Random Thoughts: Elves, Fudge scale, and Hashat

[Aelana]

So I stumbled upon Hashat. She fucked me like an elf. And it was hot. Nothing out of the ordinary for CoC2, until I read the wiki that this scene is indeed locked for elves only. And that got me thinking. The scene was really hot, because it acknowledged how my character was looking. How I was playing a femme-like character who explores the domm/sub dynamic.

This is not really anything productive. I don't want to call for any changes to the project. Its more of a public thought I want to share.

Anyways. I tried writing scenes for TiTS ages ago. But the thing I was struggling with was: "What can I assume about the player". I mean, your player may not even have legs. Or legs that are tentacles. Or a centaur... And those were the obviousl problems. The more you go into details, the harder it gets, like wha's the tone of the scene? Does the player grunt or groan?

Grunt for example is a lot more masculine. It is a word I came across a lot more often in anal scenes where the player pitches. The thing is, I could feel how this scene was written with a hyper-masculine player in mind. But it did not fit my hyper-femme character, no matter how the parser describes my hips. The parser cannot change the whole tone of a scene.

At first I thought it was just a badly written scene. But it wasn't. Not really. It wad a male power fantasy, using my femme not-so-male character. The scene was fine, it just did not fit my character.

But then I came across Hashat, where the scene I loved the most was locked behind being an elf. It was obviously written with a femme player in mind. And it was hot. And that got me thinking: Elves are in general presented as more feminine. They are, in a way, on the femme side of the Fudge scale. Can the race-feature be used to sorta-implement fudge scale?

Like, if you write a scene which heavily relies on the player falling on the femme side, then you could lock it maybe for elves/kitsune/cat races?

 

[ShySquare]

There's a feminity variable in the game that determines, well, the PC's feminity. That's what should be taken into account when writing scenes for femme characters, but it depends on what kink the writer wants to explore (ie feminization, etc).
And women/feminine people can grunt, but if that takes you out of a scene, I think that's more on the writer/kink they wanted to explore ?

Regarding writing for TiTS:
don't try to write every variant for your scenes in one go. It's way easier to just write the one specific scene/PC/kink/mood you want to write for, and then go back and only then add whatever variant you want and/or lock it behind specific requirement.
The PC is an unknowable blob of eldritch code, do not try to understand it or you'll go crazy trying to account for every possible variation.

 

[Wsan]

You've stumbled across some of the biggest hurdles of writing for these games. The first problem you mention, assuming things about the player, is exactly why we don't allow taur or naga bodytypes for the PC, unlike in TiTS -- it cuts down on the number of things we can't control, and allows people to be more congruent in their contributions. The "problem" is that having a set, non-transformable character is pretty much an immediate no-sell for these specific games/franchises, so immediately you're screwed. You'll just have to cater to bits where you can, and want to. Pick your battles.

The grunt thing, imo, is really interesting. I have very specifically done things like [pc.mf|groan|moan] for this exact reason -- I think feminine dialogue vs male dialogue is really important and often underrated. But then you get to the next problem, which is: what is feminine in a game where you can be a ripped, 8ft tall amazon with two cocks and four breasts and still be female-presenting? If that's feminine -- and we'll say it is, because you can choose your pronouns and the concept of femininity is a very fluid thing in CoC/TiTS -- would grunting not be appropriate there? Then you have to think about the likelihood of a character like that encountering the scene compared to the % of people who will probably be more conventional shapes. So maybe you end up putting a grunt in anyway because you think it's thematically appropriate. But then we're back at the very beginning of the problem... I've just chosen an option that doesn't apply to all players in the hope it meshes with the scene. As a random tangent, I sometimes like putting something typically masculine like a long, low, deep groan in the femPC's mouth or a high-pitched scream in a malePC's mouth because sometimes you cum so hard you can't control that type of thing. But I digress.

To continue my rambling since I've already started and also address your actual point a little, locked scenes are great for the authors because you can readily assume a few things. Good example -- [pc.ra minotaur|] (ie. "player race is minotaur"). By necessity, this means you're a male furry with a snout and you look like a minotaur. Thank god, this is about the most control you'll ever get as a writer over the player character. Now I can actually write some mino-specific shit. Here's the problem though -- writing some mino-specific shit might be 3000, 5000, could even be 10000 words if I want to go deep on variations. Now I have 10,000 words of content I can't share with 95%+ of the playerbase. This is wildly inefficient, not to mention unsatisfying for anyone who doesn't play as a minotaur. Nobody likes being screwed out of content. Since I've already written the 10000 words, that's a sunk cost... but what lesson do I take from that for the future? Honestly, it's usually "I should make less-specific content that acts like it's specific and hopefully hits 9 out of 10 of the same notes".

