#i don't go in for Jason being the 'angry' robin or the 'violent' robin

[spacedace]

Got inspired by the below tiktok and the idea of the Rogues killing the Joker in revenge for Jason instead of Bruce and had to write about it.

Here, have probably way too many words (with more to come most likely, this really won't leave me alone) of the Rogue's feelings about Jason's death at the Joker's hands and everything that followed.

(also I know the timeline is a bit screwy, shhh just go with it, we're going on vibes with this one lol)

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Childhood was not held universally sacred in the dark streets of Gotham.

The city was hard and cruel and she didn’t care about the ages of those that were ground up and spit out in her oily black heart.

A kid could slit your throat as easy as a man grown in a place like their fine city, maybe easier even for those who still fell for the ideal of children being incapable of anything but innocence and sweetness. Children learned from the world around them though, they learned from the savagery that filled their world, the hard scrabble desperate attempts to survive. They learned what dark corners to avoid, which ones were safer to skitter down.

It didn’t mean there weren’t still some rules of decency to be honored though.

Most folks, even those in the circle of the Rogues, largely left kids out of the equation. Crossfire happened of course, hitting busy city centers always meant some kind of collateral. But there wasn’t much that they got out of purposefully hurting kids outside a black mark on their name in most levels of the grungy underbelly of the city and one hell of a big target on their back. Both from the Bat and those criminals in the dark with them that took offense to those kinds of things. They were crooks, but with few exceptions they weren’t complete monsters.

Robin had always held an interesting place in their grungy little ecosystem. Anything to do with the Bat was generally ruled as gloves-off, do what you do without hesitation. And Robin - both of ‘em - had no problem hitting hard and being ruthless. The first one in particular had a feral sort of rage to him that was a terrifying thing to be on the business end of.

But they were still kids.

Defending yourself from any kid swinging on you was fair game, a person had the right to defend themselves. Grabbing up Robin to hold hostage or bait Gotham’s local cryptid, that was all fine and dandy. You could even get away with roughing the kid up a little here and there, so long as you made sure not to go too far and always kept hits to where the kid’s armor was the thickest. No hard and fast written rules, mind, but general rules of thumbs. Lines indistinct due to the shaky ground a child dancing through the night as a vigilante left all of them on, but ones clear enough that you knew when you were at risk of going too far.

Besides, the Robins were good kids. Fucking feral little shits, of course, able to leave you bleeding just as easy from a kick as they were a sharp word. But good kids. Even most the Rogues in the Gallery liked em. It was hard not to be at least a little fond of a gutsy little punk like that.

Though they were all maybe a tad less nervous around Robin II than they were the original.

Robin I had a lot of anger burning in him, a lot of anger in him, but he was still a cheerful boy with a bright attitude that was refreshing in a world so bleak and dark as the one they all lived in. It was up in the air which was scarier about the kid: The smiled he gave when he was about to give a hands on demonstration about how much force a tiny ten year old could put into a kick when they had half a dozen spins shoved into a flip to wind up to 80 miles an hour, or the flash of his teeth when he was demonstrating the knife sharp brilliance of his belief that Batman was only as frightening as Robin was hopeful.

They weren’t sure if he realized that sometimes they felt a helluva lot more hope at the sight of the Bat when the little bird was putting the hurt on them, or if he’d simply folded that fact neatly into his core philosophy without issue.

Robin II on the other hand had this kind of quiet shyness to him - even as he was shouting the most inventive swears ever heard by human ear at someone while he kicked them in the balls hard enough to make ‘em see not just the face of their own god but a few dozen besides. He was just as unhinged as the Robin before him - seemed to be a requirement for the job really - but there was a distinct different in how the two birds flitted about the darkened skyline of the city. Where the first Robin’s smile was as much danger as it was dazzle, a fanged declaration of victory against the dark, Robin II’s was a sunny, stubborn declaration of perseverance. Kid was sassy and smart, and never - ever - flinched away from extending a hand to those he thought in need of it.

Even if the folks he offered that hand to were in the middle of an attack on some fancy Gala or Wayne Enterprises or whatever target of the week it was. Even knowing the offered hand was likely to be slapped away and followed by a right hook. Kid still always tried.

They all knew why.

The Bat was big on offering chances, on rehabilitation rather than damnation. Some of Robin II being the way he was came from the broody cryptid he followed around. But Batman couldn’t claim to be the sole reason for Robin II being the way he was, couldn’t even pretend to be the cause of most of it. Nah, they knew why the little bird was the way he was.

That unmistakable thick accent. That frame that was always a little too thin even as he got older and stronger. That unshakable, headstrong spirit.

Robin II was an Alley Kid.

A true child of Gotham.

Her polluted waters in his veins. Her smoggy air in his lungs. Her shadows clinging to his edges less like a beast looking to swallow a small bird up and more like a protective mother hiding her hatchling. He understood the world most of them came from. The one they all lived in. Knew it in a way anyone who hadn’t been swallowed up by the dark never really could.

Everyone had their favorite, but even those that claimed the first Robin as theirs couldn’t deny that Robin II was someone to be respected. Nor could they deny a fondness for the chain smoking, classic lit referencing, perpetually baby-faced little shit. They’d all had knock out drag out fights with the kid and knew how fucking unhinged the puny motherfucker could be in a fight, but he always tempered it with offers of resources, of a listening ear, of understanding.

He visited them after they’d been arrested sometimes. In Arkham, or Blackgate or wherever else they’d been locked up in after being stopped by the Dynamic Duo. The little bird would make the rounds whenever he had a broken wing or was stuck waiting as the Bat interrogated someone else or for any other reason he wasn’t out flitting about the city skyline at night. He’d bring cookies or snacks and even cigarettes from his own secret stash on the rare occasion, mask unable to hide the furtive glances around to check for the living shadow that was the disapproving Bat.

The Rogues and their Goons always had a soft spot for the Robins. And Robin II made it especially easy to let fondness bleed out of them from time to time. He was a good kid.

But childhood was not held universally sacred in the dark streets of Gotham.

Bad things happened to good kids all the time.

And some of the monsters that lurked in the city’s darkest shadows took the black mark of a kid killer as a point of pride.

Robin II disappeared one day. Just after that piece of shit Garzonas took the fast way down from the top of a tall building. There were a lot of Rogues with doctoral degrees to their names but even those Goons that dropped out of school before they learned to spell their own names could do that math.

The big bad Bat had benched the boy after the fierce little bird had done what any decent member of the criminal underbelly would have. There were those that thought maybe it’d been an accident, that the kid was pulled off duty because of being too upset at unintentionally crossing the heavy line the Bat drew in the sand. Those voices were drowned out pretty quick though.

Sure, Robin II was all about second chances, of doing better, of redemption. But Garzonas had chances to spare and only ever spat in the face of those offering them. Doubled down on being a monster in a way very, very few of the Rogues Gallery would. The kid was a sweetheart, but he wasn’t no push over and there were some things so heinous that there was only one way of handling them. Crime Alley had its own kind of justice system, and when faced with a monster that was beyond even Batman’s jurisdiction, Robin II did what he always did: fell back on his roots.

Or so the rumors said, at least.

That was the thing about Gotham’s seedy underbelly. It was a grimy, wretched nest of vipers and cut-throats, but it was also worse than any beauty parlor when it came to gossip. No one actually knew anything other than that piece of shit motherfucker took a dive while Robin was chasing him and that he’d not been seen on the streets since. But most had a fondness for the kid, and a distaste for the kind of cruelty Garzonas reveled in and there was no proof that Robin hadn’t gone and done the world a favor by drop kicking that barbaric sack of shit off a roof. So as far as most in the Gallery were concerned, the little bird had stepped up and been a hero.

Time passed. Not a lot. But enough. The Bat disappeared too, popping up on an entire other continent in a way that was awfully tempting. Even with other Masks playing baby sitter while the local cryptid was away. Rogues were scrambling to set plans in motion, Goons getting hired en masse, weapons and weird chemicals getting delivered to shady places across Gotham by the truck-full. The criminal underbelly was abuzz with the same excited energy of children the day before a big birthday party.

And then the news came in.

There were people in the dark who made their living finding things out. Knowing things that no one else did or could. Some even specialized, keeping tabs on Batman and Robin better than anyone else in the business were able. And when the information they found wasn’t anything handy to have tucked into a back pocket or a secret they were paid extremely well to keep? They held on to with the same tenacity a sieve clung to water.

Robin II had run off across the globe and ended up in Ethiopia. Something to do with a doctor doing aid work, the same something that had the Bat end up there was the assumption. Kid ran off to handle things himself or was sent on a separate path on purpose for some plan or other the Bat had cooked up on his hunt.

Whatever the reason, the kid crossed paths with the Clown.

Alone.

Childhood was not held universally sacred in the dark streets of Gotham. The city was hard and cruel and she didn’t care about the ages of those that were ground up and spit out in her oily black heart. But Robin II was hers, the child of her heart, an exception to the rule. And besides, most folks - even those in the Rogues Gallery - largely left the purposeful harm of kids out of the equation.

The Joker wasn’t most folks.

And the little bird was a long way away from the protective shadows of his mother city.

The Rogues and their Goons always had a soft spot for the Robins. And Robin II made it especially easy to let fondness bleed out of them from time to time. He was a good kid.

When the news broke, it broke most of them right along with it.

Plans stalled. Schemes ended. Gotham, for an unnervingly quiet stretch of time that neither its civilians or the world at large understood, went still. Crime continued, of course, but the big names weren’t seen. It was only right, by the standards of those that lived their lives in the dark, that they hold off and give the man that fought them all so relentlessly over the past years the time he needed to focus on hunting down the monster that killed his son. He didn’t need the distraction, and they all owed it to Robin II not to interfere while the Bat at last put a final end to the Clown.

And the hellish cryptid would need his full focus on this one. The Joker wasn’t one to take lightly at the best of times, but he’d set himself up neatly in the middle of a nasty bear trap. Ugly and complicated in the way everything with the Clown was. Interference from the CIA, from the UN, from Superman.

Shit went down. People heard about the Bat and the Clown throwing down in a helicopter plummeting from the sky in one hell of a water landing. Big Blue fished Batman out of the drink before he could drown but there’d been no sign of the Joker.

But the Bat would find him.

They all knew the relentless bastard would find him. It was just a matter of time. With the hellish drive of a demon straight from Gotham’s darkest shadows, the Bat would track the grinning, child killing ghoul down and make right the terrible wrong the evil motherfucker had done. Batman would hunt him to the ends of the earth and enact the justice he held up so fiercely. Robin II would have the vengeance the kid so rightly deserved.

It was just a matter of time. So they waited. And waited.

Days.

Weeks.

Months.

The Clown still lived.

The world, impossibly, began to move on. The Bat returned to his lurking in the night, picking off gangs and petty crooks and no-name gangsters as if nothing had happened at all. More vicious, more savage, but failing to turn that rise in brutality into the killing blow against the one figure that so rightly deserved it.

