#Not Willis Todd actually | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

spoilers-ahead · 10 months

Text

okay!! now that it’s not 2am for me, i’m going to post my selkie!jason todd hc’s straight up au apparently!

(uh. this was supposed to just be a list of hc’s but i got slightly,,,, carried away)

his selkie skin looks like an oversized red hoodie in his human form, and is just warm enough to help him survive new england winters.

when the summer heat becomes unbearable, he slings the hoodie around his waist

alternatively, he just coasts it out underwater. perks of living in a coastal city!

willis todd was a selkie. he used to tell jason stories of what it was like to swim through the big, wide ocean. of how freeing it felt. how different it is, from the smoggy, heavy air of gotham --- different, but both theirs, in their own right.

but to be honest, jason doesn’t remember much about the stories he was told, or really, anything about willis --- he had been in and out of blackgate for most of jason’s life, working for two-face to try and make ends meet, before dying.

what jason mostly remembers, are the warnings. don’t let anybody know you’re a selkie. don’t let anybody find your skin. they will find it, and they will use it to control you. even decades later, jason would still remember those warnings.

catherine is the one who teaches him how to swim, who helps him trial-and-error his way into putting his skin on, and learn how to make the transition seamless.

after she dies, jason spends three months as a seal, to just... exist. forget.

although jason technically lives on the streets, whenever he can;t find food, whenever he can’t find somewhere warm to sleep, whenever just being human becomes too unbearable, he spends the night as a seal. he ends up spending more time in the ocean, than on land.

that’s not to say he’s very good at being a seal --- he barely knows how to swim, has to learn how to fish the hard way.

when bruce finds jason stealing his car tires, he marvels over how nice jason’s hoodie is, soft and fluffy even after all of jason’s time on the streets, especially given the condition jason is in, ribs showing from malnutrition, and the worn and raggedy shape of the rest of his stuff.

jason is skittish when he goes to live in the manor, even after a few weeks. he always adopts an expression particularly similar to a cornered wild animal around alfred in particular, alfred, who keeps on trying to take his hoodie away, purportedly to wash it.

alfred eventually gives up on trying to force jason to wash it --- he figures that as jason becomes more comfortable living at the manor, he’ll wind up telling them why he’s so protective over that hoodie, and they can work something out then.

whenever wayne manor overwhelms jason with how big and how decadently expensive all the decor is, jason runs away, run to the ocean.

jason doesn’t actually end up telling alfred and bruce that he’s a selkie --- bruce just has a ridiculous amount of motion alarms, which are triggered every time jason ran off. he had followed jason the third night, and saw him transform.

bruce doesn’t tell jason that he knows, assuming that jason kept this a secret because he didn’t fully trust either of them. he would later learn that he was right in this assumption (a rare win for bruce in terms of emotional awareness)

except jason doesn’t fully trust either of them, even after a few months. bruce impulsively decides to do a few things --- a) tell jason about batman and robin and his crime-fighting secret identity, and b) tell jason he already knows about him being a selkie.

jason is absolutely bamboozled by the fact that bruce knows, and yet hasn’t tried to take his hoodie to control him, or to stop him from playing in the ocean for a few hours.

in fact, (under alfred’s encouragement) bruce offers to take him to the ocean during the day, so he can get “a proper night’s rest that a growing young boy such as himself would need”

jason remembers what his father told him, to never trust anyone, never let his guard down. but bruce has known about jason being a selkie for so long, and he didn’t take his hoodie or try anything. of course he can trust bruce.

and when he tries on the robin costume for the first time, it fits perfectly. just like his hoodie, his second skin. it fits just like magic.

oh, it’s a little loose in some places, the legacy of dick fucking grayson a little heavy sometimes, but he��ll grow into it. he’ll make himself, if he has to.

also, jason finds the fact that even though he’s a friggin’ selkie, his callsign is a bird (a robin, no less) incredibly ironic and funny

being a selkie is actually so useful for vigilantehood. the amount of people who talk freely, openly, and loudly about their drug smuggling plans near the ports is quite frankly, ridiculous.

honestly, towards the end of his robin years, jason remains genuinely surprised nobody catches on to him or his tactics yet. bruce is very proud.

even though jason is safe, has been safe for three years, and trusts bruce with his life, his skin, and everything, old habits are hard to break. so he has his hoodie on when he goes to find sheila.

