- Nov 18, 2017
- 65
- 250
I was listing 2 diseases with varying degrees of fatality to compare a psychological disorder with more common physical ailments, don't think that's tantamount to "listing all the diseases in alphabetical order." I think I've covered in my other posts why I feel Steph may have hidden her secret from the MC when they initially met, then chose to carry the lie of omission forward once they fell in love (fear of loss, based on past trauma). Yes, we're all in agreement that Steph is taking the wrong approach to revealing her secret and it's a significant enough error to cause many readers to want to divorce her - nobody is saying she's not responsible for her mistakes. She hasn't fucked a football team behind MC's back, though, and that's the type of hyperbole that probably leads women to want to hide conditions like this in the first place.
Steph wants swinging sex to include her fucking other guys as much as MC fucking other girls. That's the only way she's on board with it, and why she feels the need to "test" how the MC handles her interacting with other guys in various situations. If he can't handle it, they're out. She's coordinating everything in a dumb way, but it's for a specific reason. The MC has to be on board with her and Donny before any of those things happen, Steph is definitely taking advantage of situations but it's not cheating. It's selfish and insensitive to push so hard with Donny when MC is hesitant, but it's not blackmail.
Depends what a particular player wants to correct vs. embrace vs. cope with. If the issue is her having dirty fantasies, you probably can't change anything. If the issue is her self-control while living out those fantasies then there should be more conversations between the couple about what each is comfortable with, behavioral changes that result from those conversations, and establishing clear respected boundaries in the "terms of engagement" to put the kibosh on future cup o' water events. In a meta sense, we need the help of the author when they read our feedback to identify places in the script that can be tailored to produce a more desired audience reaction. More (or altered) conversations/decisions in game to reflect a more granular decision tree in terms of the kinks the couple engages in to match player preference. It takes a ton of time to make everyone happy, though, so not every back gets scratched in every VN.
I haven't seen every variation of the Jason/Tori meetup (and don't understand what each of the triggers is), so I'm not sure why Steph is basically telling the MC to fuck off as you're describing in that scenario. I agree that it's unacceptable behavior for responsible swingers, but it might be chocked up to a coding mistake or those placeholder merged paths the dev talks about as they try to untangle that part of the story. They're chopping the Tori/Jason story up a lot because of audience reaction. Remember too that some readers want that type of content, so the devs have the challenge of trying to make a character that fits very different reader desires within the same story arc. That sounds like a dream cuck scenario to me. Is there a decision trigger (some low-c/low-d combo-wombo) that would lead Steph to think the MC actually likes this (or that would make the author think the reader wants that content on that route)? The MC's mood does affect Steph, his (or the player's) decisions determine what happens in the game in many instances because she's shown to value his input. I think the couple genuinely loves and respects each other on the routes I've played, the "happy marriage" may or may not come after they navigate the rocky road of this secret reveal and their entry/exit from an open relationship.
