(Art Is By The Amazing @dahtwitchi. This Is A Freeform Collab With No Real Goal)

I love and support Steve Hofstetter so much you guys have no idea how much of a comedy groupie I am for him

With WFA sister-coding Steph and Cass, I started thinking about how to get some silver linings out of the decision. So, here are some potential plots or story elements that could be fun/saucy/interesting to play with.

1.) Steph comes out as asexual. Between having a baby and dating Tim, Steph realizes that she's been pursuing physical relationships because of social expectations. She's a spunky, outgoing blonde tough girl; people just assume. She just assumed.

This leads to so many jokes. So many.

"Yeah, Tim and I dated and we had a good time, but in the end I turned him off girls and he turned me off entirely"

"I flatlined briefly and it restored me to factory settings"

Idk Steph would have more quips. She'd have all the quips.

2) Cass is secretly the true Wayne Womanizer. She's not here for a long time, she's here for a good time, and as long as everyone understands that she will play the field. The only reason no one knows that she's debauched every willing heiress in Gotham is because she's too good to get caught and no one would believe it.

Cassandra Wayne is a Legend among closeted debutantes and socialites whose parents have "arrangements" made in regards to marriages. She's the muse of so much modern sapphic poetry, the kind that only hints at her identity. She is the favorite friend to every ambassador's interested daughter. Forget the headlines about Brucie Wayne spending the night with a Russian ballet troupe, Cass will tour with them and no one will even guess what's really going on.

Fandom treats her like a sexless child figure or defaults her to Steph's side. I say let her sneak into the manor at 3am with her shoes off, whispering about entering her slut era.

3) If Steph and Cass are not dating each other, they could each be dating a new or underused character and we could have another Bernard-style steal-your-ship. We might be on the cusp of discovering a really fun pairing or character!

4) Cass and Prudence Wood have an assassin-angsty hate-sex relationship. This one's just for me because it makes me giggle. People meme about Tim and Cass looking alike, Pru called Tim hot once, Pru is now a double??? Triple???? Quadruple??? Agent between Ra's and Tim.

There is just something cute about imagining terrifying quiet Cass stalking after the loudmouth Pru's British cussing. No killing! Because Cass is here to ruin your fun and watch you sleep!

Such a good take, I love how Bernard can be used to address the standard difficulties of life. He's a complimentary character to Tim, who will look at all his hero shit and be like "but that's the real trauma", and Bernard will be like, "Babe, no. That is additional trauma. That is the Trauma à la mode."

Adding my headcanons:

Bernard is absolutely the type of conspiracy theorist who does psych profiles for funzies. He's worked on himself enough to know that Tim needs his own set of self-help books. He's going to be supportive as heck, but he's also not going to let himself become Tim's sole point of mental stability.

Basically, Bernard is pulling a Tim, on Tim, and Tim recognizes it, and is even more touched because he knows how much you gotta love someone to go that far.

Headcanon: TimBer Parents' Parallels

Tim: His parents loved him, but their actions (constantly leaving him alone) created emotional distance, making it sometimes feel as if they didn’t.

Bernard: His parents didn’t love him, but their actions (wanting him to come back home and pretend to be a family) made it seem like they did - until he learned to see right through them.

Tim: Learned to cope by being a "perfect, angelic son" so as not to let his parents worry about him. This allows them to go gallivanting without any guilt, while he learns to shove aside his trauma as if it means nothing.

Bernard: Learned to cope by NOT following his parents’ expectations of a perfect son. Instead, he became the sort of individual (his high school persona, bathroom jokes made loudly in a public place) who agitates them and forces them to acknowledge his presence, even if the attention is negative.

Where that leaves them both:

Tim: Struggles with the idea of "loving someone despite the distance." He sometimes falls into habits of loving someone to a choking degree (stalking them, trying to remove them from the vigilant world, withholding information of his emotions/superhero identity to maintain a tenuous balance) or puts up more distance when he feels the relationship can’t be fixed (quitting his Robin career, pushing Stephanie away harshly, running away from Young Justice/Gotham).

Bernard: Doesn’t believe love is something you should just expect from someone else, because obligations of love (like in a family) just leave everyone hurt. Instead, he freely loves other people without caring if it's returned (he still wants a relationship with his parents despite their regret for his birth, admits to "Robin" his romantic feelings towards Tim without ANY assurance that he would be accepted). However, at the same time, he doesn’t do so blindly or without recognizing that sometimes you have to keep a distance for the sake of your own wellbeing (never contacted his parents during that year apart despite that it hurt him, refusing to move back home no matter how much he really wants to unless some changes are made).

