So, full disclosure, I am cis, and exclusively attracted to men, since that is sure to influence my viewpoint on this.
I am of course referring to this: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EveryoneIsBi
I think that this is essentially the laziest way to do gay/bi representation. Everyone's just inexplicably bisexual. I'm sure some people are happy with that for whatever of what I am sure is long list of valid reasons. If you like games where you don't have to worry about this, I'm not arguing that you shouldn't. And I can't know how bi people feel about this at all from my experiences alone, so any bi people with an opinion on this please do share so I can further develop my own perspective on this.
Like, when I want representation, I kind of want it to reflect the real gay experience. That means the tragic bits too, including that not everyone is on the table as a potential partner. And that doesn't even mean having only one in ten or so characters being an option, I have seen VNs where there are so many gay people that it is clear that there is something in the water making everyone gay, that represent that aspect better. Something like getting the wrong signals and getting turned down by someone who can't reciprocate your feelings towards them? It's a tragic experience, but one that can be worth representing in media, because it's a real experience. But I don't know if that ever will be represented properly, queer people are already a small portion of the market, queer people looking specifically to be tragically rejected by a straight person have to be an absolute minority.
Why I say this is possibly a step backwards, is that games like Dragon Age: Origins (2009) had romance options that all had distinct sexual orientations, you had two straight and two bisexual companions you could romance. Fallout NV had no real "romance" options with companions, but did have Veronica and Arcade as distinctly lesbian/gay. And honestly, this seemed a bit more... it feels really fucking wrong to say "natural" in this context, but I will say it feels uncanny in comparison when I can put on a necklace in Skyrim and suddenly everyone I have run an errand for wants to marry me. Or that every companion in Fallout 4 will constantly forcegreet me after I max out friendship trying to get me to start their romance line.
It also just feels so much like an afterthought in comparison as far as the character writing goes. Looking at the games I mentioned, the distinctly bi and gay characters do feel like they have bi/gay energy, and that feels like it adds to their character design. I don't feel the same representation I felt with someone like Arcade Gannon in this type of setup, where there was a character who was like me (though to be fair I didn't know I was like him at the time I played -- well, I kind of did, but I was in deep denial at the time -- it's complicated), it just seems empty -- none of these characters are like me in that way.
I think when a game has limited dev resources, making like 4-6 romance options for each orientation might eat too much into the budget, as ideal as it may be representation wise. If there are only 5 romance options overall, I'd prefer to see how every one of them works out instead of getting railroaded into the one gay option (something I've seen in several VNs).
That said, TES/Fallout always has lazy programming and modded in romance options will tend to have more interesting arcs.
Bethesda are a terrible company with terrible writing. Letting Devs write quests is the dumbest shit ever, and I say this as a programmer myself.
Letting Devs write quests
Eww, is that what the problem is? Writing is a skill! Hire professionals!
The main stories are done by full time creatives, but all the smaller quests are devs fucking about. It's why you get shit like Fallout 4's infamous Kid In A Fridge quest
TES/Fallout mods are great though. I still think about my awkward Ashlander husband sometimes and I haven't played Morrowind in like 9 years.
chugging shroom tea then reading the worst translation of the Book of Revelations I can find to scratch my morrowind itch.
They're only bisexual if you play the game more than once, technically. The first time they just happen to align with your single character.
I think it's a case-by-case thing where games that want more player freedom of self expression would require more 'everyone is bisexual' type design while games that want to have more story and meaning encoded onto the NPCs would give the characters more rigid sexual preferences the same way they'd give them more rigid representation in other aspects.
Edit: they can also blend the two styles together if wanted as well for certain gay/straight-specific characters if needed.
Yeah but there's a difference between writing a gay character, a bi character, and a straight character, an aroace character, and anywhere else someone might fit in that constellation. They're all going to notice different things, react to different people in different ways, ignore some things but catch others. Something as subtle as a character mentioning "My ex, he used to like this" can give a lot of insight in to who the character is. You could ask the player what their character's preferences are and have lines tailored to reflect that, I suppose.
