#especially since. y'know. He's Fixing The Legal System And All

[cornertheculprit]

i like to imagine trucy picking up german during the seven year gap from edgeworth and franziska. just because it'd be fun but also it'd complete the little trifecta of bilingualism that her remaining blood family's got going on (thalassa with borginian & apollo with khura'inese). also it'd be funny as fuck to me if she knew more german than klavier gavin (mr. affected accent and all)

[ectonurites]

I know Jason "came back to life" in the eyes of the public etc but like legit interested in your opinion on this because I'm just confused and interested in how he went about that, y'know? Like wouldn't it take him years? And who does he get to confirm its him and not some rando? IIRC Bruce didn't know he did that until the iceberg lounge thing which is weird if his son came back to life you would think he would testify or something sooner? I just don't know how it would work lol 😳🤔

SO you sent me down a reading rabbit hole. 

The thing about Jason’s situation compared to most situations irl is the fact that since he genuinely did die, there was a body and everything. That definitely makes it tricky. However, even though in our minds he was dead a super long time since he was killed in the 80s, he was only really gone for what’s probably 5 or so years by the time in RHATO he’s trying to ‘come back’. It being not even a decade is in his favor (I haven’t found a ruling for New Jersey specifically yet but in Ohio for instance a death ruling can’t be overturned if it’s been more than 3 years, so less time dead is better. But Ohio’s the only state i’ve seen the 3 year thing for so working with 5 should be okay here) 

Most cases about people needing to re-declare themselves alive that have happened irl I’ve found are either missing persons who were presumed dead after many years being away (the base line is 7, some states have it as less though), OR the more common situation of literally just clerical error on this thing called the ‘Death Master File’ (apparently like, nearly 40 people get declared dead by accident every day in the US! which is WHACK!) 

The grounds Jason would likely try to use is that it was a mistaken body (so somebody else) and he had actually just been missing all this time, which would kinda be a mix between a ‘fraudulent death’ claim and then the missing person type thing. Fraudulent death seems to be one of the harder ones to prove (because most of the time this category is more for people who purposely faked their deaths). In general, the fact that this happened with him as a child rather than as an adult, means there’s less cases I’ve been able to find that are even remotely similar but it also might help him out since there’s less precedent and also it’s more clear it probably wasn’t a like ‘get insurance money/run away from money owed’ scam. 

However, identity theft with dead people is like, a pretty common thing, so yeah proving oneself alive is not the easiest process in the world.

But most of the like, ‘things that make being declared legally dead even if you aren’t a really really bad and a lengthy process to fix’ are like, money related (social security, life insurance, bank accounts, property stuff, etc) and for someone like Jason who was 15 at time of death (so not married or owning property) and money apparently does not seem to be a problem for due to his various criminal activities, these wouldn’t be anywhere near as big of a deal. Like, sure a little inconvenient perhaps but definitely not entirely devastating like it can be for the real normal people that this kind of thing happens to. Also, when he bought the Iceberg Lounge, he bought it out from under the fuckin’ Penguin, so like, there’s already some shady shit going on there, so even if he was still in the process of ‘coming back to life’ he’d probably have been able to get that all started.

Also the ‘confirming it’s him’ thing as far as I’ve gathered from what I’ve read doesn’t... anywhere say it actually requires he bring someone from his life (Bruce) to verify it’s him? It’s way more about the combination of your presence & the documentation. So as long as he has photo ID and like as many of his official documents as possible (which. sneaking into the manor to steal his real passport from childhood and other documents like that i think is absolutely something he could/would do especially since like, earlier in RHATO 2016 it’s shown Bizarro’s door thing can literally get into the Batcave. I think it’s not unlikely to assume at some point he thought it could all come in handy and swiped ‘em) he could get the process going. This might differ since he was a minor at time of death but again every real case I’ve found so far was dealing with adults so I’m not sure.

Getting the US government to declare you alive though, like, from what I read can honestly be done as quickly as within a few weeks OR it can take years (but usually the ‘years’ there is more figuring out all that money and insurance related stuff, which again, not as big a deal for Jason specifically)

Another consideration I’d like to bring up is the fact that being presumed/found dead and later turning back up definitely happens a lot more in the DC universe than real life. Like, there’s supervillain attacks and world disasters and shit all the time. I think that realistically in the DCU there is probably a better system set up than IRL for handling cases like this, which would work in his favor.

I also think that due to the fact he was a relatively known person in Gotham, and we know Gotham’s systems are NOT the most uhhhh ‘by the books’ especially if theres public pressure and money being thrown at them, I pretty firmly believe he could have gotten it settled relatively quickly.

In real life it would be a lot harder due to the factor of the body, since he’d have to try to prove that wasn’t him even though it literally was, but liiiike unless Bruce had cashed in big on life insurance and didn’t have the means to pay it back (which this happened years before he lost the fortune LMAO) he should probably be fine, this is a comics world where most problems can be solved if you throw money at them (real life’s kinda like that too of course but comics take it to an EXTREME).

I do agree that Bruce would probably need to have been at least a little aware this was all happening, but for dramatic effect since this is in fact a comic book I understand why they had it be a surprise to him. A panel of Bruce getting a phone call from his lawyer wouldn’t have been nearly as effective as Jason just suddenly being on TV. Also like, I don’t think it’s impossible to rule out Bruce could have known he was in the process of legally coming back to life but not have known he was doing so in Gotham, because Jason being back in in the city was Bruce’s actual problem there.

