Hope that over 15k followers isn’t too soon to reuse our all-time favorite milestone reaction gif 😀
~Ozzie & – wincenworks
peaches submitted:
I decided to take a look at the rest of the armor in hyrule warriors. I love the game to pieces, so these may be a little bit biased. The first one is my favorite, obviously, Impa. Looking at her design critically, she has several flaws, but her armor is surprisingly practical (at least, for this game). Some definite improvements can be made on the torso (hello, single, literal boobplate, and bare skin galore), but it seems to match what many male fighters in her genre wear. My main problem with this, and the source of my anger, is a) heels? Why? and b) How come she can’t be bothered to wear a shirt underneath, when a very, very similar character in design and personality, Volga, is so heavily decked out?
His armor is nowhere near practical (especially with all of those sharp edges, ow), but at least he’s wearing some sort of clothing underneath and has actual protection for his vitals.
Either way, neither of them has anything on Zelda, and none of the aforementioned characters are even close to the monstrosity that is Cia’s armor.
Speaking of Cia, Lana, another title-exclusive character thus far, can score a pretty good number of x’s on the card herself.
Note- I added an extra “how does it attach”? Because you cannot convince me that that cape, with the huge, heavy metal piece on the shoulder, will sit politely during combat. Also, it’s not surprising that her costume is less revealing, as Cia disappointingly falls into a vat of cliches- “evil is sexy”, “villainesses want heroes”, etc.
This is a great illustration of the trend of double standards when it comes to unrealistic and impractical designs.
Men get ridiculous costume designs to make them look scary, or powerful, or super intelligent, etc.
Women get them to fit them onto some sliding scale from “sexy” to “ridiculously over the top sexy”.
– wincenworks
If you like Return Of The Jedi but hate the Ewoks, you understand feminist criticism
If you like Return Of The Jedi but hate the Ewoks, you understand feminist criticism
Not only does this article have a brilliant title, it also explains very well the false dychotomy of feminist media criticism.
Notable quotes:
We’ve fallen into an all-or-nothing rut with feminist criticism lately. Battle lines are immediately drawn between movies that are “feminist” (i.e. “good”) and “sexist” (i.e. “bad”). And that simplistic breakdown is hurting our ability to actually talk about this stuff.
Feminist criticism isn’t about ripping something to shreds or making others feel guilty for liking it. It’s simply about pointing out a specific creative weakness and then taking that a step further to explain the real-world social ramifications of that weakness, all in the hopes of dissuading future filmmakers from making the same mistake.
I dedicate this article to every single person who ever implied that by criticizing female character designs, we’re apparently disapproving of the whole product those characters are featured in*.
Cause, again:
~Ozzie
*Sometimes we do, but it takes some special levels of terribad to make us write off the whole product, not only its treatment of female characters.
If you like Return Of The Jedi but hate the Ewoks, you understand feminist criticism
If you like Return Of The Jedi but hate the Ewoks, you understand feminist criticism
Not only does this article have a brilliant title, it also explains very well the false dychotomy of feminist media criticism.
Notable quotes:
We’ve fallen into an all-or-nothing rut with feminist criticism lately. Battle lines are immediately drawn between movies that are “feminist” (i.e. “good”) and “sexist” (i.e. “bad”). And that simplistic breakdown is hurting our ability to actually talk about this stuff.
Feminist criticism isn’t about ripping something to shreds or making others feel guilty for liking it. It’s simply about pointing out a specific creative weakness and then taking that a step further to explain the real-world social ramifications of that weakness, all in the hopes of dissuading future filmmakers from making the same mistake.
I dedicate this article to every single person who ever implied that by criticizing female character designs, we’re apparently disapproving of the whole product those characters are featured in*.
Cause, again:
~Ozzie
*Sometimes we do, but it takes some special levels of terribad to make us write off the whole product, not only its treatment of female characters.
Brought to our attention by superheroineworld (thank you so much for linking it in a reblog!)
This video sums up pretty damn well why any sort of “makes sense in context” justification for absurd and creepy things in fiction (like, say, bikini armors) is invalid by default.
Quotes worth highlighting:
Writers routinely alter the rules to suit their interests and the needs of their story. So, in the world outside of the diegesis, in our world, only the implications and impact of that fiction actually matter.
It’s basically a circular argument to expect that the fictional rules created specifically for the narrative will shield the narrative from being criticized on the meta level.
Criticism of a creative work is, ultimately, criticism of the decisions that people made when they were putting it together.
Which is also why “you’re slut-shaming that character" is a fail at responding to criticism. Characters are fictional constructs with no agency and the “choices” they make can be blamed solely on their creators.
You guys might have noticed, but around half of the Female Armor Rhetoric Bingo is made from Thermian arguments. That’s how popular this circular logic is among skimpy armor defenders. And I’m glad we now have this video to explain why it doesn’t work.
~Ozzie
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)