up to, the danger, the challenge, and the thrill of it. Richard even called her later on when he needed help on a different adventure. What I’m saying is she didn’t start out as evil.

Okay, so what do we know about Shiva so far? She’s a thrill-seeking peripatetic martial artist of great capacity and skill. She cared about her sister. She’s willing to kill. She’s an adventurer and a valuable ally. Great. Moving on.

The Question 1987 features THE Lady Shiva. A character capable of both ruthlessness and mercy, cruelty and tenderness. A curious, thrill-seeking, teasing character. She was vicious and nonpartisan and she was working as a mercenary for hire. But she was an ally, even when she was beating the shit out of Vic. She loved the O Sensei. You can tell she even cared about Vic in her way. I’m not saying she had a heart of gold, or that there weren’t tropes she fell into. She wasn’t and there were. But she was a fairly well-rounded, morally gray character that played a key role wherever she showed up. She was closer to a non-traditional anti-hero than anything else. Idfk, just go read The Question.

I read a tvtropes article describing Lady Shiva as “an archetypical Dragon Lady, complete with sinister motivations and exotic sex appeal,” which… she isn’t. She subverted this trope in several ways actually. She never had “sinister motivations” until Chuck Dixon got his grubby little hands on her. Her motivations were pretty neutral. She had her own set of principles, she was very morally gray. She wanted to travel and fight worthy opponents on her adventures for the thrill of it. She seemed to operate mostly on personal whims, and on the basis of building worthy rivals, out of love for the art of combat. And she didn’t use her sex appeal for shit (until the Richard Dragon reboot comic kms), she didn’t tolerate sexual advances or objectification. She just WAS NOT a conniving temptress, I don't understand where this misperception came from (but I do blame Dixon, I’ll get to that in a sec).

This same article states that she began as the arch-nemesis of Richard Dragon? Unless you’re accepting the version of the two of them from the very short lived Richard Dragon 2004 series as their canonical relationship then NO she didn’t. But I digress.

There was a marked change in the way Lady Shiva was written by the time Robin (1991) came out, this is where her character starts to lean towards the Dragon Lady trope imo. She also weirdly, and maybe arguably, leans more into traditional femininity while at the same time being written as more wild and uncontrollable. Chuck Dixon seemed to fundamentally misunderstand Lady Shiva as a character. He turned her (sometimes ironic) disdain for brutes who wouldn’t last a second in a fight with her into stereotypical womanly haughtiness. He turned her capacity for ruthlessness into bloodlust. And he made her into a conniving, somewhat deranged, villainous woman, tempting our young hero towards evil (oh my!). Again, I’m not saying she ever had a heart of gold, but Dixon changed core character traits (namely her respect for other people's personal code) to turn her into a villain.

“Kill him, little bird. Kill him and become a predator…Aren’t you my weapon? My instrument of death? Say you are mine.” Like?? She would not fucking say that, respectfully.

That isn’t even to mention Richard Dragon (2004) where Dixon turned Shiva’s relationship with Dragon into a resentful, sexually charged dick-measuring contest.

Even so, I don’t entirely hate Shiva as a villain, especially in Batgirl (2000). Pucketts Shiva is a bit less egregious imo. So she’s a passively suicidal evil mentor-figure who wants Cass to be a killer like her. Whatever, I can get on board with that I guess. I can enjoy it because I love Cass and this is a great comic run. But the retcon that–Listen, THE RETCON THAT IS SHIVA’S SISTER BEING KILLED BY DAVID CAIN, SHIVA DESCRIBING THIS AS FREEING, SAYING SHE’S GRATEFUL, THEN AGREEING TO GET PREGNANT WITH HIS CHILD IN RETURN?? This boils my blood. Shiva, who was introduced as somebody who cared about getting revenge for her dead sister. Shiva, for whom freedom and autonomy were core character traits. That Shiva?? That Shiva is relieved her sister is dead and is willing to carry her sister's killer's child to term?? What the fuck?

