(12-23-2014, 02:51 AM)Flickering Ember Wrote: Oh come on, you can't really think that this:
...gives you the same perception of the character as...
...this. Same character, modeled differently. You can have a waifu girl who can slay bad guys in one hit or defeat men 10 times her size in an arm wrestling match. But it's not nearly as convincing as watching a muscled woman do those things.Who do you think looks more battle hardened? It's not just personality, appearance says a whole lot about a person and how that person is perceived. For example, like it or not, historically role-play characters from small races, such as a lalafell, are not taken as seriously as the taller characters.
You can have a perfectly pretty female character kick a lot of ass (Asami from Legend of Korra) but how they do their ass kicking and how convincing or intimidating that person is comes down to appearance. We can tell, by appearance alone, that Korra from the same franchise fights and behaves a lot differently from Asami.
Differences in art style change how we perceive the character. Like so:
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In this comparison, we can tell that the first depiction is harsh and intimidating while the second depiction is cute and peaceful. Can you really fault someone for wanting their characters to look as badass as they portray them?
Your character's appearance: It does affect your roleplay, what other characters think of your character, and what other players think of your character.
All I got out of this is that you care more for appearance than you do personality and actions. That's fine and all, but please don't speak for others on the subject; itt's condescending at best. The bottom line is that a character can be both feminine and tough. One need not resort to an androgynous stereotype dripping with tokenism to make the point.
(and for the record, both of those portrayals paint the picture of someone that's strong and competent, irregardless of aesthetics so *shrug*)