Alora Fane

More script work! I've planned some sections in which pairs of characters dream together, during which their appearances change based on how one of the dreamers subconsciously perceives themselves and the other. Interesting stuff... though again I've been wondering about the concept of sexual objectification and what people perceive as that.

This scripting stage is taking longer than expected! Last week I said I hoped I could finish the rest of the script by the end of this week... but at this rate, I'm just going to say I might be done with it by the end of the year, so then I can maybe do better than predictions rather than failing to meet them! I suppose it's difficult to estimate how long creative things take in general, but they tend to take a while. There's a reason games can take years to make even with a full team of professionals working at them. I'm not striving for complete perfection, but I also don't want to put out something half-arsed either. So it's taking time.

I've been mentally okay this week and got a fair bit done though, at least, so that's something!

I thought I'd decided on all the major plot points last week, but while getting further into the planning, I realised that all the time I'd spent refining the starting bits meant that the ending bits were now a whole lot less polished by comparison. I've made some more decisions to address that and make some narrative threads run better.

Weeks ago, I planned Atonal Dreams to be divided into three areas/dungeons: an overworld, an underworld, and a drealm section. As I planned more, I decided to include a number of 'elemental mausolea' along the way - tombs housing dead Beyond Ponderer monks, devoted to specific elements - which were kind of like Pokemon Gyms in a very vague way. I initially imagined them as smallish fantasy-tomb dungeons, then revised the idea such that each mausoleum was a single small room with a special altar or bed on which you could rest to enter a dreamworld, which would be the small dungeon you can run around in.

This week, I've revised that even further. Now, each elemental mausoleum contains a double bed/altar, which is surrounded by a circle of special crystals. If a pair of people sleep together on the bed, the crystals will help focus their dreams. These dreams would take the form of a single battle/scene rather than a dungeon; this means I only need to make the battle arena and a music track for each dream rather than worrying about making entire dungeons.

Two people have to dream together because one shapes the dreamworld (the 'dreamweaver' or just 'dreamer', maybe?) while the other keeps them both lucid during the experience ('elucidator'?). I've come up with a bit of lore to kind of explain it, but honestly it's just an excuse for some intriguing story/character stuff.

Characters sleeping beside each other, and lying in the bed before and after, is an interestingly intimate opportunity to explore! Plus if one character is imagining the dreamworld, then that person's (subconscious) mind also determines how both people look during the experience. It's been interesting designing some of these alternate appearances!

The first of these double-dreams involves Collie as the dreamweaver and Savitr as the elucidator, at his suggestion. My first idea for how they might look during this was this:

Collie imagines Savitr as a literal angel with comically exaggerated male sexual characteristics, while she's... a dog. But does she actually see herself as a dog? What does that even say about her? At this point, I was imagining this version of Savitr as significantly taller and bulkier than he actually was, and floating, meaning a different model and animations... but that's just too much work for too little gain.

So I tried again, after doing some more brainstorming:

This time they were explicitly designed as alternate skins for the characters' models (which I literally traced over, hence the very foreshortened-limbed pose on Savitr there which I'd not naturally draw from imagination).

The Savitr concept is similar, but he looks less like a Steele-ish brute and more comically ~handsome~ a la ∞ Handsome Squidward ∞ (I also googled 'hot black guy' for references to get something closer to the intended look for the character). Collie doesn't subconsciously understand that Savitr's horns are his ears, so she imagines this version of him with standard Bold ears. He's still got horns, but they're even more like a halo here than they are in his normal design.

Collie sees herself as a Blight Wolf, as that's what she was for a big chunk of her life (though I need to sort out the timeline to decide exactly how long she was one for...). I'd written/planned a lot for the Blight Wolves, but this is the first time that I actually designed how they might look. I like it! I like the bandanna which extends into wolf-like ears in particular, which I've refined even further now to also resemble horns and a crescent moon as well as ears.

There are six elements, and a mausoleum for each one, but only three have this format, meaning I've designed six alternate forms: Savitr as Collie sees him, Collie as she sees herself, Savitr as he sees himself, Ossoum as Savitr sees him, Pierce as he sees himself, and Collie as Pierce sees her.

