#i was really conflicted on where to put cass and was about to put her in treason but she wouldn’t fit so i just went with my first thought
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Are Tim and Cass Cain actually close in canon? Or is that more of a fanon thing that gained canon status?
Alright, so the tldr answer is that yes pre-reboot they were close—but it wasn't something that happened immediately/right off the bat, it took time, and they didn't always perfectly see eye-to-eye. But like, it's not just some totally fanon thing, they were absolutely close.
I'm using past-tense in the above though because it's like... all the actual content with them becoming/being close is pre-reboot. Anything post-reboot with them either had them back at square one (during N52 stuff) or like, just sort of handwavey 'oh they're close again' without much actual elaboration/explanation. Theoretically nowadays everything's canon again so all the old stuff applies, but as far as I'm aware nothing has really dug all that deep back into the two of them/their dynamic.
Now, to give a brief crash course on Tim & Cass's relationship in canon...
Early on they weren’t all that close because Tim was absolutely intimidated by her & her background and like, in general seemed to just find her kinda off-putting:
(Robin (1993) #73)
However Tim eventually gets over himself & after working side-by-side with her a little bit realizes he shouldn't let being intimidated by her stop them from being friends and working together:
(Batgirl (2000) #18)
After this point they work together on several occasions, definitely communicating much better than in their initial appearances together and clearly getting along well. They're a fun lil duo:
(Superman/Batman Vol. 1 #5, Superboy Vol. 4 #85)
Then… after a while, War Games happens. Gotham goes to shit, Steph dies (well, we nowadays know she didn't really, but they sure were both grieving) and so they both independently move to Blüdhaven, which leads us to the Robin/Batgirl: Fresh Blood crossover. Which has some fun little moments with them:
(Batgirl (2000) #58)
As well as some on the more tense side, as they both navigate mourning Steph and the clashes in their ideologies/approaches to hero work—the fact that Cass wants to be & be like Batman, and the fact that Tim absolutely does not:
(Batgirl (2000) #59)
After the crossover they mostly do their own thing staying out of each other's ways in Blüdhaven—though they do get another little story together in this timeframe in Batman Allies: Secret Files & Origins that sort of rehashes the above conflict during some training together & a team-up.
And we DO also get the cute (and oft-mentioned by the fandom) moment where Tim mentions she frequently breaks into his house to shower & steal rice krispies (just for clarity sake, while fandom almost exclusively calls her 'Cass' largely to avoid confusion with Cassandra 'Cassie' Sandsmark, within the comics themselves both Cassandras get called 'Cass' and 'Cassie' at various points—considering Cass is the one who lives in the same city as Tim at this point in canon, that's definitely who he's talking about here)
(Robin (1993) #138)
So like, at this point they are absolutely comfortable with one another and pretty close, but just, they don't see eye-to-eye on everything so it's not some flawless friendship (and I say friendship specifically because at this point we're still a few years out from them actually becoming siblings). But it's absolutely an interesting dynamic!
Then… after Infinite Crisis we get to the One Year Later/OYL era which is... bad for Cass. Terrible horrible character assassination we all refer to as the 'Evil Cass arc' which began in Tim's book. I don't wanna pull panels from it because it's just... it's bad!!!!!!!!!!!! There's a reason it got retconned into Cass having been brainwashed—because it was bad.
I guess the only thing worth bringing up here in relation to Tim & Cass's relationship though (because as mentioned, Cass gets retconned into it having been brainwashing so anything from her in this era is irrelevant/moot) is the fact that Tim was obviously very upset about the whole situation because Cass is someone he cares about and he even says he considers family.
To fast forward through that mess, when we get to the end of it and the 'oh it was brainwashing haha!' retcon, Tim was the one to have on hand a counter-serum that could free her from Deathstroke's control:
(Teen Titans Vol. 3 #44)
Once Cass is no longer forced to be evil and ooc, she gets a little mini at the end of which Bruce formally offers to adopt her (and Tim, who had earlier been adopted by Bruce, is present for this—so from this point on they go from a more general 'we're like family' to actually 'we are adopted siblings').
Buuuut then Final Crisis & Battle for the Cowl both occur and Cass gets extremely pushed aside by DC, giving up the Batgirl mantle to Steph and heading off to Hong Kong.
At which point we find out that Tim & Cass have actually kept in contact (just... off-panel) during this time when she's been out of Gotham and he's been off doing all sorts of stuff:
(Red Robin #17)
When they see each other in person again, Tim urges her to be a Bat again. Maybe not Batgirl if that's not what she wants, but to wear the symbol and be part of the family. (Which she does take him up on, keeping the suit he brought her and becoming Black Bat).
She pops up again at the end of Red Robin to save Tim & also help him pull off a fake assassination attempt on himself—ya know standard stuff.
And then right before the reboot we get to see them working alongside Damian and Dick in Gates of Gotham, and see one final time that yeah—these two have kept in touch after everything, and are definitely far more on one another's wavelength nowadays than they were back in the 'fresh out of War Games' era:
(Batman: Gates of Gotham #2, #5)
So like, does fanon over exaggerate them and their relationship? Aaaaabsolutely—that’s what fanon does. But they did definitely become close after everything they went through and had a fun dynamic together!
Sadly though, as I mentioned at the start of the post, the n52 wiped everything back to a clean slate. And while nowadays post-Infinite Frontier everyone’s histories have been restored their dynamic has never really been the same again.
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The Report Card – Fantasy High Junior Year Ep 4
Shrimp and Strudel
Welcome back to the Report Card where we’re gonna waste no time with just getting into it as the last ep ended on a big cliffhanger.
We pick up where we left off–Kristen talking to Cass who is petting Kalina–currently in her cat form and claiming that she’s not bad anymore (with a verbal “meow” which is so unsettling/funny). Kristen isn’t buying it but it’s not a crazy claim. If Cass is bad, she should be bad and if Cass is good, likewise.
Good or bad, she is still very eyes on the prize and immediately starts grilling Kristen on what her plans are as Cass’s sole cleric–a fair question considering she’s all that stands between Cass (and Kalina by extension) and oblivion. Cass tries to keep the peace between her familiar and her cleric and even gives Kristen an out: she’s gotten invitations to quit being a god and be an archfey of the Autumn Court instead. But Kristen doesn’t seem to want to take it. She says she does believe in Cass but she’s kind of hard to evangelize for because her whole deal is a hard pill to swallow even if it’s more true and deeper than the certainty other religions provide. Kalina’s eyes narrow and she says that Kristen’s a shitty saleswoman.
Kalina instead wants to go with a pitch of, “Hey? Do you wanna wield sick ass night magic and crush your enemies?” Which Kristen thinks is kind of a betrayal of Cass’ whole ethos. Kalina thinks they can quibble over details once Cass has more than TWO followers (shoutout Craig) and Cass on one level gets where Kristen is coming from but on a deeper level REALLY doesn’t wanna die. She says that their plans aren’t actually conflicting and they can work on both of them! She asks Kristen when she has the bandwidth to talk about this and Kristen is like, right now! All she cares about is Cass…and her campaign. Kalina is clearly so over this and reminds Cass that though they can’t actually go to the material plane, there are places they can talk to mortals outside of the material plane like the Synod of Spyre (wizard hub where they incidentally just put in a new mall!). Wizards like magic and mystery and stars, right? Cass is all about all of those things! It’s an untapped market!
A plan is set for them to head to the mall over the weekend and Kristen sincerely apologizes for dropping the ball and hurting Cass’s feelings. Cass tells her that she doesn’t need to be sorry, that she’s there for her when things are uncertain, and that she believes in her. She kisses Kristen on the forehead and sends her back to school.
At lunch, Adaine tries to call Aelwyn but gets her answering machine. Aelwyn texts to ask what’s up (she’s in class “looking after bozos”) and Adaine says she’ll call her later. She texts an “I love you” and then deletes it, causing a torrent of divination spells to come in as Aelwyn tries to figure out what the deleted message was.
Before Fabian heads to lunch, he has a banking interlude with his banker at KVX (Alston) who tells him his trust is worth 20 million gold and he gets an allowance of 5k gold a month. Rich as he is, Fabian is staggered by the amount of money and asks if there’s a way to cash it all out now. Alston says that due to a clause left by his dad (meant to encourage him to forge his own path), he can cash out 2 million but then the rest would go to his various nemeses (with a small cut to the bank). They apparently have a whole department just for tracking the nemeses of their clients. Chungledown Bim is listed as one of Fabian’s nemeses so he immediately shuts down talk of cashing out. Chungledown Bim with 18 million gold? Terrifying. Alston offers Fabian a free trial of Nemesis Alert which lets you know if anyone on your planet has sworn vengeance on you but Fabian declines, having the foresight to know that he’ll forget to cancel.
Once everyone is at lunch, Riz uses the Message cantrip to tell everyone that Kipperlily Copperkettle (KP) was spying on them and overheard them talking about Kristen’s god dying. They look around to check if she’s spying on them right down and don’t see her but, on a Nat 20, Fabian senses…something. He immediately signs up for that free trial of nemesis alert and is told that no one has sworn vengeance on him in the last 30 days (but what about before that Alston???? What about before 30 days ago?????). Adaine turns on her wizard feature that lets her see invisibility and walks around the cafeteria, but doesn’t clock anyone.
Gorthalax shows up to hype up the boys for Bloodrush tryouts later in the day and Fabian asks about the Rat Grinders. Gorthalax says that their Barbarian (Mary Ann) is trying out later and offers to tell them where the name comes from. It’s just what we speculated last week. These posers are literally level grinding! They’re farming XP by going to the woods just outside of school (Where the week 2 freshman go to practice) and killing rats, spiders, and twig gremlins. They made it to Junior Year by just killing rattatas on route 1! Apparently, they do this for 3 hours at the end of every day and 9 hours every weekend. Riz is HISSING with rage at how against the spirit of the rules this is. But here’s the thing. Grinding low level monsters to get this far is very uncool. But the focus it takes? Kind of impressive. And that thought strikes Riz through the rage.
After lunch, Gorgug goes to talk to Henry Hopclap (gnomish Artificer teacher with the same last name as the Rat Grinder bard btw). He sees an equation on the board and tries to have a Good Will Hunting moment but ends up just trying to solve for Henry’s email address and phone number. Minor mathematical blunder aside, Henry tells Gorgug that he actually approved his MCAT, but Porter had the last word. He tells Gorgug that he doesn’t actually have to be an Artificer in a school sanctioned capacity just because he’s passionate about it. He can just do it on his own time. But Gorgug is determined so Henry tells him that there’s technically another way: he can take three years of Artificing at the same time and withdraw from Barbarian classes.
I took psychic damage from hearing that and I took even more when Gorgug decided to do that AND take Barb classes (which Henry says that he can do but he has to run that by Porter).
Though Henry is way more supportive than Porter, he still tells Gorgug that this is gonna be an uphill battle. Junior Year artificing is already very hard and there’s never been a Barb/Art multiclass at Aguefort before. Like Porter, he says that he doesn’t really see how the passion you need to be a good Barbarian and the dispassionate focus you need to be a good Artificer mesh together, but he’s rooting for him. The other students filter in and, based on how well equipped they are, it seems like our boy has a lot of catching up to do.
Meanwhile, Fabian gets the other half of his MCAT paperwork signed off by his Fighting teacher (Corsisca Jones who looks a LOT like Aabria who played her younger sister Antiope Jones in The Seven) with barely any conversation or pushback about it. Must be nice!
During a break period, the Bad Kids are hanging out on the quad. Riz and Kristen work together on Kristen’s paperwork and his applications for as many clubs as possible while they both down coffee. Fig is trying to see if she can figure out where in time the fossils Ayda sent her are from so she can send a message but she’s beaten to punch when a weary knight from “Order of the Sacred Scroll” shows up with a message his order has protected for 1500 years. One that he killed his brother for peeking at. One that he’s devoted his life to. Fig opens it up and it’s literally just a “Love you, Miss you,” postcard from Ayda.
Porter (who we learn loves Fig despite the fact and honestly largely because of the fact that she hates him and he appreciates a good rage) shows up and Gorgug goes to tell him that he’s going to triple down on his classes. His friends say that he’s really smart and he can handle it. Porter says that he’ll let Gorgug do it if one of his friends audits the class with him to help him and Fig happily agrees.
After school, Aelwyn calls Adaine and we learn exactly what kind of teacher Aelwyn is as she says that she got sent to the principal’s office for making some of her students cry. Thank you for letting her stay in Elmville, Brennan. Anyway, Adaine rattles off the list of insanely expensive things she needs for class and Aelwyn suggests some solutions: (1) They can find and kill their mom in order to inherit, (2) they can sell drugs, (3) they can sell weapons, (4) Adaine can maybe…get a job? Adaine doesn’t know how to get a job and asks Aelwyn how she got hers. Apparently, she blackmailed the principal. With what, asks Adaine. Photographs Aelwyn says with a coy smile and Adaine requests that Aelwyn not enlighten her any further. Adaine laments the fact that she had to give up all her dragon madness gold and then signs off with a verbal “I love you” that she tries to take back. Aelwyn pounces on it like one of her five cats. “I heard you say it!” she says with a villainous laugh. “I win. You've exposed yourself to me.” She hangs up and, once again, Brennan, thank you.
