#MASTER POST: "The Road to Masyaf" or How I spent my summer vacation with Aveline de Grandpre

[weber_dubois22]

Technically speaking it probably won’t be an official year since the release of “Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation” until October 30TH, 2013. Still, this feels like as good a time to ruminate over the journey of this game since I learned of it during E3 June 2012. The following is a condensed retelling of the last seven months of 2012 that by no means details any mentions of the end of the world.


TRIGGER WARNING: Racism, prejudice, sexism

THE REACTION: In which Ubisoft make themselves look like silly by contradicting earlier comments



The announcement that Ubisoft would be developing an “Assassin’s Creed” for the PlayStation Vita that would feature a female protagonist, moreover a Black female protagonist, sent the gaming community for a loop. They’d barely finished declaring “the past is a man’s world, women have no place in it as proactive combatants” when this happened; a lot of us were excited, and a lot of us were hesitant. The Video Game Industry first and foremost caters to the white, heterosexual male demographic; almost without thought they perpetuate the mentalities of sexism, racism, homophobia and misogyny and are rarely apologetic for it; on top of that they’ve a cheerleading squad (the gaming community) who’ll defend them for it.

That said, when the protagonist is allowed to be a woman, it’s usually a white female. White females are our unspoken default representatives in regards to feminism, agency and empowerment in visual media; it’s almost never thought or consideration to create a Black, Latino, East Asian/South Asian (Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, Indian), etc. protagonist who happens to be a woman. Valve is the only developer I can think of that has three major hit games where the deuteragonist or protagonist is a Woman of Color (Chell, Rochelle, Alyx Vance). DICE gave us "Mirror's Edge"; BioWare and Bethesda at least allow the player to customize their protagonist on every possible level they could think of in regards to gender/sex, sexuality and appearance. Problematic as “Dead Island” is, it has two playable POC women you can control. Everything else? You’re lucky to see a Character of Color period, let alone a WOC in something other than a background role.

So with only a handful of bullshots, reports on Ubisoft’s announcement and a gameinformer magazine interview on the game itself, I have to say, my reaction was one of pure elation. I couldn’t believe we were actually getting a Black female protagonist and from the developers who more or less have avoided stepping into the offensive shit with a series that has been primarily dominated by Characters of Color (Ezio Auditore being the only possible exception to that rule).

The downside? It was on a portable system I had no money for and was ultimately not going to get an lot of mileage out of (the last handheld I owned was a Gameboy. A Gameboy, folks); thus, I could only hope that a): the fandom put their money where their mouths were and supported this character when it came time to do so, and b): Ubisoft would put this on the PlayStation Network. And with that in mind, I went to work.


THE SUPPORT: In which I attempt to use Tumblr again, but their security sucks.


The following is a screencap of post reblogged from my now defunct blog.

A couple of days after the E3 2012 announcement I created a tumbleblog for Aveline de Grandpre. It was called “theassassinaveline”. I made it with the intention of supporting the character, because a): as a female she would be largely ignored by the fandom enamored with male protagonists and b): as a Black female she would be doubly ignored by the fandom enamored with male protagonists and a distinct hatred for Black women.

I zipped around made some graphics and picked the popular layout of the moment by vivite (now zuvia). The background you see in either this dreamwidth or this livejournal? That was the background for the tumbleblog specified to my screen resolution. theassassinaveline a blog in the long line of Black-dedicated blogs I created (hellyeahmilesmorales, fuckyeahrochelle, fuckyeahraquelervin (Rocket from Young Justice), and kinglantern ---aka, fuckyeahjohnstewart). And I got an incredible amount of support from Black tumblr members (notable among them, ladyatheist and ladiesoftheink). I combated the earliest signs of stupidity, i.e., the beginnings of people dismissing well thought out posts such as this with posts like this. I called folk out on whitewashing Aveline before she got her foot out the door. Then there were the “Dragon Age” fans who thought the “Aveline” tag belonged to them because the white female character in that particular game was named Aveline. I got a called a prick merely saying: “Yeah, no, her name is Aveline and I think I’m going to use the Aveline tag.”


