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Why women criticise sexualised character designs | OT3 | "make her look more...corpulent, more stuffed where the eyes can't escape."
- Thread starter Persephone
- Start date
- OT
I really have no idea how people don't feel cringe with this.
This is so lame and obvious lol
I honestly love a good fashion component, and a lot of the outfits are great in theory, but it's cheezed up soooooo much it's honestly just funny.
That camera work wants you to look, or it'll make you look.
I just wanted to reply to this very nuanced, well thought out take and confirm that I think it's really important that you prioritize your emotional and mental well being and safety, over whatever social norm would promote harmony through tolerating a hostile space.
I know that as a straight white guy, I've made myself sit down and grapple with the privilege that I have to not feel like my circumstances would raise flags for anyone else to just decide to interject themselves into my life and have those kinds of opinions masked as "concern" or outrage.
So yeah. I agree with your take. Even I choose to remove people that show they have no interest in being anything but hostile to marginalized groups. I don't need that in my circle.
Mi sa che devo emigrare di nuovo 😅 è tutto triste qua, hai fatto bene ad andare via
Ce la faremo... forse
Someone just proudly bragged about putting me on ignore for being too "negative" about the game. I'm so fucking tired.
This is where I'm at. Like, this game looks fine from a general gameplay POV, but nothing to go wild over (especially as it only reinforces this kind of feeling that These Games Count The Most, which is absolute horseshit) except it's become a focal point of chud energy. That gif is just plain embarassing. I don't get why people are so fucking needy about sex when there's whole swathes of the net and popular culture AND REAL LIFE dedicated to it, explicitly (lolz). Seriously, the thirst is absolutely pathetic.
That and, yes, frankly, the exclusive 'benefit'/general Sony love in parts of the net have - anything with the right box gets a massive bump because another childish button is pressed (the review scores, if they were of another genre and publisher would, I guarantee you, have a far more mixed reaction here and elsewhere - which is ironic, because it's good scores!). That's always gonna be the case, but add it all together and it feels like a great example of so much in gaming that I wish we could just leave behind.
It was ever thus. Complaints about anything like 'politics in ma games' is simply 'the wrong kind of politics in ma games'.
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I hopethat whatever has been wearing on you lately in rl settles down so you can catch a breather.
On here, well, people that are being wilfully ignorant is definitely disappointing. Here's hoping that the industry at large rewards games that depict women a actual people, not sex mannequins with "cool fight mechanics"
I would never encourage a person who treats them as less-than-human to stick around in that kind of relationship. I'm talking about the kind of topics that get argued over dinner at a family thanksgiving get-together, and yeah there's only so much a person can take before you have to just walk away. I didn't get the impression from the person in question that it was that kind of situation.
There's research that shows that people are more likely to change their stances on things when they feel they've been listened to. I am glad that my friends were tolerant of me when I had some uhh.. choice views on gay marriage as a teenager, because had I been abandoned for my opinions I might have just gone down the rabbit hole, sought others who thought like me, and not ended up reversing my stance. It's especially easy these days because of how it simple is it to find a Reddit community that reinforces your views and makes you feel validated.
A lot them are really good...and than there are the spirit Halloween "costumes"I saw a video of all the outfits.
This is so lame and obvious lol
I honestly love a good fashion component, and a lot of the outfits are great in theory, but it's cheezed up soooooo much it's honestly just funny.
That camera work wants you to look, or it'll make you look.
Jesus Christ.
Know that you are getting the biggest hug from me and I hope life turns around for the better for you. Stay healthy.
Good God, that PlayStation thread is a pit of despair. People are very excited to finally be able to drown out the feminists.
It's the kind of thing where I know where you're coming from, but at the same time, sometimes you DO have to cut bait. I have some cousins whose dad is a hardline super-omega-level Republican. Dude's been in the finance industry since before I was born, rich as hell, etc. He's never been anything less than perfectly nice to me and bends over backwards to help me when I need it. But he's also DEEPLY Republican, and his reaction every time I mention a political issue is this dismissive, joking "Iiiiiiii don't believe that". He's got firewalls around his mind so thick that nothing I say gets through. Has that stopped me from trying? Not yet. But oftentimes I really want to. His kids are also Republican, but they actually have dialogues with me and listen to me when I talk to them. Sometimes I can change their minds on things, or at least make them think about the stuff they've absorbed from their dad and the internet. It's not perfect, but they're not dyed-in-the-wool Trumpers like our grandma was before she died.
