Samus Aran's Eyes Don't Flash in Shock Like That (You Impudent Nimnuls)
The newly released final trailer for Metroid Dread, aka Metroid 5, the continuation and supposedly the conclusion of the "main" Metroid storyline, which follows 19 years after the release of Metroid Fusion, aka Metroid 4, features a YouTube video thumbnail closeup of Samus' face, seen through the visor in her helmet. Her eyes are flashing wide. This image got me all TRIGGER'D, so I figured I'd talk about it here.
Join me on this journey into the world of Joshalonian Metroid Headcanon...
Samus' Eyes Don't Flash Like That
With the helmet hiding the rest of her face, all we see in this thumbnail are Samus' eyes. The eyebrows are drawn wrong, so they don't give us any context as to what emotion she is emoting. But it's probably deep surprise or shock; the only realistic alternative I can think of is anger, and in the actual trailer video, a similar close-up is definitely meant to convey Samus' shock.
This is not a valid reading of the character. She wouldn't do that. They're playing her in a "womanly" manner. Not to say that male characters don't also flash their eyes sometimes too, especially in Japanese animation (Metroid Dread was jointly developed by a Spanish company and by Nintendo itself in one of its Japan divisions; I am comfortable calling the animation "Japanese" here); but, for the character archetype that Samus is classified into, that being the grizzled loner mercenary/rogue, this is a very uncommon reaction for male characters. They will sometimes give quizzical looks of surprise, but rarely "shocked" looks of surprise. It happens, but not often. Female characters, though...
Well, that's my problem. In a nutshell, Samus Aran in my headcanon is not a ciswoman. She's not a "woman," period. She is genderless, defined most fundamentally by her role as a bounty hunter. As established in the early games, she is stern, inscrutable, ruthless, and down-to-business. As I said recently, she's a piece of shit, like bounty hunters almost inevitably are. Her one moment of decency was to decide not to exterminate the Metroid species in its entirety on SR388, by choosing to spare the Metroid Hatchling.
However, over the years, this portrayal has gradually drifted into the realm of "Samus the Woman." The curves in her suit became more feminized. She got the skintight, butt-enveloping Zero Suit, which is pure fanservice (though not entirely unrealistic for its stated functions, so I'll give it partial dispensation). She got the consistent softening of her visible emotings. And, particularly (but not exclusively) in Other M, we got a gross stereotype of a weak-willed, submissive woman, complete with Space High Heels just so there wasn't any doubt that THIS IS A WOMAN.
And I just don't buy it. That's not Samus Aran. Samus Aran would not flash her eyes wide in shock.
Headcanonical Samus
In my headcanon, Samus has about four "foundational" dimensions. I have fanarts of all of these on Joshiba, but it's a lot of work to transfer and upload images to my journal, so forgive me if I post this entry first, and if we're lucky I'll follow up later with some visual examples. In the meantime I have provided external links to some of these same images.
Aspect 1: Ageless & Inscrutable
Example 1, Example 2, Example 3
To me, Samus Aran is first and foremost a creature defined by her profession. She is not otherwise demographically quantifiable. She is ageless and inscrutable. Neither young nor old, nor friend nor foe. She inherently defies your attempts to label her. She has a female body, but with no gendering and no sexualization. She isn't a blond bombshell, or necessarily a "blonde" at all frankly.
This is the Samus Aran I love most. She's a pure cipher, a manifestation of something sublime and powerful that dwells within some of us and not others. Those of us who possess this quality positively ring in the presence of the original, great Samus Aran. She is the individual in an indifferent and adverse worse. She is the beacon of light through which all human purposefulness flows. She is imperturbable, as surely as the Sun is imperturbable. Every attempt to portray her as a "woman" runs afoul of this, and thereby fails to convey authenticity. Feminine Samus is the Samus Aran that the movie studios show us. Not the real Samus.
Aspect 2: Illimited by Her Profession, aka "Off the Clock"
Example 1
If Aspect 1 is solely about Samus' nature as a bounty hunter, then Aspect 2 is about Samus the Person, or "Samus Off the Clock." It is the dimension of characterization which shows us that there is more to her life than her chronicle of adventures as a professional bounty hunter. This aspect of her being shows that Samus has a rich inner life, as we would expect of a real person. She isn't always blasting space pirates.