I hate it. I don’t understand it. Why would you take a complex character who makes it difficult to tell who she really cares about, and flatten them into somebody incapable of love?

Okay I’m done, this is getting too long and I don’t even want to get started on New 52 era Shiva. I don’t have a conclusion, I’m just annoyed. Thanks for reading. The Question (1987) is NOT a perfect comic but if you’re interested in Shiva please please please check it out, it’s very moody and philosophical, noir-esque. Also Chuck Dixon suck my dick.

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goatsghost · 8 months

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i know this old news by now, but the fact that this issue could’ve been so cool if they actually took all the batkids’ strengths seriously and hadn’t taken out the two most op bats out in one punch — they really missed out on some amazing fight scenes

#ggw liveblog #gotham war #bruce wayne #dick grayson #duke thomas #stephanie brown #cassandra cain #tim drake #literally it’s so ridiculous how bruce’s thought process AND execution went like #‘cass is smart and duke is a meta; gotta take them out first’#and then just DOES IT #like????? you said the words but then it clearly does not reflect in their actions #cass IS smart and perceptive; she would’ve known you’d go for her first and she’d beat the shit out of you #and duke would literally see it coming before it happened!!#they’re both basically precogs and bruce is just like ‘yep got em!’#but jason and dick are fan favorites so they get to throw a few punches before going down #unfair

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spite-and-waffles · 2 years

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Bruce, picking up a stray: "He reminds me of me!" :333

Bruce, a couple of years later: "Why is he such a stubborn, self-destructive drama queen??" >((

#the girls are exempt #babs is a colleague steph is the kimmy gibbler and he forgets cass is a human girl and not a justice machine half the time #it's all about the blue eyed black haired boy children #same mini-Bruce different presentations #bruce wayne #batfamily #batfam #dick grayson #jason todd #tim drake #damian wayne #dcu #crack meta #spite waffle

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tarragonthedragon · 1 year

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Dick gets Bruce because he's the world expert on how to translate bat into normal but Cass gets him because she also has no idea how to translate bat into normal

#dc #batfam #batman #dick Grayson #bruce wayne #cass cain #meta

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gretahayes · 1 year

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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.

#my rambles #cass cain #max mercury #bart allen #barbara gordon #babs gordon #babs & cass #max & bart #meta #?#anyway impulse is givin me some FEELS

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swinging-stars-from-satellites · 1 year

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so here's the thing. Cass's favorite brother is probably Tim. he's her little guy, her sweet cheese, her good time boy. they're both very similar to Bruce in a lot of ways, but more than that, they find it easy to be around each other. Tim is more quiet than the others, which Cass appreciates, but he's also fascinating to watch because there's constantly a thousand things going on beneath the surface of him. Cass and Tim are masters of parallel play, but only and primarily with each other. Tim is quiet when Cass wants to be quiet or talks when she needs to talk, and if she doesn't have the words for something he never so much as bats an eye (even Dick bluescreens sometimes trying to figure her words out), he just helps her find the right ones. Tim can read her almost as well as she can read him, just slower and not trained into him, it's just how he is. he looks at her and tries to figure out how she works, the way he does with everyone, a way most people don't. it makes her feel seen the same way she sees, and that's valuable to her.

another thing is that Tim is also, in all honesty, Jason's favorite brother. like it's almost counterintuitive considering how they first really met, but hey — brothers forged in blood, right? there's some wild poetry to it and they Get each other on a level the others don't really bc they're the middle children, 2nd and 3rd and always afraid of being rejected. but they've got each other. Tim is Jay's favorite because he's so incredibly forgiving (to be welcomed back to the family by the kid he nearly killed? the kid he hated? INSANE.) and because he doesn't judge. (Jay is Tim's favorite bc he's chill when Dick or B can be smothering sometimes. Jason isn't the one who lost a brother and a son, he's the one who was lost, so he's not quite so afraid of losing. yes, he's protective, but not overwhelmingly so.) they have an instinctive kind of brotherhood where they balance each other out, tempering each other's worse tendencies and bolstering the better ones without having to talk about it.

