#batman ditf movie

[jasontoddenthusiastt]

Honorary appreciation post for this mentally exhausted sweetheart.

[ky-landfill]

[rockingthegraveyard]

If DC and WB weren't cowards the Death in the Family movie would be on youtube (for free) where it can still function as a interactive movie.

[outoffandom]

I wouldn't say Talia is to Jason what Dick was to Damian. I wouldn't make the comparaison even. Talia and Dick's position and intents differ too greatly, just like Damian and Jason are brought (or brought back) to fill very different purposes toward Batman.  They're not meant to be parrallels.

Dick takes Damian under his wing to give Bruce's son a chance to be something else than what he was conditioned to be. Keep in mind Damian’s affiliation to Bruce is very important here. Talia takes Jason under her wing because she nurses the hope to help Bruce and possibly win his love by "healing his son". The character's affiliation to Bruce is here again the main motivation. That + an Al Ghul being involvemed, are about the only thing Talia/Jason and Dick/Damian have in common on this topic.  

People here like to forget how Talia is as 100% Bruce-centered as everything else is in Batman. Here's her reaction to hearing about DitF :

She is all about Bruce : 

While seemingly altruist, Talia is more selfish/interested in her goal than Dick is because she never really takes Jason or what's best for him into consideration. It's just not what's on her mind. There is also an obvious lack of consent since Jason is a zombie at this point. There is zero moral or consent issue between Damian and Dick as the situation/context is completely different. The point is Talia is doing this for Bruce and Jason is as a tool here, very literally.  She is "kind" to her and Bruce's tool in her very limited capacities. Even when her plan is slowly but surely backfiring at her goal. 

And when she's not only doing it for Bruce, it's about the mystery. Under the disguise of love, as she can conceptualize it :

Not that it changes anything but, whose love?

Another major difference is how they tutors their respective pet-project. Unlike BatDick, Talia tutors Jason through mentors mostly, regardless of the continuity (LD or RHATO). After that, they both unceremoniously drop off each other's life when it's convenient for the plot. The reason for this is not very organic and wasn't explored as far as I know, which is exactly why I wouldn’t compare Talia/Jason to Dick/Damian seriously.  

Basically, her character has no need for Jason when Damian exist and is Robin, tying her to Bruce (aka: the main character) much more efficiently and through blood. Same logic for Jason, who has never needed Talia to have ties with Bruce to begin with, or to resurrect. She wasn't part of his resurrection until an annual story added the concept (published after UtRH) and even then, the main reason as to why Jason is alive again is because Superboy Prime punched reality. Unlike the movie version, the Lazarus pit or Ra are completely absent in the UtRH comic.

In contrast, Damian was meant to be this token mini-Bruce and a foil to Dick while Bruce was dead, very early on his introduction. Jason wasn't created or resurrected with Talia in mind at all, or vice-versa. It's why Talia and Jason don't really complement one another and why comparing them is kind of a mute point imo. They both got further twisted to work together and they're not even important for each other's "development".

[kiwisfics]

Headcanon Requests

Sorry for another non-writing post, but I'm also TENTATIVELY taking requests ONLY for headcanons. It will be a basis of if I'm inspired for it or not.

I'm wanting some requests for things like "how would they react to-" or "how do they-"

You can include any number of the following characters that you want. No limits! As far as I'm concerned, you could just tack an "All." onto the end of your comment and I'll get on it. (Mostly because I know some of these boys would likely never get requested and I wanna write for them lolol)

Requests can include these characters:

My Mains:

Conner Kent You can request for any specific version, but I'll default to Punk Kon if you don't specify. I've read all the comics, and watched Young Justice and Rise of the Supermen, so go nuts.

Dick Grayson When I say any version, I mean it. Arkham, any comic run, Gotham Knights, Titans, Young Justice, and any animated movie he's in (Batman Unlimited etc.)

Jason Todd Again, any version. Arkham Knight, any comic run, Gotham Knights, Titans (though he's not my fave Jay), UTRH, DITF.

Terry McGinnis I'm partial to the Rebirth comics version, but I've watch all of Batman Beyond and read every single comic.

