Author: kirkwallhellmouth

goddessofcheese:

rosalarian:

comicsalliance:

Female Super-Hero Characters and Sex: Creators Explain How Comics Can Do Better
 

There has been a lot of discussion — and controversy — recently about the presence of women in super-hero comics, both in terms of the relative lack of female creators and the problematic way that female characters are sometimes represented. We’ve heard numerous fans and professionals hashing out the issue, and asking what mainstream comics can do to improve the way female characters are written and drawn. ComicsAlliance spoke to comics writers, artists and editors across the industry — including two porn creators — for some concrete answers to that question. Kieron Gillen, Greg Rucka, Kurt Busiek, G. Willow Wilson, Jeff Parker, Jess Fink, Brandon Graham, Sana Amanat, Jamie McKelvie, Erika Moen and Rachel Edidin weigh in below.

Kieron Gillen: I write the Uncanny X-Men. When the events of the recent months started to blow up, I found myself glancing at my team in Uncanny and sort of breathed a sigh of relief. My Uncanny Team for the relaunch is 50:50 in terms of gender ratio. Four men, four women and a robot. The oddest thing is that I didn’t even have to think about it. It’s the main advantage of writing Uncanny X-Men. I’m exploring the terrain populated by a lot of progressive, socially minded writers before me. I just picked the appropriate characters for what I had in mind and it creates a balanced team.

Which isn’t to say I haven’t my own problems, and I thought it may be worthwhile to talk about a little one I deal with on a daily basis. She’s called Emma Frost.

Emma always risks being every bad cliché about women in comics, simply because half the time she’s a tendency to look as if she’s just wandered out of a retro-themed sex party. Which she probably has. I think Emma gets away with it for a few reasons, and they’re reasons I keep in mind whenever writing pretty much anything.

First one, is something I think is as close to objective as anything craft-based gets. It’s about storytelling. Not a character’s actions, but how you choose to frame those actions for the reader. This includes the poses a character strikes. You could have a character reciting feminist theory, but if you’ve shot them so they’re leaning over to give a cleavage shot and come-hither eyes up at the reader, it overrules anything else you could be trying to do.

In other words, her costume’s actually a secondary concern compared to how you choose to frame the person wearing that costume. Take a look at Whedon/Cassady’s Astonishing X-men for a masterclass in Emma. She’s her usual semi-clothed self throughout, and Cassaday never does anything to draw attention to it above and beyond what the story demands.

If you treat your characters as objects instead of characters you are, by definition, objectifying them, and if you constantly objectify your female characters you come across as sexist. Male characters, despite the similar unlikely physique, are simply not objectified in the gaze of the reader in the same way as female characters often are, to the detriment to the drama. Because if the reader is thinking “Nice ass” or “Oh God, tacky!” on a panel that’s meant to be about something emotional and true, your choices have betrayed the story.

Second reason why Emma gets away with it links to the line-up. This is a team which includes a number of other women. In terms of my team, two are in unisex jumpsuits (Magik, Hope) and one is in something a little more elegant (Storm). We can have a character like Emma simply because not all characters are like Emma. If you dress all your characters like Emma, it sends – no pun intended — an explicit message.

Third reason is the flip of the first reason. That was about how you choose to present the story. This is the content of the story of itself. Emma’s unique dress-sense is absolutely part of the story. It’s for a reason. It’s for a reason which other characters respond to, both positively and negatively. If you’re going to have a character like Emma, you have to accept it’s a thing and roll with it.

In short: If you treat your characters as characters, you can get away with pretty much anything. As a final thought, it’s also worth noting that the deepest plunging cleavage in my X-Men team is actually Namor who’s close to being the masculine inverse of Emma in terms of amount of skin versus appropriateness of showing that amount of skin. Which, I suppose, is my own attempt at playful sexual egalitarianism.

Read more at ComicsAlliance.

I love this article.

Fuck yes. A must read.

If you want to get technical, what happens depends on Hawke’s responses to the situations, not Merrill. It’s on Hawke to respond in a way that leads to Merrill stabbing possessed!Marethari or possessed!Marethari stabbing Merrill. It’s on Hawke’s response as to whether the part is forced to fight the Dalish.

Dalish morality is different from the Andrastian morality that followed by most of the game characters. Dalish don’t see spirits as “good” or “evil”; they see them ALL as dangerous, which if you look at what happens when Anders takes Justice is, is a healthier way of looking at things.

Mark of the Assassin thoughts

I enjoyed it. Minor spoilers to follow.

Dear BioWare: Thank you for continuing to give me endless gameplay possibilities because I want to test ALL THE OPTIONS.

And added an edit over which I cannot believe I forgot to mention the first time.

Edited again.

I did my first run with my first Hawke, a post-endgame and post-Legacy rogue snarker named Robin who romanced Merrill. For this run, I took Aveline and Merrill along, because 1) Aveline is awesome, 2) I needed a tank, and 3) my Hawkes prefer to bring their LI’s everywhere (Robin had totally flirted shamelessly with Aveline, and I adored the teasing Aveline about getting all dolled up like an Orlesian noblewoman).

Part of what I loved most were all the homages to previous content at the party.

-The Comtess de Launcet complaining about Nella’s filling the de Launcet summer house with ceramic cows was probably more funny to me because I have an aunt who does that with angels and roosters.

– Isolde repeating the famous “Who is this woman, Teagan?” line about made me die laughing.

– Bann Perrin still has not lived down having his “suspect underthings” nailed to the Chanter’s Board in Leliana’s Song.

– LELIANA. I may have squealed audibly when I spotted her. I expect she was probably up to mischief of some kind or another, but I am never not happen to see her, even if my Kyra Cousland is always sad that it means they are not in the same place. Having her at the same party as Bann Perrin after tacking his undies to the Chanter’s Board years earlier made me lol.

– Not at the party, but still an homage: the Avvar cult of the Lady of the Sky (Skies?) which hearkens back to the Kaddis of the Lady of the Skies that you can equip to your Mabari in Origins. 

After watching Aveline and Merrill’s looking-for-Hawke scene, I want an Aveline and Merrill buddy cop show. And I loved Merrill’s usual enthusiasm about Hawke and violence: “How did you escape? Was it exciting? Did you shank someone?”

And Tallis’s comment about Hawke eating thugs for breakfast or something and Hawke going, “Only when we’re out of pancakes.”

I also like that the Duke’s commentary on your party depends on who’s there. He kind of hit on my all lady party. With Viscount male Hawke and Fenris (his LI), the Duke said “I see you brought a man servant.” When I started a run with Templar Carver, he was on loan to the Duke.

I don’t think any of my Hawkes (other than Hamlet the I-just-don’t-give-a-damn-now-get-out-of-my-way Blood Mage Spirit Healer) will be choosing the red or purple options re: the Duke’s commenting on his Chasind bodyguard. I chose the purple first time around and was like, “…that was dickish” and made it a head canon decision that Robin was just playing up the Duke’s game of superiority rather than actually making a racist statement.

I wish there had been more to Aveline’s family quest, though. It was very intriguing, but ended so quickly leaving me wanting to know more.