Hi!! i really wanted to know your thoughts on the culmination of romans arc!! i definitely didnt expect him to stick with his siblings even w logan staring him down and promising a place for him in the company after selling. Even though logans never gonna choose his children over himself, i think him trying to get roman back on his side, demonstrated that ultimately he favored roman and it was never gonna be kendall or shiv. Or it could just have been that logan thought roman was easier to crack lol. I really liked the romangerri bit at the end with gerri essentially siding w logan bc it was best for her and the company, w no loyalty to roman (as she should) and his reaction was very interesting. Also what did you think abt the conversation between logan and roman on the way to the reunion w matsenn, could that have alluded to at the very least non straight roman? I also feel like that conversation and shivs comments leaned very heavily on his mommy issues and could also explain his mountain of sexual issues and his fixation and relationship w gerri. i’ve been dying to know what u thought!!

Hi! Thank you, anon, and oof, I loved Roman's arc across the season and especially I loved how different it was from Kendall and Shiv's fall from grace in s1 and s2 respectively.

I think the show does an incredible job generally about the different ways the Roy siblings have internalised and externalised their father's abuse, while still allowing for certain similarities. In so many ways, s3 re-emphasised that with Kendall and Shiv being a sort of dark mirror to each other, and I think it had this wonderful effect narratively of while the two of them were so fixed on reflecting each other, Roman and Connor both got to grow and contort and really develop and regress in their siblings' blindspots.

By that, I mean there was this sort of space opened up by Kendall being ousted and Shiv being on the backstep and both of them still only viewing each other as competition. That newly opened space gave Roman and Connor the room and the opportunity to step up. I think s4's likely to really drum that home with Connor, but for s3, I think we saw what Roman's capable of (for better and for worse) when he's given both guidance and room out of his siblings' shadow, something he hasn't had since - - well. Maybe ever (or at least since Kendall was in rehab).

I was so nervous going into that last scene in the finale, because I was the same as you! I thought there was a risk thatt he'd betray them (especially with him and Kerry being colour-matched!), but I actually think it makes a lot of sense that he wouldn't. Jesse talked a bit in the Controlling the Narrative segment that it was feeling the weight of support from his siblings that let Roman stand his ground, which I think you can really feel in the scene, but I also think there's this interesting layer to it too where the show's really established two things about Roman. The first is that Roman has really good intuition in a way that none of his other siblings do, and the second is that Roman learns in a way that none of his other siblings do.

Roman's greatest strength is his ability to - - mmm, not shapeshift exactly, because I don't think that's what Roman does, but read people enough to know how to accomodate them and play to their personalities and their interests. He does it with Lawrence as far back as 1.06, and it's a skill we've seen develop across season 2 and season 3, but, importantly, one he really grew confidence in over the back half of s3. He's learnt to trust his instincts because he's increasingly realised his instincts are right.

Add that to the fact that Roman takes away lessons when things blow up in his face (which hilariously neither Kendall nor Shiv do), and I think that final scene felt so authentic to who Roman is. He had both gut instinct telling him not to trust his father, and the benefit of hindsight. He's seen exactly how Logan's gone back on his promises to Kendall and Shiv, he's seen that Logan's word only holds it's meaning in the minute he says it. That it doesn't hold under it's own weight, and when faced with Logan's dishonesty, Roman had instead this immediate and brutally naked honesty between him, Kendall and Shiv to fall back on, and right then? There? That mattered a lot.

And as for Logan and Roman's conversation on the boat heading to Matsson – yeah! I actually kind of love how ambiguous the show is being about it, haha, and I think Shiv hit the nail on the head in the car where she said Logan thinks there's something wrong with Roman. I don't know if Logan even necessarily actually thinks he's gay, especially given what just happened with Gerri – in fact, I think there's probably an argument to be made that Logan's latched onto homophobic insults because at least being gay is something he understands over not being able to have sex. If Roman's fucking men, at least he's fucking, and there are ways around it. Not being able to have sex at all, especially to a guy like Logan, I think signals to him that Roman's effectively broken, something put into even starker relief when compared to his other children who have all got very active sex lives (albeit all of them with uhhhhh dysfunction / baggage / manic obsessive issues attached to said sex lives, haha).

