aingeal98

[aingeal98]

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami / Batman Allies Secret Files and Origins 2005 (BASFO) / Batgirl 2000 (BG00) #18 / BASFO / Sucession / BG00 #59 / I Don’t Smoke by Mitski / BG00 #59 / Succession / BG00 #59 / The Incest Diary by Anonymous / BASFO x2 / YOUR FATHER MY FATHER by Mal Fawzy / BG00 #58 / Beedzee on Pinterest (?) / BG00 #59

[aingeal98]

Animated the cover of Batgirl (2024) #5

[aingeal98]

Wait, wait. Cass washing up on Themyscira post Diana WW debut. So Hippolyta is just on the beach one day, looking longfully out into distance. and suddenly. Cass washes up and Hippolyta is just: Second/(third if Donna exists in this concept) daughter :)

Cass wakes up and finds herself surrounded by mysterious giant women in cosplay brandishing swords and initiates combat mode immediately. The amazons spend the next several days searching for her in the woods like the plot of First Blood. All the while Hippolyta's just like

"(nostalgiac sigh) just like her new big sister." "My queen you don't need to adopt her." "Nah I'm gonna."

[aingeal98]

I enjoyed Superman a lot and I thought the message and themes were solid but I can't respect James Gunn for the Israel vs Palestine allegory because every time it's mentioned he claims it wasn't intentional. I can however find it very funny that if he's telling the truth he accidentally made a much better political statement (and movie) than intended and if he's lying then it's also funny because it means he's too cowardly to stand by the real world implications of the movie and wants people to just enjoy it in an abstract sense meanwhile everyone comes out of the movie going "Wow that part where Dora the Explorer murdered Netanyahu was fucking awesome."

[aingeal98]

Dick's canonically supposed to be one of the like 5 people in the world total who can perform a quadruple flip. I put forward that this is the one and only thing Cass has never been able to match him on. She is very bitter, he is very smug and neither of them are especially mature about it.

[aingeal98]

Aos really did capture a part of my brain permanently because whenever a new mcu project comes out I immediately begin planning an aos post finale multiverse crossover starring Daisy and May ft Mack and Yoyo. Sousa and Kora are there too but they're mostly focused on taking care of the kids (enough time has passed Daisy and Sousa have kids now don't worry about it.) Coulson shows up for a cameo.

Wanda, Sam, Thunderbolts... I have 20 scenes of dialogue planned out between all of them and Daisy. If they ever go through with bringing her back I will be there with a script on hand.

[aingeal98]

As much as I don't want it to happen because my preferred future for Jon and Jay involves them somewhat reconciling and Jon coming around to Jay's more radical (and correct) hatred for the US government, there is something very appealing about the idea of Jay being Jon's one that got away. Them brushing up against each other in conflict over the years again and again but despite all of Jon's power he can never bring himself to fully stop Jay. Sometimes their battles end in angry kissing because the temptation is still there but neither of them are willing to take that step fully - Jon into the unknown and Jay back into the caged comfort. So they separate and run away and pretend nothing happened over and over again. Like Batman and Catwoman except instead of it being an enemies to lovers kink thing they're just deeply sad and yearning former lovers to enemies. Just the idea that Jon falls back into the status quo and gets comfortable enough to start forgetting Jay's reality but every time he does Jay pops up on his radar and the glaring hole that is both their breakup and the moral reasoning behind it is thrown in his face again. I want them to never be free I want them to haunt each other forever stuck in this holding pattern, resentment and longing both building as Jay tries to find new ways to shake up Jon's world and Jon keeps finding ways to stop him without actually letting anyone else know what's happening and it never feels satisfying or like he's saved the day but he can't bring himself to do anything else. And they kiss about it in a way that's lowkey attempted psychological warfare but also deeply genuine.

