2503 réponses à ce sujet

[Dunmer of Redoran]

I have never actually played DA2 but I can imagine that having a game with time constraints makes writing two well-written orientation romance paths for a single character much more difficult than writing one (and let's be honest, most Bioware game romances aren't exactly 5-star stories).

 

Sexual orientation is a part of any person's identity. If you give characters malleable sexual orientation, you make their identities malleable, and that takes away from some potential distinguishing features. If a character swings both ways, making them bisexual makes a lot more sense than making them whatever orientation the player is. It becomes easier to characterize that individual, including how they and others view their sexuality in regard to their relationships. Throw in whatever romance options fit the in-game universe. But the characters whose sexual orientation revolves around the player...not a fan of that at all.

[karushna5]

Really only Anders sexuality is player sexual since his sexuality was actively hidden from the female PC. Fenris was obviously Bi (romancing Isabela regardless of your gender and perhaps flirting with MHawke) as was Isabela, Merrill shows very little interest either way and does not hide her sexuality from Hawke.

 

Josephine doesn't mention being into both genders, but she is Bisexual. And saying Bisexuals are malleable or their romances are lesser if their sexuality is not advertised is an issue that has bothered them for years. "What I thought you were gay?" "When did you become straight?"

 

Or saying the sexuality has to be advertised and relationships should react to that seems unfair. Maybe once in a blue moon have characters like Dorian who are characterized by their sexuality, but please not all. No more than Garrus is defined by his straightness should a Bi character be characterized by their Bisexuality. (which I feel they do poorly when they try)

 

I think if they do 4 bi characters in the future it may be better not to call it player sexual.

[dgcatanisiri]

I've said it repeatedly, calling the DA2 romances 'playersexual' is just wrong. They may not have made them all neon-lights-in-bold-caps explicitly bi, but they WERE bisexual. Anders is openly attracted to Hawke regardless of gender. Isabela makes a pass at Hawke at the end of her recruitment mission no matter what. Merrill and Fenris are both more subtle about it, but that's because the both of them are introverted people, people who wouldn't be talking about their relationships that much regardless of their sexuality. But Merrill hints at having a crush on Hawke ("The Champion of Kirkwall going to battle naked. Why can't I ever have that dream?") and Fenris will pair up with Isabela if not romanced in Act III, even if he slept with a male Hawke in Act II. These characters are all bisexual. Anders will downplay it, refraining from telling female Hawke about his relationship with Karl, and not mentioning any interest in women to male Hawke , but they all are bisexual, whether or not people want to call them that.

 

Meanwhile, EVERY romance in EVERY game is ALWAYS "playersexual." I mean, hell, just look at Mass Effect, where Liara will be so in love with and devoted to a xenophobic anti-alien jackass Shepard that she'll still go to the ends of the galaxy to recover their body on the basis of her inability to let them go and be willing to romance them in 3. Throughout Mass Effect, there is almost nothing that serves as a crisis point that locks Shepard out of a romance. Thane and Tali's loyalty missions are the exception, not the rule. The only way that Shepard can avoid the romances with the characters around them is not through their actions but by the dialogue choices made by the player. Even in Dragon Age Origins we saw this, where Morrigan would fall in love with a goody two-shoes Warden and Alistair with a ruthless power mad would-be dictator. Are you legitimately saying that personality and choices have no effect on a willingness to be involved in a romantic relationship with someone?

 

At most, if they need to somehow 'prove' a character is bisexual, all they really have to do is to include acknowledgement of attraction to males and females - a character remarks on the attractiveness of multiple characters, regardless of gender. A character mentions prior relations with both a boyfriend and a girlfriend. A character says that they haven't been with anyone, male or female, before. Ta da, you have explicitly bisexual characters who are not defined by their sexuality, given the off-handed nature of most of these comments, their sexualities do not revolve around the player because they're established as being bisexual, and you have options open to everyone.

[(Disgusted noise.)]

I have never actually played DA2 but I can imagine that having a game with time constraints makes writing two well-written orientation romance paths for a single character much more difficult than writing one (and let's be honest, most Bioware game romances aren't exactly 5-star stories).

