Tag: commentary

Posted on

underorange:

bikiniarmorbattledamage:

littlemure submitted to bikiniarmorbattledamage:

I was on a search for chain mail references when I stumbled upon this rather baffling image. A bit more digging led me to this page, full of all kinds of weird and worrisome painted on battle garb.

I’m not even sure how to tag this, my mind is just spinning over how on earth she managed to get this kit on in the first place.

[snipped]

Oh god this bothers me so much I went into the other room and took a bunch of pictures of an actual chainmaille shirt just to compare how it hangs. I even added a leather waist cincher over the top I just happened to have laying around (it’s intended for a completely different costume, I can’t imagine many things more horrifyingly uncomfortable than encouraging a bunch of steel links to imbed themselves in your flesh).

image

image

I mean the interesting part is that, to an extent, chainmaille gets the closest to boob sock territory in real life I’ve seen because the material is so heavy it pulls itself down. It’s also so heavy it’s gunna flatten most boobs out, and push them to the side. It does not have the ability to suck itself up and under the bottom of the breast, and it certainly wouldn’t naturally wedge itself into butt crevices.

Thank you so much for providing such useful photo reference!

Let’s just add that if a person is planning to do anything more than modeling (like, I dunno, fighting?) while wearing chainmail on their bare skin… they might need to reconsider. There’s a reason gambeson is a thing.

Still, even if we suspended our belief enough to accept chainmail worn without padding, THAT is how it would look like, not this or this (NSFW).

~Ozzie

Even actual porn doesn’t bother with spandex chainmail because it turns out, most people have a pretty good idea what’s under the chainmail and there is nothing that warrants the ridiculous process of trying to make it skin tight without killing the wearer.

– wincenworks

more on chainmail | more on “spandex chainmail”

Posted on

princesskenoo:

“Really? Flashing tits makes this a ‘grown up’ game? This is such skewed thinking and what is a huge flaw within the gamer community. You’re completely over-looking everything that is just wrong with this, especially since this is a battle game and bikini armor does absolutely nothing. That huge patch of skin is gonna do a hell of a lot to deflect Link’s arrows.

All this is is pandering to male gamers and brings absolutely nothing else to the game except spank bank material. It’s lazy character designing, factually flawed, biased and sexist. I wouldn’t be complaining half as much as I am if it wasn’t for the next screenshot that shows a male character in full, heavy duty armor.” – Some dude on reddit

Pretty much sums up my thoughts on the new Hyrule Warriors female villain. Kind of really getting annoyed with this stuff. 

Nintendo, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear, apparently decided to double down on this.

They decided to make a DLC with an alternative outfit provided you want to pay the bargain price of US$7.99 for…

image

So, rather than embracing the era of the modding community (who make some very genuinely sexy mods) they’re offering to sell you an outfit that’s only slightly less terrible (presumably if it was a good outfit you wouldn’t know it was a game for grown ups).

But apparently no amount of money will convince Cia to put on something comfy and stop wearing a bra on her head.

– wincenworks

Posted on

I’d always thought that Angemon was shirtless, and the only thing he was wearing aside from the helmet was a loincloth and boots, but I can see now that he is basically wearing a vacuum-sealed morphsuit in addition. I’d personally argue that Angewomon’s outfit was never intended to represent armor in any case(though I’m not sure what it WAS supposed to represent) oh, and at least Ophanimon’s evil form(Falldown mode) doesn’t have the belly window though if it directly translates it might have

the metal directly on skin problem

RE: Angewomon’s bingo description

Yes, that’s exactly how it looks to me. Thank you for understanding that!

We got some replies from readers who didn’t seem to notice that there’s skin-colored part of Angemon’s face visible, which suggest he’s wearing a skin-tight white bodysuit all over.

I’d even be willing to reconsider, if not for Angewomon, whose design is obviously inspired by his. She definitely wears a strapless one-legged costume with random parts cut out to show her skin. Even her transformation sequence confirms:

image

So, considering Angemon is her male equivalent, same principle applies: the white stuff is skin-tight clothing, not the character’s skin.

image

TL;DR: Angemon is not shirtless.

As for her clothes not representing armor, we got that point covered here. As long as she fights looking like that, it counts as a bingo material 😉
Also, she’s wearing a helmet, so at least that part is supposed to imply protection.

And yeah, it’s kind of weird that the evil version of Ophanimon (Angewomon’s ultimate form) is the only fully-covered one. What a bizarre exception.

~Ozzie

Posted on

Why Wonder Woman Deserves More

realms-master:

Help me out here guys….

Okay, I may not be a huge comic book buff (yet still a huge fan!), but I’m willing to learn if there’s something I’m missing. I’ve always loved the idea of Wonder Woman – a powerful female warrioress from Ancient Greece/Amazonian culture (iirc), a Xena-like character who fights for virtue, honor, truth, all those good things. She plays with the big boys, and not only keeps up, but shows them how it’s done.

If that’s so, then…whywhyWHY is she most always shown in a skintight, strapless, pantsless, thong/swimming suit/flimsy piece of spandex???? I know she’s pretty indestructible, but do you know how HARD it is to fight in a leather corset, where there’s no straps to keep that gigantic chest in place?

