One of my Pathfinder characters just got a girlfriend.
No, please, hold your applause. Please, please…OK, keep going.
Anyways, it was a little sped up, but we went through a good arc. For the purposes of brevity, I will be speaking about this relationship in the first person. Remember that “I”, “me”, etc. refer to Peridan for the following story. I’ll explain at the end.
When I arrived in Sandpoint (the main town), Geth was one of the first characters I talked to. She was kind, knowledgeable, and accepting of my quirky nature (I have a split personality, which has been so much fun to roleplay). We went on missions together, she introduced me to Hannah (who has been helping me accomplish some of my goals), and sparred with me (the other part of my goals). We were becoming good friends.
But then something happened. You see, Geth was a worshiper of an evil deity (there’s lots of deities in Pathfinder), and she was starting to lose faith, like any good and caring person would. In her past, she was beholden to her faith, but now, surrounded by caring people, the tenants of her faith were at odds with her current life. I spent time with her, comforting her and helping her come to terms with these changes in her life. At the end of it, she kissed me, and I admitted that I liked her. And now we’re dating. It’s a love story for the ages.
Oh, also Peridan is female too.
How did that late addition to the story change your opinion of it? Did it become more compelling? Less? Or, like me, did it not change anything at all?
I want to believe in a world where love stories can exist purely on the merits of their love and connection. Sure, gender, race, personality, etc. are part of the characters, but love should be the main factor.
Six years ago, Marvel Comics had the first gay marriage in major comics. It was huge, on the levels of Spiderman’s or Superman’s wedding. And, if I’m being honest, the characters involved were just some yahoos from the X-Men. It was a good story, but the gay-ness of it felt more important than the love in it.
Fast-forward to last year. Ice-Man, a major character in the X-Men, admits that he’s gay. From then on, he has side plots about how he’s bad at hitting on guys. It’s not a story about a gay guy who’s awkward. It’s a story about a person who’s awkward, who happens to be a gay guy. That’s my jam. That’s the kind of story I want to read. When he has to abandon his team in the middle of a fight that he was told is for his very survival, so that he can save the life of the man who he has grown to love, it didn’t matter that they were both guys. They had built a story of love.
Now if you’ll excuse me, Peridan has to argue with herself about whether she’s the prince or princess in her own fairy tale.
That's Pretty NEET 