 

Sexual orientation is a part of any person's identity. If you give characters malleable sexual orientation, you make their identities malleable, and that takes away from some potential distinguishing features. If a character swings both ways, making them bisexual makes a lot more sense than making them whatever orientation the player is. It becomes easier to characterize that individual, including how they and others view their sexuality in regard to their relationships. Throw in whatever romance options fit the in-game universe. But the characters whose sexual orientation revolves around the player...not a fan of that at all.

 

You didn't really need to waste your time typing that. The rest of your post made it clear that you don't know anything about those characters.

[Panda]

What I want for romance options?

 

Male Drell would be my first choice, hopefully they are coming with us in Andromeda. Someone younger than Thane and less religious would be nice. Someone who doesn't respect Hanars so much and doesn't want to serve them out of gratitude of sth that happened ages ago. Personality would be bit impulsive and reckless, someone who gets into trouble a lot. He could be straight or bisexual option.

 

Female Turian who is very into rules and fullfilling her duty, so someone different from Garrus. Someone who struggles to meet high expectations of Turian society, but is perfectionist and tries her best to meet them. She would be lesbian and female KISA kind of character ^^

 

Female (obviously) Asari that is badass and ruthless. Opposite of Liara, someone who isn't that nice. Vanguard that is there for herself. Someone like Aria and Vasir. Bisexual romance.

[Evamitchelle]

I've said it repeatedly, calling the DA2 romances 'playersexual' is just wrong. They may not have made them all neon-lights-in-bold-caps explicitly bi, but they WERE bisexual. Anders is openly attracted to Hawke regardless of gender. Isabela makes a pass at Hawke at the end of her recruitment mission no matter what. Merrill and Fenris are both more subtle about it, but that's because the both of them are introverted people, people who wouldn't be talking about their relationships that much regardless of their sexuality. But Merrill hints at having a crush on Hawke ("The Champion of Kirkwall going to battle naked. Why can't I ever have that dream?") and Fenris will pair up with Isabela if not romanced in Act III, even if he slept with a male Hawke in Act II. These characters are all bisexual. Anders will downplay it, refraining from telling female Hawke about his relationship with Karl, and not mentioning any interest in women to male Hawke , but they all are bisexual, whether or not people want to call them that.

 
There's a banter in Act I that all but states that Anders and Isabela slept together ("Oh! Were you the runaway mage who could do that electricity thing? That was nice...") which makes the "playersexual" claims even more ridiculous.

[Blackguard]

If you're a gay mShep or straight fShep, romance wasn't all too fair. The games really seemed to cater to straight mShep and lesbian fShep. (Or bisexual Shep of either gender.)

 

To avoid what happened with DA:I - which caused massive upset regarding the sudden shift of romance options - maybe romance can just be equally divvied up? Seems like, at the end of the day, that's what everyone would agree on. Well, almost everyone. I know there are people out there who would rather romances just play out in whatever capacity for the sake of the story. I respect that.

 

But in the end, more will agree that it kinda sucks when options are limited for certain heroes of certain orientations/genders.

 

Speaking strictly for me, to be gay or bisexual would have maybe saved me at least some fun on DA:I, Dorian was the only char i really liked in that game...

 

But to be more serious, it would, in my opinion, really make sense to manage this issue for the sake of gameplay, not for the sake of realism.

 

In other words, give as many characters as possible a bisexual option.

Gay people don't GOT to have a character for a romance that is ONLY gay, as well as hetero people lose NOTHING if all/most of the characters are as well able to get romanced by the same gender.

It is a freaking game, where as many people as possible, should got as much freedom as possible, to get as much fun out of the time they are spending there as possible (that was alot of possibilities, wasn't it?).

 

That would be the only way to make it fair for all genders/sexual preferences/whatever.

(Let aside all the gay-haters as well as the i-am-so-special-gays, both sides won't be ever satisfied anyway and shouldn't be considered)

 

As a mid-aged, boring-heterosexual male... can i have my Tali back, please?

 

You damn Bioware devs killed me before i could build us our home on Rannoch and we was able start to breed Varren together... like we have planned... damn i hate Mass Effect... is it 2016 yet?

[Decepticon Leader Sully]

i realy dont care eitherway i just want cool characters.

