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rubydubydoo122 · 5 months

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As much as I hate to say it, and as much as I love Jason ToddI'm gonna need DC to kill him again, and keep him dead this time.

Now before you come at me, let me explain why I think this. Jason Todd is a character that while alive will always be connected to Gotham, and because of his differing morals with Batman, he will always be in a cycle of conflict with him. We saw it in UTRH, we saw it in RHATO, we saw it in Gotham Wars. Because Jason isn't a villain (I feel like in UTRH he was an anti-hero, and any actions that didn't align with the morals he set during that time is because he was villainized by Batman) Bruce's actions feel overtly brutal (batarang to the neck, beating him so har his helmet broke, chemically altering him to feel fear) especially since it's towards his SON the one he claims to have mourned. It's a vicious cycle that isn't fair to Jason, and it's major character assassination of Bruce. It's overdone and I am sick and tired of it, but I do not see either characters backing down from their moral stances.

Now you might be thinking, just because Bruce and Jason don't get along doesn't mean they can't make up-- they've tried. Multiple time. Every time Jason and Bruce take a step in the direction of being close to each other again, Bruce becomes a control freak and abuses Jason like he's his own personal punching bag, and there's only so many times someone can forgive someone before enough is enough.

But I still haven't explained why specifically I think Jason should die again. And it's because of two reasons. Jason deserves peace, and as long as he's a ghost walking on earth, he won't be able to get that. Also because it would make Great Angst. We all know Bruce would break if he lost Jason again. He's going to push everyone away, and if you're going to have Bruce push everyone away, give him consequences for his actions.but we saw how protective Dick got during Gotham Wars. Just imagine Dick walking up towards Bruce and saying, "It might've been my fault last time for not picking up his calls, but this time, you can't deny that this, is all your fault." "How dare you! He was my son!" "You lost him once, and when he came back you treated him worse than any of the loonies in Arkham. You don't miss him at all. You only feel guilty because of your goddamned savior complex. You only treat him like your son when he's dead."

and while we're at it, maybe Tim can have a complete crisis. He had to pick up the pieces of Bruce in the aftermath of Jason's death last time, and look where that got him. All of his friends and family died. He was never truly recognized for guiding Bruce out of the dark, and we all know that Tim is one inconvenience from killing a bitch. Maybe this is it. I actually think it would be hilarious for Tim to take up the Red Hood mantle, Only to screw with Bruce. Because he knows that's what Jason would've wanted.

Have Damian afraid of what Bruce has become in guilt. Have Damians castle of worship for his father come tumbling down, because Damian always knew his father loved all of the previous Robins more than him, and if his father no longer wanted them, what was stopping Bruce from sending him back to the League.

Like DC if you're going to use Jason as a catalyst for an event, kill him off again. last time it was on a whim. This time, do it on purpose. This time, give his death a purpose. This time, make sure his death changes something, because god, Bruce has fucked up so much.

#jason todd #bruce wayne #tim drake #dick grayson #damian wayne #dead jason todd #bad dad bruce wayne #dc comics #I triple dog dare you DC #let my boy have some peace #let Jason RIP #maybe cremate him this time #he would hate crawling out of a grave a second time #unhinged tim drake #protective dick grayson #insecure damian wayne #rhato #utrh #gotham wars

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boyfridged · 6 months

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if you got complete control over DC and got to write a Jason solo comic, how would you go about it? or like what would be the story??

you're indulging me!

well, my first preference would probably be writing a jason-never-died elseworld and this is what i'm doing with my series robin vol 2. or something like 80s retroactive but longer, so essentially a robin jay series that we were robbed of.

but i'm presuming you are asking about what i would do with the main timeline... i guess if you've been following me for a while, nothing on this list will come as a surprise, because it's simply a combination of my own meta dressed in plot points... i'm just not sure how i would organise it, since i mostly think about these in terms of fanfiction, so it's a bit fragmented in my head. but i think it would be doable to combine those:

addressing the current mess in canon: unavoidable. i always imagined (and by always i mean i've had that image in my head for at least 5 years now) if i were to write a comicbook script for jay i would start with the classic simple layout showcasing the more sunny (early days robin jay's) version of gotham but with panels shaped like shattered glass imposing on it, displaying different contradicting pieces of canon and culminating with the question of who *the real* jason todd is, as a nod to countdown asking the same. dc actually attempted to do something when the infinite frontier was first introduced, it just wasn't very well executed... (and as far as i know the hypertime is still supposed to be relevant so it would work...)

since i already started talking about countdown it could also contain some multiversal insight into all the other worlds in which jason todd is alive.

or maybe an idea i once dropped here, with the mystical serpentine of magical fog (the one from the lost days and the end of the utrh when jason presumably is brought back to life once again) traveling through the scenes of flashbacks of other characters (perhaps even just a reflections of retcons!) tarnishing jason's memory when he's dead, cut to kid jay literally stirring in the coffin, and finally an adult jason waking up with a jolt in the final scene. so many options.

you get the image. i wish that dc utilised the weirdness of the meta in a serious way, and that the talk of the past was a talk of the history of comics in a sense... as i previously expressed here.

as you all know by now my reading of jason (and batman in general even) is mostly based on the 80s... and so it would be a love letter to this era. i would definitely want to include some robin jay stories there as well, maybe make jason investigate cases that date back to his childhood and are somehow interconnected, creating a bridge between the narratives and reconciling them.

ending what i call the long funeral - jason's era of remaining dead both socially and to the narrative. what i have in mind is an arc in which he is working on a case that seems to have to do with magic/ghosts, but that ultimately turns out to be a case of corruption and plain police brutality. two things here: i would want him to fuck up spectacularly so that he starts questioning his modus operandi and dedication to vigilantism in general. and it would set up the ground for the introduction of abolitionism and link the story to his early ethical framework.

a retirement arc. jason's proper come back to the crime alley and reintroduction to the land of living (the alley might be a graveyard to bruce but it's a home to jason...) and very importantly, a cast of civilians! leslie is definitely back. i would also love to use dana & denise, and maybe even some pre-crisis characters.

i would fridge bruce. put him out of commission basically, death or not. and i'm not saying batman jay era but actually i am saying batman jay era. (i once again can't find a link to the post explaining my bat jay agenda but if it's of your interest i can elaborate.)

a two-face story. about forgiveness or rather about the fact that it never quite passed. and about willis.

the themes... the motifs... you know me. ouroboros and self-mythologization and the sacrifice and catholicism (probably not in a way you think) and family duty. and politics. here you can also guess what i'm thinking about, and it's a revolutionary abolitionist turn.

and to conclude: big words but i would use jason to bring love back to the gotham lore and batman titles in general. he is a character that has always stood in the centre of both values and challenges that the story faced. if he's not treated with consideration and not taken seriously, nothing in it is.

#outbox #i might have answered similar questions before. but probably on my old blog so i can't find it.#anyway. thank you for this lovely question!#jay.zip

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bitter-hibiscus · 8 months

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hi!!! i saw you send in an ask on someone else’s blog with jayroy fic recs and i read all of them and they were genuinely so amazing. do you have any more recs???? i am extrememly deprived 🫶

I've got you, man!!

