This Is My Fav Ship

cass and jason are an underappreciated duo who deserve more rep. this ain't a debate, it's a fact

just imagine

Cass: *signing sorrowfully* i have been battling my own inner demons, brother. my childhood . . . my past . . . it calls to me, tugs at the scars on my skin and the blood painting my soul. it tells me that I shall never escape, not truly jason: cass: jason: that was poetic as shit, sis, and I think you should definitely write a book, but all I asked was "how was school"

jason: hey! how's everyone doin'? tim: *wathcing a movie* we're good-- cass: *turns movie off and glasres at jason* have you bandaged it yet? jason: *looking away* i don't know what you're talking about . . . cass: THE BULLET HOLE IN YOUR ARM jason: how the fuck did you even see that. my armor covers it cass: I SEE ALL. THERE IS NOWHERE IN THIS EARTHLY PLANE OR THE NEXT THAT YOU ARE CAPABLE OF HIDING FROM ME, TRY AS YOU MIGHT jason: jason: i'll go get this bandanged jason: *mutters as he walks off* definitely not running from whatever the fuck that was . . .

cass: *tears in her eyes* my ballet recital was cancelled . . . the penguin bombed the street leading to the school . . . jason: *Grabbing his guns* that motherf- cass: jason: -ffffuudger cass: jason: jeezus please put the sad eyes away, i cant take it cass: you can fucking curse, jason. i am not a prim and proper Victorian woman who will tell you to pardon your fucking french. jason: cass: a FLIGHTLESS-fucking-AVIAN in a shitstain of a THREE PIECE SUIT just FUCKING BOMBED MY BALLET RECITAL, if anything the cursing HELPS jason: jason: this is an alternate dimension. that's the only explanation.

Bruce, introducing his kids at a family Interview: This is my eldest Dick, my second eldest Cassandra, then my son Jason, my second youngest Tim, and my youngest Damian

Bruce: That's my daughter-in-law Barbara, and my other daughter-in-law, Stephanie

Tim: ??? Steph and I broke up forever ago?? How is she your daughter-in-Law?

Stephanie: I may not be dating any of you anymore but I'm the State of daughter-in-law. Daughter-in-law is not a family title, it's the friends you make along the way

Jason: I'm not high enough for this shit

Golden boy Dick Grayson: Me fucking neither

Jason: what

Dick: what

Bruce: ??? What do you mean she's not my daughter-in-law anymore?? I was counting on her marrying into the family :C

Steph: Sorry B, unfortunately your son would rather kiss superbitch than me

Dick: TIM IS KISSING WHO NOW

Bruce: >:( We'll talk about that later, right now-

Tim: I don't think that's necess-

Bruce: We'll talk about that later. Right now can't any of you date her?? Jaylad, you're sin-

Steph: HELL NO

Jason, already on his second blunt: You're so funny, old man. I'm literally co parenting my best friends kid. I'm literallyyyy be gay do crime. Haha.

Dick: YOURE WHAT WITH WHO NOW

Bruce: CAN ANY OF YOU JUST DATE HER

Cass, slowly raising her hand like in Hunger Games: I volunteer

Bruce: ...

Tim: ...

Dick: ...

Bruce: This is why you're my favorite daughter 🥹

Cass: Father, I'm your only daughter

Tim: Untrue. I did drag one time, that has to count

Steph: Does this mean I have a girlfriend

Damian: This family is a disgrace

Interviewer: ...

Cass babysitting younger gen heroes and using her past to terrify them into compliance. Ma'ri doesn't want to eat her vegetables? You see this bullet wound on Cass's shoulder? She got that because she didn't eat enough vegetables. True story. Sin is mad at Dinah and doesn't want to listen to her advice? One time Cass didn't listen to Dinah and guess what happened. Two shots to the stomach. True story. Damian wants to try fighting Shiva? First time Cass tried that she ended up with a dislocated shoulder and broken arm, her life spared on a whim. And that one's actually a true story.

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.

having depression makes your friends seem like the coolest most put together people on earth like wow... you got out of bed, had breakfast, went to work, AND spent some time on a hobby when you got home....? that's so impressive you're like superman or something. can i borrow your power.

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.

One time the bat kids hung out in the cave while B was at a JL meeting. The whole place was covered in pink glitter and silly string by the time they were done. The only person who didn’t have glitter on them was Cassandra, no one knows how.

They don’t even try to clean it and just fr owned it.

Bruce comes back with the JL in tow to a pink, sparkly batcave and almost has an aneurism.

Oliver and Dinah is laughing their asses off and the JL is shocked.

Oliver; remind me to get them Prada for Christmas.

Bruce;…

Nightwing, Red Hood, Red Robin, Robin, Spoiler, Black Bat, and Signal chose that moment to reenter the room.

Oliver; good job!

Hood; thanks uncle arrow!

Hal; what’s wrong with B?

Signal; wait for it.

Bruce; THE BATMOBILE TOO!?!

What I think would happen if the batfam gets shipwrecked to an abandoned island.

Alfred; is enjoying his vacation.

Bruce; doesn’t know what to do because he hasn’t gone a single day of his life without someone helping him and can’t cook edible food.

Dick; dies from lack of physical affection.

Jason; can’t figure out how to hunt without guns

Tim; dies without coffee or wifi.

Damian; is worried about the animals and dies from starvation because he refuses to kill.

Duke; is okay ish, like he survives but not easily.

Barbra (not paralyzed cause she wouldn’t survive paralyzed in my opinion); is having a little fun with making traps.

Steph; is having the time of her life without her stupid classes and teachers.

Cass; was literally trained for this and is happy she finally has some alone time even if she misses her family.

Meanwhile Oliver is just watching this all and sighing because how did he survive but some of them didn’t?

I've noticed a word that gets thrown around in regards to Cass in Batgirl 2000 is "perfect." It's how Bruce and Cain both see her, what Babs calls her and what Cass would literally die to be the moment she wasn't. There's something heartbreaking about it. How she's defined by her perceived perfection to the point where she'd rather have a year of being perfect instead of a lifetime of not.

Then, when fanon casts her as perfect (albeit in a different way) all I can think is of how she never really escapes that. Perfection looms over her even now.

I want Bruce and Oliver to be so petty. Like when Lex does an evil scheme they make remarks that only he will know are about him and hang out and if he tries to crash it they post stories abt their boarding school days. Cause it will help with their secret identities but Lex will just be embarrassed af and his stocks will go down while the others go up.