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So I’m going to be as restrained and measured as I can, but please understand, this is a deeply personal issue for me, so my emotions run high and hot.(1/14)
So I’m going to be as restrained and measured as I can, but please understand, this is a deeply personal issue for me, so my emotions run high and hot.(1/14)
I love Mass Effect as a franchise. Yet I have also consistently had the feeling, from the first game, that, as a queer man, I am not loved in return.(2/14)
For two games, there are no M/M romances. Meanwhile, it’s a veritable minefield trying NOT to end up with my male PC in a romance with a female character, with several more unavoidably flirtatious with him.(3/14)
And this is with several BioWare employees saying that they discussed M/M romances in these games, but ultimately cut them – we just had someone say that Jacob Taylor was prevized as a gay romance, yet he’s only straight in the game.(4/14)
ME3 provided two options, but these felt very... underwhelming – they were only available in one game out of three, so their dynamics and interactions felt emptier in the face of other, ongoing relationships.(5/14)
Meanwhile, MEA had to be outright shamed into offered equitable treatment for M/M players, what with the #MakeJaalBi campaign, and there were still... ISSUES with the other two romances.(6/14)
Issues that have never been dealt with, in fact. Issues that make them both offering a level of homophobia towards queer men.(7/14)
Gil is an accessory for his female straight best friend, offering almost no development outside the push of him offering her his sperm. Reyes holds BroRyder further away from him than SisRyder in their dance.(8/14)
This on top of Reyes also falling into the “shady bisexual” trope, one that it was decided not to make Dragon Age’s Solas bisexual in order to avoid. Many queer players felt baited and insulted with these options.(9/14)
That was the most recent Mass Effect game. That is the history we entered the talk of a Mass Effect remaster with. This awareness that M/M relationships have been non-existent, excised, and portrayed homophobically. (10/14)
So we were hoping that a remaster would correct this mistake. Yet instead, we’re now being told that it won’t. That Kaidan will not be available in ME1, and none of the other romances in ME2 will be opened up either.(11/14)
And it HURTS. Because queer men do love this franchise, love these games, love this story. We’d love to support BioWare further – BioWare, who has repeatedly claimed a commitment to inclusivity.(12/14)
But this... It does not feel inclusive. Just a repeat of the message that this world is not for us. That we’re not wanted here. That we shouldn’t expect to feel seen in this universe.(13/14)
So when that’s the message we’re receiving, why should we trust the words being offered by the promises of inclusivity, rather than the experiences we have when playing these games?(14/14)