No one knew what was happening. There were rumors and theories, as there always were in the underground. Some thought that it wasn’t the Bat at all back in Gotham but someone else pretending for awhile, looking after his neglected city while he continued his pursuit of the Joker. Other held that it was the Bat but the whole thing was a ploy to draw the Clown out into the open. A pretense at not caring meant to get under the Clown’s skin, make the asshole mad enough to get stupid and sloppy and reveal himself.

That the man simply had given up was beyond comprehension. Beyond what any upstanding Rogue could accept. So it simply couldn’t be true. There was a trick being played. Some brilliant game of 4D chess that none of them had been able to parse out. It’d be revealed in time, and they see the brilliant trap that had been set. The Clown would be lured out, the Bat would put him down for good, and then they’d all at last raise a glass to the little bird that had been shot down far too soon and smoke shitty cigarettes and quote literary masters and mourn the loss one of Gotham’s own true children.

They just had to play along. Stumbling forward back into their usual habits, pretending that it was a choice and not the world just forcibly dragging them along. It’d make sense, eventually. The Bat had a plan. Robin II wasn’t forgotten, his killer not left free to roam and ravage unpunished for what he’d done.

And then one day there was a new bird flitting across the rooftops.

Chasing the Bat’s looming frame like a reverse shadow. Bright flashes of color in contrast to the bleak darkness of Gotham’s grimy nights. Small and thin and young.

Not the first Robin. With his showman bright grin and bloody rage and unwavering belief in the terrifying power of hope. Not the brilliant, vicious little boy that they’d seen grow over the years into the fierce and fearless Nightwing.

Not Robin II either.

Not Gotham’s soft hearted little bruiser with his unshakable belief that people could be better if given the chance, shinning so bright in the dark as he held out a hand that even the Rogues had no choice but to believe right along with him sometimes. Not the tough little songbird they’d never get to see grow up. Unavenged and unhonored. Put in a box and buried in the ground with a name none of them would ever know carved into a stone they’d never be able to visit.

No.

It was a new Robin.

A new child with the R emblazoned upon his chest.

Sharp and quick and young in the way the birds always were when they started flying at the Bat’s side. Every inch of the boy’s tiny frame a tragedy and an insult. One very, very few of Gotham’s vicious underbelly were willing to tolerate.

Childhood was not held universally sacred in the dark streets of Gotham, but there was a damn big difference between holding something sacred and not giving a damn about it at all. There were rules unspoken but understood, a way things were done. Nothing so solid or concrete as a code of conduct, more a collection of time honored traditions. Blood for blood was among the oldest and truest, and the more precious the person taken the more vital and vicious payment was to be made in kind.

The Clown had killed Robin II.

Beaten the kid half to death and then finished the job with a bomb.

Everyone knew he’d done it laughing all the way.

The Bat should have done the same in kind. Done worse. It was justice, it was what was right. You kill a kid you’re marked forever. You kill one so well liked and kill ‘em like that and you’re destined for a cruel and cold death. The Bat had first dibs. It was his kid. It was his right to put an end to that awful laughter and let his son have peace at last.

But he never did.

Nightwing had. For a bit. For a moment.

Robin I, who half the time had scared them all more than the Bat ever could. Dazzling and dizzying and dangerous. Gave back the pain and hurt the Clown had forced upon him with clenched fists and bone shattering hits. They were glad for him, that he was able to beat the monster who had taken his little brother from him to death, that he was able to have such justice.

And then the Bat stepped in.

Revived the fucking Clown.

A slap in the face. The snapping crack of a spine beneath one straw too many. The final, unforgivable insult the man had dared visit upon not just the child taken from him but the entirety of Gotham.

The Rogues and their Goons always had a soft spot for the Robins. Respected their ferocity, admired their moxie, marveled at their ability to keep shining in the dark like they did. Robin II made it especially easy to let fondness bleed out of the city’s dirty criminal underbelly from time to time.

He was a good kid.

He deserved better.

Better than the silence and peace he should be granted in death to be marred by the mad cackles of his killer still running around alive and unpunished. Better than his father giving up, returning to the same old routine as if nothing had happened at all. Better than the Bat snatching up a new bird less than a year later.

Gotham and her Rogues had given the Bat time enough to do what needed to be done.

It was their turn.

#batman #batman au #batman rogues #batman rouges gallery #dc penguin #dick grayson #jason todd #jason todd robin #dick grayson robin #bruce wayne #the joker #tim drake #dc robin #gotham city #open season au #i don't go in for Jason being the 'angry' robin or the 'violent' robin #he was the lil chainsmoking ball of sunshin robin that made sure to do his homework first before going out to fight crime #dick was the scariest robin because he was BOTH incredibly violent & full of rage AND a ball of sunshine & unrelenting hope #Jason was a Gotham kid (an Alley Kid) and I think a lot of the rogues would have respected that #dick got his respect by teaching them how many of their bones a tiny 9 year old could break in a single kick #feel like there's a scene in the extended au in which Tim gets kidnapped but instead of being held for ransom or threatened #it's just the Rogues aggressively mother-henning him and trying to make sure he's alright #Dick gets a call from Harley later that the newest Robin is fine he and Riddler are coming up with deadly traps together #No she doesn't see anything wrong with that - it's just some enrichment activities for them - why do you ask?

[armed-with-a-waffle-iron]

Stephanie Brown ACTUALLY having the character arc that fanon pretends Jason Todd had (plus a defence of canon Jason)

What I'm really saying is that Stephanie Brown is underappreciated, Jason Todd is often misinterpreted, and, though it should go without saying, ignoring canon is poor media literacy. So let's actually analyse canon and get to the bottom of what the stories are trying to say and how they use their characters to tell this, as opposed to just which character should we stan.

I'm arguing that Stephanie Brown's story actually features a redemption arc that sees her transform from a violent, almost murderous teenager into the most unwaveringly hopeful of heroes and that Jason's story is about a villain who we're meant to empathise with to expose the cracks in the Batman's heroic facade; a Frankenstein's monster if you will. Here's a numbered list:

Part 1: Outgrowing Violence, Anger and Murder

A big part of Stephanie Brown's growth in canon is her learning not to kill or use excessive force. But it's not as simple as just killing is wrong, don't question it.

Let's begin with the narrative's relationship to violence, anger and murder. Why doesn't Batman kill? Because "[those] who [fight] with monsters might take care lest [they] thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you". If he kills, he's playing god, choosing who gets to live and die. No one deserves that kind of absolute power and absolute power also corrupts. Batman doesn't want to lose sight of himself or his cause. Deliberate murder is treated VERY negatively in the Batman mythos.

Enter Stephanie Brown.

Stephanie was a working class latchkey kid who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. She had an abusive, criminal father, who was in and out of jail, and a mother struggling with addiction, who Steph became a carer for at just 15. Steph also became pregnant with the child of her horrible ex. At 16, she gave birth to that child and had to give her up for adoption. Steph is also a survivor.

The world was never kind to Steph and left this teenager with a hell of a lot of bitterness and rage which her vigilante career became an outlet for. You can tell by the way she fights since Steph fights DIRTY; she'll tug hair and spit in your eyes and strike below the belt and catch a kick to twist your ankle and dislodge your already broken nose. On the one hand; the narrative tells us Steph is resourceful. She's 5'5", 130 lb and has zero powers, but can always find an opening even when going up against Gotham's grizzliest. It's telling that quick thinking, savviness and spontaneity become her thing when she becomes Batgirl; Steph is the wild card. On the other hand, she was a real diamond in the rough and a complete loose canon. In her first arc, it's Batman who stops her from making the biggest mistake of her life; killing her dad. To deliberately kill; to play god, is to lose yourself, remember. Her first arc is about not being defined by who your parents are and about not giving up on yourself. Batman basically tells her, there's hope for you yet Stephanie Brown, by getting her to spare her dad. And she does. And so began her superhero career.

Nonetheless, it's never that simple. Steph is still a bitter, angry teenager, no matter how many jokes she cracks. It becomes a personal crusade when she, now Robin, discovers that The Penguin is using children as runners. It takes Cassandra Cain to stop her from inflicting anything she may regret.

The narrative wants to show us how cruel the world can be and that it isn't black and white, either. The story ends with an angry Stephanie lamenting "why". It's a "why" she is asking herself too. Why does she do what she does? And it informs us that she, and maybe us the reader too, still have a lot to learn. Murder's not the answer but what is?

Stephanie later saves Bruce by almost murdering serial killer Victor Zsasz. Bruce reprimands her and she cries, quite honestly, "I don't get it, I really don't", following on from where we left off in Batgirl. "There are always other options than to kill" asserts Bruce, forget not being on the same page, they're reading different books. The thesis of the story is what Bruce should have told Steph when she was an angry 15 year old about to murder her dad; "[those] who [fight] with monsters might take care lest [they] thereby become a monster". The world's cruel, Steph, but that doesn't mean you have to be too. "Are you firing me?" "No, I'm teaching you".

Over 2 years down the line, an around 19 year old Stephanie, establishing herself as the new, hoping-inspiring Batgirl, is now teaching a brash Damian Wayne what she's learned.

"To murder or not to murder" is just a plot device to the themes of overcoming your own anger at the world's cruelty to contribute good, coming to terms with shades of grey, not giving up on yourself and staying hopeful in the face of adversity and horror. These are Stephanie's arcs and as a consequence, she goes from would-be-murderer to Gotham's cheeriest caped crusader.

Part 2: Double Standards and Second Chances

Another huge part of Stephanie's story is her overcoming double standards and doubters, to earn her own second chances. Her resurrection and rise to the role of Batgirl were choices made to hammer home this theme; it's never too late to turn things around.

There's some juicy metatext to analyse here too. DC editorial's treatment of Stephanie during War Games was horrific and panned by both fans and writers. To reperate for these harms, Steph was retconned back to life and then made Batgirl during Batman: Reborn. Here's a quote by Batgirl (2009) author Bryan Q. Miller on what his run aimed to bring out of Steph:

The whole point of Stephanie's resurrection and take over of the Batgirl title was to give her a redemption arc.

In text, Stephanie was unfairly treated too, notwithstanding that she was brash and had a massive violent streak in her Spoiler and Robin days. Tim Drake constantly condescends her and tells her to give up vigilante life, even though she was ALWAYS a match for Tim according to Convergence: Batgirl. Cassandra Cain constantly underestimates Steph. Bruce Wayne tells his allies to cut off ties with Steph and then later fires her as Robin for DISOBEYING HIM as if that's not the first thing Dick Grayson ever did as Robin. Barbara Gordon tells Steph she has a death wish. Dick deems Steph too reckless (moments before he resurrects a zombie Batman). And Damian is an entitled brat who gives her a hard time for no reason. Everyone doubts Stephanie and it generally says more about the doubter than it does Stephanie.

Stephanie was never great with authority or criticism so she still went out there and earned her second chance. And it felt rewarding when her doubters came around too.

Stephanie was brought back from the dead to be redeemed and man did she take that chance!

Part 3: What is Jason Todd's Story Meant to Tell Us and My Defence of Canon Jason

Jason Todd returns from the dead as a ghost of Batman's past; he is the living embodiment of Batman's greatest mistake who couldn't stay buried and is back to haunt him. He's a character we are meant to empathise with but he's a villain nonetheless. He's not irredeemable but for the most part his story is not really about redemption. Succinctly, it revolves around the idea that "we are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell” to quote Oscar Wilde.

