Reflection and Analysis

Stardew - Playersexuality In-Game =/= Bisexuality in Fanfic (2/4/22)

So, let's start off with what player sexuality is. For a character to be player sexual, it means that they will date the player character regardless of their sex and/or gender. For Stardew Valley that means in-game all of the marriage candidates are bisexual, which would be 100% of the marriage candidates which in turn is not at all representative of bisexuality in real life, yet this game feature allows players to self-insert and date whoever they want within game which often leads to flat characterization that the writers can then build upon within game.

The reason I'm bringing this up is that I had a reader go and state on one of my fics where a character was Asexual or Demisexual that said character was bisexual and it honestly felt weird, though really you shouldn't go pronouncing a characters sexuality on any writer's story unless it's spelled out for you in story that's their sexuality - me saying this having seen people do the same for Lance from VLD despite him never being declared as bisexual in canon. It's just weird.

But imagine if this was my stories where Alex is dating Haley and spouting off what he does in canon simply because his grandfather is homophobic and he's hiding his actual real sexuality form said grandfather before I reveal this is the case. Talk about awkward.

Non-Horror Takes

Abigail - Pansexual/Semi-Aromantic. As for my reasoning, it ties to how she moves from stalking Sebastian to stalking the player character, who if you're a female player there is some serious innuendo going on. Forming romantic attachments isn't her strong point either.

Alex - Gay. I latched onto how his grandfather is homophobic and how this can make someone whose gay try super hard to pretend to be straight, but his pretending to be straight includes hiding his relationship with the help of his childhood friend Haley.

Elliot - Bisexual with a major heterosexual preference, biromantic with a major homoromantic preference. Don't know how I came to that conclusion.

Emily - Pansexual/Panromantic/Polyamorous which stems her infatuation with religion.

Haley - Straight.

Harvey - Straight

Leah - Bisexual

Maru - It depends on the story. For most, she's straight, but bisexual and lesbian aren't ruled out either.

Penny - Straight, bicurious.

Sam - Straight

Sebastian - Asexual or Demisexual, Heteroromantic leaning

Shane - Straight

Horror Takes

Of course, this doesn't cover their sexualities should horror be the genre, said stories possibly being Ao3 exclusive not because said content is banned, but more of because despite me not actually romantisizing certain content there would be individuals who would use the stories as personal kink, though the only ones which would be considered different would be Harvey and Shane as the others would still fit.

More importantly it's going to vary from writer to writer what the characters sexialities are.