#black sheep jason todd

[thethirdtriplet]

Head cannon for the Batbros:

I firmly believe Jason refuses to refer to anyone he cares about with their names, and simply makes up obscene nicknames instead. Including but not limited to Tim, probably his favourite? (Y’know the “black sheep” duo), he’ll ask to hangout in the form of a threat, other times he just picks him up, throws him over his shoulder, and just leaves.

That’s just who he is it’s his love language.

And Tim is all too happy to indulge him.

——————————

Jason: Hey, nerd-bird, I need your help with something.

Tim: What now, douche-bat. Are one of your “goons” misbehaving, again?

Jason: Yeah, I need that PowerPoint you showed em’ last time, whatever was on it made em’ as a obedient as trained dogs.

Tim: That’s the wonderful power of slideshows, but yeah, I’ll sent it to you.

Dick: ???

——————————

Jason: Oi, smart-ass, I need your help on a case, some bastard had the bright idea to sell drugs to kids, and I wanna find out where he got em’.

Tim: Whatever, jackass, but you still owe me from last time, and I want your homemade tacos, as compensation.

Jason: Deal.

Bruce: ..?

——————————

Jason: Birdbrain, get changed and grab your sh!t, I’m headn’ to the movies, you’re coming wether you like it, or not.

Tim: Fine, you better not choose another chick flick, like last time, Zombie-boy.

Jason: You know I only did that to piss you off.

Tim: Right, whatever you say.

Steph: ??!

——————————

Everyone is doing their own thing in the cave:

Tim reading some files in the cave:

Jason walks up to Tim, plucks him from his chair, and just leaves:

Everyone who was watching Tim basically get kidnapped: …

Duke: ..Should we go get him?

Damian: Tt, I have no interest in per-suing them.

Cass: No, little brothers, bonding, leave them.

Everyone returns to their work, albeit some more reluctantly than others:

[too-much-tma-stuff]

Hail Black Sheep

“Mind if I bum a cigarette?” A voice asked behind Hood, startling him so bad he nearly fell off the edge of the roof where he was sitting, taking a little break from patrol. He had made sure there was no one up here and no way to get up here before taking off his helmet, and yet when he turned around there was another man on the roof. Dark hair and sunken blue eyes that reflected an odd unnatural green when the light hit them wrong.

Jason’s breath caught in his throat as he recognized the stranger. He had appeared in Gotham months ago and had immediately pinged the bat’s radar as a potential threat. There was something very wrong with the young man and none of them could figure out what it was, any attempts to find out more had gone nowhere because attempts to follow him never worked! More then that it seemed like any mention of him had been erased from the record, they knew he went by Danny and that was all. And here he was standing on an inaccessible roof right in front of Jason.

“Sure,” Jason said as casually as he could manage, shoulders tense and ready to fight if he needed to. He didn’t know why Danny had sought him out but this was the best chance to learn… well, anything about him that they’d had. He held his smoke between his lips as he shook another out of the pack and held it out to Danny.

The other man smiled, revealing canines that were a little to long and pointed to seem entirely human, not long enough to be vampiric though. He came over and sat down on the edge of the roof as well, out of arms reach but close enough he could reach out and take the smoke, Jason was glad he wasn’t any closer. Danny seemed to be making an effort not to seem threatening as he let Jason hand him a lighter as well, lighting up before passing it back.

“Thanks,” Danny said before taking a drag and exhaling slowly. “I hope you don’t mind I messed with your coms, they’ll work again just fine once I leave but I just wanted to talk in private.”

“What do you want?” Jason asked, tense beyond belief, his hand twitching towards his gun, Danny didn’t seem worried which made him all the more nervous.

“Just to talk. I know you and the Bats have been following me.” Danny said with a casual shrug, leaning back dangerously over the ledge.

“And yet we never manage to actually track you,” Jason said a little accusingly.

“No one sees me if I don’t want to be seen,” Danny told him flashing a cheeky grin. “I don’t exist~”

“Yet here you are,” Jason argued and Danny shrugged again.

“Here I am,” He agreed taking another drag, slow and deep, exhaling just the same to create a break in the conversation before he glanced over at Jason. “That looks like a nasty story,” He commented, touching his own cheek where Jason knew the scar of a J still sat on his own. He snarled wordlessly and Danny held up his hands in a pacifying gesture. “I won’t ask, I have some nasty stories too,” He murmured rolling up his sleeve to show Jason Lichtenberg scarring shooting up along his arm.

“That’s why I wanted to talk to you, I guess. You and I have a lot in common really, and you don’t follow the laws when you don’t agree with them, that too,” He chuckled.

“You know that’s why we’ve been following you right? You’re suspicious as fuck,” Jason said accusingly.

“I know,” Danny said with a little sigh. “Have you found anything at all?” Jason scowled and looked down, not wanting to admit that they really hadn’t. Danny just nodded. “You could look up the GIW to find out, not about me, but about what happened to me. Who declared me dead and erased me from the world so they could smuggle me away into a lab and figure out how to use me. I won’t let any of the bats follow me because if you know where I am then others might be able to find out. And I can’t promise they won’t add me to the wanted database again and they’d take that at face value.

“Interdimensional terrorist sounds pretty damn bad huh? Nevermind that I was fucking born in this world and it was scientists they hired that made me this way.” Danny grumbled, looking up at the smog covered sky.

“What way?” Jason asked, because everything Danny had just said was concerning as fuck but that was what he wanted to follow up on.

“Don’t worry about it,” Danny chuckled. “I’m not going to cause any trouble. I was a hero for a couple years as a teenager, before it got so dangerous with people hunting me, and now I’m retired as fuck, the only person I can afford to protect anymore is myself. But I want you to know that too, I’ll defend myself if I have to. If any of you or the GIW come for me again I’m not going to go quietly and I can do a lot of damage when I have to.”

“You know making threats does not help me believe that you aren’t going to cause trouble,” Jason said bitterly and Danny at least had the decency to look sheepish.

“I know, I’m sorry. I genuinely don’t want to cause any trouble for you, us black-sheep should stick together right? I’ve noticed that about you, all the folks the other bats and birds tend to overlook, you look out for them. The whores and the addicts and the street-rats. I like that, I was hoping you might look out for me too, I’ve been mostly haunting your area recently anyway. I could look out for you too? No one sees me if I don’t want to be seen and I can get into anywhere. I’ll keep an eye on things, if I find anything that you should know I’ll come tell you.”

“You’re offering to spy on me as a bonus?” Jason asked incredulously and Danny winced.