As for Roman himself, I do think he's not straight, but I think it's really open to interpretation at this point what that means and I don't expect the show to ever clarify. I do think a lot of his issues stem though from a mix of insecurity and inadequacy complexes, anxiety and being desensitised to sex acts (and as a result attracted to more extreme things) as a side effect of being terminally online. What do you guys think?

Why was the young justice show arc about Tim becoming a leader when it could be about Cassie becoming a leader and Tim learning he doesn't have to be in a leadership role to be a useful member of the team

OH YES OKAY this is super interesting to think about! I’m gonna ramble a bit and perhaps edit this to be coherent or perhaps not! who knows!

I think one of the first things to always bear in mind when looking at the Young Justice cartoon is how fundamentally different it is from the main worlds we see in the comics. The Team of teen heroes is covert ops, rather than public (until the Outsiders in season 3 but to start talking abt Tim and Cassie’s roles in the show bases us more in season 2 first) and there’s no Teen Titans. That changes so much in the scope of the teen heroes. 

The comics Young Justice team formed on it’s own by the Tim, Kon and Bart trio wanting their own team instead of joining an ongoing one, so these kids who were part of the younger generation of heroes were more on their own and able to lead amongst themselves. Vs. in the cartoon, there is only one team option for the younger heroes, which gets us in the position where we have Nightwing and Robin (and Batgirl as well) on one teen team at the same time. In the comics that... doesn’t really happen. Sure groups will team up (graduation day, the times the teen titans and the outsiders or titans teamed up, the red robin/teen titans crossover etc) but I am struggling to think of any instance that’s more than like 3 issues max where there’s two batfam members as full fledged members of the same teen team.

By doing this, having an older batfam member (Dick) in a leadership position and a younger one (Tim) who isn’t, and establishing them as having a pretty close relationship where one is a mentor to the other, like it makes sense that they’d try to do an arc of teaching to pass down that leadership/leadership skills. I think that’s probably the main reason they did it, that and the fact that 2012 which is when Season 2 was airing was also when in the comics ooc New 52 Tim was running around leading the Teen Titans, so it was probably also just an expectation to treat him like he’s going to be a leader one day too. 

Was this the best route to go down for Tim? I don’t necessarily think so, but another problem with the YJ cartoon is them shoving in SO many characters that they really just don’t have the screentime to do super well thought out arcs for all of the characters they introduce.

That leads into the problem with YJ cartoon Cassie. She just... Doesn’t get that much to do most of the time! so she barely even gets an arc, let alone one about learning to be a leader when there’s already so many other characters who are older and more experienced stepping into the leadership positions. I think it’s kind of an inherent challenge with such a large group of characters across multiple teen generations/age groups where the older characters from the first season are just always going to get more of the development and everyone else is kinda gonna get thrown aside after a while. 

I think also the fact that Donna was never Wonder Girl in this universe makes this version of Cassie... different. Because Cassie looked up to Donna so much too and was close to her, not just Diana (remember how she was afraid to wear Donna’s original wonder girl costume because she didn’t wanna ruin it!!! thats why she had the thrown together from her closet costumes)! Like Donna does exist in the world, as a themysciran ambassador, but her being so separated from the hero community negatively effects a lot of the characters imo (Dick, Roy, Cassie, and definitely more, it just... is so weird to have her be a nonexistent part of their lives)

But yeah I think to more succinctly address your question rather than just rambling about the world of the cartoon: I think it boils down to the unique position of having Dick and Tim on a teen team together and wanting to utilize that and connecting them with leadership, and a lack of screentime/depth for their version of Cassie

Just out of curiosity, why don’t you like young justice??

aight, so i knew i was gonna wait to respond to this ‘til i had some time to explain.

