Bi Lines

I was prepared, when I opened this, for a thing exploring the trials of bisexuality: people assuming you must be homosexual and refusing to accept that maybe you really are also capable of heterosexual desire, that sort of thing. And yes, there's some of that here, but the great twist is that we're a sort of spirit medium, capable to seeing and interacting with ghosts. This gift makes us the only person capable of putting these spirits to rest by fulfilling the unfinished business they've left behind. It's like "The Blackwell Legacy" without the Depression-era spirit guide.

It turns out that the "unfinished business" for one of these ghosts involves having homosexual relations with us, and we're assaulted one night after a party. The game describes this as a forced kiss and some groping, but our reactions as written seem to be indicative of something a good deal worse. I'm assuming that the author intended it to be full-on ghost rape, but after all, the point seems to be the aftermath of the ordeal, and lurid descriptions of the act itself might draw attention away from that.

I really feel that, rather than an exploration of the trials of bisexuality, this is more about the trauma of sexual assault. The fact that our hero is capable of desiring both men and women seems almost incidental, and only really comes up if, based on our choices in the prologue, he happens to have a girlfriend at the time. The really interesting thing after the incident is how the trauma gets in the way of our hero's perceived purpose in life, which is to help the departed move on -- a purpose which our hero's deceased mother tells him must take precedence over all other earthly concerns.

I wonder if this was the author's intention. I somehow doubt it. Given our hero's mother's homophobia and her adherence to duty, I wonder what she would have said if told that the only way to do one's duty by this ghost would be to receive his homosexual overtures. That seems to be a bit of a missed opportunity.

As a breakfast, this has to be scrambled eggs with a slice of tomato on an English muffin and a glass of soy milk. One can't help but wonder if the scrambled eggs were meant to be something else.