“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.
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)
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
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.
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.
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:
Or Gina Torres was dressed in suits:
And how Gina Torres was dressed in Firefly:
And learn how to mix it up into functional, aesthetically pleasing designs that convey power and story and character.
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.
