#but i do want to emphasize like... the goal isn't Perfect Representation because again i don't think that's possible

[northern-passage]

“you can tell the author was intending for it to be a Straight Relationship if you know what i mean” you’re absolutely right and you should say it thank you. like, i’m sure it’s super hard to write an if! i don’t think i could do it! but yeah, you can tell when authors are actually trying with the various romances versus… going through the diversity options for clicks ig.

yeah, hahaha, i'm glad you understand what i mean. i feel like every gay person has had that experience when playing a game... a very *looking into the camera like im on the office* moment.

it's something that could easily be fixed, too, imo... like it's really just the little things that make all the difference, but yeah most of these people don't actually care. like, i don't expect the romances to be Wildly different, obviously, they are still the same people, but there are some things that make me cringe as a reader when i see them. i think it becomes most prevalent in like... intimate scenes, if/when they are included, and you can tell this person has no idea what they are writing lmfao. and then stuff like that last anon brought up, where they just completely exclude certain lgbt identities because they refused to just pick up a single book on the topic.

more sinister examples would be like - choices is pretty bad for this - sidelining the gay characters, as well as the characters of color. now, personally, i don't think it's necessary for every RO/LI to have the exact same amount of "screen time" in each chapter, however, when i get to the end of the story it should have evened out... but a lot of times some ROs will literally just get less content, because the game spends all its effort on the white man RO, who has also been almost exclusively marketed as being straight even though he is romancable by all MCs. the marketing for choices, at least when i was last reading it (which to be fair was a long time ago) is painfully straight. it always is... until the company realizes they can make money off of the gay community.....

dragon age comes to mind as well, specifically sera, whose entire relationship quest consists of every other companion disapproving of the inquisitor being in a relationship with her. hello???? literally what were you thinking.... (bioware stop letting this man write your wlw characters oh my god) but this is why sensitivity readers are so important. like it literally takes just talking to one (1) gay person to fix some of this stuff.

obviously the racism from choices is an entirely different problem, and that's something other people far more qualified than me have already talked about, but it falls into the same thing of authors/game developers adding these characters just for the clicks and not because they actually want to add diversity to their story, and it's becoming more common now as, like i said, games realize they can make more money off of it.

at the end of the day i don't expect representation in games to be Perfect because that is not possible, again we already talked about it - everyone is going to have different experiences and connect with different portrayals - but damn..... at least try, you know? Make An Effort