#im tired and angry and hurt and want justice for the most compassionate boy

[martyrbat]

yknow im gonna be honest right here and admit that jason todd being poor is something i hold very personal to me because i am and being able to connect with this little fictional character and recognize myself is something very dear to my autistic heart and how i analyze his character. so please excuse how messy this is as i try to spontaneously place my thoughts in something legible

[ID: a closeup of Jason Todd as Robin. He's asking Batman, "What's that world ever do for me?" END ID]

But this whole flashback in particular still makes me so frustrated. When you're poor, you establish and build communities. You have to or you die. You rely on people's kindness and love - even if you're a stranger. It's how you survive. I had old friends ask me if im embarrassed or say they'd be too ashamed to take that help or do what I had to do to scrape by.

But so many don't understand that pride is a luxury many can't afford. I'm not ashamed. I'm angry you'd rather have me dead than confront the classism you benefit from and are comfortable upholding.

Poor people are the first to tell you that the world and society aren't going to save you and that you're abandoned by it - that they'll leave you to die and not care until it breaks their bubble of privilege and exploitation. (Homelessness, landlords, shoplifting food. Being visibly poor or effecting THEIR lives - it's never about yours). But the people in it, the 'little people', are the reason you ever survive. You're at the rawest point of humanity and while yes, you experience and deal with the cruelty and dirtiest parts of it - you see and experience the genuine kindness from everyday people. People that are equally struggling are more likely to help you than people that can comfortably do so without the fear of going without.

[ID: Batman and Robin sitting together on a ledge. Batman is telling Robin, "You need to love it...Or what's the point?" END ID]

Now take this kid. He gone without. He doesn't get to have a billionaire privilege of that filtered view. He knows people aren't good vs evil, that they're not black or white. Good people do shitty things to survive. Evil people walk free. He's familiar and knows struggles and reality - he knows drug addiction and overdose and murder and suicides and malnourishment. He knows police brutality and the system is designed against people like him up until just recently - where he suddenly meets the criteria to be protected instead of targeted. He doesn't look over the streets, waiting to swoop in. He's lived in them. He knows them.

For me and my experience as a disabled, poor, autistic with hyper empathy? All you want to do is help others. You don't have a life unless you're being productive. You want to give back the kindness you were gifted with, you know that struggle and pain and don't want anyone to go through it. You know no one is looking out for you other than your community. The world can be so fucking cruel so that's why I can't be - I have to be the good I want to see in it.

Then take this kid that has the opportunity to do more than what he ever dreamed of? He can finally live instead of just survive. He can be the hero to the people that usually don't get that luxury of care. He can protect his community and build bigger ones. He can help people. As @autisticredhood said so brilliantly in this post: "he doesn’t care what the world will do for him he cares about what HE will do for the world"

Stripping that away from him changes everything Jason is. As a child and him being unfairly written off as the angsty Robin but aldo as an adult since it's such a key element to what his moral code is and how he operates as a hero. Jason Todd will always care. He loves so much and it's constantly dismissed and I hate it.