#jay meta

ask sent January 7, 2026

As I begin year 2 of my being suddenly all about Kpop, I find that I am developing an 'eye' for the players. So at first, all the ballerinas in the NYCB look kind of the same. There are differences in hair color or skin color but like, they're all ballerina shaped and also have the same proportions and move with the same quality of movement as a result of being trained (usually) at the School of American Ballet and doing Balanchine at Lincoln Center. Once you can tell them apart though, is when you start developing preferences. You're like Oh that's HER, that one's my FAVORITE or Hmm, that one critic loves her but I don't understand why. Eventually, you start to be able to tell, from a short clip taken from far away, whether it's the NYCB, the Paris Opera Ballet, the Bolshoi/Kirov (I cannot tell these two apart), the English National Ballet or the Danish Royal Ballet.

Nobody around me admits to knowing anything about kpop (except for my one ARMY buddy), and the thing they say the most to me is that "those boys all look exactly the same as each other." As in, they are Idol Shaped. Kpop is a genre, so there are voices and more importantly, delivery methods that are Kpop-timbre too. And truth be told, Idols are a form of public courtesan, so they also adhere to certain forms of behavior.

I got to know Jay after I developed the capacity to tell even very similar looking Idols (ahem, Ateez's Yunho and TxT's Soobin) apart and have reasons for what I prefer to see each of them doing.

Jay is interesting because he manages to occupy a lot of intersections at the same time.

*This post is about Jay's Idol persona, and not about his Idol artistry, which I am still discovering.

Naturally Unnatural or Unnaturally Natural?

Compared to his friend Sunghoon or his leader Jungwon or my bias Heesung, Jay can look deceptively approachable and boy next door. I say deceptively, because he is exceptionally good looking. So symmetrical. Such golden ratio. So photogenic. But look at this clip, where the other more surreal looking Idol boys in his Idol group come crowding onto the screen and maybe you'll see what I mean. (Or maybe you won't - what I've learned in my pretty intensive interaction with foreign Kpop fans is that we are not using the same standards at all lol).

Leia is the first woman Jay ever fell in love with and had a real connection. Before her, he was only ever having casual hookups and would tell girls he loved them to get sex. But with Leia, Jay doesn’t pressure her and asks if she’s sure about it. Because he truly loves and respects her and wants it to happen on her terms.

Jay is the first man Leia ever dated and fell in love with. Before him, Leia had never gone out with anyone or had any relationship experience. The most she ever had was that one kiss, in which Jake didn’t even consent and looked very shocked. Jay understands that and gives her that free space with love with understanding, which in turns makes Leia feel more secure and confident in her relationship.

i don’t reckon he would personally be able to articulate it, because the main reason the conflict arises is that he can’t draw a line between batman and bruce. bruce is a father to him both as a civilian and in cowl, and let me tell you, this becomes a problem as early as in his robin days. i would even argue it’s what indirectly leads to his death. when bruce benches jason after the garzona fiasco, jay latches onto the idea that he has a biological mother that he can find, who will be a parent to him instead. that is because while he knows (or knew) that he was loved, for him being son to bruce and robin to batman is the same. in his mind, being benched is as good as being thrown out of the family. and it makes sense, because when you read the 80s run, you really see that the way batman treats robin in the field is nothing short of paternal still. he even calls him “jay” when they’re patrolling alone. all the times we see jason and bruce bonding, even if it’s some fun pastime like going to a museum or a baseball match, it’s also a part of some batman investigation. and if you look further back, bruce asked jason if he wanted to be robin even before he took him in, as batman, before even revealing his identity to him.

so it is completely to be expected that for jason, bruce’s responsibilities as a father, as batman, and as a civilian, are all in the same category. and it also explains why jason confronts him about it in mask himself. in jason’s understanding, it’s not that bruce failed as a father because of his commitment to batman. in jason’s pov batman failed as a father, the same as bruce did, because they’re obviously the same person, and if it’s his no kill rule that caused this failure, then for sure the whole philosophy is kinda shitty. cue developing a whole new code that allows you to kill people in order to protect people you care about. (and it goes without saying that jason cares about everyone, the bleeding heart that he is)

i’m not presuming jason would be happy to be reminded about it, but also the notion of bruce telling himself “your son wouldn’t want you to go down this way” while jay, fresh out of grave & the pit, is going mad asking himself why he was not avenged… is pretty hilarious.

he has a huge heart. he forgave his parents for not being perfect and neglecting him, he forgave two-face for killing his father (and said he pitied him, even), his last act was a self-sacrificial attempt to save a woman who set him up for torture and death. he can justify nearly every offence toward himself, because he feels for people so deeply.

but perhaps part of the reason for which it came so easily to him was also that he never expected these people to do any better. he was a parentified child, and he grew up watching his neighbours slipping into the life of crime due to the flawed system. he understood survival, self-preservation, and despair. he was not always alone, he might have been loved, yet he could not rely on "charity." everyone had their own burdens. so jay, 12, already had a deep conviction that he could not be a priority for anyone, and in his books, that was okay. he still believed in the world as a whole. he just wasn't sure if anyone in this world could genuinely care for him.

and then bruce came into his life, challenging this idea. bruce chose him. bruce spent years gaining his trust, dedicated so much of his time to training him. bruce, who patiently worked through his insecurities with him in the field, who looked out for him. bruce, with whom jay spent most of his time, his world being so narrow, everything concentrating on the joy of being robin. bruce, who made him feel so protected when out fighting criminals, that jay's reaction to getting snatched and tied up the scarecrow was merely saying: batman will put you away!

and by the age of 15, jay is open to being loved and cared for. in fact, jason can't imagine not having someone to lean on anymore, to the point where a single doubt that bruce expresses leaves him petrified. maybe he never realised that he could be so greedy before, that he could crave safety so much. but that fear of losing the thing he never even suspected he could have until a couple of years before – this is what now leads him to that warehouse in ethiopia.

and even after all of that, this implicit trust is not gone. fresh out of soil, jay's first thought is that of his dad. but to discover that the world he came back into feels so unsafe, that he is so alone, makes him feel betrayed. because there was a time when bruce made him believe that he was his priority. that he was loved. that he was special. bruce was one single person in his life that he grew to have expectations of. and where is bruce now? of course he doesn't know jason is alive, but where is bruce now? why does it seem like that love never really mattered? where is bruce now?

there is, of course, a part of him that is so quick to forgive, or rather a part that doesn't even think there's any blame. but he also had expectations, expectations of no one else, expectations that his father worked so hard for. and bruce taught him how to ask for things.