Without even reading this story (and I did) I see the real problem.
Maybe I am so far out of The Loop that I no longer realize there is a loop and am unprepared to defy gravity going around it, but why is it expected that a Zelda game should provide a female hero? Apart from Wand of Gamelon, one never has up to this point. Many series do provide them, but it is not a reasonable expectation that everybody now do that. This is not like restaurants having clean restrooms; it is a made up waste of time. A female chief executive or president might be revolutionary, and take steps that a man never would, but a video game character still obeys the whims of the developers, who are still mostly men.

We can make the industry more inviting for women developers, I suppose, but I do not believe we are entitled to play video games with protagonists that remind us of ourselves, and I do not believe that would even be an ideal turnout in many cases.

I suppose the difference is that this is supposedly a customizable character beyond just the red link, blue link and original recipe link in the picture, but considering the childlike figures and Diana Prince circa 1968 outfits, I would still say testosterone isn’t what’s winning the war here. if you had told me those were female links, I could not have challenged it. You can claim the Link in the first game is female, since the art is vaguer and nobody in the game indirectly refers to the hero. You could claim Megaman was female were it not for the second half of his name. Obviously if Capcom were to designate a female Megaman it would have long skinny legs, bambi facial features and hair flowing out of the helmet even though as a robot it is neither male nor female

exactly.
And I would say that misses the point, if there is one, which there might not be. I think hyrule’s hero could very easily be designated female, but it wasn’t, and oh well.

Nintendo’s original female hero, Samus, was stripped of her armor and sent out into space dressed like an aerobics instructor/mermaid (depending on the in-game time taken) the second the “this is a woman” reveal was made, because we really cannot trust male game developers to develop a female hero that is not a tightly-bound sex object. I am not saying “give up on female heroes,” just to treat the ones we have better and not take an affirmative action approach to producing new ones. I am sure our noble fan-artists can “fix” any that they find inadequately-insufficiently-covered afterward.
I have never heard anybody say “I like the Metroid series and do not like the Zelda series at all because I identify with female heroes better.” Anyone who did would be an absurd person. That nobody knew Samus was female at first shows that on a fundamental level, this is irrelevant to the game portion of the game. But maybe “game as game” is going out of style.

This reminds me of the situation a year or more years ago around Game-I’ve-Never-Heard-of-That-People-Assume-I’ve-Heard-of-#739 where presumably prospective players were disgruntled that the game did not permit homogayxual relationships. It came at me in crumbumblr, which studies have shown nothing that I respond to positively will come at me in.

And if you got through that, it was probably the first time anybody read it. You get popular on tumblr either by being widely liked or widely hated. I am too angry to be liked but not angry enough on the right topics to be hated. I know of somebody who gets regularly abused for having an uncommon sexual preference, but he also responds passively to the abuse as he posts the evidence. You get support online by looking weak and exhibiting your weakness. The dominant culture thinks this is enough; criticizing a consciously weak person for not taking any step in the direction of self-defense is “victim-blaming” and worse than actual abuse.

Then a long interlude here about Shia LaBoeuf that got too complicated, but it ended with pudding.

I used to let scumbags push me around on [every] forum [I used between 2002 and 2007], enduring mobs of people I hated to follow one or two that I liked that wouldn’t even tell their friends to cut it out, and I hate myself for it. “Oh you’re gay because ha ha you’re gay fag (smiley face.)” They would say this when I had usernames like “cupcake” and used a butterfly for my avatar, thinking “gay” is a good insult.

Now I stand up for myself and explain my points in detail, and “detail” is not a fun reaction for anyone to read, so they give up. My personal ambiguity leads to tiresome situations but is ultimately not interesting enough for anyone to try and victimize deliberately. Now this here seems like it wants to present me as a victim because it might seem like I imply someone else’s situation is easier, but I am GLAD I don’t respond passively to antagonism. I am glad people don’t think I will let them tear off my clothes and dump pudding on me. That remark no longer makes sense now that I have removed the interlude I mentioned earlier.

And my existence needs some work but I am glad I don’t need an imaginary human on a computer screen to be said to do sex a certain way to validate it. While you have a gay pride parade I will have an ambiguous repressed sexuality shame walk inside my house that I am afraid to leave in the daytime. My skin burns easily. However, I can go out, and when I do, I cover my vulnerable regions instead of cursing the sun.

Reflecting back on this matter a full summer month after the initial posting, I think that I would indeed curse the sun, but I would still protect myself first.

