That’s the Kobiyashi Maru of this.  Do it like they did?  Problematic as laid out.  Do it like you said?  Appropriation.  Don’t do it at all?  Erasure.  There is no winning move here.

Brilliant assessment! Glad I’m not the only one who saw the author’s hand-wringing over the success of the show and its creators.

I actually came down to the comments thread to say something like this, or at least related to it. Just browsing Kotaku’s front page is like seeing how angry you should be about this and that. “People are arguing about Pokemon visuals.” “Critical Role essentially has the same cast it always does...” “The Inventory…

You said it yourself - this might be a cynical, bad faith interpretation. That right there is an admission that you know there’s probably a perfectly reasonable counter-argument that you conveniently omitted from your article in an effort to steer the narrative one way: the click generating, socially inflaming way.

I understand people’s reticence to this, especially if you belong to the cultures this particular fantasy-inspired campaign exists in, but if your example boils down to them wearing some costumes in a silly promo piece that explorers used to wear, then that’s... not a lot.

No one is ‘so mad’, it’s just like 20 people on Twitter. I’ve seen just as many people be happy to be represented and feel seen by the campaign.

So....a solution? Sounds like you don’t want them to explore these cultural identifiers and the explorer-genre tropes. Should half the cast be fired and people you find “approved” be playing this game?

“This may seem like an overly cynical and bad-faith interpretation of what Critical Role is doing with this new campaign.”

On the contrary, I think Gamepass is the only reason many people try indie games. I am a culprit at that. With limited funds, I used to only buy games I really, really wanted to play. Mostly AAA games. Now with Gamepass, I try a lot of indie games and I now game a lot more than before.

Indies are pretty visible on gamepass though, one of the reasons I’m still subscribed is that I’m looking forward to trying out Nobody Saves the World

Microsoft would sell Game Pass on PlayStation and Switch if they could.  All they want is as many people signed up as possible.

When Jeevan says, “I was scared...all the time” my heart just broke. 

I stopped breathing when Kirsten and Jeevan saw each other- I finally breathed again once I started crying. That moment was PERFECT. For me this show entered out of nowhere, and I am so thankful it did. Just magnificent.

Makes more sense once you play both! Both are great in their own completely different ways 

I have zero regrets about buying Mass Effect a couple weeks ago.

you can also lump effeminate men into that.

Have an adult read it to you.

Nowhere in my post did I say she didn’t need help. But I don’t know her and I don’t know if she’s under the care of a mental health professional.

“And at least when she was in the conservatorship she wasnt running around flashing her bare bum, screaming at total strangers, and shaving her head.”

As the author of the…

I mean, there are lots of people will poor impulse control who aren’t in conservatorships. Someone doesn’t have to rise to your standard of “balanced” in order to deserve basic freedom.

She’s lived in a bubble sine she was a teenager. She never had anything close to appropriate social interactions throughout most of her life. And she’s directing her anger at real people who caused her real harm. Cut the gal some slack.