Kiwis, I don't even know. I did some searching after digging up this gemstone of Autism from Alexander Kriss in the Gamergate thread, and that led me to this.... Masterpiece. From none other than Carolyn Petit, I give you....
The Legend of F. Scott.
Make peace with your creator, and click the spoiler tag.
I'm... Not 100% sure what the fuck I'm reading in this post, but I think the writer is trying to reverse the gender stereotype by attempting to show men the "difficulty" with video games women have faced. In the most hilarious, brain-dead, lopsided fashion.
CRUCIAL UPDATES THANKS TO @cat:
Her Twitter is @carolynmichelle
She's an Anti-GGer, because of course she is. Friends include Arthur Chu and Dan Olson.
She also has a Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/carolynpetit?ty=h
And a Youtube:
https://youtube.com/channel/UCl_WvbVuWGIahxgTF6cmBBQ
She's also on Google Plus
https://plus.google.com/116491452825363111440
And Here's a face to tie to this story:
....How the fuck do you make Brianna Wu and Chris look passable?!
She was one of the GTAV Is Misogynistic Hate Brigade:
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/game...iter-who-criticised-gtav-for-misogyny/0121238
And, of course, she currently is a writer for Vice:
http://www.vice.com/tag/Carolyn Petit
And finally, here's her Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/carolynmichelle?ref=br_rs
The Legend of F. Scott.
Make peace with your creator, and click the spoiler tag.
I’m old enough to remember getting an original gold cartridge for Nintendo’s The Legend of F. Scott back in 1986. Even before I inserted the game into my NES, that gold design exuded a sense of magic, indeed of legend. I felt that the cartridge was no ordinary cartridge, but a mystical portal to another world.
Not everyone knows the origin of the name of the titular prince. The game’s lead designer (a woman, of course, like most of the leadership at most of the corporations around the world) had heard of F. Scott Sayre, the husband of novelist and poet Zelda Sayre. Zelda, of course, is widely regarded as one of the great novelists and poets of the 20th century. F. Scott Sayre (née Fitzgerald) was actually a novelist in his own right, though his books, focusing as they did on the lives of men, lacked the weight of serious literature, and he is mostly known for being Zelda Sayre’s husband, and her muse. The game’s designer felt that the image of charisma, energy and instability that surrounds F. Scott Sayre in the public consciousness made his name a fitting choice for the prince of Hyrule in Nintendo’s new fantasy adventure game.
Of course, though the game’s title bears the prince’s name, everyone knows that the true hero of The Legend of F. Scott is Link, a young woman clad in green, with no known background or history, who sets out on a quest to recover the Triforce of Wisdom, rescue the prince, and restore peace and order to Hyrule. Link has become one of the most iconic heroes in all of video games.
This is what she looked like in that first game:
https://archive.md/kqYKU/3aa94e4e14d945b1c273ccac1be95e70c25069a4.jpg
Looking back now, you might say that there’s nothing gender-specific about this avatar, and you would be right. But the instruction manual referred to Link with female pronouns, and anyway, almost all the heroes in all the great fantasy legends (and in almost all video games) were female, so heroes were seen as female by default. Without a male gender signifier like a beard or a necktie, there was no reason to interpret Link as anything other than female. It made sense, too. Back in the 80s, it was still considered entirely normal for boys to project themselves onto girls in movies, TV shows, books, and games, to have heroes who were women; female was the “default” gender, and the experiences of girls and women were seen as universal. But girls understood, because the culture taught them to understand, that it was strange to project themselves onto male characters; boys and men were “other,” their experiences inherently gendered and not universal. Perhaps, very slowly, this is starting to change. I don’t know. I hope so.
Of course, a few months later, Nintendo would release Metroid, which at the end made a surprising reveal of what is today common knowledge: that game’s hero, Samus Aran, is, in fact, a man. At the time, it was quite a shock, though perhaps this was influenced by the hero of the 1979 film Alien also being a man.
https://archive.md/kqYKU/c495a8d8321b7bf14a628865b26d25341e36dc1d.png
Harry Dean Stanton as engineering technician Samuel Brett, lone survivor of the events aboard the Nostromo and hero of the film Alien
Like most games, those in the F. Scott series were mostly played by girls and women, but the series had a significant number of male fans as well. In recent years, some have argued that it might be wonderful if, at some point, Link were male. After all, Link is not a single character; rather, Link is many characters, appearing at various times throughout Hyrule’s history when a hero is needed. And in 2011, a well-respected game called Sword & Sworcery was released, which borrowed certain iconography directly from the F. Scott games (S&S’s Trigon being a clear reference to F. Scott’s Triforce) and demonstrated that men could fulfill the role of archetypal heroes of legend as surely as women do.
