Filia

[Lea]

If Filia being 16 was that big of a problem why didn't just age her up? Are they stupid?

[Lea]

I mean I'm a big Shantae fan and she used to be 16, but nowadays they just aged her up

I just find the mental gymnastics funny when they could've just changed her age from 16 to 18

[Tanoomba]

To be fair, the devs would likely have been uncomfortable with the visuals of her being sexually assaulted for titillation's sake even if she was an adult. Her being a minor just made it a little more inappropriate.

[1.2M | Missingno.]

She's wearing a school uniform.

Also, I don't believe for a minute than people wouldn't complain just as much about a retcon. You'll find a way to complain no matter what they do.

[Pyro3000]

Filia hasn't been 16 for years. It hit her website bio, but was fairly quickly removed. There's no official reference to her age anywhere. You may as well just consider her aged up already.

[The Unseen Enigma]

Originally posted by Tanoomba:

To be fair, the devs would likely have been uncomfortable with the visuals of her being sexually assaulted for titillation's sake even if she was an adult. Her being a minor just made it a little more inappropriate.

If the devs were so uncomfortable with the groping scene they could've simply removed it/replaced it instead of just recolouring Filia's underwear from Samson's retaliation to said groping and calling it a day, her being a minor could easily be changed to being legally an adult by changing the age from 16 to 18, as they never bring up her age in the game at all, it's only shown she's still in school.

Originally posted by Missingno.:

She's wearing a school uniform.

Also, I don't believe for a minute than people wouldn't complain just as much about a retcon. You'll find a way to complain no matter what they do.

You act like 18 year olds who are still in school don't exist, which they do, schools don't graduate people the day they become 18 years old, and that's not mentioning the fact it's a fictional setting with fictional laws, species and systems, so ageing her up to 18 wouldn't be a problem.

I agree that most people will just complain about retcons for the sake of complaining, trolling or clout chasing, however some people will rightfully call out and constructively critique pointless, thoughtless or flawed retcons, it's just best to find out which is which first to get a constructive debate going, otherwise it's like screaming at a wall.

[Tanoomba]

Originally posted by The Unseen Enigma:

If the devs were so uncomfortable with the groping scene they could've simply removed it/replaced it

They did. They replaced with with a cropped scene that wasn't as exploitative.

Originally posted by The Unseen Enigma:

instead of just recolouring Filia's underwear

I don't understand. How is re-coloring panties censorship? How does it change anything? What does panty color have to do with age or vulnerability or exploitation?

[The Unseen Enigma]

Originally posted by Tanoomba:

Originally posted by The Unseen Enigma:

If the devs were so uncomfortable with the groping scene they could've simply removed it/replaced it

They did. They replaced with with a cropped scene that wasn't as exploitative.

Originally posted by The Unseen Enigma:

instead of just recolouring Filia's underwear

I don't understand. How is re-coloring panties censorship? How does it change anything? What does panty color have to do with age or vulnerability or exploitation?

Cropping the scene doesn't remove the problem of Filia being visibly groped, which you yourself stated was the problem, it's still there and even then cropping the scene instead of just rewriting it, redrawing it or removing it makes no sense to me, it just seems like the devs took the lazy approach to fixing the issue.

I never said anything about censorship, I only mentioned that was the action the devs took, as for how it changes anything? It doesn't, which is why it's such a pointless change to make and makes me question: Why make the change in the first place?

[Tanoomba]

Originally posted by The Unseen Enigma:

Cropping the scene doesn't remove the problem of Filia being visibly groped, which you yourself stated was the problem

No, the problem was that the scene was exploitative and intended to titillate. Cropping it fixed that issue, certainly by the devs' standards.

Originally posted by The Unseen Enigma:

as for how it changes anything? It doesn't, which is why it's such a pointless change to make and makes me question: Why make the change in the first place?

Honestly, I don't know why the devs changed the panty color. To me, it's enough that the devs have their reasons. Frankly, I think a better question would be that if the color change changes nothing, then why complain?

