#anti jason todd

[galivamp]

guys. guys you can’t just make jason todd your “everything character.” he’s not one of those mix-and-match skylanders— you can’t just take traits and trauma from other characters and give it to him, erasing the purpose and impact that those parts of those characters have in/on the narrative.

[gonnalosemydougdimmadomedamnmind]

It's literally impossible to read bat fanfiction because it's all based off those ridiculous fanon tropes that spread like crazy and people take as fucking biblical!!!!! Dick was never a jerk to Jason when he was Robin- they got along because Dick is mature as hell and in one retelling- Jason was a jerk to him!! And when he came back as Red Hood he had literally not a single damn reason to treat Dick like shit! Not a damn one! But he did, didn't he? Cause he's the fucking asshole! How dare you make Dick grovel towards that bastard! Dick has only ever tried to help him! Reached out during his Batman run, over and over! Also- Dick never put Jason in Arkham with Joker just a few cells down???? What the fuck! The Joker and all those other fuckers had been broken out of Arkham by Black Mask already for like the whole run??? Jason went to Arkham after losing to Dick, and Gordon put him in there because One he fucking deserved it, Two the literal circumstances?? And at that point!! Arkham was fucking rehabilitated itself!! By Dick!!! Because Bruce had him go undercover there for real, and Dick was actually tortured there before he got out!! So Dick put in the work to get that shit in order to actually help people!!

Dick never chose Damian over Tim- Tim refused to engage with him over his grief, shut him out, and left of his own devices! He never told Dick his suspicions on why Bruce was alive, never! And Tim is not the one to bring Bruce back either, there's a whole team at that point! Dick learns Bruce is alive through tossing his 'dead' body into a pit and the body comes to life as a zombie. Tim didn't tell him shit! Tim is also not a little crybaby- Damian cutting his line was a fucking blip on the page, he was momentarily shocked, that was it! He put Damian on his Hit List, which is why Damian cut his line. And his first attempt at "murder" is just pushing Tim off the dinosaur statue in the cave, he didn't go all assassin on him! Also Dick wasn't even there the first incident and wasn't told about the second incident. Alfred is the one who gave Damian Robin and Dick accepted him because he saw that Damian needed help! He needed guidance! He didn't fucking fire Tim the way Bruce fired him, and fuck all of you for thinking that Tim or Jason or fucking anyone has more right over Robin than Dick Fucking Grayson! He tried to promote Tim and Tim walked off. How dare yall make Dick fucking grovel towards that bastard!!!

Jason did try to kill all three of them!! Why does everyone just gloss over that like what the fuck??? Why does he get a pass for every shitty thing he's done??? "Bad writing" stfu this is the same dude that without hesitation kills random criminals, people who deal drugs, do you know how many random ass people deal drugs??? Jason doesn't give a single shit about being his own type of hero or saving Gotham his own way, nor do the people think of him as their savior!! Are you people fucking delusional?? I saw a post that said citizens would trust Jason over CASS and I cannot Believe the hallucinations yall are seeing???

It is literally downright impossible to find fics about Dick or Damian or Cass or fucking any of them that doesn't include these literal bullshit fanon takes!!! It's impossible!!! This fandom sucks!!!! You don't even need to go buy the comics, all these popular takes have been debunked right here on tumblr!!!! Also Dick can do literally everything!! He's hypercompetent as hell, die mad about it!! Jason doesn't like Wonder Woman???? Where the fuck did that come from??? Wayne Family Adventures is not real!!! Those people could not BE more out of character!!! Look at Bruce for crying out loud!!! Yall know that man ain't act like that!

Edit: leaving this here in case anyone wonders what my hot take is towards this question I was asked: "have you considered tho, that fanon is more fun..."

