So a while ago, i decided to check up on a writing blog i used to follow. I was quickly reminded of why i stopped reading their posts. The article i decided to read was called "ridding your monsters of ableism", and it was one of the least coherent things i have ever seen in my life. So in this post, i'll be responding to it.
Original post:https://mythcreants.com/blog/ridding-your-monsters-of-ableism
The article starts out like this:
"People create monsters that reflect the fears of their society, including fears about disability. Because of this, ableism has been incorporated into our depictions of monsters. In some cases, disability is used to make monsters seem dangerous, unsettling, or unpredictable. Other times, it’s used to give monsters weaknesses that heroes can exploit.
In each case, these depictions spread harmful stereotypes about what it means to be disabled. This is a real shame, because a good monster can add a lot to a story, and ableism detracts from that. So let’s have a conversation about ableist monsters and explore our options for ridding our monsters of ableism.
Content Notice: This article contains multiple examples of ableism, including ableist words, phrases, and some intensely ableist excerpts."
Intensely ableist? Wow, this must be bad. Let's see just how bad it-
"To understand why monsters with humanlike minds (sapient monsters) shouldn’t be described as having “low intelligence,” we must look at the real-world history in which some groups of humans were viewed as subhuman. In this history, racism and ableism intertwine in dehumanizing depictions of people of color as “unintelligent” and “primitive.” These bigoted depictions were used to justify conquest, slavery, displacement, and genocide. Sadly, some of this history is still alive and well in the form of modern white supremacy.
Modern depictions of monsters like orcs, goblins, and ogres are direct descendents of this terrible history. Not a lot of people know this, but J.R.R. Tolkien deliberately created orcs from the worst Asian stereotypes of his day. Over time, depictions of orcs shifted to incorporate racist stereotypes about Black people. The coding of orcs as racist caricatures is so ingrained that some alt-right people use orcs as a stand-in for people of color so that they can get away with saying racist things.
This is some disturbing stuff, and the depiction of monsters with “low intelligence” is similarly disturbing."
o_0
...If there's any ableism in this article, i'd be willing to bet it's coming from the person who wrote it. So apparently, we can't have stupid monsters because racist/ableist people use stupid as an insult against people of certain races or people with disabilities. Does that mean we can't have evil in our stories either, because racist people call people of certain races evil? Are we not allowed to use any words that have ever been used by bad people?
"Modern depictions of monsters like orcs, goblins, and ogres are direct descendents of this terrible history. Not a lot of people know this, but J.R.R. Tolkien deliberately created orcs from the worst Asian stereotypes of his day. Over time, depictions of orcs shifted to incorporate racist stereotypes about Black people. The coding of orcs as racist caricatures is so ingrained that some alt-right people use orcs as a stand-in for people of color so that they can get away with saying racist things."
OK first off, the orcs in Lord of the Rings were mostly based off the mongols. You know, Genghis Khan's army he used to try to take over the world, the guys that murdered everyone who resisted them? There's absolutely no similarities between asians(or even stereotypes of asians) and orcs. Also, i have literally never seen people compare black people to orcs until you did. If you look at orcs and immediately think "yep, those are black people" maybe you're the racist one.
"The Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Monster Manual discusses the mental capacity of ogres in profoundly ableist terms in a subsection titled “Legendary Stupidity.”
That would be a good name for this article.
'Few ogres can count to ten, even with their fingers in front of them. Most speak only a rudimentary form of Giant and know a smattering of Common words. Ogres believe what they are told and are easy to fool or confuse, but they break things they don’t understand.'
This is nothing less than a toxic stereotype of what it means to have a cognitive or developmental disability. And it is being used for a monster that is depicted in the Monster Manual as lazy, violent, gluttonous, and “primitive.” Not only is this a negative depiction of disability, but it is also entwined with racist depictions of tribal cultures as “primitive.”"
Bruh, giants were not made to be a stand-in for disabled people. They were made to be monsters. You are quite possibly the first person in history to think that giants are a secret insult to disabled people.
Also, describing tribal cultures as primitive? Well yeah, they are. Primitive isn't an insult. It's a descriptor. It means simple or not advanced. It's referring to their level of technology. There is nothing racist about that.
"Ableist terms like “simple,” “dimwitted,” and “stupid” are regularly used when describing monsters with “low intelligence.” In addition, these monsters are regularly compared to animals – a classic dehumanizing tactic that has long been used against both people of color and people with disabilities. A blatant example of this is in the description of hill giants in the 5th Edition Monster Manual.
