Mass Effect: LET ME LOVE YOU (or how I screwed up EVERY romance...)
I was supposed to be writing a thoughtful entry about my ongoing Once Upon A Time thoughts before the series starts up again, but apparently, instead, I'm going to tell you the trials and tribulations of my attempts at any kind of romance in the Mass Effect games.
These games have, in no particular order, tricked me into being straight, tricked me into being gay, tricked me into cheating, tricked me into monogamy, tricked me into sleeping with a succession of space racists, blackmailed me into an affair with my secretary and MURDERED MY FISH.
...I've been meaning to chronicle the tale for some time.
Intro
I have two Shepards. Jane Shepard, Paragon, and John Shepard, Renegade. I always play through with Jane first.
Mass Effect 1 - Jane.
Okay. So. I fire up the first game. I don't play many games, but I've watched other people play this game, (or, well, bits of it at least), so I KNOW HOW IT WORKS. I'm confident. I strut around my ship and I flirt with EVERYONE because I can. It's awesome.
I'm slightly surprised when I get cornered by both Kaidan and Liara and told we need to talk about our awkward love triangle and how it's really not cool that I'm stringing both of them along. TOUCHE, GAME. I was not expecting this level of subtlety. I was also not expecting you to allow me to troll them spectacularly by continuing to flirt with BOTH of them in front of each other to their continuing frustration.
In the end, however, Kaidan demands that I make a choice already. And apparently picking, "Can't I have you both?" as a dialogue option was not the solution he was hoping for. I honestly picked it for two reasons - (1) in an attempt not to be responsible for choosing to break one of their little, pixelated hearts, (2) to see if the game would let me: WE COULD HAVE HAD IT ALL KAIDAN, WE COULD HAVE HAD IT ALL IF YOU WEREN'T SO MONOGAMOUS.
(My repeated inability to sleep with Kaidan will become a theme. These games are sentient and keeping him from me. You'll see...)
So what happens at this point is that Kaidan throws up his hands and walks out and Liara says she's glad you picked her. Which I'm not entirely sure is an accurate description of what happened, but I don't want to be alone at night, so I don't argue...
Plus, like I said, I KNOW about this game! I've heard it's controversial because it has gayness in it, so, I decide, that's fine. If I like the game, I know I'm gonna play it again as a dude and a renegade anyway. I will just play exclusively gay Commanders Shepard and pick up Kaidan next time around.
I stick with Liara for ME1.
Mass Effect 1 - John.
So I replay. Dear god, I dislike the male voice actor. But that's fine, it'll make it easier to cope with being a jerkface renegade to everyone. This is going swimmingly. And then I discover the awful truth: YOU CAN'T BE GAY WITH KAIDAN IN MASS EFFECT 1.
I honestly thought it had glitched or something until I looked online and discovered that apparently only lesbianism is acceptable in space. FUCK EVERYTHING NOW I HAVE TO ROMANCE ASHLEY.
(I do not like Ashley. I think Ashley is a space racist. Ashley is actually quite an interesting and well-constructed character, but in the first game, Ashley is a space racist and has a habit of telling disturbing stories about that one time her sister got sexually assaulted but it was okay because it turned out to be a learning experience for everyone.)
Well, I think, it could be worse, you're kind of being a space racist this time around too, so it makes sense.
In an effort not to repeat a plotline I've already played through, I am careful not to flirt with Liara. Or I think I am. I somehow end up with Ashley refusing my advances because she thinks I'm in a relationship with the alien upstairs and I have to replay through like four hours of stuff and be HORRIBLE to Liara to get Ashley to give me the time of day. This is an awful lot of effort for someone I don't even like. And is about to make me murder Jiminy Cricket.
But fine, whatever, I succeed. Ashley loves me. Yay, I think?
I also JUST ABOUT managed to get more renegade than paragon points. I hope you are all proud of me and my ability to be mean to pixel people. I was REALLY TRYING.
Mass Effect 2 - Jane.
So we move on to Mass Effect 2, and I start the game, and immediately get murdered by it. Then I wake up two years later and suffer through what I still think was a narrative misstep in being unable to go the Council first and discover they want nothing to do with you before begrudgingly accepting The Illusive Man's offer of funding. But whatever, this is about my love life - CLEARLY THE MORE IMPORTANT STORY.