and i want to start out by saying that i don’t think Young Justice, as a property, is a bad show. in fact, i think it’s a show that had GREAT potential. i watched every new episode via livestream every saturday lol. and now, i’ll be honest when i say it’s been some time since i’ve rewatched it, and i’m always open to changing opinions. a few years back, i wanted to give it another, fresher perspective and dove in for a rewatch, but ultimately didn’t finish. i don’t remember my reasoning exactly, but i recall being disappointed.and it’s funny i received this ask this week, b/c my friend and i were planning on giving it another rewatch for shits and giggle after finals ( sober or not is tbd ).

but so, here’s where i stand on the show.

i started watching YJ when it was abt 5 episodes into s1. and i binged those first five and stick to my guns that holy SHIT 1-3 are bomb as FUCK. super strong start! Independence Day will never not get me SO HYPE and remind me why i fell in love with DC’s teenage heroes in the first place. it’s so… youthful. a fun conversation for another time.

and now, when i started watching YJ, it was like four months into my making my TT!Kid Flash rp blog, and two months after i’d gotten into reading comics; when i found out Wally was like a biG DC CHARACTER, NOT JUST AN OLD CARTOON ONE-SHOT, i went EVERYWHERE to get my hands on more about Wally West. ironically, the first purchase i ever made from a comic store was a silver age Teen Titans tale, issue #2 of TTY1, and two issues of the old Young Justice comics ( still some of my favorite comics to this day; more on that later ).TL;DRi saw a commercial for YJ, ft. my fave DC char and my fave comic title and went “HOSHIT”.

as the episodes pushed the show’s plot along, it was fun and explorative of a more intense side to the idea of a group of superteens in the DCU. and again, very TEENAGER-Y, which i say in the BEST of ways, considering that was the target audience as well. but, as part of that audience at the time, one of the things that had started to bother me was the character relationships. yeah, i was loving on most of the main cast at the time, but for the first half of the season, the team’s supposedly-close friendships were pushed to the backburner ( EXCEPT for KF and Rob’s, which was one of the only things that got me through the season ). the first season WAS about straining relationships. the social drama was palpable. you NEED conflict in your plots, and char-v-char is especially fun. but i remember feeling like there was little bonding. they were a group of acquaintances, learning to co-habitate the same space- not to say that they didn’t seem like friends, but there was a lack of balance between “teens being professionals in their field” and “teens being immature teens”. both were squeezed in, but both consistently felt forced.

which brings me to the next point: forcing relationships without developing them!i wasn’t sure why i was supposed to care about Roy, like. At all. the team always bringing up that they trained alongside him, grew with the guy, and then??? nada, except when the plot needed edgy tantrumy angst.then there was spitfire. i ship spitfire now, but the ENTIRETY of s1 i was SO FRUSTRATED, because all those two did was bicker. wally was pretty foul to artemis, who was also just plain mean to wally. and i say this with the two of them as my TOP FAVE CHARS.and don’t get me STARTED on the best char on the entire team, KALDUR’AHM!!!! who was shit on by EVERYONE– fandom and plot, alike. actually, i do recall in my last rewatch starting two tallies of everytime kaldur was DISRESPECTED and TREATED LIKE GARBAGE BY TEEN AND ADULT CHARS, versus everytime he was treated respectfully. this boy was BRUTALIZED through s1.m’gann and conner, too– a cute concept, but borderline cringey, even creepy, at times. i was rooting for supermartian. i was. but it was like the writers didn’t know how to write a slowburn. the idea was honestly better on paper than in execution.

the YJ spinoff comics filled in a lot of these gaps, i’ll admit. it explored the chars, their relationships, and their behavior in ways the show seemingly didn’t have time to do, and i LOVE the spinoff series. but i also firmly believe that you shouldn’t need a second media to fix the first. it’s capitalistic and no fun.

through the duration of the show, there were also issues such as the hiatuses. i don’t recall them coming with much warning at a time, nor sticking to much of a schedule. i don’t actually remember what they were for, either. but, before and after each of (three?? was it three?) hiatuses, the showrunners would introduce a new character during a new arc, give said character some liners or plot fodder, and do away with them for the rest of the season ( i.e Rocket, Zatanna, Garth and Tula, etc. ).