I'd show them all off here because I think they're interesting - the differences between the versions of Collie and Savitr in particular - but I don't want to spoil everything! But I'm the sort of person who avoids seeing new Pokemon designs until I can encounter them in-game, while other people eagerly eat up anything that's leaked as soon as it is... If you're interested to see as much of the design process as I can share without regard for spoilers, let me know, and I could post them on Patreon.

Oh, also, each of these dreams results in the dreamer dreaming up a unique monster representing something about them, which they get a personal essence from. This is the aim of the dreams (there are plot reasons, but I won't explain everything here!). So that's been interesting to plan too, as it's got a pet/Pokemon-like appeal to it, though I've not fully finalised any of their designs yet. I like how it turned out because it incorporates a gameplay feature quite heavily into the narrative.

There's a lot of that, actually! There are six of these elemental mausolea, and unlike the elements of Pokemon gyms, their elements actually play heavily into the story rather than just affecting the aesthetics of whatever dungeon you're wandering through like with MARDEK's elemental temples. I'd talk more about it, but again, spoilers!

Sexual Objectification

Something I wanted to touch on because it's been on my mind a whole lot while designing this game is the concept of sexual objectification. I was going to write a separate post about it, but... eh.

I don't particularly like characters who exist purely for the sake of titillation. I remember adverts like this that were everywhere during the MARDEK days, and which I see from googling for images were the subject of memes and mockery because of their transparent appeal purely to sex:

A couple of character designs also come to mind, from the game Star Ocean: The Last Hope (there are better examples, but this is one I've actually played):

I don't care for these anime-esque costume designs full of fiddly details in general since the guiding principle seems to be 'whatever cool details come to mind', and these are both very skimpy purely for the sake of it even though there's nothing about their characters or background that would suggest why they would choose to look that way (I also find it interesting that these were designed by a woman).

Sometimes excuses are made for why a character is extremely skimpily-dressed, like needing to breathe through her skin...

...which are mocked because the excuse is as flimsy as the costume.

But is it possible, then, to have a relatively skimpy outfit which is justified by the character's background?

Here's a less super-deformed version of Collie's Blight Wolf design:

That's quite skimpy. But it's not intended to be sexual exactly.

One of the biggest motifs in the game is order vs chaos, in the sense of restriction vs freedom. The Seraphim represent ordered society, with its moral restrictions and lawful control; they replace the gods who also enforced these ideals. They believe that safety is more important than freedom. The Blight Wolves were formed in opposition to this, by people who didn't want to be chained by rigid judgements and rules. They believe that freedom is more important than safety.

The Seraphim are similar in general attitude to puritanical Christians, while the Blight Wolves are more like hedonistic hippies... or rather they were at first, but as the centuries have passed, they've devolved into bandits because without order, why not just take what you want?

It makes more sense then for the Blight Wolves to be about open, free expression, to be wild, untamed, and them wearing fewer clothes is a way of communicating this aesthetically. Collie here isn't wearing little because she's trying to arouse, but because she's not chained by prudish morality.

They're very similar to the conceptions of barbarians in D&D, come to think of it; this outfit even looks like the female one in this picture that came up for 'barbarian':

It's interesting to me that this conception of expressive freedom vs authoritarian suppression mirrors to some degree the liberal vs conservative (American) political viewpoints... and yet the far left also object to and attempt to suppress examples of perceived (female) sexual objectification. It seems so odd to me, since I'd expect the strongly religious to be the ones making these objections.

I'm assuming it's because it's perceived as misogynistic or oppressive in some wider systematic/cultural sense... but it's frustrating to me because it leads to a lot of double standards. Women seem to be given free reign to lust over hot guys as much as they like, and they should be encouraged, cheered on, but if a guy expresses any lust at all then he's a pig and should be chided for it (unless he's meekly expressing admiration for a TOUGH, POWERFUL, STRONG woman anyway). Anything that could be seen as appealing to male lust should be suppressed because... what, males aren't allowed to be titillated at all? I understand the psychology of it, I think, but I don't like it.

