#BBTerra

[autistic-ben-tennyson]

While Harumi was a lot more manipulative and sinister than Terra, I can’t help but see some similarities between these scenes and characters.

Our lovable green boi who is the youngest of the team is betrayed by the girl he loved and gets his heart broken, but still has complicated feelings over them and tries to redeem her. In the Teen Titans Go! comics, which are canon to the show, Terra was shown to have been a princess as well. Both Terra and Harumi are divisive characters in the fandoms with people either loving or hating them. The two series do have some things in common, being a beloved childhood show about teenagers with powers fighting evil while also dealing with relationships and family issues.

[romancemedia]

[ceristhedivine]

Jeez, people are overdramatic. LET PEOPLE LIKE THEIR SHIPS. It's not the end of the world if a person likes a pairing you don't prefer. I get it. Some ships are great, yippee! Hooray! Bravo! You're happy, I'm happy. You don't like it? Fine. But good grief, enough of the drama! It's unnecessary. Overdramatic. Dumb. DONE.

Let shippers be happy and at peace. Let us ship what we want! It's just a like to an idea. NOT A DECLARATION OF WAR.

(Unless you're into pedophilia, then I suggest you scurry off–)

[stanlunter]

I wanna remind everyone of these cuties!

Unfortunately this fandom is dead now and I don't post about Teen titans much, but uhh they were so adorable. Bbterra IS tge definition of "Right person, wrong time"

[themoonlitsojourner]

Blood. There’s… so much blood. Pouring from his arm. From the stump where his elbow used to join his forearm.

“Hold him still.” Tense. Roped together with sheer grit, iron netted under every square inch of Robin’s skin. “Cyborg, I said hold him–”

Victor curses, hands floundering. Drowning in an attempt to find a hold beneath it. Beneath the blood. “I’m trying, man, I’m–”

Garfield screams.

The sound sends birds from the treetops. Squirrels across the crackling forest floor. Animals, everywhere, fleeing the screech of his pain.

It shudders through Raven’s bones. Up her arms. Rattling in her skull. Bouncing between red-fleshed walls of pain. It’s borrowed pain.

She bites into her tongue as Garfield’s back slams into the jagged ground. His head lolls. He moans. It’s almost a word. Almost a gasping, desperate name.

Raven lifts her head. Her eyes wander the wall of splintered trees. They fall on the gap between trunks, the figure standing at the entrance of the clearing. At the foot of the path that leads out of this little pocket of horror.

Tara hovers halfway between here and nowhere. Between falling to her knees at Gar’s side in chest-heaving sobs, and… Turning around. Fading into the woods.

Raven sees the thought cross her hazy eyes.

“Dangit, we’re losing him!”

Beneath Raven’s hands, Garfield’s limp body rocks with their effort. With the force of Robin wrenching the tourniquet until it cuts creases into green skin. With the thundering impact of Victor’s massive, wide spread hands pumping a shallow, narrow chest.

Raven closes her eyes.

“Dangit, dangit, no!”

She reaches into his mind. Plunging into an arboreal growth of a different kind: The jungles of a childhood in Africa.

“Come on, man, don’t do this to us, don’t you dare–”

Raven stops in front of a tree. You know you can’t stay here.

The boy nods. He swipes a soft brown hand at his nose. I know. But it hurts.

Raven holds out her hand. Leave that to me.

He reaches for it. And as her fingers close around his, she flips the switch.

Heal.

Garfield’s eyes fly open and his back arches, hips bucking and– A wet sound fills the air.

An awful, wet, squelching sound.

Victor flinches from the spray of blood, wordless, garbled horror escaping from his throat. His metal clangs as he scrambles across the ground.

Robin’s on his feet. Blood drips from his cheek. His chest heaves, his hands crimson and hanging still at his sides as he stares. At the end of the tourniquet, lying limp and torn. “Raven.”

She blinks. The carnage fades to black. Her hands are still on Garfield’s leg. Warm with blood. She opens her eyes. His shattered body reappears. “Richard.”

Robin’s words catch in his throat. “What did you do?”

Raven follows his gaze. From the midst of the blood, deep within a stump of shattered bone and crushed flesh… Something emerges.

Garfield’s body twists as he lets loose a sound that is not a scream, not a wail, not any sound that a human throat is capable of. Something animal and primal that mangles his throat and goes on and on and–

The alien heat of Kori’s arms snags Raven by the waist and drags her clear. Robin fumbles with his belt, shouting for the extra sedatives in the car. Horror drops Victor’s jaw and peels his eye back to the white. Sticks snap behind Raven.

These are quiet. Quieter than Raven’s heart beating steadily in her neck as her eyes trace the long, unfolding tendril whipping at the shattered tip of Garfield’s elbow. Growing. Thickening.

A spatter of blood hits Raven’s forehead. Kori’s arms tighten. Raven’s breath rushes in and out of her body in steady, tangible waves. She can picture the air in her lungs. In… Out…

Straightening. It’s straightening, now. Branching out, smaller tendrils sprouting from the end…

Crack.

His cry cuts out.

Raven’s eyes close. She sinks back into Kori’s grip as silence takes over.

Ten seconds before the crickets remember their mantra.

Twenty before Robin thinks about moving, the leaves shifting under his boots.

