1. Introduction
[1.1] Since Gérard Genette introduced the concept of paratext more than four decades ago (1982), the term has been reimagined to encompass the elements of online content (e.g., Birke and Christ 2013). Originally applied to print literature, the concept of paratext has been adapted to consider the use of tags as keywords that guide readers through digital spaces, leveraging the specific affordances of the environment in which they operate (Lindgren Leavenworth 2015). Tags in online fandoms are carefully selected and read for their informational content (Silbertstein-Bamford 2024). Over the last decade, critics have highlighted the role of tags in improving findability (Johnson 2014) and identifying trends across fan platforms (Messina 2019), and have drawn attention to the "navigational function" of tags and other digital paratext, arguing that Genette's framework bypassed this function due to the theorist's inability to "perceive the book as a technology requiring user instructions" (Birke and Christ 2013, 68). Much like a book cover in print literature, fan tags provide context for what the author considered important to highlight for the audience (Lindgren Leavenworth 2015).
[1.2] This navigational function of fan tags impacts readers' expectations of a text and fosters, as Genette would say, "a more pertinent reading of it (more pertinent, of course, in the eyes of the author and his allies)" (1987, 2). In the specific case of fan fiction, the use of requisite and optional tags by authors and its later fruition by readers points to the particularities of the fan fiction form, especially its enhanced capacity to enforce a pertinent reading. For instance, when readers encounter a fan fiction tagged as hurt/comfort, they anticipate a narrative where one character experiences physical pain or emotional distress while another provides care, frequently setting the stage for a romantic or sexual relationship. Here, the instrumental nature of suffering is paramount, frequently overshadowing the broader attitudinal, societal, and identitarian dimensions with which hurt is typically entangled. As Marty Heath observes, this trope "works to romanticize vulnerability and can be used to fetishize injury" (2024, 162). Experiences of disability—which may involve suffering, but this is neither inevitable nor uniform—are only explored insofar as they serve the narrative's emotional and relational stakes, often reducing disability to a vehicle for intimacy rather than addressing its lived complexities.
[1.3] Building on these insights, we consider how deployments of disability within hurt/comfort evolve when layered with the additional disability tag. Adopting a moderate social constructivist view of disability—which recognizes disability as socially constructed to a degree while also acknowledging that "whether you are disabled is in part determined by what your body is (objectively) like" (Barnes 2016, 38)—we propose that the disability tag signals an increased ethical awareness among fan fiction authors regarding disability uses in care-driven and romance-oriented fan fictions (note 1). The inclusion of this tag suggests a commitment to engaging with disability as a core aspect of a character's identity rather than a narrative device that fosters romantic encounters, directing readers toward more complex interpretations of these portrayals and their broader social dimensions.
[1.4] To explore the intersection of fan fiction tagging practices and disability representation, we adopt a qualitative case-study approach centered on two fandoms—Good Omens and Stranger Things—and two romantic pairings—the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley from Good Omens, and teenagers Steve Harrington and Eddie Munson from Stranger Things. We begin by examining how the hurt/comfort tag often indicates a prosthetic use of disability through close reading of two fan fictions: FeatherBlack's The Sins of Love (2019), featuring Aziraphale and Crowley, and LexiRoseWrites's All Through The Night (2022), centered on Steve and Eddie. Later, we turn to two additional fan fictions that also include the disability tag to point to portrayals of disability that move beyond its enabling of romantic dynamics: AJfanfic's I Don't Wanna See You Smile (2019) for Aziraphale and Crowley, and stellarpoint (pettifogger)'s everybody else (everybody else looks like they've figured it out) (2023) for Steve and Eddie.
2. Close reading with care
[2.1] Because all studied data were freely available, this study did not require approval from an institutional review board. Nevertheless, we followed a set of ethical and methodological considerations that we believe are important to outline. First, we focused on two fandoms—rather than one—to examine whether tagging practices and narrative tropes recur across comparably active but distinct fan communities. Second, we adopted a dual-fandom approach to test whether such patterns hold in stories spanning distinct character ontologies. Good Omens and Stranger Things were chosen because both have active and evolving fan bases on Archive of Our Own (AO3). As of August 2024, the featured ships ranked as the most and sixth-most written-about pairings on the platform (Randomist1031 2024) and were the most popular within their respective fandoms. This popularity was an intentional selection criterion, reflecting our interest in source narratives that have circulated widely and registered broad affective resonance.
