Wuk Lamat VOICE ACTING APPRECIATION

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Originally Posted by Cheapshot

Why do you have an archive of tweets and why am I even responding to people in here? I just wanted to leave some kind words for someone being harassed. I was naive to think people would be satisfied with the like 8 Wuk bashing threads and leave this one for appreciation as intended. I was naive to think someone trans could voice a cat person without people getting obsessive and weird.

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This is the XIV forums. We have people here that seriously believe furry catpeople need to be of a certain dialect of hispanic or MUST speak a certain way or eat certain foods. In a VIDEO GAME. The lunacy of these people is not only ironic but beyond them.

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Originally Posted by Havenchild

This is the XIV forums. We have people here that seriously believe furry catpeople need to be of a certain dialect of hispanic or MUST speak a certain way or eat certain foods. In a VIDEO GAME. The lunacy of these people is not only ironic but beyond them.

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I mean, you've got people IRL that say only certain people can voice characters if they happen to share the same ethnicity as the fictional south America so I don't see the difference.

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Originally Posted by Karious

I mean, you've got people IRL that say only certain people can voice characters if they happen to share the same ethnicity as the fictional south America so I don't see the difference.

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In NA maybe, but in my country almost everything is dubbed with a "neutral" accent, except for a few case when an over exagerated accent is used for commical purpose in the original or a very specific way of speaking.
Sometime is a good thing sometime is not ( exemple : The Mass Effect trilogy. Andersen adn Tally don't have accent in my language, and it always bugged me a little.... But Wrex sound almost the same as the original English VA, and Mordin, OMG, the guy did a fabulous work and you wonder if it's not the same VA that did the dub for the two language)

So, for Wuk in my language, she have a neutral accent.

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Originally Posted by Picothea

Why should anyone believe your views on her work?

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i mean. use your ears? also he is misgendering himself. not my fault.

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Originally Posted by Benjo

Ayaka Shimoyamada truly brought Wuk Lamat to life with her performance. Her portrayal captures the essence of a fierce, determined leader who never backs down. Her voice acting adds a powerful, inspiring dimension to the character, making Wuk Lamat unforgettable.

Unfortunately, the story writing doesn't do her character justice, often shoving her too much into the foreground, which detracts from her depth and potential. The Roegadyn of Light is still the protagonist, and I really wished the Scions had more screentime to develop their stories further.

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I should try replaying her cutscenes with the Japanese dub. Also, love your signature! Yoshi-Bee? Or Honey-P?

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Originally Posted by BrokenFantasy

I should try replaying her cutscenes with the Japanese dub. Also, love your signature! Yoshi-Bee? Or Honey-P?

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Du_wJWEkV3k

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Originally Posted by vafurous

theres several other popular threads that are all about criticism and the One thats like "oh yea i thought this was pretty good" gets flooded with "well Actually" yall are so weird actually lol i thought the player base was mostly like kinda mature adults not 19 yr olds with a complex

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It's because this is almost the only place online where ppl can air their grievences with the game. Other places have downvotes, ability to dox, threaten and are overall a lot easier to gang up on decenting opinions. ppl want to believe ffxiv has a mature and nice player base, but online its a lot of near rabid bullies. The rules of these forums are a double edged sword, so even that part of the playerbase will be banned just like anyone else for their shenanigans, so you don't tend to see it here, which is why the forums just feel like they tilt to the negative compared to any other online space.

I'm Spanish.
I speak english every day with my wife as we are international couple.
My accent speaking english has nothing to do with Wuk Lamat's (asked my wife while I was playing for a 2nd opinion).
Actually, Erenville sounds way closer to how I sound speaking english.

And let's not forget the "sphene, listen to me" scene.

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Originally Posted by AnimaAnimus

It's because this is almost the only place online where ppl can air their grievences with the game. Other places have downvotes, ability to dox, threaten and are overall a lot easier to gang up on decenting opinions. ppl want to believe ffxiv has a mature and nice player base, but online its a lot of near rabid bullies. The rules of these forums are a double edged sword, so even that part of the playerbase will be banned just like anyone else for their shenanigans, so you don't tend to see it here, which is why the forums just feel like they tilt to the negative compared to any other online space.

