I honestly can't think of a character other than Kid that succeeds so well at avoiding ablism fail or SuperCrip. The closest I can come offhand is Edward Elric, but even he gets the advantage of using his automail as a weapon. He wouldn't have had that if he hadn't lost his limbs. His and Al's ability to transmute without a circle because of the traumatic event that took Ed's arm and leg and Al's body could even fall into "power from a disabling event."

Hmmm... would Darth Vader be an aversion of the SuperCrip trope? He's basically a quadriplegic who has mobility and life support through artificial means, but the suit has nothing to do with his pre-existing Force powers. He'd still have those if he was in a wheelchair and had a portable respirator, or if he had his original body. *chinscratch*

It's really bad that pretty much every disabled character I can think of is either a SuperCrip or one of the sweet, good, noble, innocent disabled.


the SuperCrip trope is so infuriating, because sometimes it seems like the only way that it's acceptable for Hollywood to portray a character with a disability is if the disability also gives that character some sort of Super-Special Awesome Talent as well.

Oh, yay, it sounds like I was at least mostly heading in the right direction on my own! My problem is that in my planning I think I am leaning towards making my male lead too "good," or I should say, too "noble." Methinks I'm going to have to be careful to not turn him into a Noble Cripple Gary Stu.

At least I'm early enough in development that I won't be fighting making changes because they'll break the plot. And I have a lot of time to learn about handling these issues since my other story is my top priority. That one requires more research into abnormal psychology so I can make sure my villainess' behavior is consistent with her backstory, on top of many other things.

Sometimes I think I write in order to have an excuse to research random topics.