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A short little rundown of many (though not all) current manufactured controversies that the Capital G Gamers™ keyboard warriors talked themselves into* being mad about. All pertaining the issue of female video game characters not being "feminine enough" for the nerdbro tastes.

~Ozzie

*Once again, we can not stress it enough that people making those arguments are so irony-poisoned that telling apart trolls from dorks genuinely mad about the stupidest things is seeking a distinction without difference.

See also other gamer manbaby tantrums: Tifa's boobs from FF7 "too small" | Abby from TLoU2 "too muscular" | Tracer butt "censored" | Many "vile acts of censorship" in video games

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Pornography Addiction

Recently our post on the behavour of Capital-G Gamers, and the problems in the industry that feed into it, attracted a lot of comments advising not to use "porn addict". Some claiming the term was invented by right-wing Christian groups.

It is certainly true that there are various right-wing and/or Christian groups do claim pornography addiction as a reason to revoke basic human rights, further marginalize sex workers, and justify violence against sex workers... that doesn't mean they invented it.

Like most things the radical right relies upon, they co-opted it from a group they have contempt for. Nazis co-opted the Swastika from Buddhism, shitty men on Reddit co-opted involuntary celibacy terminology from a bisexual woman, right-wing pseudo-academics tried to co-opt diversity with their "diversity of thought" campaign... and hateful Christian groups are trying to co-opt expertise on behavioural addictions (sex, gambling, shopping, pornography, etc as opposed to substance addtions) from psychology.

It's worth examining how this is working with pornography and the ways it ties in with the various fashy parties determined to rule the world we all live in.

Actual Pornography Addiction

Actual pornography addiction has its roots in similar addictions such as gambling - it is a situation where the individual becomes obsessed with it as a source of positive feelings, to the detriment of themselves and those around them.

Symptoms of it include a full blown obsession, a loss of interest in other enjoyable activities, spending money needed for essentials on the focus of the addiction, engaging it under risk circumstances (such as while at a job that you really need to keep), suffering anxiety and frustration when unable to indulge, etc.

Importantly, with these kinds of addictions, they are often not really about what what they appear to be. People get addicted sometimes because it's a reliable source of dopamine hits, or because it provides an escape from harsh realities around them, etc. Taking the focus of the addiction away does not fix the underlying cause, and often leads to them finding a substitute addiction.

So, if you say... for the sake of argument, you have a group of people who actively identify as "gooners", remember a porn parody of Lola Bunny as the "real" design, obsess over a single game because it has some sexy skins, make 9/11 jokes and riot when a quality of life feature prevents them from looking up video game girl skirts, and all the points in the original post (including want to fap to a character who is defined by how she's been abused by men)... it's not unreasonable to point out they do seem to be advertising to the world that they are current or aspiring pornography addicts. Particularly since their outrage is rarely about what they actually claim it is about.

How much it applies to any given member of that community is impossible to say, as the whole group is irony poisoned and also obsessed with performative behaviour.

And as a side note, if someone dear to you has similar behavior, whether its in relation to porn, sex, gambling, video games, or anything else - then it is generally considered the compassionte thing to try to get them to realize it and work towards addressing both the addiction and any underlying causes in their life.

Right-wing "Pornography Addiction"

When people who have nothing but contempt for psychology and sex therapists say "porn addiction" or "sex addiction" they are villifying sex workers and objectified persons, blaming them for the violence done against them and completely unrelated ills in society.

They consider it "addiction" if you develop a crush on someone other than your spouse, have normal sexual fantasies, occasionally want to enjoy pornography, are curious about visiting a strip bar or even just masturbate... under any circumstances.

They are closer to anti-pornography than concerned for addiction, and has a long, long history. I would hope BABD followers would be aware we are definitely not anti-porn and we actively support sex workers.

Obviously, the real goal is to give them more control and more avenues to suppress people. This is clearly illustrated in the ways Project 2025 both wants to outlaw pornography and define "transgender ideology" as pornograpy. You can see between the lines, the goal isn't to make people better, the goal is to criminalize the existence of people they look down on.

