Ultimately, most things that are offensive are also lazy and unoriginal; because you can’t reach that point of view by looking at the world honestly…You reach that point of view by taking short cuts and by just sort of repeating what someone else told you.
Joseph Fink
Writer from Welcome To Night Vale discussing writing on Citizen Radio 865 (via podquotes)
From now on, this is our universal answer to the supposed “creativity” of skin-revealing armor.
~Ozzie
(via bikiniarmorbattledamage)
Bringing this back as a reminder point not just to the people who insist that something which has the exact same result as before is creative and new, but also for the people who keep insisting that “it was always like this, you can’t complain”.
– wincenworks
Ultimately, most things that are offensive are also lazy and unoriginal; because you can’t reach that point of view by looking at the world honestly…You reach that point of view by taking short cuts and by just sort of repeating what someone else told you.
Joseph Fink
Writer from Welcome To Night Vale discussing writing on Citizen Radio 865 (via podquotes)
From now on, this is our universal answer to the supposed “creativity” of skin-revealing armor.
~Ozzie
(via bikiniarmorbattledamage)
Bringing this back as a reminder point not just to the people who insist that something which has the exact same result as before is creative and new, but also for the people who keep insisting that “it was always like this, you can’t complain”.
– wincenworks
Backstory made to fit a sexualized design vs. a design made to fit a backstory requiring a character to wear minimal clothing.
Thank you, shattered-earth!
It is crucial to understand that a character design has to be informative of who the character is. And that sexualized designs do not inform us of it, just break the immersion.
Quiet’s a mercenary with a fictional condition that requires her to uncover as much skin as possible? Fine, then either make her totally nude or give her minimal clothing that is actually comfortable for her job.
Princess Zelda is royalty and a magic user, so her armor has to be fancy rather than simplistic and practical as Link’s? Sure, then make it gown-like and ornamental, just don’t leave out random patches of skin where she can be conveniently stabbed.
Charlotte is a gold-digging seductress who pretends to be innocent and demure? Then maybe instead of a boob-flaunting bikini give her a child-like costume that matches that persona?
~Ozzie
Daniel submitted:
Jim Sterling’s take on Quiet from Metal Gear
~*~
Amazingly~*~, we’re not the only two people in the world
who do not “feel ashamed for our words and deeds”
and don’t think Quiet’s design is justifiable in any possible way.
Not with “she HAS to uncover her skin, because narrative reasons”, not with “Hideo Kojima can do no wrong”, not with “MGS is a silly franchise, so ANYTHING absurd is acceptable”.
Here are some of my favorite things Jim says in the video:
I’d have been so much cooler with the situation if [Kojima] just said “The secret reason for her exposure is that I just wanna get a gigantic fucking hard-on with my big Kojima cock.”
Indeed. If you guys were wondering why BABD is so hung up on Quiet compared to many similarly bad designs, it’s because how straight-up disingenuous (and inconsistent) her creator is about the character’s conception.
What Kojima promised would be the “antithesis to the women characters appeared in the past fighting game who are excessively exposed” is instead the embodiment of characters in the past who are excessively exposed.
As we covered before, the “it’s criticism of harmful status quo” argument doesn’t apply when the status quo is simply reproduced. “Kojima is trolling everyone” also falls under this.
If you explain away everything with “It’s a Metal Gear game, it’s always silly and you’re stupid if you criticize it”, then you ultimately do Hideo Kojima himself a disservice as a writer.
Interestingly, another baffling excuse we’ve been hearing again and again since we started criticizing Quiet is “The Boss is awesome, therefore every MGS heroine is just as good”.
And while Jim agrees about Boss being great, he knows she’s just one character, and therefore should be upheld as a model for women in the franchise, not as a proof that female representation is okay already in MGS.
Also, predictably, this is the sort of replies the video gets:
Apparently not being able to go back in time and complain about two characters in military uniforms with absurdly deep cleavages, while he currently complains about another military-themed character clad literally only in a bikini and fishnets makes him a “hypocrite”.
~Ozzie
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)
Girl’s Costume Warehouse (X)
ITS BACK
and frog
And don’t forget the warehouse’s special warrior department, presenting:
Sexy war nun looking for redemption through death:
The classic, Sexy little girl transformed into a powerful beast:
~Ozzie
And frog:
– wincenworks
Tidy Up Tuesday #5
Just a few points this week.
For those who spend hours sending us inadvertently hilarious rants about all the things they think we don’t know – there’s a tag for you.
Some topics we have received inquires about and addressed previously:
- Realism
- When is bikini armor okay?
- What are some alternatives?
- Is it possible to score 100% on Female Armor Bingo?
- False equivalence
~Ozzie & – wincenworks