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It's fine to air grievances and such, but if you gotta be like IttyBittyShark and be blatantly transphobic, then you're not airing grievances. You're being a bigot at that point.

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Originally Posted by Lorika

In NA maybe, but in my country almost everything is dubbed with a "neutral" accent, except for a few case when an over exagerated accent is used for commical purpose in the original or a very specific way of speaking.
Sometime is a good thing sometime is not ( exemple : The Mass Effect trilogy. Andersen adn Tally don't have accent in my language, and it always bugged me a little.... But Wrex sound almost the same as the original English VA, and Mordin, OMG, the guy did a fabulous work and you wonder if it's not the same VA that did the dub for the two language)

So, for Wuk in my language, she have a neutral accent.

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I grew up with latam dubs, the neutral ones.

She sounds like she's doing a very bad impression of those.

And Koana sounds like he was told to sound like Antonio Banderas for some strange reason.

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Originally Posted by Nestama

It's fine to air grievances and such, but if you gotta be like IttyBittyShark and be blatantly transphobic, then you're not airing grievances. You're being a bigot at that point.

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At least she always stays loyal to the topic, which is about voice acting, unlike the same people who continuously got offended on someone else’s behalf over pronouns then got the previous thread closed. Or maybe it’s your intention? I don’t know.

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Originally Posted by IttyBittyShark

i mean. use your ears? also he is misgendering himself. not my fault.

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PSA to anyone else in this thread: It's time to stop entertaining transphobes' arguments. This one attacks the voice actor's identity and gets likes anyway. It's plain none of these people are commenting in good faith.
Let's go back to appreciation, like the thread was intended for.

Honestly, it's kind of ridiculous how many people who have clearly never even heard a person speak Spanish are all over this thread, lying and acting like the accent is authentic. You could be praising the voice acting without lying. THAT is why people come to a "positive" thread and start arguing in it. Because the initial post is full of transparent, obvious nonsense.

Oh and claiming that the VA is Puerto Riccan. She is NOT Puerto Riccan. Literally just go and open Google, the only reason this misinformation ever spread is because of a tweet that claimed "oh look, she's in Dawntrail and she's even Puerto Riccan" when that is completely incorrect!.

She's never been to Puerto Rico. She doesn't speak Spanish. She's from Kentucky. If you go opening articles about her biography/life, you'll find that she flaunts her roots from "all over the world."

Supposedly she has GERMAN, CUBAN, DOMINCIAN, PUERTO RICAN and more EUROPEAN (whatever that means) roots. Aka like many Americans she did a crappy MyHeritage test, saw that she has 1% of each and started telling people she's got ROOTS. Meanwhile she and her parents are just from the USA.

So please get out of here with this nonsense about how she's doing an accurate accent and about how she cares about picking appropriate roles. Find something legitimate to praise about the performance.

Learning to use the ignore list after I began using the forum. It works great! Anyway, hearing from others how Dawntrail's English localization has gone out of its way to hire actors belonging to the represented regions is very uplifting. I'm looking forward to hearing more of them all in the patches.

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Originally Posted by Cheapshot

Why would I think people are born with accents, and what do you know about her exactly? There’s very very little info out there. You assuredly don’t know who her parents are, and what their accents are like. Why are you gatekeeping the heritage of someone else?

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You can't gatekeep someone's heritage. You're either born living and experiencing a cullture and it's language or you're not. And we *actually* know the heritage of a lot of the VAs of the expansion. The accent has outright been *stated* to be fake by Sena of all people, too - but hey, I'm sure you don't care about this, because it's not YOUR culture and YOUR language.

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Originally Posted by Havenchild

The accent is closer to Spaniard / Cuban / Mexican than any other Hispanic culture. Tacos were one food featured in one local of the expansion and it just so happens tacos (of different forms) are very popular among majority of hispanic cultures and cuisine. That is quite literally the safest food option if I had to chose any one thing that has graced every culture equally. To say otherwise is outright disingenuous.

