VN Ren'Py Eruption Imminent [v0.5.1] [MorriganRae]

[robin312]

The interesting thing for me is that without males, and a lack for male pronouns, but futas without vags there rather should be neutral, female and futa pronouns, because those are the lines of delineation here.

For me they are all girls anyway
Futas, duplos, ordinary girls are all girls

 

[clrgm]

I wish there were more diversity in this game. I'm not saying it should turn into a Disney or Netflix show but at least make it a little more realistic. There's one asian(secondary character), very few nameless black girls, 0 latin and 99% of the rest of the cast is white.

 

[Ciaran8023]

I wish there were more diversity in this game. I'm not saying it should turn into a Disney or Netflix show but at least make it a little more realistic. There's one asian(secondary character), very few nameless black girls, 0 latin and 99% of the rest of the cast is white.

I mean, characters can always be introduced into the story.
Plus, Ashe doesn't exactly have a large group of friends, so it isn't too much of a surprise that they aren't especially diverse right now. I mean hell, basically the only friend that Ashe truly has had through the years is Fiona.

But good point nonetheless, would be nice to see some other characters being introduced that aren't tylenol white like myself.

 

[asdf1234asdf1234]

I love this game so much. The characters, the writing, the visuals.. all great! Thanks for making it dev

 

[TheLecher]

I wish there were more diversity in this game. I'm not saying it should turn into a Disney or Netflix show but at least make it a little more realistic. There's one asian(secondary character), very few nameless black girls, 0 latin and 99% of the rest of the cast is white.

Do you want realistic? If so, you've already got it. The demographics which have thus far been shown in the game are realistic.

I suspect that, when you ask for more diversity, you aren't too concerned with what is or isn't realistic.

 

[Kontralta]

The interesting thing for me is that without males, and a lack for male pronouns, but futas without vags there rather should be neutral, female and futa pronouns, because those are the lines of delineation here. Referring to a duplo as "it" might even be an insult in such a culture.
Same goes for the use of 'Goddess': Why use the feminine form when there should never have been a male one?

Idk, those are just a few small and rather insignificant thoughts I had when playing. In other games, I doubt I would even bother voicing those, but EI is written well enough that those things stand out, and I care enough to wonder about them.

---

That all aside, I actually just came here to say thank you to MorriganRae for the game, and the sizeable update.
The writing is remarkably strong, and in a world where so many lewd games don't even take the hurdle of 'understandable English', it stands out like a beacon. I may not be a super-fan of the whole "dominant asshole/demon", "voyeur" and "kind, submissive bitch" trichotomy, but I am thankful that I am going to get to tell the rapey cop to take a hike instead having to suffer her advances endlessly.

They don't have males, so the female form is the only one they can have. Futa without a vagina is also a “she”, why should it be different? And there must be a “goddess”, because they only have women.

 

[Kontralta]

But the neutral form is the male form, as we live in a patriarcal society and god is represented as a male. They/them for neutral is recent and is originally for plural. Just have to get used to it.

But they do not live in a patriarchal society, they only have women, so for them the neutral form, and the only one, is female form.

 

[clrgm]

Do you want realistic? If so, you've already got it. The demographics which have thus far been shown in the game are realistic.

I suspect that, when you ask for more diversity, you aren't too concerned with what is or isn't realistic.

Just because most of the characters shown are white doesn't mean it's demographic, it could mean the dev has their preference. It is impossible for a civilization to have an ethnicity that prevails so much over others, unless some messed up history has happened recently(you know what I'm talking about). So no, it's not realistic.

 

[Kontralta]

It is impossible for a civilization to have an ethnicity that prevails so much over others.

In all civilization this is impossible. But in a certain continent, country or city it is quite possible.

 

[Corvair]

They don't have males, so the female form is the only one they can have. Futa without a vagina is also a “she”, why should it be different? And there must be a “goddess”, because they only have women.

Our female pronoun does not really make sense if there is no contrasting form, not unlike a lone 'Yin' without its 'Yang'. It's a relic from how we do it in English, and in our reality - but for their world and society it makes not much sense because they apparently do not even know what a man is.

Maybe it's easier to wrap your head around with the term Goddess: The -ess suffix denotes the semantic feature of "female, as distinct from male". Actress, heiress, lioness, and so on. But a culture that has no male form (or really a concept of men) would not need to attach that particular semantic feature since it carries no meaning in that society - the distinction is not necessary, it lacks a reason to be there. It would make much more sense if they had their own word instead one that requires the presence of the male genus to make sense.

As said: I don't think it's a big issue - it's just a small incongruency in world building, and one that would take a bit of thought and effort to solve, because the thought structure of the audience, and the thought structure of the persons in the story (edit: and through that, their use of language), are somewhat different: Their main line of gender distinction is not male/female, but female/futa. If they address that distinction in their language use, it would make more sense along that line instead of ours.

 

[Kontralta]

Our female pronoun does not really make sense if there is no contrasting form, not unlike a lone 'Yin' without its 'Yang'. It's a relic from how we do it in English, and in our reality - but for their world and society it makes not much sense because they apparently do not even know what a man is.

