i wonder what everybody elses picture of them is. I always thought of stunner and combat wombat as black. Tress, dirty girl and mob as white. I aways pictured crook with quite tanned looking skin so mabey half mexican half white and Origami as asian probably of japanese decent, as origami is a japanese word.
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Awesome! Really hoping that we get a plot where the MC gets invited by the Dozen.
Well, in “canon,” the characters are:
Mob - Latino
Origami - Asian descent, unknown if Japanese
Stoic - Middle Eastern descent
Tress - Caucasian, European descent
Crook - Probably Caucasian, but perhaps a more diverse ancestry
Rain/Shine - African American
Stunner - African American
Dirty Girl - Caucasian, perhaps mixed ancestry with Asian
Combat Wombat - Asian descent, perhaps Korean
That being said, I’m not very explicit with most of that in the text, although the images for Part 1 show most of the main characters.
That being said, I don’t think ancestries play a huge part in the story; there’s room for different interpretations. Just as with sexual orientations, which are MC-centric. I don’t think either trait defines the “essence” of each character. To me, the “essence” is more about their style, way of talking/thinking, worldview, habits, likes/dislikes, motivations, strengths/weaknesses and overall personality.
Like, if I wrote a regular novel, or worked on a graphic novel, I could change my mind about their “canon” sexual orientations, ethnic backgrounds, etc, without really changing the characters. it’s possible Mob might end up being a gay Latino or a straight Caucasian, but either way, he’s going to be tentative, introspective, and peace-seeking. Oh and he’ll always have glasses and weird hair.
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Have you considered being more explicit with their orientations? The idea of “playersexual” characters is one that really rubs me the wrong way–it’s a trope that has a tendency to lean into bisexual erasure, where it isn’t considered a real identity. Since they can be romanced by any gender I assumed they were just bi or pan. I understand not feeling like sexual orientation is something integral to who a character is but honestly my experiences as an LGBT person really influenced the way I grew up–I would be a very different person if I wasn’t queer and if someone told me that they didn’t think my identity was a big part of who I was I’d be incredibly insulted.
Not saying all of the characters have to get in a circle and yell about their orientations, but having more solid representation is something worth considering, and I think you’re underestimating how someone’s identity contributes to their personality.
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Hey @HomingPidgeon, I totally appreciate your thoughts on this matter. It’s something I did think about going in.
First, the ship has already sailed. I can’t/won’t go back and recode Part 1 to set NPCs orientation in stone. First of all, it would be a tremendous amount of work. Second, if would destroy many relationships readers would have created with NPCs in their previous “player-sexual” format and create a huge amount of reader backlash. Third, I made a conscious decision from the start, that since most readers just read the story once, I want to give them what they want on that one playthrough.
I think it was the right move; and it’s mostly based on pure economics. I want as many people as possible to buy Part 2. And Part 3.
And I hope you understand I don’t mean to minimize real people with real identities. I don’t. I think of myself as open-minded, but I suppose most of us do. But also understand that my experiences may be MUCH different than many in the CoG/HG community. I’m like twice the age of most people here. That by itself makes me an outlier; sometimes the folks on here (in this thread, and also other threads) will be talking about something and I will really be lost, like Captain America with the “I don’t get that reference” comment. Then, factor in that I’m an upper middle class straight white guy in middle America, and I don’t think there’s any way, at this point in my fledgling writing career, and that based on my life experiences, that I could authentically delve into issues of gender orientation/identification or racial/ethnic issues. I just don’t think my attempts would “ring true.” And that, of itself, could risk alienating or angering people in the LGBT community who might read it and say, “What does he know about our experiences? He doesn’t know what he’s talking about!”
I know this issue has been debated before on other threads, and I honestly don’t think there’s a way to satisfy all the sometimes competing factors that an author must consider.
I guess my current view on diversifying writing is that more diverse authors should write more books and incorporate their own experiences into their writing. I would DEFINITELY considering reading a book with more LGBT-specific content; I’m just not the guy with the background to write it.
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Please don’t ask the authors for release dates.
It puts pressure on them and is against the rules.
But, to answer your question, it’s coming out this year. We can’t get any more specific.
