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Tidy Up Tuesday #99

It’s been a while since we did one of these.

For who saw the recent Madalorian post and were curious about what better plate armor for busy women might look like – we’ve covered in a previous post.

Generally speaking, accommodations in armor are made for everyone – its just when you standardize your army, you standardize the accommodations and create the illusion that its “normal”.

The reason most armor like this is painfully uncomfortable to busty women is because in our extremely misogynistic society, the “default” armor designed for fairly flat chested men. (Military generally issues female soldiers “small” sized male armor, for example).

(Yes that one fairly flat chested vest was the entire catalog for women on that site with four separate categories for men)

“form fitting” is pretty much never a suitable accommodation for overt armor (ie not concealable) armor because it creates problems with energy transference and denting. The reason the female Mandalorians gear looks more comfy is it’s the sort of thing you’d expect under the plate armor.

The reason they settled on that the outer layer instead of more innovative solutions is the same reason why the female Mandalorians are smaller and have narrow waists. because once a show takes off, Creepy Marketing Guy inevitably wants to get involved.

-wincenworks

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galacticjonah:

“And I shall return to my homeland, through fire and waves. I shall return to the mountain.“ 

 An OC painting, finally!! Dhin is a very meaningful character to me, so I’m excited that I had some free time to do her justice.

Dhin was blessed by the Elusive Sun, a deity that reaches out to those who go through hardship. She longs to return to the North and her home, to reunite with her family. On her way she’s joined by a merry bard who steals her heart (tho she wouldn’t tell him that…)

Fantastic blend of fantasy and practicality. I really like the purposeful design of the armor – it gives a feeling for how the character would move on the battlefield.

I also really like the fluting that looks both decorative, and like it’d enhance the ability of the plates to take a solid hit.

– wincenworks

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So, Rogue Company is the game with the most forgettable name… and the most forgettable aesthetic. At the time of this post their main video juxtaposes Ronin (above) with a male hero, Dima.

You may already have noticed some issues aside from the cringe inducing leaning into “Japanese girl with a katana” (who is also a street racing champion) archetype… in a game mostly about shooting people.

In fact, for a game about shooting people… a lot of these female characters seem determined to be shot in their sweet… sweet abs:

And/or remind you they have legs and tiddy:

So it does tend to give the impression that there is a particular design philosophy common to boys club studios…

But what can you expect from the studio that brought us Smite, Paladins and thought this was a good idea?

– wincenworks

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Okay, I think it’s been long enough we can assume people have stopped tag searching for this and thus can contribute to the discussion without getting extra hate brigades. Also the show has rightfully jettisoned Gina Carano for being a reactionary menace.

Obviously the issue of why boobplate is (with very few exceptions) always bad has been covered extensively on this blog already, so I’m not going to go into that other than this scene was massively disappointing because for the first season – Mandalorian really committed to the whole warrior cult thing and had an amazing female character in amazing armor.

(This is why we never just “relax” after a positive example, way too many properties do this kind of back sliding as soon as they are proved successful and execs invite a certain type of devil into the decision making process)

What I wanted to talk about specifically is a rhetoric tactic I noticed with shitbagsbrodudes actively looking to undermine the message by selectively signal boosting women who frequently get left out of these conversations.

I am talking specifically about women who have large breasts and:

  • Are sick of being treated as hypersexual because of their bodies
  • Are sick of having to pay extra or buy alternatives to clothes they want because companies don’t cater for their “desirable” shape
  • Are sick of, at events like LARPs, paintballs, kayaking etc, being given gear made for smaller chested women and having their complaints about it being uncomfortable or impractical for them go unheard, ignored or ridiculed

Because the reality is that as much as capitalism commodifies and exploits women with hefty busts, capitalist society never misses an opportunity to make women feel shitty for their bodies.

Now I said “selectively” above because I noticed that among the group I looked over there was a distinct trend of “liking” posts yelling at Anita, and not liking posts calling for people not to automatically sexualize big boobs – and a lot of liking more misogynistic posts that were very insulting to women in general.

All of this is to say that when we have these conversations, it is important to remember that the goal is to have representation and inclusion in all kinds of fantasies for all kinds of people – and assholes will never hesitate to try to play people against each other in order to try to keep a bigger their overly privileged position.

– wincenworks

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Art by Phill Berry

We’re also big fans of half-orc boys, but we have to agree they’re prettier when the smile more, and when they make sensible costume decisions like protecting their knees but relying upon their natural agility and the distraction factor for the purposes of defense.

Look at all that… personality on display.

– wincenworks

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So, incredibly, Blizzard has managed to come up for yet another outfit for Widowmaker that makes less sense than her original outfit – and it works as a pretty iconic example of a costume as the sort of complete nonsense when you get cis men trying to design sexy lady fashion without taking the time to study actual fashion and clothing design.

Bayonetta is beloved by many women, because while her outfits are ridiculous they also scream “fashion” and thus convey a sort of narrative that she looks like that because she wants to has the power to. It’s not unlike how Duke Nukem runs around in an ultra manly sleeveless top… except that well, it only got signed off on because it appealed to horny cishet men.

This outfit conveys that the artist likes naked (skinny, conventionally attractive) women and has tried to obfuscate it by adding random accessories and design quirks until it looks “unique” (in the same way a randomly generated hash code is unique).  How it fits into fashion or even just clothing is secondary to how many extra polygons it has.

Now I know what you’re thinking, “Kim, you just want her to wear a suit.” and that is not incorrect, but more importantly I want Blizzard to look at how real fashion designers make real woman look powerful.  More like, say, how Giorgio Armani dressed Gia Carangi:

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Or Gina Torres was dressed in suits:

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And how Gina Torres was dressed in Firefly:

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And learn how to mix it up into functional, aesthetically pleasing designs that convey power and story and character.

And we could avoid… so many problems. 

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(tweet here)

– wincenworks

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vicholas:

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Apparently a lot of people are having… polite conversations [/sarcasm] about the tiddy booplate puppet being 100% okay because not only is this parody, but the design was the idea of her player/voice actress, who’s a woman of color and size (and known for raunchy sense of humor). 

No-one’s here to judge how empowered (and/or hilarious) a performer feels about playing a character with giant breasts and bikini armor, but shielding an uninspired, sexist choice in a mainstream commercial project from criticism with female co-creator is insidious as fuck.

It’s just an iteration of the (Marginalized) Friend Argument. 

We all know the “Bayonetta can’t be problematic, cause a woman designed her” rhetoric. And this situation gives me flashbacks to Samus prancing around Smash Bros in booty shorts “thanks to the determination of her female designer”. 

Also, how does unironically regurgitating the decades-old “ladies in Dungeons and Dragons have their boobs spill out of battle lingerie” trope add anything to an officially licensed adult comedy series? 
Wouldn’t making her topless be a bolder, more subversive choice and more in line with her barbarian class? Oh right, sex sells, but nipples don’t. That’s why you can only name your character after them. 🤦 

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Hey, Wizards of the Coast, why did you play Shanna’s joke so straight? Who is this supposed to appeal to and for what reason? 

~Ozzie 

PS: Arie is a Dragonborn,

so it’s not just some huge titties in a metal bikini, it’s huge LIZARD titties in a metal bikini. 

h/t: @toastytostada​