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vexing-imogen · 3 years

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the persistence of 3/?

read from beginning | read on ao3

Whitestone shouldn’t feel familiar to her. Percy says it’s their home, sure, but she’s never stepped foot in this city, had never even heard of it before today. The streets, the buildings, the surrounding forest and distant mountains are completely foreign to her. And yet...

The square around them is thankfully empty, save for some unnaturally lifelike statues that, after a moment of intense focus, Vex realizes are...them. Vox Machina. She studies her own stone face, and it’s like looking in a broken mirror. The features are undeniably hers, but the expression is one of such aching sadness that she has to turn away. She hadn’t considered until now that there might be things from the past five years that she wouldn’t want to remember.

She feels Percy tense when she buries her face in his shoulder. “Are you alright?”

“My head is killing me.” It’s not a total lie. Her skull is still throbbing. And the eerie deja vu of this place isn’t likely to help her maintain any semblance of balance.

“Oh, god, of course.” He lowers them both to the ground, her back supported by the giant tree. “Pike, do you have any healing spells left?”

“I’ve still got my big one,” Keyleth offers. Vex winces as a hand touches a sensitive spot on the back of her head, but the pain is quickly replaced by a flood of healing magic. She opens her eyes to Keyleth’s smiling face. “Better?”

Vex nods, grateful that the motion doesn’t trigger any pain or nausea. “Loads,” she says, squeezing Keyleth’s hand. “Thank you.”

“So, what’s the plan for tonight?” Scanlan asks, turning to Percy. “I’m assuming you’re not going to make us pay for rooms?”

“Right, um...” Percy thinks for a minute, runs a hand through his hair. “I was thinking I’d take Vex to the manor for the night, have the lot of you stay in your rooms at the castle.” He turns to Vex. “If that’s alright with you, dear?”

She eyes him warily. “Is there a reason why we can’t all sleep in the same place?”

He hesitates. “I suppose not, if that will make you more comfortable. If you’d rather stay at the castle, I don’t mind. But, Vesper is at the manor, and as I haven’t seen her in nearly a week, that is where I will be tonight.”

“Of course,” she murmurs. “Is the manor not big enough for everyone?”

“No, it is,” he says. “But, trying to get an excitable toddler to go to bed when nearly all of her favorite people are in the house?” He chuckles. “I’d have more luck trying to wrestle a bear.”

She gasps at that last word. “Trinket! Where is he?” she asks, looking around frantically. “We didn’t leave him behind, did we?”

Percy smiles gently. “He’s at the manor with Vesper and her nanny. I can send him up to the castle for you if you’d like?”

She thinks it over, finally shaking her head. “I want to come home with you.” She swallows hard. “And if it’s really been almost a week that we’ve been gone, I don’t want Vesper to think that I’ve abandoned her, or something awful like that. And I do want to meet her, I’m just-” She looks up into the foliage, blinking back tears. “This is just really overwhelming, and I don’t want to do it alone.”

Percy is quiet for a minute. “Would it help if one person came with us? Maybe Pike or Keyleth,” he suggests. “That way it’s not just you and me, but it’s not a madhouse either.”

Vex nods.

“I can come,” Keyleth offers. “That way Grog and Scanlan aren’t left totally unsupervised.”

Percy turns to Pike. “Can you fill Cassandra in?” he asks.

“Of course.” Pike gives Vex a tight hug before she sets off after Grog and Scanlan. “I’ll see you in the morning, okay? I promise you, we’ll fix this.”

============================================================

That uneasy feeling nags Vex through the entire walk to the manor. Her feet seem to remember this path, jumping over or sidestepping holes in the cobbled street that would trip her up. Percy raises an eyebrow at her after the third time this happens, and she shrugs. “Muscle memory?”

“Must be,” he says, the look in his eyes growing a little more hopeful.

“Tell me about Vesper?” she asks, hoping to distract them both.