So, a little background. I adored ME1 so when we got ME2, I immediately made my husband download all the extra downloadable content that had anything at all to do with a story. My husband played and loved ME1 but wasn't really taken by ME2, so I haven't seen more than a little of this game played around the house, though I do know, from talking to a friend, that "your old love interests aren't really in it much; actually they're kind of jerks."
No problem. I have learned from my mistakes and I am ready to be a responsible paramour. However, I'm playing a paragon character, and I don't like being a douche even in RPG games, so I feel a little sketchy about the fact I'm flirting with Jacob when I don't really know where Liara is or what she's up to. So I take the first opportunity the game gives me to go do the quest that mentions her so we can clear this whole thing up. Probably she'll break up with me or something. Apparently my love interest is a jerk in this one.
So I go see her and...she wants me to hack computers. That's it. I have no idea if we're dating. It's been two years, I was technically dead, are we on a break? WHO CAN TELL. But it's okay, I'm getting the hang of these games now. I get a sidequest and then at the end of that quest, I get cut scenes and plot development. If I help her, I'm sure she'll reward me with clarity! So there's this whole OTHER problem Liara has which I agree to help her with and we run off and kill some giant dinosaur who controls all the information in the universe and then I give her the dinosaur's job and apparently this paragon interrupt means we're snogging so I guess we're back together.
Well, okay, I think, that's kinda sweet plus I'm supposed to be the big, damn hero! Of course I should have an epic romance. I guess my friend was wrong, or maybe they added her back in downloaded content. Oh wait, that IS what they did? That was the downloaded content? (Seriously I paid no attention to what I got K to download for me - "ALL OF IT!" I said, and he complied). So hang on, she's not coming on the ship with me? She's just gonna stay here and auto-dialogue, "Thanks for coming by!" forever and a day and that's the limit of my interaction with her for the rest of the game?
BUT WHAT DO I DO NOW? I have the whole rest of the game, and THREE different people flirting with me (one of whom is basically BATMAN if Batman looked like a parrot and another of whom is a solipsistic terminally ill frog assassin), but I cannot get over the fact that THIS WOULD PRETTY MUCH BE CHEATING and I would feel like scum.
So I don't. For the whole fucking game. Because I honestly feel that guilty over pixel people. Well, equal parts that and a desire to avoid the inevitable awkward "PICK ONE" scene in the next game, because we know how well I handle (a) social awkwardness and (b) PICK ONE scenes in this franchise.
Except then I manage to cheat on her anyway. But it wasn't my fault! Because, you see, the same friend who warned me that the love interests from the last game weren't around much in this one also gave me this piece of wisdom:
Friend: Whatever you do, you need to flirt with your secretary. Don't worry, it doesn't "count" as a romance.
Me: Why would I want to do that?
Friend: Because if you take her to dinner, she will feed your fish.
Me: OMFG I GET PET FISH?!
(What can I say, he knows me well.)
So I'm out there, collecting ALLLLLLL the pet fish I can find (it would be safe to say this endeavour was generally more successful than my love life) but if you don't feed them after every mission, they will die on you. So I am obsessively feeding them. These are some fucking well-fed fish. None of them have died. I am flirting with my secretary like a poor single-parent desperate to find a rich dude to help support her aquatic offspring, or perhaps like a person in a position of authority desperate to exploit her secretary into completing menial aquatic maintenance tasks, I'm not completely sure.
It's a little awkward, but I've been told it doesn't "count" as a romance, and that seems about par for the course in a series where only lesbians are allowed in space.
Except, after I take her to dinner and she offers to feed my fish (YAY), I come back from the very next mission to find them all dead! Every one of them! Murdered! FISH-MURDERED.
So I replaced them, and after that she seemed to feed them fine, but it had sort of ruined the trust and I had to go check every time to be sure, at which point I might as well not have bothered.
AND IT GETS WORSE. Because after the "end" of the game (I say "end" because you can keep flying around the galaxy doing tasks you didn't do before, or playing extra downloaded levels and stuff), I could invite my secretary up to my room. The internet informs me you can do this with all your love interests in the second game, but only your secretary if you "don't have one" as I didn't.
She sits on my lap. The screen says "Press A to continue." DEAR MOTHER OF GOD PRESS A TO CONTINUE WHAT? TO CONTINUE WHAT? I DID NOT ASK FOR THIS, WHERE'S THE EXIT BUTTON?! WHY AM I ONLY ALLOWED TO PRESS A?!
