#talking about ableism without image descriptions is ironic

[queen0funova]

[Image ID 1:

A screenshot of a post, presumably a tweet, reading "Accepting the existence of magic in a fantasy setting should not be easier than accepting the existence of disabled people in a fantasy setting. ✨️ [Sparkle emoji]

Below it is an image of a pale skinned wizard in purple robes sitting in a wooden wheelchair surroundedby stone ruins. She has bright orange hair, pointy ears, and a purple bow in her hair. She is casting a spell with her right hand that is a spiky white and purple ball of light. There is a werewolf and four robed men holding weapons as if to attack surrounding her.

/ End ID 1]

[Image ID 2-3:

A tweet by 👑🏴Stateless 📛 Sovereign 😭💢 (the emojis in order are crown, black flag, name tag, sobbing, and anger) (@\Cunnyfederacy)

It reads:

"It literally makes no sense to have disabled people in a fantasy setting:

"1) Why can't the disabled person cast a spell on their broken legs that fixes them instantly so they can walk again?

"2) If the mage's lower body is paralyzed rather than physically broken then why can't they remove the paralysis using magic?

"3) Why can't the mage cast a spell on themselves which allows them to float or fly so that they don't have to worry about walking?

"4) Why is there a normal looking wheelchair in a medieval-esque high fantasy setting? Shouldn't the chair be made out of crude dwarven technology or be replaced with an animal with a saddle attached to it?"

/ End ID 2]

[Image ID 3:

The tweet unfortunately continues, reading,

"Once you have magic in a setting, it makes no sense to have disabilities. The only way you could make this work is if you make the magic extremely rare and difficult to obtain or make it so that magic is so dangerous and unreliable that it rarely gets used.

"In other words you would have to heavily tone down the 'fantasy' in high fantasy which kind of defeats the purpose. A "low magic" fantasy setting can work but it requires good writing to make it interesting."

/End ID 3]

[Image ID 4:

A quote tweet and a response with two images attached.

The quoted tweet, by Konbto (@\KonbroA), reads,

"The obvious answer is to stop using modern wheelchairs. Ideas like a magic floating chairs, a chair with spider legs, an animal/fantasy mount to help get around. Stuff like that. ..." [The rest of the quote is not visible.]

The main tweet, by hourly witch hat atelier (@\hourlywha) reads,

"boy do i have a manga for you"

There are two attached images described below:

/End ID 4]

[Image ID 6:

The first image from the above tweet. It is of a young boy with bandaged feet riding in a chair in a field. The chair legs look like those of a deer, and they are trotting.

/End ID 6]

[Image ID 7 (partially taken from the alt):

A black and white drawing of a man with long hair and a pointy hat is sitting on a chair. The chair's arms are ram horns, and the legs are ram legs. The man is looking down to a young girl crouched to the side of him.

/End ID 7]

This was some of the most high effort bullshitting I've ever seen someone go through just to keep disabled people out of their D&D campaign.

It's so incredibly simple. And as someone who is chronically verbose, even I could boil it down to a single sentence.

PEOPLE LIKE TO SEE THEMSELF REPRESENTED IN THE MEDIA THEY CONSUME.

There should be a name for that.

Like... representative analogs.

Representism.

Representology.

I'm sure someone will think of something to call it. And then let everyone know how much it matters.

But seriously, It really does not need to be any more complicated. And it isn't even that complicated to come up with reasons disability exists in a magical realm.

Perhaps magic caused the disability in the first place. Or it is a curse not easily undone. Or perhaps magic gets better over time like science. 100 years ago, an infection was a death sentence. Now we have antibiotics. And the magic to "cure" disabilities just isn't advanced enough yet.

I could literally do this all night.

Fantasy is probably one of the easiest genres to include disabilities and it is really gross how many people want to deny us this opportunity for... representation.

[neon-moon-beam]

Please Be Careful About How You Portray Submas

This is a longer post, but I didn’t feel there was a way to make it shorter. I divided it up by sections in the hopes that this makes it easier to read.

I also want to make the following clear:

This post is not exclusively about, but does delve into the headcanon that Ingo and Emmet are autistic. I myself am neurodivergent, but not autistic. My roommate is autistic and is the author of this post (which you should read if you haven’t already as it will add more context to mine). I have run this post by and taken input from her, as well as other autistic people, because I do not want to speak over or for people, nor do I want to offend anyone. If I have made a mistake, it was not my intention and I will do my best to learn and correct it.

I am also not calling out or attacking anyone; I deliberately made descriptions of art or posts vague as to not make anyone feel singled out. I’m not here to attack anyone, but rather bring up issues I’ve seen in earlier Submas content that seems to be repeating itself.

