#(as opposed to the fanon ‘jaylad’)

[inamindfarfaraway]

Listen. I like a good ‘Comics Tim gets turned into Joker Junior’ fic as much as the next angst-loving Batfam fan. But given that Batman: The Animated Series Tim is just Jason Todd under a different name, on all counts - backstory, place in the Batfamily timeline, personality, right down to his career as Robin ending with his capture, torture and in at least one sense murder by the Joker (literal death vs the death of his sanity and identity) that doesn’t stick - I maintain that if we’re transferring this plot to the comics continuity, it should be Jason. Fifteen-year-old Jason. Aka Robin II, adopted by Bruce out of poverty with a dead mother and criminal father who was killed by Two-Face, aka exactly who Tim is B:TAS. It just makes more sense! And it’s no less interesting!

A warehouse explodes in Ethiopia. Bruce searches through the debris, shouting for Jason, his only thoughts the need to hold his son and a growing banshee wail that he’s too late, too late, too late. He can’t even find a body. Instead he finds Sheila, with minutes of her life to spare. She uses her last breaths to tell him the Joker took Jason away somewhere. Alive. His son is alive. Bruce can - no, will find him, whatever the cost.

He and Barbara, and Dick the moment he returns to Earth, devote every available second (and many that really aren’t available) to looking. For Jason, Joker, his associates, his sightings, any hint or scrap of evidence they can find. But they can’t find much. How they long for Joker’s usual obvious calling cards and attention seeking. Now it’s like he’s vanished into thin air, taking their Robin with him. It speaks of a higher purpose; this isn’t simply luring Batman into a trap, Joker has designs for Jason himself. Bruce shudders to imagine them. That only makes him more determined to find his child. He eats and sleeps as little as possible, lashes out and communicates more with glares and growls than words. He can’t take joy in anything. He can’t give up, he can’t… he doesn’t know how he’ll go on if he’s lost Jay forever.

In the movie, Tim’s captivity lasts three weeks. In the comics, Bruce’s downward spiral after losing Jason lasts six months before Tim interrupts it. I think it’ll need to be a few months here to be long enough for Tim to get involved - you can go with the full six if you want, for maximum angst. Barbara was also already Oracle by the time Jason died, attending his painfully small funeral in a wheelchair, so Dick is out on the streets with Bruce. Tim Drake observes Bruce’s declining mental health and wants to help, as in the comics. He doesn’t become Robin here, but he does volunteer his detective services to aid in the search and grow close to the Bats.

They find Jason. The Joker dies. He takes a part of all of them with him.

Think of the fanfic potential! How does Jason’s recovery go? Does he want nothing to do with vigilantism anymore, not trusting himself to be a hero due to having such severe lifelong trauma, or eventually invent a new heroic identity like Flamebird or Phoenix? If he doesn’t resume fighting crime, what does he do instead? How does the Batfamily as a whole recover and evolve? Does Bruce ban child vigilantism or try to? To what extent do the others agree? Does Jason give Tim his blessing to be the next Robin? When Steph, Cass, Damian and Duke show up, how do their journeys unfold with Jason present as a sibling and role model and Bruce wanting perhaps even more to prevent or at least delay them from frontline crimefighting? How does how the expanding Batfamily operate? Wait, now there’s no Joker to poison Elaine and Doug Thomas’s minds, does Duke even get into crimefighting or associate with the Bats, and if so, how and why? You see how many questions I got just out of the aftermath? How are there no fanfics about this already?!

[regularlyfe]

I’m doing a redesign of the batfam, in no particular order with no particular schedule, and B may not ever show up because even drawn at my own hand the man intimidates me, but here’s my Jason Todd design!

Probably my favorite of the family, also the most valid of the family, let me add some additional comments:

- his personality is the combo of Tired(tm) and Angr(tm), with a heaping dose of those cliche anime tough boys who pet cats in the rain

- I personally just find it irritating that first the writers were like “yes all of the robins have always had Jet Black Hair and Piercing Blue Eyes because they are all aspects of Batman” and then doubled back to try and make Bruce seem super fucked up with forcing Jason to dye his hair black to try and convince bad guys that it’s still the same Robin, like they aren’t going to notice he’s like 3 to 5 years younger all of a sudden. If you’re gonna be boring and kinda racist you might as well stick to it without also making a hero suddenly an abusive parent, but anyways, I digress, Jaylad has cool dark auburn hair and freckles now

- the white streaks obviously from the Lazarus Pit

- and as I watched too much anime in high school, whenever Pit Madness, which may be a fanon title I’m not certain, creeps up, his eyes glow bright green because I think it looks cool

- Not quite sure where the scar on his cheek came from, maybe his super assassin training days, maybe something tbd that is super angsty, but nevertheless, I wanted to add some texture, and that along with the poorly healed broken nose that he definitely got during his Crime-Lord-Take-Over-Of-Gotham in whatever my universe’s version of Under the Red Hood is did the job

- Obviously the red bat on his armor doesn’t show up until he’s cool with the family again, post-Crime-Lord-Take-Over-Of-Gotham, but it was something I really liked from new 52 so yeah. The jacket, I’m honestly quite torn on the color as you can see, but I figured he’d have stealth mode, so I did both

- the crowbar is obviously symbolic and to fuck with Batman, but like if you’ve ever held one of those things you know they’re quite heavy and way too unbalanced for a proper weapon. He uses it during the Crime-Lord-Take-Over-Of-Gotham because he’s fucking with Batman and most of the guys he fights are total chumps, and he’s basically a super assassin with infinite Daddy issues to fuel his will power, so like, it’s not a problem but still

        - I thought it’d also make a good gauge for his psyche, the better he’s doing, the less he uses it

- when he starts to cool off and realizes he’d rather be effective as opposed to, idk throwing a temper tantrum about B not recognizing him during the Crime-Lord-Take-Over-Of-Gotham - as he is wearing a full face mask, is several years older, several inches taller, and several pounds heavier, and not to mention Dead - he switches out for a tonfa, which I personally think is just a really cool weapon, and it also seemed like a neat way to juxtapose Dick’s batons

- I mainly just wanted to get rid of the duel-wield pistols, because while it looked kinda cool, you can’t actually aim two sights at once and Jason is a super assassin, like yeah he clearly has the trademarked batfamily flair for the dramatic (crowbar), but he is actually trying to get things done

- but don’t worry he definitely has all sorts of other shooty-explosion things, he for sure needed them during the Crime-Lord-Take-Over-Of-Gotham

- also, as Rough and Tough as he puts on, he is definitely scared of dying again (not dying so much as waking up in his own grave but still) so he’s got a full suit of very dense body armor (no chance of blunt force trauma if you know what I mean wink wink) going on under the jacket and the pants, I bet it takes an Absurd amount of time to put on everything

- Boots. they’re very heavy.

- oh and to top it off, that’s a climbing harness with a very threatening knife attached to it

I’m going for a very Paramilitary/Practical approach to these designs and Jason is likely the most Paramilitary of the bats, as he has most definitely taken down entire private armies on his lonesome