...I press A.
Thankfully "continue" actually means, "continue with the regular game rather than this disturbing piece of fan service," and she gets off my lap.
There is another option available - "dance," it says. Google "Commander Shepard dancing." It's a fucking meme. Commander Shepard is a TERRIBLE dancer. I have a music system in my room. I figure it's gonna be like the dancing they always shoehorn into the nightclubs on the Citadel. FUNNY DANCING.
Nope. Not this time. Seriously, I implore you, if you ever find yourself in that position, do not press the dance button. You are not the one who will be doing the dancing, and it's fucking disturbing.
Like, for real, I poke a lot of fun at this game, and I have legitimate sideeye sexism issues about the way Kelly's story as your sexy secretary is handled in ME2, and there's not enough sideeye in the world for the lack of gay Broshep in the first two games, but this stupid fucking dancing thing is one of the few times I think it tips the balance into legitimately visually uncomfortable, icky fanservice. So learn from my mistake.
Anyway, in what is probably the most soap operatic of these entries, we leave Jane Shepard unsure exactly what her romantic situation is, but with a slow, horrifying suspicion that she's married to the world's best information broker whilst having an affair with her secretary...
Mass Effect 2 - John.
SO LET'S MOVE ON.
I start up ME2 with John. And sure enough, my friend was right; Ashley is totally mad at me and I feel thoroughly dumped and righteous in my decision to go and screw someone else. This is going better already. I CONTROL MY ROMANTIC DESTINY.
Except - freed from obligation and with three women to choose from, and, finally, a mechanical understanding of how the game treats flirting and locking into romances - I find myself completely unable to choose. And not in a good way.
We have:
1) Jack. (No, Jack is a girl, my quest to play only gay Commander Shepards is still denied to me). Jack is an angry, messed-up science experiment, raised in a freaky lab who then escaped to get tattooed by pirates before inspiring them to even greater feats of criminality. She says fuck a lot and doesn't wear a shirt. This is so you know she's edgy. I think I probably liked the idea behind Jack, but bluntly, they missed the mark and it feels like they're trying way too hard, which broke my immersion and ability to engage with the character. They fix that in ME3, but right here, she feels like some writer's idea of a messed up punk because he spent too much time at a Hot Topic.
2) Miranda. (Miranda is also a girl). Miranda is an angry, messed-up science experiment, raised by her freaky dad who then escaped to get a top-notch job as an executive with a human supremacist organisation, mostly as a way to get revenge on dad for buying her perfect tits before she was ever born. I see what they're trying to do, and if every conversation didn't begin and end with a shot of her ass, it might have been more successful. She's an inversion of Jack and she also serves as a fascinating counterpoint to Ashley if you - as I did, for reasons I'll explain as we go - end up romancing one and then the other. Ashley is a space racist for reasons of personal suspicion but in a fairly wonderful twist, abhors Cerberus - the human supremacist organisation - because they're illegal terroristic bastards. Miranda, on the other hand, really probably doesn't have much against aliens at all, but honestly believes in Cerberus' ideals of self-improvement and striving for excellence, or at least in the resources they can provide her to attain that on her own terms. So why do I hate her? Cliche presentation, mostly? A level of fanservice that undercuts the more interesting aspects of her character? The fact that Ashley feels like a complete, if (to me) unlikeable person, whereas Miranda feels like a collection of tropes strung together with spit and sex appeal and it just makes me think about the ways she isn't as complex as she should be? The wider thematic resonance her character might have had is, for me, lost beneath the obvious concerns about the wider resonance of her cleavage. I don't want to use a veneer of fanservice to dismiss an otherwise interesting character, but the problem is that under that veneer I don't believe she is that interesting. I think she's not developed beyond dramatic shorthand.
I SLEPT WITH A SUCCESSION OF SPACE RACISTS, is what I'm saying here. Wait, I'm jumping ahead.
3) Tali. Tali was a character in ME1 - a mechanically inclined alien kid on a mix of space rumspringa and the Antiques Roadshow. I ADORE HER and as far as I was concerned, in Mass Effect 1 I adopted her because clearly she was twelve years old. In the game's defense, I think she's actually supposed to be more Kaylee Frye than kid sidekick, but seriously, why would I let that ruin my ability to yell, "SPACE FAMILY! TO THE SPACE MOBILE!" when loading Tali and Liara up into the Mako to go exploring?