More to the point, I probably need to make real friends and be less aware of ones who play video games all day every day, or worse, just watch video of someone else playing poorly, and then chain-complain about aspects of them that really aren’t important. A multiplayer Zelda game would necessarily have most of the depth cut out of it, and a “life-simulator” isn’t a game at all so I welcome people to be dissatisfied with them for any reason they can get, and so give up playing them faster.

And then get back to drawing idiotic fanart for better games.

And a gay man drew that.

Clothes on the floor beside a toilet in a public restroom? Ohhh, that’s not good. But in Grand Central Terminal Station, with places to be, I cannot pass up a free rest-room toilet booth, even when one of the more crazy-looking/smelling people I have encountered comes out right before I go in. Hey, if the toilet’s exterior is dry and its interior is devoid of colored matter, I see no need to pass judgment on any of its recent clients. I should have, but I could not have. I also think the two police officers should have been able to tell, that both fully clothed and bathed I was not the homeless, garment swapping vagrant they were looking for, but they could not. Sometimes things just don’t come together properly. Such as the logic of sternly, noisily ordering me to open the door before I was finished with the toilet and then getting indignant that my lower fastenings were less than secure. But see, if I had been beaten by society to the point that I was stealing clothes to change into in a bathroom, it is unlikely I would be able to legibly protest the unfair illogic of that, so I understand. I also felt bad for the megadork janitor who reported the vagrant to the police; he was afterward chastised for doing so, and while not yet homeless, he was, the same, too much of an awkward fretful ubernerd to adequately protest that while I was not necessarily a homeless vagrant, one most definitely had occupied the same space moments earlier.

Elsewhere in The City:

You first. I had a pen and considered writing that here, but for all I knew the police had already been notified I was attempting to use another restroom, so I thought it better to be out as soon as I could be.

When the only person who will consider your argument is the stall wall in a toilet chamber of a combination Roy Rogers’-Nathan’s in Pennsylvania Plaza beneath the second of two enormous FOX NEWF banners, perhaps if you are not beyond reasoning you at least would appreciate some solitude. Really, I’m just impressed you were able to pluralize “similarity” without adding any apostrophes. I’m even willing to overlook your usage of { and } braces, just because you are aware of their existence.

Verily, this country could use some fixin'(s). I have occasionally wondered if this means the bar was invented by or at least had its invention attributed to somebody named fixin, or if there is more than one fixin and they are represented at the bar, and the ‘ is merely to draw attention to the lack of a G, suggesting that “fixing” is a noun of some sort. Because I need more real problems.

Gosh, I didn’t think I did, but you found such a distressed and clueless looking picture of Mr. President that now I have to really wonder about it! It does not ask WILL YOU REGRET VOTING AT SODA HEAD.COM?… The soda head is run by intelligent folks and they understand that such a question would invariably lead to sensible people not voting at all, with the resulting overabundance of “no” votes reflecting inaccurate data. If you believe that, you probably don’t realize I just made fun of you for writing on the wall in the bathroom.

Making your ads vertical doesn’t make me any less likely to put them on my page. Just so you know.
DOES OBAMA HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO LEAD AMERICA? Hmmm, that’s a good one, that. While certainly I am free to answer yes or no, somehow your inclusion of a darkened American flag, big capital letters and a hard-hatted head perched upon an ASS A BUDGE sign makes me suspect that Obama does not, in fact, have what “it” takes to lead america. Most damning of all is the intense picture of Obama himself pointing at my neck (or in this case ear) in regard to the importance of a soda head poll. I am glad you brought this to my attention. See, I was going to wait until he’d actually led America for a while before I formed an opinion on how he was doing and going to some other website I’ve already expressed a dislike for to vote in a poll that affects nothing stating as much. This is the President, not Howie Do It. If I left my house to choose him over the other guy, I’ll get no cathartic release from doubting his ability at this point. Or so I thought!

It still greatly amuses me that to some people, the biggest potential Obama worry prior to the election was that he might eat arugula in the White House. He’s just so elite. He’s so elite he’s elitist. He may even be l33t like the tile ghostwriter mentioned above. ”j0 dooDz plz email me fisXal poliCy r0mz.” I wish Obama had been in the 2000 election so that joke would only sort of make no sense and be totally forgotten by now.

Oh, well as long as you’re alright with it.

I don’t know what’s in “Life Water,” but whatever it is it’s also in Imoxicillan, akadoko “the pink stuff.” My first experience with “vitamin enhanced water beverages” was seeing discarded Vitamin Water bottles constantly fallen, defeated, in the parking abyss outside Gateway Community College. Vitamin Water: It’s Baby-Makin’ Fuel.