“Not on you, for you,” He promised quickly. “I’ll stay out of your business and I really won’t be any trouble! I’ll just keep an ear out and tell you if I hear anything in the way of plotting or people breaking your rules. Like I said, I like how you run things here, I’d like to help.”

Jason was quiet as he thought about that, Danny shifting nervously on the wall next to him as Jason finished his smoke and put out the butt. “Alright, you can stay in my territory, the bats don’t come here often. But I want some sort of accountability from you, at least regular check ins, once a week here and a way to contact you.”

Danny hesitated, biting his lip for a moment before he nodded. “Alright, Saturday night at midnight? I won’t come if I see anyone else around. I don’t have a phone or anything.”

“I’ll get you a burner next Saturday but this is basically a trial period. I know that the crap cops and the other bats say about ‘if you have nothing to hide’ is bullshit, you’re allowed to want privacy especially if you’ve been targeted. But you’re still suspicious as fuck and you’d better be telling the truth about not making trouble on my turf.” Jason said pointing an accusing finger at Danny before putting his helmet back on.

Danny nodded eagerly, looking relieved, tired, and a bit sickly. It wasn’t hard to believe the guy had had a hard life, if that hadn’t made him violent he was a better man then Jason. “You got it! No problems here, cross my heart!” Danny assured, actually making the motion which made Jason chuckle a little.

“Alright, see you Saturday,” He said before pushing off the edge of the roof, using his grappling gun to swing to the next building. When he turned around to look back at the building he’d just left Danny was already gone.

“O are you there?” He asked, tapping at his com to see if it was working again.

“Ya I am, what happened there?” She asked through the voice modulator. “Did you turn off you coms?”

“No, you’re not going to believe this,” Jason chuckled, but he wasn’t going to tell Oracle everything Danny had shared, wanting to meet Danny halfway with trust. Just enough to get her looking into the GIW, maybe if they could get whatever that was off Danny’s back he’d be willing to come out of the shadows and stop acting so fucking shady!

[kittykatninja321]

People latch on to and project onto Jason as The Black Sheep in a toxic family dynamic, likewise people latch on to and project onto Dick as The Caretaker in a toxic family dynamic

[alfredsolos]

[cephalog0d]

DC writers deciding what the relationship between Bruce and Jason (or Jason and the rest of the Bats, for that matter) is like in any given issue.

[phoenixcatch7]

Looking through the batman wiki on Jason Todd (I'm not writing anything, I'm not writing anything, no writing anything -) and to my absolute SHOCK, this boy wasn't killed off for shock value, or even fridged!!

He was killed off by 💥TELEPHONE VOTE💥!!

EXCUSE ME?!!!

Nightwing Robin had had an uninterrupted 43 year run, doubling batman sales when he was introduced, and then when the now famous Jason came along, he lasted a mere 5 years before losing his life to a vote of 10000 people by 62.

Like, I get that he was the outsider 'stealing' a treasured role that nearly two generations would have grown up - and that would have infuriated a great many people, since this was before Robin became a legacy title that was passed on but I mean... Ouch.

He didn't get resurrected till 2005, 17 years later.

Killed off by ~popular vote~ no wonder he's mad.

[mimiri22-6]

I've been on a Batman stint lately and with the kind of fanfics I look for, *cough* angst *cough* Jason, the dead robin, the one that was dead for the longest time by fan request, is a bit of a prominent figure there. And, I admit, I've never read an actual comic in my life(yet). I know a lot of cannon stuff because I fucking love my bats, but one of the prominent things in fanworks is the specific nicknames for the different batfamily members, and I know some of them are cannon and some have been so prominent in the fandom that people forget which are made up, but idk which are which.

BUT ANYWAY, you're probably wondering why this is tagged for Just Roll With It. I was going through the tag, as you do, and a was seeing Jay fanart, as you do, and a sentence crossed my mind, but a single word stuck out in it;

Jaybird

I called Jay jaybird. SO I COME TO YOU TODAY TO PROPOSE GIVING JAY A NICKNAME AND MAKING IT JAYBIRD

Her family symbol is a bird, Apple is probably a very important bird, her name is Jay, IT JUST-I know she might not like a nickname that makes her think of her family too much, but she carries around her sister's pin and badge(was it a badge or more an metal? Or was it something else? It's been forever since Jay carrying around her sister's stuff was brought up)with her family's symbol in her hair at all times, she's still a Ferin who loves her family name even with it's current turbulent relationships. I don't think she would hate the nickname Jaybird

In this essay I will

[celaenaeiln]

“always an angel, never a god” and making it about the robins with batman is heartbreaking and all but have you considered:

the robins to the previous robin.

robins 2-5 looking at robin 1. the hero worship, the love they have for dick grayson. they want to live up to “the golden boy” “the golden standard”. they want to make him proud.

but dick grayson himself? he looks at batman, in his eyes he doesn’t live up to his mentor. sure he thinks he’s good, but it’s not like he thinks he’s the best. to himself, he isn’t “the golden child”, he’s not “the golden standard”, there’s too many mistakes, too many sins, to make him view himself the way others view him

“always an angel, never a god.”

Anon are you providing a sample? Drop the album!!

Just - Perfect.

There's actually a time when Damian is feuding with Tim about something and he's like Grayson is the "Golden Child", Todd is the "Black Sheep", and you're something something. He didn't actually say "something something" but you get the point. Damian doesn't like to be forthcoming with his words, but - "We were the best, Richard. No matter what anyone thinks." THOSE WORDS CAME OUT OF HIS MOUTH. The fact that Damian literally calls him the golden child tho is literally ascending me. He loves his dad.

Jason gets fear-gassed once in Truth & Justice (2021) comic and it reveals that one his worst fears has always been about living up to the massive legacy Dick left behind. There's a change in the way Dick is portrayed because Jason is terrified of Nightwing, not Dick. Because he knows that Dick loves him and stuff but Nightwing is downright petrifiying. Because Nightwing and as Robin, Dick created the firsts for everything. The first partner, the first side-kick, the person who created their world. Not just Jason's but Dick opened up the gateway to Every. Single. Hero. That came after him. And he did it perfectly. He excelled in every aspect imaginable and then surpassed them to create the golden standard that every single person that came after strived to touch. Not just for what they should do, but who they should be.

Tim straight up tells Dick to his face every time that Dick is the best robin that ever existed. No squalms, no hesitation, it's just pure fact for Tim. There is simply, no one better.