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Ok thanks ,and sorry for asking
Just curious when will the part 2 be released
I think you’ve misunderstood how much I’m asking of you–I’m going to take one more post to clarify exactly what I mean, and then I’ll drop the issue.
And following that, just for clarity’s sake, I’ll continue to read and support and pine after Booksmart, as is my way. I hope none of this comes off as attacking or hostile–I absolutely understand you come from a different background than I do and know that sometimes we’re just going to understand things differently. I’m just trying to make sure you know the direction that I’m coming from. It doesn’t change that I enjoy the series or like you and think you’re a cool person.
I am absolutely not advocating for you to re-code the first book for the sake of clearer sexual orientations, absolutely not. My issue is that the term “playersexual” could just as easily be “bisexual”, without any real story changes. You already have the characters able to be romanced by whatever gender the player is (I’m assuming, based on discussion, as I haven’t played through too terribly many gender and romance combos) which I think would make most players assume the characters identified as bi or pan. What I’m mostly asking is for you to make that the canon for those characters–that regardless of what gender the MC is, the character themself has the capacity for attraction to multiple genders. It’s to avoid ideas like this
where it could be very hurtful to many readers. If someone romanced Mob as a boy and then you later released a story wherein outside the game, Mob isn’t attracted to men, it could make that reader feel alienated or left aside. I romanced Tress with a female character and if later on you made media where she was straight, I’d be thrown for a loop and feel pretty weird about it. That isn’t to say they should only ever be portrayed in same-gender relationships–that’s part of bi and pan identities, that they can date people of whatever gender and it won’t invalidate their other attractions.
I didn’t mean to ask that the identities of the characters be something suddenly at the forefront–I know me and a lot of other queer people really enjoy representation where our identities just aren’t a big deal. I thought the way it was handled in Part 1 was fine–where it more or less didn’t come up, people just like who they like, and it’s all good. (Except C-Wom being presumably unhappy that Tress wasn’t single.) I’m honestly just advocating that you consider the characters you wrote as playersexual to be bi or pan in identity, the same way Mob has weird hair. (If I were more informed I might make a similar argument about their races being canonical–but as is I’m a white person and don’t feel comfortable speaking for PoC.) And, I think if you did want to include any amount of LGBT specific content, you do have a troop of beta testers who come from very different backgrounds and would be able to say if you were doing something wrong.
There’s a bit of an adage that I’ve heard several times from marginalized people in general–that people can write about us, but not about being us. You can write about bi and Latinx characters without writing about being bi or Latinx–Mob doesn’t have to have a laundry list of culturally accurate traits, especially if he’s Americanized, but if you did a visual adaptation and kept him dark-skinned that’d be good. Tress doesn’t need a scene with the MC where she sobs about coming to terms with her identity (queer people have gotten a lot of that media, I think we’ve had our fill for a while) but if next time we’re playing Truth or Dare with her she brings up that her first kiss was with a cute girl who lived across the street and her last relationship before Speck was with a boy, I’d call that pretty solid rep. It doesn’t have to be at the forefront of every single scene with the character for it to still just be a factor in who they are.
CoG is a very, very good company about this and that’s very notable. Most publishing places aren’t as open-minded or forward thinking–it’s a lot more difficult for diverse authors to have work get popular than it is for white, cis, male ones. Ideally, yes every group would be able to be represented by their own people–but I don’t think that discredits the good simple, well-intentioned representation can do, regardless of the source.
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I would be that reader. 
Just to agree with @HomingPidgeon here, but I would also love to see more exclusively gay characters, even if they’re in more minor, non-romanceable roles.
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Eric has already talked about this (when I made that parody comic of Stunner having a crush on Mob) and he said that he realised this and therefore, none of the romanceable characters except the Mc and their love interest, would be involved in another romantic relationship.
And the only characters that have another kind of canon romantic interest are DG, Combat Wombat and Jacob. I guess you could consider that the Hedonist is canonically bi too. (Tress and Crook had also some romantic interest but they never mention gender, so I’m not counting them).
Honestly, I think that with the way the game has been made, I feel better leaving the orientations ambiguous. But your concerns are valid and I think we should take it into consideration with new characters and future games.