[2.2] In addition, both series fall within the Western telefantasy genre, which stages "significant representations of 'fantastic' events and objects that confound culturally accepted notions of what is believed to be real" (Johnson 2005, 4). Yet while Good Omens features metaphysical, ageless beings grappling with human moral and societal constraints, Stranger Things centers mortal adolescents navigating supernatural threats and coming-of-age challenges. The balance of comparability and contrast between our chosen fandoms supported a methodologically coherent pairing, ultimately illuminating how fan community norms shape the deployment and reception of disability in hurt/comfort texts.
[2.3] Within each fandom, we selected two stories: one tagged solely with hurt/comfort and another that also included the disability tag. These narratives were purposively sampled by filtering AO3 search results by tag and sorting by kudos (likes) to identify the most popular and widely circulated works. From among the top results, we chose stories that offered meaningful engagement with disability, demonstrated robust reader interaction, and exhibited sufficient narrative complexity to support interpretive depth. Each text was treated as an illustrative case—individual but embedded within a larger ecology of participatory meaning-making. While we make no claims to representativeness, we consider popularity a proxy for cultural impact within fandom spaces. Within the limits of our small sample, this allowed us to identify recurrent themes and narrative patterns that offer insight into fandoms' imaginaries of disability.
[2.4] In naming authors and citing titles, we treat fan fiction as a form of published cultural production. These works were shared on AO3, a platform known for its ethos of creative autonomy and broad readership. While we recognize that fan authors may not always expect their work to be subject to critical analysis, we followed the principle that publication in a public forum implies an intention to circulate and viewed attribution as a form of recognition, especially where authors have sought visibility through tagging. Our analysis never seeks to assign blame or imply intentional harm on the part of the author; rather, we approach these texts as culturally meaningful objects. Even when representations of disability are partial or potentially problematic, they can still reveal how disability is imagined, received, and narratively constructed. In highlighting moments that may carry negative implications, we have always sought to respect the value these works hold for both authors and readers.
[2.5] To complement our close readings, we also drew on selected reader comments to help gauge audience sentiment and understand how disability-related content is received and emotionally processed within fan communities. In doing so, we did not seek authorization from readers, following Brit Kelley's observation that contacting readers is "nearly impossible" and potentially "disruptive," especially given that they "generally only respond to emails regarding their own writing" (2021, 40). However, because comments are typically written in a casual, conversational mode—often anonymously or via guest accounts—and without the expectation of being quoted in academic contexts, we have chosen to anonymize them. This approach enabled us to maintain scholarly transparency while minimizing potential harm. We acknowledge that scholars differ in their ethical approaches to online fan materials; our decisions reflect both our methodological priorities and a commitment to care, shaped by our own experiences of researching sensitive topics in participatory contexts.
3. From metaphor to embodiment
[3.1] While much has been said about the capacity of fan work to disrupt social norms portrayed and perpetuated by mainstream media, scholars of fandom have also pointed to a tendency to reproduce reductive disability tropes (e.g., sasha_feather 2010). Such observations prompt important questions about the interpretive practice of reading—and the scholarly practice of close reading—adefan stories as either positive or negative representations of disability. As Ria Cheyne argues, it is worth recognizing that cultural disability scholars have rightly problematized such polarized tendencies (2013), and we confide that our analysis will demonstrate that fan fiction's engagement with disability is not easily categorized as either wholly subversive or wholly complicit in dominant narratives. David T. Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder, for example, claim that even problematic representations of disability have been discussed "without surrendering a usable politics" (2000, 10). Nevertheless, we wager that these approximations can still serve as a useful heuristic, allowing us to identify where specific works fall into problematic patterns or, conversely, offer richer, more nuanced portrayals. In an attempt to extend the critical insights contained within the field of critical disability studies into the realm of fan fiction production, we have grounded our study in Mitchell and Snyder's seminal theory of narrative prosthesis to demonstrate the transformative effect of adding a disability lens to the array of critical perspectives that have focused on fan tags and the reading experience they help generate.
[3.2] In Narrative Prosthesis: Disability and the Dependencies of Discourse (2000), Mitchell and Snyder argue that disability in literature often functions prosthetically and is exploited to enable the plot and create narrative effects. In this process, disability is not included to depict the experience of disabled individuals but as a tool that serves the purposes of oft-nondisabled authors, readers, and ableist cultural norms. According to this model, disability operates as "the master trope of human disqualification" (3), marking certain characters as exceptional deviations from the text's normative standards. In these cases, narratives often engage in a process of explanatory compensation wherein perceived "aberrancies" are resolved, thereby rescuing disability for their readership. Depending on its use, disability functions as either "a stock feature of characterization" or as "an opportunistic metaphorical device" (47) through which nondisabled concerns are propped up using disabled characters.
