#look I *totally* understand the playersexual feeling

[devsgames]

Playersexual

"Playersexual" is a term I only recently learned about and it's fascinating to me. For those who don't know, it usually means a character whose sexual orientation is basically open to whatever the player happens to be playing as. Trans? Yeah they're romancible. Man? Romancible. Woman? Sure, romancible. As long as you're the player they don't really care.

I think this term, combined with playing a lotta Baldur's Gate 3 and Starfield, sorta helped me come to terms with understanding why I often dislike really "open" romance systems where every character is Playersexual.

I'm a queer, bi/pansexual person, and that informs how I perceive interactions in and out of games. I totally understand the affirmation and liberation that comes with being able to romance whoever the heck you want. To some people, that's where the fun is at, and I get it. It's valid.

For me I just I feel weird when Playersexual is the orientation of characters in a game world that is also trying to get me emotionally invested. In my eyes, it tends to strip the perceived agency other characters might have; it makes them feel less like real people with wants, needs, attractions and preferences. They end up being more like a checklist or object to be interacted with until I choose all the right option and unlock the kiss or sex cutscene, or the mechanical bonus a relationship brings or whatever the case may be.

To me, characters that feel 'real' have sexual preference. Honestly I feel that if they lack that they sorta lack a fundamental element that informs them as a person and a character. Like, any queer person can tell you that when you're queer things are different. Interactions are different, how you act on the world is different, how you assess situations and the way you engage in conversations are different. Queer people interact with a predominantly straight world different than straight people do. Similarly, being a straight person in a world full of straight people affords interacting with the world fundamentally different than if you were queer. I think to say "every character is maybe queer" steamrolls this fact and sort of undermines that queer experience to an extent.

Plus I think its just like, a missed stroytelling opportunity! The straight dude turns my masc ass down because he's not interested in men? Oh hell yeah, if he's polite about it I think that's really cool! He feels like more of an actual person that way, and what might ordinarily be perceived as a 'failure to romance' feels like it could be spun into another step in our journey as friends together. Maybe we'll crack jokes about it later, or he'll have a change of heart once he gets to kmow me better. It might be awkward, but we had an experience together and set some friendly boundaries, and built an understanding. After all, people having boundaries are often what makes people people in the first place.

So when I play a character and a game tells me everyone in a game is queer, then I'm either lead to believe 1) my character is incredibly charismatic (trust me, that's not usually the case) 2) queerness doesnt exist as a concept in this universe (weird in its own way and also usually not true) 3) eh i dunno we didn't think about it too much just choose someone as a partner already (boooo!).

Look if everyone in my party has strong opinions about me pickpocketing someone and stealing 5 bucks from them, I'd expect them to have opinions about who they share a bedroll with >:(

[bardic-inspo]

N, S & T please!

Thanks!

N - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice)

More MacCready content in general. I don’t feel like our merc gets enough love!

On that note, more DeaCready as well, hehe.

This is getting redundant now, but I sometimes wonder what the FO4 fandom looked like in its heydey. More activity in general would be cool to see, but it’s a years-old game. On the flip side of that, it’s neat to be in a smaller fandom niche and get to know people more personally that way!

S - Show us an example of your personal headcanon (prompts optional but encouraged)

Ahh I’ve been thinking about Deacon x Mac x Nat lately. I have a million headcanons for them and I’m just gonna stream-of-consciousness some of them:

Natasha is feast or famine with sleep: either out like a rock or not at all.

Deacon and Mac are both light sleepers from a lifetime of rude awakenings and having to be alert for potential threats. They marvel at, make fun of, and are a bit envious of Nat’s ability to zonk, which I see as a hold-over of her pre-war life.

Nat is most often in the middle when they sleep as a throuple. Mostly because she gets cold easily and also, Deacon has an ingrained preference to be close to the door and Mac prefers to be on Nat’s left when he can (or to have Deacon there when he can’t). 

The others still get the middle spot from time to time. Nat gets a lot of secret joy out of being a big spoon even though it’s usually more like a “jet pack” with her curled up and putting her cold toes on her spoon-ee’s back. 

Deacon has freckles and I am 100% am on the “he’s a ginger” bandwagon. 

Deacon starts to grow his hair back after some time in the throuple and Mac and Nat swoon loudly about it.

Language knowledge is lost if you don’t use it. There’s a point where Nat panics that she might be starting to forget how to speak/read Russian, so the guys have her read in it out loud to them from time to time as they’re doing other things. They might not understand what she’s saying, but it helps, and also, they think it’s hot.

As a family, they all really enjoy reading as a pastime. “Robbing” the library is a pretty common Saturday outing. 

Mac gets super worked up and anxious if/when either Nat or Deacon get sick. He very much wants to march out and shoot whatever caused it and sometimes needs to be persuaded that, maybe they should just try soup and rest first. This is a holdover from his experiences with Duncan.

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending, about anything at all (gender identity, sexual or romantic orientation, extended family, sexual preferences like top/bottom/switch, relationship with poetry, seriously anything)

I’m really live and let live with headcanons. To each their own. If I had to pick a hill to die on, it’s that the game establishes that each of the romanceable companions can be romanced by a male or female SoSu, so they are all canonically attracted to multiple genders at least romantically speaking. Anything that says otherwise (i.e. Mac is straight because he’s with a female SoSu and Lucy was female) is just erasure honestly. I think there’s room within that to play with the idea of evolving identities or headcanons that, maybe one of them is just uncovering some aspect or change in their sexual orientation. I’m certainly not meaning to exclude any ideas about fluidity that way. And I’m definitely not looking to exclude asexuality or that spectrum of identities. I mostly just resent the idea of “playersexual” characters that do not have their own independent sexual/romantic orientations outside of what any player might “want” them to be, because I think that lends itself to the idea that an individual’s orientation is based on their partner’s gender and not on their own capacity for attraction. People often misinterpret bisexuality that way, so it’s something I’m particularly sensitive to.

I hope I didn’t totally put my foot in my mouth there! Hopefully my meaning is clear.

[Fandom Ask Meme]