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

I don't like the excuse for Fenris because it feels like he's being suddenly infantilized after he and Hawke fought side by side for nearly a decade. I feel like it just isn't that respectful to him, to his intelligence or his ability as a fighter. Hawke already fought Corypheus with Fenris once. He went through so much with him. It just feels off after that for the reason to be that Hawke doesn't believe Fenris can handle himself. If I were Fenris, I'd feel hurt and insulted that Hawke didnt feel we were both safer having each other's backs than apart.

There were two questions, what is your favorite romance and why, as well as what kinda of Straight Romance I would want.

Part 1

Favorite Romances are, ranked in Order:
1. Fenris
2. Zevran
3. Alistair
4. Cullen

What I liked about Alistair was his rose, and speeches, and finally his final confession of love and asking to be intimate. he made it clear that I was valuable to him, that he was into me. I am super into that.

What I liked about Zevran is getting to know him had value. Part of what started me falling for him was actually watching content that I would never have seen. A romanced Zevran that then gets left for someone else in the group says he has to leave the group. Because he loves you too hard to watch you be with another. For his own mental health, he has to leave. Which is huge! Because he gained so much from being with you that he now has the self value to want to be alive and want to be happy even if it isn't with you, even if he didn't get that happy ending. Topically he comes off as a man whore, but he absolutely isn't. Underneath all that is an elf who wanted to belong and has hurt himself almost as much as the Crows hurt him. He tried to kill himself with your blade. Your kindness, just being a decent human being in a world of indecency, revived his spark. You made him believe in life again. And you didn't even have to bang him to do it, but such a path can some with such benefits. I also like how flirty he can be- the flirts never come off as insincere. he seems like the sort of person who once he's decided to commit to something, he commits all the way. And that bears out with his staying at your side no matter what. nothing will pull him away.

Fenris, like Zevran, was also a second glance character. I didn't romance him my first game simply because he didn't show up at Hawke's mansion. I ended up having to kill him in Act III. When I played my second game, to rival romance Anders to punish him for hurting me so badly the first game, I did manage to sleep with Fenris in act II and patted myself on the back before jumping in on my Revenge Romance with Anders. It was in Act 3 where Fenris talked to Anders about the mage and I getting together that Fenris said something that made me do a double take. How if Anders ever hurt Hawke, he'd kill him. I was intrigued by this immensely. so my third game, I go to romance Fenris (all the way, not just banging him) and then Anders does that controlling scene where he bitches about whoever you got with that wasn't him by insulting them as people. And it's just amazing to me. All the things that had attracted me to Anders- his sweeping passionate obsession and pining that had lured me in so quickly in the first game was now this. This toxic childish mess of a man was trying to scrape into my good graces by tearing my loved ones down. the Childish demeaning of your long term friends and companions (the hypocrisy if it's Isabella you end up with, considering he slept with her too). Whereas Fenris, who still loves you in Act 3 if you get with Anders simply lets you go. This. Is. Beautiful. I love Fenris for being the sort of person who could love someone and still let them go. as a PS to that, from my early romantic teens I was super into Jane Eyre and being the woman who could make a grumpy man smile and happy, when with everyone else they would be an asshole (or just simply remorse, asshole not required). Fenris fills this so perfectly. HE's just perfect. I have never put myself into this position in a game, but I would never sacrifice a Fenris Romance Hawke because Fenris deserves every smile that only Hawke can give him.

Then Cullen. I really really like Cullen. He's got it all- the looks, the voice, the quantity of content, the love of dogs, the passion, and the wedding scene.

I think Alistair and Cullen suffer in the rankings because they don't need my love. They can go on to have well adjusted happy lives. They would be happier with me in them (obviously) but... it's just not the same. Or maybe it's that, they are what they are on the surface. There isn't a layer to peel back, there isn't a deeper inner person to uncover and be awed by. They wouldn't hurt themselves so you can be happy, by letting you find happiness with others.  Of course, with the shitty soft locking of DAI, Cullen will never recognize you were with another person before him. And Alistair simply never brings it up again if you reject them, whereas Fenris and Zevran get a chance to express this.

I romanced all of these people as Female except the "complete" romance with Fenris I was playing male. I was doing this fucked up Evil Hawke play through where Hawke was Dexter (the show about a serial murderer) and Fenris ended up being his Hannah in a rival romance. It was masterful how well this was supported.

