I dedicate this reblog to anyone who thinks that we object to women showing some skin by principle… No, wedon’t. Just as we do not think covering everything up is a universal solution to the problem sexist costume designs.
The way a character is framed (visually and story-wise) makes a world of difference between just having a questionable costume and being outright objectified.
And as much as bikinis, bathing suits, cheerleader outfits etc. remain a silly wardrobe choice for an on-duty warrior/crimefighter, above here we have small sample of evidence that pants or full-body suits can actually lookworse.
Putting a female hero in pants does not mean she is somehow protected from an artist positioning her primarily for the male gaze. For example, Marvel Comics recently began a new ongoing called Fearless Defenders which stars Valkyrie and Misty Knight. Both of these characters wear pants and, yet, I lost count by about page five of how many times Misty’s ass took center stage in any given panel. Basically, where there’s a male gaze will, there’s a male gaze way — pants or no pants, tights or bared legs.
I dedicate this reblog to anyone who thinks that we object to women showing some skin by principle… No, wedon’t. Just as we do not think covering everything up is a universal solution to the problem sexist costume designs.
The way a character is framed (visually and story-wise) makes a world of difference between just having a questionable costume and being outright objectified.
And as much as bikinis, bathing suits, cheerleader outfits etc. remain a silly wardrobe choice for an on-duty warrior/crimefighter, above here we have small sample of evidence that pants or full-body suits can actually lookworse.
Putting a female hero in pants does not mean she is somehow protected from an artist positioning her primarily for the male gaze. For example, Marvel Comics recently began a new ongoing called Fearless Defenders which stars Valkyrie and Misty Knight. Both of these characters wear pants and, yet, I lost count by about page five of how many times Misty’s ass took center stage in any given panel. Basically, where there’s a male gaze will, there’s a male gaze way — pants or no pants, tights or bared legs.
Battlerite is a recent addition to the growing popular genre of “just fight people in multiplayer” games that continue to come forth with no end in sight. Given the starter line up in this game, I’m sure you’ll be shocked to discover a large portion of their tag on Tumblr is Rule34.
What’s interesting about Battlerite, though, is that it only released on 8 November 2017, it already has two characters added (both female).
The first was Destiny.
She was released with the first patch seemingly as some sort of afterthought that there may actually be people out there who wanted to play a female character who did not look like a child, was clearly recognizable as human, wasn’t in a hyper sexualized costume and appeared to turning up to the fight because was a warrior.
In December, they released Alysia… who looks kind of presentable from the waist up but has weird thigh highs. In her video she spends her time prancing and talking about being an artist. I guess they’re trying to find a magic mix of objectification and actual good design.
tl;dr: Not only do they appear to be copying Smite’s core gameplay, they’re also copying their strategy regarding attempting to have their feminist cookie and gratuitous cheesecake too.
– wincenworks
This game seems to go through some sort of visual identity crisis regarding female characters. A reader actually noted us that the white-haired lady, Jade, went through a “sexy” redesign some time ago:
You already talked a bit about Battlerite’s Freya before, but I was looking at this character named Jade, and noticed this. On the left is her old design, notice how apart from her hairstyle everything is very practical. Low, chunky heels (I’ve been told 1" heels are better for your back than flat heels), a full-coverage coat and shirt, a mask to protect her from inhaling dust, etc.
On the right is her current design, complete with useless-to-dangerous mini armor plates, stiletto heels, boob window, shoulder windows, and a big hole in the back of the coat making it essentially useless.
It’s sad to see that such a good design has been replaced with a generic “sexy” design.
What a waste of a design that was both practical AND much more interesting visually (just compare the silhouette!). The new one could easily just come from some random shovelwareweb ad. She sticks out like a sore thumb, even next to other sexualized ladies, due to a slightly different (generic and overly detailed) art style.
Battlerite is in a desperate need of rehashing its art direction to something more consistent and not at all dependent on the creepy marketing guy.
speaking of tharja/rhajat and how they’re being handled in fe:h?? uh…
i’ll leave it to you guys
Thank you, I think. I don’t know what I was expecting from Fire Emblem Heroes, but it was a little better than… whatever this is. I mean, Christmas is the perfect time to wear your fur-lined bikini! A person who grew up in a desert country will totally not freeze her butt off in that!
I don’t know about you guys, but I prefer characters to stay in-character even through holiday events. Especially with a grouchy, anti-social character like Tharja, there’s so much comedy potential! Like, if she was instead forced into a cheap reindeer onesie, so she would just be sulking, trying to hide her shame in the hoodie.
[Pictured: Tharja regretting some life choices]
But of course, that would require that they don’t just use her as a pinup, and we can’t have that.
The only positive surprise about that costume is how flat and wearable the heels of her shoes look! Despite which she still is constantly posed as if she was wearing heels two inch taller.
~Ozzie
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Fire Emblem Heroes has already been getting some flack for their uninspired character design, and this is a good comparison of the changes made to Rhajat for Heroes. Her original design still has problems, primarily the nylon tech this fantasy country seems to have, but the new version (named Virghat) is just so much worse. From the wiki entry on Rhajat:
…It is revealed that her cold personality is a means to mask her loneliness due to being raised in the Deeprealms by herself.
I’d believe that description, given that this was her sprite in Fates:
She’s hunched over, her eyes are in shadow, and her arms are in front of and around herself protectively. But the Heroes design and posture? All I’m getting from it, is generic poker-faced cute caster.
Oh, and of course, there’s a damage sprite, as mentioned in the comparison image.
