DC being randomly ableist when it comes to Roy
I love DC but we all know it can be a bit ableist at times (cough cough, stop deparalysing Barbara)
But from what I've seen, Roy is a fucking shit show, both in the sense of being Roy because WTF is that man's life, and how his disabilitiea are handled.
First off, the man has chronic pain. He got repeatedly fucked up on the job and didn't always heal perfectly -> superhero wear and tear = chronic pain. However, this is usually ignored. It's just there as the "oh yeah, he got prescribed painkillers, got high and ended up desperate and on heroine." explanation. It's not a fucking plot point, it infiltrates every part of your life. It would have had a huge impact on him getting clean and having to adjust to all the pain coming back so dramatically and how it would have gotten worse as he fucked himself up while on drugs. It's not something that you just drop. DEVELOP THIS SHIT OR LEAVE IT. Stop being lazy.
And why does the fandom ignore it so much that I can't find a single fandom mention of it. There is not a single fic on Ao3 that I could track down that addresses it. If I include the tags "Roy Harper" + "chronic pain" almost everything is about Jason. If I search the exact words "Roy Harper has chronic pain" EVERY fic is tagged with "Jason Todd has chronic pain". And yay, there's some chronic pain rep, but are we just dismissing the canon chronic pain for a headcannon because Roy was a drug addict and struggled with alcohol since he was 10? I've noticed this in a few places lately and disabled people who turn to drugs are STILL disabled. Just because they don't suffer "properly" doesn't erase.
Also, why the fuck did that man regrow his arm off page? His arm got torn off when prometheus attacked the JL watchtower after the league split. He used a "realistic" prosthetic for a while and then... 💥Bam flesh arm again💥. No, just no. You did a shit job of it and just had no story or arc with it, but you don't just regrow a fucking arm!!! You're not the lizard. This is dc not marvel.
So yeah, arsenal writers and fans need to have a conversation with disabled people because this is not it. Yous don't even have to do good disabled rep. Just... don't do shit disabled rep.
