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[yvtro]

This is the easiest equation in the world. He has one bullet. Besides him, there are three people in this warehouse (or two, depending on how you look at it.) He knows what to do.

or, jason todd's take on the leave no trace/non-interference time travel protocol.

leave no trace (read on ao3)

if you could destroy the story before it started, would you–  “outhouse,” rachel mckibbens

There’s ringing in his ears, as it often comes after an explosion. Except there has not been one. Not yet.

This is not a dream, even if it seems like that. Even if the colours are too bright in this dark warehouse, and the sun glimmers on the few and narrow windows like it would on stained glass in a church. It must be smudges of dirt. Dirt is everywhere. Layers of ash on the floor. A stain of blood (or a child). Kaleidoscopes of red, yellow, and green. 

Breathe. Breathe. Five things you can see (1. His gloved hands. 2. His gun. 3. Sheila Haywood; her face less calm than he remembers it, streaks of tears ruining her makeup– 4. Joker, looking right at him, 5. And that pile on the floor. A mangled, whimpering thing, that would probably feel oddly soft under his boot.) Focus. What goes next? 1. Laughter 2. Laughter. 3. Laughter. 4. Laughter. Or was it something he can feel? Or taste? Blood in his mouth. Focus.

There are protocols for this. One of the few Batman protocols that were designed in collaboration with outsiders, the Flash and even Booster Gold advising on the best course of action. Jason remembers studying them, and remembers Bruce telling him, in a strange occurrence, “I trust you do the right thing, if it comes to this.” And Jason remembers replying– “I always do.” In his mind, he would add, cynically, that fortunately his idea of the right thing was not the same as that of his father.

This is not a dream, but he had a similar once, or maybe it was a hallucination, as he sat in a cell in the Magdala Valley, and Robin’s body was twitching in front of him in spasms of pain, and an adolescent voice asked for help, and he replied, “I have tried, Robin. Believe me, I have tried.” And now he can truly try.

Focus. The Joker is static, perhaps because of the gun aiming at his head. “I love this joke!” He exclaims, his voice echoing in the vastness of the building. Somehow, to Jason’s ears, the moan coming from the floor feels more offensive. 

There’s something he is missing, a memory tugging at his mind. A mention of the Joker using his old alias in Ethiopia, or someone else being spotted in a Red Hood-esque attire. “Peculiar,” Bruce said back then, and that was it, either way, “Robin, stay put.” Now, Robin is indeed staying put, Jason thinks with some humour, and the laughter in the background feels almost appropriate, as everything comes together, aligns. He retracts his actions since the displacement happened, where he’s been seen in the Valley, and how he ended up here, kicking the doors in. For a second, clarity almost overwhelms him.

This is the easiest equation in the world.

He has one bullet. Besides him, there are three people in this warehouse (or two, depending on how you look at it.) He knows what to do. 

He fixes the gun on the target. Clean. His finger is placed on the trigger. Steady. 

The shot is deafening. 

***

Jason jolts in the Batcave, and he comes to his senses slowly, like from a dream. He blinks. Bruce is looking at him, maybe a little sadly. He can see his mouth moving, but can’t make out the words clearly. “Since you are here…timeline secure…the right thing.”

Jason stares at him, still a little dizzy. 

“Sure did.” He smiles.

“Thank you,” Bruce says. There it comes; normally, he would be surprised at the sentiment, but this is only a confirmation that he was not actually trusted, that the fact that their reality did not collapse with Jason’s unprecedented trip was a surprise. Besides, Bruce doesn’t have any idea what he’s thanking him for, he doesn’t know half of it. And it’s not like Jason did it for him, either way. 

Breathe.

There’s the giant Joker card, and Jason’s own gloves, and the empty magazine of his gun–

“One thing you can hear?” This is Batman talking. 

“Ringing.”

[yvtro]

Two questions that I'm genuinely interested in your answer for (bc I love your metas ngl) but I totally get it if you don't answer.