Percy fully smiles for the first time since she woke up. “What would you like to know?”

“Anything. Everything.” She sighs. “I don’t want to feel like a stranger to her.”

By the time Percy is pointing out the manor to her, he and Keyleth have filled her in on everything from Vesper’s favorite stuffed animal (a wolf, named Woofers) to a myriad of nicknames (Nugget, Cub, Little Bug). Of course, none of this prepares her for actually seeing her daughter for the first time.

They’re outside of the manor, playing in the twilight; Trinket, a dwarf woman who must be the nanny, Rika, and Vesper. Vex freezes in the street, her breath catching in her throat. If she had any doubts left that this was real, they’re now dispelled.

She feels Percy’s hand on her back. “Are you ready?”

She shakes her head, tears spilling over. “She’s so beautiful, Percy.”

“Well, she does take after her mother.” Her heart does a wicked little flip in her chest. “Sorry,” he mutters. “Too much, I know.”

“You don’t have to apologize, darling,” she says, taking his hand. “It was sweet. C’mon.” She steels herself and starts walking to the front gate.

Trinket spots them first, bellowing a greeting. Vesper squeals when she sees them, and runs for the gate as fast as her little legs will carry her.

“Mama, mama!” She launches herself at Vex, who just manages to catch her and not send them both tumbling to the ground. Everything Percy told her leaves in that instant. Vesper is a comforting, familiar weight in her arms, and she’s fighting back tears because she doesn’t remember her.

Still, she’s nothing if not a good actress. “Hi, sweetheart.” She peppers kisses across the little girl’s face, earning a peal of giggles. “I missed you so much.”

She gets a wet kiss on the cheek in return. “Missed you too, Mama.” She starts wiggling in Vex’s grasp. “Lemme go, I catch fireflies now.”

Percy scoops her up before she can dart across the yard. “Actually, little miss, I think it’s time for your bath.”

“Daddy, noooooooo.”

He taps her on the nose, ignoring her pout. “If you take a bath now, Aunt Kiki can read you an extra story before bedtime.”

Vex barely registers what he says to Rika, or what the dwarf says to her as she leaves the manor grounds. The distant sound of the front door shutting behind Percy snaps something inside of her, and she doubles over, sobbing.

Keyleth stays by her side, rubbing her back, whispering soothing nonsense. Trinket allows her to wrap her arms around his neck and soak his fur with her tears. There’s a horrible yearning in her chest that she can’t rid herself of, no matter how hard she cries. Not that she wants to get rid of it, and that’s the problem, isn’t it?

She loses track of time, but the sun hasn’t fully set when she heaves a deep sigh and wipes the last of her tears.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Keyleth asks, still rubbing her back.

“I feel like an imposter,” she says after a minute. “This is...everything I’ve ever wanted, Keyleth. A home, a family. Someone who loves me. Not even Vax knows how badly I’ve wanted this. And it’s all right here in front of me, and everyone’s telling me that it’s mine.”

“But it doesn’t feel like it is,” Keyleth guesses.

She sniffles, a few stray tears falling. “Is it really my life if I don’t remember building it?” she asks. “It feels like I snuck in and stole it from someone who actually deserves it.”

“Of course it’s your life,” Keyleth says. “This isn’t like one of those stupid books where someone has an evil twin that legitimately tries to steal their life. You’re still you, Vex. This is your house. Percy is your husband. Vesper is your daughter.”

“And if none of this works, and I never get those memories back, what then?”

Keyleth pauses for a moment. “That won’t change the way we feel about you, Vex. You’ll still be our friend, our sister. No one’s going to stop loving you.” She shakes her head. “It’s like Pike said, though, we’ll figure this out. We’ll fix this.”

Vex turns towards the house, scratches Trinket’s ear absentmindedly. “I wish I could believe you.”