Well of course fanon is more fun if you're a fan of Jason or Tim. Fanon actively caters towards those two pasty white boys. Fanon actively shits on Dick and Damian though. And for Dick? He literally never did that shit! It is all made up! It's literal character assassination?? But by the fans?? And for Damian? He was 10!!! He grew up as an assassin! He was actively trying to grow with Dick's help! How can yall see him as the bad guy?? And not the literal bad guy, (Jason), and the 17 teen year old who literally fought him back btw, (Tim), like old boy did not act victimized the way you people portray. And Jesus for Cass? Cass is just a prop in fanon. So what exactly about this should be fun to me? Like seriously.

[danny-chase]

said this before but it’s always so annoying when people make Damian, 10 year olds, brown boy, deprogramming from a cult, the villain of the 2009 batfam comics, and not Jason, 20s, white guy, literally mass murdering random prisoners + actively attacking the heroes the villain. like. he’s right there. committing murder as we speak

[mysterycitrus]

i think every superhero / antihero is by definition attempting (whether it succeeds or not) to do good. societal change is broad asf but i think jason especially does want that…. he’s also extremely fucked up. when ppl say he is a complex character… its not just words. lol. he is complex. he wants the joker to be dead so gotham isn’t a helpless war ground and also he blew up a (empty) high school. he’s not mentally sound. lmfao

that’s a very fair point! because the idea of superheroes originated from an optimistic ideal in a profoundly cynical world (jewish artists during world war 2) the entire concept is inextricably tied to societal change — because there has to be! u have to believe the world can be changed for the better!

what makes jason interesting is that he wants to improve gotham, but has no interest in doing so externally to the idea of proving bruce wrong. why is this not positive societal change? because bruce wayne is crucial to the infrastructure of gotham. forgetting that batman exists — bruce wayne is gotham’s social services, its healthcare system, its support for unemployment and disability, its rehabilitation system, its only means of providing to its citizens. we can sit here and argue the legality of bruce beating people up but the core to bruce’s character is that he wants the world to change for the better, so no one else experiences the grief he has.

jason believes in the death penalty, no ifs when’s or buts. his core ideology is — the system is flawed, but if im in charge i can make it better. jason replacing black mask and preventing dealers from selling to kids won’t stop people from self medicating to deal with an unfair world in which they were born into. it won’t stop crime, because crime is the result of stagnant social reform and income inequality. there is no way for jason’s approach to crime — killing people expeditiously — to result in a fair system that can sustain itself and prioritise the safety of its citizens. that’s not something from rhato no. #69, that’s clear in the text in utrh.

when people compare him to a cop it’s because he is killing without oversight or fear of legal repercussions. many, many countries that have technically outlawed the death penalty (australia, canada, some states in the us etc) still have a death penalty because police can kill indiscriminately on both the streets and in custody. jason has been shown to act with care for others (in the lost days he systematically kills his tutors to prevent further harm) but that’s not what he’s doing in gotham. for every captain nazi there’s a dozen kids left orphaned cause he’s murdered their parents. id describe him as severely traumatised, and deeply in denial about how well he’s handling it. the entire gd point is that it’s him reacting to his death! he has been radicalised! he is advocating for regressive change!!!!! why are people so afraid of his complexity!!!!!!!!

[gretahayes]

also when did people decide jason is the authority on who should be robin and if there should be robin? he’s not the only one to die wearing that costume. he didn’t create robin—dick did. if anyone should get a say on robin, it shouldn’t be the guy who is infamous for hurting his successors. it shouldn’t be the guy who did nothing significant as robin except dying, then came back and decided to hurt his family and children and kill people about it. if anyone should get a fucking say, it should be dick. jason can feel whatever the fuck he wants about it, but he has no real place to make anyone honor those feelings. dick watched three children die in the role he made for hope. it was never meant to be passed on. it was meant to be his and three children have died in it and four have been hurt in it. and he still isn’t out there beating up kids and refusing to mentor and help those that inevitably wear it anyway. i don’t care about whether jason feels there should be another robin. i don’t fucking care.