Beyond that, we can agree to disagree but yeah it's terminally online behavior. First, you take real life and are trying to overly transpose that to a video game. Literally complaining that tacos being a feature is "racist" or stereotypical and not "representation" or whatever bs you convinced your head canon tural should be. Ultimately, Tural is NOT any of these real life locations, so trying evaluate it as such or perpetuate perception onto it is terminally online main character syndrome in full swing. It's not your world to build, it doesnt live off your beliefs either. At best, hispanic cultures are an influence and that's about it. It's not meant to be a 1 to 1.

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Here's the thing : I don't care about those things usualy, like I told you. Seeing superficial "insipired" things just made me laugh a bit or go "neat!" because at this point I really am just used to Latino American stuff having bad depictions that are either incorrerct ,or just "Crime". - what I care about is the sheer hypocrisy of what this was. We were told, multiple times, that DT was going to be this wholle thing that celebrated and "respected" latino-american cultures, that it was going to directly refer to these things and do it properly, with an "alll latino cast" for the VAing roles. Instead, we got tacos, haha funny alpacas, and a bunch of americans puttiing on fake accents. That's just kind of really offensive. If we weren't told this, I'd care a lot less and laugh it off. But we /were/ told that.

That's the issue. But sure, keep making bad faith arguments and dismisssing them as "terminally online". If you like it when people spit on your face and tell you otherwise, congratulations, I guess? The more you talk, the more I'm absolutely certain you're either making these on purpose, or you're trolling, and I'm leaning towards the latter. But sure, "agree to disagree".

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Originally Posted by Picothea

Learning to use the ignore list after I began using the forum. It works great! Anyway, hearing from others how Dawntrail's English localization has gone out of its way to hire actors belonging to the represented regions is very uplifting. I'm looking forward to hearing more of them all in the patches.

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I'm someone from the represented region and I think I've not been represented well.

South americans don't sound like that, and we can pronounce the "ph" sound.

Fitting the role it's more important than being of a distant heritage they don't hold anymore.

Current Wuk Lamat VA needs to improve on the portrayal of certain emotions compared to VAs in other languages.

She does happiness and sadness well but rage and intense moments felt lacking IMO

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Originally Posted by Midare

I'm someone from the represented region and I think I've not been represented well.

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You’re a cat person from a video game continent?

People do you have any idea how many Regioanl dialects exist within each country, which quirks in the language exist only a few dozend miles appart from region to region.
South America is not a small region there could be a lot of Dialects non of you ever heard because they are usualy not shown.

But beside that who ever directed the Actor could at any time stepped in and said something against it but knowing that heavy use of dialect exist mostly in the english version of FF14, she probably got told she should use it.
And it got approved at the end.

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Originally Posted by Cheapshot

You’re a cat person from a video game continent?

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Funny how *now* that they've messed up representing different peoples after folks celebrating it for years, it's "just a videogame, bro, it's not *actually* referencing latino american culture, it's cat people :^)" - because, /really/, why should you care about us?

It's not like underrepresented people and cultures have a right to opine on how sections of their culture were presented. It's all just set dressing.

Oh, wait.

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Originally Posted by Cheapshot

You’re a cat person from a video game continent?

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So why is her heritage so important?

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Originally Posted by Ayalu

People do you have any idea how many Regioanl dialects exist within each country, which quirks in the language exist only a few dozend miles appart from region to region.
South America is not a small region there could be a lot of Dialects non of you ever heard because they are usualy not shown.

But beside that who ever directed the Actor could at any time stepped in and said something against it but knowing that heavy use of dialect exist mostly in the english version of FF14, she probably got told she should use it.
And it got approved at the end.

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I know, I live here.

She doesn't have the inflections latin americans normally have when speaking, not even by going with "neutral latam voice overs" standards.

The fact that the director heard that and went "Yeah, this meets my standards" speaks very poorly of them.

But on a side note, I do want to point out that the JP voice actor deserves appreciation. Going shoulder to shoulder with an industry beast like Ono with only 9 roles under her belt, she truly tried her best and it shows, specially considering the character she was handed.