But there are people out there who are even worse than him. The kind of people who actively FIGHT with you instead of just defensively trying to preserve their cognitive dissonance sphere of protection. And I don't blame anyone who can't put up with those kinds of folks and just give up rather than trying to convince them. Sometimes self-preservation needs to take precedence, you know?
I just hope shit gets better before it inevitably gets worse again. I've been burnt down at both ends of the candle since March and it's so hard to muster positive energy at this point. Especially when it feels like everywhere you look something or another is on fire and there's nothing you can do to stop it or even help, and people actively brag about ignoring your opinions.
Oh, I'd forgotten about that one. They showed it at an anime club I went to way long ago, and I was rolling my eyes the entire time.
Just some fragility, some men are just incapable of even handling the smallest criticism of their pantyshot simulator.
They want both the sexism *and* the pat on the head for playing <good game>. They really want *both*. Someone daring to say "uh" just isn't wanted.
i feel like the gamergate 2 horseshit that's been percolating in the background the last couple of months has made a lot of outlets decide they need to tiptoe around issues that could attract negative attention from bad actors. which like, okay. but if you want to protect your writers, just don't include a byline on the critical reviews. paste just had to do that to protect one of their contributors from getting mauled to death by swifties
Oh, the usual, still, probably good that I stay out of it so I don't get banned from not holding back, lol.
I don't think it's enough, honestly. Even if the industry drops bylines on those kinds of reviews, the omega-chuds will just focus on any minority voices at the publication and assume the critical review came from them and give them the same treatment even if they weren't involved in the review at all.
There just doesn't seem to be a solution here, especially ever since Elon destroyed Twitter and completely eviscerated its moderation.
I ... had to refrain from posting some stuff that would have likely gotten me banned. That poster was inches away from calling you woke. There have been a handful of hostile posts made towards you recently when all one has to do is ignore and move on. It's a mark of craven weakness on their parts, not yours. I don't always agree with you, but you're a part of this community and I appreciate your presence here.
There are a number of posters in the PS OT who have now seared off any veneer of thoughtfulness or consideration. They can be safely marked down as shameless corporate cheerleaders.
You're giving them far too much credit. Sites like IGN would totally bring back their "Babe of the Week" section if they didn't think it would result in backlash.
So, today in Portugal we are celebrating the 50 years of the revolution that took down a dictatorship. Since this meant that women gained a lot of rights, Sony Portugal decided to comission a drawing that celebrates their women characters. You'll never guess the character who's front and center!
For me it's worse than cringe, it's infantilizing and insulting to its audience, let alone women at large. Its jangling keys in front of your face like you're an infant. I couldn't play a game like that and not constantly have in the back of my mind that the developers consider me an manipulable idiot, who giggles and claps when they see jiggle physics.
I can absolutely see why you would play this game, I hear the combat is great. I can't work out why you would champion that aspect of it though. Apart from, you know.
Yea, I'm sorry. I got involved after I said that I wouldn't. A person can ignore someone without trying to gaslight. It's fucking childish behavior that shouldn't be tolerated.
I get the geneal idea of wanting to teach the masses and fight back against the various chud holes that have all too often been allowed to fester and ensnare others, but I feel like those instances are going to be extremely situational depending on the person and in many cases can cause more harm than good for those trying to help.
Lots of people are not coming from a place of good faith. Many people may not be coming from a "neutral" position worthy of debate. Many people may not be equipped to handle that sort of discourse ie have to "explain" their rights or their humanity or their struggles to others or are insulted or told they are lying, especially when those people have to deal with that from people they *don't* choose to hang around.
As an example, pretty much any person would find it extremely rude for other people to display "opinions" about said person/people as factual information. Even moreso with those on display having no input on the matter beforehand. And in debates, factual information being argued in good faith is supposed to be a bare minimum. So when someone effectively opens with gaslighting at "best" (ie "I don't see what the problem is with X, those women/gays/blacks/browns/Jews ECT are overreacting and here's why, stay tuned!") and outright racist/sexist/prejudice rhetoric being all too common, and their only support for their racism/sexism/prejudiced opinion a no-nothing talk show host or something equivalent from the usual "think" pieces, that's sabotaging the entire argumentive process from the start. That's why opinions with no factual basis behind them need to be treated as just that. Yet they are being treated as something worthy of debating, or even swaying legislation nationwide, and so here we are.