[armed-with-a-waffle-iron]

PLS, Roy and Stephanie would NOT be into Jason Todd. That's the man that almost murdered their little siblings. FREE THEM!

Green Arrow (2001) #72 & Battle for the Cowl #2

[stephaniebrownthespoiler]

hate when people say Jason Todd has "feminine rage" like what. what even is that. shut the fuck up,and also he will never be her

[ccarrot]

Sorry for having such an unsympathetic opinion on Jason's character but also how are you going to say he wants to protect kids and then turn a blind eye to the multiple child characters he's brutally attacked because he's just ANGRY. He beats up Tim multiple times bc hes upset abt being there being another robin? He literally tries to kill Mia and Damian (multiple times even). He's ok blowing up a bunch of kids in that last arc of Robin'93.

[mistergreatbones]

“Jason needs to apologize to Tim for Titans Tower” this is 100% true and I’m glad we’re talking about it but also Jason REALLY needs to apologize for the shit he did to Dick and Damian during Battle for the Cowl and while they were Batman and Robin

[royharperism]

“Jason Todd is female coded because he’s seen as hysterical and belittled for his trauma”. Who belittled him exactly? Tim and the rest of the batfam were minding their own business when the guy jumped Tim and beat the shit out of him, when Tim had nothing to do with anything. He was the aggressor of the batfamily not the victim. Robin Jason was the victim but his reaction to what the joker did to him was not justifiable and if he was ostracized from the family it was his own fault.

[nerdytextileartist]

Debating on whether or not to slog through "Red Hood and the Outlaws" in order to get panels to support my argument that Jason Todd is not a good leader, because from what I have seen he regularly withholds information from his team, endangers his team, and frequently belittles his teammates and the only reason he and his team succeed is because of the will of the author and the author is a super skeezy hack.

Now I'm just waiting for the fanon Jason stans to pounce.

[gonnalosemydougdimmadomedamnmind]

I deserve financial compensation every time I have to read a post that posits that Jason is actually the good big brother that's there for his siblings and Dick is the big mean golden child that can do whatever he wants and turns his siblings away when they need help. I'd have like a gajillion dollars now.

This bothers me so much specifically because it's the exact opposite of canon, in Dick's case anyway. Ain't nobody going to Jason for help in the first place. I really can't get past the backwards logic of it all. No, the utter lack of logic. Like it's the Exact Opposite.... The Exact Opposite!!! How did you come to this conclusion???

Well, I mean, I know- you don't read the comics AND you take everything at face value. I get it, when I first entered the fandom- the way people talk about Dick and Jason and Tim and Damian? They'd have you believe that Jason and Tim were delivered to Earth by angels with a chorus singing in the heavens and a light following them everywhere their delicate, innocent feet went. Everything they do is either Justified or Morally Correct. Nothing is Ever Their Fault. They deserve your sympathy and awe, and nothing short of worship is an attack on their character. They'd have you believe that Dick is a Monster, that Everything is his fault, that he's an inherently bad and selfish person because He Tried but He Didn't Devote Himself Entirely to Jason and Tim and Thats Bad and He Deserves To Be Punished For It and that Damian is a Demon, that he's always going to make the choice that serves himself and hurts others, that even though he's a 10 year old boy with a complicated, abusive upbringing, Everything is His Fault Entirely and He Doesn't Deserve Understanding or Mercy.

That's what you see and hear when you enter this fandom. And unless you actually read the comics or do the research by looking through blogs with meta commentary on the comics (with panels provided) or interact with fan media that is based on the comics And Not The Fanon- this is the false opinion that remains.

It drives me crazy that people refuse to engage with the actual canon of something they claim to be a fan of. What are you a fan of if you have no idea what you're talking about? It drives me crazy, because theres so much of this fanon content, you have to literally dig and dig and dig and dig and dig and dig to find the truth. And the truth is so Unbelievably, Undeniably

Not That.

