Tales of Heroes

You are so incredibly correct, anon and this is really foundational in why I kind of made the switch from being a DR shipper to JR. Now,

DISCLAIMER: I wasn't active in DC fanon anywhere that can still be found until like 2011-ish and by the time I was engaging with DC stuff it was around when the YJ show rekindled my interest and I was mostly yj-verse birdflash and some more niche ships largely driven by rp. I didn't really write fic in my older LJ DR days and just read the stuff I could find then.

Additional Disclaimer: This post is not intended as ship bashing, yes I'm getting a little bitchy excuse me if I'm a little pissy with how toxic the other side tends to get. I've said it once and I'll say it again: The appeal of DR to a lot of people is it being a somewhat toxic ship, but that's not how a lot of people are trying to sell it when they bash on JR.

Lemme just, let's look at some panels from your examples (Uh, TW for... I'm so hopping mad rn I can't remember the proper terms. just, being shitty about past addiction, incredibly shitty depictions of addiction, abusive language):

New Titans vol 1 (1988) #101

This particular incident is made worse by, well, all of Roy defending Dick prior to this in the very same issue:

Roy says that Dick's always been a bit standoffish with him (again, same issue), Wally even somewhat agrees and attributes it to "that Batman thing." And the entire reason they're removing Dick from leadership is FOR HIS OWN GOOD?

God, Titans Vol 2 (2008) #23 is an EXTREMELY hard read, it's at about the time of Cry for Justice and DickBats, and they really fuck up revisiting Roy's addiction so hard in here, and make a point to isolate Roy to really set him up for the clusterfuck that is Rise of Arsenal.

But yeah, Jason's the reason Roy's characterization fell into the shitter? (Also, "get help or I'll get help for you" is not... great. That's not help. Not when it's presented like this)

... Sure. Like the majority of this issue is really just about how awful the Titans were (with an emphasis on Wally being shit tbh) to Roy EXCEPT Donna (and Garth tbh, but Roy gets really defensive around him and is a total ass too. I'm not saying he's perfect by any means but...)

Like, hell, who needs enemies when you have friends like these, am I right? and a LOT of Titans/Teen Titans runs play up the teen drama and strife between Dick and Roy or Roy and literally all the other guys! It Always Has!

Allow me to also add in Titans Vol 3 (2016) #21

It's important to note that, once again, Roy isn't above also doing some shitty stuff to them, and does, but let's put some of these scenes into a bit more context:

The first one is literally Roy doing everything he can to save the Titans and prevent the government from signing bills that would affect a lot of people EVEN BEYOND the Titans themselves! Yes, Dick is in a bad space, it's still fucked! It doesn't excuse him! A reason is not an excuse! And clearly he's been sitting on that knife about Roy's addiction to pull out whenever he feels like it and has a bad enough day.

The second one... these are flashbacks happening while they're on their way to visit Roy after his arm's been ripped off by Prometheus and he's still in a coma and his daughter is fucking dead. The WHOLE time is still Donna acting as this buffer of trying to protect Roy from Wally and Dick's criticisms. (Especially Wally tbh. Dick does treat him with some modicum of acknowledgement/respect in the "current" scenes.) Could be argued to be a product of the era bcs once again this is explicitly the leadup to Rise of Arsenal.

Roy is like.... 100% correct here. Not on like a metaphoric "bitching them out" thing I mean on the literal front of he was exposed to the drug that was the method by which the Big Bad was starting to control people and was trying to get people to believe him. Dick says he's not, Batman says he's not, Donna isn't sure but ultimately proves herself as an actually good friend by busting out to help him herself and they all show up in the end to save the day. This is his last run before HIC.

These aren't even the only scenes I could pull out my hat for this. Look, as far as I'm concerned the toxicity is the APPEAL of the DR ship! But as I've gotten older and in the current climate of the world being as terrifying and cruel as it is, I just want something softer than I can picture these two having (Yes there's plenty of good things about them you can cherrypick out of their history too, but even THE DR comic run Outs.iders is filled with "mommy & daddy are fighting again" divorce energy ect ect ect. I can't tolerate most of the "wholesome" fic bcs it also completely defangs them or has the standard "uwu sad batboy x their personal love interest therapist with no other personality" Yeah, it happens in JR too, I generally don't READ THOSE either!).

I want Good Things for Roy! Something that I can see a happy end without compromising everyone's characters!