What's your biggest unpopular opinion on Jason, and your least favorite popular/fandom opinion on him?

disclaimer: i’m moving blogs. still here to go through my askbox, but you will find me at @boyfridged most of the time.

i'm very flattered, thank you!! and sorry this took me so long to answer. and it did take me so long 1. because it’s really hard to tell what is actually an unpopular opinion (i did thankfully find myself in a circle of mutuals who mostly share the same intuitions when it comes to his character) and 2. because I mentally put a label on it “asks to get me assassinated.” and I guess the take that i have requires quite careful wording. 

so, my unpopular take is that from in-universe point of view, jason shouldn’t be a vigilante, and it would be best for the storytelling around him to focus on this fact. and i’m not saying that in a mean, moralistic nor diminishing way. i just think that jay’s storyline is a story of everything that can go wrong with a sidekick, and of how vigilantism can traumatise people into oblivion, and completely annihilate their ability to function normally. part of it is a result of the fact that imo jason isn’t naturally suited for vigilantism (that is not to talk about his skills nor efficiency in it, i will get back to it shortly), and part of it is a result of the circumstances in which he was introduced into it, and of course the subsequent trauma.

you could say “uhm every superhero story is like that, he’s not special,” but typically, when you think about characters such as bruce wayne or dick grayson etc., the event that comes to mind when you think about their biggest trauma is something that… pushed them into vigilantism? and vigilantism supposedly helped them in some ways? (it can be argued against, but that’s an underlying assumption) (+even without a tragic backstory, characters usually have much more agency in their decision to become vigilantes). and in case of jay, his biggest trauma isn’t anything that came before robin, and his life was awfully fucking sad, so i think that it says something. his biggest trauma is associated with what he went through already as robin and then retraumatising events that followed his resurrection. 

it’s really puzzling to me that this distinction is never deliberately written about nor truly brought up in comics…? i think the closest we came to this was, ironically, starlin’s run (when alfred straight up suggests that maybe robin just isn’t good for jason) and countdown (where jay intends to leave the superhero community altogether). 

okay, so you can say: vigilantism is kinda shitty for you. breaking news, we’ve known this already.

except there's something, in my opinion, that makes jason’s case special and more nuanced. it seems, at first glance, that with all the love and compassion jason has, he should be great material for a vigilante still. but he clearly isn’t. why is that?

the crushing proportion of other characters have moral systems, coping mechanisms, and understanding of vigilantism that make this life at least possible for them. on the other hand, jason’s personality, his lived experience, and his moral stance makes vigilantism extremely unsustainable. i mentioned it before in my post about eoc, but most (especially 1st gen, but not only, i’d argue that most former teenage superheroes also came to this point as well) vigilantes, even if associated with love and compassion as the core of their actions, have understanding of vigilantism and moral codes that jason doesn’t possess. (for a long while i was on a “jason has a moral code but it’s casually bastardised by most writers” team but since then i have thought about it a lot and my current take is that he was good at following orders as robin, and has some provisional rules as the red hood, but they’re nowhere near an actual code. as i said in the linked post, i think morality is more of an on-going emotional practice for him). and it all makes sense! let's circle back to bruce for a moment. of course, the reason for which he doesn’t kill is grounded within his own beliefs, but he is also very painfully aware of the thin line that vigilantes walk on when it comes to the law and being trusted by the public. i'd argue he is very conscious of the fact that being a vigilante comes with responsibility of cultivating a certain ethos. he had a lot of time to think about it! in many ways, he invented it. and it’s practical. it's what makes this life possible.

jason doesn’t have it. jason’s idea of vigilantism isn’t carefully designed nor sophisticated, jason’s idea of vigilantism is that he is in the field and he has power to do things, so he has to do them. he has to trust his moral intuitions. and in many ways, he’s not wrong – it's not a flawed view to hold, especially not in the ordinary life. but that also means that there are no lines that he won’t cross if he thinks he can help or fix the situation. but in the world that batman introduces us to (a world in which, to quote le guin on an unrelated matter, there’s no ends, but only means), it’s self-destructive. to compare him again to bruce, bruce is self-sacrificial, but his conceptual understanding of vigilantism and his moral code protect him in some ways. jason’s moral judgements and actions are unrestrained and radical (not to say that they’re reckless or inefficient; he’s still a great strategist and can be even overly careful if it’s required). and that is set in a world where evil never stops. we already know that the joker will always come back, for example. what does it mean for jason? he will try to match the energy, of course, and he’s not stopping either. bruce is similar in that aspect, yet he has a whole insurance set that helps him deal with extreme situations. there's an offset. and jason doesn’t have any. he won’t ever hit the breaks. i think you know where i’m going with this metaphor. 

