r/teentitans

Sure, Wolfman and Perez said Tara didn't really like anyone. She was self-serving and had no empathy. Literally undiagnosed antisocial personality disorder.

Now, the actual writing on Tara is completely different.

Yes, Tara did bad and illegal things. She was a mercenary before even meeting Slade.

No, we're never told how a Slavic royal bastard became a mercenary by age 15. I prefer it like that. We can make a lot of assumptions how she went from "Exiled from her home country as a child -> became a metahuman mercenary in her teens". Was Tara's mom killed? Did Tara run away from her mom? Who knows. Her classic origin has a lot of holes that were never explained.

But Tara being a troubled teen doesn't excuse her from also being a victim. Plus, this is also a world where villains reform all the time. Who knows what would have happened to Tara if she accidentally didn't kill herself?

Slade is 30+ year olds older than Tara. He decided to treat her like an adult, not a 15 year old, and use her in a transactional way. He slept with her just because he could, he had a contract with her just because he thought she could be a useful spy, and he ditched her once he considered her a liability.

I'm not sure if I agree with people calling it "grooming". Slade didn't really groom her. He jumped straight to just sexual assault. He did minimal manipulating, just took advantage of an exploitable child.

Despite her selfishness, Tara does genuinely seem to be into Slade. She considered him her "boyfriend". She takes offense when Slade bertrays her.

This makes Slade all the most awful.

A person I grew up watching just passed away over the weekend.

And I revisited this episode, and it's never hit as hard as it did this weekend.

Things do change. It felt like I was learning that lesson for the first time. And I'm ngl it fucked me up because I know things will be the same.

I gotta give this episode some love, because they did everything right. Very well done episode.

When Terra vanishes into the crowd and Beast Boy is forced to move on... that shit kills me.

They are part of Teen Titans , well x teen titans XD