I’m also a gay guy, but I don’t think it’s impossible for a straight person to write about the experiences of a queer person, as long as them are well informed and respectful, and even if it fails it’s easy to discern where there has been real effort and where the author didn’t even tried. I would rather have that, than queer-baiting or 0 representation.
And I agree with @ParrotWatcher that I would like to see more conically queer characters. In fact, if I ever consider creating my own game with choice script I’ll might add a non-romanceable gay character who is the best friend of the MC, and that is trying to find a partner, so one of the possible outcomes of that subplot would be matchmaking them with someone else.
Oh and by the way, I always make my female MC romance Crook (although now that I know his secret I will probably make her broke up with him) and my male MC romance Mob, but if I had to ship Mob with someone else, it would probably be Tress, but I also ship Tress and DG, and I also like to imagine Origami having an unrequited crush on Mob and…
Fuck it, I just ship everyone with everyone!
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I was responding specifically to Eric saying that in a novel or comic adaptation of CCH he might make Mob canonically straight or canonically gay, instead of just leaving him bi or pan. NPC-NPC romances are a whole other ball of wax that I don’t have much of an opinion either way on
Yes but if it’s an adaptation of the original material, I think it’s more undestandable redefining some details of the characters like sexual orientation, now that the characters wouldn’t be romance options anymore.
Or you might want to leave them ambiguous anyway, at least for the six romanceable characters.
My issue is, like I said above, if there’s a canon version of a character that isn’t attracted to the gender you romanced that character as, it could make the romance in the game feel odd or less respected. Like the character your romancing would be happier with someone of a different gender, or make their attraction to your MC feel less genuine. It’s also unintentionally disrespectful to bi and pan players–why would that aspect of their identity need to be redefined at all? What would the issue be with just letting them be attracted to multiple genders?
I’d be all for it being left ambiguous as it is in the game. I wouldn’t complain about labels, but again, I’m perfectly happy just letting everyone love who they love and leaving it as a non issue
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Because it isn’t really defined to begin with. We’re not talking about changing an actual bi/pan character to a gay/straigh one.
Hey I didn’t wan’t to offend you, I just don’t think I would mind it too much if in a hypotetical adaption one of those characters was suddenly straight or gay. But it’s ok, YMMV.
Please I don’t want to keep talking about this, at least not in this thread, this is becoming a little too complicated.
Fair enough–I’m sorry if I sound harsh, as (I think) I said earlier, the whole concept of “playersexual” as something other than a criticism is just something I don’t like and wish would go away. It isn’t my intention to take out that frustration on you, my apologies
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OH MY GOD. I REALIZED SOMETHING.
Crook is Gavin, our father ex-cellmate! The description perfectly matches: “Well you know my cellmate Gavin, he is turning out to be okay. Young guy, on the cocky side yeah, but he’s not as bad as most of the guys in here. Just a dumb kid who made some bad decisions. He seems to be trying to turn things around and he’s keeping his nose clean.”
And it might actually prove my theory even further. The second letter mentions he changed "He started out well but he’s hanging with some dangerous guys. " that he “tries to impress” and they might “talk him into doing something dangerous”.
The guys were perhaps agents of the Dozen charged to watch for the guys in prison, and instead of getting their hands dirty they used Crook as an easy way to kill our father.
Not to mention I found a hole in my theory: if he had a cellmate, how did he not react? I mean he was stabbed 12 times! However if it was his cellmate that did it, it removes that problem.
It makes perfect sense and it fit in with my previous deductions: he has a criminal background, is perhaps intimidated into killing our father, realizes his errors and try to make up for it.
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DG cannot be lesbian, because she was very interested in Hedonist the first time she saw him and even slept with him to get a better grade.
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Oooo, I really like that.
[spoiler]That also goes sort of hand with him not revealing his name–not because he thinks the MC will recognize it, but just keeping up the build to the reveal.
The name thing also works with Stoic, if she’s hiding being related to Mega Cat.[/spoiler]
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@HomingPidgeon, @Harroc, sometimes I’m glad only a few folks frequent the thread. I can only come up with so many possible surprises! My spreadsheet has its limits!
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@Eric_Moser Aaah the Spreadsheet demon… I know that feeling.
@HomingPidgeon Yup, that’s why I said it perfectly fits in 
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