[aingeal98]

i’ve been thinking a lot about what is so unique and appealing about 80s robin jay’s moral standing that got completely lost in plot later on. and i think a huge part of it is that in a genre so focused on crime-fighting, his motivations and approach don’t focus on the category of crime at all. in fact, he doesn’t seem to believe in any moral dogma; and it’s not motivated by nihilism, but rather his open-heartedness and relational ethical outlook.

we first meet (post-crisis) jay when he is stealing. when confronted about his actions by bruce he’s confident that he didn’t do anything wrong – he’s not apologetic, he doesn’t seem to think that he has morally failed on any account. later on, when confronted by batman again, jay says that he’s no “crook.” at this point, the reader might assume that jay has no concept of wrong-doing, or that stealing is just not one of the deeds that he considers wrong-doing. yet, later on we see jay so intent on stopping ma gunn and her students, refusing to be implicit in their actions. there are, of course, lots of reasons for which we can assume he was against stealing in this specific instance (an authority figure being involved, the target, the motivations, the school itself being an abusive environment etc.), but what we gather is that jay has an extremely strong sense of justice and is committed to moral duty. that's all typical for characters in superhero comics, isn't it? however, what remains distinctive is that this moral duty is not dictated by any dogma – he trusts his moral instincts. this attitude – his distrust toward power structures, confidence in his moral compass, and situational approach, is something that is maintained throughout his robin run. it is also evident in how he evaluates other people – we never see him condemning his parents, for example, and that includes willis, who was a petty criminal. i think from there arises the potential for a rift between bruce and jay that could be, have jay lived, far more utilised in batman comics than it was within his short robin run.

after all, while bruce’s approach is often called a ‘philosophy of love and care,’ he doesn’t ascribe to the ethics of care [eoc] (as defined in modern scholarship btw) in the same way that jay does. ethics of care ‘deny that morality consists in obedience to a universal law’ and focus on the ideals of caring for other people and non-institutionalized justice. bruce, while obviously caring, is still bound by his belief in the legal system and deontological norms. he is benevolent, but he is also ultimately morally committed to the idea of a legal system and thus frames criminals as failing to meet these moral (legal-adjacent) standards (even when he recognizes it is a result of their circumstances). in other words, he might think that a criminal is a good person despite leading a life of crime. meanwhile, for jay there is no despite; jay doesn't think that engaging in crime says anything about a person's moral personality at all. morality, for him, is more of an emotional practice, grounded in empathy and the question of what he can do for people ‘here and now.’ he doesn’t ascribe to maxims nor utilitarian calculations. for jay, in morality, there’s no place for impartiality that bruce believes in; moral decisions are embedded within a net of interpersonal relationships and social structures that cannot be generalised like the law or even a “moral code” does it. it’s all about responsiveness. 

to sum up, jay's moral compass is relative and passionate in a way that doesn't fit batman's philosophy. this is mostly because bruce wants to avoid the sort of arbitrariness that seems to guide eoc. also, both for vigilantism, and jay, eoc poses a challenge in the sense that it doesn't create a certain 'intellectualised' distance from both the victims and the perpetrators; there's no proximity in the judgment; it's emotional.

all of this is of course hardly relevant post-2004. there might be minimal space for accommodating some of it within the canon progression (for example, the fact that eoc typically emphasises the responsibility that comes with pre-existing familial relationships and allows for prioritizing them, as well as the flexibility regarding moral deliberations), but the utilitarian framework and the question of stopping the crime vs controlling the underworld is not something that can be easily reconciled with jay’s previous lack of interest in labeling crime. 

[aingeal98]

lmao

[aingeal98]

i am a student in your atelier when it comes to Dick + Cass and Dick + Damian but now I must ask for your insights on Cass + Damian thank you

omg. sorry it took me 1 million years to get back to you on this but cass & damian are everything to me largely because they are tragic in a hilarious kind of way. i think you can kind of look at their relationship from two different angles: first from their gates of gotham era interactions if you’re going strictly canon and second from a nebulous ‘what if things happened different during that era and cass was around’ thought experiment. the second being infinitely more interesting to me personally

