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PSA about Goodbye Volcano High and its writer.
- Thread starter unknownspectator
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What was, according to her, the Harry Potter porn's "failure", though? The fact that children were depicted? Don't want to go hunt down the article...
So, the game is obviously set in a high school setting. It takes a certain touch to be able to discuss sexual relationships among underage characters without it feeling exploitative or gross, and having read the trainwreck of an article that this thread is about, I have zero confidence that Kate Gray is capable of doing so. It would be one thing if it came out that she was writing for an AAA shootbang game, but she's the lead writer on a smaller, more personal project where the writing is going to be central to the game. The primary vision is going to be hers and having read her previous work I have no desire to hear what she has to say about this particular topic.
I hope this is a full-on learning and growing moment for her and her apology comes across well but as I said I can't help but feel weird about the timing of it. Much rather an apology than none, but it would have meant a bit more when the issue cropped up.
Everyone has the capacity to grow and maybe she has/will, but at the moment I'm giving projects she's involved in a hard pass, especially one where she has an active and involved role in the creative process
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I don't think it's great for this thread if people are going to argue about an article they refuse to read.
She's referring to lore and in-universe settings. The one she watched takes place at Hogwarts, but has a lot of inaccuracies for trying to feel in-world.
Here's the link to the article.
User Banned (3 Months): Whataboutism regarding publication of sexualised imagery of minors
You bring up a good point that it's weird to single out Kotaku for this when all the content in question was freely available on Pornhub and that site has been way more harmful than Kotaku or the artist ever have. And not just for the hosting of that specific content but also for stuff like their tepid responses to uploads of pirated content from sites they don't own.
Didn't realize that the article was up without the images, so I read it.
She says the Harry Potter porn failed because of its in-universe accuracy, yeah. She complains about magic not working in the porn like it works in the books.
From your original post, I thought the writer meant: "This child porn got it right, others should follow its example."
But now I see it's actually: "This child porn got it wrong, others should do better."
At the end of the day, this is child porn - and she talks about scenes of sex with Ginny, who, if I remember correctly, is an especially young child in the stories.
I find it gross. If you're cool with it, you do you.
User Banned (Permanent): Whataboutery regarding sexualised depictions of minors; prior related ban
Right. I feel like the anger over this is extreme. The amount of backlash is really not suited to the crime. She and Kotaku fucked up, and she paid the price with the initial backlash. Continuing to attack her now is really giving credit to 4channers and alt-right. They love to decredit people all the time by labeling people as pedophiles to try and destroy people (despite also being on sites that host that content as well.)
And people are really trying to damn her for this, but why her specifically? Why no go after pornhub or any other video hosting site for this content? You can literally type the characters she posted into common streaming sites and see the same stuff popping up. Again, the attack on this one individual just feels incredibly gross.
Just read the article, and gotta say, being charitable: I don't really think the author has the skills or insight to tell any interesting story.
You know, besides the call for better and more creative CP.
You know, besides the call for better and more creative CP.
This is always going to be a difficult thing to argue around because ages in a serialized fiction narrative where each new installment is a year later are obviously not fixed, and she was rather notably not a child in that part of the last book everyone hates
What the fuck, come on with that shit. I'm not cool with child porn and the article using images of it is a fuck-up. My original point was: I don't think it's fair for people in this thread to make the stance that she was advocating for better child porn—she wasn't.
Certainly a lot of hand waiving going on in here. Buy the game if you like it. Don't buy it if you don't like it.
The Usual Suspects was a great movie 20 years ago and is a great movie now. Though Kevin Spacy is disgusting, it doesn't mean that I cant separate the movie and character from the actor.
You can support the game and its messaging folks. It doesn't mean that you support the writer.
The Usual Suspects was a great movie 20 years ago and is a great movie now. Though Kevin Spacy is disgusting, it doesn't mean that I cant separate the movie and character from the actor.
You can support the game and its messaging folks. It doesn't mean that you support the writer.
She wants elements from each child porn she watched integrated into one, her issue with the Harry potter one was discarding some established franchise lore like the girl dormitory being enchanted against boys etc, that being said, here's the full text:
" I'd love to see a video with the inventiveness of the Pokémon porn done in a slightly less gross way, with the attention to detail of the Zelda porn, plus the references to the source material that the Harry Potter porn attempted (and failed) to do. The ingredients are all there, but the cake is still a lie. "
I bet she'd love to see that indeed.
Going straight from writing an 'article' featuring animated CP to writing a game starring under-aged characters.
