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The driving force of Clancy (album but also the guy) is "I was supposed to be better by now." You were supposed to grow up and be past this. You were supposed to be "normal." Isn't that what you always used to promise yourself? What everyone promised? That it would get better One Day? When is that day supposed to come? When you're 25? 35? Maybe everyone was wrong and it never comes. Maybe you will always feel like you're the worst you've ever been when a new depression episode hits. Maybe you will truthfully always be as suicidal as you were when you were 14, but now you just have more (practical) reasons not to do it. Maybe you never really recover from the trauma and it just grows and changes with you. Maybe you're always going to feel like you're a half step behind everyone else your age because you spent all your golden years locked alone in your bedroom wishing you could stop existing or at least become someone else. Maybe you will always feel like you're lying to everyone when you act like you're fine. Maybe they will always pity you. Maybe this time around they'll finally admit what you already suspect, that they're tired of you and tired of this, and they'll leave.

And the theme of Clancy is, actually, really, you have gotten better. Every time. Even if you can't see it yet. And they're all still waiting for you, like they always have before, and like they maybe always will. People want to see you at your worst because they love you. You just have to swim a little to get to them. You just have to look yourself in the face sometimes

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this moment was so cute to me. pomme is so real

[likes < rbs]

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How do other artist do it this line ups tracked time is 26h 59m 💀god my poor back after this 🦐

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FINISHING FNAF HELP WANTED TODAY AROUND 6:30PM BST!!!!!!! YIPPEE!!!! SPREAD WORD OKAY??? AFTER WE FINISH IT IM GONNA BE WATCHING SOME VIDEOS ON SOME OF THE PREVIOUS GAMES ABOUT THE LORE SO YAY!!!!!!!

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Been obsessed with stardew valley lately

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If an alien life form had a habit of keeping creatures from other planets as pets, humans would be the Cool Exotic Pet That's Actually A Nightmare To Keep. Consider feeding them. Figuring out the perfect feed pellets with all the nutrition needs covered wouldn't be enough, some of them don't like those pellets. No, you need variety on the pellets. No, not just any plant from Earth will do. And no, you can't just offer them everything and see what they'll eat, they don't have an instinctive way of telling which plants are edible.

And meat? Yeah they eat meat in nature but what the fuck do you mean you just threw a random slab of meat in the enclosure, they're not touching that. Feeding them live prey works for enrichment but occasionally they'll just pack bond with the animal you tossed in there and refuse to eat it. And even if they do kill it? Did you offer them any tools to prepare the meat? Oh fuck's sake humans need to alter the meat's consistency by manipulating temperature, their meat digestion process starts outside of the body, it needs to be cooked for it to be edible. No, that's not instinctive either.

And if the heating tools are wrong? They won't touch those. It needs to be the exact same specific tools that they've seen being used by the packmates, you need a human who already knows how to use these specific fools in order for the others to figure out how to use them. No, there's no way of telling which ones they might be familiar with, you have to try.

And if they were separated from the brood too early and didn't learn? Yeah you're fucked if your human isn't socialized to get along with other humans. It can't even communicate with them. You're probably not going to successfully manage to habilitate it to other humans, if it isn't pack bonded to you it's probably severely depressed and can't even verbally express or conceptually fathom why. No wonder it isn't eating the pellets.

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Nemona, Female Neurodivergence, and Good Representation

Spoilers for the plot of ScarVi ahead, but here’s my full analysis and breakdown of Nemona!

So, I know what you’re thinking, ‘Game Freak making an autistic female main character? You must be out of your mind. This is clearly projecting!’

I’d like to preface this gently by saying that this is obviously just my personal conclusion based on subtextual analysis, but also, I’d like to call attention to the fact that Japan isn’t like the west when it comes to neurodiverse representation, and there isn’t a lot of Japanese media that explicitly uses the word autism. It’s a little unrealistic to expect Game Freak to call it by name, especially considering they make games for children and topics such as neurodiversity are often viewed as a more ‘adult’ thing to discuss. You are free to disagree with me, but please be polite in the replies of this post, as I only wish to have a constructive conversation about a writing decision that has been made.

Anyway, on to the good stuff and I must apologise in advance for this post being long, but I wanted to be thorough!

I played through all of ScarVi and I’m actually very pleased with Nemona as a character. I feel like despite the game’s technical quality, there was a real effort made this time around to flesh out the named characters. Nemona is one of my favourite examples of this, because her arc isn’t solely about being autistic, but it’s clearly a large part of her character and affects her life in a lot of ways.

Nemona is a battle fanatic, and it’s very likely one of her special interests. It’s how she connects with other people such as the main character, and it’s something she devotes her entire being and effort to. She never says she does so in order to impress others, but rather because it’s something she heavily enjoys.

Right from the start, Nemona is a successful champion rank trainer and wants you to become a trainer who can rival her in skill, and feels like it would lead to a better friendship if you could do that. Nemona’s priorities always centre around battling, and doing as much of it as possible. She’s the one who asks Geeta for permission to bestow a Tera orb upon your player. She gives you tips about the battle courts at different gyms. She even raises a new team of Pokémon throughout the game just to have an excuse to battle you at your level and watch you improve.

Nemona even loves battling so much that she finds it a little strange when others aren’t as enthusiastic about battling as she is, below is a quote I found particularly interesting because it really does show that she can be socially oblivious at times when it comes to societal expectations about what is an appropriate place or time to have a Pokémon battle.