Since by now I have 4ish years of experience writing for the games, this is doable (but I'm not going to pretend it's anywhere close to perfect). Specificity is still good, but you still have to make assumptions somewhere. Using races to relate to femininity is dangerous, too. Just because someone picks to play a female orc or female lupine doesn't mean they don't want to be treated in a feminine manner. That's an example of going too far with assumption, imo. Especially in a game where more than one stacked amazon just wants to be treated like a woman...

This is a good thread, I've been wanting to ramble about writing for a while. Sorry for the moderate hijack and thanks for sharing your thoughts.

 

[arch99]

I don't have a productive comment here but this is one of the more interesting things I've read on this forum ever, if not the most interesting. Can we get a "Wsan writes about the struggles and the interesting thoughts they've picked up writing for these games" series on the forum?

 

[Aelana]

There's a feminity variable in the game that determines, well, the PC's feminity. That's what should be taken into account when writing scenes for femme characters, but it depends on what kink the writer wants to explore (ie feminization, etc).
And women/feminine people can grunt, but if that takes you out of a scene, I think that's more on the writer/kink they wanted to explore ?

I know about the femininity score (I typed it too often, now it gotten weird on me. Did you notice how femininity has a really small edit distance to infinity?). But like Wsan has already said, what exactly is feminine when you stop reducing it on genitals?

Honestly, to me femininity and other scores like hip/butt rating are more of: Get the description that fits best on your character. Because how much wider is a hip rating of 5 to 6? How feminine is a person with a score of 56%? When I want to assume that the PC is, as for Hashat, lithe, feminine and elegant, I cannot really put that into meaningful numbers. Like, what should be the hip requirement? Because I am pretty sure the same numbers lead to different images for different people. But weirdly, it might be that a less specific requirement, for the PC to be an elf, leads to player and writer having a similar image in their head.

Maybe, I am not pretending to do any actual work here.

To continue my rambling since I've already started and also address your actual point a little, locked scenes are great for the authors because you can readily assume a few things. Good example -- [pc.ra minotaur|] (ie. "player race is minotaur"). By necessity, this means you're a male furry with a snout and you look like a minotaur. Thank god, this is about the most control you'll ever get as a writer over the player character. Now I can actually write some mino-specific shit. Here's the problem though -- writing some mino-specific shit might be 3000, 5000, could even be 10000 words if I want to go deep on variations. Now I have 10,000 words of content I can't share with 95%+ of the playerbase. This is wildly inefficient, not to mention unsatisfying for anyone who doesn't play as a minotaur. Nobody likes being screwed out of content. Since I've already written the 10000 words, that's a sunk cost... but what lesson do I take from that for the future? Honestly, it's usually "I should make less-specific content that acts like it's specific and hopefully hits 9 out of 10 of the same notes".

Since by now I have 4ish years of experience writing for the games, this is doable (but I'm not going to pretend it's anywhere close to perfect). Specificity is still good, but you still have to make assumptions somewhere. Using races to relate to femininity is dangerous, too. Just because someone picks to play a female orc or female lupine doesn't mean they don't want to be treated in a feminine manner. That's an example of going too far with assumption, imo. Especially in a game where more than one stacked amazon just wants to be treated like a woman...

Yeah, writing and scrapping scenes for TiTS really put me close to Judith Butler's theory of "Gender as Performance". When you go away from genitals, and remove the behaviour that society expects for a specific gender, then what are you left with. And what should sex look like anyways?

Kinda more like slipping into specific roles, and dynamics. Another scene I think works is the Kyoko Lupine hunt scene. At least for me, for similar reasons to Hashat. It kinda called me out, and kinda made assumptions about my character that did fit at the time.

I think its a potential CoC has over TiTS. TiTS has weird races, while CoC has orcs. We know orcs. Big, Tribal, Green meanies. Orcs! I can close my eyes and imagine an orc without really thinking about it. I've seen them for years. A dzaan on the otjer hand? They are cool, but what are they again?

I think it has potential to basically let the reader and the writer come to similar assumptions about what the PC looks like, and what they may enjoy.

