head holidays

sophie // she/her // slytherin

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ok don’t get me wrong I love Cass Cain. ok? badass queen. BUT. we have got to stop writing her as if she is a perfect human who can sense everything about everyone and defeat everyone in a fight in two seconds. sure, she went through some pretty hardcore (understatement) training. but she didn’t go through everything, and just because she’s skilled doesn’t mean she’s the best.

also: body language doesn’t tell you everything, especially in a family expertly trained to hide their tells and lie like it’s a second skin. Cass can’t realistically tell everything about a person out of one statement—she can use body language to her advantage during fights on patrol and when dealing with people on the street (even rogues). but it’s going to be significantly harder for her to do so with the bats.

plus, she’s human. why are we treating her like a goddess? to me, that takes away all of her actual character and gives her the “strong female hero” stereotype where the girls are oh so much better than the guys and so much more responsible and scary. like, yes, power to women, but don’t give your character power BECAUSE she’s a woman.

spars against batfam members are going to be more difficult than pursuing thugs or even other warriors. they’ve been trained with all of this in mind and from an incredibly diverse pool of teachers. it’s not going to be a cakewalk just because she’s Cass.

EDIT: just to clarify, ik Cass is strong as all hell!!! like she can solo humanity if she wants to. all I mean is that a lot of characterization of her I see makes that strength her only characteristic and severely overinflate it to transfer into every member of the family is ‘scared’ of her. I feel like it removes so much of the complexity of her character- she has been shown to hesitate and make mistakes! I absolutely adore Cass and she is without a doubt one of the strongest characters in the DCU! just meant I didn’t want her strength to overtake everything else I love about her 💜 (and this is also just my opinion 😅)

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Little wip 👀

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As someone with a large amount of siblings, I strongly urge you to do your research before writing a child character. Here are some helpful tips:

-Assuming there is no speech impediment, 5 years old is about the time when children will stop saying “w” sounds instead of “r” or “l” (same with “d” instead of “th”).

-Kids don’t say things like “huggie” when referring to hugs, and if they do, that usually stops around age 2-3. There’s a point where it makes the reader cringe—kids may be small, but they repeat the language taught to them. They don’t make up random “ie”s at the end of words.

-Similarly, not every kid reverts to nicknames for people/siblings. For instance, if an older sibling is named Grace, a younger sibling wouldn’t automatically call her Gracie. Again, kids repeat what they hear. If an older brother is called Jason, Jay wouldn’t be a go-to for a kid who can string together words and sentences. A kid would call him Jay if the kid was 2-3 years old or younger, simply because that sound with its single syllable is easier to make with a tongue/mouth that hasn’t had a lot of practice.

-Kids DO have social cues. It may go over their heads sometimes, but kids can pick things like tension and sadness up from a young age. They also may not rush to reassure someone who is sad, instead giving them space or being to confused/lost/scared to make a move. We don’t lose a willingness to help as we grow up, so there’s no reason a kid should have all the answers.

-I’m going to sound a little contradictory here, but kids also don’t understand some simple/nuanced things like we do. If an older character is trying to hide pain or sadness, it is likely that a kid would not know. They haven’t learned to pick up on slight furrows in the brow or minute changes in demeanor—young people take most things at face value, unless it’s clearly sarcastic.

-People don’t magically lose innocence overnight. Kids can understand hardship and not be completely clueless—things like death, money, and hate are usually explained and understood.

Yes, every kid is different. These rules may not all apply to the type of kid character you are writing. But I’m begging you to not have an 8 year old character behave like someone 5 years younger than they should be.

[oversteeping-tea]

was scrolling through my notes and found this planning piece from chapter three of one of my fics lmao. I think this was supposed to be for chapter three, during Tim and Damian’s partial reconciliation.

if you want to read the fic, here’s the link! I swear it’s better than these snippets 😅

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[oversteeping-tea]

y'know the grandfather clock that leads to the batcave? well can someone please tell me why I only just figured out it’s in Bruce’s study???

I thought it was in the kitchen. looking back on it that is so stupid of me but I am so in shock right now

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my brother just came out as bisexual. this is great except now i lose the family bet.

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happy pride from some of the Batfamily :)

the more unfinished they look, the more frustrated I was with drawing them. I was gonna make it look better but sometimes self care means stopping before you hate it beyond the point of no return.

sorry to all the stephcass shippers :/ just friendly headcannons though so you do you

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Why are people writing Tim Drake as this cool bad boy who everyone is somewhat afraid of I mean this nerd held an assembly to advocate for DARE. He spent too much time alone as a kid and has the fashion sense to prove it. I say this with love, Tim, but you are a geek

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Dick and Kori!

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Ok so this is supposed to be about when Tim’s friends/family are dead/assumed to be dead… how do we feel

(from top left: bart, janet, bruce, stephanie, kon)