How low can we fucking get y’all have me defending Bruce fucking Wayne

Before any asks come in, I figured I'd do some for my current crowning hyperfixation, which is the boys. Did one for each of their initials but Dick got two because I couldn't choose <3

Warnings: 18+ MDNI! , gen soft yandere behavior, murder, kidnapping, dacryphilia, sadism/masochism

D = Darling (Beyond Morality, is Any Act Justified in Their Pursuit of Their Darling? Is Consent Merely an Obstacle to Be Overcome?):

Dick: Dick is the most moral of the yandere batfam, and considers doing the right thing very important. Of course, you’re still much, much more important but… He’ll definitely start small. He’s manipulative. Always begging and pleading for a little more of your time, whining when you don’t give it. And he does it openly, too, not even trying to hide it. Maybe that will absolve him of some of his sins, he thinks a little pathetically. Things like murder and other crimes are harder for him to get into, as he’s quite loyal to Bruce’s code. And he probably wouldn’t kidnap you, just move into your house instead, then your bedroom, then under the covers and with your arms around you. Very slowly, so he doesn’t scare you away. And as someone who has experienced s/a before, he wouldn’t do that to you. No matter how desperate, no matter how many nights he spends taking a suspiciously long time in the shower, he’d never do that to you. In the end, he just wants you to be happy so… so the other stuff doesn’t need to matter as much.

Damian: Damian has a very black and white form of thinking. It took Bruce a hell of a lot of work to change that, and with the advent of you in his life, he swings right back to that black and white. Morality is thrown right out the window when it comes to getting you, to getting you to love him. Murder? He’s done it before. Kidnapping? He’ll keep you safe with him. He’s a romantic, though (like they all are) and he wants you to love him back. He’s irritated that he can’t force that, that if he broke you, you wouldn’t be you. So in the end he won’t ever do anything too far, nothing that would truly get in the way of his goal. Still, with the kidnapping thing, you guys are just going to get stuck together for a while, because he’s certainly not letting you go. The two of you are just gonna have to suffer together till you inevitable fall in love with him. Don’t worry, he’s got a plan!

J = Jealousy (Does Jealousy Course Through Their Veins, Leading to Possessive Outbursts and a Relentless Need to Eliminate Perceived Threats?):

Jason: Jason is so unbelievably jealous it sometimes physically hurts. Like he’s being burned alive by it, which, well, he knows what that’s like so he can say it with confidence. He finds your presence calming, usually, but that first time he sees you laughing at a close friend’s joke, he realises you bring out every emotion in him. This time, fiery rage from the literal pits’ of hell. He won’t ever hurt you (and if he ever thinks of it, even for just a moment, the pure horror is enough of a cool bucket of icy water over his head to snap him out of it) but others? Oh, oh no. He left that silly ‘no killing’ code behind a long time ago, and he’s very glad for that as he beats one of your admirers into the concrete. And if you have other yanderes under your thrall? You’ll find yourself constantly breaking up fights, and maybe one day, cleaning up a body. Even then, Jason doesn’t like seeing you touch them, so he does it for you instead. What a sweet guy, eh?

R = Regret (Would Guilt Ever Be a Foreign Emotion, Overridden by the Conviction That Their Actions Are Justified? Is the Idea of Letting Their Darling Go Inconceivable?):

Richard/Dick: Constantly. Dick is constantly suffering under the weight of his choices, the way he’s treated you, the things he thinks about you. And even as he does it again, does worse, he’ll still have that bit of guilt in the back of his mind. He wants to stay with you, to fucking climb inside your rib cage and live next to the comforting sound of your beating heart, but he knows that’s all unhealthy. He sometimes can’t banish the guilt from his head, sometimes it’s overwhelming, and those are the moments he’ll back off a bit.

T = Tears (Does the Sight of Their Darling's Suffering Evoke a Twisted Pleasure, a Morbid Satisfaction Reinforcing Their Control?):

Tim (Going to play around with this one a bit, if you’ll forgive me): Tim is purely fascinated by you. He’s one of the yanderes who gets obsessed with you first, and falls for you second. Your tears, just simply by being a byproduct of you are fascinating to him too. And yeah, they turn him on. Everything about you turns him on, but the sight of your weepy face, has his cock weepy too. As a sadomasochist switch, he likes it when you’re suffering just a little bit. It’s just too cute to resist. But on the other side… he likes when you make him cry too. He likes when you hurt him, as long as you’re paying him attention, looking at him. He’ll cry all you like, if you think it makes him cute, too.

It's quite important to me that Jason and Bruce's conflict is not a misunderstanding.

I truly believe that if each of them had perfect omniscient knowledge of every detail of what happened surrounding Jason's death, not only would they still have conflict, but they would still have the SAME conflict. Neither the question nor the answer of Under the Red Hood's climax would change.

Sheila's betrayal is often known about in canon (frankly there is no way anyone but Jason should know; it is deeply unclear to me why comics allow others to be aware of this) and it does nothing to change anything.

Bruce's one off attempt to kill the Joker at most changes a few lines during Jason's plea to let him kill him ("Please! I know you wanted to, I know you tried to once, what changed? Did you forget about me? Did you stop caring? Did you fucking well forgive?! You for whom vengeance is your only life?")

Learning about the people Jason saved doesn't do much to assuage Bruce's horror at what Jason has become ("Each life is precious, unique, irreplaceable. It does not absolve him.")

Learning exactly what was done to mourn him modifies the depth and force of Jason's fury some ("You buried and destroyed all trace of me, the actual person, didn't even try to tell Dick, and then blamed my death on my own irresponsibility?!") But otherwise does very little.

Talia's involvement being revealed does nothing, because frankly she didn't do much of anything except stall this confrontation and give him a knife. It's a really cool knife, granted, but it sure as fuck didn't convince Jason this needed to happen!

The exact details of Tim's induction into the role have the largest effect - on an issue that is utterly tertiary to his main conflict with Bruce ("Oh wow, cool, great, the new kid you got to emotionally support you actually volunteered, and has parents so his entire well-being doesn't hinge on your approval. Congrats on approaching the bare fucking minimum! Now, wouldn't you agree that you have a duty to protect him by taking care of the murderer who killed me?! Instead of fucking demanding that he be good enough not to get killed?!")

I have a whole damn post on the can of worms Jason understanding the events of War Games would open! ("YOU LET ANOTHER ONE OF US DIE WHILE I WAS GONE?!?")

I am convinced that the only ways in which their conflict becomes less intense is through a misunderstanding.

And I like it that way. I'm really, really glad it's not a misunderstanding, and that it can't be resolved through better communication. Their issues are real and meaningful and cannot be swept away without one actually conceding to the other's demands.

since you acknowledged vox and valentino as a uh. less than healthy relationship (lol) several times (going feral over what vox was implying in that latest 666 fic), do you think there's ever the chance of alastor feeling... probably not protective haha but maybe possessive over vox the next time he's a little banged up? alternatively, how else do you think alastor would react if whatever they were getting up to is halted by vox nursing some kind of injury from one of his and val's fights? - ✨

I think it really depends on how Vox presents the situation, to be honest! They, uh, bang each other up a lot themselves, hahaha, and Alastor doesn't really register it as problematic. A lot of writing 666 is balancing the idea that these guys are living an existence where the a real life normal-meter really can't accurately be applied, and also maintaining that they still do have personal boundaries and lines that might be crossed.

A reminder of some (but not all) of the fucked up things that Vox and Alastor have done to each other over the course of 666:

One murder attempt that Vox didn't draw a line in the sand over

Vox got annoyed and slapped Alastor across the face hard enough to knock him down, with no warning or prelude, in a sexual context

Vox slammed Alastor's skull into the ground, out of anger, several times until he was dazed and bleeding

Alastor literally tried to eat a chunk of Vox's shoulder, most likely resulting in the reverse of the scenario you're describing: Vox having to take it easier with Val because he has a gaping shoulder wound courtesy of Alastor and can't lift his arm

About three dozen bucketfuls of severely under-negotiated and sometimes not-at-all negotiated edgeplay (as in, not safe-sane-consensual) kink from both ends, including but not limited to: choking (via hands and via dick), fearplay, deliberate boundary-crossing wrt touch, hypnosis, painplay, bloodplay, wounding, and gaslighting for the purpose of humiliation

Like, Vox asking "I want to make sure I didn't cross any boundaries!" in the second 666 fic does not in any way absolve him of having deliberately crossed about thirty of them immediately prior, and the fact that Alastor enjoyed it is mostly just because Alastor is also fucked up. Some people seemed quite surprised at Alastor crossing so many boundaries in the wireplay fic compared to all the shit Vox had pulled prior to that point, and I think it's because he, unlike Vox, didn't pay lip service to it, though they both do about the same amount of actual "keeping an eye on things".

Them caring about each other does not mean that their concept of "boundaries" or even "okay things to do to another person in an intimate setting or otherwise" aren't very, very colored by them being demonic overlords who live in hell and haven't so much as waved 'hello' to a single healthy intimate relationship in the past hundred years.

Vox having to take a breather because he has some kind of injury from Val is, unless he's actively making a 'this is fucked up and I'm opening up to be vulnerable and unhappy about it' kind of deal about it, is not really going to ping on Alastor's radar as a problem.

And Vox isn't going to make that kind of deal about it because that isn't how he sees his relationship with Valentino. Yes, Val often treats Vox in abusive ways in 666. That is also colored by both of them being demonic overlords who live in hell, and Vox treats certain aspects of it as frustrating and upsetting (and often takes that out on Valentino - hence the frequent off-again-on-again nature of their relationship), but he doesn't actually, like, see their relationship the way that we do.

He loves Val. Val loves him. To him, the rest is either normal overlord behavior or their own damage, and they've found a balance where the general response to a shitty happening is, "Eh, we've worked through worse."