based on gates of gotham- which contains basically the only significant canon interactions between cass & damian EVEN all these years later- damian has a huge irrational grudge against cass because she brings out a lot of his insecurities. this is a damian that has been living this life for a while, been attempting to prove himself as robin for a while, and he just keeps meeting more people who prove that he doesn’t truly have a place in this family. his father trusted many people, from his perspective a bunch of misfit undeserving weirdos, and all of these random oddballs had that trust and connection and relationship with bruce that damian was never allowed and now will never get to have. it’s just another painful reminder that he’s different. especially the fact that cass is like him in a lot of ways: raised to be an assassin, a killer, someone who was forced to find redemption. but now cass fits easily into this tapestry of allies, has no qualms about her place, and is obviously trusted and valued and loved as family: whereas everyone is still incredibly skeptical and wary (even hostile) towards damian. that manifests as hostility and even standoffishness towards cass.

i like this take a lot and i think it makes sense but i also think the story is a little different when you center cass instead of damian, and when you shift canon to pretend that cass wasn’t shunted out of the story during the reborn era (see tbba blah blah.) i think if cass had been a permanent fixture in damian’s life from the time he’d arrived- like dick was- then he would think differently. instead of being just another outsider she’s a constant pillar of his life that he’s used to at this point & one that isnt going away. i think a damian who is freshly stuck in a completely unfamiliar place with a newly dead father and absolutely no one in his corner would see cass as an ally instead of a rival. i think in a world (the gotham vigilante scene) that is constantly judging him for his morals and his worldview and his status as robin, damian would subconsciously peg cass as someone who understands and could sympathize with him. i think he could also see her as a way to feel closer to bruce, who he never was very close to.

unfortunately things get messy because cass initially has absolutely NO interest in being damian’s ally, and is much more interested in using him to fuel her own self loathing. firstly, cass is not a nice person; although incredibly kind she has no use for politeness. she has no trouble being cold to damian in a way that wouldnt sit right with dick or even tim. damian, as bruce’s son, is just a constant reminder that bruce is dead which hurts cass very deeply. damian is also very similar to a younger cass. like i said, they were both raised to be killers. damian has killed, and hasnt done enough personal growth to feel a crushing amount of guilt and self loathing about it yet. to cass, damian is who she could have been if she hadn’t walked away. if she hadn’t run after that first murder, if she hadn’t felt that visceral horror. and that terrifies her. she can’t stop seeing herself when she looks at damian, which makes it very very hard for her to be objective about him in any way. she doesn’t trust him, she doesn’t like him, she refuses to take him as her robin. this results in a hilarious scenario in which cass is a complete bitch to a ten year old for reasons other people can’t fathom. and damian reaches for her and won’t stop reaching for her because he equates her approval with his father’s, and also because he thinks she understands him at his core. cass just keeps pushing him away until she finally snaps and can see damian for who he is instead of just seeing her younger self.

ultimately cass & damian are mirrors of each other in a different way to cass & dick. theyre both their father’s children, though one is by blood and never knew him and one isnt his blood and did know him. they’re both children who were raised to be killers who grew to be people who value life above all else. theyre both people who carry a lot of guilt for their pasts and will never quite let go of that shame. and they are both people who refuse to make themselves palatable to others or to change themselves in any way to seem better. theyre weird and prickly and grumpy and angry and not sociable and that’s just the way they are. i think whichever way you look at it, their relationship starts out very rocky but after several near-death experiences and emotional breakthroughs they work their way towards a very meaningful siblinghood. In which they still make fun of each other endlessly and get to be weirdos together

[aingeal98]

I need the mcfarlane cass figure PLEASE

[aingeal98]

@stephweek day 1: Identity

The Spoiler, The Girl Wonder, The Batgirl and many more <3

[aingeal98]

OUFFDRDFFFFFF THAT VIDEO. IM SO SAD THEY NEVER GAVE CASS AND BRUCE A TRUE CONFRONTATION ABOUT HER FIRST KILL.

Cass artists are so talented every time someone makes a video about Cass and Bruce and David my heart simultaneously breaks into a million pieces and sings with joy.

