Yippeee!!

Stephcass is a good ship bc on one hand you have a girl who was suicidal since the tender age of 8 and on the other hand who have a girl who won't be suicidal out of pure spite

WFA Duke edits with things I think he should have said!!! BIG thank you to @stephexmachina for helping edit these 💖💖💖💖.

Batman dog owner vs Superman cat owner

Bruce would adopt it

Selina would openly let Bruce adopt it because she thinks it’s a lil funny

Dick would play games with it but might play games that are not in any child’s skill set, cause he could do entire circus routines and etc at that age

Jason would be decent but then leave it alone in a room with MULTIPLE hazards (open windows on second story, stuff cooking on the stove, etc) even if just for a second

Tim would full on forget it was there at times while he got absorbed in cases and then look up to see the child has either hurt itself accidentally or has eaten every single sugary thing in sight and has thrown up.

Steph would adore it but she would forget what things children couldn’t do. Like she would forget it’s a child and ask it to make dinner cause “I did it yesterday and it’s your turn now” so she would forget it’s not just her roommate.

Cass would absolutely love it to bits, but she obviously has no idea what exactly children could do (like Steph or Dick) because she was such an unusual child. So she would let it basically do whatever it wanted as long as it didn’t hurt itself too bad (letting it eat so much sugar, staying up SUPER late, etc)

Damian would drop kick that mf

I took out Barbara and Alfred because they're too obvious.

The fact that cluemaster was created before babs is crazy to me

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.

Autism: Bruce Wayne, Damian Wayne/Al Ghul, Cassandra Cain.

OCD: Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake.

ADHD: Stephanie Brown, Dick Grayson.

Neurotypical: Alfred Pennyworth.

None of the above: Jason Todd, Duke Thomas.

Mum, come pick me up, I’m scared

Duke the Thomas ever 💛🩷💛🩷💛

what I was referencing:

Concept: an episode of the Justice League cartoon where the MCs get sucked into a 90s teen movie… powers get reset to when they were that age.