so i guess my take is that… bruce’s outlook on vigilantism is, against the popular opinion, very rational. but jason just brings his heart into it and nothing else. and that’s just catastrophic.

this is really me just pushing the “love is his fatal flaw” agenda again tbh, but with additional emphasis on why the same trait isn’t that tragic for other characters who share it. also this is why it’s so crucial to me that he should have a civilian arc… 

and as to my least favourite fandom opinion on him, i can't think of anything very specific right now, but my general pet peeve is anything that divorces his characterisation from his 80s personality. i think you can tell that i really dislike painting him as resentful towards dick, and all takes that indicate that he's always been cynical and distrustful toward the world. i think a lot of people want his storyline to be one of someone who has, from day one, been full of rightful anger, but the thing is that it has not been his story to begin with. he had to be pushed really far for this to happen. and this is what makes him so special compared with most anti-heroes – that his story starts from a genuine place of innocent and naive hope and love despite all he suffered.

[yvtro]

thoughts on task force z? I’m not sure if you’ve talked about it before but I’m curious what you think of jason’s characterization there

disclaimer: i’m moving blogs. still here to go through my askbox, but you will find me at @boyfridged most of the time.

it's been almost two months, but i've been postponing replying to this ask because i rarely read recent comics, and infinite frontier is a dumpster fire. but i finally got to it!! here are my general thoughts that i noted during that read-through:

so i know that i’ve been talking a lot about how interesting the cyclical nature of jason’s story is, and how it makes a lot of sense for him to be stuck in this loop on the peripheries of the narrative, but reading this series made me want to retract this statement purely because dc doesn't know how to make it work. stories about cycles like that require awareness of why the cycle occurs, research about the source material (how was it perpetuated before?) and a good idea about how the same storyline structure can be written to feel fresh and novel for a reader.

spoiler alert: the storyline did not feel fresh nor novel. it was incredibly dull. i think rosenberg just isn't a very good writer, you know? his dialogues are stiff, and i swear he has not heard in his life about "show don't tell" (and while i'm not even that committed to the idea of "show don't tell" in regular literature, comics entirely rely on show don't tell. not to take the rule too literally, but this is what you have pictures for!! use them to mean something, maybe?)

i think i get why i've seen people praising tfz though, and that's because rosenberg has a surprisingly good general grasp of jason's character (compared with zdarsky, for example.) then again, this is the bare minimum, the bar is on the floor or below, etc. and he could fit that comprehension of jason’s character in a tweet. no need for a 12-issues series.

so, let's take an overview of things that jason says: “you didn’t make me, you raised me” “i made mistakes because i was scared, and i was angry, and i was hurt” “i died trying to save someone i cared about. (…) i died a hero” all good points! all true. so what's the issue? well, to me it's that he would not fucking say that. why does he talk like he's in therapy? when did he come to all these conclusions? the thing about good storytelling is that characters very rarely have a clear picture of their own place in the world; and while it is the case that jason is interesting in the sense that he's always verging on a brink of that awareness, and he is quite vocal about his feelings, the thing is that nevertheless, he rarely brings himself to openly speak about things that matter; he deflects. and it makes sense for him to be quite repressed (it's self-preservation. it's the dialogical nature of identity.) why would a character suddenly start monolouging on their relationships and their status in the narrative (lol.) etc? the whole series is like that, and it's exhausting, because it doesn't mean anything at all. you can tell me all of these things, but how about you show me how and why he came to this realisation? where's the internal conflict? ever heard of symbolism? parallels? plot devices? figures of speech?

on the topic of talking like in therapy, i think the only interesting bit was barbara telling jason that he's basing his identity on his trauma. it has potential, and it makes sense it would be barbara to say it.

but since i'm on the topic of other characters already: every single other character acts like they're a cardboard cut-out. we see the same confrontation with bruce we've seen hundred times before (okay. maybe not hundred but def more than 10 times. hell, there was the same confrontation in cheer that came out the same year, i think?), and bruce sounds like a broken record. i have to stress that i do think there are good reasons for them to be stuck in the same place when it comes to their relationship, but once again, if you want to write about it, try to make a point about why this is the case. and atp, it's just so inconsistent with bruce's current characterisation, that it feels like he just appears in red hood stories as a prop. same with pretty much all the batfam really. since when is the whole batfam sooo eager to agree with bruce when it comes to every single one of his decisions? if you need to make everyone seem to be mindless to make your main character right, then you're doing it wrong. whatever happened to nuance? get off ao3, rosenberg, this is not a whump fic.

