@clockworkbanana said:
After the abomination that is the FF7 remake, I'm more hyped for the full release of the Echo-S mod for the the original. The demo was incredible
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FF7 also has an Echo-S mod.
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Jag85's forum posts
@sargentd said:
Was AC ever historical tho? I thought all the main characters were made up? Is this the first one based on a real person?
All the player characters were fictional up until now. This is the first AC where you play as a historical figure.
Switch is on its way to surpassing the DS worldwide, and then the PS2.
@silentchief said:
@sargentd said:
Haven't followed this but are they making the black samurai gay as well?. Lol!!
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I mean it was already a little weird thinking of you playing as a tall black samurai dude in a fuedal Japan setting.. now he's a gay samuri boy too tho?? It's just way too silly lolol..
Lol, God I hope this true.🤣 all the people that defended this trash will come up with an excuse to defend this as well.
It hasn't been confirmed. But if true: Ubisoft's defence of having a black samurai protagonist is that he's a real historical figure, so it's not blackwashing... But then gaywashing the same historical figure would undermine their own argument. If the historical figure was gay, then that should be included. But there's zero evidence Yasuke was ever gay, so it would be blatant historical revisionism.
@luxuryheart: Shaka came a few centuries after Yasuke, so it's different time periods. But Shaka's tactics must be an evolution of what they were doing centuries earlier.
To be fair, I haven't seen much of Bridgerton. I'm not really into Victorian romantic dramas. I know people who love Bridgerton (mainly women), but it's just not my cup of tea.
@luxuryheart said:
@Jag85 said:
I somewhat agree with this take... If the goal was representation, then they should've made an AC game set in historic Sub-Saharan Africa instead. There's plenty of material they could work with, like Mansa Musa or Shaka Zulu. That would be a better form of representation than inserting a black character into medieval Europe or feudal Japan.
But from a storytelling perspective, Yasuke's story is interesting. He went from being a slave kidnapped by European colonialists in Africa to entering the inner circle of Japan's most famous emperor Nobunaga, before fighting in a last stand where he fails to save Nobunaga and then disappears from history. It's a tale worth telling on its own merits.
A game based on Shaka Zulu would actually be goated. Not only was he a ruler, but he actually fought. He was the general of his army and basically came up with most of the strategies and even taught his soldiers how to fight. The guy was seriously a military genius and had a respected honor code, for the most part. (How he treated the women he slept with and sometimes even his own men were... 🤐) That would actually be a very interesting game. Especially when exploring his downfall. Though I don't know if any dev would be willing to do so. Especially with the anti-woke brigade basically boycotting games with black people nowadays. Shaka Zulu was a game that should've been made a whole back, before people became anti-woke. Though once this anti-woke phase passes, perhaps a fully realized Shake Zulu game can be made.
Mansa Musa would actually make a very fun movie, or show. The extravagance of the movie would compete with Marie Antoinette, Aladdin, Curse of the Golden Flower, etc. 😫 Though Hollywood wouldn't fund such a movie/show. Especially with, once again, the anti-woke crowd throwing tantrums over any sort of property with black people. The only thing I can hope for is Shonda Rhimes to make such a movie, etc. Shonda Rhimes does like diverse casts, duh she's a black woman, and she's already dabbled into historical fiction with Bridgerton (another show with extravagance). She's the only one that I have hope in, to create such a movie/show (for now).
Interestingly, Yasuke's home country of Mozambique is located right next to the Zulu Kingdom... When Yasuke was taken as a slave by the Portuguese, he apparently served as a bodyguard for his Portuguese masters. And then when he arrived to Japan, he was renowned for his strength, which impressed Nobunaga so much that he enlisted him into his army after just a year of training with Samurais. This would suggest that Yasuke already had combat training from back home in Mozambique, where his fighting style was probably quite similar to the Zulu fighting style.
