·APM v0.7.3 debrief1hNote – this contains spoilers if you haven’t played the recent update.
Hello Patrons,
It’s time to take a step back and look at where we’re at in the story.
This recent update was obviously heavy on the Anna content, and quite frankly, the next couple updates will be Anna-focused as well. That’s not to say David doesn’t have his own story to tell, and he’ll have a say before it’s all said and done, but right now, the focus is on how Anna is dealing with his quasi-betrayal.
This has disappointed some people, particularly those who want to see a faithful path or who want to see David take more action.
I’ll be clear, the faithful path is there if the right choices are made. And there’ll be a focus on that path – whether you want the marriage stay true, or you want to see Anna be as reluctant as possible before giving up her dignity. However, with the amount of bandwidth this project consumes, it’s not possible for me to focus on every path and every character each update.
Same goes for Chris. Those who don’t like Chris might be frustrated. But the story won’t always focus on him.
Some are wishing Jake could have made more progress with Anna by now. Again, he’ll have his time to shine, it’s just not at this moment in time. Part of the strategy for him is giving it some time and letting Kendra chip away at her armor, as to increase his chances when he makes a move.
All that to say – I'm not going to be able to make everyone happy every update. I’ll try to be clear on what the future updates will involve, without spoiling, so that people can choose to wait or not support me for something they don’t think they’ll be interested in. In the end once this story is done, I hope that most of you will have a flavor you enjoy, and I really hope there will be multiple flavors you can enjoy on different playthroughs.
As for where we’re at with paths/characters, I’ll just give a brief summary:
David
He’s obviously conflicted, no matter what decisions he’s made. He keeps thinking Anna will come to her senses. He can’t fathom she’d actually believe the lies, and he underestimates the extent to which the antagonists are actively pursuing his wife.
He made a key decision on his own this update that – if Anna wasn’t going to work towards reconciling with him and wasn’t going to spend any time with him – he’d not give up time with Sophie. David is a principled family man, so this isn’t surprising. He also feels this puts a bit of pressure on Anna too, that he’s not going to be a pushover. Clearly, when it comes to his house and his daughter, we’ve seen David not willing to give up easily.
As for where he goes from here... if you’ve encouraged him to be determined to figure things out and potentially fix the marriage, he won’t sit back. Otherwise, he’s less inclined to figure things out and is more stubborn, preferring to blame Anna instead of taking ownership in the situation.
Just keep in mind, David loves Anna deeply, and your decisions won’t be able to influence him to dump her and move on at this point in the story. Right now, David can either work towards proving the truth and fixing things with Anna, he can sit back and let Anna work it out on her own, or he can be tough on her and hope she comes to her senses.
Anna
In this update, Anna resolved to “go with the flow.” She hates feeling anxious and indecisive... she thinks it’s a total weakness for her to be like that (obviously her father’s influence), so that’s why she’s mostly letting go of the struggle and letting the chips fall where they may.
Her resolve has definitely weakened, even though she tries to fool herself into believing she’s tough. If you’ve influenced her negatively, her resolved has weakened even more. She’s never had to deal with such adversity, so she’s lost, and you may or may not be helping her. She’s not relying on her better instincts, and she’s not wanting to grapple with them... she’s instead opting to explore alternative paths of least resistance because, deep down, she feels the “right” path in life has let her down, and she has many regrets for always being on the "right" path during her 20's while life has passed by.
She’s more susceptible to influence from bad actors, so if you encourage her to accept these bad actors, it could send her spiraling deeper. Suffice to say, Kendra and David had no idea how fragile Anna was, especially at this moment in time when she’s dealing with post-pregnancy hormones and a drastic change in her career. But you – the reader – knows Anna well by now, so just be careful what you’re encouraging Anna to do at this pivotal moment in her life!
Chris
You now know Chris has learned the truth. This is a big deal. Looks like there’s three ways this could go. 1) he simply tells Anna and David the truth of what he’s learned; 2) he doesn’t say anything... instead he tries to conquer Anna while she and her marriage is at a low point; 3) he dangles the info in front of Anna, but he won’t disclose the truth until she gives him something in return.
