I think people are just intimidated by Bayushi Kachiko's sexuality.

But go ahead and tone her down, she doesn't need to possess all the influence and power she had in the past.

It's less being intimidated by it, and more "she is a woman, so here is a bag of tropes that will focus on her being a woman while emphasizing she is a woman who is a woman and who is definied by relations men have to her". It's amazing she ended being up a decent character, but I think it was actively against how she was constructed, not because of it.

She isn't a character for a reader, male or female, to empathise with or identify with. It's a character designed to tap into the emotional bank related to your wife/lover/and so on. Take away all the sex and men around her, and what does remain?

5 minutes ago, WHW said:

It's less being intimidated by it, and more "she is a woman, so here is a bag of tropes that will focus on her being a woman while emphasizing she is a woman who is a woman and who is definied by relations men have to her". It's amazing she ended being up a decent character, but I think it was actively against how she was constructed, not because of it.

She isn't a character for a reader, male or female, to empathise with or identify with. It's a character designed to tap into the emotional bank related to your wife/lover/and so on. Take away all the sex and men around her, and what does remain?

Well, she can kill the greatest swordsman with a whisper. Shosuro art of seduction is as powerful as the Kakita technique.

She became a decent character because you had some great writers back in the Clan War days. They didn't put limitations on themselves or think "What would a modern day person do?". They wrote to the setting and made a great samurai soap opera.

1 hour ago, WHW said:

If you wonder why it makes women uncomfortable, assuming that you are straight male: imagine going to a Marvel related event, and suddenly finding yourself exposed to fandom fetishization of Captain America x Iron Man, with pictures attached and people around cheering for it and talking semi-dirty about it. Though this still isn't a perfect comparison, because men aren't sexualized and fetishized in the same way as women do.

I would let those guys do their thing. Just because I don't like something doesn't mean I should dictate policy and tell others they're wrong. If someone finds offence in something not intended to offend (actual intent), then that someone needs to learn how to deal with it privately.

Also, taking something out of communicative context is not something you want people to do, willy-nilly.

21 minutes ago, Radix2309 said:

Well you can still smother with a pillow. I could think of several ways to create special pillows specifically for combat. Maybe stronger material to catch blades, or put them off guard then stab with the knife hidden in the pillow.

This sounds like a Jacky Chain fight.

Now I want to point out there are a wide variety of characters displayed is many way. Women of the scorpion clan do have that habit of being trained to use sex as a tool for there ninja work and historically it is a old trick particularly for assassination of blackmail. And while there have not been, as far as I know as I got into the game just before it changed hands to ffg, male equivalents there are still plenty of art showing bare chested men doing things which is close enough. Also there are plenty of respectable women I like without needing to see them scantily clad. Best example is with my people in the crab clan. Most of the girls there has more armor than the guys. Although I will admit that O-Ushi was common show without anything under her armor. Still she stands on her own as a character no matter how she dresses. In fact Disney's Brave seems to have copied from her story as a contest was held to find her a husband and she fount for herself. Although she did end up tying in the final round as she and Yasamura ended up KOing each other. Point is she was epic even as a grandma and died protecting her people.

Finally equality is about being equal. I mean us guys could complain about how many ripped bare chested dudes are shown but in the end I don't think that would get us anywhere ether.

19 minutes ago, Cold Iron1 said:

This sounds like a Jacky Chain fight.

Women of the scorpion clan do have that habit of being trained to use sex as a tool

It would be refreshing to see some men of the Scorpion Clan being trained the same way.

20 minutes ago, Cold Iron1 said:

there are still plenty of art showing bare chested men doing things which is close enough.

. . . no, it really, really isn't. If you actually believe "dude showing off his muscles while looking powerful" is equivalent to "lady showing off her cleavage while looking like a pinup," then I suggest you go read more on the topic, because you don't really understand the conversation.

3 minutes ago, Kinzen said:

. . . no, it really, really isn't. If you actually believe "dude showing off his muscles while looking powerful" is equivalent to "lady showing off her cleavage while looking like a pinup," then I suggest you go read more on the topic, because you don't really understand the conversation.

Power comes in different forms. The "lady showing off her cleavage while looking like a pinup," may look silly to you, but she is bending the Court to her will. Again it can be intimidating.

Like I said, I actually tried to have them make a "sexy male geisha" Scorpion Clan card but the art was changed by someone higher up with no explanation into a generic ninja on a roof. Sexy girls were fine, sexy men apparently less so.