This element of realism is an essential component of establishing Samus as a character and not merely an idea, which in turn is an essential component of Samus' resonance with her admirers. Those of us who see in Samus a paragon of something fine within the human condition inevitably imagine, in our own ways, her life outside the job. For some people these imaginings are very dark, or dramatic, but I for one am inescapably drawn to the positive, low-key, almost domestic depiction of Samus as shown above by Zac Gorman, puttering about in the kitchen of her domed apartment, sitting in bed reading a book and petting her cat, folding laundry, and only occasionally shooting missiles into Ridley's insufferable maw.
Aspect 3: Derpy Bird Magic Samus
Example 1, Example 2
The first two aspects of Samus are by far the more important, and the more generalizable. These last two are more specific to me, but do have some generalization potential in the abstract.
First is Samus' "derpy" side. It's unrealistic for anyone to never laugh or cry, to always be pure grit and nothing else. I lied earlier: Samus' eyes may indeed flash, as shown above in the Squawking Samus depicted by Katie Tiedrich. But the key distinction is that those eyes don't flash on the job. Only here, in the world of Samus' "softer side," may well they flash, and only in a tongue-in-cheek manner on the meta level, the reaction of a real person having a sense of humor that accommodates vainglorious reactions, as seen through the lens of the audience.
In a nutshell, this is the "cute" dimension of Samus Aran. Cuteness is an under-explored and oversimplified tonal space in the modern consciousness, often stereotyped under either the label of sexualization or the label of childishness. But I have much to say on the matter of cuteness, and perhaps I will in a future entry. For the moment, I will share this profound nugget of wisdom that I think I have shared before: The best "serious" works lend themselves to the best parodies. Samus Aran's "cuteness" works as well as it does precisely because she is so serious, so down-to-business, so often surrounded by adversity and desolation. Much like how the flabby and bombastic Empire on Ice Silence Terlais positively springs to life in the realm of Empire on Ice, so too is Samus' cute or derpy reality filled to bursting on the other side of the boundary of her hard professional life.
There is a little bit of canonical precedent for this, too: namely, that Samus turns into a ball, the Morph Ball. What began as a creative workaround for NES hardware limitations instantly became an endearing and intrinsically derpy character dimension. She also has a Spider Ball, where she can adorably glide along walls and ceilings, and a Spring Ball, which, come on, is the most flagrantly adorable concept you're going to encounter in your waking day, today. Speaking of her Morph Ball, the other example art above, by Pseude, builds on the cuteness and derpiness of this trope in the most loving way.
As I said, these interpretations of Samus' "derpy" side are more personal to me than the first two aspects which I discussed, but there is something generalizable here: Samus Aran is not made of stone, and lends herself well to the realm of the humorous by way of the tonal space of her cuteness. The reason this is important is exactly the same reason that Aspect 2 is important: It takes Samus beyond the strict definition imposed by her profession as a bounty hunter, and makes a full-fleshed character out of her. Without this derpy side, she would still be more "idea" than "individual."
But with these two ancillary aspects in place, her "off the clock" life and her "cute" side, now we have a real character.
Aspect 4: Fat Samus
Example 1 (Safe for Work)
I mentioned Samus' "softer side" and her being a "full-fleshed charater." Well, puns ahoy!, because we can also take these things more literally. In so doing, we arrive at Fat Samus!
I'll begin here with the generalization. It's okay to sexualize Samus. This is why most people gender her so strongly in the first place: Most people are cishet men or cis women (straight or gay), and for most of these people "feminine Samus" is a sexual ideal. To the extent that this is why we get so much fanart of Samus' ass falling out of her clothes or her breasts taking up half the illustration or her thigh gap wide enough to pilot her gunship through, I get it, and I don't explicitly resent it, nor do I think it's objectively wrong. I don't mind the "Bikini Samus" or "Glamor Samus" showing up at the end of the early games. I don't mind the Crystal Flash Samus from Super Metroid, since I think it's artistic, though I do consider the Death Samus animation in that game to be right on the line of what is acceptable, because it seems gratuitous rather than artistic. Vulgar, even, depicting her naked body as she dies.
Like I said, it's okay to be sexually attracted, and it's okay to incorporate this into one's headcanon. Indeed, I'll get to my own version of that momentarily. But I really do want to be clear about this: The sexualization of Samus is not inherently a problem, nor is the gendering of Samus when done in the context of sexualizing her. These things are okay, and require no apologies and no feelings of guilt!
