Relationships and RP (Pt 1?)

It's been a while since I've blogged. I've been drowning in coursework for college the past few months. The good news is that I passed my classes and will live to see another semester. In this time we wrapped up the release of Issue 1: Rain! It's been a fun wild ride.

In the studio, Mace, Verias and Oshigan are working on animating the short story I adapted for Cosmic Feline: Surrender. We have cast voice actors and everything is looking great! I am presently also working the script with Mace for Episode 2 of that arc, Survivor, so please check out our Discord for updates!

A couple weekends ago, I was able to host a panel at Fallfest 18 put on by The New Universes Project and OngoingWorlds. Fallfest was a virtual convention accessed for free over Discord focused on online roleplaying or simulations communities. It was all text based so it lacked a speaking component.

My panel was on Relationships in Roleplaying.

The main questions I helped foster discussion on were:

• How do you initiate a relationship in roleplay without being creepy? 
• How do you write a relationship that feels real? 
• How do you write polyamorous relationships? 

Please note that this blog is going to contain spoilers for “Mrs. Doubtfire” and “the Prince of Tides”. These are some old media and should be beyond the point of indignant rage for being spoiled. 

The biggest thing to keep in mind for writing relationships is that if you want it to be realistic and believable, it’s like managing a real relationship. If you lack positive personal experience, then it would be best to do research through good sources to understand relationships. I enjoy observation to learn but I also enjoy reading psychological research on interpersonal relationships. Good solid research in psychology journals or books on relationships might help broaden an understanding. Books like “the Players’ handbook” or “I hope they serve beer in Hell” should be avoided as legitimate dating advice. I would also include most romantic comedies or romance novels as bad sources for realistic relationships. I think they would be good for identifying troupes.

To this effect, I think that “Mrs. Doubtfire” is one of the more realistic depictions of a relationship in a movie. The father is desperate to become a part of his children’s lives after his divorce and after his elaborate ruse is revealed, he loses custody and cannot visit them unsupervised (since he is now considered a deviant). He and his wife do not end up getting back together. He and his wife move on but eventually work something out- though she’s still pissed he lied to her. There were consequences for being a negligent husband and father. It sucks but that’s real life.

One of the books that I grew up reading was “The New Male Sexuality: The Truth About Men, Sex, and Pleasure” by Dr. Bernie Zilbergeld. It helped me develop a deeper appreciation for the pressures and issues that men must deal with. As a woman, there is quite a bit of attention on how female sexuality is distorted through dated cultural perceptions and the view of modern media. To not acknowledge that men don’t have the same issues or misconceptions is foolish.

For instance, in Pat Conroy’s Prince of Tides, the main character, Tom, is talking with his twin sister’s psychiatrist because she’s attempted suicide. Tom explains his family’s background and their childhood. At the root of the unified trauma of his childhood is when he, his mother and sister are raped by a group of escaped convicts. They are saved by his older brother and their pet tiger, Caesar (yes, a real fricking tiger) but they are told to never talk about the incident. No police, no hospital, no closure. He questioned his own sexuality for years and blocked out the incident because, “men don’t get raped”. He never talked about it, so he couldn’t deal with the issue.

Modern definitions of “rape” have finally evolved to include assaults perpetrated against men which, did not change in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report until 2013. When we talk about rape in media, the idea of prison rape is funny to must so there are lots of jokes about not dropping the soap, but we don’t do this when we talk about rape when it involves women. These things are equally wrong but with males, its more socially acceptable which is horrible.

When we perpetuate the stereotype that men can only be strong or dominating to be considered men it hurts people. In roleplaying, it means that there is an uptake of carbon copies of Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone in their heyday doing MANLY things. Tall men, rippling muscles barely concealed by tiny shirts, carrying big guns and kicking ass while dealing shitty one-liners. Characters trying just so hard to be a badass that it’s laughable. Or the men that play the silent, stoic type that brood darkly in a corner and glower still hoping to win the girl.

“What do you mean you don’t want to go with me? Didn’t you see me just solo that big monster?”