In the future, I will Friendmance him with a female mage hawke because I don't think there is any difference in the content of his romance and I prefer to play as my own gender.

Warden: So you felt guilty?
Zevran: I felt empty. I felt as if I was nothing. I felt as if [Rinna] had been nothing. You once asked why I wanted to leave the Crows. In truth, what I wanted was to die. What better way than to throw myself at one of the fabled Grey Wardens?

I CRY LIKE A TITTYBABY EVERY TIME. 😭

"[The earring] has meant a lot to me, but so have... so has what you've done."

I also appreciate that he's the only LI in DAO to ask how you're feeling, and then recites a crappy sex poem to make you laugh. ZEVRAN, KEEP ZEVRANING. 👍

What would I want in a straight romance... 
Part 2

• First, I'd like to say I don't care if my straight romance is bisexual/pansexual. Who they've fucked before me and who they find sexually appealing in a casual way is irrelevant to my evaluation of their character. I also don't care if they have been promiscuous or not. I've enjoyed the "virgins" and the "sluts" but what both versions of my favorites had in common is that when they gave you their heart, they gave it all the way.  That's the part that mattered, not how many notches in the bed post.
• I'm not into folks who sleep with me and only then are honest about their evilness/past evilness. So as much as I love Blackwall's drama, he should have kept his dick in his pants until after the big reveal. He definitely shouldn't have left me naked in a barn. Kissing without telling the whole truth is okay i.e. Reyes and Ryder's date and kiss. 
• I am not into romances that leave for years and expect me to hold a torch for them the entire time they're gone. At least Fenris stayed in town, I can accept that version, because I can head cannon some morose longing and pining glances and a bit of angst. But Isabella and Solas both took off FOR YEARS and just no. The amount of effort I've had to put into making characters that would put up with this and not themselves be pathetic is too much effort.
• COMMUNICATION. Merril pushed off my Hawke's advances so much I didn't even know romancing her was happening. Then she comes crying to the mansion and I offer her comfort only to find out that this was her physical declaration of love (that I don't reciprocate) and she's running out the front door in tears. wtf, mate.  While in the end I hate Anders, I adored that he gave you a heads up about coming to the mansion.  you know, cuz just showing up in your bedroom doorway CAN be construed as a little creepy, stalkerish, or disrespectful.  Fenris was in your Foyer when kissing happened that got carried to the bedroom, same for Merril, but Isabella has boundary issues and just shows up in your bedroom- Same for Iron Bull and Blackwall being your room when you don't even know they're there. Nothing says romance like a threat eh?  I LOVE the "jealousy" conversations in DAO because it meant you got to have honest conversations, out loud, like adults, about what expectations each person had about the relationship you were in.  I hate that DAI's soft locks took this sort of communication away. It made the relationships seem to occur in a vacuum. Blackwall's reveal was a HUGE event for the entire Inquisition but Cullen had nothing to say about my being in the liar's bed for 2/3 of the game. Really? no. Not to mention that Solas and Inky never discuss what they're doing, so you're in this weird fucked up limbo of, "are we a thing, or aren't we?" YET you're locked out of content/romances with others just because you kissed him. "I'll make no claims on you baby, you're a free bird, but also everyone will think we're an item, so you're cock blocked from here on out." Fuq you, Solas.

Dream Romance:

This got long.

Where are you from??? We say "titty baby" here, too, and I've never heard anyone else say that!! xD

Haha! I'm from Texas - I believe you're next door, right? Maybe it's a southern thing. 😉

You know what they say. Everything's Titter in Texas.

Oh that's right, I knew that xD Yeah, Louisiana.

It's like "this is what gaming is like if BioWare thought of us as real people, not a statistical risk". 

True in every sense of the word.

I still like it tho.


YES. Like, I'm not mad that that kind of romance exists (obviously there are a LOT of fans of that m/f dynamic) and I think Blackwall's romance arc is really intriguing in its own way, and I like him as a character, it's just on a purely personal level... that, as you said, "strong man/sweet lady" dynamic is such a turn off for me. I always feel like my character is about to teeter off a pedestal she didn't want to be on in the first place. And Blackwall himself is arguably one of the more down-to-earth of these types, I know that he sees the Inquisitor as a woman (and a person) and not just some angelic figure, but it stiiiill just feels strongly gendered in a way I'm not really into?? I don't know if I'm articulating this right lol.

I don't even think it's just about Bioware having this or that expectation, because they subvert it in other romances, I just kind of shy away from this particular version.