[3.3] At the same time, disability in literature does not need to always function prosthetically. Narratives that conceive of disability in reaction to the limitations of the ideology of ability can resist this instrumentalization. Tobin Siebers argues that "disability creates theories of embodiment more complex than the ideology of ability allows, and these many embodiments are each crucial to the understanding of humanity and its variations" (2013, 279). From this perspective, the ideological framework of narrative prosthesis can never be final for the kaleidoscopic nature of responses and approaches to disability across time. This affirmatist stance engages with the agentic possibilities of the disabled subject. Rather than serving as a narrative crutch, disability is recognized as an intrinsic and multidimensional part of human identity that resists reductive and often sensationalized portrayals.
4. Hurt/comfort (tag): Disability as narrative prosthesis
[4.1] Hurt/comfort is a widely used tag on AO3. In 2023 to 2024, it was ranked as the seventh most popular tag on the platform, with 260,660 works published under its label (batcat229 2022). As described on Fanlore, the hallmark of hurt/comfort is "the physical pain or emotional distress of one character, who is cared for by another character" (https://fanlore.org/wiki/Hurt/Comfort). Disability, in this context, serves as a basis for emotional intimacy (Clemons 2019) but also as a spectacle that evokes pity and enables a care-driven plotline. Scholars of hurt/comfort agree that this caregiving dynamic serves some purpose, whether it be safely working through upsetting personal trauma (Bruns 2021), reimagining emotional intimacy (Jenkins 1992), or narrativizing the tension between embodied vulnerability and autonomy (Debelius 2021). While these critical perspectives highlight the narrative and emotional diversity of hurt/comfort narratives, disability remains consistently central, framing one character as the focal point of both suffering and romantic or affective attention.
[4.2] Disability takes center stage in our first case study, FeatherBlack's The Sins of Love, a post-canon exploration of Aziraphale and Crowley after they successfully avert the Apocalypse (note 2). The story opens with Aziraphale reflecting on Crowley's disappearance nearly a decade earlier, a pattern familiar from canon but unexpected now that the two are free to live as they please. When Crowley reappears in Aziraphale's bookshop, he is severely injured, with a severed wing and signs of torture. True to the expectations of the hurt/comfort tag, Aziraphale takes on the role of the caregiver, attending to Crowley's injuries. This dynamic of care reshapes their relationship, compelling both characters to confront the love they had previously avoided.
[4.3] Crowley's incident is central to the narrative, offering what could be described as a spectacle of suffering. In line with Mitchell and Snyder, Crowley's disability is first exposed to the reader and then brought to the center of the story to come (2000). The injuries with which Aziraphale finds Crowley are rendered in gruesome terms, and his pain appears animalistic, resulting in a dehumanized and helpless body. Drawing parallels to Rosemarie Garland-Thomson's study of freakery in American mass culture (1996), the vivid imagery of blood and broken feathers—combined with Aziraphale's horrified reaction—reduces Crowley to an object that is both wonderful and awful. Once a powerful and commanding supernatural figure, he is now effectively less than human, as enforced through a comparison with an animal ensnared: "He collapsed against the carpet in a puddle of his own blood and let out a final, choked cry like an animal succumbing to a wire snare."
[4.4] The loss of Crowley's wing is depicted as a trauma so profound that it renders his existence fundamentally incomplete, serving as a metonym for his diminished sense of self and value. Despair and self-collapse are not altogether unthinkable reactions to amputations, and prostheses are often used to return one to a regime of tolerable difference and mitigate unnecessary stigmatization (Mitchell and Snyder 2000). In Crowley's case, however, the issue lies in a prosthesis being imposed on him without his consent, presented as the only resolution to his perceived loss. When Crowley returns home, Aziraphale desperately pleads to God and offers both his wings to restore Crowley's, and God's intervention grants Crowley a white wing as a replacement for the lost one. This turning point marks the first time the two characters' bond is materially expressed—through Aziraphale's bodily sacrifice and its inscription on Crowley's altered form—making their connection visible and physically grounded. Nevertheless, it also reveals the questionable belief that Crowley's wholeness can only be achieved through a restoration of his nondisabled status. Therefore, when Crowley tries to tear off both his wings during a night terror, Aziraphale rebukes him: "I didn't sacrifice my feathers for you to rip them off!"