Batman/Catwoman: The Gotham War: Scorched Earth

Stephanie didn't have a lot of interactions with Dick and she wasn't close to him but she still had a huge deal of respect for him. It was almost deference, the way she treated him. I considered that it might be because he was Batman but she treated Batman very differently than she treated Dick!bats.

But despite literally every single Robin thinking how perfect Dick is, how unattainable he set the standards, Dick himself feels so pale in comparison to his mentor.

I wrote this post a long while back regarding Dick's thoughts of insecurities about bruce to the tune of Toxic Thoughts by Faith Marie which pretty much encapsulates all his worries. But the thing is, even Bruce tells dick how amazing he is and he's so much better than him, and he means it.

There's a time when Bruce fights each of his former robins and he takes them all down easily but he's trekking his way to the last one and he's says "Attack of the Robins, that leaves only the first one. Hand-to-hand, the toughest of them all." He says this all in his mind. Which means when he tells Dick he's better, he really means it but Dick? Dick will never, ever understand the weight of Bruce's sincerity towards him. He always thinks he's not a good enough leader, good enough detective, good enough whatever there is. In his mind he will never be good as Bruce in anyway because for him Bruce is the best person to ever exist. For him, despite everyone in the entire superhero community exalting him and singing his praises, he feels he'll never be like his hero.

"always an angel, never a god."

Anon, that - 😌🤌✨

Glorious. Simply a magnificently apt description.

But you know who this insecurity really affects more than him?

The Robins! Literally everyone else!

You know, there's actually panel about Roy that explains how he feels about Dick's insecurities towards Bruce-

Arsenal Issue #2

And the reason why I brink it up is because I think this is exactly how Jason feels about Dick. In Jason's eyes there is no one better than Dick and it's a nasty feeling that the person he thinks it the best feels inferior to someone else.

Tim also has opinions on the same line except in his case, he hates Dick's unconditional loyalty towards Bruce (yes I'm referencing gotham knights). He loves Bruce but he hates that Dick loves him to the point that he'll follow him endlessly because he has this romanticized, rose-sunglasses view of Bruce. WHICH IRONICALLY ROY ALSO FEELS-

The Titans (1999) Issue #15

Gotham Knights Issue #26

Where it bothers Roy and Jason that Dick would think anyone is better than him, it rankles Tim and Roy that he's being subservient to a mentor he's far better than.

Even Steph was like, "Dude we need you. Where were you?"

Batman and Robin Eternal Issue #2

And Dick's like "Bruce needed me.."

Batman and Robin Eternal Issue #2

He looks so tired, doing God's bidding. But this aligns perfectly with the fact that Bruce has a canonical god complex AKA consistently inflated feelings of personal ability, privilege, or infallibility. People who have god complexes are highly dogmatic in their views, meaning the person speaks of their personal opinions as though they were unquestionably correct.

Literally and metaphorically he's an actual angel because he works as a messenger of God (Bruce in the DC world) and is the epitome of goodness, someone who always offers comfort and aid to everyone.

[igotanidea]

Crawl back to you: Jason Todd x reader

Summary: Mexican!reader celebrating dia de los muertos, going throught the process of grieving after Jason's dead and her process of getting better through the years with a little plot twist at the end.

Thank you @thefandomdiaries07 - I played with the idea somewhat, hope you'll like it.

Disclaimer: this is not, in any way, a hate on religious belief, the reader's attitude just fit in the plot. (no offence to anyone meant here, truly)

***

Dia de los muertos.

Day of the Dead.

Despite her origin and upbringing Y/N never really felt connected to this celebration.

Remembering people who died and who she was too young to remember in the first place felt just … weird.

Of course, her mother, aunts and grandmothers got her involved in preparing the ofrenda and preached her about the importance of preparation for the souls’ arrivals but she always did it only half-heartedly, putting on a fake smile and pretending to enjoy the festivities.

But deep down she felt like a freaking hypocrite, while in fact not feeling anything.

And when her family moved to Gotham, out of all places, it got even worse. Poor girl felt conflicted, unaccepted, unsure of who she was and dealing with identity crisis, going as far as renouncing her ancestry to fit in the crowd. She was a teenager what else could you have expected.

Anyhow.

A few months passed and she got used to that god forsaken, lawless hole, keeping herself a bit away from her family, even if technically she was still living the same house. But with her struggles with ethnicity and traditions, she was a bit of a black sheep of the family, having not many true friends and spending most of the time alone,

recklessly wondering alongside the streets, pretending to be a freaking globetrotter. 

 And that was how one day she got involved with the batfamily, starting from being saved from an assault, by the Batman sidekick, Robin.

Jason Todd.

Whose name she learnt a few weeks later, having lost all the hope to see that red, green and yellow bird boy ever again.

However, surprisingly, those two clicked fast enough and even though they were technically still young  teenagers something bigger than friendship started creeping in.

He kissed her for the first time when they were 15.

And it was magical, romantic and send her into a spiral of love and dreams and worries and thoughts about future.

It was pretty much prefect for a whole year, as they somehow managed to make it work despite being forced to keep their relationship a secret from both families.

Imagine the panic that would spread in her family if they knew she was in love with a vigilante.

Imagine the panic that would spread in his family if they knew he told his identity to a girl he fell for.

That was obviously a no go.

So they kept on meeting in secret.

Almost every night she sneaked out of the house to check out on him after patrol and he was escaping Batman’s watchful gaze to have at least a few hours together alone with .

But one night changed everything.

He went to search for his biological mother.

And she should have stopped him or tell him how reckless he was being or do anything to dissuade him from this idea. Instead she laid her head on his shoulder, holding onto him tighter, kissing his lips briefly and making him promise he’d report to her the second he gets back.

A promise he never kept.

***

 “Hello? Who’s this?” she picked up her phone, blissfully unaware of the news that was about to fall upon her.

“Hey… um… is this Y/N?” an unrecognisable male voice reverberated on the other side

“Yes” she frowned “Who is this?” the girl asked again.

“My name’s Dick Grayson. I’m Jason’s older adoptive brother. We’ve never met but… I know you two were close…”

Wait. Did he just say were close?

“What – what happened…?”

The receiver fell from her hand, tears flooded her face and her heart broke in half.

***

His funeral was probably the worst day of her life, even though she couldn’t remember much more than the see of blackness, plenty of people she knew from Jason’s stories but saw for the first time and some meaningless words of consolations.

***

YEAR ONE

It had been eight months since his death and she was still grieving, unsure if the pain in her chest would ever subside or the tears would ever dry.

