#without babs without any of them (except arguably shiva) NONE of them work

[casscainmainly]

See the early Cass parental square was so good because they ALL paralleled and bounced off each other. Bruce and David both deeply love Cass but project onto her and make her out to be 'perfect'; Babs and Bruce both want what's best for Cass and despise what David did to her, but their ideas of 'what's best' differ widely; Babs and Shiva are both mother figures who prioritise Cass having choices, but Babs goes about it in an overtly loving (and meddling) way while Shiva is more distant emotionally and in the ways she helps; Bruce and Shiva both understand Cass the most, but the way Bruce helps (giving Cass a Bat symbol and a path) is in opposition to Shiva (giving Cass freedom/choice); David and Shiva are both Cass' biological parents, but David was terribly present while Shiva was absent; Babs and David both love Cass in ways that don't fully understand her, but Babs learns from her mistakes while David is unable to. Their relationships to Cass are connected because a lot of them deliberately differentiate themselves from one another (Babs and Bruce from David; David from Bruce; Shiva from Bruce and David; Babs and Bruce from each other). Any of these relationships in isolation misses the point to me, because none of them exist without the context of the others.