nuclear waste aerobics

jm-henry said: “I don’t like how you’ve made Chie so weak and helpless" If that grinds your gears, imagine how game devs must feel. My point was that you’re contradicting yourself. Your attitude about “weak" females in gaming can be easily applied to your own work.

This is the last time I reply to your nonsense and only because I’m personally invested in my comic and won’t tolerate that kind of nonsense about it

I’m not contradicting myself.

The “weak" female character I have a beef with is the type who only exists to be a trophy for the male protagonist, to motivate his heroic quest and/or to be won as a reward (= usually the “damsel in distress"). It’s not cool because it reduces the woman into a passive item that has no independence, no agency, she can’t make choices, her life literally revolves around The Man and depends on his actions instead of her own. We’ve been force-feeding these gender roles to people for centuries - that men exist to do shit, and women exist to complement those men - and while it may have turned more subtle over the years (thanks to feminism), it won’t end until there’s a conscious effort to end it (with feminism). Thus we need female protagonists who fight their own battles. They’re still less common than the damsels, and that’s a problem.

That said, Chie does not match the description. She’s not a prop in Jon’s story because the story is about her. Granted she did get in trouble once and got saved by Jon, but it’s not romanticized. It’s not presented as a cute little bonding moment for the characters - it’s the opposite. Jon hates it and finds it unacceptable from Chie’s part that she failed to protect herself; she’s expected to grow a pair and not be a burden. Which she then strives to achieve.