Yes, their education system failed them by allowing them to present that type of premise as an argument worthy of consideration, but that's also not something anyone should feel obligated to deal with, especially when it's a matter of human rights, which should never be up for debate due to there never being worthwhile arguments against. Deciding to pursue a relationship worthy of salvaging in spite of all that is going to go to an extremely privileged few when I try, it's a lot of freaking work and heartache for what could easily be a lost cause.
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This is a very important point because if you take the outfits and angles seriously, I don't think you'll find in-universe repercussions. It's objectification in strict sense, because it doesn't arise from the characters. I haven't seen much, but all the sexualization seems totally extraneous to the personalities, tastes and objectives of the characters. So it's extremely on purpose. So come on.
These are the guys who'll ask for "realism" if King Arthur is a black woman and not Saber.
honestly even before elon took over, twitter's moderation was...capricious at best. i reported a looot of people for things ranging from holocaust denial to transphobic abuse to outright suicide baiting and death threats, and even in the most blatant and serious of cases, they'd only lock the offender's account 1/4 of the time.
and tbh i think the chuds searching out minority voices at publications to attack is inevitable even if they're getting their way. they'll flood someone's mentions just as happily to gloat as they will to inundate them with threats. a lot of the time they'll do both
oh sure, some publications are full of misogynists and always have been. i did expect better of polygon, though, and i have the feeling that they specifically are adopting the "keep our heads down" tactic
Fwiw despite often disagreeing with you, I enjoy reading your posts here. You put thought and effort into the ideas you write up and I appreciate that. There is no requirement to do so on a board like this and the care you put into the conversation often shows.
I know that's not much. But I wanted to let you know your thoughts aren't wasted. There are folks out there who will try to drag you down and you don't deserve that.
I don't disagree at all, you're right on both counts. It sucks, the whole situation is rotten all the way through, and yet somehow the press (probably the executives that own/manage said press sites) are taking the worst route forward possible anyway.
And then, even when the press gives GamerGate what they want, they just lash out regardless. It's absolutely ridiculous.
The sticking point to me through all this is despite proof that this site in question fervently didn't want to get "political" and even pointed out they weren't going to bring up Stellar Blade's sexism, they were still blasted for the low score and blamed for being "woke" anyway.
The leopards they were catering to just ate their face, and they're still going to do so.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukjuyU564Ok
If people need shit to calm down and listen to from SB antics, I recommend this music channel. They bring all kinds of great chill stuff and I use this music to work to as well. Music is great for mental health.
I must be underestimating the popularity of character action games or something because there are hella quality games coming out and this one never seemed noteworthy outside of how exceedingly lame the attempts at sexy were.
That's the thing - stylish action games aren't that popular. DMC is the most popular in the entire genre and it's never been a huge seller. The genre has always been relatively niche because the execution requirements to really go wild in those games end up carving off a lot of potential players.
That's why it's so weird that this game has all this hype being thrown at it. I guarantee you that if Sony didn't put their logo on the box, it would be getting significantly less hype than it's getting now and would mostly just be talked about in niche communities.
I got the feeling the Polygon writer just didn't know what they were talking about.
Ah, fuck it, since the costume vid got posted in the OT I might as well go all-in. I'll keep it to spoilers though, since I know some people are looking forward to finding outfits for themselves.
I'm posting the skin suit here first just to show off her default stance in the menu. The outfit's been talked to death, I don't need to go into it. It just does a good job of being a reference point since there isn't anything getting in the way. She's doing the classic chest and butt thrust that you see so often, which will affect how the other costumes fit on her (this bugged me to no end in Monster Hunter World, as an aside). It's also hard to see, because I can't get a screencap low enough, but her feet are ALWAYS going to be in that heel pose. With the one exception that I saw being the bear costume. Even outfits I thought had normal shoes still have her standing on her toes. I figured that would be the case back when I commented on their scanning of the model, but I know some people pointed out a few outfits had some normal shoes, so it's worth pointing out.
Here's that dress that I mentioned before. From the front it doesn't look half bad!
From the side... she becomes a bell. Black on black is a little hard to see, so I grabbed a recolour of it that stands out a bit better. On its own this outfit is completely fine, it's just the way they've posed her makes it look really bad when viewed at any angle that isn't head on.
This is the one that disappoints me the most. It's really good as a general outfit, but then you look down towards her feet and you get hit with nonsensical heels. I'm not sure why her feet glow, but it makes it impossible to not notice because they stick out compared to everything else.