Excuse me, you cannot see my eye roll through this wall of text.

I can’t tell you how annoyed it makes me to have people that are full of themselves parade themselves in front of me, talking about nothing but themselves and flexing. They reek of douchebag and I avoid those types as best as I can in real life and roleplay. The silent types… if you don’t TALK to someone ever, why should I be expected to like you? I mean, who says: “oh wow, that dude that doesn’t talk and stands in the shadows staring at me is SO SEXY, I WANT HIM”?

Then there are those other types. The “heroes” that go, “But I just saved you, why don’t you want to go out with me?”



There is this toxic idea that people are machines that you put tokens of “Kindness” into that will eventually drop out sex. This is true in real life as it is in roleplay.

No one is entitled to you for helping you.

You are not entitled to anyone if you help them with something.

Think about this a minute.

Take a scenario where you character has broken their leg and has fallen unconscious. When they wake up later in the hospital, they are told that DUDE B saved them. You are grateful, so you offer to buy them dinner or a beer. But DUDE B says, “You can thank me by having sex with me.”

Doesn’t that just FEEL skeezy? I mean, the nerve. You didn’t ask to be saved. Why do you owe him anything? You only offered something because that’s how you were raised. Someone does you a favor and you reciprocate the favor, but that doesn’t automatically mean you have to throw yourself at them.

A less extreme example is when two friends go out for lunch and one friend covers the other.

Does this mean that this is suddenly a date and sex should be the compensation for a meal?

No.

No it doesn’t.

I don’t understand this notion that dates are a transitional affair.

Meal ≠ Sex.

Dates are supposed to be a way to get to know the other person. Sometimes dates are the first time that two people meet, and dinner/lunch is a safe time to get to know someone new. Think about it, you are both sitting in one place and aren’t being distracted by anything (put your phone away!) except the person sitting across from you.

It’s a neutral place to decide if you want to continue spending time with someone. Unfortunately, most modern approaches to dates consider it a short cut through all that relationship nonsense to sex, placing more pressure on both parties. The person that gets told "no" thinks feels he’s entitled to sex and the person that says no is made to feel worthless.

I have had guys tell me that they don’t consider women that put out on the first date worthy of a relationship. They also hate it when a woman does not put out on the first date. I have also told them that they are idiots. This is the type of thing that makes people crazy.

So what does this have to do with roleplay? Everything.

These are things that happen in real life.

Writers will write what they know. If someone feels that dates = sex, then their character doesn’t have sex on that first date, it can lead to some angry out of character ranting. Then the other player who turned them down gets to be berated in and out of character for saying “no”, when they shouldn’t feel pressured to write something they don’t want to. Which will likely lead to them not wanting to write relationships with that person or anyone in the future if they constantly get this sort of reaction.

If people want to yield more in character relationships in roleplay, they need to communicate positively with the people around them. Being a decent human being will get you further than being an entitled douchenozzle.

The characters need to interact normally in character to get to know one another to figure out if they like each other. I have seen far too many people just try to force a relationship with the first person of the opposite gender that talks to theirs. It’s easier than people think.

Talk to people, interact and if you decide that you want to date them, you make your intentions known.

“Hey, I really like you, would you like to go out on a date?”

Rather than, “Let’s hang out some time.”

If the other person tells you no to the date but yes to the hanging out, it might just mean that they want to be friends. That doesn’t mean that “nice guys” finish last. It just means that the other person is not interested and it’s creepy to hang around at the edges with the desperate hope that the person will come running back to you.

You cannot get mad for someone not being able to read your mind that you want to be romantically involved with them. It is not enduring to make puppy dog eyes at your friend and hope that they will some day look at you with the same love as you.

(I’m looking at you Taylor Swift).

Ending a relationship

Koko <3 U! Entry 1 Page 5. Koko explaining.

This week's comic update will depict a particular relationship as a whole in about 5 panels. I will comment on that particular relationship on the comic blog directly but it brings up a good question, "When should you just give up on making a relationship work?"

