#im a character designer i promise i promise i pr

[starridge]

dropping this and fleeing like a deer in the woods

[dorianwolfforest]

I’m not saying I want SSE to change ms holdsworth. If this is her design now, fine. Whatever. Im furious, but fine.

What I would want is for SSE to have a conversation internally about how they prioritized the streamlining process for background NPC’s no one is going to care about (especially when that was unnecessary because they already have two skinny, tall, old women skeletons to use for those NPC’s) over the already present inclusivity.

Make excuses all you want, a deliberate choice was made. There was a priority, and that priority led to the erasure of a character’s representation, representation that is already overlooked in media.

I could shout about how bad sso feminism is all year, and I know I would get no response because sse fully believe they are the pinnacle of feminism in modern gaming. So instead I really, really need them to prove it to me this time.

In a society that shuns and hates fat women. In a society that see disabled people as obstacles to be avoided. You have fallen into the exact same traps and are upholding the exact same beliefs. So talk about it. Acknowledge that this was a misstep. Apologize and tell us you will try to do better. Prove that you are women positive, and that representation is important to you as a company.

I am reminded of when Ubisoft animation director told Polygon in an interview that animating a female lead for their assassins creed games would be “too much work”, and I promise you the people at SSE were clapping each other on the back, congratulating each other on not being Like That when that news dropped. They cheered each other on for being the peak of inclusivity, for considering everyone and giving every body a place on jorvik. And now we are fed the same excuse, but targeted at minorities that are even further overlooked.

To then sidestep critique entirely and focus on the fact that they made her taller is infuriating. Yes, she should have a slightly hunched back. Not all old ladies are going to have the posture of a Barbie princess. But that’s not the issue and I feel like they know it’s not the issue. It’s more of that PR shit where you acknowledge the criticism, but in such a way that someone who does not know anything about the criticism will not be able to pick up on what they’re getting shit for, thus reducing the damage.

This isn’t a graphics update where you can just shrug and say “those kids, always yelling about the old graphics” this is you making a, frankly malicious, decision as a company because you’ve deemed a group of people too inconvenient. Ms holdsworth IS important enough to be unique. And if she ISNT important enough, who is? Is Linda going to be the only fat NPC left on jorvik once you’re done while everyone else shares the same 3 body types?

Furthering that point, fat background NPC’s can and should exist. Ms holdsworth does not need to be wholly unique. It is disheartening to know that all old people in sso, no matter their importance, are going to share the same 3 skinny bodies. That fucking sucks.

[krytus]

quinn what happened to the hot king

short answer: he died

long answer:

it is august of 2018 — no actually. our story begins in september of 2017. voltron: legendary defender is released by netflix to widespread acclaim. a community forms on tumblr, and then immediately shoots itself in the foot face and ass as horny people move to make suggestive content of this preteen space lion show. the community not only splits, but implodes and descends into rabid frenzy. in the year that follows, and as the quality of the source content declines, death threats and callouts and blacklists become not only ordinary, but daily. but, as einstein or some other guy said, matter and energy cannot be destroyed and this rabid energy of hundreds of annoying gay teenagers must be redirected — somewhere close, and quick.

enter me. one of them. not doing great in college. yes, academically i was excelling but socially isolated. lonely. i needed some distraction. netflix releases a teaser for an upcoming animated show. the look of it — dramatic set pieces, colorful magic use, armored knights — piques my interest. i haven't had any good medieval content since kalots's release in 2017. the teaser is short, provides only a taste of whats to come in the approaching season. some words, some characters.

one character specifically grabs my interest: the king. i look online, searching for a name to the beautiful face. i find none. not quite discouraged, but rather engaged, i decide he will be my favorite. the other characters are children, and this man is beautiful. i cannot resist the allure. i find like minded individuals. we are all love the unnamed dragon prince king. and this is where i must remind you of the reformed voltron gays. we'd been slighted. we'd been hurt. netflix cartoon had already broken our minds spirits and sanity once, but this was a different netflix cartoon, different animation studio, different creative team. in fact, it was the child show of the men who created avatar: the last airbender, which i had not watched, but which i know was beloved. i had faith. i had trust! surely, this unnamed king would be given grace and dimension! surely, they would not waste such a great design with shallow writing and a cold hard future in the fridge! <- this is what we in show business call foreshadowing.