I also wonder: why do so many people think that sexualisation = objectification necessarily? If you compliment someone's intelligence, are they going to get upset because you only care about them for their intelligence and not them as a whole person? Probably not. But if you compliment their looks (and they're a woman), they might feel like you only care about their looks. That annoys me too. Why can't you like someone's looks as part of a full package, as you would any other trait? Can you have a character with depth and nuance and many facets, where one of those facets is sex appeal?

I did some reading about this, and I started ∞ a Twitter poll ∞ with this (crude) drawing:

I was curious to see which one people considered to be an example of sexual objectification. Currently there are 76 votes with the following percentages:

39% - Right
39% - Neither
14% - Both
8% - Left

So it's a small sample size, but it seems to suggest the concept is nebulous and subjective. I'm (pleasantly) surprised there weren't more votes for the left one, though it's interesting how many people said that neither were.

People in comments mentioned that the context was crucial. What I'd say - along similar lines - is that sexual objectification is less visual and more behavioural.

∞ Here's a(n article about a) study which seems to support that ∞. Essentially, it showed people pictures of men and women either fully or barely covered, and posing either neutrally or in a sexy way. They found that people were more likely to feel that the sexy poses - rather than the bared skin - were examples of sexual objectification.

I'm not intending to include any examples of behavioural sexual objectification. I'm not posing the characters in sexy ways or making them present themselves as objects of sexual conquest (though this too seems subjective; Collie poses like a ~doggy~ sometimes for the comedy, not the sex appeal, though for people who equate 'dog' with 'sexy' there'd be overlap there). Though they do occasionally talk about sex, which I see as quite different.

Take Collie, for example, who people have previously commented on with apparent distaste re the sexual aspects of her interactions with Savitr. If she was blushing and posing submissively and saying things like "spank me master uwu" - the kind of thing I see often in anime art and which I'm personally repulsed by - then I'd get how that'd bother people! But if she's the one hinting with verbal innuendo at sexual interest in someone who's unreceptive to that, who exactly is the one being objectified there? Is it even possible for the one doing the coming-on to be the object in that interaction?

(Thinking about this a bit more, I suppose "spank me master uwu" would be a form of coming-on in which the flirter is objectifying themselves... but to assume that all female flirting is necessarily objectifying of the self seems to me to say a lot about the beliefs of the one making that assumption.)

I'm curious about the feminist angle on this. Surely they'd be the ones advocating for women to be able to freely express their sexual desires? How is this not that? The clash between apparent support for that and opposition for things like this just seems so odd to me. What's the hope in objecting to things like this, the intended outcome of it being suppressed?

Ultimately, sex is a huge part of human psychology, which is both why I find its narrative potential so fascinating and why people are so attuned to ways in which it might be tackled less-than-ideally. Lots of complications and feelings people have about it!

I'm not trying to arouse male gamers with what I make, but I also wouldn't see it as an undesirable outcome if I did.

5 COMMENTS

Spectre35~4Y

>and yet the far left also object to and attempt to suppress examples of perceived (female) sexual objectification. It seems so odd to me...

-You already answered the question. What does 'the far left' means? Communism. Perhaps the far left in the US isn't as left as Communist countries, but it already shows that the far left loves to abuse their power, if they have any. Just not as bad as Mao or Stalin did. They try to silence whatever that deviates from their ideology.

Tama_Yoshi82~4Y

I'll reiterate I think what you've done so far is perfectly fine, and the fact you care so much about not threading the line into overt sexual objectification shows that you're aware of the potential issues there.

You're right that the left/right react differently to this kind of stuff, although I know a lot of puritanical people get bothered by sexualization in video games too (usually more in an uncomfortable, "why is it this way" manner), for example when playing a game like Bayonneta.

Everything else below are just an expansion on the question of sexual objectification.

