#Body Types in Video Games

[dendroaspis-viridis]

I'm begging you, BioWare... Learn from the mistakes of Baldur's Gates past...

[ilikedetectives]

Outfits (x)

[theplantbish]

Me, as I'm about to start playing coral island: I don't know who I'm going to marry in this game. Mark caught my attention right away but I want to get to know the characters better before I make my decision, maybe I'll like someone more than him :)

Me, three seconds into the game, running around the island: WHERE IS HE? WHERE'S MARK? BRING ME MY FUTURE HUSBAND!!

[corellonsgrace]

Just another night of looking at these silly bg3 characters and going “he should NOT have a six pack!”

[yohanpalia]

fatness in palia

(its gonna sound like i hate palia bc ppl dont understand the concept of nuance, so just to be clear - i decently like the game so far. things can be both good and bad, and some ppl, like me, enjoy analysing and criticising things without hating on the things.)

it rly bugs me that the only properly fat character so far in Palia is someone whos obsessing about his sandwiches and talking about how he always makes sure to eat properly, and *also*, is someone in a position of power who does bad things (the quest where we grew crops for him is the most clear example ive seen so far). basically - the biggest fat man is a bad person who is obsessed with food.

delaila is big, but also falls into a stereotype - shes a countryside mom (often fat in media), and parent characters are generally easier for mainstream fatphobic media to design as fat bc theyre not intended to be attractive in the same way the younger characters are (or older men, see hodari and ashura). i also want to point out that she reads as having a little more of a curvy body type compared to kenli whos more of a big ball, and that none of the female characters read as having the same type of facial fat or double chin that kenli has (which is indeed why im calling him the only properly fat character). its almost as if that kind of facial/chin fat is considered worse on women than on men or something :)) wink wink.

ashura and sifuu are big, but read as "strong and muscular", not "a fat person". which any fat person will know is a significant difference in how you're perceived. (there is also an aspect here ofc of that irl, masculine-presenting "bulky and strong" ppl are often more positively perceived than feminine "bulky and strong" ppl, and that masculinity being seen as desirable in itself affects why "bulky and strong" is seen as desirable where "just fat" isnt, but this is a sidetrack rn.)

elouisa and caleri are... chubby, i guess? i was happy the first time i met caleri bc she had a visible double chin. but, after a bit of playing, seeing that there werent any fatter characters than this who were supposed to be seen as attractive or even good nice people, that enjoyment weighs little. i also again want to point out that both elouisa and caleri have very "smooth" faces, and mostly "conventionally attractive" features, essentially. they are chubby/curvy, but not in ways that would be considered *too* far off from the fatphobic, ageist, sexist beauty standards of society. they also have basically hourglass bodies.

the characters that we are mainly "supposed" to find attractive in this game - the romanceable ones - range from very skinny to "fit". there is even a romanceable skinny robot, notably not a romanceable fat robot (hekla is round, reads as the fat mom stereotype, and is not romanceable - einar is tall and slender and kinda built like a dorito, and, oh, presents more masculine... even robots arent free from misogynist and fatphobic design). there is also a non-romanceable character that apparently both characters in the game and many players find hot, which is a non-fat man, hodari. i note this bc he's presented as an attractive character, and is not fat.

its nice to see an older(?) female character presented as attractive - tamala, however she is very skinny and with an hourglass type build. this is still... nice, i guess, but in the context of the lack of "attractive characters" that arent really skinny, or muscular, or hourglass shaped.....

another related issue is that a very skinny character, jel.... literally says things like "i havent eaten for 3 days". wow! thats lovely! especially together with kenli obsessing over food! and together with an average size character, jina, also mentioning she forgets to eat. that made me feel gross to read, and i dont think its a good choice to put "lol forgetting to eat, relatable content" in the dialogue of characters who are very skinny. this can be a bad reinforcement of society's abuse ("just starve yourself and you'll be skinny and beautiful!") for people with eating disorders and for ppl who struggle with their weight and with their relation to food in general. but *especially* when the biggest character is, in contrast, talking about how hes obsessing over his sandwiches and whatever (and again - is a bad person and also not supposed to be attractive, while jel and jina are supposed to be attractive and romanceable). this is also obviously a reinforcement of prejudice against fat ppl - that fat ppl eat too much, cant control their eating, are always thinking about food, etc etc, while skinny ppl ~forgot to eat lol~.