When we first meet the resurrected Jason, he's a cold-blooded murderer who's slinging guns and using The Joker's old moniker. These choices are made to emphasise that he went down the wrong path; he's breaking Batman's "don't play god" rule and his actions become eerily closer to those of the Clown Prince of Crime than Batman's. In fact Nightwing and Batman spend some quality time together in the next two issues because Nightwing is the foil to the Red Hood; he's what Bruce considers his greatest success. Remember that thing about "those who [fight] with monsters might take care lest [they] thereby become a monster"? Well Jason DID become a monster. And if he's the monster, then Bruce Wayne is Frankenstein.

We're not supposed to think "yes, kill the The Joker, Jason", we're supposed to think "good god, please Jason, it's not too late to turn your life around". Here's Dick and Jason being the exact opposite of each other, an issue apart.

So what was Jason's villainous return trying to say? For one, that people are the products of their circumstance, lest we forget Jason was once an eager and studious Robin who just wanted to be part of something greater when life, but specifically Bruce, sent him awry. This is also a story about Bruce which tells us says that our mistakes have consequences that don't stay buried, and that we will always be forced to reckon with our histories or it becomes everyone's problem. This next panel shows this best. All of Jason's killing and torture and fear-spreading and chaos does not come down to some "murder or not to murder" debate, it comes down to his relationship with Bruce. He is the monster that Frankenstein created who's back to haunt him and no one is safe.

Jason's initial Red Hood arcs were never supposed to pose the question "should Batman kill The Joker or not?". The answer is no and always has been. They are supposed to show us how Bruce's poor fatherhood of and partnership with Jason Todd led to all this horror. And Bruce can't turn back the clock, he has to reckon with the consequences of his actions in the present or more people will get hurt. It's significant that these first arcs don't end with Jason returning to the manor and seeking help surrounded by family.

We then see Jason and his issues with Bruce threaten the lives of others like when he beat Tim half to death twice, tried to blow up Mia Dearden and then tried to become a murderous, gun-touting Batman after Bruce's "death".

Once Dick Grayson becomes Batman, the narrative sheds a bit more light on how Bruce's Frankenstein created a monster in Jason; Bruce wanted Jason to be another Dick Grayson.

The red hair is a perfect metaphor. Jason is naturally red-haired and he is now balding because Bruce made him dye his hair black so he'd look like Dick as Robin. That sums it up for me. Bruce really created his own demon here and Dick, as the new Batman, is trying to make amends with the sins of the Batman's past. Jason's a great choice for a Dick Grayson villain because of their histories, considering Dick Grayson is the legacy Batman.

"I tried really hard to be what batman wanted me to be...which is you." Jason tells Dick.

That line is so painful and way more recognisable and relatable than anything fanon has produced.

"But this world...this dirty, twisted, cruel and ugly dungheap had...other plans for me."

Look no further, this is who Jason Todd is.

That's a powerful story if you ask me, and this is why I like Jason Todd as a character; a villain I pity deeply, who is portrayed as a product of their circumstances without diminishing their agency and who makes me see the cracks in the hero's facade because they are the monster our "hero" created. He's also a very nuanced foil to the ever-shining light that is Dick Grayson. The appeal to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein isn't that the monster murdered people. I also would never swap canon Jason out for, I dunno, Wayne Family Adventures Jason who's the amalgamation of 3 or 4 common fanon tropes. This is my two cents.

#stephanie brown that ball of anger and vengeance that we saw grow into one of the most well-rounded capable and cheerful bats around #stephanie brown #vengeance is purple #fanon vs canon #jason tood #robin #batgirl #the spoiler #red hood #batman and robin #dc comics #comics #metas #batman #batfam #wayne family adventures #bruce wayne #dick grayson

[bookcrazyace]

Dick & Jason and Why We Need to Stop Mischaracterizing Them and Their Relationship

I know it's been brought up a million times and will probably be brought up a million more times but I wanted to put my 2 cents in. Jason and Dick and their relationship is grossly mischaracterized and it hurts the narrative. Now there isn't anything wrong with a little ooc content I'm a fanfic writer and I've fallen onto some of the more fanon sides of things to make it fit my narrative better but the problem arises when people mistake fanon for canon and bring it up in serious fandom discussions.

Dick was the first Robin so we'll start with him first. Characterizing Dick as the happy-go-lucky Robin is very distinctly wrong and actually quite the opposite of what he actually was. Dick wanted revenge for the death of his parents and that's what drew Bruce to him in the first place. Bruce made Batman to focus his anger and grief into something productive that would help people. When he recognized the same yearning for vengeance in Dick he trained him so that Robin could be for Dick what Batman was to him, a coping mechanism. In the end Dick manages to let go of the notion of revenge and it means that Robin succeeded and he then takes on a new identity, Nightwing (Canonically Dick and Bruce start having arguments and that's more the reason he leaves but from a narrative perspective Dick going from Robin to Nightwing can be seen as him getting rid of the feelings of revenge and gaining new goals. Also it's an excellent juxtaposition to the fact that while Robin succeeded in freeing Dick Bruce is still Batman.) Dick starting off as a vengeful spirit and blossoming into one of the most outwardly cheerful members of the batfam (despite the most definitely present repressed anger) is so much more powerful than him essentially not changing throughout the entire story especially when you consider that multiple times in canon Bruce has said that NIghtwing is better than Batman and what Batman was meant to be.

Jason ever the fan favorite and probably the person in the batfam that is misharacterized the most (in my opinion) is the next topic of discussion. Jason being the angry Robin takes so much away from his story and honestly I'm not vibing with it. One of Jason's notable lines as Robin is the phrase "Being Robin gives me magic!"you surely can't hear that and picture a violent criminal in the making. Jason being a street kid that jacks tires for a living but still being kind and childishly innocent makes him as Robin so much more interesting. Jason's drive to help people is obviously heavily influenced by his mother and how he took care of her up until her death. The tragedy of his mother's death is what drives Bruce to him. Of course Jason's process of becoming Robin wasn't immediate like a lot of people believe, Jason was actually sent to an all boys school for a short period of time before realizing they were a front for a crime ring he then helped Batman take down their operation. I feel like after seeing all that one would lose their faith in most people but Jason didn't remember he wasn't Robin until after this incident and he still was so happy and bright. The big turning point in Jason's story (from what I remember I haven't read the comics in a while) Batman suspects he pushes a man they were chasing off of a roof (I don't remember if it's ever made clear whether he did or not) this puts a pretty big strain on their relationship. Soon after all that goes down Jason finds out that the same mother he grew up with, the same mother he took care of, the same mother he watched die isn't actually his mother. The tense atmosphere between him and Bruce in combination for his yearning for answers leads him to run away to find her. When he meets her she sells him out to the Joker who subsequently beats him with a crowbar and leaves him to die in a warehouse that's rigged to blow up. Jason's mother is in the warehouse too and he does everything he can to save her. In the end they both die but when Batman questions her Jason's mom tells him that he tried to save her. In most modern iterations of Jason's death story his mother is written out and his death is pinned on him and his "impulsive and brash decisions". When Jason comes back to Gotham after his revival he seeks vengeance and is incredibly violent a very stark contrast to the bubbly kid that was just happy to be there. Two of his most notable actions as Red Hood are decapitating the lieutenants of the top crime lords and delivering them in a duffel bag and attacking Tim Drake the new Robin in Titans Tower. Jason's main drive for attacking Tim and becoming a crime lord is the fact that he died, he died as Robin and he didn't think that children should have to take on crime in the way Bruce did Jason decided that the best way to get rid of crime was to control it. The way Jason went from sunshine personified to a gritty crime lord who was willing to kill is what makes his story so interesting. The way an innocent child that got exposed to the darkness of the world and got swallowed by it is what makes the story so meaningful. In comparison to Dick, Jason is Batman's greatest failure he became the very thing Bruce tried to prevent him from being, a vengeful spirit that kills. In some ways Dick and Jason's stories are opposites and parallels.

Now for Dick and Jason's relationship. Despite what a lot of people think Dick didn't hate Jason when he first appeared (I think there was a point where Dick wanted to adopt Jason but I don't remember). Making Dick hate Jason as Robin sort of ruins both of their character arcs Dick evolved past his hatred and need for vengeance and thus adores Jason, Jason growing into someone so angry and hating Tim as Robin despite the fact that Dick showed him so much kindness makes everything hit so much harder.

In conclusion, this isn't really a huge deal but I've been thinking about it a lot recently. I've written and read fics where Jason was an angry Robin and Dick was a happy one. I've written and read fics where Dick hated Jason at first. Fandom is all about what fans do with a piece of media they like and at the end of the day the characters can be whoever you want them to be. Don't let this post uninspire you or make you feel called out if you enjoy the more fanon dynamics and personalities of these characters. Fee free to point out any inaccuracies to me it's been a while since I've read the comics.

#batfam #batman #jason todd #red hood #dick grayson #nightwing #dc comics #dc universe #batfamily #canon vs fanon #fandom #fanfic

[tartarusknight]

Okay, because I do not have the time nor energy to write an entire fic about a time loop situation. I'm just going to tell you the one scene/idea that is urging me to write one.

The idea is the basic Steve Harrington in a time loop situation. Where he figures out that both Eddie and Max do not make it through the night. However, because Eddie is the one who physically sees die. He focuses on fixing that one because he thinks he knows how that one goes. (He also does not know why Max hasn't made it out, and he doesn't know how to fix it.)

However, the moment, maybe 20 or 30 loops into the fic, he learns that Jason is the one behind it. And it makes him so angry that he doesn't really think before he acts. He takes his bat as he decides to pay his old basketball buddy a friendly visit. Where he, of course, then threatens him with his bat.

But it doesn't go as planned, and Jason goes off on him. Because Steve lets it slip that he's been taking care of Eddie. Jason tries to take him down, but Steve stands up and, without meaning to, kills Jason. It's bloody, it's violent, and at the end of it, Steve just kinda stands there. Realizing that this bat that he's had for years. Doesn't just hurt monsters anymore.

He races to Lovers Lake and washes the blood from his face, from his arms, and breaks down. He can't even stop it from taking over. And he cries for the loss of what little innocence he felt he still had. But he pushes forwards and gets out of there before any of the other basketball players see him.

When he returns to the group, they all see the blood, and he lies. He says he accidentally made his bites bleed again, and Robin panics about him for a second. But after he assures them that he's okay. They have to move on, and they don't have the time to fret because they have to face Vecna.

Only Eddie seems to see that Steve isn't okay, and he kind of reaches out to Steve. He says that it's gonna be okay and then tries to ask Steve what happened. But Steve doesn't know what to say. Because he's trying to convince this man that he's a good person and that he's trying to find ways to make Eddie survive. He just didn't realize how far he was willing to make sure that both of these people would survive.