the third thing: Cass really does not like Jason. she has the no-kill rule in her heart even before she had words to explain it, and it's different than with Bruce because she's lived it. she's lived the reason why they have that rule. and Jason has too, but come out on the other side, what Cass considers the wrong side of a worldview completely different than her own. Jason kills, he breaks the law written in her soul and in their adoptive father's, and no one stops him. she can't comprehend it, and she will never accept it. she rarely uses his name, rarely interacts with him at all if she can help it because much as she wants to start a fight, it would hurt Bruce if she did and she doesn't want that. she just calls him Hood, most of the time. if they absolutely have to work together, she does what needs done and leaves.

so. Cass hates Jason. and Jason hates being hated. as far as the principle goes, he can get why Cass doesn't like him, but she's loath to even be around him and that bothers him. she's just this side of being actively hostile, meanwhile Jason is honestly trying his best not to tick her off but it's really hard when he gets glared at by possibly the most intimidating Bat every time he's at home. the same way there's a difference between Bruce and Batman (they put away masks at home, or at least they try to), there's a difference between Jason and the Red Hood. but Cass, determined, rock-solid Cass, refuses to accept that. it's not a good situation, especially when Tim gets in the middle of it, because both Cass and Jason love Tim but hate each other and Tim is just tired and wants his siblings to get along and see, this is why he prefers one on one time to family gatherings.

because at some point something happens and Tim gets hurt, maybe captured or outnumbered (as capable as he is, even a great strategist and skilled fighter can be overwhelmed at times) while out on patrol, and Oracle, sitting in front of her computer array, sighs and rubs her temples and opens up a communications channel to the only two Bats available to assist — Red Hood and Black Bat. she tells them what's up, gives them Red Robin's location, and then dips back out of the channel because she is not going to spend the rest of the night listening to palpable silence from Cass and increasingly frustrated questioning from Jason. she's not paid enough for that.

so Cass and Jason HAVE to work together. HAVE to team up to save their mutual favorite sibling (who, for what it's worth, has no clue he's ANYONE'S favorite). and neither of them is pleased with this turn of events, on multiple counts — 1, Tim is hurt. 2, Cass hates/at least strongly dislikes Jason. 3, Jason has tried everything to make peace with her and is honestly feeling a little bit desperate about it at this point because he has tried EVERYTHING, so now he's just right back at aggression. it's a situation that really can't have a good outcome for everyone, because Cass and Jason's mutual dislike for each other is at odds with their mutual love for Tim and both of them arrive at the same conclusion: all they can do is work for the best outcome for their little brother.

Tim, who has only been lightly stabbed and could have probably gotten by with just one person for backup instead of two, let alone THESE two, is both exasperated by the turn of events, and just plain glad that someone came for him. he's bleeding and hurting and watching from the alley floor as Cass stares (glares) at Jason, who's trying to figure out how to get a shot in that will give Tim a way out without, yknow, shooting his brother in the process.

and then Cass just swoops down and between her insane skills and the intimidation factor of a bat with a full-face mask the entire situation is diffused before Jason has a chance to shoot anybody, which is a better outcome than Tim expected. Jason grapples down as Cass is finishing up with the last few bad guys and she turns around and starts glaring through the mask again. the problem is, she loves Tim. he's her favorite brother, the one most like her and most like their father. but Jason loves Tim too, and Cass can see it as soon as she looks, really looks to see it. and it's so, so obvious when she sees Jason's bloodstained, scarred hands carefully bandaging Tim's (slight) stab wound and the fact that Jay pulled off his helmet as soon as it was safe to and is talking and grinning and keeping a steady eye on Tim because everyone knows that Tim plays down his injuries often and you have to watch him, because he's smart enough to hide things unless you really know him. and Jason knows him. and Cass can see that. and as much as she doesn't like Jason, as much as she's possessive of Tim, she softens for just a minute.