I've never watched anything from Shonda Rhimes. All I know of her work is Bridgerton, which I'm not really a fan of. It certainly looks extravagant, but I do have an issue with how the race-swapping basically whitewashes the racism of Victorian England. Ironically, Great Ace Attorney does a better job of depicting the racism of Victorian England, which was offensive to white liberals (lol).
@NoodleFighter said:
I feel homeless in this current state of the culture wars. I don't like race swapping and forced hollow diversity but I don't want a limited scope of certain backgrounds getting to be represented just to make genuinely bigoted people feel comfortable.
I still stand by racist White guys having Asian partners. It is really easy to see if you think about it and do a little searching and observations in everyday life. Obviously not all White guys in a relationship with an Asian are racist but there are enough that it is becoming noticeable to everyone nowadays. Being White is a status symbol in nearly every non-White country due to the domination Europeans/Westerners had throughout history. White people also at least partially fit Asian beauty standards which is to have pale skin. The passport bros trend that has recently blown up has been done by White men decades before other races of non White men from Western countries caught on to it. A lot of White men that are losers/incels in their home countries seek out Asian women and Asian nations because they know that them being White gives them a massive advantage because of the good global reception White people as a collective get. I mean you seriously don't wonder why so many White men and Asian women are together yet no other interracial pairing is as big?
There are a lot of self hating Asians and those desperate to escape poverty or get a leg up in status climbing that they will hook up with just about any White guy. The biggest example that made normal people notice this trend and behavior is the show 90 Day Fiance. People noticed that the White people in interracial relationships on the show like Big Ed were with foreign non-White people much more attractive and younger than them. You didn't see that kind of imbalance with any of the other interracial couples. Being White and from a wealthier country gives them access to attractive non White people of other countries that even POC from wealthy countries wouldn't have the same ease of getting. I remember almost a decade ago there was a White pickup artist lecturer that got banned from Japan because he told his mostly White male class that if you are White just go to Asia because they will worship you especially in Japan and you could be as offensive as you want because you are White.
Here is an example of White men in charge of White nationalist movements coincidentally having Asian wives/girlfriends.
This is another reason why Asians nowadays get called White adjacent because unfortunately a noticeable amount of them do have some level of White worship and enable the behavior of racist Whites. A lot of Asian men are pissed off at White incels flooding into their countries and communities and trying to claim their women as their own. Look up post from Asian women diaspora that visit Asian countries complaining about the incel White men clearly there for sex tourism that harass them thinking they are a local to prey on. Or even how incel White guys back home interact with them. There are even forums/subreddits like r/Hapas made by people that are the children of these couples that state they hate their White fathers for being racist incels and know they are only with their Asian mothers because they are too much of loser to get with a White woman or at least one as attractive as their Asian mother full of self hate.
I even saw Stormfront post talking about which Asian ethnic groups are okay for them to have children with. Seriously once you see it, it becomes hard to not see it anymore.
You make an interesting point on Asian women and Black men being the marketable counterparts of their groups. If you notice in a lot of Western media Black people are stereotyped as hyper-masculine and aggressive while Asians are stereotypes has hyper-feminine. This works in the favors of Black men and Asian women but not their opposite gender counterparts since it is not attractive for them to be seen like that. It is a huge reason why Black women and Asian men get the worst results in online and interracial dating because of the stigma attached to them by media. Black women are seen as too aggressive to be ladylike and Asian men are seen as sexless pushovers.
Yeah, I don't see the point to race swapping either. It's just lazy writing. It was a fad a couple of years ago, but now people are getting tired of it. Most audiences would much rather see well-written original characters rather than lazy race-swapped characters.
Oh, I already know about the whole passport bros thing. It used to be mainly white guys doing it in the past, but now there's a lot of non-white guys to do it as well. While white guys are known for doing it in Southeast Asia, on the flip side there are also many black and Asian guys doing the same thing in Eastern Europe and Latin America. As for the most common interracial pairing, I think it depends where you live. Here in the UK, the most common interracial pairing I usually see is black guys with white girls. But I've heard in the US, the most common pairing is white guys with Asian girls? It varies from country to country.