The Slightly Overlooked:

Barry Allen Arrowverse preferred, but I love me some comic Barry.

Oliver Queen Arrowverse preferred, but I also love Ollie in the comics and whatever scenes he gets in other DC content.

The Under-Appreciated:

Aka, characters I doubt most people are interested in.

Devour From the Red Hood: Outlaw comics.

King Chimera From the Justice League of America: All Stars comics.

Simon Amal From the Red Hood and the Outlaws (New 52) comics.

Tom Bronson From the Justice League of America: All Stars comics.

Tristian Grey From the Gotham Academy comics.

There's very little content for any of these characters, so I implore you to tack at least a couple of them onto a request. They're all sweet boys, I swear.

[sardonic-sprite]

I'm Back!

Wow, so Lent is over now, so my tumblr fast is also over and I'm still a little in shock, lol. I had hoped the past six weeks? I don't know, Time is weird, would be more productive but at least I got SOME stuff written/posted. Anyway, I have one more month of school and then fucking FINALS so expect sporadic updates at idiot-o-clock hours of the night, and maybe yell at me to sleep, eat, study, or drink water whenever i do post 😅

I am up to SO EFFING MANY wips rn on so many different fronts you guys have no freaking idea 😭 so here's a status report for EVERYTHING on or going on sardonic_sprite. (Its gonna be a monster post, y'all, bear with me)

in absolutely no particular order:

Wayne4Ham: We have a LONG way to go with this one, so just be patient and I'll slowly but steadily plug on through. Aaron Burr, Sir, should theoretically take me no longer than end of april

Wayne-Crazy: there's like 4 specific requests on it, plus a few 'series' i started, but after those, say 6-7, i'll probably mark as complete and only re-open if someone offers me an idea

Batman Beginners: i'll tell y'all up front, this one will take me forever. i don't even know what all I intend to cover, but know that i'm halfway done with the DITF arc, and it'll probably come out in the next two months

Just A Kid: this was my shits-and-giggles fic that got like 3000 notes in a weekend lmao. it's something i do intend to continue bc its so fun and i enjoy the concepts in it, but i don't have plans to actively write more of it in the immediate future.

Rev Wayne: just gave y'all Jason's fic, so the next probably won't come until late in summer, extrapolating from my few data points. if anyone has ideas for timmy's intro, let me know, i'd love some inspiration

Celeb Batwaynes: reported separate from wayne-crazy for reasons. i think theres like 12 specific requests plus 2 ideas of my own. i may put out a poll for the next one to write, but not until after school's out, because these fics are HUGE time-eaters for me. speaking of, are non-tumblr-users able to vote on polls?

Welcome to Gotham U: this was again, me doing shit bc why not. will probably add more in the style that i first posted, but i doubt i will write any prose for it. if you would like to give it a try, please reach out, i'd love to see what you write!

One Diamond: every time i touch this i make the cliffhanger worse lmao. i finally do have a direction, but execution is gonna have to wait a while.

The Young, Innocent, and Righteous: this is mostly just for me anyway, but i'm just gonna say that i'm waiting until i finish watching miraculous season 5 before i go any further

AS you wish: i have 5 more requests to do and i am so sorry to everyone waiting you do not deserve this lmao. i promise im trying, i love your ideas, it just takes me a really long time to fill in the rest and then actually write it. the next one on my list is particularly hard to pin down and so it's halting the ones behind it to. if not before, then after finals i will sit and bang my head on the keyboard until something good comes out

Light Isn't Fadin': soooooo many people have asked me about this one oof. SOMEDAY, i swear. right now its a huge, nebulous, hulking monster and im sorry it's just not happening yet.

A christmas carol: wait until december. please

Father's Day: june.

A Little Problem: over the summer, i will watch marvel movies until they once again hijack my brain and fuel this to completion. maybe.

easter eggs: how the fuck did i forget this lmao. i'm doing as much as i can in april, but when the month is done, i'm sorry, we'll all be waiting until next lenten season. hopefully it won't come to that.

aaaaand i THINK that's finally it. there's also a bunch of random paragraphs in word and google docs that may appear, not to mention ideas that kidnap me in dark alleys. but i also have like a good half dozen other wips for other places that im trying to attend to, so please be forgiving if it seems like its taking a while to post something as sprite.

as always, i love questions, comments, concerns, even some complaints, so feel free to interact.