days pass without a name for the king. not unexpected, netflix puts out only minimal effort in promoting a series. its usually up to whoever created it to hype it up. in this case, the offender is wonderstorm, who quickly realizes there is a large, jilted audience in their target demographic (teens and teens adjacent) itching for a new series to latch onto, like eels being given a pizza. they get to work, setting up both a twitter and tumblr account. here is their best work, and arguably the peak of the entirety of the dragon prince experience: the hype harvested by the dragonprinceofficial account before the release of the show.

see, they'd done their homework, learned from the blunder misstep and nuclear detonation of voltron's more than lacking, downright insulting pr team. dpo baited. dpo waited. they released bits and pieces. hints and riddles. they were tuned into the biggest memes of the moment. they capitalized. and i was not immune. at the time, it was fun. thats the first tragedy, i think. the pre-show era was actually fun, while the show itself became such a slog, a heavy weight on the experience when it should have been the reward it was promised to be. but, im getting ahead of myself. show release is still a few paragraphs out. we finally get a name for the face: king harrow. a frantic google search for the etymology of the word harrow leaves us worrying for this guy. the king, the father, associated with such a negative connotation.

nonetheless, we stan. edits and art and even some fics — mind you, we still only have the name and a brief teaser, nothing in the way of actual characterization — sprout. hype builds. the first episode is screened at a convention and i turned into fucking sherlock holmes finding posts and tidbits about it. about my beloved harrow. i am able to sleuth. the man has promise — a king who made a mistake so grave it'll send him to his. in this day and age we'd call him doomed by the narrative. its wonderful. im latched and hooked and pack bonded. and in this looking around, i find something else that's interesting: a character by the name of viren. someone we haven't seen, but who has an important dynamic with the king. im 👁👁 because the only thing better than a good character is a pair of them.

anticipation continues to build. the delirium only deepens. news about the show is promising, engagement with dpo is rewarding. golden age. the good old days. the official trailer comes out, and, to put it biblically, i go batshit. here, finally, more harrow. some viren! drama! call me a tick, call me a feral cat shown kindness because babey i form some unhealthy unbreakable unshakable bonds. i turn into wonderstorm's bitch. "the king is in danger" some promo material warns, but do i miss the red flags? baby, i miss the entire red dawn. my faith is will be rewarded. there is no doubt in my mind: harrow will be fine. he's a good father, great man. the power of love or friendship or some other adolescent bullshit will save him.

i have hope.

and then, right on time at 12:00am PST, Friday, September 9th, 2018, the series is released.

google, look up synonyms for disappointment. no, that's not fair. disappointment is too mild a term, too mild a feeling for the experience. it was brutal, gutting, a crucible of fire and blood that only made me worse. i stayed up until 4am, swallowing as much of the show as i could stomach. i didn't even finish that night. i could have, but i was feeling the effects of sleep deprivation and, much worse, the pain and embarrassment of being so completely and utterly wrong.

in the nine episodes of wonderstorm's the dragon prince season one, harrow is in three of them. technically, his lifeless corpse is in the fourth, but exists only to be desecrated and disrespected by his white friend.

harrow is a frustrating character — given the illusion of depth, but given little to do with it. he's more plot device than person, here to die to kick off the story, to launch character arcs, to be the big sad tragedy that everyone brings up every other episode. he becomes an abstraction, his death used as motive and purpose. he dies to showcase that this isnt your dad's animated series! suck our dick nickolodeon! see we have depth!

but, despite this, his death feels temporary. there is ambiguity, shadows, a fade to black that leaves us with a wink and promise. he dies, but we're told he dies, never shown final moments, never confirming it for ourselves. like yesterday's leftovers, he's shoved in the fridge.