[The Unseen Enigma]

Originally posted by Tanoomba:

Originally posted by The Unseen Enigma:

Cropping the scene doesn't remove the problem of Filia being visibly groped, which you yourself stated was the problem

No, the problem was that the scene was exploitative and intended to titillate. Cropping it fixed that issue, certainly by the devs' standards.

Originally posted by The Unseen Enigma:

as for how it changes anything? It doesn't, which is why it's such a pointless change to make and makes me question: Why make the change in the first place?

Honestly, I don't know why the devs changed the panty color. To me, it's enough that the devs have their reasons. Frankly, I think a better question would be that if the color change changes nothing, then why complain?

It really doesn't fix the issue though, Filia is still visibly being groped, it's just cropped so you only see from above Filia's waist, she is still clearly and visibly being groped on screen, it's like putting a black veil over someone's face, you can still see their face, it's just less visible, if the devs were so easily satisfied by such a minor change to a scene, then they clearly weren't that offended by the problem in the scene to begin with.

The scene doesn't force the audience to grope people, it doesn't goad them to do it or manipulate them into enjoying it, while the act of groping is an exploitative act, I don't see how exactly this is bad for this scene, the scene certainly isn't glorifying the act of groping someone or influencing people to grope someone, the scene doesn't seem to intend to make the audience feel comfortable with the act in any way, and Filia clearly dislikes it and Samson puts a stop to it quickly, so how exactly is this scene exploitative? and why is that bad for the audience?

Also, how exactly can you prove that the scene was intended to titillate the audience? Are there developer notes or something along those lines around the time of the scene's creation stating this intention? I mean, if it were intended for titillation, wouldn't the scene be written as a joke? Or unnecessarily show fanservice? But it doesn't, so I don't get why you'd get the idea it was intended for it.

The thing I don't get about the change the most is that the devs wasted their time and money on a change that ultimately was pointless, the why for the change becomes irrelevant for that point, but the question to ask now is: Why would the devs waste time and money to implement a pointless change? The point isn't to complain, it's to understand why the change was deemed necessary to make in the first place.

[1.2M | Missingno.]

Originally posted by The Unseen Enigma:

Or unnecessarily show fanservice?

It kinda did.

Have you read the devs' post explaining the changes?

[Tanoomba]

Originally posted by The Unseen Enigma:

It really doesn't fix the issue though, Filia is still visibly being groped, it's just cropped so you only see from above Filia's waist, she is still clearly and visibly being groped on screen

Yes. it's not Filia being groped that the devs had an issue with. It was displaying it in an exploitative way. What happened to her is a part of her story, but to display it in a gratuitous way as though to titillate the viewer is what the devs took issue with.

Originally posted by The Unseen Enigma:

Also, how exactly can you prove that the scene was intended to titillate the audience?

How it's framed, the fact that it looks like a typical fan service shot, and most importantly: The fact that the devs saw it that way and changed it.

Originally posted by The Unseen Enigma:

But it doesn't

Obviously the devs believed it did.

Originally posted by The Unseen Enigma:

but the question to ask now is: Why would the devs waste time and money to implement a pointless change?

What difference does it make? The devs obviously didn't see the change as pointless. They don't owe us a detailed explanation for every tiny change they make to their game. Again, it's far more telling that you're demanding explanations for a change you yourself admit changed nothing.

[Sstavix]

Originally posted by Missingno.:

Originally posted by The Unseen Enigma:

Or unnecessarily show fanservice?

It kinda did.

Have you read the devs' post explaining the changes?

i think it's been a while since it's been posted to these threads, so for convenience sake I found it.

https://forum.skullgirlsmobile.com/threads/official-skullgirls-content-updates-revisions.20180/

[Loot Hunter]

Originally posted by Lea:

If Filia being 16 was that big of a problem why didn't just age her up?