I wondered what would draw people to an imbibable with such an unsettling name.
“Juice” sounds nutritious and decent tasting, “soda” sounds a bit empty but not disgusting. “Vitamin Water” sounds like how an alcoholic in denial describes the contents of a liquor bottle to a small child.

Why do you drink that?

I need to. It keeps me alive.

Is it vitamin water?

Yeah, kid. Vitamin water.

“Kool” Aid at least admits it’s something not quite natural, possibly made from cigarettes, and Sunny Delight‘s name is adequately Orwellian that sensible people know to keep away. Combined with the appearance, Vitamin Water just makes the stuff seem like there’s something wrong with it, but for some reason only to me! Water is clear, vitamins are clear, why is this goop pink? Something horrible must have happened to make this name obviously no longer applicable, but in the absence of any other identifier you no longer know what it is. And then that white and black big bland font label, it looks like something somebody would drink on an episode of Roseanne. Except on that show it would be peanut butter and bacon water.

But anywaw, this is not vitamin water. This is Life Water, which is even vaguer, creepier and lyingier. This is not water that brings forth life. You cannot revive Benjamin Franklin with it. This is not magic potion. Do not drink this if your red heart-count is low. Sure, it claims to have “100%” Vitamin C if you only drink 8 ounces of the contents, but so does a bowl of Froot Loops. Would you drink a bottle of Froot Loops? If it tasted like medicine? It is worth noting that I wasn’t aware of the “serving” tomfoolery, despite my past scuffles with it, and probably gave myself haemochromatosis by taking in 250% vitamin C within a single day. Yesh, I drank it all. This was just tolerable enough for me to not cry when tasting it so I had to finish it. I know, at least, that humans have the power to process it. I wouldn’t want to dump it out a window and poison some poor stray armadillo.

I should have known just by the awfulness of the associated advertisement –featuring yet another tired, exhausted lamo parodoy to the zombie dance from Michael Jackson’s Thriller, with the sequence being additionally creepy in a way that I guess zombies just couldn’t manage– that the drink would be bad. However, I did not associate the ad with the fluid until I tasted it and realized it was awful and suddenly remembered that the Sobe company typically represents itself with a lizard and there recently was a horrible ad with lizards in it which may or may not have featured a bottled substance instead of car insurance irrelevant to the primary horribleness.

White backgrounds are bad news. Computer generated characters are bad news. People dancing for no reason are bad news. Advertisements are bad news. Advertisements which think they are cleverly spoofing something are worse news. When you put all that bad news together, I wish you hadn’t. I should not forget to mention, this wasn’t but some effortless robotchickeny meme-enabled jerkwork on the internet; this cost many dollars to make and millions more just to debut, I’m told, during some major sporting event or another earlier this year. This is how our masters talk to us now.

If you had asked me in 1993 if I thought allegations of molesty behavior against Michael Jackson would affect his ability to license out his music for awful unfunny over-budgeted ripoffs, I would have asked you what “molest” meant. I was ten years old, I didn’t need that in my life. If you had asked me the same question in 2003, I probably would have pointed out to you that it hadn’t much mattered in the decade leading up to then. You ask dumb questions.

Ehhh.

I once read a book (you’re surprised, I know), “Possible Side Effects,” wrote by some person who worked in advertising, which he didn’t seem to regret at all. It was sort of an annoying book because none of the stories had endings and very few were funny. You might wonder what my problem was with it then, and that is simply that I resent my competition.

Augusten Burroughs is good at setting up stories that either don’t happen or that he doesn’t tell. Part of the problem, my problem, may be that when I read a book I expect continuity, plot and relevance, not biographical website entries which don’t exist for any especial reason. Because I can get those for free. Also, the chapters did not refer to each other’s events, even though themes and “characters” recurred. That would be fine if the tales were almost-told in chronological order (rather than chronoridiculous order) or at least datemarked, but they aren’t. It’s frustrating. If the book was as funny as the back cover insisted it was I wouldn’t mind the pointlessness of it all. Oh, how I minded!

On an occasion which occurred prior to me reading that book, I witnessed a play about something or other. I found it mildly amusing, but I ended up resenting it because the entire time I heard some loof nearly choking to death behind me, constantly, presumably attempting to laugh. And then afterwards I heard the producing folk going on and on about how it was the greatest script they ever sawed and how they knew they had to stage it immediately. This, naturally, makes me suspicious of anyone who reads what I write. No! Stop! Why are you here? This is bad! If you like it you’re stupid! Leave me here to die alone!

