hypermobility is not a deformity

limb differences are not the same thing as party tricks that you can stop doing literally whenever you want to

deformities are not the same thing as party tricks that you can stop doing literally whenever you want to

I cannot turn off my limb difference and deformity I can't stop people from staring at it by changing the way I stand I can't wear braces to make it disappear

After your post and a few others, I realised that she wouldn't be wearing a prosthetic 90%+ of the time while adventuring, for the practicality reasons like discomfort you mentioned.

Anyway, to get to the point, if you were and adventuring paladin that only used their prosthetic for fighting, where would you store it most of the time? (Please feel free to tell me if any of my assumptions in this ask are unrealistic/ableist, I'm going to keep researching but wanted to ask since I saw your invitation to!)

Assuming this is not an npc: I will say that it feels strange to me when people tell me that they play characters who have physical disabilities in dnd or roleplay games... I feel like I'm almost always excited to see limb different folk written or drawn but something about role-playing the limb difference that I embody everyday makes me a little uncomfortable. Can't really put my finger on it but it gives me pause.

I'm also autistic and have several other mental and cognitive disabilities. every single time I was called a cripple they were referring to my legs not my mind. they were referring to the same legs they called "something out of a horror movie" the same legs they were grossed out by because they twist and bend the wrong ways. they were referring to my limb difference and my mobility aids. it was never about my mind.

and don't think that it's just because I was never called slurs for my mental disabilities. I was constantly bullied and mocked with the r slur, I was called schizo and psycho and crazy, but never, not even once, did they reach for "cripple" as the word to attack me for my mind.

---growing up with an undiagnosed congenital limb difference

I am congenitally physically disabled. I was born with a limb difference called miserable malalignment syndrome, a rotational deformity causing the femurs and tibias in both of my legs to twist in opposite directions.

my limb difference is obvious to anyone and everyone. my legs bow and appear "off," I walk with my feet one in front of the other as if I was on a balance beam, my feet stick out at 90° angles, and I don't bend my knees. people have been commenting on my legs for all of my life, my brother's physical therapist noted the way I sat, other children used to mock me for them. there was never a point in my life where I could say that my disability was invisible, where I wasn't being treated as a freak for my legs and my gait, where I wasn't affected by the pain and balance problems asking many other issues.

..... yet somehow my disability was invisible to the people whose job was to spot it.

my congenital and visible disability went undiagnosed until I was 16 years old. it was only then, when my pain was so severe I couldn't walk, that a doctor finally decided to send me to an orthopedist for what they had apparently known all along.

for 16 years I was living my life as a disabled person completely unaware of my disability. perhaps it was my autism that led to my lack of awareness of my own body. when other people would ask what was wrong with my legs I was confused because nothing was. my legs just were. I didn't even realize they were all that different. regardless of why, I was completely oblivious to my own status as being disabled.

this lack of knowledge of my own status as physically disabled sets in a weird in-between among congenitally physically disabled people. I share so many of the experiences that they've had. I've been a target in elementary school for my disability, I've been left out of class activities, and yet my experience feels so different. I was, objectively, disabled at the time but I was completely unaware of it. I don't share the same experiences with children's hospitals and treatment at a young age. I was pressured into treatment to try to "correct" my limb difference but it was at an age where I could say no. I don't share the experience of growing up knowing that my physical disability made me different.

I often want to connect with other people who grew up visibly disabled but I just feel out of place, like my experiences are so similar but not quite the same.

it's difficult.

some people have hands with fewer than 5 fingers, some people have hands with more than 5 fingers, some people have 5 fingers but those 5 fingers don't look exactly like everyone else's