Interview with YoshiP - PAX Aus 2024

[AnimaAnimus]

Even if they are somehow, the most unlikely of scenarios happens and they are able to redeem Wuk through good, well crafted writing, her voice actress basically tainted the character for me for good. Yeah there was a lot of transphobia, but her reaction was so juvenile and just downright vile that much like Kevin Sorbo, James Woods, Roseanne, Kelsey Grammer and other incredibly toxic actors she forever tainted everything she does for me. If she would have handled it with a little more grace it would be fine, but her kneejerk reaction was full on salting the earth mode.

Growing up gay in the 90s in a very small town I faced a lot of name calling, death threats, danger, etc myself and I completely understand, from experience, how it feels. These were not online trolls though, these were real life, in my face, immediate danger sort of threats that I faced on a day to day basis that got so bad I ended up leaving my home town as soon as I was able. Standing up for yourself is good and you do not always have to be the bigger person, but going off like she did on everyone who was not a sycophant for her is just not an acceptable responce.

Wuk is forever tainted, by writing for some and for other reasons by others, and they just need to accept that and move on.

[Valence]

Even if they are somehow, the most unlikely of scenarios happens and they are able to redeem Wuk through good, well crafted writing, her voice actress basically tainted the character for me for good. Yeah there was a lot of transphobia, but her reaction was so juvenile and just downright vile that much like Kevin Sorbo, James Woods, Roseanne, Kelsey Grammer and other incredibly toxic actors she forever tainted everything she does for me. If she would have handled it with a little more grace it would be fine, but her kneejerk reaction was full on salting the earth mode.

Growing up gay in the 90s in a very small town I faced a lot of name calling, death threats, danger, etc myself and I completely understand, from experience, how it feels. These were not online trolls though, these were real life, in my face, immediate danger sort of threats that I faced on a day to day basis that got so bad I ended up leaving my home town as soon as I was able. Standing up for yourself is good and you do not always have to be the bigger person, but going off like she did on everyone who was not a sycophant for her is just not an acceptable responce.

Wuk is forever tainted, by writing for some and for other reasons by others, and they just need to accept that and move on.

Since I do not dwell much on social media and especially not twitter and whatnot, could you enlighten me on what she replied and what she said exactly? I'm asking out of curiosity, not malice. I would like to make my own opinion about it.

[ZephyrMenodora]

Since I do not dwell much on social media and especially not twitter and whatnot, could you enlighten me on what she replied and what she said exactly? I'm asking out of curiosity, not malice. I would like to make my own opinion about it.

I'd recommend you go to her account directly, but she locked it. It's probably best not to rehash here in the context of this article though - usually it just spirals threads into being locked. You may be able to run a search on the forums assuming they haven't all been deleted by mods at this point.

[VerdeLuck]

Since I do not dwell much on social media and especially not twitter and whatnot, could you enlighten me on what she replied and what she said exactly? I'm asking out of curiosity, not malice. I would like to make my own opinion about it.

The VA?
Before this Role she was very vocal about certain "trans-coded" characters needing to be voiced by trans people only and one year on trans day of visibility sicced her followers on the Guilty Gear VA who voices Bridget asking for her to step down and let a trans VA (implication here being Bryer would gladly take the role) voice her. She complains a lot about similar characters like Street Fighter's Poison needing to be only voiced by transwomen and so on.
When DT came out Bryer said that Smile was "Literally a Black Gospel song" and that it "said a lot that gamers didn't like it", obviously implying that people who didn't like the song or its strange inclusion were racist. She was called out on it and tried to turn it into a kafka-trap style trick where she said she tricked people who called her out into exposing themselves as bigots or whatever, but it's clear she made a bad take for attention and it backfired.

Now it's hard to check some of this stuff because she went private on twitter so pulling up the specifics quotes is going to be hard. Generally my read is she is a self-promoter who likes to whine her career is being handicapped instead of improving her work, and leads hate raids regularly against other people who disagree with her or actors who she thinks are not fit to voice characters she likes. Genuinely it seems like SE gave the role of Wuk Lamat to a rage baiting troll who cannot keep her personal opinions to herself.

