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[PA Comic][NSFW] Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - Character Selection

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Posts

  • HeraldSHeraldS Registered User regular
    Jeedan wrote: »
    Paladin wrote: »
    Jeedan wrote: »

    The question asked was "would those portrayals be sexist if applied to females" and I dont think many of them would, I certainly could imagine a female autobody, or a female mutant, or a female large wrestler, or a female guybrush threepwood (who pretty much exists already in Elaine), female contortionist voldo-type might have weird submissive vibes but-fuck it, so does voldo, female androgonous vampire is practically too easy.

    I cant understand why you would hold up any of these designs as evidence of why female designs "have" to be restricted by necessity or something.

    I actually did not answer Eat it's challenge with those images (except for Voldo) which were put in just to demonstrate that we have no qualms about varying the male image, which has led to a proliferation of interesting designs, most of which aren't featured here since I just portrayed the most sexually relevant ones. For Alucard, we also tolerate and even admire males with feminine features, whereas we feel uncomfortable playing females with masculine features for some reason. Looking back on it though, could you see a female equivalent of Nine-Toes anywhere else than in Conker's Bad Fur Day?

    So say there is someone that really wants to experiment with female design but is sensitive to the issue of female rights and self-respect. For the sake of being on topic, let's say they want to make a muscular female that people will enjoy playing. Fable 2 has already shown that people don't really care for muscular females. Again, I am still the only person that remembers Hammer:

    SisterHannahFuneral.png

    Admittedly this is a less than flattering picture of her because Fable 2 was a less than flattering game. Females don't want to look like males, generally, or at least a certain type of bulked out male. That is unfortunate. Therefore, Dragon's Crown Amazonian:

    dragons_crown_amazon_01_thumb.jpg

    This person is unquestionably female, though realistically she has a tremendously uneven muscle balance and will break her spine in five minutes of any sort of activity. So now, look up "muscle woman" on google images on your own time and try to find a basis for this design choice. At some point, the oblique muscles will have to bulk up to stabilize the "core" allowing the proper transition and dissemination of total body movements between the upper and lower frame. This is incompatible with a significant waist/hip ratio. However, this waist/hip ratio is foundational to the female body profile, and is the main reason why extreme musculature on a female masculinizes.

    Therefore, this art is as unrealistic as any depiction of a female, while accomplishing the goal of depicting a muscular female that is not masculine, at the cost of suffering from Liefeld syndrome. If we reject this art, can we still accomplish the objective of depicting a muscular female that is popular? Because we cannot control the purchase decisions of people who don't want to see anything but an exaggerated feminine body. The domain of the artist is already constricted in that regard, unfortunately, and there's not a lot anybody but Leonard Nimoy can do about it. We can control whether we tolerate these depicitions to give conscientious artist freedom to find alternate pathways to flank the barrier of the massively unappealing female, or we can further restrict the field on the other side, hopefully concentrating the amount of artists forced to work within severely restricted parameters acceptable to everyone, homogenizing female depictions and improving them via minute, glacier-speed changes.

    "People feel uncomfortable when they see muscular women" is an argument for why all games seem to feature stereo typically sexy women, but its not an argument as for why it should be so.

    I agree in a sense that what people "expect" a woman to look like is much more limited than the standards as applied to men, but that's the essential core problem - that the status quo w/r/t female beauty is kind of fucked. (As with the implicit expectation that all women in games should BE beautiful)

    Nope. What we think of as "beautiful" in a woman- shiny hair, big clear eyes, good skin, good hip/waist ratio, taut & firm boobs, symmetrical face, no excess paunchy fat anywhere- are outward signs of youth, health, and fertility. These were very big deals back in the day (i.e. when humans first showed up)and to a lesser extent they remain so today. Therefore any sign that accurately portrayed someone as young, healthy, or fertile would be a boon to the carrier, thus increasing their chances of passing it on (I'm really paraphrasing here on evolution and genetics because it's not the main thrust of this discussion and also I have video games to get back to).

    So today, if someone looks like Kate Upton there's a very good chance she'll be able to carry a healthy child to term repeatedly, statistically speaking. On the other hand, if someone looks like the Hulk or Gilbert Grape's mother there is less of a chance that they will be able to do that, statistically speaking. The more you alter a person's form from what it was evolutionarily selected to be, the higher the chance they'll be less able to do what they were supposed to be able to do- see anorexia also causing sterility in women and morbid obesity having a weakening effect on sperm, among other things. Cultural fetishes at a macro and micro level can and do distort all this, as we're seeing in the discussion here, but there are very solid, non-sexist reasons why we consider certain traits universally attractive.

