Ugh, that is just stupid! Hopefully it's just some idiotic desktop wallpaper and the in-game action shots keep her colouring true to the original.

In other news, wtf did they do to Anders?! *headdesk*

Oh I know it's just the desktop - but it still made me rage. I hate that kind of stupidity and how it got past their marketing team I don't know... (Well I do, I think Bioware's marketing sucks.)

I am scared by an Anders/Justice hybrid (that's what made me go look it up). I like both characters - but they're so different, I can't imagine them merged. And Anders hated the Chantry, not the Circle... So again, their copywriter/marketing fail. Sigh.

I think it's awful either way. We as humans are a variety of colours! It makes us unique! Why can't we celebrate it instead of trying to make everyone look the same? Argh!

Anders was so sweet and happy and sarcastic! And possibly another Theirin bastard! Wtf did they do to him?! And Justice was all about fulfilling his duty! Why on earth Thedas would he not go back to the Fade?!

I wasn't worried about this game, but now I am. :/ Not like I still won't play it, of course!

Oh don't be put off the game - Bioware's marketing is always crap. If I'd seen only the ME2 trailers without knowing the game itself (the Jack 'bitch' one is particularly laughable) I'd never have played.

It astounds me how people think blank old square jawed and white is the only thing that sells. *rolls eyes* This is why I agree with Bill Hicks about marketing...

Anders, in my head, was Fiona's son (he's a mage! It makes more sense) and Alistair a maids son, as he said. To me it makes sense, as they're so similar it's painful. Justice stayed with Anders and has become Vengence? It sounds so naff! And it better not mean a new voice actor, because I adore Anders VA.

It's been pre-ordered since October or something, so it's all good. I just think it's stupid. Square-jawed heroes are nice and all, but can't we have more options? I know gaming marketing is targeted for guys 18-34 but seriously, they're not all white! Or square-jawed! I actually read this wonderful article about the 'new' gaming hero in which it was discussed how smarter, craftier avatars like Altair in Assassin's Creed were replacing guns'n'muscle like Duke Nukem. I think it was the Wall Street Journal, but it was a few years ago. I must Google it.

They look so much alike (though Alistair, to me, is hotter. Broad shoulders, yum) that they have to be related! I'd love a Cousland Warden Queen bringing him home with Eamon gaping and Alistair and Anders exchanging awful orphan-upbringing tales. ;)

It's just so OOC for Justice in the first place! And, exactly, Anders hated the Chantry, not the Circle. It's like when you're reading a large book series and the author seems to have forgotten a major character trait or plot in a previous book and you wonder what they and their editors were doing when they weren't fact-checking or proof-reading!

One of the reasons I love Portal - and it's such a silly thing! - apart from it being an excellent, well made game - is that it's a female character by default and you can't change her to a bloke. She isn't a busty, sexy long haired wench, she's a normal looking girl in a fully covered-up jumpsuit. Why should that be so unusual? Sigh.

(On that note - why doesn't Isabela wear pants? Does a games designer really think it'd be nice to run around that kind of world dressed that like - even if you're a badass pirate lady?)

It makes it worse that I get to play the odd woman, but never a brown skinned one (Never, ever yet outside of an MMO or RPG game where I can change the skintone). Never by default. And certainly never Indian. Hah!

Anders and Alistair totally know they're bros in my head!canon DA:Awakenings. The meeting King Alistair at the gate scene? Much less formal!

Yeah - I'm not judging yet - but the marketing so far? Rubbish... (But still not as bad as the ME books haha)

And I was always jealous of the coltish, awkward, gangly, etc teenaged heroines in books! Anne Shirley, Jo March, all making me feel like a blowsy slattern! (I had to start wearing a bra at age 10. Just as bad for the ego as not having to wear one until age 16, imho.) How does this relate? As much as I hate women being objectified, I equally hate the notion that having major T&A is 'wrong'. This is coming out badly because I can't formulate my argument. Argh. What I mean is, people hate Miranda because she's well-endowed. Well, that's just stupid, imho. Hate her because she inexplicably wears high heels in battle, but not because she has curves!

Ahem. Sorry! Obviously Isabela should be wearing pants! Anne Bonny always wore pants when in battle so she wouldn't be tripped up by her skirts! Mary Read, well, she was often disguised as a man, but same thing! PANTS!

I think it's awful that there aren't more skin tone options and that they aren't implemented in all games that support creating a character. The RGB are there in the game to begin with! It makes no sense. >:/

Ooh! I like your head!canon for DA:A. :)

Oh dear G-d, don't mention the ME books. I pretend that they simply do not exist. LA LA LA! Also, as much as I like Anderson, I never got the whole 'surrogate father' or even 'major mentor' vibe from him to Shepard that so many other people do. I know it's canon, but not my head!canon. Maybe one day I'll explore that. If I ever, you know, actually finish my fic. Argh. Hit me.

Oh well you know I too am well endowed in the boob department, I'm not a size 10 the world must be skinny idiot either. I just hate that to be seen as sexy in games you need boobs & ass and long, flowy hair and half your clothes falling off. It's rare a woman can look like a normal person - no makeup, no fancy clothes - in a game (or TV for that matter.)