The point is, hitting on Tali felt hella creepy because all I wanted to do was adopt her. But. I did adore Tali whereas I was lukewarm at best on Jack and really didn't like Miranda. And I was a renegade dammit, so I was resolved.
Except, OH MY GOD, so first, her people use ship names as surnames, so they give her my ship's name, just like if I'd adopted her, and then I have to go help her clear her dead father's name only to find that it's kind of unclearable. The last time I played this game, I was being super nice, so I sort of was all, "Hey, I'm sorry he was a jerk, but I bet he loved you, honey!" whereas this time, being a renegade, I'm all, "YOU DESERVED BETTER, TALI." And Tali looks right at me and goes, "I got better, Shepard. I got you."
At which point, no, nope, nope, nope, I'm done. She just LITERALLY told me that I am the better replacement Dad she never had, which was all I ever wanted. Tali, honey, I'm sorry I have to break your heart, but Daddy will make you a space princess when he rules the galaxy!
Ahem.
Which did leave me with the dilemma: Jack or Miranda. Ultimately I decided on Miranda. I made this decision basically because I was pretty sure I was going to dump the one I ended up with like a stonecold asshole as soon as the next game came out and I kind of didn't care what that did to Miranda and thought she was enough of a likeminded person to deal with it, whereas I kind of liked Jack just about enough to not actively want to destroy her by getting her to let her guard down just in time to ditch her yet again, when getting repeatedly ditched was kind of the source of her...Hot Topic Ridiculousness in the first place.
Basically I chose the person I felt least guilty about dating without really wanting too...
Mass Effect 3 - Jane.
So this should be easy, right? I have one love interest, and I've stopped trying to fight it. We love Liara, we are going to stay with Liara, there should be no problem.
And, well, mostly there wasn't, but I did have a ridiculous close-shave when the game yet again pushed its bizarre secretarial agenda on me...
So I have an adorable not!Secretary (I think she's my communications officer? I don't know, she stands in the same place my secretary used to stand except the stuff she tells me is more useful and she doesn't look like she stole Justin Bieber's hairstyle). She loves chess. There is this scene where she invites herself to come play chess with me in my cabin. This is not too weird; most of the characters come up to your cabin for some sort of scene at some point.
Anyway, she arrives and is all, BITCH YOU HAVE A SHOWER I'M SO JEALOUS. And then mentions some stuff about chess. At which point I have two options on the dialogue wheel. "Do you want to use the shower?" which seems inappropriately suggestive, but is in the position that usually indicates "being nice," or "Chess sounds pretty fucking boring, man," in the "I want to be an asshole," position.
So I let her use my shower. Predictably this was the wrong choice as she starts flirting with me like crazy and I have to sort of pretend I don't know what she's talking about and it gets awkward and the whole thing descends into...actually a fairly nice scene where we're just playing chess, but the point is I really, REALLY want to know what this game's deal is with secretaries...
In another amusing repeat of a previous game, I also managed to do my conversations with the crew in some sort of assbackwards way so that instead of getting the scene with Kaidan where he propositions me over dinner, I just got some platonic bonding scene where I told him he was my brother. Not that I was planning to sleep with him, I just find it amusing that the game removed even the possibility... I'M NEVER ALLOWED KAIDAN.
Mass Effect 3 - John.
Okay, so, here we are. The last playthrough of the last game. What else could possibly go wrong? I'll tell you what could possibly go wrong, I will tell you.
You may remember my outrage, initially, when I discovered I was not allowed to sleep with Kaidan because I was a boy? Well, in the run-up to ME3, it was announced that yes, finally, gay male romances would be available in the third game! You can love Kaidan if you are playing Broshep! OH HAPPY DAY! Finally my dream is realised...
No.
Wait.
I killed Kaidan in this playthrough so I could sleep with a space racist.
I mean, it wasn't a total loss. I made up for it by being gay with my chauffeur instead, and I had a seriously cathartic slanging match with Ashley about how she dumped me on Horizon (though weirdly she never once mentioned my romance with Steve even though she was all about yelling at me for Miranda). Oh, and Miranda died!
