#I knew I was going to enjoy being wretched and hateful over a fictional character’s fashions

[eighteenoheight]

Ranking Claire Redfield’s outfit repeats because I’m a huge bitch and also proving a point a little bit

Revelations 2

The blueprint. This is Claire grown. She’s got her dress shirt under a more sophisticated/business casual red leather jacket with blue skinny jeans and heeled boots. Perfect way to serve looks at a Terrasave welcome party before you get kidnapped and trapped on an island with infected. Started the trend and as the great Sidney Prescott once said; “you forgot the first rule of remakes, Jill (Valentine). Don’t fuck with the original”.

Resident Evil 2 Remake

The second incarnation of the template for a Claire Redfield outfit. A solid interpretation. A red leather jacket with the now essential layered tank top for a female protagonist. Blue skinny jeans again with brown biker boots. Pretty standard and practical for a girl with a motorbike. Safety first though she wears her helmet. Kept mostly fresh and appropriate for a 19 year old.

Infinite Darkness

Downhill from here. Now we’re just mashing the two previous looks together. We’ve got the red leather jacket, this time the dress shirt is collarless and ill-fitting. Blue skinny jeans yet again, and black boots. The combo is a little odd to me, like wearing flip flops with a tuxedo. Maybe I’m thrown off because the button-up looks to be business casual, if it were black instead of white it would change the look. But I’m not here to give fashion advice, I’m just policing repeat offenders. Maybe not the worst but most definitely not the best.

Death Island

This is the worst one probably because it’s the most recent version of this look and I’m tired at this point. I wouldn’t say it’s a terrible outfit on its own but this is the fourth time we’ve seen this be done and while the last one was a little bit of a fashion emergency, this one’s just a snooze fest. I see no soul in this. Here we yet again have a red leather jacket this time paired with a plain black undershirt. We’re not done overcooking this repetition because, you guessed right, she’s wearing blue skinny jeans and black boots. A revolutionary take on an outfit we saw almost 10 years ago I must say. I’ll give Claire some credit though, she’s got the red leather jacket industry on lock. She’s only wearing the same shit to keep the economy together. It is so bad, I want to give you a zero. But that’s not possible. So I give you a one.

There seems to be a distinct lack of creativity going on and it’s really sad. I could point out so many artists who have posted their own fan redesigns of Claire that are clearly recognisable as her that are so varied and brilliant. It’s possible to separate Claire from her red leather jackets, skinny jeans and boots. People will still know it’s her. It’s a beyond dead horse at this point and I don’t see it resurrecting (zombie joke) so I beg of whoever is in charge of the character designs over there, please get it together.

[escapedaudios]

I don't usually argue with anons making critiques, but I'm nipping this one in the bud real quick. After seeing a glimpse of the discourse around the other "Lexi" (Redacted's Alexis) I'm a little wary of people saying which morally bad characters you can't enjoy.

All of Lexi's actions were unambiguously bad up until episode six, where she has a brief moment of humanity and sincerity. Up until that point she cheats on Ash, lies to Thad, uses her status and image to manipulate a mob into turning against the protagonists, manipulates people, finds information about others just to attack their insecurities, insults the Listener publicly, and it's implied that she may have even stalked her ex. She's very VERY clearly depicted as a bad person by the narrative.

Understanding in good faith that the audience already knows she's a bad person, I think it's unfair to try and establish an arbitrary line where you "shouldn't" enjoy her. In episode five, she takes advantage of the blurred boundaries of the situation she's in to steal a second kiss from her ex when she was only supposed to kiss him once. She does this for her own selfish reasons, as well as to taunt and anger the Listener. This is unambiguously wrong, and the narrative doesn't gloss over it. Ash is immediately furious with her, and the Listener is seeing absolute red but has to contain her anger because of the situation she's in.

I suppose this could be categorized as a sexual assault, but I feel like putting it in that category and concluding that you should react the same way as you would to far worse acts is a little misrepresentative. An emotional association with rape is invoked by describing her actions as sexual assault. Expecting people to react the same way they would to what she did as they would to a far more sadistic and traumatic action because you placed both things in the same broad category doesn't sit right with me.

People can like Lexi. They don't like her in spite of being bad, they like her BECAUSE she's bad. She's fun to hate and she's awful in such an entertaining way that people can't help but be at least a little endeared to her. Most of the people who enjoy her character in the bounds of the fictional story she exists in would hate her if she were real and they knew her in real life. Understanding this is an important part of media literacy.

I'm not mad, but I mention this because I've seen this kind of rhetoric spin out of control before. I've seen fans of uncannily-similarly named Alexis of Redcated Audio get scolded and even harassed for enjoying her character. Why? Because Alexis(Redacted) turning her ex (I think Sam?) into a vampire against his well has been interpreted as a metaphor for sexual assault. This quickly spiraled out of control into people accusing people of being ok with rape for simply enjoying the character, making fan art of her etc. I don't believe the anon who made this confession was trying to incite harassment or make that kind of accusation toward anyone, but I'm going to put my foot all the way down before anyone tries spinning that kind of angle.

Lexi is, in fact, iconic. She's horrible and awful and lies and cheats and antagonizes the other characters constantly, but she's SO MUCH FUN in the context of the story. Let people have their fun! I personally love writing her and can't wait to bring out more of her. Her awfulness is a delight to construct. She is my wretched angel, my vile princess. I do in fact, love my terrible creation and appreciate people enjoying her. I'd hate for having harmless fandom fun with a villainess to become a touchy subject here, yeah?

Since someone confessed that Ash from Greasefire Life gives them the icky, I feel the confidence to confess this. I think Escaped and his fans glossed over the fact that his character Lexi literally sexually assaulted Ash? Forcing someone to kiss you, especially as intensely as she did during the audition is not okay and if the genders were reversed or the roles were reversed (Ash don't it to Lexi) people would definitely not have brushed it off like they did. I don't think Escaped or his fans are bad people, but they shouldn't be calling Lexi "iconic" all the time as they do. I liked her before that happened.

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