[4.5] By encouraging the reader to think of Crowley as an unfortunate individual in need of care, the narrative sidelines opportunities to meaningfully explore the complexities of disabled life. Reader comments reinforce the perception of this story as one centering an able-bodied perspective in which disability functions primarily as a pity-inducing device. More than twenty comments express sentiments akin to pity, worry, or empathy toward Crowley's condition or Aziraphale's mutilation. Although disentangling pity from other emotional responses can be difficult, more than half of these comments explicitly frame Crowley as pitiful, using phrases like "poor Crowley," "the poor dear," or "poor demon." Such language sustains an unequal power dynamic between character and reader, in which the stigmatized figure becomes a conduit for displacing the reader's anxiety about bodily vulnerability (Mitchell and Snyder 2000). A similar dynamic fuels reader concern over Aziraphale's possible loss of a wing. One reader asks, "… but is his wing missing?????" while another wonders, "So he is missing one wing now or what?" These reactions betray a deep-seated anxiety that the nondisabled character might also become disabled, further entrenching a pejorative perception of disability. Relief for Crowley's prosthesis turns into horror that disability might never be wholly obliterated from the narrative.
[4.6] As we come to learn, in fact, Aziraphale's wings were damaged when Crowley's prosthetic limb was created, leaving him without a significant number of feathers—a fact he deliberately concealed from Crowley. His denial, like Crowley's despair, is understandable. Nevertheless, the author's dismissal of Aziraphale's disabled state both precludes the possibility of a relationship based on equal and mutual care—what Lennard J. Davis describes as an interdependent approach to human realization (2013)—and contributes to enshrining Aziraphale's role as that of the caregiver. Although both characters become somewhat disabled, the author's narrative focus positions Crowley's disability as the only one worth discussing in depth. So, while the white wing appears to repair Crowley's injury, it simultaneously generates further conflict as he grapples with inadequacy and shame. The color of his new wing becomes a stark, visible marker of his fall from grace and the torture he endured. With one wing black and the other white, the prosthetic limb taunts him with the promise of healing while withholding its fulfillment. As the third-person narrator remarks with another objectifying comparison, "He [Crowley] was just…fixed. Somewhat. It was like replacing the fender of a red car with a green one." Crowley goes so far as to conclude that the mismatched wings represent something worse than the absence of one. He speaks of his prosthetic self as a "spectacle" and a "circus performer," recalling Garland-Thomson's concept of the freak.
[4.7] A textbook representation of narrative prosthesis, Crowley's white wing undergoes a surprising transformation, darkening until it becomes indistinguishable from the original limb it was meant to replace. As another reader remarks, "What a journey! I really liked all the struggles and grief of trauma you portrayed, but with the redemption of sorts in the end! Truly beautiful." Having fulfilled its narrative role, disability is no longer needed. The fan fiction's conclusion reinforces this reading by reinstating normative standards. Following God's punishment of Crowley's tormentors, he blesses Crowley and Aziraphale's union, commanding them to "be fruitful." Two notable events ensue. First, Aziraphale's wings are miraculously restored, repaying his sacrifice: "He [Crowley] regarded Aziraphale's wings—now fuller and thicker than ever before." Second, Aziraphale and Crowley are presented with a newborn. Normativity prevails; the characters' love is formalized through the creation of a family structure, albeit one problematically contingent on the characters' restoration to perceived wholeness.
[4.8] This pattern is not limited to one fandom, but our analysis reveals it is present across at least two. As in The Sins of Love, attention to the agonizing bodymind is central to LexiRoseWrites's All Through The Night, where the hurt/comfort tag's most prevalent focus on bodily injuries shifts toward an exploration of invisible disabilities. The protagonist, Steve Harrington, is introduced as experiencing migraines and a stutter, which make his transition to a new school particularly difficult. In class, Steve's stammer invites mockery from his classmates, though it also leads to his eventual introduction to a Dungeons & Dragons group led by Eddie Munson. Despite his initial hesitations, Steve bonds with Eddie, whose care and support help him navigate his insecurities. As Steve opens about his traumatic past, his relationship with Eddie culminates in a romance that serves as the story's emotional resolution.
[4.9] In line with the second element of the hurt/comfort tag, the story presents a hopeful narrative of found family centered on the disabled protagonist. Nevertheless, it also exploits Steve's vulnerabilities to facilitate his romantic encounter with Eddie, thereby functioning as a narrative contrivance on which the story relies for emotional impact. By way of illustration, when Steve trips on the school stairs, Eddie catches him, and the following interaction immediately sets the tone of their future relationship. "'I-I-I'm so s-sorry,' Steve half yells at the person who still has their large hands firmly placed on his hips," to which Eddie responds, "Whoa there, sweetheart. You okay?" The description of Eddie as physically larger and reassuring, combined with his immediate use of a pet name and his low concerned tone, position him as the caregiver—what Rachel Linn also calls the comforter (2017)—while Steve is cast in the vulnerable position of the one needing rescuing.