But anywaw, at one point the writer of the book was hired by the Junior Mint company to write an advertisement which would bring consumers across what the businessites had labeled “the mint threshold.” Supposedly people would eat Junior Mints during films, in theaters, but rarely at any other time in any other place. As someone who has done that, I must say that the idea is still almost right. Every so frequently I’ll crave Junior Mints unexpectedly yet specifically, but I will get tired of them easily and mysteriously. This also has little to do with their tendency to merge together inside the box before I’m ready to deal with them. Yes, it’s possible I’ll want them when I buy them, but by the time of the first opportunity I have to eat them I may no longer want to. When the urge returns, I will have surely stepped on the box or left it in such a place where though I could not have stepped on it, its contents will have melted from heat/spite. I cannot put the box in a refrigerator because someone else without my astounding powers of candy self-restraint will eat the things immediately and probably not like them too much. And I don’t even mean another resident. Crimbims off the street just walk into my home and steal candy out of my refrigerator. Mine is a tragic, stupid existence.

This happens just about every time I try and eat Junior Mints. They are so mushy and decrepit, you might as well call them senior mints. Ha ha, ugh, dishonor to ancestors.

I shouldn’t have to perform surgery to get at my candy!…………?

I thought this all would be a lot more interesting. You deserve an apology. Is it not such a shame then, that I’m not going to grant you one? This is probably better than talking about legs again.

Somebody say “legs?”


NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Only Superman can save me now!

Eh, close enough. Thank youf, Superboy! Your quick thinking has saved the day! Yes, that will do. You go off and have a good time with your friends now and buy Mon-El a milkshake for me. I’ll clean up here. The legs cannot hurt anyone anymore.

OH SNAW! THE CRUEL WICKED LARVAE OF THE LEGS SEEK REVENGE ON BEHALF OF THEIR SLAIN QUEEN, WHILE SUPERBOY AND THE OTHER LEGION MEMEBERS HAVE A SWINGIN’ OLD TIME DOWN AT THE SOCK HOP! IS THIS THE END FOR OUR HERO, THAT BEING ME?

No! Apparently I’m some foolish yella animal! This will not do! My only chance is to wear the leggings into submission! If someone is reading this it will mean that I have failed.

I don’t see why parents don’t just grind up some Centrum Silver over a week-old cake to feed their incorrigible seedlings. That’s what this is; stale dessert with slaughterbreed livestock growth hormones injected in it. At least there’s a chance of finding an actual organic ingredient in a cake. I know regular cereal is kind of bland; I mean, it’s no chocolate crunchy tube for milk-sippin’ fun, but on the plus side it’s not totally disgusting. When’s the last time “FREE CLOCK” got a kid to buy anything? Oooh, but it’s a pirate clock!

Could you have the elephant turn just a couple more degrees to the right, please? Just with the name and all, you know. This doesn’t make me think of coffee beans, this makes me hope the elephant hasn’t been eating beans.
. . . . . . As long as this is going to be one of those entries,

I know you’re a melt risk, frosty, but without any self generated body-heat a pair of pants won’t kill you. You’re a snowman, after all, and men wear pants. Or trousers, I suppose, that being what someone who wears a top hat would say.

Jerry’s a notorious nudist, and not even coming at me down a hill, and couldn’t get away with that sort of thing. Although you could reasonably suggest Jerry is merely taking a fashion cue from his frequent accomplice, grey diaper mouse, considering that Jerry is making no effort to escape from Tom and seems quite gleeful at the thought of things to come, the plot is likely more sinister. Might there be brown gold in Tom’s future? And I’ve gone too far. Yet the going goes on.

This stupid gargoyle with strap-on wings can vomit fire and still wasn’t mighty enough to fight off the forces of front-cover coccyxality concealment while Nintendo of America was on the case.

Not that this solves… alright, you know, you’re really not helping, Mr. Arremer. If it was up to me you’d be wearing a barrel. Gwah, I can’t believe the game with the glistening, snarling, squatting naked body-builder unaffiliated with the WWF on the box wasn’t a big seller.

But as I was saying, sometimes a John Ashcroft job isn’t enough. It is the subject’s behaviour which must be modified. Either that or we get Garry Shandling a narrower chair.

And this! I find this video highly alarming. For the sake of simple decorum my animated gif takes an off-angle (a more developed decorum would dictate that I not use animated gifs at all), but I think you can see what’s going on. The man is a living geometry problem.

I don’t even want “G. Love” in a state near me.

…I think I need another week.