and anyways, he wants to see if sheila is a selkie too. he’s taking biology right now, and they’re learning about punnett squares. jason’s never met another selkie before, other than willis who he barely remembers. there’s a possibility that sheila knows something, anything, so he has to try.

sheila gets a glint in her eyes when jason mentions that he’s a selkie, tells him that while she’s not one herself, she’s familiar with the myth. she has long suspected that willis was a selkie, she tells him, and she’s glad to have confirmation.

jason positively vibrates with excitement, can’t wait to ask, to pester his mother (mother!) with questions upon questions until.

until.

sheila doesn’t do anything after she gives him to the joker. she just smokes and smokes. and she doesn’t tell the joker about his hoodie, despite how it would have been much easier for the joker to destroy him that way. much more painful too.

small mercies, he supposes, in between hacking coughs that brings blood bubbling up his lips.

after he dies, his hoodie is ripped and in tatters from the crowbar, with burns along the edges from the bomb. bruce has to carefully peel it off his body.

when jason was alive, his magic kept the hoodie in perfect condition, always. even when the rest of him was covered head-to-toe in mud, or dripping sludge from the nasty gotham sewers.

bruce stares at the same hoodie, blood-soaked and mangled, so incredibly dissonant from how he remembered it on jason, when he was bright, whole, and alive.

he can’t stand it. the hoodie that was so precious to jason, that was jason, at the core of him, in this state. dirty and ripped and devoid of the magic jason had exuded.

in a moment of desperation, late at night, bruce asks alfred to teach him how to sew. he doesn’t dare to practice on jason’s beloved hoodie --- instead, he starts with the suits in his closet, grabbing the first one he sees, regardless of price. rips a hole and sews it back together over and over until he perfects his technique.

and then he washes the fabric gently, using baby fabric cleanser and scrubbing for hours upon hours until the last traces of the deep-set brown stain from jason’s blood washes down the drain.

he painstakingly sews the scraps of fabric back together with a red thread, carefully sourced to match the hoodie to try and make it flow seamlessly like it used to.

it doesn’t work, not exactly. despite his best efforts, the creases bruce had carefully sewn together are prominent and thick like scars, littering the soft fabric.

so he gives up. he hangs it over the grandfather clock entrance to the cave in his study. brings it with him every time he visits jason’s grave, because he doesn’t ever want to keep jason’s hoodie away from him, but he also can’t bear for it to get ruined.

dick visits him. a rare occurrence, these days.

dick yells at him, as he is wont to do.

these days, it feels like they spend more time angry at each other than not. dick says that this isn’t right. isn’t fair to anybody, not to alfred, not to himself, definitely not to jason. he rants, jason deserves to be remembered as he was in life, not frozen in death.

perhaps he is right. bruce is not unaware of the state of violent, cutting stasis he is in, this putrefaction of his life. and he is certainly not unaware of how it is affecting the people around him. dick. alfred. the neighbor’s kid, the one who wants to be robin.

bruce tries. not for himself, but for tim. for alfred, for dick. even for stephanie brown, who sometimes, when she smirks just right, or says something with just the right twang, he swears he can see jason in her.

he still can’t bear to put the hoodie away, because jason deserved better than to be forgotten, so he folds it gently and places it in his closet instead.

he also can’t bear to look at it for very long, so he forces himself to every single day.

it’s different from the glass case that houses robin’s tattered suit in the cave --- that, is a reminder of how he failed robin. this, this is salt in a constant, stabbing, festering would, reminding him of how he failed his son.

it was stephanie, that eventually helped him figure out what to do with the hoodie. when she was young, young enough to cry at ripped pants and skinned knees, young enough that her mother hadn’t touched the drugs yet, her mother would dry up her tears, give her a hug and a kiss on the forehead, before patching her pants up.

what not many people know, is that before crystal brown set her mind on becoming a nurse, she wanted to be an artist, first. and so she grabs her old set of embroidery needles, and stitched little designs. dogs and cats. stars and planets. tools and gadgets.

bruce doesn’t react, doesn’t even move, even as stephanie finishes her story. she hangs there awkwardly for a second, stares up at jason’s suit, waiting for him to respond, before shuffling towards the exit of the cave.

thank you, spoiler, bruce manages to croak out.