[4.10] Eddie's condescending tone toward Steve only intensifies as the story progresses. "Alright, princess," Eddie tells Steve, "enough with the laughter. Your mom is probably wondering where you are." Eddie's consistent use of affectionate, often feminine-coded nicknames for Steve contributes to a process of infantilization and feminization of the protagonist, reinforcing his role as the passive recipient of care through problematic parallels between femininity and submission. Unlike canon, LexiRoseWrites's version of Steve depends on a deliberate attempt to disrupt his conventional masculinity. One of the conventions of fan stories centered on romantic and/or sexual relationships between men, Derek Newman-Stille points out, is the weakening of male characters to provide an alternative to mainstream, heteronormative constructions of masculinity. Problems arise, however, when such vulnerability is inextricably linked to disability: "By using disability as a short-form for achieving a space of disruption for traditional forms of masculinity, authors participating in this form of fandom innately implicate the disabled body as fundamentally defined by its vulnerability" (Newman-Stille 2019, 82). This is the case in All Through The Night, where Steve's disability serves to facilitate his entry into a romantic relationship.
[4.11] Importantly, the narrative avoids engaging with Steve's migraines in any substantive way. Rather, they are framed solely as moments of crisis requiring Eddie's intervention. The author's frequent choice to sideline the disabled protagonist's subjective experience in favor of Eddie's concern for Steve underscores this narrative approach. Halfway through the story, Eddie's pressing personal questions provoke a panic attack and a migraine in Steve. Yet even in this moment of heightened vulnerability, the depiction of Steve's distress remains superficial; instead, the focus shifts to Eddie: "'Babe, how many of these have you taken today?' Steve mentally tallies up the total before holding up 3 fingers to Eddie. Eddie looks upset at this. 'This is some strong shit, the bottle says you should only take 1 to 2 pills a day, Stevie.'" Here, Eddie's concern not only dominates the narrative but also reinforces his authority as the comforter. As Justine Debelius notes in her study of diabetic characters in fan fiction, "The caretakers are the protagonists of these stories, granted control over both the other character's [disability] and the narrative" (2021, 264). Similarly, Eddie's concern becomes the reader's emotional anchor and prevails over Steve's perspective.
[4.12] While this fan fiction does not provide a resolution to Steve's stutter and migraines—unlike The Sins of Love, there is no actual prosthesis at play here—by the story's conclusion Steve remains as far from taking control of his life as he was at the beginning. Linn explains that the encounter between the hurt character and the comforter should ideally serve to enable the hurt character to "rename his obliterated world to give it meaning" with the comforter's help (2017). By the end of such a story, the hurt character should reclaim at least some of the agency that had been stripped away. However, this does not always occur. In the final paragraphs of All Through The Night, the reader learns that Steve chose to remain in the Dungeons & Dragons group not as a player but to stay close to Eddie. The narrator states that "he'd [Steve] rather listen to Eddie's storytelling and help Eddie plan his campaigns at home," underscoring the fan fiction's romantic focus. Furthermore, while Steve's social marginalization persists, it is mitigated by Eddie's protection. A significant portion of the reader comments express enjoyment of the story's romantic dynamic grounded in emotional asymmetry and one-sided caregiving. One reader praises Eddie for being "so good to Steve"; another calls him "a champion," while a third describes him as "sweet [and] protective." By contrast, Steve is regarded as in need of care. One fan comment captures the appeal of Eddie's protectiveness with enthusiasm: "This fic had me kicking my feet in the air and giggling … I loved Eddie breaking Billy's nose! 10/10." Romantic love is reinstated as the narrative's goal, and the caregiving dynamic between the two characters remains imbalanced. As the story reads, "He [Steve] had a loving boyfriend and his migraines and stutter had gotten a lot better since he wasn't as stressed anymore. They didn't go away completely, but Eddie knew how to take care of Steve when he was having a migraine. … Steve was grateful for Eddie's patience and gentleness with him."
[4.13] Thanks to Eddie's attentiveness, Steve experiences affirming and consistent care. At the same time, the conclusion enforces a problematic dynamic of dependency, suggesting that Steve's disabled position improves only through Eddie's love while providing little sense of what Steve contributes to the relationship. This framing reduces Steve to a passive, indebted role, romanticizing his disability as something that love can compensate for. Although disability is not erased as in The Sins of Love, the narrative confines Steve to a subordinate position reliant on his nondisabled partner.
