by jujulautre
* Warning : spoilers for February ** Warning : spoilers for February *
Not exactly.
Relationships appear once you create a character, that is, the first time you use the character and give it a name. They are indeed mandatory.
Let's say that in January you play with characters a, b and c. You create them. They do not have relationships yet because relationships did not appear in the game yet.
In February, relationships appear. You decide to swap a for d. You then have to create character d, and make it have a relationship with either a, b or c. It does not have to be an in-game character, so it can be a.
In your third game, you play with a, c, and d. a is back in the game, but since it was already created, it does not get a relationship.
Then if in your fourth game you bring in character e, you need to make it have a relationship with either of a, b, c, or d. Whether you use this character (not e, the one with which e has a relationship) in your fourth game is irrelevant.
-- edit for additional information --
And if you were to have brought d and e as new characters in the same game, you would need to make that happen in order. So first, d gets a relationship with a, b, or c, and then e gets a relationship with either of a, b, c, or d. You cannot have d and e get two relationships with each-other.