See ya when I see ya!

sprite

[aerascreamer]

The biggest reason Jason didn’t kill the Joker nor any big villains like Two-Face is because of editorials and money:

All of those villains are recognisable and marketable so DC can’t kill them because they’ll need to creat new villains to replace. This means it will take years and maybe decades for those new villains to be as recognisable and bring profit. In other words, villains are cashcows (like holy s** the number of Joker stuff).

This leads to Jason being able to kill low unnamed criminals but not the Joker. Because of this, Jason becomes a really tricky and even hypocritical character: he believes killing is necessary but spared the biggest threats kof Gotham. He wants to make a change for the city but let the Joker live because of his issues against Bruce.

So which kind of person is Jason?

One who is getting his hands dirty to save innocents? Who cares about cleaning Gotham above all? Or is he a character who would rather put his problems with Batman above doing the right thing?

If we want a sympathetic villain/anti-hero Jason, then we need him to be consistent: either he is an morally grey anti hero and follows up on his words by killing the Joker in any cases, or he’s a vengeful hurt spirit haunting Bruce at all cost, wanting to find proof that Bruce cared and loved him.

It doesn’t do justice for Jason to be a character who genuinely has a point when it comes to moral and is a symbol for victims, but then have him do a 180 and be “ Nah I won’t kill the Joker. Nvm he keeps filling graves, crippled Babs and turned Dukes’s parents insane, Bruce should’ve been the one to do it.”

Jason as Red Robin in DitF animated movie works better in that aspect:

He killed the Joker and realised his previous methods were insufficient and killed Bruce. He decided to use guns and hunt criminals, leading to Cheetah and Riddler’s death. Yet, he is angry and living in a constant cycle of violence. He buried deep Bruce’s last words as well as his guilt, shame and hurt. But once confronted by Two-Face and Tim, he is forced to face his failures, to acknowledge he took the wrong path. After that, he made the choice to turn around, honouring not only his mentor’s last words but everything he stood for: justice, hope, and most importantly, redemption, second chances.

Saw that Batman post about not killing the Joker.

We all know why the Bats don't kill. That is their code, love it or hate it. That is a line they have set.

But what is Jason's excuse for not killing the Joker?

He can get hold of him - he demonstrated that well enough in the Red Hood entry.

Why not kill him? Or any of the actual rogues?

That's one of the reasons the whole Red Hood 'doing what must be done' excuse seems pathetic to me.

Guy fully accepts killing - if he can poison an entire prison full of random criminals serving their sentence or shoot random henchmen in the head, why isn't he actually doing what should be done?

I really really want fics where someone calls out that drug dealer on his so-called 'protect Gotham' bullshit.

So, I'm not very well versed in Jason Todd's, aka. Red Hood, character; anything I say you gotta take it as a personal take rather than canon based.

About the Joker, I believe Jason won't feel satisfied until Bruce kills him, so dealing with the problem himself won't be enough. His character as Red Hood was introduced as a villain and some of his wishes can be quite selfish, such as expecting Bruce to sacrifice his morals for him to fulfill whatever it is that Jason feels it's empty.

Jason is honestly a very twisted character imo. He seems to want one thing but do another. He wants justice but isn't truly just himself. He wants vengeance yet he doesn't take it.

As for why he doesn't kill the real villains in Gotham but does murder random criminals, I couldn't really answer that. It's either because of some deeper psychological complexity or bad and inconsistent writing (which isn't uncommon for Jason Todd's character).

I'd also love to read a fic that deals with all this the way DC writers don't.

When it comes to contradictive characters like this, is very interesting to explore what their inner thoughts might be.

You could say that maybe his death really fucked him up, or perhaps it could be something that happened during his time in the LOA. Whatever it is, there's certainly something very puzzling about his actions and behaviors, specially when they don't match with what we think we know are the ideals and ambitions of his character.