#critical role #critfic #vox machina #perc'ahlia #vex'ahlia #percy de rolo

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silverhart-makes-art · 3 years

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I was thinking about Frederic and how both the show and the fandom really paint him as the villain. And while I do love some good-natured Fred-hate, he really is just a terribly tragic figure. He’s so shattered and broken as a person. Compare him in Season One to after he lost his memories – he’s the same insecure, sheltered person, but in Season Three we see him with all those walls he’s built up over years and years torn down, and it’s almost like he’s a different person. It’s kind of sad we don’t actually get to see a lot of Fred without the trauma.

Anyway, get ready for a Fred tangent.

I always got this impression that Fred never got the opportunity to truly grieve Rapunzel. He always had this hope, and wanted desperately to keep searching for her, but he chose to put his responsibilities to his kingdom first and he always regretted the day he had to call off the search. I can’t really imagine the amount of stress that would put on a person. And presumably he had to shoulder it alone, since Arianna would’ve still been recovering from her rough pregnancy and then losing her child, and Fred couldn’t ask her to bear the burden of searching and running a kingdom on top of that. I can’t even imagine the amount of stress and pain he must’ve gone through. So of course he put up walls, he stifled his own interests, he started using force to solve the kingdom’s problems, had no tolerance for any crime, pushed Arianna out of his decision making. And everyone just let him, because he’s the king.

When you think about it Fred is way more of Rapunzel’s antithesis than Cassandra. Here’s this man with all the freedom, power, and wealth to do whatever he wants, go wherever he wants, but for eighteen years he was more trapped then his daughter ever was, so shackled to his past trauma he had the entire kingdom release lanterns to acknowledge it. He built the walls, his daughter would tear down. Rapunzel has trauma to be sure, but she’s willing to face it, and a lot of episodes are about her doing just that. Fred hides his trauma from everyone around him. They really are polar opposites, like… sun and moon.

Okay, this didn’t start out as a Moon Fred post, but I guess it’s gonna be a Moon Fred post now, because think about it. The ruler of Corona, this literal symbol of the power of the sun, being corrupted by the moonstone, throwing up walls of black rock to protect himself, his family, his people, his homeland, unable to see how he’s slowly killing all of them. Sending out rocks and guards to try and capture his daughter, who’s doing everything to stop him. Zhan Tiri promising Fred peace if only he would capture Rapunzel and keep her locked away. Like I know we went over this conflict in Season One, but its conclusion never felt particularly satisfying to me. You don’t exactly undo eighteen years of trauma that quickly. You could have Arianna and Captain and Nigel try to argue with him, and he assumes everyone is turning on him. And Rapunzel and co. could be all trying to stop him, with Cass offering insight on Zhan Tiri and the moonstone’s powers. You could have Lady Caine come back and get her conclusion, considering her connection to the king. It would’ve been super interesting to see her and Rapunzel interact more, especially if they’re both fighting against Fred. I think it would’ve made a great fourth season. Just tying everything up with a neat little bow.

That said though, it would mean we wouldn’t get ‘King and Queen of Hearts’, which is legitimately one of my favorite episodes. I really think the writers made the right call ‘fixing’ Fred as they did, considering they just didn’t have time to explore him more, but it is a real shame they didn’t have that time. Much as I love fixed Fred and all the shenanigans that entails, exploring him more would’ve been a really cool way to tie some of the themes of the first season back into show, as well as all the themes of parents and children seen throughout the series.

#tangled the series #tangled rambling #I guess I have to add 'Draw Moon Fred' to my to do list now

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theaurorfileshq · 4 years

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C A S S A N D R A A S T O R - R E Y E S / A U R O R S E R G E A N T

AGE: Thirty

BADGE NUMBER: S01B24

BLOODSTATUS: Pureblood

GENDER/PRONOUNS: Cis Woman, She/Her

IDENTIFYING FEATURES: Eyebrow scar, walks with a slight limp and aided by a cane.

STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES:

(+): Excels in Defence Against The Dark Arts/Uncomfortable knowledge of the Dark Arts in general, can resist the imperious curse, strong moral compass and a heart of gold.

(-): A tendency to hold back from using destructive spells even if doing so puts her at risk, legitimately desperate for approval from authority figures, inability to produce a patronus.

BACKGROUND:

–– In her younger years she feels like a shadow incarnate. A ghostly slip of a thing in a family of ghoulish, graceful monsters. Cassandra is the youngest of four, and the only girl in the family. There is not a day that goes by where she doesn’t know her place. The Astor-Reyes family are traditionalists to the core. Her mother teaches her the rules with a deceitful gentleness. Little girls should be seen and not heard. Little girls should stay out of the way. Little girls need to do whatever their father and brothers tell them. Even when she was small, she knew the foolishness of it. Cassandra was far too hungry a thing to sit still and pretty while her brothers worked. Like all shadows, she longed to come into the light and swallow it whole.

–– She proves herself a prodigy from a young age. Her magic comes out early, unbound and unrestrained. It’s clear to all that little Cassandra is a power-house. A forest fire in a pretty dress, a scorching blaze with very polite table manners. In the early days, before she learns how to focus herself, her magic almost sparks and crackles with its fury. She still remembers the day her father leans down to kiss her forehead and whispers “you’re going to burn the world down, aren’t you, Cass?”

–– Despite it all, she still feels like a shadow. Her power, her raw talent, only get her so far in her father’s eyes. She is allowed to study from his books, secret and forbidden to so many others. He practices spells on her so that she will build a natural defence, so that she will know how to protect herself with magic and muscle memory. When she takes any real interest in his work, she is shut down. Business isn’t for little girls. When she tries to engage with her brothers on an equal playing field, she is pushed away. Experimental magic isn’t for little girls. They look at her with sharp eyes, predators in the making. They’re how Cassandra knows what monsters look like, she’ll reflect, a decade later.

–– Her grandfather never leaves the house. He is a reclusive soul, she thinks, with an edge of longing. Oh, how she would love to stay at home forever with books for company. He has an edge in his eyes, and he stares out the window for long hours at a time. Cassandra is his favourite, she knows, in the way children often do. He is more gentle with her than the others, he humours her more than anyone else, and drives her brothers away when they bother her or tease her. She asks him why he never ventures outside the gates of their garden, and he tells her that he is a trapped soul. He says it like a story, fairy tale slow and full of wonder. He has an enemy, you see. An enemy who outwitted him and bested him in battle. An enemy who feared his power. So her grandfather had to barter away magic and some small level of freedom in exchange for the chance to stay with his family. It seems awfully noble and romantic to Cassandra, but she won’t know for many years the extent of his thwarted dark deeds.

–– She didn’t realise that her family was strange until a couple of years into her schooling. She joins the Horned Serpent house without a second thought, and struggles to make friends even among her like-minded compatriots. People seemed to shy away from her at every turn, so she closed herself off in return. She focused on her books, and her grades, and the polite small talk she could make with those who knew her from before school began. Other noble, honoured pureblood families. She hears it whispered one day, after a talented display of hexes in her Defence class, far more advanced than anything the others could produce. ‘I bet she’s evil, like the rest of them.’

–– The Astor-Reyes family has a bad reputation, and she was foolish not to see it sooner. She didn’t realise she was wrong, to know the things she did. She didn’t realise she shouldn’t have studied the darkest of arts from an early age. She didn’t realise it was wrong to gaze into the abyss, and wish it would touch you in return. They all saw it as a thing that hurt. They didn’t know that the knowledge could be a powerful and rewarding thing. They didn’t know that it could be as gentle as a father’s kiss. It had never hurt her, she’d never seen it damage anything, not really.

