Racing Turtles

I am really struggling to write academically about this trend of developers making up bad excuses for not including women because what I really want to say is that it sucks and it’s adding insult to injury and could you please just be honest and say you don’t wanna.

Oh yeah, I’m sick of it too.  And it feels like it just keeps happening and it’s insulting to our intelligence.  Like

Ubisoft: We can’t have a female protagonist because they’re too hard to animate!

Logical Retort: What about all those female characters you already animated?

What they should have admitted: We didn’t want to make a woman protagonist.  

~~~~~

Konami: Quiet can’t wear clothes because she’s infected by a parasite that makes her breathe through her skin and she’d suffocate!

Logical Retort: Well then how come that other guy with the same parasite was covered head to toe?

What they should have admitted: We wanted her to be eye candy.

~~~~~

Bungie: Cortana is rendered without any clothes because it gives her a psychological advantage over her opponents!

Logical Retort: Then how come the “male” AIs are rendered with clothing?

What they should have admitted: We wanted her to be eye candy.

~~~~~

Nintendo: Link can’t be a woman because no one would relate to them!

Logical Retort: 48% of gamers would probably love to see a character like them.  And much of the other 52% may appreciate the novelty.

What they should have admitted: We really like making the exact same concept over and over.

Stop.  Your BS excuses are honestly almost more insulting than the truth.

@bikiniarmorbattledamage

First let us begin with a summary of many of the reblogs by individuals who have very predictable responses.

The basic arguments being spewed up are the usual suspects:

Basically all variants on the “I am threatened by examination of my hobby and would prefer we maintain a world where I am unfairly celebrated than move toward one where I am expected to recognize other people as human.”

Really there’s only two reasons we keep getting this trash:

Obviously, neither of these is really a good explanation so instead of the honest truth we get the a worrying state on ongoing denial of both the problem and the consequences.

- wincenworks

More on rhetoric on BABD | BABD’s Rhetoric Bingo

I figured this would be an appropriate throwback, in the light of Ubisoft, one of developers mentioned, being exposed last month for their massive sexual misconduct claims, and then, on top of that, evidence of absolutely shamelessly toxic, cishet white male-centric development philosophy at their studios, despite  bragging about having diverse teams working on games. 

When not insisting that “sex sells”, Creepy Markerting Guy and his Creepy Executive buddies, are literally on record saying that “women (as protagonists) do not sell”. And pushing back against their development teams fighting for even slightest bit of inclusivity in their games. 

We’ve been saying for years, one way or another, that there’s a direct connection between toxic white masculinity and the refusal in entertainment industry, including games, to acknowledge women as more than eye candy and that people other than white straight cis men deserve to have their stories told.  We’re not surprised by the disturbing revelations - there were similar ones before. Moreover, the product itself reflects the toxic environment it was made in, if you know where to look. 

~Ozzie 

Since people often ask “Alright, well this is fantasy!  Why can’t we have boob shapes in plate armor?!”  I decided to make a post about it.  My frustration hasnothing to do with historical inaccuracy and I’m all for imagination and freedom— but I’d like to (very quickly) illustrate this for you:

I purposely over-emphasized the shape of the two spheres in the armor so you can really think about this. 

Look at the shape of the blue cups and the green line, think about the form of that on some beautiful ornate plate armor.  A female warrior is charging into battle.  In the midst of this, she trips!  Or is pushed over, or takes a blow to the chest!  So long as the force is on the front of her torso it really doesn’t matter for the conclusion:

She feels a sharp pain in her chest and hears the cracking of bone!  Oh no, what’s gone wrong?  Well she doesn’t have time to think about that, because she is now dead.

Her sternum just fractured, take another look at that green line, that’s where all of the pressure from any front impact is going to go because of the shape of the two blue cups made for her breasts.  The rest of the armor slides around your body, but because of the two cups for breasts that are often made in fantasy female armors, the pressure point is directly on the sternum.  The breasts are not going to stop the force of you falling onto them, and because of that the metal is going to push in and bash you in the sternum.

What does a fractured sternum do?  Why it goes right into your heart and lungs of course.

(that was the sound of all of my followers inhaling a sharp breath between closed teeth at once)

Here are three great solutions to the problem:

GREAT EXAMPLE OF FANTASY TORSO ARMOR THAT IS FEMININE BUT FUNCTIONAL:

It is usually possible to bind the breasts when fighting if they really are far too large to fit into regular looking armor (there’s padding anyway), but most women can actually fit into a similarly sized male counterpart’s armor quite easily.  Even if that’s the case, the armor can be made to have a curve to it without putting all of the pressure in one area, which was actually a style of armor for quite some time as shown here:

And don’t even get me started on the dreaded “Cleavage Window”

The “Cleavage Window” defeats the purpose of having any armor on your torso because it means you’re just going to be leaving open the vital organs the rest of the armor is trying to protect.

If people are going to protect themselves and not have much torso protection, invest in some blocking lessons, because the best defense is to not get hit at all.  There are also advantages to not having plate armor, and plate armor was often really expensive anyway.

— Edit —

supaslim replied to your post: “Why do you hate the shape of breasts in plate armor so much?”

This week’s throwback: one of the very first posts I reblogged and a big inspiration for BABD even existing. It is THE Boobplate Post - one with the most comprehensive explanations why semi-spherical individual compartments for each boob in armor are an awful, awful idea. 

To reiterate briefly, boobplate:

~Ozzie

see other good articles about impracticality of boobplate: here, here, here. here and here

h/t: @whydontyouhateithere who recently asked about boobplates