TL;DR: Valentino, Vox, and Alastor all need to have "DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!" stapled across their foreheads. To paraphrase Bay: They're in hell. The insane acts of violence are basically a love language at this point.

one of the overlooked things about Pharma in the Delphi arc is how cold he is. the more manic and emotionally volatile energy he brings post-Delphi gets grafted backwards as some inherent part of his personality all along but while we see the cracks showing here that led him to do all this in the first place, the vibe is very different. he's not flinching as he cold-bloodedly frames his completely innocent peer by deliberately, knowingly playing on the likely prejudices (or assumed prejudices) of those around him. this is a pre-mediated thing that only works if he's acting very stoic and reasonable about it all, planned in advance. conversely, it's also why the 'Pharma isn't even actually the bad guy, he was just stuck in an impossible situation until that dick Ratchet overreacted and ruined him!' take is wrong. that might have been true to an extent if all Pharma had done was kill patients that he felt would otherwise be murdered en-masse by the DJD anyway to protect some of them, and his coworkers. but now, he's progressed to killing everyone anyway and framing Ambulon not for any hope it will spare more people in the end than he kills, but because he's terrified of being found out as the person who did it; and that's not actually a thing he has to do at all! if everyone else is going to die anyway by this point, he could come clean when help arrives... but he knows he might face consequences for doing so. that's what turns Pharma's actions on Delphi from tragic but largely outside his control into something far less easily absolved.

the animosity ratchet has towards him later is also grafted backwards and not only not present here, but literally the only reason any of this works is that Ratchet thinks highly enough of Pharma he even floats the idea of making him CMO once all this is over, so he's not immediately suspicious. which suggests that this crack in Pharma's principles is brought on by the stress of his situation on Delphi, because I can't imagine Ratchet would trust him at all if this was behaviour anyone would expect of him on the regular.

so Pharma's not always been the enormously volatile, emotionally impulsive bad guy he becomes after this, and he also wasn't some sort of pure victim of circumstance who it's unreasonable Ratchet etc treat as a threat that needs taking out and treat harshly. and the main thing that gets overlooked in both cases in how people remember his character here, i think, is this moment: the calculated, pre-mediated framing of Ambulon, specifically chosen because he is vulnerable to what Pharma's trying to pull. (both because of being a Con, and Pharma's knowledge of his alt-mode hangup.)

or, in his own words:

"too many questions."

Me finding out that colonizer romance is a thing, and that it seems like a lot of it is written by poc writers and apparently very very few actually ever point out how fucking weird that is. Blah blah blah I know some people will throw in some excuses for this, and maybe even justify why it's ok. Yadda yadda, trauma, generational, smth smth, I already know people kinda just ignore it, or make some kinda excuse like """'u expect poc writers to be perfect #howdareu""" No, just pointing out how fuckywucky that entire concept is, have fun writing Idc.

But you still gotta admit how fucking weird it is to have a character who's being colonized being actively in a relationship and in love with an actual colonizer character, without it even being questioned really. Not even a "She's a victim of colonization, and he's just a random person from the colonial side forced into these lands, but is also seeing how wrong it is." Or she's brainwashed. Nah just straight up "She's a victim of colonization, and he's the guy who's colonizing her homeland with his army, and for some reason that's ok." and then the girly is actually against it and all bc her family is being enslaved and her neighbours got murdered, she hates all the evil colonizers, but the guy who's actually doing it? "Idk, dick be good I guess."-girly, probably. 3bucks if the dude who's the top dog leader, never gets actual commuppance, but everyone else on his side is #eternallyguilty. Ya, course, who else would deserve being absolved of all sin but the guy who's one of the top dog colonizers, just bc he pounded that pussy, seems like a swell guy.

I'll put those books in the same stack as those racist "White supremacist slaveowner falls in love with abused poc slave." You can do it, there are ppl who'll read it, but I have no idea how this became a thing publishers thought would be a good idea to feature.

--

Well, yeah, these books are super uncomfortable. But it's not like "Now the RL awful thing is sexy because... brains are like that" is an unusual kink.

Ok I’m gonna shoot my question here while you are in a analysis red hood mode (??): what do you think about his mommy issues (and fandom’s making it a trope)?

ooooo oh ok ok. this ones touchy. while i dont think its that present in canon i do think its there and worth the however many fics there are about it. like obvi theres probably a lot of boring and/or bad takes about it but the concept itself isnt running contradictory to canon or anything. i reread aditf a bit for this and had some tangents ill put in another post, but back to mommy issues.

jason had very little parental presence in his life at all. dads in prison, moms sick, he has no one looking out for him. probably why he and bruce seem to have bonded fairly quickly and jason accepted him as a father figure faster than any of the others. jasons bar for what makes a decent parent was nonexistent bc hed never really had someone dedicated to taking care of him. (even damian was hesitant, bc bruce being his dad would create distance between him and dick bc dick would no longer be his mentor, and hed gotten a bit attached)

jason accepted bruce as a father, but still missed his parents. he loved and grieved for both of them and most likely missed the idea of having normal parents in general in addition to missing his parents themselves. his love for his mom is still there when he realizes shes his step-mom instead, but it's accompanied by the hope that he still has living family out there.

the fact that jason went on a mom hunt in the first place is already enough that im like, yeah, i see where the mommy issues talk comes from. but i think you can go a few different directions with it

so theres catherine todd, who we only really know as being sick and a substance user throughout jasons childhood up until her death. iirc she died while willis was either already dead or in prison and so theres a period of time where jason (10-12ish?) would be taking care of his mother alone. being your mother's caretaker when you're still in elementary school does not make for a normal relationship.

and sheila haywood was uh. an illegal surgeon of sorts who fled the country and started a new life. apparently had an existing connection to the joker when she lived in gotham. he knows who she is and he knows how to blackmail her. while sheila describes it to jason as an operation gone wrong, joker calls it an "illegal surgery that killed a teenage girl" and sheila didnt seem to dispute that. probably watered down a lot of details in her explanation to jason. (the combination of 'illegal' and 'teenage girl' feels like it could imply an abortion? but it's left vague) and THEN it turns out she was stealing money meant to be used to save starving refugees before the joker even showed up. she sure is something. she still tries to help jason after he helps her, but don't skip over the part where she helps him after he helps her. she is still a person, but she is a fundamentally selfish person in every way. her final words include her commenting on how jason was a good kid who loved his mother. ive seen people take her final moments as a show that she still loved him, but i don't see it. one of those "a person doing a fraction of a good thing doesnt absolve them of everything else" kind of deals.

in both cases jasons mother(s) were relying on him. he never had an opportunity to be cared for and treated like a child. i don't think jason would have specific "mommy issues" about either of them, i think that he'd have some heavy feelings about the concept of a mother itself. what's it like to have a mom? does he still have a chance to be cared for and nurtured? his childhood was over before he had even met batman. becoming robin and being murdered is just tripling the issues he would've already had about his childhood regardless.

this is starting to veer off topic but

yes im finding a way to make this about Brothers in Blood. bite me. but even the first time i read this something that really stuck out is how jasons imaginary version of dick refers to him as a kid. dick doesnt really... do that. he did back when jason really was a kid, but this page says a lot about jasons self perception. he still wants to be taken care of, even if its not specifically "mommy issues" he definitely yearns for a chance to be treated like a kid again, after having rarely gotten that kind of care when he was a kid. (this page in particular is the first page of nightwing (1996) #121, which is one that i have a physical copy of <3)

Why do people keep calling Izzy a manipulator? He's not cunningly manipulating Ed; he just tells Ed what he thinks and feels bluntly, sometimes to the point of yelling.

Sending Calico Jack was pretty cunning, but otherwise? Tbh I wonder if it is kind of an attempt to absolve Ed of certain responsibilities? Like, apparently Izzy didn't tell Ed he should have let the English kill him because he was angry and disgusted and disappointed in Ed's behavior. All his words were cunningly and carefully chosen to get Ed to do what he wanted, ie go full Kraken. Grumblegrumblecomplaingrummble. (Also, congrats on the ADHD meds working out!)

This might get a little fandom discoursey so bear with me but if y'all haven't worked out I'm a little fandom discoursey by now idk where you've been.

There's come a trend in fandom over the past decade or so where one ship is declared the "good" ship. It's the pure, good, soft ship, where the characters who make up that ship are good and pure and soft uwu babies who never have done anything wrong in their lives. And on the flip side there is a "bad" other character who is often shipped with one (or both) of those soft babie uwu characters and that Bad character is villainized and made out to be The Worst. It usually starts with a character being accused of being a meanie/rude/a dick, then it amps up into abusive, then from there when fandom doesn't disavow the ship, it becomes an incestuous or pedophilic ship.

But the core of it remains the same: the two in the ship are pure and good, the one on the outside is bad and evil, so why would you ship those characters when the uwu pure babies are right there?????

(I have a theory that a good chunk of this particular rhetoric comes from a combination of radfem and toxic leftist fields where one mistake once in your life (in radfem circles this can mean anything from being male (or seen as male) to having liked/supported a man once) means you are unforgivably and unendingly tainted, you can never recover nor improve from that mistake. I personally think this treatment of people is terrible, no matter how bad their sin might be (from "liked a bad character" up to "committed a real life crime") because if you declare someone a write off, they have no reason to ever try to be better, and that continues the perpetual cycle of pain and suffering endlessly. If you tell someone who hurts other people they can never change, even if they want to, and they thusly do not try, people continue getting hurt.

But; it trickled down into the fandom = activism circles, where what you ship shows what you believe in real life. You think that gay ship is not great? Homophobic. You prefer a ship with two white people over a ship that includes a black person because the former has Spice and the latter is more bland and healthy? Racist. Etc etc. Your fictional preferences show who you are in real life, according to these ideals.)