in general, i couldn't tell you what that story is trying to say. and i consider myself a very charitable reader. i've found elements in rhato that i thought were note-worthy. here?? there's no substance. at all.

my favourite part must be the ending and jay essentially saying that he wants to heal and start a new life, and steph replying that where he’s going is where the joker was last spotted. ok i see. a classic jason todd move: “starting a new life <3" -> doing exactly the same thing he’s done before but now isolated and even more mentally disturbed. go girl:) this i can stand behind.

btw i haven’t caught up with all of infinite frontier stuff (and I don’t even know if I want to) but why does everyone and their mother know jason’s identity? what is up with that.

also: amazing how you can write a whole series filled with harv & jay's interactions and never once mention that two-face got jason's father killed! but for that you would have acknowledge a storyline in which jason cares about willis and forgives a villain, right? and dc is not doing that.

in conclusion. it was tedious.

[yvtro]

the brilliance of jay's progression in countdown is that it gives you a promise of positive character development, and then it breaks it. and it does so intentionally, in the most diverting way, to emphasize jason's inability to escape the cycle.

or, another post breaking down the series, where i repeat myself a lot but also make a clearer argument.

there are three notable events that happen at the beginning: the subtle showcase of jay's internal conflict considering his approach toward killing (the very first encounter with duela and the monitor), jay reaching out to donna in crisis ("i guess I just wanted to be around someone else who might know how it feels…"), and finally – his helmet shattering. these scenes tell you: jason's direction as a character is changing, and it seems, for the better. he's about to abandon his trauma-based (no matter how ironic, it does remain tied to his trauma) identity, he is connecting with people, and he seems to be on a brink of understanding that his moral standing does not provide easy answers or solutions either.

and for the most part of the series, we see that narrative unfolding (even if a bit non-linear, still innocently convincing way). it is, in many ways, supported by bringing up features of his characterisation from the 80s. jason remains, of course, still unpleasant in ways typical for this era of writing, and is conflicted and disagreeable, which makes sense for his utrh/post-utrh personality. however, there are also details that bring us back to his original robin run and his cameos on ntt – we see him being responsible (e.g. #43 – suggesting to bring in other superheroes in crisis, even though he clearly is not keen on the idea of working with them), determined (#16: “isn’t that your super-power, stupid boy? too stupid to ever give up?” “maybe it is”), sensitive (half of the whole storyline, really), caring for gotham (gotham by gaslight) and people-oriented (as early as #51).

the issue that particularly signals that jason is an inherently good person and externalizes his internal conflicts regarding classic heroic vigilantism vs his cynical approach is #30, where we meet batman of earth-15 –  alt jason, whom our jason attempts to punch in the face.

and on topic of batman – jason is always gravitating towards batman. in gotham by gaslight jay looks delighted to see (the foreign) bruce and suggests checking with the local bat. then, earth-51 arc arrives.

earth-51 arc (#16 - #13) is a culmination of a promise of catharsis for jason. we have already seen him as batman, as a confirmation that a different life for him is possible. and here he has a chance to come to terms with his past and overcome it. he meets a version of bruce who has done exactly what he wanted him to do in utrh: killed the joker and the rest of the rogue gallery. what is most important – he is disappointed with this version of his father. we realise that jason, deep down, has an intimate and intuitive understanding of what batman stands for; and that he shares most of his values. this is a truth that you can't ignore especially since jay is the one to inspire this hollow, cynical version of batman to go out and fight in a seemingly lost battle.

and then batman dies. right in front of him.

this is a central moment of the narrative, for many reasons, most strikingly:

the symmetry: father has lost the son, and now the son has lost the father, a premise known from the lost days, becomes literal. this is a cruel parallel to a death in the family and bruce's grief. jason's death created a gap between them that jay has been desperately trying to close, with no avail – because in bruce's mind, jason remains dead. now that jason is grieving bruce, the connection closes on both sides, and there's no way for either of them to reconcile the mourning with the reality of the other being truly alive. in this sense, the arc solidifies that jason can never come home.