Also, the solutions they propose clearly don't help anyone and they know that - South Korea has strict anti-porn laws, and the "gooner" community mistake it for a porny wonderland. Again, they don't want to help anyone, they just want to hurt people they do not like.

The harm of co-opting

At face value, it's easy to see why the proposed solution to this is just to say it's not real, it's right-wing nonsense, etc.

But that creates two problems. First it means there's people with a problem that is being denied, and secondly it kind of ignores the real overall goals by missing the forest for the trees.

People whose lives are harmed by behavioural addiction need a framework to be able to address it, and need other people to take it seriously and not just dismiss it as "made up". This applies to gambling, shopping, gaming and pornography.

Think about it, when was the last time you saw a swastika on display as a symbol of positivity? Think "incel" is ever coming back to the LGBTQ people who struggle to find people accepting of them?

Secondly, the reactionaries co-opting it are not "making up" a boogieman. They're not that imaginative and they're much, much more dishonest and malicious.

They're actively spreading misinformation in an attempt to gain for authoritarian power to use to harm people. They're actively trying to undermine the work people have done to help people, stripping the actual research away and placing themselves as the authority on a topic of public wellbeing that they see only as a cudgel.

Because they won't stop at just claiming to be the experts on pornography addiction, they'll claim to be the experts on gambling, drugs, alcohol, gaming, shopping, etc. All their advice will be what's convenient for them, and their friends.

Same way all kinds of psychological concepts get co-opted into torturing people under the claim of conversion therapy (which does not and has never worked, in any capacity), often in the name of profit as well as oppression.

So my recommendation is be less concerned about the term appearing, and more concerned about whether it is in the context of warning people their obsession is harmful - or just trying to trick people into agreeing to authoritarian control.

-wincenworks

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So, this image has been viral on the Internets in armor nerd circles a few times, but I never saw anyone talk about the artist and how she also does amazing stuff like this.

And this.

And this.

Gambargin is mostly active on Facebook, but has a huge, HUGE backlog of amazing drawings of warrior women on Instagram and deviantArt.

In summary:

-wincenworks

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This bingo of Sindel from Mortal Kombat 11 brought to you by the memory of how Mortal Kombat is supposedly full of 'girl power' and this Outside X-Box video:

Because this is generally a pattern with these kinds of properties that try to pretend because they give a female character super powers sometimes, they're above critique - they always revert to garbage.

There is always plenty of potential for making interesting female characters sexy, in many ways, but if you start with your standard as "she's hot" it invariably leads to losing the aspects that make the character interesting or help build drama.

Also... it's Mortal Kombat. Buying a Mortal Kombat game to oggle the female characters is like going to a speciality restaurant with a celebrity chef to buy bottled water.

-wincenworks

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Since this is apparently being made by the late Samuel Goldwyn's studio, it feels only right to begin with one of his great quotes.

Gentleman, listen to me slowly.

That is not even close to the iconic bikini armor, and is, in fact, an unholy combination of the bikini armor and the armor that Red Sonja had in her first appearance as a comic character:

Nobody is going to watch a Red Sonja movie based on the bikini amor, because while it might have been novel at some point - how it is just a boring version of what they see in countless pieces of media.

(Also that thing looks so 60s/70s, with the faux metal finish and token scale texture, like a budget version of a Barbarella costume - though I'm sure she'd refuse to wear it)

Nobody wants to see a Red Sonja that is mostly about her getting ground down etc. People want to watch her do cool shit with swords, kick ass, talk shit to big burly men and get mad when her love interest gets killed due to not being as badass as she is.

Or you could go with the hard-drinking, pistol slinging, Ukrainian/Polish-inspired version that Robert E Howard actually wrote.

There are a lot of options, you don't have to consistently pick the absolute worst ones over and over. We already had, essentially, this idea in 1985 and it um...

