Steph's Art Blog!

Here, have this doodle since I haven't posted any art in ages:

Every time I remember that thanks to Masters EX Emmet enjoys punk it just makes me, a fellow punk enjoyer, really damn happy.

Hi, anon! If you check the tag "I like trains" on my main blog, @1863-project, you can find my train posts! I also have a page where I linked to a lot of my more informational posts on there, which you can read here. Feel free to send any asks you have that are more specific to my main blog so I don't miss them, and I'll be happy to help!

Basically, feel free to drop me a message (either an ask or a chat) on my main blog about what you're looking for specifically, and I'll be happy to get you started!

[Image ID: Ingo and Emmet from Pokemon Black and White are drawn somewhat neutrally from the chest up. Emmet is slightly in front of Ingo and leaning a bit foward to make Ingo more visible in the back. Below them, the text “thank you” reads in blue and green, and below the text is a drawing of the artist herself, a light-skinned woman wearing a sailor dress and tam hat with short wavy hair. Her eyes are closed with a tear running down her cheek, and her hand is clenched into a fist and held close to her chest. End image ID.]

Considering day seven’s themes were pride and solidarity, I made this one a bit more personal.

I got my autism diagnosis amidst an OCD-induced mental breakdown in 2009. It gave me answers I’d sought for most of my life, but the narrative back then was still heavily dominated by organizations like Autism Speaks, which preached that I was a blight on society, a burden to my parents, something that needed to be “cured” (i.e. eradicated). I actually started hiding my autistic traits at first, trying to compensate for what the world thought were my deficits. I had a name for why I was like this, but I also knew I wouldn’t be accepted like this, so I ironically started masking harder.

That changed when I found the self-advocacy community and started to blog about my own experiences as an autistic woman diagnosed in adulthood. By hearing other people’s experiences and feeling safe enough to share my own, I began to embrace my autistic traits and allowed myself to be open about my diagnosis and how it affected my life. But there was a part of me that I still felt I had to hide. Sometimes it broke through for short periods, but ultimately it was an autism stereotype and I felt like I needed to bury it deep.

I’ve liked trains since I was a little kid. But that little kid learned early on that this was an interest that people made fun of, so she kept that part of herself extremely private. It was a hobby she could only share with her family - indeed, she shared it with her dad - and friends didn’t even know she had it until adulthood. I ended up suppressing it further after my diagnosis at age 20 because I didn’t want to be an autism stereotype. People found out in 2014 briefly, but I went back into the train closet not long afterwards, and friends only knew I had a near-encyclopedic knowledge of the NYC Subway system because they traveled around the city with me.

In 2020, though, I found Submas, and it was like looking into a mirror.

They were both so much like me that it was unreal. I noticed people loving them as they were, just allowing them to be themselves, and it awakened something in me. Bit by bit, I began allowing myself to be more and more open about my interests again, and I started leaning into the train stuff intentionally and allowing myself to unapologetically enjoy it. I don’t think I’d have gotten to this point without Ingo and Emmet, but they were there when I needed them to be, and now I’m the adult version of the little girl who loved trains so much and so joyfully. I wrote an essay about it here, but the jist of it...is that I’m allowed to be me again, and these two helped me get there. I’ve finally achieved a childhood dream and driven a steam locomotive now, and I wouldn’t have gone for it if it weren’t for these two giving me myself back.

Drawn for day seven of @submas-autistic-joy, an event all about allowing Ingo and Emmet to be…well, themselves, without angst or ableism. For more on the event specifically, you can check the post out here!

[Image ID: Emmet from Pokemon Black and White is standing in front of a Pennsylvania Railroad GG1 electric locomotive, numbered 4935. He is beaming with delight and posing the way Speed Racer does in the opening to the show. End image ID.]

This is one of the most self-indulgent things I’ve drawn in a while.

The Pennsylvania Railroad’s famed GG1 electric locomotives were in service from the mid-1930s well until the early 1980s. They survived the merger into Penn Central, and later on went to work for Amtrak and New Jersey Transit. They were some of the most solid electric locomotives ever made, and their Art Deco streamlining designed by Raymond Loewy made them beautiful, to boot. When I was a little girl of about four or so, I went to Strasburg, Pennsylvania, and there I met the prototype GG1, Old Rivets, the only one without the completely smooth welded body, hence her name. Rivets has been a special favorite of mine ever since.

The GG1 I drew Emmet with here also resides at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania alongside Old Rivets; this one is nicknamed Blackjack because her number, 4935, adds up to 21. I went with the GG1 for this art because of Emmet’s tendency to gravitate towards Electric-types to a degree; he’s best known for his Eelektross and his Cross Poison Galvantula (that could only learn that move in Gen 5 via breeding, hence the army of Joltiks he’s often depicted with). GG1s used to run out of Penn Station, as well, so they have quite the history in NYC - you’d be able to see them resting in Sunnyside Yard in Queens when they weren’t at work.

Drawn for day six of @submas-autistic-joy, an event all about allowing  Ingo and Emmet to be…well, themselves, without angst or ableism. For more on the event specifically, you can check the post out here!

