423 réponses à ce sujet

[CroGamer002]

Saphra Deden wrote...

That krogan princess won't sleep with you unless you lose ridiculous bangs.

What princess?

Uvenk loves what my Shepard wears!







OK that just sounded very wrong.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

Mesina2 wrote...

Saphra Deden wrote...

That krogan princess won't sleep with you unless you lose ridiculous bangs.

What princess?

Uvenk loves what my Shepard wears!







OK that just sounded very wrong.

You wanna romance Worf?

[DahliaLynn]

I'm not sure I can view these characters as aliens/different species in the psychological sense, as they all have "human" personalities, (and) voices. Human emotions, human quirks, etc.
Romancing them would really feel just as natural as romancing any human regardless of race.

Though physically they are completely different species for the most part, you couldn't view them as being so foreign as a dog would be to a human for example, in which case romancing a dog would be quite awkward. But what if dogs could talk and act like humans? um....scary thought... but similar concept.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

DahliaLynn wrote...

I'm not sure I can view these characters as aliens/different species in the psychological sense, as they all have "human" personalities, (and) voices. Human emotions, human quirks, etc.
Romancing them would really feel just as natural as romancing any human regardless of race.

Though physically they are completely different species for the most part, you couldn't view them as being so foreign as a dog would be to a human for example, in which case romancing a dog would be quite awkward. But what if dogs could talk and act like humans? um....scary thought... but similar concept.

Which is why I'm romancing Harbinger.

[Ieldra]

I agree very much with the OP that the idea of romancing non-humans is ridiculous from the first go. I've stopped complaining about it because there is no point to it, but that doesn't change the utter ridiculousness of the whole premise.

The OP is also right that it is outright impossible to ignore the fact that this is in the game, with various non-squad asari hitting on you or something very similar (ME1 Sha'ira, ME2 Shiala), the turian and the quarian talking in Eternity on Illium or that bachelor party. It is annoying how much this is pushed into your face.

In some way Garrus' romance is the most honest about it. It is rather obvious that Garrus isn't physically attractive. Non-humans wouldn't be for reasons I have repeated so many times that I won't bore anyone with yet another wall of text. Even if humanoid, they'd look, smell and sound different enough that only a tiny minority of real xenophiles would be attracted. Thus, the most annoying silliness is the look of the asari and the quarians - humanoid enough that secondary sexual characteristics are *identical* to humans.

For those like me, who find the whole concept of romancing non-humans as something that's normal ridiculous to the point of being offensive, nothing remains but to ignore it as best as we can, pretend the people who do interspecies romance are all of the 0.1%-small group of real xenophiles, and romance our human team members.

At least this gives me more appreciation of my human team members. In my list of reasons why I like my favorite character, "she's human" is one.

@DahliaLynn:
Yes, the nonhumans are psychologically very much like humans. But that shouldn't make a great deal of difference for sexual attraction. It means that you can be friends with a non-human, understand his or her personality and even love them in a platonic way. But things should stop at the sex. There isn't a thing some human wouldn't use as a fetish in the world, but a non-human fetish should be very rare. 

Modifié par Ieldra2, 20 juin 2011 - 08:53 .

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

Ieldra2 wrote...

I agree very much with the OP that the idea of romancing non-humans is ridiculous from the first go. I've stopped complaining about it because there is no point to it, but that doesn't change the utter ridiculousness of the whole premise.

The OP is also right that it is outright impossible to ignore the fact that this is in the game, with various non-squad asari hitting on you or something very similar (ME1 Sha'ira, ME2 Shiala), the turian and the quarian talking in Eternity on Illium or that bachelor party. It is annoying how much this is pushed into your face.

In some way Garrus' romance is the most honest about it. It is rather obvious that Garrus isn't physically attractive. Non-humans wouldn't be for reasons I have repeated so many times that I won't bore anyone with yet another wall of text. Even if humanoid, they'd look, smell and sound different enough that only a tiny minority of real xenophiles would be attracted. Thus, the most annoying silliness is the look of the asari and the quarians - humanoid enough that secondary sexual characteristics are *identical* to humans.

For those like me, who find the whole concept of romancing non-humans as something that's normal ridiculous to the point of being offensive, nothing remains but to ignore it as best as we can, pretend the people who do interspecies romance are all of the 0.1%-small group of real xenophiles, and romance our human team members.

At least this gives me more appreciation of my human team members. In my list of reasons why I like my favorite character, "she's human" is one.

Well I could rage and rage about this. Because I'm one of the people who romances those non-humans.
But You are entitled to your opinion.
Just like I and the massive fanbases of the various Alien LI's are.

Modifié par Grand Admiral Cheesecake, 20 juin 2011 - 08:56 .

[Nerdage]

Disappointed by the lack of this in this thread..

