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lambsouvlaki · 9 months

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For the Hell of It - Rescue

Characters: Jason Todd x fem!oc

Rating and warnings: T, brief description of violence.

Word count: 990

Summary: Red Hood comes to her rescue.

Masterlist

She woke slowly, sedately, to the touch of Jason’s fingers trailing down her cheek.

Eyes shut, she leaned into it.

The hand cupped her jaw, tilting her face up. There was no light scrape of rock hard calluses against her chin. The skin was smooth.

Andy’s eyes snapped open.

Black Mask looked down at her.

She recoiled. Or tried to. Her body responded slowly, groggy and jerky, against hard metal restraints. She was bound to a chair.

“Red Hood’s squeeze, hmm? Lucky find,” he said. He wasn’t talking to her. He tilted her chin back the other way to look her over. “I knew he was just a man under that helmet.”

A large man covered in tattoos stood behind him to his right. He looked down at her in disdain.

“Anything you want to tell me, Miss Wright?” Black Mask drawled.

She kept her mouth shut.

The second man hit her on the face. Her head rocked back. Her ears rang.

“He asked you a question.”

She bit her tongue to stop her pained whine.

“He doesn’t know you’re missing,” Black Mask said. “And he won’t, not for days. No masked maniac coming to rescue you. Your chances of getting out of here start and end with not pissing me off.”

She looked at the nasty grins on the face of the two hulking enforcers standing by the door. The uncaring menace in the man who hit her. The mocking glint in Black Mask’s eyes.

“You’re not letting me out alive anyway,” she said, with mounting terror. It churned in her gut.

Black Mask barked a hoarse laugh. “Don’t worry, I’ll wring every last secret out of you before I do you the favour of letting you die.”

One of the enforcers turned his head, his brow furrowed.

Something rattled onto the floor, then blinding white exploded everywhere. Her vision blanked out entirely, one final image burned into her eyes: Red Hood standing behind Black Mask, with his gun pointed at his head.

She was thrown sideways in her chair and landed hard on the ground. Guns fired with deafening reports, too loud for her to tell where or from who. Blind and still reeling from the impact, she felt the tattooed man grab her hair. He was ripped violently off of her a second later, and she went skidding sideways across the ground.

Everything got lost in the chaos and noise, before a blow to the head knocked her out.

-----

Andy woke to Jason’s hand in her hair.

Her heartbeat picked up, foreign alarm she couldn’t name or understand in her throat, until she registered the familiar calluses against the small of her neck. Strong hands, scarred and rough, massaged her skin with all the gentleness in the world. She breathed out in relief, and her eyes fluttered open.

Her head lay in Jason’s lap. He was reading a book, his wrist propped up against her shoulder. A gun sat on the bedside table. They were in a safehouse. She didn’t recognise it.

She felt perfectly safe. It took her a moment to process why that mattered, and why her mind even presented it as meaningful.

Her brows pinched and the side of her face stung at the movement. She brought up a hand, and felt butterfly strips across her brow.

Patchy memory filtered in.

Jason turned a page with his thumb, calm and measured. He radiated fury. It wasn’t at odds with the gentleness of his hold on her. His calm methodical rage was so dangerous it could burn Gotham to the ground if he loved it any less.

“What happened?” she asked. Her voice was raspy and her throat sore. She had the vague idea she might have been screaming during the scuffle.

“Black Mask’s second in command launched a coup and murdered his Boss,” Red Hood said, still looking at his book. “He’s trying to pin it on me to keep the support of Sionis’ loyalists. Nobody believes him.”

She remembered, sudden and clear as day, burned into her mind against the pure white of a flashbang grenade: Red Hood pointing a gun at Black Mask. A fan of blood and viscera, in a frozen still, exploding out behind the black skull.

She sat up. She stared at him.

Jason hadn’t killed anyone in years. He wasn’t allowed to, or Batman would run him out of town.

The enforcers, any witnesses, they’d know what happened, they would have to be– he couldn’t have just walked out with her, she was dead weight, had he really–? Had he– For her?

A quiet, hard thought cut through her muddling.

There had been a good reason Jason didn’t kill Black Mask during his initial rampage, and it wasn’t lack of opportunity. He had plans, counter plans, acceptable losses, and goals he wouldn’t bend on. Necessities balanced on delicate scales sometimes called justice but more accurately called reality. The power vacuum hadn’t been worth it.