In that short time, she had become very close to Jason's brother, Dick, who was the perfect definition of an eldest child and had sort of taken her under his wing (pun intended). After everything with Jason and everything in between, she couldn't and didn't want to stay in Gotham, a place that was a painful reminder of the past.

Y/N took a different route every time she came across the places where they hung out or where they first kissed and where they secretly met at night and considering the fact that Gotham wasn't that big, it was slowly becoming impossible to move. And going to school and seeing couples and happy people was like a shot to the heart, making her a walking fountain almost every school break.

She felt a sudden need to get away from everything and moved to Bludhaven, where she started a new school and where Dick made sure she was safe and (as much as possible, meaning not much at all) happy.

It was October and dia de los muertos was right around the corner, of which her family was kind enough to inform her, inviting the girl to the family celebrations, and mentioning the resulting obligations of the living.

Making her angry at first.

Angry and with the sense of unfairness and stupidity of life. You’re there one second, enjoying the presence of the loved ones, and then, in another second you are just gone and it’s like you never really existed.

What was the point of life, apart from constant suffering and uncertainty of tomorrow?

 This whole celebration freaking sucked, and she was not going to celebrate the death, having loved and lost the most important person in her young life!

But…

Once she got herself into that spiral of thinking, Y/N slowly started feeling something more than annoyance at her nation’s cultural habits, overwhelming depression and lack of any motivation to move on. Maybe…

It was the first time she had someone she knew to remember. And to hope that maybe, on this special day, his soul  were walking amongst the living and watching her from the other side even if she could not do the same.

Maybe…

And if he was, maybe it was her only chance to somehow communicate with him, tell him all the words she kept hidden in her soul, that never found a way out. Perhaps from the silent beating of her heart he would feel the love that was still there, the longing, the needing and the fact that despite being gone, he wasn’t and would never be forgotten by her.

Her eyes grew wide and she jumped off the bed, gathering all the necessities and beginning her work.

***

“Y/N?” Punctual as always Dick entered the apartment, carrying the box with her favourite takeout. It was their Thursday tradition to have some good food and hang out together and he was not going to be a breaker. But he definitely did not expect to see his friend kneeling on the floor in front of something that looked like a tiny stairs, painted in red, green and yellow ending with an arch. It was decorated with something he recognised as salt, candles, water and marigold flowers. And the whole apartment smelled like lavender for some reason. “Y/N? What are you doing?” he put the food on the table, seriously concerned by her mental state.

“Oh!” she almost jumped at the sound of his voice, turning around to face him. “Hey, Dick. It’s just a little celebration.”

“Of what?” he frowned, not understanding a thing. “What is this?”

“ofrenda” she explained, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, but his confused gaze made her realise that maybe not everyone were familiar with the festivity. “an offering.”

“An offering? Of what? To who? And why?”

Y/N almost rolled her eyes.

“I thought Bruce made you go the private school. Don’t you know anything about dia de los muertos?”

“I thought you were done with your national customs?”

“I was…” she sighed deeply reaching for the picture she was about to hang in her little altar. Jason, smiling, happy at some point back in time, that was never supposed to go back. She took the photo at one of their walks in the park in the autumn, with the sun shining and colourful leaves falling down from the trees. “but things have changed…” Y/N whispered, caressing Jason’s cheek on the photo, her eyes still shining with love and affection, but also tinged with sadness. “I miss him…”

“I know, Y/N. I miss that little prick too.”

“Yeah, he was a prick, wasn’t he? And an asshole, sometimes.” She chuckles as Dick sat on the floor next to her. “I bet if he’s around he’s annoyed at us bad-mouthing him.”

“If he’s around?”

“Yeah, the whole point of this day is that the souls come back to earth to visit us.”

“so it’s basically something like Halloween.”

“ more or less so. But cut the haunting part.” She smiled a little “We can’t see the deceased but we can feel them…”

“do you?”

“do I what?” Y/N frowned at his question. “Do I feel him?”

“Yeah. Sorry if it’s too soon or too bold thing to say, Y/N…”

“It’s not. It’s okay. I can’t exactly feel him, but it doesn’t mean he’s not here. We both agreed he was a prick sometimes, maybe he’s just hiding from me. Just to tease me. But that won’t stop me from calling upon him even from beyond the grave.”

She stood up and put the picture at the top stairs.

“Hey Todd, if you’re somewhere there, I’m not gonna go easy on you. See you next year, you little asshole.”

YEAR TWO

“Hey, Y/N, I dropped by decorating store and bought some things for your ofrenda this year, wanna take a look at them?”

YEAR THREE

You know, Dick, I’m not sure if Jason would appreciate us using the cape here….

“Your limiting my imagination….”

“I don’t care. I’m in charge. Remove it, now”

YEAR FOUR

 Did you make the ofrenda without me, Grayson!?

YEAR FIVE

No way in hell she was going to let Dick take charge this year. For the past four of them he was growing more and more fond of the day of the dead, starting from assisting and doing shopping ending on going behind her back in finalising his own crazy concept. And finally, the tide had changed and Y/N had to put her foot down.

“What do you mean  you want me to leave?!” Dick cried out the second she told him what punishment she chose for him “Y/N! Why?! It’s so unfair, I – “

“You hijacked my preparations last year. And two years ago. And to tell the truth, three years ago as well!”

“I didn’t – ok, fine…” he raised his hands in surrender “but you can’t blame me for that! It’s really fu-“ he stopped in the middle of the sentence.

“You wanted to say funny, didn’t you?” Y/N raised an eyebrow and Dick blushed a little. Maybe it was a bit inappropriate and unfortunate word to use.

“NO! No I wanted to say… um…” Dick was desperately searching for more accurate wording, also starting with fu, but obviously the alternatives were even worse.

“See that’s the whole point. You kind of missing the message of the day. Yes, sure, it’s supposed to be fun way to honour the dead and tame death in some way, but still it’s also supposed to be at least a little bit of an opportunity to stop for a second and think about things and people.  I really appreciate your positive attitude and it’s not like I’m kicking you out, but...”

“but you do.” Dick smirked and nodded with understanding.

“I just feel like I need to be alone for a while, ok? It’s been five years and at his point I feel like I sometimes need to focus to even remember his face without a photo. It’s all becoming a blur, lost in the joy and amusement. And I don’t want that. I want to remember.”

“Is that why you never gave any boy any chance to –“ he cut out again without really thinking what he was saying.

“Grayson… “ she trailed warningly.