Thirty before–

Raven opens her eyes in time to see Garfield’s chest flood with breath like it’s his first.

A short, ragged, unmistakably human cry slips from his throat. He struggles to sit. Gasping for breath, as he digs his fingers into the soil. As he turns massive eyes to his lifted, quivering hand.

His right hand. The one Cinderblock just ripped off.

Crick-crick…

The back of Raven’s head vibrates as Kori clears her throat. “Friend Gar?”

His sideswept hair and the angle of his head shadow Garfield’s face. His hunched shoulders ripple as he turns his hand to check the other side.

It’s pale. A nearly translucent green. A bleached, hairless alien limb a dozen shades above normal, with deeply wrinkled fingers.

The hand quivers. Moves.

Every knuckle of every finger cracks in a cascade like gunshots as Garfield folds them into a fist.

“Are–” Kori draws in a breath. Preparing to plow ahead, even as Robin stares stock-still and revulsion flickers in Victor’s eyes. But not Kori. She peers directly at Garfield, head slightly cocked. “Are you well?”

Garfield laughs. Raven can’t help flinching as it breaks the air, thick and wet and choking. There is a purple-mottled bruise growing over the center of his throat.

Unfurling his fingers, Garfield watches them peel away from the wrinkled skin of his palm. A long string of clear mucus follows, clinging to his fingertips. Garfield doesn’t look up as he nods, slowly.

“And I was just going to ask someone to give me a hand.”

Raven closes her eyes. Opening them, she turns her head.

The path is empty.

~~~

“Hey–” Garfield holds up his hands and laughs. A splotchy, jigsawed line marks the connection of his right forearm to his elbow. His arm looks grotesque and stitched on. It seems to be functioning normally. “–I’m just glad I didn’t grow another head.”

“Indeed,” Kori agrees quickly. Robin and Victor exchange glances.

Tara stares at the floor and rubs the back of her neck. She hasn’t moved from the chair in the corner. Not when Garfield was lying limp and unconscious in the med-cot. Not when he woke up complaining and whining for a drink of water. Not a word, not a spark of interaction from her since she returned from her hours-long ‘run’, soaked to the bone and gasping for breath. The walls shake as the storm continues to rage overhead. Neither she nor Garfield have looked at each other once.

“I mean, this is a good thing.” Garfield twists his hand in front of his face, eyes darting across it. “I didn’t lose my hand! Okay, I lost it, but I got it back, anyway.” Something flickers behind his gaze, then vanishes.

Raven narrows hers.

“We’re glad you’re okay, too,” Robin finally says. He gestures vaguely and uncomfortably. “How does the… rest of you feel?”

Garfield blinks wide eyes. “Huh? Great!” He bubbles into another laugh. “Come on, you guys, this is good news! I didn’t die! My hand is literally good as new. Stop acting like it’s a funeral.”

Tara’s fingernails tug at the stitching in the hem of her t-shirt. The end of a thread slips loose. She latches onto it and pulls.

“Man.” Victor breaks the silence –and the mood– with a chuckle of his own. “How did you do that? Grow half an arm?”

“Dunno.” Garfield flashes his teeth. “Guess it’s just basic biology, huh?”

“No.” Raven can’t help herself. “It’s not.”

“Bones, muscle, organs. Blood.” Garfield ticks them off on his fingers. “Humans got ‘em, animals got ‘em. And I change my bones and muscles all the time. So why not grow them?”

He has no idea what images that brings to mind.

“It is truly renewed?” Kori drifts into the air, leaning forward to hover over the cot. “Returned and restored and operative?”

With a smirk, Garfield offers her a handshake.

A gleeful squeal bounces off the walls of the small room. “It is completely normal!” Kori jams her fingers between his and Garfield’s teeth snap into a smiling grimace.

“Uh, Star, it’s– it’s still new, y’know–”

“Excellent.” Kori spreads his fingers to align with her own slenderer, longer, and more elegant versions. “Most impressive.”

Garfield laughs awkwardly. Tara watches a spot on the tile.

~~~

“You, uh, think it will always be– splotchy, like this?”

“I don’t know.” Raven tosses the sleeping bag on the floor.

“Bet it’s just ‘cause it’s new.” Garfield’s teeth gleam and his eyes flick across the wall, seeing something distant. “In a week it’ll be good as new. Heck, it’s already good as new, it just doesn’t look good as new.”

He laughs, that hesitant half-chuckle everyone has been hearing constantly since the incident. Since he got his arm ripped off and grew a whole new one.

“Hey.”

Raven sighs and lifts her head to meet Garfield’s baffled gaze as he leans over the edge of the bed.

“What are you doing?” His eyebrows wiggle and furrow. Beneath them, he pointedly flicks green eyes from the books stacked beside the sleeping bag to the pillow in her hands.

Raven tosses the latter at the head of the sleeping bag. “Setting up camp. What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Well, duh.” Garfield rolls his eyes. “But, uh…” He refastens them on Raven. “Why?”

“You nearly died.” She sits back on her heels and reaches to detach her cloak. “We are not going to leave you alone all night.”

Garfield’s eyes wander away again. “Where’s Tara?”