Another example that came to me after submitting this is during the launch trolls would occasionally write something at her like "you suck they should recast you" and she would repost it saying that this was the harassment she faced every day. Her followers would then run to the person's account and brigade everything they post until they delete their posts or go private. Bryer made a statement about how she "doesn't condone harassment in her name" but what do you expect when you hold up some random in front of however many thousand of your fans and say "this is the guy who is harassing me"?

Regardless this is generally out of scope of the article and it only leads to mud slinging whenever the VA gets brought up and threads locked while moderators go through and clean it up so it's best to leave it here.

[Valence]

The VA?
Before this Role she was very vocal about certain "trans-coded" characters needing to be voiced by trans people only and one year on trans day of visibility sicced her followers on the Guilty Gear VA who voices Bridget asking for her to step down and let a trans VA (implication here being Bryer would gladly take the role) voice her. She complains a lot about similar characters like Street Fighter's Poison needing to be only voiced by transwomen and so on.
When DT came out Bryer said that Smile was "Literally a Black Gospel song" and that it "said a lot that gamers didn't like it", obviously implying that people who didn't like the song or its strange inclusion were racist. She was called out on it and tried to turn it into a kafka-trap style trick where she said she tricked people who called her out into exposing themselves as bigots or whatever, but it's clear she made a bad take for attention and it backfired.

Now it's hard to check some of this stuff because she went private on twitter so pulling up the specifics quotes is going to be hard. Generally my read is she is a self-promoter who likes to whine her career is being handicapped instead of improving her work, and leads hate raids regularly against other people who disagree with her or actors who she thinks are not fit to voice characters she likes. Genuinely it seems like SE gave the role of Wuk Lamat to a rage baiting troll who cannot keep her personal opinions to herself.

Another example that came to me after submitting this is during the launch trolls would occasionally write something at her like "you suck they should recast you" and she would repost it saying that this was the harassment she faced every day. Her followers would then run to the person's account and brigade everything they post until they delete their posts or go private. Bryer made a statement about how she "doesn't condone harassment in her name" but what do you expect when you hold up some random in front of however many thousand of your fans and say "this is the guy who is harassing me"?

Regardless this is generally out of scope of the article and it only leads to mud slinging whenever the VA gets brought up and threads locked while moderators go through and clean it up so it's best to leave it here.

Alright, I think I'll need precisions on a lot of this because it can be construed in radically different perspectives. I feel like this is skirting around issues a lot and it leaves me with a very nebulous picture to figure out.

What did she say exactly about "trans coded" characters? Did she just express an opinion that it would be nice to have trans coded characters be voiced by trans people? Did she say it should ONLY be voiced by trans people? Did she go on her way to specifically attack the VAs behind and if so, what did she say exactly?

What was so bad exactly about comparing a song to black gospel? Why did people feel offended at the implication that a lot of actual racists do not like that kind of song? Why did they think it included them for just, you know, not especially liking the song? Or did she say something else specifically that warranted this? I have a hard time seeing the problem if that makes sense?

Secondly, are you holding her accountable for what her "followers", which I assume are people following her on social media, did? What would you have people do when they get harassed and get death threats, just shut the *** up?

Third, who can say what kind of harassment she faced every day? Is there a way on those social media platforms to actually get a full, detailed account of all the aggression that go through on a daily basis to check?

[VerdeLuck]

Alright, I think I'll need precisions on a lot of this because it can be construed in radically different perspectives. I feel like this is skirting around issues a lot and it leaves me with a very nebulous picture to figure out.

What did she say exactly about "trans coded" characters? Did she just express an opinion that it would be nice to have trans coded characters be voiced by trans people? Did she say it should ONLY be voiced by trans people? Did she go on her way to specifically attack the VAs behind and if so, what did she say exactly?

What was so bad exactly about comparing a song to black gospel? Why did people feel offended at the implication that a lot of actual racists do not like that kind of song? Why did they think it included them for just, you know, not especially liking the song? Or did she say something else specifically that warranted this? I have a hard time seeing the problem if that makes sense?