In fact, in most cases whatever you read- the opposite is what actually happened. Or what you read is Entirely Made Up to make one character, (Dick and Damian), look bad in order to prop up the other character, (Jason and Tim). Then people get angry when you point that out, for ruining 'the fun' or their false perception of their fave character. Well I'm angry for having to do it in the first place.

[planetoflovers]

I think it’s so funny seeing Jason Todd stans try to rationalise extrajudicial murder. Like if you think Jason taking on the role of judge, jury and executioner is an adequate way of getting rid of crime good for you but I refuse to take that notion seriously

[mysterycitrus]

i saw that user's reply to your jtodd post and wow were they projecting hard, it's one thing to feel a personal connection to a character through your own subjective read on them it's a whole other to act like that's the objective point of the actual character and his storylines

yeah look everyone interprets characters in different ways but i think it’s pretty out of pocket to reply to a meme post and talk about how a character who is explicitly, specifically portraying a radically violent “the punishment fits the crime” ideology is intended to be a competent metaphor for victims of sa? if that’s ur interpretation of that character more power to u, but positing as though that’s reflected in the text to smack down on people who are talking in the tags is pretty wild. that’s not even getting into denying that in fanon dick is crucified to make jason look better, whether it be framing him as the bad brother (to jason and tim) or reframing jason as the independent, powerful, and competent person that dick is established as in canon.

he does act differently in the lost days, sure, but even then he is singularly driven by a personal vendetta. u can make the argument that when he allows himself to actually act morally he can make tangible change — he acts selflessly to protect others. but that is not the norm when he arrives back in gotham.

i really wish people would stop trying to justify jason’s actions when they were never supposed to be justified! acting as if bruce is somehow the same or worse because what… he beats people up and then puts them in hospital? how is that remotely comparable to decapitating people and seizing control of the drug trade? the entire point is that he’s working differently to batman in a way that does not actually change gotham for the better! when the kids of the people he’s murdered grow up they’ll be going to the martha wayne foundation for housing and social support, or to leslie’s for free healthcare. they’re not going to be looking for college scholarships from the guy who shot a bazooka at black mask — and that’s fine! that’s what makes jason interesting as a foil to bruce!!

anyways like i said to rus

[gretahayes]

also. can i literally just say. jason did his research on mia. it was clear he did. he recited her history back to her while making sure to be an asshole about it. so it makes it even more fucking stupid that he kept bringing up fathers and father figures and mia's issues with them. mia's father raped her and pimped her out to his friends. it started when her mom died and continued for years until she ran away at eleven, where she got forced into a child prostitution ring. and that’s just the highlights. jason fucking knew what he was doing. he tried to bring up mia's history with piece of shit fathers and went on to say ollie is just like them and so is bruce and so she should join him and that was such bullshit fucking reasoning. of course it wouldn’t work. are you hearing yourself? you useless evil self-pitying fuck.

[armed-with-a-waffle-iron]

I gotta say, the politics of Jason Todd's crusade are pretty fucking authoritarian. Forget Jason for a second, I'm taking about the politics, the rhetoric, the actions; it's fucking terrifying and frankly ill-informed. I'll add; the death penalty, as well as being fucking cruel, does not deter crime; it's a historically racist method of coercion and control.

Source: Batman and Robin #6 and #23

Like what's a crime Jason? Who gets to decide that's undesirable? Who does this institution of "law and order" actually protect and benefit? Who does it actually cripple? What's the history behind this institution and is it actually just? What exactly makes you different to a brutal cop?

And look, I don't care who you like Jason written by and who you don't, I'm not talking about what his favourite Jane Austen book is. I'm talking about the scary as fuck politics of dishing out murder as punishment, treating any breaking of the law as deserving of torture and not even interrogating the unjust history that gave us the rule of law you adhere to so dogmatically. You can't defend a low-lying beach.

Disclaimer: this was not about making moralistic claims about a fictional character, it's about putting a name to a fascist-adjacent politics which authors weren’t pulling their punches in showing.