ah, yeah, she says, shrugging lightly while slouching in on herself, any time, boss. she walks out, and bruce watches her go from the reflection on the darkened computer.

that night, he takes out jason’s hoodie, smooths it out, grabs his threads, and stitches.

he stitches on constellations, argo navis, for jason’s namesake in the greek myths he had loved so much. a tiny seal, playing with beach balls. little books, with quotes on the sides. a robin, big and bold.

he tries to make it as true to jason as possible, not just in death and in bruce’s memories, but as he was in life.

jason wakes up abruptly.

he wakes up in a coffin, cold, alone, and with a gaping hole in his chest. getting dipped in the lazarus pit only made it worse, only made him all the more aware of what he was missing, all the more conscious of it.

he doesn’t bother trying to learn how to swim with two arms and two legs, instead of two fins and a tail. it doesn’t feel the same. it only reminds him of what he’s lost.

sometimes, on sleepless nights that happen more often than not, he wonders what would have happened if he still had a hoodie, still could swim.

if he still was robin.

and he doesn’t have access to the cave anymore, or to the titan’s tower, or the watchtower, and his memory of the past is still patchy and shitty in some places.

so in a burst of impulsivity fueled by the person he no longer is, he prints out photos of robin’s costume from the internet and recreates it on his own.

if his skin is gone, then fine. fine! he’s perfectly perfunctorily aware that nothing about this resurrection of his is natural. if he doesn’t think too much about it, he’ll be alright. his hoodie, his skin, that was something he was born with, a birthright that died with him.

but robin, robin was something that he helped shape. robin was something that he worked for, changed himself for.

and the makeshift robin suit --- it doesn’t fit him, not anymore. no, it feels wrong, like a child playing with their parent’s suit. or --- he realizes, perhaps more accurately, like an adult realizing they no longer fit in their favorite clothes.

and --- and --- what was the point of it all? what was the point, of trying to make bruce proud of him, of getting dick’s approval, of trying to futilely save people over and over again from the same gallery of supervillains who keep on escaping from prison?!

and what was the point of carving out a space for himself if the joker was just going to beat him out of it, and if tim drake was going to insert himself in the hole he left behind?

and then the next thing he knows he’s in titan’s tower hitting tim drake over and over again because who let him? who let him take jason’s role as a son, as a brother, as a hero? how dare he?

but when he’s slit tim’s throat and torn the ‘R’ off his chest, jason doesn’t feel any better. the robin suit still doesn’t fit. his hoodie’s still gone.

he’s starting to think it never will, not again.

sometimes, when he gets tired enough to let his mind wander, he wonders what happened to his suit.

he’s pretty sure he died with it, so either the hoodie is with the joker, batman, or... gone entirely. (it’s not like they found willis’ skin after he died. maybe selkie skins just disappear in a cloud of sea foam once they die, or some little mermaid shit like that)

it’s a cold comfort, that nobody can manipulate him now. nobody can control him --- not even batman.

(bruce had thought about it. when he first had his suspicious regarding who the red hood was, before he knew there was any trace of the son he once had left. he thought about using the hoodie, using jason’s selkie skin to coerce him, at least to stop murdering people, to stop hurting their family.)

(he would never go that far, in retrospect, or at least, he doesn’t think he could ever. to do that to jason, betray his trust so thoroughly and completely... but it would be a lie to say that he didn’t consider it.)

bruce reflects on this as jason reveals himself, the joker tied up at his feet with a gun pressed to his head, and venom spitting from his son’s mouth.

but when he lifts the batarang to hit jason’s gun, or wrist, or anything that’ll force him to drop the gun, he realizes that his hands are shaking.

and when he throws the batarang, he knows a millisecond after he’s let go, that he’s miscalculated the ricochet.

so when jason escapes that night, bruce knows he’s fucked up.

jason goes off the maps, completely. bruce doesn’t know where he is, if he’s safe, if he even made it out of the explosion that night.

it takes weeks. weeks for bruce to track jason down, from meticulously documenting the dropped threads of where the red hood was pulling strings in the gotham underworld behind the scenes, to tracking security cameras with facial recognition.

once bruce manages find where he’s staying, make sure he’s safe, he knows what he wants to do. and, he knows what he needs to do.

