(ENG) Queer and Neurodivergent community around Nintendo (an Essay)
(Was peer reviewed by native English speaker!)
Let me start with a little backstory. I talked with someone when I learned they were neurodivergent. I was surprised because of my own reasons, but they said their friends who were interested in Miis/Nintendo were queer and/or neurodivergent. This became a kickstarter for this.
First of all, hey, I'm queer and neurodivergent! My identity in details doesn't matter right now.
This was interesting because my hyperfixation for nintendo was the fastest hyperfixation i ever diveloped, now it’s DJ Yellow and Student, who is from Nintendo game. I got my switch in 2020-2021 with Animal Crossing and Just Dance, my first ever Nintendo console and first games respectively, so I have little to no personal history with it, even watching gameplay didn't make me interested in it. Yet, I still got into it. So I want to understand why it happened.
Before I'll start: It’s heavily based on me and my experience. Of course, I DON'T speak for every queer and ND person who is interested in Nintendo with my limited sources and knowledge. Also, it’s NOT a sientific research, i will use things from psychology, but it doesn't make me a specialist in it, which i don’t.
Neurodiversity
I think it’s easier for me to explain. I planned to talk about console design first, but I think most people know that Nintendo isn’t really competing with Xbox or Playstation, so of course it's consoles will be different. Well, most people aren't interested in consoles themselves! It’s games! And here’s the kicker.
Of course, big companies like this will be hiring good character designers, any company would. But there is something interesting I found in only nintendo games.
For me, it’s how much they use vivid colors. Well, Nintendo consoles are targeted to Family auditory, so of course it should appeal for kids and adults. But Nintendo games use those
colors in every game they create, no matter of style or targeted audience.
Well, of course just having vivid characters doesn’t automatically make it appeal for neurodivergent people. But how they’re using it.
I’ll be using examples from Rhythm Heaven not only because of my hyperfixation/special interest/whatever this is on it, but also because it's a pretty good game to show my point.
There's an interesting thing about those covers. They are vivid, have a lot of details and colors, but it’s not overwhelming. Of course it’s not, there’s professionals who work on those games. Still, pretty rare to see that much details (i’ll return to it later)
Games themselves have much less details, of course, if there was the same amount of details as covers, it was impossible to play, but colors are still vivid and… Hey. The picture is moving.
In short: I think that Rhythm Heaven (and other Nintendo games) are pretty good visual stim. Well, of course everything that moves can be used as a visual stim, but let me try to prove things about covers.
I have 4 physical copies of Nintendo Switch games, two of them are by Nintendo.
There's proof. Let’s compare it.
Both covers are definitely detailed, Just Dance has levitating things, patterns on the floor (?) and list or songs, Layton has minigames, characters and this big diamond. But it’s not enough. There’s nothing really to pop up, no visual path. Those details not feels like they’re connected with each other.
Animal Crossing and WarioWare, on the other hand, have this. ACNH has a visual path made out of characters, Warioware has sort of barriers. Also there’s a lot of items on the ACNH cover like woods, lamp, flowers, fish, ect. WarioWare has filters and action lines over it (also can be a visual barrier). All elements have some sort of connection: Tom Nook goes to players, villager is close to Tommy, from villager to C.J., and from C.J. to Issablelle and villager talking. Wario is close to the character, so some sort of connection is here. Also, they are still vivid.
(Of course, it doesn’t mean that every non-Nintendo game doesn’t have the same rules or use them! One of my favorite game is Katamari, that is originally was playstation game)
Even in the Wii period with gray shaders, it didn't made vividness more dull.
(About Miis later)
Queerness
There’s a bit of a complicated thing. Now, there’s a bit of representation that may bring some queers here, but it happened very recently, with DLC for Splatoon 3 “Side Order”, Where appears character Acht, that goes by they/them pronouns and uses “Boku”, written in katakana, “Boku” being masculine version of “I”, that’s also being using by tomboys and gender nonconforming people. (I can’t say if this is specifically katakana or just used like that, but i started using it before this DLC so i guess it might be a katakana thing). Also, nothing beside their pronouns is explicitly queer, so it can't be this reason (at least until recently). Also I think they wouldn’t risk being banned entirely in some countries just to have one character (Hello from Russia!), but there’s coding.
If you don’t know - Coding is when you hint that a character has some trait, usually with design, personality and manners, but don’t show it explicitly. There’s some queer-coded characters in the history of Nintendo, but if i’ll list them all, it’ll be too long. Let’s just say - There’s a lot of Fire Emblem accusations, Birdo, C.J. and Flick, DJ Yellow and Student (of course i should put them everywhere!) and Pearl and Marina, who seems to be canonized and at the same time not.
There’s also stereotypes, of course, like Gracie, who in the Japanese version was presented as a crossdresser man or trans woman. I can understand why it was changed in American and European releases, but really, I wouldn't mind sassy character in new AC game, especially with the rising popularity of such.
Also, I can assume that one of the reasons is character’s that you create become more androgynous, like the difference between inkling boy and inkling girl is almost non existent, especially in splatoon 3. Octolings got the same privilege in Side Order. By the way, about creations…
Mii
Mii’s have no visible differences between genders. Of course, it would be strange and cost-y, but still. Also, there’s no gender lock features. Also, in both versions, you can change anything about your Mii, even gender! Eh? Eh? See what I did here? Uh, nevermind. I thought it was funny.
I can also add neurodivergent and visual stim part, colors are vivid and, well, it gives a lot of creative creation, so you can do faces of neurodivergent people with different face structure (it’s probably have no sense in brouder meaning, i talked about down syndrome, as i know it’s considered neurodivergent. Maybe there’s something else, but i don’t know)
There’s nothing I can say about games. Occasional crossdressing in japanese version of tomodachi life and randomized dialogues isn’t really do anything, maybe one dream where two same-sex Miis can be in the end of a red string and that relationship meter in Miitopia may have some points about queerness, but there’s nothing more about ND thing.
Conclusion of this chapter: Miis are more fruity than got that tism.
Conclusion
There’ll be a lot of my experience.
I still think I haven't come to my main reason yet. I think that the main reason why queer and neurodivergent people are in Nintendo games is because they are safe. What I mean by this is in mainline games, there’s no oppression towards the player. Like Animal Crossing, a game literally about making friends.
When I got this game, I was yet to see social isolation and bullying. Even when it started happening, I was into this game, well, I was addicted. I can be pretty easily attached to someone, so when I had no friends, I was just thinking of villagers as my friends. I just was… comfortable in its world, welcomed even. It was a world where people cared and weren’t judgemental to me. I had this feeling even with games without a player as the main character. Maybe I just got insane, who knows.
Of course I can't speak for everyone, but let’s be real, some of you may have experienced this feeling too. Positive world with absurd problems, where nobody is gonna be mad about if your features would’ve changed or you act differently. In the process of writing this I had a thought that this may be why Animal Crossing’s mean characters were less mean in NH. Just a thought.
It’s funny in some way, if you think about it.
I don’t know how to end it, so let’s end here. I hope I wasn't too much of a mad theorist.