To come back around to Ed and Izzy though: Blackbonnet is the Designated Soft Uwu Ship, which makes Izzy the abusive interloper. The way some people talk about Ed and Stede, you'd think they were watching a totally different show lmao

I saw a conversation on Twitter that was like, "Let's not start romanticizing the real Stede Bonnet and Blackbeard! They were bad people, they were murderers and rapists and slave owners. They're completely different from these characters!" And while, yes, I can see that point (although I would argue that Blackbeard has been endlessly romanticized for decades, much like we all romanticize being a pirate in general. I honestly forgot he was a real person until recently), and do appreciate that our Stede and Ed are not rapists* and are not slave owners or traders, I feel like the argument of, "The real Stede and Ed were bad," has the underlying, incorrect, argument that our Stede and Ed are, in fact, not bad.

The thing is, Stede and Ed are not bad, no, but they're not good either, and honestly they are down the darker end of the morally grey spectrum (further, I would argue, than Izzy Hands himself). Stede sets fire to the party boat and is smug about it, Ed's list of crimes is very long and not just in an official Crimes Against The Crown capacity but in a real way: he's maiming people as recently as Stede says in episode six that he has seen Edward maim people.

But Stede and Ed are framed as protagonists. They're morally grey, deeply impure protagonists, but they are our protagonists. We root for them. When Stede and Ed sail away and leave a boat full of rich people to burn to death in the middle of the ocean, we root for them. When Stede runs away to become a (pillaging, looting, murdering, maiming) pirate, we root for him and even hope to see him achieve those things in the future.

The show aired and then fandom does what fandom (unfortunately) does best: while one half of it dissected all the canon and tried to interpret and make sense of the characters from what they say and what actions they take or don't take on screen, the other half distilled everything down to: Izzy Bad, Stede and Ed Good.

(In fact, I received these tags on one of my metas earlier and it's very true: #OP YOU GET IT#ofmd#it is always so confusing to see posts where its like omg other ppl actually watched this show and had like#thoughts based off of canonical moments that uses the characters actions and dialogue as a means of analysis#instead of just vibing off of 'i dont like this chara so everything he does is bad')

But the thing is, Stede and Ed do some shitty things, and to specifically talk of Ed in relation to this ask, Ed does some horrible shit in the finale. He's stated to have done a lot of bad things before the show starts, and then he shows those bad things in the finale: he leaves six people to die on a tiny spit of an island (and surely tells Izzy how to trap them there via fake talent show, though this is conjecture), yeets Lucius off into the ocean to die (so that's seven), and cuts off Izzy's toe in a brutal and horribly framed moment that would make him downright irredeemable in many shows and to most of the "pure uwu ships for me only" people out there, and now, in fandom, to a lot of people, you can only like ships or characters that align with your morality.

(I saw an anon earlier (I don't recall where, apologies) say they hate Izzy because they can only relate to characters whose actions they morally agree with, and honestly that made me do a double take because uh, anon that sent that particular message, are you going to be cutting off toes and burning people alive, bud? Can you let me know so I can keep out of your way, champ?)

So, what's a "my shipping preferences are pure uwu and healthy" person to do?

Blame it on the Bad Guy.

Which brings us, yet again, back to this ask: Izzy is manipulative because Izzy has always been in Ed's life, and thusly all of the bad things Ed has ever done can be written off as Izzy's influence.

The black and white thinking means that anyone who shouts or makes another character scared or flinch is Bad, and Izzy shouts and is rude a lot. There's no nuance, there is no value beneath the surface. When Izzy yells he's being abusive. When Izzy yells at Edward he's being racist. When Izzy gets angry and lashes out, he's being, again, abusive.

When Izzy goes, "Ohhh, daddy," he's mocking gay men, not getting lost in his own attempt to be annoyed by their softness with each other and accidentally revealing too much of himself.

(And, honestly, the more I muse on that scene and all of the scenes around it, the less I read Izzy as, in any way, homophobic. He was pissed they were fucking around. He was maybe jealous they were canoodling and he couldn't with the one he loves. He was angry that Lucius would cheat on Pete. All of those interactions were born more out of resentment and frustration than actual homophobia, and I stand by that. Not to mention that considering how Edward treats the guy who called him a donkey, and how he reacts to just about anyone who treats him or those around him with prejudice, and the fact Izzy knew Calico Jack well enough to send him after Edward, I find it very hard to believe that Edward would keep Izzy around if Izzy was homophobic or, for that matter, racist. People have commented that Jack calling Ed "Blackie" might be a racist nickname, but I wonder if, much like some people have called out shortening Oluwande to Olu as uncomfortable in the language the name comes from (something about Olu meaning God and it being not great to call Oluwande "God"? Something about it being disrespectful?), it was just one of those things that slipped through. Shortening Blackbeard to Blackie as a way of saying, "I'm still special. You get to call him Ed, but I get to nickname Blackbeard down to Blackie and he doesn't kill me, I'm important too," makes a lot of sense to me.)

By making everything Ed does Izzy's fault, they're absolving Ed of the responsibility he holds for every horrible thing he's done in his life. Ed is responsible for the murder of his father (whether that father deserved it or not). Ed is responsible for the people he's killed since then, whether "technically the [x] killed them" or not. Ed is fully responsible for marooning seven people on an island to die (and they would be dead if Stede didn't find them, is the thing!! They would be dead!!) and killing Lucius, whether he managed to kill those seven people or not.

Here are a few of the things nasty anons have said about Izzy:

He's not going to be around being a toxic abusive piece of shit forever. Quit trying to normalize & downplay the horrible way he treats other characters.

This one misses the point and makes me laugh because it downplays everything Ed does by implying Izzy is the only toxic and/or abusive person there (Ed! Cut! Off! His! Toe!)

He is unnecessarily violent in speech and behavior, particulary towards BIPOC. He is manipulative, he's a liar, and he has tried to kill or threatened to kill multiple people on the crew.

The first part is patently untrue, actually. He's loud and rude and angry but I don't find much of his speech to be violent? Just coarse. He's definitely not 'particularly towards BIPOC', it's just that his scenes are often framed with BIPOC around him because of how few white people are in the show (which is a definite good thing, but it means every time Izzy yells at someone he is, by virtue of the show being so diverse, yelling at someone who is a minority either in sexuality, disability, or color, unless he yells at Stede or Lucius, which uh. he does. a lot. he's shown yelling at and being rough with Lucius and Pete more than anyone else).

As for manipulative and a liar, potentially he lied about telling Stede who his boss was, but even if that's so, it just says a lot about how Izzy is The Bad Guy whereas Ed is Pure UwU. Ed is also manipulative, that's shown a lot when he's masking (see: party boat when he's saying whatever) and when he comes up with the plot to kill Stede to keep Izzy on board. Ed also lies a lot. Like, a lot a lot. I've talked about this before. Most of what Ed says is a lie lmao. You have to read between most of Ed's lies to find even a sliver of truth.

And then there's the pièces de résistance of this particular comment: He has tried to kill or threatened to kill multiple people on the crew.

lmaaaaaaaaaao. Ed stranded six people who trusted him on an island, had Jim knocked out and, technically, kidnapped, and yeeted Lucius into the ocean!!! And maimed Izzy!!!!!

Just because YOU have decided to bend over backwards to justify Izzy's abusive behavior doesn't mean he's not abusive. He is. And you are not only actively ignoring and denying that abuse (and BLAMING IT ON HIS VICTIMS) but you're justifying it! [...] He's possessive, controlling, manipulative, a gaslighter.

I like this one too because the more I muse on it the more I realize a lot of this is more reflective of Ed? I don't think Ed is abusive, don't get me wrong (there is FAR MORE to abuse than just 'this guy is mean' or 'they yell'), but the second Izzy stepped out of line, Ed maimed him. Izzy hurt him trying to protect him, Ed hit him. Ed let Izzy get cast off the boat after the dual.

When Izzy tried to leave of his own volition, Ed stopped him.

So, to boil this all down after I rambled for this long: Izzy is The Villain and a Bad Person because he is easy to hate. He's short, old, angry and mean. He isn't cute about anything (okay, I can't say this one with a straight face. The wave at the start of 1x09 is adorable). As long as Izzy is a puppeteer, Ed can be a soft uwu baby and he can be safe to love and stan and whatever else.

Ed gets his guts ripped out, replaced by a fluffy interior because without Izzy he's perfect, you see. Ed is a perfect soft baby who has never done anything wrong in his life, and thusly it's safe to love him. You're not a bad person for loving him! He's never actually done anything, he would never actually hurt someone he loves (and, yes, he canonically loves Izzy in some way, there's a long-standing depth of relationship and affection there that is very obvious in the way they are together and from the way (up until 1x10 when Ed is already broken and far too easy to snap) Ed puts up with Izzy's tizzies. I somehow doubt Ed would put up with someone else calling him a twat and flipping him off and just go, "I need you here," rather than telling them to fuck off) so he'd never hurt Stede and there's nothing dark in him or their potential relationship, so it's fine.

And Stede hasn't ever actually done anything wrong either! Sure, he's made some bad choices, but he was in shock so he's absolved of running off on Ed (I do agree he was in shock and I am in no way picking on the person who meta'd that Stede was in medical shock at the end of 1x09 - I fully agree! - but I've seen some other people act like that absolves him of the harm he did to Ed, and it really does not) and he didn't personally kill either Badminton, they both killed themselves, even Nigel who was unconscious when he fell on his sword due to Stede hitting him. That was all Nigel's fault.

And those on the party boat set the boat on fire themselves and Stede had no part in it. He didn't make them fight! That was all them, because they are Bad People, so they would, of course, do those things.

