Bruce calls his kids his babies and he's completely serious. Because have you see his sons and daughters? Babies.
The JL are just fucking perplexed at this because they overhear him refer to the kids collectively as his babies and they're like "They're grown?" - except Damian who is clearly not a baby, have you heard that kid talk? And Bruce is offended because they are babies, the other JL members have never seen his kids get excited when Alfred makes cookies or napping in the Batmobile after patrol or falling asleep in their spaghetti at the table (OK admittedly Tim was 16, and it was part concussion, part exhaustion but still cute). Bats is like, how else am I meant to refer to my children as a group? Oliver suggests "kids" but it isn't strong enough for Bats, Barry suggests "young" because he's still iffy on whether Bats is fully human, Diana's "progeny" is too formal and Clark just doesn't comment because he's seen the little Bats being cute and what other word could you use?
“Why couldn’t he do it for me?” but it’s not fucking “Why couldn’t Batman save me from the darkness and bring me into the light?” (because brother he’s THE LIGHT he’s THE HOPE he’s the boy who SAVED HIMSELF). “Why couldn’t he do it for me?” but it’s “Why couldn’t my father love me enough to choose me? Why couldn’t he choose me over the Joker? Why couldn’t he love me as much as I love him? Why couldn’t he prove that he really loves me by actions over useless words? Why couldn’t he love me enough to fight for me? Why couldn’t he?”
One thing about the tone of this sentence. “Why couldn’t he do it for me?” means that: he really thought that Bruce would do it. But Bruce didn’t. So he had to ask himself: why couldn’t he do it for me? Because he truly believed that Bruce would. The sentence “Why couldn’t he do it for me?” shows us one thing: broken hope.
Like have you ever asked yourself that sentence just once. They are your parents, and they love you, and you know that, so why can’t they just…. Love you enough to choose you? Over their work? Over something else? Over their pride? Why can’t they love you enough to really care for you? To listen to you? To compromise for you? To set aside something for you?
Now these expectations come especially from the fact that you know that they love you. That’s why you believe they would do it for you. Because you know they love you. So it broke you when it turned out that, yes they love you, but that love just isn't enough for them to do… anything for you.
It’s easier to accept that they actually don’t even love or care for you… rather than know that they love you but they won’t even do anything for you, and they’d still lied to you- betrayed you- hurt you- even if they love you. And you’ll have to struggle to accept that fact.
This is true with Jason too. “Jason doesn’t know that Bruce loves him,” but Jason’s expectation/hope that Bruce will kill Joker because “he took me away from you” is proof that he truly believes Bruce loves him, hence that expectation. If Jason believed Bruce didn’t care about or love him and only saw him as a failure, why would he hope Bruce would kill the Joker for him? Choose him over the Joker? “Jason doesn’t know how much Bruce loves him” actually, I think he knows that. He just doesn’t know—or think—or want to believe that that love wasn’t enough for Bruce to do… just anything.
Don't misunderstand, Jason, as Robin and before his resurrection, harbored expectations that Bruce would avenge him, but these expectations leaned more towards "trust," as his previous experiences with Bruce served as an unspoken promise of revenge, from seeing Bruce go berserk and want to kill Joker for "took her away from him" to Bruce describing the events in #425 as "a father's righteous rage seeking revenge for his son."
Jason's expectations were built on a rational and well-founded foundation, almost a belief in Bruce. On the other hand, Jason, after his resurrection, experiences disillusionment upon realizing that Bruce did not avenge him. This is where his belief crumbles. However, after all that, Jason STILL hopes that Bruce will choose him in the final confrontation. This is hope. He has no evidence to believe Bruce will choose him, but he... hoped that he would.
(I hope the hopefulness in his eyes makes you go sbksbekdbsksvdjdh <3....)
Even if we assume that Jason knows Bruce loves him, reality has proven that he doesn't love him enough to kill the Joker. Jason is betting that Bruce loves him enough to choose him in the confrontation, a hope despite the lack of evidence to support that belief/hope, even despite the evidence against that belief/hope, which is different from his trust/expectation of Bruce before his resurrection, and it's an extremely unfounded leap-faith hope. There's no evidence; the only thing Jason has is his persistent hope that Bruce will choose him because he loves him, despite the evidence against it.