But god yeah the lack of a confrontation and how Bruce's denial can be used to factor in how he treats Cass during the Bad Era... A direct confrontation would have been so juicy but I can work with the angst from a choppy patchwork of canon writers like the push and pull mutual pedestals they struggle to let go of dynamic they crafted mostly by accident... Delicious

[aingeal98]

Like mother, like son.

got out of my artblock with a little talia + damian doodle ;)

[aingeal98]

I don’t know if this has been asked yet, but for the cass joins early au, what do you think her vigilante name would be (if Bruce lets her be a vigilante which let’s be honest he probably will)

Ooh good question! I've been picturing her joining at like 10 years old or so in this au which would make Dick Robin and Babs Batgirl and both of them not at the point of moving roles yet. I don't think Cass would give two seconds thought to creating a codename like the best we've seen her do in canon is Black Bat. But Dick and Babs would probably have so much fun brainstorming names like does she want to be Batkid? Little Bat? Baby bat? Shadowbat? Just Shadow? Just Bat? No idea what they'd land on but I know the debate would be passionate with Bruce secretly invested but pretending he's not.

It would be very funny if we went with Dick's original arc where he willingly gives up Robin but this time he's thinking about it before Jason even comes along because Cass is right there for several years reminding him that he's not a kid anymore he's growing up and becoming his own man and maybe Robin needs a new look and gender. He comes back to Gotham after a long mission with the Titans and is like hey Babs I've been thinking a lot about mantles and legacies and when it's time to move on to a new chapter and she's like omg me too that's why I asked Cass if she wanted to be Batgirl yesterday! And Dick is like. What.

It all works out in the end Jason comes along Dick gets to hand the Robin legacy over to a younger sibling and he knows how much Babs means to Cass so he's only a teeny tiny bit salty. Just a tad. He wasn't around all the time sure but that's his sister and he had a really lovely emotional speech prepared referencing all the storybooks he read to her when she first joined the family including that of Robin Hood. But Batgirl is great too. Cass is thriving in the role. Maybe in like 20 years he'll get to rework that speech when she finally becomes Batman.

But yeah if anyone has any ideas for original vigilante names for Cass before she becomes Batgirl please do share because names are not my strong suit the best I've got is shadowbat as a nod to the character that inspired og batman.

[aingeal98]

I won't lie Jay and jon breaking up feels like equality to me one of my favourite things about comics is the big break-ups and random pairings and it always feels like writers are a wee bit scared to do that with queer couples for obvious reasons so seeing jon and Jay split it feels right

[aingeal98]

Cassandra Cain and the use of ASL in this Fandom

Let's talk about Cassandra Cain and how this fandom constantly portrays her as using American Sign Language (ASL) as her primary form of communication. It is an inherently disrespectful and ableist portrayal, both of ASL as a language (and all sign languages in general) and Cass' actual disability. Additionally, as I will argue at the end of this essay (once we get through the explanation on the disrespectfulness) , I believe ASL would actually be HARDER for her to learn than English specifically because of the exact body language that many members of the fandom refer to when saying Cass should use ASL.

First off, before we begin, my qualifications to be discussing this topic: I'm Deaf. ASL is one of my two first languages (the other being English) and I regularly communicate in it with my family, my deaf/HOH friends, and people around me. I’m also the leader of an ASL interest group at my university and through it have been teaching other students on campus basic ASL for the past 3 years. I have also read a significant number of Cass' important appearances, including her first appearances in No Man's Land, all of Batgirl (2000) and the current Batgirl (2024) ongoing. I unfortunately have not read Batgirls (2022-23) yet, and I've been avoiding most of the New52 due to just not liking the majority of that era in general. That era in general though is really OOC, so most of its characterization choices shouldn’t be trusted anyway.

Let's get into this.

Part 1: Brief Info on ASL

So, in order to understand this argument, there's some things you need to understand about ASL itself just to get us all on an even playing field for this essay. If you already know a ton about ASL, feel free to skip this section.

