#jason todd negative

[fancyfade]

Jason in canon: I'm going to kill crime lords and drug dealers because I'm mad at my dad, so I can be a crime lord who controls crime. I view gotham as a place you have to beat into submission. I don't really think about victims of crimes one way or another. Also I refuse to kill the joker bc my dad has to do it, even tho he may survive and murder more people because this is textually about revenge and not protection

Jason fans: he's so feminist leftist and progressive! He's clearly doing so much more to help victims than batfam because clearly he is then only one who has ever suffered, and here's why his extrajudicial murder is the most progressive thing ever. I'm going to also act like he predominantly goes after supervillains who escape prison a lot rather than like. Crime boss lackies.

[barbie0303]

One thing I´ll always find funny about Jason and Tim´s books from the New 52 is how they emphasize that they spent their childhood fighting crime or whatever when we are talking about the continuity that had Batman going through 4 Robins in 5 years... like what are they talking about?

[milesofstars]

dont worry about it jason...

[angstandhappiness]

Interesting

so many issues wrt the idea of responsibility and such in batfandom would be fixed if people remembered that leslie thompkins and selina kyle exist. like those scenarios people keep making up about protecting gotham’s infrastructure happen in the comics but because women are involved no one seems to give a shit. “why isn’t anyone offering support in the alley??” leslie is. “why isn’t anyone protecting the women and children of gotham??” selina is. “why isn’t anyone more involved with stopping the mob in gotham??” helena is. “why isn’t bruce more proactive in fixing gotham outside of batman??” who do u think funds leslie’s clinic.

[prlssprfctn]

I know we love discussing Jason being hater in Internet (which is very true, and I think he simultaneously does it from both his own name and Red Hood, depending on who/what he hates at the given moment), but I suggest you this: Jason has an anonymous account to defend his favs on internet. Specifically, vigilantes and superheroes. Specifically, his family members or friends.

And no one needs to know that.

Jason, from his fake account: I think Batman fumbled the case, tbh. But we gotta give some respect to Robin, he did great.

Someone replying to him: Right??? Batman is getting old and predictable, lmao

Jason, in the instant: Lol, what would YOU know about Batman. Watch your goddamn mouth. Idiots like you are alive because Batman is in this town.

Random on internet: Uhh, Arsenal? Lol. Isn't that one Arrow's boy that became a junkie, lolol.

Jason, appearing out of nowhere: *five thousand word essay about Arsenal, his merits, and how insensitive society that ends up with passive-agressive "hope it helps!" sentence*

Random hater: Red Robin is easily the most useless bird in Bats, idc.

Jason, spawning in comments: Say that again

Of course, if you try to question Jason about that matter, he will never admit it. In fact, he often switches accounts if he feels like any of Bats are close to finding out who is writing these furious reddit posts, but. But Barbara knows. And every time Jason tries to bully someone in the family in real life, she can't help but tease him subtly.

Jason: Urgh, man, you suck. How could you miss these idiots?

Tim, frustruated: Fuck off

Barbara, in comms: User "WonderSon" would drag your ass for bullying Red, btw.

Tim: Yes, he fucking wouldddd

Jason: ...

Jason: *tired sigh*

[stargazingdustbunny]

Batfam incorrect quotes

Tim: My therapist told me I have a short life expectancy.

Dick: Why? What's wrong? Is it because of your spleen?

Damian: Don't you mean your doctor? Therapists are not supposed to diagnose that.

Tim: I meant my therapist. Apparently, I suffer from "chronic recklessness and self-endangerment".

[thedevilundercover]

Yk what dc definitely needs? An ao3 cameo bc have you seen your fan base, there is definitely some rando writing Batman/Brucie fics in Gotham because Batman Is Not beating the sugar baby allegations.

And have you seen the fucking batfam, Jason writes BatBruce fanfics whenever he feels Chaotic and Tim edits them whenever he get pissed at Bruce

Now I really want to see like fandom wars in the DCU but it's just the Batkids fighting for their ship bc they want [blank superhero] as their step parent

Imagine going on Tumblr and it's just like the same 10 blogs threatening each other because they don't agree with who's fucking batman? It'd be hilarious

Twitter fic this Twitter fic that, what about tumblr fics, huh?