We cut to Bloodrush tryouts where Fabian gives an honestly really good speech to the team and prospective recruits (tres Jammer). Riz is also at tryouts because, remember, he’s trying out for literally everything. We see a drow student (Hexblade Warlock Max Durden) give a really good showing and Riz give a not so great performance. Then, Mary Ann Skuttle shows up–the Barbarian of the Rat Grinders who’s this tiny kobold girl with aesthetic, kawaii plushies on her backpack. None of that energy is on her face though and she seems very unenthused to be there, answering all questions with short, monotone answers. On the field though? She’s a monster. She absolutely bodies Gorgug, sending him flying across in the field in a way that no one has before (Brennan says that he needed to beat a 33). And she didn’t even get a running start! Gorthalax is thrilled to get her on the team so that they can finally beat their rivals (the Hellions). Riz uses one of his gadgets to cast detect magic and sees that she was buffed with magic (but that’s not illegal in Bloodrush). Gorthalax breaks the news to him that he didn’t make the team and he just runs to the next club on his list. Gotta pad that resume!
After school, Kristen meets up with Bucky who has a lot of the same energy she had on her first day. He’s a Helioic Paladin as we suspected and he’s been telling people they’re going to hell. Kristen doesn’t *love* that but she does tell Bucky to campaign for KP while he’s proselytizing to try to poison the waters a bit. Bucky says that he really misses her and that he hasn’t told their parents about all the gold she sent. Kristen tries to convince him that maybe the concept of hell they grew up with isn’t real, but that’s hard to argue when two separate devils (Fig and Gorthalax) are literally in the room with them. Bucky recognizes the Rat Grinders symbol on the pin Kristen gives him and says the new Helioic cleric from Highcourt (who their parents love) has one of those. We don’t get any more info from him though because Kristen drops an F bomb in front of him and he runs away like a scared puppy.
Fabian drops some hints that he’s lonely in his big empty house so the gang heads to Seacaster Manor for a study party. They Doordash some pad thai and Adaine gets a text from Aelwyn which has a link to job listings at the Synod mall. On a pretty low Investigation check (6) she finds an ad for a place called Oodles of Strudel that pays 2 silver a day and doesn’t require a resume, just an interview.
A lot happens during this study party so I’m gonna go through it rapid fire:
Kristen tells everyone that Kalina is back.
Riz learns (as a residual part of his 30 Investigation roll from last ep) that party comp is announced at the end of their first day and if it changes (ie: someone leaves the party or dies) everyone else goes pass/fail which excludes them from extra credit which would exclude them from scholarships and such. So everyone has to stick together and not die!
Adaine goes to the Synod mall and interviews with a dude named Biff at Oodles of Strudel (where they pump strudel in from a strudel dimension because sure). She gets the job! Though idk if that’s worth celebrating because it’s 8 hour shifts and she has to work the night shift because of school.
Fabian texts Mazey and determines that if he’s going to be a maximum legend like he wants, he has to host a party on the first weekend back and he’s committed.
Fig, shockingly, goes to class AGAIN. It must have been cut from last episode but she learned that warlock classes meet at night and decided to check them out. The teacher is a hot vampire lady with a celestial paramour patron so Fig is like, all in right away. Not only that, she rolls a Nat 20 to catch up and it turns out that, as we already know, when she’s dialed in, she’s really good at this stuff! Plus, warlock is a charisma class and she has charisma for days. With warlocks it seems like it’s all about paperwork but really it’s about relationships, bargains, and exchange. As Zara tells Fig after class is over, these are things that everyone deals with every day, the power is just more potent when the bargains are struck consciously. Zara says she’ll approve her MCAT if she wants and Fig, eager to avoid work on her Sophomore album and genuinely taken by the class, agrees.
Ragh shows up at the manor and Adaine asks how Tracker is doing. He says she’s doing great and the four months of night were honestly great for her whole situation as cleric of the moon goddess. Kristen GRILLS his ass about the “bitch on her lap” on her socials and Ragh (who was supposed to let Tracker break this news but cracks under Kristen’s manic energy) says it’s her new girlfriend, elven princess Naradriel–Nara for short (another girl with a dog name Kristen laments as though her first girlfriend isn’t named TRACKER). Ragh says Nara has been trying to have Tracker and her go Facebook official for a while and that photo she saw was her compromise. Kristen gives Rgh the go-ahead to tell Tracker she can reach out. Ragh says she’s cooler than Nara and he’s rooting for her.
And that’s about it! The next week is hella busy for the whole crew. School crashes down on them like a tidal wave. There’s their actual classes, extracurriculars, and the campaign which everyone is super invested in. They recruit Torek Railgrinder (skater dwarf in the LGBT club and Drama club) to build a ramp off Fabain’s roof so Kristen can ride it off his roof into the pool which he will have filled with tartar sauce because it’s going to be the Ultimate Shrimp Party obviously. The party planning is also in full swing and EVERYONE is invited. That includes freshmen, Hudol kids, even cool middle schoolers. Ragh is buying them beer. The idea is that they can two birds this and make Fabian a Maximum Legend and Kristen super cool at the same time so people will vote for her.
(Also, this doesn’t matter to the plot but Kristen gives a campaign speech at a steel mill for some reason–like a steel mill with adult workers–where Kristen is injured by a buzzsaw and Fig is once again questioned by Agent Clark (who she throws off the scent by saying Wanda left for the Red Waste). Not plot relevant but I HAD to mention it for the sake of posterity.)
But we quickly see the seams start to show. Fabian is forced to skip Bloodrush practice so he can set up the party. Adaine gets the new work schedule and sees that she has to work during the party. She texts Fabian that she has to work but she’ll show up later and doesn’t get a response back. Then she texts everyone else to ask if Fabian is mad at her.
We follow Adaine to work where she’s met by none other than Kalina (in tabaxi form) who is there handing out pamphlets with Cassandra. She asks if Kristen is on her way and Adaine doesn’t know what she’s talking about. As far as she knows, Kristen can’t even get to the Synod without her help. Kalina asks if she can go grab her but Adaine says she’s at work and she can’t just leave.
Back at the Manor, Kristen gets a brain ping from Cass who asks Kristen if she’ll be there soon. Kristen is full deer in headlights–she didn’t realize that she was supposed to be helping with that. She thought she was Team Material Plane and they were Team Synod. (And, in fairness to her, in this instance I understand how she could have thought that if the only conversation they had about this was the one that we saw but wild that they wouldn’t check in day before when Cass can talk in her mind) She quickly tries to finesse the situation and claims that with such a big crowd gathered, she’ll be able to spread the word to tons of people. Cass is briefly excited until she sees through Kristen’s eyes that her supposed recruitment drive is actually an Ultimate Shrimp Party.
Back at the mall, Adaine watches red light burst through Cass’s chest as she cries out in pain and collapses to the ground. At Kalina’s behest, Adaine texts Kristen to get her ass to the mall right away. The non-Adaine Bad Kids try to make a plan to save the party–maybe Fig can do the shrimp jump disguised as Kristen–but the situation at the mall gets more dire. Cassandra, still in agony, yells, "This isn't fair!" She bleeds indigo and the light from her chest sails out and hits a nearby wizard. That wizard grows crazed and buff and kills his friend by smashing his skull open with his quarterstaff. Kalina is horrified. Adaine is horrified. The other mall patrons are horrified–the ones who aren’t getting possessed at least. Cass is on all fours, growing larger, and there are three more of those red light things coming out of her.
Adaine, who now has a special Synod key as an employee, opens a portal so her friends can join her. Everyone (including a kind of reluctant Fabian) joins right as the portal Adaine closes and that’s it for the ep! Next week, showdown at the Synod!
Honor Roll
Kalina for Having Cassandra’s Back
I never thought I’d give this to her but who else is looking out for Cass like Kalina right now? Nobody. I felt so bad for her handing out pamphlets at the mall. I’ve had to do that and it’s NOT fun. I’m glad she has someone sticking up for her and diligently looking out for her interests, even though it’s someone who I referred to as “the bitch” last week, lol.
(Honorable mention to Fig for honestly being a great student. Way to go girl, you might just graduate yet.)
Detention
Aelwyn for Blackmailing the Middle School Principal with Photographs To Get A Job
This is entirely affectionate. Also, unlike Adaine, I’m curious about what the level of blackmail is that allows you to strongarm your way into a job but still subjects you to being reprimanded by the person you’re blackmailing.
((Dis)honorable to Fabian for his rich boy shenanigans which I touch on below.)
Random Thoughts
“Meat mama”
Insane that KVX Bank still exists and they literally just changed their logo from red to blue.
Was anyone else getting Berries and Cream vibes from the new lunch lad? (if you know, you know)
Fig got hurt yet again in this episode and stuck her hand in construction putty. Last episode I called out that both mishaps so far had involved construction equipment but now we’re officially out of two nickels territory and into rule of threes. Brennan, what are you playing at?
She also got food on herself twice (creamed corn and pad thai) and mimed eating it both times. Emilyyyyyyy grossssssss.
Fabian got the confirmation that no one has declared him as a nemesis for the past 30 days but I would have asked for a full list. We know they have one because CDB is from like a year ago at least.
I thought it was odd that Henry said that what was needed for artificing was “dispassionate focus” when I feel like a lot of people I know who tinker irl are actually intensely passionate about what they do.
As a side note, Henry said that Porter couldn’t stop Gorgug from tripling down while taking Barb classes–just that he wanted Gorgug to tell him as a professional courtesy. So I’m not sure why Porter was able to attach a condition to Gorgug’s being there.
Porter’s, “God this sucks” when Gorgug started talking about his feelings was extremely unprofesh but objectively funny.
Actually, roundup of all the funniest parts of this episode:
1)The entire Adaine and Aelwyn conversation but especially (1) The bit about Fig being attached to Ayda’s feathers, (2) Photographs :), and (3) Jawbone no-selling her sinister flirting followed by her immediately moving out.
2)Bloodbath and Beyond
3)Adaine not wanting to use a ladle at her job because of the Trauma (™) from Freshman Year (RIP Doreen).
4)Fabian nodding knowingly when Adaine talks about killing her dad like it’s a normal, relatable experience.
5)“What's the drinking age in Solace, if you're a pirate?”/“You guys have murdered so many people.”
6)“You find Siobhan Thompson.”
Don’t know if this matters but both the Artificing teacher and the Warlock teacher are new hires. Henry is said to be fresh out of college and Zara took over because the last guy (Evan Freem) failed his warlock pact and was devoured. I suspect out of game it’s just so Brennan can bring in interesting new NPCs that fit the plot for this season and he had to retcon whatever names he gave them for the faculty in Freshman Year. Not sure if there’s an in-game angle though.
Brennan asks Fig where she thinks she gets her warlock powers from and she says, “I think it's from my dad or my bloodline or my legacy” That answer isn’t weird but I dunno the fact that he asked about a thing that I thought was already established struck me as off so it’s going on the list of notes.
I loved Fig being rewarded for sneaking her name onto the class list by Zara who rightfully says that when it comes to warlocks, it’s all about what’s on the page. Brennan really invented a teacher to force Fig/Emily to get invested in class.
Kristen trying to talk Bucky out of being scared of hell is another instance of the metaphor of Kristen’s arc brushing up against the reality of their world because some of y’all have *literally* been to hell. This isn’t real life where religion is all nebulous and personal. Hell is a place you can just go and, again, several of you HAVE BEEN. It’s not a silly thing for him to be scared of.
Lol at Adaine who drank half a beer one time getting Bucky starry eyed by her Bad Kid exploits (said exploits being drinking that half a beer).
So the new Helioic Cleric. What’s his deal? Have we been to Highcourt before? I don’t think so but it’s been mentioned as the place that the Applebees want to send their kids for school so they don’t turn out heathens so maybe it’s a bit theocratic or traditional? Also, did the Rat Grinders lose their OG cleric or did they just never have one seeing as they’re just fighting weenie monsters? Why did they suddenly decide to pick up a cleric? To round out their party comp or because they know they’ll be needing one soon? How did they convince this guy to join up with them first day? I wish Kristen had gotten more info but I’m excited to see where this is going.
I wanna get your votes in now. Are the Rat Grinders evil or do their vibes just suck? Because it really could go either way. I really can’t wait to see what the rest of them are like and how they contrast their corresponding BK members.
Sidenote: So far, every time we’ve met a Rat Grinder they’ve been alone. As opposed to the Bad Kids who hang out as much as possible. I wonder if we’re just never catching them together or if they literally don’t hang out when they don’t have to.
The Hangman is so adorable when he’s like, “I don’t wanna do a shrimp jump but if you ask I will because I love you :(“ Big sad puppy energy. Be nicer to your bike Fabian!
Also, I said this in an ask earlier but despite the fact that Adaien’s financial situation isn’t Fabian’s problem–even if he’s 18 he’s still a child–he can’t be mad at her for not going to his party from his pirate ship mansion with his 5000 gold a month allowance. Come on now. The girl is filtering gold flakes from discounted liquor.
I didn’t mention it in the recap proper because school is also kicking my ass right now but we learn in this episode that the Kristen/Tracker breakup was amicable, followed by 3 months of radio silence, followed by WHO IS THAT BITCH ON HER LAP RAGH??? Curious to know what Nara’s vibe is. I want her to be chill but the little disagreement over whether to be public gives me pause. Not that that’s a relationship ender of course, but I’m wondering if it’s meant to hint at further discord or if Tracker just didn't want Kristen to find out like that or something else innocuous.
Nothing was outright stated but for like a second I felt like I caught a vibe that Ragh maybe felt bad about just being used to buy beer? But I could have imagined it.