'The hill giants’ ability to digest nearly anything has allowed them to survive for eons as savages, eating and breeding in the hills like animals. They have never needed to adapt and change, so their minds and emotions remain simple and undeveloped.'
The worst part of these toxic descriptions is that they exist to create monsters that heroes can kill without guilt – no questions needed. Any ogre or hill giant can be killed on sight, allowing the story to skip straight to dramatic action scenes. In the fiction of the game, killing these monsters makes the world a better place – but that’s genocide."
Are you seriously complaining that killing fictional giants that eat people is genocide? This is like that guy that complained about animal rights in a game called "Monster Hunter"(yes that actually happened). They're monsters. They're there to give the player something to fight. It's not that complicated. Are you going to say that the ghosts from pac-man are offensive because depicting dead people as bad guys is offensive to people who have lost friends or family members? It's a g a m e.
"The justification that hill giants are an “evil race” doesn’t help, because the concept of an “evil race” originated in the stereotypes and violence of the real world.
If we want to stop recreating this terrible history in our games, we need to let go of the concepts of an “evil” or “stupid” race. Let’s move on to better monsters and villains that don’t send the harmful message that some real-world people are less human."
They... They don't... You are one of like five people who has ever had that thought cross their mind when thinking about games. And all of them liked that extra credits video. You know the one.
"Another way that ableism comes up is the depiction of ugly monsters as “deformed,” “twisted,” “misshapen,” and “unnatural.” These depictions use ableist descriptions of disabled traits, such as hunchbacks and atypical limbs, in an attempt to create revulsion in their audience. In the 5th Edition Monster Manual, there is no better example of this than the description of the fomorians.
'The most hideous and wicked of all giantkind are the godless fomorians, whose deformed bodies reflect their vile demeanors. Some have facial features randomly distributed around their misshapen, warty heads. Others have limbs of grossly different sizes and shapes, or emit terrible howls each time they draw breath through misshapen mouths. Their wretched appearance rarely evokes sympathy, however, for the fomorians brought their doom upon themselves with the evil that rules their hearts and minds.'
These ableist descriptions of disabled bodies being “wretched” and “deformed” send a terrible message about what it means to be disabled. In addition, this example also clearly shows how these stigmatizing descriptions of disability are also being used to represent moral failings. The idea that whether or not a person meets an ableist beauty standard reflects their inner worth is horribly stigmatizing. Not surprisingly, this idea is a common dehumanization tactic used in many other forms of oppression, including racism, sexism, classism, and ageism.
If we want to make monsters that are grotesque, unnatural, or unnerving without being oppressive, we need to move away from traits that real-world people have. Fortunately, in speculative fiction, we have a lot of options for traits that go beyond the bounds of nature."
Bruh, they're literally just people that were turned into monsters because they were evil. This is a pretty common thing in fiction. Also the fact that you read that passage about the fomorians and immediately think "disabled people" is kinda disturbing to me.
"Sensory Disabilities
Blind monsters are by far the most common monsters with sensory disabilities. Despite having an easily recognizable disability, blind monsters are regularly played for laughs, where they stumble around like a sighted person with a blindfold on. An interesting example is the three gray witches from Greek mythology who share one eye between the three of them. Despite each of them spending two-thirds of their life blind, in both versions of The Clash of the Titans these witches struggle to cope when Perseus steals their eye. They beg for him to return it, and when he throws it on the ground, they stumble and grope after it, demonstrating a complete lack of the skills and tools that actual blind people use. In this incredibly stigmatizing depiction of blindness, these three witches are simultaneously portrayed as comedic, horrifying, and pathetic."
Bruh, it's a greek myth. Do you really expect the people that came up with it to perfectly accurately portray blindness? How is this stigmatizing? This is not supposed to be a representation of real life blind people.
"This example demonstrates a huge problem in the depiction of blind monsters: they are based on a stereotypical and inaccurate understanding of blindness. This comes from the myth that sighted people can experience what it is like to be blind by putting on a blindfold. Research has shown that simulating blindness in this way makes sighted people think that blind people are less capable of functioning. In fact, these sorts of “empathy exercises” actually increase stigma against blind people.
Because of this stereotype, rather than exploring what blindness is actually like, sighted creators focus on replacing sight. The 5th Edition Monster Manual has a great example of this in “blindsight.”