[fandom-hoard]

The thing that really annoys me now that Jason is past his murder era, is that I feel like that should make it EASIER for Jason stans to have empathy for Damian. Anything Damian has done wrong Jason has done x10 worse and Damian did it while being an actual little kid raised in a murder cult. But you're all for Jason's redemption's arc while you continue villianize Damian? Yeah okay. Sure, Jan.

said this before but it’s always so annoying when people make Damian, 10 year olds, brown boy, deprogramming from a cult, the villain of the 2009 batfam comics, and not Jason, 20s, white guy, literally mass murdering random prisoners + actively attacking the heroes the villain. like. he’s right there. committing murder as we speak

[jasonsthighholsters]

all comic fans know how to do is: develop superiority complexes based on their personal perceptions of a character, eat hot chip, and lie

[liedownquisition]

I've been working on my Lazarus Pit meta and it's partly what spawned my previous post but I've got a worse bit for you:

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #144-145 (The full 4-issue arc, The Demon Laughs, ran June-Sept 2001)

Now, I'm not going to say the writing in this was particularly good for Talia. She very clearly expressed disapproval for bringing Joker along for this whole venture and I'm pretty sure she was hoping he'd be killed for his insolence from the start, but her tendency to betray Ra's was tossed in the trash with a "And you will not betray me this time. Do you understand, Talia?" "I understand and obey, Father." as if those words would genuinely stop her from doing anything, EXCLUSIVELY so they can force this whole situation where Bruce needs to resurrect Joker in the Pit (That he even has to actively assemble the ingredients and prepare himself!!!)

And, for me, there's two things that make the whole situation worse (Well, three, but I'm trying really hard not to acknowledge the... sigh, "Pit Sanity" even if I'm going to make reluctant mention of it in the Lazarus post). First of all, this from #143:

:(

EDIT: I'm pretty sure she's referring to Joker: Devil's Advocate, where the Joker gets sentenced to the death penalty for a crime he (for once) didn’t do, here. That one, this one, and Joker: Last Laugh are all written by Chuck Dixon, who seems to have a hard-on obsession with forcing Bruce to save Joker for one reason or another. Last Laugh was even published (or started, at least) only three months after this one came out.

And, horrifically, this at the end of the plot:

How many times have you saved Joker's life, Bruce? I said "resurrected him more than once" because of this incident & the one where he resuscitated him after Dick killed him, but how many more times did he save the bastard? (Bruce does go on to implictly threaten that Ra's was probably going to try and kill Joker for HIS betrayal, and that Ra's has already demonstrated being perfectly capable of smoothly faking things so that they can get him out for whatever he wants, but lol. That's nowhere equivalent to the fact that you actively gave him back his life!!! the narrative necessity/justificationstill pisses me off regardless.)

Anyways, this is one of those storylines that like, in retrospect... If we're trying to reconcile the timeline a little, I'm pretty sure this would fall at some point after finding Jason in Gotham. This is pre-Hush (Dec 2002-Nov 2003), so bringing Jason back wasn't even a twinkle in Winick's mind, but if you try to fit it all in context...

Can you imagine, for her? Not only is this her "Beloved's" mortal enemy, this is the murderer of the child you took into your care. That at some point you started to care for. Now, comic timelines are a little finicky and while some things are explicitly before or after other arcs a lot of it you just kind of have to guess when things cover some stuff retroactively... but what if this was, say, right after putting Jason in the Pit?

Ra's has a reputation for forcing Talia to "prove" her loyalty to him by forcing her to go along with whatever plans or giving her cruel missions as punishment for any perceived betrayals. If there's that situation hanging over their heads and perhaps even an implicit threat about the whole situation about what he'd be doing if he wasn't working on this particular scheme...

Can you imagine, you shot this fucker eight times, center mass. And if Batman could review the damage and determine there was only one way to save him, so could Talia. She would know how thoroughly she'd done her job... and what Batman had to have done in turn. His son's murderer.

Can you imagine, later, when she's talking to Jason and he's clearly unhappy about Joker being alive? She doesn't try to justify it with the fact that she (almost) killed Joker once. What does it matter that it happened when he's still alive? It didn't last for any length of time and it didn't meaningfully change anything. It's no comfort for the boy who doesn't understand why his father didn't love him "enough" to never let it happen again.

Alternatively, if it was pre-Pit, there probably isn't that threat the same way, although there could be one of "We are doing this, and I am turning a blind eye to your past betrayals and your little pet project that isn't getting better." Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if knowing Bruce had used it on Joker wasn't some measure of a thought when she put Jason in one too. If Bruce can use it to give the murderer's life back, she can use it to give life back to the victim.