It's lazy writing, but given the choice between getting to do some gay shit and not getting the option at all, I'd rather have the ability to get lazy rep if I want it. I think it's far less harmful than just never getting queer people in games.
It's the same reason why I can only be so mad at games that let you play as a woman, but it's clear that the male character option is the default and they didn't really make any changes for playing as a women. You get a lot more incidentally gay shit in those games (even though it's written in a way that obvious feels very hetero and not remotely sapphic)
Basically I'd rather have imperfect rep than no rep
It’s the same reason why I can only be so mad at games that let you play as a woman, but it’s clear that the male character option is the default and they didn’t really make any changes for playing as a women.
Have to shout out Assassin's Creed: Odyssey and Persona 3 Portable on this.
The former because they designed it around the female protagonist and then were forced by execs to also make a male protagonist option, but he clearly got less attention.
The latter because they actually had the female PC be significantly different than the male one, like just a completely different personality. Though it should be said that they only added her in a rerelease, and there's also a weird :funny-clown-hammer: romance option for her
Totally agree with you about imperfect rep, I can fill in the blanks enough when this happens to roll with it. If you’re on PC, the modding scene can also always patch the rough edges.
Yeah for sure. Plus these games were never going to add actual gay storylines and don't tout themselves for having gay rep, so it's not like it's coming at the expense of legitimate or good queer content, so I can't really be mad about it.
Getting mad at AAA studio games for only including gay people as a dialogue option feels like getting mad at Disney for doing their "look at our first gay character (background, cop, racist)!" every couple of months
I get mad at Disney for that every single time. It keeps you young.
:rosa-salute:
yeah that's fair. you're unironically braver than the troops for it too
It’s the same reason why I can only be so mad at games that let you play as a woman, but it’s clear that the male character option is the default and they didn’t really make any changes for playing as a women. You get a lot more incidentally gay shit in those games (even though it’s written in a way that obvious feels very hetero and not remotely sapphic)
sometimes it works better than others, like Ripley.
Some people don't call this approach "everyone is bi", but use terms like "the gay button" instead. Because these NPCs usually aren't written to be bi. as a bi woman, i do not see myself represented in such characters. there'll normally be nothing in the dialogue showing that they are interested in more than one gender, they're either presented as completely straight if you romance them as a character of the opposite gender or completely gay if you romance them as a character of the same gender. in a hetnormative society, this makes straightness their assumed default orientiation and the queer content only shows up if you actively look for it by trying to engage in same sex romance with them. it does not become part of the text otherwise. so, you need to "press the gay button" to have queer representation in your game and if you're a capital G Gamer where the G doesn't stand for amazingly Gay, you are never bothered with queer content in your gaming experience at all.
You probably see were i'm going with this. Writing characters with a sexual orientation that behaves like Schrödinger's Cat is a lazy cop-out that tries not to offend anybody and ends up being offensive to everyone through this cowardice. You do not feel represented, i do not feel represented and if the straights wouldn't be so used to being represented anywhere, they probably wouldn't feel represented either. And it all comes at the expense of character depth, too, with these NPCs being straight-passing blank slates with a sexuality that works like a new skin or a palette swap.
they're not bi, they're playersexual. Really they should be making the straight coded behaviors different as well, why should the dragon age setting have the same norms as earth?
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous was pretty good about this. While many of the companions are romanceable by a player of either sex, they are pretty adequately explained as being actually bi regardless of your intervention, and I was relieved to see the gay man cleric companion was just not into my woman protagonist.
Also has a trans character whose trans status is actually relevant to a plotline, and you will only ever know that she is trans if you help her and her wife with a very personal matter, and even then you have to probe to learn what "medical treatment" the character is talking about it.
The representation, it was pretty good. The first one also had a poly couple where you could romance either or both of them, and they'd be cool with it either way. It's a fantasy game - why not get to play a unicorn?