not that she'd ever tell anyone, and Tim was too distracted and half-foggy from blood loss to see it in her at the moment. Cass still doesn't like Jay. Jay is still utterly frustrated by the fact that she won't give him a chance. Tim is still annoyed by all of this and complains to Babs about it (bc Steph just laughs and says all three of them need to suck it up and move on, which is TRUE, but unhelpful) any chance he gets.

it isn't until an Arkham breakout, not the worst they've seen but obviously not good news, when Jason gets badly hurt and Tim (who was with him at the time) gets Really Scary, like full-on not moving a muscle, staring down the man who did it with such intensity that it feels like he could kill with only his masked eyes, sharp and suddenly absolutely terrifying to anyone who doesn't know him, that something really clicks for Cass. because she slips in as Tim coldly, calculatingly shatters the guy's kneecaps just as thoroughly as Jason's bullets would have done and then his rigid intensity falls away and he's a kid terrified that his brother is hurt.

Cass sees the way Jason is with Tim and she can't quite reconcile that caring with all his killing but she knows, because she can SEE it, that Jay cares about Tim much the same way she does. and then she sees how Tim acts when Jason is hurt, the scary sharp side of her little brother that only comes out when he's very, very afraid and very, very determined, and she sees the way he loves his older brother and... she can't deny that either.

and maybe Cass will never LIKE Jason, maybe there will always be some tension between them, but. she doesn't call him only "Hood" all the time, anymore, and Jason is capable of recognizing that tiny detail as her version of a peace offering. Tim is just glad they're not yelling at each other (or Cass's silent staring version of yelling) all the time. maybe it's a whole mess, but hey, they're working on it. as long as there's love, somewhere, there's something. (there's family)

#this was originally a meta post but it spiralled. like. a lot spiralled.#i just think they should have a contentious little thing going on. sibling rivalry but they don't consider themselves siblings #like it's funny but also fascinating. they're narrative foils!! they're their fathers precious children! they have #directly opposing worldviews and mindsets!!!#this could be so deep but also. SO comedic #i need to write the stupid little batfam road trip fic in my head bc the ensemble dynamics are SO FUN #Lu rambles #meta finding tag #batfam #cass cain #jason todd #tim drake #i didn't proofread this if it has typos I'll find it once it's too late and it's already been reblogged. as usual 😂

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comphetkoncass · 9 months

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one-plus-one, easy math cass&kon, fake dating (no, really, she's a lesbian, this is a fake date) word count: 2557 also on ao3

“You… want me to be your plus-one?”

Cass nods. She’s started talking lately, according to Tim, but she’s still pretty quiet. Kon thinks even when she gets more comfortable with speaking, she might still be a woman of few words – she seems the type to choose them carefully, the same way she’s precise with her movements.

“Well…” Kon rubs the back of his neck, thinking it over. “I thought we weren’t dating anymore. I thought you were happy about not dating anymore.”

Cass tilts her head to the side, and Kon knows she’s probably reading his entire soul. He squirms a little under her intense gaze. Then, “I am.”

“Then…” He frowns. “Why are you asking me to be your plus one, if we’re not dating?”

It’s a longer phrase, and Kon thinks she might struggle. But to his pleasant surprise, though she takes some time to consider her words, they don’t seem overly difficult. “...I need someone outside the family.”

“And I’m the best choice?” he asks. “...Really?”

“I was surprised too.”

Kon barks out a surprised laugh. She’s learned enough for jokes, then, that’s great. She smiles, and he’s glad she’s comfortable enough to joke around with him still – he missed making her happy. As whirlwind and short-lived as their romance was, making her smile was a definite perk. He always got the feeling that joy was a rare experience for her. He just hopes she’s happy in Gotham. To him, it’s always been stifling – not least because Batman is an asshole.

“So?” Cass asks, looking at him with intense brown eyes.

“Ah, what the hell,” he finally says. “Sure. But I need to go shopping, I don’t have anything fancy enough for this kind of thing.”