'A monster with blindsight can perceive its surroundings without relying on sight, within a particular radius.'
'Creatures without eyes, such as grimlocks and gray oozes, typically have this special sense, as do creatures with echolocation or heightened senses, such as bats and true dragons.'
For creatures like oozes, blindsight is a completely undefined, sight-like sense that has no properties of its own – it is simply a replacement for sight. For other creatures like bats and dragons, real senses like echolocation are being treated as equivalent to sight, rather than being accurately described as unique senses with their own strengths and limitations."
Uh, yeah, because it's a game. If they were to try to perfectly replicate realistic blindness, the D&D instruction manual would be even bigger than it is now. In case you haven't noticed, Dungeons and Dragons isn't intended to be perfectly realistic. Using something like blindsight is way easier to incorporate into a game than trying to perfectly emulate real life.
"Taken together, these depictions of blind monsters perpetuate stereotypes and stigma, rather than an accurate understanding of blindness. When other sensory disabilities, like deafness, come up, they experience similar patterns of misrepresentation. If monsters with sensory disabilities are going to be portrayed, it is important that they be depicted with greater respect and accuracy."
We need to depict monsters with respect? What are you, their lawyer? They're monsters, fictional ones at that. They need respect about as much as voldemort from harry potter. Never once have i looked at the falmer from skyrim and thought "Aha, yes! This must be a depiction of blind people in real life! I must be ableist against them!" Do you want them to have guide dogs or something?
"“Insanity” is an inaccurate and stigmatizing concept that has long since been left behind by modern medicine. It comes from a time and place wherein people thought that mental illness was contagious. At that time, “insane” was used for anything that resulted in “abnormal behavior,” including mental illnesses, certain physical disabilities, and the behaviors of stigmatized groups, like unwed mothers. This terrible history also includes “insane” people being institutionalized, tortured, and experimented upon.
One of the things that makes the concept of “insanity” so inaccurate is that it lumps all types of mental divergence together. Because it was never based on the specifics of real mental illnesses, “insanity” has not kept pace with our developing medical understanding of the mind. Instead, it remains a toxic stereotype about people with divergent minds being dangerous, out of control, irrational, and disconnected from reality."
Yeah, that's probably because some mentally ill people are dangerous, out of control, irrational, and disconnected from reality. Like people who are high as a kite on certain drugs. Insanity means that someone has a poor grasp on reality that makes them behave in an erratic, unpredictable, and sometimes harmful way. Kinda like this article.
And yeah, while people with mental illnesses were treated horribly in the past, it doesn't mean that everything related to it is offensive to them.
"Because “insanity” remains a broad and amorphous concept, it is used many different ways in storytelling. Sometimes the stereotype of mentally ill people being dangerous and out of control is drawn on to make monsters seem more threatening. Other times, the stereotype about mentally ill people being irrational and disconnected from reality is used to explain erratic and unpredictable behavior. In addition, the idea that terrible things “drive a person mad” is used to accentuate horror and demonstrate psychological harm.
Once again, the 5th Edition Monster Manual has an example that effectively illustrates this.
'Of all the terrors created by foul sorcery, gibbering mouthers are among the most wicked and depraved. This creature is the composite eyes, mouths, and liquefied matter of its former victims. Driven to insanity by the destruction of their bodies and absorption into the mouther, those victims gibber incoherent madness, forced to consume everything in reach.'
Here “insanity” acts as an explanation for this monster’s incoherent babbling and is used to represent the psychological torment that these victims endure."
Ok, and? I genuinely can't figure out why you have a problem with this bit. I don't normally get triggered by reading dungeons and dragons manuals.
"Finding Disabled Traits in Your Monsters"
Oh boy, this is gonna take a while
"Below is a checklist you can use as a starting point for finding and examining a monster’s disabled traits. Keep in mind that some of these traits, like “insanity,” are inherently stigmatizing, while others can be neutral or stigmatizing depending on the context. For example, depicting a blind monster “comically” stumbling around is ableist, but accurately depicting a blind monster is fine.
When reviewing your monsters, check for:
Atypical Humanoid Bodies: This includes hunchbacks, joints that bend in unusual ways, bulging eyes, “twisted” or “deformed” bodies, and limbs that are unusual sizes and shapes.
Limited Mobility: Key words to notice include “shambling,” “shuffling,” “lurching,” “lumbering,” “limping,” “hobbling,” and “stumbling.” Also watch for body parts that are dragged along as the monster moves."