Because it seems that "Jason not knowing that Bruce loves him" is... Jason's sin, while Jason still desperately hopes that Bruce will choose him based on his belief that Bruce loves him, even though all the evidence he's found so far proves otherwise. Who can blame Jason if he really believed Bruce didn't love him? Because all he knew since coming back to life was that Bruce easily replaced him, Joker was alive… and Hush. Yet everyone demanded that Jason know that Bruce loved him. And yet, it was true that Jason believed Bruce loved him with a fragile but persistent and unquenchable hope, a hope that was almost desperate, even though the situation at the time seemed…
Hopeless.
Hopeless.
Hopeless.
Hopeless.
But Bruce could do that for him, right? Because he loves him. Jason knows Bruce loves him. Yes, Bruce’d do it for him. He believed it, because he believed that Bruce loves him. Why wouldn’t Bruce do that for him? He would. He would. He would.
And that was how hopeful Jason was.
This hope even turns into an… endless cycle where Bruce constantly proves the opposite, yet Jason still hopes that he and Bruce could have a better relationship—that Bruce truly loves or cares about him enough to… actually care? That they could go back to how things were? Like a family? That they could have a better relationship? That persistent belief, that things between him and Bruce could be mended, despite everything looking…
Hopeless.
Hopeless.
Hopeless.
Hopeless.
Actually, I can understand that hope. And the way Jason repeatedly forgives Bruce whenever he shows even the slightest sign of remorse or a desire to make amends. Jason forgives Bruce because he still hopes things can change; he still believes in that possibility. The slighest amount of "oh, but he really do care" just seems like the true and real allowance for you to... continue to hope. Or, to put it more simply, imagine you could lie to a child as many times as you want with a promise, and every time you make that promise again, the child can know by experiences that you are lying, but can you tell me that the child didn’t have any hope- that this time would be different, that maybe, just maybe this time you will change? That you will really love them enough to care?
He didn’t make it easy for him to believe that he didn’t love him, because he does and he knows it, so he has to believe otherwise. He believes that- he wants to believe that- he has to believe that he loves him enough to change for him. He was hopeful.
"This isn't punishment, Jason. I love you." Cruel, cruel, cruel, Bruce.
"I know you love me, but I hope that you will love me enough. Maybe, maybe one day you’ll love me enough. I hope that one day you will love me enough."
But even though I grasp that hope?? On a fundamental level?? What Jason went through with Bruce was enough to snuff out any hope or capacity for forgiveness in an ordinary person. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say his threshold for endurance was extraordinarily high not normal limits?? After all, before he died, he had already forgiven his mother for selling him out to the Joker and effectively causing his death??
No, no, what I mean is. Just imagine it. This isn't merely holding onto hope after a betrayal involving a few lies, this is about: lying on the floor with blood pouring from your throat as the building explodes around you, standing on the very spot where you died, getting beaten until your helmet shatters, suffering panic attacks every two seconds after having your brain tampered with... and yet, after all that, still clinging to the belief—the hope—that the relationship between him and Bruce could improve…
Despite everything, Jason still desperately hoped that Bruce loved him— loves him enough, cares about him enough— that they could reconcile, that they could be happy together as a family. *clutches head, trying not to scream.*
On the other hand, this kind of… hope could get you, a mere child, accused of being… stupid, naive, gullible, or all three at once, take your pick (don’t ask me how I know). Haha, do you really believe your parents would choose you? Do you really think they’d do that for you? Where do you get that kind of confidence? You are just so stupid and gullible. Or, worse yet, these expectations of yours could get you labeled as demanding, unreasonable, or selfish… because how dare you demand that your parents choose you! How dare you ask them to set aside their own egos for your sake? For what? Just because they’re your parents? Because they love you? It’s shameful of you to ask them to abandon their principles for you! You are a disgrace! You are so selfish! You are so unreasonable! I am truly disappointed in you. Don’t you ever think about your parents' feelings? They’re already suffering enough. They have their own problems. What right do you have to demand they make concessions for you? Just because they’re your parents? That’s absurd, nonsense. You are awful. Absolutely terrible. You are a disgrace. It is humiliating, shameful, and selfish of you to demand that, to demand he choose you, to demand to choose you over something, to demand he yield to you, to demand your parents abandon their principles for you… You are so selfish to ask for something like that. You are being unreasonable and demanding; just because they’re your parents, you expect them to give up everything for you? Why do you demand even more than what they’ve already given? Don’t you realize your parents love you? No matter how they behave, they still love you! And you need to realize that! Why do you demand that they take action to prove it? Why do you insist that they listen to you, make concessions for you, choose you over something else, be honest with you, respect you, or put you first? It is shameful that you would even dare to ask for such things. It is truly selfish and childish. I am embarrassed for you. It is shameful to demand that they demonstrate their love by making concessions for your sake. You really don't understand anything at all.