5. Hurt/comfort (tag) + disability (tag): Toward a productive difference
[5.1] While the hurt/comfort tag alone seems to point to instrumental uses of disability in our selected fan fictions, we submit that the inclusion of the additional disability tag signals a more deliberate effort by the author to engage critically with the disabled experience in works centered around care and with romance as their narrative goal. At the time of writing, 1,233,064 works on AO3 are categorized under the hurt/comfort tag, and 20,731 of these also include the disability tag. Although we treat the disability tag as a smaller subset within the expansive hurt/comfort category, it is worth observing that this overlap is far from incidental. Notably, a quarter of all works tagged as disability (79,052) center around a hurt/comfort dynamic, a connection that has long fascinated fans (Fanlore, https://fanlore.org/wiki/Hurt/Comfort). Disability and care, after all, are intricately linked. Beyond the most immediate treatment of disability as a narrative pretext for romantic encounters, we contend that the self-selection of tags by authors gives them "considerable flexibility to define their own selves and their interpretations of a disability identity and experience" (Raw 2019, 205). As Adrienne E. Raw argues, "Enabling self-definition allows for tagging to take on some of the more positive aspects of labelling [disabled people]: the ability of a label to engender a feeling of pride and membership in the disability community" (2019, 205). We now turn to see how tagging disability in two additional hurt/comfort fan fictions works to validate disability identity.
[5.2] The narrative of AJfanfic's I Don't Wanna See You Smile focuses on Crowley's experience of chronic pain, a reality he has never shared with Aziraphale until the story's outset. During a picnic in a park, Crowley struggles to stand and finally confides in the angel, who responds to his coming out as disabled with understanding and emotional and practical support. While the story adheres to the conventions of the hurt/comfort tag and culminates in a significant emotional connection between the two characters, it also resists the expectation of a traditional romantic resolution. By contrast, AJfanfic notes in the tags that the fan fiction "can be read as platonic" or "Can Be Read As Romantic." Emotional intimacy arises not from Crowley's disability but from its disclosure, which is framed as an active decision of the disabled character. Unlike the fan fictions discussed so far, disability does not automatically put Crowley in a position of vulnerability and one-sided dependency.
[5.3] From the very beginning, Crowley's disability is rendered in terms that highlight its complexity. The character's chronic pain is attributed to his dual nature as both serpent and human, a state that he has embodied since his fall from Heaven. Just as, in Davis's words, "disability presents us with a malleable view of the human body and identity," Crowley's dual-natured body resists straightforward categorization and challenges normative ideals (2013, 273). This malleability extends to the ways the protagonist's disability is engaged with by the author for both its challenges and its productive differences, and the fan fiction never bypasses the particularities of the disabled bodymind. For example, it offers a pointed critique of the societal pressures that compel Crowley to adopt his human form and the toll this takes on his back and limbs (note 3). Passing, for Crowley, is a strenuous effort that neither comes naturally to him nor is conducive to his well-being. As he confides to Aziraphale, he is fundamentally a snake and "not mean [sic] to have, you know, legs. Or arms for that matter." His choice to appear human is driven largely by a desire for social acceptance. So, in his effort to fit in, Crowley eschews beneficial behaviors like limping or using a walking stick due to the stigma associated with them: "Limping about helped some, but Someone [Lord!] it was demeaning" (note 4).
[5.4] Societal barriers are paramount to Crowley's experience of disability. The shortcomings of accommodation designed for general use rather than tailored to individual needs—in Crowley's case, the walking stick—reveal the gap between the story world's societal efforts to address disability and the actual needs of disabled individuals. At the same time, the protagonist's experience of disability is not reduced solely to systemic oppression but also acknowledges the genuine challenges that stem from bodily traits, what Robert Chapman describes as the hardship-denying tendencies of the social model of disability (2020). Adopting a similar framework to this article's moderate social constructivist view of disability, the fan fiction characterizes Crowley's disability as both socially constructed and partially residing in the body: "Serpent and man compromised and as a result, Crowley's back was never less painful than the little yellow, expressionless face on the pain scale around the four." Just as Crowley himself resists easy categorization—he is neither a snake nor a human, neither entirely disabled nor entirely nondisabled—his disability cannot be reduced to either its social or bodymind-related dimensions. It revolves, in the words of Siebers, around a theory of complex embodiment (2013).
