I really like Wraith's character design, mostly because I clocked that she was wearing a zoot suit and represents black dandyism. 

Side note: she also has a tommy gun meaning WWI happened. 

Black dandyism is an interesting subject in history because it was used as a silent but loud rebellion against racial hierarchies, autonomy and resistance. It’s a bold choice of neatly tailored clothes with wide pants and jackets; it stands out. It first got popular in the 1930s with harlem dance halls and moved into working-class and poor neighborhoods. It was for the new money man, which Wraith is called. Essentially, her character is using this fashion to make a statement, to take up space in a society that may not approve of her. 

BUT looking at her suit even more, she is embodying a 1940s hipster or hepcat. These are the first hipsters before the white hipster was made. They had slang: "jive," created in harlem which was a jumping point for AAVE and allowed the first dictionary by an african american (Cab Calloway) to be published. They listened to jazz/bebop. (That is its own post.) You can really see the inspiration of smooth, laid-back black characters when put in this time period. It’s taking from this movement.

Since I'm on the topic, there is a second subculture that also wore these suits, taking inspiration from dandyism. This one is called "pachuco," a mexican-american movement that created a lot of the Caló slang and took us into the Chicano movement. Interestingly, this group caused the Zoot Suit Riots (1943), where these youth were labeled as unpatriotic and attacked because of the tension of WWII. They were also specifically attacked because by wearing these suits, it was taken as them not assimilating but rather defying them. 

Rellana went after Messmer, red of hair and son of Marika.

Double so because like, while still skinny because all the player frames are, we know fromsoft is willing to put abs on a girl meant to be muscular? Nepheli Loux has the same body rigging as everyone else, but she has the muscle feature on that gives some toning to the arms and abs

It’s a lovely design. It’s just not a muscular, athletic, bulky build whatsoever. She’s a skinny girl. Her strength in-universe comes from her training and armaments as well as magic abilities. It makes total sense, in-universe, that she is by no means bulky, but the fanbase’s conception of her as some big muscle mommy or curvy pinup girl is revealing of the associations and expectations audiences have based on gender and performance.

On another level though, fromsoft clearly likes very skinny girls as they keep depicting them prominently, whereas we’re hard pressed to find representation of muscular and/or fat women, and almost impossible to find any who are depicted as feminine and attractive while having such a body type. So I would be remiss not to mention that while we can explain Malenia’s thinness as having a diegetic logic, and her unrealistic success in combat at such a lean state is explicable by fantasy magic, there’s no such allowances made to engender the existence of fat characters in these works as anything but a punchline.

Do you have any thoughts about that line Billy said: " Don't act like you're Blue Collar McGinnis! You were handpicked by Fairfax himself!" ? I feel like it’s one I roll around in my head a bunch!

thank you!!!! i love her so much sobbb