Stitched Together by rotasha (short little Jason and Roy post-mission flirty banter)

ladies and gentlemen will you please stand by bittlebarnes (monroesherlock) (Jason and Roy are getting married! Tim sees the perfect opportunity for WE PR)

Say Something by Skalidra (Jason is mute because of the batarang incident, meets Roy on the job, and falls in love like an idiot)

Gold Shyness by Here_we_go (alternates between Jason being in love and flashbacks to Jason pining for Roy during archery lessons)

Broken (collect my pieces) by BloodthirstyMerc (Roy finds Jason after the events of UTRH, stitches his throat back together)

Happy Valentine's day by orphan_account (Roy proposes in his usual unconventional way)

Broken Arms and Botched Proposals by alecmagnuslwb (as the tags say, just absolute bickering husbands who aren't actually husbands. Also a proposal fic)

the halfway home for washed-up sidekicks by moth_tille (this is JayRoyKyle but I think it still counts. Kyle bets with Jason that he can patrol in Gotham with him and Roy EASY, the three idiots fall in love)

Light up the Sky by Selarne (more Jason-focused, Jason becomes a Star Sapphire after Roy's death)

Kiss The Cook by Alphum (domestic cooking and cuddling fic, just plain ol' good feels)

Little Scallywags with Fiendish Gags by poisonivory (Roy is on a mission during Halloween, the Big Bad Red Hood is tasked with taking Lian trick-or-treating)

Through Blood and Tears but I Don’t Mind by BasementQueer (first of a series that I HIGHLY recommend, Roy almost dies and Jason doesn't find out until days after)

Hope these are enough for now!!

#autistic-tim-drake ask #jayroy #fic rec #lmk what you think of them! /nf

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msfcatlover · 1 year

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@fatwithoutkatsudon

Thank you so much for your patience, things in my life kinda got crazy! Going through all my saved Red Hood!Steph fics (and several I bookmarked and have been meaning to get to for a while), I’ll admit I was a little disappointed to realize the majority of fics where we get to see her going Absolutely Off The Chain(TM) are not, in fact, Reverse!Robins fics, just slight role-shuffle fics. All the same, I compiled my favorites, and I hope you enjoy them!

Starting with what you specifically asked for, the Reverse!Robins fics.

archiveofourown.org/works/43121650 This fic is more a series of vignettes than anything else. Plenty of other things are different from your standard Reverse!Robins fic—Cass is Oracle, the Robin Steph has beef with is actually Duke, they gave Steph Jason’s entire arc, etc.—so it’s a very interesting verse to explore, even only for a little while. (Personally, not my favorite? I prefer my role-swap AUs to find ways to fit canon stories into the new format, rather than just hand certain characters entirely different backstories. It’s also a very fandom-standard take on UtRH, if that makes sense. But if you’re looking for a verse with lots of fun concepts & Steph being positively unhinged, it really delivers!)

archiveofourown.org/works/39577671 A collection of the major events in every one of the kids’ live, told in timestamped vignettes.

archiveofourown.org/works/23653387 From death to peace, in a series of timestamped scenes: Stephanie Brown.

archiveofourown.org/series/2747734 The 2nd fic in this series is Steph dropping by to talk with Tim, apparently mid-UtRH. It’s short, and not really violent, but it’s got the vibe (if that makes sense.)

archiveofourown.org/series/1686565 Okay, so this series skips around a lot, it’s mostly slice of life stuff, it’s almost entirely set post-“Red Hood reunites with the Batfam,” and there isn’t really any unhingedness to be found. But! It is a lot of fun, and Steph’s costume design is rad.

archiveofourown.org/works/43507033 More slice of life/post-reunion stuff. So far, just a oneshot of Dick being a brat, and Steph being an obnoxious older sister.

archiveofourown.org/series/2828071 Sadly, there is no Steph in this verse; at least not directly. The 2 fics there are focused on Damian’s relationships instead. But, theoretically, there may someday be RH!Steph. (I’m so sorry. I have my eye on this one and I want to rec it, but it does not actually meet the criteria.)

archiveofourown.org/works/38750607 Jason drops by the alley to say hi to some working girls he was friends with before his adoption. Steph catches him, misunderstands, and becomes incensed at the idea of Bruce sending a kid to do that sort of undercover work. (Probably the weirdest rec on this list, and I completely get it if it’s not your thing. Platonic!ABO, which is to say set in a world with the social/biological rules of any other A/B/O setting but without any sex or romance, just characters going about their lives. Even with those additional changes in place, this manages to check most of my boxes for what I love to see in a RH!Steph piece.) [WARNING: Mentioned past underage prostitution.]

These ones aren’t technically Reverse Robin stories, but Steph still very much takes up a Red Hood-esque role in their stories.

archiveofourown.org/series/852580 Steph wakes up in her grave, but doesn’t have to dig her way out because Jason was already in the middle of digging her up. He takes her back to his apartment to patch her up, and the rest of what’s there so far is just them bonding. (This author is clear Steph’s not going full anti-hero—much to my disappointment—but she’s still planning to help Jason out in some capacity, so I’m including it on this list.) [WARNING: UNFINISHED WIP]

archiveofourown.org/series/2749570 A verse in which Red Hood rolls up into town with his own sidekick, Red Rider. (I’ll admit, I’m not exactly in love with the author’s formatting choices, but that’s a purely aesthetic taste. It also focuses pretty heavily on Steph/Cass, and as I’ve said before, shipping isn’t the catharsis I come to Batfam fics for. So it’s not my personal favorite, but I completely understand if it is someone else’s.) [WARNING: UNFINISHED WIP]

archiveofourown.org/works/43744603 If you want more of Steph being RH!Jason’s sidekick, here you go. This Steph never worked with the Bats before Jason’s return, as far as I can tell, and Jay’s still on pretty foul terms with the rest of the family.

archiveofourown.org/works/43206345 Jason Todd did not die as scheduled. Stephanie Brown did. A very angry Robin still clawed their way back from the grave, ready to tear down everything to prove a point. (This is, like, my ideal Red Hood!Steph. She’s furious, she’s brilliant, she’s brutally efficient, she’s shot up like a tree & piled on muscle mass like it’s going out of style, she hit Tim with a brick, and her plan is focused on taking down Black Mask as much or even more than it is taunting the Bats. I mean, if your RH!Steph can’t pick Tim up by the throat single-handed, are you really doing her justice?)

archiveofourown.org/series/322115 Another where Steph died and Jason didn’t. A really interesting exploration of how that might’ve happened, and how certain plots would go differently thanks to both Steph’s actions & how other people would react to her being the one making them, and, of course, what kind of person being the Red Hood would make Steph into. (Fair warning: I have not read the last entry in this one. This verse has a very particular tone it’s hard to put words to, and while I fully trust this author to do justice to how creepy a good Court of Owls arc can be, I just haven’t been in the mood for that blend. Overall, though, while I don’t 100% agree with their interpretation of RH!Steph, this is a damn fine series of fics.)

I do have a lot of RH!Steph being unhinged in my own Reverse!Robins AU, but considering it’s currently just fractured notes, I can’t really rec it to you. If I ever splice enough of it together into a cohesive narrative & post it anywhere, I promise to let you know.