And it is true; All these thoughts may in any practical sense just be irrelevant because you don't want to write something noone cares to read. I can do that in my day job.

 

[Stemwinder]

Yeah, writing and scrapping scenes for TiTS really put me close to Judith Butler's theory of "Gender as Performance". When you go away from genitals, and remove the behaviour that society expects for a specific gender, then what are you left with. And what should sex look like anyways?

Kinda more like slipping into specific roles, and dynamics. Another scene I think works is the Kyoko Lupine hunt scene. At least for me, for similar reasons to Hashat. It kinda called me out, and kinda made assumptions about my character that did fit at the time.

These are thoughts to take into writing in general, not just for a game such as this. When writing a character of the opposite sex it's a very easy tendency to simply make them a bundle of traits you find appealing and end up with this monstrosity that comes off as though they're crudely belching their femininity or masculinity at the reader. When keeping in mind that it's a performance and that you might not know all the ins and outs of what goes into that performance from the outside writing a believable one can be very difficult.

And this is not even getting into the not-as-often acknowledged "fudgery scale" as the OP put it isn't a clear line between femininity and masculinity - for men there's macho and effeminate, for women girly and butchy. For a man to come off as genuinely feminine or a woman as genuinely masculine there needs to be some subtle distinctions in the way they approach things. If only it were as easy as deciding between grunt and moan!

I think the game does present a couple of shortcut assumptions that writers can use to navigate this based on some broad race and background cliches, though. In fact background might be the most useful tool for this that's going largely neglected. If a writer is picturing a scene that only works if the PC is particularly raunchy their first instinct might be to gate it behind corruption, to assume that a more corrupt character would be trashier. But there's a better way: several of the backgrounds, like the slum rat or the courtesan or even the barbarian, could be used to assume a raunchy PC. Or the opposite: if someone wants to write a scene with a PC who's a bit more innocent or elegant than the baseline CoC scene then the acolyte or noble scion or scholar backgrounds could be used to filter and justify this type of scene. If we put together a combination of small assumptions (that an orc will be on the aggressive side, that a masculine orc would likely trend toward macho behavior, and that a slum rat masculine orc would be a rude tude dude) we could actually come up with a reasonable profile of a PC and write a whole scene around this (or use it for some variations that would make a player feel as though it's catering to their PC more than it truly is).

 

[Aelana]

These are thoughts to take into writing in general, not just for a game such as this. When writing a character of the opposite sex it's a very easy tendency to simply make them a bundle of traits you find appealing and end up with this monstrosity that comes off as though they're crudely belching their femininity or masculinity at the reader. When keeping in mind that it's a performance and that you might not know all the ins and outs of what goes into that performance from the outside writing a believable one can be very difficult.

Heh, let me belch my gender at you. Yes, I absolutely agree. I also think a large part of TiTS and CoC2's success is just quality writing. Not just good when compared to other smutty texts, but good in general.

The thing I noticed was that, because genitals kinda have to be part of the text for a blowjob scene, it calls out attention to stuff which is at best suggested at in other texts, or completely missing. Dumbledore could be trans and it would not matter in Harry Potter. If Harry Potter would be a more smutty story then, you know...

And yeah, it would be really nice if writers would not belch heteronorm genders at their text. But most smutty-er stuff in non-smut writing is a minor scene that may not even be necessary for the crime-thriller I am currently reading. It is filled with basically what any person would consider normal sexual behaviour. Missionary between a man and a woman, belching at each other like two rhinos. But because it is the norm, most readers are weirded out when the belching is removed.

I mean, I don't even like the fudge scale. It has partially helped enforcing a hetero-norm in the queer community. The sentence: "You just haven't met the right man" was warped to: "You just haven't met the right butch." This just shows how deep artificial norms are embedded in our brains. Breaking away from them is freaking hard.

And I often forget how insular these ideas are. Like, I was watchin Queer Eye with friends. A damn run-of-the-mill, liberally class-blind make over show. When a lesbian was helped finding clothes for her, she ended up with an edgy boy-ish not so boy look.

My friend said: "But she looks like a boy now."
"Yeah, that's kinda the point, you know."
"Huh..."

And it wasn't even particularly boyish. It was nowhere near androgynous. It was just a girl rocking clothes originally meant for boys. Like a 2000's skater girl. And even THAT was something my friend hadn't considered.