[newjenns]

quebion: your blog has got me interested in jason todd, especially that post of yours talking about his spectral vibe and reflective eyes and autospy scar, and as someone who loves themes of mortality and death and revival he has piqued my interest but also.... i have no idea where to start for getting into his story and the batfam... do i start with a tv show, comics, or what??? i feel like comic book characters can be difficult for me to get into because they have a lot of media to look thru

ehehhehehehehehehee ummmm so Wellllll canon is not real. first lesson. you get to pick and choose what’s real to you and what isnt when we’re talking about comic book characters especially old ones like batman and robin bc there’s SO much canon and a lot of it can contradict each other… luckily most of jason’s origin stays pretty consistent and is confined to the Death in the Family comic ! you can also watch the animated movie Under the Red Hood which follows that storyline (use soap2day) umm Jason Todd is a lot like jesus in many ways (here’s where i read my comics completely legally) … there are two canon means of jason’s actual revival 1. he’s revived by superboy prime punching the universe which is cool for the i idea of jason literally clawing his way out of his own grave but #2 is the more widely referred to resurrection via ra’s al ghul’s lazarus pit, things like pit madness and him being under talia al ghul’s care and his connection to the league of shadows… ok um anyway yas that’s where i would start ditf and/or utrh ok THEN come back to me and we can talk about what happens after ^_^ i can do my best to explain the generally accepted canon around jason and point yiy towards some comic titles that are about him yayyyyyy

[rezhood]

Ok but what’s the chance of DC giving us a send Jason to therapy choice

[llama-milk-for-the-egg-nog]

jason with burn scars from the explosion is good actually. I think he should keep them in the timelines where he gets resurrected

[havenesc]

[ KILL JOKER ]

[mistress-of-nightmares]

SPOILERS FOR DEATH IN THE FAMILY AHEAD

So. I’ve seen that 30-minute clip of Bruce recalling UtRH to Clark and also some teasers of the scene between Jason, Talia and baby Damian on tumblr. And I have some things to say (i don’t know even where to start fuuuuck)

I’ve seen teasers of the scene where Talia and Jason meet and Jason meets baby Dami, we even get to see him hold him (boy what screaming that ensue from me). But I honestly feel like that interaction went a lot, a lot deeper than it seems

Let’s start at the beginning. When Jason and Bruce run into each other in Bosnia and Bruce says he’s been on a case involving Ra’s, Jason playfully teases him if Ra’s wants him to marry his daughter again. He’s familiar with Talia and the whole thing. And really, he doesn’t seem upset, there’s no bitter undertone to his teasing. He doesn’t seem to mind the notion of B and Talia marrying. 

When Bruce recalls talking to Ra’s, he says so many interesting things. He says that Ra’s regrets Jason’s death, regrets hiring the fucking Joker, Bruce even says “Ra’s had no idea that Robin was in Bosnia.” Which likely implies he hired Joker to distract Batman, Bruce beat and defeated him plenty of times, no biggie. But if he knew Jason was there, it doesn’t seem like he would have said someone so dangerous, he doesn’t want the kid hurt or worse. Bruce says that Ra’s fucking grieved Jason.

Now, back to the scene at hand. Jason’s outfit and scars indicate this is the timeline he survived the Joker and escaped the Wayne Manor when he realized the fault in their code (as we can see from that one clip). So, how old is he? If we take it that Joker beat him when he was 15, maybe with all the recovery and training to become a vigilante once again, 16? 17? Maybe even less? Doesn’t matter. Point is, he’s 16/17/smth and Damian is a baby. Doesn’t matter again how old but not very much, that’s for sure. 

Now, in usual canon timelines, Damian is 10 while Jason is, like, 19/20. Which means Damian was born before Jason was even adopted by Bruce. But that’s not the case here. Here, Jason was already a teenager when Damian was born.

He teased Bruce about marrying Talia. 

As we can see from this teaser, he indicated he knew Bruce and Tals were gonna have a kid and that she apparently miscarried. He knew he was going to be a big brother.

Bruce said this, about al Ghuls: “There was once a...twisted sense of family between us.”

They were family. They were supposed to be family. 

