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Naughty Dog made female characters less feminine to be trans friendly (No Spoilers)
- Thread starter IbizaPocholo
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- Opinion Clickbait
Explosive Zombie
Banned
I wasn't eve thinking part of the problem is you guys need to confirm it's a spoiler meaning regardless of whether or not you want this stuff spoiled you get it spoiled, I appreciate your work.
thelastword
Banned
Does it really matter, who the main character is.....Can't you just sympathize with her plight to survive and use the gameplay to get her through her ordeal as opposed to fixating on whether she prefers a boyfriend or a girlfriend...? To me, these things are so secondary to the gameplay and the fun therein.......And yet, in as much we try to shelter our kids from seeing the real world, the real world exists right before their eyes every day. Gay people, straight people, blacks, whites, they see good humanitarian people and they see the monsters of our society who shoot up schools and do evil everyday, they see the drug dealers on the corner.....I don't think there is one reality you can protect your kids from....At least, her sexual preference is doing no harm or physical injury to anyone, unprovoked, no one's skin is burning them through bullying here, I imagine these people with their preferences just want to live their lives like anybody else.....
Yet here, in the game, why are we making this so political.....I've been seeing girls kissing each other on the streets and in public spaces for years now. I don't think it has made the world a worse place, but I definitely know mindsets that have saddened the globe and caused pain and death that has nothing to do with the lesbians....Also, women working out, women being butch is a reality.....If we are trying to be realistic, women like that exists, we see them every day, have we never seen bodybuilding and fitness tournaments or those Ninja Warrior, Gladiator shows, have we never seen some of the women at the gym or the physique of certain female athletes? It's real, they exist......Also, in game where you kill lots of zombies and wicked persons fending for their last meal or home, do you think the most feminine Paris Hilton, Kylie Jenner types are going to be high on the survival lists. It's also a realistic scenario of the type of physique and endurance level that would put up a fight or survive against such odds, also, apart from the muscly girl, Ellie's mental toughness is what has taken her so far......which again is a very realistic scenario. I'm still surprised when I saw someone used a screenshot of Ellie in LOU 2 to say she's ugly, like being so crisp as Lara Croft with makeup and nice clothing is such a realistic scenario for what she does...….Lara hanging to all those mountain ledges all over the world, yet her physique and countenance tells no story of such death defying battles, Lara would not be out of place in a DOAVB video game....
Yet here, in the game, why are we making this so political.....I've been seeing girls kissing each other on the streets and in public spaces for years now. I don't think it has made the world a worse place, but I definitely know mindsets that have saddened the globe and caused pain and death that has nothing to do with the lesbians....Also, women working out, women being butch is a reality.....If we are trying to be realistic, women like that exists, we see them every day, have we never seen bodybuilding and fitness tournaments or those Ninja Warrior, Gladiator shows, have we never seen some of the women at the gym or the physique of certain female athletes? It's real, they exist......Also, in game where you kill lots of zombies and wicked persons fending for their last meal or home, do you think the most feminine Paris Hilton, Kylie Jenner types are going to be high on the survival lists. It's also a realistic scenario of the type of physique and endurance level that would put up a fight or survive against such odds, also, apart from the muscly girl, Ellie's mental toughness is what has taken her so far......which again is a very realistic scenario. I'm still surprised when I saw someone used a screenshot of Ellie in LOU 2 to say she's ugly, like being so crisp as Lara Croft with makeup and nice clothing is such a realistic scenario for what she does...….Lara hanging to all those mountain ledges all over the world, yet her physique and countenance tells no story of such death defying battles, Lara would not be out of place in a DOAVB video game....
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
...But I didn't even list all the games!
Also, what is this obsession over it being bad just because most games had male leads? Again, if you go from lead to co-lead, I wouldn't be surprised if it was something more like 60/40 men to women or even close to 50/50 men to women.
