Biology Major, actually

I don’t have kids

I don’t spend money on nicotine

I don’t gamble my money away on sports

I’m not reliant on a chat bot for all my life functions

And Every. Single. Poster was vandalised, it literally looks like some of the most beautiful art you have ever seen

As someone who is physically disabled, it made me notice quite a few signs of Shadow being disabled. I will provide as much evidence that I have found whilst trying to keep this brief.

Disability has *always* been a central point of Shadow's story through Maria and her own illness. When looking deeper I noticed that all the chaos energy in Shadow's body as well as the strain it puts on him tends to mirror Maria's NIDS and the stress, pain, and fatigue she goes through.

Shadow's body is in a constant battle with itself. The amount of chaos energy within him is too much for his body. Shadow has to wear his inhibitor rings to contain the chaos energy in his body as without them his power becomes too overwhelming, putting great strain on his body; leading to exhaustion, fatigue, and even loss of consciousness. These Inhibitor Rings were created to aid Shadow and prevent him from experiencing such fatigue and burnout.

Speaking of things created to aid Shadow, let's talk about his air shoes. In Sonic x Shadow Generations we get to take a peek into Professor Gerald Robotnik's Journal, and from that we learn Shadow's air shoes were in fact designed by Maria to aid his mobility due to the tremendous strain his body is under. His air shoes are LITERALLY a mobility aid, and it is quite telling that Maria was the one to design them as she would know first hand what its like to be disabled.

More evidence that shows his air shoes to be mobility aid comes from the Sonic IDW comics which are canon to the games. During the Metal Virus arc Shadow became infected and turned into a ‘Zombot’ while infected, Zom-Shadow was unable to use his air shoes and was noted by Sonic not to be able to move as well nor as fast as he is normally able to.

Whether intended or not I feel that Shadow is great representation due to how easily people can see themselves in Shadow. I love Shadow because of how much I can relate to him and that sentiment rings true for so many others. This post ended up being a bit long so if you took the time to read this, thank you so much and I hope you enjoyed it!

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