In Jason’s case, he would simply be labeled demanding and unreasonable. Because how dare he hope that Bruce would abandon the most important principle of his life… all for him? On what grounds could he possibly harbor such a hope? There were no grounds; that was the answer. He had countless proofs that Bruce wouldn't do it, yet he couldn't help but hope anyway.
I mean, adults are only human, right? By nature, they are selfish. It’s foolish for children to hope their parents will choose them first, isn't it? Foolish to assume their parents might... give something up for them, for instance. Compromise for them. Make concessions for them. It’s a ridiculous notion. But you—have you truly never held that belief yourself? Have you never irrationally hoped your parents would do something for you? Have you ever hopef for your parents to put you first? Have you never experienced a moment where you thought… “Why can’t they do it for me?” Look me in the eyes and lie to me, tell me that you are different from any of us, that you’d never- ever- had a “Why can’t he do it for me?” moment, that you never expect them to love you enough to do something for you, that you never want to believe that they really care for you enough just so bad. Tell me that you’d never been so hopeful. Tell me that you are different- from him. Can you blame him for being so hopeful?
"It’s foolish to expect parents to compromise for the sake of their children"—yet looking back, that is exactly all what he did: compromise. He was ready to abandon his beliefs, the person he was, his moral code, and his very identity just to live the way Bruce wanted. He was willing to forgive Bruce time and again, to compromise with him despite everything Bruce... *gestures vaguely into the air*
Furthermore:
There was a time when Jason was literally THE hope. He was Robin, he literally embodied the symbolism of hope and light amidst the darkness, the very person who inspired Bruce with hope and an unyielding will to fight.
He’s literally THE hope everyone.
And I believe there’s even a moment in Countdown that alludes to this, where he inspires the Bruce of Earth-51, a man who had become hardened and cynical following the death of his Jason. In Countdown, there’s a panel where Jason's called “too stupid to ever give up,” later, while talking to Earth-51’s Bruce, he insists on joining the fight to help others, even though “Bruce” scoffs at the idea, calling it a suicide mission. Yet, “Bruce” eventually says “Something about the fire in you reminds me of me” and gives Jason the Red Robin costume so he can fight alongside him... oh... something just like the Dynamic Duo, Batman and Robin... something about inspiration of hope, light, and an unyielding spirit…
And then we have this panel:
"I allowed him to have hope... and it killed him."
But in the end, that’s what Bruce wanted, isn’t it? He wanted Jason to have hope; so now, it seems all the boy does is hope. Hoping for happiness, hoping for a future that is forever out of reach, that he can never have again. Because it seems Jason wants Bruce to have what he wants so badly.
(But ultimately, the fault lies with you. You are a monster, and your sin is the desire to be loved and cherished. I hope you'd regret it forever, and that the world punishes you for a sin that cannot be forgiven, daring to wish for or hope for something so unattainable. You will live in shame and humiliation, endlessly tormented for having harbored that selfish hope, and that shall be the punishment the world forever inflicts upon you.)
#mybluelanternjasonpropaganda
*Actually. "Why couldn't he do it for me? But it's Bruce yelling "Tim is not my soldier. He's my son!" "Why couldn't he do it for me?" but it's Jason seeing Bruce went to hell to save Damian and hugged him when he came back to life. "Why couldn't he do it for me?" but it's... idk, Bruce didn't hesitate for even a second to choose Harley over the Joker, to went after and save her.
Bruce Wayne is so much stronger than me, because if I was him I would walk straight up to Lex Luthor at a fundraiser, lean down, and whisper you want to fuck Superman so bad it makes you look stupid in his ear before flitting away with zero context.
#love to see how different authors do this#it’s like seasoning to me#saw someone do Damian one year younger than Tim once#and I was like oh Bold choice
@asterthecalico for your data collection on How To Age Robins (and sundry bat children) XD
My current default concept:
The biggest hurdle is Tim Being At The Flight of Death because that puts a very specific age range in place that is especially limiting if you are a huge fan of Babiest Possible Dick Grayson as Robin (as I am)
It was tempting to do away with that part altogether but I am also a huge fan of the photo of them together as babies so I wanted to keep that. My solution was to say that Tim was there but doesn't actually remember it because he was too small. So the photo exists and he absolutely researched the hell out of it all as he got older because *gestures to Tim* he's Like That.