Of course, I wouldn't bet on any of this being intended when UtH/Lost Days was written, but the implications of all this if you try to put it into some kind of cohesive perspective...

[ayamari-no-goshi]

Okay, we gotta talk about Pit Madness in the comics.

I keep seeing a bunch of people saying it’s not real. Problem. It is. It’s just rarely brought up.

It might not be the earliest reference, but we have this panel with Talia talking about how madness seizes him after dipping in the Lazarus Pit

Batman #244 (1972)

But this isn’t the only time we get reference to this. The panel below also talks about lore of the Lazarus Pits and again mentions that madness.

Batman: Bane of the Demon. Issue 3 (1998)

This gets referenced again in Hush when Bruce is fighting who he thinks is someone pretending to be Jason having been resurrected in the Pits during Hush.

Bruce is thinking about how he almost out Jason in a Pit after his death, but due to the madness the Pit can cause and Jason’s injuries to the head, he thought against it.

Batman # 618 - I think it’s volume 11 in the Hush omnibus (2003)

We see a reference to it again regarding Jason in the Lost Days. What’s super interesting here is that Talia states the Pits did NOT drive Jason mad, but Ra’s warns her that it’s possible the madness can occur up to years after a person’s dip.

I find this particular one fascinating, simply because of the lore that Pit Madness can take hold decades after a dip in a Pit.

Red Hood: the Lost Days #2 (2010)

Now, regarding Jason. There has NEVER been any concrete proof he’s suffered from Pit Madness. It’s very popular as a head cannon simply because Jason’s characterization is so all over the place.

Edit: Please keep in mind Jason was calm, cool, collected, and conniving in Under the Red Hood. Saying he’s Pit Mad there takes away all of the impact and gets rid of his motivations. Please be aware of this.

Now, that’s not saying there’s not a connection between Jason and the Pits. There was an entire arc in Red Hood and the Outlaws (2010) regarding this which also deals with Jason’s time with the All-Caste.

I still haven’t gotten around to reading that part, but it’s where the permanent augmentation theories come from. Oh, and Jason can canonically make constructs from Lazarus Water. Ra’s can too, but yeah… it’s a thing.

Red Hood and the Outlaws 2010 #27 (Released in 2014)

But while there’s no confirmation Jason’s dealt with Pit Madness, you know who has? Cass

Batgirl 1 #72 or 73 (2006)

Cass was revived after taking a blow for someone. And Shiva revived her, but there’s no permanence to it. And to my knowledge, I could be wrong since I’m not as familiar with her runs, this is the only time it gets referenced with her.

But going back to my original point that started this: Pit Madness is real. It’s just rarely seen in the comics. And if you want to use it, that’s fine - just be careful about its use since you can ruin characterization with it.

Edit 2: while there isn’t much of Pit Madness seen in the comics, it does seem to wear off over time. We also know a dip in the Pit temporarily increases brain power and physical strength/ability.

We also know that there’s a Lazarus Pit under Gotham and that its waters leech into Gotham’s water supply.

That’s referenced in Teen Titans vol. 3 issues 40-41 (2007) - forgive me. I don’t feel like looking up those panels

[fancyfade]

People who want jason to be woobified or morally right always gotta mischaracterize others to try to make them more like him or make him look better.

[fakakta-art]

my band au jason todd based on peter steele and type o negative

[oifaaa]

I will never understand the obsession with making tims favourite robin Jason when it couldn't be more painfully obvious that tims favourite robin was Dick

Like people are so caught up in the concept, the made up angst, that tims favourite robin beat him up that they straight up misunderstand how much more significant Tim and Dicks relationship is not to mention the added layers of Tim originally being created as the ultimate self insert character which for a good number of readers meant they grew up with Dick as their favourite robin and didn't really like Jason just for not being Dick

[femmehaljordan]

I think the way people villainize jason is so interesting considering that at his core jason embodies true empathy for victims of both violent and non-violent crime more than any of the bats.

Like you can't cut addicts off cold turkey, that only causes more harm. So he'll make sure your drugs are clean and you get clean needles. And when you wanna get clean he'll help. He'll kill your abuser, your rapist. Not JUST for you, because he will do it for you. But not only for you, but for anyone else that person could hurt.

Also ppl in fanon make it so that cass would hate him (and she probably might but not for what they think), but i think he'd despise her moral code just as much.

