The Character Romance thread (Official)

Gaaah, I'm so torn? Vetra is definitely one of the LI I'm interested in. BUT DO I HAVE TO BANG HER.

Based on the all above tweets, now I get the feeling Vetra is romanceable only by BroRyder.

Why? Where's the hint that she's only available to Scott?

Absolutely.

Sadly too many dummies (saying it like that to be nice about it) whinned and screamed when BW did that with DA2. "Waaa it breaks my immersion" "Waaa it's not realistic" and on and on the stupidity went... It's basically the same kind of selfish, irrational nonsense you hear from people crying about "exclusivity rewards" in mmos. The moment something is changed or made easier to obtain, there's a hoard of whinny babies who start crying how "their efforts are being undermined" and how "they lose prestige" or any other such nonsense. As if someone else getting something easier than they did somehow magically diminishes the effort they put in. But that's what you get with the sheep and their fragile ego/mind. And the sad thing is the devs are listening to that. The same thing happened with the "all bi" approach to romances. Dummies who didn't want/like it and moaned and screamed and stomped their feet to make it like they want it (fk everyone else), but did so loud enough that BW actually listened. So now we all deal with it.

It was a great approach to doing romances. Sure anything could use some polish here and there, but overall it just was the best option to make everyone happy. Sure it wasn't "realistic" but in my opinion that's a decent trade. It's easier to rp or headcannon for yourself something when the npc is available to both male and female protagonist, than it is to do so when he/she is not and you have to use mods or whatever to break the game if you want to actually get with that npc with the "wrong" sex protagonist. But because of the outcry we now move back to "realistic" romances. Which, surprise surprise, involve gay characters being pushed to the end of the line. Meh.

At this point I hope for a few things, more than equal romance treatment for a gay Scott:
1. Gay npcs in the world - you walk around (or fly around whatevs) and you meet male npc #3078 "Heeelp! My husband has been kidnapped by..." and etc, you get the idea.
2. NO FKN hardcoded str8 behaviour for the protagonist to make him/her str8 - the oooh so stupid winking and grinning Shepard did everytime an asari farted in the near vicinity because devs really REALLY wanted to push the idea that everyone and their mother just LOOOVED the asari.
3. NO stupid hardcoded background that makes the protagonist str8 - like the major BS in Fallout 4 starting sequence.

Can't think of anything else at the moment, probably there are other things I would want and hope for. But yeah, if they can avoid that bs, I'll be happy. There's a minor chance for that happening at least, as opposed to no chance at all a gay Scott gets as good a romance option as a str8 one.

I know I know... I'm simply oozing optimism 

Certainly, but I'd still argue that among all those potential deal breakers gender is one of, if not the strongest. A lot of them also disappear in fantasy-land. I may not be attracted to a Turian in the real-life sense, but I can easily imagine and roleplay such an attraction for my character in-game and feel it in some vicarious way, for lack of a better term. I can't, however, find much enjoyment or interest in trying to roleplay being attracted to a female love interest, be they Turian or human, even if I consider the woman visually attractive. That "feeling", or I guess "immersion" just isn't there. I guess I can only attribute this to whatever primal part in my sexual brain is telling me "this is not mate material for you", and apparently it's strong enough to ignore things like species, appearance, and being made of ones and zeros, but not gender.  It's kind of funny when you think about it, but it's just how it works, and I doubt I'm alone in this among players.

Heh, sorry for going on about this but I actually find this quite an interesting topic.

Can someone transcribe that "tough love" tweet or whatever it was? Pic's not showing up for me.

Personally I care more about having gay/lesbian squadmates than having a perfectly equal number of options. I really liked that they included Dorian and Sera, even if I have reservations about how Dorian was handled. 

Then again, I would also like to see non-romanceable LBG characters so I guess you could have both- though in Andromeda our team just isn't large enough for that.  

BioWare seems to be going with the worst of both worlds when it comes to keeping romances secret. First they were keeping everything under wraps for the surprise, which I didn't agree with but I could at least see the logic. Now we've got Cora, Peebee, Jaal, and Vetra all pretty much confirmed. Only thing left is figuring out who we can't romance, i.e. gender locks. So the only surprises left are bad ones. Whose brilliant strategy was this?

Remember when this thread was about romance speculation, and not everyone arguing?

Don't worry, it's fine  I've always found it a very interesting topic myself. I've never had that feeling, so It's always been difficult for me to grasp. The closest I can get is picturing somebody I find really unattractive, but people always insist it's not the same. 

Also, look, this argument is pretty pointless because it seems to hinge on this imaginary idea that every LGBT option has gotten the same amount of content and the same effort in that content as straight options.

Was gay MaleShep shafted? Hell fucking yes. This isn't arguable. MaleShep couldn't even get with a guy in the third game. We've only had 1 gay male central character and Cortez's writer admitted that one of the major priorities with Steve was making sure he didn't "ninjamance" the male player. When you're writing a gay romance, straight people shouldn't be anywhere in the main priorities. I'm sorry.

As for bi men, We've only had 1 bi male squadmate over the course of the whole trilogy and he only realized he was bi in the last game. Now, look, it's totally fine (and even great) to have characters like that since so many people initially think they're straight only to realize they're not. However, in the context of having very little LGBT male characters, it stands out as them not initially being able to have m/m and only recently realizing they need some kind of bi guy for MaleShep.

Was straight FemShep shafted? Yes, she was. Half of the options ended up getting a bad end in ME3, and, in Jacob's case, you couldn't even start a new romance, from what I've heard. However, you guys had at least one squadmate option every single game, which lesbian players and gay male players didn't have.

Now, was lesbian FemShep shafted? I would argue yes. We did have one option full of content across the trilogy, which a Gay MaleShep and some straight FemSheps didn't have. However, if you're not into Liara, the other ones don't have nearly as much content. Samara's not even an option if you don't have the Citadel DLC because there's no culmination to her romance otherwise, and she pretty much rejects Shepard in ME2. Samantha Traynor and Kelly Chambers are both NPCs, neither of which having as much content since they're not squadmates and haven't been in every game. Furthermore, Kelly Chambers didn't even get an appearance in the Citadel DLC, one of the only romance options not to get more content in said DLC. And I'm not going to comment on how male gazey Traynor's romance was, since some people aren't really going to "get it" no matter how many times I explain.

And, for bi female characters, the only bi women we've had on the squad were asari. No bi female human squadmates or really any other bi alien women as squadmates.


So, yes, it's not debatable. We've been shafted unless you prefer playing a Straight MaleShep, and I hope this trend doesn't continue.