Bob's your uncle, Sally's your aunt: Stede and Ed are now a soft uwu ship who you can love without worrying about what it says about your moral fiber as a human being. They're both good people! They've never done anything.

It was all Izzy's fault all along.

Also, I want to make another point which I thought of while I was writing this: I don't think Izzy expected Ed to go full Kraken. I was thinking about how he flipped out at him in 1x03, after the clothing swap. He tells him he's an insane shell of a man and he's pissed off and he's leaving and he calls him a twat and storms off.

To which Ed responds with a sort of squinty-big-eye thing idk how Taika pulls that one off but he did, and lets Izzy fuck off and do his thing, because Izzy is just being Izzy and doesn't mean any of it, really, and then after that, Ed is like, "You're being silly. Blackbeard has had a plan all along re: Stede, here it is," and Izzy is like ":o Oh okay! That's nice. Okay, yes, good."

So when 1x10 comes around, and Ed is, once again, dressed in Stede's clothes and being him, Izzy once again lashes out and basically tells him, in his own way, to pull his shit together, because this isn't the person Izzy serves.

The big issue here is that Ed is no longer the person he was even an episode before. Ed is a broken shell of a man who is just trying to pull his pieces back together.

Izzy doesn't realize this. Izzy doesn't have any way to know how Ed feels about Stede. Unless Ed bawled into Izzy's lap in the pillow fort (which is a hilarious image I hope someone will draw now) about how they were going to run away to China (ouch for Izzy if so) and how romantic their kiss on the beach was, Izzy doesn't know any of that. All Izzy knows is Ed had a bad time and now he's sad and he's mopey over the fact his boyfriend left him and it really sucks and this isn't him (remember: David Jenkins says Ed has never been in love until Stede, so Izzy has never seen this happen to Ed before).

This isn't Edward or Blackbeard, and it isn't even Ed! And so Izzy lashes out expecting to jolt Edward back to some kind of reality, some kind of common ground they share where they can get stuff done and Izzy can serve someone he respects and have a captain that can, y'know, captain, instead of moping and putting on talent shows, like he did last time!

Instead, he accidentally shatters what's left of Ed's psyche because he jabs in just the wrong place (not knowing where the real weak spots are) and unleashes a monster not even Izzy has seen before.

And that's actually really scary.

Thanks for the ask nonnie, I love musing on this shit lmao. Also, thanks for the comment about the meds. I'm so happy I might cry tbh.

(*the asterisks exists because we here on my Izzy Hands Enjoyer[tm] Blog Hot Spot have already discussed the framing of the toe scene and although Ed is not a rapist, the toe scene is beyond mildly questionable because of the framing, so our boy gets a lil asterisks)

Gotham war opinions?

honestly seems sooo dumb. and like. Ok disclaimer. i have not actually read it so take all this with a grain of salt because i've only consumed information secondhand through people posting about it (someone made a comprehensive review of what's going on right here) but it just seems silly

like i am a big proponent of the 'batfam' Needing to return to having drama and conflict because the weird push for happy happy nuclear family batfam and no drama whatsoever has had very weird and ooc consequences (looking at you tt making dick call bruce dad) but this particular brand of conflict is just. Dumb. and not what i want in terms of That. and also seems to implicate selina as some kind of mother figure??? to them??? which is so insane and incorrect and butchers her character completely... i mean it seems like the general conflict of her v. bruce is already way out of character but that right there is the final nail in the coffin LMAO i saw those panels of her about jason and i just. selina honey i'm so sorry i know this is not in your heart....

like intuitively i know it will never be like 90s/00s batfam like in bruce wayne: murderer?/fugitive where, when bruce was acting like a bitch and dick was having an issue with that, they got into a fistfight and dick crashed into the display case holding jason's old robin costume during it like?????? we are never going to get that ever again. but i think they're trying. but they're still trying to lean into this nuclear family ideal (or a version of it anyway) where uhhhh mom and dad are fighting LMAO and it's just. idk. it seems bad.

i've also seen and NO ONE quote me on this because it was in passing and again. haven't read it and yes i know i should read it before speculating but i don't have time for that. anyway. i was seeing something about how bruce's evil batman alter ego thing is supposed to like... make up for the abuse he's done to them? like some panel about his 'evil alter ego' calling tim a soldier and the 'real bruce' being like No!!!! That is my son!!! so i feel like it's some weird roundabout way of absolving him of the emotional and physical abuse he's inflicted on them? which is again stupid. and atp too core to his character to really fix other than having a thorough reconciliation which is never going to happen. and then i recently heard about the shit with jason and it's just like. what is going on here. what we doing right now. idk

(also i was seeing something about that alter ego thing being maybe ableist? i can't speak on that but i know that was brought up at some point... also the name origins being a tad suspicious... idk)

but again. haven't read it. just seen other people talking about it and panels. but i do feel reasonably good about concluding that it's not good LMAO

I really don't like JaySteph and think that they are similar in background but too different in personality and interests to really get along. I think Jason would find her really annoying, but honestly people are more open to JaySteph than they are to other bat related ships and it makes you think if it is because Stephanie Brown is more feminine and acts more acceptably. Same could go for modern interpretations of Barbara Gordon and especially Tom Taylor’s Nightwing. Barbara is said to be drawn more beautiful and more inviting than her previous adaptations, but all that means is she is more feminine and acceptable for what women are told they are supposed to be and look like. It was why her Burnside revamp was so inviting and popular among many people, she was cute and purple and not the rough and tomboyish Oracle. Admittedly there is also pure misogyny disguised as woke culture when the hatred for these ships are because they can't stand a woman dating someone who was close to their ex. It is pure misogyny disguised as woke culture. You can dislike something but only disliking something because of that is misogyny. Same with the hating JayBabs stuff. “Barbara has dated everyone within the Batfam” while also conveniently leaving out that Dick himself has slept with Helena Bertinelli (and Wayne), Selina Kyle, etc. in different adaptations as well. But we don’t have to talk about those of course because we can easily ignore those but won’t for Barbara.

I don’t care for most 99% of ships mainly because it’s comics and most of it will get re-written at some point. I will pick on certain ships because really if it’s forced in my face I’m gonna have a reaction to it you know?

As for the misogyny complaints, I do see it I honestly do however I don’t think that is the main reason people call out Dick Babs. For me, I single out Babs as a character because I think she is mostly written as a mean person and I just don’t vibe with her character at all. I enjoyed her silver age content much better. It’s just I hate the way writers write her ever since the 90s, it just grinds my gears. I could care less how she dresses. Babs herself has been misogynistic and catty towards other female characters and that’s why I don’t like her and part of the reason I don’t like Dick Babs because I refuse to believe Dick would date someone like that.

But I will say that Nightwing ships tend to have more misogynistic complaints lodged against it whether it’s Kory being a slut or Babs being a bitch or Harley being a villain or Helena being murderous. His love interests get waaaaay too much hate and childish behavior flung their way and most of it is by other women. But the behavior of the fandom doesn’t absolve criticisms of characters or the people who write them. A lot of people have valid complaints about whatever they don’t like and they deserve to have their voices heard and respected. It’s only when those voices are used to cause malice and drama that it’s a step too far. Ship wars are misogynist mix in nature and I believe it’s a large reason why Nightwing fandom has a bad reputation.

I also think the difference between Babs and Dick is that Selena and Huntress are not consider proper batfam. Most of the women Dick has dated are from outside the batfam. It’s unfair to compare the two when your comparison is Babs dating his father figure Bruce, his brother figure Jason and his other brother figure Tim. Babs has dated three people assumed to be a part of Dick’s immediate family whereas Dick has not. If it was just kept to Dick, Luke and Bruce then I think the complaints would have died down. But adding both Jason and Tim to the mix makes it muddy. Dick is portrayed as a manwhore and I’m oddly ok with that. Just like I’m ok with Babs dating Dick and the Dating Jason further down the line and I would never consider Babs in any way a slut. What I’m not ok with is comparing the two situations as if they are the same when they are not. I think my beef with how Nightwing romance is portrayed is more about the sexual assault he receives.

Also i don’t think Babs is written as prettier or more feminine now. In fact I think that is more opposite. She is largely portrayed as tomboyish and wearing baggy clothing. I personally believe that it’s to contrast Dick’s other love interests as Babs is the only one outside of Shawn who is portrayed as such. One thing I don’t like about the way Babs is portrayed now a days is that for some reasons certain writers and people love having her be “not like other girls” and the comparison. That because she is not like other girls that makes her somehow better when in fact it makes her worse as a character and makes the writing even more misogynistic (and racist). See again how TomTaylor is writing her in his run.

No, you definitely have a point, I completely forgot about Carl being suckered by Isabela, my bad. I just remember thinking "Wow, Aglovale is kind of a huge dick, actually" since the attempted invasion of Wales was such a shock at the ending of the event and nowadays he's like, the player's personal friend and a playable unit that you can send to fight your enemies and have holiday banter with and it's just so funny. But it's been a while since I read the events so thanks for clarifying! <3

THAT'S FAIR!!!

sorry i got a bit defensive, I really like the thematics going on here and i think i was a little offended by the idea Aglovale was only absolved from his crimes because he was pretty while there's. so much going on. But i get where you're coming from too, thank you for reading my ramble <3

I feel like, it may also be a case of how personally involved we were with how they harmed others yaknow?

Like the whole Aglovale took care of his people VS Carl neglected them and enabled the person who was poisoning them, is not exactly the major focus. Well, it's not the focus of Aglovale's storyarc, and while it's mentioned more regarding Carl, Carl not playing a huge part like Aglovale or Isabela means it's easier to brush it off as just "Isabela's actions" and pin it all on her.

So this whole more political approach to their sins end up easier to forget about, compared to the actual murder attempts or various dickmoves Aglovale and Isabela do respectively.

