Lmao. No. I'm the main character. Wookie can be forgotten as she deserves.
There isn't an argument to be had. A voice actor is being harassed, and you're more pent up in proving it wrong to feel right about yourself, and keep the conversation about voice acting quality whereas things have moved way past that already. No one cares about the quality of voice acting if people continue being shitters.
Criticism where criticism is due moreso that it is a bought product.
If someone's livelihood is voice acting and they delivered subpar work which resulted in getting criticized for it. That is valid.
If they are having mental issues over this (quite the easy card to play) maybe consider finding other work or step away for a few months while working on improving their skillset.
Imagine paying a plumber to fix your plumbing but did a shitty job but you can't criticize them for it because of mental health issues, their only livelihood, and being part of a protected group.
And I already categorically proved that she wasn't being harassed. The example provided by her shows that someone said that her performance wasn't very good and it apparently was akin to a death threat. So, in my opinion, she can't handle the criticism and making it up. That doesn't take away from the fact that she can't act nor that her performance was bad. This forum is for discussion of the video game.
Look at the screenshot of the tweet Sena responded to. It's criticism of poor VA and frustration on how the game experience was ruined.
It's easy to claim death threats, and harassment on twitter.
I agree that people shouldn't do these things but with all the previous shit that happened within the last decade, They better provide receipts of supposed harassment/death threats.
Answering to a tweet about her talking about the voice actor strike. Which has nothing to do with XIV in that context. If you go about your life and someone pulls your collar to bring back the conversation to something that isn't supposed to be topic, and that consistantly, it's a form of harassment. It doesn't begin when insults and threats are thrown. And if you're familiar with Twitter, you know these kind of things aren't thrown in public comments most of the time.
If you have criticism to voice, by all mean do. If people go every single time she shares something publicly to talk about Wuk Lamat's voice acting, then we enter the field of harassment.
So, I'll go ahead and say it, maybe you can understand.
Person grabs a completely unrelated matter, makes it about them, claims harassment and threats and when bringing those up... the only thing shown it's someone criticizing them instead of something that even comes close to what they're claiming.
If the things she's gotten were really nasty, I'd understand not wanting to share it but... the only example shown was just someone calling her delivery flat and emotionless... and everyone should still take her word for it?
I know that even asking it's pointless, of course you think everyone should take her word for it, but if you want to claim the other person didn't prove anything, neither did she.
Going on context of the actual tweet
"Hey I'm having a nice day and had some avacdo toast"
Reply "you're so shit at your job quit now"
Is a bizarre sense of timing , like actual dunce cap levels of reading the room and knowing time and place , this is what shit letterbox is for
Matter is not unrelated : it's about transphobia, and she received a lot of transphobia this past month. So she shares her experience with it and a frustration, which I think is fair.
The guy is not just "criticizing them", reread his tweets, he's hopping for her to lose her job over it. Which is already past fair criticism when you wish for someone's livelihood to crumble.
"If the things she's gotten were really nasty, I'd understand not wanting to share it" I mean, she's mentionning threats to herself and harassment to her family. Of course you're not gonna share that, duh.
"I know that even asking it's pointless, of course you think everyone should take her word for it"
Really my guy, get off that high horse with that tone, and don't put words in my mouth.
"but if you want to claim the other person didn't prove anything, neither did she."
On the one hand, we have a dude over-invested in shitting on a voice acting performance that took a screenshot from the thread and rolled with it as uncontestable proof, on the other, we have the voice actor complaining about harassment, and even if we keep it at these forums, we have seen enough weirdos shitting on her as a person and trying to find any justification to keep the shitting going. If you saw these kinds of situations before, you know that there is no interest in claiming to be harassed. Most of the time all it does is Streisand-effect yourself and amplify vitriolic voices and cause more harassment, especially when people will never believe you unless you expose your entire life.
But you're right, she didn't provide a lot of evidence. But by experience, I'm more willing to lean on it being true, because the alternative makes no sense in the real world.
"Uhh, it's fake! she's making it up! she wasn't actually harassed!"
Yeah there's no way people would ever go out of their way to harass a trans person on the internet, that's never happened ever in history! especially not to this person because you don't like her! :v
I now envision the last trial as the Igon speech from elden ring dlc.
I'm not "your guy".
If you care so much that someone calling her delivery flat it's a "phobia" in your book, learn to stop assuming.
Literally all they say it's that her delivery was "weak" and criticizing her range, her gender was not mentioned at all. You, and her, are making it about it.
And yeah, imagine that, someone doing a poor job and having an uncertain future at the position they worked for it's life. Just like everyone else, if someone wants to keep their job, they should do a good job, if they can't do that, it's better to find something they're good at, for everyone's sake.
But interestingly enough, she also has said that it's ok for people to ask VAs to step down if they don't fit the role, but hey, I guess it's only ok when she does it for what she considers a good reason?
So yeah, it boils down to: "She's saying this, thus, it should be true", but sure, I'm putting words in your mouth, my guy.