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yvtro · 1 year

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reposting this piece of meta i originally wrote in a response to someone who deleted their post.

jason became robin because he was inherently just and wanted to do the right thing even when batman ignored him. this is literally his origin story.

the pattern of him being naturally kind and sensitive to injustice preserves throughout all of his robin days. even when he was written by starlin – a writer who hated him on principle and wanted to make him as unlikeable as possible, he was still motivated by how much he *cared* about other people and how much he wanted to be loved. the incident with garzonas, for example – he chased him because he was so deeply traumatised by learning that a woman he knew for mere minutes committed suicide. the whole reason for which he wanted to find his biological mother – he wanted to be loved!

now, utrh (and some earlier flashbacks) already retconned a lot of this stuff to create the idea of the ‘angry’ or the ‘mean’ robin. that’s an issue especially when you consider how classist it is to insist that a child who was taken off the streets can have no other fate than becoming a criminal. but even there, in the utrh, jason was anything but cold. was his plan calculated, was it cruel in many ways and morally questionable? it was. was it cold? no. honestly, i just don’t get how you can read a scene in which a teenager offers his father an ultimatum between killing his killer or him and think it’s a reasonable, cold decision. on the contrary, it’s utterly delusional and desperate. if jason wanted to just get rid of the joker, he could – but he wants bruce to prove that he still means something to him. he wants to be loved. he cares.

“delusional” and “desperate” also describe his methods in general pretty well. i know it goes against a popular reading that jason is very down to earth and pragmatic because he’s intimate with the way crime and evil works. it is true, to a certain extent. but his aim itself, that is to do everything he can to minimise harm of other people, no matter the cost? is it not utterly delusional? and yes, he doesn’t agree with batman’s moral code. but the reason he feels so strongly about it is because they have essentially the same goal – protecting people, and he sees that batman sometimes fails at it. and jason cares so much, he can’t take any failure, he can’t let anyone be harmed, he takes it all personally.

even in jason’s villain era (I’m talking the battle for the cowl shtick for example) jason was anything but cold. his targets were always extremely personal. and that’s the content when he was written as a villain, it’s not even canon anymore.

it’s also pretty ironic that you say that he has a pretty strong sense of identity, given that he completely commits to being the red hood and doesn’t even have a civilian identity. and ‘red hood’ is a cruel reference to a man killed him, too. that doesn’t seem like a strong sense of identity to me, it seems like he sacrifices himself for what he thinks is right and like he identifies with his trauma so strongly that he can’t move on.

you’re talking of jason being ‘soft’ in fanon but that’s the point of his character in comics. he cares too much and it makes him cross the line. it makes him cruel. he’s a very interesting twist of an anti-hero archetype because of that: anti-heroes usually lack idealism, and act out of self-interest. their heroism is more of a side-effect of their actions. jay is the polar opposite: he is an idealist at the core and his heroism is what makes him defy conventional ethical codes. and I love seeing that, i love seeing him morally failing when his only goal is to be *moral.* what do you call an urge to keep other people safe, if not moral?

but the thing is, sacrificing yourself to become an authoritarian murderous robin hood will not change the world. i think at some point he would fuck up and harm people he intended to protect. and jason cares. so it would make sense for him to step back and consider his actions.

jason is no punisher nor deathstroke. he has a considerable baggage as a legacy character, and your reading completely disregards his original robin story. and that’s boring, tbh. because what makes him so appealing and tragic is that he is all of those things that he was when he was a robin still – an idealist, a protector, someone who cares. even the most awful plotlines point it out. i hated most of that specific plotline, but when damian said that jason is ‘the most emotional one’? facts.

#reposting it because it was a reply to the person who said that jason didn't have identity issues #and my other post referencing is has been gaining track #i think it's still readable without the context? you can guess what the person was saying #i'm too lazy to edit it so #here you are #jay meta #jason todd #dc comics

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soleminisanction · 2 years

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Re: The last ask and all the recent Jason talk...

I wish more people would acknowledge the emotional abuse angle of Jason's whole thing.

Like yeah, there's the larger moral conflict angle that reflects a regular debate constantly happening in and around superhero comics; and yes, he's a heavily traumatized person dealing with an impossibly stressful emotional situation who's been further manipulated by an outside force. But his extremely unhealthy way of dealing with all that trauma was to lash out at his father figure with, essentially:

"If you don't violate your one great taboo, the boundary that I know to be foundational to your entire self-identity, you're proving that you don't love me."

That makes him a compelling, tragic villain in UtRH, with the potential for a compelling arc where he grows out of that mindset and becomes a better, healthier person. And there's been pieces of that story scattered around canon, but it's really fucked up how many people seem to have instead jumped straight to, "Yeah, he's right! You don't love him enough, and that makes you a monster! If you really loved him, you'd change your entire morality and beg him for forgiveness! If you don't do that, you deserve anything that happens to you!!"

Kinda fucked up when you think about it.

#jason todd critical #dc meta #passing thoughts #batman #red hood

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scorchedhearth · 2 years

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Day. 3 A HAIR’S BREADTH FROM DEATH

Gun to Temple | “Say goodbye.” | Impaled | Ringing ears

set vaguely before utrh starts, featuring jason's first step in gotham's underbelly

Jason doesn’t like to admit these kinds of things, but he fucked up here. He royally fucked up, he shouldn’t have trusted intel gained from secondhand, outdated and misleading hearsay that result in this kind of shitty deal. Him, tied to a chair, a gun pointed at his face and no way to get out of his bonds, not with the way they messed up his shoulder.

Think, think, think Jason. He let his eyes run around the room, at Jack, currently rambling on and on about his feat and great mind, the two guards beside him and the three lackeys accompanying them, including the one currently holding the gun muzzle straight in his face.

“Don’t you ever tire of listening to this piece of filth?” He asks the youngest of them, the one standing behind this little assembly. Jason’s never been one to take a beating silently, that’s not his style and he’s sick with his voice already. And distraction is good, it makes them fail, it makes them vulnerable.

But Jack doesn’t take the bait, he only nods at lackey number three who pulls the gun away only to knock him at the back of the head with the grip, full strength too. Helmet or no helmet, it hurts, and the electronics inside do not like it one bit. He built it himself, so he knows it’s strong, but there’s a breaking point to anything if you’re looking hard enough for it.

The hit did nudge his body enough for the shackles to slide down his wrists, enough for him to reach. He pulls out the pins he keeps in his sleeve, and starts to work on getting them off quietly.

“Who told you about me,” Jack carries on with a self-satisfied smirk. Jason would love to rip it off his face with his own hands. “About this little operation of mine?”

“A, you are not nearly as suave as you like to think you are,” Jason spits and grins at the twitch of his eyebrow. He hit a nerve there. “B, the guys you employ love to run their mouth, you should be careful with that. And C, nothing goes on in this city without me knowing about it.” He ignores the blood pooling at the back of his mouth from this bitten tongue, keeps his voice steady. “You really thought you could take your share of the cake here without me coming by to let you know the rules?”

“That’s why you’re the one bound to a chair and I’m the one holding the gun?”

“I’m exactly where I want to be,” Jason bluffs, lets cockiness slip in his tone. Truth is, he only wants to get out of here as fast as he can, the plan was to blow up this jerk’s warehouse, where he transits his supplies of guns and stolen goods. He rigged the entire building, all set on a timer, about to go off sooner than later. He wasn’t expecting company, which is right where the ‘royally fucked up’ component of this evening comes in.

“I think you’re full of shit.” Jack sneers. “And I think you’re stalling because, despite the name you’re using and your cute little gadgets, you’re nothing but a loud mouth.”

