#pit madness

[raynetheinsane]

Pit madness isnt real, it has never been real, and it never will be real.

However, the batfam thinks its real.

Jason has extreme PTSD and he reacts like someone with extreme PTSD. There is no magical mindfuck happening.

However, Bruce (and the rest of the Bats) couldn’t just accept that Jason is this way now, that he has deepset mental issues that affect him heavily. Bruce can’t accept that Jason “Robin is Magic” Todd is no longer that kid and he needs some kind of reasoning for why Jason is no longer that kid.

So he turns towards “Pit Madness” and affect of the Lazuras Pit that never existed (shown my Talia and Ra’s not being filled with rage all the time) but Bruce has deluded himself and the rest of the family into thinking it exists.

Jason, also needs a reason to believe that he isn’t extremely traumatized and in need of extreme help, so he believes the Pit Madness. He believes that its a result of the Pit and not the trauma he went through because that is simply easier.

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

Jason has been feeling like crap lately. He's been avoiding the other bats more than usual and rarely wants to do anything other than sleep, even his hobbies and his night job have been falling to the sidelines.

He insists hes not depressed, just really tired, but Leslie and any other doctor hes seen hasn't found anything wrong. It wasn't until the bats kidnapped him and put him through intensive testing that they discovered what was wrong.

"Jason. You're pregnant."

Jason stared at Dick like he'd grown a second head. "I'm not trans Dickiebird."

Tim came over with a tablet, "The ultrasound doesn't lie." Sure enough the tablet showed a little fetus growing in his gut. What the hell. He wasn't even showing???

"Jason." Bruces gruff voice made him glare in the big bad bats direction, "Do you know who the father is?"

"Hell if I know! I haven't even slept with anyone in the past few months!" He seethed.

Bruce furrowed his brow, "Then do you know of anythin you might have come into contact with that might have done this?"

Jason flopped his back down onto the examination table with a groan, "If i knew I would have already gotten it when I started feeling wierd."

"What about a person?" Tim asked, "Do you think a mad scientist or magic user could have something to do with it?"

Jason stared at him with wide eyes, "Oh my god."

Tim blinked, "What?"

"Oh my god." Jason grabbed his stuff and practically flew to his motorcycle, fully intending on finding that glowy white haired "meta" that cured his pit madness. &$!% it all made sense now.

Cue Red Hood nearly busting Dannys door down while the latter was busy making mac-n-cheese. Danny opened his mouth, likely to make a quip, only for Jason to beat him to the punch, "You got me pregnant, you @$$!"

------

Aka theres a few prompts where Jason gets danny preggo but not many of the reverse, which I feel is a crime

[frozenrogue89]

Pit Madness makes Jason more violent.

Red Hood is fiercely protective of and cares deeply for children.

Tim is Sad Baby.

Therefore, I raise the argument that the Titans Tower incident was an unfortunate case of Pit Mad Jason Todd having an extreme case of cuteness aggression.

[dannyphannypack]

oh hear me out on this one . yknow the ectoplasmic filtration thing that is literally canon to danny phantom? what if when danny doesn’t clean it the ectoplasm that makes up the portal starts becoming corrupted and danny starts getting moodier … and what if he gets really busy and stressed out and forgets and suddenly starts snapping at sam and tucker and picking fights with students and being a little too rough on ghosts .. what if an improperly filtered ghost portal becomes the equivalent of lazarus pits … just a thought

[doraambrose]

Something that I'm starting to hate is the whole "Jason's eyes glow green when he's angry" or that his eyes are blue/green, but mostly the first point. It's just not true and it's kind of stupid tbh. If there's any actual canon evidence that he has had green eyes or glowing green eyes, please let me know, but I'm like 90% sure that most, if not all, canon comics have him with just regular blue eyes.

And also, I don't like "pit madness". It's weird and as much as I love jason, it's like a stupid excuse for some of his more vile behaviors. He did the things he did because he's mentally ill and has some hard-core ptsd and trauma and nobody to help him through it. Those actions were all him, not because of the Lazarus pit.

Honestly, anything involving jason being superhuman or permanently affected by the pit in that way needs to just disappear. He's just a dude, an impressive one with amazing skills, but still just a human dude, with mental illness and some hard-core daddy issues...and mommy issues let's be real.

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk

[brucewaynehater101]

I concede that Lazarus Pit Mad Jason™ doesn't canonically exist.