jason gets a package in the mail, five weeks after his disasterous meeting with batman and the joker. unmarked, unsigned, no return address.

when jason opens the box gingerly and carefully, he holds on to his skin for the first time in years. and then, and then, and then --- something right slots into place. his fingers brushed gently over the tiny spotted seal he knows he used to look like, the books he remembered ranting to bruce about for hours on end.

the robin, on the top left, over his heart, big enough to have changed him, yet small enough to not define him.

it’s not perfect. it doesn’t even fix anything, not entirely. he still fights with bruce most times he sees him, tries to punch dick in the face, steadfastly ignores tim and steph the entire time.

but it’s something. it’s something, and the next time nightwing, batman, spoiler, and robin fight a gang on the docks, the red hood gives them a helping hand before jumping back into the ocean and swimming away.

fin!

wow this got long

#jason todd #bruce wayne #alfred pennyworth #batfam #selkie!jason #dick grayson #stephanie brown #tim drake #catherine todd #willis todd #that one selkie!jason au #i swear i will turn this into an actual fic one day #anyways about the using embroidery to fix ripped clothes thing all i can say is WATCH HI MOM #it's SUCH a good movie and i guarantee it will DEVASTATE you in ALL your little mommy issues glory #like you think the batfamily comics/fanfics have an amazing nuanced complicated take on the parent-child dynamic?#this movie will BLOW your fucking SOCKS off. and best part of all: you can watch it WITH said parent #and it won't be as horrible of an experience as showing them encanto/turning red/eeaao!#in fact your parent will probably like the movie too and be reminded of THEIR own mommy issues :D #admittedly it's slightly different from the examples i listed above bc it's more abt what it's like to never reach ur parent's expectation #rather than an exploration of complicated parenting but it's still very relatable and very very good #the best part is you can find it all for free on youtube. also note that i mean the recent chinese movie not the old 70s movie #asteria's fics #i'm never writing a fucking flash fic on TUMBLR of all text editors again #shouldve written this out on a google doc first but i genuinely did not think this would get so long T.T #you can probably tell from the first three (3) bullet points that this was supposed to be a hc list before... it stopped being a hc list #guys i started writing this at 12 PM #IT'S NOW 9 AWOGEJAWOIG #my writing

673 notes · View notes

mikakuna · 2 months

Text

and what happens when willis todd finds out his little boy died. he knows billionaire bruce wayne adopted jay-- the whole damn country knew.

so why. why did his baby boy get a better chance at life than willis could provide, just for him to still die before him, before he became an adult?

how could willis give up his parental rights to bruce wayne, the most privileged man on earth, expecting this man to keep his baby safe and happy and healthy-- when his little jay still died alone and scared.

bruce wayne had everything he could ever ask for. he had all the means to keep his son safe from any harm. and yet jason still died before he even reached his sweet sixteen.

willis thinks that maybe it's a family curse-- a curse he has to live with, knowing that he's failed everyone he's ever loved.

#RAHHHHH #willis todd thoughts....#i know that man loved jason with his entire heart #the agony of their relationship!!!#like realistically if i -as a person who's had to fight so hard just to get money on the table for one night- found out that a billionaire #adopted my 12 year old son after i went to jail #and my child ended up dead under said billionaire's care...#not to put the blame on bruce but to put the blame on bruce actually!#me when jason and his fathers #hhajjnakdjdk!!!!#jason todd #red hood #batman #bruce wayne #willis todd #jason peter todd #dc #dc comics

123 notes · View notes

damianbugs · 1 year

Text

dc might not like to address how they've unofficially retconned a lot of jasons original robin run to end up being absolutely classist, but i most certainly will bring it up whenever i can. while this is definitely narrative criticism, it is more of a study, as i am not expecting anyone, readers or dc, to really change how they view the todds.

jason goes from being a rather reserved, kind and genuinely friendly child to an angry and cruel boy who was contemplating murder at some point (batman: urban legends). not to mention willis going from an absent but well meaning man who turned to crime to support his family to now being an abusive father and husband. catherine todd was originally stated to have died from overdose, but was later confirmed in death in the family to pass away from cancer, so while the 'poor addict mother' stereotype still applies, it is more complicated in her case.

it is no surprise that in modern tellings, all three of them represent very realistic forms of poverty. willis the abusive criminal, catherine the addict (her battle with cancer is always noticeably left out) and jason the violent child left to repeat the cycle.