What's not okay is superimposing this sexualization on top of the other three aspects, particularly Aspect 1. Samus Aran does not wear high heels on the job. She just doesn't. She is not a walking pair of tits and ass spilling out of her suit. She is not a weak-willed, vulnerable, submissive woman waiting for a "man" to give her orders to control her own Power Suit. And her eyes don't flash wide in shock. Maybe in bed, sure, if that's what you're into, she can be and do all of these things. But not on the job. That is the line you cannot cross.
So! That said: Fat Samus! With me, it's pretty obvious here that the sexualization of Samus occurs in its own parallel spinoff universe, because the "real" Samus obviously isn't fat. Fat Samus is a fantasy within a fantasy, as most matters of sexuality ultimately are, and as I think any sexualization of Samus has to be. A good metaphor for this is the notion of being "in the bedroom," and while this doesn't preclude sexualizing Samus outside of the physical environment of the bedroom, the point is that one must take care not to step on the toes of her other aspects as a character, especially Aspect 1.
I find Samus attractive. I think many if not most of her fans find her either physically attractive or sexually inspiring. (Or both!) This is a part of human nature for most people, and being attracted to people as a part of your admiration for someone is hardly uncommon. And, since it's me we're talking about, that means...Fat Samus!
There's actually quite a bit of "Fat Samus" fanart out there, but most of it is not well done, as most of it comes from people with limited artistic skills whose motives are quite limited to the realm of sexual gratification. But some of it is cool. The example I've shared above, which I couldn't find online so uploaded to Imgur, does a great job of depicting Samus' sexuality, and her sex appeal, while also staying true to her character. It depicts an "operator" Samus wearing casual clothes, tummy peeking out, as she holds a tiny Metroid (one presumes the Metroid Hatchling) and gives it a wry look. To me, this is pretty darn sexy, and it's how I choose to conceive of the character of Samus Aran as a sexual being. It's intrinsically more private than the other three aspects, and, like I said, it's something of a fantasy within the overarching fantasy of Samus Aran as "a real person." But there you have it, all the same.
You Will Eventually Be Betrayed By Other People's Characters
These four aspects of Samus Aran are my headcanon, but two of them have a strong objective basis, the third is strongly implied and logically reasonable to infer, and the fourth, within its own meta space, makes sense as well.
So let's come 'round full circle: Why do these contemporary depictions of Samus "flashing her eyes" and so forth bother me so much? Well, they don't actually bother me that much (more on that in a moment). But they do inspire me to go on the record explaining why I rebel against them. The "why" is simple: Like I already said, it's because these traits and depictions are not true to the character. And how can I say that, given that they are automatically canonical depictions? Because of the death of the author, and the philosophical and artistic rights of any person to consider any work on its own terms and within that person's own context.
"My" Metroid is Metroid II and Super Metroid (aka, Metroid 2 and Metroid 3). Those were the Metroid games I played growing up. That's the world of Samus Aran that I know best, and it's the one that set my expectations.
I acknowledge that it is a double-edged sword for a fictional universe to continue over time rather than drawing to a close. You get more of this fictional world that you love, but, eventually, the things you love about it will be betrayed. Other creators developing new installments of fictional works will impose their own views, and, in conjunction with the Vested Interests of the Stakeholders via their intermediaries at the producer level, new canon will emerge, taking with it the fictional world in new directions. Rare is it for any fictional world to stay true to its original vision for very long, and, when it happens, it is usually only by the tightly-held reins of a single auteur at the center of things.
Any fictional world that goes on long enough in the real world will eventually betray your love of it. It's only a matter of time. As the saying goes, you either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain. And that's true in our role as fans, too.
If I had a Switch, you bet I'd buy Metroid Dread anyway! I will at the very minimum be watching a let's play of it, but I am at least considering the possibility of buying a Switch, maybe a used switch. I have a long tradition of buying video game consoles for only a single game (Ocarina of Time, Final Fantasy XIII), and I've always gotten my money's worth (especially since Life Is Strange (Season One) had a PS3 release). Maybe I'll do it again here. I haven't decided!
What I have decided is to make peace with the present-day divergence of canonical Samus Aran from my headcanonical version of her. I learned that lesson in the early 2000s with Star Trek, and got burned again with Lanfear in the early 2010s and Nahiri more recently, and, by this point in life, I am humbled enough, and mature enough, to recognize that creative fictions in other people's control is only going to align with my love and admiration for a finite season, when it aligns at all. It's not to say I don't still find it frustrating to see Samus gendered into this "womanly" paradigm that insults me and many others of a nonbinary identity and/or feministic ideology. But the frustration is merely topical; underneath, I am at peace with it.