Cass smiles then – and holds up three separate cards in Bruce Wayne’s name. Stolen, he thinks, given the mischief on her face. Kon quickly discovers that, actually, there is a superpower better than his TTK, and it’s called money. He whoops in delight, and it doesn’t take long for them to explore Gotham’s downtown, going from shop to shop until they find the perfect outfits to blend in with high society.

(Or, rather, how they think they could blend in with high society. Cass’s dress is probably too loose and flapper-style for the current era, and Kon’s probably has too much satin, but they match, and they make for a fun duo.)

////////

In the end, Kon probably wasn’t the best choice for the Gala. But Dick and Tim are both gone on a mission outside Gotham, leaving Cass the only Wayne child to represent the family alongside Bruce. Kon probably wasn’t the first choice, either – and privately, Kon wonders if Cass is testing boundaries with Bruce, given he’d been all but banned from Gotham. If she is testing boundaries, he hopes she gets whatever she’s angling for, even if it’s just a little more freedom to hang out with friends.

It’s not until halfway through the Gala that Kon starts to wonder if maybe Cass had ulterior motives after all.

They’ve been talking and tasting the overpriced snack table for most of the night, almost-goofing-off but not blatantly enough to catch Bruce’s ire (or so Kon hopes). Kon’s been monopolizing Cass’s attention, something he’s pretty good at, if he does say so himself – he’s always been a charmer.

But eventually, it wears off; that, or everyone waiting for a chance with Cass finally get bold enough to interrupt them. And while Cass is trying to throw a wad of caviar into Kon’s open mouth, at that.

“Ahem,” a young man about Cass’s age says. “So terribly sorry to interrupt. May I?”

“May you what?” Kon asks, straightening up. He wipes the tiniest trace of caviar from the corner of his lip – Cass is an excellent shot, and Kon’s pretty good at catching, so it’s not like she ever missed.

Cass, meanwhile, stands up a little straighter.

“Interrupt,” the young man says. “Miss Wayne, I don’t mean to take you away from… present company. But I was hoping for a dance. Perhaps a bit of light conversation.”

Kon stares at the guy, raising a brow.

Kon’s no body language reader. Not like Cass. But he knows her heart’s a little faster, in the bad way. The blood pressure raising way. He glances between her and the new guy, and ultimately decides, nah, he’s not going to let this happen.

“Sorry,” he says. “Her dance card is pretty full. I could try to rearrange, but she and I, we’re pretty busy.”

Cass looks up in surprise – an expression he’s not used to seeing on her face.

The new guy, too, looks surprised. Kon thinks he can see his eye twitching. Kon bets his name is something silly, like Macadamian Rosegarden Cavendish the Third, and that he’s not used to being told no.

All the more reason to say no, then.

Kon sends him a friendly smile, then looks back over at Cass and extends her a hand. Time to go somewhere a little less approachable. “Speaking of dancing though – Cass and I should probably practice a little. I’ve got two left feet, see, and she's the best dancer I know. Cass?”

Cass looks at Kon’s hand, then his face. Wordlessly, she takes his hand.

Kon sends the guy a two-fingered salute, then is quick to walk with her to a less occupied part of the Gala. There’s a balcony nearby, one just big enough for the two of them. Kon makes a little more room by hopping up on the ledge, swinging his legs around so he can face Cass and the party inside the windows.

Cass is quiet for a while, but she looks less tense out in the night air. He almost didn’t notice it beyond her heartbeat, but she’d gotten a little more tense when Macadamian Rosegarden Cavendish the Third had approached – a tension that hadn’t been there when it was just the two of them enjoying themselves.

It takes a moment, but finally she finds her words again. “...Thank you.”

“No problem,” Kon says. “Is it like that a lot, at these things?”

Cass shrugs one shoulder. “Second gala,” she says. When Kon doesn’t quite understand, she pauses and elaborates, just a little. “...I don’t come to many. Not sure.”

Kon nods. That makes sense. “I hope you don’t have to go much more often then, because it must suck having to reject people so much.”

Cass looks at the ground.

Kon frowns a little. The wind disturbs her carefully ironed bob, and when she doesn’t try to remove it from her face, Kon reaches out with just a hint of TTK and does it for her. She looks up, equal parts confused and startled.