Maybe it's easier to wrap your head around with the term Goddess: The -ess suffix denotes the semantic feature of "female, as distinct from male". Actress, heiress, lioness, and so on. But a culture that has no male form (or really a concept of men) would not need to attach that particular semantic feature since it carries no meaning in that society - the distinction is not necessary, it lacks a reason to be there. It would make much more sense if they had their own word instead one the requires the presence of the male genus to make sense.

As said: I don't think it's a big issue - it's just a small incongruency in world building, and one that would take a bit of thought and effort to solve, because the thought structure of the audience, and the thought structure of the persons in the story, are somewhat different: Their main line of gender distinction is not male/female, but female/futa. If they address that distinction in their language use, it would make more sense along that line instead of ours.

It is in our world that it has such meaning. But in their world it may have a different meaning. Futa is also called "woman" and "girl" there. Why complicate everything when you can make it simpler and clearer?

 

[Corvair]

Why complicate everything when you can make it simpler and clearer?

Well, it would make for really great world building (think how Tolkien invented whole languages plus etymology for his books)! I just love it when an author shows me they put a lot more thought into their work than I expect, especially in a genre where we generally do not expect such care and consideration.

That I even found it noticeable enough to think about mostly shows that MorriganRae's writing has impressed me enough to enjoy thinking along with it. In most other adult works, I would have not even have thought about the 'correct' pronoun structure in a society without men because they usually don't put a lot of effort into their writing anyway, so I kinda just 'read over' stuff that makes no sense - most of it being much more blatant and less excusable than this really minor example.

 

[Kontralta]

Well, it would make for really great world building (think how Tolkien invented whole languages plus etymology for his books)! I just love it when an author shows me they put a lot more thought into their work than I expect, especially in a genre where we generally do not expect such care and consideration.

That I even found it noticeable enough to think about mostly shows that MorriganRae's writing has impressed me enough to enjoy thinking along with it. In most other adult works, I would have not even have thought about the 'correct' pronoun structure in a society without men because they usually don't put a lot of effort into their writing anyway, so I kinda just 'read over' stuff that makes no sense - most of it being much more blatant and less excusable than this really minor example.

The world is built well enough for this story. Players have asked questions like, what is the difference between futa and duplo? Why is Ashe worried that she is a duplo, if there are many like her around? Futa must have both genitals, why are women with dick but no vagina called futa? There were many such questions. If the developer had made things even more complicated by coming up with many new terms, this would have raised even more unnecessary questions.

 

[dolfe67]

Their main line of gender distinction is not male/female, but female/futa. If they address that distinction in their language use, it would make more sense along that line instead of ours.

Yeah it's quite confusing and not very well thought-out that they wouldn't use different pronouns for female and futa in their world. Except that minor detail, it's well written though.

 

[Kontralta]

Yeah it's quite confusing and not very well thought-out that they wouldn't use different pronouns for female and futa in their world. Except that minor detail, it's well written though.

No, the different pronouns will be confusing. It is not need.

 

[gregers]

Well, it would make for really great world building (think how Tolkien invented whole languages plus etymology for his books)! I just love it when an author shows me they put a lot more thought into their work than I expect, especially in a genre where we generally do not expect such care and consideration.

That I even found it noticeable enough to think about mostly shows that MorriganRae's writing has impressed me enough to enjoy thinking along with it. In most other adult works, I would have not even have thought about the 'correct' pronoun structure in a society without men because they usually don't put a lot of effort into their writing anyway, so I kinda just 'read over' stuff that makes no sense - most of it being much more blatant and less excusable than this really minor example.

Not all languages use binary-gendered pronouns. It might help to imagine the gameworld as simply using a different language where pronouns don't convey gender (and where words like 'Goddess' aren't secondary formations derived from a masculine form). Female-with-a-vagina, female-with-a-penis, and female-with-both do not seem coded as highly distinct gender identities within the game world.

 

[Alley_Cat]

...
The interesting thing for me is that without males, and a lack for male pronouns, but futas without vags there rather should be neutral, female and futa pronouns, because those are the lines of delineation here. Referring to a duplo as "it" might even be an insult in such a culture.
Same goes for the use of 'Goddess': Why use the feminine form when there should never have been a male one?
...

Possibly for the same reason they use modern music in "A Knight's Tale". Sure, David Bowie or Queen isn't historically accurate for something set in Medieval times, but using historically accurate music wouldn't evoke the emotions that are intended for a particular scene.

 

[TheLecher]

Just because most of the characters shown are white doesn't mean it's demographic, it could mean the dev has their preference.

Sure, it could mean that the dev has a preference. If so, there's nothing wrong with that. If it is a matter of dev preference, then the dev has as much right to a preference as you do. In that case, I wouldn't expect the ratios to change, nor would I want them to change.

That being said, I'm not aware of any reason for assuming that the dev has such a preference.

It is impossible for a civilization to have an ethnicity that prevails so much over others, unless some messed up history has happened recently

This is simply incorrect. It's not "sort of" incorrect or "mostly" incorrect. It's just incorrect, full stop. There are multiple civilizations existing on earth today which have almost total statistical dominance by a single ethnic group. And if we look back through history, we find that it's actually more common to have a single ethnicity dominant in civilizations than it is to have statistically significant ethnic diversity.

