Hey Everyone! Just a quick little point of interest this week, as I’m back home with my family enjoying Memorial Day weekend and gearing up for a friend’s wedding that’s happening this Tuesday.
Anyway, this weeks update revolves around what I consider to be one of the coolest things to pop up on the internet this week. Claire Hummel, one of the concept artist that designed Rosalind Lutece in Bioshock: Infinite, posted a humorous and informative little piece over on her tumblr about exactly what the underwear of Ms. Lutece actually looked like. No, you didn’t read that wrong, one of the official artist behind the character came forward and described, in amazingly educational detail mind you, just what the “underthings” of the female Lutece would look like.
Why? Well because, as she puts it, “the problem with designing characters who become popular is that, if you’re a needy bastard like me who tracks the Lutece tags when you’re bored, you’re suddenly exposed to a ton of art of said characters in various states of undress.
I’m not one to discourage this sort of thing- no no, I have sketchbooks full of Remus/Sirius stuff from high school- but I figured I might as well give everyone a leg-up with a more detailed guide to Rosalind Lutece’s potential underthings. I’ve seen a ton of drawings of her in corsets from a good 50 years before her time and I… I needed to step in.”
The most important thing to point out is, clearly, that she’s a Harry Potter and Wolfstar fan.
She’s also a perfect example of where the internet should be going, as well as the potential good it can do out there. Let me elaborate…
There are plenty of places out there in the world where free-speech and freedom of sexual expression are, at best, limited. Whether it’s the rights and sexual freedoms of woman or the right to Marry whoever you want, there are people all over the world who are chastised and prejudiced against for their sexuality and/or gender.
Now while the Internet may not be a perfect place, it is if anything a place where people can express themselves sexually without any real repercussions. (Except you Pedobear, we’re on to you…) Heck, some even argue that the Internet exists for porn. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise to people that one of the Rule of the Internet is that “There is porn of it. No exceptions.” Porn and other sexual content is such a big part of what the Internet stands for that I dare say that you can’t have one without the other. Heck, even if you could I’d probably be against it.
The fact of the matter is that the Internet is a place where people from all over the world can come and express themselves freely in a way that might otherwise put them in very real danger in their offline lives. The sexual content that exists on the Internet isn’t something that should be frowned upon or fought against, it’s something that should be supported and nurtured to create an environment where people can actually feel safe and open about being themselves.
So for Ms. Hummel to come out and not only embrace Rule 34, but use it as a stepping stone to educate people is something she should be applauded for! Go ahead… give her a few claps… I’ll wait.
So be sure to swing by her tumblr and give her post a view. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come, and a direction that other artists and creative individuals will support. Because, lets face it, no matter what you somebody out there is going to want to make porn of it. So instead of swearing off the subject or decrying the whole thing, it’d be nice to see people embrace the idea that it’s out there and work to use it to further their Intellectual Properties and maybe even educate people in the process! Is that too much to ask? Maybe.
But if Claire Hummel is any indication of the kind of bright young people we’ve got waiting for us in the coming generations, than perhaps there is hope. I for one can’t wait to see how it all plays out. Your thoughts?
Gray Areas 
I haven’t played any of the Bioshock games, but that’s pretty cool how one of the concept artists for a character in Infinite wants to go out of her way to educate people on proper undergarments a character would have worn based on the time period of the story.
It’s true that when it comes to popular characters in video games, books, etc. you are bound to find sexualized versions or even porn out there of these characters. It can’t be stopped. But rather than try to fight against it, at least this concept artist is thinking, “Well, might as well correct people on how this character would look if she were undressed, instead of people getting her underwear wrong.” Regardless of how you look at it, fans obviously enjoy the character that much to interpret her in that way. It’s an extension of fan appreciation.
Yeah I’ll never understand companies or artists that rag on or turn their nose on this kind of stuff. Can it be a little weird? Yep! But it shows the kind of devotion and connection these characters or settings garner in their fans, and there is nothing wrong with that!
Bioware has also openly mentioned and acknowledged their rather large “Fornax” community recently, and has likewise been very open in supporting other fan creations like cosplays. Some companies seem to “get it”, other not so much. But hey! Time are a change’n at least! It wasn’t too many years ago that even cosplayers were “weird” and “out-there”, and now with the popularity of Comicon and other such events it’s become much more mainstream. So who knows? Maybe someday in our lifetime one of the truest indicators of a characters success will be how much traffic they get on Rule 34!
It’s so hard to predict where technology will take us… all we can do is hope for the best and give our $.02!
It amazes me just how in touch developers, designers, artists etc seem to be with their games these days. Most of them read the exact same social media content that we do and many of them aren’t afraid to interact with fans and drum up some extra content. I’m sure this can be pretty difficult for some of them, like when there game is clearly not being well received, but it is a really neat feeling to see that the people who made a particular game or designed a particular character actually feel as passionately about it as you have come to!