-wincenworks

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We've already did a throwback of our original post about this hilarious redesign before, but in light of what we discussed re: Silent Hill 2 and Stellar Blade nerdbro meltdowns lately, @azzandra summarizes this sadly topical problem perfectly.

People who insist on those sorts of edits, or who photoshop smiles on Marvel movie heroines, or throw a hissy fit because two square inches of pixel cleavage or butt were "censored" with character model update, clearly have a case of "literally divorced my sexual preference from real life humans and will make it everyone else's problem" disease. I'd prescribe touching some grass for that.

And no, frankly, it doesn't really matter if they're in fact irony-poisoned or otherwise insincere, as long as they're acting so loudly and publicly as if they truly felt that way. Ironic incel is still, for all intents and purposes, just another incel.

BTW, if you haven't heard of the tulpa Cockroach Wife Ogtha story and are feeling morbidly curious, please be warned of how potentially disturbing it is before googling the details.

~Ozzie

i wish i could see this picture for the first time again

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The invaluable Shaun dropped in November a very exhaustive look at Stellar Blade and at the manufactured culture war that Mark Kern/Grummz tried to recruit the game into in an attempt to revive Gamergate.

To summarize, an introduction to whom Mark is, his failed game project and the fake outrage is followed by quite measured review of Stellar Blade itself, including a look at the story, gameplay and design. Surprising no-one, Shaun is not very impressed, despite giving it a fair shake.

Of course my favorite part must be when he makes a point about NPCs having no reaction to Eve's outfit, by making her bring tragic news to an NPC while clad in a silly bikini. Which then extends into a short discussion of what's basically our blog's thesis, including examples of varying levels of ludonarrative dissonance caused by sexualized outfits in different games. Including this comment on the skimpy costume rhetoric:

"Of course it is up to your own judgment what you think is sufficient justification for any particular character outfit or design. And if you're happy to accept actually she has to be naked because she caught Clothes-Fall-Off Disease, then that's up to you honestly, I'm not going to argue with you."

I'm with Shaun here. Perhaps pretending that this sort of Thermian Argument rhetoric is serious media analysis goes a tiny bit over the line? Maybe admitting to being a horny, aimlessly angry gremlin would actually help guys like Mark and his audience to find some cheesy fun games they'd genuinely enjoy? Hell, he could just... actually deliver that game he promised them.

Or maybe they're just too commited to spewing anti-trans hate and other Nazi rhetoric at anything even remotely "PC/woke/DEI" in their eyes to even care about actual gaming, as our last related post elaborated.

~Ozzie

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Raine is definitely the hero the fantasy genre needs, the paladin who will make us look deep within ourselves and ask why don't we dress all fictional men like this?

The empowerment, the armor that lets him be super agile but also equipped to deflect attacks.

Truly inspiring.

-wincenworks

Vengeance Paladin ⚔️ my PC Raine

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Oh hey, new Dynasty Warriors game came out... let's see how they did with Sun Shangxiang, aka Lady Sun.

Oh dear.

And for the curious, this is what historic illustrations tend to depict her as:

Weird how gamers only seem to worry about remaining true to the source material under particular circumstances.

For further context, Lady Sun has gotten a pretty rough deal in most of the games, but this is how they made her look in Dynasty Warriors 9 (where she appeared in DLC):

So not only is this more ridiculous than just not having armor (to the extent she needs bike shorts) but it also is a massive step back.

And somehow this is now as ridiculously fantasy-esque as Hyrule Warriors, though... hopefully none of the female characters get as bad an outfit as Shia.

-wincenworks

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Silent Hill 2 is the greatest game I don't think I can unconditionally recommend to people. Because it is amazing, but its also about trauma, guilt, abuse (of adults and children) and how unhealed, festering harm perpetuates itself onto innocent bystanders. A play-through of it is a rough ride emotionally.

It also features this adorable little scamp with the excellent points.