–– At seventeen, she has the aura of a wispy, flighty thing. Delicate, darkly beautiful. Her family had a bad reputation, but all she’d been able to do was go with it. After school, she begs her father to let her help him in the family business. She understands now what he does, and that it isn’t strictly speaking legal. Yet she wants to help, regardless. He’s just a businessman. He gets things that people wants. He sells them. Trinkets and artefacts and treasures. It’s just stuff, she thinks, in her still teenaged brain. What are people going to do? Hurt themselves with it? Though she’s older, and undeniably the brightest of his children, he tells her no. She should be focusing on marriage, like a good little girl. She should find a husband and carry on the family line, in one way or another. For the next three years she entertains the ideas, entertains suitors and boyfriends and girlfriends. She has not great longing to be a wife to any of them, and shakes them off as best she can.

–– It’s a strange thing, to be willingly blind. To believe that you have honour when you know, deep in your heart, that something is very wrong. She gets the impression that her family is spiralling around a drain, that something too dark and too dangerous is creeping in. Her eldest brother is a dark shade of the man she used to know, frantic and cloying and obsessive to an extreme extent. He inherits control of everything, in the end, when her father is arrested for his crimes and locked away. She watches the auror squad come and take both Andre and him. Brother and father gone, a dwindling family left behind. She answers questions and feels the heavy judgement of their gazes. Micheal Astor-Reyes becomes the head of their family in a deft blow, and though he only lasts a matter of weeks in the role, she wishes it had been over quicker. Her brother is a cruel man, a foul beast. Experimental and half-crazed like a character in a no-maj novel, Frankenstein the doctor, or Frankenstein the monster –– one and the same, wrapped up in the visage of a man she tries very hard to love. She watches him, far too often, his words and his deeds. She watches and wonders: is this wrong? She wonders it often enough that the litany shifts without her notice, a resigned and shaky: this is wrong.

–– Micheal almost blows her up, in the end. Him and his experimental magic. She should have been wary when he let her into the room, when he asked her to act as witness to his greatest deeds. She knows that he could have easily killed her, down there in his lab. His necromantic obsessions, his fascination with death and how to best it. That kind of spell can do far more damage than it did to her, when it backfires. She knows it could have killed her –– it killed him, after all. She’d seen his burned out husk, seen what was left of him, twitching until he faded away. A great deed. She’d known she was hurt, but it didn’t occur to her that she ought to cry or to scream or to call out for help. All she’d wanted in the moment was to lay down and fall asleep.

–– They bury her brother in the family crypt, and it’s a mark of her own strength that she attends the ceremony. Fresh from her sick bed after two weeks of healing. Intensive as the attentions of her healers had been, Cassandra still feels weary. Bone tired. Achey inside and out. ‘Dark magic often leaves a profound mark on the psyche.’ She needs help to stand, her leg still healing far too slowly for anybody’s liking. The help takes the shape of her Grandfather for the extent of the day. He keeps her steady, somehow steadfast and strong even in his old age. Her mother sobs and weeps, wrapped up in her seemingly endless sorrow. It still doesn’t occur to Cassandra that she ought to cry. She plays picture perfect hostess next to her mother after the ceremony, shakes hand after hand, and accepts condolences she doesn’t want. She plasters on a grim smile, as sad as she can manage.

–– It’s only the three of them in the house, quite suddenly. Cassandra, her mother, and her grandfather. Andre and father will be locked up for a very long time. Micheal is dead. Alexander departed in the weeks after the funeral, galavanting around Europe in a desperate effort to make a name for himself divorced from the rest of his despicable family. Cassandra feels more like a ghost than ever. A broken thing, gripping the cane her mother gifted her as she strives towards independence. She lost her wand, during the accident. It snapped beneath her when she fell. She ought to get a new one, she knows –– but she isn’t ready to face the world, she isn’t ready for them to look at her, yet. She sits in the dusty, unused Drawing Room instead, and makes fitful attempts to master simple spells wandlessly. The ancestral portraits watch her in wry amusement, until one speaks up –– ‘You’re not going to get anywhere like that.’ It’s Cassandra, the elder Cassandra. A great aunt she’s never given much thought to. Grandfather had always described her in unflattering tones, far too priggish for his taste, a stoic and upstanding citizen. His distaste for her is why she was condemned to the old drawing room, rarely used even by her mother. ‘I do believe my old wand is somewhere in the attic, gathering dust. Go and fetch it so we may all cease watching you struggle like a foolish child.’