“I’m out! I’m out! Don’t hit me!” he rushed towards the exit. “Just call me when it will be safe to come back, ok?”

“Got it. Now get out!” she chuckled, closing and locking the door behind her friend.

Every little word she said was true.

She wanted to remember.

She had to remember.

It was the only way to fill that little dent in her heart, that Jason left when he died. She couldn’t just let go of him, even though Dick was probably right, and after so many years she should have moved on.  But both her heart and her soul refused to do so.

Maybe you only get one chance to meet your soulmate and Y/N was close to sure that  Jason has been hers.

”It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" she whispered the quote to herself while reaching for Jason’s photo she chose for this year’s decoration, turning them over in her hands for a while, looking at the face of a 15 year old she used to know “I wonder what you would look like now. Bet you’d be even more handsome and all the girls would be jealous I got such a catch.” She laughed a little “Hope you don’t hear me now, cause god damn, that would be such an ego booster for you.”

“You don’t look so bad yourself.” The sudden male voice coming from behind her made her jump (almost the mirror situation to the one that occurred five years ago when Dick found her preparing the ofrenda). But this time it was not Dick standing in her apartment.

“What the actual fuck!?” she yelled taking a fighting stance she learned from Grayson, knowing it would not help her at all due to the shaking of her body at the view in front of her.

“Handsome, huh?” Jason Todd in the flesh, absolutely not dead, brushed some unruly hair from his forehead, looking at her with a playful expression

“¡Estas muerto! ¡Eres un fantasma! ¡¿Qué está pasando?! Cómo –?“ as usual when she got nervous she started using Spanish. (you’re dead! You’re a ghost! What’s going on?! How-?)

“Baby…” Jason took a step forward, hesitantly. “Baby…” he opened his arms “I;m not dead, I swear to you. I-“

She cut him off by diving into his embrace, holding him tightly, wanting to make sure that he wasn’t just a friction of her imagination and needing to feel his warmth, the beating of his heart and his breathing.

“You’re really here!” she cried out, tears falling down her cheeks like a waterfall when she nuzzled into his chest. Honestly, she didn’t need any explanation, at least not at this point. She only wanted him close, afraid that if she let go for as much as a second he would disappear again. “Swear to me this is not a dream…” she muttered, against his shirt. “Swear to me.” Her entire body shook from the shock, she felt so small in his arms, but also safe as never before. It was like after five long years she got home again, that this missing part of her heart was found, and immediately jumped into the place reserved solely for him, unrepleacable. She was whole again and that was what count.

“Baby…. Oh, my sweet girl…” Jason wrapped his arms around her, caressing her back and hair, pulling her even closer, wanting to comfort her, to give her all that love and peace she was deprived of for what felt like ages. “I’m really here. I’m here. My baby… I’m back to you.” He whispered, closing his eyes, feeling equally, if not more emotional than her. He’s been through hell but the only though that made him keep on going was her. His angel. His joy. His only source of light in the eternal darkness that seemed to surround and swallow him. His grip on her tightened and he hoped to convey all these unspoken words to her through hugs and caresses and the gentle brushing of his lips against her temples.

“I love you…” she sobbed desperately, blurting out the only thing that was on her mind at the moment. “I missed you and I love you and –“

“I know baby. I love you too. And I promise you, you’ll never have to worry about hanging my picture in your altar ever again. Ever. I’ll crawl back to you every time and not even death can stop me from being with you. ”

And they just stood there, next to something that was supposed be an tribute to not-so-dead Jason Todd, holding and hugging each other tightly, creating the little bubble only for them two and being so very happy cutting out the entire world and reality, lost in daydream that happened to be the upcoming future for two people that have loved, have lost, and luckily, have found a way back to each other.

Talking could wait.

Silence, in the company of the only person that mattered, came first.

[shyjusticewarrior]

Jason "we can be black sheep together" Todd

[thethirdtriplet]

Head cannon for the Batbros:

I believe, against all odds, Jason and Tim would be the best duo to pair.

Hear me out okay, both boys have they’re own strengths and weaknesses, and it just so happens that they’re strengths are the opposite of one another, and their weaknesses cancel each other out.

Tim, he’s the smart one okay, he’s a think first, act second kid of guy. He’s calculative and cautious. He values logic and evidence, above all else, he’s level headed and has a calm collected demeanor, but his anger is cold and merciless.

Jason, he’s the strong one, clever and incredibly ambitious, he’s built like tank and uses it to his advantage, he has a short temper, but is doing an admirable job with handling the pit’s effects, his anger is burning blaze of fury, one you wouldn’t want to be on the other end of.

What Tim lacks with the people of Crime Alley, Jason makes up for it, he knows everybody who’s anybody, and has a few connections here and there, not to mention the “goons” (no really they’re idiots, but at least they get the job done, sometimes) that work for his, or are too afraid to cross him.

What Jason lacks in hacking and researching, Tim makes up for, he’s no Oracle, but he’s nothing if second best, he’s great with technology and a wizard when it comes to gears and gadgets.

Tim gets Jason to join him on missions that require a certain amount of heavy lifting or strength that he himself can’t provide, and Jason forces Tim to help him with a few that require a bit of outside of the box thinking.

At some point, after some reluctant team ups, they realize how well they work together, and how much stuff they have in common, and so the black sheep duo was formed (“I want to be a black crow, jason” “If you want to correct people each time they call us black sheep then be my guest.”)

So when some goons or gangs think they can take on Red Hood but then they’ll start praying for their lives when notice his red shadow in the shape of Red Robin, cause they know they’re fucked.

Or when some supervillain who has it out for Red Robin has to go through his brother partner, Red hood, if that were to happen it would be too late, as the younger vigilante would have found a way to neutralize them or their plans.

