I really loved the game and definitely would love to see more Castoria in the future. While I would not call the characters yandere per se, I kinda have a soft spot for yandere yuri with a sweet ending so I appreciated the gender neutral language for the player with a subtle hint that the character is female. I normally don't comment on them, or think they're well written in games, but I thought the sex scene in the full version was very well written too.
I feel sorry for Castoria (and Castor) as they're kind people with sentience and an obsessive love forced on them. In some ways, they're the victims though the protagonist had no way of knowing what she created when she made that wish. I guess my hope for them would be that they learn to become more rounded and independent people over time but remain with the protagonist.
Thank you. I paid above the minimum price and don't regret. I will look at your other VNs too.
To note, Manly lead me to your work (he got me hooked on VNs in the first place).
I'm not sure if you're the same person I've spoken to on Ko-fi or not (since the username is the same, haha), but regardless, I didn't wanna just leave your comment unanswered! x3
Regarding the gender-neutral language, that was what I originally intended to run with throughout the entire game so that players can sort of decide for themselves whatever they would prefer the characters to be. However, it did make writing the more risque scene pretty difficult, and I'm not entirely sure I possess the ability to continue writing scenes like that without referencing gender at all. So that alongside a number of players preferring more gender-specific language has lead me to think about perhaps just giving the player a choice of pronouns for their MC instead for future updates. Maybe it's the sort of thing I should be running a poll on, I don't know >.<
What I do know is that I don't really think about gender when I write for characters. Maybe my brain is weird or something, but I just don't really see gender when I'm writing. To me, all the characters could be any and all genders x3 So I like to give the player some form of choice.
I'm super glad that you thought that particular scene was well-written too because it's very much outside of my comfort zone xD I wanted to give it a go because I knew I wanted it to be a part of Castor/ia's character. But I myself am asexual, so it was a bit of an awkward one, haha. Editing the voice acting for that scene was uh, interesting! It was kind of like some strange form of embarrassing hell xD
I certainly hope I can show Castor/ia's growth (or escalation into further madness, depending on the player's choices xD) in a satisfying way as their story unfolds :3
Thank you so much for the support :3
Yeah, I'm the same person. :)
I think the gender neutral language is fine without having to add additional choice for specific pronouns but others may disagree. I guess it's a cost/benefit analysis of the extra time put into being able to choose pronouns but if it's easier for you to write modifications of scenes based on pronoun selection that's a reasonable adjustment, I'd just hope neutral pronouns would also remain an option as that would be my personal preference (I prefer to play AFAB non-binary people).
On the issue of the sex scene, maybe the asexuality gave you a more objective look. I was playing a different yandere LI VN recently, and the sex scenes in the sequel made me feel more uncomfortable, first because the author added a visual component which came out of the blue and just made me feel like clicking through the scene faster (I was expecting a before and after like in the first game) and secondly the writing wasn't great but I don't want to criticise too much as I otherwise enjoyed her games. That's before even getting into the issues triple A games have with using sex scenes. I think part of it was Castoria's voice actor was very good at making the lines sound genuine.
The character development is just my personal hopes. I have to put the appeal of yandere and yandere-like characters in the context of abuse I've suffered growing up and in a previous relationship and what that says about me so I think my hope they get a good ending is just a personal psychological need. A yandere-like person irl in a relationship who doesn't grow beyond that is going to end up in an abusive or co-dependent relationship unless their partner is very careful based on the experiences of real people with similar personality disorders (most yandere characters would be a mixture of DSM-5 clusters B and C). I've never seen it explored, usually the yandere ends up the abuser, but I could see a yandere character ending up the victim of abuse because they would be easy to manipulate emotionally.
You're welcome, you've earned the support. I'll continue to support in the future too.