[Dunmer of Redoran]

You didn't really need to waste your time typing that. The rest of your post made it clear that you don't know anything about those characters.

 

That's actually not true. I'm not going to pretend I know everything about the characters, but I've seen enough let's plays, cutscene videos, read the wiki, etc. in an attempt to determine if the game was worth playing, and I did notice scenes where the romances run extremely parallel (in regards to the little things) where it's a glorified copy-paste. I also remember the romances in Mass Effect with malleable orientation (Kaidan, Kelly, and Liara--I'm including her because her romance is extremely similar for Male or Female Shepard). None of those romances had the same depth that more absolute romances (Garrus and Tali spring to mind) had, not by virtue of who the stronger character is, or anything like that, but because of how much time the writers had to focus in each.

 

Larger number of romance possibilities = less time to focus on writing that romance.

 

Maybe it's better in DA2 than it was in Mass Effect (and I wouldn't be surprised if it is; I thought DA:O had better-written romances than Mass Effect does) but this problem manifested in Mass Effect before. It can happen again.

[karushna5]

Yes, I think 4 Bisexual options are the best, and if not for the whole "playersexual" nonsense we may have gotten more of them. it means fewer romances that make some people happy, it allows for smaller crews, it also means despite fewer options there are still 2 romances for everyone. Also a number devs can handle, and can do the best with.

 

Everyone knows that DA2 was a bit rushed, but I feel the characters were a bit one dimensional compared to previous and later companions. That had nothing to do with how their romances were bisexual though. And everything to do with the fact the game came out really quick.

 

I don't think 2/2/2 should be thrown out though. Alternate between them. And a larger cast can easily work with a 2/2/2 and can highlight a larger game that can support it. Look at Inquisition: We had Sera, Dorian, Josephine, Cullen, Cassandra, Iron Bull, Solas, Blackwall.

 

In a 0/4/0 only four of them would have been kept. Solas and Cullen were added afterward. Dorian's story doesn't make sense as much if he isn't gay so he is just not a romance (they have talked more about Gay non romanceables) And lets suppose Josephine is cut instead of Sera.

 

So Cassandra, Sera, Blackwall, Iron Bull.

 

I know many people would have been happier with this, but also many people would not. We had 12 characters in our circle and I feel having 6 romance options instead of 4 made sense. Who knows maybe we would not get some of these characters at all. More romances nearly always means more party members. So fair to say our inner circle may have decreased without more romances. 

 

So in general I feel 4 bi romances for small casts, and 2/2/2 for larger ones.

[karushna5]

That's actually not true. I'm not going to pretend I know everything about the characters, but I've seen enough let's plays, cutscene videos, read the wiki, etc. in an attempt to determine if the game was worth playing, and I did notice scenes where the romances run extremely parallel (in regards to the little things) where it's a glorified copy-paste. I also remember the romances in Mass Effect with malleable orientation (Kaidan, Kelly, and Liara--I'm including her because her romance is extremely similar for Male or Female Shepard). None of those romances had the same depth that more absolute romances (Garrus and Tali spring to mind) had, not by virtue of who the stronger character is, or anything like that, but because of how much time the writers had to focus in each.

 

Larger number of romance possibilities = less time to focus on writing that romance.

 

Maybe it's better in DA2 than it was in Mass Effect (and I wouldn't be surprised if it is; I thought DA:O had better-written romances than Mass Effect does) but this problem manifested in Mass Effect before. It can happen again.

 

Stop calling Bisexuals malleable, yes their romances are very similiar if you are male or female, that doesn't make them malleable any more than the fact Morrigan or Blackwall say nearly the same thing to every race of the protag.

 

There really isn't a reason to make it dramatically different. Also you are cherry picking. Liara was easily the most popular and many believed a further fleshed out romance then Ashley or Kaiden in ME1 despite being Bisexual. Leliana was the most romanced character, far more than Morrigan and many more people complained about not romancing her than Morrigan. Kelley was never designed to be a romanced, neither was Diana Allers or others, they did not unlock an achievement, and have half the content not because they are Bisexual but because they were designed to be a Lagniappe. 

