#bikiniarmorbattledamage
So,nerds with shit in their pants are crying about this… and while the main source of their paint seems to be Natalie Portman’s gunshow… it’s also great to see that her Thor costume is essentially the same as Chris’s… just with a little less detailing on the pectorials.
It really conveys strength and power and fortitude, without going out of the way to sexualize her (which isn’t to say I haven’t already seen many people attest that they have never seen Natalie look sexier). The armor was never super practical, but combined with the build it definitely creates the feeling of larger than life power.
What makes people claiming “this can’t be possible, it must be CGI!” extra wholesome and hilarious is that Natlie already talked about getting swole for the role, and how she actually enjoyed it because she’d never gotten to do that kind of heavy lifting workout before, back in mid last month and had been observed being beefy in public.
In summary… bring on Love and Thunder!
-wincenwork
We’ve featured Ayumi of X-Blade before… but I wanted to compare the protagonist to a recent hero of the video gameworld.
“Let Me Solo Her” is a highly skilled player who volunteers to carry players with one of the hardest boss fights in Elden Ring (The latest game from FromSoft, creators of Dark SoulsandBloodborne) through the summon system.
So yeah, if you’ve seen fan art or an image of this dual wielding hero - that’s why, that and his displaying the opposite of the notorious “git gud” mentality.
“Sometimes the lag between the host and myself is too much so I get killed instantly sometimes, or miss the crucial dodge timing on Malenia’s waterfowl dance,” he says. “I would like to express my apology to those I have failed.”
But, why what is most compelling to me is his explanation for the signature attire he wears while doing this amazing service:
“It is a running tradition of Soulsborne games that the naked players are the most powerful beings in the game,” he replies. “Why wear armor if you don’t plan on getting hit at all?”
This is pretty much the explanation we’ve heard many, many times before: that various female protagonists who wear outfits like that of Ayumi - because it actually aims for the stated goals (as well as the general benefits in video games such as increased stamina regeneration).
It’s also only vaguely viable because this is a game built around death being a low stakes event, and thus making the consequence of such a flex where the maximum risk is mild embarrassment and disappointment in yourself.
The notion of it being a wise idea within a fiction where the consequences are death or life changing injury… because you’re sure you’re badass
Also like… dude has definitely got way better head protection that we see on the usual bikini badass fighting fucktoy - which is part of why he’s featured here despite being truly an empowered man.
-wincenworks
Actvision Blizzard decides to “improve” diversity in their games by quantifying things like ethnicity, culture and sexual orientation.
Just another, sadly unsurprising step in Blizzard’s long, long journey of promising a more diverse respesentation followed by more sexism and tokenism every time.
If you don’t see what’s wrong with that picture, please stop to ask youself how you’d represent something like ethnicity or gender on a numeric scale. And what would 0 on that scale be.
Thankfully, most of the fandom and media seems to react to this idea with well-deserved bewilderment and mockery (like comparisons to phrenology, a racist pseudoscience). Also with obligatory mentions of how this does the opposite of improving the company’s image in the light of their bigoted, toxic work culture and corrupt business practices.
Moreover, despite now edited-out claims in the official announcement about the diversity tool, Overwatch 2 developers deny using it or even knowing about it prior to the media buzz.
If we could put a number on how out of touch this is, ActiBlizz PR would score off their little dystopian charts!
But hey, it’s not like we’ve been pointing out for years that Blizz seems to do diversity by begrudgingly ticking off boxes on a list of superficial character features (and only after ticking some boxes multiple times),right?
~Ozzie
Media reporting on the matter:
- Activision Inexplicably Introduces Tool to Rate Character Diversity Metrics - FanByte
- Activision Blizzard Discusses Tool to Calculate Diversity in Video Game Characters, May Also Be Investing in Lab Coats - The Mary Sue
- Activision Blizzard’s New Diversity Game Tool Comes Across Terribly&Activision Blizzard’s Diversity Tool Has A Long, Even More Embarrassing History -Kotaku
- Activision’s “Diversity Tool” Is F*cking Awful - The Jimquisition (video)