Let's talk about Love Interests!

Give to me the smartasses. All of them.

I love awkward dorks so very much, glasses or no. I wish there were more female characters that were awkward dorks, but instead you just get "clumsy ditz" which is not the same thing at all.

I'm on my way to work soon, so I don't have tiem to read all three pages yet. Forgive me if anything like this has already been mentioned. My type really varies from game to game and depends on how well it's written. But one type I'm pretty drawn to is an underdog. The one who everyone else kicks around, or who can't seem to get ahead but doesn't give up. I can't tolerate Tsunderes because if they act like that, I assume they don't want anythign to do with me, and I feel the same back. There are exceptions to this for me... But I generally like feeling needed and wanted, not consistantly rejected until the other person gives in. That's not attractive, or healthy, IMO.

Frankly...
be it manga/ game/ anime..

I always end to be fond of the bookworm, intellectual guy ( or girls... I've always been a big fan of Velma in Scooby Doo, since I prefer to see smart girls rather than bimbos.. yet I play otome games where I always end naming the heroïne Baka something, and it always turn to be accurate, darn!)

l like the scientist one in general be it just the weird one, or the totally mad scientist.
Funny character is a plus.

Sarcastic ones too ( hey, my best friend nicknamed me Daria for some good reason)
bad guys: yes but only when the background is a bit more interesting than "I'm a poor little thing, my parents abandonned me in the forest when I was 5, My dog ran away and my previous girl left me so I want the whole world pay for it" or " I've got a dark secret". so I can perfectly like the story's bastard if he doesn't spend pages/ hours bothering me with constant blahblahblah about how pathetic is his life.

I tend to like crazy /characters, or at least borderlines ( I must be the only one in my vicinity to be actually a fan of Saga in Saint Seiya). And you can't imagigine how much I laughed when I saw who was representing my signe in Fruits basket
SOOO I must high five Not sure here for posting Hiruma, great choice pal!

And sadly for me, I'm always inexplicably fond of the secondary character.. you know, the one who will painfully die after 3 volumes/ episodes, or disappear without a sign.


AND now , let's shoot on the ones I DON'T like:

- Nicey nice one, always helping and caring, and... gah! please get some leisure and leave me living! Or I'll ban you into a the permanent friend zone.
- The cry baby: I don't care! I don't care if you lost your mother when you were young, I don't care if you'r best friend is an asshole ( yes, back to Saint Seiya, 'cause I'm a delicate girl who never skip an occasion to rewatch the 80's shonen: I like Saga but I positively hate Hyoga)
- the shota/ loli: it's ... duh, I just can't stand the whole concept of childish = kawaii ( for me childish = desperatly seek for a free spank) So you can't imagine how much I laughed when I saw all this kind of "kawaii" character parodied as Hani-chan in host club.

Looking back, it seems I do have a type, sort of. I like devotion. I like it if I feel like the person really cares about the MC and if that's demonstrated during the game.

For example, Atton's willing to let himself be manipulated by Kreia because he doesn't want her to tell the Exile about his past. He doesn't want the Exile to think less of him because he's come to really admire and care about her, and even though he hates being used, he hates the idea of her rejecting him even more. Now that's good drama, especially when you find out anyways and the game gives you the option to not reject him (which is an outcome he hadn't thought was possible). By doing that, you show him that you care about him in return by doing what would matter most to him.

Another example comes from Beyond Good and Evil. Jade (the main character) infiltrates an Alpha Sections warehouse but she has to leave Double H, her partner, behind while she does so. At the end of the level she's chased by the Alpha Sections' high commander and has to jump off the side of a building onto a giant hovering TV. She starts slipping off, and all seems lost, but then Double H grabs her wrist. It's a lovely moment.

Also, adding Oswald from Odin Sphere to my list of awesome video game LIs.



“I belong to you now.” – Gwendolyn
“You are not an object, and I will not allow anyone to treat you as such.” – Oswald

I really like tsunderes, but not the ones with a totally gratuitous tsun, or the wangsty ones. Also, I like them sarcastic and dry, but not outright abusive because NOPE.

The fact that I'm pretty much an asshole that likes flustering other people probably influences that, actually.

I'm also fond of the "big sibling" types. Not actual big siblings (onii-chan, get away from me right now), but these older LIs that take care of your character and are a bit more experienced and savvy. They are often portrayed as cool and sarcastic too, so there is that. For example...


Yuiko Kurugaya, from the Little Busters! VN (and anime, but I don't have much faith in that one).