It's official boys, crocodiles and alligators are ableist. They drag their tails along behind them when they move. #cancelcrocs
"Ugliness: This includes descriptions of stigmatized bodies, such as fat, gaunt, or elderly bodies, as well as things that are considered disfigurements, such as blemishes, scars, pockmarks, and blotchy skin."
So our monsters need to look like models from a Dove commercial? That's gonna be strange. Also, these things are 'stigmatized' because they're usually bad. Being too fat or skinny comes with a ton of health problems, which is why people usually try to avoid it. All the other things can be signs of illnesses or other health problems, which is, again, why they're seen as bad.
"Diseases, Sores, and Growths: Look out for symptoms of disease, such as labored breathing, as well as words for sores and growths, such as canker, infection, warts, lumps, moles, pimples, puss, blisters, and boils."
whY? Do you really think people are gonna see monsters like this and think "This must mean that all sick people in real life are monsters! I should go be ableist to them!" Again, these features are just signs of disease, which is scary. Nothing ableist about this. It's the same reason why zombies and skeletons are scary, because if you see someone with their innards exposed, there's probably something wrong with them. Just remember the ABC's of wound care:
A
Bone
Coming through the skin is very bad.
Of course, zombies are probably cancelled too because they exhibit signs of canker, infection, warts, lumps, moles, pimples, puss(also it's spelled 'pus' by the way), blisters, and boils.
"Sapient Beings With “Low Intelligence”: Words to look out for include “stupid,” “dumb,” “simple,” “dimwitted,” “idiot,” “moron,” “primitive,” and “savage.”
Any Recognizable Disabilities: This includes being blind or deaf, having cataracts (white eyes), having prosthetic body parts, and using medical technology, such as respiratory equipment."
There goes like half of the bad guys from star wars. Darth vader and general grievous are gone, plus bane from batman. How is using medical technology ableist? "Bad guys used bandaids in this one game i played so people who use bandaids must be evil" no one thinks like that. If a villain gets his leg cut off by the hero, does that mean he must immediately be removed from the story because he is now disabled?
“Grotesque,” “Deformed,” and “Unnatural” Creatures: Related words to notice include “warped,” “broken,” “disgusting,” “repulsive,” “freakish,” “disfigured,” “twisted,” “contorted,” “malformed,” “mangled,” and “misshapen.”
“Insanity”: Words to look out for include “mad,” “crazy,” “unhinged,” “deranged,” “lunatic,” “maniac,” and “psychopath.” Also, watch for monsters that “drive people mad.”
Once disabled monster traits have been identified, investigate each one thoroughly. Is this trait being used to make the monster feel dangerous, create revulsion, or to explain erratic behavior? Is a disability acting as an exploitable weakness? Does the depiction of this trait send a negative message about what it means to be disabled? Are any disabilities being misrepresented? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then this is a stigmatizing depiction of disability that needs to be fixed."
Remember what showed up on that list of "ableist" terms. It'll come in handy later in the article.
"Designing Monsters Without Ableism"
This is gonna be a short section
"Use Neutral Species Instead of “Good Races” or “Evil Races”
Psychological researchers at Tel Aviv University have defined racial essentialism as “the view that racial groups possess underlying essences that represent deep-rooted, unalterable traits and abilities.” Their research has shown that racial essentialism affects not just what people think, but how they think. This leads to increased bias, stereotyping, and discrimination.
In speculative fiction, racial essentialism shows up as the idea that fantasy and alien “races,” such as elves and Vulcans, each have many biological, behavioral, and cognitive traits that every member of that “race” shares. It is this racial essentialism that tricks people into thinking that “evil races” and “stupid races” are okay. Ditching racial essentialism is a key part of removing both racism and ableism.
So what do we do instead? Creating diverse, fantastical “races” is part of the fun of speculative fiction. We want to have stories about elves, orcs, Vulcans, and Klingons.
To start out with, let’s shift from the language of “race” to the language of “species.” Race is a social concept that we use to talk about different groups of humans. Because race is not a real biological category, it is important that we don’t act like it is. In contrast, species are real, biologically distinct groups. Because the fictional “races” of speculative fiction are intended to be biologically different, they are best referred to as different “species.”