I really love Kalina being in this episode to just really cut to the heart of the matter re: things involving Cass. Like it’s hard to use humor to deflect when there’s a steely eyed cat there who will just very evenly say exactly what the situation is. I also really love that Kalina can just be casually encountered at the mall. I cannot imagine being Adaine and getting jump scared by that.
(Sidenote: I wonder what Adaine’s other job options were if she didn’t go for the first one she found or if she’d rolled better.)
I know these are high schoolers, full children, but the idea that you would even be thinking about the shrimp party when your friend’s goddess is going supernova and your other friend is already on sight and in danger is WILD to me. People are dying Kim.
I also already said this in another post but my best guess about what’s happening to Cass is that she’s being affected by Kristen’s whole deal–Kristen has been obsessed with getting jacked, hence the buff wizards. It could be something totally different of course but that’s the best connection I can make with the info we currently have.
I understand why this can’t happen mechanically but it seems pretty low commitment to be a follower of Cass and I don’t think she’d be opposed to giving the Bad Kids a level of cleric for their trouble. Like, literally Adaine calling for a medic for Cass is as much if not more than we’ve seen Kristen for her so far this season. Why not help Cass not die and pick up some free healing spells in the process? Like they don’t even need to become clerics, just give them one low level healing spell like magic initiate for the cleric class. It’s not like any of the Bad Kids seem overly religious/like there’s another god they’re loyal to that would prevent them from doing this. Idk man, if I was in this position Cass would just have one more follower is what I’m saying.
#Dimension 20#dimension 20 spoilers#d20#d20 spoilers#fantasy high#fantasy high spoilers#fhjy#fhjy spoilers#spoilers#the report card#hit the character limit AGAIN lol#this is the last thing I wanted to say: Cass is so nice guys. I hope she’s OK :(
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You know who I wish got more lore? Efi and Orisa. Will she be contacted by Overwatch for her very clear talent and intelligence? Would she be ALLOWED to join? Would she or the other agents care about her age? Has she met any of the other OW characters in canon? Do they forget she's only like 13, or are they PAINFULLY aware and make sure not to say any adult things around her? Orisa seems comfortable and accepting of her role as the "defender of numbani," but I hope she gets a character arch where she discovers she has free will and learns to make her own decisions. What's the dynamic like between Efi and Orisa?
I do think that Efi will be contacted by Overwatch at some point and as I have stated in previous posts I think she's going to be a parallel to Mina Liao. Meaning she would be a part of Overwatch but in more of a tech support role, out of the conflict. In "The Hero of Numbani" Efi honestly isn't that concerned with her age and is often put off by people treating her like a kid so I don't think her age would bother her.
As for if she has met other Overwatch members, she's met Lucio and helped him and Orisa chase Doomfist out of Numbani. After those events they also met up with Sojourn who had a talk with them on what it meant to be a hero, which gave Efi the inspiration for the upgrades we see on Orisa in OW2. So I think it's highly likely that Lucio and Sojourn will get both Orisa and Efi to join OW, that or they're just going to show up and say they're joining.
As for her age in relation to other characters, I think some characters, specifically Jack, Baptiste, Ana, Cassidy and Angela would be hyper aware of her age, but not in the "this is a child so no swear words" more in the "I'm sorry you have to be a part of this and if it wasn't necessary you wouldn't be here at all". Jack and Ana as characters are already highly protective of the younger members of Overwatch, not to mention that Ana is a mother. As for Bap, Cass and Ange, all three of them where also kids during the Crisis, Cassidy being implied to have been on the streets during it, so I think they'd be making sure Efi is OK.
For Efi and Orisa's relationship, in the book Efi mentions feeling like a proud parent a lot but I think their dynamic is more sisterly then parental. The parental aspect only really being there because the relationship is still creator-creation.
I honestly can't wait to see more of Efi, I think her being in the story is such a good opportunity for character arcs and giving more light to different stories. It's the same with Illari and D.Va being relatively young when they started fighting.
#overwatch#overwatch 2#overwatch lore#overwatch headcanons#analysis#efi oladele#overwatch efi#ow orisa#overwatch orisa#orisa
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Sception reads Cass Cain #16
Batgirl (2000) #4, ongoing discussion
story: Peterson & Puckett
art: Scott and Campanella
There's a kind of simplified narrative that's grown up in discussions of Cassandra Cain in terms of how things went wrong and who's to blame. Because by the time Cass is strutting around the pages of Robin as a generic and vaguely racist Dragon Lady villain things have obviously gone wrong, and I don't think any Cass happenings before the reboot can really be thought of as 'going right' again. It's tempting to just blame Beechen, the writer tasked with authoring the infamous heel turn. It's even more tempting to blame DiDio, the editor in chief who tasked Beechen with the job, who famously disliked legacy heroes in general for how they 'aged' their predecessors. Certainly Beechen should have done more research before writing Cass, and you won't ever catch me defending DiDio's tenure as chief editor of DC. But the simple narrative that everything was great with Cass until DiDio and Beechen ruined her out of nowhere is glossing over a lot of mistakes that happened before that.
The league of assassins retcon that needlessly overcomplicated her backstory; sending her to Bludhaven with nothing to do there and all her important story arcs and character relationships left unresolved in Gotham; the flanderization of David Cain that kicked the foundation of her character out from under her; the mishandling of her relationship with Babs. And the first big mistake happens right here in issue 4, in the very earliest days of her ongoing, with her original creative team still at their height.
Years back, when I looked her first introduction in Batman (1940) #567, I talked about how the decisions to make Cassandra mostly mute set her and her stories apart, making them unique in the comics landscape. I'm convinced that Cass's writing team was mostly aiming at what this did for her stories in terms of the comic medium - by forcibly restricting the use of words to tell the story, it put the emphasis back on the art, not just to convey what was happening but also what the main character was thinking or feeling about it.
Even in that initial introduction, there was a sequence where whole pages went by without any words at all. It was unique, it was different, creative, it exercised the unique aspects of the comic book medium.
What I don't think Peterson, Puckett, and Scott considered as strongly is what it meant in terms of Cass as a character with a disability, something the mainstream superhero comics landscape really doesn't have enough of, and in particular something that connected her to Barbara Gordon as the previous Batgirl, at the time still in the wheelchair acting as Oracle. I've alluded a bit to how Cass and Bab's respective disabilities, one physically gifted but linguistically impaired and the other physically limited but the master of communication for the bat family, makes them perfectly matched as superhero partners but also sets up an interpersonal conflict between them as each kind of becomes a personal avatar representing what the other lacks.
And while that is there in the book, the creative team is clearly so much more invested in Cass's relationship with Bruce and the whole the whole Bruce/David/Cass dynamic of fatherhood and guilt and violence - and in terms of that plot thread Babs mostly exists to offer a better life of sincere human connection, if only to add a note of tragedy as Cass inevitably throws herself deeper into Bruce & David's mirrored lives of violence and isolation.
But Cass is Batgirl, so it would have been nice if the creators put more effort and page time into her relationship with the previous Batgirl, and the disability angle was the best way to do so, and at some point, on some level, Peterson & Puckett did understand this.
After all, it's how Cass was originally introduced. Sure she struggled, but despite seeming nearly impossible, with Barbara's help she was making progress none the less.
Special thanks to StephanieBrowntheSpoiler for pointing this bit out, as I had missed the connection between these scenes when I looked at this issue way back when.
Also look at bad sad dad David here, crying, overwhelmed at the thought that his daughter might be able to speak to and understand him, like he's been blessed by some divine miracle, even though he's literally the reason she couldn't speak in the first place. Such a shame that over time his character would be reduced from this compelling ball of contradictions to a flat generic villain. But that's a rant for another day.
Anyway, Cass as a mute protagonist is a big deal, both for internal story reasons (connection to and conflict with the previous Batgirl) and external reasons (representation as a disabled hero, unique use of the comic medium). And more besides - thematic ties with her emotional and personal isolation, which in turn ties in to her full face covering spooky costume design, and so on.
...
So you'd think I'd just object outright to the writers just having Cass learn to speak, and honestly I kind of do, but I also have some sympathy on this front, because as I've also repeatedly pointed out making Cass mute presented unique difficulties that arguably outweighed the benefits, particularly given the collaborative nature of mainstream superhero comics.
A mute protagonist puts a lot of weight on the artists ability to convey personality and emotion through facial expression and honestly not many artists were up to the challenge, especially with Cass's full face covering mask. This put serious limits on her cross-over presence which in term limited her presence and appeal for general DC comic or bat book fans who weren't specifically Cass fans following her in her own book. Sadly giving Cass the ability to speak didn't end up improving this much, I can't blame P&P for trying.
On the representation angle there were also issues, as Cass wasn't just a rare disabled hero but also a relatively rare east-asian hero, certainly within the bat books, and being mute meant she often fell into a silent subservient ninja girl cliche in the guest appearances she did get, which isn't exactly ideal either.
...
So yeah, I can absolutely see reasons why Peterson and Puckett might have decided that nearly-fully-mute Cass was in retrospect a mistake and why they needed to change it, but that doesn't stop me from hating how they did so. Which basically amounts to 'a wizard did it.'
This is terrible for a couple reasons. First of all, a key part of the tone of Cass Cain's batgirl is the grounded, low fantasy, 'street level' focus. Remember the one rule?
No costumed criminals. No supervillains. No wacky sci-fi shenanigans. Not because any of that stuff is bad - all of that stuff is great! But it's also antithetical to the smaller, more personal, more human stories that the Batgirl creative team was aiming for, stories like the one we saw in issue 2. But now that grounded tone is always going to have the specter of this random psychic wizard guy floating over it, making his presence known with every thought bubble and speech balloon.
Worse, Cass learning to speak was important. It meant something. Remember again how she was introduced:
Struggling, with her own effort, with Bab's help, making slow progress, but making progress, and making it together. This plot thread was the emotional and narrative backbone of the two Batgirls' relationship, and only four issues in Peterson and Puckett are throwing the entire plot in the garbage.
The writers will try to keep a version of it going with Cass still being unable to read, that doesn't carry half the weight of being unable to speak or understand words, which is probably why the writers very infrequently bother to bring it up, and it never gets a satisfying resolution - she learns to read off panel while evil from another wizard and once she's good again we just never speak of her as a disabled hero any more.
What I keep coming back to is that this is something Cass and Babs should have achieved together, not something hand-waved away by a wizard. If the writers decided that Cass being non-verbal was more trouble than it was worth and needed to be resolved quickly instead of agonizingly slowly over the course of her ongoing, then Cass & Babs should have found a believable breakthrough themselves.
...
And while I'm treading dangerously close to 'fix it fic' territory, there was such an obvious break through they could have used right there that I can't help from bringing it up. Because if fictional mute human Cass has such a hard time learning to speakbecause her brain was trained to interpret gestures and movement instead of spoken words, well, there just so happens to a language communicated by gestures and movement instead of spoken words, one in common use by actual mute people right here in the real world.
Yeah, duh, right? Hell, we've already seen Cass using hand gestures to convey meaning in a sign-language-adjacent fashion in issue 2
And again here in issue 4
Just, like, have a scene where Barbara's had a frustrating teaching session with Cass, maybe she's complaining about it to Dick or someone while sitting around outside, and she happens to notice somebody signing and has a eureka moment. Or maybe Cass rescues someone who signs and they try to sign 'thank you', and Cass is able to understand them from context and body language and realizes the gestures are a way of talking and she just gets it, and then she can excitedly go to Babs, that works too, though I'd be more inclined to give the little victory realization moment to Babs since she gets so few victories in this book.
And of course Babs will already be fluent in ASL because that's something that would be believable even if it hasn't already been established somewhere that I don't know, and suddenly they start making progress quickly, knowing ASL can help her learn to at least understand more spoken words more quickly even if actually speaking stays awkward and difficult due to never training those muscles during her development. Breakthrough in one issue, Cass frantically learning signs and making progress faster progress understanding spoken words the next, and by two issues later you can have Cass talking in speech bubbles or narration boxes implicitly translated from sign to written English the way comics do for any other language.
Plus, you could have cute domestic scenes of the other Bats learning ASL to talk with Cass, the kind of thing that really would make her feel more like part of the Bat Family.
The fact that, as far as I can remember, the concept of sign language is never mentioned in Cass Cain's stories, in or out of her solo title, is the kind of thing that makes me think her original creators never thought of her inability to speak in terms of disability representation, because if they thought about actual mute humans even once while conceptualizing this 'mute hero who understands body language instead of the spoken word' then the way actual mute humans use a language spoken in body movements to communicate would have come up. Like, at all.
....
Of course, I'm not the first to suggest Cass be fluent in ASL, as an alternative to psychic wizards or otherwise. It's a common enough fanon thing that it even has some pretty well reasoned push back:
Sure, Cass learning ASL super fast wouldn't be realistic, because yes, ASL is a lot more complicated than just pantomime gestures, it's an entire language, and learning any language would be an agonizingly slow process for someone who grew up without any. And yeah, ASL isn't one to one signs to English, so learning ASL wouldn't necessarily make learning to understand spoken English any faster or easier. Though I would counter that /part/ of Cass's difficulty learning to speak, separate from her brain's difficulty processing language, is that her audio processing wasn't trained to distinguish the particular sounds of speech and her mouth was never trained to produce them - this is referenced in this issue in that even though she can understand and think in english after the wizard changed her brain, she still can't speak it herself yet. Her brain would still have difficulty processing sign language, but her eyes and hands wouldn't have any trouble seeing and reproducing it.
