#fantasy eugenics

[alifeoffairytales]

"Schneewittchen" watercolour painting by Eugen Napoleon Neureuther, via Red Cape Tales

[dreorcaul]

A SCREENshot redraw! I wanted to draw that sceme for so long! FINALLY DID! I just WANTED to draw CASS threatening!

[earthsrirshaart]

Congratulations New Dream ✨ on the new Tangled ride at TDS Fantasy Springs!

[rrat-king]

sometimes the epic highs and lows of niche fandom crossover is the whiplash of having the finale to fantasy high And eugene leaving the try guys happen in the same 24 hours

[tanglednlove]

The way the sun comes through and lights up her hair is breathtaking😍 Also, hard to capture on camera.😏

[sophiebiikes]

rb for accuracy!

[elderscrollsconceptart]

Xivilai

Art for The Elder Scrolls: Legends

Art by Eugene Je

[sinsofsinister]

For seven days your crew weathered the storms before finally breaking through the clouds. They couldn't have made it this far without you. What began as a chance encounter with a girl named Lyria became a journey to reach the ends of the skies and now, a new chapter in that story is about to begin.

[mothonice0]

Haven’t been stupid for a minute

The Waloed gang 100% fucks up shit on purpose. It’s their way of asserting dominance.

‘Cid, don’t burn the pie!’ Oh? Hope you like the taste of ash, because he’ll keep watch. Until it turns to coal.

‘Lord Barnabas, where’s the peacock for the Crown Prince Dion?’ He def fed it to Sleipnir or something

[retolee]

[alpaca-clouds]

Two weeks ago, @agramuglia uploaded the cut version of the stream he did with Charlie Knight on disability representation in fantasy worlds. And given that around the same time we had a bit of a discussion in my blog about the same issue in regards of BG3, I want to share some thoughts on this. Mind you, I am also picking up some stuff in regards to the amazing videos that Oakwyrm does on disability representation.

Because there are two topics that are so often not brought up in this context. And I am kinda saddened and a bit annoyed by this. So, let me talk about it. Because the topics of what kind of disability we see in fantasy and science fiction and what kind we don't see is actually a big topic.

Generally most fantasy disabilities fall into one of two categories:

Acquired disabilities (often in forms of missing limbs or a missing eye) that were acquired under dramatical, tragic, or heroic circumstances.

Fantasy-setting specific disabilities (for example a character who cannot fly in a setting, where everyone else can fly, or of course the classic "non-magic character in a magic world").

The first kind is the stuff we see probably most of. Again, often we see this in form of missing limbs, that depending on the setting are either replaced with some sort of magic prothesis. Ideally this is handled at least like it is in Fullmetal Alchemist, where the prothesis does not always work perfectly and needs some maintanance. Sadly, though, in a lot of cases the magic prothesis is perfect, and also other stuff that usually comes to play in regards of missing limbs (like phantom pain and related issues) do not really come to play.

Same goes with some sort of magical glass eyes and so on, if characters are missing an eye. I will not even start with the fact that glass eyes in fantasy are always perfect little balls rather than how those actually look in reality.

And either way: Usually the way those limbs and eyes have gone missing, there is really a big story behind it. In real life very typical ways for people to loose limbs is stuff like simple injuries that lead to infections, or accidents that were really kind of silly. Not in fantasy or scifi. There you do not geenrally lose a limb, unless you lose it to a dragon or devil (or I guess in a desperate attempt to revive your mother). There is always a good story behind it.

And then there are the other kind of disability we see, which the more metaphorical disability. Yes, within a world were everyone can do magic, the person who cannot do magic is disabled. Yes, within the world where everyone can fly, the person who cannot is also disabled. And yes, Karlach in Baldur's Gate 3 with her engine that is killing her has also a disability within the context of the world - as does Gale with his orb, or Shadowheart with her magic pain attacks. Heck, you could make the argument that in a way Astarion as a vampire also has magical disabilities.

But what bugs me so much about this is... The lack of all the stuff that does not get shown.

A lot of people have already spoken about how rarely we see some sort of wheelchair in fantasy settings. (In SciFi we often then see the flying wheelchairs, that are an issue on their own, though that is something I will have to talk about at another time.)

But there is so much more that we usually do not see.