Good times.

I think the community barely ran for a good week and a half before tumblr was once again compromised by hackers or folk looking to steal people’s accounts by setting up accounts that compromise their personal PCs. Tumblr was absolutely silent about this, leading to misconceptions about what was going on; some people thought it was a virus, but in the end it was the aforementioned, but no one thought to say anything about it until the issue was presumably “dealt with”. By that point, however, I’d closed all of my accounts by deleting my primary one. Sufficed to say, in conjunction to watching an utterly crushing J-Drama (Kamisama mou sukoshi dake, 1998), me deleting all of those accounts left yours truly in a state of a genuine depression. I felt dead in the water because the platform in which I could arguably support Aveline the best and be supported by fellow POC, sucks. It sucks because they don’t know shit about protecting the user base that sticks with them because their addicted to the system itself (for whatever reasons). Goes to show you how invested I became in this game, emotionally speaking, because of its ramifications.

I think I stayed that way until I reconciled myself to the shrinking island of LiveJournal and the ghost town that is dreamwidth.org; I knew I would get little to no support from anyone, but if I could be content and happy with supporting Aveline in my own way, then I could and so I did. I reposted all the information I had on my tumbleblog, sans the reactionary reblogs from users, into the journals and continued to report and report and report on Aveline’s progression even in the face of how little was actually being reported verses its console counterpart. And I really couldn’t be mad that though because, “Native American Assassin, guys!” (This is before I experienced the utter trite that was “Assassin’s Creed III”). My dedication was enough to have caught the attention of a livejournal user who works or is associated with the “The Official Assassin's Podcast” (or Gbiese as their known @YouTube.com). They asked me if I'd like to submit questions for Aveline’s actress, Amber Goldfarb and inquired if it was alright to mention my livejournal on their podcast under the agreement of an embargo. (I could announce anything until the podcast was up.) I answered “yes” to all the above and submitted some questions. None of them were ever submitted or put forth in the actual podcast and sufficed to say, my site was never mentioned either. Still the mere fact that they asked, flattered me something fierce.

THE FAN-DUMB: Racist fandom is racist.



I remember once, during the initial announcement that the next Assassin would be Native-American and White (biracial), there was a lot of hub-bub about it. I wrote a post early on during my stay on Tumblr about "why exactly he had to be Native American AND white?" as opposed to simply Native American, but I was able to retrieve it from any the places that reblogged it. The comment among the fandom that stood out for me, however, was simply: “the Assassin’s Creed fandom is racist as fuck”. I agreed with the sentiment, considering the artworks depicting the Syrian protagonist (Altair) and his brown comrades (Malik) were often whitewashed to the point of granting them blonde hair and blue eyes (a true image of an Aryan nation). Then there were the downright awful Connor fan art pieces where he was wearing random streaks of colorful pain across his face and chest and worse, had a feather sticking out of his head. Racism worked overtime with “Liberation” and “Creed III”, let me tell you.

Doing my best to ignore it, I submitted my own written works about Aveline prior to and after the game’s release. They are undoubtedly among the most popular “Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation” fanfiction available to read and if I do say so myself, some my favorite stories written.

However, I did not realize the gravity of that aforementioned comment until I devoted my time to “Liberation”. Without question I knew that there would be racist and prejudice supporting groups in the fandom that would do stupid things; at this point in life you expect them, they’re far too eager to show their asses off. I spent a great deal of time in those brief weeks on tumblr nailing racists to the walls when they tried to argue in the defense of this, this and this – whitewashed pieces of Aveline de Grandpre. However, things really didn’t get rolling until October of 2012, on the month of the game’s release.