And as was said elsewhere by the 4E writer trying to depict a male same sex relationship, certain elements in AEG seemingly did not agree with depicting these types of relationships specifically for personal reasons. Another reason I hope FFG does go for a Hotaru/Kachiko relationship that is handled maturely and deeply and not fetishized.

6 minutes ago, Tetsuro said:

And as was said elsewhere by the 4E writer trying to depict a male same sex relationship, certain elements in AEG seemingly did not agree with depicting these types of relationships specifically for personal reasons. Another reason I hope FFG does go for a Hotaru/Kachiko relationship that is handled maturely and deeply and not fetishized.

There really is no chance for that. Even if FFG handles it "maturely", the internet won't. Its best it doesn't happen at all.

14 minutes ago, C2K said:

Power comes in different forms. The "lady showing off her cleavage while looking like a pinup," may look silly to you, but she is bending the Court to her will. Again it can be intimidating.

She doesn't just "look silly" to me. She looks like yet another instance of a woman's sexiness being her first, last, main, and often only source of power, while men get a dozen other tools for bending the world to their will.

Do I think that characters who use sex as a form of manipulation and control are inherently bad? No. But let's not pretend any given instance of a female character acting that way is an isolated instance, instead of Example #924421 of a pattern. Kachiko automatically carries with her the baggage of women in a thousand other stories, not just within L5R (which did better than some at having lots of interesting women of different types), but in our entire media environment. So I hope that we get to see her being a savvy politician, using all the same tools that her imaginary genderswap Bayushi Kachikune would, as much as or more than she uses her body. Because that's far more interesting to me than Mata Hari #924421.

7 minutes ago, C2K said:

There really is no chance for that. Even if FFG handles it "maturely", the internet won't. Its best it doesn't happen at all.

All the more reason *to do* something like that. I am beginning to think I imagined this but for a long time I thought there was a Scorpion who's secret was that he was gay - there is no stigma to being gay in Rokugan but every Scorpion keeps a secret and that is what he chose to keep hidden. I have always really liked this idea (again, did I imagine this NPC? I thought he was from a printed book or something - maybe John Wick era, sounds very Wick) because in its exception, it makes being gay accepted as normal and the emphasis was on how weird his Clan practices are and not his orientation.

If "the internet" can't handle something...who really cares? Those that matter don't mind and those that mind don't matter. That and the snickering children can get called out to grow up.

Femme Fatale archetype in general has very ironic history, as something that once was kind of a way to sneak in empowered women character with agency and to rebel against how they were portrayed (and thus provoked a lot of moral outrage and fear), ended up being standardized as another way to run female characters as stereotypes and objects, not actors.

On brighter note, our groups reaction to that Yogo guy who is one of the revealed card was "Oh my god, Bayushi Etzio is canon now!", with the note that Bayushi Etzio is our code name for the male seductress scorpion :P.

2 minutes ago, DarkHorse said:

All the more reason *to do* something like that. I am beginning to think I imagined this but for a long time I thought there was a Scorpion who's secret was that he was gay - there is no stigma to being gay in Rokugan but every Scorpion keeps a secret and that is what he chose to keep hidden. I have always really liked this idea (again, did I imagine this NPC? I thought he was from a printed book or something - maybe John Wick era, sounds very Wick) because in its exception, it makes being gay accepted as normal and the emphasis was on how weird his Clan practices are and not his orientation.

You might be thinking of Bayushi Yojiro. He was printed in SCC as a female, but was later revealed to be a dude. But no, he was not gay.

As much as it might be acceptable in this day and age, being gay in Rokugan is probably loss of honor for yourself and family. It removes you from the marriage equation that forges treaties and that can hurt your family's status in in the Courts. Please remember that most marriages in Rokugan are done out of convenience and necessity, not out of love. Its a savage place.

1 minute ago, C2K said:

As much as it might be acceptable in this day and age, being gay in Rokugan is probably loss of honor for yourself and family. It removes you from the marriage equation that forges treaties and that can hurt your family's status in in the Courts. Please remember that most marriages in Rokugan are done out of convenience and necessity, not out of love. Its a savage place.

Japanese history says otherwise. You can totally have sex with a dude and still be married; there were periods in Japan where that was not only acceptable but (for people of the right social class, anyway) quite unremarkable. The pimpin' lifestyle for rich samurai men was to have a wife, a female mistress, and a male lover. It only became an issue when you let that relationship interfere with one or both of you actually fulfilling your duties.