Her empathy for (1) singular individual has eroded her ability to empathize with any victim of any crime of any magnitude hereafter to ease her own sense of guilt.

Jason's entire moral code rides on doing whatever it takes to make sure that victims are safe and comfortable. Sometimes you aren't comfortable until the monster that stalks your nightmares is dead.

But they won't let him or other victims have that. They let people live in that nauseating perpetuity of "will they hurt me again?" And their only moral leg to stand on is that they don't kill. Like a prolonged death from extreme violence is any better.

I think cass would hate him for the moral dilemma he presents FOR HER. How does she grapple with the fact that the lives taken/hurt by the persons she CHOOSE to let live, is infinitely more than it would be if she killed like jason. (Didn't she break into a prison to free a serial child rapist on death row??? I cannot remember the exact comic but feel free to correct me)

Also people act like jason kills indiscriminantly, which he doesn't. We know he targets persons who target women, children, and people who enact sexual violence.

Idk i think the way people view jason moral code is a direct reflection of how they see real victims of crime and bad circumstances. They're quick to say violence isn't the answer but sometimes it's the only option between life and death. And its not wrong to want to live

- 🪼

!!!!

You can tell that some people have no fucking clue what harm reduction is based on the way they talk about Jason. Like “he was a crime lord he dealt drugs!!” BUDDY HIS ENTRANCE ONTO THE SCENE WAS “DON’T DEAL TO KIDS”

There’s something to be said about Jason doing anything to make a victim comfortable vs Cass doing anything to prevent death

I do find it interesting that people are always like “Cass should hate Jason” but never addressed the fact that Jason would hate her right back.

Aoughhhhh something about Cass only viewing herself as a murderer and Jason being a victim of murder and how it shaped their ideology in different directions is soooooo.

I also think that Cass’ moral code is one of the most fascinating. Because it goes beyond not playing Judge jury and executioner. Cause like you said, she broke that guy out of prison. He was on death row. Aside from my feelings on the death penalty. (Abolish it) the judge, and the jury had made a decision. And it wasn’t even like she went to the governor and beat him up until this guy was given a stay of execution. She took justice into her own hands like Jason is condemned for doing just in the opposite direction.

Like Cass’ no killing goes farrrrrr beyond Bruce’s and I don’t see that talked about enough

I do wanna say that I fact checked with my Cass friend, the guy she broke out just killed someone he was not a rapist.

But you’re so right about how people like to view Jason through real world lenses. It’s insufferable sometimes.

All that is to say honestly? I fear Cass’ moral code is not the bastion of purity people treat it as.

[bestangelofall]

Look, I understand the need for feel good fanfic, and writing good brother Jason content. Sometimes we want to write stuff that wouldn't happen ever, and that is inherent to fic, and we love it.

That being said,

I find it odd to see Jason being put in a situation where there's abuse reveal of some other batkid (usually Dick or Tim) done by Bruce and Jason is all protective of them. Honestly, I don't think that would make a lot of sense.

If it's a situation where everyone is mad at Bruce for mistreating one of his children/mentees, then Jason would actually resent them all for not doing that for him. Bruce has arguably killed him at the end of UtH (and eve if you do not read the text as such, Bruce still hit his throat with a batarang and left him to die), and then took him to the place where he died to trigger him, then there was Rhato25 (and then Rhato27, where Bruce was "hehe sometimes you have to get beaten, you understand, right?", recently Gotham War and then the conclusion of Dark Prisons, etc. And with the exception of Batman 138, no one protected Jason in any of those situations.

(yes, I know they might not be aware of those things, but this is also a discussion of fan content, and in fan content, sometimes they do know about those things)

(Dick beating Bruce in Batman 138 might not even be completely about Jason at all, though I am okay with that reading too.)

And let's be real, that guy is naturalizing his own abuse, so I wouldn't put it past him to naturalize others' as well. In the specific case of Dick, Jason might see that as some fucked up good sign for himself, after all, if Bruce's fav is also going through similar things, maybe Jason isn't so bad himself.

(and yes, the reciprocal is also true, Jason abuse reveal also wouldn't garner that much sympathy for him because the bats don't give a fuck about him, but I've seen that being more discussed in fandom).

In general, abuse reveal involving Jason in any way (either as the abused party or the one angry on behalf of someone else being abused) would be much less feel good than what is usually portrayed. And I think that's neat. They are not okay, and I think exploring a very thorny and bitter reveal fic could be interesting