If you haven’t heard of Kate Beaton’s Strong Female Characters, then 1) where have you been for the last three years, poor soul? 2) please, catch up immediately (links below)!
Obviously, those two strips are the most relevant to BABD, as Georgia O’Queefe and Queen Elizatits demonstrate how skimpy outfits are so totally acceptable as long as you can argue they’re part of your cultural heritage and how you never need to worry about getting hurt, cause sexy distraction is the best protection.
One question remains… why is this supposed to be a parody? Clearly, that’s how writing empowered feminist (and totally not contrived) characters works! Best inspiration ever.
And always remember, kids:
~Ozzie
So there is such thing as “too sexy”?
We’ve been noted by lots of our lovely followers that Square Enix changed their minds about their mobile game protagonist who caused such an outrage a while ago.
chikyful said:
Sorry if this is information you already know, but the mobile Final Fantasy game, Mobius (originally Mevius), has had some design changes. Due to ‘negative’ feedback, the main character now has less skin showing. Meanwhile a new female character has been announced. What are your thoughts?
indirajartwork (who also suggested this post’s title) submitted:
“Too sexy!” New Final Fantasy’s hunky male lead has his revealing costume toned down
Where are all the dudebros to cry about censorship and creative freedom NOW? O__o
Morrigan submitted:
Remember that skimpy male armour from FF Mevius?
Well, turns out the SJW cabal has been forcing Square Enix to abandon their sacrosanct artistic vision and censor themselves… I’m sure the brave knights of free speech will protest this blatant censorship, right? Surely, Squeenix will be called prudes who hate sex after this?
….Right?
Mobius Final Fantasy was ‘a little too sexy,’ watch the redesigned mobile RPG
The hypocrisy is so blatant, and yet somehow, so unsurprising. Sigh.
criemoar said:
Have you heard the news about Mobius Final Fantasy? OK PREPARE FOR GENERAL LEL@GAMERS basically the champions of FREDUM OF SPEUCH and ANTI-CENSORSHIP are now defending squeenix censoring a male character’s scanty outfit due to complaints from whiny male gamers. BEAUTIFUL. /popcorn
As pushtosmart puts in their very concise (and wonderfully sarcastic) summary of the case:
Thankfully, Square Enix recognized how uncomfortable it would be for men to play as a character who was designed as a sexual object before an active, heroic subject, and announced today that they had modified his design.
[…] Thank you for being so understanding, Square Enix.
Can’t say I’m surprised or angry, but very much disappointed.
A franchise that one hand gave us such “gems” as Fran or Lightning’s eye-gauging wardrobe, but on the other catered to female gaze with designs like Vaan or the equal opportunity skimpy armors of FF XIV, now they’re listening to people with opinions like this:
And said people are more than happy to shield this change with the good old “creative freedom” excuse. The same creative freedom that would most likely be called “censorship” or “entitlement” if the such redesign was applied to a female character instead.
So, apparently, there IS such thing as “too sexy”… but only under condition that you are a man. Who knew, right?
~Ozzie
I am really disappointed in my fellow men for this one. Ever since I started helping out here they’ve always been so eager to tell me how people who bothered by a sexualized depiction of their demographic should respond.
- “Go make your own.” Pretty self explanatory. Just start a studio that makes computer games professionally, produce critically acclaimed games that sell in record amounts and in twenty-eight years you could be showing them how it’s done.
- “Realize it’s a fantasy game were anybody can have a magic powers.” So nothing needs to make sense and nothing matters… really they should be campaigning for him to have less clothes, that way it’s more fantasy-ish right?
- “Enjoy it as a celebration of male form.” It makes men look good so that’s got to be good for all of us right?
- “Just stop.” Okay, I’m not sure how this one helps but they seem very confident about it.
All these options… and which did you go with?
– wincenworks
more on Mevius/Mobius Final Fantasy | more on “creative freedom” | more sexy male armors
So there is such thing as “too sexy”?
We’ve been noted by lots of our lovely followers that Square Enix changed their minds about their mobile game protagonist who caused such an outrage a while ago.
chikyful said:
Sorry if this is information you already know, but the mobile Final Fantasy game, Mobius (originally Mevius), has had some design changes. Due to ‘negative’ feedback, the main character now has less skin showing. Meanwhile a new female character has been announced. What are your thoughts?
indirajartwork (who also suggested this post’s title) submitted:
“Too sexy!” New Final Fantasy’s hunky male lead has his revealing costume toned down
Where are all the dudebros to cry about censorship and creative freedom NOW? O__o
Morrigan submitted:
Remember that skimpy male armour from FF Mevius?
