#this could be amended if. yknow. the banter that exists in the games actually fucking worked lol

[orinthered]

I dont think laezel is like cass but i do think she was written with subconscious hetero-norms. Every bg3 companion is player-sexual but for example, when you refuse her advances and she sleeps with other party members it can be ANY man, but ONLY the men. I dont think the devs are malicious about it but it's like they took straight as the default and didnt consider it further. The female player can romance them, but if they don't, all the very heavy handed sexual undertones of bg's writing for laezel are with men. Minthara talks about sleeping with women for example as per her culture, but laezel is almost entirely written as het unless you happen to f4f romance her yourself. It's not some horrible thing but it did stand out to me a bit.

she did actually have a line about how she wanted to sleep with shadowheart but i believe it got changed from early access to full release, i assume because of their little spat, and that shadowheart would pretty clearly decline. i think it’s reasonable that she doesn’t have any lines about wanting to sleep with the women — a) in act 1, she hates shadowheart and vice versa, b) in act 1, karlach physically can’t sleep with… anyone. lae’zel still has a lot of lines about karlach that can be read as vaguely flirtatious, or at least far more amicable than any of the lines she has towards any of the male companions

i get the overall message because i also remember when gale and shadowheart were flirting in early access and that i felt existed solely bc Well We Need To Pair The Boys And Girls Together!!! but larian really does not feel like the dev studio that only sees straight as the default. i mean, not even counting divinity original sin 2s lgbt rep in all of the main and supporting cast, in baldur’s gate 3 alone astarion has lines about having been attracted to men, shadowheart actively wants to sleep with the drow twins (which is a Choice i guess but even still), there r several wlw and mlm supporting characters — i just think that whatever exists with lae’zel is a circumstance of the story they wanted to tell with her, and whatever the other lead writers happened to have going on with their characters