Uh, race is a real biological category. That's literally the whole idea. People who are descended from other people(a large amount of the world's population, i'm told) will often inherit features from them. You can't look at white people, black people, and asians and tell me with a straight face that there's no difference between them. Skin color, height, and face shape are all determined largely by race. It's okay to say that different races are physically different. That's a fact. The problem is when you say that their physical differences affect their minds, thoughts, personalities, or value as human beings. Saying black people are black and white people are white does not do this. It's like describing eye color.
Also, why do you keep talking about race? Isn't this article supposed to be about ableism?
I have actually considered calling fictional races species instead, but the fact that they can usually interbreed and produce offspring capable of interbreeding would imply that they are the same species.
"However, just shifting language isn’t enough. We also need to remove essentialist concepts from the way different species are designed and discussed. This starts with removing value-laden concepts, like “good,” “evil,” “intelligent,” “unintelligent,” “beautiful,” and “ugly,” from species descriptions. Instead, species descriptions should focus on neutral physical and mental traits, like having wings or being easily startled."
nOPE, you can't say "easily startled"! That's offensive to people with PTSD, anxiety disorders, or schizophrenia!
"These biologically based, neutral traits should also be limited in scope. Anything more complicated, like behaviors and skills, are cultural traits and should be kept separate."
Bruh, literally every species on the planet has behaviors and skills unique to their species. Fish can't swim so well just because they have good teachers. They're literally built for it. And you can't tell me that behaviors aren't determined by species. Get a pet poodle and a pet badger and tell me which one behaves better or tries to claw your face off less.
A russian group did an experiment where they bred two groups of foxes. The first group was bred only from the most friendly of each generation, and the second was bred from the most aggressive. A couple decades later, they have friendly, almost dog-like foxes from the first group, and vicious, violent foxes from the second that they describe as "dragons".
Also, isn't the entire explanation of dogs supposed to be that they were bred from wolves to be more friendly to humans?
"Another essentialist concept that needs to be removed is the idea that species are uniform. Just like the real world, there should be a wide range of diversity within each species, including disabilities. Just because most fairies are born with wings doesn’t mean that all fairies are."
Find me a wingless robin and we'll talk.
"This diversity can be highlighted by talking about common variations within the species. In addition, it is helpful to move away from absolute language that implies that all members of a species share the same traits and instead talk about common physical and mental traits of that species.
When depicting the mental traits of each species, research and consultation are particularly important, because it is easy to accidentally fall into ableist stereotypes. It can help to model the common mental traits of species on real-world neurodiversity. For example, there are similarities between anxiety and certain cat behaviors. Based on this, a catlike humanoid species could be created to incorporate some characteristics of anxiety, such as high awareness and being easily startled or overwhelmed. The process of researching anxiety for this species will make it easier to avoid the kind of false assumptions that come with stereotypes."
You literally just spent an entire section talking about how you should avoid real-life disabilities in fictional species/races and now you're telling us to do it. Make up your mind!
"Recast Sapient Monsters as Villains
So if we aren’t going to use “evil races,” what do we do when we want sapient monsters for our heroes to fight? Use villains. I suggest reserving the word “monster” for any creature that has an animallike mind, while “villain” is used for any sapient being that does unethical things. Depending on the story, villains can be isolated individuals, like an evil necromancer living out in the wilderness, small groups, like a band of raiders, or large groups, like a faction of xenophobic political extremists.
Be careful when choosing what species the villains and heroes are. Because of the history of coding orcs as people of color and elves as white it sends a harmful message if all of the villains are orcs, while all of the heroes are elves."
I'm gonna stop you right there. You are the only one drawing parallells between fictional races and real life races. Especially when these stories already have real life races as they include humans. Also, i have literally never seen a story where all the orcs are evil and all the elves are good.
In The Lord of the Rings, for example, the orcs are(mostly) evil because morgoth/melkor created them to be a slave race by mutating elves. Tolkien himself struggled with the idea of a race always being evil, and eventually decided that the reason all the orcs in the book are evil is because they're under the control of sauron. That's why they panicked and scattered when the ring was destroyed. There were actually plenty of good orcs that turned to peaceful lives once they were no longer being controlled by sauron.
Also, the elves were far from universally good. In the hobbit, the wood elves not only kidnapped bilbo and the dwarves just because they didn't want to tell them where they were going, but they literally live in the dark and spooky giant-spider infested forest. That's not even mentioning all the stuff that happened in the silmarillion. Do some research next time.
"There is no way to fully escape this history, so it is important to make sure that for every villainous orc there is at least one heroic orc, while elves are not exempted from being villains."