“Sorry,” he says, putting both hands up and stopping his powers. “Just- Sorry. Got distracted. Wanted to help.”

Cass crosses her arms in front of her chest.

Kon finds his train of thought, then, and asks, “Do you usually get to reject them? Or do you end up dancing with them anyways?”

Cass’s silence speaks volumes.

Kon lets out a slow breath. It fogs in front of him in the chilly night air. “I’m sorry,” he says, sincerely. “That sucks.”

“Not your fault.”

“Well… I’m glad I could come with this time,” he says. “So you don’t have to dance with anyone you don’t want to.”

Cass nods. There is the tiniest hint of a smile again, and she tucks a lock of hair behind her ears. Then, quietly, “Even you?”

It takes him aback for a second. Then, he understands what she means, and nods. “Well yeah, I only said your dance card was full to lose that jerk. You don’t have to actually dance with me – even though I will say, my dance moves are great, I’m an absolute party animal. I can do the Mashed Potato like nobody’s business.”

Cass blinks, serious instead of laughing. “Mashed potato?”

Kon grins, standing on top of the balcony ledge. “I’m so glad you asked, I’d be happy to demonstrate-”

He’s pretty sure he’s not doing it exactly right, but Cass looks almost hypnotized by the way his heels click and his knees move in sync with an imaginary rhythm. He’s definitely doing the hands wrong, but he’s having more fun with it this way.

“Dancing with yourself?” Cass asks, grinning up at him. "Not a waltz?"

“Way more fun,” Kon says with a grin. “I could show you how to do it yourself?”

Cass just laughs at him. She’s already imitating his movement – in a way that flows better than he’s doing. Right – almost forgot, movement was her first language. Of course she’s better than him already.

Instead of feeling put out, Kon just grins at her.

She looks like she’s having fun again – and really, that’s all he wants.

When she looks back up at him, her smile is everything. Kon knows she isn’t interested in a relationship – or at least, not one with him. Kon checks in with himself, gives himself a stern reminder not to read into anything. He’s here to make sure she has fun, and that’s all.

Eventually, after teaching Cass the Twist, the Shopping Cart, and an attempt at the Moonwalk – all of which she masters immediately – Kon hops down from the ledge and moves to sit again.

He looks up at the sky, and mourns the fact that Gotham doesn’t really have stars. “Thanks for inviting me,” he says sincerely. “It’s been really fun tonight. I haven’t gotten to go to something like this in a while, and the ones I went to before – they weren’t that fun, either, even if they were a lot less fancy than this.”

Cass looks a little surprised. “But you’re so… exciting?”

Kon chuckles a little. “Yeah,” he says. “But it’s still more fun here with you.”

It takes her a moment to chew on that. Eventually, she moves to sit on top of the ledge next to him. They both look inwards at the party, watching ladies in fancy dresses dance with well-dressed men in suits. The fake laughter, the champagne glasses. Kon’s never been that familiar with the super-rich, but he’s had his fair share of parties. Especially back when he was Just Superboy.

Ever since getting his name, and especially after moving in with Ma and Pa Kent, life’s been a lot slower. More balanced. He has room to breathe.

Kon doesn’t know much about Cass’s life before being adopted by Bruce Wayne. But he hopes it’s been a relief for her, too. That whatever her life was like before, that she can breathe in this fresh start, too. He hopes it’s not constant vigilante work all the time. She deserves a chance to have fun and be a real person, too.

When Kon looks back, he finds Cass staring at a young woman with a particularly daring backless dress in crushed velvet Prussian blue.

Her cheeks are pink, he notices.

And he thinks, maybe he’s reading into this too much. But if he’s not, he thinks he understands her a little bit better. And maybe why she seemed to have a lot of fun on their date, and liked the idea of a romance, and a TTK castle in the sky, and a spark of real love with someone – but why something was missing.

“She’s pretty,” Kon says, looking at the young woman, too. “Do you like her dress?”