Secondly, are you holding her accountable for what her "followers", which I assume are people following her on social media, did? What would you have people do when they get harassed and get death threats, just shut the *** up?

Third, who can say what kind of harassment she faced every day? Is there a way on those social media platforms to actually get a full, detailed account of all the aggression that go through on a daily basis to check?

I was going to engage with this in good faith but as I read it, this became progessively more and more clear you're fishing for something to paint me as your ideological enemy, or that I support harassment, or any other number of things.
I'm not dealing with this. The VA talk was already bordering on off topic talk and starting a flame war about it is definitely going too far off topic.

[kajv95]

Alright, I think I'll need precisions on a lot of this because it can be construed in radically different perspectives. I feel like this is skirting around issues a lot and it leaves me with a very nebulous picture to figure out.

What did she say exactly about "trans coded" characters? Did she just express an opinion that it would be nice to have trans coded characters be voiced by trans people? Did she say it should ONLY be voiced by trans people? Did she go on her way to specifically attack the VAs behind and if so, what did she say exactly?

What was so bad exactly about comparing a song to black gospel? Why did people feel offended at the implication that a lot of actual racists do not like that kind of song? Why did they think it included them for just, you know, not especially liking the song? Or did she say something else specifically that warranted this? I have a hard time seeing the problem if that makes sense?

Secondly, are you holding her accountable for what her "followers", which I assume are people following her on social media, did? What would you have people do when they get harassed and get death threats, just shut the *** up?

Third, who can say what kind of harassment she faced every day? Is there a way on those social media platforms to actually get a full, detailed account of all the aggression that go through on a daily basis to check?

I'm not who you're engaging with but even though her twitter became privated, it's thanks to these very forums that we still have a picture of the things said.

On Trans-coded characters:

On "Smile":

The song isn't "being compared to", it just *is* (allegedly) and the callout on "certain sections of gamers" is only ambiguously worded to have "a way out" as it were. Which it was used as in the long run. The intent is clearly to say "if you don't like Smile, you're a bad person." Because otherwise the post is saying "wow racist scumbags are being racist scumbags, that can't be a coincidence" and that's... I mean, yeah. Obviously.

I have no idea what her "followers" did or how much harassment she's reportedly undergone. But the fact is that she, like other VAs I won't name, will happily call for others to step down by some rules (trans actors in her case), yet this will not apply to, say, Wuk Lamat, who is not trans. Probably, anyway. Especially the "trans day of visibility" post, once again calling for Bridget's VA to step down, is the nail in the coffin on what type of person she is in my perspective, as she's doing this while likely already having the role of Wuk Lamat in 2023.

Anyway I thought her voice acting was fine for the most part with some bad deliveries here and there. I was glad to be away from Wuk at about the halfway point though. She really is the sequel to Lyse - I do not want to engage with her in the story ever again and would like to move on to greener pastures, thanks. No amount of saying "we should've depicted her better" is going to change how much I simply do not care about the sheltered cat who lives in a conflict-less world, and beats people she can't reasonably beat by learning of their culture. It's making me hate the concept of Dynamis, because my biggest fear with it was that it would be a plot-crutch to allow for bs like this to happen. It did.

Yoshi-P should not have brought up the harassment bomb in the interview either. It's like he's baiting the forums lol

[Reinha]

But the fact is that she, like other VAs I won't name, will happily call for others to step down by some rules (trans actors in her case), yet this will not apply to, say, Wuk Lamat, who is not trans.

The hypocrisy doesn't irk me as much as someone asking women who are qualified for their jobs to step down solely because of their biological sex. That's misogyny and sexism and it should have no place in the gaming industry. Being part of a minority is not a free pass to spread hatred against women.

[Daralii]

The hypocrisy doesn't irk me as much as someone asking women who are qualified for their jobs to step down solely because of their biological sex. That's misogyny and sexism and it should have no place in the gaming industry. Being part of a minority is not a free pass to spread hatred against women.

Bridget also wasn't trans(I think ArcSys retconned it after that debacle with Strive), just a very feminine guy like Astolfo. "This character behaves more like a stereotypical member of this gender than this other gender, so they must be trans" is oddly traditionalist(for lack of a better word) thinking.