But realism really isn't the important part here. The exact nature of Cass's disability is already tied up in her unrealistic upbringing and, for lack of any better terms, super powers. Those powers allowing Cass to pick up ASL unnaturally fast at least has some grounding within the unrealistic aspects that have already been established for her character - certainly more so than a random psychic guy just magicking spoken English into her brain. Because that's the alternative. If it were entirely up to me I would have preferred Cass continue to struggle with Babs' help as she slowly learns to communicate over the course of several years rather than all at once in issue 4. This hypothetical 'sign language communication breakthrough' proposal is based purely on the assumption that the writers had already decided wordless Cass was just too difficult.
And at least this would be Cass and Babs achieving communication together through their efforts - however arbitrarily abridged - rather than their core character driving plot line being magicked away.
........................
Geeze, looking back this post is very negative, and I don't like that. As much as I think this decision was completely wrong headed, as many issues as I take with Batgirl #4, it's still her original team in their prime, so there's still a lot nice to be said about it. This post is too long already, but I wanted to end off buy saying stuff I liked about the issue, and I don't want to spend a third post just on issue 4, so here's a lightning round of compliments.
The two panel spread of the psychic guy touching Cass's head and her martial arts turning into the word 'TALK' is so good. Like, I hate the storytelling move here, I hate what these pages mean for the narrative, but the execution is fantastic.
The transition between these scenes, where Bruce is devastated trying to tell Alfred about the video and Alfred's like 'you're bleeding, whatever it is you're worried about can wait' before Alfred sees the video, and then after compulsive parent Alfred is all focused on the little kid in the video while annoyed bruce is left to tend his wounds on his own? This is a cute little bit for both of these characters and it always makes me smile.
This whole page is great. Cass celebrating a successful mission by going out to do more work, the goofy smile and fist to the forehead 'hard headed' bit, Babs worrying over Cass, the level of clutter and detail on oracle's desk, the bricks and all. Babs balling her fist over the live mic to talk to Cass as she heads out. Those big boxy yellow pouches on Cass's belt - have I talked about how much I love those, and how important they are to the look of the costume? The way they break up the otherwise too much black with a nice spot of color in the middle, add some visible weight to what is otherwise a very ethereal and acrobatic character design. Anyway, just, this whole page, great stuff.
The contrast between effortlessly taking down multiple armed goons early in the issue, vs. her comedic, even cartoonishly goofy loss to the random mercenary lady after the psychic wizard magicked her body reading super power into talky words, leaving her effectively defenseless. That 'Oohf' face as she takes the first punch is hilarious. Also, hey, those pouches again.
...
There's a lot more I like about this issue, but yeah, post too long already. Even if this team is doing things I don't agree with, they're still doing those things /well/. And it's not like anything done in this issue ruins Cass's character or book outright. It's a faltering step in a wrong direction, and sadly only the first of many, but in the mean time the stuff that's great is still great here. And the issue ends off promising some serious personal drama, both with Bruce leaving to confront David Cain and with Cass struggling to comprehend her first real defeat. I'm eager to get to that stuff, and leave my complaints about issue 4 behind.
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struggling to phrase this concisely but do u have any thoughts on how stephanie and cassandra would relate or struggle to relate to jason given that his death was held over both of their heads and the timing of his return to gotham being RIGHT after steph’s death in war games… i just think it’s such an underutilized dynamic and there’s a lot of interesting stuff there bc i think cass would find jason infuriating whereas steph would find him unnervingly relatable and similar to her… add in the context of jason’s relationships to dick babs and tim (or lack thereof) and i just think there’s a lot of much more interesting storylines and conflicts than the half redeemed uncommitted to anything jason we have now where most of the batfam is like simultaneously disdainful of and indifferent to jason’s presence/choices
disclaimer: i'm moving blogs. still here to go through my askbox, but you will find me at @boyfridged from now on.
i’m sorry but I think this might be a mad disappointing answer… (which is why i’m very curious how you see it! maybe there’s some interesting angle that i am missing – please do tell!)
i think it all depends on what moment in the timeline we are thinking about for jason. utrh doesn't offer much space for anyone other than bruce and jay to interact, and i believe this (and lost days) is the only time when he is truly committed to any particular moral 'code' or a specific cause (like 'controlling crime'). even in comics in which jay is portrayed as a villain, he doesn't really... do anything other than displaying severe mental illness symptoms? no more crime empire, no more fixed agenda, just dogmatic murder and wandering around in some maladaptive state. but since you mentioned that in most scenarios he is “half-redeemed”, i will go with what i think is going on with jay post-utrh: he's not truly committed, but he's also not rehabilitated; nowhere near to it, even.
now, the question that i always ask myself in terms of what dynamics can arise for characters is what both of them can get out of this relationship (on a meta level).
which kinda leads me to perhaps a very underwhelming assumption that jay is just such a mess in that period that it's difficult to imagine scenarios where characters like steph or cass actually gain anything from sharing the narrative with him. it's a bit ironic in a sense that jay could get plenty out of it in terms of his storyline: cass' very presence poses a threat to his already very wobbly philosophy, and it would probably unnerve him because of how her personality reflects his own innate compassion. steph, on the other hand, is like a still frame of his worst time as robin, right before his death. (and by *the worst* I mean his emotional turmoil and issues in relationship with bruce rather than an assessment of his skills or even morals), which i think would also terrify him. as such, i reckon he would actually avoid both of them. in terms of cass, I don’t think she would necessarily want to interact with him either, mostly because while *ordinarily* she would fight anyone of his views, and she for sure wouldn't have much sympathy for him, she would be able to see that his philosophy is a result of immense trauma. we could conceive circumstances in which they are forced to work together, and as i once mentioned, if we put them in a box and shook hard enough, a conflict would definitely arise. but at the end of the day, does cass get anything out of it in terms of her own development? at this point she is (for the better part) way past the internal conflicts that jay experiences; she is simply more mature.
as for steph, i could see steph seeking him out if the comparison to the ‘failed robin’ was fresh in her mind. but I think, to an extent, she would be disappointed – because while they do share a lot of characteristics and background, he is reckless only as much as he is suicidal. it’s definitely not his typical trait and as a child, he never had the same issues with bruce until the very end (starlin’s run). i'm not saying there's no room to still bond over certain things – but jay's self-isolating tendencies definitely would not help here at all. and i think if steph realised how big of a mistmatch there is between all of stories she was fed and his past + current attitude, she would maybe pity him.
so tldr it’s very difficult for me to imagine any particular dynamics nor stories for them within that timeframe. i don't think it's the case for *all* characters btw – i think people who knew him before (dick, donna, perhaps leslie or dana if we want to go in the direction of civilians), people who don't even know who he is and don't really care (kyle), or parental figures/older gen (talia or even some jl members) generally have a better set up to get involved with jay in meaningful ways (for both sides involved.)
but when it comes to characters around his age who only heard of him in a context of his death, it's simply... sad, especially that he *is* still a walking tragedy at this point.
now, on the other hand… the lost days? here, there is some grand potential for cass & jay or even jay & steph content. but that’s a topic for a whole another post.
#i'm sorry that i don't have a more interesting answer... i'm really really curious what possibilities you have in mind though!#replying to this ask very late despite knowing exactly what i want to say#sponsored by tumblr crashing and not even saving a draft. (which made me so annoyed that i have not opened the inbox for the next week)#dc comics
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OC Interview: Introductions (Adelle)
(Questions from this post)
Today we'll be interviewing Adelle Fairchild, one of the main characters from my story Blue Butterfly!
1. Describe your character's appearance. What do people notice first about them? Are there any aspects of their appearance that they hide from others?
The first thing people notice about Adelle is her bright blue hair, and the fact that she dresses almost exclusively in blue. She has almost unnaturally pale skin and a round face with big blue eyes. She's short and petite, and wears cutesy outfits with a fondness for short skirts and sweaters.
2. Describe your character's personality. What are people's first impressions of them? Are there parts of their personality that they keep hidden? How hard is it for others to get to know them?
Adelle is bubbly, extroverted and hyper-active. She talks a lot, is curious about everything, and is cheerful and friendly to a point that people can find either endearing or annoying. She's a pretty open book, but has a chaotic element to her that can make her hard to predict.
3. What is your character's occupation? (job/school/duties/etc.) Do they enjoy it? What would be their ideal occupation?
Adelle is a member of Dove, an organisation that combats magical crime (I'm currently lowkey restructuring how Dove works exactly so for now that's as specific as it gets)
Her ideal job would be the in-universe equivalent of one of those Youtubers who just make videos explaining and analysing whatever thing they happen to be interested in at the time.
4. What does your character do for fun? Do they have any hobbies or special interests? Are there any activities they'd like to try but don't have enough time/resources for?
Adelle has about a dozen hobbies that she bounces between like a maniac but her biggest ones are gaming and fashion. She really likes putting together new outfits and playing around with different hairstyles.
5. Where does your character live? Do they like it there? How do they furnish/decorate their personal space?
Adelle lives at the Dove Organisation, and has since she was a kid. It's a bit of a weird place to grow up but she really likes all the people there. Her bedroom is decorated to the max, with posters and photos on every flat surface and shelves of books, games and collectibles. For furniture I think she has one of those bunk-beds with a desk underneath and a bunch of comfy chairs.
6. What is your character's family situation like? Which family members (if any) are they closest to, and which ones do they have conflict with?
As far as Adelle knows, the only relative she has is her mother, who she only remembers vaguely, though she knows she's a Fairy.
7. Who are the most important people in your character's life? Do they have any close friends? Are they in love with anyone? Do they have any enemies?
Out of everyone at Dove, Cass is probably the closest to Adelle. After the story starts, the other members of Blue Team become her most important people.
8. What are your character's best skills and virtues? Did these come naturally to them, or did they have to work hard to achieve them?
Adelle's best virtue is probably her compassion, which comes pretty naturally to her, though she did have to work on figuring out how to actually make people feel better when she knows they're unhappy.
9. What are your character's worst flaws and weak points? Are they working to overcome their flaws, or do they let them fester? Is there anyone they rely on for help with their weak points?
Some of her flaws are that she can be quite naive and oblivious. She's also a little too complacent when it comes to working on improving herself.
Her main weak point in combat is that she's pretty much useless in close quarters or without her magic, and she relys on the other members of her team to make up for that and keep her protected (mainly Jackson and Marianne)
10. What are your character's goals? Do they set long term goals for themself or do they prefer to live in the moment?
Adelle's main goal is to reunite with her mother, though she doesn't have a very clear idea of how to accomplish that. Besides that, she's not much of a long term planner, preferring to just go with the flow.
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Hello, oh, its been a long time since Ive been in the rta fandom. I believe it was you that posted about the analysis that Rapunzel only seems to like lady-in-waiting Cassandra and not Cassandra as a whole, but I cannot seem to find it... the post elaborates on how all of Rapunzel's memories consist of Cassandra in her lady-in-waiting uniform.
If its not you, I apologize
iiiiit was probably me but i think as part of a larger post so . good luck finding it because i can’t either lmfao
i can however summarize the general thrust of the argument mgkgjfj basically:
1. i don’t think rapunzel ever quite grasped that lady in waiting cass was, like, cassandra filtered through the requirements of the LIW gig and more broadly her obligations, as a servant, to the royal family
2. as the hierarchical lines blurred on the road away from corona rapunzel got a few glimpses of unfiltered cass, most notably in goodbye and goodwill, and her reactions are generally less than positive—she enjoys cassandra’s bluntness, her adventurousness, but she’s nnnot comfortable with cass being loud and aggressive and the kind of person whose idea of a grand time is inciting a street brawl and injuring twenty-three people and then boasting to the sheriff about it: she is, in short, not keen on cassandra’s feral streak
3. RATGT has rapunzel remarking, negatively, on the changes she’s seen in cass since they left corona—not just the extreme outburst in the tree, but all of it. she then goes on to draw vent art of cass as a crazed monster with fangs and claws when cass is, like, curt and snappish on account of the barbecued hand thing
4. in the rapunzeltopia lotus dream designed by tromus to be as enticing to rapunzel as possible, cassandra is comfortable and happy in her role as rapunzel’s handmaiden without so much as a whiff of personal ambition or desire for anything more
5. RR upon returning to corona and mourning cassandra’s abandonment rapunzel opens the weapons cabinet, reaches past all the things cass actually cherished, and grabs her WORK UNIFORM to cry into; this is followed by a whole season of rapunzel explicitly romanticizing their past friendship and glossing over the tension and conflicts that always existed in order to reminisce in vague and rose-colored fashion about all the lovely times they had together—which includes fond memories of riding with cass-in-the-lady-in-waiting-gown which almost certainly is not an accurate reflection of the past given how allergic cassandra was to wearing the gown unless she absolutely had to. moreover, the torn LIW headpiece/veil thing is the EMOTIONAL FOCAL POINT of “i’d give anything”
6. rapunzel says herself, at the end of plus est, that she always imagined cassandra “belonged” in corona, by rapunzel’s side—& put into context with all of this and with raps spending virtually all of s3 convinced that the anger and resentment cass is spewing everywhere Isn’t Truly Cass, what all of this suggests to me is that rapunzel—for all that she does genuinely love cassandra—doesn’t particularly know cass, certainly doesn’t understand her as well as she thinks she does, and hasn’t ever really… reckoned with the parts of cass that are not palatable or nice to deal with: she’s got an idealized cassandra on a pedestal in her head, and it’s difficult for her to make the connection that cass isn’t actually like that.
so it’s like.. i think rapunzel can and will get to a point where she sees cassandra clearly and embraces the real, unfiltered cass—even if they’re never going to see eye to eye about some things—but she’s not there yet, and by the end of plus est she’s only just BARELY gotten to the point of recognizing that the cass in her head doesn’t match up with who cass is in actuality. and before she makes that connection, whenever she’s confronted with the real cass not aligning with the idealized conception she has of cass, she gets upset or confused about it because she’s like, why isn’t cass acting like herself? without realizing that the feeling she’s having is actually “why isn’t cass acting like i want her to?”