Cass turns to him, brows furrowed. She glances between his body language and his lips, seemingly puzzled. “I wouldn’t want to wear it.”

“Sorry,” Kon says, realizing he might be confusing her by being subtle. “I wouldn’t expect you to, yeah, it’s not very practical.”

Cass looks at him again, still confused.

“...But,” he says, “It’s okay to like how it looks on her. It’s okay if you think she’s pretty.”

Cass doesn’t say anything for a little while. Her face is still a little pink.

“Pretty doesn’t matter,” Cass says, but her eyes don’t leave the blue dress. “It’s not supposed to.”

“Sure,” Kon says. “But dancing doesn’t matter either. And it can still be fun. Pretty – sometimes pretty can be fun. Sometimes people like to look pretty just to enjoy it. Like art, or whatever.”

It takes a moment, but finally, Cass nods. “And she?” she asks. “She wants to look pretty so that someone sees her as pretty?”

“Something like that.”

“Her date,” Cass says. Her eyes are laser-focused on the man locking arms with her. “She wants her date to see her as pretty.” She pauses for a moment. A long one. Then, in a smaller voice, “Not me.”

Kon is quiet for a moment, not sure what to say to that.

Cass’s shoulders slump. “I shouldn’t look. I wouldn’t want her to feel-” She frowns, looks over at the boy who had asked her to dance earlier, who Kon had helped her reject. And Kon recognizes her dilemma. The fear of looking, of asking to dance, when it’s unwanted. When there is a fundamental incompatibility.

Cass shivers, and Kon sheds his jacket to drape over her shoulders. It’s satin, so it doesn’t do all that much to protect her from the cold, but Kon likes to think it at least helps. She pulls it closer, and looks more at ease immediately.

“You don’t have to look if it makes you worried to think about this kind of thing,” he says, carefully. “But it’s not wrong to think she’s pretty, regardless of who she’s trying to be pretty for.”

She looks up at him, still unsure.

“Trust me on this,” Kon says, adding a wink for flair. “It’s okay if you don’t like boys. It’s okay if you like girls – hell, it’s okay if you only like girls. You’re not doing anything wrong.”

Cass looks in through the window, of the sea of wealthy Gothamites. Kon follows her eyes to the small, formal dance floor – where the only ones dancing are men-and-woman pairs. How they lean in close to each other; how the man leads the woman, how they’re pushed close together, how it’s impossible to miss the intimacy in the way they hold each other, even in formal dances. The way men’s suits cut neatly to their waists and flatter masculine figures; the way the women’s dresses accentuate whatever she believes her best features to be. The way they all follow the same type of dance, with no room for new steps. No room for fun.

He thinks it cuts quite a picture against two vigilantes, teaching each other how to dance with themselves in the cold night air.

“Someday you might get to dance with a girl,” he says. “Sorry if it might not be tonight. But someday.”

Cass laughs a little, pink to her ears. “And you?”

“What, who am I going to dance with?”

She nods.

Kon lets out a long breath, leaning backwards, elbows brushing the railing. He’s not sure himself. “I like dancing, just not the boring, stuffy kind,” he finally says. “As long as my partner’s having fun, I don’t really care how I do it, or who I’m dancing with.”

Cass follows his eyes – the way he watches everyone inside the window, his eyes not particularly caught by any one person.

“Okay,” she says, and accepts that as an answer. Kon thinks she reads something different in his body language – but if she does, she doesn’t tell him any different.

"Let's stay outside a little longer, yeah?" Kon finally says. "I think I remember the Electric Slide. I've got the song on my phone and everything."

Cass grins, and Kon pulls up his phone. The Electric Slide clashes horribly against the orchestra inside, but he doesn't care. They've got their own dancing to do, and they'll be doing it to their own rhythm.

#cassandra cain #kon-el #conner kent #batgirl #superboy #cdw writes #casskon fake dating my beloved #i included a few details that have popped up on my dash lately like bruce being an asshole about no metas in gotham #but mostly the lesbian cass + kon fake dating au ive been craving

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