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see, the thing is that (up until countdown at least) there’s no symmetry in jay and bruce's respective ways of grieving.

jay is perpetually trapped in the bargaining stage of grief, trying to reach out to bruce from beyond death.

bruce is way past this. he has settled into a quiet, passive type of mourning, devoid of hope for a reunion. and to stay in this state, he had to necessarily disregard jay’s true image – an image of an earnest, bright child, his son. the memory of jay has been reconstructed in his mind a thousand times and sealed in a folder labeled as “soldier” (or even just a personal failure). it's ugly. it's unfair. it's a coping mechanism.

so to me, the issue isn't that bruce wants his dead, sweet little boy back – the issue is that he barely remembers him. if he did, maybe he would be willing to take a leap of faith and search for that person in jason who came back. but he's not even trying to reconcile the image of 15yo jay with red hood – or rather, maybe the image of a volatile kid that he created in his grief fits with the red hood a bit too accurately. maybe it's a bit too convenient. it works perfectly well for his own self-preservation and sanity, to think that jason has been doomed from the beginning.

jason, on the other hand, is cursed with remembering. one of the very sparse concepts that i found interesting in rhato was when in #3 (2011) jason chose to give up on his happiest memory – skipping patrol to watch a movie with bruce. maybe it's because recalling these tender, sweet moments is what gives him hope, and motivates him to keep bargaining and trying to reconcile with bruce. and bargaining with reality is exhausting. the readers and jay know that it's a lost cause – both because neither bruce nor jay are the same people anymore, but also because, ironically, batman, the symbol of hope, doesn't have any left when it comes to getting his son back. bruce, in his grief, essentially closed the door. jay, in his grief, is banging on them.

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my fave writing reminder

honestly, this phrase has been on my mind more times than i can count. i've kidnapped it, taken it as a hostage with no ransom money because i need it to live permanently in my head.

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When a Character Is Grieving Someone They Never Got to Say Goodbye To

✧ They talk about the person in past tense… then correct themselves. Then stop talking entirely.

✧ They touch things that belonged to the person like they’re fragile, sacred, about to disappear.

✧ They hoard the last voicemail, last message, last anything. Play it. Don’t play it. Just knowing it exists hurts enough.

✧ They leave something untouched, an empty seat, a half-packed bag, a coffee order that isn’t theirs.

✧ They get irrationally angry when someone else seems to be “moving on.” As if forgetting is betrayal.

✧ They don’t let themselves cry all at once. It comes in pieces. Like they’re afraid too much grief will drown them.

✧ They over-apologize. For being quiet. For being distant. For not being okay.

✧ They become hyper-aware of time, dates, anniversaries, time zones, the exact moment everything ended.

✧ They get superstitious. Ritualistic. As if doing things "right" might reverse something.

✧ They smile when they talk about the person. But it’s brittle. And it never quite touches their eyes.

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"Tana Moon doesn't work as Kon's love interest. You can rewrite her being opportunistic and using a kid to advance her career without Tana being a predator about it." is a totally fine take to have! One I agree with even. There's a compelling pitch in there about a woman who's had to work hard to gain footing in her career and realizing that's not why she got into journalism in the first place. I call this the "fix it in as few steps as possible" transformation and it's a very effective way to keep the character similar to canon while fixing their core issues.

But I think part of the backlash I get is that I'm approaching my take on Tana Moon primarily through "The Superman legacy character's love interest is a Native Hawaiian". Because, much like with what I've written about Asian Lois Lane- DC doesn't realize that they accidentally stumbled on a goldmine. A definitive love story waiting to happen. No other canon or fanon Kon El love interest could politically touch on Superman's themes the way Tana does. Sure, Miss Martian is there as an allegorical immigrant, but part of the appeal of Asian Lois Lane and Tana Moon is that they directly represent something real.

Right now, canonically, Asian Lois Lane is just a fun diverse elseworld way to look at the character. Not something that shakes up everything we've known about Lois Lane. But I hope through what I've shown y'all with Lois Liando, that I've demonstrated how Asian Lois can be so much more than that. She can completely redefine and ground Superman's immigrant themes, how his love triangles work, and how they identify with each other. I feel the same way about Tana Moon. Just give me a chance to get there and stop obsessing over how the white man in the 90's wrote her.