And he’d done it anyway. He’d killed Black Mask, in the middle of Batman’s city, for her.

He looked back at her, unflinching.

She lay back down, putting her head in his lap.

He ran his hand over her again, carding it through her hair and burying it deep beneath her curls.

Those men, however many it was, died for her sake.

Did their blood stain her too? Did it stream down from his hands onto her head, dripping through her hair to streak across her face?

They would have tortured his secrets out of her, that hard voice said in the back of her mind. She was alive because Jason killed them first.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

He curled over her and looked into her eyes. The hard fury cracked and she saw the desperate storm in his gaze.

“You don’t have to thank me for that.”

I love you.

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#jason todd #red hood #jason todd x oc #red hood x oc #jason todd x fem!reader #jason todd x reader #for the hell of it #my fanfic #dc #angst #dramatic rescue #Red Hood is a killer #don't fucking touch Jason's girl #Jason never says I love you #Jason is saying I love you every moment of every day

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dragonpyre · 3 months

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Batman: and this is my precious son

Red Hood: FUCK you

Batman: he bites sometimes but we still love him

#based on the fact that Bruce is always going ‘I love you Jason’ and Jason’s just NOT having it #albeit Bruce never actually says the WORDS ‘I love you’ but it’s heavily implied in the ‘I can’t lose you’ and ‘I don’t want you dead’#Jason Todd #Bruce Wayne #Batman #red hood #dc #dc comics #text post #batdad

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donnatroyyyy · 4 months

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Dick genuinely doesn’t have a favorite sibling, he’s like the parent that says “I love all my children equally” and you believe it, he actually loves them all equally. He’s been trying to convince them that for the last few years, they don’t believe him, so he does what he has to, he says it’s Steph and let’s her deal with it.

#someone tries to say ‘she isn’t even really ur sister’ and Steph chews them out #‘oh so u think just cuz we’re not blood related we can’t be siblings’#‘oh so you’re calling me unimportant’ ‘oh so yourself saying all I am is a nuisance that hangs around you even though you don’t want me to’#‘oh are you saying I’m a leech that’s sucking off of this family’s happiness and love’#no one ever tries that again after that #so now whenever anyone brings it up all she has to say is ‘why wouldn’t I be his favorite? I’m funny #I’m pretty and I’m the best one here’ and no one can argue with that #so they just don’t #and Steph know she ain’t actually the fave she just lives for the drama #and dck is never bothered about it again #dc comics #comics #robin #batfam #dick grayson #bruce wayne #jason todd #damian wayne #tim drake #duke thomas #cassandra cain #stephanie brown

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batfamhyperfixation · 13 days

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I know we constantly talk about Jason being a classic lit person, but most people only use P&P and exclusively Jane Austin novels, like yeah my homie she is great but I wanna see more content where Jason’s niche is purely books that people think are related to his death but also not at all related to his death: Frankenstein by Mary Shelly, Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Why people think Jason loves Frankenstein: he relates to the Creature, being born again after death but not quite right, rejected by father figure, causing a separation between him and all the humans, thus plunging him into isolation, highly literate but not taken seriously because he doesn’t have a degree from an accredited school (basically self taught)

Why Jason actually loves Frankenstein: it is written through letters!! There are like 4 stories going on at once all embedded in one another, like that’s so fuckin cool! He actually relates to Robert Walton, as he travels the world only to form the outlaws, taking these misfits with him, like how Walton traveled to the North Pole only to find and befriend Victor Frankenstein, taking him with

Why people think he likes the Metamorphosis: Jason relates to Gregor because he turns into something nonhuman overnight only gaining consciousness again after the transition period and although he still feels the same, everyone will forever fear him as something other, just like Jason after the pit which seemed like it changed him overnight as he woke up something othered

Why Jason actually liked the metamorphosis: Kafka didn’t like metaphor so he made the transformation something literal, and he subverted the expectations of transformation at the time as usually transformations were done to give the character some upgrade but in metamorphosis it was a downgrade, ruining Gregors life instead; not to mention for a story about a man being transformed into a bug, not a lot actually happens in the story nor does Gregor actually do a lot, it is less a narrative in the traditional sense and more a stream of consciousness kind of writing which helps it feel different, also I think he would relate to Grete, always trying to help adults around him who were self-destructing a lot of the time, probably especially his parents, I mean he died by trying to save his mother only for her to turn on him, he was fighting crime to help Bruce, etc. Grete was still a child who was helping her brother stay alive when no one else would, she tried to protect her parents from having to deal with Gregor in his transformed state, she even got a job to help the family (similar to Jason becoming Robin to help Bruce)