[boyfriendgideon]

as yr favorite local jason todd fan sometimes i get so fed up with the apparent inability of most dc comic writers to write a class conscious narrative about him.

and yes, i know that comics are a very ephemeral and constantly evolving and self-conflicting medium.

and yes, i know they’re a profit-driven art medium created in a capitalistic society, so there are very few times where comics are going to be created solely out of the desire to authentically and carefully and deliberately represent a character and take them from one emotional narrative place to another, because dc cares about profit and sometimes playing it safe is what sells.

and yes, i know comics and other forms of art reflect and recreate the society within which they were conceived as ideas, and so the dominant societal ideas about gender and race and class and so on are going to be recreated within comics (and/or will be responded to, if the writer is particularly societally conscious).

but jesus christ. you (the writer/writers) have a working class character who has been homeless, who has lost multiple parents, who has been in close proximity to someone struggling with addiction, who has had to steal to survive, who may have (depending on your reading of several different moments across different comics created by different people) been a victim of csa, who has clearly (subtextually) struggled with his mental health, who was a victim of a violent murder, and who has an entirely distinct and unique perspective on justice that has evolved based on his lived experiences.

and instead of delving into any of that, or examining the myriad of ways that classism in the writers’ room and the editors’ room and the readers’ heads affected jason’s character to make sure you’re writing him responsibly, or giving him a plotline where his views on what justice looks like are challenged by another working class character, or allowing him to demonstrate actual autonomy and agency in deciding what relationships he wants to have with people who he loves but sees as having failed him in different ways, or thinking carefully about what his having chosen an alias that once belonged to his murderer says about his decision-making and motivations, you keep him stuck in a loop of going by the red hood, addressing crime by occupying a position of relative power that perpetuates crime & harm rather than ever getting at the root causes, and seesawing between a) agreeing with his adoptive family entirely about fighting nonlethally in ways that are often inconsistent with his apparent motivations or b) disagreeing and experiencing unnecessarily brutal and violent reactions from his adoptive father as if that kind of violence isn’t the kind of thing he experienced as a child and something bruce himself is trying to prevent jason from perpetuating. because a comic with red hood, quips, high stakes, and familial drama sells.

it doesn’t matter if it keeps jason trapped, torn between an unanswered moral and philosophical question, a collection of identities that no longer fit him, and a family that accepts him circumstantially. it doesn’t matter if jason’s characterization is so utterly inconsistent that the only way to mesh it together is to piece different aspects of different titles and plotlines together like a jigsaw. it doesn’t matter if you do a disservice to his character, because in the end you don’t want to transform him or even understand him deeply enough to identify what makes him compelling and focus on that.

and i love jason!!!!! i love him. and i think about the stories we could have, if quality and art and doing justice to the character were prioritized as much as selling a title and having a dark and brooding batfam member besides bruce just to be the black sheep character are prioritized. and i just get a little sad.

[cactus-fruit-juice]

I saw a thing once that said due to the Lazarus Pit Jason Todd has a much higher immunity to poisons and toxins.

Personally I love the idea of Scarecrow releasing a fear toxin and Jason giving up his helmet for someone who didn't have a rebreather (whether it's a civilian or one of the batfam) and Scarecrow's just like "Perfect the hulking black sheep of the batfam is about to go ape-shit" and Jason just gives a shit eating grin and goes on a whole dramatic ass monologue about how "you may create fear Crane but I control it" and "I'm the king of fear and you're at best the jester" and a whole bunch of overly dramatic lines. And Scarecrow is just like "what??? The fuck??" Because the fear toxin is very much working on everyone else and this guy is completely unaffected. So Crane's just like "holy shit, this guy is unfazed by his greatest fears what the fuck"

Jason, of course, uses this time to take him out. And the batfam is like "whoa jason you're really unaffected by even your greatest fears?" And jason's just out here like "Nah Im just immune to toxins lol. That monologue was just to fuck with Crane"

And Scarecrow just fucking becomes obsessed with Jason because "He knows fear even better than me" and "Someone who can fight even their greatest fears is truly special" lol

[mysterycitrus]

i dont know who a writer would be who could handle it (more ignorance on my part than lack of good writers though there is that too) but i’m curious what you think a real, earned redemption could look like for jtodd and if you would even want it.

i definitely think there’s a path, esp because so much of bruce’s philosophy relies on a genuine and earnest commitment to rehabilitation and restorative justice, but i also think (and maybe i’m wrong if anyone has comics recs lmk) but i don’t think i’ve seen a comic with the hard work of reaching out and healing/moving on from the past from both bruce + co and jason

i really love his character but especially now i don’t think dc knows what it wants to do with him so he’s in this perpetual limbo where he’s always on the edges of the batfam, a fringe black sheep member but a member nonetheless, still entangled with them

personally i would love either way but i wish dc would either separate him and let him do his own thing that’s not just punisher lite or really actually go through the process of making amends and fully integrating with the crew, learning to love and trust again and all that

omg this really got away from me so apologies for just word vomiting in your asks but yeah im curious dc puts you in charge of j todd’s next big character arc, what would you do with him

i don’t think that’s ignorance — dc is not known for hiring writers who can include and explore complex themes in their comics lol

personally i think the easiest way to trigger a redemption arc for jason would be take him away from the batfamily and force him to interact with other villains, specifically amanda waller and the suicide squad. task force z came kinda close to this, but didn’t push the concept far enough imo. jason’s interactions with black mask were some of the best parts of utrh — i want to see his ideology be questioned by people who do the exact same things as him, and are fully aware that they’re selfish and destructive.

the truth is that while jason is acting out and murdering people, he’s still bound to bruce. he is autonomously making decisions, but fundamentally he is choosing to stay. he’s choosing to be tethered. he’s choosing to care. seeing the indentured recruits of the suicide squad would be confronting to him.

i don’t think the happy family fanon dynamic will ever be possible without ruining every included character simultaneously, but that’s okay. that’s not what jason truly wants anyway.

specifically, i don’t think he’ll ever be able to work with bruce, which is why i find the jason + dick dynamic so interesting. you’re right — bruce’s fundamental mission is about restorative justice, and he would continue to reach out. dick, however, is a realist, and is extremely protective and territorial of the people in his care (tim, damian, the titans, etc) all of whom jason has hurt. jason has been shown on page to respect dick and his position, and simultaneously think he’s pathetic because he refuses to lose control.

for me ideally, he’d be someone on the very outskirts. i feel like dick and babs would be his point of contact — dick because he’s keeping an eye on jason, and babs because she has way less hangups about working with killers. otherwise? i think he’s lost the chance to properly bond with anyone who knew before he died. that’s the risk he took when he decided to become the red hood. that’s the tragedy.

but to be perfectly honest, the most restorative thing jason could do would be to leave the game entirely, and relearn how to live.

