Kiyoko/Kinu and Non-Masculine PC?
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Regarding Kinu considering how she's born regardless of how you look at it the champion is her father solely because Kiyoko is the one that gives birth making her the mother, maybe once magicock's are implemented it might change what she refers to the champion as something other than dad/father.
As for Kiyoko she is only interested if the champion has a dick soooo... I really don't see her referring to the champion as wife. But idk what Tobs or the other's have planned so it may change but I wouldn't put too much hope in it.
As for Kiyoko she is only interested if the champion has a dick soooo... I really don't see her referring to the champion as wife. But idk what Tobs or the other's have planned so it may change but I wouldn't put too much hope in it.
No.
Here's the summarised version:
Kinu refers to you as such in the capacity of her sire and familial role as opposed to any actual gender assignment. A lesser reason is for writing flow and confusion avoidance.
While I've been trying to use the more neutral "beloved" in Kiyoko's content, the fact remains that the entire thrust of the content and the core conceit of the fetish of the yamato nadeshiko fox-wife requires that the PC necessarily play a masculine role in the relationship, even if they are not male, inasmuch the same way as the harlequin bodice ripper is quintessentially a feminine conceit. I'm sorry that you're uncomfortable with this, but I value my creative integrity, especially on my flagship content, and understand that not all content in a big tent game like this is for everyone and may even make some people uncomfortable. Hence, the content is optional and certainly not required to access other kitsune content.
It is one of the more controversial decisions I've made, given that all my other content follows the rest of the game's gender conventions, and you're free to disagree, but it's not something I'm about to budge on.
Here's the summarised version:
Kinu refers to you as such in the capacity of her sire and familial role as opposed to any actual gender assignment. A lesser reason is for writing flow and confusion avoidance.
While I've been trying to use the more neutral "beloved" in Kiyoko's content, the fact remains that the entire thrust of the content and the core conceit of the fetish of the yamato nadeshiko fox-wife requires that the PC necessarily play a masculine role in the relationship, even if they are not male, inasmuch the same way as the harlequin bodice ripper is quintessentially a feminine conceit. I'm sorry that you're uncomfortable with this, but I value my creative integrity, especially on my flagship content, and understand that not all content in a big tent game like this is for everyone and may even make some people uncomfortable. Hence, the content is optional and certainly not required to access other kitsune content.
It is one of the more controversial decisions I've made, given that all my other content follows the rest of the game's gender conventions, and you're free to disagree, but it's not something I'm about to budge on.
i mean would it really REALLLY affect it so much ? it still feels and pass more as lazyness than artist integrity no matter what, but sure.
one thing is being called king, lord, Chief, but father? Dad? its a bit of a strecth....
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The answer is gonna remain no no matter how you want to try to reason or accuse of laziness. 
Tobs has said before that magicocks will eventually allow an all-female Champion to progress Kiyoko and Kinu's plot once they're implemented, but the dynamics of the relationship are set in stone like he just said.
So... do you like salt?
The answer is gonna remain no no matter how you want to try to reason or accuse of laziness.
Well it doesnt affect me and i couldn't care less about it, its been a long time since i played anything from here at all
But sorry if you guys feel that way, must be hard.
its just that 99% of time the "follow my art, be true to my point of view" is a pretty BS asnwer, specially because in the end the game is a product, should try to appeal more users as possible in this small niche of the market. Its not like that small detail would ruin everything.
Dude if it "doesn't affect you" and "you couldn't care less about it" and "you haven't played anything here at all" in so long....what the fuck are you even doing here then? Can you just keep your negativity to yourself and please leave?
It's creating a false facade of impartiality, both to make one appear more convincing by posing as a neutral party and to pre-emptively defend oneself from emotional hurt.
It's fundamentally dishonest and disinclines me further from giving the speaker any time of day after I hear this.
It's not really one small detail, though, it's one small example of a way that it's written and the content would have to be changed almost from the ground up to truly affect the core issue. To put it nakedly he wrote this content not to be played but to be read. It's envisioned and executed with a single approach in mind, with a single type of character in mind, and he's been very upfront about that. All the things that a game's content might strive to be in order to make it more engaging for a player - accommodating, flexible, reactionary in some capacity - aren't what this is striving to be. Even the trigger for it warns "you'll either like this or you won't".
