Oh jeez, this essay of The Truth of Canonically Disabled Charles Xavier got away from me here, but I'm hoping that it'll help.
Context: I'm disabled, have been a wheelchair user, and have shipped Cherik for over a decade.
Tone: Frustrated, but informative -- not angry or hateful
Note: If this guide and your own internet research isn't enough, I @4outof5ghostslikemynightmares will 100% welcome any questions in my ask box! PLEASE ASK A DISABLED PERSON IF IT'S THAT OR, WELL, ASSUME!
The Essay™:
For us disabled folks, especially those of us who are or have been wheelchair users (and you're damned RIGHT that that includes ambulatory wheelchair users that can walk) this is even more painful. It's a reminder that even in a space that should literally be embracing our CANONICALLY DISABLED CHARACTER -- we're undesirable, we're the butt of jokes, and we're inconvenient to your storyline. Our disability means that even the other half of our heart and soul, our supposed love, would no longer be able to find us in the overwhelm of our changes/differences. Does that SOUND like Erik?!
Look, in the year of our lord 2024 going on 2025, there are SO MANY resources online where you can read the stories of or hear them directly from YouTube and TikTok creators describing and showing their day-to-day realities -- so I DO NOT WANT TO HEAR THAT IT'S THAT YOU'RE ALL INTIMIDATED WITH WRITING CANONICALLY DISABLED CHARLES.
It is literally better to gloss over certain aspects than to write out a part of what makes Charles Xavier himself. Act like the MOVIES did and just show a little, don't cut it out!
I love when fics don't ignore the inconvenience of writing Canonically Disabled Charles Xavier but lean into it full force and have him be just as a whole as he would believe himself to be. I love when fics focus on Erik wanting to make it all good for Charles despite his disability changing his sex life.
While I was somewhat physically disabled at birth (and have other nonphysical disability not relevant to this), I got life-changingly ill at 18 and by 19 and 20, I was a different person. At 30, I'm unrecognizable, because it's changed me so. For the better, in many ways -- I'm waaaay more patient, empathetic, helpful, and understanding than I was pre-disability.
A disability like being put in a wheelchair, like being freaking paralyzed, is so disruptive and changing of your day-to-day, moment-to-moment existence that it has NO comparison, get it? It's essentially the equivalent of waking up as a new person that YOU YOURSELF don't even know yet.
I mean, Days of Future Past Charles showed us a great deal of how hard he was struggling...and I honestly interpreted much of that to be struggling with every aspect of his "New Life"
Here's a bit of a guide for those of y'all so intimidated by Disabled!Charles Xavier that you veer headlong into ableism:
Things that a disabled person (especially a wheelchair user like Charles) would NEVER allow and is INCREDIBLY ABLEIST:
-Someone, apropos of nothing putting their hands on their wheelchair -- whether to help guide, to push them somewhere, or AT ALL even to get it out of the way if you're not in it
-Someone just fuckin' pushing ya where they want ya (YOU WOULDN'T GET THAT FAR WITH A TELEPATH LOL!)
-Routine jokes like Logan's "What do they call you, 'Wheels'?" if you're not just a Bitch™ that they (I would) would find funny enough
Things a disabled person would probably do that some people will STILL call ableism:
-make FUCKED UP dark jokes about themselves and their capabilities -- ones that make the ableds insanely unsure of whether they can laugh too or not (yes, if I'm making the joke or if I know you're Cool™)
-make equally fucked up dark jokes about their accessibility devices (walkers, canes, wheelchairs, shower chairs, lifts, pillow wedges, and potentially embarrassing things like adult diapers/absorbent pads for the bed)
Things that YOU CAN AND SHOULD WRITE ABOUT WITH A CANONICALLY DISABLED CHARACTER:
-sex -- believe it or not, even the highest physical support needs people (think: tetraplegic folks who have little to no control over their limbs) like, want, and have sex. If you don't believe me, I guarantee you can find disabled folks on OF or other sites.
--expanding on sex: there are so many ways that an individual can have fulfilling sex or orgasms (listed as or because not everybody needs to come in order to find the act fulfilling, DESPITE what porn and porn fic tells ya!). Charles could be unable to feel his genitals and still orgasm elsewhere, for one thing! For another: MOBILITY AIDS/SEX AIDS for disabled folks are a thing. If you think Charles Flirtation Xavier wouldn't know of these or own some, you don't know this character very well. There are wedges, there are TOYS for interabled couples, there is special furniture, there are even slings a bit like regular sex swings lol. If you can imagine it, it's probably out there!
-mobility aids in the disabled community are extensions of us. Like they shouldn't just be grabbed -- with or without us in them, they shouldn't be ignored. You wouldn't grab my whole body? You wouldn't push me outta the way?
-Non-Ambulatory wheelchair users like Charles, as evidenced by X-Men Apocalypse, I believe, would have MULTIPLE wheelchairs. Ones like the one we most associate with him, what we see down in the Danger Room/X-Men rooms; ones like the one we see him teaching in during Apocalypse -- with more comfortable padding for his bottom and legs; traditional "push" wheelchairs that most people think of when they think "wheelchair" -- the heavier ones with handles and higher backs like the one Charles uses when Scott blows up the tree in Apocalypse;
and most importantly, "travel" chairs like we see Charles in at the end of Dark Phoenix -- these are expensive AF, tailored to your size, with lower backs, NO HANDLES, and are typically designed to be more light weight, easily maneuverable for the user, and ideal for things like his trip to Paris. Heck, I bet you didn't even know that they make special wheelchairs for SAND and BEACHES, huh?
These distinctions are as important as wearing the right shoes -- Charles could not transverse terrain in some kinds of chairs as the wheels wouldn't handle it, he especially by the 80s would be switching it up fairly frequently for his own ease of transport and frankly COMFORT.
-You can be vague about where his sensation stops/what his precise injury is and you can write Charles this way -- like abled people, we don't always know our body's limitations or precisely where they're at on a day to day basis -- especially with something that you've grown used to. That's difficult to articulate but true. Heck, even articulating our bodies can be different.
-Easy ways of including Charles' disability: describe him transferring in and out of the 'chair(s), mention him locking his chair's wheels in order to stay still, casually mention a shower chair during an intimate morning after scene, have Erik notice the differences in the mansion's layout/furniture height/bathrooms/etc, mention the occasional lack of physical grace that can come with disabilities of all flavors that make us feel silly but most of us can laugh about, mention Erik having to bend awkwardly to kiss him and have Charles tease him that it's Erik fault for being tall, just...treat him like a whole person who merely has a unique aspect to him that even if he woke up with Brand New Legs™ a la Lt. Dan in Forrest Gump tomorrow morning -- would still have left him a different man.
Furthermore, for Charles Xavier to still be so independent after such an extreme disability, this man is tough as nails, and that's without mentioning the fact he must be regularly working out and doing occupational therapy given how he still retained enough muscle tone to a) be visible and not visibly different after DECADES in a chair and b) be able to withstand literally being forced to walk by Jean in the Dark Phoenix movie -- even with her powers, I still think he'd have been more...rag doll esque -- but this last paragraph is primarily just my observations as an ambulatory wheelchair user.
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