Utrh - Tumblr Posts

And I know it's true, that visions are seldom what they seem

Cicada Jason.

It's so FUCKING INFURIATING AND EMBARRASING how fanon Jason Todd stans always tell newbie Jason fans 'Don't read comics,just make shit up!!!' when they SHOULD tell them 'If you're scared to read comics,just watch Under The Red Hood!' when it's the perfect Jason adaption and average movie length!!!If you like Jason Todd but haven't actually consumed his media yet and want to get started,ignore those niggas because they're the same people who pretend Jason's Robin dosen't exist because he's black,are disgusted that all three of his love interests have been woc because they want him to only date white boys and white pick me girls and complete erase Jason's autistic-coding,goth punk slay and just his entire swag including what'd make him beyond good afrolatino rep but are foul enough to hc him as latino anyway.Those are the devils talking and you should tune them out by starting up Utrh and you should get your favorite snacks for too because you deserve them and i've read every Jason issue ever so if you want more info on him when you're done follow me since i'll actually know what i'm talking about,i love y'all and stay hydrated and ignoring Janky Talker truthers

Paint the town red

(Click for better quality)

Bat-warm ups

✨please do not repost or use in any AI programs✨

You can fight me on this, IDGAF, but "I'm not talking about killing Penguin, or Scarecrow, or Dent, I'm talking about him. Just him. And doing it because... because he took me away from you." is one of DC's most perfectly crafted short monologues ever. It sums up a whole character in a few, simple lines. It sums up Jason's motives, hopes, and pain.

I really hate when fans say that if Bruce had not taken Jason in then Jason would have died young and homeless. Saying that still makes Jason a prop in Bruce's story.

The other option I see is he would have just become a criminal. Even Bruce himself says that in the UtRH movie. Alfred called says he was dangerous in the comic. But come on, were talking about the kid that stoped a crime ring at his school before he was ever robin. Were talking about the boy who died trying to save the mother who had just betray him. Were talking about the character who's moral compass is as strict as batman him selfs. He wouldn't have just become any old criminal like Willis or any of the Gotham Rogues.

No, you know what he would have done? He still would have become Red Hood. Maybe by a different name because the name Red Hood is tied to the joker but I still think he would be doing the same thing. He'd look at the neighborhood that he grew up in. He's look at the system that repeatedly failed him and his family and he's say "I'm gonna fix it." Because thats really what he's trying to do in UtRH (the comic more than the movie). The system in place in crime ally really isn't the government that gave up on them but the criminal empire. He would see creating his own gang as a way to help his city.

Even without Batman, Jason Todd was destind to be a hero.

People say Jason was being over dramatic becoming Red Hood instead of just going home to Gotham after coming back to life but honestly if Talia had even one recording of any of the unhinged insults Bruce canonically said about Jason while he was dead I think it becomes completely understandable if not a mild reaction

Jason’s final monologue in Under the Red Hood is so impactful and important because he’s being honest. His speech hinges on the fact that he’s being open and honest with his feelings on how the last few years affected him. I’ve seen many people argue that because Jason is an unreliable narrator at times, that means he is an unreliable narrator all the time, therefore nothing he says can be trusted. Unfortunately, this feeds into the “anything can be canon behavior for Jason because he’s written so inconsistent therefore I don’t care and besides fanon is better anyway so there” argument where actual consistent character traits often get ignored.  

While, yes, Jason can be an unreliable narrator, and while, yes, Jason is written incredibly inconsistently, this doesn’t mean there’s nothing consistent about him. I remember a couple of years back, some people were arguing how absurd it was for Jason’s opening line to be: “Bruce, I forgive you for not saving me” because it would be impossible for anyone, especially “someone like Jason” to not hold a grudge against a person for not making it in time. They couldn’t buy the fact that someone could concede like that. Of course, Jason is lying here, how could he not, in some part, blame Bruce? But this completely side-steps that Jason does that all the time, pre and post-death. Some of his last words were forgiving Shelia for murdering him and apologizing to Bruce for not being good enough. He doesn't blame Catherine for forcing him into the parental role for both him and her and Jason usually places Willis strictly in the “it’s complicated” box. He constantly takes the fall in his tumultuous relationship with Bruce like his apology letter to the man at the end of TFZ. It’s not out of character for Jason not to place the blame on Bruce, but rather forgive him and dictate his ire to where the real blame falls: the Joker. Again, he doesn’t even place the blame fully where it belongs because he doesn’t mention Shelia’s role. (yes, DC wants us to forget about her role in his murder. Especially in UtRH as can be seen in all the bad robin!Jason rhetoric, but that outer world meddling affects the inner story) 

It’s a cop-out to claim that because Jason is unreliable at times and inconsistent at others that means you can subscribe whatever meaning you want to his words and actions. He’s not his own character anymore, he’s an OC to fit you’re narrative which strips him of his story. By saying he’s actually lying(whether over if he forgives Bruce or so he can blame Bruce later on because “he needs something to be angry over”), it strips away the farther-son tragedy of this moment.