[apopcornkernel]

“the one year later event is mostly a clown carnival BUT i actually love the nightwing brothers in blood arc . they did that for me. complicate your familial relationships!!! no linear healing and no linear love!!!!!!” —me, right before my reread of nightwing: brothers in blood, unaware of the emotional tumult i was about to unleash on myself

an assortment of thoughts after my reread of nightwing: brothers in blood

(omg kalis user jason todd means filipino jason todd— okay yes ik it's a kris and that talia gave it to him and that a kalis is longer, sword length, but let me be delusional for a moment)

fanon and ao3 would have you believe that dick would be reaming bruce out for his behavior in batman: under the hood. it is a delight to rediscover that though dick remains #1 batman arguer, he has not done anything of the sort in regards to how bruce has treated jason's return.

introducing my new fav panel of all time:

And Jason, Jason... God, I wish he had died that night with Batman and Joker...

i lied in the post title, btw. i actually have only one main thought about this run.

i have a proposition to make, batman fandom: dick is actually more wary of Jason then bruce is.

i think—dick heavily dislikes jason for always being able to uncover the old wound. i think as someone who's been there since the start, has seen bruce through his best and his worst, cannot stand this grinning spectre upending all the progress bruce has made with his grief. and! i think a part of dick has always felt unsettled that even he couldn't completely heal that grief. and the one person who could do it (he thinks), the one person who is against all odds alive to do it—what does jason do? he needles the wound open. he won't let it rest. he beats up dick's little brother. he sows chaos all over gotham and dick's new city. he saw bruce drown in the self-destructive depression for years and the one person who might have helped ease it in a way no one else could is too busy cutting a bloody swath through various cities.

i think, also, that this—detachment, if you will, is aided by the fact that dick and jason did not know each other as well as they might have. jason was taken in after bruce fired dick, so nightwing was still taking off solo. they have been able to connect and dick and jason have very cute interactions pre-ditf but it's a drop in the ocean compared to dick and tim's relationship.

there is also, i think, a disconnect between robinjay and red hood jason—his little brother died with robinjay, and whoever the red hood is is almost a stranger

He's someone from a long, long time ago. Black sheep of the family, as it were. His name is Jason Todd. He thinks he's me. This may sound crazy, but... he's supposed to be dead. Twice over.

"from a long, long time ago." and like i said, there's this almost detachment from dick, no (positive) reminiscence of jay's robin days. i do think that dick, wrt jason, is mostly unrestrained by past sentiment—or at least he's better at separating that sentiment than bruce, who although tries to remain objective in his chase against red hood, is also notably shaken, to the point that jason was able to force his hand & drive him to panic, leading to half-thought, panicked decisions that a level-headed batman would not have made (as i think we are all in agreement that bruce would not actively decide to disarm his son via batarang to the throat, especially considering his no-kill rule.)

there's more i'd like to say, but this is most of it—i don't want to drown the dash with batman rambling, but im asking yall to consider it. think about how delicious this dynamic is!! there's so so much to explore!!! and i think it really hammers home just how much the world has changed during jason's death & disappearance 🫣

a final aside before i end this post:

JASON: That's Blüdhaven.

BRUCE: Dick...?

JASON: My God. Is Nightwing there? Imagine that. One son returns from the grave as another enters it... what a fitting ending this has become.

i adore jason's reaction to blüdhaven blowing up in utrh. he's like "my god... 😮 is nightwing there? 🤭 imagine that 😗" HE'S SO SILLYYY. bruce is anguished, having a Time because his exploded son is back from the dead just in time for his other son to also (possibly) die in an explosion—as jason says, "one son returns from the grave as another enters it"—and jason is GIGGLING. i hate him so much <3

[just-barrow]

Interview below the cut:

‘I learned on the job’: Ben Mendelsohn’s new look

By Michael Idato

FEBRUARY 16, 2024

Captured by the lens of cinematographer Jaime Reynoso, Ben Mendelsohn’s Christian Dior cuts a slender, stylish figure in Apple TV’s The New Look. Mendelsohn delivers a luminous performance, played with nuance and subcutaneous emotion. What is not immediately apparent is that it all started in the most unpretentious of places: footy games and pizza nights.

Behind the new series sits an important friendship between Mendelsohn and writer/director Todd A. Kessler, formed in 2015 when Kessler cast Mendelsohn as family black sheep Danny Rayburn in his critically acclaimed Netflix thriller Bloodlines. Since then, the 54-year-old Melbourne-born actor says, an enduring friendship has formed.

“Todd is the easiest person, the most unstressed, unpretentious sort of person to be around,” Mendelsohn says. “I’ve taken him to meet everyone. I’ve taken him to the footy with all my mates. He’s one of those kind of guys. It was definitely the Roosters, but I can’t remember who they were playing,” adding with a grin: “I wish it was a Storm game because obviously, we’re better.”

The New Look sprang into being one night when Kessler “was at my joint, and he was knocking up a pizza from scratch,” Mendelsohn says. Kessler, who is a passionate reader of biographies, had started talking about the renowned French fashion designer Christian Dior, and about Dior’s “personal self, like an authentic self, if you like, and this other self, which he hates. He hates himself for not being able to be his authentic self while he conducts his business.”

“I just turned to him and said, well, when can we do this? Because I didn’t need any more than that,” Mendelsohn adds. “That’s such a universal kind of starting place. And I just went, well, when can we do it? Because after Bloodline, I’d do anything to try and work with him again on something where we’ve got a shot.”

In its final form, The New Look has more than a shot. It comes with a brilliant cast: Mendelsohn as Dior, French star Juliette Binoche as designer Coco Chanel, John Malkovich as Lucien Lelong, the French couturier in whose workroom Dior’s career began, and Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams as Dior’s sister Catherine, a French resistance fighter.

Written by Kessler with Jason and David Rabe, Amanda Coe, Carter Harris, Dani Vetere and Ning Zhou, the series explores the rise of Dior, his creation of “the New Look”, which revolutionised French fashion, his rivalry with Chanel and his close connection to his sister Catherine. Featured among the supporting cast: Cristobal Balenciaga, Hubert de Givenchy, Pierre Cardin and others. In terms of modern fashion history, it is an A-list lineup.

That “the New Look” was transformational for the Christian Dior brand speaks for itself. Founded in 1947, it took just seven years for Dior to account for half of Paris’s fashion export industry. It is owned today by the luxury conglomerate LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, headed by Bernard Arnault.

For Ben Mendelsohn, a boy who was raised on the outskirts of Melbourne, however, that’s a lot of haute couture history to take in. What does the starting point for researching a role like this look like? I ask Mendelsohn. “It looks bare,” he replies, smiling.

As an actor, he explains, he began with the man more than the world he inhabited. “When you’re coming at it, from my point of view, it looks like you want to build a frame, just a frame, and you don’t want to concern yourself where everything’s going to go and get all wound up in that because that’s not where the action is,” he says. “The action is this little field where you can try and surf.”

