#of course I wish giants *were* real... 😔

[freepassbound]

3. a specific color that gives you the ick?

4. mythical creature you think/believe is real?

5. favorite form of potato?

7. what animal do you look forward to seeing when you visit an aquarium?

13. first thing you’re doing in the purge?

3. a specific color that gives you the ick?

There are certain shades of green that are definitely "ick".

4. mythical creature you think/believe is real?

Well... I mean, I don't really think any of them are real. It is pretty cool, though, what a number of them have been found to be stylized or exaggerated versions of real creatures!

5. favorite form of potato?

Who can possibly choose?!? The potato is a blessing to humanity! 😌

(mashed, I suppose)

7. what animal do you look forward to seeing when you visit an aquarium?

Hmm... I mean, the first thought was "otters!" - followed quickly by "penguins!". But... are those aquarium animals? 🤔

13. first thing you’re doing in the purge?

Is that the thing from the movies? Where all crimes or legal, or something?

I mean, not to be super boring, but I'd just isolate. Probably go camping, or something.

[coldgoldlazarus]

Oh! Sorta responding to the "responding to sexualizing woman. Don't." post. What are your thoughts on Smash Ultimate altering Zero Suit Samus' design? Personally not a fan of it compared to Smash 4. I liked her bigger boobs. 😔

I don't really pay that much attention to Smash, honestly, (fighting games just aren't my thing as is, and I'm not attached to 95% of Nintendo's stuff the same way I am with Metroid (even if I am curious about Zelda and Splatoon)) so I don't really care that much one way or another. But I guess my take is, on one hand I respect the attempt to dial back on Samus's sexualization². On the other hand, as the full un-blackouted version of that post said, focusing on boob size to do so instead of other elements of design, both doesn't really address the actual problems, and kinda carries some dubious implications¹.

But on the other other hand, I remember the ridiculous blowback and controversy from Those Kinds Of Gamers™ being just, embarassing to watch, and I wish Samus hadn't been stuck at the center of that, but I kinda support the move on that front, catering to the assholes that much less, even and especially when they made a huge overblown fuss about it.

So it kinda balances out to a net result of "ehh whatever" either way.

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¹The interplay of boobs and sexualization is of course it's own complicated topic, honestly. In an ideal (but hopefully attainable) world, the nipple would be free and breast size would be culturally sexually neutral - as with really any aspect of appearance. Particular people might have particular preferences, but it would be a purely personal thing without an established cultural yardstick to literally measure oneself up against. Unfortunately, we don't currently live in an ideal world, and that yardstick does exist (which is why all the Gamer Bros were so Big Mad over the Smash Samus breast reduction in the first place) and has to be contended with, so it's kind of a catch-22.

I do think breast size shouldn't be tied to sexualization, and unfortunately reducing one in the name of reducing the other, does just kinda serve to reinforce the base assumption of their tie being inherent. At the same time, while a real-life person having giant G-cups might have my sympathy for the back pain involved and little more thought than that, a character designed that same way would definitely have me questioning the creative intent behind that. So I do think there is kind of at least an upper limit to boob size in character design, past which it's hard not to assume sexualization is at play; even if I personally try to set that upper limit a bit higher than some people, and put more stock in other contextual aspects of the character design and source media before jumping to conclusions.

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There's also a larger discussion to be had around like, what sexualization even is, types of sexualization and appeal, whether or not it's even a bad thing and when and why it is or isn't, and the cultural yardstick stuff surrounding that, but I don't quite have the brainpower or desire to get into all that right now. The distinction between why 2B from Nier Automata being sexualized can be criticized but is also mostly fine, whereas the gal from Stellar Blade being sexualized in a similar way is more dubious; and how the culture they both exist in impacts things, compared to if they existed in a vaccuum or a completely different zeitgeist. I guess a summary of my feeling there is that once again it really just depends from case to case; and the context of creative intent, execution, impact, and just how much narrative sense it makes, are key.

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²Which brings me back to Samus. I'm running out of steam so I'm just gonna do a quick lightning round.

- Do I have a problem with the broad idea of her being sexualized? Not necessarily. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense for her role as a bounty hunter, but it can serve well as part of her personal characterization, and metanarratively as part of the subversion of gender roles and stuff that she can be read as. (Though that in of itself gets into some thorny bigger topics around gender I also don't have the energy for rn.)

- Do I take issue with the specific way most of her canonical appearances do it? Yes, and I've talked at length in other posts about how I think they should do things instead.

- Does her presentation in Smash matter nearly as much as her presentation in the actual Metroid games? Ehh, mostly not, but it would be nice if she was represented better there.

- Do I think her breast size matters all that much? Generally not, barring of course the aformentioned upper limit of reasonability; the problem is more in other aspects of the design. Again, I didn't have a problem with the original boob size or the reduction, so much as Zero Suit Samus's overall design in the first place.

- How should they actually fix those in Smash, then? IMO there are two different approaches there. The simpler way would be to redesign Zero Suit Samus from the ground up to be less of a latex-clad barbie doll. Dread's buffer ZSS model is a pretty good show of how to accomplish that without drastically altering the design; though I also think the Zero Suit itself is in need of a moderate rework, to feel more like the astronaut's undersuit and conduit with the Powersuit that it's excused as in the lore.

The other option would be to address the whole weird thing of Zero Suit Samus for some reason being counted as a completely separate playable character from (Powersuit) Samus, and coalesce them together back into one thing. (Possibly with the option to switch modes at will, or being forced into Zero Suit mode on her last life, or something like that.) This would definitely more significantly impact her place in Smash and would probably cause an uproar that would make the boob controversy look like nothing, but it would be worth it for the greater character accuracy IMO. Honestly of the two options... Well, I'd just prefer they do both, but I think if I had to pick, I'd want the full redesign more.