Dragon Age News Thread

I'm sure there will be a lot of talk about Solas.

I really liked Alexius and (considering the name of their panel) his character seemed the most "real" to me. He was a good man with ideals, but a personal tragedy made him change

2nd time I've heard this phrase this week. Is this what the cool kids are calling it these days?

It's what the gays have been calling it for decades. The straights are just catching up. We slowly going mainstream. Thanks RuPaul's Drag Race.

Why does every gay person think gay people invented everything?

Its like Chekov in Star Trek.

"Trowing Shade? I know dis. It was inwented in Mother Russia!"

The phrase irritates me. One of the worst pieces of modern lingo, right up there with "bae", "on fleek", "fam", and "woke". Sometimes appears on lists of "stupidest pieces of modern slang" and it wholly deserves its entry.

Question: Where did it originate? Answer: America. Reaction: Should've known.

To be fair though, it doesn't irritate me nearly as much as the phrase "on accident". Who the hell started that and why? Why, Why, WHY?

Ugh... bae... 

Patrick Weekes Retweeted
Kaylee Christine @kayleegobetween
@patrickweekes at @havencon on how to write characters who are unlike yourself:

- "Be a bridge"--write characters such that others can find themselves in your work
- Let characters be diverse in ways that are incidental
- Acknowledge that some stories are not yours to tell

@patrickweekes on writing diverse characters:

"After you've written a rough draft, give it to a sensitivity reader from that marginalized group. You are going to listen. No, REALLY: you are going to -listen-. They have to overcome a lot of fear to criticize--take it seriously."

"Write something that you are willing to stand behind. Write something that you are willing to answer for. And always do better next time." -@patrickweekes

Presenting perspective that is closer to group with not much of a voice can be as much of a challenge to creator and audience as anything else. This has happened many times in art, very serious one as well. Giving voice to those not often listened to has oft chipped away at, questioned or challenged the established status quo.

I don't think the topic was ever 'how to satisfy everyone'? And I don't think anybody, including BW writers, aims at that. You yourself mention that their characters can be divisive - and we know at least some of their characters are either specifically written to be polarizing, or with awareness that they can be polarizing (Sera, Solas, Vivienne, Celene, Briala, etc).

Also - I don't think they've had just one appointed sensitivity reader; that was merely a generalized statement. Weekes spoke of this issue more than once and mentioned having more than one person reviewing portions of the content they wanted reviewed.

In any case - I don't think nitpicking someone choosing to consult a limited amount of people is productive; asking someone is still better than asking nobody, especially if someone is uncertain if they got the general idea right, wants to broaden one's perspective, or wants to test it out first on people they know or trust can help them (...and probably sign extensive NDA and keep the damn thing a secret). 

Sure, there can be negative examples. But a sensitivity reader could tell the writer if their villain is a villain in a boring way.

Here’s an example. I’m Asian. I’d be interested to see more Asian folks in media, including as villains. Villains are fun! But I’d be sort of bored if the Asian villains were... ninjas. Because they’re always goddamn ninjas. It’s played out.

I’m hyper-aware of that pattern because these are people that look like me. For somebody who’s not Asian, they might not pick up on repetitive portrayals like that, because they’re (justifiably) not paying as much attention when they come onscreen. So that’s why it’s important to talk to someone who’s part of the group being portrayed. Saves the writer from doing something boring.

Since Mortal Kombat ninjas is a martial arts fighting game, it’d be weirder if there weren’t ninjas.

I wonder how they would have come out if they were directly written by people with those experiences. There can be a certain degree of Telephone-esque loss of details when the writer is listening to the domain expert instead of being the domain expert.

It’s like when some author deeply researches your profession and tries to write a truthful portrayal. It always, always rings false, unless the author actually held that job at some point. Some of them really try. It usually does produce that Wikipedia effect, where they hope their knowledge of specific details will mask their lack of experience with the whole.

It’s like asking an alien to describe an apple. They’re so busy listing the exact wavelengths of red light coming off it, but would never think to describe how it tastes.