no good deed goes unpunished. as i have mentioned before, so far jason is established as someone good at heart, but confused; and the reader intuitively assumes that his better, honest side will win. yet, the moment jason gives in to hope, it victimises and retraumatizes him. this event, again, brings to mind his own death, when he tried his best to save sheila and ended up paying the highest price for it. so, narrative-wise, jason is always punished for his kindness.

perhaps because of the nonchalant act that jason pulls off, many readers seem to miss that everything that happens after that arc is an upshot that follows logically from it.

jason's immediate determination to leave – and later a short period of indecision that ends up with his dramatic exit, pushing his team away, makes perfect sense when you consider what intense trauma he has just gone through. admittedly, i'm not a fan of the notion that he would give up at all (i think he's always ready to give up on himself, but not on the world), but then on the other hand, if there's anything that would cause it, narrative-wise, witnessing batman dying does sound like a good incentive for that. (it also has to be pointed out that jason seems to be confident that the rest of the team can go into the final battle without him anyway; it's not like he would go back to his earth not even knowing if said earth will exist tomorrow).

it's crucial to notice that following that crisis of faith (faith in fighting for the world) is followed by him raising up for the challenge again, but now... worse and even more confused. in the final confrontation with donna, jason antagonizes the superhero community, and when we see him at the end of the series (#1) his monologue indicates that he believes the capes to be naive. (significantly, he also focuses on bruce and offends the memory of 51 earth-bruce by calling him crazy; an action that can be seen as suppression of his own guilt and invoking, once again, a cruel symmetry considering bruce's engagement in victim-blaming after jason's death). this, once again, is consistent with the "no good deed" reading – jason diminishes superhero values because he has been continuously punished for living by them. (and unlike other superheroes, he doesn't have a support system nor skills in compartmentalization that would help him deal with this trauma) every leap of hope re-traumatised him. hence, it seems to be no surprise that jason decides to abandon the mask, and in the closing scene we see him without it. the promise of the shattered helmet is pushed to an extreme – jason does not get a new alt identity. he denounces the idea of superheroism completely.

and yet, what is ultimately subversive about the ending, is that jay is not truly a civilian and he does not abandon vigilante ways. he does the same thing. we see him without a mask, but he is clearly working a case. he might have rejected the symbolic dimension of the vigilante work, but he still carries the same delusional hope for bettering the world and protecting people that the superhero community does. only now, he is even more isolated and doesn't have any identity to go by (as he is still legally dead).

as such, the ending opens a new question regarding jason's understanding of himself and vigilantism, or rather the lack thereof. is it possible that vigilantism is really at the core of jay's trauma? and why, potentially, is it something that is so destructive for him as a character specifically? (and i have some answers for that, but i'm not going to get into it here, as it's already a very long post)

so, tldr; the genius of countdown is that it establishes jay as sensitive, determined, and fundamentally good (this is what the purpose of seeing him as batman is!), and then it brutally reminds the reader that jason’s tragedy is that on this specific earth, in this specific timeline, his love doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. the story goes on as it did; one way or another, jay is trapped in the cycle of his care ironically creating rifts between him and the others, and bringing him to his own downfall.

[yvtro]

Hi! I apologize if this has already been asked and answered many times, I couldn't find if that is the case.

But I would love to hear what you think of Jason in the Arkham Knight video game? Do you like him? Thank you and again, I'm sorry if this is redundant :(

disclaimer: i’m moving blogs. still here to go through my askbox, but you will find me at @boyfridged from now on.

first, i have to say that I’ve never watched the full walkthrough nor played the game, but I did watch fragments and read the comics (although that was some years ago), so this is what my opinion is based on. (also there are things that i don't enjoy about it, like the militia and aesthetics that comes with it, but fash undertones are present in so many batman titles, i'm not going to get into it right now)

i would like to say that i'm quite ambivalent, but that's a lie because i usually have a soft spot for all jason iterations, even if they are very far off from the original characterisation and even perpetuate stereotypes that i can’t stand in canon. and that is, i think, for the most part, the case with arkham jay, an elseworld characterisation that might have even inspired the mainstream red hood comics a bit too much... especially that the arkham universe seems to be much darker and hopeless.