  • DragkoniasDragkonias That Guy Who Does Stuff You Know, There. Registered User regular
    edited April 2013
    Paladin wrote: »
    And my sympathy for the artist, particularly one who has been hired to produce work to spec rather than indulge their VISION, is... lacking.

    Alright, show of hands, who in this thread has actually played Odin Sphere?

    I have.

    Game is pretty as shit.

    Edit: I mean good shit...not bad shit.

    Dragkonias on
  • JeedanJeedan Registered User regular
    HeraldS wrote: »
    Jeedan wrote: »
    Paladin wrote: »
    Jeedan wrote: »

    The question asked was "would those portrayals be sexist if applied to females" and I dont think many of them would, I certainly could imagine a female autobody, or a female mutant, or a female large wrestler, or a female guybrush threepwood (who pretty much exists already in Elaine), female contortionist voldo-type might have weird submissive vibes but-fuck it, so does voldo, female androgonous vampire is practically too easy.

    I cant understand why you would hold up any of these designs as evidence of why female designs "have" to be restricted by necessity or something.

    I actually did not answer Eat it's challenge with those images (except for Voldo) which were put in just to demonstrate that we have no qualms about varying the male image, which has led to a proliferation of interesting designs, most of which aren't featured here since I just portrayed the most sexually relevant ones. For Alucard, we also tolerate and even admire males with feminine features, whereas we feel uncomfortable playing females with masculine features for some reason. Looking back on it though, could you see a female equivalent of Nine-Toes anywhere else than in Conker's Bad Fur Day?

    So say there is someone that really wants to experiment with female design but is sensitive to the issue of female rights and self-respect. For the sake of being on topic, let's say they want to make a muscular female that people will enjoy playing. Fable 2 has already shown that people don't really care for muscular females. Again, I am still the only person that remembers Hammer:

    SisterHannahFuneral.png

    Admittedly this is a less than flattering picture of her because Fable 2 was a less than flattering game. Females don't want to look like males, generally, or at least a certain type of bulked out male. That is unfortunate. Therefore, Dragon's Crown Amazonian:

    dragons_crown_amazon_01_thumb.jpg

    This person is unquestionably female, though realistically she has a tremendously uneven muscle balance and will break her spine in five minutes of any sort of activity. So now, look up "muscle woman" on google images on your own time and try to find a basis for this design choice. At some point, the oblique muscles will have to bulk up to stabilize the "core" allowing the proper transition and dissemination of total body movements between the upper and lower frame. This is incompatible with a significant waist/hip ratio. However, this waist/hip ratio is foundational to the female body profile, and is the main reason why extreme musculature on a female masculinizes.

    Therefore, this art is as unrealistic as any depiction of a female, while accomplishing the goal of depicting a muscular female that is not masculine, at the cost of suffering from Liefeld syndrome. If we reject this art, can we still accomplish the objective of depicting a muscular female that is popular? Because we cannot control the purchase decisions of people who don't want to see anything but an exaggerated feminine body. The domain of the artist is already constricted in that regard, unfortunately, and there's not a lot anybody but Leonard Nimoy can do about it. We can control whether we tolerate these depicitions to give conscientious artist freedom to find alternate pathways to flank the barrier of the massively unappealing female, or we can further restrict the field on the other side, hopefully concentrating the amount of artists forced to work within severely restricted parameters acceptable to everyone, homogenizing female depictions and improving them via minute, glacier-speed changes.

    "People feel uncomfortable when they see muscular women" is an argument for why all games seem to feature stereo typically sexy women, but its not an argument as for why it should be so.

    I agree in a sense that what people "expect" a woman to look like is much more limited than the standards as applied to men, but that's the essential core problem - that the status quo w/r/t female beauty is kind of fucked. (As with the implicit expectation that all women in games should BE beautiful)

    Nope. What we think of as "beautiful" in a woman- shiny hair, big clear eyes, good skin, good hip/waist ratio, taut & firm boobs, symmetrical face, no excess paunchy fat anywhere- are outward signs of youth, health, and fertility. These were very big deals back in the day (i.e. when humans first showed up)and to a lesser extent they remain so today. Therefore any sign that accurately portrayed someone as young, healthy, or fertile would be a boon to the carrier, thus increasing their chances of passing it on (I'm really paraphrasing here on evolution and genetics because it's not the main thrust of this discussion and also I have video games to get back to).