Anyway, my two points to this admittedly confusing and messy post are:

First, relationship between al Ghuls and Waynes are one of my favorites. They’re opponents, but they see the virtue in the other and respect, maybe even like, each other. It was also very sexy of the writers to make Ra’s this morally ambiguous man, but like Bruce said, honorable, with standards and respect. Don’t see that one often

Second, and kinda my actual point, think about the scene with all this information. He meets the brother he though he was gonna get, then thought otherwise. And he meets with the woman who is his dad’s love, his brother’s mother, and really, if things turned out the best way, wouldn’t that be a kinda-mom to him too? From the teasers I’ve seen Jason’s face shift from cautious-tense to confused-disbelieving to, honestly, something soft-gentle-happy when he holds Damian. 

Anyway, these are my thoughts I’ve been stuck with for three hours and decided to throw at the world at 1am, k thx bye

[stxleslyds]

If you misunderstood, it's my fault, I tried to articulate it correctly but failed. I’ll be used the fact that it was past 2am as an excuse… But I was calling Lobdell's Jason rude, in this case. It wasn't necessarily that he was rude without reason (because your example of Ducra telling him to bow was rude of her, I agree there, and there will be more examples), it was more so that he was rude at all. It was a stark contrast between what Winick had shown, and Lobdell now did. (I might be biased against Lobdell and therefor interpreting Jason's actions much more unkindly, but idk, they were just so different?) It was like Winick's writing of Jason worked well with how Jason was written pre-death, whereas Lobdell's writing of Jason worked better with those post-death/pre-resurrection flashbacks (I don't have the option to add images, but there are a plethora of moments). I think I mostly send the previous ask because, at least to me, that contrast between the Lost Days and the All Caste made Jason (Lobdell’s version) feel especially rude. Maybe it wasn’t so bad, but my bias might have made it seem considerably worse… I hope I make sense, and if not, I apologise for that...

Hello again Anon! Thank you for writing to me again!

And yeah, I completely agree with you that there is a very clear difference between how Jason was written (in general and personality wise) by Winick and Lobdell. I am known to be a big Winick fan and a clear hater of Lobdell so you and I are on the same page.

The thing that is different and makes Winick’s whole characterization better is that he is a good writer and when he was given the opportunity to expand on his lore, he did it amazingly. He had six issues to explain three years of Jason’s history and he gave a lot of context to what had happened before UtRH and how Jason came to be the man with the motivations that he had in that book.

I see it like Winick worked with the idea of Jason as he was before his death and built from that. Jason was a sweet boy who had a very complicated life and was “saved” by Batman from an unknown future. But as he kept working with Batman their differences in morals and how they viewed criminals made themselves clearer, Batman didn’t pay much attention to the fact that Jason viewed the world differently and that led Jason to feel neglected. From feeling like that is that Jason jumped when he found a connection to his first family, he wanted a parental figure to care and love him (he clearly wasn’t feeling like Bruce was giving him that). When that parental figure betrayed him and he found himself dying he wanted Bruce (his dad) to come and save him because he was just a kid.

Winick took all that and built from there, he gave us a Jason that wasn’t angry at Bruce for not coming in time, he didn’t even blame Bruce for his death (or himself), he was just angry and disappointed when he found out that Bruce had learned nothing from what had happened to Jason. Jason really believed that after he died Bruce would have opened his eyes to the cruel reality that is Gotham and that the Batman’s ways aren’t enough or even good.

Lobdell changed all that, he made Jason angry at the fact that Bruce didn’t save him, he then made Jason feel like he was responsible for his own death and was one of the first in pushing the narrative that Jason was a bad Robin or that being Robin wasn’t something that Jason had wanted to begin with.

Those differences changed Jason completely, and in Lobdell’s case led Jason to be a character that was hard to like. He was mean to Roy, he objectified women and acted like a hormonal teenager even after being resurrected (at times). So, I truly understand where you are coming from. It’s just that I don’t think that Jason being rude was the problem (or the main problem) it’s everything surrounding it, his past before death was changed for no reason at all and then his past after death was also changed for no reason at all.

When you find yourself reading content with a character that was very carefully developed and then jump directly into the mess that was New 52 RHatO then the bad writing, bad characterizations and obvious character assassinations are going to slap you in the face.

