Saving Cindy and The inevitable return of "Those Tits Won't be Necessary".

Editor's Note: Mistyped the screenname of  redditor CrankyDClown. It's fixed. Also linking the KotakuInAction thread of which the translation was taken from. - Spiracy

Just when you think it's safe to have a relaxing weekend....

After finding the remaining books in Alvin Schwartz's Scary Stories to tell in the dark series to complete my collection, a rather pricey (I don't care if 45 bucks is cheap to you, it'll be pricey to me, dammit! ) Darkwing Duck NES cartridge, and a 6 dollar copy of Batman: Gotham Knight, I was about ready to settle in for the evening, when my twitter bat signal goes off with a link to this.....
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…...thing.

And of course, the text that goes with it. I'm sure you're all familiar with our “friends” at Svampricket. I refuse to call them the “mushroom kingdom” because that's an insult to better designed fictional properties. Here's the translation that was featured in the KotakuInAction subreddit. 

"Now's your chance to get a game character redesigned by The Mushroom Kingdom's illustrator. Is there a character in the world of games that you think is problematic? It can be gender, ethnicity, body, sexism etc. Mail us and tell us which character, what the problem is and what you think should be different."

"That way you'll have the chance to become one of those who will get a new character design dedicated to you and published at svampriket.se. Your motivation and the illustrators thoughts will be part of the article."

- courtesy of Redditor  CrankyDClown

Naturally, I'm less than ecstatic about this. Character redesigns are not a process where you can lazily just slap any old thing together in order to make yourself feel good for eating two large pizzas, cheesy bread, and wings in one sitting, and thinking that you can balance that out with a diet coke. This isn't Fullmetal Alchemist. There is no law of equivalent exchange. If you want to look good and feel better about yourself, you're going to have to put in some freaking effort.

So now that I've got that out of my system, let's actually talk some design, while I still have some daylight left, shall we? 

Why Cindy's design works.

The Final Fantasy Wiki has the following dossier on Cindy Aurum;

Cindy is a slender woman with short, curly blond hair and olive green eyes. She wears a red cap with yellow outlines and a logo with the words "HAMMER HEAD" and "FULL SERVICE STATION" and black goggles which she hangs around her neck when not using them. Cindy wears a cropped yellow jacket that reveals her stomach zipped a few inches under her breasts, and an orange bikini top with deep décolletage. She wears jeans shorts with a brown belt loosely hanging around her hips, thigh-high black stockings, white high boots on heels, and brown gloves.


In the English localization, she speaks in Southern American English.Cindy is upbeat, driven, and always enthusiastic about her work. She is passionate about cars and fascinated with technology that originates from the crown city, which has been isolated from the rest of Lucis for thirty years. Despite having had a rough childhood, she is optimistic and friendly to everyone. Despite having many admirers, she doesn't have much interest for dating, and is noted to being "married to her work".


Cindy was designed by Roberto Ferrari. Cindy's first version had her breasts jiggle so much director Hajime Tabata wanted to tone it down. A lot of feedback from Europe on the Episode Duscae demo was that Cindy was "too sexy." Director Hajime Tabata responded that Cindy was not meant to be an erotic character, but energetic and outgoing, and he didn't want to change the current concept. He talked about moderating the way she's presented, rather than covering her up.

Ferrari's design for Cindy is reminiscent of the old Pinup styled characters that were painted on bombers in the height of WWII. This also makes sense, due to Cindy's “Paw Paw” being Cid Sophiar, Master Mechanic, and Airship engineer. Characters named Cid in the Final Fantasy lore have always been either mechanically gifted or influential to the story in some capacity. Often "Cid" characters are either the creators or pilots of airships, so it would be incredibly apt if this was part of the thought process that lead to Cindy's design. 

Above: Proto Cindy

Her surname, “Aurum” is the latin word for “Gold” hence the yellow jacket and blonde hair. The color yellow, in this instance of the character stands for  happiness, optimism, enlightenment, creativity, sunshine, energy and spring.

The midriff style jacket, interestingly enough. has origins in French Fashion. It was first introduced in 1932 via an evening gown that had been strategically cut at the waist by Madeline Vionnet and after being banned for being too taboo, further exploded in popularity in the 1960s during The Sexual Revolution; a time where Western women were being more expressive with both their outward appearances and their views on relationships. Midriff bearing fashions like the sari, in India, are regarded a cultural mainstay, despite journalists claims of the sari being a “dead fashion”. In an article for the Guardian (Don't worry. It's archived), Rathi Vinjay Jha had this to say.

Rathi Vinay Jha, director general of the Fashion Design Council of India, conceded that tastes had changed dramatically over the past 20 years. 'I don't think it [the sari] will disappear like the kimono, because the problem in Japan was the extraordinary cost of a good kimono. You can buy a simple sari for 100 rupees (£1.20),' she said. 

For Jha, the sari remains an unbeatable outfit. 'The bare midriff keeps you cool; if you've got a good figure it's very alluring, and if you're fat, it hides the flab. You can drape the pallu [the scarf end] over your head as protection against the sun or rain; you can dry your hands on it or wipe your child's tears with it. It will never die.'