I can understand how you feel, I do think that it clashes fairly heavily with the rest of the game, but this is his pet project and one thing he doesn't want to compromise on. By and large I think it's okay in isolation. If that philosophy were to start bleeding into other content I'd call it a problem but every writer is entitled to have their baby.
An unbelievable argument to make, in this corner of the internet no less. I guess individuality and freedom of expression are limited to what the (totally accurately perceived) majority of people want, all else return to ash. Maybe FenCo should remove the community aspects of their games' development and invest more in focus groups and marketing experts. One day they might aspire to SAO levels of success in this regard.
But with success comes the cost of the spirit of Tobs' story, and that of many other writers. All would be succ'd by the No-Face that is Marketing Strategy, consumed entirely by the Gods of Financial Success. I get your actual point here, and I'll agree that Tobs' writing style does clash with the rest of the game's design, but this is a natural, acceptable consequence of the game's design philosophy of community writing and free-form content creation. Don't even give this "game is product" argument a token appreciation. If you're ever interested in making any sort of "product" yourself, you'll oppose it as soon as it's used against you, for it demands your artistic soul as sacrifice. If you don't understand why this is a problem, then maybe you should consider majoring in Business.
Was this comment necessary at all? Probably not, you were dogpiled enough and I imagine that you feel that you got the point before reading any of this. Unfortunately this particular argument pissed me off and everyone ignored it, and I don't want ANYONE walking away from this thinking that the worst thing about this thread is that someone didn't enjoy a writer's content, because this argument is worse than that. Nevertheless, I hope in good faith that perhaps you had no real belief in it in the first place, and that you just used whichever argument sounded like it could grant you some solid ground to wage an unwinnable war against "a writer's vision isn't giving ground to someone who needs/wants that ground," which is ultimately grow from sympathy or perhaps even empathy for another person's feelings and gratitude. This trait is admirable and worthy of praise if true, but never to the extent of sacrificing a writer's vision for their story, because it doesn't need to be consumed by those people in the first place. Please consider this before rushing to someone else's defense on the internet.
To turn this elsewhere than one person throwing a log in the river with language more inflammatory than it was warranted...
... Depending whether the Kitsune content is finished or not, is there any other alternative you would consider that would among the Kitsune folk reward you with the feeling of own feminine value? Or was it purely the family part that mattered?
... Depending whether the Kitsune content is finished or not, is there any other alternative you would consider that would among the Kitsune folk reward you with the feeling of own feminine value? Or was it purely the family part that mattered?
If anything the fact that it doesn't fit with the rest of the game and is off in its own little space with its own rules makes it more reminiscent of CoC than anything else in the game. The original was a puzzle where all of the pieces were from different boxes.
If you're charging money for it - and they are selling it on Steam now - it's...I don't want to use amateurish but I think that might be the best one to describe an attitude that's entirely resistant to the idea of tailoring content when it fits a little funny in contexts that a writer didn't originally take into account. An expectation of CoC2 as a more professional product, as opposed to this weird little free project, is some basic coherence. One of the most basic of the basics is probably this one, that a player can create a particular type of character (even and especially if it's not so traditional, that's a large draw for this game) and have that be consistently acknowledged. The Kiyoko content if not in letter then in spirit breaks that; it's -very- strong on strictly traditional gender dynamics and rather than perhaps going into how an atraditional couple deals with this society's traditional roles, something that might be satisfying in its own way even if it's just a paragraph or two, it simply does not allow for something that the rest of the game does.
And that's how it's written in every respect. A writer's autonomy is always their most sensitive spot and pushing it is sure to create drama but it's not too cheeky to say that on -some- level there's an expectation for CoC2 content to get with the program. If everyone were allowed to have their own Kiyoko the game would truly be another CoC - a mess, a mess that so many people with that amateur's attitude made together.
It may be a middle of the road compromise but I think that, while those types of criticisms aren't inherently invalid, due to the fact that he's by and large not writing anything else the way he wrote Kiyoko and contributing prolifically as one of the primary writers that letting the Observer have his baby is okay. If he hadn't been allowed to do Kiyoko the way he wanted he probably wouldn't be so involved with the game.