Jason is having a contained breakdown. He’s trying to keep it together, and that’s why when his voice breaks on “doing it because–because he took me away from you” and he starts crying, it’s impactful. He’s raw and alive and it’s still not enough to be seen. He has no point to soften the blow with “I forgive you.” He has no reason to lie about that when trying to get his father to see him. If it was just about the joker then Jason could’ve said “I blame you for not saving me and to redeem yourself, you have to kill the Joker.” But Jason Doesn’t ask him to kill the Joker but instead demands to know why he’s free without consequence, why he is still breathing.

If Jason wanted “to push his goalpost farther with Bruce,” he would prey on Bruce’s blaring guilt complex. It’s incredibly telling and significant of Jason's character that he doesn’t do that in this moment. Therefore, we can assume that if Jason had succeed in killing the joker, he still wouldn’t use that to guilt Bruce.

Jason instead talks about how much he loved Bruce–still loves Bruce–and how the man meant the world to him, and how he feels used because he thought he meant the same to Bruce. By saying he’s lying in this moment to trick and ruin Bruce, you are undercutting some of Jason’s most consistent behaviors: his desire to love and be loved, his desire to be a part of a family, his desire to be important to someone, and how he will put up with almost any and all maltreatment to get that connection.

Jason “pushing his goalpost” further highlights how many don’t understand his emotional distress tied to his murder and instead want to place him solely in the “completely delusion” category where his victimhood is undermined. It’s not about getting Bruce to kill, at the end of the day, the ultimatum was to kill Jason, not the Joker, it’s about wanting his father to understand what he needs to feel safe. That is Jason’s request. Not the clown. Him. He’d rather his father kill him with his own hand so he’s not forced to live on the same earth any longer with and share the same air as his murderer. What makes this as an ultimatum is that Jason fully believes that Bruce loves him too much, therefore, the man would never kill him allowing Jason to achieve his peace. Whether you agree with Jason’s methods or not is a different matter, but that is the tension in this contained scene.

Furthermore, a lot of meta lately says that if Bruce had let Jason kill the Joker then he would guilt Bruce by saying “why would you let me do that? You tainted my soul and hands!” which ignores: 

A. Jason’s actual legitimate reason for wanting the Joker dead. The former belief falls back on the “Jason is so delusion and dramatic!” trope, the “he’s not the right kind of victim” trope because he’s angry instead of submissive and “actually has no good reason to be angry, he’s just being difficult for the sake of.” It completely undercuts Jason’s actual trauma with getting no justice. Bruce preaches Judge and Jury, but Jason got neither. So many victims get neither, and Jason’s anger represents that. What gives Bruce the right to say Jason’s not allowed to play his own executioner in relation to his victimhood when he never got the morals and ideals that Bruce himself preaches so thoroughly? 

And B. more obviously, Jason killed in UtRH before their big confrontation? Famously, the duffle bag of right-hand mans’ heads. He killed in front of Bruce already as well? Captain Nazi? Like, also in lost days, which is a prequel to UtRH, he kills? What’s the actual argument here? Loosely, It reminds me how everyone wants to blame the entirety of Jason’s takeover on pit madness. This “you’ve tainted me” argument sounds as if Jason is not aware of his actions and traumas. Not to say he’s completely sane or not delusional at times throughout his publishing history, but to think Jason would be pissed at Bruce for letting him kill the Joker is to dismissively say “no, you don’t know what you need, but I do.” 

No, the Joker being dead won’t fix everything, but with the joker dead, it would literally be removing a real-life constant trigger of Jason’s. Yes, Jason is a synecdoche for victims, but he is also that himself: a single victim. Joker is a stand-in for everyone who’s ever gotten away with a vicious crime free of judicial step-in or failure, but he also is just that: Jason’s murderer. Yes, they both metaphorically represent something bigger in this scene, but on a fundamental level, the Joker is also just the person tormenting Jason and nothing more. By saying Jason doesn’t actually want what he wants stands in for saying victims are too wrapped up in their trauma to understand what’s causing it. It’s mitigating and demeaning how bad it actually was/is. Jason’s murder in comics still holds such power over the mythos today even though “everyone’s died. He’s not special” for a reason and it’s because his life is actively shown to be affected by it.

