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Video games as help to come out to yourself - Thanks Bioware

Discussion in 'Entertainment and Technology' started by CuriousLiaison, Sep 23, 2014.

  1. CuriousLiaison

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    Hi everyone. Sorry if it comes across as a bit presumptive for my first post on this sub-forum to be a new thread, but I just wanted to pay tribute to Bioware in one respect, which I don't think is often appreciated.

    A lot of people have praised them for including LGBT characters, or criticised them for doing so in a tokenistic or slightly awkward manner, but I genuinely think that the inclusion of LGBT characters in ME3 did have a significant impact on me.

    When the game came out, I was very deeply in the closet, even with respect to myself. I would have simply disagreed with anyone who told me I was gay, and while I might have conceded that it wasn't impossible that I would eventually conclude that I was gay, I wouldn't have been consciously lying.

    But weirdly, as soon as I knew I could romance him, I knew that I wanted my male Shepard to romance Kaiden. Maybe there are just a lot of taboos and problems with self-perception that it's just a lot easier to get over when you are using an avatar to interact on your behalf. I don't know if anyone else found the same experience, but I would be interested to know if anyone else found something similar, either here or in some other context.

    So thanks Bioware. It may not have been quite the first step on the path to where I am now, but it was a reasonably significant one, and one that did encourage me to acknowledge the patterns in my thoughts as being somehow significant.
     
  2. FancyGummy

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    Thanks Bioware indeed. At the same time, don't people who label their character as anything other than straight in SWTOR get sent to an entirely different planet?
     
  3. EpicConfusion

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    I already kind of knew at the time, but my Skyrim Khajiit Myrin Sharp-Tongue married the Argonian Derkeethus.
     
  4. shinji

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    Dragon Age Origins was fun. It's quite more graphic that Mass Effect. And damn those elves were hot!
     
  5. White Knight

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    I wonder if it is Bioware or Lucas who wanted his universe to be gay free? I remember problems about Jihani at the making of KotOR.

    I think this is one of the reasons why we had Mass Effect (a much better Sci Fi universe than Star Wars in my opinion) and Dragon Age (for replacement of Faerun), to give Bioware more freedom to create their games.
     
  6. Fallingdown7

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    Already knew I was gay before bioware, but I still enjoyed the inclusion.
     
  7. Kasey

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    I should have figured that I was trans when I always picked the girl in video games. Or at least recognized it more.
     
  8. CuriousLiaison

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    Although Lucas' universe was always weirdly sexless. Han and Leia were the anomaly. Anakin and Padmé's relationship was so ham-fisted and unconvincing that it's barely something real humans can relate to. And no one else ever seems to base any emotions on attraction.

    Plus it always annoyed me a bit that they established that sensitivity to the Force ran in families, and then made everyone strong in the Force take a vow of chastity. Surely someone in a thousand generations must have realised this was essentially a eugenic policy with the effect of removing Jedi skills from every population?

    Actually I partially take the first paragraph back. Luke's a bit smitten when he sees the hologram of Leia, and Owen and Beru are a believable couple in Ep. 4. But there's a pattern here that the're all in the original trilogy.