Ffs let this discussion die out already, I'm sorry but I've really had enough of people justifying this. Tobs has clearly stated he has no intention of changing it, so just deal with it, you don't like it? That's fine, just don't read it. None of the non-story plot content is required, if just what one single character calls you bother's you so much that the game is unplayable to you. Idek what to say. I apologize for my rant but this was really getting under my skin.
You're making a lot of assumptions. Kiyoko and Kinu's storyline is my favorite part of CoC2, which is the only reason I want to raise a stink about it at all. But if the writer's choice is to ignore the problem and tell the people complaining to deal with it, then that's just what we'll have to do, but at the same time he and his fanbase will just have to deal with people continuously coming in to bring up the obvious and easily fixed problem. It aint gonna go away just because yall dont care about it.
Me when I hear people say "fan service" trumps artistic license:
A final addendum to my point here, since it's been brought up: I'm not here to be "inclusive", I'm not here to accommodate everyone, and in fact, a good chunk of my writing does question and offend post-modern sensibilities, if less visible than the champion's role in the fox family. Ragnild has absolutely no belief in any rights or dignity of Man and simply opposes slavery because she believes it weakens the Kervus. The foxen are an entire ball of racial-based classes and castes, xenophobia, and divine right monarchy. Etc, etc, etc. I don't care about giving offense to people, because the only way to not give offense to someone is to appeal to the milquetoast lowest common denominator and remove the possibility of asking deeper questions and staying true to the writing. That, and social approval is really quite irrelevant to me. If anything, quite the opposite, given that I can be quite the nasty-minded psychic vampire given the proper motivation.
I am not here to unite, I am here to divide. And it shows in that my characters are amongst the most-discussed and debated amongst the players in this forum and discord, with people on both sides of every issue; they are loved, they are hated, and the issues underlying them from immigrant identity to the importance of suffering discussed in detail.
As I've pointed out in our discord, the Steam sales data in the period surrounding the controversy at the time of the game's release conclusively proves that catering to and ignoring the outrage brigade has absolutely no bearing on our sales trends and numbers whatsoever, so that argument does not hold water in the least.
I have been accused of being homophobic no less than three times in the roughly two years that Garret has been released because he declines to have sex with guys despite being a bara. There certainly have been more than a few requests for m/m content with him. Could I turn him bi? I could take a day or two and write some scenes with him bottoming, that is for sure. But then he wouldn't be Garret anymore, so I don't give a damn.
I have been accused of being making light of the disabled -- oops, "differently abled" with Rindo's content, because apparently people who suffer horrific injuries are not allowed to heal physically and emotionally, and instead must spend the rest of their days wallowing and letting their misfortune define their existence. Could I not have Rindo have half her body burnt off, or alternatively, portray her as an ass-kicking warrior woman with her scars? Sure, but she wouldn't be Rindo any more.
Could I have made Nakano less xenophobic and less of a pastiche of the Japanese stereotype and make people more comfortable with him? Well, yes. But I wouldn't have been able to bring out that aspect of being caught between his beliefs, loyalties, love and duties, and bring out the tragedy within.
Anyone is free to disagree with how I handle my content, voice their opinions, and vote with their wallets (although, as above, the data shows that this isn't significantly relevant anyway). Where possible, I've tried to be reasonable and accommodate alternatives which don't strike against the core conceit of the writing -- magicock, quietly passing the orb onto fox-god and resolving it that way, etc, etc. But no -- while it is the most visible issue, partially because it's related to the cause du jour, I am not changing it, as I am not changing any of my other work in the same vein.
I am not here to unite, I am here to divide. And it shows in that my characters are amongst the most-discussed and debated amongst the players in this forum and discord, with people on both sides of every issue; they are loved, they are hated, and the issues underlying them from immigrant identity to the importance of suffering discussed in detail.
As I've pointed out in our discord, the Steam sales data in the period surrounding the controversy at the time of the game's release conclusively proves that catering to and ignoring the outrage brigade has absolutely no bearing on our sales trends and numbers whatsoever, so that argument does not hold water in the least.
I have been accused of being homophobic no less than three times in the roughly two years that Garret has been released because he declines to have sex with guys despite being a bara. There certainly have been more than a few requests for m/m content with him. Could I turn him bi? I could take a day or two and write some scenes with him bottoming, that is for sure. But then he wouldn't be Garret anymore, so I don't give a damn.