She is the "onee-san" character of the game, and is really... naughty. But she is as kind as she is perverted, whether she likes it or not. Her character has much more depth than it seems, also, as expected from a character in a Key Visual Arts work.



Hnng.

From the same game, there is the male big bro character. Who is an actual big brother, but thankfully not of the protagonist.


Kyosuke Natsume, the quirky chessmaster type. Appears childish and cloudcuckoolandish, but is actually pretty intelligent and kind, with more foresight than most other characters in the story. Is the mostly non-creepy older brother of the female main LI (which is, by the way, a tsundere. Not one I really enjoy though), and the big brother figure for all of the cast.

I wish he was romanceable. So much.

Also, he likes to gift stray cats to her sister. And he names them things like Lennon, Audrey, Kobain, Gates, Einstein, Aristotle, Jakie Chan, Hitler...

I love both those characters, but Masato is clearly the biggest bro in Little Busters.

NOW BACK OFF YOU SCUM HIRUMA IS MY WAIFU, MINE I SAY

I don't really have a type myself, really. It all depends on how well the writing or characterization is. Though, I have to say I have a soft spot for weird/slightly-to-extremely mentally unhinged/insane/bloodthirsty/evil/villain characters. So, for example...

Also, I loooove evil/creepy little girls who may or may not actually be little girls. Evangeline from Negima is a good example.

Play with Masato all day every day.

Sadly, the game version I played didn't have the Muscle Revolution. So terribly sad.

THEN WE SHALL FIGHT FOR HIM! Unless we agree that Hiruma is just too much sexy for everyone.
There's also Outori Kyouya

You know what? Out of all the Ouran people, I actually love Tamaki the best. He's so clueless and adorable and sincere and BAHHH I JUST WANNA SNUGGLE HIM FOREVER

Well, here's another Baldur's Gate mod romance I adore: the Xan romance for BG1/BG2.

Original portrait:


Alternate portraits: my icon, and the alt portrait I normally use (from wonnimchunha's Portrait Mod):


He's depressed (sample lines: "Life is so hollow!", "Let us save our effort and just lie down and die."), which pushes both my "I know that feel, bro" buttons and my "I want to hug you until you are ALL BETTER!" buttons. Plus, depending on which path you take, you can get to a point where he's like,

I wanted to love Hubert, but then I remembered that he's 16 in the game and that left me feeling incredibly squicky. So now I just look down upon him with motherly fondness and want to do affectionate things that would make him go "Motherrrrrrr!!!" like telling him he forgot his paper lunch bag.
covered in his name and hearts
has his favorite sandwich cut into the shape of a heart- YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I AM SAYING.

But yeah, you reminded me of how much I love glasses men~
In fact, this whole topic is reminding me of men that I have feelings for.
ALSO SOMEONE MENTIONED HARVEST MOON BACK THE FUCK UP.
Wizard was waaay too quiet for me, so I ended up marrying Chase and...who was it...? I think Toby? Because he opened his eyes once.

i died.

I love Tamaki too, but not as a love interest. He's more that goofy brother you want to dote on to me.

Well I'm asexual, so my attraction to anyone, including characters, is merely platonic. So I don't have that problem with Hubert =P

Unsurprisingly I married Jin in ToT, but once we got married he became incredibly boring (In AP I went with Candance, who was a lot more fun). At least it wasn't as bad as Rick, who I gave up on marrying alltogether when his final heart event had him talking about chickens...again....

I like Lloyd, Louis, and Mikhail a lot too. Louis especially needs more love.

i would just like to say
that jin's backstory in tot was incredibly sad and horrible
and they turned it into this trivial thing and it's really depressing that they did that because I was surprised they went that fucking dark in an HM game.
I like Allen in the newest HM, despite his horribleness attitude-wise, because of his glasses. so shallow... ;A;

Ah yeah, it's sad that they just glossed over it.

It's interesting you mention Allen. When I first saw him I was like 'whoa, I know who I'm gonna marry" and then I actually met him and was like NOPE. I really, really, really cannot stand cocky characters. It's sad too because he's like the only character in glasses the fandom actually likes, and I hate him. I went for Sanjay instead. He's adorable.

Sanjay is precious. Honestly, I don't know who I'm going to go after, which is a shame considering how the dating system is set up in that game. They've made it impossible to..."shop around" as it were, which is horrible. Now I don't know if the guy I like will suddenly become an obsessive-stalking freak at red heart level and take appropriate actions.
NOPE.
NOW I HAVE TO DO TERRIBLE THINGS TO HIM TO BREAK UP WITH HIM AND what were they thinking? I mean, yay realism, but... MAN.