Well, turns out the SJW cabal has been forcing Square Enix to abandon their sacrosanct artistic vision and censor themselves… I’m sure the brave knights of free speech will protest this blatant censorship, right? Surely, Squeenix will be called prudes who hate sex after this?
….Right?
Mobius Final Fantasy was ‘a little too sexy,’ watch the redesigned mobile RPG
The hypocrisy is so blatant, and yet somehow, so unsurprising. Sigh.
criemoar said:
Have you heard the news about Mobius Final Fantasy? OK PREPARE FOR GENERAL LEL@GAMERS basically the champions of FREDUM OF SPEUCH and ANTI-CENSORSHIP are now defending squeenix censoring a male character’s scanty outfit due to complaints from whiny male gamers. BEAUTIFUL. /popcorn
As pushtosmart puts in their very concise (and wonderfully sarcastic) summary of the case:
Thankfully, Square Enix recognized how uncomfortable it would be for men to play as a character who was designed as a sexual object before an active, heroic subject, and announced today that they had modified his design.
[…] Thank you for being so understanding, Square Enix.
Can’t say I’m surprised or angry, but very much disappointed.
A franchise that one hand gave us such “gems” as Fran or Lightning’s eye-gauging wardrobe, but on the other catered to female gaze with designs like Vaan or the equal opportunity skimpy armors of FF XIV, now they’re listening to people with opinions like this:
And said people are more than happy to shield this change with the good old “creative freedom” excuse. The same creative freedom that would most likely be called “censorship” or “entitlement” if the such redesign was applied to a female character instead.
So, apparently, there IS such thing as “too sexy”… but only under condition that you are a man. Who knew, right?
~Ozzie
I am really disappointed in my fellow men for this one. Ever since I started helping out here they’ve always been so eager to tell me how people who bothered by a sexualized depiction of their demographic should respond.
- “Go make your own.” Pretty self explanatory. Just start a studio that makes computer games professionally, produce critically acclaimed games that sell in record amounts and in twenty-eight years you could be showing them how it’s done.
- “Realize it’s a fantasy game were anybody can have a magic powers.” So nothing needs to make sense and nothing matters… really they should be campaigning for him to have less clothes, that way it’s more fantasy-ish right?
- “Enjoy it as a celebration of male form.” It makes men look good so that’s got to be good for all of us right?
- “Just stop.” Okay, I’m not sure how this one helps but they seem very confident about it.
All these options… and which did you go with?
– wincenworks
more on Mevius/Mobius Final Fantasy | more on “creative freedom” | more sexy male armors
re: this post on double standards of body type diversity in SMITE and Overwatch
(yellow)
cited: our first post about Zarya
CLEARLY, Zarya can not be a step in the right direction AND a token exception AT THE SAME TIME, because… Uh… It’s so not like she’s literally the only female Overwatch character who is not conventionally pretty*, thin and/or sexualzied, right?
…right???
How about “she’s BOTH a token exception and a step in the right direction”, then?
~Ozzie
Okay… well, if we limit ourselves to just athletes in say… Olympic level condition… this is a sample of the body and features diversity we might expect:
Given that Blizzard has said they’re making this game to improve representation for women in video games and even address things like “why all the bikinis?”
Zarya is currently the quick “we fixed it” response from a company with a long history of going back on their “fixes”. They’re preaching that they want to fulfill the desire for diversity – but the sexy purple skinned assassin lady, a robot, a gorilla all got priority over so many types of real people.
Currently they are only vaguely close to meeting their stated goals due to a few isolated, individual characters. Pretty much all the tokenism alarm bells are ringing loud and clear.
“Much good work is lost for the lack of a little more.“ – Edward H. Harriman
– wincenworks
*Not to say that Zarya is ugly. She’s still “unconventional” in the safest way possible.
more on character design | more on Blizzard | more on Overwatch
A friend’s request for a bodily comparison of the gods and goddesses of Smite.
I’m having a flashback to this Overwatch silhouette comparison (pre-Zarya, the token exception, that is):
original source: [x]
Eyup. Typical. Men tend to be all shapes and sizes, while women are just slight variations of the same “shapely” figure.
[x]
[x]
~Ozzie
With a very few exceptions, pretty much every time I see a game brag about diverse body shapes – I wonder if they hired the same “expert” consultant that Levi’s did:
– wincenworks
more on double standards | more on character design | more on SMITE | more on Overwatch