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For the ship ask game.
BruJay, SladeJay, CassJay
Wow, that's a lot to think about, thanks!
Brujay: more like ship it rather than not.
What made you ship it?
Bruce takes a central part in Jason's story and vice versa.
My relationship with this ship is pretty complicated. I love to explore it, both in writing and reading. Trauma, codependency, obsession, abuse, unrequited (not necessarily romantic) feelings, on one hand. Fate, going through hell and high water together, being closer than anyone in the world, trying to make the world a better place together, saving each other literally and metaphorically, on another.
When I'm writing, it's mostly the first, when I'm reading, it's mostly the second. It's a good vessel for both types of stories.
What are your favorite things about the ship?
Tragic, doomed feeling of it all.
I love melodrama, what can I say.
Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?
Honestly, they would have been happier never met each other. In canon, I want them to stay away from each other, and in a good part of fics too. If it makes sense, it's also my notp.
SladeJay: I'm on the fence, honestly! I know quite a few great stories about them, and I see the appeal, and I don't even hate Slade as I did previously, when I just started reading comics.
So:
Why don’t you ship it?
Because I actually got introduced to Slade far earlier than Jason. It was Teen Titans, and I just hated him there, and I hated what happened to Tara, and then I started reading (about) comics and things were even worse for her there.
I did get over my hatred towards Slade, mainly thanks to Romiress fic series where Slade adopts Jason. But, I dunno. In my consciousness, Slade is primarily focused on Dick so that's the biggest obstacle for me.
What would have made you like it?
There's not much I would like to explore between them, and most of it would be gen with mostly antagonistic relationship. Like, how thoroughly Slade fucked up his kids - while Jason knew at least two of them, Joey and Rose, and his story somewhat calls out to Grant's. Or that time when Jason was trying to take over Gotham and Slade was working for organization backing Roman Sionis. Or maybe their mutual ties to the League and Talia.
Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it?
One of the best fics in DC fandom I've read was them. And overall, I do get why people consider it hot.
CassJay: don't ship it
Why don’t you ship it?
It's hard to me imagining them working together, much less having something more. It would have been an AU only. And it's not really that much compelling. Their main conflict is to kill or not to kill and they both lose.
What would have made you like it?
If they had more interaction in canon, maybe a team up, we could see how it went. As for now...
I can see a scenario where Cass maybe could get a fleeting crush on him, like with Black Wind, and Jason being Jason, he would either completely be oblivious to it. Or, worse, he would have fallen so hard, when Cass took him down and his target - a disgusting rich oligarch trading child slaves or something - got away because of her... It would break his heart, simple as that.
Or maybe after Stephanie choosing not to kill and dying for it, if you put Cass vs Jason in the UtRH... Also a lot of heartbreak but maybe also character growth.
Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it?
They would have made a BAMF team.
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19,22,23 for the all the ROs if you don't mind 😀
I absolutely don't mind! From this list, feel free to request more!
Also, this got really long so I had to put it under the cut <3
19. What is your character’s biggest relationship flaw? Has this flaw destroyed relationships for them before?
Luci avoids confrontation in most ways he can. In his life, he's been taught that it's usually easier and better for both parties if he just backs down from any sort of conflict. Due to [redacted] circumstances he's never been in a relationship, so it's never been a problem.
Katia has very specific ways of showing affection and if someone's not clued into them, she can easily be misunderstood as not caring. And no, but only because she's been too caught up in her work/mind to actually get into a relationship before.
Ettie tries not to actually grow actually attached to people, so she might get into a relationship, but she might not necessarily feel strongly towards them until a while in if at all. And although it has been the reason for a few break-ups for her, they were all only intended as short flings anyway and all of the endings were initiated by her - so I don't know if I'd call the relationships destroyed.
Osric and T actually have a very similar problem but in different ways - that problem being insecurity. Osric is always very hesitant to actually make the jump to going into a relationship but once comfortable enough in the fact that the other person likes him back, he'll relax a lot. He also has some hang-ups around PDA. T on the other hand absolutely CANNOT deal with any form of embarrassment or awkward situation, and so has a pretty big fear of rejection. This causes them a lot of stress, but like Osric, they'll relax once they're more confident that their feelings are mutual (although they'll probably take longer and retain more of that stress than Osric). It hasn't really destroyed any relationships for either (although T did once have to get Gisela to break up with someone for them because they couldn't bring themselves to), but there are many relationships that both could've had but didn't because of it.
Cass I mean, Cass's biggest relationship thing is that they are trying not to be in one as to keep everyone they care about safe, but ignoring that, it's probably the fact that they're terrible at expressing how they feel. It's either all bottled up inside never to be let out, or a big messy explosion of emotion. And again, they've never been in a relationship for it to potentially destroy.
22. What does your character like in other people?
this is not a conclusive list for any of the ROs, and they will still like people that don't have these traits
Osric: honesty, a sense of humour, humanity and kindness (not necessarily a soft kindness that everyone can see, but the type of kindness where they can be wearing a fucking rad "scary" outfit and scowl at everyone, but they'll still wave back to a small child, or stop to feed a stray cat)
Luci: understanding, creativity, the ability to express themself and passion (it doesn't have to be for any of his interests, but he'd love for someone to be into fashion like him)
Katia: independence, a sense of pride for what they do, strong morals and curiosity (they don't have to be particularly smart or academic, it's more the pure want for more knowledge and understanding that she adores)
Ettie: spontaneity, a certain joie de vivre/zest for life, gratitude and trust in her (not only to do right by them but that she knows what she's doing for herself as well)
T: caringness, quick wit, humility - although they don't have to be super humble and a willingness to listen and work together
Cass: loyalty, open-mindedness, the ability to smile even in a tough situation and patience (especially because it'll take Cass a long time to fully trust in a person/situation being safe)
23. What does your character dislike in other people?
this is not a conclusive list for any of the ROs, and they can still like people that have these traits
also, obviously none of the characters are cool with bigots or anything similar, these lists are more annoyances to the characters than actual line-in-the-sand deal-breakers
Osric: a patronising stance towards him/his music/his beliefs, being overly judgmental, a feeling of superiority due to the art/music/media they like/consume and not acknowledging their privilege if coming from a privileged background
Luci: controlling nature, a short fuse on their temper, an obsessiveness around reputation (not appearance-wise but persona-wise) and carelessness (for both others and their interests)
Katia: strong optimism, chattiness, a need for constant/near-constant attention and dismissiveness towards her interests (they don't have to be interested, just not downright dismissive)
Ettie: an inability to move on, cynicism, being serious all the time and being overly cautious/the inability to be impulsive
T: argumentativeness, impatience, stubbornness and gullibility/the inability to figure out truth from fiction (A.K.A. they get annoyed by bad media literacy)
Cass: aggression, invasiveness (as in needing to know what's going on with everything all the time), quietness (this is literally just because Cass doesn't talk much, and if the other person doesn't talk much either, it's going to be way too quiet) and a lack of common sense
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Guessing your favorite tangled season according to your favorite character
Obviously some spoilers!
EUGENE
If you love the character of Eugene because he is funny, then you liked every seasons. If you liked him more as a, hum, a fictional person?, then season 2 got to be your favorite. At least, I think. I explain: Eugene really grown during his journey fallowing Rapunzel’s destiny! In season 2 he doesn’t quite act like in season 1, he’s still got his quirk (what makes him unique in fact), but act less and less immature. In season 2, he got to grow his faith in Rapunzel, learned that he is a valuable person after all, learned to trust Adira and accept to give her the lead, and in a really strange way he has reaffirmed his strong friendship with Lance. Most importantly he’s slowly closing the book of his past as Flynn Rider. That’s where he got his first and only solo too and given the end of the season is kind of important to his history it would be logic that people who loved him liked that he has developpement. On a personal note, the moment we though HE was the one betraying Rapunzel is hard to forget and will have a place in my mind for a long time. I don’t know if everybody is happy with the fact that they suddenly make him a prince, but still when you’re someone who went by an alias for half of your life and now you’re coming back from that, identity crisis is kind of a logic conclusion, prince or not. In fact, I even find that he comes back from it too quickly. Anyway, he hasn’t finished learning at the end of season 2 and will continue his growth in season 3, but the changes are obvious and I think that’s the season that have really the most fuel for Eugene’s fans.
CASSANDRA
Beginning this I though I was going to write about season 3 here for… obvious reasons like her becoming the main plot, but you know what? I say no! My guess is that people who loves Cass loves her since season 1 thanks to the charm she shows since the beginning. But I’m not going with season 1 either, because in season 2 she’s still got her charm, a LOT of focus on her relationship with Rapunzel, his first amazing solo telling us what’s going through his mind (rewatching "Challenge of the brave" doesn’t feel the same way after that), and something’s changing in her too. Her intern conflicts is something we can notice. This could have make Cassandra a more layered character to her fans and the show put more attention on her after that point. So again, I’m going with season 2, and I think I just make myself want to rewatch this season again.
VARIAN
Ok this one is hard, even if I technically must guess between just two season this time. The logic choice would tell me that people whose personal favorite is Varian prefer the season 1 given all the changes and drama he’s going trough (also: Let Me Make You Proud and Ready as I’ll ever be…). BUT, I don’t know, last minute call I guess it's more often the season 3. To me at least, it was more endearing to see him regaining trust with the main cast again and acknowledge his errors. Varian in season 3 seemed even more likeable and complex than in season 1. Fans were happy to see him again after his almost complete absence in season 2 and, let’s be honest: Nothing left to loose… Or more nothing else to say! Next!
LANCE
Even if he was there in all the Season 2, I get the feeling that people whose Lance is the personal favorite prefer season 3. Don’t get me wrong here, I loved so much that Lance was part of the “roadtrip”, but I feel like even if he was not always present in season 3, he has more time to shine there. After all that’s when he got his first solo, he’s not forgotten when they’re in group anymore and maybe have more lines when he is there? Season 3's Lance is a good guess to me even if him getting poisoned on the beginning of the season 2 and the buddy song made me hesitated.
RAPUNZEL
They all have been hard to decide, but Rapunzel it’s almost impossible. It’s her adventure, she is important in almost every episodes and she is always in development. I mean if your favorite is Rapunzel you could just have love equally the whole show. I won’t let me not giving a clear answer, so I’m going with season 2.
I know it’s weird that up to now I’m guessing so much people would have season 2 as a favorite but… Ok you got me here I got nothing to say for my defense and I’m gonna brush it away by saying that a lot of people frecking loves Varian and he wasn’t in it as an explanation of season 2 dislike I heard of.
Returning to the subject here: Season 3's Rapunzel is pretty epic, but you know she’s not totally right in what she is doing and I don’t think that people who have Rapunzel has a favorite liked the way Cass and her just have the same conversation over and over without admitting that they are both wrong. Seing her holding out to Cass in that way doesn't always feel right. I could developp a lot on that, but let's say that on some occasion she kind of puts people in danger because of her denial of the seriousness of the situation going on. I will also not forget that moment were Eugene was set like being the one who was wrong to tell Rapunzel to let go on Cass since she is the one who leave Rapunzel, and she just got to live her best life anf forget about this after alterring the past? I know forgiveness exist and it fits Rapunzel personnality, but man that was heavy! I don't know, I feel people who loves princess Rapunzel could find this season too much conflictual. In season 1 there is more slice of life episodes where she is her usual peppy self, but I feel like her going out of Corona for the first time, trying to fulfill his destiny and discovering the hurt incantation is quite more appealing to people loving Rapunzel.
VERDICT
So tell me, Am I rigth or wrong? And why? :) What’s your favorite season after all?