A tumblr user, avelinedegrandpres called cosplayer Rick Boer and his wife, Dominque out on their brownface practices, calling it “colorface”. Naturally, it struck fear into the hearts of racists everywhere who were more concerned with aesthetic than morality, and damn if they didn’t go running to Boer with their tails between their legs and yapping about the “sjws” were “slandering” the man for his hard work. The number of people who naturally did not get what was being said by avelinedegrandpres and the people that supported her was astounding (I’ve got receipts; tumblr has receipts like you wouldn’t believe). They also decided to harass this user like nothing else.

I decided to support this user and wrote the lengthiest post you could imagine on how absolutely wrong this man and his wife was practicing brownface and worse, attempting to explain away their wrongdoings by using an equally racist pastime (zwarte Piet, look it up if you like to be sick) and submitted it to stopwhitewashing.com. racebending.com eventually quoted it on their tumblr page and got a message from a Facebook account belonging to photography Cynthia Veekens requesting that I remove the photographs because they, and I quote “do not want these used for such an article”; I.E., they didn’t want to be associated with an information piece exposing racism, but were comfortable enough with perpetuating racism through photography. It should be noted that this photographer is also from where Boer hails and thus this reaction is not surprising really. Naturally, I got an influx of supporters and the stragglers that continued to miss the point.

The issue of course, wounded the fandom; they did not want to be reminded that racism was being perpetuated in the fandom; they did not want to be associated with the socially conscious group that wasn’t putting up with the racism in the fandom. So naturally, they chose to abide by the law opposing “Moff’s Law”. They constantly asked “what the big deal” was, they dismissed the arguments and moreover they insulted and threatened those who wouldn’t back down from the issue (naturally, this would be ignored, but the so-called tears of Boer's wife is supposed to make feel bad for her for perpetuating racism). On could arguably say the ringleader for this angry mob was none other than lifeofblink itself.

Eventually, Boer deleted his DeviantART.com account (but later got it reinstated, which goes to show you how much they gave a damn about offendibg folk) and issued a non-apology that cited that his wife would continue to use brownface to portray Aveline and he was sorry that we were offended, but not sorry he actually caused the offense. Typical apology from an offender; naturally the fandom that supported him became an enraged hive of bees and decided to defy the movement for him by reblogging and reposting his brownface photography everywhere on tumblr, further proving just how malignant the cancer of racism truly is.




The easiest thing in the world to do to a minority is to vilify them (EDIT: Irrational game's "Bioshock Infinite" proved this much); twist and miss the point their making and turn it to your advantage so that those who aren’t so educated on the issue, eventually end up supporting their side of the argument. So, the biggest tumbleblog dedicated to Assassin’s Creed, thetumblrhoodheadquarters, decided to dub the community speaking out against the Brownfacing practices of Boer and his wife as “harassers” and this based on the hearsay that some users threatened Boer and “made his wife cry”; this is what's commonly brought up whenever Boer and his ratchet shit is mentioned, but no one ever puts forward any evidence. It’s possible it could’ve happened, yes, but without receipts, it might as well be fictitious propaganda perpetuated by the prejudice.

They’ve deleted the link on their site now (perhaps realizing their folly), but the reblogs remain: there’s not a single shred of commentary in their article that implies that they did any amount of research on the issue at hand, asked others what they thought on the issue, why they thought this was happening, but instead used the fictional Creed of the series to try and make a point on an issue they were missing the point of. Of course, this is a fansite; so naturally, they support the fanaticisms of an unquestioning fandom and depict everyone against Boer and the like as villains.