[5.5] For the fan author, the solution to engaging with disability's multiple—and often contradictory—dimensions involves a deliberate shift toward emphasizing the importance of well-being in disability, aligning with the approach taken by Elizabeth Barnes in The Minority Body: A Theory of Disability (2016). Much like Barnes's distinction between local and global wellbeing, I Don't Wanna See You Smile seems to suggest that experiencing local difficulties does not necessarily imply that Crowley's condition is inherently bad for his global well-being. Instead, the narrator of I Don't Wanna See You Smile reveals that Crowley, while often suffering, also takes pleasure in human life: "It was worth it sometimes, to go for a walk in the park, sit on the blessed ground like everyone else, carry the angel's basket for him and look forward to holding a full glass of wine." While this sentence might initially seem open to an ableist interpretation—especially in relation to Crowley's earlier desire to conform to societal norms—it also foregrounds the communal moments that bring him joy and deepen his bond with Aziraphale. This is significant: Emotional intimacy serves as the narrative goal of the story and, to some extent, is driven by disability. Importantly, though, this dynamic is not imposed by the nondisabled character; rather, it is Crowley who chooses to experience the relationship in his disabled form. As one reader observes: "i also really liked how you showed how crowley makes exceptions to being Careful—not only because it feels realistic and in character (as well as, again, #relatable), but also because the kind of things he considers worth making an exception for … tell us a lot about his character, and about what (or who) is important to him." Although Crowley is typically careful to conceal his disability in social settings, his comfort around Aziraphale emboldens him, prompting him to challenge his internalized ableism and fostering a greater acceptance of his condition.
[5.6] Against this backdrop, Aziraphale's subsequent offer to relieve Crowley's pain through his healing powers comes perilously close to an overcoming narrative, reinforced by the one-sided nature of the central act of care. Crucially, however, a cure is never proposed; as Crowley himself states, "Can't fix me, I've tried," and conventional hurt/comfort dynamics are challenged. In The Sins of Love and All Through The Night, authors perceived the hurt character as gaining agency only through curing their disability or overcoming it in some way (Linn 2017). By contrast, the disabled protagonist of I Don't Wanna See You Smile reclaims the agency that the hurt character conventionally relinquishes to the comforter because of their disability. In other words, Crowley actively chooses to trust his caregiver and accept his help: "Something hissy and mistrusting told him [Crowley] to say no. The angel would listen, if he didn't want him to. He'd been vulnerable enough … What he said was 'Yes please.'" As Crowley acknowledges, Aziraphale would listen. Crowley's thoughts signal a change in the framing of disability, moving it from something to be squeezed into nondisabled people's world to a space that nondisabled people are called to inhabit. The movement is not inward-outward but outward-inward. Mia Mingus argues that the power of this framework—which she calls access intimacy—reorients our approach to disability altogether: "It challenges able bodied supremacy by valuing disability—not running from disability—but moving towards it" (2017).
[5.7] Neither is access intimacy limited to interactions between disabled and nondisabled people. As Mingus goes on, access intimacy "is also the intimacy I feel with many other disabled and sick people who have an automatic understanding of access needs out of our shared similar lived experience of the many different ways ableism manifests in our lives" (2017). A similarly connoted relationship is formed in stellarpoint (pettifogger)'s Stranger Things fan fiction everybody else (everybody else looks like they've figured it out), where the hurt character/caregiver dynamic unfolds between two disabled protagonists. The narrative follows Eddie and Steve as they navigate the early stages of a romantic relationship, shaped by Eddie's ADHD and Steve's history of migraines and hearing loss. The inclusion of the tag disability—alongside related tags such as Neurodiversity—arguably underscores the author's awareness of disability misrepresentations and a commitment to portraying certain neurological conditions as human differences unfolding within ableist contexts. Unlike All Through The Night, the relationship between Steve and Eddie is not predicated on a power imbalance stemming from one character's perceived inferiority, but it is built on a politics of mutual support and interdependence, reflecting Mingus's vision of relationships that move "us away from the myth of independence, and towards relationships where we are all valued and have things to offer" (2017).
[5.8] Once again, the social dimensions of disability are highlighted from the start and, like I Don't Wanna See You Smile, this story carries out a sharp critique of societal shortcomings. So, the narrative draws attention to how Eddie's history of marginalization and systemic exclusion deeply shapes his relationship with Steve: "He's [Eddie] freaking out about Steve, but it's about everyone who came before him, too—about Maggy McInnis and her friends laughing at him … and every friend who got sick of him for not listening and showing up late." The bodymind, for Eddie, is not the primary site of distress, which instead arises from the anticipation of society's rejection of his behaviors. Like Barnes's account of physical disabilities, Chapman suggests that cognitive disabilities can also be either good or bad depending on external context, particularly regarding well-being (2020). Feelings of social ostracization and judgment are exacerbated by Eddie's fear that Steve will eventually grow tired of him, as he has been "too much" for others in the past.