And at the end of the day. Max survives, but Eddie doesn't, so the loop was useless. Steve just breaks down when he comes back the next loop. He just can't even stomach about what he did. And he knows he'll do it again because it worked for Max. And if it worked for Max, it was worth it.

But this time, when he gets into his car and he goes to leave. Eddie sees that shakiness in him. And he assumes that it is the bites. That he's hurt. That he's pretending that he's better than he is.

But it's really that Steve is gearing up to kill Jason again. Because Jason dies anyways and Steve just has to pretend that dying by his hand isn't as bad. That it's okay because Jason would have died anyway.

But Eddie ignores his arguments and climbs in the back. Eddie promises not to get out but that he just wants to make sure Steve will survive the car ride. Steve really just doesn't know what to say because he doesn't want Eddie to go with him. Because he knows that Eddie won't like what he sees, and at this moment, Steve is just terrified of disappointing him.

Steve wants to be good friend Eddie because he's grown to care this about this man that he's been trying to save over and over again. But he knows that if Eddie comes with him, he'll see Steve at his most violent. He'll see what Steve is willing to do, and he won't be able to separate Steve from the other basketball players.

The basketball players who are going after Eddie and they're threatening Eddie. Steve doesn't want Eddie to think of him as the same as the others. And Steve is just terrified of being seen right then and there.

But Eddie doesn't let him go alone. He ducks down in the back seat and talks to Steve. It's like he knows all he has to do is stall Steve. To get him to stop and think for long enough to realize he can't kill Jason again. That he can't stomach it. They talk for a while before Eddie tells Steve about how his mom got into a car right when he needed her most. And she didn't come back.

That he was kind of worried that Steve might do the same and they need him. Eddie needed Steve. It sends Steve's filled with so much terrified energy, but all he can do is reach back, giving his knee a pant like it could prove to Eddie that Steve would never leave. He couldn't give up on them. He'd be there until the end.

Eddie takes Steve's hand before he can take it back. The rings on Eddie’s fingers dig into Steve's, but he doesn't pull back. Not even as Edie squeezes and whispers, "Steve, it's gonna you have to be okay. We need you whole. We don't need the shell of Steve Harrington. We need you." But Steve doesn't know if he could survive and be okay, so he just breaks down.

Cause killing Jason worked but maybe there's a different way to save Max without doing that. Maybe Steve can still live with himself after all of this is over.

But for now, he holds Eddie's hand and he explains what's happening, all the things that he's had to do. And Eddie listens and he holds Steve right back and he promises that they're gonna be okay. That it's gonna be okay.

But at the end of that loop. When Max's walkman's broken by Jason and Eddie's laying there, bloody and beaten by the bats. Steve takes Eddie's hand and even though he wants to scream, to curse Eddie for doing this over and over, he tells him it's gonna be okay. That they need Eddie whole, that they need Eddie.

And when Eddie's eyes go glassy and when he loses his life and Steve wonders why it was him. Why they chose Steve to keep trying this over and over. Why someone would choose him to keep going. When all he wants, do is break down. He doesn't feel smart enough to do it. And he doesn't want to be violent, but he doesn't know the other way.

So when Steve gets to his car, slinging his nailbat into the trunk. He denies Eddie's request to come with. Instead, he hits Jason when he's down and barely manages to hold himself together. He changes the plans to try and give Eddie the support he needs.

But when Eddie's dying and Steve stumbles to his side, he collapses next to him. "Why can you just- I can't keep doing this." He begs, and Eddie looks at him, eyes looking so lost, but there's still some life in them.

"We need you whole," Eddie chokes out. "You forgot-" He tries to say, but his last words cut off. His chest stilling.

Steve looks away from Eddie, the blood on the ground soaking into Steve's pants. He feels bathed in blood. His voice is choked when he asks Nancy for her side arm. She's hesitant to hand him her pistol but still trusts him enough to hand it over to him.

Even as the radio crackles and Lucas is cheering that Max is okay. He knows he's lost, so he brings the gun up and fires. The last thing he sees is the man that he can't keep alive. The man who is breaking more and more of Steve every loop.

He doesn't realize that Eddie had remembered their past conversation. He doesn't realize that he's getting closer to figuring out what to do. He doesn't realize it because then he's waking up in the Wheelers basement to try again.

#tw: death #tw: blood #time loop idea #stranger things #steve harrington #i might add onto this eventually because i love to write angst but here's this for now

[melellle]

Aditionally the complaints about Jason

I saw a lot of comments complaining ablut how Jason was portrayed as the angry, violent Robin. And let's face it. In comic canon ever since his resurrection that has been a part of his character. Not him being the angry Robin, but him having been angry as Robin. And that anger having lead to fights between him amd Bruce.

This is a canon fact. You cannot ignore a canon fact just because you don't like it. Or well, actually you can, because we are talking about comics. But this way you are never going to find a comic that matches your characterisation of Jason because it doesn't exist. (Same with Bruce)

If you stop reading everytime that you read something don't like you are willfully sabotaging you're reading experience. I honestly don't understand what you want to read about Jason then. You say he wasn't the angry Robin, but he was angry as Robin and that anger was something he struggles with. But you don't let him struggle with it or overcome it, you're just refusuing to let it exist at all.

(Also noone called Jason the angry Robin in this. You did that all by yourself.)

#red hood: outlaws #ramblings #don't take this too seriously #i mean i am upset and I do mean it #but a lot it probably didn't come out right #jason todd

[autism-swagger]

On those tall Steph panels (Yes tall Steph is amazing) but also I kind of doubt its intentional but I love the vibes that come from her & Jason being kind of buds.

Cos it radiates a sort of "We come from a very similar place regarding life experience, family's & trauma, we can see it in each other and that let's us kind of get passed a lot of walls others would struggle with."

I recall a meta post comparing Stephanie's efforts to warn Jason to how one sibling might warn another their abusive parent is on the warpath and to get out of dodge while they calm them down.

Obviously Bruce isn't Steph's dad and nor she doesn't want him to be, but the general vibes fit.

This panel particularly gets me.

Something about specifically Steph going against Bruce's orders to warn Jason.

There is so much wasted potential in their relationship! Criminal fathers, addict mothers who (mostly. lookin at you Crystal) try their best but still fall short, becoming a vigilante because you have no other choice, it's this or nothing. Even their tenures as Robin end in incredibly similar ways!

They're direct parallels. It's even acknowledged in canon!!

(Something something Jason starting off loving and kind and a bleeding heart, and morphing into something driven by fury and revenge, who's violent and hateful and wants to burn the world down just to get back at the people who hurt him.

Something something Steph starting off wanting so desperately to kill her father to get back at him for everything he's done to her, starting off angry and violent and (quite frankly) more than a little bit bloodthirsty, and rising above it all, refusing to let it win.)

(Also in regards to siblings who warn each other about an abusive parent, Jason and Steph are really the only ones who understand that, aren't they?

Dick and Duke had loving parents and then Bruce. Tim's parents were occasionally absent at worst (no matter what Tim stans believe). Cass had such an insane, unique childhood that I don't think she would, or could, relate in that specific sense, even if she does relate to abusive parents/upbringings. Same with Damian, even though Talia is (depending on who's writing her) a good mom. Barbara still has her dad, and he's a good father.

I feel like Jason and Steph are really the only ones who understand each other in that way. In a lot of ways, really.)

#or at least it's acknowledged that she reminds people of Jason #society if DC capitalized on their parallels #hell society if the FANDOM capitalized on their parallels #they are so that one lyric from Fool by Adrianne Lenker coded #'if I were him / would you be my family too?' #Steph tag #og fandom post tag

[evilwickedme]

I’ve been seeing a lot of posts lately about how fanon treats Tim compared to Damian and Jason, which is fine, but they’re looking at it through the lens of “good victims” vs “bad victims” in response to trauma and I don’t think that’s the right way to do it. I don’t think we should be looking at it like that because 1. All three of those characters have trauma and comparing trauma is gross and 2. applying real life psychology to inconsistently written fictional characters feels pointless lol. Damian and Jason are written super inconsistently and trying to tie their characters into one specific framework is borderline impossible lol. Sometimes Jason is written as a good person who has inner demons but other times he’s written as a psychopath who tries to murder his family and gleefully tries to shoot children so I don’t think it’s super productive to label him as one or the other. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Ok I'll be real with you I'm not 100% sure what you're getting at! I think you're saying that Tim is positioned as the good victim and Damian and Jason are positioned as the bad victims, although correct me if I'm wrong.

I definitely have a lot of thoughts when it comes to victimhood and the batfam, especially Jason. I saw a TikTok recently that put something I've thought for a while now into words, which is that Jason - Red Hood - is a victim's power fantasy. Like, Bruce is very much a male power fantasy, and Spider-Man and Captain America are Jewish power fantasies, and Jason is over here with his anger and trauma and it just feels so familiar. I don't relate to Jason the most out of the batfam - I feel like Tim's experiences as a whole are much more relatable to me - but I for sure see myself in that aspect of Jason's character.

I think the dynamic of "bad victim" vs "good victim" is flawed in the first place, and dare I say it - yet another aspect of cultural xtianity that has made it into fandom and our culture at large. Purity culture is based in Christianity, and a natural result of it is the idea that victims must be flawless and well behaved, or they must be at fault.

Honestly we see this in DC's constant rewriting of Jason's Robin days - post UTRH comics, esp post n52 comics, are constantly retconning him into being the angry Robin, a boy who was angry and damaged and no good from the beginning, which of course is not true at all - he was a fucking nerd, for real. He loved school and doing homework and going to museums and he only had two notable cases of violence, one extremely close to his death, and the other is in the first issue of A Death in the Family - you know, the story in which he was killed off. Afai can remember RHatO n52 and rebirth and urban legends: cheer all try to present this - almost as if to make Jason's death less tragic, make it seem inevitable. When Bruce calls Jason "broken" in a hologram in battle for the cowl it's this claim that he was mentally unstable and shouldn't have ever been Robin, something that was only brought up in ADitF.

All of this is DC's attempt to make Jason a "bad victim". Red Hood!Jason is angry not bc of his death traumatizing him, but bc he was always broken. The reality is, the reason Jason's death affected Bruce so much and the reason UTRH was so impactful WAS Jason being such a joyful, trusting child. He wanted so much to belong, to be good, to be magic, and instead he was betrayed by his own mother, brutalized, and then left to die. If there was such a thing as a good victim or a bad victim - which there isn't, because being a victim is a neutral act, and nobody deserves to be traumatized, even if they're the worst person on earth - Jason was absolutely a "good victim". That's the whole fucking point.

I don't know as much about Damian as I do about Jason, but I feel like Damian needs less retconning to be presented as a "bad victim". He's introduced as a violent boy who attacks Tim and doesn't trust anyone and having taken in so many of the LoA's teachings. I think it's insane how much the fandom tends to stick to this early characterization; unlike the situation with Jason, where DC is actively trying to pretend that he's always been rotten, for the most part the actual comics have really let him grow as a person and I'm really looking forward to reading Robin (2021) (I already have vol 1 I just need to like. Get around to it).