Raven’s hands slow. Folding the cloak, she sets it aside and traces Garfield’s gaze to the window. It’s opened, inviting in the cool breeze of a quiet night on the bay. The sweet smell of after-rain seeps damply into skin and fabric alike.

The low hum of a passing motorboat fills the space between them.

“Out. She left for some fresh air.”

Garfield nods slowly. The lighthouse beam trolls across his blank expression. “And she’ll be back when…?”

“I don’t know.” Raven shakes her head. “She didn’t say.” She slides her feet into the sleeping bag. “But as soon as she gets here, you’re her problem.”

Is it mercy? Or just willing ignorance, dragging the lie out of its box time after time. Day after day. Ignoring the way Tara slows on every open road, turns her eyes to the sky at every plane. The way there is something in her smile. The catching, flickering expression every time Garfield reaches for her hand.

The way her every disappearance could be the last.

“Yeah.” Garfield smiles. He sits back against his pillow. “Dude, am I looking forward to that. Sleepover with Tare, getting rid of you.” He folds his arms behind his head and closes his eyes. The jigsaw gleams stark and glossy in the gray light. “Win-win.”

“Don’t make me change my mind.” Raven lifts her hand and across the room, the lamp’s colors invert. She closes her fist and the light vanishes. “Would you like to be alone when you grow your second head?”

The call of tired seagulls. Low and mournful. Garfield shifts in the hospital cot.

“No,” he doesn’t quite laugh, and Raven closes her eyes.

Breathing out, she lifts her hand and finds his waiting. His fingers lace between hers in half a heartbeat, tightening flush against the back of her hand.

Raven lowers her fingertips to rest against his knuckles and complete the grip.

Garfield curses softly. “Dude, you’re colder than death.”

“Shut up and go to sleep.”

“Y’know, maybe you should be the one hooked up to a heart monitor.”

Then he shuts up.

Their breath stays regular and shallow. The gulls keep crying outside.

“She loves me, you know. I– I know she does.”

Raven watches the spiral shadows of the ceiling fan.

“It’s not that.” Awkward laugh. “It’s not that she doesn’t love me, it’s– it’s something else, and–”

He trails off. Water swells in the pipes, then fades.

When Garfield speaks again, his voice whispers rough-edged with emotion.

“An arm. An arm, Raven, what’s wrong with me? What am I– what the heck am I made of?”

“Bones,” she answers. The fan keeps turning. “Muscle and blood. Same as the animals, same as the people.”

“Right.” He laughs. Bitterly. Raven closes her eyes and lets the honesty of it wash over her. “You’re the one who said it’s not basic biology, that this isn’t…”

There it is. There is, finally, the break.

“It isn’t normal.”

“No.” The slick polyester material squeaks under her hair as Raven shakes her head. “It’s not.”

“Gosh, Raven, you suck at pep talks.”

“And the rest of us are all so normal, too.” She sighs. “You’ll never fit in again.”

The shadows turn in twenty minute circles as the lighthouse peers in, then turns away. Garfield’s choking laugh turns ragged. Raven’s arm falls asleep.

“She loves me.” He sucks in a shuddering breath. “I thought she loved me.”

“She does.” Raven drops her gaze to the chair in the corner. Near invisible in the dark. “It’s something else.”

His sobs quiet, eventually. Around the same time his fingers slip from hers as he slips into the silence of sleep. Raven watches the black shift past midnight and, eventually, lighten toward gray dawn.

And somewhere, camped in a wooded mountainside, a girl with rain in her hair lifts her eyes to the distant, glimmering lights of a tower far away. And she thinks about not coming back

[salvatoreren]

oh my god, character A begging character B to come with them but they softly decline because they know their place is not next to them IM SICKKK

[skidzzart]

Not 12-year-old me wishing this RobRae moment into BBTerra. 💚💛

[linkspooky]

Hi! I saw your tags about Tara in Teen Titans comics--I'm only familiar with the cartoon series. How do your feelings about Tara compare in the show vs. the comics? I ask since I noticed you mentioned that Tara never really cared about BB, which I think is obviously changed in the show, and I wonder how you feel about that.

They're both good? They're both good! I think one thing people forget about comic book characters vs. adaptations of comic book characters, is that comic books were always intended to be a collaborative medium that builds on itself through the work of multiple authors and interpretations. Thus, you can have multiple versions of the same character who have the same core but don't really have to be exactly the same. This is why it is kind of silly when people get upset animated adaptations make changes from the original source material because that's kind of the point, in a collaborative medium, you're going to get another author's take on the same character.

Since you asked I can give you an analysis on the core ideas of Teen Cartoon Terra vs. Comics Terra, and also her relationship with Beast Boy in both versions.

1. GWEN STACY

So, I once talked about how Terra was always intended by her creators to die, but that's not necessarily offensive or fridging her character because Terra's still a character with a lot of narrative agency. Terra is the main character of her story, it's just her story happens to be a tragedy. That is true for both versions.

Before the start of the story her fate is sealed. This is what you call doomed by the narrative. George Wolfram and Glen Murakami have both given interviews explaining as such. Albeit, for different reasons.

Comics Terra was essentially made to deconstruct a lot of comic book tropes. I lovingly call her "Asshole Kitty Pryde." From conception she was going to be the spunky new kid with mutant powers who joined the titans at fifteen and immediately became friends with everyone... except she was evil all along.

