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[Bugsie]

There are tons of tropes in life if that's what you want to call them. I don't feel the need to live my life in a zone of social outrage because they make the women of the game love shoes or because people are poor fiction writers. I ignore what I feel like, accept that people are human, and am pretty happy most of the time because of it.

I have gay friends I watch hockey with and gay friends I go shopping with that meet what people would consider a "trope". One of my gay friends in a drag queen and very "queer" as he puts is and he said he feels more criticism and judgment from other gays because they think he's being a stereotype while he says he's living his life.

I just nod and wave because I think any kind of judgment, even those we feel in our heads is "pro", is really outside my pay grade. I am a fundamentally flawed person with lots of things wrong with me so I aint got time to point out what other people do that is politically incorrect and/or wrong. I'd be a bigger hypocrite than I already am if I sat around and pointed fingers when I have so much work to do on myself.

So basically what I'm saying is that if someone wants to have a fictional gay bff what's it to anyone and how is it different than erotica or romance novel which also create false expectations in people? Most women I know cannot live up to the expectations placed on us in literature, movies, etc.nor are we we wicked as a lot of songs make us out to be.

Everyone has a fictional worldview. If we all lived in the present and embraced reality the world would look very different.

social outrage?

If you think that's what it is from a few lines of ' I find it annoying', I'll happily clarify it for you as 'don't worry I'm not losing sleep about it'.

But understand this, from actual gay people here on this forum, they find it more than annoying, and that is perfectly okay.

Kind of hilarious that you seem to be telling people to 'get over it.' Just because you can gloss over it more easily than others.

Thanks for schooling us in life lessons on 'not sweating the small stuff'. Truly enlightening.

[warblewobble]

I like that not every character is open to hooking up with every inquisitor. It feels more realistic to me. (Yes, I know, insert comment about looking for realism in an escapist fantasy game, and so on.)

 

What I really liked, however, is that characters may share your inquisitor's sexual orientation but still choose not to hook up with you because of personal differences. That's actually kind of awesome. In past roleplaying games I've usually been able to say whatever I wanted as long as I kept on someone's good side. Here, it feels like the beliefs your inquisitor espouses actually matter a little more.

 

Even if that's just my perception of it and not actually the case it speaks well of the game's writing and ability to remember what your character says. On one playthrough I told Cassandra I believed in the maker just to try and please her. I was then locked in with a protagonist of faith because the game made the assumption that my inquisitor wasn't a lying sociopath.

 

Contrast that to DA 2 where your Hawke could constantly contradict him/herself regarding views on mages and Templars. (Templar is auto-capitalized? Weird.) You could tell one person all mages are dangerous and need to be locked away and then turn right around and tell Anders you're totally all for freeing them.

[warblewobble]

Also, apologies for rapid posting but since I didn't want to put up a wall of text...

 

On the topic of Krem, there was something Iron Bull says that got me thinking. Specifically, he states that anyone who is anatomically female is considered a male if part of the warrior caste. (Apologies if I'm being clumsy on the lore/terminology there but you know what I mean. Soldiers in the Qun.)

 

At first I thought, "Oh, well, how very egalitarian!" However, I then got to wondering if that's not kind of an insulting attitude on some level. Imagine a woman who considers her gender and femininity an important aspect of her identity yet also wants to be a warrior. Essentially, according to the qunari she can't be both.

 

Maybe I'm just missing something here though? It also seems like gender in general isn't that much of an issue in the Qun. Still, it seems like it would be more progressive to say "Anyone can be a warrior" rather than "If you're a warrior you're considered a man just like all the other men." That may be exactly what Krem wants but it's kind of obnoxious to a woman who identifies as such and still wants to be a soldier. Of course, the Qun isn't necessarily about being progressive and accepting. They wouldn't exactly embrace anyone wanting to be an individualistic, role-defying nonconformist, for instance. Maybe I did indeed interpret that correctly.

[Caddius]

Also, apologies for rapid posting but since I didn't want to put up a wall of text...

 

On the topic of Krem, there was something Iron Bull says that got me thinking. Specifically, he states that anyone who is anatomically female is considered a male if part of the warrior caste. (Apologies if I'm being clumsy on the lore/terminology there but you know what I mean. Soldiers in the Qun.)

 

At first I thought, "Oh, well, how very egalitarian!" However, I then got to wondering if that's not kind of an insulting attitude on some level. Imagine a woman who considers her gender and femininity an important aspect of her identity yet also wants to be a warrior. Essentially, according to the qunari she can't be both.

 

Maybe I'm just missing something here though? It also seems like gender in general isn't that much of an issue in the Qun. Still, it seems like it would be more progressive to say "Anyone can be a warrior" rather than "If you're a warrior you're considered a man just like all the other men." That may be exactly what Krem wants but it's kind of obnoxious to a woman who identifies as such and still wants to be a soldier. Of course, the Qun isn't necessarily about being progressive and accepting. They wouldn't exactly embrace anyone wanting to be an individualistic, role-defying nonconformist, for instance. Maybe I did indeed interpret that correctly.

I believe the warrior caste is the Antaam, with the vanguard and forward scouts like Sten being the Beresaad. I get my Qunari terms mixed up all the time, though, as a warning. 

While I don't know what the Qunari defines as masculine and feminine besides the obvious caste connotations, (Woman cerebral and spiritual, men stoic soldiers, both able to be spies.) Sten shows they definitely don't approve of feminine women acting as warrior caste. And, as you can tell Sten to his face, it is obnoxious. 

