Please let me share with you a tale of hopes and disappointment, starring Riders of Icarus, by our old mutual friend Nexon.
“Well, that is an interesting looking class. I wonder how it looks on females. It probably has a battle skirt or something.”
“Good lord, is that actual full plate? Armored legs and everything?”
“Oh. I don’t know what I expected.”
Yours, vonBoomslang
Nexon is such a wild ride, I mean I struggle to understand how the same people publishing Vindictus also publish Dirty Bomb!
Looking at the promotional screenshots for this game, one might easily be tricked into believing that the armor for ladies would not be terrible:
I mean it doesn’t look great, but the main issue is the stock-standard boobplate that seems to be mandatory in so many fantasy RPGs these days. Even the trailer isn’t too bad for the first sixty seconds… then:
Apparently there are still people out there who believe that the MMORPG market is not yet over saturated with this exact same style of double standard nonsense. Somehow.
Please remember that I’m a dude, and my opinion on what media “should” or “shoudl not” look like in regards to a) how women are portrayed and b) what women should enjoy is pretty close to irrelevant. I try to throw in a cheap joke here or there, or offer some practical application for what women (or any other group regularly discrimnated against) have said about it. I’m not about to start criticizing women for liking what they like or how they interact with video games.
I will say that any game that markets itself on it’s ability to appeal to the male gaze (especially through super-sexy / absurdly revealing clothing on its female characters) isn’t doing it for their female audience. I’m all for fully-featured, rich, comprehensive character customization, both in physical traits and clothing. Let folks do what they want with their character (including skin tone, muscle & fat composition, size, height, weight, etc). I’m more suspicious of a game in which it is incredibly difficult to find female clothing that is both functional and non-revealing.
I’m guessing @bikiniarmorbattledamage can offer better insight into this, but for me, I’m casting a side-eye to any video game that markets itself using half-clad women as marketing gimmicks.
This is a nice summary of the quoted post and of what our response to things like “do you want to ban all sexyness in media?” is.
Hi LG. So on the female power fantasy thing: I agree that the sexy warrior babe thing is overused, and women should have WAY more options. But, in interractive media-video games & rpgs, shouldn’t women have the OPTION of playing that, as well as not?
Please remember that I’m a dude, and my opinion on what media “should” or “shoudl not” look like in regards to a) how women are portrayed and b) what women should enjoy is pretty close to irrelevant. I try to throw in a cheap joke here or there, or offer some practical application for what women (or any other group regularly discrimnated against) have said about it. I’m not about to start criticizing women for liking what they like or how they interact with video games.
I will say that any game that markets itself on it’s ability to appeal to the male gaze (especially through super-sexy / absurdly revealing clothing on its female characters) isn’t doing it for their female audience. I’m all for fully-featured, rich, comprehensive character customization, both in physical traits and clothing. Let folks do what they want with their character (including skin tone, muscle & fat composition, size, height, weight, etc). I’m more suspicious of a game in which it is incredibly difficult to find female clothing that is both functional and non-revealing.
I’m guessing @bikiniarmorbattledamage can offer better insight into this, but for me, I’m casting a side-eye to any video game that markets itself using half-clad women as marketing gimmicks.
This is a nice summary of the quoted post and of what our response to things like “do you want to ban all sexyness in media?” is.
Found this oh so lovely set of female mage armor on Artstation. I had some time so I decided to make some fixes. They’re not amazing by any means, but at least these women can move without worry of a breeze or breaking an ankle/neck in the heat of battle.
The artist also made a set of male counterparts to these and they look nothing alike (surprise, surprise).
Very nice redesign. Personally what I find amazing about the male counterparts is that it seems their outfits are already very unisex and would be quite flattering on many bodies:
Looking around these appear to be concepts for a new “card” game by the creators of Vindictus. It seems, that they’ve been quite free and loose with the art direction, but apparently quite determined to maintain double standards.
When Symbiotes in Marvel bond with women, the results are usually….atrocious. Scream, Agony, Scorn and first She-Venom are horribly sexualized, something that cannot be said about Venom or Carnage.
I’d dare to even say they break the theme symbiotes had going – Venom is twisted, evil reflection of Spider-Man and Carnage is the same for him. Yet all of these women could be described as “just like Venom, only sexy”. They pretty much look naked. There are, however, two notable exceptions, both hosts of the same symbiote, that I want to bring to the spotlight.
Patricia Robertson, the second She-Venom, was a host of artificially created clone of Venom symbiote and was notable in that she looked exactly to her male counterpart. Marvel Database mentions the artist would give her a more feminine look, but only occasionally, when the main measures taken to tell her and male Venom apart (coloring them with different sheen and having She-Venom’s tongue hang out more often) would not be sufficient. However, as she only meets Eddie Brock towards the end of her short-living series, for the most of the book she simply looks like him.
The symbiote clone would end up being absorbed by the original only to separate in 2012 and find a new host, Andrea Benton, who took codename Mania. She gets a look that, while still having some issues overall (Sonic the Hedgehog hair, for one) it does not look like painted on her skin, nor does it feature boobsocks. And thank heavens for tat, since she is still a teenager. It even visually reflects her personality – an angry teenage punk – just like Venom’s modern, militaristic look reflects Flash Thompson’s history in military.
I’m sure some would argue that Marvel universe symbiotes are supposed to look naked, therefore clearly visible boobs are obligatory when the host happens to have a pair… But why exactly would that be? It’s not like Venom or Carnage are fully anatomically correct either with their primary or secondary sex characteristics.
Also, since symbiote tends to distort the host’s body, it’s highly suspicious how when bonded with a woman, it would make sure to always fill that thin feminine silhouette with big, round perky boobs and butt (and “sexy” posing, of course!).
It’s refreshing to see at least two takes on female Venom that deny double standard and either make the host equally monstrous as male counterpart or look more experimental.
~Ozzie
I think it says a lot about comics that when the symbiot suit joined with Eddie Brock, it immediately transformed to give him the monstrous mouth – but it’s taken a few iterations for Marvel to be comfortable with the idea of having a female character with a symbiot suit express some individuality.
