(Warning; long post)
[1] hizamaruu said: “lol any person that complains about what a girl is wearing in an mmo are just butthurt insecure people because they dont look as good as the person they play >.> grow up so what if they look better than you or so what if youre attracted to it but stay in the closet about it cuz youre embarrased get over it and play your game or dont play it its that simple quit bitching publicly over something so little as armor on a fictional piece of polygons kthx”
Tica’s Reply:
This is so wrong on so many levels, my friend. Let’s break this down; you say that any person that complains about what women wear in mmos are “butthurt” and “insecure” because we don’t look “as good as them”, correct? First of, do you have any proof? Have anyone ever said “I don’t like this character because they look better than me”? And how is that logical, especially in mmos? Normally, when you customize your character, you create someone you want to be, find appealing and etcetera. When female characters are made, they are rarely ever made with a female audience in mind; they’re made to be eye-candy, a sex object, for heterosexual, horny men. We do not find that attractive. We find it offensive. We feel objectified because there was no other thought to her other than “make her sexy”; because psh, who needs an actual unique design, right? (answer: Everyone! Females are humans too! *gasp*) There’s literally nothing to be jealous over, because we DON’T want to be these characters. We feel uncomfortable being portrayed like that. And this is what saddens us. There is nothing we feel comfortable with; but of course, once we express our opinion about this, we come off as “bitching”, which is something you clearly need to think over.Also, when you tell us to get over it or don’t play it, you are basically saying that you like it and won’t listen to reason. I’m up for a conversation here, where we can discuss, not blatantly ignore what others have to say or think. You’re allowed to have an opinion, but do not try to stop anyone from telling theirs.[2] Anonymous said: “like heroes would wear bulletproof vests in action movies or something… same thing”
Tica’s Reply:
No, it is not the same thing. In the past it was seen as easier to draw their uniforms more form fitting. There’s also this thing about flexibility and the ability to hide the suit under the clothes; and this goes for both men and women. Besides, technically there are heroes with bulletproof vests, see the Batsuit, for example. Besides, no bulletproof vests =/= sexulization.
[3] Anonymous said: “A beautful woman does not need clothes or armors… haha”
Tica’s Reply:
Actually, they do, unless you’re willing to sacrifice logic, reason, story, setting and treating both genders as equal.
It probably would be a bit thought-provoking if I said “A beautiful man does not need clothes or armors”, wouldn’t it? Especially when you see men run around naked… all the time.
You can be beautiful, strong, sexy, and everything in between with clothes on and a proper armor. There are some amazing examples out there, and many of us are hoping to see more of that. Who doesn’t love to actually see a design that describes the character or setting? A design someone actually thought trough, instead of just slapping on a bikini. Character designers are limiting themselves by doing this; when there’s billion of different ways to create a character.
And yes, I am aware of that there are some people, female and male, that do enjoy having their character running around naked/half naked, maybe because they feel more powerful that way or they like the outfit as fetish-wear or sexual-roleplay, and that is alright. As long as it’s equal, and treated with care and respect.
[4] Mika said: “May I say this to you all,they said on mmo news that 80 or 85 % that play mmos game are mostly guys so you womans better not be taking us down about this CAUSE THEY ARE MORE OF US THEN YOU IN ALL MMO GAMES.”
Tica’s Reply:
Just, allow me to laugh at this for a moment.
Between Friends comic by Sandra Bell-Lundy (who I thank greatly for letting me publish the above excerpt)
View whole storyline here: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6
E submitted:
I’ve been amused by the “Hot Flash Woman” sub-plot in the Between Friends newspaper comic and thought you might get some interesting material from it. This is the simplest one to just post a link to (mod note: the second one here), with two characters debating sex-appeal vs. practicality.
Thanks for submitting! 🙂 As you said, this comic sheds some light on ever-so-handwaved ’sex-appeal vs. practicality‘ dilemma in female costume design.
And, at least in my opinion, comments how internalized “I want her to look sexy and empowered!” mindset is even by female content creators.
People just tend to focus on (relative/arbitrary) visual appeal without the second thought on how the costume would affect the character within the rules of their own world. And once it’s questioned, said rules are bent with weak excuses like ’distraction bonus’.
Also, let it be a reminder that this blog is not focused solely on female armor, but on all kinds of impractical outfits for female fighters, that includes superheroes.
Could be a bit less boobplate-y, but pretty cool design nonetheless.
pfffft. there’s plenty of room under there for proper padding. look how much it slopes out right at the shoulder level
Yeah, it’s the rare instance of female armor being properly layered beneath the top surface of metal.
But what I meant is that it still has the boob bumps, which create a weak point right where the sternum is. I doubt that the golden ornamentation in that place actually helps the case.
Boobplate is not only superfluous design-wise (because for most armored women breast-flattening with a sports bra, corset or sarashi is obligatory part of padding anyway), it can also kill the wearer.
Just about the Sims post, I have a feeling the mods call them ‘female’ because Sims aren’t human, and in the game they’re called female and male (no man or woman). A bit of trivia, too, there’s a knight’s armour that, IIRC (I used custom content a lot – there’s a few issues with the sexualisation there, but a lot of women CC makers use good designs that are practical and not sexualising of the sims either, just avoid The Sims Resource), is the same for both F and M. :) No harm intended here.
But the ‘better’ females is not cool. Definitely don’t approve of that, but I’d say that’s made by quite a young person. There’s a community of custom content makers that don’t sexualise the clothing and makeup etc. of the sims either, it just depends what website you visit (personal livejournals and other blogs tend to be pretty good, Garden of Shadows usually is too). There’s good lingerie though! Sims is a tricky thing to debate because of its user generated nature.
Now you’re going to think I’m a misogynistic girl who defends Sims for her own interests. That’s definitely not what I intended and I’m sorry. 🙁 You can’t really calls sims ‘men and women’ because they aren’t at all. They strange creatures, just simulations. In Skyrim and any other game, they are men and women. If that makes sense? That doesn’t mean Sims should be sexualised though or treated the way they were in the CC you posted about. ‘Female’ is what you’d call a Sim woman though as for male
A long ask referring to the Skyrim mod posts that I intended to answer for some time now.
I’ll always stand by referring to sentient humanoid characters as “men”, “women” or “people” and if the game itself endorses using female/male as noun towards their cat- or lizard-person race… I’m NOT okay with that.
The characters clearly are designed to resemble humans, hell, the ones used to in thumnails for mod pack look VERY HUMAN to me, so there’s no reason to not call them “women”.
As discussed earlier with angercats, mod community is hard to discuss and judge as a whole. But we can agree that every modder should take personal responsibility for their creation, and that includes how it’s presented in both wording and visuals.
You can’t really calls sims ‘men and women’ because they aren’t at all. They strange creatures, just simulations. In Skyrim and any other game, they are men and women. If that makes sense?
Nope, it doesn’t make sense.
A fictional character created in the likeness of human (body and/or mind) is A PERSON, albeit fictional one. And a person may be female or male (or other), but can not be “a female” or “a male” (an “it’) rather than a woman or a man (a “she” or “he”).
And I won’t say that you’re misogynist, because what you’re saying doesn’t serve patriarchy. You just didn’t realize that make-believe characters also have personhood that could be erased through inconsiderate wording.
Note: Please, ergoexistence, next time do not refer to mods as “Sims”, it’s really confusing when we’re talking about a game that’s neither simulation genre nor part of The Sims franchise.
Skimpy female armor is not sexy like wow ok I can see your boobs and ass now but its gonna be pretty nasty when you get them chopped off in battle.