–– She thinks a lot about the elder Cassandra in the weeks that follow. Using her wand. Gazing at her portrait. Reading about her, however much there is, in the family records. She seemed more noble than anything else, to Cass’s young eyes. Never married. A patron of various charities. Master duelist and stalwart believer in duty and honour. She had been the one who turned her Grandfather in to the Auror’s, who condemned him to a life of imprisonment in his own home for his unholy deeds, condemned him to a life without a wand. Then, the elder Cassandra had died young. She has no proof to back the chilling hunch, but there is something in Cass certain that her death was far from natural.

–– She thinks a lot about honour. Right and wrong. What kind of person she wants to be. She thinks, and then she stops thinking at all and begins to act. She moves their hoard of dark artefacts and distasteful books up to the attic, out of sight and out of mind. She opens all the windows and lets the light in. Then, with steely determination, she applies to auror training. Her career begins in fits and starts, wary eyes following her everywhere she goes. Her name carries weight, her family’s bad reputation still at the forefront of everybody’s mind. She doesn’t cower from it, this time around. She holds her head high and promises herself she’ll never quit, that she’ll never stop trying.

–– Cassandra is a good Auror. It turns out that she has a talent for it, more than she’s ever had with anything else. She graduates from the Academy in New Orleans at the top of her class, after having worked herself to the bone. She felt the rush of the accomplishment, felt ready to dedicate herself mind body and soul to the job, with a newly crafted sturdy moral compass in her heart. A lot of people still don’t trust her, even after years on the job – they think the darkness will win out, that she’ll default back to it if the going gets tough. All she wants is to prove them wrong, once and for all. All Cassandra wants is to be good, to help people, to make a difference in this world. She knows she’s going to succeed.

#cassandra astor reyes #written by wren #aurorx

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whothefuckiscassandracain · 6 years

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Post Crisis Cassandra Cain - A Summary

Well, folks, this is it – we have gone through all of Cassandra’s Post Crisis material (at least that of certain chronology)! What a ride! Now it is time to take one more look at the tag counter, before we reset everything for the New 52/Rebirth. Without further ado, here’s the final tally (with changes from the previous counter summary in brackets):

Aphasia: 88 (+16)

Living Emoji: 78 (+2)

Little Lady Of War: 53 (+13)

Batdad: 52 (+6)

Batmom: 50 (+6)

Dubious Characterization: 49 (+33)

Fast As Lightning: 45 (+3)

Fiercely Assertive Protector: 26 (+1)

Ghost Of Failures Past: 25 (+9)

Symbolism!: 24 (+6)

Creepy Bat: 24 (+8)

Cass Sass: 23 (+9)

Plight Of Permanent Perfectionism: 14

Better Off Dead: 13

Unusual mannerisms: 9

Made Of Steel: 9

Retchcon: 9 (+9)

Ballet Battler: 2

Spells ‘Team’ With An ‘I’: 2

First of all, as we can see, there were some traits to Cass’ character that can best be labelled as a case of Early Installment Weirdness and disappeared from her characterization after her defeat of Shiva.

Secondly, damn that Retchcon and Dubious Characterization counter! Late Post Crisis was really not kind to Cass, with Beechen in particular running her into the ground at every opportunity. Even just looking at it now hurts.

Thirdly, ignoring all the crappy Retchcons and Dubious Characterization, we now have a very clear picture of who Cass is. Her most defining traits remain:

Her aphasia, which resulted in her being very expressive with her body language and continued being an issue of varying degrees of severity, even after she learned to understand spoken language. Cass does not give grand speeches and reading is a very taxing process for her, but she did improve over the course of her Post Crisis history.