Now, if you're at all familiar with Silent Hill 2 you're probably very well informed on what this particular meme relates to. But if you're not, and you want a primer - Dead Domain has created a video pointing out the absurdity of this particular fiasco.

This was, of course, followed up when trailer seasons came around and Naughty Dog released a trailer than seemed to depict a woman who didn't care for gender conformity, and CD Projekt trailer that indicates, let me check my notes... Ciri's appearance has changed slightly as she's grown older - also she's probably going to be the protagonist of the next game, as all variations of The Witcher always build to. This has lead to some truly amazing fan art, and also the greatest possible observation by @dyingnome

And this isn't a surprise to anyone who follows these conversations, I think it's worth talking about because certain events globally have emboldened these types (who always seem to be gulible enough to pay for a blue tick on X nee Twitter) - leading to them trying to shout out all other conversation on the medium. We are, in fact, at the point where they're admitting they are Nazis who don't play games.

Truly we have never had more confirmation that the people who aggressively campaign for a standard of cartoonishly over-sexualized as the baseline for female characters do so not out of a love of gaming, but rather because of overwhelming indifference to a medium they don't participate in.

@verilybitchie has recently just released an essay that focuses initially on disappointment with current trans, particularly non-binary, options in games, but also covers how we got there in terms of certain genres of games having been historically unwilling to to let go the male gaze.

This, of course, is not an excuse for the self-identifying Nazis etc, but goes a long way in explaining why your more normal friends might have a confused reaction, and highlights the kinds of issues in the industry that are still unaddressed.

Also, in case you're the sort of person who needs to hear it from a middle-aged or older white man:

-wincenworks

DeadDomain's YouTube | All dyingnome's links | VerilyBitchie's YouTube

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I'll never get people who even imply that you can't make a character look beautiful in a non-boobastic full plate armor. Seems like a skill issue to me. Take notes from @foervraengd!

Found this piece via inquiring the author about their other piece, The Porcelain Prince, which depicts a less sensible, but incredibly aesthetic idea of (ceremonial) porcelain armor:

~Ozzie

tfw you make a whole set of custom brushes just because you wanted to paint one (1) artwork that contains fancy knight armor.

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OP's original point refers to how suspicious dimorphism in character design, as well as (tangentially) all the bullshit excuses for double standards in costumes, are born.

It's a serious and good art advice: Do NOT get caught up in bio-essentialism when designing characters of different sexes and/or genders, and NEVER take pointers on what features read as masculine vs feminine as gospel or as unbreakable rules, because neither life nor art works that way! And yes, making everyone uniformly androgynous isn't the answer either. Genuine diversity, as always, is the key to avoiding both the Sameface/Samebody Syndrome as well as the obsessively binary thinking about how people look.

~Ozzie

Your first mistake in art is thinking you draw men and women inherently differently

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We posted the warlocks before, but the entire set is an amazing example of equitable character and costume design!

And the artist is on Tumblr! @forrestimel

~Ozzie

Fantasy Classes series by Forrest Imel: Warrior, Warlock, Priest, Paladin, Druid, Mage, Ranger, Thief

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Important points all around!

One crucial addition: do know the difference between shrinking the boobs as part of the anatomy and containing the boobs within chest wear, like a layered armor or a sports bra (a.k.a. don't be like the dudebros who cried about Tifa getting a "breast reduction" via sports bra in FF7 remake).

~Ozzie

My redesign hot take is that if you’re aiming to “desexualize” a female character, don’t make her boobs smaller. You’re implying a lot here.

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Baldur's Gate 3 (Part 2 - Minthara)

Okay, I covered the stuff in Baldur's Gate 3 is mixed and complicated. Let's talk about an objectively well executed character and visually designed - Minthara.

From a general writing perspective, she's exactly what I mean when I say it's not enough to support, women's rights - we need to support their wrongs. She is complicated, ruthless and villainous in a way we rarely get to see female characters - and every aspect of her design supports and conveys it.

Spoilers below the cut.

