Kitsune9tails

As it happens, not all of my characters are sexually attractive to me (although they are all appealing to me in some way) but that isn't my point.

Part of your question seems to be a variation of: "Is there something wrong with wanting characters to be appealing in a certain way that may detract from their mainstream sexuality?"

My short answer is a resounding NO.

But your question brings me back around to the question of 'why is being sexy looked at as a negative so often? Why, in the case of female characters, is it often to some extent in opposition to their appearing strong?'

When I look at anime, I see a whole group of sub-genres built around male characters that are physically less intimidating than the females around them, or that are willful, effective, intimidating characters in spite of being physically small, soft, and emotionally sensitive.

I don't see nearly as much of that in the West.

In the West, it still seems to boil down to the idea (which may only exist in the collective heads of the Meddling Executives) that in order to be attractive, a woman must at least pay lip service to the idea of needing a male protector (in a soft appearance, if nothing else). The corrolary being that to be attractive, a male character must be sexy/cute (semi-optional) and must at least pay lip service to the idea of being able to protect a female partner.

The only Western movies that spring to mind that counter my own argument are Geena Davis movies of all things: The Long Kiss Goodnight and Cutthroat Island. The first one that came to mind was Terminator 2, and that had The Arnold. I suppose you could make a case for the Alien movies.

Here is another angle:

As the author of a story (even if it's just the bio of your ingame avatar) why create a character that is NOT sexually attractive to you?

Sexuality is orthogonal to the competence or empathic qualities of a character, so why not include it, unless some other aspect of the character specifically calls for them not to be attractive, or for them to be asexual? Even if just so that they can contrast with the more attractive characters?

On a related note, it is possible to divide all stories/protagonists into a few buckets:

1: "This Happened"-type stories that are intended to evoke a feeling of realism. Many Horror movies are this, along with most Historical. Most protagonists in most stories are intended to appeal to the audience, but these are least likely to do so via sexualization. If a character is attractive, it's just a quality, not the point of the character (unless it is also the point of the story).

2: Empowerment Fantasies, such as most action-adventure and fantasy pieces. These characters are usually ideals/icons that the author aspires to, or projects that their demographic wants to aspire to. These characters are usually sexy (however the author or the Meddling Executives paying for the media define that) and there are often ancillary characters around just to provide them and the audience with sex of one form or another.

3: "You Too"-type stories, where the protagonist is the object of an Empowerment Fantasy, but is specifically singled out to be some kind of Everyperson, or even handicapped or isolated in some way. These characters are almost never conventionally sexy, but are almost always attached to someone who is. Even Shrek could be seen as an example of this.

It all comes down to the type of story you are telling and on what level(s) you want the characters to appeal. I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with choosing to make the way a character appeals to be a sexual way.

Once you decide to make a character sexy, however, that's when you enter some interesting territory. "This character is going to be sexy. But to whom? To me? To my target audience? Only to in-story characters?"

I think that where a lot of authors fall down (or are knocked down by those pesky meddling executives) is when they decide to make a character sexy without thinking up the to whom and why, as if there was a universal set of values that was held up as sexy to everyone 'normal'.

And recursively over time, that undefined, unspoken set of values becomes indeed true.

A thought for perspective:

Roughly 200 years ago we were in the Victorian Age. At that time, men were not sexy. What I mean by that is, by the standards of that age, it was (outwardly) considered immoral to want to have sex with a man, regardless of whether you were male or female.

The current fixation with a supermodel body type, chainmail bikinis, and such? Dust in the wind.

Want what you want. It's like a corrolary to Sturgeon's Law: no matter what it is you want, there are at least a million people on this planet who will beleive you crazy and dangerous for wanting it.

Jean-Claude Van Damn

I don't beleive that you can prevent people from wanting what they want, barring outright brainwashing.

Nor do I believe that people should be prevented from wanting anything, regardless of how heinous it might be.

I do beleive that people should be educated and socialized away from acting to get some things that they want, when the getting of that thing is/would be destructive to themselves, those with whom they interact, or society as a whole. Of course, that last bit carries danger in it's inherent subjectivity.

It should go without saying that I don't think depictiing fat or muscular women in a superhero game is destructive to society as a whole.

And lest we forget, in the first season of Stan Lee's "Who Wants to be a Superhero?" Fat Momma almost took it all.

I hadn't thought of that route, but there may be some possibilities.

I play on Exalted!

Of course, I play on every server, so...

In any case, Exalted is fun for the same reasons all the other servers are fun. Find people you like to hang with/listen to, and it is all good.

I personally have not found Exalted to be any more elitist than any other server. YMMV.

Thanks for the advice; I'll have to log her on and play at the Trainer/Tailor some time soon. She needs actual Valkrie parts now that those are available anyway.

...and now my powers are back to normal.

Update: The bugged animation from icicles does not go away after shutting off ALL powers. Even wierder, the patch of ice created by the power stayed in place where I activated it, even after I moved away. For a final bit of surreal, it was tethered to me by a Lightning Bolt of Potentially Infinite Length.