We should extend that to "not every companion character of sufficient player desirability should be automatically romantically available, especially not just by pressing the start 'romance' dialogue button." I don't just mean gay/straight/bi, I mean "just isn't into you."
I mean “just isn’t into you.”
excuse me I play videogames to escape
“just isn’t into you.”
:yes-hahaha-yes-l:
:hexbear-aromantic:
For all its faults, Dragon Age Inquisition at least had at least one key character that really did present as aromantic and stuck with it.
Non-aromantic but just not into you specifically should also be represented.
Epic G*mers might doxx and stalk (if they weren't doing it anyway) if a game told them that no matter how many match-3 games they played and no matter how many birthdates and flavors of ramen they memorized that she just isn't into them. :pathetic:
"There's nothing wrong with you but for reasons beyond your control no one either can date you or wants to date you, but they're still cool people that you're glad you met" would be a great premise for a VN.
If there isn't a pantyshot-minimum payoff for an exhaustive grind of match-3 minigames and memorization of banal waifu trivia, a lot of Epic G*mers would get mad.
I have to give it to Samara from Mass Effect 2. There IS a dialogue option where you can ask her out and she just says no no matter what.
Samara doesn't get talked about enough tbh. Her loyalty mission was by far the best writing in that game (and the mission with her daughters was one of the few high points of the third game), and she's just treated like an afterthought by so many.
EDIT: Though Samara rejecting Shepard isn't a "I'm not into you" thing, she's not in a place to think about love. She actually says that if that weren't the case she would definitely consider being with Shepard, so that's not great
Samara's got a weird thing going on though where if you get rejected by her you can then turn around and flirt with her daughter, who will kill you if you have sex with her, which is a little strange.
One of the things I'd love to see is character build having an effect - like some romanceable characters like high charisma, strength, intelligence/mixes of all stats, rather than you being fuckable because you're the Special Guy/Gal/Enby that they're into depending on sexuality.
Baldur's Gate II had a character you could romance if you were evil but not too evil. And eventually you could convert her from being a chaotic evil backstabbing pain in the ass to a regular evil reliable bad person.
Every game needs at least one chaotic character who loves flirting with you but will never clarify their feelings about you. And no cheating and having them declare their affection after the credits or something. They just keep stringing you along until you leave.
While not romantic, that kind of reminds me of Mission's brother in KOTOR 1. No payoff, just a chain of douchey schemes and asking for more money/help. That's believable.
I wish I could say I was wise enough to see through people like that and move on. I wish I could say that.
Trailer Park Boys is like a primer for recognizing greasy people that are looking for Freedom 35 and the Big Dirty.
Probably not applicable to you or this post but just saying in general since i saw the link:
I cant stress this enough but if your media literacy is informed by TV Tropes in any capacity your brain is smoother than a bowling ball
Meh, I disagree with that one. I usually have a much easier time talking about media analysis with someone who's spent any amount of time on TVTropes than someone who hasn't, because at least they're starting to think about how different works relate to one another, which leads to thinking about why they might relate to one another
Yeah, it’s an imperfect trope, but it does teach you to notice themes and concepts across different works of art.
In the 2010s it also made everyone learn about Super Robot Wars, thanks to someone plastering every trope page with Super Robot Wars trivia.
Theees. You can say "Hey, is this the same theme from this other show?" and go look it up and find out that yes, in fact, it is the same theme based on the same shared premise that is also present in these other works.
Aside from it's liberal :brainworms: TvTropes is an amazing tool for comparative media analysis. But you do have to apply your own judgement because fans see things in fan-o-vision.
It reminds me of how sometimes in SF and fantasy video games, characters are trans in a purely incidental way. Like, while it's nice to imagine that magic or technology make transition totally easy and flawless, it doesn't have anything to do with the world we live in. You might as well just not have trans characters at that point. I think it's the same with these "player-sexual" love interests -- they obviously can't be written as gay if they are only straight in some playthroughs (and it's usually not like they're realistically bisexual either).