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you can say "women, especially women of color, are often written poorly in comics, so you can't just take everything canon says at face value" and everyone will cheer, but the second you say "which is why purely watsonian analysis of Talia al Ghul, Jade Nguyen, Tana Moon, Catalina Flores, and countless others will never work because you have to acknowledge the biases they were written with" you get called an abuse defender :/

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it's so wild when your parent changes when you become an adult. my dad is very cordial and non confrontational - he regularly helps me with adult stuff like changing the oil or providing insurance tips. he's always smiling when i call him on video and providing jokes when i complain about college

when i was a kid, i would have to tiptoe around his anger issues often, sometimes running quietly past his work table until he got his own place completely separate from our family, locked away for days. every so often he would start screaming in the car and trying to hit me or my brother for talking too loud while my mom attempted to calm him down as he swerved on the road. and now he, smiling, helps me with car insurance.

like oh, this is just who you are when you have power over someone, and this is who you are when you dont have power over someone. no wonder you can have a normal life, friends, work while scaring the shit out of your kids and wife. i see it now. i see why no one would have believed me. that, i think, is one of the core fears of trauma - seeing the outside of it from the perspective of other adults that brushed you aside, and understanding. of course, that understanding gives the opposite of solace; it just gives you more grief with nowhere for it to go

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me every single time

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JT opinions that'll make me insta-block you:

Jason Todd is ugly

Jason is Bruce's favorite

Jason is Alfred's favorite

Jason hates Willis Todd

Jason was "reckless" during ADITF (- and I don't even mean this in the way Bruce does. I mean this in the "Trying to take a civilian out of a potential area of conflict before a known murderer shows up is literally the CORRECT PROTOCOL" way)

Jason isn't queer-coded (esp during UTRH but just in general)

Jason is hot-headed/brash/stupid

Jason hides/represses his emotions (he does NOT. the only reason why he's not yelling about his feelings with a megaphone is because holding Bruce at gunpoint so he'll have to hear about them is more effective)

Jason is dirty/unorganized/lives in a shithole apartment

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can you reblog a two-part post in the correct order?

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you! tumblr user!

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I'll preface this by saying how backed up by canon this is obviously depends on what you count as canon but-

I feel a lot of the time the batfam no killing debate is framed as pragmatism vs. the sanctity of life and that's sometimes true but I actually think quite a lot of arguments for killing rogues are in fact also arguing for life being sacred.

I think characters like Jason, who view controlling crime through any means as a moral right, aren't using that tactic because it's the "easy" way. This page from UTRH is one of my favorite moments for a reason.

It's easy to get caught up in the tragedy of Jason & Bruce here, but Jason has a very lovely and visceral speech that I want to look at.

"The entire graveyards he's filled, the thousands who've suffered, the friends he's crippled.....evil, death worshipping garbage."

And it really comes down to this right? Do you think it's a worse crime to play God and take a human life with your own hands, to destroy their chance at redemption than it is to kill them- even if it means they fill up graveyards? That's not really metaphorical, by the way. Even at the lowest estimates, Joker is in the triple digits of innocent people murdered.

Part of what sets Jason off isn't just that his own death is unavenged - we see him holding newspaper clippings, and just in those we see at least 8 people killed.

I think that for someone like Jason, who was a murder victim, allowing someone like the Joker to live is violating the sanctity of human life. It makes you responsible for the blood on their hands ("I thought I'd be the last person you let him hurt"). And in Gotham? There's practically rivers of innocent blood.

So I don't think saying Jason doesn't value human life really holds water. I think you can make an argument that Jason sometimes has a very calculating view of human life, that he believes that he can play god, that he believes the ends justify the means- but he does value lives.

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NOTICE: As more and more fanfic writers are using generative AI for their works (you uncreative dweebs), I hereby swear on everything I hold dear that I have not and will NEVER use generative AI in ANY of my written work. Everything I post will be organically and creatively my own.

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In regards of the Trump government scraping all trans inclusion in its queer information portion of its websites I have made this thing. Spread the word. Don't let them pretend we never existed.

P.S: Don't like! Reblog! <3

EDIT: Well this got a lot of attention! I got a few users asking to print or repost my art and I am unimaginably grateful to everyone's interest, especially since it's a really simple drawing I made on a whim haha! Anyone who is looking to print these out to hang or hand out or repost on another platform is free to do so, although I ask you to credit me and let people know it's from my Tumblr profile! If anyone wishes to do anything else with my art or post and wants to clarify what I consent to then they can message me privately and I'll explain! <333 all my love to my queer siblings

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fanfic writers are so fucking awesome man. they write novel length fics that are sometimes even better than some published bestselling books written by professional writers. like fanfic writers are professional writers to me and they gift us their masterpieces for free. they give us something we can look forward to after a long day. something from which we can seek comfort when life is hard. something that can be our own little getaway. in a world of capitalism, despite everything, they give us all of these for free. like holy fuck. shout out to every fanfic writer. I wish all fanfic writers a very ‘I love you with all my heart and soul. I thank you from the bottom of my heart’

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Spellcasters hate this fact but if you just stick your fingers in their mouth while they're casting a spell with a verbal component it's literally more effective than a counter spell.