We are first introduced to her in here scheming:

And then when you get to meet her in game, the vibes are immaculate. No notes.

The armor design here is genuinely AAA grade. Multiple layers of protection, intimidation through jagged designs without endangering the wearer. Decorative pauldrons to convey power, materials indicating her fantastic background.

But she has camp gear and even underwear that expresses additional elements of her character and personality.

Check out her majesty... then compare it to her camp clothes, and her underwear.

What I really like about this is the general trend that is consistent upon key character traits of Minthara's: she is pragmatic in the field, a dreamer in private and determined to live, love or die on her own terms.

Her camp attire is sexy, but in a way that conveys her domineering and confident attitude. Her underwear is sex, but not uncomfortable or or any sort of indicator of that she feels her gender also demands submissiveness.

And, without going into the details - the writing makes her a unicorn evil woman character who is uninterested in changing her ways, but as complicated and feeling as her more moral peers.

Now, all we need is for society to evolve to where she can also be the kind of buff muscle mommy you expect to rush into combat dual wielding maces with perfect confidence.

-wincenworks

(This still from Heart of Flames by Miracle of Sound with Karliene, footage created by Mispap1)

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So apparently Zak Snyder, not yet content with the violence he has already done to the media of film, has an animated movie coming out on Netflix in September, "Twilight of the Gods".

Based on what I can find, this lady appears to be Sigrid, and she is:

A child of the giants (hence the small stature I suppose?); and

On an epic quest for revenge; and

Various vikings and Thor are in it.

Now obviously point #1 indicates this is not anything seeking historical accuracy so I will waive my usual "why she have a woad tattoo" query, grudgingly, and instead ask where did get bike shorts, and knee high socks? What is this outfit!?

And why does she look much more scary and badass when she's NOT on a battlefield with a sword and shield?

I mean, you'd think if there was one time she'd want to actually make sure she looks protected and intimidated - it'd be the battlefield right? Particularly since she clearly kicks ass in that fight against men two to four times her size.

Also who sold her those bike shorts? Is that the real plot?

-wincenworks

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Baldur's Gate 3 (Part 1 - Introduction)

It's a great time to be an old school Dungeons & Dragons player, you get to smugly observe millions of people realizing the game is good actually... or at least that the game can facilitate heart touching romances with imaginary, terrible people.

(To be clear, I'm not judging you - these two are, but I'm not)

As one of the biggest AAA games of 2023, it's unsurprising that it's big and complicated - and there's a lot that can be talked about with many aspects of it - including female armor and costumes. Indeed, there's already a lot of commentary on it and community activity, from the confusing, to the life affirming.

It has also been the topic of how corporate practices continually reward those who participate in the creation successful art with notice of dismissal.

And of course, both Dungeons & Dragons and Larian Studios have histories that we've touched on before - and I can confidently say it represents a huge improvement in quality, style and attitudes. Plus sometimes their advertising is just gay.

There's good, there's bad, there's inspired and there's missed opportunities - so it'd be impossible to sum it all up in one post.

Also, now it's finished... I can feel safe commenting on it and not being told "that's changing next week" - that's the excuse I'm using for being so late to the party on this one.

It'll also be impossible to avoid talking about it without some spoilers. So I'll try to cover as much as possible spoiler-free, then put spoilers below a read-more break.

-wincenworks

In General

It's pretty good. Most of the costumes and armors are essentially gender neutral and the ones that do change seem to do so in response to social conventions, rather than a desire to sex shit up sexy - but where you can sex shit up sexy, it applies equally across genders. (Seriously, Lae'zel's lingerie looks amazing on Gale (nsfw 🖼️) and he's not the sort you'd think could rock it).

Looking at the artbook that I have because I'm one of those people who buys deluxe editions - it looks like there might have been a few early stumbles in concept but these were smoothed out before release.

There are some amazing examples (Minthara), and some baffling designs (all Githyanki armor), some interesting (Orin's) and some that are complicated (Dame Aylin's).