I've had to wrestle with these questions myself since my protagonists are all male, and I've had to ask myself whether the love interests (women in all cases) did not play into some "questionable" choices on my part that wasn't charitable enough to women - especially when things got sexy. I think if I was ever called out for it, my response would amount to saying that I've considered the angles, but if I'd somehow missed some I would be open to criticism; this appears like the best way to deal with it. A lot of these kinds of criticisms are valid, but a lot of them are reductive and can be dismissed with plausible deniability. You just have to show good faith on the matter, I think.

I think the part that trips most people up is when women design sexualized women, ESPECIALLY if their boss was also a woman (you can't dismiss the possibility that a female artist was influenced by the potentially problematic interests of a boss who caters to male audiences). For instance, there's been a gigantic amount of backlash AND support for Cardi B's WAP (specifically concerning the sexualization of it). I've seen several feminists say that WAP wasn't a bad thing; the artists were female, there's no strong reason to believe they were influenced by some pervert boss since they were most likely in control of the artistic direction. So it doesn't seem the sexualization of these women is an expression of some sort of "patriarchal" oppression of women, but simply an expression of sexual liberation on the part of women (something that under different circumstances could be considered problematic). Not all feminists would agree of course; there's this whole thing about the market being generally male-oriented, so it's less likely for overtly sexualized male performers to appear in similar music videos and gain similar popularity. That said, a case can be made that WAP should not be treated as "depraved". A lot of conservative pundits called it "depraved" and I think that's also quite wrong. Feminists generally want women to be able to freely express themselves without being subservient to male power, even though the former can be weaponized by the latter, which muddies the whole thing.

I think you have to lean very far into the "sexual objectification" for it to turn off people. I like using Xenoblade Chronicles 2 as an example, because the amount of "things" it does is numerous, and if they were less numerous then probably I wouldn't have minded it as much. The quantity of it (including the rampant boob shots) just made my general experience a lot more uncomfortable. Why are you doing this to me, devs?! Can't I just like Pyra/Mythra/etc because she's cool?! Critically, it doesn't seem XC2 "lost" anything from doing that; many people (especially men) defended it. If it didn't work it wouldn't be a thing. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of sexualized women also came off as somewhat empowering to SOME female players, but I certainly know my girlfriend didn't like the rampant boob shots (as she looked over what I was playing).

It seems rather obvious that Japanese studios have a bigger problem of sexual objectification than Americans. It gets on my nerves especially when they do the "oh no" (blush) "what are you doing" thing, which I don't think I've ever seen a real person do in any circumstance. Then, there's Hentai. Japanese Hentai is just ugh, but there exists (OR SO I'VE BEEN TOLD) certain artists (usually western) that don't play into the weird submissive maiden tropes, and that's already much better (and also some of these artists are women freelancers). I've heard the argument that Hentai was useful in the sense that it allowed artists to explore what made things sexual and what didn't; for instance having nudity in anime does not intrinsically make it sexual; you can have transcendental shots of people's souls represented by their naked bodies, and it's not necessarily sexual. So if sexualization is not always objectification, then nudity is also not always sexualization.

If you get into queer material things change a little. Of course, if it was female homosexuality there could still be problems of male gaze, which, duh. In the case of male homosexuality, things are different, since markets are seldom female-dominated and male homosexuality challenges the (pervasive) male-gaze (case in point fifty shades of gray; the first movie is female-gazey and incidentally directed by a woman, but the latter movies are directed by men and the camera focuses much more on the female protagonist. Interesting shift, that). There was this indie game called Dream Daddy (made largely by a men) that was basically a "gay" dating sim where the player could date handsome dads, and the game was received well in general for how unusual (and iirc how nuanced) it was. Thinking about this stuff also helps finding out what we're "missing" by over-relying on female sexuality, or straight sexuality.

Thinking about what we see, what's favored and disfavored, what plays into dynamics of oppression and unfair social dynamics; that's usually what it's all about; even if Dream Daddy hadn't been nuanced, it's difficult to say that a game that pushes a queer agenda (something that is sometimes purposefully avoided in media) and is made by men, is somehow an expression of oppression of some sorts.