What's really funny is that this argument of things being "so-and-so dominated", never goes in the reverse. For example, does anyone ever bring up how the fashion model industry is female-dominated? No. Is it a bad thing it is? No. It just is what it is. Virtually all of these arguments about things being male-dominated are aimed at things considered "geek culture", this can't be by coincidence. For example, why aren't there any debates on the NFL being male-dominated? Or construction zone work? Basically the suggestion is, if it's male-dominated (and part of geek culture in particular), then it must be misogynistic and toxic because men are misogynistic and toxic by nature, therefore too many men in a space is somehow a threat to women being able to participate.
......That's bullshit.
The whole assumption of these arguments that something being majority populated by any given group is a bad thing, is based on a flimsy premise. The reason is because the argument says nothing about the behaviors of a person, just the person based off of traits or identifiers they have no control over, and therefore implies the behavior based off of that. Now if the argument was "And almost every other game was rapist-dominated", then it would probably get you somewhere, because in THAT case you're describing people who exhibit an actual repulsive behavior that is under their own will & control, therefore it reflects something they have chosen to be.
But that's exactly why the argument isn't framed that way: because you can't say "And almost every other game was rapist-dominated" without immediately being laughed out of the room. You can't prove a character is a rapist if they don't display any behaviors of a rapist, and if you try using "rapist" as a substitute for "men", then the argument falls apart anyway because actual data shows you the VAST majority of men are not rapists.
So what do you do? You invert it. That is to say, instead of trying to imply something is toxic by describing the actual toxic behavior and then trying to correlate that to data (or the way an SJW would, data that could support their underlying belief of a certain group fitting the behavior which....isn't that much different from some extreme alt-right people tbh), you use an identifier/grouping trait and associate negative connotations/behavior to it because as long as some people in that group (even if it's just a fringe minority, which it usually tends to be) exhibit that negative behavior, you feel you can justify your argument.
That's how generalities work, and why it's usually always bad when you do so targeting people based on indentifiers/traits that they have no control over, such as their skin color, any rare physical disorder, sexuality and, yes, their gender as well. If you make a claim that something being male-dominated is inherently a bad thing, then by that measure you must also accept other generalities based on uncontrollable traits/features to be valid arguments, and I don't think you'd want that because some of those get right into negative eugenics territory.
On the other hand, making generalities based off of behaviors and personalities is usually perfectly fine, because for starters almost all behaviors and personalities are elements controlled by the individual. They choose what things influence their personality and behavior, for the most part. It's a reflection of individual choice, and therefore personal responsibility, a concept certain people on the far-left don't want to exist anymore.
But you notice I used the term 'individual' there, right? Because while generalities in description to behaviors and personality types can work on the group level, ultimately since every person has the freedom of choice to choose exhibiting those personalities or behaviors, there is the role of individualism still at play. And everyone has this choice, regardless of ethnicity, gender, sexuality, or religious creed. Which therefore means that ANYONE can exhibit those personalities or behaviors.
Of course it'd be silly to say that some aspects of behavior and personality are not influenced by outside factors, such as a person's living environment, where they live, who they associate with etc. And it's possible a very small amount of it may be influenced by inheritance of genes from your parents, obviously. But outside of some fringe medical condition that severely affects someone mentally, your standard for what behaviors to exhibit (and therefore what personality you end up having) is ultimately up to you, the individual.
But like I said, certain people on the far-left side of things want to get rid of the idea of individualism, which is why you get arguments like "so-and-so being male-dominated is bad!". Because they predicate that argument on the idea that fitting said identifier implies you have some sort of toxic or destructive behavior, inherently. And they tend to only do this with select groups: males, whites, cisgendered people, Christians...never mind you shouldn't do this with ANY groups that are identifiable through physical traits they were born with (or in the case of religion, just being a gross generalization that doesn't serve the majority), but there's a pattern to the way certain people of the far-left persuasion go about it.
I never denied there are more guys, just the implied notion that it being more guys is somehow inherently bad. Because that's almost always why the point is brought up in the first place.
And again, it's almost always used with things relating to male geek culture. The VAST majority of YA writers are female...if we're doing this equally then shouldn't there be a push for more male YA writers? Fanfiction is the same thing; heavily female AND also heavily LGBT dominated. And for both of those the leads of focus are almost always women. So should we try forcing more straight males into the fanfiction scene?