Missing limbs make up around 7-8% of all disabled people. And those are mostly older people, given that - again - limb loss usually occurs because the body struggles to heal a wound and the limb needs to be amputated to prevent infactions from spreading and such. (Almost 90% of people who loose their limps are also older than 45 when they do.)

A lot of disabilities (the vast majorities) are in fact some sort of cognitive disabilities. And sure, we do see quite a few characters that are autism-coded or ADHD-coded in media. Exhibit A would be Dungeon Meshi, of course, but I mean, we all can probably name a few characters that read very autistic or hyperactive. But those are also usually the variations of those where yes, the characters might experience some disability from it, but... We do not have an autistic non-verbal protagonist, do we now?

And then there is of course all those other disabilities. I mean, I cannot imagine a single example of a character with trisomnie in fantasy or scifi media. I also have not seen a character with my disability (severely limited lung function) in fantasy or scifi before - even though, mind you, scifi could probably easily create a device that would allow someone like me to live fairly normally. You will also rarely ever find a character with something like athritis or other forms of rheumatic illness in fantasy and scifi settings. And generally speaking, with a few exceptions there are barely any characters who were born with their disabilities or have acquired their disabilities through sickness of one way or another - even though this is by far in the real world the most common way of acquiring a disability.

Other stuff we do not see: Limb differences, anything that is perceived as disfiguring (and even if those are described in books, they usually get toned down HEAVILY in movies or games, and of course anything that is related to food.

With this I am not saying that the other disabilities - those we see - are bad. But I am saying that we absolutely deserves to see those other disabilities too. And not just in some realworld drama stuff. (I mean, when it comes to depictions of a character with down syndrome in media, I can only think of one good example, which is Ansel in Stumptown, which is very much just crime drama. But that is like the one time I can think of that a character with that disability who is given agency by the plot, and who gets to have his own life, with a job, and a girlfriend and everything.)

And yeah...

Like, the two pieces of fantasy media I wanna point out as being actually pretty darn good with disability representation of a wide variety of disabilities are:

Witch Hat Atelier: This series basically focuses on the question of morality in regards to using magic to cure - and using magic to cure disabilities, too. Because of this, we see a variety of disabilities, including disabilities people were born with, disabilities acquired through sickness or through dramatic plot reasons and so on. This is really, really good in that regard.

The Witcher novel series: I hate it so much that this is something that all the adaptions just ignore. The Witcher books are very, very heavy in dealing with disabilities in a lot more realistic matters. The fact that magicians mostly are disabled people, for whom the society does not have any other use than learning magic (for whcih they get cured of their disability, and the books actually dare to quesiton "Is that a good thing?") is one part. But Geralt himself is fairly disabled, as he is dealing with chronic pain and has a limp. Gods, I would murder for a good adaption of these books

[yumisara]

Granblue Fantasy Relink Splash Art (Skybound Arts/Over Mastery)

I haven't seen the blanks posted anywhere and I hyperfixated on getting them so here we go! ( I didn't search for base Gran/Djeeta so it's just their new outfits)

Spoiler beneath!

[cherrydoll39]

A better view of the Eugene phone stand from Tokyo Disney sea Fantasy Springs gifts

[seance]

Friends are a liability and can be exploited. That makes them weaknesses. (x)

[miguelinileugim]

Elves are such an odd concept. Like, if I was a human in a world where some people get to live for centuries and I won't. At the bare minimum, I wouldn't be having more short lived children. The implications of this are only concerning because some people in the real world do legitimately believe that minute differences in ethnicity justify eugenics if not outright ethnic cleansing. But in a world where elves existed honestly I would hope my own species goes extinct.

Some takeaways:

Elves don't exist

If elves existed, nazis would still see them as inferior somehow because it's not about actual ethnic superiority

Elves existing would still not justify ethnic cleansing, forced sterilization or even most if not all forms of eugenics

If nazism needs a universe like Warhammer 40k to justify itself it kinda shows how ridiculous of an ideology it is in the real world

Hottest take:

Gattaca is a fine movie in other ways but if you have children who will die at the elf equivalent of 20 years that's no different than having real life kids when you know they'll die at literally 20 years old because of a genetic disease.

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Labyrinth of the Overlord by Eugene Jaworski