I understand what you're saying here, but I just briefly want to push back slightly. I've brought up the idea several times in this thread that it's possible the word "partner" was chosen intentionally by a queer person or people on the NOA localization team (I've also already stated this being true wouldn't negate the nature of the queerbaiting in the dialogue, so I won't get into that again).
The reason that I float that possiblity, though, is because I know queer people who work at Nintendo. I don't think any of them work in localization, but the reason I bring that up is simply because...queer people work at Nintendo. Do I know for sure that there are queer people on the NOA localization team? No, I don't (and even if I did, I can only guess at their motivations for their work). But I'd say it's at least fairly likely, statistically speaking, that there's at least some queer presence on the localization team (as I've pointed out in past posts here, other queer vernacular that made it into NH seems to indicate this). My only point here is that it's certainly not impossible for there to be multiple reasons for this particular language choice, and I certainly don't think it's far-fetched to ponder whether the choice itself was made by a queer person, for whatever reason. Queer people? In my Nintendo franchise? It's more likely than you think!
Respectfully, I am also a writer, as well as a narrative designer, and I don't really know that I'd go so far as to say the word "partner" fits CJ's personality necessarily? It's the job of a good writer/narrative designer/localizer to take into account not just what feels "real" but also precisely what you said -- how the audience will interpret the dialogue you write. If the player can't interpret your dialogue or if they're given too much room to interpret when you don't want them to, well...you probably need to rewrite or risk that they won't get very far in the game, which is why game writers/narrative designers need to be very precise in their language choices. This may just be a creative/vernacular difference, but if I were writing a character for a game who's supposed to be a young, cool streamer in the year 2020, if I meant "friend" I'd probably use "friend", or "buddy", or "bud". If I meant business partner I'd say business partner. If I meant roommate I'd say roommate. But I'd only make those choices if I didn't want to invite interpretation of the word "partner", knowing as I do that it has many potential connotations depending on who's reading it, and I want to be as precise as possible.