#tangled the series#rapunzles tangled adventure#tts#rta#eugene fitzherbert#tts eugene#tts cassandra#tts varian#rta varian#varian#lance strongbow#tts lance#tts rapunzel#rapunzel#tangled
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𝚆𝙴𝙻𝙲𝙾𝙼𝙴 ! below the cut, you'll find the list of accepted players. before we move on, i will once again let myself sound like a broken record and extend a huge, huge thank you to every single one of you who's applied. all of your applications have been a joy to read & the choices were so damn difficult to make. i'm sorry to everyone who hasn't got in but i hope you still keep this group in the back of your mind and if there's ever an opportunity to apply again in the future, i hope you consider it ! i genuinely had a blast reading everyone's work and it was truly a pleasure to get to meet all of your characters. i appreciate your hard work and your enthusiasm so much, you guys have no idea how happy i am that you've given this such a lovely welcome and had nothing but kind words to offer. once again, thank you <3
and congrats to everyone accepted ! please follow the checklist and i can't wait to hear from you !
artemus yang as 𝙱𝙰𝙻𝙳𝚆𝙸𝙽 played by keva
your application has been such a ride and it's been some of the most fun and creative writing i've seen in a while. i absolutely adored the way you captured baldwin and london's relationship, the quote-unquote meet cute got me so excited and i was hooked from the very start. congrats !
alice garcía-xú as 𝙱𝙸𝚂𝙷𝙾𝙿 played by mia
i am so obsessed with alice's backstory and the way she was introduced to the bureau, i just can't wait to see where the mystery of her husband's death goes. aka i can't wait for shady bureau business. congrats !
dilan shah as 𝙲𝙷𝙾𝙿𝙸𝙽 played by cass
you captured the vibe i was going for with chopin perfectly ! the bright-eyed enthusiasm, the neverending curiosity, the way chopin is so desperate for approval from their new teammates. dilan is a character with so much potential and i can't wait to see it play out. congrats !
gael esai tiul as 𝙳𝙸𝙲𝙺𝙸𝙽𝚂𝙾𝙽 played by clow
the sheer amount of detail in your app literally brought me to my knees. i loved the historical setting you placed dickinson in and man, was your application a joy to read—so immersive and i couldn't wait to read more. and not gonna lie, the death part? got me emotional. and the jump ! i'm so excited for gael. congrats !
choi in-su as 𝙵𝙰𝚄𝙻𝙺𝙽𝙴𝚁 played by pi
i'm so happy you reached out with this idea to me and i can't wait to see faulkner in action—a character so out of place, who had to learn the world anew but the way he agreed to it like that, almost as if he knew exactly what he was doing. it was another app with an insane amount of care put into the details and the historical context and it was so damn impressive. congrats !
alfred powell as 𝙵𝙸𝚃𝚉𝙶𝙴𝚁𝙰𝙻𝙳 played by aaron
you had me at the combo of math and jazz and ella fitzgerald. i love how self-assured and no-bullshit alfred is and the relationships part of your app was so clever and had me laughing out loud. and the way it finished with fitzgerald wondering and questioning—ahh, i want him to get those answers now. congrats!
jonathan liyuan cheung as 𝚂𝚃𝙴𝙸𝙽 played by mimz
as the local cain enjoyer, your stein truly just hit all the spots for me. the idea of the bureau making a mistake and the ripple that one single event sends across time is phenomenal and i love where you went with it so much. i am so excited to see stein in action. congrats !
miriam rosenbaum as 𝚃𝙷𝙾𝚁𝙴𝙰𝚄 played by laine
i am so obsessed with miriam's fall from grace—that one little slip that ruined her life....or did it. i love how you explored her conflicted feelings about the bureau and i adore the idea that she suspects that the senator's death that ended her career was something that the organisation had a hand in. and the graveyard visit got me needing tissues for real. congrats !
raphael pérez de la peña 𝚆𝙷𝙸𝚃𝙼𝙰𝙽 played by seb
you really know how to paint a picture, truly felt like i was talking to raphael myself. and you got me absolutely screaming with the part about his parents' fight. getting to meet your whitman was such a journey and i can't wait to continue it. congrats !
adelina “ada” montalván as 𝙾𝙲 ( agent code name pending ) played by taryn
ada is such a phenomenal character, i just couldn't stop thinking about her. i love the idea of her being displaced in time like this and then the bureau orchestrating her life to look the way they want it to but not without its price. i am so so excited to see where you'll take her. congrats !
#tfm:accepted#freaking out v much rn but we did it hee hee#off to bed now so the rest of the discord links will b sent out in the morning!!
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"Dream Lover" ramblings for BG3
When playing my established characters in BG3, it is fun to make their dream lover someone they know if possible and I just want to ramble about it. . .
Cassandra - My Cleric of Selune who follows the Dark Moon Heresy
She has a love interest in her back story and it is actually the same woman who introduced her to the "Dark Moon" path to begin with. I like to imagine that in "canon," there is only affection between the two. . .no actual romance. For this reason, playing Cass with Nalora as her Dream Lover is fun.
Cass wants something between them and so would welcome a flirty/sensual Nalora. The talk of "power" and how this dream!Nalora can give her anything and make her stronger is a little conflicting.
She doesn't want power and in fact is a bit scared of it. (Even though I can't make her one in BG3, I keep playing her as a scourge aasimar.) But, she trusts Nalora. . .she trusted her with leading her down the "Dark Moon" path after all.
I imagine that Cass would stop using the worm powers because it feels wrong to her and as a result, doesn't have too many dreams.
I also don't see Cass romancing any of the characters in BG3 for the reason she is so strongly attached to Nalora. However, I like the idea of her forming a very interesting friendship with Shadowheart.
Velkyn - Cleric of Eilistraee
I just had to make his Dream Lover be Ok. Because I hate myself lol.
It's "canon" that he has a crush on Ok, but that is something that will never happen since Ok is straight. So that combined with dream!Ok being VERY out of character for Ok. . .Velkyn has a pretty easy time pushing the Dream Lover away. (I think there is even a part where you can make the Dream Lover angry as you continue to reject them?)
However, I feel like even though Velkyn recognizes that it's just a dream and probably one feeding off of his own emotions. . .it still hurts him a lot. He has no problem resisting the Dream Lover's advances, but it still hurts.
As a side note, it's all because of this that I am constantly amused with Velkyn romancing Astarion. Astarion and Ok are VERY different, however. . .they actually have some similarities. Not only that, but I imagine Velkyn being a type of person who really is drawn to the kind of person he can take care of. Even though Ok is very independent and can take care of himself. . .when he first met Velkyn, things were very different and Velkyn took care of him in a lot of ways.
Sszaralune - Sorcerer and worshipper of Lloth.
She's fun in that she has NO interest in love. I made her Dream Lover be some generic male drow who is a "good specimen" since she is interested in having a child.
The dreams themselves would be conflicting. She is not interested in love or romance or sex outside of reproduction so a flirty Dream Lover is just off putting. However in her case. . .the offer of power is VERY tempting.
Oh and I sure af wouldn't romance anyone with her.
Ian - Lore bard and scholar
My current character. I made his Dream Lover be his love interest/boyfriend from the campaign he's in. Because of reasons. . .Rushan is probably. . .most likely going to die in the campaign. Sooo. . .in BG3 I like to think that Rushan is actually dead and that Ian never got to the point of having any sort of relationship with Rushan.
It makes the dreams painful in a different way. He gets to see his good friend once again and someone he misses dearly. Even though anyone who knows Rushan would know that a Dream Lover is VERY out of character for him. . .Ian doesn't know that? So unlike Velkyn who can easily push off a dream!Ok, Ian misses Rushan and wishes he could have had that close intimate relationship the dream!Rushan teases. . .all the while ignoring the offerings of power.
What doubly amuses me about this is that it's "canon" that Ian has nightmares and bad dreams a lot of the time. (I have reasons for this.) That makes these sensual dreams even more difficult for him to resist because hey. . .these are very pleasant dreams.
But also the idea that his Dream Lover is based on someone who has passed away. . .makes it easier for me to try and romance Gale lol.
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did i do this right?
also bonus:
#i was really conflicted on where to put cass and was about to put her in treason but she wouldn’t fit so i just went with my first thought#technically jason should be in all of the above but it is my civic duty to emphasize that this boy has never paid taxes in his life#he’s dead guys he’s dead he’s just living on earth rent free#i didn’t wanna put dami in murder because that’s too obvious but he didn’t fit anywhere else so i just chose a cute photo to contrast#for giggles of course#duke i-jumped-off-a-bridge-to-escape-the-cops thomas#and dick i-canonically-said-the-government-can-kiss-my-ass grayson have definitely committed treason#missed opportunity for “suck my dick” but beggars can’t be choosers#steph just radiates arson energy i’m sorry i can’t explain#i think everyone else is pretty obvious especially alfie#this man has done everything in life so now he’s the bats’ butler as a side quest#i literally put selina here so she could fill the theft box i didn’t have her here at first#to be fair anyone can be in treason and fraud it’s like family bonding for these assholes#ras al ghul’s crusty ass doesn’t deserve to be on here but it came to me at 3AM and i couldn’t stop cackling so now you all have to suffer#even the joker canonically pays his taxes do better ras ur embarrassing us all#dick grayson#tim drake#barbara gordon#bruce wayne#alfred pennyworth#jason todd#cassandra cain#duke thomas#selina kyle#stephanie brown#damian wayne#dc comics#batfam#ras al ghul#mine
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Okay, so you know “Justice League meets Batman’s kids, who they’d previously been unaware existed” AUs?
So picture that.....but this time, instead of them just having no knowledge of any of these other Gotham vigilantes at all....the Batkids all migrate to various cities as they get older and become known as their protectors - Dick in Bludhaven, Tim in San Francisco, Cass in Hong Kong, etc....
Meaning they’re all established figures, the Justice League are aware of them as solo local heroes who stick to their cities and so they just don’t interact with them much if at all, or else some are members of team lineups but are particularly vague about their histories or life outside of the team’s adventures....
So the big reveal isn’t that they become aware of all these other Gotham vigilantes all at once....its that some big conflict or whatever requires a huge team up of all available heroes, and in the aftermath, they figure out that like.....despite being known as solo heroes who work alone or loners outside of their team settings, 80% of these heroes all not only seem to already know each other, they seem to be related.
And so naturally they all turn to Batman, who has profiles on every known hero and they thus figure had researched these individuals too and just never mentioned this little detail, and they’re like, “Did you know about this?”
And then Nightwing turns to him too, arms crossed and is like, “Yeah Dad, did you know about this?”
And the infamous Red Hood is all: “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have never met any of these people before in my life. Lives? Whatever.”
And then Red Robin moodily grates out “I have no siblings.” Since he’s nursing a grudge since Dick and Jason broke into his apartment the night before and replaced all his custom Red Robin gear with Darkwing Duck merchandise and his vengeance will be swift and also totally disproportionate because things escalate quickly in this family, that’s true in every universe.
Cass meanwhile has deftly skewered Jason’s lie by walking over to him and brazenly patting down the man with many many guns with no fear whatsoever. He squawks and futilely attempts to bat her hands away as she riffles through his many pockets, but he doesn’t seem shocked, just annoyed. Eventually, she pulls away and triumphantly reveals a box of Hello Kitty themed band-aids.
“So these are yours then? Just for you?” Black Bat asks smugly. Red Hood squints at the box.
“What the fuck? How long have those been in my jacket? Why are those in my jacket? Did you freaking plant them in my jacket just on the offchance you could at some point in the distant future use them at my expense?”
Black Bat frowns, puzzled. “Yes?”
“Oh come on, Dead Hood,” Spoiler says with an exaggerated toss of her head meant to convey she’s rolling her eyes beneath her own mask. She skips her way across the room to Black Bat and then drapes herself languidly all over the smaller woman. Who in turn doesn’t so much as twitch beneath the sudden added mass as Spoiler holds out her hand towards the box of band-aids.
“One please. I have a boo-boo,” she says with easy familiarity straight into the intimidating cowl of Black Bat. Only then does she deign to finish her train of thought with Red Hood.
“I mean seriously, are you saying you don’t have potential blackmail set-ups, pre-rigged releases of incriminating material, and a random assortment of traps, pratfalls and mortifying scenarios in place for the express purpose of being able to humiliate any and all of your siblings at any given moment, without any need for additional prep time?”
“Is this true, Little Wing?” Nightwing whirls on the larger Red Hood with a faux-scandalized gasp. The founder and leader of the Titans, formerly the Teen Titans, renowned for his stratagems and calm competence when directing squads of supers in the heat of battle while he keeps pace with nothing more than naturally acquired acrobatics and a utility belt that apparently uses the same technology as Wonder Woman’s invisible jet....now appears to be....staggering with the back of his hand pressed to his forehead, moaning about how he felt....faint?
What is happening right now, several dozen superheroes want to know. Is this a drill? Are they supposed to be checking for signs of a mental ambush from undetected psychic saboteurs? Did they all hit their heads at the exact same time and are now experiencing some kind of shared mass concussion?
Look, that wouldn’t be the weirdest thing to ever happen on the Watchtower.
“Have I failed you so utterly?” The veteran child hero bemoans with a dramatic twirl - that when contrasted with his stern demeanor of a mere ten minutes ago - makes the fears of telepathic infiltration seem less paranoia and more....concerningly probable. “Did you learn nothing from me? Did you learn nothing from B?”
He stops and jabs a finger up at the sky. “Quick, everyone! What is the very first rule of Living While Batty?”
As if by rote, over a half a dozen voices chime in from all over the room, causing various heroes to jump. Spooked by yet more and more vigilantes joining in some kind of mass recitation like they and they alone have some kind of clue what the hell is going on and everyone else just hadn’t been invited to the party. Which is just rude, honestly. Nobody likes feeling like they weren’t invited to the party. Not even superheroes.
“If you’re not going to bother preparing for every possible contingency and at least six impossible ones, you might as well just stay in bed.”
Even the Red Hood joins in the Illuminati chant or Cub Scout pledge or demonic ritual or whatever the fuck that just was, though his slumped and exasperated posture gives away every hint of sulkiness his headgear otherwise would have kept safely hidden. He’s surprisingly more...expressive, than most who’d only known of him by reputation had expected him to be. The day continues to yield surprises.
“Of fucking course I do,” he growls out, snatching the box from Black Bat. She doesn’t even fight to hold onto it, just lets it go with a knowing smirk. “I wasn’t surprised by the idea of it, I was just surprised she bothered with such a weak effort. Like yeah whatever, actually those could be mine. I use those all the time at home. So what?”
He aggressively yanks one of the band-aids out of the box, fumbles with the peel-off strips with one hand and he roughly rolls up the sleeve of his jacket with the other. Then just slaps it on his forearm and raises said appendage high, showing it off this way and that. “See?”
“Oh yeah, for sure,” Signal drawls from the other side of the room, nodding his head approvingly. “Totally convincing. Nice job walking that one back, you really showed them.”
