Jason Should Have Come Back To The Manor Post-lazarus Pit And Revealed Himself As Jason Todd But Not

Cass: Can I have your burger.

Dick:??? No I'm eating it. You have your own right there.

Cass: Remember when you abandoned me to Slade when I was drugged and mind controlled and then after I got free the first thing you did was punch me in the face.

Dick, sliding his burger over: You KNOW it's more complicated than that. You know it.

Tim, watching this all go down: Hey Jason remember when you broke into Titans tower just to beat me up?

Jason, taking a large bite of his own burger: Keep annoying me and this time I'll do more than just leave you unconscious.

Tim: :/

Cass, whispering to him: You gotta go for the ones with guilt complexes. It doesn't work otherwise.

Tim: Gotcha, good to know.

Cass:... Soo remember when I was drugged and brainwashed and you did nothing but accept it for months?

Tim, grumbling and sliding his own burger over to her: I never accepted it! That's just not true!

Cass, now eating three burgers at once: :)

I have been reading a lot of headcanons of the justice league, my favorites are when batman reveals his identity but only to....Green arrow

It's so fun because imagine if for any reason Batman is forced to reveal his identity and everyone thinks he will choose Superman or/and Wonderwoman (because you know THE trinity, the dream team) BUT NO, he chooses green arrow

at this point the justice league already put aside whatever they were doing and start questioning batman, that is to say without hate towards Ollie but he is not the most secretive, nor the most competent, I mean HE IS NOT EVEN THE CLOSEST TO BATMAN, so yes, even Oliver is wondering why him?

and then without anything else Batman does or says some kind of code, at that moment everyone thinks that he must have already lost his mind when they hear the BIGGEST gasp from none other than Green Arrow, now he is running to hug Batman jumping and holding on like a koala while screaming

"WHY YOU NEVER SAID IT BEFORE SILLY"

"so you understand?"

"OF COURSE I UNDERSTAND IT'S OUR SUPER SECRET SUPER BEST FRIENDS CODE"

That's when J'onn leaves the room because he's not going to deal with the nonsense that these supposed heroes are thinking, the earth is doomed with these fools

Flash is screaming terrified that someone replaced Batman and brainwashed Ollie

Aquaman and Captain Marvel are pretending to know whatever is going on because they totally didn't sleep for half of the meeting

Black Canary's eyes are so wide and she looks like she had an epiphany from something Ollie said

Green Lantern still doesn't get over the fact that Batman is revealing his identity? (of course in such a weird way that only one of them understands, fuck him) but at the end of the day revealing his identity?

Wonder Woman and Superman are having a crisis and they are GREEN with envy, because not only did Batman reveal his identity to Green Arrow of all people, but he is also HUGGING him (also, they are the Bat's best friends, thank you very much)

Then Oliver, oblivious to everything, finishes by saying

"Wait, this means I kissed THE KNIGHT OF GOTHAM, THE BATMAN?, wow B you are killing me"

everyone explodes

totally based on this amazing post

@mbirnsings-71

Jason: The eternal victim. The murderer.

Cass: The eternal murderer. The victim.

Babs has to leave the clocktower for a Birds of Prey emergency and Cass is the only one around so she has to man the comms because Steph is on a mission. Cass is like yeah sure this will be fine Steph and I work great together nowadays.

But it turns out she's the absolute worst kind of backseat driver. She leads Steph on routes that involve 20 foot wide jumps and boos when Steph says she can't make that leap without a grapple. Steph is fighting five assassins at once and Cass is in her ear like

Cass: He has a bad leg go for the leg. Go for the leg. Why aren't you going for the leg just break out of the hold.

Cass: Wait are you stuck. Why are you stuck just dislocate your wrist and you'll be out of that hold. Batgirl can you hear me just snap your wrist. One two three snap.

Cass: Why are you not snapping. Hitting him isn't working. You're not strong enough to break his hold.

