#be nice to Mary Kirby and Courtney Woods

[merciawintersageposting]

i’m gonna put on my little professor internet hat (cone of shame) and come out of my office (trash can).

i’ve got such bad news for all of y’all. i think you’re all 🎯🎯. this is actually a really good breakdown of something that’s been happening over the past decade.

we say that consumerism has always been political. but now, people’s consumer identities are supplanting their political ones. (Tressie McMillan Cottam has talked about about why that’s a problem.)

fandoms are sites where people make consuming media and product an identity. so there’s always going to be mess. DAV exemplifies this. yes there’s entitlement and objectification - AND that’s also enabled by relational marketing of the product to you. how much more involved you (the consumer) were in the marketing rollout, decreased critical media literacy, and in this case- the folklorization of Dragon Age writers (for good and ill).

there’s nothing wrong with engaging in some ways. but parasocial marketing accelerates the way fandoms create little hegemonies out of media. and that makes it hard to analyze things and ask questions without people getting deeply weird about it. cause it’s literally a personal identity AND a product.

at the end of the day,

1. a lot of people cannot sit with unanswered questions we are not owed an answer to (Kirby’s ✨untimely exit✨)

2. many people are very used to rationalizing their opinions and perceived authority by assigning blame or making shit up™️

3. fandoms do not naturally lend themselves to self reflexive critique. but we sure as hell are gonna try. and that had better start by actively listening to what fans of color say about the game

I swear, all I am doing lately is defending the Lucanis romance. Listen: When Mary Kirby, his main writer, got fired, the game was in its beta testing. This means that the main written story was done. Beta phases are for making sure there are no graphical or gameplay issues. Not for writing issues. You're past that point. The argument I keep seeing is that they think the Lucanis romance was "unfinished" because of Kirby leaving. Also saying whoever filled in didn't like romances? No, that was Kirby who didn't like them, but she did still write this one.

Lucanis, and the crows, were also written by Courtney Woods. Courtney originally wrote Lucanis in the various shorts, including the ones in Tevinter Nights. She knows the character just as well. So if they needed any extra writing done for the character, Courtney, having been the original writer of him in all the other media he's in, would have easily been able to write anything that Kirby didn't want to. Courtney did also leave, though, before the layoffs. Regardless, writing at the beta phase state does not usually happen. Writing is finished.

The pacing seems off with him because he is one of the first companions you can get and so you can get some of his scenes very early on, before you even get the full roster. THEN he has some of his later scenes after the crows are addressed in the plot in Act 2. These come near last in the actual story plot, right before Act 3 and the point of no return. So it feels like there's a bigger gap in scenes than there is because of this. His romance scenes actually clock in at more time than Hardings. The romance scenes themselves aren't the issue, it is pacing in actual plot that is the issue. Him not being immediately flirty is his personality and him dealing with a lot. He does have flirty dialogue and does make comments on the two of you in banter and ambient dialogue if you go visit him. He's not completely devoid of it. He is not the "Dashing Hispanic" trope (even though antiva is supposed to be Italian adjacent) ala Zevran or his cousin Illario. He has some of the qualities, but is really bad in the flirting with ladies aspect of it. okay, sorry, it's been building. Thank you for reading my ranting.