But I just. Kaidan. You are my great white whale. Stay beautiful, you elusive beast. Maybe one day...
And thus ends my cautionary tale.
♥
These games have, in no particular order, tricked me into being straight, tricked me into being gay, tricked me into cheating, tricked me into monogamy, tricked me into sleeping with a succession of space racists, blackmailed me into an affair with my secretary and MURDERED MY FISH.
...I've been meaning to chronicle the tale for some time.
Intro
I have two Shepards. Jane Shepard, Paragon, and John Shepard, Renegade. I always play through with Jane first.
Mass Effect 1 - Jane.
Okay. So. I fire up the first game. I don't play many games, but I've watched other people play this game, (or, well, bits of it at least), so I KNOW HOW IT WORKS. I'm confident. I strut around my ship and I flirt with EVERYONE because I can. It's awesome.
I'm slightly surprised when I get cornered by both Kaidan and Liara and told we need to talk about our awkward love triangle and how it's really not cool that I'm stringing both of them along. TOUCHE, GAME. I was not expecting this level of subtlety. I was also not expecting you to allow me to troll them spectacularly by continuing to flirt with BOTH of them in front of each other to their continuing frustration.
In the end, however, Kaidan demands that I make a choice already. And apparently picking, "Can't I have you both?" as a dialogue option was not the solution he was hoping for. I honestly picked it for two reasons - (1) in an attempt not to be responsible for choosing to break one of their little, pixelated hearts, (2) to see if the game would let me: WE COULD HAVE HAD IT ALL KAIDAN, WE COULD HAVE HAD IT ALL IF YOU WEREN'T SO MONOGAMOUS.
(My repeated inability to sleep with Kaidan will become a theme. These games are sentient and keeping him from me. You'll see...)
So what happens at this point is that Kaidan throws up his hands and walks out and Liara says she's glad you picked her. Which I'm not entirely sure is an accurate description of what happened, but I don't want to be alone at night, so I don't argue...
Plus, like I said, I KNOW about this game! I've heard it's controversial because it has gayness in it, so, I decide, that's fine. If I like the game, I know I'm gonna play it again as a dude and a renegade anyway. I will just play exclusively gay Commanders Shepard and pick up Kaidan next time around.
I stick with Liara for ME1.
Mass Effect 1 - John.
So I replay. Dear god, I dislike the male voice actor. But that's fine, it'll make it easier to cope with being a jerkface renegade to everyone. This is going swimmingly. And then I discover the awful truth: YOU CAN'T BE GAY WITH KAIDAN IN MASS EFFECT 1.
I honestly thought it had glitched or something until I looked online and discovered that apparently only lesbianism is acceptable in space. FUCK EVERYTHING NOW I HAVE TO ROMANCE ASHLEY.
(I do not like Ashley. I think Ashley is a space racist. Ashley is actually quite an interesting and well-constructed character, but in the first game, Ashley is a space racist and has a habit of telling disturbing stories about that one time her sister got sexually assaulted but it was okay because it turned out to be a learning experience for everyone.)
Well, I think, it could be worse, you're kind of being a space racist this time around too, so it makes sense.
In an effort not to repeat a plotline I've already played through, I am careful not to flirt with Liara. Or I think I am. I somehow end up with Ashley refusing my advances because she thinks I'm in a relationship with the alien upstairs and I have to replay through like four hours of stuff and be HORRIBLE to Liara to get Ashley to give me the time of day. This is an awful lot of effort for someone I don't even like. And is about to make me murder Jiminy Cricket.
But fine, whatever, I succeed. Ashley loves me. Yay, I think?
I also JUST ABOUT managed to get more renegade than paragon points. I hope you are all proud of me and my ability to be mean to pixel people. I was REALLY TRYING.
Mass Effect 2 - Jane.
So we move on to Mass Effect 2, and I start the game, and immediately get murdered by it. Then I wake up two years later and suffer through what I still think was a narrative misstep in being unable to go the Council first and discover they want nothing to do with you before begrudgingly accepting The Illusive Man's offer of funding. But whatever, this is about my love life - CLEARLY THE MORE IMPORTANT STORY.