It reminds me of how sometimes in SF and fantasy video games, characters are trans in a purely incidental
That sounds pretty cool, can you give me any examples of trans characters? I have trouble finding many trans folk in most media.
You might as well just not have trans characters at that point
idk about this, trans people are about so much than our gender(s). The trend in media of centering queerness and transness around suffering is really unnecessary when there is also so much outright joy and liberation as well.
That sounds pretty cool, can you give me any examples of trans characters? I have trouble finding many trans folk in most media.
For once, Wikipedia comes in handy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_trans_characters#Games. Out of the games I know on this list, only Tell Me Why and The Missing (which goes very heavy on the suffering) really feature convincing trans characters, in my opinion. If it's just one sentence from an otherwise prominent character, like in Technobabylon, that doesn't sit right with me.
idk about this, trans people are about so much than our gender(s). The trend in media of centering queerness and transness around suffering is really unnecessary when there is also so much outright joy and liberation as well.
I understand that, but my complaint is about characters whose transness is just a minor background fact -- I don't think it's really liberation to portray trans characters as indistinguishable from cis characters save for some biographical detail. There's no trans community or culture in such examples.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_trans_characters#Games
awesome! Thank you for this link!
don’t think it’s really liberation to portray trans characters as indistinguishable from cis characters save for some biographical detail
Interesting, I don’t necessarily view representation in media as being core to liberation, could you walk me through how that’s intertwined tor you?
There’s no trans community or culture in such examples.
Love this as a critique, what ways would you present community or culture in these characters?
Interesting, I don’t necessarily view representation in media as being core to liberation, could you walk me through how that’s intertwined tor you?
To be clear, I was taking up your critique that the joy and liberation in being trans doesn't get represented in media. Certainly, the core of trans liberation in this moment is access to medical treatment and better social welfare programs etc. Media representation is only a small part in that battle, but because it helps to make our lives more livable and because it's more achievable than comprehensive policy changes I don't want to underestimate it.
Love this as a critique, what ways would you present community or culture in these characters?
For a good example, take the novel Little Fish by Casey Plett. Nearly every major character is trans simply because that's a realistic depiction of how (some) trans people primarily make friends with other trans people. There's still interpersonal conflict and painful events, but the protagonist doesn't go through all of that alone (and if she does, that's because of her personality). Or take Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin: It's pulpier and darker in tone, but at the core of it is the difficult friendship between two trans women who stick together because trans people ultimately need each other. For yet another, somewhat lighter example, I'll go back to Tell Me Why. Its protagonist is reintegrating into society in a small, Alaskan village, and he can strike up a quick friendship or relationship with a gay character who's also similarly isolated. I could go on all day like this, so I'll stop now, but my point is that a lot can be done in terms of trans characters in media and so opting for one throwaway sentence is a very lazy choice.
There’s no trans community or culture in such examples.
I've thought sometimes about how you would work that experience in to a radically different or utopian setting. It goes for a lot of "Other" statuses. How do you tell a story to a person who experiences racial discrimination so they can see themselves in the story, when in the story that cultural dynamic just doesn't exist?
I guess you could do a trans-joy thing showing, say, a younger character getting a full body rebuild when they reach an age where they're considered able to make important bodily autonomy decisions, and have another character talk about their experience doing the same thing. Show it happening, but in the context of a world where prejudice and exclusion and violence just aren't part of people's lived experiences. You could show what life might be like in a world where acceptance and accommodation are always present and never doubted.
you might as well just not have trans characters at that point.
on the other hand, Jadzia Dax. which is a semi-on screen transition I guess.
curious how you feel The Culture handles gender or if its one of the works you're complaining about
i agree, but i have to say i looked at the tvtropes link and the top example was utena. so i like it in that instance. but that's not actually a literal everyone example, it isn't a video game, characters go through trauma and angst related to sexuality and gender presentation, the most obviously queer character has a crush on a character who is (or at least thinks she is) straight, and a whole bunch of other things revealing that the true problem lies with tvtropes connecting "most characters are textually bisexual" with "everyone wants to fuck the player because that's easier than dividing it or making things specifically queer in a potentially alienating way" and saying there's no difference between the two
I think in a form of media that has only one ending, it's more acceptable. It's canon in the story and harder for fans to dispute.