to give a name to the tactic, i'd call it shrodinger's representation. its the writers putting a foot in two doors. we didnt kill the kind black father, they say, because he isn't dead! but at the same time, frustratingly, we're told there isnt a way to bring the dead back to life. viren rushes to cremate the body, and you think ah there is more afoot but there is nothing afoot. there is no mystery to solve. in the same breath that they ask us to look more into harrow's death, they also say, without question, that he is dead. he has to be dead for the story to work sorry ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ nevermind that several, MOST other characters cheat death. the writers ask, beg, and whine for you to pay no mind to these future instances. harrow is dead.

harrow dies less than sixty minutes into the saga, and my interest in the show hould have been taken out into a patch of quiet woods and killed as well, but it isnt. having nothing else do to, i engage in behavior that can only be described as Bitchless. which nets me two thousand followers and a callout post but hey. i have my fun in the month after the show is released. making gifs making theories getting into scraps in the tag. its a different kind of experience than before. i may have lost the rosy film, the romantic lens with which i viewed the show before it was released, but nothings so broken it cant be fixed. tdp would get another season, there was a plan, there was the chirpening theory, there was angst to write. viren was a weak, confusing character, but i could fix him. i could take out the interesting bits, polish them until they shined.

i was promised everything, and given nothing, but that didnt stop me. because im a dumbass.

months pass. s2 looms as a threat. i try to move onto other things but its only a few, short months before the new season is released. i go in knowing harrow is dead, but, unfortunately i also go in knowing there will be flashbacks with him.

even worse: flashbacks with him and his wife.

queen sarai. i must at this point remind you i am a lesbian so you see the kind of strain i was under. trapped between a beautiful man and his epic wife. i never stood a chance. and she was [unintelligible gibberish]. another of tdp's weak characters with some interesting attributes. her relationship with her husband was at points stupid, but they loved each other and Did I Mention I Was Lonely. throw viren into the mix and baby. unhealthy coping mechanisms thy name is quinn daggerons. it was at this point i divorced canon for the most part. i took these three characters, all the characterization that tickled my brain, and just went hog wild with aus. second golden age. sure, sarai was dead, harrow was dead, and viren was [unintelligible gibberish, sounds of violence] but that didnt matter. here on tumblr dot hell they were alive and well and i wrote a 20,000 word, four part au where they were the main characters of the series. next level brainrot. multidimensional brainrot, even. embarrassing.

anyways.

by the time season two's ending credits rolled, i had given up on the show. another season or four was something that was going to happen, but not happen to me. and mix in some Controversy: a fun little case of bury your gays, some elements that felt racially insensitive, white men showrunners behaving like white men and i was ✌️ checked out. i would keep these characters, thank you very much, but i would not say anything nice to the people who made them.

s3 unfortunately, eventually came out. more of the same. viren was.... doing Something. what? i didnt care. harrow was still dead. someone told me there were some flashbacks with him, again, and i was like good on luc roderique getting that netflix money. genuinely hope he has good luck with other projects, he was too good for this show.

but i sat my ass down and watched said flashbacks. they were alright. thanks for giving us harrow depressed about the death of his wife. im gonna hit you with my car aaron ehasz. viren's fun time war crimes happen. it sucks knowing the thing that will eventually get harrow killed wasn't even something he wanted to do. it was something he agreed to only after having his grief for his dead wife exploited by his white friend. i giffed my beloved man one last time. and blurred out viren because it was funny.

so, to answer your question, dear friend. what happened to the hot king? he lived, he served cunt, he died, and then his corpse was dragged around for the rest of the show.

[zarafoodrecipe]

Moore 'filthy' about Hadley's handshake after 'bully' claim

"Mate, Im filthy about this," he told PS, when asked to explain how he came to shake Hadley's hand. "I was contemplating how to use the coffee machine. I heard ,'hi Andrew', turned around and was stunned to see him [Hadley] with his hand reaching for mine, so technically I did shake it." But according to Moore: "Clearly he did it to report in to Rothfield. He asked me how I was and then in the most awkward 60 seconds of my life tried to help me use the coffee machine before disappearing." "I was trying to work out his angle, obviously reporting that to Rothfield was it. "And Rothfield has been, as far as Im aware, the only one trying to find a positive story about the bloke."