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Originally Posted by EponaTBHSMH

Current Wuk Lamat VA needs to improve on the portrayal of certain emotions compared to VAs in other languages.

She does happiness and sadness well but rage and intense moments felt lacking IMO

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For posterity, this is the kind of criticism I think is much more agreeable. There's always room to grow, and I won't pretend the current voice acting was perfect. We can all voice our opinions without any need for personal insults or hatred.

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Originally Posted by SwadTheFrog

Funny how *now* that they've messed up representing different peoples after folks celebrating it for years, it's "just a videogame, bro, it's not *actually* referencing latino american culture, it's cat people :^)" - because, /really/, why should you care about us?

It's not like underrepresented people and cultures have a right to opine on how sections of their culture were presented. It's all just set dressing.

Oh, wait.

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They'll spend 14 forum pages telling you how they love the "accuracy" of the VA's fake accent and how much the VA "cares" about correctly representing latinos, but once you point out just how incorrect their statements are they go - "lel it's just a fictional catgirl, who cares?"

So do you "VA praisers" care about these things or not? Make up your minds already. Otherwise every conversation is just moving goalposts. And disrespectful to boot. Using a group of people like a tool, just to make a nonexistent point. And then they are the ones who claim that WE are being toxic and disrespectful just by pointing out the truth about VA quality and inaccuracy. Can't make this up.

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Originally Posted by BakoolJaJa

They'll spend 14 forum pages telling you how they love the "accuracy" of the VA's fake accent and how much the VA "cares" about correctly representing latinos, but once you point out just how incorrect their statements are they go - "lel it's just a fictional catgirl, who cares?"

So do you "VA praisers" care about these things or not? Make up your minds already. Otherwise every conversation is just moving goalposts. And disrespectful to boot. Using a group of people like a tool, just to make a nonexistent point.

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Yeah, I really am kind of sick of peope pissing in my mouth and telling me it's raining.

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Originally Posted by Cheapshot

You’re a cat person from a video game continent?

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Doing your nickname credit I see....Got called on your bs and now trying to weasel out....Way to go!

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Originally Posted by SwadTheFrog

Funny how *now* that they've messed up representing different peoples after folks celebrating it for years, it's "just a videogame, bro, it's not *actually* referencing latino american culture, it's cat people :^)" - because, /really/, why should you care about us?

It's not like underrepresented people and cultures have a right to opine on how sections of their culture were presented. It's all just set dressing.

Oh, wait.

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Nah. It’s because some people are talking like they’ve got the VA’s DNA in a beaker, or their childhood on blueray without receipts. If someone says they’re latino and their dads side of the family is puerto rican and I can’t, after personally looking quite hard, find anything to the contrary, I’m not going to disbelieve them and hoist a pitchfork cause some stranger on a forum says they know more about her than her. I’m sorry but that would be incredibly irresponsible. I wouldn’t want to be treated like that, so I’m not going to treat someone else like that. That’s toxic.

Edit: And like which irl country and accent is Wuk Lamat supposed to represent out of all the influences from all across south and central america anyway? That’s a lot of places and countless accents. This is a fictional place.

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Originally Posted by Antharaes

Doing your nickname credit I see....Got called on your bs and now trying to weasel out....Way to go!

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It wouldn't be the first time I see someone so concerned with those sort of things being snarky when the real deal speaks up.

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Originally Posted by BakoolJaJa

They'll spend 14 forum pages telling you how they love the "accuracy" of the VA's fake accent and how much the VA "cares" about correctly representing latinos, but once you point out just how incorrect their statements are they go - "lel it's just a fictional catgirl, who cares?"

So do you "VA praisers" care about these things or not? Make up your minds already. Otherwise every conversation is just moving goalposts. And disrespectful to boot. Using a group of people like a tool, just to make a nonexistent point. And then they are the ones who claim that WE are being toxic and disrespectful just by pointing out the truth about VA quality and inaccuracy. Can't make this up.

