i CAN do this anymore

Propaganda:

Male Inquisitor & Cullen

cullen is the commander of your forces in dragon age: inquisition. he’s a former templar, he has a lot of baggage from the first two games, and in inquisition he’s trying to become a better person while leading an army and dealing with lyrium withdrawal. the inquisitor is your player character, and if you romance cullen in canon, it’s this very sweet slow-burn thing where he’s nervous and earnest and clearly wants something real but has no idea how to ask for it without short-circuiting.

problem: only female human and elf inquisitors can romance him. male inquisitors can’t, even though cut dialogue proves a male inquisitor romance was planned at some point. like there is dialogue from cullen saying when he first saw male inquisitor he immediately thought he had beautiful eyes. and yeah, “we ran out of time” hits differently when the thing that disappears is the queer path. again. shocking. never seen that before. 🙃

it’s extra annoying because a male inquisitor/cullen romance would’ve fit so easily. cullen’s whole story is about choosing who he wants to be after years of control, fear, addiction, and duty. letting him realise he can love a man as part of that same life rebuild would’ve made perfect sense. it doesn’t need to be a different romance. it just needs the same tenderness, the same awkward flirting, the same “maker help me, I’m in love with my boss” energy, but with a male inquisitor. and i want a sweet traditional knight in shining armour gay romance! why do only the straight women get that, man. i love the bi/gay charming suave criminal options dragon age likes to give me but sometimes i just want The Golden Boy to be queer as well.

also let’s be real. the war room would’ve been unbearable. leliana would know immediately, josephine would be polite about it, cassandra would pretend she wasn’t invested, and cullen would turn bright red every time the inquisitor asked him to “step away from work” for five minutes. robbed. we were robbed.

Sparrow & Reaver

when sparrow meets him for the first time reaver says “i don’t get many visitors to my little coastal paradise... especially ones that could redefine a man’s definition of paradise” and then if they flirt back he chuckles and calls them a “little minx” and somehow the game expects me to just move on???? no. absolutely not.

sparrow is the player character in fable 2, and reaver is an immortal pirate/gunslinger/hero who is hot, rich, evil, dramatic, and deeply in love with himself. he’s exactly the kind of character a game should know people are going to want to romance, especially when he’s literally flirting with the protagonist in his first proper scene. they end up working together and he’s smug and selfish and terrible, but sparrow is one of the only people who can keep up with him and live to be annoyed about it.

then later, when you play as sparrow’s child in fable 3, reaver is still around because he’s immortal, and the way he talks about sparrow makes it feel like they actually mattered to him, like there's some degree of loyalty and trust and genuine sadness over their death there, which is massive for reaver. this is a man who barely shows sincere emotion unless it benefits him somehow, so any hint that sparrow was special hits harder.