AspieCrow's Ramblings

Thinking about how Cass's OG artist draws her in the Batgirl run and how there's just something about it that no other Cass artist has been able to replicate. The way she's so clearly 16/17, the youthful playfulness in her eyes, the unique features and expressions on her face, the casual clothes she likes to wear (and the lack of whitewashing but that's more the specific colourists). The way she doesn't look perfectly glamorous but instead looks human, like a teen who's been homeless and on the run since she was a child and is only now rediscovering happiness.

I don't hate Cass's features maturing as she gets older, and since she should be around 23 in canon it's not that relevant anymore. But when it comes to teen Cass, no artist has come close to this. When I picture teen Cass I am always thinking of Damion Scott's artwork.

Also minor nitpick, I miss when she had that sort of gangly/sinewy Bruce Lee build that made her actually look like a fighter. Way too many artists just draw her with the 'comic book woman' body type.

hope is a skill

hope is a weapon you are trained to wield

favourite additions

You cannot hide this in the tags, bestie. This is too lovely to keep a secret.

Frank Paton - Witness my Act and Deed (1882)

Absolutely fucking dying over the name of this painting. We've had cats figured out since day fucking one

Scarecrow realizing he has to physically inject the dangerous martial artist who went toe to toe with Lady Shiva because she wears a damn face mask.

Scarecrow: I've developed a foolproof strategy to deal with that one. Scarecrow: Why don't you want to take my fear toxin. Is it because you're... chicken? Cass:

I think more leftists need to recognize the gap between “this should happen eventually” and “this would be feasible to achieve in the near future”

Like, I’m an anarchist. (Although maybe I’m not according to some people but idk who cares) And I think an ideal world would have no nation states or borders. But that’s not going to happen tomorrow, or next year, or for a long time

So while I wait, instead of endlessly hemming and hawing over what the would should look like, I try to focus on what I can do right now to improve the world in material ways and to lessen the suffering of others

fucking tragic watching Jean Paul go from this artsy little softboy dyke look

to generic blonde man #9982

he's not even wearing his glasses anymore! boo hiss!

Some other bangers;

there's also "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" which conservatives are oh so fond of saying

bootstraps are, well, straps on your boots. you cannot physically pull yourself up by them, and that's what the original phrase meant. "pulling oneself up by the bootstraps" is meant to be an impossible task

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness."

The second part really matters.

Some more:

Line weight. Perspective. The tilting of the head. Expression. Volume.

This early Modern human knew exactly what we learn to this day in order to create the illusion of life in 2d art.

Whoever they were, I admire them as much as every other great master.

extremely conditional. Timelord is just a no, like, nah, the Timelords sucked and the Doctor is the only good one. Jedi depends entirely on the era. If I can be a High Republic Jedi than yes yes yes sign me the fuck up. Starfleet seems like it's probably the best but it depends what ship I'm on and who the Captain is.

If it's TNG-era, Star Trek also has the advantage of allowing you to live out the other options (and countless others) via holodeck, so yeah, provided we get a good ship and Captain like you said, Star Trek is the clear winner.

Thinking about Cass and moral codes and how her moral lines, her black and white attitude towards killing , is not because she doesn't understand moral grey areas. She emphasises with every single killer, she projects on them, she wants to save everyone, from a woman in an alley to a man on death row. No one had to make her follow a moral code, in fact the people in charge of her childhood would very much prefer if she didn't have the code she does! She chose it herself, chose exactly what her line would be. And within that line, that clear line she's decided of "nobody dies", there is so, so much grey. Every killer she's helped, every person she couldn't save, has taught her of another shade of grey.

Her attitude against killing isn't there because she doesn't understand morally grey situations. It's there because she understands the moral greyness so deeply, in a way not even Bruce can. She looks at it, projects on it, is saddened and disgusted and furious and sometimes even despairing at the things she's seen and the situations she's encountered.

