Anna Prosser Robinson

Anna Christine Prosser (born February 15, 1985)^[1] is an eSports media personality, managing producer at Twitch, and co-founder of Misscliks. Her character in DCA is Evelyn Marthain, a human paladin.

Personal Life and Career[]

Born in Portland, Oregon^[2], Anna's father was a computer enthusiast and exposed the family to video games early on (her grandmother still plays on consoles to this day).^[3] Anna considers herself a "lifetime gamer" and advocates gaming as "a way to connect with other people" over a common passion.^[3] Anna met her future late husband Geoff Robinson in college, before graduating magna cum laude with dual degrees in International Studies and Speech Communication, with a minor in Spanish.^[4] Geoff (also known as InControl, with a short-lived guest role on DCA) was a semi-professional StarCraft: Brood War (and eventually StarCraft 2) player, and while Anna didn't feel she was good enough to enter competitions, she wanted to contribute in her own way. "I got really into eSports, started going to events with Geoff and his team [sponsored by Evil Geniuses (EG)]. I was very well trained on camera and in communication...so I just followed the team around and made a montage video." After she continued to do interviews and pointed out to EG that fans didn't just want to see these people play, but were also interested in learning about them, Anna was hired. However, after moving to Phoenix Arizona to share a house with Geoff and his teammates, she realized that EG only wanted her to be the team/facilities manager rather than help create media. It wasn't until she began making videos on her own time that EG realized the demand for what she created, and hired others to improve the production value, and eventually moved them to the company headquarters in San Francisco, California.^[5]

Once there, she continued to find herself filling odd jobs with no specific role, and many times a project that she started would get turned over to someone else before she had a chance to see it succeed and move her own career forward. Despite feeling like she had contributed a lot to the growth of the company and being proud to have been a part of it, after it was bought by Twitch and began moving in new directions, she felt she no longer had a place there. Others at Twitch showed interest in her work, and in late 2015 Anna joined their Programming department to continue "building the narrative of what gaming is turning into". In addition to hosting and broadcasting live content for Twitch (a change from her previous work, which usually involved some post-production editing),^[5] she continues to broadcast her own material and do freelance hosting for Blizzard (initially for StarCraft, but now mostly for their Heroes of the Storm game). Anna has mentioned that a perk of working for Twitch is that her bosses "understand why I need to take half the day off on Tuesday" to play DCA on D&D's official Twitch channel^[6] (her workplace can be seen in the background when she streams). In February 2019, she moved jobs from Lead Producer of Twitch Studios to Managing Producer on a new Creator Development team.^[20]

Anna is also one of four women active in eSports or professional gaming who co-founded Misscliks,^[7] a Twitch community that encouraged inclusiveness in gaming and making it a safe environment for everyone, highlighting minority role models. They also showcased multiple D&D campaigns, many of which Anna has participated in since making her first character in 2013, a half-elvan female assassin named "December".^[8] She has since begun her first DM'ing experience, running the Missclicks group through the Lost Mines of Phandelver adventure.^[9] She also joined Holly Conrad's first live-stream attempt at DM'ing in her series, "Trapped in the Birdcage",^[10] where she plays the kleptomaniac thief Wilhelmina.

Anna won the "Miss Oregon USA" beauty pageant in 2011, where she was proud to describe herself as a "part-time nerd" and a "chic geek".^[11] She was also in a local choir in Oregon, and has sung in some of her videos.^[11]

Role in Dice, Camera, Action![]

Anna was recommended by Greg Bilsland^[12] to be a player on WotC's "Dice Camera Action" live streaming 5E D&D show, though she had never met any of the cast before.^[13] She already had some experience playing D&D on the Misscliks channel (although mostly 2E/homebrew hybrid games).^[6] Given her history in broadcasting, and her initial experience with D&D being limited to live-streams, Anna is particularly aware of the audience in her performances.^[14] "The most important thing...when you're playing Dungeons and Dragons while live streaming is [to] think about the people who are sitting in the room with you...because as people get attached to your characters and to the story line, they want to help, they want to give you suggestions, they want to laugh along with you or cry along with you".^[3] Anna is commonly seen typing responses to the chat, or bringing up noteworthy chat comments to Chris Perkins's attention during the livestream. Anna claims that her first experience with D&D was by watching a stream on Twitch, and that it made her realize "oh that's way more accessible than I thought it was, that's something I totally could do, and if I mess up that's ok, and I don't have to know all the rules because someone will help me, and it's more about playing together in a group".^[3] She admits that one of her biggest problems when playing is keeping track of names and details, especially since she forgets or gets too immersed to take notes. "That's part of the reason I built in Evelyn's character quirk of renaming people and things in silly ways. :) " ^[13]

Her character Evelyn was initially created for a Misscliks game, but Anna was "super excited for the chance to bring her back!"^[13] Her Southern accent (which Anna describes as a variant of the Waterdeep accent)^[13] was influenced by the Miss Tennessee contestant who competed with Anna.^[13] Regarding her quirky personality, Anna explains, "my favorite types of characters have the ability to be spontaneous and hilarious and make decisions that I wouldn't make because that's the point of D&D...to explore the human condition in a way that you can't in your real life...[using] characters who have deep emotional depth, something to really play with, something to explore."^[3] Regarding Evelyn's flaw of fatal optimism, Anna enjoys the challenge of playing her that way, even if "I know that I would not do this, and I know that my party is going to be so mad at me, but my character would definitely rush in", and that situations where your character would fail "make it really fun".^[3,15] Anna also finds "her unrelenting optimism and goodness very relaxing. It can be so draining to have to deal with all the things that just aren't good in life, or to worry about protecting yourself from people who aren't what they seem. She just thinks everything will probably turn out good and everyone is probably nice. It's a nice vacation each Tuesday into a bright little point of view",^[13,14] also getting to avoid having to make "responsible decisions",^[15] and to escape problems in real life, which "I think...falls in line with a lot of the reasons we all love playing D&D".^[13]

Despite claiming that she doesn't take it personally (or is even amused) when fellow players or the audience gets exasperated by Evelyn, she admits that "it is very strange how deeply we experience the emotions of our characters",^[13] and Anna has taken to writing fanfiction as a means of better exploring her motivations.^[14,16] Anna admits that much that is revealed about Evelyn came about spontaneously from moments during the show, and that since she is still discovering the character: "that's part of why her backstory is such a secret so far. I'm still getting to know her, so I don't want to commit to too much yet. ;)".^[13] She has also said while she gets tempted to reveal more of Evelyn's story, "it's too fun to leave [fans] hanging".^[17] She has said that during streams, she 'channels' both herself and Evelyn, and that Anna might sometimes interject her own thoughts (breaking the 4th wall, much like Nate) if it contributes to a comedic moment or best serves the story.^[19]

Anna has used her producer skills to help orchestrate the "DCA" and "Acq Inc: C Team" crossover Twitter Exchanges and stream events along with Penny Arcade's PM Elyssa Grant. She also helped organize the live action role play DCA game at TwitchCon 2018, and has said she is working behind the scenes on other DCA-related activities, such as introducing merchandise.^[19]

*Spoilers for Season 3 follow*

Although some fans thought that Evelyn's passing and the sacrifice of her soul to free the world of the death curse was a fitting end for her character, and that having her come back might diminish that, Anna argued that Evelyn doesn't conceptualize death as permanent anyway, and that she is being encouraged by spirits and celestials to return and help her friends and to also take her life in new directions. Anna also insisted that she wants to continue playing Evelyn because she and the group are enjoying the character, and she trusts that Chris still has a purpose for her.^[16] That said, Anna admits that she doesn't have an alternative character prepared for DCA in case Evelyn truly dies, but that if Evelyn couldn't return as a human or a construct, she'd like her to be a werewolf, and that if she could multiclass, she'd also become a bard.^[18] Chris did admit that if Paultin hadn't saved Evelyn from the soulmonger the first time she died, her soul would likely have been consumed in a few days, and that without the Crew miraculously making it through the Tomb by then, "Anna would be playing a new character".^[17]