I merely declare that my Samus will never be those things. That will be good enough.
Well, that and the cathartic revenge of "doing it right" inasmuch as Mereidi Basilisk in Galaxy Federal pays strong homage to Samus Aran.
>=]
Join me on this journey into the world of Joshalonian Metroid Headcanon...
Samus' Eyes Don't Flash Like That
With the helmet hiding the rest of her face, all we see in this thumbnail are Samus' eyes. The eyebrows are drawn wrong, so they don't give us any context as to what emotion she is emoting. But it's probably deep surprise or shock; the only realistic alternative I can think of is anger, and in the actual trailer video, a similar close-up is definitely meant to convey Samus' shock.
This is not a valid reading of the character. She wouldn't do that. They're playing her in a "womanly" manner. Not to say that male characters don't also flash their eyes sometimes too, especially in Japanese animation (Metroid Dread was jointly developed by a Spanish company and by Nintendo itself in one of its Japan divisions; I am comfortable calling the animation "Japanese" here); but, for the character archetype that Samus is classified into, that being the grizzled loner mercenary/rogue, this is a very uncommon reaction for male characters. They will sometimes give quizzical looks of surprise, but rarely "shocked" looks of surprise. It happens, but not often. Female characters, though...
Well, that's my problem. In a nutshell, Samus Aran in my headcanon is not a ciswoman. She's not a "woman," period. She is genderless, defined most fundamentally by her role as a bounty hunter. As established in the early games, she is stern, inscrutable, ruthless, and down-to-business. As I said recently, she's a piece of shit, like bounty hunters almost inevitably are. Her one moment of decency was to decide not to exterminate the Metroid species in its entirety on SR388, by choosing to spare the Metroid Hatchling.
However, over the years, this portrayal has gradually drifted into the realm of "Samus the Woman." The curves in her suit became more feminized. She got the skintight, butt-enveloping Zero Suit, which is pure fanservice (though not entirely unrealistic for its stated functions, so I'll give it partial dispensation). She got the consistent softening of her visible emotings. And, particularly (but not exclusively) in Other M, we got a gross stereotype of a weak-willed, submissive woman, complete with Space High Heels just so there wasn't any doubt that THIS IS A WOMAN.
And I just don't buy it. That's not Samus Aran. Samus Aran would not flash her eyes wide in shock.
Headcanonical Samus
In my headcanon, Samus has about four "foundational" dimensions. I have fanarts of all of these on Joshiba, but it's a lot of work to transfer and upload images to my journal, so forgive me if I post this entry first, and if we're lucky I'll follow up later with some visual examples. In the meantime I have provided external links to some of these same images.
Aspect 1: Ageless & Inscrutable
Example 1, Example 2, Example 3
To me, Samus Aran is first and foremost a creature defined by her profession. She is not otherwise demographically quantifiable. She is ageless and inscrutable. Neither young nor old, nor friend nor foe. She inherently defies your attempts to label her. She has a female body, but with no gendering and no sexualization. She isn't a blond bombshell, or necessarily a "blonde" at all frankly.
This is the Samus Aran I love most. She's a pure cipher, a manifestation of something sublime and powerful that dwells within some of us and not others. Those of us who possess this quality positively ring in the presence of the original, great Samus Aran. She is the individual in an indifferent and adverse worse. She is the beacon of light through which all human purposefulness flows. She is imperturbable, as surely as the Sun is imperturbable. Every attempt to portray her as a "woman" runs afoul of this, and thereby fails to convey authenticity. Feminine Samus is the Samus Aran that the movie studios show us. Not the real Samus.
Aspect 2: Illimited by Her Profession, aka "Off the Clock"
Example 1
If Aspect 1 is solely about Samus' nature as a bounty hunter, then Aspect 2 is about Samus the Person, or "Samus Off the Clock." It is the dimension of characterization which shows us that there is more to her life than her chronicle of adventures as a professional bounty hunter. This aspect of her being shows that Samus has a rich inner life, as we would expect of a real person. She isn't always blasting space pirates.
This element of realism is an essential component of establishing Samus as a character and not merely an idea, which in turn is an essential component of Samus' resonance with her admirers. Those of us who see in Samus a paragon of something fine within the human condition inevitably imagine, in our own ways, her life outside the job. For some people these imaginings are very dark, or dramatic, but I for one am inescapably drawn to the positive, low-key, almost domestic depiction of Samus as shown above by Zac Gorman, puttering about in the kitchen of her domed apartment, sitting in bed reading a book and petting her cat, folding laundry, and only occasionally shooting missiles into Ridley's insufferable maw.