(Lazarus Pit Madness does exist, just more so in the DCU than in the comics)

I 100% stand by the idea that Jason's actions can be explained by Pit Madness. HOWEVER, they should not excuse them. If someone wants to write in their fanfic that the Pit Madness was why Jason did some horrible shit (like attacking Tim), sure. Why not? That still doesn't excuse what his did, the consequences of his actions, or the long-lasting effects of them. He would still need to work for forgiveness, and the relationship he built with anyone he attacked would be a long road.

Jason is not at fault for all of his actions, but it's more telling to examine that from a cPTSD perspective. Being killed and coming back to everything being the exact same (when your dad is a "hero" that just replaced you) is extremely traumatizing. Pit Madness can exacerbate his emotions, but they shouldn't be the end all be all.

Also, I love the fics that show Pit effects in strange ways.

The Pit forces Jason to start taking care of his siblings cause it adopted them? Hilarious.

The Pit is like a Venom situation where it talks to Jason 24/7? Yum.

The Pit doesn't cause madness, but the price of its power is blood? Oof. Yes.

[ghost-bxrd]

The other idea I vaguely mentioned. I personally am fond of my idea that Jason would kidnap Tim as Red Hood, not to hurt Dick or Bruce... but because his time in the League has made him decide that Tim needs to go through training that Bruce and Dick would never allow. After all, Bruce and Dick went through extensive training, training that Jason now knows, from his own training in the League of Assassins, hurts. They both survived. Jason didn't. Therefore... Tim needs to undergo the same type of horrific training that the three of them have. So that he doesn't die... so that he doesn't die permanently anyway. Not while Jason has access to a Pit. Not if Jason can work out exactly what made Talons unkillable.

Tim needs to be trained, even if it kills him. It's the only way for him to stay alive.

I know this isn't as focused on Dick. But this version of Jason, a version that isn't angry but concerned and willing to act on that concern in some very dark ways... I thought it would interest you too.

Oh yeah okay uh this one’s a little too dark for me I’ll admit ._.

And I don’t think Jason would ever go to such lengths. The pit madness (my beloved) would more likely than not fuel him to attack Tim. But long term torture as ‘training’… I don’t really see Jason succumbing to that here. >.<

[ky-landfill]

"Jason, stop!"

[deadsetobsessions]

I like the idea of the pit madness, I do. It’s one of my favorite topics. The potential for angst in a supernatural rage driving Jason’s actions and effectively putting him in the backseat of his mind during one of the rage fits is tempting.

But I also adore the idea of Gotham just having zombies be a regular thing. I adore the idea of Jason coming back and digging himself out of his grave out of sheer spite and trauma, all in the name of revenge. The only thing in his head is kill the Joker and nothing else. But he’s like a mini, breakable Grundy, and the League of Assassins coming in with the pit just to heal him and wind him up against the bats.

I like the idea that he got validated, at least in his intentions of murder and that he really took a dip in the dark side, to the point where he brutally beats/almost murder Tim (a child) because he truly does not care past killing the joker. I like the idea of Jason loosing what made him a good Robin and then finding it again and instead of killing himself to be that bright child, he reigns himself and his hatred in in order to stop hurting the people he loves.

Like he’s justified in his anger, but I like that it takes a while until he realizes he’s not justified in his actions (some of them, at least). I want Jason to choose to be ruthless, to be evil. I want him to voluntarily hurt Tim and make that decision with a clear mind. I want Jason to look at his life and choose the less lethal way and to own up to his actions without the shield of the Pit Madness.

Like, good isn’t something that comes easily to an adult. Jason’s no longer the kid he was when good was always the answer. We have to choose it, actively. I think Jason would be a good reflection of that.

[nana-mizu-shiki]

That would go over well.

"....Comes in a little box, you can put your homicidal tendencies in there for a bit, until we find a better container...."

"I am rocking this big brother thing. Up top.”

These are from different chapters but I love them all the same. I've been Dying to read Revived Tim & Jay Fluff. Just them Bonding over the trauma of dying. This fix even has JokerJr.!Tim !! I definitely recommend so far, I often don't finish long fics, and this one's 25 ch.'s, but I love it for how far I have read as of now.

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

Danny and Damian twins au where Danny died and became a halfa on a mission to kill Vlad Masters. He succeeded but the portal blew up with him inside it due to some of the machines in the lab being damaged in the fight that happened not too long ago.

Danyal gets stuck in the Infinite Realms with amnesia and wanders around helping people and learning things about this new world like a video game protagonist.

Damian thinks he'll never get to see his baby brother again and blames himself since it was his job as the older brother to protect him. Damian life continues as normal and he eventually meets Jon otherwise known as superboy.