(you know what I'm talking about).

No, I do not.

So no, it's not realistic.

Yes, it is realistic. But instead of just contradicting you without offering any data, which is what you just did to me, I'll offer you some verifiable figures.

This game takes place in a fictional world, and does not take place in the US or the UK or Germany, or any other real world nation, so we can't assume that all of the demographics will be identical, but let's take US demographics as just one example of an ethnically diverse Western civilization (since the setting of the game is clearly modeled on Western cultures).

In the US, as of 2019, the demographics for racial prevalence in the population were as follows (from highest concentration to lowest):

1. White - 60.1%
2. Hispanic - 18.5%
3. Black - 12.2%
4. Asian - 5.6%
5. Mixed race - 2.8%
6. American Indian - 0.7%
7. Pacific Islander - 0.2%

Note that these numbers work out to 100.1%, so there's clearly some margin of error, as should be expected. But, given these numbers, this means that out of every 10 people, you can expect the following:

• 6 white people
• 2 Hispanic people
• 1 black person
• 0 Asian people, because you get 1 Asian per 20 people
• 0 mixed race people, because you get 1 mixed race person per 33 people
• 0 American Indians, because you get 1 American Indian per 142 people
• 0 Pacific Islanders, because you get 1 Pacific Islander per 500 people

Now, let's consider the characters in the game, so far. I won't consider the unnamed background characters, or the characters who appear only in media (news, porn, etc.). I am counting the black bartender on the beach, whose name has not yet been given, because Morrigan has said on her Discord server that we'll be seeing this character again in the future. I'm not counting Stella, as she only appears on the Cuckquean route. Kimmy (Ashe's drug dealer) is a bit ambiguous. Judging by looks alone, she could be Hispanic, Asian, or American Indian. She could also be mixed race. Since Hispanic is the most common of those four, I'm opting for that, until we have better information. So far, we have:

• 18 white characters
• 1 Hispanic characters
• 1 black character
• 2 Asian characters
• 0 mixed race characters
• 0 American Indian characters
• 0 Pacific Islander characters

So far, we have 82% white, 5% Hispanic, 5% black, and 10% Asian. Obviously, this means that white and Asian are over-represented among the game characters, so far, and Hispanic and black are under-represented, so far, if we apply the demographics for the US as a nation. So why do I say that the demographics shown in the game are realistic? That's easy. It's because those demographics represent the average for the nation as a whole, not for any specific area. And that's not how it works in the real world. People tend to know a disproportionately high number of people of their own race. If you're a black person living in the US, black people are likely to make up much more than 12.2% of your personal acquaintances, even if you live in an area where blacks are only 12.2% of the population. Also, certain areas are settled by much higher concentrations of different ethnicities. The US city of Jackson, Mississippi is 80% black, as opposed to the 12.2% national average. Honolulu, Hawaii (a US state in the Pacific, where you would expect the highest concentration of Pacific Islanders) is 54.8% Asian, and only 8.4% Pacific Islander.

So, given that Ashe is white, and her family is white, and she's living in a predominantly white culture, it's completely realistic for white characters to make up the vast majority of the named characters in the game.

But again, I don't think you're really after what's realistic. I think you're after something else.

 

[MorriganRae]

Hey people

a little bummed how early this got all leaked here, please support the project if you enjoyed the episode:
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Nonetheless, I'm grateful for all the feedback and discussions here . People have been very active! It's a lot of fun to read through all the theories you've come up with.

I just wanna add some things in response to a couple of comments I've seen...

Spoiler: In regards to the routes...

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Spoiler: In regards to the hints system...

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[MorriganRae]

Our female pronoun does not really make sense if there is no contrasting form, not unlike a lone 'Yin' without its 'Yang'. It's a relic from how we do it in English, and in our reality - but for their world and society it makes not much sense because they apparently do not even know what a man is.

Maybe it's easier to wrap your head around with the term Goddess: The -ess suffix denotes the semantic feature of "female, as distinct from male". Actress, heiress, lioness, and so on. But a culture that has no male form (or really a concept of men) would not need to attach that particular semantic feature since it carries no meaning in that society - the distinction is not necessary, it lacks a reason to be there. It would make much more sense if they had their own word instead one that requires the presence of the male genus to make sense.

As said: I don't think it's a big issue - it's just a small incongruency in world building, and one that would take a bit of thought and effort to solve, because the thought structure of the audience, and the thought structure of the persons in the story (edit: and through that, their use of language), are somewhat different: Their main line of gender distinction is not male/female, but female/futa. If they address that distinction in their language use, it would make more sense along that line instead of ours.

The story takes place in a fictional city, in a fictional country, in a fictional world. There is no English language in this world. You can interpret this whole thing as a translation of a fictional language.

And as an aside: Who says females and futas are different genders in this world? Gender is not the same as sex. From what we've seen, most of either sex are presenting as women, no matter what genitals they have. Gendered pronouns make sense if you can identify someone's gender with a glance in most of cases. Not so much if you have to grope their crotch to find out .