“Then why don’t you just kill me?” Just a little more, he can feel it, just a few more seconds and he’ll get the handcuffs off and then the fun will begin. But he should have excepted this asshole to raise to the second bait, just to piss him. Jack grabs the gun out of lackey three’s hands and Jason only has a moment to hope to god he’s good enough to have built a helmet that’ll withstand a point-blank shot.

It happens so slowly, the handcuffs falling from his wrist, his shoulders coiling as the finger presses the trigger and the shoot firing at him. Then nothing but noise and a flash of blinding white. His head is jerked back violently, his back arches as a terrible, overwhelming noise rumble throughout his skull, like thunder cracking.

For one agonizing, quiet and hopeful moment he truly believes he’s dead, gone for good.

And then he opens his eyes to his helmet’s blown-out lenses, cracked and grey, and realizes the noise is a combination of his ears ringing from the sheer volume of the shot and the sound receptors that must have been killed with it, creating a loop of feedback that almost distract him from the way Jack is standing with his back toward him. He has no idea how long he was out, if the warmth he feels on his face is sweat or blood and if he’ll even be able to walk but he doesn’t care much, Jason knows an opportunity when he sees one.

He takes two breaths in, the first to get a hold of the nausea rolling in his stomach and the second to push back the pain blasting from his shoulder and in his skull. It’s all mechanical when he pushes himself off the chair and lunges at Jack, ripping the gun off his hand to point at his head, daring the others to shoot at them. His moment of glory is cut short when he catches a spark out of the corner of his eyes, already cursing this evening to hell and back. Time to make his exit then.

He slams the gun into Jack’s head and shoots once toward the audience before making a go for the nearest door, thankful still open. The ten strides it takes him to get there feel like forever, and it’s still not enough to avoid the blast, the hot air washing over him as the main structure crumbles behind him.

Jason falls to his hands and knees, ears ringing and vision blurring. He’s retching up blood and bile and spit before he can take off his helmet, the sound of screams and fire eating at the metal roaring behind him.

#not sure how i fell about this one but glad i finally wrote him #wt22 #dc #jason todd #used an alternative prompt because it screamed jason to me hehe

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someoneimsure · 2 years

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What are some of your all time favorite charcters?

Oh, that's simple! I've never ranked them together before so this is gonna be fun.

BATMAN, Bruce Wayne from DCAU BTAS & JLU. Batman's core character was a man who cared so much about his city that he willingly dressed up as a bat to scare criminals off the streets because he would never want anyone to experience the horror he suffered as a child. This is the Batman who would sit next to Ace and hold her hand as she died. This is the Batman who would threaten the United States government if he thought it would save lives. This man is a freaking legend. (Not to be confused with the Batman of TNBA. Fuck that guy. He's a hollowed out shell of his former self and it makes no sense to me at all how BTAS Batman became JLU Batman and then TNBA Batman. The timelines don't add up at all.)

RED HOOD, Jason Todd from the DCAMU Under the Red Hood. I watched the movie before I read the comics, and I honestly prefer the movie ending over the comic book ending. It's what got me into reading the comics. He just fascinates me so much. Like, I love his ugliness and the way his story made me open my mind and think about the possibilities. Even now, I honestly want to sit down for a minute one of theses days and write a version of UTRH for BTAS. (It also honestly still confuses the hell out of me why Nightwing was there in the beginning and never came back for the end in the movie version. Like there wasn't a storyline going on in Bludhaven in the movies that would require him disappearing for the second half of the plot--just think of the possibilities!)

RED ROBIN, Tim Drake-Wayne from the Red Robin run. This man has an identity crisis every other issue, I swear, when he isn't falling to his death and thinking about how he only wishes he could see Conner again. The homoerotic subtext and subtle un-reciprocated romance has sold me on the Timkon. That's not to mention his most basic and fundamental trait: He exists as Batman's anchor. That's what his entire reason for becoming a hero is all about: keeping the Batman grounded and preventing him from becoming a violent maniac that needs to be put down. Because, deep down, Tim is intelligent. Yes, I do think he is a genius. Is he the smartest Robin? Dependson how you define intelligence. He's certainly not the most skilled and fundamentally he is kind of a loser, but he understands The Mission without being told, understands the "necessity" of Batman, doesn't need a tragic backstory to do what it takes to save a hero, and that makes him a hero in my book.

ROBIN V, Damian Wayne from the comics. It's hard to pin down exactly what storyline I like about Damian because I haven't read any good ones yet but my all time favorite panels are those with him and Jon Kent. Specifically, Damian telling Jon not to doubt himself because he was made for the purpose of becoming Superman--a sentiment Damian also shares. I didn't understand the character all that much before that, but I was sold. I literally look at every panel with him in it differently because of it. Damian is an "I am destined to be Batman. Everyone else needs to get over it" son of a gun, and I can totally get behind that attitude of "This is me, deal with it." He is my spirit animal, and him loving animals and being a piece of shit is just a bonus.

THE FLASH, Wally West from DCAU JLU. My all time favorite episode of the entire JL&JLU run was his. He set the bar for superheros for me and everyone else simply fails if they cannot reach that bar. I still remember the episode of Flash and Substance where The Flash asks Batman and Orion to make an appearance at the opening of the Flash Museum. My favorite all time scene was him sitting next to The Trickster and just talking to him to convince him to give up his enemies. They have such a good rep that The Trickster willingly agrees to turn himself into the police just for The Flash. That's such good writing. Now, in my mind, a superhero should help everyone, even their enemies.

SUPERBOY, Conner Kent from the Young Justice comics. I haven't read his solo run yet and it's in the queue but I'll get there eventually, but the tone of the Young Justice comics and his growth as a character throughout has rapidly made him my all time favorite YJ character. My absolute favorite part about him is the black and white morality he has and the conflict between him and Tim. Like, I understand in real life that black and white morality is a child's dream, but I like heroes who have lines they will absolutely not cross. (He's better than the YJTV version which feels like a blank slate and an over all bland character who should have run off and rebelled against his 'destiny' long ago.)

I was going to include my favorite characters from other franchises but my memory is shit if I'm not looking directly at the thing I want to talk about so I hope just the DC stuff is okay.

#asks #thanks for the ask! <3 #DCAU #Batman #Red Hood #my post #The Flash #my favorites #Red Robin #Tim Drake #Tim Wayne #Bruce Wayne #Jason Todd #Damian Wayne #my meta

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ao3feed-brucewayne · 2 years

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only the dead ( stay 15 forever )

by fyeahjasontodd

Jason would be Bruce’s slaughterhouse, his killing floor, his morgue and final resting. It didn’t matter if Bruce would kill for him or not, because he couldn’t make him love a dead boy, and he was tired of Bruce acting all high and mighty when he let his crusade of children bruise blue and black for his endless war.

—

“Jay,” Bruce said. “It doesn’t matter. You’re my son. That has never changed.” his voice was soft, barely a whisper, and Jason’s heart throbbed like an open wound.

“Your son is dead,” Jason replied, “And you never avenged him. Your hands are clean.”

Bruce reached for him again, low and broken and he looked like he was one touch away from shattering into a thousand pieces. (Jason was already in ruins.) “My mind is not.”

—

aka : jason returns to gotham, vision permanently tainted a nice shade of neon green, and with one defining goal. make gotham a better place, or die trying.