Her insane combat skills (Little Lady Of War), which, combined with her very assertive style of handling problems, her insane speed, and her very tacit nature, often caused people to be at least intimidated and sometimes even downright terrified of her.

Her tendency to blame herself for past failures, whether they are people she failed to save or mistakes she made while on the job. This is especially relevant since Cass’ loyalty is not towards any one person, but towards what the bat symbol represents.

Her tendency to sass out her opponents (and sometimes allies) with what little words she uses.

Now, as for her relationship with the Batfam, the following can be said in summary:

Bruce was both a mentor and a father figure to her, from the beginning to the end, with varying degrees of heartwarming/jerkish behavior. The latter was usually a result of post Jason’s death causing Bruce to be an emotional brick and put the mission before everything else. For most of the story… Cass did not mind all too much, at least if you can ignore Beechen’s retcons, although she was still happy about her eventual adoption. That said: if you ever want to trigger the Batdad in Bruce, let someone catcall after Cass and he’ll probably break the guy’s jaw.

Barbara was essentially Cass’s mother figure and trying very hard to nurture Cass’ civilian identity, much in contrast to Bruce’s and Cassandra’s approach. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Cass established a similar, if brief, relationship with Brenda while in Blüdhaven – another redhead with a kind, but firm approach to encouraging Cass to actually live her life for her own sake. It is a crying shame that the Barb and Cass had very few interactions after War Games, but it is hardly surprising, given that DC was in the process of writing almost every single woman/girl in the Batman stories out of these stories. One thing that should be mentioned: barring that single brain fart in Birds of Prey Vol 2, Barbara has always had Cass’ back, even during times when other members of the family did not trust her.

Speaking of which: Dick Grayson. Oh boy. This relationship started relatively neutral, with Dick being very much ok with Cass in their first interaction, despite Cass’ disability and her related quirks. Then it became heartwarming on screen, with Dick quickly coming to Cassandra’s aid and making sure she was okay during the “Soul” drug storyline in Batgirl and being very upset when she let him hit her during the Bruce Wayne: Murderer? storyline, as well as off screen, since he apparently acted out all the parts of Cinderella for her at one point. Then it took a complete nose dive into the opposite direction following Cass’ asinine turn to evil, which led to Dick being openly hostile towards her and not trusting her with… well, pretty much anything. It took Alfred shouting at him to reconcile the two and while their last few interactions were of the reasonably friendly nature again, it was too little too late. What a mess.

As for Tim, he went from not trusting her during their initial interaction to gradually accepting her as a member of the family to being very supportive of her and a very good friend, especially following War Games, when the two of them worked together in Blüdhaven. In contrast to Dick, Tim was much more willing to forgive Cass for her actions during her turn to evil and maintained a good, friendly relationship with her, even after she moved to Hong Kong. He was the one who gave her the Blackbat suit and reminded her that she was family and he was also the one who worked with her the most. Last but not least, he did not put up with Damian’s bullshit about Cass in Gates of Gotham. Good job, Tim! You’ve been a very good brother to Cass.

Speaking of Damian, he had very little interaction with her and went from “she sounds wonderful” before they met to being very abrasive towards her after they met and calling her “spineless, naïve and fragile”. Honestly, it comes across very unconvincingly and much more like Damian’s bruised ego trying to defend himself from someone who does actually live up to her reputation may be legitimately better than him in certain aspects. Either way, there is not much love lost between the two of them.

