Incorrect Batfam Quotes

My guilt will not purify me.

(Batgirl 2000 permanently altered my brain chemistry)

I'm always on my Bruce acted like Damian when younger shit, but I'm also on my Oliver was eerily similar to Cass when young bullshit

Look, that man might have been stranded on an island for a year(s) but no other person would get into that situation and decide that the most reasonable choice was to dismantle the drug ring on the island with nothing but a bow and barely any training.

So I like to think that Ollie was always a little fucked, just uncomfortably wrong in a way that most people wouldn't understand. that actually being why Bruce likes him when they first meet.

Him being unnaturally quiet, not when speaking of course, it's Oliver Queen, no one can get him to be quiet when speaking unless he wanted to, but quiet in the way of being able to sneak up on people without even trying. Just appearing in a room and scaring everybody, even when someone is keeping an eye on him, he'll inevitably slip away and reappear a few hours later in a place that he's not supposed to be.

when Bruce and Ollie first met, Bruce liked him because he kinda scared the shit out of him, there was a look to him that just set off of the warning signs in Bruce's head and of course that means that he needed to friends with Ollie immediately.

And later, when Bruce's mouth inevitably got him into trouble, he never had to worry about what would happen after he won because Oliver would always jump in first. people learned very quickly that you can't fuck with one of them without the other being there too.

in the first few months of Oliver being the GA, Batman comes to Starling for something and tries to slip away after being spotted, but Oliver is able to hunt him through the city. No matter what Bruce tries, GA is always two steps behind and getting closer. finally Bruce is able to lose him at the edge of town (Oliver doesn't lose him, he just knows that Batman is leaving and sees no reason to keep going after him) and decides right then that the Green Arrow is never allowed within Gotham, that no other vigilante is allowed in Gotham.

Years down the line, after the JL is up and both of them are in it, Bruce questions whether he should tell Ollie that he's the Bat, but Oliver already knows, has know since the first time that they fought side by side, because no one has fit so perfectly beside him since those days in school. the days that he was the blinding sunlight in front, the fist that everyone paid attention to, so no one noticed the dark shape in the shadows Oliver had cast, the knife that you didn't even realizes was there until it was being pulled out of your ribs. of course Oliver knew that Bruce was Batman, he would have shot him with an arrow on that first mission if he hadn't.

Incorrect DC quotes part 24: Batfam dynamics

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23

"I was born a wound"

This line holds such a wealth of meaning. Because it is both - Cass was born to be hurt. Born to be abused and mishandled and made into something that would tear herself open, tear others open. Cain didn't know it, maybe Shiva didn't know it, but they made a child to give her pain.

And. Cain stole something from Shiva, took from her in a singular moment of weakness, and that memory cannot help but haunt her still. Cass is the moment, given legs and arms and a soul, Cass is that pain walking upright, haunting her all over again. The moment Cass was born, Sandra could never be hurt again, not truly, until all these years later where she has one wound she can never guard. Cassandra the thief, the assassin, the murderer, to take first from her mother before she'd take anything else at all.

Cassandra the innocent. Because she would not be a wound if she could not bleed.

What's your take on Odysseus's trauma and recovery back in Ithaca?

*looks at all the comics I made*

Lol but really, I realistically expect it to be severely rocky. He’ll have good days, mostly bad days, but what keeps him grounded is of course his family, you know?

But imagine losing your entire fleet under your command...

...only to come back to an entire population of thousands of people, expecting that you will lead them.

What if he fails again?

anyways

Star Wars Covers | by Paul Renaud

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.

mia, side-eyeing roy’s trucker hat and general appearance: are you a trump supporter now?

oliver, aghast: no he is NOT, i raised him better than that 🙄

roy, equally torn between being offended but also wanting to annoy ollie: maybe i am

*2 hours later*

jason, on the phone: why did ollie just call me to yell about you being out of the will and then dramatically hang up before i could get a word in?

roy: omg i was in the will? 🥺

jason: well not anymore

i’m thinking about the various batgirl origin stories and babs and cass and steph and how to be batgirl means to be distrusted & to try so desperately to be good enough. and the grace babs gives cass and steph in batgirls, specifically, because she has been there. she has been the girl who was trying so hard to help and was told to stop.

they are not trustworthy, they are not prepared, they are not strong enough. they’re too impulsive, they’re too young. idk. i think at the end of the day batgirl is a title for those who are not heard when they try to be anything else.