Why people think Jason liked the picture of Dorian gray: the theme of fleetingness unless intervened through supernatural means (aging painting keeping you young forever or being reborn again despite original life fleeting) only to eventually cause your untimely demise (likely how others view Jason’s perception of himself)

Why Jason actually liked Picture of Dorian Gray: it has so many takes on society that even if you don’t agree with all of them, it at least forces you to think about your own stances and understanding how you view the world around you, it puts a high value on the arts and takes them seriously, it has very well-developed and deeply flawed characters that are fun to read about, and the novel has an interesting history of it being used as evidence in Wilde’s criminal case for being queer

#look I’m just saying that there are tons of books I think Jason would like beyond just Jane Austin #even if you exclude it to only classic lit books I think there are others and I think we should expand it beyond just Jane Austin #these were my examples of other classic lit novels Jason would like so please for the love of god give me some other books for Jason cause #by this point those who say he likes classic lit then exclusively state Jane Austin are starting to sound like they have never read any #like I’m begging on my hands and knees just give me something other than Jane Austin like his parallels to other classic lit books are so #clear yet no one wants to even talk about it cause he is only allowed to exclusively like Pride and Prejudice #like hell I would even accept Jason talking discourse about different classic lit novels as long as he is seen reading other things #idk I’m probably just rambling; but overall there are other novels and I think we should utilize them more #cause I’m tired of every Jason book post I see only citing Jane Austin #jason is starting to sound like those dudes who read exactly 1 book and somehow convince everyone around them that they are a huge bookworm #jason todd #jason todd headcanon

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mikakuna · 4 months

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this panel induces a rage i didn't even know was in me

#he's really saying thank you for still loving me even tho i know i'm hard to love #TO HIS DAD?#after getting beat up by said dad #bruce is really just here like yea it's so hard being your father so i'm glad you can see why i abuse you #it's for your own good #and ofc jason falls for it bc he's never had good parents who took care of him and not vise versa #like this panel just genuinely makes me sick #jason todd #red hood #batman #bruce wayne

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rmbunnie · 2 months

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Red Hood Characterization

This is really long so I'm putting a cut here, I've been thinking about Jason Todd's character motivations and the question of whether or not his actions are based in a Moral Code (I don't think so, not to say he's without any morality) and I talk about that in more depth here.

I saw someone say on here that Titans: Beast World: Gotham City was some of the best Jason Todd internal writing they'd seen in a while, and I've been a Red Hood fan for 8 years or so now? pretty much since I read comics for the first time, so I went and checked out and I thought it was good! The way the person I saw talking about it as if it was rare and unusual made me wonder though, because as well-written as i thought his stances on crime were, there wasn't really anything in it that went against the way I conceptualize Jason?

This kinda plays into a larger question I've been thinking about for a while with Jason though, which is that, do people think that the killing is part of a fundamental worldview that motivates him a la batman, and that worldview is the reason he does the things he does?? Because 8 years ago i was a middle schooler engaging with fiction on the level that a middle schooler does, so I simply did not put much thought into it beyond "poor guy :(" but ever since I actually started trying to understand consistent characterization, I don't really see Jason as someone who's motivated by a moral code in his actions the way batman or superman is!

tbh my personal read is that he's a very socially-motivated guy, his actions from resurrection to his Joker-Batman ultimatum in utrh always seemed to me like every choice made leading up to his identity reveal was either a. to give him the leverage and skill necessary to pull off his identity reveal successfully, or b. to twist the knife that little bit more when he does let Bruce find out who he is. Like iirc there's a Judd Winick tweet like "yeah tldr he chose Red Hood as his identity because it's the lowest blow he could think of." And I think that's awesome, I think character motivations rooted so deeply in character's relationships and emotions are really fun to read! I also think it's where the stagnation/flatness of his character comes from in certain comics, because if his main motivation is one event in one relationship that passes, and he is not particularly attached to anything in his life or the world by the time that comes to pass, it's a little harder to come up with a direction to go with the character after that, because there isn't much of a direction that aligns with something the character would reasonably want? But I do think solving this by saying "all of the morally-off emotionally driven cruelty he did on his way to spite Batman was actually reflective of his own version of Batman's stance that's exactly the same except he thinks it's GOOD to kill people" isn't ideal. To be fully honest, it seems to me like he never particularly cared one way or the other about killing people to "clean Gotham of crime," he just did everything he could to get the power necessary to pull off his personal plans, and took out any particularly heinous people he encountered along the way (like in Lost Days.) Not to say I think the fact he killed people keeps him up at night anymore than everything else in his life events, I just never really thought he was out there wholeheartedly kneecapping some dude selling weed or random guy robbing a tv store for justice.