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Sadly, you're wasting your time. People so focused on that will only do so to tick some checkmarks to feel good about themselves. It only matters when its convenient, their goalpost it's just a limbo bar they move for their own convenience.

On the plus side though, it was thanks to what was shared here that I was able to hear the voice work in german and french. Since I don't speak the languages, I'm not familiar with their nuances (even if I was forced to learn french when I was little), but they feel really competent.

I can only speak for the German VA and she did a bang up job. She became Wuk Lamat, so to speak.

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Originally Posted by Cheapshot

If someone says they’re latino and their dads side of the family is puerto rican and I can’t, after personally looking quite hard, find anything to the contrary, I’m not going to disbelieve them and hoist a pitchfork cause some stranger on a forum says they know more about her than her. I’m sorry but that would be incredibly irresponsible. I wouldn’t want to be treated like that, so I’m not going to treat someone else like that. That’s toxic.

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I'm sorry, but show me who is being toxic and who is asking anyone to hoist pitchforks. You are making things up and then claiming some toxicity that isn't there. Nobody is arguing that she's got puerto rican roots on her dad's side of the family. Did you even read my comment where I talked about it?

Let me try and make this a bit more clear. I have Mongolian roots on my dad's side of the family. Now when I say "dad's side of the family" I obviously do not mean that my father is a Mongol, otherwise I'd say just that. No, what I mean is that my extended family on my father's side, grandparents or maybe even grandgrandparents (in my case it's just grandparents but we have no way of knowing those details for Sena) come from Mongolia.

But here's the thing that's actually relevant to the conversation at hand - I am NOT Mongolian. It's kind of obvious, no? I do not live in Mongolia. I do not have a Mongolian citizenship or passport. Do not have a Mongolian husband or child. Do not speak Mongolian. IF I took a role of a character from Mongolia (Azim Steppe says hello, and btw I was blown away by the accuracy in accents back then, even showed it to my dad) then I would FAIL. Why? Because I. Am. NOT. Mongolian. Mongolian language, pronunciation and the corresponding accent when speaking English do not come with DNA. Does this really need to be explained??

Sena's roots do NOT make her Puerto Rican. Same as her German roots do not make her German. Same as my roots do not make me Mongolian. And those same roots do not magically impart correct accents to us. THAT is what the conversation was about. There is NOTHING toxic about these statements. There is no hate in them. You guys argued that her accent is correct because she has latino roots. That is not how DNA works. That is not how accents work.

I am genuinely baffled that I even have to type out this comment, that's how absurd it is that this needs to be explained. Now I'll patiently wait until I get accused of being toxic again... over literally nothing...

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Originally Posted by BakoolJaJa

Sena's roots do NOT make her Puerto Rican. Same as her German roots do not make her German. Same as my roots do not make me Mongolian. And those same roots do not magically impart correct accents to us. THAT is what the conversation was about. There is NOTHING toxic about these statements. There is no hate in them. You guys argued that her accent is correct because she has latino roots. That is not how DNA works. That is not how accents work.

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Say what you will, but I'm pretty sure that the reason I can cook pasta perfectly without paying attention to the time or tasting it as it goes, it's totally because of the Italian part of my DNA.

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Originally Posted by BakoolJaJa

Mongolian language, pronunciation and the corresponding accent when speaking English do not come with DNA. Does this really need to be explained??

Sena's roots do NOT make her Puerto Rican. Same as her German roots do not make her German. Same as my roots do not make me Mongolian. And those same roots do not magically impart correct accents to us. THAT is what the conversation was about. There is NOTHING toxic about these statements. There is no hate in them. You guys argued that her accent is correct because she has latino roots. That is not how DNA works. That is not how accents work.

I am genuinely baffled that I even have to type out this comment, that's how absurd it is that this needs to be explained. Now I'll patiently wait until I get accused of being toxic again... over literally nothing...

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Why do you keep insinuating that I think people are born with accents and it has something to do with their DNA? Where did I say that?? You pick up accents primarily in the home growing up. Especially listening to your parents. What is the correct accent for Wuk Lamat?