So I mentioned some particular favorites before, but since we're going into more detail about specific characters...

Shinjiro Aragaki - Persona 3 Portable

A great example of what I was talking about regarding characters whose outward behavior is a mask for their inner feelings - no coincidence that he's P3P's Moon S.Link, the Arcana representing illusions and deceit. On the outside: gruff, unapproachable thug. On the inside: a born househusband who loves animals and cooking, worries about his teammates' health and eating habits, treasures whatever few precious moments of normalcy he can get, and just wants the people around him to be safe and happy. His efforts at keeping up his tough guy front and hiding his soft side are hilarious, until they're heartbreaking: he tries valiantly to keep from getting attached or letting others get attached to him because he doesn't want them to be hurt when things inevitably end badly.



And damn, that smile.

Nathan in Voltage's Pirates In Love bears quite a bit of a resemblance to Shinjiro, less most of the tragedy - another tough guy who's uncomfortable expressing himself or displaying affection publicly, but is nevertheless always looking out for the heroine even on the other guys' routes.


Toshizo Hijikata - Hakuoki



One of those "stern taskmaster" types. He's harsh, demanding, and critical, but like all of the best of these sorts of characters he holds himself to an even higher standard than he holds everyone else, and he's able to command loyalty from those under his authority specifically because he won't demand anything from them that he doesn't believe they're equal to or that he's not willing to do himself. Hijikata is an example of this type that leaves me especially warm and fuzzy because indications are that it's not necessarily in his nature to be such an iron-fisted disciplinarian so much as he intentionally assumed the role so that his old friend Kondou won't have to do it and can instead go on being everyone's big brother while also being the Shinsengumi's commander.

I've mentioned it before in the thread for Matt's Hakuoki LP, but one of the things I really like about Hijikata as a love interest is that what he most admires in the protagonist is proactive behavior, the will to fight to live and to do what she feels is right with conviction, even if it's at cross-purposes with his own plans and even if it actively inconveniences him. After all, he's chosen to pursue what he believes in despite resistance from people around him, and to do it with his head held high in stubborn pride rather than make any apologies - if someone else does the same, that's something that he can only respect.


Katsumi Shiba - TMGS2

Another guy who comes off as curt and intimidating at first glance, although he's more of an aloof quiet type than the harsher fronts that characters like Shinjiro and Hijikata put up, and it's a much thinner veneer. Scratch that surface by spending more than a couple of minutes at a stretch in his company and Shiba proves to be genuinely just a really nice guy - even at the initial lineface stage when most TMGS guys are unrepentant about being late for dates but quick to get on protagonist-chan's case if she's late, Shiba rarely has anything critical to say. For all that he's not a very expressive guy, he's unfailingly gentle and considerate, and more than that proves to have a surprisingly playful, puckish sense of humor underneath that deadpan exterior...



...as well as being a covert pervert. <3


Veering away from otome games a bit, Kaidan Alenko from Mass Effect is a "nice guy" type who worked really well for me for a couple of reasons, one being that for all that he is a bona fide nice guy of the polite and self-effacing type, there are also indications throughout his dialogues that he keeps himself under a rigid self-control - and the other reason being that his romance with female Shepard turns the usual gender roles kind of on their ear. Even the nicest warrior-therapist Paragon Shepard is still clearly the aggressor in the relationship, and indications are that Kaidan likes it that way. She's in the position of authority, she will always kick more ass than him, and it doesn't bother him in the slightest except in that he worries about her emotional well-being when things start to get rough.

Speaking of Mass Effect I'm also very, very fond of Thane Krios, mostly thanks to the always-fascinating dichotomy he demonstrates between being a polite, thoughtful, very spiritual and philosophical person and being a cold-blooded killer. Much the same as what I like about Saito from Hakuoki, who is even more of a quiet type, always softspoken, always following orders without hesitation or complaint, but hang around him long enough and you find that he's full of deep philosophical thoughts and questions and doubts about his place in the world that he's trying to resolve to his own satisfaction.

And still on the theme of masks and dichotomies between outward and inward self, I love Atton Rand from KotOR 2. Outwardly he plays the rogue, taking nothing seriously, full of smartass quips; scratch that surface, and he's carrying around a lot of darkness and bitterness and self-loathing. And yet at the core he's desperate to protect the Exile and keep her (or him!) thinking well of him, and as early as Citadel Station he seems to almost be looking for a chance to self-destruct on the Exile's behalf. He's a fascinatingly messed-up individual and it's no coincidence that you can gain influence points with him by being either Light Side and virtuous or by being a dog-kicking psychopath. Helping him to actually find some inner peace is a rewarding process.