[DahliaLynn]

Ieldra2 wrote...
@DahliaLynn:
Yes, the nonhumans are psychologically very much like humans. But that shouldn't make a great deal of difference for sexual attraction. It means that you can be friends with a non-human, understand his or her personality and even love them in a platonic way. But things should stop at the sex. There isn't a thing some human wouldn't use as a fetish in the world, but a non-human fetish should be very rare. 

I feel that eventually looks play very little role when it comes to truly falling in love with someone. They do play a dominant role in initial attraction, but people (or "beings" in this case ) grow on you. I feel that the more similar to human a "being" is, the more we can find an emotional connection, which in the end can translate to a sexual connection. 

I've found in my life that men I have not been physically attracted to in the least upon initial meeting "grew" on me after a span of time, completely surprising my own view of what I think an attractive man should look like. I admit it is harder, but in my opinion it all comes down to the delicate balance of personality and body language that makes that sexual connection happen. 

Question is, would looks I don't initially find attractive stop me from getting to know them? Probably, which is the sad truth for the most part, unless I am in a structured framework routine that causes me to spend more time with them for example.

With regards to ME2 for example a better question to ask is if they managed to create the setting and story well enough for me to be attracted to them, to the point that I would want to romance them at all. 

Modifié par DahliaLynn, 20 juin 2011 - 09:44 .

[Alienmorph]

Ieldra2 wrote...

I agree very much with the OP that the
idea of romancing non-humans is ridiculous from the first go. I've
stopped complaining about it because there is no point to it, but that
doesn't change the utter ridiculousness of the whole premise.

The
OP is also right that it is outright impossible to ignore the fact that
this is in the game, with various non-squad asari hitting on you or
something very similar (ME1 Sha'ira, ME2 Shiala), the turian and the
quarian talking in Eternity on Illium or that bachelor party. It is
annoying how much this is pushed into your face.

It's common and normal in science-fiction, and it's called science-FICTION for a reason. If you're not comfortable with the idea that in a hypothetical future there are humans people eought open-minded to think to have sex with aliens, and vice-versa you should be interested in some other genders of fictional universes. Xenophilia exists in the ME's universe, yes. There are various hints to the possibility of practice it ingame, yes. You're forced in any way to do it? No.

Ieldra2 wrote...

For those like me, who find the whole
concept of romancing non-humans as something that's normal ridiculous to
the point of being offensive, nothing remains but to ignore it as best
as we can, pretend the people who do interspecies romance are all of the
0.1%-small group of real xenophiles, and romance our human team
members.

:lol::lol:
Are u kidding, right? Really, plese don't start with the old "the xenophiles are just the creepiest and most noisy fans, but they're only a few dumb users". The number of human and xeno 'mancers is probably moar or less the same.

Ieldra2 wrote...

At least this gives me more appreciation of my human
team members. In my list of reasons why I like my favorite character,
"she's human" is one.

So you may like a character only because he/she's human? Fiiiiiiine.

In general, as I've already said, calm down. Human, alien or wth, we're still talking of dating a virtual character. From outside the videogamers world a Talimancer and a Mirimancer can look equally creepy, because the point is that both Tali and Miranda (or anyone else we can take as example) are fictional characters, no matter of what species is supposed to belong. Don't take the romance feature too seriously, just let that everyone go with the character he/she likes, without accusing him/her of having sick fetishes or whathever. If we'd pretend to take the videogaming "life" as reference for a real person's attitudes, almost everyone who ever held a gamepad in his/her hands should be closed into a jail or into an asylum.  

All of this, imoh, off course, no flaming intents.

Modifié par Alienmorph, 20 juin 2011 - 09:50 .

[Sarcastic Tasha]

I thought this thread was going to be about how Shepard and his/her alien partner might have problems maintaining a long term relationship due to differences in culture, life span, etc. Which I would have probably agreed with, people tend to choose a partner with a similar upbringing to themselves because they tend to have more in common. Does that mean someone from a wealthy family can't have a successful relationship with someone from a working class background? No, but it may cause problems they'll need to get past. I think alien relationships in ME are interesting, I'm hoping ME3 will touch on the cultural differences that may cause problems with the relationships.

[78stonewobble]

I don't think a "successfull" relationship have to be everlasting. It just has to be good WHILE it lasts for it to be a good relationship.

[TobiTobsen]

leggywillow wrote...

King Zeel wrote...
When was sexing another species "cool"?

The defense rests.

Captain Kirk feels embarrassed for the OP.

[Ieldra]

Alienmorph wrote...
It's common and normal in science-fiction, and it's called science-FICTION for a reason. If you're not comfortable with they idea that in a hypothetical future there are people humans open-minded to think to have sex with aliens, and vice-versa you should be interested in some other genders of fictional universes. Xenophilia exists in the ME's universe, yes. There are various hints to the possibility of practice it ingame, yes. You're forced in any way to do it? No.