needless to say, I don’t like it in the main continuity, but for that title i didn’t mind it. if anywhere, pieces of media like that are the place to explore these themes.

two things i find interesting:

 - pre-robin/robin jay: 

something that is central to my reading of canon jason is his kindness and dedication to the world. this is attitude that ak jason is many ways definitely lacks. he is sensitive of course, but he is already cynical before he even gets to become robin.  it makes sense if you consider he’s older than jay when we first meet him in the main continuity, and that ak jay's circumstances are much worse from the beginning (which is something i don’t appreciate that much btw! i don’t like this portrayal of gotham nor the crime alley specifically; not even sure if they call it in game/ak comics that). ak jay doesn't give up (which i love), but he is already much more vidincative and has more of this somber determination. in batman and red hood comics flashbacks bruce sometimes mentions that jason "always" treated crime-fighting like a "game" – and this rings more true for ak jay than it ever did for 80s robin jason. i'd say ak!jay does treat life as a game because he knows that to an extent, it is one – and he is already on a disadvantaged position, which is why he's willing to play dirty in the field. it's a gritty take and much less mature and empathetic than what we get in og jason storylines, but i do not dislike it. there's def something captivating in this unromantic approach, and the way we can choose to believe that maybe robin could affect it and let him work him through his grievances with the world, only for it this chance to get completely crushed.

ak!jason:

this is the universe in which jason gets to actually blame bruce for abandoning him (as a result of psychological torture, of course, but he still does), and in which he seeks revenge on him specifically. it's interesting to see it unfold since in in comics it makes only for a short episode in the lost days for jay.

so, to summarise, i guess while i do like this version of jason, he's also basically a stereotype of comics jason and everything i don't want comics jason to be, which is a bit ironic. but there is some cool storytelling in there and my beloved panels from ak: genesis with jay excited about the library.

also like. i think we need to objectivelly agree that his arkham knight design is much cooler than red hood...

[yvtro]

another reminder to find me on my new blog: @boyfridged! (if you followed me there already you might want to unfollow @yvtro. i will be crossposting for a while to bring my beloved mutuals into my new house)

i’ve been thinking a lot about what is so unique and appealing about 80s robin jay’s moral standing that got completely lost in plot later on. and i think a huge part of it is that in a genre so focused on crime-fighting, his motivations and approach don’t focus on the category of crime at all. in fact, he doesn’t seem to believe in any moral dogma; and it’s not motivated by nihilism, but rather his open-heartedness and relational ethical outlook.

we first meet (post-crisis) jay when he is stealing. when confronted about his actions by bruce he’s confident in the fact that he didn’t do anything wrong – he’s not apologetic, he doesn’t seem to think that he has morally failed on any account. later on, when confronted by batman again, jay says that he’s no “crook.” at this point, the reader might assume that jay has no concept of wrong-doing, or that stealing is just not one of the deeds that he considers wrong-doing. yet, later on we see jay so intent on stopping ma gunn and her students, refusing to be implicit in their actions. there are, of course, lots of reasons for which we can assume he was against stealing in this specific instance (an authority figure being involved, the target, the motivations, the school itself being an abusive environment etc.), but what we gather is that jay has an extremely strong sense of justice and is committed to moral duty. that's all typical for characters in superhero comics, isn't it? however, what remains distinctive is that this moral duty is not dictated by any dogma – he trusts his moral instincts. this attitude – his distrust toward power structures, confidence in his moral compass, and situational approach, is something that is maintained throughout his robin run. it is also evident in how he evaluates other people – we never see him condemning his parents, for example, and that includes willis, who was a petty criminal. i think from there arises the potential for a rift between bruce and jay that could be, have jay lived, far more utilised in batman comics than it was within his short run.