Sickened: Andrew Moore has accused Ray Hadley of bullying.Credit:ABC Moore confirmed it was the first contact he had with Hadley, who has declined to comment on Moore, since making his explosive accusations on April 3. "Im fully aware there is a reason for every action he takes, just wish I had seen him coming," Moore lamented, adding that he had not been contacted by Rothfield before the story was published. "When my wife read the story online I felt sick." PS had revealed in 2015 that Moore had kept a 40 page file on Hadley during his time at 2GB and contemplated launching legal action, but opted to quit the station to take up his current position with the ABC. Moore, who is now the ABC's Grandstand presenter and has known Hadley for 35 years, told 7.30 earlier this month: "As a human being, I think he's a bully. I think he thrives on intimidation yelling and screaming." When Moore complained to 2GB management about treatment he'd received, he said the matter ended up in Hadley's hands and was used as material for his show. "What I thought were private emails [were] being referred to on air by Ray, laughing about them. Not mentioning me by name, but it was clear, at least to me," Moore said. Hadley told 7.30 that he didn't remember such an incident and went on air the next day to reiterate that following previous allegations of bullying his workplace behaviour had changed. However, as PS has already exclusively revealed, within days Hadley was the subject of at least two new allegations of workplace bullying, which had been formally filed with management and are alleged to have occurred in recent months. PS has confirmed these new claims, by existing staff at 2GB, are currently being investigated by an independent third party. Hadley, sporting a new beard, returned to the 2GB Sydney studios last week after having relocated to Queensland for three weeks. Insiders report neither Hadley nor management have made any comment officially or unofficially about the latest claims. Management at 2GB's parent company Macquarie Media which is 54.5 per cent owned by Nine, the owner of this masthead has repeatedly stood by its position that it is unable to comment on bullying claims as they are treated confidentially. Rocky time for Jacenko as attacks hit raw nerve With the cameras out in full force, Roxy Jacenko ensured she was all smiles as she attempted in vain to operate a dish scourer to scrub the "Roxy is a c---" graffiti plastered over her Paddington offices on Wednesday morning.

On the hunt: Roxy Jacenko is offering a $5,000 reward to find the culprits of her latest graffiti attack.Credit:Louie Douvis By lunchtime it was gone, but similar missives scrawled along the route Jacenko takes from her Bondi home to her Paddington offices were not quite as easy to remove, especially on the wall of busy Syd Einfeld Drive. Jacenko, who is offering a $5,000 reward to find the culprits, claims she is unfazed by the latest attacks, but pin-pointing the offenders will not be an easy task, even with police currently investigating and her own CCTV footage showing a pair of men attacking her building in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Jacenko's various tribulations have been documented for many years, including across these pages. When PS approached her for comment on Wednesday, Jacenko wryly fired back: "Andrew, was it you?"

Graffiti sprayed on the wall of Roxy Jacenko's Paddington office.Credit:Andrew Hornery Well, PS hates to disappoint but it wasn't. Indeed, Jacenko has many detractors. She remains embroiled in an ugly and highly-public stoush with both her father Nick Jacenko and his partner, fashion designer Lisa Ho, which resulted in police being called following one particularly nasty incident on the streets of Woollahra. She is also estranged from her younger sister Ruby, more than a decade after her sibling was accused of punching Roxy twice at a Kings Cross party. In 2013 she was the subject of a 1000-word plus poison-pen letter purportedly written by a former staffer and titled Miss Karma. The letter went viral. In more recent years everything from her nose job and boob job, breast cancer media deals, relationship with former lover Nabil Gazal while her husband Oliver Curtis was in jail, to her children's relentless social media exposure, has ensured her position as one of this city's most written about characters. But Jacenko has not loved ALL the attention. In 2016 she called in the police after a lewd photo scandal erupted surrounding her then four-year-old daughter Pixie involving photo-shopped images of the little girl. In February she was rattled enough to engage lawyers after she was embroiled in a vulgar slanging match in front of a packed room with one of the attendees at her one-woman motivational talk. And behind the scenes, some of her closest associates say the latest attack which follows three other vandalism episodes on her building, ranging from paint bombing to faeces being smeared over her front door have hit a raw nerve. Last week PS revealed how unpopular she had become with neighbours in Paddington fed up with her $400,000 Aston Martin and husband's $250,000 Range Rover being illegally parked on their already cramped street. Next month her Sweaty Betty PR firm is marking its 15-year anniversary and Jacenko is understood to have plans for a big party. Exactly who will be celebrating remains to be seen. Pay no attention to the missing actor With his 32-year relationship in tatters, one time Australian showbiz golden boy Simon Gallaher has pulled out of his starring role in the Wizard of Oz spectacular. Gallaher told PS he was unable to face the audience on Newcastle this weekend and has quit from the production, in which he was due to play the role of the Wizard as it toured regional Australia.