dc simply couldn't allow the todd family to remain poor but an all in all good family (though i am careful to say they were perfect, past or present, since depending how you read him, willis can still be seen as a bad father and horrible husband), and instead had to dramatise negative stereotypes of poor people in order to really perpetuate the existence of jason being the "angry" robin. this mostly comes down to dc perhaps wanting to bury older comics featuring the original characterisation (since the only way to read them is through piracy), and there is no better way to do that than make his current characterisation nothing like his old one, at all.

after all, how else can we ensure readers are aware of how angry, evil and emotionally unstable jason todd is, if not making his life the pinnacle of why poor people are terrible and should not have kids? dc is not trying to hide it at all, it's almost laughable.

while the blatant classism is very clearly the biggest issue, from a storytelling perspective it is also really disappointing. deconstructing catherine and willis todd to their morally reprehensible, abusive and neglectful 2d personalities in modern telling leaves a massive gap is what made jason so personable as robin. personally, i also think it takes away how homelessness and his own poverty seperate from his family might have affected jason's morals and opinions on certain topics — another aspect of his character that is very important but often undeveloped.

especially with jason; making him having always been this quick to rage and violent child/robin takes away the true devastation of his death and subsequent revival. he died an innocent, damaged and complicated but caring boy, and came back vengeful and spiteful. he is a boy who has suffered a lot in life, with a sick mother he had to provide for due to his absent father, who also died due to a life of crime — and yet jason broke free from the cycle and became something more.

he loved to learn, to go to school, to play sports and to help people. he loved being a hero, even when it got tough, and though sometimes it was hard to remember, he always tried to stay on the bright side of things.

it's one of the main reasons bruce is so unable to process and accept his son's return, because to him, the person who came back is not the son he lost. though, that is another conversation entirely.

on the one hand however, i can see why jason's current life story might be more appealing to certain readers (and depending on the work, fanon or canon, it can makes more sense). since now that he's broken out of the cycle of abuse, he can use his strength to protect other vulnerable people. the true 'people's hero' in a way batman and other adjacent vigilantes can not be.

it is just a little regrettable that to fulfill this, he and his family must adhere to classist stereotypes to make it more believable. after all, jason was very much the 'people's robin' even without all the retcons to his character. he has always stood up for people who couldn't do it themselves.

#jason todd #robin ii #batman and robin #red hood #bruce wayne #catherine todd #willis todd #more of a word dump than an actual study #just some thinking #classism #dc #saki comic talks

2K notes · View notes

undertheredhood · 6 months

Text

“why do you headcanon jason todd as a poc?” idk maybe it’s because he was racially ambiguous enough to the point where he considered lady shiva as one of the potential candidates to be his bio mother as a possibility.

#dc comics #dc universe #dcu #batman #red hood #jason todd #jason peter todd #jason was never the angry robin #lady shiva #sandra wu san #person of color jason todd #poc jason todd #i don’t really care for the adif comic because of how islamophobic and pro-z10n1st it was #(if you don’t know one of jason’s bio mom candidates was a spy for the isnotreal government)#but yeah i kinda find the part where he believed shiva to be his mother hilarious #and that and sh*ela betraying him to the joker to save her own skin are the only things i consider canon imo #it’s wild that willis todd and shiva actually knew each other tho

132 notes · View notes

kittykatninja321 · 2 months

Text

They’re Cooking on Twitter

#The girlies are already calling it twowillis. New and exciting things going down #Willis Todd #Two Face #Jason Todd #this concept is actually so funny can you imagine if Willis died because he was having a toxic yaoi moment with his boss #while his sick wife and child are at home oh I’m sick 😩#Harvey Dent

90 notes · View notes

boyfridged · 5 months

Text

"why did willis have shiva's details in his address book anyway" obviously she saw his beautiful eyes and gave it to him?

