Language is a River

I was trying to write some fic and started saving a bunch of comic panels to analyze Cass’s speech patterns, so here’s my notes for myself and others! Most of the panels are taken from more recent stuff, like Birds of Prey (2023), Batgirls (2022) and Batgirl (2024).

I have nine points:

Only speaking when necessary

Typically monotone

Sentence Structure

On the job vs off the job

Slang

Facial Expressions and Body Language

Miscellaneous

My personal headcanons (still with some evidence)

I've also been forced to split this post up, since I can't add more than ten images per post :(

1: Only speaking when necessary

Unsurprisingly, Cass doesn’t talk much. This is especially true in group situations, since she doesn’t need to drive any conversation.

[Birds of Prey, Issue #2: Zannah and Black Canary are discussing plans, going back and forth about how to get onto Themyscira. Cass adds “or they’ll be on high alert.”]

The panel above is from a scene showing the Birds strategizing, and this is the only time Cass talks. She’s silent the rest of the time.

For one-on-one situations, she still doesn’t expand much, preferring single-word sentences.

[Batgirl (2024), Issue #2: Lady Shiva dropping some exposition, and Cass asking a question with one word.]

In tense situations, she can forget to speak ‘properly’, dropping words like ‘I’ll’ in the panel below:

[Batgirl (2024), Issue #2: Cass fights Kalden the Unseen after he hurts her friend.]

Also, she’ll talk more casually with people she’s comfortable with, like Steph!

[Batgirls, Issue #4: Cass and Steph banter a bit before being interrupted by Barbara.]

2: Typically monotone

Cass sounds very monotone, a lot of the time. She barely ends her sentences with exclamation marks or asks rhetorical questions. It’s fun to see her contrast her with characters who are more excitable/long-winded!

[Birds of Prey, Issue #7: Cass and Bertha go back and forth after being beaten in a fight.]

Cass also keeps up her usual tone in most fights. Here she is, battling a giant squid creature, focused as ever.

[Spirit World, Issue #3: Cass chides her teammates for bickering at each other rather than focusing on the fight.]

When in more alarming situations, she’ll raise her voice like everyone else. It’s uncommon, but only because it’s uncommon for her to be overwhelmed.

[Spirit World, Issue #4: A mysterious force takes control of Cass and Constantine, Cass looks scared, shouting “Can’t control… my body!”]

Once again, she’s more expressive with Steph. She’s more comfortable with her, and matches Steph’s energy when they’re both excited.

Short Sentences with No Commas

As said before, Cass doesn’t talk more than she has to. Where most would use a comma, she ends each phrase with a period. She also drops a lot of ‘unnecessary’ speech.

Birds of Prey #1

[Birds of Prey, issue #1: Batgirl talks to Black Canary, where she greets her by just saying ‘Black Canary.’ without a hello.]

If she can be understood with just a word, she’ll only say that word.

[Batgirls, issue #1: Cass replies with ‘Soap. Towel. Favourite robe.’ when asked if she needs anything.]

[Batgirls, issue #1: Cass says ‘Movement. Grumpy neighbor.’ when Steph asks what’s going on.]

Ellipses

Cass uses a lot of ellipses, especially in the early days. She trails off often, and speaks slowly.

[Batgirl (2000), Issue #7: Batgirl tries to convince Batman she’s ready, stuttering.]

4: On the job vs off the job.

Cass is much more at ease and confident with her sentences as Batgirl. She trails off a lot more as a civilian.

[Batgirl (2008), Issue #2: Cass talking to a guy in her class, having an awkward conversation (likely also awkward since it’s implied to be romantic, but still).]

In the exact same issue, Cass as Batgirl speaks a lot more confidently.

[Batgirl (2008), Issue #2: Cass and Marque discuss their plans and trade information.]

5: Slang

Cass canonically picked up dialogue from watching TV, and uses some slang. Although she picked up English almost like a second language, she doesn’t speak like she was taught in a formal, classroom setting.

[Spirit world, issue #4: Cass says ‘gotcha’.] [Birds of Prey, Issue #9, Cass  says ‘sorta’ in her sentence.]

If Cass can get her point across just using her face or other non-verbal gestures, that’s her go to. No point using words when your face does the trick!

The page below is one of my favourites, since it really shows Cass communicating a lot without words.

[Birds of prey, issue #7: Cass makes her opinion on potential outfits known with her facial expressions.]

She’d also rather nod or shake her head, as opposed to saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

[Batgirls #3: Cass nods her head.][Spirit World #4: Cass shakes her head.]

7: Miscellaneous

Cass can’t storytell well at all:

[Birds of Prey, Issue #1: The team tells Cass she’s really bad at telling stories.]

Cass uses a lot of emojis:

[Nightwing issue #79: Babs remarking that Cass can’t help herself when it comes to emojis.]

8: Veering into Headcanon Territory:

Cass has a very basic grasp on describing what she’s feeling. In my mind, this translates to a very basic grasp of her feelings as a whole.