It's not a question of open-mindedness but of plausibility. You can romance anyone you wish, I only think that if non-humans were portrayed less as humans with rubber heads and funny skin and more like different species, people would feel less attracted to them. We have thousands of non-human species on Earth. You'd think a non-human from a different star system would not look closer to humans than any species on Earth. And imagine: should any species on Earth be intelligent, would people be attracted to them as a rule rather than as an exception?

Are u kidding, right? Really, plese don't start with the old "the xenophiles are just the creepiest and most noisy fans, but they're only a few dumb users". The number of human and xeno 'mancers is probably moar or less the same.

I was talking about characters in the game, not players. Apart from the everpresent asari, it's easy to pretend that interspecies romance is the taste of a small minority in the ME universe.

So you may like a character only because he/she's human? Fiiiiiiine.

That's not what i said. It is not a sufficient reason to like them alone, no. But if I like them, it makes the difference in considering a romance or not.

[Ieldra]

DahliaLynn wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...
@DahliaLynn:
Yes, the nonhumans are psychologically very much like humans. But that shouldn't make a great deal of difference for sexual attraction. It means that you can be friends with a non-human, understand his or her personality and even love them in a platonic way. But things should stop at the sex. There isn't a thing some human wouldn't use as a fetish in the world, but a non-human fetish should be very rare. 

I feel that eventually looks play very little role when it comes to truly falling in love with someone. They do play a dominant role in initial attraction, but people (or "beings" in this case ) grow on you. I feel that the more similar to human a "being" is, the more we can find an emotional connection, which in the end can translate to a sexual connection. 

I've found in my life that men I have not been physically attracted to in the least upon initial meeting "grew" on me after a span of time, completely surprising my own view of what I think an attractive man should look like. I admit it is harder, but in my opinion it all comes down to the delicate balance of personality and body language that makes that sexual connection happen. 

Question is, would looks I don't initially find attractive stop me from getting to know them? Probably, which is the sad truth for the most part, unless I am in a structured framework routine that causes me to spend more time with them for example.

Looks affect initial impression, but sex is affected by all senses. Also there's this: almost every human you'd ever be attracted to still looks, sounds and smells human. I.e. that person and his/her ancestors have co-evolved with other humans for mutual attraction for a million years and more. Every species is the result of a ten-thousand generation selection process where triggers for sexual attraction are among the most specific. Humans share 98% of their genes with chimpanzees, yet I bet even were they as intelligent as humans, interspecies sexual attraction would be very rare. Now extrapolate that to nonhumans from other star systems.

I am not surprised that people are attracted by the non-humans as presented in the games. My complaint is rather that these non-humans are not convincing as non-humans because they have biological (as opposed to social) traits only a human can relate to, and why would they ever have these? Convergent evolution cannot explain something so specific that it doesn't even exist between different species on ONE planet - as a rule, a chimpanzee female's ****** don't look attractive to a human man. Were they convincing as non-humans, people would rarely feel attracted to them.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 20 juin 2011 - 10:06 .

[Jebel Krong]

alien romances are just fanservice, and there's nothing wrong with that on that merit, but in terms of biological compatibility, from a realism standpoint, it's a complete non-starter. post-human relationships are a science fiction standpoint and i'd like to think that by whatever time in the future, a relationships could be conducted with another species, even if only on an intellectual, rather than biological level (for whatever reasons).

The number of human and xeno 'mancers is probably moar or less the same.

don't kid yourself, there may be some parity in a biased audience here, but in terms of general audience? - no way in hell given the current state of even most developed & liberal societies, where racism is common - you really think that doesn't bleed through into people's in-game choices?

[AmstradHero]

Couldn't agree more with DahliaLynn on this point. To potentially argue that "zomg sex/romance with aliens is taking away content from other more important things" is equivalent to the same argument without the "with aliens" part. We're playing a fictional character in a setting where inter-species romance is not uncommon, and not frowned upon. It's no different from multi-racial relationships in a fantasy setting.

Meaningful relationships are based on an emotional connection, and BioWare's writers frequently manage to create characters to whom players form some sort of emotional connection. The fact that so many people will staunchly defend their favourite character is testament to the strength of the characterisation. To me, that's awesome writing, regardless of the appearance of the character.

Are they fanservice? Arguably in the case of Tali and Garrus, yes. But Liara was createdas a romance in ME1 before anyone even knew of her. Same for Thane in ME2. Do the characters  have many "human" characteristics in terms of appearance and emotion? Certainly, but without the emotional characteristics, players would find it hard to establish any connection with their character. And if a writer wants a player to feel any emotion towards a character (positive or negative) they need to be able to relate to them in some fashion.