So now we have to count every single character from every single race and make sure we have a perfect balance of good and evil members? That'll take forever! Plus, i hardly think that Intentionally treating orcs like black people and elves like white people is a step forward.
"Explore Non-Ableist Strengths and Weaknesses"
Remember how i told you to keep track of the list of ableist features? This is where that comes in.
"Certain types of traits can be used to make monsters more dangerous or horrifying, such as strong defenses or body horror. These traits are useful for replacing ableist traits. The following list is full of ideas for these replacement traits.
Animal Body Parts: In particular, insects and sea life are diverse groups of animals that are an excellent source of inspiration. For example, a monster could have centipede legs, fly eyes, a segmented body, stinging tentacles, a glowing lure, or transparent skin.
Built-In Weapons: Animals also provide inspiration for weapons. Extreme strength, claws, fangs, spikes, antlers, and horns are most common, but there are other options, like needles, stingers, suckers, poison, harpoons, and stunning electric pulses. In addition, some weapons can be used in unusual ways, such as blades that pop out from unexpected places, fangs that rotate sideways, and ratcheting club arms with a shattering punch."
Previously on Mythcreants: These things are ableist
Atypical Humanoid Bodies: This includes hunchbacks, joints that bend in unusual ways(centipede legs), bulging eyes(fly eyes, or 'fleyes' if you will), “twisted” or “deformed” bodies, and limbs that are unusual sizes and shapes(stinging tentacles, blades in unexpected places, rotating fangs, and club arms).
Half of these are literally things the author themself said were ableist. This article has the consistency of pudding.
"Unusual Kinds of Harm: This can be direct harm, such as draining vitality(offensive to physically weak people!), stealing breath(offensive to asthmatics!), turning people to stone(good grief man, have you never heard of Fibrodysplaysia Ossifficans Progressiva?! You just insulted an entire group of disabled people!), absorbing abilities, or feeding on emotion(whoah, offensive to people with depression!). Or this can be indirect harm, such as starting a rockslide, collapsing tunnels, magically animating plants, controlling an element, or creating extreme weather.
Enveloping Forms: Some monsters can grab, envelop, or surround their targets. For example, oozes can engulf, snakes can wrap around, tar monsters can catch, packs can surround, swarms can envelop, tentacles can grab, and large monsters can swallow whole. Monsters can also use tools to envelop, such as webs, vines, pits, quicksand, and whirlpools.
Body Horror: Some body horror is ableist, but a lot isn’t. It helps to get inspiration from nature and to use things that aren’t possible in the real world. For example, a monster with no skin, swarms of parasites that chew their way into their victim’s body(yeah that has literally never happened at any time in the real world as parasites aren't real /s), a monster made up of internal organs, and a creature that slowly transforms its target into fungus."
Ahem, quote from the "these things are ableist" section: Ugliness: This includes descriptions of stigmatized bodies, such as fat, gaunt, or elderly bodies, as well as things that are considered disfigurements, such as blemishes, scars, pockmarks, and blotchy skin.
Diseases, Sores, and Growths: Look out for symptoms of disease, such as labored breathing, as well as words for sores and growths, such as canker, infection, warts, lumps, moles, pimples, puss, blisters, and boils.
“Grotesque,” “Deformed,” and “Unnatural” Creatures: Related words to notice include “warped,” “broken,” “disgusting,” “repulsive,” “freakish,” “disfigured,” “twisted,” “contorted,” “malformed,” “mangled,” and “misshapen.”
The only body horror left after that is clowns and plastic surgery. And granted, those are pretty scary, but they don;'t have the same coolness factor as eldritch abominations.
"Strong Defenses: Toughness, armor, spikes, agility, and regeneration are most common, but there are other options, like poisonous skin, slippery skin, wads of choking slime, corrosive blood, toxic feathers, body parts that fall off(Oh the humanity! Now you've offended people with leprosy! Does the ableism never stop?), ink clouds, and terrible smells(Fish odor syndrome (trimethylaminuria) is a genetic disease; symptoms are often present from birth. Fish odor syndrome is characterized by an offensive body odor and the smell of rotting fish due to the excessive excretion of trimethylaminuria (TMA) in the urine, sweat, and breath of affected individuals).
Mobility Advantages: Monsters that move through their environment with great speed and ease have a significant advantage. Most often this is a fast land creature or flying monster, but it can also be one that climbs walls, moves rapidly through the earth, attacks from the water, or lives in a maze only it knows.