Bl*nkshippers dni--I will block you.

Under a cut for length as well as possible warnings for ableism, stigma towards mental illness, and descriptions of depictions of violent fanart.

Problematic Art In The Early 2010s

Anyone who was in the Submas fandom in the early 2010s, or anyone who has been part of the fandom before the content primarily became PLA angst knows a lot of the earlier fan content was…not good. Bl*nkshipping was a persistent problem, but there were a lot of other Submas depictions ranging from bizarre to violent, to some that were downright ableist (which Emmet almost exclusively bore the brunt of), though at the time the fandom did not widely adopt the now-popular headcanon that Ingo and Emmet are autistic. Somehow back then, only Emmet got treated as such without anyone ever suggesting he was autistic, often with Ingo in a caretaker role. Most likely a lot of people thought they were depicting him cutely, with him being “childlike” or whatever it was they intended. But if you’re on the spectrum and see yourself in Submas (like my roommate) or have context (like I do), certain art of Emmet from that era comes off as ableist. Art like this was fairly common and portrayed Emmet as sort of a “child in an adult’s body” or as someone who “never grew up”, all common autistic stereotypes. Emmet was sometimes depicted in ways that suggested he had higher support needs but only when artists wanted him to be “cute”. If he was depicted (accurately) as someone with higher support needs, that would be one thing. Instead he was depicted as essentially neurotypical by an artist until they wanted him to be “cute”. Then it would switch to him appearing to have higher support needs, often accompanied by a tired or annoyed Ingo helping him. And ironically as identical twins, if Emmet is autistic, there’s almost no chance Ingo isn’t.

Back in the early 2010s along with these ableist depictions of Emmet, there was also a fair amount of art from people who decided he was somehow creepy and violent. Maybe it was the perpetual smile and his “odd way of talking” (which has been interpreted by many as him scripting), both of which can, and have been seen as autistic traits. It might have also been the idea that Emmet being “childlike and innocent” was a cover for something horrible. Whatever it was led to a lot of images of Emmet wielding weapons (most often giant scissors or a chainsaw) and splattered in blood. Sometimes Ingo got this treatment alongside Emmet, or else was depicted as one of Emmet’s victims (or his sole victim). This is also ableist and stigmatizing towards those with mental illness(es). While there has been a bit more acceptance in recent years, there are still attitudes that mental illnesses are “scary” and that people with them are dangerous, particularly ones with difficult to treat or misunderstood symptoms (despite research showing such people are more likely to be the victims of violence rather than the perpetrators). This art of Emmet as unhinged and violent contributed to the stigma many people face.

What does this have to do with art today, and PLA?

I don’t venture into the Submas tags much at all because I’m not a fan of the angst that seems to be a majority of the content right now, and I’m personally not really a fan of alternate universes/crossovers when it comes to them, and prefer to stay out of headcanon discussions. That being said, I’ve ended up seeing some things that are veering a bit too close for comfort to the problematic art of the 2010s. I’m seeing a lot of art of “unhinged” Emmet or “Emmet fights god” that comes too close, but there’s also ones where he’s still in Unova on the Subway, ready to snap or seeming to take his pain at Ingo’s disappearance out on anyone who happens to be the final straw. If you think that Ingo has been missing from Unova for some time rather than he arrives back at the exact moment he was taken from, then naturally Emmet is going to be experiencing some very strong, very negative emotions. But there’s an appropriate way to depict Emmet experiencing these things, and then there’s ways that go too far and end up being ableist and/or insensitive.

As a bit of a side note, I’ve also seen people tagging their art, posts, or even reblogged posts about Submas with things like “he is babey”. Ingo and Emmet are adult men. Tagging adults with this (and especially when done with real people rather than characters) is infantilizing and can come off as ableist, especially towards neurodivergent people who are often infantilized online and offline. I’ve also seen people delighting in the idea of Emmet being “deranged” or “unhinged” or “crazy” in their tags, which is another form of ableism, perpetrating stigma towards mental illness (specifically by romanticizing or even fetishizing it). The neurodivergent community, and people with mental illnesses are seeing these things, and for many of us, they hurt. Even if you yourself are part of these communities, just because it doesn’t bother you doesn’t mean other people can’t be bothered by it, and whatever your intentions are, often times these things perpetrate the stigma these communities are fighting to end.

