most morally questionable choices are optional, but on average MC is not a saint
his story with Jill begins by rubbing against her while she sleeps and "ends" with Derek's prank (but also his) at the preps (hoping he didn't slap Tybalt too)
MC practically takes Bella twice to the threshold of a psychological breakdown (they are not mandatory choices, but either you give up on Bella or you have to do it)
Well, the Jill sleep-rubbing thing is on her (unless the MC chooses to take advantage of it), but the MC definitely does a lot of stupid, irresponsible shit through Episode 5 even you you cling to the CHICK side.
As you say, I find the Bella path borderline creepy (especially if you skip staying with her in Episode 4). And while I like the CHICK path overall, it's still more about the MC fooling around than it is about serious romance. I'm hoping that will change someday, but it's sure been resistant to go there.
Even with the effort to repair the mansion in Episode 6, it's clear the DIKs may become more productive and proactive, but they're still a bunch of frat bros. So if someone can't stand frat antics, this is probably not the game for them.
(Personally I dislike such antics, but I find the rest of this game makes them tolerable in comparison.)
While doing my current "Huge DIK" playthrough where I focus on Sage, I noticed that in her "cell phone profile," the MC notes that he acted dominant towards Sage and she liked it. ("Drop the fucking attitude! I was only caring!")
We haven't really seen that since then, with Sage portrayed as mature and experienced while suffering from severe anger issues, instead of as an "aggressive submissive" like her original scene portrayed her as.
Heather has instead taken on the aggressive submissive role, literally getting off on MC treating her like crap.
I wonder if that was Sage's original intended role, and DPC changed his mind for whatever reason and gave those qualities to Heather.
I think in her second guitar 'lesson' Sage will offer the MC the chance to be in control or give up control in a lewd scene, and comments that she can like both options. You can also see aspects of that in Episode 5. She teases the MC about having sex on Tybalt's bed, then happily goes along with it when he takes it seriously, then insists he strip for her too.
So I suspect that side of Sage is just part of the whole package and that got singled out in that one instance. But it's possible DPC originally planned to make Sage more of a traditional 'bad girl' at first and changed his mind after Episode 1. (If so, I think it was a change for the better.)
