losebetter:losebetter:i haven’t finished me:a yet - and i will! i want to know the rest of the story

losebetter:losebetter:i haven’t finished me:a yet - and i will! i want to know the rest of the story. but this game has already burned me way too many times. i’m sorry i can’t be more positive - trust me, i tried, i have been holding out hope despite every shitty thing that happens and all the garbage i see, but… i just can’t do it anymore.bioware is supposed to care about this. this is what they’re known for.hey, guys. so, fair warning: this might be the most negative text/meta post i have ever made or put on this blog. this might not match my history of appearing kind, forgiving, and empathetic toward - well, bioware in this case, but also in general. all i ask is that you please, please trust me - i have given this every chance. i have worked so hard to remain optimistic. the way dorian was handled in DA gave me a lot of hope and and reason to trust the team’s ability to be fair and just to gay men and their stories. but right now, i can’t be silent - not when there’s the potential of other queer men being hurt, feeling betrayed - and needing to know that those feelings are valid. so here goes:i am one mission away from finishing andromeda, but i can’t get to it. not tonight. i’ve currently been stuck in a dialogue tree with gil, one of two surviving gay males in the entire game (my gay male ryder notwithstanding), for over an hour, unable to press the button. because this is a talk we’re having about his desire to not just be a donor for the child of his straight female friend, but to settle down and raise the child with her.i have had three opportunities during this conversation to dissuade him from doing this - as he is one of two surviving gay males in the entire game - but he has rebuffed me every time. his sexuality has never come up. not once.i feared, when i saw gil’s romance documented on YT, that he was nothing but wish-fulfillment for straight people (because after all, who needs to be socially or culturally gay when you can have ~*~BABIES~*~) with a dash of Uncomfortable Bio-Child Superiority on the side. but that was this morning, and i was willing to admit there were parts of his fifteen-minute long romance that were cute, if misguided. was it written for gay men or at all gay-coded? nah, it was written for straight women - but what the hell, right? maybe it counted for something. gil’s a friend to my gay male ryder, after all, and that’s not meaningless.i have since learned that his friendship route is even worse. that if YOU don’t romance him and agree to be the third wheel to his Best Friendship with his female friend and raise her child with him, there is nothing you can do to stop him from settling down with her and raising - their child.let me be clear: i know this isn’t unheard of. okay? i know all kinds of people from all walks of life. i’m not saying this isn’t possible. but i’m saying that in the face of everything else bioware has fucked up for gay and bi men in this game? (liam & jaal, reyes, gil’s romance route, avitus and macen - off the top of my head.)it’s fucked up. it’s fucked up, and i can no longer stay silent about it. it was a fucked up story to tell, a fucked up way to tell it, and it has taken the last vestiges of my hopes for the game and shot them out the goddamn airlock.listen, because this is what makes this so hard? i’ve logged a lot of hours into this game. i love it. it’s an incredible technical achievement and move forward from the original trilogy, taking the “mission-normandy-citadel-back again” formula (that i had barely noticed in the originals) and completely doing away with it in a subtle way that feels natural and fun. the environments are gorgeous, exploration’s a blast. the writing, both the larger sci-fi thrill and the interpersonal stories of the characters closest to you, is actually very good - shaky opening, but it takes a steep turn upwards in quality and i was so, so pleased. they took the combat, which was already fun, and made it even BETTER. i want, desperately, to praise the team for the amount of love and hard work that clearly went into almost every part of the game.but i can’t. and more than that - i thought avitus and macen were the straw that broke the camel’s back, but i hadn’t seen this scene with gil yet. and now, i don’t know that i’ll ever see past it. i physically don’t think i can do it. how can i condemn him to this? at what point does it go from supporting his integrity as a character to trying to stomach a narrative i know wasn’t intended for me? how can i justify letting my gay male ryder encourage this, as if there’d be no complications? i can’t do it in good faith.i am done with bioware. i thought that i could trust them to treat at least queer narratives with dignity, grace, and care - but andromeda has proven me wrong. until/unless bioware acknowledges and fixes this shitshow, i am done giving them chances. i am heartbroken. i’ve never felt more alone in the universe that i adore so much and earnestly only had the highest hopes for. and i am exhausted. i am a content creator - but i cannot keep putting my creative energy, my heart and soul, into making things that exist in something created by a team that was so cruel to me and to anyone like me. i’ll just get heartsick.i don’t want to start fights, okay? that hasn’t changed. i’m not even angry, i don’t have the energy. and i’m not saying anyone else can’t enjoy it for what it is - YMMV after all and i genuinely hope to god i’m in the minority here, because i don’t wish the way i’m feeling right now on anyone. but i’m done. i’m undecided about what will happen to various OCs and things i have scattered about across bioware IPs, or where i’m gonna go from here. but this has shut me down.i’ll figure it out, shake it off, try to help other mlm feeling this way, and we’ll keep going forward. it’s all we can do. -- source link

More pics about