after all, while bruce’s approach is often called a ‘philosophy of love and care,’ he doesn’t ascribe to the ethics of care [eoc] (as defined in modern scholarship btw) in the same way that jay does. ethics of care ‘deny that morality consists in obedience to a universal law’ and focus on the ideals of caring for other people and non-institutionalized justice. bruce, while obviously caring, is still bound by his belief in the legal system and deontological norms. he has benevolence when it comes to criminals, but he is ultimately morally committed to the idea of a legal system and thus frames people as failing to meet these moral (legal-adjacent) standards (even when he recognizes it is a result of their circumstances). in other words, he might think that a criminal is a good person despite leading a life of crime. meanwhile, for jay there is no despite; jay doesn't think that engaging in crime says anything about a person's moral personality at all. morality, for him, is more of an emotional practice, grounded in empathy and the question of what he can do for people ‘here and now.’ he doesn’t ascribe to maxims nor utilitarian calculations. for jay, in morality, there’s no place for impartiality that bruce believes in; moral decisions are embedded within a net of interpersonal relationships and social structures that cannot be generalised like the law or even a “moral code” does. it’s all about responsiveness. 

to sum up, jay's moral compass is in many ways emotional and relational in a way that doesn't fit batman's philosophy. this is mostly because bruce wants to avoid the sort of arbitrariness that seems to guide eoc. also, both for vigilantism, and jay, eoc poses a challenge in the sense that it doesn't create distance from both the victims and the perpetrators; there's no emotional proximity in the judgment.

all of this is of course hardly relevant post-2004. there might be minimal space for accommodating some of it within the canon progression (for example, the fact that eoc typically emphasises the responsibility that comes with pre-existing familial relationships and allows for prioritizing them, as well as the flexibility regarding moral deliberations), but the utilitarian framework and the question of stopping the crime vs controlling the underworld is not something that can be easily reconciled with jay’s previous lack of interest in labeling crime. 

[yvtro]

when i talk about jay being unintentionally funny in the way children often are, i mean, among others, when his first reaction to hearing about two-face was 'what about plastic surgery?'

[yvtro]

struggling to phrase this concisely but do u have any thoughts on how stephanie and cassandra would relate or struggle to relate to jason given that his death was held over both of their heads and the timing of his return to gotham being RIGHT after steph’s death in war games… i just think it’s such an underutilized dynamic and there’s a lot of interesting stuff there bc i think cass would find jason infuriating whereas steph would find him unnervingly relatable and similar to her… add in the context of jason’s relationships to dick babs and tim (or lack thereof) and i just think there’s a lot of much more interesting storylines and conflicts than the half redeemed uncommitted to anything jason we have now where most of the batfam is like simultaneously disdainful of and indifferent to jason’s presence/choices

disclaimer: i'm moving blogs. still here to go through my askbox, but you will find me at @boyfridged from now on.

i’m sorry but I think this might be a mad disappointing answer… (which is why i’m very curious how you see it! maybe there’s some interesting angle that i am missing – please do tell!)

i think it all depends on what moment in the timeline we are thinking about for jason. utrh doesn't offer much space for anyone other than bruce and jay to interact, and i believe this (and lost days) is the only time when he is truly committed to any particular moral 'code' or a specific cause (like 'controlling crime'). even in comics in which jay is portrayed as a villain, he doesn't really... do anything other than displaying severe mental illness symptoms? no more crime empire, no more fixed agenda, just dogmatic murder and wandering around in some maladaptive state. but since you mentioned that in most scenarios he is “half-redeemed”, i will go with what i think is going on with jay post-utrh: he's not truly committed, but he's also not rehabilitated; nowhere near to it, even. 

now, the question that i always ask myself in terms of what dynamics can arise for characters is what both of them can get out of this relationship (on a meta level). 

which kinda leads me to perhaps a very underwhelming assumption that jay is just such a mess in that period that it's difficult to imagine scenarios where characters like steph or cass actually gain anything from sharing the narrative with him. it's a bit ironic in a sense that jay could get plenty out of it in terms of his storyline: cass' very presence poses a threat to his already very wobbly philosophy, and it would probably unnerve him because of how her personality reflects his own innate compassion. steph, on the other hand, is like a still frame of his worst time as robin, right before his death. (and by *the worst* I mean his emotional turmoil and issues in relationship with bruce rather than an assessment of his skills or even morals), which i think would also terrify him. as such, i reckon he would actually avoid both of them. in terms of cass, I don’t think she would necessarily want to interact with him either, mostly because while *ordinarily* she would fight anyone of his views, and she for sure wouldn't have much sympathy for him, she would be able to see that his philosophy is a result of immense trauma. we could conceive circumstances in which they are forced to work together, and as i once mentioned, if we put them in a box and shook hard enough, a conflict would definitely arise. but at the end of the day, does cass get anything out of it in terms of her own development? at this point she is (for the better part) way past the internal conflicts that jay experiences; she is simply more mature. 

