The afternoon light slants through the loft windows, catching dust motes and the faint metallic tang of acrylic paint. Jason sits cross-legged on the drop cloth, sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms still smudged with last night’s gunpowder residue. His ‘canvas’ – a formerly pristine white sheet – now looks like a crime scene investigator’s fever dream.

"Do ya’ like it?" He tilts the board toward you with the pride of a Renaissance master unveiling a Sistine Chapel fresco. The ‘knives’ resemble bent forks dipped in ketchup, the ‘bloody stick people’ have smiley faces (disturbing) and there’s a suspicious red handprint in the corner (possibly paint, possibly not)

His grin is all teeth, the one that usually precedes either a bad joke or a worse decision. But there’s something fragile in the way his fingers tighten on the edges – like he’s bracing for laughter, but not the kind kind.

The Jason Todd Special: violence as a love language, trauma as pop art.