    So today, if someone looks like Kate Upton there's a very good chance she'll be able to carry a healthy child to term repeatedly, statistically speaking. On the other hand, if someone looks like the Hulk or Gilbert Grape's mother there is less of a chance that they will be able to do that, statistically speaking. The more you alter a person's form from what it was evolutionarily selected to be, the higher the chance they'll be less able to do what they were supposed to be able to do- see anorexia also causing sterility in women and morbid obesity having a weakening effect on sperm, among other things. Cultural fetishes at a macro and micro level can and do distort all this, as we're seeing in the discussion here, but there are very solid, non-sexist reasons why we consider certain traits universally attractive.

    Check out that link someone provided earlier of female olympians body shapes. Theres not a binary between "Maxim model" and "Obese hulk woman",

  • CambiataCambiata Commander Shepard The likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered User regular
    Olympian body reference reposted for convenience.

    "If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
  • metroidkillahmetroidkillah Local Bunman Free Country, USARegistered User regular
    "Jeedan wrote: »
    Check out that link someone provided earlier of female olympians body shapes. Theres not a binary between "Maxim model" and "Obese hulk woman",
    On top of that, the concept of physical beauty does change rather significantly over the years. Back during the renaissance, beautiful women were slightly lumpy, small-chested, and pale as hell. In the fashion industry, thin to the point of sickly was considered beautiful for a long time. The idea of the "natural" concept of beauty doesn't really exist, since beauty is relative to the era and culture.

    I'm not a nice guy, I just play one in real life.
  • JeedanJeedan Registered User regular
    I'd like to point out for reference to "designing interesting looking female characters is limiting" the Rob Leifeld creation glory, who as originally designed, looks like this:
    NwSzENU.jpg

    But in the hands of writers/artists who arent afraid to dial down the cheesecake, becomes much more interesting and distinctive.
    4wldGvk.jpg

    ukDkg5P.jpg

    Similarly Mary Jane Watson can look like this:
    irlckI8.jpg

    Or she can look something more akin to a regular teenage girl:

    aqhyJ4S.jpg

    018.jpg

    (Yes I know in some versions of the story she's a supermodel and some isn't I'm pointing out how character designs can vary while still being under a broad spectrum of "attractive love interest")

  • armageddonboundarmageddonbound Registered User regular
    Take one of the example photos of an athletic woman and put full clothes on her. She now looks like every other woman other than the face/hair. (from a design standpoint).

    The detractors of the art in the video game in question, need to specify exactly what they are calling for. Do they want the game censored? Do they want the artist to self censor? Do they want men to not find that image appealing? Do they want women to buy more games? Do they want women to buy more games that only meet a certain criteria with its character designs?

    Most of the reasonable posters on these forums have backed down from the hard censorship line (or were never a part of it to begin with). However thats not the case in the feminist "blogosphere". There is a very real presence there that does not want these images to exist, and think you are a terrible person for liking them.

  • Evan WatersEvan Waters Registered User regular
    Take one of the example photos of an athletic woman and put full clothes on her. She now looks like every other woman other than the face/hair. (from a design standpoint).

    So make the face and hair distinctive. This is generally what's called "being a good artist."

  • CambiataCambiata Commander Shepard The likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered User regular
    "But if they don't have boobs the size of watermelons how can they be distincintiiiiiiiivvvvve?"

    Funny, at least one video game designer seems to be under the impression that giant boobs and hot pants on every female is trite and unimaginative. OMG CENSORSHIP.