Simon Gallaher (top-right) has exited the production of Wizard of Oz. Gallaher's personal life has been heavily scrutinised for the past six months since his former lover, fellow entertainer Todd McKenney, revealed how he discovered his ex-boyfriend had left him for his sister, Lisa. This week Gallaher confirmed his marriage to Lisa, the mother of their two adult children, had come to an end following McKenney's extraordinary revelations, which McKenney made in a lengthy interview on a gay community radio station in Melbourne late last year. The split comes as the Gallahers are expecting to welcome their first grandchild in a matter of weeks.

Todd McKenney as P.T. Barnum.Credit:Jeff Busby Gallaher took to social media to defend the decisions he had made in his private life after being openly criticised. Gallaher wrote on Twitter: "There was no lying, no delusions, no double life. A wonderful monogamous relationship with someone for 32 years. The other was a former dalliance long finished before a loving and fruitful marriage with no secrets. This is a public outing not a personal one. Check your facts." McKenney, who coincidentally opens in Melbourne this weekend with his latest role as P.T. Barnum, declined to comment further when PS called for a response to Gallaher's claim their five-year relationship was a "dalliance". Town goes to country for birthday bash If Ron and Nancy Reagan were still alive, it would be a safe bet that they would be among the long lineup of social luminaries heading to socialite, charity queen and one time cover girl Skye Leckie's 60th birthday party at her country estate Mulberry Farm in the Southern Highlands this weekend.

Birthday girl: Sydney society queen Skye Leckie is planning to mark her 60th birthday in a very big way this weekend. The Reagans became instant fans of Leckie way back in 1982 when she was Skye Macleod and ended up on the cover of US society magazine Town & Country wearing an Akubra for the magazine's special edition on Australia. She had been working for Vogue Australia "writing captions in a storeroom" at the time when she was asked to pose for the magazine.

Covergirl: Skye Leckie on the cover of American magazine Town & Country in 1982. "I forgot all about it but then I got a call from the White House and immediately thought it was someone having a lend and hung up because I was trying to get the Lotto numbers off the TV. But they rang back, and were deadly serious. I realised it wasn't a prank at all. Ronald and Nancy wanted to know about my hat and by the time I hung up I was arranging to have Akubras and a couple of Drizabones sent over to them," Leckie recalled to PS this week. The Town & Country cover has been dusted off and used as her party invitation, with the likes of Gretel Packer, Julie Bishop, Leo Schofield, Rachel Griffiths, Michael Usher, Mark Ferguson, Karl Stefanovic and Samantha Armytage, along with PS, heading for what promises to be one of the parties of the year. Andrew Hornery is a senior journalist and Private Sydney columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald. Most Viewed in Entertainment Loading https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/celebrity/moore-filthy-about-hadley-s-handshake-after-bully-claim-20190424-p51grs.html?ref=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss_feed

[kingmuttley7-blog]

Are EA repairing their reputation?

It may be hard to believe with everything that has happened over the past 6 or so years, but there was once a time when Electronic Arts (EA) were heavily loved and were widely adored by many a gamer. Just a few of the reasons for this is down to earlier releases in franchises like Fifa, Dungeon Keeper, Mass Effect, The Sims, and Need for Speed. There are other franchises, and if you were a gamer between 1990 and 2010, you will have almost certainly played an EA game. Between that 20 year span, EA couldn’t be faulted. The games they produced were more often than not fantastic games and enjoyed by the masses. But how could the EA im describing turn into a company that has been voted worst company in America twice?