Let's clarify what exactly ASL is first. "American Sign Language (ASL) is a visual language. With signing, the brain processes linguistic information through the eyes. The shape, placement, and movement of the hands, as well as facial expressions and body movements, all play important parts in conveying information." (National Association of the Deaf, NAD) This is the primary language of the Deaf community in the United States of America, and some parts of Canada, but not worldwide. Every region and Deaf community has its own sign language, from British Sign Language (BSL) and Chinese Sign Language (CSL/ZGS) which are huge sign languages used by massive Deaf communities in their respective regions, to the sign languages developed by individual villages and local communities such as Bouakako Sign Language or Kaʼapor Sign Language which are both localized to individual villages with a fairly high rate of Deaf people being born. So ASL is very far from universal.

ASL (along with the rest of these sign languages, but from here on out I'll refer solely to ASL), is also a full visual language. It has it's own sentence structure, grammar, transcription methods, rules, everything. It incorporates both manual components (specific shapes and movements made with your hands that are called signs) and nonmanual markers (facial expressions, head positions, posture, shoulder raising, and so on) that are regulated by the grammatical rules of the language and MUST be followed for things to make sense. For example, the signs HERE and NOT-HERE have the exact same hand shape and movement, but are differentiated between based on the movement of the head. When signing NOT-HERE, you shake your head. Similarly, LATE and NOT-YET have the same handshape again, but are differentiated between via your mouth. Properly signing NOT-YET includes slightly opening your mouth and touching your bottom lip with your tongue. This is a nonmanual marker that indicates the difference between the two. All of these are ESSENTIAL to properly understanding the language.

Additionally, ASL also has its own grammar, just like every language. Grammar just generally means the set of rules for using a language (so including the manual and nonmanual markers I just explained). What I’d like to concentrate on here is sentence structure.

If you’ve ever taken a very basic ASL course, you might have had a teacher tell you that all ASL is done in object-subject-verb (OSV) format. This is where the widespread idea of STORE-I-GO comes from. But that’s wrong. Most ASL is in subject-verb-object (SVO). I’m not going to get into all of the details on OSV vs SVO and the intricacies behind when you use one vs the other, and the difference between the actual overarching sentence structure of ASL, topic-comment, vs another structure that’s sometimes used, topicalization. If you’d like to dive into that, you can start a bit with this webpage, put together as part of the online ASL University run by Bill Vicars, a well-respected Deaf ASL instructor and content creator.

What I do what you to understand and focus on is the fact that there are rules behind when you use SVO vs OSV, and topic-comment vs topicalization. For example, SVO is used for the active voice while OSV is the passive voice (this is topic-comment). These are grammar rules, just like any other language has. Ignoring them is just like completely switching around the order of words in any English sentence. It would be ridiculous and seem like nonsense.

Finally, before we get into Cass herself, let’s discuss body language in ASL. This ties directly into my previously mentioned nonmanual markers and grammatical rules. Those nonmanual markers are governed by grammatical rules as well, and are a KEY part of ASL. They HAVE to be followed. There are two examples of this that I’d like to focus on: questions and spatial referencing.

For questions, there's two strict rules. Yes/No questions (Can I take this? Do you know where Tom is? etc) must be accompanied by raised eyebrows. A raised eyebrow indicates that this question can be answered with just yes or no. Wh- questions (Where are you? Why did you do that? What's that? etc) must have the eyebrows furrowed. These are examples of the nonmanual markers I mentioned before, and REQUIRED.

Spatial referencing is when you establish something to refer to in space. Here's a video explaining it a bit more in detail, but essentially, if I know I'll be referring back to a person or a place often when I'm having a conversation, I can metaphorically place them at a location withing my signing space and point back to that location whenever I mention them. That way, I don't have to fingerspell their name, use their signname, or however I would refer to them over and over again. For example, if I'm discussing my friend Ryan, I can fingerspell his name, point just to my left, and establish him there. Then, whenever I need to mention Ryan again in that conversation, I can point back to that location and avoid the lengthy fingerspelling process.

Alright, so those are some basics on ASL and a few specific ideas I'll be referring back to later. Let's get into Cass herself now.

Part 2: Cassandra Cain and her Disability

Cass was raised by her father, David Cain, in total isolation from any form of language, including written and signed. She was also abused and brutally trained by him in order to become the best assassin in the world. Because of these factors, her first language was body language. Cass essentially reads a person's unconscious movements and interprets them into an understanding of what they're going to do.