Looping wayyy back to my question, Is this (^) contradictory to the way he's written/the overall average perception of the character? Because like I enjoyed his writing in Beast World i have zero significant issue with anything there, I just didn't believe it would be a hot take, like yeah, that is Jason. It's been a while since I've read utrh and lost days, but I don't think my takeaway directly contradicts either of those too bad iirc. Idk all this to say I think Jason killing and being alright with killing is an obvious and objective fact, but i guess i've always seen it as more of a practical tactic than a moral belief, and I think taking the actions made during the lowest points of a character's life where he is obsessively focused on this ONEEEE thing and trying to apply it as a Motivating Stance to everything he's done after that, doesn't really follow logically for me.

#edit: i am so so open to discussion and disagreement on this but please try to have something substantial to say. god bless!#like ofc jason kills but to me it was less “everyone I've ever killed deserves death objectively”#and more “when people are dead they stop doing things like heinous atrocities and trying to kill me"#i don't even think he wanted the joker dead (only) because he thinks he objectively morally deserves death #although the joker is one of the most extreme cases possible and he if does think that he's VERY justified #i really do think it was just about bruce #and wanting bruce to avenge him to show he loved him and he mattered and wanting his dad to give him security #all the killing was about the clown and everything with the clown was about bruce #i've NEVER forgotten the bit in lost days where he has the joker tied up at gunpoint and doesn't kill him #i think if it was only about a moral greater good situation he would have taken him out then and there #if you disagree i'd love to hear why provided you can be civil and not an jerk #also if you disagree PLEASE PLEASE put screenshots and comic issues if possible #i'd love to check them out and form my own stance on them #just know that if you say like. battle for the cowl. or the Tom King batman annual or something i probably won't care too much #comic characterization is ever-changing and inconsistent i truly believe that the best thing to do is just read the important stuff #and try to form your own stances from there #because there's never gonna be 100% of comics involving a character that align with each other perfectly and that's just a given #jason todd #red hood #dc comics

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sleepyistinky · 2 months

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Hey guys I also made the other batfam members I'm still working on making Duke and Bruce (crossing my fingers I'm able to make Selina and Alfred too) but I'm so happy with how they came out (esp Steph and Damian)

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jasontoddenthusiastt · 5 months

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The New Titans #55 (1989)

Batman (2010-) #641

…

Red Hood and the Outlaws (2016-) #6

…

Batman and Red Hood (2011-) #20

…

Batman (2016-) #138

They sure do bAT&Tman. They sure as hell do.

Yet Jason never thought this way about you.

#Don’t you dare kill them with a simple headshot Jason! I have to keep them alive so I can torment them until they wished they were dead #they’ll never use their hands again. this is the superior way #and you should follow in my footsteps as any self-respecting non-criminal vigilante would in order to keep your conscience squeaky clean #also how dare you not be more understanding of the fact that I completely betrayed your trust #and threw your unhealable trauma in your face and shamelessly admitted to it #after I slit your throat in front of the murderer responsible for that same trauma while he laughed in your face a few years back #god you are a terrible son u are so selfish everything I ever said about you while u were dead was true ur being such a burden rn #also I just love how in batman 640 Bruce was going around interrogating Ollie and Clark (ppl who died + came back)#to find a *~rational~* explanation for how Jason was even here #instead of yk. just being glad your child is alive #and when Damian died he does all this shit to Jason to figure *how to* bring Dami back #after he burned his artwork the same way he emptied out Jason’s room #god you flaming turd of a father never change #the fact that lobdell boiled down Jason’s reasoning to ‘he’s the bad guy and you’re the good guy Jason’#already shows we’re starting off on the wrong foot but #Jason coming back to Bruce in every new comic and saying the same ‘I tried it your way. or sucks’ thing is so silly because #it*#he already learned that decades ago #all the way back in batman 424 lol #you’re just. making him. look like an idiot. but yk what maybe that’s still better than the self-deprecating diversion bs #that’s actually convincing more people ‘yay Jason want redemption this is revolutionary & has definitely never been done a billion times b4 #and is a step in the *right* direction’#my post

