#being Jason Todd is the literal only thing she has left of Catherine and Willis

[halsaph]

Estrogen wouldn't save her but it would make her issues present in new and fascinating ways

[damianbugs]

i often include some obscure symbolism in my fics without any real desire to point them out but i was rereading an old piece of mine and remembered one i was rather proud of;

it's from YOU MUST KNOW LIFE TO KNOW DECAY. which is a canon-adjacent story about jason's experience with rain throughout his life. it spans over many years, starting from before his parent's death, to the present as red hood.

the rain itself is the massive metaphor and motif, obviously, but within that i snuck in some other key aspects to jason's character. the one i want to talk about it from the second section of the fic (unofficially dubbed "No!" and the period in time where jason was homeless):

in this scene jason's belongings have been dumped out of his bag into the rain over a misunderstanding, amongst these scarce objects are two things — an old book belonging to Willis Todd, and a photograph of Catherine Todd (the one jason has at his place when bruce comes to find him in Batman (1940) #408).

this photo always fascinated me and so i wanted to give it its own backstory. this moment however has two stories happening. a story of sacrifice for Willis, and the story of grief for Catherine.

the book willis used to love and jason remembers him reading often is the last remaining object the boy has to his father (because most of his belongings were left with his neighbour, and jason doesn't get those back until Batman (1940) #426).

unlike a picture or a letter, this book is a vessel between them, nothing about it actually is Willis' other than the memory attached to it. a nod to the fact that even in death, he had nothing other than the memory he left with his family.

catherine however has a picture, something that is entirely hers, but even that is all it is; her face. jason is young when his mother dies, and as he grows up, he'll soon forget the memories he made with her, but he'll never forget her face because of this last photo he has. her existence, prior to the disease and suffering and death, is forever immortalised for jason. she exists only before her death.

neither willis nor catherine are ghosts that follow jason. he mourns them and misses them deeply (and this grief is the entire catalyst for why he runs away in A Death in The Family) — but they don't come to him when he's doused with fear toxin or battling exhaustion. he doesn't see them when he closes his eyes. because they are not concepts he mourns.

they are a book, a photo, people he has lost forever. jason being a young carer, would have had to watch his mother slowly die to her disease, so he knows death in its raw forms. i have spoken before about how jason views love and loss, as being very literal and blunt understandings, and it's the same here.

so, we have a book and a photograph.

the book being destroyed by the rain is another nod to the modern characterisation of Willis Todd (in both canon and fanon). of the explicitly abusive and negligent father. how his character being "ruined" is usually to paint catherine as the weak and pitiful victim of circumstance and nothing more. neither of them have any true personality other than their surface level one's, which are often classist and ignorant.

on the other hand, willis' book being ruined but protecting the photograph of catherine underneath is to represent his story in jason's life. he was an absent idea because he was working to provide for them, jason didn't really know him outside of this story, and willis dies as a mere idea for his family.

it's not enough, however. willis dies, but it's still raining. catherine's photo may have been saved by some of the rain, but jason is still homeless and he will still have to endure it alone.

the second section of this fic is the saddest one to me, because while jason is the only todd present in this scene, there are three stories being told.

[rotten7rat]

Jason Todd Playlist Analysis

PART 13

Seventeen Going Under by Sam Fender

I see this song being about Jason’s childhood, referencing his mother, Catherine, and his father, Willis. He’s struggled for his whole life, from the moment he was born to now, he’s always been “going under”.  The age of seventeen is less literal in this case, I just take it to mean child in general for Jason.

 I remember the sickness was forever

I remember snuff videos

Cold Septembers, the distances we covered

The fist fights on the beach, the bizzies round us up

Do it all again next week

An embryonic love

The first time that it scarred

Embarrass yourself for someone

Crying like a child

And the boy who kicked Tom's head in

Still bugs me now

That's the thing, it lingers

And claws you when you're down

Reference to the poverty the Todds experienced, Catherine’s illness, struggling to keep a roof over their heads, the violence Jason witnessed at home and just from growing up in Park Row in general. It’s a constant repetition one week to the next. The rest of this part could just reference snippets of Jason’s early childhood. There’s no escaping poverty, it just keeps pulling you down as soon as you think you’re doing better.