[5.9] Disability inclusion is paramount to the first half of the story. Nevertheless, it is not the story's end goal. As Mingus clarifies, "We [disabled people] don't simply want to join the ranks of the privileged, we want to challenge and dismantle those ranks" (2017). Questions of normalcy, such as Eddie's admission that "my brain doesn't work right," are increasingly dismantled in favor of a nonhierarchical view of some so-called disabilities as a natural facet of human diversity, a perspective that Eddie and Steve come to develop together. When Eddie expresses his fears, Steve responds with an affirmation of Eddie's individuality: "I like that stuff. It's just you being you." Denigratory language is replaced by affirming and relativizing expressions, emphasizing the uniqueness of each person. The earlier one-sidedly deficit-oriented discourse on ADHD promoted by Eddie gives way to a more nuanced agency-based perspective nurtured by Steve. Likewise, when Steve observes that Eddie never gets frustrated with him when he struggles to hear, Eddie replies, "That's just how you are. You can't help that. I'd be a dick if I made you feel bad about that." What the author portrays here is access intimacy as interdependence in action, and disability as a shared foundation for mutual understanding and care.
[5.10] By portraying the relationship between Eddie and Steve as a safe site for disability realization and pride, the story operates to reframe disability as a mode of difference, and often productive difference. So, Eddie's ADHD-derived excessive talking is no longer a problem but turns into a strength that enriches his bond with Steve, indirectly contributing to the character's overall quality of life. For example, when Eddie expresses anxiety about being annoying, saying, "Our first date, I spent the whole time talking over the movie," Steve reframes this ADHD-derived trait as a positive: "Yeah, and it was funny. It was a stupid movie and you made it funny." Steve's response highlights how their relationship transforms perceived flaws into moments of connection. Similarly, Steve's experience with migraines and hearing loss fosters trust and mutuality between the two. As Eddie laments his impulsivity, Steve reassures him from personal experience: "Hey, man, I've been concussed too many times to count because I keep trying to fight people knowing I'll lose. We have that in common." The same dialogue features another notable moment:
[5.11] "You know," Steve says, tracing the lines on Eddie's palm, "that you always sit on my right side when you're talking to me?"
Eddie glances up. "What?"
"When it's just us, you always sit on my right side. That's my good side."
Eddie frowns. He knows that.
[5.12] On one level, the narrative's progression toward emotional harmony and romantic resolution risks smoothing over the complexities of living with disability, leaning into sentiment in ways that may oversimplify disability's challenges. At the same time, though, this focus allows for a nuanced portrayal of a couple navigating disability together. Eddie's accommodations within their relationship—like Steve's—reflect an intuitive awareness of needs arising from disability, or, as Mingus would put it, "that elusive, hard to describe feeling when someone else 'gets' your access needs" (2017). Mutual attentiveness reinforces the reciprocal nature of the protagonists' bond.
[5.13] Furthermore, it is precisely because most of the fan fiction centers on exchanges between Eddie and Steve that observations like those above about love and understanding belong to subjective positions that are not seen as deviant or inferior. Having much of the fan fiction unfold through Eddie and Steve's interactions contributes to normalizing—and we use this verb provocatively—their difference. Eddie and Steve's disabilities are integral to their identity, and all their choices emerge through their conditions. Positioning Eddie and Steve as both protagonists and primary sources of information for the reader creates a dynamic by which they are not made prosthetic, but agentic.
6. Conclusion
[6.1] This preliminary study of the intersections between the hurt/comfort and disability tags within AO3's tagging system has suggested that the open acknowledgment of disability among the tags of four care-driven and romance-oriented fan fictions has the potential to signal a greater awareness around the exploration and representation of disability identity, and a commitment to moving beyond prosthetic uses of disability in literature. Fan fiction, as shown by works foregrounding disability both in their categorization and content, can disrupt reductive and stereotyped uses of disabled forms of human diversity.
[6.2] Nevertheless, we also deem it necessary to point to the ways fan fiction can inadvertently reproduce imbalanced caregiving dynamics and an instrumental use of disabled experiences in hurt/comfort stories. As the call for papers of this special issue suggests, research within fan studies and critical disability studies has been limited, hindering the establishment of a strong interdisciplinary foundation. Yet, given the significant overlap between fan scholars, fandom members, and fan fiction creators, we believe that academic discourse—especially through qualitative approaches like close reading—can inspire meaningful change within fandom spaces, as well as increase awareness among fan fiction participants of the narrative strategies they employ or encounter when engaging with stories that include disability.
7. Acknowledgment
[7.1] This research was funded by the Wellcome Trust (grant number 226798/Z/22/Z).