9243 réponses à ce sujet

[Boombox]

Valakas wrote...

I don't thing there's a thing such as canon class, they've never stated if shepard it's a soldier, adept, vanguard or whathever.

I guess soldier would be "canon" class as Shepard is holding an assault rifle on the cover art.
Anyway, I think it's more default Shepard than canon Shepard. They use default Shepard for promotion and stuff but story-wise (from books or other outside material) I don't think we're told if Shepard's male or female.

[Rogue Unit]

DanaScu wrote...

Rogue Unit wrote...

Even though Thane showed no romantic feelings towards men and was happily married to a woman supporters of this thread will say "Thane never specifically said 'I'm not gay,' so he can still be open for S/S."

The only one that really stated her sexual preference is Jack.

And if you don't want to see S/S romances you're probably in luck. Bioware has flat-out said 'Shepard isn't gay' and I doubt they'll change that in ME3, but who knows? Maybe they're reading this thread right now.

They also said Liara isn't female.

So if your not-gay male Shep romanced Liara, that makes him what?

My femShep romanced Liara. That would make her what?

Or are you one of the "only Sheploo is the real Shepard, so femSheps don't count" people?

Or is this under the "femShep can be gay but not maleShep" category cause guys are okay with that....

Uh, why are you so angry? And as far as Bio-ware is concerned Liara isn't female. They tried to cover their asses with the whole mono-gendered thing but the community wouldn't hear it. To us, yes. Liara is female but Bioware still tries to hide behind the weak  "mono-gendered" arguement hence why Casey Husdon said "There weren't any S/S romances in ME1 and there won't be any in ME2." or something to that effect.

How we preceive Liara doesn't matter. I see Liara as a female Bio-ware apparently doesn't and at the end of the day what Bioware believes is all that matters.

Modifié par Rogue Unit, 25 septembre 2010 - 02:26 .

[ElitePinecone]

Valakas wrote...

Gay romances in Mass effect? Well i can't say that i'm thrilled by the idea, in fact i would rather NOT to see them (i'm sorry), but i guess it's just fair for gay people, so why not.

Thank you for your mixed support. It's nice that people can make a distinction between their personal feelings on the matter and what seems fair to them. To clarify, the proposals in this thread don't involve turning every squadmember bisexual (although, unless you played as both genders you'd never notice...). That would indeed be a bit unrealistic.

Sonvega wrote...

I would even buy a mod from Bioware which unlocks all romances 10-20 Euro.
whatever, Mass Effect is not my favorite game because of this obstacle, sry for my English, it's not my mother tongue.
looking forward to play Fable 3 next month, there I can have s/s relationship and adopt children and be happy, unlike being alone and unhappy in a Mass Effect future

That's what we're trying to achieve here... and this post is also kinda sad   

[Ryzaki]

Valakas wrote...

And there is canon shepard, but that's the good thing about ME, it lets you change the canon events, i do change the canon events i don't like (I believe Wrex dying is canon, and if so then screw that)

THERE IS NO CANON SHEPARD.

There is a "Default" Shepard. Not a Canon Shepard.

There. is. no. canon. Shepard.

Period.

There's a default Shepard that you see in the advertisments. But he's pratically a placeholder. He is *not* canon.

Gah. Where's that quote when I need it!

Also: Sorry about calling you sexist. I'm just so used to that being used as a: LOL FemShep can't save the world! excuse. <_<

Ooh. George Clooney. ...Yummy...and my mood has rapidly improved.

Anyways default Shepard =/= Canon.

Modifié par Ryzaki, 25 septembre 2010 - 03:28 .

[ElitePinecone]

That would be this one, I believe:

[Ryzaki]

ElitePinecone wrote...

That would be this one, I believe:

I <3 you right now.

[elearon1]

Glad to see this thread is still up and active. After the recent LotSB DLC I was hoping to see another push here for same sex romance in the ME trilogy. Personally, I think if they wanted Asari to seem less female they should not have given them breasts and had both males and females (or better yet those with androgynous voices) do the voice acting. I think that would have been an interesting direction to go - a truly monosexual race which would have fans debating over which gender Liara was. (sex and gender not being the same thing)



Playing ME1 again, I really get a potential gay vibe from Kaden as well - every time they talk on the ship they seem to square off for some good ole knock down, drag out, gladiator man sex.



I do hope ME3 developers are taking these threads seriously.

[ScotGaymer]

I wish the whole "asari are monogendered so romancing them isnt gay!" arguement would just die already.

Its stupid, illogical, and nonsensical.