I was far too scared to hit him

But I would hit him in a heartbeat now

That's the thing with anger

It begs to stick around

So it can fleece you of your beauty

And leave you spent with nowt to offer

Makes you hurt the ones who love you

You hurt them like they're nothing

This part makes me think of Willis, taking shady jobs and working for Gotham’s rogues to support his family, but taking out his stress and frustrations on his family. Jason knows that Willis loved them, but there’s no denying that he hurt them. It could reference Catherine as well, with how she came to rely on drugs to deal with her illness, which obviously hurt Jason also. Jason has even less doubt in his mother’s love, but her addiction had a large impact on Jason’s childhood.

See I spent my teens enraged

Spiralin' in silence

And I armed myself with a grin

'Cause I was always the fuckin' joker

A mirrored picture of my old man

I know a lot of people talk about how Jason wasn’t angry, but he was, and that’s okay, it doesn't mean it was the only thing he felt. He had a lot of anger as a teen, and it did slip into his work as Robin. He started to see Willis in himself, and as a teen he was still angry at Willis for how he treated him and Catherine, and for leaving them to survive without him.

She said the debt, the debt, the debt

So I thought about shifting gear

And how she wept and wept and wept

Well, luck came and died 'round here

I see my mother

The DWP see a number

She cries on the floor encumbered

I'm seventeen going under

When Willis was sent to prison, and then killed, Jason and Catherine were left to fend for themselves. As Catherine got sicker, a lot of her care and general responsibilities fell onto Jason. Maybe he also started to steal and move drugs to provide for them, which distressed Catherine greatly. The government doesn’t see Catherine as a person, she doesn’t qualify for any help, and the only help Jason can receive takes him away from her. It’s an impossible situation. This goes on until Catherine dies, and then Jason is totally alone.

[kiseiakhun]

What are your feelings on Kyle/Jason/Wally. I kinda think it might happen if Kyle had a crush on both. Accidentally tells Wally. Teasing. Jason finding out. Jason and Wally overdramaticly flirting. Dick finds out and Kyle dying from the close proximity of both Jason/Wally Wally/Jason Jason/Kyle Wally/Kyle. And then Flirting/Showing off intensifying. Although I don't really know much about Wally or Kyle. ❤

RUBS HANDS TOGETHER

Hello? This is the greatest ask anyone’s ever sent me. Kyle is a lovey-dovey dumbass who falls in love after two seconds of knowing someone, so like. It’s real. It’s very real. He and Wally would’ve had their thing first? Because of their whole enemies to lovers arc in JL, except - because of that whole dynamic where they started off ragging on each other, I feel like they both would’ve been oblivious to their feelings. Add in a healthy dose of compulsory heterosexuality from Kyle, and yeah... the adults of the League have probably been waiting years for that ship to sail, except the babies just keep being oblivious dunderheads.

(Wally realized in his teen years that he’s not strictly heterosexual, because being on a team with Dick Grayson when you’re male tends to draw out any bent inclinations very, very quickly. It’s just. Kyle is the snot-nosed rookie too big for his britches. He’s a baby? He’s an infant. Wally is not attracted to an infant, wtf.)

And then Kyle goes off on his journey of self-discovery with Donna and Jason. Well, journey of self-discovery for him, because Jason’s ass and body and his devil-may-care tough guy attitude is the culmination of Kyle’s bisexual crisis. Seriously, countdown is basically Kyle going “ugh, that stupid hot sexy asshole is so hot and sexy around Donna, there’s no way she can resist him. Why is he attractive? He needs to stop. I’m going to fight him because he’s TOO HOT.” It’s incredible. If the writers weren’t cowards, countdown would’ve ended with them being in a triad.

Donna’s probably the one who points out that mayhaps... Kyle’s constant mooning over Jason might mean something different... and Kyle’s like wtf, no. And then he actually thinks about it, because Kyle’s one of maybe two (2) men in the dcu who has a semblance of emotional intelligence (idk who the other one is, but I’m sure he’s out there) (edit: it’s Connor. Connor Hawke. Connor is the other man. I was going to say Clark but Clark keeps going to extremes whenever he or his are threatened and. like. he tries, bless his heart, but there’s still a lot of repression going on with him) and he’s like wait. Fuck. Well what do I do with this information!! It’s not like Jason is into guys!!!

To which Donna just looks at him like, how are you so smart yet so stupid at the same time. She remembers how baby Jason mooned over Roy and Dick as much as he mooned over her. She Remembers.