I could go on basically forever but this is probably enough for now.

The hilarious thing is that both Shinjiro and Shiba are voiced by Kazuya Nakai. The man was born to play the stoic-but-well-meaning-hidden-soft-spot guy.

...but then he's also Wakka, Gintama's version of Hijikata, Gilgamesh of FFV fame and Date "PUT YA GUNS ON" Masamune.

It's true! And it is hilarious. Although I tend to forget that Nakai plays Shinjiro because I'm usually thinking of Grant George's voicework for the character instead.

Oh right, those. I purged them from my memory after I learned you could change your human companions' skin color by using them. Creeped me the fuck out, that did.

Anyway, no, not bad, just very, very different than what I'm used to seeing. And like I said, I'd managed to mostly forget about the options.

Madam, you have excellent taste. Garrus is the fucking bomb.

Thanks. :) I know I've said this somewhere on these boards before, but I adored Garrus from when I first met him in ME1 and I was one of the people who went on the Bioware forums while ME2 was being made to tell Bioware that we wanted him as an LI. And it worked. :D That moment of finding out that they'd actually made him a love interest was incredible.

All this talk of favourite LIs makes me want to play Summon Night again. I've got to dig up that old GBA cart. Or perhaps I could play it on an emulator. Though my computer is apparently too crap to emulate DS games (was never able to get TMGS working right) so that doesn't bode well.

I got the BG2 RE mod.
I'm afraid to play it.
so afraid.

Pretty sure GBA games are easier to emulate than DS games. I've used Visual Boy Advance on incredibly crappy laptops and it worked well, so you should be fine. :D

Yeah, the system is just horrible when it comes to human companions, I agree. But I think alien companions like Khem Val really do look better when customized. It just makes them look more exotic to me.

What Anabanana said.
I've never had a lick of trouble from GBA emulators. The DS emulators are emulating a machine quite a bit more complicated than the GBA. Plus, the GBA emulators have had a lot more time to become fine-tuned.
And now I also want to play Summon Night again. It's so adorable. ARGH.
I've already started playing three different games. Help.


While I'm at it, I suppose I should address the thread topic.
Sigh.


But what in your opinion makes a love interest good or bad?
Good
1. Actually loves (not necessarily immediately, of course) the MC.
2. Respects the MC.
3. Doesn't pull stupid rom/com drama.
4. Depth. I love hints of a curious backstory even if it's never fully revealed. I enjoy theorizing and I like the feeling that LIs existed before MC met them. Even better if it feels like the LIs can move on with their lives and do something even if the MC hadn't deigned to romance them.

Bad
1. Abusive emotionally/physically
2. Traitor

Is there a specific type that you always gravitate towards, or does it change based on the story?
I love a good story and that can make up for a lot of characteristics I would otherwise dislike or feel apathetic towards. I think I have a preference for the MC to have a real personality and to see how that personality meshes with the LI.
As far as specific types go...I had to give that a real think. I considered my past RL crushes along with a couple of media-based crushes I've had. I think I like characters that have a shy/subtle element to their character along with a hefty serving of devotion.
I think the first game character that made me...ah...'doki doki' was...hahaha. This is a little too embarrassing for me.
I rather like Julian so far in the Black Wolves Saga LP. I have high delusions hopes that he won't be as messed up as most the of the cast.

I'm a little fascinated by yandere characters as a concept but I hardly ever see any that I like. (And I definitely wouldn't want to know one in RL.)

Surprisingly, I don't care much for the childhood friend character. I dunno why. Maybe the MC's long history with the childhood friend makes it a little incestuous to me?

I don't generally go for same sex characters. It just doesn't float my boat. (If it's just friendmancing, then I'm all for it. Yeah, I know. Friendmancing isn't a word.)

Well. That was a lot of blather.

Oh well now I'm curious.

And I found my copy of Summon Night! Whoo! And Rasho is even more adorable than I remembered.

Have you finished Summon Night, Rot?

Also, am I seriously the only one who's played Soul Nomad?

Garrus is an amazing character... but I can never bring myself to romance him. Shepard spent so much time mentoring him during the first game that it just feels to me like he's her alien little brother, and starting a romance would be weird and wrong.

