Same sex romances

Totally agree that’s what i want that and give gifts and surprises. There is not enough gifts and surprises in cog.

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Thanks for the suggestions. I am going to play Sos later.

And I am going to code in a few gifts and surprises, I already know the perfect spot for a little romantic touch. Most romantic moments shouldn’t be orientated around lovemaking anyways.

My favourite is the romantic patch up your lovers gunshot wound moments. Especially the way it’s done in Asian cinema

Here’s my somewhat related question: if an NPC is canonically gay, should an MC of the opposite gender be able to flirt with them and then be rejected, or should only an MC of the same gender have additional options to flirt with them, while an opposite gender MC never “sees” those flirtatious options and can only pursue a platonic relationship?

One is more realistic but is more coding and perhaps unhappier (I imagine people will be disappointed to be rejected after being given the option to flirt), while the other is maybe less realistic and a bit more restrictive?? I’m not sure…

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Some of my real life friends in college started with flirting from ladies. Okay, When your best friend is gay you go to lgbt parties so Is absolutely normal, everyone takes it super cool and it is a great ice breaking for have fun and chat. At least for me is, I am not shy and I am bold so for me is not a problem. However, there are people who go away embarrassed. So maybe give options to pc being okay and fun about it or just go away embarrassed. Fake flirting is super fun if both parts are friends

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Obviously, I’m only speaking for myself, but I do think it is good if someone could ‘flirt’ but be rejected. One thing I did like in the Hero series is that even if you are attracted to Jenny, it isn’t reciprocated.

However, I can understand if you decide to hide the options. The reason for this is that some people may then complain about being ‘led on’ Once again, the Jenny situation comes to mind. This isn’t fair, but I can understand avoiding some reactions.

As for the coding, that is also something to take into consideration. Just speaking generally, romance stuff can bloat a project as you’ve already figured out. In this regard, I understand when writers try to streamline things.

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I would also echo the sentiment “let people of whatever gender combination choose the relationship dynamics themselves.” Don’t force a role. Unless the RO in question really would be only up for one particular dynamic with anyone :thinking:

I’d like to know what these recommendations are :sweat_smile:

For the sake of writing an interactive fiction thing, this is probably best. I can think of a few things where being gay has made some rather subtle differences for me in ways that are not related to homophobia. These would generally also apply in cases where one partner is bi/pan, too. So I’d offer some of these…

  • Love triangles can get more complicated. For example, there one time when the guy I had a crush on told me that my previous crush was cute… I felt so confused :dizzy_face:

  • My boyfriend and I are attracted to the same gender. (Hi, boyfriend! :smile:) So he and I can talk about cute guys, and be into the same characters and generally banter and bond over this stuff in ways that wouldn’t happen when both partners are hetero.

  • Jealousy and attraction can get mixed up in weird ways. I suppose this could happen with heterosexuals, but I think I’m more likely to get into a situation where I’m simultaneously attracted to a guy but also feel jealousy… sort of “do I want to be with him or do I want to be him? :flushed:

  • Being attracted to my own gender can provide a different metric for judging oneself. This can be both useful and disappointing, depending :sweat_smile: But it does mean that rather than being like “what do boys like in a girl?” or “what do girls like in a boy?” I can ask “what do boys like in a boy?” and at least be able to answer myself with personal experience :stuck_out_tongue: albeit not universal.

I mean, these probably wouldn’t be relevant to most stories; you very much can write a gay romance the same way you’d write a hetero one. I just think it’s a bit of my point of view that’s worth sharing :smile:

I don’t know, I’ve definitely known some women to get :heart_eyes: over some men in a pretty physical manner. And some who really don’t at all. But I do wonder how much of this is training

(For myself, I’ve had both crushes that were mostly appearance-based and ones that were mostly personality-based, plus most of them being kind of in between. The former could feel pretty shallow and annoying, but hormones won’t really care about that :sweat:)

My ideal would be, it depends whether the MC would have any way to know the NPC’s orientation. If they’ve known the character for a while or it seems likely to have come up at any point, then no, really shouldn’t be there. Otherwise, I’d think it’d make sense.