(Also, lbr, Donna’s very experienced by now at dealing with dumb boys in denial about their non-het leanings. See previous statements about being on a team with Dick Grayson. She saw all of it, man. She’s seen so much.)

Cue Kyle, sitting bolt upright in bed after they’ve just wound down for the night and just saying, “Oh my god, Wally.”

And Donna’s just like, yup.

And Jason’s just like ? wtf is that asshole up to now. Whatever, idc, blissfully unaware of Kyle’s bi panic.

Anyway. The world is saved, and they get back to their Earth, and Kyle manages to put it aside because Everything Happens So Much. He’s the Green fking Lantern, okay, he doesn’t have time to deal with sexuality crises, except. Except. It won’t leave him alone?

Like, in his downtime he hangs out with Wally a lot since they’re friends, and oh yes, hello raging crush that he can no longer pretend isn’t a thing, because once Kyle acknowledges his attraction? That is it, man, there’s no turning back from that point. And ik that in canon, Jason threw a snitfit and left Kyle and Donna in the middle of their happy fun space adventure fieldtrip, but let’s say he didn’t have a sudden ooc personality turn because of writer mandate, and he stayed with Kyle and Donna until the end of their journey, and they stayed in touch.

And Kyle realizes, to his horror, that Jason is charming, and funny, and not bad on the eyes, and fuuuuck. This isn’t really helping his stupid dumb crush. Stupid dumb crushes. Goddamn.

(Sometimes Jason even joins him in his Space Adventures because of his new team. More specifically, Kori and her shiny new spaceship that can sustain humans in space conditions, and he is not jealous, shut up, Roy.)

(Roy caught on pretty quickly, because he’s much more empathetic and in tune with other peoples emotions than he pretends to be 90% of the time. Unfortunately, he only uses his powers for chaos.)

Ofc, Wally would start getting curious about Jason eventually because suddenly this kid is fucking everywhere? Dick’s calling on him for intel in the middle of a firefight, and he’s ragging on Roy’s atrocious dress sense, and he’s joking with Donna and Kyle’s giving him the same shit that he used to give to Wally, excuse me. Wasn’t he a villain or something? The last time Wally paid attention to him, he was sawing heads off in Gotham, and now Wally can’t seem to turn without tripping over him. When the fuck did that even happen?

(I’m not sure if Wally ever met Robin!Jason. Hm. Were Jason’s guest-appearances on the team during when Wally was pulling one of his stints of... I don’t WANT to be a hero, I want to be a NORMAL BOY who goes to COLLEGE, even though I literally re-created the Flash’s lab accident down to the letter just so I can have his powers and be a hero and save the world? ... ykw, we don’t acknowledge that era of Wally. This was back when he was a meninist incel or something. Ick.)

... and damn, Wally really can trip over him now, huh. Because he sure did grow up big, and strong, and rugged, and haha fuck now Dick is starting to glare at him, too, and not just at Roy, abort, abort.

...... Wally does attempt to subtly ask Roy, later, if there’s any truth to the statements about him and Jason and Kori that Roy says to Dick to get him all riled up. I say “attempt to” because Wally is bad at subtlety. It’s part of why he and Kyle get along so well. Roy realizes what he’s asking and he about has an apoplexy because Wally? Wally? Now there’s a surprise contender he did not expect, tossing his hat into the ring.

But also. Also... hot.

Roy and Kori are watching all of this while munching popcorn like damn, this is better than TV. Because Kyle’s having his crisis, his Love crisis, and Wally’s having his oh my god why do I find my best friend’s little brother hot crisis, and Jason is just happily oblivious to all of this, because he’s too busy angsting over his dad not loving him enough and dismantling trafficking rings and being the big, bad scourge of Gotham to notice Kyle pining after him like a lovelorn puppy, and Wally eyeing him appreciatively like he hasn’t eaten in a whole hour and Jason is a tender piece of marbled steak roasted on both sides to perfection. He does notice the way Kyle and Wally look at each other, though, because he’s only observant when it comes to the positive emotions of other people. And he is not stepping in the middle of that, tyvm, because from what Roy’s told him the two of them have a looooong history and he does not want to get caught in the middle of that crossfire.