It makes me VERY sad that such a famous, prominent figure of feminine power is mostly seen as a sex icon, mostly featured in sexy/escher-esque poses, wearing “clothing” that looks like it was sprayed on or hanging on with a wing and a prayer (and maybe ample amounts of superglue?), or any variation thereof? I say ‘mostly’, because I have seen some versions where she’s more practical, with pants, real armor, heck I’ll even settle for the Greek/Xena-style skirt in some versions. Bravo to those people for giving our poor warrioress some semblance of dignity.

If I understand correctly, like in the Xena universe, that is the ‘style’ of the era, the leather skirt with the bodice and shoulder armor, reminiscent of Romans and Greeks from Sparta, etc. Well okay then, give WW an outfit that actually looks/works like real armor from that period, instead of the spandex thong/corset she’s most often depicted in. Also, iirc, maybe she doesn’t wear full armor because that’s the ‘Amazon way’, IE: she’s so OP that she doesn’t need full covering. But give her SOMETHING that isn’t so obviously designed to sell sex first, and practicality last!

Spandex may be all the rage for comic books (and it’s probably easier to draw), but I’d like to direct your attention to some of these wonderful blogs for many, many more reasons why our beloved Wonder Woman deserves more than a minimal-coverage, maximum-bust corset (and why practical armor can be even more BA and gorgeous):

Unless there is a practical, logical reason why WW is nearly always shown in the aforementioned ILLOGICAL ways, let’s face it: Sex sells, and too many people are buying. And that is no excuse, because women like myself want to see our gender treated with more dignity, respect, and understanding than what is given. You know what, I’ll bet Superman is chivalrous. And so is Wonder Woman.

I challenge any WW artist to design her with something more akin to Lady Sif (from the movie version), instead of just going with the flow.

TL;DR – Wonder Woman is too freaking amazing to be treated as a sex icon. She deserves a whole heck of a lot more from us, her fans. She deserves something befitting who she is, and what she represents.

My post isn’t intended to insult anyone, I know we all have different ideas and viewpoints. I’m just expressing my own views and frustrations with society :/

/end rant (btw, I have no problem with the comic book world; check my blogs, I’m a huge nerd! But I do have a problem with how prevalent the sex industry is, especially in my fandoms! Move over boys, girls are nerds too!)

Bolding mine. I share this sentiment.

We had posts regarding both on how questionable Wonder Woman’s strapless cleavage cut is and the rare (official!) alternative designs that are more practical and/or pay tribute to ancient Greek aesthetic, unlike the iconic outfit everyone remembers most.

~Ozzie

I really find it baffling that after sixty-four years and countless re-boots, re-designs, re-imaginings for different mediums, etc.  DC Comics keeps coming back to basically her original costume but with no skirt:

image

Epic creativity.

– wincenworks

Posted on

ohgodhesloose:

feminismandpugsarelife:

dragondicks:

how to “pander to sjws / feminists”: in depth characters and storytelling, non objectified female characters, characters of all manners of races, identities and backgrounds

how to pander to gamer boys: make titty wobble

Wow no wonder they don’t want to make games more accessible to women, they’d have to reveal their lack of actual talent.

image

What a nice response to the “sex sells” and “creative freedom” rhetoric which we’re well too familiar with.

~Ozzie

The saddest part about this is – the games industry is full of talented people and they frequently have to throw away their best work because someone who is overpaid believes in a magic formula.

Then they end up promoting the wrong people and we end up with this guy.

– wincenworks

Posted on

Destroyable Armor – Why we should destroy it

I was quite surprised to find people rushing to comment that a certain terrible screenshot was actually demonstrating destroyable armor (I guess if you already knew about it, and hence knew that her armor had been destroyed… so it doesn’t really help with marketing).

Now we have mentioned destroyable armor before… but maybe it’s best we do a little more talking on it since apparently it’s a thing that’s been sold as making sense.  Surprisingly, the first appearance of this trope in video games (that I’m aware of) was inflicted up a male character.

image

A manly man named Arthur who was on a quest to save his love, Prince Prin Prin (actual name!), from a foe no less than Satan himself (who lives in Hades… just go with it! I promise nothing in the game will make any more sense than this summary. Nothing at all.)

image

It was released in 1985 and is probably one of the most frustrating video games ever to grace an arcade (you can play it here if you don’t believe me, and imagine putting money in every time you run out of lives)

Arthur had a full suit of plate male armor that would, upon the impact of any attack or even light touch of an enemy, fly off and leave him running around in his whitey tighties (later re-inventions would give him boxer shorts).  Destroyable armor didn’t make sense in Ghosts ‘N Goblins and it’s not going to make sense anywhere else.

While “soft” armors like kevlar weave and leather will become less protective over time they don’t fly apart for a very simple reason.  Anything that hits your hard enough to dislodge armor from your person has hit you hard enough to kill you.  Even the force to dislodge regular clothes by impact (rather than deliberate tearing off) will easily kill you in a most spectacular fashion!

image

Armor isn’t a car, it doesn’t have crumple zones. Your armor being blasted off you and you coming out relatively unscathed means that you are literally tougher and more resistant to damage of all sorts than your armor is.  

That’s the story you tell when you show a character get hit and their armor falls off.  It doesn’t matter if it applies to all genders (though it always seems to be women chosen for the “demo”), it just doesn’t make sense and is more distracting than simply going without armor.  There are so many better ways to convey damaged armor:

image

Missing enamel/coloring, destroyed ornamentation, blood marks, changes in the silhouette on parts etc all convey that the armor is damaged and becoming less and less useful without also conveying that the actual point of the game is to try to see your character naked without them dying.

– wincenworks