I gotta say, I'm taken aback by the audacity. lol
I gotta say, I'm taken aback by the audacity. lol
" I'd love to see a video with the inventiveness of the Pokémon porn done in a slightly less gross way, with the attention to detail of the Zelda porn, plus the references to the source material that the Harry Potter porn attempted (and failed) to do. The ingredients are all there, but the cake is still a lie. "
Seems you may be somewhat cool with it since you're failing how she describes her ideal child porn cartoon, how she'd like attention of detail, or the "inventiveness" of the pokemon one, at this point she blatantly reviews a child porn, a process used to critique and make it better.
No one made her watch multiple porn videos depicting children and then write an article about it. Just because you can find it on Pornhub (no one said that they're ok with it being widely available) doesn't mean that I shouldn't be against promoting those depictions on a non porn website with millions of views every months.
Trying to defend this situation by implying bigoted motives and linking people to 4channers and the alt-right is quite frankly disgusting.
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Your whataboutism won't help the situation that's for sure, there's a case to be made against Pornhub as well, but it's not the current talking point.
That article was SUPER shitty and disgusting.
However, I read her full apology, and it sounds like she is actually trying to make amends, realizes how bad it was, apologized about all of it, and said she regrets it. Plus, on GVH they are taking outside help to address diversity etc.
Cancel culture is real, and justified, but in this case, I feel like she honestly regrets and feels sorry for what she did, AND is trying to make amends for that.
So I will give her new game a chance, if it's good, and IF nothing else happens regarding her with offensive actions. Time will tell.
However, I read her full apology, and it sounds like she is actually trying to make amends, realizes how bad it was, apologized about all of it, and said she regrets it. Plus, on GVH they are taking outside help to address diversity etc.
Cancel culture is real, and justified, but in this case, I feel like she honestly regrets and feels sorry for what she did, AND is trying to make amends for that.
So I will give her new game a chance, if it's good, and IF nothing else happens regarding her with offensive actions. Time will tell.
But this is a video game forum. We aren't talking about pornhub - which, for the record, I also find very exploitative and misogynistic. We are talking about a video game and its creators. And, I repeat, if you think the anger over this is extreme then you must not be a parent. Posting images of this sort (I cant even bring myself to type out the words) normalizes it, and it is very much not fucking ok.
Point taken that 4chan and co also host and cater to this sort of content, and might be bandwagoning on with the shaming of this creator just to be assholes. But that doesn't excuse what the author did - she really fucked up and did something enormously harmful.
Yeah, I gotta agree with this ultimately. It's pretty clear to me that the bad faith, disingenuous concern trolling started by the alt-right has spilled over into well-meaning people. It's obvious that the original article was a fucked up, terrible and irresponsible idea, but it's very clear that the intent was something along the lines of "what if we wrote a joke article where we pretend to review rule34 porn seriously" that was just extremely ill-conceived.
Her apology was adequate, and I see no other behavior from her to suggest it shouldn't be taken at face value. This hand-wringing and demands for punishment and exile would simply not be happening if this had been about a non-marginalized person working on an LGBT game, and some of y'all really need to reckon with that.
EDIT: I stand by my discomfort at the level of attention this is getting and how genuine a lot of it is, but having learned more about the imagery used in the original article, I'm less confident in defending the author's intent. Shit sucks all around.
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I remember fully reading the original article and not once she seemed concerned that she was literally talking about child pornography. She was pointing out flaws in that kind of content as if she was evaluating regular, adult pornography.
So quite frankly, she can get fucked. I will not defend her or the game simply because it's queer-centric. In fact, this makes it worse. Queer people have been wrongly associated with this stuff for far too long for someone with that kind of history to be involved in a game about them.
So quite frankly, she can get fucked. I will not defend her or the game simply because it's queer-centric. In fact, this makes it worse. Queer people have been wrongly associated with this stuff for far too long for someone with that kind of history to be involved in a game about them.
Separating art from the artist is a fool's errand - they're intertwined and absolutely should be taken into account when judging something they have created.
What a insincere apology and so late. The time to do that was than and not now and not only because you need to sell a game.
Also disappointed with this thread. Some of you like to downplay stuff. Not going to buy this.
Also disappointed with this thread. Some of you like to downplay stuff. Not going to buy this.
You literally are if you buy the game.
If you're not cool with it, ok, my bad, but it comes off like you're defending the ideas here - you're doubling down on the reading that she was "just" saying that porn should be less like the Harry Potter porn (which is child porn) and more like the Pokemon porn (which is child porn) and the Zelda porn (arguably child porn, IIRC, Link and Zelda are 15 or 16 even in their oldest incarnations).