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I think it should be there. Just to tell that person your feelings. Like Look I know you are gay but I have feelings for you. And To check if the person is bisexual. I know that person had dating guys but maybe he is bisexual because I feel somewhat some feeling.

I know that is not for each game. But I am gave example of situation were it have sense asking.

Yeah, my boyfriend and I are both attracted to all genders (he’s bi, I’m grey-asexual panromantic), and I’ve known lots of couples where everyone’s bi or pan, and this is definitely a thing. It’s so strange talking with straight friends, who don’t have that understanding in their relationships.

This get even more fun when you add gender identity into the mix. It took me sooo long to realise I wasn’t so much attracted to a certain kind of male characters, as I was identifying with them, and wanted to be them!

:hedgehog::rabbit2::chipmunk::hedgehog:

In regards to physical vs. emotional attraction, I know there’s some general differences between the genders, but they are not universal, even if we take genderqueer and trans people out of the equation, so I think the answer is (like with so many other things) not to make assumptions based on gender, and give the reader the power to decide for their own character.
That’s just the best way to avoid making some readers feel alienated.

I’m a bit ridiculous about this, as I always want to know the available romance options beforehand, but I would simultaniously want the ability to flirt with people as unrestricted as possible.
I want to flirt with whoever I want, but I want to know beforehand how well it would be taken. It’s one of those things I have problems with in games and pen and paper, because in real life I would base my actions on lots of little details that I am just not given in a game. :expressionless: :confused:

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Wow. That was very helpful. Ad just at the right time as I am in a love scene writing and coding marathon at the mo.

Thank you for taking the time to write all that.

I want to code some love triangles now

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The jealousy/romance mix isn’t something I think to talk about much, but it’s real. Yeah, when dating personal trainers or Broadway dancers, I’ve felt plenty of insecurity in context of an objective comparison. Plenty of times, I’ve been out clubbing and get hot on, but my date doesn’t. That’s gotta be a different combination of feelings than straight guys when someone hits on their girlfriend. (Not sure this helps in a fic without.)

Flirting with opositely-oriented NPCs should be available. Just don’t hit the relationship flags. I and many others flirt with girls regularly (not at work, though).

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To some heterosexual men. Plenty of us are turned off by degradation or signals that one partner’s not enjoying it. Plenty of us are bored by the standard “script” and enjoy more variety. The mass market doesn’t serve everyone well.

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Huh, you know, I think I’ve had the exact opposite experience :sweat_smile: Thinking that I was just admiring or wanting to be like certain guys (both fictional and real), when it really was a different sort of attraction altogether.

Cuties! :hugs:

What sorts of things? Are there things that you think games should mention more than they usually do?

Aw, thanks, my pleasure, really :smile: It’s the kinds of thing that’s not really based on society or stereotypes or anything, just the direct consequences of attraction dynamics!

You can inflict this stuff on heterosexual main characters, too, if the love interests are bi or pan :grin:

Oh, yeah… my initial reaction would be more like “why won’t they hit on me?” which… yeah, I don’t think a straight guy would be feeling that :stuck_out_tongue:

Then there was the time I was teasing my boyfriend about a cute guy who smiled at me, and he was like “jealousy! :flushed:” and I asked if he was jealous I was talking about another guy, or jealous over the attention :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

PS. @obieblu, any chance I could trouble you for those movie recommendations you mentioned at the beginning of the thread? :innocent:

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About love triangles people please let people choose to breaking down the relationship when it is offered. I have nothing against pan relationship. But they come from trust, confidence and have to be consensual by all parts. I personally are totally incapable of being in one, I was cheated and hurt so much that the only idea makes me impossible of trust . i would prefer a choice to say Look you could romance whoever but i am out

Agreed it’s something the player should initiate and that npcs may or may not be cool with.