Considering how most of these alt-right types are incels who can't get girlfriends in their own countries, it's not surprising that some of them become passport bros to get girlfriends from abroad. Which is ironic, because that's only contributing to the so-called "white genocide" they keep crying about.
@NoodleFighter said:
@Jag85: The whole Asians being called White Adjacent is based on the model minority trope but also how the alt-right/White supremacist fetishize Asian people and cultures. A lot of Asians have skin just as pale or paler than White people so those with unconscious/conscious skin color prejudice will feel comfortable around them. Part of the reason why Asians are more welcomed into White spaces. White Men and Asian Women is the biggest interracial pairing in the world. A technically true joke that is becoming more known to common people is to never ask a White supremacist/nationalist what race their girlfriend/wife is because 9 times out of 10 she is Asian. Even the children of these couples are calling out how racist some of their White dads are. If you go back into history Hitler praised the Japanese and made them honorary Aryans which is why a guy who was so obsessed with Aryan purity allied himself with a group of people that look much more different from him than the ones he wants to kill off.
Because of how polarized politics are, if one side likes something the other side has to hate it by default hence Asians getting thrown in the line of sight of leftist angry because racist right wingers that like them and keep trying to speak for them. It is getting ridiculous how racist some anime fans are when a lot of the anime series and characters they like would reprimand them for their view points but since most anime characters look White to them they don't care. The new go to for racist anime fans to say a Black character isn't Black is by saying they're Okinawan as if the average Okinawan has skin darker and browner than a paper bag. I've have had guys on the internet tell with a straight face that anime characters such as Kaname Tosen and Killer Bee aren't Black but Okinawan.
I have yet to see a video game with leading Asian characters get called woke even if it is made by a Western studio unless they make them look ugly or have a darker complexion. The video game Overwatch that brags about their diversity had zero Black women in it and currently has one and only because people called them out on it. Considering Overwatch characters were made with a random generator I find it hard to believe they never got results for a Black female character, but they somehow keep expanding the roster of East and South East Asian characters. Black people just aren't as marketable as Asians are globally outside of music and live action entertainment.
I know what you mean. Over the last decade, we've seen the alt-right culturally appropriate Japanese pop culture. Ironically, the traditional right-wing hated Japanese pop culture a decade earlier. In the '80s and '90s, they were fear-mongering the "Japanese invasion" of the West... But now that Japanese pop culture has become integrated into Western culture, a new generation of alt-right have appropriated it for their own agenda. The right-wing went from Japanophobia to Japanophilia over the course of a few decades. But then if we go back to the OG Fuhrer himself, Adolf Hitler was a Japanophile, so it's not such a surprising development. But where I'd disagree with you is about the alt-right having Asian girlfriends... In reality, most of them are incels who've never had a girlfriend of any race.
This is why I refuse to take sides in this culture war. Both sides of the culture war are just contrarians doing the opposite of whatever the other side do. Neither side are defending any real values that they actually stand for, but both sides are fighting for power and keep changing their values depending on whatever the opposition is doing. This isn't a new phenomenon though, as Malcolm X observed the same phenomenon back in the '60s.
Marketability depends on various factors. In terms of gender, Asian females are generally more marketable than Asian males, whereas black males are generally more marketable than black females. In terms of industries, Asians are generally more marketable in video games whereas blacks are generally more marketable in music. In terms of films and TV shows, blacks are generally more marketable in the West but Asians more marketable outside the West. But these are just generalizations based on my observations and there are many exceptions to these generalizations.
@NoodleFighter said:
@Jag85 said:
@nirgal: I agree that Asians are definitely more under-represented than blacks in Western media. So Asians in the West would have every right to be offended at a black lead in a Japanese setting, since Asians are already more under-represented than blacks in Western media...
