eschergirls:

cephiedvariable:

eschergirls:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-03-21-ms-effect-the-rise-of-femshep

That’s a great article about “Femshep” and how Bioware accidentally created a great female character by not trying to create a female character (i.e. a character that they were specifically thinking…

…

But man, reading this made me realize how much Shepard actually means to me as a female gamer. Like, I usually look at stories from the writer’s chair so while I am obviously capable of getting intensely emotionally invested, I have a hard time “relating” to characters or placing myself viscerally within the narrative in the way a lot of my fandom buddies seem able to. I said a while back that Mass Effect is really insidious in that department - it breaks down the player/game intimacy barrier more efficiently than anything I’ve played in a looong while. Or rather, at the very least, it does for me.

I don’t exactly  relate to Shepard (my Shepard looks nothing like me, doesn’t share my particular skills and is not always played to my moral compass), but it has been a weird revelation to discover that things I would normally find trite or eye-roll inducing in a male character pump me the fuck up when coming out of a woman’s mouth. When Shepard spouts off these cheesy-ass action movie one liners, when she strides into a room and demands everyone do things her way or the highway, when the entire galaxy places an unrealistic amount of trust in her paternalistic guidance I just find myself nodding along saying: “Yes. Fuck yes.” It makes me feel awesome. I have always considered myself the kind of person who relates equally to male and female characters, but Shepard is the first time where I’ve honestly gone “Oh, I get it. This is what boys get in basically every game they play.”

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But also, like Cephiedvariable, I really enjoyed the experience of playing a female character that didn’t feel like a “female character” as video games have taught me how female characters are.  There weren’t gratuitous camera angles, and the dialogue she was given, the character arc, etc… I never once felt “ugh *SIGH*” like I tend to do at certain things when playing a female character, she was just a heroic awesome Jedi. :)

“Oh, I get it. This is what boys get in basically every game they play.”

Holy shit. THIS.

This is actually a much larger post than I have sampled here, so I suggest you read the mentioned article and both these people’s reponses to it. Bioware do write good characters, but they do have trouble with women. Strong female characters, to them, are very clearly strong FEMALE characters. That’s their character. They’re female.

They clearly have a long way to go, but as they’re stumbling blindly towards the answer, they’re slowly winning the race against other developers.