Mendelsohn took in “a sense of curiosity, unsureness, and I wanted to make sure I could hear the other person. That’s what I wanted to do. To try to get the mechanics of the accent, a sense of what the fabric world is like, what this is like, the family life, that kind of stuff. And that’s it. That’s it.”

Why? “Because I got taught by [Anthony] Hopkins something very, very important, and it changed the way I worked,” he says, declining to go into the details of what was contained in Hopkins’ acting tutorial. [The pair worked together on Spotswood in 1991, when Mendelsohn was just 22.] “I learned along the way,” he adds. “I learned on the job, talking to people.”

Perhaps the most striking revelation in the scripts themselves is not so much that life in World War II-era Paris was complicated – it was, as the history books attest to – but that not everyone’s loyalties lay where you might assume. Louis Vuitton, for example, had ties to the French [pro-Nazi] Vichy regime. Hugo Boss designed Nazi uniforms. Chanel was, for all intents and purposes, a Nazi spy. Cristobal Balenciaga was close to Spain’s Hitler-ally, General Franco. The list goes on.

Mendelsohn refrains from weighing in with an opinion except to say, essentially, that the historical record is there for examination. “I think as Aussies, we have a really strong sense of certainty about certain things; we have a high barrier for what’s good and what’s not,” he says.

What is in the series, he adds, is “the journey of that and the journey of how do you be in the world when you have this self that you don’t necessarily feel an overwhelming greatness about? How do you interact with it with values, integrity that meets reality and [situations where] you must adjust or fall off the side″⁣.

“In the modern world, that’s got a really beautiful message because [Dior] is a very sensitive person, he’s a person with a lot of insecurities, a lot of doubt. He doesn’t feel good about himself in many, many ways,” Mendelsohn says. “And yet he steps forward.”

Kessler, speaking in a separate conversation, attributes what many might feel is a free pass for a brand like Chanel, to the slow exposure of the extent of Coco Chanel’s interactions with the Nazis. Much of the detail was kept in government archives which were not released until years after the war, “and by then, many of the people spoken about had passed away, and it didn’t make much news at the time”, Kessler says.

A few days before our interview, speaking at a press event, Mendelsohn articulated the struggle to position the work of artists in the wider spectrum of both their personal politics and, in Chanel’s case, events taking place around her.

“I think that you can admire the work, you can be moved by the creation, and you can have a sense of that person behind it or not,” Mendelsohn said. “It doesn’t stop the power of the creation and as to how one feels about the person, well, that’s dependent on any number of things.

“We’re not trying to paint sort of a moral story here, we’re just really trying to look at the circumstances and people that are trying to find their way through it and how they do it, coming from where they come from,” Mendelsohn added.

To some extent, Dior himself comes out of The New Look historically unscathed. At the same time, Caroline Bongrand, the fashion historian and former editor-in-chief of the fashion magazine L’Officiel, has described Dior as a man who suffered a lifetime of heartbreaks, including the painful secret of his sexuality.

That secret, coupled with his professional commitment to the creation of objects of beauty, created a kind of binary, the idea of a man divided by his pain and his joy. As an actor, I ask Mendelsohn, does he understand that conflict, as an authentic self himself with a library of performed false selves; as a man of a thousand faces, does he understand a man with two?

“I would think that Christian had a lot more than two,” Mendelsohn replies, with a wry smile. “I think I’m more interested in trying to just bring to life a sense of this particular narrative about him. In terms of the stuff about sexuality, I just felt like culturally we’d already won that space.

“Going back into that would be diverting what we were hoping to do,” Mendelsohn says. “I don’t think the same in such a binary sense, but I don’t know as much as [Caroline Bongrand] does, and that’s a very deliberate choice. I want to know enough that I can get a resonant sense, a vibe if you like, and then I want to dream into whatever it is to do the scene in the moment.”

The series’ costume designer Karen Muller Serreau was another critical relationship, not just because she dressed Mendelsohn in duplicates of Dior’s clothes, but because she also created the duplicate Dior collections that feature in the series. To be clear, the series used no vintage pieces; Muller Serreau was granted access to Dior’s heritage archives, where the original collections are stored, in order to create the duplicates.

“She’s incredible, and it’s an incredible achievement,” Mendelsohn says. Muller Serreau’s knowledge, he says, was critical in filling the gaps in his own. “I try as much as I can to swim in my lane and [depend on] those who are expert to tell me what it’s going to be. I approach it much more like a kelpie, than I do as a guy that stands at the top with a sense of solid knowing.

“And when I go and do it on the floor, I’m not giving you a certainty, I’m just giving a proposition,” Mendelsohn adds. “It’s just a proposition every time. And I’m standing well beneath an audience, trying to offer it up, imagining you as much more able to read and understand things than I am, but giving it my best and trying to do so with sort of a love letter vibe.”

In one sense, Mendelsohn doesn’t give himself enough credit. His performance in The New Look is remarkable, the confirmation of an actor whose career has taken him from Danny Clarke in The Big Steal (1990) and Dazey in Metal Skin (1994), to Pope in Animal Kingdom (2010) and Henry IV in David Michod’s The King (2019), with a thrilling stopover in Rogue One, as Orson Krennic, in an unforgettable face-to-mask meeting with Darth Vader.

“They are all there, [but] it’s very easy to confuse the piece that an audience takes to be the thing that it was [because] what you carry with you is the whole history of working those long, long days in those long, long things.” Mendelsohn adds that much of the time he was “not necessarily feeling very confident about anything, or while demonstrating this sort of pose of like, yeah, I can do it all.”

When he looks in the mirror, even in costume, he still sees himself, not the character he is playing. “When I was younger, it bothered me a lot more; the real thing I lament about [the face] is its pathways are very, very set. I used to wish that I could somehow train the face to do completely different things, But what happened is that I’ve become less concerned with trying to control it or trying to manoeuvre it for effect.”

But, he adds, there are echoes of all them – Danny, Dazey, Pope, Orson Krennic and Henry IV – still with him. “They’re all there. And the ones that are the most important end up being the ones that people love, and Babyteeth, for instance, will remain incredibly important, whether or not it’s taken up,” he says.

“When people love them, they stay in you,” he says. “Danny, Trevor [from 1987’s The Year My Voice Broke], there’s a lot of them ... just moments, moments and moments. And I’ve got 40 years of them, mate. I wasn’t looking to become an actor. I really wasn’t. I wouldn’t have dreamed of it. I wouldn’t have dreamed of it.”

The New Look is on Apple TV.