With games though, a cast of bi characters are situationally bisexual. You won't see it in the story in a meaningful way. Players could play the game and never realize someone could be gay/bi/trans. It's a frustrating thing in games like Stardew Valley where a character's ex has a gender dependent on the player. If you romance her as a male, her ex will be male.
Having distinct things like sexuality set firmly in the plot could do a lot to help people who feel othered.
yeah, and it isn't like this can't be an issue in linear media, but certainly it's a bigger issue in fiction
Me as a bi person: haha hell yeah hook up with whoever that's so cute i'm glad they ended up together
Me also being aromantic/asexual: what the fuck are you doing why does everything have to be about a relationship goddamn what the fuck
I liked that in Fire Emblem you could just choose to not be in a relationship with someone that was pretty cool
It could be worse. In Fate Grand Order basically all female characters are bi and attracted to the MC (because the MC can choose their gender but it's still a game with a male audience in mind) and only the "femboy" type of male characters are attracted to the MC. So like 2-3 male characters out of 100.
I agree. As much as I want to live in the world where gender isn't a factor, making art that resonates with people depends on it reflecting their experience. A painless, frictionless world doesn't hold my attention. And that partiular kind of gendered pain cuts deep since it's so confusing and so pervasive.
Excellent point, comrade. I think the "everyone is bisexual" trope is really just a reflection of a lazy attempt at accommodating straight cis people and then tacking on, "okay I guess they can also pair with people of the same gender". Also they all have pure gender binary characters.
In the context of games, this could come from a place of naive allyship or cynical marketing and it's really hard to tell the difference. Either way, it kind of sucks and reflects an attempt to build an experience that is driven by capitalist profit incentives rather than exploring an authentic space of human experience.
Anyways, we all deserve to have our entertainment and socialization experiences reflect and enforce the basic realities of our identities, at least to the extent that we don't get alienated. Sorry the world is like this right now, comrade. I think we're a little better here, at least, and I hope we can improve even more to make this the best place to commiserate and find understanding and solidarity.
For video games specifically, I think this comes up most often as a way of conserving resources. Imagine a game where you have six companion characters, three men and three women, and you want to do gay representation, do you just make one of the men and one of the women gay? That feels really artificial and token-y. But adding more companion characters in order to get a more "natural" split of sexuality also isn't an option without making them all extremely shallow and unconvincing. So the devs come to a simple conclusion: give all romantic agency to the player, and make whoever they romance interested.
I would agree that that is also a bit uncanny and leaves the door open for a game that explores sexuality better, but adding scenes into a video game is expensive - Bioware has the scratch to give every companion character an explicit sexuality (in fact the only game of there's that does the "everyone is bi" trope is the notoriously cost-cut Dragon Age 2) but a mid-budget action game that wants to have romance sidequests has to make the most of what they got.
But then the next step is we ask why devs have limited resources, which is usually capitalism, which opens up a path to doing better; We get rid of the profit motive in making video games and maybe devs will have the space to have more fully realized, unique characters in their games.
Which, coincidentally, is how Skyrim solves this problem; Lots of modders have come up with romanceible (or just fuckable) NPCs to add more depth to the game's relationship systems because they can operate without the constraints of trying to make a profit.
I'm not trying to rag on you, I just feel it's important for us to say out loud that this is once again at least partially a case of false scarcity imposed by capital.
If only it were considered good practice to make your game 100% moddable. Especially with games made in popular engines, you would think it would be easy.