I have been accused of being making light of the disabled -- oops, "differently abled" with Rindo's content, because apparently people who suffer horrific injuries are not allowed to heal physically and emotionally, and instead must spend the rest of their days wallowing and letting their misfortune define their existence. Could I not have Rindo have half her body burnt off, or alternatively, portray her as an ass-kicking warrior woman with her scars? Sure, but she wouldn't be Rindo any more.
Could I have made Nakano less xenophobic and less of a pastiche of the Japanese stereotype and make people more comfortable with him? Well, yes. But I wouldn't have been able to bring out that aspect of being caught between his beliefs, loyalties, love and duties, and bring out the tragedy within.
Anyone is free to disagree with how I handle my content, voice their opinions, and vote with their wallets (although, as above, the data shows that this isn't significantly relevant anyway). Where possible, I've tried to be reasonable and accommodate alternatives which don't strike against the core conceit of the writing -- magicock, quietly passing the orb onto fox-god and resolving it that way, etc, etc. But no -- while it is the most visible issue, partially because it's related to the cause du jour, I am not changing it, as I am not changing any of my other work in the same vein.
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Thats your decision, and considering you've probably written all of my favorite content in this game, I can respect that in a sense and can deal with it.
I guess another way to look at it is that you think Kino specifically wouldnt have a flexible viewpoint "You dicked my mom and made me, so that makes you a dad"? I can accept that answer.
People are gonna keep complaining as they come into the game and the content, just like me and the billion others before me, and thats just gotta be something you gotta deal with. By the sound of it, you're fine with that. so... thats a wrap?
(ps, I had to stifle a giggle at all the fire references in Rindos sex content, thats just cruel!)
I guess another way to look at it is that you think Kino specifically wouldnt have a flexible viewpoint "You dicked my mom and made me, so that makes you a dad"? I can accept that answer.
People are gonna keep complaining as they come into the game and the content, just like me and the billion others before me, and thats just gotta be something you gotta deal with. By the sound of it, you're fine with that. so... thats a wrap?
(ps, I had to stifle a giggle at all the fire references in Rindos sex content, thats just cruel!)
Yes please, can we wrap this topic up? Alternatively lock it and sticky for future reference.
Not sure if you even see this, but I want to take the chance to respond to your last post.
Through your Kitsune content, as well as the discussions about it, I was forced to re-evalute my opinion about a lot of stuff actually.
When CoC2 started, I was looking forward to the Kitsunes, since I really like their aesthetics. I was a bit disapointed with Kiyoko, since pregnancy is not really something I enjoy, but I carried on. Then came the dungeon and I was annoyed at some aspects, but hey, easy to skip.
But when I read the Convocation of Mirrors, I paused. Their are things I hate doing even in fiction, but that fact allowed me to go back to the Kitsunes.
This time I did not skip anything, I did not overlook anything because they look great.
And I have to say, I absolutly loath what you made.
Not because it is bad, but because it is good. They are believeable and realistic. They are truly persons with a rich culture and history. It is just that so much of them is so opposed to my own way of thinking that I can not agree with them.
This may sound negative, but I think it is not. Creating a fetish and giving it a bit of personality is much easier than creating a person which you like, even if it hits not a single one of your preferences. Or creating persons which fulfill every single preference and still are insufferable for some people.
So, yes, your work is divisive, but I think that is the price we have to pay for interesting persons. And sometimes a character is more interesting because s/he is unavailabe, for unfulfilled desire can increase every appeal.
Long story short: Your work is well done and I think it really adds to the world, even if you ruined my favorite fetish. =P
Seriously, I no longer see Kitsune in the same light.. Made me more interested in Fox-Morphs though.
Now this is what I'd call the amateur's diatribe. It's simultaneously so silly and so self-important that it could only be written in earnest by someone who thinks that every letter they've written is sacrosanct.
The collaborative nature of CoC2 makes this prima donna-ness very transparently not an artistic integrity thing but an ego thing. It's not that Garret wouldn't Garret if he dated a boy - this is someone who has no apparent aversion to penises, someone you can have a sexual relationship with by growing a vagina and then exclusively having anal sex with if you want - it's that if Garret dated a boy he wouldn't be the exact Garret you wrote. But unless you were to forbid anyone else from writing content for him (which would be an ego thing) part of who he is will inherently diverge from your vision for him. This happens with everyone. As a for-instance your writing of Berwyn always makes me think of Scooby Doo and HugsAlright doesn't have or use this scaredy vision of Berwyn that pops up in your content. And another just to show I'm not picking on you: I think Savin makes Brint too casually insulting, like one of his characters, when he writes him. That's not something I see in Wsan's vision of Brint.
