VOTE CASS GUYS!

Police officer A: “Hey, isn’t that kid over there registered in the system as missing?”

Police officer B: “Yeah, but we don’t try and catch him anymore because last time we tried to, he managed to bite a chunk out of another officer’s arm”

Police officer A: “What about that girl behind him? Isn’t she presumed dead? We should at least ask some questions”

Police officer C: “Last time we did that, she pulled a grenade out of nowhere”

Police officer A: “Jesus, well what about the boy with the crutch? Seems like he’s also gone missing from a foster home”

Police officer B: “Oh you don’t even want to know what happened when we tried to catch him”

Police officer C: “I’m not sure if it was even humanly possible”

Just learned that there is a Captain Marvel fan club community (I didn’t even know tumblr had something like that) and I’m freaking out

Billy, whose parents died from being crushed by rocks in a buried tomb, watching as the wizard is killed by a massive rock falling onto him: oh…

Counter take: Mary’s deadname is Billy and Billy’s deadname is Mary.

Like they both didn’t remember each other’s real name cause they used nicknames.

So the other’s real name always floated around in their head but they didn’t remember where they heard it. So they went “fuck it” and renamed themselves that.

new cap marvel take: Billy & Mary both trans. didn't recognise each other on being re-united bcos both had transitioned and changed their names.

Reblog if you think asexuality is a legitimate sexuality.

I'm trying to prove something.

You know the Billy Batson brain rot is strong when bully starts auto correcting to Billy

Idk about you, but it’s very important to me that Cassandra Cain has a scratchy and sore sounding voice paired with an accent that is completely unique.

Like, that girl was homeless and wandering the US for around 9 years! Pairing that with the fact she didn’t use her voice often/at all for the first 17 years of her life then of course her voice will sound weird from the disuse!

So with Cass going to her happy place (that is, Steph) one more time, and all the analysis around it right now, I thought it might also be good to talk about Steph's vision of Cass.

As far as I recall, it only happened once -- in Batgirl (2000) #26 -- and it was a very mixed portrayal. For context, I think it's important to remember that this is still very early in their relationship -- this is only the fourth interaction we've actually seen on-panel, in fact, and the first was barely an interaction at all.

And yet it seems that Steph has already embraced Cass in a way that Cass has not yet embraced Steph. In their third interaction, Cass has accidentally almost killed Shadow Thief, and Steph helps her resuscitate him and then immediately agrees not to tell Oracle about what happened. No reservation whatsoever -- a crying, guilty, terrified Cass doesn't even manage to find the words to ask exactly what she wants before Steph understands and gives it to her.

And here, in their fourth interaction, Cass doesn't even know it's occurring. She's recovering from her fight to the death with Shiva, and is asleep for the entirely of the issue. But Steph is extremely concerned about her (moreso than Babs, but to be fair to Babs, she has a lot more experience with how Cass is and is probably just relieved that she's actually resting), despite the fact that they really barely know each other at this point.

Steph goes out to fight Shiva's disciple in Cass's stead, because Cass is still indisposed. She's gung-ho at the start, but upon seeing her opponent, gets cold feet and starts to lose faith in herself. Here's where the Cass-vision starts.

Look at Imaginary Cass hyping her up. She's even smiling under the mask, which isn't something Steph has ever seen her do on-panel. Note how articulate Cass is. At this point in her development, Cass didn't communicate this way. She didn't use long sentences, smoothly strung together, with anyone, and she didn't use them with Steph in particular. In fact, here's the extent of what Cass has said to Steph directly on-panel so far, in their entire relationship: Become faster. Read it. (multiple times) No. (multiple times) When? Quiet. (multiple times) Go home. Then we wait. You take the train. I take the car. Kinsey is here. Get down. The money. Trade? Why? Let's go. Help me. And of course, the above interaction about Shadow Thief. Obviously, not only does Actual Cass have very little to say to Steph, she certainly doesn't have anything encouraging to say! She's outright dismissive of her, at best. And that's just how Cass is as this point in her development -- her speech abilities are still limited, her social development is stunted, and she's just not a cuddly person in general. Combat, and getting the job done, are of utmost importance to her. She's not intentionally cruel, she's just very blunt and calls it like she sees it, and she's like that with pretty much everyone. So we have Imaginary Cass, speaking and behaving in a very un-Cass-like manner... and Steph actually having a conversation with this imaginary Cass out loud. It's a little weird, but it's very in-character for Steph, who is extremely talkative and thrives on interaction. Babbling seems to be an anxiety response for her. She already has a tendency to narrate her own experiences via her diary, so I think it's not a stretch to say that she might try to talk through her own anxiety with herself by imagining that self-conversation being with Cass instead. This differs from Cass's hallucinations in that Steph isn't dead, dying, or drugged. She's wide awake, and she seems to know that Cass is imaginary, because she even recognizes the fact that Cass doesn't normally speak this way to her. Imaginary Cass is just a vehicle for expressing what she's trying to tell herself -- much like Steph will later be a vehicle for Cass to express her feelings to herself in Batgirl (2024) #5. But here we are later, when Steph begins to feel like she's failing:

Imaginary Cass turns disparaging, taunting her, saying all the things that Steph clearly feels about herself: she's not good enough, they were wrong to put their faith in her, she's failed, she's going to die, and worse -- other people are going to die because of her failure, too. (It's worth noting that, in retrospect, this ends up sounding like an entirely unintentional foreshadowing of War Games.) This makes Steph mad (seriously, look how angry her silly mask blob eyes are) and motivates her to ultimately win the battle. Steph gets a lot of motivation from spite, and in this case it's probably helpful that the disparagement is seeming to come from "someone else" (namely imaginary Cass) instead of from herself. It's easier to spite other people than to spite yourself. It's easier to be motivated to prove them wrong. Again, Cass is a vehicle for Steph's internal monologue -- it becomes a dialogue instead, in a way that is helpful to her in the end.

Then there's one more vision:

Look at Steph's face. Just for an instant, she's so happy. She clearly admires Cass, and has expressed it on multiple occasions ever since they met. She's in awe. And she desperately needs someone to believe in her, and be proud of her. If Batgirl, the girl who beat Lady Shiva, could be proud of her, then wouldn't that mean the world?

But it's not to be.

At least not yet.

Orphan breaks my heart because she has no swag. Like okay the big pants and the hood are fun and maybe they would work if she was like a solo hero in an action film but as an ensemble cast member she looks like Background Assassin #3. Even Tim’s “the Drake” persona looked like less of red shirt. She doesn’t even have a logo. Like Black Bat was stupid but it also served campy superhero vibes. And obviously nothing can beat Batgirl. Batgirl was so perfect because it was so clearly a derivative of Batman’s costume that showed her allegiance to him and marked her as a Gothamite even when working with other heroes but still had the unique full mask with the stitch mouth that made her easily recognizable and all together cuts a shadowy mysterious figure that is immediately visually interesting. Orphan gives me absolutely nothing. And the name sucks.