But overall it's pretty good and I would certainly like to see more fantasy media take it's lead from these sorts of designs.

So let's start with a few examples of how everything is complicated.

Why goblins have sexy armor?

The goblins in Baldur's Gate 3 are disgusting, sadistic raiders who are primarily interested in killing, torturing and enslaving all other races. They don't seem to have any crafts people of their own, preferring to steal and adapt.

So it's puzzling that, statistically, when most players encounter them they get this cutscene to showcase a goblin in sexy leathers.

Now, these goblins don't have a sense of shame - or at least not one related to things like nudity taboos. They're not exactly tactical masterminds or great crafts people.

So there's no reason for her to have masterwork armor, or hide her body... but this particular piece looks like pretty lovingly crafted lingerie made specifically to be sexy and flaunt as much skin as possible.

And the couple of goblins that have this, stand out among the rest of the goblins... who are mostly wearing scraps and bits and pieces they've cobbled together with nowhere near this level of craftsmanship.

Obviously, this outfit is not ideal with the sharp bits poking out... but it's pretty intimidating and it'd make it things more difficult for an enemy trying to stop Zurga from killing them so it works.

The end result is weird… but also oddly foretold.

Great armor, terrible disguise

Now, this is great armor - a little flashy with a lot of extra doodads - but from a fantasy perspective, it conveys the message and that the wearer is a pragmatic person prioritizing their own self-preservation.

Honestly this is one of the best examples of armor that is designed to be fancy without becoming completely unworkable, like it is real armor that's been adapted for ceremony. It has layers and while you would expect it to quickly become damaged beyond recognition, if you needed to be ready for a surprise scrap - it'd do the job and do it well enough (a cosplayer friend advised the breastplate is a little prone to being bumped but otherwise she didn't bump into anything)

(Though as a random reminder, if you're going for the very realistic approach - helmets should be a top priority. We accept that doesn't happen in video games like this though because we want to see those emotive, sexy faces - judging us for loving them.)

But Shadowheart is a priestess of Shar, and if you accept her as a companion she will happily tell you all about that and how an important part of being a priestess of Shar is secrets and concealing your faith from the masses...

There is also an explanation for why she happened to be in her ceremonial attire... but for most of the game, she demonstrates no awareness that she was in vestments when you met.

Now I understand that a lot of these choices are due to various experiments, iterations, etc. Shadowheart being an "authentic" priestess of Shar is not as important as her being an interesting companion in a fun game.

And now that I've definitely made sure nobody is going to "well actually" about the armor design or Forgotten Realms lore... a conspiracy theory:

Karlach's outfit (#freethenipple)

So when you meet the tiefling muscle-mommy known as Karlach, her default outfit indicates that she does not partake in bras. (She's barbarian which is a class in D&D that protects themselves not with armor, but by getting so angry weapons do less damage to them... just go with it...) and despite the forced sexiness of this design - it kinda fits her backstory:

So, she has a definite look, and apparently does not partake the wearing of bras... good for her! She's literally so hot that fire flickers off her, the boob sweat has got to be epic.

Interesting, Karlach is one two female characters who's "camp clothes" are listed specifically as "trousers".

The other one is always in pants and bra on female characters (but not male), but for some reason Karlach's trousers include this top that... just doesn't match the rest of her style and is nothing like her underwear (which also doesn't match her style):

So it seems this seems to be an odd case where in a game where you can access full nudity easily, and they gave her sexy armor... they did a last minute cover up to prevent the woman who would have the epic boobsweat imaginable walking around camp topless... and her model has a lot of detail that gets hidden by that top and her armor. (nsfw 🖼️)

And I know I am not the only one (nsfw link) who has had this idea.

Unless you just go into inventory and take her clothes off..., then toggle so she's always in "camp clothes" and always nude. It's just weird that the players are fully able to make her a nudist, but the game seems to have stopped at the last minute at making her go casually topless.

-wincenworks