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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9093986" data-attributes="member: 18">Rewatching Friends during the pandemic, Ross is actually considerably less awful than I remembered him, I mean he's got issues but I remembered him as some kind of freak. Whereas GOOD GOD Chandler is completely awful. We used to think that guy was funny? Damn. Misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, fatphobia, weird self-hate, that dude just had it all, all the time. Joey is exactly as you remember him. All the women have a ton of internalized misogyny too that really sticks out. It still manages to be mostly funny.My point isn't that wangrods won't identify with him - absolutely they will - just that he doesn't fit the Stereotypical Main Character mould, which is to say this dude:[ATTACH=full]292348[/ATTACH]They're butcher, tougher, generally older (albeit not by much in some cases), less erudite, talk way tougher, and so on.I have to say, I don't think the Gale line was even slightly a writing failure.I think that was a massive writing success. A huge one. Because it doesn't pander to straight men who have never been hit on by a Nice Guy in their life, and haven't paid attention to Nice Guys they know when those men hit on women. Now they know.For me, who both has been hit on by a Nice Guy (who almost graduated to a stalker, but that's a whole other story) and has paid attention to that, it was immediately obvious, 100% this was a "sex thing". Literally the first thing I thought was "this dude wants to show me his dick". And I was 100% right. He even says it kind of suggestively! That so many straight dudes don't get this and are horrified should be treated as a learning moment for what women have to deal with constantly. Not pushed off as "bad writing". Own your mistake, don't put it on the writers.But that's about that specific bit of dialogue.Your general point that that there are unclear dialogue options, particularly re: initiating romance, is correct. It's just this issue is exacerbated by a bunch of straight dudes (not calling you out here specifically but just straight guys generally) who lack the limited ability to pick up on innuendo even I, a nerdy straight guy with ADHD, does have. I will credit endless hours of Round the Horne (particularly Julian and Sandy) and Carry On movies with perhaps sharpening my senses here lol. Interestingly there's a scene in a brothel later which like, the dialogue, the delivery, and even the voices the VAs are using are all perfect Carry On movie even the character appearances kind of are, so I think it might be an homage.I think one thing I'd change would be to put a heart symbol on romance initiators. I know they probably intentionally avoided symbols on dialogue to increase immersion/reading and decrease mindlessly clicking of correct symbol, and that's smart, but they're very concerned about consent and so on, and I think it would do the game a service (and a lot of slightly shocked straight guys lol) a service to put that on the initiator dialogue.Also there are just bugs though - like I never said anything remotely flirty to Halsin (I mean, genuinely, I barely spoke to him at the party) and then next time I talk to him my PC is trying to apologise for "coming on too strong" and it's like, man what?Sith Warrior seems custom-made on the assumption you'll go subversive good, it's far more interesting that way, but Sith Inquisitor works way, way better if you lean into the POWER OF THE DARK SIDE OF THE FORCE!</blockquote>

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