I guess it would raise ultimately the whole debate on how much just enabling someone counts as being responsible, and we can debate that for hours, but the game itself does hold Carl responsible at least, even if it means it's easier for him to work to be a better king, than someone who has blood directly on their hands like Aglovale.

THAT BEING SAID i do adore Granblue's way to redeem antagonists, it's genuinely hilarious to me.

the first dragon knights story were so long ago also and not as polished as more recent conflicts (which is also why Aglovale's redemption is THIS QUICK.... more recent dragon knights content try to go back to some elements that were done super quickly in the first few events (like how Grandcelot's FE explore in depth just how deeply Lancelot was affected by Siegfried's "betrayal" and his blind faith into his country being his biggest flaw, which are elements that are there in the first few events but are done with so quickly it's easy to forget). ), so at this point between forgetting what was going on in them, between time and polish and all.

But it IS so fun to see how much Aglo has become a Grade A Bestie and ultimately a good King, considering where he started.

Thank you once again for reading my rambles <3

take care!

Hello! I am a huge fan of ur writing. I've loved everything I've read of yours. I've read alot of what you've posted, except for a couple of the tags that are squicky for me (so I'm very thankful you tag very thoroughly). No judgement for the squick, it's just not for me. & when I'm having a bad day, I usually just go thru ur ao3 and find something to reread. I think about Therapy's Bruce & Jason every damn day. While I obvs appreciate ur darker more "problematic" content (I really vibe with some of the themes you write about bc of my own trauma, & so it's very cathartic to read about in a fictional setting), I am truly a sucker for ur more happy content. The Happily Ever After verse also lives in my head rent free. Idk more wholesome stuff just seems more special when you write it. Anyways. I would die for you. But the point of this ask is cause I'm curious as to why you don't like Urban Legends? I'm sorry if you already talked about it here or on twitter and I missed it. I was just wondering because I really enjoy your take on things and would love to hear why you dislike it. I've been enjoying it so far personally, but I am always open to DC comics criticism.

Aw thank you so much! I'm so flattered by everything you just said. You're so sweet ❤❤❤❤❤

I haven't talked about Urban Legends here or twitter (I haven't been very active in either place lately. Just a lot going on and no energy 😔) but I'm happy to do it here.

Before I start though, I just want to add a standard disclaimer and make it clear that if you like it, there's nothing wrong with that and you don't have to let me ruin it for you lol. Like what you like.

That said, since you asked...

I said this when I was talking about it on discord, that there is a difference between hope and expectation. I always hope that a new story centered on Jason (or anyone really, but things have been especially egregious for Jay for 15 years) will be good or at least treat the character with a minimal level of respect (to be honest, the bar is super fucking low). But my expectations always temper my hope, to keep it from getting unrealistic. Because my expectations are based on experience.

The long history of Jason Todd, since even before his resurrection, has been one of retroactively trying to make him "a bad seed" in order to absolve Bruce of any responsibility in his death.

I don't even expect DC or their writers to start honoring the fact that Jason was not an angry, reckless Robin (and less of the later than Dick or Tim and definitely Damian). There plenty of ways that retcon can be folded into his history and be compelling and sympathetic. And if they're going to stick with that retcon, I'm only asking that they do it in one of those compelling and sympathetic ways because Jason was 15 when he died, heroically, in one of the most selfless acts in comics, to save a woman who literally handed him over to be brutally murdered. He was 12 when Bruce plucked him off the streets, he'd been homeless and fending for himself for at least two years. I personally think that Jason's story hits harder for him and Bruce if their original, canon relationship, of Jason as starry-eyed and eager to learn and absolutely devoted to Bruce and Bruce to Jason, is preserved. But Jason's origins does leave room for a meaningful interpretation of him as angry and frustrated at the lack of meaningful results of Bruce's methods.

And that's really where my irritation at stories like Batman: Urban Legends, Cheer and Batman The Adventure Continues has it's roots.

Every time one of these stories comes out, I think (or hope, rather) that this will be the one that remembers and respects the origins of the Jason and the Red Hood, that takes into account the changed sensibilities of comics readers in the 30 years since Jason's death and the subtle, 20 year, retroactive campaign to make him the "bad Robin". The "born bad" trope is played out and literally no one likes the message it implies. That some kids are just bad eggs and there's nothing parents or the adults around them can do. Especially when it's played as the kid's fault. If Jason's time as Robin is going to be characterized by anger, then it should be rooted in anger at the social injustices he witnessed as he grew up in an impoverished, crime-ridden, area and the horrors he faced raising himself when every day was a battle for survival. There are topical, meaningful, stories to tell with that backdrop.

But those are never the stories we get.

⚠⚠ Spoilers for Batman: Urban Legends, Cheer ⚠⚠

I'm particularly disappointed in Urban Legends because for the first issue, it looked like that was the kind of story we were going to get. I was put off by the first flashback of Jason being mesmerized by Bruce's guns, and I got that feeling in my gut that it was a bad sign. Jason depicted as impatient and overconfident and the scene with the guns is heavy-handed foreshadowing that got my spidey-sense tingling. I had a inkling then (in the first three pages) of how this story was going to play out, but it was early and I could still see many narrative paths that could lead to a satisfying story. My concerns were soothed somewhat and the little flame of my hope fanned, with the flashback of Alfred scolding Bruce, with Barbara's concern for Jason. A bit of worry returned with the way Jason ruthlessly pursued an addict who didn't appear to be a dealer and with the ending of the issue. The stuff with the addict sat wrong with me but the ending was tempered some by how despicable Tyler's dad was written. The scene was clearly set so that the reader could sympathize with Jason's decision and the scene with the addict could be brushed aside as a side-effect of comics over-the-top need for constant action, so I still held hope.

Issue 2 made me uncomfortable and it's where my hope starts to take a backseat to my expectations. I can dismiss Jason's self-deprecating internal monologue as unreliable narration, except that the flashback reinforces his thought process to explicitly show that it's not unreliable narration, and should be taken at face value. Jason faces physical abuse at the hands of his mother's drug dealer and when the flashback continues later, Jason kills the drug dealer. To be clear, this is a pre-Bruce Jason. His mom is still alive. He's like... 10. He kills this guy for shoving his head into a wall and implying Jason's mother paid for her drugs with sex. This is a scene that serves a single purpose. To show that Jason has always been prone to violence.

In the spirit of full disclosure, there is the small chance the drug dealer might not be dead. But the story obviously wants the reader to think he is, and it hasn't done anything to change that yet.

Starlin already did this story with The Diplomat’s Son in 1988 and he did it infinitely better. AND that’s still technically canon. So now I’m supposed to believe that Jason lost his cool bad enough to kill two douche bags before his sweet 16? Like it’s totally normal for abused kids raised in poverty, who’ve led hard and heartbreaking lives to just... haul off and kill people? That’s bullshit, and when taken with the Jason in the third issue, who is little more than an idiot thug, this story is really doubling down on some fucked up stereotypes.

Which brings us to the most recent issue. I went into this installment with very low expectations. I thought this story was going to be about Jason, through this experience with Tyler, a young boy with a similar background to Jason's, coming to the realization that Bruce's way is the best way and that Bruce did his best by Jason.

That would be annoying (in no small part because it takes increasingly absurd levels of plot armor to keep Bruce's no kill rule relevant, let alone irrefutably right). But I can probably live with that, if only because maybe if Jason officially falls back into line with the Bats crusade, maybe I'll get stories that treat him with respect, stories that don't relegate him to comic relief, dumb brute, or a background body with no lines in a story about the Joker burning Gotham (like Jason would just fucking stand there quietly for that).

And that may still be where the story is going, Jason realizing Bruce is right.

But holy shit do I not have the right words to describe how fucking insulting and gross issue three is.

From start to finish--including the flashback--Jason is written as cruel and fucking stupid. Like straight up dumb.

The entire issue is Bruce explaining the fucking basics to Jason like it's his first day. And Jason flies off the fucking handle and terrorizes a doctor he knows isn't a part of making the Cheerdrops, beats the shit out of some random addicts, and finally, when he can't accomplish anything on his own because he's a dumb brute he calls Barbara for help and rushes in with no information where he's promptly incapacitated and must now wait to be rescued by Batman.

This panel is the least of the issues sins but I can’t screenshot the entire story but it’s representative of the tone for the whole issue (and retroactively tainted the prior two issues).

This is beyond insulting. The only conclusions Jason comes to in this issue are the ones Bruce leads him to by talking to him like he can’t make the simplest connections. And like... in this story Jason can’t make the simplest connections.

This (and the Jason throughout the entirety of this issue) is a far cry from the Jason we fell in love with in Under the Red Hood, who was competent and strategic and intelligent enough to seize control of Gotham’s underworld from Black Mask (who’s no fucking slouch, he’s the first and only person to unify organized crime in Gotham) AND elude and manipulate Bruce until the time and place of his choosing.

This is a far cry from even the Red Hood and the Outlaws Jason who is competent enough to fight the League of Shadows and Ra’s al Ghul (among very dangerous and skilled others) and smart enough to create antidotes for mind control nanotech viruses.

As he should be, by the way. Jason Todd is one of the best, most comprehensively trained fighters in DC’s stable of non powered vigilantes. He’s not irrational or hot headed. He’s pragmatic, tactically minded, and patient. He’s a detective. Right now. Has been since he was 12. Bruce doesn’t have to make him one because he already is. 

Jason is not a stupid thug who uses his fists because his brain doesn’t work. And I can’t tell you how so very exhausted I am by this narrative. 

This is actually the most egregious example of Jason’s skills and intelligence being not just undermined but dismissed entirely. Even Morrison’s Jason had some degree of competency. 

The one, single redeeming factor of this story is the art. It’s beautiful. And Marcus To is a godsend he seems to be one of only a couple of artists who remember that Jason was a child when he was Robin and I’m literally only buying this book because of him. 