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Originally Posted by Cheapshot

Why do you keep insinuating that I think people are born with accents and it has something to do with their DNA? Where did I say that?? You pick up accents primarily in the home growing up. Especially listening to your parents. What is the correct accent for Wuk Lamat?

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Maybe because of this?

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Originally Posted by Cheapshot

The VA is Puerto Rican.

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That was your response quoting people mentioning how fake the accent sounds?

I've read through the replies and I wanna jump in and speak my piece as a Latino (Mexican, as in, born and lived in Mexico for 20+ years).

First of all, I'm sorry to the US Citizens of this forum, but growing up in the US and being part of an ethnic group doesn't automatically makes you a member of that culture, and it reflects how the US still tries to pretend it's a microcosm of the entire planet. If my neighbor John Smith was born in Mexico, raised in Mexico, and happens to be of Brittish Heritage, that doesn't make him Brittish if he only has a surface understanding of how Brittish culture is. Same thing, people of latino heritage born and raised in the US develop a completely different culture; for a good example, see the whole "Oye Primos!" controversy, on how poorly received it was by latin americans in general despite being made by a "latina" for "latin americans" when it was, in fact, made for people of latin american heritage RAISED in the US.

Wuk Lamat's VA is by all means, an American. Same with plenty of the voice actors. I'm honestly sick of this "ethnicity based voice casting" when in the end 90% of them will be Americans with a pallete swap. The people who made some of the voices seem to think we speak like Dora the Explorer. Wuk Lamat's VA DID NOT make a praise worthy job and that's not a subjective opinion, it's a fact. You can like what she did but it doesn't change the fact it's not a good job; I love the Venom movies and that doesn't automatically make them good, by all means, they're objectively bad films.

Also, the cultural research they did for the supposed "representation" of our cultures is surface level at best and "they did their homework, but did nothing with it" at worst. I mean, just look at the effing Taco, that's not even how authentic mexican tacos are.

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Originally Posted by Aldath

I mean, just look at the effing Taco, that's not even how authentic mexican tacos are.

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You know what, I’m tired. I don’t care anymore. I’m wrong and I hand things over to this person.

Look, I don't hate Wuk Lamat and I don't care much about the VA behind it, despite some Twitter cringe.
But this is a bit much.

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Originally Posted by Aldath

Also, the cultural research they did for the supposed "representation" of our cultures is surface level at best and "they did their homework, but did nothing with it" at worst. I mean, just look at the effing Taco, that's not even how authentic mexican tacos are.

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I will say that tacos seems to be like the latest food trend in Japan (or at least it was last time I checked). Japan is a place that takes and adapt dishes to their cuisine, so personally, I don't fault them much on that. They are far away, they wanted to do something they viewed as cool and unique and inspired in something but clearly not accurate.

The ones that went with the "We did our homework" was the localization side of things, and they messed up.

But if I have to get nitpicky... we don't even have tacos in the zone Yok Tural is inspired on. Hell, mexican food is something that arrived rather recently where I live and the restaurants that sell it are ridiculously expensive and not that common.

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Originally Posted by Cheapshot

You know what, I’m tired. I don’t care anymore. I’m wrong and I hand things over to this person.

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Not the most graceful way to bow out and admit you're wrong, but at least you did admit it, and that's the first step to becoming better as person. Have a good day.

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Originally Posted by Aldath

Also, the cultural research they did for the supposed "representation" of our cultures is surface level at best and "they did their homework, but did nothing with it" at worst. I mean, just look at the effing Taco, that's not even how authentic mexican tacos are.

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Genuine question, as I've never been to mexico and I'm curious - what *are* authentic mexican tacos like?

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Originally Posted by Cheapshot

What is the correct accent for Wuk Lamat?

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The correct one is any voice that sounds natural and authentic. Amateur level voice talent isn't going to be tolerated well in a AAA game like FFXIV.

The voice actor took their shot and missed. Now like any meritocracy, time to find someone new and more competent.

Changing the cutscene voices to Japanese greatly improves Wuk's voice.