Aspect 3: Derpy Bird Magic Samus
Example 1, Example 2
The first two aspects of Samus are by far the more important, and the more generalizable. These last two are more specific to me, but do have some generalization potential in the abstract.
First is Samus' "derpy" side. It's unrealistic for anyone to never laugh or cry, to always be pure grit and nothing else. I lied earlier: Samus' eyes may indeed flash, as shown above in the Squawking Samus depicted by Katie Tiedrich. But the key distinction is that those eyes don't flash on the job. Only here, in the world of Samus' "softer side," may well they flash, and only in a tongue-in-cheek manner on the meta level, the reaction of a real person having a sense of humor that accommodates vainglorious reactions, as seen through the lens of the audience.
In a nutshell, this is the "cute" dimension of Samus Aran. Cuteness is an under-explored and oversimplified tonal space in the modern consciousness, often stereotyped under either the label of sexualization or the label of childishness. But I have much to say on the matter of cuteness, and perhaps I will in a future entry. For the moment, I will share this profound nugget of wisdom that I think I have shared before: The best "serious" works lend themselves to the best parodies. Samus Aran's "cuteness" works as well as it does precisely because she is so serious, so down-to-business, so often surrounded by adversity and desolation. Much like how the flabby and bombastic Empire on Ice Silence Terlais positively springs to life in the realm of Empire on Ice, so too is Samus' cute or derpy reality filled to bursting on the other side of the boundary of her hard professional life.
There is a little bit of canonical precedent for this, too: namely, that Samus turns into a ball, the Morph Ball. What began as a creative workaround for NES hardware limitations instantly became an endearing and intrinsically derpy character dimension. She also has a Spider Ball, where she can adorably glide along walls and ceilings, and a Spring Ball, which, come on, is the most flagrantly adorable concept you're going to encounter in your waking day, today. Speaking of her Morph Ball, the other example art above, by Pseude, builds on the cuteness and derpiness of this trope in the most loving way.
As I said, these interpretations of Samus' "derpy" side are more personal to me than the first two aspects which I discussed, but there is something generalizable here: Samus Aran is not made of stone, and lends herself well to the realm of the humorous by way of the tonal space of her cuteness. The reason this is important is exactly the same reason that Aspect 2 is important: It takes Samus beyond the strict definition imposed by her profession as a bounty hunter, and makes a full-fleshed character out of her. Without this derpy side, she would still be more "idea" than "individual."
But with these two ancillary aspects in place, her "off the clock" life and her "cute" side, now we have a real character.
Aspect 4: Fat Samus
Example 1 (Safe for Work)
I mentioned Samus' "softer side" and her being a "full-fleshed charater." Well, puns ahoy!, because we can also take these things more literally. In so doing, we arrive at Fat Samus!
I'll begin here with the generalization. It's okay to sexualize Samus. This is why most people gender her so strongly in the first place: Most people are cishet men or cis women (straight or gay), and for most of these people "feminine Samus" is a sexual ideal. To the extent that this is why we get so much fanart of Samus' ass falling out of her clothes or her breasts taking up half the illustration or her thigh gap wide enough to pilot her gunship through, I get it, and I don't explicitly resent it, nor do I think it's objectively wrong. I don't mind the "Bikini Samus" or "Glamor Samus" showing up at the end of the early games. I don't mind the Crystal Flash Samus from Super Metroid, since I think it's artistic, though I do consider the Death Samus animation in that game to be right on the line of what is acceptable, because it seems gratuitous rather than artistic. Vulgar, even, depicting her naked body as she dies.
Like I said, it's okay to be sexually attracted, and it's okay to incorporate this into one's headcanon. Indeed, I'll get to my own version of that momentarily. But I really do want to be clear about this: The sexualization of Samus is not inherently a problem, nor is the gendering of Samus when done in the context of sexualizing her. These things are okay, and require no apologies and no feelings of guilt!
What's not okay is superimposing this sexualization on top of the other three aspects, particularly Aspect 1. Samus Aran does not wear high heels on the job. She just doesn't. She is not a walking pair of tits and ass spilling out of her suit. She is not a weak-willed, vulnerable, submissive woman waiting for a "man" to give her orders to control her own Power Suit. And her eyes don't flash wide in shock. Maybe in bed, sure, if that's what you're into, she can be and do all of these things. But not on the job. That is the line you cannot cross.