Being gay in societies that had strong presence of a "honorable warrior guys" - so stuff like Romans, Spartans, and Samurai Japan - was actually often seen as an better and stronger form of love than male-female relationship.

2 minutes ago, WHW said:

Being gay in societies that had strong presence of a "honorable warrior guys" - so stuff like Romans, Spartans, and Samurai Japan - was actually often seen as an better and stronger form of love than male-female relationship.

Yup. To be fair, that usually went hand-in-hand with truly gobsmacking amounts of sexism (m/m love was purer and more admirable because it was love between equals), which doesn't apply in Rokugan -- but since the setting is already a gold medalist in cherry-picking details, there's no "but history!" justification for saying homosexual relationships don't fit the society.

2 hours ago, Kinzen said:

Man, have you felt a Japanese buckwheat pillow? Those things probably hit for k3!

In all seriousness, the question was in poor taste, the initial answer was in poor taste, and the walkback wasn't handled that well. But I am glad that FFG did walk it back, and I have my fingers crossed that they handle same-sex relationships better than AEG did. I tried to write the existence of m/m relationships into one of the late 4e RPG books (because they were definitely a thing in historical Japan), but it got cut.

Kinzen,

The closest I was able to get was in making a vague reference in Thunderous Acclaim Part 2:

Quote

“That one was mine!” Daitsu called out as he reset himself, back to back with Shinichi.

Shinichi chuckled. “Too slow. I’m up by one, little brother. Let me tell you what I’m going to do with my winnings! Two bottles of sake in the finest geisha house and whatever company comes my way.”

“If you can find a lady willing to stand your arrogance.”

“See, that’s why you always lose. Why limit yourself to half the options?”

Forgive the poor writing.

1 minute ago, C Thomas Hand said:

Kinzen,

The closest I was able to get was in making a vague reference in Thunderous Acclaim Part 2:

Forgive the poor writing.

Nothing to forgive! I'm glad you were able to at least get a sideways nod in that direction.

I found that fiction very charming. These two had really fun dynamic overall.

14 minutes ago, C2K said:

As much as it might be acceptable in this day and age, being gay in Rokugan is probably loss of honor for yourself and family. It removes you from the marriage equation that forges treaties and that can hurt your family's status in in the Courts. Please remember that most marriages in Rokugan are done out of convenience and necessity, not out of love. Its a savage place.

If marriages are not for love then what does a person's sexuality matter? A man and a woman have an arranged marriage and make a baby samurai, it doesn't matter if they like each other or if their partner floats their boat. The loss of honour would be in indiscretion in extra marital affairs, irrespective of the genders involved or refusing an arranged marriage because you just don't want to - for whatever reason.

Removing attraction and love from the marriage equation actually makes "modern sensibilities" (which turn out to be ancient sensibilities but we like to think we are a progressive society when really we are just catching up to centuries past) kind of easier to include and understand.

Funny thing, having same gender lover when you are in a marriage is actually more convenient and pragmatic, because you don't need to care about chaperons and rumors that much. Yes, we totally had a very rough and intense "training session" at the Dojo. Oh, these branches and leaves in my hair, well. Actually, dojo couldn't contain us, so as we traded blows, we moved to the garden, and then to the forest, and before we knew, trees were trembling in respect of our might. Totally. Make a poem or a painting about it, don't need to give me credit.

And nobody has to worry about illegitimate children when your lover has the same plumbing you do . . .

Not that illegitimate children were much of a worry for Japanese men, historically. You could always acknowledge them if you wanted to -- even make one of them your heir.

Just now, Kinzen said:

Not that illegitimate children were much of a worry for Japanese men, historically. You could always acknowledge them if you wanted to -- even make one of them your heir.

Put them in charge of the Crab clan while your legitimate son goes off to make the Mantis clan.

Also, before I go off to sleep, there is one card that I wanted to comment upon. It's the unnamed Hida woman that people suspected of being O-Ushi. I love that she manages to hit the right balance between "everone is pretty like actors in a TV Show" and "I'm awesome first, sexy accidentally"; the thing I like the most about this art is her hair. Look at it.

It looks like she, in a desperate attempt, got her long hair together and chopped it off with a knife.

I said it in another thread, there is nothing I don't like about that picture. And yeah, I think she looks very attractive in an "intimidating as hell, ruthlessly practical" sort of way.

I would hazard and guess and say it wasn't a desperate attempt. Her hair was getting in her way so she chopped it off with a knife, a purely functional decision.