So, a little background. I adored ME1 so when we got ME2, I immediately made my husband download all the extra downloadable content that had anything at all to do with a story. My husband played and loved ME1 but wasn't really taken by ME2, so I haven't seen more than a little of this game played around the house, though I do know, from talking to a friend, that "your old love interests aren't really in it much; actually they're kind of jerks."
No problem. I have learned from my mistakes and I am ready to be a responsible paramour. However, I'm playing a paragon character, and I don't like being a douche even in RPG games, so I feel a little sketchy about the fact I'm flirting with Jacob when I don't really know where Liara is or what she's up to. So I take the first opportunity the game gives me to go do the quest that mentions her so we can clear this whole thing up. Probably she'll break up with me or something. Apparently my love interest is a jerk in this one.
So I go see her and...she wants me to hack computers. That's it. I have no idea if we're dating. It's been two years, I was technically dead, are we on a break? WHO CAN TELL. But it's okay, I'm getting the hang of these games now. I get a sidequest and then at the end of that quest, I get cut scenes and plot development. If I help her, I'm sure she'll reward me with clarity! So there's this whole OTHER problem Liara has which I agree to help her with and we run off and kill some giant dinosaur who controls all the information in the universe and then I give her the dinosaur's job and apparently this paragon interrupt means we're snogging so I guess we're back together.
Well, okay, I think, that's kinda sweet plus I'm supposed to be the big, damn hero! Of course I should have an epic romance. I guess my friend was wrong, or maybe they added her back in downloaded content. Oh wait, that IS what they did? That was the downloaded content? (Seriously I paid no attention to what I got K to download for me - "ALL OF IT!" I said, and he complied). So hang on, she's not coming on the ship with me? She's just gonna stay here and auto-dialogue, "Thanks for coming by!" forever and a day and that's the limit of my interaction with her for the rest of the game?
BUT WHAT DO I DO NOW? I have the whole rest of the game, and THREE different people flirting with me (one of whom is basically BATMAN if Batman looked like a parrot and another of whom is a solipsistic terminally ill frog assassin), but I cannot get over the fact that THIS WOULD PRETTY MUCH BE CHEATING and I would feel like scum.
So I don't. For the whole fucking game. Because I honestly feel that guilty over pixel people. Well, equal parts that and a desire to avoid the inevitable awkward "PICK ONE" scene in the next game, because we know how well I handle (a) social awkwardness and (b) PICK ONE scenes in this franchise.
Except then I manage to cheat on her anyway. But it wasn't my fault! Because, you see, the same friend who warned me that the love interests from the last game weren't around much in this one also gave me this piece of wisdom:
Friend: Whatever you do, you need to flirt with your secretary. Don't worry, it doesn't "count" as a romance.
Me: Why would I want to do that?
Friend: Because if you take her to dinner, she will feed your fish.
Me: OMFG I GET PET FISH?!
(What can I say, he knows me well.)
So I'm out there, collecting ALLLLLLL the pet fish I can find (it would be safe to say this endeavour was generally more successful than my love life) but if you don't feed them after every mission, they will die on you. So I am obsessively feeding them. These are some fucking well-fed fish. None of them have died. I am flirting with my secretary like a poor single-parent desperate to find a rich dude to help support her aquatic offspring, or perhaps like a person in a position of authority desperate to exploit her secretary into completing menial aquatic maintenance tasks, I'm not completely sure.
It's a little awkward, but I've been told it doesn't "count" as a romance, and that seems about par for the course in a series where only lesbians are allowed in space.
Except, after I take her to dinner and she offers to feed my fish (YAY), I come back from the very next mission to find them all dead! Every one of them! Murdered! FISH-MURDERED.
So I replaced them, and after that she seemed to feed them fine, but it had sort of ruined the trust and I had to go check every time to be sure, at which point I might as well not have bothered.
AND IT GETS WORSE. Because after the "end" of the game (I say "end" because you can keep flying around the galaxy doing tasks you didn't do before, or playing extra downloaded levels and stuff), I could invite my secretary up to my room. The internet informs me you can do this with all your love interests in the second game, but only your secretary if you "don't have one" as I didn't.
She sits on my lap. The screen says "Press A to continue." DEAR MOTHER OF GOD PRESS A TO CONTINUE WHAT? TO CONTINUE WHAT? I DID NOT ASK FOR THIS, WHERE'S THE EXIT BUTTON?! WHY AM I ONLY ALLOWED TO PRESS A?!