So if I put Tim at about a year old or a little less at the time the Graysons die and, with much pain in my heart, move Dick up a year to nine years old, that gets me an eight year gap between the two of them.
If Jason starts out two years older than Tim, this gives a six year age gap with Dick, which then means that Jason is 12, and stealing tires, right as Dick is 18 and leaving home and its a plausible time to move his transition to Nightwing up to.
Which puts Dick, age 18, newly Nightwing (can move down to 17 if you want to go maximum angst and also bb!robin!dick)
Jason, age 12, newly Robin
Tim, age 10, making inadvisable life choices on the rooftops, approximately a year after figuring out who Batman and Robin are because of the quadruple somersault that he watched so many videos of.
Another two and a half/three years pass and you have Jason, almost 15, as Robin, Dick, either 20 or 21 as Nightwing, mostly with the Titans but starting to poke at Bludhaven.
And then Jason dies, as close to his fifteenth birthday as possible, for maximum angst.
A few months after that, 13 year old Tim is knocking on Dick's door in Bludhaven and requesting he return to Robin. Instead, he ends up Robin and, shortly thereafter, meets 14 year old Stephanie|Spoiler.
Not long after that Superboy Prime's inter-dimensional punch ripples back in time and resurrects Jason, who has lost approximately 6 months of his life to being dead and thus is now more like 18 months older than Tim. (This is only important information to Tim and Cass, who like to use it for petty reasons.) He wanders around for awhile and eventually gets scooped up by Talia and all that fun stuff.
Meanwhile in Gotham
Tim takes a like, two week break from being Robin when he's almost 15 himself, and during those two weeks a post-partum Stephanie is Robin, age 15-16. Cass is also wandering around by now, because this is also freshly post No Mans Land so she is Batgirl, age 17-18.
And then Stephanie, newly 16, dies in the Gang Wars. Dick Grayson, age 23, witnesses Blockbuster's death and is assaulted on a rooftop.
And Red Hood, age...17??? sticks a bunch of heads in a duffel bag and traumatizes everyone forever, and also beats the daylights out of Tim, age 15.
That goes as it does, and all manner of things are Not Well for a couple of years until 10 year old Damian Wayne is dropped off at the manor, just a matter of months before Bruce "dies" and Dick, age 25, becomes Batman, Steph, age 17, becomes Batgirl, Jason, age 18(?) has a bit of a mental break, Tim, age old 16, was already having an ongoing mental break, becomes Red Robin, and sets out to find Bruce. Damian, age 10, is now Robin.
This also puts the end of Talia and Bruce's most On Again phase of their relationship (their engagement) as happening when Dick was about 14, as Talia pretends to have her miscarriage/does mid-term miscarry and uses questionable magic and science to save the baby and breaks up with Bruce, and then Damian is officially born when Dick is 15.
This puts Damian on the long side of 6 years younger than Tim
7 years younger than Steph
8(?) years younger than Jason
9 years younger than Cass
and 15 years younger than Dick
(29 years younger than his father)
Tim is 17 when he comes back to Gotham and takes over WE (much to Dick's relief, letting him focus entirely on Batman and parenting, not necessarily in that priority order.)
Then Batman Incorporated becomes a thing, Dick does a total of almost two years as Batman before returning to Nightwing at age 27. (And then things continue, with the Night of Owls and Forever Evil and such, as the situation requires)
Duke I like being about two years older than Damian, but there is a pretty good amount of wiggle room based off of when you want him to join the family if he's closer to Tim or Damian.
Babs I like having between 2-5 years older than Dick, depending on the setting and situation.
Bruce is 23 when he takes Dick in, which puts him 14-15 years older than Dick, about the same age difference as there is between Dick and Damian.
Oooh this is a nice and sensible timeline, with a little wiggle room too! I agree Tim being at the circus is deff the most limiting factor but having him as a literal baby seems like it works.
Do you have more details on where Cass is in relation to everyone? I’ve seen Cass as born 3 months later than Jason, so after he loses 6 months being dead she goes from 3 months younger to 3 months older which I find hilarious.
Oh and every time I’m reminded that Bruce was in his early twenties when he adopted Dick it kind of boggles my mind like I feel like he should be in his thirties or sm at least what. The fact that there’s sometimes a larger age gap between Dick and Damian than Dick and Bruce is wild to me!! What do you mean!!
