This one also, yeah. DPC can't openly declare & admit such things, but each books writers, tv show scenario or game scenario writers or whatever else, always have their own favorite characters. Sympathy for favorites can have completely different forms of expression. So, yeah, DPC definetely like the Throuple thing and his extreme attention, easter eggs and just little details here and there for J&M is the best proof.
Opportunities to fuck up each path is absolutely ok. Let's take a look on it from a different angle. I'm starting to regret using the terms "canon" and "canonical". Could happy endings be considered as a "canonical" endings for the MC and the characters surrounding him? Potential endings are certainly related to our choices and decisions. I don't expect from DPC a sugary and ideal happy endings without adding gray undertones or bitterness to them, this is not his style and it would actually be a very bad decision. If there are any planned, they should certainly be diluted with a bittersweet and bitter ones. Players wrong choices and decisions must be punished and and vice versa. But we are also talking about the girls selection.
Yes, but you can say that about different routes that he likes them. For example, from my position it seems to me that he likes Sage, because he gives us a chance to start relationship with her again and again (how many, three times?), as if hinting that this path is his favorite.
Or maybe his favorite path is Zoey, because he puts her into the script after the final path is chosen, gives her a huge amount of attention in the plot - a whole mini-episode that he didn't allow any of the characters, making her a temporary protagonist, allowing the player to adjust her personality. He also said that he couldn't hold back his tears while creating the scene on the bench in Ep.9.
Or maybe he loves spooky mysteries the most and he likes Bella, after all DPC is most likely a middle aged 35-40 man.
But it's definitely not Jill, he mocks her all the time.
My main thought with J&M was that the game "ties" us to them from the very beginning. Whether we want it or not. It felt the same way in AL. None of the other girls get similar attention from the author at the beginning. And some techniques like internal MC thoughts, narratives, etc, for some reason, the author uses only with J&M. MC shows the concern and careness of them almost always. Josy at the moment is the only one who makes him doubt if he is not in Throuple. Even if MC choise in EP5 that he haven't feelings for her anymore, in EP9 he also wonders after her words "how it could be?" If he stays friends with them and picks feelings for one of girls, then it becomes even more intense. He wonders even after a break up with J&M - was it a right decision or not. We have nothing similar with any of the other MGs. For what purpose does the DPC play with the player's feelings like this, making us doubt our choice and showing us all these tearful scenes? Why does the author want us to think again, change our mind or act differently? Sage also has something similar, but in a completely different form, it's more like an opportunity to jump on her train 3 times. And the MC himself also reacts and thinks about it in a completely different way. DPC created an incredible variability for J&M path / branch. That's my point.
This tie-in to "Josy/Maya" in Season 1 is not well received by a lot of people. I often read reviews that the game needs a lot of variability at this point, many would like to refuse to be even friends with them altogether. For example, I'm in a bunch of people who don't like Josy and they have some pretty serious arguments that make me think. I attribute this linkage to their script to the need for, again- "framework or skeleton of a game story." An equally important framework is the Sage, which unites many game events.
Of course, greater variability in relationships with two girls is necessary - in order to better show the dynamics of such relationships and the variations in their development. In other routes we have a love interaction of two characters, but here we have three. This is more complex and requires more detailed study. It's more than understandable why MC has doubts if he refused them - he has a crush on Josy for several months, and this doesn't immediately go away. Moreover, our guy is 19 years old.
Impulsive, amorous teenager. I wouldn't get into a relationship between two girls in real life, I don't believe in work of polyamorous relationships. But I certainly like Josy, now a little less than a couple of years ago, and I'll steal her.
At the end, this is a game.
As for the internal thoughts of MC, this is not so, they visit MC throughout the game with different girls - Jill, Bella, Sage, we constantly hear his internal monologues.
Also about the consequences of "bad" and "good" choices. Here I am more a supporter of gray morality. It would not always seem like a bad choice would have to lead to bad consequences, or vice versa. Otherwise it would make the game too predictable. The worst choice should be non-obvious.