Red Hood’s head snaps in his direction with ominous intent. “Watch it, Day-Glo.”
Signal just snorts.
“Yeah, like I’m gonna take constructive criticism on my name and costume from a dude who’s spent the last several years calling himself Red HOOD while running around in a freaking HELMET.”
“Its not meant to be literal, you fucking pedant.”
“So wait, its not literally a helmet? Huh, does it at least protect your head literally, or just like...symbolically? Like if Bane were to clock you across the head, would your concussion just be a metaphor? What’s the treatment protocol for a metaphorical concussion? Fluids, bedrest and a philosophical prescription of two chapters of Chicken Soup for the Soul as needed?”
“Laugh it up, KC and the Sunshine Band,” Red Hood bats back. “You just got yourself disinvited from Thursday night’s poker game.”
Signal just grins and folds his arms over his chest cockily. “Please. You’ve been looking for an excuse to ban me for weeks, cuz you know until you can prove I’m using my ghost vision to cheat, you can’t actually bring suit against me for it in Family Court.”
“That, and also Family Court isn’t a real thing, you toddler. Stop validating Wing-a-ding-ding’s obsession with Shitty TV Nostalgia and just call it that thing where Oracle traps us all in a room until we settle our latest fight without anyone getting stabbed.”
“Yeah, but like, say that five times fast,” Spoiler pipes up. “Its just not practical. Family Court’s way easier.”
“Says the one who’s not even in our fucking family.”
“And yet I grace you all with my sublime presence anyway,” she blows a kiss at him, beatifically unbothered. “You’re welcome.”
The Red Hood scoffs and rounds on his heel, zeroing in on Batwoman in the far corner.
“Hey Auntie B, my siblings are all dead to me and I just helped stop an alien invasion so I deserve nice things like a fun Saturday night. Can you get me into Dad’s fundraiser so I can crash it? He won’t put me back on the list until I promise not to bring any C-4 with me and I won’t promise not to bring any C-4 because he should just trust me that I won’t when I say I’m not gonna and he won’t trust me that I won’t until I admit I shouldn’t have brought any to that sting last month where three tiny little yachts blew up through barely any fault of my own, and I’m just not gonna do that ever because I have convictions and I feel I shouldn’t have to be punished for that. Y’know?”
Batwoman blinks at him. “Kid, I’m not gonna lie to you. You’re my nephew and I love you, but I stopped listening three seconds into all that.”
“Ugh, fine. Can you help me crash Dad’s event tonight so I can teach him a lesson about why he should just trust me not to make a scene so I don’t have to always make a scene to make a point.”
“Tempting as you make that sound,” she says wryly, “I have a strict policy for dealing with you lot and your......everything. I only worry about tolerating one of you at a time, and there’s seven of you, and seven days in the week. You each get your own. You know perfectly well its Robin’s day today. You get me on Tuesday, just like always.”
“Auntie B, we’re not like other families, are we?” Red Robin’s delivery is sarcastically childish and his question clearly rhetorical. Most of his attention is fixated on whatever it is he’s doing with his wrist-mounted computer.
“No sweetie, we’re all severely fucked in the head and a little bit too comfortable with that.”
“Just checking. Oh hey, Hood, I just emailed you a patch for the hole in your firewall I exploited when replacing all my shit using your accounts just now.”
“You did what?”
“Used your accounts to pay to replace all my stuff that you fucked with last night?” Red Robin says slowly. “Did you not realize that I’ve been sticking within ten feet of you for the past five minutes just so I could clone your devices and do all that while BB and Spoiler kept you distracted? I gotta say, bro, I feel like that’s on you then.”
Red Hood swivels his helmeted head in the direction of the aforementioned two. Black Bat waves. Spoiler shoots him an utterly unrepentant thumbs up.
“You’d side with your ex over me? That’s what its come to?”
“My only allegiance is to chaos,” Spoiler says brightly. Black Bat shrugs.
“Plus he bribes better.”
“Hateful,” Red Hood points at Black Bat, moving on to level the same finger at Spoiler, who curtsies in acknowledgment: “Hateful-er.”
Then the finger rounds the bases to aim judgmentally at Red Robin. “Hateful-est. And that was all Nightwing’s idea anyway, not mine.”
“Oh, I assumed as much,” he says casually. “Your idea of a prank tends to have more of a Carrie vibe. Or be a literal literary reenactment.”
“Its called an homage, 4chan.”
“Whatever, plagiarist. And anyway, I couldn’t go after ‘Wing for payback on this one. He used an Immunity card. If you didn’t want me getting back at you, you should have used one too."
Red Hood looms aggressively. Red Robin ignores willfully. Round and round they go. Superheroes who can survive excessive G-Forces are getting dizzy just watching them have a largely motionless stand-off. That shouldn’t be how that works, but whatever. All the most infamously reclusive and isolated heroes in all hero-dom are apparently part of the same one big reclusive and isolated family of fucked up weirdos and they’re all officially bonkers. Nothing makes sense anymore. Reality broke. Try another stall.
“Okay, but see, in order to have an Immunity card, I would have to participate in one of you losers’ stupid Immunity challenges,” the Red Hood drags out with exaggerated patience. “And I’m just not going to do that, on account of those all being fucking stupid. You see the problem there?”
Red Robin just shrugs. “I don’t know what to tell you, bro. You can have principles or you can have an Immunity card. You can’t have both.”
Meanwhile, on another side of....the same room.....look, its like, an octagonal room, probably. It has a lot of sides. Robin fends off questions from an aggrieved looking Superboy.
“You never told me you had a bajillion brothers and sisters!”
“Yes but I never said I didn’t either.”
Superboy rolls his eyes. “Oh yeah, so I should just assume everyone I meet has a bajillion secret brothers and sisters?”
“Well clearly it would have worked out in your favor in this instance if you had, now wouldn’t it?”
“Assuming of course that you can trust what has been said or implied here today and I am actually related to any of those numbskulls. Which I am not actually admitting to,” Robin tacks on hastily.
Superboy eyes him dubiously. “You joined in the same creepy chant all the others did and then got super self-conscious and looked around to see if anyone had noticed. Which uh. I did.”
“First off, your interpretation of body language is abyssmal. I do not get self-conscious,” Robin says with a delivery that probably could have benefited from being a little less self-conscious. “And second....that proves nothing. I guessed what they were going to say.”
“Word for word,” Superboy says super-skeptically.
“I’m very good at guessing things. You know this.”
“Okay. Guess how much I believe you right now then.”
Robin glares and folds his arms grumpily across his chest.
“And what was that anyway? Was that like....you guys’ family motto or something like that?”
“Oh no,” Spoiler pipes up. “That’s much shorter.”
Superboy balks at that. “Wait, you guys actually have one of those for real?”
“Yup,” Steph says, counting out the words with her fingers. “He who laughs last....probably works for the Joker. So tranq him just to be safe. See? Only sixteen words. The first rule of Living While Batty is way longer, and what we said was just the abridged version. You should hear the original, before Black Bat put her foot down and refused to memorize it unless sizable edits were made.”
Superboy hovers between her and Robin now, both in mid-air and on the verge of taking Spoiler’s words as an invitation to hear just that. A low growl arises from Robin’s direction.
“Must you?” He asks the older vigilante, with a most put upon expression.
She looks at him pityingly. “Do you actually need me to answer that? Like, we’ve met, right? Hi, I’m Spoiler.”
“Wait, so Robin said that I just never specifically asked him if he had a bajillion brothers and sisters, and that’s why he didn’t tell me, so that means he wouldn’t have just lied and there’s not some code of secrecy that flat out forbids telling other people stuff, right?” Superboy realizes excitedly.
“Yes, excellent direction. Go on,” Spoiler says, steepling her fingers. Robin buries his face in the palm of one hand.
“Soooo, what other stuff could you tell me about Robin’s super top secret family that I wouldn’t think to ask about but that he would tell me about if I knew what questions to ask?”
She claps once, lightly but with emphasis. “Well done. You’ve passed the first barrier. Untold secrets await you behind just a few more.”
“I’ll get you for this,” Robin vows calmly. She waves a hand at him.
“Yeah, yeah. Just make sure you do it before January 1st, remember? You’ve promised retribution like ten times already this year and those don’t roll over, y’know. Rules are rules.”
“Enough!” Thunders a voice then, from the front of the room. Well one of the fronts anyway. Like sides, it has a lot of them, but this is the one where Batman’s standing. All eyes snap to him. Which is kinda just what eyes do when Batman says stuff like that. Its like his superpower, except he doesn’t actually have superpowers, which is what makes it scary. But where the snapping of the eyes (directional) is usually followed by Batman saying something else besides just “hey look at me,” here he pauses in the wake of his own call to attention’s waning reverberations. Uncharacteristically silent.
Not that, y’know, he’s normally Mr. Talkity Talk, but usually his silences feel like he has the words to fill them, he’s just withholding them. This though, this feels more like he doesn’t have any words at all. And he’s as confused by it as any of them, and most everyone else is confused by Batman being confused, and its this whole trickle down economy of confusion and its wrecking havoc on the value of the golden silence standard.
Of course, not everyone present is rendered spellbound with confusion.
“C’mon B,” Nightwing cajoles, leaning forward and practically radiating delight. “I think you know what you have to do now. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Its not likely to come around again.”
Red Hood snickers beneath his helmet and chimes in. “Yeah Pops, go ahead. You do this and you’ll actually have my respect for a whole twenty four hours. No, wait. Sixteen. No! Eight. Yeah, eight. Still a good deal.”
“Carpe diem, B,” Red Robin grins, leaning back as if to enjoy the show.
“Hey! Infringe on my trademark one more time, dude,” Signal throws a faux-glare at the former. Red Robin just quirks an eyebrow.
“And what, you’ll start saying Yum every time you eat a burger? Oh no. I’m hoist by my own petard.”
Signal flips him off with a grin and then redirects his attention back to Batman. “Yeah seriously though B, you kinda gotta do it now. Because if you don’t do it, then you’ll forever be the guy who didn’t do it, and you don’t want to be that guy, do you?”
“Yeah you really don’t want to be that guy,” Spoiler shouts out. “Nobody likes that guy. He’s the worst.”
“Do it, do it,” Black Bat starts chanting beside her, steadily picking up speed and volume. Several others start joining in. Even Robin appears to be slightly anticipatory, albeit trying very hard to hide it.
Batman sighs, and somehow everyone manages to hear it. Stills. Waits for....something? Nobody but them seems to have any clue what, but the air is thick and heavy with portentiousness. Something is about to happen, and all most of the heroes present could say for sure is it was something they never would have in a million years seen coming.
Finally, Batman straightens with the resigned air of a man about to have oh so many regrets. He crosses his arms, shakes his head, and in an absolute deadpan monotone, says:
“You are awful children. You know you’re killing me. You’re killing your father.”
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Sception reads Cass Cain #22
Batgirl (2000) #7
words: Kelley Puckett
pictures: Scott and Campanella
No more Peterson. As far as I know he was still at DC comics, but he's not co-writing Batgirl any more, and I'm not sure what changed. The cover is some classic comic cover misdirection of the Super-Dickery style, though it also implies a proper fight between Bruce and Cassandra, something that really needed to happen in her story, but iirc by the time it eventually does that story has meandered a bit.
This comic launches a sort of three issue arc that first establishes where the loss of Cass's body-reading abilities leaves her, which was a bit of an open question, then contrives a way to give her the ability back, while imposing a new cost for doing so in order to not completely undercut the implied tradeoff between speech and body-reading.
As usual, I have... mixed feelings
No, no, I wouldn't say it sucks. We've lost Peterson, but we still have Puckett and Scott, both still on their A game. As is the pattern so far, quality execution pulls me along even when I'm not 100% sold on the direction.
So pretty much right away, we establish that without her body-reading Cass isn't just 'not as good as she was', she's all the way down to 'not good enough for Bruce to let her out at all'. Honestly, this feels like a bit of a stretch to me. Like, are we honestly saying Tim is a more competent fighter than Cass at this point? Well, probably not, the fact that Tim isn't predisposed to throw himself into groups of armed thugs without thinking is a likely factor here, one that is mentioned by Babs later.
One thing that I really would have liked to be an explicit part of the story, if we're doing this at all (which we didn't need to, most other bat-fam crime fighters don't have super-powers, they could have just said she was worse but still good enough) - but, yeah, if we're doing this at all then I would have liked if lingering doubts about Cass after watching the tape of her kill were explicitly part of the reason Bruce was keeping her off the street. It would have kept the thread up about that aspect of her story - imo that's the core conflict her character is built on and it just kind of Peters out - like I alluded to earlier, Cass and Bruce do eventually fight, but it's not even really about that.
Like, right now our status quo on that is "Bruce is in denial over the fact that Cass killed a guy and will be real upset + maybe refuse to let Cass wear his symbol ++ maybe will have to face up to his own feelings of guilt once he eventually has to accept the truth of what Cass did", but iirc he never really does have this big conflict and never is forced to confront Cass's murder. IIRC - and honestly I hope I don't remember correctly here, I hope I just missed or forgot important stuff - but iirc eventually Bruce just knows and is ok with it without any major drama or revelations and none of the juicy conflict ever happens.
But anyway, for the moment that's a missed opportunity rather than a mistake.
Anyway, Bruce gives Cass some study material.
And she studies it. Bab's holodeck is a bit too sci-fi for me, but whatever, visual storytelling.
The issue is a bit repetitive here, alternating between studying panels and Bruce beating Cass up panels, though it serves a purpose of conveying how she's stuck in a rut.
