I’m just curious because in the rules it says no emulators, but when you submit a run, there’s a checkbox that says “emulator”. Can someone clarify this for me? And if it’s not allowed, why?
It's allowed for single stars, but not for stage RTA. Technically both of those fall under IL's (depending on whether or not you quantify stars or stages as 'levels'). Assuming you are referring to the submissions on this website, (single star records are not stored here on speedrun.com) which are the stage RTA boards, then no you can't use emulators.
We would like to announce that VC and EMU subcategories are now active on the Stage RTA leaderboards (under "Levels"). Stage RTA involves collecting all the stars in a given stage including the 100 coin star. Timing starts on star select and ends upon collecting the final star. You are allowed to us