Cass: Maybe I should just come and get you. You're not listening to my words. I'll just rescue you.

Cass: Was that fuck off directed at me or the assassins.

Cass: Good you broke his hold. Now go for the leg. THE LEG. WHY ARE YOU RUNNING AWAY YOU CAN TAKE THEM.

Steph once Barbara gets back: Don't ever leave me again. If I ever hear her on your line again I will rip out my earpiece.

Cass once Barbara quizzes her about the incident: I gave super clear instructions. Maybe she was just sick today idk

Okay I’ve been thinking about the Parallax retcon again cause god do I hate it. I’ve done some meta on it but I’m gonna focus on what it did to Hal. Earlier to day I said there wasn’t much build up to Parallax but that’s not exactly true because I wasn’t considering the frame work of Hal’s headspace.

So back after Crisis, Hal Jordan wasn’t doing so hot. His best friend had died. Carol was possessed by the Star Sapphire and committing all sorts of crimes to fuck with Hal. John and Guy weren’t that close with Hal back in the 90s. John and Hal fought over a ton of shit Carol did while possessed.

Hal was pretty isolated at this point. He tries to go to people he thought were his friends and they all wave him off or openly tell him to get over himself. Some of them were down right malicious about it. Hal wasn’t in a good place.

Then Coast City is destroyed. And Hal wants to try to fix it. He tries with the rings and the Guardians tell him no. Hal is so completely isolated at this point no one even notices that he is running to take a swan dive off the cliff of sanity.

Hal goes to Oa. He steals the rings of the other Lanterns and leaves them in Space to die. He kills Sinestro. He kills Kilowog. Then Hal steps into the Power Battery. He kills every single one of the Guardians minus Ganthet here.

And his plan? Reset the universe. Hal wants to put everything back to his it was before Crisis. When Coast City wasn’t rubble. When Barry Allen was alive.

Now the heroes step in. They look at this man who they turned away, who they ignored in his grief, in the aftermath of the destruction of his city, and they call him a villain. Then they act surprised he doesn’t wanna hear what they have to say? That he maybe doesn’t care about their opinions on him because they certainly couldn’t be bothered with him before this.

In the end Ollie shoots him in the chest. And Ollie thinks he killed Hal but he didn’t. Hal and Kyle just ended up on Oa.

And the heroes wipe their hands clean. They were then absolved of any guilt around Hal because he was clearly a bad guy. They couldn’t have stopped him. But that’s not true. Anyone at all offering a hand out might have stopped him.

By the time Hal attacks Kyle in New York he’s desperate. He has no other plan than try Zero Hour again. He wants the Green Lantern ring. He wants to be a Green Lantern. That’s all Hal. Hal is there and he’s been practically screaming for help for years.

And Kyle oh hopelessly naive Kyle is the first one to tell Hal what he’s doing isn’t heroic. Everyone else declared Hal himself a villain.

Kyle was the one who saw the hero in Hal. Kyle went to the Source Wall to ask for Hal’s help in restarting the sun.

And only once Hal had died did the others look at him like a hero again. And with a bittersweet taste nonetheless.

Kyle set up Hal’s funeral. He made the memorial. He wanted everyone to know that Hal was a hero truly and fully.

But they turned their backs to Hal. They decided he wasn’t worth their time. What good are they to decide who’s a sinner and who’s a saint to paraphrase Hal himself.

And then the retcon. That it wasn’t Hal at all. It was Parallax.

That is their wipe away for everything that happened to Hal. It cloaks his depression, his anger, his loneliness in some supernatural fear bug and we can all just move on.

It means when Hal tells Barry about it that Barry waves it off as not Hal. As if nothing Hal was feeling then matters. As if Hal didn’t exist at all. Just Parallax.

This means the other heroes don’t have to feel bad at all, as if they would, for abandoning Hal because his emotions were being influenced. Nothing at all could have been done.