Cass is a January baby (the 26th) and Jason is an August baby (the 16th), so i usually go with them being born in the same year, so she starts out about 6-6 1/2 months older than him and then a full year when he spends 6 months being dead. (He died April 27th, which puts his resurrection date right around Halloween-early November)
So yeah, my default is that she was always older, it just went from being less than a year to almost exactly a year difference.
Bruce was such a baby when he took Dick in and honestly, that explains so much about the both of them.
haha don't think about how Roy had to ask to be let into his own father's funeral and how Dick got punished for not attending a funeral he wasn't told about
Roy
Green Arrow (Vol. 2) #101
Dick
Batman #428 (Dick, on an off world mission at the time, is absent from Jason's funeral. Alfred asks Bruce if he should contact Dick. Bruce says no.)
The New Titans #55 (Dick finds out from Danny that Jason died.)
The New Titans #55 (Dick, while at Jason's grave, tells Kory that Bruce never called him to tell him what happened to Jason.)
The New Titans #55 (Bruce blames Dick for missing Jason's funeral even though Dick had no idea Jason had died in the first place, and he had been off world during Jason's funeral.)
Dick is an acrobat, which means that, compared to the rest of the bats, he's one of the lighter ones. Additionally, since he was a trapeze artist, plus his years as Robin, this means he can always, ALWAYS, stick the landing. Jason, on the other hand, is the resident tank build, which means he's the heaviest with the most strength in the arms, rivalling that of Batman himself easily. With that in mind, I present my thesis. If Nightwing is annoying Red Hood, especially in front of Commissioner Gordon, Red Hood just throws Nightwing off of the building. While on the surface it seems cold hearted of Jason, he actually knows and trusts Dicks enough to know he'll be fine, and Dick could scurry away before Jason could grab him, but chooses not to. It's a way the brothers bond. Additionally, Jason sometimes does it around the manor, but only through open windows, because Alfred doesn't appreciate needing to replace them every week.
dick grayson and jason todd- “i got you, kid. i won’t let you fall.”
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Conceptually Jason coul have made a really good villain for Robin Tim.
I got into the fandom about 6 months before Damian showed up. And there WAS quite a bit of villain!Jason fanfic at the point, most of it centred around him and Tim. I really enjoyed it.
I like the current fanon Jason better, now. I like him as a grouchy and somewhat unstable brother. I like him as a book nerd and chef. I like him firmly believing everyone hates him while they desperately try to convince him to come home. I even like a lot of the stuff where the Pit is almost another personality which he is fighting!
But there's something REALLY intriguing about a Jason who's actually cruel. Who's completely in control of himself, and just likes hurting people. It's not really fair to the character, but I still enjoy it!
(I feel similarly about evil Talia. It isn't fair to the character, but the fanfic is fun!)
#villain Jason might have made an even better DICK antagonist #instead we got tentacle Jason and decided to ignore the possibility forever #but it could have been really interesting! #at the time Dick had been burned BADLY 3 or 4 times in a row #trying to redeem villains #can you imagine Jason acting as an antagonist after all that?! [tags via OP]
Villain Jason was so fun. Like one thing I adored in Under the Red Hood was that Jason was so clearly what happens when a Robin, specifically, becomes a villain. Other evil futures or alternative dimension selves or whatever don't really utilize the Robin-ness the same way.
But Red Hood Jason was making quips, and doing showy flips despite being built closer to Bruce now, making use of insider knowledge & specialized training, doing the "Let's team up and tackle these baddies together!!! :D :D :D" thing, it was great.
Evil Future Tim is just a very tired, sad Batman with guns, Dick is walking in some established villain's shoes, etc. Anybody could act like the villains they get to be.
So this era of Jason being a Dick Grayson nemesis, that works really well with themes of legacy & influence. Because Jason was Robin. The second one! He took up Dick's first mantle, with his blessing (after some hiccups). And now he's killing people? In the fucking Nightwing suit???
Jason & Tim both idealized Dick's Robin and they are doing such different things with that idealization from Dick & Tim's perspective, and...a great big snarl of different-not-different-same-better-worse from Jason's.
Then the whole Battle for the Cowl fiasco, and Jason kicking around after to cause more trouble for Dickbats as Red Hood.
Jason who's cruel on purpose is an entertaining villain, and I think one of the reasons is that he saves that cruelty for anyone else he views as a villain, and the other capes. If it was spilling over onto everyone he'd just be Random Gotham Rogue #Umpteen, instead of Jason Todd.
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