Anyway, I’m sorry. I didn’t want that to come out so... um... passionately lol. I’m just very very tired. My intention with this isn’t to ruin it for you, if you like it, that’s fine. 

But this issue shot this story to the top of my "Vehemently Despise” list. 1) Batman: Urban Legends (Cheer), 2) Battle for the Cowl/Morrison’s Batman and Robin, 3) Batman The Adventure Continues.

I hope the next issues somehow salvage this dumpster fire. But I’m not expecting it.

(Damnit. That sounded harsh again. To reiterate, I’m not trying to judge anyone who enjoys it, I just personally hate it and you asked me why lol 😅)

Been seeing you getting hate mail and while I absolutely can't understand why anyone would go to all the trouble to make some one else feel bad... I also kinda really love the discourse on Scott? Like YOUR RANTS oh man. On point. Always. Tbh I tried giving Scott a chance... He is the main char after all... But I was like??? Wtf? That dude does nothing but refute others and does whatever he wants. And this was when I didn't particularly like Stiles either (first time watching Teen Wolf). But then I got to know more of him and like Tony he went asshole to lovable asshole—seriously, Stiles might not be the ‘nicest’ but he tries and his heart is in good place—while Scott is just... self-righteous. Someone pointed out that he sees people as possessions and that irks me too that I can actually see it being true. The dude has literally nothing going on except for being the one that gets bitten. And the Romeo-and-Juliet-esque romance he has.

Okay, okay, where was I going with this?? Right. LOVE YOUR RANTS. People need to understand that Scott not being liked isn't because of his race or anything trivial like it—he just happens to be—but because of his actions. Or inactions, as it were. *remembers the pool scene and Scott saying he's busy and resists the urge to chuck a shoe at him*

Basically, love you, love your work, and love your words! ❤️

I've talked with some friends about it, and our number one issue sort of...boiled down to the hypocrisy of the show? I....sort of rant a lot here, and I would add a Read More, but I can't find the option anymore?? I fucking hate Tumblr. EDIT: I found a post that told me how to do it!

So, since he's the character I focus on the most, let's talk about Stiles' morality. Because, you're right. Stiles is an asshole. He does some fucking awful shit in the first season, and even if he had a Reason to do it, it was still bad. And I still don't like it. But I understand it.

Stiles' lack of shits about what is 'lawful' is literally established in the first ten seconds of the show. He's a sheriff's son who sneaks onto people's roofs in the middle of the night bc they aren't answering his calls, who listens in on his dad's work conversations and is willing to fuck up a crime scene because he's so excited about getting to see a dead body. He doesn't care about laws. He doesn't even care about most basic manners (invasion of privacy much, with having Scott sniff Lydia to see if she liked him?). He's a dickhead, even to the people he cares about sometimes. But personality and morality aren't the same. Stiles' entire actual morality system is based around whatever he needs to do to keep the people he loves safe and happy. Lying to his dad so he doesn't get murdered by hunters? Totally fine. Telling Scott that it was "Jackson's own fault" that Scott attacked him with superstrength and dislocated his shoulder, so Scott doesn't feel like an asshole? That's just best friend duties! He will lie, steal, cheat, and he will kill to keep his loved ones safe (let's not forget this boy threw molotovs at Peter, knowing damn well what they would do to him). We can headcanon all we want about all the different people who are in this group of loved ones, but the list is canonically very short: Scott, his dad, and Lydia. Later on, like, past s3B? It includes Derek. Canonically. Stiles puts his life and the lives of others he cares about on the line while he lies to the matriarch of the Calavera hunter clan, to save Derek Hale. Derek is just canonically a part of that group now, and he fucking knows it bc Stiles is his anchor (that's canon too bb). End of Story, Sterek or no Sterek. It's why we get that insane number of lookbacks when Derek is dying before his evolution. Because Stiles is being forced to choose between two people who are BOTH in his ride-or-die group. He Cannot Pick between Scott and Derek, until Derek begs him to leave.

SO, yes, Stiles does fuckface things, and I don't always agree with what he does, but it is ACCURATE TO HIS CHARACTER. He is morally grey. He NEVER CLAIMS to be pure or good or just or righteous. Stiles knows who he is, and he stays true to himself. And I love him for that.

The same goes for a bunch of other characters! For Peter, who is strikingly similar to Stiles, in that family goes above literally everything. Screw the idea that he was following Derek around waiting for the chance to steal back the Alpha spark. That man put his life on the line (his second life, no less) to get the shit beaten out of him until Derek let him help save Derek's life Again and Again. Family Comes First.

Scott's morality is...confusing as fuck. I thought at first he was similar to Stiles, in that family came first, but...while he's protective of his mother, he also does a lot of stuff that puts her at risk without seeming to care/worry (like leaving Peter alone with her once Stiles hits their car, so he can chase Jackson) (or asking her to come to the high school when he's convinced there's a bomber in it)? Seriously, he's more protective over Allison, than his mother. It's very black and white the rest of the time. Very "this bad" "this good." And if you do "bad" then you are bad forever, while if you do "good" you are only good until you do "bad." The Betas were "good" until they asked for the bite, and then they were "Bad." Derek was "bad" when Scott met him and scared him, so after that, no matter how much "good" he did, he remained "bad." But only when it suits him. Allison is good even when she does bad, because he wants her to be good. Chris is good even though he's done mountains of bad, because of the minuscule amount of good that Scott has seen him do, because Scott wants him to be good. Even DEUCALION is good, despite the crazy CRAZY amount of bad he's done and despite having seen him do NO GOOD, just because Scott wants him to be good. Lying to those closest to you is bad, unless Scott is doing it, and then it's good, because he knows HE is good. Killing people is bad, unless Scott is doing it. Letting villains go is bad, unless Scott is doing it. Biting people is bad, unless Scott is doing it. Protecting family is good even if it requires killing or lying, unless it's not Scott doing it. Revenge for past slights is good, unless it's not SCOTT doing it. And you try to understand it! You try to say, okay, then he's morally grey, got it. He plays with the rules to suit his own morality, whatever. Except that Scott, the other characters, and THE SHOW ITSELF, are all telling you otherwise! They all say that Scott is morally pure. That he is good and righteous and lawful. That he always does the "right" thing, and that when he does "bad" things, it's justified and he had to. THE HEAVENS THEMSELVES say Scott is somehow better or more righteous than the other characters by MAKING HIM AN ALPHA OUT OF NOWHERE. (I'm talking abt canon here, not going into deaton conspiracy theories) It's like....Like in the hate mail response I did, where I pointed out that Every Single Thing people get angry at Derek for doing, Scott did too. Lying, killing (or at least attempting it), attacking innocents, losing his temper, keeping secrets, refusing to work with someone who could help, etc etc etc. Everything Derek has done that is morally "wrong," Scott has also done. And that's okay! Doing a bad thing doesn't make you a bad person, and even if it did, Scott is ALLOWED to be bad! GO FOR IT.

Except that he is sinless. It isn't that he learns from the bad things he does, it's that they aren't treated like bad things in the first place. Because Scott did it, and Scott always does the right thing.

Derek's behavior is reprehensible at times, but the show ADMITS that and frames it as bad. Frames it as him doing a bad thing when he scares Isaac or throws Peter or tells Erica who to date. And that's fine, because Derek is established as not being morally pure.

But SCOTT IS. And because they were so desperate to make him continue being "Pure" they didn't frame the things he did as wrong, or if they did, they absolved him of it immediately, using the exact same reasoning that works for Derek's situations, but this time Actually Accepting it.

He scares Stiles, well it's because he's scared. He throws Isaac, it's because he's upset. He attacks Jackson well it's because Jackson was being a dick. He orders Allison to date Matt, well he had a goal to accomplish. Every reason is treated like a fucking doctor's note that erases the bad things he does.

Being scared, or angry, or retaliating to someone being an asshole, or trying to protect himself, was NEVER a good enough reason for Derek to do ANYTHING "Bad." It was never an acceptable excuse.

IF IT WERE: If the show were making a statement about how fallable people are, how they do bad things, but they do them for a REASON. How people will do wild and terrible things out of fear, and how that doesn't make it less bad, but it makes it understandable, so don't demonize them out of nowhere. If that were the case, I would HAVE BEEN FINE WITH IT.

Scott is held to COMPLETELY different standards than everyone else in the show! And I DON'T mean that people held him to higher ones. They dropped that bar so fucking low. Anything was allowed, and any excuse was good enough.

He made out with a girl who was dating someone else, who his best friend was in love with? It's just the full moon, he's angsty about losing Allison. He ducttapes Liam to a bathtub and starts throwing random phrases at him that he hated Derek for saying to him? He's freaked out! He doesn't know what to do with a bitten wolf! It was an accident! He works with a mass murderer behind people's backs without telling them the whole story? Am I talking about Gerard or Deucalion? Who fucking knows. Either way, it's okay, because he was protecting his family. He plots to murder a cancer patient slowly and painfully by replacing meds that likely included painkillers with mountain ash, and the uses someone else's body to deliver the killing blow, and it's okay because he was just being smart! He was just working ten steps ahead! He was saving his mom and the whole town! Who cares if it DIDN"T WORK?

He walks into his ex-girlfriend's hotel room and scares the SHIT out of her while she's naked and alone in the shower? It was the wolfsbane. It doesn't matter that no one else's impulses included HARASSING someone. He lies to his girlfriend's face about her own life because he doesn't think it's important enough for her to know (who am I talking about, come on, take a guess, which one is it? Allison or Kira? Trick question: it's both). He was just being kind! He didn't want to worry her! He didn't want to make her feel bad! She didn't need to know!