MonoGendered AKA ONE GENDER AKA ALL FEMALE! They dont have No Sex. They have ONE sex.
Thus femshep romancing Liara IS a lesbian or at very least bisexual so it DOES count as s/s romance, even if it doesnt make Liara as lesbian (as the asari are rabidly pansexual) it still makes FemShep one.

EDIT:
Also its good to see that both Flea and Rogue unit who were both hugely anti-ss to start with are both now more or less arguing in favour of ss romance. Yay for civil discussion.

Modifié par FitScotGaymer, 25 septembre 2010 - 10:41 .

[elearon1]

Actually, they aren't monogendered - we see masculine and feminine gendered Asari - they are monosexed. But because there are no males you can't really refer to the single sex as female - it has no meaning. If they weren't all large breasted, nice hipped, seductive and mostly feminine (and really, they shouldn't be so similar to human women) we wouldn't be identifying them as females ... but all the visual clues are there so it is ridiculous for them to claim they aren't female.



I have been wondering about Asari genitalia recently. Obviously they have breasts, but do they have vaginas? Why would they? They don't need a part of the anatomy a penis would fit into - indeed it would make no sense for them to have one - so the only functionality an opening in the lower body would have is to provide an exit for a baby. But for all we know they might be like marsupials and have pouches, or something even more alien. From an anthropological and biological standpoint I would love to see all of the ME races in the nude, with some explanation of their physical characteristics.



For that matter, you can have sexual congress with Tali, Garrus or Thane as well ... what parts do they have? This is rather glossed over but would be even more significant than when talking about Asari, since the Asari can apparently create a spiritual bond which promotes ecstasy in their partners during "mating" regardless of race. The other alien species are going to need to do things more naturally ... which seems like it would mean a lot of correction, awkward fumbling, uncertainty and overall not particularly effective first sexual encounter.



Mind you, I suppose we could assume that each individual is doing some extranet research prior to the event so as not to be caught off guarde ... and if the extranet is anything like the internet we know how thorough it would be.



In fact, when having sex with another species their sex is less important than their gender. After all, they should be different enough that whatever their sex it would be notably different from our own - so determining sexuality would be more about the gender of the individual you're having sex with. (remember people, gender and sex are not the same) If you are male and the alien is male gendered, you are having gay relations - likewise if you are female and the individual is female gendered you are having a lesbian encounter.



So, from that perspective - since Liara is most certainly feminine in gender (at least as determined by most human standards) - sex with Liara is most definitely lesbian in nature.

[ElitePinecone]

You raise some very interesting points on a number of issues.



Firstly, I too have wondered why all of the bipedal aliens in Mass Effect seem to adopt 'human' gender roles and appear to have human physiology. As you point out, there's no reason why alien genitalia should be remotely similar to humans, in either form or function. Without going into details, the physiology could be completely incompatible, and it would be stretching credibility to imagine otherwise. I would find it very difficult to believe that human-esque reproductive systems evolved simultaneously five or six times, especially given the variety of biology and anatomy we see just on Earth. From this perspective, sex becomes at best futile and at worst potentially dangerous.



In that respect, then, you're right in that gender becomes more important than outward sexual characteristics. However, if both sexes are sufficiently alien in terms of physiology, I don't think it would be believable to suggest any kind of correlation with human sexuality or interests. For example, I can see how an asari would be attractive to heterosexual males - but if we imagine for a second that, say, turians had some kind of ungodly monster for their genitalia, sexual labels become irrelevant (if we're talking about a simple heterosexual-homosexual divide). If the human in question cares about the 'gender' (or even the 'person') rather than the physiology, then this works fine. But a male turian isn't necessarily attractive for a female human merely because of the assigned genders - especially when we consider the sorts of physiology that at this stage we have no idea about.



One last thing: if Shepard can already romance and be intimate with physiologically-different alien species that don't match up with normal concepts of human sexes; this pushes the romances in Mass Effect way beyond hetero- or homosexuality - into xenosexuality. If we're assuming that the aliens are anatomically different to humans, though - which they almost certainly should/would be, realistically speaking.

[BrandNewMan]

FitScotGaymer wrote...

I wish the whole "asari are monogendered asexual so romancing them isnt gay!" arguement would just die already.

Why? That same argument, by its very own nature, would mean that male Shepard isn't limited to liking females.

[Quething]

I don't think you can really discuss asari sex/gender issues without acknowledging the metatext. IE, they were designed by humans to be hot blue alien chicks that are sexually attractive to heterosexual male humans. It's really that which makes any claim that they "aren't female" suspect to the point of absurdity, regardless of any realistic biological concerns or in-game obfustication.

Modifié par Quething, 25 septembre 2010 - 04:14 .

