[ SECRET POST #6494 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6494 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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[Heartstopper]



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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 13 secrets from Secret Submission Post #928.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

05. https://i.imgur.com/PpVzWXK.png

[(Anonymous)]

Love the picture choice!

[(Anonymous)]

what if you shrug and go 'sexy characters sell games and people wanna sell games'?

ngl I have zero problems with gratuitous skimpy bikini armor if the men get the same treatment and are wandering around inexplicably shirtless or in tight leather armor or something. you'd think they'd realize already that 'people like sexy characters' doesn't only apply to people who like women. gaze at abs more or something, idk

por que no los dos

[feotakahari]

Shout out to that dude who was asked to design a woman in a “swimsuit” and put her in a diving suit instead. https://www.siliconera.com/yoko-taro-made-sinoalice-skin-told-gacha-games-need-show-skin/

[(Anonymous)]

porque you know it almost never ends up like that. for every 50 bikini armors there is 1 shirtless ab guy. I agree that we need equal fanservice but we still don't get equal fanservice therefore I am still and always mad.

[(Anonymous)]

I mean obviously yes it's almost never like that, but that doesn't answer the question, which was 'why not'

dev/design time and costs? crying homophobes that find the men a little too attractive? simply not realizing that like half of gamers are into men? no thought put into it at all? all of the above?

[(Anonymous)]

Yes.

[(Anonymous)]

"dev/design time and costs?" lol, nope, this one is always an excuse not make games with diversity. Funny how lots of indie games, which way less time and money can do it.

A simpler answer is the same as in other industries: most game companies are led by (white) straight men, most executives are (white) straight men, they still make games for (white) straight men with stereotypical chara models they think will appeal more to their audience, in their narrow-minded mind, this is less financially risky. This industry is vastly mysognist, homophobic and racist as evidenced by all the workplace scandals that regularly come out, and doesn't care at all about inclusivity.

[(Anonymous)]

I do think superhero comics have got a lot better about this - more women in full body costumes, more men in skimpy costumes, heading towards a balance. So maybe games will too?

[philstar22]

Straight men aren't the only people who play games. Gay men and straight women play too as well as plenty of bi people. Why is it only straight men that get catered to?

[feotakahari]

I don’t think skimpy outfits are especially offensive compared to some of the stuff I’ve seen in male-targeted “romance” games, but I often think they’re stupid. I don’t particularly care whether she breathes through her skin, or she gets more powerful when demon blood splashes her bare skin, or this was the first outfit she could steal to replace her prison uniform. (None of these are hypothetical.) Give her something that actually looks cool!

[(Anonymous)]

This just makes me think of Kaine, from Nier, who is definitely in a sexy outfit.

She's also a crass canonly intersex character who is written as using this clothing to assert her femininity that's denied her by her hometown.

I often wonder what people think of things like that.

[(Anonymous)]

They don't. Nuance is for chumps (and possibly folk who are literate).

[(Anonymous)]

It is really tricky with stuff like that. If there weren't the history behind it it would just be really cool, but with the history of sexism and skimpy clothes there is a part of me that thinks they just made a cool backstory to validate their desire to have skimpy clothes. I try not to think like that but I worked in the industry for a bit and it has unfortunately definitely left me more pessimistic.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, that's exactly the problem. It's not impossible to want to genuinely tell a story about self-expression and validation in a way that uses skimpy clothes, and not even wrong in itself to use the backstory as an excuse to have skimpy clothes. You can have shallow reasons for writing a thing and still write it well, and at that point how much does your intent matter vs. what people get out of the story?

But I always think of the infamous example of that character Quiet from the Metal Gear creator who's basically naked, and the creator responded to all criticisms of that with "You'll feel bad for criticizing it when you find out why she's dressed like that." And the why turned out to be... because she breathes through her skin and would suffocate if she wore too much. Which is definitely a transparent writing choice meant to justify her outfit and even if it was necessary for characterization reasons to make her breathe through her skin, there are a million other creative license solutions to how she could be able to breathe without not wearing clothes.

[(Anonymous)]

Well. SHE isn't doing anything. The writers DECIDED to have her do this.

So whether it's a really interesting exploration of agency and femininity and queerness and visibility or just an excuse for fanservice with woke buzzwords depends a lot on context and execution.

[ariakas]

Yeaaaaah coming from the MGS fandom I am very nonplussed by "it's fine because her backstory totally justifies it!!!" because, buddy, characters aren't real they don't have histories that developed organically; they have writers who designed them they way they wanted to design them (in Yoko Taro's case re: the Nier games, he's on the record as stating he does skimpy outfits because he likes skimpy outfits, no other reason) then did or did not invent an excuse as to why they're designed that way.

I haven't played Nier; it's possible this is done well. It's also possible this is done poorly, like Quiet, as a paper-thin excuse for fanservice. The "but the backstory!!!" means nothing.

[(Anonymous)]

Imagine how limited fandom discussions would become if we responded to everything every character did with the reminder that they didn't really do anything, the writer just chose to make them do it.

[(Anonymous)]

huh. This secret made me realize that I don’t play any games like that. The closest would be Skyrim but female armor is just male armor with some added curves. Mods can definitely skew the gaze one way or the other but the vanilla game is pretty neutral. That’s a big part of why so many of the mods are porny *shrug*