I'm so far off track it's not even funny. My point was that Everything the other characters in the show are demonized for or framed as evil or bad or wrong for doing, Scott is shown to do and it's treated like at minimum a comedy, if not a Perfect Brilliant Strategic Move.

God, fucking hell. I mean, the PARALLELS you see in this show, between Scott and others. The scene of Alexander Argent going to the hotel after being bit? That bit where he pulls his shirt up in the mirror? It's a near PERFECT replica of Scott looking at his bite at Deaton's. They paralleled SCOTT MCCALL with AN ARGENT. Deaton has this whole line in S2 where he's bitching at Derek about "the person you should trust the most doesn't trust you at all" And then seasons later, we have Scott look his best friend in the eye and refuse to trust him, only to get upset later because Stiles doesn't want to work with him anymore and he "lost them." Scott goes running into Derek's house in S1 to accuse him of killing the bus driver, and when he can't get a real response, he EGGS HIM ON by accusing him of Murdering his SISTER, just to get Derek to react. Which is the EXACT same thing Kate did when she showed up and wanted Derek to lose his temper. Scott is CONSTANTLY paralleled with villains and assholes, and constantly does the things that others are persecuted for. But instead of feeling regret or learning something from it, instead of growing AT ALL. Those actions are treated as good. We are told they are righteous. And clever. That they are what heroes do. AND YES: There are parallels between Derek and Stiles' behaviors and villains/morally grey characters! Of course there are!

BUT THEY AREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE THE TRUE ALPHA MAIN CHARACTER. SCOTT IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE GOOD GUY. HE'S NOT SUPPOSED TO MIMIC/EMULATE THE VILLAINS, AND HE'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE REWARDED WHEN HE DOES IT ANYWAY.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again; I understand the urge to think that the Teen Wolf writers did all of this on purpose. That they built Scott up as an unreliable narrator, so that we're forced to come to terms with a protagonist who isn't good, and we watch them fall into a villainous role while thinking all the while they are a hero. That all these parallels are intentional and the writers just couldn't Tell us what was going on bc they didn't have enough power.

And sometimes I play into it. I will lie to myself about Scott being the 'narrator' of the entire show, and that we're seeing it all through his eyes so of course things are biased and conflicting, just so I can actually Enjoy watching it.

But I think it's absolute bullshit that this was done on purpose. It wasn't. The parallels appeared because they Wanted Scott to do the badass things that they had all the villains doing, throwing people and being sneaky and clever, and stopping the bad guy, and they didn't want to deal with the fact that they were having him do bad things. So they just pretended he wasn't and refused to acknowledge that they'd already punished other people for doing the same exact shit, but somehow Scott was getting rewarded. They wanted Scott to be the hero, so they made him the hero, and screw everybody else.

my literary analysis of a rhysand stan/apologist got deleted, so here it is again bc i'm proud of it lol

lets pick this apart shall we

Before Feyre accepted the mating bond, Rhys was extremely upfront about why he did, what he did UTM. there were no lies or anything.

rhys being upfront about why he did what he did does not change the gravity of his action. a murderer confessing to murder isn't suddenly absolved of their crime - they still killed someone. the same principle applies here. he can be all moany and wishy washy as he likes, but he still did it.

He said 2 important things: the first was "I made the bargain so u wouldn't fuckin die and I needed Amarantha to think that you were my play thing" and the second was "I wanted to make Tamlin angry because he's the reason my sister and mother were slaughtered" and TBH??? Same bitch??

i see this around a lot, that rhys made the bargain with feyre so she would survive. but this falls apart pretty quickly when you start to wonder: how did parading around feyre and drugging her so she vomits and dressing her in pretty much nothing help her survive?? would she have died if he hadn't done that? probably not. none of it was necessary - not the clothes, not the drugging, not the trauma, not the twisting her broken arm. also, rhys didn't do it to save her life - in the same monologue you're talking about, he literally says he made the bargain 'to get back at [tamlin] for my mother and sister, and for...having you.' and that feyre was so hateful of him, somehow this meant he 'knew he had done his job well.' what job???

think about it. why did he need amarantha to believe feyre was his plaything? what did this prove? what did it contribute to freeing them?

If my mama and sister were slaughtered because of you I would literally do anything in my power to make u suffer??? Even if that meant parading your bitch around as my own?? Might I mention that Rhys didn't make Feyre do anything more than dance for him??

umm...

i'm not going to pretend any of us will know how we would act in that situation. but that's another conversation - what matters here is feyre. FEYRE DOESN'T KNOW ANY OF THIS. SHE IS AN INNOCENT THIRD PARTY HERE. regardless of personal history, rhys has no business implicating an innocent HUMAN girl in his beef with tamlin. that's between them, and it does nothing to change the ugliness of how he treated feyre. 'parading your bitch' hi the misogyny is showing

also 'rhys didn't make feyre do anything more than dance for him' and that's okay?? oh as long as it didn't go further than roofying, lap dancing without consent and dressing in cobwebs, it's fine?? i worry for you

Because like if I'm being completely honest I'd probably do worse??

i'm not even sure what to say to that

And Rhys was actually protecting her from more of Amaranthas weird ass punishments?? Like idk guys if you're anti rhys maybe ACOTAR just isn't for you and you can leave it at that.

was he? i would argue going through what rhys put feyre through was a form of punishment in of itself.

also, so if i don't like rhys acotar isn't for me...got it, acotar is for people who think this behaviour is acceptable. i'll make a note to stay away from them and keep them away from young children.

just a tip: when someone picks up a book, especially a popular one like this, they don't know what's in it before they read it. can you imagine a rape survivor reading through these books, seeing what rhys did to feyre, and then have to go through his explanations justifying all of it?? and have feyre forgive him?? what kind of message does that send??

Another point that's brought up a lot within the fandom is "choices" and how Tamlin didn't give Feyre choices, but Rhys did. And while I think that might be a point stressed in the novels, I don't think Feyre falling for Rhys is supremely entwined with "choices". I think what Rhysand gave Feyre more than Tamlin did was a voice and knowledge.

someone saying 'it's your choice' over and over while not giving you a choice doesn't make it any more true. just saying. you can say that rhys gave her knowledge and a voice, but two things: rhys only told feyre what he wanted to if it would serve his own purposes, see: him not telling her that he was using her as bait for the attor in acomaf, him not telling her about the mating bond, him not telling her that her own pregnancy will kill her. and the second: feyre doesn't need to be 'given' a voice. she has one. a voice is not something a woman needs to be given by a man, especially not some 500 year old creepo with a god complex.

Rhysand would tell her straight up, "look I can't tell you this unless you do this" and that's more an ultimatum than a choice. And we can go over the dynamics of ultimatums but Rhysand never bullshitted Feyre (ACOSF isn't canon oops) and ALWAYS heard her out. Rhysand always told her the dynamics of a situation. And more importantly, it was Feyres fuckin decision, and also it's fucking fiction so just be honest and say u don't ship it rather than trying to tank Rhys as a character.

um...and that's better than a choice? the fuck? think of the power in that sentence, that he wouldn't tell her something unless she did something. why does he have the right to withhold information from her?? why does she have to earn it, if they're such a pOwEr cOuPLe? rhysand's entire ARC is bullshitting feyre. he never once apologised for his behaviour. he only justified it while crying into soup. so if you don't want acosf to be canon, you know that rhys bullshitted feyre. you know that hiding medical information from her was a dick move. but it was completely in character for him if you notice the patterns in his behaviour right from the beginning of their relationship.

when did rhys tell her the dynamics of the situation?? when he traumatised her to beef with tamlin when she was human? when he made her agree to a bond for eternity when she was canonically with tamlin and was in no place to say no to the bargain? when he didn't tell her they were mates but told all his friends? when he used her as bait for the attor? when he hid her OWN PREGNANCY INFORMATION from her and told all his friends?

And more importantly, it was Feyres fuckin decision, and also it's fucking fiction so just be honest and say u don't ship it rather than trying to tank Rhys as a character.

you literally just proved yourself wrong in one sentence. 'it's feyre's decision and also it's fucking fiction' my dude you're right feyre is not a real person so you know who's making these decisions? the author. you know what the role of fiction is? to tell a story and spread messages, even unintentionally. people are reading this relationship and are guided to think that it's okay when it is literally textbook abuser behaviour. this shit has consequences. i read these books at 13 and didn't see a flaw in rhys' behaviour because the author told me not to and because i was too young to have any experience with relationships. i'm 19 now and i'm horrified to look back on these books i once loved.

you sound a lot like rhys there, 'it's feyre's choice'. no it wasn't. it was the author's choice to depict the relationship like this. all of us are being honest you fuckwit this is more than not liking a ship, it's pointing out alarming behaviour from a character who is portrayed as a hero.

i don't need to tank rhys as a character. the author and the fandom did it for me.

1. Nine year old Vicky Stewart of the Tsimshian nation was killed at the United Church residential school in Edmonton on April 9, 1958 by school matron Ann Knizky, who hit Vicky over the head with a two by four. The RCMP refused to press charges against either Knizky or the United Church, and threatened Vicky`s family with imprisonment if they pursued the matter.

2. Margaret Sepass was raped and then beaten to death by an Anglican priest named John Warner on December 5, 1969, at St. Michael’s Indian school in Alert Bay, British Columbia. Margaret was nine years old. Her burial site is unknown and John Warner was never charged.

3. On January 5, 1938, Albert Gray was beaten to death by Reverend Alfred Caldwell of the United Church of Canada when Albert took a prune from a jar without permission. Albert was eleven years old. His body was buried in secret behind the Ahousat Indian school and Alfred Caldwell was never charged.

4. On December 24, 1946, the same Principal Caldwell kicked 14 year old Maisie Shaw to her death down a flight of stairs at the United Church`s Alberni residential school, as witnessed by Harriett Nahanee. The RCMP covered up the murder.