Words: 6724, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Batman - All Media Types

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death

Categories: Gen

Characters: Jason Todd, Dick Grayson, Bruce Wayne, Cassandra Cain, Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown, Alfred Pennyworth, Damian Wayne

Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Cassandra Cain & Jason Todd

Additional Tags: jason is my potty mouthed child, character death bc jason ….. but it didn’t stick, jason “traumatise your father back” todd, jason has names for his guns, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd Returns Home, utrh divergence!!!!!!, is it really a fyeahjasontodd work if it doesn’t feature a deeply depressed protagonist, canon has nothing on me i make my own RULES, jason mostly has control of the pit rage here

source https://archiveofourown.org/works/40415364

#IFTTT #bruce wayne #batman #the dark knight #the cape crusader #gotham #dc universe #ao3 #ao3feed

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nonagesimus · 3 years

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Fic Masterlist

DC Fic

cancrizans passerine: a reverse robins series

butcherbird baby: (complete, 9K) Damian, al Ghul to Wayne

violet-backed starling: (complete, 22K) The Cluemaster has a mole.

chickadee: (complete, 77K) Summer in Gotham City.

a very many hoods: a multiverse of red hoods series, complete

a hero - (complete, 15K) red hood dick grayson

a good detective - (complete, 18K) red hood tim drake

[blank] - (complete, 20K) red hood stephanie brown

Ibn al Xu’ffasch - (complete, 16K) red hood damian wayne

batman - (complete, 57K) red hood bruce wayne

my father’s second son (dick and jason centric, 2.4K) dick finds out what went down between bruce and jason after damian’s death. now with a spyral era, jason pov companion piece brothers in arms (2.1K)

the bad year (jason + batfam centric, 7K) visitors to Arkham Asylum during jason’s internment. now with jason pov companion piece visiting hours (4.7K)

someone else’s son (jason, dick, & bruce centric, 9.6K) fathers and sons

code of conduct (steph centric, 3K) steph and her relationship with authority, spoilers for Batgirls #15

dead boy walking (jason centric, 23K) UTRH era de-aging fic

catch and release (jason and dick centric, 2.5K) whumptober 2023 day one fill, safety net, swooning

in the lungs (steph and tim centric, 2.8K) whumptober 2023 day fourteen fill, flare, water inhalation, “just hold on”

bloodstained (jason and dick centric, 2.7K) whumptober 2023 day twenty-seven fill, “you drew stars around my scars; now I’m bleeding”, scars, “let me see.”

mycelia (bruce, dick, jason, and tim, 20K) TLOU AU

chilled (jason & mr. freeze, 2.5k) jason wants to get the job done, fries is curious

turncoat (dick centric, 1/3) spyral era dick fic written for dick grayson anniversary week 2024

Tumblr Fic

Dick and Steph stakeout, prompted by ana for my 2022 birthday prompts Steph and Jason narrative parallels, prompted by vvienne for my 2023 birthday prompts Jason giving Dick a pep talk, prompted by ana for my 2023 birthday prompts Damian and Tim reluctant bonding, prompted by vvienne for my 2023 birthday prompts #alfredcritical, prompted by ana for my 2023 birthday prompts

Supernatural Fic

Longform

some space underneath my skin (sastiel, complete, 23K) the ‘souless sam and cas were fucking’ fic, sequel is muscle memory (sastiel, 5.8K, explicit) and there are two prompt fics set in later seasons here (heed the warnings)

outs in free (gen, jess centric, 3/6 chapters) jess wakes up to see her boyfriend plastered to the ceiling, before he bursts into flames. his brother dean says he’ll teach her to hunt what killed him.

the body and the boneyard (gen, winchester centric, complete, 30K) the munchausen by proxy AU

the blood in your mouth (i wish it was mine) (sambrady, complete, 18K) Sam is nineteen when he falls for Brady, twenty when it breaks bad, and twenty-seven when he learns the truth about why it shattered. It’s a pity it’s too late by then.

Shortform

getting comfortable (sambrady, 1.7K) sam and brady’s relationship in a bradyjess role-swap AU

A Magic Trick (gen, sam-centric, 1.3K-ish) the card-shuffle stim fic

helpless as a chess piece (gen, sam-centric 2K) a study on sam and self-medication (cw for substance abuse and PTSD)

abominable (sampaul, 1.3K) a queer sam study set in s05e17 99 Problems

if you think it’s love (it is) (sastiel, 2.4K) sam thinks it’s about time cas gets that date

a wild and an untamed thing (samjessbrady, 2.7K) an extremely self indulgent stanford era Rocky Horror Picture Show shadowcast fic. There’s a tumblr fic semi-sequel, Dean POV, that cements it as an AU here

sword on a thread (samruby, 2.3K, explicit) A samruby relationship study.

a way out (gen, 8K) sam-centric case fic immedietely pre-stanford

lucifer spoke thus (gen, 1.3K) sam has a panic attack. no one likes who talks him down.

Tumblr Fic

pomegranate fic (pre-sastiel, >1K) Angel Blood fic, (sastiel, 700ish words) Demon Sam from Jess’ POV (samjess, 1K words) Sastiel Posession Fic (sastiel, 900ish words) Sastiel Purgatory Conversation (sastiel, 500ish words) Pre-Stanford Fight Fic (gen, 900ish words, extended into a way out) Early s14 Sastiel (sastiel, 700ish words) Sam comes out to Cas (sastiel, 1K words) huddling for warmth (sambrady 1K words) girl!sam (gen, 800ish words)

#my fic #just doing a new pinned post friends pay it no mind

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scaryscarecrows · 3 years

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Will Trade Soup for Intel

Potential Gotham Knights ‘verse. For those who did not see the trailer: Bruce is dead (pfft, suuuuure he is), Jim Gordon is dead (Jim, no!), the Court of Owls appears (this is gonna be bad), Batgirl and Robins 1-3 have guardianship of Gotham. For this piece: Penguin is also dead. Dove has his operation. And the flu. :p

***

Tim’s not sure where he thought Jason was going to take him. Honestly, because it’s Jason, he was sort of thinking, ‘seedy hole in the wall where retired hitmen go’. Or something. Or maybe an orphanage, or an under-the-bridge camp; the Alley Kids don’t throw bottles and needles at him, unlike the others. They demand rides.

(Yeah, it’s funny but also scary to see the Red Hood, known for his duffle bag of heads, giving a little girl a piggyback ride.)

This is not one of those places. This is some apartment building in midtown with a doorman and everything. And, y’know, it’s daytime, which...they don’t operate in the daytime that much unless they’re undercover, and they don’t appear to be. Jason told Tim to dress like a real boy and stick his domino on in the elevator, but he’s wearing what he always does; jeans, hoodie, heavy boots. And he’s carrying a brown bag that smells like soup. No helmet in sight, and Tim knows he won’t wear a domino now. They bug the scar*, he says.

“Where are we?”

“To see an old friend. I’m out of other ideas.”

“What, are they a conspiracy professor or something?”

“No.”

The doorman waves them through and they wait for an empty elevator. Jason presses the third-floor button and settles in, adjusting the bag in his arms. For all the crap they give...gave...Bruce about theatrics, Jason’s no better. He lives for building the suspense. Tim had nearly murdered him again for that stupid monk joke. Asshole. Ten minutes from his life, and for that? Humph.