#i actually do have a more interesting story in mind about that. that does not really involve any romance.#but let me be abnormal for a sec this is like a tip of the iceberg of what is going on in my dms #willis.zip #willis todd

51 notes · View notes

jasontoddssuper · 7 months

Text

There's MANY(and the capitalization is necessary)ways that the Batfam fandom tries to fit the Batkids into 'sibling tropes' that make wanna tear my hair out but this time the one i'm gonna talk about is assigning them 'golden child' status.Now,i know that's an actual irl thing(a form of child abuse via dehumanization too but that's another post for another day)but it literally dosen't work with a single Batkid.No,not even Dick,y'all's eldest daughter syndrome jokes be damned.Dick has an attitude the size of Tamaran and never held it back on Bruce even when he was Robin,Tim is a rare autistic teenager who's a troublemaker on purpose instead of on accident,Jason is Jason,Cass is as unhinged as Bruce is and even more snarky,Duke got kicked out of multiple schools and joined a gang that he ended up leading and runs his mouth like he used to run from cops and Damian has no idea what holding back your weirdo instincts means and never EVER wants to find out.There is no 'golden child',they're all the problem child you dumbass niggas!!!!

"B-But it's realistic-"My little sister runs a secret online shop behind our family's back,my little brother goes out late and never gives a shit when our mom tells him off for it and i used to physically fight my bullies,almost flunked high school and disrespect my older relatives so often you'd think i was raised by gringos.The Batkids just like us fr and i R E F U S E to let y'all erase our rep for your tropes

#the batkids #dick grayson #tim drake #jason todd #cassandra cain #duke thomas #damian wayne #batfam #robin #batgirl #wfa #wfa spoilers #romani dick grayson #cherokee tim drake #afrolatino jason supremacy #autistic cass supremacy #they're all autistic in addition to her and tim actually :) trans too #me willy and wilmari #letters from summer

52 notes · View notes

autisticrosewilson · 3 days

Text

I'm an open marriage/poly Catherine/Willis truther so do you guys think Jason has some half siblings running around? Every few months Jason finds another kid that looks like one of his sixteen parents and he's like "aw shit here we go again." Anyway I was thinking about that one universe where Jason had a brother named Danny and they basically fucked everything about his character up but I liked that bit so I've just been rotating it in my brain.

#My only thing is who would Danny's mom be then #I headcanon that Catherine's illness is hereditary so I don't think she'd want to give birth out of fear of passing it down #jason todd #Catherine Todd #Willis Todd #Danny Todd B:AC #I'm also a Shiva is Jason's bio mom truther #so it would be really funny (read: not funny at all) if Sheila was actually Danny's mom

9 notes · View notes

planetoflovers · 5 months

Text

Need to find that post comparing dick Grayson to willis todd and stating it as a reason for Jason being uncomfortable around dick. I really wanna see their argument for this

#dick grayson #jason todd #willis todd #like be so fucking for real #dc comics #begging y’all to actually read comics instead of getting all ur infor about these characters from fanfics

11 notes · View notes

marchfall · 1 year

Text

Jason Todd can either keep fighting Bruce for his daddy issues or continue projecting is mommy issues on him. He can’t have both. He needs to chose one!

#both his mothers chose drugs over him #he was abandoned by one and used/discarded by the other #he felt wasn’t enough for his real mother (aka Catherine the woman who actually loved and raised him) who he loved dearly and felt he failed #and the other (Sheila) never actually cared about him beyond his exploitability #for the record I ascribe to the idea based on that one panel that she was dying of cancer and she was self medicating #Katherine that is #but when does that matter to a child’s perspective?#Katherine didn’t have the capabilities to provide everything Jason needed but she tried her best and gave everything she could #she loved him and she made a chose that took her away from him long before her illness did #Jason’s bio dad was just a man of a bad crowd who was never willing to fully commit himself to the vulnerabilities and responsibilities of #being a good spouse and father #Willis was a weak man with a rough upbringing and no desire to be anyone but the product of his circumstances #who does Bruce sound the most alike #batman #alfred’s idiot child #favorite tire thief #bruce wayne #jason todd #character study

43 notes · View notes

nightwings-robin · 2 years

Text

I kind of low-key want to see an interaction between Red Hood and Two-Face where Jason makes a comment about how Two-Face killed his father. and Harvey flips a coin to decide whether or not to apologize

#jason todd #red hood #two face #harvey dent #willis todd #dc comics #don't come at me saying that willis is actually still alive and that he's wingman #I do not consider that canon

69 notes · View notes

hauntingblue · 8 months

Text

I need jason to get re traumatized like if they're not gonna deal with his death and resurrection in a good way just let it go and get him a new thing to be miserable about

#idk man. fridge somebody. catherine todd zombie. sheila is alive actually #i was gonna say willis is alive and then i thought oh he is but wait he just died #see how this writes itself #talking tag #jason todd

15 notes · View notes

azol-otl · 1 year

Text

Not Reverse Robins or Scrambled Birds but a secret third thing: A Step to the Left.