So with this information it can also be noted that midriff fashions have a dual function as both fashionable, and suited for comfort in hot climates. In Final Fantasy XV, Hammerhead is located in the outskirts of Lucis, which is actually a desert-like climate. Now I've stated this before, in a previous article, but those of you who have either worked in or known someone who works in a garage, knows that depending on the amount of ventilation or if air conditioning is even in the budget, the inside temperature can reach sweltering degrees. Which again would make her choice of clothing all the more advantageous. 

Also kudos to Tabata for keeping the design and just changing the tone of the character, instead. Taking a character that can be perceived as overly sexual, and giving her the personality of being more interested in her trade than actual attention from suitors creates an interesting perplexity. This revelation also works to prove that her choice of clothing isn't for sexual attention at all! Instead, she's actually wearing it for the aforementioned reasons stated. Of course, this is just a long winded way of saying to Cindy's detractors that “Just because I'm dressed this way doesn't make me whatever it is you think I am”. And let's face it, being able to use that statement in any capacity to prudes who want to ruin her character is nothing short of glorious!


Compare and save 

So now that we've explained why Cindy's design is the way it is, let's get down to comparing the two, shall we?

First, let's put that image back up.

I'm curious as to why the artist always has a thing for either making redesigned characters look like 12 year old girls or 48 year old women. There never seems to be anything resembling an in between. Perhaps it's the cup size reduction, or the over use of baggy clothing to hide any sense of curve, or just the fact that this artist is channeling their own personal view of themselves into the design. Either way, you took a healthy 25 year old woman and turned her into Bingo Night Barbie. You even took away the tool belt, and replaced it with mom jeans style carpenter pants, and put her in a “Rosie the Riveter” pose, because you're obviously not doing your job if you can't over sell the fact that she's a “frail lil woman doing jobs that men were traditionally known for”. 

Above: Modestly clothed mechanic. Still attractive 

                                         
Personally, if I had the capacity for being offended, I probably would take offense at this redesign for most of the things stated about it. The assumptions alone, should make you wonder if these bloggers even believe that attractive looking women can work in the automotive repair industry. Or that these women have to look as unappealing as possible because of their station.

This is even more of an interesting discussion when you bring in characters like Ellie from Borderlands 2, who despite being covered for the most part, still shows off a substantial amount of cleavage while maintaining an air of respect as a capable mechanic, or Led Campbell from Septerra Core who despite looking a bit more feminine, still manages to convey to the player that she's a mechanic of some capability. 

Above: Actual diversity in body types. 

Of course, those designs would also prove to be too feminine for the likes of Svampriket, and their bizarre ideals of what women should look like in media, and would have to be altered to look like they've been aged 20 years and gained the modesty of mother superior.

Before I close this out, I want to propose a question.

 If these designs are so bad, so problematic, so endangering to the fragile minds of the young female psyche that they have to be sanitized and altered to make you feel better about them, then why the hell are girls so keen on dressing up as these characters? 

               


And no, I don't want some bullshit answer like “Internalized misogyny”, because if that were the case, these redesigns would also fall into that designation. Seriously, a group of people in some backwards country trying to tell fictional women what they can and can't wear, and altering them into unflattering, frumpy designs for some misguided excuse of “enlightening and empowering women for their own good” kind of seems like the actions of someone who hates and distrusts women. For the most part,  it clearly shows that you obviously can't leave women to their own personal choices.

Even female designers like Mari Shimizaki, who helped design characters like Bayonetta as well as provided redesigns for Tira and Ivy and Taki's alternate (read; Sexy) costumes in Soul Calibur, are treated as if liking alluring design is a crime against humanity and surprise; it's not.

Even women can be lewd when they want to be

With every redesign I see from Svampricket it's becoming more and more clear that these people are just second-rate hacks trying to leach any sense of fun and beauty out of art, and replace it with boring bland facsimiles of the human form. And yet, all they've accomplished was reigniting my passion for wanting to continue doing this series.

To be honest, dear reader,  I've been dark for a couple weeks aside from the podcast and a few streams, here and there, and for good reason; I'm in the process of actually doing some redesigns of my own and they happen to coincide with rectifying some of the design don'ts that Svampricket has been spitting out as of late. In short, I'm putting my theories from the “Those tits won't be Necessary” series into practice for a new batch of season 2 shenanigans, while slowly coming out of artistic “retirement” to prove a point and to further show that you can still have curvy women and appealing character design without having to alter every woman's body type into a ten year old girl or an old woman. 

 So look forward to seeing those in the near future. As I'm going to go pretty in depth with the processes, and what inspired me on some of the design choices I'll be making. . 

 I was willing to leave well enough alone. however, this time, you're forcing me to go all out, and Honestly, you have no idea how much this excites me.

- I'll see you next Bossfight!



Additional Links
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- XV and Offended (Previous words written about people being offended about Cindy)