They're all "annoying" matters, too, because they're essentially not issues about the "art" itself, but rather about the way in which this art manifests. The same artistic work can be perfectly fine in some context but not in others, and it can be upsetting as an artist to see your work criticized for something that has little to do with the intent behind it. But how else would one tackle these problems?

Anyway. For all that matters here, what you're doing is perfectly fine. These are just thoughts!

You're right that the left/right react differently to this kind of stuff, although I know a lot of puritanical people get bothered by sexualization in video games too (usually more in an uncomfortable, "why is it this way" manner), for example when playing a game like Bayonneta.

Everything else below are just an expansion on the question of sexual objectification.

I've had to wrestle with these questions myself since my protagonists are all male, and I've had to ask myself whether the love interests (women in all cases) did not play into some "questionable" choices on my part that wasn't charitable enough to women - especially when things got sexy. I think if I was ever called out for it, my response would amount to saying that I've considered the angles, but if I'd somehow missed some I would be open to criticism; this appears like the best way to deal with it. A lot of these kinds of criticisms are valid, but a lot of them are reductive and can be dismissed with plausible deniability. You just have to show good faith on the matter, I think.

I think the part that trips most people up is when women design sexualized women, ESPECIALLY if their boss was also a woman (you can't dismiss the possibility that a female artist was influenced by the potentially problematic interests of a boss who caters to male audiences). For instance, there's been a gigantic amount of backlash AND support for Cardi B's WAP (specifically concerning the sexualization of it). I've seen several feminists say that WAP wasn't a bad thing; the artists were female, there's no strong reason to believe they were influenced by some pervert boss since they were most likely in control of the artistic direction. So it doesn't seem the sexualization of these women is an expression of some sort of "patriarchal" oppression of women, but simply an expression of sexual liberation on the part of women (something that under different circumstances could be considered problematic). Not all feminists would agree of course; there's this whole thing about the market being generally male-oriented, so it's less likely for overtly sexualized male performers to appear in similar music videos and gain similar popularity. That said, a case can be made that WAP should not be treated as "depraved". A lot of conservative pundits called it "depraved" and I think that's also quite wrong. Feminists generally want women to be able to freely express themselves without being subservient to male power, even though the former can be weaponized by the latter, which muddies the whole thing.

I think you have to lean very far into the "sexual objectification" for it to turn off people. I like using Xenoblade Chronicles 2 as an example, because the amount of "things" it does is numerous, and if they were less numerous then probably I wouldn't have minded it as much. The quantity of it (including the rampant boob shots) just made my general experience a lot more uncomfortable. Why are you doing this to me, devs?! Can't I just like Pyra/Mythra/etc because she's cool?! Critically, it doesn't seem XC2 "lost" anything from doing that; many people (especially men) defended it. If it didn't work it wouldn't be a thing. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of sexualized women also came off as somewhat empowering to SOME female players, but I certainly know my girlfriend didn't like the rampant boob shots (as she looked over what I was playing).

It seems rather obvious that Japanese studios have a bigger problem of sexual objectification than Americans. It gets on my nerves especially when they do the "oh no" (blush) "what are you doing" thing, which I don't think I've ever seen a real person do in any circumstance. Then, there's Hentai. Japanese Hentai is just ugh, but there exists (OR SO I'VE BEEN TOLD) certain artists (usually western) that don't play into the weird submissive maiden tropes, and that's already much better (and also some of these artists are women freelancers). I've heard the argument that Hentai was useful in the sense that it allowed artists to explore what made things sexual and what didn't; for instance having nudity in anime does not intrinsically make it sexual; you can have transcendental shots of people's souls represented by their naked bodies, and it's not necessarily sexual. So if sexualization is not always objectification, then nudity is also not always sexualization.

If you get into queer material things change a little. Of course, if it was female homosexuality there could still be problems of male gaze, which, duh. In the case of male homosexuality, things are different, since markets are seldom female-dominated and male homosexuality challenges the (pervasive) male-gaze (case in point fifty shades of gray; the first movie is female-gazey and incidentally directed by a woman, but the latter movies are directed by men and the camera focuses much more on the female protagonist. Interesting shift, that). There was this indie game called Dream Daddy (made largely by a men) that was basically a "gay" dating sim where the player could date handsome dads, and the game was received well in general for how unusual (and iirc how nuanced) it was. Thinking about this stuff also helps finding out what we're "missing" by over-relying on female sexuality, or straight sexuality.