I saw a comment the other day (by a snotty teenage boy I dislike immensely so I'm already biased) about how Miri's new uniform made her butt smaller - which was a good thing. Her butt was always a beautiful shape! I wanted to slap him.

The DA books I could stand - just - but the ME ones? Shameful. How they could be published... *shudder* On my Jane Shep, she had the mentor thing going. My other female not so much and my male, Bastard? He hates Anderson.

(using all my curvacious female icons!)

Now I feel terrible for wishing Shepard had more hair options. ;)

I DO hate the undressed or sexed up appearance thing. Jack's 'outfit'? SERIOUSLY?! Hell no.

... what?! Obviously an idiot hick because no one I know would want a lady's bum to be smaller!

Are the DA books worth reading? I need to burn my eyes out. I need new reads!

Yeah, it was bad enough when he wouldn't help you in ME2! So I thought. (I love Hackett for some reason, though. Bring him back!) My head!canon for Rachel is that she joined the Alliance out of desperation and she never expected to be a soldier, much less a 'hero'. She feels like the Alliance used her as tool and she let them because she felt she had no other option. Garrus has been picking up on this! It's part of the bathtub breakdown chapter. Gah, why does everything make sense in my head and look so stupid written out?

hah nothing wrong with it! As long as default!avatar isn't buxom barmaid bint or missing her pants (Isabela!), they can have as many options as they like. I guess I'm tired - as I love D&D type games but men get cool butch armour, yet women get bits missing or boobs hanging out. Why can't they have both - so if you want to dress girly, you can - but if you want to be badass, you can?

Hah it's someone you'd recognise - go check out the alternate outfits threads & you'll know who I mean right off ^^

The DA books aren't bad, but they're not great literature. The writing is weak, but the story is rollicking (What a great excuse to use that word!)and gives some lovely lore to Loghain, Maric (and by extension Cailan/Alistair) and especially the yummy Duncan.

I think him calling you a terrorist - or implying it - did sour their friendship, for sure.

That sounds great, tho, your Shep was used like that.

No, no, I really do agree with you. I'm just on this mission to bring curves back into fashion. It's become automatic for me to spew 'but there's nothing wrong with having boobs and hips!'. I really do hate when the female avatar is running around half naked and looking like they're going to topple over from the weight of their gigantic boobs on their anorexic frame. :/

I already did, because I'm sneaksy. ;) Though I do like said person's artwork, they're obviously infatuated with asari and I don't understand that. At all. (I think I'm becoming anti-asari. Except for Matriarch Aethyta. She rocks.)

Sometimes I wish authors would write the same books I love, only, you know, with a brand new story. I wish I could get into The Game of Thrones series, but I keep trying and I simply cannot. I'll still watch the miniseries for all the awesome acting chops they've acquired, but I cannot slog through the first book. I feel rather stupid, actually, since everyone loves them, but I find them so unreasonably complicated and boring. Argh. Stupid brain, again.

Yes! And then pulling the 'I'm old and you gave me this job I don't want so I'm going to crankypants to you' crap on Shepard. I imagine after talking to Anderson the second time, after Horizon, was when she hit Darkstar in my head!canon. (Is it wrong that I want Bioware to explain how turians pee? That poor guy in the bathroom with Shepard on the floor!)

Well I totally agree with curves, so keep that mission going :)

Oh he's a good artist, he's just very, very sexist and seems to have no idea how sexist he's being. *Shrug* I leave alone & it's all good. Back to not everyone gets on with each other.

I quite enjoyed Game of Thrones (well I read the first two) for the politics, but I did skim read it (ie miss the long, boring exposition bits) and it isn't the best literary writing, so I understand you.

Ahh my Shep has a reunion (in my head) post suicide mission which patches things up. But different Sheps have different relationships - that's why I love it. It's like 90% of fandom assumes Garrus and his father hate each other and I think we're two of the few who don't.

On my huge list of things I mean to do but never actually do is a blog about shopping for the hourglass figure. People think it's so easy. Isn't clothing designed for that? Nope. It's designed to give women the appearance of an hourglass figure. If you actually have one, you're screwed. One day.

Ugh, stupid fandoms. Why can't people be bright and friendly and not morons? :/

Argh, I swear, I've tried reading it five times now and each time I get midway and give up and start skipping entire chapters because they're so freaking boring. Almost all my friends are infatuated with it and I just don't see how glorious it is. Not a rant on them, just that I wish I liked the series!

I saw the fic written for you prompted for that idea! It was lovely. :) I guess I go against some of the norms (there's a shock!) Also, really, for all the strife I have with my parents, Garrus sounded far more like he was rebelling against his dad than his dad was some sort of evil tyrant who would disown him or worse. I think a lot of the fandom takes one or two lines from each character and makes them extremes. Like does poor Kaidan really have a migraine every single freaking day? He wouldn't be able to function, much less be an active duty soldier! Stuff like that just doesn't make sense to me.