The truth is Damian was a deeply traumatized and brainwashed child who needed a supportive environment and Dick really tried to give him that, which was so instrumental in his development. I feel for him so much and it's really saddening to see the way many people treat him in the fandom. At least Jason made the choice to become a villain as an adult. Damian's just a kid, even now, and he'd never been shown another option.

As for Tim - God, I've said this before, but I fucking hate how woobified he's become in fan spaces. Guy's intelligent, sarcastic, independent, and yeah, honestly? Not always been treated the best. His biodad wasn't exactly great. Bruce gaslit him on his birthday and Alfred just went along with it. Dick and him were so close, and then after Bruce "died" everything just fell apart between them. But also like. Idk I feel like people often take his agency and character away from him. Originally Tim was supposed to be the normal kid. Robin was basically a nine to five - he was there to do a job, and he wasn't ever supposed to be part of the family, esp considering how recent Jason's death was when he became Robin. That just sort of... Happened. Dick treated him like a brother from the first, yes, but Bruce didn't treat him like a son, and Tim wasn't looking for a father. I don't remember where I saw this, but somebody pointed out that Tim basically never lived in the manor. I think he feels very deeply for the people he loves, and that's why he was so distant at first from the batfam - he didn't want to create a connection that would be severed eventually anyway when he stopped being Robin (again, was initially supposed to be a temporary gig!). We see this most obviously because he did get attached, and then Kon, Bart, Steph, his dad, and Bruce all died - or "died" - and he low-key lost it. And like...

Okay I've sort of lost the plot, but I guess basically what I'm saying here is that I'm not saying that Tim isn't deeply traumatized himself, but I don't really see the things that traumatized him the most as victimizing. Like... He and his dad were working on rebuilding their relationship, for better or for worse. Before Bruce died, he was doing pretty well as part of the family. He's, unfortunately, back to being Bruce's Robin. So like - what is he a victim of that he's being treated as a good victim? But then you read the most popular Tim centered fics and you're like, oh, okay. So we're just projecting here.

Like, were Jack and Janet drake amazing parents? Again, no, and he expresses extreme frustration with the constant moving and boarding schools and at a certain point jack confiscates his tv and jack forces him to stop being Robin because it's dangerous. But none of this is anywhere close to the abuse that's portrayed in woobified!Tim fics. Like my God, some of that shit is AWFUL. Many of them are extraordinarily well written and deal with the abuse they inflict on Tim extremely well. But it's, at least as far as I can tell, made up. Positioning Tim as a "good victim" is so fucking easy when you're making up the abuse in the first place.

Idk I guess the main problem here is that the idea of good victim and bad victim are ridiculously harmful in the first place, but then there's also just the fact that none of this characterization is based in canon - whether bc of DC's attempts to erase history with Jason, bc character development is routinely ignored with Damian (not to say that it's low-key because of racism, but... It's low-key because of racism), or bc it's straight up made up.

But, again. Y'all. Just do not moralize victimhood. Nobody deserves to be abused or mistreated or fucking murdered (except the joker, bc as I've said before, he has such a high fictional kill count it's like the equivalent of killing a Nazi and I stand by that).

Anyway thanks for asking, sorry for taking a few days I just had to think about it and also apparently write a full scroll of text. I tried to break it up into readable chunks instead of the wall of text I originally wrote it as but it's still just. So long. Anyway much love

#jason todd #damian wayne #tim drake #tim drake my beloved #batfam #dc #gail speaks #ask #anonymous #tw abuse #jason todd my beloved #jt

[dodger-chan]

So I was reading this very alternate timeline Chrissy lives Stranger Things fic, enjoying it very much, and I noticed what looks like the beginning of what seems to be a redemption arc for Jason. Now, to me, Jason is the scariest threat in season 4 even if the plot doesn't treat him as such, but not necessarily the most evil. So I can see where people might want to give his character the opportunity to be better. I think he's a tricky character to redeem, though, because with Jason there's what he does and there's also what he represents.

This is going to be long and very rambly, so under a cut.

So for a redemption arc to work you start with a character that has done bad things and you force that character to confront them. In Steve Harrington's arc (which is a relevant and fantastic example) he first has to realize he was an asshole, apologize for being an asshole (somewhat interrupted by a Demogorgon but the sentiment was expressed), and finally demonstrate that he learned by not being an asshole. The redemption arc doesn't work without all of the steps.

Now, what does that mean for Jason? Well, in terms of what Jason does wrong there are several levels. He's clearly not a very good boyfriend to Chrissy, though much like Steve with Nancy in season two, this may not be about him being a deeply flawed person so much as being young and ill-equipped to handle Chrissy's very serious issues (he does come across as a bit arrogant and self-centered in episode one but in a way that says eighteen years old rather than asshole). Assuming that Eddie killed Chrissy isn't a huge leap to make based on how the police questioned him, though assuming it was a satanic cult connected to D&D is a pretty wild conclusion to draw. Between that and his decision to go looking for Eddie, I think a tendency to rush to judgement and to let his emotions overwhelm his reason are character flaws that ought to be addressed in a redemption arc.

Also key is the need to address all of the ways he was an asshole. The reason I don't consider Steve's redemption arc to be complete until season three is that part of Steve's asshole behavior in season one is calling Jonathan "a queer." While he is shown to understand the direct harm he does to Jonathan in season one and Nancy in seasons one and two, nothing in the first two seasons shows Steve has any grasp of the general harm done by using queer as an insult. In fiction, character growth only counts when it's visible to the audience, and Steve's casual homophobia isn't addressed until his complete acceptance of Robin.

In fact, I would argue that those flaws, turned up to eleven (no pun intended) along with a refusal to reflect on how he might be wrong are what leads to everything Jason does wrong in the show. Assaulting Gareth is absolutely letting his anger and his need to do something about Chrissy's murder override rational decision making. Witnessing Patrick's murder is obviously traumatic, but Jason's response of doubling down on Eddie's guilt is about needing to believe he is still right, he didn't waste time and physically attack another student looking for the wrong killer. Because Jason sees himself as a good guy, he can't accept that he did bad things for a bad reason. He must have had a good one, so Eddie somehow must be murdering people with magic.

The biggest wrong Jason does is when he brings that conviction in his own self righteousness to the town meeting and turns what should be the police (and only the police) looking for one potential killer into an angry mob in pursuit of not merely Eddie, but the entire D&D playing population of Hawkins. At that point he is no longer just one guy doing bad things, but representative of the violent enforcement of a social order.

The satanic panic of the 80s was real. It sent real people to prison and got real people killed. It was very reminiscent of the blood libel and with season four set in the lead up to Easter, a traditional time for pogroms in Europe, Jason's actions at the town meeting feel less like one minor villain and more like the lead up to a mass murder. Which is a bit more serious than anything the character actually does.

Now, for a Chrissy lives au the problem you run into is that before Chrissy dies, Jason has done none of those things. So it might seem like the easiest way to deal with them is just not to have him do them. And while that might work for the story if he's at most a minor character, it doesn't redeem the character because it leaves his flaws unaddressed.

A version of Steve who never has to deal with the Upside Down may still become a better person (like Jason, a lot of his character flaws are immaturity), but simply not giving him the opportunity to fight with Jonathan doesn't fix him being an asshole in season one. Similarly, not giving Jason a reason to believe Eddie's a murderer doesn't address Jason's hot headedness and tendency toward violence.

Also, even if Jason's character flaws and actions are specifically addressed in the story, the question remains what can be done about what Jason symbolizes within Stranger Things. While it seems apparent from the way the story wrapped up that the satanic panic elements of the plot were written as more 80s flavor than serious threat (prove me wrong, season five, I beg you), the show still used Jason as the stand in for a major threat. And whatever is done with regards to Jason's behavior, he still represents the threat of "normal" society wiping out those who don't fit within its constraints.

#i don't actually know where i'm going with this rambling #i doubt the writers were thinking about blood libel and pogroms when they outlined the plot #or when they set the story in the lead up to easter #but uh intended or not #jason's whole subplot feels like one big reference to antisemitism #but without the character himself being specifically antisemitic #making it a really difficult thing to address in a redemption arc #but still too prominent a part of his story to just ignore #jason carver #stranger things

[captainlordauditor]

very serious question - have you watched Titans? i feel like. they have massacred my boy. re: Dick. like the characterization of Every Single Character kills me. i’m lowkey hate watching it but i can’t stop

I'm in the middle of it right now - I just started season three, since I have no attention span for binging.

I actually don't hate large portions of its characterization. It kind of reminds me of a lot of the, like, 2000s-mid 2010s B shows that you'd see on Syfy or similar channels, where the characters are just fleshed out enough to make them feel watchable. They're not full on real people, but they're more like bas relief carvings than cardboard cutouts (It actually pairs nicely with the 2002 Birds of Prey, which was definitely a B show of that vein, and works from the same point of view that Titans does, as an Elseworld). So far the characterization for the most part doesn't feel bad so much as simple.

The characters aren't all that different from comics counterparts at their base, but the plot often demands that they act like idiots - often rude or cruel idiots - to make it work. The episode where all the Titans gang up on Jason, for instance - okay, one, not in the comics, but two, it makes no sense that they would all instantly blame Jason, who has no way of knowing about half their triggers and not, like. One of the empaths.

If anyone feels the most off to me it's Donna, which I think is a result of the Titans take on the Amazons being excessively 2000s B-show-esque. I'm also not personally a fan of Barbara being police commissioner, which ties into my issue with their portrayal of the police overall as a force that Dick doesn't really contend with as an enemy until the middle of season 2, and even then only pretty temporarily. How this relates to the whitewashing of Dick is another matter. The thing about Dick's characterization in Titans is that it's pulling a lot from a lot of very different sources to create a new Dick Grayson, rather than showing one that already exists in a specific continuity. Dick's anger and estrangement from Bruce is from the 70s-80s Bat comics. A lot of his characterization in relation to the other Titans feels very reminiscent of New Teen Titans, where he's the straitlaced serious leader who's too similar to Batman. In Titans these attributes have been adjusted accordingly from the source material they're pulled from to meet the more violent tone of the show. They also included something that's one of my favorite Dick-things in the comics, which is his hallucinations when he's having a Bad Time - instead of hallucinating Jason in prison, Dick hallucinates Bruce, the family who's currently lost to him.

Where Titans really falls down is that it doesn't want its characters to change. It's pretty decent at set up (the scene where Dick talks about burning the Robin suit) but then it doesn't necessarily follow through (he keeps being ultraviolent and killing people just in civilian clothes). This is really apparent in its Jason. In his initial introduction, even post-Crisis, Jason was a sweet, bookish, caring kid once he adjusted to life at the manor. His violence was (and even as an adult to some extent still is) a manifestation of his powerlessness at not being able to protect people, which included both his dad and random people on the street. After his death, flashbacks and retcons turned him into the angry brash kid a lot of people think of him as, which is the route Titans chose to use. And this doesn't work, because if you're writing Dick during one of his "Fuck Batman" moments, and you're also writing Jason in one of his "fuck Batman" moments, and you're trying to show that Jason is the Bad One, then you have to flanderize Jason to have contrast, and then there's nowhere for him to go when he grows into Red Hood. They had an opportunity to do a really heartbreaking tragedy where the sweet 15 year old who quotes Jane Austen turns into a villain, and they didn't do that, because they can't write actual growth.