Because her age wasn't the actual problem.

[The Unseen Enigma]

Originally posted by Tanoomba:

Originally posted by The Unseen Enigma:

It really doesn't fix the issue though, Filia is still visibly being groped, it's just cropped so you only see from above Filia's waist, she is still clearly and visibly being groped on screen

Yes. it's not Filia being groped that the devs had an issue with. It was displaying it in an exploitative way. What happened to her is a part of her story, but to display it in a gratuitous way as though to titillate the viewer is what the devs took issue with.

Originally posted by The Unseen Enigma:

Also, how exactly can you prove that the scene was intended to titillate the audience?

How it's framed, the fact that it looks like a typical fan service shot, and most importantly: The fact that the devs saw it that way and changed it.

Originally posted by The Unseen Enigma:

But it doesn't

Obviously the devs believed it did.

Originally posted by The Unseen Enigma:

but the question to ask now is: Why would the devs waste time and money to implement a pointless change?

What difference does it make? The devs obviously didn't see the change as pointless. They don't owe us a detailed explanation for every tiny change they make to their game. Again, it's far more telling that you're demanding explanations for a change you yourself admit changed nothing.

Looking at the post didn't really explain any more that you did, their only reasoning's for changing it was it was "exploitative", which isn't a very detailed explanation and it being a predatory action which, considering the subject is groping, a form of sexual harassment/assault, is an exploitative act and predatory action, I don't know what else they were expecting, it to not look like someone being groped? Groping isn't an act that you can make not look exploitative as the act itself is exploitative, it only benefits the one doing it at the expense of the victim, it's labelled as a form of sexual harassment/assault for a reason.

The shot is framed in a way that you can see what the man is doing to her, which yes, I admit, they didn't need to show everything, they could've had a shot focused on the man's hand on her thigh or something, but I'd say it's more of an oversight, but even then, considering the shot we do have, he is groping her, of course it's going to look the way it does, especially with the character designs the way they are.

And the devs didn't really change it, if they wanted to, they could've redrawn the scene to tone it down (like having the man only grasp Filia's face and not fondling her body), or remove it altogether and replace it with a new scene that's similar, yet different (maybe instead of groping her, he repeatedly tries to buy her alcohol or someone tries to rob her, it would be costly, but worth it to achieve whatever result they required), but they didn't, they chose the crop the scene they already had, which doesn't remove any of the problems with the scene, it's still exploitative cause she's still being groped by him, and didn't use the time and money they could've spent redrawing the parts of the scene they didn't like on recolouring Filia's underwear, which is a little ironic since that's got more fanservice than the groping and the most they did was recolour, I know I'm bringing the point up a lot, but I'm trying to put into perspective that they put more priority and effort into recolouring underwear than they have with the scene they had more of an issue with.

To not question these kinds of things is what brought about the changes that led to the discourse with this game to begin with, otherwise we'd never have known about the censorship changes of old (the panty shot/animation changes for Filia, Cerebella and Parasoul, the Valentine Red Cross colour changes, etc), the least they could've done is said "we felt like the Filia grope scene was sending the wrong message to our playerbase, so we limited the amount of groping and fanservice seen during the scene" or something like that, instead we got "it's too exploitative and predatory, so we changed it".

Originally posted by Missingno.:

Originally posted by The Unseen Enigma:

Or unnecessarily show fanservice?

It kinda did.

I said unnecessarily show fanservice, of course you're going to get fanservice when a girl is getting groped, but I meant something like Senran Kagura type of unnecessary fanservice where it comes from nowhere for fanservice sake and nothing else.

[DieOne17]

Originally posted by Missingno.:

She's wearing a school uniform.

Also, I don't believe for a minute than people wouldn't complain just as much about a retcon. You'll find a way to complain no matter what they do.

There are literally tens of thousands of schoolgirls who are 18 years old, just because they wear a school uniform doesn't mean they can't be of legal age if the age of a fictional character even matters.