Knowing Chris, it doesn’t seem likely he’ll go with option 1. Rather, it appears option 2 is his preference. However, if Anna’s more reluctant towards him, he may go with option 3.
For those of you who have rejected Chris, the remaining summary for Chris isn't relevant to you, and you can move on.
For those of you that have encouraged Anna to accept Chris... you have to admit Chris has played it brilliantly with the friend angle. He knew it would give her an excuse to indulge in his pursuits because she just rationalizes that “he’s just a friend, nothing more” and that she trusts he'll keep them secrets, just like all the other stuff from the past between them. She feels the “favors” are meaningless, that they’re only to keep Chris happy and a means to an end for getting info and ensuring she’s in the best position possible with David if a divorce were to happen. Chris plays into this.
Anna is no stranger to this rationale either... in her past, long before she met Chris and David, she’d reluctantly done “favors” for men in several scenarios to take the easy way out, so while the concept seems absurd that she’d subject herself to this behavior, it’s not unfamiliar to her.
At the same time, she ignores that there are moments during these “favors” where she’s excited and she likes it... they bring out her depraved tendencies. She pushes that aside in her rationalizations out of convenience, as we humans tend to do with many things in life. But she’s playing with fire without realizing it. And Chris sees it playing right into his hands.
Hank
The thing to understand about Anna... even though she likes to be challenged, she wants to make things simplistic. She sees a path ahead in her career, and she wants to go about it in a systematic, orderly way... all the way to the top. The top is where she wants to make a real difference practicing law and order, just like her father accomplished and like the long lineage of rulers and keepers of justice in her ancestry.
Because of her desire to make things orderly, she doesn’t like change and uncertainty. When she sees a path ahead, and she likes to take it right down the middle with a vigor... no shortcuts, longcuts, or detours. She goes full steam ahead with the plan.
Hank sees this in her too. He sees her desire to tackle her tasks in a clear and concise way, and he sees she gets unsettled when things are uncertain. He knows Anna isn’t the type to manipulate or sleep her way to the top. But he knows she has an insatiable desire to be comfortable, certain, and forging ahead towards accomplishment. He sees this as an opportunity for his selfish desires.
Her instinct is to tolerate Hank, because that keeps things moving ahead in her career/life path. Just like in the restaurant when he groped her... she made a decision to keep things orderly by not alerting the spouses. She doesn’t do well with chaos and upheaval, so instead of holding Hank accountable and creating the fallout that comes with the head boss groping her in public, she instead told herself to be tough and suck it up. She genuinely believes she has things under control, and that she’ll always know when to draw the line and put an end to his advances.
But as we’ve seen, Hank keeps pushing it further and further... And she keeps giving him leeway. Her brain tells her to shut him down, but her instinct is to keep things peaceful and orderly by tolerating it, for the good of the overall plan. After all, she believes she has things under control!
If you continue to reject Hank, will she finally put an end to him?
If you urge Anna to accept Hank, the rest of this section is for you...
Similar to Chris, if you urge Anna to accept Hank, you’re having her play with fire. This is because of what's hidden deep down inside her.
To explain... There’s always been a large part of her that’s been devoted to making her father proud and happy, but this has been emptied ever since her father passed away. To have that taken away has left a large void. It’s as if her soul is reaching out to cling to something that will make her feel whole, but ever since her father died, nothing is there to cling to.
Grant Stenstromber knew this very well, which is why he pushed Anna to spend the night with him on the night of her father's funeral. He'd have been successful with his lifelong dream if it weren't for her having a fiancé she was devoted to.
When you allow Hank to get into Anna’s head, you’re allowing him into that void... into that empty space that's been vacant for several years now. She wants to fill that void so much. The urges inside her want to gain her father’s acceptance and pride, but he's not there.
When she embraced Hank and called him “Daddy,” her soul grasped on to something temporarily that she hadn’t felt since her father died. A sense of comfort and relief washed over her. It didn’t last long, but it was something. That empty space was briefly full.
