#anybody who puts him on the bottom just doesn't want to admit that steph or damian is actually the one down there

[soleminisanction]

I don't know if you've touched on this but do you have any analysis that might explain why so many people think Cass is the "favorite" child? I've been seeing so many tweets and tiktoks about it (along with people pointedly snubbing Tim and saying he's the least favorite for whatever reason) and I'm not sure if it s joke because aside from the whole 'she's the only girl' explanation I don't think Bruce has ever expressed any sort of personal interest in Cass. He respects her fighting abilities and staunch no-killing morals but when she was mind-controlled by Deathstroke he turned on her pretty quick (so did Dick I think?). Not even considering the possibility that she was acting out of character and I'm pretty sure Tim was the only one defending her and pointing out that something was off. It was just interesting to me to see so many people thinking they were significantly closer than I believe is supported by canon and I was just wondering if I have missed something or just completely misread their relationship because Bruce does not seem all that close to Cass for her to even be considered in the running for "favorite child".

Twitter was the Bad Place long before Muskrat bought it and the only TikTok opinions I've ever heard that had any basis in canon reality came from PandaRedd, and I don't even know if he's still posting, I haven't heard from him in a while. So I have no idea what they're saying over there and quite frankly I don't want to think about it.

That said, the idea that Cass is Bruce's "favorite" is fairly common around fandom. For the most part I do think her being the only girl and fandom's knee-jerk tendency to make women perfect angels with no flaws whom everyone loves and adores out of a misplaced belief that doing so is the height of feminism plays a big part in that, buuuut I am also very much of the opinion that even the most out-there fandom misinterpretations almost certainly have their seeds somewhere in canon.

So I'd say -- mostly just based on gut instinct -- that some of it probably also stems from the connection mentioned in my last reblog. The fact that Bruce and Cass are so in-sync when it comes to The Mission and that said Mission is so fundamentally important to both of them, means it's not unreasonable to see how and why he'd favor her. I've heard Cass's Batgirl described as "the embodiment of everything good Batman was supposed to be," and you can see how people would extrapolate out from that to her being especially important to Bruce as a result.

All that on the table though, I don't think it's true. I don't actually think Bruce has a "favorite," I think he genuine does value all of his proteges for their unique strengths, worries over their unique struggles and is proud of the unique people they've become without feeling the need to rank them against each other.

But if he did have one? There's no contest in my mind -- it has to be Dick. They have the longest and most complex relationship. They're partners, brothers, mentor and student, father and son, master and disciple, sage and scholar -- they're soulmates, in the truest sense of the word. Nightwing is better than Batman, better than anything Bruce ever dreamed Batman could be, capable of doing more good for more people. Dick is his pride and joy, the best thing Bruce has ever done, the solid, tangible proof that, if nothing else, he could make the world better for one scared little boy who'd lost his parents.

Cass would definitely be up there in the rankings (probably jostling for position alongside Duke and Tim) but there's really no contest for first place.