There's no hard fast rules to this relationship thing since it is a very personal thing. What I might find acceptable behavior in my partners might not be okay in another relationship. For instance, some women think it is cheating for their partner to look at porn, sexy pictures of other women on the internet or looking at other women. The defense to it is that those pictures or videos aren't real. It's not the person engaging but some people argue that in their minds, the cheating has occurred, therefore, it is not allowed.

This is really disrespectful. He totally is being an asshole here.

I think pornography viewing is one of the biggest sticking points in most monogamous relationships. One partner is forbidden from watching porn or even masturbating because it is somehow cheating. If it was me and I was given such an ultimatum, I would consider getting out of that relationship. It's not that porn or masturbation is more important than my partner but because it's my partner dictating to me how I should be thinking, seeing, experiencing and doing. You cannot control where your mind wanders. If you give this person that power over you, what's next?

Do they start approving of who you are friends with? What you look at? Who you talk to? This is of course a worst case scenario but I have seen this sort of thing happen to my friends. One friend married a woman he met through WoW with a few children from another relationship but ended up not being to live with her since he was stationed overseas and she had to stay in the States to maintain her custody agreement for the kids. But he was forbidden from watching porn, or masturbating. He loved her and he agreed to it, but it did not stop her from yelling at him about what he was doing at any given point of the day. It was a seriously bad relationship. He found out later that he was paying for her ex's bills and he had paid off her debt but she was still racking up more.

He persisted in that relationship because he loved her. He wanted to make it work. She tanked his bank account and started killing his credit score by taking credit out in his name. They were married, she had a power of attorney. He tried to resolve the problems, his "porn addiction" and went to counselling. She starting dating other people through WoW and he eventually found out. He wasn't allowed to look at videos and she was sleeping with other people behind his back. She had taken control over him and it took 4 years of this sort of manipulation for him to say that he had enough. He finally filed for divorce.

I give him a lot of credit, he really tried to make it work. I just think that after he found out about her using his money to float her deadbeat ex he should have started questioning. He was being used. But he endured it out of love. He is now trying to repair his life and his credit.

In a 2015 issue of Psychology Today an article titled, "Top 10 reasons why relationships Fail" trust issues was cited as the number 1 reason. This isn't the only reason to end a relationship but it is a good one.

If you cannot trust your partner or if you feel that your partner does not trust you, why are you in a relationship with them? But more so, have you attempted to communicate with your partner your feelings of mistrust? Do you feel like you can actually talk to them?

If you can't communicate with your partner, then you might be in trouble. There has to be mutual trust and a good line of communication. If you have never even tried, you might want to consider talking to them.

The porn ultimatum is just one example of a trust issue but that issue is also rooted in jealousy. The partner could be saying that they don't trust their other with porn because they are afraid that they will go out and cheat on them if they witness sexual scenarios that they might not be willing to indulge in. Or perhaps they feel like they are inadequate compared to the porn star or someone else. It could be a matter that the idea of their partner looking is telling them that THEY aren't GOOD ENOUGH. I would argue that the act of scoping out another person or flirting with another in front of your partner is rude and disrespectful if you haven't communicated with your partner.

I actually thought the scenario in Beyoncé's "If I were a boy" music video was a good example of a deliberate level of disrespect for a relationship. I thought it was an interesting way to handle the topic.


It is possible to cheat on your partner while being open or polyamorous. How you might ask? By lying to them or being disrespectful towards their feelings. I would argue that flirting with someone else without talking to your partner about it is wrong. There have to be some managed expectations. It can be as simple as, "Would you mind if I flirted with some people at this party that I was interested in pursuing?" This way, it gives both people a chance to state what their expectations are and gives one partner to opt out. It's okay to say "No. I don't want to see you hit on other people in front of me. It makes me feel a certain way." This way both people know what the expectations are, that they are at the party together as partners and will be going home together or that they will be together for only a part of the night and possibly leaving separately. Managing expectations will save everyone's feelings at the end of the day.

But I digress, I was talking about the when you should end a relationship.