When we got our first glimpse of Link in the newest core F. Scott game, the yet-to-be-released The Legend of F. Scott (Wii U), the character appeared so ambiguous in gender that some fans hoped we might finally see a male incarnation of Link, the Hero of Time.
https://archive.md/kqYKU/4e2ddf16f29db31444d88c3b369d567c236e1fea.png
After all, though we still had a long, long way to go before even approaching any kind of gender parity in terms of representation in games, films, or really anywhere, some notable games, including Portal and its sequel, were popular with both women and men and featured a protagonist who was male and who players of all genders were expected to identify with.
However, Nintendo quickly clarified that no, this was not a male Link, and that Link was still exclusively female. In the wake of this, there were articles written and videos made by female and male players alike about how a male Link would actually make sense, and could be a powerful opportunity. Link has always been something of a blank slate character, one that players are meant to project themselves onto, and by making this archetypal hero male for once, the game could be a small but meaningful step toward demolishing the cultural perception of female as default; that men can project themselves onto female characters because female = universal, but that women needn’t feel inclined to empathize with and relate to men in the same way. Some gamers saw potential in the idea of a male Link, while others adopted a hostile attitude to the notion, insisting that Link was female and that was that.
Some months later, wanting to appeal to the male demographic, Nintendo announced that a new character, Linkle, would be introduced in an upcoming 3DS game, Hyrule Warriors Legends. Linkle was male, yes, but the name Linkle made it clear that this wasn’t really Link, the Hero of Time, who just happens to be male in this incarnation. Rather, the diminutive name made him sound more like Link’s kid brother. He looked like it, too: rather than being clad in Link’s tunic, Linkle wore boyish shorts and a decorative cap similar to those worn by many male children. Furthermore, Linkle was hardly an optional male version of Link that one could choose to play in a major F. Scott game, but rather a character being introduced in a C-tier spinoff of the series.
Understandably, some male fans were happy just to see Nintendo making any gestures toward a playable male Link. Some even thought Linkle was cute and liked the design. However, other men said,
Well, this is hardly what we meant or what we wanted when we said we would like a playable male Link. We meant just that; Link, the hero of time, who just happens to be male. In a major F. Scott game. You know, like this. This could be a male Link:
https://archive.md/kqYKU/4e2ddf16f29db31444d88c3b369d567c236e1fea.png
These men said,
After all, men can be heroes in legends, too. This is a pandering gesture, not real progress. By making it so clear that this male character is not Link, you are actually further reinforcing the idea of female-as-default, female-as-universal and male as gendered, the idea that it’s natural and normal for boys and men to project themselves onto female characters but that it’s strange for women to do that with male characters. You are further reinforcing the perception that female experiences are simply universal and human while male experiences are inherently gendered.
And many women on Twitter mocked these men. “You’re never satisfied,” they said. “You whine about wanting a playable male Link, and when you finally get that, you still complain! You’re such hypocrites!”
The message was clear:
Shut the fuck up and be happy with what little you get.
Not everyone knows the origin of the name of the titular prince. The game’s lead designer (a woman, of course, like most of the leadership at most of the corporations around the world) had heard of F. Scott Sayre, the husband of novelist and poet Zelda Sayre. Zelda, of course, is widely regarded as one of the great novelists and poets of the 20th century. F. Scott Sayre (née Fitzgerald) was actually a novelist in his own right, though his books, focusing as they did on the lives of men, lacked the weight of serious literature, and he is mostly known for being Zelda Sayre’s husband, and her muse. The game’s designer felt that the image of charisma, energy and instability that surrounds F. Scott Sayre in the public consciousness made his name a fitting choice for the prince of Hyrule in Nintendo’s new fantasy adventure game.
Of course, though the game’s title bears the prince’s name, everyone knows that the true hero of The Legend of F. Scott is Link, a young woman clad in green, with no known background or history, who sets out on a quest to recover the Triforce of Wisdom, rescue the prince, and restore peace and order to Hyrule. Link has become one of the most iconic heroes in all of video games.
This is what she looked like in that first game:
https://archive.md/kqYKU/3aa94e4e14d945b1c273ccac1be95e70c25069a4.jpg
Looking back now, you might say that there’s nothing gender-specific about this avatar, and you would be right. But the instruction manual referred to Link with female pronouns, and anyway, almost all the heroes in all the great fantasy legends (and in almost all video games) were female, so heroes were seen as female by default. Without a male gender signifier like a beard or a necktie, there was no reason to interpret Link as anything other than female. It made sense, too. Back in the 80s, it was still considered entirely normal for boys to project themselves onto girls in movies, TV shows, books, and games, to have heroes who were women; female was the “default” gender, and the experiences of girls and women were seen as universal. But girls understood, because the culture taught them to understand, that it was strange to project themselves onto male characters; boys and men were “other,” their experiences inherently gendered and not universal. Perhaps, very slowly, this is starting to change. I don’t know. I hope so.
