FF14 director Yoshida asks fans not to “attack” Wuk Lamat actress

[AnimaAnimus]

Pfft. Get away from here with that histrionic nonsense. 99.9% of players do not visit the forums, and the vast majority of people complaining about Wuk Lamat and her voice actor couldn't care less about her being trans. If you think a couple people commenting on a video game forum thread being butts means the whole place is a "haven for transphobia," you are living in a fantasy horror show of your own making.

I feel the same way. I hate Graha Tia, with a passion, but that doesn't make me a homophobe. And if it does that would be weird anyway since I am super gay. But even in the lgbtq community it's difficult to criticise something that involves a trans person because you are immediately accused of being a transphobe. It's really frustrating for those of us who have been on the front lines of movements and activism for decades, with many close friends and sometimes family members who are trans, to suddenly be called a transphobe by some, usually straight usually cis, person for not liking a project that involves someone who is trans. While there is transphobia going on here, it's by a minority of ppl talking about her performance.

Sena is just a horrible person and while Yoshida was in the right to say no one should attack her, I think SE needs to put her in check. However, I have seen this many times, and as someone who uses her identity as a shield (to the detriment of her whole community) I am sure she would try to start some sort of campaign against SE. Because she is one of those ppl who cannot take criticism, knows their talent is iffy, is lacking in personal agency and uses every metaphoric weapon in their arsenal they can to feel powerful.

[Catwho]

I feel the same way. I hate Graha Tia, with a passion, but that doesn't make me a homophobe. And if it does that would be weird anyway since I am super gay. But even in the lgbtq community it's difficult to criticise something that involves a trans person because you are immediately accused of being a transphobe. It's really frustrating for those of us who have been on the front lines of movements and activism for decades, with many close friends and sometimes family members who are trans, to suddenly be called a transphobe by some, usually straight usually cis, person for not liking a project that involves someone who is trans. While there is transphobia going on here, it's by a minority of ppl talking about her performance.

Sena is just a horrible person and while Yoshida was in the right to say no one should attack her, I think SE needs to put her in check. However, I have seen this many times, and as someone who uses her identity as a shield (to the detriment of her whole community) I am sure she would try to start some sort of campaign against SE. Because she is one of those ppl who cannot take criticism, knows their talent is iffy, is lacking in personal agency and uses every metaphoric weapon in their arsenal they can to feel powerful.

I mean, you're at least respecting her pronouns, which is more than some of the posters in this thread. So thank you for that.

You can dislike a person and still give them that base level of humanity. You can think someone is a terrible voice actor and still call them by their chosen name. And even if you don't hate Wuk Lamat's character, or recognize that many of the flaws in DT's English acting this go round were due to bad voice direction more than anything else, you can still think the VA is being unreasonable on Xitter and block her.

[Bananarama]

I mean, you're at least respecting her pronouns, which is more than some of the posters in this thread. So thank you for that.

You can dislike a person and still give them that base level of humanity. You can think someone is a terrible voice actor and still call them by their chosen name. And even if you don't hate Wuk Lamat's character, or recognize that many of the flaws in DT's English acting this go round were due to bad voice direction more than anything else, you can still think the VA is being unreasonable on Xitter and block her.

Oh my soyence.

[AnimaAnimus]

I mean, you're at least respecting her pronouns, which is more than some of the posters in this thread. So thank you for that.

You can dislike a person and still give them that base level of humanity. You can think someone is a terrible voice actor and still call them by their chosen name. And even if you don't hate Wuk Lamat's character, or recognize that many of the flaws in DT's English acting this go round were due to bad voice direction more than anything else, you can still think the VA is being unreasonable on Xitter and block her.

Honestly you are deflecting, because like I said, many ppl are respecting her pronouns and calling her by her chosen name and still being lumped with the transphobes for criticising her performance. You even thanked me for using correct pronouns as if I am one of them, completely ignoring absoultey everything else I said so you could say something about treating her with respect and then placing the blame entirely on poor direction. And I do not believe that excuse for a minute. And why do you do that? To feel rightous? To feel like a good person?