A cotton face mask whaps him in the chest while he’s adjusting his domino and he frowns.

“What.”

“You’re fragile, and she’s got the flu, which is why we’re here in the daytime. I’m basically immune after my, um, upgrade points got cashed in, but you are a Victorian maiden who'll probably turn it into tuberculosis and die and I can’t deal with Dick after that.”

Huh.

…

Whatever. You lose one spleen…

He puts the mask on, too, making sure Jason sees his glower, just as the elevator dings to a halt.

Tim starts to suspect they’re not invited, exactly, when Jason shoves the bag at him and drops down to pick the lock. Though he does knock and call, “Don’t get up!”, so.

“There. Give me that before you spill something...hey, Miss Marquis! I brought soup!”

…

Jason couldn’t have just told him this, why?

There’s furious coughing in the other room, followed by movement, and a minute later Dove shuffles out, wrapped in a blanket and wearing what appear to be bunny slippers. She looks terrible.

“For the tenth time, I don’t care how immune you think you are, you’re going to get sick and I can take care of myself.”

“Haven’t gotten sick yet,” Jason says cheerfully. “‘Sides, it’s, like, partly a bribe.”

Dove doesn’t look convinced. Tim’s not convinced, either. Jason, when left to his own devices, can and will out-mother-hen Dick. He’s just usually scarier when he does it. More like Alfred.

Before any further argument can happen, Dove starts coughing again and winds up clutching the doorframe with one hand and holding the other up to keep Jason at bay.

“Thought you were gonna take Theraflu,” Jason says sulkily. Dove reaches up to pinch the bridge of her nose.

“I will take it if I need it, Hood.” Tim sympathizes. Theraflu tastes like sadness. At least Robitussin is nice. “I promise this isn’t my first flu, I am fine. ” This is not a battle she’ll win. Tim knows. Tim has tried and failed. Jason had loomed at him and told him, oh-so-nicely, that he would take the Theraflu or that it would breach his defenses. “What do you want.”

Jason holds up the bag.

“Fridge or bowl?”

“Fridge, please.”

“Tea?”

“If I say yes, will you settle down?”

“For now.”

She sighs and totters over to an armchair.

“Fine.”

“What kind.”

“I’ve got some sort of zinger tea in there, that would be very nice.”

Jason vanishes into the kitchen. Dove sinks into her chair, pulling her blanket tighter around her shoulders, and waves at the couch.

“Siddown, Robin.”

“Sorry we broke in,” he says, because Jason won’t. Dove just shakes her head.

“This isn’t the first time or the last time,” she says. “At least you used the door...if you need a drink or somethin’, help yourself.”

Jason comes back, steaming mug in his hands.

“I’ll get it,” he says. “Bird boy here shouldn’t touch the kitchen.”

Slander.

“Nightwing’s worse.”

“Still. Here y’go.”

“Thanks, honey.” Dove leans up to take it before shooing him back. “Now. Why are you here.”

Jason settles onto the couch next to Tim and leans forward, worrying at his lower lip.

“This is going to sound crazy.”

“Well, that’s interesting.”

“Do you know anything about the Court of Owls?”

Dove snorts, coughs, and takes a sip of her tea.

“What?”

“You know…beware the court of owls that watches all the time, ruling Gotham from a shadowed perch behind granite and lime. They watch you at your hearth, they watch you in your bed. Speak not a whispered word of them--”

“Or they’ll send the Talon for your head, I know the rhyme.” She takes another sip. “It’s a scary story to keep kids in line, you know that.”

“We thought so, but.” He shrugs. “”Had a run-in with...something...last night that, um. Looked a little dead. But not dead like me, dead like...I don’t know. It was like it wasn’t human anymore. Or ever. I don’t know.”

Well, that’s a surprise. Tim wonders if Jason just straight-up admitted what happened or if Dove got it out of him or from some other source.

“Croc’s not human, either, kid.”

“No. This thing...I didn’t...I broke its neck and it fucking twisted it back into place.”

Dove frowns.

“You’re sure?”

“Uh-huh. And before that I emptied literally twelve bullets into this thing and it didn’t even flinch. I’m telling you, something wasn’t right and it was wearing an owl mask.”

Tim nods.

“There have been four murders committed with daggers that have owl insignias on them,” he says. “We think these two things are related.”

“Owl daggers?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Can I see one?”

“I brought a picture. The daggers are police evidence.”

“Like you boys didn’t borrow one,” she says, but sits up when Jason comes over with the phone. “I’ve seen something like this before.”

Well, that was unexpected.

“When?”

“Years ago, now. Penguin had one that he got from who-knows-where. It went missing one night-we chalked it up to Catwoman and let it go-but we did have people offer to buy it a few times. Generous offers, too.”

“He wouldn’t sell?” Odd. Penguin loved money almost as much as his pet birds. “Can you remember who offered?”

“Rich men, you know the type. They like...oddities.”

Tim does know the type. During Dick’s stint as Batman, he’d stumbled upon an auction house that specialized in some nasty things, including a very particular crowbar.

(Jason, as far as Tim knows, has no idea about this.)

“Did he say anything about it?”

“No. He put it in his office, in a little case, and honestly, I sort of figured someone had tried to kill him with it. He was funny about things like that.”

That’s an understatement. Penguin had been very proud of the bottle in his eye, among other things.

Dove starts coughing again and ends up setting her tea on the end table. Jason’s halfway over there when the coughs turn to sputters and she manages to wheeze out a, “Fine. M’fine.”

“This is why you should take Theraflu.”

“Honey…”

“I can make--”

“Hon.” He shuts up. “I’m okay. It’s just the flu, give me another week and I’ll be back to normal.” She takes a shuddery breath and picks up her tea again. “I promise. Now. I don’t.” Another shuddery breath, but no coughing this time. “I don’t know anything else off the top of my head, but. Little fuzzy.” She tugs at her blanket until it’s closed around her neck, just under her chin. “If anything comes up, I’ll let you know-ow- shit --”

The coughs don’t stop this time and she winds up bent nearly double, arms curled up to, presumably, brace her ribs. Ouch. When they finally wane, she’s red-faced and wheezing and looking fairly well miserable. Tim’s just about to nudge Jason when she stands up, clutching her mug in white, shaky fingers, and says, “I am going back to bed. Lock up behind yourselves.”

“Can we do anything?”

“No, hon. But thanks. You boys.” A finger goes up and she sort of... hics ...but nothing happens. “You boys stay safe. Don’t do anything. Anything reckless.”

Reckless? Humph. They’re not reckless. Adventurous, is Tim’s preferred term. So one time he leapt off a building knowing his grappler wasn’t working. Dick caught him, like he knew he would. It was leap or be eaten, and being eaten was by far the uglier choice.

“Reckless? Us?” Jason mock-gasps. “Thanks. Soup’s in the fridge. Want me to make you a Thera--”

“ No. Thank you.”

THE END

*I’m debating on whether or not that scar is Joker-related (could be an aborted Glasgow?) OR Batarang-caused: maybe Bruce hit his face rather than his throat in this version of UtRH. Either way, ow.