If we bring this to its logical conclusion: everything she wants to talk about, every single piece of porn that she discusses in the article, aside from mentioning Snake's ass at the end, is child porn. When she talks about her ideal porn, taking a piece from or learning from the other pieces of porn she discusses, every single component of her ideal porn is child porn. She is advocating for better child porn because every piece of her ideal porn is child porn or can learn from/be inspired by the child porn that she just discussed.
This post is basically where I'm at as well, with the added caveat that you'd have to be more than extremely clueless to post pornography with the likeness of an actual child in it. That's really the part that sticks out to me that increases the whatthefuckery. It was a shock article. The type of article I'd expect from old Gawker. I never minded the idea that'd she'd write an article about pornography based on video games, especially of fictional characters if... there was a point.
Now, as for how this should affect Goodbye Volcano High, well, that's up to the individual. I personally will probably not support it, but I think its fair to try to see the game on its own merits if you're into that, but given that we don't actually even know what type of game it is, for now, it's just... something to file away in the back of the mind.
Christ, this is what some of you are defending.
Kudos to the mods for stepping in here.
I took this reply for granted for a bit but in retrospect given your other posts in this thread -- at the risk of getting overly prying how did you even find out what it represented
I recommend everyone to research and maybe look for the article and her other articles before saying something, to really understand the situation
I read that whole article, and it was gross. Like, gross.
Her other articles on Kotaku were also distasteful, to say the least.
Waiting one year to say something about it, only when you have your name attached to a game recently announced, is the cherry on top
I have no reason at all to support this person, sorry
I read that whole article, and it was gross. Like, gross.
Her other articles on Kotaku were also distasteful, to say the least.
Waiting one year to say something about it, only when you have your name attached to a game recently announced, is the cherry on top
I have no reason at all to support this person, sorry
Yeah no, I'm thinking Goodbye Goodbye Volcano High.
It'd be one very bad thing if her and the Kotaku editor "just" posted animated child porn.
But it's also a very bad thing how the text of the article talks about it like it's just normal porn.
Did she and the editor somehow not realize that these were underaged characters?
It'd be one very bad thing if her and the Kotaku editor "just" posted animated child porn.
But it's also a very bad thing how the text of the article talks about it like it's just normal porn.
Did she and the editor somehow not realize that these were underaged characters?
Besides this being naive, it's not even coherent. Why would today be a better time to plant a tree than 19 years ago? Or 15? Or any time between then and now?
She is an excellent example of slashfic culture. While it welling up into the mainstream on kotaku was a unique occurrence at the time, there are thousands and thousands of these people out there. The same culture is what eventually led to the decimation of tumblr and the scourging of deviantart.
And now the slashfic-ers are old enough to have jobs and influence art. We're in for an interesting decade.
And now the slashfic-ers are old enough to have jobs and influence art. We're in for an interesting decade.
With everyone talking past each other, I assumed there was only concern about the Harry Potter part of this because of the image and being partially based on a real underaged kid. I don't particularly think fully-fictional characters are a big deal since they could be aged up or something, but clearly some people here do and I didn't know that. It would be cool if we could keep talking this out instead of just deciding people on here are just child porn apologists.
User Banned (3 Months): Whataboutism regarding publication of sexualised imagery of minors
Let's not pretend that HP and Pokemon porn is not all over pornhub. I can see someone not even thinking and being ignorant about it being CP when it's all over your regular/normal porn sites. The apology that a user posted on the first page seems sincere.
We both know this will be the case.
We both know this will be the case.
That's what I wrote at the start of this thread.
Seems like we're already living it.
Alright, sorry about insinuation, seems like some miscommunication. Sad thing is, there are people in the thread who are apologizing for and excusing child porn.
nah, the best time to plant a tree, to save the environment, is 20 years ago, the second best time is 19 years ago, the third best time is 18 years ago... right now would be the 20th best time. She had all the time in the world to address this. Which brings me to:
the best time to plant a tree, to sell a game, is when you're announcing your game. The timing of the apology is meant to dismiss criticism of her involvement with the game. If it was about "doing the right thing" she didn't have to wait.
Since you appear to be saying that people knowing what it is can apparently be used as a gotcha, how did you find out about it? Also what site are you even referring to?
Imo that apology screams "I'm not sorry I posted it or watched it, but sorry people called me out on it". If she was truly sorry she would've mentioned it before, especially seen as she said she moved away from journalism, when she decided to do that it would've been the perfect time to make a proper apology. Choosing to apologize when she's trying to make sure her game sells just seems completely insincere.
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