"All this knowledge. No substitute for knowing." is a good line.
I like these panels. You can really feel Cass's frustration. We also finally have Bruce pulling back. He's really been beating the crap out of Cass in these training/testing sessions - is any of that some part of him now seeing her as a murderer? And how different is that from the extremes Cain was willing to put her through as a child? Extremes that even before 10 years old she was more than willing to put herself through. Bruce flinching back like this is a key moment of him /not/ just being a substitute for David Cain, because he isn't willing to just brutalize Cass until she 'gets it', even if she's not just willing but eager to do things that way.
But yeah, Bruce pulls the 'Jason Todd' card
And Babs pulls the paralyzed card.
Really strong facial expression from Scott on that last panel there.
Doing the vigilante stuff isn't just a calling for Cass, though, it's a compulsion, and the writer kind of calls it out through Babs here. It all comes back to the guilt. Cass killed someone, she thinks she deserves to die for it, but she can't just kill herself. Being Batgirl is a way to do some good to help redeem herself and re-contextualize all the killing skills her father gave her while also exposing herself to the possibility of death over and over until some day it inevitably comes.
She can't not do that just because she's in more danger now, deliberately putting herself in danger is part of the point.
So she goes out in this new cobbled-together alter ego, and there's some fun panels of it. It's an ok design, too.
And that's how we introduce Shiva.
I'm gonna be honest - I really only know Lady Shiva from her appearances with Cass. I have no idea if her characterization in the Batgirl title is true to her previous appearances or not - particularly the suggestion that will come later that her whole death-match obsession is as much about her own deathwish as it is about martial pride. I've heard some complaints that Shiva was a more interesting character before/without Cass, and that her more recent appearances have kind of reduced her to just being Cass's mom with not a lot going on outside of that, which if true is a shame.
The Shiva connection also leads into dumber stuff later in Cass's solo title - I never jived with the 'one who is all' business, imo it was too silly and the whole concept undercut the much more personal and frought relationship between Cass and David Cain - and its thematically resonant parallel to her relationship with Bruce. Post-reboot Shiva displaces David almost entirely, and there's no parallels to Bruce at all, either with Cass and her guilt or Cass's previous masters and Bruce's lifestyle & training techniques. Of course, by that point David's unrecognizable and they couldn't do the thematic parallel stuff anyway.
...
But within Cass's story, at least in this early arc, Shiva works pretty well, and her introduction is certainly striking, pun intended
Using the fancy restaurant scene to build tension
Before everything explodes when Shiva finally attacks.
And the issue ends like it starts. I like when that happens.
All in all an effective issue. It's a weird thing to complement, but I think it does a particularly good job conveying Cass's growing boredom and frustration through the repetition in the early training scenes. The art's particularly nice - a lot of strong facial expression, good posing, nice detailed backgrounds.
I like how much fun she has in her new vigilante alter-ego. Again, doing Batgirl stuff isn't just about guilt and atonement and wanting to die, it's also fun and thrills, she likes doing it for its own sake.
And I like how cocky she is with Babs afterwords, at least until she's caught. Very much a kid who thinks they're getting away with something attitude. It's fun.
Good stuff, overall.
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Stop Pretending (TFATWS)
Fandom: Marvel
Pairing: Bucky x Reader
Genre: Romance, Angst
Summary: The reader thinks she's doing a stellar job of keeping her feelings for a certain soldier buried deep inside.
Turns out, all it takes is an observant new friend to begin the unraveling of her most precious secret (Spoilers for TFATWS)
Masterlist
Word: Pretence
Definition: A way of acting that is intended to deceive people.
Example: Saying that he's just a friend when he's really the love of your life.
Your POV
Being caught in the midst of war is something that I, (Y/N) (Y/L/N) know all too well. As a war vet, former shield agent, and now Avenger I'm used to being centered amongst conflict.
When the fight begins within me though, a battle between what I want and what I think is right, how will I react? Will I listen to my heart, my head, or will the winner be chosen for me?
Delacroix, Louisiana.....
I love my sleep, always have, always will. It's not necessarily the comfort of the bed, the quiet or even the rest. It's the fact that I'm at peace when I sleep. My life has a tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, so anything that will put that off for as long as possible I savor.
I wish it were the same for a certain super soldier in my life. I look forward to going to bed, everything calms down then, and for most people it's the same. For Bucky however, it's when everything starts, the nightmares, the terrors, the seemingly unending darkness. If only I could take his pain away like he has with mine.
For the last few weeks, my life had, for want of a better word, been hectic. Hectic to say the least.
After the eventual defeat of Thanos and the loses we endured as a result, I thought naively that life might calm down a bit, that I'd have time to breathe, to live. How wrong I was.
It all began with John Walker being announced to the world as the new Captain America.
I was baking cookies with Morgan in the Stark family kitchen when it came over the radio. As that latest turn of events sunk in, my first thoughts were of Bucky, what that would do to him. Not even an hour later I had said my goodbyes and was on my way to help him get the shield back.
Since then even more had happened. We'd regrouped with Sam, busted Zemo out of prison which in turn ruffled the feathers of Ayo and the Dora Milaje. We came face to face with Morgenthou and the Flag Smashers, and finally witnessed the man who thought he could even compete with Steve, make himself judge, jury and most significantly executioner.
After that went around the world we knew we had to end it sooner rather than later. It couldn't get much worse than Captain America becoming a murderer. We got the shield back, which was a fight all in itself. Handed Zemo over to Ayo, to try and recompense for the distrust we'd instilled in the people who'd helped us so much. Then we travelled to stay with Sam and his family in Louisiana whilst we waited for Karli's next move.
This is where we found ourselves now, in the eye of it, the calm before the storm.
Waking up in the Wilson households guest room, I was greeted to the golden hue of the rising sun penetrating through the single glaze windows, and the melodic sounds of gulls on the hunt for their morning meal down by the docks.
Actually, no that's not right. What I could hear was most certainly not birds, and it was definitely not melodic. What were those boys doing?
Quickly and quietly I threw on the first clothes I could get my hands on and made my way downstairs towards the noise. What caught my attention when I discovered the source, was not the two youngest Wilson boys playing with our newly reacquired shield in the living room, but the super solider who was blissfully ignorant to it all, sleeping peacefully on the couch in front of them. I don't think I'd ever been so happy.
"Right you two, if you're determined to play Avengers all morning then I suggest you re-assemble in the back yard. You're gonna wake Bucky up," I whispered out in one breath, stepping between the boys, then placing my hands on their backs and tip toeing them towards the door.
"So what if we wake him up? It's gone 10am," Cass questioned in protest, pulling on his sneakers and jacket.
"Exactly! Which is why if you do as I say, I will make you the biggest plate of waffles for breakfast that you've ever seen."
The boys eyes lit up. "Can we have ice cream with it? Mum never lets us have ice cream for breakfast, and I'm sure there's a tub of Stark raving hazelnuts in the freezer," AJ clapped in muted excitement. "Oh, for God's sake.....Yes. You can have whatever you want if you get out of this house now and keep the noise down."
Once the boys were outside, I made my way over to the kitchen, stopping on the way to lean over my favourite senior citizen and make sure that he was still peaceful in his slumber. He'd never looked so relaxed, so at ease. It was a brand new Bucky I'd never seen before, a Bucky that had my heart pounding for him even more than it normally did. Not that he knew any of that.
Half an hour later and up to my elbows in waffle mix, I failed to notice my new friend and host Sarah making her way to my side at the counter, the huge smile on my face not going unnoticed. "What's got you grinning like the Cheshire cat, like I need to ask?"
"Bucky's sleeping. Isn't it amazing?" I spoke softly, bouncing up and down on my feet as I did so.
"And why is that?" She couldn't looked more confused if she tried.
"In all the years I've known him, I don't think I've ever woken up before he has. If his nightmares don't keep him awake all night, they normally have him up before the crack of dawn. I don't think I've ever seen him so still."
"Good answer," Sarah nodded in a hush, understanding why this meant so much to me, but not done yet with her morning interrogations, "Now on to my next question......"
"I'm already not liking the sound of this."
"Sleeping Beauty over there follows you around like a little puppy dog. He hangs on your every word, looks at you like you hung the stars or something. It's pretty obvious how crazy he is about you, so when are you gonna stop pretending that you're not head over heels in love with him?"
"I don't know what you're talking about Wilson," I smiled forcefully, making out like the waffle maker deserved my attention way more than the conversation I was being made to have.
This was all Sam's doing, without a shadow of a doubt. He'd tried to have this conversation with me on multiple occasions and I shut him down every time. He obviously hadn't given up like I thought he did, and decided to draft in his sister. He is seriously gonna regret it when I find him.
"Sure you know what I'm talking about. Sam sees it, I don't even know you that well and I see it. The only reason Bucky doesn't, is because he doesn't believe he could ever be that lucky. You're a smitten kitten." These Wilson's are all as annoying as each other.
Knowing I wasn't getting out of this one, I grabbed Sarah by the arm and pulled her right into the corner of the room, trying my best to keep this convo as private as possible. "Look, I'm not pretending.....I'm ignoring. There's a difference."
"Care to explain what that difference is?" Sarah spoke softly, but with a sarcastic air.
Turning to look over my shoulder at the subject of our conversation, making sure he was still safely in the land of nod, I decided to just be honest. Sarah was much like her brother. Once she wanted to get to the bottom of something she wasn't about to give up.
"I love Bucky, more than I've ever loved anyone...and that terrifies me," the rawness of finally being honest making my voice shake, and tears come to my eyes. "Nat was like my sister, and she's dead. Tony was the closest I've ever gotten to having a Dad...and he's dead too. Then there's Steve, Vision, God knows where Wanda is....Everyone I love, either leaves or dies. If I admit my feelings for Buck then I face the risk of losing him too."
"Do you have any idea how crazy you sound right now? He's not going to die because you love him (Y/N)."
Silent tears were falling now. I was revealing my deepest fears to a woman I'd only known a few days, and I'm not underplaying it when I say it was like a colossal weight off my chest, a release I didn't know I needed. "Believe me...I know, but I can't take that risk. I can't lose anyone else, especially not him."
"Let's just say for a second that you're right, that there is some higher power somewhere, set on destroying everyone you love. Do you really think ignoring your feelings is going to make them disappear?" I didn't know what to say to that. "Natasha and Stark died so that everyone could continue living, and (Y/N) you're not living as long as you keep this to yourself. They wouldn't want that for you."
"But what if I lose him?" I whispered with a choked sigh.
"Then at least he'll die knowing how you felt about him. After everything he's been through don't you think he deserves to know there's someone out there who loves him like you do?"
"Of course..."
Sarah's lips pulled upwards in a satisfied smirk, wrapping her arm around my shoulder and giving it a comforting squeeze, "then you owe it to yourself, and to him, to tell him the truth."
"Why do all you Wilson's have to be so clever?" I voiced in mock irritation, pushing her away from me and acting like I was annoyed she had gotten one up on me.
"I don't know," she thought aloud and with a cheeky grin, grabbing a plate to start piling on the long forgotten waffles, "I think it might be the sea air or something."
"Nah, it's in the genes," I chuckled quietly, grabbing my jacket and deciding it was time to get this conversation wrapped up. "I'll go find Sam and the boys for breakfast. Clear my head a little bit."
"You promise you're gonna tell him?" Sarah stopped me as I went to push the door open.
"I'll think about it."
3rd person POV
Once (Y/N) was out of ear shot, Sarah couldn't help but start jumping up and down in excitement, clapping her hands loudly as she did so. That went even better than she thought it would, and she was so proud of herself. Sarah Wilson could now add matchmaker to her resume.
"Coast is clear Barnes. You can open your eyes now."
(Y/N) had no idea what she had metaphorically walked into just minutes earlier, entering that very revealing conversation with her overly inquisitive host.
What drew Sarah to come down that morning was the sounds of both the front porch door opening and the smell of homemade waffles wafting up the stairs. As she entered the kitchen she was met with two sights. One being (Y/N), facing the counter and looking very smiley, the other being a wide awake super soldier who was just laying on the couch and staring at her, the sole object of his affection. Sarah could work with this.
Every time (Y/N) turned back in his direction, Bucky would close his eyes and pretend to be asleep again. He had never slept so soundly, so peacefully, thoughts of (Y/N) and his new friends filling his nightmare free dreams.
He'd initially woken to (Y/N) ushering the boys outside because she was afraid they would wake him up. He didn't want to disappoint her by proving her right. Besides, he liked just watching her move around the kitchen, completely unaware he was observing her the whole time. He had no idea about the conversation that was just about to happen.
After (Y/N) had left and Sarah had confirmed so, Bucky sat himself up, his body shaking with adrenaline and a look of complete shock fixed on his face. Had he definitely woken up, or had the whole thing been a part of his dream? Did (Y/N) seriously just admit that she was in love with him?
Bucky didn't know how to react, didn't know what to say as he looked up at a smug Sarah from his spot. All he'd ever wanted was for (Y/N) to feel the same way about him as he did about her. Now he knew that she did.
"You're welcome by the way."
#marvel#bucky x reader#bucky reader#bucky x y/n#bucky imagine#bucky#bucky barnes#mcu#avengers#tfatws#fatws#james buchanan bucky barnes#one shot#romance#drama#angst#the falcon and the winter solider spoilers#the falcon and the winter soldier#sebastian stan#winter soldier#sam wilson#falcon#anthony mackie#steve rogers#captain america#oc#fanfiction#fanfic
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