Accompanying this, multiple times throughout the game she exhibits impulsive or oblivious behaviour and asks you to have another battle with her straight after another battle you’ve just had, usually due to being excited. Sometimes other characters will need to remind her that your Pokémon require healing first, or that there are other things that need doing. She doesn’t always understand how things should be handled in a conventional manner, despite being an expert on the topic of battling! (Or, she gets too excited and can’t help herself.)

In post-game, there’s even a scene where she doesn’t seem to understand that another student is reluctant to battle her and makes an excuse to leave early because she’s so far from being a casual trainer that it intimidates him. This is, in my opinion, actually quite a sad scene. She genuinely continues to think that he will challenge her to a battle at a different time, not realising that her ‘unusual’ enthusiasm and skill has scared him away, and that he has no intention of returning. A situation I’m sure a lot of neurodiverse children would connect with because it so accurately depicts what it’s like when others don’t share your interests to the degree that you hoped they would. This scene also hints at Nemona’s trouble with reading the emotions and intentions of others.

Nemona’s final post-game scene (which please, I BEG of you to go watch, it’s so good) confirms this outright, and also gives one of the most relatable lines in media about what it’s like to be neurodivergent in any way, especially as somebody who is younger:

Something I like about Nemona is that despite being socially oblivious and pushy with her interests, she is still a very sympathetic and friendly character. Not only does she cheer you on throughout the game, but she doesn’t only do it for the sake of serving only her own interests! She’s genuinely caring about others around her too.

(Nemona, congratulating the player when they beat her at the end of her storyline after she goes full-out. She is thrilled that you beat her! I love this moment.)

Throughout the last chapter in the game, there’s a lot of great moments with Nemona that show how caring she is. I think the best moments however, are where she tries to understand and support a scared Miraidon, and where she tries to help Arven.

Initially, she is misunderstanding and expects that the second Miraidon will be friendly and that it will be a family reunion, but once she realises this is not the case, she immediately switches to trying to support your Miraidon in any way she can. Despite not understanding why Miraidon is so afraid of returning to the Crater and facing the other Miraidon, she can be observed multiple times attempting to encourage it during the final battle, and can be seen in the final cutscene of the game with her arm around it as the group walks back to the academy.

(Nemona, displaying an implied struggle with visually judging the emotions of others.)

Nemona is also the one who suggests after a very heavy story ending that everyone goes home, and that they take the scenic route back to town. She clearly doesn’t know what to say to Arven about what he’s just been through, but she attempts to make him feel a bit better regardless.

I think this makes for particularly good representation, because not only is she less feminine than previous female rivals with her more sporty style and interests (something very common with autistic women) it also shows depth. I’ve seen autistic characters before that fall into the stereotype of coming across as emotionally detached or cold, or far too over-reactive. But I think Nemona strikes a lovely balance of caring, emotional, and socially lacking.

Now, on to a smaller detail that I want to point out that I really like the inclusion of is that glove. I could talk about how Nemona displays memory issues at times or other smaller symptoms of autism, but I really want to talk about the glove. I made a post on this subject the moment Nemona’s design was revealed on the official website, but I like that the game content openly confirmed that Nemona has motor issues with her dominant hand.

(Nemona, needing to support her arm when about to throw a Pokéball, or when she is about to terastalise her Pokémon. The burst of energy from the tera orb must make things a bit more difficult for her. A lovely small detail in her battles.)

(Nemona, confirming that she has trouble with Pokéballs. Something her website entry also stated.)

Now I’ve saved this until last because this is, in my opinion, a smaller detail that they didn’t need to include to make Nemona read as neurodiverse, but I’m thrilled they did. Nemona is the only character who wears an arm brace, something I picked up on immediately in the trailers before the games released. No other trainers wear one for the terastalisation mechanic, unlike the Z-bands from Alola. And even though Pokémon battling is her bread and butter, she still struggles with certain aspects of it! Not only is this trouble with motor skills realistic, but it’s also a very accurate portrayal of motor dysfunction that a lot of neurodiverse people experience in their day to day lives.

To bring this all to a close, I think that even though it isn’t stated outright, I believe Nemona isn’t just representation of neurodiversity in women, but I think that she is also GREAT representation. She knows that she has problems, and tries her best regardless! She is kind, and caring, even though she has difficulties with reading the emotions of others and understanding social expectations. Her entire story may be about making friends with you through the medium of battling, but it’s also a story about how she’s struggled in the past to connect with others because of her love of that medium.

I truely do feel like she’s a lovely depiction to be in a children’s game, because she is a very positive depiction of something that a lot of kids go through, and in the end, she gets to be herself and she gets to be happy by being true to that self. She is never forced to change to make friends, and instead befriends you and the other characters simply by remaining as she is.

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Enid nad Weds on probably another dangerous investigation 🧡🖤

wanted to test my sepia ink along with my usual black I think it turned out nicely

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Wednesday season 2 spoilers

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tinkaton’s smithy

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Them 💗🖤

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the sillys !!

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It’s always “wyd”

And never “The mark you have left on me is indelible. Anytime I grow nauseous over the sight of a rainbow or hear a pop song that makes my ears bleed, I’ll think of you.”

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I love au!sunshipduo sm, they are so gay

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wednesday: “can i show you my dismembered human limb collection if i say yes?

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Wednesday: I know you think I helped Enid win the Poe Cup because I like her a bit.

Bianca: You're doodling your wedding invitation.

Wednesday: No, that's our joint tombstone.

Bianca: ...

Bianca: My mistake.

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Koraidons are funky (and I’d feed them all my sandwiches if I could)