 

And you complained about Kaiden, but compare him to his counterpart Ashley, and many people feel he has better content then her gay or straight. Regardless, Kaiden had more than Jack or Miranda. In fact many gay guys on here have felt Kaiden was better than Cortez a gay character.

 

They didn't give them less time because they were Bisexual, but because Garrus and Tali were the numerical favorites. Liara had the next most content, followed by Kaiden and Ashley because they were romances in the first 1. In fact they all were there in the first game. If you bring up Kelley, then Jack and Miranda also make sense, and compared to Liara and Kaiden, they had much less content and were less defined in ME3.

 

So Bisexuality makes no difference, how resources were given does. DA2 was made quickly with little resources and many characters show it. ME3 was suffering from too many character deaths and had to bank on people having that character even alive, so they put less effort on all of them except the two favorite of the previous game Tali and Garrus.

[(Disgusted noise.)]

Stop calling Bisexuals malleable, yes their romances are very similiar if you are male or female, that doesn't make them malleable any more than the fact Morrigan or Blackwall say nearly the same thing to every race of the protag.

 

There really isn't a reason to make it dramatically different. Also you are cherry picking. Liara was easily the most popular and many believed a further fleshed out romance then Ashley or Kaiden in ME1 despite being Bisexual. Leliana was the most romanced character, far more than Morrigan and many more people complained about not romancing her than Morrigan. Kelley was never designed to be a romanced, neither was Diana Allers or others, they did not unlock an achievement, and have half the content not because they are Bisexual but because they were designed to be a Lagniappe. 

 

And you complained about Kaiden, but compare him to his counterpart Ashley, and many people feel he has better content then her gay or straight. Regardless, Kaiden had more than Jack or Miranda. In fact many gay guys on here have felt Kaiden was better than Cortez a gay character.

 

They didn't give them less time because they were Bisexual, but because Garrus and Tali were the numerical favorites. Liara had the next most content, followed by Kaiden and Ashley because they were romances in the first 1. In fact they all were there in the first game. If you bring up Kelley, then Jack and Miranda also make sense, and compared to Liara and Kaiden, they had much less content and were less defined in ME3.

 

So Bisexuality makes no difference, how resources were given does. DA2 was made quickly with little resources and many characters show it. ME3 was suffering from too many character deaths and had to bank on people having that character even alive, so they put less effort on all of them except the two favorite of the previous game Tali and Garrus.

 

I actually think DA2 has the strongest cast of companions of all the games from ME and DA (DA2 had some serious flaws, but the characters wasn't one of them... other than Bethany), but otherwise I completely agree. Trying to claim Liara and Kaidan lacked depth (especially compared Miranda and Jack who's romances were only a shadow compared to the others while still being "official") is just ridiculous.

[Hellion Rex]

4 bisexual characters would be fine by me. If they can funnel more content into those 4, I think it would be pretty good.

[Jaison1986]

I actually think DA2 has the strongest cast of companions of all the games from ME and DA (DA2 had some serious flaws, but the characters wasn't one of them... other than Bethany), but otherwise I completely agree. Trying to claim Liara and Kaidan lacked depth (especially compared Miranda and Jack who's romances were only a shadow compared to the others while still being "official") is just ridiculous.

 

It baffles me how people considered one of the few truly sane companions of that mob as one of the "flawed ones". I would think that being a complete nutcase is a negative trait.

[FKA_Servo]

For female romance option, I'm a little torn.  My first wish would be a badass lesbian krogan warlord.  Just tough as nails and super butch.  Like super butch and unapologetic about it.  But that's almost certainly not going to happen. 

 

 

For better or for worse, I'd also shy away from someone who has a mouthful of sharp teeth bigger than my head. Bros forever, though.

 

Not hating. But I'd go for the turian first.

[Evamitchelle]

That's actually not true. I'm not going to pretend I know everything about the characters, but I've seen enough let's plays, cutscene videos, read the wiki, etc. in an attempt to determine if the game was worth playing, and I did notice scenes where the romances run extremely parallel (in regards to the little things) where it's a glorified copy-paste. I also remember the romances in Mass Effect with malleable orientation (Kaidan, Kelly, and Liara--I'm including her because her romance is extremely similar for Male or Female Shepard). None of those romances had the same depth that more absolute romances (Garrus and Tali spring to mind) had, not by virtue of who the stronger character is, or anything like that, but because of how much time the writers had to focus in each.

