jason todd would love lady macbeth
basil: henry don't fuck this up for me ok? this guy is special DONT ruin him henry I am begging
henry: loud and clear 👌
dorian after having one conversation with henry:
lost days jason is just so good. I love him. He tries to be badass and cool and full of revenge and he just can’t. He keeps going on sidequests to help innocent people and kids. He’s like “talia I wanna kill the joker and Batman” and she’s like “of course, here’s a lot of money” and he comes back to have tea with her and bitch about the joker and Batman and also tell her about how he saved London from getting blown up. like obviously he got his stuff together by the time utrh rolls around (sorta), but man, lost days was a hard time for a very compassionate man trying to be ruthless
"I asked Grok" "I asked ChatGPT" I asked the Oracle and it told me you're going to kill your father and marry your mom
starlin’s batman, the one that died with jason, would have walked away as jason pulled the trigger on the joker
yet another reason why queer romance in media that is very subtle or more queer-coding than actual explicit rep is so much more compelling than the wealth of straight stories that are out there is bc I think a lot of romance writers forget that you have to like. show not tell. and imply things. and if you hustle things along and put two characters together for the sake of it instead of really working to build their relationship and show how well they work with each other it's not really going to be as interesting to people. and for some reason, a staggering amount of people do not know how to write romance properly so you get a very bland forced dynamic that either feels like an afterthought (he's a boy and she's a girl, hey they could be together because that's what happens!) or the only thing that matters about their characters (see her? she's the Love Interest. that is all she's there for)
however if you're being censored and you literally can't make your characters say "I love you" or kiss or maybe even hold hands you're going to have to come up with more creative ways to tell your audience that they're in love and that usually results in the most poetic beautiful stuff you've ever seen that's SO much more interesting than two characters who make eye contact and go into the slow-mo rose petals scene that's basically screaming at you "hey look at these two. they're in love. you're supposed to be invested in their relationship now. do you get it?" eye contact held for slightly too long in an emotional scene is more compelling. a hand very lightly touching their back is WAY more compelling.
and might I add this is not even impossible to achieve with uncensored straight romances at all like Pride & Prejudice is wildly popular for this exact reason. how many times have I seen people going insane over the hand flex scene. they didn't even kiss in that movie unless you count the extended ending. and everyone loves it. because it's done RIGHT.
tldr; romance is hard to write and you have to put in the effort if you want people to care about your ship. now go forth and imply something
QUICK EDIT TO ADD ALSO when things are more subtle that gives people more space to interpret the dynamic as whatever they want. something might be subtle because that's all they're allowed to show, but something might be subtle because that literally what it's supposed to be. as an aroace person I personally see a LOT of queerplatonic vibes from more subtly played relationships and it's so incredibly exciting and heartwarming for me. and that's a whole new realm of relationship that I think should also be given more attention
having anti punitive justice morals sucks because you want to say "man that guy sucks he should get hit with hammers until he dies" but you also want to make it clear you don't think anyone should be put in charge of the 'hit people with hammers until they die" machine.
“Jason requires an extreme act of devotion from Bruce because he thinks he’s unloved” WRONG. JASON IS LOVED AND HE KNOWS THAT.
Jason KNOWS Bruce loves him, that’s why he forgave him. You do not pluck a child from destruction and ruin because you don’t love them. You do not foster and nurture and support and raise him when you don’t love him. You do not mourn what you don’t love.
Jason knows he’s loved. He just doesn’t think he’s loved ENOUGH.
And he loves Bruce back. You can feel it reverberate and whisper in every single action, in every pulse of his vein. He loved Bruce so much it took DEATH to separate them.
But you can’t load a gun with love.