Next up: Stephanie. During their first meeting, Cass was rather cold towards Stephanie, mostly because of their difference in skill level. Cass’ concern about Stephanie not being strong enough to do the job remained for a long time, but she still grew to like and respect her as a friend and partner eventually, to the point where Stephanie could arguably be called Cass’ best friend. They chatted about boys, they played rooftop tag together, they discussed important changes in their lives, such as Stephanie becoming Robin. During War Games, Cass wanted to go looking for Steph because she was worried about her and only didn’t because Bruce promised he’d do it instead. Steph’s ‘death’ hit Cassandra hard, to the point where she hallucinated Stephanie being the one to greet her and comfort her on the other side of the pearly gates during two (near)death experiences. During Convergence, Stephanie and Cass lived together for a full year, supporting each other both physically and emotionally. Stephanie is, without the doubt, the best friend Cassandra ever had.

Finally, there is Alfred (because DC were cowards and never gave us Cass & Jason). Alfred, as always, was a real treasure. At first, he merely took care of Cass’ own Batcave home and later her apartment near Gotham U as per Bruce’s request. Then he went through the trouble of finding her the perfect apartment/secret cave combination in Blüdhaven. He was shocked to hear of her supposed death and upon her return to the Batfam and her moving into Wayne Manor was quick to point out that Cass felt like she did not belong there and that they should do more to reassure her that this was really her home and her family now, with no strings attached. More than anybody else in the family, Alfred recognized the often self-destructive need Cass felt to redeem herself for past failings and it is only thanks to his intervention that Dick reconciled with Cass. In short, over time, Alfred has come to care deeply about Cass, as he does about all the children that ever fought alongside Bruce/Batman.

Last but not least, a few notable mentions about other relationships Cass had with various people:

Cassandra has a complicated relationship with her father, if you ignore Adam Beechen’s horrible retcons. For eight years, Cain was all she had, and while she recognizes that he is a horrible human being and a lousy father (she beat him into a pulp over this), she also recognizes that he does actually care about her. As a result, Cass is not friendly with him, but she is not cruel towards him either.

Her mother, Lady Shiva, barely had anything to do with her and left her in Cain’s hands an hour after Cass was born. She mainly saw Cass as a tool (someone to finally defeat her in combat and later someone to help Nyssa Raatko lead the League Of Assassins), but showed at least some motherly concern when it was believed that Cassandra had been killed and Shiva helped Tim investigate her murder.

One of the few people she was close to before operating independently as Batgirl was Leslie Thompkins. Cass has insane respect for Leslie, because of her iron pacifist nature and was deeply saddened when Leslie broke ties with her during War Games. We sadly never got to see reunite on page.

Cassandra has had a rocky relationship with Huntress, mostly because Cass is staunchly anti-killing and because Batman took the Batgirl mantle from Huntress and gave it to Cass. Mind you, Barbara never approved of Helena as Batgirl.

She got along very well with Onyx, thanks to Onyx having been with the League Of Assassins before and thus actually being a challenge for Cass, while being a genuinely good person. Sad we didn’t get to see much of these two together.

Azrael (Jean-Paul) had a crush on her, which Cass did not quite reciprocate, but she wasn’t unfriendly to him either.

The first boy she ever kissed was Connor Kent (Superboy), even though she was annoyed with his way-too-carefree nature and his focus on her physical attractiveness. They broke up amicably.

She had three more dates with guys, none of which went anywhere.

And to round off our summary, here are some nice little bits and pieces of Cass

The first words she learned were, in chronological order: (thanks - incomplete), (goodbye - incomplete), stop, no, me, shutup, what, why, stay, instinct

She was 17 years old at the time of her introduction. Her birthday is January 26th.

Her favorite ice cream flavor is chocolate.

Cass is a big and messy eater.

Her home is very untidy and while in the manor she did not customize her room at all (no pictures or other mementos).

She likes horror movies (she really enjoyed Alien).

She is probably the only person in the family who really wants to be the next Batman and actually became Batman in some timelines/alternate universes.

She likes rice krispies, Assam tea, and long showers.

Cass can’t hold her liquor.

#Cassandra Cain #master post #counter summary #Post Crisis Cass summary

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