Thanks for the clarification!

If we don’t know anything about them and it was a first-time interaction I think being rejected is fine but like @TSSL said if we get to know them it should maybe come up at some point. Take Blade from your game for example who is cannon straight, me as a guy mc, can flirt with him pretty as soon as we meet and what I think would be a good response to that would be a quick “Yeah not into that” and to move on, but if we get to be better friends with him (and don’t flirt) he might mention in passing to you how cute a girl on the street is im not a writer as you can tell :stuck_out_tongue: im sure you could think of a better way for him to bring it up another idea I had would be to maybe have another character (probably Trouble) mention that Blade only has eyes for the ladies? idk I actually haven’t tried flirting with Blade because I knew it wouldn’t be reciprocated lol and then the same could them be applied to Riel, so like to end this just do it pretty much the same way you would ‘revel’ a character is straight and you should be good Although depending on the story it might not be that simple

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This is mostly true, unless you plan to go explicitly into the sex scenes, kinks and smut of course. If you can write straight romances reasonably well you can probably write at least an okay gay romance.

Also how the world views their gender, masculinity, femininity using the culture(s) of the gameworld and weaving it into the romance and the characters themselves greatly enhances the verisimilitude of the game world, which also enhances the romance.
For example one of Bioware’s chief flaws is that they design all these fantasy and sci-fi worlds and then have the characters in them have the moral standards and make them behave as if they were transplanted contemporary Canadians, which detracts from the verisimilitude and all that world-building efforts and is one of my main gripes with Bioware’s style of world-building.

Yep, this is the one concession I’d like that may deviate from my previous point in most of my escapism. Unless you really want to tell a very particular story that absolutely requires it and know what you’re doing.

Specifically the gay mc you mean. This can be aggravating particularly with bisexual ro’s because of what it implies. Nonetheless there are gay guys who do enjoy those things and we shouldn’t slip into the reverse and condemn that, just avoid the trap of assuming it is the default setting of all gay guys. Ideally allow the mc and their ro to work it out sort of like real people would if you do go there and want to have or mention sex-scenes.

Indeed!

Yes, you can be lots of (confusing) things and I’ve met at least one homoromantic bisexual guy, for example. Homoromantic asexual also definitely happens, as back during my worst years when I pretty much didn’t have a libido to speak of due to the Celiac’s I used to believe I was this. On the other hand my XoR mc would probably veer into homosexual but (mostly) aromantic territory.
There’s a whole spectrum of of orientations and preferences beyond the vanilla, or as Mara called it “Victorian” and heterosexual “default” of our (popular) culture.

We can show what is basically straight porn in some 17+ videogames these days, but two guys kissing or even holding hands in public, whoa that’s radical! :unamused: Or at least that is the unfortunate attitude of much of the mainstream media and nearly all AAA videogame developers. :unamused:

I’d say it’s still baby steps over here our mainstream TV has moved from gay male characters basically displaying no affection when they’re not in private to holding hands and hugging on occasion. But even kissing is still very rare and the most common male/male sex scene is still the rare (shirtless) kiss followed by the fade to black whereas most straight sex scenes fall at minimum under the category of carefully edited nude shots with weird camera angles if they’re not basically porn. Just to clarify I’m talking about entertainment targeted mainly at adults here, instead of all ages or youth of course.

Mainland China is going from bad to worse these days. :unamused:
While I watch it less these days I do remember that with the subtext and even the occasional kiss Hong Kong used to be light years in advance of us poor Western Europeans during the 90’s and early 00’s and Japanese cinema has never shied away from the the copious amounts of double entendre and sexual subtext in some of its male and male relationships and overall they tended to have much more varieties of male characters and relationships and their male actors used to emote better and far more often then ours.

Or a porn director yourself. Who knows you might break new ground there and pioneer a whole new cinema/video genre. :wink:

This actually seems to be very common with most of the women I tend to talk with even the heterosexual ones but does seem to be mostly absent or less pronounced in straight guys.
Of course one of my theories is that it really isn’t in most of them but they repress talking about it and bottle it up and internalize in less healthy ways, as internet trolls for example.