[Poaches]

Asari could just well have the terrestrial analogue of those all female lizard species; they're for all dues and purposes "mono-gendered", and are effectively female. Probably been brought up dozens of times already.

[Quething]

yorkj86 wrote...

I prefer not to analyze the game from that meta-perspective, as it's contrary to the spirit of the game, and roleplaying.  Even though the "Art of Mass Effect" book states explicitly that the asari were designed to be a species of sexy alien chicks, I'm analyzing the game from within the framework of its own universe.

Except, you can't divorce the metatext from the discussion, because the discussion is, itself, purely metatextual; the question of "are the asari female", as argued in a thread like this, is argued entirely for its real-world sociopolitical implications. It's like saying "so the Justice League is 90% straight white males, shame what that says about DC" and somebody goes "no, Superman's a kryptonian."

Modifié par Quething, 25 septembre 2010 - 05:48 .

[MisterDyslexo]

Can't we just make an asari choose whether to go in a boys or girls bathroom and end this debate for good?

[zvbxrpl]

yorkj86 wrote...

That's a suspect claim.  They are monogendered to themselves.  Lacking sexes, they lack gender.  Any perceived masculinity or femininity in an asari is an individual non-asari projecting his/her species' own gender roles and stereotypes on to the asari.  Or are you saying that "monogendered" is a misnomer, and that they should be referred to instead as "gender-less"?

It's like that what other species with binary sexes would call a gender stereotype/role, the asari would simply call a personality type.

This really makes the most sense for asari, whether or not Bioware wants to use the angle.

I could see there being a stance among various sectors of humanity that Asari were not "real women" in one sense or another, though.  For that matter, I could imagine a teenage girl in the ME-verse insisting to herself that her crush on the Asari in her class didn't actually mean she was a lesbian.

[Quething]

yorkj86 wrote...

What it's being argued for, and what's being argued are two different things.  In this thread, the topic is purely sociopolitical,   If I created a thread for the sole purpose of explicitly addressing whether or not the asari are female from within the ME universe, arguments from a practical and meta-perspective could both be applied, but only if they didn't contain meta-information, such as what I mentioned being stated in the "Art of Mass Effect" book.

Yes, but we're not in your hypothetical thread. We're in this one.

Though to be honest, I've never seen the question of "are asari female" raised anywhere as a purely academic/lore-related issue. It's always somehow related to queer sexuality or the coherence of the MEverse's science or feminism or whatever metatextual issue is at hand. Actually I'm not sure you can prevent the metatextual concerns no matter how hard you try, given the sociopolitical landscape of modern Western culture; given how screwy we are about sex and gender, and the places where those things get fuzzy, you're never going to find an argument on a public forum where at least one person isn't coming from the perspective of "Liara's a chick because MY manly man Shep doesn't bang hermaprhodite freaks" or "Liara's not a chick because there's no gay sex in Mass Effect." Regardless of your intention in starting this hypothetical lore-only thread or your own personal indifference to the meta, that real-world context is still going to have a major impact on the responses and subsequent discussion.

[Poaches]

In game asari already self reference as female, and other races label asari as female. So... lore wise, they're female? eh. They only tend to claim the "monogendered" label as a technical formality if anything.

[Quething]

MisterDyslexo wrote...

Can't we just make an asari choose whether to go in a boys or girls bathroom and end this debate for good?

They don't have boys' and girls' rooms in the MEverse. They just have toilets sitting out in the middle of bedrooms and bunk spaces. And the odd single unisex bathroom in a Citadel bar, though that at least is perfectly logical; in a world without a strict universal gender binary, unisex bathrooms are the only ones that make sense. You already see this in queer bars and clubs in big cities here on real-world earth, where there's a decent size trans clientele. A place like the Citadel where you've got everything from turians to asari to hanar, you're probably not going to worry about installing a separate room for every single possible combination of reproductive bits.

[Poaches]

yorkj86 wrote...

Poaches wrote...

In game asari already self reference as female, and other races label asari as female. So... lore wise, they're female? eh. They only tend to claim the "monogendered" label as a technical formality if anything.

This could just be an issue of the mechanics of the translators everyone apparently uses in the ME universe.

Debating on the accuracy of universal translators is flimsy at best.

And given that asari in game can reference themselves as "monogendered", but still reference themselves as female, the conjecture stands.

In addition, all the other races whom have differentiating gender pronouns refers to asari as female, therefore by large, in perception of the majority, asari are considered female. As gender neutral pronouns do exist in the english language, but are not used, we can assume they are using the female gender pronoun intentionally.

Modifié par Poaches, 25 septembre 2010 - 09:18 .