I know because I watched the UtRH animated movie (written by Judd Winick) then read Red Hood/Arsenal, then read UtRH and sadly after reading that masterpiece I jumped directly into New 52 RHatO and I wanted to just scream forever.

So, all in all, like I said in our previous “conversation”, I didn’t really feel like Jason was rude in his training, he just had a very difficult personality, and he acted in not so nice ways that were never called out as bad, and all that happened because Lobdell was writing a self-insert version of Jason and he obviously didn’t see (at the time) anything wrong with the way he was writing Jason. He did make some changes in Rebirth, when it comes to his personality and his relatability, Jason was more likable then, but first we had to suffer through those two books from hell that Lobdell wrote.

And going back to how Lobdell perceived the events of UtRH and how he brought them to light in his own books, well Anon, I am glad to inform you that I made a post all about it some time ago. In there I deep dive in how Lobdell re-wrote Jason’s intentions and motivations in UtRH and made him look like a bad man that only wanted to hurt Bruce because his father hadn’t gone on a killing spree for him.

If that was what you had meant, then you and me are on the same page completely! I will link here that post; it was called “RHatO’s Perception of UtRH and DitF”.

If you check that post out let me know what you thought! Thank you again for sending me another ask and I hope you have a wonderful day!

[redjaybathood]

So I want to get some inspiration and I am finally watching DitF and you know what? So far (18th minute) it's a fun ride. I mean, it's basically a recap of Under the Hood movie which is lazy af. But: what I love about this, it's just Bruce's POV, and he is telling the story to someone, I don't know who yet, and it's. It's so Bruce.

We know, from comics, that Bruce is not above

some exaggeration, a little white lie, or even sort of gaslight girlboss behavior (see: everything he told Tim, Steph or Cass about Jason).

Rewriting past and interpreting what happened as benefits him and what makes him in a better light (that moment when he finds Jason to notify him about Roy's death? And of course the previous example. While it could be argued that making himself look better or moving responsibility from adults to kids, from perpetrator to the victim, from abuser to the one who got a cracked helmet and several broken ribs and had to go spend half a year on medical leave on a magical inaccessible island... While it might not have been his conscious effort or what he intended, that's what happened, I didn't write it, DC wrote it).

Not giving people benefit of a doubt (Penguin from a pre-death Jason era) and, more importantly, being heavily influenced by his mood at the time - not emotions that the person or situation made him feel but the mood he was in before that (Jason from RHATO 25, Mr Freeze in 12 angry men rip-off);

Behaving manipulative af (visiting, on a false premise, Ethiopia with Jason to trigger a flashback of his death)

And that's just, you know, a tip of an iceberg, I am not big on Batman knowledge but that's what happened anyway. It may not be how he always behaves, and I am sure Batman fans have counter examples. I am also sure if I read more about Dick, Tim or Damian, or even Batman titles themselves, I would have found even more arguments for my point. But whatever: point is, that's what happened, and that's how he is on at least several different occasions with different people in a span of dozen of years. And he never consciously written as a villain.

So what does it mean?

It means unreliable fucking narrator.

Everything you see here it's Bruce framing the story in a way that supposed to condemn Jason and sympathize with Bruce. As he does. God. It's unintentionally best characterisation of Bruce I have seen in a while. It's making you think: so what exactly happened in Saraevo? How badass is, exactly, a sixteen years old kid who tracked down Joker, found out he is selling uran to terrorists, and even most of relevant details of the deal? And if he's so good - and fuck you, he is good, the movie is saying it's good - how exactly he ended up tied up on the floor of the warehouse? In the comics, his guard was lowered by Sheila, and the only reason he left his observation point was Sheila being (seemingly) in distress! So who or what was it in the movie?

It won't be explained though, and that's why it's a bad movie.

[bluebeetle]

kinda annoys me when people call the under the red hood movie watered down compared to the comic like yeah... it was a 14 issue arc (18 if u include ditf) and ended up tying into another ongoing stories at the time so of course you have to remove things for it to be a standalone story that anyone can just watch with minimal knowledge of batman. it literally has the same writer guys