Except then they fucked up again when Kyle was possessed by Parallax. Hal held out a hand and he helped Kyle break free. Which means yes they could have helped Hal. But they chose not to.

The Parallax retcon is a massive cop out so the writers didn’t have to address a characters actual mental state. Because it’s easier to draw a smile I suppose.

But even with the retcon it shows how the others dropped the ball. Hal wasn’t suffering in silence and they “couldn’t have known” he was asking for help. He needed help. And they turned him away.

TL;DR: Hal Jordan needs some better friends

This was inspired by @pulsar-1919 thank you for that reply about The List. I forgot how much of a dick everyone was to Hal. I knew about Bruce in the robe being a jackass but that’s par for the course for Bruce tbh.

Sick Cass who only agrees to stay in bc she gets to man comms

Bruce: *fighting*

Cass with the sorest throat: I wouldn't have done that

It's her favourite sick activity. Just reviewing his fights in real time and going "You missed an opening. Too slow. He's going to attack you get ready. Wow your reaction time has gotten worse. Move or you'll get stabbed. Oh the kids are safe by the way they ran away while you were failing to win against this scrub."

Bruce, through gritted teeth while seething with rage: This is good. This is important. I need to know my weaknesses so I can squash them.

Cass: Took you two minutes. I would have done it in ten seconds with that leg sweep you missed the chance to do.

Bruce: Thank you Batgirl.

Cass: I think your joint pain is slowing you down. Can you bend your knees properly or do they crack with age?

Bruce:... I think I need radio silence to concentrate for a minute.

Cass: Brain is slowing down too if you can't multitask anymore. Sad.

Bruce: You know what let's see if there's anyone else for me to punch. I need that right now.

cain and bruce and cass are sooo interesting to me... long rambles (with comic panel receipts!) under the cut (also batgirl 2000 spoilers)

Cain had tried many times before to make The One Who Is All, but Cassandra is special in a way the others weren't because she worked. She didn't defy instructions, she was amazing at combat, she didn't go insane, she was perfect. And David grew to love her in a way he hadn't loved the others, even though he hurt her, because it was the price he had to pay to get his little girl perfect. Yes he shot her, but it was to keep her on her toes, and she had to be that to be perfect - it’s the price he has to pay. He rarely touched her, because it was a price he had to pay, but in the times that he did, he cuddled with her on the rooftop and pointed to the stars. He couldn't talk to her, because it was a price he had to pay, but he could make their own little language and keep her progress on tapes.

And when the time came for her first real foray into being The One Who is All, he dresses her up in a frilly pink dress and pigtails.

And she runs away and David doesn't know what to do. The first kill is always hard, he made her do it too soon, too young, she wasn’t ready, he knows it’s his fault.

And then, years later, when his baby girl is almost an adult (but really he'll always see her as that little girl with pigtails and a bloody pink dress on), he meets her again and she yells at him to stop.

And he cries, because it was the price he had to pay, but his daughter can understand him now, fully, and she's using it to ask him to stop, so how can he say no to that? Now they're dangling over an edge and he's pleading for her to hold on but she can't, she won't, and she survives anyway like she always will but she survives in a cape and ears and a bat across her chest.

David thought that Bruce was perfect when they were training, but he wasn't. He wouldn't kill. But maybe he can be good enough for David's perfect little girl anyway because she won’t either, and god knows David isn't perfect. So he concocts a test, and tries his damndest to keep those tapes of his daughter because that's all he has left of her.

David loves Cass with all of his heart, but his heart isn't big enough to fit things like hugs and speaking and care. The biggest problem is that he sees her as a weapon first, no matter what.

Bruce isn't like that. Cassandra isn't a weapon— she's a bat, of course, she’s perfect for it! And to be the bat, yeah, you have to make sacrifices sometimes. Keeping your identity a secret is much easier when you have no (legal, public) identity to speak of, and he doesn’t understand when Barbara insists on frivolous things like vacations, identities, names, and peace. Why call the girl Cass when she can simply be Batgirl?