#Jason Todd #Tim Drake #Dove Marquis #Gotham Knights #maybe #Court of Owls #fic

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astrologista · 4 years

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jason stop dying

ooooook i just watched ditf. it was PRETTY GOOD.... i only wish there was MOOORE! watching this REALLY brought me back to 2011 times to see it and i think they did a good job with most of the character design and animations insofar as matching it to the original. (maybe i’m totally wrong but i thought it looked good for the most part... also i just really love these character designs in particular). obviously the budget is not what it would be on a feature, so there are a LOT of places where animation gets recycled and many still frames. some parts are basically a slideshow lol. but i only sort of came to that realization awhile after watching, so i think they did a fairly good job of masking this... ymmv

so let’s get into it!!!

SPOILERS a-head! do not read until you’ve watched it because i’ll spoil everything

now obviously the thing to be aware of if you are not is the fact that this adaptation is not a panel-by-panel adaptation of the original death in the family comic. all references to jason’s mother (save one mention of her dying of illness) are completely removed, they go to bosnia instead of africa, and the circumstances around jason leaving are also heavily altered to fit the new narrative. this adaptation does slot perfectly into the universe established by the under the red hood animated movie from 2011 though, without which one would be pretty confused when watching this. it’s kind of a mystery as to why they didn’t just package this with utrh and release the entire thing as a collectors edition. instead they package it with like 4 or 5 unrelated dc showcase shorts which makes absolutely 0 sense but go off i guess. anyway

i liked that they took the time to adapt the scene from the original ditf where bruce is talking to alfred about jason! (i do not like that alfred didn’t get any lines. bad choice). tbh i can’t understand why they bothered showing us alfred, barbara and dick if they weren’t gonna give them any lines..... like come on........??

HOW INTENSE BRUCE LOOKS WHEN HE FINDS JASON IN SARAJEVO and just. grabs him lol. hes smad :)

ok so one two skip a few and we get to the first branch. instead of calling 1-900 we now get to choose whether jason lives or dies. there are 7 possible endings i think i got em all so let’s see what we got here.

“Hush” Route - Robin cheats death

hgrgdggr. i definitely think this is one of the more interesting endings, if not the most interesting one. this is also the only ending in which both bruce and jason survive the bombing. bruce is still too late, but this time jason barely clings to life and survives. as a hurt/comfort fan i was 100% on this shit from the word go but then jason? runs away from home lmao lmao i thought that was SO funny because 1) hes super messed up, how is he able to just literally run out the house that is SO funny to me and 2) implying that bruce would ever not be keeping an eye on him after that is just, lmao. it’s so zany. i call this the “hush” route because of the bandages but there are no other references to hush so ok. that’s fair. so anyway jason is now angsty for loosely explained reasons but the most fun part is yet to come.

when talia showed up, i really thought / was terrified for a second that they were gonna bring up certain “events” regarding damian’s parentage / who damian’s father is but then she mentioned bruce and i was like OH THANK GOD WE CAN STILL GO TO HEAVEN. i am so so grateful to the writers for NOT going there. cuz it was damn close ok. im not sure what the implication of this route is in terms of talia, jason and damian being a family unit but i want to believe talia sees jason as a son and damian’s brother (which is how she refers to him, damian’s brother) and not... yknow. i mean. jason raising a baby is kind of like a baby raising a baby...

no actually the reality of this scene is really dfuckin interesting like. they actually go with the “birth of the demon” (forget if it was birth of the demon or bride of the demon. one of those.) explanation for damian and that is something i’ve NEVER seen adapted so whoever wrote this can have a cookie and i kNOW this is something a certain someone will appreciate :)

not only that but the implications? are interesting? so talia’s claim is she miscarried so bruce won’t have to “choose” between damian and jason and idk if she’s supposed to be all on the-up-and-up in this universe but. i’m sitting here like GIRL YOU DON’T GOTTA DO THIS HE HAS A PRIVATE JET HAVEN’T YOU HEARD OF SHARED CUSTODY and BETTER YET HE HAS A MANSION JUST GO ON MAURY AND GET THIS SORTED OUT RIGHT NOWwwww

i’m also LAUGHING at the implications of jason thinking theres anywhere on earth that he’s going to go and hide damian’s existence from bruce. because you already know he’s just going to be tearing the planet apart looking for jason so this is actually hilarious. imagine he finds jason in one piece and also a baby. his baby. he’d be like (@ talia) “OMG WHY WOULD YOU THINK I WOULDN’T WANT THEM BOTH u are tearing me apart talia......” BUT THEN HE WOULD BE SO FREAKING HAPPY BECAUSE HE HAS TWO ALIVE SONS AND HE THOUGHT THEY WERE BOTH DEAD / (lost to crime)!!!

please lord imagine all of jason’s angst probably just originating from the fact that he has a brain injury that hasn’t fully healed and the trauma of going through all those surgeries probably gave him a lot of fear / paranoia about bruce and associating him with the joker because his neural pathways are all messed up but after he leaves he starts slowly healing back and regaining some of his lost sanity and thats when he realizes he misses bruce so much... but hes also raising his child... and every day it gets more difficult for him not to just take damian and bring him home and i ;v;

anyway i thought this route, while it had a few inconsistencies in it, was really freaking interesting and it gave me feels and plot bunnies and is probably the one i want to write about the MOST despite the fact that baby damian looks like a character from one of those web flash games in this lol

“True” End - Jason Dies

now if you select that jason dies the route basically defaults to the canon of under the red hood and the fact that utrh does not come packaged with this movie is a rather mystifying choice to me as i don’t think this adaptation would stand on its own very well. like you need quite a bit of background to really get anything out of watching this on its own, which is probably why it’s classified as a “short” and not as its own movie.

instead of showing all of utrh, it seems they took the opportunity to give a ~30 minute recap of utrh with basically entirely reused animation but they allow bruce to sort of. give his dvd commentary over it.

the biggest feeling i have on this is that it’s sad that they had to waste 30 minutes like this that could’ve been used to do something new and much more interesting, but honestly i’m not mad. it seems kind of obvious that this choice was probably made for budget and/or runtime reasons because a short does not get the same budget set aside as a full length feature film does. so they basically took the option of recycling 30 minutes of animation from the movie and dubbing new audio over it.

in evangelion they ran out of budget and that’s why the last two episodes consist of nothing more than still pencil drawings and frames while the characters engage in philosophical debates concerning the nature of reality and human connection. and i really enjoyed that. and for the same reasons, i also really enjoyed this.

i enjoyed seeing the clark kent of this universe. i enjoyed that he was basically out on a date with bruce. i enjoyed that bruce was willing to open up for once and tell clark all of what happened with jason. but what really makes this segment shine bright are bruce greenwood’s line reads. there are SO MANY good line reads in here. and i LOVED how many times he said the word “son”. very wholesome. the way he describes how he felt during the final fight with jason? probs my favorite FUCKING part.

and then him and clark joking together about contingency plans and then they’re going to work together to find jason and i ;_; this is probably the closest thing to a “good” ending but as a continuation of utrh i thought it worked really well. i really want to believe that bruce and clark did find jason in this route and that there was some closure in the end even though we didn’t get to see it.

including clark in this was DEFINITELY the right move as well, considering that he played a rather large role in the original ditf so it’s a welcome nod.