(Batgirl 2000, #1)

There's not a direct way to translate or truly understand this process though. It's not like she sees a movement and thinks they're going to kick me (at least not before the magic language meta touch, which if you haven't read Batgirl 2000 I'll explain in a minute). She just knows and can react.

(Batgirl 2000, #7)

The important thing to note about this is that she's reading a person's unconscious movements, the things they don't think about or instinctively do. This ranges from things as simple as my tendency to tilt my head slightly when I'm thinking hard, to Batman straightening his spine minutely as he makes the decision to attack someone. These are unconscious movements.

What's also important to mention is that the way Cass grew up physically changed her brain. Her brain is literally structured differently than the average human brain. This is what her disability is: a difficulty learning languages due to an actual physical difference in how her brain is set up. Her language centers are scattered across her brain, rather than concentrated like usual. This is a direct result of her growing up without any language other than body language, which doesn't have any form of direct translation.

(Batgirl 2000, #67)

In fact, this disconnect between Cass' brain and language is so severe that her learning English in the first place requires a deus ex machina. In Batgirl (2000) #4, Cass rescues a telepathic metahuman from being captured and taken back to the lab that experimented on him and gave him telepathic abilities in the first place. After she does this, he tries to thank her, only to realize she can't understand him. So he literally touches her forehead and restructures her entire brain, giving her an innate understanding of English.

(Batgirl 2000, #4)

Now, Cass can understand and process English. She knows what various English words mean. However, she still can't speak it, and learning how to do more than say a single word at a time, and how to form proper sentence structure is an arc that takes up the entire rest of the Batgirl 2000 ongoing.

(Batgirl 2000, #5)

However, as Cass soon realizes, this transformation comes with a cost. She can no longer understand people's body language. Her understanding of English is physically preventing her brain from working how it did before, to process body language.

(Batgirl 2000, #5)

Cass is willing to give up this new understanding of English to go back to how she used to be before. But, when she finds the telepath again and confronts him, he can't undo what he's done.

(Batgirl 2000, #5)

This does lead to Cass finding Lady Shiva and bargaining with her to be taught how to read body language again, in exchange for dueling to the death with her in a year. That's where the "mediocre for a lifetime, or perfect for a year?" panel comes from. But the details of that aren't super important to our discussion, just know that Cass does relearn the body language reading, just to a slightly lesser degree of proficiency than before.

The important thing to get from this is that Cass' brain is fundamentally structured so differently from most brains that her even beginning to learn English, her physically having the ability to start understanding any language, requires a full on deus ex machina from the writers. She couldn't have learned any language otherwise, and she still has to struggle through learning to speak, then eventually read and write. Even by close to the end of Batgirl (2000), she still hasn't learned to read or write.

(Batgirl 2000, #54)

So Cass' disability isn't as simple as "didn't learn a language other than body language and now needs to learn." She straight up struggles to comprehend things like the concept of grammar, sentence structure, and even that there are meanings behind specific collections of letters without a fulll on deus ex machina. Her brain is physically built differently.

Alright, now let's talk about Cass and ASL together.

Part 3: Cass and ASL

Okay, now onto the real topic of this whole thing. Should Cass learn ASL before English, and would it be easier for her?

Simple answer: No.

As I mentioned before, ASL wouldn't be any easier than English for her, and saying that disrespects both ASL and Cass' own disability. When people tend to write Cass using ASL instead of English, or having learned ASL before learning English, the primary reason given is that ASL is just "easier" for her to learn.

There's two main issues with this: grammar rules, and body language.

As I've mentioned and explained some of the basics of previously, ASL is a full language. This means it has its own grammar, sentence structure, rules, everything. As I also previously explained, Cass' brain is literally built different. She struggles to understand even basics concepts of grammar rules and how a language works, because she's never been exposed to anything like that. Saying that ASL would be an easier language for her to learn than English is just as problematic and harmful as saying any other spoken language, such as Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Mandarin (we'll ignore the incredibly racist writing of One Year Later right now), or any others would be easier for her to learn. It fundamentally ignores that every language has its own complexities and difficulties with grammar rules. It also ignores that Cass's difficulty lies primarily not with speaking, but with understanding how to convey things in a proper format and structure. Any language, spoken, signed, and written, will all have those same difficulties. Saying that one language is easier than the others for Cass to learn, despite her struggles lying with the concept of language and its rules in general and is disrespectful of that language, implies that it isn't a "real" language (which ASL and other sign languages, in particular, have a very long history with. ASL wasn't actually recognized as a language until the 60s).