However, there is a counter-balance to this: Asia has its own thriving media industries. Nowadays, Asian pop culture is huge across the world. Anime, dramas, games, movies and music from Asia are popular worldwide, especially among Millennials and Gen Z. So it's not like Asians necessarily need Western representation, when they have their own popular media industries to represent themselves.
You can't say the same for, say, Africa or the Caribbean. Nigeria has Nollywood, but that's often perceived by outsiders as a cheap Nigerian knock-off of Hollywood and Bollywood. They don't really have anything to compete with Western pop culture. So the only practical way to have popular black representation is by working in Western media industries. There are no non-Western alternatives they can turn to.
Asia has 1st and 2nd world nations and economies that rival the West. While Asian diaspora do have legitimate complaints about their representation in Western media they act as if their ancestral lands don't have a ton of good media with good production values that rivals and surpass the West. They put too much stock in only Western made media being valid likely because of them growing up as minorities in Western nations. Asian media has been kicking Hollywood's ass for a while now.
People consume anime and manga/manhua/manhwa more than cartoons and comics. Streaming services are buying up the global rights to as much Asian media as possible because a lot of viewers are willing to give any unknown or obscure movie or show a chance just because it is Asian and they saw how good Asian media such as Train To Busan and Squid Games was.
Also most of big budget Western media is heavily dependent on the Chinese audience in order to be a success. I believe it is part of the reason Asians as a result started getting better representation and growing representation in Hollywood. Because they realized they couldn't emasculate Asian men and fetishize Asian women as much without pissing off the biggest Asian nation they're dependent on for success.
Meanwhile most of Africa and the Caribbean are still very poor and and underdeveloped so their isn't much opportunity for a local television and movie industry with big or even small production values. So representation for Black people is heavily dependent on nations where they are a minority unlike for Asians.
Asians undeniably have better representation than Black people when it comes to video games since after all there are a ton of Asian game studios. Asian culture is also liked a lot by Western audiences so a lot of Western games will also use Asian characters and aesthetics for them.
This is a big reason why that Asians don't count as a POC or are seen as White adjacent to a lot of other POC or activist groups.
Bruce Lee paved the way for this: He was being ignored by Hollywood and frustrated at the lack of Asian representation, so he went back to Hong Kong and made the movies he wanted to make. Then back in America, his HK movies were being supported by black and Asian audiences who were able to push Bruce Lee into the US mainstream. And the rest is history.
To add, Asian films and shows on Netflix now rival the popularity of English-language films and shows. That's why Netflix now have separate categories for English and non-English films and shows. Subtitles are no longer a hurdle like they were in the past, but nowadays most young people turn on subtitles even for English-language stuff, let alone foreign stuff.
Chinese audiences no longer care about Hollywood movies. Nowadays, the Chinese box office is dominated by domestic Chinese movies and occasionally Japanese anime imports. The loss of the Chinese audience has been a blow to Hollywood.
Yeah, that was my point. Black people can't just turn to African or Caribbean medias, the way Asians can turn to Asian media. But the best way for black representation is to bankroll their own productions, like what Jordan Peele, Spike Lee or Tyler Perry have done.
Thanks to Japan dominating the video game industry for a long time (1980s to 2000s), Asian representation in the video game industry has been pretty good compared to other media industries. While blacks are more represented than Asians in Hollywood, the reverse is true for video games.
The whole "white adjacent" trope just seems like a modernized version of the "model minority" trope.
@mrbojangles25 said:
Also while I will never put the US intelligence services on a pedestal I'd like to think we've learned some lessons over the years, i.e. don't overthrow nations "cuz communism" and so on.
The CIA didn't overthrow regimes in the past simply because of communism. That was just an excuse. The real reason was to eliminate threats to American imperialism. Nothing has changed in that regard. The CIA still serves the same purpose today.
With that said, I doubt the CIA were directly involved in this incident. It's more likely to be either an accident or related to internal Iranian politics. It wouldn't really make sense for the CIA to make a martyr of him, as that would only be counter-productive to the CIA's goal of regime change in Iran.
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