Thinking about what we see, what's favored and disfavored, what plays into dynamics of oppression and unfair social dynamics; that's usually what it's all about; even if Dream Daddy hadn't been nuanced, it's difficult to say that a game that pushes a queer agenda (something that is sometimes purposefully avoided in media) and is made by men, is somehow an expression of oppression of some sorts.

They're all "annoying" matters, too, because they're essentially not issues about the "art" itself, but rather about the way in which this art manifests. The same artistic work can be perfectly fine in some context but not in others, and it can be upsetting as an artist to see your work criticized for something that has little to do with the intent behind it. But how else would one tackle these problems?

Anyway. For all that matters here, what you're doing is perfectly fine. These are just thoughts!

MaxDes45~4Y

Honestly I feel like if you want to understand the "Feminist Perspective" of objectification, you won't find it in this comment section. I think it's super important you understand their angle (and not some strawman), though, because a lot of your target demographic won't be the "average gamer male" that doesn't care about objectification. A lot of your potential fanbase might be put-off by something like objectification, so it's important to make sure you don't do it disrespectfully.

Why don't you try making a short reddit post to a feminist subreddit or something like that? If you do it respectfully, they'd be down to give you their opinion.

purplerabbits148~4Y

For matters on whether sexy crosses the line of turning people away, that is mostly determined by the context. I'll paraphrase my designer friend, "There's good sexy and then there's bad sexy"

It'll be hard pressed to say that a bit of sexy helps because well, sex sells. But, there does come a point where you end up asking yourself just why things are shot in such a way. For me and my friend if the sexy becomes immersion breaking then that's and example of "bad sexy"

When the character is sexy and it plays into the character then that's and example of "good sexy"

I'll pull two examples from Atsushi Okubo's manga works : Soul Eater, and Fire Force

In Fire Force, there's a character, Tamaki, who's introduced as the character that accidently gets into situations where she is naked, in a compromising position because of clothing failure, or somehow by sheer clumsiness she ends up skin to skin with one of the male characters. Even though the whole thing about Tamaki's clumsiness/"Lucky Lecher Lure"(as it is called in the manga) is played for comedy. It's very imersion breaking and seems to be there just for fanservice sake, and so serves as an example of "bad sexy"

On the other hand for Soul Eater, there's a character called Blair who's a witch that demonstrates "good sexy." In the manga, Blair is first introduced taking a bath as she unknowing is to be hunted by the two characters, Soul and Maka. In their first confrontation with Blair, Soul ends up getting distracted by the sexy, and Blair ends up using her sexiness to her advantage (hugging Soul so that his face is smothered by her bare breasts, she's quite amused by just how distracted Soul gets) to come out on top of the situation. For Blair, she's an example of "good sexy" because she knows she's sexy and uses it accordingly. Incidenily, there is also the Christian accociation that witches sleep with the devil to obtain powers and sleep with others to further increase their powers, and so a sexy witch would make sense. Not sure if that design detail is purposeful because the manga is Japanese, but it is a cool associative detail.

Blair is one of my favorite characters, she always makes the situations more fun and is an interesting character. She may be sexy and can be used as fanservice its not her only character trait. In one incident Blair just trolled an enemy by constantly stealing his hat, she was a cat the whole time so there was no incident of any fanservice from Blair in that whole scene. On the otherhand, Tamaki just brings an eyeroll because of her immersion breaking. You have a better chance of counting the scenes of her not in a compromising position/fanservice pose.

For Collie's dream form, with the context, its not immersion breaking and you aren't drawing her so that she's exploiting the hormones of your fans. Furthermore, her design plays into where she came from and it makes sense.

In terms of dialouge, well, we are getting snippets, so the full context would be determinant for wherher it crosses the line. So far, we know your intentions, so for me it doesn't cross the line, but I can see why others may see it cross the line.