 

Larger number of romance possibilities = less time to focus on writing that romance.

 

Maybe it's better in DA2 than it was in Mass Effect (and I wouldn't be surprised if it is; I thought DA:O had better-written romances than Mass Effect does) but this problem manifested in Mass Effect before. It can happen again.

 

Bisexuality is not a "malleable" orientation. It is as "absolute" as being straight, it just means liking people of more than one gender. We're not talking about a case of Schrödinger's sexuality here, if I romance Anders with a fHawke, he's still bisexual, if I romance Kaidan with BroShep, he's still bisexual. 

 

The romances are mostly similar across genders (though there are differences, for example Anders does not tell fHawke about his past relationship with Karl, Isabela gets jealous over fHawke in Mark of the Assassin but not over mHawke) but how does that have anything to do with how in-depth they are ? The romance is basically the same no matter who your Shepard is, but that applies to a lot of characteristics besides gender. You can romance Garrus as the most goody-two-shoes Paragon Shep or the most ruthless of renegades and you'll mostly get the same content as well. 

[Hellion Rex]

For male romance option, I'd like to see a Kal'Reegar type Quarian. Someone who's a tough, capable, no nonsense soldier with a bit of a sense of humor. Very dry though. I personally prefer the 'strong silent' type for male LI's. It's why I like Kaidan so much. And I think a male Quarian could do this well. And obviously I'd like him to be gay/bisexual.

For female romance option, I'm a little torn. My first wish would be a badass lesbian krogan warlord. Just tough as nails and super butch. Like super butch and unapologetic about it. But that's almost certainly not going to happen.

So I'm going to go with a female turian. Someone with a little edge to her. Maybe a former smuggler/mercenary who has a change of heart and sides with you. Someone who slowly opens up over time.

Wait, how would the Krogan work though.....O___O

For male romance, I would either like a human guy, or possibly one of the new races, provided that it's pretty humanoid.

[(Disgusted noise.)]

It baffles me how people considered one of the few truly sane companions of that mob as one of the "flawed ones". I would think that being a complete nutcase is a negative trait.

 

My problem isn't that Bethany is sane (my favorite ME characters are Kaidan, Miranda, and Kasumi, so I usually favor the more subtle ones over the super, over the top, angsty, look at how bad*** I am ones), it's that she has zero character development if you don't make her a Grey Warden and is essentially just a plot device in order to make non-mage Hawke care about mages rather than a genuine character in her own right. And then if you do make her a Warden, you have to live with knowning she's completely miserable. It has to do with poor writing rather than her personality and it's compounded by the fact she's mutually exclusive with Carver who is an excellent character even if he's not likeable.

[Dunmer of Redoran]

Stop calling Bisexuals malleable, yes their romances are very similiar if you are male or female, that doesn't make them malleable any more than the fact Morrigan or Blackwall say nearly the same thing to every race of the protag.

Functionally, in-game, they aren't really bisexual. They're protagonist-sexual. They can go either way, but they don't really go both ways.

 

Kaidan? I played as a male Shepard, and never made a pass at him; I never caught a whiff that he was interested in Shepard the whole time.

 

Kelly was designed to be romanced; if she wasn't, she wouldn't be romanceable.

 

Similarly, with Liara, she'll express an interest in Shepard, whatever Shepard's sex is, but I don't recall Liara ever expressing that she was interested in the sex opposite to Shepard's. We know from the games that the Asari are generally not at all picky about the gender of their partners since Asari themselves are mono-gendered, but it's not out of the realm of possibility that certain individuals have preferences or aren't interested in male or female aliens.

 

Compare Zevran and Leliana in DA:O, who were both clearly and openly bisexual. Even if you don't romance him, Zevran will mention that he's been with men and women. Leliana will express interest in you if you're a man but will also talk about her relationship with Marjolaine, and provides a pretty good outline of the traits she's attracted to. All-in-all, Leliana was a good romance; I remember reading about her being pretty popular, and I think it's easy to see why. She had better writing than the comparable ME romances, and better characterization too. I think the way in which her sexuality was presented is a part of that.