The fact that resources have been dedicated towards creating romances is not a bad thing - character romance in an RPG adds to the believability of the gameworld and the characters within it, provided it is done well. If we were dealing with content that was simply about having your character sleep with just about any character they come across, then I think there would be an issue. But we're not, we're dealing with fully developed characters with somewhat complex personalities. I'd support the creation of such characters in any game, regardless of game genre, and regardless of the character's race.

Modifié par AmstradHero, 20 juin 2011 - 10:14 .

[Bolboreta]

I don't agree. Human interest in alien species and interspecies attraction have always been in sci-fi. Farscape had it (a young John with Chiana, all his romances with peacekeepers), Star Wars had it (who doesn't like twi'leks?), Star Trek had it (Captain Kirk... come on), Alien Nation had it, Futurama had it, Dr. Who had it and I'm probably missing a lot of shows.

It's a futuristic story, where alien interaction is common. We cannot know for sure how we would react and I like to think we can break all barriers and love people instead of races/species.

[S.A.K]

Different people have different opinions and the game gives options to everyone. Some people may like a human in the game and others like an alien. If you don't like romancing aliens then don't do it. But that doesn't mean everyone has to be like that. As for romancing aliens to be considered practical we'll have to meet some aliens. As we didn't find any so far we'll have to wait and see

[Wulfram]

Given that the aliens are basically humanoid, I don't think it's particularly unrealistic. Though it no doubt requires communication, patience and a tolerance for chafing.

[Alienmorph]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Alienmorph wrote...
It's common and normal in science-fiction, and it's called science-FICTION for a reason. If you're not comfortable with they idea that in a hypothetical future there are people humans open-minded to think to have sex with aliens, and vice-versa you should be interested in some other genders of fictional universes. Xenophilia exists in the ME's universe, yes. There are various hints to the possibility of practice it ingame, yes. You're forced in any way to do it? No.

It's not a question of open-mindedness but of plausibility. You can romance anyone you wish, I only think that if non-humans were portrayed less as humans with rubber heads and funny skin and more like different species, people would feel less attracted to them. We have thousands of non-human species on Earth. You'd think a non-human from a different star system would not look closer to humans than any species on Earth. And imagine: should any species on Earth be intelligent, would people be attracted to them as a rule rather than as an exception?

I've never said that xenophilia must be "rule", but into an hypothetical multiratial civilization, with various species with uses and phisiologies enough similar to consider the cross-species intercourse I don't see why that possibility should be considered deviant or unplausible. If we're talking of the fact that there are too many human-looking aliens in the ME's universe I may agree with you, but humanoid appearences helps the not-so-big-fans-of-scifi to make themselves comfortable and emphatise with the characters, and I didn't see anyone suggesting seriously to mate his/her character with a radically different alien as an hanar or a krogan. It's a bit too much expecting that aliens are so commonly human-like? Yes, but ME never pretended to be 100% plausible as sci-fi story. May hypothetical human and humanoid aliens considers seriously the cross-species mating? Myths and stories about sexing or bounding with a non-human creature exists since the dawn of man, in fact it's a really ancient fantasy. So in an universe where such possibility exist I can't imagine the whole humanity just saying "mating with a non-human? Thanks, but no thanks."

Ieldra2 wrote...

Are u kidding, right? Really, plese don't start with the old "the xenophiles are just the creepiest and most noisy fans, but they're only a few dumb users". The number of human and xeno 'mancers is probably moar or less the same.

I was talking about characters in the game, not players. Apart from the everpresent asari, it's easy to pretend that interspecies romance is the taste of a small minority in the ME universe.

Ok, my mystake about this, then. But still, I think you're wrong, even talking of ingame. Surely mating with turian or quarians would be a very rare practice, but with many much more humanoids like the asari and the drells, I think that xenophile humas in the ME's universe are a quite significative percentage, surely bigger than the 0,01 %, even if in minority compared to the normo-sexual off course.

Ieldra2 wrote...

So you may like a character only because he/she's human? Fiiiiiiine.

That's not what i said. It is not a sufficient reason to like them alone, no. But if I like them, it makes the difference in considering a romance or not.

Hm, makes sense. So the question becomes another: if your absolutely most favourite character was an alien, and a possible LI you won't romance him/her and pick an human LI you like less, only because you feel more disturbing dating a fictional character that's not of your same species? I'm not trying to trick you or what, I'm just trying to make you understanding my PoV: i like Tali and Liara as LI much more than any human romance, so considered the others LIs are still fictional as them, why I should be worried of interspecies issues and don't pick up them?

Modifié par Alienmorph, 20 juin 2011 - 10:26 .

[Seboist]

Femshep sexin Garrus is a bad idea unless she's eager for a broken pelvis.

[S.A.K]

Just made a pole to see what most people think.