What a spectacular way to ruin an otherwise cool costume design and the introduction of Tessa Thompson, a woman of color, in a role of Norse-inspired character.
Sorry for the holdup with addressing most frequent/topical requests! We’re receiving lots of interesting messages/submissions/@-notifications, often regarding the same matters. With amount of posts our private schedules can provide at the moment (1 a day) we don’t want to rush into queuing articles with little to no thought and research put into them. Hopefully we’re manage to address most in-demand topics soon.
I don’t know if you´re familiar with Japanese video games but it’s very rare to find a chubby character in a game, so today I want to talk about Shikiri Hasebe ( 長谷部しきり )
She is a character from しんけん!! (Shinken!!). Shinken!! is an online “Line Defense” web browser game developed by studio PROSPECT / PICTOGRAPH and published on DMM.com.
She is adorable!
She was featured in La Farfa magazine
Most female characters in videogames are usually slim and sexy, it’s refreshing to find a chubby character that is cute!!
Usually, female characters are ‘rescued‘… not the other way around haha.
She’s so adorable and badass! Such a simple, yet inspired design.
Wonder why creators who are vocal about “just really liking girls” only ever make games about the same type of skinny “sexy” girl, when so much different body types, like short and chubby, get ignored.
Shikiri Hasebe stands for all the potential that is wasted when female characters aren’t allowed to represent all shapes and sizes in which real women come.
~Ozzie
Posted on
(Half-mark on the thong because it appears she has briefs with little windows to simulate the thong look. Just think, someone had to model that… and the mini underboob windows too.)
We’ve had a few people respond to the Nier Automata post with asks and submissions about the foul mouthed, incredibly violent sidekick from the original Nier game: Kaine. (Trivia: Kaine is one of the very few canon intersex characters in video games, in one version of the game, which adds all kinds of baggage to this outfit and her depiction in general)
For those interested, this is the hero, Nier… both versions of him (It’s complicated and Kaine is dressed the same in both versions):
For those interested in how this went from being pulp fantasy to a cyberpunk war of androids in couture and VR goggles against alien robots… you can probably guess there is no simple explanation to anything.
Suffice to say though, Yoko Taro’s confession that he just likes putting sexy girls in his games was entirely unsurprising.
So there have been a range of reactions to this, ranging from people celebrating that there is finally an auteur who can be honest about their decisions (rather than assuring us of the validity of breathing through one’s skin) to groans about how unsurprising given Taro’s last game (full size):
But really, this misses the larger conversation: In a medium where the people who are investing millions are understandably concerned about what they’re getting, what kind of decisions get approved and what kind get blocked?
Basically there are various creative decisions which will be green-lit without question (literally any excuse is good enough), but others which are dismissed or allowed a brief moment then cut down.
For such a short sentence, it also carries a lot of unfortunate subtext.
Like the implication that sexualizing female characters is okay, as long as you admit to liking girls/women, as if creator’s sexuality made any difference in this context.
Which also suggests that attraction to girls naturally leads to perpetuating female objectification, even though numerous creative people who are into women somehow manage to make projects without it.
Or just the fact that justifying a very generically sexy female design with “liking girls” in general implies that she represents all girls/women, despite the fact that most women look nothing like her.
I’m so far behind but I still want to participate…
Exactly how it should be for all male RPG characters!
You can tell DarkAngel126 has the best armor just by how much more confidence and empowerment it projects. The special attention to displaying his nipple is such a nice touch.
She will fit into your favorite moba game very good character garanteed
Edit: Holy shit it’s a joke please stop tagging this as reference/helpful/wow so good please stop using this as reference please stop thinking this is your goal please stop holy crap holy cRAP
You need to seriously re-evaluate yourself if you believe the incredibly narrow and offensive things in these gifs oMgGG
Everything about it is so painfully accurate, but the “Pick ≤ 3” part is my favorite one for the purposes of this blog.
~Ozzie
I love how pasties are the only essential chestware and how the actual high heels are not “necessary” just so long as her shoes maintain the same shape as if there were heels there.
– wincenworks
edit: Added the author’s later commentary, just to make it clear that no-one’s supposed to take this “tutorial” seriously. ~Ozzie
Because the subject of “just let the artist do whatever they like/want!” comes up regularly and far too many people are confused about what is wrong about nearly every female character looking next-to-identical, even within one game with a big cast*, this week’s throwback is the guide to the “creative” process behind designing women in media AND their costumes (bikini armor or otherwise) by the invaluable @shattered-earth.
And just for the record, this gifset is still a joke. Please do not take it as legitimate art advice!
Since it is apparently a point of confusion to some – no, Overwatch doesn’t feature any black playable female characters. Not every dark skinned person of color is black.