all in all, if anyone reads this, i just hope ppl can acknowledge and be aware to the fatphobia that has gone into the design of this game, *just like basically every other game*. im not saying palia is worse than other games, bc frankly, most games are like this, and its gross and weird and i hate that. but its still valid to discuss that problem in the context of one game, without implying that its an issue that only affects that game.

i hope that at the very least, they will eventually add in more body types to the character creator that also represent bigger people, and that potentially, we might see some attractive fat characters as npcs in the future. and no, their faces dont need to be slimmed down compared to their bodies to be attractive! they can have unsmooth faces and double chins and wrinkles and still be attractive! and they can have all that and not be men, and be attractive! and they dont need to have hourglass bodies nor to be muscular and strong to be attractive, either!

[age-of-moonknight]

“For Now,” Phases of the Moon Knight (Vol. 1/2024), #4.

Writer: Fabian Nicieza; Penciler and Inker: Moisés Hidalgo; Colorist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo; Letterer: Cory Petit

[zs-starwars]

Look before the War Within starts and Anduin gets to work on his Shadowlands gotten trauma and development I need to dunk on him (affectionate) for a quick second okay?

So in Before the Storm he has this line:

"Her [Sylavnas's] eyes narrowed. Anduin knew she understood the lesson of this day's tragic events. She was not universally loved among her people. He was. She ruled with an iron fist. He ruled with compassion. (pg347)"

Which comparatively sure, fair. Sylvanas has just put a hard, murderous, stop to Calia's first attempt at girlbossing and killed about half the desolate council. Before the Storm is what it needed to be for BfA and beyond.

But I would like to point out that earlier in the book we have this:

"Anduin had been informed that negative sentiment was not limited to his advisors. Guards and Shaw's people had reported that there was muttering in some of the taverns and on the streets. The guards had been instructed to interrupt such conversations if they verged on sedition or grew violent. (pg 248)"

Baby boy that is not universally beloved and ruling with compassion. Lol. Lmao even.

I've scrawled all in my copy with little notes and I have a messy word document with rewrite ideas for this 6 (!) year old book. I am excited to see what we have going on under Silithus. In the end WoW is a video game that needs to keep selling and making new storylines.

[flossy-sawgaw]

Me playing Caliban in the Duviri Circuit:

*summons a squad of Conculysts*

[purpurussy]

.

[seithr]

my favourite.. well i guess it could be called "happening" in media, i think is when I'm reading about some edgy/dark, horror-adjacent "everyone's constantly having a bad time" setting or story, in a book or a game, and one if not several of the guys in there are just gay offhand. it's a very specific thing i enjoy when its in these horrible (in-universe, emotionally) environments but they're still there

no homophobia no titilation. romantic relationships (even het ones) have zero presence or importance really. but Just Letting You Know: this character is probably a closeted lesbian

diversity win: this mercenary is bisexual! he mentions he has sex with men. diversity ????: a coin flip rng roll can sever both of his arms and crush his sanity for the rest of the game. diversity i-don't-know: this can happen to anyone so its not because hes into men, you just have shit rolls

[vulpixelates]

in what UNIVERSE would halsin or karlach have abs

halsin is a druid. he's meant to survive in the woods. you need body fat for that.

karlach is a fucking barbarian who is constantly chowing down on whatever she can get her hands on and has a super high strength. she would have a powerlifter's body type!!! FUNCTIONAL MUSCLE. do you think she has time to focus on building vanity muscle while being a soldier for zariel's armies? absolutely not. the only plausible explanation for her having any semblance of abs is that maybe her engine heart is greatly increasing her metabolism but even then i think it's a coward's answer

MAKE THEM THICK AS WELL AS BUFF AS HELL YOU COWARDS, pls and thank you. this has been a psa

[ot3]

can we really expect this multibillion dollar game dev to learn to make multiple types of 3d models. really makes you think.

[ilikedetectives]

Kalius

[gayestcowboy]

do u like my durge he is huge and has 8 strength

[smallhatlogan]

there's those posts about fandom misogyny manifesting in how many people do not have a single female character who they care about. And people will reblog those posts tagging a bunch of female characters that they like in what feels very "see? look! i'm a good person! I'm not misogynistic" but like, people can be really really into a bunch of female characters and still fucking hate women, it happens all the time

[aterribleinfluence]

sometimes i have to wonder if i feel a special love for dan bc she specifically reminds me of my lost love from back home who I am 100% going to spend a long 24 hours with when I visit