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mintacle · 2 years

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Despite it's virtues, utrh pretty much has to be retconned by now. Ideally we could keep Jason's characterization and motivations, but the problem is that utrh doesn't fit in anywhere anymore. Not going into the dilemma of "what actually happened at the ending of utrh?" Since Jason maybe died. The problem is that the events of utrh are never brought up in comics again. Because you can't. The weird character contradictions of Bruce fall apart under scrutinization. There is no definitive, clear and concise reason for Bruce and Jason's dynamic after. There's no laid-out direction where they would go after that. Alone the fact that the events of utrh are NEVER referenced again after, just vague gestures about Bruce and Jason being irreconcilable, proves that we need a 'new' utrh. One that corrects Bruce's characterization and one that makes enough sense to be useable to refer to when Jason and Bruce interact and fight again after those events. Because only by being talked about is there any potential for it to be resolved and as long as Bruce and Jason can't address that core conflict of utrh, their reconciliation will always be a little unsatisfactory.

#jason todd #rambling #utrh #bruce wayne #batman #red hood #dc comics #I have a lot of ideas about potential directions to take the story #mostly what I've read in other people's posts #but nothing encompassing the whole story line #just ideas about storybeats #I wouldn't want to write it. I just want to READ it #btw. i LOVE utrh. I will never not like it #just saying. it kind if doesnt make sense anynore bc you can't apply it anymore

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goatsghost · 11 months

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controversial idea, but with all the parental issues that the batfamily has, for some reason i genuinely think IF they were to, the only kid who’d call bruce “Dad” would be jason

#i know everyone hates the nightwing and batman hug panel going ‘i love you dad’ and i agree!#dick isn’t like that! their relationship isn’t like that #i think all of them would call him ‘my dad’ if talking to someone else (not duke tho) but they’d NEVER say it to his face; as a name #but i think under the right circumstances; jason would #maybe as a kid it slipped out once; maybe it could happen again as an adult #and i know i am going against certain canon but this is based on vibes lol #damian…… damian sometimes calls bruce ‘bruce’ in comics and i find that so funny lmao #mine #headcanons #bruce wayne #jason todd

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boyfridged · 8 months

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this is only vaguely related to my last ask but it got me thinking again how much i don't like the type of scrutiny that some people engage with when it comes to headcanons. don't get me wrong, there is plenty of headcanons that i despite when they appear in a particular context because they clearly come from a place of total ignorance and sometimes even borderline malice; and there are ways of writing about characters that are very obviously rooted in reactionary attitudes. but i have also seen situations in which people of specific ethnicities were told they were not supposed to hc a character to be said ethnicity because of the classist implications. i have seen people saying that headcanoning a particular character to be trans is too stereotypical and that it makes them "sick." i've seen people annoyed about characters being a particular religion because "there's another character who was said to be that religion before" (shocking and upsetting to some americans especially: religions are real and usually have more than one follower so they don't have to be assigned to a single character per title as their token.) and idk i think we should all pause for a moment and remember that the pieces of identity that people assign their favourite characters are often their own. there are ways to reclaim these cliches too. it's a matter of intention. people often read themselves into their beloved pieces of art. and maybe it does not always create the truest image of the author's intention nor a revolutionary picture of minority rep, but no one claims it does.

#a matter that always gives me a headache is how people read my post about the issue of jason being portrayed as psychotic #as me saying he should never be portrayed as psychotic #when what i meant was that psychosis should not be associated with violence the way it was in these comics.#i write jason psychotic sometimes.#i also write jason queer in all the possible ways. he's a trans guy he's a woman he's aroace he's gay etc.#i also do write him in a way that suggests he has at least a cultural link to eastern europe.#and very explicitly catholic. as i do write quite a lot of characters. most notably dick #all things that could be read as extremely inflammatory and stereotypical #but that are ultimately pieces of me or my loved ones.#i think fanfiction and creative interpretation are a work of love in more way than one #as i said: in a sense you do not only read the material but also read yourself into it.#and there has to be careful consideration when it comes to it at times.#to make sure there is still engagement with the source that makes it worthwhile #but i don't think it's fair to tell people these experiences are inappropriate for these contexts.#it's another thing if devin grayson makes dick romani #it's another thing if a person of a particular id & experience wishes to explore it in fanwork #sorry idk. love wins.