Another thing I’ve noticed is Emmet is nearly exclusively being depicted as unhinged, which is reminiscent of early 2010s art depicting Ingo as the stable, “mature” one, and Emmet as unstable, a “perpetual child”, etc. When you consider that Emmet has more obvious autistic traits, this looks very ableist. I’ve seen interpretations of Ingo being “feral” as a result of him living in Hiusi (especially in art that depicts him living in the wild with Sneasler), but mostly these do not go as hard as people go in making Emmet unhinged, traumatized, and out for revenge. Then add in art where Emmet is mentally unwell and physically attacking Arceus or Volo, or taking his frustration disproportionally out on people and Pokemon around him, and it feels as though we’re coming full circle.

So are all depictions problematic?

Absolutely not! Obviously not every depiction of Submas as autistic or having a mental illness is ableist, stigmatizing, or offensive. If you’re basing your content off your own experiences, most likely it’s OK. What it really comes down to is why and how you’re depicting them this way.

Let’s say you depict Emmet needing help completing basic tasks. Is this about an actual headcanon you have? Have you researched this topic if it’s not based on your own experiences? Or is this about depicting Emmet as “cute” or “vulnerable”, and does Ingo also need help, or does this depiction serve simply to play up Ingo’s role as “responsible” or as a caretaker? Or are both of them in need of help from a third party simply to be “cute”?

Or let’s say you decide to make a comic in which Emmet has an unhinged villain arc. Is Emmet going too far just for the sake of making him look as unhinged or unwell as possible?

If your end goal is simply to use illness or disability to make characters look cute, to build up or contrast another character who interacts with them, or simply to fuel angst or a desire to see someone “lose it”, you probably need to examine your work and think about why you've chosen to use these things as plot devices, especially considering that this depiction can be harmful to neurodivergent and mentally ill people.

It’s important that you make sure your depiction of Submas (or any other characters for that matter) are NOT ableist or perpetrating stigma. My guess is the art from the 2010s was mostly unintentionally so; it’s likely the artists were just ignorant of the issues they were perpetrating, and some maybe just ran too wild with interpretations or jokes about Emmet being scary. It’s easy to get into a feedback loop when you have other fans and artists supporting a particular interpretation. After all, things the fandom widely accepts such as Emmet breeding Joltiks or stealing Ingo’s pudding started out as someone’s interpretation and others ran with it. It doesn’t take very long to Google information you would need to write or depict a convincing but not inappropriate or ableist depiction. You can find  sources covering the topics you want to write about or depict, including people’s personal accounts (just don’t use info from organizations that speak over and actually harm the people they claim to be “helping”). You can also ask people about their experiences, but just be aware that people are not obligated to tell you their personal information or educate you, so if someone declines you need respect that.

So what can be done if I see this happening?

Here are some suggestions on handling these things. This is by no means exhaustive.

I’ve seen someone make ableist or stigmatizing content. What do I do? Here’s a basic outline if you feel like contacting them, but remember, you don’t have to if you don’t feel comfortable or safe. You’re not obligated to step in and educate others: 1. Be nice and polite. Coming off as reactionary is a good way to make someone defensive and not listen to you.

2. Avoid attacking them personally. Making mistakes does not mean someone themselves is ableist. As much as there has been more acceptance and education recently, there is still a long ways to go. There’s a chance they didn’t realize their content came off that way.

3. Explain why the depiction is problematic, and if possible, link to a source explaining it as well. Example: “Ingo drinking out of a mug that says ‘OCD should be CDO so the letters are in the correct order’ is an inaccurate and harmful joke about OCD. Here is a link to how the Just Right subset of OCD actually works, if you want to portray him having OCD more accurately.”

4. Avoid messaging them over and over, or having other people message them, making callout posts, etc.

 But what if they don’t think there’s a problem, get nasty, or continue with problematic depictions? Or what if they’ve already had others tell them about the problem and they have no intent to stop?

At this point, there isn’t much that can be done. It can be hard to accept someone doesn’t want to hear you out, understand there’s a problem, learn, or change what they’re doing, but sometimes it happens. The best option is to remove yourself from the situation, block them, and move on. If the content actually violates the terms of service of the site it’s being hosted on, you can report it. You can also report them if they start harassing you.

 I’ve read this or other people’s concerns and think I’ve made ableist or stigmatizing content, or someone told me I did, what should I do?

First of all, apologize. Hear the other person/people out if someone has contacted you.

Second, don’t beat yourself up about it, especially if you genuinely didn’t know, and don’t take someone pointing something out to you as a personal attack. Just because you’ve made a mistake doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.

Third, educate yourself on the issue and take steps to do better. Adjust the parts of your content that were problematic, or start over if you need to. Apologies don’t go very far if you don’t change your behavior.

Thank you for reading my post. I know it was long and different from the content I usually post, but I wanted to address these issues as a fan of Submas who also happens to be neurodivergent.