With Mass Effect: Andromeda, Bioware Improved on Its Gay Relationships - Article

I found the concept of Vetra extremely appealing in the trailers and interviews but the execution was very inadequate in game. All the components were present for an evocative character with a compelling personality but the romance extinguished itself due to lack of emotional scenes,a few flippant flirt lines and now we're in love. I didn't connect with her or Suva really and I'm petulantly jealous when I see the Jaal romance arc for both Ryders and the abundance of opportunities the writers took to convey their love story. PeeBee on the other hand was everything I could have wanted, despite her contentious personality, she is the Sera of Mass Effect. Impetuous, intelligent and intrepid, I loved her and so did my spunky Sara. I just wanted Vetra to be....more.

Now the representation aspect was an improvement for F/F relationships from my personal perspective from the Trilogy, but I do empathise with other women who believe the Asari are there to appease our straight gamers of the franchise. Peebee's sex scene was certainly...salacious and impertinent to the reality of f/f sex (Grinding like that is....unusual) but I didn't find it offensive at all.

What can I say, give me all the blue ladies and I'm content. I'm certainly not the most fastidious of individuals when it comes to video games, I just want that emotional investment for a character. 

Do I think that ME:A was an improvement in terms of mlm rep? In comparison to the original trilogy? I'm gonna have to say... it's not worse now, as I'm writing this (and even then I don't fully believe that), but it was worse when it launched, and I kinda disagree that it's improved.

I mean, if we just compare Kaidan and Steve against Gil and Reyes, it's a regression from the ME3 since Gil is basically a non-entity in that game with no narrative weight and Reyes is similarly lacking in content and confined to one planet. Comparing that to Kaidan who, assuming he's a live in ME3, already has the advantage simply be virtue of being a squadmate and he's also pretty involved in at least the first half of the main plot.

(And he's already been in 2 games, but lets just use Mass Effect games that actually have romantic relationships between men shall we )

I'm a little less sure about how Steve and Gil measure up, primarily in terms of romance since I haven't romanced either of them. But in my opinion Steve's story felt, maybe stronger isn't the right word, but it sure didn't feel so tacked on and dissatisfying. Steve's growth of mourning his husband and being able to move on felt complete and closer to natural than Gil's "I need to grow up and take responsibility for stuff so having my best friend's baby sounds like the perfect way to do that!" story. I'm not sure if I fully agree that Jill is such a dominating part of his character, but it's seriously off putting being told that I've changed him profoundly when I honest to god only had two meaningful conversations with him. And also involving the only visibly gay male character in a contrived plot about how he needs to make babies is just plain dumb, and really lacking in any awareness of what gay men have to go through already in our lives. It's dumb and I hate it so much.

(But I dunno. The writer seems to think that that aspect of the romance was pretty good - and I wasn't crazy about Dorian's gay conversion plot either -  so it might be a question of wanting different things in our space/fantasy kissing games. Then again if BW really had to tell that story, maybe don't tell it in such a tone deaf way, or maybe simply have more mlm so there's a variety of stories! Crazy, I know, but doable)

I have less complaints about Reyes, just that if Gil isn't your cup of tea, then he's the only other option, and he's a rather acquired taste. If his "charm" comes off as more slimy to mlm then we're just shit out of luck aren't we? In terms of content he also hasn't got a lot to show for compared to Kaidan. And he falls into a similar problem with Kaidan (and a lot of Bioware's bi/pan LIs) in that his same sex route is just a (shoddily) swapped f/m route. The dance scene and Vetra's "queen" comment still haven't been fixed to my knowledge, and frankly they shouldn't have been shipped off like that.

And yeah, I haven't mentioned Jaal in any of this, because... look, he's my go to guy for space dating. and I'm so deeply glad that I have an option that I love and that I feel matters in the game. But mlm almost didn't get him. We had to hound Bioware about him just to get the very absolute bare minimum. When push came to shove, Bioware decided that his m/m route wasn't important enough to keep in the base game - and their mlm fans weren't important enough to have a squadmate. I'm gonna be pissed about that for a long time, probably.

But I suppose that is an improvement; mlm went from not being important enough to be in the game at all to not being important enough to have a squadmate LI. So hey, that's a fucking delight I guess.

I'm just... not going to call ME:A an improvement when it comes to mlm rep when we have Gil with so little content and a borderline homophobic story line that doesn't even make sense, Reyes, a morally dubious bisexual archtype that Bioware just loves to keep writing who's romance path forces the player to do some pretty messed up things, and Jaal who I'm 100% sure Bioware had no intention of fixing until people got mad about it. And this is after the shitty marketing campaign where they strung their mlm fans on (and their wlw fans too) while all but outright confirming every option under the sun for a straight Ryders (especially straight male Ryders).

Sure, there's Avitus and Macen, but both characters are minor, Avitus "conveniently" isn't good at talking about his feelings thus leaves their relationship up to interpretation (but they were close guys *wink wink*) and Macen dies which is just par for the course for LGBT peeps I guess. There's Ignacious who's... there and kinda overbearing (but at least he's not predatory towards straight dude. Progress.). And two Angara men in a (kinda sweet) codex entry that I'm sure people lots of people missed and even more people didn't bother to read. All of these are pretty easy to miss. But again, better to be shoved to the back than to just simply not exist, right? Right? Bioware sure thinks so.

So, yeah. MEA sure doesn't feel like an improvement, not from MET and sure as hell not from DAI.  At the very least DAI didn't leave me drained and angry months after it's release. That'll teach me for assuming a game company that touts itself on being a pioneer of LGBT content in games is always going to make me feel like I matter as a demographic.

Regardless of sexual orientation, the romances in ME:A feel like they were written by virginal teens who don't understand interpersonal relationships beyond the most superficial jr. high school level. Posters above linked the youtube vid to some of the horrific dialogue with Suvi. I know writing for video games, even the better stories Bioware has told in the past, isn't necessarily original or particularly clever, but it just looks like the writers drew inspiration from Nickelodeon tween shows.

Worst thing is it's not just with romance: basically most of the dialogues on the entire game are like that. 

"I think I pissed that one off! Maybe because I shot in the face! - Looks like me when I was 12 years old playing an FPS
"Wow, it's crazy, rocks are floating!"
"I get a little pissed when people are trying to kill me!" 
"My face is tired from dealing with... everything" 

And that's just the first mission, that I could remember from my head. Damn, Liam is probably the worst character on a Bioware game. You know that guy who tries to be funny all the time, but he just isn't? That's Liam. There's also that dialogue they posted with Suvi. These are much pretty good examples. 

Aw c'mon. That was pretty much a battle bark, and mercifully, is only said once. If this was ME2, he would have said that over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

MIND OVER MATTER!

The answer "just go with it" is worse. But now it gets seriously OT.

You want what, that I copy and paste 51% off all the dialogues the game has? I gave specific and generic examples (like after the Moshae rescue mission). If you wanna be a fanboy, fine, just don't keep being fallacious. 

I know a gay man who loves to flirt with women for sports. Why shouldn't Dorian? He's obviously pretty in love with himself and then there's that conversation when you can ask him if he was involved with Felix. You can ask that before Dorian is presented as being gay. As a matter of fact, if you don't play a male inquisitor, I doubt it comes up as a topic at all. You're left to guesswork, which I find more appealing than the Gil "I'm gay" opener at the very first flirty conversation.

I love that my Femquisitor can freely get into a flirty back and forth with nary a mention of romance. That the dialogue permits this without the automatic rejection dialogue makes Dorian one of my favorites to interact with, because it makes for a more playful dynamic to me. I like that Cassandra tolerates it for as long as she can before finally coming out and addressing it later. 

Yeah, all players, including gay ones. We had to wait 14 years (since BG2 and the first romances) to get a romanceable gay companion in a BW game. It's particularly great that we got to romance a story relevant character. That is on equal footing with the straight romances. Your insinuation that homosexuality should be reserved for less awesome and less plot relevant characters is just insulting. We've been ignored for a long time, it's time we also get some characters others can be envious of.

Again, Dorian should have turned down the flirting, that was their mistake. Making him bi would not have been better. I've heard the same about Sam in ME3, and I'd really like straight people to stop trying to take away the very little gay representation we have in games.