The rest of the branches exist under a separate option where Bruce makes it in time to save Jason from the warehouse... but Bruce dies......... :O

let me tell you bout it... bruce’s fucking DEATH SCENE i don’t know WHAT my man bruce greenwood is on, but the freaking LINE READS in this dialogue had me making INHUMAN NOISES. LIKE NOT ONLY WAS THE DIALOGUE GOOD, NOT ONLY DID HE SAY “I LOVE YOU, SON”, but this man is just an amazing actor. not just voice actor, but actor. he really really really really gave it the most i don’t know how else to say it....... it was very very well done and punched me sideways in the heart and i haven’t recovered and i’m not going to recover. and

ok so once we get past that.... scene.... u have to choose whether you’re going to catch the joker or kill the joker. bruce asks jason to promise not to kill the joker but technically jason doesn’t promise so........

Let’s start by choosing to kill the Joker. Jason attends Bruce’s funeral and various members of the Justice League show up to talk with him and just generally hang out. He has Alfred, Dick and Barbara as his support system, but Jason has some other plans.

This leads to a scene in a cafe where Jason meets with a man who... something something Killing Joke, flashlight, more Barbara being used as a plot device when she deserves better, Jason kills the Joker with a butter knife.

Once you do this you can choose to surrender to the police, or retaliate and escape.

Jailbird Ending

basically if you surrender to the police jason ends up in prison where he can actually attack even more criminals so.... ya

If you retaliate and escape instead you go to the Red Robin route where Jason becomes a vigilante who kills people much like the Red Hood and you get a further choice in a fight with Two Face where you can control how Harvey’s coin lands.

Tim Ending!

If you choose the coin to land clean face up, the thing rewards you by having Tim show up and I forgot what happened (wasn’t really paying attention lol) because i was so focused on TIM!

Prolly they felt sorry for him what with Jason stealing what is essentially his outfit (ok I know it was Jason’s first, but Tim made it cool) so they let a little baby tim have an appearance :) he’s very smol

I guess in this ending Jason gets reintegrated with the family somehow and Tim becomes “Bat-kid” which is hilarious to me but you know what it’s cute. CUTE.

The one ending where the coin lands scarred side up

i honestly forget what happens if you choose to have the coin land scarred side up but let me just say this is a FUCKED route to take, not only have you had jason survive and bruce die, you’ve now chosen to kill the joker against bruce’s dying wish, you’ve chosen to attack the police, and at the end of that you really are gonna choose harvey’s coin to be scarred face up???? choosing this made me feel like a DICK because here i am supporting jason’s whole fall to madness and villainy thing the way it wants me to and now he’s gonna die HERE? i hate it here.

interestingly enough he doesn’t actually die in this route. he ends up at home with barbara and dick while dealing with the fact that he killed the joker but the route ends with jason saying “i promise” so i guess this is supposed to be kinda sad. im so confused lol ok

So that is all the options if you choose to kill the joker, I believe. You can also make the choice to just catch him instead of killing him but amazingly enough, those routes are even more FUCKED up.

If you do this option Jason goes home, mourns Bruce with Dick, Barbara and Alfred, and becomes Red Hood BUT with a twist, he’s entirely on a bloodless operation in line with Bruce’s wishes. OR.... IS HE?

Things then follow the events of UTRH until the scene on the bridge with the van and the guys. Jason finally confronts Joker, who reveals the truth.

Apparently in this route Jason has actually been killing and decapitating his victims just like in the original movie, but he’s repressed it so as to not even realize to himself that he’s doing it.

that is FUCKED. also. i wanna cry because jason doing all of that stuff but not even realizing it ;------; jason blocking it out, because he wanted to honor bruce’s wishes for him not to kill anyone ;______; but he’s doing it anyway ;_____; he’s actually hearing voices telling him to kill ;____; like it’s a very cheap twist in a sense and also really quite cruel but.... damn, son.

There is a branch here where you can choose to spare or kill the Joker at this point (UNDERTALE???) but from what I can tell it seems to be totally meaningless what choice you pick because you end up at the exact same point either way, I think there’s a small variation in what happens after you make the choice but after that they just coalesce back together into the following two endings. Which seems incredibly cheap to me, I mean making a choice like that should alter Jason’s path completely but, it doesn’t! So... ooook....

Either way Jason ends up on the Wayne building and Talia shows up with a re-animated Bruce from the pit. Here’s another fun blast from the 2011 past with more gratuitous Grant Morrison dreck, remember that shit? Well, they’re gonna jam it down your throat here, too.

The reanimated Bruce is the Zur En Arrh Bruce and he’s already dead so this is all meaningless but basically Jason fights him and you get to choose whether everybody lives or dies.

Zur En Arrh - Everyone Lives!

if you pick this, jason actually gets the re-animated bruce back to the batcave and they lock him up down there because he’s still pit-mad and the prognosis is not great. but i’m not sure what they expected, he is the zur-en-arrh guy so I don’t think he’s getting better.

Zur En Arrh - Everyone Dies!

pretty much there’s an explosion and all three of them die and that’s it

I think that should be all the possible endings there are.

By the way the different ways in which black mask dies in this was actually a fairly clever running gag lollll. let that mf burn we don’t need no water.

overall there are a couple of things i would have done to SIGNIFICANTLY improve this adaptation beyond some of the obvious ones.

- the fact that all of the branching options are branched exclusively under the “jason lives and bruce dies” branch is a huge wasted opportunity. imo this is the most egregious problem with this, i was really looking for a more balanced tree / explanation of different things. i am probably super biased though being a fic writer and used to fic, we’re the ones making huge ass trees every day lol.

- the fact that there is no “good” ending here is something i kind of expected but given the context of this is lackluster. i sort of get it though because granted, the original ditf ends in an unresolved manner but it’s distinctly unsatisfying here. i secretly wanted an ending where bruce, like, figures out about the different endings and hacks reality to try to find a good ending where jason lives and everything is fine lmao. like a bat mite ending.

- i was disappointed in a sense that the narrative given in here is so basically simplistic? maybe i’ve been spoiled by games like 999 and undertale where shit gets messy and that’s not what this is supposed to be but when i play something with multiple endings in this day and age, at least play with the concept a little bit and connect some of the branches together narratively. use different devices. i was also hoping some of the choices would be a little bit meatier like you could choose to “forgive bruce” or something cool like that lol. but it looks like the majority of choices have to do with who lives or dies. and i felt like they couldve been a bit more creative with that ya know? being able to control harvey’s coin was a GREAT example of having some more fun with this.

- it is a huge missed opportunity not to have a “secret ending” on something like this. like where. the fuck. is my secret ending for completing everything. come on. and in a similar vein there should’ve been at least something in terms of bruce and jason interacting in a “true ending”. even if very brief. the closest thing to an ending this has is the “jason died” route and then the ending where he’s talking to clark which i feel like was a REALLY nice good optimistic ending as far as this goes, but it comes off as kind of disappointing i guess

there were SO many interesting nuggets locked into this thing though. i can’t deny it bugs me how many wasted opportunities there were with how they chose to structure things but i guess it’s the best you can do with limited runtime. i thought it was really well done though, makes an interesting companion piece to the original utrh, and is definitely something that i will be re-watching again soon!! overall i give it a 7/10 and some parts an 8/10+!

#a death in the family #death in the family #ditf #it was cool to see the different ideas they had to offer finally?#for what it was #it was kind of a collection of shorts and half spun ideas #plus i think about this shit like every day #so i cant help but be interested #someone come and talk to me about this #i really want to know #what ppl thought #spoilers #ditf spoilers #death in the family spoilers

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