Jason has been shown to have PTSD-induced panic attacks around the joker (Lost Days), and about the joker (famously the rebirth issue where Jason hallucinates murder victim him), it’s not far off the say that whenever Joker commits a mass atrocity, that it affects Jason in some way. 

And we canonically know that it does! In Lost Days, Jason breaks down in tears in the streets over all the families that have been and will be destroyed by the Joker. So that Survivor's Guilt train of thought is canon for him: “those people are never coming back, I’m here and I’m not supposed to be, but they’ll never return”-esque

No, killing the Joker won’t fix all of Jason’s issues and trauma surrounding his murder, but that’s obvious. Yet, have you ever been in a bad relationship and part of the issue is literally just being around that person? The healing process starts when you step away. You can’t heal in the same environment that’s harming you. This goes hand in hand with how Jason will only begin to heal as a person when away from Bruce because he’s such a dominating, constant trigger in Jason’s life (again, proven in canon when Jason backs away from Gotham and the Bats). No, the joker being dead won’t fix everything, but it will allow the process to begin where Jason isn’t constantly rehashing his trauma every time the Joker escapes. Jason has tried to heal on his own except the clown keeps coming after him. Whether it’s him attempting to burn off his face or in his mind when Bruce physically drags his murder to the forefront of Jason’s thoughts shoving him into a breakdown over how he’s trying so hard to heal. Part of the reason it’s so hard for Jason to move on is because his trigger buttons are constantly being held down for extreme amounts of time. It’s not that he heard or saw something that brought him back to his murder, it’s that Jason is literally being held in a constant state of panic, grief, fear, and unsafety.

By saying Jason is looking for something to be angry over and he’d find that in Bruce if he let him kill the clown, it frames the moment as a winning vs losing moment that Jason will always lose no matter what. This is a faulty understanding of how healing works and is reminiscent of Three Jokers. You can’t win at healing like Geoff Johns tries to say Barabara did and Jason failed at. Healing is something you do with ups and downs. At the end of the day, it’s a son yelling at his father to help him. It’s not about winning or losing, joker tries to make it about that (“everyone still loses”), but that frames the interaction in a much pettier light. This strips the moment of both Jason and Bruce's raw, exposed wire in water, vulnerable emotions. This looking to be angry argument is also reminiscent of the fandom's love for pit madness which strips Jason of his righteousness. Jason has very understandable reasons to be angry. His life was stripped and stolen away from him. It’s like when people say Robin Jason had anger issues which completely ignores what he was angry over! He hated rapists and pedophiles and big, authoritative tough guys who beat on women! He wasn’t angry all the time over everything; he had very real, systematic issues that upset him in overwhelming ways. Boiling him down to “he needs to be angry” wipes Jason of his motivations.

Jason doesn’t plan for a future. Really, he never even thought Bruce would kill for him in the end. When he first came back, sure, he thought Bruce would kill the joker and make Jason “the last person he ever hurt”, but in their final confrontation, Jason just asks “why on God’s earth is he still alive?” and then “I’m going to blow his deranged brains out and if you don’t like that you’ll have to kill me. Shoot me right in the face”: his ultimatum. In the confrontation, Jason doesn’t even believe he has a full claim to be upset over the Joker for just himself. He talks about Barabra being hurt by the clown and is pretty rescind to his murder in the fact that he says he was one of so many corpses filling dozens of graveyards made specifically by the Joker. Again, “last person he’d ever hurt,” Jason is fairly fine with being dead and doesn’t even think he deserves to be back, but because he wasn’t the last person the clown hurt he pushed that as his climax for why he’s angry. 

Really a better commentary focuses around “well, what does Jason think is going to happen after?” because Jason clearly doesn’t want to be alive. He sets up like four ways of suicide in his final scene. One of my mutuals a while ago posted their thoughts on what they wanted the after to be. They said they wanted to see a story where Jason killed Joker in this showdown. They believed he would probably enter this dissociated shock over the joker’s dead body, over the fact that it was just that easy, that it’s over. But, this fact would lead Jason to the realization that he doesn’t need Bruce to “save” him (i.e. protect him/keep him safe). This has literally been rotting in my head for months, you have no idea. And I truly see this as the outcome of the showdown if it had gone that way. Sure, Bruce didn’t stop him, but he also didn’t stand up to protect Jason from his murderer. Jason, just like in every other aspect of his entire life, had to protect himself. Once again, he has performed his own emotional labor, and that would probably break him away from Bruce’s chains. He got what he wanted and he didn’t need anyone else to do it for him. This interaction further shattering the heroic image he upheld Bruce to. I think that’s a much more realistic outcome based in Jason’s characterization rather than him throwing a fit over the fact the Joker’s dead therefore he has nothing else to be angry over when Jason is shown to be angry over a lot of other things as well.