Not Dick > Jason > Tim > Steph > Damian,

but Jason > Tim > Steph > Damian > Dick*.

But not only them. Every sidekick with a legacy name gets shifted one spot. (No I’m not counting the Golden Age because I’m not combing through that ).

This means that Jason’s Titans team is him, Mia (Speedy), Jackson (Aqualad), Cassie (Wonder Girl), and Bart (Impulse but y’know he was KF II in the comics).

The NTT team including Starfire, Changeling, Raven, and Cyborg stays the same since they’re the only ones with those names. Cass gets lumped in here because Jason actually wants to do college/is becoming disillusioned about cape life and the idea of Kori learning Cass's body language is too good to pass up.

Tim gets one (1) cape friend (because Jason only got one) and it’s Zachary Zatara because it has to be a d-lister who deals with that disaster Teen Titans era.

Stephanie gets Jon (Superboy), Yara (Wonder Girl II now), and Irey (Because guess what it’s Impulse on the team and not KF which means we get Impulse II). Secret, Cissie, Anita, Slobo etc. all stay the same.

Damian doesn’t get anyone until he becomes Batgirl.

Duke literally gets Damian’s exact canon team but it’s Kon instead of Jon and probably won’t end with them committing war crimes.

If the character in that placement dies in canon then the new character in that placement also dies (i.e. Jason dies so Tim will die/ Kon dies so Jon will die).

But there will be changes because these are different characters so not all of them would react the same.

For example, Jason and Cass are the first Robin and Batgirl, but Cass becomes Nightwing while Jason becomes Oracle because I feel like Jason generally fits Barbara’s character better than Cass does (which is a fucking shame because Oracle being someone named Cassandra should be a no brainer but yeah).

Or how Barbara should be Batgirl number three, but it’s actually Damian because Cass would see their similarities between them and offer him Batgirl (which he refuses at first but after his disastrous run as Robin he sees how Batgirl would fit his strengths better).

Also I refuse to believe that Jason and Cass would let Dick out as Robin so young so he’s benched until later and his place is taken up by Duke and instead of Leviathan it’s Gnomon.

#I actually have a lot of thoughts about this but I didn't want to word vomit it all up like I normally do #No lie Damian becoming Batgirl III was not planned but because it started off with Cass it honestly felt right #So now him and Stephanie parallel each other so much more than I planned with the whole 3 identities cycle of Original > R > BG> OG #Also Robins 1 3 and 5 (the ones who were actually focused on for a time) are all Gotham natives with strong ties to the people #So that feels right #Also also Mia and Jason both being on the same team and having similar traumas while comics were finally starting to tackle these things #Tim has to deal with all the shit Jason did including starting off as a Blonde Jason clone (hey Timmy Todd)#Being victim blamed for his death for nearly 20 years and brought back as a villain #Then left with writers who hate him and made him ugly *and* stupid #then left with Lobdell and having the fans of his teammates blame him and his fans for things that they had no control over #other notes I didn't put in include Cass's cover is that she's Jason's cousin via Willis who was adopted and it turns out to be true #Stephanie 'Ambiguously Gay' Brown with her team full of Women who can crush her like a bug #Cass 'Are you sure she's straight' Wayne and her Gal Pal Koriand'r #Jason and Bart's wild 50 years where they surprise everyone including the writers and editors #since none of their love interests stuck but the chemistry they had with each other was off the charts #so their friendship read more as a slow-burn annoyances to friends to lovers that was totally on purpose guys and became canon p52 #like right before the reboot because the writer was like "Fuck it we're rebooting anyways!#if you feel like it's unfair that Tim and Damian gets no friends remember that I didn't shift teams at all only the people in them #so they get dealt Jason and Stephanie's canon hands #Don't come at me with 'uhm Robin is DICK'S nam'e' that retcon happened 50 years after the character #I can do the exact same with any character #great another essay in the tags #azol's posts

15 notes · View notes