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VlaudTheImpaler
tl;dr
No, it isn't realistic to be that muscular... Especially in that situation... at all. Just gonna quote myself when I answered someone else...
"First off, lets just put aside the fact that I think that most UFC female fighters juice in some way or another...
Do you know how hard it is for females to gain muscle mass? Let alone men? Women actually have to work far harder than men to get the same exact mass as a man... If they even can. Men have far more muscle density, pound for pound. Larger bones and tendons and ligaments < where real, lasting strength comes from since bulky muscle fatigues much faster than tendons. To achieve this without juicing they would need to be on a very strict rigorous workout regime. There would be lots of downtime during recovery. Finally, you would need a very specific, HIGH quality diet to reach and maintain that mass. Those women in that pic, if they aren't juicing are most definitely taking the highest quality sups and vitamins on the market. Let alone an abundance of specific healthy foods and a strict meal plan.
In todays world of abundance where these things are easily available, this could be doable. But in a post apocalyptic world where the world and environment make the plans, not you? Where you need to be on your game and can't spare recovery days due to zombies and other crazy people and any other emergencies that would come up in that kind of situation? Where because of all of that you wouldn't be able to train those specific muscle groups as rigorously as you would need to because you need to be ready? IMO, I absolutely don't think so.
Go find me a real world example of tribes, or people who live in an environment where it is survival of the fittest, where the women are big and muscular. It costs a lot of fuel to maintain that mass. Truth is, that females function MUCH more efficiently in survival situations with less muscle mass and at much less of a fuel intake than they do with more mass. This is why all these tribal women who actually do stuff men do, look slender or less bulky. Because their bodies naturally perform MUCH more efficiently this way and it is dangerous for them to try to unnaturally perform outside of that range.
If you want some real world examples in real time, go watch Alone. There are several female participants from the second season on. Watch how they just melt away and their muscles become much leaner and FAR less bulky even though they are in a survival of the fittest situation and literally have to struggle every day to stay alive. You can easily compare to the men here, who lose mass as well, but on average not nearly as much. And due to having more muscle mass in general, and being able to pack it on faster when they DO have food due to the way testosterone works where it increases mass by increasing protein muscle synthesis, you'll see how they can last longer than females who are wasting away along with them. They can just produce far more muscle for their body to devour. Which I believe is why people aren't fussed about Joel so much since it is far more believable for him to look bigger. In fact, speaking on his forearms which I've seen brought up, hand strength in men is a particular area where men excel greatly.
Hand-grip strength of young men, women and highly trained female athletes - European Journal of Applied Physiology
Hand-grip strength has been identified as one limiting factor for manual lifting and carrying loads. To obtain epidemiologically relevant hand-grip strength data for pre-employment screening, we determined maximal isometric hand-grip strength in 1,654 healthy men and 533 healthy women aged 20–25...
link.springer.com
Your forearms are a huge contributor to your grip strength. So for Joel it makes sense. Especially when you think about it in context with everything I've said. Men grow muscle faster due to testosterone. The one thing that men do workout ALL the time, even if they aren't training, is their hands. They are constantly moving them and gripping things. More activation in that area is going to mean more mass. More muscle mass, especially continual repetitive movements which would also strengthen tendons as well are going to cause more vasculature, which also grow easier in men. Thing is, our bones keep growing all our life. But areas with more vasculature are going to grow even more. So men who do more with their hands, even when not on a training regime, are just going to continue to have larger forearms and hands throughout their life because that area is going to keep growing faster than others. If you look around you at some of the older service men or manual labor workers who otherwise look unfit, you'll see this. Which is why Abby's forearms alone look so frigging ridiculous. Not even to mention everything else... To achieve that would be crazy hard for a real woman today, living in a world of abundance. Let alone maintaining it in that environment."
VlaudTheImpaler
tl;dr
If we are talking about Ellie using weapons to take dudes out... then def Ellie is more realistic. Weapons, particularly firearms, and the skill and guile to use them are amazing equalizers.
Which is why I always encourage women to carry a weapon they know how to use and make it a habit to train with it often. Once a week at the least. Get to the point where it is second hand nature and you don't even need to think. Getting there is hard, maintaining that isn't so bad.