George’s strength was he also understood the characters 100 percent as I did so there was never any question. He knew. We had talked enough about the characters to know we were exactly on the same page with them. So I said, “Everyone keeps complaining that we’re like the X-Men” and the X-Men had just gotten Kitty Pryde. I said, “Why don’t we really screw around with them completely?” — this is the fans — “…and make them think we’re stealing Kitty Pryde only she’s gonna be bad from Day One.”

Of course this is where authorial intent differs from like, what actually ended up happening in the story. Worlfram's intent was to always make Terra have no reason for her actions, the tragic backstory she feeds the teen titans is kind of embellished and made up, she decided to become a mercenary all on her own, she wants to work with Slade and is even trying to seduce him. However, Terra still comes off as horribly tragic despite their intentions and other authors have since then picked up on their subtext.

Like, I genuienly think the intention was to just write her as pure evil, but instead what they got was writing her as a bad victim. That is, the kind of victim that presents incredibly unsavory and unlikable reactions to their abuse instead of either being kinder than their abusers, remaining pure and chaste like Cinderella or just waiting to be saved. Terra's not a passive victim nor is she waiting for sympathy, she hurts people the way she has been hurt, she maipulates the way she has been manipulated. Terra's been beaten down and now her goal is to come out on top. I believe the reason why she came out this way has a lot to do with Perez and Wolfram sticking to their guns and never giving her a redemption arc.

The very first time we see her, she’s trying to blow up the Statue of Liberty. It’s just that all the fans assumed because we went out of our way to make her cute — but not too cute, with the buck teeth and everything — everyone would assume that she was gonna become good by the end and that was never the case.

First thing, we made a promise that day that we would never renege on our view that she’d never become good. It’s sometimes hard to do that with characters you like. You want them to become good or something like that. But we never liked the character enough—because we knew what we were doing with her—we never allowed ourselves to fall for the character. Because that’s bad. That’s bad storytelling. You’re doing what you want as a fan at that particular point, not as the creators. The fans had to accept what we were doing and not do the same stories that they had read 14,000 times before. You know, at Marvel, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch were villains who became good guys and I could go through a whole list of ’em.

Their commitment to the bit meant that Terra’s story became what was essentially Greek tragedy at that point. Terra was always fall and because of that, Wolfram and Perez dedicate a lot of time in the story showing the audience exactly what all of her flaws are and why those flaws are the reason for that fall. They committed to their creative decisions when writing this character, which is why Terra ends up being such a strong character, especially for the time. Of course there were female villains, but they weren’t really allowed to be complex victims to the degree that Terra is, have her entire range of negative traits, have her flaws fully on display and then still have it be a tragic ending when she does not get saved. 

Gwen Stacy was always going to die, and Terra was never going to be redeemed. I do not believe either of those cases are fridging because sometimes characters die in fiction, and sometimes they contribute more ot the story dead than they do alive. Terra’s the first real loss for the Teen Titans, it also came on the cusp of a time in DC where teenage superheroes and sidekicks started to die (Cough, Cough, Jason Todd). Under the Red Hood and Judas Contract are such effective and lasting comic book storylines because they are such tightly written tragedies  yes... both of them depict a bad victim who does not get saved (even though that is the whole point of both arcs). 

Terra is in fact, probably more comparable to Under the Red Hood Jason than she is Gwen Stacy because she is number one a teenager with problems who probably should not have been made a superhero in the first place, and two a trauma victim who copes by manipulation and violence to try to reclaim control of their lives. But, to bring the Gwen Stacy comparison back. Gwen Stacy was always going to die, Terra was always going to die, but unlike Gwen Stacy Terra is not anyone’s love interest she is the protagonist. Peter Parker fails to save Gwen because the Green Goblin attacked her, she was killed to hurt Peter Parker. Terra pulls the arena down on herself and buries herself alive in Samson and Delilah-esque fashion at the end of her own personal tragic arc. 

To get to the real differences between the two characters though, characterization wise, I think both versions start with the same central concept, this is a troubled teenager who should never have been made a hero. 

Terra is a deeply troubled teen, however the way she copes in both versions are wildly different, almost opposite. I like to say cartoon Terra has like, at any moment five different personalities, while comics Terra has no personality. 

2. Runaway Girl

To elaborate on this, cartoon Terra’s entire character revolves around how unstable her sense of self is, due to never having any stability in her life. The cartoon is actually very purposeful in showing in both imagery and metaphor Terra’s splintered sense of self. The first few lines of dialogue introducing her are this. 

“She’s not in trouble, she was leading it into a trap.”  “Question is, who is she?” Slade: “Don’t get too attached my young friend, I saw her first.” 

Said by the Titans and then Slade. Even in the first lines introducing her, not only is the question of who she is asked, but Slade immediately tries to claim her from the titans. Later on in the show, the way Terra acts around the Teen Titans as a group, the way Terra acts when she is with Slade, the way Terra acts when alone with Beast Boy, the way Terra acts when alone with Raven are all wildly different versions of herself, to the point where it’s hard to believe she’s the same girl sometimes. 