There are some good times to consider calling it quits on a relationship. For me the following things would end a relationship for me, regardless of the strength of my feelings.

• If my partner ever hit me outside of martial arts training, it'd be over and the police would be involved. Physical abuse is the easiest determination of whether my partner is trust worthy. If it is ever okay in a romantic relationship to hit me outside of me trying to hurt them, fuck no. I'd be done. I've seen what physically abusive relationships do to people. I might love that person but I am no one's punching bag.
• If I don't feel like I can trust my partner. I mean, after all of the talking and such has come to a wall. If I think my partner is lying to me about something important like a drug addiction not something trivial like not washing their dishes. There is a lot of risk with emotionally and physically engaging with someone else. You are opening your life to them and if they can't respect you enough to be honest, then they aren't worth your time. 
• If my partner does something that makes me feel unsafe. If I am worried for my personal well-being at any point of my interactions with them.. then I definitely don't need to be in a relationship. 
• If I felt like I was being manipulated into doing something about my morals. There are certain lines that I feel shouldn't be crossed. Certain things that will never be okay in my book.
• If I felt like my partner isn't actually interested in me. I have already lived this, I definitely know what it feels like to be discarded. If I ever feel that way again, I would rather end the relationship than keep trying to make it work. 

For me a relationship needs to have: mutual affection, trust, and honesty. If something is missing then why am I wasting my time and theirs? Please note that I did not mention physicality. It is possible to be in a loving relationship without a physical component but their has to be a mutual understanding between partners. Just my thoughts for this week! I hope it's helpful! 

The Beginning Part 4

Before I get into the conclusion of my Poly origin story I wanted to state that this week has been extremely chaotic. The threat of Hurricane Lane sent most of the people living here on Oahu into a state of panic since a hurricane hadn’t touched this particular island in years. People had visions of rolling blackouts, flooding, and evacuations in their minds as they descended on every store that possibly could sell food and bottled water. We did lose power for a short while but nothing worth calling my insurance provider over.

Chaos continues with Mace so this week's update will be a sketch page. Click the image above to go to the comic.

Picking up where I left off last week, Shep and I had been married for about seven years when the conversation about experimenting came up. We had talked fairly broadly about my bisexuality and vaguely about the notion pulling another girl into a tryst with us but I wasn't comfortable with sharing my husband.

To clear up any misconception about the nature of our marriage before it gets asked- Shep and I were (and are) happily married. No crazy fights, no ultimatums, just clear communication. We had no secrets and a healthy and active sex life. We share the same hobbies so there was really no real moment of boredom.

I was at my high school reunion and spending time with my old friends, Tammy and Dawn included. Shep was out of town for a business trip. I was having fun and reconnecting with one of my guy friends that I had a crush on. Kevin had vanished after high school to the Army and did a couple of tours in Iraq. After some drinks, he admitted to having a crush on me too. It was crazy and typical, I had spent 2 years of high school single and crushing on this guy! Years later and happily married, he confesses interest. Talk about a little too late.

I laughed about poor timing and texted Shep. Then.. like it was nothing, he told me to go ahead and sleep with Kevin. I was a little tipsy and floored by this suggestion. I didn't understand where it had come from. So, I called Shep to get clarification.

Shep explained that he wanted to give me the opportunity to explore the possibility of being intimate with Kevin because I never had the chance in high school. I had to consider it. Was I ready to be casual about having sex with other people now that I was married? I thought of the idea of losing Shep to another woman, as I had lost others in the past and doubt twisted like a knife in my chest. But I trusted and loved Shep. Would I feel differently about Shep if I slept with another man? Sometimes, the best way to figure something out is to confront it, right?

I weighed these possibilities and insecurities in my mind. Together, we had the decision to try being open with the knowledge that we didn't love each other less. We just wanted to try something different. There was a lot to gain and, a lot to lose. I didn't know when the opportunity would come up again, it took a lot for me to trust someone. Shep had my permission to go hook up with someone on his business trip and I had his to sleep with Kevin or whomever else I wanted to at the reunion.

