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I really *want* to like fighting games, and I love the idea in general. However, every time a new fighting game gets released, I have to roll my eyes at the female side of the roster. Firstly they're always outnumbered by the dudes. Second... fighting games have a serious problem with female character design.
Every new game, the asses and tits seem to get bigger and the waists and - heads? Seem to get smaller. Especially with such high fidelity 3d graphics, the rubber spine-ing and wasp waists and general escher girl-ing seems to get more egregious to me.
The lads also suffer from this - their shoulders and biceps get bigger with each iteration, to the point that it's just freakin' ridiculous. But obviously they're not sexualized in the way the female characters are, and they're allowed to have fat characters like a Goldlewis or an E.Honda.
I mean, just look at Cammy's outfit in that one SFVI trailer. Her teeny tiny little thong leotard is SO TINY in that cinematic I swear to god it must be inside her. And when the devs released an outfit variation that actually covered up some skin, there was of course negative feedback, because god forbid you don't get a hard on while playing a fighting game.
Even a game like DNF Duel, while not as overtly sexualized as SF or KOF, has a serious lack of variety. I mean look at the inqusiitor! Are you telling me she's THAT skinny when she's carrying an axe as big as she is?! Give us some god damn bulk and muscles! The characters look the same person, just with a different wig and outfit on! And Vanessa (KOF) is a boxer - you seriously want me to buy those skinny noodle arms and waifish shoulders? Go to any boxing or MMA gym and just LOOK at the women there and tell me that's not a little bit infuriating we didn't get a character who looks like THAT.
I also have an issue with the sexualized violence, especially with SFVI announcing it's going to have battle damage. Look, I like some good dub- and non-con as much as anyone and I love some sexy battle damage. I have a problem when a male-dominated industry known for its sexual harassment problems and generally awful treatment of women consistently produces scantily clad blow up dolls that are MEANT to titillate you while you're beating them up with your big buff male action figures.
Again, this is fine to an extent. There's a reason these characters are so popular and that there are reams of women cosplaying as cammy, morrigan, whoever. I'm not here to trash anybody's kink or tell them they shouldn't like a thing. But the problem is that this is ALL there is and we seriously deserve more diverse female character design. This is nothing new and I'm sure there are frustrated character artists on all of these teams who are constantly told, 'make her boobs bigger, make her waist smaller,' etc. etc. etc.
As time goes by I just get more and more fed up with it. Even in, say, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, which is full of amazing female characters (rip f!byleth x petra, guess I'll just have to find some fanfic for that one/write it myself), has basically the same body type for every female character except for, say, Sothis and Flayn. Again, I understand that this is probably partly due to development constraints and having to reuse models and such - YET, we can still get a beefy boy like Jeralt or Aloise, so why can't we get a big, strong, buff Catherine model, too?
Realistically I'm just going to keep on drawing and writing women the way I do, improve the diversity of my own work, and get started on my lesbian shonen comic... sometime this year, time, energy and wrist health willing.
Every new game, the asses and tits seem to get bigger and the waists and - heads? Seem to get smaller. Especially with such high fidelity 3d graphics, the rubber spine-ing and wasp waists and general escher girl-ing seems to get more egregious to me.
The lads also suffer from this - their shoulders and biceps get bigger with each iteration, to the point that it's just freakin' ridiculous. But obviously they're not sexualized in the way the female characters are, and they're allowed to have fat characters like a Goldlewis or an E.Honda.
I mean, just look at Cammy's outfit in that one SFVI trailer. Her teeny tiny little thong leotard is SO TINY in that cinematic I swear to god it must be inside her. And when the devs released an outfit variation that actually covered up some skin, there was of course negative feedback, because god forbid you don't get a hard on while playing a fighting game.
Even a game like DNF Duel, while not as overtly sexualized as SF or KOF, has a serious lack of variety. I mean look at the inqusiitor! Are you telling me she's THAT skinny when she's carrying an axe as big as she is?! Give us some god damn bulk and muscles! The characters look the same person, just with a different wig and outfit on! And Vanessa (KOF) is a boxer - you seriously want me to buy those skinny noodle arms and waifish shoulders? Go to any boxing or MMA gym and just LOOK at the women there and tell me that's not a little bit infuriating we didn't get a character who looks like THAT.
I also have an issue with the sexualized violence, especially with SFVI announcing it's going to have battle damage. Look, I like some good dub- and non-con as much as anyone and I love some sexy battle damage. I have a problem when a male-dominated industry known for its sexual harassment problems and generally awful treatment of women consistently produces scantily clad blow up dolls that are MEANT to titillate you while you're beating them up with your big buff male action figures.
Again, this is fine to an extent. There's a reason these characters are so popular and that there are reams of women cosplaying as cammy, morrigan, whoever. I'm not here to trash anybody's kink or tell them they shouldn't like a thing. But the problem is that this is ALL there is and we seriously deserve more diverse female character design. This is nothing new and I'm sure there are frustrated character artists on all of these teams who are constantly told, 'make her boobs bigger, make her waist smaller,' etc. etc. etc.
As time goes by I just get more and more fed up with it. Even in, say, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, which is full of amazing female characters (rip f!byleth x petra, guess I'll just have to find some fanfic for that one/write it myself), has basically the same body type for every female character except for, say, Sothis and Flayn. Again, I understand that this is probably partly due to development constraints and having to reuse models and such - YET, we can still get a beefy boy like Jeralt or Aloise, so why can't we get a big, strong, buff Catherine model, too?
Realistically I'm just going to keep on drawing and writing women the way I do, improve the diversity of my own work, and get started on my lesbian shonen comic... sometime this year, time, energy and wrist health willing.