And you have no way of corroborating if the other person is legitimately going all over the place spreading the word, but alas, you've already shown you accept whatever you read as fact.
And considering all the support I'm seeing over that one tweet she showed... yeah, no one ever would try to fish for that sort of attention. No one, ever.
But anyway. I barely care about the EN voice acting anyway. I do think it's a shame the quality has dropped so bad this xpac because I do watch from time to time people playing through the MSQ and they don't run with the JP voices. Guess I'll wait for the next xpac to watch them again, or catch them when they're not playing through voiced content, and regardless of voice, Poochie is still a bad character anyway.
This is the big one for me, to be honest.
You can 'not fit a role' for a dozen reasons, and in this case it's just that she can't perform the range necessary to the character. A good VA might have made what is absolute crap writing entertaining- we've all seen things where the actor chews the scenery into bits and it's the best thing in the entire medium- but she wasn't able to. I mean, look at Red Alert 3. The story's pure schlock, but Tim Curry, JK Simmons, and George Takei spend the entire time making the set crew work overtime because they're eating it faster than termites ever could, and it becomes hilarious and fun.
I'd be quiet on it if she hadn't previously pushed for VAs to step down 'if they don't fit the role'. Well, by her own logic, she doesn't fit the role. So... she should step down from it, let someone with the range take over. This isn't even a trans thing, I literally could not care about that. This is about a bad performance, someone criticizing a bad performance, and suddenly the claims she's made before don't apply to her.
I can deal with unapologetic jerks just fine. I get along with them, even. But hypocrites? No. Not dealing with that. I'm going to hold you to the standards you want everyone else held to, hell or high water, and skill at performing the job is the first and ultimate arbitrator as to if you're fit.
To make it clear: I give precisely zero ****s as to what brain is connected to the hands performing open-heart surgery on me as long as that brain knows exactly what the hell it's doing. Sena didn't, she didn't fit the role, she's argued for VAs who don't fit the role to step down.
Well, we're there. Res ipsa loquitur.
Did she get nasty DMs with reportable threats? Unfortunately most likely. There's plenty of nutters out there and social media are "perfect" outlet for them.
Is she trying to use them to score victim points? It definitely looks that way. Because now all the real criticsm will be bundled up with those crazies and tried to swept aside. It's not the first time it's been done, too.
I just hope SE is able to see past the Twitter drama and admit (even if only to themselves) that they do have problem with DT and character of Wuk Lamat.
Look at all those failed games for the last 2 years...just to name 2..:Suicide Squad and Flintlock. Whos at fault there, according to journalists? The bad players that wont buy garbage, and every criticism is unvalid. Gonna agree...the VA just wants to score Victim points so that annoying arguments about the terrible performance is not valid and can be blamed on "hate". This Person said : "If your not fitting the role,step down as VA". Did she fill the role of Wuk Lamat? Fuck no. The japanese VA did a great job, the english one absolutly not. Did the VA step down because of it? No. Double standards we have here.
Man this is all wild to me, the writing for her wasn't great but it wasn't half as bad as all this.
Imo the entire second half of the story suffered from some mediocre writing and bizarre problems, and Wuk Lamat was far from the biggest. I actually loved her for the first half, and didn't find anything about her annoying until the point in the story where other things were already far more annoying.
This always happens. It's like when the 2016 ghostbusters movie revealed its trailer, and because for every 1000 comments there were a dozen or less that said something offensive, articles and representatives would generalize "WHITE MEN ARE FURIOUS ABOUT NEW GHOSTBUSTERS". It only takes a handful to twist it into a whole storm of "hate" or harassment.
Probably just the order of how things happened, and what she's had a larger volume of, so putting the familiar common thing first, and the more "what the **** is happening actually" stuff last makes sense. And I think it's not uncommon in combative verbal situations for people just to cling to the last thing you say. ^^;;
If, in the past, she has pushed for VAs who don't fit the role to step down, then she absolutely must follow through with it in her own situation if she doesn't want to completely invalidate herself.
You know how many times I have seen "activists" who openly use aggressive method and language to promote their own belief, upon receive severe backflash will claim "OMG I'm being harassed by weirdo!" ? Every single time.
On principal, of course I'm against any form of harassment or bullying. If I see innocent people get bullied, I believed the victims should be defended and their bullies be brought to justice.
On the other hand, I'm just a normal person who believe in 'cause and effect. So when I see an ex-bully themselves getting bullied ... it's really hard to be a sympathetic even if I want to. Again, rationally do I believe a bully should be bullied in return? No. But asking myself to feel the same for the ex-bully as I would an innocent victim ... I'll be honest my humanity is not on that level.
Just like you, if I have to choose than a straight up honest jerk is much preferable to a hypocrite.
I've been criticizing the VA a lot, but never once I crossed the line.
- I wish the harassment will stop.
- I hope the authority will be able to catch the harasser.
- Buy none of that will stop me from criticizing her performance.
Diversity is often used as a shield for criticism and this makes the entire discourse very toxic as honest discussion is no longer possible.