But, if we are talking about her physically overpowering dudes much bigger than her then yeah. But at least she would only be unrealistic in one area vs abby who would still be unrealistic in two. Strength and mass.
Explosive Zombie
Banned
I think the word realism needs to be removed from a game about spore zombies.
Bad example. They exist on a smaller scale in bugs.
So as far as Zombies in general go, they're actually realistic.
Nature be scary, yo
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Explosive Zombie
Banned
Good point, the game where giant fat zombies wander around shooting gas out of themselves is totally realistic. Again, we're saying a game is unrealistic because of the frame of a woman when it's modeled after a real woman's frame and the game contains actual zombies and not normal ones, spore zombies.
VlaudTheImpaler
tl;dr
The entire draw of the "zombie" trope is that it happens in a real world environment that otherwise obeys the normal rules of nature... This is why it works so well in instilling the fear that this could happen, and then what would you do? It helps immensely to sell the idea when it happens in a plausible manner or the theory behind it seems like it actually could happen.
Also, the zombies T Teslerum was talking about are in fact "spore" zombies...
www.natureworldnews.com
"A zombie ant fungus "knows" its host, and only releases brain-controlling chemicals when it finds itself attached to its preferred ant species, according to a new study.
Parasitic fungi from the genus Ophiocordyceps - also known as the "zombie ant fungus" - control their ant hosts by inducing a biting behavior. Although these fungi can infect many different types of insects, they prefer a certain kind of ant in particular, and wait to attack until they find such a desirable host.
The fungus has evolved a mechanism that induces hosts to die, attached by their mandibles, to plant material. This provides a platform from which the fungus can grow and shoot spores to infect other ants."
Also, some fungus do explode or "shoot gas out of themselves" as a release mechanism.
Also, the zombies T Teslerum was talking about are in fact "spore" zombies...
Zombie Ant Fungus 'Knows' its Host
A zombie ant fungus "knows" its host, and only releases brain-controlling chemicals when it finds itself attached to its preferred ant species, according to a new study.
www.natureworldnews.com
"A zombie ant fungus "knows" its host, and only releases brain-controlling chemicals when it finds itself attached to its preferred ant species, according to a new study.
Parasitic fungi from the genus Ophiocordyceps - also known as the "zombie ant fungus" - control their ant hosts by inducing a biting behavior. Although these fungi can infect many different types of insects, they prefer a certain kind of ant in particular, and wait to attack until they find such a desirable host.
The fungus has evolved a mechanism that induces hosts to die, attached by their mandibles, to plant material. This provides a platform from which the fungus can grow and shoot spores to infect other ants."
Also, some fungus do explode or "shoot gas out of themselves" as a release mechanism.
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Explosive Zombie
Banned
Because it happens to bugs means it happening to humans is realistic, but we couldn't possibly have one female get as buff as real life females have because that defies realism? I just don't buy the argument.
VlaudTheImpaler
tl;dr
What part of, "helping to sell the idea that this could actually happen" don't you understand? Again. The whole draw of the zombie trope for tons of people is that it happens in an otherwise realistic, or as plausible as possible, environment. Just like so many other horror tropes. Because this helps sell the fear of, "Oh man, what would I do in that situation?" So yes. Having everything else obey real life as much as possible in order to trick the viewer into sinking into that plausible fear is key. If we are talking about games that are based in that realistic setting to begin with. Which by the looks of the first game where everything you experience makes you go, "wow that really seems like what would actually happen.", it is. This really helps sell the emotional journey and struggle of the characters as well. You really relate to peoples plight in these situations because they are so believable and the people in them are likely just as frail as you have the potential to be.
Unless they explained somewhere or set the precedent for "women" being able to be just as buff as men in the post apocalypse people are going to feel this is jarring. And rightfully so. It's already quite jarring to see buff women in a society of abundance where people can get all the treatments, roids, food, sups and have all the time in the world they need. So when seeing it in a game where other than the trope it's using, everything else seems to follow real world rules... Well, this is why I think people are calling foul when it comes to Abby. On top of all the other things of course.