Also funnily enough one of the cases of a person I found who was declared dead but is still alive was someone with the last name ‘Todd’, weird coincidence world. 

Some further reading about real cases of people coming back / things I might have referenced but wasn’t sure exactly where to link along the way: (one) (two) (three) (four) 

[therealmanishtana-blog]

In these past few days since Charlottesville, I've seen many statuses, tweets, and articles of a certain kind. [white] Jewish authors all, and all in the vein of the trauma and uncertainty being revisited upon this "new resurgence of white supremacy". The fear being echoed from later generations of those who survived the Holocaust. And--while I'm not denying or belittling the authenticity of those feelings, or their right to be felt--as someone who is African-American, and an African-American Jew, and as someone married to someone who not only is African-American and a Jew, but is also the grandchild of Holocaust survivors, my most primal reaction to these sentiments--with all due respect--is a hearty "Fuck you".

Because in many cases--not all, but many--in *many* cases, you are the same Jews who "didn't see" there being a disproportionate police response or brutality to black & brown people. Or "didn't get" why BLM was and is a thing. Or "didn't believe" in the systemic or institutional deck-stacking against black and brown peoples. You held sancrosanct some tenet of "if onlys". If only they'd been respectful to police. If only they'd obeyed the law. If only they'd kept their hands visible. If only they'd complied when police barged into their homes. If only they'd let police know there were sleeping toddlers in the house. As if the Constitution werent built on the legal inferiority of African-Americans. As if "Jim Crow" laws werent LAWS. As if the anti-Semitic workings of Hitler up to and including the Holocaust hadnt been legal.

But *now* you're afraid? Because of some blatant show of a trauma from less than 70 years ago? But you "don't understand" the attitude and racial realities for brown and especially black people in this country? You think "the talk" is unnecessary hysteria and fear-mongering?

So let me illustrate this better for you:

Imagine, after the Holocaust, upon the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948--a full 3 yrs after the end of WWII--all of a sudden, statues started popping up of Hitler. Of Goebbels. Of Abetz. Of Eichmann. Of Himmler. Of Mengele.

For "history", of course.

Now imagine after the 1967 victory, even more statues popped up. Imagine you were being policed by former Nazis, using methods specifically employed to round up and corral Jews. Imagine the Nazi flag was incorporated into a state you lived in. Imagine a popular TV show had the Iron Cross emblazoned across the roof of that show's flagship car.

Now imagine, with all of these things happening concurrently, you were being told, for generations, to "get over it". That these things needed to stay because "history". Imagine some of the people telling you these things were themselves persecuted minorities. Now imagine feeling some kind of way when all of a sudden, after an event that explicitly evokes imagery relevant specifically to them, they turn around and say "OMG. Im nervous about this resurgence of hate!"

Because those statues of the Confederacy? Of "history"? They were put up in resistance to the efforts of Reconstruction. The second wave were constructed as a "Fuck you" to Black ppl fighting for Civil Rights in the 60's. If they were such a monument to history, then where are the statues of Judah P. Benjamin, one of the most influential minds and forces behind the Confederacy? Oh wait, what's that you say? He was a Jew? So you mean there's been proof of this statue obsession not only *not* being about "preserving history" but also about this sentiment being inherently anti-Semitic? But of course you probably werent even looking that closely. The Confederacy, after all, was just one of those slavery-related things that Blk ppl should just "get over" already.

[Wait, what's that?...Yes, I *did* say that one of the most influential minds and forces behind the Confederacy was a Jew. Also, by 1860 1/4 of the Jewish South were slave owners...Yeah, that *is* true that in the almost century between 1776 and 1861 there were far more Jewish slave-owners and slavery apologists and slavery ambivalent folks than abolitionists...Huh. I guess when you put it that way, I suppose it *does* put Jewish involvement in Civil Rights in a whole new context. Kinda like it was something owed in penance, not a philantropic endeavor that African-Americans are ungrateful for and should be beholden to...]

The current police system is an outgrowth of slave patrols. There are states with the Confederate flag incorporated into their official state flag.

At any rate, you're concerned about the "resurgence" of white supremacy?

Resurgence? When? Where did it go? Was it not embedded here this entire time? Or were you just not paying attention? Or were you just busy justifying its institutionalization until your roosters came home to roost? Because, y'know, you were law abiding citizens and "those ppl" were not. And "those ppl" were being hyperbolic. And "those ppl" were being "oversensitive". And "those ppl" were playing "the race card". But now it's affecting *you* and so "now is the moment". It's killing ppl who look like *you* and so "now is the time". It's attacking and threatening *you* and *your* ability to innocently live life and so "now we must unite".

We have a lot of work to do, my Jews. And reading all this and feeling shame or guilt does literally nothing toward that work. So try actively helping to fix this problem instead. And no, I'm not going to hold your hand and show you how. JOCs and other POCs have been spilling ink on this topic for more than a decade. Google is a thing. If youre as invested in this work as you are about Game of Thrones, then you'll have no trouble finding what you need to know.