This is even apparent in the first episode before Slade even gets to her. Terra insists that she enjoys sleeping outside, she enjoys running from place to place, she doesn’t really want a place to stay for the night, she’s presenting herself as some sort of self-reliant and worldly traveler instead of what she really is, a homeless runaway kid. Terra is attempting to appear calm, cool, and responsible and she is absolutely none of these things, and she’s pretty transparent about it too. She cool girls herself so people will like her. The second she is alone in Beast Boy and loses control of her powers for 30 seconds, she immediately crashes, starts berating herself and her self esteem sinks to the bottom of the ocean. 

Trust, is something constantly brought up again and again with Terra’s character though I would say Terra despite literally being the main character of an arc called the Judas Contract, despite betrayal being the one thing she is known for... always sees herself as getting betrayed first. Which is why she overreacts to the perception that Beast Boy broke a promise to keep her powers safe in the first episode. Terra doesn’t trust people at all. Though, to trust people and form healthy relationships with them, you actually have to be a fully developed and well-rounded person which Terra is not. Terra is basically a foster kid who has been through several families before this, waiting for her current one to dump her. She has interanlized the idea that there is something wrong with her that makes this rejection happen, but she doesn’t know how to fix it, or how to be better the kind of person that can have those healthy friendships so she dedicates herself into hiding those flaws instead. 

Terra: You don’t belong with the Titans. Terra: You don’t know anything about you. Slade: On the contrary Terra, I know everything about you. I’ve been watching you for some time. I know why you’re always running away. I know your secret, little girl.

This is also why she runs from the Titans to Slade. It’s a question I see commonly asked about cartoon Terra, if she’s meant to be more sympathetic than comic books Terra why does she willingly go to Slade instead of staying with the Titans? Which is a silly question, because you might as well be asking why do grooming victims get groomed? Why don’t they just know that groomers are bad people?

Teenagers are not grownups. Especially not Terra, a bastard child rejected by her parents who has been on the run for however many years. Terra is a teenager and a severely underdeveloped teenager at that, and she has learned to survive on the streets yes, but that’s not really the same as learning to be a functional person, who can have healthy relationships with people, and control their emotions. Children actually require parents to nurture and teach them and raise them up to be more functional adults, and they also require the stability adults in their lives provide them. 

Terra goes to Slade because he is an adult who is promising to be there for her, and give her control and stability which are things adults in her life have failed to give her. She can’t trust the Titans to give her these things because they are children one as Slade needles her into believing they cannot understand or help her, and two the way Terra has lived her life up to this point a transactional relationship with Slade makes more sense to her head than the found family the Teen Titans have based on love and trust because Terra is a stranger to both of those concepts. 

Terra is also someone who has little control over her life in general, which is why cartoon Terra is so passive in comparison to comic book Terra. In the episode Betrayal itself, Terra keeps her foot in the door about the actual betrayal the whole way, and seems to change her mind on what she wants several time. Because Terra has five different personalities. Ginger Terra, Sporty Terra, Posh Terra, Scary Terra, and Baby Terra. Terra doesn't have a cohesive sense of self so she's entirely reactive, she just does what she thinks will keep her safe in the moment. Terra wants safety and control of her powers so she goes to Slade. Terra feels guilty about what she does for the Titans so she tries to run away from Slade for the moment. Beast Boy asks her out on a date, but because Terra's betraying the Titans that night Terra says no. Five minutes later, Terra says yes. She is constantly changing her mind and contradicting herself like this.

Which is where we get to the greatest contradiction this episode, Terra betrays the titans and clearly feels guilty about it,b ut instead of say telling the Titans what she did or coming clean she just runs away. Which is where we get to the extremely subtle imagery of Terra in a house of mirrors.

Terra can't face her reflection over and over again, because she can't face herself, because she has no sense of self. She doesn't know why she does these things, but she's done them now, and she's stuck with those choices.

Terra: Beast Boy, I'm so sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen. Beast Boy: Then why did you let it? Terra: I don't know okay, I don't know. Slade he helped me. He saved me from myself. He said I owed him. Beast Boy: So, it was all just a game. You were just pretending. Terra: No. You said you'd be my friend no matter what, remember?

This is also Terra's most honest display of remorse, and the exact moment Terra gets rejected, crying and begging for forgiveness for what she's done and after that is the point where she goes full villain. Terra goes from baby Terra, to Scary Terra. A lot of who cartoon Terra is born from fear of moments like this where she is rejected. Terra was the one who tricked Beast Boy and Beast Boy is rightfully upset of course, but in Terra's mind only able to see her own hurt feelings Beast Boy is the one who broke the promise to her. Terra internalizes the fact she cannot be forgiven at that point and seeing no other recourse goes full villain and insists she feels no guilt, she wanted to destroy the titans to begin with, it was all a lie. The complete inversion of how she acted in the betrayal episode. Terra is manipulative, spiteful, hungry for power and yes she's capable of being all of those things but one important thing is.

The second, the second Slade starts mistreating her and beating her Terra immediately wants out. It turns out it's not power or control Terra wanted at all with Slade, but the idea of safety he provided her. The moment it becomes unsafe for her she tries to leave again, because Terra is a child desperately seeking safety in a world that feels unsafe for her, and she'll find it by crushing people she perceives to be a threat if she has to.

