You ever think it's screwed up how to some people it's not enough for a female character to be just a good person, she has to be actively heroic or else she's immoral and unrelatable? Like, Bayonetta and classic Lara Croft are two characters I would call good people but not necessarily heroes (as in they usually don't set out to help people or make the world better they just do their own thing and usually a save the world plot just sorta happens to them) and I've seen so many people call both of them "morally grey" or ambiguous and it's like... bitch where? Is it because violence is wrong? In which case someone better tell all the men that.
This is truly stiff competition for the worst case of willful false equivalence we've ever seen.
So, for those not aware: Ongoing embarrassment to gamers and the gaming industry, Mark Kern (former lead on FireFall), has been desperately trying to get Gamergate 2 going on X/Twitter... well after others have given up. If you need to get caught up on Mark, I recommend this video by documentary maker and experienced game developer, Dead Domain:
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One of the latest fiascos in this mix has been the comparison of responses to character designs from Hades 2 (Aphrodite, left) and Stellar Blade (protagonist Eve, right). The post isn't by Mark, but is part of the general harassment campaign he's trying to lead.
If you're somehow not familiar with Aphrodite, she's the Ancient Greek goddess of love, lust and hot girl shit. It is absolutely perfect characterization for her to show up to a battle (or anything else) nude but for her hair teasingly covering the intimate parts of her body. But the buried lede here is, you don't fight her in Hades and nothing about Hades 2 indicates she'll fight there either, she just likes the aesthetic and has no reason not to indulge.
Stellar Blade will release on 26 April 2024, so we can't really give an informed discussion of her character. But what we do know is the studio head is the illustrator from Blade & Soul, Eve is described as being a member of "the 7th Airborne Squad" engaged in an "operation to reclaim the planet from the Naytiba", and the promotion material promises "an enthralling narrative filled with mature themes, mystery and revelation. Embrace the relentless pace, with no time to pause between moments where critical, story-changing decisions are made."
It's to be compared to games like Nier: Automata, Devil May Cry 5, Jedi: Fallen Order and Sekiro. And the screenshots look like this:
And yeah, unlike Bayonetta she's not supposed to be an unstoppable force of nature (and fashion) who is immune to self-doubt, she's supposed to be the scrappy underdog last survivor of her team.
Weird they gave her a costume that conveys... the opposite of literally everything they're supposed to be trying to tell you about her.
AMERICAN MCGEE'S ALICE (2000)
BAYONETTA (2009)
LITTLE NIGHTMARES (2017)
AMNESIA: THE DARK DESCENT (2010)
MANHUNT (2003)
SILENT HILL 2 (2001)
RULE OF ROSE (2006)
BIOSHOCK (2007)
INSIDE (2016)
ALICE: MADNESS RETURNS (2011)
LOLLIPOP CHAINSAW (2012)
HAUNTING GROUND (2005)
so hellena taylor almost definitely misrepresented her situation with platinum and this has definitely harmed discussions on wage pay for voice actors. this is honestly a really heavy blow but this does not change the fact that voice actors are still being mistreated in the industry: Mob Psycho 100s english voice for Mob isn't going to be returning because Crunchyroll refused to sit down with Union representatives , and the voice actor for Breath of the Wild's Revali said he made more from voicing a character in an indie game than his roles in Breath of the Wild. I encourage you all to read into the way voice actors are treated and to not let this incident paint over this industry wide problem.