 

That's my point: if making characters bisexual, I think it'd be a lot better to make them actually bisexual, not just attracted to the sex of the main character.

[DaemionMoadrin]

Functionally, in-game, they aren't really bisexual. They're protagonist-sexual. They can go either way, but they don't really go both ways.

 

Yeah sorry, no. You really need to play DA2. Throughout the game you catch hints that your companions hooked up. Isabela once had sex with Anders, in DA2 she and Zevran had some fun and so on. Sure, Merrill doesn't do anything like that but she's the most innocent in that regard and has other things on her mind. 

The rest though? Each had lovers before you or when not romanced by you. Lovers of both genders.

[Hellion Rex]

Yeah sorry, no. You really need to play DA2. Throughout the game you catch hints that your companions hooked up. Isabela once had sex with Anders, in DA2 she and Zevran had some fun and so on. Sure, Merrill doesn't do anything like that but she's the most innocent in that regard and has other things on her mind.
The rest though? Each had lovers before you or when not romanced by you. Lovers of both genders.

Izzy and Fenris also hook up.

[Evamitchelle]

Functionally, in-game, they aren't really bisexual. They're protagonist-sexual. They can go either way, but they don't really go both ways.

 

Kaidan? I played as a male Shepard, and never made a pass at him; I never caught a whiff that he was interested in Shepard the whole time.

 

Kelly was designed to be romanced; if she wasn't, she wouldn't be romanceable.

 

Similarly, with Liara, she'll express an interest in Shepard, whatever Shepard's sex is, but I don't recall Liara ever expressing that she was interested in the sex opposite to Shepard's. We know from the games that the Asari are generally not at all picky about the gender of their partners since Asari themselves are mono-gendered, but it's not out of the realm of possibility that certain individuals have preferences or aren't interested in male or female aliens.

 

Compare Zevran and Leliana in DA:O, who were both clearly and openly bisexual. Even if you don't romance him, Zevran will mention that he's been with men and women. Leliana will express interest in you if you're a man but will also talk about her relationship with Marjolaine, and provides a pretty good outline of the traits she's attracted to. All-in-all, Leliana was a good romance; I remember reading about her being pretty popular, and I think it's easy to see why. She had better writing than the comparable ME romances, and better characterization too. I think the way in which her sexuality was presented is a part of that.

 

That's my point: if making characters bisexual, I think it'd be a lot better to make them actually bisexual, not just attracted to the sex of the main character.

 

So, unless a character literally says "I like men and women" they can't be bisexual ? Solas never mentions any prior relationships, does that mean he's not really straight either ? 

 

Also, I can't help but laugh at the implication that Kaidan doesn't really like men because he didn't make a pass at your Shepard. Shepard's just one dude. You can like men in general and not like one in particular.

[DaemionMoadrin]

Izzy and Fenris also hook up.

 

Right, Fenris! Why did I write Zevran? Oh, right... the threesome!

 

I was wrong and right at the same time. Score!

[daveliam]

For better or for worse, I'd also shy away from someone who has a mouthful of sharp teeth bigger than my head. Bros forever, though.

Wait, how would the Krogan work though.....O___O

 

Oh you guys!  Use your imagination!  I mean, asari have sex telepathically, right?  And turians have boney plating.  And quarians are contained within suits but can just take a pill and make it all better.  It's the beauty of sci fi.  Again, I know it won't happen, but I think it would be great. 

To be honest, I really just want to see an unapologetically stereotypical super butch lesbian and I think a krogran could be a great way to do that.  I could just imagine the PC asking her about the genophage and her sexuality and her literally just laughing in his/her face and not dignifying it with a response.  I think Bioware is a bit intimidated to create a stereotypical butch lesbian because she'll be seen as a stereotype solely, but I think it would be great.  Like a Lea DeLaria esque butch gal. 