That is Terra in a nutshell, she doesn't feel safe anywhere, or with anybody. She has no stable foundation. She is the human embodiment of the tower card in Tarot. No matter how hard she tries to trust others and trust in return, because those are basic human urges we all have, she ends up falling down. It's interesting for a character who is so famous for betrayal, how much of her arc shows she clearly wants to be accepted and trusted by others, and gets hurt at the idea of their rejection. Even the day she literally betrayed Beast Boy before taking him out on a date she asks him this.

Terra: Do you trust me? Beast Boy: More than anyone I've ever met.

I would say Terra's inability to trust doesn't come from the fact she's a bad person or a bad victim, but because she doesn't have the tools to form healthy relationships because of how seriously neglected a child she is. A part of the tragedy of Terra is because Terra cannot save herself, because she is a child. Just like how the Titans have such difficulty saving her, because they are children too and they're not really emotionally prepared to save a person as morally grey and as in need as Terra, and the only adult in the situation is Slade who is there to take advantage.

Transitioning too. Comics Terra, while cartoon Terra has too much personality, Comics Terra has too little. She was written to be a sociopath, and that's not really my term that's how the writers describe her though I can dig up evidence she shows clear signs of being capable of having attachment to people. I'd say rather than a sociopath she's more written as an enigma. Terra's motives are spurious, her actions are inconsistent, she seems to be driven by spite. She is an incredibly angry kid with a chip on her shoulder who seems to be capable of anything.

Cartoon Terra is trying to play along with other peopel's expectations to her, while comics Terra rejects everyone's expectations. She loathes cute teenage girl superheroes. She finds dressing up in costumes and fighting crime to be ridiculous in the first place. Though, I would say despite saying she clearly hates the titans, literally the next panel she displays some affection for Kid Flash.

Comics Terra isn't completely unfeeling, she's capable of forming connections to people, she has a fondness for Geo-Force her brother, Kid Flash, and sort of for Beast Boy she just never fully forms relationships with them.

Terra's not really even maintaining much of a cover with the Titans, because both with Slade and the Titans she is a rude, belligerent raunchy kid who is trying to constantly get into other people's faces. Terra is all of those things, she just when she is alone with Slade also pretends she is an adult, in an adult relationship with him. (Cough, cough, grooming victim. A victim of sexual grooming in this sense too).

Terra's written to be a sociopath yeah, or at least her writers tried too but I'd say she's more a character who the audience has little to no idea what is going on in her head. A lot of her is left ambiguous. Considering her backstory though, the rejected bastard of a king, someone who is working as a mercenary at fifteen, she clearly has not had a good life. Just like cartoon Terra she is lacking a sense of self.

However, instead of eschewing her agency, Terra takes her agency from other people. Cartoon Terra is good at manipulating when she wants to be, but Comics Terra sees the world in terms of every relatonship is transactional and based on manipulation, the world is winners and losers, the world is about who is on top and who is on the bottom. Terra lacks no real goal, or purpose, no friend, no home no loved ones she really only wants to crawl up on top of others if she has to.

Which is exactly why she gets into a relationship with Slade. Comics Terra seems to think her and Slade are equals, and that she is manipulating and using him as much as he is using her. The tragedy in this case arises from the fact that you know, Terra is a fifteen year old girl and Slade is three times her age.

There's an entire chapter where we follow around Terra montiofring people with contacts, and she's going about the titans daily lives just, telling Slade how much she hates them the whole time, but then she stops to ask Garfield why he's constantly being rude to other people and seems genuinely interested in listening to him talk about his feelings.

Terra's only out for herself, she is out to define herself and not let anyone else tell her who she is and who she should be. Terra's selfishness makes sense though considering the situation she is, she's either made to feel nothing like how she was with her family, or she is being sexually groomed by a guy three times her age. Her response to that, her extreme self interest and only caring about her own survival really is her way of fighting back against a world that she sees as trying to wear her down.

And that's a key part of her character Terra is a grooming victim who is also a bad victim. She's being groomed and her way of reclaiming her agency is to insist she wants sex, she wants to hurt people, that actually she's the one manipulating Slade. It's all Terra trying to assert control in a situation where she has none. I don't know if you know this, but a fifteen year old can't manipulate a guy in his fifties who has been doing this for years. Terra also, projects a lot of her hate for her situation and her lot at life at the Titans.

They did not do anything wrong to her, but at the same time she's pretty cosntantly unhappy with them, she complains none of them like her, she complains about their lack of trust, I believe that's less Terra trying to infiltrate them and more Terra herself either believing she cannot fit in anyhwere or as a person who only believes in transactional relationships and manipulation just not understanding how family works.

Terra also acts like dangerously unstable at all times, there's a point in the comics where Beast Boy gets way too aggressive with his flriting, that he full on triggers what resembles a PTSD response in her and she tries to bury him alive.

At times like this when Terra is made to feel she's either not the one with the power here, or being looked down upon she asserts herself with violence to desperately try to regain control. It is not healthy by any means, but it is still the behavior of someone who is coping incredibly poorly. Terra relies on fear and control to make herself feel safe at times like this, because she's not been shown love early on in her life and by this point she genuinely does not understand it. And also I cannot emphasize this enough as a victim of sexual grooming, Terra is pretty much not ever safe, or in a situation where she has bodily agency or control.