Jon reminded him so much of his late brother. It hurt. Damian found himself testing the boy just to make sure this wasn't a cruel trick or some sort by throwing things at him that Danyal definitely would have dodged or asking "innocent" questions. Even after he was satisfied that Jon wasn't a clone or anything he found himself more or less trying to turn Jon into Danyal. He offered him Daniel's favorite snacks and to play his favorite things and even got confused for a second when Jon didn't immediately know what he was talking about when Damian mentioned the constellations above Damians childhood home.

It wasn't even like Jon physically resembled Danyal either. Sure they both had black hair and blue eyes-as compared to Damians green- but it was thier personalities that confused him and threatened to drag him into the deep sea of grief he had kept bottled up in his heart all these years.

He needed to get away from Jon.

His heart wouldn't let him.

It was in Damians 14th year of life that his brothers and sister died. Unable to cope with this he brings them to the Lazarus pit where Jason attempted to stop him from reviving the rest of thier siblings in fear they would turn out like him.

Somehow the both of them got thrown/ fell into the pit with the bodies and something unexpected happened. Sure, thier siblings were revived and screaming but they were now on a floating island in a wierd green dimention that looked suspiciously like Lazarus water.

[onnahu]

Pit Madness? No, it's science!

My take on effects that the lazarus pit had on Jason, because I don't really like the concept of pit madness.

So I was on that lecture about neurology of aggression and empathy, and they talked about one experiment, when they took a group of prisoners with agressive tendencies, mostly about physical attacks, and a control group of normies and made a test of hormones and neurotransmitters and while normies had GABA and seratonis on the same level as dopamine and noradrenaline, with prisoners there was a big non-equilibrium between them, with dopamine and NA on higher levels. So, people with dopamine and NA on higher levels are more likely to be agressive and temperamental.

And it got me thinking.

Lazarus pit is damn weird, right? What if it was messing with biology of a person? Bc we all love hc of Jason with glowing eyes.

And I don't really like pit madness trope, or I like it as just in moments of real anger it can activate or whatever. But Jason was a sweet child. Sure, he was agressive sometimes, but that's normal. So I think, that Jason's anger is righteous, and all the trauma absolutely destabilitised him mentally, but Lazarus Pit also could mess with his brain chemistry, and it's so interesting to me.

It's also not like the pit madness in fanon. He has free will, he's just more worked up biologically, and more likely to get agressive and physical.

I think it could be fun to explore, bc without it he maybe would do the same, or maybe not, and it's not that big of a change, but it would make it a little bit sadder thinking about him as a Robin and him as Red Hood.

Maybe part of that agression was written into him with the healing waters of the Lazarus Pit.

He can heal from trauma, but it would be something that's always there, another thing that changed in him when he was dead.

Maybe it doesn't make sense, and maybe it's just me, but it kinda make Jason more tragic - and he's tragic enough, but who doesn't like projecting onto fictional characters and make them hurt.

[mileschoosesdeath]

Hi y'all! This is my resurrected Jason Todd AU in which he gets powers ala Scarlet Witch thanks to the Lazarus Pit. A sort of fun little AU I wanted to write of Jason having powers and becoming Red Hood with said powers! I hope you enjoy it and please hit up my inbox with questions, comments or concerns! Additionally, please feel free to add kudos, comments or bookmark the fic itself on AO3!

[arianna-creates]

Day 3 of making Tim look like Keith Kogane on accident

I love how the reverse robin fanatics watched Tim become joker Jr, looked at their rr au's and thought to themselves, "he should kill himself for the mission, and it should be as big of a slap to the face for bruce as is possible"

[staticcnoise]

i get that the idea of pit madness is cool and interesting and angsty and makes it easy to like jason by separating him from his wrongdoings

but can we please consider how cool and interesting and angsty and complex jason is when we don’t just explain away his actions as not his own?

let good people be bad people for their own reasons and motivations please

[ghost-bxrd]

Why do you like the Pit-Madness trope? (in general)

Several reasons! Mostly I love seeing how the portrayal and characteristics differ from writer to writer and how it ties into the story.

But in a more general sense I think it’s an interesting way to explain Ra’s descent into madness. He started out with good intentions and trying to make the world a better and place, but with repeated and prolonged exposure to the pit his ideals got warped into shadows of their former self.

Much like how Jason, who always hated murderes and drug dealers, then ended up being a crime lord himself. For a good cause, but still.

Tbh though I mostly just enjoy writing pit madness as a fun way to allow Jason to go absolutely berserk on his enemies once in a while.

Also, the green (sometimes glowy) eyes. Like, pls. Gimme more.

The trope just has so much potential in a lot of ways. The Lazarus Pit is a mystery, as are its side effects. ✨🧪