5. On April 3, 1964, Richard Thomas was sodomized and then strangled to death by Catholic priest Terence McNamara at the Kuper Island Indian school. Richard was buried in secret in an orchard south of the school, and Terence McNamara, who is still alive, was never charged.

6. Elaine Dick, age 6, was kicked to death by a nun in April of 1964 at the Squamish Indian school in Vancouver. The RCMP refused to press charges when requested by the victim`s family.

7. Daniel Kangetok, age 4, was infected with an untreatable virus as part of a Defense Research Board experimental program funded by the Canadian military. He was left to die at the Carcross Anglican residential school in the Yukon, in February of 1971.

8. David Sepass, age 8, was pushed down some stairs by a priest at the Kuper Island catholic school and left to die, early in 1958.

9. A newborn Cree baby was burned alive by a senior priest at the Catholic Muscowegan Indian school near Regina in May of 1944, as witnessed by Irene Favel. The priest was never charged.

10. Susan Ball, age 5, starved to death in a closet at the United Church Edmonton residential school during the winter term of 1959, after being confined there by a church matron for speaking her own language.

11. Pauline Frank, age 8, died from medical experimentation performed by Canadian army researchers at the Nanaimo Indian Hospital in March of 1972. Her body was buried in secret on the grounds of the hospital, which is still restricted military property.

12. Albert Baptiste, age 9, died from electric shocks from a cattle prod wielded by a catholic priest at the Mission residential school over Christmas in 1951.

13. Nancy Joe, age 14, died from involuntary drug testing by military doctors at the Nanaimo Indian hospital in the spring of 1967.

14. Lorraine white, teenager, was gang raped by United Church residential school staff and left to die, Port Alberni, summer of 1971.

15. Eighteen Mohawk children, all under the age of sixteen, were shot to death by Canadian soldiers outside Brantford, Ontario, in the summer of 1943, as witnessed by Rufus McNaughton. The children were buried in secret in a mass grave.

16. Johnny Bingo Dawson, an eyewitness to crimes in Anglican residential schools and a leader of protests against these criminal churches, died of injuries from a police beating after being threatened by them, in Vancouver on December 9, 2009. Official cause of death was alcohol poisoning, despite the absence of alcohol in his blood.

17. Ricky Lavallee, the eyewitness to Bingo’s beating by the Vancouver police, died of a blow to his chest in early January of 2011.

18. William Combes, an eyewitness to the abduction of ten children by Queen Elizabeth from Kamloops Indian school on October 10, 1964, was killed by a lethal injection at St. Paul’s catholic hospital in Vancouver on February 26, 2011.

19. Harriett Nahanee, the first eyewitness to a residential school murder to go public, died after mistreatment in a Vancouver jail, February, 2007.

20. Nora Bernard, the first aboriginal in Canada to sue the Catholic church for residential school crimes, was murdered in December of 2007 on the eve of Canada`s official spin doctoring of the residential school genocide.

… and more than 50,000 others, all of them children.

No-one has ever been charged or tried under Canadian law for any these killings. And the criminal government and churches responsible for this mass murder have been legally absolved of any responsibility for them under Canadian law.

Nothing has been healed. Nothing has been reconciled. Justice has been exterminated as completely as these innocent victims.

idk talia having sex with a minor esp one not in a great headspace kind of sucked

anon, you have certainly gotten me off on the wrong foot here with the passive aggressive tone but okay. I've taken a breath and come back, so let's actually talk about this, with sincerity and genuine analysis. hope i don't regret posting this one

First off, that post was really specifically about the widespread tendency of fandom to, when absolving Jason of the blame for all his villainy and murders, decide that actually Talia “made him” do it, or at the very least she was a terrible terrible influence who corrupted him. Which, as I said and stand by, is absolutely not accurate.

But as I also said in that post, Talia doing bad things in general is canon too. A lot of that is dc's extremely shitty tendency to turn their WoC into stereotyped villains, and people more eloquent than me have talked at length on that--but while I don't think many of Talia's actions in the last ~15 years have been in character, I'm not claiming that they were all totally okay actually. (Morrison's Talia, for example, is indeed a bad person, no arguments--but because of racist misogynistic writing.)

I don’t mean to imply Talia is perfect in Lost Days either. She cares about Jason and tries to nudge him to good, but, even discounting the terrible sex scene we're about to get to, she also has an ulterior motive of wanting to impress/appeal to Bruce by returning his son. That doesn’t negate her concern for Jason, but it complicates her very morality.

So getting to That Scene.

It sucks! I don't like that it happened, I don't like the way it was done, I don't like the lack of follow up, I don't like it.

However, at the risk of discourse, the reason that I dislike it isn't because it's blatant assault. On the contrary, my feelings are really messy because it's something that in real life would almost always be awful and predatory, but in this specifically written piece of fiction...isn't? Like, it's skeevy and doesn't reflect well on Talia, but it also determinedly avoids making her abusive.

Despite your claim, they are both adults. The sex is consensual in the moment. But it's a situation that raises a lot of red flags for potentially awful power dynamics, and yet...that isn't really written as an aspect of it.

First off, Jason is 100% meant to be an adult at the end of Red Hood: Lost Days when said sex occurs. By the logical timeline of the bat-family overall, he's 18. By the timeline presented in Lost Days, he's at least 18, and more likely 19 or older. Of course, through a realism lens it seems weird to count the time he was dead or comatose--but DC has kept to their pattern of declaring characters to be mentally/socially the same age as they are physically, for simplicity's sake. (see, e.g. Conner Kent and Bart Allen for other examples of this) It doesn't always make sense! But it's one of those things--like kid sidekicks being morally okay--that we are asked to suspend our disbelief about when dealing with dc comics.

Now, I am of the personal belief that “but they’re 18″ is a pretty shitty excuse and not that different from 17--but it’s about the gap, and Talia's age is even more unclear. When she was introduced, she was very close to Dick's age. But that was pre-Crisis, and may or may not be true post-Crisis. And Dick's age is unclear as well. And sometimes Talia is interpreted as Bruce's contemporary instead, since she is his love interest. And how old is Bruce anyhow?

Basically: Did Lost Days writer Winick think Jason was 18 in that scene, or more like 20? Is Talia in her mid-20s, or is she twice his age? We have no idea.

As for their headspaces--Jason is in a bad one, but I feel like you might have the wrong impression of exactly what that entails. He’s not in the middle of a breakdown when that scene happens, or desperately vulnerable for connection; he’s pretty put-together, coolly refining his plan to return to Gotham. BUT he also certainly isn’t “acting like himself” at any point during Lost Days.

And if we're talking about headspaces: Talia's has just been altered. That scene is stated to occur shortly after Ra’s’ (real) death, which means it occurs shortly after Death and the Maidens, where Talia was herself repeatedly murdered and thrown in a Lazarus Pit, and came out changed. And--though it’s annoyingly not given any editor’s note or other call out in Lost Days, so it’s easy for people who don’t know the story to miss the context--that’s not an incidental detail. Talia’s behavior is notably different in that scene (her last scene in Lost Days) than it was in all previous issues. She goes from trying her best to turn Jason away from revenge to suddenly endorsing his plan to hurt Bruce. And she goes from caring about him in a maybe-maternal way to...that.

Per an interview with Winick that I unfortunately cannot seem to find again, they're both in a bad place and reacting in unhealthy ways. And imo, that is successfully portrayed. (But don't get comfy, Winick, I'm coming back for you.) It's two people who used to be kind and are now acting in disconcertingly out of character ways, and they have very uncomfortable for the reader sex as a terrible coping mechanism and shared desire to hurt Bruce.

But most important, let's talk about the power dynamic.

Talia was a caretaker for Jason when he was catatonic. However, as soon as he gets out of the pit, he leaves the league and is taking care of himself day to day. Talia sets him up with teachers and gives him resources over Lost Days, and he wants those resources, but he doesn't actually need her. He could cut her off at any time he likes, which we know because Talia is very concerned that he will if she pushes too hard against his plans. And while there’s a maternal aspect to Talia’s feelings for him--which, yes! makes the sex real squicky!!--she’s not actually a mother to him.

Lost Days Jason is characterized as fairly cold and cut off, and doesn't seem to hold any strong emotional attachment or deference to her as a mother/caretaker. He likes her? I think? But his lack of emotional expression is a plot point in Lost Days, and he's fully independent.

Basically: their roles have been set up with Talia in the role of former caretaker and patron, but she just isn't portrayed with the power to actually coerce him, logistically or emotionally.

Which is mostly an example of fiction breaking off from probable reality. Because if some similar set up to this occurred in real life, there are very good odds that the older patron would hold significant sway over their younger trainee, and complete negate their ability to safely refuse consent. There would likely be grooming involved, a predatory intent, a coercive set up to the sex--

But none of that is present in the comic. In the characterization, in the relationship between them, or in the scene itself.

And that unlikeliness makes it icky and uncomfortable and questionable at minimum--with an argument to be made that it's outright irresponsible. Winick said the scene was supposed to be uncomfortable (and boy did he succeed on that front) but I think it was uncomfortable in a lot more ways that he intended, and there were much better and less messy ways to make his point. And ultimately it just feels like...he really should not have done this. This was a shitty thing to write.

Anyway, I would love a final answer here where I could either fully agree Talia is a terrible monster or pull out panels to prove she's innocent, but I can't do either. If she is meant to be notably older than him, sleeping with an 18-20 year old is certainly shitty, even if in this specific rare instance it's not predatory.

I guess if I have an overall thesis it is: the crafting and set up of this specific piece of fiction make Jason/Talia an icky yet fully consensual encounter, but the fact that a similar situation in real life would almost always be coercive makes the fictional scene even more uncomfortable.