Unknown Forms: The unknown can be more frightening than the known, so any trait that interferes with the perception of a monster’s form can make it more intimidating, such as exceptional camouflage, being covered in shadows(offensive to black people!), or glowing so brightly that it can’t be looked at directly(offensive to white-wait, no one cares about that).
Harmless Appearance: The contrast between a harmless appearance and the danger beneath the surface emphasizes how threatening a monster is. Looking harmless also helps a monster get close to prey. Harmless-seeming monsters can look like a child, be cute and fuzzy, act frightened, sound like an injured animal, look physically fragile, make beautiful sounds, or take the form of a valuable object.
In addition to having useful strengths, monsters usually need weaknesses for characters to exploit. Treating disability like a weakness is stigmatizing, but fortunately, there are many other weaknesses that can be used instead."
Uh, disability is a weakness. That's why it's called "Disability". It "Disables" your "Ability" to do things. People with one leg/no legs can't walk. People with no arms can't clap or hold things. People with mental illnesses have a myriad of different difficulties. By definition, a disability is bad.
"For monsters, the most commonly used type of weakness is a vulnerability to a specific type of harm, such as an ice monster that is vulnerable to fire. However, things that attract or frighten monsters can also be used as weaknesses, as can mental traits, like an intense focus(offensive to people with autism!) or distractibility(offensive to people with ADHD!).
Treat Disability as Neutral
To create disabled monsters that are respectful representations, disability needs to be treated as a neutral trait. This means that disability isn’t used to make a monster feel more or less threatening, nor is it portrayed as either positive or negative."
Again, all disabilities are negative. That's why we call them that.
"That means stereotypes must be replaced by accurate depictions of disability. Based on research and consultation, work out how the monster’s disability affects its life. Does this disability affect where the monster lives, how it gets around, the way it communicates, or how it gets food? How does the monster deal with any limitations created by its disability?"
Apparently not medical devices, since you outlawed them earlier in the article.
"Delving into the skills and abilities that monsters use to meet their needs is helpful for avoiding stigmatizing depictions of disability that focus on limitation. While it is true that disability can create limitations, that isn’t the only way to experience disability, and many of the limitations experienced by disabled people are created by accessibility barriers. Disabled monsters don’t have access to accommodations and assistive devices, but they wouldn’t exist if they didn’t have ways to address the most important access barriers in their lives."
So you want us to give our monsters wheelchairs or something? Like, yeah, if society had more things designed with disability in mind it would be easier for disabled people to get around and do things, but you can't ignore the fact that's just treating the symptoms. If no one had disabilities to begin with, we wouldn't need accommodation.
This website has also often said that you should never portray disabilities as "bad", and disabled people in stories should never want to have their disabilities cured. This makes it seem a lot like they care more about not offending the disabilities themselves rather than the people with the disabilities.
To the person who wrote the article:
I have Autism and OCD, and they suck. My autism makes it hard to socialize and understand people, and my ocd forces me to do specific, repetitive things or face excruciating mental pain. I constantly have vivid intrusive thoughts. And here you are, a non-autistic person, telling me i shouldn't want to be cured, i shouldn't see my illnesses as problems, i should embrace these things that cause me so much pain and base my entire identity on them. Well guess what? YOU'RE the ableist one. YOU'RE the racist one. YOU'RE the offensive one. You're treating these mental illnesses like some wonderful, unique thing. You're the kind of person to say "You're not disabled, you're special. You have superpowers. You're just differently abled."
That's like telling someone with cancer they're just "Different" and "There's nothing wrong with them" and "They don't need treatment, they're just unique and special". Stop patronizing us. I have several family members and friends with multiple disabilities like asthma, food allergies, and one who literally can't even get out of bed most of the time and has to work to breathe. We want to be healed of our disabilities because THEY HURT US. They're DIS-ABILITIES. It's literally in the name.
Sure, there probably are people out there who have disabilities but don't mind. That's great. I'm happy for them. I even envy them a little. But not all of us are like that. That's proven by the abundance of medication and prosthetics there are now. I have yet to see a disabled person say "Nah, i don't want a robotic arm, i'd rather just be armless the rest of my life" or "I love having OCD, i refuse to take any medication or see a therapist about it".
With all due respect, Maybe the reason you get so offended by people using words like "stupid" and "insane" and "crazy" is because this article is all of those things. As i said in the comments of that extra credits video, "If everything you see is racist, maybe you're the racist one".