as for steph, i could see steph seeking him out if the comparison to the ‘failed robin’ was fresh in her mind. but I think, to an extent, she would be disappointed – because while they do share a lot of characteristics and background, he is reckless only as much as he is suicidal. it’s definitely not his typical trait and as a child, he never had the same issues with bruce until the very end (starlin’s run). i'm not saying there's no room to still bond over certain things – but jay's self-isolating tendencies definitely would not help here at all. and i think if steph realised how big of a mistmatch there is between all of stories she was fed and his past + current attitude, she would maybe pity him.

so tldr it’s very difficult for me to imagine any particular dynamics nor stories for them within that timeframe. i don't think it's the case for *all* characters btw – i think people who knew him before (dick, donna, perhaps leslie or dana if we want to go in the direction of civilians), people who don't even know who he is and don't really care (kyle), or parental figures/older gen (talia or even some jl members) generally have a better set up to get involved with jay in meaningful ways (for both sides involved.)

but when it comes to characters around his age who only heard of him in a context of his death, it's simply... sad, especially that he *is* still a walking tragedy at this point.

now, on the other hand… the lost days? here, there is some grand potential for cass & jay or even jay & steph content. but that’s a topic for a whole another post.

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moving blogs ‼️

my media analysis blog: yvtro -> @boyfridged (how do we like the url?:)

my new main!! (culture, art, politics, general lit. i will be following from there!): @griefporn (prev i used @tsaricides)

i will still hang around here for a while whilst organising my new blogs and archiving what i have here:) def will answer the asks. the askboxes of my new blogs are also open -> if there's anything you'd like me to have a tag for (tws? things like tagging anons?), this is a good time to let me know.

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moving blogs ‼️

my media analysis blog: yvtro -> @boyfridged (how do we like the url?:)

my new main!! (culture, art, politics, general lit. i will be following from there!): @griefporn (prev i used @tsaricides)

i will still hang around here for a while whilst organising my new blogs and archiving what i have here:) def will answer the asks. the askboxes of my new blogs are also open -> if there's anything you'd like me to have a tag for (tws? things like tagging anons?), this is a good time to let me know.

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Louis and Lestat's bantering, Tale of the body thief (1992)

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choke

“im gonna draw someone other than jason!” so that was a fucking lie

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mutuals circle have been split between the two. let’s settle this once and for all >:)

reblogs are appreciated so the results aren’t skewed!! i wanna know if I’m stuck in an echo chamber 🫀🫀

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bear witness to me, your new-old son

The Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing (2022) #3 // “Nature Poem”, Chen Chen

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sorry ik this post is from 4 days ago but i was backreading your blog (love your content) and got jumpscared by detroit become human mention. personally would not recommend wasting your time on it (or any of david cage's racism + sexism-filled poorly designed games) as david cage literally has characters say direct quotes from MLK & there's an android concentration camp, and yet claims the robot oppression allegory has nothing to do with racism/civil rights movements. it's a copaganda game that copy-pastes real life historical atrocities committed against minorities for the shittiest shock value "look how bad they treat robots :(" storyline ever written. the fact that its still popular bc of people shipping the white cop robot twink with the robot racist old man cop has me waking up every morning with a prayer that david cage goes straight to hell when he dies.

no worries, the way you have written the first ask was very considerate and i did not read it as hostile at all! and thank you for letting me know about all of that, some other people also commented on that post, and i must say i haven't had a slightest idea about how bad it was... so i really appreciate it, i'd rather not get, as you phrased it, jumpscared by genocide aesthetics and copaganda myself. i think people recommend it to me because academically, i'm really into human-robot relations and ethics of AI. alas, from what you lovely people told me, it doesn't sound like dbh has anything interesting to offer in that topic.

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Blud, Rachel McKibbens

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fandoms be like: death of the author!!!! engaging with the text is OUT!!!!!! fuck canon!!!!!!! *proceeds to reduce every redeeming quality of the text to ash and out of the ash rises a miserable plucked chicken*