This is why I shouldn't post at 5 A.M. in the morning. Sleep deprived posting is my version of drunk posting, apparently. >_>

Yes, I have! Lovely game, but now that I think about it I haven't done all of the routes. Shame.
Did you ever play Summon Night 2?
Soul Nomad? Is that yet another game I need to get for the PS2? T_T

Joie, you not only play JE like I did back then, you feel about every character you mentioned the same way I did. I'd suspect we were the same person, but then it struck me that post was way too eloquent to be from me, not to mention thought out. Something about a forum always makes me write short one-thought posts. Too much forum RP with a fail-prone browser, I guess.

I am endlessly entertained by how similar our approaches and reactions to these things are. Clearly we are just born video game buddies or something. :D


...upon reviewing what I posted and giving it a little more thought I think a lot of what makes a love interest character click for me comes down to dichotomies and contrasts. Strength and vulnerability, toughness and tenderness, self-control and passion: they have to have some combination of both. It's why I lean naturally towards stoics and stoic-type tsunderes, and it's a lot to do with what makes other character types click for me as well.

I've said before that "nice guy" types are a type that, at least for me, walk a much finer line as to whether they really work or not, and since there are some nice guys who rank among my favorites I've been contemplating what it is about them specifically that makes them work for me where others don't. Kaidan from ME is one of them and I've already talked about why I like him, a part of which is his overdeveloped self-control born out of his fear of his own capacity for anger and violence. Other examples from a couple of Voltage games I've played recently are Ebi-chan from In Your Arms Tonight and Takao from My Forged Wedding, both of whom are mature adults who pretty much have their shit together emotionally. Ebi-chan is a bit more of the stern taskmaster type on the surface, but as the protagonist gets to know him she finds that it's simply that he holds himself and everyone around him to a very high standard; underneath that he's a remarkably warm and passionate person, and he works especially well within the context of his route because the protagonist is in such a crappy situation and is such an emotional wreck. Takao is more of a big brother type who's used to putting others' needs ahead of his own, but nevertheless he's not a doormat - rather, he's used to taking charge of a situation in his calm way, and to standing up for others, and as pleasant and gentle as he is most of the time he can become quite stern when the situation calls for it.

I hardly ever seem to click with nice guy types who are just pure nice all the way through, rather than either hiding it under a tough outer shell or hiding under it an inner capacity for uncompromising strength when it's called for.

The only completely and totally nice guy that I have liked (Ebi does not count because of that ending no means no) has been Fix-It Felix from the Wreck-It Ralph movie.

but it's just because he's so goddamn sweet oh my god

Even for humans I kind of like the ability to customize so that not everyone has the exact same clone lineup of companions. That said, I bet it would be really depressing to see the metrics on how many people switched to White Mako or White Lt. Aresso, vs. how many people decided they'd rather have Black Kira or Black Corso.

Sort of, I have the game and I played it a bit but I've never finished it. I dunno, I just didn't like it as much as the first one.

Yes, yes it is. It's by the same company that makes Disgaea, but the story is more serious that probably anything else they've ever done. There's the main story and there's the Demon Path (which you can only do in NG+). The main story is pretty incredible, though talking too much about why I like it would be spoilers. The Demon Path is utterly insane. Basically it's what happens when the MC decides that she/he doesn't want to heed the call and instead kills everyone and takes over the world. Then the characters you've come to know and love from the main story form a resistance movement and rise up against you. The MC does the most horrible things in this path, but it's quite entertaining.

And for some reason there's a cameo character from Grimgrimoire of all things. Lujei Piche is actually in the game. You can even get her as a unit. There's also a character from Phantom Brave, but that's less odd. Nippon Ichi really love their crossovers.

Also, did I mention that the FeMC is the canon one? That never happens.

Also also, Gig x MC is my OTP, so if you do play it expect me to gush at you about them a lot. And people have made oodles and oodles of fanart of these two (which is surprising for such an obscure game). It's wonderful.

Black Kira best Kira. <3

I admit I switched Ensign Temple to a white skin, but that's because default Temple has tragic hair I don't like.

This is the reason why I switched Corso's customization. His hair was a bit silly.

On another SWTOR note, I think I really like Aric Jorgan's romance. Is there something wrong with me? He's basically catman Garrus once you get him on board.

Yeah I changed Corso into the freckled EXTRA farmboyish customization on one smuggler, and Vaguely Ethnic Corso on another.

yesihavetwosmugglers

I have two Smugglers, too. You are not alone.