And honestly I do not want to just ignore her because she is doing grievious damage to the entire movement with her shocking bad statements. Stop making excuses for bad people and stop telling us we are bad ppl for not doing the same.

If you really care about trans people and the lgbtq+ community, you would hold those of us in lgbtq+ community to the same standards of conduct you do everyone else. Holding someone above criticism due to their identity is just as transphobic, homophobic, sexist, racist, etc as the ppl here misgendering. Full stop.

[ZXN]

Looks like FF14 has now become a haven for transphobia.

I'm going to be blunt: I don't remotely care in the slightest bit that Sena is a trans woman. Ultimately, to me personally, her gender has nothing to do with her overall performance as Wuk Lamat. There have been PLENTY of male people who have voiced female characters and vice versa in animated shows, movies, and games, so gender really is not as huge a factor to me personally as a result. For me it ultimately comes down to "How well does the voice X person did fit the character in Y role?": And Sena just did not fit Wuk Lamat to me personally. It's like with Chris Pratt in the Mario Movie: Mario was just...Chris Pratt's regular voice with a forced, fake accent. Wuk Lamat feels the same to me: it sound just like Sena's normal voice, but with a forced, fake accent. Many of the other main cast members like Koana, Zoraal Ja, Bakool Ja Ja, and Gulool Ja Ja had some kind of Latino/Latina/Hispanic backgrounds behind them, so I found it a bit out of place that a character as massively important to the MSQ as Wuk Lamat was voiced by a White American Female faking an accent, and not voiced by someone who also had a Latino/Latina/Hispanic background behind them. Sena isn't an awful voice actress to me, but she just wasn't a good fit for Wuk Lamat I felt.

I also have not once mis-gendered Sena when mentioning her in any of my posts. Obviously I can only speak for myself and not for any other players as they have their own feelings and opinions about it all, but it would be petty and pathetic of me to mis-gender Sena simply because I personally don't like Wuk Lamat and how she was voiced/written, or think that Sena is gaslighting a bit too much with some of her tweets. But on a place like Twitter, if I were to say even attempt to say remotely ANYTHING negative about Sena's performance, her tweets, or about Wuk Lamat the character as a whole like I have just now, even if it's just a small fraction of what I said: I would be most like be immediately labeled transphobic, misogynistic, or a bigot in someway because to the zealot defenders: the only reason I must be talking bad about how Sena's performance was / Wuk Lamat's character as a whole is because I MUST be one of those things in their eyes.

I don't enjoy getting a false label forced onto me, or lumped into specific categories of "gamers", simply because I gave my feedback and genuine criticisms about things I didn't like that you potentially did like.

[Dante131]

I'm worried that's going to be what happens, that Sena gets rightly kicked to the curb for being an awful person but she tries to frame it as Square-Enix being "transphobic" even though she literally had Yoshi-P out here telling people to lay off with the personal attacks/harassment/threats which were more than likely motivated by and targeted at her identity, as the people simply criticizing her performance and attitude are a different group entirely (though we keep getting unfairly lumped in with the actual transphobes anyway).

That said, the things Susan "liked" doesn't really paint her in the best light either, and the whole "no guys, I was hacked" is such an early 2000s internet excuse, lol.

For me, it’s about fairness, plain and simple. If you're removing someone over mere ‘likes’ but keeping another person who actively insults customers or makes questionable posts, that's absurd. Either you enforce your policies consistently, or you don’t. In this case, it's clear that Yoshi/SE is not being consistent, allowing someone like Sena to continue without consequences. While that might not always be an issue, it becomes problematic when it affects paying customers. People have expectations when they spend money, and if one of those expectations is a positive community environment, that’s fair.

But when this environment is disrupted by a voice actor publicly insulting customers (I’m tired of listing all the details at this point), it stops being a good environment and starts feeling more like a toxic relationship. One person causes the problems, and the other is left to just take it. Looking ahead, the message seems to be: ‘If I criticize FF14, I might get insulted or even banned. I dont say Susan is a perfect angel and did nothing wrong but you cant tolerate far more worse behavior then likeing something people dont agree with.