I feel like these are the sort of issues that they can really only talk about to one another, common bad childhood/messy homelife scenarios that have nothing to do with vigilantes or supervillains. Just the dichotomy of bad parenting and how a child copes as best they can, even though it leaves a lot of deep scars.

At least, that’s my opinion on all this.

I'm only saying this for your sake, but objectively, it's not a smart idea to bring politics into normal hobbies. You might lose supporters of your blog just because of your political stance, and that would be terrible since you're so amazing!! It's only a suggestion, but I really reccomend not bringing politics into anything.

Mark Twain was such a weird guy and I respect him so deeply for it

Hey, heeeey. This fic is so freaking good. I love me some cryptid Batfam and this one is like.

*insert hand flapping*

It's like that? Like, it's such an excellent look at humanity and masking and people being different aspects of themselves throughout their lives, but it's all hidden in the subtext of a story about spirits and I love that even more?!

I love that sometimes we see humanity best when we strip away what we usually define as human.

Fucking. Love this. I'll write a comment on it in a bit, gotta hit that therapy appointment but I loved this so much I wanted to share aaaaah

Hey, I want to share my brainrot.

Broke: Superman is actually a bad person who doesn't love his bi son Kon because he thinks the kid is going to be a future villain.

Woke: Superman is understandably standoffish to his nonconsensually created clone made to replace him when he was dead. Superman didn't step up when and how he should have - that doesn't mean he didn't have character growth and learn to love Kon, even if he have the kids a name that is a Kryptonian slur.

Bespoke: Superman would LOVE to get to know and mentor this new guy, but whenever he looks at the kid his lizard hindbrain registers DANGER and it freaks him out. He doesn't know why, there's just something intensely Uncanny Valley about Kon. Clark has never understood humans talking about creepy dolls or being afraid of mannequins until now and he doesn't know how to process it? He doesn't even know how to explain it because everyone around him is acting like Kon is perfectly normal and fine and safe and Superman's the asshole for never engaging with him.

Human scientists fucking around with alien DNA made it so that Kon is permanently sending out Aggression in subtle, Kryptonian-only ways. By scent or sub-vocalizations, or posture, or some other alien subconscious way, Kon is both peacefully hanging out with his friends and at the same time indicating that he's about to murder them. Neither Kon or Clark know this! Clark unlearned most of these instincts when he was being raised as human and is used to the people around him not hearing/seeing/tasting/smelling quite right. Until there's this guy here, serving these VIBES.

(about the slur name. Consider that Nightwing is Superman's dear friend and nephew. Consider that he calls himself Dick. Imagine if Clark named Kon "Kon" as a way to honor Dick and like, it's his genuine belief that future Kryptonian speakers will think of Kon as a name first and a slur second, because this person is going to be so amazing)

Hot new take, I love it.

This is going to influence Bernard's call sign somehow, I just know it! And it fits the theme of flying beings that inspire fear!

Bumblebee and Queen Bee are taken and we don't want H.I.V.E. to be accidentally spoken back into existence. Marvel has Yellowjacket and Wasp...

Be(e)hold, the Drone!

I think I've been reading Bernard's name with the wrong pronunciation for years. I didn't watch many shows and I haven't played the games so I haven't actually heard the canon pronunciation of Bernard and now I'm having a light existential crisis.

Because the second way is how it's pronounced in my region and the first way makes me think of Bianca from The Rescuers.

Wait, hold up.

We need to establish something first.

Are we talking Canadian Smarties or American Smarties?

I love stress-eating smarties I just go to town on those things I go through the whole bag I inhale it like munchable cocaine I eat it all until theyre gone and twitch on the floor like a dead rat

Okay, okay, okay. More Bat-family brainrot to throw out into the void.

It's generally accepted that none of the Bats really enjoy going to galas or schmoozing with the upper class Gothamites. It's a fun enough joke or point of resentment or a good way to excuse the absence of other characters.

But consider the parties from a new angle: Galas are how the Bats patrol the ultra-rich areas. (I mean, that's where Epstein recruited his victims, right? And rich kids don't get their drugs from street corners)

Gotham vigilantes spend weeks swinging around on the main island, fighting street crime, foiling plots, etc. Gala Night is when they get to go hunting for the big fish, ya get me? They are so eager to dive into a Gala and find the tea.

It's a tech-heavy production, I'd wager. If your phone is on, it's being cloned. So many listening devices and/or cameras slipped into decorations or are being worn by the Bats. They're everywhere, popping in on conversations, encouraging people to talk about themselves, disguised as servers, disguised as other guests.