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ccbatman · 1 month

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I once said that I thought Steph would make a great Black Canary, and I still think that's one of the realest takes I've ever had.

Like, this moment seared itself into my head and never faded:

{ Robin 80-Page Giant }

#stephanie brown #dinah lance #spoiler #black canary #me learning about how dinah lost her cry which was as much BULLSHIT as steph's death btw okay hold on i need to get this out of my system #because they had to nerf her SO HARD for that to make sense and it STILL DIDNT BECAUSE ?????? SHE'S THE BLACK CANARY???? THAT GUY WAS A #NOBODY WITH A KNIFE ARE YOU JOKING??? and then the story that follows isnt even really ABOUT dinah it's about ollie and im so. ohhhh my god #JUST like how steph's death was largely brished aside to deal with bruce and jason's angst like. yeah i wanted there to be angst but it #wouldve been nice if it had been about HER for more than five seconds. honestly im so mixed about her death and return tbh. the way they #went about her passing was so weirdly inconsistent through the issues that bruce managing to get her to leslie in time does make sense but #then they do that weird thing with leslie and it's like ???? wha???? i go back and forth on how i feel about steph's return. on one hand i #love how she comes back more focused and stronger largely by her own means but on the other i did want #... something. i wanted her to be angry a bit longer and to deal with the complicated emotions between her 'failing' and bruce's 'failing'#and what that meant for her now. idk i love her batgirl run but it wouldve been nice if she had a bit more space to grieve herself.#anyway later in this issue dinah agrees to mentor steph for a bit and her rules are pretty much the same as bruce's when he made her robin #and if dinah had mentored steph instead of bruce she never would've died ok send tweet #wjshshsk #i love the panels of them looking at each other. dinah looking into steph's eyes and recognising the look in them.#i love how she smiles at stephanie both times. it's so gentle and kind. ily black canary #love posting on blogs where no one follows me. i can just say shit #comic ref #freya talks comics

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hopesallwegotleft · 1 year

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Hᴏsᴛɪʟᴇ │ Sᴀʏ ɴᴏᴛʜɪɴɢ │ Sᴜᴘᴘᴏʀᴛɪᴠᴇ

#House of Ashes #Salim Othman #Jason Kolchek #my gifsets #I love it when you click on 'Say nothing' and expect it to move on to a cutscene #but instead SMG gives you a quick line you've never heard before

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reineyday · 1 year

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i was looking up the comic pages of the titans tower attack where jason rips off his shirt to reveal the robin costime underneath, and i didnt manage to read it in full but something i found interesting is that tim says, "you're the red hood. you've been cleaning up gotham the easy way."

i dont have the full context for it, but i love that at least standing alone, there's an implication there that tim thinks killing criminals is effective, and he just doesnt find it challenging enough haha. like, there's a lot of other moral judgements you can make about jason's choice to murder, but instead of any of that, tim just decides to point out it's the easy way. 😂

(okay maybe tim said it in an effort to goad by saying jason's taking the easy way out, but i think it's funnier if tim said it 'cuz he doesnt actually disagree with killing and just doesnt do it cuz he follows the bat lol.)

#rei rambles #tim drake #jason: you think it's EASY??#tim: obviously! show me your systemic reformation plans first and then we'll talk #jason: well ACTUALLY #and then jay pulls out his phone to show tim a hundred page pdf on his plans to revamp the businesses and areas surroundibg the east end #starting with clearing out the mob fronts and turning them into local business and sanctuaries and non-profits #and a budget for a new road that provides opportunity to revamp and reopen the abandobed warehouse all in an effort to create more jobs.#tim: this IS the hard way but... i think we can do it.#and then they shake hands and become business partners.#< this is my titans tower au #btw i was looking up the pages cuz i want to draw a dumb comic that makes fun of him lol.#jason's made some really cringe decisions huh. love him. you gotta be able to laugh at your blorbos 🥲#anyways the vibes im trying to explain in this post are basically #jason: ive been killing criminals so theyll never hurt anyone again!#tim (an intellectual): so youre cleaning up gotham the EASY way huh #lmao and then #jason (a theatre kid): *dramatically rips off his shirt to reveal the robin costume* WHAT DID U SAY REPLACEMENT???

