#bela mod

[sapphim]

in uhhh related news I think I might be able to hack together versions of isabela's and fenris's romances that won't have any unvoiced dialogue w trans your hawke. merrill's is very possibly a lost cause though due to the. way that it is.

I had actually—before this, recently—been eyeing the way isabela's romance scene had been put together and thinking to myself that I could probably recut it such that any differences in her romance dialogue were based on friendmance vs rivalmance, rather than Hawke's gender. so that's on the docket.

anders is another one with quite a lot of specifically gendered dialogue in his romance but, kind of uniquely to him, it's spread out through all of his scenes other than his romance scene? it uhhhhhh also occurred to me, after the isabela thought, that I might also be able to hack at anders' dialogue so that it's more approval-based than gender-based? but I'm not sure on that front yet, it would be much more of a stretch 🤔

[sapphim]

so the fun thing about isabela's romance, is that it is fundamentally broken. and the other fun thing about isabela's romance, is that it lies to you.

[sapphim]

Hey DAII enthusiasts, can you think of any points in the game where it's possible to lock yourself out of a romance and it maybe shouldn't be? I don't mean just bugs or mistakes but also points that are fully intentional but maybe a bit questionable. I've received a query about:

Getting locked out of pursuing Isabela's romance by agreeing to remain FWB rather than selecting the one dedicated "pursue romance" line

Getting locked out of pursuing Fenris's romance by telling Varric he broke up with you(? I'm not familiar with this one, but that particular conversation with Varric is messy as fuck and already on my to-do list as needing more attention than I've already given it.)

And I've personally taken issue in my last replay with

Getting locked out of Merrill's romance dialogue in the climax by failing to select the one single flirt in the conversation about what she should do with herself in the future

I can always skim the wiki for similar known issues (and probably will) but that's annoying and you guys are usually on the ball so: If I were going to post something that did a little bit of romance clean-up, what else should be on my radar?

[sapphim]

Could you please make a dialogue mod that removes Isabela’s glistening line and shackles joke about Fenris? It always made me uncomfortable that someone who went through sex slavery just like him would be okay making jokes like that. I also hate her line about liking wearing leashes and how she hesitates when offered the choice to let a slaver walk free or get a boat. Unfortunately, Bioware doesn’t care one bit about the optics of making a Black woman say those things and they did her so dirty.

The glistening banter is I believe removed in Less Uncomfortable Companion Banters. I just looked up the shackles joke and, ew. It's buried in Isabela's main dialogue file and I don't see an easy way to remove it without editing the whole thing. I'm gonna think over my options, but it's definitely on my radar now.

The way they've handled Isabela as a character is soooo shady. The Bioware writers literally never think, ever.