If you follow my Tumblr, you probably saw me ranting today in regards to a certain elf who is proving extremely troublesome to romance. This is my second time playing DA2, and my second attempt at romancing Fenris. I thought it didn't happen the first time because I slept with Isabela, which everyone says is a no-no (although conversations on Tumblr today suggest that this might not be true?), so this time I was very careful about that -- I wouldn't even flirt with any of the other characters. But the key quests with romantic dialogue still wouldn't trigger, and as best as I can tell it's because I can't get him to be either a friend or a rival. Instead, we seem to be hanging out in the middle -- nudging a few ticks here, a few ticks there, never quite enough to push him firmly in one direction or the other, which is the same thing that happened before. I'd be up for either a friendmance or a rivalmance, but clearly this kinda-sorta-neither thing isn't working out, and I think it may be too late to push it firmly in either direction before I run out of quests. I had been hoping for a friendly romance, so I mostly left him at home when I was dealing with mages in Act One, but that makes it hard to get enough interaction to build up a friendship. Since I can't really imagine playing a fully pro-templar Hawke, I may just have to embrace the rivalmance when I give it another shot later.

For now, unless something happens to suggest that maybe I still have a chance to make it work, it looks like I will be romancing Anders again, which doesn't exactly make me sad -- I enjoy the Anders romance a lot. And at least I'm better armed with knowledge for the next runthrough.

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