Of course, a few months later, Nintendo would release Metroid, which at the end made a surprising reveal of what is today common knowledge: that game’s hero, Samus Aran, is, in fact, a man. At the time, it was quite a shock, though perhaps this was influenced by the hero of the 1979 film Alien also being a man.
https://archive.md/kqYKU/c495a8d8321b7bf14a628865b26d25341e36dc1d.png
Harry Dean Stanton as engineering technician Samuel Brett, lone survivor of the events aboard the Nostromo and hero of the film Alien
Like most games, those in the F. Scott series were mostly played by girls and women, but the series had a significant number of male fans as well. In recent years, some have argued that it might be wonderful if, at some point, Link were male. After all, Link is not a single character; rather, Link is many characters, appearing at various times throughout Hyrule’s history when a hero is needed. And in 2011, a well-respected game called Sword & Sworcery was released, which borrowed certain iconography directly from the F. Scott games (S&S’s Trigon being a clear reference to F. Scott’s Triforce) and demonstrated that men could fulfill the role of archetypal heroes of legend as surely as women do.
When we got our first glimpse of Link in the newest core F. Scott game, the yet-to-be-released The Legend of F. Scott (Wii U), the character appeared so ambiguous in gender that some fans hoped we might finally see a male incarnation of Link, the Hero of Time.
https://archive.md/kqYKU/4e2ddf16f29db31444d88c3b369d567c236e1fea.png
After all, though we still had a long, long way to go before even approaching any kind of gender parity in terms of representation in games, films, or really anywhere, some notable games, including Portal and its sequel, were popular with both women and men and featured a protagonist who was male and who players of all genders were expected to identify with.
However, Nintendo quickly clarified that no, this was not a male Link, and that Link was still exclusively female. In the wake of this, there were articles written and videos made by female and male players alike about how a male Link would actually make sense, and could be a powerful opportunity. Link has always been something of a blank slate character, one that players are meant to project themselves onto, and by making this archetypal hero male for once, the game could be a small but meaningful step toward demolishing the cultural perception of female as default; that men can project themselves onto female characters because female = universal, but that women needn’t feel inclined to empathize with and relate to men in the same way. Some gamers saw potential in the idea of a male Link, while others adopted a hostile attitude to the notion, insisting that Link was female and that was that.
Some months later, wanting to appeal to the male demographic, Nintendo announced that a new character, Linkle, would be introduced in an upcoming 3DS game, Hyrule Warriors Legends. Linkle was male, yes, but the name Linkle made it clear that this wasn’t really Link, the Hero of Time, who just happens to be male in this incarnation. Rather, the diminutive name made him sound more like Link’s kid brother. He looked like it, too: rather than being clad in Link’s tunic, Linkle wore boyish shorts and a decorative cap similar to those worn by many male children. Furthermore, Linkle was hardly an optional male version of Link that one could choose to play in a major F. Scott game, but rather a character being introduced in a C-tier spinoff of the series.
Understandably, some male fans were happy just to see Nintendo making any gestures toward a playable male Link. Some even thought Linkle was cute and liked the design. However, other men said,
Well, this is hardly what we meant or what we wanted when we said we would like a playable male Link. We meant just that; Link, the hero of time, who just happens to be male. In a major F. Scott game. You know, like this. This could be a male Link:
https://archive.md/kqYKU/4e2ddf16f29db31444d88c3b369d567c236e1fea.png
These men said,
After all, men can be heroes in legends, too. This is a pandering gesture, not real progress. By making it so clear that this male character is not Link, you are actually further reinforcing the idea of female-as-default, female-as-universal and male as gendered, the idea that it’s natural and normal for boys and men to project themselves onto female characters but that it’s strange for women to do that with male characters. You are further reinforcing the perception that female experiences are simply universal and human while male experiences are inherently gendered.
And many women on Twitter mocked these men. “You’re never satisfied,” they said. “You whine about wanting a playable male Link, and when you finally get that, you still complain! You’re such hypocrites!”
The message was clear:
Shut the fuck up and be happy with what little you get.
I'm... Not 100% sure what the fuck I'm reading in this post, but I think the writer is trying to reverse the gender stereotype by attempting to show men the "difficulty" with video games women have faced. In the most hilarious, brain-dead, lopsided fashion.
CRUCIAL UPDATES THANKS TO @cat:
Her Twitter is @carolynmichelle
She's an Anti-GGer, because of course she is. Friends include Arthur Chu and Dan Olson.
She also has a Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/carolynpetit?ty=h
And a Youtube:
https://youtube.com/channel/UCl_WvbVuWGIahxgTF6cmBBQ
She's also on Google Plus
https://plus.google.com/116491452825363111440
And Here's a face to tie to this story:
....How the fuck do you make Brianna Wu and Chris look passable?!
She was one of the GTAV Is Misogynistic Hate Brigade:
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/game...iter-who-criticised-gtav-for-misogyny/0121238
And, of course, she currently is a writer for Vice:
http://www.vice.com/tag/Carolyn Petit
And finally, here's her Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/carolynmichelle?ref=br_rs
Last edited:
![:\](/styles/custom/emotes/svg/chris-confused.svg "Confused :\")
