I've sort of held off on posting in here for a bit partly out of laziness, but I guess as my name's come up at least a couple times I should throw in my own couple of
cents septims ISK.
When I originally put things together for Morwen as a character, I deliberately chose not to give her any sexual preferences because I wanted to focus on other aspects of the character, and figured that if I felt like dicking around with an RP relationship in EVE (pun intended), I would just let things evolve naturally from everything else already written into the character from the start. (Which I suppose in some way could be considered making her explicitly bisexual, but that's not really important.)
Which is what happened, like for Katrina and Uraniae and Halete. The first thing that tends to catch Morwen's interest or eye is intellect, followed by attitude and a capability for mutual respect. Physical attributes rarely harm her view of someone, all other things equal. Some other aspects of her personality may or may not come into play here as well; I'll refrain from listing them though, no need to give spoilers. A(n unfortunate) side effect of this list of preferences is that many male characters disqualify themselves from this sort of interest because they don't give the impression that they actually meet any of those requirements (even if they actually do!). If there's no bait, the fish usually won't bite - so if they do too good a job at hiding these attributes, she'll just pay them no mind. (Amusingly, this is true for a lot of female characters too, but that's beside the point.)
Following that, after Simca's IC 'death', Erys (again a female) was not the first per se (since now I had two years of meeting people behind me)... but she was certainly the one who ended up spending the most consistent time roleplaying with me from an OOC standpoint. Online every day at the same time, offering impressive dialogue and character development, and helping me work through the storyline mess that became of Katrina. Simply put, with all the effort Erys put into working with me during those weeks, we allowed our characters to being interested to ensure continued development.
My character became involved in homosexual relationships because the players behind the characters offered me what I was looking for in the right amounts at the right time. MY character stinll has romantic interests in plenty of males. Kiruss Dasun, Pieter, Stitcher, John in a platonic way, Valdezi, and even Tiberius in a small way. All males, and all people she was/is interested in. Kiruss is taken, Pieter is taken, Stitcher is taken, John is her boss, Valdezi treats her like a sister, and Tiberious is a toaster. If the situations were different, they could have been her next partner.
These two paragraphs sum up a lot of the situation for me with Morwen. After a couple short-lived and messy (sometimes in traumatic ways) relationships, she ended up staying with some close friends for a while to destress. The combination of overlapping online time, conversations and other character development pushed her and one of those friends together. It wasn't the intent (not even IC) walking in; it just happened as a result of all of those factors coming together.
They've been together in some form or another for about three years, with a month-long break about a year in, and as Rin spoilered in OOC a few days ago (shame on you), recently got engaged. Going back to Morwen's 'checklist' for a moment, this person was smart (if naïve at times), had an attitude and outlook on life that was compatible with Morwen's (and allowed her to express herself in various ways she'd not had the opportunity to do before), and respected her as an equal.
As for the second paragraph, Aldrith in particular knows full well he's on Morwen's list, both IC and OOC. If he hadn't already been courting (or courted by, the jury's still out on that one
) Mitara at the time, and if she hadn't already been in a relationship, it's possible she would've given serious chase to him. (She still likes teasing him about it on occasion, and being in the same solar system as him drives Mitara absolutely nuts, because she
knows.) There are a few other people who I could see her being compatible with had some stuff happened differently - Vince for example; if not for a series of events that gave them 50 million reasons to hate each other, they'd otherwise be pretty compatible.
There might be a few others, but I prefer to make people dig to find the others. >.>
Cia made an amazing post a little while back which I agree with 110%. I still feel obligated to point out that (despite Cia's insistence that there's "no need to ruin a good argument with facts, morlag") in many of the cases where "lolspacelesbian" jokes are made at Morwen's expense, I'm the one doing it.
In general, if I use the term, I'm using it to refer to the (as Cia puts it) "shallow characters who appear to be nothing more than blank dolls manipulated into a series of sexual encounters by players with little interest in, or understanding of, the validity of GLBTI experience and desire", who, imo, are the source of any "spacelesbian problem" that may or may not exist. Those of us for whom the "lesbian" or "bisexual" or whatever aspect of our characters is entirely secondary to other things like "musician" or "pirate" or "faction loyalist" or "mother", should not be lumped in with that group. It is not a defining characteristic - it is just an added piece of the puzzle.
Also, like Uraniae, Morwen's trying to downplay/not to make a big deal of her relationship in public, partly because she doesn't consider it anyone else's business or appropriate for public discussion, but also because there are far more interesting things to talk about in most situations. It occasionally gets referenced in passing (like taking a pillow to the back of the head from across the room when she's up late talking to people instead of, you know, sleeping), but even then that's generally in private among friends who already know her. There's also that she is usually amused by people trying to hit on her, even if she'd never actually admit it to anyone - who's going to try if they know you're not available? (Aside from Sid, of course.
)
Someone mentioned ERP earlier (Nico iirc). I think that might actually be worth a discussion on its own (we may have a few existing threads already, in fact), but the tl;dr on my perspective there is that I strongly prefer to avoid it, except in the very rare cases where it will provide useful character or plot development,
and all involved parties agree with that fact. Otherwise, if it's clear that hanky-panky-kiss-and-spanky is going to happen and it's not going to include/involve anything that would affect anyone in ways that need to be dealt with or hashed out, just fade to black and call the scene a wrap. No need to waste time if you already know the outcome. (Pun retroactively intended.)
... Jesus that turned out to be a bigger wall of text than intended. Whoops.
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Topic: "Space Lesbians" (Read 28924 times)