We as a fandom opposing the spread of the racist photography did what we could my merely making people aware of the foolhardiness of Boer and co.’s actions; (the latest offender is Italian). I made a goddamn list of names that pretty much supported, full stop, brownface and whitewashing the Black and Native American Assassins and I’m nearly up to twenty (but something tells me if I truly dedicated myself to the effort, the list would be well over the hundreds). But in the end, it would seem ignorance reigns supreme on the internet and the issue, as far as I know, continues to be mistranslated as some blind troll attack by the prejudice party. This is largely, of course, because a few strangling POC (or users who claimed to be People of Color) made comments that literally likened to them declaring “Hey, as a [insert nationality here], I’m represent the mythological monolith that is “People of Color are a hivemind” and I’m totally alright with a white cosplayer using Brownface to portray POC instead of just creating an awesomely crafted costume”; I.E., because they were alright with it, every POC should be alright with it. Because they got a few votes of support from some folk who believed no one was causing any offense, their actions on a whole are excused and the overwhelming vote is in the wrong.



Purest examine of a point being ignored.

So, if there’s anything the video gaming community has taught me it’s that it’s by no means mature enough to take criticisms and even less mature to admit and swallow the bitter that is this: The Assassin’s Creed Fandom is hella racist. That Rick Boer and the host of Brownfacing Assassin’s Creed Cosplayers and their supporters have done nothing except protect their right to be racist and prejudice towards marginalized groups because they feel persecuted at both ends when realizing there’s a community that’s not comfortable with white fandom cosplaying POC characters and that there’s a community that doesn’t necessarily mind white fandom cosplaying POC characters, but will not stand for blackface or brownface or the excuses that accompany them are being perpetuated in the face of reason upon reason why it’s wrong and should never be used.

The fact that people continue to support these people shows that we as a society will probably never learn to respect the feelings and opinions of minorities as valid because, hey, if the majority is alright with it, no need to fuss, right? And doubly that the infantile reactions to mere discussions and examinations on racism, misogyny and sexism as perpetuated in games (just visit any video game forum or kotaku.com to see the vitriol and victim blaming), proves that video games probably will never be seen as anything more legitimate than the garbage coming out of the mouths of those who support the stupidity on FOX NEWs.

The only thing you can really defend Video Games against is the scapegoat card the media uses whenever their’s shooting: instead of asking the parents are doing to prevent what is considered media unsuited for children, they blame the industry for “creating killers”, something that can’t be said unless you’re willing to lambast books, movies, the military and its propaganda and the news itself for doing as well. It’s a sad commentary in and of itself because there are some legitimately fantastic games that are self-aware enough or great enough that they avoid the ship that community itself supports.




Suddenly, I was glad I was no longer on tumblr, swimming waist deep in racism. Suddenly I was glad I had site I could moderate and blockade stupidity like the stuff that runs rampant on tumblr. Long story short, I was just glad that I decided to alienate myself from the horde, even it if the choice wasn’t mine to begin with. They’re not worth the time; space and breath because they don’t want to learn of understand the issue. Truthfully, they can’t seem to distance themselves from playing the victim and realizing what they’re doing is wrong because they’ve been taught the minority opinion doesn’t matter if they’re having fun, especially at their expense. And that’s fine, they suffer for it, but that’s fine. And clearly, I’ve made an impact with this little journal that could because I got my first troll on dreamwidth that joined specifically to call me a hypocrite then duck back into the shadows like the little troll they were.



So there's not much I can do about the bullshit people support. What I can do is support the ones who don't perpetuate the bullshit and I do. Every now and again when I feel like being bothered by the assholes of the creed I post a Recommended Cosplayer up on the community and provide links to their other Cosplays. So far there have been some great cosplayers for Aveline and hope the list continues to grow.


THE RELEASE: $600,000 worth in Units



Turns out “Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation” probably had the smallest fandom turnout in comparison to “Assassin’s Creed III”, primarily because of its limitation to the PSVita. Almost no one bought it unless they were on NeoGaf.com and the rest subjected themselves to a Spanish walkthrough that debuted on YouTube a week or day before the game’s physical release. The incentive that you could buy it on the PlayStation Network didn’t seem to inspire a lot of people either. Eventually, its initial selling of the game was over a 100K, which pleased Ubisoft enough it would seem. Its total in sales, post-2012 is a grand $600,000 units overall, which as far as Vita goes, was a box office smash.