But please do take the anatomical differences into account and don’t put gay players in a poorly converted and edited female role and don’t call us “queens” unless the character/mc in question really is one, drag or otherwise and they have indicated they don’t mind being called this in casual conversation.
Protip: Most drag queens are in fact straight, not gay, guys.

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Sometimes, I kind of appreciate when a game might throw some few lines that might address the fact that a particular romance is a same gender one. It shows that the writer actually took some time to think about lgbt people instead of just copy-paste the exact same scenes for both gender options.

As some members pointed out before, there can be differences in the way lgbt relationships might be treated or developed, and I know that the immediate conclusion drawn from that statement would be “dealing with homophobia”, but I would like to add that there are more nuances than that and not necessarily negative.

There’s, for example, the need to clarify how open do you want to be about the relationship. This is an issue that usually younger characters need to come to terms with, even when you don’t feel that there is an actual possibility of being rejected for it, it’s still something that needs to be dealt with, and different people might have to process it with more time and concern that others.

And just to clarify, I’m not saying that I want more games dealing with coming out issues, I think that it’s safe to assume that if you start a same gender romance, being accepted and open about it will be something that is going to be taken for granted. It’s just an example of something that might make a gay relationship compared to a straight one.

Another thing, might be past relationships. Like, if I know that a character has being known for have dated a lot of people of the opposite gender and never with someone of the same, it’s still a little bit strange that this would never be addressed if you start a gay relationship.

There is also a… touchy subject… how to say this? There are things that I say or talk about with lgbt people, That I wouldn’t say with straight people. It’s just there are some subjects or topics in which I take for granted when talking with people who go through the same experiences as I, but I would have to explain them differently if I wanted to talk about it with straight people. Not to mention that there are just some issues that I don’t feel comfortable talking about with straight people (mostly sex related stuff).

And even more complicated is when I might feel different about certain comments, jokes or words depending on who is saying them. There are certain comments that can be funny, sarcastic or well intended coming from queer people, but they might turn offensive when coming from straight people.

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Ah, just for clarification, by “love triangle,” I wasn’t thinking of mutual polyamory so much as more complicated cases of who’s into whom. Like, the classic love triangle would be person A and person B are both into person C. You could also get something really dizzying like person A is interested in person B who’s attracted to person C who wants to go out with person A :recycle:

Yeah, the way you mention can definitely work! Also note if the character’s someone the main character would’ve known for a while previously, it might be some background info you’d already have. It depends. Even if homophobia and the closet aren’t an issue in your setting, some people are just naturally more into talking about relationships and who they’re interested in and some aren’t.

Also, I feel like, if someone really wants to write an interactive fiction about homophobia, it’d be best to write it so that the main character is locked to being gay (or at least some sort of LGBT) so that you’re not penalizing the player for choosing to play as gay.

Heck, while I’m pretty sure I’m about exclusive homosexual, I feel I’m a lot fuzzier on the romantic side :confused:

I do think there are some positive ways to acknowledge the gayness of a romance, too. Like, solidarity sorts of things, or if the character’s the first in a field, being acknowledged as a milestone, or stuff like that. It’s all pretty setting-dependent, though.

Also true. There’d be some jokes about gay stereotypes for which, if I see a gay person make that joke, I’ll think they’re making fun of the stereotype, while if I see a straight person make the joke, I’d be much more concerned that they’re making fun of gay people.

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About the jokes totally agree, It can cause serious misunderstandings. Like I am hetero but having friends lgtb since childhood, We made certain jokes or so that if you don’t know us could be considered like offensive or weird. When is not . But I really think is not only in this cases. With friends we know since kindergarten all we behave diffently that with others. Probably because you have seen them pee on their bed with five years … :wink: But yeah, In games not put that jokes it would be considered offensive as people won’t have the context.

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