I /petitioned it in game to get an employee witness, but mapserved before they showed up.

Now I am conflicted as to whether to keep testing for more bugs or play a different character.

This happened in Steel Canyon on Justice.

Is it just me, or did the look of this power just change today (9/30/2011)?

Wasn't it just a kind of frosty glow around you with some ice crystals at the edges before? I certainly don't remember getting entombed in a single giant ice crystal when activating the power yesterday.

Didn't see anything in the patch notes.

Edit: In other news, Icicles no longer causes giant shards of ice to pop out of my body at random, or even in combat. Instead, in combat, thin ice stalagmites come up out of the ground around me.

WAI?

The big downtimes appear to be an 'adjustment period' thing. A lot of stuff is being changed under the hood, apparently.

TL/DR version: The artist decides where the borders of the aesthetic fall. But is the audience the artist?

...

Maybe the underlying question is, "Who chooses the aesthetic?"

Obviously, on an official level, that ball falls into David Nakayama's court in THIS game. Currently, he gets to decide (probably not alone) whether the characters in the game range from this to this or from this to this.

And, as a subset, which ones player characters get to choose from.

But this game (unlike, say, a novel or the cartoon made entirely by a single hand) does not have unlimited resources. Every time the borders of the aesthetic are to be pushed, there is a cost to be considered in terms of time, effort that could be allocated elsewhere, and very possibly money.

Due to technology making a greater variety of images available to people, and also creating a lot of free media accessible to everyone, we as consumers now get much more of a vote than ever before. In a way, perhaps that is the problem.

In the days of the original Duke Nukem, creating a game could be a one-man operation. Therefore, if that one man wanted the only male human to resemble a blond Ahnold, and every woman to be a scantily-clad object of lust, you could just chalk that up to Author Appeal and be done with it (Duke Nukem may not have been literally a one-man operation, but you get my point).

Nobody really called upon an artist to be as diverse or inclusive because they would just make a judgement about the work and be done.

In an MMO the rules can be different: we get to vote with our wallets every month. We can propose that things be added to the story or to the cast and dangle our money directly as a carrot. We even get, with tools limited only by our wallets and our rigs, to be artists and writers ourselves.

The same sort of dynamic happens to a certain extent in certain other media: Webcomics, and increasingly, TV Shows. However, movies and novels are still to some extent isolated in time from the whims and demands of the audience.

In effect, what we are asking for here are more tools with which to write our own stories and design our own characters. However, the implication is that we want to do so without the responsiblity of the consequences of Sturgeon's Law: if we add obesity to the slider, and a bunch of people use it, and the game becomes City of Fat Chicks, and the game dies...it wasn't MY fault, that was David's responsibility (I say this as a player with an opera singer/valkrie character named Fat Lady who is disturbingly non-fat).

Part of the question seems to be "is this on my dime or David's"?

I may be using City as an example here, but you can extend the metaphor to other media as well.

We already saw a mini-controversy over the game becoming City of Furries when the animal pack was announced, and years ago, City of Anime, when some Manwha-influenced designers were let loose on the game.

On a related note, I remember when the character was altered so that you could no longer make 'nude' characters and when female nipple geometry was removed so that female characters no longer had 'pokies' (although the nipple area was never actually illustrated per se). The changing aesthetic of the game can go in either direction: the right regime could turn this in to City of Boyshorts or City of Bhurkas

What indeed, is 'the problem'?
Is it that a given work is not diverse enough for the people that want to enjoy it more?
Or is it that the people who would enjoy a certain aesthetic do not have the tools to get such a work to the people that would enjoy it?

...or am I Completely Missing the Point?

[QUOTE=Eva Destruction;3907691] There is nothing about Sister P's backstory or what little personality she has that suggests she should be overtly sexy; in fact, her most famous comment suggests that she's annoyed by people viewing her as a sex object. [QUOTE]

Despite the fact that she doesn't dress at all like an 80-year old woman.

...
Nobody post a link to counter that, please...

Aren't the same poses that the stereotypical male hero takes to look 'manly' the very poses that theoretically (by Golden Age standards) are sexually attractive to straight women?

Maybe the men are sexualized as much as the women and we aren't seeing it.

Regardless, and more to the point:

More costume options for everyone!

That's the first time I've checked out one of your comics. It was beautifully rendered, informative, and well written. Kudos!

Here is the thing:

It doesn't matter.

Just for the sake of the argument, let's say that the camp that says, "Incarnates are part of GR" are right.

Nothing changes.

Everyone who bought GR still has the same access to Incarnates that they have always had, whether VIP (has a subscription) or Premium (needs a subscription).

The only people whose access has changed is people who never bought GR. Their situation has improved.

If you are saying that Incarnate content should NOT require a subscription, then that is a completely seperate argument.

If you are just trying to convince a bunch of people on the Internet that they are wrong, well, good luck.

Here is what I think the point is:

Which is preferable?

1: You break his arm.
2: You break his leg.
3: You describe in horrifying detail what you could do to him.

-OR-

You break his arm.