i have some other, nitpickier issues– why was wally That Way, why was clark Like That, how come bruce was the ENABLER the entire time, etc– but many can be argued as whether they affected the show as a whole or not.my actual biggest problem was the direction.the director.Greg Weisman.bc idk what the hell he was doing half the time, and i don’t think he knew, either. the writing wasn’t GREAT, but at least it was consistent. Weisman truly had a marketable property, a fan favorite, and one of CN’s best running shows at the time. but between the hiatuses, the writing’s faults, the insufficient character development, and a HUGE ego thanks to his fanbase, Weisman was unable to uphold the integrity of his show. there was both fan-pandering, AS WELL AS consciously going AGAINST fans’ wishes. there was that whole “Ask Greg”-thing, too, where he would get back to a fan once every blue moon and answer background questions about the show’s universe, which became a scene of hot debate. Greg Weisman became the JK Rowling of DC, and lost a lot of my respect with his lack of damage control, and impulse control.

then, with the very inception of the show– and i don’t actually know if i can blame weisman for this or not, but i wanna know who pitched it, otherwise– the show’s CONCEPT. why was Young Justice made with this particular cast of characters, cherrypicked through DC history, aged down or revamped or just cut-and-pasted where they didn’t fit? why was its concept, “COVERT TEAM OF ADOLESCENTS WITH SUPERPOWERS WORKING TOGETHER WITH LACK OF SUPERVISION”? why was the show called “Young Justice” when what they wanted was the TT v3 comics? WHY DID WE NEED TO TURN SUPERMAN INTO THE UNAVAILABLE-FATHER TROPE????? questions that will forever remain unanswered. that’s a lie, i can answer most of them, myself.but all in all, a show with great potential that failed in execution.

season 2, i actually enjoyed more than season 1– it felt like there was more of a handle on the story and cast, alike. did i approve of season 2 and what went down? debatable. but that’s a very subjective view. objectively, season 2 flowed better than season 1, but still didn’t follow through on subplots, nor resolved relationships or even characterization ( m’gann, girl what the fuck?? ). very little team bonding, save for, once again, two chars out of the whole team. again, another season of SO much potential, but one that fell short.

its pros, however– i really enjoyed the darker themes, getting darker as time went on. there was a lot of tragedy in s2, and different perspectives and walks of life to watch through different lenses. a much more diverse cast, and very different conflicts to tackle. i was impressed. i don’t think all the controversies were resolved, but i also wasn’t quite as upset that they weren’t; open-ended conflict is frustrating, but is a great lead-in to another season.

————which, for better or for worse, we weren’t supposed to have.i personally would’ve rather the show ended there, not quite on a high note ( are u fucking kidding me fjaoisdfjoaifio waLLY, this was during the n52, too ), but with a concrete END. of course there was more to explore, the world they’d built was a big one, but we didn’t need to.

i was literally just yesterday chatting w my sis, bc after school lets out, we wanna watch season 3. i really do. i’m upset that there is one, but i do wanna know what happens to my faves. and, on top of that, i’ve been meaning to do one BIG rewatch, anyways, to get me set up for s3. as a student of film, it’s a huge philosophy of mine to rewatch EVERYTHING and go in with the intent of giving it a fresh start and a clean slate– both medias i love, and medias i hate. it’s important to analyze pop culture critically, and even things that aren’t good can still be enjoyable.

for me, Young Justice wasn’t a phenomenal show to begin with, from its technological side to its creative team to its politics, and i stopped enjoying it pretty early on. but, that isn’t to say it didn’t accomplish GREAT things, and isn’t UN-enjoyable; it has its moments. also i would DIE for most of the cast, i fucking love the characters.

i don’t think anyone is wrong for liking Young Justice. i try to stay in the loop about it, and form new opinions based on whatever information is out there until i can get ahold of the source material. and, i do like aspects of the show. but ultimately, it just isn’t my cup of tea.