After my phone call, I pulled Kevin aside and propositioned him. I had my husband's permission and I wanted to explore the possibility with Kevin, if Kevin was game. He was surprised, a little apprehensive and skeptical until I showed him the text. No secrets, no lies, just honesty. Kevin didn't make any promises but we decided to allow the night to progress naturally with us flirting; the reunion had turned into our first date.

Kevin and I ended up in his hotel room. And from what I heard when Shep got home, he had some success as well. The conversation that we had following was interesting. Did we want this open thing to just be casual? Did we want to establish longer relationships? The answer at this point was that we just wanted the variety. We were just going to be open.

Over the time that followed, I realized that this wasn't realistic. For Shep, it's harder to find girls that just want to be casual and only have one night stands. He needed to establish relationships with people to do things with. But there was also the realization that you cannot control how you feel towards anyone. I knew it was possible to be in love with more than one person. The love for one would not diminish the love for another.

So we decided to open ourselves to the opportunity of love with other people. We became polyamorous. Then it was the question of how this was supposed to work. We didn't know anyone else that was poly or even swingers. We knew a bunch of bisexual women and homosexual men. It seemed like no one else wanted to deal with multiple legitimate relationships. We had to go to Google to get an idea of the terminology and literature on this whole poly thing. 

I started reading "Ethical Slut" and came to the conclusion that much of what they proposed in the book were common sense things that Shep and I had already figured out. Being clear and honest about what it is you want and expect from your partner is the key to making any relationship work. We formed plans and strategies for how we would manage our others, whenever we found them. The biggest thing while we were still being casual was using Google Calendar to manage our dates with other people and then making deliberate time for each other. 

There you have it. Shep and I being polyamorous was a logical and natural progression of our relationship. =) 

Beginning Pt. 1

Today over at http://kokoheartu.frillypink.com/ is the cover for the First Entry of Koko <3s U!

To open the blog and the comic I wanted to start at the beginning, since this Entry starts before I entered polyamory.

Hello to everyone just joining me for the first time! I am Kokoro Castillo. I am a married, bisexual woman in a polyamorous relationship. I started this blog because people kept asking me relationship questions. They were curious about how I got into this lifestyle and how I am managing it. I will answer questions and share my misadventures in the world of polyamory. I have changed the names and some of the descriptions to protect the identities of those involved. The comic will cover some adventures while the blog will offer more depth into how my setup works.

I would like to caveat that everyone who practices polyamory has their own way of doing it. It varies with the people in the relationship and what everyone is comfortable with. I feel that the only wrong way is not communicating with your partners or forcing a relationship to continue when it should just end. So it’s just like managing a monogamous relationship, just with more people to consider when scheduling anything. But more to follow in another blog entry about my dependence on Google Calendar!

I’ll start with things rolling with how I came to be in a polyamorous relationship with my husband, Shep, but to truly explain it, I have to start at the beginning.

After college, I started dating, Sam, a guy who was more interested in playing World of Warcraft than interacting with or having sex with me. It was infuriating to take time out of my schedule to spend it with him to be ignored. I thought I loved Sam and I started to doubt myself. Maybe I was too damaged, too clingy after exiting a relationship with Dave. Maybe I was just still too stuck on what I thought was love with Dave.

I smiled and tried to engage with him. I caved and made a damn WoW account thinking that by getting involved with something he was interested in, we’d have more in common. I tried to enjoy the game that he loved so damn much and I just could not get into it. The colors were too garish, the story left me wanting, I hated everything about it because every minute we were in the game, the less we did in real life. The guild was more important, raids were definitely more important. I resented Blizzard; I resented Azeroth; I resented that he was more attracted to his buddy’s Blood Elf mage than to me.

Sam poured everything into that game. I had nothing. I suffered through it thinking that maybe I just wasn’t worth the effort. I fell into a deep depression and rarely left my house except to get groceries or to go to work. I had lost my spark. I started to stagnate. My photography lacked vision, I suffered through a job in a department store portrait studio and felt my soul die each day I spent in that cheesy vest and hat.