So! That said: Fat Samus! With me, it's pretty obvious here that the sexualization of Samus occurs in its own parallel spinoff universe, because the "real" Samus obviously isn't fat. Fat Samus is a fantasy within a fantasy, as most matters of sexuality ultimately are, and as I think any sexualization of Samus has to be. A good metaphor for this is the notion of being "in the bedroom," and while this doesn't preclude sexualizing Samus outside of the physical environment of the bedroom, the point is that one must take care not to step on the toes of her other aspects as a character, especially Aspect 1.
I find Samus attractive. I think many if not most of her fans find her either physically attractive or sexually inspiring. (Or both!) This is a part of human nature for most people, and being attracted to people as a part of your admiration for someone is hardly uncommon. And, since it's me we're talking about, that means...Fat Samus!
There's actually quite a bit of "Fat Samus" fanart out there, but most of it is not well done, as most of it comes from people with limited artistic skills whose motives are quite limited to the realm of sexual gratification. But some of it is cool. The example I've shared above, which I couldn't find online so uploaded to Imgur, does a great job of depicting Samus' sexuality, and her sex appeal, while also staying true to her character. It depicts an "operator" Samus wearing casual clothes, tummy peeking out, as she holds a tiny Metroid (one presumes the Metroid Hatchling) and gives it a wry look. To me, this is pretty darn sexy, and it's how I choose to conceive of the character of Samus Aran as a sexual being. It's intrinsically more private than the other three aspects, and, like I said, it's something of a fantasy within the overarching fantasy of Samus Aran as "a real person." But there you have it, all the same.
You Will Eventually Be Betrayed By Other People's Characters
These four aspects of Samus Aran are my headcanon, but two of them have a strong objective basis, the third is strongly implied and logically reasonable to infer, and the fourth, within its own meta space, makes sense as well.
So let's come 'round full circle: Why do these contemporary depictions of Samus "flashing her eyes" and so forth bother me so much? Well, they don't actually bother me that much (more on that in a moment). But they do inspire me to go on the record explaining why I rebel against them. The "why" is simple: Like I already said, it's because these traits and depictions are not true to the character. And how can I say that, given that they are automatically canonical depictions? Because of the death of the author, and the philosophical and artistic rights of any person to consider any work on its own terms and within that person's own context.
"My" Metroid is Metroid II and Super Metroid (aka, Metroid 2 and Metroid 3). Those were the Metroid games I played growing up. That's the world of Samus Aran that I know best, and it's the one that set my expectations.
I acknowledge that it is a double-edged sword for a fictional universe to continue over time rather than drawing to a close. You get more of this fictional world that you love, but, eventually, the things you love about it will be betrayed. Other creators developing new installments of fictional works will impose their own views, and, in conjunction with the Vested Interests of the Stakeholders via their intermediaries at the producer level, new canon will emerge, taking with it the fictional world in new directions. Rare is it for any fictional world to stay true to its original vision for very long, and, when it happens, it is usually only by the tightly-held reins of a single auteur at the center of things.
Any fictional world that goes on long enough in the real world will eventually betray your love of it. It's only a matter of time. As the saying goes, you either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain. And that's true in our role as fans, too.
If I had a Switch, you bet I'd buy Metroid Dread anyway! I will at the very minimum be watching a let's play of it, but I am at least considering the possibility of buying a Switch, maybe a used switch. I have a long tradition of buying video game consoles for only a single game (Ocarina of Time, Final Fantasy XIII), and I've always gotten my money's worth (especially since Life Is Strange (Season One) had a PS3 release). Maybe I'll do it again here. I haven't decided!
What I have decided is to make peace with the present-day divergence of canonical Samus Aran from my headcanonical version of her. I learned that lesson in the early 2000s with Star Trek, and got burned again with Lanfear in the early 2010s and Nahiri more recently, and, by this point in life, I am humbled enough, and mature enough, to recognize that creative fictions in other people's control is only going to align with my love and admiration for a finite season, when it aligns at all. It's not to say I don't still find it frustrating to see Samus gendered into this "womanly" paradigm that insults me and many others of a nonbinary identity and/or feministic ideology. But the frustration is merely topical; underneath, I am at peace with it.
I merely declare that my Samus will never be those things. That will be good enough.
Well, that and the cathartic revenge of "doing it right" inasmuch as Mereidi Basilisk in Galaxy Federal pays strong homage to Samus Aran.
>=]