Roy and Kori are both like, what makes you think it’s going to get messy, anyway? And Jason, whose real world examples of functioning relationships are 1. Willis and Catherine Todd, 2. Bruce and Selina, 3. Bruce and Talia, 4. Dick and all his exes, 5. Roy and all of his not-exes because he doesn’t date but people keep falling in love with him anyway and he panics and ghosts them because he is Roy William Commitment Issues Harper, 6. Kori and whatever the fuck she’s got going on with Dick and like, an ex? back on Tamaran? who she might still be married to?? what the fuck, 7. Kyle and Donna and their messy breakup(s)(?) (Jason doesn’t ask, because he Does Not Want To Know) (he’s too busy repressing to realize it’s half because of jealousy), is just like, that’s just how things go.

And Roy and Kori, both having mentally run through all of those ^ options while Jason was thinking of a response, are just like. ... yeah, alright, that’s fair enough.

God, every single relationship in DC is a mess.

Where was I even going with this?

Oh, right. Basically, Kyle is pining like a lovelorn idiot, Wally doesn’t know what the fuck he’s feeling and it’s making him confused, and Jason is ignoring his feelings because maybe if he just represses them hard enough, they won’t spill over and punch him in the face. Honestly, I see Wally making the first move, because his inadequacy issues don’t run as deep as Jason and Kyle’s do, and Kyle’s just like :D and Jason’s like, what the fuck. What the fuck? Because it literally blindsides him, even though it’s stupidly, painfully obvious to everyone else around him.

Either that, or Roy gets sick enough of watching their lovelorn pining, and employs Dick’s help to lock them all in a closet, naked, and fuck it out.

(Dick doesn’t actually disapprove of Jason sleeping with his friends, he just needs to get over his mental block of still seeing Jason as a baby)

Anyway. They’re all a whole-ass mess.

[scandalsavagefanfic]

hey so like.. if sheila really is jason's mom... why does he still say that his mom was a good person? he always talks about his horrible dad but he only ever mentions his mom's drug addiction, never the fact that she was complicit in his murder? she's highkey worse that willis, no?

So for starters (and this is actually the last thing I’m writing in this response because below this I went on a whole rant about how much I hate Sheila and then I reread your ask and realized there might be a little confusion) when Jason mentions his mom, he’s definitely referring to Catherine. Because she is the woman he knows, the woman who ‘raised’ him, the woman who was there during his childhood. She’s the only mother he knows. Sheila is just the egg donor who gave him life only to murder him when he finds her later.

Sheila is 100%, HIGH KEY, the absolute worst. I can’t possibly overstate how much I hate Sheila. She is despicable. Because, imagine you read A Death in the Family for the first time. Maybe you know that Jason dies in the end. Maybe you’ve heard on the interwebz, or 90′s comics, that he gets himself killed, that he’s reckless and he disobeys Bruce’s orders. But you don’t know the story. 

That was me. I knew nothing about Jason’s search for his bio-mom and Sheila when I went into that book. And maybe, like me, this is your introduction to Robin!Jason.

So it opens with Jason going half-cocked on some child pornographers and Bruce is understandably worried because Jason almost died but at the same time you’re like... child pornographers are the scum that grows on scum and Jason is a child so like... we feel where you’re coming from Robin, no big deal that’s not really reckless, you’re just a passionate kid (because you don’t know anything about Jason’s past on the streets, hinted at in issues leading up to this one and you don’t know that Jason may have a personal reason for having a grudge against sex offenders and child abuses but it doesn’t really matter because, like, child pornographers!). 

So Bruce benches Jason for dumb reasons I won’t go into (and maybe you’re not a total newb like I was, maybe you’ve read a little of Jason’s Robin run before this in Batman and Detective Comics so you think it’s pretty ooc for Bruce and Jason to not discuss things). 

Then Jason finds his birth certificate and the name is smudged but it definitely can’t be Catherine’s. So Jason does some research and since he and Bruce are still on the outs, and Bruce is busy tracking down the Joker, Jason, who has been trained as a detective and crime fighter, tracks down three possibilities for his bio-mom. 

Skipping ahead, after they fight off Lady Shiva and ask if she’s ever had a kid, because she’s option #2 (option #1 was an Israeli spy and like... how did low level henchman Willis Todd end up with these deadly, badass women?) they walk away and Bruce asks Jason if he really would have wanted a woman like Shiva to be his mother and I BET THE ANSWER IS DIFFERENT NOW!

