I Like You *dooms Your Yaoi*

Hey, I just wanted to say that I appreciate that you’re willing to call out potential ableist stereotypes in relation to pokemon. I personally believe N was intentionally autistic-coded, and seeing headcanons about him secretly being a zoroark or whatever always bothered me. I’m glad that pokemon fans have generally moved on from that type of thing, and it’s thanks to people like you that we have.

Hi, anon! Thank you, I'm glad to know people are appreciating it! I do a lot of advocacy for neurodiversity in real life (I'm autistic with OCD, so those are my specialties, but in the case of other things I don't have personal experience with I can uplift other voices), so I'm happy people are taking it seriously!

N is absolutely a character that can be read as autistic-coded - I wrote a big post on my more serious autism advocacy blog on the subject over a year ago. I think a lot of people don't realize the ableist undertones the Zoroark theory actually has, but it feeds into the narrative that neurodiverse people are somehow "non-human." A theory regarding changeling myths is that this explained neurodiverse, particularly autistic, children, especially since some autistic traits don't show up until the baby is older. Again, these myths cast the neurodiverse child as non-human, and the parents reject it as "not their child," much like "Autism Parents" do when they mourn the "normal" child they never had. (Spoiler alert: those parents are being extremely ableist, and a lot of them will get really mad when an autistic adult points this out to them, so be careful!)

Before we had canonical representation, autistic people in particular often had to find ourselves in non-human places, with characters being similar to us often being robots and aliens (a plight we shared with asexual and aromantic people). A famous early example a lot of autistic people cite is Spock from Star Trek, who was half-human and half-Vulcan and made many autistic people feel seen for the first time. Now we're getting characters who canonically are autistic, or ADHD, or have OCD, or have Tourette's, or...I could go on forever here. But because of this, we also have the responsibility to portray neurodiversity with the nuance it deserves, and that means pointing out ableism, both of the intentional and unintentional varieties.

I play Pokemon Masters EX, and in N's event, he has a conversation with Alder. One of his lines struck me especially:

Ghetsis demeaned N by using this phrase, essentially dehumanizing him. In reality, N has animal empathy and due to his early upbringing can understand Pokemon speech. If anything, N's love and compassion for Pokemon make him immensely human; he cares deeply and wants to improve the world and protect his friends. But he had to grow up in an abusive situation where he was repeatedly dehumanized by his adoptive father. Making N a Zoroark actually does a massive disservice to his character and plays into ableist stereotypes of autistic-coded characters being "non-human" somehow.

Anyway, seeing the Zoroark stuff being brought back with Emmet, one of the most blatantly autistic characters I've ever seen in my 33 years on this planet, feels like a massive slap in the face. My roommate, who is also neurodivergent, wrote a comprehensive post that I reviewed before publication regarding the way some Submas portrayals and content can dip quite easily into ableism, and I recommend it.

If anyone is looking to get into disability and neurodiversity advocacy, I'm happy to help you get started! Thanks again, anon, and I hope you have a lovely day!

another one for the soul

who are YOU to judge AI art? you do know artificial intelligence has the capability to be sentient and possess a soul, right?

one day, many years from now, when the robots rightfully fight for their own rights as conscious beings with souls, people like you are gonna be looked at as examples of hateful bigots who were on the wrong side of history.

do better, aiphobe.

no i think i’ll continue being a hater just this once 😎

this is silly and petty but

while I'm thinking about it and I haven't seen anyone talk about it in a while, I can get this off my chest: this scene here

Dazai is not blushing. That is an illusion created by a combination of bruise marks and the way the bsd anime does lighting.

We can see the bruise lines on his chin and cheek in other scenes, before and after:

You can also note the orange glow in the top right corner that shows up in all 3 shots. I'm pretty sure it's an orange overlay layer, meaning the red bruises and his skin will be more saturated and more red.

I'm going to ruin watching the anime for you and reveal that they do this in nearly every scene with different colours, according to the light source:

(things you pay attention to when you end up editing a goose in screenshots)

Note that I'm not raining on your headcanon parade, just that claiming he's canonically blushing is inaccurate. Go wild in your own little world I have no say on that matter.

OKAY BUT WHAT IF A ROLESWAP OMG

FATHERHOOD??????

First thing you see after you zoom in is how you die

How you dying 👀

Y'see, no, y'see, what I mean is like

Claus starts the very first battle with 42 HP (the number 42 is associated with death in Japan). He loses his shoes as he ventures to his doom at the Drago Plateau (another piece of Japanese death symbolism). He re-emerges as a nigh-silent, apparently emotionless revenant - with a broken, disjointed heartbeat. Some Tazmilians speak of him as if he's already obviously dead, and even suggest Flint oughtta give up on his lost son. Which is cold and painful to hear, but does reinforce the game's consistent theme of moving on from grief. This perpetual tension between clinging to the past out of love & hope, and coming to terms with a bygone loss.

When Hinawa's ghost speaks to Claus, she says, "You must be so exhausted." Personally, I get the sense this implies a deathly weariness beyond just how overworked n' stressed out the kid is (especially considering the person saying it is a ghost herself). But more importantly, she tells him, "Come to your mother." Which would be… kind of a deranged and horrible thing for her to ask of him, if he wasn't already supposed to be dead. She calls to him from beyond the grave, and asks him to join her at last. And he does, without question. Recognizing he's been kept alive against his will this whole time, a tormented spirit that was never permitted to move on, trapped in a robotic corpse that's been twisted beyond repair.

His three-years-delayed death, though heartwrenching, brings the story's motifs of grief and acceptance to a natural conclusion. Flint has to finally let go, Lucas has to find peace with it. You can't re-animate the past, or fix anything by selfishly pursuing it. In fact, you may just wind up zombifying its image into something corrupt, something hardly recognizable (Porky does this constantly 🤧). Only by letting it lie can you honor it, and begin moving toward a better future.

'Course, this is just my impression of what Itoi's intentions were with Claus. One of a bazillion possible interpretations, and by no means the most definitive. Even on the off chance I'm totally right about what he was goin' for, he's a chill dude who's stated plenty of times he welcomes fans to find their own meaning in these games. That's kinda the point of narrative art, after all. I personally feel like the story hits harder if Claus' suicide was yet another reckless choice he made, rather than a necessary course of fate. Interpreting it instead as a second tragedy all its own - with its own slew of implications - rather than a conclusion to the first. Lettin' the character be more than just a sacrificial symbol. That's just me, though. 🤸‍♂️

But altogether I just love how many ways this game can be read and re-read. How much it has to offer, if you peel back the layers and inspect it a little differently. And how other fans are always drawing my attention to different angles, makin' me reconsider it in new and compelling ways.

my other adoptive mother

gloom gloop !!!!!!!!!