...I press A.
Thankfully "continue" actually means, "continue with the regular game rather than this disturbing piece of fan service," and she gets off my lap.
There is another option available - "dance," it says. Google "Commander Shepard dancing." It's a fucking meme. Commander Shepard is a TERRIBLE dancer. I have a music system in my room. I figure it's gonna be like the dancing they always shoehorn into the nightclubs on the Citadel. FUNNY DANCING.
Nope. Not this time. Seriously, I implore you, if you ever find yourself in that position, do not press the dance button. You are not the one who will be doing the dancing, and it's fucking disturbing.
Like, for real, I poke a lot of fun at this game, and I have legitimate sideeye sexism issues about the way Kelly's story as your sexy secretary is handled in ME2, and there's not enough sideeye in the world for the lack of gay Broshep in the first two games, but this stupid fucking dancing thing is one of the few times I think it tips the balance into legitimately visually uncomfortable, icky fanservice. So learn from my mistake.
Anyway, in what is probably the most soap operatic of these entries, we leave Jane Shepard unsure exactly what her romantic situation is, but with a slow, horrifying suspicion that she's married to the world's best information broker whilst having an affair with her secretary...
Mass Effect 2 - John.
SO LET'S MOVE ON.
I start up ME2 with John. And sure enough, my friend was right; Ashley is totally mad at me and I feel thoroughly dumped and righteous in my decision to go and screw someone else. This is going better already. I CONTROL MY ROMANTIC DESTINY.
Except - freed from obligation and with three women to choose from, and, finally, a mechanical understanding of how the game treats flirting and locking into romances - I find myself completely unable to choose. And not in a good way.
We have:
1) Jack. (No, Jack is a girl, my quest to play only gay Commander Shepards is still denied to me). Jack is an angry, messed-up science experiment, raised in a freaky lab who then escaped to get tattooed by pirates before inspiring them to even greater feats of criminality. She says fuck a lot and doesn't wear a shirt. This is so you know she's edgy. I think I probably liked the idea behind Jack, but bluntly, they missed the mark and it feels like they're trying way too hard, which broke my immersion and ability to engage with the character. They fix that in ME3, but right here, she feels like some writer's idea of a messed up punk because he spent too much time at a Hot Topic.
2) Miranda. (Miranda is also a girl). Miranda is an angry, messed-up science experiment, raised by her freaky dad who then escaped to get a top-notch job as an executive with a human supremacist organisation, mostly as a way to get revenge on dad for buying her perfect tits before she was ever born. I see what they're trying to do, and if every conversation didn't begin and end with a shot of her ass, it might have been more successful. She's an inversion of Jack and she also serves as a fascinating counterpoint to Ashley if you - as I did, for reasons I'll explain as we go - end up romancing one and then the other. Ashley is a space racist for reasons of personal suspicion but in a fairly wonderful twist, abhors Cerberus - the human supremacist organisation - because they're illegal terroristic bastards. Miranda, on the other hand, really probably doesn't have much against aliens at all, but honestly believes in Cerberus' ideals of self-improvement and striving for excellence, or at least in the resources they can provide her to attain that on her own terms. So why do I hate her? Cliche presentation, mostly? A level of fanservice that undercuts the more interesting aspects of her character? The fact that Ashley feels like a complete, if (to me) unlikeable person, whereas Miranda feels like a collection of tropes strung together with spit and sex appeal and it just makes me think about the ways she isn't as complex as she should be? The wider thematic resonance her character might have had is, for me, lost beneath the obvious concerns about the wider resonance of her cleavage. I don't want to use a veneer of fanservice to dismiss an otherwise interesting character, but the problem is that under that veneer I don't believe she is that interesting. I think she's not developed beyond dramatic shorthand.
I SLEPT WITH A SUCCESSION OF SPACE RACISTS, is what I'm saying here. Wait, I'm jumping ahead.
3) Tali. Tali was a character in ME1 - a mechanically inclined alien kid on a mix of space rumspringa and the Antiques Roadshow. I ADORE HER and as far as I was concerned, in Mass Effect 1 I adopted her because clearly she was twelve years old. In the game's defense, I think she's actually supposed to be more Kaylee Frye than kid sidekick, but seriously, why would I let that ruin my ability to yell, "SPACE FAMILY! TO THE SPACE MOBILE!" when loading Tali and Liara up into the Mako to go exploring?
