Bioware Interview re: Mass Effect 3's exclusively lesbian/gay NPCs, a first for the company
"Same-sex romances have been part of previous BioWare games, but until now, these romance-option characters could be attracted to a player character of either gender. Mass Effect 3 characters Samatha Traynor and Steve Cortez represent the first time BioWare has written full romances that are exclusively for same-sex characters. Patrick Weekes and Dusty Everman wrote these relationships and talk about their experiences here."
Rest of article (sourced to Bioware's own blog). Will open new window/tab.
Don't worry about the comments section - its disabled for this article (and I'm not enough of a masochist to deliberately scour the forums for a thread. A+ forethought, Bioware. Also, the two men interviewed make references to accusations of "ninja romances" from male gamers who resent accidentally flirting with male NPCs, because, you know, that's the worst thing EVER.
One glaring thing that stood out for me:
"Nevertheless, I’m a straight white male - pretty much the living embodiment of the Patriarchy - and I really wanted to avoid writing something that people saw and went, “That’s a straight guy writing lesbians for other straight guys to look at.”"
As a cis gay male I certainly can't gauge this myself, but I recall a great deal of flack from queer women in the fandom who felt that's exactly how it came off. Thoughts?
The fact that unless you deliberately save a male character from the first game and don't allow a second one to die during the crescendo of 2, FemShep *only* has same-sex options available between (at most) 3 women* in ME3 (whereas BroShep still has 1-3 of each, depending) doesn't help matters.
(* accepting Bioware's canon that Asari code and ID as "female" though they are monogendered)
Some glaring questions: two straight dudes were assigned to this? No lesbians at Bioware who could work in a writing capacity? Any focus groups done with queer women as a measure of due diligence?
I thought Steve Cortez's story re: mourning his partner was very touching, and it was nice to hear actual recorded game dialog that was not open to any interpretation that yes, he is a gay man (of color) who had a husband. As an NPC who could never join your party, he did seem a bit one-dimensional after that, and BroShep and Kaiden, to me, have more chemistry (and their love scene is better, which is entirely Bioware's fault. Cortez deserved better).
Rest of article (sourced to Bioware's own blog). Will open new window/tab.
Don't worry about the comments section - its disabled for this article (and I'm not enough of a masochist to deliberately scour the forums for a thread. A+ forethought, Bioware. Also, the two men interviewed make references to accusations of "ninja romances" from male gamers who resent accidentally flirting with male NPCs, because, you know, that's the worst thing EVER.
One glaring thing that stood out for me:
"Nevertheless, I’m a straight white male - pretty much the living embodiment of the Patriarchy - and I really wanted to avoid writing something that people saw and went, “That’s a straight guy writing lesbians for other straight guys to look at.”"
As a cis gay male I certainly can't gauge this myself, but I recall a great deal of flack from queer women in the fandom who felt that's exactly how it came off. Thoughts?
The fact that unless you deliberately save a male character from the first game and don't allow a second one to die during the crescendo of 2, FemShep *only* has same-sex options available between (at most) 3 women* in ME3 (whereas BroShep still has 1-3 of each, depending) doesn't help matters.
(* accepting Bioware's canon that Asari code and ID as "female" though they are monogendered)
Some glaring questions: two straight dudes were assigned to this? No lesbians at Bioware who could work in a writing capacity? Any focus groups done with queer women as a measure of due diligence?
I thought Steve Cortez's story re: mourning his partner was very touching, and it was nice to hear actual recorded game dialog that was not open to any interpretation that yes, he is a gay man (of color) who had a husband. As an NPC who could never join your party, he did seem a bit one-dimensional after that, and BroShep and Kaiden, to me, have more chemistry (and their love scene is better, which is entirely Bioware's fault. Cortez deserved better).