On the surface, she thinks it’s ridiculous calling Hank “Daddy.” She knows it’s absurd and can say it's absurd with a straight face. She can write off the comfort she felt in his arms as nothing to do with Hank. But... what about under the surface? How does she really feel? That's a different story, because her soul is craving a fatherly figure.
As we know with Anna, she rationalizes things, and she thinks she has everything under control. She underestimates what’s deep down inside her, and she underestimates Hank. But Hank is someone she cannot afford to take lightly. He’s made a great career out of attacking weaknesses, especially in women. And he thinks he knows exactly where to attack Anna's weaknesses. Given how vulnerable she is right now, that's a dangerous thing.
Marvin
Speaking of old men... Some were disappointed Marvin didn’t get much of a scene in the recent update. Don’t worry, Marvin will have time to shine in the next update.
We all know Marvin well at this point, so there’s not much more to say. He’s not very complicated. We know what he’s after, and we know he’ll try different ways to get it.
Similar to Hank, Anna has given a lot of leeway to Marvin. This might be the aspect of the story that people find the most unbelievable and ridiculous... that someone like Anna would put up with Marvin. But it’s really not that unrealistic from what we’ve learned about Anna.
We know she has a blind spot when it comes to older men, no matter that they may be unsavory men. She finds them harmless, and she sympathizes with them. Always has.
We know she has an empty space in her soul where she wants to acceptance and approval (see the Hank section above).
She also has a history with older men taking advantage of her naivety and sweetness. I’ve given subtle hints in the story of events that happened in her younger years where uncouth older men took advantage of her (do you know where these hints are??). Time/bandwidth has prevented me from showing flashbacks of these events, other than the one with Stenstromber at her father’s house, since these characters won’t appear in APM. But these events, along with a demanding father, is what has shaped Anna to be someone who, deep down, believes she has a responsibility to please her elders.
And lastly, like was said in the Hank section above, Anna likes to keep things concise and practical. Her nature is to accept the path of least resistance when faced with uncertain circumstances. Sometimes she feels the easiest thing to do is accept the least complex solution and tough it out.
All of these factors have led to Anna’s predisposition of accepting Marvin’s advances, no matter how foul he may be.
If you urged her to accept him, she initially found it fun to tease him, much to her surprise. But his behavior is so outlandish that she’s reached the point of wanting him out of her life, whether she accepts him or not.
He’s going to have to make up ground fast in order to get anywhere with Anna. Fortunately for him, Kendra is going to try to lower Anna’s inhibitions as much as possible, so that Marvin can get into her good graces Wednesday night.
If you continue to push Anna away from him, it remains to be seen whether or not he’ll be a factor in the story. Knowing him... he’s not going to give up.
Jake
Jake had a fun scene in the last update, but some are disappointed he’s not made more progress, considering he has the best looks of the bunch and she clearly finds him hot. Even though he hasn’t been successful in bedding Anna and winning his prize, he’s done a remarkable job convincing Anna that he’s in love with another woman. Doing so was all part of his plan, so he’s still in a good position with her.
For those who didn’t get the fun scene at the lingerie store because of having Anna reject Jake, you may have found the alternate scene interesting... especially those of you who are pulling for the faithful path. As I’ve mentioned before, just because Anna rejects other men doesn’t necessarily mean they fall off the story completely.
Next update
The next update won’t be as dense, and I don’t anticipate it taking as long. As we move forward, I’m trying to lessen the musings from characters, in particular, Anna. I want to gear this project to more action scenes now. In the overall grand story, this is more appropriate, I think. I need to not look at each update being a story in itself. I may even go back at some point and trim some of the repetitive musings that made more sense for each update rather than for the overall story.
As for what it will feature, we’ll see Anna in the office, and we’ll see her go to happy hour with Kendra. Marvin will show up to happy hour. Where the night will go? You’ll have to see. We’ll get some David, but nothing major. Some other characters will be featured, but the main event will be happy hour. If plans change, I’ll let you know.
Thanks again for all your support and encouragement.