[Image ID: Hilda, the female player character from Pokemon Black and White, is engaged in a vigorous conversation with Emmet, her hands clenched into fists as she talks to him. Her speech bubble contains Emboar, followed by a plus sign and a question mark. Emmet is responding to her with delight evident on his face and a big smile; his speech bubble shows his Eelektross. End image ID.]

My favorite so-called “unlikely” friendship in Pokemon - based on things in Masters EX, it’s clear Hilda spends a lot of time down in the Battle Subway, so I figured if she ever needed Doubles advice she’d know exactly who to go to!

Drawn for day five of @submas-autistic-joy, an event all about allowing  Ingo and Emmet to be…well, themselves, without angst or ableism. For more on the event specifically, you can check the post out here!  

[Image ID: Emmet from Pokemon Black and White in casual clothes. His expression is pensive. Eelektross is wrapped around him in an attempt to help him settle down. End image ID.]

I can think of few more pleasant sensory experiences than having even, steady weight on you. It’s wonderful, and it’s really grounding. So why not have your nearly 200 lb eel help with that?

Drawn for day four of @submas-autistic-joy, an event all about allowing  Ingo and Emmet to be…well, themselves, without angst or ableism. For more on the event specifically, you can check the post out here!

[Image ID: Emmet and Ingo from Pokemon Black and White are fistbumping, satisfied expressions on their faces. End image ID.]

Honestly, I think they’d be able to have an entire fancy handshake, but I didn’t have the time or energy to create one and draw it out, so you get this.

Drawn for day three of @submas-autistic-joy, an event all about allowing  Ingo and Emmet to be…well, themselves, without angst or ableism. For more on the event specifically, you can check the post out here!

[Image ID: Emmet from Pokemon Black and White is smiling at his Archeops and flapping his arms. Archeops is smiling back up at him and imitating him. End image ID.]

If I had a proto-bird that could stim with me, I’d do it too.

Drawn for day two of @submas-autistic-joy, an event all about allowing Ingo and Emmet to be…well, themselves, without angst or ableism. For more on the event specifically, you can check the post out here!

[Image ID: Emmet and Ingo from Pokemon Black and White as children. They are wearing matching overalls and Pennsylvania Railroad baseball caps. Tynamo levitates beside Emmet, whilst Litwick is in an old railway lantern carried by Ingo. They are looking for something but having rotten luck; Ingo’s speech bubble reads “Emmet, let me know - do you see any sign of it?” and Emmet’s speech bubble reads “Nope.” End image ID.]

Will they ever find Penn Station out in the Meadowlands? Probably not, but it’s fun to think about.

Drawn for day one of @submas-autistic-joy, an event all about allowing Ingo and Emmet to be...well, themselves, without angst or ableism. For more on the event specifically, you can check the post out here!

It’s not so much “arson” as it is “learning how to wield fire to develop and operate time-traveling steam locomotives.”

I like drawing Conductor playing into his enjoyment of big band and swing - he does own a zoot suit, which generally only comes out on special occasions, but he more obviously enjoys playing trombone and has a name picked out if he ever becomes a bandleader - Terminal Station (the former train station in Chattanooga that a certain fictional big band train would have arrived at, which is now a hotel named after the song).

Trom-bonus: I cropped that little bit out because I liked it.

This is extremely self-indulgent, but the angst exhausts me so I drew them in a happy moment instead.

In a lot of my Submas art, if I draw them laughing at something I usually depict Ingo covering or hiding his face, and I think that’s because people tend to expect him to be the “serious” one so I tend to make him almost hide his amusement because he thinks he has to, which Masters EX gave me a bit more justification for (he often brings his hand up to his face when he laughs - not always, but often enough). That said, if you have a sibling and you have a good relationship with them, they usually have your sense of humor clocked, and these two are no exception.

Meanwhile, Emmet’s laugh has been ruining me for nearly a year now, and in Masters it turns out he does it verrrry frequently so I am DEAD. He’s so cute and I’m being demolished.

Saw this ad at 7-Eleven and this was the first thing I thought of

Bad scan from the work scanner of something I’m going to color and scan with my (better) scanner later.

Anyway, let Emmet actually drive the train, you cowards.

Train siblings crying over train siblings.

Doodle inspired by this ask I got last night on my main blog, as well as this video (which I also cried over).

When you see this, I’m going to be in the cab of Strasburg #90, driving a steam locomotive like I’ve always wanted to.

I’ve loved trains my entire life. I wrote a whole essay about how they’ve always been something I’ve come back to again and again, which you can find on my main blog - but I’ve had to hide this interest for a lot of my life because I knew my peers would make fun of me growing up. Later, when I got my autism diagnosis, I felt like I had to keep hiding it because it was a stereotype. Here and there, it’s come out in places (read: 2014), but it always went back into hiding.

But this feels different - the way you all love Ingo and Emmet for who they are has helped me finally embrace this part of myself again, the way I did when I was a little kid, and now I’m going to finally live that little girl’s dream. She’s going to drive the train nearly 30 years after she started wanting to do this. I cannot thank the two of them - and all of you - enough for finally allowing me to be myself after all this time. It means so, so much to me.