Agorable

Jason should not have scars!

and look i get it, people think the look is cool, and there is something to be said about treating someone like a monster BECAUSE of obvious scarring, arguably it falls in the category of prettiness is equal to goodness and therefore godliness (especially in the american context), BUT the whole point of jason's story is ERASURE.

his legacy, his story, his pain, his traumas, all of it is GONE. in the eyes of other people, jason is virtually an irrational blank slate who is supposed to be filled in by the people around him, he is what they SAY he is. everyone has been allowed to dictate how they view him, how his story was told, what happened to him in that warehouse -- ALL. OF. IT.

jason does not OWN a single part of his own trauma. it is someone else's, it's dick's, it's bruce's, it's joker's shining moment -- it's not jason's.

he doesn't have the scars, or twisted limbs, or the physical disability that would come with his torture. all he has is the memory of it, what he KNOWS happened and no proof other than his own words, and that's why he keeps YELLING about it. why he keeps DEMANDING to be heard because they cant SEE what happened to him.

he is aware he doesn't look so much like the kid that died, but that's HIM and he should get to decide how HE feels, what HIS death and torture meant, and NO ONE lets him and it's so easy to ignore because there's no physical proof on his body that he went through it.

jason's whole story is about grappling with the inescapable while everyone pretends nothing happened to HIM, like it just occurred to some version of him he has no access to.

but he CAN.

he IS that kid, and that kid deserves to be heard, to be stood up for no matter how many times he's silenced.

a jason with scars is harder to erase, is harder to pretend is separate from the tragedy that occurred, a jason with scars is NOT the jason we know.

and playing into him being covered in scars is actively playing into his erasure because he shouldn't nee to be covered in scars to be BELIEVED.

he shouldn't need to be covered in scars to be HEARD.

Maybe not even somewhere personal, but just a public or semi private place. A quiet cafe or diner where there aren't too many people and no one really pays attention to them. Or maybe just a walk through the park, a trip to the beach, or a hike. They could even go to the theatre or the library and simply exist together.

I do understand the significance of Jason inviting people over, or even just tolerating them in his space. It's meant to show that he's opening up to them and maybe to show how private he actually is and how he prefers to stay at his own place where he knows everything about it.

But I also think there's something meaningful about starting in a public place or at someone else's home. In those situations, Jason always has the option to leave if he gets uncomfortable. If they're in his own home, though, he can't exactly walk away because it's his space. Instead, the other person would have to leave, and in a lot of fics I've read, they don't.

Because of that, it sometimes feels a little one sided to me. It also feels like the other characters have a lot of leverage over Jason, simply because they've been allowed to see his living space; how he personalizes it, or maybe how he doesn't personalize it at all. Being in someone's home lets you learn so much about them without them saying a word.

Of course, I know that if Jason truly didn't want them there, he could make them leave. But I also acknowledge that Jason is pretty soft when it comes to 'family'.