Work Text:
“Please include the design of your combat garments within the application to facilitate timely production.”
Mina stared at the words written right at the bottom of the application form in something that was half-horror and half-glee. Glee because she got to design her own hero outfit. While everyone had obviously done so at some point in their life, this was the chance to have the outfit produced!
And in horror, because she had until 12 tomorrow to finalise her application and get it to the UA office. And even though she had thousands of designs, she really wanted to hand in something that was awesome and pretty and- she needed to look up what kind of stuff she needed to include. There had to be guides for this sort of thing, right?
Shite, she was so screwed.
She opened a new tab in her browser and typed “hero costume tips” into the search engine. There had to be a list of things she needed to include somewhere. And come to think of it, she was also pretty sure she’d seen a few costume design websites ages ago too. Maybe she would hit them up for some ideas if her first few searches turned up nothing.
An article quickly caught her attention.
“Do’s and Don’ts: How to get your costume looking stunning in no time!”
Perfect!
She clicked and started reading, eyes darting to the images illustrating the points in the article to see what they were talking about.
There was a lot of stuff on style, colour and how to accentuate the things you wanted accentuated. Pictures of Mt. Lady, Miruko and a few others were shown with arrows pointing to certain parts of their costumes for emphasis .
She startled scribbling quickly, her favourite purple pen always just a quick grab away. The article was giving her plenty of ideas for what she wanted. Maybe this wouldn’t be so hard after all.
She started with a list of things she knew she wanted, the colours first then the boots and general shape she wanted the suit to be. She kept looking back to the screen, eyes darting from image to image as she noted down what looked great to her.
In the end, she had a sloppy, but probably okay first try.
On a whim, she decided to check out the comments. After all, there was always the chance that someone in the comments had important stuff to say too. If she was lucky.
The first few were, predictably, useless. Just some fans commenting on how pretty the costumes were and how good the heroes looked in them but nothing that would really help her costume design.
She rolled her eyes at a couple of the more vulgar comments. Well that certainly didn’t take long.
Finally she found a few that were more useful. One comment pointed out the importance of being able to walk in the boots you chose, never mind run. Mina looked back to her notes and rough sketches, eyeing the boot design she’d come up with. It had a rather modest heel compared to some she’d seen. Frowning, she pictured trying to chase after a villain and winced. On flat surfaces it’d probably be no problem but running up or down stairs or if there was a lot of rubble….
Probably not a good idea..
She crossed out the first design and drew it again, this time with only about an inch of heel and made the boot a bit chunkier so it’d be more comfortable to wear.
Hmm...should it be acid resistant? Probably. She added that to the notes and kept reading.
She was nearing the bottom of the page when she saw it.
“Why is it that the only thing this article is telling us is how to look good? What about making costumes to keep us safe in fights?”
Underneath the comment was a link to an unfamiliar website. Curiosity getting the better of her, she clicked it.
She was taken to a page made up primarily of the colours blue, grey and white. There was a general snowflake motif and the words “Don’t let it go” at the top. Must be the name of the blog. A bit odd - but she’d seen weirder.
Her eyes drifted to the username and she snorted slightly. Really? Did they make that username when they were ten and just stuck with it or something? Not that she had much room to talk. She’d been AlienQueen since her eighth year of life, when she’d seen a certain film series that a friends brother had been watching.
Oh well, now that she was here she might as well look at the article. She blinked in confusion when she saw the title.
“Are female hero costumes designed badly deliberately?”
A little clickbait-y but, she had to admit, they’d managed to catch her attention. She began to read.
Hello everyone. I apologise that this is perhaps less coherent then my normal articles but, after a conversation or two with QQ and their editor KEM, this topic has been on my mind recently and I wished to discuss it with others.
Have you ever noticed that, in the world of Pro Heroes, female (and those with a more feminine appearance regardless of their gender) don’t receive the same protection as more masculine heroes?
Let’s look at the top ten heroes aa an example. All Might’s costumes have always covered his entire body and are clearly made to withstand his super strength and take a beating. Contrasting this, we have Miruko. Anyone who has seen her in action knows that she’s incredibly strong and capable. My question is, why is she not afforded the same protection as the male heroes?
Let’s begin with the fact that her costume, while being light-weight and capable of taking a beating, leaves gaps in her defence. The areas of her thigh which are uncovered contain the femoral artery which, if cut at an angle, could result in an adult human bleeding out in approximately three minutes if it is not treated immediately.
She isn’t the only hero with this issue. Many of our female heroes have far less overall protection than our feminine heroes.
Now, you could argue that this is a personal choice and, in Miruko’s case in particular, this seems likely considering previous statements she has made on her costume design. There are also heroes like midnight who deliberately dress in a manner meant to distract their enemy in a fight and who use their abilities with that costume.
So this might be sounding very reasonable to you at the moment and, if this was where it stopped, it would be but there is far more to this situation.
Mt. Lady is a very capable hero with a very useful quirk. She has thus far proved herself a capable hero in her debut not long ago and, consequently, has shot up to number 23 rather quickly in the rankings. This is a very impressive feat but, when you look up articles about her, what do you see? Is it he accomplishments? An analysis of her fighting style? Is it her quick thinking or criticism of her tendency to forget her own strength when in her gigantic state?
No.