In the panel below, Cass is very confused about why she’s putting in effort towards her father, and describes him as terrible. She pauses a lot, indicating she’s having a hard time putting together how she feels:

[Batgirl (2000) #65: Cass tells David Cain he ‘sucks’, very simple vocabulary for everything that’s gone down between them.]

I also think Cass has echolalia, which is the ‘meaningless repetition of words spoken by another person’. This only happens a few times but I’ll peddle it.

[Batgirls #2: Cass repeats Stephs words ‘still sucking’, without much reason.]

Conclusion:

"Miss" means an unmarried woman. "Mrs." means a married woman. (both of these have origins in the word "mistress" as in "mistress of the house".)

I've had people (usually children) ask me at work if I'm a missus or a miss. I have replied that I am a miz, full stop. And when they pressed for which one I was REALLY, I have replied, "Why? Are you going to treat me differently depending on whether there's a ring somewhere?"

That's what Ms. is for. That is its linguistic function. It says, "This is an adult woman," and nothing else. Nothing else is necessary, and in my case, nothing else is desired.

I also use miz for other women unless and until they express a preference for something else because I don't magically know everyone else's marital status when I meet them. That's a courtesy—I'm declining to assume marital status and allowing them to decide whether they wish to declare it.

it is dramatically more complicated and will make transit harder

many more fatalities will occur

offering the required training will cost us unfathomably

everywhere would be insanely loud 24/7

500% increase in fossil fuel emissions

other PSUMNT machine intelligences: We are also huge and smart and good at our jobs. Stop being weird.

Perihelion: >:(

Random rogue SecUnit: I'm often the biggest, smartest, most dangerous thing around and this causes me enormous amounts of stress. You scare the shit out of me but that's nothing new, so honestly fuck you. Here's a compilation of what the extensive amounts of brain torture I've endured feels like. Chew on that, asshole. Oh btw, despite being an anxious, traumatized mess, I'm extremely good at and dedicated to my function: protecting my clients. The very idea that I might snap and hurt the people I've come to care about is so distressing that I'm risking my life and using my newly acquired freedom to find out whether I can be trusted or not. I'll let you do painful experimental surgery on me to help me even though you're the most dangerous thing I've ever met, because while you were using my brain to watch hundreds of hours of TV with me I realized you're really a big softy. Like me. But don't you dare try to talk to me about my feelings.

Perihelion: ...

Duck and Fakir, made for a Princess Tutu zine 💙

When ranchers in Utah's Rich County found eighteen sheep killed in March 2022, they assumed coyotes. USDA Wildlife Services flew a plane over the kill site and found something feeding on the carcasses that had only been confirmed in the state eight times in forty years. It was a wolverine. Utah sits at the extreme southern margin of the wolverine's North American range. The animal is built for the deep snow and high alpine of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming, country above ten thousand feet where the winters last eight months and the terrain rejects everything that is not specifically engineered to survive it. A wolverine showing up in Utah's ranch country was not a routine predator complaint. It was a biological event. State wildlife managers had no protocol for it because they had never needed one. Biologists set specialized barrel traps near the sheep carcasses. Catching a wolverine in a live trap is considered one of the most difficult captures in North American wildlife management. The animal is trap-smart, solitary, covers enormous distances daily, and operates almost exclusively in terrain that humans struggle to access on foot. The odds of a wolverine walking into a barrel trap were close to zero. The next morning, a sheepherder found one of the trap doors dropped. Inside was a healthy, twenty-eight-pound male, estimated at three to four years old. It was the first wolverine ever live-captured by biologists in Utah's history. The team sedated him, packed his body in ice to keep his core temperature stable during the examination, fitted him with a GPS tracking collar, and released him into the deep snow of the Uinta Mountains. For researchers who had spent careers studying an animal they almost never got to see, that collar was the first real-time data source on wolverine movement the state had ever produced. The data that came back over the next twenty-five days confirmed what wolverine biologists in other states had documented but Utah had never been able to verify on its own ground. The animal logged over 195 miles of travel in less than a month. He did not drift south toward lower elevations or leave the state. He locked into the high peaks of the Uintas above ten thousand feet and ran massive looping circuits through avalanche chutes, rocky ridgelines, and snowfields deep enough to bury a man standing upright. The daily distances he covered would qualify as an endurance event for a human athlete on flat ground. He was doing it through the most physically punishing terrain in the state, in winter, alone, at elevation, without stopping. The eighteen dead sheep that started the whole sequence were never repeated. The wolverine moved into the high country and stayed there, operating in a landscape so remote and so hostile that the only evidence of his existence was the GPS signal pinging coordinates from ridgelines that no person had visited in months. The collar proved what the forty years of scattered sightings could only suggest. The wolverine was not passing through Utah. It was living there, quietly covering nearly two hundred miles of frozen alpine rock in less than a month, completely invisible to every human being in the state.

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