Krem as a transsexual would be fine with them. Bull seems to be fine with women serving as warriors and identifying as women, but he's an unorthodox Qunari. Everyone has a place and is respected, so long as they act according to their role. Non-conformists are 're-educated' until they become conformists.

[Lady Artifice]

About the gay BFF thing. I don't think people realize how much straight women allies can sometimes make gay people uncomfortable and unsafe. There is a huge difference between being legitimate friends, even best friends. That stuff is awesome. It is often the disrespect to people's privacy and glamorizing their life that is dehumanizing. Acting like gay people Must be a certain way. Having them always there to lay down their own interests for the women in their lives with little in return. This stuff is romanticized to a ridiculous point.

 

But the worst is gay bars. Not only do many Straight women (and also increasingly straight men) make many celebrations at gay bars, including classiest of them all, bachelorete parties. But it gets to the point that Bars have closed down because straight women tend to harrass gay men, and on more than one occaison attacked gay women who have flirted with them. When asked to stop they cried discrimination and the bar closed down due to takeovers.

 

It is generally accepted where I am that gay bars are not safe for gay people emotionally or physically because of all the straight allies who push us out of our own space. Often anything put up for gay people comes with a lot of straight people, often straight women, who take pictures without permission, molest, and even bully the participants. A friend who is close and also gay is a wonderful thing. But it is a Social Phenomena that the Gay Best Friend Idea itself is hurting gay men to where they are openly fetishized and hurt, while lesbians have been bullied out of these areas by straight women.

 

By all means have a best friend who is gay that is a wonderful thing, but don't ignore the ramifications the Gay Best Friend has had on LGBT culture.

 

Thank you for this post. It gave me some fresh insights, and a new way to understand a few things.

 

I work in the service industry, and I encounter a lot of bachelorette parties. In general, I abhor them. Or at least I abhor many of the trappings, gimmicks, and the attitudes that tend to go with them. I've seen intoxicated women celebrating a bachelorette party harass my male coworkers, and I've been harassed by them myself. And sometimes, every once and a while and whether or not it's a sensible reaction, I've become actually embarrassed by them as a woman. 

 

I guess my little rant here is more about drunk people than it is common perceptions straight people often carry around and impose upon homosexuals, but my point is that finding out that this is another problem the LGBT community faces isn't a great surprise to me, but it is distressing.

 

All the same, I'm grateful to be aware of it now.

[nightscrawl]

I find generalization of any kind to be troubling and I tend to avoid any of that garbage on tumblr, although I am occasionally exposed to it. I find confessions like this quite troubling as it seems that the person has so narrow a view of what the "fanbase" is as to be confined to sites like tumblr or other social media. For the cesspool that the BSN is often described as, there is a lot more nuanced conversation that is able to happen on these forums -- such as this thread! -- than people give it credit for.

 

Over in the Dorian BSN thread the fangirls (that I'm aware of, I know there are fanboys there too) are very happy to create a hot guy to pair up with Dorian. They enjoy the character, the relationship, what it says about Dorian as a character and how it affects him. And I admit that it is upsetting to be lumped in with some other female players that really don't appear to give a damn about Dorian as a character and only want a notch on their bedpost.

 

Then I have to take a breath and recall this quote from David Gaider:

And Alistair has no feelings (cue the Ikea lamp commercial). You may want to think he does and leap to his (or Fenris’, or Anders’, or Anora’s, or whoever’s) defense, but let’s remember he’s just a fictional character. It’s okay if people hate him. Love or hate, that’s what makes him immortal.

[Rannik]

 

Dammit Dorian.

[Karlone123]

Dorian is my inquisitor's closest disciple despite being a mage.. My templar-supporting Inquisitor has a good bromance with him.

[Hair Serious Business]

Not to get off-topic...but do you know how much I feel cheated for being forced to play as male just to romance Cassandra?

She has best romance arc and I'm 1000000000000000000% in love with her...but to be able to romance her I need to be guy. So I think are these are meant to be endured and they simply need to be accepted 

 

 

 

............or just go get a mod...that works too 

[Joseph Warrick]

Also, apologies for rapid posting but since I didn't want to put up a wall of text...

 

On the topic of Krem, there was something Iron Bull says that got me thinking. Specifically, he states that anyone who is anatomically female is considered a male if part of the warrior caste. (Apologies if I'm being clumsy on the lore/terminology there but you know what I mean. Soldiers in the Qun.)

 

At first I thought, "Oh, well, how very egalitarian!" However, I then got to wondering if that's not kind of an insulting attitude on some level. Imagine a woman who considers her gender and femininity an important aspect of her identity yet also wants to be a warrior. Essentially, according to the qunari she can't be both.

 

Maybe I'm just missing something here though? It also seems like gender in general isn't that much of an issue in the Qun. Still, it seems like it would be more progressive to say "Anyone can be a warrior" rather than "If you're a warrior you're considered a man just like all the other men." That may be exactly what Krem wants but it's kind of obnoxious to a woman who identifies as such and still wants to be a soldier. Of course, the Qun isn't necessarily about being progressive and accepting. They wouldn't exactly embrace anyone wanting to be an individualistic, role-defying nonconformist, for instance. Maybe I did indeed interpret that correctly.

 

You're not missing anything. The Qun brainwashes everybody to the point of surrendering their own names and they tell women who cut their hair and play with swords that they're men. That's how positive the depiction of Krem is.