Explosive Zombie
Banned
I can't reply, don't want a ban, go in the leak thread sometime and I could respond.
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VlaudTheImpaler
tl;dr
Post it in the spoiler thread. But if it's just from working out... My point still stands. In spades.
Explosive Zombie
Banned
Can you not argue with points you're unwilling to fully engage? Either go to the spoiler thread or cede the argument.
VlaudTheImpaler
tl;dr
Wut? I'm saying to go to the spoiler thread so we can continue this...
Jon Neu
Banned
I’m all about everybody doing the game they want, but please, stop saying “it’s realistic”.
In a world based on violence, women would be nothing more than sex slaves. Ellie would be dead or have half a dozen of babys already.
And that girl would have never ever had the extreme luxury of having the time, the machines, the security, the nutrition and the steroids to reach her physique.
So no, it has nothing to do with “realism”.
And that girl would have never ever had the extreme luxury of having the time, the machines, the security, the nutrition and the steroids to reach her physique.
So no, it has nothing to do with “realism”.
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alabtrosMyster
Banned
Man, you guys see the SJW everywhere, just like they see the *ist and *phobe all over the place.
Bloody Knuckles
Banned
Woman is jacked, dont see a problem with it, she could be on test honestly and that could even be stated in the story somewhere.
If the story is well told, the fact that Abby is so grotesquely jacked will be used to tell you something about who she is / her pathos. The caliber of the writing in part one should lead one to believe that a physique that out of the ordinary was a deliberate STORY choice. Not a bonkers, never been demanded or discussed before, appeasement to the trans community.
OmegaSupreme
advanced basic bitch
Fun video for you all.
RainblowDash
Gold Member
Sorry about that.
Though is it really a spoiler when it's a basic detail about the game?
manuvlad
Neo Member
Nope.
I'm a man, but not white. My father is black and my mother is white. I have a wife and a 16 years daughter that suffer a lot with sexism on a daily basis. We are from Brazil, an extremely sexist and racist place. Sexism is a real thing. It's a threat for women like my daughter, my wife, and billions of women around the world. I think playing a videogame with a female character that is just normal, with clothes that make sense, showing that women are more than boobs is a minor price to pay in order to help change this situation.
Bigrx1
Banned
I was just curious what made you specify white men specifically when you said gamers need to grow up, white gamers. Do you think that white men are the ones who like scantily clad women in games and other races don't?
Gp1
Member
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Halo is Back
Member
I will just post this as food for thought. When you think of the most Iconic movie female heroins who comes to mind? I think many people would say Ellen Ripley. Fun fact, Ripley was originally going to be as a guy and was written to keep that option open. When you make the sexuality or gender the defining feature of a character you have failed to write a compelling character.
B-universe
Banned
They don't need to look like that. But they certainly can look like that, provided devs want them to look like that.
The stupidity of this statement, the pathetic gremlin of intersectionality rearing its head is a sight to behold. Please provide evidence white men en masse are opposing so-called evolution.
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Paracelsus
Member
Ripley works because it happened to feature nothing that a woman realistically couldn't handle.
Try to replace John McClane in Die Hard with a woman but write the same exact scenario.
That's exactly what they do for women in videogames now, and that's why it never works.
Halo is Back
Member
I don't really get what you are saying. Defeating a perfect killing machine is hardly what I would call "realistically couldn't handle", and there have been plenty of female action heroines in a realistic setting. The problem is when you take an already established character and replace them with a gay female or whatever. The point is to write the person as any other human, make a good character first then you can worry about gender.
Paracelsus
Member
That's when writing comes into play.
Alien 1 = dumped it in outer space
Alien 2 = defended herself with an exoskeleton until she could dump it in outer space
Alien 3 = basically cooked it alive
and Alien 2 and 3 required quite a lot of team effort and weaponry to get there.
Die Hard is a completely different deal, weapons aside there's physical effort you can't dismiss after switching gender. You would have to switch gender to the whole cast.
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Halo is Back
Member
Come on man. That's ridiculous and you know it. There was nothing special about John MC, just an ordinary cop who had a lot of balls. Physical strength is not everything, John mostly just out smarted his opponents and so did Ripley in the first movie.
