#mod teeth

Hi, anon! There are multiple distinctions between the fabricated narrative of overcoming one’s disability and a person naturally experiencing different levels of disability, including temporary disabilities. 

Firstly, in fiction, characters ‘overcoming’ their disability often includes an unrealistic cure-- either it simply does not exist in our world, it’s prohibitively expensive, or a character is able to make an 100% recovery when in reality that would not be expected. Another aspect of the cure trope is the implication that a character can only be happy once they are cured of their disability, or that they need to be cured/recover to be important to the story, to have positive emotions and relationships, or as the only possible conclusion to their story. 

Temporary disabilities are absolutely fine to write, as is a character regaining mobility and strength via physical therapy.

And finally, the single-story narrative of the cure trope is an overdone story, real disabled people deciding to be ‘cured’ of their disabilities is rarely possible, and when it is, it’s not an objectively bad thing.

-Mod Teeth

Hi there! This is a really good question and I'm glad you asked!

As Mod Teeth said, these are completely separate things and should be approached in distinct ways.

A lot of disabled people's reticence towards the idea of "overcoming" our disabilities comes from the notion that our disabilities are inherently bad things that we should seek to get rid of at all costs. Abled people love to tell stories where disabled people become "normal" in their eyes, because they think it's what we want and can't fathom that we might actually be happy as we are.

Stories in which disabled characters become abled--whether through unrealistic effort, by spontaneous miracle, or by magical cure--just serve to reinforce this and are very damaging to the public perception of disability. Firstly, it gives our abled loved ones unrealistic expectations towards our prognosis--that we'll always make a miraculous recovery if we just tried harder or did things differently because they can't differentiate between ableist fiction and reality, which can be incredibly frustrating for those of us with permanent or degenerative conditions. Lots of previously abled people in real life who become disabled at some point--either naturally or due to an injury or illness--feel like their lives are over because of stories like this that tell us we're only valuable and can only be happy when we're abled. It's just not true!

That isn't to say that you can't write disabled characters doing what they can to make their lives easier and improving somewhat over time (for example, by taking medications, getting physiotherapy, seeing new doctors and specialists, etc.). Just keep it realistic (i.e., know that we aren't typically seeing wild improvement overnight, and that some people just won't improve no matter what we do), and recognize that seeking to manage our symptoms as well as possible isn't the same thing as wanting to be cured. Yes, some disabled people in real life would choose to cure their disabilities if they could--this is their prerogative and they can tell these stories if they wish, but understand that they require incredible nuance and are generally not appropriate stories for abled people to tell on principle.

Temporary disabilities and subsequent recovery processes are a completely natural part of life and totally okay to write about! It's not problematic to depict conditions that can be recovered from just because some of us won't recover from ours. Temporarily disabled people deserve more good representation too; in fact, some of the staunchest advocates for permanently disabled people in real life are people who've been temporarily disabled, and vice versa.

Thanks for your question, and happy writing!

also if its because hes a minor that you wont write romantic, you cant tell me there arent minors (like myself) writing for mcyt because there definitely are so there should be more ranboo content

“Call you.... mom? But... why? You arent really... my mother so im.... a bit confused....”