This ask was about Dick but I do want to touch on a couple of the other Titans real quick - Raven is fine, Titans just pulls from her more modern portrayals, which is not the version of her I prefer. Gar, again, fine, and I really wish they would give the actor more to do. Kon does seem to be younger, but it feels like a deliberate choice, and one I can't bring myself to have issue with given some of the shit that was in his 90s book. The other character I really want to talk about though is Kory.

Titans gets a lot of flack for its portrayal of Kory and as far as I can tell it seems to break into two main categories, which are 1)"I don't like Kory's life not revolving around Dick Grayson" and 2)"I'm racist". I'm paraphrasing, and maybe doing so in bad faith, but it really does seem that I saw a lot of people complaining about Kory having another love interest for five minutes but nobody complaining about Dick having other love interests in the show. And obviously, there was the "this woman who shows less skin than she does in the comics looks like a hooker" from people who didn't like that she was played by a Black actress.

But I'll take this in good faith. You don't like Kory because she's not like she was in the comics. Okay. In that case, I'm simply going to pull out my comics and ask you to consider the baggage a comics-accurate Kory would have on a live action screen played by a dark skinned Black woman:

(From New Teen Titans (1980) #2 - context is the Titans are at the pool, Donna gave Kory a bikini)

I for one am pretty glad that Titans went with "princess used to the finer things in life who's fed up with being royalty" instead of "scantily clad woman who lets her emotions guide her and is extra violent compared to the fully clothed White characters". (more panels under the cut so as not to clog your dash)

If I'd read NTT before Titans came out, I would've been pretty damn skeptical of the casting, because without changing her characterization I think it would've been one of those times where raceblind casting just absolutely does not work. NTT Kory really falls into that intersection of Nubile Savage and Green Skinned Space Babe that you see in stuff like JC's Avatar and Star Trek: TOS, and which has some pretty racist undertones already. As much as I love Kory, I'm incredibly glad that this characterization has largely been left behind for her, even though I'm also not fond of the cartoon's characterization.*

also from New Teen Titans (1980) #2

Both from New Teen Titans (1980) #16

From New Teen Titans (1984) #11. I'm certain there's more instances before this of Dick and Donna referring to her as "savage" but I don't have them handy because I didn't mark them in my notes.

*I think the cartoon leans a little too much into "let's laugh at this woman experiencing culture clash!" for my taste, which is... understandable given it's a show from 2003 for ten year olds, but is very unappealing as an adult. The ideal Koriand'r characterization is actually Red Hood and the Outlaws issues 10-13 and I will not be taking criticism until you've read the story

#titans dc #titans tv #dick grayson #bouncing off the walls #starfire #koriandr #jason todd #team tag for the teen titans #arsonist's lullaby #firebird's child #meta #ntt #anti marv wolfman

[gothellewoods]

🔥 jason todd

Ok im gonna talk about how jason todd stans here for a bit because i feel like i have a lot to say about how the character is percieved in fandom spaces. Jason wasn't some happy go lucky kid. I think the fandom treats him like he's just a "little lad who likes berries and cream". And that's probably people going too hard in the opposite direction to counter the idea of him being the "violent" robin (which I don't think he is. None of them are. There's a violence inherent to being a robin, being a vigilante, and arguing over which one was the "sweet" one and which one was the "angry" or "viscious" one is pointless), but I find the woobification harms the character. It's just another example of fanon erasing nuance.

The other thing that gets me is the way people handle Jason's willingness to kill as the red hood? As if it's something positive. As if sometimes people need to be killed. I think that's just a part of like, copaganda invading our psyches. The idea that a "good" person will enforce what's right and punish the bad people by any means necessary. I'm not even talking about the people that view red hood as dc's punisher, I'm talking about fandom takes who say jason was justified in killing xyz, because that person was especially awful. I think, sometimes there's a feeling of vindication in seeing revenge against someone cruel and unapologetically evil, but I also think that like. Stories are statements about the world.

Characters, especially superheroes, are not real people but allegories and stand-ins for larger groups or modes of thinking. Imo the bats are different from cops because they don't kill people, they don't have a license to be judge, jury, and executioner. They are trying to change the entire system, save every lost cause. Jason stands outside that. It's a good character choice! He's like that for a reason, and i do enjoy his early red hood stories. My point of contention here is I don't think that's a good or justified thing, and I'm a little off put by the people who act like he's "right" to kill, or that batman should have killed the joker for him.

One more point. I see a lot of people coming up with elaborate theories about how like, jason was killed because he was poor and homeless which made him unlikable and unrelatable to the middle class kids reading comics, and that he was killed with the plan to introduce a new robin (tim) that they'd find more relatable and I think that's all bullshit. I think things just lined up unfortunately. Like, jason as robin is not very consistently characterized, and a lot of his robin run isn't particularly special? We don't get much Jason's day to day life, his friends. Things that make him feel like a person? So then when there's a poll to kill him (that may or may not have been tampered with, as someone supposedly made essentially a bot to call in a bunch of times to kill jason) and people probably just weren't passionate enough about keeping robin alive at the time. When eventually the sales started to go down and they panicked. They need a new character that kids could connect themselves to. So, we get tim.

Tim has a very fleshed out personal life independent of batman. Tim was purposely built to be relatable to the audience reading these comics. He's an instant hit because his early run establishes him as a unique character his target audience could easily empatize with, not because of some long standing plan. And there is a statement to be made about the broader treatment of certain characters, but I dont think Jason's death is the prime example or some kind of conspiracy

#sorry this is so long #ask #jason todd #red hood #robin #dc comics #🌙

[mxddyhero]

HELLO you know who it is, I am here to submit Jason and Bruce for the ask game!!!!! Pretty please!!! 🍒

IM SO SORRY TUMBLR ATE THE FIRST TIME I DID THIS I LITERALLY THREW MY PHONE BUT YES OFC LETS FUXKING GO

Also disclaimer I've barely been into dc a year and am nowhere close to reading everything there is on Red Hood/Jason, let alone Bruce so I might just be chatting pure shit but here's hoping I convey some semblance of coherent thought <3

describe their canon relationship/dynamic

Error 404 not found tbh,, their relationship is strained and hostile at best. I do think that when Bruce first took Jason in, he had the best of intentions and he genuinely cared for him like a son in a way he maybe hadn't with Dick. Like, he related to Dick and saw himself in him, but Jason was Gotham personified. Jason was a street kid through and through; determined and calculating, adaptable and resilient, and I think in Bruce's eyes, saving him meant a step towards his ultimate goal of making his hometown a better place. But as time went on, Bruce ultimately came to appreciate Jason for Jason. Which is why their relationship now is so fucking sad, really, because Jason is still the same in many ways. He still cares deeply about the less fortunate citizens, he makes sure his guys don't deal to kids (and if they do, they pay the ultimate price for it). He's controlling crime better than Batman could've (would've) and he even forgives Bruce for not being able to save him that night. And Bruce just. Calls him angry and violent and shuns him and acts as though none of it ever mattered. Calls Jason a criminal, gives him the same label as the man who killed him, and tries to take the moral high ground because he let the Joker go on to hurt more people. Jason, moments after bearing his heart and soul to Bruce, ends up with his throat slit with a batarang and just like that all hope, all possibility of their reconciliation is gone.

your ideal/headcanon version of it? how does it differ from how it is in canon & why is this your favorite version? any other alternate versions of it you enjoy?

Honestly, WFA is basically it. And yeah, I know wfa isn't canon. I know it's a silly, light-hearted webtoon. BUT IT'S SO FUCKING GOOD AND CATHARTIC. Not even just for Bruce and Jason, but everyone in the batfam.

But main canon? I'd love for Jason to step away from Batman for a while. Like, I'm glad Jason's been making progress with Dick, teaming up with him on cases etc., but. I think he should realise that he truly has nothing to prove to Bruce. Until the Joker is dead (killed by whoever), and Bruce is okay with that, I don't see how they can have a functional relationship. Because like, even when Dick killed Joker, Bruce brought him back. So the clown needs to go, and Jason needs to figure out what he truly wants and not trying to gain Bruce's attention and approval again.

ALSO DC I'M ON MY HANDS AND KNEES BEGGING, PLEASE STOP CALLING JASON THE ANGRY ROBIN, THE VIOLENT ROBIN ETC., I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE- is pulled off the stage

what do you like about their relationship, why is it interesting or enjoyable to you?

It's not enjoyable <3 it brings me copious amounts of pain every day <3

But interesting? Not to overshare, but I have no relationship with my father either, and a rather negative view of my bio dad much like Jason so it's more like. I can relate to him and see where he's coming from on a lotta fronts. I can project ✌

what about the individual characters involved? what does this relationship mean to them, what makes it unique among their relationships?

I think that despite it all, they still mean a lot to each other.

I said it before, but the fact that Batman was willing to give Jason, a street kid from Crime Alley, lit a fire in Jason. Jason always had hope, he went out that night to get a meal for him and his mum and I don't think Bruce necessarily gave him that drive necessarily, because the kid was hell bent on surviving no matter what. But Bruce showed him he didn't have to just survive, but he could do more. Without worrying where his next meal was coming from, he could actually focus on himself as a person and what he wanted to do, and had the means and opportunity to actually do it. It made him feel like the future was limitless, like he was capable of anything and everything instead of narrowing his sights to living day-by-day and Bruce encouraged that for him. Hell, he even told him he could quit being Robin after he got hurt because he only wanted what was best for him but being taken in was the best thing that could've happened to him...

And for Bruce well. I dislike a lot of how Bruce interacts with Jason post-resurrection, to put it simply. I like to think it's because after he lost Jason, he gave up on letting people in. He cared for someone and like before, it ended in violence and a life ended too soon and he had to mourn over something that he felt was his fault again. Jason was gone for years, and he had to be pulled back from the brink by Tim, so we know he wasn't coping well and I need to think that the only reason he treated Jason so coldly when he returned was because he so desperately needed for all those years of mourning and grieving not to be for nothing or I'll go insane. It makes sense that Bruce being confronted with that fact that he couldn't keep himself in check alone after losing Jason, he preferred to just shut down instead of engaging with the feelings that seeing his son back brought. God idk if that makes any sense hsgugfs,,

I also wanna talk about Dick, even though you didn't ask but I swear it's relevant to Bruce and Jason's relationship-

Dick said growing up in the manor with Bruce was lonely, which I think is because Bruce saw himself in Dick. Bruce didn't have many people growing up, and he turned out fine (you are not fine, sir), so I think he thought that Dick could handle that way of living too to deflect his own issues. He wanted to raise him the same way he was because he was projecting, if you get me. But in Bruce's eyes, Jason had had people before. He had his mother, and the other kids from the alley and people who looked out for one another because you had to in a place like that. Of course, Dick had that too. A mother and father, the extended circus family, a lot of fans from the circus, but Bruce was too fixated on seeing himself in Dick that he forgot that because he needed to channel Dick's anger right away. Jason might've been wary and callous, sure, but he had time, so Bruce was more tactile and patient in his approach with Jason and I think that's why Bruce saw Jason more of a son than Dick, anyway-

favorite interaction they have in canon

God despite it all, there are a few.

