#my chronic pain is flaring up today so my mind defaults to thinking ablut this stuff

[lizarddiary]

I've seen many posts, and video essays, and what have you about how harmful it is for stories with disabled characters to "cure" them at some point of the story, or as their conclusion.

And I understand, I totally understand the reason why it is. We are a complete person with and without our disabilities, we do not need to be cured to be loved and understood. And society needs to learn that once and for all.

But as a disabled person myself... That is a kind of fantasy I relish in, sometimes. Not when it's a gift, or something easy, because I know that a path to recovery is anything but a walk in the park. I cannot really connect with those, and they anger me in a way. No, I'm talking about something like what Viktor does in Arcane.

He is fucking willing to awaken the void to be able to run and walk again, to save himself. And fuck if that doesn't resonate with me.

I am very aware that in the text, this is framed as a bad thing. It costs the life of a person, and there is no justification for that. I know that it is meant to represent an obsession with a future that cannot be, and how that is killing him, transforming him into something he is not.

But that boat scene is just... He runs, against the boats in the background, winning the race, for the first time in who knows how long, perhaps for the first time ever. A masterful parallelism with that scene with him as a child, when he couldn't keep up with his toy boat. The scream, the catharsis of being able to finally do it... The obsession with more that comes afterwards.

Fucking hell, I wish more stories would do that.

I know that ultimately this is framed as a bad thing, that he shouldn't be doing that. Probably the story would want him to accept reality and wait, patiently, for his inevitable demise. Probably, that's what the story thinks is the moral thing to do. Afterall, I am aware that in the original League of Legends lore Viktor is a villain. I know we probably aren't meant to sympathize with him.

But I cannot look at him and not see a part of myself in that struggle.