The Character Romance thread (Official)

Those were fun games, I agree.
Funny I said the same thing a while back, I said I know it isn't realistic but why can' they all be bi lol. But it is more realistic then some think, their are lots of bi people out their. 
It is a game, how is it realistic anyways lol

Was I the only one that was actually kinda pissed about that? If a character wasn't available for the straight folks, the devs made sure everyone knew right away so they couldn't get their hopes up. Then they announced Cassandra and Cullen, but refused to tell anyone who they were available to for months, even though both those characters had huge queer fanbases who couldn't help but get their hopes up. That didn't exactly feel inviting to me.

Remember the half-hearted "apology" they gave to lesbian fans when this was announced? Like as if they had no control over whether she was straight or not.

Oh man, yeah. And then we found out that Cullen was supposed to be bi, but it was cut for time. That whole thing was a total mess.

I'm still trying to give this team the benefit of a doubt on this one (it's kinda worth noting that Peebee and Jaal are pretty likely bi, so that might be why they were announced), but I really can't blame anyone for being on the paranoid side right now. BioWare always seems to have better intentions than follow-through when it comes to this kind of thing.

I think one reason we never really got a Cassandra type is that a gay/bi Cassandra would have gotten even more fandom vitriol imo. For the major demographics (straight people), lesbians can only be acceptable if they're feminine and not aggressive or man-hating, especially if she's a central character. And lesbian characters are also more comforting if they're the kinds of characters you're not supposed to take seriously (ex. Sera). Otherwise, you might actually see them as people and feel wounded that they're not straight like you or that they, like lesbians in real life, will either not want to be with you (if you're a man) or hit on you (if you're a woman). Obviously, most straight people are not thinking like that, but there are still some that think those things subconsciously and whine about the gay. And that vocal minority is what these companies assume all straight people think.

So, basically, tl;dr: aggressive, not feminine, not straight... pick one.

I gotta jump into this conversation. You mentioned Skyrim, and I gotta say, that shit was wack. 

Yes, you can '' romance '' anyone you did a favor for, but the world around you was still '' men have wives, men are interested in women, women have husbands, women are interested in men.  ''

Hell, there's a speechcraft skill called '' Allure '' and it ONLY affected the opposite sex, there was no option for the same sex later on. The game doesn't seem to recognize same sex relationships or people of different sexualities at all, which makes the same sex romance feel so detached from the actual game, it feel so weird and... odd. Of course none of this is a problem for a real invested roleplayer but for me it was a bit... ehhhhhh... It did ruin my immersion just a bit, I gotta admit. 

Though I'm not that much of a Skyrim junkie and there might as well be this huge rainbow land covered in gay that I haven't tapped into lol.

Would BW ever go the playersexual route ever again, they need to make sure that the world isn't heteronormative, and that people outside of straight and bisexuality (since playersexuality does translate to bisexuality with me, no matter how much one would headcanon otherwise) exists. That would make the romances feel less detached from the world, something that bugged me IMMENSELY in Skyrim.

I'm once again gonna point out that we're working with a pretty small pool of LIs here, particularly when you keep in mind that BioWare's been slowly evolving on the topic (so ME1-ME2 are probably not the best launching point if you want to figure out what they're thinking now). I think we've had... three characters like Cassandra, arguably? One of whom wasn't romanceable at all. I'm all for pointing out when they're screwing up, I'm just not inclined to think they're being too nefarious about it. More clueless. If we keep pointing it out and they keep ignoring us, then I'll start side-eyeing the writers.

Edit: And that'll teach me not to quote someone I'm responding to.

I'm saying Bioware wanted to create a 'classically female' character, in terms of her background of 'straight while religious female in medieval times' which was then juxtaposed with sword swinging badass.

I have high hopes for Vetra, she fills the profile. 

Same. That's why I'm gunning for her!

You think Lexi will be a lesbian? I doubt they'd piss off the male fans of asari by making one an explicit lesbian. I fully expect that, if Vetra's not a lesbian, then the lesbian will be a human NPC who's not even on our crew.