You Know What I'm Curious About… How Does Billy Have Any Sense Of Time??? When I Was A Child (I Still

The parallels between Cassandra Cain and Jason Todd are crazy.

Cassandra Cain’s kindness and compassion is rooted in the violence and hate from her childhood.

Jason Todd’s violence and hate is rooted in the kindness and compassion from his days as Robin.

Jason Todd was murdered by somebody when he was young and that defined the rest of his life.

Cassandra Cain murdered somebody when she was young and that defined the rest of her life.

Jason has murdered people after his death. Cass has been murdered after she killed. But what defines them will forever be what happened first.

Two sides of the same coin, the two roles in a murder.

The killer and the killed.

Billy, whose parents died from being crushed by rocks in a buried tomb, watching as the wizard is killed by a massive rock falling onto him: oh…

fuuuuck that is my circus. are those…? yep… those are my monkeys….. goddammit.

Ouch :(

Ow :(

A summary of Cass's early years:

Cassandra: (baby noise)

David, handing her a loaded gun and watches her nail every target:

Duke can see a few moments into the future but will deliver it in the most needlessly cryptic way

Jason and Bruce are arguing. Just before Jason storms off, Duke says, "If you walk out that door, you will experience unforeseeable pain and have no one but yourself to blame"

And Jason's all, "Stay out of this, Narrows"

Then he trips over his shoelace and Duke's like, "Told you so"

Perhaps I found the girlfriend I’ve been looking for all along

"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.