For many gamers, the first and most unforgiving error made by EA is the final mission of Mass Effect 3, where 3 games worth of build up, gamer choice, and complex story routes was ended with a simple A, B, or C ending choice that didn’t actually change the outcome of the story. With the exception of one cutscene triggered by a choice in the final stretch, all ending cutscenes are largely similar, with only some very slight differences. The reason this was so hated was because fans had invested so much into the previous 2 games in the series and were left more than underwhelmed when the final stretch came about, especially when at the end of the previous game players had choices over which of their crew survived and died. It was like the Champions League final being followed up by 2 youth teams from Ireland. This earned EA their first of 2 worst company in America awards.

Another major reason for EA receiving copious amounts of hate is their constant butchering of beloved franchises. The franchises I named above were all once adored and fans would rejoice at a subsequent title. However, now fans reach every game with an air of suspicion and scepticism, and here’s how they turned fans of said franchises into nervous wrecks.

Fifa has become a cash cow, with each title changing very little and with tiny amounts of innovation leading many fans to feel hard done by when all that seems to have changed is the graphics and team transfers. Dungeon Keeper fans resent EA and now only play the original games from the 90’s since the latest game in that franchise is a mobile free to play, microtransaction packed, pay to progress game that holds almost 0 resemblance to the originals.

The Sims fans are against EA for a couple of reasons, the first being The Sims 4 launching with less content than its predecessor and SimCity having one of the most botched launches in gaming history. A game series which has always been Single Player oriented, EA decided to make this game Online Only, requiring gamers to be connected to servers at all times. This alone is a bad idea, but add in EAs servers crashing and failing at launch therefore preventing players access to the game then you’ll be left with an army of fans livid and also bag yourself a second Worst company in America award.

Then there’s Need for Speed. This is a series that is prime nostalgia for any gamer. These were the very best of fun racing games, until 2015 when the game series was “revamped”. Truth be told, the series started going stale back in 2011, but 2015 was the ultimate end for many fans. Different, annoying physics and controls mixed with a new focus on a story based around bland and basic characters results in the end for many fans. More controversy was raised with 2017s Need For Speed: Payback when the progression of the title was heavily randomised and basically encouraged gambling, with the progress card selector closely resembling a slot machine.

In recent memory, EA caused mass outrage with the Battlefront 2 loot box gambling scandal. This was such a big issue that the it was referred to as “a Star Wars-themed online casino designed to lure kids into spending money" by Belgian and Hawaiian politicians, causing public opinion to drop further and further, as well as annoying and enraging millions of fans plus their very own investors. Plus they have bought and later closed down great games developers like Visceral (dead space series, battlefield hardline) and Westwood Studios (command and conquer), with Bioware looking like they’re on their last chance with Anthem. It would be difficult for EA to be in a worse position as far as public opinion goes. With all of this hate linked to their name, what is the evidence to support that EA are trying to improve their reputation?

Well, we will have to wait and see if they stick to their promises this time, but they have made some rather promising statements at E3. The first and greatest of these is that Battlefield 5 won’t have any paid for DLC, with maps launching for free throughout the games life span. This proves that they are finally listening to the complaints by Battlefield players for their constant splitting of the player base with their Premium Pass. They also stated there would be no lootboxes in Battlefield 5, whilst also announcing free Star Wars content for battlefront 2.

They also seem to be showing more faith in their game studios, with allowing Respawn to create a Star Wars game set between episodes 3 and 4 named Jedi Fallen Order. This is especially big since they basically left Titanfall 2 to die by releasing it between the 2 biggest First Person Shooter (FPS) games of 2016 in Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. They have also announced Unravel 2 and Sea of Solitude. These are indie games, and something that EA have shown very little interest in previously. It's refreshing to see them publishing something other than AAA titles with smaller passion projects by genuinely devoted studios.

For many people, it is too little too late for EA to reclaim the love they lost. These are extremely tiny steps, but they are steps in the right direction. Reclaiming the love of fans will take time, and they will need to hit PR home runs from now on, but it can be done. Even if they never reach the admiration they once held amongst gamers, anything is better than the bitterness shown towards them for the past 6 years.