Terra in the cartoon dies in a heroic sacrifice, whereas Terra in the comics dies because she loses control of her power and essentially suicides. If anything the tragedy here is that Terra is someone who never learned to be a girl properly, nor was she appreciated as a human being and because of that she formed her entire sense of self around her powers. She is a child, and never having been allowed to be one, and not knowing how to live in this world, form relationships with people, trust and be trusted she dies as a child. Terra once again has nothing solid to build herself on, and because of that the tower falls down.

3. Terra and Beast Boy

In the cartoon Terra and Beast Boy are clearly meant to be in a relatoinship, in the comics Terra claims to have hated him all along, but arguably she could have been fond of him.

In both versions the relationship is entirely wrong headed from the start. A lot of it has to do with Beast Boy's flaws as a character. I wrote on and on how immature of an individual Terra is, and Beast Boy as the youngest on the team shares many of those immature and selfish traits. IN the comic itself that seems to be the reason why Beast Boy and Terra are paired together, they are the closest in age, she is the new girl and the trope Terra is made to deconstruct is the cute comic book love interest.

Comic book Garfield is almost more immature than cartoon Garfield, and on top of that is a full blown male chauvinist. A lot of people do not like Wolfram/Perez Beast Boy, I kind of love him because he doesn't understand woman's boundaries and thinks he desperately needs to get into a relationship and makes them uncomfortable because he sees his flriting as harmless to them... you know like a teenage boy. Unlike most characters like this that appear in media, this quality of Beast Boy's is something that gets called out on all the time.

Terra and Beast Boy do have something in common in that they are both outsiders to the group, they are the youngest so no one takes them seriously, they are almost always stuck together, there's a scene where they're both getting tutored by a tutor Garfield's rich father hired and they're both such ADD kids no one wants to be there. She does have at least one genuine moment of connection like this one.

Their immaturity is what makes them the most similiar, but they go about the inferiority they feel towards other people in opposite ways, Terra sets out to try to prove that she is better than other people by asserting herself, while Beast Boy tries to bend over backwards to win their love.

Terra sympathizes with Beast Boy because they share the same root cause of the issue, but they cope in opposite ways and because of that she looks down on him as just another kid. Which is something Terra is desperately trying to prove she is not. Terra genuinely does go out of her way to kiss him which shows this conversation at least affected her, she has moments of being genuine around Beast Boy, but I think this and every version of Beast Boy is too immature to ever reach her. Because to return to the male chauvinist aspect of Beast Boy's character, not long after this scene he full on triggers Terra by coming on way too hard to her.

Beast Boy wants a girlfriend, to validate his feelings, to make him feel special when he feels like he is the only kid, and the one most often left behind in a group of adults. He tries to make Terra into his love interest and Terra does not want to play that role at all. There are moments where Terra is genuine with Beast Boy, and he might have been able to reach her, but Beast Boy is so obssessed with the image of Terra he has built in his head and the idea of having her he's never able to even come close to her.

Beast Boy cannot understand Terra with any sort of nuance whatsoever, because she's a woman who doesn't really want to play along with any image of her in his mind.

Their cartoon relationship is much less destructive, but really suffers from the same fundamental problem. Both the episode "Terra" and the episode "Betrayal" feature Beast Boy trying to make Terra a promise that he cannot keep. The first time he promises to keep her powers a secret, he actually keeps that one but the perception that he's betrayed her is what makes Terra run. The second time Beast Boy promises to accept her no matter what she does, only to reject her when she is openly weeping and apologizing at his feet out of remorse.

Like, if you wanted to save Terra. To convince her to turn back to the side of good there was never a time more ideal than that but Beast Boy spits in her face. Because while he's a hero he's also a fifteen year old boy feeling hurt and betrayed. This is Beast Boy's Orpheus turning back to look at Eurydice moment.

Terra: Beast Boy, I'm so sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen. Beast Boy: Then why did you let it? Terra: I don't know okay, I don't know. Slade he helped me. He saved me from myself. He said I owed him. Beast Boy: So, it was all just a game. You were just pretending. Terra: No. You said you'd be my friend no matter what, remember? Beast Boy: Slade was right, you don't have any friends.

Beast Boy's attraction to Terra is sort of instant and a kiddie crush, but any relationship they might have had is broken by the time Terra runs away at the end of their first episode together. Afterwards Terra has already betrayed the Titans, and Beast Boy is clinging to the girl Terra appeared to be the first time they met.

Beast Boy doesn't really fully comprehend Terra, which is why the literal last episode of the series is Beast Boy stalking Terra all day long and insisting that he knows her best, and he knows certain things about her and acting confused when she tells him that she was never that way, she never liked sleeping outside, she wasn't the girl he thought she was.

I went to great length to show how Terra's emotional immaturity results in her constant flip-flopping and contradiction, but Beast Boy shows the exact same behavior. Beast Boy in the cartoon tries to play roles to Terra that he is not emotionally mature enough to play. While at the same time. The first is he tries to be the one protecting her, the one guaranteeing her stability. In the first episode he is the one who stays with Terra and calms her down after Slade triggers her into nearly causing an earthquake.