The game itself, however, only fairs slightly better than “Assassin’s Creed III”; its story is probably just as weak, but it benefited from a focused narrative and character; Aveline is miles stronger personality and character wise as far as the protagonists go; Connor seemed to wander aimlessly between, “I hope we aren’t offending anyone” and stereotypical “stoic guy” because that’s as bad as the writing gets as far as he’s concerned. Connor was really just a weak character and no amount of service done right to Native American Culture will set that right). Sure, as of now, the character is probably getting some right undue shit, but I’m not support inherently weak writing for a POC character because he’s a POC. They sacrificed his characterization for the masturbation of the revolutionary war simulator that is “Assassin’s Creed III”. “Liberation” did not, and thus Aveline as a character wasn’t scarified for the sake of aesthetics.

Mechanically, “Liberation” also wasn’t bogged down with gamebreaking glitches, crashes and a grand wide empty space of nothingness bogged down RPG-elements without the technique and strategy. However, the gamebreaking save corruption made “Liberation” unplayable. It already had its own problems, all of them tied to the features of the Vita, but damn the save corrupt and animus bug really landed a low blow. Ubisoft barely responded to the cries of help from the user base beyond “we’re working on it”. And when they did finally get around to fixing the glitches, they never made a website wide announcement, gaming sites never made an announcement. It was regulated to the support site (I had to visit the NeoGAF thread for “Liberation” to find out any fixes had been made at all).

Critically, people appeared to enjoy the game (see the reviews tag), giving the game a general rating between 7 and 8 (or lower if they really just didn’t like the Vita). It was fun, but it didn’t blow their minds like the Tripple-A mentality has educated them in. Kotaku.com was probably one of the only sites that was incredibly supportive of “Liberation” as a game and as a story, which was truly appreciative. Post-2012, between the two games, “Liberation” game out as the Awards darling, garnering awards for its writing and music. That in and of itself is an accomplishment. So, in the end, “Liberation” comes out looking better than “Creed III” without breaking a sweat.

THE AFTERMATH: We probably won't see Aveline ever again.


A sad but true statement.

Whenever developers want to appease to a certain audience that is not white, male and heterosexual, their efforts are typically focused on the weakest selling platform in their revenue. The games who are afforded the chance to be a female-driven game (or a POC driven game), aren’t usually given the chance again if it fails (See: Mirror’s Edge and Ubisoft's own Beyond Good and Evil). Visceral Games did it with “Dead Space iOS”, arguably the only “Dead Space” game with a female protagonist. I understand that as a Vita game, “Liberation” is legitimate in all the same ways its overbloated Triple-A game of brother is on the primary consoles. That’s not the problem; the problem is that these efforts rarely feel like a genuine want for a game featuring a POC or female character in a starring role to succeed. And with that said, as much as I love “Liberation”, there’s a great deal about how Ubisoft dealt with its promotion that felt like they were throwing a bone to a community they’ve no real investment in catering to.

If they were, I doubt we’d still be getting primary “Assassin’s Creed” games featuring male protagonists and female characters who are designed to be the T&A for the game (See: “Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag”, now starring another white protagonist). That said, my personal journey with “Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation” was one of happiness, excitement and utter disappointment. I enjoyed the game, despite its problems, and I’m glad to have seen it succeed as well as it has. However, the fandom is tale of woeful stupidity. I’ve never seen a group of people miss a point so Goddamn hard. It’s tragically sad how stupid they’ve all been, but that’s the internet for you. Stupidity reigns supreme and socially consciousness is frowned upon because that’s how people have been educated to think: “Political Correctness” as mere decency towards marginalized groups is called is bad, maintaining status quo is good. The most I can say is don’t support Brownfacing cosplayers and don’t support whitewashing fan artists, they’re a cancerous mentality in all fandoms supporting minority characters.

Still, thanks for the adventure Aveline. It was kinda fun and kinda miserable.