At least this time claiming that all complaints about Wuk Lamat are due to VA being trans are very apparently bogus since JP (and people playing with other languages) also hate the character.
Death threats to actors of disliked characters is sad, but not unusual either in age of social media - the guy playing Joffrey in Game of Thrones received them as well.
To get back to English VA, when you have subpar performance then natural follow-up question is how this got into the game, because ultimately somebody had to approve this.
Discussion of this latest particular one aside, I'm gonna be honest, there's been a lot of Tweets from Sena popping up in this thread and I'm kind of getting uncomfortable with how she seems to feel about non-trans women.
Whether it's hate, an inferiority-complex, or whatever she could easily make what she's saying perfectly clear without bringing it up. It's weird and most importantly probably unhealthy for her.
That's exactly the thing.
My only access to the EN voice over is through content creators and friends playing the game in that language. I'm a weeb, I play the game in japanese. The JP VA has only 9 roles under her belt, but she was putting feeling into the role, it shows, and considering she was next to an industry huge name like Ono Daisuke, she had to or she'd be completely overshadowed (not that Ono didn't kill it because he went all out for Everkeep).
And yet, even from the pre-patch, I was iffy about Wuk Lamat, I liked her dynamic with Erenville but her reaction to the Colobri and subsequent denial was a little meh, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt.
Half way into Heritage Found I was already thinking "ugh shut up Poochie!".
In the pre-patch, I heard her voice in EN and I thought "What in the world is that accent?" since I reacted with instant rejection to it.
And now that my friend is playing through the MSQ and I'm watching it...
That one scene with Galool Ja, my heart was breaking for the boy and I even got on Wuk Lamat's side when she comforted him. Why did it felt so threatening in EN?
I hear every other VA in their role and they fit, even if I also have my questions about how they directed the DT cast because I want to know who told the VA for Koana to go for the Antonio Banderas approach, but Poochie's voice it's like nails on a chalkboard.
And it stands out so awkwardly, that I even noticed that she also voiced the one bunboy (I think his name was Nahee) Erenville stumbles upon in Solution 9 when he starts asking about his mom. When that scene came up, I burst out laughing with the first line and my friend was like "Huh? What is it?" and I told "That's Poochie's VA!", then he heard the next voiceline and he too burst out laughing. I'm still not sure if that was her, but the way it stood out like a sore thumb, I'm at least 90% sure it was her.
Wow imagining crying about not being the main character:)
Good riddance glad you are leaving don't trip by me on the way out I love how all the people complaining about wuk are just giant adult babies as my group and discord laugh at this post
I'm honestly surprised an agent ,manager or even some PR person from Square isn't trying to douse the twitter shenanigans at this point. Statements like those can't be a good look. The social media brainrot is gonna take over eventually if she doesn't step away at least for a brief period of time. Arguing with the online mob is such a waste of time and energy for someone that wants to be a professional in an industry.
I imagine someone at Square is probably unhappy about it. Despite whatever CBU3 is doing specifically, the rest of SE is still very conservative and... "japanese" (for lack of a better word). They care about reputation and doubtfully find such behavior appropriate.
That is if that someone is aware at all. I mean, we're all in a bubble here. We're constantly bombarded by her tweets and the arguments here in the forums. But despite all that and contrary to her opinion - the world does not revolve around her. She is one single VA, for one single language, of one expansion, of one game. Not a good one either. Most people do not know or care who she is, what her identity is, nor read any of whatever nonsense she tweets. That's not even some veiled personal attack, it's just fact.
She's not even worth all these discussions. She'll be gone by 7.2. Still has barely anything to do with her and has nothing at all to do with her identity. The characters sucks, Japan doesn't like Wuk, all of those VAs are going and Sena along with them.
I am going to come to Sena's defense here a little: It's usually advised not to share that stuff. Partially because it can itself set off witch hunts, partially because it can invite further harrassment, and that second one can interfere with law enforcement when and if it becomes necessary.
If you have 10 reports of someone saying 'I'm going to X you', it's a lot easier to investigate than 100 reports, or 1000 reports.
That said: Misgendering is just name-calling. That's it. Doxxing is a greyer area for me because she elected to put her personal identity out on the internet, and that's the start of tracking someone down *for* doxxing attempts. Death threats are unacceptable, but see above.
The simplest solution to stopping these sorts of things is, legitimately, not to engage. Send it on to the relevant authorities, don't comment on it publicly, and take whatever steps are appropriate to protect yourself and those around you in case a nutter tries something.
Don't hold your breath. This is just further bait for validation and love-bombing. That being said I can't blame Sena for this, a very large portion of American full-time voice actors that focus on anime and video games behave the same way and it's pretty despicable. I blame Kate Cwynar for fostering an environment of entitlement, unprofessionalism, and an us-versus-them attitude towards the players of FFXIV. Part of what made FFXIV great was it felt like the people involved loved what they were creating and wanted others to love it, too. That's gone now, at least on the Anglophone side of things. Now we're just expected to consume, applaud, and get excited for next product and if we don't then we're wrong for not liking whatever they give us.