It concerns–no, frightens–no terrifies–me how perfection is viewed in Night Vale in regards to disabilities. After the speech Hiram McDaniels gives in “Condos” about how he wants to be mayor because Night Vale gives him peace because he’s accepted there instead of feared like he is outside of it, you’d think there would be more acceptance for everyone, like Megan Wallaby, especially when she was only a hand.

But, how could people with disabilities be any more feared or unaccepted? Night Vale is supposed to be a place where the oddities and feared of our reality is rendered mundane because the residents have far bigger problems to worry about; sure, there are prejudices that happen, as demonstrated by the Apache Tracker, but they are few and far between, and they get called out as the unaccepted aberrations they need to be.

However, the writers of Night Vale haven’t exactly been kind to their characters with disabilities. Or, at least, the two out of three they’ve portrayed unkindly. Yes, they actually have a third group of people with a disability that they could bring back if Fink and Cranor so chose, though I hardly doubt that they remember them. The only reason I do is because I share the condition with them.

In the episode “The Drawbridge”, when Cecil announces that the metallic trees were removed, he mentions that the “nice epileptic couple that run the Emergency Services helicopter” will also be pleased to hear to news. I was so happy to hear that epileptic people had been included in the show, and not just to add drama. And I’ve been hoping they’d be brought back. Just mentioned in some way.

Except, lately, I’m torn on whether or not I do want them to be mentioned again. Between Michael Sandero magically cured of his Cerebral Palsy by the sentient lightning bolt early on (and then abused and then ultimately having his original head removed) and Megan Wallaby receiving a body to “fix” her (a solution arriving so, so easily), I’m afraid that if the epileptic couple returned, they’d be cured of their epilepsy by eating ice cream or something!

That is the last thing I need from this show. Over last summer, I was actually having an identity crisis, trying to reconcile the fact that I had never considered myself as epileptic until just then. Perhaps that seems silly to those of you who don’t have a condition, but since I’ve had epilepsy since I was eight, it’s been my “normal” for basically my entire life. However, my parents were probably too good at treating me as a “normal” child, we never really talked about my epilepsy, and I only became “The Epileptic Self” when I went to my neurologist checkups or the emergency room or had an aura or another seizure or my siblings admitted to me that when they witnessed me having a seizure, they were terrified of me.

And last summer, with the help of Night Vale’s odd and existential writing, I was able to merge my Epileptic Self with my Normal self and fully accept that this is who I was and would be forever, because a cure was so unlikely in this lifetime that I needed to let go of that hope and work towards inner peace if I wanted to live independently.

All this… all this with the help of a silly show. A show that is now portraying unlikely cures falling from the skies as the answer to disabled people’s prayers.

Cures to many things would be great. I wouldn’t say no to a cure for epilepsy. After all, epilepsy is only just a short-circuit of my brain; no big deal, right? But a cure is not going to fall from the sky or be delivered from a stranger in a mysterious submarine that just happens to appear one day. I know that mysterious happenings are part of Night Vale, but I argue that in this case, attaching Megan to this body is one of the least creative things that the writers could have done. For goodness sake, she’s a detached hand who’s a little girl who’s dying for just one friend in the world! I think there a plenty of story opportunities in that character description alone!

Rather than “fixing” Megan, I would have rather have seen just buildup for something else out of the submarine and bowman. I would have ultimately rather have seen, perhaps, the bowman become friends with Megan. Maybe, yes, pretending she was his hand, but only in a playful manner. Trying to fix disabled people is insulting, and writing stories where cures just happen to be found is doubly insulting because, in real life, it’s not that easy. Medical science improves all the time, but it still takes years for cures to be found. And even then, often it turns out they’re just controls, not really cures for a lot of things.

It’s nice to imagine, but it’s nicer to imagine that there are places where people like you are accepted and can live in harmony with people who, in this reality, are the “normal” ones and not pitied or looked at strangely or have your family come up to you and tell you that you scare them when your brain decides to short out. It’s nicer to imagine that you can live independently and be useful to a community and be praised and encouraged. It’s nicer to imagine that you won’t be held back because of who you are, or scolded because you can’t control who you are.

Fink, Cranor, and Zack Parsons, the originator or Megan Wallaby, had great stories going for them with this character, but now, they only have me worried about where they’re going next. I know I’m supposed to trust the writers of serials because I don’t know their future plans. But, I think that’s what scares me most.