Finally done with the playlist for my "Jason kidnaps everyone because he thinks Batman is evil" wip! I'm so excited for that one you guys

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8RiHgGPDq6j7M1LkLKsGo2RmW_8aiJ4Y&si=ezEYgXesuBYeAdsP

(to clarify, this isn't my "writing playlist" this is the "soundtrack to scenes in chronological order of the story" playlist, so it you can use it to theorize about what's gonna happen.)

End of UtH fix-it where the bomb at the warehouse teleports Jason into the Adam West Batman show from the 60's. Jason's bleeding out when Robin finds him and fixes him with anti-hemorraghia spray and therapeutical fluting, and the general state of this universe is so absurd that it shocks him straight out of his episode. In the end they offer to adopt him and he decides he likes it better there and stays forever the one straight man in that universe, who comes to solve a situation with a really judgemental face like "you guys got tangled into a human knot of death? Again?". He also keeps shooting at people but it's fine because if he tells Bruce it was a "special technology fake death bullet" to trick the villains into surrendering Bruce just goes "okay makes sense" and doesn't investigate further.

I have a question for y'all, because I keep seeing that mentioned in posts and my sense of morality is spotty as best, so I'm curious. Allow me to start by establishing that I do not support beheading. Got it? Got it. Beheadings are, generally, a bad idea.

The incident with the Duffle Bag of Doom, as we know it, is iconic, and pretty emblematic of Jason's villain era. Like, using the heads as a prop + the element of surprise when you open the bag is an iconic move. But when I see arguments about Jason's morality, or really just talk about Jason's violent era, the wording is often something like "this is the guy who decapitated a bunch of people and put their heads into a duffle bag", which. I... The wording is a little confusing is what I'm saying. Are you saying "this is the guy who severed a bunch of heads and they just so happened to be kept in a duffle bag" or are you saying "this is the guy who severed a bunch of heads and ON TOP OF THAT he put them in a duffle bag". Like, is the duffle bag really the part we should be focusing on? Am I missing something?

Because sure, when you're from the pov of the people opening the bag, the duffle bag matters because there's this element of shock and surprise, but from the pov of the most concerned, they're already dead. Like they were beheaded by the time the duffle bag happened. And as for traumatic value, sure people must have been grossed out by the bag but who did get to see the contents: policemen and crime bosses! People whose job literally requires them to see murder victims everyday! (not to mention that the Robins were exposed to murder victims as children and I haven't seen Bruce antis talk about that, so it feels like in comics with suspention of disbelief that seems to matter less?) so it can't possibly be that the sight was a little bloody, can it?

Why is this bag important?! What am I missing?!!

Guys my heart is wavering it's time to ask ourselves the important questions here. On the one hand, it makes a lot of sense for Jason to have at least one more dog, preferably a big one that's very loyal and displays a lot of affection. I can imagine him with two bearnaise mountain dogs, maybe one is called Pride and the other Prejudice. He would play fetch with them and play with a ball and would curl up against them and hug them putting his arms all over one's torso while the other curls up on the other side and pretend like they're some kind of little pack of wolves that protect eachother. He would originally just rescue them for a few days (they're healthy dogs that got lost and injured during a joker venom outbreak) but when he tracked down their owners they had died during the outbreak so he brought them to the shelter a couple of days later but they just left the shelter and came back to him and he didn't have the heart to get them out.

But my heart also tells me he should have, especially during his time planning fornUTRH, one big ass main coon cat. Like the biggest main coon you've ever seen, so fluffy you can barely see where its legs start under all the fur, scrunchy af little furr ball. And it would have the ugliest little face, like that's a cat that looks like if a cat plushie with cardboard inside its head was wrongfully put in the washing machine kind of face with his little nose. And it would be kinda lazy but also loud, like Jason would plan and plot out loud and the cat would meow in response at appropriate times very judgementally. Sometimes when Jason gets too frantic and overwhelmed and fixated in all his villainous scheming, the cat will also just sit on Jason's torso and keep him from standing up until he's had some hours of sleep.