The point is, hitting on Tali felt hella creepy because all I wanted to do was adopt her. But. I did adore Tali whereas I was lukewarm at best on Jack and really didn't like Miranda. And I was a renegade dammit, so I was resolved.
Except, OH MY GOD, so first, her people use ship names as surnames, so they give her my ship's name, just like if I'd adopted her, and then I have to go help her clear her dead father's name only to find that it's kind of unclearable. The last time I played this game, I was being super nice, so I sort of was all, "Hey, I'm sorry he was a jerk, but I bet he loved you, honey!" whereas this time, being a renegade, I'm all, "YOU DESERVED BETTER, TALI." And Tali looks right at me and goes, "I got better, Shepard. I got you."
At which point, no, nope, nope, nope, I'm done. She just LITERALLY told me that I am the better replacement Dad she never had, which was all I ever wanted. Tali, honey, I'm sorry I have to break your heart, but Daddy will make you a space princess when he rules the galaxy!
Ahem.
Which did leave me with the dilemma: Jack or Miranda. Ultimately I decided on Miranda. I made this decision basically because I was pretty sure I was going to dump the one I ended up with like a stonecold asshole as soon as the next game came out and I kind of didn't care what that did to Miranda and thought she was enough of a likeminded person to deal with it, whereas I kind of liked Jack just about enough to not actively want to destroy her by getting her to let her guard down just in time to ditch her yet again, when getting repeatedly ditched was kind of the source of her...Hot Topic Ridiculousness in the first place.
Basically I chose the person I felt least guilty about dating without really wanting too...
Mass Effect 3 - Jane.
So this should be easy, right? I have one love interest, and I've stopped trying to fight it. We love Liara, we are going to stay with Liara, there should be no problem.
And, well, mostly there wasn't, but I did have a ridiculous close-shave when the game yet again pushed its bizarre secretarial agenda on me...
So I have an adorable not!Secretary (I think she's my communications officer? I don't know, she stands in the same place my secretary used to stand except the stuff she tells me is more useful and she doesn't look like she stole Justin Bieber's hairstyle). She loves chess. There is this scene where she invites herself to come play chess with me in my cabin. This is not too weird; most of the characters come up to your cabin for some sort of scene at some point.
Anyway, she arrives and is all, BITCH YOU HAVE A SHOWER I'M SO JEALOUS. And then mentions some stuff about chess. At which point I have two options on the dialogue wheel. "Do you want to use the shower?" which seems inappropriately suggestive, but is in the position that usually indicates "being nice," or "Chess sounds pretty fucking boring, man," in the "I want to be an asshole," position.
So I let her use my shower. Predictably this was the wrong choice as she starts flirting with me like crazy and I have to sort of pretend I don't know what she's talking about and it gets awkward and the whole thing descends into...actually a fairly nice scene where we're just playing chess, but the point is I really, REALLY want to know what this game's deal is with secretaries...
In another amusing repeat of a previous game, I also managed to do my conversations with the crew in some sort of assbackwards way so that instead of getting the scene with Kaidan where he propositions me over dinner, I just got some platonic bonding scene where I told him he was my brother. Not that I was planning to sleep with him, I just find it amusing that the game removed even the possibility... I'M NEVER ALLOWED KAIDAN.
Mass Effect 3 - John.
Okay, so, here we are. The last playthrough of the last game. What else could possibly go wrong? I'll tell you what could possibly go wrong, I will tell you.
You may remember my outrage, initially, when I discovered I was not allowed to sleep with Kaidan because I was a boy? Well, in the run-up to ME3, it was announced that yes, finally, gay male romances would be available in the third game! You can love Kaidan if you are playing Broshep! OH HAPPY DAY! Finally my dream is realised...
No.
Wait.
I killed Kaidan in this playthrough so I could sleep with a space racist.
I mean, it wasn't a total loss. I made up for it by being gay with my chauffeur instead, and I had a seriously cathartic slanging match with Ashley about how she dumped me on Horizon (though weirdly she never once mentioned my romance with Steve even though she was all about yelling at me for Miranda). Oh, and Miranda died!
But I just. Kaidan. You are my great white whale. Stay beautiful, you elusive beast. Maybe one day...
And thus ends my cautionary tale.
♥