But, aside from the grammar issues, let's tackle the main reason most fans seem to believe ASL would be easier for Cass to learn: body language. It is true that ASL uses a lot of body language when signing. However, as I previously described with nonmanual markers, the difference between yes/no and wh- questions, and establishing a signing space, that body language is heavily regulated. There's rules behind what certain movements mean, and those rules are very important. There's a HUGE impact in what facial expressions you use, how your mouth moves, and even what way you're facing. When you sign, you have to consciously (or sometimes unconsciously if you're good enough) think about the proper way to move your body in order to convey what you mean. Cass, as I explained before, specifically reads unconscious body movements. She reads the things you're not thinking about, like how you scrunch in slightly when you're cold, shift your legs when you're uncomfortable, or your eye twitches when it's strained due to lack of sleep. That's what she understands, and its EXTREMELY different from the regulated, purposeful movements of ASL. There's a huge gap between the two, and to say that Cass would just understand the nonmanual markers associated with signing because she can understand unconscious movements ignores all of the rules and specifics that go into ASL nonmanual markers.

So no, ASL wouldn't be any easier for Cass to learn than English, and stating so heavily disrespects ASL (because it ignores all of the complexities that go into the language), and Cass' own disability (because it ignores exactly what she struggles with).

In fact, as I mentioned way earlier (congrats if you've made it this far! PLEASE PLEASE let me know what you think! I'd love to discuss this!), I would actually argue that Cass would have a harder time learning ASL than English.

Part 4: Cass Struggling with ASL

This part is solely my own opinion, but let's get into it. This idea centers around the same nonmanual markers I've mentioned a bunch before. Like I explained, they're purposeful. They have rules behind them. They're fundamentally different from the unconscious body language Cass is used to reading.

I think that fundamental difference between the two would be a barrier for Cass. With a nonmanual marker, she might automatically be trying to apply her understanding of unconscious body language to a conscious nonmanual marker and get two conflicting ideas out of them. Like, let's go back to the idea of setting things up in space.

In order to reference back to something you've set up in space, you typically point at the location you've established. Here, the point specifically means you're referring back to whatever the thing is. Nothing else. However, typically when people are speaking to each other, pointing or shifting your body away from the person you're speaking to can mean anything from you're trying to get attention off of yourself, or you're interested in something else.

I think that for Cass, when she's starting out with learning languages and still struggling to understand some of the stricter grammar rules in language in general, these two things might conflict and make ASL hard for her.

Do I think this means she can never learn ASL? No! Absolutely not! She can 100% learn ASL! Anyone can!

I just think that her learning ASL specifically in the beginning wouldn't go very well. But, of course, that's just my opinion.

Part 5: Final Notes

I'd like to state, for the record, that I'm not saying everyone who has ever said Cass should primarily use ASL is ableist and awful. I'm not, not in the slightest. I'm just trying to bring some of this stuff to people's attention and teach people why I, personally, think that portraying Cass as someone who only uses ASL because it's easier is harmful. This is me educating, not accusing. Please don't attack me. I also know that a lot of these issues are due to just not knowing, and aren't purposeful on the part of the fans.

Let's also go over a few things I think people might ask.

I've seen Cass use signs in the comics.

No, actually! Cass sometimes uses hand gestures, but they are not the same thing.

(Batgirl 2000, #2 & #3)

(Detective Comics #734)

She will use basic gestures to represent things (particularly early on in her appearances, with the first two being from Batgirl 2000 before the magic metahuman touch and the third being from her second ever comic appearance during No Man's Land), not actual signs. This is akin to the difference between doing a thumbs up/down, and actually signing yes/no. So no, she doesn't sign.

