#so often bisexuality is used as a vector for player-driven romance and nothing else and i'm sick and tired of it

[bardandbear]

At risk of being cancelled on my fresh new blog, i wanted to get out some complex feelings I have about bi characters in video games, as a bi person.

I'm seeing the playersexual discourse raise its ugly head again and make no mistake, I am very staunchly on the bi/pan character identity defence train here. It makes me really angry when people try to erase those identities for selfish reasons, or because deep down they see bisexuality as this hybrid identity instead of its own thing. I want more bi characters in video games.

But what also annoys me is the fact that a lot of the time, bisexuality is treated like a mechanic, it's there to facilitate player enjoyment. Players will use it to pretend that Character is in fact a big fat lesbian or ignore the queer aspects of their identity so they're like Straight +. The actual bi content is seen as optional, player initiated, and often completely unexplored. Convenient, keeping the queer out of the way, neat and tidy. This is what I mean by characters appearing to be playersexual - there is more development given to the player's experience, rather than to the character's identity and how it impacts their interaction with the world.

Of course it's easier to just make everyone bi. It means everyone has equal access to content. It makes sense in a lot of more colourful settings for the definition of sexuality to be more diverse as well, so I don't even have complaints about there being 'too many' bi people for 'realism' (and hell, we often congregate irl anyway). But you can't just slap on an 'anything goes' label for the romance and call it a day. Likewise, modding characters to be 'bi' I find really squicky because there's more to bi identity than just being conveniently available all the time. Bisexuality in video games is so often more about the players and their desires than the characters themselves. That's upsetting.

This is why I will generally advocate for diverse identities, even if it means I don't get to romance my favourite character. Because then people can see their all their identities reflected, because then it makes all identities more real - part of who they are and not a mechanical convenience.

To be clear, I also don't think this phenomenon is black and white, and there are games that have really great representation and really terrible rep at the same time. I just think we can do better and we can criticise how bi people are written in games without invalidating it as an identity.