My best friends from high school, Dawn and Tammy, did their damnedest to get me out of the house to do something, anything besides play that damn game. We did mostly low key things; dinner, movies and talked about anything that wasn’t WoW. A few of my other friends in our circle from high school, April and Holly, were less enthusiastic about getting me offline since they were feeding that Sam’s addiction by scolding ME for daring to miss a raid to go to a movie. I should have realized that they wanted Sam and me out of the picture.

I was lucky, I had friends that actually gave a damn. Another friend from my family’s church, Lisa, made it her mission to get me involved with the women’s group meetings and went out of her way to get me to go. I actually had one college class a semester earlier so we had something more than religion to talk about. I’m not religious, and my bisexuality put me in a strange place within our faith, so I figured that it couldn’t hurt. I needed the validation, so why not God?

I had almost forgotten that Lisa was an American Otaku. There is a difference, but that’s a topic for another day… but it made sense. She was another art major but our mutual class was Japanese. We talked about our favorite manga, anime, and ships before we went to the church to enjoy more… pious activities… like… scrapbooking… or… baking cookies BUT I actually enjoy those things. We started brainstorming ideas for our own manga and she even drew some incredible concept pages. There was even talk of forming our own artist group to go to conventions to tell our manga. Those days visiting with her were a lot of fun in my routine of work and hating WoW. Between Dawn, Tammy and Lisa, I might have been able to keep going in my relationship with Sam, they brought me back to reality.

One afternoon while visiting with Lisa, we were chatting about our favorite old anime series. I was looking through her anime when a male voice joined the conversation and started talking about Mahou Tsukai Tai. Since Lisa didn’t seem concerned, we had a conversation and when I turned around, there was some random guy sitting in the living room. Being polite, I introduced myself and found out that he was Lisa’s older brother, Shep. He had just moved to the area and was crashing with Lisa until he found his own place.

I was attracted to Shep and we had a lot in common but, I was dating Sam. I loved Sam. And he was my friend’s brother, I couldn’t do that to her. I was there to hang out with Lisa, not Shep. But he was there, and we all hung out together watching anime and just making conversation about everything. I figured that because I was his little sister’s friend that he wouldn’t be interested in someone like me. I had a mile long list of everything that was wrong with me. My self-esteem had been shredded, why else would my boyfriend have zero interest in me if there wasn’t something wrong with me?

I was in a bad place. It wasn’t really me, it was my depression controlling my life and destroying my identity. I was putting on a happy face for my friends who were trying to make me feel better. I was putting on a smile for my family, the people at work, I was smiling in Teamspeak for the damn guild. I felt my mask cracking under the pressure of it all. I wanted to scream. I wanted to take Sam’s computer, smash it to bits, and burn it to ash. I didn’t want to interact with him through a monitor. I didn’t want to carry a gaming laptop to his apartment and play way. I wanted him to actually touch me; notice me.

To be continued…

Return of Love.

It's been what feels like forever! Just a short update to get everyone back to speed. This project will be returning but slightly different. I'm partnering with a few friends to create Koko <3 U! In hentai comic format!

Check it out at http://kokoheartu.frillypink.com/ . Definitely Not Safe for work but click responsibly.

If you like to help fund the project to make comic pages materialize faster, then please follow the link and donate to the next issue.

Koko <3 U! Was originally a relationship blog talking about the trials and adventures of Kokoro and her others as they embarked on a journey to find polyamory love. As a comic, we'll still touch on that but some aspects will be more heavily altered.

In a sense, it'll be touch like Nancy Friday's "My Secret Garden" with fantasies but there will be some dramatizations of some real life events. Just how much is truth and how much is fiction will be up to you to decide.

Names, descriptions and such will be altered to protect the not so innocent but I'd rather not be sued. Much <3! I'm excited to be back. Shep and I have so many stories to share. ;) Many thanks to my artistic partners at Pink Panties Productions for wanting to help me get this rolling. Stay tuned!

~ Koko

<3 You!