That's fair. I will admit that part of my desire for Halsin to be romanceable is some preemptive salt over Astarion. Thing is, I adore Astarion. I'm hoping for a best case scenario where he turns out to be a similar to Morrigan's romance in DA:O. She also disapproved of helping the needy but a good character could become her best friend (and her first friend--it's really touching) and a male player could have a really meaningful relationship with her, changing her pessimistic view of love. But Larian is obsessed with offering "realistic, mature relationships" which seems to translate to non-monogamous and poly relationships. We know this is the case for Lae'zel and I'm ready for heartbreak when Astarion turns out to be the same. I can't seem to bring myself to be interested in Gale or Wyll. Currently, I'm more interested in Shadowheart than either of those two. But, I want a good relationship with one of the male characters too.
Also, yes, vampires are hot but I'm more of a buffy or Castlevania type person. I think I was too old when Twilight came out but I don't dig the concept. I have a hard on for Dracula. So I 100% agree with you.
But, I still want a Halsin romance. Even if he doesn't become a party member. Cullen was a good romance in DA:I and he wasn't a party member.
GOT standards = everybody dies; everybody sucks D:>
Yes, I'm also getting Morrigan vibes from Astarion, I gotta say it's one of the reasons I like him so much, since Morrigan's writing is superb. But like you said, I do hope that Lae'zel is gonna remain the only flower hopping frog of a romance. Just like yourself, I also fear possible betrayal from Astarion, but who knows? Maybe he might stay loyal or betray us if we really piss him off. Like sleeping with Gale after having slept with Astarion. Yes, it's possible. Gale is one sneaky mofo, if you had chosen a flirty dialogue with him during the weave scene but slept with someone else, during Gale's little bedtime story, he, uh, might proposition a sexy time. You can either accept or deny, at which point he'll comment that your chosen LI is a lucky person.
Oh and to those of you who haven't unlocked Gale's special romance-resulting scenes, I finally, with some good research done on reddit, figured it out and successfully triggered the weave scene.
Step one: always watch his approval, he has scenes scripted at every approval lvl.
Step two: once at moderate approval, long rest until you find him with an exclamation mark, try using the waypoint, port around and rest, I noticed that resting in the wilderness seems to trigger his artifact eating convo at moderate approval much faster.
Step three: feel free to kill him, trigger his projection, solve his true resurrection scroll thing, you get extra approval from that + it triggers some extra dialogue at camp
Step four: at high approval move around in the grove/port around and long rest a crapload, high approval = weave scene time
Step five: at this point you can progress the story to Raphael, get approval to very high and start resting, where ever, it tends to trigger more at the druid's grove, you get a 'loss scene' where Gale says that he lost connection to Mystra, but doesn't explain it fully
With Gale, as of now, it's imperative to watch his approval, cause it's so damn easy to please him and go from moderate to exceptional real quick, since these stupid scenes don't stack, they don't queue up, so if you skip them, that's it, they're gone. It's stupid and Larian really needs to change it and add such approval bound conversations to ALL companions, not just Gale. Shadowheart couldn't care less to be at neutral than she does at exceptional, same goes for Wyll. And my baby Astarion would ask:
what is approval? Never heard of it.