And she chooses to stick with her line in the sand anyways. You'll never convince her that killing is the solution to anything. It doesn't mean she can't ever be reasoned with, she put the man on death row back because his victim's mother made her feelings on the entire thing very clear. But despite how it shook her, despite how she failed to save that man, she still went out the following night determined that nobody will die. Nothing can ever shake that moral center of hers, even when she fails it just reinforces the trauma that formed her worldview in the first place. Is it healthy? Not at all. Is is entertaining to read? Absolutely

I think "Nobody Dies Tonight" is such a fascinating issue because I don't think "she failed to save that man" is what actually happened. Cass put him in the execution chamber, with the express purpose of ensuring his death. By any reasonable sense of the word, she killed him. This reveals a fundamental part of her pre-death characterization, that there is a person she will compromise on. There is a person she would kill. Herself.

ID in alt text.

By killing this man, Cass is metaphorically killing herself. This is issue 19, and Cass is also on death row. In issue 25, Lady Shiva will execute her.

She can understand that this man deserves to die, because she deserves to die. It doesn't matter how much she's changed. The man she killed is still dead. Cass is going to go out and save every life she can, with the full understanding that no matter how many lives she saves she will never be redeemed.

However, in issue 25, after her own temporary death, Cass realizes that this is wrong. She chooses not to kill Shiva.

ID in alt text

Shiva is just like Cass, and they understand each other in a way no one else every will. They share the same understanding of death, and both of them have gone into this fighting hoping to die. If there was ever a person more representative of Cass that she could kill, it would be Shiva, here. However, this time, nobody will die tonight.

Love love love this reading

DC March 2024 Solitations that feature Cass are here! Probably, Cass is only in one comic for the month sadly.

Variant by Pablo Villalobos.

Variant by Nathan Szerdy.

1:25 variant by Leirix.

Why is Cass ginger in that last one??

Keeping her as Orphan when literally no one is using the Batgirl name wasn’t enough, it seems. Gotta whitewash her too, evidently.

DONNA NOBLE, "Careful. This is how I lost my job. Dropped a coffee in the computer."

LITERALLY ME O.O

It was such a funny scene

Harper's feel when her story is inexorably linked to Cass because Cass killed her mom, but the inverse is not true and Harper doesn't even show up in either group shot of the most important people in Cass's life shown in Spirit World:

I think it's an inherent problem with their relationship that I dont know how to solve, because writing Harper well inherently requires sticking to a story that's bad for Cass. The Faizul origin is much better for Cass's character than the Miranda one, but using it cuts the ties between Cass and Harper and robs their dynamic of its depth.

Off the top of my head (meaning that there could definitely be some issues with the concept), maybe it could be something like after Faizul, there was a time that David managed to track Cass down at some point and try to "ease her back in" by having her just watch as an assassination was carried out, and that assassination was Miranda Row, and Cass' guilt over that comes from not being able to stop it before running again?

That way, we still have the original version (which I definitely agree works best), but we also get some form of the dynamic between Cass and Harper.

OK THIS IS NOT A FUCKING DRILL EVERYONE FUCKING REPEAT AFTER ME. THIS IS WHAT YOU WILL DO WHEN YOU WATCH MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL THIS YEAR:

You will navigate to the page on disney plus (and it has to be here. Unless someone has actually uploaded the REAL movie anywhere else you cannot get it elsewhere)

BUT YOU WILL NOT HIT PLAY. You won’t do it. Because it’s NOT THE REAL VERSION OF THE FILM AND DISNEY IS FUCKING LYING TO YOU AS IT ALWAYS DOES

You will scroll down HERE. To EXTRAS instead. You MUST GO HERE. This is non -negotiable

THEN YOU WILL SCROLL DOWN TO THE BOTTOM OF THE EXTRAS AND YOU WILL THEN HIT PLAY ON THIS BAD BOY: THE FULL LENGTH VERSION

And you will watch it. And you will thank me for having been so blind and led astray by that stupid fucking mouse. You’re welcome.

I'm gonna start a list of red flags for me when watching someone on Tumblr talk about Cassandra Cain. Here's what I got so far: -ballet is her one allocated personality trait -she loves her brothers so much -precious little angel whose never done anything wrong -post tagged with "Orphan" instead of Batgirl

May I also submit:

- uses sign language

There’s definitely more, but words cannot describe how much I hate the sign language thing. Not only does it only exist because of the misconception that she can’t speak (not helped by the goddamn Young Justice cartoon), but it also implies that sign language is “easier” than verbal language. So it’s ableist bullcrap on two fronts.