The Character Romance thread (Official)

I'm guessing he meant romance specific content because Cortez's romance arc is the least romantic thing I've ever witnessed. Having a guy spend 80% of your time together talking about his dead husband is such a boner killer.

They really wrote Zevran well. Zevran is a character that needs to be understood. He is not easy. I get him in a fundamental level, and I got him right from the beginning. I love his romance, because if you get him, it is not shallow. I don't tell people they have to understand him, because I don't believe things work that way, and this is not RL. I believe person has to have certain experiences of life to understand where the writer was with him. If you don't, you see only a promiscous, murderous assassin who doesn't want to commit to you. Why I love Zevran and his romance, and the whole character, is because he is very real for me. His backstory explains everything, and there was no way he could've turned to be anything else. Yet, for you he will change. He will commit. He tries his best if you give him a reason to do it and he has faith in you. Zevran resonates in me deeply. I love when writers give me something that is multi-layered. From all the romances in BioWare-games, Zevran's and Fenris's are totally my favorites, and I like them as characters as well. They both batle with their inner demons. I like "broken boy"-narrative, I enjoy good angst that makes sense to me. My life experience makes characters like...say, Alistair, to feel totally unbelievable for me. That is just me. I do understand other people feel differently for their own reasons, and actually I'm more in the minority with my tastes. Yet, I always hope writers have courage to go for multi-layered, not so easy characters, even though many people will not get them.

I agree that Cortez-romance was very forgettable. ME3 was filled with shallow attempts to be emotionally touching. The child and Cortez's dead husband are two examples that come to my mind without much trying. Writers be like "see, here we have this emotional moment, feeeeeeeel!" It was soap opera level of writing.

Absolutely. In most occasions where I've seen people really dislike Zevran, I saw that they didn't understand his character at all. In RL, it would be wise to stay away from a broken person like that, btw. Unless you are co-dependent with a saviour syndrome. In game, I like to see there are characters with issues and inner demons, and they can overcome them. In real life, it mostly doesn't work that way, people have to get better by themselves, you can't heal anyone with any amount of love. You not wanting to deal with Zevran is a reflection of knowing that.

What I really dislike about Steve is his crying scene. I mean, you have very strong characters in the game, like Liara or Miranda who can show feelings without making me feel uncomfortable. Even in her death scene Miranda seemed very strong and confident and it was one of the most emotional scenes with her. When Steve was crying in one of his scenes, I've got a very bad and awkward feeling however. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against a man who shows his feelings or pain, but that was kinda out of place...as if the whole crew watched him and I had to be his consoler, because nobody knew how to deal with his emotional outburst. It felt like Bioware just wanted to push emotions on us but it was forced and made him look stupid. Immediatley, I just wanted to escape that awkward situation I was forced into. From that moment on, Steve lost every appeal, as to me. His whole mourning was just a romance killer. I know, it may sound superficial, but it was also very unsexy to me...again: I have nothing against men showing emotions, but that was just...well...the wrong moment and it made him look like a weak character in general. And what's even worse is that suddenly, after Shepard had consoled him, he was happily in love again like nothing had happened before. That change wasn't only awkward but also very arbitrary...as if he only felt in love with Shepard because he had healed his wounds. I couldn't stand Steve at all and never romanced him myself because of those weird situations... sorry, I know some of you guys like him, but the way I see it, he was the worst m/m romance ever.

Yes, and his crying scene was the reason I didn't romance him for ages, I even avoided going down to see him with some characters until the weeping ended because I didn't want to speak with him about it. This is the prime example of trying to make us feeeeeeeeel. It is totally ok to make him cry for his dead husband. How it was made simply creeped me out. If he would've come to you, told it is his husbands deaths anniversary, then cried to  your shoulder IF you comforted him, that would've made sense and I wouldn't had any objections. How they did it was pure soap opera, and I don't say it because it was a man crying. Everyone has a right to cry their hearts out, but adults know where and how to cry and they tend to find a place and time for it. This wasn't some kind of an emergancy situation where acting like that would've been understandable.

I took huge issues with the dying child too, only thing missing was a kicked puppies and drowned kittens. The forced nightmares didn't make me feel anything else than annoyance, and that's not because I'm out of compassion. It is because I don't like forced, spoonfed feelings and cheap drama.

I don't think that's that uncommon IRL.  Napoleon was moved to tears over a dog mourning its owner, and Napoleon was hardly a unhardened wimp.

It definitely was the way it was handled. I didn't take it as a weakness either, and to be honest, all people are weak in some way, it is part of being a human being. Seeing people being vulnerable and hurt doesn't bother me at all. It was the cheesiness and drama of how it was handled by the writers, not him crying per se.

Ah, okay, thanks for the clarification.  I've never done his romance arc (mostly because I rarely play a male, and when I do, there are so many other choices...)

I was pretty impressed with the amount of content he had for a non-squadmate, especially compared to Traynor.  I guess I can also understand why his romance content was on the light side - he was still mourning his husband, and Shepard had to help pull him past that and convince him that life is still worth living.  Realistically, he probably wasn't ready for anything deeper.

But I can certainly understand the preference for Kaidan.  I've never tried the Traynor romance, because my characters are usually already involved with Liara.

[STARES INTO THE ABYSS] This is now the second time where I've come across tweets that sound like they're talking about leaky romance stuff. Unfortunately, the twitter account that seems to have the information about romance stuff is privated, so, I have no idea the entire context of what's being said. I dun wanna link 'em cuz they could be nothing, they're aren't official, and it could be just me reading into them (plus, privated, so, I'd feel sketchy), but, I just wanted to vent. Hope is the worst. [FLOPS TO THE FLOOR] Bioware, Valentine's day is two days away. Please, put me outta my misery.

Dude/dudette... what are ya talking about? Share, ploix!

[CRINGES] Okay, but, seriously. Super unconfirmed.


I would hesitate to even call that a leak. It's like a trickle. This is Snape listening through the door at the Leaky Cauldron about the prophecy level stuff here. But I've seen it twice now. So.

Ugh, please, Bioware. Valentines Day. Please. Please.