For matters on whether sexy crosses the line of turning people away, that is mostly determined by the context. I'll paraphrase my designer friend, "There's good sexy and then there's bad sexy"

It'll be hard pressed to say that a bit of sexy helps because well, sex sells. But, there does come a point where you end up asking yourself just why things are shot in such a way. For me and my friend if the sexy becomes immersion breaking then that's and example of "bad sexy"

When the character is sexy and it plays into the character then that's and example of "good sexy"

I'll pull two examples from Atsushi Okubo's manga works : Soul Eater, and Fire Force

In Fire Force, there's a character, Tamaki, who's introduced as the character that accidently gets into situations where she is naked, in a compromising position because of clothing failure, or somehow by sheer clumsiness she ends up skin to skin with one of the male characters. Even though the whole thing about Tamaki's clumsiness/"Lucky Lecher Lure"(as it is called in the manga) is played for comedy. It's very imersion breaking and seems to be there just for fanservice sake, and so serves as an example of "bad sexy"

On the other hand for Soul Eater, there's a character called Blair who's a witch that demonstrates "good sexy." In the manga, Blair is first introduced taking a bath  as she unknowing is to be hunted by the two characters, Soul and Maka. In their first confrontation with Blair, Soul ends up getting distracted by the sexy, and Blair ends up using her sexiness to her advantage (hugging Soul so that his face is smothered by her bare breasts, she's quite amused by just how distracted Soul gets) to come out on top of the situation. For Blair, she's an example of "good sexy" because she knows she's sexy and uses it accordingly.  Incidenily, there is also the Christian accociation that witches sleep with the devil to obtain powers and sleep with others to further increase their powers, and so a sexy witch would make sense. Not sure if that design detail is purposeful because the manga is Japanese, but it is a cool associative detail.

Blair is one of my favorite characters, she always makes the situations more fun and is an interesting character. She may be sexy and can be used as fanservice its not her only character trait. In one incident Blair just trolled an enemy by constantly stealing his hat, she was a cat the whole time so there was no incident of any fanservice from Blair in that whole scene. On the otherhand, Tamaki just brings an eyeroll because of her immersion breaking. You have a better chance of counting the scenes of her not in a compromising position/fanservice pose.

For Collie's dream form, with the context, its not immersion breaking and you aren't drawing her so that she's exploiting the hormones of your fans. Furthermore, her design plays into where she came from and it makes sense.

In terms of dialouge,  well, we are getting snippets, so the full context would be determinant for wherher it crosses the line. So far, we know your intentions, so for me it doesn't cross the line, but I can see why others may see it cross the line.

Wolf21~4Y

As a male feminist, I think the most important thing is to know that some things can't really be easily understood without sharing the same experience. I don’t feel I can assert that I’m an authority on the matter, or claim that my perspective is one with peerless insight into matters of sexual objectification. It’s important to outline that first, before spouting an opinion that is likely based on a flawed, or incomplete understanding of the issue at large. Seeking the opinion of someone who is more informed and more affected by the issue (or the opinions of multiple people- hopefully female feminists) is much more likely to give you a thorough and accurate answer.

Even from my *limited* perspective, it’s such a complex issue, that it’s hard to talk about succinctly because you feel as if you’re only really scratching the surface. I honestly really don’t know where to start. Your poll is an interesting one, but it does seem like an oversimplification. Context is indeed key. If you were advertising the clothes the woman was wearing you and feature multiple models, all of the same ‘ideal’ body type, that would likely be seen more as objectification, because it’s not inclusive and would be implying that women should look like this. It’s this sort of subtle- and at times not so subtle- representation across every echelon of society that leads to negative psychological effects on young women. The d&d depiction of barbarians is problematic because it’s based in fantasy- D&D is aimed at a male audience and the male barbarian representation is one of ‘male power fantasy’ rather than a sexual objectification, and the female is sexually objectified because of the body type she has. A female barbarian, a strength based one at that considering the gigantic axe she seems to have, should be a big hulking mass of muscle herself. The fact they go with a dainty character that would likely run track and field IRL rather than body-build like her counterpart shows that they’re specifically choosing that body type for a reason other than practicality- because it is inherently sexually appealing. I don’t agree that this *should* be the case, and I think it’s an ingrained societal problem where we seem to objectify women of a certain size, shape and appearance, but it’s fairly well understood that this just *is* the case. I mean, just google “D&D female barbarian” and look at the first page of images- almost every single one is like the halloween trope where every female has to be a ‘sexy nurse’ or a ‘sexy policewoman’ or a ‘sexy tree’ or whatever.