At the same time by the end of that episode he's unable to make Terra stay because she's so hurt at the idea he betrayed one secret. Beast Boy is also the same person who one episode ago told Terra that she didn't have any friends to her face when she was crying and apologizing and just left her there, and the very next episode gets angry when the titans say Terra is irredeemable. Beast Boy that was you. You said that, to her face.

Beast Boy: Terra, you're our friend. Terra: I don't have any friends, remember?

Beast Boy wants to act like a hero saving Terra, but he's not that great of a hero, nor is he emotionally mature enough to do that. Which is why we get this behavior of Beast Boy, first reaching out to save her, and then resorting to victim blaming when he feels like he can't save her. He jumps between I am Terra's best friend, I know she was there all along, to just Terra doesn't have any friends. Terra you wanted to do these things, it was your choice. There's no consistency in Beast Boy's actions, because Beast Boy doesn't really know what to do he is vulnerable and desperate, because a person who he cares about has hurt him, and is also hurting.

Beast Boy is once again trying to put Terra into a simple and easy to understand box. He is acting like the hero of the story, and she flips between his villain and his love interest when that's not the case. Terra's more focused on Terra herself, she cares about Beast Boy but she's also just trying to survive. Beast Boy is a little bit too focused on his relationship with Terra, and like the validation he wants to get from her that he can't look at Terra as a whole person, or realize from an outsider's perspective she's a kid in dire need of saving. Well he does at times, but like I said he flips between advocating for never giving up on her, and victim blaming her because Terra is not easy to understand and he cannot make up his mind.

Terra is the main character of her own story and Beast Boy doesn't know how to comprehend her that way, or set himself aside to look at things from Terra's perspective because he's fifteen and stuck inside his own head with all those adolescent feelings and hormones.

In both versions, I think Beast Boy mistakes what could have been a strong friendship for romance because he is obsessed with getting into a relationship without really understanding what that entails. Beast Boy not being a good boyfriend at fifteen is actually perfectly understandable, the whole tragedy of the Judas Contract in general is that just like Terra is too immature to save herself from her situation, the Titans also just being kids are too young to save her.

They also both try to jump into a relationship without building a solid friendship first, because they both need love and stability and have no idea how relationships are supposed to work. It's like they both fell in love with the people they were when they first met and the relationship never evolved. They are similar and there is a connection, but rather than the things they have in common bringing them together, it drives them apart.

[terraghostt]

terra and beast boy matching icons!!  🤘 ⛰️ 🌿 🩹 // 🐿️🍃🐕🍏

[the-lighthouse-lit]

The Club of Unauthorized Heroes - Year 2

Fandom: Teen Titans

Pairings: BBxRae, BBxTer, RobxStar, CyxBee

Rating: T

Summary: The ambiguously-named Project Club of Murakami High has established themselves as not-so-secret superheroes for hire. But while the team navigates the pressure of being out in the open and worries that their stint of big missions was just a fluke, a new threat set out to dismantle everything they’ve worked for brews right underneath their noses. [High School AU]

───

Chapter 29: May. It was just a school club p.5

Preview:

“You know what?" said Vic "I wouldn’t want the club back if they offered. I don’t want the responsibility the whole student body made us feel. Those stupid missions they gave us! I’m glad it’s over!”

“You do not mean that,” Kori told Vic. “I know you know it was a good thing.”

“It was a good thing,” said Raven. “But it was. It’s in the past. We tried to change things, and we had some successes, and ultimately failed. We just have to deal with that.”

“We didn’t try that hard,” Dick said quietly. He looked up at his friends; he hadn’t decided if he wanted them to hear that, but they already had.

“What?” Raven’s voice sounded small.

Dick hesitated. Could he really say it? Was he even right? “We didn’t take every mission seriously. We didn’t take everyone who came to us seriously.”

Read:   On AO3 On FF.Net

[zea9love]

⚠️ FLICKER WARNING ⚠️

Idk what this is, I just wanted to edit BBTerra with my Tara fancast

•Sophie Thatcher as Terra

•ac: taeyeogi on IG

[romancemedia]

Teen Titans - Relationships

[grotesquefl0wer]

Imagine Tara and Raven arguing over who has the better boyfriend.

Tara: Gar is the best boyfriend ever! He always takes pictures of me and knows where I am at all times. He even pays for my expensive contact lenses <3

Raven: Yeah? Damian and I have everything in common. He always tells me I have the most perfect genes and that's why I'm so beautiful and smart. And he's way more successful than your boyfriend.

Tara: You bitch *hits Raven with a rock*

[stanlunter]

Aaalso these sad parallels

[themoonlitsojourner]

She was never taught the language of love.

His lip is split and the blood is running down his chin.

Never taught how to hold. How to murmur. How to touch.

His mouth open. Fangs glimmering in wet shock.

She doesn't speak it.

His eyes wide pits of green fear. The hallway erupting, someone wrapping large hands around her arms and pulling her back.

So she speaks with her fists.

"I'll do it again," she'd said. "I will hit you again."

They're talking about moving her somewhere else. Putting her somewhere else.

His blood is still on her hands. They scrubbed them clean but her knuckles are stained. Her chest flushed with pride.

She was never taught the language of love. So she's sitting across the table from a beautiful boy, messy soft hair falling just right, and a bruised, swollen lip. And he won't look at her.

[awesome-normal-heroes]