Because then they get to Sheila and I can finally say that what makes her awful is that she sells her story. I’m reading this for the first time, and I have no idea what happens, just that somehow Jason gets from meeting his birth mother to dead in a blown up building.

And if you’re reading it like that, you’re right there with Jason. You understand why she left him, she’s sympathetic and you feel for her and you think “That is so sad, at least they can have a relationship now”. 

So then the Joker shows up and surprise, surprise, comic book worlds are small and he and Sheila have a past. 

Joker wants drugs and he threatens to expose Sheila’s past doing abortions, which, in the 80′s may have been meant to make her slightly less sympathetic but now just kind of makes her a victim of a dumb system. Anyway, one of those went bad and she accidentally killed someone and fled the country. 

So Sheila takes Joker to the warehouse and you’re thinking, that sucks but Bruce Wayne is there and maybe he can replace the drugs Joker stole, Sheila is in a tough place. 

Then she stands by when Joker replaces a shipment of life-saving drugs with his deadly Joker gas and you go ‘uh... ok... not... not really much she can do I guess...”

Jason is watching this go down, recognizes that this is too much for him, and runs off to get Bruce.

That’s when Bruce and Jason split up. Someone has to stop the shipment from being delivered or a bunch of people will die. Their Land Rover isn’t fast enough to catch the cargo trucks and all they have is a one-man, fold-up helicopter! (It’s exactly as contrived as it sounds but hey, comics. 80′s. Whatever.)

Bruce pleads with Jason to wait for him. Jason agrees but as soon as Bruce speeds off, Jason makes the comment “Sorry Bruce, but that’s my mother in there with that lunatic.”

And here’s where I’d like to take a minute and say... I know a lot of Jason fans hate Starlin and ok, I get it. But I... don’t really. Because here’s the thing, he set it up, he could have had Jason barge in, guns blazing (as the saying goes), and while it may have been ‘reckless’ it would STILL would have been understandable. Because Jason is a kid who has been trained in combat, who has just found his mom after both his other parents left him to fend for himself on the streets. Whether he meant to or not, Starlin set this up for Jason to be beyond reproach regardless of how he ended up in that warehouse.

But, and this is important, he didn’t have Jason do that at all. Jason tells his mom, who has, until this moment, seemed to be a humanitarian thrilled to be reunited with the son she never thought she’d see again. He tells her he’s Robin and tries to stop her from going back into the warehouse.

She fucking lures a child, her child, who she was genuinely happy to see an hour ago, into the hands of the Joker because he’s Robin and that means Batman is around and she’s been embezzling funds from the relief organization. She points a gun at her child, asks the Joker what he wants to do with him, gives one pained expression to steel herself, and smokes a fucking cigarette while the the Joker beats her child to death.

Then, when the Joker predictably betrays Sheila, and Jason turns out to not be beaten to death, he drags his broken, bleeding body across the floor and unties her. When they can’t get out because the Joker had the foresight to lock the door, Jason throws his broken, bleeding body in front of hers in a last ditch effort to save a woman who very literally sent him to his death. 

So. Now that I’ve covered my undying rage for Sheila and explained why, yes, she is inarguably the worst of Jason’s shitty parental figures, I can get to the rest of you’re ask.

In Universe reason why Jason doesn’t talk about Sheila: Because she murdered him. Because she’s an egg donor and nothing more. Catherine may have been too drugged up to really raise Jason, but she’s the closest thing he has to a caregiver. My adopted cousins call my aunt mom. She’s the only ‘mom’ they talk about. I don’t know if they know who their bio-moms are, but they wouldn’t stop calling my aunt ‘mom’ just because they met them. My aunt is the one who provided for them and raised them. She’ll never stop being they’re mother. Catherine will always be who Jason considers his mother. 

Real life reason why Jason doesn’t talk about Sheila: Option 1 - Lobdell hasn’t read “A Death in the Family”. Option 2 - Lobdell forgets the details of “A Death in the Family”. Option 3 - Lobdell has his own headcanon for Jason’s past that he desperately wants to make canon but DC won’t let him because “A Death in the Family” hasn’t been out of print since it dropped, so he just writes RH like his headcanon is canon and as long as he doesn’t explicitly contradict one of DC’s most popular books he can do what he wants.