As Kitana’s double D’s engulfed the screen, I had to ask my brother again, “You really don’t see a problem with this?”
“Well, I mean, the guys are shirtless,” he replied.
“Kay, but…they’re not wearing aluminum lingerie.” Having a brother means growing up with a fair share of video games, and from Soulcalibur to Tekken, the same ridiculous costumes for female characters. But dude, the new Mortal Kombat game is…really a piece of work.
And of course it’s not a slut-shaming thing, literally every picture I’ve taken of myself is 95% cleavage. Please. It’s just…would I go fight Sub-Zero in a neon thong, tits spilling all over the place? Probably not.
Tica from Repair Her Armor gets it.
The before and after of this redesign is incredible, srsly
What’s “Repair Her Armor?” I dunno, only the greatest Tumblr ever. It’s a simple concept: she takes the incredulous outfits that are bestowed upon women-in-video-games, and fixes them so the characters aren’t a jiggling, impractical mess.
In her own words, “I’ve always realized how much potential the original designs usually have, but that spark gets lost among the hyper-sexualization and objectification. So I decided to start a blog and try to re-design them.”
Tica grew up looking for strong female role models, finding them in Hermione Granger and the Powerpuff Girls (her favorite was Bubbles, and so is mine obvs.) Later on she got really into video games, but was disappointed when she realized, “the men were wearing cool, amazing gear…the girls got bikinis. Made of metal. In war.”
Yeah, this looks fair and safe
#headmeetdesk
Repair Her Armor features not only her own amazing redesigns, but reblogs and reader submissions of other upgraded costumes. And today marks the end of the Tumblr’s very first contest, in which readers repair the “armor” seen in this gem of a post.
So in short, it’s a super smart, super cool affront on the blatant objectification that game designers unfairly push on the female characters. Which is bullshit, because we want to save the world, too.
And when you’re up against a fire-breathing undead ninja-robot, do you really want to be wearing tin-foil panties with leather straps barely wrangling your goods? Or do you want to, you know, be wearing something that protects your vital organs, like the boys are?
Make sure to air your grievances about being a female in the gaming community in the comment section. Tell us about your (least) favorite costume clichés, and what you’d like to see more (or less) of from the female characters that DO make their ways into the game.
Images via Repair Her Armor