 

My problem isn't that Bethany is sane (my favorite ME characters are Kaidan, Miranda, and Kasumi, so I usually favor the more subtle ones over the super, over the top, angsty, look at how bad*** I am ones), it's that she has zero character development if you don't make her a Grey Warden and is essentially just a plot device in order to make non-mage Hawke care about mages rather than a genuine character in her own right. And then if you do make her a Warden, you have to live with knowning she's completely miserable. It has to do with poor writing rather than her personality and it's compounded by the fact she's mutually exclusive with Carver who is an excellent character even if he's not likeable.

 

Agreed.  Bethany was suuuuuuuper bland.  At least Carver was interesting.  He was annoying, but interesting and had great character growth over the game.  Bethany started blandly vanilla and sweet and ended that exact same way.  She just never stood out for good or bad, to be honest.

 

Functionally, in-game, they aren't really bisexual. They're protagonist-sexual. They can go either way, but they don't really go both ways.

 

Kaidan? I played as a male Shepard, and never made a pass at him; I never caught a whiff that he was interested in Shepard the whole time.

 

Kelly was designed to be romanced; if she wasn't, she wouldn't be romanceable.

 

Similarly, with Liara, she'll express an interest in Shepard, whatever Shepard's sex is, but I don't recall Liara ever expressing that she was interested in the sex opposite to Shepard's. We know from the games that the Asari are generally not at all picky about the gender of their partners since Asari themselves are mono-gendered, but it's not out of the realm of possibility that certain individuals have preferences or aren't interested in male or female aliens.

 

Compare Zevran and Leliana in DA:O, who were both clearly and openly bisexual. Even if you don't romance him, Zevran will mention that he's been with men and women. Leliana will express interest in you if you're a man but will also talk about her relationship with Marjolaine, and provides a pretty good outline of the traits she's attracted to. All-in-all, Leliana was a good romance; I remember reading about her being pretty popular, and I think it's easy to see why. She had better writing than the comparable ME romances, and better characterization too. I think the way in which her sexuality was presented is a part of that.

 

That's my point: if making characters bisexual, I think it'd be a lot better to make them actually bisexual, not just attracted to the sex of the main character.

 

There's alot to talk about in this post. 

 

First, Kaidan flat out flirts with you when he's in the hospital bed.  And, if I recall correctly, it happens without your initiating it which was a cause for complaints from many a straight guy when it came out.  He says, "<sexy chuckle> Are you flirting with me Shepard?"

 

Second, a bisexual person doesn't have to immediately express interest in both genders or have their bisexuality card revoked.  Fenris can be romanced by men and women.  And he'll sleep with Isabela if not romanced.  Anders can be romanced by men and women.  In either case, you can hear banter about how he's slept with Isabela, he expresses interest in women in DA: A, and, if you are male in DA2, he'll discuss his past with Karl.  I mean, those are examples of bisexual men. 

 

Not every bisexual man has to say:  "I have been with both men and women in the past" (a la Zevran, who, coincidentally, I think is the worst of the bisexual men because he was clearly written with a female audience in mind and the m/m stuff is added on and hidden behind multiple "Is it okay if I flirt with you?  Really?  Because if you say yes, gay stuff will happen?  You're sure that's cool?" dialogue options).  The only qualification for being bisexual is being able to be romanced by both a man and woman.  This concept of 'playersexuality' only exists in the fact that all LI's will sleep with a PC regardless of their looks, attitudes, and (for the most part) behaviors.  That's playersexuality.  Not a bisexual character.

[Dunmer of Redoran]

Yeah sorry, no. You really need to play DA2. Throughout the game you catch hints that your companions hooked up. Isabela once had sex with Anders, in DA2 she and Zevran had some fun and so on. Sure, Merrill doesn't do anything like that but she's the most innocent in that regard and has other things on her mind. 

The rest though? Each had lovers before you or when not romanced by you. Lovers of both genders.

I'll have to try it for myself then. Sounds a whole lot better than the mess that is the ME romances.

 

 

So, unless a character literally says "I like men and women" they can't be bisexual ? Solas never mentions any prior relationships, does that mean he's not really straight either ? 

 

Also, I can't help but laugh at the implication that Kaidan doesn't really like men because he didn't make a pass at your Shepard. Shepard's just one dude. You can like men in general and not like one in particular.

 

I agree with you in principle, unfortunately, that's the model by which almost all of the Mass Effect romances (and almost anything relating to Shepard) were written.