#i have a rant in my head about how batgirl issue 64 perfectly shows everything i love about rose & slade's relationship

[roseworth]

How do you feel about Slade Wilson?

I personally could never get myself to like him strictly for what he did for Tera like I can excuse a lot of things but what he did to her is not one of them. I don’t know, I can never get myself to like him. Am I missing out?

I don’t know much about him beyond his titans cameos so is there an extra layer to his character that makes him likable?

Or is he just unlikable? How do you feel about him and him as a parent?

i think slade can be such a compelling character when hes written well. but the problem is that he is rarely written well

like. he's interesting to me BECAUSE he's such a terrible person and i hate him so much. he's a pedophile and an abuser and just an unapologetically horrible person and i LOVE it when writers don't ignore that. one of the reasons i love deathstroke 2016 is because priest doesnt pretend that slade is a good guy deep down, he is written like an asshole and does awful things throughout the entire book. because hes an asshole.

i dont like it when he works With the titans because. they should hate his ass!!! ESPECIALLY for what he did to terra. but he can be so good as a titans villain because hes a loser predator that routinely gets his ass kicked by teenagers that hate him on a personal level.

another reason hes interesting to me is because he genuinely DOES love the people in his life (derogatory). i hate it when people act like he hates his children because thats not true at all!! unfortunately he loves them so much but his version of love is abusing them and/or pushing them away. hes a terrible father and a terrible person but that doesnt mean he doesnt love his family. its just that his love is toxic and awful and him loving someone is always a bad thing

one (of many) thing that i hated about the movie deathstroke knights & dragons is that they tried to make him a good person. they treated it like his children were being irrational for hating him, his mercenary work was actually "noble" (he gave up a job because it came from a dictator; he would not fucking do that), and they even treated him cheating on adeline as "aw poor slade was so upset and he cheated on his wife because he was sad 🥺" and thats just. so boring to me. the reason he can be an interesting character is because hes such an awful person who does terrible things because hes selfish and doesnt care about other people, and even when he does care about other people hes doing it in a way that doesnt hurt him

thats also one of the reasons i HATED that one arc with respawn. i forget the name of it but it was the one crossover with batman & robin & deathstroke inc (<- this is driving me crazy what the fuck was it called.... it was the one where ra's died.... do u know what im talking about (EDIT: its Shadow War!! i forgor)) because suddenly slade was acting like he was a good father and that he loved his children and was acting Better than batman. which is so fucking stupid because hes a shithead and he knows it! but for some reason slade was like "im embracing my son i love being a family man ☺️ you wouldnt know what thats like would you batman ☺️" like since when do YOU know what thats like. at the very least he shouldve been pushing respawn away that entire time and it pisses me off that he was treated like the good guy in that story. and thats not even mentioning how bad rose's reaction pissed me off in this & dark crisis. williamson i am begging you to learn literally anything about the characters you write.

but going back to deathstroke 2016. that one is sooo good because christopher priest completely understands that slade is the worst. what i love about it is that he actually has "pure" motivations for a lot of the things he does (ie hiring a hitman on rose because he wants to spend time with her, stealing wallace's speedforce powers because he wants to save grant, etc) but it is very clear in the story that his motivations dont matter because hes doing a shitty thing! it doesnt matter that his intentions were good because he was hurting people on purpose!!!! he can try to be "good" all he wants but he is basically incapable of being good without hurting and/or manipulating someone. which is why hes such a compelling character to me. hes a shitty person with relatively good intentions. cool motive, still murder.

thats ALSO why i really like seeing him as a father (derogatory). because the shitty things he does are once again always well-intended but he fucks up his kids BAD. like just looking at his relationship with rose pre52, he pushes her away when he first meets her because hes afraid she'll be in danger if he brings her into his life. then he decides he DOES want her in his life so he hires someone to murder the people looking after her but lets her get her revenge on the person that killed her family. then he drugs her because hes a fucked up person that wants to keep her with him because shes the only family he has left (grant, adeline, wintergreen, and joey are all more or less dead at this point), then later after she leaves he fights her & joey (who is alive again) because he wants them to see that the titans to be a better family to them than he could be, THEN he fights them again because he wants them back in his life. its a back and forth of "i have to push them away to keep them safe" and "i have to go to extreme measures to keep them in my life"

hes a shitty father but hes a shitty father BECAUSE he loves his family. and he fucks them up because he doesnt know how to show them he loves them so he just makes it worse on purpose. he doesnt think that he can get any better so he pushes them away OR manipulates them and forces them to be close to him.

anyways. all this to say i find him interesting as a character BECAUSE he's unlikable and i dont trust anyone that actually likes him. if he was real i would throw rocks at him in the street because hes a piece of shit. but because hes not real i can enjoy his books as long as they dont shy away from the fact that hes a piece of shit