Of course UTRH gotta be here because AAAAAAAAA (sound of wailing)... like please Bruce, he just wanted to hear how much he meant to you and to stop the Joker from being able to do anything like that again... I like to think that as much as Jason was hurt by what happened (because of course he would be, mans literally died), he was hurt on Bruce's account too, because Bruce chose to care for and open his life to someone again, and Jason was taken from him just like his parents. Like... Jason knows that pain (albeit in a different way since Willis was a piece of shit and Catherine ended up being dependent on drugs), and Bruce gave him a second chance despite everything they'd both endured. I think he wanted to prove to Bruce that it was worth trying to care for and love someone again, even despite losses, or even because of them, because Bruce gave that chance to him. And he was just. Shut down. This is sad but it's one of my favourite moments.

God this fuxking sjdghsvsjsbs 😭😭😭 LIKE YOU CAN'T TELL ME THAT JASON GENUINELY HATES BRUCE... I simply do not believe it. I think he's angry, betrayed, resentful... but he still deeply cares for him and IT HURTS.

And listen. Listen to me. Grabs you by the shoulders. This fuxking chapter was so good. It means everything to me. It was everything I could've ever hoped for and more. 🥳 HEALTHY AND OPEN COMMUNICATION!!! 🥳 EMOTIONAL VULNERABILITY 🥳 god it makes me so fucking shsvhdvdjd ;;;

favorite interaction they have in your head/a situation you want to put them in

Family therapy 💖But uhm fr? I want to see Jason and Bruce talking about how much Tim has grown. Talking about Damian being in the titans and complaining that he can't take his 284 pets to the tower. I want Clark to just casually drop Jason in conversation because he visited Lois the other day and they talked about the decline of modern literature. Just. Normal family shit that isn't too heavy but also not so trivial it can be overlooked as being "not relevant to the plot" or "out of character". Despite it all, they are family. And I want that to be shown more. Please.

Lin I'm so fucking sorry this is so long........ and that tumblr ate it the first time bcs the first one was so much more cohesive and concise then almost refused to post it again so I dm'd you on dsc... collapses. Tumblr in its joker arc fr rn...

#half of this is incoherent rambling im so fucking sorry #also not tagging the charas bcs i dont want it in the main tags... #d*c fans please dont come for me this is all interpretation <3 #ask game #beloved mutual #7-oh-ta1 #lin if u read all this im proposing to you 💍🙇

[blueteehood]

About Nightwing Annual and the path they're going with Jason

So. Nightiwing 2021 Annual came out and it made me think about Jason and everything I don’t like about what’s going on with his current character arc. I’m going to try very hard to keep it simple. If anyone wants me to elaborate on any point I will.

Both Dick and Jason’s run as Robins was… a long time ago. In actual years. Which is one of the reasons sometimes the fandom (and DC writers I’m looking at you Tom Seeling you’re on thing fucking ice with me) forget things about them as Robins. One common misconception was that Dick never accepted Jason as Robin and treated him badly all the time. Which. Isn’t. True.

So I honestly like it when new books bring stuff back like Nightwing 2021 Annual did. Some good old stuff we got to see again:

1) Dick’s fight was with Bruce, not really Jason. When Alfred said he wasn’t home he came back to help. And once he realised Jason needed attention, he stepped up.

2) Dona being fabolous and Roy in his stupid yellow costume. Also Discowing. Good times.

3) Jason was a violent Robin. That was the whole point of his unpopularity that led to that pool that got him killed by the Joker. I’ve seen a lot of people complaining about that scene and saying things like “Jason doesn’t need Dick to tell him to focus on the victim” and I respectfully disagree. YES, Jason Todd is extremely empathetic, especially with victims. He was smart. He was the Robin with the highest GPA. He was and did many good things. But let’s not forget that he was also the Robin with the bad temper that beat up criminals with excessive force SOMETIMES. Not always, he wasn't deranged or anything, but yes, he lost his temper sometimes. Again, that was what made him so different from Dick and that led to that fucking pool. So this is why that moment where Dick gives him advice about what being Robin means - which clearly takes place in the BEGINNING of Jason’s run as Robin - didn’t bother me as much.

Also, I liked the general idea of the book, with Dick and Jason having a chance to bond without their other dozen siblings.

Now, on to the bad stuff.

1) That motherfucking crowbar.

When Urban Legends #6 came out, I was mildly disappointed with many things that we don't need to discuss now, but when Jason decided to drop his guns, I tried to be optimistic. This is not ideal, but maybe we are getting All Blades Jason back? And he's going to show all his extensive martial arts training, right? RIGHT???

Wrong. Tom Seeling (have I mentioned he's on thin fucking ice with me?) gave him the most generic ugly medieval(?) sword ever

Jason I know you're a nerd you don't need to show off your medieval fair props my dude

and now Tom Taylor gave him a CROWBAR. LIKE A TUG. LIKE TALIA AL GHUL DIDN'T PAY FOR HIM TO TRAIN ALL AROUND THE WORLD- you get my point.

Also, I know at this point half of the family died and came back and I supposed Jason's death is no longer a Big Deal but… Dick was the one that didn't even get the chance to bury his younger brother. So seeing him joke with the crowbar thing just felt wrong

2) Another thing: The hint on Bruce being a bad parent, AGAIN. I'll be the first to admit that teenager Dick Grayson was a bit of a drama queen. So maybe that bit about Bruce forcing the competition between the Robins was just him still angry at his father figure. And we could say that Jason complaining about being compared to him was just his frustrations speaking. BUT that would be nuanced. And I don't believe in nuance where DC is involved.

This is, once again, pushing the bad parent Bruce agenda. And believe me, there's nothing I want more than to have all those fucking times Bruce beat up his kids addressed by literally ANYONE. I wanted that to be discussed and recognized as something bad so Bruce can Stop Doing That and we MOVE ON with the whole Bad Parent thing. Because I don’t want to see Bruce hitting his kids, for fucks sake. I also don't want to see this “Bruce has always been a bad parent, since back on Dick and Jason’s childhood” thing passing as canon while we have more recent bad parent events that should be addressed. Like RHATO #25

3) And finally, the whole no killing thing. Look, my favorite Jason, UTRH Jason, considers that there’s a big difference between killing the Joker, killing Two Face or killing a low tug. Yes, he put seven (?) heads in a duffle bag. He also did that to take control over all the gangs without a gang war. The best Jason for me isn’t Battle for the Cowl Jason who commits serial murder. It’s the Jason who calculates before every single kill he makes. It’s the smart, sharp Jason with overly elaborated and dramatic plans.

I'm not mad he didn't kill that guy. My whole point is that Jason doesn't consider death the only possible solution. Also, he was in jail. he knows that there's all kinds of bad punishment out there. That's not the problem. It's just that if they are going to make Jason stop killing entirely... well I don't want that.

Which leads us to the controversial point that is going to get my batfandom membership card revoked: I don’t want The Red Hood to stop killing people so he can join the Bats. We already have a bunch of former Robins that follow Bruce’s rules. I don’t want to see Jason ending up like Tim. I miss Red Robin (2009) morally gray Tim Drake who used to plot murders so much I could cry. And I don’t trust DC to not bring Jason back to the flock just to have his character disappear in the middle of all the other bats and birds.

That doesn’t mean I don’t want Jason to have a family. I want Jason Todd to make peace with his brothers and sisters. Heck, I would even like to see him and Bruce fix their parent-child relationship. But that’s their family. The Batfamily is another thing entirely. I don’t want Dick's and the other’s love to be conditioned to Jason following all their rules. I think the Red Hood and the Bats and Jason Todd and the Waynes should be separated things. Because you know what that would be? Good writing. And, in case I didn’t make it clear, I kinda want that.

#Jason Todd #Dick Grayson #nightwing #red hood #batman #batfam #talia al ghul #bruce wayne #tim drake #robins #robins shenanigans #batfam stuff #nightwing annual

[aalghul]

You have a lot of accusations with pandaredd and some of them don't really add up. Like with Jason everything you mentioned is false or out of context. Like he regularly mentions Jason loves to read and brings up the dude having a library in the mansion, he likes the BftC costume but isn't a fan of pill jason or evil red head Jason, I don't know how you see his Jason as a thug either. He did a whole Black mask skit about how competent Jason is. Like is this from his comments?

He’s said before that BftC is his (or one of his) favourite Jason comic. One skit doesn’t change that most of his skits feature Jason being an idiot. I haven’t watched his stuff in a while but off the top of my head, the “Robin using rogues for homework help” skit has Robin Jason as overly violent and angry when compared to the others. I’m not saying he’s got the worst interpretation of Jason ever, just that it’s mostly flawed and the exact same as the shallow “Jason loves to read but he’s also an angry meathead” thing fanon has going on. I actually really enjoyed his videos on CW’s Titans and The New Adventures of Batman. That doesn’t change that a big chunk of his characterization of Jason in his content is based off what I consider to be some of the worst writing.

Anyways, if that was the only issue I had with him, I wouldn’t even bother saying anything because he can make whatever content he wants. My issue is that he’s misogynistic in the way he talks about Steph and his (lack of) inclusion of Cass in…anything. His brand is Batfamily content but I think what he means is the “the four male Robins he can pretend are all white”, seeing as Cass and Duke don’t really exist to him as main family members (side characters, if he wants to remember them. I don’t know if he’s ever used Duke. I don’t care about his hatred for the N52 because he’s still read it. And Cass isn’t N52 exclusive, so there’s still no excuse for her). He can do as many “female character spotlights” or whatever he wants, but the way he talks about Stephanie alone makes me resent him. He did a series on female characters for Women’s History month (or something like that) and a good chunk of Steph’s video was about Tim and praising him for not being a jerk (which isn’t even accurate because so much of timsteph in canon was very disgusting and misogynistic). Jumping back to my point about Duke (and Cass), any time he’s brought up Talia has been awful. She’s either (a) evil, abusive assassin lady but good thing Damian’s above that and her OR (b) “haha, I slept with you mom” joke from Jason, as if Jason wouldn’t have been at most 17 at the time, like the whole thing wasn’t steeped in the Arab seductress trope, and as if Winick himself hasn’t admitted it wasn’t a mistake.

#im not going to apologize for shifting from Jason to everything else because im not going to focus on the least of my issues with him even #if they’re sll anyone’s likely to care about cuz that’s typical.

[redjaybathood]

Batman (1940) #421-422: Elmore's Lady, Just Deserts

This is actually good shit. It's the continuation of Dumpster Killer story from #414. If you don't remember, it was a story about a serial killer who raped, killed, and stashed young women in dumpsters on a weekly basis. It happens for more than a month and when Bruce tries to catch the guy, he goes after the wrong one and the real one slips away.

I thought it was implied that Batman spooked the guy for good and he moved cities or changed MO, so he's never found. Apparently not!