The second to last one I'll talk about unprompted. I included the actual name and description for this one because it's the one outfit that actually makes me really mad. Girl, what is going on here? How is this in any way the outfit of a mechanic? Make it make sense.
One last one that I'm going to put separately because it needs a NSFW tag.
I don't think I need to say anything. It speaks for itself.
Edit: Oh wait, I forgot about the outfit people have been talking about as a reward for completion.
It really is just lacy lingerie.
I'm posting the skin suit here first just to show off her default stance in the menu. The outfit's been talked to death, I don't need to go into it. It just does a good job of being a reference point since there isn't anything getting in the way. She's doing the classic chest and butt thrust that you see so often, which will affect how the other costumes fit on her (this bugged me to no end in Monster Hunter World, as an aside). It's also hard to see, because I can't get a screencap low enough, but her feet are ALWAYS going to be in that heel pose. With the one exception that I saw being the bear costume. Even outfits I thought had normal shoes still have her standing on her toes. I figured that would be the case back when I commented on their scanning of the model, but I know some people pointed out a few outfits had some normal shoes, so it's worth pointing out.
Here's that dress that I mentioned before. From the front it doesn't look half bad!
From the side... she becomes a bell. Black on black is a little hard to see, so I grabbed a recolour of it that stands out a bit better. On its own this outfit is completely fine, it's just the way they've posed her makes it look really bad when viewed at any angle that isn't head on.
This is the one that disappoints me the most. It's really good as a general outfit, but then you look down towards her feet and you get hit with nonsensical heels. I'm not sure why her feet glow, but it makes it impossible to not notice because they stick out compared to everything else.
The second to last one I'll talk about unprompted. I included the actual name and description for this one because it's the one outfit that actually makes me really mad. Girl, what is going on here? How is this in any way the outfit of a mechanic? Make it make sense.
One last one that I'm going to put separately because it needs a NSFW tag.
I don't think I need to say anything. It speaks for itself.
Edit: Oh wait, I forgot about the outfit people have been talking about as a reward for completion.
It really is just lacy lingerie.
This is not the first, nor will it be the last time someone does that because they find your posts "overbearing".
And it works too. I'm really bothered by people that can't accept criticism of an aspect of something they enjoy and take it as some kind of attack. Think at times that is less them excusing that part of the work but instead it is part of what appeals to them about it and not wanting to accept other people's views on it.
The shit I put up with in games I otherwise enjoy. I guess I can be happy that Stellar Blade is so unappealing to me that it's not going to be a Xenoblade 2 situation. Where I love the game despite the shittyness and am at odds with a fanbase that is always on defense against anything critical said about the game. Only reason for me to go into any fan discussion around Stellar Blade will just be for self harm.
I hope things get better for you. When other things are stressful, everything else that's frustrating and stressfully adds to how you're feeling.
I am both surprised and unsurprised by how Stellar Blade is being lauded. I'm not surprised the gaming community at large is prioritizing gameplay when the story being told and visuals are also part of the gameplay experience, but it's still so frustrating to see others joyfully reverse track on progress we thought we were making. It's so absurd that there's a real possibility a walking example of sexism like Eve will be featured on an International Women's Day campaign. The constant opposition to growth really sucks.
I want to point out an important aspect of what you said: your friends were tolerant of you in spite of your views. In other words, they chose to have faith in you and engage with you. I believe you when you say you are grateful to them for this, but I want to point out that patience and leniency is an effort and a risk even if those who make those efforts are willing to do so. The change still had to come from you…. But so does the willingness to be open and educate yourself. That's on you, me, every other chud plugging their ears, on everyone really.
It's important to speak out and share valuable perspective - it helps push back against bigotry and aggression, it can make a difference… and potentially keep you safe if people who target you are motivated by ignorance.
That being said, we can advocate for change and growth but we can't always be the one to make it happen, the same way we can't force people to listen to us or educate themselves. Putting the responsibility on us to ensure that people do not stray from the right path is a lot to ask of us. Patsy took the time to write an insightful, honest and vulnerable post (thank you!). Many others share their thoughts and experiences no matter how secret or overwhelming to reach out. They share private details, they expose sensitive and vulnerable aspects of themselves… and they could still face rejection, if not worse, for being out there. It is easy to find communities that validate you, but the easiest choice is to block out information and refuse to make efforts you can also make. Information is available whether or not we are the ones to provide them, so this enlightenment could have been reached without us being responsible for making it happen for others.