It’s fine to make a character attractive, but if you look at your game as a whole, how does it represent women? Your dialogue has never really failed you in making female characters, main ones at least, into whole, well-rounded people. I think the context of Atonal Dreams, the characters within it and the dialogue that you usually have in your games will dissuade anyone from thinking you’re objectifying any of the characters therein for baseless reasons. But, you’re a male artist depicting females, and as you know from previous experience- some people will like what you’re doing ands some people will not.

I personally took the Collie - Savitr interactions to be a bit of commentary. I personally didn’t find it offensive in any way, really, but there’s a line for everyone and that line doesn’t tend to be in the same place for everybody.

As to the self-objectification of women in general, it’s a problem without an easy solution. There’s fairly significant debate over whether or not sexual freedom, free expression of desire, or overt use of one’s own sexuality is empowering to women or if it adds to the dog-pile of role-models and examples for young women that then perpetuate the cycle. It is a strange, almost cyclic, system; do we sexualise things we find attractive, or do we find things attractive that have been sexualised?

Even from my *limited* perspective, it’s such a complex issue, that it’s hard to talk about succinctly because you feel as if you’re only really scratching the surface. I honestly really don’t know where to start. Your poll is an interesting one, but it does seem like an oversimplification. Context is indeed key. If you were advertising the clothes the woman was wearing you and feature multiple models, all of the same ‘ideal’ body type, that would likely be seen more as objectification, because it’s not inclusive and would be implying that women should look like this. It’s this sort of subtle- and at times not so subtle- representation across every echelon of society that leads to negative psychological effects on young women. The d&d depiction of barbarians is problematic because it’s based in fantasy- D&D is aimed at a male audience and the male barbarian representation is one of ‘male power fantasy’ rather than a sexual objectification, and the female is sexually objectified because of the body type she has. A female barbarian, a strength based one at that considering the gigantic axe she seems to have, should be a big hulking mass of muscle herself. The fact they go with a dainty character that would likely run track and field IRL rather than body-build like her counterpart shows that they’re specifically choosing that body type for a reason other than practicality- because it is inherently sexually appealing. I don’t agree that this *should* be the case, and I think it’s an ingrained societal problem where we seem to objectify women of a certain size, shape and appearance, but it’s fairly well understood that this just *is* the case. I mean, just google “D&D female barbarian” and look at the first page of images- almost every single one is like the halloween trope where every female has to be a ‘sexy nurse’ or a ‘sexy policewoman’ or a ‘sexy tree’ or whatever.

It’s fine to make a character attractive, but if you look at your game as a whole, how does it represent women? Your dialogue has never really failed you in making female characters, main ones at least, into whole, well-rounded people. I think the context of Atonal Dreams, the characters within it and the dialogue that you usually have in your games will dissuade anyone from thinking you’re objectifying any of the characters therein for baseless reasons. But, you’re a male artist depicting females, and as you know from previous experience- some people will like what you’re doing ands some people will not.

I personally took the Collie - Savitr interactions to be a bit of commentary. I personally didn’t find it offensive in any way, really, but there’s a line for everyone and that line doesn’t tend to be in the same place for everybody.

As to the self-objectification of women in general, it’s a problem without an easy solution. There’s fairly significant debate over whether or not sexual freedom, free expression of desire, or overt use of one’s own sexuality is empowering to women or if it adds to the dog-pile of role-models and examples for young women that then perpetuate the cycle. It is a strange, almost cyclic, system; do we sexualise things we find attractive, or do we find things attractive that have been sexualised?