    "If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    edited May 2013
    Take one of the example photos of an athletic woman and put full clothes on her. She now looks like every other woman other than the face/hair. (from a design standpoint).
    So do all the men I suppose? Actually, the men don't - we can tell men apart by giving them different body types! (The three classic ones are "skinny," "muscly," and "fat," like Spy/Scout, Soldier/Demoman, and Heavy in TF2). So maybe women could have different body types! Like the men do. Or they could wear different kinds of costumes or walk differently or stand differently to break up their silhouettes, or they could have different colors, or whatever. Honestly if you think artists can't make women distinct from each other without turning all women into supermodels you are seriously underestimating artists.
    The detractors of the art in the video game in question, need to specify exactly what they are calling for. Do they want the game censored? Do they want the artist to self censor? Do they want men to not find that image appealing? Do they want women to buy more games? Do they want women to buy more games that only meet a certain criteria with its character designs?
    We want an artist to be handed an assignment like "draw an archaeologist who raids tombs" or "draw a centuries old asari Justicar" or "draw an elven archer" or "draw a woman kidnapped by a machine and made to test a Portal gun" or "draw a scientist captured by the North Korean military" or "draw a princess" and not say "ooh, I know what to do! Let me just find my supermodel reference and bump her breasts up two sizes, then give me 10 minutes to figure out how short I can make her pants or how much I can show off her breasts with her costume, then I'll add high heels and... done!"
    Most of the reasonable posters on these forums have backed down from the hard censorship line (or were never a part of it to begin with). However thats not the case in the feminist "blogosphere". There is a very real presence there that does not want these images to exist, and think you are a terrible person for liking them.
    ooooooooooh it's the feminist "blogosphere" coming to censor us what are we going to do oh right nobody gives a shit about the feminist blogosphere and until they invade these forums then arguing against them makes as much sense as someone like me coming in here and saying "well, any women on XBOX Live pretty much gets threatened with rape 24/7 so you lose the argument, rapist." You don't threaten women with rape and we don't say art should be censored.

    TychoCelchuuu on
  • KitKatBarKitKatBar Registered User regular
    The detractors of the art in the video game in question, need to specify exactly what they are calling for. Do they want the game censored? Do they want the artist to self censor? Do they want men to not find that image appealing? Do they want women to buy more games? Do they want women to buy more games that only meet a certain criteria with its character designs?
    I want more games made that don't make me feel like a piece of meat, existing (when my gender is portrayed at all) only for the titillation of men.

    Turn it around. Imagine that nearly every game assumes the player is female, and those that don't are gender-neutral (Tetris), allow you to play as either gender (Mass Effect), or feature a man running around with an enlarged peho (Lars Croft). This is just the way it is, because women play games, and hey, I've got a boyfriend who doesn't mind and says he finds dressing up as Lars empowering, so stop complaining. It's not for you.

    What do you men want from us? Ugly characters? Will it satisfy you if we just make all the men ugly? Yeah, the women designs vary a lot, but that's because there's a lot of different ways to draw a woman. She can be tall, short, fat, thin, tough, slender; lots of things. You men, there's not much to tell you apart aside from the hair. I mean, how many different ways can you draw a perfect six-pack? I can't believe you're trying to censor us over this, telling us the art makes you uncomfortable.

    Most of the reasonable posters on these forums have backed down from the hard censorship line (or were never a part of it to begin with). However thats not the case in the feminist "blogosphere". There is a very real presence there that does not want these images to exist, and think you are a terrible person for liking them.

    I don't want these images to exist. I'm not saying they can't exist or that I would like the government to censor them, but I would frankly prefer a world in which this image wasn't around. I also think people who are defending bouncing watermelon-sized breasts as art and totally not meant for titillation are, given the available evidence, not the best people in the world. Notice that my dislike does not keep you from your opinion or the game from existing, and thus definitely does not equate to censorship.

  • PaladinPaladin Registered User regular
    what's a peho?

    Marty: The future, it's where you're going?
    Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    Click on the link.

  • PaladinPaladin Registered User regular
    Do women really go for that?

    Marty: The future, it's where you're going?
    Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    edited May 2013
    The first word of that story is "imagine" - you are meant to imagine a world where there is a male equivalent of the bra. In our current world one doesn't really exist - I'm sure if women had been in the place men have been throughout history, we would've come up with something, not just mechanically but in terms of thinking about the male body in more objectified ways that make it easier to reduce a man to his sexually attractive parts that can then be highlighted. That is, of course, not where we are now, which is why the story in that link asks you to basically flip everything about our society so that it applies to men instead of women. That the 'peho' doesn't exist today (or if it does, that it's so niche) is a good example of how men feel much less pressure to fit society's idea of what is beautiful, whereas women have to wear a bra or get shit. There just aren't ways of thinking about men that can objectify them as much as women can be objectified when it comes to their breasts.

    I think the closest we get is a man's abs, or perhaps his face, and maybe the butt. So the 'peho' example could perhaps be reformulated to target one of those body parts. It's irrelevant, though.