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roobylavender · 6 months

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i missed that class what dont you like about starlins rendition of their relationship?

(and also like, DID you think he did something in particular well or was it all…meh

the crux of my issues in this regard stems from batman #416. in the post-crisis era you began to see this way more lopsided depiction of bruce and dick's relationship wherein the former was portrayed to be almost.. bitter that dick had moved on to establish his own life. and it stood in great, great contrast to the bruce of the pre-crisis era, who was certainly devastated at the realization that dick was growing up, but also very intent for him to find his own happiness and way in life. they would have their disagreements on occasion (e.g., bruce initially disapproving of dick dropping out of college, bruce immediately taking leadership of a situation where the titans were involved when dick was better equipped to handle it, etc.) but the outcome of those situations was never outright bad yknow. bruce was very much capable of recognizing where he might have overstepped and subsequently stepped back to let dick have his own space. and i think initially max allan collins expanded on that dynamic in the post-crisis era in interesting ways by juxtaposing bruce's desire to see dick flourish against his own constant fear for dick's life. so instead of mike w. barr's comedic and lighthearted backup stories in early 80s tec where bruce disguised himself to keep an eye on dick's shenanigans and assure himself everything was going alright, you got this more serious confrontation within bruce with regards to his position as a parent. i don't think a lot of people read it that deeply but i've always viewed batman #408 as one of the most sensible depictions of that dilemma. the general complaints tend to be that this issue robbed dick of his pre-crisis decision to retire robin on his own, and i'll concede that as a worthwhile concern. but i don't think it's esp damning what with the implication that bruce no longer wants to be the person indirectly making the decision for dick to continue to be in this line of work. their moment at dick's bedside is less about bruce robbing him of the decision and more about him saying, if i let you still be robin, that's a direct reflection on me, bc i'm the one who got you to do all of this originally. i'm the one who put you directly in harm's way. if you're going to do this from now on, you need to do it on your own terms. you need to decide for yourself that this is who you want to be, without your relationship with me even being a factor.

it's a moment contributive to that delicious dynamic between them wherein every decision bruce takes to service dick's agency is inevitably read the wrong way by the latter to imply that he's not valued or not worthy of being seen as bruce's equal (and before the hounds pounce on me this obv does not include the increasingly abusive depiction of their relationship as the 90s progressed). that is an unavoidable dilemma when you're simultaneously someone's ward/adopted son and also their partner-in-crime! dick wants to be bruce's son and to be entitled to all of the love and care and protection that that entails but he also wants to be bruce's brother, his equal, his confidante, the one person he trusts more than anyone else in the world, etc. it's a tough place to be! it is paradoxical! and i'm so, so open to seeing that explored and think the way collins attempted to approach it in #408 was marvelous. but the way starlin (and other writers as well) totally swerved right in #416 to create this sudden resentment in bruce that dick had grown out of needing him was.. so utterly bizarre. like completely out of left field in a way i don't understand why people don't question it anymore bc in light of everything in the immediate fifteen years prior to the crisis it makes so little sense. their relationship with each other was so valued, bruce was so anxious to see dick establish himself while nonetheless maintaining a protectiveness over him, but it was all very much in good will even if he could overstep on occasion. it had all of the potential to allow for a very nuanced, empathetic exploration into the dilemmas of parenthood and esp when you are someone like bruce who has to forever live and contend with the crime of taking kids with him out onto the streets. bc he has to feel guilty! there is no escaping it. this is history, done and dusted forever, can't go back in time, so on and so forth. whatever harm comes any robin's way he has to live with as in some part being traceable back to his own actions. and i frankly believe that would be far more likely to evoke grief and anxiousness and concern than it would be bitterness that his son is charting out his own life