If Bruce had a choice, he would just be the bat. And so this girl who is just like him— better, even! Well, of course she’d agree. Yes, she’s young, she’s just seventeen, but… come on. You can barely say a perfect soldier like her is a kid, still. And it’s tragic that Cain made her like this, made her like them, but… it happened. She is like this. So why wouldn’t he help her use it for good? 

He never had to teach Batgirl, this girl who is just like him, about the value of life. Her hits are perfect and measured, to knock them out and nothing more. The first thing he noticed about her was her willingness to die and insistence that no one else does, and he encourages these things. 

And her death wish is ineffective and annoying and dangerous, but it’s inescapable and she doesn’t let it affect her missions anymore.

Batman asks Batgirl if the dozens of lives saved because of what she did is enough. She says no, and he says good. 

When Batgirl loses some of her skills, she runs at an armed man and gets shot 4 times (one in each thigh, one through her shoulder, one in her stomach). But she survives anyway, like she always will, and when she wakes up Batman asked why she did it. She responds instinct. He says, “Good.”

Then he finds out about her upcoming fight with Shiva. Batgirl knows that she will lose. This is not a competition or arrogance for her— this is suicide. She needs to move past this death wish and… well. She might not move… past it, per se, but she will be rid of it, and perhaps the world will become of rid of her. But it’s necessary. So he lets her leave, because he knows she needs to do this. At least she will die with honor.

Later, when she survives even after dying, because she always survives, Batman needs to do something. Something dangerous and reckless and, maybe, a bit suicidal. Batgirl wants to help but he just says “I let you fight Shiva because it was something you had to do for yourself. Don’t say thank you. Return the favor.” 

The tragedy of Batman and Batgirl is unlike the tragedy of David Cain and The One Who Is All, where she is only an assassin to her father— not even that, just a killing weapon. It’s unlike the tragedy of Cassandra and Sandra, where she is just a pawn for her mother’s suicide. And it is especially unlike the tragedy of Babs and Cassie, where she is seen by her mom as so much less than she is, as something that she can never be— regular. Normal. Innocent.

No, the tragedy of Batman and Batgirl is that her dad sees Cassandra as, yes, eventually a daughter, certainly a soldier, but most of all, an extension of himself. And he does not treat himself very well, or with much caution, or with any gentleness.

I don't think that the civilians in the DC universe are picky with regards to who's saving the day, per se, but they are very attached to their respective local superheroes and are extremely sensitive and scrutinizing if someone unfamiliar shows up. Like there is a general understanding that superheroes aren't tied to their respective cities 100% of the time, but there's also a very intense Local Civilian Vibe Check if you're superheroing on someone else's turf.

POV: You have just stopped a rampaging supervillain in downtown Metropolis (You are Booster Gold):

When people debate who the most fucked up member of the bats is, they either pick Bruce or Jason. Rightfully so, of course. But neither of them are correct.

Cassandra fucking Cain has been coasting by undetected for YEARS. That girl might lowkey be the most fucked up hero in DC, and that's saying something.

Everyone is aware of how anal Bruce is about the no kill rule, but nobody talks about how Cass takes that to the extreme.

She broke into a maximum security prison to free a child murdere who received the death penalty. She didn't even know him. She broke through a secure facility to free what is arguably the definition of human scum because she doesn't agree with his sentencing.

I mean, yes, fuck the death penalty, the state should never have the right to kill people, and the fact that many end up innocent is horrifying, but that man was unrepentant. And he was locked up, he didn't even escape. Cass places her morals above even the law

And I can't find the panel, but I'm 99% sure she took multiple bullets to protect a rapist

Also, she had a major breakdown when Kate killed clayface, which is valid sure but Kate genuinely saved lives there. Cass would've been fine if they died so long as nobody wearing the bat was a murderer.

People rag on Bruce for only seeing the world as black and white, but Cass' world view is way more strict and rigid. She makes Bruce seem lax about it