Tag: ashe

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Tidy Up Tuesday #85

Redesign streams are very likely to come back this weekend! Stay tuned till Friday for more info!

Some elaboration on the obviously contentious topic of Ashe being the next Overwatch heroine:

  • Arguing over whether she’s a “true” albino or not completely misses the point of the whole discussion. Even if Ashe was (and her design, even when accounted for makeup, makes a shitty job of conveying albinism in person of any ethnicity), this changes absolutely nothing about Blizzard electing to give another pale, thin conventionally attractive woman spot in the cast rather than finally creating a playable Black woman. Especially since she’s clearly not a PoC albino, as many rebloggers pointed out.
  • People claiming that racebending a supposed albino to be Black is somehow taking away from albino representation are concern trolls. 
  • Literally all “arguments” about Overwatch “already having” playable Black female representation are neatly listed and debunked in this handy masterpost by @geegee-wellplayed​. Please go read it and hand the link to anyone who claims that Symmetra/the Amaris/Sombra/Efi/Lucio is all that Black women need to identify with in the game. 
  • “Ashe is a gang leader, so making her black would be a bad look” rhetoric makes as much sense as any Thermian argument – she doesn’t have to be made as an antagonistic gang leader or to be (extremely) white. It was entirely Blizzard’s choice to release a character like that instead of literally anyone else. 
  • For some more detailed commentary about overall blandness of Ashe’s character design, please read this writeup by our reader @red-queen-on-the-heathen-throne
  • If you actually think that @darthputa​ or anyone (particularly PoC) doing race-bent redesigns of white characters from predominantly white media is the real racist and you still follow this blog, please unfollow immediately. Or at the very least tell us, so we can block you. 

Since it wasn’t the first time we discussed the matter, with the Ashe post we introduced the representation and diversity tags. We’re still working on re-tagging old posts with them, so if you guys spot in our archives something related to those topics and not yet tagged, please drop us a note!

~Ozzie, – wincenworks & – Icy

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darthputa:

scp2008:

trilllizard666:

darthputa:

What could have been if Blizzard and Overwatch had women of color on their teams and cared about their black fans…

….i don’t know how to break this to you

but that’s clearly a character with albinism of some kind

she could feasibly be any race, but with albinism

which is a remarkably rare medical condition

albinos of every race exist

also….isn’t it kinda very racist to put bigger lips like that in a “black” racebend? lmao

that is true op why did you make the person have bigger lips?

because im a black woman and I have big ass lips and wanted her to have big ass juicy lips

[click on images to see them, if you’re not viewing from Tumblr dashboard]

So let me get this straight…

  1. Overwatch churns out like third white chick in a row.
  2. Fed up fan of color racebends her to show what it would look like if Blizz actually cared to have black female representation.
  3. And, according to rabid Blizzard fanboys, now SHE is the racist one, because this albino character might as well not be intended to be white?

If you don’t see anything wrong with that logic, unfollow our blog immediately. 

Seriously. We don’t want you here. 

~Ozzie 

Firstly, I definitely recommend everyone read this piece by Black Girl Gamers.

By far the most common certain demographic response seems to have been to claim that it’s fine that literally none of Overwatch’s 25 playable characters is a black woman because line up includes robots, an ape and a hamster… so naturally is the most diverse range possible.

That of course, is not even vaguely what “diversity” is about and even Blizzard executives Chris Metzen (now retired) and Jeff Kaplan (definitely not retired) understand that:

image

The problem is: Overwatch got prematurely rubber stamped for “good diversity” primarily for having higher than the (abysmal) industry standard for female, brown and old lady characters. (ie, some characters exist).

Now they’ve got that kudos, they’re not interested in actually delivering on promises or even maintaining the baseline. 

Well it’s either that, or they decided that a key demographic who needs over representation is conventionally sexually attractive white women.  Specifically ones who are almost identical to Widowmaker. [link]

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(Again, I remind you – it is a stated goal of Blizzard to make this game about better representation for everyone, especially women, and they have leaned into every ounce of the abundant of praise they have received regarding representation and diversity in the past three years)

And if all of that wasn’t already bad enough:

There is seriously no way that anyone can believe that Blizzard, as a company, have any interest in good representation and making everyone feel welcome beyond sound bytes and quick stunts they can do to seek publicity boosts.

– wincenworks

BABD highly recommends you consider supporting:

Black Girl Gamers ( www | twitter | twitch )
I Need Diverse Games ( www | twitter | twitch | patreon ) 

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Boring LoL ladies redesign, Part 1

League of Legends, despite having maybe two highlights and occasionally attempting to improve, generally SUCKS at female character design. For more details as to why, consult our related blog, @leagueofsexism

Ashe

LoL heroines were among the first stream redesigns by Icy, but this was my first attempt at redoing a lady champion. I chose Ashe, the archer.
While she has completely serviceable color scheme and some nice looking shapes in cape, hood and limb departments, her core costume is just a short dress with deep cleavage and fabric belt. Also nipple adornments ¯_( ͠° ͟ʖ ͠° )_/¯ 

Since LoL fails at giving most female characters distinct facial features, I felt obliged to change this generic oval face with tiny nose and pouty lips into something more interesting. Now her face and nose are longer, with sharper jawline and cheekbones.

image

I decided that instead of her ghastly pale skin, the design should be broken up white elements that will compliment her hair and belt.
You can never go wrong with Elizabethan pants. I’m especially proud of the matching poofy sleeves broken up by golden arm braceletes that were already there.
Obviously, I wouldn’t leave ornaments on each of her boobs, so I reduced it to a single one at the center of her chest. And her pauldrons no longer just hover on her shoulders, they (and presumably, the cape) are connected now at the sternum.

image

Last change, suggested by Icy, was a codpiece, matching the period fashion of her pants. Yes, my redo of Ashe is an openly trans lady, because why not? 

All in all, I’m quite satisfied with how I managed to keep the silhouette and shape language relatively unchanged, while adding some more interesting stuff where gratuitous skin displays were before. 

~Ozzie