#as to do i think starlin did anything well. hmm #i like that he was able to acknowledge that jason's parents were loving people despite their circumstances #it didn't matter that willis was a criminal. what mattered was that he loved his family and would've done anything for them #which was a rare concession from starlin bc his writing could be pretty classist elsewhere #but at the same time idk sometimes i read it back and it's like. i don't think he was actually as classist as winick was ultimately #like it's been a While since i reread the starlin issues #but you could tell he believed jason's demise was less about his social class and more about being unable to fully recover from #or process his trauma as a result of the life he'd lived and the things he'd experience. hence the garzonas saga #and even in a death in the family the question is never about whether jason is acting out bc he's criminally inclined #bruce explicitly says he doesn't think he's given jason enough time to mentally and emotionally recover and that's why #he suspends him. so even starlin knew it was about the trauma first and foremost #and i mean that somewhat goes in line with his reasons for wanting to kill robin to begin with #he thought robin was symbolically representative of child abuse #in that it wasn't the conduit through which a young boy should necessarily grow #and ideally? the way to explore that in a medium that Requires the existence of child vigilantes #would have been to make the distinction that while there is always going to be some danger to every robin at the end of the day #what made the danger to jason distinct was that robin didn't work to resolve His trauma specifically #what robin did for dick is never something it could have done for jason let alone tim. there were too many other factors at play #so if this dilemma had been approached that way rather than starlin pursuing a blanket robin is child abuse ideology #that was subsequently picked up by other writers. then i think we might have gotten somewhere quite interesting #but anyway yeah so he's not my most hated by any means. there are parts i love there are parts i hate #ultimately at the end of the day winick will always be a gazillion times worse #outbox

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donnatroyyyy · 1 year

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Batman has/had some kind of miscommunication going on with every single one of his kids. The bat family is just one big miscommunication trope after the other.

#him and Dick have miscommunication about how they see each other. Bruce sees Dick as a son and Dick sees Bruce as a father #but they didn’t think the other saw them that way so they never told each other. that’s what led to their fights in Dick’s later teenage #years and dick quitting and becoming nightwing. he thought Bruce only saw him as a ward/robin so he thought that as long as he couldn’t be #robin Bruce wouldn’t want him #and if didn’t help when Bruce stopped talking to him when he left. though to Bruce it was because he thought Dick didn’t want to talk to him #and also Dick really needs to tell Bruce like ‘hey you put me on a higher pedestal then you put even yourself which is saying something and #and I don’t like that cuz that’s too much pressure for me. and also since you did it everyone else does it and has done it since I was Robin #and it’s literally just a matter of time before I break from the pressure cuz I’m not fucking Superman and I can’t take it’#and Jason with the whole UTRH thing. you know all Bruce had to say was that he had tried killing the joker over Jason multiple times and #maybe just explain to Jason WHY he doesn’t kill. a simple ‘you’re better than me because if I killed one person I’d kill everyone’#or it could even just be a simple ‘I do love you Jason youre the kid that I felt most comfortable loving’#and also maybe a ‘I don’t think anything changed after my death and that makes my death meaningless which I think goes against your no kill #rule because I hat is the rule of not a reminder taht death means something. and by that logic my death already went against the rule so why #can’t you do it again for the man that murdered me.’ and Bruce needs to make a presentation: ‘all the ways Jason’s death meant something’#and Tim just needs a simple ‘I don’t see you as work I see you as family.’ maybe even a ‘you don’t have to be the grown up in this relati #anymore I’m sorry you were one to begin with. you should’ve always been the child’#now his miscommunication with Damian goes much deeper but I’m one hundred percent sure if they sit down and air out all of their feelings it #would help a lot but I have a feeling that won’t happen #a ‘I have trouble understanding you because both your trauma and compassion run deeper than mine and I also never had to grow up to be a #weapon’ from Bruce and a ‘I don’t understand your optimism and moral stubbornness and easness why is it so easy to be good for u?’#his miscommunication with Cass stems from two things a simple ‘why are you so afraid to show how deeply you love?’ from Cass maybe a #‘I’m jealous of you because you’re better than me not only in fighting but morally and emotionally’ from Bruce should fix it #and Steph— look I’m not even going to TRY to get into that that goes SO much deeer and wider than any one else’s miscommunication #but maybe a ‘you reminded me of Jason at a time where that wasn’t a good thing’ from Bruce should start things up #for Duke a ‘I can never truly understand what you’re going/have gone through and for that I’m sorry’ from Bruce should suffice #maybe also Bruce telling him that just because he sees Duke as a son doesn’t mean he’s trying any less to get Duke his parents back #oh and babs just needs to go up to him and say ‘I don’t like that what happened to me happened for your story and not mine and I don’t like #that you don’t let me make it into my story’ and then Bruce can follow up and say ‘I see so much of myself in you and it makes me worry and #also I can never look at you without feeling guilty cuz you’re right what happened to you happened for MY story so I’m at fault’#then the two can go back to being too much like each other and sitting at their respective computers

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