Paracelsus
Member
Physical strength is not everything yet can change movies.
By following the original step by step like you said Joanna McClane wouldn't overpower Tony, would 100% die against Kurt, maybe against Marco (but that's exclusively weapons), would totally not be able to toss a six feet eight man out the window, would most likely fall down the ventilation shaft and die (that was borderline for a man), quite possibly wouldn't run fast enough to survive the sneak rifle assault by Kurt, she would not be able to untie herself in time as the platform was dragging her out the window, and who knows if she would be able to take Hans off his/her wife before Hans shot them both.
That is unless they were built much bigger than the average man, which is why you get to characters like Abby. They want them to do everything a man can do, they want it to be taken seriously, then they realize the issue and basically design men with a woman's head model.
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thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
It goes even deeper than that, even. This idea that we're "constantly evolving" is a lie; technology is constantly evolving but man is not machine. We have a generally fixed nature, that's why we tend to repeat certain things over and over throughout history. It's why we have a history to begin with: by analyzing the past, we can build off it AND generally predict where we go into the future as well as what mistakes we may end up repeating again if lessons from the past are not kept in mind and at heart.
Certain people of the far-left persuasion, in order to hammer home this fantasy that we are "constantly evolving", have to disregard the past. The past can't exist, because to them the past can't influence the future else that would be them admitting that man's nature of the past is still their nature of present and will be within the future. People aren't malleable or programmable like machines, that's something these modern-day wackos don't want to understand, mainly because a lot of them have no genuine feelings of human love, care, or compassion and the ones way up high don't even regard human life all that much in the first place.
*By "nature" I'm referring to things like human morality, ethical standards, sense of justice (actual justice, not "social justice" as it's been warped into meaning these days) and good virtue, faith in God (or a God), reflecting righteous values in our myths, etc. Of course, there's other, more negative aspects of our nature that will always be present at least to some degree in some bits of people simply because if they can exist, they will exist. Stuff like racism, sexism, prejudice, hatred etc. You'll never be able to 100% "get rid" of that stuff within humanity, but by and large those things do not define the dominant nature of humanity as a species....and never have.
That's where this idea of 'constantly evolving" falls flat; it predicates itself on the notion that there were never societies in the past with strong, righteous morality, ethical standards, justice, paragons of virtue etc. But that couldn't be more wrong. Yes all societies in the past have had their negative aspects as well, but that' just part of the territory that comes with being human. We're flawed, it is what it is. But some SJW extremists think those negative aspects have always dominated societies of the past, which is complete bullshit. We didn't suddenly start caring about (or practicing) things like equality after Trump got elected. In fact I'd say efforts of equality and justice were more genuine before either him or Obama were elected; because nowadays we see from fringe far-left SJWs that to them equality basically means putting down certain groups (or pillars that have been cornerstones of Western society for ages, like Christianity and the nuclear family) simply to supposedly prop up other groups. And they don't even respect the groups they're supposedly propping up, either. It's just political brownie points for them :/
GymWolf
Gold Member
So how do you explain my 3 testicles?
FranXico
Member
Ssshhh... don't give them ideas.
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
GymWolf
Gold Member
Not exactly but it's a fun argument to use when people ask about my special features.I...I can't
But I'd like to think that helps in the "stamina" department xD
D.Final
Banned
Naughty Dog made female characters less feminine to be trans friendly
New screenshots reveal that all the female characters in The Last of Us Part II have been made to look more androgynous allegedly to not offend transwww.sausageroll.com.au
Welp
D.Final
Banned
Harsh but also partially true
No, it's not fucking true.
Roufianos
Member
Oh really, who in the game has a feminine figure then?
WouldYouKindly
Banned
How about you play the game and find em yourself. Its a post apocalyptic game everyone is starving and trying to survive and im sorry but Dina is thicc and has a nice ass
theres girls with big chests and asses in Jackson. Just stop with your fud bro dont like the game? Don't play it but if your not gonna play it don't speak on it.
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eastwood333
Banned
Cool. So we can't have pretty,attractive women/men in video games anymore without being offended. People are morons. Way to get your priorities in line ND :/
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