I know all the haters don't agree with me on that second point because they can't wrap their head around the idea of a) multiple interpretations of a character THAT CAN STILL BE CONSIDERED IN-CHARACTER and b) the fact that "hating Jason" isn't a CANON personality trait in literally any of Roy's runs! He was even getting between Dick and Jason fighting because he could respect that Jason had valuable intel and was willing to work with him even if he's a bitch!

And most of his major ships either don't give us that happy end potential to me (Ro.yJa.de, Di.ckRoy, Wa.llyRo.y) or have certain things I can't get past (Don.naRo.y "I was only dating you again so as to sully everyone's image of me as a good girl and you shouldn't let your daughter get so attached to me so it doesn't hurt her when we break up" - not if, WHEN. There's also a lot of offhand comments in that run from the other Titans that are very cruel to Roy too actually lol)

Despite what people keep trying to say, Roy is not Dick's best friend. Donna is. And then Wally, And probably Babs, and then maybe Roy somewhere underneath there. Is it possible that Dick is ROY'S best friend? Eh, I'm going to be honest I think Donna is his too lol. Then maybe Dick, but actually I'd bet Kyle got up there pretty far too? Jason does not have to do much to rank lbr. Even at his worst towards Roy he was kinder than the average amongst the older Titans.

If you say that someone walking around an area known to be dangerous alone at night was assaulted because they were in that area alone at night despite its reputation, that's victim blaming.

If you say that someone reaching for something in their pocket was shot by the cop because they reached into their pocket that's victim blaming.

If someone was a member of a gang and they were killed in a gang fight and you said it's because they were in a gang in the first place, that's still victim blaming.

If you say the kid got themself killed because they were playing with a weapon and it accidentally discharged that's also still victim blaming.

So thus far I've been super generic about the discussion but let's get into some specifics.

"It's not wrong to just state the facts about the situation."

Yes and no.

You see the way that you present facts will always paint a story in a specific way. In my above examples I deliberately sanitized the circumstances of as many moral or motive-based factors that I could. This is another common tactic utilized in victim blaming. You misrepresent the event by deliberately leaving out sympathetic or otherwise mitigating knowledge.

Now, to be clear, I don't care if the details are un-sympathetic, or paint the circumstances in a light that many people would see as making them more responsible for bad things happening to them (such as dchuntress's example of walking around naked), putting the onus for crime prevention ultimately on the shoulders of the victim (or potential victim) is part of victim blaming. Inarguably. That's where you get (at least part of) discussions for things like rape culture.

Let's take my first example: "If you say that someone walking around an area known to be dangerous alone at night was assaulted because they were in that area alone at night despite its reputation, that's victim blaming."

Okay so why were they in that dangerous area in the first place? Why is that area dangerous? Why were they alone? Why was it nighttime?

Let's expand the scenario.

The area in question is a poor neighborhood. The victim lives near there, because they can't afford to live anywhere else. The area is dangerous because the economic inequality has resulted in it being a hotbed for gang activity and poaching by cops or other more well off individuals who know that they're more likely to get away with a crime committed on the "undesirables" who live there. They were alone, at night, because their job has them working long shifts or maybe even asked them to stay for overtime and they need that money to live. Their bills are late and their kid is sick and needs a doctor they can't afford and there's no social welfare programs that will help subsidize their care.

But, we didn't say any of that in the original example. When you pull all the nuance out of the situation, there's an inference/implication that the person chose to be there, willingly, seemingly for no reason other than to become the inevitable victim of crime.

And you know what? Maybe none of that expanded scenario is true. Maybe they WERE there for no reason other than to be a victim of crime... Who would wander into a dangerous neighborhood with the intent to become the victim of a crime? Ask yourself what kind of person would do that, and what their motivations are for doing so. And then ask yourself why you think that.

And then ask yourself if that justifies their pain.

Annual 12

#412

#413

#420

Bonus:

The Essential Batman Encyclopedia (2008)

But if you have a character with one of those Always Outfits, and then there's a timeskip and they show up again a bit older than before, you have to give them something new to wear. I'm willing to ignore laundry, but I've never met a 15-year-old who wants to wear the same thing she wore when she was 12. Laundry isn't an interesting detail. How the character has changed over the timeskip, and how that can be represented in their design, absolutely is.

As in

This character:

Ciri.

In this trailer: