DA 4 Romances! New info for real this time!!! Zom-bangin'?

Anders is my favorite romance and Zev is second, so I thought this also applied to me. lol

I think Anders is the only bi romance that's actually better if you romance him as a guy. He tells a guy about Karl and seems more open quicker than with a female character. Someone said a while back that his writer was encouraged to make him less romantic with men and it seems like if anything she just leaned in to spite them lmao. Zev was a hot mess with some of his writing. I try to avoid the cringy dialogs written to make his bisexuality less impactful. It's obvious he was written for straight women to the point he outright says they're his first choice.

I'm glad Gaider gave Anders to someone else in DA2, because honestly I hated his romances. He wrote all three of his m/m available romances as the same "aloof man learns to love" trope and I'm so over that storyline. He also seems way more queasy about writing gay romances, but I just feel sad that he feels he needs to censor and justify gay existence. It's more personal and I get the feeling he has an added layer of feeling like he has to censor and justify himself as a gay writer, which is sad. Gaider is a sassy bitch, as I know from having been personally sassed by him more than once, though, so maybe I'm reading in context that's not there. lol The amount of people I still see dubbing him king SJW despite his history of being distinctly something else just makes me suspect even he doesn't have that thick of skin.

Is the aloofness a trope? It always felt more natural to me. You don’t think you love someone, you think you’re being cool about it, then suddenly all at once you realize that you love them very much and it’s a little shocking.

...is this not how everyone experiences love? How does it evolve for other people?

Probably did not help that you were also given a flirt option right at that moment.
So it was also completely unexpected because it had never happened before, and nor do I think it should happen unless you the player somehow initiates it.
I know some want the NPC romanceable to court the player, but perhaps that should happen after flirtatious banter, not before.
Video games are not real, as I have already said, we can hardly have a proper, realistic dialogue in a video game in this moment.

So sticking to having the player initiate the flirtatious banter may still be the very best option. But again, the NPC courting the player character could still happen without the NPC having to initiate the entire romance.

My problem with them is that it's a specific kind of angsty, reluctance to be emotionally open and affectionate. Zev has his weirdness about not wanting to say the earring means something and then he just cuts you off for a while at one point. Fenris freaks out and nopes out literally for years. At least the two of them lean hard into commitment and openness afterwards, though. Dorian doesn't pull back, but he also never really leans in. I never feel like Dorian's romance is complete, since it ends with tension and him leaving after springing it last second. I like openness in relationships. I like when people say what they feel and don't childishly run away from their feelings. If it's a teens to early twenties couple, I think some haven't grown into being comfortable with themselves, but as adults I expect more emotional security.

Thank you!

It's sad Hepler left and more sad that she got a ton of abuse before she did. I would have loved to see more romances from her.

Anders says "Well. Under that scruffy exterior, I think you've got a bit of a soft heart, yourself. I'm sorry, I shouldn't presume. Am I making you uncomfortable?" That's the lightest way to hit on someone, with that bonus "is the gay making you uncomfortable" I hope BW won't come back to. It's not like he said Hawke should ogle his ass, like Isabela...

She said basically she wished you could skip combat the way you can skip cut scenes and dialog, since the story is what was important to her about games. It wasn't hostile or directed at anyone, just an offhand remark in an interview. There were definitely non-gender specific critiques of the comment, but also a massive amount that were just "this is why women ruin gaming".

If you had to narrow it to one, which would you say is your favorite and why?

I just don't really enjoy romances with that kind of obfuscation. I don't think they're always inherently wrong in isolation and it's just a matter of subjectI've taste if that's what you're into, but I don't personally enjoy them and a large number of romances for m/m have followed the same pattern, so I hope they'll go another direction with at least one option next time. 

My fav romance from BioWare is Malavai Quinn from the Sith Warrior class in SWTOR. I wouldn't go into too much cus "SPOILERS" but I love how differential he is, but has his own opinions and his own choices. I feel he is a very complex character. Loyal to a fault, that he will actually harm himself and chose a painful choice, then do what he actually wants. Still think it's a shame he's not bi, only straight, as I still feel he'd work very well for bi.