Now it's been 11 weeks, 10 dead women, presumably 11, only the last body isn't found yet.

Cue Batman rescuing Elmore, a familiar to him homeless (former?) drug addict who became mentally impaired, and this man invites Batman to come meet his wife, who he met just right here, at this very dumpster.

Yeah, it's fucking Criminal Minds at its worst. But at least this guy didn't kill her.

Elmore, however, was a real lucky break in the case: he witnessed the guys dumping the body in a very distinctive looking van. He tracks down the gang it belonged to, beats them up, turns out, they have an alibi - they were in jail, just like the wrong guy from #414, and their vehicle was in the impound lot. That leads Batman to realize that the same police officer who worked on the nights of all murders might be involved. Only him coming around asking question about the guy spooks him and it ends with Batman arrives at his place to find it on fire and the guy stabbed in the back. He's dead already, but not before he wrote something that points to the killers' identities.

He goes to them, gets threatened by cops, leaves because he doesn't have direct evidence and doesn't want to embarrass Gordon. I'm not sure how evidence gathered by a vigilante even works - it really shouldn't - but there you have it.

Issue 422 is where Jason finally gets brought in, when Bruce reports his findings to Gordon. Gordon warns Batman from playing jury, judge and executioner. Bruce reassures him that he knows the rules of the game.

As there's two suspects, Robin goes after one, and very obviously so. The other murderer (the mastermind) notices the woman who's just staring at him. He noticed her a few times before, but she never tells him anything, just stares.

Long story short, those two shake their tail, meet up, the mastermind kills his helper with a knife. Hides the knife at home. Batman finds the knife and apprehends the guy. Guy's arrested. Guy stands trial and goes free, on the account of Batman being the one who apprehended him and procured the evidence (ha! I told you so).

The guy goes free. As he leaves the court building, he sees Batman and Robin staring down at him from the roof; and he meets the same woman again. Then he buys a new knife, packs his bags, and decides to leave the town with a bang - one more woman raped and killed and discarded like trash, because that's how he feels about women. And he already has a victim in mind. (sardonic laugh because I suspect I know where it's going)

Interlude: Starlin inserting more angry violent Robin, by which I mean Jason Todd protects a sex worker from being disfigured by the pimp. Pages under the cut.

For reference, this happens a few pages earlier:

Aaand sure you don't have the slightest idea what's going on in that head of Jason's. That's not even me going back to #414 - no, to hell with it, I'm going.

And if you look here and think, hey, Batman isn't so bad, comparatively, remember: Batman only stopped because Gordon showed up; and this guy right here didn't actually do it.

Also, Batman is a grown ass man with fully developed brain and (I assume) no hormonal disbalance, lotta more training and experience.

Gee, I wonder what's going on in Jason's brain.

Anyway, back to the story: the killer catches the woman that stalked him but as he tries to get her in the van, she slashes his throat.

The killer dies.

The woman, Judy Koslosky, a sister of the second victim, goes with the police and tells them everything. How she tracked down the killers even before Batman had, how she basically baited him into taking her life. She's going to be charged with manslaughter, Gordon says, but she wishes him good luck finding jury to convict her.

Lost Days have a nice parallel with it.

That's Jason explaining to Talia that Eugene, one of his teachers, had paid off cops and politicians to run his child slave operations, and why he killed him.

Back to the story:

Bruce: She said it might not have been legal, but it was right.

Jason: I will buy that.

Bruce: That's just it, Robin! Judy was wrong! People can't set themselves above the law. That way leads to anarchy. Even though you and I skirt along the edges of it, we still operate within the legal system. That's the way it has to be. Even if more than a small part of me sometimes wishes it could be otherwise.

Friendly reminder that a couple of pages back his cooperation with the police in the "skirting along the edges of the law" proved to be absolutely impotent to actually do anything to the killer (I mean. I don't understand how GCPD and Batman tandem convicts anyone at all).

Also. Friendly reminder, again, that a couple of pages ago Bruce was like – I have no idea how Jason can feel this way, because I obviously would never.

Yeah. All in all, Starlin had done a wonderful job of trying to make readers hate Jason – and maybe some did; but I was personally really irritated with Bruce instead.

#reading comics #batman (1940) #jason todd #bruce wayne

[dailyjasontodd]

sorry if this has been asked before but what about titans tv jason is ooc? just curious because i don't watch the show (i got thru 3 eps of season 1 and then gave up lmao)

Okay we got two questions in this vein, so each of the admins replied one with our own thoughts. Okay, i’m not good at putting my thoughts into words so you’re gonna have to bear with me here lol

If anyone wants to share their own thoughts on this, feel free to reply or send us an ask, we’re interested in you know sparking some convo and all that.

Okay i’ve talked about my main issue for Titans!Robin Jason here on my own blog, tl;dr i think they took elements from Jasons robin run without the context it came with? Titans Jason comes across as angry and aggresive “just because”. actually there isnt a tl;dr just read the post SORRY

Jason was 11-15 years old when he was robin, which i know it seems like something very minor, aging up isn’t a bad storytelling tool, done right it’s fine etc etc, but in Jason’s case i feel like it actually took away from his story? Like, by aging him up they made his character more “mature”, with elements that simply weren’t found in jasons original robin run when he was just a child. Titans Jason feels more like they’re trying to portray n52 red hood jason rather than robin jason, which.. isn’t a good thing! Because again context matters! Red hood jason is a certain way because certain things happened to him, and by trying to copy and paste that personality into robin jason without those reasons it loses any kind of  nuance it could’ve had. And im pointedly saying n52 jason which we all know is real jason’s tethered, so they’re giving us knock-off  n52 jason when n52 jason was already on the sale display

Honestly titans robin jason is just new 52 red hood jason without anything of what actually made him red hood. and the fact that they’ve already hinted red hood jason WITHOUT ANYTHING! ANYTHING that made him become red hood pisses me off a little, ngl. 

(like he literally became red hood as a fuck you to bruce, and in the show neither the joker nor bruce are important characters??? AND THEY SHOULDN’T??? BECAUSE ITS A TITANS SHOW???)

which brings me to!

while jason was a titan, he wasn’t a MAIN titan, and he should’ve NEVER gotten this much focus. He’s a batman character, his entire story depends ENTIRELY on batman, BRUCE being present. and when you take that away it may as well be an oc. Jason and Dick weren’t even that close in Jason’s robin comics, it just doesnt make senseeeeeee, if anything he was closer to Donna! and if you watched the show you probably saw how Donna hated Jason’s guts! And anyways back on track, why is red hood going to be the villain for a TITANS show when he’s only ONCE, EVER had a villain appearance for them??? And it was during Tim’s era?? And imagine if Tim does appear, why would Jason be mad a thim when HE decided to go away? DOESN’T! MAKE! SENSE! Why are they going out of their way to include Jason somewhere he shouldn’t be more than a guest appearance on? He should be Dick’s annoying yet endearing little brother and that’s it...

And honestly genuinely i despise how they portrayed Bruce as not caring about Jason at all... again, Jason’s relationship with Bruce is the heart of a lot of his storylines.. centering Jason’s story around the titans rather than Bruce.. yeah you may as well have created an oc.

Honestly if i watched season 2 again i could be more specific on stuff titans did that it was like just. seeing some dude named jason, but it’s so bad.. just so bad. 

Anyways. If i took away the robin costume i would’ve NEVER guessed thats supposed to be Jason tbh. Like, honestly, do you see these panels and think “Oh yeah it’s like looking at titans Jason”

Honestly to summarize it, our friend @redarrow sent this to our groupchat a few days ago and i think it’s pretty relevant to the conversation:

Titans, along with almost every story that contains Jason is once again reiterating the narrative that Jason was a bad robin and that he was inherently bad. “His trauma didn’t make him red hood, he was always destined to become a villain/anti hero.”

At the end of the day, these grown adults decided that it would be okay to violently kill off a child in a comic that children read. A character that was specifically made to target a younger audience. Instead of dealing with the consequences of their actions, they try to justify it by retroactively making Jason evil. What really makes me mad is that robin was created for children, and the moment they make a child character have a realistic background to an extent, they basically say there’s no hope for you.

#Anon #jason todd #asks #mod post #UM THIS MAKES NO SENSE SORRY. im not good being articulate lol sorry #mod opinions

[herecomesnaya]

hi! first of all, i love your blog and i find all your posts super interesting! i wanted to ask what you meant by fanon d*ck is basically people overlooking abusive behavior bc he's pretty, if you wouldn't mind clarifying? i don't want to start any discourse (which is why i censored d*ck) so you can ignore this - or would it be ok if i dm'ed you?

thanks, anon! for the sake of keeping with the censoring without actually having to type an asterisk, I will refer to our old circus pal as “Dildo” in this post

so, in fandom, Dildo-- no I can’t do this even for the meme I’m calling him Richard sorry

SO ANYWAY, in fandom, Richard is often made out to be the “golden child” of the family. the happy-go-lucky, fun, sympathetic big brother figure who’s always ready to lend an ear and basically be the light in the darkness of their brooding group.

in reality, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. see this twitter thread for a few examples:

https://twitter.com/NlGHTQUAKE/status/1158385354438840320?s=20

but if you were to look at the popular fandom opinions of him, you’ll see an entirely different side. remember when Titans live action first came out, and everyone was freaking out over “fuck Batman”?

“Richard would never be so violent! he’d never say that about his adoptive father! this is all wrong!!!”

except he would, and he has, because he has a mean temper that’s even worse than Jason’s. he says things intending to hurt people, he gets pissed at his friends if they don’t act exactly how he thinks they should, he cheats on his girlfriends, the list goes on. but you don’t see him called out as a misogynist or the “angry Robin.”

but Jason? he calls someone “babe” once and gets hit with a torrent of “GOD HE’S SO MISOGYNISTIC WHAT A DOUCHEBAG!!!” and with Damian? “what a little evil monster, Richard is an angel for putting up with him!”

it’s hard to give specific examples without calling anyone out, which I don’t want to do, but there’s a definite undertone of “pretty boy with the thickest ass gets special treatment from fans.” of all the batkids, he’s the one who can do no wrong, despite this being directly contrary to his canon behavior.

there’s always some excuse for why he acts like, well, like his name. oh, he was only lashing out because someone else forced his hand, or oh, someone else is the real antagonist, so whatever he says or does in response is justified, or oh, that writer made him OOC, so it doesn’t count! (these are the same people who like to use Jason’s OOC appearances, like in Battle for the Cowl, to demonize current Jason as if he’s still the same character.) no matter what, poor lil Richard is never responsible for his actions.

and why is that? what makes him different from every other character? if he looked like Bueno Excellente, would people still be making excuses for him? if they couldn’t ship themselves with him, would they be willing to overlook the parts of canon where he yells at children, insults his friends, sleeps with his ex and then invites her to his wedding with another woman? personally, I don’t think so.

of course, if you’d still like to DM me to talk about this further, feel free! I hope this helped a little, at least!

#idk if my censoring attempts will be in vain since I didn't censor any other names but #I don't mind discourse so it doesn't really matter to me LOL #ask #the shitscourse #Anonymous