Anyway, I'll be quiet now. :)

Major video game retailers, whitening their main characters to make them more attractive?

SAY IT AIN'T SO.

Bioware need to sack their marketing department so hard. I've watched them screw up gender, sexuality and now race? There are no words for how shite they are.

Edited at 2011-02-09 01:31 pm (UTC)

Jesus, seriously. I wonder if this has been pointed out in the main forums yet?

Feel free to mention it - I rarely dare go there =) Bioware do need a slap for it.

I was wondering why that wallpaper was off-looking. I hope it's just the artificial lighting put into the art, or some version of desaturating to add to the "style".

(Totally OT, but at least there's one tanned female character that I could cosplay as one day! xD)

You would be totally badass as her. You're prettier though!

Since we're on the topic of colored characters and DAII cast, let me just say that the character Fenris looks just so adorable, and interesting. ♥

Ah if only I was good at stitching! I'd go out of my way and buy a bunch of fabric for any future geek conventions. XD

He looks so hot. I'm hoping he's a love interest, but I've not been keeping up with it, so I don't know for sure. I'm looking forward to DA2 for sure.

You need to find a good friend who can sew, you'd be so badass as Isabela. Though that armpiece bit looks complicated (and yet so pretty).

He does! I'm hoping a sweet voice will match up to that, but knowing BioWare, they've probably picked someone good for him. I do love M!Hawke's voice <3

It does look complicated, but I think most of the best video game wardrobes are intricate like that. Such beautiful detail in armor and the like. I even like Hawke's outfit, whatever the hell s/he's wearing. :P

what. And she's not just white in the desktop, she's porcelain pale. "Well this character has darker skin in-game, so for the desktop pic let's make her blindingly white. I don't see how this could reflect badly on us at all!"

I don't feel so bad in my rage now - you're right at how stupendously pale she is. Silly Bioware marketing!

Argh, Bioware. Please stop being total jerks over this kind of thing.

They really need to learn that their audience is wider and that a lot of people have no issue with darker skin tones, no matter what their own skin tone is.

Their marketing really leaves a lot to be desired.

I should have credited you - your post about the Anders/Justice insanity made me go look at the site.

I'd sack their marketing department. I hated their DA:O and ME2 marketing campaigns and they don't seem to have improved since then.

Not at all. I was just ranting as I'd been spoiled by one of the DA:O clubs on devArt because they don't know how to put the word 'Spoilers' in brackets (or as the club admin said - they didn't think it was a spoiler - you're giving away an entire co-habiting two characters, I hate to imagine her idea of a spoiler) in a title. Then finding out what I'd been spoiled with made me nerd-rage. Justice/Nate would've made much more sense to me.

I'm with you on the replacement of their entire marketing department. We might even see some female character representation then too, beyond 'look at this hot chick you can totally do in this game'. Like Female Shepard or Hawke. I live in hope.

*raises eyebrow* So sick of that kind of fuckery. Someone earlier said they were going to check the Bioware Forums, I shall pop over too.

On the more positive side, I need to play the first game again because I don't think I've still got my save. Alas! Wonder if it's possible before DAII...

Entirely unrelated...I did some research on this girl and heh ended up filling in the blanks about my own head!Cousland XD Tis seem these two hail from the same regions...so weird! I did some notes and crap on my head!F!Cousland and strangely enough months after coming up with her back story (where she's from) I was reading about Isabella's back story and realized she hails from a very very similar society/region/location as my DA!Aeron. The fact they share same skin tones/ethnic makes me many levels of happy. Too bad we can't transport our DA1 chars into DA2 like ME!

Okay back to reality...Judging by the images it does look like she's been desaturated. If you look at her clothes by comparison to how it appears in the screen caps it looks excuse the pun whitewashed. Everything is paled and washed out so i'm guessing/hoping its just some twit who decided to play with PS a little too long and ended up with this disastrous, I mean end results...

And on that note if she's actually pale as Morrigan in the game I will be peeved! They better not ruin her for the sake of appealing to racists the supposed masses.

Oh how cool! My first Cousland was dark, but with her parents so pale (why didn't it pick up her skin tone, idk...) I re-rolled her paler. My mage is the Riviani-toned one :) I love that your backstory suits Isabela. I hope some hint of your imported save games might let them interact - or at least be mentioned.

Yeah I'm hoping its EA messing up Bioware's stuff, as that's been suggested. I'd not be surprised.

Yeah I didn't get that either why they didn't change the parents skin tone but in the end it worked well for my back-story for her. I love the Riviani skin tone I never knew what region Duncan had hailed from but when I saw him I knew my Cousland was from those regions too ♥

Oh my goodness me too! That would be awesome if there was a connection. Honestly, it hink this is the first time I've really shut my ears on the spoilers because I'm almost scared to find out what is to come. Though sadly it comes out when I'm in school so no fun time for me with DA2 till April =P

Bah it better be EA I mean Bioware has such potential it would be so disappointing if it was them =/

Great read! I wish you could follow up to this topic