2. Cass signs in Young Justice though?

The Young Justice TV isn't canon, and is already extremely different from the comics. In Young Justice, Lady Shiva severed her vocal cords as a child, instead of David Cain raising her in isolation, so also completely different backstories. She literally can't speak there, and doesn't seem to have the same language disability with her brain being built different as in the comics. I'm talking about canon Cass here, the Cass raised to be an assassin by her father.

3. But what about her being a good reason for the Bats to know ASL for my story?

She's not. There's plenty of other reasons the Bats might learn to sign, and I really think they should know ASL! It would be a good way for them to communicate in situations where they need to be silent, and it'd let them communicate with more people and in particular any ASL users in Gotham in an emergency (the same reason they learn so many spoken languages). Dick, in particular, also has a completely different reason: Joey Wilson, aka Jericho, the son of Deathstroke.

(New Teen Titans: The Judas Contract)

Joey is one of the Teen Titans, from Dick's early Nightwing era, and canonically mute after his throat was slit when he was kidnapped as a child. Joey, after the events of Judas Contract, joins the team and becomes a full member of the Teen Titans, being a regularly appearing character in subsequent issues. Dick, because of this, learns more ASL and becomes fluent.

(Also notice the line Dick says in the second image, stating that Batman has previously tried to teach him ASL. The Bats in general, not just Dick, are already thinking about ASL and learning it before Cass is introduced).

4. What if I HC Cass as Deaf?

That's an entirely different story, and just like with YJTV, isn't in the canon comics at all. I'm specifically speaking about canon Cass here. My only thing to say about that is this: why do you HC her as Deaf? If it's solely for angst purposes, I'd tell you to look up the term inspiration porn. (That's an entirely separate rant that I may give someday, but not right now). If it's specifically to justify her using ASL, then think about that justification in relation to this post. Otherwise, have fun? I'm not going to police your HC.

Alright, that's everything now. If you have any other questions, or want to talk about this at all, then please do! I would LOVE to discuss this further. This post may seem pretty long, but it's a product of my longtime frustration with the way Cass and ASL are commonly portrayed in posts and fics. Often, it's bad enough that I'll just close out of things entirely and go rant to some of my friends. They've heard this rant multiple times now. Please, just consider what I've said here.

Finally, I am, of course, not the final jury and judge on Cassandra Cain and ASL. There may be other people who are Deaf/HOH or intimately familiar with ASL (as in, more than just a couple of semesters of an introductory ASL course. Please, please, please never portray yourself as an expert on ASL if you've only just started to learn the language and have never gotten directly involved with Deaf culture) who disagree with me. That's perfectly fine, and I'd LOVE to hear their opinions, or the opinions of anyone more familiar with Cass' own language learning disability (which I don't have any form of). This is all strictly my thoughts on Cass and ASL, and why I think it's disrespectful to portray her like this.

Thank you all for reading, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this essay. Have a wonderful day!

Edit, as of ~1 hour after posting this:

I completely forgot to include my 5th little bullet point thing at the end! It was in my head and everything, and I was so determined to remember to include it! 100% my bad oops. Anyway, here it is.

5. What about if she experiences some sort of traumatic event and goes nonverbal for a bit?

That's a caveat to this whole post, and SUPER valid. Plenty of people will go nonverbal sometimes, whether it's because of a traumatic event or stressful situation or anything. There's tons of causes for it, and a lot of those people will use some form of sign language to communicate while they feel they can't speak. This post is not saying that writing Cass (or any other character too) as unable to speak sometimes in those sort of situations and choosing to use sign language is wrong.

What I'm primarily writing about here is when Cass is portrayed as either only using ASL all the time and not speaking at all, or when she still speaks in stilted, clipped or misarranged sentences for a bit before getting frustrated and switching to using ASL and suddenly being able to convey exactly what she wants with proper grammar. Those are very different situations from temporarily using ASL in response to some sort of event. They're also the situations that frustrate me the most and feel the most ableist. I'm not attacking the idea of characters going nonverbal for a bit at all.