The first thing that comes up when you search for Mt. Lady is a shot of her bending over and, currently, her costume is the same colour as her skin and extremely close-fitting. A fellow blogger mentioned that, during a fight he observed between Mt. Lady, other heroes and various criminals, the people surrounding him weren’t interested in observing her or the heroes fight in their defence or even distancing themselves from the situation so as not to be a hazard or get caught up in the situation accidentally. Instead, they had taken out their phones and were trying to get the best “money-shot” they could. I’m sure I don’t need to describe what it is I am referring to, nor how little patience I have for this sort of behaviour..
Before you start commenting “well it’s her own fault! She designed her costume that way!” I want you to stop and think a minute about why her costume was designed that way.
The answer is simple. Feminine hero costumes are designed to prioritise attractiveness over practicality, marketability over safety If practicality is considered, it almost always takes a backseat to making sure that the hero looks as appealing as possible.
I am not saying this is untrue for male heroes. Gang Orca, for example, also has a costume which doesn’t offer much protection. Similarly, Tiger (a member of the Wild Wild Pussycats) also has a costume which is just as revealing as his female team members. The difference is, cases of masculine hero costumes doing so are far fewer when compared with feminine costume designs.
Heroes such as All Might, Hawks, Present Mic, etc. Have costumes which are eye-catching and appealing without sacrificing practicality.
Why do we not offer our female heroes the same treatment?
Why is it that, even though Miruko arguably has more experience and fights under her belt than Hawks, she is rated beneath him in the rankings? Why is it that, in the top ten, there are only two female heroes?
The answer is obvious. The hero industry, while promiting powerful quirks and an individual’s abilities, also prioritises sex appeal and general attractiveness in female heroes while not applying those same standards to masculine heroes. Let’s be honest, if those standards were held industry wide, there is no way Endeavour would still be the number 2 hero. .
The bigger question is, why is this an industry problem? Is it that design companies are just following the orders of their customers and designing the costumes to the specifications of the hero and, if so, why is it that feminine heroes feel they need to prioritise looking good over protecting themselves properly?
Mt Lady, for example, discussed the article written by Quirk Quieries on her HeroTweet account not long ago where she thanked them for the suggestions to improve her fighting style and costume. Those suggestions included better protection which, judging by her response, she had not considered during her initial design process.
Are we, as a society, telling feminine heroes that we expect them to look good rather than be properly protected when defending us?
If you look back to the time before quirks, when superheroes were a concept for comic books and TV shows, you see a similar theme. This is not a new problem: it’s an old one which we still haven’t properly addressed. (I recommend looking up heroes such as Wonder Woman or Hawkgirl from media before quirks began appearing to see what I mean.)
We need to stop prioritising that our feminine heroes are sexually appealing and start prioritising their well-being when defending us.
I suppose the question I’m asking is...is the hero industry still misogynistic even after all this time?
Perhaps it is a deliberate decision by the industry to provide feminine heroes with less efficient hero costumes to continue to promote the ideal hero as being strong and masculine. After all, if the two most popular heroes are men, clearly very strong and get injured less frequently than their female counterparts despite them having similar track records, are they just better than their colleagues? Isn’t that just the way things are?
For now, all I can hope is that feminine heroes, regardless of the design they choose for their costume, have costumes which they are comfortable in, provide adequate protection, and are appreciated for their abilities and dedication to protecting us and not just for how attractive they are.
99Pr0blems.
She leaned back in her chair, eyes narrowed on the screen as she tapped her pen against her bottom lip.
She looked down at her costume, eyeing the lines and angles she’d chosen. She had originally planned on a leotard of sorts, figuring it’d be lightweight and easy to move in. But, after reading that bit about the femoral artery...she extended the outfit so that there was actually fabric covering her legs that she would then tuck into her boots. She debated adding sleeves but decided not to right now. She could always do that later.
Hmm...what else? She tried to think in a more practical way about what she’d need, but she didn’t actually know anything about that. She could guess but would guessing do much good?
But they’d probably get taught stuff about protective clothes and hero design at UA too, right?
Oof. This was harder than she’d thought.
But then again, it wasn’t like she couldn’t change it later, right? Heroes changed their outfits all the time when there were equipment upgrades or they got bored of their current costume. One only had to look to All Might to see that.
She looked down at her design, pictured herself in it and grinned.
She’d worry about some of the other stuff later when she had a better idea of what she’d need.
For now, it looked great, had some kickass boots she could totally use to kick some villain in the face if they tried anything, and an awesome colour scheme.
Looked like hero costume designing wasn’t all that hard after all, who knew?
Grinning to herself, Mina started on a formal (read: slightly neater) redraft of her notes she could submit to the support department at UA.
She couldn’t wait to see what it looked like!
And when that was done, she briefly glanced back at the screen and the article. Might as well keep that blog open. After all, that 99Pr0blems (pffft) person seemed interesting. There were a few titles of other articles in a sidebar and, upon spotting the title of one in particular (‘Is All Might his own Secretary?’) she knew she had to keep reading.
She still had plenty of time to submit her costume. It’d be fine if she just read a few more articles by this 99Pr0blems person, right?
What’s the worst that could happen
-o0o-
The worst, it turned out, was her getting her costume design in at literally the last possible second (okay, maybe five seconds) before the deadline the next day.