Everyone writing these collaborative characters aren't desecrating them, though - by agreeing to their inclusion everyone had to make a small compromise to their ego and allow for their characters to be seen and used in ways they might not have anticipated or even necessarily approved of. Berwyn's innate Berwynness isn't destroyed when you write him as a coward, Brint's innate Brintness isn't lost when Savin puts sexually-insulting language in his mouth and Garret, whose story has nothing whatsoever to do with who he has sex with, would not lose his Garretness if someone wrote him as more sexually curious than you would. If you can't handle someone else "touching your stuff" then you'll never be able to approach any collaborative project as a professional and the project itself will suffer for it.
As much as I don't want this venue for this topic to go on, the collaboration part is by consent as most things are. There are and will be creations from other writers that most likely will not be altered (Jin-Jin comes to mind). At the same time things like Kitsune as a whole aren't locked and by means of a guide to writing their culture people can create their own foxes.
Would Tobs accept an addition to Garret that matches his current description? That remains his decision as the main writer. Should Garret be changed to account for males? I would say no if this is the way Tobs chose to write him. There are many characters who have their own quirks as to who they shall accept and this was true thoughout all games created here.
I must also say here that the split is quite real and serious between artist creating what they want to make and people paying them and an artist who has to create exactly to people's tastes to get paid. Most artists want to be the first type, but many throughout history were forced into the second group no matter what they wanted. In terms of erotic works this has a very profound meaning as they may often attract groups who value only certain fetishes and so we land with artists who would after some years of such buildup only create misogynic content or worse (so much worse). While at times I feel there are some lose ends dangling in Tobs writing when you for example insert female protagonist into Kiyoko's story, I do at the same time appreciate that he is able to make a living by writing what he wants.
Would Tobs accept an addition to Garret that matches his current description? That remains his decision as the main writer. Should Garret be changed to account for males? I would say no if this is the way Tobs chose to write him. There are many characters who have their own quirks as to who they shall accept and this was true thoughout all games created here.
I must also say here that the split is quite real and serious between artist creating what they want to make and people paying them and an artist who has to create exactly to people's tastes to get paid. Most artists want to be the first type, but many throughout history were forced into the second group no matter what they wanted. In terms of erotic works this has a very profound meaning as they may often attract groups who value only certain fetishes and so we land with artists who would after some years of such buildup only create misogynic content or worse (so much worse). While at times I feel there are some lose ends dangling in Tobs writing when you for example insert female protagonist into Kiyoko's story, I do at the same time appreciate that he is able to make a living by writing what he wants.
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What I'm getting at - and I don't want to come off as if I'm trying to be mean to one particular person, I want to condemn an attitude - is that there's a constructive way to approach the divide between what the audience wants to see and what the writer wants to write and a destructive way and those who choose the destructive way, always siding with their ego over their audience, are bad for collaborative projects.
Wsan was asked a number of times for scenes to top Brint (and this is a character who says upfront that they're always on top) and he took that into consideration, thought about how it could be worked in without feeling unnatural, and came up with some scenes that satisfied both himself and that portion of his audience. Brint's Brintness wasn't destroyed and he became a more robust and satisfying character for it. Being open to and allowing characters to evolve according to what the audience wants to see and putting these characters out there with full knowledge that you are not their owner once they are in the game (they belong now to the project itself), is an inherent part of these types of projects and taking a hardline stance against that for no other reason than it would no longer be my character if I changed it is the very opposite of a professional approach.
If the Observer was writing his own game under his complete creative control I would say that stubbornness is fine. No one else has to contend with it, any money he might make from it would presumably come from fans who like what he's doing, and it would be his vision from the ground up. Being part of a larger vision however means that at times it's simply not going to be all about you and that for the sake of the project making an effort to get with the program is not an affront to artistic integrity. It's just being a team player.
No, but he is writing for a game under my complete creative control and I've said it's fine. So deal with it.
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