    TychoCelchuuu on
  • PaladinPaladin Registered User regular
    Maybe I'd wear one if it meant I could stop being alone

    Marty: The future, it's where you're going?
    Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
  • armageddonboundarmageddonbound Registered User regular
    edited May 2013
    Take one of the example photos of an athletic woman and put full clothes on her. She now looks like every other woman other than the face/hair. (from a design standpoint).
    So do all the men I suppose? Actually, the men don't - we can tell men apart by giving them different body types! (The three classic ones are "skinny," "muscly," and "fat," like Spy/Scout, Soldier/Demoman, and Heavy in TF2). So maybe women could have different body types! Like the men do. Or they could wear different kinds of costumes or walk differently or stand differently to break up their silhouettes, or they could have different colors, or whatever. Honestly if you think artists can't make women distinct from each other without turning all women into supermodels you are seriously underestimating artists.

    Paladin already went over this in more detail. If you play with exaggerating the female form you usually end up making them look like men, super skinny tween girls OR you adjust what makes them feminine, which is what the artist in this game did.
    The detractors of the art in the video game in question, need to specify exactly what they are calling for. Do they want the game censored? Do they want the artist to self censor? Do they want men to not find that image appealing? Do they want women to buy more games? Do they want women to buy more games that only meet a certain criteria with its character designs?
    We want an artist to be handed an assignment like "draw an archaeologist who raids tombs" or "draw a centuries old asari Justicar" or "draw an elven archer" or "draw a woman kidnapped by a machine and made to test a Portal gun" or "draw a scientist captured by the North Korean military" or "draw a princess" and not say "ooh, I know what to do! Let me just find my supermodel reference and bump her breasts up two sizes, then give me 10 minutes to figure out how short I can make her pants or how much I can show off her breasts with her costume, then I'll add high heels and... done!"
    That doesn't answer the question. How do you want to change what artists are assigned to draw?
    Most of the reasonable posters on these forums have backed down from the hard censorship line (or were never a part of it to begin with). However thats not the case in the feminist "blogosphere". There is a very real presence there that does not want these images to exist, and think you are a terrible person for liking them.
    ooooooooooh it's the feminist "blogosphere" coming to censor us what are we going to do oh right nobody gives a shit about the feminist blogosphere and until they invade these forums then arguing against them makes as much sense as someone like me coming in here and saying "well, any women on XBOX Live pretty much gets threatened with rape 24/7 so you lose the argument, rapist." You don't threaten women with rape and we don't say art should be censored.
    You are correct, most people don't care about the feminist blogosphere. When posters such as myself address the topic however, we are addressing some of those elements. Some of thoses elements exist in mainstream video game media sites however, and not just crazy feminist niches.

    armageddonbound on
  • NerobyrneNerobyrne Registered User new member
    edited October 2015
    The question is, would gay men play as that warrior?
    Probably not.
    But there's hentai with both of those on one character :O
    Not that I would know anything about that .....

    Seriously though, straight men and staight women tend to be attracted to different things in their partners, it's not game designer's fault, it's the fault of evolution/your chosen deity.

    Nerobyrne on
  • srcssrcs Registered User new member
    Why are people made uncomfortable by attractive examples of their gender?

  • srcssrcs Registered User new member
    We want an artist to be handed an assignment like "draw an archaeologist who raids tombs" or "draw a centuries old asari Justicar" or "draw an elven archer" or "draw a woman kidnapped by a machine and made to test a Portal gun" or "draw a scientist captured by the North Korean military" or "draw a princess" and not say "ooh, I know what to do! Let me just find my supermodel reference and bump her breasts up two sizes, then give me 10 minutes to figure out how short I can make her pants or how much I can show off her breasts with her costume, then I'll add high heels and... done!"

    Nah, fuck that. Every artist should create whatever they want to create. Piss off.

  • srcssrcs Registered User new member
    Jeedan wrote: »
    I'd like to point out for reference to "designing interesting looking female characters is limiting" the Rob Leifeld creation glory, who as originally designed, looks like this:
    NwSzENU.jpg

    But in the hands of writers/artists who arent afraid to dial down the cheesecake, becomes much more interesting and distinctive.
    4wldGvk.jpg

    ukDkg5P.jpg

    Similarly Mary Jane Watson can look like this:
    irlckI8.jpg

    Or she can look something more akin to a regular teenage girl:

    aqhyJ4S.jpg

    018.jpg

    (Yes I know in some versions of the story she's a supermodel and some isn't I'm pointing out how character designs can vary while still being under a broad spectrum of "attractive love interest")

    "Afraid" has nothing to do with it. They simply prefer attractive women. You're free to fuck off forever and read something else, loser.

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